[Music] [Music] hi Jaz we just need the two laptops unmuted in zoom and we are good to go inform the petitioners in terms presentation station is unmuted can you hear us I can hear you just unmute the other laptop as well and we're good to go but yeah I'll do it that way then I'm GNA [Music] make e e excellent all right um we are recording so uh we will go live in five 4 3 two one thank you I'm Bernard Green chair of the Brookline select board and this is the meeting of the select board for March what's today's date 12th 20 for uh 2024 let's start off with comments or updates from the select board anyone want to make a comment Miriam so I I have two comments but one Bernard after thinking about it I'll wait until we get to the warrant article and then I'll make my comment at the beginning of the discussion of that warn article okay um the second is I just really have to shout out the Brookline boy indoor track team who made allamerican this weekend at New Balance Nationals place ing fifth in the nation in the 4 by so very proud I will absolutely tell you that my son was the lead runner for that 4 by8 um um but it's it's incredible the top six Place All-American and it's a real feat so shout out to the Brookline boys indoor Tru good any other comments from the select board John yeah thank you uh it's that time of year when if you are going out for a walk on a pleasant day or even on an unpleasant day you might see people earnestly running and running and running and running and many of them are training for the Boston Marathon uh which comes up of course um around April 19th and uh every year there is something that is special about it for Brookline a couple of things one Brook line from end to end west to east is on the marathon route and that requires a lot of planning and preparation and we usually do a pretty darn good job of that I should say we always do a pretty good job job of that so a lot of people will be volunteering uh to help our various departments with that um and the other thing that um is very special in particular to to me because um I am a great admirer of the work of the Brooklyn Center for Community Mental Health uh is that uh the Brookline Center is just one of five Brookline nonprofits that benefit from the um efforts of Charity Runners who get their so-called bibs uh to qualify them to run in the marathon um to raise money for various Brookline uh nonprofits as I said there's five of them and team Brookline as it is known has done such an amazing job year after year after year including the year in which there was the terrible tragedy at the Finish Line um they have come through for Brookline and for some very important organizations in the town and once again team Brookline is going to be um doing um running those very very difficult miles mile after mile after mile to the Finish Line um and I just want to say that person you see when you're out walking and who's straining maybe and you know training hard um that could be a team Brookline person and um uh we I think we should all have keep in mind the team Brookline Runners this year and also um check check out team Brookline website you can you can access it through the Brookline Center for Community Mental Health Website uh and um if you're so moved and if you um feel generous uh make a generous donation to either one of the um benefiting Charities and the their runners or to the team as a whole and then it gets divided among the various um benefiting Charities uh hats off to the Brookline team Brookline and all of the runners who make it possible thank you John any other comments from the select board me I did want to flag the um Supreme Judicial Court's decision upholding lines bylaw um Banning the sale of tobacco products in within the town to anyone born after January 1st 2000 uh this is the currently the only type of law in effect in the world uh New Zealand's government changed and it put its on hold I think it's a major tribute to the town meeting members who came up with this um the petitioners on that Warren article20 including and I apologize I don't have all of your names but I know uh Kate Silva and Anthony aack played Major roles and that as well as several other members of our community um to Town Council Joe Kalan and his office and the entire team former assistant Town Council Petty karea um and uh the team at nor Eastern who defended uh the law all the way up to the Supreme Judicial Court uh to Seagal ree our health director who is in charge of implementing this and all of our inspectors and teams who have been working collaboratively with our um our vendor our retailers and vendors uh we have heard the concern of the vendors and retailers about the potential impacts of this law and we are working with them to mitigate it we know that to tobacco is the single largest avoidable cause of death in the United States uh and this is a really remarkable achievement for the town so residents and who have spearheaded this and supported this should be very proud of this accomplishment so thank you thank you um next we have a public comment remember this is public comment uh on items not on the agenda so Charlie like to lay out the rules I would certainly love to do that Bernard thank you um give me just a moment to pull up the script um 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 have been met for public comment there's an opportunity at the conclusion of the select boards business for additional comments members of the public sometimes raise questions during public comment we may be able to provide a Qui 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 your time is up please conclude your remarks at that time if you have more to say you are always welcome to send an email to board members expressing your thoughts in Greater detail we do have a few people signed up for public comment tonight um and so the first person signed up for public comment is DaNell O'Neal I believe DaNell is in person I could be wrong though no he's here here okay feel free to approach the presentation station down uh good evening everyone uh my name is Donell O'Neal Senor I'm a bipar of this community I'm a fourth term town meeting member member of the advisory committee and I'm standing before you also as a state cannabis social Equity applicant a little of my application number is SE A36 number number number um back in April 7th of 2023 Town Council sent an email to this board for approval of a ballot question question number three um on that ballot the yes campaign I was full full transparency I was part of the no campaign um the yes campaign and you know the trusted Choice stated to brookline's constituents Brookline has eight unused social Equity licenses for warehouse and cers these could enable individuals from the underrepresented communities by Brock to participate in the Cannabis industry those eight social Equity licenses will remain available ailable regardless of the question three outcome availability and obtaining are completely different and I don't think there you know the voters really have the opportunity to understand that we get that out Zone zero I mean Zone o uh one and two are leased by Brigham and Women's Hospital who do not allow cannabis on site um also in that zone two is Charles swab um already leased that out they're not going to allow canab on our site the industrial zones are Brooklyn nice and coold near near me uh that Island the hotel all that they're not allow on cannabis on our site and the other one is the guidance that the town gave us is the dump Skyline park that's the other location yeah look it up Mike so you know that that being said you know I'm very aware of the zoning and the planning guidelines you know I've been involved in this process as long as everyone's sitting there and what I've been from the beginning in is there's this we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing in regards to cannabis and social equity and cannabis town is offering licenses with no real path to obtain them um that's not Cara Rochelle or the on incoming uh Communications person's fault okay this is something that this board and and and folks need to resolve and help resolve um with them um so you know I I I'm offering 30 seconds bit thank you Charlie um so this board should either you know strike out the licenses that are unable um allow for special permits like other communities are doing and have done like Newton and Cambridge and other westw or you know rezone all right thank you for your time I appreciate you guys have a good evening thank you yeah the next person signed up for public comment is Don fly I think Don is online give me just a moment to find them in the list Don you're being promoted to a panelist now on you've been promoted to a panelist you may share your video if you feel comfortable and unmute and your three minutes will begin hi I'm uh don fly I haven't done this before um so I just had a quick question um I take my daughter to speech all the time and we park on the uh we use public parking uh on the with the meters and I know you guys are increasing the rates of that soon um in order to be more in line with other um surrounding towns could we also uh make the convenience fee in line with other towns because it's quite a bit higher than others and so that's the end of what I wanted to ask if that could be possible please thanks very much if you would leave your uh if you'd send an email to selectboard at brooklinema.gov um with your contact information we'll follow up with you on that all right thank you so much thank you okay okay the next person signed up for public comment is Lisa Cunningham um Lisa uh I'm going to promote you I believe you are in the chat hold on H there you are all right I've sent you a promotion Le say you've been promoted to a panelist you can unmute share your V video if you're comfortable and your three minutes will begin great great thank you so much I appreciate it um good evening everybody my name is Lisa Cunningham I'm a Brookline resident and an architect and a principle of my own firm Warner in Cunningham our architectural practice is based in Brooklyn where we have worked for over 30 years I'm also a lifelong climate ad Advocate and I've been working at the local and state level for almost five years passing building electrification legislation that is instrumental to addressing our climate crisis I've also served on the preservation commission for several years about 20 years ago I am very familiar with Building Technology in the new energy code as well as modern window technology I'm here tonight because I one of many Architects that have long felt that our preservation commission needs to modernize their guidelines it is my understanding through attending a recent hearing that there's a lack of interest and knowledge on the part of the current Commission in terms of updating their guidelines specifically as it concerns window technology the current guidelines are based on information which is quite frankly decades old and in and inaccurate the Brookline preservation commission is also out of step with some of our peer communities specifically Boston and Cambridge to name just a couple the reason why windows are important is because they are a critical part of what we refer to as the building envelope old windows are made of single pane on insulated glass while the preservation commission allows aluminum stor wind storm windows which actually prevent seeing the original windows from the outside they've repeatedly refused to consider the use of historically accurate windows with double paying and insulated sash posets Pockets which quite frankly present a far more attractive facade to the public view but importantly and the reason why I'm here this evening is that this policy is now coming into start conflict with our new building code and specifically our new stretch code as well as our commitment to go all electric for major construction owners and developers who wish to upgrade their windows in order to Prov provide a more efficient building envelope are now being prevented from achieving a more comfortable building and instead are forced to keep Olden drop Windows they are also locked into higher energy costs and utility bills in perpetuity and this is also setting up a situation where the Building Commissioner is being compelled to either go against the ruling of the preservation commission or to exempt certain buildings from building cone standards that we have voted overwhelmingly to uphold in brookln I understand that you will be interviewing a candidate for the preservation commission tonight I do not know the candidate personally but I did look look up his vote on the recent case that came before the preservation Commission I want to applaud his vote in favor of allowing the applicant to replace the windows in their gut renovation with historically accurate new double pay windows I wanted to take this opportunity to bring this issue in front of the select board and I am happy to address any questions you may have now or in the future thank you very much for your time that concludes the folks that are signed up for public comment oh I'm sorry actually we have one more uh signed up uh Sarah liberer Sarah I'm going to promote you to a panelist uh Charley also Regina Farley um say she signed up on paper yeah oh great thank you very much um we will we will get to Regina we should have enough time to do that Sarah you have been promoted to a panelist you may uh unmute and share your video and your three minutes will begin hell everyone a after uh the after I'm sorry Bernard can you can you me in what's going on no we're good go ahead yeah thank you oh okay please go ahead and begin Sarah your three minutes will start when whenever you're ready okay so I'm here today because I wanted to bring up the topic of a ceasefire in Israel and Palestine I am sorry Sarah I don't mean to cut you off but we um we have a warrant article hearing to discuss that subject a little bit later and we're hoping to we're hoping sign up to speak at that time that that those are set to begin at uh 7:30 we have a number of folks signed up but we'll add your name to that list okay thank you I appreciate it thank you okay I believe the next person signed up for public comment is Regina froley thank you Regina fley time meeting member from Precinct 16 I just I know that you guys haven't decided how you're going to proceed on the juneth but whatever narrative you decide to use in your award I would like to remind everyone that it is not just black people who were slaves in Texas it's also indigenous people and I haven't heard a single applicant at any of the meetings in the last couple of years ever mentioned that but that's historically accurate and especially down in galson there were several natives that were enslaved that didn't that got removed on uh released on juneth so I just would like that Consciousness raising that this is a much bigger and yet another offense to the indigenous people thank you thank you that concludes the folks that are signed up for public comment we have just a few minutes left um anyone who would like to make a public comment that is not on a warrant article that will be discussed later um may use the handraiser Q&A feature to let us know that they'd like to speak um again we have just a few minutes remaining for public comment at the beginning of the select board's meeting otherwise f can sign up at the end um Bernard we have 55 people attending online and currently no one is using the hand raiser Q&A feature uh to let us know that they'd like to speak I believe okay thank you Charlie we'll we'll move on to miscellaneous uh agenda approval of miscellaneous items licens vouchers and contracts first is a question of approving the meeting minutes for March 5 2024 any edits or comments to those minutes U all in favor therefore I move approval all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak I Miriam ashkanazi I Michael Sandman I Paul Warren I shair votes I okay next we have items 3B through 3E but I'd like to take out item 3D and discuss that separately right after our vote on the other items um those items 3bc and e um the select board has had an opportunity to view the materials and uh no one has indicated a desire to discuss them separately so I'd like to uh move approval of those items um uh in a uh GA did you say I'm sorry three b c d e and G uh G right okay sorry everything except F three F okay so we have a new agenda yes sir the one the one thank you I was very confused okay so it's not just just me okay okay um I'll repeat that or restate it uh items 3 b c d uh e and G I will'll take out item 3F and deal with that separately after this vote uh so I'm move approval of those items uh on favor please indicate by saying I John vanak I maram ashkanazi I uh Mike Sandman I uh Paul Warren hi and chair votes I uh so now let's take up 3F question of approving the Second Amendment to the lease with Temple ohabai Shalom 1187 Beacon Street um for fiscal year 2025 which includes additional hours of use uh to accommodate the planned beep full school day uh and also an increase an increase in the lease amount so um Paul yep so uh thank you Bernard uh and again for the Public's benefits um a little bit of cont text here our consent agenda which we just approved a number of items uh typically uh we don't discuss those uh in detail and we approve them um uh you know in total um any select board member can actually request that an item that is on the consent agenda be removed so that we can have a more detailed discussion uh in reviewing this request uh this is a request from the school committee for the select board to approve um an amendment to an existing uh lease for space for beep uh in line with um extending beep's program to a full day I raised a number of questions uh today and got responses and I thought it would be very helpful uh for the board to at least have the information before we vote so uh further context um the school committee is recommending and has put forward a plan to move beep to a full day program u in in uh full disclosure I have two graduates of the beep program I'm a huge fan I think it's very important and I do think moving to a full a program uh will be very very helpful for the community um the the question was about the lease um and the packet um there was a a total amount for the lease but it wasn't clear as to how much the lease would be increasing um and I thought it would be helpful to to talk about that but more importantly the in the presentation by the school committee about the uh expanding beep uh program to a full day uh was presented as kind of net neutral cost neutral uh it was budget neutral um and so there was the expectation that there wouldn't be any increased cost uh to the budget and if there was it would be covered by uh the revenue in tuition uh the lease is in addition to that uh and it's coming out of our Capital plan that CIP um historically we've for I don't know how long now maybe five or seven years we've been paying leases more leases out of the capital budget and that's really leases are an operating expense so it's difficult to really understand what the full cost of an operation is if we're using Capital money for the operation so Chaz you had shared with me that uh the the incremental amount of the lease is $77,000 over the over the the lifetime of the lease I believe so yes and and how long is the lease so the lease the original lease term um uh was uh I believe sorry the um uh for a three-year term with seven one-year options to renew so the total uh the total term the term itself will expire in July 1st of 2030 2030 so is this 77,000 up through 2030 over the course of the rest or is this an annual number that's 77,000 so I'm trying to get confirmation on that from the school committee but understanding it from from the school department my understanding is it's over the life of the agreement uh that is over the life of the of the total term but I haven't received confirmation yet on that subject seems low for six for almost doubling the amount of time right so I'm not I am not sure what the actual what that number is over the life of the term my understanding is again right that they are they have the option to renew this on a one-year basis so and I when I look at the uh document it does suggest that this is just for the life of the current term so it will be one year um so this is an incremental 77,000 that is coming out of the capital budget as opposed to the operating budget so the schools have a capital line item um for the um uh the for classroom capacity uh and that's what they tend to use so they have classroom capacity expansion which they use this for and then classroom capacity for situations where during the buildout um they U or you know during basically the duration that they don't have full availability of their facilities they rent things and so anybody come from the the school department to talk about this tonight or no I again I think it was it was relatively late okay at poll and so I wasn't able to get someone and talk speak about it unfortunately but there sorry May sure there's a there is an existing line item in the capital budget for items like this so there's a line item for classroom capacity okay um and what we've said what the school department has said is that in situations where the leases are being used to augment classroom capacity for some reason particularly if as in as now school department doesn't have full use of all its facilities or the facilities are insufficient to meet the need um they consider this a one-time expense that is eligible for Capital spending it is an operating expense though that is a fight that the advisory committee has gotten into the school committee on many occasions well I I I think it's a legitimate issue and I I guess the question I have is do we um do we have a plan to move away from using capital for operating expenses and when might that be so the again the school the school department has committed to moving these leases away from the from the capital budget that is my understanding I don't have a timeline for when the commitment has been made but the idea being that right we are not we should not be the town does not and the schools do not should not be using Capital money for onetime sorry Capital money for operating expenses yeah so um that's you know the position that I understand from the superintendent's office is they understand that this is meant to be a temporary measure due to limited capacity in the department currently and it is not intended to be a continuing operating expense carried on the capital budget okay okay I see Melissa's um on the screen but Mike do you w to yeah let's hear from Melissa and then sure I just wanted to give a little bit more background um to Paul since this has been an issue that gets raised every year um ever since we've had the classroom capacity item in the CIP this was a decision that was done when an override was built around 2015 uh in order to lower the override amount the the leases for the um temples were moved into the CIP and were viewed as kind of a temporary measure as the town was exploring a site for a new school um obviously a lot has happened since that time and um you know we are still in leases and the the classroom needs have changed as well uh and I think the school committee has heard loud and clear from the advisory committee the desire to get out of these lease Arrangements uh Clark Road is an example of a lease that we had that is going away and I think that they're looking for ways to um fold the beat programs into the buildings as more capacity expands I guess Melissa I'm I'm less concerned about the leases than how we're accounting for them so we're using one we're using free cash that goes into the capital plan uh to pay for an operating expense and I just wonder do need to wait for the leases to go away to start paying these out of the operating budget or are we are we committed and stuck with using uh CIP money or to pay operating expenses so a portion of the CIP is funded with operating Revenue so um not all of it is one time in nature um what I've said to the advisory committee pretty consistently is the only way to shift these back into the operating budget is to um either find reductions that allow you to move that money or change the the CIP policy so that there's less money going to the CIP more going to the operating budget or the next override cycle you'd need to make an adjustment to provide the capacity on the operating side as well um so you know these are kind of the choices that we that we have currently okay well Mike did you um yeah so you don't have to so I I I just as a I know that we're we're um giving up the or we no longer need to clar Road leasee and that represents about a million dollars and I believe I spoke to Helen chovsky in context of something entirely different today she said that there's about $700,000 in lease costs left remaining um the um it it it seems to me like uh given that we have additional capacity in the schools and additional capaity coming on when when Pierce is done that it would be sensible to sort of transition this transition beep back into the schools and get out of the leases and recognize that uh for future leases of any sort um we should be taking them out of whatever operating budget Town School whatever it is uh is uh using the the facility um the question is what do we do with this yeah no so I'm not again I as I said earlier I'm not opposed to the contract I think it's just important that on on complex items like this we we put them into the consent agenda and they just kind of wish through quickly uh and without transparency to the public um and I think we just need to recognize and let people know that you know we're we're not really accounting for the expenses for the surface uh the operating budget does not cover the complete cost that we are actually using Capital uh uh funds in order to pay for operating leases um and I just think that just needs to be clear um as someone who has young children in the schools um I think it's important that we considerated a properly fund education it's very important uh to me um and I know as many other parents um but I do think we need to have a clear understanding and accounting of what it's costing for costing the town in order to provide