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[Music] [Music] good evening I'm Bernard Green chair of the Brookline select board and this is the regular meeting of the select board for March 5th
2025 uh we'll start off with announcements and updates from the select board uh I'd like to start off with um the following at the select board meeting on February 11th I noted the minuscule size of the black population in Brooklyn due to the
actions of federal state and local governments private citizens Banks and other businesses with such a small black population we nonetheless benefit from a significant number of black Giants among our residents at that M uh meeting I
mentioned the passing of flash Wy a prominent lawyer here in Brooklyn uh in Boston and the exhibit uh of John Wilson's work at at the U Museum of Fine Arts which will also be at the Metropolitan Museum in New York I think
in July unfortunately we lost another black giant Alvin F pant died on February 24th at his home on Bellington Road in chesa hill at age 90 Kant was a world renown
renowned psychiatrist Who provided Medical Care to the civil rights movement in Mississippi and then played a leading role in debates among black about Black Culture and politics through his research on the effects of racism on black mental health he advised the
Reverend Jesse Jackson during his 1984 presidential campaign and consulted on TV programs to ensure the public was giving a realistic a realistic view of the diversity of black lives life these those shows included family matters that
featured a brainy but Goofy teenager named Steve Urkel The Cosby Show in a different world Dr pant spent most of his career as a professor and Associate Dean at Harvard Medical School um again we lost
a giant here in Brooklyn so any other comments or updates Mike no oh but you're read John always always always always always um so uh obviously it is now March and the next month after March
is April and when I think of April I think of the Boston Marathon uh which is coming up once again and just a couple of notes about the Boston Marathon that I think make it you know particularly special to Brookline uh this year um one
is to check out um brooklyn.new for a really good feature on a 19-year-old by the name of James reading who um actually grew up in Brighton but he's an assistant varsity hockey coach at Brooklyn High has uh five marathons
under his belt um and is on his way to um uh hopefully uh achieving um a a very special U these are called World Marathon majors and Abbott Labs um uh has a competition for top finishers in
these major marathons and um he's on his way to completing um all of the you know U necessary Majors to um secure that recognition from What's called the Abbot
Abbot World um um well it's they're called World Marathon Majors so good good for ver for James reading also um let's not forget that Brooklyn has its own team Brookline uh which is organized
by a number of the uh nonprofit uh charities in the town um they secure uh qualified Runners to run in a marathon and I don't mean to say qualified they secure Runners who will run volunteer to
run and hopefully complete the marathon and at the same time raise funds for the various Charities that are sponsoring the runners and that's all pulled together um by the Brooklyn Community Mental Health Center um so it's time to
check out that page team Brookline and look at the many Runners who are um volunteering to comp to to run in the marathon raise funds for Brookline Charities and looking for sponsors and the team is looking for sponsors so it's always a good thing to sort of add to
your enjoyment of the Boston Marathon um one last note uh learned today that there is a um something known as as the I'll get it in a second the Brooklyn Asian-American family Network Works annual essay contest for Brooklyn High
School aged um students and the topic this year is being an Asian Amer American what is your superpower I really like that topic um as it happens the submissions are due um this Friday March 7th and so you can visit the site
of the Brookline Asian-American family Network um it's not too late um if you are a person who can really write well on Deadline because the deadline is March 7th but I thought we should take note of that as well that's it thank
you any other comments okay now we have public comment Tiffany uh uh discuss the rule or present the rules thank you for joining us for public comment this is an opportunity for us to hear your perspective on the issues in bookline
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's an opportunity at the conclusion of the select board's business for additional comments members of the public sometimes raise questions during public comment we may be able to
provide a quick answer to a question 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 Brookline precinct number or street address the first Speaker who signed up in advance is Daniel Lipton after Daniel Lipton will be Jim [Music]
Durkin good evening my name is Daniel Lipton I'm a Brookline resident in Precinct 11 a parent of a student at Driscoll and a student at BHS a teacher at F frr for 23 years and I've been running the smart Summers theater arts
program at Brooklyn adult and Community Education for 20 years I'm here tonight to talk about the school budget and to reiterate that all cuts are bad cuts I know that often the select board and town meeting have to think about the bottom line our bond rating taxes
overrides balance budgets while these facts numbers and statistics are important to grown-ups this is not what kids are thinking about kids want to enjoy School learn how to play an instrument explore the magic of reading and math I ask as you make these grown-up Town decisions that you keep at
the Forefront the question what is in the best interest of the children as a second grade teacher who loves to use music in my classroom and as a songwriter who writes original musicals for smart summers at Bass I come to plead my case to you in an unusual way tonight I will now share with you a song
to the tune of What a Wonderful World I see Brookline fully funded and the schools too I see students Bloom for me and you and I think to myself what a
wonderful District I see teachers working hard no layoffs in sight dedicated to the kids with all their might and I think to myself what a wonderful District the programs of the
district so enriching for the Youth the music fills the halls and I'm telling the truth I see class sizes small helping students one and all we're all saying Brooklyn we love you don't punish the kids or the dedicated staff let's
not become a district that makes people point and laugh and I say to myself we can be smart and unite for the sake of the kids let's get the budget right thank you right thank you the next speaker is
thank you if we can keep the claps down a little bit so we can continue the time in here folks the next speaker is Jim Durkin followed by Kevin McKenzie boy talk about a tough act to fall off gez uh thank you chairman green members
of the board for the record my name's Jim Durkin I'm the legislative director for asme Council 93 I'm a resident L but asme is headquartered at 8 Bacon Street in Boston we represent about 35,000 Massachusetts public sector workers including about 350 50 men and women who
work quietly behind the scenes here in Brookline every day delivering essential Services the public relies on services that make Brookline one of the state's most desirable communities to live and raise a family and I'm going to be brief tonight because I I get the feeling this
will not be the last time I'll be in this room and outside this Hall over the next several months and that's because as I'm sure you know the people we represent your public schools about a hundred women and men are facing the threat of privatization a threat that if if it becomes a reality will result in a
deep pay cut for these workers the loss of their pension and in all likelihood the loss of quality health insurance coverage for themselves and their families when it comes to health insurance if history is in indicator they will under the best case scenario be paying more and out- of pocket cost
for reduced Health Care coverage and why is that why are they facing this threat that will upend their lives the answer is simple we're heading into tough e Economic Times and Tighter budgets for municipalities and when that happens people like cafeteria workers and school
custodians are the first and quite often the only workers who are forced to Bear the overwhelming majority of the burden but I can tell you that in doing this job for 22 years now it's not just the workers who suffer it's also the school children and their parents and ultimately the taxpayers the entire
Community who suffers too after the workers are replaced the parents and school children are the first to feel the impact when they see The Trusted members of their school communities people who are of the fiber of the schools replaced with a revolving pool of strangers many of whom have unknown
histories and backgrounds intend not to stick in the same job for as long as public sector workers because the paying benefits are so lousy then in the not too distant future the taxpayers will be impacted in the form of diminished quality of services and steadily rising
cost that's because the pattern is always the same with privatization a for-profit company secures the contract with a lowball bid then after a few years pass and the municipality loses the infrastructure to provide the service in house the contract goes up
every single year and before long the town's paying at least the same if not more for Less much less 30 seconds of what they're getting from the inhouse workforce simply because they panicked during those tough Economic Times a few years ago and took the path of lease
resistance which was casting aside their Workforce for some perceived short-term savings so look I got to wrap this up uh again I'll be back but I we're asking for your help we know this decision rests with the school board but there's a lot that you can do to help uh and I
know the last time we faced a threat like this in Brook line was almost 15 years ago thank you that concludes your time the next speaker is Kevin McKenzie after Kevin McKenzie will be Rachel Keegan mclin hello my name is Kevin McKenzie I live in precin 13 I am
the chair of the commission for diversity Equity inclusion and community relations I speaking in support of the budget that will be presented to you later this evening for the office of diversity Equity inclusion and community relations Lloyd and all staff in his office do essential work for our community at this critical national
moment it is important that OD eicr is able to continue their work of bringing residents together and ensuring that everyone in Brookline resident employee and visitor alike has access to the resources and support they need separately I would like to share my deep concerns regarding the potential
privatization of union jobs held by members of asme Local 5 1358 proposals before the school committee that would privatize good paying union jobs are alarming these are among the school Department's most diverse employees while the custodians and food and service workers are schoolside employees
they do belong to a townside union given this I ask that you can see if there's any way any possible way that you as the select board can intervene to protect these union jobs from private those efforts would be sincerely appreciated thank you for your time thank you the next speaker is
Rachel Keegan mlin followed by Rachel will be Mark Golder my name is Rachel Keegan mcclin I was a special educator at the Lawrence School and I'm currently the Hayes educational team facilitator which is a building level special education administrator I urge you to transfer the
needed funds to the school department to fix the $8.2 million budget Gap we call ourselves the Brookline School System and tonight I'd like us to hold tight to the idea of schools as a system in a system all the parts are integral and
necessary to the whole here is one way the Systems Support students who are struggling all of our K8 schools have a committee called the student intervention team which is part of General en education at Hayes we meet in a fifth grade classroom on Thursdays after school and the standing team
includes a counselor speech language pathologist Behavior specialist general education teachers an English language teacher myself and our principle teachers sign up to present students for whom they are concerned so with our hive mind we try
to figure out why a student is struggling and to develop interventions to support them it could be a student who's working on connecting with people years or staying in the classroom or they could have recently moved to this country and are struggling to access grade level
curriculum we brainstorm our list of interventions and supports could look something like recommendations for check-ins with a counselor a referral to a math or literacy specialist for small group instruction recommendations from the speech language pathologist or English language teacher on how to
support navigating academic language we always produce a list of things to try with multiple adults involved students need Circles of support with a team working in concert let's think about the ramifications of some of the cuts propos
proposed thus far to the system imagine yourself a first grade student who is struggling with something fewer first grade PA professionals mean your teacher has no time to work with you in a small group less counseling staff means no Lunch Bunch group where you learn how to
reserve conflicts fewer English language teachers mean you get one session per week instead of a state manded guidelines cuts to math Specialists means you can't get an intervention group because there's not enough room and cuts to special Educators mean that your reading group is so big to call A
specialized instruction is ludicrous when we cut staff to the Bone we reduce our ability to bolster students at their moment of need and the needs grow more extreme students who are struggling require support from all the components of general education and
special education working as a c cohesive system remember out of District special education has been highlighted by PSB Administration as a major cost driver not supporting students needs with appropriate Staffing will only increase those stop costs I urge you to
transfer the needed funds to the school department we are a system and like all systems all the parts thank you that concludes your time next is Mark Golder hello my name is Mark goldner I teach seventh and eighth grade science at the
hay school where I've been for 23 years I'm also in the executive board of the Brooklyn Educators Union where I serve as the chair of the professional rights committee I'm here to say that the public schools of Brooklyn are at a crisis point and the $141 million allocation that the town has proposed will surely P push us past the crisis to
A system that is broken Beyond repair public schools of Brookline in 2025 is a far cry from the vibrancy that I found in 2002 over the past decade or so the erosion of support from the town has made it harder and harder for us to do our jobs as Educators when I came to
Brookline it was an exciting place to be an educator teachers had ample opportunities to grow as Professionals in order to best serve our students there was robust professional development which made Brooklyn the Envy of Educators around the region and the country as a science teacher I was supported by the district to attend
professional science conferences and then to bring that learning back to fellow Brooklyn teachers that kind of support was cut long ago and now the only way we can collaborate with professionally with others outside the district is by paying by paying out of pocket or searching for Grants Brooklyn used to invest in robust in-house
professional development to support Educators each year science teachers would be provided with at least one or two release days to collaborate with others and to build our curriculum now that too is gone Central administrators lament that PD has to be done on the cheap if at all that's not a way to maintain excellent schools and to
attract and retain excellent Educators over the years the jobs of our K8 curriculum coordinators have become increasingly more difficult as they now have to shoulder greater burdens to support teachers since District PD support has dried up and now we hear the curriculum coordinators are on the chopping block how can a district like
Brooklyn justify what will be an inevitably steep drop in the quality of science social studies Ela math teaching as a result even more dire as you just heard is the situation with special education districtwide in schools around the district understaffing is leading to Serious educator injuries and Miss
Services as a result educators are burnt out out and demoralized staff members even including administrators are called in on a daily basis to cover taking away uh taking them away from doing their essential duties in addition to very challenging circumstances of working with our neediest children par
profession par professionals are paid so poorly for many not even a living wage that it's difficult to recruit Replacements when they leave often out of Despair and frustration and to imagine cutting special education services even more seems unfathomable in desperation the town is even considering
azing its custodial and kitchen workers to take these essential workers Pride themselves on getting to know the students they serve while doing the very best jobs they can is shameful the Pu has done a thorough analysis of town finances and we believe that money can be moved right now to the school budget without compromising
brookline's Bond rating as a be leader I stand here to say we are ready to collaborate but it's hard to collaborate when the town is threatening job loss elimination of essential programs and the privatization of our Workforce thank you thank you we have time for one more
speaker tonight and that speaker is Melissa Maggie kif hi uh members of this slck board uh oh sorry Hi members of the slck board my name is Maggie canif and I am a kindergarten teacher at the Lincoln
School I've been doing that for 19 years and I I didn't plan on speaking tonight but um then I had a conversation with my custodian and I had a memory from 2006 when I started and she was my first
friend at my school when you're a new teacher you are um working late and working in the summer getting your classroom ready and it's really exciting but also really scary and you know to
think that my custodian after 19 years uh more I've been working 19 years she's been there longer who was my first friend could be fired is just heartbreaking to me and I want you to know that every single person who is in
the school is essential and we believe and I really really truly think that you can save us and you can make Brook line get back to where it used to be um so please
they our schools thank you that concludes the time at the beginning of our meeting for public comment thank you Tiffany chy real quickon I just jump in real quick sure I just want to say thanks again to the folks who have come out and spoken the team from asme as well really
appreciate your um the work that you do not just in the schools but across the many uh different areas that ASP represents of the unionized workforce in the town so thank you um thank you for the folks who spoke I know public speaking is not easy particularly on difficult subjects um I want to
reiterate something I said last week and give a couple updates to the community on where we are with some of these things one is the uh proposed audit the deficit review uh we're currently back and forth with the proposed contractor on one sentence in the contract I'm hoping that gets done tonight and we
sign that and move forward on that process the asked on how long that will take is around eight weeks that's higher than six weeks but that's the shortest that they could do it in it's going to require a lot of effort and collaboration across the town and schools to make that work so my commitment on the town side is obviously
that we're going to provide everything we can to move that as fast as we can so that we have some more answers on what's going on and what controls need to be in place to ensure it doesn't happen again um the other aspect of this again I'm grateful as always to the um
conversations with the executive what I would say is you know for the many reasons I outlined last week and I encourage you if you have I don't know an hour to watch the budget presentation from last week if it were as simple as moving $8 million around we would have
done it I mean the town is facing a deficit too you know we're facing a deficit of over half million dollars uh and that's going to require cuts on our side and unlike on the school side I think our button deficit has the possibility of increasing if I could wave a wand and make that go away I
would um um but unfortunately that's not where we are so what we need to do is think creatively about how to solve these problems I'm grateful to hear that the invitation for collaboration the discussion for collaboration what I would strongly encourage to Union leadership on all sides is pick up the
phone and call me or email me let's set up a time to meet let's talk about it um I appreciate that we're trying to do this in a collaborative way um I don't want to be in the situation we were in last year where this this this you know idea that you know there's money being hidden where there's there's there's an
easy fix to the problem I wish there was an easy fix to the problem there's not but together we might be able to find some solutions to this that were at least manageable for all of us so that's where I am I strongly encourage Union leadership send me an email let's find a time to meet thank
you thank you okay good okay uh next on our agenda our miscellaneous calendar uh starting off with minutes for February 25th 2025 on any corrections okay all in favor please
indicate by saying I John vanak hi Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren hi David Perman i j votes I next I'd like to take items 3B through 3G in Omnibus fashion unless someone would like to uh discuss any particular
item seeing none I move of approval of items 3B through 3 G uh all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak sorry ber yes I'm sorry uh we did receive a letter on 3E and I think it's just worth mentioning the issues that um
arise if if from that oh I mean sure so we received a letter uh advocating for uh any prop proposal for bcut Street housing feasibility take into consideration the possibility of a land swap there for fire station 5 um which is going to be demolished and rebuilt as
part of the broader fire station renewal process I'm sure we can look into that um I think one of the there are two separate but potentially interrelated issues there one is can we do fire station 5 faster and the other is can we do can we you know do this sort of land swap proposal um we've spoke Chief
Sullivan has spoken with the folks requesting this and with me and with the select board um just by way of the virtue of how the pro project is operating um and by the fact that um we um can only have so many fire stations
down at one time the Pro work on stations one and four has to be finished before station five begins um we are trying to proceed with all dispatch on that um but there's not capacity both in terms of fire safety and frankly um
design work uh to ensure that um to to take on you know redoing station 5 or rebuilding station five in a different place so um I think all potential uses of the Babcock Street lot um for housing or the potential of a land swap can be
considered as part of this work um but in terms of the timeline the timeline you know given where we are in the design and rebuilt refurbishment process has to be stations one and four then station five and then the remaining stations nice question now was curious
about this term land swap I we own both Parcels right but I it's really just so change of use yes okay okay so change in plan right is B change of use now land swap has a particular meaning correct yeah um okay all in
favor of items 3B through 3G please indicate by saying I John vak I Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren hi David prman hi sure votes I okay let go to our calendar boards and commissions annual
reports presentation of the vision zero committee's annual report to the select board come up to the podium and introduce yourself and make [Music] your good evening select board thank you
