ORDER-2020-11 : Authorization to Execute Solid Waste Facility Operating Agreement by and between the City of Melrose and Waste Management of Massachusetts

Transcript (~1 h 57 min @ 11:40)

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▶ 11:42 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: thank you the next item on our agenda is order number two zero two zero dash one one authorization to execute solid waste facility operating agreement by and between the city of Melrose and waste management of Massachusetts and we're We're still under suspension of rules, so we welcome any members of the administration who want to speak on this order.

▶ 12:28 Speaker 3: Thank you again, Madam Chair. The order before you tonight represents the culmination of almost two years of negotiations with waste management spanning two mayoral administrations in connection with the current Route 99 solid waste transfer station facility. Negotiations with waste management actually began in the fall of 2017 during the administration of Robert Dolan. They transitioned to Mayor Inferna in February of 2018 and were ongoing or have been ongoing since that time. So there's been a lot of due diligence, a lot of negotiation, a lot of discussion, a lot of exchanging of proposals with waste management during this entire time. Waste management approached the city in the fall of 2017 and asked if the city was interested in extending the relationship it had with the city to continue to use the Route 99 site as a solid waste transfer facility. At that time, and currently at this time, the city is committed to studying the long term use best use of the site whether as a solid waste transfer station as a mixed-use development as any other use the city is in the process of trying to determine what the best future long-term use for the site is but we did open the door to negotiations with waste management notwithstanding that that was the the objective of the city the operating agreement that is being Being presented tonight, Madam Chair, will allow the city to realize substantial new revenue from the operation of the current transfer station. And will also set the city up to really begin the long multi-year process of studying, analyzing, and considering the best future long-term use for this site. Before I share the details of this operating agreement with the committee, I do want to give you a little bit of history on the site itself. For many of us, all we've ever known there is a transfer station on Route 99. So let me give you a little bit of history. The current lease with Waste Management was for an original term of 15 years. And that lease was entered into in December of 1996 following a request for proposals that was issued by the city of Melrose. At the time, the lease was with a company called MJ Connolly and Sons. now the predecessor to Waste Management. At some point during their lease hold, MJ Connolly assigned the lease to another company, I believe called USA Waste, and USA Waste eventually assigned the lease or was purchased by Waste Management. So Waste Management is now the current lease holder. The lease agreement itself also provides for a ten year renewal at the sole option of the tenant. In 2011, I think, 2011, Waste Management exercised its right to extend the lease for an additional ten years, taking it out to a 25 year term. The lease is currently set to expire on November 30th, 2021. At this point in time, the city realizes approximately $135,000 in lease payments from waste management's leasehold those are the only payments the city receives other than tax payments that are made so let's talk briefly about the operating

▶ 16:12 Speaker 3: agreement if the board recommends favorably the order that's before you and authorizes the operating agreement the current lease will be terminated by agreement of the parties title to all of the improvements including the buildings the weigh station, the scale on the site, which were all built and installed at the expense of the tenant, will transfer to the city of Melrose. That's important if you realize that at the end of this relationship the city will have possession of transfer station assets that make that a much more valuable parcel in the future. The operating agreement establishes minimum financial payments from waste management to the city. Starting at $175,000 per year, that is through June 30th, 21. That is a minimum payment from waste management. Under the operating agreement, waste management is also obligated to pay a per ton host community fee to the city of Melrose. So if the tonnage at the site exceeds the $175,000 minimum threshold, the city would actually realize more revenue from the site. Starting on July 1st, 21, the minimum payment would increase to $200,000 per year. That's the minimum again. The per tonnage fee would increase from $1.25 per ton to $1.50 per ton. That would last until June 30th, 23, and thereafter, the per tonnage and minimum payments will grow by 3.5%. I just want to pause here for a minute, Madam Chair. These numbers were negotiated with waste management. Waste management obviously came in lower than these numbers reflect, and the city of Melrose came in higher, slightly higher than these numbers reflect. So these numbers are reached via negotiation. In addition to the payments I just described, the city will also receive a one-time payment one million dollars from waste management that payment will be split into two components both will be received five hundred thousand dollars apiece both will be received by the city of Melrose during the current fiscal