that service and that means aligning operate expenses with the proper budget so as I said I'm I'm not opposed to the contract I think it's important that people understand what we're doing okay any other discussion on this any objection to voting now NOP okay I move approval of the Second Amendment to the lease agreement with Tempo ohabai Shalom um including more hours of use and an additional lease amount on in favor please indicate by saying I John Van skak I maram ashkanazi hi Michael Sandman I Paul Warren I here votes I okay go to our going to our calendar part of the agenda boards commissions interviews and or appointments or or appointments following candidates for appointments uh to the preservation commission following candidate singular John Spears uh he was appointed as an alternate in 2020 and now is being promoted to a regular membership on the reservation and I'm sorry I have I have a brief update there unfortunately Mr Spears learned recently that he is leaving the town so is unable to proceed move forward uh moving out of town yes uh he send his regrets uh and Wishes the best for the commission so you'll have you'll have you'll have another person to fill the vacancy okay you'll have an alternate to fill wow and he's doing a good job there too yes he has yes he has okay well that takes that item off the agenda uh next is community preservation act committee um let's see Steve hikins I can yeah the genda wasn't clear on that now uh Lincoln Hinman for the Retirement Board is a separate item right yes okay good um okay uh uh Community preservation act Steve hekken uh he's the housing Advisory Board design uh is he available for interview he is not available for an interview but I thought in this instance given that he already serves he is the Habs design to this board and it was important for us it was was a request of both the hab and the CPA to move forward on this EXP iously um Mr hkin is the you know former chair of the planning board um obviously uh known to this board and has interviewed before in the past obviously by preference is that in these circumstances people come before you for an interview regardless but just so that people could see but in the instance given the timing and the need for um the CPA to have a full compliment uh CPA committee to have a full compliment uh we put it on your agenda uh Paul yeah so uh Bernard I did have a lengthy conversation with the the chair of the hab Roger blood about this uh request um and Roger provided a lot of helpful information so um there was another appointee representative uh from the hab to the CPA committee uh and that individual um ended up uh uh resigning from the hab uh for a number of reasons and was no longer able to serve uh as a designate to the CPN committee and so um Mr heiken had been um serving uh as an in an alternate capacity actually and had attended a couple of meetings and for the for the sake of uh continuity uh and given that they're in the middle uh of of their work and almost ready to complete it um I also spoke with Nancy heler who's the chair of the the CPA committee uh both felt that it was important to have uh the continuity uh with Mr heiken uh continuing uh as the hab representative uh Roger did make it clear to me and I believe if Mr heiken was on on with us tonight he would say this is an interim hope because he is a he is a busy individual um and he's you know he's committed to serving to help see that this initial round of CPA funds uh um you know allocated and recommended to town meeting so I think it makes sense from for me I'm I'm going to support the appointment thank you I had I had a request from the audience that we speak closer into our microphones so we will do that thank you for reminding us uh any other comments okay I'm move approval of Steve heiken uh as housing Advisory Board designed to the community preservation act all in favor please indicate by saying I John Van skak I Mar asazi I Mike Sandman I Paul Warren I chair votes I next excuse me Retirement Board reappointment of Lincoln Hinman our finance director uh for a term ending January 24th 2027 um anything to add to that this is a St this is a standard ex offici not ex official he has Authority but this is a standard appointment the finance director is typically served on the Retirement Board his term is expiring we need his assistance to continue on the board any discussion okay I move of approval of um Lincoln Hinman our finance director for appointment or reappointment to the Retirement Board uh as an ex official member on favor please indicate by saying I John vanak hi maram ashkanazi hi Mike Sandman I uh Paul Warren I and shair votes I okay next Department budget reviews we have three uh reviews town clerk HR Ben HR benefits and the office of divers diversity Equity inclusion and community relations uh what let's go with town clerk first thank you chair green uh I'm Ben Coffman the town clerk um before I get into the full budget presentation I do want to give a special thanks and appreciation to uh Charlie young Melissa Goff and the team that put together this budget uh it is never easy to do budgeting in any context uh but especially in years when they're facing the kind of financial struggles of the town is uh it's a tremendous asset to have uh people um as good as they are putting these budgets together uh in the interest of trying to allow the board uh some time to ask questions as opposed to me talking at you I've uh tried to keep my budget presentation short and focused on some of the things that you guys asked for in your uh memo um for the uh FY 25 uh town clerk budget um uh a few of the accomplishments that we have from FY 24 um we improved digitization and organization in the town clerk's office um we were able to put our entire marriage license procedures online you can now schedule your appointment fill out the forms and everything online so you only have to come in to actually take an oath um which should allow um a lot more efficiencies um for marriage licenses we've also done work on the town's voter registration files organizing them U making sure that they're much more accessible for us as well as begun the work to index the town's zda files uh down in the town clerk's office uh we also uh thanks to a huge amount of work from the planning department uh Cara brutin and Paulie Selco uh deserve a huge shout out for it uh we're able to complete digitization of the the town's zoning bylaws uh in FY 24 uh in terms of town meeting fy2 24 saw us transition uh first in May of 2023 which was still in the prior fiscal year to a fully iners town meeting and then in November 2023 a transition to a hybrid town meeting uh which took a lot of work uh collaboration from my office um the IT department Brooklyn Interactive Group the moderator and many others uh to facilitate that transition to a hybrid town meeting in 20 FY 24 we also saw uh dramatic Improv movement in voter access in Brookline uh we installed ballot drop boxes throughout the town uh we expanded early voting uh and we uh administered a presidential preference primary which was the first election of its type held under the new votes act uh we saw a lot of success especially from things like the ballot Dropbox over 1300 voters use those dropboxes to vote in the March election as well as we saw turnout of over a 100 voters utilizing the additional early voting locations of the two libraries um that kind of increased access to voters we hope to continue as we enter the presidential cycle uh for fy2 uh we have a few goals perhaps the biggest one up there is we have to administer three elections we have the state primary election which will be held on September 3rd 2024 it's the day after Labor Day for those keeping score at home also the first day of school so a lot of fun for all of us the presidential election will be held on November 5th 20124 which will be the largest election we see in our cycle about three times the turnout that we saw back in March March and we will of course have the annual Town election that will be scheduled in May of 2025 uh in FY 25 we plan to continue to improve voter access uh we aim to expand early voting uh to additional days at secondary locations with the hopes of having a full week of early voting at each Library uh when we come to the 2024 November election we also are planning to uh send out a vote by mail postcard for the May 2025 annual Town election to allow more voters to cast their ballots by mail another fy2 goal we have is to complete some of our digitization projects um that includes digitizing the Vault index um which is the index system for the town's Vital Records uh we received arpa funding uh to complete that project as well as complete codification of the town's General bylaws the zoning bylaw is complete but we are still working on the general bylaws in fy2 uh the board asked about some of the long-term objectives we have in the town clerk's office and there are few that I do want to highlight one of them is to ensure proper Staffing levels in the town clerk's office so that we have the hands we need in order to get work done uh we have a long-term goal of completing a reclassification and reorganization of the town clerk's office in order for us to better better handle our workload we aim to stabilize costs as well as to stabilize our state reimbursement number related to elections so that we can ensure that our elections are properly funded and adjust for any changes we've had as a result of the votes act and other election laws and finally we want to make sure we are properly funding our special projects in the town clerk's office that are necessary to continue our modernization and organization work of which there is a considerable backlog the town clerk's office has had an increase in demands um for services in the town clerk's office especially over recent years we've seen a variety of federal state and local laws that have increased burdens on the clerk's office I've highlighted a few of them for the board um which is available in the next slide um they include things like the votes act in 2022 which resulted in a 700% increase in mailed ballots between the 2018 and 2022 November elections it's on an increase in early voting which used to only occur seven days during every other November uh during a state election now we do early voting seven days for each election and 14 days for those November elections and it saw the voter registration deadline move back 10 days which means that we have a lot of overlapping requirements of early voting and voter registration and election preparation all happening on a shortened timeline in 2020 the town underwent a redistricting procedure which resulted in a 25% increase in election precincts a 17th Precinct was added and we have three split precincts that we have to use uh during State elections we've also seen an increased length in complexity of town meeting I know we all feel like town meeting has gotten longer but I think it's helpful to put numbers on that for the 5-year period from 2014 to 2018 there were five nights of town meeting per year from 2019 to 2023 there were 12 nights of town meeting per year a more than doubling in the amount of time that has to be spent by the town clerk's office and other departments administering those Town meetings and we've seen changes in State Law related to real ID that were implemented in 2018 and I seed a dramatic increase in requests for Vital Records like birth certificates and marriage licenses that's needed to get those kinds of IDs uh the board published a list of goals and priorities for the coming years and one that I do want to highlight for the board because I think it's something that's of immense importance uh not only as a department head uh not only as a town employee but also as a consumer of town Services as a as a town resident um and that is competitive wages and appropriate benefits uh the town of Brookline is valued for its Public Service it's why people want to move here it's why I want it to move here and that is only done because of the hard work that's done by our Municipal Employees so we should make sure that we continue to attract and retain talented people in what is an increasingly competitive job market in town employees who have had changes in responsibilities and expectations but have not had an Associated adjustment and paying benefits should make sure that they are being reclassified so that their job descriptions and pay match the work that they are doing and I'm glad to see that the board is emphasizing that as an importance in the upcoming fiscal year these final two notes uh slides are uh what I would do with an unlimited budget uh it might be tempting to say I would give myself A5 billion do raise but that seems unrealistic and I still don't know if I could afford a home um but instead uh I did want to highlight uh two objectives of my office um that if we had unlimited money we would be able to do unfortunately in this budget we don't have that kind of funding but hopefully will be considered for a future budget uh one of them is a reclassification and reorganization of the town clerk's office the town clerk's office has outgrown its organizational structure and it's become overwhelmed uh when we have uh a lot of work especially during election seasons and other busy times as a result we frequently have to pull back on the services that we offer the town clerk's office should instead be reorganized to reflect town clerk's offices in similar siiz communities with a difference between a vitals and licenses Division and an elections and census division this would allow employees to be focused on their division and their area of work and ensure that work isn't being dropped just because we are in busy times somewhere else finally as part of that employees should be reclassified so that their job descriptions and pay match the roles and the work that they are actually doing the other thing I would do if we had unlimited funds is I would ensure proper Staffing in the town clerk's office I'd hire additional permanent full-time employees which would allow us to do a variety of things things like increase digitization efforts of town records provide additional vital record services including genealogical research archival research and preservation work that would make services including Town census uh available online and that would ensure that full services are being offered even during elections and other busy times while I understand we do not have funding in this year's budget I do hope that the board will keep in mind those kinds of Demands on the clerk's office as we discuss FY 26 and Beyond so that is the outline of the town clerk's budget I'm happy to take any questions in the board uh let's start off with Miriam hi B so first I just have to say um I really applaud the job that you have done in voter Outreach and accessibility it it really shows and it shows in the numbers but you know every time I see you I saw you in the elevator last week was you were so excited by the voter turnout numbers I mean that's that's somebody who legitimately cares um and I really appreciate that um and I really that's all I have to say thank you Mike sorry I'll I'll let Mike ask the hard-hitting question well I I just I I do have one question uh I just I would say I'm surprised that you were able to digitize the zoning by law I didn't think that uh hard drives were made with that much capacity um but uh you mentioned reorganizing into an elections division how would you staff that presumably there's a seasonality to that would you have seasonal employees and you know how would you set that up uh certainly so it would be structured as an elections and census division which is several other communities that have a similar population to Brook line already do this um and in the elections census division they have some a smaller number of permanent employees who are there year round um who are doing both elections work but also work around census voter registration um and other requirements that we have of just maintaining our elections there's a huge amount of work that obviously happens in the leadup to those elections which covers actually several months um but also in between elections if we had additional capacity um we' be able to do things like um uh improve the uh consistency of the gray Supply boxes that go out to our election precincts we don't have time currently in between elections to reset those and instead we actually rely on our election wardens on Election Day to go through those and pull out old materials and uh replace them with new ones um so projects like that that are an ongoing part of our election procedures as well as things like the annual Town census which does happen every year and does cover uh most of the year would be important of course that would be supplemented by bringing in seasonal uh folks as well as part-time sorry as well as overtime employees uh from Town Hall we currently use uh when we actually have to mail out ballots and do other kinds of activities in town hall for an election and is some of the overtime budget in your uh in this year's budget is that for employees from outside of the town clerk's office uh so the overtime budget so we have a combination of people who we bring in for elections uh the overtime budget is largely for both town clerk employees as well as employees of other departments who help out in a variety of ways and that's everything from the people who come late stuffing ballots but also the Department of Public Work Works employees who set up for the elections custodians who are opening up the buildings at 6:00 a.m. on Election Day um a variety of different departments that really help us out with that and we have to pay all of that over time okay thank you good you know I'm really uh happy to see that you're working to digitize uh vital records in town VA Vault and organize old and improperly stored records uh you know there's a lot of historical information in Dusty closets and old drafty and wet buildings that uh are very important and and we're losing so uh thank you for beginning that process which I know is going to be a long longterm very expensive uh process but critically important in my opinion uh Paul uh Ben uh thank you for your presentation and um I'm a frequent visitor to the town clerk's office your staff is always friendly and professional and fast so uh thank you for uh your leadership there and you know please uh congratulate them me from me for the work that they're doing uh two quick questions one is the you mentioned the town bylaws getting updated on the website that's a a frequent challenge for those who want to submit warrant articles and kind of getting at the most recent do you have a sense of when or the most upto-date bylaws would be posted and how we will keep them consistently updated certainly so we are currently under going a project with um General code who is the same company who did the codification of the zoning bylaw um and uh I actually had a conversation with them uh late last week uh about that uh process they're currently putting together what they call the final version which they would then send to us for review um it then does have to go through town meeting uh for them to incorporate some of the necessary changes that we had to make in order to bring the bylaws all together um and those are changes like some ruming and things like that all need to go through town meeting for approval um they've laid out a schedule that I believe will allow us to bring that to town meeting at the November 2024 town meeting um I say that with a caveat which is that my office is going to have a dramatic uptick in work um about halfway through the summer so assuming that we do get that from General code sometime in late May or early June which is what we expect um we then should have time to get that turned around so it's ready to go onto the November um town meeting warrant uh if we end up not getting it from them until mid to late August it might be something that we don't have the capacity to get to due to the November elections in which case it would come before town meeting in May of 2025 um so that is the plan once we have General code in place it's actually fairly easy to keep it updated anytime we either approve an article in town meeting we send it off to General code and they will actually flag within the code uh if there is an article that is pending before the Attorney General's office and then once we get the approval back from the Attorney General's office it would automatically incorporate it into the code okay so the ongoing maintenance would be very quick correct um and then my second question question is um I'm sure you can relate this time of year election season I don't know how many emails you get about the voter frequent voter list and request for that I assume there's quite a few because every candidate that's running may do some mailings um is there any plans to put that information online so that it's not necessary to have to send an email to Ben and give Ben a call to remind him when he's busy that would be considerably easier um currently state law requires that when we provide a list of registered voters we have to have a written paper trail of that request so that's why we do require people to make that request and to make it in writing uh unfortunately just calling us um doesn't work um so if you send an email to us um we uh just actually finished updating um our list of uploading all of the voter histories um so we are going to be generating those lists tomorrow and sending them out for anybody who has requested them but it is something that does need to be requested in writing and electron an email to you is kind correct an email is sufficient and we do provide that as an Excel sprad I learned something thank don't be concerned about getting a 100 pages of print out we can't send that okay thank you very sorry I do have a followup question um looking at the actual budget and I think I know the answer but I just want to get it it it looks like the overtime pay goes up percent change is 449 per. I'm assuming that's because there's a presidential election yes that is correct the presidential election um for context last year the annual Town election had the highest turnout we've seen in a town election in 50 year in uh 15 years uh we had a little over 30% turnout we expect presidential to be closer to 75 or 80% turnout uh so we definitely see a high uptick in vote by mail ballots in processing ballots when they are returned in having to uh uh staff additional early voting uh and schedules like that and a lot of that is what's incorporated into that overtime and do we get federal and state funding to help supplement that so there is State reimbursements um related uh to two different places one is we uh state reimbursements for uniform polling hours this was a change back in the 1980s where they required us to have voting start at 7: a.m. um that is a fairly stable number that we get in each election the other reimbursement Which is less stable currently is reimbursement related to the unfunded mandates in the votes act which is the vote by mail and the early voting um because it's a relatively new law we have been getting inconsistent information from the legislature from the secretary's office and from the auditor's office uh for how much of a reimbursement we should expect each year so that's one of the things in our longer term priorities is being able to stabilize and be able to Peg that number much more clearly um so that we can properly budget and anticipate those costs thank you uh John thanks and Ben thank you very much for everything the office does um I have uh decided that I'm going to do a little bit of historical checking uh these days um so forgive me if you're the first one to enjoy the results of my historical checking of budgets and uh because it's 10 is a nice uh round number I thought I'll compare the FY U 2025 budget to the um actual expenditures in fy15 and in the case of the town clerk's office um a couple of things happened um the uh actual you know size of the budget in terms of uh what we're going to spend in fy2 is about double what was spent in um fy15 not sure that that's all that extraordinary given you've got some extra numbers you know because of the election year and so on um but on the other hand um revenues um were better in in fy15 10 years ago um than they are projected to be in um fy2 and then they have been you know in the last couple of years $3,565 you know versus something like $160 some odd, is there something that can be done to get revenues at least back up to where they were in 15 if not better uh so one of the things I would have to double check because I want to make sure I give you the proper information yeah uh historically there was a time when the town clerk's office did additional Services especially uh passports um fishing game licenses and some other licensing that was taken by the federal government or the state government so it's no longer done by the clerk's office so I want to make sure that that is included in the fy15 before I say that that's that makes perfect sense for the decrease um we've had conversations in the office about increasing some of the fees uh that we do charge for various Services um we charge uh for Vital Records we charge for dog licensing uh we charge for business certificates some of those are sets by Statute but some of them also can be set by a fee schedule which actually would go through this board um so if you'd like I'm happy to take a look at our fee schedule and compare it to some of our uh peer communities to see if there's uh uh any desire to increase fees for some of the services that we provide then that would end up coming through this board we're kind of fearless when it comes to increasing fees easier when you're not the card at the counter for sure we're going to reach our limit pretty soon I'm sure but um uh I think that sounds like a good idea if if indeed it is you know partly as a result of fees that just have not kept up with inflation certainly okay thanks any further discussion from the select board no excuse me thank you Ben always appreciate what you do and uh when you come before us we can say we appreciate it thank you CH and I appreciate that and I will remind everybody that nomination