ORDER-2021-52 : An appropriation from Free Cash account number 01-324001 in the amount of $93,257 to various accounts as set forth here in.

Transcript (~39 min @ 1:38:44)

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

▶ 1:38:42 Jeff McNaught: Moving on to the next and final order, we have Order 2021-52, an appropriation from Free Cash, account number 01-324-001, and the amount of $93,257 to various accounts is set forth herein. and I'm just going to read what here in means and I'll read the account numbers as well for the record zero one three zero one two dash five four seven one zero zero is the Essex agricultural cost that we pay for students to from Melrose to attend that school. Essex Agricultural accepted three incoming freshmen for school year 2021. 2020-2021, in addition to one returning senior, the fiscal 2021 budget estimated one returning student and one new acceptance based on information provided to the city's budget at preparation. This appropriation will make the budget whole for fiscal 21 for four students the I'm just going to read these all off and then we'll bring in the appropriate people for each item 0 1 2 1 1 2 5 3 5 7 0 0 appropriation request that is to fund replacement of the current police department guns and ammunition 0 1 2 4 012412-529000, appropriation requested to accommodate the volume of inspections. 012411-513000, appropriation requested to account for unanticipated overtime costs. Now, one thing I realized I did in reading those was I didn't give you the amounts. So let me just give you the amounts really quickly that add up to the 93257. The Essex Agricultural to fund the four students is $39,757. The upgrades for the current department guns and ammunition is $26,000. The inspection professional services appropriation is $25,000. The inspectional salary, which is the unanticipated overtime cost, is $2,500. That brings us to the $93,257. All that being said, first,

▶ 1:41:36 Jeff McNaught: we will start off with the Essex Agricultural Appropriation. I believe we have Mr. DellaRusso with us this evening, the city's auditor.

▶ 1:41:50 Speaker 1: You should be in the room now whenever you're ready. Mr.

▶ 1:41:59 Speaker 4: Can you hear me? Hello? Can you hear me? Yes. So we can. Yes. Yes. Good evening. Good evening and happy new year and I hope things go. Well, much better for us this year and. For the whole, the whole city as a whole, hopefully have been exciting and a progressive year and I'm looking forward to that. Yes, if I may, we typically on this particular. Count here, we seek to identify the number of students that would be from Melrose that would be attending the Essex North regional agricultural and technical school district. And in the past, the superintendent. Is able to work with us and try to come up with a determination. She did that actually. Last April, and she actually said to have in front of me right here. April 24th that she anticipated 1 student. But she suggested we make it for 2 students just in the event of a. You know, a change, which we often see, sometimes we see the number of students go from 4 to 2, it goes just the opposite. And we've had years that that's happened. We've had available funds in that line because less students attended than we anticipated. So, we did budget accordingly with the 1 that she was sure of and 1 buffer. if we get a notice back in august 25th um 2020 that the student enrollment um it will be four not two um so that change and again unfortunately um like the municipal world itself sometimes the change doesn't play to our time frame it didn't hear again but um it's simply a matter of uh funding the additional two students that are attending from melrose that we require to fund

▶ 1:43:52 Jeff McNaught: to make it whole that's all it is thank you mr doloroso do we have any questions from counselors

▶ 1:44:01 Jeff McNaught: on this appropriation seeing seeing no hands raised what is the will of the committee

▶ 1:44:08 Jeff McNaught: i'm sorry this is all one order that's why this is confusing okay um mr doloroso are you also are you speaking on all of these um appropriation requests in this order

▶ 1:44:24 Speaker 4: I'm speaking specifically to the regional school and overall free cash in general. Question surface, but I do believe that the representatives are here from the inspection services department as well as the police department. To address a specific request, but any questions on free cash overall or a program. Obviously, the city council graciously can ask me any question they'd like.

▶ 1:44:49 Jeff McNaught: Right. I think it might make sense to leave you in the room, and I believe we might have one question from Vice-Chair Eccles.

▶ 1:44:57 Speaker 5: Go ahead, Mr. Vice-Chair.

