##VIDEO ID:YXTLjN1Bl7A## good evening I'm Bernard Green chair of the Brookline select board and this is the meeting regular meeting of the select board for December 3rd 2024 we're going to start off by going into executive session so I move that select board and go into executive session for the purpose of approving executive session minutes and discussing uh excuse me strategy Rel related to the litigation matters identified in agenda items 2 and three at uh P maakan versus town of Brooklyn pending at the department of industrial accidents in the case of Bergeron at all versus town of Brookline at all in the US District Court uh for the District of Massachusetts the litigation matters must be discussed in executive session because an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the litigation position of the town and I the chair so declare an executive session therefore to be necessary so all in favor please indicate by saying I John vak I Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren I um and chair votes I okay we will return to open session after our executive session at approximately well it's scheduled for six but it'll probably be a little after that good evening I am Bernard Green chair of the Brookline select board and this is the regular meeting of the select board for December 3rd 2024 um we've returned from executive sessions so let's start off with uh any um updates or comments from the select board anyone have anything to say sure John I'll get it always depend on you I know you can and that's why I'm always ready with something um but I hope it'll get you know others started if they have something they want to add um I just want to take note that um we had some political news from our a neighboring Town um today and that is um the announcement that came from excuse me Newton mayor ruthanne Fuller um that um she is going to um serve the the remaining year of her term but then not be a candidate uh for re-election as mayor of Newton she's been the mayor there for 15 years which caught me by surprise um well well she says for over 15 years she's dedicated herself to Newton uh and I have to correct myself city counselor for eight years before being elected mayor seven years so far as mayor um one of the reasons I'm I'm you know going to this trouble of mentioning this even though it's from a neighboring town is that ruthan Fuller was once a resident of our toown before she moved to Newton and then entered Newton politics and then became the mayor of Newton and um I hope that one of our veteran town meeting members maybe harod fredman maybe one of the other others um we'll check the record to see if I'm right that she served at one time on the advisory committee in Brookline um uh we'll we'll see we'll we'll have an update for you on that um to come but um uh I think she take she's taking a well-deserved uh bow for um the the record of her term as mayor of Newton it's easy for me to say you know I'm I'm not part of the politics over there but I want to congratulate her on the seven years she served as mayor the eight years as City councelor and um the remaining year she has and she's ambitious about that remaining year as well um so um good good for mayor Ruth Anne Fuller uh good for Newton except that um we still haven't figured out how to beat them consistently in football uh we're going to work on that but um it's good to be able to congratulate someone from U the neighboring town thank you I'm going to be meeting with mayor Fuller in in a couple weeks and um I'm glad you brought that tonight tell we think highly of it we do do we do um and uh there are a lot of issues that uh you know we still need to work out with Newton uh related to of course Justin Hill yeah being the largest one so um we'll miss her but we still have what a year or so it was a while back that um I had a casual conversation with her and mentioned that she would be an excellent person to come to Brooklyn and speak on the issue of the difference between cities and towns great idea so I think we might still want to cash in on that um idea she sort of said yes in a polite way but um you know it's not too late for for us to uh hear from her on that we got a lot we we all in this business have a lot to learn and uh the more that we learn from each other the better y okay any other comments updates Paul just one briefly uh thank you Bernard um so the next meeting of the comprehensive plan steering committee will take place on December 9th at 7 pm um on the first floor of this building uh and also via Zoom uh the meeting has been posted on the calendar but the details of how to register and all that the agenda have not been posted yet but we will be um going through the results of our our first uh series of public engagements including workshops number of the members of the community have filled out surveys um and engaged with us in small groups and we're going to be working through the process of uh developing a vision statement for uh the the future work of the comprehensive plan steering committee so um I'm hope that people will attend uh and participate uh either in person or over zoom and more information will be coming um once uh once we publish the agenda thank you great thank you any other updates or comments uh Michael yeah there's a a meeting of the um chest Hill commercial uh area study group uh advisory committee on December 18th at 6:30 p.m. in town hall room 103 and it's a hybrid meeting they'll be um it'll be accessible via zoom and uh we're we're going to be hearing from the the town's consultant uh on some work that we've been asked to that we've asked him to do as a consequence of the meeting that we had with neighbors of the chest Hill study area couple of weeks ago thank you uh chair um I wanted to give a shout out and thanks to um the team from the uh Harvard Kennedy School class of MLT 601 operations um who came and gave a final presentation this week to several stakeholders internally um they the team uh which was uh staffed by four very talented students radica goal uh Rika gosal sorry abne lavasa Sean Sellers and Lear circus um just did excellent work towards um unraveling the thorny problem of Licensing in this um how do we make license our licensing process faster and easier for both Li in applicants and our internal staff um they gave a great presentation which we will share with the board and we will talk about how the um you know what the immediate short-term medium-term and longterm effects of that will be we're starting with one of our most popular licenses which is the common vctor license license for restaurants um but we will be moving from there um and I want to give a special shout out to Tiffany Oliva who this whole thing who've got this partnership started with the Kennedy School very early on in her tenure here um so just great work all around we're really looking forward to seeing where this goes next there are some immediate positive impacts that are going to come out of this and there are going to be some long-term process improvements that come out of this too so thank you to the students thank you to the professor for letting lending us your students for a semester and thanks to Tiffany for making it all happen so thank you that's very interesting good news and thank you Tiffany okay next uh public comment uh Tiffany please read the rules and let's hear from the public yes thank you for joining us for public comment this is an opportunity for us to hear your perspective on the issues in Brookline that matter to you each person speaking tonight is limited to 3 minutes you don't need 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 any person wishing to speak must begin their comment by identifying themselves with their full name and either their Brook line pre precinct number or street address um the first Speaker who signed up in advance is Jonathan Davis I will just say there are two items on the agenda that are public hearings There's an opportunity to be heard specifically on those for public hearings so if you are here to discuss either the um tax classification or voice bylaw waiver there's a specific time in the meeting later on for you to do that you don't have to be part of this public comment and that should hopefully give you some comfort there but Mr Davis I see is thank you very much I'm Jonathan Davis uh 125 Park Street uh and I'm a town meeting member um I want to speak about the proposed amendment to the ground lease between the town and B cor um I understand that there is no public hearing on this and no public hearing has been uh had been scheduled previously for it um so I'm speaking now in the general comment period uh as the first matter I do think that the select board should postpone to vote on this amendment uh and schedule a hearing for a future date on the amendment because I think people would have some interesting things and worthwhile things to say uh the amendment allows the lender or even just one lender to veto any future Amendment to the ground leas that the town might want and that even the ground leas tenant might be okay with the lenders are National some in some cases even International Banks and they may have reason having to do with their own activities outside of Brooklyn maybe elsewhere in the state maybe having to do with regulatory issues and U that would influence a veto decision but might not really have anything to do directly with Brookline there and and any future Brookline Amendment to the ground lease there are no guard rails to predict to protect the town from a casual veto by A lender really unrelated to what's of Interest to the town uh as far as guard rails are concerned the only guard rail that I can determine uh from reading the amendment is trust us meaning trust the banks what if one here's another Point what if one lender wants to veto and two of the lenders because there are three lenders here don't care about vetoing the amendment doesn't say what happens then is there a veto or not a veto I hope in conclusion that you'd postpone the amendment schedule a hearing which I think ought to have been done and give time for uh better uh uh better adjustment of the wording on this amendment thank you thank you there are no other speakers who signed up in advance is there anyone in the room who wishes to speak during public comment or an item that's not related to the public hearing if there's anyone online who wishes to speak during public comment please raise your hand using the raise the hand feature there are 13 individuals in the room and 18 online and oh yes please approach the podium to speak my name is Lindsay Anderson I'm at 157 Ivy Street and so I have really a procedural question and that is I I would like to talk about bu cap uh at 10 lenx Street I'm not sure if this is when we do that or we do it later it's later so that's that's on that's that's the noise bylaw yep thank you that's okay thanks for asking all right there are um 13 individuals in the room and 19 online and no one else is indicating their desire to speak great thank you next we have a number of miscellaneous items uh starting off let's start start off with approval of meeting minutes from November 19 2024 and November 21 2024 any edits to those minutes or Corrections okay then I move approval of minutes from November 19 2024 and November 21 2024 all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak I Michael Simon I Paul Warren hi David Perman I and chair votes I hey next um I want to take uh the miscellaneous items in Omnibus fashion except for uh the bcdc and the uh matter uh which is the numbering is a little inconsistent so I'll just mention the oppos the number m m okay M on your list oh actually no that's my list too uh item m which has to do with the Brookline Community Development Corporation and the item what is the the police one t t t the item t uh which has to do with uh um uh I'm sorry not not item T the policy against discrimination s s okay uh item s the policy against discrimination both of which we will discuss separately after the Omnibus vote in addition uh in addition we are deferring action on General Order of the police department number 43 Federal immigration enforcement and immigration raids because um we we really need to discuss these issues in more depth in light of uh National Developments and our our need to make sure that uh um you know we do this right so um with respect to the remaining items I'd like to move approval unless anyone has wants to pull one out uh and mo approval of those items in Omnibus Fashion on in favor please indicate by saying I John Van skak hi Michael Sandman hi PA Warren hi U David pran I and chair votes I okay so let's go to um the bcdc and the Pol and and uh policy against discrimination um I got some emails from um people regarding the bcdc matter I don't see them in the audience so maybe we just move on to that um how how how should we deal with that I mean I I'm a little uncomfortable uh voting it do we need to do that tonight I don't know what the timeline is there give me one second I think this is a W's item and a is online Who's online Ohana or cdbg is this a cdbg item or is this from the this is from the Housing Trust right Housing Trust yes but I think she's a question Bernard um this if I just want to make sure I understand this is related to um a request and by the an approval by the Housing Trust uh to allocate either 136 $156,000 128,000 uh to be used to help um uh mitigate tenant right uh tenant evictions um and I I did receive a question from a Community member asking if you know uh Brookline Community Development Corporation um actually has renters um would they be able to apply These funds to their tenants and is that create any type of conflict of interest um since they have a number of renters I I I wasn't sure the answer to that well actually that that the money would not go to the renters it would go to the landlord which they are the this case they would be the landlord so right yeah um Chaz is I don't know if Town council's online or is there a conflict there at all or has this been raised before I would defer to Town Council on this I know Joe is online Joe so I'm sorry but um could you repeat the question I didn't quite understand it this is a situation where uh it's owner occupied and they're behind on their mortgage so nope nope so uh so we are uh develop we are creating a relationship with the Brookline Community Development Corporation which uh manages a a number of uh properties oh I see and and where where they allow people to to rent um you know rooms and such and this money is being uh provided to them to manage the allocation for those that are behind on rent or may be evicted uh and become homeless um would they be able to and and the money would go directly to the landlord not to the tenant so essentially they would be allocating money to themselves for their tenants is is that allowed under this agreement or is that a conflict um I'm not sure um if it's addressed in the agreement but I want to make sure that I would see from them you know bcdc that they're they're not giving themselves preferential treatment they're treating themselves as an equal so although they're you know a contractor of ours um and and working with other landlords throughout the town they're treating themselves no differently than those other landlords so this came to at least my attention by uh one of our constables who uh served an eviction notice uh on one of the tenants uh in in in a bcdc building and um you know the number of issues were raised by this person including that uh uh management of bcdc didn't seem to know that this was going on since it's uh uh the eviction was initiated by their management company so I guess you one thing that may and I I read through the materials and it does not address this issue so maybe what we need to do is to uh hold this and and make sure that something along the lines that this money cannot be used to reimburse uh bcdc uh be included in the in the uh agreement CH my understanding of this we had this discussion about allocating These funds in the first place several months ago and this is now the opport this is now the contract to you know formalize that allotment which you authorized a couple months ago after the have did um my understanding of the program and we should obviously we maybe what we should do is hold this and have them come in and reaffirm this is that Metro West is going to run it um and that Metro West then the um the the body that adjudicates whether or not someone is eligible for those resources and so there would theoretically be a dividing line between bcdc if there was a bcdc issue that there would be some sort of um process involved there that they would not be treated any differently than any other potential applicant but to your point we don't know how that would work in practice so it's worth if you want if you want to postpone this weekend postpone it and ask them to come in and have a conversation about about it okay uh anyone anyone object to postponing it and and working on that issue no okay no so is therefore postponed uh next let's talk about the um policy against discrimination I see and um is here so we we're asking you to sort of discuss this because you seem to be making major changes to our policy and and we just want to make sure we understand those changes um the redline version was uh not easy to follow uh and I make sure we don't miss anything because this is a very important policy um and it has in the past served important uh purposes and um when not properly drafted uh it can create problems sure my name is Anne Braga I'm the HR Director for the town of Brookline thank you uh members of the select board for um wanting to look at this more depth um the initial memo sort of gives you the 30,000 foot view on the major um state and federal policy changes that have been enacted since we uh passed the original policy against harassment discrimination retaliation um and that includes EEOC enforcement guidance um which came out earlier this year as well as mcad enforcement guidance so Federal from EEOC and state from mcad guidance as well as the um establishment and implementation of the Massachusetts Crown act and um so the crown act in particular addresses uh discrimination as a as a part of race to include protective hairstyles texture of hair um as well as the the other um cases around um race-based discrimination harassment um EEOC enforcement as well as mcad uh updates the categories of protected um protected class and um defines [Music] um sexual orientation gender identity pregnancy child birth and related medical characteristics all as a protected characteristics protected characteristic under Health under uh sex it also includes gender neutral language which was not uh the case earlier and intraclass harassment as well as um Behavior concerning online Technology based uh environments so it's updating and and getting um up to date with technology as well as some clarification around um there can be harassment of a white male against a white male um and it doesn't have to be different differentiated between classifications mcad um looked at the protected classes and talked about uh harassment being based on any legal protected class so one of the things you'll see just on the front page is that um the title is is policy against discrimination harassment and retaliation and doesn't list uh sexual harassment in the title it's just harassment and then of the categories are covered under there um it includes no longer requiring that a um employee who's experiencing quid pro quo or this for that harassment um proved that it was unwelcome and the language is inclusive and gender neutral and updating uh references and Analysis of case law as well as sections that issue um issues impacting modern workplace such as intersectional harassment so African-American female there's two protected characteristics there and that's intersectional as well as online harassment similar to EEOC so those are the the larger categories across broad law and then um the at the request of uh select board member Warren you asked for a a Redline version um this includes all of the formatting so that hence why it is as long as it is um what I'd like to do is is highlight a couple of things aside from these these policy areas that we have um addressed and I will say that we had this policy reviewed by Valerio dominello and Hilman um prior to submitting it to select board so that we had external review um in addition to the work of of the HR staff