Thank you!

I’ll still post the occasional entry about this or that. And when next year rolls around, I’ll revisit the notes decision.

Whether coincidence or not, the Town website is now posting those very things.

I’d still like to see those (especially the tabled/postponed/notices lists) posted in the hall as well. I’m sure many TMMs aren’t online.

The BoS recommended a vote to authorize it to file home rule legislation to allow it to put on the ballot a questions asking voters if all-alcohol licenses may be given to restaurants with at least 50 seats (down from the current 99). She introduced the president of the Chamber of Commerce who said a main proponent is Scutra and that it would be of benefit to other small restaurants in town.

Mr. Daly moved the previous question, which failed.

Mr. Loreti asked what a “function room” was. Town Counsel said he was merely copying verbatim the language used when all-alcohol licenses were voted on some years ago. Mr. Loreti moved to strike “function rooms” and to disallow applicants from having bars.

Mr. Tully asked why a number is specified. Ms. LaCourt said the BoS was worried about de facto allowing bars if the number was too small. Town Counsel said the Legislature would ignore the petition if it did not have a substantial minimum seating requirement.

Ms. Fiore asked if this would create additional all-alcohol licenses and was told it would not. She said she was against liquor and opposed the recommended vote.

Mr. Bernacchi asked if the BoS had told the Scutra owners that this article was unlikely to come up tonight. Ms. LaCourt said the BoS had.

Mr. Burke said he was against the proposed vote and that reducing the seat requirement would open a can of worms. He said it would turn Arlington into Cambridge and Somerville and that voting for the recommendation would help “ruin Arlington.”

We adjourned at 23:02, racking up 29 minutes of debate on this article.

The BoS recommended a vote to impose a $20/day fine on people violating the DPW’s rules and regulations on what can be put in the trash. Ms. LaCourt said enforcement would be “gentle, not punitive”.

Mr. Jamieson thanked Town Counsel for suggesting the rules and regulations be incorporated by reference instead of being set in the by-law. He said that if trash were cut by one pound per person per day, the Town would save $500,000 in tip fees.

Mr. Foskett said that while he supported recycling, the incorporation by reference prevents people from knowing what is disallowed and attacks the authority of Town Meeting.

Mr. Judd agreed with Mr. Foskett and said he did not like the “trash police” he believed this would create. He also wanted a Town Meeting “override” provision in the proposal and moved to postpone to 7 May.

Mr. Lavalle asked if there’s currently a fine for the violation. Town Counsel said there was, due to a catch-all clause in the by-laws providing a $20 fine for any violation that doesn’t have an explicit fine. Mr. Lavalle asked who the DPW enforcer would be. Town Counsel said it could be any DPW employee. Mr. Lavalle asked if this would create a new position. Ms. LaCourt said the Town will be hiring the recycling manager regardless of the outcome of this article.

Mr. Deyst had Mr. Jamieson say the recycling manager’s position is already funded (from the white goods disposal fees).

Mid-session break was from 21:37 to 21:49.

Mr. Kaplan said the proposal has a good intent but doesn’t want Town employees rifling through our trash.

Ms. King said this is needed to make sure our recycling efforts aren’t in vain.

Mr. McCabe asked if the fine was in the scope of the article. The Acting Moderator ruled it was. Mr. McCabe disagreed with incorporating the rules by reference. Town Counsel said legislative bodies often do that.

Mr. Carreiro asked if other parts of the by-laws incorporate by reference the regulations of another Town body. Town Counsel said there are, giving ConComm as an example. Mr. Carreiro said an override provision was not needed since Town Meeting could change the by-law in a future session and therefore postponement to add override language was not needed.

Mr. Schlichtman asked who the Board of Public Works was and was told by the Actiing Moderator it was the BoS. Mr. Schlichtman said that if people didn’t like the regulations and any lack of notices, they could take it out on the BoS, so there was no need to postpone. He said the Town does not manage to enforce anything strictly and so wouldn’t enforce this strictly, either.

Mr. Leonard asked if this only applies to WMI. The Town Manager said it applies to all haulers. Mr. Leonard then got confused between the article and the proposed vote, attempting to amend the article. The Acting Moderator explained the difference between the articles and the proposed votes again.

Mr. Bloom said that despite the statements of the proponents, the proposal was about punishment, not education.

Mr. May moved to strike the fine, since the catch-all provision already covers it.

Mr. Daly moved the previous question, which carried.

The Judd motion to postpone was defeated on a voice vote. The May amendment was defeated 43-102. The BoS recommendation carried 95-45.

The article was dispatched at 22:29, for a total of 60 minutes.

Mr. Auster, the lead proponent, recapped the heckling incident at the end of last year’s meeting and how he felt it impinged on Town Meeting’s rights.

