Public Comment

Transcript (~13 min @ 1:00)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 0:02 Leila Migliorelli: 2022. This is a meeting of the Legal and Legislative Committee, and I'm Chairwoman Lila Migliorelli, and joining me tonight are Vice Chair Maya Jamaleddine, voting members, Councillors Stewart, Karamcheti, and Grigoraitis, and President Cinella Ex Officio. In lieu of roll call vote, this serves as notice of a quorum for the record. Also joining us tonight are non-voting members, Councillors Garipay, Councillors Obremski, Williams, and McMaster. Pursuant to an act extending certain COVID-19 measures signed by Governor Baker on June 16th, 2021, that extended the remote meeting provisions of his March 12th executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, this meeting of the legal and legislative committee will be conducted via remote participation. We will post a comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Melrose website and on MMTV3.org. Now, I will motion by unanimous consent to open the floor for public comment. This is the portion of the meeting where anyone can speak on any of the items on our agenda tonight. Seeing no objection, we are now open for public comment. Mr. Clerk, is there anyone in queue? Just to for the public, if you wish to speak, please raise your digital hand.

▶ 1:28 Leila Migliorelli: I believe there's some folks here ready to speak, but I'm not seeing any digital hands going up.

▶ 1:46 Speaker 1: Andrew, you're on mute. Are you talking Ms. Gonzalez? Can you hear us?

▶ 1:54 Speaker 2: Yes, I can. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that.

▶ 2:00 Speaker 3: No problem. Um, so I just wanted to thank you for your time. Um, I wanted to speak about the ordinance related to the small wireless facilities that are being installed around the city. My husband and I did submit public comment, which you have record of in your agenda. um so i don't want to repeat what i've said in that comment however um what we wanted to share with you this evening is more about how um the ordinance as it's written doesn't necessarily apply to the um the antennas that are already up in the city so uh we do now have a wireless antenna right in front of our home and in just driving around the city you know i've seen some near the skate park on Tremont Street immediately behind the high school middle school complex and so as this bureaucratic process unfolds as it needs to um Verizon is acting really quickly to install these in our city and it's just concerning that they may act a little bit faster than the city does in terms of addressing not only the new towers but the ones that are in place so I strongly encourage you if you have the chance to make some amendments to the ordinance it says it's written to take some consideration for the ones that are already up, because these are ones that do concern us as citizens, as residents of Melrose. And as I said in my comment, while you're acting and we appreciate that, it may be a little too late for some of us who are already now living, working, learning underneath some of these antennas. So thank you.

▶ 3:36 Leila Migliorelli: Thank you, Ms. Gonzalez.

▶ 3:42 Leila Migliorelli: Mr. Clerk, is there anyone else?

▶ 3:44 Speaker 2: There is. I am...

▶ 3:49 Speaker 2: I'm meeting melody. Can you hear us?

▶ 3:53 Speaker 4: Yes, can you hear me? Yes. Great. Thank you very much. Council. I'm here tonight to discuss the small cell antenna. Ordinance as written overall, I'm very disappointed in the fact of the lack of transparency. I became aware of this subject myself as a new resident to the community two and a half years ago, notified the mayor's office and my local ward three at two and a half years ago that polls were being scouted and they were unaware of Verizon being even able to do that. Even just using public sidewalks and rights of way to measure and do some scouting. So that led us to contact the DPW, et cetera. But I have basically three main concerns about the existing ordinance as written. I think it's a rush right now. I think we can put a halt on things until we have the necessary items in place. And we can leverage some of the wonderful language that's been included in California, Medford, I love theirs. And I've spoken to Shannon directly. The 1st thing is the approval process and the checks and balances necessary in the current ordinance. The language only includes the sole discretion of the city engineer. To approve these as well, just notification to the butters and notification to the ward counselor. I don't think that's enough. I can cite other towns. So the example I will use is the town of Medford. I can use others. They created this ad hoc small cell committee. That's a subcommittee that consists of multiple departments. So their checks and balances at the mayor's office receives the application, 12 copies. They're circulated to the building commissioner, the engineer, the director of office community and development, the board of health, and any other department that the mayor determines in their sole discretion. I think that that type of language and that type of approval process, and I was asked how this approval process is determined, and it was kind of not really stated. The other checks and balances is that there's language that once there's a public hearing in Medford, that the ad hoc small cell committee can grant with conditions or deny any application at any point in time for inadequate capacity, structure, safety concerns, reliability, engineering standards, size, visibility, and et cetera, et cetera, residential concerns and aesthetic considerations. I'm just wanted, I have this language. It's in the Medford. I'm happy to share it with you, but I think it, again, leaves us open as residents and as a town to address public concern and the city of Medford also which our ordinance is very lacking and specifications of the actual technology itself the size on the ground the size in the air and there's it basically has carte blanche that you can change at any point in time from time to time they can make aesthetic standards change pertaining to the size the equipment box the cabling any kind aesthetic from matching the color camouflage of the equipment on the ground etc that we are missing so that's my summary of um what i would say check and balances the next one i had was setbacks the current language indicates that the antenna shall be placed no less than 20 feet from a residence window door or porch i just want the the counselors to all be aware that this is basically no setback because the antennas themselves average size is 20 to 60 feet so any antenna can be placed anywhere without any setbacks i think we need to discuss where this you meet an open meeting session need to discuss and clarify why 20 feet um just to give you an example i've seen many ranges between 300 feet from a residential 1,500 feet from a school. New Hampshire state law is proposing 1,600 feet from a private dwelling, 20 feet, which is nothing. As I mentioned, the setback is clearly nothing. If a pole is 20 feet, the antenna is going to be above the pole. So I think that our current language is not defined properly and locations should be prioritized. We don't have prioritization. we have some restriction language in there but first and foremost private dwellings should be not prioritized they should begin they have to prioritize a way you know that that's my other concern now the third and last final one is the community planning and develop of this type of scope of project as you're aware there's other projects that melrose has done they install 17 pole mounted uh ev car charters this is a huge undertaking we're not considering the amount that each carrier requires the location and the reservations that melrose needs for future for use by the government and or other public sector into entities for the safety purposes and so i think we know we need to allow more prudent planning for our future needs of the town And then one other consideration that I apologize, I just missed. We shouldn't allow, we should need to put restrictions on renting, leasing, subletting, or signing any of these permits or applications by the applicant. I apologize, that should be under my section number two, clarification and termination of setbacks. Oh, and also one more thing, distance between the antennas. Most towns have a distance between the antennas. These antennas range approximately, from what I've read, 1,000 feet. We should have restrictions against the distance between them. And that's all I have to share. Thank you very much.

