[Music] he folks if we could take our seats
well you're ime ime having been informed by the town clerk that we have Quorum we'll proceed to article 10 so for article 10 you should be referencing one of the green sheets that
you either got last night or got up here at the green table uh if you don't recall what a green sheet is um a green sheet is a document that has been approved by the a change from the warrant that has been approved by the submitting Authority and approved by the
warrant committee so the Green Sheet entirely replaces uh the content you see in the warrant so you can ignore what's printed in the warrant and just go to your article 10 Green Sheet um as you will see in the warrant there was no recommendation from the warrant committee at the time of printing the
warrant and so uh the first order business is to hear from Tom Caldwell before Tom Caldwell goes anywhere to hear the opinion of uh pardon me I've got something from the town clerk excuse me tell you what since we did have a number of uh devices that didn't work last
night why don't we do a quick test again uh Mr Mal can you put up a device test and we'll make sure everybody's connected here tonight and then hope for no power failure do you like to read books one for yes two for no three for abstain
I'm good thank you no you know what I do t and if we could put up the uh results please so everybody here's a chance to look and see if your vote got recorded than
now look at this that's so everyone's good with their voting devices apparently okay excellent um let's proceed to article 10 um as you
saw there were a number of articles that uh were the warrant commit had not had an opportunity to uh provide a recommendation so that's the purpose of the green sheets tonight so I thought we'd start with uh presentation by the or just discussion by the chair at the warrant Committee of their explanation
of uh sorry not article 10 pardon me wrong one um just in article 10 um let me go [Music] to let's see I think uh presentation by Miss Hall did you want to say a few
words first on article 10 hello and good evening is the mic on can you all hear me is it on okay no I don't think it's on I'm Too Tall okay we'll that up all right good evening um my name is
Meredith Hall I am the chair of the planning board and and uh me uh town meeting member from Precinct 3 um the next two articles that we're going to discuss article 10 and 11 I just want to explain to you that there's been a lot
of history with both of these articles the planning board has been working for months um to develop these articles um the site plan has been something that has been on the planning board's list for years um it's replacing something
that currently exists in our zoning bi laws which is incredibly vague and this just is a way um this will just give consistency for the site plan um approval process and it will just lay the table for uh developers the planning
board and the residents of Milton the neighbors of these projects um so with that I just want to read the purpose just because this really just clarifies what what is site plan approval the person the purpose of this section is to
pre protect the health safety convenience and general welfare of the inhabitants of the Town by providing a means to determine whether a proposed use of land or structures is in compliance with sound site utilization
principles relative to traffic circulation and safety pedestrian safety access off street parking and loading emergency vehicle access storm water drainage screening signage exterior
lighting visual impact of parking storage or other service areas and consistency with a character and scale of surrounding landscape and buildings so with that we have put together um a a site plan article which um is is I can't
tell you how much better it is than than what we currently have in our zoning so this is again to repeat replacing uh section 275-1 12.4 um the article that you have is a Greenline version um we were still
waiting for um the municipal uh Mass law unit Municipal law unit to review this so both this this article and article 11 have both had um the department which reviews for the AG all zoning articles
that come um from the municipality so this has um had review of that and we have addressed those um specific Bally in the site plan uh we were able to address um recommendations made um by mlu and recently we have we have some
amendments tonight to the Adu article which are in response also to some comments that were that were made um before going to the AG's office so these have been thoroughly vetted um these both these articles I also want to say um were unanimous um by the planning
board and voted unanimously by the warrant committee at the time time um of their meeting so it's nice to have everyone on the same board so I'm I'm hoping um there are a few amendments that are being proposed but I'm hoping that we can um pass both both article 10
and article 11 um for the benefit of of the town so with that um I think that's I'll turn it over and we can pull up I don't we would you like for um to bring up um the person who is first making
amendments uh no someone else has uh first okay so there are there are a couple people um we'll start with the site plan article 10 there are a few um and we did get them um yesterday at 3 o'cl and today but let's let's not get into the Amendments yet though they haven't been made let's not discuss the
any amendments from the floor yet not yet so that's that's it and we'll um we we do have we do have responses to those items so right we'll get to those when they're made okay thank you um yes um Miss odonnell I think you're first up you're recognized thank you than Mr
moderator my name is Kathleen odonnell I'm a a town meeting member from Precinct 7 and the newly um selected chair of the zoning board of appeals um replacing Mr Leonard who we honored last night um I move stand up to move to have
this article sent back to the planning board for further study um there's uh really in my mind no point in talking about amendments to it because I think it is um has several fatal flaws to it um first of all there are lots of there
are Provisions in here that I think not only are illegal um but they also intrude onto the jurisdiction of the zoning board of appeals taking care of my turf um but um I would point out that um the planning board has limited
discretion to deny site plan approval and they have put language in here that gives them a lot more rights to deny things that are being built as of right and as the chair pointed out um Miss Hall that this is an idea to sort of take a look at projects to make sure
that they fit in with the um the neighborhood that they're in that the site is appropriate for the use that it complies with zoning they can turn down they can deny approval if they find that first of all the applicant doesn't give them all the information they need or
doesn't pay the fee or it doesn't comply with zoning or the project is of some Port that says that I can't impose enough conditions on it to make sure that I've adequately addressed some extraordinary circumstances but their language is much
broader than that and I think um is going to be found illegal if we get challenged in the court of law next the authority of the planning board to regulate the Interiors of restaurants bars and entertainment uses is not in the planning board's jurisdiction that's
in the jurisdiction of the board of appeals not the planning board they don't have any right to regulate Interiors at all there is also a provision in there talking about the fact that if you have to do site plan review and a special permit you have to do them concurrently the language isn't very clear maybe they
have an amendment that that would fix that up because there's a question about well what's the final action when do I get to say okay fine I'm done and I can appeal the decision or not who have no idea because you have a site plan special permit how does that Duke itself
out and no one knows um it's a bad idea I think and I think um other people in this floor over the years have said the same thing to include the level of design details into a zoning bylaw because you can't change
them without coming back here and amending the zoning bylaw so if you say further on the planning board says you know we think that the tree caliber that we want is a different dimension they have to come all the way back through here for a two-thirds vote to make that change that seems insane to me why don't
you just have design standards that you vote that you have as the planning board you provide to somebody they shouldn't be in the zoning um then the length of time given the planning board to to go through the site plan approval is in the current
draft six months we don't get six months to look at a 40b project which is an affordable housing project we only get 120 days so that's a problem the the length of time and then their app applying these standards to any multif
family in Milton a multif family is a two family so if you decided that you own a two family house and you want to turn the back porches into part of the living space you're going to have to go through all the Hoops that are in this Cy plan review article and that to me
just seems unfair too expensive you're going to have to hire a lawyer that's not going to be a bargain and go through all those Hoops maybe they could look and say something about the fact that it's a minor adjustment or a major adjustment there could be all kinds of things they could do that would make it
easier for people to be able to do simple things in this town as I said multif family that's a two family that's a three family and look at those design standards and that's what you're going to have to look at for just a simple thing like that which is a reason I believe that it should go back for further study to the planning board
thank you thank you ma'am um Mr fur your your uh that was a motion right pardon me yes is that a motion did you make a motion right ma'am yes is there a second very good um I think Mr Furs did
you want to speak to the motion to refer hello Brian Furs uh Precinct 10 um as I always do I want to start by thanking the planning board for taking a shot of this because it's really really hard to do this work uh it's I've done it and it's it's really tough to do it
and it's even worse to sit here and listen to people complain about it um which is what I'm going to do now um I was the one that was going to come up and make comments and suggestions uh and I'm going to reserve the right to do that if this doesn't go
forward um I I agree with a lot of what was just said um one of my comments uh several were found out of scope several I can live with um there was one that is very concerning to me um which I just want to
add on for a reason that I would ultimately support sending this back um and that is that um I think that section F Q in this document is is really tricky for me um
it's uh it gives a long list all the way through the letter Q of of things that the board can consider which I agree with all of um the last one is other aspects of site design that may be reasonably within the spirit and intent of this section and I have no idea what
that means and it feels very vague and arbitrary to me um and that is concerning in a town where uh candidly we don't go out of our way to make things easy for applicants so um I find that to be a really challenging uh piece
and if that's out of scope to remove it then I would have to agree to send it back thank you very good now we the motion before the body is the motion to refer back does anyone wish to pardon
me sorry um does anyone wish to speak to the motion to refer this back to the planning board yes Miss Hall if you do just please make your way down I see you're making your way down thank you thank you um to begin I would just like to ask Peter to come up here and
address the legality um aspect that was addressed um I think that was inappropriate but I I I want um Peter Melo to address this please Mr Melo you're recognized sure uh thank you Mr
moderator uh members of town meeting that is that better can you hear me now uh thank you Mr moderator members of the town meeting um so in terms of first of all we did as I
think mer mentioned better okay so uh it I had preliminary discussions with um an attorney or two multiple attorneys from the municipal law unit regarding both site plan and the Adu bylaw uh nothing was flagged to
suggest that either of these Provisions when I know we're talking about site plan at the moment um would be denied wholesale there may be cautionary comments um or potentially depending on I think the conclusion of still evolving discussions particularly respect to Adu
issues there may be um language in in those decisions approving isolated texts or Provisions um but nothing that would um suggest that there'd be a significant likelihood of a wholesale disapproval um
with regard to the I I think um U Mr Donnell mentioned the language regarding the board's ability to deny site plan approval for Rover right uses um she's right that it is it's limited it's significantly limited and I think I
mentioned when I was before the warrant committee that this is a famous quote from a legal decision where judge said that site plan review is the ghost that haunt land use law or wordss to that effect and so it's it's kind of a difficult challenging subject matter but
um there's a there's a often cited excerpt from a decision where it says something to the effect of site plan review uh denial for an as of right use is confined to circumstances in which the problem is so intractable I know the word intractable appears there um that
it it's susceptible to no you know resolution um so the the circumstances in which site plan review can be denied it is true are significantly Limited in my conversation with the mlu again pre preliminary discussion but the the language it as it appears in the
warrant was uh verbatim What was shared with the mlu um uh didn't certainly there was no suggestion that that language was per se um improper and appropriate it wouldn't surprise me if
there's a comment cautioning that it has to be applied um you know consistent with the the legal standards that govern site plan review for as of right uses uh but I don't I don't think that that language would be disapproved based on my conversations with the municipal law
unit and I I want to emphasize that nothing you know certainly there was no binding uh determination by anyone at the mlu but um I think that if if um that language were to be disapproved they probably would have uh conveyed
that um to me in those discussions so but it again it wouldn't surprise me if there was a a caution or two just emphasizing the need to apply that language consistently and lawfully um but certainly there was nothing to suggest it would be disapproved
wholesale yes Miss all sorry and so to follow up um we've actually um just met to amend some of our language to address the concerns um of both Kathleen and Brian so we are prepared to accept their
some language changes um to to make it feel more comfortable with them and ensure um to the town meeting that that this has been thoroughly thoroughly vetted um so we are willing to accept um Brian sent over eight um amendments that
he he had wanted to propose um yesterday and most of those we um have accepted that we would accept um all of those EX for those out of scope um we would be willing to change those um to um Kathleen's concern um
about rejection it is a fine line explaining how the the site plan approval process works but we would change that language um to accommodate um that we would um put language in To to not say reject but to um put in
approval language so we are willing to do those and work with you because we think think this legislature was passed um went into effect February 2nd adus are legal now we think it just will benefit the town of Milton to have some
guidance in um as that application come in that we um that there are some um standards that we provide and most municipalities the other thing I didn't mention is both the site plan approval and the adus we have been thoroughly studying what other other communities
are doing so a lot of the language that we have either is currently in our own site of plan approval that we have it's language that actually went into that a lot of it the design guidelines went into that MBTA zoning that uh town meeting passed so this language is not
new language these are not new items um and we have really we studied extensively what other municipalities have done and the person who reviewed our Adu article is the one responsible for reviewing all the new Adu articles
throughout the Commonwealth so this was somebody who's looked at this carefully we are willing to work and and see something get pasted and not send it back to town meeting so thank um Miss odonnell before um you get another bite we did have um miss
agustino all I wanted to just say was that I'd be willing to withdraw the motion to see the Amendments that the planning board is making okay well with that I'll accept your uh withdrawal I if there's no
objection no promis if there's no objection from the body to accept Ms O'Donnell's withdrawal very good Miss agustino do you wish to speak since you're down here yes sir Ser of
amendment propon of the article wants to incate the article should they be accepted as put as a friendly am our discuss number one those are and number two should our discussion direct
to that rather discussion tole that no wants to vote um yes I was just trying to see if May perhaps the um the member had a a comment or question I'd like your
response you'd like my response to that yes well we're going to move to now is discussion of the article that you see before you um in the Green Sheet which did have some changes in it that came from the review Mr melow referred to from the municipal law unit and then
we'll see uh if uh Mr F wants to get up and make some of his amendments and then we'll see the response of the planning board is that what you're referring to now miss agustino okay thank you thank you Diane dulio agustino Precinct 8 Mr
moderator these are direct Ed you um has the moderator um I had made a promise I was not going to speak so that we would be done in two nights however um I greatly appreciate that the first motion that I came down to address was withdrawn and I strongly I'm very
impressed that the municipal for those who might be new town meeting members it's all about process and I don't want people to leave tonight confused as to how the vote went because I know I've gotten phone calls about last night and so it's about the process so I
appreciate you clarifying anything I might miss speak about the process um I to hear that the Warren committee as well as everyone else involved the planning board worked really hard on these two articles and they're very
timely um due to the new state laws etc etc so I was very impressed to hear that the municipal law unit these type of um amendments or bylaws that we pass actually have to get approved by them so I was thrilled to hear the Town Council
because that was one of my questions for the moderator in the process Town Council actually reviews everything that goes into the warrant so it's great that the planning board wants to work with um I greatly respect you know these other
people have put years into many of the articles that actually control how developers work in our town and I just want to Hope hopefully if you can clarify if anyone has processing questions along the way but you've got
the municipal law unit has reviewed it you've got Town Council having no concerns graciously those who have amendments are going to make them and I strongly recommend that once we get through this and approve it amendments
can always come as we learn more so thank you very much Mr Mar for your help I'm not coming up again or down okay this is just is it possible to turn up the volume I don't know if anybody else
um touche uh yeah um up in the booth is it possible yet they're waving yes thank you for raising that point appreciate it okay now um Mr Furs um I believe you had some amendments you'd
like to make what you have put in already so Mr F you'd rather defer to see what the planning board has decided to uh propose we actually to try to be more um as efficient as possible we put a red line together so there's a Redline
version so we can go through quickly can we wait till make sure the war committee I think she just got a copy of this before the meeting so let's let give her a second to look it up and I'll go through Brian's first and then
C go through them all okay is this the right document Miss Hall or not yes yes this is oh can we enlarge the print is the question yep let's go to 150% like last night yeah there we
go okay okay so we were um no so on this so we we had not seen the non- withstanding any zoning uh bylaw Provisions to the contrary there sorry so the
