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[Music] 2 one good evening I'm Bernard Green chair of the Brookline select board and this is the regular meeting of the
select board for March 25th 2025 um first item is waiting for David Pearlman to get to the seat um I move that the select board go into executive session for the purpose of
discussing strategy related to two litigation matters First Federal multi-district litigation uh regarding um uh social media uh applications and second potential litigation that is clearly and
imminently threatened by Shabad lubich in Chestnut Hill Massachusetts the litigation matters must be discussed in executive section because an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the litigation position of the town and the chair me so
declares an executive session therefore to be necessary so all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak I Michael Sandman I Paul Warren I David pman I chair votes I we will return to
open session after our executive session thank you
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[Music] two one good evening I'm Bernard Green chair of the Brookline select board and this is the regular meeting of the select board for March 25th 2025 let's start off with uh
announcements updates from the board I'd like to start off with a couple first of all the board just held an executive session regarding the 90 to 100 Bellingham Road properties and imminent litigation that's been
threatened regarding development there the board wants to help reach a solution to the issues presented by both the property owner and the neighborhood in a mutually satisfactory way so that all of the interested parties who will be neighbors for a long time to come are
able to live and worship as they need to that end the board has directed Town Council to reach out to council for the property owners as well as the interested neighbors that we are aware of to try and reach a mediated solution
if possible some sort of neighbors committee would be needed to make this work if you're if you are an interested party and have not yet reached out please contact town council's office uh at Town Council Office one word at
Brooklin ma.gov okay next you I've been talking about the uh Brookline Giants that we've been losing over the last few weeks another Brookline giant has died and that's
Katherine Virginia Dixon Kitty daauus daughter of har Harry Ellis Dixon first violinist of the Boston Symphony and uh Jane Goldberg Dixon her mother Kitty daauus was a graduate of Brooklyn high school she was a social
worker later in life but throughout her life she was a fighter for the weak the oppressed and the vulnerable she devoted herself to projects for the homeless refugees AIDS uh patients the
Holocaust and pressing her husband as Governor to promote women to the cabinet and other high positions in government in her 1990 memoir now you know she wrote an iconic passage now I know before I can do anything for anyone
else I have to take care of myself she's referring to her own struggles and various substances she used to try to control them Kitty daauus lived an impactful life that has had its ups and downs and victories and
disappointments but she leaves behind a legacy that is her own not just as the wife of former Governor Michael dakus our thoughts are with Governor dakus or I can speak for I think the whole entire board our thoughts are with
governor dakus and his family in a statement the family noted that kitty and Michael dakus shared an enviable partnership for over 60 years and loved each other deeply the reality of that love stood
out brightly whenever you saw them together so um any other John uh first I want to thank our chair very much for those comments one of the great I'll say satisfactions of
my life and my connection to Brookline uh is to be able to say I'm from the town um that Mike dukus is from and the dukus the entire dukus family um it's um uh it's a a difficult time for that family and our th thoughts are with them
our prayers are with them um some uh announcements uh I hope people will pay close attention to a very um uh good event that's going to happen tomorrow and that is the annual commission for women uh Brookline women of the Year event and it is at 700 PM uh
that's Wednesday tomorrow 7 PM um at hunman Hall in the library I I'll be honest with you I I think it's also accessible via Zoom but people should check into that um the three women uh have been announced and uh they could
they made great choices every single one um Jessica Chico Jessica thank you um deeply profoundly for the work you are doing on behalf of the Immigrant Community um in Brooklyn um and Myers thank you for everything you do for our business community and uh police chief
Jen Pastor um uh I I think everybody knows the role that she plays in the community and and we are so grateful for that uh Second announcement um it is going we are approaching the uh event uh the Boston Marathon in April and um as
before Brookline has a team it's known as team Brookline um if you go to the team Brookline page um uh on a on your just by Google searching you'll find out a lot of information about Runners who have come forward um are going to be um
participating in the marathon and raising money for a very distinguished list of Brooklyn nonprofits so please do that and finally um I I'm doing this somewhat for the benefit of my fellow select board members um who who may not
have um been following uh as closely as I have for particular reasons I've been following closely the question of a bike lane that is going to be introduced um to or at least improved upon on Commonwealth Avenue not Commonwealth
Avenue Cheston Hill Avenue excuse me um and there have already been um a couple of steps taken towards that and it has already become apparent that this is of great concern widespread concern to the residents of Chestnut Hill Avenue some
of whom are here tonight to speak to their reasons for wanting to um have the um process result in some further changes to the plan that has been so far presented um and I I think it's
beneficial that they speak out at this time because before it's too late um we'd like to see some changes happen to that plan that would avoid the outcome of them having to appeal a transport Transportation board decision to this select board
which is their ultimate um right so um please listen to when they speak tonight um and I I just offer that as a brief explanation of why they're here thank you John uh Paul yep thank you uh Bernard and thank you for your comments
about Kitty tacus um so the division of sustainability and natural resources will be hosting its first public forum to provide input into the climate action and resiliency plan affectionally known as the carp did not
name at that but that's what it is uh the plan will create a clear and Equitable actionable road map to reduce greenhouse gas emissions adapt to climate risk and strengthen our community's climate resilience that process is just getting underway the
carp the meeting will be held Monday March 31st at 6: p.m. 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. uh in brookl town hall right downstairs in room 103 so if you want to provide input into our future plans for climate
resiliency please uh go to the carpet meeting thank you thank you any other uh board comments okay let's move on to public comment Tiffany thank you for joining us for public comment this is an opportunity for us to
hear your perspective on the issues in Brookline that matter to you each person speaking tonight is limited to 3 minutes you don't need to use the entire time but you may if you like once 15 minutes has been met there is an opportunity at the conclusion of the select board's business for additional comments members
of the public sometimes raise questions during public comment we may be able to provide a quick answer to a question but are more likely to work with staff to get a more thorough answer and respond over email we'll let you know when you have 30 seconds remaining and when your time is up please conclude your remarks at that time if you have more to say
you're welcome to send an email to board members expressing your thoughts in Greater detail any person speaking tonight must begin their comment by identifying themselves with their full name and either their Brookline precinct number or street address the first person who signed up in advance is David
Eisenberg foll following David will be Brenda hefer David is online David I'm promoting you now David you can start your video and begin your three minutes if you're ready uh good evening thank you for the
invitation my name is David Eisenberg I'm a town me member Precinct 14 I'm a biker and fellow resident of this uh area where the proposal
is and I'm speaking for myself not for any group I'm opposed to the present plans uh for chest Hill Avenue for several reasons this appears to me to be an attempt solving a problem that might not
exist or that may exist for only a few people not for many and it it may not exist even for a few while creating the on the other hand it creates a clear problem for the many residents and even for traffic flow it's
a Justin Hill Avenue is a street with buses h huge trucks and drivers intent on getting somewhere quickly it could never be as safe as a comfortable size Street where trucks
buses and fast cars don't go there will they there will always be a threat to bikers and on T avue if with rapid cars and trucks and what have you and the ballards and the uh uh painting won't
stop that whereas this won't exist on the side streets I think that uh using streets such as Elliot Street or uh uh Fisher Avenue as Alternatives have
advantages they're they're quieter safer bikers will get more exercise I know I will and it won't cost the town uh money that may be poorly spent as we know that in some municipalities bards are being
re removed so uh in summary I don't think there's a great need there are thousands of cars and perhaps a handful of bikers and I don't think the interest of the
few should outweigh the the safety and convenience of the residents and The Travelers that use that that major thoroughfare I don't think the town will get it's bang for the
buck and U it just seems to be a nice balloon of an idea but it should be punctured thank you very much for your time and good luck thank you the next speaker
is Brenda hefer good evening my name is Hef Brenda whoops good evening my name is Brenda hefer I live at 653 Chestnut Hill Avenue I am a lifelong resident of Brookline and I have lived with my family on
Chestnut Hill Avenue for nearly 40 years I have serious concerns about the proposed chestn Hill Avenue renovation project and the significant implications for our daily lives and our neighbors daily lives the proposal to remove curbside parking and install Flex
along the bike Lanes will create major challenges for residents who rely on parking accessibility for visitors home health aids contractors landscapers repair services delivery drivers and our Postal Service Vehicles who park at intervals along the road to deliver the
mail many driveways in our area are tandem style meaning curbside parking is essential eliminating these spaces will have safe that have safely and peacefully coexisted with existing bike lanes for decades ades will create significant disruptions for residents
and service providers alike as a street with over 15,000 Vehicles transiting daily traffic is already backed up at peak times particularly 7 to 9: in the morning 3:00 to 6: in the afternoon and plans to narrow the roadway will only both increase congestion and other and
Driver frustration to my knowledge there has never been a bicycle vehicle collision of any type along the stretch of chesnel Avenue bicycles used a lot utilize the existing bike Lanes alongside vehicular traffic on both sides of the street without compromising
on street parking or the natural flow of the traffic it is disruptive and discouraging to see such drastic changes being proposed when the current system has functioned safely for decades the reality is there are very few bikers on chesnel Avenue I spend a lot of time
outside my home walking down the street and bike traffic is minimal even with the existing accommodation The Proposal negative impacts daily life in many ways for example Warren field is a hub for baseball games in the spring summer and fall where will the visitors Park as
someone who depends on ride shares for work and medical appointments stepping into traffic to access to access a stop vehicle will be dangerous and will cause backups on the road elderly or disabled visitors will not be able in many circumstances to find close parking to
the residents they wish to visit this creates an equity issue as these indiv individuals cannot reasonably reach their destination the street currently allows curbside parking um in front of and in front of your house excess the prop 30 seconds yeah the proposal made
to our neighborhood does not reflect an understanding of the Project's full impact we have always had what when we currently have and we should be able to continue living without such a dramatic impact with all due respect to the town and its officers this is another example where the needs of a small group
overwhelm the needs of a great of the larger Community I am aware that the engineering department is working on another iteration and that this new plan as I understand it does not address our issues any proposal thank you that concludes your time needs to be put before us the taxpaying residents of
Chestnut Hill first and foremost the next speaker is Jesse hefter after Jesse is Marissa vot good evening my name is Dr Jesse hefer I'm a member of the Brookline school committee but I'm not speaking as a school Committee Member I'm a member of The Pedestrian
advisory committee not speaking as a member to represent pedestrian advisory issues but I am a town meeting member from Precinct 14 and that happens to be where I live on chest Hill Avenue and so it turns out that I'm speaking on behalf of my precinct my constituents and
myself family and neighbors I'm directly impacted by this renovation project recently brought forward with with initial drawings no less to a quote unquote public hearing of the bicycle advisory committee of the transportation board on March 5th I put the words public Hearing in quotes since the
residents of chestle Avenue were mailed a one-page announcement from engineering that a discussion about the entire project was going to be held at the committee meeting at their most recent meeting the truth is none of the other town meeting members in pring 14 received notice the town website was only updated with the design just before
the the bicycle advisory committee meeting significantly there was no neighborhood input prior to the meeting the group requested that the input that evening only be related to biking meanwhile the proposed renovation project impacts all the residents of the Avenue in many
profound and impactful ways further the project in its initial imagin state has the potential to seriously affect many of the 15,000 Vehicles every day including MBTA buses delivery trucks First Responders and tractor trailers that Transit the street as drivers use
the street to get from Austin Brighton to Route 9 to go west to Route 95 or to proceed to Lee Street and Point South the plan only began to receive Community input from a very small group of residents at the BAC meeting and from that evening the Engineering Group took some action items to develop a new plan
once again there was no neighborhood interaction with the town during the current redesign we will have to wait until the next iteration expected in late April to early May followed by a presentation to the transportation board since sharing the news of this major renovation with more of our neighbors
and residents on nearby streets nearby nearly 50 people have signed a petition to slow down the process involve more citizens in the development of The Proposal consider other roadways for alternative routes and develop a collaborative consensus on what the
final proposal might look like you have heard this evening about many of the shortcomings of the initial plan you'll hear some more coming up and the next phase that's being drawn up our neighborhood will continue our neighborhood will be providing public comment where we can in an attempt to
develop a collaborative process but so far we are deeply concerned about the apparent disconnect between the transportation department of the town and the citizens for whom they support we can do better but together thank you
thank you the next speaker is Marissa vote followed by Shar hefter hi everyone um my name is Marissa vote I'm a town meeting member from Precinct 6 and a parent to two kids in the public schools um as I'm sure you're aware the school committee has been working really hard to close their $8.2
million budget Gap and uh they've been making some incredibly difficult decisions um and they've closed that amount to about $3.6 million however it's looking very unlikely that they're going to be able to get that budget gap down to zero and certainly not um without negatively impacting services
for the most vulnerable students and creating untenable work conditions for PSB staff um so I'm here today speaking on behalf of over 50 fellow town meeting members who um who want to vote affirmatively on a budget that preserves the class sizes
programs services and case loads that were promised to voters in the 2023 override um we recognize that this will require the difficult choice to reduce some Town expenses savings or Services um and that most of our town departments are already stretched far too thin um
however I'm here to say that there's strong town meeting support for a final Town budget that more accurately reflects our community's values and our commitment to an excellent public education which is needed in our country now more than ever um we are ready to work with you to understand the trade-offs of reducing various Town
budget line items and we're asking you that um during your budget reviews of departmental and non-departmental expenses that um that you include discussions of what cuts could be made to help close the PSB budget Gap and speaking for myself um I'm hearing from
other parents nearly unanimous support for fully funding um level School services and I've been listening to our Educators speak eloquently about what these budget cuts mean to them at school committee um I know there's still some proposed cuts um that are that are um
still being under consideration but I'm speaking today here now because I fully hear your concerns um that the town budget needs to be finalized well before town meeting um that our Reserve funds need to be um well funded to keep our
AAA rating and that our budget needs to be balanced I hear that um but I hope that you will in turn hear me when I say that there's broad community and town meeting members support for helping PSB close this budget Gap and avoid harmful cuts to student services so thank
you thank you the next speaker is Shar hater good evening my name is Shir hefer I also live in Precinct 14 I'm also a resident of chest Hill Avenue um I've lived on chest Hill Avenue for most of my life first as a child growing up in my parents town and now for almost the
last five years with my two children on the other side of the street my comments about are about the Myriad of proposed changes on chest Avenue are informed by this lens on both sides of the street simply put it's hard to imagine a single
project with so many concerning elements but I'll do my best in the next couple of minutes to highlight the most pressing issues leave some for another time and have narrowed it down to six key points first the lack of public hearing at the bicycle advisory committee meeting earlier this month the
chair explicitly stated that comments unrelated to bicycles should not be shared um shutting down broader Community concerns a project of this scale with such significant impacts deserves a more informed if not transparent process instead it feels rough red driven by very narrow
interests rather than thoughtful planning that considers the entire Community second emergency vehicle access this plan creates major obstructions for First Responders supporting both those on the street itself as well as the many that use it as a pass through with no spaces for
vehicles to pull over response times will be compromised several Neighbors on our block within the last year or so have needed emergency assistance and the thought of um delays and fire TR or ambulances reaching homes could be
life-threatening third parking while plans keep changing the removal of on street parking whether partial or complete creates a major burden for residents visitors caregivers contractors service providers contrary to what was stated at the bicycle advisory committee parking is and has been permitted on Chestnut Avenue for
decades removing it has real consequences fourth driveway safety without room to maneuver backing into my own driveway becomes nearly impossible I've had several near misses as a p pedestrian with drivers backing out into the sidewalk and Street blindly the
proposed design eliminates space to pull over and wait for cars to pass increasing congestion frustration and danger fifth the impact on the Channing Road Chestnut Hill Avenue Elliott Street Route 9 intersection um this area is critical
for the Hayes School Community with students and families Crossing daily any changes must preserve the ability to make a left turn from LA OT Street back on to chestn Hill Avenue toward Channing road to maintain and efficient traffic
flow finally pedestrian safety and traffic flow as a mom I have worked very carefully and intentionally to teach my children how to cross the street safely and welcome additional crosswalks along the road while a crosswalk at Buckminster Road and farther down at Clinton Road would be especially welcome
improvements such as the posts Islands paint and visual clutter will confuse drivers and further thank you that concludes your time emergency vehicles uh that concludes time at the beginning of the meeting for public comment again there will be time at the end of the meeting for public comment or
you're welcome to send your comments via email to the select board okay thank you Tiffany uh next miscellaneous items I'd like to take items 6A through 6w in Omnibus fashion excluding 6G which
will be defi uh deferred until next week and 6G is the question of approving a contract for the bicycle Network implementation plan
um and this includes items 6n to 6w that had their hearing their license hearing on March 19 so um I move of approval all in favor of item 6A through6 excluding 6G please indicate by saying I John
vanak I Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren hi David Perman I and chair votes I thank [Music] you next boards and commissions interviews uh we have uh one board the
economic development Advisory Board and we have uh Lily wall as an applicant for a position on this board and um what I'd like to do is to start off uh when she gets up to the microphone start off by asking a couple
questions myself and then so that we we uh ensure that all applicants uh have similar or the same questions to make it uh a lot Fair than maybe it would be otherwise and then open up questions to the select board for anything that's on
their mind that's outside of those two uh questions Mr chair just um a point of clarification here so we did have Brookline commission for women scheduled first however um Daniela James withdrew her application um and Franchesca joria
has requested that we reschedule due to the delay with executive session so um with those two things in mind uh we can go ahead with okay I had crossed out Francesca Georgia um yeah we will get Franchesca at a future
meeting okay and Lily is online I'm Pro promoting you now and Lily is on screen good evening good evening please introduce yourself and tell us why you're interested in being a member of the economic development Advisory Board
sure so my name is Lily Wallace I moved to Brooklyn around five years ago uh historically I've always lived in Precinct 9 but I just made the big shift downtown to coolage corner and now living in Precinct 17 uh and I think you know while many folks here have been uh lifelong residents of Brookline I think
one of the great things uh about the boards and commission are the opportunity to have folks from all different backgrounds uh join and kind of have a voice in Brookline town government uh so I currently work for the state I work in community mitigation so I do a lot of work with communities
all over the Commonwealth involving Community planning and economic development so I uh had had seen the continual ask in the newsletter looking for volunteers to join boards and commissions uh and so I thought I would reach out and uh see if it would be a good fit for the
town okay let me ask a couple questions uh first how are your education work experience or interest relevant to the mission of the economic development Advisory Board sure so uh I received my undergraduate degree at UMass ammer in
political science and Community engagement uh and I'm currently pursuing my Masters in public administration from Framingham State University I think that educational background is particularly uh poignant when looking at Economic Development when looking at how we're engaging with our communities and how we're building our communities moving
forward and I think there's an overlap with that piece with my role currently uh where I do community engagement work across the Commonwealth with about 35 different communities so in that role uh I'm doing a lot of uh big big picture thinking with communities about how
we're building our communities moving forward board so I think both are are extremely relevant to the work of the board uh and when I met with the chair and the vice chair we saw quite a lot of overlap uh with uh coming from a background of state government where I work with a lot of infrastructure
funding uh whereas most of the board actually comes from a real estate background uh and working more with private actor uh private funding so we thought it could be a great opportunity to have someone with a slightly different background coming onto the board I think you answered uh my next question to some degree in terms of
meeting with the chair and vice chair of of EAB U but U actually let's be more U focused have you attended any EAB meetings and what are your observations about how those meetings uh function and
the issues they they they discuss yeah so I was just at the most recent meeting um that they held uh last last week or the week before um and I think that it's uh an interesting board to be a part of again having worked across the state with a bunch of different communi planning projects a bunch of different
economic development based projects um you know it's it's a lot of very similar work to the things that I'm doing in my day-to-day uh you know reviewing different plans and providing input um and again I I think that one of the voices that I'm really not hearing on
the board right now is sort of a younger voice and also a renters voice um so I really think that there's an opportunity to bring in some of this Insight uh that I bring from having a a bit of a different background than the majority of the folks on the current board so yes
I have intended in the past and I do um you know I I have set things up with the chair uh to attend moving forward um so I do have all that stuff scheduled in and uh plan you know if appointed to continue attending great any questions from the
select board you like to add SE thank you very much Lily um so uh uh I'm gonna first of all you can tell us if if you do a lot of you know shopping and dining and so on in in Brook Lin's commercial districts and and assuming
you do um what do you like best about what Brook Len has and what do you think are the the greatest strengths and and maybe weaknesses of of our commercial areas sure um I'm not sure if you can quite see it uh there's a a red light right behind me that's the Trader Joe's so I I really do live right downtown um
you know I think I come from a very rural background I'm from Western Massachusetts originally uh and I don't come from a walkable Community I come from a place where I had to get in a car to go anywhere to get groceries to go shopping for any kind of a clothing you know so moving to Brookline was such a liberating experience for me um while I
do have a car in town I'm lucky enough to mostly be able to get around via the green line in the bus system um and I think there's a piece of that that is just so underrated if youve if you've not lived in the wild west of Massachusetts um so that's been I think a piece that I've really enjoyed I'm currently working through I have a whole
Matrix of every single restaurant in town uh and so I've been going to every single restaurant over the past five years and we do have some that have come and gone so there's always things getting added but I think one of the things I really enjoy about living in a vibrant city or a vibrant town like
Brookline is sort of the access to all of these different um Cuisines different uh stores different things that just I never had access to in you know a very very rural uh part of the state so I think it's been a really great and eye-opening experience for me um
remember the first time I went to Anatolia and I was going out to lunch with a friend and I was like oh this it's great food I think it's you know Middle Eastern or Turkish or something and I said oh it's Turkish and I was like oh how did you know and they're like well no Anatolia is the eastern part of turkey and again I just would have never known that you know I came
from a very different and a very homogeneous background um so coming out to Brookline really was able to kind of open my eyes to all of these wonderful different cultures that we have present in our communities um I think for me one of my one of the things that I'd like to
continue to see is investment in all of the different village Village centers that we have I love living in coolage corner you know I would love to see a little bit more done with the vacancies that are currently uh downtown you know it is kind of challenging when you walk downtown and you see one of the first things you see when you get on and off
the train is an empty storefront um and I think one of the biggest things for folks um that they want to see is a a destination is a place to go you know I I drag all my friends out here and they they're never complaining about it because they're like what a great place to be let's go to the coolage let's go to the booksmith let's go to all these
great things thank you so much I thought that was a trific answer uh Paul y briefly uh Lily thank you so much for your application I love that you call coolage Corner downtown I think my partner makes fun of me endlessly for it because I'll be like Oh I'm going downtown and they'll be like Boston and
I'm like no no no so um I I'm going to ask you a particular question um I appreciated all what you said about restaurants vibrancy of our I think your business districts um have you been following the Chestnut