▶ 10:11 Speaker 1: Thank you. Mr. Clerk, is there anyone else?

▶ 10:13 Speaker 2: We have one more speaker that I'm unmuting now. Great. Ms. Katie Welsh, do you hear us?

▶ 10:20 Speaker 3: Yeah, hi. Can you hear me? Yes, we can.

▶ 10:23 Jen Grigoraitis: Good evening, everybody. Thank you so much for allowing public comment on this really important issue i'm logging in tonight as a mother of two little girls in the city and someone who cares really deeply about this community i strongly support the 5g ordinance as a means of regaining some local control over this unbelievable proliferation of 5g antennas across our city and in support of citizens who do not want and do not consent to these antennas being placed outside their bedroom windows and their children's schools i think whether you're concerned about antennas impacting property value which p.s they do the growing evidence of health and environmental concerns or just don't want a really ugly antenna blocking your view of the neighborhood i think we can all agree that melrose deserves more control over where these are installed you know we got a lot of pushback from the mayor's office and from the city that the telecommunications act of 1996 really prohibits or limits the actions of local governments, but that is actually not the case. There are a lot of things that our government can do to protect its citizens. In regards to the specifics of this ordinance, I would like to see this temporarily approved while we work on more comprehensive language that would take into consideration the proximity of these antennas to schools and homes. I also agree with the earlier speaker, I think it was Melody, that a cease and assist order to Verizon, which would not be the first one they've received in response to these 5G antennas would give Melrose more time to create an even more robust ordinance and process. We do also have access to nonprofit experts like those at the Americans for Responsible Technology who are working on this issue at a national level. And I would encourage the City Council to take advantage of these resources in continuing to refine the ordinance. Thank you so much for your attention to this really important issue we really really appreciate it thank you miss welch

▶ 12:29 Speaker 2: we also have one more speaker all right uh miss richmond can you hear us i can hear you thank you

▶ 12:31 Speaker 4: um i'm beth ritzman here um i did provide public comments on i guess a public comment that was written i just want to echo some of the concerns of the other participants and public comments and just say how much i really appreciate you guys focusing on this because i'm also a mother of to just like the last speaker i'm new to melrose and bought a house and was really shocked when i found out like how easily um new technology like this could be installed with no oversight and really no real transparency so i think it's just critical that you establish a transparent process where residents really understand what's being installed really clear safety oversight how you know compliance is going to be overseen by the city because there are federal safety standards but if if the companies don't think anyone's ever checking at their installation or when they're operating then that's a real problem and a real disservice to the citizens of melrose so i just want to say thank you so much for focusing on this um it seems melrose is a little late versus other places but you know it's not too late to get it right as other people have brought up so let's even if you pass this temporarily but work on something more comprehensive i think there's a lot of lessons learned from other communities about how to do this well so again thank you and please do move forward with this thank you thank you do we have anyone else in queue

▶ 13:55 Speaker 2: this time i do not see anyone with their digital hand raised all right um so if there's an