notwithstanding any other zoning bylaw Provisions to the contrary had not been in a version that we had seen that was um so I would just need to consult just on that one um with the board oh that was that was agreed to I'm
sorry yes okay okay then here um we have 12 sorry yeah okay um no okay so we're at the net new net new um and then did we pass the
restaurant language sorry we want to go back up so the reason why we we put this in as can you refer to the section you'd like uh the the war committee clerk to look I'm trying to look at sideways by section a number please yes load was it
there right there okay so yeah under B3 so the reason why we separated this out because there are times not that we're looking to um change if it's a restaurant use within the interior what we're looking at and
I'll just use the example of Abby Park and Navara so when they when those restaurants came in Navara for example was required because of limited um space a loading zone and Valley parking those have subsequently been changed and we've
seen the effects to East Milton Square the loading zones we have vehicles loading in the middle of the road so when you have a restaurant or an entertainment use there is a there is an additional level um of of um need for
deliveries for um for just parking in general traffic issues um are affected so this just allows um site plan approval around a restaurant use to say is there adequate safety for loading
unloading um is there enough parking um Etc so that's really just addressing why that that those uses are more intensive uses and especially in an area like East Milton Square for example or some of our um smaller um business districts so that
is that's why we separated that to have that just to be able to weigh in on traffic parking loading zones Etc which have really been a problem um okay sorry go ahead what's the next section you want then so then it was we the net
new the net new yes so this is just adding uh 10 or more net new parking spaces we accept this language for both 12 and 14 and then outside consult um This was um oh sorry the outside Consultants language so this was
language which is actually Brian you had no we accepted this language we actually um did accept the language that Brian put the only thing that we did um not include is the language saying special permit because not because that was out
of SC and that was the just the piece that because this isn't necessarily related to a special permit so we took that out but everything else we did include okay um failure okay so we accepted all that yep
okay at the um this was just a simple um language change um when we were substituting um shrubs and hedges um I don't believe we wanted to redline the shrubs the the shrubs and hedges line but we wanted to add we wanted all of
that included so that should read all of the from shrubs to one required tree should all be included and we accepted that change oh sorry and we just wanted to say at a minimum at a minimum of three shrubs for
every trees actually yes for every required tree correct great yes sorry there the period yeah that's okay that was all to be included
yep that's all good so this this is what um Kathleen was referring to um with the language of reject um what we have found um is recently um there is more case study that when a planning board rejects site
plan approval um typically the courts will um will will not uphold the rejection um there is certain cases um I believe in Marblehead where there was a site plan re review appr site plan
approval that was rejected um the a project that was rejected and it was upheld um because of um setback issues but but so overall we just wanted to appeal to the concerns that for an as of right application that we could not
reject it so this language addresses that and it says the board May condition any plan and that's common how those are approved um with conditions so we accept that uh
timeline site plan approval um 30 days actually this um there was a there was actually a an item on here that was requested that didn't make it um and it says no more than six months after the
submission um see oh sorry under timeline instead of saying no more than six months after the submission we we that was 120 days so the request um that we C that came in was that we change that to 120
days um we did have discussion because oftentimes we we are waiting on peer review um Consultants especially if it's a storm storm water management um but we're willing to put this language in um because it would really be the
applicants delay um not the planning so okay so that so we need to change instead of six months we would put in 120 days so you did accept that one we did yes and there
where's sorry let me can I and there is one extra sentence um that did not get added and that is following uh following the submission period it should then say
the time period within which final action shall be taken um may may be extended to a date agreed to by the applicant and the
board sorry it's really small font yeah agreed to by the applicant and the board period yep that's it okay thank you I'll hold all right so just to make sure I'm clear where we are the planning board has looked at this language and
you voted on it as a board this evening that is correct okay has this language been reviewed by the warrant committee this evening pardon pardon that and maybe you could go to the microphone um
okay sorry yes so withdrawal did what did so the warrant committee reviewed all this language before the meeting started and what was the warrant committee's um vote we have one more we do have one
more um addition that was an another amendment that came in late that we'd like to add but yeah if I if I may interject uh chairman uh chairwoman can you speak into the mic yes uh the warrant committee had the opportunity to review uh both the
Amendments from the members from the floor and received um some uh planning board feedback uh we're in the process uh we are prepared to take a vote at the end of the completion of the presentation from the planning board chair okay so the reason I asked that is
since the warrant committee did not vote on this language by the planning board before the meeting the planning board is making a motion to amend their article so we don't have a a a new green sheet so to speak okay so now Miss Hall
you want to go back and put your last Amendment proposal in here yes there's two uh there were two items that came in that we also accepted um it would be a new R and it would be titled withdrawal of
application do you have that language uh I do Karen do you can I are you stking it's a point of order you have a point of order you can always make a point of order I think I do um I thought that was
a rule that you're supposed to have amendments in writing so that we could see them if not on a Green Sheet then at least on the board in front of us this is a long and complicated article by changing a word net new to what I mean personally I need a little time to read
the sentence and the paragraph surrounding it to really comprehend what does adding n new to a couple sentences mean this is really a waste of all of our time here well and I don't think we should be voting on it I think we should refer it
back till they complete it well at the moment we have an amendment um that's partially made by the planning board we can come back to your point in a moment ma'am e e [Laughter]
is m room Miss Hall could you uh check this language would what of you be willing to Miss Miss Hall could you check the language that's here to make sure it's right yes and then I'll ask for a second
okay an application for award submitted does that look right yes yes would you be willing to okay okay are all the changes uh proposed as an amendment by the planning board now in this document correct yes correct all right do I have a second all
for your patience I really appreciate it do I have a second to this motion to amend second motion's been made and seconded okay okay now what we have before us is a fairly lengthy set set of motions to amend that have been made and
voted on by the planning board does anyone want to speak to now these motions to amend or ask questions of Miss Hall or members of the planning board yes Miss odonnell I would like to this is Kathleen O'Donnell Precinct 7 I would
like to thank the planning board for considering amendments to their site plan approval um I'm appreciating the fact that you've reduced the amount of time to 120 days I it was my suggestion to see and to include the provision on the termination so that if somebody
doesn't use this permit it laps after a period of time so I appreciate you including that and um you know obviously still have issues with but I appreciate the work and the effort that you've taken thank you okay thank you uh Mr F you've been
sitting that there did you wish to speak at this point yep thank you um so I put a lot of these in uh and I understand the frustration of why they're in there uh as far as maybe not having the context um I can speak to the net new
the net new is simply uh right now it's if there's 10 parking spaces you have to go for site plan review I thought that if there were already existing 10 parking spaces you shouldn't have to go for site plan review unless you're adding 10 more so I put in at new or I suggested we do that um if there are other questions I'm happy to address
them the only two things just for the record that were not accepted uh due to being out of R out of scope uh as I noted one of them the other was color under the design guidelines I thought that was a bit uh far-reaching but I'm willing to concede that point um on the
on the point that I stood up for with the uh what I believe is a bit arbitrary on on Section fq um I I would I would be willing to see how the board does and if we find that the board is being arbitrary we can come back to town meeting and take that out at that time
um so as it stands right now I would be willing to support this to U Move us along thank you thank you sir um I think I see Mr Walker and then uh um yes ma'am Mr Walker you recognized looy Walker town meeting
member Precinct 10 uh I appreciate the work I appreciate the work that the uh planning board has done and that Mr Furs and uh M O'Donnell have done and at the end of the day uh this might be the
right uh article to approve but I can't think of a time in recent memory where literally 15 amendments were added and we were asked to vote the warrant committee hasn't considered the Amendments I don't know they they they
look good in blue but I I don't know what they mean I need to I need time and my obligation as a town meeting member uh after I depend on the warrant committee for their diligence my obligation is to understand what I'm
voting on I don't understand what I'm voting on yet I haven't read it so I move that we refer this back and we approve it in May it looks like there's a path to agreement there's a path to compromise but we all have an obligation
to understand what we approving I I can't remember when this many amendments were allowed literally a moment ago and now we're asking we're being asked to vote my I move that we refer this back we vot on it in May thank you second
well just a moment uh the motion to refer can't supersede the the motion to amend so you could advise that we refer it back but we've got a v got a vote now on this uh valid motion to amend before the body I recommend that we vote down
the motion to amend and I advise that we refer it back thank you well stated thank you [Applause] okay uh I said yes ma'am you recognized this Maran mric um Precinct one town meeting member just a few
comments um it is a very long complicated article um I've represented a number of applicants before the board of appeals in the planning board um in parallel processes with site plan review and special permit requirements that
generally may be um ones that the board of appeals has to consider it's a it's a pretty torturous process as it stands right now because both boards want to know what the other board thinks and they basically start talking about the same things so I think clarification and
guidance is wise I think doing um work on this what site plan review is and is not is a good idea I honestly feel that there needs to be that we're going to figure out a way to do this right and that this is a lot of progress has been
made here by coming up with all of this detail and and giving us something to consider should it be in the bylaw can it be in guidelines and in some cases would it be better to do that as uh Kathleen O'Donnell suggested so that the
guidelines can be changed more easily and you don't have to come back to town meeting for that so I just want to make a couple of specific comments as illustrations and I'm going to bring up the restaurant interior example again because when I saw that inclusion and
I'm very familiar with you know discussions that are going on now and concerns about the impact of restaurants on neighborhoods and I have represented uh to to give you full disclosure Novara when it applied for its U permit so I'm familiar with that process and what
happened there the problem with what the language that you have in this bylaw right now and I is that you do not provide any criteria for what that review means I know you gave an explanation the planning board did of what it would do but that's not good
enough for me you've got to put in in the bylaw and what you said as an explanation makes good sense to me but again if you try to write that now as an amendment it's yet another amendment that people are going to be kind of confused about and and I think you can
come up with good language I think with just another month or two before the town meeting in May you could probably come back with a version of this bylaw that works out all of these issues so um so my originally when I was going to
come to Tom meeting tonight I was going to ask for an amendment to just take out that reference because I didn't know what it meant and there no criteria provided in the new site plan review bylaw explaining how you would make that decision so how do you look at the interior of a restaurant what it is is
it that you look at as a planning board for this site plan review um I know why you were thinking about it um don't ex we can already do some of the things that you wanted to do for Novara uh Novara did have conditions um as it
happens about um you know valet parking and about deliveries on the street the problem with that as a condition by the planning board is that the town controls those locations and so the the site plan
approval had to be issued with a condition that said subject to town approval and then what happens is that the town doesn't like having it right in front where we originally imagined it to be or nobody's using it then the thing sort of Fades away and it's not being
used it needs to be Revisited it needs to be fixed so you raise a legitimate concern and and a a detail that needs to be attended to carefully I think in these applications I don't think there's any reason why it can't be even under the current site plan review guidelines
but if you put it into your bylaw and and and make it clear uh that it should be more explicit that's helpful I mean applicants need to know just exactly what it is that you want them to to be that you want to explain so that they
want to have you explain so um in any case I would be in favor um and and with no aspersions on the effort that's being made by the planning board to get a revised site plan review bylaw out I really would be in favor of sending it back for further study I think we're
you're you're pretty close to having what you need this isn't one of these cases where everybody throws up their hands and says oh send it back I'm never I hope I never see it again that's not the spirit in which I would be asking for this but I do support support um the motion to send it back thank you thank
you ma'am does anyone else wish to speak to this motion to amend yes Miss Tas hello fellow town meeting members um the planning my fellow planning board members have asked me to provide some context for this and whether it will
influence your decision about sending it back or not at least it will give you some background to what we're uh to accomplish here uh site plan approval is um something which is in the current um zoning bylaws it's something that I've
had 10 years of experience with um being on the planning board I found that it's very um vague and so when we are looking to apply the criteria or even the submission requirements to an application um we would ask for
something and the applicant might say Well it's it's not in your regulations and it's not in the requirements so we don't have to submit that really and so then we're left making decisions without all the information that we would like to see whether the there's impacts on
the neighbors that are not being mitigated with the proposal and so what we're trying to do is give a very clear path for both the board and its decision- making but also for the applicant and for the Neighbors there's
not an application that comes before the planning board where neighbors aren't concerned and they might be concerned about traffic they might be concerned about noise they might be concerned about odor but often times um it's hard
to know in advance uh what considerations uh what materials we may need uh in order to address their concerns so we Tred to make it clear in this amendment uh what we are looking
for so that we can be more objective and less subjective in our decision- making I would like to point out too that a lot of this language was included in the MBTA Community zoning that passed in December of 2023 including all of these
design standards so we uh understand that there's some changes that have been suggested and whether we think that they're easy enough to digest tonight I will leave to the body but we do hope that uh you will give consideration to
what we're trying to accomplish thank you thank you ma'am does anyone else wish to speak to the motion to amend um seeing none um so a couple things uh we'll go to a vote on the motion to amend by the way um I wanted
to remind everyone uh with our electronic voting um we do have a way to go uh display the vote vote by member if seven members stand up and and if you can make sure I get you get my attention stand up and I can count seven people
will stop and we'll scroll through the whole um list of votes you can see how everyone voted we don't do it every on every vote because it would be timec consuming but if someone wants to know in real time we can we can do that so since this is a motion to amend not the
actual zoning article the motion to amend only requires a majority vote before I do that though we have the opinion of the planning board because you made it warrant committee do you have an opinion now on this um motion to an amend thank you Mr moderator Tom Caldwell town meeting member Precinct
six and chair of your warrant committee uh the warrant committee uh has has voted on this and asked that you accept the amendments to the motion uh the warrant committee appreciates the collaborative effort of the planning board the speakers bringing forward the
Amendments and our committee that worked very closely with the planning board I I also uh agree with one of the speakers here this is a complicated article the warrant committee while we have lawyers and actuaries and CEOs we are not
Municipal land use attorneys uh or have lots of experience uh in that realm we uh spent an entire evening with the planning board and had our own independent review and discussion concerning this um I'd agree again with
member Chas it is complicated and the warrant committee has seen this a little longer than the planning board uh than this body has however uh based upon our time with this and in speaking with the planning board and listening to everyone here tonight we do believe this is the
best product put forward it's offers protection to applicants of this new law by right and also the neighbor uh we were very familiar in part of our discussion related to some of the going on in East Milton Square and our M main
business district concerning both Novara and the fruit Center and the citizen comments concerning that site plan review is instrumental to keeping the town safe and allowing uh our elected members of the planning board to have some say um when um development is
occurring specifically with restaurants and bars and other establishments um now the town is changing a bit as we see from our previous articles allowing new liquor licenses we believe there will be an expansion uh not a great one but an expansion of the commercial base town
and the site plan does provide reasonable guidance um for us so for those reasons the reasons stated by the planning board and two of our speakers here who offered amendments uh the warrant committee asks that you you accept the Amendments uh and pass this
