[Speaker 2] (21:30 - 22:37)
Thank you. Having been informed by the clerk that there is a quorum present, thank you very much. I now call this annual town meeting back to order.

I have a couple of quick announcements. First of all, a huge thank you to New Swan Scott Business, Renzo's Pizzeria, right across the street on Essex Street, for delivering the pizzas. I hope you all will take a moment to go and patronize them when you can.

Next, I've had a couple of questions. It is true that we are missing one of our members of the select board who is at home for health reasons. So thank you for those of you who asked.

And finally, I want to thank all of you for making a third night possible. A quick review of annual reports going back a number of years shows that the last time we had a three-night town meeting was 2005. I think I had hair back then.

So it's been a while. We will begin with Article 20, amending the zoning by-law regarding Vinden Square. We'll start out with Ms. Ippolito.

[Speaker 1] (22:41 - 23:14)
Thank you, Mr. Moderator. And let's see, get all my stuff together here. Okay, Article 20.

The Planning Board recommends that the town vote to amend the Swampscot zoning by-law and map by deleting the language shown in strikethrough and adding the language shown in red, as shown on the orange handout and titled Appendix H. I move the recommendation of the Planning Board.

[Speaker 2] (23:14 - 23:23)
Is there a second? Second. Please proceed, Ms. Ippolito. Ms. Ippolito, probably you'll state that you have had a hearing on this as Planning Board to begin.

[Speaker 1] (23:23 - 23:35)
The hearing on this article was held on May 8th, and the Planning Board voted unanimously to recommend favorable action.

[Speaker 2] (23:36 - 23:36)
Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (23:37 - 1:00:10)
Thank you. So, as everyone probably is aware, this article deals with redevelopment and rezoning. It actually really deals with rezoning certain properties at Vinden Square.

I've heard a lot of conversation over the past couple of nights. First of all, some really incredible conversation about planning, which I really appreciated, and then about the plans that we've done in preparation for the zoning that we're proposing now. So all good questions, and I have to say that, yes, it's a third night here, but it's been really encouraging to be present for this kind of participation.

I think it's great, and I think that's really what we're all here to do. So I was very encouraged by that. So, as I said, I've heard from many of you inside and outside of this meeting, and I know there's a lot of concern that there's not been enough study on what should happen at Vinden Square.

So, as you are all aware, I'm not a planner. Nope. But in this town, I have worked to some of the very best.

I've been a volunteer in Swampscott for over 20 years, and I've been on the planning board for over 14. So that's not nothing. But I've also been involved in multiple roles and responsibilities in planning on behalf of the town that I love, and I'm very proud of my service here.

So nobody fought harder for a planner than I did. I've been a thorn in the side of Sean and Pete and anyone else who had listened to me over the past couple of years. But the fact is we have work to do and plans in place, and we have to do the work.

We have to keep moving on. We have an excellent staff in community development, and when we need to have the support of professional consultants and planning agencies, most importantly, a long-term relationship with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, MAPC, we've had it, and we've never lacked support when we've needed it on specific projects. So let's first talk about the planning that's been done over the years for the Vinton Square area.

In 2013, we were partners in a study called the Livable Communities Workshop. It was sponsored by the MPO, which is the Boston Regional Metropolitan Planning Organization, and the MAPC. The two issues that we studied were access to Vinton Square and circulation in Vinton Square.

The issues, obviously, were that the current design doesn't promote walking or biking. It's not pedestrian-friendly. There are no landscape buffers.

The buildings are set too far back from the road. So what does that mean? Lack of pedestrian connectivity increases traffic.

Excessive parking in Vinton Square encourages driving and exacerbates stormwater runoff. I know that you probably do the exact same thing that I do. If I go to Starbucks for coffee and then I have to go to Stop and Shop, I admit it, I move my car.

And a lot of you probably do the same thing. So the layout is not good. In 2017, we followed up with another plan called the Route 1A Corridor Study.

Again, sponsored by the MPO, who selected Route 1A and other roadways surrounding Vinton Square and conducted a regional needs assessment to guide investment decisions and transportation and commercial infrastructure improvements in that area. In 2015, the Planning Board presented Swampscot 2025, the Master Plan, which was adopted by a town meeting that same year. The Master Plan Committee, which I chaired, was comprised of 19 town residents and facilitated by technical assistance from MAPC.

This 10-year municipal plan was established under Mass General Law, Chapter 41, Section 81D. It took about one year, during which we conducted eight public hearings and public visioning charrettes to identify a community vision and create a long-term, comprehensive, and strategic plan for our community. We are very pleased to have accomplished a majority of the goals in the Master Plan.

Vinton Square improvements, including mixed-use buildings and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure, are included as a main focus of economic development in the Master Plan. Because the Master Plan is up for renewal in 2025, we are already working with MAPC on its update. There will be future charrettes and many public meetings, and I hope you'll be willing to come and participate in those.

Currently, the Director of Community Development and I are also working with Bowler Engineering to assist us in establishing the 3A zoning. Marzi was able to get a grant from the Mass Housing Partnership to work with Bowler. 3A zoning, also known as the MBT community zoning, is a zoning mandate that was established by the state.

Many of you are familiar with it. It says that we are required to establish zones of dense housing, a minimum of 15 units per acre. To do that, we are working with Bowler right now to review density in our neighborhoods and to map out where in Swampscot these two zones in particular could possibly be.

We've been studying the Vinton Square area because that will most likely be the site of part of one of the zones. The MAPC is also responsible for the study that I've shared with many, many people for the last year or so called Rethinking the Retail Strip. As you will see in the proposed zoning amendment for Vinton Square, any development that occurs in the B4 district will be required to comply with design guidelines, which we will be developing with the MAPC.

More about that in a bit. Why are we looking to rezone Vinton Square for commercial revitalization and redevelopment? Well, it fits into one of the many goals, one of the many priority goals of the town.

There are a few, as there are many, but the few that I'll mention is affordable housing. Affordable housing is a huge goal, and it's something that has been addressed through projects. Projects we've worked on at Elm Place, the Michon School, the Glover Multifamily Overlay District, which will become the Glover Residences, and the proposed Pine Street project, which is also going forward.

We also have a goal of maintaining and creating open space in town, and to that end we've acquired the Hawthorne property, we acquired the Archer Street properties, and we have an open space and recreation committee that's very active in acquiring and maintaining the conservation areas and the open space connectivity that we do have in town. So the other goal is commercial revitalization. The commercial revitalization of Humphrey Street, which is one of our little commercial areas, and the commercial revitalization of Vinton Square.

Rezoning the overlay at Hadley and sending out an RFP for the hotel, potential hotel there, is a big step in our goal of addressing commercial revitalization in the Humphrey Street area, along with redevelopment of the Hawthorne site. However, that ends up. And the other big piece of it is a revitalization of Vinton Square.

We have a problem at Vinton Square. We have a dated shopping mall that is, it's just not working for people anymore. It's not how we shop, it's not how we live.

You can look around you and see what really successful shopping areas look like. You can see Market Street in Linfield. Now obviously we don't have an empty old golf course that we can sort of bulldoze and build a brand new buildings, but there are multiple efforts underway.

Much of it sort of pioneered and spearheaded in our area by the MAPC to revitalize commercial centers, and we will be working with them on this project as well. So what does this zoning do? It changes the zoning in the Swampscott Mall area, which is everything from home goods to Starbucks, the Citizens Bank, the Chipotle, the UPS store, the Salem Five, and that little strip in there.

It changes it from B3 to B4. And in doing so, B4 is our most permissive commercial zone. So it has the greatest allowances for height, and it has the minimal setbacks.

And the reason we would do this is to inspire someone to be interested to redevelop land in that area. Whereas right now the B3 zoning that's in its place is far more limited. It's limited in height, and it's limited in dimensional regulations that prohibit it being developed quite as widely.

Additionally, the B3 area, our commercial B3 zone, which is, as I just mentioned, home goods all the way to Starbucks, including the Citizens Bank, including Chipotle, UPS, and the Salem Five, and including all of the properties across the street. The whole Panera Strip, from everything from Little Bank to CVS, through Marshalls, and Walgreens on the other side, is all B3. So what if one of those businesses went out of business and decided, I'm just going to redevelop this?

There's no requirement that that gets replaced with retail. None. Anything there could be knocked down, and residential can be put up.

You do not have to replace any retail in a B3 zone as our zoning currently exists. That changes in this bylaw. One of the changes that we're making is that every B3 property, the ones that would be remaining after we convert the properties we're mentioning here to B4, all the remaining B3 properties would now have a requirement that if they were to be redeveloped in any way, 100% of the existing retail would need to be replaced.

They, again, could add something on top, they could change the store, whatever, but they'd have to add 100% of the retail. So as you'll recall, last year when the UNOS was knocked down and replaced with a bank, one of the problems with that redevelopment, one of the many problems I think with that redevelopment, was that the UNOS was over 6,000 square feet and the bank is about 2,500. So it's a grossly underutilized lot in our most important commercial area.

So I've talked about the goals and I've talked about what this zoning does. The other thing that this B4 zone would, that would change about the B4 zone is that anything in this new B4 zone, so all those properties, do we have a map we can pull up? There we go.

Everything in pink, that would now become B4. The Stop and Chop, which is the property at the very top left of the screen that's in white, that's already a B4. So everything else in Vinton Square that would be rezoned as B4 would have to retain at least 75% of the gross floor area of retail on the ground floor that currently exists.

Any new building that was constructed that has never existed before and is not replacing anything can be constructed, but it must have at least 25% of its ground floor area as retail. It requires, as I said, that any development built in this rezoned area must comply with the design guidelines. So design guidelines are the core of the zoning, pulling all the technical bits together to create mixed-use pedestrian-friendly zoning, real lifestyle center.

And as I said, I will discuss that in detail in a little bit. So another one of the questions I get or I've heard, I suppose, is where did this zoning come from? Who wrote this zoning?

I mean, where did it come from? Did the developer write the zoning? They must have written the zoning.

Where did it come from? So it's a very simple answer. So the person that owns all that pink property, most people know him.

He's a Swampscott resident. His name is Andy Rose. His company is CenterCorp.

I thought it was a pretty well-known fact. Andy's been, he grew up here. His parents grew up here.

I think most of you probably know him. He's on the zoning board. I've known Andy for years.

We've been talking about Vinton Square. I've been in his ear like a bee buzzing in his ear about Vinton Square for years. Why him and not the people over on the other side of the street?

Because we don't even know, I don't know who Kimco is. Kimco, who owns the other side of Vinton Square, is an out-of-state firm. Personally, from my experience, I can't even get them on the phone to talk about anything.

That's what I understand from other communities is a familiar story. But Andy, on the other hand, as a town resident, is very interested in this community. He loves this community.

For a long time, he had no interest in doing anything. I'd bug him. I wasn't the only one that would bug him.

Multiple people that know Andy would talk to him and pester him and say, we've got to do something here. Bit at a time, little things happened. Maybe when the Chipotle went in, we were like, oh God, we'll at least put a sidewalk connecting it to the Starbucks.

Then he replaced the old Walgreens. When MassDOT was ripping up the road and wanted to tear down all the trees on his side of the street, he said, don't tear down my trees. He gave them some of his land so that they'd wind their sidewalk over his land and we could save those few trees on Paradise Road.

He's not a stranger. I didn't talk to anybody but him. I talked to him.

I literally sat down in Panera with Andy and we went through the zoning bylaw together. Our zoning bylaw. That's what this came from.

That's why there are strikeouts. I added all the purposes in there. They come straight from the sample zoning from the 3A communities.

I don't know. I certainly asked for advice from other professionals in town. It went to town council and it went through community development.

There are many other professionals here that are familiar with zoning that shared it with me, but that was what happened. I hope that ceases to be such a big mystery. Like I said, I've known Andy for many years.

Up until now, he hasn't been interested in investing in the mall. He's had other projects around, one of which is one we'll talk about later, which is the Nobscott Mall. I have the little thing here.

We're going to talk about something else that he recently did. In Framingham, we have the Nobscott Village. He's a very active person in the commercial real estate business.

We're lucky that we have such a close working relationship, and we have someone who's willing to collaborate with us. Up until recently, as I said, he's not been interested in doing this. In fact, the last couple of years, all he's said to me is that he's really sick of retail.

It's too hard. People just don't go to these strip malls anymore. He's got empty space all the time.

The malls are just dying. He's got a couple of anchor stores, but the only tenants he can get are these tenants that don't pay a lot, and they're not attracting other businesses. The lower echelon type of renters that you get, the less money you get paid.

He's done with it. He just wasn't interested, had no motivation to keep it going, and really wanted to just knock it down and throw up a few condos and call it a day, or just sell the whole thing. But as time's gone on, I think he's really changed his view, and he understands now how the retail market is contracting, that their malls just aren't doing what they used to.

Long-term leases are coming due. These malls all kind of function on long-term leases. They come due, and the options to re-rent them out to new tenants are just not that great.

In fact, the options he's sitting with right now, to rent out space over Edmonton Square, there's empty space there now, but there's other leases that are currently up. He has leases in hand from Dollar General Store, and he has a lease in hand from Gentle Dental. And it was several months back, he had someone approach him from some tire company.

So that's kind of where you're going to be if we do nothing. And you can decide whatever you think you want to do. I just want to put all the facts out there.

That's the reality on the ground. So these older strip malls, as I said, they're just failing, and the businesses are closing, and the high-quality retail is not coming in, and no one's going to them, and that's the market reality. So as you look at it, we saw an opportunity, and he saw an opportunity.

So we had been discussing with him the fact that this 3A zoning, we're working with Bowler, that parts of this zoning are probably going to overlap parts of his property. And make no mistake, it's private property. See all that pink stuff?

The town doesn't own that. So he can literally bulldoze that tomorrow and put up some condos. That's completely within the bylaw.

He doesn't even need relief from zoning. He can do whatever he wants. It's private property.

So I want to be clear, because I think we're all of this sort of mindset we've been talking about town-owned property, this is a very different situation. So we have an opportunity here. We were looking for ways to incentivize him to make an investment, and the only way he's going to make an investment is if we can create some kind of incentive for him to redevelop the property.

So by making these few zoning changes, we felt that we could create enough of an incentive that he'd get enough density that we could reduce some of the guidelines while at the same time imposing others, which would be design guidelines. So design guidelines, I know I've heard a lot of people kind of, oh, design guidelines, what is that going to mean? What's that going to mean?

Design guidelines are what program areas like this. They're what program areas like the Woburn Mall. They're what program areas like the Market Street.

Design guidelines have everything to do. They are absolutely the muscle of the zoning. They are the glue.

They hold all of it together. Andy redeveloped a property out in Framingham that's called Nobskut Village Center, which is a much more sort of quaint-looking area than ours, but the point is he worked with MAPC on design guidelines to redevelop this area. We're going to do the same thing.

In fact, the consultant that we're working with is the same consultant that worked on the design guidelines for Nobskut. So why don't we forward the slide here and we can look at some of these other... We can get back to that numbers.

So this is what sort of lifestyle malls would look like. And this is what design guidelines do. So zoning can only give you density, height, this and that.

It doesn't give you any kind of design. It doesn't tell you what the town wants, what we want to do. That's all been developed by plans that we've put through in the past and by the efforts that we will be developing with the MAPC.

And this particular consultant that we have to create design guidelines. You can go back, too, and I can just... This is the Arsenal Yards.

It was the Arsenal Mall, which is... Why don't you go back to the one that compares Arsenal to... So on the top is the old Arsenal Mall.

On the bottom is our current Swampscot Mall. So, you know, sort of ubiquitous looking. There is a little bigger.

Not really space-wise, I guess. But let's go back to the... So this is what Arsenal Mall turned into.

So you're looking at mixed-use housing and you're looking at retail on the bottom. As you can see, when you look at the retail on the bottom... So it's done in such a way as to...

It sort of skirts the building and envelops the building. There's parking on the inside. I'm not saying this is anything like what ours would look like.

I'm just giving you an example of how these lifestyle malls are being redeveloped. The most incredible thing, the most important thing about making anything like this happen is having someone you can collaborate with. So as our consultant tells us, they've been working with other communities that have developed these wonderful plans for their shopping plazas, and they'll never have anything to do because they have owners like Kimco, for example, that have 20-year leases, and there's no interest.

There's no motivation. There's no interest to collaborate with the town. There's no interest to do anything.

We have someone that's interested in working with us and that is willing to move ahead. We have studies that we've done that have pointed us in the direction that we're at now. We're very fortunate that we're working with...

We have a partner in someone like Andy Rose who is a town resident who wants the best for the town and who's willing to make this kind of an investment in this property. Not only would the property be redeveloped, but it would be transformed. We'd be able to create buildings that are sustainable, that are powered with electricity, a parking lot that has electric vehicle capabilities and roadway improvements, pedestrian connectivity between all the parcels.

And we'll talk a bit about... Even though zoning's not about, you know, how much of the money and so forth, I mean, it's hard for us in this body to kind of separate the two. So we'll talk about that as well.

In fact, we'll talk about it now, because here it is on the screen. So some of the concerns I've heard about rezoning this property is the fact that we're only going to require 75% of that existing retail space to come back. And, oh, my God, we can't...

