ORDER-2022-11 : An Order on the Status of Various Park Commission Projects

Transcript (~32 min @ 1:46:30)

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▶ 1:46:23 Jeff McNaught: passage thank you very much appreciate it next up we have order 2022-11 an order on the status of various park commission projects how's everybody doing tonight thank you for uh the opportunity to

▶ 1:46:40 John McLaughlin: appear and talk a little bit about what's going on at the park commission i think i'll start with

▶ 1:46:53 John McLaughlin: the most recent appropriation from the city council out of the free cash to make some improvements to a few of the fields and playground areas and in melrose we greatly appreciate the opportunity to spend some of the city's money and fix up some of the parks so there are three items that we're looking at right now we have an allotment of money for an inclusive park a pickleball court and then a renovation of the lebanon street softball field all three of these projects are moving right along at our most recent park commission meeting we had representatives in the community who have advocated for the inclusive park appear before the power commission we are clearly going to listen to what they want for equipment and accessibility in the city right now we are bringing in manufacturers of this inclusive playground equipment and we're going to put together a plan to most likely put this project down at the warren street park which is on warren street off of franklin street excuse me sir just

▶ 1:48:04 Jeff McNaught: to interrupt you for one thing if you could just state your name for the record oh i'm sorry john

▶ 1:48:14 John McLaughlin: mclaughlin uh morris park commission thank you uh the second item that we're taking a look at is the pickleball court we've met with a rabid group of pickleball players in the community and we are looking forward to finding some space for them we've got that narrow down to the Foss Park which I think is their preference and we're also taking a look at a possibility to provide that activity at Mary Livermore Park I think that right now Foss Park probably is the likely destination but we're going to continue to explore that and then finally the Lebanon Street Park Joan bell who's been a phenomenal asset to the city of melrose for many years now on these projects is rigorously working through the details of renovating the softball field at lebanon street we think that it's going to be a great facility for the melrose girls softball community to attend and play in and and at the same time we're actually trying to address some field space for the Melrose Grove softball program at Pine Banks Park the board or the council may or may not be aware that several years ago the city of Melrose through special legislation and revenue at Mount Hood participated with Malden and we built a world-class softball field and a track and an all-purpose field at Pine Banks Park and we think that there's more time available for Melrose Girls Softball at that park so along with creating a better environment at Lebanon Street we recognize the need for girls softball to have increased access to fields and we think that's a pretty good

▶ 1:50:14 John McLaughlin: destination for it so those are the easy ones and based on some of the public comment and uh I think the the the bigger question I think going forward for the community is going to be you know what to do with the West Knoll Field and in 2017 prior to a pandemic uh an all-encompassing override initiative and a couple changes in administration uh West Knoll Field was park commission's major priority to this day it remains the park commission's major priority simply because we do not have the field space to accommodate the high school athletes and the youth sport athletes in the city of moros and you know and there is as we're all aware not any real new land for development and our fields largely fall in a floodplain so it has been incredibly challenging to try to solve this problem. I've been looking at this problem for 20 years. We first started to take a look at this in early 2000. So what we have finally been able to do is make a little bit of progress on the West Knoll field. We had Weston and Sampson do something that we had hoped would have been completed in 2018 which is dig some test pits and look at the soil and look at the water levels at the West Mill field to see you know what's going on there and what can be done Joan Bell has made valiant efforts as has the DPW and the city's green team for better than 15 years to try to grow grass in that field and it's proved impossible and we really needed to get below the surface to see was going on with it what was what was happening over the past couple of weeks was Weston and Samson the city's engineers who the city engaged in 2018 for a feasibility study actually you know got into the soil and gave us some information for the first time to really understand what's happening down there there and and I'll get into that in a minute the next phase of the project is to really grind that information and figure out what it means to us right I mean I think you know clearly Zero Waste Melrose and there are other community members that feel that it should be a natural grass field and we have community members that think that it should be a turf field and the power commission you know we'll go through the process and listen to weston and sampson and take a look at our alternatives i think you know we looked at this same problem five years ago we looked at the problem 10 years ago we looked at the problem 15 years ago and we won't find an engineering firm that will come out and tell us that they can build a natural grass playing surface that will allow the use that a turf surface will allow and it's just you know and and we talked to weston and sampson about that at our recent meeting so that clearly when we're limited in our field space and this might be the only viable field for boys and girls soccer boys and girls lacrosse a carryover field for field hockey the ability to play middle school football flag football on a surface i mean we're talking about thousands of hours of programming and kids that are going to be used that are going to be using or or in need of a field and you know and and a solution if there was an all grass solution that could could handle that use you know we would be for it I understand what Sarah Westmoreland was saying and we'll continue to listen to what Weston and Samson and will report back to us. Interestingly, as someone who's been involved in this particular field for almost two decades, we never really knew it was under there until about two weeks ago. And we're still gonna learn what that actually means. But what is under there is essentially two to three feet of soil that is completely unsuitable to grow grass. There is ash, there is dumped material there, there is waste, there is peat.

