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Good evening. I'm Bernard Green, chair of the Brooklyn Select Board, and this is the regular meeting of the Select Board for Tuesday, what, June 25th, 2025. We're going to go into executive session shortly. Uh so I move that the select
board go into executive session for the purpose of approving executive session minutes and for the purpose of discussing strategy related to bargaining with non-UN employees and the purchase and sale of real estate. The
real estate matter and bargaining with union employees must be discussed in executive session because an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the litigation or bargaining position of the town and this
chair so declares an executive session therefore to be ne necessary. Uh all in favor of moving into executive session please indicate by saying I. John uh John Bencoyak I. Paul Warren. Hi. David Pearlman. I Michael Rubenstein. I chair
votes I. We will return to um open session after our executive session um which I believe is scheduled for 6:15. Thank you. [Music]
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one. Good evening. Sorry. Good evening. I'm Bernard Green, chair of the Brookline Select Board, and this is the regular meeting of the Select Board for June 24th, 2025. I apologize for misstating the date in uh
the earlier open session. Um I'd like to start off with uh select board uh updates, uh statements, whatever. And if you don't mind, I'd
like to start off with a statement that expresses just my opinions. I believe that those of us in positions of power have an obligation to speak out uh in this period of darkness and danger to democracy. If select board members or
residents disagree with any part of my opinion, do not hesitate to express your views. So to start off, um Bernie Sanders recently said, "The American people are lied to about Vietnam with tragic consequences. The American people were
lied to about Iraq with tragic consequences. The American people are being lied to again today. We cannot allow history to repeat itself. Very few times I agree with Bernie Sanders, but I really agree with him there. But here we
go again down into another quagmire. question is how is this relevant to Brooklyn? And I think I have an obligation to talk about, if I raise this issue, why it's relevant to Brooklyn, because I think it really is. The war is going to be a pretext to
further suppress dissent in America, including in Brooklyn, and whip up hysteria against those who think differently. You may think otherwise, but that's, you know, my view of what we're looking forward to given living
through previous periods like this. It's relevant to Brooklyn because we will see an acceleration of the loss of irreplaceable international students from the Middle East, East Asia, South Asia, and other areas of the world. This will set off a brain drain that will
negatively impact especially Brooklyn and Massachusetts and will also negatively impact America. And it will be a generation before we recover. It's relevant to Brooklyn because we will see an upsurge, I believe, in
anti-semitism, in anti-Muslim incidents and attacks on anyone who who expresses a viewpoint that deviates from the official view of the conflict and other things. Whether those attacks are from the government arresting
students who dare express their views or from attacks on the town meeting list served. Let's try to keep our debates robust but civil and be expect respectful and accepting of those opinions that are different.
But it's not just the haters that we have to be concerned about because the Brooklyn Police Department is well trained and ready to provide security training and protection for Jewish and Muslim communities and their institutions against the haters.
We also have to be concerned about our government that has become somewhat of a hostile force and we use in my opinion this war to increase hostilities targeting progressive communities like Brooklyn for abusive immigration
enforcement. At least that's what they say. So I want to I want to direct that so I want to direct your attention to the select board's web page. We have there a brochure prepared by the Commission on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and
Community Relations titled Know Your Rights and Resources. This brochure provides invaluable information to members of our community, whether they are green card holders, special status immigrants, undocumented immigrants, or
American citizens. The brochure includes contacts for legal services that can intercede if ICE agents, for example, grab and incarcerate you or a friend or family member. I urge everyone to read and familiarize themselves with the content of this brochure before the time
you or someone you know needs it. Finally, the behavior that we've seen around the country, not yet in Brooklyn, of so-called law enforcement agents, masked
going after people, breaking windows, grabbing people, and putting them in vans with tinted windows is traumatic. It's traumatic for immigrants who escaped to America from countries that are run by thugs. It's traumatic for
black residents who know the history of masked Ku Klux Clan attacks on their communities. It is traumatic for Jewish residents who themselves or their families were rounded up and persecuted by Nazi thugs.
It's traumatic for women and others who fear that criminal gangs could dress up like the ICE people and rob or kidnap them, which is an increasing problem in this country. It has happened and it is traumatic for anyone who loves the
America that was founded out of a war 250 years ago against an oppressive king. Is traumatic to see how America is being debased and defiled. We all need to be concerned about the current situation and take appropriate
measures in the courts, in the media, and in the streets. It's critical. It's critical that you do not fear to speak out, march out, and eventually vote out this terrible threat to America.
Again, that's my opinion. Uh, thank you for listening. If anyone wants to object to it, please speak up. Any other updates or comments on select? Paul, yep. Uh, something a little bit uh
closer to home. um tell a little bit of a story here and then the reason for my comments. So 11 years ago about 3 weeks before my daughter was born I was on my bicycle and I used to ride my bicycle quite a bit probably 50 to 100 miles a
week. I did long rides and um I was in an unprotected area on Park Drive and unfortunately I got hit. I was taken to the hospital. Um, and I never got back on a bike until two weeks ago.
And I um I uh was committed to Mike Sandman was uh I think the only person on the board who actually owned a bicycle and rode it regularly. I know that there may be others here. Um and I felt that one it would be good for me to do that but two it's healthy. And since
then my children who have never learned to ride a bike have learned to ride bicycles. uh they've uh taken the training wheels off and upgraded their bikes. And the reason why I bring this up um is my experience
uh riding. I've done some long rides uh from Brooklyn uh up to JP down through Boston. Um and I've taken my children around. Um and there is a distinct difference for me um as I consider myself a a reasonably fit person but I
am getting a little bit older and my children who are uh seven and 10. The safety aspect um the protected bike lanes feel safe. The unprotected bike lanes don't feel safe. Uh the pathways
like the Muddy River um are excellent pathways um even though they're busy. uh people are reasonably cordial and you can ride safely. Um and you know until until I felt confident as an adult and a
father to enable my children to be on bicycles in a safe area. Um they wouldn't have been on bicycles. And to tell you the truth, as you look around Brookline, you won't see a lot of children riding bicycles. Um, and the reason why is we don't have enough
protection uh for for young people, for children. Uh, we do see commuters, they stream down Beacon Street. I'm not in the middle of Beacon Street uh riding my bike, but I am in protected areas. So, um, I just I bring that up because I know that we've been having a lot of
discussions about whether, you know, a bike lane should be protected or not protected. Um, the safety of others versus others. It really isn't about um competing with each other about the roadway. It is about cooperating and find safety for all. So um I just want
to share that with with you all, my peers uh and the public that um you will see me riding. I'm riding trying to ride everywhere and get a a sense of uh what it is like to ride a bicycle in our beautiful town. Um and I will continue
to give updates. Uh, and I am becoming a much stronger supporter of more infrastructure to allow for bicycling for anybody that wants to do it. Thank you. Thank you. I have two bikes, but for the reason you mentioned, I don't
ride them much. I do ride around the uh Riverway and uh Lever Pond, but uh not very much more. Yes, John. um comment on u something that I was uh very pleased to be able to
attend on Sunday uh and that was the 50th anniversary um observances of the friends of Halls Pond and um I sometimes wonder if there are people in Brooklyn who don't know about Halls Pond uh
because it's um it's in one particular kind of a corner of Brooklyn um the uh you know St. uh for lack of a better description, I'll say the St. Mary's corner of Brooklyn. Um it um has a distinguished history, but also one that
um was not uh necessarily going to, you know, have a happy ending. um people had to rally um and take what was a sort of swampy area in decline and figure out how to make it one of Brooklyn's most
treasured uh park areas um w with a walk that actually goes through um you know wetland and um around the the perimeter of a pond hall's pond. Um it also includes um a walk that is specifically
designed to accommodate people in wheelchairs. Um Hall's Pond is terrific and the reason we have it is in large part due to this organization called the Friends of Halls Pond um which was started 50 years ago and they had a nice
observance of all of that history. Um and um many um many people were celebrating uh Minahal who is the person for whom Halls Pond uh was named. She once had a residence near Hall's Pond
way back when. Um and she um people who don't know this history can look it up. Um she was instrumental in um forming an organization um known as the Ottabbon Society. um and uh in turn forming
Massachusetts autobond Brooklyn which was you know home to Mahal for that reason is a major kind of hub of um wildlife protection history. Um, and one
of the things that came up at this Friends of Halls Pond celebration was um that there are Brooklyn bird clubs um all over the country and not just in Brooklyn, but um that Brooklyn Bird Club became kind of a recognized name uh in
in recognition of the fact that so much of the history of birding and bird protection. Um, it can be traced back to Brooklyn and other localities all over the country have adopted, you know, Brooklyn Bird Club as the name of their bird club. Um, and I didn't know that
until Sunday as well. Um, so anyway, congratulations to the friends of Paul's Pond. Thank you very much for allowing me to be part of that observance. Michael. Um, I just want to quickly commend uh Zariah Carakashi and Jones
and the other members of the Brookline for the community um who put on the Junth celebration that was at the Ridley School. Um, I was there for a short time. Uh, it was very hot. Um, there was lots of water, but there were also lots
of people uh playing, enjoying the activities and the vendors. um and was just a lovely event for the entire community. Yeah, I'd like to add um I was there also and I want to commend to two two
departments. Number one, the police department who gave out uh water jugs or water um mugs and DPW who had their water truck there. So yes, it was it was dangerously hot, but uh uh that enabled
people to uh hydrate and avoid uh problems for that purpose. Um I also want to mention that uh me and and uh Paul and and I think Michael went to the JFK birthplace to um uh be given a tour
by the um staff there. It's very interesting. But what I thought was very most interesting was uh they said that thousands hundreds of thousands I think right people visit that site but it's probably not Brookliners right it's
people from all over the world matter of fact there was a couple of women from China who were there um they didn't go on our tour but you they were there uh looking and said they'd come back to the the JFK birthplace later on Um, I just
would urge people who live in Brooklyn before they move out of Brooklyn to go to the JFK birthplace. I mean, it's it's it's a very interesting historically informative um uh site and uh since we live here in Brooklyn, I think we really
ought to know about it from the inside and from, you know, actually having visited there and and understood the story of not only JFK, but uh his his siblings, including Rosemary, um who is
a story in and of herself. Um and u who else was born there? The first three children were were born in the house. And if I remember the last presentation in the basement that we listened to is related to the comments that you made at the the beginning of your your remarks. So I I strongly agree with you and
strongly encourage people to go. It's a tremendous resource that very few of us probably know about. Yeah. Um and it's a short bike ride away. You can walk there. Um okay. Uh unless there are any other
updates or uh statements, uh let's go through very briefly. Sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Um I just want to announce to the public uh what was achieved in executive session, which is we have a preliminary deal with the fire union uh three-year deal lasting from FY25 to
FY27. That decision that that preliminary deal obviously is pending approval from the membership of the union and from town meeting. Um, we will take that up at town meeting session in November. Uh, and, uh, I want to thank, um, the
negotiating teams on both sides. I want to thank the town of Brooklyn's negotiating teams, Chief John Sullivan, and Braa, the director of human resources, um, Joe Kalinan, uh, Jack Collins, Charlie Young, um, and the whole team. Don Dvito and payroll. Uh, just an
excellent, huge amount of effort that went into this on the town side and then on the union side. um President Robinson and the whole executive board of the union um were good faith negotiators and um excellent partners even though um tensions tensions were high and issues
were issues were you know fervently disputed. Uh I really appreciate the continued willingness to work through those things. um you know, even as things progressed in public, uh coming to the table in private and having those productive discussions um really uh a uh
uh a a great outcome for all of us and a great outcome for the town, a great outcome for our firefighters, for the union. So, thank you. Uh more details will be forthcoming on this, but I wanted to just announce given the uh private and I want to thank the select board for their leadership on uh landing this agreement, which I think stands the
town in goodstead. Great. Thank you. Okay. Next, public comment. Sure. Early, tell us what the rules are. Thank you for joining us for public comment. This is an opportunity for us to hear your perspective on the issues in Brooklyn that matter to you. Each person speaking
tonight is limited to three minutes. You don't need to use the entire time, but you may if you like. Once 15 minutes has been met, there is an opportunity at the conclusion of the select board's business for additional comments. Members of the public sometimes raise questions during public comment. We may be able to provide a quick answer to a
question, but are more likely to work with staff to get a more thorough answer and respond over email. We'll let you know when you have 30 seconds remaining and when your time is up. Please conclude your remarks at that time. If you have more to say, you are welcome to send an email to board members expressing your thoughts in greater
detail. Uh, a and we also add that any person wishing to speak must begin their comment by identifying themselves with their full name, either their Brooklyn precinct number or street address, and the specific topic on which uh they wish to speak. The board also encourages, but does not require that remote users turn
their video on when commenting. Uh, the first person signed up for public comment is Richard Rubin. Uh, Richard, if you're in the room, please uh approach the podium and your three minutes will begin. Thank you. Um, my name is Richard Rubin.
