ORDER-2022-24 : Request for the authorization to issue $1.5 million bond to fund for the roadway component of the City's Multi-year Utility and Roadway Improvement Program

Transcript (~44 min @ 14:09)

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

▶ 14:03 Jeff McNaught: no objection the rules are now suspended and we will move on to our first order

▶ 14:15 Jeff McNaught: of business which is order 2022-24 a request for the authorization to issue 1.5 1.5 million dollar bond to fund the roadway component of the city's multi-year utility and roadway roadway improvement program and i believe we have our city treasurer miss armada and our dpw director miss proak is ellis here with us this evening is that right mr clerk yes that's correct um

▶ 15:11 Speaker 3: i've unmuted them both i'm making them panelists now all right council mcnaught would you uh like me to start the i had a brief presentation that was in iqm2 uh sure yeah that'd be great thank

▶ 15:18 Jeff McNaught: you i didn't see you there welcome to both of you thank you for being here this evening the

▶ 15:27 Speaker 3: floor is yours are you able to allow me to share if it's easier i can

▶ 15:48 Speaker 3: alternatively send you the presentation and you can share

▶ 16:00 Speaker 3: um yes could you please do that it's only five slides okay elena

▶ 16:30 Speaker 1: yeah i just made you the presenter so you should be able to share your screen perfect with the powerpoint there please perfect

▶ 16:46 Speaker 3: okay sorry i closed the powerpoint so that i could send it to you so i just

▶ 17:03 Jeff McNaught: need to reopen sure just going to look for a thumbs up from the counselors if

▶ 17:12 Jeff McNaught: iqm2 is working for you at this point oh there's been some trouble seeing some no's everyone see

▶ 17:29 Speaker 3: this yes okay um okay thank you for um hearing this request for our fiscal 22 road bond

▶ 17:43 Speaker 3: i'm just briefly going to describe how we fund our roadway multi-year roadway and utility program and this request itself. So our program, as you know from many presentations that I've given in the past, is a combination of our paving, water system improvements, sewer system improvements, inflow and infiltration reduction, national grids, gas main replacement projects, other private utility work, such as the Eversource work that's going on right now. and this whole program really stems from our roadway condition assessment so this is a map that I believe you've seen before that shows our roadways all color-coded in four different categories from poorest to poor to fair to good slash excellent and we target the poor and poorest streets in this condition assessment and then we look for the utility needs we work from below ground up we do all the utility replacements and then ultimately we pave we do any complete streets improvements and then we do beautification like tree planting other line painting signage those sorts of items and this is also something you should all be familiar with our annual construction calendar this just shows um the projects that we have ongoing right now um and the list up at the top here are the streets that we're still presently working on completing for this fall and the the first year of the road bond um reflects completing these improvements supplementing our chapter 90 allocation and then the next year of the the road bond reflects these improvements that are blue here are the water mains that we're working on right now and then next year we'll be paving those streets so the road bond also supplements the chapter 90 money for next year for those streets and then the third year would be the streets to get water main next year which is a list that we're still working on but in general our program is funded um through a number of different sources we get about 525 000 per year of chapter 90 money we've estimated chapter 90 has us estimate how much it would cost to improve to keep all of our roads at um at a high level of service or high high pavement condition index and we found that that requires over $2 million per year. So, to Finn's point, we would love to have more money. The last bond was $1.685 million. That was in fiscal 19. We were budgeted in the capital plan this year for a $1.5 million allocation to handle the next three years, um but we can always spend more if there are more funds available in the future we get private utility contributions from national grid or sometimes we just make them restore the roads in their entirety after they've worked depending on how much they're disturbing we have developer contributions sometimes when larger developments are going on we apply for a lot of grants right now we have complete streets we have the community mitigation fund that we're we're spending now. And MassWorks is one that we've successfully gotten for the Highlands and Essex Street. And then we have free cash, we have rideshare funds, different special funding sources that come up from time to time. So in total, we're trying to spend, you know, ideally we'd be spending that $2 million a year. We typically aren't, but we are definitely spending north of $1 million per year. And then this is the specific request for this road bond. You all got this in a table um that i uploaded to iqm2 a few couple weeks ago um so it should be fairly familiar but the the mix that we have right now is 350 000 to supplement this year's road program uh 170 000 to do um it would be asphalt sidewalks on bay state road that's what was in the community the um prioritization plan for complete streets and as finn mentioned the the funding for complete streets used to be available to us as soon as we had spent the prior allocation, we could apply again. It's very competitive and we wouldn't necessarily get it. But now we're not eligible to apply for four fiscal years after we get a full allocation. So there's no way we can keep up with the projects that we had hoped to do. And Bay State Road was one of the highest priorities that we had going into the program in 2017. And we really couldn't let that one wait any longer. I've been hearing about that since 2015 when I started as a very high priority for sidewalks Brazil Street we're doing water main right now we've done sewer we've done water we've done gas and next year we'll be paving one way or another but we wanted to improve the aesthetics in the neighborhood and replace the sidewalks with concrete do some tree planting a little bit of beautification from that street so that's the 130 000 that's there city hall parking lot we've been applying for grants um to redo the parking lot and address the drainage and flooding issues and do some some green infrastructure for storm water the grants that we've applied for across the board have told us they won't pay for the paving um because the paving is usually not what meets their grant criteria and so we need money to supplement so that we can keep applying for grants for that project and hopefully get some money for the green infrastructure and then we pay for the paving out of the road bond um and then we have next year's road program streets which are mostly our water streets from this year and then the 300 000 for fiscal 24 um to supplement whatever the streets are that are in that next um next program so that's all i have um i will stop sharing and if you have any questions uh for or for catherine as well or i believe um patrick delarusso may be also here if you i know there were some questions during public comment about um bonds and interest rates and such uh that catherine or patrick would have to speak to