papers are due one week from today so feel free to get them in including if you'd like to run for town clerk thank you all okay next uh we have um um HR and benefits good morning or good evening an good evening not as tall as Ben not sure how to share this on the screen yeah that's all right an so once you once you uh hit present um you can hit all tab or you can hit the Windows key to pull up zoom and do share screen you should be able to do that that way you can share everyone can see if you have any trouble I'm I'm happy to pull the slides up just let me know yeah if you would pull the slides up because they're not showing on the screen in the room no problem give me just one moment okay we could be seeing it in the room now yes thank you good evening my name is Ann Braga I'm the HR Director for the town of Brookline and I'm here to present the HR and benefits budget joining for part of the benefits may be uh Melissa Goff as she has uh some of the updated numbers from what is on the presentation screen so this is just a a word uh bubble on um the meanings and and words associated with HR um and now moving to the next slide um where have we been and where are we going so I chose to highlight four areas one is classification and compensation the override funding for class and comp study with the positions available um is more than 50% complete since July of 2024 we have completed 36 job descriptions including nine new jobs um and that was reclassification based on the salary study we did that included job descriptions themselves doing grading of those positions as well as comparators for internal and exter external Equity we are looking at the Ripple effects for those positions as well as participating with the Department of Public Works comprehensive position review and part did the comparator analysis for collective bargaining um for contracts that we were working through during that period after that we have employee training and development if you remember in fiscal 24 we hired a new training and development coordinator and he has been on board for a little over a year and has done a needs analysis and during that time we have continued to do training on harassment and other policies the ethics compliance which is both annual and biannual we are adding well-being related topics supervisor training as well as completing first aid CPR and AED training through uh coordination with the police department and using one of their uh trainers to come in and do that for Town employees as well as stop the bleed and compliance training around alcohol and drugs for our driving population as well as health and safety and OSHA compliance for a variety of areas of town departments around collaboration we continue to work with OD eicr on accessibility around language website facilities and programs and continue our Labor Management meetings with asme and fire we're hoping to add to those um so that we're having regular Dialogue on issues in the upcoming year we continue to have our HR labor meetings and I'm sure um no one will be happier than Joe than HR will be to have a a new labor and employment attorney um on board um as soon as we can and another thing that we do in collaboration is to do one-on-one with Department staff around coaching Consulting issues around employees management department and organizational issues and the fourth area to focus on is policies so updating our it resource use policy and social media our leave time which thank you to the select board for approving those additional leave times uh implementation of alcohol and drug policies looking to update our Corey and harassment policy and then coming to you later this spring will be an update on the classification and pay plan and um we will be working with a variety of uh select board staff as well as um other departments on a new position classification process and a recruiting and hiring manual moving on from there just to focus in a little deeper on employment and training we have uh a focus um we are in the process of going live with neogov learn which is our online learning management system which will allow us to centrally house inperson virtual and hybrid trainings as well as microlearning and multi-part learning plans and the areas of focus that we're looking to um highlight as we go live with this is new employee training supervisor training cultural competencies coaching and mentoring again compliance and policies as well as health and safety and something I wanted to highlight because it has it takes a lot of our time is around Investigations out of a staff of seven we have three senior staff with additional responsibilities to other than investigations with a combined 75 years of HR experience we deal with investigations regarding employees residents board members and vendors we do interviews and follow-ups we document um and collect documentation we write and review the the investigation report and we work with the employee in the department to resolve the issues or train up on particular areas of um concern a small investigation which would be 2 to five people in one issue is about 40 hours or more a medium investigation at 5 to eight employees with multiple investig multiple allegations is 80 plus hours and a large investigation overate employees with multiple in in um allegations is 120 hours I provided for you on the left are unique investigations or complaints numbered from 2019 through um March 5th and um we went from 14 to 20 or we went from 14 in 2019 to 22 and 2021 20 and 22 20 and 2022 and 21 and 2023 and that does not include complaints that are related to each other um these are unique complaints and those those complaints are around harassment workplace safety fraud it resource use traditional discipline for performance and other related issues and one of the things related to our investigations and I I put in this slide of a an of an iceberg so you can see the the depth and complexity that HR investigations entail Because the actual Behavior complained of by an individual or group that comes to us is the tip of the iceberg literally and beneath that is the actual response to previous behaviors and actions whether they're related or not the perceived response and then below the below the waterline is the supervision and Leadership policies and procedures employee relations and the social emotional comp content um of the employees involved and the individual and organizational well-being and that really is um it paints similar to a mof's hierarchy of needs in many ways but it is something that we've seen throughout our investigations um over the years um the next slide is just is is our budget um there isn't very much that's different in our budget it is a 1% increase um we have the townwide expense reduction in Prof Professional Services of $10,000 Legal Services um is a $30,000 reduction with a corresponding $30,000 increase in subscriptions which is where our neogov learn platform cost center is so that zeros out our de data processing software has reflects an increase of 13,800 and that primarily ties into providing full funding on our applicant tracking system so where people are applying for jobs um for the town positions um previously it had been in multiple accounts so we we look to put that all in one place at the beginning of the year and then um a $400 increase in lease computer equipment uh two of our laptops are covid loaners and they have come to the end of their um useful life so we are needing to replace those Limitless possibilities um before I before I started working in HR I worked in budget and tax so it is really hard for me to talk about Limitless possibilities but I will Staffing levels to meet industry standards for full service human resources in the areas of talent management HR analytics investigations Talent Development health and safety and employee engagement fully integrated hris so that we can go in a streamlined system from applicants to onboarding to benefits to management and development to offboarding without using multiple spreadsheets and different programs that don't talk to each other or marginally talk to each other and funding for purchasing and Contracting training and development SE s and materials the other thing I wanted to provide tonight is the updated demographic information as part of our regular report um this is this information is compiled from uh a collaboration with odic and HR to show you what our employee population looked like in 2019 and our employee population in 2023 you will see a few differences um one of which in the gender area of gender is that there is now um at the state level a designation for non-binary um or folks can leave it blank so you'll see um a small portion of our gender report does identify as non-binary um we do have a drop in our male to female relation ratio where uh males represent uh 70% down from 72% and um on our racial diversity our white population overall across the town went down from 79% to 74.4% we see an increase in Hispanic from 6 to 9% Asian population is relatively steady and our black or African-American per percentage uh um went up by about a point and a half with two or more races staying relatively same the next slide what is the percentage for two or more races 1% 1% on the basis of the uh one drop law those are probably mostly black self-identified yeah self um if we can go to the next slide oh sorry um going back to um employees in 2023 Sorry Charlie can you go one more forward walking up give me just a second okay so let me let me talk through this um the next slide shows our new hires in calendar year 2023 and those folks who left town service in 2023 we ended um we had in the year we had about um our new hires were more evenly split between men women and non-binary um with 57.6% men 38% who identified as women and 4.3% who identified as non-binary or left the field blank compared to um it's a about a 10% reduction in the percentage of men um with um commensurate increase in the um women in non-binary categories we had 92 new hires that stayed for the whole year and 89 who left so we're averaging about the same not a huge Exodus um and it's it's around 133% of the workforce that has transitioned um during the year our gender diversity for incoming folks versus outgoing folks is we had a 74.4% Exodus in um individuals who identified as white in comparison to 63% who came in as new employees new employees for African-American population 10.9% Asian 5.4% Hispanic 7 1.4% and two or more races 2.2% and um the biggest differential is that we had 17.4% Hispanic inflow and 5.8% Hispanic folks who left town service next slide so fiscal 25 benefits I'm going to turn it over to Melissa um do you want me to St or to have Charlie stop sharing Melissa yes I I prefer the view on open goov so um I think we're all set with the slide deck um if I could just get screen sharing privileges that would great you should be able to share now okay yep great um so we have uh our Personnel benefits which is probably one of our biggest groupings uh for the town budget the items within Personnel benefits are Group Health now we've been talking a lot about um GIC rates of around 10% um but you're seeing that the budget's only going up by 4% um part of the reason why for that is that we have reset the base in fiscal 25 um we have received final rates from the GIC so we will be making further adjustments and fortunately those adjustments will also allow us to bring the budget down a little bit further so um you'll be getting an update on that within the next few weeks um we do offer group life plans uh basic plans for employees uh so that's going up slightly by 3% um we have medical disabilities which is an annual item $40,000 our Medicare coverage uh that's tied to Wages that's going up 7% uh we have our pension line item we're on a set schedule for pensions um as you remember during the financial plan presentation we also were recommend ending 2 million additional of free cash uh to support the pension funding schedule um we talked about uh Public Safety injured on duty medical expenses uh looking to increase that um by 675,000 some of that is also coming from free cash as well um our retiree Group Health Trust Fund we'll be talking about that a little bit later on in the meeting but um we increased the slide item annually by [Music] $250,000 and we are also looking to add a million dollars of free cash um but we are looking to have a more of a discussion on that uh in a little bit later in the meeting um our unemployment compensation trust fund has a healthy balance so it doesn't require additional funding our workers comp trust fund balance is looking for uh $2200 22.2 million uh dollars so uh just a slight increase over fiscal 24 and we are looking to establish a new acred time trust to deal with some liabilities that we have on uh vacation and comp leave balances as people retire um these are becoming bigger hits to our budget so looking to provide some funding to help deal with that and so that is a kind of overall summary of the group health budget or of the Personnel benefits budget thank you so I'll be happy to take any questions okay any questions from the select board Paul um and thank you for your your presentation uh two quick questions on HR and then um one I guess about benefits um you mentioned resident investigations what does that mean res so um our harassment policy covers residents of the town of Brookline in their interactions with either Town employees um or boards and commissions okay so they they report an incident and then you would investigate or someone on a boarding commission or an employee reports an incident that happened on a board and got commiss all right that clarifies that I wasn't we were investigating residents it's we're not doing that we're we're investigating complaints by correct residents okay um and then um we for the first time we've done an annual review of our um Town Administrator which was uh I think very helpful and comprehensive do we have any plans to do similar types of expectations and reviews annual review or or otherwise for um other employees um helping employees set expectations for them giving them feedback on their performance helping with professional development stuff like that we do do that um in each department um an example is the library has a more formal review structure they used to do a review of their part-time temporary employees who work 10 hours a week in the library and they used to ask they used to evaluate them on their commitment to the town of Brookline libraries and most of the folks who work in that example work 10 hours they're doing it because they're an undergrad or they're in in grad school or whatever else um and so some of the the detailed nature of some of those evaluations can be challenging both for the um employees as well as the supervisors um we do work with departments on performance issues and those performance and goals and objectives conversations around what the expectations are and the um the trend and the the best practice that that we are working with is regular conversations stay interviews and goals and expectations conversations okay but today we don't have a formal annual or biannual here's your expectations for your job here's feedback on your performance things like that okay interesting I it would be good to explore that maybe for the future I'm Mike um thanks yeah second FSE comment um so there's quite a lot of quite a lot of data here and I'm always interested in the conclusions that come from the data uh and um one question I have uh there were 89 people who left town employment do we do exit interviews and do we is there a pattern are people leaving because of Co of wages are they leaving because of some other situation uh what what have have you actually done enough exit interviews to draw some conclusions from uh from that so we have done some exit interviews um I will tell you that the uh the highest re the highest number of reasons why folks are leaving is to go to another position followed by retirement and what I'll call other reasons and that could be disciplinary in nature it could be performance in nature um they are they're not um the employees are not voluntarily leaving our service but if somebody goes to leave uh to go to another position outside the town that's what you're speaking of presumably um there's a there's a reason they've been recruited away they've decided to look for another job or something of that sort they there's a reason Beyond simply moving that underlies that change there is um those that we have spoken with and we H we do not have currently the bandwidth to interview all of the folks um additionally we may not find out in HR that folks are leaving until after they're gone um so when we've talked to folks and their reasons for leaving we have some where they're moving to another part of the state or the country um their spouse significant other family whatever whatever the reason um we do have some that are recruited away for for a higher pay or a bigger community and usually higher pay and bigger Community go together um thirdly around those that are are taking a different position is they may not live in Brookline and only 13.8% of our employees actually live within the town limits and so if they are commuting a distance um and they're able to find a position that pays the same even pays less or pays more that's closer to them or is an easier commute we're finding people um leave for that reason um where we're finding uh evidence that the work from home program is gaining traction as a value ad for our recruiting efforts is that we have folks that do live further away that are staying and staying longer um as a result of that now obviously there's not every every job is eligible for work from home but where there are the opportunities um folks are doing that okay thank you now one other uh one other question on a completely different topic so um and I apologize for jumping around but um uh you mentioned training and the fact that we've hired a training coordinator uh and that was something that I think we all agreed was a very good idea um at the same time uh I know that the fire department has a has I believe they have their they have their own provider of Dei training uh that uh and my understanding is that that has been well received is that something that you're um uh sort of evaluating with them or in touch with the with them on so a few years ago before covid I went with the eboard of the fire Union to their um their heal their uh leadership conference in Florida and the be a leader program which is the one that they use for their Dei initiatives is specifically run by firefighters and deals with the unique culture of the firefighter um and fire department Community um you don't have another department in the town that you know spends 24 hours in the same place with their colleagues right and um that brings up both unique opportunities and unique challenges and the de Andi provider that um Brookline is contracted with um was a presenter at that conference and um I support Brookline fire having them come in and and have those conversations with um Brookline fire employees um I don't believe that it's replicable to other departments okay that was that's the core of my th those two points last two points are exactly what I was looking for thank you very much John um and thanks very much for the um uh report uh I I just want to make sure that people who listened to this discussion um understand that uh a view was presented which I frankly don't agree with um and but I I have nothing but respect for my colleagues who who brought this um up as as a thought and that is that that the evaluation we did of of Our Town Administrator should be the model for an evaluation of department heads and I couldn't disagree more if the indic if the implication is that we as a select board should be in should be evaluating every single department head as though we are the boss um of the department head and this is something that occasionally needs to be clarified and usually um it's the the Town Administrator who has the awkward responsibility of clarifying it for the select board we we put a lot of effort into our evaluation of the Town Administrator because we want to be sure he or she is the right person to decide on the quality of the department heads that we have based on their performance um on an annual basis but not because we want to look over the shoulder of the department head and second guess the evaluation so um you know we can have a a discussion of this on the board I'm sure but I I don't want people to think that um there's General consent that that's a good thing for the select board to be doing I I don't think it's a good thing for the select board to be doing um quick Berard wait a minute let me finish you had your turn you had your turn um but an I wanted to ask you a couple of specific questions and if I did if I didn't hear this because I wasn't listening well enough um then shame on me did did you mention um anything about our absenteeism right I did not I can get you information on that I I did not did not look at it is there a particular I guess area of concern or just generally no I I mean I think it's a useful metric to to be reporting on on an annual basis so that we can see do we do better than last year worse than last year is it worse in some departments than other departments Etc our workload indicators I believe does have the um the numbers for absentee the number of of um shifts yeah um on there I don't have it in front of me um because it's in really fine print and I didn't bring my glasses today I mean it is it's something I'd love to be able to see and the other one that again if I missed it shame on me um employee retention rate which is not the same thing as you know how many people come in and how many people leave it's you know what is the average length of stay as I understand it for employees who come to work for the town of Brookline um and I think it's a useful number if people don't stay very long it tell tells you something if they tend to stay a long time and tells you something is there a particular area of Interest or are you looking for because the global number I think would be the global number but also vastly imped Department police and fire and things yeah yeah so yeah okay okay total and by Department thank you very much yeah let me just add I don't think U people are suggesting that we get involved in in the evaluation of uh Town department heads um but I think it's also important to emphasize that our evaluation process is probably not relevant or appropriate to department heads and that it was designed by us from the very beginning for the Town Administrator uh position sure just want to you know make clear if I misunderstood I misunderstood I thought I heard pretty clearly maram hading your well I just want to make sure before we get too far away from John's comment uh just if that's okay okay just for just for a moment so I do want to make sure that John understands he doesn't misunderstand what what what I had stated um you know I I'm not suggesting that the select board uh set expectations for individual employees and then meet with them regularly to review and help guide them on their performance in professional growth and personal growth I'm suggesting that that should be an expectation that we have of e each of our managers and that we help guide uh employees actually it's a retention issue um I've had 35 years of business experience John and one of the things that keeps employees uh for attention is that they understand their job they know that their employee is working to help them perform and helping them achieve their goals and helping to you know develop them into other areas that they may have for a long-term plan so that's my expectation that I would hope we would do um and not certainly not try to get into the business of individual managers herei all right so just very quickly um because we gave out so much arpa money I can't actually remember which department got it or not and did you receive any arpa funds no we did not you did thank you that's all we we may have a request for arpa 3 to do some digitization Allah the town clerk office our our Cube spaces and walls are made up of file cabinets so thank you okay any other questions or comments thank you Ann thank you and thank you my mouth Alissa [Laughter] mouth okayy next Department of um diversity Equity inclusion and community relations I don't see ly here on the online on Zoom okay now promoting Lloyd now in the inter room if you're joining us for the 7:30 warrant articles public hearing those will be delayed slightly we apologize for the inconvenience we'll move forward momentarily um if you have not if you wish to speak on any of the Warren articles and you have not signed up in advance you may sign up on this sheet here I would say that we have 46 speakers already for Warr Article 19 in a limited amount of time folks to speak in you may always submit your comments in writing to select board one word at Brookline ma.gov I assure you the board reads every one of those emails I do too um so please make sure that uh if you have a comment but feel like you might not want to wait through 46 people uh that you get your comment in writing to the board thank you okay Lloyd yes good evening um before we get started I just say Mariam congratulations on your son's achievement that's amazing um thank you I'm I'm the track and field buff and it's great to see Brooklyn do well so um um um Charlie can I share my screen now at this point you should be good to do that Lloyd let me know if you have any trouble okay well sure get the right one cheer SL show Okay can folks see my screen we can okay all right um thank you for um having me to um this evening to share the budget of the oicr for those who aren't familiar with that that's the office for diversity Equity inclusion and community relations um um Charlie I don't know if any of my staff are here but if you can promote them that would be great let me take a look um so basically the mission of our office um um uh is to promote events and activities that Aid in the Brooklyn Aid the Brooklyn Community to become more culturally competent and to be informed of the achievement and the barriers faced by our protected classes it continues to work with the