[Rich, 01:17]

• Called to order at 20:00.
• It was announced that Mr. Greeley's father-in-law, Mr. Tierney, had passed away and condolences were offered to the Greeleys and Tierneys.
• Ms. Mahon announced that there would be a Saturday showing of Rugrats Go Wild at the Woburn Showcase for children with disabilities. Price is $5.50.
• Article 48 - CBA/Patrolmen: Tabled.
• Article 16 removed from the table.
• Article 16 - Refuse Contract:
  • Mr. Tosti said that FinComm had just just come from a meeting with NESWC lawyers and others and had most of its questions answered. By an 8-7 vote, FinComm now favors the BoS recommendation, and the other 7 supported Mr. Deyst's amendment.
  • Ms. Galkowski said that with respect to price level, Mr. Marquis had set up back-up deal with BFI. Were we to spurn WNA and go with that deal, it would be in the low $80s/ton. Other information points to $70s/ton, so the offer from WNA is significantly better on price. She also said that she believed the negotiated indemnification language was the best that could be obtained from WNA and is better than what would receive as a new customer with WNA or a competitor.
  • Mr. Hale again explained the flip-up procedure. WM pays off bonds coming due, instead of the member towns doing so. WM then takes the money that the towns had desposited to pay off those bonds, and then issues new tax-exempt bonds via MassDevelopment, a quasi-public agency whose purpose is to be a conduit for tax-exempt bond issuances. Mr. Hale said the Internal Revenue Code allows for such transactions and that MassDevelopment has done similar deals for WM and other companies elsewhere in MA.
  • Mr. Deyst said that whatever TM does it is ultimately only advisory to the Town Manager. He said that the FinComm subcommittee of Mr. DeCoursey, Ms. Harrington, and himself will continue to liase with the Manager and therefore there was no longer a need for his amendment. He asked to withdraw it, which was done by unanimous consent.
  • Ms. Harrington asked to withdraw her amendment, which was done by unanimous consent. She next offered a substitute motion which essentially said that as TM is concerned about flip-up and indemnification issues, is unable to either support or reject the proposed contract, and urges the Town Manager to seek to have these issues further negotiated and to worth with and get the support of FinComm and the BoS, but that the vote is not to be construed as a rejection. She said the substitute offered a way to say "maybe" and pointed out that a no vote may well lead to significantly higher costs than an acceptance. She pointed out that only today some NESWC concerns were addressed by WNA, so it is not to late to keep negotiating.
  • Mr. Carreiro asked if NESWC will continue on as a body. Ms. Galkowski said NESWC ceases to exist in September, 2005. Mr. Carreiro asked if the proposed contract is only between the Town and WNA or a NESWC-wide contract the Town is considering joining. Ms. Galkowski said it is only between the Town and WNA.
  • Mr. Decoursey said he was one of the 7 FinComm no votes. He said that if it were 30 June, he would vote for it, but he would like to see continued review, but that if nothing changed he would vote to have the Manager sign it.
  • Mr. Quinn asked if other towns had approved it. Mr. Wooster said Andover, North Andover, Burlington, North Reading, and Watertown had, and that he had no indication any town other than Acton would not be accepting it.
  • Ms. LaCourt asked if anything in the contract would prevent the Town from totally privatizing (i.e. having residents directly contract with collectors/disposers) trash service. Mr. Hale said that if the Town gave no disposer any business, that would be allowed, but the Town would not be allowed to give business to another disposer.
  • Ms. DiBona said she would hold her nose and vote yes. Pointing out the many incinerators in the Merrimack Valley area and the amount of air and water contamination in the region, she asked that people try to recycle more and that the Recycling Committee continue to assist in that.
  • Mr. McCable asked why the Town had not gone out to competitive bid well in advance. Ms. Galkowski said the current contract forbids the Town from issuing an RFP until the Town has negotiated in good faith with WNA and the negotiation fail. Mr. McCabe asked what reasons other than the contract prevent the Town from issuing an RFP. Mr. Maher said doing so would be a material breach of the contract. He said the Town could and has sought out information, but is barred from issuing a formal RFP.
  • Mr. Curro pointed out that both the BoS recommendation and Ms. Harrington's substitute motion have no legal effect. He said he liked Ms. Harrington's motion better, since it more accurately reflected how TM feels. He said would like to see WNA apply the flip-up savings to the North Andover plant and not elsewhere.