for hearing me tonight um I am Sam DS I am one of the transport Engineers with our engineering and transportation department and um I am here to report on our progress uh for the vision zero committee uh so as a little recap quickly the vision zero study committee
was uh unanimously voted by uh this board in April of 2022 and that board included Uh current chair green and select board member van squeak uh seven representatives were appointed to this committee we have Liaisons from the Transportation board the bicycle advisory committee The pedest Pedestrian
advisory committee the safe roots to school task force our select board member uh Michael samman and a liaison from the Brookline Police Department um we have been working Town staff with the uh tool Design Group who has been the
consultant uh aiding Us in this process um and so tonight I want to give you an update on uh the progress that's been made to date um come on arrows there we go uh so the vision zero process is best summarized as an approach to roadway
design um that seeks to eliminate all tra traffic fatalities and severe injuries while also increasing safe healthy and Equitable Mobility for all so for that uh we're talking about uh vehicular drivers uh pedestrians bicyclists and and everyone who can who
can get around um so the the process started in early 2024 and we've been extensively engaging the public over um the last 12 months uh We've held numerous Vision zero committee meetings um and we've also attended many farmers
markets hosted public online forums in the form of maps um where people can leave their input um and I'll walk through that in a second uh so the background of vision zero is the Safe Systems approach um and so that's uh understanding that in order
to uh have Brook line be as safe as possible and eliminate all serious injuries and fatalities uh we need to tackle this from a lot of different directions and so um right here is just a simple graphic it's uh pretty and it it means that we need to have safer
Vehicles we need to have safe speeds on our roads we need to have safe roads uh and we also need to be able to to look at uh the current problems and find better ways to to tackle them um we want to be proactive in the way that we tackle roadway safety um and that means
uh looking at the whole town and seeing where are the issues uh looking at the data uh because this is a datadriven process um and I'll get into that quickly in a second trying to keep this to 10 minutes so one of the most important uh uh
factors in the severity of crashes uh is speed and so um Brook line uh two years ago I believe uh took a really large step forward in designating over 300 local roads um as 20 M hour safety zone
uh speeds so um in Brookline having over 300 roads is 20 mph is a really important first step in reducing the severity uh and likelihood of a fatal crash uh this statistic shows the likelihood that a crash ends in a fatality or severe injury just based off the speeds of cars you can see that over
73% of crashes of 40 miles an hour result in that while only 133% will result in a fatality or severe injury when drivers are going 20 miles an hour so speed is a factor a major factor uh so the Safe Systems approach is a four-step process we it starts with a
vision zero action plan and a commitment that we've um are working towards um so that action plan has been uh in the process with the committee for the last year now um actually our committee meeting is tomorrow night Mike I will see you there um or Thursday night sorry
it's only Tuesday um and we will be reviewing the draft action plan that outlines the strategies that we hope to implement in Brookline in order to have safer roads for all users um summary of the planning process um to
ensure uh that we have been um trying to get the public as engaged as possible as I mentioned we've been holding Vision zero committee meetings we've been coordinating with all the subcommittees of the transportation board uh you know bicycle petac shared Mobility um disability commission to make sure that
they're aware that this is a process that the town is undergoing um and that uh becoming a vision zero Community which would uh make us the fourth in the state of Massachusetts behind only Boston Somerville and Cambridge uh is a serious commitment that the town is
making to uh to make our roads safer for everyone uh as I briefly mentioned uh this is a datadriven approach to roadway safety and so uh with our consultant we have done a a five-year review of Crash data in the town of Brookline uh to
ultimately produce what is called the high priority Network I will show you that in the next slide um this also included a review of existing plans and policies which I know will be a a topic to come in March as we talk about our revised complete streets and other roadway maintenance plans um don't want
to spoil anything there um and then eventually the development of the action plan which we will be bringing back to the board um in the coming months once the plan's been finalized uh so here's just overview of public engagement uh this is a lovely resident at the farmers market that I
attended uh we we did uh at least two that I can remember of uh farmers markets uh we got great days uh we had an online m where residents uh could leave points uh indicating what concerns what safety concerns they had at a
particular location compiled those and used those as part of our uh data process for prioritizing bless you for the uh roads in Brookline um this included strong coordination with the safe roots to school task force as well and I mentioned all the other subcommittees
um so as part of as part of that survey process I won't go too much in the data here but um we you know highlighted uh you know pedestrians and bicyclists for for the means of this uh and what conditions ultimately made people uh feel unsafe at the locations on those
Maps um a lot of this had to do with people's Comfort getting around um and also the quality of sidewalks and curb ramps again conversation to come uh as bicyclists uh speed was a highlight and uh lack of dedicated space for the
respond uh people who responded to this message so high priority Network this is one of the most important um features of this uh action plan and and this is ranking um the roads in Brookline that based off
of the data of the last five years or from 2018 to 20 or sorry 2019 2023 this is where the majority of crashes happened and this is where um us as a transportation department and us as a town need to focus on making safety improvements to prevent and be proactive
in in the crashes both uh severe and fatal that Brook line has had over those years uh so uh we are incorporating this um into uh into our upcoming projects Chesnut Hill Avenue um as many as some of you may know uh is going to be on the
bicycle advisory committee tomorrow night um and ultimately discuss the transportation board but we want to narrow the lanes we want to provide the the bicyclists that have a bike lanane there more space uh to feel safer and better pedestrian Crossings uh so much
more to come on that uh so the action plan has many main main themes I'm doing okay um so a lot of this has to do with design but it also has to do with education we really want to connect with the community we want them to understand that we need people off their phones we need drivers who are focused obeying the
traffic rules and uh regulations of the of the road um but we also need to U maintain data collection and monitoring to make sure that we're actually making progress over time uh and as U I think it was 2019 warrant article uh for a commitment uh for Brookline to
transition to 75% of our trips to be made by um methods other than single occupancy vehicles uh next steps because I have a minute um we as I mentioned we are working to finalize the vision zero action plan which will have um a
Playbook per se of strategies that Brookline can Implement when it comes to U making a roadway safer um that includes making crosswalks more visible and it means um making roads that are not straight and highways so um we are really looking
forward to finalizing this plan and bringing it back to the board this is a a good Preamble for what eventually will uh be a full-on presentation uh and asking for the select board to adopt the resolution uh set forth by the vision
zero uh committee and a commitment to uh future um you know future safety improvements [Music] um and with that I have concluded my presentation and I'm happy to take any questions thank you thank you very much
any questions Mike so um Sam I appreciate the the comment that you make about having a a number of of uh of options when you're trying to reduce speeds on a on a street and one of the thing the first things that residents
sent to ask for Speed bumps uh and I think people don't quite really ize the impact of having speed bumps over a longer stretch a short stretch to protect a crosswalk or something like that makes one is is fine but when you put repeated bumps in and put them in close enough close enough together so
that they actually do slow people down they um can be annoying at best and problematic for Public Safety uh at worst U and so I wonder if you could describe a couple of the Alternatives that uh that we're thinking about yeah
absolutely so um one of the alternatives to slowing Vehicles down is the geometry of the roads you know when we when we offer drivers the opportunity to have a you know 15ot wide Lane and a straight shot um again using Chestnut Hill Avenue as a rep uh an example uh if you narrow
those Lanes down to 11 feet to make it comfortable more than comfortable for an MBTA bus uh there's no need to have a 15 foot Lane and that just that visual narrowing of a road um data shows that when you visually narrow a lane it it
makes makes drivers slow down and um I think that's really important when we you know when we look at Town all over is is using uh you know using paint to the best of our ability but also um you know you talk about chicanes you talk about ways to realign the road without
uh drastic parking loss or all the other things that we're concerned about is just creating this idea that you do not have a a highway a straight shot from from point A to B and you realize that there are other people who are trying to get around safely too so those are just a couple examples
thank you yeah well yeah uh thank you Sam um so I'm gonna I'm gonna steal a little bit of John Van skaks uh um talking points on this so I really appreciated the map that you put up where the streets were identified you don't need to do it again but my first
question because I recognize a street on there that I'm very concerned about um and I'm thinking well when does that happen right so I know that there's complete streets there's priorities for complete streets these may not be complete streets these might be different m when will there be a published list to
say this is the first one this is the second one a list of streets and priority and maybe dates when we can get commitments yeah absolutely so um as it pertains specifically to the high priority Network that I showed in those 30 streets um next month or the month after when we
come to you guys as part of finalizing that action plan we will have that list of streets uh in a numerical ranking where um we've worked closely with the consultant to um make sure that what the data shows is what we um also believe to
be the highest priority streets so um at least for those 30 that are uh I believe it's 30 streets that are listed on the high priority Network we will have that list to you in uh either April or May um when we come back with the final action plan um and our goal as a as a
department is to make sure that we are cross referencing that high priority network list with our pavement management plan and the other policies that we've recently developed um or or modified and so we want um we want to as we're coming forward with our CIP and
our Five-Year Plan uh we want to make sure that we're integrating these safety improvements on the streets that need the most so uh that list will be available in the the coming months for those 30 roads okay thank you yeah John uh Sam thanks so much for the
presentation um excuse me I just want to start by asking if you can recall and just repeat I I heard a goal mention which was agreed upon in one of our plans of 75% yeah I believe this is a 2019
warrant article um where the it was a commitment for the town to have of all trips made in the town 75% of those would be made by the means of non single occupancy vehicles I believe I'm it was 2019 and that was a resolution
resolution sorry I apologize but you know has that been adopted by Vision zero as a realistic goal or or it doesn't I don't believe the two are um C or you know we we encourage mode shift so one of the um one of the
sections in the action plan does does highlight the importance of mode shift uh it doesn't identify a particular percentage uh the the the only real numerical goal is to get to zero and that's the deaths and fatalities but it
doesn't it doesn't specifically call out a percentage of mode shift as it pertained to the resolution from 2019 and and are there grants that support the vision zero process yes that probably would have been a great place to start so thank you Mr vanak but um
it's uh it's a little bit up in the air right now as we know many things are with Federal funding but uh one of the one of the primary goals of becoming a vision zero community means that we are eligible for the um Safe Streets for all Grant uh which has provided many cities
um in the United States with funding upwards of 10 you know 10 million or more dollars it's it's a very large pot of money uh it's very sought-after but once you become a vision zero Community you are eligible to apply for that Grant uh and we will know uh we will know more
at the end of March whether or not that funding program will be available for this coming year and so if we were to um be eligible and the grant is there and we adopted as a town that uh we are we are ready to put together a a a grant
proposal for that money how how does one um you know become a sort of certified Vision zero Community Have We Become One uh so this action plan will be presented to you all um in either April or May and uh the
vote the vote at the time would to adopt the resolution to become a vision zero Community uh and that would signify um you know the commitment from from the board in the town to follow the guidance laid out in the action plan and that would therefore make us eligible to and
so if we become a vision zero Comm Community seek Vision zero grants get Vision zero grants does that then bind us to that means you have to do your next street project this
way well the uh there's a a little Flex ility with the this way but the um action plan just lays out types of strategies that could be used so every Vision zero um project that would get implemented as the result of funding either locally
federally or from the state would go through the same process that we currently do with a redesign of a road in requiring Transportation board approval so um we could uh we could signify that a project is um you know aimed at making Vision zero goals but it would still require the same steps that
we go through currently in terms of the approval processes um and coordination with other subcommittees to the transportation board it's beginning to sound very familiar to me just like any other federal or state program that we go through but um it
does require a lot of public a lot of public feedback which is always welcome but but I you know I I guess it's u i mean it's only fair to to sort of just say right you know up front here um we're in the middle of this Washington
Street process mhm and it feels like we got to where we are today because decisions were made as to what has to be in the Washington Street plan for it to qualify as a complete Street to get considerable sum of money
that isn't our money okay and then we find out that that means if for example there are people in one part of the corridor who don't like the plan MH pretty much limits our ability to say to them we'll do it the way you want us to
do it for that you know even if it's just two blocks um I would say that the difference and again I will absolutely look into this to just confirm but based off my understanding is that we are not uh restricted in the same sense as we
are with the do funding for the Washington Street project so I believe that because we are providing a Playbook as I was referencing of options we aren't tied into any one specific one and having to apply it to all streets so it means that
um you know there would be the opportunity for making adjustments uh and not needing approval from you know the federal government per se on how we how we make a street safer because they they're saying we trust you we trust you that you have an approved plan um that's
been adopted into how you're going to make streets safer and then we're going to just trust you that at the local level you can make those decisions to make Street safer um so I um I'm that's my understanding is that we are not um subject to a review from the people who
are offering us that money okay thanks yeah any other questions discussion thank you thank you very much thank you appreciate it thanks next I'd like to take um items eight and nine out
of order uh because I believe the uh parties are either in the audience or on Zoom yes they on Zoom okay so we can get them out of the way quickly before we go into what what will be a fairly long
discussion sure um go ahead I was gonna say Mike Kylie you've been promoted and William Abdullah you've also been promoted um before we get started I just wanted to provide a little bit of context if I may chair green um Tiffany Oliva assistant Town Administrator for
operations um this normally would go to the licensing review panel this one did not go to the licensing review panel which is why it's on your discussion agenda um we wanted to make sure to expedite uh this application for a lodging agent for 1017 Beacon um since
that has been without a resident agent for some time um so Mike Kylie with Pin Street in is online but this is just here for uh your approval of the resident agent Mike Kylie hi I'll you anything you'd like to
add no I appreciate you introduce yourself in your background first sure my name is Mike Mike Kylie I am the director of property management and housing operations for Pine Street we're here tonight for the um house manager
position at 1017 Beacon Street it's a small 14 unit building um right on Beacon Street and uh as Tiffany explained we have been without a uh a house manager in that building a live-in house manager building for a couple of
months but the um we have had built-in redundancy and what we're trying to do right now is once uh William adala is uh currently a house manager at another property for Pine Street and has a lot of experience
uh working as a house manager we're looking forward to getting him going at 1017 and then um we've also probably uh I think we've gone through at least 25 applications for this particular position and the challenges we find in
filling a a livein position um we're working through those uh and then um as I said we're we're trying to build in redundancy so that our we have currently have four house managers in BR line that
we won't have any kind of delay going forward in replacing out manager when someone does decide to leave so but tonight is about William adala and uh and placing him in at the house manager position at 1017 Bacon
Street Great any questions from the select board Paul yep I hi Michael um Paul Warren thank you for coming at for assist report I'm I'm I'm really glad and thank you Tiffany for and and Michael sammon for bringing this on to the agenda for tonight to expedite
it's uh absolutely Tiffany it's all her okay okay um you know as you know there's been um you know there's been um some quite a bit of feedback that we've gotten from the community over over a long period of time uh without a house
manager and I'm curious about just the process of I know that uh in the past a very successful relationship between the house manager and the neighbors um communication wise has been really
important um can you speak a little bit about how that um introduction may happen do you have a plan for um you know introducing or communicating with uh with with the neighbors so that there's a there's a relationship sure yeah we currently have
a a case manager on site five days a week so and that case manager has a very good relationship with the neighborhood and has done an outstanding job in my opinion she will probably um be the first step in introducing William to the
group and then um be the first point of contact if there are any issues but that that's generally how we'll we'll do that we uh in the past we have had barbecues the weather's a little little rough right now for anything outside but um we
would definitely put some kind of event together to introduce the neighbors to uh William okay thank you he any other questions okay um so if there are no other uh questions
or comments from the select board I like to move approval of the application for a change in lodging agent for 1017 Beacon Street uh to William Abdullah all in favor please indicate by saying I John vyak I uh Michael Simon I Paul
Warren I David Perman I chair votes I thank you thank you very much appreciate okay next another uh item that was not on our um hearing uh committee agenda blank
Street Coffee a new common Victor and entertainment license um is that uh something you're gonna introduce Tiffany um I have Stephanie bedro on the line um just want to know as you already said this one didn't go
to the licensing panel we did let Stephanie know that the agenda for the licensing panel is available online as well as the select board agenda so we would like to follow that process moving forward um but I am going to promote Stephanie now thank you very much good
evening is this a hearing no this is not a hearing okay okay sorry go ahead oh okay so um this is just we're just here for a um to for the approval of the common Vic app
and a uh Entertainment app for blank Street Coffee um I thought it was a hearing but um I guess it's because it's on the miscellaneous um you know I'm not sure how the board is handling it I can give you a brief background of what blank Street Coffee
is where it's planning to open um the plan is to open at 455 Harvard Street in Brooklyn uh blank Street Coffee is a concept that first came into being uh 2020 in Brooklyn New York where they ran um battery operate
coffee carts they transmitted to micro retail shops and now have over 37 storefronts with locations in New York Washington and mass uh seven in Boston area to be specific they're clean natural high quality menu of coffee and
baked goods um for affordable prices um and we are here uh just seeking the approval of the CV and entertainment okay thank you any um any questions no this is in the same way as
the prior one was is a matter of uh Expediting something that would have normally gone through very very straightforwardly see but since you're here before us we can ask questions about the quality of your coffee and what makes what distinguishes it from other coffee that you can get along that
strip so like I said the the idea here is that it's clean natural and more affordable and you can see the menu which is on uh page 21 of our application you'll see that the prices are more afford more affordable than some of the more well-known competitors
and um well I haven't tried the coffee yet I have read about it from other um where it's open in other places and it gets great reviews okay that's that's good enough for me I'll try it when it opens and and by the way I may have missed it when
when is it opening uh the plan is to open some sometime later this month that's the Hope any other questions or thoughts John just want to say I have tried it it's really good I think the business plan is is really interesting
and um welcome to Brookline thank you so much you can pass that along Stephanie yeah okay okay unless there are any other questions and this is not a hearing I move that we approve the application for a new common VCT for
blank Street or Lin MC doing business as Banks blank Street Coffee located at 4555 Harvard Street and um for the record the hours of operation will be Monday through Sunday
700 am to 700 p.m and seating will consist of 29 inside seats all in favor please indicate by saying I John Van skak hi Michael Sandman I Paul Warren I David Perman I fa votes I next question of approving the application