community entities to examine quality of life barriers due to racial inequities or discriminations based on protected class status and to develop strategies to mitigate those barriers um for the most of the year um of um fy2 24 we're a staff of three um with Caitlyn Sarah and myself Caitlyn being the assistant director and Sarah being the Ada coordinator and community relations specialist we're pleased to announce that we have hired Ahad hamasa um he's the new language access access coordinator for the town um I think he's a wonderful addition to um um our office and I do believe that Lloyd could you speak up a little more direct more directly into the mic sure can you hear me now um yeah the louder you are the better all right forgive me if I start yelling um so I just we can we can take yelling okay I just want to U give a shout out to um the staff of the office um Caitlyn and sour over the um this year have done a remarkable job um of um what you're going to see and and further down my presentation today um and they're just wonderful and the work that the office does uh with the limited amount of staff that we do have um could not be done without their T extraordinary Talent so I just want to get them the shout out this evening for um being part of the um Brook line but more more importantly to me being part of our office moving on to the budget um I'll just make this short uh um we have a couple of minor changes or say significant changes um in the budget this year um one being the professional Tech um where we have a 4,500 uh $45,000 increase um that um basically what that's going to be used for is some of the language access needs that we have plus um part of uh professional um investigator or mediation services should the office warranted um or excuse me is needed um we did see um a decrease by 14% of our special um special program Supply budget um and again I think I think that was cross the board for all departments um given the um sort of the challenges that we have with our budget in the next couple of years um but other than so basically overall we have a 15% increase in the budget um the odic budget this year and again that's reflective in the professional Tech um um sub account there we go the three biggest accomplishments for this last F fiscal year um first was um forgive me I cheated here I put more than one in here but um I think they're all related to community engagement uh we revised and distributed the brook line diversity inclusion business directory we create a community event planning guide we conduct did a gender Equity pay study and we launched we launched inhabit the Brooklyn Community News Feed and hub um I put the link to that um in um in this in the slide we also completed the town's language ACC access assessment and hired a full-time language access um coordinator ah mod um I don't think he's here with us this evening um and in conjunction with the town clerk it and the town moderator uh offices we made uh public me meetings more accessible to individual individuals with disabilities key goals for uh for the upcoming year um one finalize the townwide Ada transition plan um and a couple of take homes from that would be complete the Ada assessments for the remaining Town departments who haven't done so um develop and distribute the Ada plan to town departments um um next goal would be train departments on the language access and effective communication policies and procedures um each department will receive the policy and plan for review provide trainings to departments to assist in developing language access and effective communication goals three track progress of plan implementation for all departments and then review and provide consultation to town departments and appointed elected boards and commissions regarding the University and inclusion efforts will we meet with each department to discuss on dni efforts provide consultations how to include diversity inclusion in planning and executing Department initiatives utilize score scorecards to allow excuse me departments to access um assess progress of dni initiatives and four work with human resources to provide training opportunities for line staff regarding various facets of on Dei long-term um goals and objectives uh we want to increase um growth opportunities for individual and families of low income residing in Brookline um collaborate in the development of Entrepreneurship trainings for public housing tenants help to establish a c program for lowincome individuals who want to start a business in Brooklyn and uh for me this is particularly important because it goes to U C cultural re rency help to establish black and brown owned restaurants within the town of Brooklyn um two incre increased voter particip participation in local government have greater representation of marginalized groups on the town boards and commissions and part of the work that's needs to be done in this area is study voting patterns for the Brooklyn population work with Community entities to develop and create plans to increase voter registration and voting continue to assess the demographics of elected and appointed boards and commissions develop strategies that would would increased interest to seek appointment to boards and commissions develop a community curriculum that provides an understanding of town government structures functions and processes third is to to eliminate barriers for all individuals that prevent reasonable communication and access to town facilities and processes um all Town departments can meet the language needs of of of LOE individuals that seek Services is a goal all Town facility services are equipped to provide reasonable accommodations to public and town staff have public documents available in multiple languages and formatted for screen readers and other formats for those with disabilities questions that were asked new initiatives um we we want to reach out to various cultural groups and organizations to support new cultural celebrations for the town we also want to create a racial equity dashbo for Town departments and compile a racial Equity report by the by the fall of 2025 um some of the um the question was asked about increased work demands um The Office Works demands have increased this year due to the addition of language access um responsibilities additional UH responsibilities associated with the climate um complaint process procedure professional staff perform office administration tasks currently the office does not have a support staff for these functions the last question was what if um as I mentioned last year I think employee housing subsidy or employee housing is something that we should consider um Town funded communityevent Center um which can serve as a hub for um social programs that we want to have as and but more importantly I think is be able to have all the different various folks that live in Brooklyn be able to mingle and get to know each other um through positive events um and then a work sponsorship program for non-citizens um I think that's an untapped resource that we're not use utilizing and um I do think that if we had such a program that would be helpful and that's the end of my presentation so I can take questions okay Miriam hi Lloyd hi um Lloyd and I work together a lot because I'm the select board liaison for two of the commissions and committees um I just have a I I'm just curious I noticed on your slides where you talked about Dei initiatives you just said dni was that an oversight or is there a reason the E is missing no it's it was a mistake okay thank you thank you so um I have a few questions um first of all you mentioned uh getting or helping marginalized groups uh participate on boards and commissions in town you know the select board is concerned about uh uh participation on boards and commissions by uh senior citizens so you know we should be make sure we're working together on that uh that effort um I notice also in the the um performance workload indicators that um I I just think this is an important point to to make and that is that the most complaints that you're receiving have to do with uh Ada complaints uh and I think that people don't realize how uh significant a problem that is in in Brookline and it's reflected in uh the complaints that you receive uh you know 30 compared to the next High number of 15 for discriminatory conduct complaints um and I guess the third thing I'd like i' like to note is that the housing complaints um at six seem low and maybe I'm missing something but is that because uh housing discrimination is low or is that because uh people are unaware of the opportunity to uh bring a complaint to your office office or some other reason I I think it's more that people aren't aware that these complaints um can come to our office we can help them file with HUD or uh mcad but we get we still don't have the U the capacity to actually do those those investigations but that being said the housing complaints that we typically get or more tenant disputes as opposed to um I I would say anything that was a fair housing related um uh complaint uh Paul yeah this is a a question a sensitive question Lloyd but I I would um appreciate your perspective um because you do mention the oversight of some various boards and commissions and and helping them to make sure that they're engaging in an inclusive way with the community um you know there's because we are a volunteer commission-based government um you know people can volunteer but they do have private lives they have private social media um and I'm I'm curious about your perspective on um commission members and how their uh social media activity May um cross over into um the work that they do on a commission or a board and perhaps um you know create some concern or some um uh division because of that of course it's a free speech issue and uh we we absolutely need to allow the First Amendment but I'm just curious is there any opportunities for coaching or um sensitivity around these types of issues um yes but I imagine let me let me start Paul let me start by saying this I think um the First Amendment rights freedom of speech is really important um we all have that to a certain degree but I do think that if you're an elected board um on on an elected board or a commission um that there's a higher standard the expectation is that we be civil to each other and follow some set of rules and dear and speaking and when that is when something does happen it um that violates that it becomes uh essentially an HR um issue that um which means that it's that behavior is under our harassment policy and it needs to something needs to happen now an investigation could happen but the question is what happens to that if it was shown that someone did bu the policy what's the next step and that's what we don't have um the body the the the body does have um when I say bodying your board of commission do have the cap capacity to um reach out and give feedback to that member but other than that if it's a gross violation there's no recourse that we have right yeah and I would agree with that I guess um I'm with you I'm I'm a a big fan of the First Amendment and free spe speech U but there is this interesting complex intersection between uh uh free speech and as you said um the sensitivity or responsibility to a higher uh uh calling or a higher uh uh mission that may be related to that border commission so again I I think um as we move on to subjects um that are are impacting our community it's just it's something that is complex uh it's unresolved and I think it's just it's something that we need to be aware of uh because we have heard about this uh recently and I think it's something we just we need to be very sensitive to because it does uh it does cause Division and not the inclusion that we're really trying to do so that's it thank you lyd any other comments or questions from the select board thank you Lloyd you're welcome before we go on to war articles might you consider taking the financial plan conversation out of order if that's okay with the board yeah um item eight about the um okay yeah I'll handle it yeah yeah so um before we begin our hearings on the three warrant articles I want to take item eight fiscal year 2025 financial plan review first and then we'll go to the uh hearing um you want to present on that tell people what this is all about sure just briefly um we we don't have we don't have to vote you do not have to vote I want to make that the board is you don't have to take a formal vote on this I just want to make sure the board is in agreement with this course of action in our financial plan that we presented to you which represents kind of the opening process of our yearly budget one of the things that we identified as a potential use of free cash was to increase our contribution to our other post imployment benefit liabilities OPB um those are a significant liability we are behind on meeting them every year that we don't meet them they go up and it's basically more money that we have to spend in the future we are on a good track now with both our pension liability which is a bigger issue but we are closer to solving and opb's to resolve them um but we missed a couple years during the pandemic uh we missed two years of opep contributions the current policy is to contribute is to add $250,000 every year to pay down our opep liabilities um this year we initially recommended adding an addition million dollars to pay down that those liabilities in addition to the 250,000 um subsequent to that we had a conversation uh with Moody's the credit rating a the bond and credit rating agency in which we were informed that their recommendation that we hold funds in reserve equivalent to at least 10% of last year's revenues it's now doubling to 20% um Moody is one of the agencies that rates our bonds um and our credit our credit our credit worthiness um we are one of 133 AAA rated communities in Mass it's it's very hard to get a AAA rating back if you lose it we obviously want to be sensitive to their um CH their shifts in expectation uh and so our recommendation is to shift the um OPB contribution half of that opep contribution to the stabilization fund which is a reserve fund uh that we use so $500,000 and additional funds for a total of $750,000 to OPB for this year and 500,000 additional 500 $100,000 into the stabilization fund and I will note and I just want to note the contributions of Select board member Warren who raised the issue about free cash and about how we utilize these one-time sources of funds the community's needs the efforts that we have you know the feedback that we receive from the community on how to utilize one-time funds and I do just want to recommit to the issue that he raised and other select board members raised at the financial plan which is about roadways um which is we have contributed a historic amount to roadways in the fy2 budget we have heard the select board's guidance that this needs to be a priority for the community and on April 2nd we will have a conversation about how to be uh more uh uh effective or uh uh change identifying the proper priorities for how we use that money to uh for example handle quicker smaller projects versus larger comprehensive complete streets projects um and we will identify how that money is spent we will monitor the metrics of that over the course of this fiscal year and if it turns out that there is more capacity and more desire in the community to spend more money on that in the coming fiscal year then that's what we'll do um so we have a historic amount now we want to see how we're doing on that front and then we want to come back to the board with metrics of our success and indicators of capacity so that the board can give direction to staff on how to proceed from there okay any um any objection to that uh that Vision I don't have an objection but I do want to have I do comment um I just I want to thank Chaz and Melissa for uh their willingness to sit down they spent quite a bit of time with me uh you know talking through this issue um which uncovered a higher priority for the money that actually uh Melissa had highlighted to help uh maintain our triaa bond rating which is critical uh to our low interest rates that help us borrow um and and lower our cost of borrowing so I I do want to thank the both of you for uh foring the time and I know Mike Simon had was also participating in some discussions and advice around this area so um I appreciate your willingness to look at this um and I think we're we've made a good recommendation of of making up the money on the oped side for the two years that we missed uh during covid and then Shoring up our reserves to make sure that we can uh maintain our trip W Bond rating with buties okay let's move on um what's next let's see Article 15 15 uh okay Warren article public hearing hearings uh first Article 15 create a new just make a suggestion that we have quite a lot of people here who are interested in I think probably in Article 19 it might be sensible to just say what we're doing next and how far we you know so that they understand what the time expectation is okay uh we have two waren articles C prior to war Article 19 uh one to create a general bylaw establishing staggered terms of office for constables which should not be a long uh discussion um and article 16 to change the number of commission for diversity Equity inclusion and community relations members from 15 to 9 again did not be a long discussion um but you know maybe uh 15 to 20 minutes uh before we start on each yeah well we'll see um so maybe 15 to a half an hour U before we start on Article 19 uh so stay tuned folks okay what do you want can I just can I ask one question does it does it I'm just curious does it make sense to reverse the order at this point or no no okay all right because for what reason yeah no I mean because why I don't understand why it doesn't make sense to the um because we got two there are two two quick ones and one we have 46 people signed up so and we're we're we're going to give an an hour and a half to to that discussion and we will Lo use at least that amount um and you know let may I just ask a question though didn't we already have the presentations on those two articles and and we're just voting tonight nope these are two ones you haven't had presentations on yet sure okay yeah one's yours I know I remember presenting it you presented it put it on the warrant but you haven't the public here okay Neil Gordon please speak uh thank thank you very much and uh thank you for your time I'm Neil Gordon I'm a Precinct one town meeting member member of the advisory committee and one of five Brookline constables I'm speaking as petitioner of Article 15 which proposes the bylaw establishing staggered terms for constables each year Brookline elects one or two select board members three members of the school committee and four Library trustees in each case for threeyear terms our five constables though are elected all at once every third year Article 15 seeks to conform the election of constables to the same staggered model we use for every other elected body there's no single compelling reason for this change but there are a series of benefits that in the aggregate support stagger terms first Simply Having a constable on the ballot every every year will increase voter awareness of what otherwise for a townwide elected office is relatively obscure obscure enough the constables aren't on the town or chart and but for election results are not to be found on the town website next the opportunity to run for townwide office presently if you decide to run for Constable you may need to wait several years for the first opportunity if you run and lose incumbent or chall ER you'll wait three years before you can run again with stagger terms the opportunity to run presents itself every year lastly Brookline has a long collaborative history of seasoned constables mentoring those who are newly elected Joe figler succeeded his father former conable Tommy bolo was mentored by Marvin Fineman Tommy in turn mentored me as I've mentored those subsequently elected stagger terms ensure that his new cons are elected experienced constables remain in office to migrate from the current model to a staggered one I've proposed the same method we use to stagger town meeting members following redistricting and so in the next election presumably May 2025 the top two finishers will serve for three years the next two for two years and the fifth place finisher for one year other than those needing to run again in 26 or 27 based on order or finish I see little of any bias in favor of either incumbents or challengers as noted there's no single compelling reason for stagger terms but there are a series of benefits that in the aggregate support this change I ask you for a recommendation a favorable action on war Article 15 and I thank you for your time any questions from the select board before we open it up to a public hearing okay can you just remind me how many total constables there are we have five constables okay um you look and speak no okay so would it be 22 one how would you it it would be 22 one top two finishers will get the three-year term I guess I do have one question Bernard uh Neil have you I know you always speaking for yourself but have you pulled your other uh your Constable peers and I I did so before I filed the warrant article okay um the uh I got I I I received uh two responses other than uh seems like a good idea right the short seems like a good idea uh one Constable did Express a similar concern that we could have a pardon the expression slate of uh and and elect five new constables and that would be a concern a total one-time change right um that could happen next year right that could happen next year because next year we're all five are up um the other conversation that I had was an interesting one about awareness and from uh that particular Constable the question of awareness was awareness of the user Community um the attorney landlord uh you know legal people who need things served and uh the comment I got was they already they're already aware right and it then got into a question of my my purpose here is not to inform that Community but the resident uh voter Community right of awareness I think you answer my question thank you yeah okay any other u m let's go so um this is a public hearing uh Charlie could you uh was nothing to do I'll open the public hearing and uh see if anyone wants to speak I see re is um standing do you want we have someone signed up for public comment okay Anthony sorry go ahead char No you're you're absolutely right China hold on may I speak down no next next Regina fley next next I can't hear you next next sorry someone signed up in advance thank you Anthony aack is being promoted to a panelist about 15 minutes you're right about time Anthony you've been promoted to a panelist you may unmute and share your video if you feel comfortable and your two minutes we're doing two minutes for the public hearings tonight will begin thank you Charlie I will be much briefer than two minutes Anthony aack toown meeting member Preen one speaking in favor of this warn article um for many of the same reasons that the petitioner has brought up I think this is an important move to help bring transparency to the role of constable as the petitioner has brought up it's very hard to find any information about constables on the Brooklin Mass do Brooklin ma.gov website in fact most of you have laptops open if you put conable in your search at the top what you will find is usually a mention of any of the town meeting um budget discussions or this warant article but you it's very difficult to find out who our constables are and what the roles are I would encourage voting in favor of this war article because it helps bring more transparency to the public provides more opportunities for Education about what they do through the method of frequent elections which means that there will be discussion on the various websites in terms of um what the role is who's running for it and what their platforms are it'll engage voters more and allow more opportunities to learn about it helps Shure continuity so even though um incumbents have a high chance of winning instead of having it be all or none running there is a chance of continuity year toe um and again I really encourage more transparency I would hope that um this warn article helps to Spur getting the information about constables on the organization chart the names of who they are and what the role is in a more clear manner on the website thank you for your time okay next person would be Regina perhaps good Regina thank you uh Regina FY town meeting member and a constable um I have a question a real genuine question didn't occur to me until this afternoon um most people don't know that we have a bond and we pay our own Bond we're basically self uh employed but we're elected by you and the question I have is I know what I paid for a three-year Bond do we have any knowledge about what that person who would have a two-year versus a one-year because very often when you do consumption it's more expensive the short of the term so I wonder if anybody has an answer to that question thank you well I I assume that the bond is based on the number of years that that it covers so a two-year Bond would be less than a three-year Bond but that's sort of the obvious answerone have more we'll do we'll look into that and get back to you that's a good question thank you okay any other uh questions or comments from the audience folks then the on Zoom can use the hand raise or Q&A feature to let us know that they would like to speak this is a public hearing so use the hand rais or Q&A feature Bernard there are 86 people in uh in the attendee list right now and no one is using the handraiser Q&A feature at the time okay we will close the hearing and I'll note that there looks like almost 86 people in the room here okay uh thank you NE oh um okay next uh we have a hearing on um for article 16 amend section 3.4.1 of the Jal bylaws to change the number of commission for diversity Equity inclusion and community relations members from 15 to9 this is uh introduced by select board member John vanak John could you take over the meeting I got yeah yeah sure sure sure yes thank you very much um chair and uh for I I hope everyone