▶ 24:21 Jeff McNaught: so far i have councillor Jamaleddine in queue if you had your hand up i didn't see it because the presentation was up um council Garipay thank you for that presentation by the way uh director paracas ellis um council Jamaleddine we'll start with you and then we'll go to council Garipay

▶ 24:41 Maya Jamaleddine: um thank you um um thank you so much i would i would like to echo um chair um um on, you know, on the amazing work with this presentation. We appreciate all the work that you've been doing, you know, all this time. My question to you is, when you show us the calendar of the work that's going to be done, the construction work, is this public?

▶ 25:12 Speaker 3: Yes, it's up on the website.

▶ 25:15 Maya Jamaleddine: Okay. And the second one, can you explain a little bit more about, you said that the grant for the paving and the parking lot, the city hall parking lot is not gonna be given. Do you mind explaining a little bit more of why and what is it that's gonna take us to get it back?

▶ 25:40 Speaker 3: So, the grant for the…the grants we've applied for for the City Hall parking lot have been municipal vulnerability preparedness MVP grants. And so, they're geared toward climate resilience and nature-based solutions, green infrastructure. And so, we applied…I want to say our application was for roughly $700,000 or $800,000, and A large component of that was for the gray infrastructure piece, the paving itself and curb work and the like. And the MVP program, initially they said they wouldn't fund the whole project, but they would fund just the design. And so we now have a completed design that we put out to bid or that we are ready to put out to bid. So then we apply it again for the construction and that one got denied. And the feedback we were getting there was just that there was too much gray infrastructure that doesn't meet the criteria of the grant for nature-based solutions. And so by being able to fund the paving on our own and only apply for grants for the stormwater and flooding improvements and the water quality improvements, that meets more of the intent of those grants. and so we have a much higher likelihood if we apply again of getting one of

▶ 27:06 Maya Jamaleddine: those grants okay thank you is it open for you know any kind of feel and to be able to include more greens in it or is it just that's the decision and we won't be able to get it back yeah we would love we can't get it back we have to

