All right, we'll begin in five, four, three, two, one. >> Good evening. I'm Bernard Green, chair of the Brookline Select Board, and this is the regular meeting in the form of a workshop of the select board for October
14th, 2025. First item of business is going into executive session. So, I move that the select board go into executive session for the purpose stated in item 1 C of the agenda, which is for discussing
strategy related to potential litigation surrounding federal conditions of grant acceptance. This litigation matter must be discussed in executive session because an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the litigation position of the town. And
the chair so declares an executive sess session therefore to be necessary. All in favor please indicate by saying I. John Voyaki I. >> Paul Warren. Hi. David. Hi. Michael Rubenstein. Hi. record when we're ready. Go ahead.
>> Okay. Good morning. I'm Bernard Green, chair of the Brookline Select Board, and this is the select board's fall workshop meeting. We have special workshops uh throughout the year to address important issues that are too complex and extensive to
incorporate into our regular meetings. Primary purpose of these workshops is to incorporate the select board's goals and perspectives into both the select board's fiscal year goals and the town's medium-term goals, what we call the 2030 roadmap, and to give town departments
guidance as they develop their budgets. In addition to our regular business items today, regular business items, today's workshop will focus on the select boards 2030 road map. Excuse me, my mouth is drying.
Um, which are the medium-term goals of of the select board as informed and modified by input from town departments. 2030 road map will be guided by a so-called smart framework that keeps our goals in line by checking whether they
are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time honored. Thus, the acronym smart. Uh the reason for using this form of guide is to ensure that we minimize nice sounding but vague aspirations and
identify specific steps towards an achievable goal. The site board is the chief executive body of the town must play an active role, a strong role and an effective role in the financial management of the town for each fiscal year for longer planning periods which
is why we have these workshops. In addition to the uh um 20 uh let's see in addition to um excuse me in addition to the 2030 road map we will
also hear presentations presentations on the town's climate action and resiliency plan along with medical center bus circulation study that was that has created some amount of consternation in parts of Brookline Village. And finally,
we will we will discuss the select board's policies, including the public body's handbook. First, I have some announcements. Um, the Commission on Disabilities and other community organizations and residents are urging the MBTA to complete phase
three of the Pinway Yaki multi-use path project that will make major safety improvements to the bike and pedestrian path between the Longwood areas and Tinmore Square. I mentioned this because uh they would like the uh disabilities
commission would like to submit a letter to the MBTA urging that they uh speed up this uh process. Unfortunately, they did not get the letter to us in time to um for us to approve it at this meeting.
But I did want to uh just make uh uh did want to announce that so the people know in advance and can become informed of what I think is a vitally important project. Somewhat related is that on October
21st, we will also take up the controversy over the automatic license plate readers at Hancock Village supplied to Chestnut Hill Realy by an organization called Flock Safety, which is an AI company and the Purple Police
Department's proposed with block for the use of their data. Um just for your information that data includes the license plate image plus associated data such as geolocation of devices, timestamps, vehicle description
and metadata. There are also some related issues that we will take up when we discuss the public bodies handbook. So are there any other announcements from the site board? Michael. >> Um uh two things. Uh, number one, I want
to uh amend the indigenous well the Brooklyn Indigenous Communities Committee and I don't have that the name of the committee correct um but I want to commend them on yesterday's celebration at the Midley School um which was well attended despite the
weather and both educational and an enjoyable community event. Um, secondly, um, I'd like to remind everyone that next week, um, there will be a, as part of the select board
meeting, a public hearing relating to the renewal of our cable license, which is currently held with Comcast. Uh, and that license expires in April. Uh and um we will be taking public comment
specifically around uh the uses that uh Comcast helps fund within the town such as Bookline Interactive Group um as well as taking public comment on matters of people's experiences with Comcast. Um,
this is a crucial part of the license renewal process. Um, and the public is invited to attend and conduct. >> Thank you, John. >> Uh, I I want to second what Michael said about yesterday's um, uh, celebration by
the Indigenous People's Celebration Committee. Uh, it was held at the Ridley School. Um, a very wise decision in the cafeteria because of the weather. I think there's a lot of doubt um on in the minds of people until it sort of the
hour came um as to whether folks would show up. I was there early. Uh others were there early. It sounds like others continue to come throughout the day. Um, but this is a committee that has really elevated uh the uh uh level of
Brookline's uh observances to include such a wonderful variety of crafts that that can be seen and purchased. Um the Brook Brooklyn bookstore um does its part by uh offering titles for sale. I
actually bought one of them and I'm looking forward to reading it. Um that reflect on the history of indigenous peoples in this in this part of the US. Uh and uh so I just want to sort of give a little bit of an applause to the the
celebration committee. Members of the committee were there yesterday. It was great to be able to tell them face to face what a great job they're doing. And furthermore, there is in the town administrator's newsletter um which is available if you just go to the
Brookline town website um a really good account of some some further activities that are going to occur in October. Some of them uh notably sort of bookreated. Uh there's a book group that they have formed on the celebration committee which is ongoing. So a lot of good work
being done. Thanks to them for doing it. And one quick other note uh which deserves much more time and and much more discussion than at another time but uh obviously we're living through a really significant turn in the developments um in the Middle East. And
um it's a hopeful turn and it's an issue that has been in the hearts and on the minds of people in Brooklyn uh with with great depth um for two years now. And I think we're now at a point where people are beginning to wake up to some hope.
And I I just I I for one um am thrilled that we sort of turned a corner on this. I hope it's a corner that is just going to keep moving in a positive direction. I think all of us do and it's very much in our in our hearts and minds these days. So I think people should know that
members I'm sure um are part of that as well. >> Paul. >> Yep. Uh thank you Bernard. There are three upcoming Beacon Street bridal path um neighborhood meetings. Um as you may know that the town's begun the design process for the restoration of the
Beacon Street bridal path which aims to restore the historic greenway as a multimodal path for people walking, biking, and rolling along Beacon Street. Uh there'll be three neighborhood uh talk and walk events. Um the first one
is for St. the St. Mary's area. Um, it's Thursday, October 16th from 5:00 to 7:30 p.m. It'll be at the VU Whitman Mansion on at 43 Street. Uh, there'll be a second one on October 23rd at Gulich Corner um Library at 31 Pleasant Street
again from 5 to 7:30. That's October 30 23rd, which is a Thursday. And then the Washington Square area uh Wednesday, October 29th from 5:00 to 7:30 at the Dristle School multi-purpose room. um these are important opportunities to
engage the community around an understanding of what the the vision is for the bridal path and to get feedback um on the plan um and have neighborhood input. So that's going to be really important for people to engage. >> Thank you. Any other comments?
Okay, next we have public comment. Uh Tiffany, could you >> We did not have public comment. Did we? We did not have public comment on the agenda today. of mide. Okay, get it. Sorry. >> Is there anyone who wants that speak though since we brought it up?
>> Well, yeah. Sorry about that. >> Um, so next miscellaneous calendar. Uh, first the approval of the minutes from September 30, 2025. Any corrections to those minutes? I said some earlier that
tiffany and Kate I believe picked up >> minor corrections. >> Um there was one vote that was missing. Um but >> I move approval of September 30, 2025 as amended. All in favor please indicate
by saying I. John Booya. >> Hi. >> Paul Warren. >> Hi. >> David Ferman. >> Hi. >> Michael Rubenstein. >> Hi. >> Chair both side. Next, I'd like to take items 2B through 2H in honorous fashion, unless someone wants to pull something
out for further discussion. Seeing no one, I raise my hand on that. Um, I move approval of items 2B through 2H in our miscellaneous calendar. All in favor, please indicate by saying I. John
Bencoyak. Hi, Paul Warren. Hi, David Burman. Hi, Michael Rubenstein. Hi. chair both eye. Okay. Next, going to our main calendar, we have an interview with the candidate for the diversity, equity, inclusion, and community relations commission,
Philip Steman. Is he online? >> We are running behind schedule, so that's going to be pushed to um next meeting. >> Okay. Okay. So, let's uh then move to uh appointments. Um
>> so I I do have one update here which is that um we are still just finalizing Chief Pastor's contract. Nothing major. Just want to make sure but it's not quite ready for you to sign to approve today. Um we will make sure that it goes forward and again her term begins in March. So we have plenty of time on
this. I just want to make sure that we get it done. Uh I want to thank the chief for her responses and patience on this. We will be ready to go uh hopefully next week or the week after the list. So um that's all set. Um and then um then there's the question of
appointing um Dr. John Koshinski who is um the uh the currently the interim director of the health department department of public health human services. Um Dr. Dr. Kashishi served in that role for uh three months and has previously um been the associate
director of policy uh at the health department um and and prior to that has served in a variety of capacities in the public health field um both in the public and private sectors. Um he serves on the school committee of Bill Rka. He
is a um you know he has both his uh master's and doctorate in public health. Um and I think just as a testament to the um success of both the chip and some of the other long-range planning and policy work uh that has come out of the
health department in the last several years has really been um obviously a team initiative in the department but really thanks to John's leadership and so uh I am very pleased that after an interview with a panel of uh relevant um
and uh very excellent uh volunteers uh in the various facets including the chair of the advisory council on public health, Dr. Homer. Uh I'm pleased to recommend that you appoint Dr. Kashinsky to a uh the permanent position uh of health commissioner as the director of
health and human services. >> Great. Any questions or discussion? Seeing none, we >> I have one question. Um Chaz, did we get any other applicants, outside applicants? Did we advertise it or was this more just of an internal process? >> This was an internal process. We talked
we talked a little bit about whether or not it would make sense to go out. We but we were very fortunate, you know, we are fortunate in many ways that we have a deep bench at the health department right now. Um and we were grateful to Sagal for her leadership and her willingness to support and mentor and be
uh you know to her immediate junior staff. And so we started at that process and ultimately John was our our internal applicant and after some discussion we decided it was it was right to promote from within. >> Okay. John, >> just on that very same subject, um, in
case people are watching and wondering whether, uh, you know, we've done something unusual here, I I don't think it's all that unusual in that there is a public health advisory board and, you know, having a public health advisory board is a really good kind of backs
stop. So, if you know, John, I'm I am certain has the um, uh, support of the public health advisory board. Yeah, that means a lot to to me. Um, I've seen him in action. That means a lot to me. And uh I I don't think that we have to worry
about the process here, you know. I think the government is an excellent appointee and an appointee from within which every now and then it's great thing to do. >> Yeah. And and we know >> Yeah. Yeah. So >> never change. >> Okay. Um I move approval of the
appointment of John Kazinski. I'm sorry. I'm g screw up your name, Barry. >> No, you've knocked it out of the parking lot. >> Okay. Um, as our new director of public health, uh, all in favor, please indicate by saying I. John Bencoyak, >> hi. >> Um, Paul Warren,
>> hi. >> David Bman, >> hi. >> Michael, Michael Rubenstein, >> hi. >> And chairside. >> Thank you. >> Welcome aboard. Yeah. >> Okay. Next, uh we have our 2030 road map
discussion and uh we have Abby Sloan to sort of help us along and and sort of give us some guidance and make sure we come out the right way >> for a good way. >> Good morning everyone. It's nice to be here with you again.
>> Um can we do a just a time check? So are we when are we trying to end this session? I know I've heard discussion about a working lunch, but I'm not trying to impose that. >> We're about an hour over hour late or maybe a little less than an hour.
>> Um why don't we just uh give you the the amount of time that was originally scheduled because this is an important discussion. Uh unless someone objects, that's going to mean we're going to go beyond three o'clock. >> I I will need something to pick up children. So,
>> um Okay. I need something to >> I think we'll be able to make up time on the back end if we do a working lunch if you all don't mind to eat while we >> work together. >> Yeah, maybe turn off the camera so people don't see us eating. >> No, just kidding. Just kidding. Okay,
let's go. >> Um, if we can make up some time in this, I will try. Okay. >> Okay. I was thinking we would start today. I would do like a bit of a recap since it's been a few months of the process and then um I think we'll spend
most of the time in some active discussion. So just a heads up on that. Um okay so as a reminder of the process to date and for those who are not listening in on the last session we started this roadmap process. I talked to each of you individually heard some of your goals and priorities what's
working well what you think might need to change for this 2030 roadmap. Um then we met I think it was July and we started to look through all of your combined ideas and have you know identified six priority areas. Um one is
on internal alignment efficiency governance, one is on fiscal health, one is on communication and engagement and then housing infrastructure and climate change. So there's six. Um, and then I just finished the book with all
of the department heads, including John as the acting. Um, and some division heads where department heads thought it was appropriate. And I have pulled together the findings from those interviews. And really with them, I I previewed what we're trying to do here, the process, some of your initial thinking on those priority areas and
initial thinking on goals, and then heard from them of what they thought might be useful to include. Um, and so today I'm hoping to share out this summary. Um, and then I've highlighted some key takeaways, some big themes. I think there's around seven with some
potential options or ways that you could incorporate their feedback. I think it's definitely those ideas are a starting list of ways you could incorporate feedback. Um, I'm there definitely more opportunities here. That's what I want to discuss today. So
>> is is this thing that's in our packet? So yeah. Yeah. And I have a printed version if people Well, I don't know. I just gave you one. >> There's another >> This is nothing new. That's >> This is not new. So if you have that printed out, then it should be okay. And
>> can you can you uh tell us what you expect the deliverable to be from either today or >> Yeah. >> Yeah. What I'm hoping where we're going to end up today is a little more clarity. I would like
some clarity from you all on some of the ideas proposed by department heads and how we're going to incorporate them into the work of those initial priority areas and goals that you have developed. Then I think there's going to be asynchronous work to try to flush out some of the
goals and specific actions between when we next speak. Um, and we'll talk I have some questions about that too. So, um, >> yeah, I guess that's is that helpful? There's there's definitely some content. I just want to hear you all hear your
thoughts on and then as much as possible, we can come to specific like outcomes and what you want to include. That would be really helpful. Um, we have the goal deadline for having a draft version of this is March. So you still there's still some time and then
it would be presented um at a at a select board meeting so other members of the public could hear um and perhaps do public comment on it and then we would try to have the final version in April. That was at least the original timeline. Um so we're not going to just
Okay. Um so let's walk through this. I didn't put slides together. I thought it would just be helpful to you for you all to have the written version of this. Um I want to start let me start by sharing some of the process recommendations that
I heard from the from the department heads and one well first I should just say you have amazing department heads. Everyone is extremely committed to what they're doing and um like passionate about their work and um glad to work for the town. Like there's just a lot of I I
I could really feel that when I talk. >> And they're government employees. Okay. >> And they're government employees >> who are usually denigrated by various people. But uh the reality is is that these are the best employees uh probably we have in our country. So
>> yeah, and that did come up a little bit some morale kind of thing has because of being government employees. Um so yeah, I'll start with that. In terms of the roadmap process, pretty much everyone was thinks it's a great idea that you all are going through this process. I
think it's really worthwhile both to get clarity on what you all want and have some um kind of consistency over time so they can be working towards those goals and knowing what those are. Um they had I heard a number of questions around
implementation which I think you all have questions on implementation too. So that is matching um what we've talked about. I don't think we necessarily need to resolve those today. Um, but there's questions of how can you both reflect the priorities of a select board that is
changing with turnover. Um, and political priorities change. So, how can you have a document that is reflective of that and provides consistency over time? So, do you need to constantly update this? I think hopefully not is what I heard. Um, but how often would you need to update it so you can rely on
it? It's a another question. Um, okay. I think that's fine for the process recommendations. Do we need another copy? I realize I'm holding on to an ext. Um, oh, there was a suggestion that
perhaps select board members could be paired with a specific goal or maybe an area. Um, so they're tracking. So you all are tracking some of the goals and can kind of like be the figurehead or the leading the charge on some of them as a that was a recommendation for implementation. So just again I think
probably our next workshop we can talk a lot about how the implementation of this is going to work but just wanted to flag that. Um okay what am I missing framing wise before we get into this? Oh, I wanted to just as a reminder from
our last conversation in July, I think there were a few key takeaways from that discussion. One was that you all decided we would not include a vision of mission in this document um because you there are a lot of those that seem to exist for the town and we didn't need to re-replicate that process, but you did
want to include um guiding values and those are on page six, the bottom of page six. Um, and so there's four of them. One is that Brooklyn should be a welcoming and racially, ethnically, and economically
diverse community. That all voices should be heard and incorporated into decision-m. The town government should be transparent and adaptable, making it a predictable and stable place to live and have businesses. And then good governance and collaboration across departments and government body makes
for better and more efficient. Does that all sound right? Sound reflective of our discussion. >> All right. Um All right. So then let's get into
some of the needs here. Um oh and then actually one more thing. Sorry. on page seven through nine. These are the initial priority areas and goals that we discussed last time that are both the from our individual conversations and from the discussion. I updated this list
to be reflective of what you all shared in July. Um is it helpful to go through these really quickly? >> Before we do that, can I ask a quick question? So you skip past this first takeaways priority areas because that's a big one. We're going to come back to those and
that's where we're going to spend most of our time on the overarching takeaways. >> Yeah. Sorry, it's in a weird order. >> Okay. >> In retrospect, >> I'm following the document. >> Yeah. >> Um, is it worthwhile to go through the priority areas in initial polls that you
recommended so they're top of mind? >> Well, I'd like to start off with does anyone have any overall or overriding uh issues or questions? Right. >> Because I do. >> Okay, great. Yeah, love to hear. I it's it's it seems like a small thing but I think it is important. Uh about four or
five times in the document you talk about loud voices >> and you know I think it's important to um to say in anything that goes out is that yeah there a lot of loud voices and we appreciate them. they're disruptive
sometimes. Um, but you know, we listen not to just the loud voices, but you know, the community sentiment expressed more broadly. So, I it just popped out as almost a uh it popped out. And I
think we have to be careful how we describe that, you know, because we we listen to loud voices, but also people who aren't, you know, um, as as loud as as some people. And um the loud voices
many times are raising issues that may affect them personally and are important for us to uh be aware of. So and and loud seems almost derogatory. Um I don't think loud is the right way to articulate. I think there's people who
are persistent, consistent, articulate, organized. Um, but to claim that those people are loud, um, almost seems like they're coming here and pounding their fist and yelling at us. Um, we do get that from time to time, but that's not I don't I didn't get a sense that that's
what this is talking about. Um, you know, and I and I it's just think we need to be careful about assigning intent or qualification or something to award. I I just don't like the word allow. So could we I want to this is a a very
important conversation that I would love to give more context for. So I think could we hold it until we get to the communication and engagement section because I I think it does come up a lot and the word you know I was trying to reflect some of the comments that I heard whether you want to include that
in your document is very much >> on the table. Um but yeah any other broad question? Yeah. >> Yeah. So the other broad thing and I've mentioned it earlier, I know you want to dig into it later, but I I just from a how I perceived it, the the content priority areas where you had at least
one individual say, you know, the select board um my interpretation was they shouldn't get specific >> uh because there's all these other boards and commissions. Well, the boards and commissions actually advise us and we're the executive elected body of the
of the town. Um, and to say defer to other boards and commissions because we're not subject matter experts or whatever. I I found that to be really confusing. Um, you know, the select board is the executive that should be setting long-term strategy and goals by
taking input and advice from its boards and commissions that advises it. But to say you guys don't know what you're talking I just I I took it as a like huh it seemed very it seemed like a very strange thing to start the document with. Um and I completely disagree with it.
>> Mike >> um wow one comment I will hold for later this session. Um I also sort of in that context I two two things that I saw. One was there was a discussion of our base
level of services. Um and that is actually I highly agree with that we should be calling that out more. >> Um and the second thing and I don't know if this relates to guiding values. Um um but you know there are other sources
of input that we value in addition to loud voices like science and data and expertise and broad community feedback. Um, and I think I think one way to to
sort of properly uh or better incorporate different uh different styles of input um is is to consider them all collectively and and make a statement of value uh more
broadly about how we take input. >> So maybe amending something in the guiding values to reflect the many sorts of we >> Yeah. Yeah, I >> I think we might be talking cross purposes a little bit though. So I do share your concern about the language
loud voices and you address that too, Paul. And I also see what you're saying, Paul, about sort of the uh advice, if we put it that way, that select board not provide specific remedies, but this is in the section about what department heads said. I mean, they said what they said. Yeah.
>> And so I think it's helpful for us to know in an unfiltered manner >> what their concerns are. Ultimately though, I think we would want our guidelines and our map to have more neutral language and to address these issues that are being raised, but I I
don't think we want to be engaged in trying to change the terminology from input that was received in the >> That's not what I'm suggesting. Although his questions included uh something about loud voices. So 15
this staff was sort of guided towards that that concept and it's it's an important issue I'm sure many um members of of our staff um concerned with because it was abused many times by loud voices
um >> it's on the last page the second to last bullet >> well so that was actually so that those sub bullets on the questions are actually the the some of these starting goals that you all developed at the
workshop. So I was just sharing those out and so maybe we were using loud voices in conversation as a shortorthhand and it sounds like we really need to flesh that out more but so that was that wasn't me adding that language that was actually some of your it was reflecting of your discussion but
I think the comment and I will yeah I think thanks Dave for that I will I get the joy of being the messenger of some of these things and um which I think is helpful so you do hear some unfiltered reflections to the initial work and I will try to like context where I can um if it's
helpful. But >> that being said, to Paul's point, uh while I don't want to be filtering input or receiving, it is what it is. I do agree that where there's an opportunity to respond and educate on what our role is. We ought to do that, not just sort
of let the comment sit there. >> Yeah. Right. And so maybe that falls into some of the internal governance pieces. >> Okay. So I think Oh yeah, let's go to John and then let's >> I'm sorry, John. >> Um I I wanted to say first of all that um I I think that this latest stage of
the process that we're engaging in right now um and the work that we were presented with leading up to it um has made me a believer in this process. Um so for those who may have heard me, you know, in earlier um discussions of this,
I wasn't all that optimistic. Um, but the thing that I'm finding most encouraging in all of this is it it has made me realize that we I think uh it's safe to say have an ongoing challenge of communication between ourselves as
elected officials of Brooklyn and the people who make Brooklyn function from day to day, month to month, year to year um and do all all manner of really important things that um almost are
taken for granted uh by the public and when when that issue of loud voices was raised um I I think it's in part because uh there can be occasions when people who are
immersed in making things smooth for all of us in Brooklyn we have you know water we have communication we have trash pickup We have public safety. We have libraries. They they I think are
feelings pulled into areas that distract from the really essential work that they do. And that we as the select board need to fully appreciate what it does to their ability to do their fundamental
work. if we simply run wild with all kinds of added things that get put on their plate in part because of loud voices. I think I know where that loud voices is coming from and I don't want to completely disregard it because I think it speaks to, you know, an ongoing
issue of maybe some essential departmental people who feel like I'm always being pulled off my job, my really important job to try to answer some specific complaint from somebody. So that's that's just what I want to say. >> I think you're really picking up on the
sentiment that I >> Thank you. Okay, so let's get into this. Um, some of the overarching takeaways. I'm going to try maybe keep track. I think if we spend like 10 to 15 minutes on each of those, that will keep us on track here.
Some might take longer. Um, all right. So, the first one is this idea of content priority areas. So, again, there were in your initial priority areas of the six, there's the like three internal processy ones. There's one on governance, there's one
on fiscal health, and there's one on communication engagement. And then there's the three that I content or topics. I'm not we could come up with a better name, but um which are housing, infrastructure, and climate change. And um we talked about this in the July
meeting because I think those three are very important to all of you. Like you all care a lot about each of those items. and you had more um specific goals for the first three because those I think those are very much in the internal governance bucket wheelhouse
that you all and you were looking to some of the department heads to flesh out some of the housing climate change and infrastructure once. >> Um and so when I was talking through this with department heads, one thing I one idea that I heard was to take out
the content once. Um and the reason here and I think this is to the to your point earlier is that um I think people are feeling like oh there's a lot of goals and mandates that they get both from select board also from the town meeting not just the commissions not just boards
necessarily um they have the you know there's like the comprehensive plan there's the chip there's a lot of these other planning documents that articulate some of these goals already and so I think there was a little concern that this would either be adding new goals to
already existing goals or question about if this is just trying this task is to just gather all of the goals they've heard from these other places like town meeting from select board from the plans and capture them in one place. Um yeah.