I live at apartment 402 in the Concord condominium at 50 Green Street. Um, also here are trustee Lane Kitchen and David Alman who is the um um property manager and also another owner department,
Sharang Zang. Um, as you may know, we've had a bed bug problem. This was written up significantly in the Brooklyn um news yesterday. First of record, I am not the person who was quoted in that article.
Okay. I do not have I have we our unit has not been affected yet. So, we have not been bitten, but there are other people in the building who have been affected by this and um and have had bites, okay? Including a 5-year-old
child. Um but I'm here to help both the unit owner in which this thing began, Janice Pies, as well as trying to help the building resolve this and free up everybody in the building. Get them so
that they are um bug free. This is the third instance that we had with Janice Pies um because of hoarding. In 2008, they tried to um install Windows and couldn't get in. So, they
had to go ahead and and take action on that. in 2014 six 2018 excuse me um she had mice and we had to get in to get rid of the mice infestation because of the hoarding and now we have this and she is
hoarding I've sent you guys I know a 12page memor three-page memorandum that I think everybody has gotten and reviewed so I'm not going to regurgitate everything in that in that memo it and that would just be a waste of my three minutes um if If you need a copy for as
to put in the record, I will. Hoarding is a mental disease and um and it you you we cannot get social services as our as a building to go in and do anything. We don't have the
power. We don't have the clout. You guys do. That's one. But you won't nobody will exercise that power. Nobody will send somebody in. And as I pointed out, there is a the sanitary code allows you once you've condemned the property. You
have 30 seconds and you had to do it. You did it. So I don't know why that's not being why that hasn't been done. Okay. I only have 30 seconds. So let me finish up with it. Um there was an instance with a parallegal today the
other day told uh our um told our attorney that um the town's council who by the way didn't file the um for it. We had to file court action. He did not file because he was quote too busy. Your
time has expired. Put that for the record as to why it happens. We had to go in. I'm sorry. But your time has expired. Okay. Send the money to do it. But we've now been told by her that only the town because they view this as not an emergency and not a community issue.
Okay. Have you guys do it? We we we hear you in and the Why would Why would you not do something? Would you not do something if a restaurant had cockroaches? Sir, you can't you can't speak over three minutes. Three minutes
is kind of short. Okay. So, we we received your materials and we've read them and we've reached out to town administrator who has something to say about that. Um, and I and I appreciate one your efforts and I I understand all the work that's going on. That's all
right. If can you hear me here? Is this all right? That's all right. Uh, I just want to make sure you can you can hear and other folks can hear. Um, we understand how difficult this is and we've been working in conjunction with the health department, police department, the legal
department, all of those things to try and make this happen. And so the issue that you've raised is why can't the health department just come in and take this person out of their out of their apartment? The health and the health department, the health commissioner has said she cannot do that absent a court
order. And I I can't I can't have a conversation with you, but I So, but I'm happy to follow up with you over email. The health commissioner, absent a court order, she cannot do that. Um, the police will not go in there without a court order and the health commissioner cannot go in there without a court
order. When disc when discussing how to proceed on a legal path, it's my understanding that town council spoke to the council for the condominium to the for the condo association and that it was dis decided between the parties that it would be faster for the condo
association to seek that relief. I understand you're shaking your head, but that's my understanding from town council. And that when the judge heard from that, the judge gave this individual 20 days though that expired I believe today, which means that in the
event that there is some non-compliance, the condo association can use the sheriff's to if necessary remove her for your in order. Okay, wait. Please don't interrupt me. Yeah, I can't have a conversation with you. I apologize, but that's not the way this works. I want to I want to get back to you over email and
I will um but I can't do that. So I understand where you're coming from. I understand the concerns. We are deeply involved in this. We want to get to a solution. But you're right, hoarding is a mental disorder and people who have hoarding disorders also have
constitutional rights. We have to do these things by the book. If I could solve your problem overnight, if I could wave a wand, if I could make this go away, I would because I I have a huge amount of sympathy for what's going on in the building with all the people involved in it. But I also have an
obligation under the law to do things as the law requires them. So I have to do that through that process. So I have talked to the commissioner. I've asked the same question you've asked. Why can't we just go in there? And the answer is in the absence of a court order, we can't. So we're working together with your attorneys to come to
the best solution possible. and I will follow up with you over email and we'll see where we are. But thank you for taking the time. Okay. Okay. Sorry. Wait, wait, we can't we can't we can't there's no back and forth here.
Okay. Um that concludes the individuals that were signed up for public comment. Folks online can use the hand raise feature or you can raise your hand uh here if you'd like to speak. Um okay, we have somebody in person approaching the podium. No, I was just getting just getting your That's okay.
Understood. Is there is there anybody in the room who wishes to speak? I don't see anyone online raising their hand. Can I follow up one just ask a quick question on this? Is this um I first I appreciate I know this is like Jez says this is a very serious issue uh for um
all of the residents of that building and know that we're all incredibly sympathetic uh for what you're going through, Chaz. So, um I mean we're hearing, you know, they're at the end of their rope, uh and not sure as is the next steps. I know you're going to send an email. You did send us some
information about this and it sound like the 24th, which is today, was really an important uh you know, gate. Yes. In this process. Yes. So, the next step in in in your mind from what you've been talking with town council specifically, what are those steps in order to help
alleviate this problem? the condo getting the sheriff involved and having the sheriff enforce the order which is to have the individual make the make the unit accessible for remediation. Um so the sheriff will go in and once that order is once once that enforcement order is granted the sheriff will go in
and the sheriff will make sure that she's out of the unit so that mitigation can take place. Now again the gentleman is correct. You can't throw someone out of a unit they own altogether you know going forward. You can't um you know the standard for things like involuntary
commitment to section 81 is incredibly high. That's not what we're talking about here. So but we can ensure that if someone is pre the sheriff can ensure that if someone is preventing a legal order a condemnation order from car being carried out that they will be taken out of that space until such time
as that order can be effectuated. And just for my my understanding, the town does not have the authority to um uh engage with the sheriff to enforce a condemnation vacate. It's the it's the
condo's order. The condo has the order. So the condo the condo association has the order from the judge saying you have 20 days after which point you go. So we can't intervene. Okay. If you know we what our council has said to us is if we tried that if we jump if we went into court it would just be assigned to the
same judge treated in the same way. We would basically just be parties to the same case asking for the same relief. So it wouldn't make it go any faster in town council's opinion for us to go in there. It might actually make it slower because then all of a sudden you've got a third party involved in this court
case. Okay. So but they've been coordinating with the attorneys for the condo association. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Uh I don't see anyone. Uh oh, I do have one person in the room who wishes to speak. You can approach the podium. Uh give us your name and prec number and
you can begin. Hello. Can you hear me? Y Okay, great. Thank you for the time. Uh my name is Elaine Quishian. I'm an owner um at the uh Concrete Conteinium. I've been a longtime resident uh back when it first
became a condo. Um and I am a trustee and my question is a couple of questions I have based on the uh comments that were made by the town administrator I believe. Um okay this can't be a back
and forth but tell us your questions and we'll either get to you later or All right. So you mentioned that M you uh the commissioner of health uh cannot just uh handle this issue and
and my question is who specifically is the commissioner of health that we're talking about? Are we talking about the state commissioner? Are we talking about the local commissioner in Brooklyn? So that's my first question. My second question is
um and am I allowed to preface it with a comment? Sure. That's the point of public comment. Okay, thank you. Um, so we saw no need for a court order and that was not a mutual agreement. Okay,
it was an expedient um thing on the condo's part because the town was not acting. Okay, even though they said that they were looking into housing court. So I want to make that clear for the record. Um, so a court
order only allows us to remediate the unit. It has nothing to do with removal of a person. But what about the sanitation code that we continue to ask about? Okay. The unit was condemned on
May 12th. The condemnation order was posted on May 14th on the door. We've been asking for the last five weeks. It's all documented. Uh why isn't the sanitation code, the
state sanitation code being enforced? The condemnation order is very clear. It says that the unit is uninhabitable. Uninhabitable by humans. Okay. So that's my question. We'd still like to get an
answer. We haven't got an answer. And furthermore, our court order today Our court Thank you. Our court order ended today. Okay. So, there's no conflict for the for the town to proceed and we would
ask that the town take a look and we are told that the select board we are told by town council the select board they are waiting on a decision on your part. Thank you. We have that in writing and
we've also sent copies to you. Thank you. Could you comment on what we I don't believe you have a role to play here, but I will I will I will check. I'll follow I want to make sure that that's I want to make sure that's accurate. So I will follow up on that specific issue. Who is the commissioner of public health? It's the local commissioner of public health or
currently Sagal Ree. Um but um Sagal is unfortunately leaving us on July 4th. Uh but we will have an interim commissioner of public health uh once she departs. Um but she's our local commissioner. Um in terms of this question of again the
sanitation code again to go back to the prior question I had the same question and I raised it the commissioner and the commissioner's response is the code says what it says and in enforcing the code you need a court order you can't just walk in and do it. Uh and in fact the
police will not do it uh in the absence of a court order. So, and for all the reasons we discussed as a matter of strategy between town council and the condominium lawyers, it was decided to go down that route. Now, I don't know the history of that. I don't know what
town council may or may not have said in those discussions. Um, but we will continue to follow up with you to make sure that this happens. to your final point or to your other point you raised we we don't you know we only have you know again condemnation vacating a
residence vacating a residence doesn't mean the person loses the ownership of it doesn't mean we seize the condo we have the same problem that you do if we order the if if we order the residence vacated if we get a court order and we forcibly remove someone that doesn't
keep them out forever and only keeps them out until the condition is abaded so we're in the same position you are um we're not able to um to deal with a we're not we're not the law doesn't allow us to take someone who is not an
imminent threat to themselves or others and I understand that you feel that maybe she meets that definition but the law is very strict about that we can't we can't commit someone um without abiding by the requirements of section
81 which are incredibly stringent so I understand your frustration. We're frustrated, too. We want to help you and we hear your concerns and it's just I it's it's maddening for you. It's maddening for us because we hear your concerns and we want to be able to get to the bottom of it so that we can fix
this problem. So, I will follow up on your emails and we will make sure that we get to the bottom of this. Thank you for your patience. I know this is a a Byzantine nightmare in terms of, you know, how all these things intersect. We're trying to make it easier and we will do our best.
Thank you. And and you should copy the select board office so that you know we we know what's going on. Okay. Uh any further? Yeah, there's nobody else online who has indicated they wish to speak. Um and I think we're we've got we're at 15 minutes anyway. So
Okay, great. public comment. Next question of approving the meeting minutes from June 10 and June 17, 2025. Any edits or corrections to those minutes? John, I am ready to abstain
because I wasn't Oh, yeah. Okay. I move approval of um the minutes for June 10 and June 17, 2025. All in favor, please indicate by saying I. John Vanco. So, you can abstain.
Paul Warren. Hi. David Pearlman. I. Michael Rubenstein. I. And chair votes I. Next, I'd like to take items 7B through 7 Z, 25 items, uh, in omnibus
fashion, unless someone has or would like to take an item out for further discussion or separately dealing with it. Seeing none, I move approval of items 7B through 7Z
uh on the miscellaneous calendar. Please, all in favor, please indicate by saying I. John Vancoyak. Hi, Paul Warren. Hi, David Pearlman. I Michael Rubenstein. I chair votes. I next
our regular calendar. First, uh, first of all, we did have a public hearing on a um a public uh 40B matter uh that has been postponed uh to
July 1st. if anyone was looking forward to that. Uh, next item is boards and commissions interviews. Uh, Brookline Commission for the Arts and we're interviewing Samuel Donovan King. Is he in the audience or online? Not
seeing Samuel Donovan King online or maybe his name is Samuel Samuel King. Donovan's in parenthesis. If you are online, can you use the hand raise feature to alert yourself to our your presence? It's not online.
I haven't seen him join the call at all tonight either at any point. Okay. So, um I guess Tiffany or maybe Charlie will reach out to him and try to arrange another date. Sure. Do that. Okay. We see him online. We'll come back to him. Y Yep.
Next item. uh boards and commi boards and commissions annual reports and uh we have a presentation by Roger Bled at the housing advisory board presenting his uh detailed annual report to the select
board and uh the next annual report will be uh presented by the Brooklyn Commission for the Arts. Just one moment. Getting set up. It says corrupted. Try to repair it.
Usually down. Zoom user. Sorry for the delay. Sure. going to be a PDF. We're just saying Uh yeah, just being weird in the program.
Adobe. Yeah. What if Roger's 10 minutes have left? I know, right? I know, right? Keep it moving. Do you have a deck of cards? So I just to move to advance the slides.
