##VIDEO ID:EFYcLvPkqSA## [Music] for [Music] [Music] hey Tiffany yes Bernard did you um is my audio on I guess it is yes I can hear you it's on okay your video is not on okay I couldn't hear you so I I was muted oh okay [Music] all [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] one good evening I'm Bernard Green chair of the Brookline select board and this is the meeting of the select board for October 8th 2024 as you may have noticed I'm not present in the select board's hearing room I'm recovering from from a very successful hip replacement operation on Wednesday but those operations though uh successful can be very uh rough my muscles are still recovering from uh the harsh treatment they suffered at the hands of my surgeon and I've been asked by my physical therapist um Team uh not to go too much not to go out into the world too much for next few days I've asked John Van skak to handle portions of this meeting uh before we we start though I'd like to just uh thank a couple people here in Brooklyn who have helped uh me during this period of recovery by bringing me sustenance uh that is to say food uh Paul Warren Carla Bena and Linda Roseman uh provided uh you know great food uh the last couple days that kept me um from having to spend the time looking for stuff in the refrigerator to cook and then cooking it uh Etc so uh I thank them for that I appreciate it it's just uh one of those signs of how Brooklyn residents you know uh step up and and help each other uh when we have um uh difficult situations so again thank you um let's see so let's that I'll take that as my comment or update um any other announcements or updates from the select board um I have a short one um uh my uh uh uh it's a personal a personal one like yours Bernard uh my wife was in a motor vehicle accident and uh broke some bones and has just been released from rehab to to be at home and she may very well send me a text message saying come back in which case I will rejoin this by Zoom so um uh if you would uh Tiffany if you would just if I if I leave five minutes later I'll be online yeah great of course thank you Mike Paul has his hand raised Paul yep uh thank you Bernard and I'm glad you're on the road to recovery um I I've been doing this now I think for this is probably the third week in a row where I'm reminding the public about uh tomorrow's public launch of the uh comprehensive plan kickoff and visioning workshop uh the in-person visioning workshop um starts tomorrow night Wednesday October 9th from 7 to 9:00 p.m. at 22 taen Street which is the new Freshman building uh near the high school um actually it is the high school and uh you're welcome to come you can come and 10 minutes uh you could spend two hours uh there's going to be stations where you can go up and uh to speak with a representative of the team and share your thoughts on various aspects of the comprehensive plan um transportation housing commercial Etc uh there'll also be a virtual version of the workshop if you can't do it in person tomorrow uh and that will take place Thursday uh from on October 10th from 12:10 to 12:50 p.m. and the registration for that is online uh and then there's also a uh survey that's available today through October 20th that you can fill out uh and also share your vision and various various uh aspects of the comprehensive plan for Brookline uh and that's all done online you can go to Brookline comp plan.com uh for more information and I do hope to see you tomorrow night I know I will be there and a number of members uh of the steering committee and the planning department um we look forward to seeing you thank you great thank you Bernard if I may I'm just gonna jump in with an announcement or two is that all right yep and I have to quickly say as an aside I if I had known that you were accepting food offerings uh uh I can make a mac and cheese that you know you'll be talking about a years from now but um well I will extend my recovery just for that okay but here's here's my announcements as quickly as I can uh a reminder that there's a flu clinic tomorrow at the B Baker School um I I believe it's not too late to sign up but you do have to register so go to the uh go to the public health uh web page on on our town website and uh do register if you want to go to the flu Clinic it's at 4:30 to 6:30 tomorrow at the baker school um the the one that I want to most highlight is that indigenous people's Day celebration is coming up um on Monday October 14th and um it's it's a terrific program it's always a terrific program but this year especially three really good speakers who have various perspectives um on the indigenous people's experience in this country um Kaylee Bennett um for one uh do Dr Asa selus from he Hayes school um and then Christian Wyman um who is a member of the nitm tribe in Massachusetts and um co-founder of the Eastern uh Woodlands uh Barn I'm gonna get this right B Beres I'm getting it wrong but um uh I'm I hope I'll be forgiven um so indigenous people celebration Monday October 14th uh 1 P 1 P.M to 4 p.m. uh and then the the other uh thing that I think is well worth mentioning uh is is that uh there is going to be a site visit um we've been doing a lot of talking lately about the changes planned for the Washington Street Corridor and a good way to see them up close um is to join this Washington Street Corridor site walk which will be at four o'clock on Thursday and uh the it starts at Beacon Street at Washington Street and then proceeds down through the corridor with opportunities to ask questions and and learn a lot about the changes that are planned for the Washington Street Corridor so that's 4M starting on site at the corner of Washington Street and Beacon Street handing it back to you thank you so uh let's have our public comment period uh Tiffany please read the rules yes thank you for joining us for public comment this is an opportunity for us to hear your perspective on the issues in Brook line that matter to you each person speaking tonight is limited to 3 minutes you don't have to use the entire time but you may if you like once 15 minutes has been met there is an opportunity at the conclusion of the select board's business for additional comments members of the public sometimes raise questions during public comment we may be able to provide a quick answer to a question but are more likely to work with staff to get a more thorough answer and respond over email we'll let you know when you have 30 seconds remaining and when your time is up please conclude your remarks at that time if you have more to say you are welcome to send an email to board members expressing your thoughts in Greater detail the first Speaker we have signed who signed up in advance is Irving kiry who is with us online Irving I'm going to promote you now I'll just quickly ad will Irving is being promoted um we do have a number of Warren articles on the agenda um those are public hearings there are three Warren articles that are up for public hearing 16 18 and 20 there are specific public comment periods of available when those Warren articles are being discussed so if you have a comment on any of those we just ask you to hold your comment until that time thank you Irving you should be able to start your video if you're comfortable and begin your three minutes oh Irving you're on mute sir okay thank you okay my name is Irv kiry uh my wife and I um are senior citizens and we've lived in Brook line for more than 30 years um and we've been car-free by choice for more than 40 years during that time we have relied primarily on our bicycles for transportation and we still do as you are well aware the Washington Street uh is an important Transportation Corridor uh for many destinations in Brookline Village and Beyond uh it is a street that we um both uh use our bicycles on several times a week uh I think it's imperative that we improve the bicycle infrastructure uh for safety of all cyclists and pedestrians who are vulnerable Road users especially uh when as motor vehicle size speed and Driver distraction increase danger as uh bicycle infrastructure is made safer more people will ride bicycles this will improve our air quality improve our Collective sense of well-being and help reach our Municipal goals as participating member of the Paris agreement on on climate change let me add that the streets are public spaces and should be available to all Road users especially when space is uh needed to improve safety blocking safety improvements uh for um all Road users of um of for th uh for those who use the space u to store their private Vehicles is not an appropriate tradeoff I support the installation of protected bike Lanes on Washington Street and ask the select board to do the same thank you the next speaker signed up to speak is Phillip uh Stegman Philip I'm promoting you now you're on mute wonderful thank you very much uh my name is Philip stagman I'm a Brookline dad of a first grader at the rle school um I'm also a Youth Development professional in my day job I have I'm doing a federal fellowship at the department of of Health and Human Services and the thrust of my work is really promoting healthy development and well-being of schoolage children and I think the same thing is needed here in Brooklyn um evidence evidence-based practices for afterschool and Youth Development programs sorry include healthy relationships with caring adults safe environments that Foster a sense of belonging development of socio emotional skills habits and mindsets and authentic opportunities for leadership these practices have repeatedly been demonstrated to improve physical social and emotional health outcomes and our protective factors against the mental health issues we're seeing in adolescence here in Brooklyn including isolation and depression that have gotten worse since the pandemic these practices also promote inclusion and can prevent discrimination and harassment but schools can't carry the responsibility for healthy development alone any effort to invest as a community to support the well-being of children must include programs that serve children social service providers and town departments that influence public policy these ingredients already exist in Brookline we have an Innovative School District Town recreation parks Library departments a robust community of after school and enrichment programs the teen center big service providers like the Brookland Center and more but without an office of Youth Development we lack a hub for all of those who focus on youth to communicate coordinate identify needs and opportunities and work better together on behalf of Youth we especially owe this to children from families uh with low socioeconomic status who have lower access to after school and Youth Development programs as determined by the Brookline Foundation Brooklyn Community Foundation on a report they did about after school programs in 2019 Brooklyn had established the human relations uh youth Resources Commission in 1970 but it's specific focus on Youth Development was lost when it was replaced uh in 2014 by the office and mission on diversity Equity inclusion and community relations to fill that void I'm proposing some kind of townwide strategy and asking for your support the early stages of this work would be focused on townwide and coordination and would not require Town spending the the charge thank you the charge would include staying sharing resources and staying up toate on each other's Pro on on each other's program activities staying up to date with evidence-based practices and Youth Development doing A needs assessment to see where the gaps are and eventually making recommendations for the sustainability of the committee's work through the hiring of a town employee establishment of a department or subdepartment or continuation of the committee thank you so much for your time and uh consideration please contact me if you have any questions and let me know if you'd like to support this project thank you there are no other speakers who sign up in advance but if you're in the room in which to speak and if you're online could you raise your hand using the raise the hand feature at this time there are two individuals present in the room tonight and approximately 40 participants online and no one is wishing to speak okay thank you Tiffany okay next uh we have miscellaneous items starting off with our minutes for October 1st 2024 uh we will get the October uh September 24th meetings at a later date any uh Corrections for the October 1st uh minutes Berard I just want to confirm that uh weed a feedback from Regina fley and that was incorporated into into the meeting yes thank you yes thank you TI um okay uh I move approval as amended of the October 1st 2024 uh minutes all in favor please indicate by saying I John v skak i Michael sanon hi Paul Warren hi and chair votes I U by the way let me just let the board or the community know that uh David Perlman will be a little late um but he will be attending uh our meeting later on either uh via Zoom or uh in person so um that that that explains the emptiness of his chair okay next I'd like to take items b or 3B through 3H in Omnibus fashion unless someone would like to take one of the items out of that list and discuss them separately any desire to do that okay seeing none I move approval of 3B through 3H um on in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak I Michael S I Paul Warren I and chair po I okay let's move on to our calendar uh we have boards and commissions interviewed uh let's start off with the planning board and we have an interviewee uh one interview Brian lad and Brian is in the room with us okay Mr lad go to the podium and please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about why you want to be a member of the planning board and what you can bring to that uh body I say Mr Perman has arrived uh oh welcome David thank you thank you Mr chairman thank you members of the board do I need to up a little bit thank you very much yeah sorry thank you um fine my name is Brian lad I uh have been a historian a teacher College teacher is the way I've made my living most of my life um my area of expertise has been this history of how cities are put together so I've done research and published on things like the history of urban planning zoning preservation Transportation my wife and I retired to Brookline because this was the kind of urban environment we liked not entirely car dependent among other things also our daughter lives nearby um and since then I've been as I always have been following from some distance less and less distance um local Affairs related to my areas of expertise so I've been digging into the history of zoning in Brookline for example and uh this has got me more and more interested in contributing great um I'll start off with a question I I did read some of the materials in your application and um you site a Dutch philosopher who argued that dirty streets for a welcome sign of prosperity so irrespective of whether you agree with that sentim sentiment uh could it be uh could that be relevant to the work you anticipate on the planning board that perspective um making SE streets dirtier no not making them dirtier but just accepting the fact that the dirt is related to um you know economic context for right this is by the way this is the 18th century philosopher Bernard de mandaville um and his argument was it's a sign of prosperity um the and I think there's something to that that streets can be messy places and there's only a certain amount of order we can impose if we impose too much we kill them I think the Contemporary example of that is actually streets that are designed entirely for rapidly moving motor traffic um which thus become in a sense clean and efficient and dead and dangerous that's a good comment uh Paul do you have your hand up yeah I that we should do this yeah see right thank you I I have to admit I just got your application uh few minutes ago um but I see that your your resume was there too which I did read so your your primary interest has has been Transportation correct is that kind of where your interest had germinated from my research in recent years has been about that about cars and cities and cities without cars and things like that but it's Street the way streets function but transportation being the main thing that's that's involved there yeah so K so how would you apply that or would that fit in with you know your role on on the planning board how would you you know is that their role do they focus in that area um no I I see that as more broadly covering things that I've covered my entire career planning zoning um preservation um my interest in streets has been in among other things in the idea that if we don't have total dominance of the car we can have other things going on and so that has to do with the uses that front the street and the relationship between them and the street and the relationship between them and each other and I should say what got me interested in local Affairs was actually above all the Harvard Street resoning plan because that really excited me as a way to take a street and focusing not on Transportation so much as the access to the street and relevance to the street of buildings and housing um Make a Better Community I I appreciate you bringing up the Harvard Street because that was an important step in our our planning process where we could have some consensus around you know what what a specific area should look like based on our objectives can you talk a little bit about uh the comprehensive plan I'll forthcoming I'm the chair of the comprehensive plan steering committee so this is near and Day to my heart can you speak a little bit about uh your understanding the comprehensive plan the planning board's role in uh and the comprehensive plan and how it all fits together I confess I'm only at the beginning of that I'm looking forward to learning a lot more tomorrow planning to come in person if at all possible um you the specific relationship between the planning board and the comprehensive plan someone just told me that the planning board has an official role at the end in terms of that and I actually I I would have to figure that out I I mean I know that that's somewhere down the line they actually have to approve it yeah okay they submit it okay so so uh so I mean I I would be following it with interest in any case um again I'm I'm learning about this although I I was involved in a comprehensive planning process in the town I lived before in suburb of Albany but that was a long time um that um ideally presumably the the comprehensive plan is on a higher level of setting basic goals and the planning board which is constantly involved with a nitty-gritty is is figuring out how you take those goals whether it be different kinds of streets housing open space and so forth and figuring out how to fit those into Rader Visions zoning articles but also the day-to-day decision- making of of how we we approve disapprove alter proposals that come before us yes Mike sammon guys hand up yeah Mike go ahead thank you um so um clearly you understand that the planning board is not focused on Urban Design or even Street design it's focused on building design um and I can see uh certainly a linkage between what the the interest that you expressed in of lively streets I guess is the best uh sort of the the better way perhaps than Messi um but uh I want what I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about what you would bring to the question of building design facades facade materials those are the nitty-gritty kinds of things the planning board deals with right um and I'm aware that the planning board is dominated by Architects right now and I I do have I bring a somewhat different perspective even though as I attend those meetings I'm always learning from their eyes looking at projects but yeah to address your question um my experience I've done a little bit of um Arch juries at architectural schools judging student projects and that's become where where I become aware that when it comes to facade details and so forth I defer to the architex but when it comes to for example how a building addresses a street how it makes easier more pleasant or more difficult the relationship coming in and out of the building the relationship between one building and the next building how they work together to form a a pleasant place to live that's the sort of thing that I have studied and and I do have something of an eye for I think okay thank you David has his hand up yeah hey Tiffany is there some way that you can uh allow me access to the full screen um I'm not sure what you mean by full screen he wants to see hands or something yeah I want to see everyone oh the select board yeah yes I can remove you from Spotlight okay oh great okay David so I have a follow-up question uh along the lines that Mike samman asked so I see that in terms of your Publications you have at least two books written about uh Urban Design in Germany that seem pretty comprehensive and you also have some uh articles that you wrote about traffic about transportation uh about Street Life Etc so could you talk about in uh your role of assessing a building's facade and a and a building plan essentially how would you incorporate that experience of uh dealing with Transportation issues and talking about uh how I don't recall the precise title of one of the articles but something about that traffic is too focused on and so how would you incorporate uh that scholarship into a building plan uh around parking for instance well first of all the context would be the relevant zoning um and the broader plan such something like the Harvard Street plan which is which more directly addresses the kind of things you're asking about but then with an individual building you ask for example with parking um how does it work does it work in a way that does not disrupt The Pedestrian experience that does not break up the street front in a way that that U makes the street unwelcoming for people not in cars um so driveways garage entrances and that kind of thing um that would be a key part of it how do how do doorways work um in a way that that again is addressed to people walking by in a welcoming way as opposed to people driving into a garage those are the kinds of things that that jump out at me when I'm looking at a design from the point view of the Street then also when you're looking at a design uh is your assessment of it dependent upon the surrounding environment in that moment or the surrounding environment that you and or others would like to see in the future it would be the latter um particularly if we well again in the context of of what has previously been decided or what is being debated about about the the zoning and so forth but yeah that that I do see that an ideal of moving away from automobile dependence that many parts of Brookline are in great shape in doing that and Brook line as a whole is in better shape than the great majority of the United States in doing that um but that that would be my focus toward toward figuring those kinds of things out um you know how do you have sufficient parking without it dominating the street for example um in ways that perhaps it does right now Washington Street debate I've been involved in that that's an example of how do we balance these things all right let's say it's somewhere that uh is less Urban so somewhere in South Brooklyn for instance would you look at that as what uh your idealized vision might be for South Brookline at some point in the future or South Brookline as a Suburban landscape currently well I can tie that back into Paul's question about my focus on Transportation because the phrase Transit oriented development is was one that I'm sure you've all run across and that has already become part of the code in Brookline with with the teapod so we've said these parts of Brookline are particularly well served by transit and therefore our design should be not fundamentally Auto oriented but it should be oriented to people coming and going on foot and bicycles buses trains and all of that you get to parts of South Brookline that's not going to happen um they are going to be remote from transit so basic automobile access is a given on the other hand we want to figure out to what extent can we have cycling access that's safe because obviously that can cover a longer distance than walking um how can we find it make it a pleasant place to walk to whatever destinations in South Brooklyn that's the kind of thing I would be asking all right then one last question sorry for going on for while one last quick question just in terms of you you've done a lot of scholarship on Germany and studied it a lot um is there anything that you take from your scholarship in Germany that you'd like to apply to Brooklyn well I am one of many people who has spent time in Europe and come back and said Gee why can't we do this or that in terms of pedestrian environments and that kind of thing and and I've lived in that world and I very much liked it um I recognize that things are different I think you know I've I've thought about this for many many years and I first lived in Germany 40 years ago um and I'm aware of the limitations of that but I do think that in terms of of putting the automobile in its place the Europeans are ahead of us precisely because they were behind us because they were so much slower to become to become wealthy enough to get lots of cars that I think that's left them with certain advantages that that Brooklyn also has as a as a pre- automobile town but we can there are always things we can learn all right thank you thank you okay thank you uh Berard can I ask a followup I I think we may have a couple more questions we we've really gone over time well this is a really really really important uh position okay and quickly John hasn't had a question either go first go John hasn't asked mine's kind of a short question remember if at 11 o'clock you're complaining long run yeah we're very well aware of that but we're going to do our best to move along um as I say very St forward question do you have views there are communities that are um seriously pursuing elimination of single family zoning do you have views on single family zoning and its future in Brooklyn I have an open mind about that I mean in general in this country we have too much land devoted to single family zoning but Brook line is in much better shaped than most communities so I don't think this is a place where it's should be on The Chopping Block in the same way it should be in a lot of other cities um I think the Adu is a significant step right there and where we go from there I think is is worthy of of further discussion thanks for the answer okayy Paul you had a quick question uh I I think it's quick uh Ryan so last question uh you're familiar with war article 11 on the existing on this town meeting warrant it's an article uh brought forward by a member either the planning board or a member of the planning board that um as you know with our our Harvard Street MBTA communities act we use form based Zing that form based zoning gives uh is intended to uh for byright development to give the development community and the the the residents uh a predictable outcome right so it's form it gives a range of outcomes for various materials and such um the planning board is asking that uh broad discretion be provided uh in article 11 for the forms uh specifically in in a couple of different areas massing facade articulation architectural element standards which um today are defined in the form based Zone it's basically giving them design uh broad design discretion um could you just give me your view on form-based predictability should the planning board have this level of discretion or should we be leaning more into form based Zoning for predictability yeah please give an answer that's shorter than the question okay I I don't know how I'm going to vote as a town meeting member but um I've I like form based zoning I it's I mean I was excited to see it here on the other hand I do think what we have is very detailed and and The Architects on the board have a point that that there are some things that Architects know that that are changing that that maybe we have to allow a little bit more flexibility where you draw the line I'm not ready to say okay thank you okay thank you thank you all very much okay uh next we have Carol Carol for the Park and Recreation Commission is h Carol in the audience Tiffany yes she is I'm here I'm here Bernard okay hi Carol happy to hear you're recovering thank you I didn't have all this food given to me last year when I had knee Replacements I'm pretty jealous that so what do you want introduce yourself for the few people in this community who don't know you um and um why you'd like to be on the Parks Recreation Commission sure um I've lived here for 35 years um in three different places in brookln and been exposed to three different Park situations in Brooklyn and I'm an avid follower of what's going on in the Parks even in the areas that I I haven't lived um I think I I've been involved in so many different organizations here in town including having been a town meeting member for something like 15 years having served on the advisory committee um I'm involved with the friends of the library but my latest activity that takes up a good deal of my time is um Brookline Community aging Network and uh Parks and Recreation play such an important role in the lives of people who are retired think thinking about retiring and I think we have such a strong situation of parks in certain parts of Brookline um I when I first moved here I lived in uh crown and shield neighborhood and there I could count six or seven parks that were in about five blocks of or six blocks from where I lived I now live in Washington Square can't count that many parks or Park lits um and I think that increasing the kind of small parks that are scattered around in North Brooklyn throughout most of Brookline would be a real plus not just for seniors but for everybody else um one of the parks that I'm most most proud of is the one on John and Green Street um I can remember if you all remember Jean Stringham and I used to go over and sweep up the cigarette butts from the old wooden benches that used to be there and then we worked with Aaron on designing that Park and um in the thing that I hope the park commission will have some leeway with and stay on top of is in the development that um oh God but uh Chestnut Hill realy is doing on uh Pleasant and Waldo part of the give back to the town is the promise that they will redevelop the park on John on John Street and extend it all the way to where the parking is and that parking will they then be underground in one of their buildings the other thing they committed to was putting in an irrigation system for the gardens in front of the coolage corner Library so I hope the if I was on the Park and Recreation committee that certainly would be something that I would be insisting that we continue on I've talked to Andy who used to be used to work here and now works for Chestnut Hill and every time I see him I say is the park and irrigation systems still in the plant so I would certainly work on that um I'm very interested in some of the decisions that the Park and Recreation Department votes on and I remember the one about the artificial turf at um in the in front of the high school and another decision I think about is whether there will be a swimming in outdoor swimming pool in Brooklyn I think these are big issues and um you know and I I'm prepared to think about them and to vote on them and to take a stand um let me see what else can I tell you uh I don't know that's about it okay thank you Carol um I could like I'll start off with one question you know give me some of your ideas new other ideas uh with respect to how we can make Parks more accessible uh safe and welcoming to seniors um I mean to a large extent they already are but you know we have you know we still have a lot to do you yes I do I do I think uh you know the one of the magic words is in Parks is suitable benches for people the other is railings there are places in the Parks where it's you know there isn't