um who are involved with investigations um taking a look at a detailed piece of it um the policy statement is updated to reflect the changes um that were identified at the state and federal level as well as um the prohibitions against discrimination um discriminatory harassment is Consolidated and does not a separate section by itself for sexual harassment but includes that as a subcategory of harassment um and provides more examples and we we pulled those examples we we did not reinvent the wheel but we pulled those examples from state and federal guidance um other prohibited actions so so including the language around um filing repeated meritless or frivolous um accusations um is included in there as well as um a discussion on reasonable accommodation for Disabilities which um had some reference in the past but not as much as is in there now um some clarification for requirements for supervisors to report um within 24 hours which is not new but adding um reinforcing language around it being a requirement of Supervisors and that can be something where supervisors can be held accountable for failing to um report up um in um a timely way so that harassment or discrimination or retaliation doesn't continue we did update our um complaint filing information as well as the state and federal contact information as things have changed with office reductions in in office reductions at the state and federal level um so updating that information as far as investigations go we updated language around the fact that um all employees are expected to participate in an investigation and to respond to questions truthfully honestly and to the best of their ability um and then through the investigation process um generalizing it so that the it isn't the the human resource office specifically designating the investigator but the town designating it um or the um or the HR office so it gives us more flexibility if we're looking to um designate an external investigator where appropriate um there had been a limit of a 30-day time frame um what we have found more recently is that the time it takes to do a complete investigation exceeds 30 days um pretty much without exception so we removed that um time frame expectation but include in our our policies and protocols regular communication with the um the person who's filed the claim as well as the others who have been participating in the process um we continue with the summary um the the anonymized summary continuing to go to the chief diversity officer at OD eicr um and um then made some adjustments to the um to the appeals process to provide for um the Town Administrator or their design um to receive the appeals process and determine how that how that would be um addressed moving forward um [Music] and then we made some related changes to the form that's submitted and to make it more streamlined um as well as um it will be um a PDF fillable document so that as folks add language or add a separate page that can be done so that we're not um for those who choose to use the form which is not required um for those who choose to use the form that um were able to read their um their submission so I know that um from all of that that that you might have other questions so um okay thank you um Paul yep thank you um thank you and so uh just kind of some just broad commentary first feedback um and I I mentioned this to to the Town Administrator earlier today um any major policy change um should come with a cover memo explaining why it's being initiated what are the broad Strokes kind of what you just did verbally but there was no such memo in the packet there was there was a memo earlier too there was a it was a mail issue on our end so apologize for that it's okay I'm just I'm just saying going forward it'd be good to have these things together um and and of course the I asked for the red line I think Sunday night when I was when I was reviewing all this stuff uh because it's it's nearly impossible to understand what changes are coming um and then I think Chaz as i' mentioned it would be best if these are not put in the consent agenda because they are major kind of policy changes but I did have some specific questions um based on your feedback if I may uh sure be quick David has something just just a quick Point um so you mentioned U meritless and frivolous is added to the policy that you know that would be considered who decides if something is meritless or frivilous um so the some of that language came from uh mer uh from MCAT and EEOC guidance meritless and frivolous is a a difficult term to um parse out um because if the uh individual who's made the claims made the complaints um feels honestly and authentically that this happened to them or their perspective is is is um you know their own it is it is difficult to go and and um disprove that where it's straight factual information if that's the basis of the claim as opposed to the perception um that is easier but what I will say is that we have um very few claims that we aren't looking at at a deeper level um and have not made in my my five and a half years here haven't made a um determination that somebody's made a repeated meritless or frivolous claim um that's frustrated some folks I I'll be honest um but it's difficult to say that a perception by a claimant or a complainant is meritless or frivolous if that is is truly how they honestly back to the question so it would be us I mean it would be it would be we would be receiving a complaint and we would determine if something is frivolous right so that that's just awful I just I just wanted to be clear about that and then the other thing is we're transferring Authority for the appeal from the select board to the Town Administrator uh and that's I think a a change in Authority it' be good to discuss why that's uh why that is occurring um well I'll defer to Jaz on that because we discussed this sure history I mean I I so I think the issue here is one of the your your role as the you know the overall policymaking and and executive body in the community doesn't always it doesn't always lend itself well to employee discrimination claims putting you in the role of having to adjudicate workplace disputes um when you you know what happens in those Cas what has happened in those cases is the board either delegates that to a staff member anyway or relies on the expertise of staff to do that work reviews it and then makes a determination on whether or not to accept it it adds a step to the process that puts you personally into an employment dispute where I didn't think that was appropriate given your your roles and responsibilities to subject you to that possible exposure but this this does apply also to Citizens right so residents and so anybody could use this harassment process to you know to file a complaint and then appeal it's ision to whatever Authority you the select board is that correct that's correct however there's language in here that says that when there are issues involving a citizen um as opposed to an employment dispute that the select board remains involved in the process okay you are briefed on it and are are continued your your involvement is continued in that process okay that's all over it up thank you and if I can add to that before you go on is um the other opportunity for residents to file a complaint or or be involved in that is also through the um cdic cdic process um and the bylaw that was passed um couple of years ago so that is where you might see more um residents as complainants as opposed to employee as both complainant and and responded David so I first want to Echo uh Paul's statements about how it would be very helpful to have a Redline version so that we can sort of compare the before and the after summary no I mean the actual uh previous version compared to the current one so we can see the edits that were made and that was have that yeah that came that came Monday afternoon after I requested it you may not have seen it it was buried in your email wasn't in the packet all right so now in the version we have in the packet there are certain portions uh very few but there are a couple that have sort of a a yellow box with lines going through it is that supposed to signify something no those are those are comments that we're lifting inadvertently from one of the reviewers um those will be removed in the final okay and then to a point that you made Chaz about how one of the reasons why we should delegate the uh authority to you in terms of the appeals is to not expose select board members to employee disputes uh why do you feel that same logic wouldn't apply to a c appeal um it so It ultimately the appet process is the same regardless but the language in there just makes clear that because you are you know the elected representatives of the community if there's a citizen dispute you need to be involved you need to be kept AB breast of that process so that if there are changes you want to make in response to that or actions you want to take outside of the formal process where you if a complaint arises for example someone uh a vendor is found to have engaged in discriminatory or harassment Behavior or there's a citizen complaint uh and even uh or a complaint against a citizen um that is made in some way um that you are you are capable then of um being kept and making policy decisions that may that can you know mitigate those circumstances address those appropriately whereas at the employee level ultimately there's just there's a different relationship there when it's an employee versus when it's someone who you do not have a direct supervisory relation you have an indirect supervisory relationship with and and and the risk under the employee situation is much much higher than the risk with respect to Citizen complaints risk of risk of liability I will say the number of complaints we receive about activity generated from employees about citizens or from employees about vendors is very low to my knowledge I've de with one and it was about vendor behavior and that was handled appropriately in that rep precautions were put in place vendor was the vendor was addressed appropriately and that incident did not recur um well so uh so Chaz if if we kept I'm always uh a little reluctant to transfer all authority away um and so I wonder if we if we retained The Authority but we had the ability like we've done before to delegate does delegate deal with the issue of liability that uh that Bernard was referencing your reference or does it not ultimately if you are it insulates you somewhat um but it doesn't totally insulate because ultimately at the end of the day if you delegate your authority to an employee usually what happens is that that then that that delegate comes back with a report that you vote to accept or not you could wave away that right too and just say we can delegate as we see fit and we have no further Authority once that delegation is made um but you are still then directly involved in the process I guess you know I just I I feel that you know it's part of the job of being the select board making decisions and sometimes that you know creat some some risk but I'm happy to discuss about it you know more um you don't know how much risk and I know you must be thinking about a specific incident that's what and well let me ask this uh if if this policy was in place and the appeal couldn't have come to the select board would the risk that he's talking about what what happened not have happened it was a different circumstance um it was a different discipline it was a it was a process it was a disciplinary process that Bernard is referring to right process of disciplining and we're not delegating disciplinary process no you were not no that in fact some of that stuff is reserved to you um under the terms of the tan administrator act I believe so um you're not you're not delegating away that Authority what you are dealing what you are delegating here or reassigning is reassigning yeah is is this work regarding claims of uh discrimination or harassment made under this policy and again the thought there is your you know your Authority Under the T administrator act really talks about you your supervisory authorities through me to the department heads and what this has historically kind of served as is a almost a way of direct access to the select board in a way that doesn't happen anywhere else you don't have nor nor do you want I think authority to manage the day-to-day Affairs of the Departments um you don't want to be involved in those decision-making processes of hiring and firing or you know so this is consistent with our delegate the authority that you have to manage employees you're saying that this is consistent with that Authority that that you have yes and is appropriate to rest with you yes that's a reasonable case I think okay any other questions uh why don't we vote to approve the um uh policy I'd actually like to wait like to wait it's yeah it's it's so dense the red line so dense David hasn't seen it I started to process it and I was like holy cow um I mean I have more questions like there's no time frame you took the time frame out um you know I'm uncomfortable with not having any time frame does that create a problem an uh um we were looking to send out the updated policy per the um Town's bylaw before the end of the calendar year so um that doesn't give us a lot of time but can we can potentially have this come back as part of the the afternoon session on the 10th um it's a good idea so that that way there's at least some time and we can try and make that happen then and we'll have it as a calendar item so that it can be I think that's good we can come back on the 10th okay okay thank you okay thank you thank you thanks and I assume that means come back on the tent as an item separate not part of a consent right yes that's right okay right now the ten is looking like the the morning will be a session where the advisory committee is invited with the forecast in the afternoon will be follow up on that could we get a a red line that does not include all the formatting changes just the the additions and deletions we'll do we'll do way way of turning off the um yeah the formatting thing yeah we'll we'll hack through that yeah okay thank you and thank you an you're work on it okay next we have boards and commissions interviews uh let's start off with the zero admissions Advisory Board uh there have three candidates uh correct Tiffany yes that's correct changes okay Jules Oaker I apologize if I mispronounce that is the first person good evening good evening so introduce yourself and tell us why you're interested in the zero admissions Advisory Board and what you can bring to that board absolutely my name is juules O chacher could you speak directly into the mic yes of course my name is juules O chacher um can you hear me okay now okay it's our bad TV audience that needs to hear you sure um I live at 1217 Beacon Street and I'm interested in joining the zero emissions board because I recently transitioned to an electric vehicle and I was able to take advantage of a lot of tax incentives um that the car dealer didn't even know about and I realized there's massive potential here for lots of people who are interested in getting electric vehicles to transition um but they don't know about current incentives so I I got in touch with Brooklyn and I started asking around about uh charging and I connected with um someone local government here who connected me here um anyways I'm interested in implementing the great ideas and policies that exist to help protect our environment for example there's is a large push for composting but I don't compost I'd love to make something like that more accessible to Brooklyn residents as well okay any questions uh John yes this might not be a question it's just a um qu a question for all of us uh Jules thank you very much for applying to to this board I noticed on your application that you you know you were quite specific and we welcome that um about your availability um and uh there's a conflict um in your availability and the current regularly scheduled meetings of the zero admissions Advisory Board and you know to be honest I I don't really know what to do about situations like this because um we're going to have to decide uh between more than one candidate for more than one position um and before we decide you know yes or no it feels like something we ought to clear up um and and I don't know if we have a you know policy on appointing people to boards that that have a regularly scheduled meeting time that's in conflict with the availability of the appointee but that's the fu situation we're facing here and I just thought I should bring that to light I guess we should just ask you are you able to attend the meetings and if you can't yeah thank you for bring that up could you please remind me so so that they have been meeting regularly Paul you can um help me on this I think it's Wednesdays at like 8 AM yeah so actually we and Paul Warren uh I'm the leaon to the zero admission Advisory Board uh we're typically meeting on Wednesday mornings at 8:45 8:45 okay yeah are those in person or yes they have been in person um and we are working on uh at least once or twice month of hybrids so that it would be done over Zoom okay I strongly believe in in-person meetings what's that I strongly believe in in-person meetings well that's good yeah would it be possible to say um I could do everything in my control to try and attend those meetings and I'm not a firm no you can say whatever you want you can say exactly right this is an important issue to me and I would love to speak with my employer and see if there's flexibility to attend the meeting okay I'm glad I raised the question and thank you for the answer yeah absolutely so uh give give me a sense of what what what type of issues other than composting uh you'd be interested in urging the Zab board to uh to take yeah absolutely something that I spoke about briefly in my application is community buyin folks in the audience Community buyin um this is something we talk a lot about in nursing research and and Healthcare in general getting people to care about the issue at hand right we all live on this planet we would all benefit from reducing emissions but we need people to take action so I I'd really like to get the community interested in this and get the community more involved okay David so just two points to what John raised about whether we should appoint people who state that they would unlikely be available during the designated meeting time I'm a bit disturbed by the notion that we would potentially shut out applicants based on uh start time for a meeting I would hope that there's some flexibility around meetings so that those of us who have more typical work schedules can participate in our town government uh yes I'm the only one on the select board I think has a full-time job apprciate that and uh I don't want to be shutting people out on the basis of when we have meeting times uh in terms of a substantive question for you in particular you mentioned that you would like to help generate some Community buyin uh for zero missions could you explain how you would approach that yeah that's a great question may I think about that for a minute course minut it's up and while and while she's thinking I just want to let you know as a full-time stay-at-home dad it is a full-time job thank you so one idea to get uh people interested in zero emissions project could be an incentivized program this is something we use in healthcare a lot for example um if you compost every week we will in exchange give you part of a CSA or some sort of reward for engaging in a zero emissions effort is a way to increase Community buying okay any other questions good okay thank you appreciate you thank you applying and we will be making our decision on applicants in the next couple weeks or so okay thank you so much thank you thank you okay next we have Bill heinan good evening hi first of alluce yourself and tell us why you want to be a member of the Zab board and what you can bring to it I will but first I would like to thank you all for all the work you do it's a lot and I'm not sure the gratitudes come your way as much as they should um I'm Bill Hinman I live yeah it you have our votes well I mean it um so I'm Bill Hinman I live on Gibb Street in Precinct 8 I moved to Brookline the beginning of last year uh from a small town outside of Philadelphia there I was very involved uh in climate issues and personal environmental commitments um I was a