Hill West opportunity up up on route nine and do you have any thoughts about that uh that opportunity for uh commercial development yeah so I think it's a really interesting conversation about parcels and I think one of the questions that we have just generally as
a community is how do we want to spend certain Parcels in certain ways um you know I'm personally from a background where I tend towards mixed use pieces um but I do see the use in certain situations you know coming again from a more World place we have a
lot of business Parks uh and things like that and I think you know currently working in downtown Boston I've kind of seen what not thinking about something as a mixed use property can do luckily there is a lot of other development in that space that does have housing that does have shops so I think that you know
that parcel could just turn into being a kind of business park kind of space without having like a really negative impact on the community of you know not focusing it as a multi paral piece um but again I think it was one of the pieces when I sat down with the chair it was really interesting to hear her
insight and the vice chair's insight into the need for for having that piece and also you know looking at the pieces of and Parcels that we have to you know act upon to think about you know where are the deficits in town that can be covered by that increase in tax revenue
thank you great thank you and uh we will be deciding on appointments to the EAB board uh at a later meeting I appreciate your appliation and I appreciate the
interesting discussion we had with you okay okay next we have U let's see boards and commissions some appointments um Mike would you like to represent the uh Center Street Lots
committee comme and the applicants that you've selected for the board or for the committee uh I've been busily trying to find the page in the uh thousand page uh packet here so Zach tesler is also online I'm sorry Zach tesler is also
online Zachary tesler is also online right I I'm but I'm not so um I'm gonna just ask Chaz if I can over his shoulder y there we go um so um thank you very
much um okay uh thank you uh so we have uh the the chestnut um sorry the sen Street uh uh Lots study committee uh is tasked with looking at the Santa Street Lot
something that has been looked at a few times before uh by by Brookline committees but thinking about what um what can be done ranging from making it a safer and more attractive parking lot to uh other
possible uh uses recognizing the need to retain uh parking as a as a central feature there it's a key those two lots uh East and West lots are are certainly key to um the uh the viability of the of the business district the coolage corner and
we uh put out a a a request for applicants and received 39 uh applications which to me was that that was extraordinary um there were several applications from people who had not been uh active Volunteers in uh in Brookline previously and we interviewed
some of those folks and when I say we I'm speaking of myself the and the staff from the planning department um and we've come up with uh originally a nine- member committee but now we've expanded it to uh 11 members in order to broaden uh broaden
representation and particularly to include some representation from uh both uh the uh the uh disabled community and from the senior community so the people that we um that we have are
um well um Julia Albert Albert a neighborhood resident and owner of the fire opal who represents of course the merchant Community there uh and um uh mayam Baron uh a longtime and active
resident of Hebrew Senior Life uh on Center Street and a member of the mother's out front tree team a board member for climate action Brookline and a member of the elders climate action leadership team uh mosha Ben AA who is a
partly retired uh professor of urban planning from uh MIT uh Brooke duskin a civil engineer local developer Who currently serves uh on the building commission um shaana jur gorane an attorney a neighborhood
resident a town meeting member um and uh uh uh someone who lives very very close by Jim Lee chair of the um Brook line Commission on disability a member of the open space and Recreation uh plan
committee and uh an Meyers Co Corner resident former development professional chair of the economic development Advisory Board uh Gary schiffman a coolage corner resident former Social Studies chair at Brookline High School and a town meeting member for Precinct 9
uh where the Center Street lot is located um Elaine sa coolage Corner resident working in the community in community health with professional experience running Community engagement and particularly with data analysis uh and elain is one of the people who is
new to Brookline volunteerism and Len holy a local math a math teacher he's a member of the transportation board and vision zero committee uh the open space and Recreation and plant committee and a town me meeting member for recing six so
we have a mix of uh people who have been very active in town uh and some folks who are neighborhood residents and two or three who have uh not been active at all as volunteers and who uh were really very impressive when we talked to them in there terms of
their understanding of what the Center Street lot um might be thank you so I'd like to uh unless there are any questions Paul yeah I do have a a question and I'm actually would like to make a change um so you know
I've Speak many times during these meetings when appointments and um wait wait you want to make a change to well I want to make a I want I want to have a discussion about either an addition or potentially a change um you know one of the things that we hear regularly is
that we do not have sufficient representation on boards and commissions from our senior community uh and specifically when we say that uh it's representations often from our Council on Aging or folks that are associated
with our senior center um and when I saw this original slate uh at the last meeting um I raised this issue um and I had suggested a name or two um and I see that some folks were added but um I
don't see anybody that's really Affiliated and well connected to the senior center um I had made a request that maryan Freedman gban be added to the to the Slate which I don't think would over would overburden it but it
would certainly bring a significant perspective she lives in the next street over she's very connected uh to the senior center has great relationships there and as we learned from the Washington Street Cora study um when that project started we started to hear
a lot of noise from the senior center of folks saying we're not we don't have a voice we don't have a voice um and we ended up adding somebody so in in the hopes of preventing that situation from occurring again um I'd like to suggest that we add one more
um in the form of Marian fredman gersan to represent the senior center in the issues uh that they are particularly concerned about I really like Marian um but you know we gave Mike authority to come up with this list and he did and he
included two additional individuals who represent the senior community not just because they're old but because of their activities um and I I'm I'm hesitant to uh um um sort of on the Fly uh just changed
the list but you know let's hear from Mike um I do think that U well first of all I would say I was originally hoping for a nine-member community and so expanding it at all n nine members is usually pretty workable the lger the committee the more difficult it does it
it gets to uh uh uh to uh to manage things and come back come come up with something that uh uh that is useful in the end um I do think that we have um representatives of of the senior
community even though they're not members of the Council on Aging um Professor benaka is semi-retired uh Mayan Baron is uh as I say active as a senior in uh in climate
uh issues um so frankly I I don't think that there's any problem with um making sure that uh that seniors and people with Mobility concerns and so forth uh will be under under
represented well ber I just I'll reply I'll probably end up abstaining or voting no um you gonna vote no so here here here I'm I'm really concerned about the process that we go through to appoint boards and commissions uh slates and I frankly I was uncomfortable when it got
brought to me for the comprehensive plan steering committee um without violating the open meeting law we really can't have conversations about this um and you know this is uh staff with input from one individual which I respect Mike and all that he does um but I don't feel
like I had an opportunity to have input um and so a Slate's being put before me um I have a strong passion to make sure that our senior community remember you know that all seniors does just as because you're old doesn't mean or you're a senior mean that you represent
and understand the issues of folks especially around the council and aging so um I don't know maybe there's a broader conversation that has to happen about how we appoint uh slates like this but this process I don't feel like I was a part of it um I made a request um and
it was ignored which is fine but I don't feel like this is a a select board appointed committee where I had input John I have a question about the process um would it be appropriate for Paul to offer um you know as an amendment to the slate in front of us in addition of Mayor freed M gersan um as a member of
the committee and and on on behalf of that motion I just want to say there's something um that is uniquely needed in terms of input from the um Senior Center because the senior center is on Winchester Street but it backs up to the
Center Street um uh senior housing um parking is an issue every single time as the Lea on to um the Commission on Aging every time I attend a meeting at the senior center um I hear something about parking um and
and uh they need to be heard from they have they have people coming and going to that Senior Center every single day who face parking issues other issues they know a lot so if Paul offered it I'd support it David just a question I have uh for
Mike does the committee need to be an odd number of people because if so I would offer another addition to make it 11 with a 10 wait it's already 11 oh I'm sorry it's already 11 okay that's a 13 if we're talking about making a 12 uh well okay
so uh is this really how we want to do this I doing this on the Fly is really very very odd I I uh Paul did speak to me uh about uh uh about adding another about adding Marian but but just very recently and it's it's kind of late in
the um the game to uh to begin fiddling with this um do think that there's um really very good representation here um uh being on Council of a Council on
Aging is you know is uh certainly an indication that someone is active in uh and concerned about senior uh senior affairs but um we have the the chair of the commission on disabilities who's certainly very uh concerned about action
about access and parking and so forth that the to that um uh to that lot we have um at least three other people who are uh seniors uh actually Four because I think I'm a senior um so uh uh it's
not just being a senior I mean just no I appreciate that but but but having yeah having an understanding of concerns of uh of uh of older people uh and so I don't really feel like there's a lack of representation yeah
I'll offer one I'll offer a solution so um Mike on I'm the chair of the comprehensive plan steering committee I don't vote as chair um and I leave it to the the rest of the committee to vote if there was if it turned into a situation where there was a tie um I would end up
voting but you could be the chair you are the chair you don't have to vote and I do think I would like to make a motion to add um marrying freedom and Cur me into the Slate second second okay um let's uh that's an alternative
motion to the motion that Mike was going to make so I guess we take that first and see if it replaces Mike's motion uh all in favor of adding Marin G gersman Gerson to the committee
please indicate by saying hi John V hi um Michael samon I I need to abstain I'm sorry abstain okay y um Paul Warren hi uh David Perman hi um well that's three
to Z to one I guess I'll say I too there you go okay thank you okay um I'm very uncomfortable with this way of yeah well that's why I I I think we need I'm saying we need a better way this is very strange yeah
pardon I think it's very strange I'm that's why I abstained okay I certainly wouldn't vote against Marian she's certainly an appropriate person to add yeah yeah okay next we have a question of appointing Ro uh okay we we we had that vote U actually we we uh you have to
vote on the whole slate have to vote on the whole slate okay um all in favor of the whole slate uh with the addition of Mary and breden Gerson um please indicate by saying I John Bak hi Michael Simon hi Paul Warren Hi D Perman I sh
votes I okay next we have a question of appointing Robert Rogers to the MLK so op ation committee um uh Robert Rogers for a number of meetings um prior to this year's event attended uh and actually made some
fairly uh useful comments um uh from the audience to the committee um he grew up in Memphis which is of course um very important uh City for Martin Luther King and that you that was where he was
assassinated um and um I think he can bring some interesting perspective to the committee um you know we've all met with him and we're we're comfortable I mean committee members have met with him and were're comfortable with him being on the committee so I'd like to move of
approval of Robert uh Rogers to uh serve on the Martin Luther King Junior celebration committee on in favor any discussion no all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak hi Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren hi David
Perman hi sure votes I next boards and commissions annual reports presentation of the Parks and Recreation commission's annual report to the select board I see people moving up Alexandra beio looks like she's going
to be leading the present no no okay sorry introduce our new parks she'll at least introduce who okay hi hi so do you want to start the PowerPoint thank you first introduce yourself and your
position for our VAST TV audience hello my name is Clara Bachelor I'm the chair of the Park and Recreation Commission and thank you for inviting our commission to come to present to you what we've been doing the past year joining me on Via Zoom is Teresa Mooney
who's the vice chair I just wanted to acknowledge that she's here and so um I have a quick presentation and then I'm happy to answer questions so we can have the next um next slide I don't have to go
through the agenda with you okay so just briefly I'd like to review our mission with you our mission is to the mission of the Park and Recreation Commission our mission is to deliver a diverse range of programs that promote cultural social mental and physical well-being
and to foster a sense of belonging ensure there is a net zero loss of open space and serve the express needs of the community these programs are offered at well-maintained facilities and Open Spaces designed to be welcoming and inclusive spaces for
all we are committed to ensuring that our facilities and programs are environmentally sustainable reflecting reflecting our responsibility to protect and enhance the natural resources of our town for current and future
Generations um just to go over with you who is on the commission I serve as chair I mentioned Teresa money as Vice chair and as wonderful you know as a retired person speaking in general we have more time on our hand but Teresa is
Works full-time and has four young children go out and test all our uh our playgrounds and open space for us and so it's great to have young people on the the committee Carol Caro is our newest
member John pan James Carol uh Jane Flanigan Lauren Bernard and we have an associate member Rory Hollow Hollowell and I also wanted to to mention Antonia Balta who just stepped
down this year here and she had served for many years as a very active commissioner and did a lot of good works and uh served on various committees next please just to review with you it's a little hard to read there um some of the
subcommittees and board involvement that the Commissioners take part in we all of the Commissioners are currently serving on the green dog subcommittee um we all four Commissioners serve on every design Review Committee and the ones that we've
had in the last year are Skyline Park Phase 2 which was looking at site Furniture Comfort station renovation Wildflower Meadow creation connecting Pathways uh to L Pond uh shik playground
is be was redesigned it's going to in construction soon Mammoth Park uh we looked at the redesign of that excluding the playground area which we had done recently Amry Park we're looking at the tennis courts Comfort station parking lot and
the Halls Pond boardwalk and we're also working on the putterham golf course planning and design commissions that we Ser that Commissioners uh currently serve on include the peer School playground
committee open space and Recreation plan committee select board committee on tree protection and Community preserv preservation act committee we've also assisted next please we've also assisted
with interviews on the hiring and support of Department leadership um these these include interviewing um Alexandra veio who you all know Tim Davis who's our new director of
relatively new director of recreation and mil U pradan who's our new director of um Park and open space and she's here tonight we're really glad she's come on board we uh oh we concluded the arpa
funded Recreation Equity initiative and supported the transition to updated uh financial aid policy we celebrated the renovation and reopening of Robinson playground and Murphy playground and we also supported the installation of EV
Chargers um and by support we went out and looked at them made sure they wouldn't be um visually intrusive and helped with the design and these EV Chargers are at LS Anderson Skyline Park Fisher Hill Reservoir Elliot recreation
center and SE playground um further accomplishments we developed and adopted a Parks and Recreation Commission roles and responsibilities which no one had really ever um carefully written down we looked
at all the past laws that established our commission and what we are ordered to do and what our responsibilities are and put that into a six-page document we adopted the Brookline boards and commissions procedures uh we continue to evaluate
and and approve the recreation department program fees that's part of our mission and we uh concluded the public design process for the renovation of Mammoth Park Skyline Park Amar playground shik Park putterham Golf
Course master plan and the school and the school Courtyard is uh being redesigned we also reviewed and approved new rules and regulations regarding dogs and parks and playgrounds we want to keep all our signs consistent and easily
understood we reviewed and approved FY 26 Capital Improvement plan as developed by the parks and open space and Recreation departments and we reviewed and discussed um and supported Community preservation act applications by the
parks in open space and Recreation Department we see that as a great source of funding for some some projects that wouldn't otherwise be done and then I'd like to speak briefly on the facilities um considerations that
we've been involved involved with the outdoor I shrink the I shrink programming study was completed and presented to the Park and Recreation Commission following this presentation the commission discussed the preferred design for the renovation of the Jack
carine ice shink at Lars Anderson Park the final vote was to construct One open air ice rink in its current location a community preservation act Grant was uh application uh will be vote voted on in
the town meeting SE in SE oops sorry in Spring of 2025 and if we are awarded that Grant then we will be able to um have a robust design review process and develop construction drawings for the ice
rink in terms of the outdoor pool the commission has discussed and reviewed the creation of a town outdoor swimming pool the conclusion of our discussions was that commission would need future direction from the town before funding a study specific uh to funding land Avail
availability and sustainability however we are aware that an outdoor pool is supported by the town meeting and we will continue to work with the public on this issue Recreation um is a meeting sorry Recreation is meeting
regularly with an outdoor pool advocacy group to ensure conversations continue and that concludes my report I would like to um offer Teresa an opportunity if she would like to add
anything or say any if I left anything out Teresa do you have anything to add yes thank you Clara and um thank you so much selectboard for having us tonight uh just one quick additional item that I'd like to add to cla's presentation which was the culmination of a lot of
work I think across a few different subcommittees and town meeting members was the recreation Equity initiative which um kicked off a few years ago um but has been continuing um very strongly over the past few years and just knowing
how vital Recreation programs are to children in our town for their development and health and well-being um and as well as how expensive they can be for families um in our town where the cost of living is very high I'm just very thankful that this resource is
available for our families in Brookline and we've seen a fantastic response to it so far which is really um just a true Testament to how great the work is going on in the recreation department right now and I just know the whole commission is in support of it so I hope that this
program will continue to grow and receive good funding over the next few years so just wanted to add that in thanks thank you uh Paul yep uh CLA you are finished right yes okay CLA and
Teresa thank you so much first um when I think about um departments that touch so many lives and and really need to engage and have Community engagement for input and consensus you guys do a great job with that that and I know you're it's
integral to what Brookline is about and who we are and so I just want to thank you for your service to our community and uh and for the commission um you had mentioned uh the putterham golf course uh there was a design and then you mention it again about the I think the
master plan were those the are those the same things yes okay so there's not something they're implementing them they they're they're implementing the it over a number of years and they're proving the drainage as you know that's a
drainage area for much of the town and so yes it's being done but there's not a new initiative going on with design work at butam it's actually implementing the master plan and yes perfect thank you so much great any other questions
discussion no it's good report say thank you for all the work you do it's a very hardworking committee I also really appreciated the picture of the uh caterpillar on page three were some high school students that ran in the 5K this year they passed me somewhere around mile two they they're really fast
uh but you ran I I did one in front of the other thank you Claire thank you thanks CL okay next uh BPW public RightWay policies we discussed this last week at our Workshop we had a a indepth
discussion and we I think are ready to uh hear sort of a summary of uh what what we heard last week and and vote wonderful so good evening my name is aarin Chu I'm the commissioner of Public Works and um the select board requested
that the department uh identify ways to repair replace and upgrade the degraded conditions within our public right of way um the special focus on the roadway conditions um to that end uh we have
looked at and have developed a cost benefit value approach um it's data driven it looks at our um PCI which is the condition index of our pavement and uh this allows us to prioritize the work
that we're going to do and the treatment on each segment of Road and also a critical component was um updating and writing new policies related to to the public right of way and how we Implement
our work and this is intended to enhance our efficiency in resource allocation prioritizing High need areas and addressing key infrastructure and accessibility goals um we've had several meetings to discuss the approach uh to
look at all of these policies uh you have four policies we spent a good amount of time talking about the policies the data the approach um our dashboard in terms of uh the condition of every road segment in town and um uh
in particular last week if anyone uh is interested in that presentation it was around 1 o'clock um in the afternoon at the select board's planning meeting and we spent an hour going over the whole program and how we think we can really improve our service delivery in the
public right of way um the policies that include a roadway management maintenance preservation policy uh which is a new policy focused on Asset Management an update to the complete streets policy an update to the sidewalk uh and ramp
construction policy and also an update to the traffic Comm policy and together we think these are really important in terms of moving us forward in the overall management of the public right of way I'll say that these have all been uh approved uh by the transportation
board reviewed and discussed publicly and uh we also spent time with the commission on disability and pedestrian advisor advisory committee they both voted in favor as well of the sidewalk and ramp uh policy update and I welcome
any questions thank you any questions from the board okay well I'll throw you don't have to I mostly welcome approval of the poor Poli that's getting at I I was expecting maybe there would
be others but um I'll jump in uh I'm going to raise something that that actually relates to something that was on our consent agenda and that you very kindly and helpfully um provided an explanation of which was the amendment to the uh the Washington Street um tan
Bond contracts and um all I'm really doing here is trying to make a point that I've made before um Aon please be patient with me because I truly do um respect the work that is being done by the transportation department and I do
recognize that there is a you know there's a difficulty built into baked into our processes that count on um sizable state and federal grants um and to sum it up you know as simply as
possible um The Lure of a state uh Andor Federal grant is great some of them are quite um significant the one we're looking at for uh Washington Street complete Street project is in the neighborhood of $30 million um um but as
great as the lore is um equally great is the um number of uh uh let's call them uh you know Hoops that you have to jump through to qualify and to in in fact um get that that Grant uh in hand um and
sometimes a lot of that work takes place before the grant is in hand without the guarantee that the grant will ever be in hand and I I bring up this matter um of Washington Street as just one example of what I hope will turn into over time um
a review of uh the thresholds that we will build into our grant seeking so that we we are ready to say um how far will we go and how much money will we spend towards getting a grant without
knowing for certain that the grant is in hand or will be in hand shortly and the two items that were in the consent agenda that you provided a very good explanation of essentially tell us that with the amended amounts of money that
we approved earlier in this meeting we we will up to date have spent nearly $1.6 million in pursuit of approval of this plan for the Washington Street project but um i' I've yet to hear it
said at a meeting that we actually have the federal money guaranteed to us so that's a lot of money to spend before we have a guarantee of ever getting the $30 million and I'm not sure what our policy is towards how much more we're willing to spend um because meanwhile excuse me
there are um streets that could be addressed with simple projects that cost money um but it's money we can't spend on those projects and that that's the only reason I brought this up did you did you want to answer oh I I didn't I wasn't necess no
I don't think we actually have such a policy at this point okay UL y uh so first I thank you for the policies you know from time to time and this is for the public this is a comment not a question um sometimes we're asked well why didn't you ask more questions while
these policies we were voting on these policies uh know that these have been in the works for a long time we had a lengthy discussion at our offsite at the golf course last week we asked many questions you presented very detailed proposal Mike and I started this uh maybe a year ago um I think when we
started to look at the complete streets policy in relation to trying to spend money more quickly on the roads uh you've been very responsive to that and I want to thank you but really for the public uh if you don't get a lot of questions tonight it's because we asked you a bunch of questions over many times
so thank you okay I'd like to then move approval uh and why don't we do them all together um I move approval of the roadway management maintenance and preservation plan the complete streets plan the traffic calming plan and the
sidewalk ramp SL ramp maintenance plan all in favor please indicate by saying I John BR toak I um Mike Sandman hi Paul Warren hi David pman I shair votes I thank you you very much I appreciate that I also I want to recom uh recognize
Amy Eng Les who's online who helped shepher she's our transportation administrator and help Shepherd this through all the boards and commissions and also Jake scarpino our um engineer uh for roadways that you met uh last week that has done a tremendous job just
overall pulling together um this cost benefit value approach uh Etc working with our consultant team so they've both done a great job in helping with this showed in in the detailed materials that we went over last week uh the quality of
those materials uh and the thought that uh phly went into them to address the various issues that we had and other people had so thank you thank you you all them thanks okay next uh oh here's another interesting one pierce GMP Yeah question
of amending the peer School guaranteed maximum price with kigle uh construction company from 165,166 382 to $168,400
39 to allow contingency for unexpected costs related to possible tariffs or inflation who's going to present on that you have lapan online okay hi lap how you doing Bernard how you doing select
Bo um there's also Lynn uh Stapleton from uh left field she's the owner's project manager she's been working diligently with the msba uh so originally we had by the way I'm sorry we we've been through this uh
quite a bit uh last last week I think everyone's questions have been answered and we do have a deadline with the msba so that we um can get uh reimbursed for some of these costs um but you know give
give us give us a quick uh summary um The quick summary is originally we had the $168 million budget for construction uh there because we did not and and that 168 included uh the solar
panel cost in there we decided not to uh we elected not to execute the alternative for the solar panel cost because we're exploring which is the best way for the town to get it whether we directly purchase a solar panel through the town and not through kigle