good access to to something you there may be stairs but there aren't railings um the other is to make sure that the public toilets are really open that um you don't arrive somewhere where it says there's a public toilet and it isn't open I think you know that's the case sometimes at Amry field and uh I would hope that the Parks and Recreation Department would push for that uh the so those are some of the things that I would do about seniors and I think of the sanctuaries um making sure that at hores and at um L Pond that the paths are navigable that they're not you know just mud sometimes and Rocky because it's especially nice now that Skyline park has a connection to the Lost Pond that you there's a path there but it's pretty treacherous and it would be good if those are some of the things that I would concentrate on great thank you David has his has hands up David yes so a question uh I have for you um you referenced a lot in your opening about some North Brookline parks and I appreciate you just mentioning some parks that are in South Brookline could you uh talk about sort of your overall vision for parks and the more remote parts of Brooklyn I think I think the uh one of the things is is to take take advantage of pockets of area that are not being used for anything either that or some business has a side lot and they could use it for these small kind of parks they're really I don't know if you ever go by the John and Green Street Park I mean it is incredible the number of people who use that Park and it's all ages it's all ages and it's just this teeny little thing but it's such an oasis and just to get out I mean during the Pandemic those parks and the one that was unbelievably used was Halls Pond I mean it's and it's important for South Brookline to have that access I think of um it's horse park behind Baker School that you know that needs to be developed in some kind of way that people really realize it's there and it's accessible it's not just part of the schoolyard it's it's it's beyond that and I I think of um um at putterham library they've had that redesign which is really nice and they offer things out there a couple of weeks ago they had King Lear was performed out in that park at putterham library so it's it's that kind of taking advantage of areas where you could have little spaces of grein and usability I don't know what's happened at Hancock Village if there is um I have to say I really not sure whether there's any park facility going to be in Handcock Village right you you also mentioned that you look forward to uh taking an opinion on more controversial issues and you referenced artificial turf uh the swimming pool i' like to add a few more for your uh consideration as you know there's discussion about a hockey rink uh that's right that's right there was also a Warren article a couple uh years ago about reconsider reconsidering use of the public golf course so I'm wondering if you could uh if you have a position on those issues and you could share it okay I mean the public of course right away I can say that um I I think the making it or encouraging more people to use the public go course for CrossCountry skiing in the winter would be a wonderful thing that it's not a 9mon a year Park um I also think that there's some nice Trails through putter at the putterham golf course and I think that's hasn't been highlighted enough and it should be more because they're really fun to go through um uh what else did you say d yeah hockey oh hockey I'm the wrong person to ask about hockey I think hockey should be played Outdoors not enclosed in a stadium I think um I think outdoor skating is you know is something that I don't even know how to ice skate but I I think it's there's something romantic about outdoor skating not in a place with a covered roof and heat and all that all right and the other two you had mentioned artificial turf and the swimming pool artificial turf is I think I think in um artificial turf is very important if you're going to be having a field that is used constantly for soccer for LA fros or in other Outdoor Sports because what happens with the Reg reg grass is a good deal of time the park has to be closed because it's all been torn up um and the thing outside the high school my thought was that the playing field be artificial turf but that the rest of the park be regular grass um but that's that's where I'm on artificial turf I think the artificial turf it's Skyline Park I know um my husband and my sons and my grandsons went up there a lot to play soccer on that Fire official Turf and they didn't mind it at all they thought it was fine because they could play all year all right and then just the last one and then I'm sorry was about the swimming pool oh the swimming pool I think the swimming pool is more than we can afford there you go thank you so um Mike Mike's got his hand up Mike um thanks Bernard so first of all thank you for um for applying um and uh it's um it's great to see you uh interested in this uh one one thing that uh I'm sure you're you're uh you know you've been talking about a lot of of sort of U I won call it micro but really very useful things that have um relatively modest uh impact taken together they have a fairly large impact but there are a couple of things that um planning and uh parks and wreck are very commission is very very much aware of and very concerned about and that is finding adequate playing space Fields um and uh any thoughts about how we might expand or make use of private facilities around or work you know thought the things I would first ask is Fisher Hill Park the feel there is enormous and you know why it can't be used as two separate fields and I mean I don't know if you've been to fiser Hill Park I go there a long and it's I mean it it is huge and have part of it be for soccer and part of it be for baseball or whatever else that but I think that that's that's one thing is making use of the whole facility um the other oh God what's the name of that part the one behind on Dean Road behind All Saints Church I can never remember the walstein walstein yeah walstein is a big Park yeah that's a big Park and it's also lots of tennis courts I know my grandsons come up from New York to take tennis camp there in the summer and stay with me and um you know so I think there are places like that I'm I'm trying to think of you know churches or other places that have land that could be used for for I think well the other big thing is the northeastern field um I don't know how much use the town makes of that field but it looks I I rarely see anything going on there great thank you uh any other questions PA has yeah and I'll make it very brief uh Bernard like Mike I'm grateful for your application thank you so much um I you know and I appreciate um you're sharing your views on all the various types of uh issues isues that have come before uh Park and wreck in the past the thing that I'm excited about what I heard this evening is a perspective on the small things that matter in a big way to the senior population you talked about paths there there are paths that I can navigate at at some of the parks uh that have roots and gravel that a senior can't um as easily navigate as I can um I find it this idea of more smaller Parks parklets um just access to a park because seniors can't always go as far uh they may not have a car they may not have transportation to it but being able to get to a smaller outdoor space um I think it's really important um that we continue to add to our our boards and commissions a perspective and a lens on the unique issues and needs of our senior population and I'm very very grateful for your application thanks I have one other thing uh that um I would like to change and this is something that I've gone around with Aaron about is that I don't know how many of you are familiar with the referred to as Freeman Square in Dwight Square um it's at where Freeman Street comes into Badcock oh sure it's Freeman Square yeah uh if you look at it it is Freeman triangle in the same it white they are triangles not squares and the signs say Freeman square and Dwight square and I think it should say Freeman triangle and white triangle okay attention to detail is good car thank you and thank you for applying um you know we all recognize and appreciate the many many years of service that you and your late husband uh have provided to the town uh areas related to Parks as well so many other things so thank you well thank you okay next uh um Rob probationary police officers police officers question of approving the following two student officers as probationary police officers Caitlyn Perry and Sean Reed I see u g Pastors in the audience want to make a presentation on these two probationary officers I'd be happy to thanks for having me great um I was able to meet briefly with each of these two officers just a few hours ago they are looking forward to their graduation on Thursday um pending this appointment and um I'll just provide a little bit of information about each one of them if that's okay with the board course officer Caitlyn Perry is 28 years old she currently resides in LEL she grad graduated from quinsey high school and from Bridgewater State University with a bachelor's degree in criminal justice officer Perry served in the United States Marine Corps from 2017 to 2021 and was a Seaburn specialist um Second Officer sha Reed he 24 years old he currently resides in Wakefield officer Reid graduated from Wakefield High School and is working towards obtaining his degree in criminal justice he was previously employed at the Beth Israel Ley Clinic as a security officer there um so with this step in place they'll graduate on Thursday and they'll be ready to join our Training Division Monday morning after a few weeks of In-House training uh followed by a 12-month probationary period and they are the last two officers that uh we will hire off of the Civil Service list oh they they're historic officers that's right they snuck in right under the wire and we're very happy they did all right okay any any questions from the select board I have one question Bernard yes Paul uh thank you Chief uh briefly um could you give us an update on where we are with uh outstanding uh slots or empty how many more how many more do we need to fill to get you up to your opening your full openings um it shouldn't be a difficult question however um I had a hard time asking it yeah we we do have um a becoming in front of the board hopefully if you'll have me again in a few weeks to ask for your appointment of what we hope to be eight lateral transfers um who have already passed their background checks we're just waiting for a few other pieces they'll be coming to us mostly from colleges and universities and a few other suburbs um and at that point we will have in the ballpark of five slots which um for fiduciary reasons we we may not left to uh fill at this time okay um I didn't that's great eight eight lateral transfers is amazing yes and again to T thank town meeting and all of you for your support in exiting civil service this is one of the great benefits okay thank you Chief okay any other questions I don't see anyone raising a hand among the selectboard um Chief could you uh just sort of explain to our VAST TV audience uh how the um how leaving civil service has been beneficial in terms of these lateral um appointments I mean that that was a big issue a couple years ago that no one wanted to come in from other departments rather than wanted to go out to other departments so is there is this a a reason for the large number of lateral transfers or is there some other explanation uh well I think each individual that's looking to lateral in might have their own you know personal or professional reasons for wanting to transfer um but I think a couple of things have happened by getting out of civil service we've been able to kind of widen the net um some of the colleges and universities are obviously not civil service departments so they would have been ineligible to transfer into Brookline PD um you know same I I don't want to let the cat out of the bag if if people haven't notified their departments yet but some of the agencies that we are looking to sort of poach for that the new way of the apprach from that's a new uh we're in business now that that's how we're operating that's a big shift but um they may they might not have notified their department so those smaller departments that are not in Civil Service those officers also would not have been eligible to transfer into us while we were still in civil service we were only allowed to recruit from other civil service agencies and that pool was shrinking um so that coupled with the new and improved contract that was approved at Maytown meeting um kind of that onew punch really put us in a good place uh to be a more attractive um more competitive Department great thank you um at a couple years ago it was really dark but you know we saw some light at the end of the tunnel and now we're out into the sunshine if that's a if that's a useful metaph for yes it is and and I'll take it and thank you all again for all of your support as we've navigated through this and yeah yeah okay um let's see unless there are any other questions I'd like to um move approval of uh Caitlyn Perry and sha Reed as a new probationary officers for the uh Brookline Police Department all in favor please indicate by saying I John Van skak I Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren I David Perman I and chair votes I thank you Chief Pastor thank thank you all thanks for the great news that's coming down the road um next we have Walnut High project the Brookland Housing Authority project at Walnut Street and high streets in Brooklin Village um let me uh just start off by saying that um regarding this this project we will be hearing presentations on three critical aspects the use of affordable housing trust funds for phase one the term terms of an agreement covering the Brookline Housing Authority's payment in Li of taxes or Pilot and three a request to wave certain fees uh building uh building department fees we're not voting on any of these matters tonight rather the select board will discuss and take the requests of the Housing Authority under advisement we will vote on these items at our next meeting after we have heard from town departments as to their thoughts and have given some greater uh uh you know thought to to the uh proposals themselves uh I guess for future reference the pilot and building permit fee waiver should have been presented to the select board in the first instance since we can approve or not those matters um and that would have given us a better chance to get input from town departments but that's just something for future reference um but with that um please uh who who's going to make the presentation uh Tiffany I think Michael Ain is here um do you want to say something first and then I have Amelia online as well um you're asking Michael Alin if he wants to say something yes okay hi Bernard um how you doing so I'm Michael Al executive director of the Housing Authority Michael Jacobs our board chair is also here we appreciate your consideration of these matters as Bernard described you'll hear a little more about how we're advancing this really important project that is 100% affordable housing well supported across town meeting and across town we've done a lot of neighborhood feedback resident feedback um I do just want to stress our team will focus on the presentation we have communicated with Dan Bennett about the building permit fee waiver issue it's the first call I make when we ask for something like this and this follows similar precedent and vote that has happened with this board on all other BHA Redevelopment and building projects and that type of vote has gone before the hab and they have recommended it to the board I apologize if that process should be different in the future this is the first time that we are asking for consideration of um uh different pilot terms the BHA does have pilots on all of its existing projects um and obviously the affordable housing trust fund dollars come to you after the hab makes its recommendation but that was uh after discussion with the chair um we thought this was appropriate given that there's an opportunity to leverage significant additional dollars for a significant public goal and town goal um and that the BHA is uh uh obviously a good Steward of town dollars and thinking that through so we appreciate your consideration our team will focus on the merits and actual description of this very exciting project that we hope to be uh building in two phases over the coming years in Brooklyn great thank you okay Amilia youngstrom hello please introduce yourself and and U then proceed great thank you yes my name is Amelia youngr I am the bhas project manager for the Walnut High Redevelopment project um and I'm joined by Nick Bern who is uh leading the design process for this project um he's from the Architecture Firm util um so thank you for having us um we'll get started with our uh short presentation to um give you a sense of the history of this project our process thus far uh our designs um as as they stand today um and then our next steps um so Walnut High Apartments um are currently Federal public housing that were constructed in 1962 in 2019 BHA uh conducted a or um sorry commissioned a physical needs assessment uh that found that these buildings are Obsolete and um rather than trying to rehabilitate them we should um demolish and rebuild in order to create viable ongoing safe uh and sanitary housing um an update to that physical needs assessment is is underway um as you know in November of last year 83% of town meeting voted in favor of the MBTA communities act rezoning U warrant article which included a zoning overlay at for this uh area that will enable our ability to redevelop um in March of 20124 the brook line preservation commission certified that the buildings are not hisor historically or architecturally significant um and the Massachusetts historical commission uh agreed and um throughout the spring and summer we have been Consulting with Town officials with BHA residents uh BHA staff and um neighbors and town meeting members in the area uh to and we've gotten a lot of great feedback that has informed the design um and also a lot of support and enthusiasm around the project and earlier this month we submitted the site plan review application to the Brookline planning board uh and the board has already scheduled some tentative dates where they will be reviewing And discussing our application um and now I'll pass it over to Nick to talk more about the design great thank you Amilia Nick beeren I'm an associate principal at U we are a boss based architecture and planning firm and really excited to be working with the house Authority on this project um I also had the pleasure of uh living on Walnut Street and attending the Lincoln School when I was a child so this project is near and dear to my heart personally um so just to jump right into it uh I think you are all familiar with the site we're at the corner of Walnut Street here and High Street uh this is the fire station down here at the bottom of the page um Juniper Street sort of turns the corner and there's a a cue saac in the back of the site um there are currently four buildings on the site um 22 High Street probably being the largest and most prominent that you all have seen um as well as the three lower rise buildings that all have Walnut street addresses um and the plan is you know to redevelop the entire site in phases um and to replace all the existing housing and add additional affordable housing to the site um as Amelia mentioned as I know you're familiar the site was rezoned under the NBC community's uh uh bylaw update um and I think that um zoning update really set some very clear and um manageable parameters for the Redevelopment of the site um that we are working well within um there are you know fairly modest setbacks uh around the entire perimeter of the site uh that we're adhering to um there are requirements for f that were well within as well as lock coverage um and there was a provision um uh from sort of an Urban Design perspective in the owning bylaw to encourage um and support development of a higher density towards Walnut Street um at the northern edge of the site and and you know the the uh sort of larger scale busier route n Corridor um and our uh design and thinking about the site is really taken that into account um and taking advantage of it um we spent quite a bit of time over the spring of this year after we were engaged by the Housing Authority uh as as um Amelia and Michael said you know meeting with residents meeting with BHA staff trying to understand the existing conditions of the site um and spent a bunch of time working through different options um uh as to how to approach this you know fairly large and complicated Redevelopment we ultimately settled on a concept that you see here um where we tried to synthesize a lot of the concerns that we heard and opportunities on the site um and in in brief those ideas are really about um for one giving this project and these residents a true sort of front door and address in the community we heard a lot of feedback about sort of the disperate nature of the development as that exist today and a lot of confusion about how people travel to and from their Apartments how they receive visitors and and other sorts of services and so we really wanted to consolidate the entrances to the building around a common sort of threshold and entry Plaza um with a Walnut Street address um and really speak clearly out to the neighborhood there um we also wanted to make sure that public programming um Community rooms and other sort of uh more public facing program were oriented along Walnut Street and really gave um both residents and neighbors a sense of the activity um and the engagement with the community that was going on in the site uh but we also wanted to balance um residential edges and you'll see those here in the darker red um as we relate this project back to our neighbors that exist on High Street um over here in Juniper Gardens um and you know locate doors on the street really uh let people feel like this is a uh you know res residentially oriented development that H is contextually um speaking to the other smaller scale uh and larger scale for that matter buildings uh that are in the neighborhood um open space was a really key concern of our planning for the site there are if you've been over to the site you'll know there's a number of uh lovely uh mature trees uh and a very nice tree canopy and um we've been working very closely with our landscape architect ground as well as a thirdparty arborist um to assess the health of all those exting trees and really plan the site plan and the buildings around um maintaining and preserving as much of that open spa or those that tree canopy as possible and then designing a central open space um that's really oriented around both buildings that can act as a shared space and and really sort of a Nexus and a hub for the community um and lastly we uh had some really um uh clear and definitive feedback from early conversations with the housing authority and with the town about um the traffic situation which is always you know a key concern with developments like this um this is a very congested intersection at Walnut and High Street and I know the town has already had undertaken some improvements to traffic um with the wet Street realignment earlier um but the message that we received was let's you know we don't want to encourage more travel through the site from either higher Walnut Street so we've directed vehicle traffic through Juniper and into a series of parking lots um in the back of the site one being this surface parking lot um which really sort of acts as a uh a sort of green infrastructure piece as you'll see in a minute and then a a structured parking lot under the second phase of the building um so those Initial Ideas have evolved and as Amelia said we um just filed our um site plan submission to the planning board uh into a more detailed site plan where we've taken those ideas um and you know coordinated between uh us as The Architects and our landscape architecture team uh to develop the site plan in more detail um you'll see here that common entry Plaza um which provides a real sort of threshold and Gateway into the site and connects um the common lobbies and entries of the building um and then a series of amenity spaces in the middle of the site um there's a uh a sort of sloped terorist amenity that works its way up the hill here um opportunities for garden space for the residents to use and enjoy and more sort of open lawn programming and sort of uh natural play gapes for um for children of all ages um I mentioned the parking area which again we sort of really as an extension of the landscape and we've been working very closely to find opportunities for planting within that space and storm water management and also providing a connection back to the town's uh Juniper Street playground which exists in the back of the site um you'll see also um real improvements for sort of the public Urban realm along Walnut and high streets where we're creating a series of plazas and pocket parks that are combined with individual entrances for uh residences along the street um looking at the building from an architectural standpoint this is a ground floor plan of both buildings here you'll see again you know really sort of core community and Lobby spaces that anchor um that entry Plaza and the frontage along Walnut Street uh and then a series of um town homes and flats uh uh along the ground floor of the first building again for those uh those doors on the street and that sort of residential character um as folks are walking by the site um the second phase building a little bit more challenging as we're going up into the hill here as you go up High Street um so all the parking will be uh built into the hillside below grade and and hidden from view um and then again uh residential doors fronting out onto High Street as you travel up the hill there um as I mentioned the this the context of the site from an Urban Design and Architectural perspective is quite diverse um we're right at the foot of pill Hill um and it's and the historic district there um we've got the Juniper Gardens um Condo Association sort of mid-century development across from us we've got um pieces of sort of historical and more contemporary um residential and mixed use fabric along High Street as well as all the new uh medical office and and Commercial development that's happening along the Route N9 Corridor so one of the things that we felt was important um for this project was to you know be able to address those that uh those diverse frontages and and sort of you know uh neighborhood characters um in a way that um gave us some flexibility but it was also uh you know presented a holistic face to the development and and didn't make it feel too disjointed or disconnected from itself um one way that we're really focusing on doing that is you know coming up with a kit of parts for the architecture um where you know the ground floor treatment um is fairly consistent and and imagined in sort of a a brick or language but that it's able to um evolve and sort of um modulate itself to address those different conditions and you know to either be a townhouse or to be a public entry or to be a series of flats going up the hill here on High Street um we also uh in sort of a nod to the smaller scale development up the hill felt like it was very important to um Step the um height of the buildings as we get further into the site and as I mentioned that was a very clear requirement of um the zoning overlay and we think that it actually worked pretty well to try to diversify um uh the mass of these larger buildings and make them feel like they relate more to um our neighbors which tend to be uh smaller in scale as we head towards the back of the site and larger in scale as we hand towards the front of the site um we're also uh sort of in the beginning phases of starting to think about materials and colors and textures as you'll see in some of the renderings um but using those elements to identify important um architectur moments or moments of entry and activity on the site um and then combining that with uh you know smaller sort of secondary scale moves um to introduce various DMS both horizontally and vertically to divide these buildings up and make them feel uh sort of as appropriate in scale and and contextual to the surrounding neighborhood as possible um so I'll walk briefly through a series of views that we prepared uh showing our uh initial thinking about the architecture so this view is from the route N9 Corridor looking to the North uh or rather looking to the South um and you'll see here uh the phase one building on the left the phase two building on the right this is the firehouse here for reference um and the sort of um Firehouse parking lot and parklet here in the in the island between Walnut Street in Route 9 and you see that threshold that we're trying to create and sort of frame between the two buildings and the common point of entry into the site and the open space beyond uh pretty clearly here um moving around the site this is the intersection of Walnut Street here coming down to Juniper uh and here you see um that uh sort of masonry base that I described with the two-story town homes that front out onto both Walnut Street and Juniper which we think is a really um uh elegant way of relating to um our residential neighbors and creating uh almost a little bit of sort of a front porch moment here down at the street um where folks are able to um you know come out and interact with their neighbors and and have sort of informal um social interactions and Gatherings uh flipping around to the other side of the site this is uh up the up High Street up on the hill um looking back towards Brookline Village this is the fire station uh in the distance here and here you'll see as I just mentioned this notion of you know stepping the building down as we go up the hill which we think is quite effective as well as breaking up um the height of the building you know by creating a base condition and an upper story condition we think really helps bring the building down scale and creates quite um a cohesive relationship with the smaller scale residential development that's happening uh across the street on High Street here uh stepping back under route nine you'll see the building here framed by the fire station and this newer uh development on Boon Street and again excuse me that notion of you know Finding uh moments in the building to Anchor important Corners to really highlight um what's happening there architecturally with a a moment of color um or sort of textural variation from the larger mass of the building uh at the interior of the site this is a view of our uh sort of planted um parking uh surface parking lot that I described uh between us and Juniper Gardens and we think this is really allowed for you know quite a nice buffer uh to our neighbors it's allowed us to step the building back um you know from this uh existing lower rise development and really sort of give a gracious uh aperture here and you know mitigate any sort of overshadowing or um uh impacts on on the neighbors there um and lastly a little vget here of the front Stoops along Walnut Street um that I mentioned so just a a a little idea about how some of these Urban realm improvements uh get combined with um residential entrances um and sort of architectural texture along the street to uh improve the public realm um I'll just end on highlighting some of the sustainability strategies that we're uh planning to employ on the project um we uh you know we know that that's a a very high priority for the town and for the housing authority and for us um as Architects and designers um the project is anticipated to be uh passive house uh certified which is a very stringent um uh performance standard for um energy use in buildings um which will include things like uh a very robust uh thermal envelope air sealing uh all systems