Public Comment

Transcript (~5 min @ 38:20)

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

▶ 38:19 Jeff McNaught: And at this time, I'll move for unanimous consent. If there is no objection to opening public comment, seeing no objection, we are open for public comment and for the public at home.

▶ 38:29 Jeff McNaught: This is the portion of the meeting where anyone from the public can come to speak to anything on the appropriations agenda. We have 1 order on the agenda this evening. Madam clerk. Do we have anyone from the public wishing to speak on this matter?

▶ 38:49 Speaker 2: We do Mr. McSweeney. I'm going to unmute him now.

▶ 38:52 Speaker 3: Thank you. Thanks so much. I've been McSweeney, 160 West Wyoming, just here speaking as me, though. There's only one thing in order on the agenda speaking for that. And I just wanted to make sure that the conversation, which I think is a great one to have. um and i thank the counselors for introducing it i want to make sure we give a shout out to the city's um planning department and the plans that we have that exist i think um for circumstances like this you know we have a master plan um that the residents of the city you know put a lot of time into we have an open space plan we have a complete streets plan um any one of these documents will contain a lot of recommendations for great uses uh uses which the public has weighed in on a lot already um of opportunities like this where you may have a little bit of free cash um and i'll you know highlight two that are certainly close to me um the first is the complete streets plan that was this was this was a list of projects um which was put together in order to get access to the the state's Complete Streets grant program. There's no requirement though that any that you know those those those plan those um those those preferences those projects are complete are done with Complete Streets money right. The city could choose to accelerate any one of those projects um if they felt them to be a priority and the great thing is you know there's already a whole list of Complete Streets projects just kind of waiting there to be to be chosen from. The other thing I'll mention is the city's open space plan. There are and continue to be a lot of vulnerable, privately held open parcels in the city, which for basically decades now, the city's open space plan has been suggesting we fund acquisition of. And since, you know, the 2004 master plan going back that far, we've had parcels that have been on that list, the big one being in Ward 7, the Colucci Estates, which the city has said, hey, we should think about a way to purchase some of these and protect them forever for our residents. And nothing has ever happened. Unfortunately, and, you know, Councilor Thomas word, we lost the Colucci Estates. That open space is gone now, permanently. There's a plan in Councilor McMaster's ward on Montvale that the residents, you know, there were multiple residents who called into the planning board meeting begging this developer who had bought the land to sell it back to them as residents. we shouldn't have residents who are who are offering you know in public meetings and public forums to to be purchasing land back these little parcels that are on our plans for purchase anyways um we should be we should be putting together a program as a city to purchase these i know that there are plans that are in ward seven uh plots in ward seven right now that have residents who want to sell them to the city at assessed value there are a lot of you in your wards have these these parcels in them um and the great thing about these acquisitions is they're you know they're usually available for relatively cheap and you buy them once and then you have them forever so i think it's a really appropriate use of free cash i'd love to see the administration asked about that um and like i said you don't need to continuously fund these things you get a one-time opportunity to purchase them you purchase them and then that's it um but like we've seen in ward 7 and in so many other of our wooded areas recently um once these these these parcels are gone they're gone and as property values go up in melrose as they have been doing um you'll see more and more of them disappear for good and so i really just want to advocate for the open space plan with the parcels that are in that plan and then asking the administration what can be done about preserving some of those parcels forever residents for residents now and in the

▶ 43:17 Jeff McNaught: future thank you everybody you're muted counselor madam clerk i don't see any other hands raised in