I just wow the arrows. Sorry. It's gonna delay. and left and right. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
Good evening. Um good evening. Um I'm Roger Blood, chair of the uh housing advisory board. Um, first I'd like to uh thank the select board for your current longtime and ongoing support for affordable housing and especially for
the work of the housing advisory board. Um, and you've done many things over the years and I appreciate the opportunity to share with you where the HAB is now and where we think we're going. Um and in in the limited time I have um I will be going fairly rapid pace through the
slides which uh I think you've uh you've received in advance. Um I'll just begin very quickly with a little bit about the about the HAB and then uh following that I'll have three quick parts what what we've done recently what we're currently
doing and expect to be doing in the coming year and then just a few very very uh uh important metrics at the end if we're if we're able to. Um the HAB uh was created by a town bylaw in the late uh 1980s as part of a threepronged town
uh approach to affordable housing um which still exists today. Um the creation of the HAB, the creation of the town's affordable housing trust and the institution of inclusionary zoning. The HAB um HAB responsibilities include um
responsibility for the other those other two elements. Uh we are as members of the HAB the trustees of the town's affordable housing trust and we're also assigned the responsibility for overseeing the uh inclusionary zoning um activities of affordable housing. Um
let me uh keep up with the slides here. Um the the HAB's mission uh won't go through all the small the fine print there but it's to uh basically advance the um the creation and preservation of affordable housing. We develop policy. We serve to advise you and other
interested uh town officials on on on policies and needs etc. We always come to you uh with recommendations uh as the trustees of the fund for your approval um or any expenditures or commitments from the trust fund. uh um at the same
time we responsible uh formally for zoning related recommendations to the planning board and to the ZBA that normally would relate to individual projects uh especially inclusionary zoning. Um we um we provide general guidance on housing related matters uh
most notably through the housing production plan. And finally uh where uh there are housing related articles coming before town meeting if they are significant. Uh the HAB will hold a public meeting uh public hearing and make recommendations to uh to town meeting on any such articles.
The HAB uh expanded HAB has a 10 member roster. Now, um you um as the select board appoint seven of our 10 members uh four uh are longstanding established seats that you uh you appoint. And you'll see on the
slide there's a variety of uh u professional related skill sets that are needed for understanding the complex development of affordable housing projects that um that as the chair I'm very conscious of maintaining that full range of skill sets in continuity and
we're very rich in this town and having people that uh that possess these. You also uh appoint um three uh HAB members who uh effectively have the lived experience of residing in uh in affordable housing mo mostly the BHA and
um we uh have one vacancy at the moment and I think you're going to be interviewing a good candidate uh shortly to fill that that seat that Rita McN has uh recently um resigned from. Um, one uh one ongoing seat now uh relating to the
ability of the trust to ha to use CPA money uh is required that one of your your own members presently chairman Bernard Green is a member an active member of the the HAB um holding that designated seat and then also ongoing
designated seats are a member a commissioner of the Brookline Housing Authority and a member of the uh of the planning board uh recent have actions. First, I'm going to kind of go through these as very quickly. Um as as trustees of the trust,
we have funded u three recent projects. Um one just completed by Hebrew uh senior life at 108 center street uh taking occupancy as we speak. And the next um 32 Marian Street uh sponsored as senior housing by the BHA which is I'm
sure you drive by it, you'll see it's a beautiful large new project nearing completion. And the third um uh still on the drawing boards uh by the BHA, the the well-known Walnut High project that was uh zoned through the efforts of the U MBTA communities uh planning uh
committee. It's been delayed uh in its u state and federal funding for a year, but the town has committed seven and a half million dollars to that. Um then a whole series of of topics. I'm going to be really quick here. We um we
uh sponsored and passed two town meeting warrant articles this uh in 24 for uh advancing uh accessory dwelling units and encouraging them in town. Um we had a subcommittee that developed a report that you were familiar with uh
recommending a um a linkage fee on commercial development to be used for the support of of affordable housing through the trust. At the moment the the select board has has deferred action on that recommendation. Um we um have
developed uh with staff help uh the uh a detailed affordable um housing standards and guidelines document u for uh anybody especially developers that want to develop affordable housing a project in Brooklyn um through a through a subcommittee um
led led by Jonathan Klene um and and a trustf funded consulting study um authorized by town meeting, we have completed uh through that committee uh a study on affordable housing overlay districts. Um that was uh supposed to be
presented to the HAB at its most recent meeting, but it's been postponed until our until our next meeting. So there's going to be a lot more to hear on that and we anticipate the HAB accepting um a a version of that report and making recommendations and having some coordination uh as it proceeds forward
with the uh with the comprehensive planning process and and committee. Uh the HAB developed a um a concept um to be used mainly at the in the Harvard Street uh commercial corridor um a a zoning incentive for groundf flooror
retail that was um perfected by EDAB and eventually adopted um and the um the HAB commissioned with a with with the trust fund and a comprehensive affordable uh housing production plan update and there's a the
you've adopted that uh as the town's affordable housing policy and plan. Um and the um the state agency EO EOCH HD uh has uh has accepted that in the end of 2024.
Um we have a uh created an affordable housing orientation and tutorial piece uh that is um was developed for our new lived experience members who haven't had the same experience with the affordable housing programs and finance. That's
about ready for prime time uh for general u uh distribution and we'll be making that available to town meeting members and other uh interested people shortly. Um the um
there is another document uh that the staff has has created and the the HAB has endorsed and approved that is a user guide for those who are seeking to apply for funds from the affordable housing trust. And um finally we have um
approved and the select board as well. You're very familiar with the emergency rental assistance that was granted to the Brooklyn CDC and I'll I'll only add that that's in progress and we think it's going to be a good learning experience as a pilot for the future development of the housing stability
office. Two minutes. Roger. Ah current and continuing action. We're going to be implementing the housing production plan. We're going to work with staff and town council to have a full ADU3 article that will comply with new state
requirements. Um, we're going to be doing outreach and promotion for ADUs. We're going to be uh further working to coordinate CPA and affordable housing trust funding for affordable housing in a rational way. Uh, advancing a
successful continuing partnership with the BHA. uh um ongoing liaison with the comp planning committee uh and and HAB member Carol Gladstone. So there's a continuing liaison actively going on there. Um um
CPA funding for housing with with HAB member Steve Hiken working actively on the C as a member of the CPA committee and um advancing with the Chestnut Hill West um de redevelopment as it moves uh advocating for an appropriate affordable
housing concept there. Um, we are going to be working with the town-owned sites that have will have affordable housing plans that are three of them that are teed up. Babcock Street, Newbury West, and Kent Station Street. And also with a subcommittee we have most recently,
we're going to be exploring how to get more affordable housing out of the 85% market rate units in in our inclusionary zoning projects. We've got some creative ideas on how to do that. Um I I'm u talking so fast I'm not
advancing the slides fast enough with me. But uh I just want to leave you if I might with um with three uh key metrics. Um the housing production plan created a a completely different way than the
state's method of counting and setting goals for affordable housing. the state 10% and the 40B uh all of that includes almost 500 units in Brooklyn that are not affordable at all. There's simply high cost market rate rental units in
the 75% of 40B projects that have nothing to do with affordability. So what you're going to hear from the HAB from now on and the housing production plan, we're only going to count the real affordable units. We're we're at 7.2%. Our goal is 10 in the long run. uh year
by year uh the goal is averaging 86 uh units a year 690 in all uh to reach uh 9.2% by 2033 and that's the that's your 10 minutes. Yeah. Um okay. Uh the rest is in the report and there's two other key metrics in there uh that I hope you
will have a look at. Thank you Paul. Uh Roger. First thank you for your uh your leadership your steady leadership on the HAB. uh you're doing a great job and I love the new metrics of deed restricted affordable housing versus the SHI which as you said includes a whole bunch of
units that aren't affordable at all. Um so I wanted to ask you a question. Um so during the MBTA Communities Act the Harvard Street um I uh was a strong actually I think I proposed it and was strongly advocating for onsite
affordable units inclusionary zoning. So, in Harvard Street, the developer cannot buy out uh the units. They actually have to build them on site. Um I believe I errored and I made a mistake. Um I'll say that publicly now, but I wanted to hear your thoughts because I think it's
potential that this is actually limiting uh the the ability of those some of those uh opportunities to be developed. What's your opinion? Well, I haven't given it a lot of thought since there was a lot of differing opinions about it and I did object at the time to it um because of
the ability to get trust fund money and do so much leveraging of the funds to create so many units. But I I don't I can't really disagree that um we we uh that that forcing the units on site in
the corridor um would maybe produce the units. It's it but it's now turning out to be financially problematic even to get what would be very few units in any event. So, um there may be uh some things that we could work collaboratively on to uh to adjust our
inclusionary zoning. I'm not sure I would just reverse it back. Yeah, but I think I do think I guess it's my way of saying I think that um in hindsight it's very easy to see an error and so we should maybe reconsider that approach, adjust it or reverse it. Um but I can
see that it it is problematic. I think I was mainly concerned and I think that and you weren't pressing it at the time that if it was uh favored that strongly that it would be advanced townwide as a general principle and that there's been no effort to has it hasn't moved
forward. That's been a relief. Michael, um first of all, my thanks as well for your continued uh work to bring affordable housing to Brookline and uh for our conversations on the matters over time. I've really appreciated them
and learned a lot from our conversations. Um, and second, I'd like to commend my uh fellow select board member on his uh revised position on Harvard Street. Um, and I agree with him that it would be worth uh all of our
effort to uh reverse that particular decision. Um, I did have one question for you, um, based on my reading of the of the housing production plan that the select board recently approved. Um, and it discusses in there, there's a chart
in there that contains uh relatively high uh, uh, percentages of Brookline residents who are housing cost burdened or extremely housing cost burdened. Um, and I'm wondering whether you or the HAB, um, while I appreciate the goal of
creating affordable units, um, whether you think it is appropriate or reasonable to, uh, incorporate any sort of goal regarding what those numbers of, uh, costbururdened
residents of Brookline should be. um as we move forward with our various housing uh taking advantage of various housing opportunities or ch making changes to our town policies in those matters.
Um it it could be a worthwhile goal. I'm not sure how often or how reliable the data is that that collects the the individual level of costburdened people and the uh the u the amount of households that would have to be served
either with a unit or with direct subsidies um if one tried to quantify that you you could attempt to reduce it marginally but I'm I'm not sure that with uh available resources that uh you could actually put took a large dent in
it. We are um authorized uh with the trust fund and I I think even with CPA as well to do direct assistance um rent subsidies and the like but there is a question of um you know how far will funds like that go in terms of resources
and inability to leverage the money and it's like rent once it's gone it's gone. Um so um I hadn't hadn't actually thought about it in terms of putting it as a quantifiable goal. Uh but it's certainly a daunting statistic uh in
terms of what we're facing. Any further questions? I urge all of our select board members and the audience to read the report. It lists uh all of the affordable housing projects that uh uh we have here in town and uh it's very
enlightening and informative. So I I'll leave you with this just the one thought on the unshown slide but the uh the inclusionary zoning which has produced 500 roughly units in town. 400 of the 500 units are through the uh funding of
the trust and the leveraging of the funds to produce the units. That's great. Thank you. Yeah. You have another question, Paul? Yep. Oh, okay.
Next, uh we're going to hear from the U Brookline Commission for the Arts, uh their annual report. Yes. Hello. Thank you for having me. And following that there will be the the poet laurate appointment of Allison Adair
who I assume is online although I don't see her. The arrows left and right. Excellent. All right. Well, thank you so much for having me here today. Uh, I do have about a little more than 50 slides, but I promise it'll be very quick because they're mainly just pictures of art and amazing events
that we've been able to part of this year. So, um, Brooklyn Commission for the Arts, I'm the chair of the Brooklyn Commission for the Arts. We have, uh, nine members. We've been working, um, furiously this year to do a lot of amazing things in the in the community. Um, we continue to invest in arts and
cultural programming that enriches our community, um, and enhances the town's public spaces. We got about 18,300 from the uh mass cultural uh commission this year and we got an additional 10,000 through the ARPA funds from the the town
in addition to that to put towards grants this year. Um and we had with that money we were able to do 25 local uh grantees. Uh you can see them listed here. I sent it to you all report before this too so you have this information but um
25 yeah 25 local grantees. So, out of the 25, 14 of them are were Brooklyn based uh organizations or people. Um all of them if they were events took place in Brooklyn. Um we and over 12,000 citizens were engaged by these events, some of which still haven't happened. Um
some of them happened this summer. Um so we, as you can see, we've got a really wide ranging uh group of of grantees. We give between like 200 to 1,800 max for these grants. They're very small grants, but they make a huge difference to these
small organizations that are just trying to put on events to really engage with our community and bring art and inspiration to uh the town of Brooklyn. So, I'm going to go over just really quickly a couple of the grantees just to give you a little taste, not all of them. Um, Studio Without Walls. You can
actually go stroll right now uh to Fenway along uh the Muddy River and see some of the beautiful art. Uh this is a program that was started actually by a a previous BCA member. Um been going on for many years and we're very happy to be able to uh give money to make this
happen. Beautiful art where people can just stroll through nature and also get to interact with art and and have uh interesting um ways of kind of seeing the space in new ways. Um here's a couple examples and bet an Libby is the one who runs that program. Um you might
have heard of Brookline Stories Live. Uh Brookline.news News is an organization that started up in the last couple of years here in Brooklyn. Uh that's already become a big part of our town and delivering news, but they also put on this great event with Magna Chakarati, uh local WBUR, um celebrity,
if you will, um and a Brooklyn resident, and uh that's a really great event that we were also able to help fund. Um and then there is the freelance. There's a couple of programs we've done for children, uh that we were able to fund help fund for children. One of them is the freelance players. They've done a bunch of programming in our in our in
Brooklyn that's been really amazing. Uh including they do training and acting and singing and dancing. Um and then there's Voices Boston which puts on put on The Hobbit uh just this this a couple weeks ago uh with kids aged 6 to 14. Um
they do a 12-week rehearsal process. It's a huge production. They do amazing job. If you see the the stage and and the acting that happens in it, it's really incredible. And happens uh in Chesn Hill at the Brimmer and May School. Um, we also have been able to fund a lot of programs at the Brooklyn Senior Center, which makes a huge
difference um for what they're able activities they're able to provide locally uh to our seniors. Um, Dance Caliente has been a great organization that we've funded a couple times. They do interactive lessons with the seniors. Um, David Pollitan did a a singing in uh
kind of history about um the wave of British uh female singers that came over um to the US um to perform and he did that with Jill Goldman. Um we also invested in a bunch of bands a lot there. It's amazing. Brooklyn has like
so many uh amazing bands and courses that we've been able to help fund do these concerts. Uh the Brooklyn Community Band did four public concerts at the Florida Ruff and Ridley School. Um the Kulage Corner Community Chorus. Uh we helped their coral performances.
