Brookline Town Meeting Night 1: Stipends, Driscoll, Oak Street

BROOKLINE, MA —Some 240 elected legislators descended on the Brookline High School Auditorium on Greenough Street Tuesday night for the beginning of the fall Town Meeting. They were met with a school under construction and educators lining the hallway in a silent stand to ask for a new contract.

There are more than 30 proposals for the legislators to tackle, with a strong likelihood that the meeting will last for four nights, according to Town Meeting Moderator Sandy Gadsby.

Night 1, the Town Meeting members only got through half a dozen of them. A proposal to sell the Oak Street condos, which the town purchased when it planned to turn the Baldwin School into a new ninth elementary school, failed. The question of how much to spend on rebuilding and expanding the Driscoll School, garnered much discussion.

Town Meeting eventually passed Scott Ananian's motion to spend $115 million.

"My goal was always to bring the town back together with the project," he said. "The school committee proposal was $119 million, we shaved off $4 million that we thought could be shaved without compromising educational mission."

Ananian said he thought the number that passed is realistic.

"It's still less expensive per square foot than the Coolidge Corner School, It's still less than Baldwin would have been," said David Gacioch who spoke in support of the $115 motion, which passed.

But Town Meeting Member Carolyn Thall of precinct 16 said she thought the project was overly expensive and worried about how it would impact other financial needs in town.

"I think it's crazy," said Thall after the meeting. "It's too much money with other projects to do."

Officials items coming before Town Meeting are some of the most important decisions the legislative body has had to face in a while, and have caused heated debates among residents and Town Meeting members.

Two of the more controversial topics: what to rename the former Devotion School, which has been changed temporarily to the Coolidge Corner School; And whether the town should more strictly regulate Cannabis retail shops. Town Meeting voted to push the topic of the Coolidge Corner school to Wednesday and the discussion of what to do about Marijuana regulations to Thursday.

They briefly tackled appropriating funds related to releasing a million dollar community impact fee and approved a community impact coordinator to serve as a single point of contact for the public to coordinate the town's response to complaints related to cannabis impact.

"That money has been a hot-button issue for us in the community," said Select Board Chairperson Bernard Greene "This money went into the town's coffers, but we could not use it because we had not voted to appropriate it."

Here's what Town Meeting voted on Night 1:
1. Approval of unpaid bills. (Select Board)

• Vote: No Action

2. Approval of collective bargaining agreements. (Human Resources)

• Vote: No Action

3. FY2020 budget amendments. (Select Board)

• Vote: passes, 207 to 1.

4. Appropriation for a fossil fuel free four section Driscoll School (Scott Ananian TMM10)

• Vote: 3 Motions on the table.
• Motion: $98 million option - fails, 25 yes, 190 no, 8 abstained
• Motion: $108.8 million option - Motion fails: 84 voted yes. 136 voted no 5 abstained.
• Main Motion: $115 million option - Motion passes: 203 in favor, 13 opposed, and 10 abstained

5. Authorization to sell 15-19 Oak Street, three condos the town bought as part of a now-dead-in-the-water plan to reconstruct the Baldwin School and use it as a ninth elementary school. (Nobrega, TMM4,). School Committee was opposed to selling this, but the advisory committee and select board were for selling them. Needs a two-thirds vote to pass.

• Vote: Motion fails despite 146 yes, 77 no and 3 abstaining

6. Resolution pertaining to the annual stipends received by members of the Select
Board and other committees. (McClelland TMM11, et al)

Vote: Fails 101 to 101 with 13 abstaining.

To tackle Wednesday:
7. Resolution pertaining to the maintenance of pavement markings. (Miller)

Vote:

8. Legislation authorizing the Select Board to offer a senior discount program for water
and sewer rates. (Select Board)

Vote:

9. Resolution pertaining to the establishment of a real estate transfer fee
(MacMillan,TMM4, et al)

Vote:

10. Amend Article 4.9 of the Town's General By-laws to dissolve the Committee on
Campaigns. (Select Board)

Vote:

11. Authorization for the termination and relocation of certain sewer and drainage
easements at Kerrigan Place. (DPW)
12. Authorization to enter into Solar Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) for rooftop
solar photovoltaic installations on certain Town properties. (Select Board)
13. Amend Section 4.07 of the Town's Zoning By-Law to allow Accessory Ground Mounted Solar Photovoltaic Installations. (Planning Department, et al)
14. Amend Section 6.04 of the Zoning By-law pertaining to electric vehicle parking.
(Ananian TMM10), et al)
15. Amend Section 6.02 of the Zoning By-law to eliminate minimum parking
requirements and establish maximum parking ratios for storefront uses within the
Transit Parking Overlay District (TPOD). (Pehlke, TMM2, et al)

Read these, too:

• Brookline Pushes For Special Town Meeting On ... - Patch
• Electric Scooters In Brookline Saved 50K Car Trips: Lime
• As Coolidge Corner School Set To Be Renamed, Students Petition

Watch the meeting live, thanks to Brookline Interactive Group:

Patch reporter Jenna Fisher can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna).