ORDER-2020-30 : Emergency Management Services - vehicle acquisition request

Transcript (~31 min @ 29:27)

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▶ 29:08 John N. Tramontozzi: Public comment is now closed. So we have two orders on the agenda this evening. The first order is order number 2020-30. It's an emergency management services vehicle acquisition request. This is sponsored by Mr. Alan Alpert, who is present with us this evening. Do I have a motion to suspend the rules to hear from him? So moved. Second. A motion to suspend the rules by Councilor Mortimer, seconded by Councilor Lipper-Garabedian. All in favor? Aye. Mr. Alpert, would you like to come forward?

▶ 29:43 Peter D. Mortimer: Mr. Chairman, before we proceed, I'd like to make a point of order. Yes. I'm not sure we can proceed forward with this order. I think it's a good idea. What I see in the paperwork is that it's sponsored by the emergency manager, Mr. Albert. Yes. There are 12 people in this city who can put forth an order. The 11 city councilors and the mayor. Here. I don't see that the mayor's name is on this. I don't think orders are supposed to come to us directly from, I think it's a good idea, but for procedural reasons, I think, at this point, we should hold it in committee. And I won't make that motion yet. I'll see what other people think of that comment. But department heads are not supposed to make direct, and I actually think it's a good idea. There's some questions I have about it, but I think it's a good idea. But I don't see that this came through the mayor's office. So I have a little bit of concern about that. Well taken. Is there any other further comment?

▶ 30:51 John N. Tramontozzi: Councilor .

▶ 30:52 Speaker 5: Sure, I mean, to be able to hold it in committee seems like an option procedurally. But the director here, through the chair, can we, Council Member, could we still have the question and the discussion tonight?

▶ 31:05 John N. Tramontozzi: I think that would be a good idea. That would be appropriate. We will hear from Mr. Alpert with any questions that the committee might have. But I am inclined to hold it in committee as Council Member suggested. But anybody wish to have any questions?

▶ 31:24 Peter D. Mortimer: Mr. Alpert, Counsel Mortimer? Yes, as I started to say on its face, I think this is a great idea. I'd just like to, as we can see from some of the previous comment, I think it's getting more and more important as we go through life to make sure that we do everything entirely properly. As we can see from some of the very important and emotional and correct public comment that we had earlier tonight. So I'm not opposed to the order, I just want to make sure.

▶ 31:59 Speaker 2: I was just following direction, being the new- Yeah, no, it's not. It was done for me, and I was just told that that was what the process was.

▶ 32:11 Peter D. Mortimer: How does that go? I understand, and yeah, I sympathize with your predicament, I think you're kind of caught in the middle. It's just a desire to do things right, and again, I think it's a good idea. I just wanted to ask, have you, where I saw your letter and you've been using your own personal vehicle, were you receiving a gasoline stipend for that?

▶ 32:30 Speaker 2: No, I haven't been.

▶ 32:31 Peter D. Mortimer: Okay, so you paid for that transportation to Marlboro and other places through your own expenses, through your own gas fund. And has there been any conversation you've had with other people in the city about if we do acquire this vehicle from the city of Chelsea for $1, who would take care of the basic maintenance such as tires, brakes, oil changes? Has there been any conversation about that?

▶ 33:01 Speaker 2: I'm under the impression that it's treated like any other city vehicle, Mr. Public Works Director.

▶ 33:06 Speaker 6: I can answer that, it's okay.

▶ 33:07 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, Mr. Stinson.

▶ 33:16 Speaker 6: I'm Richard Stinson. I'm the interim public works director. We've gone through the vehicle and inspected it. The vehicle is, for its age, it's a 2002 vehicle. It's in amazing condition. We have very little work that's needed on it. We'll be doing an oil change, maybe changing the tires for the winter, and do the lettering. Other than that, it's ready to go.

▶ 33:37 Speaker 6: Um, you'll probably get, it's not going to need an engine, it's not going to need a transmission or a front end.

▶ 33:44 Speaker 6: You're going to get probably four to five years without any major work in this vehicle.

▶ 33:51 Speaker 6: Um, the interior is in great shape.

▶ 33:57 Speaker 6: Um, and to answer your question, that tires and the oil change will all come under public works.

▶ 34:00 Peter D. Mortimer: Just as you would with a police cruiser.

▶ 34:03 Speaker 3: All right.

▶ 34:04 Peter D. Mortimer: Okay, that sounds good, and the vehicle would be housed where during off hours? Here. Would stay at City Hall? Yes. Close to City Hall, one of the spots behind the fire station? Correct. All right, yeah, I think on its face it seems like a good idea, and that's the extent of my comments at this time. Thank you. Thank you.

▶ 34:25 Speaker 5: Councilor Lipper-Garabedian. Maybe just two quick questions. Why do you think Chelsea is willing to give up a vehicle that's in such great condition for just a dollar?

▶ 34:35 Speaker 2: That vehicle was assigned to me from the day it was brand new. And six months before I left, I received a brand new vehicle from the city. And that didn't go through the process of surplus property yet. And when I had spoken to the mayor about it and said, I have to carry the tools of my trade. You know, when we respond to house fires or any kind of emergency to have the proper radio equipment. I said, if I can get a vehicle at a reasonable price, would it be acceptable? And she said, yes. And I spoke with the city manager and he said, well, we haven't put it out for surplus property and we're always helping cities and towns one way or another. We have no objection to the city of Melrose buying this for a dollar.

▶ 35:23 Speaker 5: I presume, I mean, is Chelsea currently paying, you know, covering car insurance on it perhaps?

▶ 35:28 Speaker 2: No, no, no, the plates have been off their cars since they got my new one.

▶ 35:31 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Okay. And you mentioned in your letter to the mayor that a good number of emergency management directors, excuse me, have vehicles that their cities or municipalities provide. Can you talk a little bit about, maybe for, you know, everyone who's watching or listening, you know, why that would be and describe how you would be using the car?

▶ 35:53 Speaker 2: Well, other emergency management directors, including myself, we are on 24-hour call. It is an imposition having to come here to pick up the car to go to an emergency, but at least when I get the car, it does have all the tools of the trade. I did go to a hazardous materials incident a couple of months ago at night, and when I pulled up, I had to stop and explain to the police officer as he's trying to move traffic one way, I'm saying well I'm trying to go this way at least this way when you arrive in an official city vehicle it does make entrance that much easier and also when I attend the meeting as in the case of next week I have to go down the south so sure to drop something off I'm using a city vehicle and if something occurs when I am in the vehicle it's it makes it that much easier to get back okay and

▶ 36:49 Speaker 2: and what are the tools of the trade that you have in radios turnout gear so when i go to fires i carry some forms equipment to hazardous materials incidents as i say basically the tools of the trade okay thank you very much anything further

▶ 37:14 John N. Tramontozzi: Councilor Zwerchel, I'm sorry, President Forbes.

▶ 37:18 Scott M. Forbes: All right, just a couple of quick questions. You said that you've had this vehicle since it was put into the inventory from the city of Chelsea, since the inception. Correct. Do you know how much the insurance is on that vehicle?

▶ 37:30 Speaker 2: It was part of the city's blanket policy. I don't know what the individual rates boiled down to per vehicle.

▶ 37:39 Scott M. Forbes: I think the concept of taking a vehicle for the price of $1 sounds like a great deal but when you sit there and you add all the things up like insurance and maintenance, I mean the Kelley Blue Book value on a 2003 Ford Victoria Crown Vic is like about $1,500. So if we add up all the insurance costs and daily maintenance and the wear and tear for a 16-year-old vehicle entering our inventory, this actually may be costing us more than the value of the vehicle on an annual basis. Did anybody do any type of analysis before making that type of decision to add it to the fleet or for consideration purposes? We did not look at insurance.

