Chairman of the Board of Selectmen Clarissa Rowe was kind enough to provide a copy of her remarks at the State of the Town delivered on 4/28/08.

Good evening. I want to thank Vision 2020 for making this evening possible and especially Jane Howard for her usual careful preparation for the event. I also want to welcome Town Meeting members back into this beautiful chamber for the Town Meeting of 2008. It is a momentous occasion for all of us town meeting members because we welcome our new Moderator, John Leone, to take the reins after 19 years of John Worden being our leader.

As every Selectmen before me, I would not be standing here tonight without the every day help of the wonderful women in the Selectmen’s office, Marie Krepelka, MaryAnna Sullivan, Fran Reidy and Jean Devereaux. They make our work easy and enjoyable.

And now to the State of Our Town:

The State of Town of Arlington is fiscally sound. We are entering the fourth year of the Five Year Plan. Our novel, five-year budgeting process is working, and we have kept our promise of not going back to the voters for another override. The budget numbers have not been met without strain however. The rising cost of healthcare has not stayed within the 7% limit. This means that our balanced budget has been funded by paying our employees less.

Our long-term pension liabilities remain unmet but we have begun to plan and put aside money for the important obligation.

I personally want to thank Town Manger, Brian Sullivan, Deputy Town Manager, Nancy Galkowski, the entire Finance Committee and the past chair of the BoS, Annie LaCourt, for their attention to the finances of the Town. I have asked Annie to continue to lead the Budget and Revenue Task Force as we begin our planning for the next five-year plan. We welcome our School Committee counterparts and ask them to continue to be actively involved in this planning process.

This past year, the School budget was especially tight because of their mandates, and working in partnership, the town transferred approximately $70,000 to help out the situation. We must think of the two budgets as one budget for the entire town. Education and Public Safety are what keeps and attracts people to our Town. Arlington’s children must come first as we budget for the future.

In the midst of a recession and a housing slump, Arlington is selling houses at a fast clip this spring. Our for-sale signs stay up for the second shortest time in the Commonwealth. That is because Arlington is such a desirable place to live.

Looking to the future, I ask that our town employees look favorably at joining the GIC. The GIC is the Group Insurance Commission of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As you know, this decision is made through coalition bargaining with our town unions. While this kind of bargaining is new to the town, I firmly believe that this is the time to engage in it. We have the possibility of saving the Town two to three million dollars a year if the Town joins the state’s group.

In these times of fiscal uncertainty and constraint, it is time for us to look at ways to save the town money that go beyond our borders. We need to work with our town employees in this effort because they will have good ideas of where to save money. A recent example is the spring clean up at Mt. Pleasant Cemetery. It was done by a private company and was the idea of Brian Sullivan and Jim Dodge, the DPW Operations Manager, a hard-working man with lots of titles but too little help.

Arlington is well served by its delegation on Beacon Hill. With the state’s budget problems, it is paramount that we have close communication with our representatives on Beacon Hill, and we do. We are being ably served by our new but veteran State Senator Jim Marzilli, and our house represenatives, Rep. Jay Kaufman, Rep. Will Brownsberger and newly elected Rep. Sean Garballey. I am also glad to see my friend, former State Representative Anne Paulsen in our audience. Her no nonsense style on the Hill was an important example for me to see.

While chiefs of staff don’t often get mentioned, I want to recognize the fine work that Arlington’s own Cindy Friedman and Thompson School’s own Mike McCabe are doing on our behalf as well. Their recent work on Summer Street is just one example of their dedication and commitment to the Town.

Beyond the fiscal condition of the Town, there are some accomplishments and some challenges that I would like to mention:

Arlington’s Cultural Institutions are Thriving. We recently celebrated the Arlington Center for the Arts’ 20th Anniversary, and we are busy planning for the tenth anniversary of the Dallin Art Museum on the weekend of October 17, 18 and 19th. Our children, like my son Nicholas, the sculptor, are inspired by Dallin’s beautiful pieces of sculpture.

Arlington’s Focus on Energy. In the next two months, Arlington will join the Town of Medford and the City of Cambridge in a year-long contest, called the Energy Smackdown. The contest will see which ten families can lower their carbon footprint the most. We look forward to watching this contest. It will educate all of us about how we can help our planet.