for a new entertainment license for blank Street Boston um same hours uh entertainment will consist of recorded music uh all in favor please indicate by saying I John
vanak hi Michael sandon hi Paul Warren hi David Carman hi sh votes I thank you thank you you have a good night okay let's go back to um our regular order next item is going to be approval of seven general orders to
comply with new accreditation standards uh as um as Deputy superintendent Campbell I know sorry think of trying think of something else so um I want to use this item to
say something that remains important uh to me and I think to the town um if not more so in the environment um you know the past hostility to the Brookline police has died down from where it was a few years ago I'll will note that it was
my police reform committee that did a lot to show the community the benefit of a well-trained and professional Police Department that focus on his relationship with the community and community policing encountered misinformation that was rampant in the
community about the police and policing reform committee's report focused on among many other issues the issues raised by the three by three of the general orders we are approving tonight general order 26 traffic enforcement 28 training and 30 use of
force committee made recommendations that greatly improved upon a very good but not perfect Department one of the recommendations was was the creation of the police commissioner's advisory committee which you know remains very VI vibrant and important uh committee today
the issues addressed in uh these general orders were especially important during the period when the murder of George Floyd and other polic Miss behavior in a few of the more than 16,000 local law enforcement organizations was on everyone's mind so even though those
changes are not major in scope they can serve to remind us of how officers are trained in the use of their powers to respect and protect the community so I recommend to the select board and other members of the community that they um
review these and other general orders to get a good and accurate understanding of how we do policing in Brooklyn uh I think that's very important because um from my understanding it's been more than 30 years that we started making the
brookln police department into what it is today and um we should be proud of that and we should be facing our pride on actually knowing uh how you do things things both training as well as the rules that officers are required to
follow so with that thank you Deputy Campbell thank you chairman green I'll I'll add to what you just said that for anybody interested in viewing our general orders they are all uh on our website in an easy uh to
follow format everything's categorized uh by particular topic so you can view a table of contents and pick out whichever ones uh you might be interested in revie a lot of reading but you know like Campbell said you can pick out the ones that really strike uh you know strike
you as important and and and it is important that uh you know people collectively it's more than 700 pages but yeah uh if you just want to pick out a few at a time uh you can get through it so uh today uh Chief Pastor could not
make it she asked me to appear on her behalf uh and I'm here asking for the approval of seven uh general orders uh with some modifications that have been made uh as I'm sure the board is aware
we're an accredited Police Department uh since probably 2012 or 2013 and what that means is that every three years our department goes through an accreditation assessment uh few people from the accreditation commission
they come to Brookline they come to the police station they review our policies they review our procedures are we do our policies comply with accreditation standards and are we following uh the policies so we have one
of those coming up and as part of preparation we go through our policies and we update them as I'm sure you're all aware because you have been receiving batches of uh policies uh over the past year our hope is this is going
to be the last one uh prior to the to the assessment we have a mark assessment coming up next week and then the actual assessment will be at sometime in May after the assessment it's possible you'll have a a few others but hopefully
not too many uh the changes that you've all received Redline copies of what the changes are the changes I I would characterize them for the most part as mandated by accreditation I don't think there are too many that are you know particularly substantive uh
there's a lot of wording changes U I don't think anything too controversial in there um I can go over a a couple we you know we now do uh e citations for moving violations for my entire career
we use paper citations over the last probably about a year or so uh we have put printers in the computer so now if a police officer makes a traffic stop they scan a driver's license they enter the information into a computer and they hit
print and that's where the citation comes from and the data is transmitted to the state uh automatically that's that's one change that is noted in you know in uh one of the general orders we also Incorporated
a field training officer program into the general orders not really a change we had been operating on on that program uh for a while now but it was in a special order general orders are more of a permanent thing and so it made sense
to incorporate that into uh a general order um other than that if anybody has any questions about anything in particular I know it's quite a bit of material probably about 125 Pages uh if anything jumps out I'm happy to take whatever questions and if not uh hoping
that you will vote to approve them any Mike I I just not noting the general order 30.4 use of force um is there anything in there that is substantive a couple of these don't look like they're
required by the accreditation standards but rather they're something that uh that you've decided to change um for your own procedural reasons the only thing that I can think of and that particular order is uh the
idea of shooting at moving Vehicles right yeah so so I would characterize that change as as minor uh you know the training on shooting at moving Vehicles hasn't really changed all that much which is we
discourage it in almost all situations for the majority of my career we pretty much discouraged it in every situation unfortunately that has changed a little bit due to uh some terrorism that we've seen in this country and around the
world there are now times and this wasn't really the case you know maybe 10 years ago there are now times when a police officer can and probably should uh fire at a at a moving vehicle and so I mean we saw it just just recently in
in New Orleans um so we modified that language just a little bit but there's been no no change in the underlying in the underlying uh theory that when at all possible avoid moving
Vehicles you don't want to the only time that you're really shooting at a motor vehicle is if there's no other way to protect your life or someone else's life and in particular if someone is using a motor vehicle as a weapon of mass destruction you're going to have to make a decision about whether or not you can
you can save Al fired to disable the vehicle thank you that makes perfect sense hi John um thank you very much and I just want to point out to those who are uh listening in on this discussion
uh if they're feeling like I'll never be able to grasp this because you know gosh they're talking about a 700 plus page you know general orders and changes to a whole bunch of them and so on there is actually a very good summation and so if
you go to the agenda for this meeting um under this item um 6A there's something called the selectboard letter and I find that that is very very helpful and I really want to thank the department for providing that um and I also just want
to ask a question uh somewhat seriously but somewhat facetiously uh do you think they'll ever get it down to 300 Pages you know I I I can't get my head around you know an organization manual that goes 700 plus pages I just can't I'm
afraid that it's moving in the other direction that's what you would say go to 800 900 Pages oh geez yeah it's tough to narrow it down yeah okay you answer my question could you um just talk a little bit about how you train officers
around this man this 700 page manual I know it's almost a continuous process yeah so yeah yeah so so we do we do 48 Hours of a minimum of 48 Hours of training with all of the officers that's every year typically we like to do you
know more than that we like to do 60 or 70 hours uh when we make changes to the manual for example you know only probably four or five of us have seen these changes uh inside the department but everybody's going to be bound by
these changes so what will happen is Lieutenant Hayes who is also the author of the letter that right uh Mr vank just referenced uh Lieutenant Hayes will upload these these changed policies into a database system that we use called
Power DMS he will then send out a message to the entire department hey these policies have been updated we need you to go in and review them everybody has their own username
and account they log in they review the policies after they review the policies they then will take a quiz that asks some questions about the policies they'll need to pass that quiz at which point they can then sign off the policies that they have reviewed
them that they understand them and they agree that they will be bound by them if there's a question you know somebody reads a policy and you know they don't understand something or there there's something that's maybe a little bit vague they're Direct to speak with
their direct supervisor to get clarification and if the supervisor has a problem then they can go to Lieutenant Hayes who really oversees the the training division to get more clarification great thank you any other
questions okay well let's move on and approve these um or not I do have one question okay sorry um the change in definition is is it a change in definition of Chokehold or are we just becoming in line with so
it's yeah so it's actually not not really a change in the definition the definition of Chokehold has not has not changed and that comes right from the uh the statute the state law yeah in the prior version of the policy though the Chokehold definition did not appear in
the definition section and it had other extraneous language incorporated into the paragraph so it wasn't entirely clear exactly how much of it was definition and how much of it wasn't so what we did was we extracted the definition of choke hold put it in the definition section
and then we left the additional language in a separate bullet point later in the policy so it's just a movement of the yeah it's just a yeah actually all of the language is still there it's just been separated up right that's that's helpful when Cho definition came in originally the policy was already
written so it just it just kind of got stuck in the policy somewhere and we redoing it made sense to organize sorry ber just you triggered me I realized I was running out of time um the other question I have and I just can't find it yeah is what how do we handle uh the
acquisition and retention of um any type of video either from cell phones or you know video cameras that are on businesses during investigations I know we have policies and procedures around how body warn or
you know know cameras within the cruises what how do we handle that that specific uh material so uh it's a little bit different depending on if it's body one cameras or if you someone's house there's a you're investigating crime and now you're going to acquire video from
someone's device if you acquire video from someone's device or a ring camera or something like that that gets submitted to evidence and we have a couple of uh detectives who process uh audio video it's the same guys who do uh fingerprints and and photographs and
things like that they have a separate server in the detective division for that type of video body War camera video is separate that is handled by the it guys uh and it's it's just automatic
Motorola has has a server uh the video is a lot of it's uploaded um wirelessly and it's stored in the cloud so I appreciate that so the video that's that if you require video it's part of an investigation that comes from a private residence Y is that is that secured or
is it still available as a public record like is that is that become the case File or is it now available to the general public so it becomes part of the case File and whether or not it would be a public record I think the the short answer Joe might be able to give a more
detailed answer but I think the short answer is all of the information that comes to the police dep Police Department is a public record um presumptively however if let's say there was video of a break and answering uh in
a in a private home that video is part of an active case it would be exempt from the public records law and so we would be able to withhold that and there's there are a number of exemptions for Active cases at some point though we would we would get video it may actually
become uh a public record and I have I have advised people over the course of my career who say I want to send you something I and I would tell them just so you're aware if you send me this as soon as I receive it there's at least the potential that it could become a public record and I'll have no ability
to prevent it from getting out publicly and is that clear in here in in these orders or is that more of just a a a a procedural a policy that you're sharing unofficially off the top of my head I don't think these policies address the
public records law okay uh off the now back to the address the procedure procedure collect evidence yeah for for evidence yes but I don't know if it addresses public
records in the evidence procedure it wouldn't be in these general orders anyway and off the the problem is it's more than 700 pages and I I just don't have a recollection I right now sorry I'm going to guess that there's information somewhere in our manual
about the public records law uh I just don't have a specific record so could I could I make a request I'm I'm happy to approve these tonight but could you follow up with me and just send me whatever either section or point me to the pages and I'll I'd like or if it's in a separate area of our our policies
and procedures thank you so much yeah uh who was first over here David is David I just have a couple of questions and thank you for putting this together uh I noticed that there are a lot of changes around the field training
program and officers and I'm just wondering whether you could highlight the main differences between what was occurring before and what is contemplated currently so yeah just to be clear there aren't any actual changes
it was in a it was in a special order before it's a copy and paste into the general order everything is the same okay so a few years ago we came up with a field training officer program um but
what we have now is is exactly the same as what we've been doing for a while all right were there also any substantive changes to training for civil employees I see that there was one modification saying that civil employees will need to have further training and or as a
requirement of accreditation was that always happening so what it used to say is it used to say something like you know employees or you know officers need uh to have you know certain training meet certain training standards well what accreditation will say is that it
needs to specifically identify that both sworn and unsworn need to have this training and your policy needs to say sworn and unsworn and so that's why you'll see changes like that related to accreditation because the language that
we might have while we do what we're supposed to be doing the policy doesn't necessarily specifically say it and for accreditation they require that your policy actually says it I see okay Michael I just wanted you to know that he was over there oh
okay anything else let me just add uh with respect to the choke code policy uh that's part of the state law now yes but before it was part of the state law it's part of our policies procedures we banned the chood before the state got around to doing it so just want to let
people know for the record uh any other questions okay I'm move approval of the seven general orders uh listed in our uh agenda um which are uh intended to comply with new accreditation standards
and make minor uh changes for clarity um all in favor please indicate by saying I John vak I Michael Sandman hi PA Warren hi David browman hi and chair vot I thank you thank you very much have a
good night thank you okay next uh disparity study presentation of the disparity study findings and recommendations and it looks like uh Lincoln Hinman is at the podium and I
think it there's some people online there are and I think Tiffany's pulling up the presentation thank you very much Tiffany give me just one second if you don't mind I'm going to promote all these folks first okay thank you so uh good evening so uh I'm Lincoln
Heyman uh the town's Director of Finance and um as chair green noted there are several folks uh online and also in the room joining for the presentation um uh be breaking the presentation briefly up into three parts uh with myself our recently retired uh
Chief procurement officer Dave ganakas is online and we'll be doing a little bit of the presentation and interim Chief procurement Officer Rick Seville is in the room um so we are here to uh and I'm sorry I should note also there are several members of uh the Griffin
and strong staff who are who is the consultant uh for the town on this project um so we're here to present the results of the town's uh procurement disparity study um this was begun in Fall of
2023 um as I said uh we be splaining the presentation into three parts so I'll um have a little bit of background as to where the town was prior to uh this disparity study and the step some of the steps that the town taken previously Dave will do a presentation on um some
of the L there's a lot of data but some of the key data points from the presentation and then Rick um will uh present on uh the commendations and the recommendations from Griffin and strong and the Griffin and strong folks are here to uh help answer any questions so
next slide please so um this is just a little bit of History prior to the beginning of uh this disparity study and the work on this in uh that began in Fall of 2023 so the purchasing division really uh four
years ago now a little bit more than that began to think about um how the town um could encourage the participation of disadvantaged businesses in the town's procurements and under the state law disadvantaged businesses are are those that are owned
primarily by uh women minorities and Veterans um this study in particular focused on women and Veterans um the uh prior to beginning this study um the uh procurement office and the town um had
an initiative with a company named quali that I think several members of the board are familiar with that encouraged um uh disadvantaged businesses to register with the town so that we are know we uh know that they're interested in particular procurement areas and making sure that we're communicating
with them when we have a procurement in that area separately there is a state law and and that's really sort of the main thrust of this uh disparity study there is a state law chapter 30b Master Law chapter 30b section 18 that allows
under the state procurement law a sheltered Market program provided um that the town demonstrate in in a study and I'm quoting here um that from the state law that uh that the study shall to the extent constitutionally required
be based of the program shall to the extent constitutionally required be based on findings that such a program is a remedy for the present effects of past discrimination so the the primary while there are other pieces of it the primary focus and drive for this uh study is to
see if that constitutionally allowed um predicate is here so uh can I answer your question maybe I'm confused about something you said this study is about with respect to disad disadvantaged uh companies women
and Veterans so I I was saying that's how the the law defines um disadvantage businesses with those three categories the study was focused on two categories minority owned women and women owned businesses okay so why is that why was
the study focused why is the study limited to just um uh women and Veterans um I'm not sure I I'm not sure I know the answer to that um you know I I think big question it is a big
question um you know I mean it's it's it was the focus you know of of the town at the time um they um it's not my recollection no the focus of the town was you know actually primarily how do
we engage minority businesses in in our procurements um I mean and you know that that was the hot issue at that time and and you know currently so maybe the the Consultants could explain why I mean this is I kind of
confusing to me and I didn't really see it in the materials yeah so well if there's I see one of the Consultants has their hand raised and perhaps they can add some color yes I can answer it the study was all-encompassing it was all of stbs
which included minorities women uh disabled it also included lgbtq so it was across the board all categories it wasn't just women and and Veterans okay excuse me okay I am sorry
I made an error I'm sorry um so uh uh the so so again um the the the the primary uh look for the objective of the study is um to look
across industry categories uh to examine um what the history is with the disadvantaged businesses and to examine if there's this predicate basis for a shelter Market program if the town chose to implement one so I'll turn it over to Dave um to talk a little bit about the
particular information in the study hello everybody uh David jikis former Chief procurement officer um I don't want to go into too many numbers and details but I wanted to
give you the highlights uh from the study itself uh basically by doing this study Griffin and strong has analyzed the region the geographic region that is the Boston
Metropolitan area because that's where we spend at least 75% of our money so the the slide here lists the various counties and also in New Hampshire because believe it or not we also are uh
you know going to look at all of that Griffin and strong uh is known Countrywide for these types of studies Somerville and US decided to to engage with someone that also had some
experience in Massachusetts with the Cambridge study within the geographic region Brookline spent and these are the categories construction architecture engineering Professional Services other services Goods a total of 89% of our
procurement money and that includes the the procur office all the town and School departments the uh building construction as well as engineering um I think I skipped the slide Tiffany if you want to go back one sorry about that um the study parameters
uh this was a look back and you look back for five years so it was the fiscal years 2018 to 2022 and again those five categories that we had um I why don't we go back one more slide I don't want to go too far back but you know G this is
just so you know Griffin and Strong's experience with doing this and you know we felt quite comfortable with the city of Somerville uh as we made that selection if you want to jump ahead a couple of slides uh Tiffany that'll be great um again another screen with an
awful lot of numbers but as you'll see the categories were who they were identified African-American Asian Hispanic American Indian Portuguese you will see over that fiveyear period where the dollars in each category uh and also
the non MBE wbe categories and it's just below that is the percentages I'm not going to read any of these they are included in your report but you'll see that uh there is some uh spend already
uh and the five different categories uh and we you know based on the market uh this is what we spent next slide and then you'll see this is a further breakdown uh when they talk about Prime versus
subcontractor in looking at dbe companies a lot of them frankly are smaller and so they are playing the subcontractor role to primes and we're talking big school projects
we're talking the engineering department so it is important to look at the subcontractors not just the prime contractors because that's where there is activity so this slide just show the breakdown of subcontracting activity
under our big projects next slide please long and the short as Lincoln said we looked at this over it with many many years to get to this point uh under federal and state law we had to come up