therefore avoiding their markups uh and use of electricians as opposed to other laborers that can put solar panels up or even leasing it which we've done on other projects here so we want to keep that option open to us uh We've also incurred some cost savings due to rather
uh competitive Marketplace for subcontractors so all in all we we we've saved $2.8 million uh from from the constru from the original construction budget of uh of 168 so we would like to use this as
an allocation and I'll defer to Lynn on it because she's been working with msba on uh on how we can input this allocation into the budget which we have to submit to um to msba so that we can in fact take advantage of some of the
reimbursements and MBA Lynn do you want to talk to about how uh how we're going to take care of this oh can you uh Tiffany Lynn you have been promoted okay thank you sorry sorry I was trying to get on um yes um we
decided um after we were reviewing the budget that um the original Project funding agreement was for the 168 million 22,6 and because um we did not elect to
um approve the alternate 2 for the photo btics um we decided to advise the uh building commission the project team did advise them to um include this
additional money to give the the town an opportunity or more flexibility in terms of um uh allowing them to implement the foto ball takes um later in the project
either by change order or for the town to do it themselves at the end of the project but also to um uh give the town some flexibility in case tariffs uh were implemented and affected the overall
project budget so we presented this to the building commission on March 11th and they approved it um so we submitted all the information to the select board and school committee and school building committee afterwards and the uh select
board asked to postpone so they had time to review it until tonight's meeting so um we have met with msba on this regard and have indicated that we will be carrying this two
2,849 379 in the electrical division line so that we would have that flexibility for how to use it later on the this money will not be used without the consent and
the vote of all all committees um the building committee the select board um and um the school committee as well as the school building committee uh so that at the end of the project if the funds
aren't used it will revert back to the town okay any questions from the select board one quick yeah um thanks Lynn uh I'm remembering that um it was the original plan was it would go into a contingency line is that am I not
remembering this correctly if we put it into the GMP cont we had to put it in the construction bu budget to maximize reimbursement to the town and if we put it into the uh the contingency within
the GMP um msba only funds 1% of that contingency so if we put it into a trade division line and slate it for um a specific use then we will would receive full reimbursement for that amount okay
but say same same sort of result at the end of the day I'm guessing it it is the same because it is an allowance it doesn't get um utilized without approval uh it reverts back to the town if it's not used but it does put it in a
division line for trade work that allows full reimbursement thanks M mysterious are the ways of the msba is my only comment on that one but thanks okay so I'd like to move approval of amending the peer School guaranteed minimum price with
kigle as we discussed just now um all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak hi Michael samon hi Paul Warren hi David prman I CH oai thank you uh Lynn
and lap I thank you allk you thank you have a good rest of the night okay I see Miss shud is back up at the microphone talk about her pulling my sometimes shy team up to the front we're starting our budget uh
departmental budget reviews um and we're going to start off with the Department of Public Works uh DPW Water and Sewer those two right now good evening for those of you just joining my name is Erin chud I'm the
commissioner of Public Works um I'm pleased to be here this evening to present the Department of Public Works proposed FY 26 operating budget the department is comprised of approximately 170 dedicated employees across five
divisions Highway sanitation and Fleet Services Water and Sewer engineering and transportation parks and open space sustainability and natural resources together our team includes Engineers designers planners program
managers technicians licensed trades people inspectors heavy equipment operators mechanics and skilled laborers it takes every one of these individuals working in coordination to deliver the highquality services that Brooklyn residents expect and deserve our mission
is to design build maintain and protect the town's infrastructure utilities natural resources and public spaces with pride Innovation skill and responsiveness from emergency response and water main braks to snow and ice
management to long range planning storm recovery sanitation and everything in between we ensure the town's core Services run reliably and equitably every day Public Works provides the foundation for a safe connected sustainable vibrant and livable
Brookline so this evening I'm joined by the outstanding directors of each of these divisions and I'd like to thank them and our entire team for their deep expertise and ongoing commitment to Public Service I want also want to acknowledge Amy Engles the town's Transportation administrator is joining
us through the budget process as many of you know and have mentioned there's a growing Community interest in our transportation work and maybe brings both insight and Leadership to these important initiatives so for this evening um at
the board's request this presentation will focus on three highlevel uh goals for accomplishments that align closely with your priorities followed by a summary of budget highlights um and our full set of over 75 goals and accomplishments broken up by division
can be found in the published budget book okay goal number one we just talked about this is improved management and Rehabilitation of the public right of way I'm not going to go through this is some of this is for your information and it's um it's in your packets you can
read it at your leisure so I won't go through every bullet but um DPW will advance a strategic datadriven pavement management program that will prioritize repairs using a cost benefit and Equity framework that will improve safety accessibility and responsible
stewardship of capital resources um we have uh eight sort of actions here but we'll update our townwide roadway and sidewalk conditions assessment we have a target of a PCI of 70 in five years and also reporting to the select board at your annual planning meeting next year
we look to forward to reporting on our progress our second goal and you'll notice also at the bottom I'm seeing how this aligns with your um articulated um goals as well through your um planning sessions the
second goal here is to advance sustainability and climate resiliency initiatives we will um Advance these initiatives by um completing and implementing priority action items for from what will be the newly adopted climate action and
resiliency plan expand Community sustainability projects and embed climate resiliency into town operations and projects across all departments key actions here include
expanding waste diversion greeting our Fleet and capital planning improving Municipal and residential energy use and increasing Community engagement um I especially want to thank Paul for his thoughtful leadership and guidance um
with uh the zero emissions Advisory Board as we launched our new division of sustainability and natural resources um and working on ways where we can be um most effective for the town and the board and third to improve customer
service Communications and service reliability through operations and G digital tools uh we're looking to uh enhance uh the customer experience modernize our oper operations to better serve the public um key actions here
include transitioning sanitation collection to a new Service delivery model implementing smart parking meter technology updating the new um to a new brook online platform so we're upgrading that um system we continue to make
improvements uh updating the DPW website to better engage residents and to move more functions into online permitting and then in terms of accomplishments for fy2 also looking at those that um are in
alignment with um the board's articulated goals is in fy2 we created a new division of sustainability and natural resources within the Department of Public Works this is recruiting hiring and onboarding um division staff we we have
uh completed the RFP bid and selected a team um that will lead our climate action and resiliency plan you heard that we have our first um public engagement meeting on Monday so we invite everybody to intend it is in person and we're looking forward to
great feedback on that uh we'll be completing our 2025 open space and Recreation plan this is updated every seven years it's important not only as a tool to guide us in terms of the Town priorities but also um making sure we're eligible for certain grants we completed
a um paying classification plan and um this is important in terms of uh looking at our positions at a salary survey but ensuring that to stay competitive in a tight labor market we're evaluating our pay structure with an eye towards
Recruitment and Retention and next we'll be updating all the job descriptions adopted the roadway and management Rehabilitation policies this evening which is terrific and also um implemented the rodent control action plan we spent a lot of time talking
about this last year um we've increased education enforcement inspections um and collection frequency hired a new code enforcement management uh manager updated the solid waste regulations and um we continue to use the smart crop
technology in our sewer system and I just had a slide to show that um just that would be interesting in terms of looking at the number of um enforcement
actions in 2023 which is 335 and when we brought on the new enforcement manager uh we went to 820 um 144% increase and as we start 25 our complaints are down um so we're
seeing more um enforcement less complaints and I will say that terms of all of the um complaints coming through to public works for related to sanitation and related to um rodents are
being investigated so every single one of those are investigated so the next section I go into numbers at the board's discretion I don't know if you'd like to pause if you have any comments or questions or if you'd like me to get through um kind of
all of our numbers in terms of the budget and then open it up for questions at the end I'd rather wait until you all righty unless anyone else has a okay so what I'm going to do is walk you through a highlevel summary of our
FY 26 budget um beginning with the water and sewer Enterprise fund and then we'll follow with the general fund um DPW budget I have a few charts um just to show kind of a comparison in terms of the different cost centers for the
department and um and then will'll take questions at the end so we have the water and sewer uh budget at close to 34.5 million the DPW budget at 20.5 and an overall um Department of Public Works
budget at a little over 55 million um when you look at this you can see that a significant portion of our budget and I'm going to have to go quickly back to where we were um is in the mwa assessment uh for the water and sewer division
and um you know personnel and services really make up uh most of our uh budget overall if we combine um both water and sewer and DPW and this is just putting everything together in terms of that 55
million you'll see that 42% of that is our um MD assessment and this is no complaint we have the best water in the nation we are so lucky to be working with the mass Water Resources Authority um they are
ter they are a terrific agency we have incredible water supply also thanks to Jay and previous directors we have an incredible um infrastructure as well that we continue to work on but it is important that we plan for that um and
that you also see what that cost is and if we take out the MW assessment and then some of the components that are specific to the Water and Sewer Enterprise like the debt um components that's part of our Capital um projects
uh the reserve that goes into um our long range um planning uh and security for the Enterprise and intergovernmental transfer kind of strip that down to look at all of the um division operations together you can see that we have 50% of
our costs are in salaries uh 32% in service and then we have these other slices that go into supplies utilities Capital um that capital is really around equipment uh and others generally training um
Etc okay so um how I like to present the budget because it's so large is what's different you know what is different from um this year and what we're proposing for next and unfortunately I can't
really see this okay so for the water and sewer um Enterprise the services line item is um you know kind of a modest increase of uh well the overall budget let me just back
up overall budget is 3.1 uh 7% increase uh for for salaries we have about a 2.7% increase uh for services that's 15% and that reflects actual operating costs for building maintenance Pest Control catch
Basin cleaning uh and credit card uh service fees the supplies the increase there again these are all actual um direct costs that um we know we will be responsible for in the coming year this is due to construction and vehicle parts
uh when we look at the utilities there's a slight decrease there that is based on usage uh over the past year and our contract costs there the mwa assessment I think this is significant because we
won't see an increase this low every year um but what this reflects is an increase in our water assessment but a decrease in the sewer assessment and that decrease is directly related to um
the reduction of infiltration into the sewer system due to our sewer lining work so um that is money very well spent um that's preserving and protecting the infrastructure but also saving the Town Money uh the 42% in uh Capital here is
equipment we had some equipment um that had reached the end of its life cycle it was very critical for the work that we do and needed to replace that and then um we have um The Debt Service overall remained a little bit flat and then
intergovernmental transfers this is the money that supports com controllers it all of the Ops so it's the retirement it's health care it's workers comp all of those items and we saw an increase uh in in those items and that's money that
we transfer back to the town to support the operating budget so the next two slides itemize those things that I just went over so I'm going to skip those and go to the public works so for Public Works overall we have a 7.9%
increase and um this includes all the divisions except water and sewer and I will actually go to the detailed pages on this because it's largely a level funded or cut budget with the exception of Sanitation and we've spent time with
this board um talking about sanitation talking about the change in Service delivery talking about the costs associated with that um both costs now to um make the change and then the um short and long-term benefits of that so
um so you will see that there's a reduction in the Personnel budget of $570,000 um this includes a cut of two equipment operators in the highway function and seven positions in the sanitation division the overall
Sanitation division has 15 full-time employees and nine of whom run the trash collection bulky waste and yard waste of those nine positions seven are being um
cut um and of those seven five are currently vacant uh two of the nine will stay for yard Wass collection and other sanitation initiatives and two will be transferred to um within the highway
division with uh equivalent pay positions so I and you've heard this at your meetings the few in sanitation that remain do not want to lose um this function in house and I want to be clear that this is not a reflection on them um as a reminder we held two public
meetings with the select board um one with the solid waste advisory committee to review the entire program the concern regarding vacancies that has persisted workers comp lost work days liability um and the risk of overall program collapse
uh an impact on the highway division which um they had five um people uh leave the division in 2024 because they did not want to work on sanitation so as a reminder we've signed the cassella contract The
Five-Year contract set the rates going forward um but that's uh the reduction there and then you see the increase in Services that's the 2 milon 75,000 around 600,000 of those services
are sort of fixed costs those are increases in the contract for processing waste for processing recycling it's for the metals it's for the yard waste it's for hazardous waste it's the recycling collection um and then 1.5 million are
associated with Contracting collection for trash uh and bulky waste to ensure uninterrupted service um as I mentioned before the new model isn't about cost savings we saw that they were very comparable um it's about long-term sustainability predictability
and safety and so in closing um the combined DPW operating budget across the general fund and Enterprise fund is a little bit over 55 million again uh full budget details are
available in the budget book I encourage you to review the goals and accomplishments by division they're really remarkable uh there's a lot of great work that's happened there's a lot of great things on the horizon and um we are here and look forward to any
questions that you might have thank you Mike so um I think first of all I would say as as as we've gotten used to uh from uh DPW that that's a fine presentation I really appreciate the the
detail and your ability to cut through some of that detail and give us the uh the broad picture as well as some of the as as the detailed information here in very digestible form um earlier tonight we heard uh member of the public talk about um how it was important to to
fully fund the uh school department uh and say that well you know there must be things that would could be cut out of the town's operations and um it's a really easy statement for somebody to make until they come to face to face
with well what is it that one could cut and of course the DPW is one of the largest budgets uh in the uh uh on the town side and so I guess I I i' I I'd like to ask you and I think I know the answer and I'm
absolutely not advocating for it but what would be the consequence of uh you know of of cutting um uh probably something on the order of a million dollars out of the the budget in order to provide a a um commensurate uh
commensurate with the size of the budget uh a a support for the schools I appreciate that question um I see everyone over here cringing because Public Works is always the first um that folks are looking and I want to stress that I'm not ADV I I understand that but
it's it's a big budget I I think that um it's a big budget but we also need to recognize that it is a big department with a lot of responsibilities um that I think um
often are um they're not understood they're overlooked you know they they don't recognize who's taking care of the street lights or the traffic signals and you know all of these things 247 um so a any cut I will say right now
we're at a place where there is um some employee burnout uh in terms of the services being Rec requested and just the sheer amount of time that staff have we are over
capacity um and so um I would worry about retention I would worry about sort of an exodus of people leaving and it would be a direct cut and service and what service that is I'm not sure but I do know that um there are positions that
we're still looking to regain um that we're calling covid Cuts so and certainly uh the discussion that we had earlier about improving the roadways that would go in the opposite direction well thank you uh thank you
and I um I appreciate Mike's question and and the intent of the question um I hope that we don't do this to each department that comes up and ask them where the fat is and I appreciate what you're doing I you know should should we this board get to the point where we need to have a more holistic discussion
um I think that would be a more appropriate place than putting each department head on on the uncomfortable position and by the way I wrote the same question down Mike so you know what's on my list I scribbled it out um I have a two two or three quick questions um uh
first and why don't I get them out and then maybe you can answer them it'd be helpful to know how much we're actually spending each year on road maintenance that might be a CP thing I'm just not sure but it'd be good to get a ballpark for that I don't need to the
penny um we uh we recently uh late last year we had someone puncture uh a 10 foot conduit of the MW uh with significant impact on our community and Eastern Massachusetts
cities and towns uh very very very significant issue um and we received I think a memo from the MW saying we need to do something about this because it it was a puncture of a conduit that was 250
ft down embedded in Bedrock uh that was laid probably 70 years ago um and someone was drilling a geothermal well and they punctured a 10-ft conduit by a video of the geyser there about 20 foot
guys there so um my question is what are we I'm hoping that we're doing something proactive around zoning you don't have the answer right yet but zoning um permitting and stuff like that so that's my second question then my third
question Erin is um noticeably absent of your budget is anything doing having to do with enforcing our tree preservation bylaw that we just recently passed uh which um I was a little concerned about seeing nothing mentioned um and I'm
hoping that that we can do something uh to start the process of having a resource available to start enforcing the tree preservation bylaw so those are my three questions okay wonderful so I think I will just start with answering the question about the tree preservation
bylaw and Jay you can come up and talk a little bit about the um the MW and the 8m permit and then um Dan and Kevin if you guys want to think about uh maintenance of the roadway and the um the costs um that you have budgeted for for that because it is split between uh
Highway and uh engineering so um when the new tree preservation bylaw was passed and as we were going through the process attending um Community meetings advisory committee meetings uh
we were we were clear that additional staff was required to take on this enormous lift to preserve and protect and enforce a bylaw across every private property in town um and
um that uh we we talked about that at the time I think it's clear um with the Administration what's required it was clear with the petitioners as well um we have that in our expansion requests but this really was a year of no expansions
um due to budget constraints so I think that that it's clear that in order to implement the tree preservation bylaw additional staff is needed we're just not in a place right now
um it's my understanding to fund that so um we are looking to work with uh the community to update the regulations um but we don't have the staff currently to implement it in full can I ask a followup on that
ber yeah just when you say so if if you did have the the opportunity is one person helpful to just start the process of enforcing the bylaw one is absolutely
helpful but um we propose to okay thank you Jay and I'd like to int just introduce by name Alexandra veio sustainability and natural resources Jay hery Water and Sewer Dan Murphy engineering
Transportation melee pran uh open space uh parks in open space and Kevin Johnson uh the deputy director of operations and also director of Highway sanitation and Fleet Services yeah thank you Jay hery director Water and Sewer taking the question on the
tunnel incident you need to speak into the microphone now sure thing um yeah taking the question on the the incident with the MW tunnel um to address that we are working with the mwa they actually do have a permit program which is well
known uh it's more for utilities that were at shallower depths Water and Sewer um but not specifically addressing Deep Rock tunnels that are down around 300 ft so we're working um with the building department to develop a way to to flag
these utilities that are at signifant significant depth so that they come across our permitting system and then we can work together um to make sure that they're known and this does not happen again do those conduits show up on a map somewhere I mean whose map is it on it's
on the mwa Maps we actually do have it on one of our Maps but again typical Dig Safe programs which look at you know subsurface utilities but generally at depths not greater than like 30 feet all show up and are picked up on but this
one is you know not too many people know about it because it's at 300 feet it's underneath a bunch of homes in Brookline and they may have a you know a record on their their deed but they don't necessarily even know that it's there I would just hope that um if and I'm sorry
Bernard I just hope that if a geothermal well permit I don't know who's issuing it but I'm hoping that that's going to flag somebody to go see if there's anything from here surface down to whatever the depth is that something like this could be at it was a
it was a huge expensive problem for Brook line and for for the state yep no I was there y we're most of it so y uh thank you for the question all right Dan and Ken if you want to come up also I'll just say that MW mwa would issue those permits so they
do go through the MW ADM permits so internally we're looking at processes to double check these these things but there is a requirement um for permit uh that if you're going to drill that deep
um needs to go through the MW so did so did the homeowner or contractor not pull the permit I think it was less clear at the time did you go yes uh typically those permits are
actually pulled through the state they're considered underground injection permits so the state would review it and approve it and not necessarily would it be picked up by the mwa like I said the Dig Safe system so going forward I know the MW because I sit on The Advisory
Board is working like with the well drillers Association they're working with the state to find multiple ways and communities like you know all through the metro area to make sure that these Deep Rock tunnels or deep rock you know subsurface utilities are flagged and
people know about it certainly a lot better than they have in the past Uh Kevin Johnson Deputy Commissioner of operations Highway and sanitation director thank you for the question Paul um as far as uh how much money we're spending on roadways and
maintenance on uh the highway side maintenance uh we we we average about uh4 to $50,000 a year of uh of that money to buy materials to repair sidewalks trip hazards uh pothole
patching um and when we're at fully staff we're on the higher side of that 50,000 we're at full staff where we're short staff now we not as much as getting done but uh as far as as um how much money we're spending on maintenance
is that's roughly around what we're spending for materials and we're doing it all with in-house um personnel as far as the total the majority of the money obviously comes out uh through engineering and transportation they put out the contract for all the road
construction so Dam would be able to answer that that's the number I'm really interested in sure um so for yeah for additional maintenance we have a patching contract we on the street right now we've got a crack sailing contract on the street right now we're looking at probably over eight8 and half million
dollars including all project costs this year uh for Bond wearing course uh contract U and Road contracts as well so this this we've been working hard to try and increase this number and get get contracts on make sure I heard you're right8 and a half million is what we're spending this year year on
reconstructing roadways incl roadways including the patching including the but eight and a half okay yep total okay and I'm I don't mean to quiz you you know how much we spent last year and what we're planning on next year last year was a little less because we had contract that carried over we were like
four and a half last year okay and then I know going forward I know we're looking at having about six six in our budget left over jump start you know once we get half to July 1 really helpful thank you thank you so much David yes I wanted
to uh bring the topic back to Something Mike raised regarding schools and broaden a little bit so the DPW already provides services to the schools out of its budget correct and could you maybe provide a rough estimate on what that is
financially Andor describe some of the types of activities the DPW performs on behalf of the schools and also any other departments sure um we have a lot of uh internal and external uh clients in in public works we do a report at the end
of each fiscal year um that we share with um with our Deputy uh Town Administrator uh for finance that really looks at all of the expenses so it changes year-to year the types of
services that we provide we do all of the school grounds maintenance so we take care of all the schools we do all the plowing snow removal at all the schools we do all of the tree trimming tree removal at the schools we support the community gardens we support some
Community um activities we host DPW day for districtwide thirdd grade favorite uh field trip of the year and uh we do the trash collection at the schools we do the composting at the schools we
um provide the a a tremendous amount of support as it relates to um we've done you know improvements around water and sewer and some of the utilities we do the metering um we also um support the
school capital projects so we have had projects at the schools that we manage in terms of um school grounds you'll see in the CIP this year there's design dollars for the new Lincoln School which um is long overdue for um renovation of
the school grounds that's in our cipu we'll run a um a design review proess process with the school community and those Capital dollars are there but if it's not directly in our budget we support the school capital projects so that's where it's the right of way it's
the lighting it's the pathways it's accessibility um and anything as it relates to uh use of those school grounds we've been very involved um in those designs and then in supporting you know utilities Etc as well so we spend a
lot of time supporting kind of behind the scenes the um major School construction and renovation projects as well anyone did I forget anything big on that on schools okay so yeah she was just saying that last year we submitted
1359 million um in value um but it will be higher this year and we know that that's that's not considered one of the shared services that we assess the schools for so that is money that we don't ask for the schools back we don't ask back from the
schools John thanks um and thanks for the presentations um we a week ago uh we heard some really excellent presentations with details as to how we are um going forward going to use our
