ORDER-2021-122 : City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2022 in the amount of $91,000,522.33 (Ninety-One Million, Five Hundred Twenty-Two Dollars and Thirty-Three Cents).

Transcript (~22 min @ 2:46)

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

▶ 2:23 Jeff McNaught: closed if there is no objection I will move by unanimous consent to suspend the rules so that we may speak with our friends from the assessor's office the building inspector and any other colleagues that we have here this evening seeing no objection the rules are now suspended and we have before us us this evening. First is the Order 2021-122, the City of Melrose operating budget for fiscal year 2022, in the amount of $91,522.33. First up this evening, we have the Assessor's Department, that is Department 141 and we have our City Assessor, Mr. Wilcox coming into the room he'll also speak on department equipment. Okay good evening everyone.

▶ 3:31 Speaker 1: Yeah it's been a heck of a year for I think every department but I'll just kind of review what the assessing department does. We're responsible for all tax valuation on the local level. So real estate wise we're looking a little over six billion dollars in real estate. I have an office staff of roughly three people with a part-time GIS tech. As far as what we do from day to day, we review every sale that comes in. We review all building permits and we basically value the whole city up to market value every year. So it's a very busy department even in COVID. It's been very busy. I just want to thank my staff this year. They've been unbelievable. um sarah uh my assistant assessor janet my head clerk and then also um jane who's uh my gis um coordinator and uh she just helps with the city-wide mapping so uh for the most part what you're seeing tonight is a level-funded budget the only line item that's actually gone up this year is based off contractual step increases longevity or sick leave by buyout so for the most part uh everything's level funded other than the salary and wages but i'm here to answer any questions that anyone might have and um please feel free to ask questions thank you mr wilcox

▶ 4:58 Speaker 2: do the counselors have questions or comments for mr wilcox councilor Grigoraitis thank you

▶ 5:06 Jen Grigoraitis: chairman thank you mr wilcox for being here i just wanted to take a moment to thank you for your service to the city of melrose i know friday is your last day with us and you have done an incredible job i think often quietly and behind the scenes and moving us forward as a municipality

▶ 5:26 Jen Grigoraitis: and our reliance on technology and data i know you were the lead architect of the covid19 information hub and that we actually won an award for that website um and the just level of professionalism and um uh due diligence that your office shows i know that's under your

▶ 5:41 Jen Grigoraitis: leadership and it's a huge loss for this community i'm excited to see what you do next i know you're you're moving on to a statewide office, but I just wanted to say thank you for all that you've done for us and you will be missed.

▶ 5:54 Speaker 2: Thank you. Any other councillors?

▶ 6:00 Jeff McNaught: Mr. Wilcox, I just want to echo what Councillor Greger just said. I know you and I personally haven't even had a chance to get to know each other well, but just seeing your work since joining the council has been beyond impressive. You will be sorely missed in this community. You're a huge help to this council, you're a huge help to everyone in Melrose. If everyone knew just exactly how spectacular job you did, there'd be a lot of people grabbing at you as you tried to leave town on Friday. But we won't tell them anything. We'll let you go quietly and wish you the best. But really, we're very fortunate to have had you. Thank you.

▶ 6:44 Speaker 3: Motion to move to the bottom line.

▶ 6:48 Speaker 2: Second.

▶ 6:51 Jeff McNaught: Motion to move the bottom line made by Councilor McMaster, seconded by Vice Chair Eccles, and this is bottom line 141.

▶ 7:08 Speaker 4: Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Chair McNaught? Yes. Vice Chair Eccles? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor Garipay?

▶ 7:18 Speaker 4: I'll come back. Councilor Grigoraitis? Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Sinella? Yes.

▶ 7:35 Jeff McNaught: Councillor Garipay? He's actually in as an attendee now. Madam Clerk, can we bring him in?

▶ 7:42 Speaker 4: Yeah, let's try it this way. You might echo with two access points. Councillor Garipay,

▶ 7:49 Speaker 4: can you hear us? Yeah. We just took a, we're moving the bottom line of Departments 141. Can you hear me?

▶ 8:03 Speaker 3: Yes, almost. Thank you.

▶ 8:05 Speaker 4: Okay. Nine, yes.

▶ 8:07 Jeff McNaught: Okay. The motion passes. We also need to, I'll entertain a motion to move line 930, and that's the department equipment for the assessor's office.

▶ 8:24 Speaker 2: Does anyone want to make that motion?

▶ 8:27 Speaker 5: Motion to move the bottom line on 930, line 930. Second.

▶ 8:33 Jeff McNaught: Motion to move the bottom line on 9-3 made by Councilor Delegate, seconded by Councilor Jamala Dunne, but Councilor Stewart had his hand up, so on discussion.

▶ 8:45 Robb Stewart: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was just going to make a motion. I defer to Councilor Delegate.

▶ 8:51 Jeff McNaught: Thank you, Councilor Stewart. If there's no further discussion and I see no hands, Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll?

