Dan Dunn

I take notes during Town Meeting. They are not official in any way. As I listen to people speak, I type notes. I’m sure that, at times, I mishear or misunderstand the speaker, but my notes represent what I hear at the time. I then publish the notes every night after the meeting. I do go back and make a few edits as errors are pointed out to me.

I do not try to reproduce my entire notes for this online version. Sometimes I relay a quote from a specific speaker. Most of the time I only summarize the discussion. At points I give a purely personal opinion; those are clearly labeled like this: Personal note.

Jane Howard led the meeting in the Star Spangled Banner.

Moderator John Leone announced that Representative Sean Garballey was seeking additional support for Hearing Awareness Day.

On Chair of the Board of Selectman Clarissa Rowe’s motion, we voted to reconvene on May 18th.

Announcements:

• Peter Howard – On your seats is a resolution about PAYT to be considered in June.
• John Maher – Symmes Trust. Thursday’s Advocate had notice for people seeking grants for health care.

The viewing gallery had a good-sized crowd. From the looks of it, and some of the signs I could read, it looks like mostly parents of Thompson students who are advocating for the Thompson rebuild. Many of them stuck around through the later votes.

Article 3 – Reports

On motion of Al Tosti, we took the article from the table.

• Lawrence McKinney – Mr. McKinney gave a detailed report of the Uncle Sam Committee. They are looking to create an Uncle Sam Plaza. He led the meeting in a round of his song “But He Came From Arlington.”
• Jane Howard – Mrs. Howard gave the report of the Vision 2020 Committee. Part of the report is in the water bodies article, and part is in our hands in the report on the annual survey. Mrs. Howard reviewed the survey results.
• Stephen Gilligan – He gave a précis of the Report of the Treasurer to Town Meeting.
• Sally Naish – She gave the report of the Arlington Tree Committee. She talked about planting trees and the budget challenges of the program.
• Cindy Starks – As Chair of the School Committee, she started to read her report. The Moderator interrupted her and asked her to give highlights, not read the entire report. I understand and agree with the moderator’s position that reports shouldn’t be just read. In this case, though, what she was presenting was an overview of a much bigger report. If she’d had more references to the overall report, it would have perhaps been the right mix of reading and overview. It’s a tough line to walk, though. She noted the importance of approving the override on June 7th, and the cuts in school teachers and programs if the override is not approved. Mr. Caccavarro stood and complained that she was talking about the override. He said that it wasn’t the report of the school committee, but an override debate. I don’t know what Mr. Caccavarro is hoping for – you can’t talk about the budget without talking about the override. There are two budgets being considered. One budget is with an override, and one budget is without an override. You can’t stick your head in the sand and pretend there is no override being voted in three weeks.
• John Cole – He reported on progress on the Highland Fire Station, the Central Fire Station, the Community Safety Building, and a bit about Thompson and Stratton. He commended Chief Bobby Jefferson and the School Department CFO Diane Johnson for saving the towns a lot of money in the construction process.

Article 3 was tabled.

We tabled the article in progress, and moved to:

Article 57 – Capital Plan.

Charlie Foskett gave the report of the Capital Planning Committee. He noted that this year’s capital spending is somewhat more conservative than past years. He reviewed the debt service that was being taken on. He talked about how the entire plan was kept under 5% of the budget. He mentioned the Green Schools plan and how it might save the town money. He announced the creation of a Maintenance Committee, separate from the Capital group. He noted the town has fewer copiers, and needs a new document management plan. There was a modification of the text that Wellington tennis court is being worked on, not the playground. There were questions about how grants are reported. The budget was passed, in all votes, unanimously by voice vote.

We moved to the Special Town Meeting

Article 4 – Capital Budget. Voted no action.

Article 5 – Thompson School.

Charlie Foskett asked for an hour to give the presentation, and he was given it by the meeting.  They only used half that, in the end.

We took a 10-minute break before the presentation started.

School Committee member Jeff Thielman started the presentation. He gave the report of the Thompson School Rebuilding Committee. He recounted the school rebuilding debt exclusion override votes of the late 90’s. Thompson and Stratton are the two remaining schools. Stratton has a repair plan; Thompson is slated to be rebuilt. Thompson was built in 1955 and most mechanical systems are failing. We expect 47.2% reimbursement from the state. Demolition would start this fall. The new school could open in fall of 2013. As a part of this plan, we’ll have to re-district. Thompson students will be accommodated at other elementary schools. The central kitchen will be at Thompson. He talked about various cost factors, prices, and ways to manage the building project.

Charlie Foskett gave a report on how the project will be paid for. He talked about the votes of the town and the state funding process. $6.7 million will come from the debt exclusion override approved in 2000. $8.5 million will come from the state. $3 million will come from the sale/lease of Parmenter and Crosby. There is an additional $2 million from smaller sources.

There was a question about salvage of the old building. There was a question about how to keep the project on track. Jane Biondi, the Thompson PTO president, spoke in favor of the project. She got a big round of applause. I agreed with her speech, and it was well delivered, but I don’t think that applause or booing is appropriate. If you’re watching at home, it’s not that I disagreed with Jane – I just think that Town Meeting suffers when there is cheering and booing. A couple parents spoke in favor. There were questions about food service during reconstruction. Mr. Maher moved the question. Debate was terminated. The motion was approved unanimously. There’s still work to be done, but this is the last big step – I think we’re getting a new school!

Special Town Meeting was dissolved.

We took the articles off the table.

Article 24. Public Records Law, continued.

Jill Snyder said that she’s a records manager. She noted the importance of records management. Chris Loreti spoke again. He rose to contradict some of the statements made last week. Among other things, he said that the $1.5 million school budget error of last year was brought to light by a public records request. This is incorrect. The issue was found by the town auditor. The auditor is the one that figured out that the school department was paying FY10 salaries with FY11 money. Saying that the error was discovered by an information request is like saying the Red Sox score was discovered by the Boston Globe. A couple of speakers were against the resolution on the basis that the changes would be too time consuming or expensive. Eric Berger described several times where requests for information took longer than 10 days. Chief Technology Officer David Good spoke. He said that he was a public servant, and he served the public. When he gets an information request he must protect the rights of the people in the records he holds as well as serve the public. The requests he gets often include names, and those names are linked to retirement and health records that are private by right of the individual.  He, or someone else, has to read each of these messages to make sure there isn’t an inappropriate release of information. He noted that when Chris Loreti made his records request, he still had 24 months of email data to convert to the new system. He offered to provide the information after the conversion, but Loreti wouldn’t wait. Loreti appealed to the state. Good said that the state did not set the new $200 price, but that he did – it just took time to convert the data. I think that David Good’s statement was excellent, and very valuable to the debate. I hope that it helps change the tone of the debate. If this article is about “us versus them,” about the town hiding things from residents, then we’ve all messed up. As has been said before, there is no “us and them” – there is only us, the town, its employees, its volunteers. We’re all working to make the town a better place.  Good put a lot of the previous statements from many speakers in perspective.

The debate didn’t change my mind. I’m going to vote in favor of the resolution, as it is written. But I’m not voting for it because there’s something that was done wrong in the past. I simply agree that public access to records is a good thing. The other story lines in this debate are just unnecessary and unpleasant distractions.

Meeting was adjourned for another night.