The Board of Selectmen adopted Sustainable Arlington’s Sustainability Action Plan last fall.

The Town has also joined the New England EPA to commit to being an Energy Star partner which means that we will

• Assess the energy performance of all municipal buildings and schools
• Set a goal to reduce energy use in buildings by 10% or more
• Promote energy renewables to the town’s companies and organizations

Saving on energy costs will save taxpayers’ money.

Arlington’s Focus on the Environment. The new Open Space Plan for 2007 to 2012 will be formerly presented to Town Meeting later this spring. The plan is excellent and we thank the Open Space Committee for making it the best plan yet.

Arlington is blessed with wonderful parks, playgrounds, natural open spaces and water bodies. In the last decade, the Open Space Committee and the Parks Commission have done a comprehensive catalogue of these town assets and prepared excellent maintenance plans for the spaces.

Unfortunately, not all our open space goals can be met because our funds are limited. Despite this, the town wide stewardship or public private partnerships of our parks, playgrounds and conservation areas has grown tremendously.

This spring, the Arlington Friends of Parks will be formally introduced and will serve as town wide group to discuss the budgets and management of our parks and playgrounds, and raise money for special items. Anyone wanting to contribute to this effort, which will augment the DPW budget, not replace it, should talk to Park Commission Chair, Leslie Mayer, or our fine Recreation Director, Joe Connelly. Frankly, I think that our parks and playgrounds are in the best shape now than in the past thirty years that I have lived in town. Thank you, Open Space Committee, Parks and Recreation Commission and the many volunteers who have built the new Bishop School playground, or cleaned up Spy Pond Park, Robbins Farm or Menotomy Rocks Park.

In the future, we hope to have plans to turn Cooke’s Hollow into a beautiful, passive open space that might also become Arlington’s first cremations area. It could be our own Mt. Auburn Cemetery.

The Open Space Committee has been talking about a family trail and linear park along Mill Brook.

And who knew that the most popular vote the BoS made last fall would be the plowing of the Bike Path during the winter! It has been a fabulous success, and cost the town less than $3000.

Our land conservation efforts have great enthusiasm behind them – whether it is Elizabeth Island, the Mugar Property, or Great Meadows. Through the work of the Arlington Land Trust and the Arlington Conservation Commission, we hope to see these important areas protected for future generations.

Arlington’s Planning and Development. As you all know, we are beginning a redesign of Massachusetts Avenue from the Cambridge line to just before the Center.

The Arlington Redevelopment Board has begun a signage design program to aid businesses with their signage. The program is funded by some of our local banks. The Revelopment Board is also going to be installing some new streetlights, new benches and an energy saving trash barrel, called the Big Belly.

We are working towards a redesign of Broadway Plaza and as a first step, the Chamber of Commerce, the Garden Club, Derby Farm and some area landscape architects are working to put some new summer flowers in the four planters. Anyone who wants to help with this planting on the morning of Saturday, May 17th, should talk to me.

What kind of businesses do we want in Town? A major initiative this year is the undertaking of a business study for our downtown. The study will help us decide what kind of businesses we want in Arlington.

Because of the work of Town Meeting members, Sheri Baron and former TM member, Roger Barnaby, we sit in the midst of one of greatest restaurant zones in eastern Massachusetts. Now we need to figure out what else we need. What businesses would enliven Mass Avenue, and Broadway, and the Gold’s Gym area? If you have ideas, please talk to Andy West, our ARB head, and the other members of the ARB board. The Board of Selectmen will be working closely with the ARB during the RFP stage of the work and throughout its progress.

Historic Assets. We need to make more of our historic resources, whether it is the Jason Russell House, the Town Gardens that were designed by Frederick Law Olmsted’s sons, or our wonderful Dallin sculptures. Let’s get the tour buses to come to Arlington, and Lexington and Concord.

Subdivision Control. Also, a particular interest of mine is making sure that future development in Arlington happens in a responsible way, not only for the developers but also for the neighbors of the development. We live in one of the densest municipalities in the state so every development needs to carefully weight for its impact on its neighbors. We have an excellent environmental review process for developments that are more than six units but we need to seriously consider how we handle smaller developments.