in the building will be Electric in very high efficiency um and then we're also planning on incorporating photov voltaics under the roof for some on-site renewable energy generation as well as incorporating uh um electric vehicle ready uh parking uh in the parking spaces that we have um I will turn it back over to Amelia to recap our next steps on the project thank you very much for your time thanks Nick so as you've heard um from from Nick the proposed Redevelopment project will increase the number of affordable units on the site from 100 to 181 over two phases of construction with a focus on family-sized units um it will greatly improve usable outdoor space and activate the public facing Street edges um we'll be able to utilize the zoning overlay requirements um and develop a design that creates new badly needed affordable housing um and includes important sustainability features while also integrating with the surrounding neighborhoods um so in terms of next steps BHA will submit the section 18 demol demolition disposition application to HUD a next month um and also in early November we will submit the pre-application to the state's competitive funding round and the full application to the state for funding in February of sorry that should say 2025 um we anticipate to hear whether we've been awarded date funding in the summer of 2025 and if we are awarded funding funding we would anticipate demolition to start in the summer of 2026 um and Then followed by vertical construction and we will work with the third party relocation agen to assist all households who need to be relocated to find replacement housing either within the BH portfolio or on the private Market um and just to conclude the P's uh strong support of this project represented by the vote that the board will be considering um will allow the BHA to present a competitive application to the state in the funding round Brooklyn's affordable housing trust dollars will leverage additional public and private funding through State housing resources uh the federal low-income tax credit program and other private Capital At a rate of 1 to 10 um BHA is really excited about this opportunity to create new affordable units in Brookline and we appreciate your support and thank you for having us and we are happy to take any questions okay thank you any questions from the select board Mike's got stand up oh That's Mike um first of all uh thank you very much that's really exciting to see this begin to move along um and uh I know it's something that was talked about for well at least going back to the uh going back 10 years so this is great um I do have one question for the um uh the architect uh the uh common point of entry makes a great deal of sense for people coming on foot that is coming by transit so forth but what about people arriving on the site with cars uh who uh visit there's not much street parking there is there provision and provision for parking in the back for visitors and um you know is is do they presumably they walk through that open uh space between the two buildings and they access the um the uh the point of entry from the back is that what's going to happen yeah that's a great point and I think I I may have skimmed over that um so uh I don't know if you want me to reshare the presentation I think I got um kicked off here but um if you can see here so there's an existing curb cut uh or sort of curb um uh Swale that was created um when the street was Rea on Walnut Street um and there's currently metered parking um along the fronters in Walnut Street one of the things that we're exploring with the town as part of our site plan um uh uh submission is the you know designation of this area for you know short-term parking to serve the project whether that's you know kind of loading drop off for ride shares or deliveries but also you know maintaining access to street parking um there's also you know existing street parking that happens along Walnut and we're trying to uh plan for another sort of similar drop off or short-term parking Zone here along the Juniper Street Circle so yes uh definitely thinking about that and you know trying to anticipate the demand um we're also in the process of finalizing uh a traffic study um with our third party traffic engineer which will be uh submitted to the planning board shortly okay thank you I just I I just want to say one of the thing Bernard um the um and that is about the pilot agreement it's something that what we um on the advisory committee discussed years ago several years ago with um Michael alurn and about how the town could assist the BHA in um by not collecting some money that it was collecting uh just as well by uh by funding certain aspects of what BHA does and I'm really happy to see this um proposal for a $1 pilot agreement with BHA this is a very different situation than the pilot agreements with universities Paul hand up uh before um yeah that that's something that we'll we will be discussing over the next week or so right um yeah uh Paul yep thank you um I have um a couple just a couple of questions one about process and then um a couple of questions about what's before us I know we're not voting but I assume we can ask questions about the three things that are in front of us uh from a process perspective um Michael has this project been brought before what's the community engagement been like to date has it been a public process will it be a public process what's the community saying absolutely Paul so we've met with the community we've had formal letters go out to everyone who lives nearby inviting them we have a separate meeting with the Juniper Street Garden set up in November that is the directa butter um next door it's all been very very favorable um I think the gardens next door are a little uncomfortable about traffic loading off Juniper Street which has been very quiet but candidly the broader public interest is getting traffic off of High Street and Walnut Street is someone who drives that Corridor regularly um and the process is a little different as specified in the MBTA communi act zoning the this will go before the planning board as opposed to the zba so there's a series of four or five public hearings scheduled with the planning board and for those who don't like the green facade um you can go to the planning board and comment on material selection or things like that that will be in so the next step is the planning board to approve the final site plan and the final final program um okay yes that that's really helpful and then um Bernard is it okay to ask a a question about the the memo um so I agree with Mike the the pilot um and waving the building fees is kind of a no-brainer um but I had a question about the money maybe this is a Roger thing so the um there's two pieces two buckets of money that we allocated for this right there's money from the Housing Trust Fund and then the CPA is that is that correct I'll let Roger answer okay I'm happy to but Roger um Roger blood um from the housing Advisory Board um so the um the total um Town contribution is 7 and a half million which is about 10% of the total project cost and as as Michael mentioned or or as milia mentioned a a about a 10 to1 leveraging ratio on the town's contribution um This was um structured some time back as a 5050 um contribution it's all from from the town but from two different sources half from the thrust fund and half the other three and three4 million from the uh from CPA funding um the um technically while it's those are two different sources subject to two different sets of books and accounts which are going to be established uh um and two different sets of rules and and authorities uh leading into this um the the um the total funding is going to be integrated um from the town side coming through the trust and being uh dispersed uh from that nominal source for the whole s and a half million so when does the money from the CPA I assume the CPA then gets you reimbursed by the CPA the well it's um it's interesting way this this has been worked out but the um the uh trust is going to um fund the entire s and a half million the the half of it from its own source and then basically we're going to we're going to be able to advance the whole 7 and a half million thanks in part um to the 2 million that's coming in from the free cash and um being able to do that it will deplete the trust fund almost entirely and then the committed funds from the CPA which were voted by town meeting will be then backfilled or reimbursed to the trust fund to to make it whole again so to speak okay so the the trust the the CPA funds are going to be reimbursing the Housing Trust as it's been worked out that's the sequence and the um the requirement of the way these projects are funded through tax credits it all has to be done um in a way that it be um recognized as a as a loss by the tax credit investors okay and in order to do that it's got to all come through the trust fund rather than as a grant from the CPA okay I think I got it than yeah John thank you um I I have a very brief question and then a comment um I I think I heard 180 units of housing is that right ultimately 181 181 darn I almost got it right um and how many parking spaces 7 point4 parking ratio on the total build out of the site yes okay so there's one to one replacement of residents who have parking currently there is no additional parking added for some of the new households recognizing that the site is very proximate to Transit uh with the dline right across the street and a bus line that picks up right in front of the property interesting approach thank you very much um Tiffany is going to I think put a picture up if uh it doesn't show it's no fault of Tiffany I sent it to her at the last minute I couldn't let this moment pass without recognizing that the um distinguished um director of the Brooklyn housing authority who we have with us here tonight um is retiring from his four-year position at as the head of the Brookline housing authority and what are four years been and this picture is from this afternoon when he was given a send off um at the BHA 90 longward Avenue Tommy bolo our State Rep had a um Proclamation adopted um in the legislature uh on Michael's behalf uh honoring Michael Tommy readit um we all enjoyed cake um and um the words that were said both about Michael and and by Michael um were U symbolic of a a some someone called Michael a unicorn which in modern Parliament is is a complement of the highest order um it means you know essentially one of a kind we won't see his like again in public housing circles um he really did a wonderful job for four years for the Brooklyn housing authority and I didn't want to given that this is probably his last meeting before the select board where he's in his capacity as executive director well as I understand it you're bringing me back based on how this vote's proceeding so I I welcome it but it we have a great team let me just stress the Housing Authority is in great hands and the town has been a terrific partner these years and so the town should be reassured our commissioners are topnotch and our existing leadership team is top-notch so the continued growth of the Housing Authority will will continue I could have said that more eloquently so when we when you said we're bringing you back that didn't mean we're we're not letting you go as executive director I understand this matter one more meeting another yeah yeah well we can't bear to say goodbye but uh thank you for what you've done for the Housing Authority uh and for Brooklyn Michael and thank you John for for uh for bringing that us that picture and uh the description of the going away event this afternoon I am of course stuck in my apartment um David David's got his hand up as I say I also want to Echo the Gratitude being expressed to you by uh John and I'm sure the whole board feels similarly a couple couple questions that I have you referenced how there uh is still an ongoing process to decide the uh facade the slides though so some of them show a green facade some of them show a gray facade and then for the townhous as it looks like brown bricks uh so has a decision been made but it's still subject to a community process I know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder when it comes to buildings and we also recognize this is a very important corner for the town it's it's very visible as you enter into brookln Village so we want to be thoughtful partners and I always uh Reserve comment from The Architects and I think the public process will play out as to what the right facade materials are that will make sure this is well integrated into the neighborhood and a great building for the town for the next 100 plus years all right and then another question I have for those who might be jumping on to this process a bit late in terms of following It Could you um maybe explain how you arrived at the increase from 100 units to 181 how you arrive at The Building height is this limited by budget by town meeting absolutely so um a couple different factors first of all the zoning allows for a maximum buildout that probably is on the order of 225 units we wanted to be thoughtful and practical about the transportation issues we're discussing what is uh an appropriate context and also what is really well suited to deliver top Nacho affordable housing for our residents so we believe this is the right blend and mix town meeting and the town in general has been communicating with us about increasing density where the B BHA can strategically do that and we believe we can at this site given Shadows for example will be on Route N9 not another neighbor and so this is a very thoughtful proposal about how to add more afford affordable housing to the uh housing stock we of course as the BHA explored all avenues to add more housing Above This within the zoning um but we thought it's this is the right mix and then from a financing perspective this proposal allows us to build what's known as 5 over two or 5 over one construction which keeps us in below the high-rise code um and also is wood framed so that there's a different material cost versus steel construction all federal uh uh projects are now subject to this bab law baba um by American build American um so there's there's different cost structures and different building types and finally from the state's financing perspective the state likes to finance projects on the order of 75 to 100 buildings because there's maximum amount of state tax credits and state affordable housing resources that the state will provide to a project so that's why we've broken this up into two phases it also helps with relocation of the existing residents we should mention to the board all residents will have a right to return to the building who do live there today but also will be working with a professional relocation company to ensure they have suitable replacement housing during during the Redevelopment so all of those factors the financing the building typology and overall what we think is the right size to manage to own and and for the community while also adding more affordable housing is how we landed at at this mix and proposal all right thank you that for that very thorough explanation because I think some people might have been wondering well if you can have up to 225 units why aren't we doing that or should there be even more that we addit that site since it's in a very Urban part of Brooklyn uh thank you for that thank you any other questions from the board may I one last comment sure with Bernard I just ask um for the board's knowledge it would be we really appreciate your consideration of this matter before the end of October and ideally with enough days for the town to document um commitment letters related to the affordable housing trust monies I want to emphasize the state runs an affordable housing competition once per year the pre-application is due at the end of the month and so if we miss those deadlines we will have to wait a year to become in next year's competitive application financing cycle um so we're here at this juncture an important moment and we appreciate your expeditious consideration and ongoing partnership yes I I think we appreciate that too my understanding is that we can take this up the next meeting which is which would be the 15th I guess yeah right so chess are these are there additional outstanding questions or is this just a vote of the board what's what's it's not agenda as a vote yeah so it's not on the it's not listen as on the agenda as a vote because historically we we do these things where you get the presentation and then you have the conversation the other thing is historically you know the issue of pilot renegotiation is something the board has traditionally handled an executive session so we want to be sure that you're fully briefed you have all the materials you need and you can make that determination on the 15th when you're comfortable with the you know with having treasury planning in buildings all present to have that discussion yeah okay thank you Michael and uh Amilia and Nick for a very helpful presentation that uh I hope is both uh interesting and helpful to to the select board as well as the community in our VAST TV audience thank you very much our pleasure thank you uh next we have the language access policy a presentation discussion discussion and a possible vote on the town language access policy so who do we have is that ahed who's speaking yes me good evening so introduce yourself since you're a recent uh hire here in Brooklyn not everyone knows you um and uh then begin your presentation absolutely uh thank you Mr chairman memb of the board um also Mr Green I'm wishing you the speediest recovery thank you no problem um and uh I do have slides but um Caitlyn Lloyd do you guys have the slides open or was I supposed to share my screen oh I'm sorry Amad I was supposed to do that let me pull that up for you sure thank you I do you want to introduce yourself while while um we're doing that absolutely yeah so uh my name is Ahmed ahed Hamza I'm the language access coordinator for the town of Brookline um I work with the office of uh diversity Equity inclusion community relations along with uh llo gelano Caitlyn star and Sarah cin and I've been here since March um so if you haven't gotten emails from me you will regarding the uh language access policy and Mr Green I have uh coupons for food delivery I might have coupons for food delivery if you're interested in those my refrigerator is full having to loosen my belt all right okay do I have control of the slides Tiffany at all no you'll have to let me know you want to advance okay um well good afternoon everyone um again Mr chair chairman members of the board thank you for having us back uh to discuss our uh language access policy for the town um and Tiffany next slide please um so uh before the uh language access policy was put together um uh the office of uh diversity inclusion community relations along with um our partners in the community several Community organizations uh took A needs assessment uh to see the the sort of language linguistic demographics and needs in the town um and that needs assessment showed that 30% of the town uh of town residents are foreign born and speak a language other than English and among them uh 10% of the population are limited um in their English proficiency uh and of course the Civil Rights Act um uh offers protections against discrimination for uh folks who were born um from a different country those were different National Origins and that of of course extends to those who are not able to speak English um so the language access policy was developed to sort of meet their needs and ensure that um that these uh individuals who are limited in English are still able to engage with the town um and the majority of these um residents do not know that uh that do not have don't know how to request uh public services or or under informed on how to request them and 70% of them um uh 70% % of community organizations uh site language as a barrier uh to accessing Town services for these residents um next slide please Stephanie so the language access policy um is designed to ensure that our residents were limited in their English proficiency have access to all public information resources and programs provided by the town and this is what's called language access um externally that would mean allowing these residents to access anything they would need to access anything accessible to an English speaker um and internally um it means that the town will be providing uh language access Services um so Town departments will receive a copy of the policy and further guidance and training within 30 days of approval and the implementation of the language access policy um is done through the language access plan which are the actionable steps that would take um after the policy approved select please Stephanie the language access plan involves uh us working with uh vendors who provide different kinds of services primarily uh translation for public facing documents um and um interpreting oral translation from English to other languages uh for meanings events and this um can be done virtually over zoom and other programs um in person and of course over the line over the phone um interpreting as well and since we've presented um since we've last presented the policy uh we went through several rounds of uh feedback and revisions to the policy after meeting with different departments and the Town Administrator one of the things that was you know on the top of the uh our top priority was to identify what what are called uh vital documents um which is which are essentially documents that inform the public about a program Services resources um rules requirements events alerts um anything that is public facing that would normally be distributed to an English speaker um also documents that provide instructions and guidance um allow the public to file a complaint or comment um documents related to impactful areas such as housing Public Health and emergency documents these are just working definitions examples of what should be considered vital documents um but of course departments also uh are able to decide for themselves what is considered vital um and providing guidance on requesting language access Services how to work with vendors best practices um information about uh these topics was also put together and will be used to brief staff uh from different departments on how to um provide uh these Services uh available resources right now so uh there is uh a way for staff to request language access Services uh through me uh several staff from a couple of departments have already begun doing this and um uh you went very well and I appreciate their uh collaboration um in addition to the language request form um guidance documents um on how to provide language access what it is and how to provide it um the differences between the different services that are off offered um how to work with me and uh my colleagues um and also step-by-step guidance on what to request how to request it and the sort of sharing of responsibilities between myself our office and uh Town departments um and so upcoming steps um will involve training for um all time departments on what language access is how to implement the lap how to comply with the policy of course tracking requests and Gathering data is going to be very important from when we're reporting um how we're using language access who is using it and how it's uh implemented um and tools that are in progress um so things like Public Notices um that will notify the public that uh language access services are available should they need them uh how to request them um and signage and alerts will also be translated um there is uh I've been planning to have a community a network of different Community organizations and the goal here would be to have a direct line of communication between us and our residents um who need these uh language services and of course collaborating with Town departments really strategizing to as we're implementing language access to minimize costs um which several examples of things that have been done in the past include uh condensing documents or offering translations By Request as supposed to automatically uh providing translations whenever we need them um that's sort of what we have uh we just really wanted to update uh you all on um the changes that we've made to the policy uh since we last met um I think that's it for now but I'm happy um my colleagues and I are happy to uh take any comments and questions now okay anyone on the select board have questions or comments Paul Paul uh thank you um I guess I'm gonna first make a broad comment and then I I do have some specific questions um and I'm not sure what our intent is what a vote means to vote on the policy um if that's what your intent is I I can say I'm not prepared to vote um tonight um the the uh the policy um it's it would be very difficult for me to vote on something without understanding cost implications in budget uh this thing is simply stated huge and impactful uh the covered entities all of the number of interactions uh the vital documents um is is is extensive uh the covered entities uh which would have to which include Town boards and commissions um it it's very difficult for me to get my head around how extensive this is um and and the policy because the policy is so extensive to approve it without first understanding uh H how its roll out would affect what the financial cost is um I don't know how we can discon how we can do those two things separately um so that's my that's my broad comment and the reason why I'm not prepared to uh to but and here's my here's my question um with respect to um covered entities uh which means boards and commissions um many boards and commissions do planning I think planning is one of the uh one of the vital documents it the policy says that there would have to be a dedicated person if it only mentions departments for a department U but a covered entity would also include a boarding commission how would we how would we do that uh in a volunteer organization where boards and commission often run by um you know volunteers with uh Sho strings and bootstraps to keep things going so we're still I mean on on our end from the policy from the that perspective boards and commissions that are staff by or fall under a particular Department would likely be the the that department would take on that role and responsibility of coordinating language access there where there was no immediate departmental oversight and that would rest centrally with OD R so that's where that responsibility would lie you know and then you in terms of your question of budgeting um yes this is a significant you know a significant investment um we invested in this in part in the override um you know I me U its position stems from the override that was passed in 23 um and the resources that are um you know put into the budget there form the basis of what we are going to be able to do in terms of implemen in this on a timeline I think it's really important to stress that this is not something where we are not capable of flipping a switch and turning on you know immediate um full range access to every vital document in all the required languages overnight this is in reality going to be a multi-year process um and it is going to be subject to the limitations of our budget so if that's an area where you need additional information on what that kind of timeline looks like um we can get you that information yeah if we can't if we can't specify which departments which boards and commissions how many vital documents would need to be translated and what that cost is you know then you could back into it and say we've got X thousands of dollars per year and maybe it increases at some rate uh that we can invest and that and that's the constraint um I'm just not comfortable approving a policy like this without understanding what the constraint is and that really is the the roll out portion of that is what we are working on internally but you know given where the document is we think it's important to share it with you and the community but yes if you if you want to see that in conjunction with this we're happy to do that that's what I I would like to see I you know let me add I had similar concerns but I think that if you read through the policy we're not talking about United Nations simultaneous translation service um but rather identifying key documents you know uh leaflet that are passed out uh or posted in various locations to just give people a sense of you know what what's going on in town and things like that and then you know further filtered by um uh you know the language um access request form so we're not going to just go out and translate as I understand it you know every document we have related to a particular committee um but rather you know as people request um indicate a need um for them well the the definition of vital documents is you know very very very extensive um so I you know my my my my concern is we the point is we're not we're rolling out a huge big thing right now I yeah I agree and I get there we may never get there but I guess for to say again this is part of this is when we adopt a policy the public we're setting an expectation with the public um and that's my concern there are people that helped initiate bringing this effort through town meeting that advocated for it and adopting this policy um without a very clear constraint on finances um or Staffing what what whatever the we need to articulate a constraint so that we're not accused of not implementing the policy as approved um that's my concern okay uh David has hands okay David So a couple questions I have uh somewhat related to Paul's first is there a way to actually estimate what the financial implications would be since we don't really know the full gamut of utilization for language Services we can so really what we can do in this instance is we we have a sense of where the budget is we have a sense of where the dollars are and then the question is how far do those dollars stretch right so we need to look based on the additional funds from the override based on the budget for this project um and based on departmental budgets that's that's the process that we're going through internally now in meeting with departments and understanding what their needs are in FY 26 is what is the capacity um for translation services how are we going to begin to implement this what is this look like practically on a you know year year-to-year basis how much of this is startup cost how much of this is one time cost and how much of it is an ongoing expense where are those expenses going to be born particularly things like you know if there is a language translation service that needs to be on retainer that is an ongoing operational expense and we want to be sure that that's appropriately budgeted into the into there so that's what we're working on now is that in going through the FY 26 process thinking about how this program from a budgetary perspective gets implemented but I will say because the limitate because the limiter on this is not scope it's money um you know there what's what's going to what's ultimately going to happen is we're going to have a sense of where the money you know what what the what the total departmental budgets are for this kind of work and then have a timeline for based okay based on what we know here's how we see this work progressing through the Departments and that's going to look different in different departments based on the volume of documents they present a public facing Department like DPW this is going to be a very large undertaking a private a more private fa facing department and internally facing Department less so purchasing not going to have a lot of vital documents um not that they don't do important work Dave does great work but you know it's different it's just a different sort of work than um public facing vital documents out of DPW or buildings if we start to offer this service though and then we were to run out on the budget we would just suddenly stop providing service and then a related question maybe for Town Council would be to