▶ 8:58 Speaker 4: Chair McNaught? Yes. Vice Chair Eccles? Yes. Counselor Treyman Tosi? Yes. Counselor McMaster? Yes. Counselor Garipay? Yes. Counselor Grigoraitis? Yes. Counselor Stewart? Yes. Counselor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Cinella? Yes. 9 yes.

▶ 9:27 Speaker 2: Motion passes. Thank you, Mr. Wilcock for being with us today. Thanks a lot.

▶ 9:36 Jeff McNaught: Okay. Next, we have the building inspector, Mr. Johnson, is coming in. That's Department 241, and again, line 930 for department equipment.

▶ 9:58 Jeff McNaught: I'm here, I think. Can you hear me? We can see you and hear you, Mr. Johnson. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. If you'd like to have the floor to give us a brief overview, please feel free, and then any counselors can ask you questions if they feel so. Sure. For those at home that don't know me, my name is Paul Johnson. I'm the Director of Inspectional Services, the Building Commissioner in the Zoning Office of the City of Melrose.

▶ 10:29 Speaker 2: First, if I may, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my Inspectional Services team, Assistant to the Director of Inspectional Services, Kathy Elphin, Inspector of Plumbing and Gas, Kenneth Rogers, the inspector of wires and sealer of weights and measures, William Katowski, and local building inspector, Steven Doucette, for their dedication and hard work, especially during the pandemic. Within the first few weeks of the pandemic, my staff and I were able to develop a system in which we could receive, process, accept payments, and issue all ISD permits. As an example, we issued over 3,000 permits and provided over 4,000 inspections during the pandemic and collected almost $1.4 million in fees. Most of those inspections were or a majority of the inspections were in-person inspections. I'd like to take a moment and focus on those inspections because I want to recognize and commend my inspectors for putting themselves in harm's way. They were going into people's homes during the pandemic and exposing themselves to potential risks. So I really I think you know people don't realize when they think public safety servants or essential employees that the level of service they and the dedication they have. So I really want to commend them for that. that said the ISD department is responsible for issuing all permits providing all zoning determinations and we're responsible for the health and safety of the community by by performing effective code enforcement our goal is to provide the residents of Melrose with a timely and quality service and at the same time to protect them there's no way to quantify The amount of accidents and fires prevented because of effective code enforcement.

▶ 12:46 Speaker 2: And dedicated inspectors, my, my department consists of 2, full time employees, 2, part time employees in 1 per DM employee. Who you will see in the budget, uh, we are. Moving lateral to a part time position. In the previous 20. The initiative. 2,862 permits with an estimated construction cost of 78,301,000 dollars performed over 35 inspections. And collected approximately 698,000. And fees and 21 as of. Today is issue 22,959 permits. With an estimated construction cost of 75Million. Little over 75Million and performed approximately 3436 inspections. We collected approximately 1.3Million dollars in fees. Within our budget tonight for the coming fiscal year, there are no major changes with the exception of. You will see a decrease in the professional line item and an increase in the salary line. This is the due to the fact that we're laterally moving our per diem inspector to a 24 hour part time position. To help keep up with the demands. And I will open the floor to any questions.

▶ 14:22 Speaker 2: Yes, Council.

▶ 14:27 Maya Jamaleddine: Councilor Dermalegui. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Mr. Johnson. I know through previous experience how much you helped us to get approval and get us facilitate our Um, um, license to be able to get the project going, um, comparing to, uh, prior to the pandemic, um, the numbers of projects that has been done in Maros. Is it is there a major increase? And what is. What would you say the number of increase if they were.

▶ 15:10 Speaker 2: Well, in 20. Which was the last fiscal year we issued 2862 permits. As of today, and we have 2959 comments. And that's not including what's in the queue to be put into our system.

▶ 15:34 Maya Jamaleddine: For the remainder of the month. Okay. I know we received some of the emails and, you know, um, some of our constituencies reach out to us residents, um, about. projects that they are uh they're looking to um accomplish during this year uh in their home whether addition because of the pandemic and working remotely or whether finishing their basement um how um what is the support that um your um department was able to provide to these residents i know they some of them tell that um they had to delay some of the work because of the pandemic and because of the approval yeah i would say that within the

▶ 16:21 Speaker 2: first few weeks of the pandemic back in march of 2020 i believe it was there was a a time period where we were trying to get up to speed um and and develop a way to accept permits and do all that and we accomplished that so uh you know any delays so let me back up and just say for the state building code they allow us 30 days to review and respond to a permit application our goal is never to have anybody wait 30 days for a permit some of the projects that have come along in the past in the most recent past the complexity of the projects have grown the size of the projects have grown thus the review times grow. You know, if you look at a project such as the one on Essex Street that

▶ 17:30 Speaker 2: just was approved recently right outside City Hall, that project may have taken the architects and the development team close to a year to develop and they've done it every day for almost

▶ 17:50 Speaker 2: For me to take those plans and now look at them, it takes more than a week. It takes more than 2 weeks. It takes upwards of 3 weeks, you know, and they expect us to turn those around, which we do the best we can.

