← Appropriations & Oversight Committee · 2020-05-07 · Appropriations and Oversight Remote meeting
Public Comment
Agenda original PDF
Minutes original PDF
Transcript
▶ 22:16 Speaker 1: Here. 11, actually 10 present. I thought Rob Stewart was in the room though. Can you hear me? I can hear you now, okay. 11 present.
▶ 22:23 Speaker 7: Sorry.
▶ 22:25 Christopher Cinella: At this time, I'll entertain a motion
▶ 22:34 Christopher Cinella: public comment motion made for public comment by Councilor McNaught seconded by Councilor Tramontozzi Madam Clerk could you please call the roll
▶ 22:40 Speaker 1: Vice Chair Migliorelli yes Councilor Tramontozzi yes Councilor McMaster yes Councilor McNaught yes Councilor Eccles yes Councilor Garipay yes Councilor Stewart Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes.
▶ 23:10 Christopher Cinella: Chair Cinella? Yes. 11 yes. This is the portion of our meeting where anybody from the public who is in queue, they raise their hand if you go to the bottom of the screen in the little dot, the ability to raise your hand if you. So we
▶ 23:24 Speaker 1: We do have Eric Denodo from the previous meeting. I'm gonna make Mr. Denodo audio accessible. So here we go. Mr. Denodo, can you hear us?
▶ 23:36 Speaker 2: I can, can you guys hear me?
▶ 23:38 Speaker 1: Yes. Okay, you're on.
▶ 23:40 Speaker 2: Sorry for jumping the gun earlier. But again, I wanna thank you all for letting me appear this evening in support of order 2020-69 on behalf of my fellow trustees of the Memorial, of Melrose Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building. uh and i appreciate the opportunity to speak with you this evening so out of respect for your time and knowing that there are others who wish to speak as well my comments will be brief there is no doubt that the members of this council as well as virtually all the citizens of melrose recognizes the significance of melrose soldiers and sailors memorial building to our community and the desperate need for immediate repair of the same memorial hall is not merely a venue the hall is a majestic, living, active, and vibrant symbol of gratitude and appreciation that the citizens of Melrose have had and continue to have for the men and women who served, fought, and in some cases died in the preservation of our American freedom. Since its dedication in December of 1912, Memorial Hall has been used as intended to honor actively serving military members and veterans and serve as a connection to our community by way of example melrose is home to the first battalion of the 182nd infantry which is the oldest serving military unit in the nation and it traces its lineage back to the inception of our country's initial fight for freedom and we're there at shot heard around the world at lexington and concord memorial hall has served to honor the 182nd infantry on several notable occasions including a wonderful send-off ceremony in 2003 when the unit deployed for Homeland Security during Operation Noble Eagle, and the hall later hosted a homecoming for the battalion, friends, and family when it returned from a year-long deployment in Afghanistan in 2012. Not surprisingly, it serves as a location where past and present come together through the Melrose Veterans in the Classroom program, providing our students with access to our local veterans and a unique perspective about the sacrifices of our service members make on our behalf to protect our freedoms while memorial hall is not nearly not merely a venue it does certainly serve as a critical function within our community the building hosts over 300 diverse public and private events annually including rehearsals and performances of our city's historic melrose symphony orchestra and other wonderful organizations such as the melrose youth ballet on average 60 000 visitors are welcomed, educated, served, entertained, and honored within the walls of Memorial Hall each year. Most recently, Memorial Hall has served as the command center for Melrose Health in the crucial effort to aid members of our community during the COVID-19 pandemic, which among other things, distribution of food and personal protective equipment. As trustees, we are grateful for the commitment and support of the mayor and city planner toward the memorial hall and we respect the administration's confidence and the ability of the city to prudently observe absorb the costs associated with this project while we are mindful of the financial uncertainty that may lie ahead we are also mindful of our collective duty to preserve this great monument to our city service members legacy and a certainty of the consequences of our inaction thank you for allowing me the time to speak with you this evening and i hope this continues to find you and your family safe and well thank you mr donato adam clark anybody else there is we have
▶ 27:22 Speaker 1: uh a familiar face scott forbes i'm gonna make bring him into the room at this time
▶ 27:39 Speaker 1: i'm gonna take a second scott can you hear us you're on mute let's unmute you
▶ 27:48 Speaker 1: one second scott can you hear us i sure can can you hear me i can are you able to welcome to our new format are you able to put your video on uh i'm not
