ORDER-2020-66 : A Resolution for State Action to Combat Nip Bottle and Single Use Water Bottle Litter

Transcript (~18 min @ 7:05)

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▶ 7:10 Jeff McNaught: is no one here for public comment and no need to unsuspend the rules we're here

▶ 7:24 Jeff McNaught: tonight to discuss order 2020-66 a resolution for state action to combat nip bottle in single-use water bottle litter this order was brought to us by

▶ 7:36 Speaker 7: councillor councillor Migliorelli and I will let her speak to the order first if

▶ 7:47 Leila Migliorelli: she so wishes this is on discussion Thank You councillor McNaught um while the timeliness for this resolution may have passed I believe there's the impetus behind it still stands after doing my own research receiving emails from constituents and hearing from zero waste Melrose at the February 24th council meeting about how effective adding bottle deposits are to incentivize people to clean up litter I think that it's imperative that Melrose joins other communities across the Commonwealth to voice our support for the proposed legislation to add bottle deposits to nip size bottles and plastic water bottles as mentioned in the resolution Melrose has already made great strides to curb the negative effects of plastic waste in our community by legislating the plastic bag and polystyrene ordinances and I think supporting the action at the state level will help to mitigate the prevalence of this type of litter in our city as well so while I understand that the currently that the bottle deposit practice is been suspended when it does come back up and running it'd be helpful to have this resolution already on file with the state legislature to show our support for this effort Thank You council

▶ 8:58 John N. Tramontozzi: McClure Ellie councillor chairman Tosi yes I thank you chair chairman McNaught I mean I get the issue regarding the nip bottles we discussed that in the previous committee meetings on the liquor legislation which I believe the mayor is going going to be forming a commission to study our liquor rules and regulations and I think we can address the issue of the nip bottles there the resolutions like this are merely expressions of opinion and and I think that these type of resolutions should be limited in their use and scope and be very reasonable in their passages that again they're merely symbolic but again my position is is that resolutions should be rare really exercised by this by this body I think we do a good job here in Melrose with our recycling efforts and I don't think that there is broad range necessarily support for an extension of the bottle bill to plastic single-use plastic bottles I think we do a good job in in in our recycling efforts and I didn't you know if you want to express an opinion talk to your state legislators that's fine you can do that but for a resolution to be presented by this council as a representation of the city as a whole i i don't think is appropriate um so i mean i i'm big in favor of recycling uh and i think again we do a good job of it the nip bottles can be addressed but i don't think we need to address a uh an extension of the bottle bill i don't think it's appropriate uh for us to uh to weigh in as a council so i'm not going to be in support of

▶ 11:08 Jeff McNaught: this resolution thank you thank you vice chair chairman to the uh counselor sanella

▶ 11:12 Speaker 8: thank you can you hear me

▶ 11:15 Christopher Cinella: first i want to just commend um counselor Migliorelli who did all the research and the work and put this together i commend your efforts for that and i just want to say that in speaking with constituents in regards to both the liquor ordinance as well as the litter ordinance it was a pretty big mix of folks that you know were from the camp of uh the litter camp and then you had the ones that more of a pro business why can't we you know sell liquor and so forth and i feel like this is this is kind of a it's a win-win sort of um you know situation where on one hand that ordinance shall pass on the other hand we're trying to set a precedent at the state level that why not put a tax on some of the smaller containers and the water bottles as well so you know i feel like this is just a nice way to voice our constituents concerns um up through the to the state house so

▶ 12:25 Jeff McNaught: thank you thank you counselor sanella do you have anyone else in the queue madam clerk

▶ 12:37 Jack Eccles: Councilor Eccles has his hand up Councilor Eccles so again to echo the previous two councillors I would like to thank Councilor Migliorelli for putting this together and I think that one thing that's really remarkable about the discussion that we had about revamping the liquor laws is that we rarely heard voices specifically in opposition to expanding into hard liquor but we heard an overwhelming concern about the liquor that was going to or the litter that was going to be generated by nip bottles specifically I think that there's precedent for a resolution like this and other communities and I think that this lines up specifically with something that is being pushed in the state right now this thing that is not a piece of legislation that is not already working its way through the state legislature so it's a nice way for us to express our opinion in favor of all of the constituents who took time to express their concerns about the litter created by the new bottle so I'll be supporting