>> Um I would also say that there is an opportunity here to actually prioritize that large body of plans and goals and directives. Um and in Paul's point, I think that the select board is actually
the prioritization body for that breadth, you know, and and to the extent that, you know, we might integrate some of those goals, you know, where, you know, trans uh our transportation goals might uh uh uh intersect with our public
safety goals um or, you know, climate change goals intersecting with housing goals, intersecting with transportation goals as Well, um you know that's that's really I think the the the role of our body. >> Yeah. Okay. Let me just share the one last thing in this if that's okay which
is just so like some people are saying maybe maybe those things should be removed. Maybe it should say like they should be prioritized and here's a proc like you do you figure out the how staff who work on housing but here's our goal and then other people are saying actually it is important to keep in to
your point of like we're looking for clarity on the prioritization. So as an example, let's let's use transportation. That would be a good one, right? My read on the feedback and first of all, this feedback is excellent. It's really helpful to have it. Um let's take transportation. There could be a
content, a broad content area, we want you to focus on transportation, right? Well, what does that mean? Does that mean increase multimotal transportation and make it safer for bicyclist, walkers, or is it, you know, restore and retain
every parking space in order to make commercial areas vibrant? I think that that we need to get spe at least another level of specificity so that staff understands what and and the general public understands what the elected body thinks is the priority. Does this body
think that that you know increasing protected bike lanes is a really important thing to do? We should say that or should we say that it's not important. So I think that's that would be the the next level of detail. And I'm concerned that if we if we leave things
at the high level of climate change, >> right, transportation, housing, um we're not providing enough guidance uh to staff in the public. >> I I completely agree with Paul. So this notion that we should not articulate
specific goals I I think that very much is our responsibility and then have the departments implement and I understand what the departments are saying to an extent and I I don't think select boards intending to say on day one do X by this
method by procuring supply Y. We're not saying that but we do need to be somewhat specific. So there's an understanding as to what our priorities are, what we would like to see effectuated because to your point with transportation, what does that really mean? And then we're basically telling
the departments to run the town, not the elected officials. >> Uh and there are some specific examples here such as climate change. Well, that's really broad. Housing, that's really broad. Are we just going to say, hey, you guys design whatever you want and then then what's what's the point of
us existing? And can I add and and as another example, let's take a park and wreck, right? So we could have saved the town a tremendous amount of money if this body provided in a gold objective around the skating rink at Lars Anderson, right? It started out as this
broad without any direction and it turned into a multiplex. Um and we ended up just maintaining and restoring the facility that's there. Um you know the other it's not just staff, it's boards and commissions. boards and commissions in the void of leadership from from the
select board will craft their own goals and objectives and priorities. Everything the work that the boards and commissions do should flow from priorities of the select board. That's how it should work. And instead often I mean we could ask the boards and commission for advice but often void of
any direction they're going to come up with their own plans and that's a tug of war for also for staff uh and tug of meeting as well. I also want to highlight a point you just made there about that sometimes narrowing the charge is actually more efficient and saves money to avoid all these broad
plans and expenditures of resources for uh pursuits that we may never want to authorize pursuing and then why did we waste all that time effort resource so to the extent that the select board provides some specificity and parameters what we're looking for I actually see
that as helpful as more efficient as more responsible and I don't think we should lose that. However, one point that I do take to heart is the first bullet point stating um on page two potential ways to select for that and incorporate this feedback. The second
line of the first uh bullet point consider a workshop with specific department heads or asynchronous process to develop these. I do think that would be beneficial because given that we are not for the most part uh the content
experts on the goals we might be setting. It's good to have the content experts in the room to basically tell us well I think you're going far a field and that won't work for the following reasons. Uh so having their input is important but we should still be the
body that is setting the goals. >> Um want to check in with that end of the table. select. Sorry, not far far end of the table, but chime in when you want. But yeah, >> just have to add one bit of nuance um to
what has been said uh last two speakers. Um there are boards um and there are committees and there are commissions >> and some of the commissions especially um operate um park and wreck is a
perfect example. they are the responsible body for making decisions about um essential things such as facilities for sports and so on. Um yeah, we influence them via who we appoint and we influence them to the
extent we ask them to be mindful of you know whether we think it's a good idea or a bad idea for them to add a certain major capital expenditure you know to Verdon the town. Um, but we can't assume
uh that it's our preferences that govern recreation programs in the town. Oh, we fund it. >> We fund it. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I think you see my distinction. >> Uh and and and they're not the only one that operates that way. There's the transportation board for a specific
purpose, you know, which is to that they govern those decisions. >> But still we we do have some some sort of influence. >> Yeah. over the types of focus that they take um and and and the ultimate goals that that they u that they push.
>> Yeah. Um to to this point then we have at least on our website we have north of 60 boards commission public and some of them we control some else and in the
public bodies handbook it it sets up classifications for public bodies. You know there are advisory public bodies there are public bodies that have statuto authority. you know, our working groups of staff. Um, and you know, to to the point of of
clarity and maybe this gets back to the governance issue, um, really, um, being clear with the public bodies as to which role they are actually playing. Um, it would be, you know, would just be a
helpful step in establishing that relationship more clearly and more publicly. Yeah, I think we've we've done that. I mean, they I've actually read the handbook. Well, >> I still get questions from the committees that I lay on with like are
we advisory? Are we advocacy? Um, you know, do we get to decide? Do we do we have to make a recommendation? You know, >> that is that's my experience. >> So, ongoing for my >> it's an ongo it's an ongoing.
>> So, okay. Okay. What I'm like hearing pretty strongly is like yes, we want to keep content areas and we want to we want to get more specific to include goals. Um maybe the implementation and the how to achieve those goals you don't
we won't include in the road map like that will just go to department heads and you'll check you can still check in regularly on it. >> Um so is that does that sit well as the conclusion here? I >> think so.
So I but I let's let's um again I I keep going to practical examples. Let's take the comprehensive plan. Okay. So this >> this board >> in I think last year's goals and objectives made the comp completing the comprehensive plan the first phase of it as a priority. I think it was actually
in our goals and objectives. Um the comp plan should be done by the end of the year or early in the first quarter. There's a next step which is about zoning reform. Right. Um, I do think that that's something that helps set up
the next step and and whether we're going to invest time, resources, um, you know, money uh, in order to to continue the process. Um, B, you know, that's implementation, >> right? Would that not be included in a
priority, a goal and objective in a road map? I I think it should. Maybe maybe the goal would be like look like um reform zoning and then the like exactly the process of doing that and what would be included. >> Yeah. But just again it's implementation and again how you articulate it and how
you word it um is for another time but you would consider that to be the next step of implementation. >> Yeah. But even with zoning, uh again, if we just say reform zoning, that can mean a lot of things. And is our priority in reforming zoning about a particular It's
probably going to be different depending on the neighborhood. And is it more about upzoning to increase density or is it more about preserving open space? And that's leaving a lot of leeway to departments to go any which way we want. So we need to provide directions. And I
think we're actually abdicating our authority if we do not do that. Yeah, Michael. >> Um, number one, I agree with David. Um, and my understanding of the the results of this first phase of the comprehensive plan is that it will provide advice or
recommendations. >> That's what I had. >> Um, and now my understanding also is that that document gets approved by the planning board, but ultimately it has to come to us for implementation. >> Well, actually, yeah. So, Michael, the planning board doesn't have to approve
it. There there's an old uh Massachusetts statute that says that if you want to receive funding from the state, um you have to file a formal plan with the state, which would come from the planning board. Of course, we want the planning board support, but it's not actually required in order to implement
them. But my my point is that in a five-year plan or longer, there's multiple steps and you have to keep moving the ball forward. And I think it's incumbent upon future boards. They could always say, you know what, bag that comprehensive plan and zoning
reform. We're not going to do it and we're not going to fund it. But I think that each board, the select board, uh, as it's reformed every year, um, needs to reassess and help set these targets. Otherwise, it's staff is going to go,
you're making my head spin because we've been working for years on the comprehensive plan, and now you're saying stop. um this is the fits and starts that I think staff is looking to help us smooth out and I think a lot of that's implementation otherwise what
John has been saying for at least a year now we keep pouring money into planning >> but we don't have the next step which is execution and whether we actually even have the funding >> we don't know if we have a will >> and we don't know if we have a will so that you know we're great at planning um but not the rest of it
>> to stick on this example though just to to run to write it out. Um for the comprehensive for the zone if if if it was zoning reform is your idea that you all would want to say these are
what we would want to prioritize in our zoning or is it we would want to prioritize zoning reform that reflects the comprehensive plan? >> Yes. Yes. So if I can answer. So I I think in order for us
a everchanging select board to provide guidance to staff over the long term, you need to have the goal set for the long term that says in five years we'd like to target significant zoning reform and then work your way back. Um we may want to have a target that says we want
to rebalance the use of our public ways uh five-year plan. we may want to increase the amount of green space, right? And so because that's the longer term target, how you get there each year that could shift because of financial
resources. We've just heard about, you know, some funding challenges that may be coming from the federal government. Um that could impact implementation. I think we have to think start out at that fiveyear target and then kind of work our way back. Um I think is important.
Otherwise, you're always going to be jerking back and forth. >> Yeah. But in zoning, I what we're really and what what I guess staff is looking for from us, but things like do we want to make something a little
more easily um doable? >> Um do we want to uh provide opportunities for more density in appropriate places in town? And so I mean it's those concrete things that you
know is our role not you know anything much groggy than that. >> I think we're seeing the same thing. But I think that that that staff and the community needs to understand that that there is a long-term goal for zoning reform with those for those attributes,
right? Or um green space with those attributes or climate change with those attributes so that we can define it. But anyway, that's my I may not be articulating it well. >> Yeah. >> And I and I would add that many of those
attributes are also articulated in other existing plans like the housing production plan. you know, that housing protection plan has very specific goals. And um we could as one of our goals say something like we want our zoning reform
to support this goal of the housing production plan or this goal of the open space plan. Um and and sort of uh marry those priorities. or you know we might want you know our our transportation work to support this goal
of the bicycle network plan right you know so all those things >> right so that dvtailing off of what Michael just said if we are setting goals such as we want to increase the number of units affordable units at 50% AMI we want to increase the amount of
open space preservation those sound like they're not necessarily in concert with one another but they're different neighborhoods or different types of zoning reforms that one can uh try to effectuate and then staff will look at those goals and say okay on this parcel
I think we could change the zoning so that we increase the number of units to 50% AMI on this parcel I think we could have more open space preservation so they uh do the next level about how to achieve those goals but we need to set them with some measure of specificity
>> otherwise it's too open >> and just on this example I'm start. I'm I'm I'm thinking about process and how we're going to get you here so that I just kind of get specific. So like for this example is the I know you were just throwing out like different amounts of
units at whatever levels of AMI. Is that something that you all want to decide together of X units at Y AMI or is it from the housing production plan that says this is the I think the housing production plan like this is the needed. >> Yeah. How how can we through zoning say
you know what level of income houses will be built for that that's just not >> well through incentives but the what what I'm what I envision to answer your question is close to what Michael said so we have a housing production plan I wouldn't do that 100% of the way though because sometimes there might be plans
that are have a contradiction on something and then we're the ones who could uh try to determine well which way we want to go. So I think but 95% of the way I would say lift the existing plans. What are the priorities that they have
that we share and where there are some conflicts we sort those out as a board. >> Um well >> yeah um so as we're having this discussion I'm I'm thinking how and I don't know the answer to this. I'm going to ask a question. How do we
create a a a longer term? So it's this is a five-year we're trying to do an inter intermediate planning process that that can be supported but adjusted by a future select board. Every year the select board changes right one to two
seats is up to change. Um, you know, how do you whatever we do and whatever way we articulate it, it needs to be phrased in such a way that a future board can change it without creating so much
whiplash for staff um that we waste money, right? That we're spending money on something and suddenly a board comes in and said, "Well, let's stop that." Um, I think that's something that we need to consider. I don't know the answer to it. >> I think it goes back to what staff
pointed out and what you all pointed out. It's like it is a tension of capturing the goals that you this group of five has for staff so they can like charge forward on that and give them have so they can have some consistency to do that work. And of course like that
is a push and pull but >> I also what's it's interesting here is that there's a political veilance to that that Paul has identified which is very interesting which is that sometimes these things become mutually informative processes in a good electoral system leaders set goals and set a program and
policy platform out and then the election in effect often becomes a referendum on that platform um in a sense of it becomes the point the points by which it you know candidates debate. Well, the select board's 2030 goals are X, Y, and Z. Do you agree with those? If
not, what would you change? Why would you change it? And that that also provides a natural check on us and the comm and it gives the community the opportunity to gut check these. Um, so it's not necessarily a bad thing if the goals change with the electorate, which
means that the electorate is informing the goals in its own way. And I do think that because even even if that results in change, what you are doing is you're setting the terms for the discussion. Yeah. >> Which is very valuable both to us on staff and then to the community more broadly.
>> Can I say I what what I think we need to focus on is I hate admins like smart. Um but you know that that does give you some framework within which develop goals that you know a future select
board can change them but if they're well if they're thought through if they're you know meet all those smart criteria so called um it's less likely that a future board will see or will say that this is crazy we have to change it we have to throw it out. So I think that
that that may be the solution to uh you know this problem you know that we just make sure that we we we think through our goals in a way that that is u um looking towards the future.
Can I So, what I think I'm hearing on the process piece is it would be I I think it would be helpful to perhaps have a small like a small workshop with department staff that are working on
those three topic areas. And I don't know, we'll have to check in on open meeting laws and if like how to how to do that best and maybe they could share like they could give a I don't know a one pager handout on like what the key goals are in their plans. Um and then
you all could kind of take that and think one level up on like does this match your your fiveyear out goals. >> And the three and the three are >> right now you have housing, infrastructure and climate change. And the reason why I asked that is the thing
that I think is being most talked about is probably the biggest uh issue that we're facing is well financial issues. It's not in there. >> Um >> that's in the process that's that's in the top that's on we have the like
processy or internal ones are internal governments fiscal health and um communication engagement. >> Yeah. fiscal. So from an electorate standpoint, from what Chaz just said, you know, the politics of of of issues
and how those integrate with what the board's priorities are, um fiscal health is uh is squarely in the wheelhouse of immediate priorities because we're asking the voters, we may ask the voters
to pony up more and that is, you know, that needs to be front and center as a part of any longer term plan. I wouldn't just stick that in >> relegate that to process. I don't think that's process. I think that's part of >> Can I just clarify what I'm saying? Okay. Um there how I am pick if you want
to change the word that's fine. How my mind has bucketed your six priority areas is that there's internal like process things that allow all of your other work to happen. That's like some of the internal governance, the fiscal health and communication. Then there's these three like content areas that you
all have shared you're especially interested in. And I think the initial three of like the internal functioning pieces you all already have a lot of thoughts of what you want to see for them and they would be like the they are very important to the plan. But the fall
those content three are the ones where you don't have as much content right now. And that's what I'm suggesting you have maybe a workshop with department heads. >> Yeah. And I know can I say one more thing but not just I'm sorry. It's just you know
finances are everything and the thing that's the other thing besides finance that's greatly missing is education. Education is a huge component and I know we're not completely in control of that but education is a major major issue uh
for a significant portion of the town. >> Yeah. Um and you know to not have any discussion about that around goals and objectives um I think it perpetuates this separation that we're you know that we're experiencing
between the town and the school. >> We are separate we have to be a little careful but >> couple of comments. Number one is that there was a discussion of sort of a base level of services was that there was a comment about that and to your point
about education, you know, and roadways and so forth. I think I think that that that uh framing of how the select board thinks about um those issues that everybody sort of depends on but aren't
necessarily ideas of change is is a worthy sort of category in and of its own right. Um and the other thing that I wanted to say is with regard to the the how do we get the data for the content
areas um I don't know whether it is a an administrative task or you know there you know maybe it's an AI task um but to to take all of the various plans that we
already have and a and be able to extract and bucket the goals within from those plans as sort of the baseline in advance of whether you know it's a workshop with staff to help understand those goals or just a conversation
amongst ourselves I think would be a very helpful and necessary first step. >> I second Michael's suggestion in part because we have these 60 plus boards and commissions some of which overlap and some of which do duplicative work and so
to have all of that collated together. So we can know what the suggestions are from the content experts. Then we review those and we might say >> well from housing uh from the housing advisory board we like goals number one two four and five not sure about three
and we do that for all of them. >> Uh that will help inform us because I think some of the feedback you're getting from staff in terms of the push back on our setting goals is maybe they feel that some of our goals are not reflective of certain practical realities. But if we are looking at uh
suggestions that are coming from content experts and we have department heads participating in this then I think that concern would be a swashed. >> Um and I just want to go back to the question of like how this process to
develop this is going to pan out. Do do you need to do this on fiscal health? Is that what you were say? Like are are there documents on your fiscal goals that you want to be pulling from or are like it like you all have thoughts on the goals for fiscal health.
>> We do have fiscal policies that we might need to adjust in the context of our fiscal reality but but I think the overall goal of maintaining our health is >> is well reflected in those places.
>> Yeah. But that's a very broad, you know, saying we're going to maintain our fiscal health is very broad. There's two ways of maintaining your fiscal health. You can live within Proposition 2 and a half. We've lay people off because we can't maintain a level of service because costs are rising faster than
than revenue. Um or the board could say, you know, we're going to be looking at and developing a a regular schedule of operating overrides to to help keep cost and revenue aligned. Um, but I'm just
and and I don't I'm not saying that should be what the goal is, but I think we need to address that squarely um a as a policy and priority because otherwise we're always going to be chasing our tails around. >> I agree with you in part, but I think
there's a third way and I understand many people say it's not realistic, but if you don't try, you definitely fail. And that's to expand the proverbial pie. And that also gets into zoning and that gets into our efforts around commercial growth and it gets into your Bailey Wick
of Chest Hill West. But there may be other opportunities as well and uh education in a different sense to the public about how our zoning can impact the amount of receipts that the town receives. And I think people need to
understand that and it might alter some people's perceptions about what is an acceptable zoning change and what isn't. If they understand the financial ramifications of it, if a certain zoning change reduces the likelihood of needing
an override every 3 years, that might bring people on board, but if they're not aware of that, they might just say, "No, that's too tall. Forget it." And so I I do think they go hand in hand and that should be sort of a third category to what you said uh just now. What are
our our opportunities to bring in new growth and that creates more flexibility around override schedules? >> Can we have that in the goals? >> Yeah, we do. So can we keep moving? Can we go to the next topic here? I think content I think where we have it is that
we are going to include the content we want. you want to include specific goals. We're going to try to use existing source material whether it's serving plans, whether it's from different public boards. Um using that as like source and then you all um
identify which you want to include which are most important to include and prioritize. >> And the question is is it just those three content areas or or or we going to expand a bit? Well, it would it oh like beyond those three >> beyond those three and and the reason
and the reason why I ask again I'm going to go back to education education is so fundamental to why people come to Brookline and why people remain in Brooklyn and and the the board's position on education will flow to the town school partnership how the splits
happen you know ho how how we actually maintain fiscal health um I do think the board should have a position and a goal >> well and the goal should be to improve the functioning of the town school partnership. Um I mean because that's
how we have an impact on education. Now it has to be a little more specific than what I just said but I mean it you know I mean the education that people move to Brooklyn for has to do with the content of of the curriculum etc which we have
no control over. Well, it it that also has to do it has to do heavily with the resources that are >> there are available >> and that's through town school partnership. >> Okay. We have to dig into this more, Bernard, but you're saying we're going to improve
the effectiveness of the town school partnership. I don't know what that means. >> Schools expand schools. I I just don't know what that means. And again what education and again I'm a I'm the only I'm the only parent that has children in
the school system >> right on the board. Um so this you know I have a perspective that is unique um and the thing that consistently we miss on the select board is a broader understanding of a longer term goal around education and it's and I
everybody says education is important but I don't think the uh I don't think that the educational community naturally goes oh what does the select board think right that they just don't they always go to the and I think I think we need to part do a had a job
partnering with the school committee um in order to go to make that department as effective as it can be. >> Let me let me ask you a question. >> Y >> um do you think that the select board should affirmatively adopt the values
and goals of the school committee or do you think we should be developing our own values and goals? I think that we should be having a discussion with the school committee around values and goals for the schools and have common goals. Right now there's there's not common
goals. We just we did just sign a memorandum of understanding which at least helps with some collaboration. But I don't think the town and the schools have ever been really page about it's always been this uh this tension. But again, as a school parent, I don't see
how the select board is actually aiding and helping to solve that problem. Um, if anything, I think we're probably more of a barrier to it than anything else. >> I guess what is a problem that's not being solved? I mean, there there's fiscal issues and then you have educational issues.
>> So, it's prim is primarily financial. Um but those financial issues are are worn out of programs and policies with with education. Again, it's there's this firewall between the two that I I'd like to see us continue to bring. Chaz has
the chaz. >> I think here the the big issue on our end practical standpoint is share resources, right? The there is by necessity towns the town of the
school share some resources share public buildings we share we sh we share groundskeeping we share a variety of things it and those are handled in different ways across different departments um and since I've
been here it has been I wouldn't say my single line of focus there are a lot of things that focus But um it has been it's been a repeated theme with me in the town school partnership and I think the Berkeley. News article captured some of my frustration with this is that we
have not been able to successfully re-evaluate in a way that makes sense for both town and schools how that relationship works. And that does have a fiscal impact. Um it can save money in some situations but not all. But saving money is also not
the be all and the end all of that. Efficiencies are important too. Efficiencies beyond money are important too. And I think that's an area where the schools feel a lack of trust. And that lack of trust comes from this idea that well the town just wants to control what we're doing. And I think one
nothing could be further from the truth. I do not want to run the schools. And I do not that's that's not my job. I don't it's not in my contract um for a reason. Um, and but but I understand where that concern
comes from. And so having the select board be participants in that discussion with the school committee at that at that leadership to leadership level to say we're not here to, you know, to look over your shoulder and figure out who's teaching algebra. We're here to help you
do the things that are not teaching the kids. um the things like running your buildings and you know making sure your computer systems are up that are vital to the work that you do but that often get put by the wayside because what when people think of the school committee
they think purely of pedagogical things which again maybe that's as it should be. In which case >> maybe it is then on the town side take some of that burden on and say look we'll help clean your buildings we'll help cut your grass. We'll help keep
keep your computers up. will help run your gyms and all the things that aren't necessarily your property that you still rely on and you know build that healthy relationship so there's not this sense of distrust or a sense of oh if I call the town I'm not going to get a response
you know so there is there is work to be done there that I think can be done at the select board level um in terms of um strengthening the relationship with the school committee and making sure they know that we want to be strong partners
with them not an oversight by um I'm curious how this feeds into the >> Well, I I think it came up for do you need another priority area on schools? So, it's saying like I think we've all it sounds like there's agreement on how
to handle those three content areas and do you want more I think was was your question. >> It is the largest department in the school budget. I mean in the town budget, right? Yes. the overall budget for the I don't think town and schools. I think there's a budget. The the the
the largest single dollar item is education and we don't have any goals around it. Maybe it's what Bernard says. It's to do something with the town school partnership. I don't know how to articulate it. It just feels it feels funny to me as a big miss that the
select board has nothing to say about education, which is the largest single expense and our previous goals included establishing the the expenditure and revenue committee. >> Yeah, >> that along with the town school
partnership is how we have an impact that's a major impact on the schools. Um and I think that that is I mean that's the that's really what what what gives that's really within our wheelhouse. >> Do we have any goal for the town school
partnership? you in in this in your initial draft goals you do I'm just trying to find and I think it's okay yeah you have a whole goal that's um improve collaboration and coordination with the school committee and that some examples of specifics are improve the town school partnership and make it a
more effective bridge between the school committee and the select board consider developing a mission and bylaws increasing awareness between the select board and the school committee for example presentations at each other's meetings effort maybe this is happening already and then invite town
school partnership members to share their verbal statements at town meeting in advance in >> so with so with that there does that and we have these other three content areas are we saying that those goals would not show up anywhere because >> no they're right now they're in within
the internal alignment efficiency I don't >> internal >> I guess I'm a little confused about the difference between three content areas and this this other bucket Okay. So, there's >> I must admit that I'm a little confused
about this, too. So, >> maybe we should have gone over this at the start. Okay. So, starting on page seven. >> By the way, that's not your fault. It just sounds computers. That makes me correct. >> Okay. So, there are you have you all identified six priority areas. The first
one is the internal alignment, efficiency and governance. Those top level bullets are the what you all started to identify as goals. So there's one around gain a full level of understanding of required based services. >> Um the next one is increase awareness
and collaboration across town government. Prioritize modernization and efficiency of town government. Improve communication and engagement with town meeting. Make public bodies more efficient and effective. Make large town planning projects more efficient and
ideally coordinated. Moving on to page eight now. Improve collaboration and coordination with school committees. So that's where those are. Improve enforcement of policies. That's so that's one. >> Can you give me a copy of what Julian?