We can't do that. How can we, you know, lose 25% of retail space when we, of course, you know, we're billing our tax rate as, you know, the property gets assessed by that square footage, right? So if you get a 10,000-square-foot property that you're, you know, charging whatever our commercial rate is, $36-some-odd per, you know, whatever it is, it's high.

We have a split rate, as everyone knows, but the commercial rate is very high. And when you're paying that much money for a 10,000-square feet, and then all of a sudden you only have to pay taxes on 7,500-square feet, you know, it causes concern with residents and, you know, that we're going to be losing tax revenue. So what does that mean?

So if we zone this property for mixed use, for residential use over the retail, it might be kind of hard for you to see, but I'm going to tell you right now. So in the existing B-3, which is... You'll see a number there.

Existing B-3 current tax revenue, $528,112. So that's in all those pink properties that you saw there. Okay?

That's how much they're paying, you know, the town's being paid every year in taxes from those properties. The other, the 395-657 is just from stop and shop. So...

But all of it's going to be now in the B-4 zone, and B-4 is only going to require that if those buildings get knocked down that you have to bring back, only 75% of that retail has to come back. So what does that look like? Okay, so you've got...

You're going to add up those two figures, the 528,112 and the 395-657, and you're going to end up with a number that is 900-and-some-odd. So 75% of that... 75% of that number, I can't...

You know, I don't have my glasses on, but if somebody else does, they can tell you exactly what that is. So 75% of that number, plus added to the anticipated tax revenue from the residential units, which will probably be about 250 units, based on where we can put the density and how much space there actually is for residential, would bring... would bring our total range of potential revenue from the 900-some-odd that it is now to 1.6 to 2.2 million. And that's very conservative. So there's no doubt that the potential revenue increase to the town is substantial. So going back to the design guidelines part of the zoning, because this is my piece of it, and this is something that's really critical.

As I mentioned to you, Andy worked with MAPC on his project in Framingham and worked with a consultant there who designed... did his design guidelines for him. It's a beautiful project, which please, when you have a chance, you should look it up.

So I just want to tell you who this person is and what their expertise is. His name is Josh Fiala. He is the principal planner at MAPC.

He's an architect. He's currently a principal planner in the Land Use Department with over 20 years of experience. He joined MAPC in 2016.

MAPC has worked with municipalities throughout the region to prepare master plans, downtown and town center revitalization plans, visioning for transit-oriented development, redevelopment studies for walkable and dense mixed-use housing typologies, design standards and guidelines and revisions to zoning bylaws to support economic development. Prior to MAPC, Mr. Fiala was an associate and urban designer at the Cecil Group, an architecture and planning consulting firm in Boston. In the architecture field, he began his career serving as a job captain with the Beacon Architectural Associates in Boston.

He's an active member of the following organizations, the American Institute of Architects, the American Planning Association and the Boston Society for Architecture. Mr. Fiala holds the following certifications. He's a certified planner, American Institute of Certified Planners, Massachusetts Architecture License, LEED AP USGBC, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, Accredited Professional, and the National Counter of Architectural Registration Board Certificate.

Mr. Fiala earned his master's in city planning degree with an urban design certificate from MIT. At MIT, he was named a Norman B. and Muriel Leventhal Fellow and studied urban design and planning.

He earned a bachelor of architecture and bachelor of science degree from Ball State University. His areas of expertise are urban design, master planning, transit-oriented development, design guidelines, form-based code, visualization, community participation, and visiting processes. This is the professional that we will be working with to develop our design guidelines.

These are the design guidelines that were used for the Nob Scott Project in Framingham, which he also worked with Andy Rose on this project. So these are available to look at. They obviously will be somewhat different because you'll tell these are kind of the look of the places.

That's much sort of more colonial, but the point is that the guidance that this lays out, this is how you program a site. Everything we've done from master planning to working on this since 2013 and all the years I've been here has led up to this point, where we are in a position to work with an agency that knows our town, that worked on our master plan with us, that understands what our goals are, that has worked with us through years of studying this site, years of planning on a consistent basis, and is expert in this field.

So how will that process work? Should we adopt the zoning tonight? They will begin work on July 1st, writing the design guidelines.

Per the zoning by-law, we have 120 days in which to submit the design guidelines. We will have a draft of design guidelines by that time. However, we've asked them to create a public process for the design guidelines, very much like we did with the master plan.

We would hold charrettes. People would be able to come and participate and assist in developing design guidelines, just the way those of you who joined us when we did the charrettes for the master plan will remember how MAPC conducts those kinds of work. If we go that route, it will probably take us until the end of October.

So we'd have to put that little bit of flexibility into what's currently written in our zoning by-law, because we gave ourselves 120 days to adopt it. Again, we could easily have the draft by then, but we would very much like to be able to include the public process. That's the plan.

So I hope that answers any questions about this came up all of a sudden, and there's no planning. We've had years of planning and paying attention to this area and studying this area. So you can...

I understand the feeling that this happened so fast. You know, why all of a sudden? Well, why all of a sudden is that Andy finds himself at a pinch point, okay?

He's come up against a point where he has leases expiring and he has leases at hand. And, you know, we asked him to wait. We asked him to just give us a chance and wait.

If we can do something now under these conditions, which are very well laid out, very well thought out, and include a fulsome public process, then we could really get something important accomplished here for the town. The choice is up to town meeting. The end of the day, you know, you can understand that an opportunity like this comes up and we have a chance to take advantage of it.

This is just the market reality. This is the reality on the ground. No one's holding you hostage.

You're not, because he can do whatever he wants with that property right now. He's not, and he's not... You know, there's only so much time that he's, you know...

There isn't any time, actually.

[Speaker 2] (1:00:13 - 1:00:32)
So perhaps, Ms. Zippolito, I can suggest that we move on to hear from the body. I think that's a very eloquent statement, and it is one of our highest elected boards. I do try to let the planning board have as much leeway as possible in speaking to the body.

[Speaker 1] (1:00:33 - 1:00:41)
So with that being said, I do hope that you'll vote in favor of this article tonight. Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (1:00:42 - 1:01:12)
Thank you, Ms. Zippolito. I have been approached by a number of members to rise on this topic, and I will take them in the order in which they've approached me and then get to members in the body. Sorry, I do not see Mr. Pallaria. So if I'm missing him, would you please make yourself known? What point of order do you rise, Mr. Driscoll?

[Speaker 23] (1:01:15 - 1:01:34)
I guess the point of order is, could you please instruct town meeting that was supposed to come and give you a note saying they want to speak in advance of town meeting? Is that a rule? Then tell us to do that.

I raised my hand, and you're not... How did I know you're supposed to come give you a call? So the point of order is this is ridiculous.

[Speaker 2] (1:01:35 - 1:01:47)
Thank you, Mr. Driscoll. The other member who's asked me to speak is Mr. Frankel, and I'd like to recognize him now and then proceed to members like Mr. Driscoll and others who have raised their hand.

[Speaker 1] (1:01:52 - 1:02:01)
That mic? All right. Oh, I'm sorry.

[Speaker 22] (1:02:02 - 1:02:02)
There you go.

[Speaker 1] (1:02:03 - 1:02:04)
I didn't see it there.

[Speaker 4] (1:02:04 - 1:03:02)
My name is Richard Frankel. I'm from Precinct 3. I'm just a town meeting member.

I'm not an expert in these things, but a couple of weeks ago, or a little longer than that, I became aware of the plan to make these changes at Vinton Square, and the select board member who I talked to said something about 400 units of housing at Vinton Square. And I said, 400 units? You know, this seemed like a pretty big change that would be happening in Swampscott, and we hadn't heard anything about it.

So I wasn't aware of all the things that Angela has talked about, but, you know, it's something that I think we haven't had a chance as a body or as a town to really digest, and I suggest... Oh, let me make a motion. I motion that we indefinitely postpone this article.

[Speaker 2] (1:03:04 - 1:03:05)
Is there a second?

[Speaker 4] (1:03:05 - 1:04:04)
Okay, Mr. Frenkel, please proceed. Okay, thanks. That doesn't mean we're killing it.

It just means that we're pushing it down the line probably to a fall town meeting when people have had more time to consider it, more time to think about it, and there has been more of the design process happening, okay? So I really want to thank the planning board for all their work. I think it's fantastic, and I am actually excited about the idea of a mixed-use development at Vinnon Square.

It's not going to happen, no. Just to repeat a little bit here, the green areas there are currently B4, so that includes Stop and Shop, which owns its own part of the plaza. The Hawthorne...

whatever it's called. Sorry. And Summit Estates, okay?

So those are all currently B3. They're all B3. Right, B4.

Sorry, they're all B4.

[Speaker 1] (1:04:05 - 1:04:07)
Those aren't the ones we're considering in this by-law.

[Speaker 4] (1:04:07 - 1:11:30)
I know, I know. But the red area there, that is the area that would be rezoned to B4, okay? And all of that becomes part of a special project for Vinnon Square with special rules.

Now, this is Arsenal Mall in Watertown. This is what it looks like, okay? So you can see these are all four- or five-story buildings.

You have five-story buildings in this case. This is probably something that would be the most similar to what we would be looking at, okay? This is Woburn Village in Woburn.

It's about 27 acres. Ours is about 25 acres. And so it would look something like this.

This particular housing establishment there has 25% affordable housing, okay? Okay, why I think we should postpone. It's a very complex, you know, proposal that we have before us.

Not something that I think we can really digest in one or even a week of town meetings. So it's kind of, I think, a fool's errand to try to do that. It was added at the very last minute.

It was added to the warrant on April 24th, one day before the election for town meeting. There's been only one public meeting. As Angela said, it was done on May 8th.

There were about eight people there. So hardly a robust public process. I've already said it's too complex for one night.

We don't know what we're getting because everything is subject to the design guidelines, okay? And that's great. I mean, I've heard the qualifications of the person who's going to be doing the design guidelines, but we don't actually have them, and we will not have an opportunity to say yes or no to whatever comes out of that design guideline process.

Yes, there will be a public process to do that, but it will not be something where the final design guidelines is something that we can say yes or no to. The zoning is now by right, with only the design guidelines being the limitation on what can happen, okay? So let's see what could happen currently.

If you look, I have a few specific issues. It will allow for 30 housing units per acre, okay? Now, if you take 25 acres times 30, you get 700 units of housing.

That potentially could be the case, but I know it's not going to be because we'll have the design guidelines. It will include only the mandatory 10% affordable housing. Other viable projects, such as Wilburn Village, have 25% affordable housing.

This is something we may want to weigh in on, okay? It allows seven-story buildings. None of the other things I showed you has a seven-story building.

That's huge, okay? That would rise above some of the states. It allows 90% of the lot to be built on.

90%, okay? So that's just like there's nothing left. That's actually in the current table of dimensions, as you can see here in the current bylaws, okay?

But those are not going to be changed. So as you can see, B4, it allows five stories or seven stories. Currently, you can only have 40 feet.

It brings down the minimum open space to 10%. We may want to have more open space. I'm sure the design guidelines will have that.

And it allows a footprint of 90% as opposed to current B3, which is what Rose has, 25 for buildings and 20 for all others. So it increases the density enormously, okay? Now, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, the MAPC, likes these small conversions, and it estimates that the value of land being converted from a strip mall to mixed-use increases by $5 million per acre, the value of that land over a strip mall, which would be around $125 million for Binnen Square.

The council goes on to say, plans and regulations that allow for higher-density redevelopment on existing commercial strips could substantially increase the value of the underlying properties, creating windfall gains for property owners. Local planning efforts should recognize this and should establish expectations early on that the host community will recoup some of these gains through affordable housing set-asides, public realm improvements, and other community benefits. This is one of the things we want to discuss.

Okay, so why not simply trust the planning board, okay? I think they've got good will. They are extremely hardworking, as you just heard.

I mean, they really work at this. But they're an overmatched volunteer group. You know, they're not professional planners, they're not getting paid, and they're growing up a well-developed, well-funded developer, okay?

As Angela has said, the landowner wrote the by-law changes in the warrant that we're being asked to approve. If we postpone until fall, and that's all I'm asking for here, is that we postpone for three months or whatever it is until the design guidelines are in place, the planning board can draft the design guidelines with proper public input and then present them. We'll know what we're getting.

And a three-month delay for a project like this is considered, you know, that's tiny. All these kinds of projects have many delays. Three months is nothing, four months, five months.

The planning board would have 120 days in any case if we passed the zoning today to do the design guidelines. So it's not going to delay anything if we make the approval later. Lease extensions can be put off for a few months, and as you heard, it's not terribly attractive.

The lease options that they have. So it's not something we really have to rush into right now. And where there's a will, there's a way.

And I think, you know, this huge gain of $5 million per acre is something that would be very persuasive to wait for a few months. So in conclusion, this is a great potential project. I really think this is, you know, something that we should go forward with.

It was introduced at the last minute. And it's way too complex for us to discuss in detail here at town meeting. I mean, you've seen the pages of changes that would be involved.

And we haven't discussed some of the main issues that we want to discuss. The article touches on many issues of concern to Swampscott residents, such as density, traffic issues, building height, amount of open space, and amount of affordable housing to be included. And we need to be able to weigh in on these issues.

We're hiring a planner. Well, okay, see, I didn't know this before. This would be...

we would have a planner for this, so... And that's pretty much it. So my motion is simply that we postpone this indefinitely.

I can't say definitely, because there is no definite date for the next town meeting. But it could come up at the next town meeting, whatever that is. Thank you very much.

[Speaker 2] (1:11:31 - 1:12:06)
Thank you, Mr. Frankel. I do just want to procedurally clarify, and then we'll get to Mr. Driscoll. The motion is to indefinitely postpone this article, which is another way of saying dismissing it without action.

There is a provision of, I believe it's Chapter 40A, that could require this to wait as long as two years unless the planning board follows certain steps. Any negative action on a zoning item is subject to that delay of two years. Now, Mr. Driscoll, please.

[Speaker 23] (1:12:09 - 1:12:20)
Mr. Moderator, I'd like to apologize to you. But I would just say to you, just next time, say, a town meeting member who has a PowerPoint presentation has asked to go first.

[Speaker 2] (1:12:22 - 1:12:24)
I think that Mr. Driscoll, who served as...

[Speaker 23] (1:12:27 - 1:12:29)
33 years now in town meeting, missed one.

[Speaker 2] (1:12:30 - 1:12:38)
Mr. Driscoll, who served as moderator pro tem during the Greenwood ad discussion for me, had a list of people who had signed up to speak earlier. But we would all like to hear from you today.

[Speaker 23] (1:12:39 - 1:13:30)
You asked me to do it. But the fact of the matter is, we didn't have a PowerPoint presentation. I rise in favor of the motion to postpone.

Because we are all now told by Mr. Spellios we are the best town meeting to look at zoning in the history of town meeting. And we voted to really support the selectmen. We gave them a leap of faith last night.

We said, we believe you. This board of selectmen has not voted to approve this. Just remember that.

Our board of selectmen don't have a position on this. In fact, it wasn't even seconded. So let's take a step back, so that we can hear our selectmen, who now think we are excellent, and I think we are.

So give us a chance, and we'll continue it, and we'll get back to it.

[Speaker 2] (1:13:30 - 1:13:37)
Thank you, Mr. Driscoll. In the back, ma'am.

[Speaker 15] (1:13:44 - 1:13:49)
Hi, I'm Debbie Kniff, town meeting member, Precinct 6. I just had a question.

[Speaker 1] (1:13:49 - 1:13:54)
What did you say about the two-year delay? I didn't understand that.

[Speaker 2] (1:13:54 - 1:15:00)
Chapter 48 requires any zoning amendment that has had a negative outcome at a town meeting or city council to wait two years before coming back up, unless the planning board goes through certain steps. So there is no mechanism in this town meeting to bind a future town meeting to take this up. It certainly could happen, but I want you to understand procedurally.

Yes, I've consulted with council. Sorry. Selectperson Thompson asked, is indefinite postponement a negative treatment of the article?

Yes. Mr. Russo. That, in fact, indefinite postponement is a negative disposition of a zoning amendment in front of town meeting.

Sorry. Mr. Russo, thank you. Thank you.

[Speaker 5] (1:15:00 - 1:16:08)
Lenny Russo, town meeting member, Precinct 4, and obviously Rookie of the Year. But thank you very much for putting this up here. I think you did a great job of summarizing a very complex issue very passionately.

So I have a couple of questions, though. And I think we do need to debate it a little bit. I see there's a lot of angst about this.

I didn't realize we were bringing PowerPoints either, but I do have a few questions. So the first question the gentleman raised is that the select board has not reviewed that and doesn't have a favorable or unfavorable position on this article. Is that true?

That is correct. Second question is, you mentioned two things. You mentioned the article today, which is only the zoning that we're voting on and the changes from B3 to B4.

The design elements that you spoke of are something that would be discussed and inserted as a requirement to any builders that would be building there?

[Speaker 1] (1:16:08 - 1:16:35)
That's right. The design guidelines are a requirement of developing anything under this zoning. So nothing in that particular zone that you saw in the pink can get developed unless they comply with the design guidelines.

And as I mentioned, developing those design guidelines would begin in July and would be a public process.

[Speaker 5] (1:16:35 - 1:17:13)
And in these design requirements, are you specifically looking for ways to abate the 90% coverage of the site with parking, green space, et cetera? So those will be addressed. So the thing we're voting on tonight is only changing those elements from B3 to B4.

