##VIDEO ID:4WleM9UMFEU## [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] one good evening I'm Bernard Green chair of the Brooklyn select board and this is the regular meeting of the select board for January 14 2024 first order of business is going into executive session so I move that the select board go into executive session for the purpose of one approving executive session minutes and two discussing strategy related to bargaining with non-union employees the matter involving bargaining with a non-union employee must be discussed in executive session because an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the town and the chair so declares that an executive session there for is necessary so all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak I uh Mike samnon hi David prman I and chair votes I we will return to open session after our executive session uh meeting at what six o'clock scheduled for six for six okay okay and [Music] [Music] [Music] l [Music] e [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] for [Music] [Music] e [Music] [Music] [Music] for [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] e e [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] e [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] for [Music] [Music] [Music] good evening I'm Bernard Green chair of the Brookline select board and this is the continuation of the select board meeting for uh January 14 2024 uh let's start off with announcements and updates and I'd like to make uh two s statements and announcements um you know the fires that are engulfing Los Angeles are really heartbreaking to anyone irrespective of whether they have friends or family in the area the loss of human life the loss of family pets pains us all even the material losses are hard to contemplate because they include Irreplaceable items that help keep families together such as pictures of parents and others that are deceased but are critical but they are critical connections to people um those deceased individuals I hope the fires give us in Brookline safe for the time being an appreciation of the work of our own First Responders firefighters police dispatchers Medical Teams that spring into action when when we need them the most um the impact of climate change that's causing a lot of problems in Los Angeles is is we are not immune to so you let's just keep our eyes open and and appreciate um those that can come and help us when when when uh things get really bad I just had to say that because you know the Los Angeles situation is just so heartbreaking um and I don't know anyone out there but next I'd like to say that uh January 20th is Martin Luther King Day in America there are other things happening on that day but the important thing is MLK Day uh as every year the MLK committee is having an event at the kolish corner theater this year we will be showing a film produced by Michelle and Barack Obama called Rustin about Bay Rustin the main organizer of the March on Washington in 1963 although very few people have ever heard of Rustin because he was a radical and he was gay which made him a target of J in the FBI and Southern races but also and ironically a target of many civil rights leaders after the showing of the film we will have a panel discussion with Kate Lesley who teaches at the high school and anyone who had has had kids in the high school recently will know Kate Leslie um and Professor Martin Summers of Boston College the film will be showing at the coolage corner theater at 3 pm on January 20th and the showing is free but you must sign up for a ticket by going to the website cool.org MLK I hope to see uh many of you there it's going to be a great program any other Michael so uh a follow on to uh to that in a sense um my uh my wife read some was uh read something out loud from she was looking at the news online mayor woo gave birth to a baby girl today so first of all congratulations but um 50 or even 25 years ago um that line might have been um seemed like it came from um a fiction about an imaginary future uh so change does happen and indeed Martin Luther King the celebrations around Martin Luther King are an example of change and yet in complete change certainly uh and this is I think uh as well I think sometimes we get very involved in the minutia of government and certainly the devil is in the details and those things are important but um uh progress does happen and uh uh and it's really um uh wonderful to witness it and I think it's important to remark on it when it happens yeah thank you John um I'm really looking forward to the Martin Luther King Day event and I I have actually seen that film and it is terrific and it is so good I'm looking forward to seeing it for a second time um so I highly recommend that event uh I want to mention a couple of events that people might want to participate in that are coming up in the days ahead um and and one of them is a meeting tomorrow night uh 5:30 p.m. it's both via zoom and it's also in room 103 right here at Town Hall um and it has to do with a major major um transformation of the green line SE line Beacon Street um that's going to occur in the next year or two um and it all has to do with the introduction of what they call the type 10 car to the line and the Improvement to the line in so far as um any stations that currently any stops that currently lack um uh disability access all of them are going to have disability access um this this does have implications for uh people who use a couple of the stops that will be eliminated so that's something people might want to hear about and and speak out about um and it has implications for the loss of um literally dozens of trees um that line the sea line route in in Brookline so that's tomorrow night 5:30 p.m. room 103 there's also information as to how you can attend via Zoom if you just Google search Brookline MBTA um meeting um you'll you'll come across it um there's also going to be a forum on uh Thursday of this week at 6:30 p.m. and that's at the public library right here in the village um in hunman Hall 6:30 p.m. um and it's going to be very informative the the title for this meeting is the hidden cost of plastic to human health our public health department has been very involved in pulling this together but so have a bunch of groups from Brookline mothers out front climate action Brook line just to name two of them um uh it's going to be a really important meeting for those who want to learn more about excuse me the um growing awareness that people have about the um problem of so-called forever um chemicals um in in our waist stream um everyday Plastics um so it's not just the forever chemicals it's also you know the question of our sustainability of the use of everyday everyday Plastics um in in our that enter our W stream That's Thursday and then we're not going to be meeting like where it's not going to be meeting next Tuesday so I want to promote an event that is going to happen um a week from tomorrow Wednesday January 22nd at 6: p.m uh there's going to be a crucial meeting meeting of the in for the Washington Street um Corridor complete streets project which impacts um bicycle access pedestrian access car access parking etc etc for the length of Washington Street um in particular this meeting kind of is going to pick up where the last meeting left off and it's going to take a closer look at um the impacts in the Brookline Village commercial area so that's next Wednesday January 22nd 6 p.m. that's Zoom only but if you just go to the website the web page um for the Washington Street Corridor project uh you'll see um on that page it says latest developments learn more and if you click on learn more you'll get the um you'll go to where you can register to uh zoom in to that meeting next Wednesday at 6 that's all I got thank you ID I also just want to announce a meeting that will be convening next Wednesday January 22nd will be the first meeting of the committee of s for the public safety building Lobby uh that'll be at 10: a.m. in room 103 it's also a hybrid meeting uh so for those of you who are interested can log in or come in person thank you okay uh next we have public comment um Charlie you want to read the rules sure 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 15 minutes has been met There's an opportunity at the conclusion of the select board's business for additional comments members of the public sometimes raise questions during public comment we may be able to provide a quick answer to a question we 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 welcome to send an email the board members expressing your thoughts in Greater detail any person wishing to speak must begin their comment by identifying themselves with their full name either their Brookline precinct number or street address and the specific topic they wish to speak on the board encourages but does not require that remote users turn their video on when commenting Bernard we have uh nobody signed up for public comment in advance tonight so um oh we did have one sorry thank you Chaz good good eye we didn't before the meeting it must maybe uh okay the first person signed up for public comment is Regina froley Regina you may uh oh I'm sorry I'm seeing that's what the name looks like um is this a is this an old is this an old that might be the old form I I do see Anthony Bano Anthony please approach the podium in three minutes we begin no it's it's interesting it's thanks I think we were right that it's uh it's last year last week's list so all right hello everybody Happy New Year my name is Anthony Bono town meeting member Precinct 17 member of the advisory committee and president of the teamma I would like to briefly comment on your upcoming vote regarding adopting general order 43 thank you all for taking the immigration issue so seriously the incoming Administration has once again revived the worst of America's nativist past equating undocumented immigrants with violent criminals generally policies rooted in such rhetoric are harmful and divisive the administration's desire to perform indiscriminate deportations does not make our community safer on the contrary it leaves us poorer less safe and less secure and less free this is not the first time that the federal government has embarked on such an inhumane Roundup of people simply for seeking a better life for themselves and their families in 1850 The Fugitive slaved Act was passed as part of the Great Compromise this law created a federal Force to track Runaway slaves into states where slavery was abolished while local communities at the time could not override these federal laws still they found ways to take a stand in 1842 the Supreme Court ruled in prv Pennsylvania that the federal government cannot require state or local officials to enforce Federal policies in the wake of the Fugitive Slave Act many towns across Massachusetts including wayth Marshfield Princeton Southboro blackon all formally condemned the law and refused to assist in its enforcement within their capacity in the law if the the select board passes general order 43 today Brookline will join proud these other Massachusetts towns in speaking out against unjust and harmful policies the proposed policy is lawful practical and protects those that are most vulnerable I urge you to vote Yes on General Order 43 sending a clear message that Brookline values um Brookline values compassion and Justice as we consider this decision let us live by the words of the town of blackston whose resolution against the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 stated the weak rather than the strong and by no means strengthen the arm of the oppressor thank you so much thank you the next person signed up for public comment is Giovani Valencia okay uh be before we go on let me just mention uh we approve uh general order 43 last week this week we're going to be approving a statement uh that includes a number of uh other okay but thank you for your comments which were appropriate and in any case yes giovan thank you dear SE board members thank you for the time tonight my name is Giovanni Valencia and I am the new executive director with the Brooklyn Community Development Corporation Brooklyn CDC I joined the Brooklyn CDC about four months ago and this is a pleasure to have the opportunity to talk to you about the emergency rental assistant program this program has been implemented in the turn of I'm sorry Gio um we saw you were on the public comment sheet but uh we actually have you speak speak a little later in the agenda this is this is just for folks who want to give a public know had but I thought you wanted to provide an additional comment no no no I'm here to answer questions about that item number nine so we will we will call you up when item number nine than we're really focused on that issue all right um we do have one person in the audience uh online with their hand up to speak um Don oats I'm going to promote you to co-host um so that way you can share your video and your three minutes will begin if you wish to speak um can you hear me yes we can hear you I'm unable to put my video on right now but thank you um I submitted this for the packet but nothing that I submitted was in the packet so I'm gonnae go ahead and read it um my name is Don SS I'm here tonight to reiterate the urgent need for public deliberations regarding the concerns I raised in response to Rob Shen's testimony at last Tuesday's meeting they go beyond a simple neighborhood dispute and speak to issues of integrity fairness and the broader trust that residents place in this town's governance unfortunately my statements were questioned as false misleading and unfair to address this I have included some but not all of the supporting documents that should dispel any doubts of the validity of my claim these documents substantiate the facts and highlight the serious nature of the issues that I've brought forward it's disheartening that this matter has been dismissed as a neighbor concern I see it as a community concern that speaks to core values of equity integrity and accountability that we should all expect from town leadership an officer whose tasked with upholding bylaws equitably and inclusively should also be expected to adhere to those same bylaws