I ask Town Meeting members to seriously consider adopting the Subdivision Control warrant article later in the meeting. The Board of Survey, which was initiated in the late 1890s, was a tool for that era, not this one.

Arlington also has serious challenges:

Summer Street and Symmes. Besides our obvious fiscal challenges, the Town has two mega construction projects underway and we need to assist the neighbors that are affected by these projects and bring the projects to a quick and successful finish.

The Summer Street project has been a nightmare for five years. We must continue to work with Mass Highway and the contractors to make sure that the Town is left with a roadway that we can maintain and benefit. We would like to reach out to our Disabilities Commission to try to work out a compromise that allows our residents to get some peace and quiet while also assisting those with disabilities. I would also like to single out the head of the Summer Street neighborhood group, Jeanne Leary, for her proactive and intelligent leadership on this issue. She is a new Town meeting member so I ask that Town Meeting welcome her.

Also, today is the first day of blasting at the Symmes site. We are bound to have a tough time this summer with the blasting and the rock crushing that will follow. The Board of Selectmen stands ready to help the neighbors get through this and we ask the Town Meeting members to be especially open to communicating with the neighbors and town officials about any construction problems.

During the last year or so, the Town has hired two terrific people who are helping the town with these projects and other new ones, our new DPW head, John Bean, and our new Town Engineer, Mike Rademacher. We thank them for their current work and hope that next year we don’t see their hair completely white.

Green Dog. The Green Dog program is also a challenge. After several dozen meetings, we have found that we need money for more enforcement to make the program successful. We will be working for another year to tailor a program that will work for all the areas where people currently walk their dogs.

Affordable Housing. We need to bring our percentage of affordable housing to the magic 10% number, and to assist in this we need to establish the Affordable Housing Trust. While the warrant article was not ready for this Town Meeting, it is my promise that it will be on next year’s warrant.

Flooding. Arlington continues to struggle with flooding problems, especially in East Arlington. The TriCommunity Working Group is having some success in looking at the flooding problems and getting solutions funded. The Environmental Bond Bill has money in it for the study and acquisition of another pump at the Amelia Earhardt Dam. The pump could help alleviate the downstream flooding. While we remain frustrated by the lack of maintenance of the Alewife Brook channel, we were also stunned to hear one of the DCR engineer’s saying that dredging the brook was a possibility. We will continue to push these issues.

Later this spring, we will be having a public meeting for the homeowners in East Arlington who will be affected by the changes in the FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, maps that show flooding in the area. The floodplain and floodway have expanded dramatically, and we want to make sure that the newly affected households buy the necessary flood insurance before the new maps are accepted by the Town at the Town Meeting in 2009.

Too Many Elections. Last August, when I was on vacation, I heard that our State Senator was resigning. His sudden resignation has cost the town tens of thousands of dollars. The five elections, with two more to come this fall, have continued to divide the town. The town was just beginning to rebound after a difficult year when the elections happened. Elections, by their nature, polarize people and these elections have continued this polarization.

That is a shame because we now have a new vibrant group of representatives on Beacon Hill. We are well served by them. I just hope that the two elections in the fall can be positive ones with the personal issues left in the background. Let’s have arguments about substance and not whether a candidate is “new” or “old” or “young”.

Board of Selectmen and School Committee Working Together. And finally I want to reach out to the School Committee to ask them to work with us on next year’s budget now, and on the next five-year plan now and at the Summits. I called Denise Burns, the new School Committee head, and we are discussing having joint meeting soon after Town Meeting to discuss our mutual problems and issues. I know that we can solve, or at least try to solve the town’s budget shortfalls if we work together.

Over the weekend, these hate pamphlets were dropped in several of our neighborhoods. Our police department is monitoring the situation, and our organizations, the Human Rights Commission and Common Threads, are well aware of these disgraceful acts. This kind of hate, whether it is paper or electronic, is unacceptable in our Town. Let everyone know, this kind of hate in not tolerated in Arlington.

Finally in closing, I want to welcome two people back to the body of Town Meeting, John Worden and John Maher, who have served us ably in their positions as Town Moderator and Town Counsel. I know that they will enjoy the spring as they represent their precincts of 8 and 14 as well as they represented the whole town. John Maher is only allowed to relax after the Selectmen’s articles, however. Thank you both for your service on our behalf.