And the reason you're proposing this is because right now, my biggest fear is that we lose that mall down there. And we lose shopping.

[Speaker 32] (1:17:13 - 1:17:14)
Yeah, well, that's right.

[Speaker 5] (1:17:14 - 1:19:47)
Yeah, me too. And that was what I was coming here to talk about. Because right now, there's a big desire.

I mean, I don't know the last time you went shopping at the Liberty Tree Mall. Malls are going out. That's right.

I grew up in Belmont. I know the Oxnard Mall very well. It was dead.

It was desolate. There was nothing going on there but drug sales. I don't particularly like the design there.

But it's something different. But this is the model that will make malls and shopping and retail space survive. And that is having a mixed use that combines elements like residential housing, apartments, skating rinks for children, those kind of things where it's a place where people go and congregate in a sense of community.

We don't need any more dentists or nail salons in Swampscott. Right? We need some quality places.

Right now, I tried to rent a space from Kimco when it was going out. They charge very, very high fees for those spaces. They are not attracting businesses.

The last thing we got in there was a sub shop. I am very much in favor of moving forward to improve the town, improve the quality of life in town. There are issues.

The gentleman raised them. There's parking issues. There's doing things right.

And we pushed the Hadley project through last night. I have a ton of reservations about that and the way it's going. But we have to start somewhere and move forward.

I fully support this project. I came in here with a lot of questions. I think you did a nice job summarizing them.

I'd like to hear some more debate on it and find out some more of the details. And the way I understood it, and if you could please clarify, that if we don't change the zoning, that whoever owns this property today, if these leases go empty, and I'm not a fan of what's going on with Stop and Shop right now either. It's pretty desolate, right?

If these places go out, they can redevelop that property and build condos or apartments there, and we have no teeth to retain retail space. Is that true?

[Speaker 1] (1:19:47 - 1:19:55)
Right. Right now, the whole thing can just come down and be a block of apartments. And the retail's gone.

[Speaker 5] (1:19:56 - 1:19:56)
That's right.

[Speaker 1] (1:19:56 - 1:19:57)
That's how it's zoned.

[Speaker 5] (1:19:57 - 1:20:33)
So everybody's worried about developers, greedy hands, all that. Well, that's where they're going to make the most money, right, is putting up. You see it everywhere.

Go down the Linway. Go down Revere Beach, right? There's going to be some kind of apartments there if we don't do something and try to protect the retail space.

So I believe what you're telling us is that B3, as long as those existing leases of the existing property stays in place, will still be zoned under the old zoning. If they try to tear that building down, then the new zoning will be in effect.

[Speaker 1] (1:20:34 - 1:20:43)
This particular zoning article, yes, that's correct, includes all the remaining B3 properties, which is all over Linden Square.

[Speaker 5] (1:20:44 - 1:20:46)
So what you're trying to do is protect the retail.

[Speaker 1] (1:20:46 - 1:20:48)
I'm trying to protect the retail. That's right.

[Speaker 5] (1:20:48 - 1:21:02)
OK. Can I ask you, is it possible to look at that map one more time? Of course.

Where you had the pink and the green? I'm a little bit confused as to what the green is and why it wouldn't be included.

[Speaker 1] (1:21:02 - 1:21:08)
Yeah, mine wasn't the green. This is the map. Oh, you're talking about Richard's, pardon me.

[Speaker 5] (1:21:08 - 1:21:11)
No, no, not Richard's. That pitch confused me even more.

[Speaker 1] (1:21:11 - 1:21:14)
Oh, yeah, that wasn't mine. OK.

[Speaker 5] (1:21:14 - 1:21:18)
I want yours. Can you put yours up? Is this yours?

[Speaker 7] (1:21:18 - 1:21:19)
Yeah, that one.

[Speaker 5] (1:21:19 - 1:21:26)
Yeah, this one right here. So you talked about the gentleman that owned all of the pink. That's right, everything in the pink.

Right. Who owns the green?

[Speaker 1] (1:21:28 - 1:21:29)
Who owns the green?

[Speaker 5] (1:21:29 - 1:21:35)
And what is that big green right in the middle? Of what?

[Speaker 1] (1:21:35 - 1:21:43)
Oh, pardon me. OK, I didn't know. Oh, yeah, I see what he means.

So the pink is just the lot area. That gray or green inside, that's the actual building.

[Speaker 5] (1:21:43 - 1:21:53)
The building's pink too? It's all included in the pink? Yeah.

OK. And the other side of Paradise Road, where Kim Cohen owns, are you proposing to change the zoning to that as well?

[Speaker 1] (1:21:54 - 1:22:09)
The only thing that would change there is that it currently is zoned as B3. So if Sleepy's beds decided that he'd want to knock down that building, they could put up apartments, and they don't have to replace any retail.

[Speaker 5] (1:22:09 - 1:22:12)
So my question to you is, why are you only focusing on that side?

[Speaker 1] (1:22:12 - 1:22:20)
Because Andy Rose owns that property, and he's willing to work with us. And Kim Cohen owns the property across the street, and we have no relationship.

[Speaker 5] (1:22:21 - 1:22:32)
But Ken, I understand that, which makes it even more hairy. Why wouldn't we propose and change the zoning in that side of the property as well, in Benton Square?

[Speaker 1] (1:22:33 - 1:22:34)
Because we have...

[Speaker 5] (1:22:34 - 1:22:37)
Well, it's just a question. It's not a statement.

[Speaker 1] (1:22:37 - 1:22:52)
Yeah, we have no relationship with them. We have nothing, no reason that we could even... To change the zoning without collaborating with an owner makes no sense.

I mean...

[Speaker 5] (1:22:53 - 1:23:10)
I'm not sure of that, and I'm not a zoning expert either. I'm just curious. Like, this gentleman, I agree, you need a partnership, and you have to develop things together to make it work.

Because if you put the zoning in, you put these guidelines in, you can do nothing, right? He doesn't need to build something, right?

[Speaker 2] (1:23:11 - 1:23:23)
I'm just going to interject that an amendment to extend the zoning to a different lot that's not in the article would not be in order, although coming back and proposing it could certainly be.

[Speaker 1] (1:23:24 - 1:23:26)
We can always add to it, adding to the...

[Speaker 2] (1:23:26 - 1:23:27)
We've done that before.

[Speaker 5] (1:23:27 - 1:23:54)
I was just questioning why not both, especially with a partner that doesn't communicate with us. That's all. So I think that's all my questions.

And I think you summarized the differences fairly well. It's just changing the height structures, the density, and the rest of this will be in a design phase that will get reviewed, and that will be a requirement for any new buildings.

[Speaker 2] (1:23:54 - 1:23:54)
Is that correct?

[Speaker 1] (1:23:54 - 1:23:56)
In that zone, yes. Okay.

[Speaker 2] (1:23:57 - 1:24:04)
All right. Thank you. I have no other questions.

Thank you, Mr. Russo. I see Mr. Bierman, Ms. Martin Epstein, Mr. Beaupre.

[Speaker 7] (1:24:06 - 1:24:07)
Thank you.

[Speaker 11] (1:24:08 - 1:27:53)
Thank you. Jack Bierman, Precinct 6. I was really hoping that this would be a proposal for a small golf course on this lot of land, but I guess that's not going to happen.

So it seems to me that there's... This looks like a plan to seriously improve Innisfair, and not only from what it is now, but from what it may become in the future. And I know that I've done a little research about the future of retail, and it isn't good.

We could have a Family Dollar, a Dollar General, and a Dollar Tree in there, and they'd probably make a lot of money. But I don't... And then we could also have fast food restaurants, too, which I still miss the salad bar at Wendy's in Salem, but we're never going to get that back again, because people sneeze on it.

But the question that I have... So this sounds like a really good thing. And I think what happened is that there was a lot of noise in town about the notion that this was being done by a developer, ramming it down our throats.

It was happening really fast, and people didn't understand why it was going this way. And I think you've done a great job explaining what is going on. And it's a unique situation that we have a developer that's willing to cooperate in a way where they're going to go above and beyond what the normal requirements for cooperation would be based on the zoning.

But obviously there has to be a return to them. And I think what a lot of people are concerned about the most is how many units of residential and how much traffic and how much increased density in the town that's going to cause. And also, what's the effect going to be on our schools?

Because if you have a lot more families in town, it puts stress on the school system. And so now I know some people have been saying we're building a school that's way too big. Well, maybe this is the solution for that, is that we can fill it up with people living in Vinton Square.

The basic thing is, to me, Vinton Square is like a bleak landscape. And the opportunity to make it a better place for the whole town is amazing. And what I'd like to hear, though, because I know a lot of people are very anxious about this.

People have heard all these stories about Big Bad Developer writing the new zoning for themselves. And private prison owners write the criminal laws in a lot of states because it gets them business. So I understand that that happens.

That's true. That's not a joke. But so I guess the question I have is, if we delay for a short time so that we can regroup, have more public, and maybe even get, like, Mr. Rose to share a vision of what he would intend to do under the strictures of what we're talking about so that we can take him at his word as a resident and know what we're getting into, I think that I'm wondering what the cost of that delay would be. And I just want to also support the idea, going across the street to an uncooperative person, if we increase their zoning, they could just take advantage of it without cooperating with it. That would be a disaster. So we're in this lucky situation of having someone who cares about the town who might do this.

And so I guess coming back to my main question, which is, what would be the problem with a delay where we could get people to feel more confident and see more definitive description of what we're likely to get if we go through with this sort of thing? I mean, I think 75% of the square footage of retail, I'd be ecstatic if we could get 75% of that high-quality retail in the future, because I don't see 75% of that square footage surviving in 10 years in the retail environment. So anyway, that's my question is, what would be the cost of a short delay to take this up at a future town meeting where maybe the select board could get together and have more vetting of it also, and we would hear from Andy Rose about what he would be proposing to do?

[Speaker 2] (1:27:53 - 1:27:54)
Thank you, Mr. Bierman.

[Speaker 1] (1:27:57 - 1:27:59)
So, thank you very much for that.

[Speaker 2] (1:27:59 - 1:28:05)
So, Ms. Ippolito, if you have a brief answer to what the impact would be?

[Speaker 1] (1:28:06 - 1:29:48)
Well, I can't speak for Andy Rose, but I have talked to him quite a bit about this, obviously, over the past several weeks. It did come up fast, and it came up fast because he had leases that were coming up, and all of a sudden we find out exactly what's in the offing that Bertucci's wanted to, you know, I guess they want to extend for a while, and then we had the Dollar General, and we have, these are leases that he has, Dollar General and Gentle Dental. I'm not making that up.

That's what we have. And he just, you know, feels like he had been waiting already. We asked him to please just give us a chance to come to town meeting.

We tried to pull something together. We knew what he had done in Framingham, and we felt we had an opportunity. I understand how it can sound like, well, you know, it is fast.

It is fast, but this is the situation we find ourselves in. This is just the reality on the ground. This is what it is.

From the way I understand it, if he can't, you know, doesn't get this opportunity, then, you know, he's not willing to, he just kind of can't hang on to these dead properties. The problem is, even if he tries to lend something out, he's going to get into a long-term lease. And MAPC will be the first one to tell you that long-term leases are the biggest impediment to making any kind of change in the mall.

It's the biggest impediment. And as far as, and I'll just address one more thing quickly about rezoning the other half of Vinden Square.

[Speaker 2] (1:29:49 - 1:30:09)
I'm going to leave that outside of this conversation because it's really not germane to what we can do this evening. Although I've heard discussion that it might be something that would be attractive. I saw Mr. Beaupre, Mr. Schneider, Mr. Dooley, Mr. Powell, and Mr. Schutzer.

[Speaker 25] (1:30:10 - 1:31:24)
Yes, thank you, Mr. Moderator. Larry Beaupre, Town Meeting Member, Precinct 6. First of all, I would like to say, as Mr. Bierman stated so eloquently, that I'm very excited about this project. When I have seen these mixed-use developments in other towns, I certainly think that they were the future of those towns and could very well be the future of a decaying retail infrastructure here. But I'm a little concerned because I'm also hearing the concerns of Town Meeting, which are very valid. Are we talking about a five-month delay to full Town Meeting, which could be reasonable for Mr. Rose, I would assume, though I would defer to Ms. Ippolito on this. Or is it in fact two years, because we have taken the adverse action tonight of an indefinite postponement? I believe, Mr. Moderator, you said there were certain steps the Planning Board could take to get us out of that situation, which I would like to avoid because I think after two years, Mr. Rose could very well be putting up apartment buildings. Do we know what these steps are, and is it feasible for the Planning Board to meet them so we can take this up again sooner?

[Speaker 2] (1:31:24 - 1:31:43)
Thank you, Mr. Beaucray. I will ask Town Council to read from Chapter 40A. We reviewed this earlier today.

And also to caution that even though the Planning Board can bring it back, it is up to the Select Board to open a special Town Meeting warrant.

[Speaker 26] (1:31:46 - 1:32:41)
Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Under General Laws Chapter 40A, Section 5, which is the statute that governs zoning bylaw amendments and the adoption of zoning bylaws, it provides that no proposed zoning bylaw, which has been unfavorably acted upon by Town Meeting, shall be considered by Town Meeting again within a two-year period unless the adoption of the proposed bylaw is recommended in a final report by the Planning Board. So for purposes of this statute, an indefinite postponement is considered unfavorable action.

So that would bring into play that two-year ban. However, the Planning Board can vote to make a recommendation to bring a bylaw back if it wishes to do so.

[Speaker 2] (1:32:44 - 1:32:49)
And if you could articulate what a final report of a Planning Board would require.

[Speaker 26] (1:32:49 - 1:33:04)
So that would typically require a Planning Board hearing similar to what they would normally do with respect to any zoning bylaw amendment under Chapter 40A, Section 5. And then Planning Board would make a report and a recommendation to Town Meeting.

[Speaker 2] (1:33:05 - 1:33:32)
Thank you, Council. I had Mr. Schneider. I had Mr. Dooley. I had Mr. Powell. And then I see Mr. Perry and in the back. And Mr. Schultz. Go ahead with the podium.

[Speaker 20] (1:33:37 - 1:35:46)
Hello. Eric Schneider, Town Meeting Member, Precinct 5. Also a member of the Finance Committee.

I'm speaking in opposition of the motion to indefinitely postpone Article 20. This zoning change is necessary and timely. We all know that this portion of Vinton Square is a past-its-prime strip mall.

Let's be honest. Strip malls are not great. Strip malls have single-story buildings surrounded by a wasteland of parking lots that generate large volumes of stormwater runoff and have other issues.

They command lower rents, have higher vacancy rates, and produce less tax revenue. Just look at a satellite picture of our town. Vinton Square is an asphalt desert visible from space.

This article is not approving a specific project or development. It's changing the zoning to allow for our next step in this process. The next step is a public input in developing the design plan.

This is not a one-shot. We have two shots here. And while I don't watch every Planning Board meeting, I know that they've been working on ideas and plans for Vinton Square for many years.

And Swamps Cut would not be the first town to zone for a strip mall redevelopment, and other communities have already successfully rezoned and redeveloped strip malls into flourishing mixed-use neighborhoods. The time, I believe, is to act now at this town meeting. We don't know what's going to happen if we fail to approve this article.

Maybe it will buy us more time, but we don't know. We have to make a decision now. We don't want to foreclose on an opportunity that will not exist once the owner has signed new long-term leases or made other decisions as he is right to do.

Sometimes the facts at hand create an urgency to act, but also create a once-in-a-decade opportunity to make a long-lasting positive impact on this town. And I hope you'll join me in defeating this or voting in favor of this article. Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (1:35:47 - 1:35:52)
Thank you, Mr. Schneider. Mr. Dooley and Mr. Powell.

[Speaker 12] (1:35:55 - 1:40:00)
Thank you. Ted Dooley, Precinct 4 Town Meeting Member of the Planning Board. I was first elected to the Planning Board in April of 2021 and at our first meeting on May 10th that year.

My introduction to the Planning Board was a lot of fun. I think I saw Ken, you were presenting there, and that was our first time interacting, and we've become fast friends, so I appreciate that. But I learned a lot about a lot of things at that meeting.

But one thing that I learned specifically about was the long-term efforts that the current Planning Board had made towards thinking about how to proactively redevelop Vinnin Square in an area of our town that needed it most. As you heard tonight from Angela, the Planning Board, under her leadership and under the leadership of previous chairs, have put a lot of thought into how we can transform that part of town to the 21st century retail environment that we're facing today. One thing that I think is helpful for this is to have a context of where we are and how we got here.

Angela provided what I think to be a good context of how we got here thinking about Vinnin Square, but I think another important part of this is understanding Section 3A that was signed into law by the governor two years ago and requires us as an MBTA community to allow housing by right in a dense fashion with at minimum of 15 units per acre. That's not something that we as town meeting have the opportunity to try and get around. That's something that as of March of this year, our newly elected governor has told us we must comply with.

So for the context of that, that's why a lot of this is by right. We need to fulfill the requirements that the state is telling us that we have to fulfill. The opportunity that we have here tonight about this zoning article is to either seize on an opportunity that was presented itself that matches the guidelines of 3A that were required to follow by the state in allowing by right housing development that revitalizes the commercial tax base in Vinnin Square, and it gives us guidelines of what we can expect investment, risky investment by one of our neighbors to look like in that parcel.