data you know um as to conditions of streets and and sort of a put a number on on every single Street in Brookline in terms of its condition and then um apply that number and then also apply
how much usage how much traffic there is on these streets how important are these streets and take the condition of the street the amount of usage it gets um and come up with a schedule of prioritization you know of the streets for resurfacing all of which is great
but there was mention made of how small short side streets you know let's say it's a you know Dead End Street uh you know or culdesac Street sometimes can be in horrible condition but they
wouldn't really rise to the top because they're so short and they only serve us like Eight houses six houses whatever how do we deal with that how are we going to make sure that those streets don't end up just being in deplorable
condition forever right so so we really do have to make a decision on how we're going to spend the limited funds we have in the way that maximizes the town's dollar and that's really the formula that that we shared with you but um in recognizing this what we're looking to
do is set aside um a certain amount of money hopefully based on um getting favorable bid prices Etc it might be something on the order of $500,000 it could fluctuate each year where we're going to go from the bottom
up and do what could be called an emergency or maintenance overlay that is just in in essence capping that road in place it involves Milling just the curb line and
doing an overlay on the street and that's just saying we're not going to get here uh until it comes up in terms of its time but trying to work sort of backwards with a small amount just to prevent just to in essence make sure
that some of those roads in the worst condition don't continue to degrade to a point where they are a real safety um Hazard thanks Berard just a quick question so um you know we have ignored this isn't anybody
your fault but this has been a we have been in a deficit for deferred maintenance for decades correct correct and there was a number I think when I first joined the board it was like 50 or 60 million uh potentially was kind of where the number was at and I did I see
a number North of a 100 million now uh of of you know if we needed to get our roadways back up to where they they need to be so I think what you saw was 135 million if we were to do all roads
sidewalks um ramps and that's current dollars no escalation just the value um but we also in looking with our new policies and looking at the roadways estimated a a dollar value somewhat lower to increase the PCI yeah yeah and
so just one more comment Bernard um so I mean this is just like the underfunding of the many decades in our buildings where we didn't put enough money into our CIP to maintain buildings and we and we we fell behind and we finally
realized how costly it is to fall behind on your buildings and so we started to put money back into the CIP and I think and I think uh thanks that the advisory committee and the capital subcommittee they advocated for that but we have a very similar problem with our roadways we've ignored them for decades and now
we're behind badly and you're doing Yan's work and trying to at least get them so they don't deteriorate further and passible for the ones that are are are of the worst offending road so I appreciate your efforts thank you okay thank
you sorry Chad yeah know I wanted to thank the commissioner and the whole team here DPW is a big department does a lot of really great work so I really want to thank you all for the hard work that you do and your teams do um just to add two quick things based on questions here um one on tree preservation I just
want to be clear what Ain said was that we it's we are under funded we are at one arborous position currently so we're not even fulfilling the Mandate from the 2022 2022 override yet or the 2023 override yet to deal with the urban
canopy planning so we have to get there and then we have to get to the further mandate that's been put on us by town meeting to even reach that point so I just want to be you know clear to the community about where we are on this
it's not that we're not doing it we want to be doing and we will be moving forward as best we can with this enforcement and what we have but this is also a discussion that we're going to have with the expenditures and revenue study committee both this issue and the issue that you raised Paul about the
broader funding for the streets like last override the 2023 override 40% of the money that went to the town was for roads um and that was a s that was the largest single investment that was made
in the roads in decades and we're still we still are where we are um so there's more work to be done there but but the but the um the fulfilling of the obligation to town meeting is a choice uh to do it or not
do it I do understand I mean we have we're have positions in other part of of our teams uh that and I'm not suggesting we do anything at this point but we do make choices we could say instead of
doing X we could do why um and we could fund the position uh for uh for tree preservation enforcement and we could not fulfill some other position or move money from some other bucket so we do we do have the option um to to to and
choose to fulfill or not fulfill certain obligations that's true but these are core operational we're at core operational capacity right now so it's not as though there's something we would like to do um that we would cut in order to move into this space everything else
is either an override priority um or it's a it's a core capacity they're all hard sources right question Oh and just one other just to follow up on the broader question of you know what will we what will we cut um I
agree that it's important to have that discussion more holistically um as opposed to on a department by Department basis but I will just say um you know we appreciate the community Dialogue on this um what I continue to
go back to is that um Revenue projections off by less than a million dollars that can be explained in several ways including the high cost of healthare the expenditure projection on the school side is off by $7 million so when I ask people to take a hard look at
that I mean it to take a hard look at that um I don't think it's fair to the town departments that have been continually asked for the last three years to do more with less to come come back and say that that's somehow not enough
um this group has done true amazing work through a pandemic through extremely difficult times and we're heading into extremely difficult times with uncertainty about Federal funding on both the town and school sides so we are committed to helping the schools we want
to be good partners with the schools but I'm getting it a little undertone from the conversation that seems to just town is somehow to blame for this problem and I don't like it uh if I could make a comment about that John I my hand
up waving his hand problem with when these things U continue and continue as we keep thinking of more questions I've been meaning to ask for a long time uh um do we um in our budgets uh as presented the
town meeting or as reported say in the annual report Board of the Town break out chapter 90 funds and how they were spent in terms of you know this project this project this project this project we break out chapter 90 funds and they're they're voted on each year it's
set by the state but we don't we have exactly what they're what we spend chapter 90 funds on we get that approved through the state before we expend those dollars yeah um but we don't put that in a report I I I I raise that question because I'm always looking for things
that we can kind of use as metrics and comparisons um and I would love to have that information included in you know one of our annual documents either the budget that's presented to town meeting or say in the annual report somewhere so
that I can look at how Town X spends their chapter 90 funds and just make a comparison how does Brookline spend their chapter 90 funds that's all but you're just looking for us to show how Brookline spends chapter 95 correct yes yeah yeah no problem okay great so um
respectfully disagree that it's not a good idea to ask Department by Department earlier tonight we had a member of the public come up and say well just take you know there needs to be some money taken out of town operations uh in order to um to fully
fund School operations and uh I disagree with that uh I think that the schools have to figure out how to live within their uh within their means without disabling um Town operations and town operations aren't disabled holistically
they're disabled Department by Department uh and if you take money out of DPW or you take money out of police or fire or anything else it means that they're delivering some Les some Ser or they're not delivering some service that the public wants and it's really
important for the public to understand what kinds of things would be missing from town Services Department by Department um when this kind of discussion comes up it's particularly important for town meeting members to recognize
that um David no and just similarly uh I think we're actually all on the same page on this just coming at it from different angles uh for example my question regarding what does DPW contribute to the schools already and the answer was 1359 million and that's a significant
sum and it's important I think for the public to understand that even on the town side of the budget a lot of expenses go toward the schools already uh so I do think going on a department by Department basis just to illustrate sort of the interrelatedness between our
departments can be helpful well yeah and I um I appreciate that we had a town meeting member come up and speak with 50 signatures right but I don't think that that should dictate to us to ask each
department and put them on the so I actually even wrote the question down and and and I understand the the point that we're trying to demonstrate which is all your services are critical but I you know I I hear the response from a department head
saying putting me on the spot to say which one of my people okay wait let's not get into it back and forth I just I just I'm just hoping that as we go forward um I'd ask the town administator I'd like to thank DPW for their they're being very
patient all of my divisions know I love them equally just like I love my children equally we appreciate you so and I really want to I want to thank um the men and women of Public Works I want to thank these incredible
uh division directors they have a tremendous amount of responsibility in what they do every day um they um care profoundly about the work and it is Noble work um that they do and that
Public Works does and I just want to express my gratitude to them to their teams and um to all of you for your support yeah and and let me just say that we recognize the incredible job you do whenever there's a snowstorm an
emergency um or or some some other event on the weekend and and we hear that you and and various members of your department are out on their weekend right saving our town our town from catastrophe and you know at least
personally I hear from people all the time saying they really appreciate what what you've done in specific situations uh emergencies that have come up absolutely so um thank you for all you do thank
you um I I I want to say um it's not a matter of putting anybody on the hot seat um it's a matter of uh uh making it clear to the public what they would be losing and the best way for them to
understand that um those 50 people who signed that petition supposedly um uh or signed that letter uh making it clear to them what they would be losing piece by piece I don't think we have any disagreement about
that it's absolutely not a matter of putting anybody in the hot seat okay um next Town Council while Joe's coming up I'll just say real quick on to that point um I'm not inclined to put anything on the
table until cla's report is published yeah um that's just full stop so we are not making any recommendations anything until we have an understanding of what's Happening Here um so that's just it's
premature to have that discussion okay howse what you're doing in the legal field sure Joe what are you up to Joe Kenan Town Council um so thank you for um giving me the opportunity to discuss
Town council's budget um I have a a PowerPoint slide I'm happy to answer any questions but let me give you some highlights of what we've been up to and Tiffany if you can go to the next slide uh like uh commissioner sh I'll start with the big changes and that is a
decrease of $80,000 from our budget uh fy2 to FY 26 because of a position that was authorized last year is being transitioned in uh transferred to um the human resources department otherwise it's a level service budget level funded
next slide please um this is the Highlight that I like to point out and that is the reduction in the spending of outside Council so I've been here now three years so responsible for FY 23 24 and 25
and those are the smallest little um um you know columns that you see there really the only two expenditures there was one uh paying for an outside investigator which is why I advocated for that uh investigator and also a training program for our new labor and
uh employment uh lawyer um we hired her last spring she has employment experience but she just does not have Public Employee labor experience so we brought on uh probably the best management side uh Labor uh attorney to give her 40 hours of training on Public
Employee labor so that's really the only outside spending that we've done not to hire a lawyer to take a case and defend that case for us but hire the best that we can find in the state to teach us and how to make us better next slide please
so Staffing uh we are fully staffed that's not been something that's always been true in the last couple years uh but we're fully staffed this fiscal year five lawyers three support uh people for an FTE count of 7.7 uh again we've added to the FY uh 25
budget a full-time internal investigator that position was not hired this fiscal year and in FY 26 they'll be uh house in human services I'm sorry human relations HR uh also in fy2 we added a a budget
and Personnel staff for personnel salaries for interns both full-time legal interns and part-time administrative interns the part-time administrative interns we're interested in uh Brookline High students who would be able to work after school and would
be interested in working in government Public Service of the law so we have two uh Brookline High uh students that come in after class and and uh work with us Monday through Thursday 3: to 6 however our FY 26 budget cuts will eliminate that program it does retain the
full-time legal interns which adds an ft you know uh you know uh at a at a lower cost than an attorney salary they're they're a lost student salary so next uh slide so some accomplishments this year this fiscal
year did start in the last fiscal year but one of them has been to provide more legal services to the public schools of Brooklyn and demonstrate the value of In-House staff as opposed to outsides councel so we've been picking up more and more uh work for um Public Schools
uh you know this has been something I've been trying to do for the past three years however this year we're seeing now not just the superintendent office calling but principles and and Senior leadership and now coming us to us directly so we're providing more and
more services for PSB to demonstrate to them the value of In-House council at a much lower rate than outside Council that you're paying you know the market rates um another accomplishment we started in FY 24 but concluded in fy2
was getting the legislative approval to allow the geothermal Wells under the Pierce um playground so if you recall we we got went to town meeting last fiscal year but this fiscal year we got that home Ru petition passed within two months before the legislative season ended so I want to thank representative
AO and Senator kem's office for their great work heran to get that uh um uh home rule petition passed in a mere eight weeks so we've also uh drafted and renegotiated I'm sorry negotiated all the grant agreements for the first time
under the CPA program passed during last year's town meeting but then implemented this fiscal year we renegotiated all four cannabis retail um cannabis retailer home um host Community agreements because a change in state law so we did that with all the U
cannabis retailers and finally something we started uh in fy4 went to town meeting and that's removing from the police uh removing from civil service of police officers it was challenged by an officer who was bypassed on a promotion
however even Civil Service Commission agreed we successfully removed ourselves from civil service using a method that had not been done before by the town usually we removed ourselves through special to uh special acts here last year we did it just by town meeting
approval so uh FY 26 goals um you know uh supporting the comprehensive plan committee with legal advice on what they like to do with our comprehensive plans resoning we're continuing to support uh public schools of Brookline for
providing more in-house services and something we've been working on for the past couple years um trying to we talk I sometimes hear that our Charter is the town administrators act actually there's 300 other acts that form our Charter
there are actually 306 special acts that have been passed for Brookline over the past 200 years and all of them are really our Charter it makes it kind of difficult to find out like what are all these acts so we've got them all together we have a
spreadsheet to uh find things we have all the um various copies of them it's not quite in a position for ready to be public lawyers can use it it's kind of a hard to use so we're we're working with um the IT staff to make it more userfriendly and being able to put it on
the web but this is something that's been going on for the past three years when I started um you know Mel told me oh we can't figure that out of course we can figure it out it takes work but we've done that work now it's just getting into a a position and condition that's makes it
more readily available for just not the lawyers in the office and we're also available to provide any training you know um we had a training for uh PSB staff on campaign Finance laws in reaction to the ocpf complaint before um
we're able to provide training we have um now the trainings that uh Elena the our labor um uh lawyer has received she's now prepared to give that Labor Training to department heads so if there's any issues that uh anybody in town whether they be board members or
staff or elected officials want on training we're available just ask us we're ready and um the last thing being um a warrant article that had been proposed being uh delayed and that's adopting a municipal hearing officer that's waren article 11 we're asking for
no action be taken on it but we're going to continue the work going forward to be able to um bring this up in the fall and provide more answers on how Municipal hearing officer can help with the tickets on road enforcement and um you know having inspectors not go to
Brookline district court and wait for Clerk's hearing when there's appeal have Council staff do that and provide that in uh intermediate administrative appeal for people to bring a complaint about a particular bylaw enforcement so last slide is I'm available to answer
questions now or later uh I always give up my phone number 61738 1525 people are looking for me feel free to give me a call if I'm in a meeting I won't take it but I'll give you a call after good thank you hey any questions PA I'd hate to let
them get away without a question Joe you mentioned um that you're taking more school you're providing School support do we have any sense of what percentage are we shifting or are we just adding because there is it would be great if we could uh do more for them and maybe
consolidate right um sure um but what I've been trying to do is to demonstrate to them that we can perform this work so for some it has been new work that is not going to outside Council I have got calls from staff saying you know I have a question for you and we give them an
answer and then they say oh well that's what our lawyer told you or told us I'm like but where your lawyer so what you like you know shopping around the answers we're getting less and less of that so we're demonstrating to them that we're competent we're timely we can provide them good advice um you know but
now now like like I said we're getting Beyond just you know the superintendent office and and lower into the um school system to give us a question and you know hey I'm about to write a letter can you you know that's going to go to the community can you take a look at it before I send it up let me more point in
my question is there anything that prohibits your office from providing legal services to because they also have their own Legal Services right would you be able to provide the same services that they're getting from their legal they
don't have in-house Legal Services they right they well just all they use just outside outside outside right so in their budget for f FY 25 they're they've spent $300,000 on uh lawyers they proposed to increase it to
$450,000 but we could do that work we just need the bodies we're at a Breaking Point or you know we're we're at we're B we don't want to break by taking on the additional responsibility that we have with the other 40% of town and uh School
Services okay but if we had instead of spending money on outside Council spend it on a lawyer or two we could absolutely do all that work okay thank you so some of the um outside Council work that they uh outside counsil that they use are
very specialized areas of law or represent very specialized areas of law how how how easy would it be for you to sort of Staff up for those types of matters for example Special Ed I mean it's not just
any old lawyer correct that that you you'd want to hire how how easy would it be for you to over whatever period of time you know staff up so that you can handle those type of very specialized uh legal issues with it sure so right now
we um Susan Harrison our office came from the Department of uh early in secondary education you know so she's a generalist in our um you know town council's office if we were to take on this role I would look for someone that's familiar with uh special ed but
if not we would teach them we have those Resources with Susan or like what we did with Elena who is our labor employee uh attorney bring in someone to train them so that shortterm 40 hours of Jack Collins teach uh Elena you know labor is
now meaning that we don't have to go out we've trained someone inhouse to be able to do that work so given for example on student rights Susan's experience and you know a new person or on labor my experience Alena's experience and a new
person's experience we could do all this work so it's not really a difficult problem to to solve no or difficult move to make okay John uh Joe thank you very much for um all you're doing uh do you
have a philosophy as and that's the best word I can think of as to how to budget for settlements sure I mean I actually have slides up on how much we spend on settlements we've also been reducing settlements you know so you know there's kind of two sources of settlements or
two sources of funding for settlements one is uh each year we're given $75,000 as part of um Town council's budget for kind of the slip and Falls the uh fender benders and things like that yeah in the in the years before I came here we were
settling about 20% of the money claimed was then went out the door as settlements we're now driving that down lower last year it was 10% if you count the $1 million claim that we had no chance of ever being liable for it was actually 5% so we're also driving down
the amount that we settle because that's what I've done for 25 years defend government in claims I have a good idea what a value of a claim is as opposed to the other side would take you've seen my decision tree analysis and litigation risk exposure that's
based on what the cas is worth not what the other side will take and that has driven down settlement costs we could do that for the schools too I I have to say I like what I'm hearing and thank you very much okay well thank you okay appreciate
it very helpful thanks very much you can we take a seventh inning stret I just couple seconds I to stand up if you want to go somewhere okay five minute break e
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okay we're back from our five minute break may have been a little longer than that and we have uh Mr Lincoln Hinman our Treasurer to present uh his Department's budget thank you Mr chair good evening uh so I am Lincoln hman I'm
the town's Director of Finance um joined by in person uh by two division heads um so Chelsea Stevens who uh folks not everyone may have met before our relatively new comproller here and uh next to her Rick Seville our interim uh
Chief procurement officer and also um joining us from on online is uh Ted Costigan our relatively new Chief assessor and Don DeVito our payroll director Ted actually was covering um uh Warren articles tonight at advisory
committee so he was doing double duty but he's joining us now which we appreciate so uh we're here to um uh present the finance department's proposed fiscal year 2026 budget so I I I won't go the next slide here is um a quick review uh overview of the
five divisions within the finance department 31 professional staff um I won't go into all those details um but there they're there folks uh you know watching at home in particular may not know the the various functions within the finance
department um next slide please here's the proverbial uh blizzard of numbers it's it's the overview um but what there uh a few things I wanted to focus on when looking at the overall budget um for the finance department so
overall there is a slight reduction in the proposed fiscal year 2026 budget uh of slightly over $133,000 um the there there are three um primary areas of change that I'll just mention uh number one is uh an increase
a modest increase in the amount um under the com controller's office for services um this is the cost of our accounting system Unice um it is uh it is the contractual increase um and you know it's it's a it's a cost that we have
that we really need to uh meet um there is a modest reduction in the salaries line for purchasing um as the board knows our longtime um 25-year employee Dave Gina cacus uh uh there the chief procurement
officer he retired at the end of this past calendar year and that is um with the expectation that the new uh person permanently in the position as Chief procurement officer will be starting at a lower rate than um than where Dave left and and then we also as part of the
initial um budget reductions in um towards uh having the townside budget inbalance um for fiscal year 2026 there is a reduction in in um services within the treasur collector's office that is something that we think we can absorb um
but but that reduction also was made to again to help bring the townside budget into balance um next slide please so um towards uh uh this the board's question regarding accomplishments in
fiscal year 2025 and I'll as I go relate those in particular to um the boards um goals and objectives uh both from 2025 and then the goals going forward into fiscal year 2026 um first and I think uh first is uh
maintaining the town's AAA Bond rating um the uh as you can uh see here on the slide uh moodies did maintain that at our last um uh large General obligation uh issuance and at the time uh the
rating agency noted our strong fiscal management and formal policies including multi-year forecasting and strong pension funding plan and healthy contributions towards opab liability in addition towards that point the board will recall in uh at your September
Retreat um Deputy Town Administrator Melissa goof and I uh presented revised reserve and free cash policies that the board subsequently adopted um to reflect uh Moody's new metrics with its
expectations for what AAA rated municipalities um maintain in terms of unreserved fund balance and stabilization as a percent of of Revenue um again as a as a quick reminder the town previously had been at 10% as a
metric of of Revenue um the new metrics um that Moody's told us about uh approximately a year ago uh is the expectation that we' be at 20% of uh re of um un fund balance and stabilization
as a percent of Prior year net revenue so the board adopted that and then also with a goal towards uh meeting the median of of Massachusetts AAA rated municipalities which is currently 37.9% so the town is meeting that now um
but as we'll talk about in fiscal 26 there are some uh steps to continue to meet that and move more towards that goal the of the medium um and that is directly related to um the select board's uh Finance Administration uh goal number two in in
your goals um item item number two um this this uh calendar year in particular uh but but also fiscal year 25 and calendar year 24 was a time of uh big change particularly in the in uh the
division head leadership within the finance department we had uh two um uh retirements and uh one uh one person leaving for uh promotion in another town and in addition the assistant collector uh leaving for uh promotion elsewhere so
um those three positions uh in in particular the com controller Chief assessor and Deputy Treasurer collector and our newy treasur collector Holly Sullivan um have been filled it has C it was certainly a challenging job market for that and and um but I do think um
you know we got through that um in this past calendar year and certainly directly related to the select board's goal of um number five uh paying competitive wages and appropriate benefits to retain uh and and uh and
attract qualified public servants and then uh with respect to the other the third primary accomplishment in fiscal 25 for the finance department the um disparity study um that the board uh heard uh the uh report on earlier this
month was completed with the uh city of Somerville and um again directly related to one of the objectives that the select board had sent out in fiscal 25 um for 26 um you know the the the more things
change the more they they uh they they stay the same you know certainly the the primary uh goal for the finance department is continuing to contribute towards maintain maintaining the town's uh AAA Bond rating to the point of um
the uh amended reserve and free cash policies that the board adopted in September um as again as the board knows there is uh $3.5 million proposed to be uh appropriated to the stabilization
Fund in fiscal year 2026 again um uh uh seeking to uh further uh go towards that metric of um reaching the med um of uh Revenue excuse me of stabilization fund and unreserved funds
as a percent of Revenue um and again uh certainly related to um the select board's uh number one goal in preserving our financial health of again um seeking to meet the new expectations from uh Moody's the ratings agency and
