Public Comment

Transcript (~20 min @ 1:21:10)

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▶ 1:21:06 Jeff McNaught: A recording of this will be available for future viewing through the City of Morales' website, and on mmtv3.org. For the folks at home, this is the portion of the meeting where any member of the public may come forward to speak to any item on the agenda this evening for the appropriations. And if there's no objection, I will move by unanimous consent to open the floor for public comment.

▶ 1:21:32 Speaker 2: Public comment is now open.

▶ 1:21:39 Speaker 2: Please step forward, state your name and address for the record. name is jim donahue i live at 31 gooch street melrose thank you mr donahue the floor is yours

▶ 1:21:50 Speaker 2: good evening so thank you all um so once again my name is jim donahue melrose resident um parent of three children two of whom have graduated from melrose high school a third is going to be a

▶ 1:22:03 Speaker 2: freshman this coming fall i'm also president of melrose youth soccer one of the items before you this evening will be an update from the parks commission on a number of items that are a number

▶ 1:22:20 Speaker 2: of initiatives among which is consideration of improvements and potentially turfing the west

▶ 1:22:25 Speaker 4: knoll fields which is both the home to the the the high school team the high school boys team as well as a site for practice and for games for Melrose youth soccer and the

▶ 1:22:35 Speaker 2: larger field as well as the smaller field which abuts the the tennis courts

▶ 1:22:45 Speaker 2: so I wanted to speak to you and fit in in support of considering this moving this initiative forward I recognize there's no vote before the board today but just wanted to take this opportunity to present to you and to to share a little bit more about Miller's youth soccer and some of the areas where this is particularly important to us so the Miller's youth soccer program is a program that's available to kids in grades kindergarten through eighth grade it's an affordable program in fact we when we open up our registrations we openly request that folks who may need financial assistance to come forward anybody who asks the answer is yes we simply waste the fee no no needs requirements so it's really a program that's that's open to all and it's one where we've seen considerable growth in the last numbers of years so in this fall season we anticipate that we'll have slightly below 1,300 kids in those age groups we'll have between 200 and 230 volunteer coaches and probably in

▶ 1:23:57 Speaker 2: neighborhood of about 120 teams that's about a 20% increase from just two years ago and based on where we're seeing the growth which is particularly in both in girls and in the younger age groups we'd anticipate that we'll see a continuation of this growth whether at the same 20% every two years I'm not sure it's going to be to that level but but it's it has been considerable and we'd anticipate

▶ 1:24:22 Speaker 2: that to continue to give a sense of in terms of the use of the field so with that number of teams this fall for example on an average week we'll have about 170 practices and in close to a hundred home games or about half of our

▶ 1:24:38 Speaker 2: teams have to get two practices a week and the others have one practice a week so we're seeing a contingent you know a significant increase in the demand for field use and it's not just limited to our program I think we're seeing an increase in the high school enrollment in sports programs and we're also seeing it in the other youth so youth recreation programs that we have throughout the city when you look at the conditions of the field right now it's got a number of limitations obviously to anyone who lives in Melrose you'll see

▶ 1:25:14 Speaker 4: that it it has challenges when it rains it also is a little bit less flexible

▶ 1:25:20 Speaker 4: than you would typically see in improved fields that would have configurations

▶ 1:25:24 Speaker 2: that would allow you to accommodate multiple different age groups as it relates to soccer but also multiple different sports and the flexibility

▶ 1:25:36 Speaker 2: that gives us allows us to more reliably put kids on on the fields to participate in these recreational activities you know we don't have the same issue with rain

▶ 1:25:47 Speaker 2: we can you know we can play when it's raining as long as of course it's not lightning and it doesn't wind up closing the fields for for use in subsequent games i think if we

▶ 1:26:00 Speaker 2: the the proposals that we would anticipate coming forward for the improvements to the knoll would address many of these things and give access more reliably including it in the evening times we would have lighted fields that could accommodate kids who were in younger age groups which is particularly an issue in the fall as it

▶ 1:26:24 Speaker 2: gets late as it gets dark earlier if we look at this past year in particular I think it's really highlighted the importance of not just soccer I'll speak

▶ 1:26:37 Speaker 4: from that perspective but of these types of outlets to the physical and mental

▶ 1:26:40 Speaker 2: well-being of our kids and their development as human beings in terms of interacting with others and in learning in a non classroom setting some of the

▶ 1:26:50 Speaker 4: dynamics of of being a you know a productive and a contributing member of

▶ 1:26:56 Speaker 2: our society and it's really great developmental activity opportunities so

▶ 1:27:05 Speaker 2: I we're in the absence of trying to address some of the increased demand we're seeing in our sport and in other sports I think we're going to wind up