what extent are we obligated to be providing these translation services regardless and if the answer to that is we're not if we start to is there an obligation to continue with it so I it's the first part and I let Town Council chime in I mean we have to um I we we want to avoid that outcome right we want to avoid a situation where we overpromise and underd deliver and say oh sorry we ran out of money halfway through the year so we can't translate these documents we want to have a clear um framework and Road map for how this is going to be rolled out so that we don't have a situation like that where someone says you promised and you underd delivered we want the public to understand that this is going to be a complicated long-term rollout process but that the ultimate aim of it is right meaningful access to government for people who don't speak English as a person language that's really what the the end goal of this is and what that you know what that means um on a practical level what is Meaningful access to government you know we we have been fulfilling that role to the best of of our abilities given what we have in in place so you know when people say have you not been doing this the answer is we have been doing this but we've been doing it on an ad hoc basis um we haven't memorialized the processes for this and that has led to you know unintentionally disperate outcomes um based on what's you know where different departments are what what's been available and all of those things again not saying that we you know the Departments are falling down on their responsibilities but that some departments are doing more of this than others and so need to be on the same page in terms of language access and following the same structure in order to ensure at the end of the day that even if you don't speak um even if you don't speak English at home if that's not your if you were a um uh what's the what's the term I'm is it um um uh limited limited language uh limited English proficiency yes LEP if you were an LEP household um thank you um that you're still able to understand you know you're still a if you need something from local government you're able to get it that's the end goal of this and then what about the legal requirement part of it so if we're legally required to do it anyway uh and then also is there any additional requirement if we start to offer a more comprehensive service would we have to continue it regardless of whether we budgeted sufficiently for it so if we offer something we have to offer it equally right we have to we can't provide unequal access or unequal treatment so yes if we make an offer to someone we if we say we're going to provide X to you um then we need to Pro we need to be providing that level of access across and but again across AC finish that sentence across what all departments and boards and commissions across the you know across the community but again this this is this is this is the thing right is that you you think about um you know larger larger municipalities that then deal with the question of what translation services are available what are the major languages spoken in the community it's not every language it's not every you know every circumstance there can be edge cases where we have on call translation services but it's not every language every document um you know uh and that expectation is not there it's languages spoken in the community providing meaningful access so that they're able to do what everyone else does when they get to town hall a you know um it's that's that's the the end year so yes if we were to provide that level of service we can't then say but we're only going to provide it you know 80% of the time we have to provide what we are providing to everyone on a on a constant basis right but saying language is in the community I'm not sure how we can anticipate that 100% so if someone moves here and speaks Dinka let's say and that's not as common a language obviously we would be obligated to translate everything into Dinka for that person correct no um in those instances we would we would be evaluating that on a case-by Case basis we would be trying to figure out you know what are the what are the again we we not automatically saying in that instance okay we know that there's one person in the community who speaks this language that has a relatively low uptake Nationwide um therefore we must translate every vital document into that language I didn't mean that but let's say that individual comes to town hall and has a particular specific need would there be an obligation in within the scope of dealing with that constituent to translate documents relative to that engagement so Michael alurn is at the podium are you gonna talk I shockingly have a comment on this come on up um so Michael Al executive director of the Brookline Housing Authority I'll just mention we deal with document translation as well and in our um language access plans we Define certain key languages and it's census statistics about which primary languages are spoken and we have all documents readily available in those languages and then our staff are trained on it's been remarkable gr Google Translate for immediate needs and you can now hold a phone over a document and it translates for someone into the other languages so I just highlight another way of um skinning the cat that we've had success and deal with a lot of the same language access issues where we have certain documents uh all translated into specified language which it's Spanish Russian and Mandarin for us and then on request we'll provide other documents but we we find the phones in Google Translate really really effective these days right and in our our case for example we would probably have a language line type service where you know if someone came in and spoke a language we would call the translation service and we would say put them on the phone with that person and allow them to work through the you know that uh that that um area but our policy says you know in those instances that's the level of you know based on the level of uptaking the Community that's the level of response ensuring that that that person still gets service oh Paul has his hand up Bernard Paul yep thank you Bernard uh and John so and Chaz I just want to kind of keep this going for just a minute um so assuming that the policy is correct right the broad policy um the question I have is really about phasing and implementation and priority there's 21 departments here I don't know how many boards and commissions we are up to but there's quite a few um I assume that these there all of these departments are not uh equally prioritized and importance for for translation services um I guess the the next level of planning would be really helpful here to understand uh priority uh of of departments and boards and commissions which ones should go first second and third or phase one phase two phase three the extent of the documents that would need to be translated into how many languages and then what that would estimate you could build a model estimate that into a cost um I just it that would be really helpful to understand oh Bernard Mike has his hand up oh sorry thanks John I I saw your very very briefly um looking at Google um Google Now translates between English and thinka you follow up on Michael alon's point and chair may I make a just quick comment um I I want to say to Amad that I uh I really welcome uh the service that he is going to add to uh what Brook line offers um and I thoroughly respect the challenge of dealing with uh the need language access needs um in in a government setting and by that I mean government speaks a language of its own I'll call it Bure bureaucratism you know the the the language of bureaucracy and um I'm not criticizing anyone here believe me I just I accept it as a fact of life then in order to have a language access policy takes nine single space Pages you know I mean think about that uh earlier just a few minutes earlier Chaz reduced it to a paragraph you know basically what it is is you know boom and I think we all nodded our heads and kind of got it um but when you establish it as a government adopted policy suddenly it goes on for nine single space pages and I promise not to read more than just a quick sentence or two but imagine trying to translate this vital documents are public facing written materials in any format created issued or made available on any platform by a covered entity to inform and communicate with the public allowing the public to apply for Benefit Services Program participation notify or correspond with an individual about their eligibility participation benefits or outcomes of an application I mean boom um you know you've got to figure out what is the difference in you know all of these different languages between eligibility participation benefits outcomes um what is the difference between advertise and inform the public in the phrase advertise and inform the public you know um I I I I wish uh nothing but um uh success in doing this but I want everybody to understand he he's got a huge task ahead of him and the town of bookline has a huge task ahead of us but there is a kind of a rule of reasonableness that tends to apply um uh in that most people um have reasonable expectations and most people are satisfied with a reasonable level of attempt to address their needs and um I hope hope that's the balance that we strike at the end of the day in all of this otherwise we'll we'll have to sacrifice much too much to be able to afford the cost of um you know a full-blown um language service for every conceivable language that people request um uh be accommodated so I will say one one of the one of the one of the most important parts of this is um on page on the bottom of page one and page two which talks about the vital document definition and I think to your point you know the sort of Common Sense thing is it really is a three-part test in plain English and pl plain language which is can a member of the public you know this is you know um you know if if there's a document that could have an impact on a person's ability to participate in a program service or activity especially if they could be terminated from a program service or activity if they didn't understand the document um or if they could suffer some kind of financial physical or other harm if they were notable to complete or understand that um so again coming in looking for a building permit coming in looking for a parking permit coming in um you know a residential parking permit of some kind if you would be cut out of a program because you didn't understand that language then that's a document that we have an obligation to translate and that's the rule of thumb there so that's what we would be working towards and phasing that in accordingly yeah and it would not include the underlying bylaws that uh that that govern that which no not not unless not unless they fell not unless they met that requirement right um so you know and again it specifically says internal facing documents the documents that we use to develop and Implement those policies are not vital documents so we're not translating for example Freedom of Information Act emails um internally those are outside of the scope of this policy okay David uh does following up on something John mentioned about bureaucrats do do these Services also include translation for those whose primary language is English but they may have some uh cognitive impairments or other limitations that perhaps their vocabulary and their understanding is a little more basic than the wording of some of these documents would there be someone to assist them that's a little outside the scope of this um what this talks about a language exess it defines individuals with LEP as individuals who do not speak English as their primary language and have a limited ability to rewrite speak or understand English so it's not or um in those instances there are other areas where we try and use to provide access to folks who may have cognitive impairments uh or other um disabilities that may impede the um their access to government for example Vision um or hearing or any of those things okay okay any other I see Sarah Kaplan has her hand up Sarah uh I have to promote Sarah s Sarah I've just promoted you so I'm the Ada coordinator for the town of Brookline so we do provide language access or effective communication to people with disabilities who have um who who would need any sort of reasonable accommodation related to their understanding of any sort of vital documents or any sort of Need for ASL interpretation or other translation related to disability so yes great thank you okay um I I see Paul doesn't want to vote what what do other people uh think David David so I I agree with Paul I certainly support language access I absolutely for it the spirit of it but I do think it's important that we understand the financial implications whether we truly have the budget for this it sounds like we're already doing it anyway and that the purpose of this is more to make it systemic and consistent not on the ad hoc basis as the Town Administrator stated uh so I'm definitely appreciative that we're already doing it to a large extent but in terms of memorializing it in policy I think we need to know what the numbers are I I haven't heard any numbers and that so that worries me a bit okay uh chz is there um are you able to pull together some numbers within a reasonable reasonable time so we can bring this back to the select board and yes I mean when you say reasonable time this is going to be part of the FY 26 budget process um and that is ongoing um now um we'll be meeting with departments to discuss the implementation of this policy in the coming month so we can bring this back to you in November um with updates on the finances here okay that that that gives the Departments enough time to pull together their budget request with related to this and uh and other things because I know there's a timeline in in the materials right you know things that are done 30 60 days and Etc okay if if um if you can get that uh for us to um you know consider we can put this off for another meeting for a vote CH chairman just ask a question for clarification of you know of all of this um it's my understanding and all I asking is the am MOD or someone correct me if I'm wrong um uh yeah we we need to know what this is going to cost but but we also just need to do what uh local government needs to do this is a you know protected under civil rights law um and uh I'm assuming that the language of our policy is pretty much standard and meets you know what is required for us to be um at least have a policy that's in compliance uh with the expectations of those who you know enforce language access as a right so um I I don't think we can do a whole lot of quibbling with the language in hopes it's going to save us some money but if I'm wrong about that then you know someone can correct me or I had said ear I thought that yeah I thought that all we were really saying is let's get some some you know fin not you know you know to to U decide whether or not to do this but just so that we have a full understanding of the cost going down the road sure and I have no problem with that yeah and and just to be clear John you know timing and implementation is part of the policy if your policy is to roll all this out in 12 months that would cost X yeah right if we say we can afford because we're constrained by the amount of money that's in the budget uh cross Department in total uh then then we can't implement the entire policy right away and so I think the timing of the policy implementation is critical uh to the policy itself and I hope that when Chaz comes back that the policy would actually reference you know uh the constraints that we have um either from a timing perspective uh with respect to money I think one of the reason why the policy is silent on that is is to provide us with flexibility um to ensure that we are not saying here's The Five-Year Plan in the event that in year three we have a funding shortfall or we're done in and have the policy I mean just have the policy reference something where we can point to a constraint so that people don't assume that that policy is what should be in effect today or okay D David also to to Paul's point I think it's important that we understand the numbers not because we're necessarily going to ultimately oppose this I think we're all going to be for it of course we want access for the community to town government uh but if it's going to cost more than we anticipate and more than we've budgeted for and you reference that the overrides intended to cover some of this then we would need to make choices elsewhere in order to fully accommodate this budget whatever that budget is and in order to make those choices in terms of potential Cuts elsewhere we need to know how much we need to cut uh so that's why I think it's important we need to have the numbers in advance of voting the policy okay so we'll look forward to uh further material but I think as as John indicated at least as I understand him as as saying you know we have to pass this policy um you know whether we can do a Cadillac size policy or forze policy depends on our finances but we have to move forward on this uh okay thank you thank you thank you thank you everyone for uh having us back and uh yeah we'll definitely get back to you with more information on the budget and finances okay thank okay next sanitation contract update State and vote on recommended services I don't think this is going to be a vote I think no you mainly want to uh the select board to tell you whether they have any you know big objections or um you know are generally supportive of the approach you're taking so we're not going to vote on this okay so who's gonna present is that uh commissioner shu is at the podium good evening oh good evening Gonna Change topics here a little bit uh my name is Aon chud I'm the commissioner of Public Works and um this evening I also like to recognize Kevin Johnson he's my Deputy Commissioner of operations and director of Highway sanitation and Fleet Services um who's joining me here today for this presentation and uh discussion so this up this evening I'm going to update the board um with an overview of where we are in the negotiation process uh for a new solid Wass collection processing and disposal contract and to request direction from the board on next steps regarding the scope of services to include in the new contract with a recommendation from DPW to expand the contractual Services function next slide please so the the town currently has two contracts uh with cassella Waste Management uh the contracts expire June 20 uh June 30th 2025 uh there's a curbside collection and processing of single stream recycling contract uh cassella collects all of our uh recycling curb side transports it to their facility to sort and process and then sells as a commodity anything that can be recycled uh and there's a solid waste transportation and Disposal contract this is for the hauling and disposal of solid waste uh from the transfer station to disposal sites that are selected by the contractor cassella disposes of all of our waste at waste to energy facilities in the region and under this contract DPW is responsible for the weekly curbside collection of trash using DPW staff supplies um and Fleet so um what we're operating under right now this was a five-year contract that was renewed for another five years um as Newton was also in a position where their contract was um nearing term we decided to combine our resources and develop a collaborative bid to seek the most competitive menu of pricing and services for our respective jurisdictions uh the process involved purchasing officers from both jur jurisdictions three uh DPW staff from both Newton and Brookline and legal review from both communities uh the collaborative bid process presented a unique opportunity to evaluate the current and potential service and pricing models for sanitation collection and disposal in Brooklyn so we're currently in a position and I want to share this now where we are neg negotiating with the two uh most advantageous biders uh I don't have numbers to share as we're still in negotiations but the pricing is close and we are making very good progress we will have a five-year contract to bring to the board that will be effective July 1 2025 and uh we would hopefully look to renew that U for another fiveyear term so we're very much thinking kind of long-term just like this most recent contract so our goal as I say here is to provide uh efficient predictable and sustainable waste and recycling management collection processing and Disposal Services this is a critical public service that ensures the safe and efficient removal of solid waste protecting the community from Health ha hazards and environmental contamination and in our reviewing our current model of Sanitation and recycling collection and the options for services as part of our collaborative bid we recommend Contracting out all or sum of the remaining solid waste collection services in order to meet this goal next slide please so the town Services uh over 13,000 households with in-house and contracted um Services uh the town collects as I said um household trash bulky waste and yard waste curbside with Town employees and equipment and the contractor collects and processes all recyclables uh following our same uh um schedule of the week uh and uh same route and um also hauls and disposes of the aggregated trash so the hybrid pay as you throw program which we now currently um run uh started in 2017 the town shifted to waste carts of different sizes and additional bags with a goal of waste reduction which has been effective and in order to support the program the town moved to rear and sidearm loaders to collect trash and at that time the town considered Outsourcing the collection of uh of waste curbside uh there was an evaluation done at the time and a proposal that the town could keep those um Services inhouse cut to full-time equivalents and remain competitive um that cut happened um but what we have found is the town cannot service The Collection routes with reduced Staffing and we are therefore struggling every day to fill the seats to drive and collect trash next slide please so I want to express uh and share with you some of the challenges with in-house sanitation collection um a big one is liability risks uh sanitation is one of the most dangerous uh occupations in the United States uh there are significant legal and financial liabilities associated with this function and a great deal of loss time uh due to work rated injuries in the past four years there have been in our department 23 workers compensation claims associated with this function of waste collection with 12 leading to L time for a total of 1,159 days we also have difficulty filling this position uh these positions we have advertised vacant positions for years without being able to fill the positions and this impacts our operations and thereby it leads to um it has a negative impact on other divisions we must run this operation this is a critical function for the town and in order to pick up trash every day we are pulling employees from other divisions within highway to collect trash and so this has had a really negative impact on morale for employees who are shifting over to trans uh to sanitation which is not the trade or service that they were originally hired for and therefore has led to difficulty in retaining employees uh where we had five resigned um either from the town or transferred to other divisions uh within the past year and finally we have an aging Fleet uh it needs to be replaced there are increased maintenance demands leading to increased time costs and efficiencies we had over 124 repair tickets um this past year leading to um service delays and over the next 7 years we estimate 2.4 million in replacement costs for the fleet alone next slide please so the benefits of contractual services are cost predictability and budget control enhanced service reliability uh access to Modern equipment uh reduceed liability improved safety uh some of the safety programs are extensive um with these other um companies that that is their sole uh service that they provide uh imp improve morale uh within our staff and retention less workers compensation risk and a reduced impact um to other division operations next slide please so because of um all of these aformentioned reasons and the specialized nature of this service most other municipalities Outsource all waste uh and recycling collection processing Services we're at a critical juncture where we can keep this function inhouse but to do so properly uh would need uh we would need at least an additional to FTE the fleet replacement um and expanded training so there's a cost associated with that or we can include the waste collection service function into the new contracts the current Staffing um would not be laid off uh but moved to other functions within DPW and so with this and as we proceed into these final stages of negotiations we recommend that the select board um provide us some feedback uh and direction to proceed with some or all contractual services for solid waste collection to meet the goal of sustainable reliable and predictable service collection for Brooklyn now and in the future thank you okay thank you uh commissioner shu any uh thoughts questions Mike yeah um so as usual Mike has his hand up um so two things um I think sometimes people think that uh uh Contracting Services out is an effort to um save dollars or something of that sort the way youve presented this it sounds like what we're really talking about here the impetus for doing this is to shift the task of hiring training and recruiting to a private contractor because it's a very difficult set of positions to fill um and I think it's important important that we make that distinction clear that this isn't necessarily about saving money it's about providing the service without undermining other services uh and I really appreciate the way you've presented that um I do have one question um what happens to the town-owned vehicles that we have that uh are dedicated to the to colle ction now so those Vehicles we would work to um have auctioned or sold uh for Revenue to the town okay all right so there's no sense in keeping them in reserve or anything of that sort I think that depends honestly in um which model we ultimately bring before you and whether it makes sense to keep a vehicle on hand should we need that in the future okay thank you I I have a question commissioner um you know one of the other concerns that people have with respect to Outsourcing is uh the idea that we're shifting uh employment from relatively high paid uh employment with the municipality with benefits to uh low paid uh employment without benefits and as I understand that's not the case in this uh situation uh am I correct there and could you confirm for the audience that is correct we are currently not competitive actually with the market of um sanitation collection um in the private sector so we we are increasing the numbers of middle class workers in our town or in our community David so I have a couple questions you referenced the beginning of your remarks that you're currently negotiating with the two most advantageous biders do you mean most advantageous financially or in what sense um actually the the two that we are currently working with it is their capacity to actually take on uh Brookline uh as an account so it's both financially but they also have um the capacity as uh companies to manage uh an account of both our size and Newton okay and another question you U mentioned 124 repair tickets I didn't quite catch the time frame for that was that FY 24 that was was it the past full year or fy2 24 fy2 24 and how does that compare to uh recent prior years how's it compared to where we're at so far this year if it's up why is it up you have understand you have to come up Kevin Johnson Deputy Commissioner of operations Highway and sanitation director um I I don't have the numbers what it Compares but um knowing the age of the fleet I'm sure we're right on on Pace I can see um the work orders coming through I can see the parts being ordered for repairs and I and I sign and signing off on um third party services for repairs on those Vehicles so it's just a it's a aging Fleet it's one of the most most mechanical piece of equipment that we have there's a lot of moving Parts on them hydraulic so the wear and tear on that is uh costly Paul Paul has his hand up thank you John and Bernard um thank you for your uh presentation the uh you mentioned that there are a few municipalities that actually continue to have uh trash collection in house do you have a sense of how many there are Yes actually Kevin did that research uh there are 11 there's 11 out of how many municipalities 341 I think so we are in that distinct minority we are in the distinct minority okay oh all right 90% of the 11 are in western Mass I will say that our um that Cambridge is one of the communities that is still collecting in house okay thank you 351 sorry 35 I live 350 there's there's so the ask here is it's it's more it's informational um we want to be sure because this also triggers you know requirements and collective bargaining and or you know notification terms of collective bargaining and so forth that there are no concerns among members of the select board for us to proceed with negotiation the decision point will come when we have a proposed final contract before you right there is a question of do we continue down the path of looking at all of it right um or a portion of it and I yeah and I think in this case we're you know as long as we're not being told no stop you know we will continue to evaluate all of those options and come to you with what we think is the most advantageous to to Mike's Point and the commissioner's Point not just in terms of cost unfortunately you know it's a new it's we getting a new contract anyway anything we would do fulfilling the service filling the service I agree with that okay any other any other uh comments or questions from the select board guidance to uh commissioner sh if you're run out of people that you can't get on the back of the truck you can always call me I know question don't test me don't I don't think you're covered under our workers comp policy all right he said no keep keep going that's all right so barring any objection I haven't heard any tonight we will continue with our negotiations and um come back uh to you with a full package and recommendation thank you very much thank you thank you okay now the fun part of our meeting um let's see we had scheduled for 7:30 warrant article public hearings uh we're just a little a few minutes uh late but uh let's start off with Warren article um yeah I'm sorry Bernard um we had a request on the podium for a five minute break okay five minutes we'll be back return at 805 it over [Music] okay e e e e e e e e e e e Bernard are you there well they also were wild cat teams T that series up so that's one one back okay he's back we're doing two minutes on okay okay all right five minutes SS far away I'll move closer to the microphone and you might want to turn your video back on why I'm eating oh something somebody brought or uh yeah yes a turkey sandwich I just had to put some hot peppers on on it there you go yeah okay um so Warren article two uh is uh Melissa here to and Braga is here uh from Human Resources okay great an good evening everyone my name is Anne Braga I'm the HR Director for the town of Brookline just providing you an update with the status on collective bargaining um at this point in time we do not have any signed agreements for you um but we are working actively with um both asme and fire and um we'll be starting negotiations with teamsters and the other subdivisions of askme shortly so I don't have anything for particular review tonight okay um so what what should we do no action or you you may have something later on that we we going have to act on right Bernard My Hope Is that we will Bernard what we've traditionally done is um if you wanted to