We can vote yes and have an understanding of what might come and what we all might be able to see in future plans under a site plan review that takes many, many months in our joint creation of design guidelines that, as you heard from Angela, will take many, many months. We can vote no, and we can play chicken with a private developer and say, oh, maybe he won't sign these long-term 20-year leases for Dollar General and all these other stores. Maybe he will just wait.

Maybe he'll wait for us to enact perfect zoning in a perfect ordinance that we think might work really well for his private property. We've done that before. We did that with the Humphrey Street Overlay District.

And what did we get? We haven't gotten any properties in town that have complied and applied for a building permit under that zoning. We did that with the Travel and Tourism Overlay District, both of which passed this body years ago, and we haven't gotten a single article of zoning that has gone through or with an application for either of those overlay districts because we as a town and as a planning board haven't corroborated and reached out to landowners to say, what would work for you?

If we want to be a good partner, what do you think would work for you? We've done that here. We have guidelines of what we can expect.

A yes vote on this overall article tonight, we know what the expectations are going to be. A no vote, delaying this indefinitely for some future town meeting to adopt. We have no idea what's going to happen.

We're going to risk the unknown. And I'm not comfortable risking the unknown versus understanding what could happen if we follow these guidelines. I very much ask you to vote against the motion on the floor to indefinitely postpone this to vote in favor of the underlying zoning article tonight.

Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (1:40:01 - 1:40:13)
Thank you, Mr. Dooley. Mr. Powell. And then Mr. Perry and Mr. Schutzer. Mr. Jerma.

[Speaker 29] (1:40:20 - 1:40:35)
Town meeting member, Precinct 4, chair of the Council on Aging, co-chair of the Swamp Scout for All Ages Board, member of the Swamp Scout Retirement Board. Ms. Ippolito, just for two questions. One is, where does B4 currently exist and how is it going there in those zones?

[Speaker 1] (1:40:36 - 1:41:23)
We changed the... B4 exists on Stop and Shop, essentially. And we did that years ago because there was the hope that at the time, Stop and Shop was converting some of its properties into kind of much nicer Stop and Shops and they had little restaurants inside and they even had little cafes, test kitchens and stuff.

And they were doing that and creating some housing on top. And we had done it because we were hoping that we might be able to get them to think of our Stop and Shop as one of those locations they may invest in. So we changed the zoning to allow for that.

But nothing ever happened. They decided not to.

[Speaker 29] (1:41:24 - 1:41:26)
So that's the only B4 in town at the moment?

[Speaker 1] (1:41:27 - 1:42:00)
That's the only B4. I don't even think the other ones are changed. Or did we...

Is it at the apartments as well? Is it Summit and all those apartments? I thought they were not all B4.

Okay, so Stop and Shop and all those, I guess it's that Crown Point next to it and then those others. So the apartments around it too. They're already developed apartments.

[Speaker 29] (1:42:00 - 1:42:35)
It's not open. So my pet peeve as chair of the Council on Aging and as co-chair of the Swamp Step for All Ages is that we've identified both affordable housing as a tremendous need and also as a result of this town now having roughly one in five residents age 60 and older, our senior center is busting at the seams and we have a great need for more space. I'll describe it as a community life center, not just a senior center.

And what's your thought about Mr. Rose's appetite to create such a facility inside that lifestyle center that you've described?

[Speaker 1] (1:42:36 - 1:42:39)
I'm sorry, did you start your question again? What do I think about that?

[Speaker 29] (1:42:39 - 1:42:44)
What do you think Mr. Rose's appetite would be to have a community life center housed?

[Speaker 1] (1:42:44 - 1:42:58)
You know what, I can't speak to that. I mean, I'm sure he'd consider it. I'm sure he'd consider it.

He might want to, you know, I think that's something that we'd come up with while the design guidelines are being developed. I mean, I can't speak for him, Bob.

[Speaker 29] (1:42:58 - 1:43:01)
I don't know. It would heavily influence my vote.

[Speaker 2] (1:43:02 - 1:43:14)
So we can't dictate that in this document, but is that something that could be a portion of the design guidelines? Is that the type of thing one finds in the design guidelines? Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:43:14 - 1:43:15)
You're welcome.

[Speaker 2] (1:43:15 - 1:43:20)
Mr. Perry, then Mr. Schutzer, and then over here, and...

[Speaker 32] (1:43:23 - 1:43:24)
Oh, dear, okay.

[Speaker 8] (1:43:25 - 1:50:14)
Jerry Perry, Precinct 1. Good evening, everyone. I want to rise, and it was alluded to a little bit, but I want to talk finances for a couple minutes.

I remind you as town meeting members the mission-critical responsibility is to spend taxpayer money. That is the main responsibility of the appropriating body of any community, and that's what we do here today. So we have to have at least a brief conversation about finances and how this impacts the finances now and or into the future.

First off, we heard the Board of Selectmen have not taken a position. That's fine. They are the major policymaking body in the town of Swampskin, and as such, if the major policymaking body in the town of Swampskin cannot take a position on that, we as elected town meeting members need to think about that and pause a little bit because obviously they're in the weeds of this stuff far more than the rest of us, and it certainly got my attention when I heard that.

That said, there's a couple things I keep hearing over and over, which is true. The master plan calls for a whole bunch of stuff, you know, affordable housing and development and whatever. It's like 150 pages.

However, buried in there, which is never mentioned by anybody, there's a couple of sentences in there that I read that talks about the fact that when you develop a community or you do new things like this or Elm Place or the Glover Hut, whatever you, Michon School, you have to try to keep pace with your services and the ability to provide services. I was interested. Mr. Powell's looking for money for the senior center. But it's across the whole spectrum of our services of the impact of something like this has on a community. Now, we have a policy here. I talked a little bit about it the other night.

We do 2% plus new growth. I am guaranteeing you that if that policy continues, we cannot afford to provide the necessary services for a project of this magnitude. Let me give you some examples of that.

Let's talk about schools. It's approximately $17,000 or $18,000 for regular education costs. It's about what it is for Swansgate.

We have, I think, something like 18% to 20% of our student population require special needs services. That's even more expensive than the $18,000 to $20,000. But let me go one step further.

If we have a student who is outplaced, you know, severe disabilities with outplacement services, it's about $250,000 to $275,000 for one student. Almost an entire street's taxes is going to pay for that one student, and we are morally, ethically, and legally, you know, required to do this, which I support. We did a lot of modeling on the Outplace Project, which I was very much opposed to, and once again I lost.

But that's okay. But we estimate about 70 to 75 students down there, and if you take that 20% roughly population, you know, we already know that the modeling for Outplace is a money-losing proposition. I said that the other night.

Residential property taxation is money-losing because it costs more just for the schools alone. Now, I keep hearing the developers love this stuff. It's even in the book list, and I'll even go so far.

It's even more money. Angela indicated like $900,000 to $1.2 million. It could be more than that, but I'm guaranteeing you if that kind of residential housing go in there, it's going to cost far more in excess to handle it.

We do not have the services. I've heard them talk about Watertown and Framingham and Woburn and other places that do this development. I personally have done a lot of professional work in those communities on municipal finance.

They have the capacity because their budgets are $200 million, $300 million, or a $79 million-a-year operation with almost $9 million of excess living capacity. We don't have enough public safety officials, in my opinion, today to handle what we have. I've been advocating with Finance Committee members and certain officials of the Select Board where I believe we need a parking and traffic enforcement unit.

We are now an urban environment. We're not a town anymore. We are an urban environment with urban challenges, yet we are building our budget predicated on a town, and it just doesn't really go together here.

Another thing I've done some research on and I'm a little familiar with, we need to research this. As Angela indicated, yeah, we can get all this new revenue and all that stuff, but there is costs. And we never seem to do, as this town anyways, a proper cost-benefit analysis of what is the implications of this project, our place, the Glover House, even, you know, the Pine Street.

What will the implications, if we build X amount of housing, will it have on the impact of the community? We are absolutely poor in that area, and we are remiss in our responsibilities, in my view. As town meeting members, we write the checks, and if we're going to make these kind of decisions, it is my view we need to do a better job of researching that.

I agree that we should delay this. I would like, in order for me to get my vote anyways, and I don't know, the rest of you got to do what you all got to do, I want to know what the financial implications of this project will be. I want to know what the financial implications will be of Pine Street, and so forth and so on.

I think you get my gist here. There are economic models out there. It's kind of a new science.

It's been out there a couple years. I don't know why we don't do a cost-benefit analysis. I take great obsession to these developers coming in here saying we're going to give you more money, and nobody thinks what it's going to cost for that to occur.

One student, $250,000 to $275,000, do the math. It doesn't take long to chew up the $1.2 million that's on the table if we get a couple of those students in. You probably will, let alone the other costs there.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I'm trying to be fair. I'm a huge open space guy. I struggle with this development stuff.

It's not a secret to anybody who listens to me. Angela's a really good person. She tries hard, and I know her heart is in the right place.

But if we're going to do this, I want more homework, especially on the financial end of this, because we have to protect the taxpayers of the town of Swampskin. I respectfully request, and it sounds like, if I'm correct, Mr. Town Council, it is possible to come back in the fall, if I heard that correctly. I don't think we should rush this.

If we're going to do it, let's do it right. I respectfully request a definite postponement. Thank you, Mr. Moderator.

[Speaker 2] (1:50:14 - 1:50:25)
Thank you, Mr. Perry. Mr. Schutzer. Mr. Schutzer, then Mr. Germa. I'm sorry, I kept looking up there to see if you had your hand up.

[Speaker 18] (1:50:25 - 1:50:30)
I apologize. I had my hand up. I'm wearing pink today so that you could see me.

You look lovely in pink. Please.

[Speaker 2] (1:50:31 - 1:50:32)
And then Mr. Schutzer.

[Speaker 18] (1:50:34 - 1:52:34)
At the risk of inadvertently aligning myself with an anti-development perspective, which I definitely don't have, I think I speak for a few other people when I say that our concern and many people's concern and many people's anxiety about this has nothing to do with the fact that Vennon Square is in desperate need of the exact redevelopment that you're talking about. There's no question in my mind and many, many other people's minds that this has to happen. We are officially over a barrel right now because we want this to happen, and we're being told that if we don't decide to do it now with the terms that are in the printed warrant, which frankly don't quite get there and have a lot of problems, that maybe Mr. Rose will decide to do his own thing, which I have no idea. I don't know if that's even true. But we're really over a barrel because there are some very serious deficiencies that only Mr. Rose can really address since he wrote it that would, I think, be very different if we had had a little bit more time. I think the percentage of the affordable housing obligation could easily be higher and should be higher.

And I just want to be clear that the 3A legislation, if this were actual 3A legislation, we would be able to propose a higher percentage and prove economic feasibility, but it's DHDD who reviews it. So I think it's really easy to conflate this. This is not 3A legislation, and we are only getting what inclusionary zoning would allow.

So that's not very much. And we could do better, and if Mr. Rose could stay at the table, we could talk about it and we could come back in a few months and really have a conversation that would attend to many different concerns without feeling like it's an all-or-nothing proposition or that if we say no now or if we postpone it now it's because we don't want it. But I think we do want it.

And so postponing it is really trying to take away some of that obvious anxiety, and it has nothing to do with development.

[Speaker 2] (1:52:35 - 1:52:51)
Thank you, Ms. Martyn Epstein. I have Mr. Schutzer, if you still wish to rise, and Mr. Jerma, the same thing goes for you. Ms. Dreskel, I have a few in front of you. Ditto. And Mr. Daugherty, I do have you after the gentleman behind you.

[Speaker 13] (1:52:51 - 1:54:41)
Thank you very much, Kenneth Schutzer, Precinct 6, town meeting member, still an attorney. I just wanted to make something very clear. There is more unanimity in thought than there is disagreement.

Everyone likes the concept, but no one is quite clear that they're comfortable yet accepting the terms which aren't yet as clear as we would like them to be, the design review being one of them. We've heard what appears to be a very strident position from the planning board how important this is. So I am convinced that the planning board will be bringing this back because they're the proponents and they're the ones that are so eloquent in pushing this through.

And I'm not saying that in any way. So I have no qualms about supporting the motion or the amendment, which is on the floor, to indefinitely postpone our table. And I wasn't sure whether tabling is different from indefinitely postponing, but it doesn't really make a difference anymore because we can come back and there's no two-year limitation to do that.

So I'm going to call the question, because I think that this issue has been so thoroughly discussed to the extent to which we understand it, because that is where the deficiency is. It's fully understanding it. And I think I'm convinced, let me forget thinking, I'm convinced that more time will give us more opportunity to vet, to think, and to be better able when we come back to make a decision that we as individuals, who are representative town meeting members, who have an obligation to the people that we represent to come back and tell you what they want.

And I think we can do that, and I think we have a clarion explanation, and we'll be ready to do that. So I'm going to call the question.

[Speaker 2] (1:54:41 - 1:54:51)
I'm not going to recognize that motion from someone who's spoken on the matter. I will take a motion, such a motion. I've been consistent in that in this entire meeting.

Thank you.

[Speaker 13] (1:54:52 - 1:55:01)
Thank you, Mr. Schutzer. Wait, wait, wait. I'm confused now.

I thought when a motion has been made to call the question that there is an obligation to do so.

[Speaker 2] (1:55:01 - 1:55:03)
If it's in order, I find it not in order, sir.

[Speaker 13] (1:55:03 - 1:55:15)
Well, how can you arbitrarily decide which motion? Maybe I should have Mr. Perry call the motion, because he is such an expert at calling the motion, that I should defer to his calling the motion.

[Speaker 2] (1:55:15 - 1:55:18)
I wondered if he were intending to, but he spoke on the matter instead.

[Speaker 13] (1:55:18 - 1:55:19)
Well, he has two opportunities.

[Speaker 8] (1:55:19 - 1:55:20)
Maybe he wishes to do that.

[Speaker 2] (1:55:21 - 1:55:24)
I'm going to defer to Mr. Perry. I have recognized people first.

[Speaker 8] (1:55:25 - 1:55:59)
Mr. Murdoch, I'm actually going to support you here a little bit. It's a custom of town meeting and town meeting, Mr. Johnson's book, that if an individual gets up and speaks either for or against, like Mr. Schutzer did, traditionally moderators do not accept a motion. You know, they make their argument and they try to end the debate.

If somebody else gets up, you notice when I raise my hand to do this, I just call the question. I can't do that. I've already spoken on it.

I would like to call the question, but I really don't think I should. But I agree with the moderator.

[Speaker 2] (1:55:59 - 1:56:04)
I hope somebody else will call the question. Thank you. Mr. Jerma is recognized.

[Speaker 14] (1:56:05 - 1:58:09)
Okay, thank you. Jer Jerma, Precinct 3, Historic District Commission. I do have a lot of thoughts in my head when I'm looking at this, and I absolutely understand the motivation behind the planning boards looking at this as an opportunity.

I have a couple of questions about it that, Angela, I'm hoping you can help me with. When we go into setting up the guidelines, that whole period, does it have to only relate to this individual lot, or can the development of those guidelines allow us to not only address this lot that it's having the zoning changed on, but the all of that in square to do an overlay? Because the thing that I'm struggling with is how to move forward with what this becomes without having what's across the street and without addressing all of the opportunities that are there.

The opportunity to possibly underwire the power lines, which are a huge part of the visual impact of Benning Square. The opportunity to address how buildings relate to the street front and create a town center. The ability to really think of scale and air spaces.

A lot of the examples that were shown tonight are the boxes that we will now always look at the early 21st century as scattering our landscape. There is now this architectural thing. As a town, to take the opportunity to really think about what it is, not an example that's somewhere else, but possibly a true town center that has and reflects the character of Swampscott.

Is this a time that we can be, this few months where we're developing these guidelines, can these guidelines go beyond this space?

[Speaker 1] (1:58:10 - 1:59:32)
That's a very good question. The guidelines that we would be developing would be for this specific space. However, because they would be applicable to any other redevelopment of a commercial strip mall center, if we were to rezone across the street, for example, we could adopt the same guidelines for that part of the street.

We can't include those parcels because we have not notified any of those business owners. We have not noticed them. You can't just rezone someone's property without telling them.

You have to be able to have a conversation and an agreement with the owner of the property before you can just go and rezone their property. My point is we could use the guidelines, and because they would have a very similar purpose and applicability, we could then, if we were to notify the other people and have a bylaw to change that zoning, we could apply the same guidelines there. We've used the smart growth guidelines before.

[Speaker 2] (1:59:32 - 1:59:35)
I'd like us to stick to the matter before us.

[Speaker 14] (1:59:35 - 2:00:26)
This is the reason I'm asking this question. Would we have, if we were to postpone and bring this to the fall period, would that allow the town of Swampscott to have the legal notification times to have this conversation so that this kind of zoning, this kind of planning could actually impact zoning in a larger area if we had that time to work in that notification? Because that could potentially bring more value to Mr. Rose if he was building in an environment that was planned and guided under the same laws that he's asking for for his own development because your property values are very much impacted by your neighboring property values. So would that land time-wise?

[Speaker 1] (2:00:28 - 2:00:49)
To be perfectly honest, I don't know. I don't know. I don't have any experience reaching out to a developer like Kimco, so I would have to leave that to other members of the select board, perhaps, that do have that experience.