The Brookline Chorus uh who performed uh from Brahms and as the All Saints Parish. Um and these all these events are like, you know, filled with uh local um our local town members just really enjoying getting to enjoy this beautiful music. uh the Brook Brooklyn Symphony
Orchestra. Um and and then beyond that, we also have funded um public art. And I'm going to there's a whole section of my presentation. I'll go through more of the public art, but through these grants in particular, we funded two more utility boxes. One was done at the in front of the Lincoln School where they built a beautiful Brookline pollinator
pathway garden and they worked with a local art teacher and the students got to actually help paint this. And the other one is in Putterham Circle where a local artist was able to revitalize, a box that had kind of seen a lot of wear and tear and really needed to be refreshed and now it's this beautiful piece of art that people can see uh and
as they walk through the neighborhood. We also funded art uh dance programs. There was a not I us uh um presentation at the uh Brooklyn High School um where they interacted with uh an art piece and um that was and then there's opera opera
on tap that happened at the Koolage Corner um space in the alley. Uh this is something a new program that they've done a couple times now in Koolage Corner. really cool uh opera singers come out and they sing and they have uh a whole setup of flowers and they donate money from uh that they get from selling
those flowers. Um here's a couple pictures from that that happened in May and September. Um and then beyond all the uh grant work that we did um we have also been um in the community going to Brookline events. We attended Brookline
Day where we uh unveiled some of our turkeys um that we funded um and we were able to sell postcards and uh cards that were of the turkeys to help raise money for more Brookline public art. And the response has been amazing. Whenever we've gone to these events, the people
who come up, I mean, I just it's it's so fun to hear from the families whose kids are like in love with the turkeys and who just are so excited. Every new piece of art that they see go up in our community. Uh it's just filling our neighborhoods with color and new vitality. We also had musicians perform
at Brooklyn Day. Uh we also went to the Brooklyn Village Arts Fest which happened about a month ago. Um that was an incredible event that the local arts community put on and we were able to have a booth by helping to sponsor this event. Um and we had so many people come
um and tell us about how happy they are to see all the public art going up. Um, so all that public art, I'm going to talk very briefly about that and I've got about three minutes left, I think. So, uh, the boxes around town. So, we funded several different venues of of,
um, arts through along with the town, working with the town, the ARPA funds. We were able to get a big grant, big federal grant that went into um, making all this public art happen. And the BCA had two members on that committee along with uh Aaron Norris, amazing town planner, was so helpful for this whole
project and several members of the community including um our chamber of commerce. So we got all of these beautiful utility boxes. Take like a boring gray dull box that's just all around our community and we were able to add so much more vitality. And I'm just going to speed up a little because I got
some stuff after this. Uh art around town. Uh we did some benches, some more interactive art. Um murals around town. These are just starting to happen now. Now, you'll see them going up around Brookline. There's a couple that have already happened. This beautiful dragon that's right by a preschool. The kids are so excited about this. Um, and
there's just these amazing artists that were able to bring into town and do these giant murals that are really changing the way that our spaces feel. Uh, Bedan Libby, uh, artist I mentioned before, did this beautiful mosaic that's in the village. Um, yeah. So, we've just been able to fund so much amazing art.
And the last piece of that was the the turkeys, which I've mentioned. Um, I don't go into these too much, but you'll see them around town. Fiberglass, they are getting a couple of them got a little bit of wear and tear. There were some issues with some of the layering of the paint, but we're fixing that. Um, so that's everything that we did uh with
the last like minute and a half that I have. I'm just going to go over quickly a couple of things. We'd love to see more from this town um to keep investing in this momentum we have of this incredible art that we've been able to provide this town uh and how much people are loving it. Um, one thing we ask for every year is a town match of the funds
we get from the Mass Cultural Council. Uh, because we don't get I mean 18,000 is not that much and uh, every little bit can really make a huge difference. A lot of their neighboring towns do this similar program where they match one for one the amount that you get from the Mass Cultural Council. It just allows for a wider range of grants, a lot more
organizations to be able to to have events and to and to start up and get art into our community. Um, and then the other thing we'd love for the select board to look into, this is a longer conversation, uh, is the idea of a policy of calling 1% of new development to be allocated to public art funds. Um,
this has been going on since, uh, the 1950s, and it's a, it's in 300 uh, cities and towns around the US. There's one in Cambridge. It really makes a huge difference, and it's asking developers to put 1% of the money that they spend on their development into a fund where
we can make public art possible around the town. We can also use that money to keep and revitalize any art that we have. I know we had the issue with the JFK mural, for example. If we had funds like this, we'd be able to stay on top of the art that's already happened a lot better and make sure that we're maintaining it um and building on that
success that we've already had. Um so, it's something that I think could be a huge plus for this town, especially since we know we're not going to get a lot of money from federal government anytime soon. Um but we know that this town loves it. We did a survey of over 500 members of the town and everyone overwhelmingly wanted more art,
especially murals and sculptures and we've provided that and the response has been incredible. It helps our businesses. It helps our community members. It helps make our spaces more memorable. It brings out our culture. It helps inspire people. It creates conversations. Uh it's a just a plus
plus plus for our organization for for our community. And I hope that we can help to uh that you all can help to make that happen. These are just a couple of stats. Uh, I don't need to read them. You have them in the report. Yep. And that's it. And I just just on time. Thank you.
Okay. Questions from the board, John. Um, thanks a lot. Thanks a lot for what you do and for what the council does and all the artists. Um, couple of qu Well, I wanted to actually thank you for mentioning Aaron Norris in particular because Aaron uh is involved with the
small business development committee that I serve on and and his enthusiasm is just infectious and his he's creative. He's got great ideas. He's got great energy. uh when when we had the u
uh first light celebration this this past year. Uh there he was surrounded by turkeys, you know, on the lawn of the Ridley School. Uh and he he had set the whole thing up with special lighting and and you know, he makes events fun and he
makes Brooklyn a better place. So I'm glad you mentioned him, you know, by name. Um, this number 18,000 is that the number is that all that you get that Brooklyn gets from the Massachusetts Council? Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. And and do I understand
you correctly that we we the town have not been matching that one? Uh, no, the last year you did match. Yeah. And I think the year before that too, we have to petition for it every year. This year, uh, you were not able to match. You just But you found some money from ARPA and you were able to give us
10,000. But we did find the money through ARPA. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Good. So, not a full match, just 10,000 instead of 18,000. And actually, what we've done is we before those matches were coming from ARPA and now that ARPA has expired, what we've done is we found what money we can in the select board office budget and
giving you that $10,000. So, so it's not just ARPA anymore. It's a continuing grant from us. Right. Yeah. And that's what we're looking to build upon to to have that be a complete match. And it it changes each year what you get from the Mass Cultural Council, but it's not dramatic change. It's pretty close to
that same number. Yeah. Feels like we get a tremendous uh result from that, you know, bang for the buck um from that money. So, I sure hope that we continue to to do the match. Maybe even do a little tiny bit better. We'll see. But thank you for that report. Yeah. Well, yep. And I want
to uh amplify what John just said about the incredible work you're doing with a small amount of money. It really is amazing um all that you're doing. Uh my family and I greatly enjoy uh the art along the Muddy River. Um we look forward to it every year to see what's
what's going to come. Um do we love the red chairs this year? Um it's really interesting. Um I'm glad you brought up the JFK mural because that was really the question I was going to ask you about. Um it was uh I watched the last uh roll of paint cover that mural. was
really really so disappointing. Um, and Bernard and I spoke with uh the individual at um JFK's birthplace and they too were pretty, you know, disappointed because they would bring the guests, the visitors to the museum over to that mural to show them, which
raises the question about protecting um the art that we have. There's a number of murals. You've funded a number of murals. I, you know, they're really fantastic what's taking place. But, you know, it seems like uh there's two things. One is education. You know, for
some reason, the owner of the building that Andis Takar in thought that they could just roll over the paint, roll over the mural with paint because, you know, they didn't know that leg they're actually legally responsible uh to inform the artists of what they're going to do. So there are some protections in
place but education is really important but what can we do to um you know do more to get ahead of you know whether it's a mistake or it's intentional to uh deface or remove this art and what can
we do to restore uh the JFK mural which was central to that that neighborhood. Yeah. I mean I think a a big part of it is we we don't have a full-time staff member on in town uh working on arts. We have a part-time Jillian. She is amazing. She does amazing work, but she only has a limited amount of hours that
she can put in. A lot of towns like Watertown, Newton, they have a full-time person who works on this. And I think that we really need that kind of attention if we want to fully invest in the arts. And I think that we get the benefit of, you know, from that more than the salary that it's paid. Um, so
that's one way I think having someone who can pay attention to this kind of stuff and be on it because we're just a group of volunteers who, you know, are giving some time to this, uh, because we're passionate about art. Um, and then the other thing is having the funds, right? So the things that I talked about, without money, we can't, you
know, restore and protect these art because, you know, we need to be able to pay the artists to come in and do little touch-ups every now and again, right? Um, you know, if, god forbid, some graffiti or something happens to it, like they need to be able to bring someone in and fix that. Uh, but we do
as much as we can preemptively to protect the art, we put coatings on them so that, you know, there's no uh so that it's easier to clean and that it's um it'll last longer. Um, some of the art we put on special boards so that it can be moved if we need to. I did I spoke
with the artist uh who did the JFK mural. I mean, he was devastated for the story that he told about how he came up with that. it was about the birth of his child, right? His child was born at the same time he painted this thing. Um, and he and he's willing to come back and do it um, you know, at at
a very I thought was reasonable price. But he did raise the issue of documentation, right? So the the key for an artist or some other artist to come along and fix or replicate an existing piece of art, public art, is it has to be documented. Yeah. And I don't know if
every single, you know, beautiful mural that we have, and I know I think JFK Crossing had funded the three or four of them. Yeah. Um whether they're properly documented, so if something did happen, they needed to be moved or replaced with that documentation. So that could be maybe that's something we could fund.
Sure. You know, is the documentation of them to make sure we have Yeah. And on our website, we've been documenting everything that we've funded um and adding to that. And I get photos personally of like each piece that we've done or funded. Um, and Aaron did do a survey of public art that exists and he
has photos. Whether they're like the level of where you need to really like record it so that the artist could recreate it. I mean, that might be a little bit higher. Uh, but I think that's worthy to look into. Well, thank you. I really appreciate your commission and all that you do. Thank you. I also really appreciate the work of your
commission. I very much enjoy the murals and the turkey sculptures and the painted utility boxes. I'm wondering though what you see as sort of the next level that you could do if you had adequate funding for it of course. So for example in uh many other
municipalities that have roundabouts like we have here. We have two in South Brooklyn. Sometimes there will be some kind of art installation in a roundabout. It might be as simple as the municipality's name and fancy looking letters or a sculpture or or something. So I wonder if that's an opportunity
you've been looking at at all. Uh, and then also I was recently driving through East and noticed that outside of their police station and fire station, they have these giant Lego figures of a police officer, of a firefighter. And
I'm not saying that would be something we absolutely have to copy, but uh, I like the idea of the potential opportunity for having additional art outside of other public buildings, not necessarily just some of our schools. And I'm wondering if uh the art commission's looked into that as at all
as well. Yeah, I mean I think we definitely want more of that. We want to do all of this, but the the key thing with the amount of time that we have right now, we're focusing on what we can do with what's in front of us and and building on the momentum we have. But yeah, like the really it's the funding.