▶ 27:24 Speaker 3: apply again and we would love to have more green infrastructure in the project but they're really with the groundwater so high in that parking lot we were actually very limited in what we could do to improve the flooding you know you can't put in a lot of infiltration basins and things in an area where the water is practically at the surface there's nowhere else for the water to go so that would be more the go-to for more of a green infrastructure solution and the paving is just it's always going to be paving and so you know there was no way to green up the paving component of the project we did apply for actually one new grant for the green infrastructure part of it that we haven't heard back yet for mass DEP so that's a stormwater grant and we'll see if we get that but we would still need this money for the paving one way or

▶ 28:17 Maya Jamaleddine: another thank you appreciate your work thank you thank you college of

▶ 28:25 Mark Garipay: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ms. Perway-Casellas, for being here. Just a couple quick questions on the $350,000 for the FY22 road program. So, is it safe to say that was covered, that those projects were started in Patois through the bond in 2019, the 1.6, is it 8.5? Is that?

▶ 28:49 Speaker 3: No. So the 1.685 had a very specific list of projects, and the only carryovers that we haven't completed yet from that original list are the sidewalks on Woodland and the paving of Lower Main Street. So the $400,000 that was originally allocated in the fiscal 19 road bond for Main Street was originally supposed to be done sooner, but because of the National Grid work and then the Eversource work, we delayed that paving. We still have 400,000 for the southern end of Main Street, and then we have, I want to say, about 100,000 to 150,000 left for the Woodland Ave sidewalks. But everything else that's on that list is being funded out of Chapter 90 and out of contributions from National Grid, Plus the supplement that we have listed there for.

▶ 29:52 Mark Garipay: For this road bond, and is it common. To come back for a supplemental. For the city council to to do some of these roads when you're doing these type of projects, or typically when you're working with national grid, does that usually cover everything?

▶ 30:07 Speaker 3: No, so this is so we're not asking for supplemental money in terms of. we didn't um like overspend or this road bond has been in the works for a long time this is supposed to be our fiscal 22 23 24 road bonds so um we the last road bomb was supposed to cover fiscal 19 20 21 and we did the only things we didn't spend were the projects that just didn't get done and those are the ones that are carried over that i just mentioned but um for fiscal 22 we always had assumed that we were going to need this supplemental money to be able to complete the projects in the manner that we think they should be completed if we don't get this vote we just don't do as much work this year um we just leave some work on the table for next year

▶ 30:59 Mark Garipay: to fund out of chapter 90. and do we um do we have a line item in the budget i should probably know this i apologize for uh roads um for we have any unexpected repairs or are they gonna they come out

▶ 31:12 Speaker 3: of free cash typically we have potholes we have sidewalk repairs um but we don't have any capital money for roads or for sidewalks or capital line items in the operating budget okay uh thank you

▶ 31:25 Mark Garipay: and then i just had one other question regarding a project on the uh on the spreadsheet that you had given out and if i know i talked to um i was reached about this was uh the work that's being done on felton place in upland street and i'm looking at this we did some design building national grid paved upham street and then where and we did felton water work and we opened up upham street right after just curious why we wouldn't have why we wouldn't have reversed

▶ 31:56 Speaker 3: that after we just paved it that was a miscommunication in uh when bonnie had just started and National Grid had come in and they were coming in to do their pavement restoration for all their backlog of projects that they hadn't yet paved. And they handed out notices on Felton Place saying that they were going to be paving and on Upham Street. And at the last second, like the night before the paving was supposed to happen, I found out that they had handed out these notices and made a frantic call to say, you can't pay Felton Place. We're doing water main work on Felton Place. Take Felton Place off the list. And so they said, okay, we're just going to do Upham. It didn't occur to me to say to them, don't do the intersection right at Felton Place and Upham. We just didn't get into that level of detail. It was a very rushed um you know calling off the dogs work and so i didn't realize that their up them portion that they were going to do was going to go past the entrance to felton place so yes we are going to be we have torn up their new pavement and we will be repaving it but we were one day away from having all of felton place done by mistake just because they didn't they notified vonnie she had started maybe a few weeks before and she just didn't she thought that work was already approved and was going forward and just didn't realize okay thank you i just wasn't sure the utilities