▶ 28:04 Scott M. Forbes: okay where is yours all right thank you very much um i am speaking uh this evening in favor of order number 2020-69 which authorizes the bond in the amount of two million three hundred eleven thousand two hundred five dollars that will be used for building repairs to memorial hall As you all know Memorial Hall is a city-owned building that serves the Greater Melrose community. It serves as a Soldiers and Sailors Memorial as well as honoring those who served in United States Armed Forces throughout the years. And Memorial Hall initially got its start as a GAR Hall and the GAR which stands for Grand Army of the Republic was the organization for Union veterans of the United States Civil War. And the Soldiers and Sailors building was then built in 1912 and is now listed on the registry, National Registry of Historic places and you know growing up in Melrose Memorial Hall what only it would have been open on select occasions that primarily revolved around veteran events and holidays and as the previous speaker said as of last year you know Kathy Pickett Broder and her team were tirelessly to provide over 300 events during the calendar year which includes concerts recitals and sporting events and I would be remiss if I didn't include all the political pomp and circumstance which included our inaugural ceremonies for our elected officials, including the City Council. As a retired Master Sergeant at the United States Air Force, I have participated in numerous events and fundraisers that benefit the veteran community. Our annual Veterans in the Classroom event continues to thrive and gain in popularity prior to prior to these current COVID-19 environment times, bringing younger generations of middle and high school students together with local area veterans from all generations and all branches of service. And it's truly been an honor to participate in such worthwhile events Memorial Hall truly sets a stage for these types of events along with hundreds of others that are similar in terms of purpose and community engagement this building does represent our community timeline it is a symbol of where we started following all the way to what we have become one community open to all our veteran community is honored to see Memorial Hall become the venue that it is today as one of the most distinctive performance centers on the North Shore now we have talked for decades now about potential funding opportunities to provide the much-needed repairs for this building and with such a story passed in a time-honored tradition the order before you this evening is a necessary first step in our commitment to honor the men and women that have served along while continuing to tell the story for those who currently do sir I do ask that you consider voting in favor of this order before you tonight and I thank you very much for your time thank you
▶ 30:44 Speaker 1: We do. We do. We have an additional Mr. Jerry Mraz in queue. I'm going to make him panelist at this time. Scott Forbes, I'm going to make you back to attendee. Signing off.
▶ 31:01 Speaker 6: Can you hear me?
▶ 31:02 Speaker 7: We can.
▶ 31:04 Christopher Cinella: Mr. Mraz, the floor is yours.
▶ 31:06 Speaker 8: Hi. Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. I want to speak to two orders, the one on the Salt Shed and the one on Memorial Hall. One thing they have in common is that a lot of the issues with both buildings frankly appear to be that they really haven't been maintained and had small repairs under them for a long period of time. We've seen this with a number of the issues with the fire station, with other buildings in town that for some reason we let things just go until a time when we say we need a huge bond to rebuild everything. Now we know that Memorial Hall has been leaking for years. Back in the late 1990s though we were told at the same city council meetings that if we put all the money into Memorial Hall that we were putting in then it was going to protect the envelope of the building and it was going to be you know in wonderful shape for years and years and years and years to come it was distressing to see the the the pictures of the windows up there on Memorial Hall and in such stated disrepair you know and I respect that it's a historic building but it appears to me that it's time for spending $3,000 a window for 86 windows, more than a quarter million dollars, to, quote, restore windows that really aren't ever going to perform well and aren't going to be, they won't sustain well over time. There are new windows that can look identical to that, that can function well and be much more energy-saving and be much more impervious to the elements than trying to restore those windows. Other things up there in the Memorial Hall, the roof, the split in the roof, that's something that anybody could go up there, a maintenance person from DPW could go up there and in 15 minutes could patch the split. The fact that we're saying we needed a roof because nobody's maintained a few splits or seams or cracks, for an engineer to have to go up there to see if there's a gap that needs caulking in there, a maintenance person can do that. I think that even if we invest all this money, we need to have a maintenance protocol established four city buildings we've seen too many buildings fall apart to the point where they need replacement or major repair just because they haven't been maintained I want to go to the salt shed now listen carefully to discussion the other last time you talked about this and I appreciate all the the questions and input that many of the city councilors had on that issue one thing is I look at the pictures and of that were in the memo of that I identify a few things that I've seen a number of things like this over the years you know when somebody shows a close-up of a split of a pop splice plate on on a truss you know splice plates do pop off trusses a lot of times they're they're actually due to when the place was first built that the the truss was mishandled at the time they can pop obviously people have a sister at a couple of the the trusses together over the years but a close-up of a pop splice plate does not condemn a building we can tell that that building hasn't been maintained from the outside nor has it needed a whole lot of maintenance the texture 111 siding has all been water compromised for years it's not a structural element though it's just made to keep the wind and the rain from blowing through the building completely um all the t111 siding could be replaced for for a matter of tens of thousands of dollars the issue with the roof i was surprised to hear the um what i thought i heard the city engineer say was that there was sheathing under the