with a factual basis for establishing this program Griffin and strong found that in fact there is is a factual basis for that they did their analysis that a disparity by ethnic ethnicity race
gender after you know accounting for capacity and other factors the antidotal policy findings support all that and you have the executive summary you also have the full report uh which is quite
lengthy that backs up and this is what Federal Law requires and state law requires so that we can do a sheltered Market program next slide I'm going to hand it off to Rick
now to talk about the accommodations accomplishment and the recommendations uh of from Griffin and strong um and if you have any questions at the end we will definitely uh be available for you thank you good evening I'm Rick Seville
interim chief proma officer excuse me uh commendations and accomplishments uh the town of Brook line created an online vendor registration portal with qual the town use of uh construction manager at risk for Lodge construction contracts increases certified firm
participation the town has limited complaints about bonding and insurance that can create barriers for participation the office of diversity created a diverse business directory is available to assist with marketing to local diverse firms the town also offered intermittent
small business loans and grants during covid next Slide the recommendations we broke down in a 10 category excuse me the 10 recommendations we broke into three categories the first category and which is number one on the list is to
implement a race and gender neutral sheltered Market program we could also uh go further with the race and gender conscience program uh Griffin and strong has a recommended that um this could be done at the direction of the select board and town meeting uh the the second list of
categories uh we broke down to things that we look into uh number two is uh reviewing the paperwork requirements a lot of the people uh we the Griffin and strong spoke to thought there was too much paperwork and we're going to review that with legal and see if we can maybe make it little easier and you
know um number nine on the number nine on the recommendation list is uh to enforce prom pay provisions and undertake an evaluation of internal payment for to Primes um in the third category is things that we uh would require more resources in
addition to the resources we've already used um number three is to campaign to promote the vendor intake form among vendors uh which we currently do have with the quali uh registration
system um number four would be to communicate the benefits of registering and conduct a joint uh registration campaign with the town of Brookline to get more firms to register with the town uh which we have worked with beckma and other groups uh to communicate that
Outreach um number five is uh joint Outreach efforts hosting bid opportunities on respective websites to forecast upcoming opportunities so business can be prepared for them um number six was a robust contract
compliance to track and monitor Supply divver Supply diversity spend forecasting enhance Outreach um seven was to provide uh vendor education and Supportive Services um which we we don't have the resources
for at this point um eight was to streamline bidding process and enhanced Communications and last but last least number 10 was Data reform uh which we could look into uh some type of purchasing contract management system
and that is uh the end of the recommendations uh Paul I'll go um thank you so much uh for the presentation um so I this is helpful I'm curious how do you know if you're being successful uh are there targets here are
there measurements it's just not clear to me you got 10 recommendations you do them I mean how do you know if you're successful um I'll answer that um this is Michelle Clark Jenkins I'm director of methodology and research for Griffin and strong uh one of the analysis that
we did was an availability analysis which demonstrates the percentage of ready willing enable firms in each of the industry categories and so when you reach availability which is what should be expected in the marketplace that would be your benchmark that you're
attempting to eventually get to okay so let's I'm going to go peel the onion just a little bit more so um let's take um streamline the bidding process and enhance
communication which is a very broad category um do we want to reduce it by X number of days are we trying to reduce it by months I just I'm curious about how would you measure um that these that recommendation is being effective um or
achieving the goal so again you're looking at at the end of the year if you look at your um achievement so what do your numbers look like you saw the numbers of utilization of minority and women-owned firms we also did look at
those other study groups as well um you know we looked at the veterans and the other groups lgbtq so when you reach so when you look at those numbers where you are right right now and then at the end of every year you go back from whatever
your source is for whatever you're doing and you gather those numbers again are you getting closer to your availability percentages when you do those um when you do your calculations after every year okay I'm I'm still a little
confused I typically there'd be for an object a recommendation you'd have a goal of some percentage Improvement or some increase in the number of minority owned bu women businesses that are getting contracted with it's just not clear to me those how you're I think you
just said that that well go ahead Lincoln no I understood right so so uh Griffin and strong has given us the particular data that shows um according to the market and the availability of firms in the market you know you could
make this amount of achievement I think you know I think it's um it's it's an open question is some achievement you know sufficient for the town is is a particular level does that show achievement or you know progress towards that achievement you know I think it's
up to the town right to decide what level of improvement is you know is is acceptable right I so I think it's a little bit of who's gonna decide that is that the select board it's you it's theel yes so we have to
set the goal yes and this is this is one of the many this is one of the tools that's available to you to do that this is the start of a process because there are other questions here what tools in your toolbox do you want to use to try and Achieve that goal the select board has said the select board has said in
the past we want to see more diversity in Contracting we want to see more subcontracting bids and so forth in particular lower lower dollar contracts go to people who have historically been locked out of those contracts how do we go about doing that one way of doing that as Dave and the team are pointing
out is a sheltered Market program um these are some of the other recommendations about how to lower the barriers to entry but it will ultimately be your decision to set a Target um and you have to be careful about quota it's
not a quota it's what is what is your ultimate goal is it to reach a point where the um availability you know that the the the availability of contractors that we've identified is roughly equivalent that is to say we you know we know as many people are available and we
have that that many people working on Brookline contracts or is it forward progress towards that goal okay ber yeah Mike a couple things one is um just based on and by the way
uh Dave Jen coock is after you I see his hand is up okay um we see you based on on some experience both in this sort of thing in uh in employee recruiting uh there are two things I would say are
really important one is a campaign to get vendors potential vendors to register if you don't reach out um you can build it but they won't come uh you absolutely have to go out and make it known in the um uh in the minority among
minority businesses that uh we have this program and that we we're looking for people to um to register um and then once they've registered it's very important to follow up on that streamlining of the paperwork and uh and the bid process that's probably the
greatest single barrier that prevents any small business firm from doing business with the municipality with state government certainly with the federal government so if we have two tools that we're going to use I would say those are the uh those are absolutely the two um with regard to
results I think you have to start and then you see where you get to in terms of measuring again against availability of contractors and availability of vendors and and the actuality of what we're you know how we're shifting um you have to start somewhere you don't really
know what your goal uh is in the short term you in the long term yeah you want to have Equity uh out of all of this um which brings me to this to a question that I know I would not have asked before January
20th um which is uh we have a a shift in federal attitudes towards this kind of thing uh does that have any potential effect on us uh we putting ourselves out for um some federal
official to say uh you you know we're gonna sue you because you've got this program or you can't do this anymore or whatever David sure good evening thank you uh David Maher I'm with the legal division here Griffin and strong um the answer is
in in essence yes and no right uh what what we have is uh not just a change of administration but leading or or reaching back to the students for fair admissions versus Harvard case that the Supreme Court uh issued in uh summer of
2023 um you know signaling some uh antipathy towards these kinds of uh programs but it's important to recognize the difference between uh what we call diversity programs like what the Harvard case involved and
anti-discrimination cases which is more of the croen ja croen versus the city of Richmond which is a 1989 uh United States Supreme Court case which talked about specifically disparity studies and demonstrating either present discrimination or the
present effects of past discrimination so these are a very different uh these are different lines of cases and if you read the students for Fair admissions case you will see the court distinguishes between those two different lines of cases so although it was affecting diversity efforts in
higher education uh some folks have kind of used that as a a way to get after the anti-discrimination cases but the current case law still is uh very strongly supportive of these kinds of
programs okay let's let's see what Dave J cockus some wanted to say thank you um we did both do the bid and award the contract in light of the Harvard case knowing you know that this
was that it was a potential risk sometime in the future but we felt that the benefits far outweighed because it isn't just I you know the it's the idea that we can go out to the marketplace and encourage companies uh for the years
that I was involved in this we would had Partners like beckma uh the various unions in the Boston area who are all very very interested in getting their members many of which are minorities and in the different disadvantage categories
to participate and to uh Mr sandman's Point yes it is difficult and I have said this repeatedly in front of fairly big audiences over the last few years to do business with all levels of government that may get up to the state
there may be some suggestions on how we can reduce some of the paperwork but uh Town Administrator Carrie mentioned smaller dollars again smaller companies would be able to bid or quote without
the voluminous paperwork that's sometimes involved in an RFP and the time and things um and so we're talking under 50,000 per purchase under a 100,000 those types of things uh a very fertile ground for these kind of efforts
and one last thing I don't want to keep going on but sheltered Market programs are in 30b but there are only we are one of four communities that have begun down this path Boston was first Cambridge was
second then Us in Somerville so we are still kind of figuring out what the ground rules are and you know as was said before we're going to be looking both to the legal department to the select board you know what are
reasonable goals because now we're told we could do it under existing state law cities and towns can't set aside procurements we can't set go that would be uh something that we could have a protest or a legal challenge so this is
Step number one it's not the last step we've made some other steps before it but this was an important step I think I've been saying this to uh people for a little while that we once we figured out that we could do a sheltered Market program now we would have to uh
Implement that which is going to be oh a decent amount of work because there's nobody else that we can say oh other than Boston who didn't some limited ways so that's why we will work with other communities including Somerville and Cambridge just to see how this all works
out thank you David so I agree with Paul that it's pretty important to have some kind of objective measure by which to see whether you're progressing toward accomplishing the recommendations or not so do I understand you correctly that
we're going to have a further meeting to establish what those measures would be to determine whether we're making progress I think we're going to continue to follow up on this you know both the you know not both the sheltered Market concept and the additional recommendations to come to you and give
you you know what we what you know the general excuse me the general request was can we be more diverse in our Contracting we're going to bring recommendations to you including measures of metrics of success based on that you know here's here's what we think we can do here's here's what we
would here's what we would determine here's what we determine whether or not that would be successful um and then we would also be asking you about the targets right is it something that we want to seek growth we want to develop resources to to see growth over 5 years 10 years is it something we want to be
moving on immediately where does the is the focus more on some of the recommendations that don't necessarily require a sheltered market system or do we want to continue pursuing that as the first and foremost objective those are the questions that we need answers from from you in order to proceed this is the
this is the thing that was necessary in order to even unlock that discussion now realistically in a broad sense you can't have explicitly race-based bidding and procurement correct so beyond engaging in robust Outreach and Beyond
eliminating uh certain bureaucratic barriers of Entry what realistically can be done I'm sorry go ahead so so um I was gonna suggest So to that
point the the uh shelter Market programs are possible there's only one municipality has discussed there's only one municipality in the state that's done it so what are the broad parameters of what that program could be in terms of in terms of seeking to um you know
send business to minority and women-owned businesses you know there's there's there's one entity so we be the second mover and you know and I think um no one really quite has that answer yet you know but but the first step to answering do we want to do more than the
Outreach pieces and the other recommendations that don't require a change uh approved by town meeting is you know the sheltered Market program in order to do that you need approval from town meeting and there there I would just say where the where the law has
left it as my understanding after the Supreme Court decision in 23 is right you can't use race as a proxy for disadv dis being a disadvantaged body the disadvantaged body extending and extending a benefit to a historically
disadvantaged body must be made on an individualized basis so there are still processes that can be followed to forgive disadvantaged business enterprises access to a sheltered Market it's just a very narrow path to move through and so any just any process that
we set up we need to follow that very narrow path set up by the Supreme Court well so just to followup so um and I want to touch upon what David said I I do think we need to have some improvement Target right and so I'm
trying to understand where that would be in this presentation so I'm just going to take slide seven as an example page seven which is the summary of prime utilization by industry category 2018 to 20 to 2022 so over that is that five
years four years um we have the total number and we have the percentages for African-American Asian American Hispanic American Etc women if we were to say that we wanted to see a 5% or a 10% Improvement in the
in in these values um do you have to do a shelter Market or whatever you called it or could you just use these some of these recommendations and tools to to promote and and be able to bring opportunities uh you know uh to those
those segments uh to participate with without protecting them I'll let the I see Michelle has her hand up so I let her yeah so again um just for I think for purposes of brevity in the presentation the availability table is
not in there but we in fact did do availability table which is your measuring tool ultimately it's a measuring tool that will tell you you know are you where you should be expected to be so for example in construction the minority availability
in the marketplace was 17.45% um and you you have in front of you the the utilization of in that area both for primes and for subcontractors so you do have some benchmarks
um the the recommendations that we make are tool are tools I think somebody said that are tools in a toolbox so you're not trying to increase these numbers with just one way of doing it you use a number of different ways some of them are race and gender neutral uh the cro
and case requires that you consider raceing gender neutral ways of making of of increasing participation when you have this kind of finding um before you move on you don't have to exhaust it but you do have to seriously consider race
and gender measures which is what we recommended but we also said that you do have a basis for race and gender conscious measures there are still a number of those that are considered best practices um in terms of ways that you can increase participation based on race
and gender that is still good law unless and until uh that's decided otherwise again as David pointed out student for fair admissions only stated that it it went to the issue of of uh of uh
diversity and not to where we have found a an existence of the present effects of historical discrimination and these are now remedial programs which is very different in students for Fair admission all the things that they said were weaknesses like not having data not
having uh benchmarks not having uh um uh a date uh Sunset dates all those kinds of things are things that disparity studies do by their very nature so you do have the foundation at least under current law uh for having a race and
gender conscious program the question is what kind of race and gender conscious program do you have and it needs to follow you know the what has been accepted as best practices mik
um I I I think it's I I want to step back just a little bit and remember where we started uh and we started a number of years ago uh on with the objective of increasing the number of minority vendors that we have uh and or
the number of disadvantaged vendors that we have if you want to extend it Beyond minorities um and we were told that well we can't do that in any kind of formal way until we have this kind of study and we now have the study but uh it seems to me that that frees us
to going back to doing something that is or some things that are relatively simple relatively straightforward and don't need to be so formalized that they fit into a particular you know a particular approach and so a couple of
things that you know we talked about are uh encouraging you setting up a registry of vendors and encouraging people to uh businesses of All Sorts to register and streamlining bidding process in paperwork uh if it's for under $100,000 contracts that would be fabulous that
would be great uh a lot of small businesses aren't going to be able to handle more than you know a contract that that's substantially in excess of that um so that's all um it seems to me doable without turning ourselves into a
pretzel in order to conform to a particular set of definitions and I would encourage um the Jaz I would encourage you to work on those kinds of things we had a really good presentation on uh
simplifying the process for applying for common vict license and you know it was it's a no-brainer if you have to get the approval of of multiple departments it's a barrier to getting anything done and it takes time and money and so forth the same thing is true in any kind of
procurement so if you can put together something that um looks at our procurement process through the same uh through the same eyes uh and you now have this study that says we have a a basis for for doing it uh it seems to me
like that'll carry us a long way yeah um a few points than Mike Mike makes some good points and the others have too but I I have still have a few questions question number one um have we um in recent weeks received any
Communications from say the federal government indicating you know uh be aware there are changes coming in terms of anything you do that is race-based um that
disadvantages you know particular groups like white people not that I'm aware of yeah they're G be more subtle that well of course they would no but I mean you know it's some honestly no they're not right did the the advice that went out from
the education Department institutions of Higher Learning literally said don't discriminate against white people and Asian people you know it's um it's it's very much um they're they're not being subtle in what they want um but they have not directly told us anything yet
on those issues so so there's nothing really visible just yet that says sheltered Market programs might be on The Hit List no no um but that sounds like it might be consistent with kind of the Direction they're taking you know in
other yes in other instances it's a very real risk yes a very real risk okay so um next question has any of the work we've done so far um towards this um been supported with grants in particular
federal grants yes and federal yes yes are we planning on continuing to get Federal grant money in order to sustain this not at the moment no no um no so so the
study was supported with Federal monies but there's no there's no grant program that I'm aware of that even exists right that that would encourage that would that would support this work from the town and certainly there's no plans to apply for that they would support the creation
of a sheltered Market program that is there is there a Federal grant program to that I don't believe so no maybe not under this Administration but I'm assuming maybe under prior administrations you know not to my knowledge yeah the Griffin and strong folks can confirm or deny that but I'd
be very surprised if it exists um and and but just I'll finish by just pointing out something for people um I'm assuming when I I heard it said that there is just one sheltered Market program currently in in Massachusetts and I'm assuming that's Boston correct
so um good for Boston um they have a website for their sheltered Market program and um I must say it does a very good job in not too many words explaining what a sheltered Market program is um so I advise people who
maybe are a little bit in doubt as to what we're talking about here check out Boston's sheltered Market program um and I'm just going to read a couple of sentences um from this to give people an idea of what we're talking about here um sheltered Market programs this is from
Boston's website allow state and local government to reserve certain contracts for minority and or women owned businesses the procurement process is still competitive that means businesses will submit a proposal that will be
evaluated against all other proposals according to specific criteria and here's the key sentence but in this case only minority and women-owned businesses are eligible to submit a bid and I'm
assuming that's the definition of a sheltered Market program is what you folks are all saying is is the definition of a sheltered Market program yeah I think I mean the the particular Contours of any shelter Market program that we the town of Brookline have we'd
want this board's input on it yeah um but of course but but first we'd need Town meetings approval if we were to go down that road it sounds like there's a definition that's kind of accepted yeah so and that that's it well the there are different prog programs that can be