  • Mr. Foskett admitted that to his regret he voted to approve the current contract 18 years ago. He said that just because the existing contract is horrible does not mean the new one must be. He said that contrary to assertions by others, flip-ups are not shady. Also, the Town would benefit by about $111,000 per flip-up and the new bonds would be WNA/WM obligations. He said the FinComm subcommittee will continue to advise the Manager until final action takes place and that if we do not sign the contract, we will pay higher costs.
  • Mr. Norton moved the previous question - debate terminated.
  • Harrington substitute motion substituted, 82-81.
  • BoS recommendation as substituted approved.
• All articles except Article 2 removed from the table.
• Article 48 - CBA/Patrolmen:
  • Somewhat unusually, there were three separate motions on this article, only two related to each other. The first was to spend $20,000 to give police officers a 1% stipend to be trained to use defibrillators. This had FinComm approval. Then there was a motion from Ms. Galkowski to approve the arbitrator's award of a FY03 3% payraise, and FinComm's recommendation of no action on the raise, which would reject the award and send both sides back to the table.
  • Mr. Tosti said the defibrillators were given to the Town and the extra $20,000 for training was not a significant enough cost to disapprove.
  • Ms. Galkowski said Armstrong Ambulance donated six machines and another seven will be obtained through grants. She said the policemen agreed to take training and have them placed in patrol cars before getting the stipend and urged support.
  • Defibrillator recommendation approved.
  • Ms. Galkowski made her substitute motion, saying that the arbitrator threw out the demands of both sides and awarded only the 3% raise.
  • Mr. Maher said he was required by law to support it and that compared to comparable communities, Arlington's police pay is very low. He said that the union did not put forth any of its own proposals but only opposed the Town's demand for health givebacks. Since both sides had agreed on the 3% raise, the only question was whether or not the abitrator would mandate givebacks, which did not happen.
  • Mr. Tosti said the there had been misinformation the previous night. He said there was no agreement, as the proposal is an abitrator's award and the negotiators are required by law to support it. He said that if the unions were as concerned about the Town's health insurance situation as they claim they are, they would have agreed to givebacks. He asked how, if the Town could not get a health giveback when offering a 3% raise, could the Town get givebacks in the future with no raises to offer. He said not taking a stand on this would do nothing to solve the health insurance budget buster and would jeopardize and override next year.
  • Mr. Foskett said the Town faces continued stress from rising expenses as well as flat revenues and that over the past few years increases in state aid were completely eaten up by insurance cost increases. He said that until recently there had been no progress on that front, but that the Librarians, NAGE, Local 680, and non-union workers have all agreed to givebacks. He said the unions forced the Town into binding arbitration and asked if TM really thought the Manager and Town Counsel would be supporting the agreement if they were not statutorially bound to do so. He said the agreement is not good for the town and provides no incentive for either management or labor to work to contain health insurance costs. He turned TM to show its will and send both sides back to the table.
  • Ms. Munsey said she disagreed with Mr. Tosti and asked if the Town had ever voted down an arbitrator's award. Mr. Maher said the Town had never (until Monday night) had one before it. Ms. Munsey said the patrolmen are not greedy or selfish and that they do care about the Town. She said we must honor the arbitrator's award.
  • Mr. Gee said he felt in a tough spot, as he felt the patrolmen deserved a raise but could not support giving them one. He asked how the Town could let fixed costs increase by more than 2.5%, especially when revenue growth is less than that. He said it is true that monies are in place to fund the agreement, that this is not a level service budget, that there have been cuts, that the patrolmen deserve a raise and work hard, but that it is wrong to be giving employees raises while laying others off.
  • Mr. Carreiro asked if the Town voluntarily entered into binding arbitration or was forced into it, drawing a distinction with regard to the ethics of honoring the award or not. Mr. Feeley (outside counsel due to Mr. Maher's being conflicted out) said that once there was an impasse, by statute a 3rd party takes over and calls the process shots. The 3rd party chose binding arbitration, forcing both sides' hands. Citing apparently conflicting claims from prior speakers about health insurance givebacks by other unions, Mr. Carreiro asked whether or not the Librarians, Local 680, and NAGE had made FY03 concessions. Mr. Maher they had agreed to givebacks, but they cannot go into effect at the earliest until 1 January 2004, and not at all unless all the bargaining units agree to them, due to plan provider administative rules.
  • Mr. Fischer said that the award should be honored. He noted that patrolmen are not allowed to strike and asked what their recent raise history was. Ms. Cove said they received a 3% raise in 1998, 3% in 1999, 2% in 2000, two 2% raises in 2001, and a 2% raise in 2002.