▶ 13:39 Speaker 1: this resolution comes next president not melody although I am NOT a boarding

▶ 13:46 Maya Jamaleddine: member I would like to thank and commend Councillor McDiarelli for her effort and for putting this um petition together um i think there is always room to improve and it's it's never enough um to to improve ourselves in this community so i think anything that can help to increase the and improve our recycling would be great and a big improvement for our community

▶ 14:22 Jeff McNaught: so thank you so much thank you council gemality and councilor stewart uh thank you chair mcnaught

▶ 14:28 Robb Stewart: and thank you uh council and Migliorelli for providing uh this uh to uh the voting members of legal legislative uh to council tramitosi's uh position i understand and respect that position uh mr chair but uh i think given the nature and uh a lot of uh the strong feelings about this particularly uh when we're discussing the broader context of bringing uh to consular echoes point uh bringing uh the um the spirits into the town and voting on that there was a lot of discussion about uh the size of containers and potentially limiting that i did not support nips at all for many reasons one was for the litter and i think uh it is our at least from my perspective it is our um

▶ 15:34 Robb Stewart: uh the right word uh i think it's our responsibility to represent uh what we are hearing through the community um so uh and what i have heard from the community is a number of facets about these nips that it's just it's not wanted in this community but when it is there is a a strong interest in being able to minimize the litter that is happening as well as the reducing the amount of plastic that's going to be presented into the community so from that standpoint i think it's important that as a community as a whole we have a good opportunity here to represent a position that morris takes to the state in a strong manner and this i think is consistent with a lot of the feedback that i've heard throughout the community so uh from that storm point i would encourage uh the the committee to uh certainly consider this uh to move forward thank you thank you

▶ 16:49 Speaker 7: councilor stewart anyone else like to be right who's next president Grigoraitis chairman mcnaught

▶ 16:52 Jen Grigoraitis: and uh through you i just wanted to ask a clarifying question because i am in support of this ordinance which my understanding is that councilor Migliorelli reached out to not only senator lewis's office which encouraged us to file this because they wanted to hear from communities that would be impacted but also that zero waste melrose our recycling group in town is in support of this of this resolution thank you president Grigoraitis um yes that's um that's correct i did

▶ 17:25 Leila Migliorelli: reach out to senator lewis's office um as well as zero waste melrose and they were all supportive and we've also received um some constituent uh feedback on this as well so and also this was mirrored after resolutions done by several other communities so it's it is not um out of of the norm I would say we're just following along with other communities who are like-minded in their desire to create you know sustainable communities and lessen the impact of litter in our city thank you Thank You

▶ 18:02 Jeff McNaught: councillors president Grigoraitis and councilor Migliorelli is there anyone else that would like to be heard councilor McMaster mr. chairman I'm a