▶ 18:39 Speaker 3: year in entering into the agreement it's also important to note and I think mr. Shana can speak to this a little more eloquently than I can that the city is able to continue to use this property to support what I would refer to as city operations that currently allow us to realize a cost savings in the ballpark of 250 to 300 thousand dollars per year for things like snow storage brush and debris storage composting and disposal of those types of items so in addition to the direct financial benefit we receive from such an agreement we also would receive those sort of cost avoidance cost saving benefits that we currently realize under the lease agreement with waste management having said all of that we're here to answer any questions that members may have and we would ask for your favorable recommendation on this order right

▶ 19:35 Michael P. Zwirko: aldermen's work oh thank you I didn't mr. Shannon you didn't have anything to add to that I didn't know it he said you could speak up more eloquently to the use of the operations I thought you were just gonna go I'm sorry no I can what I

▶ 19:49 Speaker 2: What I can say is, my entire professional career in public works, waste management's been a great partner with public works. They've leased parcels and we've used sections of those parcels for our own needs. That's our snow dump, which has provided huge return for the community. We don't have another area in Melrose to place snow. have a recycling facility but it's limited but it's centrally located which makes it easy for our residents to access on Tremont Street but what the residents don't see is that daily in the fall we're hauling that material we haul it to a parcel behind waste management but you know we cross that waste management site we work together in regards to access they provide us with another section of their parcel that they lease to store our catch basin cleaning, so rather than clean for a few days and force the contractor to haul it out at a higher expense. They provide us areas where we can do stockpiling of material and clean the entire program, the same with street sweepings, we put our street sweepings there. Sometimes we'll do a utility contract where the low bidder provides a more favorable bid if we provide them lay down where they can put excavate and store it there until the project's over. Waste management allows us to use that parcel of land for that as well. So they've been a great, a very good partner. We've had very few complaints regarding their operation. And from a public works perspective, continuing this relationship would be a huge thing. Not being able to access the parcel behind waste management and allow us to continue to do what we do on that parcel. It would ultimately lead to service cuts because I'm not quite sure where we put all our yard waste. I mean, we collect yard waste and we have bag limits, do we force it to the letter of the law? No, I mean, our recycling facility's open throughout the week. It's open on Saturdays for people to bring yard waste in the fall. We take that material and we go right up there because we have that land. If we didn't have that land, we'd be forced to take the material from Tremont Street and look to take it out of the city at a cost. so waste management we have the keys to the Apostle they have the keys to our parcel we work very good together and my opinion it's a very good relationship to

▶ 22:36 Speaker 3: continue and manage it just so members of the committee also know Jim Nacella from waste management he's the liaison we've worked with for I've worked with my entire time here in Melrose he probably has a much more expensive title than I just gave him but he's here as well and can answer any questions that that members may have that that members of the administration can't answer so just want to thank you still to sell it for being here as well so and thank you

▶ 22:58 Michael P. Zwirko: for that explanation and further description the all the benefits of using from city operations we still have until this contract expires correct so this there's 26 months or so to go left on this contract right it expires in November of 2021 right so I I guess my question is is why now I mean if there's still I mean I know negotiations have been going on for about two years but but why why now do we need to do this 26 months is still a very long time where the city can determine what it is they want to use with this um this land and operations wise I don't I don't see why I I think the the dilemma is

