Hey. Good evening. I'm Bernard Green, chair of the Brooklyn Select Board, and this is the regular meeting of the select board for March 31st, 2026. Let's start off with some announcements or updates from the select board. And
let me start by saying that the uh Fiser Hill well on February 26, Marilyn Tessle, who is a member of the Fiser Hill advisory committee um and a commercial banker with an MBA in finance and marketing um had to resign because
of conflicts with her uh uh business uh activity. So the uh committee is uh putting out a uh a notice uh to solicit applicants for uh this position that is open on the Fiser Hill West uses
advisory commit committee, excuse me. Um and uh it'll be advertised in the usual places, but I just want to announce the uh opening. So if anyone in the audience would like to apply for uh this uh
committee uh they should go to our web page and fill out the application form there. Uh the committee does require someone with a similar background to Marilyn Tessle um you know commercial banking or finance background um and um
you know we look forward to uh seeing your applications. We have one application already, George Cole, um who applied last week or a couple weeks ago. So, we're looking for others. >> Can I ask a quick question about that? >> Thanks for announcing that. Actually, I think it's a great idea to um ask the
community to participate. >> Um was the original application did it have any specific requirements for people? Yes, >> they there was actually skill sets that the committee was looking for. Okay, great.
>> Okay. Any other updates, announcements? Is that your hand or are you pointing to my >> No, no, no. That was my thumbs up. >> Thank you. Um, I want to say one of the things that uh I think all of us enjoy the most about
Brooklyn is that there's an extraordinary number of volunteers who do various activities that involve, you know, fundraising for good causes. And u it was a pleasure to um have be invited to take part in one of those. Uh just
this past week, uh the Brooklyn Education Foundation, which is marking its 45th year in Brooklyn, quite an extraordinary record. Um they have an event, an an annual event uh that is a sort of a ti trivia bee, a trivia
contest. And um they bunch of teams with um adults who um happen to be pretty pretty darn good at at trivia. I don't know if any of them have ever been on Jeopardy, but um they filled the room uh at uh 22 Tapen Street. Um good time was
had by all uh and I was um ve very uh grateful to have been asked to sit in on the the team of adults from the Baker School District. And um turns out this was a pretty darn good team. Came in
third. Um, and I'm just going to tease people a little bit with uh two of the outstanding trivia questions from the evening. And I'm not going to give away the answers. And one of them was, this was the one that sort of stumped just about everybody in the room. Name the person who in 2022
had the set the record all-time record for the number of um Instagram uh hits. And in the same year um uh holds the third place record for the number of
Instagram hits. And in this um third place recognition, this particular person happened to have been push put a photograph on Instagram of of the person uh in bed. So uh think think about that for a minute. See if you think can can
come up with the answer that most of us trivia experts couldn't come up with. Um and uh the other one which I was a little personally embarrassed to to not have been helpful with uh is there's an instrument from the 15th century called a sackbutt. And uh what is that
instrument known as today? So I won't tell you that answer either but think about that one for a minute. Um and then here's u just to mention one other organization very very worthy very worth worthy cause. Um here here's kind of a third trivia question. Which member of
the select board would you guess has run a marathon? And um if you email me, I'll share that answer with you too. And um the reason I bring that up is the reason I bring that up. Oh, somebody is smiling. I wonder why. Um, I bring it up
because it's the season of Team Brooklyn, which is um, uh, represents several of the, uh, nonprofits that do very, very good work in Brooklyn, and they combine, uh, behind what this is, what we call Team Brookline to recruit
runners to uh, run the marathon uh, and raise money for various of the Team Brookline participating uh, charities, nonprofits. Um, the one I'm most familiar with and and the sort of organizer of the team is the Brooklyn
Center for Community Mental Health, but there's, I think, at least four others, maybe five or six others, uh, that are represented. And if you just do a search of for team Brookline, you'll get all of the information you need. And hopefully
you will be so inspired you will decide to choose, you know, which of the constituent um charities and which of the runners you want to help meet their goal. And they have ambitious goals. I'm talking, you know, like $5,000 and more
of fundraising per individual. So, uh they they should they definitely are doing a lot of good work for Brooklyn and they could use support. So check out team Brooklyn because um by marathon day all of this will culminate in team
Brooklyn members running the marathon. also like to mention that today is International Transgender Day of Visibility which uh is an annual event that celebrates transgender people raising
awareness for discrimination that is faced by them and also acknowledging their contribution to society. >> Thank you. No one else. Okay, let's move on to public comment.
Melanie, please introduce our public comment with the rules of engagement. >> Sure. >> 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. The onscreen timer will flash orange when you have 30 seconds remaining and red when your time is nearly up. Please conclude your remarks at that time. If you have more to say, you are welcome to
send an email to board members expressing your thoughts in greater detail. Any person wishing to speak must begin their comment by identifying themselves with their full name, either their Brooklyn precinct number or street address, and the specific topic on which they wish to speak. The board encourages
does not but does not require that remote users turn their video on when commenting. We have two people that signed up prior. And Lusk is first. Everyone should have my speaking points and the additional two-page text. Am I
three minutes started? Yep. >> Now. >> Now. Okay. Now. Okay. I'm Ann Lusk, 18 Hart Street, precinct 5. I'm here to speak about the pool RFP and including Lars Anderson and parking in the Walled Garden area. Not just a token mention,
but a viable location for a pool and parking. In 1874, the town created the stable at 235 Cypress that sat on one and a half acres. This was Brookline's Department of Public Works yard.
Two. In 1948, Isabella Anderson gave her 64 acres to the residents of Brooklyn for recreation. A plaque reads, "Bequeath to the citizens of the town of Brooklyn for their enjoyment." This land was not given to the town, but given to
the citizens. Three. In 1950, the Department of Works on Cyprus started moving operations from their small one and a halfacre gated and walled town garage to the 3.6 gated and walled garden at Lars Anderson.
No evidence has been found that the town's people voted to have the 3.6 acres of their park taken as a permanent DPW yard. Four, today, this DPW 3.6 6 acre yard
has no trespassing signs, locked chain link fences, and tall concrete walls. Out of town vans are parked there all winter. There are 19 black fluted ballard streets traffic signals, two basketball hoops, 25 huge concrete
retraining blocks, seven trailer storage containers, two tall and long metal buildings, vehicles, trailers, and four police cruisers. These items are not related to maintaining Anderson Park. A maintenance building for Lars Anderson
exists on Guard Avenue. Five. The town of Brooklyn has hired Kyle Zik Landscape Architecture to develop a cultural landscape report for Lars Anderson Park. The RFP states, "The Department of Public Works Parks and Open Space
Division maintenance yard is also located within the park, suggesting that these 3.6 acres of historic land will not be part of the study of the historic buildings and landscapes. The RFP for Lars Anderson specifies a minimum of
five meetings with town staff, but only three public information gatherings. A survey was sent to residents, but it only asked for their stories about Lars Anderson and not how residents want to use what are their own 64 acres. Six,
the pool RFP should include Lars Anderson with a pool behind the auto museum as designed and located by the Mstead brothers with parking inside the walled garden. To comply with article 97, parking would be behind the historic
wall so the cars are not visible. >> Your time is up. >> Thank you. >> Next up is G. Holy. Can we wait a minute while I my talking points are >> while she's getting her talking points? Can I uh mention something real quick?
Just and I'm not I don't want to speak to the person who just uh spoke about Lars Anderson, but um I do think it would be helpful at a an upcoming meeting um in April. I would hope it would be April to put it on our agenda
to discuss um the DPW yard, why it's there, why we're not including a more specific uh review of that space in an RFP. Um it'd be really helpful to understand what the constraints are. It does seem like that DPW yard is a
junkyard um and not in keeping with uh what Lars Anderson is supposed to be doing um for for the residents of the town which is the gift. So I'm hoping we would add that to an agenda this in in March in April. Sorry. Thank you.
>> Okay, I think we can do that. Uh, good evening members of the select board. My name is Jih Lee and I live on Amory Street, precinct one. I'm speaking today because the ongoing rodent infestation in my building has reached a
critical health threshold for me. The stress has led to physical hair loss and extreme exhaustion. I am currently unable to safely clean my unit because the standard cleaning aerosolizes rodent waste, turning dried urine and feces
into airborne toxins. After a high fever and suspected haunt virus illness last year, I cannot risk the respiratory distress that comes from disturbing these biohazards without professional equipment. Um, I was given a transfer opportunity,
but I I'm deeply concerned that the structural gaps left behind during the 2013 heating renovation will follow me to the new unit. for over a decade. Traditional pest control um like glue
traps and I I was just given glue traps and mouse bait by maintenance and pest control and uh they haven't done anything structural to prevent the rosent from coming into the building. Uh
I have used the UV light to document urine trails inside my dresser and closets. Right now they are just urinating on everything on my clothes had just I'm I'm afraid to open the dresser because of the urine smell. It's
um it's gotten to the point where I can't sleep and my hair is coming out in clumps. Um, my request is that the select board, uh, I don't know if
it's right to say this, but put pressure on BHA to to, um, cover up and create a barrier so that the rodents cannot come into the building at all. Um, when I complained about this back in 2013, I
was just met with uh dismissiveness and if they had done it then, it wouldn't have come to this point now. Um, I I want to live successfully there and I don't want to be considered a problem
tenant, but this has gotten to the point where it's untenable. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Chair. >> Yes. >> May I ask just that she repeat the address? I I didn't catch it. >> Yeah, I didn't catch it either.
>> 235. >> Oh, 150. Thank you very much. >> She sent a letter to the board that we all received uh detailing what she wrote plus more. Um Chaz, it's my understanding is the health department going out to do an inspection.
>> Um >> yeah, my understanding is the health the health department is is involved and we will follow up. >> Okay. >> The health commissioner is shaking shaking his head. Yes. So >> Okay. >> Okay. Any other public comments?
>> No. >> No raised hands online and I don't know if anybody in person. >> Okay. Okay. So, let's move on to the next item which is our miscellaneous >> calendar. Uh first uh our minutes from
August 24, 2026 the meeting where we voted the override. So, any corrections to those minutes? So I had sent some amendments to staff which I believe
circulated >> y sub substantive or or not. >> No. Okay. Good. So uh I move approval of the minutes for February uh excuse me March 24, 2026 as amended. All in favor
please indicate by saying I. John Vancoyak >> I. >> Paul Warren. >> Hi. >> David Pearlman. >> Hi. >> Michael Rubenstein. >> Hi. and chair votes I. Next, I'd like to take an omnibus fashion items 3B through 3L, unless someone
would like to pull something out for further discussion. >> Excuse me. >> Okay, Michael. >> Um, I just have a comment to make with regard to item 3H. >> Okay, >> go ahead. >> Um, so a constituent contacted me uh
from precinct 14 regarding uh this this item um to ask the question of whether or not the repaving on Hammond Street could be affected down the road um by potential work uh that the mass DOT
might take on as part of the Chestnut Hill commercial area project. Um we had a conversation about this. Um, it turns out that item 3H is strictly uh related to repaving uh uh restriping and
meaning painting stripes and the signal at the corner of Heath Street and Woodard. Um, so we determined that this was not a concern. >> Thank you. Any other items people would like to take out and discuss? Okay. Okay. So
then I move approval of items 3B through 3 L in our miscellaneous calendar. All in favor, please indicate by saying I. John Voyak. >> I. >> Paul Warren. >> Hi. >> David Pearlman. >> Hi. >> Michael Rubenstein. >> I. >> And chair votes I.
>> I would just quickly note there are there are two donations contained in there and I just want to thank the folks who made those donations. It's always a great help to the community when folks uh provide that assistance, particularly with um things related to ODICR's activities and operations. It makes the
community a more welcoming place and so we're very grateful for the folks who make those contributions. So, thank you to both of those donors. Yes, it's uh we're required to approve donations of any amount by state law, but it's also an opportunity for us to, as uh Chaz
just did, uh highlight and thank uh people who make donations to help our town in various ways. So, okay. Uh next item, boards and commissions, annual reports. We have a presentation from the disability commission
um or the commission on disability. Let me see your finger. ready. >> No, it hasn't connected. Okay, it connected. >> Presentation right here. Right here. Okay.
Okay. Awesome. >> What didn't show up? Does that timer change the presentation? We're trying to share >> the >> presentation station. >> I'm not sure why that that screen is up
there. Um, let me see. I'm not sure why the >> I don't know why it's I just p It's >> I could do it in 10 minutes if I talk real fast. >> We're starting it.
No problem. >> I mean, I'm I'm picking up my sound. Yeah. >> You did not get it. >> I didn't get it. >> There you go. You should be all set. >> Okay.
Okay. Can everybody hear me? >> Yes. >> Okay. Great. Great. Okay. Thank Thank you. I want to thank the board for having us in and thank everybody for being here. Um I'm going to go ahead and get started.
Um as most of you know, I like to start with just a little history. In 83, the Massachusetts legislature passed a law saying that cities and towns could have uh commissions on disabilities. In 1986, Brooklyn was one of the first to create
the commission on disability. And in 2017, they reconfirmed that with a bylaw so that the commission could continue with its work. So for four decades now, the town of Brooklyn and uh the commission have been working hand in hand to make uh Brooklyn more accessible
for its residents. Current uh commission members aside from myself is Sarah Lynn Aair, uh Joan Mahon, Lynn Meichek, Elaine Ober. Our newest member is Liz Strier
and then also uh Henry Wkelman and our new select board liaison is Mr. John Vancoyak. Um, we also had elections this year. So, I was lucky to uh uh run for another year as chair. And Henry Wkelman is the
deputy chair. Sarah Linair uh took the position of treasurer. Shockingly, nobody went for the highly coveted position of secretary. So, two people that the commission could not
work without and that is Sarah Kaplan and Nancy Moore. Sarah Kaplan uh works uh she lets the commission know of anything that's going on at the state level that we should be aware of. She also handles implementation
as well as compliance and she works on grant coordination which we'll talk about in a minute and day-to-day accessibility issues. Nancy Moore is our transportation board liaison and she always makes sure that
accessibility is in the forefront of all of the decisions that the transportation board makes. I mean it when I say we could not be as effective as we are without these two individuals. They're terrific. Um sadly we lost a member this year. Rob
Heis passed away in February of 2025. Um we always called Rob the thoughtful advocate. He wouldn't say much at the meetings. He'd wait till everybody else talked and then he'd say his piece and he would hit the sweet spot 99.9% of the time. He was seriously a very thoughtful
advocate. I tell everybody if you come across an accessibility feature in Brooklyn, most likely Rob had a hand in it. His commitment, his compassion, and his sense of humor is sorely missed by all of us. Thank you.
I put this up. This is the ADA definition uh of what a disability is. And as you can see, it's very long. It's very broad, but it's what we think about when we uh make our decisions and what we're going to do throughout the year
because we say that there's apparent disabilities and non-apparent disabilities. And apparent disabilities, if you see, for instance, myself with a white cane, you can assume that I'm visually impaired. Somebody with a mobility device, you know that they have mobility issues. Okay? But there's
non-apparent disabilities as well and those are a a concern as well. So non-apparent disabilities if you look at these individuals you might not know who has a traumatic brain injury who might be hard of hearing you know who might have cancer or cancer in remission which
is also considered a disability. So these are the folks that we think about the residents that we think about in every decision that we make. So we try to remove barriers. We try to uh promote inclusive participation.
We try to advise people on policy and development uh when they come to us on certain issues. And some of the things that we've worked on this year are all of these issues. And we're going to go through just a few of them. So we supported multiple warrant
articles last year. Warrant article 13 in the fall of 2025 was to ensure that any future planning at Fisher Hill would consider our senior residents. Warrant article 14 and 15 kind of went hand in hand. 14 was a
streamlined reasonable accommodation process to ensure that uh people with disabilities could get essential modifications to their homes. 15 was a uh an exception to the demolition bylaw.
Warrant article 16 uh modified the requirements of bicycle parking and mobility devices. Obviously very important to people with disabilities and we wrote letters of support on all of these issues.
the MBTA. Um, I think everybody has spent some time on this one this year and and we did too. Our first uh I think we started a meeting with the MBTA actually in 2024, but our first meeting in 2025 was in February and that was on the Branden Hall Fairbanks
uh merge and uh we met with them and we talked to them about high contrast color platforms to ensure that that would be part of the program and they agreed to that and then we uh supported it. And then also um Fenway Multi-use path. I
have to say it was um Hugh Madison who has taken up uh the ch he's the champion of that program. He came to us about that and we wrote a letter of support on that. Actually we sent that letter of support to you folks first because that was an outside of Brookline issue.
A school uh modifications. The transportation board was taking some uh making some modifications there and they came to us. Uh we reviewed the area. They were going to put in four additional uh accessible spots. We found a way to improve that up to five and I just spoke to a member of the board who
told me that they might be putting in a few more. So that was uh very helpful. And then we also did send them a letter to let them know if they need anything else to please uh don't hesitate to ask. We only had one variance this year which
was a little surprising but um it was an interesting one. It was at 1026 Commonwealth Avenue and this is Bob Street. It's a restaurant, a Korean restaurant and they have a dining area upstairs that was not accessible and
they wanted to uh bypass putting in a lift. And the reason was was because if they put in the lift, it was going to impact their ADA accessible restroom on the first floor. So we asked them to make sure that the rest of the facility was completely accessible, which they
did. They have accessible tables on the first floor. They also uh put in high contrast stairs to go up to that uh loft area and then we supported that variance. We also sent a letter of support to the Brooklyn Housing Authority as they were trying to install
an ADA compliant sidewalk over at the Walnut High Apartments. We had multiple subcommittees this year, which is kind of unusual, but um we had a few. We had an ADA parking subcommittee, which I'll talk about in a second. We had the disability pride
display, and then also we have an event subcommittee. The events sub subcommittee was started in uh 2025 and we uh stumbled along, but we've really hit our stride on the event sub uh subcommittee and we're hoping to be
holding an event soon to promote uh disability awareness here in Brooklyn. The ADA parking subcommittee um we did a lot of review, we did a lot of work on this. Uh but before I talk about that, I just want to say I got to thank Erin
Shute as well as Jed Faren Farenbach uh at the IT department. They gave us access to their GIS system. We're able to make real-time modifications and we're able to evaluate uh se over 70 spots here in uh on the main corridors
on Beacon Street, Washington Street, Harvard Street, and a lot of the side streets as well. So, we got quite a bit done during this process. Interestingly, a few people called looking for accessible parking spots. Gateway Arts down on Station Street called us for
support. Uh we sent a letter of support to the transportation board and the DPW on that. Uh and then a parishioner from the St. Mary's Church called about an additional spot over at St. Mary's. That was also approved. So, those two
additional spots were installed. Last year I talked a little bit about getting grants and uh last year we didn't get any but this year we got one and we got a big one. It was a real uh nice one. So here we did work with uh the DPW as well as the ADA coordinator
and we got uh almost $50,000 $49,852.19 to be exact for 11 tactile plates to be installed along Beacon Street. Those tactile plates are a great example of universal design. Everybody uses them, but I can tell you personally being
blind, if if there's not a tactile plate, it's easy to wander into the the parallel street and uh be in danger. So those tactile plates make a big difference and we're really glad to get this grant. We also uh we I talked about the
display. uh the display, we used that to promote three wheelchair bills at the state legislature. And again, we wrote letters of support on that. And I think that uh the select board saw those because those were issues outside of Brooklyn. And then uh also uh the other
we uh funded two scholarships again this year at the Brooklyn High School for students with disabilities who want to continue on with their higher education. We participated in Brooklyn Day this year and we also continued our work with
the United Parish Church. Actually, a few members went to the United Parish Church this year as they were looking for ways to improve accessibility at the church. Uh some of the outreach on from us to other committees. Uh Lynn Meichek is our
liaison to the pedestrian advisory committee. Henry Wkelman who is here is our liaison to the age friendly citizens committee. We also have seats on the center street lots committee as well as the bridal path. And one more thing, you know, uh our
website, it was brought up at the beginning of the year. Some of the links were outdated. Some of the uh the appearance of it was outdated. So we took that on at the beginning of 2025. We updated everything. I got to uh give a shout out to James Pulat who really
helped us a lot with this. And I got to give a shout out to Sarah Lynair who took up the uh volunteered to maintain the website and let James in a collaboration between the two of them to make sure everything's up to date and moving forward. So that was also a big
success for us. Gentlemen, with that I will open it up for any questions that you may have. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> We gave you a little extra time because I don't think you saw the timer there. My
>> and also your report was very interesting. >> Very interesting. >> Yeah. >> So great. >> Um Paul. >> Yep. Thank you. Thank you, James. Um appreciate all the work and the work of your committee, the advocacy. Um, I want to touch on the intersection of your
committee and its work uh for the disabled and what we heard tonight during public comment about rodent infestation >> at public housing. Um, you know, I'm going to go on a limb here and assume that there are perhaps some folks in our
in our Brooklyn Housing Authority units that either have an apparent or non-apparent disability. um that we perhaps we think this evening. Um and while typically rodent infestation wouldn't be in the purview of your
commission when it does intersect uh with a disability um and would enhance or complicate or exacerbate a disability. Um I would think that perhaps your commission would get involved. Could you speak to that um
as an issue and have you done it before and should it become uh one of your connections and partnerships with the Brookline Housing Authority? >> Um you know with the Brookline Housing Authority there's been a a couple of uh items as I said that we uh did send a
letter of support for them. Um and I got to tell you if somebody came to us uh I was listening to to that woman talk about that issue and I I just felt terrible. I was standing there shaking my head, but um anything that we could
do to help, we certainly would. Um I can give you an example of a a group of people, you know, at 1550 uh Beacon Street as an example, which u disabled people and seniors with mobility issues. You know, we reached out to them when I
heard about the Brandon Hall Fairbanks merger because I knew that that was going to be important to them, you know. So, uh, we would certainly be willing to help in any way that we can if, uh, if they give us more information on that. >> Okay. So, she you're you're encouraging her to reach out to your commission
either in writing or as a public comment when you meet or whatever. >> Absolutely. Our next meeting is the ETH, and if she uh would like to make public comment at our meeting, that'd be terrific. >> Thank you, >> John. Um, thanks so much for the report and I just want to say it's a it is a
real um privilege uh to be the sleptward liaison to the commission and um this is an enormously productive commission. I'm I'm just kind of blown away at the effectiveness of their meetings uh the
participation by uh just about every member at every meeting. um the delegation to subcommittee subcommittees to you know carry on the work um and bring that back to the commission as a whole. Um really a model of of an
effective commission and uh I'll I'll just do a shout out to Sarah Kaplan who you know as Jim mentioned uh such an essential contributor to all of this. Um, so Brooklyn's lucky to have this commission and and as Bernard said, as
our chair said, that that that stood out as as one of the more interesting reports that we've received so far. No disrespect to some of the other committees and commissions, but that was a real good one. >> Thank you so much. >> Although we've had a lot of very >> we've had a lot
yeah, >> but I I I'll say this here. I I even when I went through that history, I was very surprised that the commission and the town have been working together for for 40 years. I mean, that's a long time. And um it's it's really great. I I
I got to tell you to to live in Brooklyn. Um I I talk to a lot of people in other towns and they do not get the support from their town that that they should. And uh the commission gets a lot of
support. If I call anybody uh they always respond every you know and I mean Erin Shoot, Brian Kaine, uh when I call Sarah Kaplan, whoever it is and there's an issue, it it's really it's fantastic
to be working here. Thank you. >> Anything else? It's also helpful to uh know some of the things that the dis the commission on disabilities do because many times people have disabilities and don't
realize that they may need help or assistance or just information that uh the commission could supply or that other people could supply. I'm thinking of uh kids who go off uh on a skiing trip >> come back disabled.
>> We had that situation at the peier school. Yeah. >> Um, you know, kids who thought they they're you know, perfectly able to get around that building um ended up with temporary disabilities that made it impossible for them to attend school.
So, your your report to the public is very helpful in terms of just alerting people to the breath of disability issues that uh people should be aware of. >> Thank you. you know, and then I I'll just say again, uh, our events
subcommittee, uh, we met a little bit in 2025, but we've we've hit our stride, and hopefully we're going to have an event this year that'll promote, uh, the commission and and promote people with disabilities and what we do, and hopefully more people will be reaching out to us for for any assistance that we
can provide. >> Great. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Next, the select board is going to be trained. >> So, I think Jonathan Simpson is on
the internet, the Zoom. >> Uh, yes, my video has been disabled. I don't know if anyone can >> hold on one second. He was co-host earlier, but >> thank you, Melanie.
And then um if I could have my slides up too, please. You have the slides. >> I was not told I was sharing slides. >> Ah, >> Jonathan, can you share your screen? Can you share your slides? >> Uh, I don't have it up on this machine.
I apologize. >> I've got it. >> Weren't they in the packet? Yeah, they're in the package. You can get that way. Hold on one second. Okay, go. Thank you, Chaz. Okay. Um, so I uh as you noted, I am I'm
here to to give everyone um on the board as well as uh staff who may be listening and board members um uh a a quick primer on uh campaign finance finance law and specifically how it relates to
situations where there is a question uh on the ballot. Um I'm and I will be actually spending some time in this presentation actually distinguishing uh how uh what an elected official can and can't do is is uh different in some
slight but significant ways uh from what a uh appointed or appointed official or a staff member can do. Next slide please. I am so as you all hopefully know by now I'm Jonathan Simpson. I'm first
assistant town counsel for the town of Brooklyn. Um so as the select board voted last week to put a question uh on the ballot uh related to the override um we are now uh between last week and the
election in May. uh we are in a period where we need to be um extremely vigilant about the political activities uh we may choose to take uh related to the election given the presence of that of that ballot question. So next slide
please. So really the the three big takeaways uh I will just jump straight to them are are shown here on this slide. Uh number one is mass emails generally they are not allowed. Um you no one should be
sending mass emails uh mass unsolicited emails to um to uh to people related to the election. Um, if someone asks you for something, you can give it to them, but you should not be distributing um, you know, sending
out a a mass email uh, describing either certainly not advocating for a particular vote, but even justformational about the election, about uh, the uh, context of the override, what will happen if it doesn't pass. None of that should be sent out
via mass unsolicited email. >> Could Could we stop there for a second, Jonathan? Um just hopefully you can we can ask questions as we go since you're training us. >> Yeah. >> Um >> who is covered by that recommendation
or that limitation? Is elected select board members covered by that or elected school committee members? >> Uh so both the important thing is that ma when I say mass emails >> he's a lawyer.