That's not me. And, yeah, I would leave it at that.

[Speaker 14] (2:00:49 - 2:00:52)
Is there anyone in the room that could address that?

[Speaker 2] (2:00:53 - 2:01:01)
I think we're moving a field from the question ahead of us. I hear the interest in doing so.

[Speaker 14] (2:01:01 - 2:01:06)
But it relates to an understanding of a delay on this.

[Speaker 2] (2:01:08 - 2:01:48)
Well, Mr. Spellios, can you speak to that? I don't know that we can do a poll of the 170-odd members here to see if someone knows how to get in touch with them, so I'm going to respectfully ask that we move on with that as an open question. So the question is, just because you're not on the mic, specifically to the amount of time that it would require to legally notice the owner of the Kimco property.

That would require?

[Speaker 32] (2:01:49 - 2:01:49)
Right.

[Speaker 1] (2:01:49 - 2:01:51)
I understand the question. I just don't know the answer.

[Speaker 2] (2:01:52 - 2:01:56)
Okay. And, Mr. Cain, is that a question you know the answer to?

[Speaker 14] (2:02:06 - 2:02:10)
No. The property owner for it.

[Speaker 16] (2:02:11 - 2:02:13)
I'll answer your question. Yes, please, Mr. Cain, and then.

[Speaker 14] (2:02:13 - 2:02:33)
So, yes, the property owner is the one that must be notified of the proposed zoning change on its property. Not the businesses, per se, but the property owner. And it is the Kimco that would be notified.

You reach out. It's just a certified letter, and it would be within the time requirement for a special time meeting. Thank you, Mr. Cain.

[Speaker 2] (2:02:34 - 2:02:41)
Now, I've had a question about the stance of the select board on this. Mr. Spellios?

[Speaker 3] (2:02:50 - 2:07:27)
Peter Spellios, precinct 3 town meeting member. I am a member of the board of selectmen. But let me start by telling you tonight I'm not speaking as a member of the board of selectmen.

I guess I'm always a selectman, technically, right? I want to start where Mr. Driscoll finished, having to do about the select board. I'm glad you guys are going to get an answer as to why the select board didn't make a recommendation.

Bear with me. I'm going to give you an answer. Four years ago, I met with Angela about Vinnon Square, and she said, can we...

And frankly, I probably wasn't very nice at the time, and I probably said, look, tourist overlay district, the Humphrey Street overlay district, all really good intentioned things. But nothing has ever happened. Not a single person has ever, like, even called the building department, to the best of our knowledge, to say, hey, that sounds interesting.

What can we do? And so the properties look the same, and they're acting the same, and nothing has changed. And so I sat with Angela, and I said, Angela, if you want change, you've got to get buy-in by the property owners to make change happen.

To her credit, Angela started having conversations. I started to as well. I tried to get Kimco for years, and I'm in the real estate world.

I thought, I can surely track them down. No, they're a retail... They don't care about anything besides retail and cash flow, and never caught up with us.

Andy Rose did respond, and I don't know how many people here know Andy. I've gotten to know Andy in recent years because I'm part of these conversations. But Andy hates retail.

But he owns retail centers, so he's going to do what he needs to do to have a retail center. But over years of talking to him, Andy began to be interested and have conversations. And it wasn't until the planning board in 2022 mentioned the 3A zoning and Vinden Square specifically being that that Andy actually called me up and said, is this real?

Is the planning board really thinking about doing something, and, you know, I guess I should engage in that conversation. And I said, yeah, it's real, but what does it matter? Like, I mean, it'll happen.

The state actually has given us greater runway to make it happen, but it will happen. And Andy said, well, no one knows this yet, but Olympia Sports is going belly up. And no one did know that because Olympia Sports was still there.

And as you know, if you drive by there, it's still empty. The only reason it's empty is because Andy Rose, when I asked Angela, are you serious, and Angela said, yes, we're serious, Andy Rose made a gentleman's agreement of sorts and said, all right, I'm not going to sign the lease I have and give you guys a chance to go to town meeting and see what will happen. That lease, I'll tell you, is Gentle Dental, right?

That's a 10-year lease. He's going to put money into the space and he's going to get a couple hundred thousand dollars a year in rent, right? I don't know if Gentle Dental excites you.

Maybe we do have an affinity for dentists or something, but that's what that space will be. That will lock up the property for 10 years. So if you're excited about the strip mall being there and Gentle Dental happening, I'm just letting you know that that's the next thing that is likely to occur here.

But more about the select board. Because I spent so much time talking with Andy Rose, I decided I wasn't going to take any official action as a select board member. I thought it was important for the select board to make its own decision about putting a warrant article that the planning board wanted, and the select board gets to control what goes in the warrant, with the exception of citizen petitions.

I thought it was important to let the select board decide whether or not to put it in the warrant and have this debate before town meeting, so I decided not to take part in any official action on the select board. I have every right to talk here and speak to you as that. But what you should know is, Mr. Driscoll is not entirely correct. Well, he is correct. There wasn't a second on the motion. But the reason there wasn't a second on the motion is because the chairman can't second a motion or make a motion.

Under our code, which was passed by the select board last year, the chairman cannot make or second a motion. David Grishman is on the record supporting passage of this. Katie Phelan is on the record supporting passage of this.

The other two select board members, I believe, are in favor of indefinite postponement. I am in favor of passage of this. So you are correct, you didn't get an official vote, but that's procedural.

You are deserving to know where the positions of the select board members are on this. I'm allowed...

[Speaker 2] (2:07:27 - 2:07:48)
Mr. Driscoll. Are you rising to a point of personal privilege? And please tell me what it is.

I did not say... Mr. Spelius, are you saying how you would vote?

[Speaker 3] (2:07:48 - 2:18:36)
No, I believe I said that I'm in support of passage of this. I did not say what I would vote because I didn't... Again, it's a nuance and a hair you're trying to split, Mr. Driscoll. But to put yourself at ease, you know me well enough to know that I didn't do any of this without talking to the State Ethics Commission. I wouldn't be standing here without talking to the State Ethics Commission because, honestly, my integrity is more important and I'm not going to risk it for, frankly, someone to stand up and say exactly the type of things that you just said. I'm not going to risk it.

It's not worth it to me. I defer to town meeting. You all get to decide.

Yes, no, it sounds like maybe you don't want to do it. That's okay. I'm good with it.

I have an opinion. I'm sharing my opinion. So I want to tell you a little bit more because in the last year, the biggest phone call that probably most select board members have gotten isn't about taxes.

It isn't about traffic. The call that most of us got and continue to get is why didn't we do more to stop Chase Bank? This town meeting actually passed a bylaw change afterwards saying we're not going to have more banks.

I don't know another community that actually limits the number of banks. I mean, it's kind of idiotic in a way, right? We literally have decided banks.

We have too many banks. Chase is our seventh. But that's what I got phone calls about.

And you want to know why we got a Chase Bank? It's because we didn't have an opportunity to talk to the property owner. The property owner didn't want to have a conversation.

The property owner said Chase Bank is going to pay a huge rent. And yes, they're going to pay a huge rent in a store or a building that's one-third the size because banks pay huge rent. Why do you think we have seven of them in Vinton Square?

Do you really think it's because all your deposits are that important? It's advertising. A bank is advertising.

That is what it is. We have seven of them. I want to speak a little bit more.

So tonight, we have an opportunity, at least you have an opportunity to decide whether or not you want to try and get something to replace Pizzeria Uno that's better than what you're liking or you want to find out whether or not you're going to get another Chase Bank. It's just a choice. I don't know the answer either.

And even though I've talked to Andy Rose, and I believe he's being unfairly... The idea here is that we're over a barrel. That's not Andy Rose's position at all.

He just, after years of us saying, will you have the conversation with us, said he'll have the conversation. But at the end of the day, he is alone on the project, he has empty spaces, and he's now left that space for over six months vacant, Olympia Sport. That's the only reason it's vacant, is because he made a gentleman's agreement not to sign the gentle dental lease, which I think would be an abysmal addition to the Vinton Square.

Abysmal. Andy and his partner, we're talking about Andy, but Andy's other partner is also a Swampscot resident. They're both in their 70s.

They've both been here forever. I've asked them if I can share some of the choices they've made at the mall, so that I could share those with you to understand the choices they're making. And the reason I want to share them with you is because the juxtaposition with Kimco across the street is really important.

They're a national REIT. They report earnings. Their goal is to maximize rent, which is why, Mr. Russo, when you sought to rent property from them, you got a very high number. They are willing to let space sit empty Let space sit empty to maximize the rent, because the rent goes on their balance sheet, and it goes to their earnings, and it goes to stock prices and valuation. So they would rather have it be empty as opposed to signing a 10-year lease at below-market rents. So they strive for the highest rents.

Andy and Mark have done something different, and so I've asked them permission to be able to share some of these things. The Petrucci's came in 1994. I think many of you know Petrucci's has filed bankruptcy multiple times, has changed ownerships multiple times.

Petrucci pays today the exact same rent as it paid in 1994. HomeGoods. HomeGoods is a TJX company.

Before that was TJ Maxx. TJ Maxx signed a lease in the 90s. I think I'm right in the 90s.

HomeGoods pays 50 cents a foot less than what TJ Maxx signed in the 90s. Now, Red Rock Nails, no one's really going to be too excited about Red Rock Nails. They're nice people and do a good business, but they, for a long time now, have paid 50% rent in order to stay open, and Andy and Mark have allowed them to stay open paying 50% rent.

And last but not least, the Gap, because that's actually the closest thing we have to a retailer that feels like a lifestyle center that we'd want more of. It's the one that we all... We have a gap in our town.

It's kind of like having a Whole Foods in your town. The Gap was originally Linen and Things. They were a tenant in the original mall and had to be relocated to be on the outside when the mall was converted.

Linen and Things then became Cherry Web and Terrain. Cherry Web and Terrain was over by the OBGYN building right next to Vin and Liquors and Eastern Bank. Andy convinced them to come over here and take the Linen and Things space.

They were a great, booming, great brand that went belly up. Gap came in. Gap paid $15 a foot.

Sorry, excuse me. Cherry Web and Terrain was $15 a foot rent. Under the Gap lease, it went to $17 a foot.

Hey, I guess that's pretty good. By the way, $17 a foot's not a really high rent. It's a pretty low rent.

The Gap doesn't pay $17 a foot. The Gap pays $2 a foot right now. They do that because Andy said, I want to keep you because you draw other tenants.

You draw other people coming to the shopping center. Andy has done that. The Gap isn't going to be there forever.

The Gap, there's reasons they don't want to. The demographics, the core demographics of retail. There's a reason why retail isn't strong here.

It's because 60% of the radius around us is ocean and fish don't shop. Fish don't shop, which is why Linfield Markets does so much better, because they have so much more land on the radius around them, so they have so much more opportunity. It's a really important thing just to recognize the difference between being over a barrel and an opportunity.

Andy did not approach the town. The town approached him. Would I have loved it to be able to say, we have a longer runway?

Yeah, sure. That's why we started the conversation four years ago. Right?

And I appreciate Angela being open to sitting with me and dealing with some of my bullishness at times about, this is how we got to do it. This is how we got to do it. But I want to talk about a couple of things.

This is not about revenue. Now, Mr. Perry is right. Projects cost money.

The housing is coming regardless. From 2010 to 2020, we went up by 1,500 residents. Can anyone think of a project that we planned besides Greenwood and Michon, which is a total of, let's see, 29 units and 39 one-bedroom units.

So with the exception of those 60 units, can anyone think of another thing that we planned in town to come up with the... What's the other number? 1,500 minus 60 units.

Anybody know the plan? Can anybody point to where in the zoning by-law we inspired development? Like, something that we knew was coming.

It's just a matter of time. The answer is, there's not a single building permit that was planned. It was opportunity.

Property owners saw opportunity and did it. The single biggest opportunity that they just saw was the landing in Vinton Square, which is where the JRC used to be, rehab used to be. And they decided to sell their property and move to Peabody, I believe.

And they sold their property to a national real estate firm. And they sold it for, let's say, $4 million. That built 182 units.

Not planned. There isn't a single plant anywhere where you'll see the JRC contemplated to be 182, 184 units. So all that population increase happened because we are more dense.

People that are living close to the city are getting priced out there, they're moving further out, and they're moving further out, and they're moving out. As a matter of fact, during COVID, our numbers spiked, right, because people came out to the suburbs. So the density's coming regardless.

It's a question of whether or not we want to plan where it's going to go and not going to go. 3A mandates us in the next year to figure out where our Azervoy Multifamily District's going to be. I want it in Vinton Square, and I want the housing to happen in Vinton Square predictably, because I don't want it in the neighborhoods.

And the planning board's on board with that idea. They're not going to try and put it in the neighborhoods. So I think that's vitally important for us to just keep in mind that the density's coming.

What I care about is the retail. What will motivate the property owner to take down existing space that pays them rent? Take it down.

Get rid of the tenants. And then turn around and build something that just replaces the rent with new tenants. And the answer is, you got to put the housing above it.

And so that's the opportunity that we have here is to be able to create an incentive to partner with the property owner in doing it. I believe this opportunity is a limited opportunity, but I don't want you to view it like you're over a barrel. It's an opportunity.

Andy didn't ask us to come to him. Now, maybe he would do residential at some point. Maybe he'll do whatever at some point.

And we can just find out, or we can just take, again, this audacious step of not trusting the select board. The planning board with the guidelines. Take part in that process with the guidelines.

Wooburn. Whoever said Wooburn as a project, I think it was actually Mr. Frankl. Brilliant suggestion.

It's beautiful. I mean, it was literally a market basket of home goods and two other things in a strip mall. And it was like the worst of the worst.

And so I ask you just to think of it as an opportunity and not feel on the defensive. I hope that you turn down this motion for indefinite postponement. I hope that we don't send the opposite message that you sent last night.

And tonight, I fear that we'll send a message saying Swampscot's not open for business with you. I don't want Gentle Dental, and God knows I don't want Dollar Store.

[Speaker 2] (2:18:37 - 2:19:56)
Thank you, Mr. Spallios. Mr. Walensky, and then I saw up in the back Mr. Walensky. Okay.

Mr. Walensky has called the question. Is there a second? Thank you.

Mr. Walensky's motion is non-debatable and would cause debate to end on Mr. Frankel's motion for indefinite postponement. If the motion for indefinite postponement fails, we will continue with the debate on the original motion by Ms. Zippolito for adoption of the amendment as shown in the orange handout. All those in favor of Mr. Walensky's motion to end debate, please raise your hands. This is a two-thirds vote required. All those opposed to ending debate, the motion carries. All right.

We'll come to a vote now on Mr. Frankel's amendment to indefinitely postpone the action. If this passes, we will be done with this article. If it does not pass, we will return to the initial motion by Ms. Zippolito. All those in favor? Do you have a point of order, Ms. Atkin? Please rise and state your point.

[Speaker 6] (2:19:59 - 2:20:12)
It's a question. I'm sorry. I'm not sure I'm using the right term.

Barry Atkin, precinct 6 town meeting member. What's the shortest time that an indefinite proposal could involve?

[Speaker 2] (2:20:12 - 2:21:02)
There is no time limit to it. It will be up to the select board. We have a vote coming on the floor here.

All those in favor of Mr. Frankel's motion to indefinitely postpone action under this article, please raise your hand. All those opposed, please raise your hands. The chair is in doubt.

We'll move to a standing vote, please. Can I have the following tellers? Ms. Curry, Mr. Burke, Mr. Lehman, Ms. Hale, Ms. Munoz, and Mr. Deese. I've tried to pick people who have not spoken on this topic at all. Please come down. All those in favor of indefinite postponement, please rise.

[Speaker 22] (2:22:42 - 2:24:01)
Please be seated.

[Speaker 2] (2:24:01 - 2:31:43)
All those in opposition to indefinite postponement to continuing the effort under this article, please rise. Please remain standing if you are against the motion to indefinitely postpone. We're just within one vote here.

Thank you. Please be seated. I understand from some of you that a little bit of leg stretching during the middle of these long sessions is helpful.

By a vote of 54 to 111, the motion fails. We return now to the original motion. I do see another select board member asking to be recognized.

Mr. Thompson, the floor is yours. Okay. Moving on.

Let's go with Ms. Schultz, the gentleman over here, and then I see Mr. Deese.

[Speaker 7] (2:31:50 - 2:31:52)
Nancy Schultz, Precinct 3.

[Speaker 19] (2:31:55 - 2:32:01)
I want to support the motion to change the zoning.

[Speaker 7] (2:32:02 - 2:32:45)
I think what I'm sensing in the room is sense that people feel like they haven't had control over the process, that it's being sprung on them, and that they don't have control, which is kind of leading some to question whether this is a good idea. But if I understand what's been presented to us, in fact, the change to B4 zoning gives us control. That is the only option that gives us any control over what happens.

Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Schultz.

[Speaker 2] (2:32:45 - 2:32:49)
Thank you, Ms. Schultz. Yes, thank you, sir.

[Speaker 28] (2:32:54 - 2:33:45)
Duncan Page, Town Meeting Member, Precinct 1. I think that this development idea is great. These kinds of mixed-use, dense projects are exactly what's in demand right now.