▶ 33:24 Mark Garipay: companies i'm assuming typically flexing we're going to put it off until we were done but

▶ 33:32 Speaker 3: i appreciate that yeah no they would have had we had we asked them to wait they would have waited it it just slipped through the cracks and and we we work very closely with the national grid gas group to phase all of these projects we just issued our annual letter to say where we want them to work next and where we need them to restore and then they'll come in and do that restoration so it's a good collaboration it was just

▶ 33:58 Jeff McNaught: a mistake thank you Thank You councillor Garipay do any other councillors have questions councillor Thomas Thank You mr. chairman

▶ 34:05 Cory Thomas: Thank you so much for all the work that you guys have been doing this summer. Great project over at Hoover School, the Complete Streets project looks great. If anyone hasn't seen it yet, they should go up to Hoover School, check out Whitman Ave, Park Street, Echo Street. This bond is great, as you know, and as we discussed at great lengths, Echo Street was not part of the Complete Streets project. So having this bond money available to finish off Echo Street, it's greatly needed, you know, to have a project like the Complete Streets funding that we have and not do Echo Street, you know, that makes no sense. So having this bond money available is great and will really, really shape up that whole neighborhood. I did have a question about the bond money itself. um is the bond money could we use any of that bond money to um fix streets that are partially paved by utility companies there was a big gas main replacement as you know between beach have appleton and all the cross streets it's great to see that these are slated to be partially completed and paved this fall but roads that are partially paved is there any way this bond money

▶ 35:24 Speaker 3: would be available to fully pave those roads so we actually try to avoid the partial pavement as much as possible so in that neighborhood we've now identified that we're going to do appleton elliott and irving as part of our water main program next year and when we do water and national grid does gas national grid kicks in half the cost to repave the full road and then we put in the other half and so those three will actually get full replacement um but they just have to wait an additional year for us to do the water main projects um so actually if in that fiscal 24 list if we were to actually put street names down there most likely those three streets will be on that list um but the other streets where where we're working where we're not working and national grid is working we have them do curb to curb replacement if the street is in good or excellent condition because we don't want them digging in our streets that are in good and excellent condition so we make them do curb to curb but when they're in fair condition we do usually have them do from one foot out from the trench to the nearest curb

▶ 36:36 Speaker 3: and that's really we could move toward a program where we pay to pave the other portions of those streets but we would really look to do that when the streets are in poor condition or poorest condition or um when we have some other work that we also need to do on those streets um so we're trying to just make the most economical use the most efficient use of all the money that we can so when a street's already in fair condition and they pave half of it it's only getting better and if it's not up for full paving yet by its condition we don't really want to spend that money that we really need to spend on the on the really bad streets okay thank you very much for

▶ 37:14 Cory Thomas: that explanation and i'm very happy to hear that appleton elliot and irving will be getting full pavement treatment next uh next year uh and i know the neighbors on those streets and and possibly a member of the city council i will be happy to have some of those streets uh repaired especially on

▶ 37:33 Speaker 3: appleton so thanks for having us just to clarify it the paving would be in two years because the

▶ 37:39 Cory Thomas: water main would be next year it wouldn't be completed at the end of the at the end of the

▶ 37:42 Speaker 3: water main replacement if we like to allow it to go through one freeze thaw cycle so you don't have settlement in the brand new road so so we phase it so the construction happens one year and the paving happens the next year so it would probably be spring 2020 spring 2023 when it would be paved

▶ 38:01 Speaker 4: Perfect. Thank you so much.

▶ 38:04 Speaker 2: Thank you, Councillor Thomas. Councillor Migliorelli?