▶ 1:54:53 John McLaughlin: And what the engineers told us was that in addition to having unsuitable soil to drain, we have a water table in the flood zone that on average is three feet below the upper layer of the grass with a range of one feet one foot to five feet across the entire field area again you know so we've got a situation where we have water that has nowhere to go when the field gets wet we have unsuitable soil to grow grass and we have a pretty good explanation now as to why for 15 or 20 years we haven't been able to grow grass there we've tried crowning it they put a swill in there to help with the drainage you know and it's it's an ongoing issue so um we will have a meeting i think with western and samson in the next couple of weeks when we get their information and their recommendations as far as what their analysis means for a grass surface a turf surface what the compensatory storage and flood storage issues are there and And what it means for permitting and what permits we need and what the approval process is for either project, we'll definitely discuss it at length at the Park Commission meeting and we'll be more than happy to report back to, you know, the Boyd of Aldermen.

▶ 1:56:35 John McLaughlin: Because, you know, one of the opportunities that this meeting this evening gave me the opportunity to speak about on behalf of the Park Commission is that, you know, for the first time in 40 years, the City of Melrose is coming, I'm sorry, the Park Commission and members of the City of Melrose are coming to the Boyd of Aldermen and the Mayor's Office to ask for an investment in high school athletic facilities. and i just want to you know give a brief history on that so uh and and my hope is along with airways melrose and user groups in the community here that we start a real discussion about what the what the children in the city need as far as build space goes we should have had this discussion in 2017 and 18 and we we were clearly sidetracked along with you know the rest of the community many different fronts because of a whole host of issues none the least you know the fact that we've been shut down as a as a community for 18 months but uh the members of the power commission

▶ 1:57:33 John McLaughlin: in nine in around the year 2000 got together and we looked at a community that had the worst athletic facilities in the middlesex league fred greenfield was unusable morelli field had fallen went into disrepair. The Daphne gym, the floor was dead. The Maracu gym was a disgrace. We had no hockey rink to play in. And it was a bad situation. And on top of it all, the city had no money. An override had been tried and failed. And we were left trying to figure out, you know, how do we fix this situation? So one of the areas that gave us an opportunity to correct the situation was the passage of the middle school debt exclusion and along with the middle school you know there were members on the Park Commission myself included that you know advocated that we should push for more than just a new middle school this gives us the opportunity to renovate the Daphne gym or essentially replace it and renovate the Mark Kruh gym and the Initiative was successful and the athletic portion of that middle school Athletic piece was probably six to eight million dollars by the time was done, but the kids got Basketball courts for high school basketball. They got a volleyball venue. They got a wrestling venue They were all new locker rooms built. There were coaches room built

▶ 1:58:59 Speaker 1: And and it was a great

▶ 1:59:03 John McLaughlin: it was a great accomplishment for the benefit of the kids and the city didn't have to take any money out of their operating budget and they didn't have any money in the operating budget to take out that situation persisted for you know the next seven or eight years but the situations didn't get any better in the fields so we made a push to pass special legislation first with the approval in the city of Melrose and then second to the state to take revenue from the Mount Hood golf course and use it to renovate athletic facilities in the

▶ 1:59:39 Speaker 1: community and we were successful with that and the Mount Hood golf course

