by Frank Schroth

At last week’s meeting of the Board of Selectmen the board received an update from Rick Sullivan, CFO of Curry College regarding the Ulin rink. Curry College manages the rink on behalf of the town. The town has a permit from the DCR which expires at the end of April as does the town’s agreement with Curry. The town has been granted a 1 year extension on their permit from the DCR and it is possible that town will do the same with Curry.

The report to the selectmen included but was not limited to the following:

• Curry has incurred ~$521K of negative cash flow
• Operating hours have been increased by ~25%
• Free of charge public skating hours have been increased ~40%
• Rental rates have not been increased since the 2009-10 season. The DCR has approved a rate increase effective 1/15. However, Curry and the town have agreed to leave the rates charged unchanged for the balance of this season

Not everyone is pleased with the arrangement between the town and Curry. The Friends of the Ulin Rink have registered a number of complaints over the last couple of months that include concern of reduced ice time for local groups. The Friends did not speak at this session.

Related to this issue is an article on the warrant to create a Ulin Rink Operations Enterprise Fund. The creation of the fund is a step being taken with assumption that the town obtains a long term lease from the DCR. Should the DCR grant a lease and should the Parks and Rec department take control of the rink then this fund would provide a method for financially sustaining the operation. Whether Curry will continue to manage the rink on behalf of the town is independent of this. There is a call into Selectman Hurley seeking confirmation on this.

The board received a presentation from the team seeking to open a new eating venue, The Plate at the Fruit Center Marketplace. Suzanne Lombardi, the owner and chef of The Plate in the Central Avenue business district, has an agreement with the Fruit Center to replace their old Cafe with a sit down restaurant featuring small plate, hand crafted meals. She was joined by attorney Bob Sheffield. They were there to specifically discuss their citizens petition article requesting a liquor license. The article is on the annual town warrant to be taken up this May.

Lombardi explained that the license would allow them to offer “carefully selected hand crafted beer and organic wines.” There will be no bar in the space. “I want to do things right,” Lombardi said. The restaurant will open earlier than the cafe. It will open at 6:30am and stay open until 9:00pm. However, they may initially offer only breakfast and lunch. The discussion with the board was similar to a discussion the applicants had the previous evening with the Warrant Committee. At that session Mr. Sheffield explained that this was the first step in a long process of obtaining a license. Town meeting needs to approve the petition, the legislature needs to grant the license to the town, and the selectmen need to award to license to the Plate. There is a small inconsistency. In his remarks to the warrant committee Mr. Sheffield mentioned “cocktails.” In her remarks to the selectmen, Ms. Lombardi said the license was for beer and wine. Those are two different classifications of liquor license. We suspect the license is for beer and wine only.

Another issue percolating around this is opportunity for public input and what that input is. Mr. Sheffield in addressing the warrant committee said that there were neighbors who wanted to deny the permit and only wanted to send emails to that effect. The warrant committee does not hold public hearings nor has any hearing been called on the issue. At the selectmen’s meeting Dr. Cindy Christiansen, a Precinct 7 town meeting member and chair of East Milton Neighborhood Association, took exception to that. She said the neighbors did wish to discuss the issue with Mr. Sheffield but that a mutually convenient time had not been arranged. She said that the neighbors she had spoken with oppose the license. She put three questions forward that need to be addressed: 1) What is the rush for this license 2) what is the saturation point for liquor licenses in the square and 3) what is the incremental revenue that would be generated for the town if the license were granted?

The board also released the meeting minutes of the executive session in which they voted not to appeal a recent decision by the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD). The town had sought exemption from Chapter 40B regarding a proposed development at 711 Randolph Avenue. The town maintained that it met the criteria for 1.5% of geographic area containing affordable housing. Milton did not meet that threshold according to DHCD. Chair Conlon explained the issue. She made the followng points:

• The decision not to appeal rests not with the Board of Selectmen but with the Board of Appeals. They unanimously voted not to appeal the decision. (The three attorneys hearing the comprehensive permit application are John Leonard, Jeff Mullen, and Virginia King).
• The Board of Appeals said that while they will not appeal the decision they would entertain “an intervention” the Board of Selectmen (FYI – In law, intervention is a procedure to allow a nonparty, called intervenor (also spelled intervener) to join ongoing litigation, either as a matter of right or at the discretion of the court, without the permission of the original litigants.)
• The Board consulted town counsel John Flynn. Flynn’s law firm also assessed the property qualification and determined that Milton did not meet it. Mr. Flynn said an appeal could be deemed frivolous (one without any legal merit. In some cases, such an action might be brought in bad faith for the purpose of harassing the defendant. In such a case, the individual bringing the frivolous suit might be liable for damages). Should the Board choose to proceed it was questionable whether Flynn’s law firm would represent them on ethical grounds.
• Central to the determination was whether units at Fuller Village could be included. The issue here is not measurement of geographic area but interpretation of the regulations.

The board voted 2-1 not to intervene with Conlon and Hurley voting against and Keohane voting for.

Mr. Keohane said he did not think the appeal frivolous and that the interpretation of the regulations was a matter of opinion. He said “We use experts for everything and we are asking town counsel to determine how much land we have.” Conlon and Hurley attempted to clarify that town counsel’s decision was a legal interpretation part of which discounted recent Fuller Village units included on Subsidized Housing Inventory (SHI) by DHCD. Town Counsel’s opinion was that DHCD would not permit inclusion of those units becuase they were added to the SHI after the comprehensive permit was filed. Keohane also implied that the DPW staff were not professional surveyors and the town was remiss in not hiring professional people who would do the “right calculation.” Conlon said that the DPW has a professional GIS expert on staff. Keohane said “I don’t think we represented the neighbors [well] . . . we rushed into it.” Conlon strongly disagreed. She reiterated that “we would not have any chance of succeeding at an appeal.” The determination of qualifying land was 0.7% not 1.5%. Had the difference been not so great there might have been more of an inclination to appeal.