created and the law is specific that the chief procurement officer of the town you know with and obviously we would seek policy guidance from this board about what the particular how if Brookline is was to have a shelter Market program how particularly it would look certainly I
think but I but Boston's definition isn't the only definition yeah so I only went went to this trouble so that people will understand this isn't easy you know to get to the point where you can have a legally secure uh program that
explicitly says sorry people who aren't minority or women um your businesses are not eligible to bid for this contract that's kind of where we want to be if we want to have a sheltered Market program we got to be sure that we create the
legal premise and the factual premise and that's what this presentation's been all about right yeah I see Michelle Clark has her hand up feel like I I want to make sure I'm clarifying something here so sheltered Market programs can be for whatever
group you determine you want them to be in general I'm not talking about in The Commonwealth but in general they have traditionally been small business sheltered Market programs they've been race and gender neutral however you have a state provision for a race and gender
conscious sheltered Market program right I have to be transparent and say that traditionally the courts have not been in favor of exclusionary programs where only minority and women can bid on something however you are operating
under state law where where if you had a program like that your defense to that program would be that this is what was permitted under state law and you kind of kick that up to the St to the state in order to defend that you know and say
listen you know this is what the state allowed us to do so uh one of the things that we had recommended is whether there was an option to um to go to the Commonwealth and request even a race and gender conscious we think you'd be in
the in in any environment by the way not just this environment but for decades the courts have not been in favor of those kinds of what they call set asides for minority and women-owned firms um but the state put it in place clearly it
hasn't been challenged in all of those however long that's been in place and Boston has a program that clearly at least as of yet has not been challenged and the state uh enabling law is uh chapter 30b yes yeah okay section
18 and it only allows for it's not that there aren't other kinds of sheltered Market programs it's that your state law only enables a race and gender based sheltered Market program without I guess you getting some
dispensation from now chess and I was just gonna add to that yeah right to Lin add on to Lincoln's Point um the structure of this can be can actually be fairly varied right what for example when I worked in New York City when I worked for health Corporation one of their big goals was to have every
contract have a provision in it that said if you are subcontracting this work 30% of those cont contracts must go to disadvantage business enterprises um and that was a condition of the procurement and in some so that was very much their effort to bring Equity into it without
saying I'm not there are certain classes of contract that are some people just can't bid for it is if you do work with us we expect you to get 30% or more of your subcontracts to B just historically disadvantaged business enterprises and if you can't you know this was the thing
that we worked on you know we put teeth behind it we said you got to report to this report on this on an annual basis and if you don't get to there you have to explain why um the other but you know the other things you can do is as part of your procurement you can say for
example preference will be given weight will be given to you know applicants who commit to um a a work plan for historically disadvantaged business enterprises right now we say as part of our procurements we strongly encourage
you to do that um we want you to you know be to look for historically excluded groups and include them as part of the subcontracting process but we can a sheltered Market program may be something that does that for example it says we can give weight to bids that are
you know again we're not locking we're not saying you can't apply if you don't belong to a certain group but if you are willing to be uh commit to a program of encourage of um bringing disadvantaged business enterprises into the um the project and then we can wait that favorably when we open a Min procurement
decision yeah do you mind if I just sure because that's a very important point but um I'll just bring up that um WGBH or gbh as they call themselves now has assigned a reporter in the past to do some very good reporting on whether
these kinds of Provisions are resulting in minority own Enterprises getting subcontracts and found that there's a ton of funny business that goes on and you know that what is on paper a minority Enterprise turns out to be
something that was set up you know by the non-minority contractor because he needs to have a minority subcontractor so you know he says hey why don't you register for a business and I'll get you this you know blah blah blah yeah there's all sorts of yeah when you delve when you go into other communities that
have had this for longer you know like New York you see people playing games like that and you have to make sure that your contracts are tight enough to lock down on that make sure that there are no polls that can be followed there so I just uh thank you Bernard um I'm just hoping we can land the ship here um I'm
just curious about next steps like what are we what are we doing with this this is great body of work it's interesting it's informative we've got options what are what are we doing and when so we wanted to have the you to have the opportunity to react to this you know Mike's recommendations your recommendations are really good ones
we're going to take that back we're going to work on this and we're going to present options based on this conversation for where where potential next steps are okay we want to bring that back to you in the summer or fall in the Su okay and so we'll maybe do this as part of our our offsite Workshop thing that's the okay thank
you okay uh David I have a question about recommendation 10 So within recommendation 10 you mentioned track all subcontractors across all industry categories I'm wondering how realistic that is so to what degree of
subcontracting so would that include um company a had this subpart of this larger part of Company B that's part of company C doesn't that sometimes lead down a rabbit hole David Jan caucus has stand
up are you responding to that question yeah real quick um we've investigated actually with Somerville if contract Management Systems um which are separate from our finance system could do that and they can but as I believe uh Mr
Seville mentioned it's a resource thing they're not inexpensive they would need interfaces into our financial system it would be training in the building department the engineering department the procurement department so it would be a change in the way we sort of take
that data and actually breaking it down to the kind of details that um that you mentioned so it's possible but it's question you know how much do you want to uh invest and what will be the ultimate full end uh
outcome thinking if if I could just build a little bit on on what on What Dave is saying I I absolutely you know we we could do that with no change you know from town meeting or from this board the question is you know I I think it's it's something if we as a town you
know the board directs us to pursue that recommendation it's something that we'd want to seek um additional monies in the fiscal year 2027 budget to do so just just as a little you know as a little piece of example we have more than
52,000 vendors in our uh in our accounting system in munus so and you know there's a field there you know we need a software add-on to use it and then it would take you know a lot of work to if we were to for example code
you know all of our active vendors as to whether or not they are a minority of women-owned businesses so it's a question of res resources okay I see Michelle's hands up yeah so so we see this of course all across the country um depending on how what your your people
power is in terms of doing this and again your software so there's a spectrum of things you can do um and again just as somebody mentioned you know um subcontracting as a race and gender conscious tool tends to be kind of the
standard one that people use which is you know looking at a contract by contract basis and doing subcontracting it's almost critical that you look at subcontractors or else as you saw even in your utilization you'd be missing a large percentage of your utilization
because in Prime Contracting you're only looking at who the prime is who got the award and not looking where that money ultimately wound up you know for agencies that have a lot of resources they use a compliant software there are two or three that are pretty generally
used b2g or pretty is M are the two probably biggest ones and they do kind of all the work for you they can track first tier Subs second tier Subs all the way down for those jurisdictions that don't have as many resources we recommend really that you start with
probably your large construction contracts maybe the ones over a million dollars and that's where you start and the important thing is that you are tracking it and just as someone said when there's funny business that has to do with the robustness of your contract compliance
are you looking at who the firms are are and you don't do your own certification so you kind of have to rely on the certification done by the state but assuming that the state's doing site visits they're seeing are these really minority and women-owned firms and then
you're tracking that to make sure the biggest funny business honestly is a firm who says when they're bidding a contract I'm going to bid you know 10% of this Construction contract to XYZ you know um uh drywall company who is a
minority owned firm and then that never happens and by the end of the contract what are you going to do about it if you haven't really been tracking it so another way that firms have uh without a lot of resources have done is require your primes to tell you who their
subcontractors are and every time they want to get paid they have to send in a piece of paper that says here are our subcontractors and here how much we've paid them to to date you try and put as much of the work as you can on that Prime to try to reduce the amount of
resources you have to have in the house so one by doing it through your pay apps the other is if you have software that software by the way just so you know what it does it allows primes to come in and enter all of their subs tell you
what they've paid their subs it also has a portal for the subs to come in and verify that they got those payments so again depend on how what resources you have thank you okay um thank you uh it's very
informative and uh we'll look to uh Chaz to take us to the next step I just want to thank in particular the uh Consulting team um the city of Somerville um for partnering with us to do this um and uh Dave of course who is now retired and is
here literally as a labor of love um because is something that cared so strongly about so Dave thank you um this is the end of the beginning for this process but you you did it you landed the plane um I'm really grateful for all your hard work on this
great okay um next we have H annual town meeting warrant is that going to be Melissa it's going to be me I believe Melissa is that the advisor committee so the annual town
meeting warrant is before you there are 30 articles um I do want to um flag for you that this warrant unlike prior warrants does not come with a request from the moderator to authorize a hybrid
town meeting and that is because the authorization to do that expires at the end of this month we are not certain whether or not the state will extend that in any way we and right now the leading vessel to do so the meeting law that could potentially be passed Bill
does not have language in there about town meetings it's only about meetings other than um legislative body meetings so if that even if that passes in its current form that will not apply to a town meeting so with that said um re
individuals can still submit reasonable accommodation requests so this town meeting will not be hybrid however if individuals cannot physically be present in the hall uh in the high school then a reasonable accommodation request can be
submitted to the office of diversity Equity inclusion community relations um we will review that uh the team will review it um provide whatever accommodation is necessary which can if necessary include hybrid access you know video access um but that's going to be
the only hybrid participation this time around so you said the team will review it I thought Sarah Kaplan Sarah Kaplan is the team yes um she's a one woman team one person team okay she she she does the work of a team let's put it that way
U great okay uh any any questions about the warrant Sarah is here if anyone has questions hello Sarah okay there she is okay the only question I have is how do we reduce it from 30 to 20 but that's
not g to happen David I do have a question on reasonable accommodation are we defining that as in the legal term yes yes yes so that means if somebody's out of town that's not a reasonable accommodation no no it must be disability related yeah
okay you know disability disabilities can be transitory they can be permanent there's a wide definition of what a disability is but unfortunately convenience or even you know not even just convenience right this is it's tough if you're like me you have young children it can be very hard to make these meetings but unfortunately
the is what it is so the mere fact that you can't be there is not a reasonable accommodation request it has to be related to a disability so we have a number of people that are just concerned about uh being in groups right still as a result of covid is that a reasonable
accommodation do they're concerned about the so if you have a disability that um like an autoimmune disorder and you can provide provide us with you know dem demonstrate your need then we can provide you as an IND indidual with a reasonable
accommodation uh each accommodation needs to be evaluated individually and it's evaluated every town meeting I just because you got one in the last town meeting doesn't mean you will get one at this town meeting anxiety is probably
not a disability anxiety is a disability it is okay but you have to be diagnosed with anxiety right right you'd have to be okay so you have to see your local psychiatrist to do that okay and and someone who does not qualify for a um um
somebody with a temporary disability for example covid in and of itself is not considered a disability unless you have long Co and long covid would need to last more than six months we're gonna see a drop off yes we are yeah we are I mean typically we had
maybe between 90 and 95% of people came and five 10 to 5% 5 to 10% didn't we'll go we'll revert to that so if if you're not if you're not um I I in the in the room um but you're a town meeting member
you can you know uh tune in from wherever you just can't vote is that it yeah yeah okay David but that's not going to be the case for executive uh Branch committees I just remember in my school committee days
preco if a school Committee Member happened to be on a trip that member would tell phone in and as long as there was a quorum present physically in the room that was okay yes yeah I'm sorry go ahead Sarah you we have a remote access policy which we will revert to um so
that person can request remote access but they may not count as part of the Quorum and the only open meeting law that I'm aware of that changed during covid was uh the commission on disability can now
can now be entirely remote in perpetuity so people who uh want to uh participate remotely even in town meeting they could as long as we know that we'll have a quorum in person not town meeting town meeting is
town meeting is a different Beast executive body meetings yes so the select board if there are three members of the select board present two can be remote um but they have to be physically present in the room so as advisory you have to have at least 16 members present in the room in order for there to
constituted Quorum so for the select board can the remote members vote Yes yes yes but they cannot as far as I'm aware they don't they don't count as part of the Quorum right right that was that was always the case and we had as David says we had advisory committee
means somebody to be on the phone and that was fine yeah like word too if I can make it an addition Mr chair um Tiffany Oliva assistant Town Administrator for operations um we did send out to board just because this is kind of coming up as a part of open meeting law we did out send out a
notification to the chairs of boards and commissions and also staff Leons to say hey this policy is coming to an end um and we're working um with Town Council to see if any revisions need to be made in general to the remote meeting policy and also the checklist um so folks are aware they're planning accordingly um
hopefully these things will change before the end of the month and we I will just say the other thing here is that there are a number of regional groups and so forth that are advocating for a broader you know remote access policy or access law to change and to
have the legislature move on that expeditiously so um you know we just when people ask us you know what can we do the answer is contact your local legislature okay anything else I Mo of approval then of the um annual town
meeting warrant uh for the May 27 2025 annual town meeting and we will execute it uh once we approve it all in favor please indicate by saying I John vak hi Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren hi David prman hi sh votes I great next
departmental budget reviews Charlie young is here for the select Board office okay and um we have H provided departments with a memo uh with a number of questions that we'd like them to address um and we've also
set some time limits um uh for each department and they know what they are so uh let's start off with the select Board office thank you Bernard that that means our our staff people and we have Charlie
young to do that yes thank you Bernard good evening select board members um happy to be here with you tonight to kick off your departmental budget meetings and uh budget hearings um I uh I'll share my screen here in just a moment um I don't
plan to uh take up too much of your time um but uh I want to try to stick to your guidelines as well that you sent out to the Departments and um be a good example for folks on as far as the time
constraints so here is a snapshot at the 2026 FY 2026 select board budget um just a few things I want to call out for you uh we are seeing a 2% increase or so in salaries uh that is mostly due to steps
um we're seeing a reduction in services in FY 26 this is twofold uh $40,000 of this reduction is moving Brookline interactives hybrid costs onto arpa we had just moved them off of arpa the prior year um or rather we just started
that that process in the current year FY 2025 um and built into the budget um but as a we we we recognized we had this potential cost save savings so we we moved it back to arpa that will come back in FY 27 depending on what happens with hybrid between now and then um the
rest of the 70,000 reduction is in our professional technical accounts which uh comes from capacity that we typically use for department head professional development and trainings that we do on a quarterly basis as a group um there was some Surplus there but we're also
cutting into our capacity for being able to do that kind of work uh our our supplies accounts are are Level funded um and in the category of other we're adding $110,000 um which takes the place of arpa funds that were being used to match
Mass cultural Council Arts grants um and so that was a request to put into the budget this year and we were happy to be able to do that um we have just a tiny reduction in capital okay uh you said that our salary
uh numbers increase based on steps that's correct Bernard yes in Prior years um the department had a lot of folks at the top step um I would say before I came on for example you had all four of the top div uh department heads
uh me or sorry not department heads but the two administ assistant Town administrators for uh and the the deputy Town Administrator and the Town Administrator were all at top steps um and now most of us are not at the top step and are working our way up and so in fact almost everybody in the
department is seeing step increases which is why you're seeing this significant increase there any other questions I move on my question really is why are not the uh select board stiens uh subject to the step increases a great question Bernard
that's a great question um I guess it's open for negotiation but I'll have to cut another department to support it just so you know you are the subject of a bylaw I'm sorry to say oh there you go who filed that bylaw well by pass bylaws to increase your
statutory salary have failed um well it's not increasing the salary it's increasing adding the step yes yeah anyway that's particularly important for someone who served multiple terms it seems to me a fourth term would be you know yeah yeah well I mean it's really
just principle I mean matter of principle you know we work very very hard and um you do yes y yeah and apparently not everyone appreciates that so so just one second I just want add uh that in total it's a 4% decrease um the
the select board's budget is small But Mighty but uh but we were able to get those those reductions in to to work towards the deficit Paul so can I ask a quick question sure I'm just looking at the detail and what is
extra compensation the extra compensation refers to anything outside of stiens uh you may be looking at something that was added as part of the Town administrator's new contract yeah okay yeah my contract includ my the cost of
the two the items that are other than my salary went up slightly okay okay it's your contract thank you so um selectboard asked asked us to talk about our top three accomplishments um in no particular order uh we completed the obligation of All American
Rescue plan act funds before the deadline on December 31st 2024 which was a tremendous effort to which we owe Tyler and Nicole and our office a great deal of thanks as well as everyone else in the office frankly who helped in small and large ways to get that done uh
we made some significant I think improvements to the accessibility and user friendly of the open user friendliness of the opengov interactive budget and the budget book um we did this by converting a number of images into tables that can be read by screen readers um by converting a number of EX
you know again images to open gov tables that you can then explore by clicking view report on those tables um and finally we continued the refinement of the of the license review panel process which has been streamlining our public hearings and providing efficiency to select board and staff um and we
initiated some community research uh to develop a new late night dining procedure so the three fy2 goals we focused on uh number one um once again with with licensing we can thank Tiffany for a great deal of the of the work here
in fact Tiffany Aliva and Tiffany soua and in our office um you know we're hoping to continue streamlining the licensing application process uh Tiffany has been already working to review license processes fees applications and to streamline applications for both
applicants and staff uh in order to look at providing efficiency and uh meet or exceed our peer communities uh 40% of Licensing categories have been reviewed and moved to Excel and as the board requested we've included a few measures that we're going to start tracking going
forward to look at our progress on this particular goal um we still have a great deal of arpa administration ahead of us uh although all the funds are obligated around half are still unspent um that they're they're being spent on schedule
mind you but that's just to give you an idea of the magnitude of funding left of the 40 40 plus million we still have around half to to expend um either by you know through town departments or through our subrecipients um and finally we want to continue our work um with