Ms. Fiore discussed how police used to man every door in the hall, sometimes being used by the then-Moderator to prevent people from leaving early. She recounted how Mr. McCabe and the Acting Moderator attempted to throw each other out of the hall when they were each Moderator.

Mr. Lavalle asked why the Acting Moderator (who was Moderator last year) didn’t throw the heckler out. The Acting Moderator replied that he was hoping the heckler would cease after being admonished. Mr. Lavalle says the Moderator needs to be stricter.

Mr. Tully got confused between the warrant article (which is captioned as a bylaw amendment) and the actual proposed vote of the BoS, which was a resolution. The Acting Moderator pointed this distinction out and reminded the Meeting we vote on motions, not on articles.

Mr. Berkowitz moved the previous question, which carried.

The BoS recommendation was approved on a voice vote.

The BoS recommended a bylaw change as set out in its report to restrict the Town’s power of eminent domain, citing the dissent in Kelo.

Mr. Belskis, the lead proponent, also read from the dissent and described how a future meeting’s acceptance of MGL 40Q could do away with the 2/3 supermajority requirement and take power out of the hands of Town Meeting.

Mr. Carreiro asked Town Counsel to give an opinion on the legal claims made in the ARB report and to describe the Massachusetts legal meaning of “blight”. Town Counsel said that eminent domain can be used to clear title. He said he can see both sides of the article and that reasonable people can differ. He described blight in terms that would not appear to apply to Arlington.

Mr. Schlichtman asked why the ARB is for no action. Mr. Fitzsimmons replied that because of the 2/3rds requirement for a taking, Town Meeting will exercise good judgement and should not have its hands tied.

Mr. Tosti, speaking for himself, said this was an attack on Town Meeting and that Town Meeting would never do what New London did to Kelo et al.

Mr. Quinn said he was initially a supporter but now agreed with Mr. Tosti.

Mr. DeCoursey said the proposed vote was unnecessary and that flexibility should be retained.

Mr. Rehrig said he was opposed because the proposal is futile — since a 2/3rds vote is required for a taking, if Town Meeting wanted to do the taking, it would be definition have the votes to repeal any restriction by-law. He said he supported the intent but was nonetheless for no action.

Mr. Loreti brought Mr. Fitzsimmons back up. He said that Massachusetts has a blight requirement that Connecticut does not have, that the 2/3rds issue makes the proposal moot, that eminent domain is useful to clear title, and that the ARB is worried about the “or result” language in the proposal leading to more litigation.

Mr. Deyst moved the previous question, which carried.

The BoS recommendation was defeated on a voice vote. The article was disposed of at 20:46, a total of 25 minutes.

We voted to fix to the time to which we adjourn at 20:00 on 2 May.

Under Article 1 (Reports), Mr. Tosti presented the FinComm report, which was a motion to ratify CBAs with various unions. The CBAs contained a 6% raise over two years (roughly half retroactive to last year), part of said raise to make up for increases in health-care copayments and employee contributions. The biggest news is that new employees will have to pay 25% of the premiums instead of 15%. Article 1 was tabled.

In Article 2 (the actual article to ratify), Mr. Jamieson offered an amendment to transfer some funds around to “restore” some monies to the current fiscal year’s budget. Mr. Tosti objected that the amendment was outside the scope of the article and the Acting Moderator concurred. Mr. Hughes asked if the patrolmen were getting a 3% or 3.5% raise in 2007 and was told 3.5%. The FinComm motion was approved on a voice vote, Article 1 was taken off the table, and the STM was dissolved at 22:42.

Mr. Jamieson was in favor of the BoS vote and against Ms. Worden’s amendment and asked how flow rates are calculated. Mr. Bean (the new DPW Director) said the calculation is a standard methodology, using National Weather Service standard algorithms. He added that rate, not volume is what’s important. Mr. Jamieson asked if the building code required any mitigation (such as drywells). Mr. Byrne (the building inspector) said it did not. Mr. Jamieson asked if the Conservation Commission had an opinion. A ConComm member said ConComm thought it was a good idea.

Mr. Burke said he was in favor of Ms. Worden’s amendment and made his own amendment to reduce the new development exemption to 500 square feet.

Mr. Loreti pointed out this was a change to the by-laws, not the zoning by-laws and was in favor of reducing the exemption amount.

Mr. Auster asked why there were any exemptions. Mr. O’Brien replied it was a matter of generational equity — that they didn’t want to impose new burdens on “ordinary houses” like those that have long been in Arlington. He also said that if the town engineer couldn’t figure out how to mitigate, that would be a chance for relief and that an applicate could appeal any denial de novo to the ZBA. Mr. Bean said it would take more than just financial hardship — there would need to be no available technology with a cost reasonable compared to the overall project cost.

