Public Comment

Transcript (~11 min @ 2:40)

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

▶ 2:11 Jeff McNaught: Thomas and President Sinella. This provides a notice of the quorum for the record. Pursuant to the suspension of certain provisions of the open meeting law, this meeting of the Appropriations Committee will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible. 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 the public can find online access instructions to view this meeting at the cityofmelrose.org slash remote hyphen meetings this can also be viewed on the local cable access channel for the folks at home this is the portion of the meeting that we start out with every time it's public comment um you may come forward and speak to any items on the agenda but only two items on the agenda like to remind people of that to keep it to what we're discussing in this meeting um and if if there's no objections at this time i'll move by unanimous consent to open the floor for public comment seeing no objections we're now open for public comment Mr. Clerk, do we have anyone in the queue for public comment?

▶ 3:36 Speaker 1: Let me find out for you. There's someone besides the speakers for tonight. I'm not sure.

▶ 3:48 Speaker 1: If anyone's here for public comment, please raise your digital hand.

▶ 3:59 Jeff McNaught: Just looking in the room now, I'm not sure. I see Mr. McSweeney has his, I believe he has his hand raised i'm not sure but i believe mr gumbeski may want to speak um maybe his first time i'm not sure if he's having troubles there he may also just be listening in um

▶ 4:18 Speaker 1: uh mr mcsweeney if you are here for public comment please let me know can you hear me yes yes yes

▶ 4:34 Speaker 1: great thanks everybody uh finn mcsweeney 160 west wyoming avenue i am here um just to have a couple questions and comments on the road bond request um i'm not sure who is here to speak on it but i did just have a couple things i wanted to say um the first thing i wanted to say was that you know in my opinion in terms of the project mix inside the bond request i really wanted to commend um the dpw and director probate casales for what i think is presenting a really thoughtful um and considered request um of of what's actually being requested with the funds it checks a lot of boxes in terms of the plans and the priorities that the city has laid out over the past few years um and it's backed by a really great and clear memo um that explains the contents so i i think it's great um in particular you know the transparency in terms of the feedback that melrose recently got from massdot on complete streets i think is really helpful for the residents to kind of think about how we're funding some of our roadway improvement projects going forward um the complete streets program has been really popular within melrose and it's great to see that um you know when massdot turns the funds off or slows down the funding to the city we're not just saying okay well we have to wait longer um instead we're actually prioritizing a funding request for one of those projects and what it means that it means that the city understands the value of the complete streets um type projects and the value they bring to melrose um so because they're not only they're putting the bay state sidewalk project in here which is a complete streets program priority but also they are putting in some funding for the lower main um project which is another of the city's Complete Streets priority projects. So it's great to see, you know, the city laid those out in 2017 under Director Provecas Ellis's guidance. And these projects, when they were listed in 2017, were supposed to be completed in 2020, 2021. So again, it's great to see the city executing on the plans that had been sort of sitting around waiting for years for the right time. The question that I have, really the main question that I have is, why not more? I went back and looked at sort of the last 15 or so years of road bond requests. In 2003, the city requested 1.2 million. I'm sorry, 2006. 2009, it was 2.2. 2013, it was 1.5. 2018 it was 1.6 and now it's 1.5 so the city budget has grown um in that time and inflation has happened in that time and it doesn't seem like we're really keeping up um with the the amount of the city budget and the amount of the city debt service that should be going to what is obviously a really high priority for city residents um and when you couple that with the fact that the debt schedule that's listed in the order, this is a 15-year bond at 2%. That's really cheap. When the city recently presented a $1.7 million bond request for the salt shed, that was a 30-year bond at 4%. I'd love to understand, do we have access to cheaper funding right now how is the city determining the duration of these bonds and how is it that we're able to to lay out this proposed bond for for so much more cheaply than the the the salt shed proposal um because i do think that the past couple of years and covid have really really painted a picture of a city that is really hungry for faster progress on complete streets and faster progress on traffic calming. Everyone knows about the COVID bike boom. There was recently a traffic commission meeting where residents of Franklin Street were like begging the city to do something in the highlands to slow down speeding, to cut down on accidents. It's such a priority for the city um while the relative mix within this 1.5 million dollar request i think is really thoughtful um and i understand that the dpw doesn't set the budget right the mayor's office does i i just love to understand why we're not putting more funding towards these types of projects which are which so many residents um want i think it's probably the number one thing that a lot of uh committee members here from residences, we want traffic calming, we want slower streets. It's great to see some of these in the funding request, but as a resident and as a taxpayer, I'd love to see the city do more. And I'd love to understand from the administration what the plans are for doing more, because if we're not getting as much grant funding, and this is going to be what we're going to get for the next three years, I don't think we're spending enough. I don't think we're prioritizing street safety enough in the city and those are my comments appreciate everyone for

▶ 10:02 Jeff McNaught: giving me the time thanks thank you Mr. McSweeney and I know you're an old pro at this but can you

▶ 10:10 Jeff McNaught: state your address for the record sorry 160 West Wyoming thank you so much I also want to acknowledge that Councilor Jamala Dean has joined us we are back at full force team of 11 and I I believe Mr. Gombeski has squared away his microphone issues. Is that right, Mr. Clark?

▶ 10:25 Speaker 1: I'll let him in right now.

▶ 10:26 Speaker 2: Thank you.

▶ 10:30 Speaker 1: Can you hear me? Yes. Excellent. Thank you. My name is Neil Gombeski. I live at 197 Bay State Road. This is the first time I've attended a city meeting, so pretty exciting. I appreciate the opportunity to speak. I just wanted to speak in favor of the road bond. I'm a little biased, too, but particularly to sidewalks here on Bay State Road. We've lived here in Melrose for about seven years. I have three young children now, one that just started kindergarten down at Horace Mann. I don't know if any of you all have, you know, had the opportunity to walk on on Bay State Road or kind of come up this way. But, you know, the street's very dangerous. There's at least two, maybe three blind curves. there's a couple blind rises the streets narrow um it's used as a cut through i see loomis armored cars driving up and down my street in the mornings and the afternoons they clearly have no business you know they're not doing business on my street they're using as a cut through um with the howard street being under construction we get a lot of cut through traffic but just broadly you know people use our street to get from main street to route one and And it's been nice that there were some speed limit signs put up and some other signs. But as someone who I see the traffic every day, that's really done nothing to slow people down on the street. And so with me having young kids, I would love it if my daughter would be able to walk down to Horace Mann for school at some point. and but that's just not feasible given you know how how dangerous the uh street is um my neighbors on my right have a daughter in at horseman they have a son who goes to high school my neighbors on the left just have a have a new newborn um there are other kids on the on the street so i mean there's all there's a lot of young kids on the street and beyond just the young kids you know people use the street to walk on you know people commute or whatever and it's just it's just really an unsafe street um i had walked around and i don't know if anyone else saw saw this but i sent off to um to uh jeff that i put a little petition together and and everyone on the street or everyone that was home on the street signed it so i don't think it's uh i think everyone would be more than happy to give up five or six feet of their yards for a for a sidewalk so i definitely don't think this is going to cause any controversy with with anyone who lives on the street um i think that's about all i have so i appreciate the time and i'll stop joining on thank you thank you mr gombeski

▶ 13:15 Speaker 1: mr clerk do we have anyone else in the queue uh not at the moment no we do not i'm just

▶ 13:20 Jeff McNaught: noticing who our speakers uh guest speakers are and i think they're good here um