{"id":1457,"date":"2011-05-19T01:35:54","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T05:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/?p=1457"},"modified":"2011-05-20T00:16:26","modified_gmt":"2011-05-20T04:16:26","slug":"town-meeting-11-session-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/2011\/05\/town-meeting-11-session-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Town Meeting \u00e2\u20ac\u212211 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Session 8"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>I take notes during Town Meeting. They are not official in any way. As I listen to people speak, I type notes. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m 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.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>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:\u00c2\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Personal note.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Town Meeting member Charlie Gallagher played the national anthem on the piano.<\/p>\n<p>We voted to come back on Monday.  Moderator John Leone noted that we might finish tonight, and then recess until after the override.  <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Alas, it was not meant to be.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Announcements<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Al Tosti stood up and made a correction the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.arlingtonma.gov\/public_documents\/ArlingtonMA_TownMeet\/2011ATM\/reports\/index\">report of the Finance Committee<\/a>.  On page B7, the All Public Works section, the sub-total sections were corrected.  The actual total is $7,195,729, an increase of 77,375, or 1.08%.<\/li>\n<li>Ann LeRoyer.  Open Space committee.  She noted the display in the front hall and remarked on existing and potential open spaces in town.  She talked about possible enhancements of Mill Brook.<\/li>\n<li>Roland Chaput.  Friends of Robbins Farm Park are doing a fundraiser to replace the slides. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.robbinsfarmpark.org\/\">http:\/\/www.robbinsfarmpark.org\/<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Article 3 &#8211; Reports<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On motion of Al Tosti, we took the article from the table.<\/p>\n<p>Angela Olszewski.  She gave the report of the Tourism and Economic Development Committee.<\/p>\n<p>Article 3 was then tabled.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Article 24.  Public Records Law, continued, again.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Clarissa Rowe was next.  She moved to terminate debate, done on voice vote.  Loreti&#8217;s resolution was substituted 81-76.  The motion, as substituted, was approved 83-79.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Article 38.  Parmenter School.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Brian Sullivan explained the article.  The Parmenter and Crosby are no longer needed by the town.  The town needs the money from these properties to fund the Thompson School.  Parmenter is 85 years old.  There is a lot of deferred maintenance.  He is concerned that the buildings distract the town from its core mission.  Clarissa Rowe moved the substitute motion &#8211; very similar to the original, but with more limitations on the sale.  Patricia Worden gave speech against the sale, accusing &#8220;the administration&#8221; of &#8220;smoke-and-mirror arguments,&#8221; &#8220;imaginary facts,&#8221; &#8220;dubious maneuvers,&#8221; and &#8220;bait and switch,&#8221; and &#8220;greed.&#8221;  <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Mrs. Worden&#8217;s rhetoric was over the top and did a disservice to Town Meeting.  There is no need to be insulting while making your point.<\/span> A speaker was concerned that we should hold on to property in case we need it in the future.  John Worden was concerned that if sold, the properties might be later re-sold inappropriately.  He moved an amendment with further deed restrictions.  Chris Loreti asked if the selectmen currently have the power to enter a long term lease.  The answer was ambiguous. He asked if we can we use the full $34M or the 2000 debt exclusion.  Charlie Foskett answered legally yes, but not within the agreement to the voters.   There was concern if the potential sale is legal because of zoning.  There was concern that we hadn&#8217;t looked enough at other options.  There was concern that this might be converted to a charter school and cost the town money.  Charlie Foskett talked about the depreciation of the schools, and how we should convert one town asset (Parmenter and Crosby) into another asset (rebuilt Thompson).<\/p>\n<p>We had a 10 minute break.<\/p>\n<p>Several speakers were in favor of the plan; they argued that it was smart use of town assets and the best available option for the town.  There was a speaker opposed to Mr. Worden&#8217;s amendment because it is anti-affordable housing.  Gwen Hooper gave the history of the Arlington Children&#8217;s Center.  <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">I thought the history was fascinating &#8211; it was fact-filled, but also gave a great feeling for the texture of the times and places.  It was a beautiful oral history.  Town Meeting sometimes provides unexpected, delightful gems &#8211; Mrs. Hooper&#8217;s speech was such a delight.<\/span> Annie LaCourt argued against the amendment because it reduced flexibility.  She asked Town Meeting to permit the negotiations to go forward.  Mr. Ruderman thinks we&#8217;re holding Thompson hostage.  <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Mr. Ruderman was the second speaker that suggested this, and I just can&#8217;t figure it out.  If I understand the argument, the selectmen are trying to force something through by linking it to something popular, like Thompson rebuild.  The thing I don&#8217;t understand is, in that scenario, why are we doing it?  What do we have to gain?  What is our ulterior motive?  I just can&#8217;t imagine what it would be.<\/span> I spoke.  I said that the value of the property is both monetary and non-monetary in the way the tenants give back to the town.  I said to vote for the motion so that we had the opportunity to maximize the value of the asset.  There were further speakers in favor and against.  Leo Doherty moved the question.  There were a series of questions about the order of the votes.  The Moderator chose to vote on the substitute motion first.  He chose to vote on the amendment to the substitute motion after the substitute had been made.  <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">That was just backward.  We should amend the proposed substitute first, and then, having perfected it, we would then substitute for the main motion.  The moderator was asking to substitute first and then perfect.  He got testy when people argued with him. <\/span> The substitution failed by voice vote.  The amendment was therefore irrelevant.\u00c2\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">And you have to ask yourself &#8211; would the substitution been made if it had been amended?  We&#8217;ll never know. <\/span> The main motion then failed by voice vote.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Article 39.  Crosby school.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Clarissa Rowe asked that this be considered differently than Parmenter.  In this case, there is interest in purchasing by the current tenant.<\/p>\n<p>We adjourned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I take notes during Town Meeting. They are not official in any way. As I listen to people speak, I type notes. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-town-meeting-11"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1457"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1462,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457\/revisions\/1462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}