They total $2912.10. I’m fine with that. It’s going to be a long evening.

$8994 to adjust for wage increases for collective bargaining AFSCME Local 1358, from last year’s budget for FY 2005. We’re a union family here.

YES…

I work for a CIO. Also, my friend and Town Meeting Member Geoff Cohen helped drive this effort. YES.

Deleting sections 3.4.5, and 3.8.3. OK.

This would extend the sunset date on the Town’s Focused Residence Picketing By-Law, which would expire this year. There are people who picket private residences of abortion providers. The nerve! A 1988 Supreme Court decision in Frisby v. Schultz held that such an ordnance is constitutional as it leaves ample means of alternative channels of communication. (6-3, you can look it up and find out where you favorite judges sit. You may be surprised.) ABSOLUTELY.

This is the big one.

Burying the utility wires would get them out of the way of falling trees during storms, not to mention real estate photos. The plan will add a 2% tax to utility bills, which could bring in $1M/year. The Undergroun Wiring Commitee estimates that it cost $1M for each mile. As 75 of the town 100 miles of utility wires are not underground, this will take the better part of the century to complete.

I’m leaning no. The Advisory Committee appeared to be split. I’ll heed an emotional appeal either way here.

As a (mostly armchair) environmentalist, I should applaud a utility tax as a way to trim demand. We’re making an investment in safety.

It could be Brookline’s Big Dig, but it appears that the town can decide to stop it any year — without sacrificing a great deal of sunk cost. I wonder what order the streets will be done in? Suppose the members of the Underground Wiring Committee have their streets done, will that affect their opinions? Probably not, I assume it would come to a Town Meeting Vote.

My neighbor Gary Z wrote me that he could do without his window view of a utility poll. But he also told me that “this article is incomplete without a provision for ongoing supervision of maintenance.” Perhaps that’s already under the jurisdiction of the utilites and public safety departments. I will check.

Yes; my building already recycles. I’m all for it. It annoys me that some of the local dives don’t have a bin for bottles.

Amend bylaws section 3.8.4 as follows:
“The Building Department shall provide to all homeowner applicants for a building permit to perform residential contracting services an information bulletin created under the direction of the Building Commissioner, which describes the homeowner’s rights under the Home improvement Contractor Law, Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 142A (‘HICL’). The Building Commissioner shall regularly update the information bulletin with guidance from Town “

No complaint here.

Around Abbotsford Road, Osborne Road, Manchester Road, bounded by Babcock Street and Naples Road. I’ve been personally lobbied for this by a resident. Seems that they want to prevent a developer from tearing down an existing place. RFK owned a house here. Many Victorian homes. Dated a girl once who lived in modern apartment just outside district. Never liked the building.

Putterham is the southern portion of the town, where I play golf every so often, and also shop at Allandale Farms. I’ve never had reception problems on the golf course, but then again I don’t usually make calls there.

“The issue is not whther cellular towers are coming to South Brookline just where and how. The Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 mandates that cellular coverage be permitted and that all carriers are granted equal access. Fderal Court is generally not kind to municipalities in contested cases as Concord andother towns have learned the hard way….”

One of the places the tower could go is the Walnut Hills Cemetary:
The Preservation Commission feels “that the monopine would tower over the cemetary like an ominous sentinel.”

But the vote is to refer it to a Moderators’ committee. That’s the easy way out.

The road bridge was closed for good in 1978, I learned over twenty years later, when I asked Julie if there was a shortcut I could take to her parent’s house from Beacon St., noticing the “Bridge Out” sign. Completes the two-year plan to convert to park land.

“Thoughtout the country almost all Planning Boards are appointed. Only in Massachusetts, and wome what less in neighboring New England staes, are any Planning Boards elected.” The chair of the board today is Ken Goldstein, whose lawyers I play frisbee with over the summer (when I’m not writing or politicking).

Referred to Committee on Town Organization and Structure.

The full title of the act would be
“AN ACT AUTHORIZING THE TOWN OF BROOKLINE TO OFFER INCENTIVES TO THE OWNERS OF TWO AND THREE FAMILY DWELLINGS TO RENT UNITS TO LOW OR MODERATE INCOME HOUSEHOLDS”

to committee.

Budget neutral: will combine fire and police injured on duty (IOD) medical expense funds. YES.

“In §4.07 Table of Use Regulations, Principal Use 6, add L (Local Business) districts to last sentence of footnote as follows ‘In L and G districts, the ground floor of a building must have no more than 40% of its frontage along a street devoted to residential use, including associated parking or lobby use.'”

Sounds good to me

Supermarkets larger than 10,000 feet had been exempted from a special permit requirement.

No longer!

Here’s the current law: When building residences of six more dwellings, developers have to either said aside 15% of the units as affordable or pay into the Housing Trust.

Now, the calculation of the “new units” was misinterpreted in the past to assume that if you demolished old units, you could just claim the “net increase” in units. That’s not what they meant, and we’re going to clarify that to instead say the “creation of”.

Phew.

Also known as IPODs. Necessary for planning studies. Go right ahead.

Advisory Committee recommends NO ACTION. We will skip.

We have a 2-hour parking limit in this town (overnight parking is banned outright). Some residents complain about cars parking on the street for more than the allotted time. Other people don’t like getting citations for that very action.

I’m in neither of those groups. I’m not sure how I’ve avoided getting tickets for 6 years.

This has been studied exhaustively by the Transportation Board.

I’ll take a stand here… and refer this to a committee. I think we could have some flexibility. I’m willing to get input on this.

On the topic of citations, this has about thirty of them from medical and journals.

“BE IT HEREBY RESOLVED that Town Meeting encourages parents and caregivers of children to refrain from the use of corporal punishment and to use alternative nonviolent methods of child discipline and management with an ultimate goal of mutual respect between parent and child.”

Evidently it was already voted upon at the last Town Meeting. But, as the selectman point out, this is not directly related to Town Governance.

To see if the Town will consider dedicating a memorial sign at Thorndike and Harvard Street in honor of Maxwell Adler, Korean War Veteran.

To see if the Town will rename the Town Park, designated as Lot 11, Block 73 in the Town Atlas, now known as the Coolidge Playground, located on Columbia Street, between Kenwood and Russell Streets, the “Judge Sumner Z. Kaplan Playground and Park”, or act on anything relative thereto.

I met Judge Kaplan at his grand-daughter’s bat mitzvah, and I would be so honored to vote on this.

Haven’t read them yet. Assume yes. Time for a beer.