▶ 38:22 Speaker 6: I think there's a couple ways you could probably look at that. One, if you were to give a vehicle allowance, that usually factors in the insurance cost and the fuel cost for someone to have a vehicle allowance. So if you were to do that with the emergency management director, you would be paying that cost. So this is a cheaper alternative than paying whether it be the mileage rate or paying a monthly rate to the emergency management director because you're only paying $1 for the vehicle. There's not a lot of work to take care of that vehicle.

▶ 39:02 Scott M. Forbes: Understood. stood just looking at something that's 16 years old anything can happen at any time and once that does happen then whatever that cost or repair would be would far outweigh the value of the vehicle so just trying to be mindful measure twice cut once so thank you thank you mr. chairman I'm not a voting

▶ 39:19 Michael P. Zwirko: member of this committee but I did have a couple of questions so typically when we get in and I appreciate the point of order made earlier by councillor Mortimer because I myself had a question. Generally, when we're asked by the mayor's office or the administration to either appropriate funds or take on something, there's a memo usually explaining why the administration is in favor of it and this order lacks that. So my question to you is prior to John Schenna leaving, did you ask John Schenna about getting this automobile? And if so, did he give you any type of a response to whether or not you should have said automobile and furthermore did you ask the same question to

▶ 40:01 Speaker 2: the mayor i spoke to the mayor i wouldn't have done it without her without her consent and she did give the approval when i discussed it with john his immediate reaction was that he didn't want to add a vehicle of that age to the fleet now he said that without having seen the vehicle i assured the mayor that that vehicle is in excellent condition I kept it fully maintained and when we brought it in the interim director had his staff do an inspection of the vehicle and they said that the vehicle is in very very good condition and I had said to the mayor I said for what we're paying for the vehicle if something serious were to happen we would just dispose of it so I'm not looking in any way manner shape or form to say that if there are breakdown that are that aren't cost efficient no we won't we won't make the repairs but as the interim director said that the cars in very good condition I guess my

▶ 41:03 Michael P. Zwirko: concern is is that we don't really have I mean this isn't an order from the mayor we don't have any opinion one way or the other from the mayor and the precedent that we're setting because we did take away municipal vehicles previously a couple years back and now let's say something does happen to your auto do we have a precedent set where we now need to add a car to the fleet because you you had this this automobile so it might cost a dollar but should it break down in the future it might actually cost a new vehicle and then furthermore we just completed not we the royal we the dpw completed a vehicle fleet survey and you know we're trying to green our fleet we're trying to modernize our fleet set up lease structures for our fleet so we're replacing them on certain cycles to make it more cost effective and now we're kind of ad hoc throwing in a 2003 crown vic which isn't really a bastion of efficiency um which is mainly going to be driven in a in a city type of environment so i think that there's a bad precedent here i don't think that it's in line with where we want our fleets to be or go and then i'm worried about what happens uh you know should the vehicle break down and you're without a car and now are we adding another automobile to the

▶ 42:17 Speaker 2: fleet well when uh the late director kelly was here he had a vehicle assigned to him

▶ 42:30 Speaker 2: understood we took all those away correct right but uh it's the the mileage on on the crown vic uh i did some research on it and the suvs that the police department are using which are acceptable the acceptable miles per gallon for those SUVs are 18 miles per gallon this gets that same mileage that car will probably if it's driven more than 30 miles a week based on going to different locations in different meeting it's

▶ 43:06 Speaker 2: going to be a lot of mileage I can't see fuel usage of that vehicle and with that that kind of mile even being more than just a few hundred dollars a year. I mean, it's not something that's going to be out on the road 12, 14 hours a day.