himself suing the Town zba members and the trustee of a disabled child for 40a violations based on a reasonable accommodation request that was approved raises serious concerns about equity and hypocracy such actions not only erode public trust but also undermine the Integrity of the planning board frankly it does not reflect well on our town I urge this board to conduct public deliberations to restore confidence in our governance and to ensure decisions are made Fairly and in the best interest of the community the concerns I have raised supported by documentation will be shared with both Town Council and the Massachusetts Attorney General's office and they warrant serious and transparent consideration this is not about one individual or one dispute it's about ensuring our Town's leadership reflect the value values of fairness accountability and inclusivity that our community deserves I I want to add to that that that the disruption in the public meeting and the interjection of um select member Mike Sandman excuse meard be careful it effectively disregarded my testimony and I would like to request that disruptions like that that can taint the questioning of the serious concerns that I brought forward I note that no select board member questioned or interviewed Rob show and on any of the items that I raised and they were all valid items um Mr Green I did email you a letter with all of the items in it and I you have 30 seconds I would like all the details that I emailed to be submitted to the hearing packet for the meet the next meeting considered and I would like thoughtful deliberation of those serious concerns that I have about the candidacy and the ability of the candidate this is about the candidate and this is about the process and this is about the breaking of the procedure for a public hearing that effectively ensure that no one else would comment or question that the your time has expired please conclude thank you thank you okay um folks in the audience or online can use the hand raise feature or or raise their hand to let us know if they'd like to speak um no one on online is so Regina please feel free to approach the podium your three will begin thank you Regina froley from South Brookline uh Tom member um there was an article in today's Globe about mayor Woo's current proposal uh to the legislature and it includes a very apparently detailed section on how tax price can be given to seniors and as some of you know um I'm from a section of town that has had 35 to 40% increase in tax ises over the last few years and you you have a rent stabilization issue tonight I would like to combine the two and say I would like the Town Administrator to contact the woo Administration to get a copy of the details because as sammen said the devil's in the details so let's see what those details are and I would appreciate they they being forwarded to me and I would like to consider resubmitting a article that would give a break to some members of lower income seniors who've lived here for a period of time it is coming before this board at least twice that I know of I think a third time could be a charm thank you okay folks in the audience once again or online can use the hand rais feature or raise their hand if they'd like to make a public comment we have 26 participants online and no one is using the hand raised feature to let us know they would like to make a public comment okay thank you next we have miscellaneous items first being the approval of meeting minutes of January 7 2025 any corrections from the select board for those minutes okay I move approval of the meeting minutes of January 7 2025 all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak I Michael Sandman I War I David Perman I sh votes I next items 6B through 6i or the remaining miscellaneous items there may be one that's that's uh I do just want a flag 6f was actually was accidentally left on as a duplicate uh from last week so that's already been voted so 6f was withdrawn so Six B through six uh e and 6G through 6i I'd like to um approve in Omnibus fashion any um any desire on the part of the select board to pull anything out okay so I'm Mo approval of items 6B through 6E and 6G through 6i all in favor please indicate by saying I John Van skak I Michael sammon I Paul Warren I David Perman I your votes I next boards and commissions interviews uh we have two interviewees uh one for the zero admissions Advisory Board that's Allan Leviton um and he is in the audience we like to step up to the mic and um please introduce yourself and why you would like to be a member of the zero admissions Advisory Board and what you can offer to that uh that that board okay I'm alen Levon uh 20 Chapel Street precinct one uh my wife and I moved from New Jersey to Massachusetts when I retired in 2004 we've been Brooklyn residents since 2007 I'm I'm a chemical engineer I had a 37-year career designing commissioning and operating chemical plants at Roman ha company uh my professional experience is relevant to technologies that are important to eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from residential and commercial buildings A lot of people I guess when I think of chemical Engineers just think of chemicals but there's actually a big overlap with mechanical engineers with things like uh heat transfer so insulation Refrigeration heat pumps things like that are all part of things that chemical Engineers deal with in chemical plants uh I was a trustee at Longwood Towers from 2011 until last month I'm free at last I guess and uh during that time I was involved in multiple Mass Save audits it resulted in significant reductions in electricity consumption I also led the effort to install EV charging stations along long with Towers in 2021 uh working at first with eversource make ready and then eventually we used the Massachusetts uh evip electric vehicle incentive program to get funding for those uh charging stations uh I was a member of the select board climate action committee is a representative from climate Brook line uh during my time on the select board climate action committee I was an active member of several subcommittees I was a member of the energy stretch code subcommittee uh it when in support of the first stretch code in Brookline in 2009 I was the author of The Brookline greenhouse gas inventory which I think is still the only the most recent one that we have uh I was a member of the climate action plan subcommittee in 2012 uh I was a member of the Community Choice aggregation subcommittee in 2016 when we went through the details of getting the Community Choice aggregation approved for the town uh I was a member of the net0 9th school subcommittee which uh um few of the members who were town meeting members I think some of the things we did there led to the uh some of the original work for support for heat pumps for uh for the new schools and I was a co-petitioner of the Fall 2019 warrant article for the uh prohibition of new fossil fuel infrastructure in major Construction uh it's often the case that the town boards have some members with experience or skills in specific area of the committee's responsibility uh the Zab Charter in fact ref refers to one possible expertise as engineering uh with my professional experience as an engineer uh on the various select various sbac committees and my work uh as a chemical engineer in Industry I I I think I have something to offer to the uh to zeab uh I know that the town has uh approved uh the uh contractor for the new climate action and resiliency plan and I also know Zab is going to be involved in the review and approval of the plan uh I I don't know if the plan's going to include a greenhouse gas inventory I did uh so I'm not sure what the status of that is but whether it has a formal greenhouse gas inventory or or some other less formal method of tracking the source of greenhouse gas emissions in Brookline I think my experience would be relevant and and useful uh town meeting approved warn article 26 in the fall of 2022 which was the request for the general court to pass legislation to allow Brook L to assess a Sur charge on natural gas bills uh when I look this over it's one of the things that struck me is It's seems like a First Step uh perhaps along the lines of the the bero the the emissions reduction disclosure uh legislation they have in Boston and in uh and in Cambridge and uh I would assume that down the line this is something something of this nature is is is going to happen in Brookline and I think I could help out in uh in in pursuing that work and then finally Electrify Brook line which I'm familiar with I know they've got a support system for helping people uh who are interested in electrifying their homes and that's another area I think it could help out I I have done some sort of ad hoc work with new home home owners and condo boards here providing them with some assistance so that's what I have to say thank you uh I have one question uh your building emissions reduction and disclosure or ordinance or in Brookline Warren article if it's submitted um tell me more about that and is that where the search charge of n natural gas bills would yeah what what I meant was we with the town meeting all already approved a warrant article to uh ask the general court to allow Brook line and I think other towns to put a a Sur charge on natural gas and which actually is kind of an interesting thing because the in Boston and Cambridge uh what they do is is actually fairly complicated they use I think they use the EPA portfolio manager and people have to put in detailed reports of how much energy they use and and then over in so in the future I don't know exactly when it starts uh buildings especially large residential buildings and commercial buildings will have to pay if if if they have greenhouse gas emissions they they'll they'll have to pay some sort of a search charge to Cambridge or Boston to do some of the things that war in article 26 proposed to support uh electrification in uh for lowincome uh residents and so on so I I was I wasn't suggesting that Brook line should have something exactly like Boston and Cambridge what I was saying that I I think worn article 26 is sort of a first step along that line uh I also I I I don't know the background of why they only selected natural gas I can sort of guess when we did the greenhouse gas inventory that back the work was actually done around 2010 uh trying to get we wanted to get information on all the sources of greenhouse gas emissions and obviously um home heating oil was one of those and uh I went to Frank smiser was our representative at that time and tried to get connections with the electric company the gas company and so on which he helped out with but uh fuel oil uh heating oil uh what I was told is there's a large number of suppliers of heating oil uh it was difficult to work with them they they were concerned about uh competitive information getting out uh but I still think that if if re if property owners are are going to pay uh an assessment for gas that they use we need to figure out some way to get people who do heating oil as well now heating oil us wouldn't that be a pretty regressive tax though well it's it's already been passed by uh uh I understand my understanding warn article 26 was that uh Brook line is made taking that request to the state it would require a a vote uh a referendum uh yeah and and I guess you're saying you would support that and I guess what I'm asking is isn't that a regressive tax on on particularly probably lower income people who are less capable of of electrifying well the one of the things that in in in in the the Boston came legislation I don't know all the in the grass details but funds that are collected part of that money is to support lowincome families to help them Electrify so I I I don't have any specific plans right now what I'm saying is that I I I can imagine that Brook line over time could evolve into something like this where where where there will be some sort of a uh um uh could could could be some sort of a an inventory of how much greenhouse gas people are producing uh and perhaps charging some some some sort of a a fee for that oh um oh I'm sorry uh I'm just listening to that discussion first of all the qualifications that you've that you've U listed are really very imp very impressive but um I would say that um you have to be careful about timing uh it's one thing if you collect the tax and then with the intent of then into some Future Point having enough money to support people who uh have difficulty paying that tax there's a gap uh and uh I would urge you when you're thinking about these kinds of things to remember the social consequences of what you're doing across the entire spectrum of the community yeah yeah yeah and let let me I I I'm aware of that and and I'm not proposing any specific thing I what I was trying to do was describe what's being done in Boston in Cambridge right and suggesting that I can see uh something like that happening in Brooklyn as far as the details I I agree with you that that would have to be accommodated B yep Alan thank you um for um applying and for your comments um I think you touched on just about every subject that I'm the lay on to the Zab committee um I think you've touched on all the the major issues that we've actually been discussing um in preparation for uh the updated climate action and resiliency Plan called the carp it's a terrible name but um but I did want to speak to and clearly you have very relevant experience across the board um I'm interested in your experience with you know large buildings so you're you were a trustee of Longwood Towers congratulations on your retirement um but that that's an area that you know we've really strugg L uh as a town to to help enable larger building owners operators uh to to be able to convert and become more efficient become fossil fuel free can you speak a little bit about what what are the some of the challenges that you see for these larger um you know either condo or or rental buildings uh converting yeah there's a few things first of all uh um the one of the challenges I'm sorry a lot of these buildings are very old and converting you you're converting a single family home is is straightforward compared to big building