article as written on the screen thank you thank you uh with that we'll proceed to the vote on the motion to amend all in favor of the motion to amend please signify by pressing one for yes two for no three for abstain again majority vote on the
motion to amend for the motion to amend passes by a vote of 177 to 35 three extensions so now we return back to uh voting on this amended article you see
before you which requires a 2third vote because we're modifying zoning bylaws at this point does anyone want to speak to um this article as amended m odono i revive my motion to refer the me
the bylaw back to the planning board for further study sorry you said you would like to refer it back yes yes okay is there a second I make that motion okay motion made and seconded does anyone want to speak to the motion to refer this back to the planning board for
further study Mr Mullins Peter Mullen Precinct 2 um I think it's fair to say that it may be that the planning board and the warrant committee um are familiar with the changes that have just been made none of
us are um there's been no way that any member can read this in Contex see if they agree with these changes the next town meeting is going to be in about 2 and A2 months um I think we can refer this back bring it back then and do it uh the right way
thank you thank you sir uh does before I miss Hall um just a second does anyone else want to speak because you've had a number of uh discuss points here anyone else want to speak to the motion to refer yes Mr cachell Anthony chello Precinct 4 uh town meeting member um this is sort of
related to a motion to refer back and not maybe it's sort of to the substance of the article because but I think it's relevant it's it's something certainly I want to have a better sense of and others may you know I I just as from a
practical perspective if I want to put an Adu in my house uh whether it's for my parents or something like that I mean some people may want to put a detached one back by
the pool for K Kalin but I but you know just take the example of somebody who has a a a home in a property that could easily uh support making an apartment in the house or uh something over the
garage or something like that how long is this process going to take what's it going to cost the homeowner to go through this process to be able to move their parents into an apartment what is the process because this site plan
review is covering a lot of different things and is it the same process for that as as it is for somebody that's putting in something that's more substantial potentially uh um so I'm interested in answer to that and I if I
and I think that could affect some how some people uh respond to the motion refer back so two questions sir how long would the site plan review take for a homeowner and what's the cost to the homeowner thank thank you Miss Hall you recognized yes so when
we get to the ad Adu article this will be addressed we site plan approval cannot be used when you're doing an Adu within your house it's only an addition or a separate detached unit so just for everybody to know
that's the site plan review is appropriate with for adus but it's very the the site plan review covers a lot of different aspects in the Adu language it clarifies when when it when site plan
review can be um utilized so that's just that's a separate um issue but um we as a planning board would accept the motion to uh defer back we want this to be something that the um that town meeting
unanimously approves and if folks don't feel like that they have time to review all of these um um amendments we we um we will accept that motion to refer back and bring it back in May so everyone has a chance to read [Applause]
it does anyone else wish to speak to the motion to refer before I go ask the warrant committee for their opinion yes ma'am Miss Felton you're recognized thank you Mr moderator Deborah Felton town meeting member close the mic please Deborah Felton town
meeting member of Precinct 2 so it says on the um first page of article 10 it says uh the following activities in use require site plan approval and that's B
small B1 says and adus so are adus does this apply to adus or not thank you thank you yes Miss Hall yes when it's an addition or when it's a
detached unit only so not within this the original property um Miss Hall perhaps you could clarify I think there's members have some questions about that Mr melow you're you're recognized thank you uh uh Mr moderator
town meeting first of all I want to say that the scope and this is one of the things that we we discussed briefly with the mlu the scope of um site plan review for adus is the subject of ongoing evolving discussions the Adu recently
promulgated Adu regs do contemplate that um you know subject to certain limitations you can subject adus to site plan review you the conditions have to be um reasonable and uh you know with clear and objective
standards and the like um the site plan review bylaw that's before the the meeting um body does at least as as I read it applied to adus uh but I think uh you as a practical matter I don't
want to speak for anybody but in so far as uh Miss Hall just um stated if I understood correctly that the planting board was amendable to the motion to refer back for further study I think it's it's an academic discussion respectfully um you know but I'm happy
to address if anyone has any questions about the scope of site plan review as it pertains to uh accessory dwelling units but I think for purposes of this discussion um if if everyone's amendable to the concept of of referring it back to the planning board for further study
um it's not something that we need to belabor for for now respectfully um Mr mric views to speak to the motion to refer without getting into all the substance of the article thank you thank you Mr moderator
Joe MRI Precinct one uh yes I would just want to see this referred back at this point I think many members in the audience are hopelessly confused about what has happened and we would all benefit very nicely for reconsideration of the next meeting so thank you very much thank you
sir uh Mr Mullins you're about to rise Peter Mullen Precinct to I think what I'm raising is a point of order the planning board is the board that submitted this article to the town meeting they now say that they're willing to send it back review it and
bring it back in May I don't think there's anything to vote on if they are withdrawing the article that they submitted I think there's nothing for the body to vote on and we should move on to the next article well good point um our bylaws actually um have a
specific Clause that say we must act on all the articles that are in the warrant and I see a thumbs up from my predecessor Mr Walsh so we're not able to withdraw an article the citizens expect us to take some type of action now with that uh if anyone wants to
speak to the motion to refer otherwise I'll go to the warrant committee I see none we'll go to the warrant committee for their U opinion thank you Mr moderator Tom Caldwell town meeting member Precinct 6 and chair of your warrant committee uh while the
warrant committee uh discussed this matter over many nights uh the conversation was very similar to some cited here in the body it is a very long complicated article um we obviously in speaking with Town Council in the
planning board and amongst ourselves we felt very confident in the product however being sensitive to the needs of this body the complexities of the language and the length the warrant committee is asking that you uh that we join in the planning board and ask that the matter be sent back for further
study okay with that a motion to refer is only requires a majority vote go to the vote all those in favor of the motion to refer back to the planning board please signify by pressing one for yes two for
no three for obain where uh the motion refer carries voted 202 to 10 to to abstain very well uh with that we'll go to article 11 you also have a green sheet um should have a green sheet
in your hand from article 11 that was available up in the table we'll put that green sheet up um with the Green Sheet I think uh something similar has happened uh we've had some uh changes that came in I Believe by the uh um from the
planning board and uh by the warrant committee so that's why they've been approved as a Green Sheet uh the warrant committee doesn't need to make any comments to this uh I think I'll start with uh uh M Hall to recognize you about this Adu article Meredith Hall chair of the
planning board Tom meeting member Precinct 3 this will be much simpler I promise um so we after we um drafted our original um Adu article the um hlc actually came out with their regulations
so we were then able to send our article to which thanks to Peter was sent it to um the municipal law unit to review when they reviewed it they came back with some some um very minor things and we thought we rather address it now so
everything would be clean going through to the AG first thing um because we had to draft this really in um in records speed because the um the Adu was was going to be passed before the regulations were finalized the um so
when we put in in the first two items the amendments are in the definition section it's a small tweaking of language because we took we copy and P we took from the website the State website their definitions and then at some point they tweaked some of their
wording so we just wanted our definitions for lot and single family dwelling to match exactly so those two items um have very slight amendments on those um can you I'm
sorry oh can you back up yeah also could we uh well I was going to get there as soon as our cler is back it's in the definition section yes you can find it this B could we go to 150% please thank you under dwelling unit this is exactly
what the state provides um the Department of Housing so we wanted that to be consistent let's I think she has to make some yeah slight edit and we're back there that was your point on lot right
okay and then the principal dwelling so this is just to be consistent are there any other changes you wish to highlight for the body um those so one one change um is referring to um the minimum parking um
which is under c um item nine so we had so if it is outside of a half mile of a um of a Transit area um you can require one parking space you
cannot require more than one parking space um in a homeowner with an Adu could put as many parking spaces as they want but we can only require one so this language um one of the comments that came back from mlu was uh to take out a
minimum because that may look confusing and it may look like we would want that we would be requiring more than one unit so we we just wanted to take that out so there's no confusion so nine would you say one parking space shall be provided for each
Adu and with there any other changes ma'am okay and then yeah if you scroll down um design standards um keep going y this was just the green line I think it
was it then was there one other or was it yeah could you go up to C3 we might have missed one there oh yes right the sentence right here um if this was just to confirm language um that we had put in there was a
comment um where we we had written no Adu shall be separated from the principal dwelling unit through condominium conversion or be held in separate ownership from the principal dwelling and each Adu shall remain accessory to the principal dwelling so
that was language that um mlu just wanted us to to reiterate and reconfirm so those are the only changes amend thank you proposed amendments now I'll ask ask the same question these are um changes you the
planning board has voted on and approved correct um Mr Caldwell just briefly did the warrant committee vote on these changes before town meeting tonight Tom Caldwell town meeting member Precinct six and chair of the warrant committee we have not yet voted on this
Mr moderator we're in that process now okay so that makes this an amendment on the floor by the planning board um duly made is there a second I hear a second okay um by the way uh some may may be asking how do we
get here um with all these amendments the reason is um any one of you are authorized to go make uh amendments um minor amendments from the floor or in the case of Mr Furs he um submitted to me some a number of
amendments uh within the timeline I had a chance to rule on them in scope before the meeting started uh we had a chance to share those with the the planning board they were able to collaborate on uh coming up with an approach so whether it was one Amendment or eight amendments
that's within the right of any of you of members to do that it's up to you to decide if those are too many or too few but the they followed the process to get to where we are now now with these items that came in from uh the municipal law unit we received those in on Friday our
attorney reviewed those reviewed those with me um I said they're clearly in scope they reviewed those with the planning board they couldn't get all of those through the warrant committee before tonight so the planning board was trying to comply with the recommendations of the municipal law unit so that's how we got to this motion
to amend right now as opposed to having it go through the full warrant committee process just to explain where we are right now I hope that's clear yes Mr mow thank you Mr moderator uh members of town meeting I just just to be crystal clear I it's probably um obvious but
just so there's no confusion these changes weren't uh made by the municipal law unit they were made by By Me based on my discussions with Margaret Hurley who um senior I think her title is senior housing senior Council on housing
and Municipal law something like that um within the AG's office formerly the head of the municipal law unit but anyway so I just to be clear these were changes that I suggested based on my conversations with her so you consulted you made some changes brought them to the planning board and now they've adopted them exactly I just wanted to be
clear um that no one had formed the impression that the uh that Margaret or the municipal law unit actually gave us this language they flagged these issues I just I formulated language based on those conversations thank you thanks it's comforting to know that our
attorney is on a firstname basis with someone of the attorneys General's office so um I see Mr Furs uh uh you are wishing to speak to this motion to amend not to amend not to amend okay yes
ma'am Lori Stillman Precinct 2 I have a question for the moderator for a moment um did you mention that we could offer um a minor Amendment on the floor or do you have a requirement that they be pre-approved um if you have some
language you'd like to propose for example small friendly to the planning board we could look at that that's great thank you um so my question to the planning board um I'd like to refer to page four under design
standards um number seven where it reads that energy efficient features and sustainable materials are encouraged but not required I'd like to understand you're
thinking about why you wouldn't require some energy efficient and sustainable um features in in building to me it feels like we certainly uh know about enough of the environmental challenges that we are facing and not to
take advantage of this now like a missed opportunity um and in addition you know for many people with adus um they're looking to adus because it's a more affordable option for them and by
offering um you know energy efficient and sustainable features we could potentially be making adus um more affordable for more people so um uh I guess maybe I'll just ask that
question first and then I have a little friendly Amendment if if it makes sense thank you ma'am uh and Miss Hall you're recognized good evening Meredith Hall chair of the board um great question because that was part of our discussion
um we again came back to what we can what we can require of an Adu under again like what what can we require for a homeowner we can really only require that a home owner puts in what is in the building code and is what is in the
stretch energy codes so we can't mandate that as wonderful as it would be to say you have to have solar you have to do certain things that's not something we can mandate but we at least wanted to encourage that because we do believe in um encouraging the sustainabil uh
principles so okay then I won't um offer a friendly amendment in that regard because it doesn't look like it would hold water um but I do have another possible um friendly amendment that I'd like to offer um and it reads as follows and then I'd like to explain the
rationale um it it's would be uh a number eight and it would say it is recommended that radon resistant construction techniques for new construction will be incorporated into the design of the
Adu and again we're saying it is recommended it is not mandatory and I'd like to um say why I'm I'm recommending that um rad is an invisible radioactive gas um it is
undetectable by those of us living in those dwelling units unless um we test ridon with a um testing kit um raidon is the number one cause of lung cancer for
nonsmokers and Milton um has high radon rates um a number of jurisdictions around the country that have high radon rates um incorporate radon resistant
construction techniques um into their their standards um it costs very little to do and it prevents people from having to mitigate radon later on um the Massachusetts Department of Public
Health in January did its first review of um the existence of radon in different communities and in Massachusetts I mean in Milton they found that one in two households had higher than recommended ridon rates and
one in five houses had very high rate on rates this could help um to mitigate that problem by taking a preventive step again it wouldn't be required but it wouldn't be it wouldn't hurt to put that language um in there so I would like to
recommend that is a friendly Amendment and if it's not accepted to at least um encourage any uh new adus to incorporate um those mitigation procedures thank
you thank you ma'am so first off um we don't need a second on a friendly Amendment which is why I didn't ask um could you hand the language to the planning board so they can see exactly what you've uh suggested Miss Hall you recognized thank you the planning board would accept that
friendly Amendment yes okay included so can you can hand that to the war committee clerk since we've now modified this amendment so the the body can see what
the change is while we're doing that does anyone else wish to speak to the motion to amend otherwise we'll wait for Miss Bosworth to put this up so you can see it and then we'll ask uh since the the planning board has accepted we'll ask
the warrant committee for their opinion on the friendly Amendment for Miss dilman did we get that language right up there I'm looking around for Miss dman to see if we got the language right ah there yes thumbs up very
good um okay we'll end debate on that warrant committee if you could take a vote on your opinion on the friendly yes ma'am do you have a question or a point of order I have a question a question to me on directed to you diano agustino
Precinct 8 since I'm knowledgeable on this and I agree um Milton is very high in Ron um it's called radon mitigation not radon resistant techniques that's the technical construction term so maybe
you could check with the building department or something to get the right termin Tech ology in there well we're making law here so um I I can't so miss Stillman perhaps you
offered this uh Amendment that's friendly perhaps you could give your reason why you chose this language um there's a difference between doing radon mitigation and what I am suggesting as incorporating radon
resistant techniques radon resistant techniques is an official term it's a preventive way of addressing radon mitigation the definition of mitigation is to get rid of a problem already this is a preventive uh precaution and it is
the correct terminology I looked it up and I spoke with the Mass Department of Public Health radons program thank you thank you ma'am uh War committee do you have an opinion thank you Mr moderator Tom cwell town meeting member Precinct six and
chair of your warrant committee the warrant committee uh ask the body accept the Amendments as written okay so um with that I don't see anyone coming down for the motion to amend as presented by the planning board
and accepted by uh and confirmed by the war committee and and amended with a friendly Amendment so again a motion to amend only requires a majority vote yeah yes yes Tom Caldwell again uh town meeting member Precinct six and chair of your
warrant committee the warrant committee would like to point out a scrivener's error and uh not trying to make things more difficult here but uh we we've just had a printed warrant and we have green sheets obious that reflect the Amendments that we're talking about here