founding member of our Town's environmental advisory Council and ended up being the chair of that Council prior to moving here um when I got here I wanted to keep uh that work alive in Brookline and I applied to Zab last year when you had two openings uh you were fortunate you had a number of applicants and I think you chose well when you chose the two people that you did to um join the board um since then I have joined the board of climate action Brookline uh I've been very active with biking Brookline which is more than just a recreational group there's a strong advocacy for micromobility and other non-vehicle forms of transportation um I helped convene a group of EV owners here in town to work with Sam DS and then later Alexandra veio in strengthening the town's public EV charging efforts in a few ways that I can go into if you want um and in May I was elected to town meeting and so I see my role in town meeting also to be looking at a lot of the articles that are presented to us uh from a climate perspective so here I am applying again um I see Zab as being critical to the town's response to the climate crisis and also to show also to show how government needs to be a part of the solution I think that's a key issue particularly nationally with what we're about to see nationally we need to be responding locally as strongly as we can um it's clear that you have two other very qualified capable candidates I'm fully understanding if you look for uh set of things in Zab that has you choose somebody else I intend to stay involved in climate issues here in Brooklyn let me start off by asking you what small town outside of Philadelphia um up in Bucks County New Town okay I grew up in Philadelphia yep so totally irrelevant to this yeah uh Mike oh I'm uh curious as to what EV you owned 10 years ago um in 2013 so actually more than that it was a Tesla Model S uh when they first came out I didn't realize that Tesla went back that far yeah yeah they they started in 2012 2013 was some of the earliest mass-produced Model S's okay and you still it was scary back then it was um not quite as comfortable as it is now in terms of the church infrastructure and so on oh yeah the infrastructure was just Bare Bones if any yeah Paul y uh Bill welcome Bill's a regular uh fixture the zero emission Advisory board meetings at 7:45 a.m. I'm pretty sure you've been there every time I've been 8 8:45 sorry it feels like 7:45 rush I'm rushing to get there um so you've participated you've heard all that we're doing uh on on the board the efforts with the you know the climate action plan that we're working on um so you've heard enough I think what are your suggestions for things that we be should we should be doing more of uh less of you know what's missing and where do you see your specific contribution all right let me I think three things come to mind thanks for asking Paul one is was touched on just now I really wish the Zab uh schedule were more U amenable to more people um both schedule and accessibility I think the meetings should be hybrid I think they should be scheduled at a time where they are a little less exclusive I think I think there's a concern that I have that we're excluding people who can't make it at the time of day that they're currently scheduled so I think Zab the work of Zab going forward is just going to be so important like I said and so let's make it more available and accessible to people that might also include expanding the the uh number of members right now it's only five and uh I think there may be enough work to do to expand it to seven um I I really am glad that the work has been done over the last couple years where Zab has tried to keep things going in the midst of some significant Staffing changes and gaps and uh not enough people on the board they've kept things moving uh it's going to be important to Pivot to being more of an Advisory Group um and that fits into the climate action now the CP resilience climate action and resilience plan the carp yes the carp I'm glad it was not climate resilience and action plan um and so the the AC works better um but I I think that's going to be key for deciding what uh how the group should be structured how how it should be sized um what working groups should there be um I think the group might be getting a little bit ahead of itself in trying to carve that out before the plan even exists um but that's from a a bystander really um and I do have one more thing to say and then David was raising his hand um I hope that the uh Zab can uh emphasize Transportation as much as it has been emphasizing buildings and infrastructure um going forward d uh David so I'm uh very impressed by your background from what I'm reading and your application that you uh chair the environmental advisory Council back in New Town Pennsylvania and that you're also a part of the first open space plan in New Town uh so my question is what do you see as the intersectionality between open space and pursuing the goals of Zab how much time to have um it's I think open space here here let me let me answer it here in Brooklyn where I believe housing density is going to be a key component toward our addressing the climate issues going forward we have such a rich uh Transit infrastructure and so I think it's possible to have a better improved um housing density in our town as well as as mentioned before non-vehicle uh Transportation modes that I think can all help really get to the uh the underlying issues of of climate um that sometimes conflicts with open space um but I'm not imagining Paving over any parks or you know replacing parks with with housing projects um I think they can be and need to be compatible with each other there's um in this town there probably most towns there there's a tension between um those who uh advocates for biking as as you are and those who are concerned about how biking infrastructure anytime impedes on the ability of people to have uh healthcare workers parking on their street to provide services um you know and and other things how how would you approach you know that tension well I think it's a healthy discussion to have it's a healthy tension in a way um I think the discussions around the Washington Street proposals um have revealed a lot of not just the issues that you've posed but potential Solutions about short-term parking spots that can still be part of a uh dedicated and protected biking infr when I say biking I mean scooters I mean you know non-vehicle trans Transit um and still protect those kinds of parking um but the other thing Bernard is that you know I do a lot of biking around Cambridge Somerville Boston and with tremendous investments in uh biking infrastructure protected bike lanes and still the businesses are thriving still home care workers are able to park where they need to um there are very nearby examples that I think are very successful in showing how uh all of these goals can be accomplished um together Boston and Cambridge tend to have wider roads than Brookline uh yes and no yes no there are quite a number that have been structured in a way that I think uh we could look to for examples Paul yeah uh bill just one one uh last question um and thank you for your response to my prior question um so you know we have limited funds limited resources to affect our goals for zero emissions it's a it's a big goal big Target that we have um how would you prioritize us investing in our municipal buildings right to move them to electrification moving our own Fleet of vehicles to EVS uh you know so the stuff that we can do as a municipality uh versus what what can be done to help incentivize um residential and Commercial properties that we really don't have a lot of control over we can incent versus Transportation where you know where where where do we get the biggest bang for the buck and all of the above well we can't do them all all at this we can do all them at the same time a little bit but what do you how do you prioritize um well within government owned buildings I see a lot already happening the U solar panels on where's the health building I forget what director I'm pointing here but uh the decisions that were made around the pierce the new Pierce School uh clearly very um environmentally committed um I think the government can show the way that um buildings can be um much better able to handle the climate crisis uh also and I think uh the previous uh person who spoke talked about um buyin and making available more information that uh uh residents can have for their own houses for multi- family dwellings uh in terms of uh grants that are available to help fund a lot of those improvements um Washington streets you know there's this $29 million uh uh grant that could be available if it meets the complete streets goal sorry I was trying getor okay now you answer my question okay great any other questions um David our little side discussion there was just we were trying to figure out how many positions are available there is only one V okay okay okay thank you U thank you we'll be making our decision at a later M we could always expand the board though as someone suggested okay next up Patricia karea I know you everybody I'm Patty kareah um 35 year Brookline resident 14year town of Brooklin staff attorney uh retired two years ago as first assistant Town Council um and since I retired I'm going to anticipate your question which is why do I want to be on this board um since I retired I've kept myself out of trouble um spending a year on advisory I'm I'm very um dedicated to town local town government I love this town I have um years of Public Service as you see um from my resume I really gravitated toward public sector government lawyering um I really loved being a a town lawyer um I just love town government I spent a year in advisory I'm a town meeting member um I think those are my main Town gigs I was on the Personnel Board in the 90s um and I'm since I retired hired my question has been what how do I redirect this sense of purpose um that I've carried with me throughout my professional life and and really climate is to me is the most the most important issue we as a Earth as a planet face um and so once I um was no longer an advisory in my time opened up um I sort of dove into working with mothers out front Brookline and specifically on the decarbonization effort um I joined the fossil fuel free team I'm now in the leadership team as well and I I took steps personally as a Brookline homeowner to decarbonize my own home you know starting 12 years ago I mean I was I'm I'm all about the carrots and kind of finding those incentives they they really motivate me and so I kind of really started the insulation thing and then I put did rooftop so to grab those tax credits you know worrying about whether they were going to expire you know there's a 30% tax credit for rooftop solar residentially um and those were you know put into the IRA we we'll see what happens now but um so little by little I transitioned my Brookline home more or less off of fossil fuels I still have an indirect water here I I have an EV I did home charging and I sort of did a just did an 1100 Mile Road Trip my first really long road trip um and manage the charging so I'm sort of between my personal experience and working as a volunteer with mothers out front to help other homeowners um and other car owners kind of navigate this this incredibly important transition um I feel like I've learned a lot um about a community campaign um mother's out front has been working jointly with Zab as a co-sponsor and climate action Brookline as a co-sponsor of the electrified Brookline campaign um if you Google that it's the guides um to the various steps of Home electrification are linked there um I wrote um a draft EV guide which talks about a lot of the things we've you've we've heard about already tonight you know all the the incentives state and federal charging public charging incentives for home charging just try to try to navigate like some of the money that's out there to you know to sort of attract people people like me who really do respond to that kind of thing um and I I found additional money I I didn't know about it just kind of you know just doing research about for example Make Ready program offer there's $200 million available you know through um through the utility companies dpu to the utility companies and then that gets pushed out um and I haven't found a successful project um underway in Brooklyn um but I did find a successful project underway in act it's completed in Acton they put in um it's a a it's in a case study there the eeve guide will have case studies and one of them is from Acton um where they got it was a Housing Development maybe 36 units um that got $50,000 of money through eversource through this make ready program and they're hurdles you know but there's there's there are there is money some money out there um and it's a very complicated expensive timec consuming labor you know intensive undertaking to decarbonize um and we have 28,000 households in Brooklyn I don't know how many cars we have but I think we have probably have a lot of cars um and so and we have a a climate goal which is a rational climate goal given what we're facing um and and Brookline should do its part you know and there various um actors public that that we have control over and non-public so I've been working on this campaign I did the financial incentives guide and I I like I said I drafted this EV guide I'm on the leadership team we're kind of thinking about Community conversations and Community messaging and you know I I I can't think of anything I would rather do right now than join zeab and kind of continue this work um because I think the town has a platform that that a community volunteer just doesn't have um and can really problem solve and communicate in a way that an individual and an a nonprofit can't I don't think you you are the folks people turn to with questions and to whom people look for help from um and so you're like the loog the government is a logical place to kind of start really trying to organize how to prioritize um and with limited resources some outside funding um you have I think it's an incredibly exciting time that Zab is in right now because you've just you have this RFP that's out I think you've start you've gotten bids I hope yes okay that's good um and the RFP is I think it's I think you guys did an incredible job I think it's really Visionary you know you're not you're talking about the resources available internally the resources available externally you know where where you get the bang for the buck and there's going to be a lot of sorting out you know that this consultant is going to have to do to come up with that short list of where we put our our resources um I did attend the last Zab meeting there's some discussion I guess to be um fleshed out about working groups and maybe expanding the effort that way um I have you know I because of mothers out front I was sort of in the background doing some work with with Zab again there was this community campaign that's kind of jointly sponsored I worked a bit with Wendy stall on the Warren article on setbacks I I had that issue and and Wendy was aware that I as a homeowner had this set issue and you know I um actually had a medical issue I was the hospital I was going through the special permit process oh sorry is that three minutes I think it's probably 10 minutes that's 30 sorry sorry let let let some of the select board members ask ask you a question thank you for stopping me that's okay so I I'll start uh briefly Patty first thank you for coming forward um and I appreciate your service to our town uh in your willingness to continue to serve um you know I'll I ask the similar question I asked bill um we we have limited resources but as you said a great platform not only a great platform we now have a whole division that we're spinning up to support uh Zab and have Zab actually support it um you mentioned many things that uh in in in your talk what are the where are the areas that you I know we Bill said we should focus on everything and that we could do that hard there any specific areas that you think in particular that we should be focusing on to try to meet our goals the big goals that we've set I mean the two you know when you look at the carbon emissions Pi I mean obviously the two big ones are transportation and buildings um and I've kind of wrestling I've been wrestling a little bit with this this is all be will be informed by the consultant I think um who will be a data expert Etc but thinking about this with the EV guide for example you know we kind of look at the hits we get on these guides and the top two hits were um um the green contractors list that we worked on um and the financial incentives guide and so I think people are looking for really uh concrete tangible help um and I also wonder if Transportation might be an easier lift for many people than a building um and it's a big piece of the pie um so people replace their cars every you know 8 12 years whatever it is um so your focus is right on public charging I know you've been doing a lot of work on that and that's fantastic um I know that there is that the climate bill that just passed has a provision on expanding that to maybe permit utility pole um charging that kind of thing so there you know there going to be changes coming that are going to open up opportunities that we should exploit okay great Mike uh I I want to just sort of second the comments that you make about um the need to for the need to provide information and and there's an enormous amount of there's there's quite a bit to learn as you just transitioning from a gas powered vehicle to an e um and the sources of information spread all over the place uh and um I think it would be enormously beneficial to create a guide for example yes this coming Town Guide for uh people who are interested in that so that they understand what the costs are and what the you know the benefit are and so forth um so uh just that that um uh that approach to give something you know to create something concrete is uh certainly a very worthy approach to uh to what Zab does uh David you uh mentioned in your application that you personally are pretty close to fully decarbonizing yeah and so you are familiar with the challenges involved in doing that Beyond expense what would you identify as the challenges I think the big missing piece right now for people is coaching I think a lot of people I have friends who know all the work I've been doing and the the water heater fails and they run out and they replace it you know and because they don't have the lead time and they don't have the time and they can't go online and learn everything you need to learn you know to to do this yourself I really think um we have a green contractors's list now part of this and there are some companies now listed that some residents in town have recommended who will do that handholding um and hopefully we can publicize this resource more this green contractor's list but to the extent there can be actually you know people people need handholding they're really busy and this is really complicated and this is really expensive and so if there's some ability to provide handholding that would be huge great thank you yeah so we will be making our decisions uh at a later meeting thank you thank you thank you for applying thanks hey next we have the Martin Luther King Jr celebration committee I just had a quick question for Paul uh Paul you referenced earlier that there would be the possibility of expanding the membership what would be the procedural mechanism by which we get there well I would ask J but I think we just did that for another board recently and actually we took one down we increased one and we decreased another so procedes pleas meeting by law yeah I don't believe I I have to double check where zab's Authority comes from I believe it's the select board body so there's I don't believe there's law you could change the charge could at your at your discretion and we should we should have that discussion we will put that on your futures list okay um next Martin Luther King Jr celebration committee and we have one applicant um Rosalyn low good evening evening please introduce yourself and tell us why you'd like to be on MLK celebration committee okay um I'm rosling low I uh reside in 46 Beaconsfield Road in Brookline I've been there for 20 odd years but can I take a moment just to tell you a little bit about my background and how I of course got to Brooklyn