▶ 38:07 Leila Migliorelli: Thank you, Chair McNaught. Thank you, Ms. Proek, for being here again tonight and sharing with us your plan for this $1.5 million bond. I think we can all agree that one of the top things we hear from our constituents is about the consistency of our roads and sidewalks. And I know we just heard from a constituent today who had gotten injured on a sidewalk. So it's nice to see that we're making this investment in our streets and um roadways and sidewalks i have a question about the mr mcsweeney brought up um why not ask for a larger bond two two million dollars to kind of help us um get to some of these other projects that that are in need of

▶ 38:54 Speaker 3: help i believe this is how it was budgeted in the cip and so um patrick are you able to answer that

▶ 39:24 Speaker 4: question? You're muted. It's acting up. We can hear you. All right. You can hear me for whatever reason. It's been acting up a little bit tonight. That's a great question. We try to do like every other thing is that we're trying to come up with a a mix that works citywide um one of the interesting um dilemmas if you want to call it that is that um we could probably spend five million dollars a year on the roads and still not be where we really want to be um so the objective and it's it is every year as it was this past year is a couple things one is we always seek the climate well to increase their chapter 90 allocation and i think probably every year i can recall typically you hear that i'm increasing it from 200 million to 300 million and and year after year for some reason often most of the time it doesn't materialize that would be a great help secondly is that we do use free cash this past year we used 320 000 of free cash approved by this council to do sidewalk street repair um set traffic radar speed signs traffic studies so we we do make use of that free cash and the goal every year is to is candidly to allocate as much as we can um and through and the mayor would tell you that as well as elena from these other funding sources so that it's just not the bond we're trying to bring up that numbers close to two million as we can get it um and again i want to just emphasize to keep in mind that this is um a critical need as everyone here knows but just as a ladder truck is a critical need um capital equipment public safety is critical need building repairs memorial hall part of the debt program and if we true try clearly to um create that what i've always talked about is that balance so that um maybe everything isn't getting funded 100 but we're at you know we're getting there um 75 plus that's always a strategic goal we can accomplish that year after year after year and have a couple of years that we can put extra revenue towards it um i'm in because candidly uh as everyone's indicated here and so eloquently spoken earlier um the need is there and we just need to continue to try to capitalize on that use every resource we can really did you

▶ 42:18 Leila Migliorelli: have any other questions no thank you so much mr de la rusa for explaining all that um and uh yeah hopefully we can allocate some more resources to this in the future thank you absolutely thank you

▶ 42:30 Jeff McNaught: okay next we have Councilor McMaster you're on mute can't hear you can't hear you but why don't

▶ 42:48 Jeff McNaught: we go to Councilor Grigoraitis we'll come right back to you Councilor Grigoraitis thank you

▶ 42:54 Jen Grigoraitis: Chairman Knott and Councilor McMaster I'll be brief I actually had a follow-up question Mr. della russo to your response to counselor Migliorelli um i guess just an observation that if the recommended best practice for us is two million dollars and we're consistently below that the the gap is just going to grow and while i know we did put a lot of free cash toward um sidewalks and roads this year which was great my understanding for the sidewalks was that that was to catch us up on a backlog of on um of repairs that some of which went back um over a year so i think you know just as we think about the city's bonding capacity and our priorities like how do we get out of this problem where we're sort of consistently playing catch up to meet basic infrastructure needs um we know that free cash ebbs and flows um and if we're really talking about bonding at 2 percent. That seems like a really low rate in order for us to close that gap so that we're at least maintaining existing infrastructure and not playing catch-up.

▶ 43:59 Speaker 4: Great questions. This is – no, it's a matter strictly or candidly of policy. Each and every year when we look at the program, what items are in the queue outside of roads? items do we probably most need to fund and I'll go back to the ladder truck perhaps that wasn't on the radar two years ago it's on the radar now items like that we have to as the model does allow room or those kind of projects to be funded. The other point on the rate itself, 2%, that's projected, illustrated. It's not the rate that we use in the debt model. Specifically, we use 5% for permanent and 3.25% for temporary. Historically, we do better than that. However, I'm going to caution that we do not want to deviate from our practice this has worked so well and assume rates are going to be at that level at the time we actually go to the market it could be a year it could be two years um but before we even permanently bond this the rates if they're going to hold i would um would hope so but with what we've seen in the marketplace with all the and i will say it's fluctuations between um the the COVID-19 impact and all else, it truly, truly behooves the community to take a conservative approach here. One of the orders, actually, it's funny, happens to be on this evening, is the request to the city council to approve 8.4 million of opera money, which is really focused on the COVID-19 and its impact, the pandemic on the community. That would not be here if it wasn't real. And by that, I mean that the sensitivity in the market that everything is not okay. And at times like that, we want to take a step back and say, you know what, if we can get 2% terrific, and to your question, if we see that in the future and holding terrific perhaps we can allocate you know a greater level of bond money to the next time we go up on roads um and however again today i'd be a little bit uh be a lot cautious concerned that i don't want to um make an assumption that i i cannot control i we can technically as a community control the amount that we actually request to be bonded upon the approval with the city council whoever we don't have any control of the market rates so it's always exposure and that's what i have to protect us against but that's an excellent question