maintaining our bond rating um goal number two uh again directly related to the select board goal of um preserving our financial health is is uh uh my role in particular obviously in conjunction
with the Town Administrator and the and the deputy Town Administrator in supporting the new expenditures and revenue study committee um as the board knows uh the first meeting occurred of of that new committee and um you know that work will continue and uh you know
I'm sure there'll be asks of the finance department in supporting that work going forward and um with respect to the disparity study and the next steps in um what the town intends to do in respon two minutes oh thanks um I'll meet that
um with response to the disparity study is um a consideration of of whether or not to um uh choose to implement a Shel a shelter Market program and um administrative and there are some administrative steps that we're looking
at where uh will be able to in fiscal 26 um Implement uh administratively other recommendations that the study made briefly with respect to long-term goals um in increased collaboration with the school department this is something
we've made great strides with and and continue to um particularly with respect to the payroll division um improve improv use of Technology this is uh something that we've really been focused on in particular with in in treasury collection recently and in in the
assessing division um as an aside by complete coincidence today is the first day uh whereby um folks paying their bills either out in the Departments or to the treasur collector's office uh may use Apple pay we had some technical um
we had some technical challenges to that earlier but now folks may use Apple pay so I I use that as a small example of um you know something where we're seeking to uh improve the use of technology and uh in the interest of time um I'll just
mention uh we can get back into the other goals and objectives if folks want to but in the interest of time we'll go on to the next um new initiatives and uh potential additional service demands so uh within
within the current budget initiatives um one thing that the assessors division is looking at is uh having an increased focus on personal property it's something that had entirely been done in house um there is a vendor uh where we
uh where where you know both Ted and I know from experiences in in previous municipalities where within our current budget structure um we are confident that we can achieve uh more personal property tax this is the um the
non-fixed assets uh in particular Ed businesses um so you know that that's that's something that again within our current budget structure we believe we can increase um the revenue that we see there um and uh again in in the interest
of Technology um we we're also taking a look to see if our cash reconciliation process might be aided through AI it's it's a new field um in uh particularly municipalities uh as to uh if if um some
software might be effective there but we're starting to take a look at that um the the the thing uh I would I would mention with respect to demand for finance department Services I think uh there are two primary things at town meeting which may increase um which may
increase the demand in in with respect to the good landlord uh tax abatement program and the real estate transfer fee both of those things if passed would uh increase the the demand for services and and U from the finance department if we can start wrapping up Yep this is the
final substantive slide um so in answer to the select board's uh questions um again uh the personel levels and the Ft levels for this budget are the same um
it again if um if certain pieces of legislation were passed at town meeting there would be a you know I think a future need for um increased Personnel levels but this certainly uh stays level with respect U to Personnel levels um
so uh with that um I think I covered most of the select board's points as well but um happy to very happy to take any questions together with the division heads here David have a question regarding uh payroll so I noticed that in FY
24 there were two people total two fdes total there was an assistant pel director and apparel coordinator and then starting with fy2 that double to four with the addition of the payroll director position and then adding a
second payroll coordinator now you spoke to the expanded Demand on uh the finance department I'm just wondering if you can explain uh the how that dovetails with the doubling and FTE in Peril sure I I
think um I I want to take one one look at that because there has not been an increase in FTE and perhaps it's how it's been represented there in terms of the change in titles um that there had been um in beginning in fiscal year 2023
there were four people in the what was then not the payroll division which was then the pre-payroll division which had been part of the treasury Collection Division um at town meeting uh split that out and agreed um that payroll
should be its own division at the uh fall 2023 town meeting um there three employees now there is space for four um there there have been actually three full-time employees right now so I think what's being represented there uh so
again there was no increase there was actually formally a decrease that position um has been has been uh kept open now we do think we need to fill it long term um but uh you know I think it the it's it's part of a sort of a
variety of conversations one with respect to the establishment of the new payroll Division and and where exactly longterm we want all of those duties to um to uh to shake out so to speak and two I think the outcome of the eventual
conversation about shared services and uh you know where that may go in combination with the schools well y uh thanks Lincoln very quick question um it may be a long answer and if you don't have the answer you can always get it back to me uh it's been suggested
that you know uh we could save money uh by by consciously lowering our bond rating uh and there therefore increase I assume our borrowing costs have you done any run any numbers to say if we weren't a trip way and we were the next level
down what what that would mean to us at for our current borrowing rate we've taken a look at that at at the high level so certainly in in the particular context we are right now which is we have only done one of several large
borrowings for the Pierce school and uh for the fire station renovation and reconstruction um it would absolutely cost us significantly more over the longer term as those larger borrowings come online you know in the future you
know we don't know what the future looks like with respect to other debt exclusions that may come along and their timing but there is no doubt that it would be a significant cost especially if at this moment with those large borrowings coming up and that would directly affect the operating budget
absolutely okay thank you Mike um thank you um uh uh Paul actually the advisory committee did some work on that topic and there is a number I will try to dredge out but it's as Lincoln says big
number and especially because it's a number that stretches out 230 years so happens every year over and over and over again a big um uh question about uh uh you mentioned Shar the discussion about shared services and
what we're talking about is whether the payroll department can um take on the school payroll uh and I wonder if you want to make any comments about that and you're thinking about it uh and what it would um what it would entail in terms
of Staffing yeah I think um yes I you know I I think that there's been there's definitely been a marked increase in collaboration between the folks on the ground doing the work in payroll and on the town side uh
ultimately doing you know everything goes through the town side ultimately as as you know Mike and uh on on the school side and the staff that we have in place now on the school side um you know I I I do believe that that the town could take
that on with the caveat of uh of having um the full Authority that the town would need to say no when no was necessary um so uh so long so I'll leave it at that I suppose okay thank
you uh John um thank you very very much for the presentation and the good work of your department I do have a request personal request uh on behalf of all of us who um whose aging eyes have trouble under normal circumstances reading lots
of numbers lots of numbers in black on a really dark blue background doesn't work for me maybe it works for other people doesn't work for me is it possible to replace that page so that in the record of this meeting there is a page that's much more readable certainly my my
apologies it looked better on my it looked more readable on my screen than it did up there and I know it did great in rehearsal right um but yes certainly okay thanks okay anything
else thank you Lincoln thank you appreciate it thank you I want get a chance to thank Joe and his team before the break so I just want to thank town counil for all the work there but also to Lincoln and to Lincoln's Point um all the division heads are new within you
know certainly the time that I've been here and you're new within the time that I've been here and a significant turnover but you you know the whole team is really handled it extremely well um it's you know one of the things we often say about Finance is that we don't hear about what they're doing unless something goes wrong uh the reason we
don't hear is that they're doing a lot of really wonderful work and in the case of these teams like in some cases very Visionary work in procurement and elsewhere so thank you for all the work you do thank you thanks yeah and and again it I'm very proud to have this team it was a difficult um calendar year
P last year losing eventually you know three Divi three division heads but we're well on our way um with two great new heads um to the new the new chapter so great great thank you okay next we have warrant
articles this will be interesting it's gonna zip through them right yeah right zip like we zip through everything else okay um first warn article 7 acceptance of legislation to increase certain property tax exemptions uh this is
your assessor's office indeed so I can take this I know Ted's Ted's online as well so we can sort of tag team it but I can go through it quickly in the interests of Revy so what Warren article 7 would do the board may recall that um
uh that that annually traditionally the town meeting had adopted a um warrant article to accept uh a section of law session law not General law from the state from 1986 um that required annually if the town
wishes to uh double uh exemptions for the the various exemptions that the town offers in particular to senior citizens veterans and the visually impaired um the so so that's a doubling of the of the exemptions that will otherwise be
available each year set by the the Department of Revenue um it our new Chief assessor to his credit I didn't know this of law existed um the town May adopt this once rather than every single fiscal year through
this different General law so what um this while the wording is slightly different than previous years it has the same effect in that um if it was adopted all um all uh exemptions um to to the
extent allowable would be doubled um by the town and it would be done on a permanent basis unless at some future date the town revoked its adoption of chapter 59 section 5C and a half um so again this would just make it permanent in less Town rather than annual so this
is something that was only recently noticed I I'm not on I didn't know the section the the state law with respect to to assessing is extremely complex and I I did not know State statutes I did not know that this particular section
existed I don't think nothing against Rasheed I don't think our chief prommer chief assessor may have known that but Ted did and and recommended that we adopt it and and um Town Council has agreed I hope yes I mean so so it's it is
not it is quite simply adopting the same exact language but just on a permanent basis except for on an annual basis okay uh Paul so thanks Lincoln so we're GNA go from from annually doing it to just Auto if we do
this automatically every year will increase so right so automatically so every year unless we reversed it but today to right now if you didn't do this each year at the annual town meeting we have to approve it to take the maximum right the next to to double them to
double it no my qu this is my question have we ever not approved the doubling 1989 not since '89 every year we've been doing this so okay thanks just to be very clear it is the doubling
so the the levels for each of these exemptions is set by the state um by the state divisional local Services based on a CPI Consumer Price Index so we're doubling what the state does right and we've never town meeting has never said
no no and what's the cost of this um just one moment I have it apparently no one no it's right here $35,790 no yeah correct uh John at first I I didn't know uh if I
was hearing this wrong and I thought this can't be true that we're going to double it every year um and then I realized um that actually what what you're saying and correct me if I'm wrong is there's a
basic amount set by the St it has stayed the relatively the same I guess you know um year after year after year after year and year after year after year after year we can under special legislation double that amount but having doubled it
to 350 for surviving spouse doubling it every year doesn't mean next year it's going to be $700 and the next year after that it's gonna be $1,400 right right okay that's in case anyone heard it the wrong way like I did okay unfortunately
not okay well we couldn't Avo we could not eventually we would like that but for a few years we might very quickly it would yeah no you're absolutely correct okay any other questions okay this is a public hearing um can we open
the public hearing Epiphany yes now that the chair has opened the public hearing um there are no individuals who signed up in advance is there anyone uh in the room or online who wishes to speak on this matter if so please raise your hand using the raise the hand feature or make
your presence known in the room there someone in the back yes you may if you could please approach the podium this is specific to this warrant article okay okay um there have a chance to
speak to the other warrant articles later there are approximately four individuals in the room 31 online and no one is indicating their desire to speak on this warrant article at this time okay let's close the hearing and um unless anyone objects I'd like to of
approval or favorable action on warrant article 7 uh any objections to doing that I think it's fairly straightforward you know we don't need to digest anything um okay all in favor of favorable action on warrant article 7
please indicate by saying I John vak hi uh Mike Mike samon hi Paul Warren hi David prman I and chair votes I okay next warant article 12 amend the town's General bylaws and Zone bylaws to
establish a flood plane administrator and update the regulations related to the flood flood plane overlay District I see Miss shu is again at the podium good evening um can go ahead and get the presentation started uh Aon Jud
Commissioner of Public Works and I have the pleasure of introducing Maria Rose she is our environmental engineer with the engineering and Transportation uh division has been a tremendous asset for the department and for the town uh she's
going to speak to you um about warant article 12 and um you know what we have here is FEMA updates their Maps every 10 years um they do they do this across the country when they do this the communities need to adopt those maps and
any um required amendments um to zoning um so she'll walk you through that what I'd like to uh add as well with Maria is that uh in the short time that she's been here uh she's brought in over $268,000 in Grants and with storm
waterer um is um she's leading and received a grant for the drainage uh storm water modeling program we have arpa funding for the uh storm water master plan that will follow that and she also is leading a um phosphorus and catch Basin sediment study which is
really relevant to our ms4 permits and um also leading the public education campaign with some other communities around storm water so storm water um flooding flood planes this is all um you know in her Bailey week she's an expert at this and so it's my pleasure to
introduce you to Maria thank you commissioner Sho um and for the introduction and for the opportunity to explain to you the value and importance of Warrant article 12 uh for anyone in the room or in the on online that does not know what a flood
map is it's basically a tool that shows our community's flood risk these Maps show where the low moderate and high risk flood zones are within our community and they are an important resource for resiliency planning for mortgage lenders and for flood plane
management thank you thank you ladies okay uh so FEMA updates their Maps periodically to better reflect flood risk with the intent to increase flood awareness and flood preparedness in fact FEMA coined a
term the term risk uh R being reduce your risk I ensure your risk s for share information on risk and K to know your risk so this workflow diagram explains the risk map or simply a map
update process a discovery meeting is similar to a kickoff meeting uh that was held back in uh 2015 uh this is followed um by data Gathering of femous contractor and in this case it was USGS uh as well as the state flood plane
coordinator Works in uh together with all of of us then there's a work map meeting that is scheduled with communities where they can mark up preliminary Maps the preliminary maps are then issued which occurred for us in June of 2020 this kicks off Public
Notices and final reviews um and due to the covid-19 pandemic there was a bit of a long pause here and we were finally issued a notice a letter of final determination on January 8th of 2025 6 months from this date is when the
new maps become effective so the purpose of Warrant article 12 is to Simply adopt the new FEMA flood maps and incorporate the required language into our general and zoning bylaws the maps reflect uh new
topography they reflect hydrologic and H hydraulic data changes changes in development uh people who have submitted and received approved letters of map changes a few uh changes to highlight is we do have some uh modest changes to the
a zones a little bit of expansion of shaded Zone X which basically means 2% chance of flooding uh azone and AE zones mean 1% chance of annual flooding and there's some minor shifts in flood
zones we also have a portal um which uh is linked there we don't have time due to the time constraints to show you what that is but if you Google if you go on on our website and just go to the stormw water web page and or just search for Brookline flood map you will be brought
to this tool which is pretty cool it shows you there's a swipe tool that shows you what the current maps look like and what the proposed Maps look like so DPW worked with our planning department to figure out the best approach to incorporate the required Provisions in the state model uh flood
flood plane bylaw a copy of this model bylaw was included in your attachment uh to the two-page m that we provided that's dated March 20th um this table shows the individual required provisions and where we incorporate each element in
order to achieve compliance um with FEMA for efficiency sake we'll simply expand further on just some of the primary updates um one of the bigger updates is that we need to amend article 3.17 to establish a flood plane administrator and currently there is no
one designated as the town's flood plane administrator and this is a new role that FEMA is asking all participating National flood insurance program nfip communities to um allow for better coordination and consistency so it's a requirement that they're they're they're
asking for um in the in the past these duties were handled by multiple individuals or just shared and passed passed around that would have been commissioner sh or the director of engineering and transportation or the uh environmental engineer ER or the conservation
administrator and so as I've stated this is a required update to officially and legally designate a flood plane administrator um and you can read there on the slides what um what the changes are to that bylaw uh then this is just a simple
addin the flood plane administrator uh will coordinate with the Conservation Commission in support and protection of the wetlands protection bylaw and then an overview of the proposed changes in the zoning Amendment bylaws
that we updating the text to adopt the new firms firm stands for a flood insurance rate map with their effective date being July 8th 2025 um we're adding definitions that are required per the state model flood plane bylaw and FEMA um we're doing some
consolidation of sections um and then we're updating section five on the notification requirements deleting section six reference to existing regulations as they not necessary and updating our procedures to allow for a new flood plane development impact
review um and then there's some basic Clauses that just allow for allow the strengthening and Clarity of process to our bylaw the zoning use table needs to be updated in order to correctly reference the proposed changes in section
4-10 4.1 or-10 for clarity and consistency and we worked closely with the planning department in order to make these proper changes so that they correlate correctly with this update and with that I will take any
questions or comments or um Aaron Alexandria and I will take any questions or comments that you may have uh Mike so um first of all I would love to see a flood plane map um which uh I wonder if you've got a slide of
that so that we get a sense of where the flood plane where the flood risks are in Brooklyn presumably along the muddy river um and we don't get we don't live quite close enough to the Charles to worry about it um but I I wonder um if you can give us there's a lot of work
that went into this uh and I I I'm just thinking back to a discussion that we had uh on the select board uh earlier tonight about um the number of hours we spend on things uh and this is a
now this is a federal mandate we need to comply uh in order to participate in the insurance program what um uh how many how long did this take and what is what is the insurance proog the benefit of the insurance program to us so it's been going on for years even
before I got here I've only been with the town of Brookline for two and a half years but the community I came from I was working on it there um it's been elongated out as I showed in that first slide that there was like a decade of planning on this but in Earnest um once
we knew that the maps were going to be come effective we've been working on this since the about mid December okay um to to get this update to you and then you asked if you can show a map I think that would she has up on the screen yeah I have it up on screen but you asked
something else um no no that was that's fine okay so I I just um pulled up this is our our tool that you can access from uh the flood map we have a website dedicated um to this oh I know what you asked you asked what the benefits were Mr Sandman right right the the benefits
are that a as being a part of a we are already an nfip participating Community the benefits to us are that every resident and business owner that has a flood insurance policy receives federally subsidized rates if we do not
continue with that program those rates are jeopardized that they will go up for everyone that has a policy that's number one number two is if there is a flood disaster we would not be eligible for any disaster relief if there was a disaster declaration so it's a very very
big deal if we don't certainly is we risk suspension of from the program if we don't follow this and I've as part of this update I've been working with the state flood plane coordinator um which is who is at DCR and they're amazing we have wonderful staff at the state level
that provides so much support and resources for us while we're going through this and they're very busy right now cuz lots of people are going through town meeting but they make the time for us to answer our questions and they have reviewed this um warrant article and are
happy with it but they weren't at first we have to follow like exactly their language sure yeah okay with those of us who remember the muddy river flood from what 15 20 years ago long time ago um uh
we certainly don't want to lose eligibility for federal reimbursement so that's very helpful thank you and then this is the map um there's this swipe tool so on the right hand side is what's proposed um on the left is what is
existing so you can see here that there's a little bit of expansion right here in front of um 33 Pond of um 2% annual flood rate uh flood zone if there's a p particular spot you want me
to zoom in on I can no that's fine that's close enough to where Bernard lives so I'm on the eighth floor though so hopefully that's that's safety I have a couple questions um it's not just a muddy river though that that are flood
potential flood planes but I mean a place I used to love uh going to just to walk around was Griggs park that's in the flood plane too isn't it Griggs Park should right M I don't think so just
gets very wet that's it's a wetland but so so groundwater um levels don't make you a flood plane so it's important to note and I almost included in my talk is that female wants everyone to know everyone's
in a flood zone it's just whether you're in a low a medium or a high so there's always the potential for like surface flooding or things like that to occur you know Street flooding um but they have certain areas that they study and some areas don't always make the cut if
they're a very small stream um so a new stream that was added was the inflow into Sergeant's pond so that is a new addition for for the town of Brookline so there are some properties south of that that are newly
impacted my my other question was um um you know there is talk I'm not sure whether it's serious talk or or what um of getting rid of FEMA does the state have the capacity to take up to to take
over some of the responsibilities that FEMA now provides in terms of flood plane flood planes and flood uh flood insurance program what' you say you can't hear him uh someone says she can't hear you
basically um the chair asked if um the state has the ability to take over responsibilities that FEMA currently is in charge of and I not really equipped to answer that but I can tell you that they delegate the wetlands protection act to the local level so I would find
it hard to believe that the state could could absorb the massive duties that FEMA has responsibility for but these maps have already like they've been vetted for so long I don't see that they're going to backtrack on these Maps they it's they've been 10
years in the works well yeah the map the Tool's actually really useful I have it on my you can thank you go check and see it is very very it is very cool I'm very pleased with our GIS people I just said this is my vision and they poof they made it happen I'm safe by about 70 feet
um I'm a map freak so I appreciate it so uh my my quick question is there any operational uh costs after implementation for us that's is the budget U do we need budgetary increases for any of this or budgetary
support um no um I'm right now I'm absorbing it into um my duties but in the absence that the environmental engineer position is not filled it would go to the conservation administrator than David just have a question about
the uh recreational vehicle provision that essentially says that a vehicle that's present for 180 days needs to be anchored in a certain way at a certain elevation I'm just trying to understand that more those are vehicles that are stationary and not moving or how does
that apply that's more for like boats and you know like if you had a jet ski it's not going to impact us I don't think very much it's more for Coastal communities that could literally have objects that become you know weapons in a flood you know or like they just or
projectiles not what they're like projectiles they get dislodged during a flood so um a boat it would be the main thing I could think of a jet ski things like that um mobile not a mobile home but like a scooter a scooter yeah maybe
a scooter no don't say oh picnic tables um no it's recreational vehicles it's it's also a contamination thing too so you've got you know a gas tank associated with a vehicle and so it
causes quite a um environmental concern when those things get swept away with flood waters so it's a lot of it's common sense um but in the town that I live in we've lost a in March of 2010 you know a dock a town dock just floated
away so it does happen where things in the flood waters do get dislodged and float away with the flood waters okay this is a public hearing so why don't we open the public hearing see if anyone would like to speak yes now that the chair has open the public hearing are
there any individuals in the room or online who would like to speak on warrant article 12 if online please raise your hand using the raise the hand feature at this time if in the room please make your presence known yes Regina fry you can approach the presentation
station you'll have three minutes I know we do have a lot of flood issues Regina fry from South Brookline and we have it in South Brookline too because we're sitting on rock fre pudding Stone and so water doesn't go down too far it rises up and floods a lot of basements that
said um the chair asked the question I was asking planning to ask anybody who doesn't believe the president when he says he wants to eliminate something is very naive and he has said he wants to eliminate female so this whole language
is loaded with FEMA references for this bylaw I have two questions what is Plan B if this FEMA does go out of business who's going to provide the future Maps because it's useful they have those maps and it's no offense it's not really okay
to say well the state will probably do it this should be a conversation going on in this state right now because he has said we're eliminating FEMA so if if there's a plan for that there should be or we should know about it if there is
one and plan B is always a good idea with a different Administration so those are my questions that what are you planning to do and then does that mean that if we pass this in this language we have to then come back and change the language later because we have to eliminate
if it's eliminated thank you uh just a quick answer on that so so regardless we'll adopt these maps and we wouldn't have the maps um sort of updated for another 10 years I think that we want to make sure that we're compliant um getting this pass at me
toown meeting means that we will meet that um deadline for June and should something um happen with the agency at the federal level um we will be in the same boat with all of the other cities
and towns across uh the country so um we would then uh look to work with the state uh and other federal agencies around what the shift was and how we would deal with um you know with local