▶ 43:23 Speaker 2: And the other thing is, again, having been in this position in my previous occupation, I really don't want to be going to a fire dealing with the people that are being evacuated, relocated and sheltered which is part of the job and then have to take off my turnout gear and everything and put it in my personal car I understand we made

▶ 43:49 Michael P. Zwirko: a decision though years ago to remove the car and I'm worried about other city employees that previously had vehicles that are affected by this I just think it's it's a very slippery slope because effectively when you take away a municipal vehicle from an employee somewhat to a certain extent it's a pay cut in the sense that they now you know have to get their own means of transportation I understand and respect the position that you're in showing up to scenarios wanting to have obviously it be flagged that you're an emergency management director as opposed to showing up in a civilian vehicle but again adding this fleet means it's we're permanently adding that car if this car breaks down I don't I think we'll be back here in future budget cycles looking for another automobile to be added to the fleet and there was a reason we took it away years ago so I'm hesitant to support it now but I also think we still have a procedural issues with this order so those are really all

▶ 44:53 John N. Tramontozzi: my questions mr. chairman thank you mr. chairman good evening Thank You director

▶ 44:58 Shawn M. MacMaster: Albert for being here Thank You superintendent Stinson director Albert How many times have you had occasion to respond to an emergency since becoming the Emergency Management Director? Yeah. In Melrose? Just once. Just once. You talked a little bit about some of the trainings and conferences that you attend. Can you give us a sense of how many hours a week you're working, so we get a better idea of...

▶ 45:27 Speaker 2: My schedule is 18 hours, because it's part-time.

▶ 45:36 Shawn M. MacMaster: And you mentioned a moment ago that you're not reimbursed right now for mileage. Is it your understanding or Superintendent Stinson that we don't reimburse for mileage? Are you aware of any other city employees who attend conferences or travel for some other reason that would be reimbursed? Is there a mechanism for reimbursement?

▶ 45:55 Speaker 2: I'm sure there is. I just chose not to submit it. You know, most of the meetings that I go to are within our regional area. You know, that just happens to be a conference. But on a monthly basis, every other month, there's an emergency management director's meeting up in Tewksbury at our headquarters. We have monthly meetings in Wakefield for our Amnestic Regional Emergency Planning Committee. And I have been visiting the housing authority, the nursing homes, meeting with the YMCA, of course, it's walking distance, the YMCA, going to all these facilities, reviewing their emergency evacuation and relocation plans. Most of them have had to start the process of rewriting them because they don't really come up to standard. And, you know, to have to take my car out of the parking lot to drive up to the Elmhurst nursing home and then come back and sometimes not even find the parking space where, you know, when you're having a city vehicle, it's much easier to park and much easier to get around. And, you know, just the added wear and tear to my personal vehicle to do city work.

▶ 47:18 Shawn M. MacMaster: and director albert did you say that you would not be taking this vehicle home or you would correct

▶ 47:24 Speaker 2: you would not i was i was told that right now that the only two vehicles they can go home with

▶ 47:29 Shawn M. MacMaster: the fire chief and police chief so if you mentioned you work 18 hours a week if an emergency happened that would typically warrant a response from the emergency management director and what and that emergency happened not during your your regular scheduled hours would you be responsible for

▶ 47:47 Speaker 2: responding to that that was part of the job description because it would seem to me that

▶ 47:49 Shawn M. MacMaster: the vehicle would be more appropriate for needing to respond to an emergency than driving to it it

▶ 47:57 Speaker 2: certainly would be as i say for over 25 years i had a city vehicle assigned to me never having any issue with it i don't i know if you've looked at the pictures of the car but it's certainly not something that you can hide or something you can uh you know take over to the casino whenever it in the pocket there someplace so i purposely when i got it at chelsea made sure it was fully marked fully leaded and it does it does make a difference having it at your disposal especially in winter months when something happens it would mean i would have to clean off my own car to drive to here and hopefully that if it was during a snowstorm or something that the parking lot was plowed out that i could get the car out but right right now the major issue is just the city accepting the vehicle and giving me the opportunity to have again all the tools of my

▶ 48:57 Shawn M. MacMaster: trades with me so in addition to the procedural matter raised by council of monomer which i tend to agree with and share that concern one of the concerns i have is i don't see and i could be wrong and maybe it's codified somewhere else but i don't see in chapter 90 section 7e which makes clear who can have emergency vehicles that have lights and my understanding is that this car has led warning lights i don't see how emergency management directors um fall under that and i think the reason for that might be and i know not every emergency management director is a sworn police or fire official but most are and i know that having worked in my professional capacity with them outside of this chamber i think that that's probably why it's not specifically mentioned in chapter 90 section 7e so part of my concern is whether or not if if we do vote to move this along and i don't think we're going to make that vote tonight but that um the vehicle is one thing