>> Well well hold on a second. He he just said that a sitting elected >> dog wash is not the right. >> Okay. Uh bokeu, whatever you want to call it. Um so you're saying that >> I need to clarify. >> Hold on. I I'm going to let me clarify my question because you just said
something that that I believe you are taking away the the first amendment rights of elected public officials. So, you just said, and my interpretation is is that Paul Warren cannot email
unsolicited to an email list that I've developed over years to advocate for the operating override. Is that what you said? >> Uh, it it it was, but I made a extremely important omission from what I just
said, and I appreciate you jumping on me because I left out >> my pleasure. um is is mass emails are not permitted when the email list you are using is a public resource. Essentially, if the
email list you are using is the town's email list or the school's email list, you are not allowed or a portion of it, you are not allowed to use that to send mass unsolicited emails. >> Thank you for the clarification. I did
not I should ab I should ab did not mean to apply even for a moment that an email list that you have worked to put together yourself cannot be used to advocate how you how you as an elected official believe someone uh should vote in the upcoming election. So mass emails
are not allowed when they are using a town or school email list. So I will so let me >> so our email list that we put together cannot include the town meeting members list >> which is a public document.
>> The town meeting members list is a is a public document. That is fine. But for example the town um in compiles email list of email addresses. The most obvious one is the one that was at issue in 2023 which was the list of all the parents emails that the schools collect
when there's kids enroll. But the town also has lists of emails for a variety of other subjects. Um, and if it's using getting those emails because of its uh town responsibilities, it's those those email lists are public resource and and should not be used for mass emails.
But again, if it's a public document, like if all of the the select board's emails, for example, are publicly available on the website, you could >> you could take all five of you and put it put those on a list and send an email to you all unsolicited because that email those emails are a public record.
>> Okay. Okay. Paul, no hogwash though. >> I will I will try to control my my my language. >> Okay. Jonathan, another just quick question. So, uh, let's take school committee members. Uh, if a school committee member receives emails through
the course of their duties to their, uh, you know, school committee.gov email account, um, are they able to use those emails to email um, residents or constituents or is that
email system considered a public resource? We are invest that is a close question that we are currently investigating. Um so I do not have an answer yet but I hope to have an answer for you both you guys and the school committee soon.
>> Okay. Thank you. >> Along those same lines um and I I've wondered about this for a long time. Uh and what about PTO groups you know with whom the list of all of the emails of parents in a particular school are
shared? um can they share those with um independent groups, you know, that are taking part in advocacy during a during a campaign? >> Um I have spoken with the superintendent about uh Brooklyn's policy towards its
PTO's. uh she has looked into this and all of the PTO's so that's all of the the 8 K through8s beep as well as the high school um they all have some they at no
point and for none of those is the parents email list simply handed over to the PTO to do it as whatever they want in all cases there is an optin at the at either an optin where parents when at
some point are asked by the schools if they if if it if the school can share their email address with the relevant PTO or um the PTO's generate their own email list and similar into the way that that Paul was describing with with his
email list is you work together you you meet people you get you you get the email list email addresses that way but I believe both of those two scenarios there do not um do not constit in that scenarios, both of those scenarios, if the PTO's then send out
emails about the election, um it is not the use of a public resource because they're using their own their own email list which they have obtained in a in a variety of ways. Um so that in those cases, I believe PTO's in Brooklyn have taken steps to make sure that their
their use of email is not a public resource. U Michael >> under the under the campaign finance. >> Uh thank you. Um first of all I'm also interested in the answer to Paul's questions with regard to email addresses
that come into the town from constituents. Um but I have two two other questions relating to mass emails broadly. Um and the first question is um I am assuming and could you confirm that
using uh our.gov email addresses um as the uh sender for such mass emails would not be appropriate. Um it would depend well uh no it would I will get to the the there there's sort
of a detailed reason but generally it would be it would be appropriate particularly if you are an elected official. >> Okay. Um and the the other question is that if we ch uh we choose to advocate in conjunction with some outside
organization um is there are there any constraints on the use of our titles as members of the select board in those communications? Uh that's a great question and there is a this is one of the areas where there
is a distinction between elected officials and appointed officials or staff members. Elected officials are allowed to use their titles when they are advocating for a particular issue including for example an override. So
you could ab certainly say I, Michael Rubenstein, um, Brooklyn select board member believe you should vote yes or vote no on the override. >> Okay. >> Uh, you should however refrain from speak when you do so speaking as though
you are speaking for the board it as as it hold that the select boards supports thus and such. You should speak on your own behalf but that on your own behalf includes your role as a select board member. So you can't you as an elected official can use your title. That does
not extend however to um appointed or uh appointed officials or uh town employees who are not supposed to use uh what is called the weight of their office when um when speaking about about the issues speaking about politics. You're not that
that title itself is is a public resource which is should not be accessed by uh people in that role. So you should not for example say um if you know if you were a uh police officer the common one you said is the common example is
you should not be wearing your uniform when you um tell people to vote yes on a particular ballot question because it gives a sort of impremature of the police department which is itself a public resource. Hey, Jonathan. Uh, can I ask you to um fix this slide? And this
is a document that a lot of people may be u downloading and relying on. >> Sure. Thank you. >> In terms of the mass emails, I mean, it's the way it's written now, it really, as Paul as Paul showed uh is very
confusing. I will I will fix it and we will I will see if Kate is able to just repost an improved version alongside. >> Yep. Uh thank you Jonathan. So following up on Michael's questions um you've stated that if you're an appointed
official um you can't use the weight of your office or your title. Um what are advisory committee members? Are they elected or appointed? >> That is a very good question. My understanding is they are um
be they they are all I believe town meeting members. So they are they are elected. >> No, there's there are at large members that are not >> at large members and I apologize. Um they as as I said the the the campaign finance law distinguishes between elected officials and public officials
who are not elected and as if they are as they are appointed they should not be using their title as advisory comm. So, the advisory committees, it would be really interesting to get because I think and it's not just them. There's other commissions that get, you know, the the housing advisory board um is
appointed. Um there's a lot of folks that will want to weigh in on the operating override. Um and I think that that that would have implications, but particularly I know advisory is tricky, right? They're they're actually appointed to advisory. They're not
elected to advisory. So they're not um so anyway it's just I think it's important to get some clarification on that. >> Well and I think the advisory is actually a little bit simpler because the the sort of the exception to the exception is that um people in a in a if if you have a appointed officials or and
staff are allowed to take positions um based uh if it's within their area of professional responsibility. So certainly with an override question um an advisory committee member is is well within their sort of area of responsibility. So they they could use
they could not just speak on the issue but they could uh utilize their title when doing so. >> Okay. >> I was just going to say you know right we I think as Jonathan moves through this you'll see right this this concept seems very simple in practice and then the deeper you dig the more exceptions
you uncover and then exceptions to exceptions. It's which is why it's so important to have the basic principles of it down and then when there are specific instances that you're concerned about, reach out for for for guidance. Right? This is where you know in in
general, right, we should not be using town resources, public resources for advocacy purposes. That's the general rule of thumb. Um there are limited exceptions to that for certain groups of people, but by and large that's the general rule. And so when you, you know,
for example, the state has said the town can set up a website that explains a ballot question. Uh it can't be advocacy, but it can explain the consequences of voting yes, the consequences of voting no. Um it can provide information to voters. It can tell voters when the vote is, and so
forth. They liken that to like posting something on a bulletin board. Um, what we can't do is take the content of that website and send it out unsolicited to the alert Brooklyn listerve for example. Um, because that's utilizing a public resource to affirmatively send something
out like that. Um, so people might not think there's much of a distinction between putting up a website and affirmatively sending out that same material through a different means, but in the eyes of the state, there is a difference. And so that's why I think it's important to have a basic understanding of what is the state trying to prevent here. They're trying
to prevent use of, you know, use of public resources to advocate for for ballot questions one way or the other. And they've said that and and that's that and where that is intention with this question of well, you know, for example, if staff is asked a question by
a committee um then they have to give an answer to that and that has an implication on whether or not a person would vote yes on a ballot question. Does that mean they can't answer that question? And the answer is no. They can't answer that question. Um, they can answer a question that's been asked of them, but they can't on their own
initiative then go out there and say, "Here, here's my position on this." >> David, >> so I I think I just heard you say that staff can take a position. The distinction is whether they utilize public resources in doing so. >> That's right.
>> So, in theory, if you I'm not saying you'll do this. If you wanted to, you could spend a Saturday holding up a sign for one campaign or another and that would be fine. >> I wouldn't do that. Um, of course, terms of an employee, an employee, I mean, Jonathan, you can weigh in on this, right? Um,
>> and I and I and actually this is something that that Paul brought up already and I appreciate him doing so that the first amendment gives you a right to express on your private time your own personal political views. I think critically though, the person, you know, if you go on Saturday and you hold
up a sign, you should not be wearing your uh your uniform. You know, your um you should not be um you know, uh holding up a sign inside the select board's conference room because you have an ID card that lets you get in there
and you're doing, you know, something like that. you you should not be using any public resources including your your your title or the weight of your office, but on your own time you can't. We we absolutely believe that that our staff, our appointed officials are are free to
engage in engage politically. Uh you know, from voting, donating to campaigns, or even like you said, you know, handing out signs, knocking on doors. Um they're allowed to do that on their own time. So I think it's important you pointed out it's Saturday. you know, they couldn't do it during the
workday. >> What qualifies as on your own time? So, you gave the Saturday example, but what about employees who are not a Monday through Friday 9-to-f5 type employee where it's not defined by the hour, but by the responsibility?
>> I'm not aware of many. I think even attorney uh employees whose responsibilities are more like you said sort of defined more are not clocking in and clocking out necessarily, right? there is still sort of conventional work hours they are expected to be available
and you know either on-site or working from home I would say that that would sort of be the right >> for example contractually I work a 40-hour week um in reality I work a little more than 40 hours but that's what I get paid for I get paid to work 40 hours so as long as I am not stealing time from the town for example if I was
you know taking you know going out Friday and and and hitting the streets and handing out flyers when I was supposed to be working and I didn't work a full 40 hour week and I didn't take vacation. That's problematic. You can't do that. Um but as long as you know someone in that position is not stealing
time um and is working the full complement of hours they're supposed to be working. Do do we have employees who are not on a set hours per week? So for example, president of the United States, not a Brooklyn employee, but a president's always on 247. So how does
that work for that type of position? >> For example, firefighters. Well, I mean, fire firefighters do have set schedules. They do work, you know, they they serve tours and their tours are very distinct. And if they take off work, if they take time off, then they are off. Uh if they're not serving a particular tour,
but you know, right, like my job, Melissa's job, you know, some of the department heads, most of the department heads, frankly, um all of us are on call are expected to be doing our job when necessary. And so, in that regard, you really do have to consider right the
principles of this. Don't let the don't let your advocacy interfere with your work. Um, and that's why for me personally, I don't I don't walk up to that line, right? I'm I'm expected to be always on. And so, in the context of the work that I do, yes, I can explain why
the override is what it is, you know, the pros and cons of voting for or against it, but I don't think it's appropriate for me to be out there handing out literature. Um, but that's my personal, you know, >> Paul. >> Yep. So um first this is really a very
helpful exercise. Uh thank you Jonathan for and it's complicated. So I appreciate uh the the subject matter. Um I want to give some examples. So there's going to have to be a lot of education uh for this for people to understand uh
the the override and what it means. Um, there'll be groups, uh, League of Women Voters, uh, Brooklyn Neighborhood Alliance that may actually use this room, which is a town resource, uh, to hold, uh, educational forum. There may be a person speaking for and a person
speaking against. I don't know how they're going to be structured. Um, that one of those people might be from the the expense and revenue study committee, which was an appointed committee. Um, what are the implications? Can So, I'll break it out into three questions. one can uh the League of Women Voters or
other group um use this space public space to hold an event that you know may be for against uh might be uh nonpartisan with respect to the issue. Can they do that? two, can people that
were appointed to the earn uh expense and revenue study committee um be advocates uh to the community or or at that event uh or against it for that matter. Um I guess those would be my two questions.
>> So with respect to the public spaces, the rule is public spaces may be used um for events like that but equal access must be provided. Um so for example um you can uh you can allow the League of
Women Vote uh the League of Women Voters to meet on site. Uh I guess I'll use a more conventional example. The you could allow a group in favor of the ballot questions passage to meet in town hall. But you would also have to ex um allow a
group opposed to the ballot question to use town facilities in the same way. It doesn't mean you have to invite them, but you have to make sure those facilities are available upon request just as you did for the first group. I would um in terms of however of actually
holding a public facing event in town hall, I was not aware that we hold um sort of campaign events in town hall. Um, that is a little more a little trickier a question
because um, >> well, Jonathan, this wouldn't be necessarily a campaign event. Typically, the League of Women Voters, uh, Brooklyn Neighborhood Alliance, and maybe others. These are nonpartisan groups that are putting on forums to educate. They're
candidate forums where there'll be a debate. Um, there'll be warrant article reviews where there's often a pro and, you know, for and against for a warrant article. It is meant for education of the community but there could be people for and against it present speaking
I I believe that would be fine. Um but we would need to be careful that that the town the sort of the the the town wasn't appearing to favor one side or the other in such an event. So any
group that did something like that would need to take a lot of would we'd need to take some care that they were actually being impartial. >> Um and and like you said sort of informational. >> Okay. It I think it's a it is a um
it's a close question. I certainly I as I just said I was not even aware that we that was a practice. Um if it was going to be done for the first time this time around I would I would suggest that perhaps we could help the the league or whoever else find alternative spaces um
if that was an option. Um just because I I do think the name of the game this time around is is sort of being conservative when it comes to >> we've been doing this ever since I've been involved in town govern. >> Exactly. So I think that if there's some confidence that these events are genuinelyformational,
nonpartisan, if we're making the space available, um I think it's probably okay. >> Did you have something like Okay. >> No. >> And then Oh yes, your question about um ERC uh expenditures and revenue study committee. Um the override I believe would be very much within their area, a
member of that committee's area of professional responsibility. Um so I think that one of them could go to such a meeting, speak on the override, take a position publicly on the override. I think that would be fine. Um they should
be careful though not to um allow uh that to extend into endorsement of other things for example particular candidates um because that's outside of their area >> has has the committee disbanded at this
point? Are they still in force? >> Still infor >> is the plan to keep it in force? >> We're we're we're going to meet and have that discussion about what the future of that committee is. um they know the members of the committee want to want to continue on in some form to ensure that their recommendations are followed up on
and so we're going to talk about what form that would take and then bring it back to you as a select board to decide what to do. >> I just from a from a to to make things clean and I don't I'm not suggesting I'm not say advocating for this but I'm suggesting it as an idea that that
committee could be disbanded and reformed as something else in the future to free the members of that committee. um to to you know be able to go into the committee and do what they want without being encumbered by the fact that they're sitting on this committee at
this time. >> Yeah. And I think you know it's and I think as Jonathan said right because this is squarely within their area of expertise their ambit you asked them to opine on this question should there be an override and if so for how much? So they absolutely have, you know, the uh
the right to use that and say, I was appointed by the select board to this committee to do this work. I did this work. My opinion on this is X. Um and in the same way you on the select board can have that that conversation. So I I wouldn't >> but we are elected and not appointed. So
that's the difference. So I'm just trying to make it clean. It's just a suggestion. >> Yeah. So I assume that that does not mean that members of the uh committee um are precluded from supporting candidates as opposed to the override uh in their
personal capacity without using their position on the committee. Um, >> of course, yes, you you're abs you're absolutely allowed to uh support candidates. Um, like I said, knock on doors, hold up signs, donate to their
campaigns, and ultimately vote. >> This is only the first slide. Yes, maybe. >> Yeah, I was gonna say, >> um, okay, actually, if we could go back to the slide because I didn't get to my other two things. Um, so I will fix the mass emails. one. Second one is
fundraising. Fundraising connected to the town is prohibited. Um you can't uh utilize town uh town employees. Town uh public officials of any kind should not be fundraising for anything other than their own campaign. You of course can
fundra for yourself, but you should not be fundraising for other people or the um um and certainly not using town resources to do so. Town facilities, town staff, things like that. And then this last one is what Chaz, you know,
the root of everything um is what Chaz already pointed out. Use of public resources. Public resources can't be used to influence voters. Um you can't use so that includes of course staff time. Um as well as resources that you might not suspect like we were already discussing with say an email list. Okay,
next slide please. Um we will just we've already talked a lot about this one. This is another slide I need to fix because I need to emphasize the public resource uh at the heart of this um this guideline which is that mass emails should be avoided when
they use a town or school's email list. Um, so and this and this, but if you are, you know, and this of but if you are using a school or town list, it doesn't matter if the unsolicited email you're sending is umformational
or objective, nonpartisan. It doesn't matter if you're using a town or school email list. Uh, it is it is a violation of campaign finance law to send out mass unsolicited emails. All right, next slide, please. Again,
political fundraising uh by political by public employees is prohibited as well as in town buildings. Um this the one big exception is you are allowed to fundra for yourself for your own campaign. >> Could you say that again? I didn't hear you. >> Sorry. You uh you political fundraising
by public employees is prohibited by law. The one exception is you are allowed to fundra for yourself or your own campaign of course but you are not allowed to for fundra for anyone else. All right, next one please. Next slide
please. Um again you cannot use uh public resources to influence voters. It does not in this can include staff time. It also include things like the letterhead, the seal, town seal, uh rooms uh within town hall, for example.
There have been uh cases where someone filmed like social media posts, but did so inside a uh like a city council room, something like that. That's considered a public resource. You're using that to kind of influence the voters who are
watching your social media post. Um so all of use of public resources to influence voters is prohibited. So um basically between now and the election we should be uh extra conservative when it comes to asking uh town staff or
using town resources to do um to do anything related to the override um outside of something that's directly within their area of professional responsibility such as you know if uh select men's select uh the town
administrator's office uh looking at looking at questions of the budget uh the town clerk's office actually organizing the election that's within the area of professional responsibility but that's about as far as we should let it go. Next slide please.
Okay so we we're on to permissible actions. uh permissible actions. This is where um it it can vary from what uh elected officials can do and what uh appointed officials and staff
can do. Um like I was saying, appointed officials and employees can only speak about areas within their area of quote professional responsibility. That does not apply to elected officials. Elected officials can speak on whatever issue you all want to. School committee
members do not have to comi confine themselves to only speaking about quote school issues unquote. They're elected. They're expected to take positions on on everything. So they can speak on all of those issues. But being allowed to
communicate about them does not mean does not give you the right to use public resources in doing that communication. So, you are allowed to take a position on the override, but you are not allowed to use a town email list to publish that position. Um, that's the
uh that's the one of the big distinctions between what elected officials can do and what they and what uh non-elected official public officials can do. Elected officials can take a position on anything. >> Okay, next slide, please. Before he goes on, can I ask a quick question? So, um
Jonathan, >> um I'm just I'm as you're speaking, I'm digging into Office of Campaign Finance, um the miracle of technology. Um there's there seems to be a distinction between a uh paid and non-paid
public municipal official. So for example, an appointee uh or even a town meeting member may consider to be although they're elected even advisory member would be who's who's uh appointed as a non-paid
atlarge member of advisory. It seems they would have pride discretion over uh and would not have the same restrictions as say a DPW worker or a police officer or town staff or town council. Is this true?
>> Uh my my understanding is it's it it is true in because there's there's a category of town employees who do not whose area of professional responsibility does not extend to the taking positions on questions on elected matters at all. a DPW worker, uh patrol
officer, a teacher, um those they do not their area of professional responsibility does not extend to taking positions on uh matters that are going to go before the voters. So they should not be taking any position at all. That is my understanding of what that when I
when you read that distinction to me that that's that's what my mind immediately went to. >> So So just and I and this may need further investigation. I just I feel like we're on thin ice with this a lot of this stuff. Um, so an appointed non-paid municipal official is generally
not treated as a public employee for campaign finance restrictions. And this is directly from the office of campaign finance. Um I you know I worry that we are providing guidance that is not um comprehensive enough and perhaps is not
accurate and some people are going to interpret uh your guidance as a restriction um and frankly an impediment to their their uh their first amendment right. I'm I'm very concerned about this. >> Could we take that offline? I mean, we I
don't think we should get into a sort of debate as to the um you know, what what the campaign finance law is about. >> It's all it's all about all the but you know, we can we can spend all night talking. >> Okay. >> We've had a couple things that No, I I
am I' I've been tasked by my by by Joe by our office to be the sort of point person for these issues. And I appreciate, you know, I appreciate both of you what both of you are saying. Paul has given me some things to look into to make sure this is more comprehensive, but I don't need to get into it that much right now.
>> So, I will my concern is you go to the campaign finance website and then get into a back and forth. >> I'm not I'm not suggesting we now >> raising an issue that that that this is now public domain information. It's inaccurate >> and we have to be careful. That's that's
my suggestion. >> Did you have your hand up, Chair? No. >> Oh, okay. Okay. Uh so yes, so as I mentioned earlier, um personal political activity um is is not prohibited by the campaign finance laws. as a private citizen. Um
any public employee uh elected official, appointed official can engage in uh as a private citizen. They can vote. They can attend events um outside of work outside of work hours. They can they can take positions um uh as a private citizen.
There are some things that you need to refrain from. However, um you cannot as a public employee uh use your position to solicit donations from others um for anything other than um
like you said if you're running yourself, but you should not be used political fundraising for anything else. You should have never be trying to solicit donations for any purpose from your subordinates. Um and then this is particularly gerine to what we're doing
right now. Um you can work on override committees any elected officials, appointed officials can work on override committees but they cannot act as their public facing agent or hold
any executive roles. So you can't um be the you know be the person from the yes on question four committee who talks to addresses the town who comes to talk to the select board who um does anything
like that. You can work serve on the committee but you can't run it you can't be on the executive board and you can't fund raise. >> Okay. Um so so two ca two cases that that uh I would like your opinion on. Um the first
case is uh a member of the select board uh writes a letter on behalf of a position for the override. uh and that letter is distributed uh through the mailing list of a of an organization
outside the town. Is the select board member then acting as a public agent and is that not allowed? Uh they are they are not if they if their that distinction is clear if they if they that that group asked the select
board for a letter expressing their political opinion and and they are allowed to then go on and publish that letter >> and and would a a select board member be allowed to do that also for a candidate?
>> Yes, you are. Yes, you are allowed to take positions. Uh like I said, you elected officials can take whatever position they want with respect to the election. Okay. So the um we like I said, public positions on ballot questions are
allowed. Um select board members can take public positions on ballot questions. They can take public positions on anything that's on the ballot. Um, we have, as you may have seen in the memo that Chaz prepared, um, we have generally stated that unless you
are a department head or in some circumstances a division head, um, you fall outside of the notion of this of your your area of personal responsibility does not include taking positions on on the ballot question. So,
um, we would ask that anyone who's not either a department or division head refrain from doing so. Um, and then, uh, if you are even, but even if you are a division head, I would still recommend consulting with, um, with town council's
office before you before you take any public position. Next slide. Okay. So, um, as this all goes back down back to the use of public resources, um, to sort of in to influence voters, um, one thing that,
oh, the Office of Campaign and Political Finance, uh, notes is that, you know, some public resources are going or can and should be used to help interpret the ballot questions, help people understand them, help understand their
ramifications. um this this actually helps voters uh influences them in a positive way simply by giving them more information. So it is though you though the town can has used and will likely continue to use
some public resources in compi compiling and synthesizing information related to the ballot question. Um that's that use of public resources is not barred by the campaign finance laws. um in that work
that those analyses that that they perform that are not a c that are not a campaign finance violation can even be shared. For example, they can be put on the town website. They can be made available as a handout uh at a public meeting. Uh people that came to this
meeting, for example, um could pick up if you had printed out a bunch of handouts about the override, they people could pick them up. Um but the critical thing that you cannot do is we cannot use public resources to then distribute that information in an
unsolicited way. Someone some a private citizen um could take that information and then publish it themselves. Um but the town itself can't be publishing that using its own public resources in an
unsolicited way. Um most the the most one that springs to mind for Brooklyn is using uh the email list it has um it has access to purely because it's the school department or it's the the town. Um so unsolicited distribution is the thing to
avoid here but generally um we are allowed to prepare these types of analysis. So next slide please. As I mentioned before, um the the gen the rule that OCPF often cites with respect to public buildings is that it
is okay to let private groups use them as long as you provide equal access to both sides. Um so so as to ensure fairness and consistency. Um this does not mean that you need to go seek out a group. You know, if you know
a group on one side is using has asked to use a town space, you don't have to find another group. group you don't have to do is on a sort of one on onetoone basis. Um but you do have to make sure that that's there's space available if a group if another group from the other
side wanted to also use town space that that was made available to them. Something similar. Next slide please. So, um, as always, uh, particularly for this override, we're counseling everyone to
be conservative, be cautious. Um, don't do anything on the spur of the moment. Take some time to think, review the town administrator's memo. Uh, and always you can always come and ask us. Um, I do I I do want to I have been getting emails
about the about questions. Um, like I said, we we are already investigating a number of questions that have been raised. Um, it is our responsibility, the town council's office responsibility to try to advise you all uh the best we can
keep doing so. So, please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any question at all. You believe something would be um permissible or a problem under the campaign finance laws. Next slide. Okay. Thank you. >> So yeah, and that's our contact information.
>> Questions from the select board. >> Further questions? >> I just I want to one thank you Jonathan for this. Um and thanks to the board for all these questions. I think what these questions demonstrate is how complex this issue is and how difficult it can be sometimes to reduce it to a series of
maxims. I mean I think Paul, you rais some very good points about the outer bounds of where campaign finance law applies. We're not even going to get into the overlap of campaign finance law and conflict of interest law and all that nonsense. Like it's it can get complex at the margins and what we're trying to do is provide guidance, but
town council's office is not the police, right? They're trying to be helpful. And so I think the most important thing because there is so much interest in the community about this. And so I think what's really important here first and foremost is that if you have questions, Jonathan has very graciously said that he's taking point on this and is trying
to get answers to those questions. You know, my memo is distributed to staff. It relates to what staff can and can't do. It tries to be, you know, as clear and plain language as possible, but it is right. It's intended for paid employees of the town and schools of
Brookline. Um, and so it doesn't apply in situations for you or for the advisory committee. I provide it to you all so that you know that town staff is being informed very clearly of what it is they can and can't do and being told if you have any questions. That's what
town council's office is here for. I think it's in a very similar situation here, which is if you have those questions, if you have those concerns, we will do the research, we will look it up, we will get you an answer. Um, but it is, you know, there there are the simple maxims and then there's the
actual complexity of the law which starts getting more and more granular as it goes on. So, we want to be responsive to the community's desire to have clarity on this, but a lot of the time it's going to be a case by case issue. And you've got to that's where asking really doesn't hurt.