is you know it's going to be very straightforward do a S single family home but you've got all sorts of things to consider if the uh if there's some sort of a central heat like a lot of a lot of buildings have still have steam radiators or hot water radiators they have to come up with some way to service it I mean for example I've thought about it Longwood Tower we have a combination of heat pumps in the unit that are supplied they're actually water source heat pumps and we Supply hot water to those heat pumps the hot water is supplied from gas fired boilers and I can sort of Imagine something like that is fairly straightforward in technology wise you just have a heat pump to replace the the gas boilers but other places have all sorts of different things uh uh so I recognize that it's a very complicated thing what I would say uh and actually is one of the things I was going to mention um the uh Massachusetts clean energy center I I I don't know if you guys are familiar with with that it's uh I guess it's an NGO and they do a lot of work uh supporting electrification and they have a program it's a beta a program that I actually applied for for long with Towers but haven't we haven't been told we're not going to get it yet and what they're doing is they're actually bringing in it's funded by uh whatever the source of funds are for for massachus clean energy uh uh they're bringing in engineers and experts Consultants who are looking for a small number of large buildings uh including residential buildings I think to them large means more it's either 15 or 50 residences and they're going to bring these people in to actually do designs for these buildings and then those designs will be available to the buildings if they choose to do the do the work they can if they choose not to do the work they don't have to but what what Mass cc is trying to accomplish is to find out exactly what is required for doing big buildings like this uh and I I would suggest that Zab in the town and working with this thing uh should get in touch with with with mass CC uh and the other one uh the Mass Department of energy resources uh has some really good people when we were putting together uh we I I didn't I I I was sort of a researcher really for for war article I guess is 19 the the natural gas Banner but one of the things we were trying to do was get examples to present to various boards and commissions and Town meia members why they should support it and um I I got a lot of information from uh from an engineer who works at Mass do they had done a lot of work on designs and hypothetical designs for electrification and so on so so there's there's a lot with within basically Massachusetts Government a lot of expertise around to to help out with these things thanks thank you H David I notic in reviewing your resume that you have spent a lot of your professional life working in process design in a variety of locals including England Japan China Singapore I'm I'm wondering uh what you took from those experiences that you would apply to your recommendations app oh boy well I guess the one thing you learn if you live in a lot of places overse you're it's different than going on vacation for a couple of weeks someplace and you you learn you know to live in all sorts of different environments all sorts of different people all sorts of different cultures um my wife and I both had to adapt it's probably harder for her I went to work every day and she likes the you know joke that she had to figure out if something was toilet cleaner or or shampoo once you went to the store but I I I I'd say that uh uh working with all sorts of diverse groups is uh that the other thing uh I worked in Japan a lot not just when we lived there but I used to travel we had a subsidiary in Japan and um I used I I like I used to like to joke that uh in the US we were good at making decisions and we could make decisions over and over again keep you changing them uh in Japan it's a very collaborative uh uh process where you uh take longer sometimes to make the decision but everybody has been brought on board with your decision once you once you move ahead you you move ahead as a group thank you okay we'll be making our decision on appointments to uh Zab and other boards that future meeting thanks thank you next we have uh the planning board and uh the applicant is Thomas rinks who's in the audience and please introduce yourself and tell us why you'd like to be on the planning board and what you have to offer to that board yes thank you Mr Green uh good evening my name is Thomas rankis uh and I'd like to thank the select board for taking time to consider me for this vacancy on the planning board uh I'm currently a town meeting member representing Precinct 13 and a member of The Pedestrian advisory committee I'm a father of three young children all under the age of seven uh two of whom attend the hay school I'm an active member of the PTO I chair fundraisers and I'm our school's representative for the Massachusetts safe route to schools uh and I also coach the first grade boys soccer and basketball teams I've lived in Brookline since 2020 my wife and I chose to move here from Washington DC because of the unique combination of urban and Suburban amenities our town has to offer I'm an attorney and urban planner by training I worked as a litigator until I decided I was more interested in public policy and made the choice to leave my law firm and pursue a master's degree in urban and Regional planning at Georgetown University during my time at Georgetown I became proficient in using geographic information systems eventually winning georgetown's university-wide prize for use of GIS in a research project I was able to assist in and observe public projects as part of my coursework and I also had extensive coursework related to Urban design and architecture with a significant portion of my cohort being Architects themselves combined with my legal background I'm very comfortable interpreting and understanding zoning codes land use law and Regulatory regimes and I'm also currently involved in private commercial development in Metro West uh in addition through my work with The Pedestrian advisory committee I've become aware of some of the difficulties brookline's built environment presents to people with disabilities after meeting at a pedestrian advisory committee walking audit I've become acquainted with Jim Lee of the disability commission uh who has told me that he would like a formal liaison from the planning board to the disability commission and uh I believe I would be able to adequately fill that role uh in view of the legal issues involved in disability and access cases I truly believe that Brookline is a special place to live and I feel incredibly blessed to be able to dedicate my time to being a public servant in our town as you move forward with our Town's comprehensive plan I believe that the planning board select board and steering committee have an incredible opportunity to develop an equitable economically robust vision for Brook Line's future and with my skill set from planning School combined with my legal background I believe I'm well positioned to offer New Perspective and Technical expertise to the planning board thank you uh Mike so um thanks very much um the urban planning um experiences and background is very interesting uh the planning board tends to focus on very on projects one at a time and I it it would actually be I think beneficial for the board um particularly once we have a comp a new comprehensive plan to have uh more of an urban planning overview as they they look at projects but just the same the a lot of the work that gets done is around well okay what materials used on this facade and uh what you know how does this uh this shadow affect uh neighbors and so forth so um I I just want I want to make sure that you're for you know what you're getting into basically when you do this and so can you tell us a little bit about how how you know how often uh have you attended planning board meetings and do you have a a sense of the flow of uh of work there so today unfortunately have not actually attended a planning board meeting but I do understand the type of work that the planning board does before I submitted my application I reviewed all of the meeting agendas and most of the meeting minutes from 2023 to make sure it was something that I would be comfortable with and that I thought my skill set would be appropriate for and uh with regards to their view of design features materials things of that sort uh in my academic background I was exposed to a lot of that at Georgetown because it's always going to be relevant even in an urban planning context what the built environment looks like what it feels like and how people interact with it and a lot of that comes down to design and how it makes people feel so I'm not necessarily a babe in the woods with regards to it I'm certainly not a trained architect but it's something I'm familiar with uh and in addition in my private life uh I am involved in some private commercial development in Metro West where these things come up regularly uh so I'm aware of it I've worked with Architects and I am comfortable and conversent in dealing with those issues okay thank you Paul yep uh thank you for your application it's not often that I have a kindred Spirit come I to I'm a stay-at-home dad with young children so I appreciate your service to our town and also for what you do for your children I know how hard that can be from time to time um so uh kind of following on to Mike's question um what so typically it's design review that they're doing and they're talking about materials and and um and things like that we're we're starting to move towards forign based owning which takes some of the creativity uh decision-making um uh out of um you know the hands of the planning board um really to create predictability for not only the development Community but for um for those uh the abuts in the town to understand what they're going to get do do you have any views about form base zoning and you know is it too restrictive does it need to be loosened up would you would you support the continuation and application of form based Zing to other parts of the Town yeah thank you for that question that's a good one um so with regards to form-based zoning it does sometimes have the potential to lead to a little bit more grit in the gears sometimes you know I think we saw that this year at town meeting it was discussed with how it almost leads to kind of a constant flow of applications for variances for very small things that are just slightly off how can we change those how can we do those things um with that said I do think it has strong applicability to a town like Brooklyn um I think we care very much about taking care of our neighbors and making sure everyone is on the same page with regards to what our town is going to look like and how we're going to develop moving forward and I think form-based zoning has a tendency to increase public confidence in the process because I believe that it can be more transparent and that people can look at form based zoning and understand how things are going to look how things are going to be developed and feel like they can follow that process pretty cleanly as opposed [Music] to other forms of you know traditional ukian zoning all right go ahead I I do have one more thing to say but go go ahead yeah I was going to say that um I think uh uh um Brooklin I've used the analogy that Brooklin zoning code and some of its other regulations as well have been laid down by like sedimentary rock one thing at a time uh to deal with a particular situation arises and we have a regulation a particular thing arises next and we have another regulation and another and another and another and um Barn base earning has the advantage I think of uh cutting through all of that and giving us a single uh a a single uh set of Standards to uh to approach so uh I join with Paul and hoping that that that process continues and uh that they'll um there'll be support for it on the on the planning board without an attempt to uh sort of claw back Authority which um is always a a risk okay thank you and like I said before we'll be making our decision on appointments to the planning board at the future meeting great thank you for your time I appreciate it thank [Music] you next item nine tenant stabilization program uh proposed a change to scope of services for the uh Brookline Community Development corporation's tenant um um Support Program yes and we have Giovani Valencia uh in person and um I'm promoting Iana um and believe uh I have de Brown listed um but not online so yes she has a personal situation um Miss Brown is the president of the board she cannot make it tonight regards thank you Gio um and aana is online um hold on I will make her easier to view but you are welcome to begin anytime oh I'm so sorry um Giovani will explain um this this is a contract that I had brought to the board um back in December of oh I'm so sorry good evening to the board my name is Iana lindos Smith and I'm the Housing and Community planning director in the planning department um on December 7th of last year we brought this contract before the board um to have it um approved however there was a question as to whether or not the um bcdc as the corporation who's be will be the um the person the grantee that we're giving this money to if they would be the ones to collect all the money if there would be some way that they would collect all the money for themselves because they're also landlords and so we had to change the scope of services so to protect the town and to protect them so that um so this is what we have done um it's changed the we've brought it back to you with the scope of Services changed this would be on number two of the contract and the second paragraph and this was presented to the board we sent this to you earlier so we're asking for your approval tonight of this contract and um if there are any questions feel please feel free to ask that's the only thing that had changed since December it's just the scope of services to be sure that um everyone is protected and and understood that this will not be a contract for BCD only but any landlord that is in