▶ 50:10 Speaker 2: but having led warning lights is is another thing i i haven't looked at 70 for a long time but i believe that that would refer to the emergency management director having the authority to have red lights on his personal vehicle certainly not on a city vehicle i don't know of any emergency management director almost anywhere through the country that does not have emergency

▶ 50:35 Shawn M. MacMaster: lights on the vehicle i would agree i think it's because most tend to be police or not necessarily

▶ 50:41 Speaker 2: well not all but but again it is it is a city vehicle uh it's never been an issue and again i i think that's more relative to uh the director having the lights on his own personal vehicle

▶ 50:54 Shawn M. MacMaster: and uh the last thing i'll say is that i do agree with council's worker that i think there is a precedent piece and uh to me it's not that it's not necessary but i think we have to be concerned about precedent um i'm also concerned because i if there's one department that i think right now or one employee who could benefit from from a vehicle would be the parking clerk based on some of the concerns that have been raised i think to many of us about uh enforcement in some of the neighborhoods the uh streets that are dealing with um uh parking uh infractions uh and right now parking clerk who's also part-time is really limited to you know to walking uh the beat so to speak on um you know on main street and some of the surrounding uh streets um in in this area but not in some of the neighborhoods uh so i think based on what council of zorco said that's another concern is not just precedent but who else might benefit uh from one or could benefit more based on some of the needs in the city and i say that not saying that it's not necessary for emergency management but i think in light of uh of all these issues um i have some concerns as well

▶ 52:08 Manisha Bewtra: thank you mr chairman welcome thank you absolutely um i think a lot of my colleagues have asked um some of the questions that i had but um those questions raise more questions so uh one of the questions i have or i guess more of a statement is um i guess regardless of what ends up being decided in the interim i would encourage you to actually start logging your mileage um i think there's some benefit for us to have some a system of accountability on kind of like what your role entails and and and be able to so when you're you know back at the table for budget season and all of that that you have that information of here's how you know i spend my time during the week and the calls i received and that kind of thing in addition to the compensation that i hope you receive from using your personal vehicle and i would hope that that if we do decide to move forward with this vehicle that that kind of logging system would continue i think there would be a lot of value in that an additional concern i have about the vehicle itself is um you know counselors rocco mentioned some concerns around sustainability a piece of that is also the parking and where the vehicle is effectively garaged overnight or when you're not using it particularly i mean i'm glad to hear that it would be sort of stay in the city um but i think again that's one more uh parking space that we use i think there's some very good arguments from potentially using it but i think that that's another piece of the puzzle um that we should be thinking about before making this decision those are my questions for now very good any

▶ 53:50 Peter D. Mortimer: further comment uh i know uh councillor mortimer um voting member i'm going to give you the last word yeah i have a few more comments and i'm going to make that motion um i'm in favor of this i think it's a good idea and i think if we do it i think you should take the vehicle home But absolutely you have to promise it never leaves the driveway unless you're coming to work or you're called in on call. I think on a situation like the Brazil Street, I think it would have been good to have a marked city vehicle. And we weren't going to put a police cruiser there for a long period of time or a fire truck for a long period of time. I think if there had been an emergency vehicle, there were a lot of things that went wrong with that. But just to have the vehicle on scene, I think, might have allayed a lot of people's concerns. So I think if we do this, and I'm in favor of doing it, I don't think it's fair to you to have to go to these conferences. The parking, we have the meter guys who do that, and that's usually business. I would say somebody who might be more, and you could call them in if you responded to an emergency. Would be if we had a tree fall on something, would be the building inspector to make sure that can the electricity be safely turned back on in this building. Are you qualified to make a call like that or would you want the building inspector to make it, or the gas can be turned back on? Are you qualified to make, or the water even now that we think of a-

▶ 55:34 Speaker 2: Well, to me, it would come under the jurisdiction of which department has the authority. It would be between most, I would say 90% of the incidents would be decided between the fire department, the incident command of the fire department, and the public works director. Mm-hm. Who would be making those particular calls. Certainly, if I'm at a scene and I am questioned by, let's say, the homeowner, gee, is it safe to turn the electricity on? I would then rely on the department within the city that has that jurisdiction. And I would make the phone call to that department, ask for a representative to the scene.