▶ 1:45:00 Jack Eccles: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for being here, Mr. Taylor. So yeah, thanks for giving us the opportunity to ask questions about free cash. This is probably one of the first of many orders we're going to see. So just for everyone's clarity, either before or after um approving this kind of what is our free cash situation from next year and what would we be left with after we approve this this 93 000 before us yes um

▶ 1:45:30 Speaker 4: again good evening well in the event that um the initial balance in free cash is 5 million 20,783, so had the council approved the entire request, you would have had a balance of 4,877,526, that did not happen, you took off 50,000, so you can add that back in. so um that works to the favor of the balance and free cash itself we do have the purposes of conversation we do have some placeholders that i think the council should be made aware of overall and the scope um and the largest thing um through the chair the 1.5 million dollars as a placeholder for snow and ice um if people recall back in 2015 we had probably one of the worst um winters and cost-wise was over two million dollars almost 2.2 so with the current budget that we have of 675 we're having a placeholder 1.5 million which will bring it just under 2.2 million in snow and ice anticipated expenses however again we will not know that number until time moves forward and we can see how the winter treats us so there that's a large placeholder we also um obviously to the council's information we have a placeholder of a hundred thousand dollars for the racial diversity um training that we talked about prior to that we also have placeholders for trees radar speed lights etc and again one of the things i'd like to just um bring up if i may at the outset because i think it might be good timing um this is really a a a free cash program it's not how do you use money that you have available to spend just for the sake of spending it we always try to outline it in the in the scope of an actual program what is what does that mean that means there has to be balance so that at the end of the day we can say as a community we did the right thing fruitfully with the available funds that we had and a part of that would be to put funds again into different stabilization funds different savings how does he we have to be considerate of how the outside world looks at us how do the rating agencies look at us how does the department of revenue look at us how does the community look at us are they prudent are they fiscally responsible so i'm so pleased that the council's taken time and given the administration a lot of insight as to what the they believe that they'd like to see in the community that has phenomenal merit and phenomenal benefit it helps guide the program and at the end of the day you can i really sincerely hope we all can say this is a balanced approach this is the best you can get and and i take every dollar very sincerely as is this the best use of that money see the yes or no and does it benefit the community and the objectives of the communities so it's just part of a larger program um and again we have uh we intentionally hold off as much as we can to even come into the council until after we get more um a sense of uh where we're going to end up with the snow and ice deficit because obviously that can alter what's available for other programs and other initiatives and that's that's practice that's the right way to do it um and and so this is i think the very first step in that process and i'm hoping that overall we can put together a phenomenal program this year that's going to please everyone and touch on things for each person and each um what perhaps that'll be a benefit thank you mr

▶ 1:49:55 Jeff McNaught: delarusso um is there any other questions at this time if not we're going to bring in uh chief lyle i believe in now chief can you hear us i can hear you thank you for being here tonight

▶ 1:50:12 Jeff McNaught: chief um i don't know if your video is not on i don't know if you want to turn it on um

▶ 1:50:28 Speaker 5: either way we can hear you you see me now there we go thank you thank you and then first off i'd like to thank the mayor and i'd like to thank president sanella for their comments at the the beginning of the meeting, they were well stated. Thank you. Excuse me, the City Council as well as United Front. Thank you. This order is an order that was put forward last spring. It's carried concurrent. It's our weapons are 12-14 years old. The big thing for me is the warranties expired on them about five years ago, and it's more cost-effective to replace versus refurbish. I'm available for comments, questions.

▶ 1:51:11 Jeff McNaught: Thank you, Chief. Is there anyone? Counselor, regardless.

▶ 1:51:18 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you, Chairman McNaught. Thank you, Chief Lyle, for being here tonight. I'm very much in support of moving forward with this. I did just want to highlight for the public and for my fellow counselors that i had requested some information from the administration regarding the dei needs assessment that had become linked to this order back in the spring and we did receive a concise yet informative and very digestible memo from chief of staff prendergast informing us that the city has received seven proposals from um various consultants to conduct that needs assessment and is anticipating moving into the contracting period very shortly. And I also appreciate Mr. Calaruso highlighting the $100,000. That was also a part of a memo that the council received in June. So I just wanted to make sure we all had that information and that we brought that into the public realm as well. So thank you again, Chief. That's all. Thank you,