▶ 47:03 Jeff McNaught: thank you no further questions thank you council Grigoraitis we'll go back to council mcmaster to

▶ 47:13 Jeff McNaught: see if your microphone is working it's not working yet um you can either um call me uh call uh

▶ 47:22 Jeff McNaught: Mr. Clerk, or you can put your questions in the chat. We can ask them that way for you. We'd be happy to do that. For the time being, I'm going to move on to Councilor Stewart.

▶ 47:35 Robb Stewart: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ms. Perales-Cazales, for being here tonight, as well as you, Mr. De La Russo. You did pretty much answer my question that Councilor De Rita had followed up with, Because I, too, feel as though without understanding the details of finance at a basic level, our money is going twice as far at 2% than it is at 4%. So it seems to be that it is an opportunity, maybe not now, but in the near future, if things stabilize, to take advantage of this. because when you have money as cheap as this you can do a lot with it and that isn't a bad thing when it's this cheap so i would encourage the administration to carefully monitor that and try to take as full advantage as we can within the bounds of constraints that you have of every policy. I did want to come back to Ms. Paroi-Casales. At one point when you were talking to Councilor Thomas regarding some of the partial streets, it's been some experience of certain neighborhoods where there are specific areas that are extremely bad, but it doesn't warrant the whole street to be rated at a lower level overall um and you know there's a couple of situations in my ward and i'm sure you know a lot of people of course the town where uh you know virtually once a month you have to fill potholes and the road is terrible and by the spring it gets all chewed up is there any consideration for addressing those specific areas uh and i know you don't want to go and pay because you're going to repay but when there are certain very focused tactical areas that may make a big difference for the neighborhood is that something that you

▶ 49:38 Speaker 3: can consider so we actually rate the streets street segment by street segment so block by block um gets its own individual rating so there really shouldn't be sections of streets um that are really bad unless it's an unusually long block I suppose but but the way we do our ratings should account for that we do occasionally have streets that will have one really bad area Grove Street last year was a perfect example where we had an area that was just deteriorating very quickly it is on the list for water main work um it was not something that we wanted to fully repave um in advance of its turn because we really needed to do that water main work first someday um and it wasn't at the top of the list for water or for paving so we did do some temporary repairs um and we did the same on upham street maybe three years ago so in in higher travel areas we will occasionally do that uh but we really try not to do that because it doesn't tend to be an efficient use of the funds so we do it really just in extenuating circumstances otherwise we just do our best to patch the potholes try to improve the road condition temporarily and and then when the road deteriorates to the point where it does pop up on the list then we will address it more

▶ 51:09 Robb Stewart: holistically okay i'll take it offline with you to uh um cite a couple of specific examples that

▶ 51:19 Speaker 4: we have and we can go from there okay appreciate working with us thank you thank you mr de la rusa

▶ 51:23 Speaker 4: did you want to mention something so i may and um i appreciate the the opportunity just before i forget i do want to also mention about the refinancing aspect of what we do we're constantly looking to see if there's any debt that we have on books right now that's been permanently bonded typically it's a 10-year window that we like to see if we have a chance to bring it down to a lower rate that's something that we work with for a southwest certifying bank and on a regular basis and catherine can speak to that too but i didn't want to i do want to put that out there that we're not um at all ignorant of the need to do that because it does pay dividends if in fact you can capitalize on that that's all thank you thank you if i can mention one other um