will forgive me for my memory laps that we had not yet um discussed this the reason is that um it it was presented to the select board because this is a select board's um waren article and U graciously um and I think for a very good reason uh my colleagues have shown support of it um quickly the um the commission has been set by bylaw for to a membership of 15 and uh in recent I would have to say years 15 has proven to be a number that is very hard to achieve in terms of appointments of people who then continue to serve on the commission and reliably fill um all 15 seats so um the actual fulfilled seats on the commission has varied lately it has been um 10 uh and it's been uh my colleague Mariam ashkanazi made really really solid efforts to get it back up to 15 uh there are reasons why uh it's it's hard to find sort of the right people who want to step forward and who are the right fit for the commission um and yet we can find we were successful in finding 10 very good commission members we just couldn't find 15 very good commission members there are other reasons to think that a nine member commission would be a preferable uh way going forward um 15 is a lot of people to um you know they they use the Expression hurting cats but um you you have to get uh a quarum from that 15 to your meetings in order to take votes um and when there's five empty seats on a commission um I think a mindset might set in among some of the other members it doesn't matter that you know they they've left those five seats open so they won't really miss me if I'm not at the meeting um but it's just the opposite it's all the more important for people to serve but they they kind of get the wrong idea I think because of the empty seats on the commission um so attendance has not been perfect um there have been a few meetings where there wasn't a quorum um and and that proved difficult um and I've spoken to the current chair of the commission Kevin McKenzie I've spoken to the director of the office of diversity inclusion equity and community relations um Lloyd jelo who we heard from earlier tonight um they are in agreement that this article could help the commission be more successful in doing its business um going forward so it it requires a bylaw change that's why has to be a warant article for the town meeting and um hopefully town meeting will agree that this is a good change as well thank you John uh Miriam yeah so thank you John I wasn't actually at the meeting where you presented this but I did hear the meeting um and I do want to put my two cents in yes which is I do support this um I really did work to bring people on and as I brought people on people left and we could just really never get up to 15 for any considerable amount of time and as you said it really makes it a challenge for us in terms of getting Quorum it's just too it's unwieldly um and I think this is a good change so what I what I want to emphasize is the committee is currently 10 yeah and the way this bylaw is written is that nobody's going to get kicked off right it's once there's a vacancy then it will stay at nine which I think is is a really important thing for people to understand yeah so as someone who was interim chair for that committee for six plus months and who's sat on that committee for the last two years year two years whatever it is um I think just one year one year well okay still um it's I think it's a move in the right direction to make the committee more functional so I appreciate that great and I think Kevin is actually here also to just chime in his support okay kin I think you have to open the public hearing um he he's well okay that's right um this is a public hearing we'll open the public hearing now and list and hear from uh Kevin McKenzie folks in the audience can use the handraiser Q&A feature to indicate they'd like to make a comment Kevin McKenzie is being promoted now to a panelist um but other folks please use the hand raiser Q&A feature to let us know you'd like to speak Kevin you've been promoted to a panelist you can unshare you can um unmute and share your video if you are comfortable and your three minutes will begin hello my name is is Kevin McKenzie and I'm currently the chair of the cdic and I just want to thank John and the select board for this war article uh I Echo a lot of what Mariam said and really appreciate the thoughtfulness that has gone into this um and while the I do not speak for the commission I speak for myself as the chair right who serves as chair I do support this warn article and this bylaw change would help us I I truly believe with issues like such as reaching Quorum and member participation in addition to ensuring that our current member stay engaged and do not become demoralized due to inability to reach Quorum and get the work done that our commission would very much like to thank you so much great thank you any other questions or comments from the audience uh we have 87 attendees Bernard and no one is using the handraiser Q&A feature at this time to let us know that they would like to make a comment okay so let's close the hearing um we usually don't vote uh until the next meeting and uh I see no reason why we should change that procedure now okay thank you and thank you John oh thank thank you thank you very okay okay where is the ch he's not going to get out of it that easily right he'll be back there we go yeah need support what do you do now we just need a full house here okay um okay now we're going to take up Warren Article 19 and an amendment offered by Scott Gladstone and Michael Brinston oh that's right and Michael um yeah Michael Bernstein um both of whom are offering an amendment uh to repl the uh current warrant Article 19 first I want to hear from the select board and then I'm going to give the petitioners of the article um and uh the amendment uh give the petitioners of the article the usual 10 minutes to present and then I'll give uh the Amendments uh petitioners five minutes to present their side of the argument or present their Amendment uh then we're going to open the hearing with each person uh speaking having two minutes uh this is because of the large number of people who have signed up to speak I want to try to give everyone an opportunity to have their say uh so Charlie please um keep time um when people come up to speak and we're going to set aside 90 minutes for the hearing and hopefully every person who signed up should get an opportunity to speak and person or by Zoom if there is time left I'll let people uh in the audience raise their hands and come to the podium let me just say that this will be a difficult discussion because of the emotion on all sides and there are only a few aspects of this situation that lend themselves to having a clearly right answer I hope people accept that both the Warren article and the amendment were presented in good faith so I ask you to give this to use this as an occasion to listen to people with whom you may not initially agree and listen to what they are saying not what you think they should be saying in other words listen with an open mind and I think in this context an empathetic heart keep in the back of your mind the trauma that Israelis are feeling and members of the Jewish Community as a result of October 7 and the trauma that Palestinians are feeling and uh Palestinian residents here in uh Brookline as a result of the war in Gaza opening your mind to those realities will be a a starting point to having a useful and productive discussion uh we'll start here at the select board and hopefully we can model for the advisory committee and ultimately town meeting and this discussion will uh proceed in a way that is respectful and useful for everyone so with that um any comments from the select board Miriam thank you um first for those that will be giving comment this evening I've been asked Charlie to let you know that some people signed up online but they're actually here in person so um you may call their name they may actually be here rather than remote second I want to say for th those of you who don't know I'm a single parent I usually around nine o'clock transition home where I take the rest of the meeting remotely so I do apologize if you are giving public comments and it is my and I'm transitioning I will listen in my car and I'll get back online when I get home um okay so I wanted to open with a few remarks about waren Article 19 first I want to acknowledge that this is Ramadan and we may not hear public comment from some in our community who are breaking fast uh Chaz informed me he scheduled this public hearing as lat as possible to try to accommodate and I wish you a Ramadan kareim I want everyone to know that I have read every email on this issue I'm reading them as they're still coming in during this meeting and I'm trying to take in all the comments into consideration I will be listening carefully tonight to the concerns brought to this select board and as I have said I have read every email and there were many on this issue second I want to be clear and consistent in my messaging from the beginning I have stated I am a humanitarian I spent the greater part of my adult professional life working in the humanitarian space including including complex humanitarian responses to war and conflict I am vly opposed to all war and violent conflict I abhor war and I have seen the consequences up close and personal I am experiencing this conflict personally as well and I want all the hostages returned and a ceasefire immediately everyone deserves to live in peace everyone finally I want to say that while I feel this way I cannot support this Warren article for the same reasons that I did not vote to schedule a special town meeting this is not a time for more division but to try to build Bridges and find ways for productive discourse I have the evidence of it in my inbox that this is not that this is an emotionally charged and politically complex issue and we should treat it as such town meeting and a warant article format is not the way to do that in my opinion I was talking with my good friend and colleague Kevin McKenzie who you were heard from just now about this today and he said something that really struck a chord with me we cannot control what happens in Gaza and Israel what we have control over is how we go about it in this community in our community the community I want to Foster is one of coming together not always agreeing but respectfully listening learning and growing and for that reason I'll be voting no action and I'm still I still need to hear the discussion on the amendment so I don't haven't made a decision on that yet thank you thank you uh Mike thank you very um so uh select board members have already heard from uh great many people we've all um seen I think probably now over 50 emails about Warren Article 19 and the Amendments that have been offered and obviously we want to hear from more um I don't question the good faith of the petitioners or those who propose amendments or those of you who make comments but nothing would nothing but harm would result from debating the Rights and Wrongs of the Gaza War at town meeting it is by nature an adversarial men and even attempts to find middle ground on the war by amending the article are divisive that's why the select board voted four to one against holding a special town meeting in December in response to a very different article on the Gaza War now we could not refuse to put Article 19 on the warrant for the annual town meeting but I hope the petitioners will listen carefully and those who propose amendments and all be persuaded not to move the article I'm open to hearing something unexpected tonight from my colleagues or from members of the public but otherwise I will support a select board recommendation to town meeting that it vote no action on Article 19 in any of the forms that it may take thank you uh Paul yeah U thank you Bernard um and I don't have a written um statement but I'm going to speak from my heart um this is a deeply emotional issue for me um when it came to us before as a special town meeting um I was torn up about it I spent a lot of time with the petitioner that that brought it Forward um many many hours on the phone with him where he uh listened he then reached out to others and he concluded uh that it was going to cause harm to the community um my adult children are of Arab descent I have three grandchildren two of them are Jewish my third grandchild was born five months ago on October 7th I will forever have images celebrating her birthday I don't believe that anything good can come from tearing our community apart emotionally because because it's going to harm many many people on both sides of the issue and it's not going to change one thing many many thousands of miles away so I agree with my colleagues that um I am I cannot support the article um as presented um I will listen carefully uh to potential amendments I'm sure there's there's going to be more coming but I will tell you this is already already creating harm you can see it there's 90 more people or 100 people online um I think it was more than 50 emails uh and I my phone blew up with phone calls and texts this is causing harm and I would hope that we have had enough of that in our community thank you okay um any other comments select for John I I yeah if well I know I I'm in the odd position of being the one member of the psych board who wanted to have this uh town meeting when it was first um petitioned um and um I I did that out of a couple of things first of all um I don't share the view of my colleagues that we can't manage in Brooklyn to have a discussion a town meeting and other than one that turns ugly and divisive and awful um Town meetings are for working out our differences with each other over over issues large and small they don't get much larger than this but if town meeting isn't a forum for working out our differences over something as large as this what is um so I welcomed the um possibility we would have this town meeting a few months ago I welcome and I view as inevitable that we are H are going to have the town meeting in uh May um now I'm going to say something which a lot of people might find kind of odd I'm not sure I'm going to take a position on this warrant article um because part of the reason I wanted it to be in before town meeting is no matter what town meeting decides no matter what this select board decides uh we're going to be continue to be a very different views on this I don't want anyone to feel coerced uh or or under any kind of Shadow because the select board said the town of Brooklyn I mean what what if we took a majority vote it sounds like we're not going to take we're gonna we're going to call for no action no action is essentially a a no um um it's not the same thing as letting people who want to express themselves on the article vote and then accepting the result of that vote um so I I'm not going to ask for people to stand back stand down and and withdraw the petition I'm going to wait and welcome I can't wait to hear you guys speak tonight all of you on every side and that's why I'm going to just end my comments right now um and Le let's hear from all of as many of you as possible thank you um I find myself agreeing with on in one respect in that uh you whether we ultimately um have a discussion at town meeting or whatever uh you know whether it's withdrawn or um or whatever happens I think it's important that we not refuse to have a discussion if people want a discussion uh if people can't discuss in a in a uh respectful way even hot button issues like this then they have have other ways of expressing themselves that may not be as positive um you know social media or whatever so I don't fear this discussion I think Brook line is a uh mature enough Community to have uh a a respectful discussion even of an issue like this so long as everyone keeps their ears open and listens um so with that I'd like to ask the petitioner for the warrant for War Article 19 to step forward and I'll give you the usual 10 minutes uh to make your presentation and following that I will give um the uh uh individuals supporting or Scott Gladstone and um reimburse te to uh present on the amendment is it okay if I move thep top up or does this that's fine yes you just make sure when you speak that you speak into the microphone thank you thank you just uh worry about that um it might be wise to take that all together way that way we can see you and it's not In Harm's Way I was gonna say I can't see her face and just uh connected to it run it runs something pandemic based system you put it on no it's all it's all there's shelf down here thank you apolog oh no not at all I certainly didn't want did not want this to fall over good evening everyone thank you for your time today we really appreciate it my name is naven taher uh and I'm the lead petitioner for Warrant Article 19 uh which calls for a ceasefire and Lasting peace in Israel and Palestine I'm an Egyptian American I've been living in Brooklyn for over 14 years now uh I'll share my perspective today as someone with Arab and Muslim ties um and we'll hand it over to one of my co- petitioners to weigh in with her experience as someone with Jewish and Israeli ties sure is this better you may also you you can there are captions up there if you have trouble read if you have trouble hearing there are also captions on the screen yep yeah it's it sounds like I was not in the right position I appreciate it okay thank you please let me know at any point if I shift and can't hear me okay um so why are we calling for a ceasefire um you pull the mic right in front of your mouth yeah I mean I know comfortably in front of you all right sorry we'll keep trying all right we've all witness we have that problem too so don't um so uh back to back to why everybody is here today and listening in so why are we calling for ceasefire we've all witnessed unbearable suffering these past five months Israelis and Palestinians have both experienced their worst tragedies in recent history the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7th and the subsequent Israeli response have been brutal and civilians have paid the highest toll we lost 1,200 people on October 7th and since then 1,00 people killed is becoming just another Tuesday for everybody let that sit with us all for a second every week in Gaza 30,000 human beings have been killed since and Counting including over 13,000 children and for perspective that's almost double the number of kids we have in the Brooklyn Public School System combined in addition to bombing gaza's entire population of about 2.2 and a half two 2.2 million half of whom are under the age of 20 are all now now facing starvation one of the crest ways to die so imagine your family starving to death because of something that's man-made a man-made disaster if nothing else we need to acknowledge that this horror is real and I think we can all agree that killing and Starving Children is simply unacceptable five months of War have resulted in no return of the hostages except through diplomatic channels when there was a brief pause in the fighting uh a several months ago and we need a new way forward a first step to resolving the current conflict is through a permanent ceasefire return of all the hostages a massive Aid to staunch the current starvation of children and their families it's a necessary beginning and we as citizens of a country with great influence and investment have a responsibility to help move that forward if adopted Brookline will join a growing list of communities worldwide calling for a ceasefire recent polls are showing that over 60% of Americans and up to 80% of registered Democrats are supporting a ceasefire and neighboring towns have already passed uh such resolutions Cambridge Medford and as of last night Melrose these resolutions collectively raise our concern to our federal Representatives especially during an election cycle so what does this mean for us in Brookline though and as we sit here tonight let's reflect on our privilege um we have homes we have food we have safety um and you you know as the select board members have already asked you know why why does this conflict 5,000 Miles Away really affect me or Brookline um and why you know why should we why should we consider it at this point in this setting um I'm here to say it does unfortunately adopting this as a town helps us confront hatred in our own community be it anti-Semitism anti-arab islamophobia and other terrible trends that we're already seeing I'll share some of the incidents of hate directed of members of the Arab and Muslim Community and even backlash against any supporters of that Community within Brookline there are already examples in our schools child being called a terrorist in the lunch line um a teammate on you know on a uh on a sports team saying uh we should stomp on the Palestinian flag and raise the Israeli flag not to mention at least two incidents where the police in town have been called to remove anti-palestinian graffiti on our local in our local parks and uh the vandalizing of a house raising the Palestinian flag this is all in Brooklyn this doesn't even touch on the dangerous incidents recorded around the US so far whether it's a seven-year-old getting stabbed by his own landlord in Illinois or three Arab college kids getting shot in Vermont one of them is paralyzed by the way I'm sure people have seen that in the news Brown student these these um incidents are a real danger and we're navigating uh that we're navigating every day and Warren Article 19 aims to address this in our community so we call for a stance against all kinds of discrimin discriminat and hateful behaviors towards any individual and any group some of the criticism that we've heard already um of the resolution is that it's divisive uh I argue that we're already seeing the division in our community and that's why we wanted to bring it forward to summarize the world is reeling from October 7th and its aftermath Gaza is on the brink of famine with over 70% of the infrastructure damaged or completely destroyed we're seeing a lack of dialogue and empathy Even in our Community it's bordering on dangerous and it certainly stands against our Collective values so on the global front violence begets violence and this 75 plus year cycle has not yielded peace for Israelis or Palestinians and a ceasefire is needed for a better path forward to Stop The Killing return the hostages prevent Mass starvation and help start a lasting peace process and locally for us our resolution challenges our community to combat all forms of hatred and start dialogue and accept which is not happening right now Brookline is a wonderful and diverse place I think everybody here today can attest to that so let's show our kids and our community um and our government that we stand with Humanity even when it's uncomfortable um let's stand for what's right and do better I'll hand it over to Beth thank you very much good evening I'm Beth Miller is this working yes thank you all right and I have been a resident of Brookline for the past 30 years wow thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight I bring to this conversation my respect for you all for our community and I also bring my Jewish perspective I felt fear and anguish on October 7th for my relatives and my friends in Israel and even for myself and I'm guess other attending this meeting did as well I know that many Jewish people felt hurt and even shocked by the lack of support they experienced in the days after October 7th and this feeling of Abandonment is especially powerful since it echoes Millennia of anti-Semitism Exile and intergenerational Trauma look I'm a little nervous tonight I haven't spoken before the select board before and I know that this is a topic that clearly already has and can evoke strong reactions but I think we need to look to our hearts and find the courage to support Warren Article 19 it will take courage for me to stand here as not and for you to vote for it is nothing compared to the courage that it's taking today for Palestinian and Jewish Israelis for Muslims and other Israelis and Jews who are facing risks to their livelihoods and their lives to create a peaceful secure future in the Middle East and they're asking for our help I'm anguished as I'm sure many of you are at the loss of precious Jewish and Palestinian life in Gaza children are dying the slow painful death of starvation towns the size of Brookline are reduced to Rubble mothers are burying their children and children are burying in their mothers hostage families are Waiting in Vain for their loved ones to return home like me like my 92-year-old mother you may be feeling helpless and overwhelmed at times what makes it even harder is knowing that our tax dollars are making this possible but the good news is there's something we can do we can raise our voices as a community we can live into the values that my children learned kindergarten through High School in the brook line public schools in the Brookline peace Coalition were a diverse community members of this community and we believe that this resolution is an opportunity to heal our divisions to have the important conversations but most importantly to let everyone in our community know that they belong and that when some of us are hard hurting we care for each other why should we be focusing on this issue well I know town meeting in the past has addressed other behind Beyond Brookline issu like Trump and Cuba but perhaps even more importantly as I think you're all aware many of us have direct connections to these issues and to folks who are in the Middle East and some bad things are happening in this community as you heard from navine I want to take my last minute to speak to the idea that criticism of Israeli policy is tont to anti-Semitism criticisms of Israel can be and sometimes are tainted by anti-Semitism but they are not the same thing you have 30 seconds okay I'm gonna cut this a bit I think of anti-Semitism as something that rises to the surface whenever the condition allow and it was Rising starting in 2016 and even exponentially by 2018 and the terrorism that was happening by Americans to American Jewish people was due to a growing Christian nationalist movement which was not only anti-semitic but sees itself often as Zionist and supporter of Israel