▶ 1:52:23 Christopher Cinella: Councilor Grigoraitis. President Sinella. Thank you, Chairman Knott. I would be in support of this order as is. And I think that we should have investments in both the tools of the trade of a police officer as well as invest in DDI. And we can do both and we should do both. And I want to thank Councilor Ritter-Wright as well as Councilor Migliorelli who both have been seeking updates where the administration is at on the appropriation for the DEI and I know many of our residents have been seeking that update as well. So I would be in support of this as is. Thank you. Thank you,

▶ 1:53:09 Jeff McNaught: President Cinella. Do we have any other questions for the Chief Counselor Jomala Jean? Thank you,

▶ 1:53:17 Maya Jamaleddine: Chairman. Thank you, Chief, for being with us tonight. Again, also thank you for your patience and answering all our questions um you mentioned that these firearms were warranty was expired five years ago um can you remind us if uh this was because we couldn't renew the warranty or is it

▶ 1:53:43 Speaker 5: non-renewable um it's it's a it's a one-time one-time warranty the initial warranty is 10 years and then it's six years on the sites which is a different part of the weapon These are handguns, by the way, for everybody's information. They're Glock Model 23. They're a .40 caliber. The new ones would be a 9-millimeter. They're more cost-effective to purchase, as well as the ammunition that is supplied for them.

▶ 1:54:09 Maya Jamaleddine: I see. So, to say that we move forward with this order, are these the new firearms that we're going to be getting, purchasing, think would come with a warranty and for how long?

▶ 1:54:25 Speaker 5: Yes, it would be a 10-year warranty on the frame of the thing, as well as the sites is a six-year warranty. They seem to fill most sites.

▶ 1:54:36 Maya Jamaleddine: Can you remind the public of what is the features of these new firearms? Is it similar to the ones that we have? What's the differences?

▶ 1:54:49 Speaker 5: It's the same similar type of firearm. It's a smaller caliber is the easiest way to describe it. The smaller caliber.

▶ 1:55:01 Maya Jamaleddine: And I appreciate that. Can you explain a little bit more about it?

▶ 1:55:06 Speaker 5: Certainly, certainly.

▶ 1:55:07 Speaker 1: When you say smaller caliber, for those that who not very familiar with that, would you be able to explain more?

▶ 1:55:18 Speaker 5: The main point behind this is the military uses a 40 caliber and the ammunition for our firearms is difficult to obtain, and the costs have gone up considerably over the years because of the military's operations around the world. So the FBI did a study several years ago, and they said that the 9-millimeter, which is a smaller version of a similar type automatic firearm, is more cost-effective and easier to obtain ammunition. Does that help?

▶ 1:55:51 Maya Jamaleddine: Perfect. Thank you so much.

▶ 1:55:53 Speaker 5: You're welcome. Any other questions for the chief?

▶ 1:56:04 Shawn M. MacMaster: Council McMaster. Thank you. Mr. chairman. Good evening. Chief just for the public at home. So they understand going from the Glock model to a 9 millimeter. Is it fair to say that that move is consistent with the larger steps that we're seeing in policing both at the local and state level to demilitarize? It's a term that has been used a lot in the public with respect to equipment provided to police departments that that changing from a clock to a 9 millimeter is 1 step at what has been called demilitarizing police departments.

▶ 1:56:42 Speaker 5: It's here to say that this, this is don't forget the federal level as well. This FBI did a lengthy study on this. And that's available and if anybody wants it, I'll certainly see to it that you have it. You're spot on that. You speak that council.

▶ 1:56:57 Shawn M. MacMaster: And then my only other question chief, as you talked about the cost effectiveness of going to the 9 millimeters, do we have an armor that we employ at the police department?

▶ 1:57:06 Speaker 5: So, Sergeant David is the armor for the police department with. His assistants, Robert man, for the middle school as well as Levi, the friends are a gentleman for patrol.

▶ 1:57:19 Shawn M. MacMaster: So, if there was a problem, a malfunction, some operability issue with 1 of the current firearms that are 15 years old with the armor, take the 1st step at trying to fix that in house. And then if so, and if that was unsuccessful, would we then be forced to hire a gunsmith to try to fix it?