These kinds of housing developments are super popular, and because they're so popular, they're very expensive. So by adding one to our town, we can help increase the stock and make them more affordable, as well as also, you know, we could also, you know, help cut down on car trips. You know, if you have a grocery store right at your base of your building, you don't have to go drive to your grocery store to bring it home.

That's a great greenhouse savings. The last thing I would like to ask is with this trying to make it walkable, are there other plans, like say, a separated bike lane, or wider sidewalks also included in this plan, or is it just the zoning so far?

[Speaker 1] (2:33:47 - 2:33:49)
Those types of things.

[Speaker 28] (2:33:49 - 2:33:59)
Are you talking about on-site, or...? On-site, or with the, you know, the roadway that the town already has control over.

[Speaker 1] (2:33:59 - 2:35:18)
Good question. So there would be extensive requirements in terms of traffic mitigation, sewage studies, drainage improvements, electrical improvements, someone mentioned putting wires underground, requiring that buildings are sustainable, requiring electric vehicle charging stations, requiring sidewalks that connect all the properties on-site, requiring grassy strips and places for people to gather, requiring benches, and so forth.

And I would mention that one thing I did not mention before is that the owner is, his thoughts have been around 250 units. There's the fact that the zoning calls for 30 an acre, the notion of that was to keep the density tight, not sprawled all over the place. So that was the idea, but unfortunately I think that's been, that was not communicated very well, that's the intent.

Density can also be included in design guidelines, or density range, certainly. And anything else I didn't answer that you asked me about?

[Speaker 32] (2:35:19 - 2:35:20)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (2:35:20 - 2:35:33)
Thank you, Ms. Zippolito. So I did see Mr. Deese, I see Mr. Grishman and Mr. Barton, and several other hands, I'll get to Mr. Norton, Ms. Schutzer, Mr. Berdoff, but Mr. Deese?

[Speaker 27] (2:35:37 - 2:36:38)
I'll try to be very brief, I know we've been talking about this for a long time. Mostly I just want to support the previous speaker, or both of the previous speakers in saying that we gain more control over the situation in Vinton Square by passing this, and that, I mean, there's a meme for anyone who's familiar about mixed use urban developments, but I don't know that it would land in this audience. Anyway, I said I was going to try to be brief, so I've already failed, I'm sorry.

I guess the thing is that whether we, if we wait for a future town meeting to address this, ultimately we're still going to be placing our trust in our elected and appointed town government and boards to do the right thing for the town. So they're asking us to trust them now, we're going to trust them at the point that we hand over whatever decision we make for Vinton Square, which we clearly all want to do. So, you know, I'm in favor of making things easier for them, because I believe that that will lead to a better outcome.

[Speaker 1] (2:36:39 - 2:36:40)
Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (2:36:40 - 2:36:47)
Thank you, Mr. Deese. Mr. Grishman, Mr. Barden, Ms. Schutzer, Mr. Doherty.

[Speaker 10] (2:36:51 - 2:41:18)
David Grishman, Select Board, Precinct 1 town meeting member. Our town is very much at an inflection point, and after a number of years working hard, working smart, and working together, channeling our inner Dean Smith, we, the Select Board, the Planning Board, in conjunction with professional staff and FinCom and others, we position the town for success. Good things are happening in Swampscott, and good things are happening as a result of the input of this body and these deliberations.

From our thorough discussions the last few nights around the budget, there's little left to cut at a time when there are increasing needs on the town side, there are increasing needs on the school side, there are increasing needs for public safety, and as a result, it's my view that we need to focus on growth and the smart development, and that's exactly what's at the heart of this article. The Planning Board has studied this for a while now, a decade. A decade, Angela.

This didn't come out of nowhere, and has identified Vinnin Square as the logical place for this development to occur. This makes sense. Vinnin Square is already underdeveloped and underperforming commercial area, ripe for rejuvenation and redevelopment.

This keeps this considerable development out of our residential neighborhoods, and helps preserve our quaint little beach town feel in our residential areas. Not to mention, this is where the Planning Board believes it should go, and I agree. And I think most of us here do as well.

We simply cannot choose to not comply with the 3A law. We have to, and we should be proactive. This is the very definition of planning and foresight.

The time is now. Vinnin Square has served residents of Swampskate and the North Shore well for decades, but the fact is, retail is in decline, exacerbated by the pandemic. Leases are up, and we can show tonight that this town meeting and our town meeting members are being proactive about compliance with state law and 3A requirements.

And this is going to happen regardless of any action or inaction tonight. But tonight, if we take action, we can provide the zoning changes required to redevelop and right-size our commercial engine, and we can preserve our commercial tax base. This can also allow for increased diversity of retail and restaurant options.

I mean, Bertucci's is my 11-year-old son's favorite restaurant. But with mixed use, think about the restaurant options that could be supported. Think about the businesses and the jobs that could be created, and think about the tax revenue, property taxes and meals taxes that could be generated.

We showed this on the screen earlier. The time is now. Looking out into the future of our town's capital plan for 2024 to 2028, there are considerable capital needs on the horizon.

All you have to do is look in your warrant, pages 28 to 30. I can wait. We've debated this for the last 2 1⁄2 hours.

What's another 30 seconds? Flip to 28 to 30 of your warrant. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to determine that the town of Swampskate can either grow its commercial and its residential tax base and spread the tax burdens across a greater population and with a greater value of commercial and residential properties, or it will simply have to heavily tax those who remain in town to address our numerous needs.

A no vote is a vote for higher taxes and a vote against progress. It is a vote to keep Swampskate expensive and will force those who want to sell their single family homes to likely have to move out of town due to lack of housing stock and housing diversity that this zoning amendment would help create. Lastly, a no vote will only delay what will eventually happen a year later through the full implementation of 3A.

However, our yes vote tonight continues the progress we have made as a town and as a town meeting body and continue to make as a town. Our yes vote tonight is for fiscal responsibility and our yes vote tonight can ensure that Swampskate residents can continue to live, work, and play in a re-envisioned, reinvigorated Vennon Square that can be enjoyed by Swampskate residents in the region for generations to come. So, I encourage everyone to rise with me and vote yes on Article 20.

Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (2:41:18 - 2:42:08)
Thank you, Mr. Griffin. Mr. Barden, then Ms. Schutzer, then Mr. Doherty. Mr. Barden has not spoken on the matter, so I think that is in order. I heard a second. A yes vote on Mr. Barden's motion to call the question would move immediately to a vote on Ms. Ippolito's initial motion. All those in favor of ending debate at this point, please raise your hands.

All those opposed, the motion does carry. Now, this, much like Article 17 from last night, is an article that is eligible to pass by a simple majority due to the Chapter 358 of the Acts of 2020. I need to hear from Town Council and the Planning Board that we've met those requirements.

[Speaker 1] (2:42:09 - 2:42:10)
We have.

[Speaker 2] (2:42:10 - 2:50:09)
Okay, thank you. You recall we did this on 17, but this necessitates is there a point of order? Yep, that is correct.

That was what was printed in the warrant. That is incorrect. The prior vote is indefinite postponement is a simple majority regardless.

I'm troubled by following your logic. However, I will move to a vote, and as I did on Article 17, the requirement is to do a standing vote to satisfy the needs of the Attorney General. Thus, all those in favor of Ms. Ippolito's original motion, please rise. May I please have the tellers down here again. Please remain standing. It will help the tellers immensely if you stay standing at your seat rather than milling about.

Please be seated. All those opposed, please rise and stand while you're counted. Thank you.

You may be seated. By the vote of 152 to 13, Ms. Ippolito's motion passes. We now come to Article 21, Amendment to a Zoning Map, Ms. Ippolito. It is quorum. We have 304 elected members. I'll allow you to do the math while we move on.

We have 304 elected members. The vote was 152 to 13. Thank you.

Moving on. Ms. Ippolito.

[Speaker 1] (2:50:09 - 2:50:32)
Thank you. This one should hopefully be pretty short. Article 21 is to amend the Zoning By-law and Zoning Map to rezone certain parcels from A2 to A4.

The Planning Board recommends favorable action on this motion. I move the recommendation of the Planning Board.

[Speaker 2] (2:50:33 - 2:50:36)
Is there a second? The Planning Board has held a hearing on this.

[Speaker 1] (2:50:36 - 2:52:46)
Yes, we have. We held a hearing on this article on May 1st. The Planning Board voted unanimously to recommend favorable action.

This is a very, almost administrative correction on the Zoning Map. Can we go to the right map there? We have it someplace.

Not that one. This is a small cluster. Several years back, we took most of the 3A district and we moved it into an A4.

Too many different numbers going on. A4. I'm talking about residential properties.

Several years ago, we took most of the properties that were zoned A3 and we moved them to A4, which was the former A3. A4 is the most permissive of all residential zones. When we made that change, the Zoning Map just switched all A3 properties to A4.

By some glitch of the Zoning Map that... Do we have a map that follows this? We should.

By some little glitch of the Zoning Map, there was a small cluster of properties that was just... Well, I guess maybe we don't. Just north of the train station that's literally a little block of properties that had been zoned A2 for some reason.

We could not for the life of us figure out why. It's just... It made no sense.

It was kind of stuck in the middle of the rest of the zoning. It was the residents in this little cluster, this block of houses, that came to us and said, hey, why are we in A2 when we're supposed to be A4? We went back.

We researched it. We came to the conclusion that it was just a Zoning Map change. When the zoning was changed, they happened to have been A2 for some odd reason.

They just didn't switch over with all the other A3 properties. This just corrects a zoning error and puts that little block of houses in compliance with the rest of the homes around it.

[Speaker 2] (2:52:47 - 2:52:50)
You may find the map in your printed warrant.

[Speaker 1] (2:52:50 - 2:52:51)
Oh, thanks.

[Speaker 2] (2:52:52 - 2:53:18)
Are there questions? Mr. Norton. No questions.

I'm going to dispense with the motion to call the question since there's no one else looking to debate. The fewer votes we have to take before the end of this evening, the better. This does require a two-thirds vote.

All those in favor of Ms. Zipolito's motion? All those opposed? It is unanimous.

[Speaker 1] (2:53:18 - 2:53:19)
Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (2:53:20 - 2:53:34)
We come now to Article 23, Article 22 having been dispensed of during the consent agenda on Monday night. Article 23 will amend the general bylaws regarding earth removal. Ms. Bandrewitz.

[Speaker 7] (2:53:39 - 2:54:16)
Thank you, Mr. Monnery. Tonya Bandrewitz, Town Meeting Member, Precinct 4. I'm also a member of the Earth Removal Advisory Committee.

The Earth Removal Advisory Committee recommends the Town vote to amend the Town of Swampscott general bylaws, Article 13, Earth Removal, by inserting the language shown in red and deleting the language shown in red strikethrough as set forth in Appendix K of the printed warrant. I move the recommendation of the Earth Removal Advisory Committee.

[Speaker 2] (2:54:17 - 2:54:20)
Is there a second? Ms. Bandrewitz.

[Speaker 7] (2:54:20 - 2:58:53)
Thank you. I presume there are some people who don't even know what the Earth Removal Bylaw is, so just as a little backdrop, the Earth Removal Bylaw is designed to regulate, by a permit that's issued by the Select Board, after a public hearing, earth removal operations that occur during construction and for the purpose of protecting human health, public safety, and welfare. It's important to note, when we're talking about this, we're talking about larger projects.

As a general matter, smaller it exempts, the Earth Removal Bylaw exempts residential buildings of up to three residential units. So we're talking about big projects, and as you know from hearing, we've got a few of those coming up. Article 23 in the warrant proposes several changes to the existing Earth Removal Bylaw, and they're all designed, again, to strengthen protection for the town's residents.

The first is an amendment to the definition of removal, earth removal, deleting the requirement that in order to be subject to the permitting requirements, the earth removed has to be taken off site, and now instead can be the removal of earth that's moved around on a lot. This is designed to eliminate a loophole whereby developers could extract large volumes of soil, rock, ledge, but avoid regulation designed to protect public health by keeping the material on site. The revision is consistent with the purposes behind the earth removal ordinances, which are enacted, as I said, to protect health, safety, and property values too.

For instance, by regulating under the permit, noise, dust, and other environmental expanded now to also include environmental considerations, and in Swamp's case, our earth removal bylaw also has rodent control requirements that would be included in a permit. So whether or not this extracted material is taken off site, the disruption of large volumes of material on site can have adverse effects on health and safety by causing damage to the neighboring lands and property values, not to mention health of people. The other change in the proposed bylaw is to reduce the amount of earth that the threshold amount of earth that has to be removed from 600 cubic yards to 400 cubic yards.

Just for context, a dump truck, depending on size, carries either 10 or 15 yards of material, so a reduction to 400 cubic yards would equate to about 40 to 28 truckloads of material. Because Swampscot is very densely populated with large construction projects typically occurring close to residential areas, there is more of a need to protect residents from noise, from dust, from health concerns of these projects. So our intent here is by reducing the threshold amount, more projects would be included and required a permit.

The proposed law also made some other minor changes, which is to ensure that if there's a change to an existing earth removal permit that's already been issued, if it's going to be materially changed, then there will be another public hearing. And it also makes some changes to the membership, to make it consistent, the membership of the Earth Removal Advisory Committee. That committee advises the Select Board when they issue the permits.

So in a nutshell, these changes are designed to offer more protections for the residents. And I hope you will vote in favor.

[Speaker 2] (2:58:54 - 3:00:01)
Thank you, Ms. Banderits. Are there any questions or debate on this topic? Before we move to a vote, I do just want to recognize John Piccarello, who stepped down as chair after a long, long service, and we're all indebted to him for helping make this committee.

Thank you. Thank you. It's been a pleasure working, even in proximity to you, but close with you when I can.

All those in favor of Ms. Banderits' motion, please signify by raising your hand. This is a simple majority. All those opposed?

The motion carries unanimously. We come to Article 24, amending the general bylaws regarding the feeding of wildlife. Mr. Grishman.

[Speaker 10] (3:00:07 - 3:00:24)
Thank you. David Grishman, Select Board Precinct 1 Town Meeting Member. The Select Board recommends the Town vote to amend the Town of Swampskate general bylaws by adding a new Article 28, Feeding of Wildlife, as set forth in Appendix L.

I move the recommendation of the Select Board.

[Speaker 2] (3:00:24 - 3:00:27)
Thank you. Is there a second? Mr. Grishman.

[Speaker 10] (3:00:30 - 3:00:38)
24. Oh, sorry. Article 24 by adding a new Article 28 as set forth in Appendix L.

[Speaker 2] (3:00:39 - 3:00:47)
Article 24 in the warrant will create an Article 28 of the general bylaws. It's confusing, I agree, but he's correct.

[Speaker 10] (3:00:48 - 3:00:52)
And I would like to turn it over to Deb Newman for the presentation. Thank you, Ms. Newman.

[Speaker 6] (3:00:58 - 3:07:55)
Hi. I'm Deb Newman, Town Meeting Member from Precinct 1, Board Member for Council on Aging and Chair of the Commission on Disability. As an attorney and wildlife advocate, I've had the privilege to craft the proposed bylaw with Town Council and I was invited by Town Administrator Fitzgerald to collaborate with Chief Cassada, Lieutenant Lord, and ACO Considine on a coyote management plan.

This presentation explains the purpose of the proposed bylaw and also gives a brief primer, very brief, on living with urban coyotes in Swanscott. So I'll let you read what's on the slide and I will tell you that while most wildlife is healthier without food provided by humans, our main concern right now is coyotes. It's important to know how to curtail access to any resources that attract coyotes to our yards, parks, and malls.

Their passing through is one thing, but hanging around expectantly is not good for us or the coyotes. By never giving them the opportunity to learn that humans provide either intentionally or inadvertently any kind of food source, we teach them to stay in their natural habitat. Next slide, thank you.

The full text of the bylaw is more detailed, of course, but these are the basic expectations that can go a long way to preventing conflict with coyotes and other wildlife. These practices also help to decrease the spread of disease among animal species and to humans. Please note that the bird feeders are under the exceptions.

These are just some interesting little facts about coyotes. In the last 75 years, coyotes have spread throughout most of North America. The only U.S. state without them is Hawaii. The expansion is due mostly to humans' eradication of wolves, who are coyotes' natural competitors. A family consists, as a family of coyotes, consists of a bonded pair, one or two adolescents from the previous year's litter, who help with the coming litter, and any new pups who are born in April or May. Access to an abundance of food resources help to govern the number of pups born.

This year's pups are already here. And that is why it is essential to deprive coyotes of all human-associated food sources. Coyotes are very intelligent and adaptable.

Although they are naturally shy of humans, they are opportunistic omnivores, similar to canines or our pet dogs, and will happily take a handout in the form of unsecured trash, open compost piles, pet food left outside, turkey fodder, or direct feeding by sympathetic humans. And coyotes will teach their pups that this is a good way to get an easy meal. Not only do these attractants directly entice coyotes, but they also bring other wildlife, especially rodents, who are coyotes' favorite prey.

Where there are rodents, you'll soon see coyotes. Keep them both at bay without the need for poisons or traps by ensuring clean outdoor surroundings at your property or place of business. Those are the attractants to avoid.

So, when we offer food intentionally or inadvertently, we teach coyotes to expect that resource. Once they associate food with any human or a typically human setting, they become less timid of all humans. Eventually they may display bolder behavior that can frighten us, but it can also be corrected through consistent reconditioning called hazing.