they are not the same thing let's show the courage to stand up as a Community to heal our divisions and to show that we care about all our children I know that some of you have already made up your mind but I will ask you to listen tonight and to consider favorable action on warrant Article 19 thank you thank you uh next we we'll hear from um Scott Scott Gladstone and or Michael burin who have proposed an amendment to war Article 19 Michael's chairing the uh Library trustee meeting so uh he sends his regrets uh starting and and by the way like I said you have five minutes yeah okay thanks all right um thanks Scott Gladstone to meeting member of Precinct 16 thank you Paul for your remarks uh you've already seen you will see from the comments that follow that this is stirring passions in town as someone who follows us closely I can tell you that since October 7th passions have been stirring and not in a positive way in the schools between and among students staff and faculty administrators continue to try to figure out how best to change the atmosphere for the better that they are struggling the original resolution under article 19 is not going to help that it is not going to bring people together that will be on full display tonight and has been on full display in the emails you've been getting at least the ones that I've seen Town meting members don't want to be put in a position of having to say no to a ceasefire resolution but this resolution resolution misses the Mark is not balanced and contains conclusory unsupported statements while Al also suffering from glaring omissions I don't want to spend time going through what is unfair wrong and divisive in the resolution language there is suffering all over Gaza and all over Israel people want to do something I get that I want to do something to alleviate the suffering I also don't want to increase the suffering going on in our diverse Community Michael bery and I have presented you with another way forward the proposed amendment changes the tone of the conversation it will change the tone of the hearings and of the discussion at town meeting given the suffering town meeting members will given the suffering to me members will want to say yes to something the Gladstone bursting Amendment threads the needle it is a positive and hopeful statement that people from all segments of the town can rally behind as I will expect you will see tonight and have already seen in the emails I am calling on the select board to vote no on the petitioner's resolution and yes to the Gladstone Burstein replacement motion which I will point out has already been ruled in scope by the moderator now just stoping my timer um I don't need all five minutes but I'm going to say a couple of things um Off Script the first thing is um that if this resolution is not moved the Amendments go away if for whatever reason procedurally that's not correct we will not move this this amendment second thing I want to say is that the format of town meeting um will not allow for a discussion that can in real time address any misinformation respectfully it is easy for those without skin in the game to see this as a mere intellectual exercise it is not it is damaging this is not the way to address hate in our community I did hear what the earlier petitioner was saying someone who I would consider my sister in that regard about all the instances of hate that the araban Palestinian Community are experiencing there are there is a list like that against the Jewish and Israeli Community today it's happening not just in their schools it's happening with vandalizing of signs it's happening with harassing talk this discussion for town meeting is not going to be the way out of that the way out of that I would suggest is a positive reaffirming uniting amendment that I think resets the tone and I hope you agree thank you oh well all right so actually if I have another 30 seconds I'll read the amendment um it says a resolution asking Brookline tell me to support a lasting peace be it resolved that the town of Brookline supports the Biden admin Administration in its efforts to seek a peaceful resolution to the war in Gaza and secure a lasting peace and be a further resolve that town of Brooklyn calls upon the Massachusetts Federal delegation to act in accordance with this resolution that's it thank you thank you Scott okay so we're going to you have something to say oh I'm sorry tell you said something um okay we're gonna open up the uh hearing um Charlie everyone gets 20 seconds two minutes I'm sorry two two minutes for uh we discussed I think you earlier a total of minutes apparently it is a Freudian slip I think it was two minutes per person for up to 90 minutes right I'm sorry say it again I think we discussed two minutes per person for up to an hour and a half right correct okay so um at the moment we have a number of people signed up um I just want to be clear that it may be uh there may be some um you know difficulties getting people in and out we're going to do the best we can uh if your name is called and you're missed we will try to get back to you but hopefully if you signed up you are here and available uh the first person signed up to speak Charlie before you go um or before you continue um unfortunately we are not going to be able to have one side and and the other alternating um through the night so um all I ask of you is you know listen uh and um let's try to make this as as uh useful as possible okay the first person signed up for public comment is Harold fany um Harold are you in are you in person at this point is Harold in person I'm not seeing Harold online on Deck are Jonathan Abbott sheir Fischer and eyet Schultz hello Harold sansky town meeting member from Precinct nine can everybody hear me now that's good okay Harold samansky uh town meeting member from Precinct 9 I'm gonna start off by telling you a little bit about the Thanksgiving dinner in my house can everyone hear me no yes talk directly into the mic how's this yeah okay so I'm here to tell you about Thanksgiving dinner in my home if you go into my home on Thanksgiving day you'll see my niece wearing a cafea my uncle wearing a manga hat if you look around you'll see my transgender cousin talking to my very religious fundamentalist brother in that moment we will all head to the table and there's one singular moment one moment in time when we all have to decide are we going to have a great Thanksgiving dinner or are the floodgates going to open doesn't turn into a food fight it is suddenly a situation where no holds bar grab the women and children because look out and what we do as a family we say listen there are some things more important than political positions there is the safety of the home how people feel how people act in that moment and from that perspective we stop and we start thinking about those things that we can have impact on that are important things like did someone pick up Nana hopefully the answer is yes did someone bring the dessert did someone do what had to they had to do in order to make this a pleasant day so now when I think about what's happening tonight what's I'm happening with town meeting uh with Warren article with resolution 19 I think to myself is this what we need now is this something that has to be done now is it something that has to be done in our community I say this in the context can everyone hear me you have 30 seconds sorry I say this in the context of a 600 page budget that we all have to read I'm up to page two I say this in the context of looking at fire engine number three to see if it needs to be uh upgraded for $350,000 I say I will do that I see it also in terms two minutes have expired please conclude okay everyone I think it's a wrong time to do this I think it'll tear our community apart instead let's focus on the things thank you we have I'm sorry we have 46 people we need to stop we when we stop you thank you uh thank you support uh either no action thank you I'm really sorry we are gonna we're gonna cut we're gonna be we we have to keep people to time thank you the next person signed up for public comment is Jonathan Abbott on Deck Shir fiser and iset Schultz how's this can everyone hear me yep uh thank you um my name is Jonathan Abbott I live on Garder Road uh and I'm at Precinct 12 Town meeting member uh first off I commiserate uh when I voted for each of you I didn't research your foreign policy positions and when I was reelected last year I'm certain no one considered mine foreign policy is not why we're here we were elected to operate a town so a good question to consider now is how do we keep Brook Lin's government focused on its purpose tonight I invite the five of you and all other town meeting members uh to join me in a new caucus the Brookline domestic caucus members of the domestic caucus will to vote no on any town meeting resolution primarily related to US foreign policy regardless of the topic if we build a large enough group prepared in advance to oppose these resolutions it's my hope that future petitioners however well-meaning will choose to direct their efforts elsewhere and allow town meeting to spend its time on a balanced budget and effective bylaws to pledge your support you can visit Brooklin domestic.cat in the last 12 months town meeting is not equipped to consider any of them nor should it cherry-pick any one of them I ask that you support the Gladstone bursting Amendment and that you recommend no action on Warren Article 19 in any form thank you okay the next person signed up for public comment is Shira fiser Shira is on with us online I'm going to be promoting Shir um very shortly oh somebody already get her on Decker eyet Schultz and RL Sofer soer sorry promoting Shir now Shir you've been promoted to a panelist you may unmute and share your video and your two minutes will begin thank you very much everyone thank you to the select board um I'm Shar Fisher town meeting member from Precinct 11 I am very personally connected to this issue with family and friends directly affected and I agree with much of what is written in this proposed resolution and much of what my colleague navine beautifully said but I strongly feel that meetings should not be weighing in on foreign policy especially especially not on this topic there are many ways to make our voices heard I encourage people to write public and private letters call their Senators donate volunteer protest but I don't think having this debate and vote within our town government will be productive this non-binding resolution is divisive takes our time and has no actual impact um Town meetings should maybe not even engage in any non-binding resolutions they take time and don't do much I regret that we've done them in the past there's also something curious that this is the only foreign issue that town meeting wants to weigh in on it's not like town meeting regularly speaks out about foreign policy I don't think we should start now or single out this conflict we worked hard to find a way not to discuss this in the fall because many thought this was the wrong thing to do it still is and is even more so because we didn't weigh and then these proclamations have Zero Effect globally and just create immense local harm I say to John and Bernard specifically town meeting is not a place for Community discussion it's for local legislation if you love this community you should consider what this will do passing this resolution creates public Strife while actually inhibiting the very important local dialogue that is going on in other places and if we can't get this off the table let's pass the Gladstone bursting amendment to express concern for the situation while minimizing the harm from the debate thank you very much the next person signed up for public comment is AA Schultz um I don't see Aya online are they in the oh actually I do I'm sorry um oh please stop raising and lowering your hand AA I can't I can't get to you um when you do that thank you um promoting you to a panelist now on Deck is Ariel cyer hea Schultz you've been promoted to a panelist you can unmute and share your video and your two minutes will begin okay okay start my two minutes I'm aite I'm Brookline resident for 19 years and I'm against the ceasefire warrant for three reasons one I want peace and health for non-combatants in Gaza calling for a ceasefire while leaving Kamas in power will make life worse for the people in Gaza Kamas breaks every ceasefire and attacks Israel and then hides behind non-combatants using them as human Shields Hamas deals their AIDS their aid diverts resources to its ter Terror channels and murders lgbtq if you want peace and health for non-combatants in Gaza the worst thing you can do is call for ceasefire that leaves Kamas in power two calling for a ceasefire while leaving Kamas in power will enable them to continue their attempts to annihilate the Jewish people as called for in their Charter it will enable them to make good on their promise to repeat the atrocities of October 7th over and over and it Le 134 hostages in captivity subject to horrible physical sexual and psychological torture three calling for a ceasefire while leaving Kamas in power will embolden terrorists right here have we forgotten 911 and the Marathon bombing even if you are not even if you are under the delusion that you personally are safe from terrorism here the Jews are not I myself have been subject to anti-semitic words and shouts more times than I can remember since October 7th including right in coolage corner twice this ceasefire resolution will breed anti-Semitism the Red Pins at the Oscars symbolize a call for ceasefire very similar to this resolution the red hand symbolizes the bloody hands of terrorists who lynched to Israel men in this image it they may the agenda with the red background but make no mistake a red pin is an endorsement of lynching Jews don't be fooled by the disguised agenda in this warrant article either it may be hard to see what you are supporting but a vote for this warrant article is an endorsement of anti-Semitism and supports the Hamas terrorist agenda thank you the next person signed up for public comment is Ariel soyer uh Ariel are you in person i' not seen you online if you are in person you can approach the presentation yes thank you my name is Ariel soyer and I'm a town meeting member from Precinct 2 this evening I'm here to speak against Article 19 this article is a wolf and sheep's clothing but that clothing is wearing thin unlike the clothing of the women and girls that were sexually assaulted by the terrorist group Hamas which was forcibly removed by Hamas as part of its terrorist campaign that also resulted in the murder of over 12200 people in just that one sentence I mentioned three ways that this article is a wolf in sheep's clothing first this article ignores the systematic campaign of sexual violence that among others was acknowledged by the United Nations second this article refers to Hamas as a militant group while the Department of State has designated Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization since 1997 third this article refers to killing instead of murder suggesting that innocent partygoers at the Nova festival or farmers at a kibuts were Justified targets but that's not all this article like a wolf and sheep's clothing dresses itself in a bare semblance of neutrality that reveals itself to be a wolf when examed in the most cursory manner of the preambulatory Clauses one mentions the terrorist attack that precipitated the current situation five clearly are indictments of Israel and two might be to be conservative coded as neutral similarly the operative Clauses call the cessation of all military acts not terrorist acts like a wolf in sheep's clothing this article leaves a lot hidden both the preambulatory and operative Clauses ignore one the thousands of rockets that were fired by Hamas indiscriminately at civilian targets two the refusal by Hamas to wear Insignia to designate its forces three the refusal by Hamas to locate its facilities separate from any civilian facilities Each of which is a war crime and this is just a small selection of the many war crimes of Hamas and the article ignores gazi ham Infamous statement that Hamas would undertake the terrorist attacks of October 7th again and again and yet this article hides itself behind a thin veil of neutrality the operative Clauses are designed to do so by citing both the immediate return of hostages and cessation of military ex acts as one example you'll note that draws a false equivalence between action that is just the immediate Return of the hostages and a cessation of action that is a consequence of the unjust C capture of those self-same hostages the cessation of military acts ignoring for a moment expired please conclude your comments I encourage you to vote no action the next person signed up for public comment is arnard amzalag um is arnard in person arnard amzalag next up is Stanley khabib and David clafer hello my name is AR amag I am Jewish son of a holoc CO Survivor lived in Brooklyn since 2010 I spent my youth in Progressive Zionist organization Israel was supposed to be the realization of our Liberation and our safety uh on October 7 you heard all the horrors uh my uh head of summer camp has been founded with our granddaughter who is 12 years old um I won't repeat what has been told about the devastation that is going on is in Gaza at the same time my message because there's only two minutes is that the call for an immediate end to this Devastation and and Madness is not on Israel it is not anti-semitic today several Zionist organization are openly calling for a ceasefire through the progressive Israel Network which include Aon which are affiliated with parties that built Israel uh in Israel people are calling for a c fire uh so that cannot be anti-israel or anti-semitic if I was living in Israel today I would not want American support for the Messianic far right government that is leading the Carnage in Gaza a true Ally would see that this government has no legitimacy to lead this war and uh so you would ask why in Brookline we should be concerned with that I'm just asking aren't we already deeply concerned with this our tax dollar are paying for this Carnage and therefore the honor of Brooklyn and the United State is at stake here democracy is at stake too young people who are overwhelmingly in favor of a fire are wondering why it is so difficult to call for just ceas fire release of Hostage and humanitarian Aid you stage will not return without the CE fire and they're looking up to you we are looking up to you our leaders why is there an amendment that erased the word ceasefire of a ceasefire resolution and that erased any mention of the hostages that we are still waiting for bookline can still be on the right side of history I ask you to be in favor of this amendment and ask for an immediate ceasefire thank you very much the next person signed up for public comment is Stanley khabib um Stanley Stanley khabib neck followed by David claer and Marina Rada my name is uh Stanley khabib I've lived in Brooklyn for almost 20 years a voting member in alabon Park Street I um I'm a sodic Jewish background and um I think that's somewhat relevant to the discussion that we're having um when one hears the other me things that are said it forces one to sometimes rethink what they were intending to say from their notes the murder ERS and kidnappers some of whom were of the Hamas group who committed the crime on October 7th should be found and should be punished a country the state of Israel has the right to do selfdefense but what does revenge mean how does one Define Revenge when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are murdered and a daily iseli is being killed every day according to the haret newspaper what is this war then what is being accomplished in this war facing the Brookline committee is a question of do they suggest that the town committee take this up for discussion you have 30 seconds the question is moral a moral question can we as Americans support the use of the American military equipment for this war can we support this enormous humanitarian crisis to continue I believe that a CE fire command would absolutely be a big step in addressing both of those issues and I believe it not because of the practicalities of what it will do our community which I certainly would not like to see bad things happen I do I do have to stop you I apologize I believe there is a moral question sir that's been two minutes I understand but I have to stop thank you the next person signed up for public comment is David cler after that is Marina Rada and Lisa shot sh maybe I don't have David online David is here great I'm David cler Town meet town meeting member Precinct and a 30-year resident of Brookline and also of Jewish Heritage um before I get to my prepared remarks I just want to recall to members of the select board the great pride that Brookline schools take in their Facing History program I think that we have to understand that to discuss and face an issue is not to promote division it's to promote an attempt at Solutions but anyway want first to the proposed amendment it's call for lasting peace with without calling for an immediate ceasefire what are the long-term consequences for the prospects of ever finding peace when you create a population who all have family members who have been killed or wounded most of whom have lost their homes all of whom are experiencing hunger and thirst what do you think will be the mindset of people who have watched their children being deliberately starved their homes bombed and been chased from place to place Hamas as an organization is weak militarily and politically but Hamas as an idea is being cultivated with each falling bomb you have 30 second 30 seconds what yeah God two minutes is as much okay the beginning of reconciliation between the seven million Israeli Jews and the seven million million Palestinians starts with a ceasefire and the start of the Reconstruction of Gaza like to also point out that we can't really look at the conflict is starting on October 7th there are many different starting points we could talk to the about the destruction of the second temple the B declaration the kna but thank you I do have to stop you there we have many more people now I do I have to stop natural respect that is needed for a peace sir I apologize but there are 47 people signed up to speak we must give everyone two minutes of time thank you the next person signed up for public comment is Marina Rada Marina you may approach the presentation station if you're in person and as a reminder you will have two minutes to speak but before she begins I do want to apologize for being harsh here but I want make people sure that you everyone has a chance to speak if for some reason you're not able to conclude your remarks please email them to the select board selectboard brooklinema.gov as all the members said they read those emails and they take them very seriously again I apologize but I want to make sure that we get to everybody thank you for your and let me add that because of the shortness of time make sure you tell us in the beginning what your position is or somehow get that out quickly okay um my name is Marina good evening everyone um my name is Marina I'm mother for who's talking the mic Brook Klein resident and an American citizen respected select board Beloved Community thank you for your time to be honest hearing the statements from some of the respected seel select board members it had completely discouraged me to speak and I dropped my previously written notes this is a quick notes that I wrote right now heartbroken for the lack of understanding the trauma we are experiencing here in this community forget about Gaza but it also reminded me for another of another statement addressed to a different Nation decades ago somehow it came into my mind a speech of a young girl Sophia magdal Magdalene sha a key member of a white rose a resistant group run by students at the University of Munich who distributed lifl lets and used graphity to decry Nazi crimes and the political system and calling for the resistance to the Nazi regime at the age of just 21 on February 22 1943 she was beheaded accused of treason by Nazis he is the courageous and un Unforgettable speech the real damage she said is done by those Millions who want to survive the honest men who just want to be left in peace those who don't want their little lives distributed by Disturbed by anything bigger than themselves those with no sides and no causes those who won't take measures of their own have 30 seconds for Le for for fear of antagonizing their own weakness those who don't like to make waves or enemies Those whom Freedom honor truth and principles are only literature those who live small made Small die small it's a reductionist approach of for life if you keep it small you'll keep it under control if you make any noise the Boogyman won't not not make noise the boogy man won't find you but it's an illusion I'm sorry but your time has expired uh you ask why I do have to stop you there I apologize again you can email the selectboard and follow thank thank you the next person signed up for public comment is Lisa shatz Lisa are you in person Lisa shatz come on up followed by Aviva shindin or shadin okay all right I'll try to speak quickly Lisa shatz town meeting member pnct 11 there was a war in Syria more people were killed in the war in Syria than all the war all the Arabs and Jews in all the wars since 1948 I just heard that where was the resolution where was the resolution to try to protect these innocent civilians of Syria where where was it also there's a war going on in Yemen and many many many innocent civilians are being killed in the war in Yemen that the US the US is funding the US supports Saudi Arabia where is the resolution against against this war there was genocide in darthur did Brookline bring a resolution to bring that to people's attention so we could help the darthians they're um the the the weers the weers in China a million of them they're they're in they're in concentration camps they they are arrested uh many governments have labeled that a a genocide but I don't see I don't see a resolution for that um the the yes IES the yeis that were were targeted by ISIS where's where's the