Because the pageionation is on. >> That's right. >> So that's all the internal piece. >> Then you have the fiscal help. >> Yeah. So those are increased communication about procarity and breadth of the town's financial
challenges so residents and staff are more aware. Identify efforts and services that could be prioritized for work and funding over the next five years through this process. So it's kind of the content area one. Um actively pursue ways to increase revenue. Proactively explore
use of nonprofit institutional assets. Then there's the communication engagement priority area. And so you have improve the select board's ability to respond to residents. Improve formation and navigability of town governance and services. Improve
townwide dissemination of information engagement. Broaden the pool of residents engaged and reflected in decision-m beyond the loudest voices. Market Brook line to potential residents, especially to those not currently reflected in town demographics. And then you have the
three that are um again maybe we need to change the name that content >> content is what's throwing me off. Where did that title come from? That heading that we just made >> it is made up. Yeah, it could definitely change. It's just trying to >> because it's all content. I know. >> Yeah, I guess. Yeah. And so have very
open to suggestions. The difference is I think some of them are like more internal functioning. those first three that we just went through and then the the last three are the housing infrastructure and climate change um which are more work that the town government is doing. We can take that
those buckets away. Um we were just reviewing what the priority areas that you are that which is starts on page seven I believe that you all have identified um to >> so I guess the so for some reason this
conversation like landed focusing on the content priority is that what you kept mentioning and I'm just wondering why. >> Oh that's that's just our first takeaway. We've spent we've spent almost all this time talking through one of the initial takeovers from the half
>> and they continue. We have much more to >> Yeah. I I guess what I would say instead of content priority areas is that these are uh these are
areas of immunity uh improvement as opposed to areas of government or internal improvement. >> I mean if if you needed to bucket separately >> and maybe we don't I think that's fine. >> Yeah.
>> Okay. Um the other point that I wanted to make that's okay to to Paul's question of sort of where to draw these the set of goals for these areas. I think you actually have to look at the
full set of plans that have established goals. You know, I'm thinking about the transportation plan and the plastic plan and the housing production plan, the comprehensive plan and the carbon and the other 20ome plus that we have.
Um because because many of you know many of those plans end up overlapping into these areas like our open space plan affects climate change and housing and infrastructure.
And so so I don't I don't think you can say okay so these are the housing plans the needs and the infrastructure plans and those are the only ones we're going to look at where we are purposefully ignoring the rest of the plans. No thank >> I certainly think that's right.
>> So Mike Michael this is you're there's two ways to do this. is a bottoms up, right? Which is to consolidate and bring the other plans together have been developed and see what comes out of it and then say, do we want to affirm this or do we want to change it or there is
there's a tops down which is we agree on what the priorities are and then others go into those plans to harvest the things that are related to the the goals of the select. You can do both. >> Yes. Um, you know, you can certainly run it through AI and take every one of those plans and stick it in and say, you
know, right, tell me what the common priorities are. I think the reason to start with what you're calling the bottoms up approach that I would call sort of the expertise in forward approach um is to take advantage of that expertise
>> um and bring it together for for our sort of review and consideration. >> What others think of that? David, >> I agree with Michael's idea. I think that we want to take advantage of the expertise that exists within town. Uh these other boards have put in a lot of
time and effort into crafting their goals based on their particular knowledge areas. And again, it's not saying that we're taking it at face value necessarily, but it comes to us. We review it and then we ultimately decide which ones we want to adopt, which ones we don't want to adopt, which
ones we might want to modify. Because something else to keep in mind and I don't want the other boards and commissions to feel that we are somehow disrespecting them by not accepting their goals wholesale. In many instances we might but they are looking at issues
from their particular purview. And sometimes when they are doing that they're not considering >> what a different board that has a different purview how they might look at it and how it might contradict with their goal. That's where we come in. >> Yeah. So you're not advocating that
every single board and commission we review their documentation. You're looking probably at formal plans that have developed and been submitted. >> Exactly. Right. >> Probably to board that we've received. >> Right. >> Right. Let's let's look at what the goals are they have come up with based
on their respective processes. >> We review them and then we determine which ones we would like to adopt. >> Yeah. Maybe we need AI to help us. >> Well, I mean I actually I actually >> I think that's a good idea. >> I actually did this with a number of the plans as part of for me to help get my
head on a comprehensive plan was I ran these through AI and it's remarkable when it spits out. It's actually pretty good. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> So where are we Abby? >> Let's move to our second question.
>> Um okay I was if Okay. So this is about base service provision and internal operations. And so the feedback that I heard Um, I won't use the word loudly this time. The feedback that I heard from a lot of people is like, hey, what
we do, which is critical to what the town does and the services that it provides every day, and this is like what Sean was picking up on before, is not reflected here. And I think what our conversation had been in July or what your conversation said in July was um
was yes, like this is all important. Maybe we need to understand more what the base services are and and if it's like thinking about like a pie diagram maybe I don't know 75% of what the town government spends its energy on is base
services but you want to have feedback on what the the remaining slice of the pie should be and that's where these priority areas or the the content priority areas come in. >> It really is a good point in services. Let me and let me just see if there's
any other Oh, I also just heard like you have amazing base services. Like everyone was like we're doing a really good job compared to a lot of towns. Like we should be proud of this and like claim like we're doing a great job. Um >> and education as a base service. >> Yeah, >> we could put that in here. Yeah,
>> there was also conversation about the modernization and digitization which you all had a goal on that and staff were definitely in support of that. Um, and then there are a number of kind of specifics of ways you could incorporate this, but what do you all think? What
are your thoughts on the base services idea? >> Um, first of all, I totally agree with Paul in the sense that our base services are excellent and we should be trumpeting that way. um in terms of the
internal you know improving our internal quality of our government whatever those other three things are but not the confidence um you know we should be looking at >> communication around our base services like how do we get them out there we
should be looking at efficiencies um we should be uh looking at you know how do we gather feedback um on the effectiveness of our base service I mean if we think that they're great internally and then our community or our
electorate thinks that you know you know they're they're not as good as we think we are internally like we should know that and be able to >> ali we should be able to align those two sets of expectations whether it's with outbound communication or inbound um so
I think that you know base services are you know are critically important and we should be also thinking about continuous improvement. >> But isn't the idea of base services a way to just let us know where we have
the room to come up with goals >> and the base services are there and and what's left over is what we can sort of propose in in our goals and distractors to use. But but you know if base
services are taking 75% and we can identify efficiencies that turn that 75% into 70% that as a measure >> but but still what's left over is what we're working >> I was going to make a similar point
Michael just said in response >> so maybe and I was when I was thinking about this I was like okay what would your potential goals be around base service is it just like continue to provide them and then after five years hopefully would say yes, like is that really useful? Um, but maybe it sounds
like it's um figure out if there are potential ways to make them more efficient so you can free up some of the pie, get some feedback on them like make sure and communicate >> or improve them. I mean >> or improve >> Yeah. some and then I know John also hand
>> um well I I would say um in answer to your question one of the things I would love to see highlighted is that we do a more um regular uh and consistent job of reporting on our progress through
the course of a year on delivering this or that base service that we said we were going to deliver over the course of the year. And I I always bring the fact that fix because it's just an easy example. Um at the beginning of the
year, quote unquote, it's it's quite likely that we have already said this year we want to fix ABCDE and F streets. Okay. But then do we follow up and say how do how are we doing? You know, how are we doing after four months? I I know
they have a construction season. So, you know, it's driven by the construction season, but um did we actually do all of those streets? And if we didn't, what problems did we run into? And then we would also have a metric for saying, how
about our neighboring communities? Are they actually executing better than we are in terms of keeping up with the the need to fix streets? Do they do anything different than than we do? That's an easy example. There's many other examples besides fixed streets or fixing streets, but I just find it an easy one
to get my head around. >> I think that John touches upon another value to emphasizing what our base services include and how successful they are. Because when we get into conversations about overall fiscal health and whether we're going to put an override on the ballot, voters want to
know that their money is being well spent. And right now, I'm not sure that they necessarily know that. But if we're tracking things in a way that John says and to use the same example that we targeted 20 roads for repairs and we did 22 that the voters would love hearing that
and that actually increases confidence in town functions. And so I think it is appropriate to address base services from even just the educational perspective. I don't mean schools but just this is what base services cover. this is what each department was set out
to do this year and this is how they performed. >> Well, I was gonna say that you you raised that one point um at the end. I think it would be very educational for us as a board to see if we can agree on pay services. What are those things that
we fundamentally need to do? um be and and and and continue to invest in because when when we get to a financial challenge, what where do you cut and what's if we had to make a choice? Um or if we wanted to expand services, maybe we want to change what we're investing
in as a base service and it's something that was once a base, maybe it's being adjusted. Um it'll be really helpful to see if we agree on what base services >> Exactly. Um to to your example of the roadways um
there are there are there are two values actually that we could be lifting up. One is the value of accountability um which is we said we were going to do this and we did that. Okay. But the other value um and I'm not quite sure what the right word is but it's to say
you know the streets are at this level of condition at the beginning of the year and then the streets are at this level at the end of the year and you know how do we feel as a select board and how does the community feel about that level
of progress? Right? because we may be we may be saying what we're going to do and we may be we may be knocking it out of the park in terms of what we said but if the community says in particular well but you know my street still has 27
potholes or you know the route that I take between you know my home and my work you know is is takes me an extra 20 minutes and cost me an extra $100 on a blown tire or more um than like we
really had to deliver. So both of those things are important. >> Well, one good point about streets. So, um I think that staff would first it's helpful for us to oversee are they making progress on streets? But what
what may also be very valuable to them is to understand where they should be investing the dollars. Should they be fixing that side street that has some potholes or should they be investing in expanding bike lanes? Right? That's the type of information that I think is really important for them to know which
would be guidance from the select board versus did you know did you fix what percentage of potholes did you fix in a year? Um I think that's the type of the former is what we should be offering as guidance is should you be changing how you're spending the money um in addition
to maybe increase money. Okay. >> Were you gonna say something? >> No, >> I was just going >> looking at you for that. >> Okay, great. Yeah, I it sounds like I I feel like I see a passion service provision. So, so that's helpful. I just want to highlight one other thing and
some of the ideas that I heard from department heads which is around >> basically to be able to provide their base. this is some of the internal operations work that they do they would prioritize for funding or they would want to see and there's a lot of like the digitization
there's like some like streamlining of online like permitting processes both for staff but also for residents that have to you know it's like a huge challenge I guess to get all of the different licenses and permits and whatnot >> there's a lot of requests for new staff
>> for new staff >> for new staff I mean It's so seems overwhelm. >> Yeah. And and yeah, and that's we have the next section, your staff resources and physic space. And of course, keep in mind I asked them like what are your big goals? What do you need to be able to accomplish them? So like of course you
are going to hear about resources when you when you ask that question. But I just want to highlight for you that they are thinking about like we need to if we want to improve some IT stuff, we need to get everything to the cloud that costs money and whatnot. So, just I'm not sure if there's an action here that
you all need to take at this exact point, but just something to sit on, I guess. >> Okay. Um, I would love to give you a break.
What do you all think? We have few more to go. >> So, so well, okay, maybe we should just do a few more. >> Do do we I mean, >> what do other people think? Well, we going to work through lunch. >> We said working lunch. Do you want like a five minute restroom stand up break?
>> 12:15. >> Oh, okay. So, somebody wait till 12:15. >> Okay. Um, >> you need someone else to the bathroom. Great. >> I feel bad holding you all against your >> You are hurting Cassie. I know.
as I regret not um walking us through the priority areas as a reminder in the beginning, but I'm glad we got here. >> Yeah. >> Now, um okay, let's go to staff resources and physical space. So, I heard a lot about this. Um one kind of
on the staff resources piece, I would say there's two parts of this. One is some departments feel like they just need more staff to be able to provide some of these based services and then additional goals too. >> Sorry. >> Yeah. Page three. Page three.
>> And then part two is that especially some department heads mentioned this that they're having trouble always attracting and retaining staff and having more competitive salaries for specific positions would be really helpful. Um and then I did hear I think to Bernard's point earlier that at least
in some departments for this is like pretty specific so this is not a general um sentiment I heard but I just want to I do want to reflect it that at least in some um departments some staff are having some low morale because of some government public
um interactions and then feeling like they are have low salaries. So that combination >> what does government public interactions mean? Yeah, it's mean that like you know there's a lot of frustration that people have right now. This is not specific to Brooklyn at government staff.
>> I think here they're talking about uh the various boards and commission. I mean that it's my understanding various boards and commissions that have to deal with um you know public input that sometimes can be difficult. Um >> I don't know if it was specific to the
boards and commissioners a little more broad than that. >> Well, whoever comes to the meetings. So yeah. Yeah. Um I >> mean all you need to do is go read Brooklyn online and I mean people are using that like social media
>> to attack that. It's outrageous. >> So yeah. So I think that was being felt in some places. It's a hard time. Yeah. >> I mean I work with the Massachusetts Municipal Association too and this this is definitely not specific problem and it and it still affects. >> So this is primarily customerf facing
roles. >> Yeah. Yeah. Kind of constituent. Yeah. Um, and then the next key piece here is about constrained or degrading physical space logics. So like the like your buildings specifically and there was even a request like when
in one of your priority areas on infrastructure, they were saying like municipal buildings should be included. They were asking are municipal buildings included in infrastructure here because we see some real needs. um whether it's like wanting new spaces or just like our
current spaces falling apart. Um >> so yeah, so I >> are most of these requests around um fulfilling base services. >> Yeah. And so the few that I I tried to
include some examples here. Um so I heard like police department station parking seems to I think to be an issue there like limit limits there. the fire department stations, both the like not having room for like women sleeping
quarters and bathrooms. It's like a gender equity challenge and then also you asked. >> Yeah. Okay. So, yeah. So, and this is >> I'm sure No, I'm sure these are not new like the idea of a new council on aging facility in South Brooklyn to be able to reach people there. Community center.
>> Yeah. >> So, this gets back to Paul's question about like what are base services? Because if you expand your notion of based services to include a community hub for gathering >> in a new community center then like oh yeah we need the money for based
services >> but maybe bases the long term maybe it's like what is our current service level? >> I thought somewhere we said what are the mandatory services that that we have to and mandatory meaning that service
became the obvious one. >> Yeah. uh spools, you know, that's mandatory. >> We have council on we we currently provide council on ancient services, right? So question is do you >> is that mandatory? >> Well, well, it's a base service today. its level of service and you could
expand it by adding something to selfcoin that would be an expansion beyond >> right this but this gets to your point that by >> people's concept of what people's understanding of what constitutes based services is not necessarily uniformally helpful
>> right so I think maybe separated out in the manner that Bernard suggested what are mandated services and what are our level services so have base mean more what's mandated So legally required, >> right? What's legally required under state and federal law and town by law
for us to do? >> And then separate from that, what is our level service because we're doing extra. And so understanding what that is >> to me, the South Brooklyn um center idea, I'm not sure that is a
legal mandate. So I wouldn't I would not include that under the mandatory services, but it's certainly not a currently with our level services. It's a nice to have. It's important to have patient too, >> right? >> Yeah. I think the word base is actually
doing more harm than grace in terms of it. >> Yeah. >> So you you're you're better off saying mandatory versus >> or expected services. >> Well, really that's sort of a third, >> right? So the level of services that we
have, right? And then there's the expected level of service and we may only be able to fund up to the level of services that we have. I mean the the schools I'm sure are going through this >> and schools use level service funding. Right. >> Right. And what does what does level service funding mean? Does it mean like
does it include the things that we had to cut because of just the recent fiscal challenges? Right. >> Or not. >> Right. I like that. So mandatory level expected. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. getting our terminology right would be a big goal of this thing. >> That's great.
>> Someone has a lot of work to do for this. >> Someone does. >> Um yeah, and wait till you get to the implementation. >> Um yes. And I'm so for the mandatory
piece, would the goal just be like contin? >> Well, we don't I think the I think the first thing is to get everybody on the same page in round. I just think we all understand what are the legally mandated services, >> right? And then what are the the level
services that we're providing and then what's the nice to have. >> Um and all of those are knobs that we could turn to some extent. Even on mandatory services, you could you could not speed it up >> because some of these specific examples I don't think any of these fall into the
mandatory category. I mean maybe a little bit around parking for the handicapped etc. But overall all of this I would think falls either under level or >> um >> it does it does affect staff retention if you
>> Yes. If you don't have a place to shower, >> right? >> Right. But we're working on that car. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, another one that's sort of interesting, right? Our current level of service includes a, you know,
funding employee healthcare at a certain percentage, right? That's not mandatory, but that's the level of service. and and also in a level of service example around u our schools the material speed program that's not mandatory but that's something we do to help attract u
municipal employees to Brooklyn and I don't think we always do a good job of um raising awareness that that's something that we offer as a benefit but again not required but we do it and that's part of our letter of service usually
>> okay so it sounds like I mean definitely the exercise of separating these out sounds important and maybe none of these other things would right now get incorporated into the >> well it's it's hard to balance those things or incorporation into our road
map especially with fiscal health >> exactly >> being part of our road map until we have the data >> and maybe this is I didn't include this explicitly and maybe I should have but one reflection is I think this communication of the fiscal health and procarity and that you all are feeling
I'm not sure has trickled out yet to everyone that I've talked to or that wasn't like a key top like people are definitely aware that it's like something that's coming and thinking about it but they weren't like oh gosh we're in crisis mode >> so maybe there's some communication at some point >> yeah there just in terms of the
sequencing I think this discussion we're having right now about mandatory level expected it's critically important that we get that information before we set goals because I would think that in our prioritization the goals. If there's something we're not doing that's
mandatory, we would want to prioritize that. So, we need to have an understanding of are we doing everything that we're required to do >> plus what's level but not mandatory. >> Jess, can the budgets be kind of sorted categorized that way? Is that
some difficulty? >> Worth it. Um, >> so I I think it's this is this is always a good time to kind of think too about where your where your cost drivers are. Your cost members are predominantly
employees. It's it's in it's salaries and benefits make up more than 80% of your budget. Um, and so when we talk about programming that actually, you know, you're already talk closer to like, you know, 15, 14, 13% of your
budget. Um, and there's then this question of, you know, are to what extent are you dancing on the head of a pin here a little bit? Um, but so yes, theoretically we could say, for example, you know, I could ask a department, you know, so we're currently provide this
the level of service we're currently providing is X uh and there are Y vacant positions. If those positions stay vacant, how would your services be impacted? Um, and you know, we're doing that kind of work now as we prepare for a potential no override scenario. Um,
and there are situations, you know, for example, the we are now it is now mandatory for us to implement this tree protection bylaw. We and it's it's killing staff. It's really really hard. Um, so that's something that we have a focus on. Um
um and but by by the same token it's it's difficult to then say okay right now I have seven people devoting you know right now an average of a quarter of their day to the tree protection bylaw. Um do I you know how many you
know how many bodies does that make in reality? How you know how how do I divide out those salaries? How do I then say all right this is the this is the cost of the mandatory service. I can do those. We can we can work on those estimates but it quickly becomes
complex. Um sorry. >> No, go ahead. Go ahead. Um I I mean I was just I was just thinking for for example we could decide to to you know include in our override for the next year because we didn't have a treat
protection bylaw in the last override you know um the funding for those seven quarter physicians um with the explicit tradeoff that like we wouldn't do that work right that what you're des what
you're describing is was is basically an unfunded mandate. >> Yes. >> Right. And so if town meeting approves a budget that does not include those positions, then >> I don't know how we to to what degree we
get we will be held accountable for not doing that. What >> I will say, you know, because we dealt with this when this was out there, right? If town meeting passes a bylaw, we have to enforce a bylaw, right? you're not we're we within the constraints of the budget that we have.
So you have some executive discretion to say this mandate is funded only x point but it's not as if I could say well we're not going to do anything. Um we're doing we're doing the best we can with the resources we have. Um, and so that's one area, and I don't want to get too
far a field of the whole discussion, but I just want to say when this this framing of level budget, nice to have, and you know, mandated services is something that we're going to talk about in expenditures and revenues in the coming weeks. Um, and so we're going to do our
best to kind of build that out, but I I don't know necessarily how helpful that is for you in building out your goals in the sense that it then you say it's harder sometimes to translate into what it what it means in terms of your goals and objectives.
>> But but it does give us a sense of how much we have to work with. >> Yes. >> And that's really the only point. >> Yeah. John, but to Michael's point, which which I I think is a very good one, um uh if for example, voters reject uh an override for enforcement given
having been given the information about how much it's costing us um etc etc. Um to me that kind of liberates us not to go forward with providing those inspections. I mean, do we listen to an
initiative from town meeting even if voters have rejected funding it? Um, I don't think so. And I think it's a good test because otherwise we're just um you know vulnerable at any time to yet
another initiative of that nature and then another one after that and then and if the answer is well no matter what the voters say we still have to enforce it means yeah but did we ever give the voters the choice of uh the consequences of enforcing it which is now that we're
spending the money on preforcement we don't have money for some other service that they expect to have. Um, you know, >> I'm pretty confident that legally we can't just pick and choose we want to enforce or not. >> That's the law on the books. We have to enforce it period. But where I agree
with you and Michael and where I think this effort is nevertheless beneficial is if the voters reject funding it, then there's a very good case to be made to go back to town meeting and say, "Look, the voters don't value this. They rejected it. So let's reverse and take
it off the books >> or modify it so that we can do something. >> There's many laws on the books that we don't or go back >> to the extent that that is required by by as defined by the law. Um what what
is the recourse if voters say we don't want to fund seven positions to enforce the tree bylaw and we don't enforce the tree bylaw extent that's called what like what what what I'm asking what is the recourse >> if the select board says we're not we're not going to we're not going to operate
we're we don't have the money so we're not going to do that. >> Yeah. Um well there could be a 10 taxpayer suit I assume. Um or you know in general you know you could bring a mandamus petition in the which basically means the government is mandated to do something and it's not doing it. Um so you can go to the court and say I want
you to affirmatively direct the local government to do what it's required to do. Um but but to pick may I sorry to pick up on David's point which I I think is is excellent. Um the next step after the voters reject it
would be we go back to town meeting but this time we say the voters have rejected funding this you know and so we're going to have to take money out of the police department to fund it. We're going to have to take money. We thought we were going to give X to the schools but now we have to give X minus this.