We took the mid-session break from 21:34 to 21:47.

Mr. McCabe asked who paid for the required drainage plan and was told the applicant did. He asked how the ZBA can be the appellate board when this is not zoning. Mr. Maher said appeals had to go somewhere and no law prevents the ZBA from being used for things other than zoning.

Mr. Holman made an amendment to eliminate the new development exemption.

Mr. DeCoursey asked what happens if the work isn’t done as promised and why there were no deadlines for ZBA and DPW Director action. The Acting Moderator said a certificate of occupancy would not be issued. Mr. O’Brien said deadlines were a good idea and began working on an amendment.

We recessed into the Special Town Meeting from 22:05 to 22:42.

The DeCoursey amendment would give the DPW Director 14 days to act and would give the ZBA 21 days to hold a hearing and 14 days to make a decision after that. Another amendment would impose a $200/day fine for attempting to occupy if the work wasn’t done right (turned out that a occupancy certificate would be issued, hence the need for a fine).

Mr. Rehrig said the change was needed, that there wasn’t an undue burden, that Mr. DeCoursey’s amendments were important, and supported the reduction to 500 square feet. He said zero would cause problems like having to submit a plan for a doghouse.

Mr. Schlichtman moved the previous question, which carried.

Both DeCoursey amendments were approved. The Holman amendment failed. The Burke amendment was approved, mooting the Worden amendment. The motion as amended then passed on a voice vote.

We finished Article 10 at 22:57. We spent 61 minutes on it tonight, which added to the 27 minutes spent at the last session totals 88 minutes.

No notices of reconsideration on anything were given and we adjourned.

The Acting Moderator announced that the AHS was selling Arlington history books in the Town Hall lobby. Mr. Carreiro made an announcement about the TMM announce list. Mr. Chaput announced that Arlington 200 had a booth in the lobby. Ms. Mahon announced that April is Autism Month. Mr. Curro (chair of AHRC) spoke about the hate mail that some public officials have received and circulated a petition to get signatures (and contributions) for a full-page ad the AHRC plans to take out in the Advocate.

• The report of the Selectmen
• The report of the Redevelopment Board
• The report of the Zoning By-Law Review Committee

According to an e-mail sent out by BoS Chair Annie LaCourt, Massachusetts law states that the old Moderator’s term does not end until the new Moderator is “elected and qualified”. Here, “qualified” means “sworn in”. So without any action needed from anyone, John Worden will simply continue in the chair and will run the Meeting until Mr. Leone is ready. When he is ready, Mr. Leone needs only show up before the Clerk and be sworn. At that moment he will automatically become Moderator.

Some people have also discussed delaying the start of Town Meeting out of respect to Mr. Leone. The aforementioned e-mail from Ms. LaCourt also said that Town Meeting would not be delayed and this was in accordance with Mr. Leone’s wishes.

It’s not too late to help, and just some of the ways you can help are:

• Holding signs.
• Displaying yard signs
• Making endorsements
• Telling friends and neighbors you support me.
• Making contributions to defray campaign costs.

If you’re interested in any of these or have any questions about what you can do to help, send an email to volunteer@richformoderator.org. If you have any general questions, email rich@richformoderator.org.

Thank you, and please vote for me on April 14th!

It seems so weird to be done with TM by mid-May. Seven sessions is the shortest meeting I’ve been in over my 11 years in TM (next shortest was 10, I think). Not unrelatedly this was the shortest warrant I’d ever seen, and one with only two zoning articles. So right from the top it was clear that absent some strange controversies we’d finish quite a bit sooner than usual.

I was glad that Elsie Fiore made the statement she did at the end and received the long ovation. She was right on. I’ve been on record elsewhere as saying I felt Article 67 was not an appropriate subject to be before TM, but there is no excuse for not even being willing to hear out the proponents. The Moderator did the right thing by refusing to recognize a motion to terminate debate before the proponents even had a chance to speak, and once the Moderator made it clear to Mr. Daly that the motion would not be taken until the proponents spoke, Mr. Daly did not do himself proud by interrupting and otherwise demanding the floor.

As for the Moderator, it will be very strange (but interesting!) to see Mr. Worden down on the floor and (presumably) addressing the meeting as a non-neutral for the first time in my tenure. Based on remarks he’s made, letters to the editor he’s written, etc. over the years I have some suppositions on what sorts of positions he might take on various issues and it’ll be amusing/educational to see how right or wrong I may be.

It will also be strange to see a new moderator up on stage for the first time in my tenure. I’ll be immodest enough to hope it turns out to be me, but I know it will take a hard race to get there, should I go forward with putting my hat in the ring.