▶ 1:57:43 Speaker 5: If this allocation was not passive, yes, it's 1st, the 1st step is to repair it in house. If not, we have to ship it out.

▶ 1:57:53 Shawn M. MacMaster: 1 of our vendors to have it repaired and is it expensive to have a vendor try to fix a 15 year old gun?

▶ 1:57:57 Speaker 5: The approximate cost to rebuild 1 is 250 dollars plus shipping and I don't want to say how we ship it.

▶ 1:58:09 Speaker 5: Okay, thank you. Thank you. Council McMaster anyone else for the 1st time with the chief.

▶ 1:58:18 Christopher Cinella: Okay, President Sinella. One quick question, Chief. You have to certify a couple times a year, so, and I know getting new firearms, you'd have to certify again. Is that, have you already done that?

▶ 1:58:33 Speaker 5: We qualify three times a year. We'll start in the fall, which is our annual qualification, then we do one in the spring, and then we try to do a scenario-based set up at one of our vacant buildings in the community so it's actually hands-on set up as a classroom an office setting so we do scenario based so this will be an additional one to qualify everybody with these new firearms so I'll reach out to the sheriff's department we've been very very accommodating they have a trailer we'll be able to bring this right to the police department Bobbin instead of an eight-hour drill it would be a four-hour drill okay I have

▶ 1:59:14 Christopher Cinella: no further questions but with that I make a motion recommend passage check it

▶ 1:59:32 Jeff McNaught: we have a motion by president this is five or four different chunks of free cash that are all part of one order so we'll be waiting till the end to vote on everything so next up uh thank you chief i don't believe anyone else has any questions for you thank you for being with us tonight next we'll be bringing in uh the building inspector paul johnson

▶ 2:00:08 Speaker 5: i believe thank you coming in now good evening thank you for having me

▶ 2:00:16 Speaker 5: good evening mr johnson thank you for being here let's see if we get the video going for me

▶ 2:00:30 Speaker 5: there we go all right thank you thank you floor is yours all right tonight's uh with

▶ 2:00:38 Speaker 5: respects to professional services um this is an account that we have for an as needed inspector he's paid per diem per inspection typically we we've done this in the past probably the last since I think 2008 approximately and the last couple of years we've had to come earlier than before typically we're usually in around February asking for money to finish out the year because of the volume inspections so this year we're here as the volumes have increased and we've exhausted the

▶ 2:01:21 Speaker 5: the account and as to the overtime account that is for our electrical or plumbing and gas inspector or building inspector when they're called out on an emergency basis during typically during a weather event windstorm or something or heavy rain event where we have a lot of damage trees down and whatnot that affect electrical services, leave people without power, or trees through houses, that type of thing. So we're called out after hours, sometimes one, two, three o'clock in the morning. And we've exhausted that due to past weather events. So to get us through to the end of the year, we've anticipated a number of events. So hopefully we'll be spot on and won't have to come back.

▶ 2:02:21 Speaker 5: And I'm open for any questions.

▶ 2:02:25 Jeff McNaught: Thank you, Mr. Johnson for that summation. First up we have Vice Chair Eccles.

▶ 2:02:31 Jack Eccles: Mr. Johnson actually answered my question. I raised my hand and then he answered my question right after, thank you.

▶ 2:02:37 Jeff McNaught: You're welcome. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. Next up we have Councilor Stewart.

▶ 2:02:42 Robb Stewart: Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Mr. Johnson for joining us at a rather late hour tonight. I appreciate your patience. Mr. Johnson, over the past fall, I received several questions slash complaints from my constituents in my ward, I'm in ward three, I represent ward three, as to the delays that were associated with their inspections. So I'm curious to hear if this is going to help With any remaining backlog that you may have, and if so, could you elaborate on what the backlog is? So we can set expectations accordingly for anybody else that are waiting for inspection services. I mean, some of these were indicating that there was several months in a backlog and I understand how busy work because everyone was taking on their projects, but it's something I think would be helpful to address with the community.

▶ 2:03:44 Speaker 5: Okay, just to help me understand your question when you say backlog with reference to what inspections inspections. That's correct. To my knowledge inspections, day to day inspections. Are not backlog. They have never been.