▶ 1:27:16 Speaker 2: having potentially challenges I'm not sure that we're in any immediate point where we'd be talking about rationing the access to it but it's certainly an increasing challenge I know that was we're doing our planning for the season right now it's a it's a major challenge for us now when we didn't suspect that

▶ 1:27:37 Speaker 2: to increase in the in the future so so once again I'm here to to articulate I think the importance to our program and really to the kids who participate in it

▶ 1:27:45 Speaker 4: so I hope as this issue is discussed over the coming months it's something

▶ 1:27:48 Speaker 2: that you will consider it a priority and and consider making that improvement to our recreational facilities in our city so thank you thank you mrs. Donnie are

▶ 1:28:05 Jeff McNaught: there any other members of the public that wish to speak to the appropriations

▶ 1:28:23 Speaker 2: agenda hi good evening we're from zero waste Melrose Rebecca into Bartolo Tom Middleton and Gina McNeil thank you for the time we're also here to talk about about the alpine project kind of in a more broad sense as most of you know we used to be called the knowledge recycling committee but several years ago we changed our name to zero waste melrose and we just want the city to really kind of make sure they're focusing when they're thinking about the alpine project on that focus of sustainability and zero waste and the importance of keeping our fields usable for our children i have three children in the mellers public schools keeping the focus on grass fields versus turf i understand the appeal of turf is kind of like a knee-jerk reaction of oh it's so pretty and it's easy and um but really to think about it's it's a it's a mat of plastic and and is that what we want our kids playing on is that what we want long term what happens in 10 to 12 years when it needs to be replaced where does all that plastic go and really would like the city to kind of think more long term about the effects of turf versus grass and hopefully focus more on sustainable efforts being a graph keeping the field grass focusing on improving the drainage so that is usable even when it rains you know the whole project as a whole about improving uh the l pond area for all residents and improving the drainage efforts to keep the field usable as grass hi how are you i'm tom middleton two banks place and again i'm working with rebecca and gina and i'm just going to very briefly mention um just um kind of two points and kind of piggyback on what rebecca was saying um and just our feeling where we really want just the conversation heard about a natural grass and soil field. One of our main ideas is that, you know, artificial turf really eliminates any of the benefits of natural grass and soil, and it is our belief that most of the time, you know, when nature is left alone, nature and the ecosystem does a very good job of supporting natural life on our planet. Nature and a natural field are home to insects and wildlife, and as a result of this, a lot of this nature becomes natural filters for air and water. natural field would also help to reduce carbon dioxide and actually release oxygen a natural field and nature cools the environment right obviously a major issue in our world right now recently we had um we had a melrose resident go out and measure the fields on a particularly warm day here in melrose the temperature on the grass west knoll field was measured at 86 degrees Fahrenheit the temperature on the Fred Green turf field was measured at a hundred and forty five degrees Fahrenheit and again just to kind of summarize that one point yeah we just kind of feel that with synthetic you're kind of just smothering nature with plastic and synthetic materials my final point is just that synthetic particles from an artificial turf field often migrate and they go out into the environment which can really contribute to micro plastic pollution which we all know again is a very big deal right micro plastics have been found at the highest peaks and the deepest places in our oceans micro plastics are now being found in the animals we eat which populate our planet and now we are also finding micro plastics in human beings studies have shown that by 2050 there may be more plastic in the ocean than there are fish so again when we look to um you know the l pond redevelopment plan right and we look to the future and what our future wants to be it is our field at the west knoll field which is right next to the pond if it was synthetic could lead to again microplastic pollution would would go right into our pond so again these are some of the reasons you know i've

▶ 1:32:38 Speaker 2: come before you to speak everyone i'm gina mcneil from 97 maple street also a member of zero waste and i wanted to make a couple of additional points about um our concerns and questions

▶ 1:32:49 Speaker 2: about this and product or field um and then make some recommendations to the council and for commission in the city more broadly about moving forward on this idea of improving the

▶ 1:33:00 Speaker 2: western field in terms of additional concerns this steps a bit outside of our specific mission of

▶ 1:33:07 Speaker 2: zero waste melrose but just to add to the conversation that in addition to the environmental

▶ 1:33:11 Speaker 2: and the waste disposal issues associated with artificial turf there are also other public

▶ 1:33:19 Speaker 2: health concerns so for example artificial turf infill uh commonly um is tire from there are

▶ 1:33:29 Speaker 2: other infills as well a number of these types of infills not just the tire crumb but others as well