on um if I may Mr moderator in section c General conditions and requirements and go down to paragraph 7 on your Green Sheet it indicates a six Monon time period on on the matter in the on the
article in the warrant and on the screen here it's a 12 month so uh the warrant committee wanted to point that out to you um uh and clarify that it is a 12-month and the six was a scrier
error so you're saying this document as presented here was uh approved by the warrant committee before tonight's meeting correct okay so you cor so you corrected what was voted on at a prior
meeting in the Green Sheet prior to tonight and then presented that as your modified motion before the body with 12 months no Mr moderator the the this this what I'm trying to say if I'm not being articulate is is the six month period on
the Green Sheet was never considered by the warrant committee it was 12 months from the uh the from the moment the article was presented to us and it was reviewed so I'm just we are as the warrant committee is pointing out to the
body that what is printed on the Green Sheet is incorrect and was never considered and we don't want to float the idea that that that was part of any discussions by the warrant committee okay I stand corrected so what's printed on the screen is what the warrant committee voted on and approved the 12 months yes in conjunction with the
planning board thank you okay with that we'll now go to the motion to amend we could put up the poll again majority vote all those in favor the motion to amend one for yes two for no three for
abstain for uh the motion to amend passes by votes of 207 to 71 abstained now we'll return back to this article as amended and Mr F I think you were sitting first on this would you like to speak Brian fur Precinct 10
um I have one major concern with this article and a few smaller ones I'm going to tell you what they are then I'm going to make a motion to send it back because I don't want to get into what we were just in a few minutes ago and then if you vote to not send it back I'm going to get up and make some amendments
uh my major issue with this is with Section E2 uh and this hopefully addresses some of the question that one of the previous speakers asked about how long it would take to add an Adu to your property uh it says creation of an Adu in an expansion of an existing principal
dwelling or an attached accessory structure shall require site plan approval by the planning board in compliance with the provision of this section based on Massachusetts state law now an Adu is a byright use if you want to add a structure to your property that meets with all of the zoning regulations
and it happens to have an Adu in it I don't understand why it has to go back for site plan review if it does have to go back for site plan review if you want to put an addition on your house or put a garage next to your house with an apartment over it for your child or your
spouse or your parent or whoever um you can refer back to what will probably be our new site plan guidelines in May from everything I just heard there are at least a through P that you need to get through and it's probably a
through Q which is the P point that basically gives the planning board any discretion that they want to ask for anything there's also a number of requirements including establishing where your dumpster is going to go having topography done for your property and it takes six months at least or four
months excuse me 120 days if it was as was proposed to be revised it's a long process and it will cost thousands of dollars to get a byright use in a potentially byright structure through a site plan approval I don't understand why we're doing that so that is a I would I don't
think we should include that uh and I think we should send it back for further study for discussion about that because I it's it's a huge problem for me that that's in here the other the other one I have a concern about is the 12 months that was just discussed I understand that people are concerned about Airbnb
and vbo um but there 12 months is a long time if you wanted to rent to a student going to Curry College if you wanted to rent to a traveling nurse you would not be able to do that under this bylaw it limits it to 12 months as a minimum rental period and the third is just a
minor Point uh which is that in section sorry I've gotten conf I've gotten into two different bylaws now um section c number nine it's on the parking that we discussed a little while
ago um in the definition section we Define a transit station subway station Commuter Rail station Ferry Terminal or bus station uh in section N9 rather than use the definition of transit station we again say bus station Commuter Rail
station or Trolley Stop we neglect to put in Commuter Rail station or Ferry Terminal and we add Trolley Stop not going to wonder why we're doing that but I have some ideas um so in any case I would suggest that we use the definition
or we just use the defined term down there as opposed to having a new definition uh so in section 9 I would be looking to add uh more than 0.5 miles from a transit station all that said uh based on what just happened a little
while ago I'm going to make a motion that we send this back further study to be reconsidered for May and I'll be back in a few minutes if that doesn't pass motion is made and seconded on a motion to refer now some speakers have come down I think you wanted to talk
to not the motion to refer now but about the article itself right sir you wanted to speak to the motion to refer I I will have to so Andre Ling Precinct 8 and I had some concerns with the article that I think could be addressed by sending it
back um on the section e it says that it would require site plan review process and in section f it talks about filing fees but it doesn't Define the amounts and I am concerned that both these things are put in place not well defined
to actually prevent adus in our town so I hope we can address them thank you thank you um Mr Caldwell on the motion to refer I'm sorry I'm the shouldn't have called you that so
sir yeah uh Tom Callahan pring for call yes Callahan thank um so pretty much agree with everything Brian just said um so I i' would be in favor of sending this back just furthermore on this it's my
understanding and I'm reading from the hlc regs that we cannot require of an Adu something we don't require of a single family single families do not need site plan
review and it's right here in hlc's regulations that we can't put an additional restriction on an Adu site plan review oh yep little closer to the mic please my wife told me I was yelling
last night so I I trying to modu uh so from hlc regulations that as I read it and I'm not a lawyer but it says that we cannot put an additional restriction that we don't also res apply
to single family homes if you're building a single family home from scratch in Milton we do not require site plan review um but we would under Adu so for that reason and all the other reasons I support sending this
back thank you does anyone else wish to speak to the motion to refer uh seeing none a motion to refer is a majority vote we'll put up the poll I'm sorry I didn't check with the uh do we planning board what's your
opinion sorry jumped ahead thank you so as Peter Melo has explained um site plan approval is is allowed under um for an Adu um one of the things that I meant to mention is the site plan approval one of the things
that it's utilized with is um anything that falls under the do Amendment for those of you who um some may know some may not but a Dober amendment is um would be an example a preschool that was built like The Goddard School um where the huset club was the Garder school um
those are do amendments a church would be a do amendment that when we had the structure on Robins that was some people were very concerned about we really could not reject that but we could put approvals on that and that was subject to site plan review the adus have been
classified under the do Amendment and so for that reason site plan review is allowed um as again Peter Melo um has stated what we have in the site plan review when you all go back and look at it again is waivers so because it's in
in there is because site plan review has certain um things that we're looking for it doesn't mean that everything will be utilized um for specifically in Adu site what site plan review is is helpful with
is when somebody's putting a structure a new structure in their backyard which is which is um you know it most likely a residential neighborhood with neighbors it is helpful sometimes to for to come the board and say well have you thought
about this is this something that you might consider doing because this would be helpful this would be um less detrimental to a neighbor um this is um just something that would be a guiding tool but not necessarily everything would have be implemented and I would
expect process to be incredibly um Swift with with any adus that came before us so um that is the 10mon the 12mth I'm sorry so we were looking um because um this is part of the Adu um regulations are it does not need to be
owner occupied um we were thinking of what we would want to be consistent with when you go to U any of the rental properties in town um would all ask you to sign a 12-month lease when you go through looking at um MLS that is what
is typical um this is something that also that um hlc it has not been finalized we don't have final regulations on they have said you cannot have shortterm but it has not been defined and we're still looking and there may be changes on what is allowed
by municipalities so this um is a placeholder it can always be amended but and it's always something that a landlord can also wave they can also put in in a lease term that um that they would be able to be let out of their lease at an earlier time so this was
just a um a placeholder on this and I think that maybe all the question was that other questions that I didn't answer would you have an opinion on the motion to refer um I would have to ask board on
that yeah did you want did you have oh the definitely the transit yes so um we did have a conversation around the definition of the transit and people preferred the trolley stop with was that answer on that um
and um ma'am does the planning board have an opinion on the motion to refer um the planning board would not accept that motion we would like to see this passed um again um we have the regulation went into effect already this
is um something that we can always amend there's changes um Peter Melo has as he has described um this is very fluid um all of this is happening there's a lot of things that have not been finalized but I think it's better that we have something in place um that we can amend
rather than not having anything at all and exposing so um we would like to have a vote on this thank you and warrant committee yeah we're we done with debate just on the motion to refer and then
we'll come back Tom Caldwell Tomy member Precinct six and chair of the warrant committee the warrant committee has voted on this and uh respectfully requests that you vote no on the motion to send back um not to go through each and every one but for the reasons articulated by the chair of the planning
board uh those are the reasons we give uh this um L has been in effect for approximately 21 days um as indicated by the chair uh this is a fluid process this is certainly go back and be amended we did have a very vigorous debate
regarding the rental period and uh eventually uh decided to um to agree on the 12month uh period this could uh and we the main reason that we agreed with the 12 months uh obviously this is up to landlords uh but uh for continued
continuity in our neighborhoods um but those are the reasons as to what was pointed out as to the 12 month but again uh we reiterate for the reasons that stated by the planning board that you vote no and the motion is send back okay now we'll go to the uh vote on
the yes ma'am yeah I think we'll proceed with the vote at this point okay um if uh we have the poll up again majority vote all those in favor of the motion to refer this back to the planning board for further study
one for yes two for no three for back uh the motion to refer back uh carries a vote of 131 to 82 with one abstention Okay so we've uh closed out uh article um 11 now with a motion to refer
back uh with that we'll go to article 12 article 12 also has Green Sheet again you should have picked one up um it is recommended in the green sheet that the town vote to refer the article back to the select
board for further study again it's a green sheet it was approved by the warrant committee with that uh recommendation does anyone wish to speak to this um article to refer back for further stud yes thank you Aaron Bradley select board board member to meeting member Precinct
4 um the select board voted earlier today and we'd like for this to be referred back easy peasy brief discussion does anyone else wish to speak to the motion to refer back would anyone mind if I took uh a Voice
vote go for it in the interest of time all in favor motion refer this article back to the plan of the select board for further study please signify by saying I I I think I heard um oppose no it's unanimous thank
you I we'll go to Article 13 another Green Sheet if everyone has the green sheet on 13 this is light trespassed however there has been uh a change and I think I'll go to Ms Bradley yes
for an explanation now I'll read the recommendation it was recommended that the town vote to refer the article back to the select board for further study that's just a recommendation uh and now we'll have Miss Bradley speak to what would you like to speak to Miss Bradley Article 13 and the we are going to the
select board voted earlier today to propose an amendment okay we'll tell you what since we have a motion to refer on the floor I uh nope not for 12 12 12 can go away sorry I'm on 13 I think right yep
so 13 oh yes sorry yes yes so 13 we have a motion on the floor by the warant committee to refer it back but would you like to say that is the opinion of the select board you would vote against that because you want to take that vote pass
this now is that it we didn't sweet baby Jesus we didn't um we didn't um take that voted yes yes we voted yes with one AB exstension so yes we do want to that's what I
said we don't got our ducks in a row either um we we did not vote on referring it back we voted on the amendment that was brought forward so you would like the is the opinion of the select board or the vote of the select board to recommend to the body to vote
no correct on referring back because the select board does want to then discuss the article for passage tonight is that correct correct with the amendment yes and then you want to amend your language correct okay we'll get to the amendment in a moment okay thank you yes Mr chello
yes sir matter you are correct about that so um so what you can do is uh let me think for a moment that would mean that we should be able to modify the article on the
floor select board I got you so slight difference um if the warrant committee had recommended a no vote then yes we'd be voting on the article as printed however they didn't do that they said send it back which is a different
motion that's why we're going to First Act on sending it back or not so um it sounds like the select board has said recommends a no vote on the motion to refer correct correct okay does anyone we already know what the warrant
committee thinks does anyone else wish to speak to the motion to refer this back Peter Mullen Precinct 2 I'd like to hear what the select board wants to change in this before we decide whether to send it back or not very good
question select board I would love to address that can I Mr moderator pleas please do ma'am okay great so there was some um there was some concern and some confusion around parts of this um and first I just want
to say that that um this actually came to me when I was running for select board when we were fighting the LED billboard that was a prior that was trying to go up on Route 93 over by the marshlands so that's how I got involved
with this um you can unfortunately I'm not a big environmentalist I'm getting there um so this was not my ball of wax and I learn a lot of things um the only things that we're changing in Article 13 is if you go we gave it to the warrant
committee so if you want to put it on the screen right Mr Milano we're just working on the enforcement piece of this and the violations piece now I have to put my glasses on because I'm old so I can say that the enforcement piece there was some issues around the
process um we wanted to ensure that anybody who might have a light trespass had a had a valid and amount of time that they could rectify the situation so the way it works is that if you have a light trespass so if somebody shining
has a light on their house that's shining into my kid's bedroom and my kid can't sleep which means I can't sleep I can go to the select board and file a complaint you go to the select Board office you file the complaint and then the select board tells the the property owner um within 10 days of receiving
that that there has been a light trespass um filed on them that's in writing and then they during that they request any documentation or responses from the property owner that deems that the lighting is fine
within 45 days of receiving the original there's confusion within 45 days of receiving the original complaint the select board is to hold a meeting to review the um
yeah I think it's got to go this is huge okay um to review whether or not it actually is a light trespass the select board then will take the following things into consideration these are just some suggestions they can take in more
information if they would like um these are items that are found in the general law about what constitutes light nuisance which is about the same thing as light trespass um the lumens that are outlined down here I had no idea what a lumen was
until about 3 years ago um they are measured by a little fun measuring tool they're 29 $ on Amazon so they will not break the bank and basically these are the regular bound I don't want to say boundaries but the regular requirements
of our everyday lights so your porch light your sidewalk lights your pool lights your my Cafe lights that I have in the backyard all of those fall Within These parameters I will say that the 1300 under the security lights for lomin
um that is a massively high output um you look that up Google it's your best friend um and that's why we're requiring that that would be on a light sensor we're also saying that the select board would like for any of any
complaints to be to be calculated by that light measurer so that they could also take that into consideration when it comes to the violations um we added a portion that said that the if somebody is found to be in violation of this they have 30 days
to rectify the situation um and then after that the first day would be a warning the second day would be $50 and the following day would be $100 we did take out the piece that says the town shall have the right to bring a
civil action no civil actions um to enforce the provisions of this bylaw so we took all that out right there the other thing that was brought up to me um was that you know there
there's a lot of questions about a run on the select board and trust me we don't want everybody and their neighbor to come and visit us we actually think that we are all neighbors here and that most of the time these things can be worked out among our neighbors but every once in a while things can't be worked out every once in a while we go to our
neighbors we talk to them at length and it still doesn't work right now there is no mechanism in our town for anybody to take any any um measures on this the only thing that somebody could do is actually take someone to court for for
light nuisance um which would be an attorney which I'll be one soon so you can hire me um so you'd need an attorney you'd need to go to court it would be a process and it's even more adversarial than just having it dealt with um by the select board so those were the changes
we made on this um this was really came about because folks wanted to be able to have a remedy for anything that was happening within their neighborhoods um you know and if we had that billboard go up on 93 and was shining in somebody's window they could absolutely file a
light trespass on that so those are the changes I made thank you we made thank you for putting this up there um Mr moderator I don't know what the next step is so I'm turning to you okay just I want to maybe summarize I think
we had some conversations last week at that point the select board supported motion to refer back I think you saw some if you added some language on enforcement then the select board think thinks you've now improved this motion so it's worthy of appearing before the body correct and that's why you're
