2018 Town Meeting - Night One

Welcome back to Town Meeting!  Many thanks to the voters of Precinct 10 for reelecting me.  It has truly been a pleasure serving our neighborhood these past many years, and I look forward to the challenges and joys of the upcoming three years.

We held our joint precinct meeting with precinct 8 yesterday afternoon.  After reviewing the warrant, we had a lively discussion on a variety of topics relating to our town and our neighborhoods in particular.  We spoke about a need to consider spending priorities for the aging in our town, rather than only focusing on our school needs.  We talked about traffic calming measures for Jason Street.  The most interesting idea was to use the town's reverse 911 system to call residents to remind them of election day in an effort to get better voter turn-out.

Tonight was opening night of the 2018 Annual Town Meeting.  We started in the usual way with the Menotomy Minutemen marching in and playing the national anthem.  I hadn't noticed the date on their flag before.  The militia was formed only 13 days before the battles of Lexington and Concord.

Dan Dunn presented the state of the town address, focusing on the success we've had over the last year and the challenges we are going to be facing.  After swearing in the new members, taking a minute to remember those who have passed, and accepting reports, we moved onto the first real votes of the night.  First up was the election of the Measurer of Wood and Bark.  Elsie Fiore was easily reelected on a voice vote.  Similarly, James O'Conor was reelected as our Assistant Town Moderator.

We then moved onto the consent agenda.  This is a list of usually non-controversial votes and non-issues that we vote on all at once to move things along.  There are usually a few items that are taken off the agenda so they can be addressed in depth.  Tonight, however, there was some one who seemed bent on taking things off the agenda just for the sake of doing it.  They had nothing to discuss and no alternate language.  I thought it was annoying and disrespectful to the time of the members.  In the end we passed and increase for town employee survivor benefits, rescinding borrowing authorizations from prior years, funding for reconstruction sewers and mains, funding for town celebrations, the water bodies fund, the Harry Barber service program, pension adjustment, reallocating overlay reserve funds, funding cemeteries, and miscellaneous appropriations.

Starting with article 6, we now started working in order down the warrant.  We approved a change to the makeup of the Capital Planning Committee to allow them up to two extra members to help with high volumes of work in certain years.  We voted to refer a question on whether to continue mailing the warrant to the government subcommittee of Vision 2020.  We added some categories to the town charges that can be added to a lien on property.  We voted to end  a particular funding letter in favor of several online resources.  This was all done relatively quickly.

The first article to garner a lot of discussion was an article making changes to the town's dog ordinances.  The changes, structured on state statute, allows the local police more discretion in how to address animal complaints.  There were some speakers who felt this went too far, especially in light of the state laws, but the majority felt it was an appropriate measure.  It passed handily.

We also spent some time discussing changes to the vacant storefront registry.  The proposal was to allow more time for owners to rent their property when it became vacant.  Some of the discussion was due to unfamiliarity with the articles (do your homework, people) and an unease about allowing certain town staff the power to grant waivers.  In the end, this passed easily.

The longest discussion of the night revolved around the town's Betterment Bylaw.  This allows owners of private ways a mechanism to get streets paved when not all owners want to do it.  The changes would allow more flexibility, allow the town to make emergency repairs at its discretion, and better define when the town is an abutter.  Most of the discussion revolved around individual streets and local concerns.  It was great to hear from a lot of unfamiliar names, but the discussion wasn't entirely within the scope of the article.  This too was passed by  a large margin.

We approved the creation of an Arlington Council for the Arts to serve as an umbrella for the myriad arts organizations in town.  We increased the fee for removing a protected tree during the development of a parcel of land.  We upheld no action votes on noise abatement, starting town meeting earlier at night, and changing the demolition delay ordinance.

The last action of the night was to change the Comptroller position to be an appointment under the Town Manager.  Several protections were included to protect the integrity and autonomy of the position.  We moved quickly to approve it, and them adjourned for the night.

It felt like we spent most of our time picking up typos in the articles.  I think we really need someone to spend some time checking this language before it gets set in the bylaws.

Alright, it's late and I need to go to bed.  We will pick back up on Wednesday with a discussion of the Capital Budget before backing up to where we left off tonight.  Next Monday, which I will miss a portion of due to a business conflict, will focus on budgets.  A week from Wednesday will be the special town meeting articles.  That might be all the time we need.