▶ 52:13 Speaker 3: one other item related to the bond question is that another consideration that we have if the council is looking to spend more money on paving in general is that on the streets that we're really only paving because we're doing water work we do have the option of using um a couple years ago we did a loan through the water fund to specifically spend on the streets that we tore up for water work so that is another potential funding source would be bonds from the water fund which you know are they're still loans for the city but it's also a different funding source so just something to think about that we have taken advantage of in

▶ 53:02 Jeff McNaught: the past thank you for that and mr clerk um council mcmaster has put two questions in the chat if you could read those um i believe they're for both director proakis ellis and mr de la rusa

▶ 53:20 Speaker 1: however you you'd like to chime in and answer sure so question one for the 250 000 earmarked for the city hall parking lot will that hinder or interfere with our ability to expand the main street firehouse should a determination be made to expand and build back on the lot especially if we decide to go with a joint public safety building

▶ 53:40 Speaker 3: that's an excellent question and it's one that we we absolutely took into consideration during the design phase of that mvp grant that we got and we did not account for anything in that back area just behind the fire station all the way out to the um to the limit of where the the first two rows of parking are the one right along the building and then there's a travel aisle and there's another row of parking we we didn't have anything in our design in that area assuming that someday that area would be taken up by an expanded building and question two can you explain the

▶ 54:22 Speaker 1: interest rate differential between this bond and the previously proposed salt shed bond yeah i

▶ 54:32 Speaker 4: don't have the salt shed um objection in front of me however throughout the model as i indicated there might be um i don't have a different um coupon rate um technically it reflected in the salt shed at the time it was reported before the council um there is there is that would be what um the certifying bank provided us at that time again it's a projection it's uh an illustration we always however we do the exact same thing um for the road bond as we do with the solid shed as we do with the library we always in the model itself carry the higher rate for purposes of not deviating from the five percent limit for for the city because candidly once you make a determination at the budget hearing as to what will be the debt service for the next year we all need to be as certain as we can that the number that we're allocating will be sufficient to pay the debt the only obligation that has a higher precedent over debt is pension obligation following that is the debt obligation so we tried again as i mentioned earlier and it's and it has worked so well with the city council in particular that supports the approach to to use the higher rate for the purposes of budgeting for illustration purposes you actually may get a rate that may be more actual at the time but again the time is yet to be determined when we're going to market and we simply want to ensure that we're not over committing in any sense any one of these projects at a rate that we can't support well that would candidly hurt other projects that perhaps are in the pipeline that we are slated to be funded um so a great question excellent question um and again we always shoot for the low straight candidly everyone everyone benefits allows more projects to be done in the future and also reduces the cost of the actual costs

▶ 56:38 Jeff McNaught: at the time thank you mr teller so council mcmaster assuming nothing else in the chat

▶ 56:47 Jeff McNaught: um no more questions okay um thank you council mcmaster council uh vice chair eccles

▶ 56:55 Speaker 1: i didn't ask to be put in the queue but thank you must have been waving to someone

▶ 56:57 Speaker 2: uh council Garipay yeah i'd like to make a motion to uh recommend the sort of the full council for

▶ 57:08 Jeff McNaught: passage second second we have a motion to recommend for passage made by council Garipay seconded by vice chair Eccles Mr. Clark will you please call the roll chair McNaught yes vice chair Eccles yes

▶ 57:26 Speaker 1: councillor Tramontozzi yes councillor McMaster he's voted yes in the chat councillor Garipay yes

▶ 57:43 Speaker 1: yes councillor Grigoraitis yes councillor mcgillery yes councillor stewart yes councillor thomas

▶ 57:56 Speaker 1: yes councillor Jamaleddine yes president sanello yes 11 yes the motion passes um we'll be moving

▶ 58:05 Jeff McNaught: Moving on to our next order, which I believe, Mr. DellaRusso, you're with us on this one as well. Thank you, Ms. Armada.