saying vote no on refer back so you can bring this before the body and we can vote on it corre is that the summary of what happened that is correct Mr M okay thank you so I'm I'm clear all right does anyone wish to speak to the motion to refer Mr Kelly you're sitting down here but for something
else okay um yes sir thank you Mr moderator Sean F Precinct 9 town meeting member um I want to speak to the enforcement component of this um it's typical if our members look at the agenda of any select
board meeting the agenda items are anywhere from 25 to 35 items uh the select board works enormously hard I think the enforcement for something like this especially with the level of detail that's being considered
for enforcement lumens is not select board language lumens angle of light fixtures glare that is much more of a building department type of uh enforcement I I think it's improper to
have a select board enforcing something of this nature it just doesn't make good sense to me for the for really primarily that it's just not there it's it's not really their purview that type of um uh that type of assessment um and I think
they're extremely busy doing much better things for the town than um observing lights and whether or not they meet or don't meet this uh bylaw thank you sir does anyone else wish to speak to the motion to
refer yes ma'am good even good evening Stoddard uh town meeting member Precinct 3 if you could get close to the mic or perhaps you might be able to pull it up and adjust it there's a little trigger handle got better um good evening Ellen Stoddard
town meeting member Precinct 3 um I wanted to thank the select board for making these um amendments that have brought a lot more clarity to the enforcement piece of this article um and I wanted to speak um just as my own uh
person getting more familiar with light trespass I really became familiar with this probably in around 2022 um just driving around town noticing some properties that had excessive lighting and I wondered who I could talk to um to to just to clarify
what the process was um in order to file some sort of complaint and I found out that we don't have um a residential lighting ordinance in town and so I couldn't do anything um but there was the select board was discussing it at the time but it didn't go anywhere so
here we are now um and I find it interesting that we have uh fencing regulations on the town that say all fencing must be installed on your property but we don't have a regulation that says lighting that you put on your property has to stay on your property um
I also have been hearing a lot tonight about ways to reduce nuisance and disruption to our neighbors and I also noticed language in art article 10 tonight on page 31 about outdoor lighting um in the site design standards
that says uh light levels shall not exceed the maximum design guidelines defined by um iesna which is an engineering society and she'll provide illumination necessary for safety and convenience while preventing glare and overspill
onto adjoining properties and reducing the amount of Sky glow um and light fixtures shall be dark sky compliant and meet the international dark sky certifications so it seems like there's that's the direction that we want to be heading um and we have an opportunity
tonight to vote Yes um and get this light trespass ordinance in place thank you thank you ma'am sir yes if anybody else wishes to speak if you could come on down I'll try to get a list and then we'll we'll go
yes sir you recogniz mark roner Precinct 7 um I agree with Mr fahe very strongly I don't think it's within the select board's purview I don't know if uh speaker or select board chair Wells or Miss must wants to Jack B Nimble driving around time with Illuminating illuminor
measuring uh device the other thing I think that should go back to referral on this is that different parts of how do you deal with different parts of town I live in East Milton I can almost touch my Nextdoor neighbor's house out of my window uh on the other side of town
where there's much more land and stuff it's a totally different thing so in our neighborhoods my my front yard's about twice the size of that that table right there the warrant committee table my backyard's maybe three times that size we're all kind of on top of each other and we don't want people every 15
minutes using this if you have a a nasty neighbor to drive everybody else insane I think it needs to go back for further study I think the select board is not the right body to be uh administrating this and I would definitely want to refer it back thank you thank you sir Mr moderator if I may
there are other Provisions in here um that actually um talk about this it's not just if somebody's I mean my neighbor's front lights are extremely bright but they're not keeping me awake they're not interfering with my
um with my enjoyment of my house so you look back and you read the definitions it actually spells out a lot lot of what this would constitute so the public Hazard or nuisance it means that a light that that actually causes harm to you
and light pollution is a thing like it's not it really is it is a problem it is a problem that many small towns and I still consider us a small town are having um this is not just your light is too bright there has to actually be a reason why here and that's why that's
why we even put in more requirements just to make sure that that was outlined so people wouldn't just be upset and running around with these like the previous speaker commented thank you ma'am does anyone else wish to speak the
motion to refer okay the warrant committee has said uh they've asked um that one if we could take a break they'd like to take 5 minutes and consult privately because this they've just received this and they believe it's a lot and they want to have a little discussion around it so why we
take uh a break I've got uh we have a clock in the room can anyone read what that clock says over there 9:42 let's be back at uh about 9 55 warrant committee you need 10
minutes five minutes five minutes okay we'll be back at uh 950 she's going to kill me I was so busy question are um I think we're going to get just all right
Mr calwell do you have an opinion of the warrant committee okay and I appreciate your help Mr calwell the of the warrant committee you're recognized for the war committee's opinion on confirming your recommendation to refer back hi hello town
meeting uh I Tom Caldwell town meeting member Precinct 6 and chair of your warning committee and I I know it's getting late um we reviewed these amend we reviewed the Amendments as proposed by the select board we had um a very
good discussion and I know you've all read our comment which was very long um in detail but it it was very uh I I I know that you read our comments and it is very long and detailed like some of our articles here tonight but after
speaking with a select board member Bradley the chair and the committee uh the warrant committee is standing uh standing on sending it back for further study and I uh select board member
Bradley will comment on that after there are a few little small things that we mentioned in a comment I'm not getting into them I don't think we need to but the biggest issue that the warrant committee had with us it's it's not the idea of the article or what
it's trying to accomplish we we agree that you know there are some problems in town that need to be addressed um however what the warrant committee wanted to see was a a better public
process and allow people from the town um houses of worship schools commercial businesses residents uh residents citizens to to speak as to this and how it affects them and what they'd like to see and if there's any way we can make
it better we should but the the public process was our sticking point and that's why we're asking to send it back we noted in our comment that the planning board has a public process we are not assigning work nor can we to any one
committee or board um but this this issue has come up in the past some of you may remember maybe like 10 years ago we the warrant committee likes this and likes the idea but if we think like some of the other articles we've seen tonight this needs a little more work and we ask
that you send it back for further study thank you um Miss Bradley you recognized thank you Mr moderator Aaron Bradley select board member town meeting member Precinct 4A um we agree um with the warrant committee we're asking that
it be sent back I I'm also going to formally ask my colleagues that we come up with a plan to vet some of these things that come before us there's been a lot of things that have come to the select board especially during this special town meeting that really have
not been vetted um by us and we don't believe that it's the warrant committees um it's not their their place to do it our work for us where we should beting things as well and allowing all of our neighbors to speak on things so I was just talking about this with a colleague
of mine last night um after the one of our articles um and so I just want to say that that's something that I'm committed to do with the time that I'm I'm left here um is to try and come up with the plan for us to start vetting these things better so it's not this
process um at 1015 at night or 10:00 at night so please vote to send it back we thank you and um have a good night with that I'll take a gamble on another uh Voice vote all in favor of referring this back to the select board
for further study please signify by saying I I oppose no it's unanimous thank you we'll go to article 14 um yes sir Darnell Turner precent one I Rise to
move that we um move to vote on article 7 that we passed for last night so that it's $1.5 million um deal for schools and I we do that before we move on to next votes because we have members of
the board here as well as um we might lose people if we take this into Thursday okay okay we have motion to U Move um article 7 from 15 to right now right now okay moved and seconded uh
it's a procedural vote uh I'll take a quick Voice vote all in favor of discussing article 7 now instead of after 15 please signify by saying I I oppose no no I declare uh the motion carries we'll now pick up uh article
7 with that let me go back to article 7 you'll find article 7 on page 23 uh I won't read the whole thing but recommended that the town of Milton appropriate the amount of $1,500,000 for the purpose of paying cost of a feasibility study of an elementary or middle school project for
the Cunningham School 44 EDG Hill Road Milton Mass um with that we'll start with uh Mr oor who I think is here who's the chairman of the school building committee Mr oror you recognized there we
go thank you Mr moderator uh sha o roor uh town meeting member prain a chair the school building committee um if you get the mic a little closer please your tall guy there we go yeah sorry about that
um could you go to our next slide please sorry um so in December of this year the town was uh sent a letter by the mass School building authority and with that letter they invited the town and the district into what they call their core
program which is for the construction of a new school uh prior to that the msva actually visited the kic Cunningham School School uh and were Guided by the principls uh principal reden principal conanan uh members of the select board were with us members of the school
committee the superintendent and members of the school building committee based on that uh I think that highly influenced their um review of our statement of interest in April they actually were able to see uh some of the conditions that the students uh experienced the teachers experience and
this was the first time in all the times that we've submitted that they've actually come to the schools so so um with that what it does is in May it opens us up into start uh the core program uh which is what you'll see is module one coming up the unique thing of
having a town meeting at this time right now allows us to get a head start on this process so uh next slide please so with msba they break down the way they construct schools design them and construct them into eight modules you see here where we're about to enter
is module one next slide please within each of these modules are essentially subcomponents that are there and with this town meeting what we're looking at doing is accomplishing two of those subcomponents one was Article six last night which was formation of the
school building committee and the one this for you now is for funding um while these steps look sequential in the process that's laid out here they're not you can do them in any order uh they just have longer durations as you kind of went through it next slide so
the ask for 1.5 million how do we come up with it msba publishes all their cost data I've said this a number of times and so what we did is we went through and researched it the cost data when you look in there is historical so you can't go directly off the numbers that are there you have to look at the
percentages and for the most part Architects are about a 1% of the construction cost and the owner's project manager is about half a percent so when we looked at that next slide please we looked at the construction cost that we were doing previously as
part of this project so the overall construction cost not the program cost was about 129 million the program cost as everyone knows was about 173 million but on that 129 million if you do one and a half% for it I'm not that good at
math was roughly about a 1.9 million ask for us we understand that we've already done a lot of this work we had previous funding allocated to us so for us we felt 1.5 million was a right number that we should be using so I'm just you know educating the body on how
we arrived at this number the key thing to remember is 45% of this cost is eligible for reimbursement so we're not asking for a full um 1.5 million over time we will get reimbursed what's shown there at 675,000 I got to work on my
math um next slide please so the key things I just want to close with that so people know um this is an authorization to issue debt this isn't a similar to the uh articles that were passed for the funding for uh Cunningham uh this is
similar to it um 45% of it is going to be reimbursed and the biggest thing with this whole project is time is money so the quicker we can progress through these modules the less expensive the overall project will be thank you thank you sir
[Applause] does anyone wish to speak to this article yes sir Mr F I think there was someone running down in front of you if you wouldn't mind David Cornish Precinct 10 town
meeting member um I I can recognize how hard that the SBC has been working on on this plan for for five years and I was really pleased last night that the town voted to um create more classroom space to take care of the U current problem
with overcrowding my question for is for the select board and for the SBC I um I'm wondering um about long-term uh demographics and whether the town has
commissioned an outside independent firm to or consultant to uh determine what what is the projected number of Milton School public school students over the next 10 to 15 years I I've read a a
recent demogra demographic um report that said that um this year the number of of high school graduates in this country is peing and that over the next decade and a half it's it's going to
decline um steadily and and um even as much as 177% here in the Northeast um so I'm just wondering if if if part of this million and a half could be uh spent on on on really getting a
firm figure of how many students we're going to be talking about over the next 10 and 15 years uh before we build this building thank you understood Mr Aurora could you speak to that question yep um so as part of the work with msba
uh them being essentially a state agency they have their own uh enrollment projections that they do uh we the the district uses nesda currently to do their enrollment projections the nezda enrollment projections don't show us going down to basically what our
capacity number needs to be it basically shows it flat um so this has come up on a number of occasions and um the reality is we're so overcrowded right now there's no room for error and those long-term projections from nzq for
studies that we've done at school building committee has shown them in the short term you know um accurate but in the long term very inaccurate and that's essentially how we've ended up where we are so um to answer the question the money that's being used the 1.5 million
as part of msva they they also do their own enrollment projections for that to confirm it thank you does that satisfy you Mr Cornish as an independent agency yeah thanks a lot thank you uh Mr fahe you're recognized and Mr F if you could also identify yourself when you speak as members of
the planning board as well because because of your exalted position so you're kind um thank you Mr moderator Shan fahe Precinct n town meeting member and a member of the planning board um a couple of questions for Shan and I I did mention them to him as I sat beside him
but if we could ask Sean to give us if he could expound a little bit on what a feasibility study would provide what would be included within it there are a words written in here um describing some of the components of it but it is 1.5 million so it's it's a substantial
amount of money this's a substantial amount of resources so what will we get for that that's question number one so if Sean could explain that in some detail for us I would appreciate that uh Second question um we mentioned that they visited Cunningham and Cott did
they visit all of the schools in Milton or did they visit only Cunningham and cicott and then my third question is as we read the comment from the warrant committee and and I I just want to understand the role of the msba board of directors because I'm just going to read
the last couple sentences here um and uh I just want to make sure I understand this really well after completion of the schematic design report the msba board of directors will be asked to approve a grant amount for the town and the project will be submitted to the town
meeting and to voters for approval I'd like to understand what that means what role does the msba board of directors have once these reports do they have an opportunity to influence you know what is submitted to town
meeting for approval so so if we could and whether that's Shan or the warrant committee who wrote those particular comments if somebody could explain that to us so those are my three questions thank you Mr moderator um mror can you do one and two and if you can speak to three otherwise we can go to someone
else yep um so as far as number one and correct me if I go off Sean um the the deliverable essentially what you'd be getting um from module one or from the feasibility study which happens in module three is similar to the work the
school building committee's been doing over the past year on our own with our own architect and uh OPM so essentially module one is all the paperwork to set us up module two is formation of that team so we're going to hire a new OPM we're going to hire new Architects The
Architects get as part of the designer selection panel with msva get chosen and then essentially from there we work through a number of options so it's not we're just picking the option that we ran with before and running with that we actually have to run through and do an
analysis of different options that our committee comes up with based on that at the end of it there's basically a feasibility report they'll have plans similar to the exercises we've been doing up to this point now um question two is why Cunningham named specifically
so the statement of interest that gets submitted to msba could only be for one school so when they come to visit they only visit the school associated with the statement of Interest so that's why they didn't go to all the schools but his other question was will this B apply
to I think all the schools you said Mr fahe or yeah yes so so the the the invitation letter that we got allows us to create a new elementary school or a new middle school if the intent is found to do a new middle school as we've
talked about that would then uh help out all the elementary schools by the grade reconfiguration they would be doing that take care of one and two Mr fahe okay on three um are you familiar with what the role of the msba board is and how it influences what it comes
to town meeting I have not yeah I've have not gotten through no okay warrant committee do you know have that answer or do someone else Tom calwell town meeting town meeting member Precinct six and chair of the warning committee um the warning committee would like to defer to Our