vote no action right now you need to still hold your public hearing um but but obviously without any contracts to consider there's really not much to discuss if there were contracts we would have the board reconsider um and probably schedule another public hearing to discuss those so um you know yeah so I I would just you know at this point you know probably open public hearing and and see if anyone wants to say anything and then we can reconsider later on correct or vote no action and then reconsider okay this is a public hearing um Tiffany is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak or on Zoom um there's no one who signed up in advance is there anyone in the room who would like to speak on warrant Article 2 is there anyone online who would like to speak on Warren Article 2 if so please raise your hand using the raise the hand feature at this time there are more speakers in the room then I can quickly count and there are approximately 45 participants online but no one is indicating that they wish to speak at this time okay thank you I'll close the hearing any comments from the select Board hearing none um I move uh no action on war article uh two uh approval of collective bargaining agreements of which we have none at this time all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak I Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren hi davidman I and chair votes I next warrn article 16 to amend uh section 8.41 of the town's General bylaw to expand the requirements of the tree preservation bylaw um we have the petitioner here for this the petitioner's in the room and I'm going to pull up a deck for the petitioner yes please okay oh I think is this the we're on 16 sorry that's my apologies one second that will be a theme tonight can't wait okay I've got yours now okay um please introduce yourself and then go with your presentation thank you uh Alisa plazan Precinct 8 I am a co-coordinator of Mother's outfront uh Brook lines tree team and I am a board member of climate action Brookline but I'm here this evening in my individual capacity uh I'd like to F first thank you for taking the time to consider our warrant article um this um before we get into the discussion I do want to point out that we're a little bit out of order because of where we are in our hearing process so we have only started to have our hearings we had our first uh meeting with the ACR subcommittee last night and we met with EAB as well uh our meeting with the ACR subcommittee was continued uh we will be continuing that discussion this Thursday and we have other meetings this week so our you know as you well know warrant articles evolve over the review process so we are just beginning that Journey um and already have amendments that we are considering so just kind of put put that in context um this warant article is about trees but it is about much more than that it's about responding to climate change and protecting our public and environmental health it's about leaving a livable Brookline for our children grandchildren and future Generations if Brookline doesn't think that those are worthy goals we can just go home right now and save you the time but if you do think that those are deserving goals then this warrant article is essential why because climate change is here and things are only getting worse and this makes it imperative that the town take every action possible to keep Brookline livable yes we're reducing emissions and we're switching to Green energy and electrification and we have some Sustainable Building standards but we also need to focus on preventing actions that are undermining our progress towards achieving our climate goals and that's where tree preservation comes in trees aren't just some pretty thing to look at they're powerful carbon capture machines they produce the oxygen we breathe they provide cooling they mitigate the heat island effect they help manage storm water runoff and they deliver countless other benefits to our community these are all well documented by the town itself in the urban forest climate Master uh resiliency master plan and the climate action plan so why isn't our current tree preservation bylaw good enough well it's extremely narrow and it applies only under limited circumstances only to residential property only during significant construction activity and even then it only protects trees that are within a 20ft border of the lot line so as a result We are continuing to lose healthy trees with no consequences except the damage that that loss causes to our environment and our climate our warrant article is based on a very simple premise if Brookline is serious about fighting climate change we need every tree we have so this war article is really about encouraging the preservation and protection of every healthy mature Tree in town because every tree really does matter and it's about holding people more accountable for the harm that they cause to our environment when they do decide to remove a healthy mature Tree by requiring more meaningful mitigation for their actions it's that simple protect every tree and hold people accountable when they don't because the only thing that can truly replace the loss of a mature tree is time and that's the one thing we do not have in the fight against climate change before I turn it over to Olivia I'd like to address one of the elephants in the room which is is this too much we understand um that you know we've heard some concerns as I mentioned we're just starting our journey we've heard concerns about affordability both for property owners and the town and we are understand that providing flexibility and relief for residents with constrained finances is important and we're working on proposed amendments to address those concerns but the rest of us and the town need to step up and exercise the leadership that's needed to protect the resources that we already have in place to help us defend against climate change because if we don't take responsibility for our actions now what we're doing is passing the cost of our inaction onto future Generations our world is literally on fire we just had the hottest summer on record globally and this morning I watched a meteorologist break down in tears on national tv as he contemplates the Ferocious destruction that climate change is about to unleash on millions in the form of Milton so we can be responsible citizens and do what is needed of us now or we can leave a hellscape for our children and grandchildren that is the choice before us I'll now turn it over to Olivia to talk a little bit about our article U thanks Alisa my name is Olivia Fisher Fox um I'm a resident of P4 uh co-coordinator of the Brookline mothers outfront te tree team and a board member for Brookline Green Space Alliance I will be talking um about the uh but I'm speaking for myself we have slides here Tiffany can I bring up the next slide please yep um okay so I'll be talking about the climate benefits of significant trees and the proposed changes in our Amendment but first I want to Define our measurement terms so trees are measured by their dbh uh or diameter at breast height this is the measurement taken at the trunk 4 and 1/2 ft above the ground the drip line is measured at the outer edges of the canopy and the critical root zone is defined by the roots that extend underground as pictured here the larger the tree the greater the climate benefits next slide please so large trees are climate rock stars each group of trees pictured here stores the same amount of carbon for instance one mature oak tree with a 54 in dbh stores eight tons of carbon in order to pull the equivalent amount of carbon out of the atmosphere from smaller trees you would need 35 trees at 12 in dbh or 151 trees at 6 in dbh or 465 trees at 4 in dbh note that the group of smallest trees on the right are the size commonly used for replanting next slide please in our current bylaw if you cut down one of our 54 in dbh rock stars you have a choice of replacing it with 27 in of dbh that's almost seven replacement trees boxed out here in red or paying $27,000 into the tree fund as you can see replanting comes nowhere near to replacing the carbon benefits of the tree the town just lost and I say town because the urban canopy provides carbon sink to all of us whether it is on private public or commercial land next slide please the proposed mitigation would require a replacement for 54 in dbh tree at 108 in of dbh or 27 4in dbh trees box outout in red with the choice of instead paying $54,000 into the tree fund the tree fund by the way is the town's fund to plant and maintain trees in other parts of town that are lost on private property one of the great things about increasing mitigation is that it will bring in more Revenue to the town so you can see even in this amendment we are nowhere close to replacing the equivalent carbon benefits of the trees we lose we are asking only that you consider consider taking a step forward toward that goal next slide please so exactly how many trees are coming down in Brookline since the last six-year measurement was taken in 2020 we don't exactly know but if you travel down Route 9 topen or Harvard streets you see trees coming down in many places we propose that all trees on all property require a permit so that we can better measure the loss of trees on an annual basis while simultaneously assuring mitigation our current bylaw requires a permit only during large construction projects on residential property and for trees that are within 20 ft of the lot line the proposed permit would require uh would be triggered by the intent to remove a 6in dbh tree or greater for all property on the entire lot even for invasive species because they too store carbon and cool Our Town though mitigation would be determined by a reviewing agent the permit process would also require that you let your neighbors know as a way of enforcing mitigation for this complaint driven bylaw the data gained through this process will help the town better regulate in the future and of course we will retain the exemptions for severely damaged hazardous diseased and insect infested trees in short this bylaw removes a complex set of triggers and simply says you need a permit to to cut down a tree in Brookline next slide please lastly Warren article 16 requires that any tree an owner wants to retain within 30 ft of construction deserves a fence that better protects the trees's critical root Zone we are living in a challenging time where trees might be our best ally in the face of climate change let's maximize their benefits thank you I'm going to turn it over to Katherine dher thank you whoops whoops thank you my name is Katherine Doner I'm a long-term resident at precinct true at 20 Copley Street I've spent my career based here in Brooklyn but with services to many large governmental institutional private and nonprofit clients in planning and Redevelopment um in closing our presentation I want to urge you tonight to seize a major opportunity facing you that is for you to deliver to us your constituents the protection we all need for you from you from the ravages of climate change greenhouse gases are our biggest danger protecting our tree canopy is the only tool available able to us here in Brookline to keep us safe and to deal with this critical issue simply put people who cut thank you people who cut down trees impose a cost on all of us with tree loss everyone loses and everyone pays we elect you and by so doing you're entrusted to work on our behalf to secure our future you have a collective obligation to advance policies and actions then enhance the health and wellbeing of every Brookline citizen today and into the future much as your predecessors did a century or more ago their legacy is the Magnificent canopy that takes care of us today and that canopy is under siege as we speak now it's up to you to carry on what they started this is a moment when your leadership really counts we encourage you to to avoid false choices and imagined obstacles public policy is not and never has been a zero sum game for example it's not okay to create new heat Islands in order to build new housing we can achieve environmental justice and build housing and support every person's health and well-being and protect our tree canopy to together we can do this and we must and to put this initiative in context I simply want to let you know that as we've been doing our research and working on this project we've discovered that there are many many other communities in the metropolitan area that are well on their way to doing this as well the there are initiatives in almost every state in the country so this is an issue has time whose time has come and so the moment is now thank you very much okay any comments from the select board I'll I'll start with that's okay y um so I just want to thank the um petitioners for both the article that they have presented us with and for the eloquence with which they presented it and um I'll um I'll mention that um I I consider that I'm extremely fortunate to um have in the yard of of our house in in Cheston Hill um several canopy trees um and they have been there as as long as I have and they keep getting bigger and in a couple instances we had an arborist say this one has to come down or that one has to come down but we still have several canopy trees that um it would be Unthinkable to me to um for any reason remove them um however however that there is a change that's on the horizon um and we've all heard of it it's the accessory dwelling unit Adu um legislation passed by the state which essentially envisions a significant um amount of progress being made in adding housing units in Massachusetts which just about everybody agrees we we need to add housing units in Massachusetts via um encouragement of uh development of additional dwelling units on land where there is already a dwelling unit and I'm imagining that that will take place in many instances um on land where there might be an existing tree um so it in the view of the petitioners is there a tradeoff here between um encouraging tree preservation but at the same time putting in a a impediment in the way of one of the major initiatives being undertaken in Massachusetts to develop more housing units as we know there are many many worthy public policies and adus have had their time and they're coming into uh being it's it's more and more able to do that and they've been allowed now in most communities um I think it's a false premise to always pit one worthy totally valued public policy against another we have to learn to do both and we have to figure that out that's part of the job of working on solving the many many problems that our society encounters all right thanks oh yep I you can would you come back up we're GNA ask some questions yeah so first thank you for bringing it uh I'm a big fan of trees and I um appreciate certainly uh why you're bringing it Forward um and and I agree with it I have some questions about the specific policy uh aspects of your article um and I'm going to come at this from my personal experience so I own uh a home um in the St Mary's uh business district um I don't have a my house takes up basically the lot there's a little bit of yard not much um I'm within you know 30 feet my entire lot is with is is within 30 feet of a tree that would qualify um and so I um I'm think thinking about the things that we've done to the property and the things that we still need to do uh so for example we moved a uh a beautiful um Mountain Laurel from one side of the yard to the other that's a shrub it's a shrub but I had to excavate we dug down more than 12 inches we dug four feet you know what I just in the interest of time we are going to be removing the excavation um aspect of the Bon so you're removing section 2.5 yes well and elsewhere where we you know we we understand the intent there is the the greatest risk that one composed to trees is excavation and the Damage that it can cause to the critical root structure but we understand that it's very difficult to craft a policy that includes excavation without um unintentionally infringing on other harmless activities and so we think that in the best interest of advancing the broader goal that we're going to be removing excavation I appreciate that because it would also prevent it would trigger by planting a tree you'd have to dig down um which would be ironic uh then the the other question I had is about fencing and I understand the fencing is intended to protect the roots um I have a a neighbor I mean there's trees all along the border of my property on my property and on the neighbor's property um how do you handle fencing that needs to span the property line uh across two properties how do you do that so so I I I I would um point out that fencing is in the existing bylaw um so that requirement to fence off the tree save area so this is not a change that we are proposing although we are proposing to expand the tree save area one of the um we also understand I live in North Brooklyn so I appreciate the constraints of smaller Lots um and this was something that Tom Brady and DPW had commented on he said in some cases that's just not feasible so we are um going to be uh assuming that the moderator allows it modifying that to you know we're setting sort of the standard tree save area but flexibility for the area to be smaller if the site conditions warranted right but the idea is to keep construction equipment off of the um the critical root Zone because that could damage it in your case so so your specific question about a tree that sort of straddles a lot line I'm assuming that the con struction activity wouldn't be encroaching on your neighbor's yard right so it wouldn't necessarily be trampling the critical root Zone on your neighbor either it could be either side if he they're doing construction the byw right you know it's just there it's a very tight space in North Brook line as you know because and then if I may uh uh the last question is related to the existing bylaw um do we know how many how much money has been contributed to the tree fund by the existing B is the existing bylaw um being enforced is it working um you know I'm just I worry about enforcement that if we're not doing it well with a limited bylaw how are we going to do it when we expand it significantly um by a of funding additional staff um so and I'm I'm just going to be blunt about that because you know we were very candid in our assessment to the HR subcommittee that this would require additional staff this is not work that the DPW team can absorb they're already you know they have their hands full um so we estimate that it would require you know two plus FTE uh commissioner Sho has done her her own analysis um and we have in our analysis identifying some potential funding sources for you know depending on what the experience is the issue is we don't have a lot of data um the communities are bylaw is relatively new and it's very narrow and scope the other communities that have broader bylaws are Newton their bylaw is relatively new as well in March they don't have a lot of data other than anecdotal data um Cambridge has had their their tree uh preservation ordinance in place for a much longer time and they have a lot of data so we ran projections based on um cambridge's experience with activity levels and um of of the tree removals what percentage resulted in payments into the tree fund and then we modeled what you know under different circumstances like how is Brookline light Cambridge how is it different under different circumstances what you know how many permits could we expect and of those how many would generate payments into the tree fund and we sort of model that and you know if our experience were to mirror cambridges there would be money in the tree fund to cover the cost of administration as well as the cost of replanting which is you know the um the intention of the of of the refund payments but we don't know for sure whether that will be the experience and so to date um I believe and I'll let commissioner sh confirm there have been no payments into the tree fund no payments no payments into the tree fund but again it's a very narrow um you know it's it's a much different bylaw we've had 91 applications filed and uh so far um of of of of which though I believe 60 only 60 are 62 have been reviewed um six permits have been issued um and so far um we have seen some trees gain which is good but we have not seen any mitigation dollars yet okay the mitigation Sor yeah the our sustainability director Alexandra oh sorry thank you has her hand raised Alexandra oops I lost her Tiffany here commissioner I had to promote her I'm sorry okay yeah we're promoting Alexander now here we go Alexander you've been promoted you're on mute thank you uh good evening everyone Alexander Veo director of sustainability and natural resources and acting director of parks and open space um I was just simply raising my hand before um chair uh chairman green just to let you know that information that uh Town Administrator Carrie shared so we haven't had any contributed to the tree fund yet um but I will just note that the existing bylaw has been in effect for less than a year um and as the petitioner pointed out it does have a a limited scope to it um so just wanted to clarify that thank you great thank you okay um anyone else yeah yeah I'm sorry I'm raising my hand may I thanks um uh and I'm glad that Alexander beo is here and I I will try to ask this question without putting you too much on the spot um you know I think one of the um one of the matters of analysis that uh I I really wish to have a a clear answer on uh is if there were um the option given to our parks in open space division to add I think it's two positions that are contemplated uh that will need to be added maybe it's even more than that um in order to um enforce this um changed bylaw um would the division put a priority um with the first priority of the division given the option of adding two positions B to put a much more restrictive tree protection bylaw on the books and use those two positions to enforce the tree protection bylaw or would there be a different priority that is ranked a little bit higher by the um open space u parks and open space division uh sure I can take that unless I know commissioner sh is in the room um if she wants to add anything on uh please feel free so I would say that our first priority is U managing Our Town assets uh so managing our uh public shade trees our trees in our Parks playgrounds school grounds towrs um and so we are in the process of we now have a full-time uh urban forestry manager uh where previously that was a um part-time position for the town um and uh we are in the process of uh hiring an additional tree crew so that we will have two in-house tree Crews um to maintain that asset so that is our our first and highest priority um with that being said uh with out additional staff uh we wouldn't be able to enforce the the bylaw as it's proposed here this evening um and so uh if we were to able to First fill those those Town positions to take care of our town assets um then yes I think with the additional staff we would be able to um enforce the the bylaw as recommended here with all due respect I'm not sure I got the answer um as to but would that be your your parks and open space division um choice of what to do with the additional staff and the additional money AR Commissioner of Public Works you know I I think that um you know in all fairness this this bylaw um supports the goals and objectives as articulated in the urban forest climate resiliency master plan that has some um sort of big overarching goals for preservation protection addition to the town's public uh shade trees but also looks globally at the um the canopy of the entire town and there has been some reduction uh over the past uh years in the overall canopy and one of the goals is not to just preserve but increase that canopy so um big picture from a climate and sustainability um perspective uh increasing the overall canopy townwide is an important goal as it relates sustainability as we look at parks in open space and our liability and our Parks playgrounds towrs in the public right of way it is critical that we are able to maintain um the condition and the safety associated with our own public shade trees so there is value in both there's sort of this operational component for us in public works to make sure that we're taking care of our 60,000 plus trees that we manage but we see the value um otherwise in um this the bigger picture um canopy so I know that isn't quite answering your question either I don't think that Public Works is in the position to say we have other priorities that we'd rather you know I I'd rather have you know two other positions elsewhere that's that's not really what we're talking about there's a there's a you know a bylaw that's really important um to this community that's being you know evaluated on its own merits I think for us we just want to make sure that something doesn't pass that we are not able to successfully execute for the town yeah and so that is what is most important to us um with this and frankly I think the petitioners as well and I just hope to make absolutely clear the intent behind my question the intent behind my question is um I think it's a fair question to ask whether we would get more result um from focusing on expand expanding the preservation of the publicly public way trees which as you have pointed out are vast in number um or more um result in terms of added canopy trees if we went this route and I'm still gra grappling with you know that POS that that question those those options that's a very interesting question I don't think we know yet um just in terms of you know the number of um you know permits we would be reviewing and what those outcomes would be so I don't know that we know that answer yet in terms of where um we could potentially have the biggest um impact and value for the town thank you um David did you have your hand up yeah I do yes a couple questions for the petitioners so you referen that the uh Cambridge tree ordin tree preservation ordinance was one of your models for the proposed Brookline bylaw uh how much does Cambridge pay into their tree preservation fund per mature tree um they're they have a really like complex formula so if you think our woren article is complex you should read Cambridge um they have a very complex formula that varies based on the circum you could have the same tree remove removed but based on who is removing it there's different payment formulas so it's a impossible question to answer I will say that what we did to analyze the revenue stream we didn't just um assume that the money would be the same because the mitigation formula is not the same what we did is we looked at the actual activity that drove that that um was involved in the removals What's um the size of those trees that were removed and not mitigated with replace with replanting but rather payments to the Tre refund and we applied our proposed enhanced mitigation formula to those trees to project a revenue stream and it was probably I'm just going by by memory so don't hold me you know accountable here but it was uh maybe like two-thirds of what Cambridge actually generated on average all right so for a uh diameter breast height in Cambridge that's comparable to uh the one that you're looking at as the threshold for $54,000 in Brookline you're saying that the 54,000 is roughly 23 of what would be uh charged in Cambridge no I didn't look at it um in that way I looked at it in the aggregate so Cambridge is what what the reason that we believe that our formula is um important and we actually lifted our formula from from Newton um was uh that it acknowledges the exponentially greater value of really large mature trees so um that what when I said that the total projected Revenue stream from the tree fund assuming we would have the same experience as Cambridge based on the size of the trees that were removed but using our payment structure the total revenue stream would be about two-thirds of what Cambridge generated all right did you also look at this on a per property basis we did not uh the reason I ask is uh as stated earlier there's some competing public interests at play here and I'm just wondering whether your proposed bylaw would be going a lot further than cambridges in terms of cost to the property owner um so it it it really depends on how big the tree is because our first tier which is um in based on the Cambridge data two-thirds of trees removed would fall into our first mitigation tier and that first mitigation tier remains unchanged from the existing bylaw that's at $500 um an inch the the maximum so then we step up we go from 500 to 750 to 1,00 to 1500 if you look at um the the next the second tier that's another 25% of those trees so a vast majority 91% of the trees fell into the first two tiers with either the $500 price tag or the $750 price tag as I said cambridge's formula is complicated it's starts at like 850 for an individual but there can be adjustments and then it's 1250 for in under certain circumstances and and and so you know on average though if you're looking at those two tiers it would appear to me that our payment structure is lower for the vast majority of trees than than Cambridge but I'm you know I'm going by off the cuff here in that in that statement all right thank you and then finally uh as as you know there's a tree B an exist tree bylaw on Brook line that's fairly recent uh in any way is your proposal in intentionally meant to expand the scope of that or do you feel it's totally independent no this is a um so if it is completely expanding the scope of the existing bylaw because the existing bylaw is you know it's only triggered in a very limited set of circumstances related to construction and then it only applies to that 20 foot border the lot line so what we have experienced and maybe I could invite one of our other C- petitioners who was going to be commenting as a member of the public to give some examples is that we continue to see trees coming down left and right um and so what we're hoping to do is through this is discourage that practice and you know when when that does happen to require mitigation to make the community whole for our you know environment thank you okay um before before we go to our public hearing uh I understand that Joe Kalan Our Town Council has some comments or has issued some comments regarding the legality of this warn article uh can we hear from him or someone in legal council okay good yeah good evening I'm Joe kalinian uh Friday evening I sent a memo to the select board the advisory committee um uh and the petitioners uh about my concern about the questionable constitutionality of this bylaw um this this proposed uh warrant article so in there it's about seven pages 4,000 words I laid out my concerns uh I don't need to go through them unless you want me to but I'm happy to answer any question questions you have about that memo one question I have is whether the petitioners have um review the memo and and U come up with any uh ways to address the concerns of Town Council uh so yes we have disagree with the concerns uh so so so yes we have reviewed it and yes we disagree with it um so I don't want to say much further here um but I will say that we are um it is being uh one of the reasons that our hearing with the AC uh HR subcommittee was continued was to allow sufficient time to discuss um the issue of whether there are legal issues with with this uh warrant article so we have not yet had the benefit of that discussion but based on our review and the input of other attorneys we um we have a different interpretation and and I understand that you know there the law is not always cut and dried so there's can be differences of opinion in this case we just happen to see things differently so I do have a question Bernard for Joe so um and I know it was seven pages in 4,000 words but i' I'm I'm going to ask you to just succinctly for the public succinctly State what is the issue a legal issue it said something about taking if you could just explain it very briefly sure um my concern is that um we're dealing