uh and state emergencies when they happen associated with flooding so I think that uh we can certainly think about that I think we're all thinking about changes at the Federal um level but I don't uh recommend uh any change in terms of adopting uh the maps and the
bylaw now any other any other uh questions from the audience or line online uh there is no one else indicating their desire to speak three individuals in the room and 28 online okay I'll close the
hearing and any further discussion from the select board I I think we should not vote this uh tonight um and give give ourselves an opportunity to uh really digest you know what is not you know straightforward
simple War article anyone object to that that approach no we're going to have we're going to have to explain to understand and explain to town meeting um you know uh the article and why we why we U have
voted favorable AC I think it's best to just give us an opportunity to you know to really digest you know this topic that um that sounds fine I think you'll find that the letter that we submitted will um provide some sort of foundational questions that will
hopefully help as you um contemplate that and as you go through um the actual changes in the the bylaws I think you'll see um kind of what's underlined and what's changed and all supports um what you've heard tonight yeah good thank
you next warn article 16 amend section 6.05 03 of the Town zoning by law to expand requirements to provide long-term bicycle parking spaces and the percentage of bicycle parking that is
dedicated to larger bicycles okay is uh the petitioner yes the petitioner Anthony aack is online Anthony I've promoted you you should should be able to start your video there you go and begin your 10
minutes thank you for the opportunity to present this Warr article to everyone this evening um it should be shorter than 10 minutes I think it it's relatively straightforward um so if you recall back in 2021 we worked with the town departments
to come up with bicycle parking regulations before that Brookline did not have any regulations for it at that time David um I'm sorry I'm just blanking it's so late in the no um David k for biking
Brookline myself did an inventory of bicycle parking around Brookline and we communicated with nearby municipalities that had guidelines those included Somerville and Cambridge and then we worked with Town staff Town staff at that point drafted the regulations
because they have more experience in terms of the engineering and requirements to do that but given the short time period um there there was some areas that they um did not have as much time to focus on in terms of um the
details for what we might need a cyclist one of those was the discussion around bike spaces for larger bikes and by that what I mean is if you picture recumbent bikes or if you picture the bikes with carriers that you'll see small kids or
small pets um in in a container behind the bicycle so there are two main points to this update both of them go back to that time period one was our concern that the bike space ratio did not account for the growing need for larger
bikes because of parents with small kids and because of recumbent bikes so this is a issue to help with families and it is an issue to help with um people who do to like physical issues might need recumbent
bikes so if you look I'm going a a little bit out of order um on the second page where it says the minimum for the ratio so it says one point required minimum quantity we've reduced it from 16 to8 and the feeling is that um this
is not significant but it was meant because of the growing need for long-term parking that the minimum should start at a smaller number um I I failed to mention at the beginning this was presented and discussed at the bicycle advisory committee meeting January 15th at which there were members
of the public and their input was um taken into consideration with this this was not an area that I you know have an expert opinion because of the bike I use but a lot of people felt that the number should be reduced from 16 to eight and the percentage goes up so it doesn't
really change the number of bike spaces it changes the type within that ratio so that it um there is more of an opportunity for bigger bikes you know the question I had as someone who doesn't have that bike is what happens if someone like myself uses their regular bike to fit it in there
you know to tie in and you know the sense was from people who live in these larger buildings is that you know your neighbors and so it tends to be that if it's multiple people have big bikes you you work with your neighbors to do that so it doesn't seem to be that much of an issue so that's one
update the second one going back to page one is the required minimum quantity of bicycle parking spaces and I would highlight the third you know the the first first and third Parts in that in table 6.05 D1 so we reduced the minimum
for bike parking to apply for housing from um eight or more really to you know four or more and a lot of that is because a lot of the new housing that is coming into Brookline tend to be a little bit smaller and we wanted to make sure that accounts for places that have
less units and some manner this could work towards helping with a little bit of Cost Containment if you picture um luxury pipe apartments are you know and the dedication for bike parking um you know maybe this will be a small nudge to
think about it if they're hesitant to have bike parking although I doubt it um and then the third little box multiple dwellings in which at least 100% of total units are affordable units um at the time you know we had requested
1.1 and town sta felt let's start with 0.5 let's just start with something small get it out there because because of the two-thirds vote we don't really want anything that that could seem too large however I will highlight this is the ratio so Cambridge and Somerville
have ratios of one per dwelling unit or more um for their affordable housing units Cambridge in particular is considered kind of like a gold standard for municipal um bicycle parking and that type of Regulation they've had
hundreds of municipalities around the US and even around the world um kind of utilize their resources to update their own guides so I think this is actually something that brings us more in line with nearby municipalities and in fact could make it easier for planners and
contractors because now the three municipalities in the nearby area that have some type of bicycle parking regulation for housing are all going to be more similar um and so with that I will pause and take whatever questions you may have
Mike so uh I came here tonight on my bicycle um and uh parked it at the uh the spaces outside and looking at those spaces I would say a larger bike there's there's really no issue uh and presume so presumably there are a lot of lot of bike parking uh that you know serves a
dual serves all all sizes of of bicycles but one question I do have is uh I'm assuming that uh the requirements for multiple dwelling or bike spaces for multiple dwellings and so forth that those spaces can be outside that it's not a matter of covered
spaces um so so first of all you know a little bit in just I'm doing it remote so that my bicycle did not get uh chained up and I had to wait for someone to come out of their meeting to let me out um there are requirements for what bicycle parking looks like that's
already it's not in this because it wasn't updated but yes um bicycle parking needs to have certain requirements like they need to be sheltered enclosed from the environment secured in terms of the safety there's certain materials that they need to be designed so yes for housing there is
requirements they need to be certain areas in the garages right they can't have them right at the ramp where you know cars are entering or exiting and they need to be in well lit places um and that type of thing so yes there are already requirements for what parking
looks like in terms of material and design so this does not change the actual engineering design I have no experience in it it just changes the ratios um and if there's no garage no no place underground to uh in a
building so I I suspect with new buildings that that's going to be accounted for in some manner right like to have basements or or some type of setup to have that um done you know what that looks like again I'm not a design person but I imagine if they don't have
an underground garage then it's going to be like a basement or what we seen as cages although I you know I don't know what that means in terms of housing if you if you do something like a cage just because of um like visually what it looks like but I do suspect that it would be enclosed whether that's in a
basement um or a garage if places are going away from garages just because of things like parking requirement and and an emphasis on other modes of transportation okay thank you Paul uh thanks Anthony for your explanation um I'm just curious about where this is
coming from I've never heard of a issue uh with respect to bicycle parking um did did you were you getting was the bicycle advisory committee getting a lot of complaints that that there weren't spots
um a build is raising issues like where's where's this coming from the originally when we did this and the review We Came um you know with a planning in 2021 with these as the standards that are um considered like the stand I don't want to say standard
practice that's more in my line of work but considered like um the gold standard for bike parking ratios and design the big the big spaces thing was at that time um that we knew this is where it's headed and you know da David crew from
his biking Brookline expertise saw that and and wanted to propose at that time it was just again the timeline of trying to focus on a detail when you know when we met with Town staff in January to get this done the reply was we either go for this and we come back with edits and it'll be much
easier to edit something or risk having to wait till another town meeting and so we chose the option that I I believe Maria had put forth which is let's do the big work and then you know if you guys want to come back with the small edits then we would and and that's what
we have done in this case the the feedback I'm sorry can I interrupt just because you're not you're not answering my question so it sounds like we did something four years ago right something was that was needed something was done
four years ago was there any has there been any input from the community to say this me isn't meeting our needs we need to expand it like I just don't it this seems like a solution in search of a problem um and you want to go to the gold standard but I haven't heard
anybody say we need this um where we that's what I'm asking where is this coming from yeah it came from the original survey that we did in 2021 of what bike parking looks like and so the the goal with having bicycle spaces for
it was at that time and in fact at bicycle advisory the feedback we got so I did not originally Target the size of bicycle but yes a bicycle advisory when we brought that up it was other people who have kids and live in the older buildings on Beacon Street that propos
that the minimum be reduced from 16 16 to8 and the percentage to go up so that's why I was saying I didn't weigh in on that because I do not have that bike but yes the feedback in January and that meeting was recorded was that we do need more um spaces for bigger
bikes is there been any any study of the cost of this for for example a new Housing Development so it wouldn't change sorry I'm sorry why don't you go ahead it wouldn't change anything other
than thees right so if you already have eight spes it's just basically the spacing that's being done in between it so the actual material cost my understanding does not change significantly think I'm thinking about the cost of putting in a bicycle area in
a garage which basically means that you're putting in two three four extra parking spaces at uh some huge cost per space there there's a square foot cost and if you're increasing the number of square feet needed then you're
increasing the cost if this you know and very substantially yeah may I ask a question S no I'm sorry well again you know the one thing I would caution is it's a change in ratio it's not changing the it's not adding spaces right so the spaces that we have that were dedicated to the same eight bikes is just being
reapportioned differently so uh um Anthony thank you for this H proposal um but I do have a question uh there's a development that's quite far along uh in Chestnut Hill uh it's
referred to as the Hammond Heath and sheath Street development it's Corner Hammond and Heath streets um it has 96 residential units and the issue of how many bike spaces to include came up recently at um one of the transportation
subcommittee meetings I'm sorry it came up at the zoning board of appeals meeting and um someone proposed a number what under under this legislation how many bike spaces would be required in a 96 unit development uh in Chestnut Hill
so it wouldn't apply obviously because that's already done this would be going forward so it would require um 96 it would require approximately 105 to 109 is the 1.1 ratio yeah that's
I think that's where people are having sort of qualms about this um I don't know if you bike U Chestnut Hill but not many people do I mean they don't use route n for bikes they tend to have cars
and shop at you know the street and the malls and so on um it's not the same as biking like you know on Beacon Street and some of the other heavily biked streets in Brookline um what is a developer supposed to do with a work
requirement for 109 bikes and by the way this development is going to have 67 parking spaces so um I I don't get the numbers to be honest with you yeah so the developer would do similar to what they do in Somerville or Cambridge in terms
of the the spaces this would not be a new thing unless it's somehow a a developer that only works with Brooklyn and not other areas you know I don't think it needs to be strictly emphasized that these are going to be adult bike commuters too right so I I can send
pictures of the trustman right like kids to have bikes and school AG kids who will use the bikes depending on the area and depending on what it'll look like in in 10 20 30 years this also accounts for them right this isn't just meant for bike commuters one of the biggest points
of feedback that we got both times around 2021 when we did this with bicycle advisory and presenting you know biking Brooklyn and those meetings and this time around was that people this applied to the bigger buildings that are already built and I said that that can't happen
the only thing that can happen is education in terms of letting the um owners know about this and the request was well can the town send the guidelin saying this is what it looks like so that individuals can have it and I said that's not something I I can do either so there is interest in having this and
it doesn't just look for adult commuters and adult bicyclists but it looks like especially as we think about some of the things that are looked at for South Brooklyn for kids to be able to commute to schools this targets the same thing having secure areas particularly for
people who if if a bicycle is stolen it hits them significantly more people who are there it's so um Anthony I live in an age restricted building with 160 units in it and um I'm at this point I'm the
only person who has a bicycle uh and what we this is saying is if another 160 unit building that was age restricted was built they need 80 spaces for bicycles honestly I think because this doesn't touch give me one second let me look where are you seeing
that because I don't think well I'm looking at page 195 of our of our document here but it's age restricted building 05 per that's already done I didn't edit that the only thing that's edited is where you see a strike through or bold that is already the current um I
I I appreciate that that already here but I'm thinking to myself you've rethought this and I wonder if it needs to be rethought which which part the age restricted yeah well age restricted and perhaps specific to different areas
or yeah uh to John's point and as I say I came here on a bike and I have I am the one person who has that bike in that age restricted place but I I have to have a hard time rational justify find this David I just want to try to understand a little bit better your
point that there wouldn't be additional space to accommodate the bicycles it would be just a reapportioning of that space so if there are currently eight spaces for normal sized bikes and now this bylaw passes and you need space for
recumbent bikes are you saying instead of a it would be sufficient to have four no so what would happen is those eight spaces instead of having eight regular bike spaces it would have seven regular bike and one recumbent or one to accommodate for the recumbent or the
bicycle with the carrier so one of the eight spaces would not be a regular bike but would be meant to be for the larger bike but how is that not changing the square footage it may but it shouldn't be significant because it's not eight
spaces all right okay this is a okay Paul I just I had one I I do want to just Anthony when I appreciate your advocacy for this and I'm still trying to get my head around like I think the rest of us so I understand that the ratio is are changing but you're also
changing application so under 3A you're going from um a building that has eight units to four units right so that that that is a change that's not a ratio that's actually an
application of of if it's if a 4unit building is going in um then of course it would be impacted um under the table 6.05 D1 um building use of one to it was one
to seven dwelling units now it's one to three right um so that it's just the you this is expanding the the bylaw to more types of buildings correct so m to the four to
seven yes because that's also one of the ones that more commonly getting built right now yeah and I and I will say one other thing and then I'll H it back um I I used to live in Cypress Lofts which was a I think a 74 or 84 unit condominium building um which was built
many many years ago before this bylaw was in place and there was just a rack against the wall in the garage and you know we had a kids bike there and we have a we had a another type of bike there and there was there was bikes up against the wall how how is are you
saying that that's not happening today and we have to require the bike crack to be up against the wall yeah so the rest of the you know I only highlighted the changes so if you look at the 2021 regulation it already specifies the spacing the type and the the kind so for
example there are some bike racks where you might have seen where you put them like up against the wall so that they kind on the wall right but there's descriptions for What percentages that can be because there are people who like myself aren't strong enough or people you know as Mike has pointed out that in
certain areas like age restricted it might be harder and more dangerous to have that so that is already specified by Town staff what that looks like that is not been touched but yes you are correct they're already designed things that are in there and that's part of the reason for the initial delay was because
they had to work on thing sorry not initial delay but the initial amount of work done in 2021 was describing a lot of the design part of engineering types of material spacing from the wall spacing from the entrance type of material for weather and all of that
that's already in there I did not change any of that okay do you have control over yes yeah this I'm sorry go ahead uh this is a public hearing I'm opening the public hearing now um is there anyone in the audience here who would like to speak
members of public wish to be heard on this you can raise your hand or use the hand raise feature on Zoom there are approximately three members of the public in the audience and 28 online not seeing anyone using the hand
rais feature raising their hand in the room okay so I'll close the hearing and uh any further discussion from the select board Paul yeah I I just have one one more comment Anthony when I read your explanation your explanation only
speaks about accommodating larger bicycles so it's a ratio but in fact the article is expanding the number types of buildings that it's being applied to so so I guess I would ask you to update your explanation to be consistent with what the act the bylaw changes are
actually doing because going from you know uh eight units to four units you're changing uh the requirement of the application of the bylaw it's not just about the size of the bicycles it's the size of the building so am I incorrect maybe I sent
in I apologize if it was the wrong draft but in my explanation it says along with making sure newer buildings can accommodate families and then the next line is also this article proposes updating the regulations to allow a higher percentage of bicycle parking to be dedicated large bicycles and to bring
parody to housing for people of lower socioeconomic incomes was the draft that turned in did it Miss that and if so I can update explanation not what we have it's either not what we have or it's the maybe it's late and my brain's not functioning but that doesn't tell me
what we have okay right wait it does or does okay please make sure that whatever is published is consistent with what's being done in the bylaw okay so uh why don't we move on to the next one I don't think this is ready
for a vote one way or the other um war on article 22 except chapter 59 section 50 of the general law is to establish a good landlord tax abatement program um do we have the petitioner
Mr leitz uh yes he's online I'm promoting him now good evening chair green members of the board uh looks like I'm your closing act for this Marathon meeting um no we have a few more closing well actually you're you're gonna be y they're all
yours no unfortunately I I'll be speaking to you for a little bit uh this evening I do have some good news um after a very productive meeting with the hab um the petitioners of warn article 22 are not planning to offer a motion under this article um so I'm happy to
present substantively on the article if that's still required but uh if not we could maybe move past that that's move on it's not required so you're not moving the article is that what you is that what you just said that's correct Paul okay thank you um and I did have one request
if the board would indulge us um I'll be representing the petitioners for Warren article 24 and 26 but I do have my co- petitioners for Warren article 21 on the call so I'm curious if we might take 21 out of order um so that they can uh join
in that presentation and then get out of here while I talk to you about housing uh do you want to take 21 first you mean yes if the board allow that this was any objection okay go for it all right um
could we promote my co- petitioners Philip Stegman and um Sarah mtter they should be online promoting them now thank you Tiffany they have all been promoted wonderful thank you um and with that I will hand things
over to Phillip to take us through some slides thank you so much just making sure you can see my slides not yet yeah okay hold on one second
good yes okay great um we are here to talk about um a Warren article that we've um filed article 21 the uh which would um establish the brook line commission for thriving children and youth just a couple of quick introductions um first of all thank you
so much for your time chair green and members of the select board and members of the public for sticking it out um with us through this long evening um my name is Philip stagman I am a parent of a first grader at RL um I'm a Youth Development policy leader uh on the
national stage I also worked um in in state government policy for about 10 years at the department of Early Education and Care um and I'm joined by Sarah totter who's a uh Brookline parent um school committee U member town meeting member and Alec leitz from the
uh Brookline advisory committee and also a town [Music] meeting so the vision of the commission that we're um putting forth is a future in which all berkline children are thriving and supported by a coordinated
ecosystem of partners that are committed to their healthy development and well-being communities do play a valuable role in promoting healthy development and well-being we know that Brooklyn resources are robust um we have um a
vast ecosystem of service providers schools libraries other Town departments after school programs Early Education programs and with more coordination we can ensure that children and youth are thriving from cradles to careers um we
know that the warning signs are there and that there is a need for a more coordinated Str stry um as of uh 2024 we knew that um this is from the from the public um Health Department chip 15% of middle school students and 28% of BPS uh
BHS students report experiencing persistent sadness and it's even worse for LGBT uh members of the community and black and Latino children as well and our schools can't do it alone I think we have you know sort of a a pattern of saying okay yeah that's that's sort of a
school issue but but we're talking about strategies where it's you know sort of school coordinating and collaborating with this vast ecosystem of other providers and and service um entities within our town um so this waren article 21 would create a new general bylaw
establishing this Commission on thriving Children and Youth which a lot of towns have they'll have either a children's cabinet or something similar a Department of Youth Development um and really the idea is to coordinate these stakeholder groups that I mentioned for
um schools Town departments um Youth Development Child Care programs and service providers all under one sort of coordinated strategy um and a couple of the um sort of deliverables that we put into the warrant article would be
establish continuity so you're a child going from prek into kindergarten are there sort of elements of a framework that are getting that are passing along from those two environments for instance
a focus on um healthy relationships uh adult relationships just as an example of an evidencebased strategy that this commission could agree on um and another one would be to sort of identify and address gaps um to to access to Services
um such as for children from lower uh socioeconomic status or other underserved populations now when we talk about this ecosystem of Partners it is vest it is Broad you can see the number of um of different stakeholder groups and we're
um sort of challenging the select board and other partners to think about a world in which all of these different entities all of these different groups are coordinated around a unified strategy um we're not here to tell you necessarily what that strategy would be we would leave it up to the um up to the
commission um to decide what that would look like but we do have you know sort of suggested recommendations from other efforts and other towns or cities that have done these kinds of Frameworks and we can share that with you a little bit later um so we have the town dep departments we have the programming
Community we have the extracurricular community and then we have other key Partners like the Brookline Center um base the Community Foundation um like I said it's not you know sort of up to the commission if it if this is able to to to move forward to
decide what these um outcomes would look like a framework would look like we do know that things like um High School graduation are important indicators of well-being and thriving but not the endgame right what do we want what are our hopes and dreams for our children once they get through that whole
developmental sort of 0 to 18 pipeline um scales research here suggests um a number of indicators like you know connection to your community Civic engagement educational attainment these are the kinds of things that you can put into a framework and say okay we're
making progress on these on these outcomes or oh no you know these are things that we really need to spend a little bit more time supporting um I mentioned that we do have some suggested activities that we would recommend um or we would suggest
to the to the commission um things like identifying these outcomes for each age group doing A needs assessment to see where the gaps are looking at other Town models to see what kind of progress they've made um ensuring that seamless transition from one age um related
setting to another um deep collaboration among these Partners joint training and technical assistance on things like well-being and belonging we heard a little bit of that earlier tonight about the um our Recreation Department's goals of keeping kids engaged um there are
lots of service providers in our community that can provide joint training and sort of coales and coordinate all of our services around um around one of these sort of strategies these practices um and to me as a parent that's sort of the part that I don't
really see um with my first grader is this uh really you know I I love Brooklyn and I love our resources but I don't necessarily see us all pulling in the same direction around a colle collective action and I feel like us as parents and and caregivers are sort of
like every every family for themselves um and that also that there would be um annual reports to this select board and other um uh lawmaking entities within the town um and recommendations for um
for further improving services and delivery coordination um again at the discretion of the select board um we would recommend some combination of these different um entities within the town ecosystem some of them from the town
government some of them from the schools and some of them from the service provider um Community as well um we think it's important to have parents and Guardians on the commission as well um somebody from the new youth commission which we're really excited about um
integrating into this work um and then somebody um experts in Youth Development or child mental health um as well so these are the folks that would come together and say okay what what's the framework what's the strategy we need um and just as an example you can look at
this is from strive together which is um which is a a national effort um they these are the indicators that they look at in their in their framework um our work would be um really augmenting the work of the Chip and other Town work um what are the areas that we really want
to lean into um child level indicators as well um of these are sort of the on-ramps to thriving um that's what research suggests um so just recommended um outcomes that that the commission could
consider um if and when they're established um and again um this is just from um from uh from some um child level indicator research that I did
um and just other ideas other suggestions that we could include for uh child level outcomes as I mentioned before our goal is not to augment duplicate conflict with existing work we know that there are there is existing
work happening one minute remaining thank you very much there's there are examples of existing work happening and they're they're powerful this would you this would be the the commission that would unite all of those efforts together under one umbrella to promote thriving um just one last slide before