Town Administrator uh to address the details of this Mr Milano you're recognized too many tall people good evening and uh good to see everybody again uh so the msba process is is very collaborative especially at the staffto
staff level um the three reports that are identified in the comment the preliminary design program preferred schematic report and schematic design all undergo a review by both msba staff and msba Consultants review comments are supplied to the town uh architect and
the OPM to evaluate and review and potentially incorporate um there are three board of directors votes required um after now that we're in the program the board of directors will will vote to accept Milton into the feasibility study phase where we begin with owners project
management procurement designer procurement and then actually studying the project the first report the preliminary design program is kind of that big step back big picture um looking at the educational program looking at the grade configurations and in a a first pass at all potential
options that are on the table as Mr or pointed out there are a couple different scenarios that the msba will um is requiring the town to study um in addition renovation a just a repair of the building in addition to a new elementary school and a new middle
school so all those options are on the table they're evaluated at the preliminary design program stage at the preferred schematic report stage the town in the district submits its preferred option out of all the options so on that report there's going to be one page that says here's options one to
15 of what we've evaluated this is the district and the town's preference then the msba board of directors has to vote to approve that and move it forward and finally the schematic design report is taking that preferred option getting it to a schematic design level for cost
estimates and that's that point based on the cost estimates that the msba grant um amount is determined and put into a writing into an official document between the town and msba that says if you approve the project locally this is the maximum amount of money the msba will give you depending on different
scenarios and how they play out so there's three um involvements of the board of directors staff throughout um but those are the specific um touch points where the board of directors are involved followup yes just one follow-up
question Mr Wells good evening Richard Wells CH just to help Mr Fey here for all the members if you notice that was just a very thorough detailed report Mr Milano came to us previously was employed by the msba he knows this
department in their operations intimately which has really been a benefit to the town and us working through this project that's why he's so thoroughly versed in it yes Mr Fe your followup great that's good to know thank you Richard um it so Mr
Milano what happens in a scenario where a town prefers one option and the msba either doesn't support that or prefers a different option how does that get resolved ultimately the the decision on a building is a local choice and the
msba will give great difference to a local choice I haven't seen a situation where there's been um significant differences uh on a ultimate choice that a district has made between the a a district in the msba um I think more of
the back and forth would be about okay a district wants to do XYZ in their building the msba will say sure you can do that but we're not going to pay you any money for that so that's more of kind of where there might be disagreements that come to the front but in terms of the direction that a community that's working with msba wants
to go ultimately um it is very much a local decision as long as you abide by their rules complete the reports that are required evaluate all the options that you're required to do share that information publicly and then make a decision um which is a select board school committee uh votes that have to
take place throughout the the duration of the project thank you very much I appreciate it thank you um ma'am you first and then sir you if anyone else wants to speak if you could come down because I'd like to get this um to a vote thank you man you
recognized thank you hi Joan fall Tom meeting member Precinct 7 and I was wondering if the school committee has an opinion on this article um yes you're recognize me Miss Carol Lizzie Carroll to meeting member
Precinct 3 um chair of the school committee um the school committee supports the school building project and is thrilled that Milton has been invited into the msba program um given the time frame in terms of a
specific um answer to your question um in taking this up the other day um we were considering the time frame in the 270 days uh from the beginning of phase
one um as we discussed last night and our considerations regarding prioritizing the override um our preference would be to uh postpone taking this up until after we have made it successfully through the override
[Music] um having said that the number one you know we need to maintain um our eligibility within the program and so um that is the vote that
we took the other day um was just [Music] to like if it was up to the school committee we would be taking this up after the override however um if we move
this to a vote we encourage the members to just listen to the feedback about um and the information from Mr Milano about you know how we're following a process and
that is something the school committee is committed to doing does that answer your question thank you sir you recognized thank you um I'm Tom shy from Precinct 5 Tom meeting member question
for Mr Milano uh given what you were sharing with us before is there any danger that we face you mentioned 45% reimbursement with the present situation and between Milton and the state is there any risk that that 45% might not be
delivered just on that two comments in terms of um a no vote generally locally if a appropriation or project vote locally related to msba projects if a no vote does take place the
msba um generally takes a big pause in terms of continuing to work with that Community um so messages I received an email from an msba staff or today checking in on the status of the vote because they expected to take place last night so in terms of a no vote that
message would be heard by the msba and it would give them pause on terms of the project with Milton um in terms of MBT communities the town was considered non-compliant when the board of directors um of voted Milton in um to date there's been no communication um
raising any issues between the town's MBT Community status or otherwise as it relates to them msba um if we were to be informed of anything along those lines we'd certainly share that but uh to date there's been uh nothing nothing affected the town was invited in in the midst of
um some of the legal fights that have been on going and um there we have talked about it with msba but it hasn't been brought up as an issue that would uh put the project uh to our knowledge at risk thank you Mr Neely you're recognized thank you Mr moderator
Richard Neely T member Precinct Three I guess the question I have is that this article is talking about the Cunningham school we've been here before discussing about a new school up by the lamb field in Milton high school I'd like an explanation from either the school committee or the school building committee as to how this fits in the big
picture are we building two schools are we substituting a different site what is the big picture on the capital program for the schools because this seems to be one piece and I don't know which piece it is and I don't know what it represents thank you thank you uh Mr
oror or uh defer to Mr Milano Mr Milano you recognized I'll just make uh one kind of clarifying msba process comment and if uh Mr or wants to add anything when you apply to the msba you have to pick a
subject school so Milton selected the it statement of vent school was the Cunningham school and it showed the overcrowding impacts in the district and at Cunningham in particular um and once you're invited in that project for the mba's pect perspective is the Cunningham
school project even though Milton through the board action letter that the the board of directors voted can study a new Elementary School it can study a new middle school but for the mba's parant it will remain the Cunningham school project I worked on a school in maloro it was the Richer School that we applied
for we built a totally new school and throughout that whole process it was the Richer elementary school project and we built a brand new the good now Brothers Elementary School in in the city of Malboro so it's it's kind of a quirk of the msba process in terms of how the project is referred that's why the appropriation refers it to the
Cunningham school project um but really it's about an addition renovation of Cunningham ha Cunningham and a new school whether in school or middle school so that's kind of how the msba views it it's a little confusing we'll do our best to explain that um ad nauseum over the next several years we
apologize for the confusion but it's just how the msba process works and Mr or if you had anything else thank you um ma'am do you wish to speak I think you'll be our last speaker before we go to a vote since I see no no one else coming down so yes ma'am you're recognized thank you Mr moer aah
rosemarin Precinct 2 town meeting member um and I Rise to encourage you all to support this article um I want to express my appreciation for the school building committee that's been working for six years to solve and address this
overcrowding program problem that the Milton public schools has and has been working arduously on this project there were four prior submissions to the msba for uh statements of Interest
um I was involved in drafting those it was the fifth one that was the charm that we finally got accepted into the cycle and I'm thrilled that we were invited into this cycle this is a big deal and msba is watching what we do and
wants to know that the town supports our involvement in this project time is money and the faster we do this the less the project will cost so the time to do this is now and then the project will move
forward and we'll have a new school in short order thank you thank you so no sooner do I say last one Mr Donna you have something urgent to say I do okay thank you thank you Mr moderator I uh
appreciate the Indulgence Kevin donu town meeting member Precinct 3 I will uh remind the body that uh although we do have 270 days to complete this phase of the project there is another taking clock in the background and that was related to our land swap
article which was almost two years ago uh in that article we set a timeline of 5 years to appropriate funding for the school we have chewed through approximately onethird of that time as of
today so even though a delay may not seem consequential in terms of the overall timeline it may have significant effects I strongly strongly encourage a yes vote tonight thank you very much
thank you okay we'll go to the vote this is a bonding article borrowing money requires a 2/3 vote if we can open up the poll all in favor please s press one for yes two for no three for abstain I declare 2/3 vote 195 to 16 with one abstention now
folks now we got two to go if you're willing to push through I'm with you I'm with you so we'll go to article 14 uh the war Committee in your Green Sheet you have a new green sheet on 14 uh they' not have a chance to review it before they're
recommending a no vote this is one of the citizens petitions we have um Mr Codwell do you have anything you'd like to add uh behind your recommendation on the no Vote or let it stand per your comments let the comment let the
comments stand very good we have uh um one Mr Kelly you want to speak to 14 or yes you do and I saw Miss won are you here do you want to speak to 14 yes and then uh sir there and Mr gism okay Mr Kelly you've been waiting I think um the
longest U Mr chrism you're recognized thank you good evening thank you Mr monor Kevin krism Jr to meting member precent 7 I'd like to hear from the proponent of or proponents of this article as they did not appear before
the select board or the warrant committee which is a little unprecedented so I'd like to hear from that number one to explain the rationale behind this move and the second to get the opinion of the school committee if they've been able to take a vote on this as it directly affects their budget and operations thank you
very much Mr moderator thank you do we have one of the signatories before us that could speak to this citizens petitions yes sir you're recognized uh good evening um Matthew
morang Precinct 2 um I am one of I think about 200 signatories to this um so I can't speak on everyone's behalf but I will make a statement now on my own opinion on this matter um I am here to ask in the aftermath of the SJC ruling
what we are doing as a town and where our town leadership has been the public process following this outcome has felt non-existent there hasn't been a public forum or even public statements from the town about what has
transpired this matter has been discussed behind closed doors and citizens speak has been absent from recent planning board and slack board agendas on numerous occasions at this critical time our leadership needs to communicate and engage with our
citizens uh to level with them about where we are going as a town on an issue that has divided us so deeply we deserve a transparent public process and citizens deserve to feel heard in this process not only the citizens you agree
with I did not author this article but I support the spirit of it and with the intent to send a message to the leadership of this town that they don't have a blank check to to fight this battle into eternity um but also not to tie our hands when it comes to Legal resources we may need for other purposes
I would like to make an amendment to this article very good what's your Amendment sir I think you you submitted this in advance I believe right so I did yes more committee clerk can you please bring this up so I would like to drastically reduce the dollar value um from
$250,000 uh to $24.61 out of the select board's uh law and professional special services line item um to give it to the schools um to revise the appropriation to $282,900 regulations okay is there a
second okay we now have uh a motion do you have a followup well there by the way there were two questions if I could just also get that second question what does the school committee think of this uh um initial well we do we have two chances what do you think of this
initial uh article you you want a moment to confirm okay yes they want to just confer a little bit on what they think of now this article fine um do other speakers want to speak
while they are conferring or would you rather wait to hear yes Mr Kelly you would okay very good you want to wait okay the school committee recommends that the town vote no thank you okay now Mr Kelly I think you were
next it's all about the trolley good evening my name is Brian Kelly I'm a town meeting member from Precinct 7 I am speaking to article 14 please do not take any legal council funds to stop the
MBTA communities act fight with the state I want Milton to finish the job I'd like to thank Mr Mar Christo of Waldo Road he open my eyes to the to most of this information I'm about to share let's start with a short story
with presidential implications excuse me um the member has a right to speak so okay go Ahad so I would like to thank Mike did that okay let's um start with a short story with presidential implications it will give
you some context as to why we have continued this fight regarding the NBTA communities act I don't think a lot of you know know the background of the story we want to be reclassified as an adjacent Community a month before his
assassination in 1963 President John F Kennedy visited Cambridge Massachusetts and chose a site next to Harvard University for his Presidential Library it was to be the place for the presidential records in an office when he retired from public life
can you guess what was on that site the red line made maintenance and storage yard hav neighbors also known as the Brattle Street brahin were concerned about traffic and congestion the tourist
would bring to the area they fought tooth and nail to stop the project the state was looking to move the Harvard train yard and I other end ey the other end of the line near Ashmont Harvard was the Terminus on the NorthShore on the on the north side of the red line at the
time okay so one of the considered sites was was station the area filling the and they wanted to fill in the area of the marshes by by Butler station so you'd have the view of the yard from Hutchinson field other sites were considered like
Codman South brry Savin Hill North quinsey and matapan in March of 1968 a citizen's petition was filed in Milton against the NBTA train yard gathered 4,000 signatures to encourage their leaders to oppose the most expensive option the Milton and matapan option was
the most expensive it was going to increase our cost to the town from $500,000 a year to $1.2 million a year just 6 months later powerful Kennedy aligned politicians like Governor John vote took quick action to move the train yard to Milton matapan they would now
have to move the subway all the way to matapan to accomplish this why not the other sites what kind of political compromises were hashed out to come to this final decision without Milton at the table citizens from Milton rejected the idea led by town meeting member this
was U Town Meeting member uh Bill white that's um Judy whites and Betty White's dad and he was the chair at the time and he led the opposition they persisted and fought hard can you imagine standing in the way of a dead pres president that was revered all around the world and you
thought Andrea Campbell was hard Milton's main concerns were pure math it takes much greater length of time for for a train to accelerate and decelerate with a sixc car subway train um Milton would be forced to
dispose of all but one Milton station it would have been the Milton station on Adam Street to accommodate the physics of the train in addition because these trains are electrified by a live third rail a Viaduct would had to be constructed on the Capen Street crossing and the Central LA Crossing for the
safety of our families the train yard would be taken by eminent domain h h uh homes in the Capen Street Peninsula were in the cross is noise from the facility was also a concern for both Milton and matapan neighbors alike alike service
would be cut when they removed the existing trolleys to build the new system and it' be um they'd be without service from a year to two so what happened you ask now the rest of the story The Kennedy Library never did get built in Cambridge in 1975 the Kennedy
Library Corporation abandoned plans and to have the library at the University they moved it to Columbia Point you all know where it is Harvard agreed to build the Harvard K Kennedy School on the train yard and changed the street name to John F Kennedy Street the world
continued to turn during this upheaval passenger train lines that were prevalent before introduction of interstates like the one through East Milton and with the Mass Appeal of the car trains ridership declining talk uh
taking the train was no longer fun taxes on train properties soared as ridership dwindled in December 1969 Penn Central Railroad my Christo's father worked for them Penn Central Railroad um owned a train yard at do
Street yard in South Boston near the red line because of financial wo they wanted to sell the property the MBTA with the help of Mayor Kevin White facilitated the purchase the Boston Globe two weeks earlier printed an image of Bill White from Milton with his with concerned
citizens in me White's office pleading for help and holding signs this stopped the Milton and matapan subway project in its tracks Milton Milton would be forced to dispose of all but the Milton station stops to accommodate the no that's just last I'm
sorry okay I apologize all right yes he has four minutes left yes so Mr Mr Kelly from Mr Kelly someone may be asking about scope the reason I'm allowing this is because the
justification by the member was the purpose of this citizens article was to discuss about the the town's focus on NBTA um zoning so Mr in my view Mr Kelly is responding to that that's why I'm allowing this discussion Milton's hardfought legislative and Court actions
had prevented construction from starting on the matapan site over the previous two years chair white said it's a victory for all the people in the town so now you know why Milton trolley is not a Subway or Rapid Transit the story reminds me of the movie It's a Wonderful Life and it makes me wonder what Milton