with a trio of cases from the Supreme Court Nolan Dolan and CTS they deal with the concept of what is a regulatory taking and among the regulatory takings specifically what is an exaction or an unconstitutional condition and that is when you the government uh require a private landowner to pay or uh give property in order for for that private landowner to use their property here the property is their trees that's personal property it's not real property but it's their property so this warrant article would say to take down a tree you have to pay us money or you have to do something else replace the trees and if you're going to do that as Government you have to have an essential Nexus and regulating public health and um you know uh you know uh climate action those are all essential nexuses for government purposes but the problem I have is with rough proportionality so we require uh in your uh David's example of the 54 inch tree is probably about a $50,000 cost to the individual landowner so you have to then say that benefit or avoided benefit that tree was providing $54,000 worth of benefit to the um public that you are now taking away and what I need if I was to go into court and defend this uh if warrant article if it became a bylaw is evidence that that's roughly proportional if you think of baseball in the second base rule doesn't have to be exact not asking for $54,000 in one but it's roughly proportional how do you proove proportionality so it's a basically in this case it would be a cost benefit analysis so the PTI the petitioners do cite a Berkeley example that shows the benefit of tree removal for example six types of trees in um Berkeley had a particular um benefit per year but it was wildly Divergent one type of tree was 3,000 another type of tree was 177,000 so we can't say by species there's there's a relationship because it's all over the map and also it's an annual benefit so there is a relationship to if a tree is going to die in five years 50 years or a 100 years but we're only charging a fee in one point in time so we know there's other Factor s than just the dbh and we're not basing what we're requiring the landowner on that factor species age we're requiring adjust on the size and and it could be roughly proportional but when you have two independent factors that you're not basing it on it's very unlikely if if you I can get so that's and then my following question to that is does that mean our current bud law has the same challenge probably but I haven't done that analysis I was doing this in the last couple days of last week because I thought this warrant article so is there a correction to this article that would resolve your concern so you I'm not saying you can't regulate trees I I fully what is your suggestion to a is there a fix in the language to correct the defect that you think exists so it would take time but from what I'm hearing like you know the criticism of Cambridge is uh you know bylaw being complex yes this would be complex you'd have to factor in species you'd have to factor in age you'd have to factor in things that show what the benefit that the public is getting from that tree that's being taken away you can directly and R roughly proportionally charge the land owner we don't have that so for example in our Urban Tree uh Urban uh resiliency plan of 21 we talk about couple years ago we estimated that value of the 2,000 200,000 trees in Brooklyn to be about $2 million a year well that shows me that the value is only $10 per year so we need something like that so if you're only Char going to charge $10 for the age of the tree now you're getting roughly proportional but we don't have the evidence to say that these requirements in this amendment are roughly proportional to the benefit that the society's losing that we're putting on the private land owner to pay okay thank you Joe thank you Joe uh David I just have a related followup to something that Paul asked well we're asking questions of the this isn't a debate yet he has no no let let him let David ask this question yeah so we have the we have a tree preservation byw in Cambridge sounds like that was passed several years ago um have there been any challenges to that bylaw not that I'm aware of but I also haven't reached out to my counterart in Cambridge all right are you aware of any challenges in local tree bylaws in Massachusetts around this specific issue of the takings clause and how much has being charged no but in my memo I site to three other cases across the country both in Michigan and in um Texas so these types of challenges are typically brought by private property uh groups the one around uh m Massachusetts is the New England Legal Foundation they focus on other areas than the private right property people like Pacific Coast Legal Foundation the other ones that have are behind Nolan and and sheets and other regulatory takings so Pacific host Legal Foundation is something to worry about New England Legal Foundation is certainly a group to worry about by the way we have another one Pioneer legal um but they haven't got to trees yet all right thank you okay this is a public hearing uh Tiffany let's open the hearing to the public yes um the first speak and invite the public the first Speaker I have signed up to speak in advance is Fran furer Fran if you can approach the podium and you'll have three minutes I have a question before my time starts um I'm a co-petitioner and Alisa would like to correct some of the responses to Joe is it possible for her to do that now sorry correct what our interpretation of some of the things that Joe said that no we're not GNA get into it back and forth on legal interpretation matter of fact it's what's what's in our thing to the complexity of cambridge's bylaw cambridge's bylaw does every single bylaw that we looked at measures um assigns the the mitigation payment based on the size of the tree based on the inch the complexity in cambridge's Formula is driven by who took the tree down not the tree that was taken down and I have seen no bylaw that differentiates by species and I would point out that our current bylaw has a flat per inch fee and as I mentioned we're not changing that number for the first tier so that's just a just for the record okay go ahead thanks I think I have a couple of I have two slides of course some pictures my role okay so I wanted to talk about why we need to expand the current tree law and give some examples from my precinct by the way I should say I'm Fran pearler tell meeting member Precinct day advisory committee open space plan committee Council and aging petitioner but I'm only speaking about myself I'm only speaking for myself so um in my precinct however we have a perfect example of what is missing in the current law and the thing that is missing is the fact that the current law only applies to Residential Properties under some very limited conditions and I'll give you two examples one example is um the pictures shown here which is 429 Harvard Street and one morning I got an early phone call from a neighbor saying Help they're cutting down all the trees in the parking lot of the old Citizens Bank got my out of my pajamas and got my camera there and asked the fellow do you have a permit and he says yes I have a permit from the engineering department for water runoff or something like that and you can see here the three trees that they cut down number one it they're all 19 17 19 21 in they're all uh beautiful trees that are in the range of 60 to 80 feet U may I have the next one there's nothing in our current permit that will help protect these trees because this is a commercial lot I point out on the left that before you had this beautiful canopy in our neighborhood and on the right all the trees were gone and you can see in the bottom figure um for five hours we had that chipper blowing black smoke into our neighborhood uh they cut down every tree except for and even every Bush except for a couple of baby bushes the neighbors who are AB buding them are afraid that when they do their construction because there's no protection the remaining trees will be killed because their Roots will be you have 30 seconds the second example is a neighbor has um a total gutting of a house they decided they might want to cut the trees between in the backyard they put up a deck on the second floor that looks into the opposing House's bedroom and the people call me up and there's absolutely nothing we can do because although it's a construction that has lasted over a year they're not changing the footprint that concludes your time presential thank you thank you many more examples um that concludes the members of the public who signed up in advance to speak are there members of the public in in the room that wish to speak yes I do thank you yes yep if you can say your name and uh you have three minutes certainly thank you um good evening my name is Joselyn Murphy I'm a town meeting member in Precinct 13 um I don't think it would be useful to engage in a in a dispute with Town Council about this matter but I do want to briefly respond to something that he said a few minutes ago um first of all the Berkeley study that he referred to was not a study that um the petitioners referred to I'm not sure where that reference came from but more importantly none of the three cases that Town Council cited Nolan Dolan or CS um involved trees instead they concerned land dedications in other words the municipalities required the applicants to supply easements or other land um uh dedications in exchange for permitting so they quite different scenarios in the other few cases that did involve trees the defendant municipalities produced no evidence whatsoever um during the litigation of the challenge um that showed any evidence of rough proportionality which is the test that I think we agree May apply in this case I don't think there's any dispute that the essential Nexus test is m is meant um because the reason for the bylaws to protect the tree canopy which of course is quite valuable to the town um Town Council seems to be limiting his analysis to the replacement cost whereas a petitioners analysis is based on carbon capture as you saw in the really remarkable chart that Olivia um showed um there's a significant diff there's a significant loss of carbon capture when it when a tree is taken down and of course that that the amount of carbon capture is you know is exponentially increase given the size of the tree so the larger the tree the more significant the loss of that carbon capture that is what um the analysis in this case is based upon and there's no doubt that it meets the rough proportionality test that's set forth in the trilogy of cases that Town Council referred to uh regardless of who's right or wrong as you know historically and traditionally um the moderator will will accept or not Town council's opinion but in any event he will likely advise Town Council that rather advise town meeting that town council's opinion is that uh the article is of um is of questionable um legal Authority you have 30 seconds and regardless of that town meeting has the opportunity to vote so I would encourage you as the Executive Board of the town to look at the merits of this article very carefully um because I believe we have a very strong argument um that town council's opinion is incorrect thank you I'm wondering if I could make an agenda to respond to John vonk's question earlier we are still in public comment can we can we get through public comment and then sure thank you uh the next speaker is Abby Swain Abby I'm promoting you now you can start your video if you're comfortable and begin your three minutes hi there um I'm joining a little bit belatedly from home and I have read the article but with some difficulty um I'm trying to put myself in the position which is easy of a homeowner who has a giant old tree much loved in a very improbable spot on a very small lot so the house takes up most of the lot and the tree is in a place that no same person would ever have planted it in the modern day somehow it's grown up and we love it but it's going to uh deteriorate and eventually become a hazard now I don't know if it would be called in any sort of bright line way a um you know an imminent Hazard but it will be dropping branches on cars on roofs on people potentially um picnicking at the adjacent property so I'm a little concerned about how you know the bylaw might um make an exception for very tight circumstances um we would love to replant a tree that would grow to the very same size but I don't think it's good for the tree um and not good for the house not good for anybody we will attempt to compensate but we may not be able to compensate so so um you know you know how long will it take to get a permit is there any exemption for very tight spaces um Can the DPW deal with the volume of requests that may be coming in in a way that actually does um serve to avoid uh injury and and damage that kind of thing so it' be great if I could hear the response to that thank you thank you are there other speakers in the room who wish to speak yeah Abby will we'll allow the petitioners to give a response after the hearing okay um if there's anyone online who wishes to speak during this uh public hearing please raise your hand using the raise the hand feature there are approximately 16 participants in the room and 45 online and no one else is indicating that they wish to speak at this time okay thank you I'll close the hearing then and uh any comments from the select board to close or actually I let the petitioner answer um Abby Swain's uh question sure so just very briefly um there is an exemption uh in the bylaw for trees that are dangerous um dead or dying um that relieves the property owner of any mitigation requirements and any permit fee that might be I believe that we do not currently have a permit fee um it's a the because the permit is now this is I could be wrong as commissioner shoot still in the room um that uh because the permitting process is tied to construction that it goes through the building department so I don't think that there's a separate fee related to the tree bylaw I could be wrong but in any event if there were a fee the um the property owner would be relieved of that and um I appreciate the feedback we are making some modifications to accommodate these kind of idiosyncrasies that that come up in Brookline so that's certainly something that we will consider as we look at the Amendments that we will be proposing okay can I add a comment to that also it yes part of the warrant article says you don't have to put it on your property you just have to replace the tree so like if your neighbor wants a tree or if the Town Forest needs some trees you know that's something to explore in conditions where you don't have room on your property to put 27 little trees okay thank you um okay I see Paul I noticed Paul's hand first and then John just um briefly I want to follow up on the public comment um I have a similar question and and perhaps there is a since you're working to refine the article which I greatly appreciate by the way I think you're doing the right thing going through the process and taking feedback um for I'll give you our our specific example we bought a very old house teeny lot someone let you know a Seedling grow uh over time it certainly wasn't planted uh in the location it was and it was you know inches away from our foundation and doing tremendous damage uh when we bought the house um and you know it was an engineering issue uh how do we deal with that um you know I I do think that there's certainly you'd hate to lose the tree but it's going to cost you know 50 $100,000 in damage to your house to go out to rebuild the foundation or you know whatever can can do you have something for so Tom Tom's not on the line is he is is is Tom Brady on the line Tom Brady is on the line is can you ask him to clarify because I believe that that should fall under the category of hazardous but if it doesn't we can expand that definition to include you know a tree whose root structure is is you know ining on a foundation you don't need to answer it right now but I think that that's important because you know a lot of the older properties in North Brook line have uh these cleanouts for the waste pipe that actually go down deep The Roots infiltrate them and you know the only solution is either chop the root which has a problem so I've been there okay should I go yes thanks um is Fran still here I hope yeah good good for you Fran um Fran Fran and I are sort of as one when it comes to our concern about the trees on that U Bank uh parking lot um and in fact when that proposed development came before this board a while back um one of the principal points I made was that the developers had unfortunately presented a plan which had no Greenery in it and threatened trees um that being said um what given what you identified as being the reason that there was no protection for those trees why don't we just cure that by extending the existing bylaw to also apply to commercial properties that's that is an option um but we thought that we needed to correct other aspects because many of the that plan is 20 feet from the edge and under certain construction conditions and we wanted to expand the conditions to uh you don't have to demo the building to protect a tree every tree is valuable and I mean that's a fallback as a possibility but the current um bylaw is much weaker and it also doesn't recognize the ability of larger trees to absorb carbon dioxide from the environment but but if the current bylaw applied to commercial uh properties it would have protected those yes in that well um actually no because they they are currently not doing any construction they just decided to cut down their trees and the current bylaw let you cut down the trees if you want I believe isn't that correct with is if there's no construction it's not not um uh invoked construction yes and and as I said with um the second example I said where they gutted the house they've been working on it for a year and she rightly told me I'm not increasing the footprint of the house so the law doesn't apply to me so you have to increase the footprint or demolish or add hey Mike you have to increase the gross gross floor ratio by 50% so the current law has many many exceptions so the guys who own the Citizens Bank be there might be a 12 month look back I'm not sure on the current law but because they're not demolishing anything or changing the building they could chip away Mike so um listening to this um been very interesting uh I think the I hope the takeaway for the petitioners is that you have some work to do to fix some of the concerns the and and the one thing I would say to you is that's very typical when people come in with warrant articles that are um meant to impr improve Society some way and that's what this is you know in the broadest sense of the term um but it's really important to get it right uh in order for this to to work uh and to not run into legal difficulties or something of that sort so please listen to all of these doubts questions uh concerns uh and go back and look at your language and see what you can do to uh to to respond to them and you'll see the exactly the same thing from The Advisory Commission yeah uh David uh just for the sake of clarity for the general public who might not read through every line of the bylaw essentially there would be an option to replant at a dbh that is multiple times what's being removed or to pay into the fund correct okay okay how's that how's that tie into the chart that we saw in the beginning and comparing the loss of one large tree to the carbon capture of you want to say so the idea is you either replant or you pay or some combination thereof when you make the payment into the tree fund then the town does a replanting for you so either way you end up with the replanting but it's either by the homeowner directly or through the town now Fran referenced potentially replanting on another property so that's also a choice or would that have to be routed through the not in the current language but it is something that's allowed in I believe it's Newton's bylaw um that you can like replant on a neighbor with their their with their um permission and so what we were thinking is you know I think most homeowners would probably prefer to replant but they might be constrained by lot size especially for those of us in North Brooklyn and so that we are looking at adding that as as a proposed amendment um to just to give more flexibility or not I have one follow-up question okay Paul last one I promise um there there's a property on route nine that was clearcut and um my I have two questions one did our existing bylaw apply to that situation and if so what did they do to mitigate did they plant other trees or did they pay to the funds doesn't S like we got any money in the fund and then two how would this uh would this would this help solve that problem that we that we saw occur on route nine so it didn't my understanding is that and if Tom Brady's on the line he can clarify my understanding is that it did not apply to that um development because of a timing issue the regs had not been adopted yet so even though the bylaw had been passed the regs had not been so you know it was not an effect got um had it been in effect it there would have been some compensation because you know of the Border um but everything in the middle would have and this new your proposal would cover all of it because it would right and perhaps encourage developers to you know I I I appreciate the fact that clear cutting for them makes their job easier but maybe it would have encourage them to preserve some of the trees okay thank you okay um let's move on to the next warn article can I please I want to make one factual statement for John Von in response to his question um the urban Forest resiliency master plan identified that 50% of the canopy loss in the period of time that they studied came from single family two family and three family homes so we can't the town even with its robust public tree planting cannot overcome that loss for every tree they plant an owner can be removing one so we can't get ahead of the game until and unless we get to dealing with the loss on private Residential Properties thank you okay thank you okay let's move on to next War article War article 18 petition for a special act to allow the Restriction of rodenticides I see this Jocelyn Murphy who to leave is in the audience she's here thank you chair green may I yes please and I will be joined by pardon me introduce yourself in case no one knows Jo Mery town meeting member in Precinct 16 joined by co- petitioners Fran pearler and Cathy Jansen today I'm not sure if we have anelisa lja lanja um I am one of 15 co- petitioners of warn article 18 which seeks home rule authority to prohibit or restrict Second Generation and anti-coagulant rodenticides on private property in Brookline esars are a very potent class of poisons that bio accumulate in the bodies of their victims and prevent the consumer's blood from clotting whether it is a targeted rodent or the non-targeted eagle hawk owl Fox coyote or other Predator that consumes the poison rodent and in turn causes its victims massive internal bleeding organ failure paralysis and an excruciating death Tiffany yes my slides please next slide please I became aware of the devastating effects of escar's when I heard the tragic story of MK The Majestic widely admired bald eagle in Arlington who along with her mate had been nesting in the Mystic Lakes Watershed since 2016 in late February 2022 observers noticed that MK was on the ground lethargic and unable to fly next slide please MK was brought to a wildlife center for treatment however she died by internal hemorrhaging from anti-coagulant poisoning the irony of mk's death is that she herself was a skilled rodent predator and yet it was rodenticide that killed her next slide please Untold numbers of Raptors and other Wildlife are killed or sickened by escar every year in a study of 94 Birds of Prey admitted to the tough wildli life Clinic between 2012 and 2016 including red tailed hawks barred owls screech owls and great horned owls 96% tested positive for escar in a follow-up study 100% of the 43 red tailed hawks admitted to the clinic between 2017 and 2019 tested positive for anti-coagulant rodenticides and 91% of these birds tested positive for two or more types of escar these are hawks um that were are Brookline Hawks um and I pulled these photographs off of uh Brook online and I should say that these are hawks that were um identified in 20 last year next slide please this is a hawk that a town meeting member um discovered in his yard um he sent this picture to me just the other day and said the hawk was was um lethargic on the ground for a couple of days you can see her sunken eyes and how sick she looks he said she died shortly that thereafter the New England wildlife center alone reports treating an average of 50 cases of of suspect Ed poisonings of wildlife each year their patients include foxes coyotes Fishers and other mammals next slide please this is a fox that was treat treated at a wildlife center in uh Massachusetts um who was a victim of rodenticide and because of the immune compromise caused by the RO rodenticide developed a very severe case of sarcoptic mange this fox was lucky because he was treated with um the antidote which is Vitamin K and made a recovery but not after several weeks of treatment in great expense anti-coagulant rodenticides harm people and companion animals as well in Massachusetts alone there have been nearly 200 cases of anti-coagulant rodenticide exposures within the past three years with nearly half of these exposures occurring among children under the age of six and according to the ASP aspca's Animal Poison Control Center rodenticide have consistently ranked among the top 10 P pet toxins within the past decade despite these statistics the rodenticide industry is booming in 2022 commercial pesticide applicators in Massachusetts alone reported using over 59,000 pounds of rodenticides 96% of which were anti-coagulant rodenticides it is quite evident that esars are not effectively reducing rodent populations in the long term and yet they are killing the wildlife that prey on their intended Targets in staggering numbers Warren article 18 simply seeks legislative authority to regulate the use of esars on private property in Brookline in a manner to be determined in the future by town meeting and in consultation with the public health director I note that director Reese along with commissioner sh readily approved the policy prohibiting esars on Town property that I petition shortly after mk's death in March 2023 finally I'm pleased to report that the petitioners have received enthusiastic commitments from Senator Kem and representative McGregor to sponsor this legislation along with representative AO once it is approved by town meeting last slide please we respectfully ask you to recommend favorable action on Warren article 18 so that Brookline may join Newton Arlington and Newbury in this vitally important initiative thank you Tiff so um I got one question is there any effort to um get State legislation on this because uh Eagles and other um such animals don't uh uh pay attention to Municipal lines um a Bill thank you uh chair green um um yes certainly it's been it's there are many Advocates who are hoping that it will advance Senator Hawkins uh filed a bill a number of years ago that has been refi refiled and refiled but um it simply calls for the collection of data and and for um electronic records to be kept of the use of Rh antide um I will say that as as I said um three other communities Newton Arlington and Newbury have filed their own home rule legislation and I understand from a communication with aon's uh legislative liaison um the more petitions like this that are filed the more likely it is that Statewide legislation will be passed which of course is the goal I will note that during the deliberations um in the in the last legislative session there was a very robust discussion about the animal traveling act legislation that you may recall a high school student had um had sought um home rule Authority for a couple of town meetings ago that passed and the legislator said during that deliberation it was because so many communities had filed home rule for home rule legislation that it that it um Advanced thank you thank you uh David I I have a related question uh so beyond the three communities you identified who have uh home rule petition requests are there other communities who have gone about this the resolution route expressing their interest in prohibiting escar there are other communities that have um have uh sought resolution articles however um you know as this as the liaison from oton said it's more critical to file home rule legislation first of all it teas it up for the community um and it also is a much stronger signal to the legislator to the legislation um the liaison also said that there are about 40 communities who are um gearing up to file uh home rule legislation in the coming months at their approaching Town meetings Paul did you have your hand up yes I do thank you Bernard um and thank you for the explanation um Joselyn if it's not this what's the alternative for helping helping to back may I present Fran F okay if you wouldn't mind uh teeing up my slides I was the the other half of this duet do you have them yes just give me a second please and while she's getting it up I can tell everyone that I used to go to Mystic Lakes for years and photograph and visit MK um and uh her mate uh after she died mourned a little bit got another mate she's a wild old Eagle she doesn't like people and so although they still Nest at Mystic Lakes they um they don't sit in the tree and they don't fly low and they stay away from people so all the families and the birders and the photographers who knew they could go to Mystic Lakes for an hour and see the Eagles don't see them anymore okay um so this is actually one of my photographs of M K and my part of the presentation is yikes what can we do to control the rats now that we don't have escar um next slide please so despite the use of escar rodenticides Roden complaints in Brookline are up as you can see this is the data from our website 20 24 versus 2023 so people pay $100 a month to pest control company to put out bait boxes many think I'm doing the best I can I don't really have to do anything else I'm paying all this money wrong this complacency lets people forget that they have to be vigilant over other aspects of Road and control around their house next slide so what else can you do um there are other rodenticides that are less toxic that do not um kill birds or mammals they're safer you can use irtin my favorite cayenne pepper you can use odorant you can use integrated Pest Management which is what our town Pro uh suggests for people you can use exclusion strategies and you can make your home inhospitable to rats next slide okay so what are some of the Alternatives um well that's good um the best thing that as many of you know I'm sort of the rodent lady and our neighborhood had a lot of rodents and we were able to manage it by working with our resident um stores but you can also use snap traps I've used all of these there's the commercial electrocution trap there's a homeowner one they are developing new methods that use um other means to kill the rat without renti size next so rodent birth control was just on the news yesterday uh a rat can give birth to six six to 12 times per year year a two-month-old rat can start reproducing resulting in exponential growth and well-fed rats have more babies due to increased litter frequency and increased size many communities are now looking at rat birth control we initially tried a liquid method that didn't work but there's been success with various pellet and sausage me methods next slide so the most important thing you need to do is integrated Pest Management you need to secure your trash landlords stores restaurants residents inspectors DPW and public health need to work together to develop an action plan and I'd like to thank Ain who's