resolution there and what about the Democratic Republic of Congo where over five million people have been killed where was the resolution about that why is it only Israel that gets this resolution the next person signed up for public comment is Aviva shylin uh aiva you may approach presentation station my name is Aviva shadin I live in Brooklyn for 40 years now now and uh I'm a I will say Jewish Israeli American whatever all together and actually I support all the people that speak against this resolution before me they mention a lot of Reason especially all of them actually I support all of them and I don't want to take it too long but I I think that Selectmen in town a town meeting they elected to represent our local interest and and if they'll not not be elected to execute our national policy so I think what what should happened is there is election soon coming so if you really want to discuss this issue but naal our our foreign policy so put it to you when you putting your uh resume or whatever so we'll vote for you put what your view about it so we'll know to vote for you or note but otherwise please concentrate it on local our local business because this what what we voted for for you four okay I'm too excited but okay uh the next person signed up for public comment is urza Klein bam öa you may approach the presentation station and your two minutes will begin oh actually is online I'm gonna go ahead and promote Ezra I'm sorry Ezra the name was dispelled in my in my list of names Ezra you are being promoted to a panelist and uh you not alos and Shana J gain Ezra you've been promoted you may begin to begin to whenever you'd like can you hear me yes all right hi everybody I'll be quick my name is Ezra Klein Bal I'm a junior at Brookline High School and someone with many personal connections to the conflict and I here to strongly encourage you to support the Gladstone Bernstein amendment I just want to say that I really appreciated Mr Green's comment at the beginning of the hearing on this article about this article being being brought with good intentions and about listening to each other with an open mind because I think that is so important we're all neighbors here in Brooklyn we're all part of the same community and we need to get along that being said everybody wants this war to be over as soon as possible everybody war is war is just about the scariest thing like in the world it's terrifying I can't even imagine it um but a resolution passed by Brookline town meeting is not going to make this war end any sooner what it is going to do is tear us apart as a town and as a community um it's not going to make the war end sooner um but given that at this point town meeting is going to have to vote on something I think that the best thing we can do is go for sort of the least divisive option and I think that that is going to be the Gladstone Bernstein Amendment so I really would encourage you to recommend favorable action on the Gladstone Bernstein Amendment thank you the next person signed up for public comment is Natalia lenos um Natalia you may approach the presentation station and your two minutes will begin thank you Natalia alos town meeting member pr66 speaking tonight in support of the resolution um and in my personal capacity as a public health expert as someone who worked for over a decade at the United Nations including in the Middle East and as a mom of three Palestinian children last November there was some discussion about a possible resolution calling first ceasefire I was not involved in drafting that one and I was not involved in drafting this one in fact at the time I encouraged one of the petitioners who I met for the first time tonight in person not to move forward I warned that it could be divisive and hurtful especially to members of our Jewish community and our Israeli Community still grieving the horrific terrorist attacks by Hamas on October 7th last November I also naively believed that this would be a short-lived war in late December a neighbor reached out to see if I could help open dialogue across our Brooklyn Jewish and Muslim communities because my family is not Muslim I declined and also stressed that it would be difficult to find a place of common ground in the midst of war with there when there was so much anguish and destruction that was ongoing I still prayed that the end of war was near and I was hoping that by January we could start rebuilding as a community but here we are 5 months into a war that has killed over 30,000 Palestinians a significant number of those children children we have witnessed a complete collapse of the healthc care system and UNICEF has already said that children are dying of malnutrition starvation does not happen overnight and famine cannot be reversed overnight without an immediate humanitarian ceas for the number of children that will die will escalate exponentially malnourished children malnourished mothers cannot breastfeed their infants mon children cannot survive out of diarrhea my high school friend George pet is leading the UN humanitarian office in Gaza right now Ocha he's a seasoned humanitarian who has worked in Yemen Syria Afghanistan and yet he is saying there is nothing like this we exchanged brief emails and at night I watch clips of him feeding for a ceasefire so he can safely do his job last November I asked petitioners not to submit a resolution today I believe that continuing to remain silent is not only wrong on a global level but also hurtful for our town for our Palestinian Community our Arab Community our Muslim commun who wants us to who want us to take our stance Brooklyn's voice matters some of you know that my family is leaving Brooklyn this summer and when I told my 10-year-old that I'd be returning to the United Nations she told me she was sad to leave Brooklyn but she asked will you be able to help the children of Gaza I don't no I replied the next person signed up for public comment is shaa Jora gorain shaa you may approach the um presentation station and your two minutes will begin the next person after that is Noah liberman thank you um shaa gor a gorfine town meeting member from Precinct 11 um select board members you might remember me as the person who submitted that letter last fall on behalf of over a 100 town meeting members asking you not to schedule a special town meeting so we could avoid public debate on this divisive issue I'm back to say I'm really really tired warrant Article 19 should not be before town meeting full stop I don't see how any of my colleagues in town meeting could possibly explain the relevant issues of the Palestine Israel situation with appropriate context and Nuance in only three minutes I couldn't do it in three minutes I couldn't do it in 30 minutes I couldn't do it in three hours I'm not standing here tonight to pick apart the whereas Clauses of the warrant article quibble with the resolution items with that are written there I believe that the petitioners truly want peace as do I but I also believe that Brookline town meeting or any municipal government body is not the right forum for a debate on this issue such a debate will invite divisiveness animosity and hate speech and such a debate asks us as town meeting members to weigh in publicly on matters about which we simply are not sufficiently well informed since we cannot remove a warrant article once it is on the warrant I ask you to support the next best thing the amendment put forth by my colleagues Scott Gladstone and Michael Burstein which expresses a sincere desire for lasting peace and support for the efforts of informed qualified government officials who we believe are working toward that goal I will not take more of your time as I understand a couple dozen of my neighbors would like to offer their thoughts as well but I urge you to please support the unifying language of the Gladstone bursting Amendment recommend no action on warrant Article 19 and encourage Brookline town meeting as a legislative body to avoid debate on this resolution thank you person signed up for public common is Noah liberman uh Noah you may approach the presentation station and your time will begin um after that we have ariela Helman Who's online this is our 15th speaker I've been asked to give numbers uh hi thank you to the select board meeting um did you speak directly into the mic sorry first time um I'm a part I've been a part of the Brookline Community for more than 10 years and I have kids in the public school Brookline and um to be clear I uh oppose the uh article as its wording uh currently um I don't want to repeat what people have said I think it's not beneficial for our fragile community at the moment I do think it's biased and inaccurate and I won't go into the details I understand we I understand people are hurting we are all hurting I don't want to diminish that hurt I think there's a multitude of views and experiences in our community and we need to be mindful about it and supportive mainly I worry about my kids I see what is happening in campuses with lots of Mis misinformation rhetoric and hatred spread around Even in our school committee meetings Public's um comment which I been attending since October I don't think that these resolutions Foster an environment in our community where people should be able to talk about different and sometimes opposing views and experiences um so this is I'm not going to repeat any more of what people have said and I agree with I think the wording is um at the moment uh I oppose the wording of this article and if there is a need to promote article then I support The gladston Bernstein Amendment thank you the next person signed up for public uh for public comment is ariela ariela Helman um ariela you are you've been promoted to a panelist you may un unmute and share your video and your two minutes will begin I'm sorry I'm sorry next Rabbi omor and uh G Goldstein sorry thank you thank you so much good evening my name is ariela Helman and I'm a Brookline resident and the director of government Affairs for a good of Israel of New England where I work to advance the interests of the Orthodox Jewish community in Brookline and across the state I speak tonight in opposition to Warrant Article 19 calling for a ceasefire resolution this is a foreign policy matter that is outside of town meetings perview and will only increase and embolden anti-Semitism that is already prevalent in our town our schools and the large Community this resolution is also n non-binding and will not meaningfully impact United States foreign policy decisions however as so many of the previous speakers have pointed out this resolution and debate on it does have the ability to do real harm to our local community we have seen in neighboring towns that Municipal resolutions regarding foreign affairs often seow Division and exacerbate feelings of pain and isolation we have also seen an uptick and anti-semitic acts harassment and vandalism in Brooklyn since October 7th and our concern is that renewed public attention and debate on this issue will only exacerbate these issues and fuel additional hateful acts we must as a town look for opportunities for constructive dialogue that draw community members close and offer support to all those who have been impacted instead of investing in symbolic gestures that will inadvertently create increased risk and harm to members of our community I ask the select board to recommend no action on this warrant article thank you so much for your time and your consideration the next person sign up for public comment is Rabbi meny umer after that we have galik Goldstein and AKA Li Rabbi meny uina are you here umina I don't see anyone in the room okay um I am just checking there you are perfect thank you for raising oh hold on just a moment um promoting Rabbi now the rabbi now TR again um please accept the the uh request to be promoted thank you you've been promoted to a panelist May unmute and share your video and your two minutes will begin hi my name is Rabbi mumer and I have been a resident at Brookline for the past 23 years and a rabbi at congregation kab Chestnut Hill I agree with many of my colleagues here of course that Brookline and a local place is not the place for foreign policy but I think there's more to speak about here in a time when the latest FBI statistics have said that more than 50% of religious hate crimes have been amongst Jews that was before October 7th since October 7th there has been a 400% increase three miles away from Brookline in Brighton Center a rabbi was stab I as a rabbi walking in Brooklyn have been called hail Hitler to me more than one time with my little children in toe staying behind me never has there been a resolution to take up the anti-Semitism and tlm and here we are giving credence to a resolution that's not just not the place in Brookline but it's one-sided a resolution that speaks about ambulances being bombed in schools while it doesn't speak about the fact that these schools were housing Rockets a resolution that has nine we're Aid when seven of them are against the Jewish people and against Israel my daughter is in Israel she had to be in a bomb shelter for two days and her Seminary has not been returned to its place while hundreds of thousands of Jews have did not be able to go back home for Brookline to think of such a resolution is hurtful to the Jewish people and only underlines and escalates anti-Semitism and as Jews we won't won't be quiet once said better a bad press than a good eulogy have 30 seconds we will stand up for oursel we will stand up proudly for Israel the president of the United States has said that Israel has the right to defend itself and if Israel has the right to defend itself it will and for Brookline a place with thousands of Jews living to think to contemplate the resolution that's so biased and so onesided is shameful to all the people and I say we shouldn't take up any resolution neither this one nor the other one we should vote no your time has expired bigotry and to anti-Semitism thank you I appreciate your comment we must move on thank you next person signed up for public comment is git gold git I'm going to send you a request to rejoin as a panelist el Goldstein AA liebertz Sharon Jacobs you have been promoted to a panelist and you're uh you may unmute and share your video and your 3 minutes to begin hi my name is galit um my family is from Israel my mother's from Israel my grandmother's from Israel my great-grandmother's from Israel um I speak very much in support of the ceasefire uh resolution town hall is the right format for this debate Town Halls have been called the cells of democracy towns in Massachusetts and the United states have a very long history of making statements on Foreign Affairs it is not true to say that town halls do not speak on Foreign Affairs this is a recognized and important way for American citizens to engage with foreign affairs as a Jew I will say it discriminates against Arabs and Palestinians to single them out and say that it is divisive to speak about the issues that impact them I feel horrible that misinformation is spread in this meeting in the name of Jewish people that is hurtful to Palestinian people it is right for the people of Brooklyn to speak on this issue when their tax dollars are paying for Israeli weapons these proclamations are a vital way to support Israelis who would face punishment and Community retaliation in Israel for their views I will not Center my comfort as a Jew or for a distaste of division over the safety of Palestinians I strongly disagree that a call for ceasefire puts Jews at risk I urge Brookline not to hide behind Civility and avoiding division instead of doing the right thing those who speak against ceasefire don't represent all Jews those who say this resolution is divisive don't speak for all Jews or all Israelis what is divisive is calling for positivity when Gaza faces more civilian casualties than anywhere in 124 years what is divisive is playing the game of whataboutism when being asked to look at civilian death in Gaza what is divisive is bombing an area the size of Houston at a rate of bombing comparable to how La was bombed in the Vietnam War AKA the area of most bombs ever I am very proud to stand with those who brought forward this resolution in favor of ceasefire thank you the next person signed up for public comment is AKA libowitz uh AKA I'm promoting you now um after that we have Sharon Jacobson and Deborah yanowski AA if you are there please accept your request so like many others here as Israeli American I have dear friends and close family who were affected directly by by the October 7th Massacre as well as colleagues and friends who are under incessant attack in Gaza and environs since the clear and simple language of humanism and dignity on Warr 19 speaks for itself however I'd like to take the opportunity to provide a name a face a soul to these abstract numbers and politics we are talking about today earlier this week injured brothers anas age 15 and Asser age five arrived in Boston for medical care a bombing in Gaza in January caused both boys to sustain severe burns and Asser lost his leg that day the brothers lost their parents two brothers and one sister they have finally been able to be evacuated to B and children's hospital with the help of gracious organizations and people and they are now here receiving care accompanied by their only remaining next of kin their grandmother I'm quite sure that not one person in this room believes anas Asser and their family deserve any of this yet these tragedies are being perpetrated in our name daily multiple times a day 35,000 Palestinian casual known by now a third of them in innocent children all with our taxpayer money and our governmental support in a normal World none of this debate would be needed what is more natural than to call to the end of indiscriminate killing and innocent of innocent civilians what is more legitimate than to call our governments to condition Military Support with upholding human values and adhering to international law this is the bare minimum we can do calling out for the sensation of horrific attacks on the civilians of Gaza does not take one inch away from the mourning and pain of 1200 Israelis massacred by Hamas on October 7th ceasefire is not contradictory to a call for the release of hostages our hearts have space and compassion for all human life the petitioners of the amendment you have 30 see these simple the petitioners of amendment see these simple truths as divisable if that is the case let it be but then take a moment to introspective the values you cherish and decide whether the false sense of unity which may be suggested by the amendment yet nullifies the cont content of the original warrant should that take priority the this diverse group of Jews Muslims Christians people of other faiths agnostics people of of Israeli Palestinian American Heritage proposing warrant 19 are suggesting a different way forward your time has exped if not now thank you thank you next person signed up for public comment is Sharon Jacobson Sharon you may approach the um Podium and your two minutes to begin Sharon Jacobson I'm not seeing Sharon on Zoom you're on Zoom please use the hand raise feature on Deck are Deborah yanowski and M Schuman Sharon Jacobson will be our 20th speaker not seeing Sharon Jacobson will pass we'll try and return Deborah yanowski you're online please use the hand raised feature so that Charlie can promote you I have not seen Deborah online yet we will return to these we'll return to these two individuals uh Mel Schuman followed by Matt botin good evening my name is Mel Schuman I'm from precinct 1 tragically thousands of innocent people including children have died in this conflict we've heard people talk about it it's devastating it's heartbreaking however the proposed resolution does nothing to help instead it is a divisive resolution which will only serve to further divide an already divided Community moreover it mistat and distorts facts and draws incorrect legal conclusions among other things it uncritically accepts the casualty numbers of amas a terror organization which in any event does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths in its reporting it falsely accuses Israel of shutting off utilities and humanitarian Aid in Gaza and it draws the incorrect legal conclusion that Israel is engaged in Collective punishment which under international law requires the specific intent to punish civilian populations collectively the intent to do so which is contrary to the Great Lengths Israel is taking to try to minimize civilian casualties in a dense Urban environment in which Hamas deliberately exposes civilians to danger in any event it is totally inappropriate for town meeting to make any such judgment when it has neither the factual background nor legal expertise to do so the call for an immediate ceasefire is also misplaced for many reasons I'll focus on one I'm wearing this Le necklace tonight which says bring them home referring to the hostages being held in God for 157 days now by Hamas which cynically exploits the hostages and the well-being of its own citizens to extract more and greater concessions what country or people would ever cease fire while its citizens continue to be held by a genocidal regime dedicated to its destruction which just perpetrated a heinous vulgar attack on its citizens and which it vows to repeat over and over again it is unconscionable time has expired to call for thank you sir I appreciate it was my 30 second warning thank you that's that two that's two minutes thank you the next person signed up for public common is Matt boutin Matt um you may approach the presentation station um after that we have Ruby kov and Sharon mishkin Matt botin seeing none uh we'll Skip and try and come back at the end uh Ruby KOB uh you are next up I'm here in person thank you all right uh dear members of the select board thank you for listening to the comments today I'm urging the select board to strike warrant Article 19 first off as a local municipality I think we should not Venture into International Affairs especially on topics so divisive since this will feel more animosity and greater conflict within our community with the sole exception of the word terrorist and describing the massacre that H Hamas perpetrated on October 7th literally every part of the warant article is essentially Hamas propaganda from the casualty figures supplied by Hamas to the claim that Israel cut access to drinking water for suggesting that Israel's targeting schools and hospitals only to inflict damage on uh innocent Palestinians the war article reads as if it was written by Hamas but it was was not and parts of the Warren article weren't even written in Brooklyn or Massachusetts when you Google for various parts of the Warren article you'll find they were literally copied and pasted from other resolutions like the part on Collective punishment which was lifted word for word from the ceasefire resolution in Richmond California from October 24th the effort to pass these fire resolutions in various municipalities is not an idea that originated Brookline the Council on American Islamic relations or care has organized a calibrated and strategic campaign in local municipalities to demand a ceasefire in Gaza with toolkits and playbooks which are I think used by some people in this room the ceasefire activists are not advocating for humanitarian crisis anywhere in the world why did that not you have for darur or Haiti why now and why only when Israel is involved I've read the amendment that was drafted by Scott Gladstone and Michael Burstein and I support it as it is neutral represent the views of the majority of Brooklyn residents and is not something that can be leveraged politically by organizations and actors outside of Brooklyn thank you very much the next person signed up for public comment is Sarah Sharon Sharon mishkin I apologize Sharon you may approach the podium and your two minutes will begin Sharon mishkin I'm not seeing Sharon on Zoom they could use the hand raise feature to let us know they're here but I'm not seeing them all right we'll return to Sharon David Eisenberg David is on Zoom I'm promoting David now David has not yet accepted the offer to speak um we could Skip and come back to David that they would like to um sorry I'm sorry David is rejoining as a panelist now okay following David is Fana shanovich and Susie Davidson David you've been promoted to a panelist um you may unmute and share your video and your two minutes will begin okay thank you um I'm opposed to the uh article as the warrant article as proposed and the glassstone amendment proof that this effort is misplaced and is unnecessary is obvious from the tension that it has brought to our town in addition it will have no impact on our foreign policy nor will it have any impact on Israel's necessity to remove the Hamas terrorist organized uh organization it will not have any impact on Hamas which has declared its intention to repeat the events of October 7th at its earliest possibility regardless Hamas has already rejected a a the US and Israel proposal for a ceasefire so clearly the resolution will be useless in its place our town should adopt a warrant that calls for Town business to be the subject of town meetings this warrant proposal on its face is so very dishonest for its push to stop Israel's progress removing hamas's oppression of the residents of Gaza but I'm also opposed to the Gladstone Bernstein compromise which is a watered down effort to say something that was offered up clearly to remove the divisive proposal of the original warrant it both divert Town attention as is evidenced by the meeting tonight uh taking up valuable time while the Gladstone compromise is a reactive effort to tap down tensions the wisest course is to remove the topic Al together you have 30 seconds I'll conclude with a few facts uh permit me to add some facts the Pres the Press jumped the reports of 500 deaths at a hospital due to Israel it turned out to be approximately 50 deaths due to a a misfired rocket from the Palestine Islamic Jihad that was meant for Israeli citizens another report of 100 deaths while food was being delivered for which Israel was instantly blamed turned out to be to to civilian Stampede I'm confident that the 30,000 number of your time has expired thank