>> Michael, um I'm wondering since this is a number of these questions have been raised in terms of what public members of public bodies can or can't do. Um whether uh uh I don't know if Jonathan would be the right person to do this,
but if we should draft some addition to the public body's handbook to deal with this question specifically. That's a good flag. We'll we'll take a look at what's in there now and we'll follow up on that. Thank you, >> John. >> Well, just a thought to offer on this.
Um, should should we even be trying to tell people how they should interpret the, you know, Office of Campaign Finances, uh, rules for conduct when they can go to the website of the Office for
Campaign Finance and get the question there. And, you know, by acting as a sort of interpreter of it, we're running the risk of we misinterpret it. Um I think uh >> not sure why it has become necessary for
us to intervene in this way when you know anyone at any time >> can seek guidance from the the state office. >> Yeah. If if if this training is limited to what we can do, I think you know your point is addressed. >> Yeah.
>> But uh yeah, I mean we're not everyone's lawyer, >> right? >> Yep. So, >> yeah. So, I guess my um and I'm glad John brought this up. Certainly, Chaz as the as the town administrator who pretty much everybody reports up into has the
authority to say here's the here here's the guidance from me uh as you know as advised by town council for employees of the town. My concern is that this advice is is whether it's intended or not is is
expanding into areas outside of direct employees and and it it potentially has a stifling effect. And frankly, when a lawyer gives you a warning, it can actually slow you down or stop you. Um, and that I I think John saying us
interpreting campaign finance for people outside of direct employees um is is worrisome. And I mean, we've already found a number of mistakes um in this guidance that have to be corrected. It's already in the public realm. And I just I I I'm concerned we're we're
overreaching and having our town council try to provide guidance to the public. Um, and much of these individuals that we appoint or serve in some capacity are the public. Um, and I'm worried that we're going to stifle or they're going to be fearful that whoa, town council
spoke. I I'm not even going to go there. It's not even worth the risk. Um, and and frankly, if you broke campaign finance or you said the wrong thing, similar to what happened with uh with the schools with the Pierce override, which they did find that something
happened that was inappropriate, they said get educated, don't do it again. >> Yeah. So, I like I you know, I I want to make sure that people understand in the public that they're not going to go to jail. Um if they didn't if they made a mistake in interpretation of what town council put out into the public realm,
um you're not you're not going to be put into jail or be fined many thousands of dollars. I don't >> I I guess I'm trying to understand why anyone not, you know, public employee or official would think that this is directed to them.
I I think I don't think I don't think we've set I don't think the boundaries have been set. We don't have clarity on what it means to be an appointed person to advisory or appointed person to um a non-paid position. I think it's unclear.
Um, so, so I I I take your point, John, and your point, Paul, um, about, uh, whether or not the town council should be in the position of, uh, interpreting campaign
finance law for the for the public as a whole. Um, as as you've said, we are not uh we are not providing legal services um, proono broadly. um given given the the three categories that I think we've
we've narrowed down on which are elected officials uh public employees of of some level and uh people who have made appointments. Um, I think that it is
helpful for town council to proactively do the education step that you referred to, Paul, in order to prevent the kinds of things that happened, for example, at the schools and the use of town
resources. So I I mean I just think that we have to balance these two concerns about on the one hand not overreaching um in terms of what our legal council does but also being able to provide education to the relatively limited set
of uh individuals who would be affected by these concerns. Okay, >> good. Okay, thank you Jonathan. >> Thank you guys. Have a good night. Bye. Okay, moving on. Next item. Uh we have a bunch of budget reviews. I think the
first one is the health department. I see that uh there's coming up. Good evening. Thank you, Chair Green, members of the select board. while we while we get the slides up. Here we go.
So, I think what I'll preface uh and I said this to the advisory subcommittee when I presented to them a few weeks ago, um what you'll see in the slides and and what I'm highlighting uh as it relates to grant funding and offsets. Um, I think when I started this a few months ago, I was personally in a little
bit of a panic mode and then as I kind of absorbed it and thought about it, it listen, we're in a great place. Having grants, having offsets to allow us to do the work that we do in public health is wonderful. Uh it's it's more I I bring it up tonight more as part of this discussion
to um just to get us all thinking about what what the future holds for public health and human services because we have over a half a million from one grant with mass DPH another 100,000 from another grant doing tobacco control and we're using about a half a million dollars in offsets for staffing and other supply
needs. So um good position for us to be in. I think it's something that that uh Sigal Reese brought up in in years past. Um, okay, here we go. So, really quickly, because I know we've only got a few minutes. So, this
is in the budget book. This is just a a quick look at our FY27 budget. There's a little over 113,000 reduction on the operating budget. However, 72,000 is one staff person, one FTE being moved from the operating budget onto the opioid offsets. So, we're not losing a staff
person there. We're just shifting where that money is is being paid from. There is a cut, a reduction of uh proposed reduction of 50,000 uh for the Brookline uh bounties food coupon program which I'm happy to talk about later. This is a quick look at our current staffing. We
have 26.5 26.48 FTEES in total. And you'll see as you look from 25 to 26 and 27, there have been more staff added uh to the um non-operating budget. So that's grants and and the opioid offsets that I spoke
about earlier. But I think this is probably the more interesting piece that you you all want to talk about and want to hear from for me which is what are our accomplishments? What are our goals for next year and for future years? So so I tried to frame everything around the chip. We've had a lot of conversations
I've had a lot of conversations with all of you about our community health improvement plan. So really focused on the year one action plan this past year. We launched our be well coalition which is our substance use prevention coalition. We have had three meetings every other month for the past six
months with that coalition. There've been about 40 or 50 members of the community and staff that have been part of those conversations and we're really getting to the point where we are going to start doing some implementation work with that coalition. Really excited about that work. We obviously uh this year expanded human services. We hired a
resource navigator. We launched CARES Brookline which is the uh human services resource database and referral system. We have our Brookline Bounty program that has for the past several years through ARPA uh and other grants served approximately 800 families each year
with food coupons for the farmers market. And in addition, when we've had the funding and through some fundraising from the friends of Brooklyn Public Health, we've provided turkeys and chickens and and um other other food during Thanksgiving and winter holidays to families in need. And then it wasn't
in the chip, but I think it's important to mention uh among many other things that our staff do, we do provide uh flu clinics each year to residents and and this past year it was about 700 residents that received flu vaccine from our staff. So, really quickly, Emily Williams said
pictures are good, so I'm including a couple pictures here. I I I promise you all I will not quit my day job and get into graphic design. I think uh Christina, if she's watching at home, is probably sobbing. Uh but I just wanted to share a little bit about uh the the wonderful staff we have. Right. This work does not happen without the uh the
staff we have in public health and human services. This is more of our staff. Brookline day vaccine clinics. Uh the diaper drive that community health did the the Brooklyn bounty program and on. So what are our goals for FY27 and
beyond? Uh obviously for this year it'll be the action the year 2 action plan with CHIP. We're I'll admit we're a little bit behind schedule. I'm going to blame the transition and leadership there on that. Um but we are uh preparing to launch the priority area working groups. So there
are four priority areas. We will have residents and staff in each of those uh priority areas in working groups helping to develop that year 2 action plan and making sure that we're we're staying on track. I expect we'll see more or an expansion of the work of the human services resource navigator. You'll
remember we have the office of housing stability. Um this position is supposed to be doing that work. Um this past year in town meeting there was the renters's handbook that was passed. This position will be taking on the responsibility of starting to to develop that material.
And I want to continue to improve the operations in our environmental health team. We have a wonderful staff doing inspections. they they're responsible for both housing and food. Uh there's a tremendous workload there, but I think there's opportunities for for improving operations so that we can respond better to the residents of Brooklyn. In the
midterm, uh looking more at implementing a robust public health regulatory framework. I think one of my past predecessors was um more comfortable with passing public health regulations. It's not something I want to do frequently, but I think what we've seen from town meeting over the past, you
know, 5 10 years is uh a demand for public health to do more. And I think we can do that through the uh the authority of the the commissioner of public health. Um so looking to do some more of that around um banning new substances. There's substances like synthetic
cannabonoids keep coming up. They come up with new configurations of cannabonoids. uh we can regulate those through the public health department and and stop uh allowing those to be sold in our community. Uh keeping of animals uh I think town meeting a couple years ago I had a warn article on keeping of bees.
So that's the type of work I'd like to do through the regulatory and and uh regulatory work that I'd like to do and I want to continue to review our our operations and make improvements in in key areas. I think there's a lot of great work happening. I think we can always do better. uh and I want to work
we we just hired a assistant director for operations and uh that's Tanya Hong her responsibility is really to go division by division and department by department that we work with and talk about how do we improve communications how do we develop SOPs as staff leave a
lot of information leaves with them and we want to prevent that from happening in the future and then long-term uh just wanted to flag as I mentioned earlier that um through a combination of of town funds where they're available but also So we'll continue to be applying for grants wanting to continue to sustain
our current FDA FTEEs where possible. So we have staff in community health, human services, substance use prevention, and our regional collaboratives that are all on offsets and grant money. >> And then lastly, uh if budget limitations did not exist, right, um my
uh our emergency preparedness coordinator is currently on soft money. Uh she's doing tremendous work for this town. She helps run the flu clinics with our medical reserve corps. uh she does some work during the marathon. Um she just always out there in the community
educating seniors on on what they can do to prepare for emergencies. So would love to keep that position and move that to the operating budget when and if possible. And I know these are difficult times. Uh but this is just flagging it for the future. Um improving our grant writing coordination. We're doing a lot of great work on grant writing to
continue to bring in uh grants from outside. I think we could do a better job as a town on on coordination and support there. want to continue to expand social supports where we can. I think our council on aging is working on transportation that was in the community health improvement plan. Continue to expand where we can food and essential
support services and developing new programs for families and teens. And and as I've said a couple times now, just always being mindful and preparing for that future transition of staff from expiring grants and offsets to new grants and and operating budget where it makes sense.
>> And then I had to mention next week's National Public Health Week. We got a lot of great events and with that I will uh take any questions you have. >> Great. Thank you. Any questions John? >> Um thanks very much and um you know if if people haven't sort of figured this out from your presentation we have a
really robust public health department and it's it's really great to know and tremendous depth of professionals in the department. Um I am going to raise this issue of uh I'm I'm going to guess based on your presentation that the health
department might in fact be um uh when you rank all the departments by the amount of their budget that is soft money so-called u you know grants etc. Um maybe the health department will come out number one. Would you would you guess maybe that's true?
>> I would say we're up there. I haven't looked at a lot of the other budgets but it's it's over a million dollars in soft money. >> Yeah. A a and um- which leads to my question because um for very good reasons. You know, you have described, you know, one of the goals as being to
be able to continue by sometimes incorporating into the operating budget positions that have been on soft money. But, you know, we we're going through this exercise right now where we're facing a sizable override uh that the
voters will vote on uh very soon. And um the general message that comes through the work of the expenses and revenues committee and u when you look at all of the causes of our our needing this override funding um the message comes
through that we don't really have much room for additions of personnel to our budgets. Just having the same number of people on our budgets from one year to the next is is something we're having a hard time sustaining without going to overrides. So, is it realistic to be
talking about and I I know these are really important public health um functions, but is it realistic to be talking about maybe growth of the department through additions to the operating budget from transitions, you know, from soft money to operating
budget money? We do we really have room to do that? >> I think that's a difficult conversation that needs to be continued to be had, right? I I don't expect that this is the year that that's going to happen. Uh there's right now only 194,000 in grant funding that we're
losing in in FY27. Um and there's only one staff person that was on that grant and we have additional funding to keep that person for now. >> Uh this is more of a longer term having that conversation. I mean if you look back at FY23, 20 staff were on operating and now it's it's uh
>> down to 12, right? So we've lost eight FTEEs off the operating budget. So I get that this is challenging. I just want I felt like it was my responsibility to flag this for everyone that it's great. I you know I wish one of the biggest projects we have uh from grant funding
is the regional collaborative and that's with Arlington Belmont and Newton in Brooklyn. And so we have five staff on there plus a a part-time that we actually pay out through our consultant line because they work for Belmont. So we have a public health nurse, an epidemiologist, two inspectors, a regional manager, and I'm probably
forgetting someone. So, so they're they're providing a wealth of service to all four communities right now. It would have been ideal for Mass DPH when they offered that grant to say to all four communities, you need to be prepared in five years that this funding may or may not be here and you you've got to decide
whether you want to continue. >> Yeah. >> So, what I can say is for FY27, that grant is fully funded. For FY28, that will be the first year that the federal government is not contributing half of those dollars. So it remains to be seen what that regional collaborative and the
regional collaboratives across the state. I think close to threequarters of of cities and towns are in regional collaboratives how that's what that's going to look like. Um >> and if I may just one quick followup because you mentioned that uh 20 U FTEEs
a few years back 12 today. Is that mainly like that there was the COVID period when a lot of money flowed in and positions were added? Is that related to that or? >> Uh, no. In fact, um, we, you know, I think the town was pretty smart when when the arbor dollars came in. I think
only one position was added. Um, the rest were, >> you know, the transition has been using opioid settlement funds. We were using HCA funds. I don't think that maybe is perfectly documented here, but we were using HCA funds for certain substance use prevention positions. We've now transitioned them over to opioid
settlement funds. They had previously been on a federal grant. So, this is sort of this is public health and I get it, right? We're always trying to be competitive and get grants. The, >> you know, and you're all very well aware of this, the support from the federal government right now is not what it was a few years ago, especially as it
relates to public health. So, that's one of the challenges is it's going to get harder for us to find grants to continue to support these positions. >> So, you know, I think collectively we'll have to face that. I just figured it was time to start having that conversation with you all in in town meeting. Thanks,
>> Michael. >> Um, thank you very much. uh for your presentation. Uh just three quick questions. Um actually just two because John already asked one. Um how much uh you talked about your grant
writing work and uh uh how you were looking to enhance it um in I think your midterm. And I'm wondering how much of that grant writing work uh requires specific knowledge within the public health field um as opposed to grant
writing work that could be handled more generally. >> Yeah, that's a great question. I think um we've got some staff members, you know, I think it varies year to year as staff transition in and out. Some of them are very skilled at it and come in prepared and others u not as much and
need more support. Um, I'd probably say it's 75% specific public health knowledge and 25% is kind of just understanding where to look for grants, how to how to apply for them, the the type of language you need to use. We are going to be doing a training for uh a
number of staff in the regional collaborative including Brookline staff on grant writing uh as a way to try to support that internally. Uh, and we do sometimes use contracted services. Um, for some of the bigger grants, there are some successful uh, consultants out
there who who do these for a living and so sometimes we do hire them to support some of that work, but I'd say it's about 7525. >> Okay. And my second question isn't specific to grant writing, but your operations more generally um, though it might apply to grant writing is, uh, how have you thought about the use of
artificial intelligence to improve the efficiency of your operations? >> Uh, I've thought a lot about it. I I I think um it's early days, but I think it's it's something we need to be considering. And and I will just say that I'm a a pilot tester of some of the AI software that the town is is trying
out right now. Um so it's too early to say, but I I think there's definitely a lot of opportunity for AI. You know, I think a lot of the questions that come in from residents are things that probably exist on the website, but the search engine doesn't do a sufficient job of pulling up the exact response. And so I think and I'm not suggesting
that AI would be answering our phones and and I don't think residents would be happy to talk to a computer. I think they'd rather talk to our staff. But it may be that our staff can find the answers quicker with support of AI. Um we've got a lot of documentation I think about, you know, our community health improvement plan is a long document and
AI can comb through that really quickly and find answers. And just quickly, um, I'm curious, at one point, and this predates your tenure, there was a chip steering committee, and I'm just wondering if if that's still engaged in the planning and work of the chip.
>> Yeah, that that it still exists. The same members are still part of it. We have not met since June of last year. That will be part of this spring's work uh as we get ready for year two action planning is to bring the steering committee back. And then we still need to appoint working group members. So the steering committee is kind of leadership
team. They meet quarterly. the working group is supposed to be meeting on a monthly basis. So the what I can say is staff are meeting on Friday to begin that planning work. Um the year one was handled by an outside consultant so we're taking this on uh and so this is a little new for us but we I feel like
staff are prepared. >> Great. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Uh David have a follow-up question on the AI. Okay. So, you mentioned you wouldn't want AI to be replacing uh people answering the phone, but that you would look to utilize it in order to
locate certain items on the website. Uh do you do you envision any other uses for AI within your department? I want to be careful not to speculate too much, but I you know I think um I was at a a training uh the DPW commissioner had had
shared with us uh a little over a year ago and it was it was somebody who's on a on a commission and you know one of the things they talked about is its ability to look at images really quickly and identify items in there. So I you know this is pie in the sky. Don't, you
know, don't quote me or or force us to do this, but like sidewalks when there's snowstorms. You could put cameras on all the vehicles that are driving around town. They could identify sidewalks that haven't been shoveled, and you wouldn't need staff to go out and then those staff could focus on inspections where they're supposed to
be instead of sidewalk enforcement. So, I think that's the type of potential, but there's going to be an investment. And I think there's also some concerns probably from residents about cameras picking up their images while those vehicles are driving around town. So I think that's an opportunity. I think,
you know, getting to knowledge quicker. You know, I spend a lot of time reading that chip and I'm very familiar with it, but I still, you know, when I look at like select board goals and objectives on a yearly basis and I'm trying to line it up with the chip, it takes a while. Uh, and so I think their AI can look at both documents and say here's where you need to look and here's where they align
and here's where they don't. Um, so I think I do think there's a lot of opportunity. I think it's it's early days and it we need to be really thoughtful about the implementation. >> So so the broader idea would be to make employee time more efficient. >> Yes. Yeah. And then I think you know I
think about you know and I want to be mindful of of open meeting law and if I'm going down the wrong road you guys correct me. We had somebody at open mic talking about rodents tonight. Um, you know, if if our inspectors if we can take a task off of our inspector's desk or make it maybe faster for them to get
through an inspection, then we can respond to complaints faster. I mean, they they are swamped between food inspections, housing inspections. We have to respond to housing inspections by statute in a certain amount of time. So, then we're putting off food inspections. We always have to respond to housing inspections. I think I don't
I'm not going to give a date, but it's it's very quickly you have to get back on the housing inspections. and certain ones are emergencies that need to be responded to within 12 to 24 hours. And so where you can take certain tasks off their desk and make them, you know, make it more efficient, then they can focus more on some of their primary responsibilities.
>> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Good. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I think you're going to stay up there for the next item. >> I I am I will say I'll admit I uh I only have one slide. >> Okay. >> Um and Bill sends his best. Um he's
still working part-time. We are in the midst of of hiring for his replacement. The job has been posted. Um but in the meantime, he is still working for the town one day a week to make sure that we're providing services to veterans in need. >> So, uh he tried to log in. He said he had some issues. Um his budget hasn't
changed much from last year. >> Is the message here it's Christmas every day in the veterans department? Is that >> I I I think it's more that veteran services is a a deeply beloved part of the public health and human services team.
>> Absolutely. >> Any other questions on the Veterans Affairs Department? >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thank you all. >> Next, Council on Aging. >> Emily is online.
>> Thank you, John. >> Hi everyone. Good evening. How are you? >> Great. >> We're good. How about you? >> I'm fantastic. I'm sorry I'm not there in person. I have a little one who was very nervous about the MCCast today. So, he did really well though. I'm very proud of him.
>> All right. >> Um, let me just share my screen. I have a presentation. Um, Melanie, I I'll be sharing my screen, I believe. Right. Yep. >> Yeah,
>> we can see it. >> Looks looks good. >> Okay. >> Uh, hi everyone. My name is Emily Williams. I am just one year in to uh my tenure at the Brooklyn Council on Aging and Senior Center. And every presentation I give, I have to start out
with the mission because it's as the first council on aging. Sorry, Jim. We're the first council on aging. 1955 we were founded. Um it's a very important way to be able to share the history to the public. Um we're uh twofold. We have a senior center which
is one of the uh beautiful town buildings and it's the gathering place specifically dedicated to enriching the experience for Brooklyn older adults age 6 plus as well as their caregivers. I will say we're seeing definitely an uptick in the uh adult children giving us a call, worried about mom or dad um
and their well-being and emotional um overall health. Our mission uh at the Brooklyn Senior Center is to provide social services that that allow people to remain independent. Our goal is helping people maintain this independence so that they continue to be
active members of their community. And we believe that enhancing growth and a sense of belonging is inc while encouraging individual contribution and the sharing of life experiences is vital to remaining as a part of uh the community. The senior center welcomes
all. We're very um culturally diverse group not only uh with our participants volunteers but also the staff. Everyone who enters our doors, regardless of age, income, disability, ethnicity, or religious background, is very welcome. And lastly, we recognize the efforts of
all of our program collab collaborate collaborators, and we are extremely grateful for their support. um our FY27 budget summary which was um not a dramatic change. This is not a a a change in um finances for us on the town
budget. It is for the federal budget. Um but we do have our our salaries. You can see year-over-year. Uh most recently um just a small less than 1% increase in our salaries. services, supplies remain
stable and our utilities did increase by 5%. Which reflects overall 1% increase in our total budget and that 1% increase is from our new HVAC replacement. We're all electric
very soon will be 100% complete with the the process. Um they replaced the entire system and the provider that's been doing the work has been very respectful of the participants. I will say and not disrupting any service to our operations.
Uh this year are our three priorities. You can see on the left we have a brand new town logo. We also have uh which we're in the process of redesating the town of Brooklyn to be an age friendly community. But overall our priorities this year will be health and safety,
equity and aging in the community. And then it's really I should have separated the the the third uh priority into two to to list it as sustainable infrastructure and innovation. Uh we've done quite a few uh
different things this year to reflect innovation. That includes creating a new database for folks to check in. It's called my senior center. Um now you'll see when you walk in the front doors a little kiosk um where you can enter in your information if you like. It's opt
in. You don't have to and you can pick and choose where you're going, what program you'll be in attendance to, and then we'll be able to really put concrete data to the usage of the senior center building as well as our programs and services.
um this year. Um it it's kind of funny because we've seen an expansion in our programs and um utilization of our services uh with a pretty stable budget. So it's reflective in our infrastructure. You
can see here we have 31 uh staff which served just over 3,000 unduplicated older adult residents. There's over 13,000 as we know, 20% uh who live in town age 60 plus. One thing that I'm very proud of, more proud than you can
even imagine, um there's 42,000 hours, which is equivalent to 20 full-time employees. That is 370 volunteers, which equates to $1.3 million, which is the our town general fund budget. And my first year,
what I've done is I've tried to determine really what the true core service need is >> and try to reflect that into the true core service budget. and we cannot do what we do at all without our volunteers. Um, next month we're
celebrating uh volunteer appreciation month. Uh John, thank you for coming to say a few words, but everyone is very welcome to be able to see who these people are, all ages, um that are, you know, meeting the needs of people who walk in and are looking for services and
supports or who just want to uh a very affordable cup of coffee, but also to really have that social connection because we're the hub of all things older adult in town. Um our senior center is 20,000 square feet. It's really
not appropriate to meet the needs right now of a growing population. Every day we're busting at the seams. On average, we have about 15 programs to be able to address food, nutrition, socialization, mental, physical, and um uh in-person
wellness, but also what we're doing is we're trying to explore more hybrid programming. But one thing we're noticing is that the the older adults really prefer to be in person. Um, other ways we've expanded. We've sustained growth
with a huge thanks, huge shout out to our Brooklyn Senior Center Foundation. They fund um just 10% of our overall budget. Um the the town funds 70% 20% are through external sources, special
revenue funds, state earmarks, grants that we apply to internally. Um as well as uh of course we all know about the ARPA cliff. Um, so those numbers will be changing in the next fiscal year, but the Brookline Senior Center Foundation funds every single program that we offer
at the senior center as well as staff positions. For example, one of our band drivers is funded through them as well as our fitness center coordinator. Um, and we're hiring for that position right now. Quick side note, uh, we've had 20%
of our staff either retire or resign due to different reasons. um one individual left the country unfortunately because of the current federal situations that we're faced with. So I've never actually seen such a dramatic change in uh leadership in an organ organization. But
knock on wood, we've filled almost all those positions as well as hired um internally. We promoted someone to be our our new supervisor of uh clinical social work services to continue on programs and communications. We're very proud. Um I
think Brookline in general is very proud to to to be an aging community. Uh we've seen some fantastic folks really step up to the plate to advocate for the future existing as well as the future needs of aging in Brooklyn. Um, and that's not just being a community advocate. It's
attending our programs to be able to take care of themselves as well as as well as their communities in our solo and wise aging classes, our fitness classes, and of course, lifelong learning. Um, one thing that I'm really proud of, um, John, thank you for
throwing in all those pictures. We have a new electric vehicle that we'll be piloting with the senior center, excuse me, the teen center to be able to provide intergenerational and interdep departmental uh transportation again to meet the needs of the growing community.
And then we're always expanding townwide initiatives interdep departmentally as well as with uh local nonprofits in town. Our top three accomplishments, we've strengthened health and safety net programming. Um again, we've met an increased demand in our health caregiver
and social service supports and we're trying to advance and really trying to modernize the future needs. Um population growth brings technology and we're slowly but surely uh embracing that just to try to embrace this baby
boomer ch population who uses their their smartphones for many different purposes. Um, and it all of this is to help folks remain safe and independent. Um, the second uh accomplishment we've done is to expand the equity and community connections in town where
we've done really inclusive programming. Um, in November, I think everyone remembers the snap cuts and where everybody had to remobilize and pivot on how to respond um effectively and creatively to meet the needs. And now we
have a a monthly uh group with uh other town departments and other nonprofits in town to be able to meet that need for essential services like food. Um we've also done as I mentioned a lot of hybrid engagement opportunities to reduce the social
isolation that we see on a daily basis. And lastly, our top three accomplishments advancing transportation and an age friendly progress. So we've sustained key access to limited transportation services. We've had to um put together some uh new restraints to
our current transportation model for uh the medical to meet the medical needs of older adults where we have uh limited ride trips on a monthly basis and now our model is an incomerestricted model and the goal of that is to be able to sustain the existing funding that we
have to fund that program. We've also done great work on initiating the age friendly redesignation with AAP which is a process that's done every three years. Um and as the age friendly cities committee is a subcommittee of the select board. We look forward to what
that looks like. >> Jillian time is up. >> It's Emily. >> I'm sorry Emily. I'm looking at my list. Emily, your time's up. Sorry. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So why don't you just wrap up quickly?