Brooklyn that needs that has rent owed to them um and so if there are any questions please please feel free to ask Giovani is here to um elaborate more on this if you need if you need it um thank you very much okay before uh what I before you go and afterwards I'd like you to sort of explain the program um in more general terms but I just want to say that in December the select board had many concerns about this contract including concerns regarding the potential for conflicts of interest um to address these concerns I actually drafted some language that you see in the packet I assume my language is in the packet yes I made sure it stayed there I'm sorry um I saw it there but um which allows bcdc to be reimbursed for unpaid rent by tenants but requires that in running the program it does not give itself any advantage over other landlords and that there's no collusion or preference of their tenants over other tenants um to provide the data to monitor this uh bcdc must also provide planning department with certain information so I from my standpoint uh andana agrees that that addresses the concerns that we had and that people in the community had regarding this this agreement um any thoughts from the board would change I was going to have some thoughts but I I'm anxious to hear the presentation okay yeah so with that sort introduction thank you very much program thank you very much Mr again my name is Joan Valencia exe executive director with the Brooklyn Community Development Corporation bcdc I'm here to provide additional information about the Brooklin CDC emergency rental assistance program as you are aware this program is designed to assist lowincome residents facing housing instability due to unforeseen financial hardship Brooklyn CDC has worked with Metro West collaborative development or Metro West CD to create the emergency rent assistant program to help alleviate housing insecurity for Brooklyn residents since it in Inception Inception in 2023 the emergency rental assistance program successfully stabilized the housing situation of approxim imely 50 Brookland households through funding and counseling just over the last three months BCC has supported about 16 households with tenant counseling we are currently launching a new program around having been awarded fund from the Brooklyn Community preservation act CPA and the Brooklyn Community Foundation to ensure fairness and transparency Brooklyn CDC has not and will not directly distribute funds to the benefit of its tenants instead tenants facing housing instability are required to follow the same detailed application process and guidelines as others these procedures were design designed by the common world and implemented by Metro West collaborative development our contractor in fact we have little to no interaction in the day-to-day uh funding approval decisions that is left to Metro City our role is to provide counseling for the more complex rental assistance situations where tenants need help securing employment education or other resources we also served as a serve as a funding and audit a funding and audit role for reporting and oversight further as with any other tenant we encourage Brooklyn tenants to seek the support of the rental assistant for families in transition or raft program prior to requesting local funds this allow us to better leverage our phones and ser more families in addition we have a strong program guidelines to limit misuse with the town assistance and approval we have established Firm El eligibility requirements we are grateful for the continued support of the town of Brooklyn and look forward to continue supporting Brooklyn tenants with emergency rental assist program if you have any further questions I'm I'm here to to answer thank you hey thank you any questions from the board John yeah thank you very much thanks for helping us to understand the program and thanks for your role with the CDC um yes CDC Brooklyn CDC excuse me yeah as as as some PE bcdc right um I had a question for I Chaz I think it might be for you is the original source of this These funds arpa no no um no it's a yeah it's it's the half Housing Trust yeah it's Housing Trust it's a Housing Trust which um receives monies from a whole bunch of sources including correct including free part of the free cash waterfall the different allocations right right okay that's good um I where arpa is concerned you know I and I'm glad to to hear that this is not originating with arpa because you know those monies are going to run out um the only the only flag I want to raise on this is first of all a flag of of approval and and endorsement to say that um the work done by our housing Advisory board and the work done by Brooklyn CDC um is really going to be meaningful to um um I'll say dozens um uh that's probably a safe number uh of tenants who are going to get some emergency relief from these funds um and it does appear that because I see this happening in community after community that providing some kind of a safety net for tenants in emergency situations um is an expectation that you know is becoming more and more embedded um in a lot of communities um and and I think the the key to our being able to do this going forward um is going to be the funding and finding the funding and you know using um our most sort of creative approaches to seeking funding from other sources so um to the extent that um Brooklyn CC and also our housing Advisory Board are anxious to see this continue um I look forward to working with uh them uh you and them um to find state funds find funds from other you know philanthropic funds Etc funds um because in order for this to be more than just a one-off you know we we're going to have to do that um I I don't think we're going to be able to decrease our commitment to operating funds for the you know for the other functions of of local government um for this but I do think we can probably continue to seek and hopefully succeed in getting funds from some some of these outside sources so thank you again thank you very much y giovan Gio right first yes uh it's nice to see you again and thank you for speaking about the program but first you should know I'm I think this is a critical program um as as you know uh it's it's much easier to help someone stay within their home and have to go find another home uh especially within our rental market especially if you become homeless um but I do have I do have one question this is kind of more of an operational issue um if there's a tenant that that is in a situation with you so as a tenant of your organization the bcdc um that is going through a difficult time uh maybe they're under an an eviction process because I I assume that does happen with you from time to time how How would how do you handle that what how does that tenant engage they engage with you do you counsel them to go to this third party I'm just curious about how that will work correct that is a great question Mr G so let me just say this during the first round of implementation we supported about 50 household with this uh new round of uh funding including Brookland Community Foundation and and the CPA funds we expect to help at least 80 households Brookland CDC owns two properties in total we have 22 um rental units or 22 tenants so most likely worst case scenario we are not going to just use that money for our tenants now if any of the tenants living in a Brooklyn CDC properties are in facing financial hardship they will have to apply the same way that everybody has to apply through our partner uh Metro West CD now before they get to that point when we know that they are behind rain that they have they are facing hardship we contact them as the landlords with our property management we reach out to see what is the situation and if they have those unforeseen circumstances we encourage them to apply and support them with the application for the ra program before so that is the situation they have to go through metro metro west CD before that they will apply to RAF program with our support we just hired a community organizer who will be pay paying attention to our tenants and in the situation that they need to apply for this program specifically uh for funds from the Brookline the town of Brookline they apply to through our partner the partner TT makes all the decisions about providing or not the funding and we directly we will not allocate fundings to the tenants or to a landlord that will be ourselves thank you Bernard I know I'm on a short leash um so other question I have is in um in section three the contract and again this is just for clarification I may have missed it in the contract it says that um landlords of household units that meet the requirements of the grant agreement um are the requirements of the grant agreement if is that defined in this contract somewhere um aana or Chaz or Gio um I'm talking specifically about item three it says line item budget emergency rental assistance is 102,400 landlord and uh recipient of trust funds are landlords or household units that meet the requirements of the grant agreement okay where is the grant agreement specified um Mr Warren the um that is the2000s what we did we broke it down that we could we only allotted 20% of the amount because the amount is 128 we allowed 20% just 20% could be used to pay um Metro West and um and um Brookland CDC for um Counseling Services the 102,000 we're what we're stating here this this is strictly for to pay landlords for rent for rental assistance it's it's not to be used for anything else I do understand what is saying what has happened is we also have Incorporated the RFP that we had sent out that we had because we did do an RFP and that is also Incorporated in in this contract here um that would explain that tells the vcdc and the Metro West exactly what we expect them to do they'll have to get um information from the land from the landlords the landlords have to sign papers to say that they're they're owed this rent we also get a a W9 from the the in the it's stated that we get all this other information from the landlord before we actually pay directly to the landlord not to the tenants themselves and that's defined in the RFP yes which is ATT part of the contract so your your question is what is the grant agreement this document is the grant agreement which incorporates the RFP by reference and that has the criteria when he mentioned you have to go to the raft and make sure that like all that stuff is defined in the RFP correct okay perfect thank you um I have a I have a question something that uh hanana said um you said 20% of the total Grant is allocated to Metro EST and to um BC DC for uh providing counseling um um can you break that out between I I know it's very typical in a grant to give to provide some funding for administrative costs and so how much of that is Administrative cost and how much of it is for actual services or counseling services that are delivered uh to the tenant and I don't mind who answers it yes I can you want to I have those uh notes Here on my paper if you like so the total Grant is for $128,000 from that 102,000 go goes directly to a landlords to support with the emergency rental program $1 15,45 go to Metro West because they are implementing they are doing all the all the work with the tenants including website applications Management in $1,149 uh go to Brooklyn CDC for counseling services this is those are funds that help us with with providing counseling services to the tenants we are I don't see technically that we are taking administrative fee or overhead those are 100% allocated to support the program so uh Metro West effectively I appreciate that they're maintaining a website they're handling applications they're processing those applications they're receiving um $115,000 out of that amount to do that from this grant okay thank you that does seem reasonable thank you okay anything else and I'd like to I'm sorry I thought I heard something okay uh then I'd like to move approval U uh and authorize the chair to execute fiscal year 2025 contract with the Brookline Community Development Corporation funding to operate a tenant stabilization program funded by the Housing Trust Fund the amount of $28,000 and operated by Metro West um anything else we need to say okay I Mo approval all in favor please indicate by saying I John Van I Michael sammon hi Paul Warren hi David Broman I sh votes I thank you Jon thank you very much okay thank you all very much appreciated thank you thanks thank you next the language access policy um this came before us back in October I believe and uh we did not not vote so uh this presentation will be something that we will vote on I'm promoting uh Ahmad and Caitlyn right now Ahmed R Ahmed Caitlyn and Lloyd as well oh Lloyd's on thank you yes good evening everyone I believe I'll be sharing my screen if that's correct yes you should be able to do that Ahmed great um okay hello everyone uh good evening thank you for having us back um are you all able to see my screen not yet not yet no okay no we're not seeing a a screen share just oh I that's because I didn't hit share that might are you able to see now yes all right uh thank you everyone for uh having us back to discuss uh my favorite topic your favorite topic the language access policy uh for the town Brookline so we just wanted to give you all uh just some of the uh brief updates on the work that we've been doing since we've last met in October um but to quickly go over some of the um overarching you know initiatives for the policy um as you all probably know um about 30% of the Town um uh self-described themselves as speakers of languages other than English and among them um are uh individ indviduals who speak less uh speak English less than uh proficiently or are limited in their English proficiency um and as you all know the Civil Rights Act of course extends its definitions of um inclusion um to be more inclusive of um folks of a different national origin which of course extends to those who speak languages other than English um and so the what we found out through a um series of surveys is that the majority of our um lot residents uh do not know how to request public services or are underformed on how to do so and um many many residents 70% of uh Community organizations