▶ 56:16 Peter D. Mortimer: I see. Yeah, so that's the reason I think as a first responder, I think it would be a good idea for you to have this vehicle at your house with the absolute prohibition that it's nothing but coming to work for 18 hours, or an on-call response to an emergency. But in the meantime, another procedural aspect of this is the mayor was deficient in not communicating. I see letters from you to the mayor, but there's nothing here. And that was really too bad that she didn't put something in writing. And I can hear that there were some aldermen, not me, who have reservations about this. And what if it goes to the full board, the mayor can veto it. And we will have a new mayor on the 15th before we have another full board meeting on the, I think it's the 17th, isn't it? The 18th. The 18th, yeah, I'm looking at a calendar in my head. So we'll have a new mayor before that happens, and the new mayor can veto it. And then I don't think, from what I'm hearing, there's the eight votes necessary here to override a mayoral veto. So we may have done all of this for nothing. And again, I'm in favor of it. I think you should take it home. But I don't want us to do all this wheel spinning. And then when the new mayor comes in, he may have an entirely different philosophy. And this is a very executive, strong form of government by our charter that we have here. So I'm going to make a motion, and it's not that I'm against it. I'm going to make a motion that we hold it in committee and let's see if we can work this out and see how the new mayor, hopefully the new mayor will communicate with us, which is very important for a mayor to communicate. And let us know how he's going to feel about it so So it doesn't get vetoed, although I am for the reasons, I hear pros and cons on both sides. But overall, I think it's this one person's opinion is, I think it's a good idea.

▶ 58:35 John N. Tramontozzi: I'll second the motion. Before I take a second on that motion, I want to recognize Councilor Medeiros who had also some comment. But we get the second, and then we can continue with comments. We can do that. We have a motion to hold it in committee by Councillor Mortimer, seconded by Councillor Lipper-Garabedian. On further discussion, Councillor Medeiros.

▶ 58:54 Monica C. Medeiros: Thank you, and yes, I too am not a voting member of this committee, but I share a lot of the same concerns that have been brought here tonight. I see this as really something that is an appropriation of money that really ultimately it's a decision about whether or not we're going to, I think it's going to change your compensation is the way I look at this whether or not you're having mileage or whether or not you're having a vehicle and I think that's something that really needs to come from the mayor and it'd be worked out outside of this chamber and then brought before the the Board of Aldermen I I do share concerns I understand I'm glad to hear the report of how good the condition of the car is I think you've made very reasonable you know arguments about why you might need a car to be handy. At the same time, I share many of these other concerns about where it would be parked and the condition, fuel efficiency. I can't imagine that if you have a 2003 car

▶ 1:00:04 Monica C. Medeiros: that's 16 years old, that if it breaks down and it's unfixable, the expectation wouldn't be that then you would have a car that would be a new car which would cost a lot more money and I think that that's something that should really come with you know confirmation from the mayor that that's how we want to move forward so I'm not even sure we're actually you know appropriately debating this right now because I think it should come from the mayor but those are my thoughts

▶ 1:00:31 John N. Tramontozzi: very good thank you if there's no further discussion we do have a motion and on the on the floor that's been seconded all in favor aye any opposed Seeing none, this order will be held in committee. Thank you.

▶ 1:00:44 Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you ladies and gentlemen.

▶ 1:00:47 John N. Tramontozzi: Our second order on the agenda this evening is order 2020-37. It's a request for the city of Melrose to produce infrastructural data relating to all municipal sewer lines. And this is an order that's sponsored by Councilor Sean McMaster as well as President Scott Forbes.