okay so I'm originally from the Caribbean and um I was born in a small island called Grenada and back in the late 60s early 70s my family moved to England where we stayed for several years and then we moved on to Canada where I finished my education and from there I moved here to Boston in 1981 I think or 82 and I've been here ever since but um what's interesting is I ended up in I worked on Newberry Street for many years and then I ended up in Brooklyn and owned a business here for over 25 years and um I retired probably about six seven years ago and um during my business years it was very difficult for me to really get involved in any committees or get involved in anything because you know you consume with just working and working long hours and not having a lot of time but now I have the time to um get involved and I have been volunteering at the uh Brookline C Senior Center for like five years I've been volunteering I'm also a board member of the Brookline Council and I'm also a board member of a organization called suffrage which is an organization that encourage women to let them know the importance of voting so I've been involved with that for a few years now um I have been attending a number of uh over the years have been attending the mar Luther King breakfast but not right here in Brooklyn it's been um in different towns my the me my church which is bethle and me has been um organizing a different breakfast throughout the city and have been going to that but for the past few years I've been trying to get to uh Marth Luther King breakfast here in Brooklyn and every every time I hear about it by the time I try to get a ticket I can't get in so I have never really had an opportunity to attend the breakfast and the reason I want to be part of the board because I think there should be um an effort as a an Outreach to the minority community in Brooklyn I don't know who the who they are I know the numbers are very low but I think it would be important to to to make an effort to uh make sure that they know about the breakfast because I didn't know anything about it so um that's one of the things in which I think I might be able to help I'm not sure help but I can find a way to do it and um and then to um what is it about trying I'm getting a little nervous can you ask me a question well first of all we don't have a breakfast although it's a good idea love I'm sorry we don't have a breakfast it's a good idea I mean not the breakfast but you have like you have an event yes that's what I meant I'm sorry you have an event yes um I'm sorry Paul okay m um you I've talked to you and and you know we really excited to have you on the committee um give give give me some thoughts as to how uh the breakfast idea that many towns you know in in Boston area as well as across the country have on um ontin Luther King's holiday um could could sort of inform our committee of opportunities um different ways of celebrating the day well the ones that I've attended over the years has been very interesting because they have like um they give you like um an hour 45 minutes to network and meet and greet and get to know people and then um then you sit down and have a breakfast and then they have the speakers after the breakfast but prior to that they usually have poetry reading or um they usually have like um you know gospel singers which I love to hear I'm not sure whether you do that at the event at courage Conner but those things that that's very important I think because people can connect with with different cultures when you listen to the the uh the singing and the gospel which is very inspirational and I think Martha Luther King was very INSP inspirational not just for black people or not just for people of color but for people all over the world and he himself I believe was a Baptist uh preacher so those are the things that they they usually have at the breakfast at the different events throughout the Boston area in January any other questions okay so uh I'd like to sort of make a um no I did I did I did have one question um first thank you for your your introduction your application um and I love breakfast so I'm I do too I support the addition of restaurant closed so need I need a place to go eat but now I'm on this diet so it might just have to be which restaurant Rin what's that which restaurant got the Busy Bee has oh really oh yes all the sad faces yes look at all the people who will come to the breakfast although my health has improved marketly since I know that would bring up your cholesterol going there too uh but the the um you know John often asks um about attendance and stuff and it sounds like Bernard you've been introduced before I'm just curious has that been interacting uh with the planning committee already or what what has been your involvement um in discussions with the committee to date have you had any no I have not okay okay but you are no I spoke to Berard on the phone yes we had you know good conversation good okay great okay and and if if you'd like to what I'd like to do is uh ask you to sort of trust me and vote on her application today uh based on you my conversations with her and discussions among the committee members does it does it come with a guarantee that we'll get a breakfast doesn't guarantee you'll get a breakfast but great idea um seems to be a theme Paul yes I'm hungry I'm on a diet I'm starving we fed you um we gave you lunch today dinner today so um if if no one objects I'd like to vote and so she can attend tomorrow's meeting of of the committee we have a um we have an important U program coming up this year which is unfortunately on January 20th um a scary day but uh we're goingon to have a showing of uh the movie Rustin oh Rustin I just saw that actually it's great yeah um and a discussion of you know some of the issues that uh his experience in the Civil Rights Movement as a gay man and as a radical thinker um you know presented uh so it should be a very interesting and maybe even necessary uh discussion on that day everyone knows that January 20th is right um so uh yeah it'd be good to you get you involved in our discussions as soon as possible unless anyone has an objection I'd like to move that we approve or vote to approve rosalin low as um member of the MLK committee great okay all in favor John vanak hi Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren hi David pman hi and Sher oai welcome thank you maybe one day we have me on this issue thank you okay thank you okay next a uh noise bylaw waiver uh schedule for 6:30 so I apologize to the people who came for that uh we usually or sometimes run late on our public hearings um this is a request by Kaplan construction uh with respect to an hbac system uh upgrades at 10 Linux Street uh they'll be working from December 4th tomorrow to January 5th 2024 so is there anyone from Kaplan here in the back please come up to the uh and tell us about your plans what type of noise you want waved and answer our questions before they come up and I ask one question did this come before the licensing subcommittee no you guys have not delegated noise bylaw waivers to us okay to that that panel can we yes okay I wouldn't advise it though no I I I think most noise byw waivers end up here anyway right yeah yeah okay uh introduce yourself and please uh begin to talk thank you for having us um I'm jacqua Maloney I'm the project manager with Kaplan um working on uh the bucc um HVAC upgrades project um we are adding some components onto the existing HVAC system um to improve comfort inside of the building during um the hotter months um when they need some moisture to be taken out of the air um to better condition the space for the students and um The Faculty who live there um so we're working mostly in the back of house spaces in mechanical closets to add coils onto the existing system um there's some piping that needs to be added and um some condensing units that need to be added in the exterior of the building um the work that we request to do at night is all interior work um so working in the mechanical spaces um the bucc facility is active during the day um the students are there from about 8: in the morning till 6:00 at night um so in order to facilitate the operation of um the building and interrupt um the students who are in the building during the day um we request to do all the work um inside at night the exterior work will happen during normal hours um mostly on weekends and during the day so that we're not disturbing um neighbors for the louder work that has to happen outside so that that work will happen uh during normal working hours well how much noise are we talking about with decb for example very minimal most of the work that doing is with standard handheld power tools inside um I would be surprised if anybody heard anything at all while they are doing the work that's happening inside any Paul yep um so uh thank you so all the work will be done inside I'm curious I'm gonna ask our our own staff um is this a noise by is there some other regulation that says you can't do work in the evenings or why is this why is this a noise by uh wait um will direct that to Town Council I believe and I guess while we're waiting oh for Jo here he oh there he is sorry I'm I'm not familiar with this application and why uh it would be a noise bylaw if all the work is going to be inside let me double check this then because I I do believe there was maybe maybe building maybe we should ask the applicant what what information was given to you that uh you obviously need a building permit because you're doing doing modifications corre did you get a requ were you told in the process of getting the building permit that you needed to get a noise byw waiver we were told that um the appropriate application to submit was the Noise by by the noise bylaw waiver wer um when we requested to do the off hours work David the penultimate paragraph from the Kaplan construction letter dated November 20th states that work on the exterior of the building will be performed during the day on weekends to eliminate off hours noise concerns so there is work that occurs in the exterior that would be on weekend so I'm presuming that part during the day though right on weekends that that part would involve noise and so maybe that's the reason for the applic okay but but you're saying that the noise is relatively minimal stting that building permit does allow us to work during the during the day on weekends after 8:30 a.m. so all of the work will happen um during the hours that we are allowed to work um on the weekends John well I just wanted to point out I I don't know if this is the reason that the application happened to be made under the noise bylaw but I do know we've had experience with cases that even work inside a building in the off hours involves people showing up involves people unloading equipment it involves you know people coming and going and so I'm not sure that it's inappropriate that this is a noise bylaw um application and it sort of feels six and one and a half dozen of the other I mean if they don't need it um it's because they're not going to be creating any noise so you know uh but I'm not judging the the issue here and I know we have a person to speak um so I'm not sure we have to resolve this question in order to make a decision on this issue yeah no um any other questions this is a public hearing so um Tiffany can you open up the public hearing so we can see if anyone is interested in speaking yes this issue now that the chair has opened the public hearing there are no speakers who signed up in advance but I know that there are some folks in the room who wish to comment if you could please just your name and um address again for the record uh Dr Al Lang uh 157 IV Street which is four buildings down from the Linux project I just want to point out that in this short area there have been five major remodels over these past years two are still going on there is noise pretty much every day during the week you know leaf blowers chippers Tre grindings if you measure between 60 to 82 dbel yeah this morning promptly be you already started at 757 doing their blowing and tracking and everything so it is kind of really very rexing that around the Christmas time for people who going to be working at night from Monday night till Friday morning where the truck's going to go and possibly disturb the sleep of people now the outside work has to be done on the weekends yeah the kids are it's it's a child care center the kids are inside they're not playing outside in the cold so I do not see why the outside work wouldn't be done for Monday you know to Friday during the times and just giving people who live there a little relief from noise pollution we've been talking of carbon pollution there's also a a noise pollution if you consider all the neighbors that are there many had agac work done and I've seen it like 10 trucks lined up on the street you know and this H wack work goes on none of them requested to do that at night because like you pointed out it's not just the noise it's also the vibrations yeah I mean when you in your house like today and again it's very laudable how be Works keeps the gardens beautiful but you know they have five properties in the area with function rooms they easily could have the children housed in these places for the time they want to do the work this is Christmas in New Year you know Christmas Eve is Tuesday Wednesdays then and perhaps even on New Year's Eve or the day people may want to sleep now bu says there is enough parking for all these trucks of these people who come well if that is the case why do the people who work at the Child Care Center Park on Ivy Street yeah there are inconsistencies in the application in conjunction have 30 seconds and I would request please if you could uh to hold off to have to start tomorrow do you want to speak please come to the mic Susan Williams I live at 35 Prescott Street which is on the same street as the uh daycare center my comments are well they're more in the line of a couple of questions sus a little bit more forward to oh sorry um the university is closed during intercession between Christmas and New Year's I know professors can still be working and all but I wondered if there wasn't a lower number of children there then so that some other accommodations could be made or some of the work could be done during the day that's first the second is I didn't know what back of the house spaces meant but I guess I do now from the comment earlier um but I wanted to comment about yes the trucks backing up and this and that in the middle of the night and then on the third paragraph here it says work on the exterior of the building with will be performed during the day weekends and I'm sorry it was 8:30 to what is the time that they can do the work oh you need to ask them that's and that's that's a condition of their building permit so that's not subject to this um their their building permit has already been issued I believe so that they are allowed to work on they are allowed work on the weekend Saturday and Sunday yes okay and this sentence says work on it does not say all work on the exterior and my days as a lawyer come back to me when I read these things but also I've had other issues with the child care center when they originally got their permissions or whatever they said that all of the pickup would be done in the back or the front door it would not be done on Prescott Street but it is in fact done on Prescott Street we contacted them at some point and they said oh well it's just the infants which was not true it was Toddlers it was all of the kids as far as I could tell and when we talked to them they said well yes we said that um we wouldn't have the parents pick the kids up on Prescott Street but we didn't say for how long so in other words they felt as long as you know a month a week a year whatever they didn't have to continue into the future even though they said they wouldn't be picked up on Prescott Street because it wasn't uh clarified so I guess where it says work done I just want to make sure that it's all work done and finally what recourse do we have if there is uh more noise than this represents that there will be that I can answer if there's a if there's um so the waiver I think would be if is issued would be issued conditioned on the terms set forth in this letter which is the work to be done in the inside dur only only in the inside during these hours right and no ability to hear the work that's being done on the inside so you know the I assume what they are asking why the reason why the building Department asked them to get this waiver is because of the potential for transitory noise right the ability that if something you know someone drops a hammer and it bangs in in an HVAC and you have a transitory sound in the middle of the night that's not necessarily caused for but if there's a continuous noise violation for example if that rises above the level of that of you know intermittent noise that might trigger you know a temporary thing that's a matter where um the inspectional division of the building department can be called um you can look on our website there you can also use use um I believe Brook online does noise has noise complaint uh uh uh login there um but if regardless you can always call inspectional services and you can let them know the issue and we will come out and measure that um look uh noise in the middle of the night uh inspectional Services is fast asleep well I know that but I'm saying so I I will tell you from personal experience with noise and an NBTA violation of a noise law waiver that um even calling the police doesn't necessarily bring response so um I I'm very sensitive to the the concern I must say though that listening to the description of the work I'm I'm not very concerned about it it it does not sound like it's the kind of thing that's going to wake anybody up uh four block four four houses or or or or a block away basically Paul yeah so you live in this neighborhood I I do I I am down I'm far enough away that I wouldn't hear any noise unless they were backing up down my street but I am very sensitive to uh to the issues that that are being raised um you know this this seems like an awful long time to me um I'm uh uh you know the issues being raised around the holidays are there kids even in the building during the holidays is it operating is it shut down um you know my I'm not excited about this uh 6:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. schedule um my preference would be for if you need to um you know do extensive interior work do it on the weekends during you know human hours and not uh 6:00 to 4: a.m. maybe you need to spend a little bit more time uh to get the work done or maybe you need to be in a being in a Bigg a bigger crew and be more efficient um but I am you know this is Close Quarters for a number of the neighbors um you know all I assume these trucks the construction truck when you back up it goes beep beep beep beep beep no they don't um then you're some of the first construction trucks that that that don't do that um but you know trucks coming in doors opening door slamming running engines um you know these these do disrupt I live on Carlton Street uh I hear every little noise that goes by uh when someone is sitting out inside of their vehicle at 3 in the morning with their music on with the windows up I hear it uh and it does disturb me so um I'm not a fan of 6:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m. work for any reason um I think this should be an absolute exception to the exception and Justified um so I'm not inclined to let's listen to the um applicant and see you know what type of adjustments they are able to make and we're not going to stop this project I think you get another one okay well go ahead so as I said before my name is Lindsay Anderson I'm at 157 Ivy Street and uh you know we've heard that there's not going to be any noise you know from 6 to 8 um so I would encourage you all to vote against uh that uh going from 6 to 8 um I would encourage you to encourage the contractors um to work uh during the weekend or during the day um especially during the holidays um so that uh the work can be done during the weekdays inside um especially during the holidays that's my recommendation I just don't see any reason if we're told that there's no noise why um we should be approving a waiver of the noise let let hi good evening uh my name is Nathan peek I am the president at Kaplan construction um so I'm here with Jacqueline