site that language barriers are the main obstacles um uh that are keeping folks from understanding the programs and resources that are available to them and so the goal of the language access policy or language access overall is to ensure that uh these language barriers don't exist ensure that um our LEP residents have Equitable access to all of the town's public uh processes policies and um information um that's the external goal for the policy and internally um to make sure that uh staff and departments are aware of the policy are are able to comply with it um and so p u following um hopeful uh the approval of the policy um Town departments will receive a copy of the policy itself and they will will be coordinating with with me and my colleagues from the office of diversity Equity inclusion community relations um to implement uh language access plans for their respective um departments um and so implementation of the language access uh plan will involve translation and interpreting of what the policy calls Vital Information uh which we'll go over in a little bit more detail in a second uh but translation for written text interpreting for uh public meetings which be virtual in person or over the phone um uh these are our main tools for implementing language access um and so going back to the term vital um the policy itself doesn't give us uh a well detailed um definition of vital it really leaves us U the flexibility to sort of uh work with departments to identify what they consider vital documents and since we've last met this is something that we really Tred to do with um departments as we continue to meet with them um and departments uh told us about the public facing information that they have already been Distributing um before this policy and they Define vile documents to include things such as Flyers emails brochures or even public information sessions that they hold um publicly and so the policy uh doesn't necessarily add to this list uh but it uh allows us to make these vital documents accessible to folks who don't speak English and so when we say vital documents this is what we mean and so we've worked with um departments to clearly Define what Vital Information is um how often that information is distributed to the public um how is distributed to the public whether it's electronic or physically distributed and with that information that they provided us we worked with um several vendors to um estimate the cost of uh providing translation for these vital documents into the five most widely spoken um languages in Brookline and so what you see here is sort of a um a list of estimates uh that uh that collaboration between departments has helped us um make and so uh some departments um for which the um cost is an actual cost those departments have either been already working with me on uh translating their vital documents or before I joined um they've already had some mechanism for providing translations and so the cost for them um is is pretty um uh is clear it's basically what they've already been doing um whereas those who for who the cost is an estimate um those are the Departments that have told me uh these are the kinds of documents that we distribute the public Le at the vital documents this is how often we um distribute them for example the council uh Council on Aging has a monthly newsletter that goes out and um we basically took that letter we sent it to a couple vendors to get the cost estimate of um how much it'll cost you to translate that into the major languages listed here um and basically multiply that by 12 to get an estimated annual cost for translation and we repeated that for um all the Departments that have been working with me um so far over the last couple months and so the goal here is to um sort of see how much uh implementing the language access policy will cost in terms of translation I know that was one of the concerns that was brought up last time um we've met and so we wanted to just um give you all an idea like um some actual numbers on on what we're estimating this to cost so hopefully um address some of those concerns um and so following this uh hope y um uh implementation of the language access policy will be done in phases um so we will continue to work with departments to keep polishing our definition of vile documents and improving how they're distributed um just going to admit Sarah here um we'll also uh establish uh an internal Network to uh continue to check in and and continue to implement that uh the policy um and then each department of course will have their own sort of mini version of the policy the language access plan um which will address their needs their their methods and how to implement language access for them and of course continuing um review and and tweaking of the um policy and the plan as as we needed will be sort of our our long-term uh goal um so that's all I had for you uh that's all we had for you in terms of updates um so thank you again for having us here to discuss the policy um and I guess we'll we'll take questions now uh David I have a fairly specific question so I believe it's on your eighth slide yes I noticed that for FY 26 you have $2,250 allocated for grievance forms but on the same slide uh grievance procedure under quality assurance there aren't any funds allocated for that so I'm just wondering how that works if you have grievance forms but no procedures under which to uh process them yeah uh great question thank you um I think I have my colleagues who actually know a little bit more about the budget here than I do um Caitlyn can you repeat the question I'm I'm looking at the budget I'm just trying to figure out what you're looking at so for FY 26 you have $2,250 allocated for grievance forms on the same slide there uh is not any allocation for quality assurance which includes grievance procedures so I'm wondering just the order sure so yeah so the grievance form would be translated and that would be public facing which is what the cost is there the development of the quality assurance tools would be all internal so that would be our office uh in collaboration with obviously Amed um and anybody else who needs to be a part of that process developing a grievance procedure um so there that is Staff time uh there shouldn't that should all be done internally there is no cost to that okay currently that we can think of mik yes I'm just thinking that that there is a cost it happens to be in the operating budget uh elsewhere so I think it's important to recognize that there is a cost but this is external yeah and we're only talking about translation cost right right I understand yeah well just a brief comment I think I had raised a questions just about the budget and financial impacts and um kind of a a roll out plan that that gave a sense of the magnitude of work um and I think they did a remarkable job actually in in nailing this down so it's really very helpful and it's answered all my questions yes that that was uh you know one of the issues that we raised back in October and it addressed and as with respect to how that's going to impact individual departments uh we will will um you know see that when we go through our budget um reviews later on after the financial plan is submitted and we'll get a sense of how you departments are incorporating this this program into their their budget so okay any um no any other questions okay I'd like to move approval of the um language access uh uh plan it's just the plan that we're all right I'm sorry language access policy policy okay Mo approval of the language access policy all in favor please indicate by saying I John kak I Michael Sandman I Paul Warren I David browman I sh votes I thank you everyone thank you everyone thank you so much thanks next uh we have a change of hours for Bell 86 doing business as Bell 86 at 308 Harvard Street current operating hours are Monday through Sunday 12:00 p.m. to 12: a.m. uh and the proposed operating hours would be Monday through Sunday 12 P.M to 2 am. we have someone here from uh I see we do have someone in the audience and this did not get addressed at the um so let me y let me let me just briefly for the audiences so when I under the policy that you promulgated the new promy policy that you promulgated any um establishment seeking to stay open past 1:00 a. that is not has to go before you as opposed to before the licensing panel and the purpose of that is to ensure the necessity to the business you know that it's an appropriate location for a 2 am license and all of that um so this is your first application under that revised policy right and I knew that I forgot can I ask a quick question before yes so is this a public hearing did this public hearing already happen with the license subcommittee so this is an established business the hearing is usually for the grant of a license a change in hours doesn't actually require a public hearing okay thank you oh interesting well we did did pull this out because of the policy and right pull pull us out of the license so U describe you know what you you know why you want the extended hours um the neighborhood within which you're operating and whether um later hours will have any impact on on your neighbors residential neighbors sure um and uh anything else more house us um first of all thank you um it's uh when I first appli I took over the restaurant or well I I uh I started the restaurant about three months ago and then um I know that the brook line was in midst of a allowing allowing 2 am license but then while I was doing that I was notified that 2 am license would would not be granted because the neighborhood association object to it and while I went for the midnight or just a regular hour of operation until midnight I was at the hearing and then um they said uh 2 am. the neighborhood association actually I fall under the 2 A.M license zone now where I know not yet no I'm the first person to be here to request the 2 am. license right now I know that I can't operate until 1:00 a.m. but um I'm requesting 2 am because I know there's a um three harvestry in my restaurant it's a briefly I'll describe it's a first Korean like a topas um restaurant I guess in I'm Korean but I think in America it's like a small tapa style that we we serve to our uh customers kind of pair with the wines or people can come in for date night and the location where it is right now is right next to Kish Corner Theater and then I know the latest movie is about like 11:30 like close to 12 midnight when they end and then we're right now open until midnight I've been open for about 3 months but I got a lot of customer after the movie they wants to come by and have a just you know Munch up some food or like have a drink but then with the current hours being midnight I cannot you know serve them at all any any of the my customers the local customers and then um and then 1 am I don't think uh it it kind of draws that me that because I i' been telling all the customers you know I'm going for hearing until 2: a.m and everybody I have a really good feedback from all the neighborhoods think oh that' be fantastic I can come for a late night you know just bite and a drink you know because uh you know that's what they've been wanting I know the Hamilton bar right behind me next to the parking lot they're open at the 2 a.m. but that's a a little bit more like a sports bar where they show like sports and it's a little bit loud but my restaurant is like without a TV is kind of like a Lally it's very similar to a restaurant I don't know if you guys been to Barcelona but very a lot smaller version of it so and then um I know a lot of people are neighborhood association or neighbors are concerned about the like uh loudness or like drunk people that go that might be going around at nighttime but it's not not a it's a Korean restaurant that we serve uh this restaurant has a so you it's it's a very like a low dose like I don't know if you guys ever had it it's a very uh smooth like a lowd dose alcohols which it's just like you just sip on it it's not like anything that people I'm not trying to attract a lot of college students in town I know the neighborhood itself is not a college town so I'm trying to focus mainly my business on a local neighborhood um people people where they can just come in just you know anytime you know until you know 1:30 a.m. just and have a drink and a little bit of a bites you mentioned the neighborhood association um where are the neighbors uh the brook line neighb behind you is a parking lot yeah parking lot but then AC like behind the parking lot I know there's a new apartment coming up and then there's like a little houses and then there's a bunch of houses around the neighborhood like a local people it's a walkable distance where I'm located right now so okay but is that are they questioning you because of noise or no I think that was the main concern when I heard the 2 am was rejected for the brook line was uh the main concern was uh uh I don't recall 100% but the main concern was a possibility possibility of a like a loud people or don't people are trying to just sleep at night or you're talking about there's a General objection no one no one actually came to you in yeah nobody came to me nobody came to me but I know I wanted a 2 a.m. but then I couldn't get that because you know it wasn't approved Yeah well yeah I was going to say uh so I'm very familiar uh Amy and I were I think one of your first customers at date night if you recall um when you first opened um I can attest that this is a very quiet restaurant um uh beastro um I don't even think you have a bar right it's all it's all I have a little small bar like bathroom a small restaurant three seats or something uh four seats so um it is very quiet um you know this area is you know um commercial there's actually no residential uh around it so I'm not sure what N I think what Bernard said or or Chaz there is really no neighborhood association I think you may be referring to the broader um but you know I'm I'm really interested in in this tie between the coolage corner theater and opportunities to have a you know um a synergistic type of offering when they get out um I don't think I don't think the cool Corner Theater go as a big party or at one in the morning so um I would be