Town School partnership to develop and finalize agreements between the town and schools for shared services and revenue allocation which was a goal for this fiscal year but has ultimately as you all know been pushed out due to the other work that's being done um with the Town School partnership and with this
the school audit um oh I just wanted to touch on something before I move forward which is uh the board asked a question on changing demands and I think that the demands in the select Board office off vary day to-day month-to month um as you are all very much aware um for my part I
would say um an area where you know demand is growing is really in fiscal oversight um you know we we see as the margins get thinner year-over-year um a need for greater o oversight on a small and large level of the town's um
finances and budget um you know we we are keeping up with it at this point but it's something that's on our minds uh as to especially when we think about the end of our time with Tyler and Nicole as they're being funded through arpa um it's it's something we we have been
considering that's a changing demand uh you know you see it now unfolding with the conversations with the schools these are these are pressures and um and levels of oversight we don't typically have to have to deal with so this is just a graphic organization of our FTE
but I think the the more uh useful table is this one here um we're level at 10 FTE going into FY 26 uh we have no plans to change Staffing levels at this time um we do have a few grant-funded positions um namely the office the
office assistant and the arpa administrator that will have a future end date and one of the things we have to consider is whether we can move those people into other functions in town or or whether there's need for uh Grant assistance in other departments or townwide um but at this time no plans to
change our staffing um the the the uh board also asked about um any efforts that are being made to you know create efficiencies without having to add new staff and I think the work that Tiffany is doing with our licensing staff to streamline online licensing is exactly
that a way to try and reduce the amount of staff time spent on licensing without adding any FTE or adding any new costs to the budget um let me just make sure I've covered my bases on that one yes um and so the the great question is
without budget constraints would priorities change and I think um there's this list certainly is not exhaustive uh and it could be I think a lot longer um but namely I think we could have a team that does community outreach and over uh
and and Communications work Christina is doing an excellent job but frankly we have departments with their own needs and we could have more people that could tailor their Communications or help with their Outreach um we we certainly could do more in terms of Resident service
and be and having information available um if we had uh more resources and more you know essentially labor to to do that uh budget and fiscal oversight I've I've always heard it said that your your adaptability as an organization is
entirely in your financial capacity and so I think um with a with unlimited budget constraints we would have a team of people looking at the CIP looking at the budget um you know I listed professional development here I think that even even though we're taking a reduction in the budget for department
head professional development I think that those uh those efforts we've made have been very successful getting the department heads together for a training or for or to hear a speaker um I think they've been well received um and so I think those are the areas that we would expand I think in EV virtually every
aspect of what the the department does um we could do you know a lot more work with more funding um and so finally to close I just want to give a shout out to art Department office staff um and uh just say that I think we all agree that
we have an excellent team right now um we are sad to see Tiffany Souza go we're glad that we were able to get this picture in before she left um and hopefully we'll have a great replacement but um this is your team select board your office staff um and so I just
wanted to show off this uh great picture of this great group of people that I love working with so um with that if you all have any questions I'm here to answer them thank you Paul I just have uh one Charlie thank you for the presentation excellent
work um I just it's kind of an ask for this this FY 26 uh implementation of considering some periodic know if it's quarterly or some other period uh where there is a budget Summit between the
town and the schools we already have the infrastructure to see if we can um get ahead of Po potential problems like we had this year um I think that would be a remarkable accomplishment if we could do
it that is one of the BAC recommendations that is one of the things that in this North Andover Mo MOA was included as a condition um and I think we will be working very hard towards that goal okay thank
you okay any any other questions thank you Charlie appreciate it thank you he next we have the town clerk uh Mr Ben Kaufman Ben is online uhk you chair green um thank you
to the board um I do have a quick presentation that I'm going to run through but uh I mostly want to make sure I have time to hear your questions feedback uh and thoughts but I'm going to just quickly um share my screen um so for the um FY 26 U budget proposal
for the town clerk's office going over some of our accomplishments from the prior fiscal year uh from fy2 uh one of the biggest ones in the clerk's office uh we spent most of our time this past fiscal year um doing elections Administration um we had a very very busy um fall of 2024 um we had
to administer the state primary election in September and then of course we had the presidential election in November of 2024 it was our first presidential election with the new Universal vote by mail and early voting rules that were approved under the votes act um so it was a very very large election generally
because it's a presidential but also um the final uh election type we had to implement with those changes um personally it was also a big election because it was the first election with the new town clerk uh it was my first presidential election um and I owe a tremendous gratitude to my staff to the
teams in Township and throughout the town that work on elections our poll workers and everybody else um for having a very very smooth uh fall election season uh we processed uh 4,000 new voter registrations in the leadup to the presidential election which is a very large number it's about 10% of our
voting population um uh that were newly registered uh before the presidential we also recruited and trained uh 40 new poll workers uh in the lead up to our fall elections including some new clerks and wardens which makes us very excited for the future of our election in ministration making sure we have a
strong team going forward um our election work is not done for FY 25 we do have the May 2025 Town election coming up uh on May 6th uh which uh I know this board is going to be taking up the warrant for that at the end of the year sorry at the end of the month um so
uh it was very busy election season for us this uh we also did a lot of work on the community engagement front um we introduced a new I voted sticker in the fall uh that was designed by a local artist Caroline bar it was very well received uh sparked a lot of awareness
for our election a lot of conversation was actually featured in several local news outlets and we're going to be building on that with a new I voted sticker design competition it's currently underway uh it's open for all K through students in Brookline those who are uh going to Brookline schools
who live in Brookline but go to school elsewhere or are homeschooled as well as those who might not live in Brooklyn but attend school in Brookline are all invited to submit uh designs for those I voted stickers the deadline for that is this Friday so uh if anybody has any k through eight students in their lives
encourage them to show their artistic talent and participate in that I voted sticker design contest uh we also had some successful Community engagement tables throughout town at the Farmers Market at Brookline day and other town events and those were very successful in
terms of registering voters uh recruiting pole workers and otherwise sharing information about the town clerk's office uh it's been very nice to be able to be out and meet people where they are to make sure they're involved in our local government uh we this fiscal year will
complete our bylaws codification project this has been a long ongoing project uh that I first started when I became the clerk uh it was one of my priorities when I ran for town clerk um to make our bylaws up to date uh we received uh our we completed the town clerk review of
those bylaws in January and we received back from our vendor a warrant article uh that will need need to go before town meeting in order for the town to adopt our new code uh the bylaw update not only took our bylaw and made it into a more accessible format but we actually
went in depth and read through every section really every word of the bylaw um to identify mistakes to identify issues make Corrections so that our bylaws are not only accessible but also accurate um that was a very very long project um certainly longer than I
wanted it to be um but we are now uh roaching that end uh So currently that adoption article is being reviewed by Municipal departments uh so that we can get their feedback on any section that is being changed that impacts their Department make sure they do not have any flags for us before we send it
before the entirety of town meeting for a final adoption vote um but we'll be very excited to have that bylaws codification uh concluded um and a final uh accomplishment that uh we have not done yet this year but we will be doing um coming up in the spring is uh a return
to inperson town meeting um we expect the 2025 annual town meeting to be in person so we're doing a lot of coordination with the moderator the IT department Brookline Interactive Group with Sarah who's been a tremendous help on the reasonable accommodations uh to facilitate that return to inperson town
meeting and that also requires training for my staff and the folks who help us out with town meeting uh many of them uh were not here pre-o so they don't uh have a great uh experience of running an inperson Town meet meeting some of them were here uh when we had that in semi
inperson town meeting a couple years ago um but making sure everybody's up to speed on the correct procedures for those inperson Town meetings uh that we're going to have coming up in May looking ahead to FY 26 we're looking to take advantage of it being a quiet
year on the elections front uh we only have one election next year so it's an opportunity for us to do some of the internal work that the clerk's office needs done um one of those is um beginning our Opa funded digitization project which will uh scan and digitize
the index in the town Clark Vault uh so that we can better access information related to Vital Records um we're going to work on organizing and um uh some of the improperly and old improperly stored in old records that we have both in the clerk's office as well as on sites
throughout the town uh to get a better grasp on what those projects look like what their needs might be and begin the work of organizing those records we're looking to reestablish and streamline procedures for interde departmental coordination which uh will also uh dovetail well with the select board's
priority on business access and increasing uh the ease for businesses to start in Brookline some of these uh tasks that the clerk's office handles such as grants of location flammables DBA licenses zba decisions um we need we're working on having a better process
so that the information is better shared internally with other departments and so that we have a better job uh accessing them for uh members of the public and for business owners who are trying to do business in Brooklyn uh and we want to continue to implement our robust community relations program we've seen a
lot of success for it uh especially engaging people who we've not normally been able to engage with uh reaching out to groups like students um seniors um people who might be in Housing Authority buildings um to better engage with people about the opportunities available
for them to be engaged with Brook Lin's government um with Brook Lin's elections and democracy and we want to continue to do that kind of work of course we do have one election uh in FY 26 the annual Town election uh it's always a little bit confusing because we talk about elections usually
in calendar years but actually for fiscal years the FY 26 election is the May 2026 election uh so not the one we have coming up but the one the year after it we're also going to take advantage of this being an off election year by um assessing some of our
election procedures and needs uh this includes reviewing and retiring some of our old elections equipment we have a lot of stanions a lot of Supply bins that we use to bring materials to polling locations as well as the voting boo themselves that voters go into to
fill out their ballots um that are old and a lot of them are broken have developed holes and some places we're actually cannibalizing parts from old equipment to repair uh the equipment that we have left so taking a look at that and making sure we retire the items that no longer can be used and replace
the ones that need to be replaced we're also looking to review pole worker Recruitment and training uh this includes especially a uh pipeline for leadership roles within our polling locations as we have poll workers who are getting ready to retire who are ready to step down especially from the
warden and clerk positions that really oversee our polling locations we want to make sure we have a pipeline set up for what that next generation of pole worker is going to look like um so they can have the training they need so they feel comfortable so we can continue to run uh
safe and fair elections uh in Brooklyn um and finally we're looking to stabilize our election cost and forecasting to better anticipate the overages and ensure that we have our costs in line with uh some of the new demands under the votes act um with those changes we've seen increased
demand for uh vote by mail increased demand for early voting uh we've been going up and down trying to figure out exactly what that number looks like and it's something that um Melissa and Charlie have been a tremendous help on and we want to make sure we have the most accurate election cost uh
forecasting that we can uh going forward um looking at the FY 26 budget for the clerk's office um it's a fairly simple explanation for the budget uh we have a large decrease in costs and that is because we have fewer elections this year uh the majority of the clerk's
office budget is based around the number of Elections that we have and in fy2 we had three um the September State primary the presidential in November and the upcoming May election and an FY 26 we only have one we only have a town election so there's a large decrease in
the clerk's office budget um due to the fact that we have fewer elections Additionally the clerk's office budget is actually lower than what it would need to be to uh fully fund the that may 2026 election and that's because we're looking to use um uh eligible election
reimbursement funds that we get from the state uh to help pay for our election Administration um the state has a number of UN funded mandates that we do receive funding for um and it goes into an account that we've tapped into the last couple of years to ensure a balance in
the clerk's office budget this year we're going to be tapping into it a lot more um to uh help balance the budget overall while still allowing us to effectively administer our elections okay Ben you're you're going a little over okay uh so the last thing is just what did not make it um what didn't make
it in was some additional staff uh which is a request that I know has been brought up before um as well as salary adjustments in the clerk's office and some other digitization and modernization work that we are looking at around cbas voter registration and historic preservation um so if we had
more funding um those are the kinds of projects that we would be looking to uh to do uh so with that I'm going to stop sharing my screen and welcome any questions from the committee from the from the board David you uh mentioned retirement of election machines what's
the process around that are you selling them are you donating them uh so so uh not of election machines our actual ballot scanners are fairly new we um purchased new ones in 2021 that first went into use at the 2022 Town election so our actual voting machines the
scanners that you put your ballot in are very uh new and modern uh the kind of things that we're looking at are the voting booths that people go in to vote at um where you actually go and fill out your ballot um those ones are quite old um so old in fact that we're trying to
figure out when they came from and not only does nobody my office know when I called Linda Goldberg the former assistant town clerk who was here for a number of years she was not sure when those were first uh purchased for the town um so we're looking at voting booths like that as well as um some of the large plastic tubs that we use to
transport supplies to voting uh locations have developed holes in them if they are being used to transport ballots we can no longer use them if they have a hole because um we need to make sure the ballots are secure um as well as the stanions that we use to block off our polling locations are
quite old um so we would look at ones that we can repair we would look at ones that we would be interested in giving to other communities uh the Mast Town clerks Association has a process where you can make voting equipment available to other communities if they would like
um or ones that are Beyond repair and will simply need to be uh to be whether it's recycled or thrown away um otherwise disposed of yeah just one other quick question you reference records that are kept kep all over town I'm curious what happened to the records that were in the tunnel
underneath Pierce were those collected and sent somewhere uh yes so the records that were in the Pierce basement um from the clerk's office were collected and were brought over to the Mansion at fiser Hill um so uh over at the Newberry site um there's a building there which now
has a couple of big rooms full of stuff from the clerk's office um and it's stuff that really needs to be gone through partially because we don't actually know what all of those records are what we do know is a lot of those records are very moldy um or have been water damaged and we need to get a good
assessment of what the needs are to restore and save the records that need to be saved as well as the records that we want to save um and determine in what uh is beyond saving is going to need to be disposed of oh yep uh thanks Ben appreciate all
your work um in your staff which is always uh very friendly and pleasant to um see when I come into the into the clerk's office uh I just I had a quick question this time of year usually leading up to this time of year you get
inundated with requests for voter lists voter lists um those that vote absentee those that registered stuff like that um can you just describe how what the process is for you to fill those
requests and is it is it your staff that does that or is it other individuals be really helpful to understand that uh sure so there's a couple of different um processes we have to go through depending on which kind of list you are looking for um the three most common lists um one of them is just the
standard voter list um or any specific list asking for a specific elections voter turnout um those are all stored on the state's voter registration information system and we can request those extracts from the state uh in
order to generate those lists so if you reach out looking for that list it does take some time we have to get the request out to the state they have to review it and approve it run the extract and then send it back to us um what we tend to do is we tend to do a bulk of
those in uh January or February before Town election so that we have a voter list even if it's not the most up to-date it is pretty much there for what you're looking for if somebody's looking to do a campaign mailing in March for example the voter list that we pulled in
mid-February will will be helpful for them um a second list that people frequently ask for is the frequent voter list there's actually four of those for which type of election you are looking at so there's the frequent town uh frequent State frequent State primary
and frequent presidential primary uh voter list and that is a list which um is all of the list that we extract from the state when we do these uh big polls we send them to our it team they run them through um a a program that they
have set up in the switchboard that allows us to pull specific lists by uh election so we will have a list that will have anybody who voted in the most recent Town elections usually going back five or six years as well as recent State elections uh State primaries and
presidential primaries the third list is what we call the eb20 which is the early voting list which many campaigns are interested in and this is the list of any voter who's requested and then received and then submitted a vote by mail ballot um those we can poll at Hawk um it does take some time just to get
the extracts out of the state but not as long as uh we don't have to wait for the state as long as some of the other voting lists what we tend to do with those is we pull them once a week during the heat of the election anticipating that people need them for any voting list the process to request them is
quite simple you must make the request in Waiting you cannot make it by phone or at the front counter um and the easiest way to do that is to send an email either to the town clerk at Brooklyn ma.gov email address or to uh the clerk directly um at my email address um so that we can comp uh uh
compile those lists and send them to you um and sometimes it is just dependent on where we are in the process if we happen to have requested that list for somebody else uh the day before you might get your list very quickly versus if it's a new or somewhat unique request it might take us some time to get that
together okay okay uh Ben I was over at um Fisher Hill the other day and uh going around the West Hall where you store some of your documents um I was a little concerned about the fact that you know it's an old
building and didn't seem like there's any uh measures taken to protect against water fire or other risk over there um it may be remote but I think that the documents are very very important to to
our town do you have any plans to address that uh L short term or you see that is not a problem uh so it's something where so um many of these documents if you saw that they had water damage or actually water damaged when they were in the basement of the pier
school um that basement was not climate controlled was not very well water sometimes uh some of those boxes were just sitting in puddles um which caused a lot of that water damage one of the reasons we put them over there is because that was where there is space um the clerk's office vault is pretty much
at capacity um the storage rooms in the basement that the clerk's office uses for election storage are already overflowing um so we did not have a space to put them except at fiser Hill um in terms of uh the precautions that are taken there around fire or water um
I would defer to uh Charlie Simmons or to Dan Bennett from the building department who know much more about that than I do um in terms of our plans it's one of the things that's on our list of priorities is to go through those documents um to uh see what needs to be saved and what kind of work needs to to
be done to save them uh unfortunately that is a tremendous amount of staff time that we need to be dedicated to doing that to going through all of those boxes um and specialize staff time um you know we can't really send a high school intern over there because they wouldn't understand uh sometimes what
they're looking at they don't have a great comprehension of the municipal retention uh schedule or uh what actually hits that threshold of needing to be saved versus probably should be saved um so uh as of right now because we don't have sufficient staff uh it is