roof that was somehow she didn't know the state of it however from the pictures that i see in the memo it doesn't appear that there is a sheathing under the metal roofing the metal roofing is actually attached to nailers that go across the the trusses all the way where i'm going with this is i don't think we need to be spending 1.4 million dollars to replace a shed nor and i appreciate the value of somebody wanting to say let's get the design work done first before we do everything but i would love the city council to take a step back and get a structural engineer in there and evaluate the building um from you know again somebody took a close-up of one post that's been knocked off the center of a pier that can certainly be put back and reattached and make it structurally sound um i obviously don't have access to that building to see inside it but i would want somebody competent who knows the build the structure and those trusses and engineered buildings like that to go in and look and say whether there is a structural um problem or not with the building or whether it's something that again just needs some small repairs that are done right and well to give that building a lot more time it's unfortunate that the um that the wind cut that roof um and peeled it back some on the um on the south side recently but again those are just roof panels that can be replaced even if we replace the whole roof we're not approaching anywhere near a million or 1.4 million dollars all that really needs to do is to keep the rain directly off of the salt you know in some of the some of the rhetoric that was used by city staff at the meeting was a red flag to me for the for the the chief financial officer to be making declarations about the structural integrity of the building i thought was inappropriate um the same thing goes with the the treasurer that's not their realm the city engineer or actually the dpw superintendent at this point uh the director um could have something but the fact that she was talking about sheathing under the roofing when the pictures show the metal roofing from the inside it says to me that she hasn't really evaluated the building i would rather have the city spend you know one or two thousand dollars to have a structural engineer go in there and evaluate everything certainly there may be some work that needs to be done to shore up a couple things or to reattach some things or maybe even put some new roof panels in but i'd hate to see us go and jump to making a design for a whole new building that we may not need um and and i expect that you know obviously i i have to qualify that i haven't inspected the building myself but it looks to me that you know probably for well under a hundred thousand dollars we could have a building that functions as well as it always does the wood inside does not appear rotted it doesn't look like there's been water getting in there for years and years doing anything to the trusses they look intact um i really think that so many things we can spend money on to spend money on a salt shed that all it has to do is cover some salt and the wind can go blow through there the rain can go around the sides um you know nobody's even bothered to paint it in all these years but yet it still stands up as a structure i would really like to see it evaluated by a structural engineer before you go and and and apply any significant money to that um i i hope that i'm not too late in the process about this i i do appreciate all the input people had you know when um i think it was um councillor thomas the other night was talking about the dcr well mass highways does lots of salt sheds they're all over the place and you can see them and i and i believe we should be able to get a competent salt shed if we're going to do a new one even but well under the the kind of money that the city was talking about so i really want to close up and say that we need to find a way for the dpw whether they do it themselves or contract it out to perform inspections maintenance and repair the buildings before we just let them neglect i mean i've watched inside at mellow symphony concerts all the stains on the walls and that come in there from the water leaking i've always assumed that somebody's been on top of that taking care of it and when an engineer goes up there and takes pictures of things that are just simple to fix that's unfortunate we've had degradation of the building that we didn't need to have happen the fire station a few years ago when we had all the pictures of what the engineer took again we saw simple fixes that nobody ever did we saw that there was um you know some metal that had peeled off of the um the hips of the roof that nobody bothered to replace so of course water was going to get in there between the slate and come down in um i just feel like we have to even if we invest money in these buildings the memorial hall the money here now and and replacing a salt shed that the city council needs to make certain that somewhere in the city there's a mechanism for people to continuously evaluate inspect maintain repair buildings because too many times i've seen and i've seen it with the schools i started at the winthrop school with work they had to get done there i saw it um in in other schools as well that we simply neglect something and then go and say oh let's is buy a new project and do the whole thing over so um i look forward to hearing your discussions about this tonight and i do want to again thank all the city councilors for their their questions and attention to the issues of an assault said shed that we heard the other night thank you
▶ 40:15 Speaker 1: thank you madam clark hope you're on mute is there anyone else in the room as an attendee that wishes to speak to items on the agenda all right i don't have anybody else i see someone
▶ 40:26 Speaker 1: You do? Oh, you're right. Excuse me. I have Ruthann. I'm going to make her. Here she comes. Thank you, Councilor McNaught.