>> Nobody ever had to make that decision when Tom meeting just boot you know says we want to have this bylaw that's going to cost all kinds of money to enforce. Maybe then they would see the light of day. >> Right. I think that's the approach to take. >> Yeah. Give them give Tommy some options. >> Right.
>> Has that ever happened before re in recent years? >> I think something like it has maybe happened. You know, there's some sequence of events that led to us having to go back to town meeting to say we didn't tell you the first time around how much this was going to cost. Now we can tell you how much it's going to cost.
>> Composting a little bit. >> Yeah. I mean that was on right. We put a we put an optional, you know, or we question 2B asked, do people want in addition to the space override, do they want to spend an extra roughly $2 million for a composting program? And that was voted again. Um,
voters spoke. Um, there will be no home composting pickup. Uh, we have still expanded composting options though. Um, >> but there is but there is um and I the reason why I said that you know there's things on the books that doesn't get enforced to the extent that is on the book. So let's take traffic enforcement
as an example, right? We we enforce traffic regulations to the extent that we have staff police coverage, right? So many people would argue we should do more, but we don't have the financial resources to have the coverage. >> Is that different than the tree by law?
>> No. And that's very So what's what's happening now, right, is very similar to that, which is yes, we have this bylaw on the books. We have a processing. We have built processes to the extent that we can to build it out. If you go to apply for a permit, you have to apply for the tree protection and so forth. That exists that's in that's that's now
out there and it's rolling out. Where we struggle is with >> inspection. >> Um, and that leads to potentially cascading impacts. And I just want to be clear when I say seven people are not working full-time on the tree bylaw. Right now, it's a bunch of people
working some of their time on the tree by trying to make this work. So, I just want I don't want people to say that I don't I don't want that to get out there and people say, "Oh my gosh, seven people." That's not Seven people are working on it, but they're working on it at different times today. Um, >> but there was an estimate that was
provided to time being like I think it was like $400,000 a year. Yeah. And >> it sounds like that estimate is relatively accurate. >> Yes. >> Okay. I think lunch is about to come. >> Should we take a 10-minute break?
>> Yeah. Yeah. I come weekend >> and you are just here on the edge. >> But if you go to the >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Join.
>> I never bought that data. I never bought >> these numbers in Cambridge. And I keep wondering like how did those numbers, you know, come about in Cambridge? I'm not so sure. So >> question check.
>> Yeah, I um emailed the phone criteria on it and so I just want to make sure I had it clear. >> Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Is she going to get back to >> No, no, I'll get back to you. >> Okay, great. Great. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. >> I promise not to spend your face. No, there are certain that we don't have to
stress because it's confidential. Yeah. You know, so it's not it's not like the full picture. >> Yeah. Okay. >> And if you're plumbing for something, that's totally fine. Do what you want to do. But if there's nothing you're looking for, we may be able to provide an easier um I mean
I mean for starters um we um I think we are right, right? Uh >> great question. No. All right. Okay.
>> I just know that sometimes my eating is not very pretty. >> It's a good thing you don't have the big mound of meat. >> Right. >> Okay. So, let's go on to So, we have one, two, three. We have four more of these
to go. We're trying to end at one. Um, so we might need to do slightly briefer reviews of each of these. Um, so the first one on page three at the bottom is up about public boards. And so I've heard from a lot of department heads
that like one, they really appreciate how engaged um residents are in all of these different public wards. Um >> and that yeah, that's been a very helpful part of their work and that they think that if there there is opportunity and
that it would be beneficial to streamline some of them. It would make some of the work more efficient. Um and so they recom they some of some folks are recommending either um well one option would be you could establish a committee
that would try to streamline some of the public bodies which is a little ironic to have another committee there committees um but that is one opt. So, is there a way to try to streamline some of the public bodies? And then another idea is um to try to reduce some of the
administrative effort that running the public bodies requires. And so I think this is some of the town meeting laws around like posting like the different posting of minutes by certain dates and notices and things and
um that that just takes a lot of time for staff that are running. But we're stuck with that has made that bill >> and so but could you could someone propose something? >> Well, we know one article. >> Yeah. >> Would it be would it pass? But the idea
of reducing boards and we've already been doing that. If you go into the archive drive um menu item on our website, you'll see all the boards that have been you know terminated.
>> So you feel like this is already happening? >> Well, I think yeah, it's happening and and you know that's really something that you know is Tiffany that Tiffany's working on and that and yeah, all all we need to do is just encourage you. I can't think of any force. So, since I've been on the board,
I can't think of us having a discussion about eliminating one. >> Yeah. One of the >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Well, we talked about the human resources board. >> Yeah. >> Coming from what I'm referring to are
boards that have been inactive for years and were still on the list of boards and we got just got rid of them and do our side. No. Well, there there is one board that um the BHS committee for the building
committee for BHS expansion which is no flexibility but still >> so go ahead. I think the other the other interesting question so so I actually did a a sort of of all the boards um and who
supports them and you know there are like 11 or 12 that are all in planning and community development um and it would be interesting for example to take a holistic look at that that set to see whether they you know should some of
them be subcommittees Um I've had lots of discussions with various people about what actually is the role of a planning board. um you know and you know relative to the comprehensive plan and also relative to other things that they do um
or other sort of areas of planning right now they're mostly a uh design review board which is which is not all they could be >> who's is the planning the planning board
you know that as as Matt Hayyatt said to me he said you know their their primary role is to make sure that if there are bad architects that the designs that those bad architects come up with are subject to the way.
I think one area here where you may want to think about is um we that when they talk about administrative burden I think what they're really talking about is that behind stacking meetings um and it's kind of a it's not an option more than
support but it's a it's a it's a situation where there are kind of two bad potentially bad options which is one that committee just you could scaff committee you can find someone to work odd hours. Often times these committ
meet during the workday um staff committee which again it's fine in many cases it's expected of us and that's what we do but for some some of these that you know that adds up because so many of them aren't in planning that means a lot of there's a lot of pressure on planning staff to work unauthorized hours in order to get this done or you
can leave the committees to their own devices. You can say we'll set up the Zoom we'll turn on the recording we'll let you go. Um and we do that with some committees um who would staff themselves or feel capable of doing that work but then you run the risk of that committee doing some work coming you know working
on it own for a while then coming to staff and saying hey we've been working for the last five weeks on this and for us to say well can't do that actually and they throw up their hand say why why where were you five weeks ago um so being able to
think about how to ensure that boards and committees have the tools and the conversations they need in order to >> be productive and feel like their contributions are worthwhile and not um you know just going to be subject to you
know a review or a no later but also done in such a way that the engage the administrative burden on staff is somewhat less. Um, again, there's no way you we're not going to get out of doing meetings out off hours. Like that's that has to happen. That's how government
works. Um, but to the extent that we can talk about when is when is a staff person necessary, what role do they serve, how are boards and committees meant to be in communication with their select board leaison and with their staff liaison. That information will be helpful. Standardizing that process will
be helpful. >> Ch. What percentage of board and commissions have staff support? I have no answer for that, but I can we can we can do >> we should I mean we should be very conscious of which which boards and
commissions give stats for which ones to >> because I do think just like you know when you see a town meeting moderators committee >> you know they don't get st they they're left to their own devices they have the ability to set up a zoom they have the ability to publish meet
meeting minutes >> but we should be very selective I think about who gets uh certain level of support and not not at the important commission as I think people >> I I think that's actually good enough for now and I I think seems like there's
shared feeling around this and maybe one of the goals is to think about whether it is streamlining maybe it is specific to planning to your point um or which are going to get staff support like I think that could be one of the shorter term goals for the fin Um, oh, I just I do want to give a shout
out to Tiffany and I I definitely heard appreciation for the handbook. I like trying to clarify and systematize some of that seems helpful. >> Um, okay. The next piece here was just around um that a lot of the department
heads have appreciated select board the role of the like liaison between public bodies and select board and I think over time because there is such turnover there is not necessarily standard how the liazing happens between a public
body and the select board and perhaps there's an activity here of like what is it maybe defining what it means to be a liazison on to a public body and laying that out for newer select board members coming on. Um, and so there's a shared understanding of that. I'm not sure if
that's >> is that just the relation to the public body >> is the is there a liazison role of a select board member in the handbook? >> It is stated in the handbook. Okay. So maybe it already changes this but I don't um I don't know how clearly it
defines maybe what staff work. >> I don't know. Maybe maybe the maybe the question back to staff is given that this is in the select code edible, how would you >> like if there there are like specific um
areas of of the jurisdiction I use that really loosely like the kinds of things that stand for that be valuable for solar programmers to add like you know is this possible what are the political ramifications you
know >> a good question to ask too I I think is you know what what is the reason that we have liaison to some boards but not the other boards and do we actually need to continue the liaison uh role for
every single board where there's a leaison like assigned right now. >> Well, I'll just give you an example. I'm the liazison to the indigenous people's celebration committee. I have an understanding with them that, you know, I'm not comfortable playing a role in
their meetings in the sense that they've had a focus on having people with indigenous heritage be the committee. And so I'd much rather that they feel comfortable, you know, um, exercising that responsibility
as people who claim that heritage and not having to sort of listen to me speak, you know, sort of develop that authenticity. Nor do I feel they have shown any need for a selectable liaison. I mean they
they they they are self sort of self-governing in terms of they now have a procedure for choosing their chair and other any other officers and they meet they meet monthly and they do a really good job of organizing and they report to staffers of important staff I think
um you know the head of the office of diversity inclusion. So yeah, I mean Kaitlyn provides the services they need, but I don't think we should take the position that >> because you're not indigenous person >> that you shouldn't be in. I mean that
that can't be a criteria for >> well they they're unusual in that you know they're very that that's one of the criteria that they apply to themselves. >> Okay, that's that's fine. and and I think it's it's one I would absolutely
respect and I've also of course told them if you ever need me as for consultation just let me know >> but um I don't feel they need me at every one of their meetings >> but I think I think that's just it
develops part of this protocol where you do say maybe some boards and committees we need to you know because it's also about respect right that committee you know you can see the work that they did >> indigenous people said okay it's Great. Um, and it's a lot of work acquired and I think it deserves, you know, they in
the same way that many other committees to to knowledge that the board cares about it, is invested in it, has a member that's, you know, on call if need be, but not maybe not necessarily showing up at every meeting. And that can be and that can be something maybe that's something that's then worked out
between select board leazison and the committee where the relationship is is a relationship wanting the select board members expected to participate expected to offer opinion expected to bring things back you know making sure that the committee knows the roles and responsibilities of the liaison is
important and very >> yeah for sure did you have >> um I I just want to say you know my experience with the Brooklyn Commission for Living. Um, obviously I'm not a woman, so I don't pretend. Um,
but the thing that the thing that that I actually feel where I can be most helpful is the thing that Chaz mentioned earlier is like, you know, if they're setting up processes like, you know, we make sure that those processes conform with open law and make sure that if they
want to make a recommendation to the select board, um, that that recommendation gets properly, you know, discussed, voted on as a recommendation and then transmitted to the select board. Um so so it's as it's
and and it part of it is is ensure helping to ensure that those processes go forward. Yeah. And the other part of it as I'm sure for many of us is that we may uh have interests in particular areas that are being worked on by specific boards and commissions. And so
we engage with those boards for our own interest whether it's personal or political. Right. So >> yeah and my main concern is that not all boards and commissions need a select board layers on the budget and I
think should be dealt with on a case by case basis works them with indigenous people because of >> cer does need a select board laid off but let's just be careful that we recognize that um one of the purposes select those layers is to make sure that
these don't sort of go off the reservation in terms of you know the goals and and um need >> charge of that we've given them as select >> but so and maybe it's just like a series of questions to ask when you're getting
a new selectboard leaison of like how do you want engagement to okay let's keep >> um to go okay on page four to go into the communication and community engagement um select so I heard from a number of
people that communic like that Brookline communicates really well compared to a lot of other municipalities and this was from department heads that have worked in other towns or cities. Um and they also noted that the new communications officer person that was
fired in the last year or so has been really helpful to that. um and that perhaps some more communication capacity within departments in some specific departments that do a lot more communication out might be helpful. Um, we will definitely be sensitive here to
the loudest voices idea or the terminology specifically, but I did hear from many department heads concern about well use it in quotes loud voices getting a lot of attention in decision making. um
and that they appreciate I think you all had a goal around being like more accessible to residents or something and some uh a few people just said like especially residents that don't have access to select work. >> Yeah. And you know I think can I speak for just moment the subject I now that I
see the context of that here >> I think I understand maybe where some of that might be coming from. Um, and a lot of this is about, I think, the town administrator and the select boarding having the back of staff to be
able to proceed with plans that they're working on. So I know at least one park where uh something was approved by town meeting to make some changes and um and I think a few uh residents again concerned about access and that turned
into some really strong um advocacy I would say I don't want to use I want to make sure I use the right term um that that was was difficult and I think that's where the loudest the loudest voices uh
might be coming from. And I think that you know we this is a valid point that you know um if if a resident doesn't like something um they can marshall a couple of other people to really start to to contact staff persistently in a
way that you know put staff on their heels and and without specific guidance. Um they could have a hard time responding to that. And I think that that's I know that's happened a couple of times, Chads. Um especially in the kind of the park the uh the
department area and maybe even with you know rats and stuff like that and trash, right? >> Any I think that's that may be where it's coming from and it can take a significant amount of staff time >> to to to respond to these things. Um,
as as as to build on that, um, I'm wondering, do we have a communications a strategic communications plan or communication strategic plan of any kind or such a thing under development? So,
we have communications policies that Christina and Tiffany have worked on and put in place in terms of what it is that are our norms and how we communicate and what we do and so forth. But in terms of long-term provising plans for that, no, we do not have them.
>> You know, things things like, you know, getting more information um the some of the suggestions here might be sort of within the context of a communication plan. Um, and I'm just wondering whether whether that's that's sort of a
reasonable bucket for all that is. >> Um, >> well, but I Michael, I think it's more than a communication strategy. It's actually how some residents treat staff. Um there's
it's you can proactively communicate a plan to do something, but if a resident feels that they don't like it. Um you know, not everybody picks up the phone and says, you know, I'm not really excited about this change. Could we do this? They actually become the language becomes much stronger,
>> right? >> And that's a I don't know what that falls into. Um maybe it's a code of conduct type of thing but >> but we can't we cannot control what how residents sort of contact us but how we respond
>> but what we well there's two things one is how we respond and two what processes we can put in place to channel that feedback so that it is you know best actioned um so that you know uh
residents feel like they're being heard. Um, and and and staff feels like they're not being overwhelmed. And that that may be a more strategic broader question than just a particular case.
Yeah, I think there's a really interesting balance to be struck here when you think about goals and how to how to fold this into a goal, which is I think what staff value from the select board is when you make a decision to
have the that that kind of fortitude um over a long period of time to see it through to its conclusion. Um, and I think sometimes the feedback that I get is that there's the the political pressure then creates circumstances where there's this where there's
wavering, there's a zigging and zagging of sorts. Um and you know what I the complaint that I hear is well if one person you know says they don't like it you know then it's and and that complaint is entertained then the hundreds of voices that don't come to a
meeting at six o'clock on a Tuesday night who do like it or who are indifferent towards it are not um and that person's voice has disproportionate impact because the board is cognizant of it and wants to listen to it. But the balance to be struck there is yeah you
know that that person is a participant in is a resident and a participant in the process and they should be heard. They should have their their day and the opportunity to be heard and we shouldn't be so you know confident of ourselves as to think that there's nothing we can learn from community feedback. You know
we should be revising and reviewing our plans in response to community feedback. So there's that balance between when do you set these positions and move through them versus when you you know what are the opportunities for that feedback and that iterative process and we're still
trying to puzzle that out in some ways. you know, we've swung, you know, in the past we kind of swung in one direction hard with the deep community engagement and then you can see on the other hand with Chestnut Hill West how we've kind of swung in the opposite direction that we tried to do something that was more staff driven on the iterative part um
and just really soliciting community feedback and we've learned from both those situations but when it comes to the select board's goals I think resiliency in and knowledge about when we make a decision when is that decision final or at what points are we going to
reassess those decisions so that um we're not just immediate we're not reactive to an immediate outcry from what might might not be a representative sample of the community um but we are still assessing and re and you know
retooling appropriately when those things come. Can we leave this as unsatisfactorily as it is? Um because I want to preview the last two pieces and we have about 12 minutes left to throw up something just
to tell you. Um as someone in staff said that several department had recommend prioritizing vulnerable residents when it talks about emphasizing current residents rather than those not living in Brooklyn. uh and then you included in your uh suggested ways to incorporate
this feedback removal goal around marketing Brooklyn that's very dangerous. I mean the issue there is you know Brooklyn that historically has become a very segregated town racially and you know uh you know we're trying to
overcome that and marketing of of the town to a broader demographic is one way of doing that. So I I just want to point out that that is a dangerous >> and I I'm the reason I included that is because that idea of emphasizing current residents rather than those not living
was in direct response to what I know is the goal that you feel certainly about. So I'm just capturing what I heard in a few different ways. >> Okay. But but then you incorporated this >> well because that was that was the suggestion. Yeah. >> Okay. I I share your concern. I think this is
an example where respectfully, which I know means what I'm about to say is so much fun, department heads should really be delving into the policy considerations and into the politics of it because these last two points that are raised are somewhat contradictory from
different individuals providing feedback. This is these are decisions for us to make. I don't think that department heads should frankly be saying focus on current residents. No, focus on those who should be moving into town. No, focus on most vulnerable. No, focus on this group. That's for the rest
of the term. >> Yeah, >> let's keep moving. Um, okay. So, this next one is on intragovernmental collaboration. Um, so one is I just heard that a lot of people think this is
going quite well and has improved in recent years. Um and I know this was a concern that some of you had that this wasn't perhaps happening and I just I wanted to share that what I heard is that it's generally working quite well. Um a few specific examples were shared and then of course people did know that
identify some opportunities for improvement which I include here. One is around integration of sustainability into other departments and integration of emergency management. um some working with the police department more using internal legal expertise rather than
hiring outside um and having some more relationship building opportunities among staff. Um, I did hear a lot about the school the schools just I know that's on everyone's mind here and I like I I heard a lot about it and the
impacts spec specifically the impacts to the fiscal health of the town and also on the the workload specifically like like buildings for example because they're handling both like it it affects their their work a lot. Um,
yes. I think those are the key things to highlight here. Any initial thoughts before you preview the last one? >> I know we're not having extended conversation. >> What What are you referring to in terms
of relationship building opportunities and staff? Oh, >> so that's an issue with schools that we >> Yeah. This is I think the line here around like policy and implementation is blurry and to like David to some of your points and it's not always as neat. This was like someone wanted more staff
opportunities to just like have lunch together >> which is really you know more in the select board's office like types of things. Um >> make sure everyone has an opportunity to have more lunch. Um I guess the only thing that I would say is you know in the goal around
integrating sustainability emergency management and police I think that that list of opportunities um is could be greatly expanded >> you know it's not just sustainability emergency management and police right
like what is the relationship for example between you know various divisions within DPW to our planning Um just just as a as an example >> and that's where that staff recommendation on raising awareness
stands because I actually do think those relationships are very strong. Right. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And and I was going to say I think like I didn't hear those ones and that doesn't the the specific the sustainability sustainability emergency management at least came up but and so I
it's a communication shortcom I think it's not for nothing that those are also the two newest divisions um that we have emergency management and then sustainability are the two newest divisions um and the processes that are coming in place we're lucky we have good
leadership very good leadership in Cheryl and Alexander who've been building that that that building that integration out and sometimes some of that takes time. >> Um it also I think you know in terms of reflecting your priorities right the priorities of the select ward are
obviously in in line with the creation and support of the sustainability division and emergency management you know which is a crucial function that we've not centralized um until you know five years ago. Okay, let me just preview the fiscal
health one here too. Um, so yes, I heard concerns around fiscal health. Um, I heard that the idea that there's, you know, there's not like a silver bullet, one one fix here that any of them saw. Um definitely I heard mention of the
imminent ends to ARPA funds being a concern that people are agreeing about what that means to some of the services that um different departments have and residents have now grown accustomed to to how to handle that. >> Um definitely heard concerns around
unfunded mandates. I think slight fear of like oh are these goals going to include that? But really it was more around um you know like the tree bylaw came up a lot. Yeah, from John. Um, so that's definitely something on people's minds. Electrification as another example. This
is going to be a huge effort to do staff and capital and where are we getting the money for this? >> Um, and then I'll just share like people had a lot of ideas of potential ways to generate some revenue. Um, >> and I'll I'll I don't know if we need to
go through all of them, but there's like a quite a wide range of them. So people are thinking proactively about this of things that could be included um and I think looking for some guidance on what to do when the ARPA funds end um
for some of these services. Okay. Any initial reflections to that piece? >> I just had a question about the ARPA funds. My memory is that Chaz, you said that the the amount of AR
proponents um that we that we could potentially have to replace is relatively small. Is that true? >> That's for operating costs. Yes. Um so when you think about staff lines some things that we things that we
would maintain but then you have to think too that there are programs that are explicitly pilot programs that were started during America um and then the question that question okay it's it's decision time do we want to feed those over to the operating budget and if so
>> right and this gets back from our previous conversation about mandatory level bring stuff right so all the a lot of that always falls in expected category. >> That's right. Whereas I think there's there's very little in the mandatory category in ARPA. In fact, I would say >> we will we we need some sort of
telecommunication software that's mandatory. We currently pay for Zoom out of ARPA. So there's your mandatory cost. Other than that, you know, trying to think of other things that we we moved a lot of things specific around transportation. I've been hearing a lot
about that with the council on aging. Um especially you know we had a conversation about the um the use of the TNC funds through the budget amendment and I you know we had a comment at advisory about you know >> the loss of funding and you know I had a meeting on Friday with the council on
aging director and the DPW director and the TNC funds are actually going to be enhancing the what they're providing but the the reaction was really coming from the the loss of our on the horizon and concern about transportation in general. David, John,
>> well, just I I did have a comment um on ch climate change and resilience. Uh and and it's simply to underscore that um this is what's in the text here is is really significant. U I'm just going to
read it back if you don't mind. Understand if the town is on track to meet its climate goals and what would be needed to get there. Um yeah, that's that's really crucial and the early returns are um we're we're not really I mean and we're not alone in that. I mean
it's it's a global problem that ambitious goals were set and are not being met in many many instances in many many places. um uh and yet to simply sort of acknowledge that is only you
know the beginning of figuring out what to do about it and that's going to be a difficult process in in Brooklyn because I don't think it'll go down easy that um we might have to actually set more realistic goals than we did and I don't
know that we're actually working toward that right now. I I I don't get a sense that um there's any process underway to try to reflect on h where we are now, where we had hoped to be, and what we
can do in light of the fact that there's a gap between where we are and where we had hoped to be. >> Well, number one, I would say this is an active uh area of conversation in Seattle. Um number two um I think we have a
presentation later today from where where this very issue is gonna come up. >> So maybe we should talk about it further than >> that's yeah >> absolutely >> but it's a you raise a valid point. Is the goal that was set to be fossil fuel
free by a certain date? Is that is it realistic and achievable? >> And I frankly don't think anybody believes it's realistic and achievable. So we may want to rethink >> the date >> because that drives everything else.