Uh without that funding, we can't do that. And like I said, the position of someone who's able to really full-time work on these kinds of projects, I think we could have more. But there are artists who are out there right now like there's a lot less art being funded who are looking for work and I think there's amazing opportunity to really beautify
our neighborhood and bring that in. I love the idea of putting things in our rotaries. Certainly those not everyone loves the rotary so creating something that makes them a little bit nicer would be would be good. I care was there another question in there? No just what do you see just an open question in terms of what are other opportunities
for public art that you would like to pursue if you had funding in there? additional funding mean somewhat realistic obviously not going to suddenly get 10 million but okay yeah now I remember my answer so uh one of the things we wanted to do is actually create a a a fair like an annual event
where it's it's a mural festival uh where we bring in artists a couple artists there are a couple of uh communities that do this like Powow uh Beyond Walls and Lynn where they bring in artists from all over and for like like two weeks or so they they're painting murals and it's this big you
can go out and you can see it you can take part in it it can be a really great way to bring out the community and kind of drive interest in our in our commercial areas and and beautify our neighborhoods at the same time. So, I'd love to see something like that. Um, but I think also we want to see more art
like that. The the sculptures and the interactive art, those are always a little bit more expensive than murals. We want to do more of that, but again, it's just about the funding. Um, so we'd love to see more of that, too. Um um
uh one question and one suggestion or maybe two suggestions. Um the question I have is do you have any awareness of how much other funding is coming into the organizations that you're supporting either from the Massachusetts Cultural
Council or other sources. So any grant that we approve they are required to submit financial uh you know information as a grant. they might be asking for grants from other um MCC like local LCC's they're called other local towns they have to list that also we don't
know if they got that money or not before we decide whether to give them money but we can see if they've asked for money right but we have an we always ask for a breakdown of like how are you spending your money where else are you getting money from to make this happen um and we often base you know what's
possible um you know based on where else they you know how much money they already have and what they really need Um, but there are certain requirements that the MCC has in terms of why we decide to approve or not approve grants that we also have to follow certain guidelines. Sure. No, I was I wasn't
thinking about it just from your own funding, but just to have an understanding of how much money overall is flowing into the sounds public art infrastructure. Sure. From v from various sources. It would be Yeah, that would be interesting. I don't think we
have like a ser that much information. Yeah. On that level. Um, and the other question I had was, um, does any of the public support that you speak about, and I don't know if the JFK mural would qualify, um, as, uh, objects of historical significance and therefore
potentially eligible for CPA funding to support? I that's not something we've looked into. Um, that's something though that's an interesting question. We can look into that. Yeah. Okay. I guess I ask I will ask a question.
Okay. Uh talk to me about u the art commission's role in the public schools. I you know art plays can play an important role in terms of the educational program but also just in terms of reduction of stress I'm thinking of um
in and many other ways. I mean do you have a a good connection with uh public schools and No I there. Yeah, I wouldn't say that we have any direct work with the schools currently. We've we've definitely funded grants that have programs that have happened in the
schools and like I said, the the utility box in front of the Lincoln school was with the art teacher there. Um, but there's certainly more opportunity. One thing that we've been trying to h make happen and what we've been raising funds for is a big mural on the Florida Ruff
and Ridley School. Um, some of you might have heard of that before, but we want to do a mural of Florida Ruff and Ridley. feel like this is a huge opportunity to recognize um this school is named after someone who made a huge difference in this community and she's not quite really being celebrated at
that school fully yet. People don't know, they don't know who she is or what she's done and a mural could be a great way of creating that educational and also inspirational um imagery on the school. So, we've been trying to do that for a while. We've been raising funds and then we just have to get um approval
from the school committee. We had a lot of push back from them initially on having a mural on the outside of a school. Um, but we know that most members of the school committee are definitely in favor of it now. So, we're hoping to get that make that happen soon. Um, so would love to do more with the schools. I think it's a huge
opportunity. I mean, children the the effect that you can have by doing a mural in a school is gigantic. As someone who's worked on a lot of murals um in schools, I've seen students completely change the way they feel about schools because of the art that's in there and just being able to see
themselves and see the vitality and the and and also it shows that we care about these schools and we invest in them and we want them to be beautiful, inspiring spaces. So, I think there's a lot of opportunity there. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much
for your time. Thanks. And related to your presentation is the appointment of our poet laurate. Yes. Is she online? I don't was able to make it uh for today. It was just short notice that we
had. So, but we will definitely we are we will definitely we can plan for her to come to the next meeting after your vote. And we can plan and we're also going to plan uh hopefully if she's approved, we're going to plan an event uh at a local uh place here um and actually celebrate this because it's a
huge thing. and the poet laurate, our previous poet laurate did some amazing programming. Um I didn't get to that in my in my presentation, but there's just been a lot and you know the the literary community in Brooklyn. She's done a lot for them and we and this new poet laurate we believe will will hold that
mantle up and and continue it. Great. Thank you. Okay. So, next we have the question of appointing Allison Madair as the next poet laurate of Brooklyn as recommended by the Brooklyn Commission for the Arts for a three-year term commencing July 1,
2025 and ending on June 30, 2028. In your packet is some material on her, including a number of poems that she uh has written. I assume everyone has read them and and um a test will follow this
uh approval. Um critique. You want to critique? No, do not. Okay. Um so any questions or Yes, John. May I just say a couple of words? Sure. Um, I'll start off with the fact that u you
never know where poets are going to come from and I mentioned earlier in this meeting uh being at the 50th anniversary celebration for the friends of Paul's Pine um as it happens I got there a little bit late um and um people people
were just a buzz about a poem that had been read at the start of the event and it was written by Aaron Shoot. Oh really? Um, and uh, our own Aaron, our own Aaron shoot. And, and I'm telling you, people were just blown away by this
poem. And I had a brief conversation with her about it afterwards. And it's something she's been doing for a long time, and she's quite good at it. She sort of explained the background to her involvement um, in writing poetry. She clearly enjoys doing it. Um, really
good. And I do hope that um the the poem has kind of been circulated to a small, you know, sort of group of people, but she she will have no hesitation, I'm sure, to you know, allow it to be more widely shared. It's a terrific account
of um um h how the Halls Pond sanctuary came about and the involvement of some local people in it and its significance. So, as I say, you never know where poetry is going to be found. The other thing I wanted to say is um there's a former member of the psych board going
back quite a few years um by the name of Skip Cesling and Skip himself is a poet and one of the first things that happened when I got elected in 2020 since he and I have had you know a good relationship for a good number of years um was that I got a call from Skip and
he said you've got to do something um the poet laurate position is being eliminated um in Brooklyn and It truly was just kind of a misunderstanding uh of the history of that um that program uh which was initiated while Skip was on
the on the select board. Um and it was grant it was grant funded um and you know once the money was given the expectation was it would be used to sponsor a poet laurate position ever onward. Um the arts council at that
time was exploring other uh uses for the money including broadening the definition of poet laurate to include writers of you know pro pros fiction etc. Um we got we went back and forth back and forth over you know their their decision
to do that and the end result was they came around to um agreeing that they would not change the nature of the position. One of the reasons that they came around to that decision was that a town meeting member I I won't mention her name, but she she made the the
wonderful step took the wonderful step of saying um not only should that position be preserved, but they should at least consider um a neighbor of hers to be um the poet laurate this time around. Turns out we had this wonderful um poet poet in Brooklyn that was living
in that neighborhood. She did become the poet laurate. She has been ever since. while I've been on the SEC board. Um, Jennifer was just um a terrific asset to that position and now we're going to have another great poet laurate. So, it's good good to know the position still exists and that we have wonderful
people to fill it and our poet laurates do incredible things. Uh, since I've been chair of the MLK committee, they we've always included Yeah. poetry and the poet laurate has played a a key role. And I might just add another person who's played a key role in our
MLK celebrations u many years um is now the poet laurate of Massachusetts and that's Reggie Gibson appointed to that position. Um so anyway that's that's great news. Yeah that's
great news. Yeah. Okay. So, um, unless there are any other, uh, questions or discussion, um, I'd like to move approval of, uh, the appointment of Allison Adair as the next poet laurate of Brookline as recommended by the Brookline Commission for the
Arts. All in favor, please indicate by saying I. John Vancoyak, I Warren, I. Uh, David Pearlman, I Michael Rubenstein, I. And chair votes I. Okay. Next, uh, vision zero.
Whoops. Whoa, whoa, whoa. One accident. Okay, sounds good. Um, oh, so you're not going to run the slides? Amy will run them online. Okay. All right, we're good. All right. All right. Good evening. Uh, thank you
for having me. I'm Dan Murphy, director of engineering and transportation. I'm here with Amy Engles and I believe Commissioner Chute is there as well. And, um, thank you for having us back. I'm glad to be here with an updated resolution vision zero resolution uh per your comments from the last previous
meeting and I just had a few a few thoughts to share. Um as you know you know the the resolution plan came from 16 months of study led by the vision zero committee. Um the vision zero resolution has been updated to make it clear that it applies to all people
whether driving, biking or walking. um all projects in the plan will go through um a review process prior to implementation. So, we'll take them all through and and go through a whole uh process to approve them. And uh we hope that you'll approve the resolution as it
will allow us to leverage 80% grants from two and a half to $25 million from from the state streets for all program. And uh with that, I'll have Amy Amy come on, she'll share some more detail about it. We'll be happy to answer questions at the end. Thank you. Okay. Uh thank you. the uh presentation in our packet
is very interesting and I appreciate the fact that it's not pie in the sky but actually concrete things we can do to improve uh safety on our streets um you know both in terms of automobile uh accidents as well as interactions
between cars and pedestrians bikers etc. I note that we've had three fatalities over the last uh I think five years. Uh two were automobile fatalities and one was a pedestrian fatality. Uh so you
know driving a car is very dangerous. So um any questions or Well, are they going to go through the presentation? Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Hi there. Yep. Um, so I do have a uh new presentation, updated
presentation I should say, um, from the last time a couple weeks ago. Um, some of the content is the same. Some of it's been, uh, kind of reframed um, perhaps for, uh, some different perspectives. Um, and there's also some new content in there as well. So, I appreciate the opportunity to, um, present to you
again. And, uh, also am uh, excited to uh, possibly hear from uh, from John and his his point of view on this. uh since he's here today. Um do we have the presentation ready? Uh so Amy, I have it I can put it up
over here or or you can share your screen if you want to. Whichever you'd prefer. Oh uh go ahead and do it. Um if you don't mind. Thank you. I don't just a space bar. That's right.