here and I don't know if Sagal is online for helping us get this done you have to make your home inhospitable these are all uh resources you can get from our Town's website don't feed pets Outdoors have exclusion fencing uh use chemicals that don't bioaccumulate use mechanical traps when possible I think is that the last slide yes so basically what I'd like to say is there are other methods um you know this warrant article asks for the ability to control and control can mean reduce usage or it can mean Banning it doesn't say you have to ban escar I personally believe that as the town policy there are emergency s situations when you might need it we want it controlled so it's not killing every Raptor in town your average owl and um Hawk will eat a thousand rodents a year if you don't kill them thank you okay thank you let's let's wrap this up uh this is a public hearing and we haven't had our public hearing yet so um Mike do you have your hand up yes I do uh is it appropriate to ask a question of the petitioners at this point um do you want to wait until after the I don't want to drag this on because we have another I imagine why take up a lot of time yeah um okay well I'll I'll I'll make this as make this as short as I can uh C so first of all I found it the the slides about alternative control methods are certainly very helpful I did not note the presence of electronic traps and I know that at least one of the petitioners was not very happy when we instituted a program of using electronic traps um but um uh I'll I'll let that one go uh the um there is a memo from uh Seagal uh recent from uh Aaron Chu and it ends with a comment we do not have data on how often and where private contracted uh operators use these products and they're only available to uh to licensed contractors and it would be difficult to regulate use we encourage Property Owners to work with Pest Control professionals to determine the best course of action for the specific property and infestation and I think the thing that really jumps out at me is it would be difficult to regulate use and I wonder if you if the positioners have any comment on that yes the first line that um and there's a gentleman behind me who I has the appearance perhaps of being um a um an exterminator am I correct no okay my apologies um in any event Mr Sandman if you if you we're now forever going to call him the Exterminator the Exterminator he has a folder that very much looks like laptop okay um I'll just tell you what I have to say and move on we really needed that tonight thank you J we need a little levity for so the um you know when you walk around um particularly say kolish corner or Brookline Village you will see black boxes and those are bait stations oh I know I've seen them many times yeah and so the first line um approach by uh exterminators is to or you know whatever they call themselves is to um Place those boxes because it's the easiest thing to do they just put them down as Fran said they put them down they you know come back weeks later they refill them and so forth I'm not sure if that answered your question no well the question is how do you control um I've used snap traps and I've seen dead rats in when we were having our crisis and I saw 10 times S as many dead rats and snap traps than I did but understand my question snap traps are one option let's yeah my my question is the line is it would be difficult to regulate use how and it's an interesting question and I so I'm very sympathetic to this very but nonetheless I do wonder whether you know what is the the potential for regulating use well I suppose that it would be um well first first of all the the um folks who are licensed to use first of all the EPA banned retail the retail purchase and use of SARS number of years ago so it can it can only be used by um licensed pesticide and I said that yeah right so you know first of all they can't place it right and then of course it would be you know driven by complaint okay I'm just that's fine that that that requires a certain amount of Staffing and so forth I think we need to be conscious of that but okay no this is a Prohibition this is Seeking a Prohibition against the private use I understand but on private property you still have to be somebody you still have to make a complaint and somebody has to go and look at that complaint and say well okay that's that's an violation of the bylaw okay that is true but hopefully people would obey the law okay uh let's let's move on to the public hearing uh the first speaker who signed up is Kathy Jansen you if you can state your name for the record and we'll begin your three minutes my name is Kathy jansson I live at 10 City View Road in Brookline I'm a founding member of the friends of Brookline Raptors a small Grassroots organization working to resist restrict the use of esars I am here to support warrant article 18 and I need to say that if you go on Amazon you can buy escar you have to buy 18 pounds or more they assume it's a loophole in the law you can buy the black boxes and you can buy the bait they will deliver it to your house but that said um I could rattle off a lot of statistics about how these poisons are killing owls Eagles Hawks and other Wildlife but you've heard a lot about about that and what I would prefer to do is to talk to you about how this issue has impacted me and my neighbors as residents of brookln I moved to brookln 26 years ago and in the small patch of woods behind my house there were three to four Hawks living all the time living nesting raising their young and keeping the balance of small Critters in check then a few homes across the street put out rate rat bait boxes with cigar esars in them the assisted living around the corner has boxes every 10 ft around all of their buildings all of the Hawks have died and the critters are out of control they're decimating our yards and gardens this summer for the first time in 2016 years we have rats nesting under our front porch you cannot have a conversation with anyone in that part of Brookline who has a yard without talking about the proliferation of the rabbits and the Damage that they're doing to plants flowers and vegetable gardens we need the birds of prey to be healthy we need to fix the imbalance that humans have created we need to manage manage the rat population with safe proven methods which only use poison as a last resort in 20120 California passed legislation nearly Banning escar use it is time for Massachusetts to move in that direction the first small step we can take is passing warrant article 18 which will allow Brookline to restrict the use of escar not only on public property as we already do now and have done successfully but also on private property which is what the home rule petition will give Brookline the authority to do I ask for your support of this warrant article thank you I just want to jump in briefly here thank you but just to make sure that people are aware of the rules if you are a co-petitioner on a Warren article you must speak with the petitioners you can't sign up for public comment as well that extends people's time so that's it's our error it's our fault so no no problem there you didn't know it's not it's on our end but I just want people to understand that petitioners speak as one body they don't sign up for public comment after thank you CH the next speaker is Laura quel Who's online Laura I'm promoting you now you can start your video and begin your three minutes hi uh my name is Laura Kel um I actually reside in Arlington that was my photo photo of MK that was on joselyn's PowerPoint presentation as the opener um I found it save Arlington wildlife in 2022 and MK the eagle um she nested in our borders but she wasn't even the first Eagle that died in our borders she actually was the second one in two years the first one was one of her first Offspring that hatched in 2021 um these Eagles were the first Eagles to nest in our border in over 60 years since DDT wiped the species out of the state and most of the nation so it was uh really struck a cord in our town that here we have this spe this um species that is still on the endangered species list in our state and they're just starting to established in our borders and now they're dying off from another pesticide this time uh the rodenticides so um I do want to clarify a few things one is there are actually now six communities that have submitted home rule petitions to the state to ask for the permission to ban on private property uh this is both in the interest of trying to regulate this as a community but to um one of the select board's com uh comments that um you know Wildlife don't adhere to Municipal borders we are hoping for more momentum because there is a very strong precedent in our State of the State independently revising their policies when they get enough of these home Ru petitions in actually it is somewhat more effective than actually going the more traditional legislative route so we do hope to have the state start to be able to regulate these a lot more strictly but we would need more communities to submit these home roll petitions to that end uh save Arlington Wildlife is also part of a legal petition to the state to ask them to discontinue the registration of use of these poisons uh on private property as well as on public properties uh and we are being uh represented by Harvard uh law clinic at um the animal law and policy part of the clinic uh I wanted to just point out a few things that I thought might be interesting to know which is that uh currently Pest Control professionals are not legally obligated to tell the truth about the impacts of their products so a lot of people on private property may not even realize that they have these poisons which is why I think there does need to be more regulation uh they may not even know what they have our anti-coagulant rodenticides tough's Wildlife Clinic actually looked pesticide usage um that of that were being applied and they found a definitive correlation between an uptick in the usage of anti-coagulant rodenticides and in in the exposure of raptors so I am glad to answer any questions if people are interested I am academically trained and degreed as a wildlife biologist and I've been investigating these poisons for years as a journalist so thank you very much for taking my comments tonight thank you that concludes folks who oh sorry there is someone in the room who'd like to speak my name is San Z town meeting preing for 14 and I have a question why I understand why um if you want to limit that on private prob for to not to be used outside but why are we considering for inside given that Brooklyn has a major rat infestation as of right now none of our we haven't been able to control the rat population um with alternative method and would petitioner consider limiting it to outside and not inside the house given that I mean in my neighborhood we have a major problem I've been complaining about it for the past four years um DPW keeps sending people around our neighborhood all the trash are uh properly stored but there's a major rat infestation we have a park people come in they use it they put their food and um we are suffering in our um especially in the area that we're closer to restaurants buildings or multifamilies that are close to each other um to me implementing something without having a solution to address the problem is is a problem thank you thank you Joselyn Murphy um Precinct 16 just to quickly answer Mr zela's Question um as you know this petition would um would set up a bylaw in the future assuming that passes with by town meeting and gets legislative approval the approval is for Brookline to enact a bylaw that would address where and how escar should be either restricted or prohibited thank you I'd also like to add Joselyn that rats eat the poison inside the house and then they go outside and get eaten by a hawk so they don't stay inside the house yeah are there other speakers in the room who wish to comment on Warren article 18 are there speakers online who wish to comment on warrant article 18 if so please raise your hand using the raise the hand feature at this time there are approximately 16 participants in the room and 41 online and no one else is indicating that they wish to speak at this time okay therefore I'll close the hearing um and unless anyone on the selectboard has something they'd like to add I'd like to move on to the next Warren article no okay uh next uh it's Warren article 20 a resolution to support a permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas um we have the petitioners the petitioner is online Omar I understand there's another co-petitioner you're going to have to speak with you can you tell me their name so she's Lisa is Alisa online Lisa Lisa Lisa Lisa should be online yes Lisa there we go Lisa is raising their hand okay all right thank you introduce yourself Omar yeah first of all and then um you know make presentation uh thank you uh chairman um and members of the select board uh my name is Omar Muk I'm a town meeting member in Precinct 5 and I'm the lead petitioner on warrant article 20 this time around uh before I begin I would like to just hold a a brief 15-second moment of silence uh for all the people who have lost their lives on October 7th and since October 7th you have quiet in the hall please thank you um so tonight we're not here to uh to stir controversy or cause commotion uh we're not here to strategize with or have circular discussions with select board uh we're here to remind you that our country is participating in a war that has killed more than 41,000 people in only 12 months I urge you to look at the images showing the scale of Destruction in Gaza think of all of the families destroyed of the millions of people walking between so-called safe corridors only to be killed by American bombs and just think about them the devastation is expanding and so in Lebanon more than 2,000 people have been killed recently in the Middle East stands on the brink of a larger Regional conflict and all of this because our leaders have refused to be honest peace Brokers and get a ceasefire deal done when they had the opportunity so here we are so hostages could have been saved civilian deaths could have been avoided but again here we are so we want the town of Brooklyn to make a statement that we stand for peace and that we are against War we're against all wars and that we stand against the narrative that 41,000 dead are merely the price of National Security because we believe that all life is sacred so the resolution is simple and we hope you can get behind it uh it calls for Brookline to support a ceasefire and bring all of the hostages home so please support what's right and uh I hope the select board will will support warrant article 20 so I will pass it over to Lisa thank you Omar and thank you to the select board my name is Lisa gbond I'm a Jewish resident in Precinct 10 who supported the first ceasefire warrant article and I am now a co-petitioner for the second one in my comments supporting the first warrant article I shared that I am the granddaughter of Jews who fled pums in Ukraine and migrated to America in the early 19 00s I said that my understanding of the lessons of history is that we have a moral responsibility to Bear witness to not be blind and Silent in the face of starvation and Slaughter to me never again means never again for anyone including but not only for people of my own faith I feel that the weight of that responsibility has grown heavier in the past six months it's hard to find words to express my grief at the death and destruction of the past year and in the time since we last attempted to have a community conversation about a ceasefire I hope we can summon the courage and compassion as a community to at least debate the warrant article instead of shutting it down in the vain hope that by not talking about it we could somehow avoid the conflict pain and sorrow that we all feel in the spring I said pretending there is no division by avoiding the discussion does not bring peace or understanding it's clear to me that by by avoiding the discussion we have not avoided conflict and hate since March we have seen a shooting of a Jewish ceasefire Advocate by Scott Hayes who came to Brooklyn in the spring to protest our warant article and drowned out our calls for ceasefire in order to stop the mounting death toll and bring the hostages home and in recent weeks we've seen one of our own Brookline Educators a Muslim woman doxed threatened and falsely accused of anti-Semitism for a presentation she did on visualizing data so no we did not and cannot avoid conflict and Hate by remaining silent as for the substance of Warrant article 20 I believe if there had been a ceasefire by now more hostages more hostages would have come home alive and thousands of Gins would not have been killed by the bombs provided by us funding if as Judaism and other faiths teach us every Life as a universe I call for a ceasefire so that no more universes are extinguished and for a political solution in a fure of peaceful coexistence security and freedom for all who live in the region and I'll close by quoting from a statement marking the one-year anniversary of October 7th by Jess Bricker of standing together an israel-based group of Jews and Palestinians working for a political solution she said that quote for this to happen it must start with us it starts with our ability to look each other in the eye and feel one another's pain as human beings our ability to see that the interest of Israelis and Palestinians are shared our ability to believe with our whole hearts that every single human being on this land and every piece of land is deserving of freedom and safety that every single human life is worth the same thank you thank you um do you have another speaker or the petitioner or am I hearing something wrong no just just us two Bernard okay great um I guess the way I'd like to handle this is um you know give the select board an opportunity to make any uh comments or statements that they would like briefly um and then open up through the um hearing um and I'm going to put some strict limits on the hearing uh because this can go on for a long time um which I don't want so uh any thoughts on the SL board just just briefly John I'm sorry yeah um I I think we probably all have the same uh view here that last time around it really came down to where one stands on whether to table this when it comes to town meeting as a preemptive uh move that would would um close off debate uh or any any discussion of the article um and and and um the whole uh consideration of the matter uh with that one motion um and I did not vote to table it and I haven't changed my mind about that I just want to you know be sure that I'm upfront with people um I think Town Brooklyn needs to have and should have this discussion um we'll see how the table motion goes when it comes back this time around thank you John um anyone else I well I'll say something oh uh David David had his hand up yeah yes just a question for the petitioners so last time around when preparing your resolution for town meeting in May there was a lot of uh mention that the word ceasefire was particularly problematic given that Hamas is a terrorist organization and so having the word ceasefire implies that it's somehow wrong to go after uh terrorists in some manner uh so I'm wondering whether there was any consideration to excluding the term ceasefire and if not why that's so critically important may I respond yes please yes um yeah absolutely not I mean a ceasefire is by definition it's calling for all parties to put down their weapons and to stop killing each other essentially and I've heard this kind of argument that well calling for a ceasefire is telling Israel to stop fighting but Hamas gets to keep doing whatever it wants but that's just not the case that's not how ceasefires work um and whether they're a terrorist organization or not if there there there were negotiations going on between that organization the is the Israeli government and probably some mediators from Middle Eastern countries and in likely the United States so there have been negotiations and there are people including the organizations in Gaza that would like there to be a ceasefire where hostages could come home why wouldn't you tried to do that why wouldn't you have a ceasefire to allow the hostages to come back I mean it's I don't understand uh the the premise of the the question David honestly well just to clarify so there was the Gladstone bursting Amendment which essentially said to pursue a lasting peace how is that different from what you're saying it sounds like you want a lasting piece as well so why does insisting on the ceasefire language so important when there was alternative language about lasting peace because if you do not have a ceasefire that means that either of these groups the Waring parties could continue bombing each other shooting missiles at each other at any moment so a ceasefire is a very specific directive that the war stops and as we've seen in the past it was only when there was a temporary ceasefire that hostages were released so I I I don't see there being a downside to there being uh um using the word ceasefire and I would also just um just like to point out since you brought up you know Gladstone and Buren's Amendment um you know their last one said well let's leave it to the US government to just sort it out look where look where that has led us that's basically what has happened right we've allowed the United States to sort of broker this disaster and the war keeps expanding and more people are dying and So speaking for myself and folks that think like me We believe that the war needs to end before this just goes takes on a totally different dimension and um I I stick by that the word ceasefire is critical because it means that the war in Gaza must stop for there to be any chance of things not um kind of compounding at this point then another question I have you mentioned that you would like to see all wars stop and uh co-petitioner gbond mentioned how in uh Judaism every life is its own universe so why is this resolution focused solely on Israel Hamas rather than all the other Wars that are taking place if every life is important yep I mean that's that's a it's a that's a that's a question that people like to put put to us regularly this is a war that we are directly involved in okay we the United States our tax money is going directly to the slaughter of in of people in Gaza and Beyond at this point so I don't consider this you know the Israel's War per se I think that this is a United States Israeli war against the people in Gaza including the civilians there I don't think that there is any discrimination between combatant and and civilian in Gaza I I don't think so I don't think that's how their people are being viewed there so if you if that that's my that's my response to that this is not the same as a war that is going on in Sudan where we have zero leverage this is a war that we are sponsoring isn't the United States involved in Russia Ukraine for instance and other Wars the United States is involved in virtually every war almost but this is the one where we are directly and by the way Ukraine and Russia I would like to see there be a ceasefire there as well but this one matters specifically to me because I have family in that part of the world number one but number two the the the resourcing of this war is is is the United States is resourcing everything that's happening over there and and permitting it to happen and I'm sorry but I'm not sure that we've seen this degree of mass Civ civilian casualty in of these other Wars this is a particularly heinous war and if you don't see it David I you know sorry I cannot really uh help you with that yeah I think I see Paul's hand up yep uh thank you Bernard um and I you know I I appreciate your your sentiments um I my position Remains the Same as last time um I I don't believe that anything that Brookline passes is going to make one eye out of a difference um in the situation um to uh I think it is an incredibly divisive topic um and I don't think it has any business uh being in front of town meeting since it has no it's G to have no effect um and so I'm I'm I'm uh I'm of the same mind as I was last time which was no action um and uh to table uh on on all all versions of this so but I you know I understand your sentiment but I just disagree that this is the this is the form for it thank you okay um I'll just add my two cents um on on one piece of this I agree with Paul meaning I am of the same mind as I was before and that is uh I refuse to vote saying telling people to shut up and not discuss an issue that they think is important I oppose the tabling of the motion then and if it comes up again I'll do it again um I don't think it makes any or it helps in any way to just tell people we're not going to listen to you right I want I don't want you to open your mouth about this because it's too painful for me there are a lot of things that are painful that if you suppress them like suppressing uh history and and some parts of our country doesn't make them go away it just makes it worse I also have a concern about whether we as a town can make a decision and you know this is a lot more complicated than this but what make a decision as to whether to allow a discussion of a controversial issue based on the the content of that issue I mean it's clearly that you know people are opposed to the um ceasefire notion because it is an unpopular and controversial position or opinion for people to hold um I'm not sure that the town really uh can um make its decisions on that basis now of course we can I'm saying that I'm not comfortable doing it um and you know look I mean there there a couple things in in the um in the Warren article that I think uh are inappropriate and should be taken out U but the idea of a solution I think is appropriate um it's not a perfect answer to anything it's just saying here are our moral values and this is what we're going to express to the world um I don't see any other hands Mike did you have anything to say only person hasn't spoken no sir thank you okay that's fair enough okay so let's um let's open up the U the hearing um okay look there are a lot of people who want to want to express their opinions on this warrant article so I want to limit each speaker to two minutes if someone has said what you're that what you want to say uh it will not help your cause to repeat what is already been said although if you want your position to be reflected in the record you can say I agree with Mr X so before we open the hearing I'd like um no we've already done that I'm asking you I'm asking everyone in this uh hearing and in this discussion even outside of this hearing to be respectful of your neighbors and of your community in the comments that you make and the assumptions that you make about other people's motivations uh on this very difficult and controversial issue so um Tiffany would you like to open up the hearing or let's open up the hearing Tiffany who wants to speak yes um first we have Scott Gladstone who filed the amendment and just want to do the CH did we say in this instance because of the number of people signed up that we were limiting comment to two minutes yes oh I'm so sorry I'm losing my mind my only issue I won't have time to actually read the amendment if I only have two minutes so as the petitioner of the well as the offer of the amendment can I have three minutes um read fast read read fast I I'll give you a little extra time but try to keep it within two minutes okay uh thanks I I I also all right Scott Gladstone um Tommy member from Precinct 16 um you I want to start off by saying um I don't think that the uh petitioner particularly Omar is being anti-semitic is anti-Semitic um in any way and I take him for what he's worth and for what for what he says and he he just wants to see peace um I I think think it's wrongheaded and naive the way he wants to approach it though and that's uh why I'm we're we're bringing this um the offered amendment is uh be resolved that the town of Brooklyn supports and adopts the sentiments of Vice President kamla Harris of the Democratic National Convention in which she said I will always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself and will always ensure Israel has ability to defend itself because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that the terrorist organization Hamas cause on October 7th including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at music festivals at the same time what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating so many innocent lives lost despite hungry people fleeing for safety over and over again desperate hungry people the scale of suffering is heartbreaking President Biden and I are working to end this war such that Israel is secure the hostages are released the suffering Gaza ends and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity sec security freedom and self-determination I note that vice president Harris refrained from using the word ceasefire um in those remarks which we're asking the town to support in this amendment article 20 is written has commendable goals similar to its early iteration uh but its languages have issues um article 20 um specifically states that uh whereas the US federal government is a key Ally offering material and diplomatic support to Israel and holds power to influence ceasefire negotiations that is a call for America to withhold its um it its uh arming Israel as it's being attacked 8,000 Rockets so far from Hezbollah uh we all know about October 7th and and uh Rockets went off from Kamas uh just yesterday um towards Tel Aviv so the attacks continue Iran continues to attack Iron Dome in um and David zaro is critically important uh but so is um so are the efforts to um to take away hamas's e um ability to do um the uh October 7th attacks again uh which they are succeeding at that 30 seconds 30 really is that right wow all right I'll go to the end this issue remains raw 3,700 people filled all but 101 seats of the wine theater just last night to pay pray for the 101 hostage still being held in Gaza tunnels a year after their abduction this um issue has potential to be a powder keg we saw that in Newton God forbid that should happen here I'll do what I can to prevent that town meeting uh voted overwhelmingly last time that they did not want to take I conclude your time I'm and I'm concluding the proposed substitute Amendment Embraces the balances realistic formulation of of Vice President Harris to secure peace we urge you to either support this amendment or simply affirm that the Tom meing got it right last time more than two-thirds to the table thank you thank you okay the next speaker is Jam arilla who is online Jamila I'm promoting you now and you should be able to start your video and begin your 2 minutes hi good evening um I'm audible yeah yes okay thank you for the opportunity to speak in favor of Warren article 20 and thank you to the petitioners for your tireless commitment in May when Tom meeting convened hundreds also gathered outside BHS motivated by compassion for the people of Gaza and to support the sensible Humane ceasefire resolution on the agenda in the months leading up to town meeting the petitioners and many others engaged this community at all levels seeking understanding and collaboration despite those intense and commendable efforts despite many tens of thousands of brutal deaths in Gaza which have been laid bare for the world to witness our elected Leaders with few notable exceptions allowed themselves to be talked out of their basic Humanity preventing debate and vote it was a shameful lack of Courage enabled by the cical cynical application of bureaucratic mechanisms um at least one member of the select board will not be surprised that a new ceasefire warrant article has been submitted for your consideration you and your colleagues at town meeting are once again presented with an opportunity to go on record as our elected leaders and say there is no excuse to kill a child there is no excuse to bomb a captive population with impunity there is no justification for