▶ 2:04:05 Speaker 5: If right now, presently. Contractor either. All in the election, I mean, we do them same day inspections. You call in the morning. We're doing the same day. With typically, that's the way sometimes there are. Days where they have to push it to another day. So, my plumbing and electrical inspectors are part time, they work Monday through. Thursday, they're 24 hours a week. In my as a per diem inspector was Monday through Thursday.

▶ 2:04:43 Speaker 5: and you would contact him directly via email to schedule an inspection. Because of the COVID situation, we've gone to the method of email. So when you need an email, you request an inspection, you would email him directly and he would schedule it with you. Typically, it's either the same day or the next day. To my knowledge, there has not been a backlog of inspections with that said i'm sure and it's happened to me that if a contractor may have sent an email either they sent to the wrong place or when they received a response from my inspector it went to their junk mail and they never looked in the junk mail i've had that happen with myself sending out permits or sending out letters and i follow up but typically i'm not aware of any backlog of inspections

▶ 2:05:45 Robb Stewart: okay this um this is contrary to uh what i was hearing from uh three specific examples where uh inspections were delayed uh one was more than six weeks one was more than eight weeks and they had contacted the office several times so um you know they sent me a fairly detailed description so i just wanted to uh ask if um if there are problems like this because there's obviously uh a bit of misrepresentation from what i'm hearing and uh from my constituents and from what you're saying to me if i get uh contact again should i reach out directly to you to see if we can get those

▶ 2:06:29 Speaker 5: push through well if there's an issue absolutely contact me and i'll go one step further they'd like to contact me about those three specific issues and if we have an address i can find out what happened if that's if something's authentic to happen okay great great thank you mr johnson

▶ 2:06:49 Jeff McNaught: thank you mr check thank you thank you councillor stewart next up we have councillor Thorp

▶ 2:06:55 Cory Thomas: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Johnson, thank you for being here and thank you for your service to the community and the service of the Inspectional Services Office to the community. Over the last calendar year, could you say how much the requests for inspections are up compared to 2019?

▶ 2:07:14 Speaker 5: Well, I could tell you that we've been busy and the need for this inspector has been in place since 2009. Yeah, 2009. I came in on 2007, I came in. And over time, the complexity of projects have gone up. The size of projects have gone up. The complexity of codes have gone up. So if every little bit of something adds to time, adds to processing time, adds to inspection time.

▶ 2:07:57 Speaker 5: So with, in comparison this year, calendar year, to last year, there may be a little skew because we had the glitch with COVID back in April. You know, we suspended inspections, we did a few things initially. But for this calendar year 2020. For inspections total total department inspections were a little over 3300 approximately, which. About 1130, we're building inspections out of the 3300. This calendar year 2020. I did go back in retrospect to 2019.

▶ 2:08:58 Speaker 5: where we had how did i get that one i didn't grab 2019 for that i only grabbed it for permits issued the permits issued in 2020 we issued around 2 800 total prone permits which i'm sorry 11 27 of that were building on the inspections we were 30 little over 3 300 inspections and approximately 1200 of those were building inspections for 2020. I misspoke earlier. I was looking at the permits themselves. In that time period for 2020, we took in approximately $688,000 in fees. In 2019, we had a total

▶ 2:09:59 Speaker 5: permits of 3,382. Out of those were 1,400 permits, a little over 1,400 permits issued for building.

▶ 2:10:16 Speaker 5: We took in 847,000. I ran the FY21 from July 1st to December 31st of 20. and we've the department itself has 1662 inspections with 700 little over 700 of those being building inspections and i ran the same numbers for the fy 20 the same six month period from 7 1 19 to 7 to 12 31 19 which would be last year and we issued a total of 1700 permits

▶ 2:10:53 Speaker 5: with seven little over 700 being building permits so the the two fys are comparable comparable

▶ 2:11:08 Cory Thomas: pretty close okay um were you how long were you shut down for doing inspections uh during covid um was an extended period of time and and have you ever seen that shutdown we we shut down probably