▶ 40:37 Speaker 2: My pleasure.
▶ 40:41 Speaker 1: Ruthann? Yes. Can you hear us? Yes, I can. You all hear her?
▶ 40:47 Christopher Cinella: Yep. The floor is yours, Ruthann.
▶ 40:49 Speaker 9: All right, thank you. Hi, I'm with Melrose Youth Ballet, and Melrose Youth Ballet, a 501c3 non-profit organization, has held all of our Nutcracker performances at Memorial Hall since our inception 25 years ago. We feel so fortunate to have such an historically significant building with such beautiful Victorian charm in which to perform our ballet. Over the years, the improvements that have been made to the heating and air conditioning systems, the sound system, and the lighting have all been beneficial to our experience, but we also recognize that the hall is in need of far more improvements. The ceilings and walls in all parts of the building, including the dressing rooms, are in obvious poor condition and warrant attention. During rainstorms, water often comes into the building under the back doors. We do commend the management and the staff for their constant efforts to rise above these issues and to help us keep the shows running smoothly we support the city of Melrose's efforts to bring Memorial Hall back to the beauty it had when it first opened we consider Memorial Hall our nutcracker home thank you for listening thank you
▶ 42:00 Christopher Cinella: absolutely not anybody else in the queue clerk yes there is yes there is known
▶ 42:28 Speaker 3: Mongeau one moment my name is Joan Ford Mongeau and I'm the president of the all volunteer organization friends of Melrose Memorial Hall I come before you tonight to ask you to support the 2.3 million bond request needed to repair the exterior of our iconic hall the hall as you know is the literal and figurative part of the city hosting hundreds of events and tens of thousands of visitors each year 1912 is a tribute to the city's soldiers and sailors the exterior of the building is in need of serious repairs the report produced by russo bar associates details the need for the substantial work needed including masonry as well as roof and windows the role of the friends of melrose memorial hall is to increase awareness of the building and to raise funds targeted toward the repair and restoration of the interior historical artifacts and artistic elements we have had overwhelming interest from the public in the work done by the friends as indicated by the attendance at our events and the funds we've raised already without significant repairs to the exterior of the hall the interior projects planned and prioritized in conjunction with the hall's executive director and the board of trustees will be useless thank you for listening to me this evening thank you
▶ 43:55 Speaker 6: Thank you.
▶ 44:00 Christopher Cinella: Madam Clerk, anybody else with their hand up?
▶ 44:02 Speaker 1: I do not. Last call.
▶ 44:10 Christopher Cinella: I think we're good. I'll entertain a motion to close public comment.
▶ 44:14 Speaker 7: Motion to close public comment.
▶ 44:16 Speaker 3: Second.
▶ 44:18 Christopher Cinella: Motion to close public comment by Councilor Stewart, seconded by President Rodriguez. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.
▶ 44:26 Speaker 1: Vice-Chair Migliorelli. Yes. Yes. Tramontozzi? Yes. McMaster? Yes. McNaught? Yes. Eccles? Yes. Garipay? Yes. Stewart? Yes. Thomas? Yes. Jamaleddine? Yes. Grigoraitis? Yes.