just to help support her tonight um you know I think people hear construction and they um they get nervous right they expect what you're seeing at the Pierce building right now um and that type of thing um this is simply going to be two to four workers uh it's a very small crew uh they show up in pedestrian Vehicles like we all drove here tonight um there's no backup alarms there's no idling there's no diesel engines um simply pedestrian Vehicles so the reason why it's being performed at night obviously is the daycare is in session uh there's a lot of licensing requirements for daycares they can't simply move to an adjacent vacant space um so being in operation from 8:00 am to 6: PM uh sort of leaves us a set of hours outside of that uh to get this work done it's only three weeks worth of work worst case it'll be four uh we are taking advantage uh when the school is closed for one week working during the day at that time uh so you know worst case we're talking about 3 weeks of off hours most likely two um again two to four workers uh with the loudest tool they'll have is a standard um electric screw gun so I'd be shocked if anybody heard anything outside of the walls of the building David if it's three weeks worst case scenario 4 why does the uh noise bylaw waiver application State December member 4th through January 15th which is more about six weeks yeah it's it'll be faster than that we just we Ultra conservative in the application yeah John I want to mention something because it matters to me I think it probably matters to a lot of us um there are companies that you know do work in Brookline and are based sometimes in Brookline um and you know they they are just like any other company nothing about them stands out I have to say based on some personal experience kapan construction really stands out as good citizens um they they have been um there for um some local organizations um in a very very supportive way and as I say it doesn't mean they should get automatically um any kind of a break here but it sounds like what they're asking for uh with all due respect to the neighbors and I've been there I know what it is like to have noise disturbances um you know interfere with sleep um I hope and pray that that is not going to be what happens in this case because it sounds like what the work they're doing is doable without creating a public nuisance and U and and based on that and the fact that um this this company is not just any other company it's a company that has really made some contributions locally um and I want to I want them to know that there are people who recognize that and app and appreciate it uh Paul yep I again I this is nothing personal against Kaplan construction um have we ever ever offered a noise waiver to do construction overnight like this yes several times in fact what were the examples the um much more substantial sorts of construction uh either overnight or late at night um as I mention for this length of time I mean this is six weeks right it's more than it's I know I know it's three weeks but we've done it over like six months per time construction at night that length of a period wasn't that the high school Hancock Village I know as a member of the building commission we've been part of over Village was overnight oh yeah quite a bit oh man there was quite a bit of discussion and we know what the result of that was right that's not a good example those are different product that was the kind of construction where you have a truck you know big truck with a with a backup horn so so I guess a construction question so if if this is just screw guns right I assume you're are you doing duck work like what are you doing inside it's really running some uh plastic piping um through and above some of the child care classrooms from one mechanical space to different units uh mechanical units that are already existing in the spaces uh from their previous construction just adding capacity to them um so it has to be done through classrooms and above ceilings within those classrooms so you know the ceiling similar drop ceilings do you have in here you lift up a couple tiles you pull some PVC pipe through and you know just a few attachment points to support it are you switching the buildings the entire system like you know four weeks or three weeks four guy four workers for 8 to 10 hours or 12 hours that's a lot of Labor like are you redoing the entire system no we're just adding uh additional cooling capacity and dehumidification so it's a big building um I mean it's not a huge building but you think about um two to four workers can probably get uh you know they only do so much work in in a night so um and if you did it and the daycare has to be clean for the kids to become coming if you did I'm just curious if you did it over week over the weekends from normal operating hours um you know would how long would it take you to do it I think we'd be here for the same thing um Sunday is very restricted in terms of hours you can work without noise ordinance approval um so I I think it would I think it would be a longer duration obviously if you more weekends but during the day instead of the middle of the night 20 days it would you know be spread over 10 or 12 weeks instead of three okay to four so let's get clear on what the noise is it's hand drills and what else that's really it you'll you'll hear some there's no demolition question of why you're asking for a noise byw comes back I'm not even sure we need to be here we were asked to I think there may have been some overzealousness potentially but I I uh UND perhaps understandably on part of the inspectional services team sure um if you're not making noise above 10 dbel above the ambient noise level in the community I don't necessarily think you need a waiver for this however um as well vote it though right I think but I think the point of the neighbors that you know if you're willing to stick to the terms of your letter which is you don't anticipate there being continuous noise Outdoors to be audible Outdoors at night and if that changes the neighbors should let us know and inspectional Services should come out and you know again that doesn't solve the problem in the in the in the moment to Mike's point but it does at least give you the comfort that the the town will respond if there's a complaint about noise at night yeah absolutely and I'd be happy to give you my personal cell phone number if there's an issue that I I can't I can't what we can't do right now is a back and forth I'm sorry you guys can talk after um sure okay so um I'd like to move approval of the noise bylaw and those those terms um which are the terms of the uh of the application um any uh objection or well I object you object my my pre my preference would be to um have them first of all this is you know one day's notice uh this is going to start tomorrow um that doesn't give any people any time to adjust um so it feel the question what are they adjust adjusting to well well you know we're we're hearing that is going to be drills um my my preference would be to Regina's equip Regina's I'm hearing my feedback I'm gonna let her walk away I ber i' I'd rather see the work done over a series of weekends um if they need to be inside the building that would be my purose I mean if if they're just using hand drills um you know this let's move it let move it and see what happens I'm giv my all in favor please indicate by saying hi John vanak hi Michael Sand hi Paul Warren no uh David bman I and Cher oai thank you be quiet thank you you will yes no big drills no big drill no hammer drills thanks to the neighbors as well for for coming tonight um I I hope you understand the reasons for our decision and I think it'll can be worked out smoothly I hope so okay uh next oh the main item on the on the agenda are um event Main Event uh tax classification there oh wait did we close the hearing no I don't believe that we okay hearing is closed uh and we'll move on to the next item okay um tax classification this is a a continuation uh of the tax classification hearing that began at our at our last meeting on November 21st I see we're getting some handouts we have to read it before we start this we've seen yeah the same thing we've seen before yeah this is just answering the questions that came about last uh hearing I have to figure that do you want me to pull them up oh thank you okay before we start um well how should okay so you have a you have some materials um let me just U sort of make my statement sure and then you can go forward and then we can continue the hearing yep so uh let's see okay let me let everyone get settled this is the continuation of the tax classification hearing begun at our last meeting on November 21st what I want to do is to uh after uh our assessor Tom kigan um makes his presentation uh open up or reopen the hearing and hear from the public and then open up the discussion uh to the select board and ultimately to vote on the um uh vote on the two items that we have to vote on uh the residential exemption and the residential factor which is how we distribute the tax burden uh here in the the state let's start out by acknowledging that the tax levy the amount of taxes that has to be raised has already been determined it was determined by the rigid rules of the U proposition two and a half and the levy plus other revenue streams available to the town set the the the size of the budget that was approved by the Springtown meeting uh the levy uh is a maximum amount of 3188 million dollar um ultimately it may be an insignificantly lower amount due to to rounding the tax rate down to two decimal places but two 318,000 300 or 3,114 is where we start you look like you're 318 million I'm sorry I say thousand okay yes million oh gosh now it's real money the purpose of tonight's deliberations and votes um is to distribute the that tax bird first between Residential Properties and commercial industrial and personal Properties or cic and second between different types of Residential Properties we do that first by discussing and settling on a residential factor and second by discussion discussing and settling on a residential exemption the residential Factor reduces the percentage of the fair market value of residential property that is that is used to calculate the tax rate resulting in a lower tax rate for Residential Properties overall since this is a zero sum game the reduction for residential results in an increase in CIP uh in fiscal year 2024 the residential percentage was um um basically 92% you know uh reducing it to two decimal places of what it would be if all tax breaks were at the same level on on the other hand the CIA CIP percentage was 1.75% or 75% higher than it would have been if all tax rates were at the same level so the question we have to answer is how much we want to shift the burden onto CIP um during the pandemic we shifted at less to thep to support the business Community but last year we reversed that course and shifted more to CIP the residential exemption is a is a dollar amount by which the assessed value of an owner occupied home is reduced which res which reduces the tax on that property last year the residential exemption was 20% or 300 in money $334,500 this is also a zero sum game so if we raise the exemption to a higher level we are shifting more of the tax burden onto higher valued properties for whom the 3 $3 5,458 is a smaller benefit and since the levy still has to be paid any benefit in one category of residential property will have to be picked up by the others so higher valued properties will benefit less from the residential exemption but will have to pay a larger amount of the tax burden carried by Residential Properties the question here is how much we want to keep one or help one at the expense of the other our votes tonight will answer how we believe that burden should be distributed and uh the the discussion will be fairly complicated as it usually is but uh bear with us that's what we're trying to do uh so if Chaz or or um the assessor or members of the board of assessors uh would like to correct anything I said or add anything uh please speak now or forever hold your peace that was perfect okay so uh ESS yep um so Ted Costigan Chief assessor in Brooklyn no no it's okay absolutely and uh here with our board members Dr Peterson Mr Mark merer merer sorry um so did want to answer like we had three questions from the last part of the hearing two weeks ago um and I just wanted to pull that up just so clear we're answering all the questions I was asked to run uh a model at a 22% residential exemption which would raise the amount we're exempting off of an owner occupied parcel um that's the example that we would uh run into so again last year we were at 20 if we boosted it up to 22% um I think board member Vince skak you had asked for that um it as you can see lowers the burden on the condominium to uh sort of a negative one and a half over last year it takes the single family from about a what would have been a seven and a half to a seven and it kind of puts up the burden on apartments to 11 and a half percent so the next few slides um just get into those exact percentages at 22% um and then going on to uh the sort of the fourth the fourth page it just shows if we were to do that or if the board were to do that instead of having a $104 Cent rate it would go up to and Tiffany we can just go on to the next slide uh yep that one uh it would go from that $104 C rate tick the tax rate up on Residential Properties to 1017 and the CIP would stay the same uh next slide of board member Warren you had ask for the rental unit inventory and so just want to go over that uh our multif family have about 88,200 uh unit units our two families are about a thousand and our three families are just about a thousand as well you'd ask for that so just can I yep sure go ahead let me ask a question later um yeah okay well I just want to clarify so so just to make sure I understand the multif family that's the total number of dwelling units correct right not the buildings but the number of dwelling units that's correct okay thank you yep and then uh next slide um board member Vin skak youd asked about the uh change uh kind of graphically like in the Years P so you can kind of see uh over time the change uh in median assess value history in the town of Brookline and on the next page um sort of that that change uh percentage based uh year onye uh so like last year single families went up for instance 10% this year at the 20% exemption with a maximum shift we're talking about a seven and a half perent a year- on-year change um so just wanted to take any any questions from there uh the last page just kind of I think uh board board m samon you had had asked for kind of a comparison side by side so that that just gives you the side by side like 20 21 22 with that maximum 1.75 shift sort of the implications there any questions well yeah I have some questions but okay um you you're finished right yep that's it I'm yeah I'm sorry I just wanted a proced your question here because there's going to be a time for the select board to discuss their their concerns and their yeah yeah and come to I don't have any questions about what he just added to so I don't have to ask that question I I don't have to ask a question also you also because you continued the public hearing it's got to be time for public coming yeah yeah I I'd prefer I think just to hear from the public and then we'll all weigh in right right yeah okay okay unless there are any questions regarding that presentation let's open up the the public hearing reopen the public hearing which was continued from November 21st yes there are no speakers who signed up in advance is there anyone in the room who wishes to speak or anyone online if so please raise your hand using the raise the hand feature to speak on the tax classification there are five individuals in the room and 24 online and no one is indicating their desire to speak they trust us guess guess that's what Mei combination okay um all right okay so uh I deferred my call meeting or I hesitate to close the hearing um uhbe keep it open in case someone Pops in yeah why don't we keep the hearing uh open and we'll have our discussion then at certain a certain point we'll close the hearing and we'll start voting okay right okay wait now may I ask a question question I guess um but thank you very very much presentation thank you for the new information um uh I I I'm raising an issue tonight I think I'm not alone in raising the issue um of how the practice that we have in Brookline of granting this um homeowner exemption um how that impacts the relative burden carried by the various categories single family condo two family three Family Apartments and so on um because the more I look at it the more a couple aspects of the exemption um become uh crucial and they're a little mysterious and the net effect that the the the they have seem seems to me to distort um rather radically um the balance of Burden shared by the various property categories and I'll get very I'll get more specific about what I'm discussing um Tiffany has a slide with some information that I um I wanted to just put up I don't often do this but and of course when other people do it I complain that it's unreadable um people might find this unreadable I apologize for that but here's what it says um I went to our Assessor's Database and I I I promise you this was utterly random um that I picked three properties um I wanted one to be a property at the bottom of the value uh table for Brookline properties in general uh one to be sort of in the middle and one to be kind of at the median um so I didn't go to the extreme of you know the highest um the most expensive properties so let's start with um a condo at brook house um uh and um I want people to understand that the numbers I'm going to recite um they're all driven by the fact that yes we have what is a percentage exemption it's currently 20% and tonight we're kind of debating whether to keep it at 20 maybe lower it to 19 I'm not sure there's anybody who says we should raise it um but that percentage uh is not exactly what percentage implies to most people it's not like we take the value of a low value property let's say you know condo at at brook house and take 20% of that value and exempt that 20% of that value no that's not what we do the 20% leads to a calculation of a fix amount and it is based on the broad range of properties and it's a rather high amount it's in the high 300s uh thousands and when you take that fixed amount and apply it across the board to a low value property a medium value property and a higher value property it has a much greater beneficial impact on the lowest value property than on the middle or the higher so here's what you get with three properties brook house um tax tax bill tax bill of $1,511 um on a $489,000 condo which yields an effective tax rate of3 %. the middle value property was on good no Road um it's uh a $1,389 property it has a tax bill of 10,224 and the effective tax rate on that property is 74% so we're already um we've already reached one particular um uh uh house household taxpayer whose effective tax rate is double um the effective tax rate on a different um household taxpayer and then you go to the sort of median value property $2,444 300 has a tax bill of $2,613 the effective tax rate on that property is 84% so essentially this exemption that we have been giving out year after year after year after year in this case you know when it is um quoted at 20% results in effective tax rates all the way from 3% or or lower um to 84% or higher to me that is not the definition of an equitable um system of Taxation if um you know some taxpayers under that system of Taxation are paying a uh effective tax rate that is as much as triple or maybe even uh quadruple um some other taxpayers effective tax rate so I'm GNA sort of lobby lobby is not the right word I'm going to promote tonight the idea that we should seriously consider lowering um the exemption just one one step from 20% to 19% and um we have in our package you know some information as to how that would change the actual burden sharing between commercial properties multi-unit apartment proper properties uh two families three families single families and condos people should look at that shift um I would love to be able to say that um it it will save money for a lot of people it won't really save that much money for anybody um it will bring condos up to uh more the the same kind of increase over the