a project that's on my list but not one that we're going to be able to do at an advanced rate um without additional bodies I ran into the other ran into you the other day while you were preparing to do a wedding um how many weddings do you do per year uh so actually I was not doing
that wedding uh we had another Justice of the Peace who was there during the wedding um it fluctuates um I'll usually do probably between you know 50 and 60 a year for people who are coming to get married at Town Hall um we also have a number of other justices of the peace in Brookline who will do weddings um so
sometimes you'll see me doing them sometimes you'll see one of th uh those JPS doing it um but it's a nice service that we're able to provide to people who might not want to go through the whole rigar roll of planning a wedding um I say this as somebody who is getting married in August and it is a rigar roll
to be planning a wedding um to instead give them that opportunity to just come into town hall and and do the marriage uh we typically will actually do it in the Blackboard hearing room just cuz it's a nicer backdrop with the seal and the flags uh than them coming into my office which is piles of paper um and a
less less Pleasant environment great okay H John Mr town clerk will you get married in the town clerk's office or at Brooklyn Town Hall uh I will not be getting married in the Brooklyn town clerk's office but I do plan on getting married in a Brookline Municipal Park so
uh taking advantage of some of our excellent green spaces um and making sure that uh we're showing to anybody who's coming into town how amazing Brook line is and why they should beat are curious I ask I am not permitted to officiate my own wedding so anybody if
anybody wants to get ordained give me a call and I'll see are select board members allowed to officiate I'm sure you could get a one- day pass sorted out for it pardon me I I you you can anybody can apply for a a
one day I've actually done that it was uh call I I I married my daughter that is I officiated at the marriage of my okay um anything else thank you Ben
thank you very much okay next we have the health and human services department and I see G Isa is at the podium hi good evening I I just want to say you're bright very brave and I really appreciate you're sitting through three
hours of meetings to get to this point instead of sitting at home and coming in by zoom zoom is fine but it's nice to see you uh it's nice I don't come get to come here very often so I thought I'd do it in person um and I always think it's interesting hearing what my colleagues and other departments are doing so I try
to kind of chime in or watch the videos every once in a while but it's nice to see it l um okay so Seagal ree director of Public Health and Human Services um overall reflected numbers um you can see um a slight increase really for because
of third-year override funding coming online as well as our first year integrating the OPI settlement agreement funds through the stabilization fund um I'll get into a lot of detail but in summary um additional Services include creating the Human Services Navigator position increasing our work around
substance use prevention continuing the health Champions program and the bookl Brookline Bounty program what button did you say to p all of them get up here I'm surprised I know my name never mind having work technology he's having second thoughts
right so I'm going to try to summarize a key a few key points here um one of our major accomplishments this year was completion of the um 2-year AR profunding Community Health assessment and Community Health Improvement plan I look forward to presenting it more in depth at Future meetings but just in summary the community engagement process
identified four priority areas to improve health in Brookline Financial security access to Social and Health Services housing affordability and mental and Behavioral Health under each priority there are goals objectives and strategies and first year action plans to really continue the collaboration
across the community to implement the plan the plan is built um as a community plan as it's in its title um with responsibilities and actions really spread across M across multiple agencies and organizations as well as Town departments um health is shaped by the conditions which we live learn work and
play what we call the Social determinance of health and the chip really incorporates a community- based approach to address these social determinants um to improve health outcomes with the Department really act acting as a facilitator to lead the collaborative efforts and it will really be the focus of the department over the
next four to five years with access to Social Services as a priority in the chip and a and a select board goal for FY 26 we've Incorporated new role into the department and into this budget um the Human Services Navigator the position will work to connect residents with a
wide variety of human services including mental health substance use housing support child care and food resources we're working with internal and external Partners to develop an online resource director directory and a closed group referral platform to better coordinate care and improve access the
Human Services landscape is difficult and clpex to navigate and our goal is with the addition of this personnel and the platform is to better connect residents to resources the added benefit of the online platform is it will help us collect data on usid type of requests and connections to services to really
better evaluate our efforts additional work is around around substance use prevention includes uh using the uh substance abuse mental health services Administration strategic prevention framework uh to build a Community Coalition to prevent substance misuse which is also one of the
strategies outlined in the opio to batement settlement agreement and is also included in the chip we also uh plan to continue our project can harm reduction program uh We've distributed 524 kits since July 23 and
each harm reduction kit includes two Narcan doses fentanyl strips and treatment resources um much of this work also falls under the oade settle agreement and will be supported by the stabilization fund um housing affordability is one of the four priorities in the Chip And many
of the strategies align with the select board's goal of is ensuring better Greener and income diverse housing um just a few examples of housing objectives um identified in the trip is to increase firsttime and first generation home ownership and to decrease public housing unit health and safety findings just for a taste but
again looking forward to really get an in-depth in that in a future meeting I also just want to highlight some accomplishments in our regional collaborative uh we continue to work to improve local public health in infrastructure through Regional Partnerships the increase in capacity with staff and the mphc has allowed us
to devote more researchs towards things like it um Plastics enforcement and inspectional services and the regional epidemiologist is really the power behind a lot of our data displays and Analysis including the monthly roted data we post on the website on this year we also obtained a grant to host the regional tobacco
collaborative which provides us additional capacity to enforce local bylaws um and work on Tobacco policy across Brooklyn and seven other communities um I also wanted to mention within the um mphc we've been able to expand the vaccine um program for children this has been a long-standing
program in Brookline where we offer a vaccine for children entering the school and as part of the mphc we've been able to expand the program and bring on other communities um to increase access to Childhood vaccines and as we watch the measles outbreak it's important to ensure that um children are getting their two doses of MMR and we continue
to have have high vaccination rates in Brooklyn and in the region um really appreciate Darlene making this infographic she's one of our great uh public communicators in our office um as a community health manager um the Brookline Bounty program continues to be successful this was its
fourth year of the program with three years being ARA funded and year year one being on the Grant and with the override it's coming on the budget this year uh the program provides coupons for residents to use at the very popular Farmers Market to purchase healthy foods over 730 households registered to take
part in the bookline P Bounty program and in the last two years we've added um a new uh aspect of the program to purchase turkeys and chickens for families before Thanksgiving and we partner with BHA public schools of Brooklyn COA and the veterans to
distribute 235 um disturb Birds to 235 families I was getting in front of you wanted to see a road and control update um the department continues to collaborate with Public Works in the building department and the road and control action plan um as you've heard me say before um Road and control takes
a multipronged approach um we need pet control Solid Waste storage and disposal uh cleaning and sanitation and public awareness we continue to track complaints and respond to high high complaint areas with interventions such as Solid Waste inspections Pest Control
enforcement and adjusting the smart um the modern Smart City system recently we did an exercise where we looked at dpw's ticketing and enforcement to be able to better quantify or increases in activity and there were um 821 enforcements T tickets issued in 24 compared to 335 in
23 and 287 in 22 so that's 144% increase from 23 to 24 um with Stephanie coming on board at Public Works it's also really improved our communication and collaboration with complaints being channeled to one area and being distributed from there uh we
frequently perform joint inspections and identify areas that we need Solid Waste as well solid waste enforcement as well as Pest Control the chart up here on the slide um shows our um complaint tracking uh since January of 23 complaints have
continued to Trend up in the warmer months and we did see an increase this fast this past summer over um calendar year 23 um but we have seen less complaints in Fall of 24 and so far um just to highlight that those that Gray Line down there so far in um this year
we've seen a a decrease in complaints with 17 in January and 18 in February like I said shown in the Gray Line compared to 32 and 35 last year respectively in those months um so really since October we have seen um a seasonal downward Trend but also lower volume compared to the year
before so Department demands um we continue to face demands that strain the department um our environmental health division is our biggest division but probably also faces our biggest strains um we continue to stretch to meet new demands from new bylaws and initiatives things like housing stability and Plastics bylaw um with new policy it
takes a large effort to implement and means other projects might not get addressed um examples are things like the plastic byla where we've allocated some Regional staff to actually help us with that with the mphc but that just means we have less hours to help fill the gaps with inspectional Services
which we've seen really just due to turnover we divide the community up into five inspectional districts um and at one point or another since I've been here we haven't been fully staffed in those five districts um so that's always a challenge um hiring inspectors is probably the most difficult position for
us to hire and it does take a consider amount of onboarding and training because it's really hard to find trained hired inspectors um the staff we have is excellent and my hope is um in the next we we just did a hire they're starting in May that we'll have all five districts fully staffed and up and
running um after that new hire long as nobody leaves um aligning with this select board the goals of making it easier to open and operate a business in Brooklyn the environmental health division has been working to get applications online and streamline the process for new less
restaurants and other license operation um and you can see in the budget book um it's about 500 to 600 permits we issue with year um various type of operations the staff's also been working with Tiffany and the select board's office to streamline permanent operations where the department is involved and strange
on the division really kind of make it hardest for us to do these administrative tasks um when there's a lot of need in the inspection and operational side of things um I want to thank Dr Lena a chief of environmental health for his team for really just working to get the job done um lastly I
I put up here on the slide I think we're all a little worried about funding streams um either Direct Federal funding or funding that comes to the state from federal sources and we've been having meetings with Chaz to discuss what funding might be at risk and how it impact our operations one of our favorite exercises if you were going to tell me there's no
budget limitations we would have a very long list of things that we would want to do um because I think like many department heads were very passionate about what we do but I wanted to just highlight I think um I would actually expand Human Services Beyond of what we're proposing here um housing support child care and mental health
consistently as concerns when we're out there talking to um residents and our Community Partners and I would partner with Community groups to increase funding for direct assistance and work to provide streamlined assistance to those in need you made me pick one priority um I feel like we have a clear
road map with the community health Improvement plan with the chip um and the community feedback on priorities that provide Department with a strategic plan to effectively improve health outcomes in Brooklyn um we're celebrating the completion of the Chan the chip process but the real work Starts Now with implementation and I
look forward to sharing more details um with you and working on strategies um overall I hope the department budget reflects the goals of the of the Chip And um several of the select board's goals um and is really providing increase in services to improve health outcomes I welcome any
questions great thank you well I'll ask a question um one of our goals is the expansion of the social services Hub or whatever and I see you you've done a lot along those lines I'm wondering though
um does it make a difference that social services is one of your divisions as opposed to just sort of SP dispersed throughout the uh Department um and and I ask that because um there have been proposals to create a
new Department of Social Services and you know my response has always been that you know we have a department of social Services because in your organizational chart years ago there was actually a Division I forgot what it's called but you know so the question
really is you know does it make a difference that you have an actual structure that includes Social Services yeah and I think also linking social services and public health when we talk about how we do Public Health it is very closely linked to Human Services and connecting people to resources and
that Community collaboration approach so I think that the Synergy makes sense there um I think no matter how you look to stru structure Human Services and Social Services it is a very complex system and it involves more than one division or one Department um so there are many ways to structure it I think
the mirroring it with public health and the collaborative nature of it makes sense to me um but I think we're partnering with the COA with the Veterans office with the schools even with the LI all of our internal partn about all the external partn so in any
way you structure it it tends to be a complex Network Mike um I'm looking at the um the various measures and you know to track activity that in the department
and they're very very the details very very interesting there is one that I'm a little curious about disease cases confirmed fy2 is zero and all of the other years have numbers of you know ranging from 295 to uh uh 76 70
7500 um and is that because we stopped tracking in some way or what is are we not doing something that we were doing before um we are tracking it differently okay it's really just in how we track
the data I think um and if you see I believe it was because of covid data we wanted to include a lot all of our Data Tracking happens on the state online system so we pull those numbers from there Labs report the results come in through the system and then we contact the residents depending on the disease
there certain protocols for each one to control whether it's communicable or not um so and I I don't know why it's say zero for 25 that is strange um and we can look back there's been a couple little hiccups with the new system all right fair
enough uh John um thank you very much to the report um along the lines of what Mike was just asking about uh have have we discontinued what was such a commonplace
practice during the height of the covid experience of people were obsessed with you know like every week we wanted to know how many cases how many hospitalizations etc etc I think I I'm pretty sure I saw just recently that
essentially with very little notice on the part of the public that ended um and I'm not saying this is a Brookline phenomenon but um I is is it public health policy to still issue weekly data
on on covid um or has that pretty much just melted away well I was think before covid we actually did not issue data like that because it was close to be identifiable so there was a big shift during Co where we did report numbers on
a frequent basis I would say you know people in my department people in my work look at it very consistently um and I I try to update Chaz every time we connect um so we are looking at respiratory virus numbers all the time we're looking at Wastewater data we're looking at the um the state has actually
ramped up a lot of its tracking on their website looking at um covid flu RSV um other things like neuro virus um they track hospitalization rates so we're looking at those numbers I don't think there's as much as of a public interest um and also I think it's more beneficial
to look at it regionally the numbers in Brooklyn don't really tell us the whole story does norvi County still do it um I you can look at things by county level and for some depending on the numbers you can look at up on Town level depending on what it is looking at the regional picture is just more productive
to tell us what's going on and look at the only Pointes the only point I'm trying to make is simply sometimes things H things pass and we don't even realize how much things have changed and things have changed so much I mean it's just amazing and at least
that's something we can be grateful for now you you mentioned a new position and I immediately drew a blank as to the what you called the position to to steer people to services offered social what is the title of the position we're steering and we're navigating so that I
a navigator Human Services Navigator a navigator um I I I only bring that up um to just uh uh urge that we be sure the public is well aware that there is a navigator you
know available you know through the town and that that Navigator whoever that person is you know becomes kind of familiar figure um for people who previously had no one in particular to turn to um and had to figure out for
themselves who am I supposed to direct this question to um because that Navigator is going to be very very useful as long as everybody knows the Navigator is the first place to go you know if if you're wondering who to go to so anyway just just want to make that
point yeah if I may just to elaborate on it I think um giving the Navigator the tool of the online resource directory and referral system is also going to be strategic um because I a lot of the reaction I get sort of talking to our Community Partners about this is it's just one person so we got to start
somewhere yeah so um you know I am I am a little worried about this person being inundated um but also giving them the tools and the resource to effectively and efficiently refer people to existing programs yeah and I also want to sort of manage the expectations this is no they're not going to be any new Services
it's really connecting people and making it more streamlined and quicker connections um to existing Services I just want them to be famous yeah I agree uh we'll do a really good job working with Christina and chaz's team to promote it and all of our Community Partners I would have to say um not only
did the community health assessment and Improvement plan give us a strategy and a um some direction for the Department for me you know still being relatively new and going through this two-year process the relationships and collaborations and um Community Partnerships and Community engagement has sort of led to some of these
relationships that um they're very aware of this U proposal and are are very eager to collaborate with us on it and help us connect out to the community so residents do know about it that's great okay looks like uh you've answered all of our questions thank you thank you
good night thank you SE okay next we have uh uh diversity Equity inclusion and community relations departments see Lloyd jelo on the um on the zoom
monitor yes um good evening uh my name is Lloyd johu I am the director of the office of diversity Equity inclusion and community relations office um thank you for giving us opportunity to share um some of our accomplishments
of of fy2 and to share with the goals for FY 26 um see um share my screen [Music] here okay okay first stop I just want to say
um um thank you to um um the OD oicr staff um um they have done a remarkable M work over the years and uh this fy2 is no exception to that um I three of us
are here this um evening Caitlyn star the assistant director of the department um Sarah Kaplan the Ada coordinator and community relations specialist and ahed hamasa um he unfortunately couldn't be with here us tonight but he's the newest one in the office and he's the language
access coordinator um the the mission of the office um is to promote events and activities that Aid the Brookland Community to become more culturally competent and to be informed of the achievements and the barriers faced by our protected classes it continues to
work with the community entities to examining quality of life barriers due to racial inequities or discrimination based on protected class status and to develop strategies to mitigate those barriers um we've essentially have a
level budget um this year um with the exception of um a $5,000 deduction in professional tech services um that was taken away I should say that was put in our budget last year to anticipate its
use in hiring um independent investigators to do work that um was outside the scope of the office to do um those the amount of those type of Investigations did not materialize so um
um that money was taken away this year with the understanding that uh such costs will now be in the town council's office um also there were not a two uh 2% increase in the personal offsets that comes from the disabilities parking
meter funds um the the offsets support supports the Ada coordinator Community specialist position within the department also note there was a 20% reduction in the lease computers line um this is essentially um in our fy2 budget
it was anticipated a 10% increase in computer um leasing that did not materialize so that money was actually taken out of the FY 26 budget um so overall um it's pretty much level a level funded budget this year um and um
we move on to the next slide um I cheated a little bit here uh and I I I'm going to apologize for that but um we did list some of uh several more accomplishments that that than you uh requested us to put in um but I want to
highlight the ones in green uh revised the language access policy and began transcri uh transcribing oicr documents um revision and and distribution of the know your rights pan um that was done in uh several different
languages uh translate the Brookline welcome booklet into the top five languages and in collaboration with the Brookline library in Hidden Brookline we created a lecture series regarding the lived experiences of folks from marginalized groups with living in
Brookline um I highlight those mainly because those are specifically driven by the office and the majority other ones they're in collaboration with other Town departments or community bodies um and again I broke down to four