Right? If you have an unrealistic date, >> um all your other plans are unrealistic. Well, and if I may just add one other note to it, um to put it in simple terms for just in one example, you might say, well, hey, we're doing
really well with um setting up um our vehicle electrification systems, recharging stations. Um and yeah, you could point to the number that have been put out in uh Fuller Street, number that have been put put out on Kent Street,
but how many of them are being used? And you know, do we know why the number always seems to be far short of the number that we've actually established? And are we content to have electric vehicle recharging stations just because
we have them or do we have to start doing some hard measurement here? Is um is there is our approach wrong? Are we putting out the wrong kinds of vehicle recharging station? Um, is it costing actually costing us money to pay for
some sort of outside vendor to have these in parking lots when in many instances on any given day you can drive into the parking lot and the only parking spaces that are not being used are the ones where the vehicles recharging stations. So there
>> I I think the other complication in measuring this do we know what our source is for the electric charging stations is that fossil fuels and how do we track that? Or, you know, related to that is is our um
our infrastructure, you know, the grid actually designed and and capable of handling what we're putting on it. And we had recent actually a couple times, uh, power failures, I think, related to the fact that, you know, our
infrastructure is just just not up to date. >> So, I think we're going to have to stop this conversation here. >> Yeah. So you because I know you have other things on the agenda. We're supposed to wrap up right now. Um >> I let me just preview some of the next
steps. So I feel like this we we got into a lot of things some in more detail than others. So we're going to have to come back to things certainly. Um I think there I mean I I'm assuming will be on the next agenda. I'm not sure. I I think I really need to circle the next
workshop. I need to circle up with the select board office on exactly how we're going to move from this point to getting flushing out the goals and if we need to incorporate some of the department heads or if it's just we need to do this we need to come up with a list of all the
goals and the submitted plans so you all have that feedback as fodder for discussion not sure >> um but I will try to synthesize the kind of key takeaways from today and share that out with you all um but I assume I think think that's all I know at this
exact moment on the next steps here. But I think we we talked through a lot of important things and >> one one request or an idea is to provide some examples of best practices for goal setting for municipalities
like what we're setting up. Um, I haven't seen a really great example other than our own and maybe having, you know, a visual example would be >> nice. >> Okay. Very good. >> Okay.
>> Okay. Any other questions or anything else we want to ask or talk about to delay her departure? I feel I feel like we let a lot of things out of the box today. We don't have neat closure on any of them, but that is >> in the brainstorming phase of these
processes and so I'll name that I feel unsatisfied with where we are, but that's that's like part of the course and we will >> make sense of it all. >> Thank you. Thanks everybody. Right. >> Thank you. >> Very helpful.
>> Very interesting. >> Okay. Next item. I'll wait for Abby. >> I might take me a second to back up. >> We're not saying anything that I don't want you to hear. >> It says right here facilitator.
>> Um, what were you saying? >> Oh, I was going to say again, it might take Abby a minute. So, I think we should keep moving along the agenda because there's a lot left. >> Okay. next Warren Articles public hearing and we're uh we have on the agenda warrant article 4 and I see our
esteemed town clerk is at the end of the table to sort of take us through this amendment to the general bylaws update and correct inconsistencies in order to provide accessible version of the general and we're now calling it by
hyphen laws right >> I law thank you chair green and recognize I'm at top of the table. I do not take on any responsibilities at this table. Um so war article 4 is uh the culmination of the bylaws codification project that's been
happening in the town clerk's office for a number of years. Um it is to make our bylaws up to date and accessible uh in a new platform. Uh the current bylaws platform is a single PDF made up of about 600 individual word documents. And in order to keep that up to date, it is a tremendous burden that the clerk's
office has simply been not able to do uh for a couple of uh more than a decade now. Um so the new uh format will be way more accessible. It will be able to keep track of how changes happen. You'll actually have the same edit history over time. You'll be able to pull individual
sections of the bylaw and print them. Uh so it'll be better for uh town staff. It'll be better for community members and elected officials as well as for members of the public who want to know about the bylaws. As part of the project, uh, we decided while we were in the bylaw to take a closer look and make
some clerical corrections to clarify and make sure that we had a consistent bylaw uh, throughout both the general and the zoning bylaws. For the general bylaws, that meant making a number of changes uh, for consistency in spelling, consistency in references, and all those changes require approval by town
meeting. And that's what Warrant Article 4 is. uh it has listed in there the proposed changes that we have. Some of them are more general in nature such as correcting spelling of the word bylaw. Uh some of them are specific to individual sections. There are a couple that have actually been tweaked uh over
the since this was originally filed uh where there was either a typographical error in London was actually Rubenstein pointed out uh that there was a uh incorrect numbering uh that needs to be updated uh as well as a state agency change since we edited that section. So
we had to go back and implement that as well. Plus the Olstead was misspelled. So she's back in to change that as well. Um but you can see before the article kind of those changes that we're proposing so that we have a standardized u general bylaw uh that is more
accessible to everybody. Uh I would like to emphasize that while this is the culmination of the blog project, it's not going to be the end of the work to try to bring the bylaws fully up to date. Um because this project is ongoing, we know there are more corrections that are going to be made later. We have bylaws that were changed
at the May time meeting which are actually being posted by the principles today which have uh inconsistencies for the proposals that are in here that we might have to come back at a later date to correct as well as obviously articles that are currently not meeting in this warrant uh that may have some of those
inconsistencies. So there is a larger conversation that we'll have to have later about how to maintain the bylaws and ensure that spelling is done consistently and numbering is done consistently going forward. But for now looking back once this is approved we should have a fully up to date bylaw um
for the public and for time. >> Uh Paul I have a quick question. Um thank you Ben project a lot of changes. Did the le the town council review this in detail? Make sure that any changes I know sometimes commas change, spelling changes, it can have legal implications.
>> Yes. So this was reviewed by both myself and by town council. It was also sent around to all the department heads to get their feedback on sections specific to them. Uh the example that I like to give was we changed it from registered plumbers to licensed plumbers which they told me was correct but I thought the building commissioner should confirm
with me that that is correct. So yes, it was by myself and by council as well as uh distributed to the department. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Michael, >> um, two questions. Um, one is is the the uh user interface for the general bylaw
that you will be implementing similar to what currently exists for the zoning bylaw? >> It's the exact same area. Um and the second question is as you are going through this are you producing any sort of style guideline or rules of the road that people who are creating
articles can use in order to ensure that that articles articles conform with these >> guidance. Uh yes, we're working with the moderator and with council to uh come up with a style guide to give to petitioners when they're drafting these warrant articles. um as well as
hopefully give to the select board and the advisory committee because you review all of these warrant articles that even if the petitioner doesn't draft it the right way that maybe the advisory committee or the select board when you're doing your review can make those corrections so that it is consistent. So yes, we're working on that. So
>> great question. John, >> do you want to weigh in on whether Brookline has a town bylaw or town bylaws? Uh I have heard both terms used interchangeably. Um we tend to say the
zoning bylaws plural. So I mean consistency general bylaws plural could be acceptable. Um but I don't have a strong opinion in either direction as long as there's nothing in it. >> How about chapter versus by >> uh so the chapter uh so chapter versus
bylaw is interesting. There was a large discussion we had about chapter versus article and where that actually really stemmed from was the attorney general's office requested that there's sometimes confusion between a warrant article and an article of the bylaw. So that's why we changed it from article to chapter.
Um and the reason it's chapter is that's actually the standard across other communities. So general code the vendor who we use work with over 200 communities in Massachusetts and they all use it that way. So that's why we uh follow the guidance for chapter. Um so we had a lot of sorry for uh sorry we had a lot of discussion about article
versus chapter but I um have not had a lot of discussion about chapter versus bylaw >> and and just to clarify for those who are listening and totally confused right now. So instead of having bylaws plural under the town bylaw we have chapters
under the >> Okay. >> Great. Okay. This is a public hearing. So if thank you open the public hearing. >> Yeah. Now the chair has opened the public hearing. Is there anyone online who wishes to speak on this more article? If so, please raise your hand
using the raise the hand feature. Okay. There are approximately 12 individuals um online. There's no one in the room. Uh and no one is indicating their desire to speak. Okay. >> Let's close the um public hearing. Uh what's the board's um desire? Should we
Is this something we'd want to vote on today or vote on the meeting? >> Pardon? >> I'm prepared to vote. >> Okay. Yeah, I think it's fairly straightforward. Nothing unusual or
controversial. Well, maybe a few things be controversial. >> Advisory has some amendments. So maybe we need to be my suggestion. advisory and their motion incorporated the corrective dispelling of Olmstead as well as corrective already been made. Okay.
>> So, uh they I believe are working on they voted last week, but I don't think they finalize the actual language. >> Okay. So, we'll wait. Good. >> Thank you. >> Awesome. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Next, uh golf course renovations.
I think we uh we we think of this article outside in the rain. Do we need to get Justin? There he is. >> That's what I was doing. >> Hello everybody. >> Hello.
>> Okay. Can you tell us about the well AC? Why don't we start? >> Sure. You want to get yourself? >> All right. Uh, good afternoon everybody. It's a pleasure to be with all of you, especially on a day like this. This is kind of why we're all together. Um, as
you can see looking at the windows that were severely impacted by a lack of ability to drain the golf course. >> Excuse me. For the purposes of everybody online, could you introduce yourself? >> Sorry. It's Justin Lawson. I'm the general manager of the Brookline Golf Course.
Um, as I was mentioning, one of the real challenges that we have here is uh dealing effectively with a waterhed that's about a square mile uh around the facility and all the water that comes down in that square mile has to run through a ditch that's about 2 ft wide.
Uh so when we have rain inundation events like uh the one this past weekend, uh our ability to provide programming and access to the golf course is is really challenged. Uh in 2023 we lost 43 to 50 days worth of um
operations. Last two years with the droughts we've been flourishing. We really could see the potential. So knowing that back in uh 2021 we undertook a a landscape master plan and this project is the first real phase of implementing
significant uh green infrastructure changes to the property to help it drain uh and increase habitat uh and access for the residents to play golf and enjoy the golf course. So we are uh very excited about what this project means uh
for all of us and um happy to answer any questions about the project and specificity >> um so uh this is going to be selfunded out of >> software revenues. Yes. Yeah.
>> Um do you see that um being um true through to the end of the of the project? Yes. >> Yeah. For that. Um, and does this h require review by the conservation commission period? >> So, everything that we're doing has been
permitted for the conservation commission and the state D. >> Um, and so we have an order of conditions that we're working within >> that permit >> is more encompassing than what's just on this project. So, we have a timeline of about five years to get all the things
done within that permit um before it expires. So they regulate everything from uh erosion control and the amount of material that goes back in there. Everything's, you know, under their jurisdiction.
>> So um assuming this project can sort of be boiled down to um diverting water, drainage water, >> where are we diverting to? >> In areas that are outside of play. So when we worked with our engineering
team, we really worked with the basis that we can't >> increase flooding risk to our downstream neighbors. So we had to find places on the property for the water to be stored so that it can move off property in an orderly fashion. Right now there is no
organization out there for where the water's ponding. It's just ponding wherever mother nature wants it to. >> Yeah. So, this project is going to kind of help corral that water and keep it in areas that we can still operate while it drains. >> Maybe form a few water hazards.
>> Seasonal water. >> Thanks for the information. >> Okay. Anything else? Um, okay. Question of approving. Are we ready to vote? >> Do we need formal language in that recognizes conservation law restrictions
and that kind of stuff or is it just sufficient just to say separate language? >> Yeah. Yeah. It's deficit. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Okay. Okay. So I move approval of a contract PW2612 Brooklyn golf course phase 2 renovations with Jay Bates and
Sun in the amount 1 million 37428485 and authorizing the board of secretary Jazz used to select for signature stamp to execute the contract due to the offsite meeting location. Um actually who's your horse?
>> Oh I'm sorry. Um, okay. Any questions? Any further questions? All in favor? >> Just one clerical question. So, this is solely about the drainage system. No other renovation. >> Correct. >> Okay.
>> That's the major problem, right? Uh, John Vince, >> hi. >> Paul Warren, >> hi. >> David B. >> Hi. >> Michael Rubenstein. >> Hi. >> Chair. So, get out there and dig those. >> Thank you. vote over spend the money.
>> I'm sorry you missed that. Okay. Hey, I move approval of um a contract with Minene Golf Design in the amount of 140,000 to oversee all construction efforts and environmental oversight for the project and authorizing the recording secretary Kate and to use the
select board signature stamp to execute the contract due to the offsite meeting location. All in favor, please indicate by saying I. John Vquet. >> Hi. >> Paul Warren. >> Hi. >> David Berman. >> Hi. >> Michael Rubenstein. >> I chair both sides. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
>> What are you going to use the 85 cents for? That's what I use. They get it down to the penny. >> Yeah, I noticed. >> Yeah. Un unless does anyone want to go out and what what type of tour were you talking about?
>> Basically five minute tour just to see the gravity of the challenges that we have here. talk talked about it for about 5 years >> and you know to have you folks here on property to on a day where we're watching ducks swim across the fairway is
>> you get a sense of uh what what we're really >> look out the window >> that's a good hole >> that's a good hole >> that's a hole we're not touch >> but our given that Paul has to leap by two maybe if we do that would you do that too
>> yeah that I mean I was to do it now. But okay, thank you. You're very welcome. >> Next, climate action and resiliency plan update. >> I think we get that online. scheduled.
>> You are back on track. >> Oh, yeah. >> And if she's not available and we can jump to the gateway east >> that I really want to be her for that is Yeah,
>> just got here. >> She's coming in right now. >> Although I don't know if the consultant is here. So >> if not, we might want to take the the stamp policy. That'll take a while. >> Gateway East
people we don't have east yet. >> We don't have people east yet either. >> Yeah. So I think that would be the only one. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Bernard. Yes. With regard to the item about the stamp policy.
>> Okay, >> stamp policy and then do the carp. >> Okay, >> we were behind and now we're ahead. >> Okay, who's that? >> Yep, that will be me. Uh Tiffany Oliva, assistant administrator for operations.
Um, this came up a couple of times, um, earlier this year when Kate was out of office and I needed to get signatures on various things. Um, we're just trying to find ways to, um, improve the way that we get signatures for different contracts. And so um in some cases
you'll notice in past agendas and on this agenda u we ask for explicit permission to use your select board signature stamp when something is approved um so that we don't have to tote contracts to different locations for losing things. Uh so I put a very basic uh signature stamps use policy
together which actually is based on some other similar type policies that communities across Massachusetts use. Um so pretty straightforward. Uh it talks about when a a stamp can be used in place of a wet signature. Um it talks about signature stamps should not be
used on documents that require uh notoriization >> or not otherwise permitted by law to have um a stamp on it. Ones that require wet signature uh and that Kate, the recording secretary, would be the only one that would be authorized to stamp these items um after you have approved
them. So that's the essence of the policy. happy to answer any questions um or address any concerns you might have, but I think it's it's relatively straightforward. >> Yes. >> Right. >> Um given that one of the cases that we're trying to handle is when the
recording secretary is not available, do we want to say recording secretary or their design? >> We could. >> I think that's necessary. Well, I guess it is >> it's a it's a timeliness issue. Obviously, if the recording secretary is
going to come back >> then >> and you're wait, that's fine. But if it's time sensitive, >> I think it makes sense to have a design that the recording secretary would say. >> Yeah. >> Um we just don't want to give broad permission to do it either so that we
have some control over history. We >> want to designate someone specific in the in the absence too. Did you say assistant town administrator? >> I I I said town administrator, but assistant town, but we maybe we should
name name the specific role so that there's no >> I would suggest maybe assistant town administrator. That way Chaz doesn't have to worry about um stamping them. Just >> that's fine. >> Okay. So we'll add that.
Can we incorporate any kind of procedure that would allow for the select board to know whenever the stamp is being used in li of the actual white signatures? >> Yeah, I thought that was in >> Is that in there? I don't >> It's not really in there. I don't think so. >> We have to approve before
>> you would approve the items, but I think John's asking for some way to track which ones are going to use a stamp versus which ones aren't. >> Yeah. >> Um >> sent Why don't we just send a copy to the board? That's when the stamp is used. >> Mhm. >> You have the executed copy. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Okay. Thanks. >> Okay. Um any other questions? Then let's vote. All in favor of the what are we calling it? >> Uh signature stamps use policy. Um with the amendment of adding the designate of
assistant town administrator in the recording secretary's absence and also closing the loop with a copy of the executed agreement. These stamps I have one question. Do these stamps already exist or you have to create them? >> They already exist. >> When select board members are elected,
you come in and you sign your name on a piece of paper and that the basis of stamp. >> They're just not used very often unless we put it on the agenda. Um with getting that explicit authorization approval of the select voice signature
stamps use policy as amended. All in favor is indicated by saying I ji. Paul Warren. >> Hi, >> David Ferman. >> Hi. >> Michael Rubenstein. Hi. And chair both sides. >> Okay, great. I see Alexander's here. >> Hi, good afternoon.
>> Go back to the climate action and resiliency plan. >> You have an ETA on the consulting. >> Um well um there was a bit of a miscommunication. Uh he is currently at town hall. Uh so he's on his way here.
Uh so but I told him that uh in the respectful time we would get moving and he would join when he could probably about 10 minutes for him. >> Okay. >> Um yeah I think about to pull up some
slides here. There we go. >> Perfect. Thank you. Um, all right. Well, uh, good afternoon everyone. I'm Alexandra Veio, director of sustainability and natural resources. Pleased to be here with you all today. So, as you heard, our consultant um on
this project is Blue Stripe Environmental. Our project manager um is Rich Swanson. So, I'm going to introduce him uh even though he's not here quite yet, but he should be walking in here uh midway throughout the presentation. So, um he's been our primary point of
contact uh for for this project. So excited to provide you all with an overview on the development of the climate action and resiliency plan today. Hi. Um so the climate action resiliency plan
which you'll hear me refer to as the CARP uh is still under development. So there's no immediate action that's needed here today from the board. Um but do we want to use this presentation as an opportunity to give you some context on the process um and uh where we stand
today in terms of development and al also to review Brookline's uh net zero emissions uh target that's uh part of certainly development of this plan as well as um our town's uh general uh sustainability goals. So do an overview of the plan, what it includes, the
development process that we've gone through. uh we've been working on this for about 10 months now, just a little shy. Um the engagement efforts that we have undertaken. Then we'll talk a little bit about the focus areas of the plan uh and what uh the next phase of
development for those looks like. And we'll talk about that net zero emissions target and then how are we prioritizing all of the actions in this plan and then some associated net steps. So the uh purpose for the climate action plan is really to provide an actionable
roadmap um a really comprehensive plan that both addresses the causes of climate change as well as the impacts of climate change here and in the future. So we do that through looking at two uh areas. climate mitigation uh which is really reducing greenhouse gas emissions
and then climate resiliency that's really building capacity to adapt to the impacts of climate change that we are feeling now and will continue to feel in the future. So as part of development of the carp uh we have some specific deliverables that we were looking for um
which is a timebound action plan uh a pathway to implementation uh and that might sound like it's the same thing as the first thing but it's not uh we were really looking to build upon uh Brookline's previous plans to make sure that we didn't just have really robust
goals but we actually had a way to move those goals forward um and to achieve those goals. And then finally, uh, tools to measure and communicate the progress to all of our stakeholders. This is something else, um, since stepping into this role that, um, I think I've talked
to some of you about and also heard about through conversations with the community. I think there's a lot that is doing as it relates to climate action, but we just aren't necessarily making it clear the progress that we're making on those different goals. And so, uh, one of our focus areas through this plan was
to be able to, uh, really be able to communicate that out clearly to the public. Um, and that's through the development of a climate action dashboard that we'll talk a little bit more about. >> Next slide. Perfect. Thank you. Um, all right. So, the focus um, of the FARP uh,
is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So that's establishing clear pathways to uh lower our current emissions, energy usage, and then transition to cleaner energy. That's preparing for the impacts of climate change. So flooding, extreme
heat, uh severe storms, uh really looking to protect both people and infrastructure. That's both built infrastructure and green infrastructure. Protecting our vulnerable population. So um and making sure that as we implement the CARP, we're doing that in an equitable man manner so that we are
really prioritizing those most impacted by climate change. Uh an effort as well to strengthen our local economy through some of our goals in this plan. We want to obviously try to save costs um through efficiency and ideally reduced
energy and then to safeguard our natural systems particularly preserving ecosystems that provide flood protection um that provide uh cooling capacity for our our urban heat island effect carbon storage, carbon sequestration, etc. And
then open up uh new funding opportunities. So really position us to be uh well suited to go after dollars that are available at the state level um and ideally one day at the federal level as well. And then finally that
accountability uh factor that I was just talking about. So really setting measurable goals, tracking that progress and being able to demonstrate to the community um what we're doing, how we're doing it, and how people can get engaged um throughout
So uh the overall process for the development of the carp has included um a baseline inventory. So looking at both our existing plans and existing uh research that's been done on this uh topic particularly here in Brooklyn and
then developing a uh greenhouse gas inventory as well which I'll talk a little bit about. Um then we moved into the engagement phase of the plan. Uh so that was really focusing on community surveys, community public forums, uh some public meetings with the zero
emissions advisory board and then the development of the strategy itself. Uh that's where we're at right now. So really looking at how do we um develop goals that and then evaluate those goals for success, think about prioritization of those goals, and then think about
implementation both in terms of capacity and funding. Uh and then finally uh develop an actionable plan um that uh will be available for um the public to utilize but also for as a guiding
document for staff and the board. So, our project timeline um that baseline phase that I just uh mentioned really started um in the beginning of of this year 2025. Um and then uh we moved into the engagement phase with the plan
uh in March where we had our first public meeting and solicited public input on the content of the plan and the focus areas. Uh we also conducted uh different staff interviews um as well um and uh those were conducted with
different uh departments um and uh including building department, DPW um all divisions of DPW um as well as planning and um uh few others as well. And then uh we held our second public
meeting uh for uh further staff input or excuse me further public input um and that took place in June. We also have a staff steering committee uh that has been an advisory board along the way um both for the kickoff of the development
of the plan and then also um for the development of the content. So right now we're in that final uh section there which is a large section of the project timeline which is looking at our strategy and um currently um have an upcoming meeting with the zero emissions
advisory board in November where we'll be reviewing that next iteration of the the plan. And then most importantly uh the intention is that we will have a pretty robust uh draft for review here at the end of uh this year. Um, and then we'll
be returning uh with some different iterations of that uh to ZAB for a final vote in uh March and then following up with returning to the board here in April. So, as I mentioned, that baseline
assessment included a whole host of different policies and plans. This actually doesn't even capture all of them. Um, so there was a great deal of content that was looked at and I think it's really important just to emphasize that we're planning done a great deal of work in this area and so what we're
looking is not to recreate the wheel but really build on that but I think also more importantly um to make sure that we have an actual path forward um so that we are really focusing that this plan doesn't become you know the Uber sustainability plan for everything um
but instead is actually um a very focused plan on one reducing greenhouse gas emissions and two building resilience to the current and future impacts of climate change. So it doesn't become the micromobility action plan. It doesn't become the open space plan. It
doesn't become the um complete streets plan. We have lots of other plans and policies that address those things. So there will certainly be components of that within here. But we are really looking at is it addressing building uh resilience to climate change and
reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. All right. Um and you'll have to excuse me because um this is the section where Rich was going to present. So um I'm going to fill in the gaps here on our greenhouse gas inventory. Um so uh essentially we looked at our our
greenhouse gas emissions in um a few different categories. uh certainly our energy usage, both our natural gas usage um as well as electricity. Then we looked at our transportation sector um that's vehicles both in Brooklyn and those moving through Brooklyn. Uh and
then um some smaller components of our greenhouse gas emissions uh including our solid waste uh water and wastewater delivery systems and then uh also our uh any propane and and uh oil that's used.
So this um is what we call our community emissions which represents all of Borheim's greenhouse gas emissions. That's both through municipal operations as well as those coming from residences and businesses. Um so you'll see that uh
totals 289,000 metric tons of CU equivalent. Um and then if you move to the next slide, you'll see that we uh segmented out a portion of that. Um so that is um our uh
municipal operations and um >> thank you. >> Thanks Mr. Sorry. >> Thank you. Um so if you just click to the next slide Tiffany that is our municipal operations um which is uh just
under uh 10,000 uh metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. So we looked at these similarly in terms of our buildings and facilities. Um but in this case we in addition to looking at our own fleet we also um took into account our a
transportation emissions coming from our commute um for those who are traveling to Brookline to work here. Um and then similarly looking at um our waste and waste water as well as uh fugitive emissions and street lights.