However, hazing works only when all food sources are permanently removed. This is what you have to look like when you're hazing. Coyotes do not hunt humans, but if you're reluctant to rely on the basic hazing method of waving your arms, clapping and yelling, there are other tools you can take along on a walk.

Whistles, clappers, potty blowers, or a soda can filled with coins are all good noisemakers to scare coyotes. If coyotes are lingering in your yard, bang pots and pans, spray them with a hose, or throw tennis balls toward them. Aim to scare, not to harm.

And remember, if coyotes are in your yard regularly, check for attractants related to food and shelter. Even a dirty barbecue grill, pet bowls, rotting produce from a garden, or low-hanging shrubbery are enough to keep them interested. Next.

Coyotes may see small to medium dogs as prey, and large dogs as competitors for food or territory, especially during much of breeding and denning seasons from January to June. Coyotes have come to recognize the jingle of tags as a signal that a dog is in the vicinity, so silence your dog's tags. If you enjoy walking in the woods or any other wildlife habitat, it is safer to go without your dog.

Also, keep in mind that coyotes may forage appropriately or pass through your yard at night. That's okay. If you have a doggy door, your dog may sense their presence and run outside in an effort to protect his or her territory, just as coyotes protect theirs.

For safety's sake, doggy doors are not recommended. These are the penalties for feeding wildlife. The last one is pretty steep, but in order to keep the coyotes at bay, just try to keep things clean around your house or place of business.

So, next slide. Yes vote for the Wildlife Feeding Bylaw helps to prevent conflict with coyotes and other wildlife, while also curbing rodent infestation around town. Thank you for your attention.

[Speaker 2] (3:07:56 - 3:08:00)
Thank you, Ms. Newman. Mr. Schutzer.

[Speaker 13] (3:08:09 - 3:08:53)
Please, with the mic. I'm sort of doing both at the same time. Ken Schutzer, Precinct 6.

I just have one question, and the question was with regard to the exemption of bird feeders, because I was advised that having a bird feeder would promote rodents, and then coyotes would be attracted to the rodents. Yes. So, is there some reason why we've exempted bird feeders, other than obviously our concern that birds be fed, but if one of the collateral problems of bird feeders is that the feed drops to the ground, rodents are attracted to that, and then coyotes are attracted to the rodents, is that something that we need to better understand before we exempt bird feeders?

Thank you, Mr. Schutzer.

[Speaker 2] (3:08:54 - 3:08:56)
Can I give my answer?

[Speaker 6] (3:08:58 - 3:09:57)
Scott's going to give his answer, and I'm going to give my answer. One answer is that we are concerned about people who might be homebound, and that's one of their few pleasures, is to have a bird feeder that they enjoy. The other reason is the amount of seed that does fall to the ground is minimal.

There are plenty of doves and pigeons who usually clean it up. We're also hoping that people will keep an eye on it now that we, if we do pass this and have a bylaw that they just clean up around the bird feeder. The big opposition is to when people put out bowls of seed on the ground.

There's some turkey feeding has been going on that looks like that. That's my understanding of why we are going to still allow bird feeders.

[Speaker 13] (3:09:58 - 3:10:07)
Is there some type of bird feed that is preferable, just so people can have bird feeders but can, at the same time, try to avoid attracting rodents?

[Speaker 6] (3:10:07 - 3:10:21)
The low waste kind is good, which there's no coating on each particular seed. The shell of the seeds are not there, so it's easier the birds aren't cracking and dropping things onto the ground.

[Speaker 2] (3:10:22 - 3:10:22)
Thank you very much.

[Speaker 6] (3:10:23 - 3:10:23)
You're welcome.

[Speaker 2] (3:10:25 - 3:10:31)
I will recognize Scott Considine. That is some excellent mic technique.

[Speaker 17] (3:10:33 - 3:10:36)
Scott Considine, ACO for SwampScot.

[Speaker 2] (3:10:38 - 3:10:40)
Animal Control Officer.

[Speaker 17] (3:10:43 - 3:13:46)
Happy to be here. I'm happy that I have a good crowd now. Those last two votes, they were rough.

All right. This is what, in a nutshell, and I'm so happy, by the way, we want to thank Deb Newman, because she spent a lot of time with us. She spent a lot of time with Sean.

She spent a lot of time at the police station working with us to get the right verbiage, I think was her term, and the right, I guess, all the information we had. She went through it like a school teacher. That's what I can tell you, and she did a great job.

She did a really good job. So thank you very much, Deb. Thank you, Officer Considine.

I thought she left me. I'm really not good at standing up front, but I thought this was very important. And to the point where, like my kids, all five of them, when I start talking until I'm blue in the face telling people in town, when you feed wildlife, you have signed its death warrant.

Because that animal is not going to stop. It's going to continue to come to you. You've made it conditioned.

It's your buddy. It's your pal. It wants to watch movies with you.

And when somebody you know, your neighbor, your grandchild, your child, goes to shoo it off, and it nips it, all of a sudden, when push comes to shove, the law is human over animal. That animal gets killed. We don't want that.

We want you to enjoy them from a distance, see how great they are, do not feed them, haze them. The answer is very close to correct that Deb gave you on the bird feeder. You want to police your bird feeders.

You want to make sure they're not getting a mess on the ground. This allows you to enjoy watching your birds eat, but when the pile gets down below, you're bringing every rodent in to get to it. And the rodents all have the predators behind them.

The coyotes are the biggest predator we have a problem with right now. We are the coyotes' predator, believe it or not. So when we feed them, we're teaching them that we are not their predator.

We're their best buddy. We're going to watch Netflix with them. We don't want that.

This is a great town. You're all smart. I see it.

I talk to people every day. As a matter of fact, I got great warm welcomings last night when I showed up. I think I sat here for four hours.

It was a long night, but the bottom line is they all said the same thing. I thought about what you said, and they're all quick to tell me, you know, by the way, my neighbor's feeding the coyotes. Just stop feeding them.

Enjoy them. You can enjoy them without feeding them. They really don't need your help.

They've survived for a long time. We are just another town with the same problem, different zip code. But we can control this.

You vote on this. This will help you so much. I know you'll come back to me in a couple months and say, you're right, I haven't seen them as much.

And they're doing their own work to get their own food. They're not counting on us. Once again, thank you, Deb.

I appreciate you reading that, not me.

[Speaker 2] (3:13:46 - 3:14:20)
Thank you, Officer Considine. Is there further discussion on Ms. Newman's motion? Mr. Perry?

There is a motion to call the question on this, seeing the hour, and I'm minded to take this. Does anyone feel that they have something material to add to this conversation? Ms. Hartman. We only have one speaker.

[Speaker 30] (3:14:28 - 3:15:12)
There it is. Marian Hartman, town meeting member, PC1, also the chair of the Board of Health. This is just really quick.

On page 74 under section 4 under D, first of all, I'm very much in favor of this article. I think it's excellent, and Deb, you've done a wonderful job. I just noticed that it does say about no trash or materials may be exposed and doors must be kept closed and latched with wild proof mechanisms except during loading and removing refuse.

Our current trash barrels don't have that, so I don't know how we would remedy that within the bylaw.

[Speaker 6] (3:15:15 - 3:15:28)
I can only tell you what I do is I have bungee cords on my barrels. It's a cheap fix for the problem.

[Speaker 30] (3:15:28 - 3:15:48)
If you don't overload your barrels, they will stay shut. It's just that if you put it in the bylaw that it has to be latched by a wild proof. I don't know if that is going to be an issue for finding.

It's a good point.

[Speaker 2] (3:15:52 - 3:15:53)
Mr. Spritz.

[Speaker 9] (3:16:03 - 3:17:16)
Hi, Wayne Spritz, Precinct 3, town meeting member and chair of Solid Waste Advisory Committee. So Deb, we've spoken before, I 100% support this bylaw, and I only apologize in advance that I wish I'd seen this small piece here because the town does actually own the barrels and as a result, I think just if we could amend the wording in terms of maybe just removing latched with a wild proof mechanism, I would totally be in support of that and maybe also consider amending where it says no trash, including overage bags. There's a lot of people that, and we've talked about this with the Board of Health, which is we've been trying to go all kind of carrot versus stick trying to get the community willing to be involved in putting their overage bags in a canister that's closed. It's still totally allowed, but I would be personally I cannot speak on behalf of SWAC because we have not met about this to talk about that, but I would personally be in favor of if we're going to pass this bylaw to make sure that that wording for the overage bags is included.

[Speaker 6] (3:17:16 - 3:17:18)
I am not averse to that. Okay.

[Speaker 9] (3:17:20 - 3:17:31)
I suppose if we can get just a few minutes to write up front an amendment. Marianne, do you want to assist in that? And then we can hopefully just pass this.

[Speaker 2] (3:17:32 - 3:21:08)
Mr. Spritz, I would need that in writing. You can see the clerk if you are making a motion to amend. I would be making a motion to amend.

Is there a second? I need it in writing, please. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

After some discussion with town council regarding the enforcement authority being the Board of Health having jurisdiction over what wildlife mechanism would constitute, I think Mr. Spritz has had a second thought.

[Speaker 9] (3:21:11 - 3:21:25)
Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and withdraw the motion for amendment with consideration that we will look at this in concert with the Board of Health and amend if needed if all town meeting.

[Speaker 2] (3:21:25 - 3:21:43)
Thank you. Thank you, Wayne. With no other request to be recognized on the floor.

All those in favor of Ms. Newman's motion? All those opposed? The motion carries unanimously.

[Speaker 6] (3:21:44 - 3:21:45)
Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (3:21:50 - 3:22:02)
Coming now to Article 25, amending our general bylaws in regards to gas-powered leaf blowers. Mr. Thompson. All the fun now.

[Speaker 16] (3:22:06 - 3:22:23)
I rise to on behalf of the Select Board, the Select Board recommends the town vote to amend the Town of Swampscott general bylaws by adding a new Article 29, gas-powered leaf blowers as shown in the printed warrant. I move the recommendation of the Select Board.

[Speaker 2] (3:22:23 - 3:22:25)
Is there a second? Mr. Thompson.

[Speaker 16] (3:22:25 - 3:23:00)
I'll just give a very brief description of this. You can see the language isn't very long in the warrant booklet. Basically, this is to reduce noise pollution here, reduce carbon emissions that come from gas-powered leaf blowers.

This is only prohibiting them from Memorial Day to Labor Day. And you can still use electric leaf blowers during that time. And there are no fines attached to this article.

[Speaker 2] (3:23:01 - 3:23:22)
Thank you, Mr. Thompson. I know I have at least one resident who's asked to address the body, but I want to see if there is commentary from elected town meeting members first. Anybody care to rise to speak?

Ms. Dreeben. I'm looking. Where else?

Please make sure your hand is well up. Mr. Bierman. Mr. Russo.

[Speaker 7] (3:23:25 - 3:23:41)
I'm very much in support of this article. It really destroys my summer to listen to the loud noise all around my neighborhood, and I can't escape from it. So I am very much in favor.

[Speaker 2] (3:23:42 - 3:23:47)
Thank you, Ms. Dreeben. Mr. Bierman.

[Speaker 11] (3:23:53 - 3:24:52)
Jack Bierman, Precinct 6. This is why I sat through three nights of town meeting for this article. And because I work at home all summer, and all summer it's a symphony of loud gas-powered mowers and leaf blowers.

This article doesn't go anywhere near far enough. We should also ban gas-powered mowers. The future of mowers and leaf blowers is electric.

I'm hoping that once everybody has to get an electric one to use during the middle of the year, they won't even have the gas ones anymore, and they'll use the electric ones before Memorial Day and after Labor Day, although by then I'm going to my office in Boston, so I don't really care as much. But they're a scourge for the environment. They're just a terrible noise, and I don't think a person should have to sit in their house all day listening to lawnmowers all summer long.

I like to keep my windows open. And I also don't like it when they blow all that junk onto the street while I'm driving by. So let's get rid of them totally, but in the meanwhile, let's vote yes on this article.

Thank you, Mr. Bierman.

[Speaker 2] (3:24:53 - 3:25:01)
Mr. Russo, then in the back, I do have a resident asking to speak as well after that.

[Speaker 5] (3:25:04 - 3:26:12)
Lenny Russo, Precinct 4. And I agree with you all. Who doesn't hate a gas-powered leaf blower?

I personally have a battery-powered one, an electric mower, so no skin off my back on this one. But now that I'm retired, I hate getting woken up by them at 7 o'clock and then ruining my barbecues as well. But I will tell you, though, I think it's unfeasible to go ahead and pass this right now because just about every commercial landscaper in town, who knows, that cut the town's lawns use gas-powered lawnmowers.

So to put this in place without a plan, right now my cobalt barely does my little lot. There's not enough plugs around. It's a step in the right direction for sure, but just like the snowplow that we just approved going to a gas versus electric, I just don't think we're there yet.

And, you know, it's certainly not causing a lot of air pollution, but it's certainly causing a lot of noise pollution. So I'd like to offer an amendment to the article.

[Speaker 2] (3:26:13 - 3:26:15)
As long as I can get it in writing and it is in order. Go ahead.

[Speaker 5] (3:26:16 - 3:26:48)
Yeah, to amendment to Article 25, just Section 1, gas-powered leak blowers prohibited at certain times, is the title, and I would propose striking all of Article Section 1 and in its place use of gas-powered leak blowers shall be prohibited in the town of Swampscott at all times other than from Monday through Saturday of each week between the hours of 8.30 and 5.00 p.m. All other wording in the article shall remain as written.

[Speaker 2] (3:26:49 - 3:27:01)
Let me see if I can paraphrase what you've said. You would remove the restriction, you would keep the restriction in place except Monday through Friday 8.30 to 5.00 p.m.? Nope.

[Speaker 5] (3:27:01 - 3:27:18)
I would rewrite Section 1 to read use of gas-powered leak blowers shall be prohibited in the town of Swampscott at all times other than from Monday through Saturday of each week between the hours of 8.30 and 5.00 p.m. So they would be allowed Monday through Saturday?

[Speaker 2] (3:27:18 - 3:27:49)
Yeah, just during those hours. Just limit the hours in the day. I understand that.

Could you please complete that in writing for the town clerk? Is there a second to Mr. Russo's motion? Okay.

We now come to a debate on the amendment by Mr. Russo to Mr. Thompson's initial motion. Just make sure you work with the clerk. All the way in the back.

Go ahead, sir. And then Ms. Banderwitz.

[Speaker 4] (3:27:58 - 3:27:59)
Good evening, all.

[Speaker 16] (3:27:59 - 3:28:27)
Mark Ficken, town member, Precinct 5. Just looking to get a little bit of clarification on this article here. In terms of what's being proposed here, how will this impact the DPWs and our town's ability to get their job done in terms of just regular residents being able to function and perform their yard work?

This seems to be a little bit kind of interesting, so I just want to get a little clarification on that.

[Speaker 2] (3:28:27 - 3:28:43)
So if I understand your question correctly, it is in two parts. First is what is the impact to the work the town does, and the second is what impact does it have on an individual resident? Sure.

Okay, thank you. Mr. Thompson, or if you prefer to defer to Mr. Cresta.

[Speaker 4] (3:28:53 - 3:29:21)
Gino Cresta, town member, Precinct 1, Public Works Director. This will probably have, although I'm personally opposed to it, it will have a minimal impact on the DPW, other than a few exceptions. We typically don't use the gas power blowers until after Labor Day to pick up the leaves.

The one exception is, and I would guess because as most of you know, we sub out the grass cutting and swamps guard in our next contract. I would anticipate being significantly higher.

[Speaker 2] (3:29:22 - 3:29:34)
Thank you, Mr. Cresta. Mr. Thompson, perhaps you would defer to the town administrator, but the other part of the question was what impact does this have on individual residents?

[Speaker 16] (3:29:35 - 3:29:56)
Impact on individual residents? Well, they would be prohibited, or people that they employ would be, or contract with, would be prohibited from using gas powered leaf blowers from Memorial Day to Labor Day, subject to the change in the amendments, which basically seems like people would be able to use it Monday through Friday.

[Speaker 2] (3:29:57 - 3:30:01)
I misspoke. It's Monday through Saturday, 830 to 5 is the proposed amendment.

[Speaker 16] (3:30:02 - 3:30:10)
So the only prohibition effectively then would be on Sunday and in the middle of the night, basically.

[Speaker 2] (3:30:12 - 3:30:37)
The middle of your night may go until 830 AM, but... Mr. Schutzer, what point of order do you rise to? My belief is it will need to go for review to the Attorney General, and then it would be effective thereafter.

[Speaker 32] (3:30:42 - 3:30:42)
No.

[Speaker 2] (3:30:55 - 3:31:04)
Correct. So, to answer your point of information, yes, that's correct. Now, in the back.

Ma'am.

[Speaker 19] (3:31:09 - 3:31:52)
Hi, Tricia Vasilio, Precinct 5. Sorry, it's very loud. So, I did a little bit of research on this, and I found that there is a clean burning propane leaf blower.

From a landscaper's point of view, if they're going battery-powered, they're going to have to buy a whole lot of batteries and charge them up, and it's not really practical for them. So, I'm not sure what equipment landscapers are actually using in towns where this is prohibited. My guess is that they would prefer to use something like a liquid propane-powered leaf blower, and I'm wondering if those would be not allowed.