inclined to to support this and I I do U attest to the fact that he he has an excellent offering um and this is not a sports bar Party Place uh Michael so uh by the way even a sports bar behind a parking lot it's not bad either Park I I I think um it's important remember that the kulage runs some movies at midnight you know uh so and and some uh and they're movies that are aimed at a relatively young audience because that's who stay up after midnight to go to the movies um but uh if we're gonna try out a 2 am license uh this is the place and if you look around it's all one story two story commercial um and You' have to really make a lot of noise to uh uh to be audible down Babcock Street or uh in back of the you know all the way over in back of of Center Street so I'm the one who's usually very cautious about this uh not here this is this is okay uh Mike's comments very much represent my views on this um and Paul's too uh you know if if we're going to have 2 am licenses anywhere this seems like like a good spot I I I am just going to sort of um uh Pro I I want to specify because I think it's it's we have to be very very careful about people who are there but not seen and it it feels like in this conversation we keep sort of overlooking that there are actually people who live right nearby there's the whole Bob basil development that's been there for years bordering the Center Street parking lot which is the parking lot that's right behind you know this so I don't want them to feel unseen you know that's that's a phrase we hear often you know these days that um people come forward who sort of feel not seen um we we recognize that there are people not too far away from this but we also recognize that um a really good case has been made that um this will work out fine for the customers and it'll work out fine for all of the neighor neighbors commercial and residential okay I'd like to move approval of the 2 am license um any further discussion all in favor please indicate by saying I John vak hi Michael sammon hi Paul Warren hi David Perman hi and the chair votes I thank you very much thank you for your patience as we work through this next uh we have police detail rates question of approved the change in police detail rates as recommended by the chief of police chief fastor good evening everyone uh thank you for hearing this matter um here before you tonight to request that you consider an increase in our police detail rate um you have the memo in front of you I won't Bore You by reading it but um in short form what this does is bring us in alignment with our surrounding communities uh spefic specifically Boston and the City of Newton for which we have a reciprocal agreement regarding detail officers any questions uh John is it is it possible that um as a result of this increase in rates um that we will actually benefit from um you know a little bit of spillover in money that comes to the town and through the police department for for use for services that's exactly right the the cut uh is 10% that remains unchanged so the town should see an increase uh in Revenue you're welcome Charlie great I just want to be sure people understood that because you hear increase in rates and you think oh boy now we're going to pay even more and it's going to come out of the town's pocket it actually is the opposite it's a benefit to the offic himself and the town itself sure and the detail rates the town pays don't change that's correct so for example if there's a water main break and we're simply assisting uh you know the gpw the water department um so that they can do their work that's going to continue to be paid at an overtime rate um so we won't the town uh that side of the town will not feel squeezed great sounds like a did you have you asked my question no I was just gonna say it sounds like a win-win yeah um I'm sorry oh I am you asked my okay there you go okay any other uh discussion okay I'd like to move of approval of uh approving the change in police detail rates as recommended by the chief police all in favor please indicate by saying I John Ben skak hi Michael S hi Paul Warren hi David Perman hi and chair vot I thank you thank you very much and next we have uh Ain Shu and Commissioner of DPW uh presenting uh two things solid waste recycling contract Solid Waste and Recycling contract and um uh sanitation fee uh in increases and we're getting some information and we have appreciate your hard cop Kevin well yes we do just gave Kevin a co-host so he can share his video F okay so um good evening my name is Erin chud I'm the commissioner of Public Works I'm here this evening with Kevin Johnson he's our Deputy Commissioner of operations for DPW and director of Highway sanitation and Fleet Services and also uh John dumy the chair of the solid Wass advisory committee they are both uh online uh this evening we have two important sanitation program items for your consideration uh the first is the recommendation to award and execute a new sanitation contract with with cassella Waste Management of Massachusetts our current vendor uh for a 5-year contract commencing July 1st 2025 and continuing through June 30th 2030 this will be the FY 26 to fy3 uh fiscal years for the town the second is the approval of updated rates or cart fees to commence also on July 1 2025 the beginning of the fiscal year and we propos to increase 4% uh per year to keep up with the annual increase in cost to run the program that would be through fiscal year 30 I'll present both together and then pause for questions so the current contract with cassella for collecting and processing single stream Recycling and Disposal of Municipal Solid Waste will expire this year June 30th 2025 um following best practices and proactively seeking the most advantageous pricing and services for the town we partnered with the city of Newton uh and put together a collaborative Municipal Solid Waste bid package that allowed us to compare the cost of each discreet hauling processing or disposal service the two municipalities work together through the bidding and negotiation processes to create a model contract after extensive negotiations with the two most advantageous B biders cassella Waste Management of Massachusetts the Town's current uh service providers as I mentioned offered the most competitive pricing for Brookline Newton and Brookline finalized negotiations with different contractors that met our respective and unique needs U both municipalities felt that the competitive process yielded beneficial results for both communities uh and this bidding process was a unique opportunity to evaluate our services revisit our service delivery model um and in the fall as you can real recollect we came to the select board and shared um both with you and the public the difficulties that we were having um Staffing the sanitation positions uh director Johnson has been trying for years to fill vacant um positions and has been challenged with little to no interest prolonged injuries illnesses um and overall challenges of getting the work done I'll provide a a brief um summary um regarding in-house collection and our concern regarding the V ability of this in-house function and our proposal is founded on our goal to provide efficient reliable predictable and suain sustainable Sanitation Services um to our residents of this town so um Municipal solid waste yard waste bulky waste is currently collected by in-house staff the contractor cassella um collects halls and processes our single stream Recycling and hauls and disposes of Municipal trash and bulky waste they follow the same schedule rules for placement um and collection as the town they've worked with the town as our contractor for the past 10 years it's a seamless operation to the resident and one that will remain so with a new contract uh hybrid pay as you throw commenced in 2017 and it's been instrumental in incentivizing waste reduction it has achieved significant improvements in recycling and diversion rates uh and at the time the town was considering Contracting out uh the trash collection um with the deployment of the carts and through negotiations the town cut two employees in sanitation and kept the collection in house the problem is that DPW is unable to service The Collection routes with the reduced Staffing so the questions is we're evaluating the contracts that we posed to oursel I think talked with the select board in the fall is how can Brookline achieve predictable costs and reliable Service delivery what steps can be taken to modernize the fleet and improve efficiency how can we ensure safety and sustainability in our sanitation services and also what are the long-term exposures for operating Capital costs and liabilities so as a kind of to revisit some of the challenges that we have and this has been a really um sort of a a big decision um for us as we um bring this before you but the biggest challenge with in-house Sanitation Services is we're not staff to provide them uh we've had a tremendous difficulty filling these positions we've advertised them for years and unable to successfully fill them uh we currently have nine in-house positions for the collection Services provided by DPW and of those nine positions four are filled um with full-time staff um and one of those is on an extended leave leaving three positions filled and six positions to be backfilled and and generally five of those six individuals don't want to be on that function so they want to be doing a different function in uh the highway uh division this has had a negative impact on other service functions such as line painting commercial areas cleaning uh maintenance potholes sidewalk ramp work that we formerly um were able to do with in-house Crews and has led to poor morale as employees have been shifted to the sanitation function often last minute and find their job to be unpredictable uh and not the job that they felt they were hired uh to do for the town uh we've had five new hires leave because of this unpredictability and not wanting to do that job I will note though that the um four employees that are full-time now on Sanitation do want and are committed to that function it's just so we simply cannot run the program with that Staffing we also have an aging Fleet that is overdue for replacement sanitation Packers are very expensive to purchase and expensive to maintain the mechanics time is consumed by outdated trucks and the increased time and cost to service the sanitation trucks impact other vehicle maintenance townwide and there's also the liability sanitation is one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States there are inherent legal and financial liabilities associated with this function and along with other work rated injuries in between fiscal year 21 and 24 we had 23 injuries that yielded over 1,00 out of work days um and as we put new and unex experienced staff who don't want to work on sanitation on that function you have delays and greater chances for injury so regrettably this is not an operation model that we can sustain the benefits of Contracting sanitation are cost predictability in budget control enhance service reliability and access to Modern equipment reduce liability and improve safety improved employee employee morale and retention less workers compensation risk and no drain on the other division operations so DPW proposes to transition the town's Municipal solid waste and recycling program to a a fully outsourced collection model excluding yard waste collection to ensure cost Effectiveness safety and service reliability so this is you have this in your packets and I did hand this out at least at home they can kind of zoom in but um these are the um prices that we negotiated um with cassella it shows that it itemizes the trash collection recycling cart maintenance um the white goods and bulky collection along with mattresses and then processing costs um also there is a um a host fee that we're able to take advantage of because of the transfer station which gives us a credit annually as well and reduce our reduces our overall uh cost and just so it's a little easier to look at um the cassella contract and Disposal if you look at the different components within that contract that first year um is 4.79 2 million and then you can see how um the values go up from there and then below below it I'm showing you the percentage increase per year uh in the Cella contract um and so um in order to make this recommendation to you we were obviously looking at um all of our operational challenges but we also do a full cost accounting every time um kind of we're looking at our operation preparing our budget for the next year and also preparing um rate setting uh for this service and uh in looking at the full cost accounting the Town's costs um with inhouse collection is the bar chart on the right which is the 6.61 5 million and then with contractual Services it's the one on the left which is the 6677 um million of Allin and so um the program cost while closed the house costs are slightly less uh this does include two additional FTE and uh a plan for phasing and uh replacement of the fleet over time which would be necessary to run the program um just noting that the full cost accounting includes staff salary overtime longevity benefits accounting all the services and Disposal Fleet fuel maintenance retirement billing but it also covers operation of the scale house the transfer station inspections code enforcement zero waste and recycling programming textiles household hazardous waste drop off and Disposal School composting bulky waste and mattress recycling so they're components um that are not part of the canella cassella contract that are part of our overall sanitation um program that is factored into the rates so our recommendation um is to award and execute a 5year Sanitation Services contract with with castella waste management for um fiscal year 26 through 30 uh in the amount of 26 million $356,900 million uh and that takes into account the credit that we get from uh cassella um and this will include solid waste collection being outsourced but yard waste collection remaining inh house I'm going to continue and we'll come back to that recommendation at the end so I'm going to talk more about fees and then you'll have both of my recommendations