um we hand it over for questions um there would be no cost right now the idea is really to coordinate existing resources um the expected Lifan span of the commission would be that it would exist unless there's a more permanent structure to really
promote thriving and wellbe for children um and again that question about isn't this work already happening in some yeah in some respects it is um but there is isn't currently a way to bring them all together under one umbrella which is what this would do um and particularly
we would be um we would try really hard to make sure that we're promoting the work of priority four under the chip Improvement plan mental and Behavioral Health okay thank you questions from the select
board David just have one question about the proposed membership so you had one member that would be from the youth commission itself but isn't the group supposed to be the youth commission so I'm a little confused by that yeah two different things so there's the commission on on there's the new youth
commission which is how do you embed youth voice and choice into the different town existing Town work streams that are already happening um that's the warrant article that just passed last time right that we're talking about that's okay yeah and
this one is this strategy to promote thriving um the so the the bylaw that we are proposing also provides flexibility for the select board um we don't require any of these seats to be filled by one stakeholder or another um as Phil
mentioned you know we offer you know this list of stakeholders that we think makes sense to staff the committee up with um and in fact we've in our work preparing this article and bringing it have engaged with many of those stakeholders who have expressed a high level of interest uh in serving on such
a commission should it be created um but that flexibility of choice would be left to the select board ultimately uh Paul I thank you uh and thank you for the the explanation um I just I want to question or challenge one statement that you made that this
wouldn't cost anything um in my experience anytime you spend up this level of uh of integration or bureaucracy it certainly is going to cost money um there's going to be money for assessments you've already mentioned a need assessment there's going to be
time uh to integrate with staff um it this this certainly will this is not a a no cost initiative it's actually a pretty heavy lift um as far as far as I can tell um and it's not clear to me how
this this coordinates or integrates with the youth commission which have we done anything with the youth commission yet we're still working on that we're still working on that just that just got approved by the um Attorney General's office we're moving in and how and and just how they how they integrate and by
the way I'm I have a first grader and I have a fifth grader so I'm engaged very integrally with the schools with wreck with activities um so I really do understand the ecosystem and it's just not clear to me what this would do to
help me with that um it's just not clear to me uh yeah happy to respond to that point helpful um you know I think uh as Phil mentioned there are a lot of resources that exist out in this universe uh what doesn't exist currently
is any coordinating platform for those resources uh and the result of that is often individuals or families can fall through the Gap certainly uh families perhaps not as civically engaged or knowledgeable about local institutions as yourself um but I also think what we
see as as a value ad from a commission here um not just from coordination But ultimately through that coordination to achieve more efficient use of the limited resources that are available um and it's been interesting in bringing this idea to uh existing stakeholders in
this space um some of the suggestions of where we could see real value um led by the work of this commission uh for instance recently uh member of the school committee uh mentioned that this body could be helpful or even instrumental in uh facilitating how K
rate extended day vouch or programs could accept vouchers um some of the public schools currently do accept those vouchers others don't um so there is some room for improvement there um this could serve as a convening body to um try and create an actionable plan for
bringing a beep location to South Brooklyn um so there's many kind of interesting initiatives that have been um brought to us as potential by you know byproducts of this commission by experts in this space so we're you know we're excited about those prospects and now just to be clear when when you said
earlier that this wouldn't cost anything everything that you just mentioned cost me uh yeah I don't I think um and and if you read the text on the slide I don't I don't think we're asserting that it won't cost anything but it will initially in the formation of the commission the cost Associated would be administrative costs just like the
running of any other commission hey Mike so I at the other end of things Paul Paul you're absolutely right there's no way that putting this together doesn't cost money somewhere um I'm I'm going to read a paragraph to you and I'm confused by it members Shall Serve staggered
three-year terms with three members being appointed or reappointed each year so nine members as it says earlier I think in the document for the initial establishment of the commission five members will be appointed each for one two and three year terms that sounds like 15 members uh yes so that was a gor
Z and that has been corrected in the most recent version of the particle y thanks I guess I'd like to uh question the um assertion that you're not duplicating other other uh bodies work
um you know the other B is the school committee the uh diversity commission the youth commission which is you know still being organized um the mental health uh um you agency um may not be
achieving some of the goals you want to achieve but I'm not sure that just adding another um sort of bureaucracy on top of all that is uh is is the way to address that problem um I it seems that you're you're duplicating a lot of
different U organizations and and committees and commissions work um and I'm not sure that that's going to help uh in in in um and actually achieving the the aims or the goals that you have I think what we want to look at is what
brings the different um agencies together we don't have held goals that you know for youth that we share and so just to make sure that we're getting the best out of every um agency in service
to Children um and youth I think that it was in this spirit that we're putting this forth baby sorry if I could just also add to Sarah's answer there as well um you know this this article has been or favorable
action on the article has been endorsed by The Advisory Committee on Public Health um I believe they should have submitted their letter as part of the meeting packet um but we had a long conversation with them about um you know where this plugs into their existing work and their existing goals
particularly the chip goals um so I for more information on that Bernard I I'd encourage you to take a look at that uh letter where I think that concern is directly addressed just to to your point Bernard about how uh perhaps the petitioners
feel that the lofty goals aren't being reached I think a a reason for that is in part the lack of communication and if this worn article passes it facilitates a mechanism for these conversations to take place from members of various
boards and bodies we see that all the time in other contexts we have a lot of of overlapping boards and committees we have a lot of different boards that are working on housing affordability for instance and I think sometimes we don't progress as much as we otherwise would
because a lot of these efforts are siloed and so to have a means by which everyone is coming together through a lens of the best interests of our youths I think will be very helpful yeah no I I
agree except unless it creates another yeah nicely what I was thinking yeah um I read the memo from the uh advisory Council on public health uh and uh I I
might have a slightly different interpretation of it um than what you expressed um there's a lot of talk about how this is consistent with um the goals of our existing Department of Health and Human Services and a lot of language
about how it's consistent with the U recent work that they have done um on the chip um and yet it doesn't sort of say and so it would be a great idea to say yes to this um and I asked Seagal
ree about that when I saw her last week and she said well actually uh the sponsors of the article have agreed to change shall to May and so is is that the case uh yes John so we did make some uh accepted some friendly amendments
from acph um to give the commission when it's established more discretion on for instance when it would need to pursue something like A needs assessment um you know because I think for instance Our intention wouldn't be for this
commission to conduct a needs assessment right away that would potentially be duplicative of the long uh Community Health needs assessment process C that we just went through well well but but if I may uh um when I heard her say change shall to May and then I looked at
the article there's a lot of shs in here including there shall be a commission on thriving Children and Youth um so so are you changing that to May or you not changing that to May the one may that was proposed to be changed um is at the
beginning section of the responsibilities of the commission um I the moderator did rule that that particular change simply substituting May for shall was out of scope uh we did find an amendment that gets to that
point um that was ruled within scope um I'd be happy to provide that updated language but in in essence what it now reads is the committee shall at its discretion conduct the following responsibilities and how about the there
shall at the discretion of the appoint pointing Authority ba commission I mean is it still like dictating that they're ba commission or or or is it Le up to the determination of all these people who are going to be coordinated through this commission to decide if they really
need this commission that's my point I I see what you're saying uh so the the bylaws still would compel would require that a commission be appointed okay uh is Charlie Homer one of your petitioners uh he is not he may be
wanting to speak on behalf of acph um but I I'm not sure he can speak when we open up the public uh comment um well let's do that now this is a public hearing um Tiffany can you open or let people know the rules yes um
now that the chair has opened up the public hearing um we did not receive any speakers in advance however uh Charlie Homer is raising his hand so I'm moting you now and you can begin your 3 minutes thank you very much I don't have
prepared remarks I do want to just say a few things first of all Alec accurately represented the conversations that we had at acph uh we were concerned about duplication of effort we were concerned that much of this would be similar to what we're already planning to do with
the chip but we're very comfortable with the way that that that revised language that Alec described uh because we think the concept is fully aligned we look forward to the cooperation collaboration with uh all the sister organizations around town that are working on similar
things we think two things one is we think coordination is a terrific idea just as uh both Phil and Alec and Sarah have said we also think that there are evidence-based practices that may or may not be being followed by all the organizations in town and we look forward to learning from some of the
experts about what those best practices related to for example social emotional learning that could be integrated into a variety of programs so with those changes uh both the department and acph were enthusiastic about supporting this
um if I could also just add as an individual separate from my role at acph I personally uh have been involved in putting forward legislation in two different sessions actually three different sessions of the great General Court to create a Statewide children's cabinet I think there's really pretty
good evidence across the country that these kind of coordinating bodies that allow the many different organizations and entities within a community or a state that interact with Children and Youth um should be coordinating with each other should have common goals and ideally ultimately have common metrics
to track towards those goals and to be accountable to uh whatever the accountable entity in town it would be to the select board uh you know at the state level it would be to the governor and the great and general court um so again I think this mirrors What's
Done uh across the country What's Done in many communities our lieutenant governor established a similar cabinet in Salem when she was mayor and was one of the items she was most proud of so I do encourage uh the select board support
and I'm very excited to see this moving forward thank you thank you the next speaker is Kevin McKenzie Kevin I'm promoting you now uh hello Kevin McKenzie uh chair of the commission for diversity Equity uh inclusion in community relations um
several years ago when the commission was this is many several years ago before I was a commissioner let alone the chair um the sort of Youth component of the commission's work really fell by the wayside um after a couple bylaw changes and this is per my conversations with Lloyd um and since I've been on the
commission this has just been a complete blind spot of ours um I mean much has been let's be honest much has been a blind spot of ours um unfortunately over the past year uh Plus or so um so I I would not have any concerns that this would duplicate our work um I have not
been able to sort of try to Harang my Commissioners for a meeting for us to be able to have public uh hold a hearing on this so I can't speak for them um so I just want to also know that I'm speaking solely sort of from my perspective as share on that thank you thank you if there's anyone else who
wishes to speak on Warren article 21 please raise your hand using the raise the hand feature or make your presence known in the room Mike did you have something yeah I I I do have one one comment so I I want to just reference back to something that the Brookline Community Foundation did
uh the executive director who at the time was Betsy DT uh gathered together all of the organizations in town that focused on uh children and uh including Education Health and so forth and a lot of the organization they you know they each of them sent a representative the
room was uh maybe there were 20 people in the room and and some of them hadn't met each other they didn't know know each other's organizations existing so a coordination is a great idea the idea of putting together a commission to do coordination it seems to me like the I
mean the brookly the the the members of the commission shall represent one or more stakeholders group groups including Brookline schools the recreation department Brooklyn Public Libraries the rational thing to do would be for those groups to get together once a year or once every
quarter or once every month whatever makes sense and have a conversation with each other about what they're doing some sort of structured conversation and I think the youth commi a commission like this could either be very simple very simple and simply pull those things
people together and let them go to work or it could really get in the way of that conversation and uh between people by by establishing yet another layer of conversations above uh these groups so I I'm really concerned about the the what
the commission is supposed to do not the concept of having coordination of this sort I think that's a great idea um but I'm really concerned about the way this is structured and I would ask the petitioners to think very very carefully about whether as as Bernard said this
would just turn into another Silo yeah may I say something John yeah I I want to add something to that which I agree with well wholeheartedly thank you very much Mike um and Charlie if you don't mind I'd just like feel free to answer this question or not answer it it's fine
um but you know you make you you've stated very clearly that there is a consensus on the advisory Council on public health that this kind of coordination would be a good thing to do so why why shouldn't the advisory
Council on public health just take on itself the responsibility of organizing some collaboration among School Department Brooklyn Community Mental Health Center Recreation Department um why create a body that then has to
figure out you know a ways of doing this and then persuade the constituent groups to agree with their way of doing this especially a body that's going to turn over all the time I I don't get how why how this helps to do the coordinating
that you that you very clearly have said would be a good thing to do um Charlie Homer is raising his hand to speak Charlie I've promoted you Charlie you've been promoted great thank you very much thank you John for
that question appreciate it very much I mean that was John your ask a very good question so so yes as part of the community health Improvement plan uh we do we do have a plan to convene many not
all but many of the groups that are listed in the commission uh so that was in fact the nature of some of the concern that we had and that we did discuss the scope of our interest was somewhat narrower though again from our community health assessment uh really
our Focus was quite narrow on primarily early childhood Early Child Care and access to Early Child Care we had something vague about the importance of access to quote quality services over time but that was illd defined I think
what the so that was why we said we didn't really want this to duplicate efforts um you know in a sense I think the meetings of the commission will be pretty similar and have the same people and presumably could be the same meeting uh as some of our meetings on
implementing that part of the chip but the scope of this is broader so for example we really didn't have anything looking at after school programs we didn't really have anything on social emotional learning we didn't have anything on whether teens are getting the services that they need we aren't looking at sort of development of
ethical guidelines on some of the you know ethical capacity that some of the uh areas and again I wouldn't expect that to happen in year one and that's why we we insisted on or we were very pleased that the petitioners were willing to change their uh language and
say that was the whole issue of of priorities um that that for example that this commission could focus initially on some of the areas that we have in the chip uh and subsequently could look at some of the other areas uh that were raised so so you are pointing to an area
of concern um you know I'm not saying that those weren't that was exactly the substance of the conversation I just think this is broader than we're able to on our own uh in terms of its scope and in terms of a little more clarity of focus on on child out broad child
outcomes I hope that answers your question thank you no thank you very much very kind of you to answer that question I'm I'm I'm hesitant to continue to continue uh but um okay let's let Let's uh let's move on yeah yeah we'll have more discussions right
yeah um yes I do have one question per not before we go and I'd be really curious um much of what's being done done here is Under the Umbrella of the Town administrator's responsibilities I'm curious about your thoughts about this do we need another
do you need an integrator do you need an overlay do you do you need this level of coordination between your staff to get things done I think this is an analysis that is need going to need to take part as part of the broader work that the
health department is doing in terms of its Human Services model so I think I would want to have a conversation in more depth with Sagal about the work that she's doing and the cross coordination that's already happening for example one of the few updatedus we
actually have between the town and the schools is the Health Department's mou so there are clear roles and responsibilities there there is cross coordination happening I want to have a better understanding from staff over there about if if there needs to be additional
support report on this and so I will happily get back to you on that but I want to speak from her since that's the work that she's doing yeah and and let us all all of us know that yeah that seems to me the the solution to this question of yeah how do
you ensure and I will say it's not just health for example Lloyd's office you know office of diversity Equity inclusion and community relations you know we do have a lot of conversations about you know the General thriving and
well-being of not just all residents but young residents in particular um but before I would before I want to say categorically yes or no I want to hear from the staff that have been working on this okay uh let's move on to okay
Warren article Mr chair we we uh should close the public hearing oh we haven't closed it let's close the Public Public hearing is hereby closed okay um it's getting late it's 11 yeah and I really want to try to end
this meeting on the same day it started what do we have left Bernard two Warren articles and um a reconsideration of Warren article 11 um these two Warren articles can take some time though uh we don't we we don't have to do Warren article 22 because that's not being
muled uh Warren article 24 home rural petition a real estate transfer fee Mr lewitz thank you Bernard and I yeah um no I was going to see if we could combine the
two I I promis to try and get through the presentation portion as quickly as possible uh to be mindful of the clock so uh appreciate the uh your sticking with us uh here at the end of a long night um so just to dive in Warren article 24 uh as chair green mentioned
is a home rule petition that seeks authorization for Brooklyn to implement a real estate transfer fee um I am here representing a large group of petitioners um to speak with you this evening um by way of quick background uh I I'm not going to go into too much
depth about the housing crisis and the crisis of housing affordability I think that's all something uh we're keenly aware of um what is relevant to this discussion is that the chief vehicle for local Investments that we can make in affordable housing development and preservation uh Remains the affordable
housing trust fund uh with recent high-profile projects supported by the trust including the BHA High Street Redevelopment um and the senior housing development at 108 Center Street um and the revenue for the trust uh does come from several sources but it is limited
um and it is limited based on the development patterns in town as well as um the free cash availability in any given budgeting year um so the two primary revenue sources currently are cash payments made uh under the inclusionary res zoning policy in lie of
affordable units and new development uh and as I mentioned um in step five of the six-part free cash waterfall what Warren article 24 really proposes and seeks authorization for is to create a new dedicated Revenue stream for the affordable housing trust um the
and that's via the real estate transfer fee all revenue of which would be dedicated as I mentioned to the trust um what specific authorization we're seeking is that town meeting would be um would be enabled should it pass to implement a transfer fee of between a
half a percent and 2% on transfers of most real property in Brookline uh with the first $1 million minimum of the value of that property Exempted from any fee um that minimum value threshold uh is uh kind of airtight at 1 million as
the uh bill is written but that threshold could be set higher we would also under War article 24 have the authority to set multiple value EX extion thresholds with varying fees um if we so desired uh and as I mentioned that threshold amount would be Exempted
from any eligible sale or transfer uh when the fee was assessed um and we believe this has the potential to substantially increase uh the revenue funding into the trust fund in any given year um for a quick overview of uh
funding levels over the last two fiscal years uh in fiscal year 2025 total contribu to the fund were roughly 2.14 million uh of course in our expected FY 26 budget that contribution from the town would be 1.68 million um what I've
presented here are Revenue estimates using 2022 sales data um for all property transactions in Brooklyn uh and this is calendar year 2022 and what the town would have realized in new revenue
from the RF had it been in place at varying minimum threshold exemptions and at varying excise rates um so just kind of moving left to right from this uh chart you can see in the leftmost column where the minimum threshold exemption
was set that next column what level fee would have been assessed uh and then for both residential and Commercial we show at the different threshold levels what percentage of each transactions in that year would have been Exempted um and what the revenue contribution would have
been from both residential and Commercial and that final right hand column showing total revenue the town would have realized in that year and as you can see it it runs across a wide range with a very you know the $3 million level um running in revenue from
slightly more than 1.1 million to close to four and a half based on the fee and um of course on the lower end with fewer sales Exempted uh at 1 million a lower limit threshold or revenue of 3 A5 million roughly up to a high of
14.3 um so quickly on the design and implementation of the fee uh we include a long list of exemptions from uh the fees assessment uh I'd encourage you to review the full list in the worr article some of the bigger ones and I think more
important ones include any transfers of Government properties um charitable or religious Property Transfers uh made of affordable housing transfers resulting from the death or of a family member or the dissolution of a marriage um any transfers of affordable housing that's
maintaining the affordability um and any transfer of property owned by an eligible recipient of the senior circuit breaker um additionally we do clarify in this war article that the fee is expected to be borne by the seller um
you know of course there could be issues with pass through um but that is something that we we felt was important to specify and aligns this proposal with Governor he proposal from last year um and additionally uh as with many home rules if this is approved by the
legislature following town meeting passage um this would come back to town meeting we would go through that town meeting process again uh to design the actual fee program within the parameters set by Warren article 24 um and we really think uh not only is
this a great Revenue opportunity but it also has the advantage of being inherently progressively structured as a fee um for one thing the fee would only be assessed at the point of sale of real property uh meaning rather than something like the CPA sech charge that
increases someone's carrying costs year-over-year through property tax uh this would only be a fee assess when the home or commercial Equity value of that property would be liquid and when it had been realized by the owners um additionally the value floor exemption
allows us to ensure that um lower value or middle uh value home or properties can be Exempted from this um as I showed in that Revenue chart earlier um over 90% of property sales um would if even
to exempt over 90% of sales at that $3 million threshold uh we would still be expecting to realize well over 1 million in new annual revenues um and as I mentioned previously all funds generated would go directly to the trust fund and would therefore be subject to the uh
statutes and regulations governing the usage of those funds which have pretty strict requirements that it be used for affordable housing development and preservation um so many of you will recall that Brookline has previously passed a home Ru petition seeking um real estate transfer fee Authority uh
that was passed by town meeting in 2019 uh by a vote of 139 to 44 with 17 extensions there are a couple key design differences between Warren article 24 and what was passed by town meeting previously I highlight a few uh here that we think are are worth looking at
one is the minimum threshold value threshold exemption 2019 set that minimum floor at the first half million Warren article 24 would set it at the first million um we also added to this Warren article the senior circuit breaker exemption uh we felt that was an
important component that was uh lacking in the previous proposal um it does specify in Warren article 24 that the fee is to be borne by the seller uh the 2019 proposal actually proposed that we would generate two separate two minutes remaining um thank you Tiffany that
would one be born by the seller and one born by the buyer um we've slightly uh changed the conditions on how Revenue can be used rather than adding some additional project conditions above the trust funds requirements we simply uh dedicate those funds to the trust and go
from there and I think one of the key differences worth looking at is that the political environment around this policy has shifted substantially in The Last 5 Years um since we passed our original home Ru petition 19 additional communities have submitted their own uh including many neighboring communities
with similar housing markets um additionally we have a new governor who has been supportive of this policy and in fact included it as a key provision in her housing Bond Bill last session that uh program was actually passed by the state senate uh but ultimately did not appear in the conference Bill
although we were told um by Statewide Advocates participating in those negotiations that there was consideration at the end of the session for some kind of limited Municipal participate or pilot program similar to the fossil fuel free zoning 10 Town pilot um and as we speak there is
pending Statewide legislation and numerous hrps uh that continue to be pending uh representing increased support for the policy um briefly we think a home rule petition is appropriate here as opposed to resolution um for the same reason as we've chosen to prioritize them for
other policies such as the regulation of esars in the last town meeting it simply indicates a stronger display of support and interest from Brookline and that we're committed to implementing this policy even without Statewide enabling legislation additionally it would hold our place in line should a multi- toown
pilot be considered again very similar to what occurred with fosil fuel free resoning uh and in fact in bringing this article and preparing it we did speak with both representative ATO um and Senator creem staff uh Senator creem staff advised us that a home roll
petition would be more Germaine uh in this moment that concludes your time okay thank you and with that I I'd ask you vote favorable action on war article 24 and happy to take any questions thank you Mike you have your hand up yeah so um I'm just so let me say at the