▶ 2:11:18 Speaker 5: I'm just approximately maybe two to three weeks tops before we got in a virtual system up and running. During that time we, you know, we stopped taking inspections, we stopped taking applications because we weren't doing inspections and it might have been two weeks total. During that time we developed a way to accept inspect uh accept applications via email i think in the if i call

▶ 2:12:03 Speaker 5: it was the month of may remotely we issued over 300 permits building permits in may so a total of the permits through the department excuse me from home you know remotely so there was no one the office but we have a have a really good system going now for applications the volume is up well it's not up i think it's it's up a little in the complexity of the projects have changed

▶ 2:12:33 Cory Thomas: all right sir thank you very much uh and again i just want to thank you for the help that you've given uh constituents towards seven over the past few months i really appreciate it thank you

▶ 2:12:43 Speaker 5: thank you thank you councillor thomas does anyone else have any questions for mr johnson council

▶ 2:12:53 Shawn M. MacMaster: mcmaster thank you mr chair good evening mr johnson i might have missed this so my my apologies if i did uh for the professional services request of twenty five thousand dollars um i just wasn't clear exactly on the the purpose of that and just to go to councillor Stewart’s question if there if there isn't a backlog what exactly is the 25 000 uh being spent for the the

▶ 2:13:19 Speaker 5: 25 there's not a backlog that 25 000 is for our as needed inspection inspector the per dam plus that it's used also forgive me to cover um replacement inspectors when my normal staff is on vacation well i have a few weeks to cover for my a couple of weeks for my electrical inspector my plumbing inspector that it's paid out of this account i've paid for my as an inspector at this time i have that person working four days a week monday through thursday doing the

▶ 2:13:58 Shawn M. MacMaster: inspections and and is that that per diem inspector is it one person is it a building inspector or somebody would it constitute different inspectors for different things depending on the issue for instance plumbing or electrical so the one person that's working for

▶ 2:14:10 Speaker 5: the building he's a local certified local building inspector through the state and the persons that would cover the electrical plumbing would need to be a licensed person meaning have a construction i mean an electrical license or a plumbing license and that would fill in for the plumbing inspector

▶ 2:14:40 Shawn M. MacMaster: And the electrical inspector understood. Thank you. Mr. Johnson.

▶ 2:14:46 Speaker 5: Anyone else for the 1st time with Mr. Johnson.

▶ 2:14:52 Jeff McNaught: Seeing none, I think we're good to let you go. Mr. Johnson. And we can now discuss the. Order in full, thank you for being here tonight. Thank you. Good evening. And just while we're on the order, does anyone have any other questions for Mr. Dela? Russo. We appreciate your patience and sitting through all of these different presentations. Does anyone have any questions for Mr. De La Russo before we let him go? Seeing none, thank you, Mr. De La Russo, for being here. We appreciate your services very much.

▶ 2:15:36 Jeff McNaught: Okay. That was a lot. If I can do a very quick summary of what this order is, because it's a lot, I'm not going to read everything that I read in the beginning again, but what's on the table is $93,257. This money is chunked out into four line amounts. The first is so that four students can attend Essex Agricultural High School. That's $39,757. The second is the upgrade of police ammunition, that's $26,000. The third is inspectional professional services, and the fourth is overtime for inspectional services salary overtime, all due to high volume of inspectional services, those being $25,000 and $2,500 consecutively. That totals your 93,257. All that being said, I don't know if there's more discussion, I would ask what is the will of the committee?

▶ 2:16:52 Christopher Cinella: Chair McNaught, my motion is still on the floor, even though we still had to hear.

▶ 2:16:58 Jeff McNaught: I don't know that you fully got your motion out before I cut you off. So I apologize for that. President Sinella, can you restate your motion?

▶ 2:17:08 Christopher Cinella: Just motion to move recommendation passage full 2021. Dash 52 second.

▶ 2:17:18 Jeff McNaught: Okay, so we have a motion for passage from President seconded by counselor Thomas.

▶ 2:17:31 Jeff McNaught: On discussion, seeing no discussion, Madam clerk, can you please call the role?

▶ 2:17:38 Speaker 1: chair mcnaught yes vice chair eccles yes councillor Freeman yes councillor mcmaster