Public Comment

Transcript (~4 min @ 15:00)

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▶ 14:23 Jen Grigoraitis: All right, we will get started. Good evening. It is 716 PM on Monday, March 22nd 2021. And this is a meeting of the Legal and Legislative Committee. I am Councilor Grigoraitis, the Chair. Joining me tonight are Vice Chair, Councilor Migliorelli, voting members, Councilors Tramontozzi and McMaster, and President Cinella ex officio. Pursuant to Governor Baker's order suspending certain provisions of the Open Meeting Law and the Governor's order imposing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather in one place, this meeting of the Legal and Legislative Committee will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible we will post a comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the city of melrose website and on mmtv3.org at this time without objection i will open the floor for public comment for any members of the public this is the ability to speak to any item on the legal and legislative committee agenda if you wish to speak please raise your digital hand We do have a member. Mr. McSweeney, I'll unmute him now. Hi, everybody.

▶ 15:34 Speaker 3: Mr. McSweeney, 160 West Wyoming. I'm here on behalf of the Ped Bike Committee to comment on Order 2021-99, which is the disposition of the land behind Rising Eagle. Our committee wrote a letter, and I'll just speak briefly on it. We support this order very much. 1 of our 1 of our committee's main focus areas is to promote a pedestrian friendly downtown. If you talk to just about any 1 in Melrose, that's 1 of the best features of our city and it's a feature that we want to protect and promote and enhance. And, like any other dense mixed use downtown foot traffic is the lifeblood. So, anything the city can do to encourage more foot traffic downtown is a good investment. Um, and we very much feel that this type of, um, proposal will do that. Um, further, you know, a thing we want to highlight is that, um. It encourages that foot traffic at the core, right? So, by creating by taking land, which right now exists as automobile parking. Um, and and putting it more towards a human centric use. um you're you're you're definitely encouraging more foot traffic downtown but you're also um you're also encouraging the parking to take place a little bit further out as opposed to like right next to the storefronts um which which creates a safer pedestrian environment and a more inviting pedestrian environment um you know the the the street parking that we have and we have a lot of a lot of parking downtown um there's a cost to having it into into maintaining it and that cost is what it could be right and we're very happy to see um the administration choosing to reallocate um some of that really prime land right next to one of our biggest downtown restaurants um and turn that into land which can be used by by people um so we you know we encourage the administration and the council to continue to find ways um to create those downtown gathering spaces i think this is a great example of it the pedestrian of the pedestrianization of central terrace is a great example of it um and these these things are certainly you know more pressing during covid um when we need safe outdoor spaces but the great thing about um using that main street land for people is that um those benefits will last forever um and Hopefully, we see some of these things starting to happen more long term. That's exactly why our committee members donated hundreds of hours last year to building the Main Street parklet and we're really excited to potentially have this patio join our downtown. So, thanks everybody. Appreciate it.

▶ 18:32 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you Mr. McLean. Do we have anyone else wishing to speak in public comments? No one is raising their digital hand. Okay, without objection, then I will close public comment. Um. Our 1st order before us tonight is order 2021 dash 97, amending article 7 section 198 dash 20 of the revised ordinances of the city of Melrose entitled sustainable food containers and packaging. Do we have anyone from the administration we do? So, in anticipation of that, I'll entertain a motion to suspend the rules.