[Speaker 2] (3:31:56 - 3:32:03)
Mr. Thompson, are you capable of opining on the difference between a propane-powered and a gas-powered leaf blower?

[Speaker 16] (3:32:03 - 3:33:04)
I prefer not to. I think, though, I've done some research, too, and I'm sure that others have as well. One thing I was remiss to mention is that Marblehead has passed this exact same article last year.

I'm not of any understanding that there's been any undue burden there. People have begun to make the switch. They've actually, this year, had a vote to actually add fines to it, to further implement it.

There was actually a vote to repeal it, which was rejected. And so, I do believe in this community in general that people that use gas-powered leaf blowers are making the switch, and it's my understanding that there is not a real significant impediment to getting the charging. One has to get gas for a gas-powered leaf blower.

One has to have batteries for an electric. So, that's what I can offer in that regard.

[Speaker 2] (3:33:05 - 3:33:10)
Thank you. Ms. Vasilio.

[Speaker 19] (3:33:11 - 3:33:49)
So, my understanding is Marblehead, nobody actually followed through with the ordinance, because there was no penalty, and so it wasn't really a hardship for anybody up to now. But, I also, that Section 2, I believe we mirrored our language after Marblehead's, and the town itself actually never stopped using them. So, I was glad to hear that Gina would actually enforce that within the town.

But, I do recommend that, you know, we do consider that liquid propane might be a good alternative.

[Speaker 2] (3:33:50 - 3:34:04)
Thank you, Ms. Vasilio. Any further discussion on the amendment? Ms. Bandewitz, yes, I saw you before, and Ms. Atkin.

[Speaker 7] (3:34:11 - 3:35:49)
Tony Bandewitz, Precinct 4, town meeting member. As I understand the amendment, it would allow it during the summer months, it's just limiting the time to certain time during the day. And the summer is when we have our windows open, and it is called a leaf blower.

And in the summer, there aren't that many leaves to be blown. And what I've found, and I've watched, and I know this is just not a total sample throughout town, and all the landscapers, but I have watched the landscaper who comes across the street once a week blow dust. There are no leaves.

Just makes a racket and blows the leaves all over. Which is, besides being annoying, it's really not good for the plants. By the way, clearly gas powered is not good for the environment, it's not good for people who are breathing it, but it is also not good for, it compacts the soil and damages plant life.

So I would be opposed to this amendment. I would actually be, I like the idea of eliminating the time during the day. I would say it should be eliminated during the summer and limited the rest of the year during certain times, because I've woken up at 7 o'clock in the morning to somebody blowing leaves, which is just, it just drives you crazy.

[Speaker 2] (3:35:51 - 3:35:58)
Thank you, Ms. Vanderwitz. Ms. Atkin, and then yes.

[Speaker 6] (3:36:03 - 3:36:14)
Hi, Barry Atkin, precinct 6 town meeting member. I don't understand the amendment. It sounds like it's offering to have more blowing.

We want less blowing.

[Speaker 2] (3:36:15 - 3:36:51)
Well, thank you, Ms. Atkin. Let me clarify. Mr. Russo's amendment would increase the availability of time to operate gas-powered leaf blowers during these months. Yes, you are correct. It would be more leaf blowing. I'm going to recognize Matthew Leahy, who is a resident of Swanscott, voter on Supreme Court, who by right under our charter can speak to the body.

Mr. Leahy.

[Speaker 23] (3:36:52 - 3:36:56)
First off, Jack, I'm not going to have you speak for my company.

[Speaker 13] (3:36:56 - 3:37:39)
We can't work from home, Jack. In regards to the amendment, I would reasonably understand that something 830 to 330, but an outright ban harms our industry a great deal, which I'll get into later. But if people could get their arms around limiting the time, that's something that I know myself and a lot of my competitors, who are home in bed right now, could get their arms around.

But an outright ban is challenging to say the least. So if it could be amended to 830 to 330...

[Speaker 2] (3:37:41 - 3:37:47)
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Leahy. Is there any further discussion on Mr. Russo's amendment?

Mr. Urbano?

[Speaker 21] (3:37:53 - 3:38:40)
Christian Urbano, now in print seat 2. I am an attorney and I don't represent anybody in this matter. Funny, we're having this much debate, and I'm unfortunately part of it, about this situation.

99% of the time the leaves are the fall cleanup and the spring cleanup, and some of us push it, some of us say, why won't the leaves all fall at the same time? Damn, I just paid to get a whole bunch of this done, and now the other half falls. All right?

So, I think that 99 times out of 100, all of this is done with the gas-powered blowers. They come in there, they've got five guys. Boom!

[Speaker 31] (3:38:40 - 3:38:40)
They're done.

[Speaker 21] (3:38:40 - 3:39:35)
Gone. In March. All right.

April. Or October. Outside of this.

But during this period of time, Memorial Day hasn't even come yet. I don't have one leaf left on my lawn. The guys came, they got rid of it, and I raked a few, there's like five leaves around.

So, this time period, I didn't think would really hurt the commercial industry, but Mr. Leahy has just, he's been doing this for years, he knows that this will adversely impact him. There are smaller guys in town, Van Dam, who does this for a living now. Good friend, good guy, probably going to affect his business.

So, I see both sides here, I just throw that out there.

[Speaker 2] (3:39:36 - 3:41:41)
Thank you, Mr. Urbano. Mr. Perry. This would end debate on the amendment by Mr. Russo to Mr. Thompson's initial motion. Is there a second to all those in favor of calling the question on the amendment proposed by Mr. Russo? All those opposed? The motion carries.

We come now to a vote on Mr. Russo's amendment, which would exempt the period of time from Monday through Saturday, 8.30 to 5 p.m., as a time where gas-powered leaf blowers could be used. Otherwise, the rest of the proposed amendment would remain intact. All those in favor of Mr. Russo's amendment, please raise your hand. All those opposed? The amendment fails. We now return to a discussion on Mr. Thompson's initial motion. Mr. Barton. Is there a second to Mr. Barton's? This would end debate on Mr. Thompson's main motion. All those in favor of ending debate? All those opposed? We now come to a vote on Mr. Thompson's original motion to adopt the amendment to the general bylaws, creating an Article 28, which would 29, which would create a ban on gas-powered leaf blowers during the time period indicated. All those in favor of Mr. Thompson's motion? All those opposed? The motion carries.

We come to Article 26. I'm sorry, Mr. Leahy, that is the process that we have here. It does have its pros and its cons.

I do agree. Article 26, Mr. Thompson.

[Speaker 16] (3:41:45 - 3:42:13)
I'm here to speak to amend the general bylaws. The amendment to plastic straw and freezer prohibition bylaw to include plastic takeout containers. The Select Board recommends that action under this article be indefinitely postponed.

I move the recommendation of the Select Board. Is there a second? Mr. Thompson. And I'd like to recognize the Chair of the Solid Waste Advisory Committee, Wayne Spritz, to speak on this matter.

[Speaker 2] (3:42:15 - 3:42:19)
Mr. Spritz. Hi. Thank you.

[Speaker 9] (3:42:19 - 3:47:47)
I'm Wayne Spritz, Solid Waste Advisory Committee Chair. Thank you for allowing me to speak on this very briefly. I'll try to truly keep this as brief as possible.

The committee took up deliberation on this particular article, which is in its spirit, we agree with. And hopefully you had a chance to read the report that I sent out. I know it was lengthy and detailed, but just to kind of briefly go over this.

The key here is that we're trying to avoid unintended consequences. And we believe there is some serious significant possibilities of that. So what we ended up, as a committee, doing was to vote for the creation of a specific working group study committee.

And the four tenets of that would be basically two. One, reduce Swanscott's food and beverage plastic footprint. That is the intent of this article.

Second, look at the food packaging policy construction and process. In other words, there's some questions of the material specificity that we have, in particular in terms of the authority for the specific call-outs and natures and items of concern, and to the potential of whose authority that should remain with. And that would be worked out in the working group.

Number three is food packaging health considerations. You can actually go to the next slide. Before we get to number three, the questions that kind of came up in the committee were really information gathering.

We did look briefly at how other towns regulate, and we wanted to get a better understanding of what their deliberative process was. To this point, we don't know of other towns that have eliminated all plastics. There have been a number of towns that have taken the progressive stance of limiting certain plastics and then issuing alternatives.

And we wanted to be able to investigate that and come back with a comprehensive policy. So we're looking at all plastics or some plastics. Can we build partnerships within the business community?

They have truly some of the best between the food and beverage industry itself have a lot of resources in terms of offering alternatives, and we wanted to be able to hear back from them as to what those could be. We also wanted to investigate alternative takeout solutions such as Bring Your Own. That was brought up as a point of discussion.

And then really one of the biggest pieces of this is because the alternatives really aren't spelled out. You've probably, maybe, hopefully seen in the news and are familiar with PFAS, forever chemicals are. These are perfluorinated chemicals that are often added to paper fiber packaging that helps with oil and grease and water strength so it doesn't break down.

It has a really good ability to be stable and it has a high temperature. There's some chemistry reasons for why it's being added. But we do know that there are alternatives.

We wanted to make sure that even though some compostable containers, they're even labeled as biodegradable, they do have PFAS chemicals in them. And if you were to compost them, it ends up continuing within the environment and we're concerned about that. On May 11th we approached the Board of Health.

They agreed to also work with us and set up a study committee as to regulating or taking action thereof about PFAS materials and food packaging. These are the states that already have PFAS bans in food packaging. There's 11 of them already, next.

And here is, if you want to take notice, and this is part of the reason why I'm having this conversation here, is that so you're aware that the Mass Senate is actually taking this up as we speak. And there are like 2,000 different articles or bills up in the House Legislature and Senate. If you have an interest in this topic, please write this number down and feel free to contact your legislator.

Next. Lastly, so the Solid Waste Master Plan, which is the Department of Environmental Protection, DEP. Part of our main goal as Solid Waste Advisory Committee is to reduce and help the state reduce the overall solid waste that we, the trash, 30% by 2030.

And the long-term goal is 90% by 2050. It's a huge goal. And we're running out of landfill space.

We've talked about this in brief. And at the end of the day, we're going to be transporting most of this trash out of state. So, next slide.

We're all good? So, that's the study. Thanks for your time.

[Speaker 2] (3:47:48 - 3:48:13)
We'll be coming back to you for the fall town meeting. Thank you, Mr. Spritz. Is there any further discussion on Mr. Thompson's motion to indefinitely postpone action under this article?

All those in favor of the motion to indefinitely postpone? All those opposed? The action is indefinitely postponed.

We come to Article 27. Ms. Phelan?

[Speaker 31] (3:48:21 - 3:48:43)
Good evening. Katie Phelan, Town Meeting Member, Precinct Number 3, and Select Woman. The Select Board recommends passage of Article 27, the Grant of Easement to National Grid at 10 Whitman Road for the new elementary school as presented in the warrant.

I move the recommendation of the Select Board.

[Speaker 2] (3:48:43 - 3:48:46)
Is there a second? Ms. Phelan?

[Speaker 31] (3:48:46 - 3:48:53)
Great. This is very self-explanatory. This easement is necessary to be granted to National Grid as part of the construction of the new elementary school.

[Speaker 2] (3:48:54 - 3:49:12)
Is there any question or debate on Ms. Phelan's motion? All those in favor of her motion? All those opposed?

The motion carries. We come to Article 28, Making Saturday a Holiday. Ms. Phelan?

[Speaker 31] (3:49:12 - 3:49:29)
Okay. The Select Board recommends passage of Article 28, the Acceptance of General Law Chapter 41, Section 110A, Saturday as a Legal Holiday, as printed in the warrant. I move the recommendation of the Select Board.

[Speaker 2] (3:49:29 - 3:49:32)
Is there a second? Ms. Phelan?

[Speaker 31] (3:49:32 - 3:49:36)
I would ask that Amy Sorrow, Director of Finance and Administration, speak on the article.

[Speaker 2] (3:49:37 - 3:49:38)
Ms. Sorrow.

[Speaker 19] (3:49:44 - 3:49:48)
All right. Hello. So with the Votes Act of...

[Speaker 2] (3:49:48 - 3:49:50)
If you wouldn't mind, for the folks at home, just reintroduce yourself.

[Speaker 19] (3:49:50 - 3:50:36)
Sorry. Amy Sorrow, Director of Finance and Administration for the town. With the Votes Act of January 1, 2023, that went into effect, the deadline to register to vote went from 21 days before an election to 10 days before an election.

With the adoption of Saturday as a Legal Holiday, which most cities and towns have been adopting in reaction to the Votes Act, this would move the last day to register to vote to the second Friday prior to the town election. It is still granting a more generous amount of time to register to vote. You are still able to register to vote online up until midnight on the Saturday anyway, and it has absolutely no impact on actual voting time.

[Speaker 2] (3:50:38 - 3:51:03)
Thank you, Ms. Sorrow. Are there questions or debate on this topic? All those in favor of Ms. Phelan's motion?

All those opposed? The motion carries. We come to Article 29, a Citizens Petition article, sponsored by Mr. Burdoff et al. I expect to recognize Ms. Curry.

[Speaker 24] (3:51:17 - 3:52:35)
All right, so this is the last article of the night. Thank you for your patience and still being here. I promise you if you vote yes, we'll let you go.

Article 29 is in support of changing the Massachusetts flag and seal. There, as you well know, there was a special commission that voted to change our flag and seal. Why are we doing that?

Because quite frankly, it's offensive to Indigenous people, to Native Americans. The pictures depicted on there are highly inappropriate. They were done without consent, and it's about time we change all of that.

I know we have some questions about our own Native American history within Swampscott. A lot of it has been erased by the colonists that settled here, and we are starting to correct that. Let's correct this at the state level.

Why are we voting this on this particular one tonight? The fact of the matter is the commission to change this is a little bit stalled, and they need some help getting started again. Our representatives, which are very much in favor of changing the state flag and seal, would like to show the commission and the rest of the legislative body that we are in support of this change itself.

[Speaker 2] (3:52:37 - 3:52:46)
There's a great deal of latitude associated with the citizen petition, one of the bedrock of democracy, but I do need a motion on the floor, which I believe Ms. Curry has.

[Speaker 15] (3:52:47 - 3:52:51)
Oh, yeah, but I'm not very good with the wording, so I guess I'm making a motion.

[Speaker 2] (3:52:51 - 3:52:55)
I expect that you would move to adopt the resolution as printed in the warrant.

[Speaker 15] (3:52:56 - 3:53:01)
What was the first word? Passed by bedtime.

[Speaker 2] (3:53:02 - 3:53:07)
I would expect you to say something like, I move the adoption of the resolution as printed in the warrant.

[Speaker 15] (3:53:08 - 3:53:20)
I move the adoption adoption of the resolution I move the adoption of the resolution as printed in the warrant.

[Speaker 2] (3:53:21 - 3:53:22)
Is there a second?

[Speaker 15] (3:53:25 - 3:53:27)
Next year I'll practice.

[Speaker 2] (3:53:27 - 3:53:29)
Is there a second? Please proceed.

[Speaker 15] (3:53:31 - 3:56:43)
I'm going to do the short version of my PowerPoint. The first few slides are just maps depicting the tribes and the villages that were here. I do want to point out that the tribe Massachusetts was here in our location and as many of us know, our name is derived from the Algonquin of the Red Rock.

We can just go, that's kind of the same thing. This is a map where some campsites because it's not known for sure because nothing was found but the theory is the native peoples fished and hunted here three seasons of the year. Next slide.

What does the resolution say? It goes through why the indigenous people don't like it. It talks about really what Aaron just mentioned.

Many of you have seen the handout I've given so I don't think we need to belabor this slide here. Again, it's the flag itself. The bow is modeled after someone who was killed.

The head was modeled after someone not from this area. The sword is pointing downward. Is it peaceful?

Or is it pacified? The motto, it's not clear what it's saying. The commission was charged to look at did the flag fit anymore and they've made recommendations that it does not.

Next slide. Here are their findings. We should create a new design.

We should incorporate symbols and terms in a new seal and motto that are inspirational and inclusive of the diverse perspective, history, and experiences. I think that here in Swampscott we would like to do that. What I also liked is they also recommended resources toward education on Native Americans here.

The little bit I did research here, I learned a lot. What I forgot to say is I brought this. I didn't know there were citizens petitions.

An indigenous person contacted Aaron and I and asked if we would bring it to the town. I figured out I had 10 days to get the signatures I needed and I did that. I regret not bringing it to the select board because it didn't occur to me I could.

Here's what their findings were. Can we see the next slide? Again, I think Aaron said this, we're asking you to say we support this and we'll have the clerk send a letter to our reps, Brendan Crichton and Jenny Armini.

This is a little dated. There's about 70 towns now in blue that voted in favor. I think it's still six that have voted against.

We would be joining a majority of the states.

[Speaker 2] (3:56:44 - 3:57:26)
Thank you, Ms. Currie. Is there discussion? Does anyone wish to speak on this citizen petition or the resolution which it moves?

Seeing none. All those in favor of Ms. Currie's motion? All those opposed?

The motion carries. Having dispensed with all of the articles in this warrant, I will welcome a motion to adjourn this annual town meeting. All those in favor?

All those opposed? This meeting is adjourned.