▶ 1:59:45 John McLaughlin: through you know the excellent management of GMC over the years and the attention that Joan Bell pays to the place has generated the next enough extra revenue to pay about 350 000 a year and in bonds that allowed for the renovation of fred greenfield the replacement of the stands the concession stand that building this day with the bathroom facilities in the back renovated morelli field that had fallen into disrepair gave the boys and girls track team their first home track meeting over 20 years with a new track up at pine banks we put an all-purpose field at pine banks and we gave the girls softball program a phenomenal venue probably one of the best softball fields in the state to play in we next turned our attention to the hockey rink and the group of melrose people including members of the park commission brought together with the city of winchester and we successfully bid on the flynn rank so we have a non-profit that now runs the flynn rank over the past five years we convinced the dcr into putting a six million dollar investment into the flynn rank and kids now have a phenomenal uh skating venue for learn to skate melrose youth hockey boys and girls high school hockey and you know they you know in between the the bonding of uh the other fields and the uh hockey rink was about a 10 12 million dollar investment that did not touch the city of norris's direct budget of finances so and it's been a 20 year to do this and and after 20 years the the last great remaining need is this field and the power commission and the park commissioners were out of tricks we you know we don't have there's nowhere else to go but it continues to be the biggest need in the city and because of changes in environmental law over the past three or four years where environmental commissions have approved artificial surfaces and flood planes by allowing us to use the drainage system as compensatory storage we have a chance to solve this problem and as i as i stated earlier we'll have our ears completely open if the engineers can come up with a way to create a natural grass field that can provide the time and need that the youth community in Melrose has for field space, well listen, I'm skeptical after 15 or 20 years and I'll end this by just simply saying that we're cognizant of environmental issues you know that we're cognizant of the steps that other communities have taken to avoid the rubber pellet issues and you know and the benefit of drainage in that area that the turf drainage system brings so there's there's be a lot of information that we'll look at when western simpson gets back to us we invite the council to come up to any of our park commission meetings and listen and and i hope that tonight kicks off the process of getting the board of aldermen and the administration of melrose i'm sorry the city council and the administration of melrose engaged in helping us solve this problem because at this point we need your help and and it's critical it's been a major issue in melrose it affects virtually every family in melrose whether you've got children playing on it you've got nieces and nephews or grandchildren are playing on it you know we use these venues uh and and and our goal with the park commission and the park commissioners for 20 years has been very simple we want to improve the lives and the opportunities that the kids in melrose have recreationally throughout the city so that's that's my synopsis here and i'm certainly available for any questions that anybody

▶ 2:03:57 Jeff McNaught: has thank you mr mclaughlin i have two people in queue i have councillor Garipay and president sanella we'll start with you councillor Garipay i'm i'm good i was just going to introduce uh

▶ 2:04:06 Mark Garipay: i was just i was just going to introduce uh mr mclaughlin and just explain the reason why uh councillor thomas and i sponsored this order but he did he did a great job explaining it so

▶ 2:04:21 Jeff McNaught: giving us an update thank you thank you councillor Garipay president sanella thank you chair McNaught

▶ 2:04:24 Christopher Cinella: um thank you for being here tonight mr mclaughlin you addressed some of the concerns of the questions that came up in public comment but are there any other options besides using turf with the tire ground up i know when my child comes home from football or lacrosse half a good year tires in

▶ 2:04:46 Speaker 1: my house yep i'm the same way alternatives to that yeah there are there are actually and i

▶ 2:04:49 John McLaughlin: think when Fred Greenfield was renovated that was the predominant fill that was used and the concerns that were raised today have been raised really nationwide on this issue and I personally have spent a lot of time reading about it because I'm curious as to not just the environmental impact but the potential impact that the rubber fill had on the athletes that were that that were actually out on the surface. So what we're seeing in Malden is just on it, you know, there are crushed walnut shells that they're using, there are other natural type of fill material that they're using. It's anticipated that in the next several years, Fred Greenfield will be replaced, the service will be replaced, and that the rubber fill will be removed and replaced with something that is more environmentally safe,

▶ 2:05:45 Speaker 1: I guess, for lack of a better term.

▶ 2:05:49 Christopher Cinella: With respect to the inclusive playground, I think it's great that we're going to do that at Warren Street, but I don't think one is enough. Is there a plan to assess all of our playgrounds? I know it's a money issue, obviously.

▶ 2:06:02 John McLaughlin: Yeah, it's a great question, and it's one that the Park Commission raised.