▶ 1:33:34 Speaker 2: have been documented to contain carcinogens such as lead or excuse me carcinogens heavy metals such as lead and also endocrine disruptors in the form of phthalates and other documented chemicals of concern the data related to chemicals of concern and other things are in this information package that we put together for the city council which i'll be happy to to pass along so certainly the the toxins exposure to children playing on the surface we think should be part of the conversation about what happens with the west knoll field in addition to that we would also like for this project to consider data related to injuries on artificial turf and i know you can do a google search and find a lot of information on both sides of kind of where the injuries are on artificial turf but i did think it interesting that just as recently as the fall of 2020 the nfl players association national football league players association has asked the nfl to make all fields in the national football league natural grass instead of turf due to the higher incidence of injuries documented in their data among nfl players so just for example one of the stats is that non-contact foot and ankle injuries in the nfl are 69 percent more likely on artificial turf fields and then just very recently in the current issue july august 2021 of the journal current current orthopedic practice there's a study that analyzed actually high school data which i understand is relatively less common in this research on turf versus grass but actually looking at high school athletes on 26 different high schools looking at data from 953 different injuries that compared the incidence of injury on grass versus artificial turf and the study concludes that high school athletes are 58 percent more likely to sustain an injury on artificial turf and specifically football soccer and rugby athletes were at a significantly greater injury risk on artificial turf so again outside of the specific mission of zero waste melrose which is we think is important for the broader public health conversation um and where we want to put taxpayer money for our athletic facilities um the and i just want to circle back to the

▶ 1:35:59 Speaker 2: comments that were made earlier by mr donahue that that i think we're very clear that we believe in support improvements at the west knoll field we think that's important for all of the reasons that were stated in terms of flexibility the health and enjoyment of not only milrose youth but you know everybody who likes to use natural spaces which have been you know i think a lifesaver to many people's mental health in the last 18 months or so and the good news is that there is a way to achieve the objectives of this project without artificial turfing the field There have been a number of case studies from municipalities in Massachusetts, specifically Springfield, Marblehead, and Martha's Vineyard, across the island of Martha's Vineyard, that have done a really good job of documenting how they were able to transition to natural grass fields with very little or no use of chemicals in those fields and to have very high quality reliable playing surfaces that are also cost effective so again in this package there's some really good data with costs how much it's actually costing each of these municipalities on a per field basis average it out you know per acre so you can compare across them that i think does a great job of showing that this is possible to get the field that we want but also have it in an environmentally public health friendly way and there are also a number of people in these municipalities who can be resources to city of melrose to our first commission etc in terms of achieving those objectives here in melrose so i really want to underscore that that we support this project but we just want it to be um you know full consideration of a of a natural grass field and that just to wrap up um the the recommendations or the requests that we would make of both the city council and the other decision makers who who are going to be involved in this are really to within the conversations that we've seen today that seems as though the project goal has been stated as to turf the field at the west knoll um and whether or not that's the formal objective that's sort of the way it's been talked about um so our request would be to really shift that to instead of talking about the goal being to turf the field the goal is to find a more to put in a more reliable improved playing surface or playing field there that really serves all of the needs of the community and then part of that process to give equal research evaluation and consideration of the natural grass field as well as synthetic turf we think all of these options should be conclude included but make sure that there's definitely a fair and thorough review of the potential for a natural grass field there um we think that the process should analyze the full life cycle costs of the artificial turf field as real as natural grass so both the installation the maintenance and ultimately the removal and disposal of what happens with either of these to really understand the full cost implications of all of these options and to make sure that when an rfp is eventually developed that it asks for proposals to address both of these options so that a full again a full cost comparison of what's involved in both a natural grass field or synthetic turf field could be

▶ 1:39:29 Speaker 2: evaluated i think those are our key points anything else that's good i guess the last thing i would say and then we'll let you move on with the meeting is um that we do really appreciate and respect all the work that the parks commission has done on moving this project forward and having this meeting tonight it's clearly an important initiative to have an improved field at the with Noel again, which we support and appreciate the efforts that they've made in advancing that conversation forward. Thank you. Thank you all a few moments ago.

▶ 1:39:57 Jeff McNaught: I flashed a note to the clerk that said anyone in Webex, if anybody was wondering what that was before I was on TV, that's only because I want to be sure that we rotate back and forth between in person and online public participation comments. so there's not nobody nobody in queue in webex um is there anyone else that would like to speak

▶ 1:40:25 Jeff McNaught: to the appropriations agenda seeing no one else um at this time i'll move by unanimous consent to close the floor for public comment if there's no objection seeing no objection public comment

▶ 1:40:39 Jeff McNaught: is now closed we do have folks that are not from the council here to speak with us this evening