previous year as single families two families and three families will still get a little bit less of an increase um apartment buildings uh for peculiar reasons will still get the highest of all the increases um if it's 19% as opposed to 20% but overall what you'll see when you look at the um information in our package for the 19% rate is a set of bars you know the burden shed by the individual classes of property that is much more in keeping each bar is kind of more in the in a in a tighter range as the other bars whereas what you'll see um with the 20% rate uh is that there's a you know a 8% or seven almost seven or 8% increase in one category of property um and a minimal increase in another category of property which happens to be in this case condos um I I think we need to take a serious look at these numbers and the discrepancy between the effective tax rates that we are imposing on these various levels of property and do something start to do something to get back to a a more evenhanded treatment of all properties in in the effective tax rate that falls on those properties and thanks for indulging a long statement but I hope it was a meaningful one so um um the the structure of the uh the structure of the of of setting sort of a cap uh to the reduction and then using 20% up to that cap um is intended to be Progressive that is it's intended the way Progressive taxes are to um put a higher burden on people who at least they ically can afford a higher amount um however prog this is not a progressive tax on income it's a pro progressive tax on value um which inevitably introduces the potential for some very strange results ter if you have somebody who has a very high income living uh in a uh one or two-bedroom condo they could be very very well be benefiting more from this than someone who is on a slower or fixed income but has a house that has increased in value to two three four five we agree so uh if you remove some of that progressivity you remove some of that Distortion but you also remove some of the progressivity remember that okay and well I don't know if that you want us to Dialogue on this you know I don't have to okay yeah you finish yeah yeah that's it so um I too have a chart uh I I I'm sorry if you just indulge me um it won't be as annoying as John's actually it might be more Tiffany's gonna pull it up so a little bit of background here so um I want to thank Lincoln um for uh doing some work for me today because i' I've had a hard time getting my head around this issue and I've heard a lot from various categories of of uh Property Owners making their case for either or um and I thought this would be really helpful for everybody to see if you could blow it up as big as you possibly can so this I wanted to raise the discussion up on the distribution of the tax levy across the classes I haven't seen this type of distribution before and I'm and I'm bus I've been busily trying to do it per unit so so the first thing is I'm trying to understand H where's where's the pain points here and where are we hearing the noise from and why so the the Top Line here is the single family homes the bottom the total bottom is it's a 318 million Levy single family homes owners are carrying 112 million of the levy that represents 35% of the total tax levy and that's distributed across 4584 units if someone could please do the math um I haven't gotten that far but I it would be good to do a per unit I'm trying to get down a per unit Condominiums speaking to what John just spoke to is carrying 82 million of the 318 million tax levy that represents about 26% of the tax levy and it's distributed across 10, 380 units so it's a it's it's less a lot less than single film but but spread across a lot number of views so they're low we don't hear complaints from that much um two families are uh 13,825 so about 14 million and it's 4% of the tax levy and there's about uh you know 1,500 units 1,468 three family homes 8 million very small we don't have a lot of Three Families uh 2% across about 1100 1200 units and importantly and this is a this is where I think it it's worth having a discussion multifam so multif family is essentially a commercial uh apartment building right these aren't the twos and three families these are four or greater um I did ask Lincoln if he could uh find out what is the average what's the number of units in the median price uh in the tax levy documents that we have I don't know whether it's 50 or is it 100 or is it 25 but it would be really helpful to know that because in the multif family there's only 31 million of the tax levy and it's representing just about 10% of the tax levy there's 8,000 units and that's a dwelling unit so you know when when we hear um how to shift stuff John is suggesting that one way is to shift more burden onto the Condominiums they're already carrying 25% of the levy um while the way to shift more to the commercial uh is to actually increase the residential exemption those are kind of the the two levers but I just I wanted to present this because it really does show the the challenge that we Face there you know I don't necessarily think that just because uh someone has a single family home that they're rich you cannot make an assumption about you know wealth or income based on the unit that they're in um you know there are people that probably make a lot of money that live in apartments or live in a condo there probably people that make very little money and cause burn that live in single family homes and we hear that so I think it's difficult for us us and we shouldn't assume that someone's ability to pay uh is associated with the type of unit that they're living in right that's exactly what I said yeah yeah I no I agree I'm not challenging what you said I'm saying just in general because we I'm saying what we've heard from the public okay um so I think that we just it would be really helpful to consider the two levers we could look John has suggested um and I'm not advocating one way or the other right now John is suggesting moving to 19% to really move some of the burden over to Condominiums I just let me just it's not a condos it's properties many of them happen to be condos but at the lower end of value and that could be single family homes or condos one or two that huh probably only condos that that are at that level yeah you know and and the reason and the reason why and I appreciate what John's what John is suggest I'm not arguing against it or for it at this point I'm just trying to I'm trying to frame the the discussion you know when you when you have a because the residential exemption is fixed everybody gets the same amount whether you're in a $3 million house or an $800,000 condo you get $348,000 or whatever the number is off your taxes um it's kind of a crazy system off your value off your value and it's kind of a crazy system it's not it's not a percentage based on value it's a fixed number um and it it frankly it makes absolutely no sense to me but I'm told isn't that what makes it a progressive Sy exactly I mean if if didn't if you just had apply a percentage you wouldn't be Progressive in the same way let me take that on if I what I mean is that it means a lot more for that $400,000 condo because it's $300,000 off of $400,000 so the tax assess value is $100,000 or so but versus the $2 million cond who um you know uh it's just a a smaller percentage of of the value of that house y the the Flor in the the fla in that thinking and I don't I don't mean that in a derogatory way but the but the fla in the thinking is that that you know the ability to pay based on what they're living in yeah but this is not an income tax I I I I understand that but and you know it it it makes it difficult to try to you know look at things in terms of progressive versus nonprogressive but that that's that's that's the bir we're stuck with Y John yeah I I do want to address the progressivity argument because um uh I if there were a a true 20% exemption um across the board uh on all of our properties and condos at $500,000 paid um were were exempt on 20% of of their value of their property um they they would get a certain tax break and they would have to you know pay taxes um accordingly on on the remainder um it would be 20% across the board everybody would pay the same 20% but condos or any property that's 500,000 versus a million would be paying a far small smaller tax bill than a person with a million dollar property because 20% of a million you know um Still Still leaves you with 80% of a million to pay taxes on and 20% of 500,000 you know uh leave leaves you a lot less so it we're we're all going to pay according to the value of our properties even if there's no exemption at all and the higher value properties are going to pay a heck of a lot more than the lower value properties that's how it works um and that's why I want to just point out and make sure people realize most communities in Massachusetts do not use these exemptions and I would predict you know if we were to study that that fact we'd find out that most of them find the results of these exemptions to so distort what certain uh households pay and what other households pay that they just don't make sense they create a system where as I pointed out in the numbers I used on on real Properties Real cases here in Brookline where where we end up with people with an effective tax rate that is two three or four times the effective tax tax rate of some of their neighbors and that's regardless of income it could be an investor owned condo and you we're giving we're get the residential exemption well all right if they're if they're not I guess we can need clarification on that but um if if an investor owned condo doesn't get it scratch what I said but it could be a condo that is at the low end that is owned by you know someone of high income and and that person would be paying an effective tax rate of a half or a third or or a quarter of the tax rate on a legacy house um owned by a Widow on Social Security uh and a fixed income um that kind of a tax system doesn't make sense to me I don't know if it makes sense to others and I don't call that Progressive um I don't know how you can Define that as Progressive David I think we're dealing with two separate but related issues so I I think I'm closest to where Mike is in terms of the initial round of pitches in that Mike is acknowledging that the current structure especially at sort of the 20% default is designed to be somewhat Progressive and that's because there is that General assumption that someone who's living in a larger home has greater economic means uh and I think the argument you're making john if we were looking from an income tax perspective which I know we're not but if we were is sort of the argument we hear from those who promote uh a flat tax because it's true that if you had a flat tax on incomes that's still a larger amount of real dollars that are being paid in taxes compared to someone who earns less but is taxed at the same rate and for the most part when we're talking about income tax we don't consider a flat tax to be Progressive so I understand what Mike and Bernard are saying on that front but I totally agree with you that just because somebody lives in a $3 million mansion doesn't mean that person's in a better position to pay their property taxes and there could be somebody living in that $489,000 condo who's a professional athlete it's making 20 million a year a young single guy doesn't necessarily need to have a big home i' only be here for a year and that person can easily absorb the tax hit and we just don't know the reality across all the units so that's sort of the problem we're dealing with but that leads me to a slightly different conclusion from you John which is I think we should look at the 22% exemption column and the reason I would first want to know I would first want to know the implication on commercial of course I don't see that in this chart but in terms of how people would be impacted in real dollars the issue I have with 19% is that's actually a bigger increase in tax hit compared to 20% so yes it does make it more uh Equitable for from uh your perspective of bringing condos up closer to single families but in terms of what people are actually paying out of their pocket that would be more money than under 20% uh and if you look at the 22% column it would be going up 1,288 instead of 1,381 or under the 19% column instead of 1,434 and for apartments where I agree with Paul that the major apartment buildings I don't think are paying their share and their rates uh what they charge in rent is based more upon broader market dynamics uh they would go up to 115% under the 22% column uh condos would actually go down by 1 and a. half% so they would re so 25% of our tax levy would actually see um a savings uh but again that's all premised in wanting to be reassured that there would not be uh significant can damage or harm CA to the commercial side can can we put the 22% up on the screen just so people know what we're talking about there's no effect on the commercial with the residential exemption Choice okay y yeah um so by the way let me just add uh Warren Buffett who has a few few nickels in his pocket lives in a um what it's a 14.4 million house plus a small house in Omaha $1.4 million Omaha not a small house well no I I think well okay you got a point though you you never know you just never know who's in never know who's who's in the house and that then right and from property tax standpoint that doesn't make a difference it's unfair but doesn't make doesn't make a difference exactly exactly you've you've hit the nail on the head that the the tax is based on value based on income and therefore if we think of taxes as being Progressive if they're based on income that's not the way this this tax is put together this these taxes are based on value and the same is true when it comes to commercial properties the rent that they provide determines the value therefore the tax is based on the rent and as and that that's it it's there's no such thing as a perfectly Fair uh uh uh tax based on on property that you own and that's what but you would agree there's some that are more fair than others I don't know uh you know you have no you can site the you can cite Warren Buffett is living in a $1.4 million house and the guy's got you know enormous amounts of of assets and income but that's a that's sort of an extreme on the on the curve the on on average someone who lives in a smaller property is probably likely to have a lower income than somebody who lives in a larger or more expensive on yes on and should get a break which they get if we just charge everybody the same um tax rate uh because their property value is so much smaller may I may I just um add a fact Paul is itching to yeah I'm sorry I'm not itching I'm but no um it it might not be well known but there is actually sort of a um safety valve because of this very matter of when you when you hold constant what the exemption is and it's not a true percent exemption it's a fixed figure exemption what can happen in the case of some condos and people or smaller you know low lower value properties um people anticipated this and wanted to deal with it you could actually Wipe Out the entire value of of a $400,000 you know condo property or home property by an exemption of $400,000 so they say well we can't have that happen cuz they got to pay some kind of property tax so they set a bottom line below which an owner of a low value property can't go the bottom is if in cases where the exemption is so high and the value of the property is so low that you would actually be wiping that whole property and and exempting that whole property from paying taxes yeah that's not allowable it's they set they set it at 10 10% 10% yeah so in other words we're we're saying that there's some people in town who only have to pay 10% of the taxes they would other owe otherwise property no 10% of the taxes that they would otherwise owe they 10% of the value multiplied by the tax rate which is 10 right right right um you know whereas the rest of the people in the town at least in in most of the categories um have to pay 100% of their taxes some people only have to pay 10% of their taxes that you know that can't be some people then later proposed why don't we make it 50% so that they at least have to pay half what they would otherwise have to pay and it never got done but is a fif if if is a system in which they paid 50% more fair Than A system that allows them to pay only 10% on their on their value of their property before you go yeah just want to kind of reset the conversation any push you have you know down like 20 to 19 you're shifting a tax burden onto um Brookline residents you know you're giving a better break to non- Brookline residents that's just just so it's I know it's Progressive regressive discussion but it's also who's paying the tax is it Brookline residents or is it more non- Brookline residents and that's what the shift in in the in the percentages what do you mean by non so in other words the more you're pushing up the residential exemption the more you're exempting value of owner occupants in Brookline so the the more you take it away the more you're you're shifting it to the Brookline residence so if you were to go down from 2019 you're pushing more of a tax burden onto Brookline residents as opposed to non-occupied units does that does that make sense yeah not help just recite a statistic that was SED last time 48% of condos are rental units yeah okay so when you talk about shifting um if you're shifting uh a burden uh towards trying to shift the burden towards uh lower lower value condos you're actually shifting shifting some of that burden well they they're they're increasing the they're only occupied so sorry they're not own occupied are there they don't receive the exemption at all what's the they they're getting more of the burden yeah they're picking up more of the burden is that correct yeah so the the higher you push up the residential exemption the more amount of money you're exempting from Brookline residents who own and occupy their properties right okay all right and since that Levy still has to be paid by someone it's going to be those people who are in this case um investors which is a big problem in Brooklyn oh yeah so thank you I'm gonna and I appreciate him trying to Center the conversation I just want to follow on David had had floated uh you know a scenario of 22% um I want to focus on three numbers uh single family homes 35% of the tax levy Condominiums 25% of the tax levy and then multif family 10% of the tax levy so in multif family let's be sure what we're talking about these multif family uh buildings the way that we value them is by income why because they're businesses they really are right they're investor owned buildings um and so you know they're they're uh they're tax much lower than what our commercial properties are but they still have a business owner they have an operator and you know but yet they're only paying 10% they're carrying 10% of of the tax burden for the town and there's over 8,000 units so if if you did the 22% uh exemption you would be Shifting the burden to commercial not to commercial to to multif family uh units and the and the the number that I I wish we had uh and maybe Lincoln figured it out on his his iPhone while he's sitting over there is that that if if we did do the 22% you would be shifting um the the the the multif Family Apartments would go from uh 10.1% to 11.5% it's it's less than a $1,000 increase um I think from from 20% to 22% and the total change over fy4 would be $4,284 the question is how many units how many dwelling units are in that median multifam apartment that's assessed at $4 million is it five units or is it 20 is it 30 because because you're G have to take how many units and distribute that 4284 over it you're probably talking 20 $30 a unit depending on how many units are in there so the the amount of Burden that you're putting on any dwelling unit is much lower when you shifted to over to the the multif Family Apartments because they're spreading that burden if they actually even did it remember they they're already charging maximum market rate they're not giving people discounts because out of the goodness of their heart they're charging maximum rate based on the market um if they did distribute that $4,284 or $64 it would be over many units and it would be really helpful to know what that burden is uh for for uh for that dwelling unit yeah so I I did a calculation