Well, um I just want to highlight this. It's growth. I know this is in everyone's um handouts. Every single department uh division within the COA has increased growth and now we have data to put uh numbers behind that. I already mentioned the innovation and the
modernization of the senior center and okay, I invite everyone to our 25th anniversary April 30th. It's going to be a really good time. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Questions from the select board. John,
>> Emily, um, great to see you. Uh, I I am privileged, I will say, to serve um, as the select boards representative to the council on aging, uh, which meets monthly at the senior center. And uh for those who you know may may not be aware
of the recent history uh some of which Emily recited uh the prior director was um so legendary um in her contributions to uh the community of of senior citizens in Brooklyn. Um Ruthanne
Dobeck. uh when she retired uh people kind of agonized um how are we ever going to find a suitable successor to Ruth Anne and uh we we are blessed that uh we found Emily and Emily found us. Uh
and I don't say that just to flatter someone. I think you anyone who listened to this 10-minute presentation has to have been very impressed with the um breath of knowledge, the energy, the commitment, uh the the innovative spirit
that she has brought to the the the department and uh uh it's it's a it's a real u blessing to the town. Uh not not just to the the aging population in the town. um that that we have a really
strong basis of services for our very very significant uh aging population. I include myself in that of course. Uh and it takes a person who is extremely caring uh about uh
people at all stages in life to sort of figure out u all of the special needs of the the unique needs of people, you know, in in their later years in life. And Emily, thank you very much for what you brought to um Brookline and I'm
looking forward to seeing it continue. >> Thanks. I appreciate that. >> Uh yes, thank you Emily for a very thorough uh and uh helpful report. Um I'm wondering if you could just speak for one moment to any of the
intergenerational work um that the senior center uh is championing. Um, I'm familiar with the with the uh teen center, senior center shuttle, but I'm just wondering if there's uh if you have any thoughts about uh expansion of
intergenerational connections. >> Well, having just been for the first time to the Brooklyn Arts Center last week, what a what a gem that is. We uh recently received a state earmark uh from Tommy Pollo to do some intergenerational arts. Um, creative
arts therapy reduces isolation and loneliness and really addresses the mental health needs that we have in our community. Sometimes they're not talked about enough in my opinion. But that's one example of a way to bridge two communities, the old and the young, and to be able to almost have that ven
diagram to see where their needs and their um hobbies and their um relativities to one another um can can m be matched. And then again putting data to that for sustainability and future programming. It's just magical when you
get an older adult and a younger person together. Um we have the um shop grocery shopping program, the shop program which started uh in the late 80s with the high school. Um, and on our website we have, and I just watched it today, is a really
heartwarming video of some high school students grocery shopping for a woman who couldn't grocery shop any longer and how it's it's not so much about the food, but it's about the friendship that develops. Um, those are just two examples of ways to get um to bridge the
community really across the lifespan. >> And there could be more. >> Thank you, David. Regarding expansion, I'm wondering if there is any thought toward uh having wheelchair accessible
vehicles to take seniors to and from appointments. Uh I know there's some interest in that. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. Our current um contracted service with uh a local taxi company does not have wheelchair accessible vehicles as part of their
fleet, but we hope to use for medical transportation um enhanced outreach and education to the ride. It's not the ride that we're used to even just 10 years ago. Um but what they've um been able to expand their services to provide microtransit.
It's called the Flex program and it's really a great way to for seniors who use their smartphones or to call us to be able to access um a a subsidized town subsidized service for folks in wheelchairs and if they have their
personal care attendant or loved one to go with them. It's always a nice um opportunity to get people to and from their doctor's appointment. But all of our vans um which are aging I will point out are wheelchair accessible including
our new electric vehicle. >> So one thing that um I I find fascinating is the number of social workers you have on staff five um plus uh part-time social worker funded with grants. Could you uh just give people a
sense of you know what what what your social work um group uh does for elderly people particular workers but also the uh other uh individuals who provide supportive help
to uh to people like home care workers and and others. >> Absolutely. We currently employ five clinical social workers and we just filled our last position with our our intern from Boston College. She's amazing. She'll be joining us full-time
soon as she graduates. Um it's been a trend actually. I will say folks um in the social work profession start with us as interns, enjoy it so much because of the plethora of ex of uh exposure to services and a variety of older adults
needs that they can address. Um, one thing I am very uh conscious of is to make sure that folks don't burn out as the crisis interventions increase. Um, we're relaunching the inter agency meetings um with our public health
department as well as police, fire, and uh the Brooklyn um mental health uh Brooklyn community for mental health. There's really we need to address social isolation in general, but what we're seeing is um the depression increase as
well as pretty severe mental health um concerns, hoarding um infestations and public housing as well as in private housing. Um, and what we're doing with our our clinical team is to address those needs really at the
at the social work intervention level, which we don't go in to someone's home in a uniform. We don't go looking to section someone. We go to support the individual based on their needs and really meet them where they're at. And that's one fantastic trait of a social
work uh uh employee. We also have a great um uh volunteer team. We have the tax workoff program in Brooklyn which we employ uh over 30 residents age 60 plus who are homeowners and what that does is able to match them into a town
department to be able to supplement um additional employee needs and that's been incredibly successful not just at the council on aging but the library uh town hall the assessor's office and it really helps the older adult be able to work off their taxes. Um, we also are
addressing caregiver stress with our our staff. So, we have a plethora of resources in our toolkit. to be able to, you know, have at the ready, not just online, but when we have our walk-ins at the senior center, to be able to address those needs immediately, to have the
answer for somebody is is is vital to their well-being because our goal is to empower everyone to be able to go back to their homes, to go back to their family to say, "This is what I recommend kind of thing." And that our case loads of each social worker as as well as
existing staff can range between 20 to 40 clients per person. Um which is is really um increasing and high. I was looking at the history of the senior center and you know we were able to grow this uh division within the council on
aging from a halftime position up to five position but it you know it took over 40 years to be able to get there and it's uh still with a 20% population in town. Um we also have wonderful
transportation coordinators. We have two part-time um assistants as well as a full-time transportation coordinator and um almost all of those positions are funded by special revenues um as well as the Brooklyn uh senior center
foundation. So, one of my goals in the long term is to be able to bring the coordinator to the town budget 100% because of that transportation need. Um and then there's Jamie who does incredible programming. Her and her team
offer programming not just at the senior center as I mentioned 15 programs daily. We also have a daily lunch program. We also have um bi-weekly trips and uh what we've done in the most recent is to go down to the Butterham Library to meet the the needs of the South Brookine
residents who we hear on a daily that they are um just not coming up to Koolage Corner because they can't find parking for more than two hours >> or our van they just choose not to to use our van or they're not accessible
via bike or Uber and Lift. So um what I'll be doing this fiscal year is to looking at the data that we are taking in to be able to address the true need um based on that data for expanding services. We can't go backwards. We have
to go forwards. >> Okay. Thank you Emily. >> Very very good. >> Thanks. >> Okay. Next, uh, we have the library and our new director, Jill Mccurio. >> Hi. Good evening,
All right. Good evening. It's so nice to be here in person to meet all of you. Uh I started about two months ago and I have to say I've learned so much about how Brookline relies on their library. I'm excited to walk you through our
budget presentation and also to share the impact that we have on community life. So let me just start my slideshow. And these were in your packet as well. So, here we go. I like to say the best
way to support a public library is to use it. So, that is something that uh Brooklyn residents do enthusiastically. Uh last year we welcomed about a half a million visitors to the public library. That's up 4% just about from the prior
year. and our circulation combining our physical and digital borrowing. Uh we're seeing that come in around 1.1 million items borrowed annually and our digital borrowing just continues to grow. We
hosted 1,200 programs roughly last year attended by 30,000 residents. And the most important thing to keep in mind is the library is open seven days a week um and year round. and we have about 175
hours public service hours available throughout all of our locations. This level activity would not be possible without our dedicated team. So they uh the team of about 55.66 FTEEs to be
precise, they've expanded partnerships, they champion access to information, and they've promoted community connection inclusion throughout all of their activities this year. So the first action item that we worked on this year was an art walk through
college corner. So we took the library outside of its library walls and brought art and community together at the Brooklyn Art Festival. The staff organized a self-guided uh art walk through Coolage creating a passport uh that guided residents through galleries
and studios along the route. Uh it was such a success that this morning the staff met to figure out how they could participate this year again in the Brooklyn Art Festival. We also surveyed residents and heard from about 200 folks who were interested in coming to afterhour programming. Uh we hosted four
different events trying to appeal to all ages. So we had movie screenings, some trivia, there was a Taylor Swift music party and I think our most successful one is the pictures on the screen. We had 50 uh residents come out uh to
decorate boxes. The kiddos um made them look like drive-in cars and they parked it in Henman Hall and watched family movies together. Um we also promoted our digital resources. So the digital resources are a huge component of our
collection budget. Um, and our digital circulation went up 30% uh or I'm sorry, it went up 8% this year through some of the tactics that we did in this action item. We know that um people really want to take advantage of our services for
ebooks and e audiobooks through Canopy and um through Libby, but I think that there's a lot of other digital resources that will be exciting to residents and they just need to know about them. So, this action item took um our staff and
made tutorials, did uh training at the housing authority and the senior center to try to help people understand how to get better use out of these tools. So, we have services like Knos that gives you free access to music. Uh there's learning platforms like Mango Languages
that you can learn a new language. Creative Bug has uh tutorials on different craft projects, but I think one of the most special ones that we have is um Press Reader, which is a tool that kind of helps you get behind the payw wall. So, you can read free
articles from the New York Times, Boston Globe, USA Today, and and popular magazines and newspapers from around the globe. And we saw that Brooklyn borrowed 43% more articles in the last year by
using this service. The last um part on this slide is our library of things collection and that is a really special unique collection that draws upon the idea that to access knowledge it's not going to fit in one book or one
database. uh you need to sometimes put your hands on an object so you can teach yourself a new skill or learn to fix something in your home or maybe to bond with a friend or family member. So this collection we did some work to analyze the usage, try to figure out how to best
take care of the collection and uh I'm happy to say in 2025 the library things collection circulated 20,000 times. So, these popular items include the Chromebooks, games, gadgets like in induction cooktops, and we have a pretty
impressive library of tools at the Koolage CL um corner location. The library is wrapping up its five-year strategic plan, which is guided by four pillars that reflect our commitment to education, equity, partnerships, and
access. So, we support lifelong learning. We partner with organizations to help expand the reach of the library. And we believe the library is for everyone. So, it's our responsibility to build a collection, have programs and services that reflect the diversity of
our community, their interests and information needs. And we also want to help residents continue to use the library whether they're on the go or from the comfort of their own home. So, what's on the horizon for the library in the next year? Well, we do need to rebuild the team. Um, I have a learning
curve to get to know Brookline and to find out what we're doing well and ways we can expand our services, but we also have uh had a lot of turnover in our team. I'm happy to say that we're now at a more stable part in our staffing. Uh,
in the last year, we hired eight full-time positions and 17 part-time positions. >> Uh, but threequarters of that uh full-time positions were internal promotions. So retention is strong and we're working together to learn how to
work as a a healthy team together. There's a new strategic plan on the horizon. I hope that you'll all participate in it later this fall so we can find out how we can shape the best library going forward. And then sharing everything that we do so all residents
know what they can access. I'm looking forward to having a monthly newsletter and finding other tools to help the community know what they can access and take advantage of for free through the public library. Um, and then let's see, we've got
a couple facts about library budgets just before we go into our numbers. Uh, the library budgets a little unique. We are guided by certain uh statutory regulations in Massachusetts where we have to meet different funding requirements and provide a set number of
services so we are eligible for certification that allows Brooklyn residents to borrow materials throughout the minute network but also the Commonwealth and to make sure that we're eligible for state aid that further expands our ability to improve library services outside of the municipal
budget. Uh so we need to uh follow a funding threshold uh formula. That's the municipal appropriation requirement. We need to make sure our collections are funded at a certain level of our budget. Uh and then we have to have a set number of services. We have to be open to the
public for a variety of hours um and have a a variety of program opportunities. Um so that's important for us to maintain certification for the community. So, as we dive into our library budget, our budget proposal this year is for $4,778,400.
Um, we're seeing utility costs rise just like all of my other departments that you've heard from. Uh, our our ser our capital expenses are going up for leased equipment and supplies are going up. Um, so our budget, while it increases by 1%
this year, it is offset by a decrease to our part-time staffing law. >> Um, and that's something that we're going to be looking at our vacancies really carefully because we want to maintain our staff. We want to be able to maintain our core services. Uh, in a
perfect world, we'd be able to have more staff because they're directly tied to all the programs and services that we're able to offer the community. Um, but we we do know that this is a difficult financial time. Uh, so we'll be strategic about looking at that and we want to make sure that the Brooklyn
community still has um the library that they expect and deserve. Uh, so through our talented staff and through our community partnerships, the public library brings the community together. They champion access to information and
this budget will allow us to continue to provide the wonderful library services that the community has been relying on. Uh so thank you for your attention uh and supporting the library. I welcome any questions you have about our services or our budget proposal.
>> Great. Thank you. >> Oh. >> All right. Thank you. Um and welcome. >> Thank you so much. >> We're glad to have you. I'm glad to be here. >> My family frequents the library. They love it, my kids. Um, >> so you mentioned that there was a 4% uh
increase in visitors last year verse, I guess, year-over-year. Yeah. >> Um, how are we doing on um hours? Are we are hours the same? Are they decreasing? Are they increasing? >> Our hours have maintained the same. So that 175 hours is across all the
locations. We're open 63 hours to the public uh each week. So sometimes we overlap often at different locations. That's more in people's neighborhood, easier to get to. Um but our hours really haven't changed. Um we try to make sure we have
a mix of evenings available, weekend hours on Saturday and Sunday, so all everyone in the community can help take advantage of what we have going on. So, while you've increased 4% yearonear, your budget's gone up 1%, you're still maintaining the same level of service.
>> Uh, we're very good at being thrifty in the public library. We're we believe in sharing. Uh, so it is a challenge with so many people coming through our doors all the time. Um, and you know, frankly, for people looking for things to do after school or in school vacation week,
those programs get in, you know, particularly slammed. Uh, but we are still working with what we have. We're very fortunate to have our foundation. We have a runner for team Brooklyn, just to mention uh and our friends group and our trusts that uh our trustees manage.
Those help us fill in those gaps. >> Great. Well, thank you. And we're fortunate to have you. >> Oh, thank you so much, >> David. >> I know that uh several years ago you started a a tools library at the Koolage Corner Library. I'm wondering what other
types of innovative concepts have maybe come up for what a library can be for its community. >> Oh, that's a huge question. Uh the library things continues to be all the rage. I will say across libraries and I would say that the articles that we get
asked to do the most with local papers tend to be trying to highlight this collection. I believe um we just had a a university come and wanted to ask what's up with the tool library in Kulage because they're trying to promote it to their student base um who study
frequently at the college corner library. Um in terms of things to put in there, I mean we have VR headsets. I mean there's lots of games. Um and when you say game you you might just think pure recreation, but sometimes they're tools that help build conversations with
people. Uh, our ELLL program has kits so people could check out uh a dictionary, but also a cookbook and and things that will help them do a real life task, but lean on some resources from the library. Um, there there's all sorts of things in
that collection that can just make everything um so much richer for people at home without having to invest a lot of money. Uh, our databases are also really interesting. that press reader tool. If you haven't used it, I totally recommend you pop on our website, try it
out because if you've ever been frustrated about not getting access to something, most of those major uh journals are in there. Um, but I think right now it it shouldn't be revolutionary, but access to information is getting harder and finding good information is even harder. So, your
question about AI um rang with me a lot because, uh, we want to try to help people use the tools available as best we can. So, I think that's an area that the library can do more in to try to help u make sense of the information confusion that is out there right now.
>> Thank you, >> Joey. >> Welcome to uh Brooklyn. >> Thank you. Um, and I'm going to say a word on behalf of the databases that are available through the library because I think that uh a lot of people don't are
not aware of of just how rich uh a part of the library collections that is. And um two that I reference frequently um are the Brooklyn annual reports databases. You can search every single
Town of Brooklyn annual report from 1846 to 2017. Um the others, in case people are wondering, are available through the town website. And then um personal favorite of mine, the Brooklyn newspaper archive. Um I spent 10 years as the editor of a paper called the Brooklyn
Chronicle Citizen. we and um don't want to date myself too much, but in those days the the way we archived the newspaper was to save a copy every week and then by the end of the year you'd have a great big bound volume and I mean it was huge. Um, and then we'd set aside
a couple more copies just sort of in a pile. And when I um left after 10 years, I thought I don't I can't bear the thought that all of the work that went into the newspaper for the 10 years I was editor will be lost to me. and and I
hauled all these newspapers and kept them in our basement for more years than I wish to recite until all of a sudden one day I woke up and realized I don't need to do that and I can search every article that was published by every
reporter um and every article I wrote from my time at that newspaper, you know, in no time at all. And if people don't fully appreciate newspapers are great, you know, uh, sources for for local history and and you can find some
really fascinating local history just by going through the newspaper archive. And there's more than one newspaper, not just the one I edited, but then there were su successor newspapers. So, thank you. I'm not really asking you for a comment, but I'm just telling telling people of Brooklyn, this is another
great resource at the library. I'm so glad we were there to preserve that with you. So, thank you. >> Yeah. One thing that I'm really fascinated by is the 3D printer, although I've never gotten my act together to go over and and learn um how
to use it and what it's used for. Can you talk about that? >> Yeah, a lot of people love the 3D printer. So, if you come to the Brooklyn Village location on the ground level by the elevator, you could see it in action printing off jobs that people have requested. Uh, and people are very
creative. There's also a display case right next to it. So, you can see some of the projects that have uh people have created. So, everything from, you know, a a little screw that will fit in uh your glasses to being able to keep
things going uh to cookie cutters or u artistic work. It's really pretty impressive. So, what you do is you're learning about how to design uh a three-dimensional object that will be printed on a platform and the design programs, many of them are free that you
can use and tinker with. And then you see the the product of your work to see if you got those dimensions correct. Um I also am a novice at 3D printing, but we have some staff that are absolutely fantastic at it. So, if it's something you want to learn, uh, we can help you,
uh, learn, see a tutorial to get you off the ground. We do programming around it, uh, but it will also be able to help you print it for free in the end, too, which is, uh, unusual. That's not always offered in a lot of public libraries. >> So, please come in. We'll help you out. And please see the display case. When
you see it in action, you're like, "Wow, I could be that creative, too." >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. interesting and welcome to Brooklyn. >> I appreciate it. Thank you so much and have a great evening. >> You too. >> You too.
>> Uh, next, Department of Public Works. I think um, Commissioner Shoots on >> the whole team is online. >> Okay. >> Good evening. >> Good evening. >> So, uh, we'll go ahead and pull up our
slides. Um, I know you're probably taking that down. Um, but I guess, okay, I'll just get started. So, uh, good evening, chair, members of the select board. I'm pleased to be here with, uh, the incredible DPW
leadership team to present the Department of Public Works FY27 budget. Public works touches nearly every part of daily life in Brooklyn from streets, sidewalks, parks, water and sewer, sanitation, trees, sustainability, and
emergency response. For FY27, our focus is straightforward. Maintain core service delivery, improve the condition of our assets, strengthen internal capacity, and continue modernizing how we serve the public. The DPW operating
budget is 21.1 million, an increase of about 1.6% over FY26. The water and sewer enterprise budget is 35.6 million, an increase of about 3.1%. Across both budgets, we've worked to
preserve service delivery, absorb fixed cost pressures where possible, and continue making targeted investments in core operations and infrastructure. The DPW budget reflects a cut of two FTEEs and some services. The increase in
contractual obligations includes personnel steps and um other contractual services uh largely grounds maintenance and sanitation. Uh this includes not only trash and recycling tonnage but also non-CAL increases and hazardous
waste, white goods, mattresses, compost, yard waste, etc. Uh we did receive a question at advisory around how much was associated specifically with trash um collection and that's $69,000 of that in FY26. I would highlight three
major accomplishments. Uh first, we successfully transitioned to the town's new trash collection uh model, which is providing strong service to residents while also allowing town staff to focus more capacity on other important public
works services. Second, we continued to strengthen our asset management approach, including roadway and sidewalk planning, maintenance, prioritization, and long range capital coordination. And third, we invested in our work through force through internal promotions, in-house CDL training, technical and
safety training, and stronger interdep departmental and regional coordination, including water and sewer emergency response training with MWR. For FY27, our work is organized around six cross department priorities. uh communication
and customer service, staffing, retention and capacity building, asset management and maintenance, environmental health and safety, digital transformation, and climate resiliency and environmental sustainability. These priorities help us manage a broad and complex department in a more coordinated
and accountable way for detailed goals and accomplishments across each division. We have about 140 in the budget book that support these priorities. Within these six priorities, our FY27 focus is on practical improvements that support both service and accountability.
On customer service, that includes improved communication tools, community engagement, and continued strong performance in trash collection. And working on improved and predictable community engagement protocol on staffing, it means growing internal capacity through training and
promotions. And with asset management, it means keeping roads, sidewalks, parks, and utility systems in a state of good repair using data and life cycle planning. For safety, it means stronger onboarding, investigations, and updated
policies. For digital transformation, we're looking at moving more permitting and record systems to modern platforms. And regarding climate and sustainability, it means moving from planning to implementation through the climate action and resiliency plan, the open space and recreation plan, and
vision zero plan and others. So for FY27, our priorities are closely aligned with the select boards. We're supporting implementation of the town's major plans, including the climate action resiliency plan uh that you will see in the coming weeks. uh as we think about
cost efficiencies and value uh overall I want to underscore underscore that our sustainability and natural resources function has brought in 3.2 million to the town since FY24 and just received notice that our application met the rigorous climate
leader community requirements opening access to over 1 million in energy efficiency and renewable energy funding per year to the town. This division is also leading the solar expansion initiative that will result in significant reduced costs for the town over time.
Another significant place of alignment with the select board's road map and priorities is what we're continuing um is that we're continuing to improve Brook Lion's roadway and sidewalks through a costbenefit valuebased asset
management approach. Um this is one of the primary uh goals for the select board. Um, we've completed our analysis, our conditions assessment of the roads and determined the most fis fiscally proactive and responsible approach for
maintaining the roads with the funding available. Uh, this year Hammond and Harvard will be rehabilitated. The overall um cost uh for the roads is about $100 million uh for the renovation
of roads. Uh the roads are mapped by treatment and by year uh for the best value for the town. Uh and then uh we're also looking at this slide specifically just to show you kind of a change over time. Um it shows the change in roadway
maintenance work since 2016 through 2025. And this is specifically looking at square yards of paving. Um and the highest year or last last
year 25 uh we had about four miles. So that that was about four miles worth of paving uh whereas in FY16 it was less than half a mile. So the pavement the select board's pavement maintenance and management policy has enabled
maintenance work to go forward based on this model while also asking the transportation board and staff to prioritize critical complete street vision zero safe routes to school and bicycle accommodation projects. Um so as
you can see as we look forward we'll continue on that uh strong trend. Sidewalk and ramp work is also strong. You heard from Jim Lee, chair of the Commission on Disabilities earlier about improvements in this area. We're working ahead of the roadway work and
incorporating not only the conditions assessment, but also priorities from the Commission on Disability and the Pedestrian Advisory Committee. We're incorporating those into the annual work plan. We are thrilled to see a significant increase in our staff's ability to do this work inhouse as well.
in FY25. Uh we were only able to accomplish about a quarter of a mile um worth of sidewalk work. Uh and this year um we'll be over two miles of sidewalk work completed with this crew and then we're looking to grow that by another third uh in the
year ahead. So we're really glad that we'll be able we're able to focus uh on some of the um in-house talent that we have uh to provide some of this work for the town. And we are stretching town dollars with our trip hazard removal
program. We're working with a contractor who inspects the sidewalks, documents trip hazards that fall within the range that they can address, usually a/ inch to 2 in, documents what the town needs to replace, and then slices the sidewalk with a precision blade that is far more
effective than um grinding. We completed 13 miles of sidewalk uh in 25 and to date in 26 and we're looking at 20 new roads for the balance of 26 and through 27. This is estimated to save 80% uh
over full sidewalk replacement. We may need to go back and replace the sidewalk in time, but it's improving the condition and extending its useful life. And uh this next slide is just a before and an after picture. So if you um if
you see this, you'll know that this has been inventoried and is part of our program now to remove these trip hazards. Um we also have very ex exciting complete street work happening in the public way such as Washington Street, the bridal path, Lincoln school,
safe routes to school, traffic calming. These are all moving forward and some leveraging significant state and federal dollars. And I would be remiss in not recognizing the 170 men and women of public works
that support Brooklyn every day and also their incredible work. Uh this winter it was a challenging season. It was also incredibly um cold in addition to uh some tough uh snow events.
>> So um here's our season recap. They did an excellent job this winter with very little sleep and a lot of snow removal. Um and I don't know if you've seen this image of the um DPW yard. This is our
facility up at the transfer station. Um, this was actually not at its peak. Um, but the the transfer station in this uh snow dump, it's it's really invaluable during the winter season to help the town res resume day-to-day operations um
following significant snow events. Snow removal is essential for public safety, teacher parking, commercial area parking, opening up intersections, sidewalk ramps, and parking lots. So, it's really important and helpful that this is something that we do um with our
own site and facility because hauling um the snow out of town would be incredibly expensive. So, uh in closing, the FY27 budget is designed to do three things. uh protect essential daily services,
improve condition and management of the town's assets, and continue modernizing the way the department operates and serves the public. Um the division directors are here and we're glad to answer any questions that you may have.
>> Thank you. Questions from the select board? >> John, >> I'll jump in. um Aaron and and the the division heads, thank you so much. And I I do hope people realize that uh the selectboard
review of this budget is going to be cursory compared to the advisory committee review which I happened to witness the other night and it went on for more than two hours, right? I'm not exactly >> four. It was four and that was our fourth budget meeting.