I don't see the presentation. So Uh, okay. Use the arrow keys. Perfect. Thank you. All right. So, we'll be I'll be presenting on the Brookline uh vision zero action plan and also the uh uh
vision zero resolution which I'll be asking the board members to vote on uh tonight. Uh just the just the resolution, not the the plan itself. Next, please. Um this is just a brief outline of what we'll be talking about. Give some I'll give some background to the what vision
zero is. Um we'll talk about the uh planning process that we did uh to create the plan and um uh the plan itself and its different elements and then um we'll talk a little bit about the vision zero commitment uh resolution
and some next steps next. Um, so this I did show last time. Um, it's really just a graphic kind of describing uh what vision zero means and it's really just looking at the various different components of that are related
to what happens out on the street. Um, so that is the vehicles themselves. It's the the drivers and other all the other road users um and their vehicles. It's the the design of the streets um from everything to the pavement to the signals to the signs to everything. uh
else it's also the uh emergency response. Um it's everything that's involved in keeping people safe. And so uh that's what the safe system approach and vision zero are kind of all about is looking at all these different pieces and trying to figure out strategies for um improving all of them so that people
are as safe as possible. Next um so this one is one of the kind of updated ones. Um speed is a major major uh part of this um you know the vision
zero um concept um and the safe system safe systems approach um and that is for some very important reasons. Uh one is uh speed is definitely a major uh probably the major uh contributing factor u when it comes to the likelihood
of a severe injury. The graphic on the on the right um shows how uh quickly the likelihood of a severe or fatal injury goes up um as speed increases. So uh 40 about 40% at 30 miles per hour um that's
you know 30 miles per hour is not that fast I think to a lot of people's minds. So uh it really does get a lot more dangerous for folks um at really not that fast of a speed. Um, uh, the other thing that happens, uh, if you look at the graphic on the left, is the field of
vision, uh, and this is true for really anyone, but I think more noticeable in a in a vehicle, um, because they're going faster, uh, the field of vision shrinks as people, uh, drive faster, you know, go forward faster. So, the top one is the field of vision that you get that
you have, you know, roughly at 15 miles per hour. We can see the road in front of us, of course, we can see the sidewalks. So we can really see everything that might be uh entering the road at any moment. The field of vision um below that is approximation for uh 30 to 40 m per hour. It's obviously much
smaller. Um it's really going to be like right in front of where you're looking uh which oftentimes is just the road itself uh maybe not the sidewalk um or the um you know the land uses next to it. Um, and so that really makes a difference as far as as far as people's ability to uh react to things, to
anticipate um perhaps needing to react to something. You know, uh, defensive driving is is certainly, I think, something a lot of folks have been taught. Uh, and it's important to be able to do it to see what's going on around you and and anticipate uh something that might happen, not just react to something that happens. Um, so
that's really important important part of um of the speed uh question. Next. Um so another part of it um speeds you know are uh really important in um
improving safety for people in cars and people outside of cars. You know um we did last time focus a lot more on folks outside of cars. Um but it makes a lot of uh sense for um the safety of people inside car as well as well. Uh that's
the driver and and their passengers and the vehicle owners. So fewer crashes, crashes uh you know lead to fewer repairs on your vehicle. Uh obviously insurance claims um can become become quite a problem. Um when a crash happens, even a even a minor one um
where no one is injured, you know, your insurance rates can go up. Um you might have to fix the car of the other person, that kind of thing. So uh if you have slower speeds and fewer crashes, that helps with that as well. Um, better street design just, you know, improves your experience as a as any kind of road
user. Uh, but particularly as a uh driver, so you're, you know, we have traffic. It's just a reality of kind of being in a a dense urban area. Um, there's going to be traffic sometimes. It can be stressful. Um, we don't want to create a system that adds to that
stress and adds confus confusion to the situation. um that you know obviously um can you know mean some people um make decisions that they wouldn't make otherwise if they're confused and uh and angry. So um creating a street design
that's easy to interpret and that uh works for people uh and uh they can get through where they're going um in a reasonable amount of time uh really does lead to safer uh habits. And then this is all about data as well. And we um we used a lot of different
data sets to come up with the high priority network um that we're going to focus um uh safety improvements that Dan referred to um on on that network. Um that was all informed by a whole bunch of data. Um so it's just that's a major major piece of this. Um and it also
leads to um like targeted enforcement of um that we asked the the police to do. So, you know, it's not just about um the infrastructure uh improvements. That's certainly a huge component, but you know, we know our police can't be everywhere at once to catch every
infraction. Um but if we know there's a location where, you know, there's uh common, you know, uh behaviors that we that we don't want, then we can ask them to target those areas and do target enforcement. Uh and that data the data that we have informs that.
Next, um this is just an overview of our planning process. Um of course, public engagement was a major major piece particularly in the beginning to just talk to people in here what their experiences are and also just spread awareness of what vision zero means and
why we're doing this. Um our consultant uh tool design did a very extensive safety analysis using crash data and also simulation of um uh crash risk on some streets um based on its kind of
physical features and land uses and other characteristics that are associated with uh with crashes. Um, they also looked at all of our existing plans and policies that might have something to do with vision zero that might align or that might um
contribute to um or guide the choices that we make um about designs or uh on our roadways, things like that. Um and tried to tie those into the plan. And then of course they developed the the plan that's kind of our uh road map more or less uh towards achieving this vision
zero. Next. So, we we did a lot of different kinds of public engagement. Um, one of them, one of the types was an online map that we did talk about a little bit last time. Um, that's just one piece, but we did share it at uh really everywhere
that we could. We have um I think it was around this time last year. So, there was um you know, a lot more uh outdoor events and things going on than there is in the winter. So, there's the farmers market, Springfest, Brooklyn Day. We shared we um shared the uh the link to the survey on that. We also got um just
direct feedback from talking to people um or people filling out these whiteboards like you can see in the picture at all those events. Um so we really got a lot of good feedback at those uh inerson events. Um we also had a focus group with uh stakeholders from
um safe routes to school um including some students. Uh so that was really informative um to understand what the priorities are of um students and the people who care for them. Um and we had I think seven um vision zero
meetings which were open to the public uh vision zero committee meetings I mean uh which were open to the public. Um so we had some uh engagement through that and also two um just kind of open house more or less um virtual public meetings explaining
what vision zero is uh why we're doing this plan and what the process is um and getting feedback from folks there as well. Um, I would also just, you know, just on my own, you know, I get a lot of emails from residents for about traffic safety issues that, you know, that they run
into that they're concerned about. And every time I would direct them to the, uh, Vision Zero website that had our that had the the web map where they could, uh, provide input and, uh, learn about the plan. Next,
um, this was one of the requests from last time. We we had uh some results from the um web map um last time for bikes and also for pedestrians. We didn't have drivers, but I said the data was there and here we go now. Uh it's a slide. So, it was not a huge number. Uh
we will admit that. Um but that was not because there wasn't, you know, that that no one it wasn't because people who responded were not drivers. A lot of the folks that did check that they were a driver just didn't once they, you know, checked that that was one mode that they used,
they didn't really seem to want to talk much about driving. A lot of the information that they gave us was not about driving. So, um, we didn't get a lot of responses to those types of questions when it comes to driving. But, um, this is what we did get. And, um, it does kind of, you know, um, go along with some of the stuff that we heard
from other users. You know, drivers going too fast, um, people riding bikes and scooters on the sidewalk. We did hear that from pedestrians as well. um you know confusing um rightaway navigation. We hear that from all the users that you know they want to be able to understand who's supposed to go
first, who has the rightway uh and make things um simple uh for everyone. Um and intersections always difficult for uh for every mode. So um a lot of improvements really do over or a lot of um suggestions really do overlap.
Next. Um so here, yeah, this is just uh from the pedestrian point of view. Um there was a pretty u significant number of people who uh mentioned that having disability made it difficult to navigate some of the um sidewalks and crosswalks
as a pedestrian. Um so that was definitely something that stuck out to us. But again, like I say, intersections uh are difficult, drivers going too fast. A lot of these are the same. um regardless of mode. Next, um again, I was going too fast. Um the
biggest one for bikes was definitely not having their own space um that was separated from cars. Um but we did get a lot of uh the other uh the same input from from them that we got from the other modes. Next. Um, so this I wanted to put in there
just uh just to kind of show, you know, there's a very very good reason in the data beared out by the data uh as to why um when vision zero is talked about there often is a bigger stress on uh
vulnerable road users. And that's because just the likelihood is so much greater for an injury or a fatality and the numbers actually bear that out. um you know most a much much larger share of the crashes that happen with a bicycle or with a pedestrian end up in
an uh with an injury or a fatality. Uh for the most part it's it's an injury um situation. You can see the 67% there um for pedestrians. That's 67% of crashes involving a pedestrian had an injury um associated with it. So um that's a whole
lot more than 12% folks in a motor vehicle. And you know you can think that that makes some logical sense, right? if you're in a motor vehicle. You're surrounded by, you know, kind of a casing of of protection. That's not the case for uh someone on a bicycle or on a pedestrian or walking or on a
motorcycle. So, um I did just want to bring that up. Um there's a reason that we kind of took that tack a little bit in the beginning. Um but this plan truly is for for all modes um and improving safety for all modes. Um that's really what vision zero is all about is is
about everyone that everyone matters. one fatality is too many um regardless of what mode that person is using. Next, um this is a little bit that I added about um vehicles. Somebody I forget which one of you had um asked about that
last time what safer vehicles really meant. So, this is kind of an example uh um these pictures here. Um, basically you have um ways that the the trucks are built uh that have bigger windows and uh that wrap around fully.
There aren't um obstructions in the view. Um it's called direct view. So basically the truck driver can see more of what's going on around them. um and they don't have to use a backup camera um for for that sometimes or that you know the stuff that they need to see
through the backup camera is is much less of what their field of view is uh compared to the just looking through a window and that really does improve um safety. It improves awareness of of drivers of of who who else is out there um and how to be safe um around them. Um
so that's one of the uh the strategies um that are listed in the bullets here is safer vehicles. The others are um systemic safety interventions. So that's improving infrastructure um uh doing uh infrastructure improvements uh throughout the town.
Safer street design is kind of similar to that, but you know, thinking about how we design a street from from the get-go, a whole corridor. Um behavior change is uh certainly related to enforcement, but also education. um talking to users or road users and making sure they understand what the
rules are. Um why they are that way and what um actions can help keep you and others safe. Um I mentioned data before and monitoring. That's a huge part of it. Um with these uh improvements that um we would like to do um uh on the high
priority network um we are going to be trying to do as much data collection as possible. So collect data before, do the um improvement, collect data after, and really try to identify which improvements are um the most effective for us. Uh we have a lot of, you know, a
lot of these um improvements have data um from research from all over the country that that do back them up that show that they're effective, but you know, maybe for one reason or another, there's one of those that is uh particularly effective in Brooklyn. Um so we want to we want to know what those are. Um and then mode shift and safety
culture. Um, you know, I think we all can agree and I I did hear Paul the end of your um your comment earlier about, you know, that you would bike more um and that you felt safer in protected bike lanes that there are protected bike lanes that you you don't want to bike in there. You don't want to bring your kids
in there and on their bikes. Um that's that's real. That's that's definitely something we hear a lot. Um and if we you know we want more people to uh walk and bike um or to uh reduce the carbon footprint we need to make it safe for
them to do so and inviting. So um that's also a big part of this. Next um so these are the major components of the plan. I've mentioned the high priority network a few times already. That's more or less just a network of our streets um where we've identified um
uh a serious crash history and or a risk based on um the uh various characteristics of the roadway. Um we have the systemic excuse me safety toolbox. Um that's basically a menu of um infrastructure options uh that we can
apply um to the various uh streets and um intersections on the high priority network. We have vision zero strategies. Um that was what I had just mentioned. Some of the uh kind of policy and other um uh department cross departmental
strategies that we uh can work on like changing our um DPW vehicles to be safer out in the world. All those things. um you know, thinking about how we do some of our maintenance to make sure that uh snow removal is equitable and um we have
still have even if a snow comes through that we're still creating a safe space for um people to walk in and bike in as well as as drive. Um and then there's implementation strategy which is uh kind of takes that systemic safety toolbox and matches it up with streets where
those types of um interventions are appropriate. Um, and that's kind of where we we'll be we would be drawing from in order to make these improvements. Again, as Dan referred to before, um, yes, we have this menu and yes, we have this high party network. So, we want to bring them together. Um,
but we're there's still going to be public involvement uh as part of um implementing these strategies. We're not just going to do them. Um, it's not a not it's not a whole wholesale done. Um, there's a lot more to do left uh uh in the community in the agenda piece. And then I mentioned the the progress
tracking and monitoring will also be a major part of it. Next, so this is our hard priority network. Um I think probably looking at some of these streets are um you're not surprised to see them. A lot of them uh do carry a fair amount of traffic. Some
of them quite a lot. Uh some of them are kind of more minor streets but are connectors between and through neighborhoods. Um, and so they might not have that many uh that many cars on them uh compared to say Route 9 or something, but they're super important because they
get to a school or a park or a grocery store. Um, or even just connect the neighborhood next to it. Um, so these are the the streets that we're going to focus on for our investments. Um, and they uh they're the locations of 85% of the different injury
crashes that um that happened in Brookline from 2019 to 2023. Next, um so this is one of the uh systemic safety um interventions that we want to do. Um we're actually this is a
component of the um safe streets and roads for all grant that we are applying for as a federal uh US DOT grant. This is one of the components of that. Um so, uh Dan Martin, um our sustainable transportation engineer, um knew that
there are quite a few, um actually probably the majority of signals that we have in the town don't have these reflective borders that you can see in the picture. Um those make things make the signal much easier to see and notice. Um the contrast, you know, the
reflectivity falls to the eye. Um, and it really has a a big safety improvement. Um, which you can see here. Uh, the Federal Highway Administration says that uh there's a 15% reduction in crashes on average when uh you install these at signalized intersections. So, we said, okay, there's some a lot of
intersections that don't have them. Let's apply to get them installed on all of them. So, every single intersection uh with a signal that we have in the town will have these these back plates. Next. Um, so that's just kind of an example of
the uh kind of widespread use of the uh the tools in this toolbox. Uh, the the blue box on there is kind of the menu of options uh some of the menu of options that we have. Um, and the cool thing about this is that yes, we can do just
like a vision zero project and pick one of these and put them in a lot of different places um, you know, where it makes sense to do so, where we think it would help. Um but also we can layer these improvements on other um town projects um that might be happening. So
uh on the map there's other planned uh you know perhaps just proposed or kind of in the pipeline uh further along um projects uh of different kinds. Um resurfacing for example um might be one
of them. Uh Washington Street is on there. That's the major reconstructions of of Washington Street. You know, when something like that, maintenance project or something like that comes up, we need to uh do a bunch of work on the on the road for the pavement preservation or something else. One thing that we ask
ourselves is, okay, if there maybe there are other improvements that uh we've identified that could happen on this tree as well. And so, you know, we might try to do it all together and kind of get that economy of scale uh going on there. But again, you know, we we would wouldn't just uh keep put that into the
design. we would have some public process and and discuss what um what the improvements are that we're thinking about and and see what people uh how people feel about them next.
