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2/25/2016 AC Minutes Minutes Town of Lexington Appropriation Committee(AC) February25, 2016 : ParkerRoom,Town OfficeBuilding,7:30p.m. : Glenn Parker, Chair; John Bartenstein, Vice Chair and Secretary; Kate Colburn; Alan Levine;Beth Masterman;Eric Michelson; Richard Neumeier;Andrei Radulescu-Banu Members Absent:Mollie Garberg Others Present:Elaine Ashton, Town Meeting member The meetingwas calledto order at 7:40pm. 1.Announcements: Ms.Masterman apologized for the distribution problems associated with this Committee’s report to the Special Town Meeting(STM)2016 #1. It was her understanding that th the copies had been delivered to the Police Station on February 8but because of the snowstorm the delivery was not made. Mr. Michelson reported that all 16 member communities in the Minuteman Technical High School district had approved a new agreement, as discussed at previous meetings. As a result, six of the seven communities that had verbally said they planned to leave the districtif the new agreement was approvedhave started the process for doingso. They will pay for some residual funding to fulfill theirobligations. The project to renovate/rebuildthe Minuteman Technical High Schoolbuilding must be presented to the Town Meetings in the current16communities. While all 16 must vote on the project, the six that are leaving the district will not incur the new capital obligations. If all 16 approve the project, it wouldmove forward. If all 16 do not approve, the district can choose to hold a district wide referendum on the question. If a majority approvethe referendum, the project wouldmove forward. Another STM is likely because Lexington does not currently have an Article in any Warrant for supporting the renovations/rebuilding project. 2.Report to theAnnual Town Meeting (ATM) and STM 2016 #2: Mr. Parker distributed a draft tablelisting the Articleson which this Committee will be taking a position and commenting in its report. For most of the Articles, he identified an author and a reviewer for the text.Starred Articles indicate those which he believes this Committee could recommend for an ATM Consent Agenda.There wasdiscussion of addingthe following Articles to the list based on their havinga potential financial impact: ATM Article 34: AmendGeneral By-laws –Guns: Mr. Neumeier agreed to research whether there is any potential compensation liability associated with banning guns in Lexington. ATM Article 40: Amend Zoning By-Law –Accessory Apartments: Like Article 42 (Two Family Homes),this article has the potential for increasing the school population, which has a financial impact. It was noted that Charles Hornig, Planning Board member,has raised questions about discrimination against families with children if a potential increase in school age children is advanced asa reason for opposing by-law changes. Advice from Town Counsel is being sought. 1