could have would look like today if the concerned citizens were not successful in their Endeavor Denny swon is like the angel Gabriel she had to jump in the neona river so that we could all see more clearly the cost and unfairness of the mpta communities act I'm sure some people are here tonight would like to throw throw Denny
in the deons unfair well because the trolley multiple stops in Milton uh the current state guidelines are treating them as subway stops similar to North quiny wallon quinsey Center and the Adam Sunway station Milton has Capen Street
Valley Road Central a and Milton station take a moment to picture the station differences in your mind quiny stations are spread out large with handicapped accessibility and vast amounts of parking in Milton you can park at Capen Street crossing only if you can convince town meeting member Kathy Fagan to let you use her driveway 2500 Zone units for
Milton is an extraordinary burden because half of the surrounding station land is located in Boston or the depons river to fulfill our Rapid Transit mandate Milton had to find other areas of Milton to reach our Transit Zing quota and East Milton became that answer guarantee we do have the occasional bus
from East Milton along granted AV ever noticed traffic over there in the morning and flooding during the most high tides and surrounded by The crucial environmental habitat of the mes of the neonet because of the nonpr guidelines more height and density is needed to make up for the shortfall of developable
land around the trolley have you ever wondered why the many citizens PRI 7 are so pissed off let's be let's bring fness to another level Mark discovered that the state in implementing the ACT worked with approximately 79 communities and
gave leeway to a few more making it a total of 90 communities that were subject to the Mandate each case Mr Kelly done two minutes they they reduced the number of units that they would have to agree upon to become compliant it's like the state is compromised with
almost half of the communities and sued us so if you're wondering why Milton is where we are today it's because the state is not compromised with us like the other communities why I don't know maybe our leaders just didn't push hard enough 17 Rapid Transit communities are
downgraded to 12 Arlington one of the first communities to brag about being compliant was downgraded from Rapid Transit to adjacent communities 60% from 5,155 to 246 Zone units do 750 units
down to 102 and 86% reduction wow I believe that we have a great chance now in the lower courts to hear to fa to rule favor favorably for us since the SJC decision an opportunity to reclaim the 400 Grand in grant money we need to
be classified as an adjacent community and with with a thousand Zone units Benjamin Franklin said I told him to sit together and work out the differences that compromis was the oil that makes democracy work we're concerned about the
schools like you are but you don't seem to be concerned about being taken advantage by the state I have a list of every community in the reduction if you want more information my Christo is up in the corner he'll be happy to share it thank you very
much thank you U Miss winon you're recognized Mr Kelly stayed within his 10 minutes Denny Swinson town meeting member Precinct 5 you have to be a little louder ma'am can ATT turn it Denny Swinson town meeting member
Precinct 5 um could you put up slide one thank you um yes article 14 threatens the select board's ability to legally advocate for the town seeking to REM remove even a small amount from the
legal defense fund or the general fund from which the select board pulls to pay for the town's legal defense sets a very bad precedent the petition Drive stated the intent is to cut off the town's legal effort in relation to the MBTA community's law but this fund is for the
town's defense against any litigation wrought by anyone their illegal cut cases our town is facing other than the MBTA zoning matter Town Administrator Nick Milano spoke at the warrant committee and explained that current pending legal
matters include the 40b at 648 652 Canton Avenue the memory care project onqu and winter Valley collective bargaining agreements end in June the town's legal bargaining services will become more Earnest in the spring any HR
or Personnel matters that need legal assistance fall under this category those are expenses that we anticipate for this line item depending on which way these legal matters go we could continue to spend several thousand dollar a month on them throughout the remainder of the year in January the
Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the guidelines or regulations of the NBTA communities law were legally ineffective and unenforceable because they have not been promulgated or created properly according to the SJ C Milton did not
break the law with last year's referendum vote the state had left the public out of the public process the state had not done the public hearing properly they had not done the small business impact assessment or study they had not assessed nor filed the estimate
of its fiscal effect including that on public and private sector they had not done that for the first year it's second year or projection over the first 5year period none of that information had been filed with the SEC Secretary of State prior to the SJC ruling so that
promulgation process of creating the regulations will occur now and in the coming months I know that state officials have said they will just rubber stamp the regulations quickly and that won't change but that would violate the law once again the obligation is for the
state to have a process in which they actually listen the administrative procedure act calls for incorporating the findings from the public process into the new regul ations according to the SJC ruling the deadline was one of those regulations that had not been
promulgated so the $140,000 seaw wall study monies were taken from Milton unlawfully as was the 250,000 Municipal fiber Grant the state owes Milton $390,000 Milton may want legal services
in order to get that money back second SL on Friday we learned big news the state auditor Diane de ziglio determined that the NBTA communities law is an unfunded mandate under Massachusetts law an unfunded mandate is a state imposed
requirement that forces local governments to spend money without providing the necessary funding the auditor's office determined that could you one more slide is that the right one okay towns are required to change their zoning laws which involves
legal fees planning consultants and administrative costs infrastructure upgrades roads sewer water schools Emergency Services may all be necessary but the state did not allocate the direct funding for these expenses the law was not voluntary it was imposed on
towns without their approval making it a true mandate under local mandate law the state did not provide funding when the law was passed meaning towns are expected to comply out of pocket or risk losing state grants according to the state's website municipalities can
continue to comply with no guarantee of reimbursement for expenses incurred or under the local mandate law they can petition the superior court for an exemption from compliance until funding is provided other towns will seek funding
for their expenses the news on this just on this unfunded mandate determination just hit on Friday as a town we need to be vigilant and we we may want to have clear legal advice from those who special in this specialize in this changing landscape in the meantime
please do not remove any money from this important legal fund that is overseen by our elected select board it affects more than the NBTA Community unfunded mandate I urge my fellow town meeting members to vote no on article 14 and in addition and this is important
for those of you at home who care about representation checks and balances please consider running for town meeting we need more people engaged engaged in the Democratic process if you can reach me Denny den.com a bunch of us want to support those who want to listen and
represent people just m swon thank you okay folks the appropriate way to express an opinion like that is point of order um perhaps I didn't hear you but thank you um I think miss conin you may be next thank you Mr M maor Katie conin
Precinct 3 I actually Rose to support the warrant committee's recommendation on the original motion it greatly concerned me to have this body considering removing $250,000 from the law budget with this amendment we're no longer talking about
the 250,000 so my remarks about the law budget over the last 10 years three of which we spent substantially more than $283,000 on the Professional Services line are not as relevant to this motion to amend so I will just simply say I
think it is a very bad precedent for no matter what side of the MBTA communities act you're on and I think there's a lot of nuan positions there are people on the yes side there people on the no side who have very genuinely held beliefs about the MBTA communities act but the
way to express an opinion on that is not in my view by trying to reduce the law budget there are four months to go in the fiscal year the law budget includes a lot of things other than litigation it covers things things like requests for proposals real estate other transactions that are beyond the scope of the flat
fee retainer so I would uh urge to tell me many members to consider the president that this would set and to vote no and to support the warrant committee's recommendation thank you man um sir I think you're next then we'll go to Mr Z hello everybody when
are we going to end this okay we're all here tonight pretty much for Point excuse me excuse me can you introduce yourself oh I'm sorry don't you recognize me Mark roning I've been up three times you're annoyed by hearing from me but I'll say this we're here tonight because there's a the schools
was the big issue right that's why this special town meeting was called and I was so heartened to hear what's developing here now with the state inviting us to this pool for funds and whatnot okay we all want to support that in December about a year ago the town
meeting here voted 76% to adopt the MBTA uh community act Rapid Transit undercover of Darkness with no real input from anybody and subsequently 54% of the Town voters and one of the biggest turnouts in this election voted
to reject that plan why because the stress that it would put on our infrastructure our schools our fire our police none of that was deal properly with impact studies or anything they just kind of did it under cover of night Mr okay sir let's not go cast
dispersions please let's just do what don't cast dispersions on what boards I'm talking about the state government sir the state government okay yes so in any event what I was going to say was the town okay I've lost my train of
thought the town is not representing what the the voters of this thing want the voters of Milton want we actually felt in East Milton and the east side of town also down in Capen Street that this whole mess was going to be thrown on us but it's not only going to be thrown on us all we wanted was consideration to be
re classified as an adjacent Community that's all we wanted we're not some crazy yahoos that anything because we could see in the densest part of town which is where I live that they were going to make it even denser we have a 40b going up that's going to be six stoies they've already broken ground on that there's another one going on
granite AV in addition to that with all the concerns about schools here and school crowding you mean to tell me that blindly uh inviting a a potential 25% population increase of multi multi
Family multif Family Means me Family Family Means to Me children children means to me students we're right now saying that we're at the breaking point we're hoping we can get these schools built but yet we're just going to open up the floodgates uh what and not even resist it as Denny mentioned this was
just declared an unfunded mandate by the state auditor okay M uh the governor declared an emergency so she could circumvent the sjc's ruling that these guidelines were unenforceable which is totally disen genous in my opinion all we want is reasonable we want to be
reasonable and get this town to work together on the priorities and you're going to lose if you keep if people do petty things that like the $24.61 without even listening to us do you think that's not going to alienate the 54% of Voters in this town who voted
pretty resoundingly that they did not think that the rapid transit designation was fair so what I'm asking for is can we just stop this theater of the $24.61 the next the next item is going to be another theatrical thing because they can't compel the planning board to
do anything but we're all going to be here till late tonight voting on theater that means nothing just so somebody with an axe to grind can grind the axe if we want this community to come together and do what we need to do on these big questions like overrides and support the schools can we stop the pettiness and
can you listen to what we think on the east side of town about the MBTA Transit because we certainly want to listen to people I my kids are grown up they went to Milton schools but I understand and I always voted for overrides but I supported the Arts here like why won't people listen to us like we're some
yahoos we just want to make sure our side of town doesn't get craz nor do we want the schools to get completely decimated by overcrowding so thank you very much thank you um Mr Z you [Applause]
recognized Benzel um a Precinct uh five town meeting member member of the select board um just a couple of notes so I one I'm not supposed to be up here uh typically members of boards planning boards select boards we don't we sit back we let the chairs do the speaking
for us but we've thrown that protocol out the window so I'm going to grab the microphone and say just a few things the first thing I'm going to say is that we lost the case to the Supreme Court there was a technicality about the regulations but we lost
the the law is legal it's enforceable and the guidelines are going to get put back into place whether or not we think they're Fair they're going to be there we have a duty to follow the law we do okay but more importantly than that we have it yes the what's the point
of order sir I'm sorry I can't hear you sir I'm out of scope should I start with the Kennedy administration would that would that would that be more helpful sorry okay you're right you're right so we I was if if you would let me just get to my point and we let other
folks get to their points we we have oh thank you we have uh a decision right now as a town about whether we want to continue to throw good money after bad pursuing an unwinable lawsuit it's unwinable as much as people would like
to say that it's not unwinable it's we've been told it's unwinable excuse me sir sir sir sir please sit excuse me sir please sit down so we get told that we're uh you
know the people that are in favor of MBTA and following the law that we're the ones that aren't listening um I'd just like to demonstrate um that I listen I stop I let people shout at me often uh and I'm I'm I'm happy to do that but look as a town we have to have
an open and honest discussion about is this the right way to pursue the select board has not had any public comments around this article the planning board has had a lot of commentary about the lawsuit but we have not seen a plan which we were told would be right in
order right after the election so I think the citizens of this town deserve yes to be heard but we also deserve an honest conversation about the way that we're spending our money and resources and the way that we're endangering our future generations with a story that started in
1963 earlier that puts us in 2085 right we're all dead at that point do we really want to be setting precedent for now what had happened in the early 60s that's insane right we have a zoning law that dates back to the
1930s great okay is that probably right for us I don't know but do we need to have an honest and open conversation in this town about whether we're going to continue to follow the law or whether we're going to continue to break it yes is this the Forum to do it no it's not the Forum to do it it's not the Forum to
do it but the only way that we can do it is to is to have this article on the ballot of which on the worm which I was a proud signatory We owe the people of Milton an explanation not just little trolleys and
stories about John Kennedy but a real explanation about why we think that it makes sense to continue to waste money on an unwant lawsuit so I am in support of this article and you probably guess that already I'm sorry I don't have a
lot of over on that side of the room or in the back but that's the way it goes thank you Mr moderator thank you all right I'll hear from two more speakers uh gentlemen I think in the brown sweater you were first and then um
miss agustino good evening EV good evening everybody I'm g go off mic Doug Hine Precinct 2 town meeting member um I've been uh thinking about this article a lot um I'm going to just kind of fast forward in Tarantino at the end and say I don't think that you should support
this article I'll give you my reasons in a moment but but the reason why no I don't clap yet uh but but but but I want to say that one thing we can all agree on is nobody likes paying lawyers I don't care what your position is paying 940 bucks an hour for the representation
that we had great representation we paid a lot of money I think it was over $200,000 um that we paid in legal fees and and Counting 250 I'm sorry but and I'm not factoring in the $140,000 Grant or any of the other grants that we've lost or anything like that it's cost us a lot of money to fight this and I and I get it and I and I understand that
people are upset about this law I don't like it I like the I don't like the fact that this law is so unclear because it's what's brought us to this point it's what's brought us to the point where we're yelling at each other over this okay nobody likes the fact that this law is not clear but I've been a litigator for 20
almost 25 years and you can tell you've got a losing argument when you keep changing the narrative about why you think you're right or why the other guy's wrong right remember 2 and a half years ago was it's not now it's not you know never it's just whatever it was that went away we still don't have an
article and then it was well the law is unconstitutional well the SGC said it was then it's the uh AG can't enforce it yes they can um then it's the administrative procedures act now it's the local mandate law which I spent a lot of time looking at today and it's
not going to kill this MBTA zombie all right it's not a silver bu it it's just the newest in a long line of false hope promises laws picked out of nowhere that's going to somehow get rid of MBTA it's not what the law and I'll be specific what the local mandate law says
is that if you think that your town has received an unfunded mandate from the Commonwealth you can as your sole remedy petition the Superior Court to get money that doesn't apply to Milton at all because all the costs the direct costs which is all you're entitled to get
regarding this law were already given to us in Grants so we don't have a leg to stand on about getting any money back now somebody might say well wait a minute the planning board just said that it might cost another couple thousand dollars to hire U teal to do X Y and
Z but that $4,000 that we're spending on U is to come up with zoning that's not compliant so that's not a mandate the Mandate is to follow the law not to spend money to do get around the law um anyway I said that you still
shouldn't support I'll make one other point um so the local mandate law says you have to go to Superior Court right what it doesn't say is it doesn't say If you think this is an unfunded mandate you can just ignore the underlying law
it doesn't say that it doesn't say town meeting can vote not to follow the law it doesn't say that the select board can take a three to2 vote to not vote not not file the law what it says is you have to go to Superior Court and get a court order that's called following the law you don't just to get to decide not to
follow it so I digress um you cannot I cannot support this article because whether it's for $200,000 or 20 bucks or 5 cents all right I don't support taking money
out of the legal budget um look we need to course correct very quickly as a town on this to preserve local control and that's something East mil should be very concerned about we need to course correct on this we need to stop uh just you know indulging
these half-baked legal fallacies that do nothing but feed our confirmation bias um and we need to um just just we're going to need every last nickel because if we don't course correct what's going to happen is we're going to