So Amy, how long are you going? Yes, sorry. Uh I think I Yeah, just this might be the last slide, I believe. Um this just kind of sets things up for the uh vision zero commitment. Um so yeah just basically just we've we've
read the report. Yes. And people have questions that Sure. I think there we are done with uh with new information at this point. So um we can just go to questions if you like. So good questions. Y questions.
Well, you know, I have questions, but I feel like others should I'd hate to know I'd hate it if no one had questions. There's no chance of that. Should I start? Yes. Okay. Um Amy, thank you so much. And um I want to point out that uh
uh there there was a very important meeting uh back in May, May 19th, where people um on the affected streets that are being um uh that are the focus of the first round of speed humps that are going to be rolled out under this um
traffic calming policy in the town. Um that meeting was on May 19th. Um Amy uh did such did a fantastic job of of um opening up that meeting to comments by people, listening to those comments, getting in a whole lot of comments. Um
it's a meeting that went on for about an hour and a half and it's just rich with input from people. Um, I think every single person with maybe two or three exceptions lived on the streets that are going to be um impacted with this roll
out of the speed humps that are the essential part of um at least the they're one essential part of traffic calming um in Brooklyn. Uh and traffic calming is the kind of essential um part of v achieving vision zero. Um
what I what what I'd love to know um just where that roll out of the speed humps is concerned. Uh h how many speed humps total are we talking about in this first group of of five streets? Beaconsfield, Buckminister, Clark,
Clinton, and Tapen. Uh I believe it's 38. It's right about that. Um we removed one um and moved the next one down a little bit. Um uh so I think there's one one less than there
was at that meeting. Um but yeah, we may get more. Um the kind of one thing is a little bit up in up in the air at this moment. Um if transportation board does pass uh the package uh tomorrow if they do approve it, we can put it out to bid and at that point we would get um the
biders come in, we would get a uh kind of per speed hump price. Um we don't really know what that's going to be yet. Um, and so we have this fixed uh, traffic plumbing money, right? Um, so once we know what that per speed hump price is going to be, then we can see exactly how many we can afford to do
right now. I believe it's going to be lower than what we estimated. Um, so we might be able to do more. It's possible in other places. We'll just have to see. But but the plan um you know the identified speed humps that would go on those five streets um the the total
number of identified speed humps is roughly how many? 38 I think about 38. Yeah 38. So um the reason I asked that question is uh people who spoke at that meeting and I think anybody um who is this asked the
question you know do you favor traffic calming on your street everybody said yes. I mean, you know, it depends on what do you mean by traffic calming and um but it turns out that traffic calming, at least in this instance, um
boils down to speed humps. And then it's not like one speed hump, but on like Clark Road, I think at one point in the planning process there were eight speed humps um on the length of Clark Road. Was that the number? I believe that's right. Yep. Yeah. So, you know, we we
need to be sure people understand it's it's great to say yes to traffic calming, but do they understand they're saying yes to speed humps? And if they say yes to speed humps, do they understand that it's not like one speed hump somewhere in the middle of Clark Road? Um it's eight speed humps the
length of Clark Road, which is only about half a mile. Um, and so if you then start to say that should be the policy for the entire town, h how many total speed bumps would we end up having
in the town if we achieved our ambition for every street like Clark, like Beaconsfield, um, uh, like Clinton, uh, every street, every one of those streets like Buckminster will have speed humps. and not just one,
but if it's Clark Road, eight. How how many total in the town are we talking about? Well, I haven't I haven't done that math because I for one thing, I don't think that we need it on every single street. Uh that's, you know, uh some of the smaller neighborhood streets to just small medium. I don't think we
need it on every street. That's understood. Um and we're pretty far from that right now anyways. So, I'm uh more focused on getting the ones um installed where people have asked for them over the last many years. Um but yeah, we wouldn't I don't think we'd ever get to
a point where they're on every neighborhood street. See, I'm just not I'm not clear as to what parameters we're using for measuring um how far we're going to go with this program. And um nobody is
being asked the question at this point, okay, you would love to have traffic calming on your street and if I tell you that means a speed hump, you're okay with that. And if I tell you you it means eight speed humps on your street, you're street, you're okay with that. But nobody's being asked the question,
are you okay with every time you drive around Brooklyn, um, you know, in the course of a half hour drive or an hour's drive, you might have to cross a 100 speed hubs. You know, if we end up rolling this out the way we envision on
all of the eligible streets, we're not asking people that question, right? No, I mean, like I said, I don't think we would put them on all the eligible streets. Um we have we're backing up um our decisions we're making our decisions
with data uh speed data being you know chief among them but not the only one. Um and some streets you know while they might be eligible as far as like the classification and the volume and things like that they don't have a demonstrated
speeding problem. They don't have a crash history. they um they don't you know they don't score well based on all those metrics that we are prioritizing on. So I I like I said I don't think we we would get to that point. But all five of these streets qualified and two of
them people on those streets had never even asked for a speed hump. Right. That's true. Um there is kind of an extra point for having a request um which in incorporates um 10 or more um
uh neighbor signatures. Um and yeah, two of those streets did not have those requests. Um but okay, kind of the way, you know, I don't want to take up everybody's time. Um you know, I I want to love traffic calming. Um, and I I want to love speed humps,
but I'm having a hard time sort of getting my head around how far are we going to go with this program and what will it mean if we ever achieve all of our goals in terms of all of the streets where we where we would like to have all of the speed humps, one every 200 feet
on every single one of these streets. Um, it feels like we're biting off an awful lot um when we set that as the as the premise. So, I'll just that I hope explains why I might seem to have a few qualms about this program. Okay. Um I I
would like to just clear make it clear that like the traffic calming program stands alone from the vision zero um action plan. Speed humps, yes, are in that kind of arsenal of possibilities uh possible improvements, but um the
traffic calming program is governed by a policy that's already in place. Um there's funding for just for traffic calming. So it's it is certainly separate and it's targeting different streets. Those the traffic calming is targeting like local streets. Vision zero is targeting uh kind of more higher
classification streets. Okay, Paul. Yep. Uh thank you and I appreciate John's questions and thank you for your uh more in-depth um presentation. So to I I do want to clarify a little bit of what what John um was asking. So
speed is really the main driver here for injury, right? The extent of injury is the faster you go, the the more injury. Um, so when getting at John's question, the speed humps are put in to slow
traffic down, correct? Is there Yep. Which which makes sense. Is there some formula that is used for how frequently they're put down in order to slow traffic? Is there is there a method to the uh to the allocation or distance
between the speed humps? Yeah, so um there's a range um that's kind of a best practice range. I believe it's 3 to 500 ft um depending on a lot of different factors. Um uh but then you also want to consider, you know, you don't want to put the
speed hump right in front of a driveway because that would make getting on the driveway a little bit weird. um you don't want to put it where a manhole is or any other um you know access to utilities uh all those types of considerations also come into play. Um you don't want to put it right in the middle of this of an intersection. So
you know the spacing becomes not super uniform but we try to keep it in that range of three but there is a guideline but there's a guideline uh exactly that's based on some standard I assume um and best practice for for the distance between them. Okay, that that makes sense to me. And then the only
other question I have um which I didn't see in in the vision zero as one of the strategies um as someone who does a lot of walking and I live right near I live just about at the corner of Carlton Street uh in Beacon Street. So you can imagine how much I see right. It's a
very busy area and I live on Carlton Street. The right turn during the walk signal while somebody has a green light and they can turn right is to me one of the most dangerous things that was ever created uh in
signaling. I know it's meant to keep things flowing with with pedestrians, but um it seems like it seems like just such an opportunity for pedestrian even cyclist and automobile to clash. I see it happen a lot. Is there any thinking
or plans to start to maybe um uh rethink the approach to a crosswalk and cars being able to turn right? Yes. Uh actually and it is in the plan um just kind of in in a disguise as um just kind
of a broader concept. So um we are looking to implement a signal policy um that asks a lot of those types of questions um and create kind of creates like um thresholds for example like um uh a lot of signal policies will say
okay if you're if you at this intersection if you have um right turns at peak time that uh are above x number of cars per hour or whatever then that's too many to have the concurrent uh pedestrian phase that you're talking about. um that it has to be that
exclusive phase where all cars are stopped and then pedestrians go. Yeah. So that kind of So Amy, my that's really helpful. It sounds like there's a there's So you have a a methodology for determining that. Um I would strongly encourage a look at um Beacon Street
going west and Harvard Street going uh north. You know, the number of pedestrians and cars traveling together at rush hour five o'clock because I traveled every day to drop off some kids. Um, it's it's incredibly dangerous to be able to allow automobiles to turn
right onto Harvard Street from Beacon Street while also having a walk light. Anyway, but I appreciate all the work on this. It looks great to me and I plan on supporting the motion. Thank you. Hey, David, do you have a question? Yes, I have I have a few. Uh, so getting back to speed bumps for a moment just
briefly. Uh I presume that in this formula about how many speed bumps per street that there's also factored in uh use by uh first responder vehicles because obviously you don't want to be slowing those down too much. So how does
that part get factored in? Yeah. So, um, ahead of all, uh, you know, as we're kind of targeting streets, um, after we've done the kind of scoring and everything, um, really more or less the first thing I do is send a list of streets that I'm interested in to our
emergency response um, folks and get their approval and feedback on them. Um, I actually just talked to Todd Caner today. um he had he and the police had had already seen the list of streets and all, but he had a question specifically about the speed humps and their design and so we talked about that today. Um so
they're part of the process of um you know before we even recommend the streets uh for speed humps they're you know they're aware of what we're thinking about. All right. And then also to traffic calming more broadly. Speed bumps of course are just one of many
ways to uh improve enhance traffic calming. Uh your report your presentation includes uh plans or at least the possibility of exploring reduction in lanes as another way of trafficcoming. You mentioned Lee Street
in that context. Uh where else are you thinking that could be done? Um, we don't have any specific streets targeted at the moment um for like that we think would be great candidates quite
yet. I do expect that something like that might come out of the um study that's currently underway, the self-reined reclined high school uh bike route study. I I do expect um that some recommendation of that kind would come out of that. All right, then my last
question street though. Hammond Street. Then my uh last question regarding safe streets and roads for all program uh which you had a slide on. Could you talk a little bit more about the scope of that? You provided some specific examples like uh adding reflective back
plates, but how much money are we potentially talking here, how else could it be spent? And is it even realistic that we could be eligible for federal funds given the current climate around that? So, um, this grant, at least this
running of this grant, um, is definitely happening. We got the, uh, the announcement, uh, a couple months ago. Uh, the application is due in two days. We're more or less done with the application, ready to submit. Just kind of, um, polishing things up. Um, so the back plates is one big part of it.
Another big part is we are, um, we've identified three high crash intersections which are called out in the, uh, vision zero action plan. Um, and we're doing, you know, kind of a complete overhaul of those intersections. Uh, so new signal equipment. The signal equipment, uh, on
all three of those is, uh, quite outdated and, um, has, I think, led to some, uh, crashes. Um, we're looking at, um, you know, bumpouts for pedestrians. um looking at the signalization itself, adding um the uh preemptive um uh signal
change for emergency vehicles. Um a whole bunch of safety features um basically for uh for all modes at these three intersections. Um that's another big component. Um and then we have a couple of kind of planning ideas, planning grants um that we are working
into the package. Uh one is that signal policy that I mentioned. There's some um you know some kind of newer, not new I guess, but and maybe new to Brookline um uh signal uh approaches uh such as the leading pedestrian interval that we've done just a little bit and we want to do
more of um and so we're going to try to do that um test out some of those at different intersections and collect data and see um how effective they are, what you know how how long they should be, what those types of things um and try to get some information there. Um, and uh,
yeah, I think that's most of it. Uh, it adds up to about six million. Um, these grants are big. This is a really big uh, bucket of money that this grant program comes from. Um, a lot of other communities uh, in the state and and in the country have gotten some really
great uh, improvements done with this. So, I think we think we're very eligible and now that we have this plan, uh, that's one of the requirements. Um so uh I think we'll yeah it's a really good application. Okay. In your materials you say that um
state agencies or state roads tend to be busier and are four to five times riskier than uh other roads. I think Route 9 is the only state road in Brooklyn or am I wrong about that? Um so we also have some that are um owned
and operated by uh DCR uh Department of Conservation and Recreation. Um so West Roxbury part of that is Cameron Pond Parkway is there's part of Newton. think I'm missing something. But yeah, I think that's the only my question has to do
with how how well do you work with the state in terms of uh uh your your vision zero uh plans and um efforts. Yeah. Um I mean it's it can be a challenge because obviously they have their own
priorities. Um sometimes they're in line with what a municipality wants, sometimes they're not. Um, but they, you know, they are, I know that they're working with the region on the region's uh, vision zero plan. I was actually just at a meeting with, uh, about that
today. Um, and there were at least three representatives masked out there. So, um, it's part of the conversation. I think Route 9's going to be a really tough one for a lot of reasons. Um, but I think, um, yeah, I think that Masadot is a willing partner.