at the end and I'll be glad to answer any questions about um all of this so um the sanitation program relies on Revenue uh generated by the refu fee to offset a portion of the total cost of solid waste collection and Disposal recycling collection material processing yard waste Etc and historically we have targeted a 75 25% um cost share so 75% resident fee 25% subsidized uh by tax uh tax subsidy but this varies with costs and timing of fee increase and we also try to balance overall impact to the participant uh since the program commenced in 2017 fees increased in January 2021 uh they didn't increase again until July 2023 and we're now proposing these fees um to be effective July 1 2025 um they can be Revisited if necessary in any given year but barring any significant changes um this proposal which also has the 4% that would increase through FY 27 28 29 and 30 um it will allow us to in essence keep our cost share stable through the duration of the contract okay so um here you're seeing the cost share and you're seeing that we have um n and a half% uh since FY 25 that is our increase going into 26 it's actually a little greater than that going back to 24 and then what average is at about 4% um over the remaining years we take a look at that and just sort of kind of look at what the bulk of those costs are that um that sort of top blue is uh benefits and other overhead um if you balance that with the bottom green that's your personnel cost so those together are um you know sort of our Personnel um costs and um then we move into contractual Services that's that largest green and contractual Services is going to be both your collection and all of your disposal costs in every categ atory that we have um capital outlay is the equipment and then supplies is a a small component so our proposal um going into FY 26 is an increase on the current rates of um so looking at the cart fees it's a 10% increase for the 35 gallon cart 11% for the 65 gallon cart and 12% for the 95 gallon cart um 10% also for the bags only which we have very few um residents that uh participate in that and um this uh fee proposal was approved by the solid waste advisory committee um over time they would like us and I initially had gone to them with sort of 10% across the board they said they would really wanted us to um do a better job of incentivizing the smaller carts and to really push our overall waste reduction um goals for the town so we made a slight adjustment in um the percentage increases and that is something that swack would like um the board and Public Works uh to uh look at further in the future to try to um even further incentivize the smaller carts um I'll and I'll come back to to to the cards but I did want to share that um we do charge as well for special waste and bulky waste pickups and prior to charging and you you at home this is sort of a chart that for those at home you can't probably see all the numbers but we're going back to FY 20 to look at the number of requests we had for special pickups the number of items that we picked up we started charging a very small fee and we have an increase uh that we're recommending but it remains very small um still highly subsidized um we started charging fees in fy2 24 and the big difference to note here is that um it was pretty consistent but through FY 23 that year we collected over 16,000 items and then when we charged the fee um $10 $20 per item that went down to 77500 and FY 24 and new said they experienced the same thing that um they had a 70% reduction and just that um Small Change of having to pay a fee that the residents are actually thinking about is there something else I could do with this there's a step I'm going to have to take anyway I'm not just putting it outside is there someone I can give this to can I donate it to Good Will um you know it's my nephew moving into uh you know college housing whatever it might be and so people are taking the time to think about that and that has helped us actually reduce our overall tonnage so it's really been a been a win-win and so um looking forward for FY 26 we're looking to um go to a um $65 cart um swap fee uh $20 for large uh white goods and bulky Goods uh $30 for El ronics and $65 for mattresses mattresses are collected separately they're stored separately and then we um work with a vendor who then actually recycles them and this is mandated uh by the state of Massachusetts again um this table which is going to be hard to see at home but I just wanted to show what the difference is in fiscal years when you're looking at the 10 11 and 12% um for FY 26 and then what that looks like going out in 27 through uh fy3 so um with our first year you're looking at an increase of $25 for 35 gallons um 36 or about $37 for um 65 gallons and 51 uh dollars this is per year for the 95 gallon and for month monthly increases it's about two $2 uh an increase per month for the 35 gallon and it's $4.25 for the 95 gallon and then when you're looking at the 4% increase um in years out that's really averaging it's about $11 per year for the 35 gallon up to $19 $20 for the 95 gallon and per month it's really between a dollar or a160 per month increase um you'll see over that time period and what that does if you look at the bottom of the chart is we're not at that 75 25 um percent split uh it's really get we're we're currently at maybe a 68% this is getting us to a 70 and 30% about that and it's holding that steady uh for the next 5 years and the intent of that is to have some um predictability in terms of budget planning I think both for the town and then also for the residents and so our proposal this is kind of putting it all together you can see um the cart price increases at uh 10 to 12% depending upon size uh that's in the middle there the um special pickups uh both for large bulky goods and white Goods at 20 and $306 5 cost for both a cart swap or mattresses and then um bags the individual bags at uh $22 a roll and $4 4% increase and we also are proposing that the um individual the bulky items the white goods the mattresses go up $2.50 per year uh in each category in subsequent years and that would be 27 28 29 and 30 uh so with that I have the recommendation this is just the sort of final um sheet that has uh the language uh around uh the votes both for the contract and the sanitation rates so I am sure that you have um many questions I'm glad to answer them as I mentioned Uh Kevin Johnson and John dumpy are uh both online as well thank you uh very thorough um course we have already read this and I think we're we're we're we're in agreement on certain things um David has his hand up first just a question regarding costs so you have a comparison between Contracting this out to cassella as well as keeping it inhouse there's about a $62,000 difference where it's cheaper to keep it inhouse well my question to you around that if you look Beyond just the comparison of the uh collection and processing of uh trash and recycling related Fe related um collection Services you reference liabilities and that that has a cost you reference that Staffing hasn't always been stable so I presume there might be related HR related costs built into that um could you describe what some of the maybe opportunity costs and what different DPW employees can engage in that's not with trash collection could you maybe explain what some of the other costs are that might not be in that direct analysis AB absolutely so um costs that are not um that we haven't accounted for in that comparison are going to be legal costs they are um you know costs associated with work that were're not able to do because staffing has been diverted um to the sanitation function so we're not able you know you you don't see the sidewalk that we weren't able to pour the you know the work that we that then therefore had to go into the the contract instead of being done in-house and may have been something we could have done more efficiently in-house had we had the staff um the I mean there are a lot of sort of uncaptured costs with that I think the the you mentioned HR and kind of personnel cost with both hiring staff and how labor intensive that is just in terms of the posting and the interviews and onboarding um you know and potentially and then needing to do that um repeatedly uh and not being able to fill these positions so for from a financial cost perspective do you have confidence that over the five-year duration of this contract Cella would actually costs less monetarily no cell will cost more Monet monetarily I mean when you factor in these other costs that I think so I am not presenting this in any way as a cost-saving measure for the town so I don't want to misrepresent that um there are a lot of intangibles that um you know that you know we have not put in that um analysis on the T Town side what we are presenting is we think that we currently have a model that is positioned to fail and we are really looking to um make sure that we can provide this critical service to the town so this is really about um operation services and sustainability and with that there's a cost right so um thank you very much um we are uh I think all of us are used to very thorough presentations and you have certainly not disappointed us um this is a great presentation start to finish um I do have um a couple of questions one is do a charge for white goods and electronics is as special items white goods are appliances and that sort of thing um but what about um somebody has a collection of cables and wires or small electronics products a a Wi-Fi router or something of that sort is there any kind of mechanism for collecting that kind of electronic waste separately or do you wait for the Hazardous Waste period during the summertime when people can drop that sort of stuff off it's funny that's exactly what I was going to suggest actually it's bringing it with you when you know for come from household hazardous wasted because they'll just take those at no additional cost y but I will sort of ask Kevin if he has any Who's online if he has any other suggestions around um any of those sort of ancillary electronic um components that aren't necessarily large or particularly bulky and the best way to um get rid of them maybe in between if there is any other way in between household hous way stay uh good evening uh thanks for having me tonight um Kevin Johnson Deputy Commissioner of operations and Highway and sanitation director uh unfortunately um the best way to obviously to get rid of some of that those items is at household hazardous waste day um there's not too many local um companies or vendors that take that um that you can drive and and drop it off or call and pick it up um we we work every day to try to find accessibility for stuff like this so that we can keep it out of the trash but right now our best option is uh to bring it up to household hazardous waste okay and then one other question if I may a different one um the um the change in uh the ratio between what the uh residents pay for and what the town pay for pays for uh is moving or has in effect been crawling from 75% residents down towards 70% 71 72 why not gradually restore the 75% which I recognize results in higher fees but doing that over a period of time uh to get us back to a 7525 split so we could do that we absolutely can do that and we could do that in a way that would would sort of I think phase that in potentially for the resident I did run a model um for that and if uh instead of 4% across the board and in keeping with swac's direction to try to incentivize the 35 gallon um cart uh we could do uh 5% year two for the 35 gallon and then um let me make sure I have that right I think it's I I no okay it was five and six there's a way to do it so that the 35 gallon cart would be 4% for the first year and 5% after that the 35 the 65 could be 5% 6% after that and the 95 could be 7% and 8% after that and so that then combined gets the town to actually a 7 four and a half um split so um it would be over time it's over the 5 years it phases it in um more slowly isn't sort of a cost cost shock uh at first and so um that's that is an option and is that so that as you said we can change rates any time that's something that we could take a look at it really depends on the budget as a whole it seems to me um it's not an inconsequential subsidy after all no we and we we actually talked about this I think it's I think it's well worth discussing as part of the broader question about revenues and expenditures that we're going to have over the course of this year yeah personally I think uh as as it's always painful to recommend an increase in rates and as long as you're increasing rates I think you know you may want to think very seriously about uh increasing them back to that 7525 I there's nothing sacred about the ratio really except to say that um as a philosophical matter people should be paying for what they throw away Co yep um I'm G to just do a quick follow on to that and then I have another question um I well I agree with you that um people should pay more for what they're they're using we just remember that this once was included in our taxes I'm I'm and so you know so I just I I I want to be sensitive to the fact that um although 4% or 5% $51 a year or something seems to be a nominal amount it's actually uh it it's it given all the other things we're charging parking fees are increasing parking tickets are I mean what everything's going up um and while one discreet service may seem minor in the grand scheme of things on top of real estate taxes going up and all the other costs um It Isn't insignificance So I think we need to think hard about that that's just my view and I don't think we're going to decide that tonight I did have I don't think we are right we're gonna we're taking the proposal that you're giving to US unless we're going to defer no I think the propo so the proposal I wanted to sort of share that I did I did look at that and really was trying to manage kind of cost shock as well um but I do recommend um the 4% to make sure that we don't dip um down over the course and we can revisit and I think also look at um kind of a bigger picture um kind of budget management and that's something that the Town Administrator and I can do so onto my real question