▶ 2:06:12 John McLaughlin: And we felt that we would listen to the parents who or pushing for this, and I think that the feeling was was that they would like one place for the time being to have as an inclusive playground, but the Park Commission was very clear in our discussion with Joan Bell that we shouldn't renovate playgrounds moving forward without including accessibility and function to the equipment and the space itself it as we get the opportunity to so i think it'll probably be uh initially we'll set up an inclusive an accessible playground at the warren street park and then i think as we move forward we'll see the opportunity to be have more accessible equipment and space in the other

▶ 2:07:07 Jeff McNaught: playgrounds as we renovate them right thank you thank you thank you president sonella uh councillor

▶ 2:07:12 Cory Thomas: thomas thank you mr chairman mr mclaughlin welcome um thank you for all that you do and all the park commission does um to give the facilities in the city that we have um also thanks to the park department and the dpw for maintaining these fields um feasibility study do you have an estimated uh number of responses you've gotten to that feasibility study meaning people that have completed it in this in the community have you seen the numbers of how many people can have

▶ 2:07:40 John McLaughlin: completed so you know there was it was probably a year ago that there was a survey that was sent out by weston and sampson that um came back i i i can't remember the exact numbers i think it was it was substantial enough where we got a pretty good indication of what the community community felt they would like to see happen at that space and there were a number of options were there

▶ 2:07:59 Cory Thomas: two or three different options of of what people would like to see you know did was there a was there a clear-cut direction where that survey was taking i think so so the survey was it was it was

▶ 2:08:11 John McLaughlin: it was broad right so i think that we looked at it at a getting from a couple of perspectives there was clearly advocates for maintaining the spaces as grass there were people who wanted to replace it with a turf field but you know the more encompassing thing that i think we spent some time looking on was there was it you know there was a desire to have uh the walking path or the bike path replaced around the pond you know when we were kids i mean we we knew what it was like right to connect the entire loop around el pond so that we could have some uh a good nice walking path there was you know comments about enhancing the dog park adding bike accessibility to certain areas and bathrooms to the area so there was a lot going on I think that that you know from from that specific point I

▶ 2:09:21 John McLaughlin: think that we didn't see you know any large desire for either grass or turf I think there was more response of what we like to see improved and accessibility in hours on that space was I think the biggest point that came out of it is

▶ 2:09:34 Cory Thomas: there a timeline with the Park Commission or the city with Weston and Samson and what direction we'd like to go or or finalize the direction we want

▶ 2:09:44 John McLaughlin: to go in yeah yeah I think so you know so we are anxiously looking forward to our next meeting with Weston and Samson which should come in the next couple of weeks they owe us you know a digestion of the data that we had you know and from there I think that will most likely have a you know a discussion about what's practical and what meets the needs of the user groups in the community that wants to be there and and you know without discounting walking paths and bike accessibility um there are walking paths in melrose there is bike accessibility in mars our priority is trying to figure out a playing surface that accommodates the needs of the kids right now so we'll i'm sure we're going to be focused on that discussion

▶ 2:10:37 Cory Thomas: and you know as as many people know that you know the the proximity to the pond and other fields uh for the null area um drainage is a top issue um we've got a very wet rain rainy july as i'm sure everyone um can say you know it was it was an astronomical amount of rain that we got this year um the overall drainage seems to be slowing down in that area i don't know if it was because of the rain this year um have you talked to anyone at the dbw about this a number of cancellations occurred on you know nearby morelli field on on the little league field that's nearby uh the west knoll you know in itself is traditionally wet um yeah yeah so so clearly

▶ 2:11:16 John McLaughlin: the spring demonstrated you know the need and the problem at the west side no because the field was basically closed you know for the entire spring season we i'm also aware of the cancellations that occurred at morelli and you know we're digging and we're looking into this and and um i think you know i i personally was under the initial impression that with all this rain the old pond mitigation project where you can lower the pond uh maybe you should have started a little bit earlier and that would have alleviated some of the flooding but as we looked into it we don't think that that's what's going on in morelli where the swale is in left field and i think joan and i and the power commission have discussed getting somebody to get into that area to see if you know what's causing that to remain wet you know and and you know i think that at the appropriate time you know there's a long history of that swill that's out in left field and why it's there and it relates to the floodplain and all these other issues and i think that you know for it seemed to function up until this year and i don't think based on the questions that we've asked and the answers we've gotten it has anything to do with lower in our pond we think that it's got more to do with what's going on in the left field there but we will definitely address it all right uh