different uh major achievements here um getting the langu language access policy approved and starting the language access plan implementation um establishing a relationship with the Brookline Muslim Community uh the distribution of the know your rights pamphlet and the Brookline welcome booket booklet and a
completion of all Town side Ada assessments key goals for for this uh physical year uh continue modering and encouraging civic participation in berkline community with the increase on on marginalized groups work in conjunction with the select board Town
administrator's office to recruit cdic members I should spell that out Community uh excuse me commission for diversity equity and um inclusion and Community relation members with expertise in fair housing community relations and employment
diversity um to collaborate with Town agencies and organizations to increase voter participation with emphasis on young adult and lowincome populations uh collaborate with the town's Administrative Office to monitor the town's Community engagement efforts
um assist in translating vital documents from front-facing Town departments as described in the language access uh plan and policy um then continue with working with the town departments to assess and strategize opportunities to increase minority owned business usage in town
contracts and Supply chains um long-term goals and objectives um increase growth opportunities for individuals and families of low income residing in Brooklyn incre increased voter participation in a local government have a greater representation of marginalized
groups on Town boards and commissions to elimidate barriers for all individuals that prevent reasonable communication and access to town facilities and processes now the question was how uh how have your operations further to select what's goals and um objectives for the past
fisc fiscal year uh the office through collaboration with Community entities boards and commissions and the town departments work together achieving the select goals goals by delivering and implementing a language access policy and plan for the for approval by the select board participated in the supply
diversity disparity study and updated and distri the diverse and inclusive B uh business directory collaborated and participated in the Health Department's Human Service assessments and GAP um analysis reports for the next year the office
seeks to improve voter turnout of underrepresented groups to increase participation of underrepresented groups in town boards and commissions identify strategies to increase minority owned businesses specifically black and brown Enterprises they also the office also
seeks to increase access to vital documents for L LOE individuals in their own languages and to monitor the language access use of the of the Brooklyn Community these goals are consistent with the select Bo's diversity inclusion
goals and that will be end of my um end of my presentation and um can take questions what is this a picture of oh I have no idea stop sharing that that's
interesting all right um thank goodness okay any questions from the selectboard uh Lloyd thank you um are you receiving is your office receiving um a fair a fair amount of
new level of of inquiries having to do with um the application of um uh enforcement of uh immigration laws by the Trump Administration no no you're not
no okay I I think we should um open it up to my staff too because um they I staff would let me know if that was the case but I haven't received any kind of
um email or Communications um from government I know there's a fear out there and we have um folks in like positions of mine um raise our concern about what it does what what what the impact it's going to have on our work um
but none of us have identified uh any government agency reaching out to us in any way at this point okay you don't do you receive U as a department any um funds from U federal government that
would give them a hook uh not anymore U the oper funds was the only thing that I think are yeah so yeah I they may try to bully you but we'll we'll stay behind you appreciate that
um any other questions I guess I have a question um recently um Metro West Housing I forgot what full name of it is uh did a a report on housing discrimination uh in the uh Metro West
area I assume you're aware of that and does your department um have any involvement in um addressing housing discrimination here in Brooklyn um we have um two ways that
we're involved number one is getting information out about fair housing rights and and and um landlord and tenant respons abilities and and rights um we typically do something in April that's fair housing month um to do that
this year we're looking to put together a training for um landlords and realtorss um in the month of April um to share what what's current with fair housing what they should be doing and what they should not be doing
um we also serve as a reporting agency um for people who have fair housing issues we're not allowed to do any investigations of those um type of uh complaints but we can help people file file with mcad or back in the day HUD if
that was um in doj if that was necessary um so those those two things we can still do but we can't do like I said we can't do any of the investigation of those things we we can we can actually just receive the report and and and and send through those Regulatory
Agencies um so I think I answered your question in in terms of your educational work with landlords and all one of the things that the report and I thank John Bak for actually finding this and alerting us uh to it U one of the things
the report mentioned is that um uh many landlords resist or or are hesitant to accept uh Section 8 vouchers um when in fact Section 8 Bou should be a big a huge benefit to landlords because
they sort of guarantee um payment of rent even if um uh you know the tenant loses a job or whatever is that do you include those benefits in your reach Outreach to
landlords um you mean informing of the benefits of having U new taken vouchers yeah well I think I don't think we're as we're not nice like that I mean they're obligated to take it and we let them
know that um you know that if if it's found out that they're rejecting someone based on that then you know there there's serious consequences for that I I do think that a lot of folks that do ha that does happen to they don't report it and that's sort of the issue um in a
lot of these circumstances um um so I I've been backing this is going back 10 to 15 years ago um a lot of it was if the people had children uh landlords didn't want to have them
because a lead paint situation um and so um I don't know if that's still the case um but um all that comes out in in these trainings and I think we should start doing them more often than once a year maybe have it once or twice a year to
make sure that um the landlords it's always in their money that they should be looking out for this okay thank you all right have a good evening um and um once again thank you for having us so I appreciate the the we
appreciate the attention so thanks we appreciate work thanks everybody next uh Warren articles um these are public hearings and we have one two three four five warrant articles
to hold public hearings on and I see Melissa Melissa is um ready to present to us uh the five articles that we're going to be discussing well not all five because uh there I think there should be petitioners here for some of them uh but
the the first article is the annual article that we have on our warrant for the um measures of wooden bark um it's requirement that this be not the first article up for the annual town meeting so um the recommendation under this article is favorable
action I wouldn't want to I wouldn't want to do anything other than favorable action my heo do it pardon me let's vote okay we public hearing whoops um where is
Stanley speaker you want do you open it up or you open it up and I'll let you know who's here okay uh this is a public hearing on Warren article number one appointment of measures of wooden bark um anyone like to speak on this Warren
article there's no one who signed up in advance is there anyone in the room or online who would like to speak on this warn article if so please raise your hand using the raise the hand feature there are two participants in the room and 20 online and no one is
indicating their desire to speak okay I will close the uh public hearing and and I I move that or I propose that we vote on War article number one all in favor please indicate by saying I John vak I Mike sanman I Paul Warren i d Forman I
and Sher v i next war on Article 13 amend articles 3.48 of the town's General bylaws relating to the election of constables um just for the avoidance of doubt that vote was a favorable action vote on more article one oh I'm sorry
did I not say that yeah okay anyone's okay with that y yes good thank you yes okay H do we have anyone to speak on this morning article yes Neil Gordon is online Neil I've promoted you now you can begin your 10
minutes uh I'll I'll take a lot less than 10 minutes uh for the record I'm Neil Gordon precin one town meeting member a member of the advisory committee as you may remember um a year ago um uh town meeting approved a bylaw
change uh we uh elect uh five constables all at once uh we changed the bylaw so that conses would be elected on a staggered basis the same way we do select board Library trustees uh school committee uh there was trans transition
language in the bylaw that's in the bylaw now uh that provides uh one an effective date uh and two for the first election uh the top two finishers to get three-year terms the next two finishers
to get two-year terms and the fifth to get a one-year term um that election will take place in the first week in May after which the transition language and the effective date language in the bylaw become moot uh and this particular
warrant article just removes the mood language so that it doesn't clutter the bylaw and require more reading that is necessary okay fairly straightforward any questions from the select board okay um I I just want to say I think removing
moot language should be a universal um Rule and thank you for setting the example yes yeah you you're welcome so this is a public hearing um Tiffany do we have anyone interested in making a public comment there is no one
who signed up in advance is there anyone in the room who wishes to speak on this warrant AR article or anyone online please raise your hand using the raise the hand feature there are two participants in the room 19 online and no one is indicating their desire to speak on war Article 13 okay I will close the uh
hearing and uh this is a fairly straightforward article I propose that we vote tonight any objection to that okay I move favorable action on war Article 13 uh all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak I
Michael um Michael salmon I Paul Warren I David Perman I Fair votes I next Warren article three thank you NE warant article three annual authorization of compensating balance agreements this is
uh the treasurer good evening again you were just here I I did I made it home to do it to do this remotely hey quick trip it it was good tonight so um thanks for
having me uh as as chair green said um this is an annual article that allows uh me as the treasurer to enter into compensating balance agreements with uh financial institutions these these agreements when we have them um uh uh
make it so that uh the town would agree to have a particular level of balance there in return for certain services so we receive a whole variety of services from financial institutions like for example uh lockbox for the uh collection
of uh real estate um and uh other taxes and water and sewer bills Etc um so we do not currently have any um have any compensating balance agreements none arm Vision at at the moment but the uh state
law uh requires that town meeting uh approve the possibility of these of these agreements each year at Town me meeting and it is true um that uh these Agreements are more favorable towards the town and lower interest rate
environments so um while it doesn't make sense to do them now it would be good to have that flexibility um if should the should the opportunity rise that it would make sense and be in the financial interest of the town and again certainly happy to take
any questions that the board has okay any questions from the board okay okay this is a public hearing um uh Tiffany is anyone interested in speaking there is no one that signed up in advance for this public hearing is there anyone in the room who wishes to speak on this
public hearing or anyone online please raise your hand using the raise the hand feature there are two participants in the room 19 online and no one is indicating their desire to speak okay I I'll close the hearing and uh suggest that we vote on this item fairly
straightforward uh no need to U digest the details uh so more favorable action for Warrant article three all in favor please indicate by saying I John V skak hi Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren hi
David Perman I and chair votes I next warn article eight establish a departmental revolving fund for electric vehicle charging uh I guess charging stations are
okay I see meliss goth is uh on on the monitor yes so this article is looking to establish a revolving fund so essentially um as users are paying for the electricity and usage at the charging stations we would use this fund
um to basically reimburse the town for these expenses so it would pay for the electricity and and any Associated maintenance costs um to the charging stations as well okay okay any questions from the select
board no okay this is a public hearing um let's open up up the public hearing uh no one signed up in advance for this public hearing is there anyone in the room who wishes to speak on this warrant article or anyone online please raise your hand using the raise the hand feature there are two individuals in the
room 19 online and no one is indicating their desire to speak okay let's close the public hearing and um I propose that we vote on this tonight unless anyone thinks that we should wait it's fairly straightforward I mean it's
it's yeah okay so I I I move favorable action on Warr article 8 on favor please indicate by saying I John Van skak hi Michael Sandman hi PA Warren hi David Perman I chair votes I thank you okay
Warren I'm sorry thank you Melissa Warren article 11 ex accept chapter 40u sections one and two of the general laws to create a municipal hearing officer and this is a proposal of Town Council and we probably want to
vote on this next meeting or something so we can or digest and understand all the nuances here he's been so patient too I know so you'll have to come back next week and be patient again so I'm generally here so that's not a problem
but Joe Callen and Town Council um my apologies for giving you a memo uh so late before the the hearing but uh it is uh uh comprehensive so it is able to answer your questions but let me give you a one minute summary of it and I Michael I I'm perfectly happy to vote on
this I've reviewed enough of it to feel like oh okay uh so I'm perfectly happy to vote on this tonight if the rest of you are okay what what what are the other board members or maybe we should listen to Joe and listen to Joe and there you go there you go there's an idea I never I never have a problem with
you listen listening to me so um but also if you have any questions I'm happy to answer them because I'll summarize but uh there's a four-page memo to get into more details chapter 4u of the general laws allows a municipality to adopt a municipal hearing officer if you're familiar with state or federal practice there is what's called
administrative law judges they're not part of the judicial branch they're part of the executive branch but they provide an opportunity to appeal um bylaw violations uh before going to say Brookline district court or housing court for further enforcement so this would create a uniform and
streamline process um in order to do that we adopt 40u but then you can build upon it so for example you have um delegated to an outside neutral the hearing of the Cannabis retail license suspension the municipal hearing officer
could take that responsibility over um you know there is an um problems with 40u being used for building and Zoning but we would have the capacity for that person to be able to help building bring an enforcement action before say the zba
so this is an effort to kind of streamline um uh enforcement and have sagal's inspectors inspect and instead of having to wait in bookline district court for hours for a hearing that's what lawyers do so lawyers should be doing that waiting while inspectors
should be continuing to inspect so if you have any questions I'm happy to answer them any questions John yeah yeah because um I thought I understood this until your last uh sentence and I'm sure it's not your fault um my understanding
of this was that the municipal hearing officer will be kind of a finder of fact correct yeah but you said the municipal hearing officer would appear in court uh which sounds like he he or she would substitute for the inspector appearing
in court correct if there's a further appeal of the municipal hearings officer decision so for example we have a um right now A uh snow ticket um uh violation that someone has appealed so
if that was written by the Department of Public Works a Department of Public Works employee would go over to Brookline district court and wait before a clerk to hear that however given our snow enforcement it was actually written by a building inspector so the building inspector is unfamiliar with that
practice so we're going to do that for them so that's what I'm saying to create a uniformity among these Appeals so some departments go to court some don't we do so this is this is to make it uniform and streamline so we're able to enforce these things by having one
person do it as opposed to a decentralized uh system where sometimes it's Health sometimes it's public works sometimes it's building sometimes it's somebody else sometimes it's people in my office but and Paul just one more quick followup if you don't mind um so
but I also thought I I understood from your memo that the the in the role of of sort of finder of fact the hearing officer would never say um th this this ticket was invalid and shouldn't have
been issued and let the person go that would have to be a determination made by the select board right you that the hearing officer would present the findings of fact to the select board and if there was any question of just sort of dropping the whole matter that would have to be the select board's decision
right for those areas in which the select board has that final Authority you could do that yeah so for example when we do Personnel matters or the like that cannabis licensing example that I gave but you don't do that for snow and ice or rod and control violation it's
it's generally the department head you know or the you know the the um the inspector who makes that factual finding and if there's an appeal they go to court this creates an intermediate level of appeal in the executive branch as opposed to the state judicial branch and
they can have an A you know an an appeal they can do it by paper they could come in for a hearing it could be you know contested it could be you know uh you know some some week night do we have a ballpark number on the number of times that the various matters we're discussing here get taken to court so
there was a survey um that's the L latter part of the memo for the different departments so I think like with rodent control you heard from uh director uh director ree the numbers are growing exponentially where we didn't have that many we're now hundreds um you know for example
building you know issues hundreds but now has 20 to 30 that they're seeking enforcement so you know there is work to be done here okay well thanks Joe uh two quick questions do um would license
violations still come to us because they're non- delegable under the um uh T administrator act okay but you could have you know like John's example the hearing officer fine facts and make a recommendation to you but the final Authority would be you much like the Cannabis retailer license with the
outdoor outside neutral can I ask one more question I think I did I just lose my question no um so um oh is there a cost associated with this if this passes we are we going to need to get another person in your in your staff so there would be um not this year or fiscal 26
but the idea is that we would uh seek town meeting approval start the implementation of the process in fiscal 27 I'm sorry 26 and then come to you in fiscal 27 for a staff person FTE and if okay um so we're going to add a staff
person where today we don't need one yeah I would disagree with don't need one this the work is being done but now for example you know the fraction of the FTE that's the inspector would now be available to inspect so there would
be a reallocation of Staff resources and an inre enforcement because then we would have that um streamlined appeal I don't anticipate a net increase in FTE from this let's put it that I hope not we don't need to add be adding any more FD given where we're going with the
buet purpose I think in this instance what we are preliminarily discussing is moving some resources around we're not I don't anticipate adding own F on this at this Junction came like and I will say that I I know that contractors cry out in desperation for building inspectors
to to come and it's difficult to get one um because they're busy and apparently doing some other things uh that uh have really nothing to do with building you're sitting in court Mike I just don't right sitting well as they say sitting in sitting in court waiting and that can be a very that can be a process
almost as long as sitting in a select board meeting um so it seems to me like we'll get much better utilization on the people that were paying for it to do their jobs instead of doing something else okay this is a public hearing um let's
open up the public hearing is there anyone interested in speaking Tiffany uh there's no one who signed up in advance for this public hearing is there one anyone in the room or online who wishes to speak on this public hearing if so please raise your hand using the raise the hand feature there's one individual in the
room 18 online and no one is indicating their desire to speak okay let's close the hearing then um I I I get the sense that people are willing to vote uh let's so let's vote uh I'm Mo favorable action on warrant
article 11 all in favor please indicate by saying I John V skak hi Michael sandon hi Paul Warren hi and David Perman I and chair both I thank you thank you very much hey next boards and commissions appointments oh yes question of
appointing sadf casmi to the expenditures and revenue study committee her materials are in the pack packet I assume people have read them quite an impressive person I think she could make a great great contribution to this committee and also someone who has um
been involved in town Affairs as sort of local level in the Lawrence School District and it'd be great to bring someone like this you know in into something like the expenditures and revenue committee so unless does anyone have any questions
or okay and and recall uh John and I have been delegated the respons responsibility of filling the uh membership of the committee so I move approval of the appointment of sadf casmi to the expenditures and revenue study committee all in favor please
indicate by saying I John vanak I Michael sandon hi Paul Warren hi David prman I chair votes I next boards and commissions reappointments uh question of reappointing following individuals to various boards and commissions and if no
one objects I'd like to take them together um just two but yes please um zoning board of appeals uh Walter o sorry wadner
o um preservation commission Elizabeth Armstrong uh any questions or discussions uh I move approval of um order God what why am I focus on Walter wadner o and Elizabeth J Armstrong all
in favor please by saying I John vak uh with thanks to both wner and Elizabeth for reapplying um because they're great appointees um I uh Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren hi and David Perman hi and Cher
oai and that's the end of our you know work on the select board but there may be someone in the audience who would like to make a public comment in our post meeting comment period
no is there anyone in the room or online who would like to make a public comment okay okay so the public comment period is over and I will therefore close the meeting thank you e