>> I'll pause here because I know this is a lot of data um and happy to to answer any questions about the inventory in particular. >> Well, just a quick question about commute. Are those town employees commute or anybody that's commuting to Brooklyn to work? >> That's just town employees. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Can you provide some examples of
fugitive emissions? Fusion emissions are oftent times those that are lost in the transmission of emissions. So through natural gas leaks for example. Um it can also be the emissions um at the source of where uh uh the actual withdrawal
process occurs for those as well. So typically those are considered scope 3 emissions those that are happening outside of our climbing. Um it's very hard for us to control fugitive emissive emissions. >> Yeah. >> Um two questions. Um the first is the
commute number which is like 35% of the municipal operations. So three and a half metric uh three and a half thousand metric tons is that included in the community emissions also even though it's it's not actually being generated
within the community. That was question number one. And question number two, um the 13% of electricity, um can you talk about, you know, how much control we have over how that number diminishes over time as the uh electric grid itself
becomes cleaner. >> Yeah, good question. Uh so that it that's a hard one for us by ourselves to shift. Um we really are at the mercy of the the grid for that one. I mean, there are certainly things that we can do um from an advocacy standpoint, a policy
standpoint to try to um increase uh how quickly we green that grid. Um and then uh certainly bringing on our own renewable energy sources helps in a small portion to that, but we are definitely um at the mercy of a much
larger system both with the utility um and the state. Rich, I don't know if you want to add anything to that. >> Yeah. Uh yeah, by the way, my apologies uh for being late. Um, you can also >> you introduce yourself for fans audience. >> Sorry. My name is Rich Swanson and I've
been working with uh Alexandra here on developing this climate action and resiliency plan. So um you uh the if you're talking about the city's uh electricity emissions from
electricity um one of the ways is to do uh 100% renewable procurement as well. So there's a few different ways that you can, you know, accelerate progress uh on the kind of the grid side or the
electricity provision side of emissions. >> Thank you, John. Um, it's great to have, you know, specific breakdown by percentage, but uh, you know, as an as an amateur in all of this, I I find it really hard to imagine how do you
measure? I mean, h how do you measure that street lights are 6% of our greenhouse gas emissions? How do you measure that commuting by town staff is whatever the percentage is for that? I mean is somebody counting the number of
cars and measuring which cars are fuel efficient and how do you do it? >> Yeah. >> Uh yeah so there are different ways of measuring for different components of the overall emissions for the street lights since you mentioned that we have
the number of kilowatt hours that Brookline used for lighting street lamp street lights uh for the benchmark year which I think was 2023. >> Okay. Um, and so we can multiply that by
the energy mix that is supplying the electricity for Brooklyn's municipal purchases. So we know how much uh, you know, hydropower is used, how much natural gas is used, etc. And we that's
called an we can determine an emissions factor per kilowatt hour and we just multiply the numbers. >> That varies day by day and hour by hour. >> Well, it does but the the utilities give us an annual the utilities give us an
annual average. So we can go on the utilities annual report and we can get a energy mix for that particular year. um for the for the commuting miles for Brooklyn employees. that's more
subjective. And um so we do uh we could we do a survey asking people how far they commute and you know and then multiply that by assuming they use an average car you know a standard
automobile and there's a per mile emission factor once again that's relatively standard um for that particular number. Yeah, just a quick question to confirm my mathematics here, which I'm not great at. Uh, so the total
community emissions are 289,000 metric tons. The municipal portion is 9,832 metric tonses. So 3% is within our control, direct control.
We want to change buildings. We wanted to change out street lights. We want to get every commuter or electric vehicle uh that would be within our control and a full 97% is outside of our direct control. >> That's correct. >> That's right. >> It's very interesting. We have very
little we can have very little direct impact. Is that correct? >> It's uh it's challenging. Yep. Yeah, that is correct. I mean there is uh no two ways about it. The vast majority of our emissions are coming from households and businesses. So, um, we don't
determine how they fuel their homes and fuel their cars and do all that. >> Can I ask follow up? One quick follow question to that. Um, and the the the planning process that we went through,
did we start with our is it 2040 >> target? >> Is that driving all the rest of the planning? Uh, >> yes. Yep. So, we're uh Yes. And we're about to talk about that a little bit more. So, I'll get into that in just a in just a sec with the next couple slides here.
>> Okay. >> But yes, >> just in terms of the uh notion that we only directly control 3%. In theory, we could have impact on the other 97% depending on bylaws and changes we make. Whether we would want to is another story,
>> but we already we have the ability to. >> Yeah. Yeah. Just But direct is >> that's correct. >> 3%. >> Um okay. uh we will keep moving but happy to see more questions on the the greenhouse gas inventory. I know that um
of big interest for folks. So this is the the planning framework and kind of gets to uh beginning of fall's question here. So when we're developing the plan, you'll um uh we talk about okay, we set a target um overall and so that's essentially what is our emission
reduction target and it doesn't necessarily mean that this plan um is allowing us to hit that target by the completion of the plan but it's what we then set up everything else to work towards. Uh so from there we develop goals, strategies and actions. So goals
being um specific uh emissions target for each sector. So we look at the built environment, transportation, that sort of thing. Um then we develop strategies to help us reach those goals and finally uh discrete action items that really support the development of that of those strategies. So you'll hear this is a
10-year plan. Um and the intention is that it will have a five-year check-in point for the opportunity to update and modify as needed. Um but the goals are intended to move us towards that big picture target. Um and so the we want to
make sure that we have measurable progress towards that. Um we also want to make sure that we're being as ambitious but as realistic as possible. And so uh Brookline and I'll talk about this a little bit more um after we go through the engagement process. But Brookline in May 2021 town meeting had
voted on a resolution that set that target at net zero emissions by 2040. So the focus areas of the plan, this is basically what all of our goals uh fall within uh one of these five categories. So our buildings and energy, that's
really looking at how buildings are constructed, how they're powered, operated. Our resource conservation and management is really focused on reducing consumption and waste across systems. Uh sustainable transportation and mobility that really looks at how people move
through Brookline. Um and as we talked about that includes both people who live here as well as people who are just traveling through coming to work here that sort of thing. Uh our natural systems and community well-being really focus on environmental quality, ecological systems, public health and
really the connection between um carbon sequestration or carbon sinks and our natural world. And then finally resilience, adaptation and risk reduction. So, how do we prepare for our um climate hazards that are here and
those that are um forthcoming? I'll pass over to Rich to talk a little bit about our engagement activities and what we learned through those. >> Yeah. So, as you saw, the second component of the overall CARP development process was an engagement
component and uh the the CARP has been shaped by inclusive engagement. We've reached out to residents, to staff, uh, advisory boards. Between March and September, we hosted two public forums and conducted a uh, communitywide
survey. Uh, we ended up getting about 517 responses. We also held structured interviews across 12 municipal departments. Um, and then we've had continuous and ongoing collaboration with ZAB. um that's been sought to uh
ensure technical alignment with what they're doing involving mitigation the mitigation aspect. Um at the first public forum uh as you can see held in March we focused on identifying community priorities as well as evaluating some or defining some
evaluation criteria uh to be used down the road. Um the participants highlighted climate impact, implementation feasibility and financing availability as top criteria for action
during that time. And then our second outreach or our second public uh forum meeting focused on strategy refinement. Um, and then alongside these forums, as I mentioned, town staff have really been contributing practical insights into
some of the operational constraints that might arise, but also opportunities from things like electrifying buildings or expanding green infrastructure, etc. Some of the strategies that came up. Um hopefully these activities have served
to both ground the carp in the vision that the community has but also departmental readiness and their capacities. And if we go to uh let's see the second forum which is this slide um held in
June this one shifted towards refining strategies through uh some little breakout workshops that we had. uh they generated a number of detailed proposals along the categories that that Alexandra mentioned. Um the the purpose here was
to deepen the dialogue with residents and emphasize some very solutionoriented discussion and and creative thinking. Um so small group policy workshops they produce some some tangible ideas uh increasing tree canopy solar panels on
community and municipal buildings water conservation green infrastructure uh bulk purchases of heat pumps. Um, we had a little activity too from uh the I think it was the middle schools uh that
had this sort of art reflective activity uh that they drew some climate themed uh pictures and had a science project along with it that was cool. People could walk through and and look at that during that second uh outreach meeting. And then we
have a summary on the next slide of survey results. Um, this survey really sought to extend engagement to a larger audience, quantify public priorities for Brook Alliance climate strategy. Uh, as I mentioned, we got over 500 responses
and it the survey revealed both widespread concern and we felt like a, you know, a real strong mandate for climate action. Um, 78% of respondents said they were extremely concerned about climate change. about 90% believed it
was important for the time to take action. Uh 71% said that climate change influences even their daily activities, their daily decisions uh in some of the questions that were asked. Um, we did ask people, as you can see here, to rank
priorities from their top strategies, and some of them that they ranked were to install solar on public rooftops, uh, to develop an opt out community solar plan. Currently, there's an optin solar
plan. Uh, in the category of transportation, it was to improve safe walking routes and expand bike infrastructure. uh resource management promoted the reuse uh promoted reuse and deconstruction policies and then for
resiliency uh prioritizing tree planting especially in neighborhoods that were most susceptible to heat. >> Um >> could you explain what an opt out community solar program is? Yeah. So, uh, currently the way Brooklyn Green
Energy is established and Alexandria, you can check me if I'm wrong, but you can go you can opt into that program. There's a default that Yeah. that that you're not opted in. The default is you are >> purchasing uh a standard mix of grid
service electricity. If you an opt out, you are >> that's that's not just solar, right? >> No. No. all renewables. >> Um, so yeah, the opt out would be that the default is 100%. Okay, got it.
>> And that's a that is a higher cost though, right? >> It is. >> All right. So that Yeah. >> Yes. Although right now the price structure is pretty close to grid purchased electricity based on green
line uh Brooklyn green energy website. The the price structure right now is uh within a cent or two for 100% uh renewable energy within a cent or two per kilowatt hour of the grid service or
grid supply of electricity. >> It's a question I have about prioritizing tree planting in neighborhoods most susceptible to heat. How do we currently measure neighborhoods most susceptible to heat? Is it a sort of a relatively simplistic if it's an area without trees we assume
that is the most mosquite is aren't there other factors such as whether you have shade and the built out environment and elevation and so how do we measure that? >> Yeah. So actually the urban forest climate resiliency master plan one of the inputs for the karp um actually looked at that and did um an analysis of
where we have uh the most uh uh intense heat pockets around town. Um and certainly one of the factors is around tree canopy. also looks at the the built environment in general. And so, uh, where we see more built infrastructure as opposed to, um, open space, you're
going to see an increase in temperature. But we actually do have you can see very much, it does follow where the tree canopy is is denser for sure. Um, but you can actually see in one of our maps um, the the heat uh, pockets around that. >> Was that formally measured though or is it based on these assumptions about tree
coverage, built-in environment, chain? Yeah. So, it's uh was done through um and Aaron can correct me if I'm wrong on this. Um there was both a LAR analysis that was done and then I believe that they also did do um some uh take temperature readings as part of that
process as well, but I can I can double check on the process development for that map. >> And is it a very significant difference between neighborhoods within town or are we all within a degree? >> Uh I mean it's it is noticeable. Um if you look in uh South Brooklynine even um
this comes to mind cuz I was just talking about it. Walnut Hill Cemetery has one of the densest tree canopies um around and the least built environment. Um and you can see that it is uh much cooler there than even in some of the surrounding neighborhoods in South Brook Line, which has been much cooler than some of the neighborhoods in North
Brookline. So um it is a pretty substantial difference actually. And I think I would just add that we also use some of the states heat maps and it's actually more um micro than you would think in terms of just like South
Brooklyn, North Brooklyn. You can look at um you know actual streets and portion of streets that are um that are hotter um than others. So that's and certain parks you can look at
synthetic turf and see what that impact is in terms of the overall heat. So um the the map really just shows this these different densities of of heat and I would say it's a little bit more fine too than just sort of neighborhoods
you're really getting down to um you know sort of some specific um yeah streets. >> All right. So uh to your question Paul when we uh started this process we um were using the target of uh that Brooklyn had set through town meeting
which was um in May 2021 uh through resolution they had uh established that we have a target of net zero emissions by 2040 um with I think the intentionality there I wasn't part of
that conversation but um we certainly the hopes of that resolution was really on um the climate emergency but was also on for being um a leader in addressing uh uh climate change in a really um ambitious way. Um since then the state
has developed their um an update to their own climate uh plan the their Massachusetts clean energy and climate plan um which sets a goal for the state of net zero by 2050. Uh we also have seen a lot of other communities that have adopted that similar target that
same target of net zero by 2050. Um so Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Newton, NICK, um a lot of our neighbors um Arlington and many others. And so um when we were going through this process both in conversation with um ZAB as
we've been developing the plan as well as in conversation with uh Blue Strike, um the question did arise, is that the right target that we should be working towards? Um, Zab actually took this up uh formally at their last meeting and determined that given uh what they're
seeing um from surrounding communities given what the target is at the state level, given where we currently stand in terms of uh federal goals around climate change and the availability of funding, uh given that the state plan actually determines the utility plans for in
terms of going back to Michael's question about greening that grid. Um all of those things um really point us towards um a a target of net zero emissions by 2050. Uh now during this discussion um and uh Michael can speak
to this a little bit more I'm sure. Uh but there was a real conversation about you know making sure that we were being as ambitious as possible um and pushing ourselves but also trying to be realistic. I think what it ultimately comes down to is for us to reach our net
zero target, whatever it is, we need dollars from from the state. We need dollars from the federal government. We need to be in line with um even resources and dollars coming from our utility partners as well. Um we also need to be thinking about the technology advancements um and some of the private
dollars that'll be funding this work. So, all of those things really um push us towards a a net zero uh target um for 2050, but with the idea that this is a 10-year plan, that doesn't get us to 2040 or 2050. So, um it's something that we would revisit at that 5-year check-in
and see if that is still appropriate at that time. Um but that was uh what was approved by u at their last meeting. >> So, 2050 is so 2050 is the target at least for this plating purpose. And um you you mentioned a lot of
funding sources, but you didn't mention Brookline. We're not going to be using our own budgetary dollars or we're just >> uh No, we definitely will. >> So, okay. Well, that's I just you didn't mention it, so I >> No, sorry. Sorry. I meant in terms of
external sources that we would be looking to um that we may go on. And so and I just have this I'm going to zero in on finances just for a minute because ultimately that's this plan is going to have to drive finances. Will when you're done and I'm sure you don't have at this point. Do you will you have uh a
recommendation of direct investment by Rick Line um in our budget per year for the >> for the plan so we can understand cost implications. Well, I think what we'll have is um a prioritization of the
different strategies and with that will come some highle cost estimates. So I think the question will be then what of those dollars can come from uh grant funds and external sources and then what needs to be supplemented with capital or
operating dollars that we're not going to be able to to get elsewhere. That's that's what I'm I'm really interested in the capital and operating dollars that you'll need from Brookline's general fund or free cash um in order to fund uh
your proposed plan because everything and we've learned this with the comprehensive plan. Every choice has a cost, right? And if we're going to fund something on the carp, um that may mean we can't fund something else. It's going
to be a trade-off. And just, you know, in the next iteration of this, it would be really helpful to see carbon emissions from the town's buildings, from the community, from what Massachusetts generates, from what the
US generates versus what the world generates, and how teeny our contribution is uh from from carbon emissions. I know it makes us feel good to be addressing it. Everybody wants to address it. It makes us feel good to say
it's a number one priority, but it is such a teeny drop in the bucket. Um, I think we need to have that information to have context about investment because it does take a trade-off. Do we do we fund electrifying a building and not
fund a school teacher? Those are the type of choices we have to make. Mike, please give your hand. >> Um, yeah, I just have a couple of comments on what Alexander said and um, I certainly take your take your point and um, as as Alexandra mentioned, I
think that the the financial implications as you say can't really be loosely enumerated until we have some understanding of the strategies. Um, and you know, uh, I see plan prioritization
is next. So I'm I'm sort of holding off on response to that because financing is part of the prioritization process. to the question of the net zero emissions target. Um, one correction I want to make to what I would have said is that the ZAP vote was actually a
recommendation to the select board um for us to direct the sustainability um division in creating the car. um because they are actually faced with this question that uh will hold them back
from making the choices because if the choice is 2040 then that may lead to one set of you know financial constraints and outcomes and versus the choice of 2050. So just between that that whether it's a binary choice or we choose a
different target date um that's really a gaining item from from my understanding to the creation of the cup. So um I and senator Chaz I don't know if that got circulated to the rest of you but of
actually uh voting to accept that recommendation and I have language for that. We want to get to that point today. Um, now in terms of the conversation that was had at ZAB, there were certainly there were some people who said, well, it actually doesn't make
a difference whether it's 2040 or 2050 because we're going to have to do whatever we do. Um, there are pe were some people who are saying, you know, we should be pushing as hard as we can because this is an existential crisis. Um, and you know, but I think the
argument that won out was the the alignment of Brookline with state funding and um, you know, other sort of activity that was all sort of pointed towards 2050.
Yeah, >> I asked this question in a different context earlier, but when we are aiming for net zero emissions, are we defining that based on whether we are utilizing uh solar and electric or are we defining
that by that it's truly net zero. Meaning we look at the source point of the electric uh of the electricity that we're utilizing. Because if the electricity is ultimately coming from fossil fuels then what are we really achieving? So are we measuring that end
of it as well? >> Yeah, that's correct. So it's it's looking at the uh the source as well which is why that alignment with the state's goals and the utilities is so important because um until that grid is is green and the sources that it's
coming from then we can't fully achieve that as well which is another reason that that um shift to 2050 is kind of practical in its in its sense as well. And do we have reason to believe that at the state level at least there will be the capacity to be net truly net zero by
20150? >> Well, that's a big question. It depends on who you ask and certainly part of the ZAB conversation as well. I mean, right now they have uh the state has uh benchmarked targets along the way to get to that net zero by 2050. Um and they are falling short on those as of now. Um
so uh that is a concern but it is um certainly one that they are still is still codified that they are working towards. >> John >> um excuse me a lot to to absorb here. Um I I for one think we should go with the
2050 and I think it'd be appropriate for Michael to offer that vote today. Um uh it's realistic. I don't feel that the current goal is realistic for the reasons at Rford. I I'm I need some education. So getting to net zero
essentially is going to be a combination of of bringing down the creation creation of carbon or the you know production of carbon and bringing up the absorption of carbon. So trees absorb
carbon but my understanding is we've been losing tree canopy. So we're kind of chasing, you know, and diminishing in terms of the trees. What else is there that other than trees that, you know, we can do that absorbs carbon? >> Uh wetlands as well are also another
carbon sync. Um our soils are are also another carbon sync. So there's a a myriad of kind of uh natural ways um as well. And then there's also um looking at the you know offset of what uh based off of what we're using here in terms of
our power what can be offset um elsewhere in terms of the development of um solar or other renewable energy systems. >> So are any of the carbon sinks actually growing in their presence in Brooklyn soil?
>> Uh I don't I don't have that data point um in terms of whether or not they're growing. Again, a few years ago when we completed the urban forest plan, we did look at the carbon sinks um in Brooklyn, particularly around trees and were able to capture that number. Um I will say
and just to be clear, trees have a lot of benefits. Um so um not at all negating that. Um but those sinks that we have are are very small percentage of the overall um emissions for us to reach net zero. So, um, while very important
that we're preserving our tree plants, be very important that we're preserving our wetlands, taking care of our soils, all of those different natural systems, um, that is not going to be enough of a solution for us to offset the amount of greenhouse gas.
>> And so really the the name of the game is going to be reducing our production of carbon through our various, you know, energy usages, right? And it's really two specific energy usage. It's natural
gas and fuel burned in automobiles, >> right? >> Those are the those are the two that are producing most of the admission emissions that won't be reduced from an external source like the uh RPS. >> And if I could just follow the train of
thought one train of thought one more time. Um okay so natural gas uh and you know and automobile you know fuel use um so automobile fuse you can convert to electric vehicles and natural gas you
know convert all heating to electric heating. Um it is it realistic to think that by 2050 we will have pretty much all converted all vehicle use to electric and all heating of buildings
including you know every single building in Brooklyn that is uh currently privately owned and not being converted to electric heat. Uh I'm just asking. So I'm not trying to say you guys are irresponsible we don't make it. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean I I feel that way
a lot. Um um but uh I would say is it possible? Yes, it is extremely extremely expensive especially when we look at the age of Brookline's buildings and the complexity of Brookline's building stock. So new buildings are easy. New buildings we
we're we're starting fresh. You know we >> kind of done that. >> Yeah. But um to retrofit existing buildings is is a very expensive endeavor. So um it it can be done but it will cost a lot of money and political will.
>> Yeah. And um uh you know given I guess my general view of this is uh rather than worry about the fact that we have goals that we I mean it's going to be so hard to those goals, right? Um, I I'd be
more comfortable personally with just achievable goals of how many new how many of our vehicles in our fleet, you know, this is stuff we can control in town government. Um, are we going to make electric vehicles? You know, how
many are currently electric? How many are not electric? How do we change the ratio of electric to non-elect electric next year? Did you have to that after that? >> And then our own buildings um how many of them are not yet converted to electric heat and how many of them can
realistically do that after that 50. That's just >> we're not can I interrupting? >> Well, I do need to leave. Um, so I'm not going to be able to stick around for the full bite of the presentation, but if you are going to entertain a motion
about changing the the target date to 2050, um, I would ask that we take that vote now so I can support it. >> So we it's not on the agenda, unfortunately. >> And it's not something that we should just vote without having presentation.
>> So ordinarily we have capital language, but we didn't include that on this. Apologize, but anyway, we got your even over the weekend. I thought, "Oh, well, we could do that." And then I saw that we don't have the catchall language, but um we we can obviously put this on the agenda for next week. Um so we can
absolutely take that motion out, so I apologize, but we can't actually move it today. >> Okay, >> I will keep moving. Um so, uh >> we have a lot of content that's planned, a lot of big questions as you all are are talking about right now. So um we
will literally have dozens of different uh climate actions um within the plan and uh those represent both mitigation and resilience uh categories. So uh we knew that from the outset we would want to make sure that we had a way to consistently prioritize across all those
different categories. Um everything can't be done at once and uh we needed a consistent way to to compare that really time-sensitive work. And so um we uh developed a system where we would be able to score each of the different strategies with a a set of criteria and
then um those criteria would after receiving that score there would be a a multiplier factor if you will um to give greater weight to to certain considerations. Um so uh when we look at this uh table uh up here you'll see at
the top um that we have um a few different uh criteria across in that green bar. So the first one being costs >> um which is looking at the upfront costs for whatever that strategy is and the ongoing costs associated with that to
the the town or community. Um our next one is uh focused on funding availability. So how the likelihood and availability of uh leveraging state, federal, private funds or existing town funds uh to be able to complete that
action. And we looked at the financial return on investment, so the expected cost savings or the avoided costs over um a 15-year period. Uh we looked at the staff capacity. So what's the um ability to deliver on that action without
increasing um the number of staff um and working it into existing jobs. And then we looked at the ease of implementation for residents um with the that those being our our primary stakeholder group or primary audience for some of these
changes. Um so their ability to benefit from these to um access them and to really participate in whatever that program is. Um, again, that kind of reflects back to where our emissions coming from. And then finally, what is the climate impact? Whether that be the
potential in greenhouse gas reduction or the improved resilience to our localized climate risks. So, um, in each of those, basically taking each one of our strategies and running them through each of those criteria and giving them a score and then, uh, utilizing these
multiplication factors that you see listed below in, um, the blue boxes. um to um uplift certain factors that we felt were important. And uh as Rich mentioned, these factors were um created based off of input from the survey, the
public forums. And in particular, ZAP did a great deal of thinking about um what these prioritization factors are and and what those multipliers are. So for the multipliers, we looked at direct versus indirect impact. So um again, I think this was something that that Paul
said earlier. So whether that strategy reject excuse me directly reduces greenhouse gas emissions or improves resilience or has the potential to do that. So a good example of this is um EV chargers. We can install EV chargers um
and those if you choose to use them and have an EV um then you're going to be reducing your uh greenhouse gas emissions, but it doesn't necessarily um ensure that everyone in Brooklyn is is going to uh switch to an EV and and utilize those charging stations. um uh
equity, thinking about the extent to which the strategy reduces burdens and increases benefits for those um historically underserved and marginalized populations, those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. And then um finally, the public
visibility and support. So, how uh visible is that action and how likely will it be to garner um public support and really be an education factor uh for those involved? So, finally, um, our next step. So, like
I said, today I'm here to give you an update on where we stand. It's been, um, you know, a pretty robust 10-month process. Uh, we are now working on happen on those goals, strategies, and actions. Um, and we'll be sharing those, um, at our next ZAP meeting in November.