today the me if you took all the apartments across the entire town the median apartment building has eight units the average has 17 so so this is but the multi I'm talking about the multif Family Apartments uh that that's I'm saying the the average apartment building does that make sense the average apartment building okay so if you took the average of all the apartment buildings and took the number of units in each the median is eight unit well is that what is that 8 unit building assessed at 4 million is that the medium assessed value it's going to depend on the you know location and the but that's the median number so eight okay yeah that's all full the average is 17 so it' be 428 4,284 divided by it okay Lincoln so just to be clear to to Paul's question please let's be clear I'll try um no it's a I'm speaking to the board yeah so we weren't able to so the median shifts each year right so so we don't have the answer for that precise median 4, 71,000 but we do know the number the the you know the number in general which is median which is eight okay and the average being 17 so that precise property we don't know how many units are there are in that each year the median whichever the median assessed value of of a multif family property is that property shifts year to year right by definition so does that help David I think our residents are most interested in how they would personally be impacted in what they pay more so than precise percentages percentage distributions between uh housing types and for that reason I think the 22% column is a lot more attractive than the 19% one I I understand that John wants the percentages to be closer to each other see it can we put it on the screen on the last page look at the last page the no I have it here I want the people to see what we're talking about well well John we're talking about a rate that would actually give a tax cut to condo owners and in a year after we had an override and and a debt exclusion we're we're handing out tax cuts to uh you know people who happen to be lucky enough to S live in condos it it's it would also but it would also be no I I live in the brook house well well isn't that interesting you do very well living in the brook house what is more important I congratulate you is it more important that condo owners not get a tax break or that single family owners also have a lower than otherwise increase I because under the 19% column uh single family owners taxes would go up in real dollars by $1,434 I know numbers that I'm I'm sorry to say it's hard hard to square these numbers because Paul's talking about um multif family units that amount to very few uh a very you know a very insignificant share of our taxes but somehow by hitting them 1% more we're able basically to not have to tax any of the other classes as much as we would I these numbers don't quite add up to me and I I regret to say that because I'm inclined to trust the carts provided to us by Town staff and on that basis single family owners benefit more under 22% than 19% and from a a single family perspective I think that matters more to them that they benefit more than whether condo owners benefit by an even greater amount well they're being very shortsighted is all I can say if you know if they want to interpret that way it's fine but the history has been that they they've been carrying a greater burden of tax incre Ines for you know at least five years the past five years and they want to exacerbate that by Shifting the burden even greater upon themselves and lesser upon the other people who have been doing you know fine the last five years it's not an exacerbation it's 7.7 under the 19 no the discrepancy between what they're paying and paying is what I'm refering to so I I think um there was a there was a comment trying to remember and I it's dangerous to to Reser to to take data from the tmma list but I'll take it any um there was a comment that um over the last five years single family homes have increased in value substantially more than condos in the previous five years the reverse was true uh and so it depends on when you're looking at the situation uh a as as to how you uh uh you know how you say well what's fair and what's not fair what's Equitable what's not equitable for one class of of homes of the or the other I think it's an extremely bad idea to try to discriminate in some fashion or try to differentiate or discriminate has a has a has a negative tone to it try to differentiate in some fashion how we tax one class of building uh of owner occupied uh housing versus I think we have to take a neutral perspective and look at the as as our assessor has said to us if we increase the percentage of the the exemption percentage we're Shifting the burden to Brookline residents if we shift the other way we're shifting it off of Brookline uh shifting sorry if we shift it to if we increase the exemption we're increasing the the amount that nonresident owners pay and vice versa I wish I believe believe that I wish I believe that it's not clear it's not clear to me it's it's not rocket science it's Excel no no no but they're not would you would you would you agree with me that the numbers don't add up how how can you magically you know give a small increase to a class of property that only accounts for 10% of the value of our tax base and it manages to pay for everybody else in the 90% of our tax Bas to get a break it it doesn't even make sense in a year when taxes are going to have to go up about six or s% across the board to pay our bills Ted looks like you does that make sense everybody's tax so the the tax rate changes depending on what option you pick does that does that answer it so depending on what percentage residential exemption you pick it either pushes up or pushes down the tax rate that's how we pay for the residential exemption yeah so the these numbers are they're accurate yeah Paul so I managed to thoroughly confuse myself maybe everybody else too so I I I don't know which way I'm going to go but I do want to provide a little bit more data for my colleagues um I crunched some numbers today I believe they're accurate I looked at the fiveyear uh growth in taxes uh so this is 2020 to 2024 is that four years that's that's four years uh single family grew 38% the average the median tax bill grew 38% % pass from 2020 to 2024 the condo tax bill grew 7% 2020 to 2024 is one of the reasons why John is saying what he's saying I believe two family grew you know that's okay I you're in a condo I'm not trying to I'm not coming after you Bernard come on two F two family uh grew 24% three families grew 28% and apartments grew 21% and by the way the commercial sector all of our commercial grew only 4% we might have been easy on them because of covid but se you know condos did have the lightest past four years now maybe if you go past beyond that they took the biggest hit I don't know right but what you're referencing and if you go back five years 10 years however far you want to go back you're referencing a change in assessed value that's what the taxes are based on and if single family homes have gone up in value by more than the value of condos then naturally some of that tax burden is going to be shifted to single family homes there's no way around that no I no I I completely understand that and the only lever that we have is the shift which we're going probably take the maximum and the residential exceptions the only levers that we have and so I want to agree with we're exploring them I want to agree with Mike um not none of this calls into question whether we are evaluating properties correctly no no you know and I I I haven't done that um and yes it is true uh what you just said that the increase faster increase in the value of single family homes means that they end up you know with a higher rate of of increase in in the paying of taxes but that would be true if we had no exemption you see what I'm saying yeah of course yeah you add the exemption and it distorts the difference even further inrees it it creates a class of of property owner in the town who has to pay virtually no taxes you know whereas everybody else has to pay their their one% you the tax rate in Brooklyn works out to about 1% of the value of your house and so you can roughly estimate your taxes just by saying 1% of the value of my house is my tax except when we throw in this exemption and you happen to own a property that's like 600 500 $400,000 then it turns out you don't pay 1% as a tax you pay 3% as a tax wh why is that a fair tax system for people across the board is it doesn't look like one to me I I I'm not suggesting it's fair I'm suggesting that it is a it it's a system that is attempting to be an an attempting to be an indirect Progressive system and you're complaining about the fact that it's not there there is no linkage really between the amount of income that somebody has and the and the house that they live in or the condo they live in and you're absolutely right okay so uh our hearing is still open oh that's good new did you want to you just standing up to stretch okay stretch to the microphone please thank you very much um and my name is Michael Rubenstein I'm a town meeting member in precinct 1 um and thank you for keeping the public hearing open while you are deliberating the deliberation is uh interesting and helpful um I would make a couple of comments um the first is uh that um you're you're obviously having a discussion between a more flat tax and a more progressive tax and that reflects the values that we hold in bookline um and your consideration of what is Equitable is simply defined by your choices in this regard [Music] um the the second comment that I would make is that um I appreciate PA's analysis of the distribution based on the number of units um but I uh applaud even further Mike's comments that the distribution is actually based on value so the fact that there are fewer single family units than and those units happen to be more valuable is um a natural outcome of the way this taex works um and the third thing that I would say probably the most important is that as an alternative of looking at this as single family versus condo versus two family versus three family um it also might be actually helpful with with without regard to the physical structure whether it is in those various forms to actually look at bands of assessed value so as you look at the burden for a class of properties that is say Below $600,000 in value between 600 and a million dollars of value a million to two and so on if because if you want to consider the progressivity of the taxes it doesn't really matter whether you are in a $1.6 million condo or a $1.6 million house and I think that the single family versus condo discussion may be distorting your consideration on a tax that is specific to valuation of properties thank you Regina has her hand up Regina thank you Regina fry from Precinct 16 I have really a basic question and I hope it can be basically answered the example John gave on his chart for the condo that was roughly just under $500,000 was paying by your research, 1500 plus or minus um my street again some people have better kitchens than others but basically let's average it out is double what that condo is so close to a million dollars plus or minus a little bit depending on what improvements they did and yet they're paying more than 100% more in taxes if you were to double that condo and say that it's actually a million had you done a million dooll condo then it would have been $3,000 for their taxes and people are paying more than double that for the same comparable value so could somebody explain so that I can go back to my precinct and explain it to them cuz they're talking about this thank you yeah Ted um so the residential exemption exempts $346,500 hear me now you can hear me now oh I guess you can't your off put your earphones the headset on oh okay because he wasn't speaking into the microphone sorry about that yeah so I'll wait for you so the residential exemption where it adopted would exempt $346,000 in valuation from the parcel or the property so if you you have that million dooll property it's going to exempt $346,500 th000 roughly um same thing with a condo if it's 500,000 you're exempting $346,500 than it does to that $1 million house because it's the same amount same amount but as a percentage it it is but but more so you $1,000 to me um means more than $1,000 to you know Warren Buffett oh I disagree uh is $1,000 I'm sorry M money is uh money is money money is money okay never mind Paul so in an interest of trying to move this along and Landing the ship um Good Luck so first we're getting into issues of I think longer Term Policy that that need deeper um deliberation and discussion some more analysis I know that we're going to be coming up um on uh we're working on a longer term strategic plan for the board uh Mike and I are going to try to help frame that with staff um absent having a a more longer term Vision about what we're actually trying to achieve here um I'm I'm actually landing on I'm reluctant to make major policy changes uh crunching numbers around this table tonight um and I uh am leaning towards the status quo which is to 20% um and accepting the shift that we had last year um that's kind of where I'm at because anyone else besides me age with him oh that sounds good to me well well that's one way to close this meeting well but I'm just I'm just suggesting that that um you know I I mean I would agree with him because of the the way this discussion is gone it's clear that there's you know not anyone on the board much less two or three people who agree that it should go to 19 um uh I I think 22% David I'm sorry to use this kind of language would be Madness I mean really um and I know you have a point that for some reason that doesn't add up to me to me um in the first year of U exempting properties at at the level offering a 22% exemption um there would be a uh somewhat higher uh tax on apartment buildings by the way who pays those taxes um it's not said very often in Brooklyn these days it used to be said all the time um when taxes go up rents go up um the the owners of those properties are going to get their return on their investment and if if we add to the um cost of their investment by you know the kind of um shift in taxes that you you were talking about under that table um the the very people who are going to end up paying it depending on your the kindness and generosity of your landlord um are the tenants and you know not I know there are people who like to think oh the landlord will just you know have to take a cut in his his or her profits um that's not how the the business of property um rentals works is in in my experience so I think 22% would be the wrong thing for us to do that's the only number other than 19 as an alternative to 20 that I've heard offered tonight um and I I I'm not going to stop talking about this because I just think it's tax system that we have created that allows some people to pay an effective tax rate of you know one half or onethird or one quarter of what other people are paying doesn't that is not that to me that's not Progressive um it's regressive okay you have anything else to say Ted nope that's it we're just if we man move to approve we'll submit this tomorrow to the Department of Revenue or this week to the Department of Revenue let's close the hearing and I will make a couple motions uh first uh we have to go first to the um um residential factor and I propose a residential factor of uh the same as last year which was .92 3888 or 92% um hold on yeah are we talking 1.75 thought the shift was the first thing we need versus 1.75 so we're at the Max uh we're we're at the max yeah yeah yeah that's that's all I'm so I just want to make sure Bernard that so the fy2 shift which is which shifts it from residential to commercial is 1.75 is that what you're moving we're taking the maximum shift is that the max looking at from the standpoint of CIP they pay 1 point or 75% higher uh relative taxes uh the 92 is is looking at from the standpoint of residential so same as last year I just don't know where I have that was that in front of me someone no further well he's he right no further sh there's no further shift there's no further shift yeah yeah so ju just to try and clarify so the the actually if if Tiffany you could pull looks like you're pulling vote which is perfect but the what the board is voting on what what the board votes is is not the shift so the the shift is flows through from what you do vote on residential Factor okay so so that residential factor of 92488 um leads to that maximum shift it's a rounding thing but it it's I think it's 1.74 thank you okay is that clear yes thank you um okay so uh that's my motion all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak hi um Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren hi David Perman hi chair vot I uh my next motion is uh I move that we um set the residential exemption uh uh at 20% um and the actual number is going to be different right do we do we have that number yeah 20% that's correct no no but what what does that work out to what does that work sorry you want the the uh the valuation yeah but we we don't need to vote on that you just figure it out us6 times yeah I can't 346,000 what 36536 okay in valuation okay um so that has been moved on in favor please indicate by saying I John v i Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren hi David Perman hi your votes I okay thank you yes if I could briefly Mr chair to select board member Warren's Point um regarding what what the policy directive is of the board I know we staff are very happy if if there's a particular policy goal that you know you as a board are are trying to get to we are very happy to to do everything in our power to get to that we have a lot of restrictions according to state law and to be frank if the goal for example is a progressive uh property tax system that reflects income we have some limitations there because we don't know what people's income is necessarily right but I just want to be clear that you know if there's a particular policy goal you know that the board wants to wants to seek let us know and we'll we'll we'll do everything in our power to try to get to that goal within the within the confines of the state law and and the information that we have access to so that's all and don't we currently make some adjustments for income um you know elderly um you know there are yeah so abatement program yep the there there are abatements uh and exemptions available for uh seniors of limited income for Veterans for those who are visually impaired again according to the state law yeah but I mean they're very limited but you know the extent that we can provide that um break uh based on income we We Do It um limited as though it may be John I just wanted to raise a point of information which I hope um the assessors can help us with u before we close this discussion we've talked a lot about this exemption residential exemption um are um do taxpayers have to do something proactive in order to get that uh the answer is yes and and what what what do they have to do the chief assessor answer so upon purchasing uh a home in Brookline uh we're proactive in sending a mailer welcome letter which includes the residential exemption information um if the prior owner had the residential exemption it carries over uh you know but they still need to apply and indicate that they live in the parcel or in the house um they do that generally by filing uh paperwork including uh redacted uh form one of their um Massachusetts income tax return uh Andor their Federal redacted federal income tax return indicating the address is in Brookline at the at the residence they're establishing my one of my reasons for raising that question is I happen to be as you heard tonight you know going through the assessor database today to look at you know properties um included in the database and I saw the box which says you know EX attt um and and there's a y for yes and you know sometimes there's an N for no and I just thought to myself wow I would not want to be the residential homeowner who who never checked the Box yes and isn't getting their exemption but there might very well be some people who don't even realize that they are not getting an exemption that they're entitled to and they can figure out right by going to their property in the database absolutely and seeing if it says yes next to exemption yeah we have approximately 9,800 