billions in our tax dollars to be appropriated for such barbarity I know October 7 weighs heavy it was uh a horrific crime but it cannot be used as cover for the ongoing brutality this ceasefire 30 seconds is past due from Brookline I am inspired daily by this steadfastness and Grace of Palestinians in Gaza and as a Palestinian in diaspora I will continue to raise their cause in all fors including this one I am heartened that I am not alone in this and so regardless of the result here and in town meeting you can be assured this message will not go away uh mosab abua is a Palestinian poet from Gaza he continues to write as he conclud your time yeah please conclude thank you the next speaker is Ariel Gusman who is I believe here hello my name is Ariel grman I live on Chestnut Street prising 5 and why we are brought back to this one article uh it's I think it's a pretty straightforward answer I'm holding here what's called the city council Palestinian organization toolkit a guide or organiz ing for ceasefire and investment resolution in local city councils so this is an organized effort across all country to um basically um campaign for um encourage town meeting members across um all the country to um feel guilt and responsible for um uh what's going on in Gaza it advises petitioners to to uh concentrate on issues to local concerns like our tax dollars supposedly funding militarism or the city past position on global matters it even recommends ongoing on weeks of actions to keep these agendas on on the table they try to avoid they they're told to avoid bringing divestment resolutions to aote unless they have enough support to win and and to seek to Champion member to push the resolution block blocking any amendments and that's David's answer they're trying to block any amendments that might moderate it um and of course they call also to table 30 seconds they also frame any table as a freedom of speech issue the group that uh promotes this are called um um they are called uh us campaign for Palestinian rights if you Google them and you see what they bring up uh what anti-semitic and what hatred they bring uh to the table uh you won't be supporting this this toolkit they just following this toolkit I can includ your time and you will see that it's just a deliberate propaga the next speaker is ariela Helman Who's online Ariel I'm promoting you now you can start your video and begin your two minutes Ariel are you there okay we'll come back to ariela the next speaker is Michael Bentley Michael Bentley is in the room I strongly oppose uh warant article 20 ask for no action I'm very disappointed that it wasn't tabled um you could speak up voice louder okay I I would ask this the board members to consider what happens when a person credibly declares commitment to killing you in any context the threat of violence changes everything and choice of war is a step into the abyss um I'm terribly sorry um Israel's massive response was unfortunate but necessary and internationally normative um and has been a more focused and respectful effort than uh any military operation of its kind um this is a matter of some company lexity um I would the town of Brooklyn does not have the mechanisms process budget or a serious interest were the time to responsibly and meaningfully evaluate the claims on either side in a dignified way the town it's very abstract but the town of Brookline does have an obligation to uh be worthy of my trust as a citiz as a taxpayer as a Jew here and not to marginalize the concerns of my community we have no business at the Town level of um entangling our town governance in this and I'll just mention that this process itself is a fairly I patiently listened for three minute discussions of rat poisoning which I totally respect is very important issue but I question why my concerns here if zor an article are less worthy right like why not just have the same amount of time for every citizen I think that's indicative of the fact that this process isn't prepared to to cope with with this issue you have 30 seconds so I think the message I I think this is in the end I agree with our my uh person who came before me I think it ends up being a veiled exercise and Jew hatred it's a very threatening thing and um while its goals proport to be fairly abstract and probably will achieve nothing on the ground uh there's very direct impact on as a taxpayer on my family and that concludes your time yeah and on my trust in the in this process right and uh the services and law enforcement and educ includes your time thank you we have to we have to we have a lot of people to get through I'm sorry we do have to ask you to main it's gonna I mean really no sir no sir no sir no sir I'm sorry we're gonna try to come back to Ariel ariela Helman Ariel I'm promoting you again I will just say to folks because I I understand the concern raised the reason why the time is limited is not because of the issue it's because we have so many people who want to speak and we want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to be heard thank you hi I'm having trouble getting my camera but is it okay if I just do the audio that's fine okay great good evening uh my name is ariela Helman and I'm the director of government Affairs for goodth Israel of New England where I represent the interests of the Orthodox Jewish Community across the state including six synagogues and three Jewish St schools in Brooklyn tonight I'm here to ask the select board to recommend no action on warrant article 20 this warrant article is one-sided and seeks to pressure Israel and not Hamas a designated terrorist organization to reach a ceasefire resolution this is despite the fact that Hamas has repeatedly failed to negotiate in good faith and has abandoned talks of a deal in August Hamas brutally executed six of the hostages including 23-year-old H Goldberg Poland who had close ties to Massachusetts these heartbreaking murders make the ceasefire talks even more difficult and of course the ceasefire was in place on October 6th 2023 and it was Hamas that unilaterally violated the ceasefire even if this waren article were not so one-sided we would still oppose it as this is a foreign policy matter that is outside of the town's purview this is not the right form to address this matter the only thing this resolution will achieve is to create strife and angst amongst neighbors and to cause pain to many members of the Jewish and Israeli Community a previous warrant article was introduced in the spring and was tabled for this very same reason the select board should recommend no action on this Warren article at this time if anything emotions are even higher right now than they were in the spring and this issue has become even more divisive I ask the select board to put a stop to the focus on this painful issue and instead look for ways to bring our community together thank you for your consideration thank you the next speaker is kette Bentley who is in the room I ask the select board to vote can you move the mic closer to you I ask the select board to vote no I will not keep your time I second what arela Helman has said I think this causes more Strife amongst our community than it does bring anything any peace thank you the next speaker is AIT Schultz who's here in person good evening my name is Elite Schultz I'm a physician and resident of Precinct 7 and tonight I should have been home feeding my kids and helping them with their homework but instead I'm here rehashing what we already resolved in the spring this repetitive warrant article is wasting my time and your time I already said in the spring that this is beyond the scope of town meeting it is laughable to think that the Middle East Peace Middle East peace can be done Justice in a few hundred words it's not what town meeting was elected to do it's not their expertise in any way and we have already said we are not doing this this warrant article uses phrases like the ongoing war and fails to say anything about the brutal invasion of Israel by Hamas and sickening beheadings rapes mutilations kidnapping children that started this war it says nothing of the Hezbollah terrorists the other armies of Iranian Terror regime that seek to wipe Israel off the map incessantly firing rockets and drones at Israeli civilians for the last year and by leaving out that critical information it is whitewashing the entire terrorist agenda sending the message that Israel doesn't have the right to defend itself or live in peace and sending the message that Jews don't have the right to defend themselves or live in peace and as a result it feels like the town is attacking me if you let this go forward the town is not speaking for me it is speaking against me there is no such thing as a benign ceasefire resolution you have 30 seconds the effort to whitewash terrorism and demonize Israel is step one in radical Islam's effort to wipe Israel off the map and to globalize the inata against America don't be fooled don't be swayed by niceties like all lives matter when they include terrorist lives this type of Insidious and Relentless attack on Jews is exactly what was happening in the leadup to the Holocaust the drumming chanting brainwashing of the youth in the 30s it was brown shirts of Hitler Youth and your time yes if you allow this to proceed you will be please give me one more minute sentence can you will be backing and promoting theime I have to cut you off there I'm sorry there are other people who want to speak and deliver the same message please let them speak thank you thank you the next speak is Ira Axel Rod first want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak those people here who aren't Jewish there's a Jewish word called that's a combination of uh nerve G audacity the day after one year anniversary of the terrible things going on this is a huder to come up with a resolution like this I can tell you areas I've been listening constantly to what people are talking about these poor innocent civilians in Gaza a New York Times survey and I don't usually quote the New York Times they're far too liberal for me a New York Times survey some months ago found three out of every four residents of Gaza signs on to the Hamas program they would do exactly the same things that Hamas did on top of that let me tell you something else I believe that the Israelis are nicer and more considerate of the children of Gaza than their own parents 1819 years ago there was a free election in in Gaza they chose Hamas they couldn't have been that stupid to understand that the sooner or later there would be problems with Hamas and Israel right in their backyard and that would create collateral damage including their own children Israel on the other hand every time they want to make a a strike they tip them off and they tell them we're coming you go if you don't want to go that's your problem okay let me tell you one more thing that the Israelis have to eliminate this once and for all we had a year ago rapes of young women grandmothers who lived through the Holocaust having their heads cut off your time the ovens we need to finish this war without interfering people who are so safely sit I I do have to I sir I do have to stop you thank you the next speaker is Laura Eisenberg thank you for the opportunity to speak to you tonight I live on Buckminster Road as a citizen of the town I voted for you the select People based on your experience and your knowledge of local issues all the things we've heard tonight taxes zoning commercial development energies police fire department perhaps some of you also have impressive credentials in the area of foreign policy if that is the case you did not make those POs known when you ran for office and with no disrespect I believe that your knowledge of issues that pertain to the everyday ring of the town and plans for its future far exceeds the scope of their expertise in diplomacy international relations World politics and conflict resolution personally I have strong emotions and opinions about the war that began on October 7th last year and I also care about the many threats around the globe to the lives of innocent Ordinary People thousands of lives lost every day um and violence going on in Haiti Somalia Sudan Ukraine there are ample outlets for Town's people to channel their political points of view and aspirations may I suggest lobbying your Congress people joining one of the numerous advocacy groups of every stripe peaceful and legal legal demonstrations the select board was elected and thereby owed to run the town it has no mandate to reach outside that Arena and speak for me and the Very diverse citizenry of Brookline about matters Beyond its scope and purview please reject warrant a warrant 20 thank you the next speaker is Jonathan Davis thank you I'm Jonathan Davis town meeting member Precinct 17 uh I had submitted an email uh to the select board uh opposing uh article 20 and I hope that you've had a chance to read it um I went to quote from a uh press briefing that occurred just yesterday uh at the state Department uh and this was from uh Matthew Miller the state department spokesman and I'm just going to give you some quotes this has to do with ceasefires quote we continue to push for a ceasefire in Gaza but you have to have the parties come to a table and it Remains the case as it has been the case for some time that Hamas has been unwilling to engage in a meaningful way with the mediators with Qatar and Egypt and I will say that that refusal by Hamas to engage in a meaningful way predates the start of Israeli operations in Lebanon here's another quote uh there was a ceasefire proposal that we put forward there was then a bridging proposal that we put forward the bridging proposal had a number of implementation agreements that were going to have to be worked out and we had been engaged in a process where we were talking with the Israelis about what proposals we could put forward that would get them to yes and the other mediators Qatar and Egypt had been talking about what proposals they could put forward to Hamas that would get Hamas to to to say yes you have 30 seconds and several weeks ago Hamas just started refusing to engage in any meaningful way about what things they might be willing to accept close quote article 20 has things backwards because as stated by American spokesman Hamas has refus to engage with mediation talks and where one side is refusing to work for a ceasefire in this case Hamas it's that side Hamas that should be pressured towards a ceasefire that concludes your time thank you thank you thank you the next speaker is Regina FY thank you Regina fry from Precinct 16 um I have two questions actually of Town Council and I'm thrilled he's in the room um when does parliamentary procedure supersede the constitutional right of the people to petition their government which we did this past May number one and I I'm actually asking a legal question uh secondly every article I researched about uh tabling a motion said that the whoever runs the meeting in this case the moderator has to name a time in the future for the discussion to take place that did not happen there's been no discussion about a discussion so I'm concerned about the procedure and then thirdly a comment I do want those questions asked answered if possible um um this is deja vu all over again a yogi be moment I was here in the 60s fighting for a resolution on Vietnam anti Vietnam and I heard all the same arguments I'm hearing tonight it it isn't that my own father felt very strongly that our country right or wrong my country and we disagreed very strongly about it I heard him I'm not sure he heard me but a few years later on his deathbed he said you were right and I was wrong he said we shouldn't have been there the point is that this town has taken on that type thank you that this town has taken on that type of resolution it's the way and I do have international I have a master's degree from the Fletcher School in diplomacy so I do know a great deal about it this is the opportunity from the ground up for public diplomacy where the people get a chance to speak you don't have to agree with them that's never been with this issue from what I understand this issue about and I'm not dealing with the that concludes your time thank you with the details in that article I'm only talking about the procedure thank you thank you that concludes speakers who signed up in advance is there what what can we um can we go through public comment and and then we'll have opportunity for that Council to respond at the end yeah uh that concludes speakers who signed up in advance is there anyone in the room who wishes to speak on this that has yet spoken Lisa sh I'm promoting you now Lisa if you could start your video and begin your two minutes okay thank you I am Lisa shatz and I'm Town meting member Precinct 11 I'm just going to say a few things to address something that Omar said he said that we are not concerned he said he is not concerned with the other conflicts and calamities going uh going on in the world because the US doesn't have direct involvement that is wrong in Yemen the US suppli Saudi Arabia with lots of uh billions of hundreds of billions of dollars in armaments that's being used in Yemen right now there is a a close to a famine in Yemen right now up to 17.3 million people are food insecure in Yemen um the situation is particularly dire for five million children under five five million children that's two and a half times the amount of people in Gaza oh why is there nothing about Yemen why doesn't anybody care about that you're being disingenuous here because there is an effort to delegitimize and um to um single out Israel and this is from anti-Semitism and you could see this with the violent attacks on Jews everywhere at us campuses in subway cars in restaurants in the world right now is is fighting a seven front War but there is an eighth front and that is the political war and that is fought here in municipalities with these ceasefire resolutions a as well as with BDF campaigns as well as with HS to military aid to Israel have 30 seconds yeah Israel is surrounded by enemies my daughter spent the night in her shelter yesterday with her two little ones and if if if you cease fire now Hamas will rebuild and will attack and will do the same thing it did on October 7th don't kid yourself about this resolution I'm done thank you thank you is there anyone else in the room who has not yet spoken that wishes to speak on this warn article if there's anyone online could you raise your hand using the raise the hand feature at this time okay oh there is one okay F AR aazog I'm going to promote you now if you could start your video and begin your two minutes and I'm apologize if I pronounced your name wrong hello thank you my name is arag I live inine since 2010 Jewish father of four uh I just want to uh site um an Israeli Jen so that you have a a different Israeli opinion also that reflects my and my wife beliefs and ethics his cult Zan his mother cofounded woman W peace and she was murdered on October 7th on on kibuts bery um Jonathan uh Jonathan said that things are going only worse and worse uh and there's still no CE fire he said after my mother Vivian silver was killed in the massacre of kibber I felt a sense of responsibility to invest time and energy in change and immerse myself in peace building and he asked why talk to American why do I write this in English it's because the US is not a passive bystander in the Israeli Palestinian conflict the US actively enabled the statute quo up until October 7th and has sponsored War ever since how can you support someone unconditionally with one hand and wage wag your finger at them with the other you can't you can't do that um the US is complic in this war we remember we remember our friends uh our teachers that were killed on October 7 and we also remember as the the thousands of death the 17 children who have been orphaned and they also remember they remember their parents and siblings that they will never see again uh President Biden F on TV we need a sisire now and he's not following suit this is the place for doing uh grassroot diplomacy and pressure our Administration to call for a c fire and to stop being complicity in this war that is killing both israelian and Palestinian thank you thank you thank you the next speaker is Karen reman I'm promoting you now and if you could start your video if you're comfortable and begin your two minutes thank you very much my name is David fredman I'm Karen Ron's husband we live at York Terrace here in Brookline for the past year we have seen an explosion of anti-Semitism in Massachusetts throughout the nation throughout the world yesterday was October 7th and we saw accounts of that uh memorialized the governor has spoken out about the anti-Semitism the day before protesters shut down staro Drive chanting globalize the antifa what does anti-semitism have to do with this resolution everything because the explosion of anti-Semitism that affects us personally that's coming about in schools that kids are seeing is based on propaganda it's based on um portrayals of what's happening in the Middle East unfortunately and it's really important to lay this resolution aside and not take it up and not Advance it in order to prevent further propaganda if people are serious about the issue about promoting peace about educating themselves about understanding it there's plenty of materials out there but a resolution in the municipality is not going to solve the Middle East peace process if it's not drafted properly it will reinforce false stereotypes and propaganda and that does lead directly to people hating Israel hating Israelis hating Jews and falsely claiming that there's a genocide I personally know the United Nations special adviser for the prevention of genocide she refuses to call Israel self-defense genocide because it isn't and so false claims about what's happening are exactly what feed into anti-Semitism and for that reason to protect people here in the United States forget about the fact that your action isn't going to change the Middle East we ask that you please put this aside and not Advance it thank you thank you there are approximately 41 participants online and no one else is raising their hand to speak at this time okay I'm going to close the hearing and thank everyone for their comment um and um I'm not going to encourage Blackboard members to add any further comments I think everyone knows you how they're going to vote when this comes up for a vote so um and and and further discussion is not going to change that um so why don't we just in the um uh there there were there were questions asked to Town Council that we said we were oh I'm sorry of course y call and Town Council uh I understood the first question as um when does parliamentary procedure Trump uh constitutional uh requirements I reject the premise because not every legislature has to take a vote an up or down vote on any uh matter put before it there are thousands of bills before the Massachusetts legislature very few get a vote only a couple hundred pass uh similar you know percentages in Congress so although people have a right to petition uh in redress or grievances they're not required to have an up or down vote on everything they put before their legislative branch I understood the second question to be um if you have a motion to lay uh on the table does it go to a definitive time there are two motions I'll have to look this up I previously alined on this don't remember it from memory so I'll have to follow up there is one motion that you do have to do that there's another motion that you don't I think it might be a motion to indefinitely postpone I'll figure out which one applies uh and follow up with an email thank you yes okay uh that ends our discussion of new warn articles um item 11 on the agenda warrant articles uh I'm sorry we have one more warrant article that we have have to hold a hearing on that's Warren Article Five to amend there's no hearing we did the hearing we already did the hearing oh that's right okay um the way my agenda is written or printed out so I apologize so we have two we sorry we have we have an amendment the petitioner submitted an a new amendment that the um the moderator accepted um the advisory committee full advisory committee tonight voted to refer this to the select board thanks I'll just note the vote on that was 13 to9 to one I believe okay so they refer to the select board for what purpose I mean we I didn't get any additional narrative on that I said any rationale behind it and I didn't get an answer so we'll have to wait for there WR up I mean I think what we can do is to uh one way or another favorable action or not favorable or uh yeah non-favorable action uh and separately uh take up the issue of um you know proposing something uh to either supplement the warrant article or replace a Warr article you know in terms of uh you Town staff or town departments that may be what they're talking about so Bernard I I I think the um of course I was here I wasn't listening to it but had I did have some conversations um with some members of the advisory committee that were thinking alongs lines of a referral in in as much as um you know when we had our discussion there was a number of issues raised uh you know um do we actually need a commission uh a youth commission could it fit within uh the the duties of of another Bard commission um could it be addressed in another way and I think that that's kind of the thought process here is not necessarily refer the article but refer the subject matter to the select board for the select board and staff to say you know based on the goals and objectives you know how how can we address some of this um so I think that would be um you know one possibility of course the other possibility is an up or down vote on on whether we should you know support the article and I'm happy to vote tonight uh on on both of those issues yeah I think that's what I said so um what are other people think uh chair yes uh I this this is a little bit difficult in that um on the one hand uh you know I'd be fine with no action uh but on the other hand I think the advisory committee by introducing this um you know possibility of referral to the SL board um uh put puts a little bit of a burden on on us that I'm glad to I'm happy to accept um a question has been raised um you know is is there some need uh in Brooklyn uh and what is that need um and would the appointment of a um some kind of a youth Council or youth commission be of um any any kind of use in addressing a need but unfortunately the article that was presented to us didn't I to me did not clearly Define the need and also offered a um s rationale for a particular type of commission to be appointed that I I found to be extremely question questionable the the you know age range of the appointed Commissioners the the notion that this is something that is common practice in other communities um turns out to have been I have to say um not not really born um out by the any further investigation of what other communities actually do um and a couple of communities were represented as being models for us to follow that turned out to be not even in Massachusetts even though they were initially represented as being in Massachusetts so you know a lot of confusion was created but on the other hand a lot of people are going to ask the question well you know isn't this at least worth looking into and I think the advisory committee motion essentially says why not have the select board look into this and try to get a better sense of the lay of the land what do other communities do what might a body of some kind that is populated by young people do would it be um duplicative if it were in you know created in in Brooklyn or would it actually be additive if we did it right in brookly line um I'm willing to look into those questions and so I feel like the strongest position for the select board to take is to agree with the advisory committee on referral okay uh I propose that we um I'm Mo of uh no action and um then we can vote on whether to take up the advisory committee's um suggestion that we that we come up with a maybe alternative solution and if John if you're willing to or quarterback that that would be great I would be happy to quarterback that and and by the way can I understand hold on on uh during public comment U an individual Philip stigman um made some suggestions with respect to a youth office and other ways to deal with issues uh that uh affect youth you may want to you know look at that look at his comments maybe contact him and see if he has some ideas that uh are worth following up on I look forward to doing that so I just want to understand what you just asked what John offered and what you're asking him to do is John going to go off and come up with an alternative proposal for this town meeting no no no no no no if the if the article before us is referred to the select board then you know we we will determine to you know at a time of our choosing you know what kind of Investigation to do and I don't mean it you know forensic investigation I just mean we need good information about what other communities do and what Brookline needs are and whether there's any kind of a match between some kind of a council that might be something like what other communities do and brookline's needs and how those needs are currently met okay so um unless there's further comment further discussion I'd like to move I'm sorry one quick note before you vote so it's in your mind are still awaiting uh notice from Town Council about the legality of a voting body uh with people under the age of 18 people under the voting age um but if that that you know that that answer may not impact your decision one way or the other so yeah I think that by uh voting no action you know we're we're we basically implicitly saying that that issue hasn't been resolved and we're not willing to um you know propose something based on that and then if if uh it's referred to us later on by meeting then we can uh address that issue then okay so Berard I'd like to move uh no action on the article okay um second all in favor John vanak hi uh Michael sanman hi Paul Warren Hi H David Perlman abstain and just if I may explain the abstention for me the the legality of it is very important because I support the intention behind the waren article but certainly to the extent that it would not be legally permissible then I would not support it obviously and without having that information I'm not in an informed position to vote so I'll abstain okay fair enough H chair votes uh yes or I okay next and final item on the agenda unless there are some uh public comments that come later on um boards and commissions new appointments um uh Tiffany do we have a list of the boards and commissions because my notes uh are out of date yes I have um Brook line Commission on disability the question of appointing Franklin pinea Lopez um want to go want to vote each one separately um Paul Paul Paul suggests all at once there's only only a few okay F I don't care okay I'll continue U Brook line commission for the Arts question of appointing Melissa an mcquarry reservation commission question of appointing Brooke Richard and then postponing Nicholas tankovich okay and don't we have brine commission for the for women no okay that that's put off or or she pulled out we're going to interview her at the next meeting okay good okay um then um I move approval of the appointments of uh the three four individuals to the commission on disability commission for the art preservation and uh preservation commission wait how many am I talking about three three three okay it's late it's almost 11 o'clock I warned you what going to happen at 11 um I'm over approval of the three appointments to the um boards and commissions listed by Tiffany all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak hi Michael sanman hi Paul Warren hi um David Perman hi and shair votes I okay that's the last item on the agenda unless there's anything else do any are there any um people who would like to make a public comment uh at this point apparently not okay so so the meeting is thereby ended thank you thank you thanks again Paul