find ourselves in another completely avoidable lawsuit and I don't want to see that happen thanks [Applause] Diane dulio agustino Precinct 8 thank
you Mr moderator I have a couple of questions before my comment um and the first one I believe you know the petition citizens petitions and not written or reviewed by Town Council to say that they're correct so the
technical question if we can afford to get a legal answer um has to do first of all the bo the select board received the petition and then it went to the town clerk is the format that the town clerk received it in exactly what we're
looking at here in the warrant on page 48 and then I'll have the legal question if we can confirm this is the exact format so you got two questions you'll have a format question and then you'll have one legal question right okay um
the question an accountant one for the town accountant I couldn't hear you what ma'am I know one for the town accountant depending on those answers okay um so the question was was the document as received in the citizens PE petition exactly what we're seeing
here um I think Mr Milano you assembled the warrant is that right are you the right person to answer this yes uh the citizens petition if on the screen with article
14 everything from 2C all the way down to ending with tax levy is what was delivered uh by the petitioners uh we inserted um the names based on the first list and then the warrant committee
recommendation uh was added to the warrant um obviously at that time they had not yet made a recommendation but from 2C through tax levy is exactly what was delivered to our office and certified by the Town Clerk and this is not a fa fous question
Mr moderator but um when I was uh uh elected as a selectman that's the term I swore to um I will never forget the first packet that arrived on my front door I don't know if they do that anymore but the packet was like this thing
and inside were all these lawsuits that were confidential they were only discussed in executive s session so the question the tech other technical legal question I have because of my concern about the law budget is this petition
does not identify under 2024 ATM article um the article number it says XXXX this sounds like a technical thing but most lawyers in the room have heard of a major lawsuit that was lost because a period was in the wrong place on a um on
a claim so that's why I want to know uh legally is the p is the petition legal since it does not identify the exact articles they're taking money from interesting question um Mr Melo I think you rented an opinion on this when it came to the select board can you comment
on this so the article that authorized the budget is not reference so is that make it a legal article is that your question ma'am okay or petition so um thank you Mr moderator town meeting um I'm not sure I I completely understand
the question but my advice when we got this was not to say that there aren't certain circumstances in which you can if you could stay close to the mic sorry and this I'm I'm not to suggest that there aren't um it would be
impossible excuse me um to modify the the the text of um of a proposed article that you receive in connection with a Citizens petition uh submission um but I'm I'm loed to do it generally you know as I explained to the warrant committee
you know the select board um um you know citizens petition uh signatories aren't lawyers and I think you should exercise flexibility so the advice for me was keep it intact as it
was submitted um I think it's pretty uh clear from the table what account money was proposed to be removed from and what um line item the money was
proposed to be transferred into so but I is the question whether the boxes with the XX renders it uh you know unlawful um I don't I don't think so um you know
there I spoke with Ken Woodland the chief of the division of uh the Bureau of Municipal Finance of the division of local Services the only the concern he expressed with this proposal was that um
you you couldn't uh amend an appropriation in such a way as to create a deficit if if um so if if is that the question that's my next question oh I'm sorry okay so yeah so B basically you would have to look at what's in what remains from the appropriation
accounting for um incom expenses and that would be basically the maximum by which you could reduce the appropriation um that was the specific issue that he cited for chapter 41 section 33 and he said that there might
be a couple of additional statutes that would be invoked from you know with respect to that issue but um but beyond that no I don't think I don't think the fact that there are double x's in those boxes renders it okay that's clear very good any your next your final question
Diane dulio agino Precinct 8 he actually answered the technicality of this because I'm sure Mr moderator and 42 plus years in this um auditorium at Town meetings he did we could put the correct article numbers in there I believe
that's what he said so that because I don't believe we've ever had an article that did not identify an article so is that something that the proponents would be willing to correct so that it's technically
identified well we can't ask all 10 proponents here um the citizens oh so I should make a motion to do well right now we have a motion to amend the dollar amount and you I think you'd really want to consider whether you wanted to offer that but um so we really got to address
the motion to amend now the 2461 um Mr so we can come back to your point after we address that motion to amend okay okay so then sticking to that motion to amend um unless there was a friendly amendment to do well you could do something you could ask Mr morang if he's willing to accept on his motion
because he's a town meeting member if he'd be willing to put the article in there Mr morang would you be willing to put the article in there so we can just get this done quick so that everybody can go home tonight I accept that Amendment very good so when this is finalized by the town clerk we'll update it with the
article excellent that's your third question you're done no so then it comes back to the point excuse me remember the town legal Town Council said there are statutes as long as we're not in a deficit so the third question prior to
my comment was for the town accountant to tell us um how much money I mean the budget started July 1st of last year we're already almost March 1st next week how do we know um um how much money has
been expended we can't withdraw it down below what what's aable that will that your third question um uh Miss Dexter do you know that or Mr Milano do you know that off the top of your head Miss Dexter I believe it's above 200,000 but
less than the 250 it's in that range I think that we'll get the exact number including um what's the term my accounting um when youe acur expenses yeah the encumbered
is the word you'll hear I think right the statues might get into that what's acred Mr Milano you recognized sure out of um this line item the town is uh spent encumbered approximately $90,000 so as amended it's
okay if the amendment were to go through but as originally drafted uh the account would uh immediately be in deficit at that point okay okay so the only my comment is the point's been made everyone
understands it we're all looking for pennies here for our schools and for everything else so at some point we have to come together and put our faith in the select board and as a former select board member the um come on the
emergency Reserve fund could always be tapped by a select board if they felt the need because as I said sitting in this room tonight we don't even know all the lawsuits Milton has so I strongly urge a no vote thank you for raising the
point but we have to maintain this um salary line item the way it is so that Milton can function thank you thank you Mr Callahan you're last speaker thank you uh Tom Callahan Precinct uh for I just I will be very
brief I just wanted to complete the record from a previous speaker um the Friday Announcement by the auditor um was followed very quickly Saturday morning with a release of a statement from the chief law enforcement
officer of the Commonwealth Andrea Campbell the Attorney General I quote the Auditors claim that the MB community's law as an unfunded man mandate is wrong and more importantly her letter has no effect
whatsoever on implementation of the law if those who oppose housing affordability try to make a similar claim in court the state will vigorously defend the law and we intend to be
successful at as we have been so far thank you okay we'll now go to a vote as a motion to amend this just requires uh a majority vote so all we're voting on is changing the numbers you see on the citizens petition this
article in front of you sorry uh and we need a vote I'm sorry from the warrant committee thank you and also the uh school committee you already know is it's us yep just the warrant committee thank you thank you Tom Caldwell town meeting member
Precinct six and chair of your warning committee um just a few things to say at this late hour I know I'll never get another opportunity to do so but uh this is just in regards to Citizens petitions um in the future uh as this
current War committee sits if you are a citizen and you sign a petition you are more than welcomed to come down before the warrant committee and discuss what you are proposing for town meeting we would love to have you we would love to
speak love to ask you questions and engage it helps us in a deliberative process which then in turn we can inform you as we did of our position in our lengthy comment um so that's something I I really wanted to say I'm not going to
reiterate and go line by line in the comment this is obviously to the amendment the warrant committee still recommends that the town vote no we cite this is a dangerous for critical fund for our town I would say that the warrant committee and its discussions
focused on policy and good governance we also uh cited as other speakers have the structural deficiency in the article as written originally however the MBTA was kind of third on the list and uh we
really focused on uh and we are asking this body to just not not um not take money from the fund and leave it uh as is uh it again is a dangerous precedent uh the town needs to be well prepared and I would say the warrant committee
acknowledges the citizens and the messages received so thank you we uh we ask you um uh enter no vote I asked to this amendment thank you since I pardon me yeah I'll come back yes that was on
the amendment you're V you're recommending a no vote on the amendment to modify yes the amendment okay so we're now going to vote on this I don't know how this is going to go so we'll open up the poll so you're voting on the amendment to reduce the uh transfer the 2461 from legal to school
all in favor of that it's a majority vote one for yes two for no three for obain for the motion to amend fails by a vote of 60 uh yeses to 111 Nos and 29 abstained now it is my opinion that we have
discussed everything there is to discuss about this I'm going to make a call and AUD call and Audible and just close the debate on this citizens petition however um you should know that um per the question that Miss agustino stated the article as uh stated at
$250,000 exceeds the amount that the town is permitted to transfer so you just should be informed of that so Mr morang I'm trying to close debate do you have I as as a signatory to um to this to this article um and I I believe our Point has been made um I would like to
withdraw the article at this time well again we got an article that's out there we got to vote on it so that's unfor that's our bylaw so um I will go to the poll um all in favor now let me stop for a minute when we have a no vote from the
warrant committee you're not voting yes or no on the warrant committee you're voting on the article as you see it just printed so if you want to transfer the 250 you vote Yes if you don't want to transfer the the 250 you
vote no this is in one of it's clarified in our bylaws and rules I'll state it again you're not voting on what the warrant committee thinks you're voting on the article so if you want the transfer to 250 you vote Yes if you do not want to transfer the 250 you vote no and if you vote
abstain I guess you're tired but all right all in favor uh please signify apply pressing one for yes two for no three for abstain e uh the motion fails with 10 yeses 172 NOS 16 abstained uh we'll go to Article
15 uh to see if the town will vote to instruct the planning board to prepare for a vote by the 2025 annual meeting a zoning Artic to amend amend art chapter 275 the general bylaws known as the zoning bylaw to allow multif family housing permitted as of right in accordance with Section 3A of the zoning
act Etc uh the warrant committee has recommended a no vote on this citizens petition um does does anyone want to speak to this citizens petition article yes Miss Swenson if anybody wants to please come
down now and we'll close this out thank you you're ready recognize ma'am uh yes Denny Swinson town meeting member Precinct 5 uh at a recent warrant committee meeting um Town Council Peter Melo uh stated that town meeting can't
mandate that the planning board takes specific action in this regard the planning board is an independent public body and acts through its Collective vote a yes vote on this article would not have any binding effect on the planning board to mandate that the planning board take any particular
action he went on to say the town meeting can't dictate what the planning board does a yes vote on this article is non-binding and it sends a message of government overreach it sends a message that the checks and balances of our
local government are out of order I've heard people claim that the old 2500 unit plan would be a financial net positive that is simply not true it's quite the opposite I have reviewed financial analysis that shows 10 Mill
million a year in expenses in the last if the last article were to pass and that was a conservative estimate there was an assessment done by a state approved consultant that was incomplete and fell apart upon questioning it lacked explanation on how they arrived
at their figures and upon questioning they seem to have left out categories of costs people hold up that report as their proof to say that 2,500 units of zoning wouldn't cost our town but state auditor Diane de ziglio
determined the NBTA Community Law is a costly unfunded mandate other towns will be challenging the state and seeking money for the impactual costs once we Zone it developers can build it as of right and if we were to stop it try to stop it in your neighborhood the
developers could sue our town before we lock into any plans we need to see how expenses are handled by the state as this determination by the state auditor takes effect and we need to see the outcome of the promulgation process so we know what the actual regulations are
in order to Zone in accordance with them good zoning is thoughtful measured and involves a public process inclusive of varied voices we need to resist rushing in or being pushed into decisions based on fear our planning board has had 70
plus meetings they have studied numerous zoning plans on different ways to meet different goals depending on what regulation a are adopted by the state at the end of the process to be clear we're not against housing we're about fairness
I urge my fellow town meeting members to vote no on this article and I'd also like to remind those of you at home who care about representation checks and balances please consider running EXC excuse me folks excuse me folks the member has a right to speak you don't
want people to run for town meeting ma'am uh just what go ahead continue your comments go ahead we need more people engaged in the Democratic process I urge you to run for town meeting Denny at den.com
okay thank you all right I now see one two three four speakers I think Mr crony you're next and then Mr morang and I think Mr fur and then Madam you're last hello everybody Mark croninger Precinct 7 I want to just I was in advertising
for many many years and there was a a a formula we did in advertising that said when you it takes at least a three frequency to achieve uh something to sink into a consumer's mind so I'm going to repeat something three times there is no there is no provision for affordable
housing in the MBTA communities act there is no provision for affordable housing in the MBTA communities act and there is no provision for affordable housing in the mbta's community act not sure if that'll sink in because it hasn't seemed to an over a year but
that's the case what this actually is is a boom for developers a bust for Milton and an overreach that will put a huge burden on particular parts of town and additionally on our schools if at the beginning of this whole process I went
to a citizen speak uh in December of about a year and a half ago or whatever that was and said why did not why didn't the select board make a bonafied effort to have us reclassified as adjacent like all these other communities were able to do I had no reasonal exp explanation
because they did not make a Bonafide effort none of us would be here this town would not be so divided and all of this stuff that's pulling us all apart our neighbors and our friends would have never come to to fruition all we want is adjacent zoning we are not a rapid
transit community and to add a fourth frequency to this there is no affordable housing provision in the MBTA communities act that's a red herring Thank you very much thank you Mr given that this article cannot be
legally binding I actually think this is an opportune time for us to send a message to both the planning board and the select board that this body does not support their action on the NBTA communities law in response to member Swenson her logic makes no sense at all
it growth point of order yes ma'am can you refer to me I'm not going to resp respond to Mrs Miss Swenson I am going just a reminder if we could try to I know late and I haven't enforced it much but we could avoid just just forer people as the member thank you prior
speaker my apologies growth is feasible if you plan for it and growth is feasible if if you encourage it in your town I believe that Milton is going to be required to grow and I urge our bodies to prepare for that to happen we
will not go bankrupt by the logic that was presented before the city of Boston would have been bankrupt hundreds of years ago um be more moreover this I'll leave it at that thank you very much thank you uh Mr fur you
recognized Brian F Precinct 10 I'll be very brief uh the law is binding uh this is not binding but we as a body have an opportunity to ask the planning board to follow the law thank you and ma'am in front of me you're last
hello Christine Turner precinct for toown meeting member um I had absolutely zero plans to talk tonight um so I I'm not I'm dressed in my my finest sweat sweatpants um but I wanted to take a minute I was one of the signatures of
this um this petition did I think it was legally binding when I signed it no I did not um I also as someone had mentioned earlier I work also work in advertising and so so I know how to send a message and this was my way along with
hundreds of my neighbors of sending a message that we really want the planning board to submit a compliant plan I think about like I was trying to think about like as I was like trying to put this together in my head like what is the analogy here I'm going to date myself
and probably make a cultural reference that maybe 25% of the people will understand but in the movie say anything Lloyd dobler stands in front of his ex-girlfriend's house with a boom box desperate for her attention because she will not return her his calls she won't
open the door for him this is the equivalent of hundreds of your neighbors holding up a boom box to the planning committee saying please listen to us and submit a compliant plan that's all I
got thank you so again we'll go to a vote it's just a majority vote and as before we're not voting on what the warrant committee recommends you're voting on the article as it's printed on page 49 so if you
approve of the citizens petition you will vote Yes and if you disapprove you'll vote no so with that we'll open the poll I um the motion carries with a vote of uh 95-
74 um pardon excuse me I've had two members stand up who want to see a vote tally and three and four and five and six and if you raise hands seven so uh
we're going to Mr Mallet if you would put up and scroll through vote we'll see the vote tally and when this is done I'll entertain after this is done I'll entertain a motion to dissolve
e e you got right IDE e that's it I'll entertain a motion to dissolve second all in favor of dissolving please signify by saying I oppose no thank you very much folks
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