▶ 18:16 Shawn M. MacMaster: non-voting member of this committee as well but I did think that it's at least important to impart some cautionary counsel on issue-based resolutions as Councilor Tramontozzi said there may be precedent in other communities as Councilor Migliorelli mentioned but that doesn't necessarily mean that there's precedent in Melrose and I would suggest that over my last two years on the council when certainly Councilor Tramontozzi can speak for his 14 years on a council, it is unusual to have an issue-based resolution come before us and be passed. That's not to say that it hasn't occurred, and it's not to say that it shouldn't. And I understand we have a new council here, but we have to be very cautious about the door that we're opening, because by what standard are we going to file and pass issue-based resolutions? Is it based on all of our personal failings is it really based on the the true spirit of the community and what is the barometer to determine that anyways what is that barometer is it the people who are most vocal and who reach out to us it's certainly not indicative of the silent majority who sit at home and may not send emails who may not call us so I think we just have to be very careful I commend council migliorelli i support the spirit of what um she's attempting to do here and i support obviously recycling i don't know anyone who doesn't but we just have to be very cautious about the precedent that we set here in melrose when we file and pass issue-based ordinances because again we have no standard what is the standard that we apply what is the barometer that we use to measure what the pulse of the community is so i would just offer that um because once we pass something like this there's really no coming back from it especially consular stewart said he had um you know heard from um constituents i think consular mcglaire said the same thing so does that mean that we're giving an invitation to people that when they can come together and you know coalesce on a particular issue that based on that issue especially if it's an issue uh that we support that we're going to file a resolution so again that's just some cautionary counsel. The other thing I would say is that there's a way to do this beyond the symbolism, as Consulate Chairman Tosi said. And the way you can do that, and I commend Consul Migliorelli for reaching out to Consulate Chairman Tosi's office, is to just work offline. We don't have to do this in the public domain. We can work behind the scenes with Senator Lewis. And I think it's unfortunate because we certainly have an opportunity to work with our former colleague, Representative Lippa Garabedian, to do this. This is something that we can push and try to enact short of something that is merely symbolic, as Consulate Tramontozzi said, albeit important, but something that is going to run the risk of creating a precedent in Melrose that may be very difficult for us to come back from. So again, thank to council mcglory for filing this but uh if this passes this evening which i seem to think that it will and it comes before the full council i cannot be in support of it thank you mr chairman thank

▶ 21:36 Speaker 7: you council mcmaster um anyone else for the first time councilor eccles i guess that i would just i

▶ 21:46 Jack Eccles: would just point out you know this is a specific instance where we received a lot of constituent concerns about pending legislation um it's not it's not a resolution for something that we'd like to see put forward by representative one of our representatives it's it's pending in the state house and it matches exactly with an overwhelming concern that we heard on a particular issue that we saw so when we talk about precedent i think that you know representing what we heard overwhelmingly from our constituents during a discussion on pending legislation is an important thing to keep in mind when i'm going to facilities for me was that i heard the constituents and it is a it is something that we can voice our support of in in the state house thank you

▶ 22:40 John N. Tramontozzi: counselor echoes uh counselor chairman tozy yes thank you uh thank you mr chairman um and thank you counselor mcnod for those words i i think you're absolutely correct we have not used this form of presentation through the resolution process I you know I don't think it's we should nearly really just be setting forth the precedent for doing these type of resolutions they were symbolic hey listen I'm all in favor of recycling I have issues with nip bottles as well and and that could be addressed But I have not heard overwhelming evidence to support that the community as a whole wants to revisit the bottle bill. And this is what this resolution addresses, specifically the bottle bill and plastic bottles. Yes, it's before the state legislature, but it hasn't passed because there is evidence, significant hearings being conducted. And there's a split of opinion as to whether the community as a large, that the state in its entirety, wants to extend the bottle bill beyond what it is now. So that's, I think, Councilman McMaster is correct. We've got to be careful on sending these resolutions forth. And we haven't heard, and again, it's, you know, we haven't had the opportunity for full public hearing on this because of the circumstances we're faced with these days with the coronavirus and lack of support. But I don't hear overwhelming support. There is a group, it's a limited group that are pushing an agenda, but we can't, I don't feel that it's appropriate to put this in the form of a resolution to send up to the state house. Thank you, I'll leave it at that.

▶ 24:50 Jeff McNaught: Thank you, Vice Chair Tramontozzi. If anyone else for a second time,

▶ 24:59 Jeff McNaught: hearing nothing else on discussion, I'll entertain any motions on the floor.

▶ 25:07 Christopher Cinella: Motion to recommend to the full board.

▶ 25:11 Jeff McNaught: Second. Motion to recommend for passage by Councilor Cinella, seconded by Councilor Migliorelli. Adam Clarke, can you call the roll of voting members?

▶ 25:23 Speaker 1: Chairman McNaught.

▶ 25:25 Speaker 7: Yes.