Um, and then, uh, prioritizing those. And then we will have a uh draft uh uh plan with our goal, strategies, and actions available um in December for public review. Um uh we're also workshopping those with different boards and commissions that have some oversight
to to those in particular the transportation board. Um and then uh we'll be developing that planning and tracking tool that dashboard so that um folks can can track progress. Um the intention is to return to the Slack board um in the spring, but um as I
said, our our draft uh goal, strategies, and actions will be available um in December and certainly disseminate those to all of you um at that time as well. Um and with that, happy to take any uh questions. >> I'm sorry. First of all, thank you um
Alexandra for both the excellent presentation and your efforts at shephering mister. Um I just I wanted to respond a little bit to uh what John was asking about you know how to think about the carb and you know what our target
goal was. Um and um uh there's a lot of discussion about what we can do in order to achieve the benefits of greenhouse gas emissions um and the you know the benefits of carbon sinks etc. Um, one of the things that we we haven't
necessarily talked as much about is the costs of inaction. And so you know when I think about like what are what are the you know how do we measure our progress uh we don't want to measure measure our
progress against like what the world is like now but what the world would be like uh by 2040 or 2050 when we >> if we have not taken the actions that we've proposed. Um so I think I think
that gives us a better frame for understanding the value of the work that we do whether it's in greenhouse gas reduction or in mitigation steps. Um and that that difference may lead to different choices if we think that for
example our greenhouse gas emissions work is not going to be u significant enough in a global sense but we need to take more effort on building resiliency just as an example of how looking at the costs in alignment with the case might
be useful. I I find it hard to think about how Brooklyn has any global impact of any significance that we have. >> I mean I mean
so yeah I I I think it's just a question of you know how we describe and discuss what our goals are and we're not going to save the world. >> No. Um but yeah we do have a role to play. Um
Yeah, I sure think one one of the areas here that's also so important is the cross collaboration with our communities. You know, we are right on our own. We're dropping the bucket. We're not going to we're not going to do anything on our own. But because we have had this opportunity and Alexandra and
Aaron and the whole team have done such a good job of building out this process. Um we are we are seeing other communities do similar work. You know, I say I'm very proud of this that we were one of the first really first community to in the metro area besides Boston to
really develop this out at a divisional level um and to build this process to take to take this process seriously and develop it into into our operational um framework. Um and that's made a big difference. Um we are continuing to
integrate that and when we see other communities take that up when we see other communities start to think through this in a similar way. How do we integrate sustainability into everything we do and not make it theoretical? Um then that becomes that becomes the impetus for further action. So you know
yes on our own we're not doing anything. We're not we're not necessarily making a dent but together as part of this interconnected group we are kind of a snowball rolling downhill positive way. um as opposed to the usual negative way of going Baltimore.
It's um it's it's you know good things are happening and there is a a positive force multiplier when other communities join in and we then do become more the sum of our parts. So um on our own yeah it can be I mean I I find it sometimes
frustrating when I talk for example about building electrification you know if we reuse current values and current proposals and cost more you know as some estimates spend more than a billion dollars to fully electrifi fully electrify all of our current the remainder of our current buildings um
currently disables which alone again only in that 3% window and when you think about that you kind of say oh man that's very that's very desparing But we also then say okay so that's that's not an achievable priority for us currently. It doesn't mean we do nothing means we
continue to iterate on this and work with other communities to see and then in the interim hopefully what happens is the market starts to drive those costs down as more and more communities start adapting those programs. So my my own point was we have to make sure the
narrative that we put out there is not you know something that's totally demoralizing people because you know it suggests that what we do is irrelevant. is I I heard a news story the other day about how the United States is pulling
back in terms of climate um activities but at the same time you know the amount of renewable energy spreading across the globe is huge and you know that that's that's a part of the story that that you
know people need I mean and among other things need to focus on and our narrative has to be similarly >> yeah a couple we dream more likely. >> For the first time, China made a firm commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Historically, they've said we'll get there by60, but they haven't
actually said how they're going to get there. And so, they made a commitment. It's obviously not where it needs to be. Um, but making a commitment by 2035 to reduce their emissions by 10% is not nothing. Uh, that's roughly four times the entire emissions of the United
Kingdom. So it's a big you know even countries that like China have are you know still consider themselves developing economies reliably on coal are realizing you know the the music is stopping right um we either rely we either stop relying on fossil fuels or
we suffer the consequences more important thing China is doing is floating millions of electrical vehicles solar panels and and everything else that uh we are stopping doing. So,
>> I would just say that from my conversations with other municipalities, there is very much to Chaz's point that effect of they look around, see what others are doing, and it does set a precedent um of how have you done this? We want to do this, what does this look like? And that conversation happens all
the time from the, you know, we have a a an electric vehicle that's a trash compactor and we're blind, you know, now uh Cambridge is on their way to, you know, trying to electrify their entire uh trash fleet. So um those conversations do have have those ripple
effects elsewhere and kind of we see those conversations in the day-to-day between u different sustainability professionals in the municipalities. >> One of the things that you all mentioned was the inability to directly reduce emissions from uh you know from a city
perspective towards the rest of the community. Massachusetts has actually been fairly effective in providing incentives, especially funding uh for things like energy revamping, retrofitting studies and and so on and
so forth uh to drive different communities to engage and make plans for their own energy efficiencies or electrification. And I I think it's a great illustration of of sort of a top- down incentive that also Brookline has at their disposal to
be able to incentivize various behaviors uh within the town and within the city or within the town for other you know for other folks uh besides the municipal operations. Other cities and towns are doing the very same thing in Massachusetts right now and also having
positive effects. >> Okay. Anything else? >> Great. Thank you all so much for your time. I really appreciate. >> See you next week. >> Yeah. >> Thanks very much. Okay, next
>> Kane is here so we must be talking about MBPA for the top and then I'm gonna >> Well, I'm glad to stay on Monday. >> Yeah. Yeah, definitely. >> We always look
the wind regard. >> I'm just really I'm here to support you and answer. Can I pull up the deck? >> Yes, please. >> All right. >> Okay. Uh, why don't we start
reacting? >> Hi, I'm Dan. Um, transformation engineer and I have Dan Marky the director of engine transformation Brian the chair of transformation board and today we have Alex
>> okay so we're going to walk through a slide presentation that we gave on the gateway east project uh recently to the transportation board um I will do my best to read anything off of the screen.
>> Oh, no, it's okay. Um, >> by the way, I I know you were introduced, but introduce yourself and everyone else every time they start talking. >> So, my name is Alex Hollowell. I'm the director of transit priority at the MBTA. So um my team is responsible for
working with municipal uh roadway owners and state partners um to plan, design and implement bus priority infrastructure. Um so that's things like bus lanes um but transit signal priority and other um infrastructure that
supports bus operations. Um some of you if you've um seen other presentations by members of my team may have met Eileen body who's the project manager assigned to this. She is on her first big vacation since joining the tea this week. So I am here in her stud. Um
I know some of you have also been contacted by Jay Jackson who's another project manager on my team about the uh TSP on the green line. I believe it's on C branch. Um we're not going to talk about that project today. Um is focused
on gateway east. Um but yeah, we work in bus world. So um that is separate from from generally from uh the green line um and commuter rail um teams that you may interact with. Um happy to bring any feedback you have for my colleagues related to those. I'm going to stick to
bus stuff today. So um the transit priority team is responsible for the MBTA's bus priority vision plan. So this is a plan that we pulled together um using data about our operations across the network. Um
essentially what this plan does is it targets existing delay um and service along 26 individual corridors with the highest passenger delay. So what does that mean? It doesn't mean where is an individual bus getting stuck the most for the longest. It's where are the most
people on buses getting delayed the most. And so, um, this helps us really target, um, our attention to the places that are going to be most impactful to existing bus riders. Um, the transit priority program is really targeted, um, over
about a five-year time horizon. Um unlike most parts of the tea that involve really heavy engineering um lots of major construction to get um big changes for the system, we we mostly operate in paint um and traffic signals
and our goal is to move relatively swiftly. Um we're successful in some cases in in doing that and less so in others, but that is our intent. Um so the transit priority vision covers only about 10% of the bus network but it impacts about 80% of our riders. Um and
it would improve service for um the 250 now uh thousand daily riders um using the bus. Next slide. So anytime I get a microphone I like to flash this um screen up or the slide up
on the screen. Um so the bus system carries about 40% of the MBTA's daily wrership. Um we know that the bus system does not get 40% of the attention um either from our internal teams or from the press. Um but it is an incredibly
important part of the TE's service and um for providing basic mobility to greater Boston. Uh next slide. When we talk about um being an equity focused organization um even among the
MVP's very diverse ridership bus riders are uh unique, right? Um there's more than 80% of our bus riders are lowincome. Um more than 65% are minority and I believe it's 44% have no access to
a vehicle. So um bus transit is really essential not just for their daily commute perhaps to and from work but for all daily activities. Um it is basic mobility. Uh next slide.
Um our program really operates on the principle that um the roadway network that we have is largely fixed. Right? the geometry of the road is something that um is sort of curb to curb is what we've got to work with and we need to
start thinking more creatively about how to utilize the infrastructure to carry people more efficiently. Um, and so this shows a sort of mockup of how uh different modes can move different amounts of people. And it's sort of the
principle that underlines a lot of the work we do, which is staking out more of the physical space on a road to carry bus transit um can carry more people. It means that the bus system can grow and grow and grow um and ridership can grow
and grow um and provide high quality service to people without needing um an increasing amount of um space unlike ours. >> Um so this project um I think the principal
beneficiary of this project is um the route 66 which is our second highest ridership route in the system. Um it's a major workhorse in terms of connecting riders um sort of around the ring of the city, right? It helps people um instead
of having to take craft contra all the way downtown and then all the way back up. Um it lets people sort of cut across connect neighborhoods. I was a 66 rider um for a large chunk of my 20s. It was it was an experience. Um I have a lot of
sympathy for folks that rely on that service day in and day out. Um, and it's a it's a route that we're working on. Um, we'll see in a couple of slides. Um, a couple different projects to try to make the service faster and more reliable. Um, but writership on the 66
route, right, 55%, so more than half are from households without vehicles. Um, and 40% are um from households with le incomes less than $43,000 a year. So, um, again, in in when we talk about
who's benefiting from, um, these projects, I want to really put these folks front and center, right? These are the folks that are benefiting. Um, oh yes, and there's about 55 or 15,000 daily writers um on the rout that use
Gateway Key. So, it's a 60 65 66, the overwhelming majority of which are on the 66. Okay. So the product motivation um again this is one of the busiest um buses in the
system. Um you know much like the 39 um it also travels on some of the busiest corridors uh in the system and there's a lot of activities that folks want to get to. Um and um Gateway East is is again one of the busiest sections um in
Brooklyn for MBTA buses. And so this project is really targeting that geometry problem, right? That we have a lot of service and a lot of folks trying to squeeze through a finite amount of space. How can we rethink the space allocation to use a road more efficiently? Right, next slide.
Um getting east in context. So this is um the route 66 for those who are not bus riders. I won't hold it against you. Um this is how the 66 is really connecting um with the rapid transit network. As I mentioned, it's a critical service um
that provides that sort of north southish um ring um from from Cambridge County to Boston. All right. Um and I did mention a couple other projects that are underway targeting the
66. So this is one, it's an important one, um but is one of several. So, um, last spring we, uh, rerouted the 66 at its terminus in Harvard Square, um, to save, I believe it was about 5 minutes
in operating time on JFK by routing it into the Harvard busway. Um, we're also working uh with Cambridge and Boston to target some delay that we have around the Cambridge River there. Um, hoping
that project will move forward soon. Um, we've got Gateway East, as you can see here. There's also, um, in Alustin a really cool, um, TSP pilot project that we did that we're now expanding, which brought some new TSP, uh, technology um,
to a really, really challenging segment. >> I'm sorry. TSP. >> Oh my goodness. Of course, I'm so sorry. Uh, TSP is transit signal priority. So what TSP does is it works with the traffic signals to detect when um an MBTA bus is approaching an intersection.
Um and it can alter the signal timing in order to do a number of things, but the most common way of using it is to extend a green so that the bus can make it through the intersection before it turns to red. Um or to cycle a green early.
Um, you'll also in some locations see a transit signal head, which is a kind of goofy looking um, signal head with some shakes on it. It's meant to be totally unintelligible to uh, an average driver. Um, we've got some on Columbus A and a
couple in um, Somerville that you may have encountered. Um, but we'll use those. Um, also use Transit Signal Priority. Um, right. So yeah, TSP, which helps the buses get through a very, very difficult segment in Alustin, that zigzag of
Harvard Street, which is again one of the more brutal segments of of bus service I've ever had to sit through. Um and uh yep then gateway use east and then um into the not too distant future hopefully is um the work on e branch
that's being led by my colleagues um in integrated transit um to update the accessibility and alignment of that which will include um making accommodations for bus service along um Huntington uh in the same roadway
segment as E branch. Um, so these are some of the projects that we're working on. Um, and we're hoping to add some more. Um, again, a lot of the work that we do is meant to be targeted and in the sort of five five year time horizon. And so we're always spinning up new and
different projects and um, working with colleagues uh, across the region to to move them to implementation. Okay, next slide. Okay, project background. Um, we made this slide as much for my benefit as um,
for anyone else. Um, I joined the tea in 2022, so I did inherit um, some of the work that had been done on this project. >> We all inherited it. >> We all inherited it. Um, um, so yeah, the, uh, project built on
the 2021 corridor reconstruction. Um and again was really meant to target that um sort of roadway allocation challenge of having such important um heavy ridership transit traversing such an intensely
uh trafficked roadway. Um and that's how we got the um ultimate design implemented for Gateway East because of a whole combination of things including some staff turnover and some mass stop permits. Um the project was only implemented last year um despite its
original design I think being started around 2020 right um as part of the project implementation um the select board I believe the transportation board okay the
transportation board um asked us to monitor performance indicators not only of the bus travel time but of things that impact um other roadway users like um vehicle volumes especially on some of the side streets um travel times and
delay as well as um Q lengths um on route nine um so we will see there's a whole host of data sort of the appendix of this um spun up every which way um that I'm happy to sort of tool through
if there's specific questions um I won't get into the details here But this is the more detailed project timeline. All right. Project status and operations update. So, um the
I'm sorry, this is a new slide for this presentation. Um >> okay. So, the pilot has been extended. Um the pilot the project itself had two components. So, I'm glad you asked what is TSP because it's an important part of
the story here. So we had the very visible red um bus lanes that went in in 20 what year is it? 2024. Um and uh at that time we were planning on implementing transit signal priority in addition. Um unfortunately the vendor we
had selected was acquired and there was a whole series of things that transpired I won't get into that um significantly delayed uh their ability to implement the transit signal priority at that location and at several others. Um this is not only a gateway east issue. um we
worked with that vendor um and we've got I think our our working relationship back to a better place and they were able to bring the staff resources required in order to implement and also do the monitoring we were requiring um
this summer. So that had meant that the project had been under pilot status for evaluation for nearly a year by the time the TSP which is one of the components of the project was ultimately turned on. Um and so we wanted to continue the
pilot in order to assess how the TSP was um contri contributing to the overall efficacy of the bus lane. All right, so this is where we're at now. Um there was the original four quarter evaluation which this is the
quarter 4 report. Um there's been a decision to extend the pilot for two additional quarters and then the final report will come in spring 2026. All right, let's do a very quick orientation into this diagram. Spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to
communicate um all of the information in here in a visual format that would be somewhat basically intelligible. I don't know whether we've fully accomplished it, but this is the best that we've been able to to get it to. Um there's a a light gray, which is difficult to see um
if you're in the room on the screen that's being projected, but basically right behind that green line, there's a light gray overlap. Um that shows where the actual red paint um is. part of the pilot um evaluation metrics asks us to
evaluate roadways approaching and exiting um the project corridor. And so it includes a lot of information about up and downstream activities um as well as the bus lane itself. And so we have
um the data broken out um by each of those segments um and you can yeah that again that gray background shows exactly where the bus lane is. Um the buses also enter and exit the corridor at different places. So not all buses use the entire
corridor for its entirety. Um and uh but the 66 is the primary beneficiary and does use it for its full um length. So you'll see some sort of the uh 66 65 and the 60 all entering and exiting kind of
um through this diagram. Um the way that we have um compiled the information is across a series of metrics comparing sort of two things. to the um the baseline which is the same time period in 2024.
Um we have found that traffic um fluctuates really significantly in greater Boston by season and so we like to compare things seasonally. Um you can definitely see it in the transit data and in the traffic data when the
students for example return um there's some significant slowdown um of transit in greater Boston and I think anyone who drives the cars experiences something pretty similar during the summer and during you know the sort of January holiday period when there's fewer
students and folks are on vacation there's a significant alleviation of some of that congestion and so um each of these is compared to the same quarter in the previous year. And I know that can be a little counterintuitive to folks to have a moving baseline. Um, but that's the reason is that the seasonal
swings are at least as impactful as anything this project would implement. And it lets us do an applesto apples comparison. Um so generally what this uh graphic is showing um is that compared to quarter three so the previous quarter um bus
travel times are improving within the bus lane and that they're um is um sorry um slightly sorry I can't read this um consistent or slightly faster outside the west lane um except for
segments A and I which are um the segment that I believe that's 60 entering ing and um going sort of the south port. Um all right, morning inbound peak. Oh, this is evening outbound peak. This is
essentially all the same data. Would you like me to go through each of these or can we sort of click through these and then maybe come back? Where's the Okay, let me keep moving. We also have information about vehicle volumes and speeds. Um we have uh you can see on
each of the corridors where we're capturing vehicle volumes and speeds. Um we also have in some of the appendices the number. Um on some of the side roads the volumes are really low and so going from like >> 50 cars to 80 cars is going to show a
really large um change whereas like route 9 has thousands of cars. Um and so um we have also the number of corresponding vehicles to help contextualize these in the appendex. Um but what we found is that um traffic on
route 9 has not changed in any significant way um during the uh pilot period. Um um yeah, travel times for general traffic um and delays have fluctuated
somewhat, but over the four quarters there have not been substantial swings one way or another. Um again, there's the detailed data here for different um directions, times of day, and for each of the quarters um if you want to drill into that.
Um vehicle key lengths have seen minor increases at most approaches. uh but the delays have remained similar. So what that means is that the Q length might be longer um like visually. So there might be uh 10 cars instead of eight and a key. Do we know what Q lengths are? I'm
sorry. Okay. Q lengths are the number of cars stuck at a traffic signal. So um there might be let's say it goes from 8 to 10, but the signal is long enough that it's clearing those vehicles um sort of in the same amount of time. And so that's why we would say um Q lengths
would have increased but delay has not necessarily increased. Um so visually it can be impactful but what matters is the clearance rate of those signals getting vehicles through the intersections. I do think there was one actually could
we go back there's one street yeah boilston eastbound approach um there was one street that has popped out in the data consistently is having um a significant increase in like lengths um as compared to the baselines um and so
that's something that we have caught in um tracking this data I have not spent enough time with this to walk through any proposed for as for why but that is um clearly shown in What street is that? >> That's Bston and High Street.
>> Yeah. It's because of the disorgan uncoordinated traffic signals and people who know about this go off onto Walnut Street to get around. >> Yeah, we can talk about that. >> Go ahead.
>> You know, many of us have irrit irritating experiences. I'm hearing stuff that doesn't square with my lived reality period at all, but go ahead. >> Um, so these are the um general findings
summarized. I will say generally speaking, we're pleased with the bus travel time savings. Um, so I'll say that is the MBT representative or we are satisfied with that. Um the vehicle volumes we've not seen dramatic shifts
um on side streets or along Route 9. Um vehicle speeds are slightly decreased um and uh travel times have stabilized. Um so they've been relatively consistent
over the pilot period. Um we have a user feedback survey which um has remained open and will continue to remain open during the pilot will be included as part of the final funding. >> I think
I think that is the substantive end of my presentation. >> So can I follow up out? Absolutely. >> Brian Kane. Hi folks. Nice to see you. Can you hear me Regina? Am I speaking loud enough? >> Can you hear me? >> I can hear. Yeah. Okay, you're right.
>> My mother told me out loud enough. So, I'm glad it works. Um, all of us inherited this project, right? I don't think anybody was here in their seats there earlier when this started. And so, we're carrying it,
right? When we started the pilot, the whole point was, let's see what happens. Let's try this out. It's paint, not infrastructure. we can make relatively inexpensive changes, actually no cost changes to the town and see what happens.
We agreed to do it for a year. In retrospect, I would never have done this project. I never would have brought the transportation board to do this project at the time it was done. I would have waited until either Huntington AB was turned on. I would have waited until
the TSP was turned on. I would have waited for a bunch of other stuff to be checked on. But I wasn't on the transportation board at the time this was approved. So here we are. The big issue, as I think everybody agrees, is coming down the hill from the village, turning left from Washington to
Washington, basically Washington on route 9 is getting backed up. And I think John, you're right. My lived experience is that it's really hard to get through there if you're driving in the morning, >> unless you're cheap like me. Go ahead.