>> Yeah. I mean it did talk about going through a budget, you know, with a comb, fine tooth comb, cliche, sorry. Um the the advisory committee uh did did a terrific job of uh checking on every single aspect of your operations. And I
I I really recommend to people that they if they've got the time, check out that exchange that went on and on and on and on. you will understand more about the DPW operations and the incredible breadth of them. Um the incred the the
way that they impact us in so many different aspects of our lives and the complexity of having to be in charge of you know every single part of the town every day and all these services that we
take for granted. you know, the trash pickup, but also just the the the ability to enjoy the a walk on a sidewalk, the the the condition of our streets that we use every day. Um, it it really is impressive and I I can't say enough about um the the work that the
department does. At the same time, I have a question. Sorry for the long preface. Um I I am I I I'm very pleased that the select board in recent years through policy emphasis has you know worked with the DPW to shift more and
more resources into uh a stepped up program of addressing the needs of our streets. And you showed that in a slide. It went by pretty fast. People might not have fully appreciated what that slide showed, but it really did show dramatic increases going forward in the number of
streets we're going to be able to address. That that is where I love to see the the emphasis of the DPW. Where I have doubts is on a couple of these um one one in particular um the the Beacon Street bridal path wi which we've
already appropriated a million dollars for. And at this point, you know, all we know about it is that it consumes a lot of planning and coordination uh with the state. Um I don't think we really have a
hard date as to when you know the work might be done. I don't think we have a clear indication of whether this is even feasible, you know, gi given the layout of uh the streets as as they exist today
and the use of the streets for parking areas uh for trees uh you name it. um are at what point will we get a sense of how much this is going to cost us altogether and at the end of the day do we have a
real good handle on how much it will be used because I've heard people say they love the sidewalks and they don't really feel any need for a path that is adjacent to a trolley track and then I've heard other people
say they would love to have exclusive use of the uh the the Breen Beacon Street bridal path for high-speed bike commuting. Well, that doesn't mix. That's not something that mixes in a multimodal way, you know, with people
walking their kids, you know, or strolling or el older people walking at a slow pace. So, do we even agree on what this is going to be used for? I I I'm puzzled by it and all I know is we've already spent, you know, we've already appropriated a million dollars.
Have we spent any of that money? That's the other thing that kind of puzzles me. Uh when you consider how little there is to show for this, are we spending that money? >> That's a lot. >> I know. Um sorry, I went on a >> and you know, and as you know, this has
been supported by town meeting and was a grassroots effort. So, um there is a um a broad uh design review committee that has been established. I think that we're going to have to figure all of that out
together. There is not a we we don't know what the cost is yet. We don't know what the schedule is yet. That will um that will evolve through the process. um the design team. So tool um
is the consultant working on this uh has been doing a lot of the sort of groundwork on um sort of the the base concept working on pulling together a lot of safety related data over the last 10 years regarding um crashes,
incidents. And we have a roadway safety audit um and meeting that's coming up with mass DOT and whole police fire. It's a huge group of people that really look at safety associated with current conditions and then ultimately that is
evaluated based on what the proposed design. I think you put forward a lot of questions that the design review committee is going to have to grapple with in terms of uh of the bridal path itself, use of the bridal path, access
to it, and what the tradeoffs are. So, um I think we're going to hear a lot of different opinions as to um what it is, how it'll be used, and the trade-offs. And we're going to have to do a lot of thoughtful design about um how we would
design that in the best way to serve the most people in the community. And the town will have time to to decide um whether it's something that they want to uh move forward with. And I would say we would have a better sense of cost
probably around 25% design. At this point, the consultant team still has additional survey work to do. Um, and it's been quite complex in terms of getting all the cert survey information
around the tas uh and other utility work that was going on. So, this the survey itself uh is taking an extended time once they have that base information. We've already done a lot of information gathering from the community in terms of defining the project, getting
information from the community in terms of kind of their hopes and dreams about it. But once we have the survey and some base concepts, then um the public process will really be off and running. So the public will have something to respond to, which I think is is important. >> Real quick though, how much of the money
have we spent, the million dollars that we appropriated? So, it's a $3 million contract um with uh $2 million provided from federal government and a million dollars provided by the town. We've spent about
$500,000 to date. >> So, and the next appropriation date, you think, will be when >> appropriation for additional funds? >> Well, well, when are we going to sort of run out of the first million and then need more?
Uh we have an item I think a couple years out in the CIP. So this gets us to 75% um into the mass DOT tip process. So the intent is to submit this to mass DOT and
I think as we all know that's another layer of um >> just complication and reports and analysis that's required um to uh to move through that. >> Yeahess quick comment by me and thank
you for your answers. I I can't help but think about all the streets we could additional streets we could be addressing that need fixing. Now, you know, when you're talking about a million and more dollars and we still don't know what we're getting with that
million and more dollars, but we would know what we would get if we spend it to fix more streets. And that's just me, you know, delivering a little sermon here. >> Paul, >> yep. Uh, thank you, Erin, and for your
team for all the great work uh that you that you do and that you've done. Um, I think this your my involvement in your work is probably one of the things that I'll miss most in leaving the select board. Um, I'm like John, I'm pleased to
see that the incredible change in the paved miles. Um, which was a direct result of of your willingness to be open to change uh when Mike Sandman and I approached you a couple of years ago to to address that. And I just I think
that's a testament to um how your your willingness to continually innovate and change um makes our town better. Um the you know the other thing that um I'm I'm really proud that you've done um and I
think this is a testament to who you are and your team uh the work that you did for the Washington Street redesign. you know, there's a lot of people that threw arrows at you, including some sitting at this table about that. Um, and you know,
it it takes vision and stick tuitiveness to make change like that happen. Um, I can't imagine the headwinds uh of the visionaries that laid out Beacon Street and started to buy up land and people probably thought they were crazy, John.
um you know that resulted in what we have today including what used to be the bridal path. Um I I think that uh when Olmstead and the visionaries for the emerald necklace imagine the questions how much is this going to cost? What is
it going to be done? Tell us now. Um you know if if those voices prevailed we wouldn't have it. Um, so I as someone who lives uh about 50 feet from the proposed well I'll say 50 yards from the
proposed uh bridal path um I I strongly encourage that you stick to it uh despite the uh the voices of opposition or uh concern or doubt um because I think that's what we need uh vision and
stick tuitiveness in order to have change that innovative change that would improve improve our community for a lifetime, a generation, uh needs to happen. Uh I'm just uh I'm sad that by the time my by the time it's done, I believe my children will be in college
and they will be riding their bikes. But John, you know, we we live right on >> Let's not make this personal. >> It's not personal. >> I I I'm I'm giving a lot of kudos to to what's going on. >> I think you're really going over the line in terms of critique of John.
>> I'm not critiquing John. I support John 100% about his and I encourage his uh his his opposition. But um again, I want to thank you for the work that you and your team has done. Um I won't get to say this again because I want to be on the board the next time you come for a
budget hearing. So I'm going to use my discretion in giving you as much as I can. So thank you very much. >> Thank you, >> Michael. Um so uh my my colleagues comments uh as as prelude um I'll just jump right in.
Um there's been a lot of talk of the progress to date. Um I'm you know and I have asked the question and David has also asked the question specifically about AI. Um, and I appreciate that DPW
is largely dealing with the interface of the physical world, um, with all of the processes and, uh, technology that we that we assemble as a town. So, um, not only speaking to the question of the use
of AI, um, I wonder if you have any thoughts more broadly about sort of the long-term technology trajectories that you are looking at and considering, um, and how those will affect the operations and the services of DPI, DPW moving
forward. >> It's a it's a great question. feels like it's ever changing and we are we're constantly getting um you know different uh vendors reaching out to us with a host of different technologies that uh
they're hoping to >> to present to us. I I see a lot uh in the way of AI certainly uh survey the the conditions assessment of the roads are now done fully with uh AI
um and you know I think we'll certainly be looking at services for us right now it's a lot of the actual technologies standard operating procedures sort of writing standard operating procedures um looking for
discrepancies between um sort of multiple different procedures and being able to do that very quickly and optimizing uh those procedures I think is a way that we'll use um AI and also
uh turn by turn um directional optimization for example for snow removal and having um you know tablets in each vehicle which is giving
the plow drivers the exact routes. It's giving us the documentation on where you know what's been plowed, how many times at what times, but also then when we have to bring someone down for uh either downtime or arrest or make adjustments,
we then make quick quick shifts and can make sure that we are um optimizing uh that work. And that'll apply also for street sweeping and documenting catchbasin cleaning and uh so I think both the documentation and making sure
that uh we're we're being as thorough as we need to be. >> Thank you >> David. So, I have a question about the uh how sanitation is currently working out, whether you
anticipate any changes moving into the next fiscal year uh given some of the challenges at um the the center that we have by >> Lost Pond Sanctuary and also uh just the
change over to Cassella. >> Okay. So, I'll I'll start and then Kevin, if you want to um jump in. So, as this board knows, we um have a a sort of a structural uh deficiency in the
transfer station floor. It's a building that's 75 years old and um the floor has been worn down um and to a point at which uh we now need to construct a temporary transfer station uh which
we're doing with a um temporary uh sort of uh struct it's an armature type frame building uh that'll enclose the operation while we um work on a full-time solution. So, I will say um
that our contractor has been incredibly flexible with us. Um we had to sort of stop their operation and have them haul our trash out direct for several days while we worked with D to um get authorization to use one of our open
bays um to have the trash brought in daily and then um resume the operation in that location until we could construct this um this facility. So once we do this and it will be uh temporary um
we don't see any changes uh in the short term and uh nor do we see any changes at this point until we're able to construct that building which we hope will be done uh this fall. >> Do you anticipate needing any broader
changes at the transfer station? I know there had been discussions prior to this collapse of possibly needing a significant renovation of that whole facility. >> Yes, we do believe that the transfer station itself is long overdue for
replacement. Uh so that is something that we'll be um analyzing through the feasibility study. um that won't be a full um design or cost estimate, but just the overall um value to the town.
We have we actually have plans uh for a new transfer station from when the landfill was capped in the early 2000s. So, it it was the intent to actually replace the building then. um but cost estimates exceeded um what had been set
aside for the capping and so um the building wasn't uh reconstructed at that time. So um I think that I think that's going to be a community conversation, you know, around around
that new building and the value long term to the town. We we think it's a an asset and provides the town flexibility that we wouldn't want you to lose in the long term.
>> Thank you. >> Cheers. And just quickly to follow up on that, um, one of the things you mentioned last year as an issue when we were talking about moving to, uh, increase Cassella's share of the, uh, um, uh, sanitation services was that
there were folks who was whose time was being taken up by other by sanitation who were assigned to other activities. Do you have a sense of, you know, how that increase in sidewalk work for this from last year to this year um or from the prior year to the whatever it is two
years ago to this year um is related to the fact that you now have a little more flexibility there. Do you have a sense of how much of that is is related to that? >> Yeah, Kevin. >> Yes. Uh um we've seen some um tremendous improvement on the other services that
we provide for the town that we weren't able to do in the past due to the staffing needs on sanitation. Uh for a quick example, um the commissioner went over uh quickly tonight, but in the past two years, we might have uh poured
less than 100 uh cubic yards of concrete uh with our in-house crews for the whole year. And from July 1st to present, obviously, till the winter, we're we're a little over 300 yards. And our goal is to maybe get up to 600 yards by July.
So, that's a huge improvement just on the sidewalk maintenance. We were able to put crew uh uh crew down in the commercial areas repainting all the light poles, the the street light poles, and uh uh stuff that we've been trying
to do for years just to prevent the maintenance on a lot of our assets that we're able to um accomplish now. So, yeah, we've seen a tremendous um improvement on that. And and I'd be remissed not to say that our morale at
the highway has improved a lot as well because people are coming in to do what they were hired for every day. >> Great. >> Thanks. Good question. >> Go ahead. >> One more. Uh sorry. Um just to talk a
little bit about water and sewer and sustainability um storm water management and the um the pipe work that we've been the the pipe inventory that we've been doing not just lead pipes but also the the storm water system. I don't know if Jay and or Alexandra want to talk about that in the
context of the the car >> or if you I can I can jump in first. Um thanks for the question. Yeah, we've been moving right along with our, you know, our utility asset programs. First one, uh, the sewer. We've been
continuing our INI program where we go in and we remove sources of clear water out of the sewer system. And we do that by aligning the pipe, basically putting a pipe inside a pipe and sealing the manhole. So, whenever we do that, it basically cuts off the water's ability
to get into the sewer. And everything that enters that pipe has to go to the treatment plant. So any clear water that you can keep out, you know, keeps our cost down and it it saves, you know, the treatment cost, treatment process, and everything else. On the water side, we've been continuing our sort of get
the lead out program. You know, fortunately in Brooklyn, um when they built out this town, it was mostly iron pipe, so we really didn't have any actual lead containing pipes. However, we do have what they call lead gooseeneck material, which is a flexible
piece of lead that connects the iron pipe to the actual cast iron man. >> And we're trying to just be proactive and just get rid of those materials. There approximately like 1,600, more like probably 14,500 now. We've been aggressively removing them and we're
trying to do that with um the planned work that engineering and highway are doing on on the roads that are coming up. So the last thing we want is to have an old service line pop after we've paved the road and then we just look foolish. So it's a great program,
cooperative effort and it's it's going well. On the storm water front, um we've been doing a lot of work there trying to look at areas that are floodprone. We're done with our storm water model and we're working on our storm water master
plan to identify those floodprone areas and come up with recommendations on how to mitigate um you know potential sources of flooding. We're also working on an aggressive um elicit discharge and detection program where we're trying to
locate and remove sources of bacteria. Uh we appreciate um the previous approvals for the funding there. We've been actually able to contract with a consultant and expedite a lot of that work and make a lot of progress. So, that's a real quick overview on water,
sewer, and drain, the three flavors there. And, um, I guess I'll turn it over to Alexandra if she's ready if she wants to add anything on the sustainability front. >> Sure, thank you. Um, I will just say, you know, Jay gave a great summary there of all the work. Um but specifically
with the u storm water model and and plan that the team has been working on, we're really trying to integrate those recommendations into our climate action and resiliency plan. Um really helping to highlight and prioritize for resiliency, you know, some of our
greatest threats in Brookline as it relates to climate hazards including heat resilience um and uh storm water and flood management as well as extreme weather events. So, um, those are incorporated into our resiliency section. Um, and we're, uh, looking forward to sharing that with the board
here in the in the next couple of weeks. Thanks. >> Great. Thank you. >> John, did you ask one more? >> Sure. Um Chestn Hill Avenue um has gotten a lot of attention uh in recent months and
there was a major development um recently which is that there is now going to be a um repaving u of of the of Chesn Hill Avenue that we'll go ahead based on excuse me the uh condition of
the street and the need to address the deficiencies of the street as as soon as possible or at least in timely way. Whereas a plan which had been um thought of for that to also include a much more
um extensive treatment of other amenities on the street um a protected bike path and and some other additional amenities. That that is not something that's going to be possible at the at the present time because of the um you
know clear need for for there to be something done right away. Uh and the the reason given um which I totally accept for um not proceeding uh with with the other plan, the more the more elaborate
plan is that the the intent was to connect to uh Chestnut Hill Avenue in Boston, which would then have have by that time have its own protected bike lane. So you'd have a continuous bike
lane the entire length of Chestnut Hill Avenue, Brooklyn, and then Boston. Makes a lot of sense. Um is that a guiding principle that we can expect, you know, to continue to be um applied to these
considerations of when and on what streets does it make the most sense to incorporate a um you know thoroughly protected bike lane? uh are we going to be guided by whether there's connectivity to um lanes um at either
end um as it happens I guess they would in most cases be in Boston. >> Uh that's a great question. So I think a few things about Chestnut Hill Avenue. Chest Hill Avenue was on our list and uh
really kind of got ahead of itself before the policy was finalized. And so, um, while Chestnut Hill Avenue is due, um, for just pavement maintenance, it's probably, you know, as you know, it's it's had a lot of public engagement. And
so, I believe that the transportation board and staff still need to make a decision on um what they want to do sort of short-term, long-term at Chesh Hill Avenue. And Dan, if that's not the case and they've made a decision, let me know. That was my latest that was my
understanding. Um we always try to partner with um both Newton and Boston where we can in terms of connectivity. You know what projects they have that they're working on, what we're working on and how to make them uh work
together. So right now um you know is we have our costbenefit value approach just for maintenance of roads. Uh the transportation board um is working on prioritizing all of the other really important
multimodal improvements, bike accommodation, full complete street, uh vision zero, um safe routes to school, etc. And so um the transportation board will work with
subcommittees and the public and staff to prioritize. Our folks are working on kind of a first cut of a rubric that will help, but connectivity is going to be part of that and then they'll prioritize um the work and the work has to be um
work that we can manage uh in terms of uh public process and being really clear about what the decision-making process is, what that process will look like for the public at the outset and um and then moving through that. So, I think Cheset Hill Avenue is still um yet to be
determined in terms of uh what what the ultimate improvements there will be because I do know there are a lot of um pedestrian concerns and you know and certainly the the um bike advocates have have really I think come out strong in
terms of that being an important corridor. So, I'm not sure where that'll land yet. >> Isn't it a pavement improvement project for um 2026? 27. >> FY27. >> Yeah.
>> Which would maybe start in 26. >> FY27 starts in 26. Yes. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. >> But I'm just saying it's also in the middle of its its um community engagement. >> Yeah. Okay. Thanks. >> Yeah.
>> Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Shu. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. Nice to see you all. Thanks to the incredible public works team. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> We agree. >> Thanks very much. >> So, uh, what I'd like to do is take the parking fine increases, uh, question and
then take a break. So, why don't we go through that? >> Yeah, I'll be very quick. Um, >> I thought I thought this would be a quick one. >> Yeah. Um the long and the short of it is as part of the way of paying for the increases in costs in the following
years without um raising property without asking to raise property taxes further. We are looking wherever we can at increasing fees and fines appropriately. We have not touched parking fines since 2007. Um we're due. Um other communities are higher than we
are now. Cambridge recently raised many of its fees to $40. Boston has its at $4. Somervilles are even higher. I will say that Newton, our other neighbor, is lower at 25. It's closer to where we are. Um, but I think there's a strong case to be made that regionally it's
appropriate to raise fines to $40. You cannot exceed a $50 fine per um local uh law. Um so that's why unless there is a statutory exemption for it, your fees and your fines cannot exceed $50. Um,
and there has to be an escalating cost structure. You know, if someone doesn't pay within a certain amount of time, it has to go up by a certain amount. And then when it's reported to the state, when it's reported to the RMV, it has to go up again. Um, so, um, at that junk, so what I've structured here is a
proposal that for every fine that is not currently at $40, that it be increased to $40. that the payment that the late payment before it is reported to the state be increased to $55 and then when it is reported out that the fine go up
to $70. Both of those numbers are the statutory maximum that the select board is allowed to set for a parking violation. So um the way that you did this in 20 in sorry in 2007 was that you asked the transportation board to appine on it first. They provided a
recommendation to the select board and the select board voted on the ultimate increase. Technically, I think under the law, the transportation board could do it themselves. But I think in the interest of maintaining tradition um and also the you know maintaining that you are the ultimate policym body and the
transportation board does have statutory authority but it is an advis it has an advisory role to play as well. Having both boards concur on a fine increase I think is is important. So I would take it to them first um with your permission and then bring it back to you with their recommendation.
>> Okay. Anyone disagree? >> I have >> uh ju just a question. Uh you referred specifically to parking violations. Are they looking at moving violations also? >> No, it's just this is just parking violations. >> Okay.
>> Yeah. So, um Chaz, this is uniform across the town. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, my question is are we are we limited to that uniformed across the town? The reason why I ask is I think um the abuse of parking um is different by
region of the town. So for example in uh in Beacon Street down by St. Mary's because of red the Red Sox games and often concerts. >> Um it's heavily abused the parking and it's cheaper to have to pay $40 than to
pay $65 uh you know by the park or it you know closer into the the venue. Um and I see this because people park and they're happy to get the ticket. >> Um can we can we make it more uh location specific? >> I don't know the answer to that. I will
ask town council's office. I have not seen that done but that doesn't mean that it can't be done. So let me ask and I will if if that is the case then we'll discuss that with the T board and bring that back to you. >> Okay, that'll be helpful. Thank you. >> Uh John, >> do we have any estimate estimate as to
how much u the current revenue is versus how much the revenue would be with this $40? >> We estimate that we would bring in on average about an additional $1.2 million um just if everything stayed consistent. We want to be very conservative when we look at these for the first time. So, we
did a rolling five-year average and we also assumed that in the event that fees the fines go up, you do see some increased compliance. So, that kicks it down a little bit. So, ultimately, we are projecting in FY27, if these fines are approved, an increase in roughly
$1.06 million in local receipts. >> That's impressive. >> Yeah, >> that's the hope. >> Real money. >> Um, that's the hope. You know, again, this is a conservative projection, but we also, you know, >> we we want to be frank with people that, you know, the the rate the the fines are
not taking we're still not taking in what we used to take in before the pandemic. >> Um, we're still not where we used to be, and that was when they were at a lower rate. >> So, um, you know, it's a combination of fewer people on the road, you know, the um, >> you know, some of the issues with
enforcement um, and and you know, in some cases compliance. Um so you know one of the things that we want to do with this is we want to take some of this money and directly reinvest it in our parking infrastructure so that we have better systems in place. You know
we we for examp you know there are tickets that get thrown out because meters are broken for example like we want to reinvest directly in the process to make sure that there are fewer broken meters and there's fewer excuses when those things pop up. um we want to have a more functional and cohesive parking
enforcement infrastructure. So, we're going to take some of this money and reinvest it directly into that and then the rest of it will be run through the town school split like it usually does. I I mean I just add one other factor that I hope is taken into consideration because this does come at a cost. Um
there's been discussion recently about u adjusting the rates for parking depending on how close you are into the heart of a commercial district like Brooklyn Village versus parking at outlying parking meters. Yes. Um, that's all well and good, but once we, you
know, jack up the the amount of the meter rate and then we add on that and, you know, God help you, if if you overpark by two minutes and you get a $40 fine, eventually people are going to say, I'm going to go somewhere where I'm
less likely to, you know, have to spend a lot of money just because I parked at a meter that was near the store and then I, you know, made the mistake of staying too long and next thing you know, a simple shopping trip to Brooklyn Village has cost me over, you know, $50, right? Um, so you got to balance all of these
things, right? >> That's right. And I will say I know that a town meeting member came last week and had a question, a good question I thought about why don't we raise the parking meter rates again. And the answer is we did that last override. Yeah. You know, we raised it, you know, >> well aware >> and so, you know, it's not hasn't been very long since we've been at the $2
mark and we've seen, you know, people avoiding the meters, people people trying to park elsewhere because of that. So, we have seen revenue from parking meters actually start to become more volatile as a result of the fact that our rates are higher. I worry if we push them higher, especially since we
just pushed them higher, you know, not even five years ago, um that you will start to see that sort of avoidance. Um, and unlike here, unlike with the fines where I think you have other communities, not just Boston, at that
$40 mark or higher, um, no one except Boston, as to my knowledge, is above the $2 an hour um, rate um, for street parking currently. Um, although again, I haven't done the survey on that, but it's my understanding based on conversations I've had that Boston is
kind of the outlier there as opposed to um where we are on this. So I I do want people to be assured that we have looked at that. But to your point, you know, you want to be careful not to create a situation that actually that accidentally upsets the the balance that
you've created here. >> Yeah. And and one other consideration too is appeals processes. people are going to be a m much more likely having experienced a $40 ticket in Boston when I went to get a slice of pizza. Um, and
it was not appropriately uh done because the there was just a disagreement over which meter was the one that my car was parked at. Um, and I went through the appeals process and it was um, impressive and it came out just fine for me, but I probably wouldn't have
appealed, you know, a $15, uh, penalty, right? Um, and so all of these things kind of interact, right? >> Yeah. >> And Michael, >> uh, I'm just curious, following up on on the parking question, um, whether there's any evidence of the increase in
parking rates pushing people to other modes of transportation. I don't have an answer on that. I'll talk to the transportation team at DPW. Um I know we do we we try and monitor those things, but I'll I I'll get you an answer on that. Okay. >> Thank you.
>> Okay. Uh we need to vote. >> You don't need to vote. I just I just wanted I wanted to make sure that you were okay with me taking the transportation board first. >> No objection. I take it. So >> you're authorized to go do that. So, let's take a 10-minute break >> and we'll get back or come back to uh
talk about the override again. >> Thank you. Oh, hey. The select board is back and we're going to take up item nine on the agenda
regarding the override. Chad, why don't you lead us on this and Okay, >> tell us what we're going to be >> voting on. >> So, you you don't have to vote on anything if you don't want to. Um, this is the this is the deadline for the ballot question. Today is the deadline
for the ballot question. So, if you had any additional >> thoughts, concerns, modifications that you wanted to make to your prior question. I talked with town council. Town council is confident that your vote last time is is in accordance requirements is fine. So you have set a
current you've currently set a ballot question one ballot question and then um one of the things that um we had mentioned last week um that were still to follow up on is the expansion of or an additional memorandum of understanding between the town and the
schools regarding the recommendations of the expenditures and revenue study committee. You can see a draft of that in your uh packet now. The superintendent and I are working on that. We will continue to iterate on that a little bit. It's it's largely done. Michael identified there's a typo in there, but you know
>> that the structure the the bones of it are where it needs to be. Um, and we just want your any feedback you have on that. Um, you also have an interim report from Clifton Larson Allen CLA who have been brought back in to do that analysis. They have finished their interviews and are now digging into the
data. I will note we got an email from a school committee member who raised a concern that there's something that's inaccurately reported in there about how special education information is trans is transmitted. I think that's a result of getting going through an interview process and having those conversations
and my goal is to have them dig through the data and sort that out to be sure that those are, you know, the the what they're finding in terms of processes is an accurate reflection of what the school department is actually doing. I also know there's just, you know, there's, as is often the case, right? I
think the superintendent feels, you know, CLA's analysis of this was, you know, based on, you know, a prior state and, you know, there are all those things that come with that. So, you do have the superintendent's initial response to this as well. um we will
give, you know, be sure that the schools have ample opportunity to review and respond to whatever the CLA ultimate findings are, but given the given the deadline for the ballot question, we wanted to be sure that you had at least the preliminary information from CLA so
that you can make an informed decision on whatever it is you decide to do moving forward here. Um, so I guess my question to the board is, are there any concerns, questions, changes you wish to make to the ballot? And um, if so, what what what would any be?
>> Whoa, you want to make changes to the >> I I do not, but um, but I do I you know, you got my attention last time when >> there was a question about whether >> we noticed it properly and I know town council has said we're safe. >> Yeah. But, you know, just because we
can, >> you could take another >> I I I I I don't necessarily think we need to take another vote, but I would I would actually make a motion to reaffirm our prior vote just for posterity sake. >> That's fine. >> Okay. John,
>> I I had a question about the uh isn't necessarily about the ballot, it's about the booklet. >> Yeah. >> Uh that is planned. Um, and this kind of touches on a discussion we had earlier this evening about, you know, what is appropriate versus maybe not appropriate
campaigning, you know, for an issue. This is purely hypothetical, but I if it turns out that uh no one steps up to submit a an argument uh for for a no vote and all we've got is, you know,
there's 20 people who want to do the argument for the for the yes vote. Um how would the town handle that? Would it put out a booklet that only had one side of the question or what what would we do? >> Joe, do you want to talk about that? Uh, I think you did a pretty good job last
time when we were concerned about that. Uh, >> Joe, you're uh, we're having trouble hearing you. You aren't muted. Yeah, I know we're not seeing pick up the phone. >> Is there a problem with our sound? >> His microphone perhaps?