Um, Michael. Um, thank you Amy for the such a rich report. I I really appreciate all the details. Um, and I particularly appreciate um the uh the the gold about
safety being proactive and the proactive work that you are doing which will save lives. um we don't necessarily know which one of those lives will be saved, but we will we just want to appreciate in general that there will be lives saved. So, thank you for that. Um
you talk um in the plan about the mode shift imperative of of diff people using different forms of transportation. Um, and on page seven of the report, there's a figure that shows what the mo the transportation usage is across
Massachusetts and specifically in Brooklyn. Um, and it looks to me like Brooklyn is making great progress in terms of mode shifting to uh other forms of transportation, transit, walking, biking. Um, but there's a mention in
there of uh Brookline's mode shift goal. Um, and I'm wondering if you can uh tell us anything about what that goal is or how it was derived or what its time frame is um in conjunction with uh the
goals of vision zero. Yeah, I there was a warrant article from a few years ago um that uh put numbers to it. I actually don't have it right in front of me, but Oh, that's the warrant article 31. Yeah, I believe that's right. Um Okay. I think
it was like I think it was maybe like half non-motorized um use something like that. I I don't recall off the top of my head. Oh, okay. Well, if if that was the goal, then we've looks like we've achieved it.
Really? Have we? Well, according to this data, we Oh, okay. Oh, it might have been Yeah, it's probably different than it have been. I'm just remembering wrong, but um that's that's where that's what we're referring to. Thank you, John. Um yeah, a couple more questions
if I may. Um just so that people are clear um as to the process going forward. Uh there will be a transportation board meeting tomorrow night as you know um uh couldn't possibly be sooner. And uh on the agenda is a vote um as to whether the
transportation board is going to go forward with these 38 u speed humps on the spread across Beaconsfield, Buckminister, Clark, Clinton, and Tapen streets, roads. Um uh other decisions and as fact in fact
as far as I know all decisions of the transportation board are appealable to the select board. So, if there are people on any one of those streets who want to petition the select board because they disagree with the plan for the speed humps on their street, um, uh,
I is it a given that the these decisions to be taken by the transportation board tomorrow night are appealable to the select board? I Yeah, as far as I know, I don't see why it wouldn't be. I wish we had uh Joe here or somebody
who could say for sure. I mean, I think people deserve to know that and it'll make a big difference to me in my vote if I knew that um despite my qualms about whether, you know, every single one of these streets and every single speed hump to be planned on these streets is is a good idea. Um I I
wouldn't have so much hesitation about this if I knew at least people can appeal it to the select board. um once the transportation board has made its decision. John, we're not voting on anything along those lines tonight. No, I know that plenty of time to figure out you what
the process is, but we do want to know if if that's appealable. Yeah. No, I'm saying that we'll have time to Yeah. get that answer. And if I may just, this is my I promise this my final question. Um people who spoke at that May 19th uh meeting made many other comments about
things that they thought maybe would be as good or maybe even a few cases um more priority um for safety on their streets. Stop signs were mentioned over and over and over and over again. Um uh a number of people expressed frustration
with a particular intersection which I'm very familiar with. I drive it through it all the time. Clark, Blake, and Sumner. Um, whereas anyone and everyone who's used that intersection, um, you know, their their heart is in their throat every time they have to make a
decision to pull out into the traffic because they can't see what's coming around the bend. That decision, that intersection has never been addressed to make it safer. And so I think there was a little bit of an air of um it's all well and good to suddenly be told we can
have all these speed humps on our street, but how about this intersection that has been a very dangerous intersection for decades? Can we get something done about that? Or how about the requests that have been made for stop signs? Can we get something done about that? Um so is there a program for
following up on all of those other suggestions? Yeah. So that intersection and two others um we are uh looking at the um the federal standards uh uh criteria that need to be met in order to make an
allway stop um and to install an allway stop. Um there are specific criteria that you know some uh at least one set of those need to be met. Um we're looking into those. Uh I don't we don't fully have the answer quite yet, but um yeah, we can't just put out a stop sign
there as much as we might want to. uh that it just says we need to follow this federal standards. Um but as far as like a other some other kind of overhaul of those intersections um I think we'll want to see where the stop sign um situation lands first and I
think that might I think that would help matters considerably if we are able to do that. Uh and if we need to do more after that's um if they do do get installed we need to do more then we will look at doing more. A quick question. Yeah, one more. Just one quick question, Amy. And and this is really just I'm curious about this. What are
the consequences of not following the federal standards on stop signs? Um I think that we can get cited. I think we can um be uh at risk for not getting federal funding. Um perhaps even
state funding for for just not following federal standards. Yeah. Or being told to remove it. um might be a liability. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um I'm trying to find
the um It's in the packet resolution. Well, I'm looking for the packet. Oh, let's see. Um I had it up here and just Can I just one thing while you're looking for that? Pardon me. Can I just say one thing? Sure. Um Amy, just for your information,
I found the the resolution and it's a 2050 goal and it's 75% of trips by human power, electric, micromobility or electric rights. There we go. Thank you. Okay. Um we have a resolution in the
packet. It uh Oh, here it is. And uh the operative clause uh is as follows. Um and I move that the board adopt one a goal of achieving zero deaths and serious injuries by 2035.
Two, the vision zero action plan as a flexible and guiding framework for advancing traffic safety. and three, the dissolution of the vision zero committee and assignment uh to the transportation board as the body charged with o with
oversight and progress reporting. Any questions about that uh resolution that we're being asked to vote for? John, is there a definition of serious injury? Yes. Yeah. in the um because because I I saw that the number of injuries like
over the last four or five years was like 490 five. It didn't didn't seem realistic that we could get that to zero, but yeah. Well, this is just a goal. Yeah, I think that was just all injuries, uh serious. Um so, police
reports have kind of categories of different types of injuries. I don't know exactly what the definition is, but I believe it's based on that. Okay. And and goal, you know, what what does that mean? I think it means that if uh if we don't reach it, there's no
penalty, but this is something that we aspire to exactly in 10 years. So the good news is we already are at zero on deaths in some years. I mean, you know, not every year, but some years zero.
Okay. All in favor, please indicate by saying I. John Vansy. Hi Paul Warren. Hi David Pearlman. Hi Michael Bloom. Michael Rubenstein. Hi. I'm sorry. And chairside. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Um I do just want to flag now. I've looked up the statute as adopted and thank you to Kate Gilbury for pulling the set of her file as well. I've got both of them up. Um, yes, you can appeal a transportation board decision on this, but I think one of the
key issues that might come up there is, um, to appeal it, you're ba, basically to appeal a transportation board decision, you'd be appealing the policy. You'd be appealing the policy at large, and you'd be saying, you know, I think the town should be following this speed
policy with the exception of my street. Here's why. Um, and you would be asking basically the select board to exempt your street from the general townwide policy of how we determine whether or not um, speed humps are installed. And
so when you frame it like that, I do think it's important for the board to think through, right? a big a big part of why all of these policies are coming before you now and why the good work that you all did on the um uh the modifications to complete streets and
the pavement management pathway is to create um consistency of outcomes. So I think when we think about someone saying I don't want this on my street I think you have to think too about then what is it about the policy at large that is
producing this outcome and if we don't like that outcome how can we how you know what what what changes can be made to the policy to produce results that are still regular and um uh you say um predictable um as opposed to you know
this is the policy unless unless or until someone successfully says I don't like it. Um ensuring that when a decision is made to deviate from the policy, there are clear policy reasons for why. May may I comment on that? Just I mean I think he's making a very good
point. Um I want to make one more good point. I I hope it's a good one. Um the policy does not uh stipulate uh whether the the implementation of u
traffic calming uh speed humps on any given street will be regardless of whether there might be a majority of residents of the street who oppose it that we don't we don't speak to that which I think is a deficiency of our
policy. Um but in the absence of that um I I think one of the key elements of whether a petition is presented to the select board would be does the petition represent more than half of the people
on the residents on the street? Um and if it does, are we going to go ahead and you know approve um speed humps on streets where more than half of the residents of the street are opposed? Um, so that that's a question for the
future, but it's an example of the kind of issue that might be brought up in a petition. Paul, I think John raises it's an interesting point, but um, you know, as someone who lives on a very busy street, I live on Carlton Street and if you're
ever around Carlton Street after a Red Sox game or a concert or in the afternoon rush hours, everybody's heading to BEu, there's a lot of cars. There's, you know, a number of residents on Carlton Street, but we're not the only users. We're a fraction of the users that are on Carlton Street. So,
you got to remember there's there's pedestrians, there's bicyclists, there's uh automobile drivers, truck drivers, and others, emergency vehicles that use that street. Um, and so I would I would be hesitant um and would be very thoughtful about
considering how much does the residents of a street the waiting of that that appeal versus the greater good for the community of all users of that street. Good point. Okay. Um, did we vote? No,
not yet. Not yet. Okay. Not yet. So on I I read it. You did read it. You did. I thought you did. I thought I did. Right. We did. We did. We did. It's not just I said I Okay. I forgot. If I didn't say I, I vote I too. Um Okay. Next. Uh
annual appointments. Um question of making annual appointments as recommended by the town administrator of department heads, administrators, other officials, and employees, and of setting the benefit, salaries, and wages of all non-union employees effective July 1st,
2025. We have three items to vote. Um first is uh uh to approve the annual reappoint of department heads and other management personnel as appearing on attachment A which has been revised. Um
and miscellaneous uh personnel as appearing on attachment D for fiscal year 2026 uh July 1st 2025 through June 30, 2025 as recommended by the town administrator. I take it people looked
through that list and unless you have any questions, I'd like to uh call a vote on that. The two big the big changes on the um attachment B are the increase in salary to the DBW division heads. Uh it comes with a proposed increase in you know
responsibility on their parts there. It's also the last portion of the um um the mid-management technical uh pay plan analysis from the previous override. So that closes that out. I want to thank Charlie for all his work on that. It was
a huge undertaking. Um isn't that the second vote? Yeah. I'm sorry. And and then um why don't we take them all together? Yeah. Let me just read. The second one is to approve wage adjustments of 2% effective
retroactively July 1st, 2024 for positions on the department head pay plan. Um that should be effective July 1st, 2026. Scrier's error. No, it's uh right. Starts this July, right? 2025. Yes.
Sorry. Y July 1st, 2025. That this was retroactive though. No, no, sorry. That's a scrier's error. So that should be 2025. Okay. July 1st, 2025 for positions on the department head pay plan, mid management professional technical pay play pay
plan. and for other non union positions as recommended by the town administrator and finally to approve department head and other non-union clerical reclassifications as described in exhibit or attachment E and as
recommended by the town administrator. Now, aren't there there are n so there are no there are no rec there are no um systemwide reclassifications like there were last year. There are two the the division heads which is what we just talked about. Um and then as part of the conclusion of the uh building department
reorganization, we have uh Okay. Allocated an additional step to the building commissioner. Okay. So, cross off the last one. Yes. Okay. Wasn't there some retroactive pay increases for uh No. Okay. Not this year. Okay. So, we
have two items to approve. All in favor, please indicate by saying I. John Vancoyak. I Paul Warren. I David Carlman. I Michael. and chair votes eye. Next, boards and commissions reappointments.
Question of reappointing Alex Kriger as a tenant representative member of the housing advisory board. Um, any questions about Alex Kger. Okay. All in favor, please indicate by saying I. John Vancoyak. I Paul Warren.
Hi. Corman. I. Michael Rubenstein. Hi. Votes. question of appointing reappointing Lisa Farber to the trustees of Walnut Walnut Hills Cemetery. Um, any questions about that reappoint? No. All in favor, please
indicate by saying I. John Bascoyak. Hi. Paul Warren. Hi. David Crowman. I. Michael Rubenstein. I. Finally, question of reappointing Elizabeth Erdman to the tree planting committee. Any questions about Elizabeth Erdman? No. All in favor, please
indicate by saying I. John Vancoyak. Hi. Paul Warren. Hi. David David Pearlman. I. Michael Rubenstein. I. And chair votes I. Finally, question of transmitting the foreign following warrant article as a home rule petition
to the state legislature as a result of town meeting action. Warrant article 24. Real estate transfer fee. Is that a tax 2025 annual town meeting?
I guess the vote was 130 to 87 to 13. Any questions about that? No. All in favor, please indicate by saying I. John Vancoyak I. Paul Warren. I. David Pearlman. I. Michael Rubenstein. I. Chair votes I. Unless
there are any individuals I see no one in the room but maybe I'll find that it's all staff on Zoom so I don't think and they don't want to ask or make any comments. Okay. So therefore I will end this meeting. Thank you everyone.