It's also really hard if you're on Route 9 because of that right hand turn that I did that at the same time. >> Yeah. >> Um >> if we were doing Gateway East over again right now, I would frankly get rid of the the cycle track next to the fire
station and make that the bus stop. But we don't have we don't have that luxury. So, when the transportation board heard this, and I want to be very clear, I'm speaking for myself and um what we thought was wise
was to continue the pilot with the TSP turned on to see if it made a difference. Had we known the TSP wasn't going to be doing what it was, I don't think we
would have agreed to this pilot a year ago. we would have tried to start it this summer instead of running it for a year without it really being fully active. But again, here we are. So the question then is do we cut our losses right now or do we sort of try to get
something out of this? The transportation board felt and our recommendation to you was that we should continue the pilot with the technology turned on to get some information on it. I agree it's very frustrating. I agree it's
not popular and I agree that there are lots of things that we probably should be doing differently out there that we're not doing. But I do think it's worth getting the information we're getting and that's why we thought it was made sense to continue studying this for
the two. By the way, one of those two quarters we're studying I think is already done. So there's one more quarter left. I think we'll go into December. I can't remember where they're off the top of my head, >> but anyway, it's almost up. So, that's
uh that's what I came to say. >> Thanks for having me. >> Thanks for coming. >> We won't blame you for this problem. >> Feel free. It's all good. Yes, >> that's a path, Alex. What What is and it's probably in the the data set, but
what does the T consider sort of a successful savings in time >> for, you know, of of bus route? So, what are we seeing early savings? >> Yeah. A lot of >> Yeah. So I would say a project like this
that's targeting such a congested roadway, we care obviously we care to a certain extent about travel time um and about time saved. We also care immensely about variability. Um variability is the thing that I think really drives people
from bus transit in particular but transit in general right we saw that the massive accidents of of subway riders when our subway system also became highly unreliable. Um, and one of the huge benefits of this project is that it helps the buses get through what you all
are experiencing, right, as as a really congested intersection with a lot going on. Um, and we've seen when the bus is in the bus lane, it's operating really well. Um, I wouldn't say we have like a threshold of past fail in terms of um,
number of seconds or something like that. Each project is a little unique given these particular contexts. Um but given the incredibly high ridership here um and the incredible invariability on the 66 and also really the the premium
geography that this project um encompasses. This is an important project for improving the 66. Um, as Ryan mentioned, I think when the Huntington project is in place, the ability for the 66 to be jumping through some of these really challenging
intersections, right, through Harvard Square with the reroute that we just did, which is brut I live in Cambridge, brutal. Um, when it gets into Alustin, right, and it makes us horrible safe on Harvard Street. Um, we've got TSP in
there that's saving um, a massive amount of time and improving um, how frequently the signals are able to turn green for the service through there. We add things like Gateway East, right, which is such a tight congestion point. And then we help the bus get into a really high quality um, corridor like will be built
on Huntington. I think it's all of those things together. Um, right. I have to speak for the system. I know you have to speak to your constituents in Brooklyn, right? Um our job is to consider the system as a whole and to look at each of
these pieces and how they add together um to improve transit for the people that are on board that can come from any number of places. Um and so I would say for us um we've seen that this bus lane, especially in the bus lane, um the
reliability is is really improved. um as is the travel time. We know that upstream, so towards um I say upstream, towards Boston, um the traffic um up heading into Huntington has really gotten a lot worse um since the pandemic
really. Um and we see that really clearly in the data. Um that a lot of the benefits that we're saving have sort of just added more time upstream. That has nothing to do with the bus lane. um but it is sort of impacting how how much
benefit um what we're able to get from any one of these projects right and so I think when I look at that I say great another project um and it would be to target how do we make that connection into the the future Huntington
um higher quality and again like really make sure we're returning that time to the writers um I I don't know if that's a perfectly satisfying answer but that's the way we think about this. >> Um, so I I'll be upfront about it. I
think we should um actually vote to discontinue this uh project pilot. Um, and I use the word pilot in quotes because um I'm going to cite some history and I hope people don't think it's irrelevant. It's very relevant to
our relationship with the MBTA. Uh, and I I hope Chaz will correct me if I'm wrong on any of this. um this I actually was around when this project began and I actually voted as a member of the site board um to approve it. So my my recollection when this came up
within the past six months is well that's interesting. We approved a one-year pilot and they apparently ran into some problems with the pilot. They weren't satisfied that they got enough information out of it and now they want a six-month extension. And since what I
approved as a member of the select board was a one-year pilot, it will be coming back to us on the select board. I believe it should have under theou. It didn't. And now we're like already one quarter into the extension of the pilot.
The select board never even had a say on that when we signed an agreement that it was a one-year pilot. So this has not been done right from the start as far as I'm concerned. Um, as far as I'm concerned, when it turned out that the
MBTA was not able to get the the data that they wanted out of the pilot and knew they weren't because they weren't going to have this TSP when they thought they were going to have it, they owed it to us to come to us and say, "It looked like we're not going to get the data we
wanted out of this. So, do you guys want us to postpone the start of this?" We never had that opportunity. So, a year was spent without useful data being gathered. And during that year, every single day, I'm just going to cite
one intersection and one situation because I know there's some that I don't really have a problem with, but Boilston Street eastbound comes to High Street. And God bless the motorists who have been obeying this for
over a year now. They all almost all obey obey the restriction now which is that you have to be in the left lane to proceed through the intersection or if you're in the right lane you have to turn right and day after day after day
huge lines form in the left lane um and then certain people cheat I won't name names cheat and use the right lane and get through it with impunity because It's an uninforcable restriction. Okay. So the
the recitation you've given us about you know how this is all about trying to save some time was any measure ever made of how much time was lost because what I know from again lived experience buses don't come along that often and
especially buses eastbound on Boilston Street don't come along that often. So because of this pilot pe cars have been lining up every day, every hour, every minute of every hour.
Has anyone ever measured how much time has been lost to people using those vehicles for their daily transportation? I don't think that was even measured, but it's been ongoing for over a year now. And we don't have that data. And then I heard at the transportation board
meeting where where this was discussed um some data that was mentioned it was like pulling teeth to get it um that actually the amount of time that is saved for the bus passengers is 15 seconds. And then somebody asked a
question and said yeah but they say 15 seconds during the period of time that they are in Brooklyn Village. what happens when they have to merge with the traffic after that and what I heard said was well that gets lost by the end of
the route. So there's a really you know there's one way of looking at it is maybe there was like a 15-second savings and I know that there's this thing you do where you say yeah but there's a lot of people on the bus so you multiply that by the number of people on the bus.
No, I don't think so. You know, to the individual bus passenger, 15 seconds is 15 seconds. The route all the way to Harvard Square is a 15minute route. The the 15 seconds is 1% of time saving if they get that. And meanwhile, as I say,
you you have through this pilot caused on a daily basis, on an hourly basis, car after car after car after car after car to have to wait in lane because they can no longer use both the right and the left lane on Boilson Street at High Street. And that wasn't even measured.
So, I see no reason we we did not get good faith from the MBTA. They didn't come to us and ask us for permission and so they had actually already granted themselves permission to extend this pilot. They did that of the transportation board that that was also
after the year had already stopped. So no good faith, no hard evidence of time savings for the bus passengers with the exception of maybe 15 seconds. Um no measuring of the uncountable number of
minutes lost. um when when you're are a vehicle driver heading eastbound on Boilson Street, I see no reason to continue it. I just don't. And I I worry that continuing it on the basis of, oh, we'll get a little bit more data from
this TSP sets us up for them to then say, well, now we were going to use this little bit more data from the TSP, which is another traffic delaying measure that backs up cars um to make this a permanent change. I we're not anywhere
near ready to make this a permanent change. So I just feel we're we're wasting everybody's time if we were to approve going ahead with full pilot. >> So So John, what I hear you saying, can you can you bring up slide seven which
is the the the number of people per hour who are served. I mean what I hear you saying is that the automobile users should be
privileged by about a factor of four or three three or four depending on the number um based on the number of cars that go through versus the number of bus riders that go through this intersection. >> No no how about the number of vehicles
that are backed up during the 15 minutes between buses. I'm not talking about vehicles. I'm talking about people. >> Yeah. >> Because I think our our goal should not be measured by vehicles. It should be measured by people.
>> Well, I would agree. Okay. So what you are saying by my understanding is that if you take the one to 2,800 people per hour that are uh can be serviced without this versus with the bike lane you are
privileging not the bus lane my apologies. um you are privileging the first the people in the first solution which includes all those car drivers by a backdrop somewhere between this is a
real twist of what I'm saying >> really I'm I'm just looking I'm just looking at the numbers because if we could if we can move 4,000 people at a rate faster at the expense of 1,000 people and we choose not to do that then
we are privileging I think I thought John said that you really should compare the one bus versus the 30 to 40 cars, >> right? >> No, I and I and I disagree. I disagree.
I think you should compare the number of people who those buses are serving with the number of people who those cars are serving. >> But I'm also saying, Michael, I I don't, you know, I think you and I can work this out. the you know because I think
we just have a misunderstanding here. Um what I'm saying is first of all the buses don't come along that often. Okay. So I'm counting every single vehicle that is is delayed for the 10 minutes between buses when no buses are coming
along because it's a restriction that exists whether there's a bus coming or not. Okay, let me finish. And I would not even bother with the numbers um that are in that MBTA presentation as to the vehicle count versus the count of the
number of bus passengers that go through that intersection every day because it's completely divorced from reality as I see it. there there are at least you know the the when you take the number of buses and you take the amount of time
spent by vehicles going through that intersection every day right >> I I'm sorry I don't and then you look at buses and they want to use the optimum number of people who are on the bus on a given day um but the buses sometimes are full and there sometimes they're near
empty. Okay. The the number of vehicles going through that intersection every day is more than the number of passengers on those buses. I would guarantee you that. >> It is. There are 22,000 vehicles processed by that intersection every day. And there are 15,000 riders.
>> Thank you. >> But it it's not substantially. And during peak hours, um I I don't think it's nearly as many. Um the buses are very full on the route 66 and the service is 15 minutes or better seven
days a week full service hours with peak hours being closer to six minute frequencies. So they are coming frequently they just don't get stuck in traffic so they're not as visible. >> Is there Boilston Street East bus coming every six minutes? There's no bus on Boilston Street.
>> Well, there's none there. Okay. >> So the right hand turn John I don't know why it's there. Right. >> Thank you. I I mean and look again we inherited this. I don't know why that was included. Makes no sense to me. And like you I got stuck in it yesterday. I mean they know
you had to turn. I had no idea. I don't try very often. >> Yeah. I didn't know you had to turn right. >> They got stuck. >> Mhm. >> And has to go illegal. >> I I think one other factor here is that those cars are you one of my my car is polluting the environment. And to the
extent that they're backed up, it's even worse. And that that's you know one one too but >> you know that that and that that's why you compare cars to bus >> as opposed to passengers in a bus to number of cars.
>> That that's certainly one reason is the amount of emissions of the cars is much greater than the amount of emissions from the buses. But my understanding my understanding of TSP is that the whole point of doing this
test with TSP in place is so that we can measure the different the impact of TSP on exactly those cars who are coming through eastbound and you know other cars from other directions because if the TSP is not working properly
>> then then whether or not the the buses are coming more or less frequently is gonna is not going to have is gonna is gonna let me get my negatives right. If we don't have tsp in place then the frequency of buses
is is irrelevant to the impact on the cars. But if we have TSP in place, then when buses are running less frequently, then cars should be able to get through those lights faster because the buses won't be prioritizing themselves in
those periods. So to run this test without the TSP to rely on that data like I mean I would I would agree with you Brian that if we had known this that we probably should have delayed the start of the test but to to then have
all the paint in place and then to stop the test without the TSP data means that like we're not actually getting any benefit at all and that just seems that seems foolish for the amount of work that's been put into place. Well, you
know, you maybe uh you you and I have a different understanding of TSP, but my understanding of TSP is for it to become a permanent feature, if it were if this bus pilot ever became a permanent feature, you know, in in the village, uh
with TSP, for that to be an improvement over the the improved bus times they're getting currently um would require backing up car traffic even more um in in it would give the bus preference over
over the cars. >> My understanding, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is that when you have TSP in place the backups that cars would experience, they would only experience in those moments when a bus was actually
moving through the system. You know, if it's every 15 minutes, then for a significant portion of that 15 minutes, like everything but whatever the 15 seconds or so of the bus is, then the cars would be moving through as if the
the bus wasn't there and the bus was not taking a single priority. That's the whole point of TSP. >> Well, I I can't figure out if we're talking about the same thing or two different things. It It's not going to make the It's not going to increase the buses. um u ability to get through
quickly unless it removes cars from the pathway of the buses. And it's not going to do that unless it further slows the the progress of vehicle traffic through that intersection for the >> well yeah for the 15 seconds that the
bus is present. And >> no that could be an entire life cycle >> out of No. Um so traffic signals have your your city your your traffic engineers have rules about how much time can be
reallocated. Um it doesn't switch the traffic signal entirely until the bus clears the signal. What it does is it makes small alterations on the edges of existing signal timing that affects all the vehicles going through an intersection and re and adds or extends
or reallocates time knowing that the bus is going to be there at that time. And so it doesn't change the overall um efficiency of the signal timing itself. It's not throwing the entire signal
timing out the window. It's shifting the order and the a lotment of time and occasionally adding a couple of seconds to the light cycle over a full minute um in order to help the bus get through the intersection by the time it arrives. So it is a it is a relatively small impact
to the overall intersection operations that is that is severely hempmed in by um the traffic operations requirements of that intersection. So it it is a small portion of this but it's something that we think can be really beneficial again to the buses but have some
positive benefits for the drivers because trolley on the street trolley line. Is that correct? >> It was added recently. Yeah, the older system is on Beacon Street now and there's a new system that um we're
hoping to implement at Washington and Marian Street that had the most delay. >> So that system there's an old one right now being street not not as effective. The new one is hoping to be turned on. >> Yeah. Uh my my only point of bringing that up is you know I understand two
things about the DSP on the beh street line which nobody advocated it more than Tom and I have heard him say they haven't been using it and and I don't know for exactly why they haven't been using it but I can well imagine that
maybe they haven't been using it because it just creates too many problems because it gives look TSP for a bus means first of all you keep keep the cars cars out of the bus lane and then the bus has the exclusive right to the lane up to the light and then if it
comes to a red light you give the bus the you know the power through TSP to turn that light green which means someone who would have had a green light uh pref preference at that point in a vehicle is denied it so that the bus can now proceed through the through the
light but that's TSP >> right Brian that's a that's a rudimentary TSP system the newer ones are supposed to be more learning. So, they kind of pick up the schedule, the trains, and um they'll make small adjustments to try and get the train through like it saw it in previous
times. And then for Gateway East, it's it's an even kind of um it doesn't count the bus as like its own vehicle. It kind of counts it as a bus with extra vehicles on it. So, it counts like 40 vehicles coming through and tries to
tries to weight it as that area. Um, so where we're at right now is it's October, so I understand the construction season's more or less over.
>> I don't think we're going to get the paint obliterated anytime soon, John. >> Whether we should or not is is another. >> So realistically, we're not going to get the paint done until the spring, >> which is why I think we should just, as much as I don't I don't I don't like
this project, as you can tell. We just got to keep going to the end of this calendar year, get the information we can get, spend the spring looking at it, and then come to you folks with a recommendation about whether we continue it or not. Ending it right now to me, I just don't think makes a lot of sense
because there's no practical way to end it. >> I actually had thought based on some earlier uh materials I saw, in fact, I think leading up to your meeting that the request is to continue the pilot through like April.
My understanding is it's December. >> I'd love it ending in December, but you know, >> the request was up until May and that gives us time to to finalize the report and then present it and then we can show options on how to remove the pilot if that's the right. I
>> think it's going to be December. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. I think so. >> Can I ask when you when you say completed, do you mean the data collection or the report out? Because presumably there's some time after the data collection ends that you need to report.
>> We lag by about the data collection. >> There's going to be a period of time when there's nothing being collected but the paint is still in the work. >> The question then becomes what do you want to do about that? >> Here's my question as a practical matter. >> Yeah, >> this is document and this is something
that was raised when this project began is silent about who pays if the project is not successful. Who pays to remove it? If the T is willing to commit to paying to remove it, would the T would if if the town Let me put flip this
around. If the town were willing to commit to holding this out until spring, given that there's no there's would likely be no opportunity until March at the earliest to get out on the streets and remove it, would the T be willing to pay for the costs of repainting and
removing? >> Oh, well, that's not fair. There you Chaz, if you don't mind, since you've got the document in front of you, does it say that the select word is to be notified of any change in the period length of the pilot? Um, I think it
specified maybe length of the pilot. >> Look at that now. Find search here. >> Sorry, I didn't mean to put you on the spot. You and I have been over this and I thought that was in the document. I mean, >> in the meantime, if I may just jump in with a brief question.
>> Can't put them on the spring, right? When construction season opens after the winter. >> Yeah, I am. So, I'm not having any problems with that. Having problems with, you know, paying them. >> No, that's fair. But again, as I said, we're we're we're here.
>> Yeah. It kind of gets what we mean by ending the whole pilot. That paint is going to be for as long as that paint's going to be there. Yes. So, >> and at some point the town will decide whether to make it a permanent feature or not. And that can be a rule or and that's a decision for you folks. Um,
we'll make a recommendation, but that's your call. So, as long as the paint sort of has to be there, we should continue to collect information. If the town decides the paint's got to got to go, then we have to fight the fight about getting somebody else to
remove it. And we can have that fight. We'd rather >> Yeah, but I mean you did say earlier and end it in December, which I was glad to hear. >> Well, yeah, but now I'm hearing if if we can't I'm thinking if we can't get it up until March, >> I don't know. >> I don't I don't know what we do with the
painted section. >> Well, there's there's one particular section which obviously has been bothering to me bothering me more than any others and that is this business of the you know right has to turn right. gets to high street.
>> Nobody can use the right lane. Who's going to go straight ahead? But how about that? >> Well, here's another question. >> Is that a state route? >> Bor Street. Yeah. >> State into Washington.
>> But but the markings on B Street >> in front of Laura State. >> That's how we have the configuration. So we can stay canard. >> Yes, >> David's raising his hand. >> Uh David,
>> this is a question I have. Do we have >> is there a is there a target efficiency savings we're looking for with these buses? >> Is 15 seconds really about the best it can get or what are we targeting? >> Was to understand what the possibilities
I don't think we have a target itself. At least the town doesn't. >> Yeah. >> So, you know, I see in terms of where we are right now, there's I think we're actually in Q5 and then you're looking to do Q6. So,
I I think there's more time on the study that the the MBTA has asked for. And um I think that um we need the data. We need a report. There needs to be a a full presentation to the transportation
board with recommendations. And I think recommendations to the trans to the select board need to really be all encompassing with the what next. So depending upon what the decision is, here's what the strategy will be. Um if
it is to remove all or some of the um markings uh on both state state road and town road it's going to take coordination >> with the state to get this done and with
the tea and it is going to take time to put together the right bid package to do the restriping and it's going to take public communication. So I I don't I think just ending the pilot in December means zero because
there's so much more that needs to be done on kind of the execution of a of a of a solution that's going to take some time. Um so I think my recommendation at this point is
finish the pilot, get the analysis. we can start working on kind of alternatives, costs, all of that right now so that we'll have that >> and then come back to the board with um all the options for you to contemplate
including um our costs to implement some different solutions. >> And just to be clear, excuse me, um when you say finish the pilot, you mean continue to collect data through December? I mean continue to collect data. Why?
Why not? Q5 and Q6. Yes. Which I think actually goes presentation. Okay. >> And then do the report. So we have a full analysis with the report and then come back with a presentation to the
board with all of that information and then the solutions um or options. Yeah. >> Or what could be perceived as solutions. Yeah. >> Does that satisfy you?
>> Situation that we're in right now. >> Well, no, it doesn't. And I'm sorry. >> What else can we do? Well, I have to mention one more one more thing about this because not only do I drive through that intersection in the high street every day, but about twice a week, my wife and I drive out to pass. And in
Boston, they had a huge sort of uproar over a reserve bus lane in the vicinity of the, you know, the whole industrial crewport area, uh, on your way to Castle Island. Um, and it was determined that the whole reserve bus lane had been a
mistake. And that's gone. It's gone. It's not it's not, you know, still there because, you know, oh, it takes time to remove the paint or any of that stuff. It is all scrubbed nearly clean. >> That's probably not a state road. It's probably not a state road. Who's working
with the state right now to prepare them for the possible decision that we now want to remove this? We were we were drawn into this. How many times have we heard the expression, it's just pain. It's just pain. Don't worry, it's a pilot. It's just pain. Well, all of a sudden now it's like, wait a minute, how
are we going to ever remove that paint? And as long as the pain is there, people are going to be inconvenience every single day. >> So why why does the um incoming winter delay removing paint? I mean, maybe it's obvious, but
>> we have winter moratorum. So materials for roadway paving and painting as well as concrete and other structural items. So it's not just paint but um don't cure it here in uh the cold when the
temperatures below certain. So the winter moratorium is generally observed November 15th to April 15th with some fudge dates if we get a warm spring or a warm fall. >> And John I think the summer street lane you're talking about was done with city funds and city personnel.
>> No that's in the summer. Yeah, you know, you know, I understand that. But at the same time, if there's if there is a commitment to removing the paint, whether it's by the city or by the state, it can get done. You know, I've seen it done. And I worry that the only
people who, as far as I can tell, are in a position to go to the state now and say, "This pilot is over, so remove the paint from Route 9," are the people who have been not in good faith with us in terms of the duration that they have continued the pilot and and they don't
seem to want to end the pilot. So, how are we ever going to get that paint removed if if we don't have somebody actually pushing the state to do it? >> Yep. >> That's all. I I'm happy to say I I really don't don't see the key as not acting in good
faith. They're really thinking about the whole system. They're thinking about um public transit. They're partners for us in terms of climate. They're partners for um serving um vulnerable
populations. And I I really think that everyone entered into this in good faith and um while their situation in changed in terms of the vendor being nonresponsive that that's
different than >> acting faith >> well and honestly maybe that's maybe that's on me because I really felt that people had made the decision that they wanted to understand the data and a
pilot and >> and have information. It's it's there and have the right information. And so I think we felt stuck. >> Um >> I not to I'm kind of not throw Aaron. It's it's it's all all of us, but it's I
also think that this is the process, >> you know, when you raised this issue, John, and you flagged this and we ran through with town council. Like I think I think the it was important you did the right thing and saying well I want to have a you know the select board does have a right here to have a say in this and you do because you signed the MOU
you theou that's where that that's where that power lies and so >> where you know we then put this in you know I would say it's important that you are not no one is trying to lock the select board into a decision here. The select board says we're terminating this in
December terminating this whenever and let the chips fall where they may we'll do it. That's sure that you're you're the boss. You're in charge here. So, we will do that. Um I just >> I'm not sure I've read the books, but but you know, and I don't you know, I appreciate that. you know, um, you know, maybe I've been harsh, but, uh, theou is
theou and put, you know, I just ask the people listening, put yourself in the position of a select board member listening in on a transportation board meeting at which I hear said by the MBTA, the decision
has been made to continue this pilot for another six months. And I'm thinking, wait a minute. We have an MOU that we signed, you know, with the META that says any change in in this pilot will be reviewed and approved by the select
board at Berkeley. And it was never done. And I'm hearing this MK basically telling everybody it's in the it's in the newspaper account of all of this. You know, the decision has been made to continue this. But no, it hasn't not by the select board, not by the people that
signed anou with you guys. So yeah, that's right. >> Okay. Um let's not let's not continue to stay further. What what what is our next what are our next steps? >> So we had this discussion we can we can
bring it back to you next week for that discussion. Um we can and we'll talk about the potential options to move forward here. um if you terminate the MOU as 30-day notice period. Um so December is well within your range if
you want to do that. Um as is you know April or whatever. So um or you don't have you could do you could do something short of that. um or you could do anything there and I am going to you know reach out in conversation to talk
about if are there fallback options here short of that that will make a meaningful difference along this pathway that don't require us working during the moratorum to is there something we can do short of that that we at least make provide temporary look so we'll take a
look >> okay and um we will get a sense I assume of the cost for the various actions that we could take. >> If we were to try and do if we were to take this out on our own, it would be roughly $800,000 with CI. >> $800,000.
>> That's the full mill. >> But that's the full mill. >> That's the full mill. We're about seven years in on um on the p pavement and gateway. So, we're getting close given such a high use road of when we'd be looking at the
the condition. So, but we'll have other options as well available. >> And again, right, that's to Aaron's point. That's as sooner or later, we will spend that money on that. So, it's a question of time capacity. >> Okay. Thank you.
>> Thank you for coming in. >> Okay. Next. When did you take a break? >> I need take I was going to suggest I almost would rather have the handbook conversation when everyone's in the room and can look at the language. >> Um I I'm happy to overview really
quickly some of the changes made. I know Michael wants to take a look at it in a little bit more depth and so I'm just wondering if we can have a more substantive conversation next time. >> Yeah. >> Um yeah. >> Yeah, that makes sense. >> Yeah. And I'll have my comments. >> Yeah, I have some comments too as soon
as she >> Okay, sounds good. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe that's what we do if you are inclined to >> defer. John, is that okay? I know you had a couple of things that >> Yeah. >> And that means that there are no more
items on the agenda. >> So we can end our meeting unless there is someone in the audience who'd like to make public comment. >> We didn't have public comment earlier, but >> Oh, that's right. You can always do the >> Okay. All right. I'm going to end the meeting now. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.