▶ 2:12:37 Cory Thomas: and then personally uh as a representative for ward seven um thank you for the consideration uh and and the efforts that are going to the lebanon street park the playground uh and the softball field and thank you so much for advocating for the meadows youth softball league to get onto the pine banks as well um my sons you know played a lot of sports over lebanon street park over at fox park at washington school so to hear the pickleball court is being considered for fox park i know there's been a lot of pickleball being played over fox park over the past you know five or six seven years uh that's the strong sport of melrose yeah yeah i know absolutely so i thank you so much for being here and explaining so much to us thank you council

▶ 2:13:19 Robb Stewart: thomas counselor stewart thank you mr chair thank you mr mclaughlin for being here this evening um So, without discounting the Weston and Sampson study, because I know they're quite good, have we looked at any other options of someone that has implemented a grass field? And the reason why I ask this is when I go to the Weston and Sampson's website and I do a search on natural grass, all I see is them citing examples of changing natural grass into turf I don't see anything where they've done natural grass so it raises a small concern that they may be a little bit leaning towards the the the the turf idea and how are we fully understanding by getting a viewpoint of someone that has implemented similar circumstances a natural grass solution

▶ 2:14:23 John McLaughlin: yeah I think you know I can't read into their website or their past work I can tell you that I think that when Weston and Sampson is speaking with communities about playing services that the two main with three main issues that they're dealing with our most communities built their playing fields and not the most ideal areas most communities don't have enough playing space and most communities acknowledge that the way to optimize playing surface time is with turf you can play in it when it rains you can play in it the minute the rain stops you know you can play in it 12 months a year you know 24 hours a day if you wanted to so I think that you know that's what it comes down to and I you know and and I personally haven't seen in Middlesex League or or beyond recently any communities that are really doing anything but turf and I think that that's probably the main driver you know I mean we could spend and the city has spent in the past two three hundred thousand dollars trying to crown that West Noel field over there they put the swale in they tried to alleviate the flooding the El Pond drainage brought you know project all those efforts were always going to help grow grass in that field and they just haven't and I you You know, and I think that, I don't think it's by Weston and Samson's design. They get paid to design the system and they don't get paid on the construction. All right, so I think that that's just the, for the community needs and the issues that the communities are facing, I just think it's been the more viable solution.

▶ 2:16:03 Speaker 3: Okay, thank you, Mr. McLaughlin, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 2:16:06 Jeff McNaught: Thank you, Councilor Stewart. Do I have any other councilors who would, have any, Councilor Garakoye?

▶ 2:16:12 Mark Garipay: Yeah, I just had one question. Mr. McLaughlin, and I don't know if you have this answer. Do you, does the Park Commission get a report at the end of the year of maybe how many hours of cancellations on the fields due to inclement weather? I know it's various, but the youth organizations may have it more than- Yeah, we don't. I think that, I would hope that this year might be an outlier, but I think we're all a little bit concerned that it's not.

▶ 2:16:41 John McLaughlin: And I think it's a fair question and we can certainly talk to Joan because I know that it was brutal this spring, you know, it was brutal at the Morelli Field, it was brutal at the West Knoll, I know that there were issues at Lewis Monk and I can tell you, you know, quite honestly that the person who carried that weight around the most was Joan, right. She was dying that she couldn't get those fields open for the kids. So I'll definitely ask her, and you know, with climate change and everything else, it's probably something that we should start to track.

▶ 2:17:17 Mark Garipay: Yeah, because it's a residual. I experienced it this year. It's a residual effect. My son might be playing at Pine Banks. They get bumped for the cancellation at either Morelli or the West Knoll. Oh, yeah, it was crazy. No, I know. It just turns into a scheduling. I don't know if there's any financial reimbursement that the youth groups have to give as a result uh playing less games or not i know and of all the springs that the kids wanted to get out and play right you know it was this one so thank you no more questions thank you council Garipay um i

▶ 2:17:48 Jeff McNaught: don't believe i have any other councils in queue what is councillor thomas please on file second

▶ 2:18:01 Jeff McNaught: motion to place on file made by councillor thomas seconded by president sanella all those in favor all those opposed motion passes thank you mr mclaughlin thank you very much