>> Maybe. I mean, he's looking at >> uh how about now? >> There we go. Perfect. Better. >> All right. Sorry about that. Um so Joe Callahan, town council. Um the um right now we have an advocate for the
proponents, only one. Um we have no advocate that stepped forward in opposition. So, as outlined in my memo, if none no advocate for one side or the other council to write that um
argument, we already have a responsibility to write a summary um of the question. It'll be essentially like what we did uh in 2023 for the questions 2 A and 2B. So, there'll be slight differences, but that will be 90 something% of what the summary will be
this year. Um but otherwise um if there's no advocate that steps forward it falls to me. Um what I'll do um is use the um you know kind of as a as a base the arguments in opposition last last time in 2023 2A and 2B u but also
seek other communities who've had um questions where the advocates have stepped forward and see what they wrote say in you know Somerville or you know Quinsey and then I you know using what we did in 2023 and the other communities
u you know arguments in opposition, I'll come up with 150 words. >> I will say, yeah, I will say, right, we in 2023, we came very close to having to do that. Um, and then someone graciously stepped up at the last minute and offered a a compelling no argument, but
we had a no argument drafted internally. Um, that I thought was quite fair and quite, you know, eloquent in making a making the negative case in 150 words. So, if we have to do that, we will. Um, town council will. Um, but you know, I I
would again, this is a good opportunity for us to strongly encourage folks. There's a diversity of opinion out there. If you are opposed to this question, please reach out, contact town council. Um, it's 150 words. It's not a heavy lift. Um, we welcome the strongest
argument. We need it's it's better for the better for better for local government, better for democracy if you have vigorous argument for and against a question. So, please step forward. >> It just feels very awkward to me. I mean, we'd be making an argument. I mean, the town would be making an
argument against its own interests, having brought it this far to uh >> One of the nice things about working as an appointed official in local government is I make an argument I make arguments against my own interest all the time. >> Okay. Um theou is going to be finalized
when? >> Probably in the next couple weeks. >> Okay. Uh so people have um comments or even questions, please provide them to to Chaz. I have a few myself. >> Okay. Anything else on this that we need to discuss?
>> Do we want to follow up on Paul's affirmation? Yeah. >> Affirmative. Ratify. >> There's nothing else to discuss. Go ahead. >> Thank you. Motion. >> I move that we affirm uh the vote that we took on placing at whatever the number is. >> 23.25, right?
>> 23.2. It was 23.5 but actually it's 23.25 >> 25 >> too far. >> Yes. >> Okay. Uh all in favor please indicate by saying I. John Vancoyak. >> Well I was in abstain on the previous vote. So >> okay Paul >> any want to change your mind?
>> Uh I >> Okay. David Pearlman >> I. >> Michael Rubenstein >> I. >> And chair vot. >> Okay. Are there >> I was unclear of what your vote was. Did you just say that you were affirming your abstension?
>> Yeah. >> And so is that an I vote for the affirmation? >> No. >> Well, abstension is abension. >> Yeah. >> Joe, do you have any do you want to follow up on your your memo? Um if if there are any questions from the board,
but maybe just so the public understands what's what what the next steps are here in terms of the the booklet and education process. >> Yeah, if I can just have a minute or two. I do have a um a slide show kind of the deadlines.
Um can you see that? >> It's coming up. One second. >> There we go. All right. Um so the uh you receive the mailer uh and about uh 400 people uh 300 people did
also receive that. We sent out an email to the select board, the school committee, advisory committee, town meeting members. Um so they received my memo uh Friday. We also put it out um on the town's website. Um we also put it through um the notify me or what's the
new vendor um for people who signed up on the town meeting list serve. So that was about 700 people. They got a notice with the link to the memo. So that describes the process. But what I wanted to share with you is just kind of the bullet point deadline and and the first
deadline is this Friday to receive arguments. Advocates step forward and draft 150 words. Um, you may say, "Oh my god, that's a quick turnaround." But hold on, we'll get to the bottom and you'll see why. Uh, but this is supposed to be a public process. So, last time
around, I shared publicly the drafts and as we evolved from the initial arguments to the final arguments that is put before you for approval. >> So, Tuesday after we receive the initial uh drafts, they'll be fact checked.
they'll be um um you know um made sure that we received them and I'll circulate the draft of the ballot information Tuesday, April 7th. This will give not only the advocates but the public a chance to respond and the advocates will then have till Thursday the 9th to res
to to um amend their initial arguments to then get a final copy to you on Friday the 10th. Again, this is to you and the public. Um, so then you can vote on it two weeks from tonight. And again, you may say, "Well, that's a, you know,
that's pretty fast." It is, but here's why. It's going to take uh town clerk staff uh three days, basically, three eight hour days to print, fold, stuff, seal, and put postage on a 30,000
piece mailer. Um they're going to do this after they do the vote by mail ballots which will be three days previously. So that will be the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, the finishing on the 15th and ideally start this Thursday the 16th, 17th and then over the weekend. So
the plan is to get this mailer out Monday, April 20th. That is a day the post office is open, but it is Patriots day, which we'll have a marathon running through town, so it's not the best day, but it will be the first day that we'll chance, you know, we'll have a chance to
get this out, but that's only 15 days before election day. Um, and it's only 5 days before we start inerson voting. >> But it would be very difficult to make that period even more um because again, you saw these quick deadlines. we're we're
getting the arguments in just a couple days and then basically put back before you for vote the following week. So, it'd be really hard to have more time for people to get this and I wouldn't recommend stretching it out because I do
feel uncomfortable with all the problems that we've had with the uh mail that we're only allowing 15 days to get these to people's um homes before they vote. So, these are the deadlines. Again, as Chaz said, we're looking for an advocate in opposition, but otherwise, people
feel free to give me a call. Um, or shoot me an email. >> Uh, we're getting them and we're responding, but if people want to send more, feel free. >> Quick question. >> Okay. >> Can I ask Joe a question, Joe? Um, thanks for the for the timeline. So, I I
it sounds like we're using town clerk personnel to print, you know, fold stuff, put stickers, uh u not the sticker, you know what I'm saying, postage, thank you, on the envelope. Why not use a mailhouse
that can automate this entire process for us and, you know, stick it in for first class mail? >> Uh because that would cost money that we don't have. So yes, you know, we could accelerate this, you know, if we sent it to a
mailing house, but we would need money for that, which we don't have. >> Jez, can we find money to uh use a mailhouse as opposed to like, you know, >> we are >> going bumping up against a a deadline? >> We are out of cash. I I wish it were not the case, but we're going to we're going
to be, you know, we just revi revised our healthcare projections. We're we're in a tough straight to close out this fiscal year. I I think it's going to be very tight. Um so I don't I don't have I don't foresee money for unexpected
expenses like this unfortunately. Okay. Thank you, Joe. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Let's move on to the next item which is the U 8mm warrant article
public hearing. Oh, it's 9:25. Well, that's life in in Brooklyn. Um, okay. First item is going to be article 20 resolution to establish an official annual townwide commemoration of
September 11, 200 one. Um, typo in the agenda. And and a memorial to all those from Brooklyn, Massachusetts who died on September 11, 2001. I see Elizabeth Charles is at the microphone.
So, say >> thank you very much for opening up this and I appreciate you for for hearing about our article tonight, article uh 20, which is a resolution um about the 911 remembrance. Um I'm Elizabeth
Childs, town member uh precinct 4. And I want to introduce our co-etitioners. We have Ariel Guzman, town member precinct five, and Jared Alexandro, um, who is a Lawrence parent who just had to run home and take his put his son to bed. Um, and an 18-year, uh, Brooklyn resident who
was a senior at South High School in Worcester when 911 happened. >> We also have Nancy Okconor, who's not able to be here tonight, who's a wife, mother, and daughter in a multi-generational firefighter family in Brooklyn. and one of the firefighters and their families who raised the money
for the Manny Del Valley bench at fire station number five on Bcott Street. These are the petitioners. So, article 20 builds um on several pri prior efforts to remember 911 in Brooklyn and I am very grateful to many
of you personally, in particular to you, Chair Green, for all of your support in the past to create this event in Brooklyn. The resolution simply asks us to formalize this annual remembrance ceremony so that it is sustainable no
matter who's doing the organizing of the citizen volunteers. And we modeled our resolution on the resolution that the um MLK committee did after they had had their informal citizen group and then became a formal committee so that it
would have sustainability in town. The resolution asks the select board to appoint a committee for two roles. The first role is to do the leg work of coordinating the logistics of the annual ceremony. The second one is a time
related role which is to to um identify and make recommendations to the select board about a physical marker in Brookline. And that that part of the role for the committee would end once they made the recommendation to the select board. The article does not um
propose how that physical marker would be, where it would be, but it actually asked the committee to do that work. The importance of 911 cannot be overstated, particularly to our community. Brookline is one of the communities that lost more people on 911
than any other community saved New York City and Boston. In fact, we may be the community that lost the most out beyond New York City and Boston. These are citizens who are on their way to work, who committed acts of valor that day. In
fact, the first person to die on 911 was a Brooklyn resident who lived not far from me, Daniel Leuen. And he um heard and understood the people behind him speaking Arabic. And we believe that he tried to stop them from crashing the
first plane into the north tower. We also know that some of the first responders who died that day and many who were ill um had Brooklyn connections, at least one of them died in the line of service, uh Mannyell Valley. We also know that um the brother of Jack Dewan, who was a longtime
Brooklyn firefighter, also died in the line of service that day. These are ordinary people, people doing their job and people who had no idea that that day when they went to work, they were never going to come home. So the committee has proposed is really
a way of us in Brooklyn taking a moment to come together to remember what 911 meant to our country and what it meant in particular to Brooklyn. Um I I think there's one note I want to
just make as a like a practical note. There's a scrimer's error in the article which states that the number of casualties was 2,997. It actually is 2977. So that n that second nine should be a
seven. >> And the reason I raise this is because we can't change it in the warrant. But if the select board decides to move the article, I would want us to change it in that motion. If the AC decides to move it, I would have them change it. And if neither the AC or the select board move
it and we have to move it on the floor, we will make that amendment at that time. But I didn't want there to be any we didn't want any inaccuracies in our article. Um, that's actually all I have to add to say. I can I'm certainly happy to answer
questions from all of you and um and I just want to ask my fellow petitioners if there's anything else they need to add to that explanation. >> Jared, yes, please. Jared Alexandro. >> Thank Thank you, Elizabeth. Um some of
you saw that I was here tonight with my 10-year-old son who's a student at Lawrence. And I think part of this is really you're seeing the impact that 911's had being generation to generation. And we don't want um the students that are coming up in Brooklyn to not have the appreciation for our
first responders and what that meant to people of you know I was in high school so very clear day in my mind but it's not something that's talked about on a daily basis like it once was. So we think it's really important for the new generation of Brooklyn students and
residents coming up that there be a permanent remembrance um to honor the the victims of that day. Thank you. Ariel, anything you want to add? Okay, I think that's that's all we have to say. We're happy to answer questions. >> Okay. Um, I have a couple comments. Yes.
Um, >> first of all, in the sec third recital, um, >> sorry, >> September 11 is not recognized as Patriots Day, is it? Or is that something I I'm not aware of? >> No, it is nationally recognized as
Patriot Patriot Day. >> Patriot Day. >> Patriot Day. >> Okay. National Day of Service and Remembrance. Yes. >> So just distinguish from our Patriots. >> Exactly. It's ours is Patriots Day. >> Uh secondly, I I would recommend that um
in the first uh now therefore clause um >> first whereas clause. Okay. >> No, now therefore clause. >> Oh, in the first now therefore. Okay. Um you know this is the 250th anniversary of uh our revolution. >> Yes. Uh, so to say that this is one of
the most important days in American history, I think is probably not what you want to say. >> Okay. >> Okay. That's just my opinion. >> Okay. >> Um, I mean, you know, we have Pearl Harbor, we have a lot of, you know,
important days and maybe different phrasing there. The the other thing that I would like to suggest is that it looks like, as I recall when I read this, it looks like uh the committee will recommend to the select board that we
commission and uh I guess fund a memorial. Shouldn't that be a fundraising um activity of a committee? >> Well, I think it could be. I I think we don't presuppose that that wouldn't be the case. I mean, I think the committee uh could make recommendations even
around how those funds would be raised. Yes. And the committee we proposed would be appointed by the select board and have the committee we proposed had the five members, five public members, um a member designated by the fire chief, a member designated by the police chief, a
member designated by the Brooklyn Historical Society, and a select board member, obviously. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Any other questions? Go ahead. >> Yes. >> So, so thank you very much um for the presentation and for all the efforts um
you've put into this remembrance. Um I I I am interested in noting the fact that you brought up Pearl Harbor Day. Um because when I was sort of thinking about the the analogies in our history, that was that was the one that came to
mind. And I one of the reasons is that my one of my uncles was actually born on December 7th, couple even years later. Um so that day has always sort of stuck with me for that reason. Um but but I'm just I'm
just wondering, you know, when I think about sort of what our current uh discussions are about that day now, you know, some 80 80 some odd years later. I'm trying to think about what are your
expectations of how this would evolve 80 some odd years after 2001. >> Yeah. Well, I think we don't know what what will happen, but I would hope that we' we would remember it just like I think this is a generational thing, too, that um people of my era and my parents'
era always remembered and stopped on Pearl Harbor Day, >> but our younger generation in a way um to 911 was really like their Pearl Harbor. And actually more people were killed on 911 than on Pearl Harbor. And
um in fact it is the single greatest number of Americans killed on by a foreign adversary in America on in a day and it's the largest terrorist attack in the history of the world. Um so it is a very significant day and I think that I
would hope that we would just take a pause to all come together and we remember our humanity and um I hope that they do do it 50 years from now that somebody will stop and say today is 911. We should remember those people and I think we at least we do in our household
on on Pearl Harbor Day, but I don't know if that happens anywhere else, you know, and publicly. I don't know that we do anything like that in in Brooklyn. I don't know that we do. Um so I hope it I hope we would keep doing this at least. >> Yeah. >> Um thank you for bringing this forward.
Can you describe what it takes today to put this on? Who who's doing the work? Um I know I see you there. Right. See Bernard there. >> But my sense is it it it seems to be >> puddled together, bootstrapped. >> It is it is it's it's actually wonderful
effort. It really Bernard really deserves a lot of credit here because um uh Susan Howard and I approached Bernard about doing something on in Brooklyn on 911 because although there was the fireman's solemn ceremony which they will have and always have, it's a very
it's a very important day for them as well. Um we felt that it was really important for our community like all the communities around us actually were doing things and we were like not doing a citizen effort but a lot of the most the people who died on that day were ordinary citizens like you and me who
just got up and went to work ended up being confronted with doing something incredible. Um and many of them died in the line of doing that. Um, and so Bernard actually really led the ar led the push to make sure that we linked up
with the fireman's solemn ceremony because we didn't want to compete with it. We really wanted to just if anything just augment it but remember the citizens who also died that day besides the firefighters and the police officers who died that day. And so the most important thing we do on that day is to
read the names of the people from Brooklyn who died on 911. And when when David had to pinch it and he did a great job last year on 911, the most important thing you have to do, I remember saying to him, was to read the names. Um, and so it really is trying to make
sustainable an effort. I'm not thinking that those of us who have worked on it are happy to continue to work on it. We really don't mind doing the work, but we'd love to have it be on the town calendar. We'd love to have it be something that gets shared across town is like this is 911
and and we want you all to come by and take 30 minutes out of your morning and and uh share with us what happened that day. >> So just to follow up so um just two two quick two quick points, one personal and then another which I do to talk about
the impact of this. Um I actually knew uh Daniel Ruin. Um and I knew another individual, Ando Curry Green, who was sitting either directly behind Daniel or the seat the next row. >> Yeah. >> Um and they did not know each other, but I knew both of them very well. >> Um and um so it is a very moving time
for me when whenever the anniversary comes that those are the folks I think of as well as all the others. But if you think about something that impacted us um you know 911 uh dramatically changed our society and
and not only the US but globally. >> Yes. >> Um and to this day we take our well I don't think we have to take our shoes off anymore but you certainly have to take our belts off and go through scanners and all that. That's a direct result. >> Yes. >> Of what occurred on 911. Yes. um you know the the the government's invasion
of our privacy frankly and ability to monitor and >> we don't even know what they can do now as a result of of 911. >> Um and so it's its impact >> um even if we're not having a ceremony
is felt today. Yeah. >> Um in in our daily lives I think because of that. So, I do think it's uh it's worthy of um serious consideration to formalize the ceremony and I really appreciate you bringing this forward. >> Thank you. Yeah, I actually in our petitioner's explanation, I listed some
of those things that you're mentioning, Paul, that it changed us dramatically. It created the Department of Homeland Security. Um it the bringing down of the Twin Towers was bringing down the international symbol of the United States economic power. The invasion of
Afghanistan occurred on October 7th, 2001 as a direct result. >> Um, and it it it made Americans realize that we were hated in places in the world and that we were vulnerable. And personally, there are still people I treat some who actually witnessed
firsthand as children the tra the tragedy and the death on that day and they are continually haunted by those traumatic memories. So it is a very very important day for many people. Yeah. Thank you. >> Yeah. I think it's particularly
important for us to have a memorial with the names of Brooklyn connected people and that that's an extremely powerful >> um thing to do that that uh you know succeeding generations can can look at and think about and and try to
understand you what happened and why it happened. uh and um our connection to that. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Any other discussion? This is a public hearing, so let's open up the public hearing. I see someone raising their
hands. Regina Frolley uh from South Brooklyn and I attend as some of you know every one of these uh honorable and honoring occasions including the Babcock Street.
In 1976, I took a seminar at Harvard on Vietnam War. And there was myself, a Vietnam vet, and several young people collecting credits, I guess, for their degree.
In one, it was the year after the the um soldiers were taken out of Vietnam, evacuated. Uh, and we know, we've never forgotten what that looked like. In that room, the children had zero, >> they were privileged children. They had
zero connection. They probably didn't have anyone in their family that was served in Vietnam. They thought it was just a history course and they were not very engaged. That stuck with me one year after the
evacuation. And that's the indifference I saw in the children. And I'm not criticizing them. I'm saying that we fail them when we don't educate them. I feel that 911 is everything that Elizabeth has said and more. We have a
generation of children whose families have not had the the draft, have not served in the military, have in fact had very good lives. And we need to honor these occasions. they did have all the
consequences that Elizabeth and and others have mentioned and I think it's really important as an education for the children to do this. Uh I agree with the father enormously about that. Um we can't raise our children in bubbles as
if nothing happens in life. We are hated. We probably more now than ever. Um, we need to to have the children be aware of what it is to serve. >> And the best part about the annual event
at Babco Street is this is not about the enemy. It has never been about the enemy. It has been about the heroes and the victims. And that's all they ever do is just honor the memory of Americans killed on their soil when they went to
work one day and the others who came to rescue and all of so many of them have still got health issues if they haven't already died. So I hope this will be taken seriously because I've seen that one year after the evacuation that there
were whole number of children who had no idea young people who had no idea of the consequences of Vietnam and if you Santiana said if you don't understand history you will be condemned to repeat it. Thank you
>> David. >> So I also want to thank the petitioners for bringing this forward. I I agree this is uh critically important and something that uh I mean I'm prepared to support it now. >> Uh I also like the idea that Paul raised and of course it was it was already in
the language as uh you pointed out Elizabeth on the penultimate page about the uh significant impacts that this date had. So it's I mean honoring those who whose lives were lost is absolutely critical. But I also like the idea of
coupling that with the broader cultural global significance that it had uh on all of our lives for those of us who are alive now and those who weren't alive yet at the time to understand that what they are experiencing today in some
respects uh was born as a part of the tragedy on that date. I'm curious uh to what extent you and the other petitioners research what other communities do with this day. I I do notice on the first page uh you
mentioned uh several Boston area municipalities that have similar committees and I presume that the New York City area has municipalities. Uh do they do anything different or were you trying to model this after any community in particular? We started with Newton
and um Newton has a ve a very elaborate a big ceremony and they have a physical marker. We're hoping to have some physical marker. Doesn't have to be like Newton's but um a physical marker and they do their ceremony around that physical marker. Um and yes, we know the organizers in Newton and um uh got a lot
of information when we started our we started bootstrapping coppbling our little thing together. It was based on what they had done. Um but and actually Boston does quite a commemoration as well because of how many people died from Boston and New York always does
something at down at ground zero. Um and uh some of our uh family members have often have either come to Brooklyn or they've gone down to New York. So um we've been in touch with several of the family members. Um, one of the family
members uh uh taped a um a a really talking about her brother uh Jerry Dewan who died and um we've had uh members come to our ceremony here and um that's probably a little something more more of our of our town. It's like a little more
like we're a little more we try to make it more about like the people and the families and make it a little more uh community oriented I guess would be the way that that's probably the one difference. But most there are many communities most all the communities around us have something um
formal for 9/11. Um we're the outlier actually in that. Yeah. >> John, >> just a couple of things to mention. Um and and uh you know, one is that uh Brooklyn has a way of even in the
absence of the officially sanctioned um uh ceremony which very appropriately this warrant article uh calls for um people rise up and Elizabeth was one of them. Susan Howard was another of them.
Um our chair was another of them. um a and they create, you know, out of nothing an observance um that is very heartfelt. You know, I've I've attend I've been privileged to attend it many many years >> and um it's always a special day and I
always feel if anything the only thing missing is more people, you know, if we could just get more people. Yeah. One of the things that um uh Elizabeth pointed out to me um during the break uh is that among other reasons to do this as an
official u uh committee and a function of the town um the the ceremony that uh has been carried on for so many years now never got on the town calendar, you know, which is too bad. I mean, and there's reasons for that, but uh one of
the harder things to do to accomplish was simply to let people know we had this observance on September 11th. >> Um and we had people participating who had lost, you know, people in their family on September 11th. Um, and I'm
just going to mention because I I always like to sort of make people aware of a wonderful poem that was written um that captures the uh what is so special about that day uh because there's going to be a tendency on on the part of some people
to think of it as a political thing. It isn't a political thing. It's all it's all about discovering that that we had within ourselves the capacity to be heroic that you know the capacity to be self-sacrificing and the poem is called
survivors found. It's by a poem poet by the name of Joan Murray. It got read o over the air on NPR and became sort of a celebrated. Uh it expressed for a lot of people what what September 11th meant to them especially in the immediate
aftermath >> and it sort of resonates to this day. So if people want to read a poem that is very effective in that regard, Survivors Found by Joan Murray, it's excellent. >> That's great. Thank you. >> Okay. Um Paul said that we should vote.
I did not >> or is it David? I'm sorry. Someone over here said that. >> I'm ready to move it >> or everyone want to do it. Okay. >> Um any suggested edits or see what did I say?
>> Well, I made I made some comments. Do with them what you want. Let's more Why don't you move the question? >> So, just modifying to correct for the scrier's error. Yeah. Other than that, I move that the select board recommend favorable action on war article 20.
>> Okay. All in favor John and Skoyak. >> I David Paul Warren. >> I have one comment before I I vote. Bernard. Um so with with very few exceptions, I'm probably going to abstain on most articles because I'm moving into the legislature town
meeting. Um uh so for this one though, I I will be voting yes. But most articles uh I I may abstain. Okay, just just to let you know. >> Okay. Uh, David P. I Michael Rubenstein. >> Hi, >> Chair V.I.
>> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. I appreciate it. >> Next, we have uh actually two articles that we should talk about together. Warrant Article 17 and Warrant Article 25.
And I assume that we have some uh petitioners online. I see Chi-Chi Woo and someone else. >> Uh, okay. >> Yeah, Chi-Chi Woo. Um,
>> I have a uh we have PowerPoints for both of these warrant articles and we were told we would get 10 minutes for each warrant article. Is that correct? >> Were they told that? >> I guess >> it's seven for warrant articles. >> That was my mistake. It is seven.
Okay, I will try to keep uh more in article 17 and in seven uh 25 may take a little bit longer. >> Okay, what uh since we said 10, why don't we give you 10 for 25 but seven for >> 17.
>> I will talk fast through 17. >> Make sure you understand. >> Uh I do have a PowerPoint so I'm going to share my screen. Okay. Chi-Chi Woo, town meeting member, precinct 7, uh, a petitioner on article
17, one of two, um, artic articles this evening dealing with civil immigration enforcement activities. Um, the other petitioners are Alec Leoitz and Jessica Kiko, who will be talking about article 25. uh Marissa Babot is here today and
then Amy Newell and Scottenian who could not join us. Um so um this article um uh you know I don't need to belabor too much how um difficult it has been uh to be both an
immigrant or to just watch um what's been happening with uh immigrants in this country. Um so just a little background um onethird of Brooklyn residents are immigrants. We have the highest percentage of foreignb born residents after Everett according to the
Brooklyn Community Foundation. Um I also don't need to belabor that um we have seen some terrible atrocities by the immigration and customs enforcement um across the country. We witnesses surges in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Portland,
Maine that have terrorized the populations, both immigrants, US citizens. We've seen the the murders of Alex Prey and Renee Good. Um, and here in Massachusetts, we have not had a surge, but we've seen numerous instances
of unfair detainment by ICE. Um, such as most notably the detainment of a TUS PhD student for exercising her first amendment rights. Um, uh, lots of other Massachusetts residents detained mo vast majority without criminal records. you
know, a Babson student who is detained um contrary to court orders. Um teenagers detained um and that they've been detained in terrible facilities um that are overcrowded um and that have uh poor food um and poor sanitary
conditions and also numerous children. And of course, we are all worried about a surge by ICE in the Boston area given um that blue cities tend to be target of this administration. Um so um we are bringing this warrant
article uh modeled on several uh other um pieces of uh several other things that have been recently issued. Um, most notably the you, the select board, issued a proclamation on February 10th, 2026 about no immigration enforcement on
town property. Similarly, the governor issued a an executive order um regarding stateowned property and Boston, Newton, Cambridge, Somerville, and Chelsea and Lynn have uh issued similar executive orders. So, this particular warrant
article um is very similar to the proclamation that the select board issued on February 10th and we very much appreciate that proclamation um as well as the other actions both the select board and the police department have taken with respect to not cooperating
with ICE. So, the right now the Warren article is two paragraphs. The first paragraph is very very similar to the first paragraph of the proclamation. The biggest difference is we explicitly named the police station as a town facility that should not be used as a
staging area or processing location um for immigration activities without a judicial warrant. Um that's actually not a substantive change because the police station is just an example. It is of course by nature a town facility. So it was covered under under your proclamation.