  • Mr. French reminded everyone that the contract is for FY03, not FY04 and that the firefighters asked the meeting to support the patrolment.
  • Mr. Jefferson asked Mr. Tosti what "misinformation" he referred to. Mr. Tosti said calling the proposal an "agreement" when it was not and the unions claiming they were "concerned" about the Town's insurance situation when they were not, as evidenced by their refusal to offer concessions. Mr. Jefferson said the latter is a matter of opinion and that FinComm was not privy to what was said in negotiations. Mr. Jefferson asked if the Town objected to arbitration. Mr. Maher said the matter was irrelevant, since the Town had no choice but to go to arbitration. Mr. Jefferson said the patrolmen are at the bottom of the salary heap and want a fair salary and urged support of the substitute motion.
  • Mr. Berkowitz moved the previous question - debate terminated.
  • Galkowski motion substituted, 111-54.
  • FinComm recommendation as substituted approved.
• Article 49 - CBA/Ranking Officers: FinComm recommended a vote to approve a side-letter agreement to spend $11,000 to have ranking officers receive a stipend for defibrillator training and placement. Approved unanimously.
• Article 50 - Non-Union Employees:
  • Ms. Harrington asked if the M-schedule health concessions still existed. Ms. Galkowski said the contribution increases still do, and will take effect 1 January 2004, but that the co-pay increases will not unless everyone agrees (Blue Cross rules).
  • Ms. Mahon asked if there was any dicussion of M-schedule raises and whether it was inequitable to grant them in light of FinComm's position on the fire and police unions. Mr. Foskett said that unlike those unions, the M-schedule employees had made health concessions, and that their increases in costs would in fact exceed salary increases. Ms. Mahon said there was a lot more that could be done to cut costs and that only one of her twenty-seven suggestions had been adopted. Mr. Foskett said all of them were diligently discussed and that the BoS had been two months late in forwarding budgets to FinComm.
  • Mr. Deyst pointed out the huge increase in health insurance costs over the past four years and said that despite being a strong supporter of the unions, something has to be done about the costs.
  • Mr. Roselli wanted to speak about health insurance costs but was ruled out of order by the Moderator since the article is about M-schedule pay raises.
  • Ms. Weaver asked if contributions increase as workers receive raises. Ms. Galkowski said the contribution percentage is based on 1 January salaries.
  • Mr. Taber asked that agreements be reached sooner so that TM can vote prospectively instead of retroactively.
  • Mr. Carreiro moved the previous question - debate terminated.
  • FinComm recommendation approved.
• Article 51 - Elected Officials: FinComm recommended a vote to give the Clerk and Treasurer 3% raises. Approved.
• Article 52 - Funding Future CBAs: FinComm recommended a vote to appropriate $252,000 to fund future CBAs. FinComm amended its vote to only appropriate $45,000 in light of CBAs just approved. Approved unanimously.
• Article 55 - Deferred Compensation: FinComm recommended a vote to appropriate $50,000 to augment the fund to cover deferred compensation and sick leave buybacks to departing employees. Approved.
• Article 72 - Hardy School: FinComm recommended no action as negotiations with the contractor remain ongoing. Approved.
• Article 76 - Local Option Taxes: FinComm recommended no action as there are no local option taxes available for approval. Approved unanimously.
• Mr. Lobel moved to reconsider Article 28 (changes in Town Manager job requirements), in order to remove the residency requirement from the BoS recommended vote. He said residency is important but should not be mandatory.
• Mr. Fitzmaurice said he supported reconsideration. He noted that TM had approved removing the requirement for experience as a town manager to help untie the selectmen's hands and that while residency is great, the selectmen's hands should be similarly untied. He said the residency rule would be an unintended barrier to working women, and that the BoS should consider residency desireability individually for candidates and not be subject to an arbitrary barrier.
• Mr. Gilligan opposed reconsideration. He said keeping the residency requirement would force a level of committment from applicants and prevent them from using the Town as a springboard. He said a manager can afford to live in the Town and wants any manager to "have skin in the game."
• Mr. Kohl moved the previous question - debate terminated.
• Motion to reconsider defeated.
• Mr. Tosti congratulated Ms. Galkowski for doing a great job in the face of a very challenging situation, prompting a standing ovation for Ms. Galkowski.
• Mr. Tosti moved Article 2 be taken from the table - approved.
• There being nothing further under Article 2 and with all other articles disposed of, Mr. Tosti moved the meeting be dissolved.
• Motion to dissolve approved.
• The 2003 Annual Town Meeting is dissolved.