recipients in across the town yeah great thanks thank you good okay thank you our chair was wise and push vot well nettled it can I question this this chat is extremely helpful yeah uh and is this in the packet yes oh no is is it not it's not in our book that was that was it's in the packet it is okay oh in the packet thank you that's I'd love to have the Excel version of that instead of the PDF but okay okay okay next uh we have the annual Town election question of setting the date for the 2025 annual Town election I don't see uh Ben's online oh he's online okay oh there you are did you enjoy our conversation on tax classification I will say I am at home where we are currently making a gingerbread house so I'm curious in the tax implications for our gingerbread house but are you expanding the space or have you made improvements uh it will unfortunately not have a residential exemption I think I'm a little too big for it okay okay um so tell us tell us what we're doing here what we're doing but tell us date sure so the vote before you is a vote to set the date for the annual Town election in 2025 um which is the next election we have coming up even after our very busy 2024 year um under the general bylaws we're required to set the date of the annual Town election by the uh 3rd Tuesday in January and the election must be held on either the 1 or 2 Tuesday in May um my recommendation to the board is that it be held on the 1 Tuesday in May which would be May 6th 2025 um voters have come uh to expect it's uh typical that elections are on the first Tuesday of the month um and I feel like there is a value in that consistency for voters the reason I'm asking you guys to vote now um on uh setting the date for the election instead of waiting until uh the third Tuesday in January is to give the town clerk's office more time to do a lot of our preparation work and to allow us to more effectively reach out to voters to poll workers and to other people involved uh in our elections we have a couple of events coming up uh or or deadlines coming up in December uh including a wrap-up meeting with poll workers regarding the 2024 election where we're hoping to give them information about 2025 to retain some of our poll workers who came on for the presidential um as well as the annual Town census which will be sent to the printers in December uh to go out to voters in January which would uh hopefully be able to include information on the uh annual Town election finally it's helpful we've already we had people reaching out to our office asking about offices about running for office what positions there will be when nomination papers will become available so having that information now is going to be helpful as we expect more of those inquiries uh over the next few weeks um within this vote is not only the date for the election but also the offices that will be on the ballot uh it is not a finalized list there might be offices that get added later on if there's an instance of a resignation uh which the board would have to vote on again um but this will allow us to make nomination papers available for these offices uh starting towards the end of January uh the note that I will put on the offices uh it's a new one for this election um the town meeting approved a bylaw change that will stagger the term for the constables so at this election there will be all five constables on the ballot the first two winners will be elected to three-year terms next two winners to two-year terms and the fifth place uh finisher will be elected to a one-year term uh and that is something that will be different uh for this upcoming election great thank you um I have one question Ben yeah go so um I received a note I think from the charter change uh group that's trying to gather signatures if uh if they were successful in getting signatures and it's certified by the town clerk um would this would it then go on the ballot and we'd get some additional information Ben yes so once the uh signature collection is complete um the uh campaign will submit the final signatures with a letter to my office the campaign has been very Cooperative in helping my office uh avoid overburdening by allowing us to kind of spread out our certification over a longer amount of time because it is a very large number of signatures but once they're finished submitting those signatures they include a letter that starts a 10day clock and at the end of those 10 days uh my office will notify the board uh if they have reached the required threshold of around 6,170 signatures uh to be on the ballot um as long as that date happens um before uh uh there's a cut off about 100 days before the election for that um then the board would vote to include it on the ballot uh so while this list that you have before you is the current offices that we know will be on the ballot um there may be instances both of other offices but also of um a ballot question like a a charter change question that would be added to the ballot um at later date and will just be another vote of the board thank you great any other questions okay there is a proposed vote in our packet and I'd like to move um to call the annual Town election on May 6 2025 from 700 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. for the purpose of electing the following offices one select board member for three years four Trustees of the public library for three years three members of the school school committee for three years one commissioner of the of the Housing Authority for five years W five constables five town meeting members for two three years in all precincts one town meeting member for two years in precincts three and four and one town meeting member for one year in precincts 12 and 15 any questions about the vote all in favor please indicate by saying I John v skak i um Mike Sandman I Paul Warren I David Perman I and chair votes I thank you thank you Ben thank you very much I look forward to seeing you all in May yes uh fire department promotional or promotion recommendation question of promoting firefighter uh excuse me question of promoting firefighter Brian Pender to Lieutenant um is the chief on the chief of operations Dave Randol Chief Randolph talk promotion yes good evening can you hear me okay yep excellent uh good evening David Randolph chief of operations with the fire department uh thank you to the board for having us on the agenda tonight uh tonight we have a positive agenda item as we look to fill a vacant position in our officer Corp our offic of core is very important to our mission and operations within the fire department at the November 12th select board meeting this body unanimously approved the fire department's request to promote a vacant position internally uh the fire department administration reviewed the standings on the current Civil Service list and conducted interviews of the requisite eligible candidates for promotion tonight I respectfully asked the select board to promote the following individual firefighter Brian Pender to Lieutenant firefighter penda joined the Brookline fire department on September 2017 gradu uating first in the academy class from the outset firefighter Pender has shown great initiative and is a self-motivated learner completing his emergency medical technician firefighter 1 and two certification and hazardous materials operations level uh level certification he also holds certifications in the incident command system 100 200 700 and 800 levels as well as having his fire instructor one certification after graduating from Westwood High School in 2008 Brian attended and graduated from nor Eastern University earning a bachelor's degree in criminal justice during his college career he served as an intern with the Brookline Police Department in the State Office of the Attorney General after graduating in 2013 firefighter Pender returned to the Attorney General's office and served as an investigator Advocate until his appointment on the Brookline Fire Department Brian has been serving admirably as a temporary tenant in an officer position since May of 2022 and uh I can't say enough about Brian he's a great candidate and I'm happy to be here presenting for him and seeking your approval okay any question okay uh so I move um approval of the promotion of firefighter Brian Pender to Lieutenant all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak hi Paul S I'm sorry Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren hi and uh David Perman hi and chair vot ey thank you thank you very much and the administration will be forwarding an invitation to the board if you would like to attend the promotion ceremony on Friday morning Friday morning at 10: am right yes sir okay thank you Mr thank you thank you have a good night thanks for waiting good night oh I apologize having are you having to wait no worries at all thank you very much it was well worth the wait have a good night everyone take care okay next uh ground lease EST stopple certificate and ground lease Amendment um who's going to speak on that and we had a a a person Jonathan Davis asked for its deferral I'm not sure but first assistant Town Council Jonathan Simpson and Amy Engles Transportation administrator are both on okay good good evening everyone uh as Chad said uh I'm Jonathan Simpson first assistant Town Council um and uh the matter that uh first matter that I'm here uh uh before you is related to the uh 40 Webster uh Webster Street property um 40 Webster Street is a town-owned parcel that is um currently subject to a long-term ground lease where we have leased the property to a um an entity with the intention that it' be uh first a hotel be constructed on the property and then and then operated on that property uh the the arrangement has been working just fine for uh several decades now uh but the current uh owner uh there is you know some the corporate world is complex and there is a number of different entities uh involved here but uh suffice to say the the tenant the people we that that currently are are occupying the property are um looking to refinance they need additional capital and in doing so uh they they need uh basically what's called an aole certificate where the town uh AES that it all of the obligations under the lease are met and is therefore estopped from after you know later CH claiming that up until the date we indicate on the Assa certificate um that there was anything wrong they were deficient in any way that they're in default of their lease obligations um we have uh I've worked with with Amy and with uh commissioner sh on uh verifying that indeed they are in uh conformance with their obligations under the lease it took a little bit of doing um they are they have a number uh they effectively pay rent uh to the town a small but significant amount um based on some parking spaces some overnight parking spaces that they have they um that they rent out they share that rent with the town and there was there needed to be some communication related to um to making sure that that rent was being paid and that the town was receiving it in the proper accounts and aware of it quite frankly in addition um Webster Street is what's uh what's known as a community Street um under the and under the original lease the um the entity that we the tenant was responsible for um basically uh maintaining a number of the sort of Public Works on the streets um the plantings the upkeep of some of the the um the trees things like that and there was some deficiencies uh in their in their obligations there which they have rectified So based on that um we believe that the it is appropriate at this point that the town that they're because they're meeting all their obligations that the uh you the select Board sign the estoppel certificate uh that they are uh that they have uh submitted to us and that you have in front of you which will allow their uh their financing um which will sort of the the the musthave for their financing in addition however in the course of uh working on the estole certificate they indicated that the the Capital Market currently the um you know lenders are looking for additional assurances anytime they're going to uh put their Capital At Risk um and these works out a number of different ways we're seeing this in a number of different areas uh but the way it manifested here was the they were requesting first in the estop certificate which I told them was inappropriate but um basically modifications to the lease to allow the lender um so we have of course we have the landlord that's the town the tenant which is the hotel operator and now we're going to have the lender who's going to be the person giving them the mortgage uh or you know mortgage or the leas the or whatever you want to call it um that they uh they want more of more of an ability to um I'll you know in shorthand to sort of Step into the the the tenants shoes if anything happens if that tenant is insolvent is unable to make the business work um there is you know the ability of the landlord the the lender to essentially step into their shoes with a minimum of process find a new you know either run the business themselves which I'm certainly they don't want to do probably just find another operator that they would then put in their put in the the current operator place and allow the hotel to keep running bottom line that is exactly the Paradigm the town should be seeking here we signed a long-term lease for a reason we thought it was in the best interest of the Town back then to have the hotel to have this property be owned and op be operated as a hotel these changes um I believe do no damage to the town's interests uh outside of pure speculation I respect Mr Davis very much but I do believe that in this case I think his concerns are unfounded I think they are sort of piling you know a hypothetical on top of a hypothetical like if we had a bad faith lender and there was a situation where we needed to modify the lease and there was you know somehow we weren't able to work it out that this could put the town in a bad spot I do not see that happening what I do see is a situation where they they we've already you know we're a municipality we work as fast as we can work that is not as fast as the private sector so these people have been waiting to get their refinancing for a while if we kick this out to another meeting to renegotiate these terms which again I do not in my opinion are not not substantial or detrimental to the town in any way if we try attempt to renegotiate them at this point we put the them in a position where they're going to have to wait another month potentially to uh to get the refinancing and you know because of the way things work um does that mean they're in a completely different portfolio for the lender that they're not going to get the same terms that it's going to you know it it may it may hurt their business I don't know uh suffice to say and and Amy is here to to verify everything I said about them meeting their obligations if you if you need her to to speak on that particularly with respect to the parking but I believe they've they've you know we've we've done we've done the the the leg work to make sure they're going to meet their obligations the obligations that we made sure to put in writing back in the day and at this point I think it's just a matter of working in partnership with you know this sort of now tripartite arrangement of us and the and the the tenant and the lender to sort of just get this across the finish line and allow this to keep to allow this relationship to keep going which I believe benefits the town so I'm happy to answer any questions you Paul yep uh thank you um and it's really helpful to know that the time sensitivity of this and renegotiating so thank you for bringing that up um I read I guess I was reading the uh Amendment to the coolage corner parking study and the amendment to the coolage corner parking study mentioned I think I may be wrong it's late uh parking at the hotel as a possible location for uh you know potential additional capacity or change capacity I may be wrong um first is that is the hotel part of the P potential plan Amy and then I think it's directed to you and then does this lease account for that or um does it accommodate us if we wanted to do something with with the hotel parking um sure so the uh the public is open to park at the hotel in the parking lot uh now um it's not really publicized uh per se it's not on their website they didn't think um and there's a very tiny uh sign that just has a blue pee you know that you a lot of people have seen around pointing towards the garage so it's not saying that they can't go in there but it's not really like being clear that they can um so it's pretty well underutilized but it is available to the public uh to park not just over overnight the overnight spaces are what we get uh some Revenue share from but uh someone can go and if they're going to go shopping or something in college corner someone can park there um we're waiting to hear back from them on the exact rates it's kind of like um the first couple hours are uh within in the ground lease they're they're uh said they have to be equal to or lower than what we charge at at the Town um we don't know exactly what those are but it gets you know as you increase uh the number of hours you're staying it gets more expensive per hour um so it's kind of a um tiered that way we're waiting to hear on exactly how much it is but okay yeah is available so there's nothing in here that contradicts our current arrangement with them correct or or allowing us it's it is considered public parking they do charge for it but it's it it's accommodated by this uh this ground this lease that's correct yeah the the co Corner parking plan was merely just I think their suggestion would be to just advertise that more uh clearly you're doing a good job with the parking plan because that's where I learned uh that was this was available I didn't know until I read your uh your proposed amendment to the contract so thank you sure okay any other questions um Jonathan Simpson's explanation of uh the importance of this um uh going forward and the protections that we have was persuasive to me y uh so I'd like to move of approval uh despite Jonathan Davis's concerns I'd like to move of approval of um the ground lease of stole certificate and the ground lease Amendment uh all in favor these indicate by saying I I'm sorry were you you waving I'm sorry okay uh just for the record Bernard I also the vote should contain a delegation to the Town Administrator to sign on your behalf if you're comfortable with that right right it's it's in the agenda here yeah um so I move the question of executing the ground lease EST stopple certificate and ground lease Amendment for the property at 40 Webster Street known as the Courtyard Marriott Brookline and currently leased by B core 40 Webster Street LLC and of delegating to the Town Administrator the authority to sign on the board's behalf all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak hi Michael sanon hi Paul Warren hi David prman I chair votes I thank you Jonathan thank you and Amy I think Jonathan is still on for the next one yes okay and the next one is the pudding Stone Declaration of restrictive covenant uh question of executing the putting Stone Declaration of restrictive covenant as authorized by town meeting remember that yes I I will be very brief uh we warn article six um of the town meeting we just finished author authorized the board to sign the document you have in front of you you'd already voted uh heard about it in in the public hearing it's basically um that uh it's basically a a requirement of the comprehensive 40b comprehensive permit that they sign a enter in a restrictive covenant that pre prevents them from putting any buildings or parking areas in the area that's the pting stone development in the southwest corner of Hancock Village uh of the Brooklyn portion of South of hanock village that is uh not contemplated by the comprehensive permit or any of its amendments okay any questions here okay then I move approval of um the question of executing the puddingstone Declaration of restrictive covenant as authorized by town meeting on favor please indicate by saying I John vanak I Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren hi David prman I and chair votes I and that concludes our meeting unless someone uh in the audience on Zoom or here in the uh hearing room has uh some post meeting comments public comments seeing none uh I declare the meeting closed thank you