The second um uh the second paragraph um sorry my PowerPoint's not um is also similar to the second paragraph of the proclamation. Um now this afternoon we
got an email from town council expressing concerns about the second uh second sentence of the second paragraph. Um even though it's the same text as was in the proclamation for some reason because it is going to be a Warren
article um that seemed to cause some concerns. Um town council did suggest some options for changing it um including making it closer to what Cambridge or Somerville has in their exe executive orders. So, um, we here we
have some potential language that we could tweak to the second sentence to try to address the concerns of town council. Um, and then, um, you might be thinking, well, why did you bring this as a bylaw
when we already issued our proclamation? Um and this was triggered really um because we watched the discussion of the proclamation which you know obviously very much supportive and when it came to the discussion of how it would be enforced you know we noted that one of the speakers said well um we would
enforce it by going to court to seek an injunction to enforce the ordinance and the thought occurred well a proclamation really isn't an ordinance but what is an ordinance a bylaw is an ordinance and a bylaw makes um this more enforceable. It
gives the it the force of a town ordinance. It makes it permanent within our bylaws. Um also um you know one one concern we got was well you know this codifies it. What if we want to change our minds? Well first of all I hope we never do change our minds that our
values will stay the same in terms of not cooperating with civil immigration enforcement. But if it um does change, you know, town meetings should have a say in that as legislative body for Brooklyn, both in terms of making this permanent and if a reversal is sought.
Um finally, um we did have a conversation with the police department. We had it after we submitted it this as a warrant article. Um so this did not make it to the version that is in the warrant. Um the police department expressed some concerns about
enforcement of this bylaw and that they were concerned, you know, that they didn't want police officers pressured into arresting ICE officers or getting into conflict with ICE officers um or having some sort of uh issue um um where
uh where a police officer was only aware of the bylaw and not the proclamation. um you know they pointed to paragraph three of the proclamation of something very important that the enforcement is reporting to the time administrator and seeking uh an injunction. Um and so we
are willing you know we are more than happy to add paragraph 3 to the warrant article to the bylaw. We have consulted with the moderator um and the moderator said that this would be considered in scope. Um, so we would be willing to move a motion that includes paragraph
three and that um that changes the second sentence of the second paragraph per um the text that I showed you earlier and happy to answer any questions at this point. >> By the way, the uh duty to intervene and
report is part of the post um uh law with respect to law enforcement officers. So there's some ambiguity as whether that covers federal officer, but that that language is in the post
statute or regulations. >> Paul, >> so this may be a question for uh town council if he's he's on. Um so is Joe on? >> Yes. >> Okay.
I'm gonna wait to see his face >> or hear his voice >> or hear his voice. There he is. All right. his popped up. So, uh, Joe, I I have a question about um the statement that the petitioner made about the the
town administrator's ability to seek an injunction or whatever the phrasing was. Um, given that uh we either a proclamation, I thought we we set a policy, but maybe it was a proclamation. Um, are we unable to enforce
our policy because it's a policy or a proclamation versus a bylaw? >> No. Uh, so sorry, I was uh chewing potato chips. That's what took me a while to get the my video. >> They're French onions >> and now I'm choking on them because I
was trying to uh eat them. But um no uh Joe Kalan and town council um you know if this situation were to arise uh without the bylaw as opposed to just the policy you know I'd ask Chaz to send something in writing to whatever you
know the uh officer in charge you know the special agent in charge whoever you know is in charge and we would enforce that that would be a directive from the town. So, it doesn't matter if it's a letter, it's an email, it's a policy, it's a, you know, something. It would be
the feds would be uh using town property without our permission and that's what we'd be seeking to uh enforce. >> Thank you. >> But it is true that uh proclamation really is just the the opinion of the select board doesn't really have much power beyond that and the next select
board could could reverse it. So, you know, having a bylaw is is a little more substantive than or substantial than um just a proclamation. Uh John, >> uh yeah. Um thank thank you to the
sponsors for bringing this Warren article. Um there's a lot to discuss here. Um, I'm just wondering uh because a a lot of this is just going to um take effect in in situations in which the police have
to make a decision uh about how to behave toward, you know, um federal law enforcement that are on property in in the town of Brooklyn, uh whether it be public or private property. Um if the
select board have made a policy and then if town meeting makes a policy and town meetings policy doesn't entirely square with the select board's policy um who who are the police expected to answer to
>> well the town meetings policy is a law bylaw an ordinance >> all right >> I that that would I would think that would control I I would also point out that you know we wrote the bylaw to be very similar to
the proclamation so that it matches uh what you issued as the select >> right- which you know um kind of gets to my point in a different way um if they're the same you know I'm
e either they're different and there's a material difference and then you got to get into all these questions of you know that I think our town council has has raised as to whether we're suggesting that um uh there there can be some kind
of uh interference in federal law enforcement that is not something that the police are comfortable doing in certain circumstances. Um or there's no difference. Um and I guess we could just go ahead and you know say we'll have it in a select board
policy but and in a bylaw as well. Um, I'm I'm a little puzzled by the difference. I think there is a difference others can help me out with this between a a bylaw that that governs um all behaviors of all people in the
town or a policy that is in the hands of the select board in terms of their role visav the police department. Um, and that policy speaks to interactions between our police department and other police
departments. And and I'm I'm a little bit confused about the extent to which a bylaw can trump a police department policy uh set by the select board. Um because the, you know, police department isn't just anybody.
They're the police department. >> Yeah. So, so there's we have to separate a couple things. >> Yeah. >> The proclamation is not a policy. What is a policy? >> Well, okay. So maybe someone can
convince me that it is the policy that that's relevant is uh general order 42 and general order 51 which were policies in uh uh executed by the select board uh
to govern the police department. So why okay so tell me why a a proclamation is is the same as as a regulation. >> It's so it's not the same as a general order. It's not the same as a regulation, but it is it is a pol it's policy directive from the select board
and when you issue a policy directive, it's my job to implement that policy directive regardless of the form that it takes. So by structuring it as a proclamation because you do you are not in the habit of issuing executive orders which is what other communities have done. And I don't necessarily know if as
a executive body as a whole you want to get in the habit of issuing the executive orders. I tend to think of that as something that's a little it's it's not necessarily congruent with what you as a select board tend to do. Um so coming up with a way to put together a public pronouncement of your policy
guidance that we then implement which we implement through you're right that there are elements of this that are reflected or you know that you know some elements of the policy reflect back to the two general relevant general orders. the orders about the reference of duty
to intervene which as you pointed out came up after post and then um the non-ooperation um with you know refusing to provide um services related to civil immigration enforcement. Um you know it references those but those are those are
general orders that are that are more specific and directed to the police department. Your general policy guidance, however, is, you know, it's my job to follow that and so I implement that in accordance with your directives. So when you issue that and you, you know, it says in the last paragraph, the
town administrator is directed to implement this. That's what I'm doing. David, >> I think the petitioner's point is that structurally a bylaw, as long as it complies with state law, federal law, is
going to supersede a policy of a subgroup within the municipality. So, I think the idea is to formally codify our proclamation so that there is a basis for potential
court action to enforce it. It's less clean enforcing a policy. >> Well, >> well, I guess I I would just say that that that that subgroup within the town governance is actually the police commissioners
and you have a bylaw going to over override the police comm. I mean, we're the executive body for the town. Um, we issued a policy um which is fully enforceable and being executed by the town administrator. Um, extrapolate this
out. Um, does this town meeting start setting policy for the police with respect to how they enforce the roads or when they can pull people over? Uh, what I guess they could do anything, but >> right >> I'm I'm just talking about structurally
a bylaws higher level. >> Now whether we like that or not is another question, but I think the the point is to have something that's uniform that's at the municipal level, not a subcomponent below it. Michael,
>> um I mean I I have comments that are not related to this particular point, but to this particular point, just as another example, Paul, um I would raise the tree protection bylaw, um which has a lot of specifics in terms of how it gets
implemented. And because that was passed as a bylaw through town meeting, the way in which that bylaw is implemented by DPW is constrained to the specifications
within that bylaw. So in my in my opinion, I don't think we as the executive have the power to say, "Oh, no, that's not really the way we should implement it. We should do it a different way. John.
>> Um, so let me see if I can explain myself a little bit better. Um if if the bylaw directed the select board to direct the police um to do this,
would the bylaw have the force of you know trumping the role of the select board as police commissioners of the police to to dictate you know what policies the commissioners of police should be setting for the police department?
Uh Joe, do you have any insight on that question? >> For Joe Kalan, town council, um you know, a bylaw directing the select board to exercise its discretion in one way or another would be problematic. It would be a you'd run into a problem of
separation of powers. You are the executive. Town meeting is the legislate legislative branch. So that would be more problematic than say how this bylaw is u drafted. >> Yeah. And that kind of gets to what's making me a little uncomfortable about
this is it feels like it's doing an end run around the role of the police of the select board as the commissioners of the police in um setting policies for the police department especially in the area of the ver the the cooperation of the
police department with other authorities state authorities and federal authorities. Um you know th those can't be simply redrawn at the local level. um when in fact there's you know uh very severe consequences
for for for crossing lines in terms of cooperation between law enforcement agencies. I I I am led to understand. >> Yeah. >> So if I I could point out what we're talking about the the bylaw um which in its current form without paragraph 3 is
simply um setting forth what's pro a prohibited activity on town property. Um I I I'm wondering if you're referring to the resolution that we're going to talk about next. >> Yes, if I may. I was just about to make that point. Thank you. So I don't see
anything in this language that is demanding that any action be taken by the police. This is just describing what actions would be prohibited. >> Good point. >> Um uh to to a couple of other points. Um
the first is a is a drafting just a drafting question. In the first paragraph there's a reference to civil immigration enforcement and subsequently in the same paragraph there's a reference to federal civil immigration enforcement. And I'm just wondering if
that diff was intentional or noteworthy in any way. Um this is in the text of the bylaw itself. >> Yes. >> Um so as I said we um basically tried to
copy paste as much of the proclamation as we could. So that is probably in the proclamation. >> Okay. So, I I I would recommend that you consider making those phrases consistent even if they're not in the proclamation because I'm I'm not sure why they're
different. Um that that's number one. Um, number two, um, I have a concern not only in the second sentence, but in the first sentence of the second paragraph in the sense that that, uh, that
sentence is an action on a group of people and not an action on a set of behaviors or actions by those people. Um, and I'm a little concerned about the precedent of saying this is a group of
people who aren't allowed in the non-public spaces of public buildings. Um you know in the extreme case for example you know a civil who a person might be considered a civil immigration enforcement official for example if they
are a high up uh appointed official within DHS you know not necessarily related to ICE but they may have a civil immigration enforcement role and by the by this language would those people be
banned from the non on public spaces of public buildings or would a civil immigration enforcement official who is not at that moment carrying out their duties as a civil immigration enforcement official be similarly banned
from non-public spaces of public buildings. So I just as a as a matter of precedence, I think if our concern is about preventing particular behaviors, then we should specify the behaviors as opposed to the individuals.
The third point I I'm I'm wondering if you considered is that this war this uh bylaw is specifically focused on civil immigration enforcement. And and I'm wondering if uh over time
um one of two things is possible. One is that civil immigration enforcement will change its character in such a way that this bylaw would be inappropriate. Or alternatively, there may be other fu uh
actions by different federal agencies, you know, uh impos uh what's the word? enforcing a draft, for example, that we may as a town object to uh or some other action of federal enforcement that we
would want to this to uh also apply to. And I'm wondering whether the language is either is is is too specific in that regard. >> Does she have do >> you have any comments?
Um well with respect to that the the latter point um uh I mean we were focused on immigration issues because that's what is currently
um the big issue in this country um and you know in in Massachusetts and it and again um we the idea was basically to take the proclamation and turn it into a bylaw. So, we did try to hue as closely
to the proclamation thinking that um since the select board did approve it um that it would be actually the least controversial step to to simply codify it in the bylaws. >> John, >> and can I just briefly add Alec Levitz,
Town Meeting Member Precinct 8, one of the co- petitioners. Um I think to the first point you in your question there Michael um there is already an exception and kind of a safety valve built into this bylaw which is um these civil immigration enforcement officials are
allowed in the non-public spaces if they have a judicial warrant. Um, and so I think that provides some flexibility should the course of civil immigration enforcement return um to I think a more normal or more um appropriate
application of federal law. Um, we've seen I think with some exceptions of course that largely right now the unlawful and I'd say rogue actions of some of the enforcement agencies in the federal level have been held to account by the courts. So, I think we see that
the provision of a judicial warrant granted by the courts um you know provides some flexibility in the bylaw and certainly should the tenor and and um effectiveness and appropriateness of civil immigration enforcement changes. That's also something a future town meeting could certainly revisit in
amending or repealing this bylaw. >> Okay, John. And then >> well a a good question was asked and I I thank um uh the sponsor for that as to you know am I confusing the uh article uh the two articles that are in front of
us and um yes my comments I think apply most you know uh directly to the proposed article 25 but on the other hand uh under article 17 the bylaw to prohibit civil immigration ation
immigration enforcement activities on town facilities. Who do we think is going to enforce that? I mean, it's going to be police. It's going to be our our local police. It's a town bylaw uh to be to be enforced, I presume, by town police
department. Um and so the bylaw effectively um puts the uh town police department in the position of having to take on ICE and forcibly remove them from um town facilities. And that was
never the intent of the um select board's proclamation. Um we we've dealt mainly with issues of cooperation and you know and you we want to very clearly state th those um actions by ICE that
our police department will not engage in jointly or cooperate with. But I don't think it was ever the intention of anything that we adopted that we would set our police department um at odds with ICE if they are, you know, um
if if they are present on town facilities um in in ways that federal law enforcement is actually u permitted to to uh engage to uh be present at. David,
>> so >> just g getting back to the uh previous point. So I agree with Michael. I I don't think it's sufficient that because an immigration enforcement official could secure a warrant, therefore it's
okay to have this prohibition because it's not that we are necessarily against an entire class of people from being in a non-public space of a public building. it's what that person would actually do while there. And I do appreciate that
the petitioners were basically modeling this off of our proclamation. So I think this is actually a deficiency that was on our end that we didn't catch at the time and we perhaps may want to reconsider our proclamation. Uh but it's
still a valid point even if it's coming up now as opposed to before when we passed the proclamation. I do feel that the second sentence in uh paragraph 2 is addressing the actual concern here and the second sentence going back to Michael's points focuses more on the
behavior or the conduct that we want to see occurring in these spaces. So I'm not sure that we necessarily need the first sentence. And again this isn't a criticism of the petitioners. This was I think a mistake that we made in the
proclamation as well. May I address John's point regarding um the enforcement by police? Um so during the my presentation I did point out we met with the police department. They raised that concern and um they raised
that we had not adopted the third paragraph of your proclamation. Um we are willing to include that in in the warrant article. Um and we have talked to the moderator about that and he um said that would be within scope. So we
we specifically um uh are are cognizant of that concern. Also I would note that the this particular bylaw would be in the section of the bylaws part six that deal with prohibited um activities on town property. So for example, it's
where the bylaws talk about no alcohol on town property, which the police do enforce that, but it may not necessarily be arresting anyone. um it might be just a a a fine or it might just be a verbal warning. Um so, you know, it isn't the
part of the bylaws that deals with what is prohibited or and not allowed on town property um in general. So, it it kind of fits there. >> That's good. >> Okay, Paul. >> Yep. Uh thanks for clarifying that, Chichi. that there may be just a little bit of a difference between a police
officer enforcing not having alcohol in a at a park and them having uh a confrontation with another uh you know entity that a federal entity that believes that they have jurisdiction. Um it just you could see where it could it
could be problematic. Um but I do want to go back to I want to make sure I understand the issue that Michael brought up and I think David reinforced but I'm not sure. The first sentence of the second paragraph, non-public spaces of public buildings shall be offlimits to civil immigration immigration
enforcement officials in the absence of a judicial warrant. Um, this could be read that if if there is a member of the Brooklyn public, uh, maybe they're a resident and they happen to be a civil immigration immigration enforcement official, they would be barred from going into the police station by this
wording. uh because it's as Michael said, it's identifying an individual or a group versus the the actual activity above. You're talking about the actions um in the first paragraph. In the second paragraph, you're actually identifying a
people group. Um and I, you know, I I think that would need to be cleaned up um a bit. So, it's about the action. So, that if someone is a civil immigration official and they live in Brooklyn and they need to go pay their taxes or they need to go do something to challenge a
ticket at at the police station, they're not chased off the property because they have uh >> a particular >> a particular role, right? >> I will just note though that it's non-public spaces, right? Like you can go pay your taxes like that's that's a public space of a public building. It's
you can't come behind the counter, which is true of anybody. But, you know, again, it's just >> this this does this language when you adopted it was designed for nonpublic spaces. Um, and designed to make very
clear that you can't, you know, we don't want to have situations like it when it's been reported, which is people, you know, walking behind the counter here in the sixth floor and saying, I'm, you know, I'm with the US government. you have to do what I say without a warrant. Um, they have they if they want to go
back there, they need a judicial warrant to do it. That's that's what that language is about. >> But wouldn't that be true of any individual regardless of their role? >> Yes. Again, you know, we're this is why we're talking about why why it's why from a policy perspective, a lot of this
is reinforcing existing, you know, reinforcing and codifying restrictions that already existed because a lot of this is about, you know, making sure the public feels confident that that we are that we have the tools available to us to the extent possible under given the limits that we
have under the supremacy clause of the Constitution um to do what we can to resist unlawful activity um in town buildings and on town property. Um so yes, a lot of this to Bernard's point references back to things that are already true um but recodifies them in a
different way so that people understand clearly what can and can't happen in a public building on public property. >> So So Chz, I I think there's an easy fix to this if we just listen to what the issue is. I don't think it's that complicated. the the activities that are
in the paragraph above would just need to be brought down to the paragraph below in the non-public spaces. So the above it's any town facility, right? Um can't be used and then below it's essentially saying the same thing. It's
just saying non-public spaces, right? >> No, because it's this is paragraph one is about staging. It's about using these things for a specific purpose. Um whereas paragraph 2 is more broadly about access generally. Um so you can't
just you know dragging it down and saying dragging that down and saying you know you can't use non-public spaces of town buildings for staging. Well yes that's true. That's not what this is designed to counteract. It's designed to counteract people saying you know people flashing a badge and saying I'm allowed
to be back here when in fact they don't have a warrant to be back there. Um >> but that but as Michael said that's anybody. I mean, >> it's not anybody because >> the public just can't walk behind the counter at the town clerk's office and say, "I'm in here." >> That's right. >> The second paragraph says, "Non-public
spaces of public buildings should be off limits to civil immigration enforcement." >> Officials >> officials. >> Officials. >> Well, if if you stopped at enforcement, you might be okay. >> If you when you add officials, you're actually talking about a person as opposed to an act an activity. So maybe
you just get rid of officials in that solves the issue. >> Well, I'm not sure I would want to word smith this. >> Yeah, but I agree with your feedback. You you raised a good point. >> Yeah. >> I mean, there are other ways to solve this, too, I'm sure.
>> Okay. Where are we? >> Public hearing. >> I Yeah. Right. >> Okay. Let's go to the public hearing. >> Jessica has her hand raised or had her hand raised. >> Who? Jessica. >> Okay.
>> Yes. Good evening, Jessica Kiko co- petitioner. I was actually going to address that last point and see if I could suggest some phrasing that might address that particular issue. Uh and so wanted to know whether if we rephrased it to non-public spaces of public buildings shall be off limits to anyone
carrying out civil immigration enforcement in the act judicial warrant or court order authorizing their presence therein. I feel like that language would would address what what has I think been correctly identified as the potential unintended um issue with
with the current language. >> Sounds like you're talking about the activity. >> Pardon me. >> She's she's limiting it to the activity and not the individual. >> Correct. >> Okay. Um you should make that amendment
>> when this comes to us next time. >> Yeah. Any other uh public uh comments? >> Yeah, members of the public can always use the hand raise feature on Zoom if they want to make a public comment.
>> Not seeing any. >> Okay, let's close the hearing. Um, and uh I don't think of course we're not ready to take this up right now, but uh there I think Jessica has a proposal a proposed amendment u probably makes
sense when it comes back next time >> to the blackboard >> and Bernard when it when it comes back if I may um it might be helpful to hear from the chief. >> Yes. >> I would say so Paul Campbell the superintendent is online. Thank you Paul. The chief is unfortunately away. she did ask to have the opportunity to
speak. >> I know on on this one, we've we've worked together on this, you know, with town council's office to address those concerns and we the grateful to the petitioners for their involvement there. Um I think really where the chief wants to be heard and and have the opportunity
to speak is on article 25. Uh I'm sorry, article um >> no no uh sorry, article 21. >> Oh, what's that? >> Um the resolution involving the um Oh, I'm sorry. That's that's No, I'm sorry. I'm reading 25 is no cooperation with ICE. It's um
>> but it has a lot of things that I'm sure the police are interested in >> talking. >> It was it was one that was actually pulled. I'm sorry. It was the one about uh the brick. >> Okay. >> Before we leave this one, I just have a question. >> Oh, yes. That is that is article 25.
Yes. the chief did want to have the opportunity to speak on that and to potentially have um someone from the brick come in and have a conversation about that. >> Okay, >> Michael. >> Yeah, I I just wanted to ask the petitioners what their current status is
on the second sentence in the second paragraph that the uh town council flagged. >> Um yes, um we uh are willing to modify that sentence. Um I had put it in the
PowerPoint are um that we the so one of the options that town council had uh had suggested is to modify the language to be closer to that of Cambridge and Somerville.
So, um, the way that would be modified for Brooklyn would be that the town reaffirms its position that public buildings are available to provide specific services to members of the public and to conduct town operations and to and are to be accessed for those
purposes only. So, that's similar to um the the language from Cambridge and Somerville. >> Okay. And I I can I I can try to uh you can't see the chat, right? I post it in the chat. >> Okay. So, we
>> The reason the reason I ask is, you know, >> I'm a little concerned that by referencing specific services, it begs the question, okay, so is there an enumeration or what are those specific
services? So that so that the bylaw is clear. And if something falls out of that that set of services, um that sentence is very restrictive and and you know again could be interpreted
that to exclude something that we uh do not want to so exclude. >> So so the the language about access to specific services was also in the proclamation. So >> um
um >> I I I appreciate that that that problem. >> Need a bylaw to improve our proclamation language. >> Well, capability >> bylaws bylaws in my mind have have more
weight and deserve >> okay >> deserve this close scrutiny which they are getting. >> You're raising a good point, Mike. >> Okay. So, um, here the hearing still open and I understand that Marty Rosenthal is trying to get in. >> He's here. Marty, can you just unmute
yourself? >> You can hit star six on your phone. So, Oh, >> there he is. >> Here. >> Yes. Speak louder, Marty. >> I'm sorry. >> Speak more loudly.
>> Should I try off speaker phone? Is this better? >> Yeah, just speak up. >> All right. Well, anyway, I've been trying for an hour and with a problem. So, uh, it's Marty Rosenthal. um town
meeting member nine, precinct nine, former select board member and chair and co-chair of PAX. Uh the travesties that have gone on in Minneapolis have just been so overwhelming to me. They've brought up memories of things like the Kent State murders, the Napal girl in
Vietnam, George Floyd, Eric Garner. So I really um am appreciative of what the board has done February 10th and what the petitioners have done. However, I do have some problems and questions especially on number 17. So I I can't
talk much about 25 because of the time limit and uh the one thing I want to say I want to add some things to 25 which the moderator said if I can get the agreement the petitioners which I hope I will uh I'll bring up later but the main
one on that would be to get clarification that the state will either requires someone under arrest to get a phone call within an hour is not limited to anything to state and local police. So I think that ought to apply to ICE.
That's a whole separate set of issues probably for the resolution. Okay. So, Article 17 half addresses my concerns on February 10th, which I sent in one of my classic Magnum opuses. Uh, that it tries
to be binding, but I don't I I and it is more binding than than the proclamation, but it's complex, risky, and I think dangerous. And the reason I think it's dangerous is that bylaws get reviewed by the attorney general. And I think this
one has a lot of legal issues. Some of which you you've highlighted. I've been watching the meeting even while I try to get in. I think the attorney general there's going to be qualms and that could raise problems for all the executive orders because the same legal
issues are in many of them. So let me just try to go through a few of them. I sent yesterday to the board the wonderful Vera article from about ice jones zones and I tried to reach one of the petitioners today to send it to them and I'll do so after after the meeting.
The biggest gorilla to me is that nobody's mentioned that creating a bylaw creates a misdemeanor. So, it's a crime and it has extra hurdles to pass with the AG's office like clarity, constitutionality, and not being state
preempted. Basically, it creates pretty much a trespass offense. Doesn't call it that, but there is a law on trespass on municipal property. It's very limited, and I don't see how this could avoid being preempted by that limited state
law. and maybe that it needs to be a better state law, but that's a one of the things for the resolution I think is some things that that are needed at the state house. So, a couple of issues that I just want to highlight. I don't have much time, but some of these there's a void for
vagueness principle that governs criminal offenses. I don't think there's there is no definition that I see for facilities and the the main prohibition for uh the facilities paragraph talks about public
property but why aren't streets and sidewalks considered uh banned and ISIS are waited outside the police station to grab people who've been arrested and bailed. Can we really ban that? I wish we could, but they're using public
property. And I don't see how this, you know, basically narrows and avoids that. And so basically, they're create they're having they're conduct they're doing a misdemeanor to do that arrest. And the the issue of police intervention
is a very complicated issue. And I think that Bernard would I think mention the duty to intervene, which you know is not mentioned in this. And I suppose that's a separate issue. But so let me get to the part two of the uh of the binding
u bylaw because I agree with town council that part one looks okay but not for the reasons they say. And I also agree that part two was very risky. I heard some talk tonight about amending it. And Marty, >> your time is up.
Well, >> but we got we got your points. >> Yeah. >> Thanks, Marty. Can we have maybe tell town council? It's an interesting point that he makes that that does this is there some issue that the attorney general now we
wouldn't find out until we passed it and then sent it to the attorney general but does it is there some risk of of impacting these other executive orders that >> Yes. I mean and it's I mean you know we we we've been frank on this for a while now which is the community has wanted us
to be proactive in this. We want to be proactive. We want to make it stick as best we can, but the reality of the situation is, yeah, this is this is not easy to do. Um, you're dealing with a system that inherently favors the federal government. They hold all the cards.