beginning that I think this is that the idea of real estate transfer tax is very interesting one and and in theory uh and I'm I would I'm I'm supportive of it in theory what I worry about is the details so I'm just going to give you uh uh two
examples one is you mentioned the senior circuit breaker uh exemption and that goes to people who have low income um but uh if you have a low-income person who owns a $5 million home that they've been living in and sells it uh why would they get an
exemption guess is one you don't need to answer that I just want to point out to you that please don't answer that um because I'm going to give you the next one which will explain to you why I don't want you to answer it and you mentioned dissolution of a marriage but then what's the you know what's the boundaries to that my wife divorces me
because I spent too long at select board meetings two years later I sell my property uh is that on the dissolution so there there's a lot of detail in this thing that I think you really need to begin to think about uh as you contemplate and and when you go forward
with the home rule petition it has to allow us to deal with all of that stuff um yeah that's that's absolutely right Mike um if I could just briefly respond um so the senior circuit breaker um the example you site could not occur
because they in addition to an income threshold for eligibility for the circuit breaker there's actually a home asset threshold as well that threshold is above 1 million for Brookline so there would be cases where potentially a fee would have been assessed that otherwise now wouldn't uh if the um
owner of the property was eligible for the circuit breaker uh but it's you know certainly well below 5 million so that that situation you describe would not occur um to the point of the specifics for something like the dissolution of marriage um I think you're absolutely
right that there would need to be some specifics added to you know what's the time frame or would we you know have to show evidence in some form that the home sale or the property transfer came directly in the short term as a result of that dissolution rather than years
down the road would you know cited kind of as a a thin excuse for a um an exemption uh what this home Ru petition does allow us to do uh we have um tried to build as much flexibility into it as possible uh and we would be empowered
through both the town meeting process and through the administrative policy process um to promulgate regulations and bylaws um to clarify some of those points of implementation um so I I anticipate that that specific concern could be addressed through those
processes Paul he Al uh thanks for your your presentation and and I appreciate your passion for the subject um you're you're undeterred but I do I have a couple of questions um about unintended
consequences on the market so there's been you know there's broad Publications about the the impact that such a fee would increase uh prices within the market for one so prices are going to rise because they uh but sellers are
going to want to capture uh capture that cost and and I I know who's going to pay for it but generally prices but the boats are going to rise with the tide here um do other concerns include uh potentially dampening the market so for
buildings that you typically would want to see turnover for redevelopment might be held uh because of the the real estate transfer fee uh implication so they just may continue to to rent it out and and and take what they have for cash flow um and and then so those are two
issues around Market issues and the third one that I I'm concerned about is just the one the the one use of the money so I like the CPA because we can apply it to multiple things um and and this this
particular uh transfer fee is is just for affordable housing when there's many other needs within the community that you know clearly that we have so if you could speak to those those three issues it would be be helpful yeah absolutely and and all great questions there Paul
um and and things we've certainly um thought you know I think deeply bad as we've prepared to bring this article forward um so on the impacts to the or potential uh impacts to the market or market dynamics um there is a wide body
of academic literature out there about this um again as with many of these policies uh what seems to be the recurring theme that we found across a number of these studies has been that the details really matter um in terms of any impact or distortive impact on you
know real estate markets um that's why one of the the functions within uh this article we were very keen on including was the flexibility to have varying rates at varying thresholds um there's some interesting studies that we reviewed that found um that that as an
approach for instance uh half a percentage fee at 1 million or 1 and a. half million that would increase to say 1% at two or 2 and a half and escalating up to that maximum of 2% um at a level that would only include a very small number of transactions tends to smooth
uh some of the potential distortive effects on on markets um so I think there there are going to be opportunities when we go through the implementation process um to try and mitigate any of those um unintended impacts um on your point about Revenue
um you know this is something that we've talked about uh certainly with the hab um and U some of the other bodies considering this um while the revenue from the fee itself is dedicated to the affordable housing trust um you know one I think opportunity that that raises for
us by creating a new dedicated funding stream um is more flexibility in the town's ability to budget um money that otherwise might have been earmarked for the fund to other purposes um so you know by bringing in a significant amount of new revenue for the fund um that
might potentially free up the CPA to increase the percentage of awards they give uh to Recreation or open space or preservation um it might free up the town's ability to dedicate more free cash uh to our reserves or to other key priorities um so you know this is a
revenue generating measure yes it is the funds it's from this fee themselves are earmarked for affordable housing purposes um but you know I think when we view this holistically this is about getting more money in the door and giving us more options hey David and
then we're gonna open up the hearing just to uh Paul's question about potential have to jum just in terms of Paul's question regarding potential Market impacts I think we have a very different climate today after the National Association of realtor
settlement so now that there has to be absolute transparency around the negotiable nature of uh broker commissions I'm not uh as worried as I would have been previously about uh sort
of inflation in terms of prices because before it was fairly established that between five and 6% of the purchase price was going to the buyer broker and to the sales broker that's out the window now that's totally negotiable and we're talking about to start just a half
percent so perhaps instead of going with the classic six it's going to be they a seller goes with five and a half to uh accommodate for that half % from a real estate transfer tax also I like the flexibility that we would have with the
minimum value threshold it can move so it starts at a million but if we see that that's too punitive we can we can move up and down so we have some flexibility we're always talking about how we have very uh limited levers as a select board and as a town to generate
revenue for important causes such as affordable housing and here we have a proposal that would allow us a lever that we can adjust and we can see what's working what's not and um move accordingly uh and then also to uh Alex
Point regarding what we would do for other causes I I think he very correctly points out that the CPA could then be redirected to the three areas in addition to housing if we have an
affordable housing dedicated fund uh so I very much like this idea yeah I don't and I and I sympathize with Paul's questions about the unintended
consequences um I I I'll just rewind to when we took this up the last time excuse me and frankly I was just um stunned that people knowing that we face
this um uh Gap in our you know ability to match revenues to EXP year after year for schools all of our Essentials please fire you name it um fixing our streets instead of saying let's have a real estate transfer tax that we can use at
our discretion to plug the gaps in our budgets um if let's give it all to the Housing Trust Fund for use to subsidize more units of housing um which for all we know might actually exacerbate um you know depending on how
that turns out are shortfalls every year in our budgets so it it never made sense to me I will confess maybe to my embarrassment that after having failed along with some other people to make any changes um in the original proposal that
was sent to uh the legislature mainly because every time we would raise our concerns with the the legislation we'd get the answer oh it's never going to be adopted in the legislature anyway so you had this all these people you know
voting for it symbolically who actually didn't think it was all that great idea but they knew that they'd be punished politically if they didn't come out in favor of you know in favor of this because it's kind of a soak the you know soak the rich type taxs so I I didn't
like it then I don't like it now and and as I said on the theme of um unintended consequences I keep looking at the where we're headed um um the direction we're headed in and things like you know transfer taxes on real estate um sales
and then we then we have the looming possibility of a person with a single family lot in Brookline could end up with um that lot being eligible if there's a zoning change for creation of
16 20 34 you know 40 units of housing this is what's happening in Cambridge right now on a single family lot no one is going to sell their property in Brooklyn if we keep going in these directions you know
because you'll be punished with a with a real estate transfer tax if you sell it and if you sit on it they might actually change the zoning and allow you to quadruple um how much you could get um if you sold it to a developer so people
are just going to sit and sit and sit and wait for all of these things to be resolved okay can we open up the hearing it for the second yes now that the chair has opened the public hearing if there's uh there's no one who signed up in advance of the meeting if there's anyone
who wishes to comment on this warant article online please raise your hand using the raise the hand feature or if anyone in the room please make your presence known at this time uh Charlie Homer is raising his hand Charlie I'm going to promote you but if you could indicate whether you're speaking as an
ACP um as time has already been taken up by co- petitioners for this article and I believe you are a co- practitioner yes thank you I guess that means I need to be speaking on behalf of acbh or just as a member of the public I could also speak as a member of the
public I think um you have can not because you're a co-petitioner so you can speak as a acph okay so you have AC's memo in front of you I think acph clearly has identified through its chip processes the memo indicates uh that housing was
identified through a very extensive uh Community engagement process that access to housing and affordable housing is the highest need in our community um I think that's echoed by everything that you've heard from the governor about the 220,000 shortage of housing as well as
everything you hear from the Harvard uh study that says you know that we need both Market race housing and affordable housing because the market will never address the needs of people with low income so I think that's why acph just endorsed this uh
wholeheartedly um so I think that's my role as acph if I could just add one brief comment I have worked with a policy student at the northeastern uh School of Public Policy we have reviewed the literature uh one thing that's very clear on the literature I hear the
concern about Rising prices but in fact because you know just as you talked about some of the other fees that uh buyers fact when you when you're planning on buying a house um you incorporate into your thinking how much you can afford and if you know there's
going to be a and the seller also knows what the market is going to set so in fact the overwhelming thing that the literature shows is is actually um lowers the asking price of house because again buyers and sellers know that there's
that uh you know half or 2% so in fact the literature is quite consistent on that um and again over 35 cities and towns ACR States cities and towns across the country have implemented and there is a robust research literature which is referenced in the petition uh but I may
have gone outside my scope so I will stop and uh thank you for the opportunity to speak thank you any other there are no other hands raised and it looks like no one in the room wishes to speak 23 online and four in the room so unless we
have any further comments from the select board we can move on to warant article 20 six six which maybe we can even vote
on that's just my thinking um anyway resolution regarding support of legislation to prevent the forced payment of Brokers fees by tenants during the rental lease negotiations so uh Alex you going to do
that too yes of course yeah sick of me already I promise I'll be um uh yes as Bernard mentioned a warrant article 26 is a resolution um that weighs in on one of the um Premier housing policy debates happening at the
state level right now uh which is the regulation of forced broker fee payments by tenants um and I'm Alec Lebovitz town meeting member Precinct date representing uh my co- petitioners this evening um so again this is a measure
that is borne out of our uh efforts to try and improve housing affordability in Brookline um 45% of Brookline renters in 2022 were considered housing burdened 23% were considered severely housing burdened uh so there is definitely a
real need out there um in their attempt to look at new relief programs for renters uh one policy proposal that has emerged at the state level uh has come from Governor he in her uh submitted uh H1 proposed FY 26 budget uh which is the
Banning of forced broker fee payments by tenants um so to give a little update on how things currently stand in our rental market and the greater B and Statewide rental market generally um while state law governing rental negotiations um is fairly prescriptive
that landlords cannot require prospective tenants to pay anything uh as a condition of signing a lease other than the first month's rent last month's rent the security deposit and the purchase of lock and key the reality in the rental market certainly in Brooklyn and Beyond throughout the
Commonwealth uh is that forced broker fee payments uh have have become nearly ubiquitous um this is a result of generally uh you know the shortage of rental markets and the critically low vacancy rate uh throughout the
Commonwealth which in practice enables landlords to Force the payment of broker fees by essentially selecting prospective tenants who will agree to pay that fee um this is typically equivalent to an additional month's rent
uh which results in an increase of 33% in signing costs for many tenants and as I mentioned this is a near ubiquitous practice in the Greater Boston rental market uh in fact uh until 20124 New York City and greater Boston were the only two major Metro rental markets
where this practice was Common Place um in 2024 the New York City city council passed the fairness and apartment rental acts uh regulating this practice Banning forced payment of fees now leaving Greater Boston is the last major rental market where this practice is allowed to
persist um this is the actual text that the governor has proposed in two outside sections of her budget um taken together what they do simply is change state law governing rental negotiations to explicitly state that the party that
hires the broker pays the fee and as I mentioned this is uh really a growing issue of prominence on Beacon Hill and among State policy makers uh in addition to the governor's budget proposal um there is pending Statewide legislation to Bay enforce payment of
broker fees um this that has been reintroduced the session they were also pending in the last leg leg legislative session excuse me um similarly uh this language that the governor proposed actually passed the state senate as a package of their affordable homes act in
the last session uh but again that provision did not emerge from the conference committee um but the governor has made this a priority issue and in fact specifically highlighted this as one of her lead housing initiatives for the coming session in her recent State of the State address and as a resolution
what Warren article 26 really provides is an opportunity for town meeting to weigh in on this debate um as written the resolution expresses meeting strong support for the Banning of forced broker fee payments um additionally it urges our State Legislative delegation to
support the governor's proposal and pending Statewide legislation um and as I mentioned you know we view this as a really important uh inflection point an opportunity for town meeting to weigh in on a major pending policy change uh that is top of mind for State decision makers
right now and of particular importance for majority renter communities like Brooklyn uh and I'll close with that and uh encourage you to vote favorable action on war article 26 thank you okay any discussion from the select board let's open the hearing then um there are no individuals who
signed up in advance for this Warr article if there's anyone online who wishes to speak please raise your hand using the raise the hand feature if in the room please make your presence known um there are four individuals in the room and 23 online and no one is
indicating their desire to speak okay I'll close the hearing and um unless there's any discussion from the board I'd like to move a favorable action on waren article 26 unless someone objects seeing no objection all in favor
please indicate by saying I John vanak hi Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren hi David prman hi chair oai okay well we got that out of the way thank you all and thank you um okay final final item is a
reconsideration of Warren article 11 which we um voted favorable action on a couple weeks ago um and it is uh being pulled by the petitioner Town Council um
for reasons that he will explain in hopefully one minute or less so Joe Kalan Town Council um asking for you to reconsider your pre previous favorable action and recommend no action this is a warrant article that you heard several weeks
ago uh recommended favorable action it was heard before uh advisory committee last week they recommended favorable action however the next day a couple advisory committee members and a member of cosos had a concern over the style of how the article was written uh the
moderator ruled an amendment to address their concern out of scope so since the warrant article doesn't need to be uh brought up in may we can bring it up in the fall fall we'll continue the research that we have been doing so when it comes back in the fall we'll be better able to answer uh people's
questions so therefore I'd recommend that you reconsider your favorable action and recommend no action um yes why do we need to if you're not going to move it why do we need to do anything because we we voted favorable action yeah we need it for the combined reports
whatever gets us down here whatever it get I I I sympathize with that so that I won't be divorced yeah okay um okay so you have to move to reconsider move reconsideration let me give people an opportunity to no no discussion good um I move
reconsideration of Warren article 11 all in favor John vinak hi Michael sandon hi Paul Warren I David prman I fa votes I so let's now vote I move um no action on Warren article 11 John
vanak hi Michael samon hi PA Warren hi Roman hi fa V are thank you very much thank you and unless there's someone who would like yes we do have folks uh still sign up for public comment um is Rachel Dunbar in the
[Music] room if you could um you have great patience you get an award for that's fine yes do I have to do anything else um
just sayate your name for the record and your recline precinct number or street address my name yes your name and also probably who you're speaking on behalf of um my name is Emily Manning mingle I'm a educator in the Brooklyn Public Schools I'm here to speak on behalf of
Rachel Dunbar um I'm just going to read the speech uh good evening members of the select board committee thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak my name is Rachel Dunbar I'm a special educator with the public schools of Brooklyn this is my third year in the district I'm here tonight to address a
proposed solution to cover the deficit for FY 2026 that involves the cutting of eight full-time FTE Learning Center teacher positions across the district as Learning Center teachers our job is to support one of the most vulnerable vulnerable
populations of students we write individual education plans for students with varying various learning intellectual emotional and health disabilities we work with these students in small groups or in their classrooms to empower them to access the general education setting we also work closely
with classroom teachers and other service providers to discuss how best to support our students we are also responsible for conducting evaluations to access assess a student's eligibility for services in addition to these duties many of us myself included are members
of the QBs team who support students in need of extra support during an emotional or safety crisis every year more and more students are found eligible for special education services or an increase in services on average a student could have 285 5 minutes of
services per week last year my school Pierce had firsthand experience of what one less Learning Center teacher would be like when one of my colleagues was on leave it was difficult for us to meet the service minutes for that teacher's case load especially when new students were found eligible I had to give up my
testing and prep time to meet the needs of these students having one less Learning Center teacher in our building simply did not work allow me to propose a different solution it is my understanding there that there is a fund of certified free cash that can be put towards covering this deficit this would
be a great solution to ensure that the needs of our most vulnerable students are being met without jeopardizing the town's Financial standing as a champion for these students I implore you please consider these alternative funds so that special Educators can can continue the important work that we do thank
you thank you the next speaker is emn paage emn are you in the room okay we'll move on Olivia Fisher Fox I'm promoting you now Olivia you've been promoted um hi Olivia fiser Fox resident
of uh Precinct 4 um I want to thank the select board for your service and um to Mr Warren thank you for your acknowledgement that missing from the DPW budget is the new tree preservation bylaw while this bylaw requires seed money to start up this bylaw is designed to be
self-funding um it paid for by the permitting fees and by the fees to remove healthy trees so by not implementing this bylaw the town leaves money on the table to protect one of our greatest climate resources our tree canopy further erosion of our tree
canopy cannot be easily remedied as the benefits of mature trees take decades to develop so um It is Food For Thought and um our climate resiliency appears to rest in your hands thank you
thank you the next speaker is Joe Casey Joe are you in the room please approach the podium thank you for your patience that's all right my name is Joe Casey I live at 651 chest Hill Avenue
I've been there for about 40 years it was a family res residents that's been in the family for 140 years so besides the 40 years of experience I have in the town there was a lot of oral history pass down from grandparents and uncles
and cousins and everything like that and one thing that bothers me about this proposed Bike Link is the lack of transparency that they had whoever was on The Advisory the bike advisory
committee uh didn't contact anyone in the neighborhood now this is a big change and to have no one in the neighborhood part of the initial committee drawing up some game plan is kind of you're wondering why don't they have local
people in it because we're the ones that have to put up with the traffic foot traffic bike traffic motor traffic so and then earlier in the evening someone made a note that someone on the advisory committee are associated with it said
that they certain minutes from some of the Committees they didn't want released so that's not transparency so what are they hiding and my understanding is they've been appointed by someone that's been was appointed by you guys I'm not
I'm not sure if it's traffic committee or something like that so being on the select committee you guys should be concerned that someone that is under your umbrella doesn't want to be transparent uh I'm not a traffic expert but you have
two alternate routs that were brought up tonight that uh are safer for Bic people in bicycles and a more pleasant ride one going Elliot Street to Clinton and the other one's over Fisher Hill so why
create a a problem for pedestrians bicyclists and motor vehicle operators when there's a route two routs already available at no cost of the town and safer because looking at this what the
proposed the supposing they're working on the redo there's going to be fatalities you have narrower lanes for the vehicles Motor Vehicles so that means they're going to be closer together going in opposite
directions and if you've been there but you know 30 mil hour is it never you know it's usually 40 so if you have a ality 30 seconds um headon Collision you know two people going 40 That's 80 hit the wall
so someone's going to die so I you know I would say look at who appointed the committee and find out why they want to keep everything clandestine but thank you very much thanks for your time thank you the next
speaker is Paul Murphy thank you um Paul Murphy 672 Chestnut Hill Avenue in Brooklyn recing 14 I've been in the neighborhood for 30 years or so and you're talking
about Brook line which is a beautiful Community I would think and I hope you agree and the Avenue is a beautiful Avenue but it's a Commercial Avenue as well and Logistics has been part of my life and tractor trailers 53 ft Max
that's over the road but they're running CVS Shaw Cisco and they're daily they come up and down that road very very frequently and if you'll note uh there switchbacks where they'll be switching
lanes a tractor trailer is going to knock the ballards right out and not to mention a dump truck you know that's hauling a an escavator or bulldozer or whatever might be in the trailer it's going to be a huge huge
Hazard um The Avenue when it was last surfaced was fabulous it was one of the mo it was beautiful I don't know Joe if you were around when that was done and I wonder visually in a year if you look at the ballards that have been put up on
major roads they're a mess they're an eyesore and they're very expensive to replace they're not simple um I I worry second well that's it's a lot at you but uh police fire and ambulances go up and
down that road very very frequently and cars need to pull over for them it's a law there's no way to pull over with this the way it is at least now there's maneuverability that you know it's open it's clean uh there is a bike lane
that's there in three days I'm retired now I noticed two bicycles pass one one at 12:00 yesterday and one today uh and it's not like I'm sitting out there but I'm paying attention because because of what's going on with this and I and I
remember in the DPW earlier and I wanted to say thank you because they did a beautiful job with the curbs and the sidewalks on the Avenue fabulous a curb was designed actually for a car when you pull up and you step out of the car you don't step down into the street and now
the curb the the parking is on the outside of the bike lane 30 seconds in the traffic side and then you so so you end up with uh a bike lane against the curb parking and then traffic that seems
counterintuitive uh It just strikes me people getting out of their car now have to walk a distance to get to the beautiful entrance that you just pav for everybody on the street I I just hope that you think about your fiscal responsibility and do you really need to
spend that kind of money I understand the resurfacing thank you that concludes your time that was good thanks uh the next speaker is David trevit David I'm promoting you now thank you very much David trette uh town meeting member from Precinct 2 um
also chair of The Pedestrian advisory committee and a member of the steering committee for the Brookline Community aging Network I'm speaking for my myself I just simply wanted to respond to a couple of the comments who have been made on chest Hill Avenue first I want to though commend the select board for
the hearings that it has the these hearings where you uh review and have B good robust discussions of town budgets and warrant articles are very helpful to me as a town meeting member and I just wanted you know that I greatly appreciate them um with regard to
chestno Hill Avenue point that has not been made is that no I attended the bicycle advisory committee meeting uh it was publicly posted where the um where the ches Hill Avenue um drawings were presented by Transportation staff um
they said that they had sent notices to all um everyone who lived along chesen till Avenue and to people who live within a block on either side even though they admitted that that those had not gone out long in advance of the meeting um but there what they did not
say there's no parking what they said is there's no legal parking and if you look at the the St if you go out on Google Google um satellite view you will see that there is a narrow Lane uh not wide enough for parking there is no for most
of the extent of Chestnut Hill Avenue there is no legal parking but what it is is that people Park half in that shoulder lane and half up on the sidewalk or up on the tree lawn and I have some photos I didn't I'm not showing tonight but we have some photos
showing that's the way the People Park whether they're going going to Warren field for a baseball game or at their residence or moving their tandem car out um there there's a lot if if they pull fully out onto the street they're extending beyond the shoulder into the driving lane so they're blocking part of
the driving lane so I just want everybody to be clear on what the situation is today I don't want to get into the sides One Thing versus another there's a it's a complex situation but I just want to be clear um there's not a parking Lane along the vast majority of
that street thank you very much thank you and I believe that's the last speaker going once going twice thank you and we made it in the G in the meeting in the same
day it started by five minutes [Music]