Bernard if I may um so I'm just curious about the transfer station so I saw that we get a credit I I don't really fully understand what the transfer I know there's it's for transferring stuff what what are we going to put there and what are we transferring and how much land is it is being used for that so the the transfer station is and you know I'm gonna let Kevin this actually is probably a great opportunity for Kevin to to jump in but I think I'll say we have about five acres it's the um rear landfill the the full transfer station Town uses it entirely we have all of our our bulk storage is there um so everything from our we have our our catch Bas and cleanings our sand our Loom our our concrete our cement our SPO like so we store we have all the whole Transport St there's yeah so we have a full operation that's running there and we have a transfer station that's um that is regulated by the D and we are allowed to take that's it's 135 um tons is this per day Kevin am I yeah yeah 135 tons per day 135 tons per day our tonage maybe something around 30 per day I'm going to say 30 35 and 30 32 tons a day yep okay and so the the vendor then is able to use our remaining 100 tons and bring in waste from their other clients that come in they weigh everything at our at our scale house consolidate their waste and then take that with our waste to the waste energy disposal facilities and this is has been very successful um over the last 10 years so they've so we've been so they've been this agreement this type of thing has been in place it's been in place they've been paying us or crediting that's right okay it's $1,000 a year that's right okay and it was 168,000 in our last contract and we negotiated that up okay I understand okay thank you all right John thank you for a very thorough presentation and and a very thoughtful um exercise and you know how do we anticipate um a problem and deal with it uh before it becomes you know a the problem um I I had various reactions to this from people who you know want to express an opinion on it one way or the other um one one of the um responses I just want to pass along as a compliment to some of the employees who are still with the Department um and and are still performing the service um uh I won't name names but um some of them are popular with their customers and that's always good to hear um there are people who actually feel like they have gotten to know their pickup person um and they are going to miss that person um and they're they're feeling a little bad about this right now but I think most of them are are going to understand and keep this in perspective um the other the other response that I'll I'll pass along and it's just a question um do we have equipment that was purchased on the expectation that we would be continuing to do the service inous that is in any sense um less useful and therefore less valuable now if we're going to contract to cassella so um we we will be keeping the yard waste function inhouse so I think the we will need two Packers for that we'll keep the electric um Packer that we were able to achieve last we were able to to purchase last year with a grant uh it's actually sort of perfect for that type of function because that's you know we we don't do that in the coldest uh months and then we'll have a backup Packer um the balance of our our equipment is really quite old so there isn't anything that's been purchased that that has been newly purchased that um you know we will be um kind of losing the value we've gotten Great Value out of the equipment uh that we have I really applaud the mechanics who have done a great job keeping them uh and getting them back on the road are we going to De access any equipment at all we we would so we're looking at um four Packers uh that we would uh in essence be able to uh look to see look to see what we can um get for uh value for the town and I don't know I I I apologize if I if you covered it in your presentation and I missed it um is there going to be any work with cassella to arrange for um any employees who are current Town employees who wish to become employees continue to be employees in this field and in this service um to to do it through employment with cassella so we would be certainly glad to provide um sort of recommendations or references but our commitment was to the employees was to make sure that they were remain employed by the town benefits they pay that there would be no loss um in any of that any time um and so uh if someone wanted to uh work for cassella I imagine they would be um you know a really strong candidate they know the town they know the route um cuz sella also knows the town and knows the routes cuz they're doing it right now with the um recycling I love to hear that people get do get to know their um sort of Sanitation um boooks that are assigned to them I think that holds true for the cassella um staff as well because we have the the same folks generally that come through um you know we assigned to those those routes so um we're we're certainly glad to help someone if if um uh that were the case that they were interested in going Cella um but our commitment is to to keep them employed here thanks Mike so um I just I do have a question but I'm just imagining in my mind Joe's certified secondhand Packers uh on the lot somewhere for trying to dispose those four vehicles vehicles right um uh you mentioned that um and this matter of really curiosity rather than substance here um Newton chose a different somebody other than cassella uh using the same model contract which is kind of interesting to hear I I think just it was actually very interesting for us as well through the through the process what we found is that the transfer station is a real asset to Brookline it is unique and it gave us a competitive advantage in terms of um you know what the the successful contractor what they would be able to do and Newton H currently has a contract with a disposal site and so they are only going to one disposal site with their waste and they have probably double the amount that we have and so with 90 tons of waste comingling them are they now going to only one site it it became complicated and less finan advantageous due to this sort of I I would say the big factors really were they already had a contract with a disposal site um and we allow that flexibility to the dis to the contractor um they work with several waste energy facilities and they look at see what the lines are at that facility that day Etc um and so it it um I think restricted them uh more and we were able to get better pricing by um being individual but again uh it worked out well for both of us yeah yeah I would i' compliment on the working with another Community especially uh you know a similar Community has similar kinds of uh needs um is a really good idea yeah so that's great yeah we really we negotiated together right until the end yeah really Paul yep just one one final question just to I just want to confirm my understanding so um should we approve this we while we will lose some union jobs in that the ones that are open that you can hire uh those um we won't hire those but any existing positions would do have employment with the town in another capacity I assume at the same rate and of pay and benefits and all that is that is that corre true yes okay all right thank you okay any further discussion if not I would like to uh move approval uh first of all the refuse fee schedule yes and could you yeah and Could you um I don't know if you're looking at the agenda maybe just look at the last the last page of the presentation right there might be helpful a little bigger yeah you don't want me to read all the rates no you certainly don't have to you say as presented and I I'll I'll approve the contract first um okay I'm Mo approval um of uh the award and execution of a five-year Sanitation Services contract with cassella waste management for fiscal year 26 through 30 in the amount of 26 m356 1829 with approval of the fisc Year 26 contract at a value of4 million $792,000 um that an adequate explanation it sounds good okay sounds good to me too all in favor please indicate by saying I John Van skak hi Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren hi David Perman I uh chair votes I next uh I move approval of a sanitation rate structure as presented on January 14 2025 today um as uh laid out in the uh materials uh in the packet um all in favor unless you want me to read the rates okay all in favor please indicate by saying I John Van skak hi um Michael sandon hi Paul Warren hi David Perman hi chair votes I thank you thank you for your time this evening and thank you for a very thorough um presentation and materials we'll all go go home and study it my pleasure have a good night thank you and I see John Di's in the uh audience thank you for all your work no we didn't but we did did a lot of work in the background we appreciate that okay okay final items on our agenda a question of appointing the following individuals to boards and commissions um David Pearlman as the select board representative and chair of the committee of seven for the Jack Kine ice rink um and naming committee Elizabeth J Armstrong which who will be a preservation commission representative I did just want to flag um there was a late breaking request to um just add it and clarify in the memo appointing David to that Committee of seven that both of those committees are to be guided by your recommendation that you made in September about what the rank is supposed to look like that is to say supposed to stay in its current location and it's not going to be covered so both of those things are now reflected in the memo on page one there but reflects the language of your vote on the 17th and actually Paul pointed out that there was a um just a error in the minutes from the 17th so we'll bring that back to you on the 28th and fix that so that the language of your vote is clear okay good very important oh good catch okay um with that uh I move approval of the two appointments on in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak hi Michael sanon hi PA Warren hi David Perman hi and chair v i and with that unless there's any um one in the audience who' like to uh um make public comment at the end of our meeting sure um folks no one has their hand raised right now um and nobody asked to speak at the end I can I can check if anybody just I shouldn't have said that please go ahead and never too late right yeah hello everybody good evening my name is Ronald I've been the microphone just get closer that's all my name is Ronald eglon and um I live in Brookline for 15 years and U from those 15 years um I don't even see a community in Brookline Village there's everything that's past from Brookline Village we have leaders that's supposed to represent us but they representing the board and everything else and um it's just like confusing when you go out everybody in our community go out what do they see when they come out they see a hospital um they see all business around them when they go out they go to see a hotel but there's nothing for the community and this is sad you know what I mean for not to have a community that represent the community and have nobody representing it and you look at the people the children that's growing up and this is what they see this is what they program to see is this supposed to be like that where they supposed to have no type of enjoyment no type of want want to accept this you know what I mean make them feel bad you mean brainwash them so this is what life is all about we don't have no type of you know I mean community no no type of um um um um places where they can just enjoy life as well as as being a kid growing up you know I mean learning in their Community instead of looking at it it's like just a business and and just being programmed and I'm just tired of seeing that I don't see no restaurant in Brookline way I don't see none of that but when I walk up towards this way I see everything I don't see nothing for um matter of fact I don't don't see nothing for um black and brown people I'm just tired I rest my my three minutes thank you thank you if anyone else would like to speak we have just a couple minutes left of uh public comment time um I'm not seeing anyone who is raising their hand in the online audience or in person um so I think okay with that uh the meeting is hereby declared toly over wait a minute got someone else coming up oh Sor want to speak yes feel free we have time for one more you you guys are pretty familiar with me at this time um didn't plan on speaking but something just came to my mind about two weeks ago I think at a conquest was right here to talk about the restorative justice stuff you guys try to pull off right um clearly that didn't work as well and uh last week I think a lady spoke when you Mike was talking about the issues between the lady and a neighbor so uh the lady that spoke last week about a permit and told you you supported somebody and she does to that effect so I just wanted to point out the glaring Factor right when it was all black people you guys all got together and worried about black communities and the issue that's what brought about the restorative justice you guys paid money for to try to get people to settle that so that didn't work let's try to use that money to settle white folks problem too because restorative justice is not just strictly for black people so I would like you guys to do that CU if not it's going to seem intentional that you spend that money when it had to do with black folks so I just it just can't my mind right that you guys should use that same intent and when it comes to white folks having disagreement which you mention between the lady and the neighbor you could use restorative justice for that how about we try that it's going to catch up though it's going to soon enough but I just I just wanted to mention that on public record and I did I thought keep giving us it's a lot he's saying publicly and uh we plan to use that to as well so happy 2025 it's going to be a long G thank you thank you by the way uh we do use restorative justice uh practices in the high school um and I think elsewhere in the school system so what much broader than just the good yes it's over e e e