Any anything that they argue is, you know, they're going to argue all of this is barred under the supremacy clause, that all this is preempted under federal law that we can't say anything about immigration enforcement at all. um and any attempt to do so is automatically is
automatically unlawful. Um that's going to be their position. That's going to be the federal government's position. And the state AG may look at may may take that as a jumping off point and say, "Yeah, you can't do this, you can't do that." Um which is why I think we it's important for us to workshop this as
best we can to get it to a point where we think it stands up to the best scrutiny. But we have to be, you know, too, the other thing that we talked about when this proclamation first went out is setting reasonable reasonable or or set setting expectations accordingly on what can and can't be done. You know,
the we can't arrest ICE agents like that's just not possible. Um, >> can I can I ask another question? So >> the you raised the leg maybe the legality of it. Are we the first to propose a bylaw that would essentially
as Marty says be trespassing or some other uh you know misdemeanor and and does it does it do we become the test case for the federal government to go challenge this? >> I don't know the answer to that. We'll take a look. I all of these all I will say all of these things passed initially
as executive orders, right? I don't know. I don't believe, for example, that the Cambridge City Council has taken this up yet. Um, or any of the other communities, city councils or town, you know, boards have taken this up. You know, we're the only we're the we're the last town, you know, classic town in the
metro area. So, um, well, not not in the metro area. We're the last classic town. >> Take it back. That's >> of our size. >> That's all right. Of our size. Um, so but we've got to um, so I don't I don't know the answer to that. We'll take a
look into it. Um, but I don't believe so. Um, I think >> maybe Somerville has, but we'll we'll I'll do some digging. >> And isn't there a state law? >> There's a state executive order which some of some of this language is modeled
after the governor's executive. >> But the AG doesn't review executive orders of cities. Only bylaws are >> it's some precedent. the EG would look at it. I would think >> I think in all you know in all these cases it's it's we're in we're in uncharted territory
here. Um >> you know we have not had a situation in recent memory where the federal government has been so actively hostile. I think you have to go back to you know >> not to not to I was going to say not to be hyperbolic about it but you got to go back to the fugitive slave act. Um
that's really the last time We gonna move to the next article. >> Yeah, let's go on to the next article. Um, as uh Chad said, uh, Chief Pastor wants to bring in someone from Brick to answer some of the questions that were raised
in this article. So, we'll have the hearing, but continue it into uh another meeting so that we can have a hearing with that uh with them here. >> So, they're not here tonight. No, >> they're not here tonight. Okay,
>> it's Paul. >> Yeah. >> So, uh Gi, who's gonna talk about foreign article 25? >> That would be uh me, Bernard. And I'm going to start things off and then I'm going to hand them over to uh my co-etitioner, Jessica Kiko.
Um can everyone see the slides? >> Yes. >> Excellent. Um so, good evening everyone. Alec Levitz, town meeting member, precinct date and member of the advisory committee. Um speaking here on behalf of myself and the other co-etitioners of Warrant Article 25. Um Warren article 25
um is the companion article to 17 which where the approach in 17 was essentially identify what we can do locally we think by bylaw. Uh, Warren Article 25 takes a broader view of additional policy changes that we believe um would
strengthen Brookline and the state's uh commitment to no cooperation with ICE, which unfortunately in the uncharted territory we are in, we feel must be a policy priority for the town um given the rogue direction the agency has gone in and the um loss of human life that
they've inflicted without need or cause. Um, so I I'll briefly cover um some of the resolutions provisions that are specifically directed at state officials and then I'll pass it over to Jessica who's going to talk more about the local
facing provisions of the resolution. Um on the state side um there's three main requests included in the resolution um or provisions I should say. One is um a condemnation of the actions taken by the Trump administration um and federal
officials in their targeting in the con the conducting of federal immigration enforcement um of targeted enforcement based on perceived race, ethnicity, language or political preferences of residents in the country. Um this is
something that's been unfortunately very well documented in legal filings from the Trump administration. um and seems to be a commitment of their immigration program. We find that completely reprehensible and unconstitutional and certainly not in keeping with the values
of Brooklyn under the United States. Um focused at the Healey administration, um this resolution requests that the state exit the sole remaining 287g agreement held by a New England state which is held by the state's Department of
Corrections. This is the official cooperation agreement provided under by by federal law by which state um entities can formally cooperate with ISIS activities. Um in this case, Department of Corrections um officially participating in federal immigration
enforcement. Uh again given um the fact that death and injury in ICE captivity has risen precipitously uh and their behavior in the pursuit of the Trump administration's um goals on immigration. We just feel this is something that the state can no longer
countenance um and can no longer in good conscience provide transfer of anyone uh to ICE custody for fear of their their personal safety and violation of their rights. Um and finally, we also make a request of the state legislature, which is we call on them uh and particularly
Brooklyn's delegation to advance legislation um um substantively similar to um your general order 43 um that seeks to um prevent or prohibit any cooperation and further cooperation
between both state and local law enforcement and federal immigration. Um, and with that, I'll hand it over to Jessica to talk about some of the local facing provisions. >> Thank you, Alec. Thank you, everyone. Um, Jessica Kiko once again. I'm the chair of the immigrant advancement committee of the CDICR,
uh, where I've served since 2018. My day job is as an immigration lawyer and director of training at the Massachusetts Immigrant Refugee Advocacy Coalition, Mera, though I'm here in my personal capacity, 14-year Brooklyn resident, parent of BHS um, kids. So, in
addition to what was just presented, the resolution calls on the town to apply general order 51 uh for peaceful demonstrations and legal observers to ICE actions and to investigate excessive use of force by federal officials under general uh order 50. To withdraw from
the Boston Regional Information Center or brick. uh to stop sending fingerprints to the FBI for misdemeanors and for minors and to stop applying for grants under the urban area security initiative or boyc program. And I'm going to say a little bit more about
each next slide. Um so when we spoke with our police department just last week including Chief Pastor and Superintendent Campbell who's here tonight, they highlighted for us the value of the shared resources that Brookline has access to through the brick. But the brick is not just about
sharing resources. It's been well documented that the brick includes massive surveillance efforts, including surveillance of lawful political activity protected by the first amendment. And we know that the brick, which was originally created as an anti-terrorism tool, has really drifted
from that mission and collects information on everyday people who are not suspected of any criminal activity through all sorts of surveillance tools, license plate readers, etc. We know that the brick has monitored social media of um Occupy Boston activists, Black Lives
Matter activists, Muslims. We also know that the brick disproportionately collects and stores information on black, latina, and Muslim communities. So much so that nearly 98% of the people in the database uh in the gang database
that is maintained by the brick or people of color. So to the extent that the brick facilitates information sharing among law enforcement agencies, we are confident that Brookline has all sorts of collaborative relationships uh with our neighboring cities and towns
well beyond the handful uh of cities and and towns that belong to the brick and that any kind of needed information sharing can and does still happen outside of the program. Um, but most importantly, we know that information shared through the brick can and has been used uh by immigration, by the
Department of Homeland Security, an agency that I think we can all agree uh right now at least is marked by lawless, unconstitutional, and violent behavior. Um, and in fact, there's a DHS agent that is located within the brick. Um, and we know that this information
sharing has led to deportation that's been shown. Um, now town policies and stated values are that we're not going to use town resources to facilitate civil immigration enforcement, but staying in the brick does just that. The second aspect of the resolution I wanted
to speak to calls for limiting the sharing of fingerprints uh with the federal government. We know that immigration civil arrest can happen after an individual is fingerprinted by the local police and that's regardless of whether that person is ultimately charged or whether that person is
ultimately found guilty. And those prints are currently automatically shared >> um with the federal government, including immigration. Um in fact, most if not all of immigration arrests that have taken place in Brooklyn in the past year have happened as a result of this
fingerprint sharing. So though we have policies that are meant to ensure Brooklyn police doesn't assist civil immigration enforcement, sharing fingerprints in that way does just that. And so because we can't control how fingerprints are shared among federal
agencies uh once they they're passed on to federal agencies, what we can control is is when we share them. And so limiting the sharing of prints uh for children uh and for those with lower level offenses would not only ensure that we're acting in accordance with
their values, but would also allow due process in criminal proceedings. If someone who's arrested on a criminal charge is then whisked away by ICE, the criminal case remains open. That person is not given an opportunity to defend themselves.
That victim is not given an opportunity for a resolution in that case. Um and finally, it would help to avoid disproportionate consequences, right? Someone may be arrested by the police, um, may even be found guilty or, you
know, receive a sentence or probation, but a non-citizen charged with the same offense would instead find themselves in the hands of ICE and facing deportation. And I've seen this play out time and time again in my work, including in a case that I was working with today, um,
and countless families torn apart as a result of that desperate outcome. And then the last topic uh we wanted to address this evening is the UAC funding uh which I know that the select board discussed uh not too long ago. Um among
other things UAC funding supports our participation in the brick but it's not the only thing that it does. Um, and specifically I wanted to point out that the federal fiscal year 2025 notice of funding opportunity, the NOFO put out by the federal government for these grants
requires uh recipients to spend 30% uh of the funds that are received on what they identify as national priority areas. And the boxes that you see here, I apologize, I'm not sure why they're showing up black with white print. Hope they're not too hard to read. um are
screenshots, screen grabs directly from from the NOFO and that includes a minimum spend requirement for all recipients on what they call supporting border crisis response and enforcement. Um and the types of activities that the
NOFO lists as examples of this are types of activities that we've already said as a town we're not going to do, right? participation in 287g agreements, cooperation with detainers, support of enforcement of immigration law. Now, in the proclamation that we've been
discussing for some time this evening, um the select board stated, and I quote, "The town of Brooklyn does not aid, abet, or participate in any way in civil immigration enforcement." And so, it's clear that we can't apply for and receive funding that has these types of
strings attached. Um, so I will end there. Thank you very much. >> Look forward to the questions. >> Any questions before we go to public hearing? >> I do just want to note Chief Sullivan is online. Um, Chief Sullivan administers
our um relationship with the consortium on Yuasi. Um I will let him speak to some of the issues here, but I will just note that there's been an injunction uh that wave that uh waves that requirement
that immigration that we that we spend some of that money on immigration enforcement. Um so that's a positive development for us. Um um and under those circumstances, UASI remains an extremely critical source of
funding, especially given the funding crisis that we're currently in. Um I think it would be, you know, it would be extremely difficult for us um to um operate without those funds given the current economic conditions that we're
in. Um but I'd let Chief Sullivan speak on that matter. Um, Chief Sullivan, where are you? There you go. >> Good evening. Uh, John Sullivan, uh, fire chief and emergency management director and also the jurisdictional
point of contact for the UASI um metropolitan um homeland security region. Um, yes, to Chaz's point, um, when the NOFO came out for the fiscal 25 grant, uh, and we, we parsed through all
of the, uh, conditions, uh, I was actually the one that brought this issue up before all the JPOX at that at that meeting. Um we we reached out through EOPS uh the executive office of public safety uh which administers the grant
for the state uh and um looked for clarification on how that was going to affect us. uh and that it was made clear that not only Brookline but many of the jurisdictions within the MBHSR
uh have substantial conflicts with the requirements uh that were just noted by the petitioners. um that was um put to EOPS which was then put to FEMA. Uh, and as Chaz just pointed out, um, the the um
the injunction was put forth in when we we were just uh given a uh the just last week the the go-ahad from EOPS to be able to then um make allocations and
submit our final um um our final bid, if you will, for the grant. Um, I would just say that it was it was made clear uh the position of Brookline uh and many other communities with regard to these
provisions and u that it would be a non-starter for us. Um, I think this petition at this point uh goes um goes against us in terms of our ability to um
continue to receive those grants without those provisions. Um it would it would it the way that I read it, it it requires us to withdraw from UASI. Uh and um as Chaz just pointed out, there has been hundreds of thousands of
dollars over the years to not only the police department, um the fire department, the health department, the IT department, uh for uh cyber security initiatives, um the pays for a number of the cyber security initiatives for that.
uh also pays for uh some wonderful programs that we've had throughout the years in Brooklyn uh like the uh the uh EP Buddies program and the Tech Buddies program which benefited our seniors during COVID uh and allowed them to get
access to um email addresses and um technologies that they would never have had otherwise and training through um the grant. uh it it it it provides us with a myriad of things that go
nowhere near any of the the petitioners um problematic areas. And so I would just caution that, you know, we'd be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There was there's there's I think a better way for us to address the
concerns of the petitioners and and uphold what we know as the um representatives of this town at at this level of government. Uh what what the feelings of the town are and what the
this community represents. Um I I'm just concerned that the way this is is uh is put forth that it it doesn't give us an ability to move forward and try to work within the system while continuing to uphold uh the values and the uh wishes
of the the greater uh community. So um I would caution that it's not it's not well thought through that particular piece of this. I I I can't address the other things about the brick. Uh Paul Campbell is here to be
able to do that. Uh but uh this piece about the uh the UASI funding um it it it does it does give me pause and I I would ask that we consider um removing that piece from this resolution if if it
was to go forward. >> Okay. Uh, I see Alex Leo's um, excuse me, he has his hand hand up. >> Yeah, thanks so much, Bernard. I I just wanted to to respond briefly to uh, to Chief Sullivan and first off, thank him
for um, his many years representing Brooklyn uh, in this consortium. Um, and you know, I think from our perspective, um, this is part of what is so unfortunate and I'd say insidious about the federal government's actions in
trying to attach this kind of conditioning to AASI funding is they are trying to compel communities like Brookline whose um values hold what they are doing in Athema to participate in in
their political program essentially. And the implicit threat in that is they will defund our public safety agencies if we don't do that. Um, and I think, you know, we've been forced into an extremely difficult and unfortunate position because of these actions taken
by DHS. Um, I think the intent here and and speaking for myself, I'll need to conference with my co-petitioners before we make any amendments, but you know, the the intent here is not to be in any way fiscally punitive to the town or certainly the fire department or the police department. Um the intent here is
we want to ensure that where Brooklyn has made both now we think a legal and moral commitment not to supporting these immigration activities that we don't participate in federal funding activities where that kind of participation is required. So it's great
to hear that the injunction has been issued. Um I for instance would be willing to maybe entertain an amendment that says we don't apply for this funding should that requirement take effect. Um that I I hope might address this concern. Whereas if there is no
actual federal um requirement that we've described that is in legal effect um then perhaps the town should still consider pursuing those funding options. I see my my co-etitioner wants to add something. Uh first, uh John,
>> I just want to raise a question of uh our procedure um going forward. My understanding is we're going to continue this next week, correct? >> This article, it is now uh two minutes of 11:00. Um there are several other
items on our agenda for tonight. Uh, I I for one would very much appreciate a decision by the board at this point as to um moving on to another item since we're going to continue this one next week anyway. Um, and maybe
even, you know, uh, trimming down the remaining items that we're about to discuss. >> That sounds like a good idea to me. The continuation would be clear from somebody from the >> Yeah. Continuation or >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah.
>> So, we have not yet opened the public hearing, right? And are you proposing that we continue this discussion before we open the public hearing or just open the public hearing and then immediately continue? >> Why don't we open the public hearing,
close it, give it, continue it to >> adjourn it to next week. It next week and um then go on to another item on the agenda. >> Sounds good to me. >> Um okay. Uh let's open the public hearing and I see a hand up. Who is that? Oh,
Jessica. Yes. >> Yes. This wasn't so much as part of public hearing as as following up on Alex's comments, but if I can make them now, I'll I'll go ahead. I just wanted to point out two other things in response to what was just shared. One is, you know, I I am happy that there's
currently an injunction and that's great news and we're seeing a lot of injunctions being granted upon initial filing of litigation and then later be overturned. Uh and so though, you know, the fact that there's an injunction creates you know a sense of relief in
the moment, I don't think it necessarily addresses the longer term concerns. Um, and then the other thing that I just wanted to point out, and maybe this is something that we can continue discussion of when when we discuss this war article again next week and Chief Sullivan can provide more information perhaps around this is to the extent
that receiving um way grants would require um uh Brookline's ongoing participation in the brick then you know we would raise the similar objections um that we have raised in that context as well.
>> Okay. Okay, thank you. Um, any other comments from the public? I see none none on the screen here. Okay, so let's uh adjourn and adjourn
this hearing until next week and let's move on to our next item. Thank you uh Gi, Jessica, Alec, and whoever else is on. >> Thank you very much. Okay. So, um
>> um Okay, where are we? >> Article 21. >> Yeah, this hopefully should be quick. Uh 21 is the Medicare for all resolution >> in the board's packet. Uh there's a revised version. >> We had the public. >> Yeah,
>> this is our second. >> Yeah. >> Yes. So the the update since your public hearing uh is that the petitioner has revised the article. That revised version is in your packet. The advisory committee is actually taking that up tomorrow night. So I don't have any other version besides the revised
version and that has been approved by the moderator. >> Okay. So >> I think we should >> Why don't we put this off until next week, too? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. Moving right along. Uh article seven, establish an override stabilization fund. We already had the
hearing. We know what this is about. We we passed a uh or approved an override that would make use of this with respect to the town funds. >> Uh so um I move approve I I move
favorable action on article 21 uh I'm sorry article 7 to establish an override stabilization fund. All in favor John Vascoyette. >> I Paul Warren. >> Hi. >> David Pearlman. >> I Michael Rubenstein. Hi >> chair vai. Okay, what do we have next?
>> Update on Chestnut Hill West MOA. >> Okay, go. >> Thank you. Um, uh, and so, uh, I asked that this be put on the agenda on Thursday, um, not knowing necessarily
where we would be at this point. Um so the thing that I want to report to the rest of the select board is that um uh I have been engaged in negotiations ongoing um since since uh Janice Khan made her uh
proposals uh at the EDAB meeting which is now 15 days ago I believe um in order to bridge the differences between uh the town meeting members neighbors uh in
precincts 14 and 15 along with neighbors in precinct 15 on the one hand and city realy on the other hand to come to an agreement for a set of proposals uh a proposed amendments that would earn the
support of the town meeting members in precincts 14 and 15 that were on the community advisory group and then by extension uh other town meeting members in those precincts So that has been my objective. Um when
uh at uh Janice Khan who has been uh engaged in the direct conversations with me on behalf of the other uh community advisory group town meeting members um put forth a set of five issues. Um two
of them related to the intersection of height and uh commercial percentage. Um that's two of them. Uh and the other three, one was related to a proposed sunset provision and two uh were related
to tree canopy requirements. Um of those five, the two related to the tree canopy requirements have been resolved. They're languages that are proposed. Um the sunset requirement has been uh replaced
by an incentive that um is proposed to be added to the memorandum of agreement. Um that revised memorandum of agreement which was drafted by Jonathan Simpson is in our packet for today um for your review and consideration. Um and as far
as the other issues, those issues are still under negotiation um between the parties. Um and the parties are continuing to bring ideas forward, are negotiating in good faith, um and I
am hopeful that we can reach resolution, but we are at this point not there yet. Um, with regard to the issue of having both 12A and 12B, um, I did reach out to the moderator, um, and have reached out to the moderator a couple of times about
the question of scope. Um all of the proposals that Janice had originally made um were drafted by Jonathan Simpson into modification amendments to the zoning which will uh which we passed to
the moderator for his preliminary ruling on scope and he ruled for various reasons which he provided explanations for that they were all within scope. Um so uh at this point uh given the
deadline that was provided I think by Melissa that today would be the last day that it would be uh possible for us to have a a second special town meeting. Um, I thought it prudent to put both items on
the agenda so that if the select board decided that we wanted to move forward with a second special town meeting with any subset of changes that we had the opportunity to do so. But at this point, I don't have a proposal for that because we are continuing to work on the
negotiations and I'm ready to take questions or feedback. >> Okay. So, you're not proposing any votes? >> I am not at this point proposing any votes. This is strictly an update and discussion. >> Michael, you went fast. >> I did. It's late.
>> So 12A and 12B was that. >> So the difference between 12A and 12B is that 12A is a proposal for amendments to the existing special town meeting which the moderator has ruled is would be allowed for the amendments that are under
>> 12 references that in the agenda. Is that the agenda item or >> 12A? Yes, 12A is the agenda item. 12 >> was in my head and then suddenly I was looking Yes. Yes. 12 A is the agenda item. 12A is amendments. Agenda item 12B is the question of calling a second
special town meeting which we would need to do if we wanted to make changes that were not within scope. >> Okay. >> However, at this point, all of the changes are that are under consideration are are by the preliminary ruling of the moderator within scope.
>> So the second question I have is is related to the MOA. So there's language in the MOA um that is kind of the behavior of town meeting what town meeting does what the advisory committee does or what the select board does and you know for
example the I'm going to read it real quick quickly the proposed zoning amendment as presented in the reports of the select board and advisory committee for the contemplated special town meeting along with any amendments there too prepared by the select board planning board or advisory committee submitted with the combined and reports
for a relevant special town meeting will be considered not to be material adverse to the financial feasibility of the project unless city has indicated such in writing within seven days. So there's these restrictions about timing. Does
how do the how does this language and also there's another sentence any other amendments proposed? >> How do those intersect with the timing of a special town meeting us making changes? Um this this grants a tremendous amount of power uh to void
everything city unilaterally just based on the natural course of us doing our work the advisory committee doing their work the planning board doing their work or town meeting um my read here is that city could just say we're avoiding it uh
and they could do that within seven days of the publish so one is what's the intersection and risk this add to us that they're taking away the authority of us the planning board and the select. >> Okay. Okay.
So, so, so, um, this was a matter of, uh, of intense negotiation mostly, uh, between councils um to make sure that that this language was was precise and
tight and and uh that both sides had uh the uh reasonable asurances that the that the project would move forward. forward in a way that they expected. The issue that uh the developer is trying to
protect themselves against is being bound by an MOA that is associated with the zoning that makes their project not economically viable. if if if town meeting passes zoning that makes their
project uh impossible to build but they are still required to implement the MOA under those conditions then they they can't move forward. Um and so the balance that was struck was to use the
combined reports as the sort of marker between uh changes that are presump presumed to be acceptable versus changes that are presumed to be not acceptable. So before the combined reports you know and you
know while we are in this process of negotiation >> does that include supplements? Uh, no. It does not include supplements. Okay. I'm I'm I'm just trying to lay it out. >> Yeah. I'm I'm just trying to say it's time because all of this stuff often comes up at the last minute. Supplements
are a way of I I understand. So before combined reports, all changes are presumed to be accepted and with this 7-day caveat. But they can't just walk away from the MOA in the
absence of a in the absence of a change. That's why at this point as we are trying to figure out changes um that would bring the P14 and P4 15 town meeting members on board. We we
have to negotiate those as part of the negotiation with city realy. And >> so you do you do understand my concern? I I I understand your concern that it is that it is limiting the it is it is a limitation of the legislative process,
>> right? >> The entirety of the process. It's taking away the ability of this board to make an amendment. It's limiting the ability of advisory to make an amendment landly makes changes and it's limiting the planning the usually taking away the
power to legislate from Tom >> the the the greatest risk in in this um is if we end up passing the zoning without the MOA in place right that every everybody sort of on the town side
understands that that is not a desirable outcome because then that gives city realy the desire to do whatever they want to in the context of the zoning without without an MOA in place that gets the town the benefits that it should expect from the from the
development including the the 11 million um etc. Um, so, so I I'm not sure whether Jonathan or Joe or anybody else who was involved in the
previous projects with Welltower or Waldo Durgen, which were essentially had the same result, can speak to the similarity between this and those processes. So, we understand the level of precedent. Um but at the at the end
of the day if if you know the advisory com committee or town meeting or somebody like wants to make an amendment and you know we determine that the MOA is
or city realy determines that the MOA um it the city that city realy voluntarily negotiated with the town they no longer want to participate in. That doesn't stop us from moving forward with the amendment. The thing that it prevents us
from and and passing the zoning or not passing the zoning. The thing that it that it could stop is the execution of the MOA, which is the voluntary agreement between the developer and the town. >> Hey, John.
Well, um I I had the benefit of watching the video of the meeting uh that Michael and others participated in, the most recent meeting of the UH Chestnut Hill West Advisory Group. And uh I just want to say Michael has his
work cut out for him because uh I I I I the thing the remark that caught me that made the most uh uh impression on me was after there had been a fair amount of discussion among the various people at
the meeting who came to the meeting, you know, with the idea in mind of hammering out some sort of a of a of a path towards towards development that is contingent on height as a reward for greater
commercial percentage of the property. Um and when all when all was said and done and people had discussed issues like you know tree removal uh and other issues um Cliff Kensington from city realy weighed in and basically said you
know if you do this we walk if you do this we walk if you do this we walk you know I don't know that there's that much common ground right now between what city realy has very clearly said is their minimum requirement for this to be
an economically feasible development. And the very understandable ambitions of of people in the neighborhood group or on the study committee to somehow get get a little bit more in return than
than they're getting in the form of upping the commercial uh percentage um in return for height bonuses. And uh the message I heard delivered by city realy is you know the commercial um the increase in the commercial percentage of
the property is totally outside the the bounds of what uh would be feasible for them and and I'm not sure what there is to discuss. Right. Um so I will say that happened >> discussing it tonight. >> That happened that happened on a Wednesday night. Um substantive
negotiations between the parties began on Thursday morning that once those positions were outlined and I believe we are continuing to make progress. The numbers have shifted the positions have changed but they aren't at agreement yet
so I can't bring something for you forward. All I can do is report that of the of the issues that were raised, we've addressed three of them and we are still working and making progress on the others. >> Well, I I commend you and when you're
done, would you be willing to negotiate the straight of Hormuz for everybody? >> Um, >> well, okay. >> One one thing at a time. >> I have one more question. >> Quick question, >> but it's just because I because I don't have my head around the timing yet.
Yeah. >> So, the language in the MOA talks about combined reports. >> If we if we're not going to do it tonight, >> right? Let's say next week or we issue another special town meeting.
>> I assume we would issue combined reports for that special town meeting. So, that is that when the clock starts because a town meeting has a combined report. A special time meeting has a combined report, doesn't it? Uh I believe the answer to your question is yes. It is
the combined reports for the special town meeting in which the MOA and the zoning would be considered. >> Okay. Um since we don't have a question before us >> unless you have other questions or
comments. >> Pardon me. >> Unless you have other questions or comments, I'm happy to take them. But >> not that many. So uh let's move uh on to our post meeting public comment period. Anyone
public comments? Okay, seeing none, I um declare that this meeting is over. Ah, good. >> Recording stopped.