▶ 18:02 Maya Jamaleddine: Absolutely, so are we, you know, based on the number of employees that you guys have that your department have is it are you able to cover all this increase of permits that were submitted to your departments?

▶ 18:18 Speaker 2: Yes, as a result of the increase, we are now. Moving our per diem inspector to a 24 hour.

▶ 18:30 Maya Jamaleddine: Part time inspecting. Okay. And what is the difference between so, if we're going to keep this employee as compared to have them for her as a full time? What is the difference in terms of the budget?

▶ 18:46 Speaker 2: How much the, the.

▶ 18:50 Speaker 2: You'll see a slight decrease in the professionals. I think it was around 11,500, which we allocated over to the position. And then the, between. The fees, the permit fees and the revolving permit fees.

▶ 19:10 Maya Jamaleddine: That will cover the rest of the cost. Okay. How many hours? How many hours did the. Employee worked last this year.

▶ 19:17 Speaker 2: So, the per diem inspector was. Per inspection, we didn't keep we don't we paid them per inspection. Okay, so they were the inspector was out in the field. All the time I had no availability to use him in office to process permits and do other things. For me, by bringing them in, it'll by bringing the inspector into the office. It gives him office time now I can take some of that. Workload as far as reviewing permit applications and and put it on him to.

▶ 19:57 Maya Jamaleddine: Quicken the times. Yeah. And how many hours are you looking to. Um, but as part time. 2424. Okay. Thank you so much for being here with us tonight.

▶ 20:09 Jeff McNaught: Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Jamaleddine. Were there any other councils in queue? I didn't see any.

▶ 20:19 Speaker 2: Councillor Garipay?

▶ 20:23 Speaker 3: Yeah, I just want to thank Mr. Johnson for his work and his staff's work.

▶ 20:25 Mark Garipay: I actually had some work done over the past year, too, and they were very helpful and responsive, especially when we had to put the project on hold. At this moment, I'd like to make a motion to move the bottom line.

▶ 20:39 Speaker 5: Second.

▶ 20:41 Jeff McNaught: Motion to move the bottom line made by Councilor Garipay, seconded by Councilor Grigoraitis. And this is line 241. A discussion. Seeing none, Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll?

▶ 20:58 Speaker 4: Chair McNaught? Yes. Vice Chair Eccles? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor Grigoraitis? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Cinella? Yes. 9 yes.

▶ 21:26 Jeff McNaught: Motion passes. We'll also need to, Mr. Johnson, we're just going to do another quick vote on 930, the department equipment For inspection services, what is the well of the committee on that?

▶ 21:41 Robb Stewart: Sure, I'll make a motion to move 9 item 9 to.

▶ 21:47 Jeff McNaught: 0, to the bottom line motion to move 9, 3, 0, and functional services made by Councilor Stewart. 2nd, if I counsel technology, Madam clerk, we please call the roll.

▶ 21:59 Speaker 4: Chairman not yes. Yes. Vice chair. Yes, yes, counselor Tramon tozy. Yes. Counselor McMaster yet. Counselor Gary pay yes. Counselor Greg, right? Yes, yes. Counselor Stuart yes. Yes. Conflict. Yeah, president, yes.

▶ 22:24 Speaker 2: Fine, yes. Thank you. Mr. Jonathan for being with us this evening. If, if I may, I, I did neglect to. And through the chair, I did some good news. Is we're moving rapidly towards a new online permitting system. And hopefully we will have that. Available to the public sometime the end of August. So, keep an eye out for that if I don't want to further discussion tonight. I know you have a long night ahead of you if you have any questions or anything regarding that. Please feel free to shoot me an email and I'll be happy to answer any questions you have with respect to that. But again, hopefully it'll be available for the public hopefully by the end of August. Where if we can go right on to our website, submit the application, everything is going to be automated and get a quick review. So that should. Alleviate a lot of traffic coming into city hall and. Help us with our efforts to try to go paperless and that's all I have tonight. I thank you. Thank you for your time. Have a good night. Thank you. Mr Johnson appreciate that.

▶ 23:45 Speaker 2: The revolving account well, 1st, we're going to move to hold.

▶ 23:49 Jeff McNaught: The budget and committee, then they're evolving accounts. So. I'll entertain a motion to hold the order 1, 2021 dash 122 in committee.

▶ 24:02 Mark Garipay: I'll make a motion to hold 2021-122 in committee. Second.

▶ 24:08 Jeff McNaught: Motion to hold 2021-122 in committee made by Councilor Garipay, seconded by President Cinella. That is the city's operating budget being held in committee. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

▶ 24:21 Speaker 4: Chair McNaught? Yes. Vice Chair Eccles? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor McMaster?

▶ 24:30 Speaker 3: Yes.

▶ 24:31 Speaker 4: Councilor Garipay? Yes, yeah. Councilor Grigoraitis? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Sinella? Yes. 9 yes. Motion passes.