you very much for your time next person signed up for shank thank you Sedana uh Sedana you've been promoted to panelist you may unmute and share your video and your minutes will begin what think the sound is good can you mute Mr Eisenberg please all right thank you okay I'm there okay I will start with um the statement that I request uh uh board members to reject this resolution I am categorically against it and uh for two reasons uh the first reason was mentioned many time it's very divisive it doesn't lead anywhere except for continuing animosity between um opponents the second reason is that all if anybody read it the majority of the facts written in the resolution are false they are false because it's not there is no Collective punishment it is a war it's a military operation the war which was started by Hamas and which is continuing by being continued by Hamas as well there is not a single day in Israel without strike from Gaza without stabbing civilians so if Hamas wanted to end this war they would lay down arms and give out hostages they don't want CE fire they don't want the the end of the war so call on Israel for unilateral cfire is completely meaningless it cannot be done because every day Israel is protecting its civilians and also if we are so keen on political issues why not to issue resolution about hisbah um who is um firing Rockets every day from from Syria and may maybe maybe people don't know but 300,000 Israelis were dislocated because of rockets from Gaza and from Syria and leevan so I'm against this resolution and I ask um all members to give no action to it the next person signed up for public comment is Susie Davidson Susie uh you're in person you may approach the podium and your two minutes will begin Susie Davidson hi I'm a 24e Brookline homeowner and I was a columnist for the Brookline tab I am an observant Jew I was very actively pro-israel for many years but my conscience bothers me some select board members and some speakers have asked shouldn't we be isolationist and stick to local issues and what good does it do for Brooklyn to call for a ceasefire the Jewish text B a vote ethics of our fathers States you are not required to finish the work yet neither are you per committed to desist from it you have to try yes we can't solve this but we can take a stand I remember the church bells ringing in 2003 in Brooklyn when the invasion of Iraq began and the resolution against it that past um I was with a friend from Ireland who was so impressed it does matter what we do I was in the room in 2017 when the resolution supporting impeaching Trump passed Brooklyn took a B Brookline just became the first in the world to ban tobacco sales for those born in our in this century and so no we can't pass resolutions against every war but like other towns have done we can take stands on the issues that do resonate highly the rampant settler violence I have not heard mentioned the 1200 killed tragically on October 7 versus 30 000 is a fact and I can't ignore that I wish to remind those who are for continuing this war that Hamas is intact there is no military solution to this and there is no moral solution I have never encountered anti-Semitism and I wear a big Jewish star it is not anti-Semitism it is criticism of the policies of the present Israeli government and islamophobia is just as rampant your time has exped those who are hurt and worried about anger I do have to stop you there thank you okay the next person signed up for public comment is Sheila Bon uh Sheila I have sent you an uh invite to speak unless here in person Sheila Baron I I I sent her an invite over decline the offer to speak is is Sheil in person Sheila Baron oh there we go Sheila is now rejoining as a panelist um Sheila you you've been promoted you may unmute and share your video if you feel comfortable and your two minutes will begin um I am muted I can hear you I'm I share my video I'm not sure how here that's okay uh you don't have to if you'd like to speak start video okay there you go okay 305,000 Muslims were killed in Muslim countries from two 2019 2017 to 22 yet the world remains silent yet now people are horrified with a gazin far fewer 30,000 deaths perhaps onethird of them active Fighters why the rage now but not then Israel is a tiny Nation only 10,000 square miles in the middle of 5 million square miles in the Middle East but Israel one of the few countries in the world legally given its land by the UN lives with attacks from the Palestinians October 7th was one but all seven wars and attacks between the two were begun by Palestinians for those who demand a ceasefire now actually there was a ceasefire after 2014 but tens of thousands of missiles have been fired at Israel since then um October and as was the invasion in October 7th was a break of the ceasefire did that stop anything so how can Israel trust any ceasefire now anyone um and why would anyone expect them to yes it's horrific to see the gazin dying from bombs but gazin government started this war did they just expect Israel to fight back a day or two then roll over and the possible starvation the ongoing starvation we must look at Hamas for that for they are absconding with the food hiding inside trucks and forcing Israel to examine every truck Israel has other things to do but somebody but something that seems to be always missed Gaza must have the best bomb shelters in the world deep and often concrete tunnels so why haven't they used them easily 80% or more deaths could have been avoided to save their babies why hadn't their parents rushed them into the tunnels and why do they in the world expect Israel to protect Palestinians from the bombs their own government invited in I encourage the rejection of any possible resolution I just don't see Hamas and Gaza understanding what a um seesar is thank you next person signed up for public comment is Alice bresman Alice um is on Zoom I'm promoting them now this is our 26th speaker next is Irene uh bazari filled by Israel shade Alice you have been promoted you may begin thank you I'm Alice prman and my husband and I have been residents of Brooklyn for 42 years I have been PTA presidents and very involved in the community in the past my husband and I are opposed to Warrant Article 19 and ask that no action be taken as it is it is very divisive misleading inacurate problematic and one-sided in its biest against Israel the the fastest way to end the war would be for hamus to return the hostages and end its brutal control over the innocent civilian population of Gaza and we are all concerned about starving children and perhaps if humus stopped stealing Aid more of those children would be fed humus recently rejected a proposal of halting the war and after also breaking off the November pause what makes you think a ceasefire would work now humus needs to allow the Red Cross to interview and care for the October 7th hostages hummus brutally took have 30 seconds not move the article forward thank you for your time and consideration the next person signed up for public comment is Arena bazari uh Arena if you are in the room you may approach the podium and you two minutes will begin hi um my name is aan bazari I have lived in Brooklyn for 44 years I am against this resolution and it brought to mind a historical analogy in 1944 American and British Air Forces conducted a carpet bombing of German cities they turned lots of cities into rubble and lots of lots of innocent or more or less innocent civilians were killed however I can't imagine any municipality in the United States at that time considering a resolution for CIS fire with Germany because everybody knew that the only way to finish that war was complete and unconditional surrender of the Nazis I think that today's Hamas is another transformation of the Nazi idea they are the con contemporary Nazis and I think the only resolution I would have supported is is the resolution to call for complete and unconditional surren gender of Hamas next person signed up for public comment is Israel shaked Israel if you're in person you may approach the podium can you hear me yes okay good evening I'd like to say a few words there that's all confusing first I against any resolution and the reason is very simple I I'm all for ceasefire for all this wonderful things but forcing Israel to a ceasefire without any permanent solution to the terror of the Hamas will be really very silly imagine that we have 60,000 people killed in El Paso by some people that jump over the over the fence and we say wait wait let's let's don't do anything about it Israel is now attacked from the north inala by theim by the Hamas from all sides they take care on the Hamas they sh take care because if you ever read online the charter of the Hamas the very first line is destroying Israel unconditionally this is the first line that you will see online reading the Kash Charter why do you want more than that and the 30,000 people who died I feel bad about that but the numbers are as credible as published by about Russia in the Pravda okay this is by the Hamas this is reported by the Hamas just be aware of that so I'm not really happy about any of that but there is no way we can force Israel and not in this town I live here for 40 years all my kids grew up here and my wife and I were running in Tel Aviv just few weeks ago running away when Rockets with a five grand Sons next to us with rockets above our heads is it Pleasant no do I want it to stop Yes you cannot force Israel would be a big time mistake to do it definitely not Brookline we are not the state department that's the reason we go in November to vote and put some people in Washington we are not going to say to Israel do it because remember that this is something 70% of the people in Gaza elected Hamas so they are supported by the people the people there I don't say they should be killed in any way but they're not innocent they got Palestinian Authority I do have to stop you there thank you oh okay fine the next person signed up for public comment is Sean Sho Chango you're being promoted to a panelist this is our 29th speaker I will flag that 90 minutes is at 10:15 so we have just under 20 minutes remaining in the allotted time I'm a longtime brookln resident and a graduate of the Brooklyn Public Schools I wanted to speak in support of Warren Article 19 for ceasefire and against the amendment that proposes to remove the ceasefire part of the ceas fire resolution and completely guts it of its intended purpose the original resolution is specifically asking for things that the Biden Administration has not done as with our current administration's unconditional support in military aid and our taxpayer dollars Israel has killed over 30,000 people in Gaza in 5 months including more than 13,000 children there is no place that is safe in Gaza not homes not schools not places of worship not even hospitals it's it seems to me the purpose of a proposed amendment is not actually a goodfaith attempt to amend the resolution but rather to propose something fundamentally different to distract from the purpose of the ceasefire resolution I just want to reiterate the fact that the ceasefire resolution was drafted by an Interfaith group and has widespread support across a diverse Spectrum including those who are Jewish Muslim Israeli Arab and people of other faiths nationalities and ethnicities many of whom have spoken today in addition to many people who wanted to speak but couldn't be here like some of our Muslim community members because this meeting was scheduled during ifar I hope going forward we can take into account these important considerations when scheduling future select board meetings so all voices can be heard from our community I hope our town can adopt the ceasefire resolution which calls for the return of all hostages this resolution is the collaborative effort and coming together of different people of all backgrounds to work towards the same goal which is peace you have 30 seconds I hope Brookline will stand on the right side of History to pass a resolution that is in line with our town values that all life is equally sacred thank you this person signed up for public KH ryac KH please use the hand raised function if you're online Steve P okay we'll move on she was uh stepen Shan there you are there go oh okay um Stephen Steph scholman Stephen is in uh is in the attendees I'm promoting him now no F's here f is here okay thank you for clarifying Chaz um sorry uh Stephen just please hold on with your comment for two minutes hello um thank you for having me here today fisa Khan Precinct 13 um I was here a few months ago um hoping that I will not have to come back but it pains me that I must be here today to remind and urge you to not Overlook or disregard me and the many Muslim Brookline students and families like myself who have contributed to this town and the Commonwealth in countless ways on a daily basis many of these families come from the region directly impacted by this war as they have lost dozens of relatives in this meaningless war and they want a full permanent immediate ceasefire there is a resolution that has been sent to you I'm here to talk about its alternative I understand that the desire to call for a ceasefire may come from a well-meaning protective impulsive however the alternative of it may also come from a desire to try and control the narrative about this tragic War destruction and the loss we are watching unfold from afar the alternative to the resolution does exactly that and it talks about supporting the Biden administration's policies to bring peace to the region no policies of President Biden's Administration are geared toward promoting peace in the region and have been successful in Saving human lives in fact these policies have failed to accomplish anything whether it's freeing the innocent hostages from Hamas or saving thousands of lives on both ends President Biden's policies promote war in Gaza instead as he continues to sell arms to an entity that's more powerful than the people this entity is Waging War against promoting peace selling arms promoting peace and selling arms to wipe out 30,000 do not go together in any context because every number has a name we must not endorse encourage or acknowledge President Biden's War promoting policies in the region and reject any warrant article that acknowledges such policies thank you next person signed up for public comment is Stephen schan Stephen it has been promoted to a panelist and can un unmute and share their video when they are ready hi my name is Steve Swan um I am joining the call to uh say that I am opposed to the warrant article um all all my reasons have already been stated I don't think it's appropriate for the town to be taking this up I don't think it has the expertise uh I it's been repeated numerously that the October 7th attack was unprovoked and that Hamas uses humans as Shields they've intentionally built tunnels underneath hospitals and schools and at this point in time to ask Israel for a ceasefire when hamasa said they will repeat this activity uh I think is uh irresponsible um and again I ask you to not take action on this thank you the next person signed up for public comment is Vivien tanaki um Vivian I'm promoting you to a panelist now after that uh we have Eric reuter and he Osman um all all of which are on Zoom um you've been promoted to a you can unmute and share your video when you're ready to begin hi thank you my name is Vivian shoski as a Brooklyn resident I'm commenting to show my support for Warrant 19 as a former student of the Brookline Public School System the community I've been able to create in this town has transformed the way I exist in this world as a global citizen I wholeheartedly want those who are broken from their communities to be reunited in their homes to be reunited with the lives they lived and loved the way to safety for all and a lasting peace is only possible through an immediate and permanent ceasefire the return of hostages and the entering of Aid to end the starvation and medical crisis in Gaza I also would like to be very clear the US plays a main role in this conflict as it has in the Middle East for decades we have heard from multiple Israeli sources that this conflict cannot go on without us Aid so how is this not something we should be talking about as US citizens I know that this issue we are discussing today is deeply relevant to our community that is clear many in Brooklyn have direct ties to Israel and Palestine and have suffered tremendous losses this ceasefire resolution does not deny anyone's suffering as the speaker before me said we can learn how to hold space in our hearts for everyone I am not scared to do that and neither should you be to stand for a ceasefire is to reject the dehumanizing logic that some lives matter more than others and that the immense scale of suffering now witnessed in Gaza over 30,000 dead and more than 10,000 of them children could ever be justified as merely the price of one nation's security by affirming its support for a ceasefire the town of Brooklyn will be sending an important message that all life is precious as a young person I will continue to hold hope that this town I live in and love will support a ceas fire thank you next person signed up for public comment is Eric reuer um Eric I am promoting you to a panelist um if you would accept that after that we we have hia Osman and tat Goran T taana Goran Eric you've been promoted to a panelist you may unmute and share your video and your two minutes will begin trying to unmute and uh we can hear you can you hear me yeah we can hear you okay just bear with me while I put on the video if I can uh okay there we go I think you turned it on and turned it off there you go okay thank you so uh kazak and Ramadan kareim and Ramadan M Mubarak there seems to be a consensus uh tonight to take no action on these resolutions uh however in the event that now or in the future a vote is ever taken I would offer additional language for consideration so I'm going to go ahead and and read what I would add uh whereas it is a war crime to use women children and other civilians as human Shields whereas beheadings of women and children and other innocent civilians be speaks of utter barbarism and depravity whereas the burning of babies and ovens whether practiced by Nazis or Hamas is a crime against humanity whereas it is a war crime for cowards to engage in armed conflict while wearing civilian uniforms whereas cowards of Kamas disguised as civilians must must not be characterized as civilians in any credible estimate of casualties in Gaza whereas it is a war crime to locate Munitions weapons and other armaments in or approximate to schools hospitals mosques or homes of of civilians and whereas the government of Israel looks to the enlightened and fair-minded views of the town of Brookline and its residents for carefully considered and nuanced guidance on how to defend it on how to defend Israel and its citizens Jewish Arab Drews and other loyal citizens of Israel against you have 30 seconds unless un against unrelenting terrorist attacks by those who deny Israel's right to exist resolve that the town of Brooklyn calls upon Hamas to release a list of all hostages still alive a list of all hostages who have been murdered in captivity and a list of all women who have been raped in captivity and the town of Brookline calls upon Hamas to take the most immediate and clearest path to cease fire one immediately release all hostages still alive two release the bodies of hostages who have been murdered you the next person signed up for public common is hea Osman hia you may you may begin when you're ready thank you very much uh my name is Hiba Osman I am a resident of Brookline prec oops sorry about that that's uh that's on our own um we're we're working to romote you now we will restart your two minutes hea we I apologize for that we kicked you back to the attendees that's all right I'll try to be faster um I am a physician and a proud resident of uh Brooklyn and my kids went to the public school and I am I love this community but I honestly have founded very difficult um to exist here under the current circumstances I had a lot I wanted to share but I decided my the two minutes have changed significantly and now what I want to do is is address the concerns of the board members at the beginning that um this is a foreign policy issue that we should not be addressing I completely disagree with that our tax dollars are going to fund Israel many of the speakers have said that uh you know we didn't have a resolution for Yemen or for uh other genocides or other Wars anywhere else we were not directly funding them our tax dollars Massachusetts alone it's $130 million a year that we send to Israel to support this war so this is not a foreign policy issue this is a local issue and we should be addressing it as such it is related to Brooklyn because our tax dollars are going to it the other point uh that many people have made uh that this is a divisive issue it's true it's challenging and just listening to people speak today H has shown how divisive it is but it is it is not a splinter this is an atomic bomb it's a huge issue and not just 30 seconds Community makes things actually worse it's more divisive to put our head in the sand and not discuss it I think this is an issue that we need to discuss as responsible human beings is humanists is people who live in this world and not talking about it is actually will make things worse rather than better and will be more divisive to this community thank you very much the next person signed up for for public comment is Tatiana gorland Tatiana you have been promoted to a panelist you may unmute and fair your video and your two minutes will begin oh one more time there you go okay thank you very much uh uh for the opportunity to talk to you um I am um against this resolution um in the Article 19 uh for the record uh I don't know a single protest against Hamas among Muslim Community of Brooklyn and um wi Boston uh if it happened it would be great admiration and very positive attitude to Muslim Community um unfortunately it never happened condemnation of Hamas and uh barbaric atrocities of October 7th uh second uh in anti-Semitism is real with massive demonstration against Israel in uh support of Hamas we see it um on the Harvard Courtyard and uh in Greater Boston area and all over the United States it's absolutely shameful for Americans for lovers of freedom and Fighters against terrorism really shameful uh third um statistics which most of the speakers 30 seconds comes from Hamas and it is very naive to trust and believe it and the fourth the last one I don't know any cases when Muslims um have to hide their identities uh uh not to wear hijab for example but Jews are very scared in America to wear your and uh uh time has expired very much necklaces thank you thank you next person sign up for public comment is Julie gold Julie if you're in person you may approach the podium and your two minutes will begin Julie gold are you here or online I have not seen Julie in the attendee list all right we're almost at the 90 minute yes Karen McGinty followed by Stuart Burman we had seen Karen McGinty on Zoom not seeing Karen now Karen please use a hand rais feature to let us know if you're still here um otherwise we will move on to Stuart Burman Stuart Burman go for steuart yeah please approach the podium we will uh come back to Julie gold if there if there's time it doesn't seem like there will be uh I'm against the warrant uh resolution I'm a resident I'm a resident of Brookline I live at 1258 Beacon and I agree with many of the things that have been said uh against the resolution but I I don't want really want to give my opinion there are elements of the resolution that are just flat out false such as describing war crimes that Israel has committed such as describing Collective punishment and rather than me saying my opinion on it I want to quote John Spencer who's a major in the US Army and the chair of urban Warfare studies at West Point and this is what he says Israel has taken more steps to avoid harming civilians than any other military in history such lengths would set a new standard that other Western militaries would struggle to follow in the future this is someone with an unbiased point of view no relationship to Israel not Jewish what has really blown my mind quoting is that Israel issues maps to the Civ ions in Gaza telling them where they would be operating each day I've never seen a military do that despite the numbers Israel is setting a very high bar on civilian harm mitigation steps we've never called everybody in a war environment we've never actually sat down thousands of soldiers and call centers and had them call into the combat area trying to reach imams and Mayors in an effort to get everybody out of Harm's Way the element of surprise is usually a top priority in Wars but Israel is giving up all of that in order to prevent civilian harm you have 30 seconds as someone who teaches division level Urban Warfare what has really blown my mind is that Israel issued maps to the civilians in Gaza telling them where they would be operating I've never seen a military do that so the point I'm making is that this resolution should not be put forward because most of the statements in the resolution are false um do we we have one more for one more Chaz or is we hitting 10:15 I think we are you hit 10:15 on the dot I would encourage folks if you have a comment that you would like to add to the select board just again please email the select board at selectboard brookl Brookline ma.gov again all five members of the board get those emails read those emails carefully and respond to them again thank you for your patience and your willingness and your civility as we move through this I know it's tough to do so in a two-minute setting with the hook being so firm but again it is very much appreciated and to ensure that as many people got the chance to speak as possible thank you so I want to thank you also for uh what I consider an intense but calm discussion of uh very very difficult issues select board is not going to vote on uh this this uh this week uh we may take it up next week um and uh you know you can tune in at that point and see you know what what happens but so okay um that ends the meeting thank you everyone thank you