▶ 23:47 Speaker 3: that there's two issues waste management at some point from what we understand has to make a decision about its future without that site and mr. nacella's here he could speak to this but my understanding is in order to cite a transfer station in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts today it's a multi-year you know three-year process and my understanding is that waste management management is already late in the game if they were going to have to cite the route 99 facility at another location so that that was I think the reason why waste management came to the city of Melrose almost two years ago they were looking at four years out on the lease and we've got to talk start talking to Melrose about what we can do at that site from our perspective as a city as an administration we have been methodically considering what will happen when the transfer station shuts down and under the lease what happens is waste management is obligated to restore the property to the pre-lease condition to tear the building down remove the scale take everything away so it would probably be almost impossible to call it a transfer station again or to get it to be permitted as a transfer station so in addition to that mr shenna has to consider if we if there is a redevelopment option at that site whatever it is whenever it is where does the city handle snow storage where does the city handle composting all of these items that we currently do almost for free are relatively expensive so the city's sort of struggling with what happens in the long term to those functions and then you know the bigger piece is and this is really the community discussion that has to happen what actually is that site going to look like 5 10 15 20 years from now and that's where I'm kind of going with the

▶ 25:37 Michael P. Zwirko: why now I mean if if contract negotiations began in the fall of 2017 under the Dolan administration and we have you know documents in our master plan that talk about community involvement in this site why wasn't the community involved in the fall of 2017 or any point any along the way so this site specifically and and I'll get to this other point in a moment but it says in the master plan there's the section on economic development it draws recommendations and these are on page 75 and 76 of the master plan it says promote economic economic development and increase the tax base by encouraging business and development and redevelopment strategy 3.2 says identify optimal land uses for the route 99 area and adjust zoning to encourage preferred redevelopment action off of that strategy is to continue to plan for the expiration of the waste management lease on the route 99 purse parcel conduct a public process to develop a future vision for this area including working property owners about redevelopment options and constraints so the master plan came out well before the negotiations started and this is really a roadmap and it says and I'll just repeat it continue to plan for the expiration of the waste management lease so I'm just wondering why when we started negotiations with waste management in a parallel form we didn't say all right let's let's take the the instructions that the community spoke to to community recommended and bought in on with the plan and said let's find out what we can do at this site because at the time in 2017 you had four years so I'm just wondering why the negotiations occurred but the in parallel that didn't

▶ 27:15 Speaker 3: with the community yeah I can't speak to why that provision of the master plan wasn't implemented or followed to the letter the only thing I can represent is that we have you know been entertaining this proposal from waste management within the context of also wanting to engage the community and look at long-term redevelopment uses for that site, but unfortunately, that master plan framework hasn't been adopted to the T up to this point in time, and I think one of the things we're considering at this point is to give waste management a relatively reasonable extension of their use of the property would then give the community a sufficient amount of time to really take a long, hard look at what the community wants to see there, to implement whatever zoning regulations have to be implemented, to look at whatever changes have to be made in the area, to consult with other components, state government, for example, because you're right off of Route 1 there. Depending on the type of development you're going to have, I'm sure Mass Highway is going to want to have some input in that. I'm sure there are environmental considerations for that entire swath of land, but I hear you. It's a complicated process.

▶ 28:36 Michael P. Zwirko: Well, I mean, I don't think 10 years is reasonable. That's a long extension, especially considering we've been planning for the expiration of this site. The other thing I wanted to state is I have an email here that was sent to the Board of Alderman in June of 2014 that talks about when we were going to enhance our recycling program and one of the key points this is an email from the office of Mayor Dolan it says that we're seeking to extend the JRM trash and recycling contract out seven years to stabilize costs and provide consistent quality service this coincides with the expiration of the lease with waste management at route 99 which will allow for incredible options in the future in terms of the transfer station owned by the city of Melrose at that time so again we even enhanced our contracts and our services to time with the same expiration date so we had advanced knowledge of this and I feel with 26 months to go there's still time to negotiate and discuss what not only the administration but the community wants to do with this parcel and I'll be quite frank this parcels worth a lot of money it's it's a very very valuable piece of land considering the enhancements that we made even since the master plan with the addition of the medical and soon-to-be adult use recreational marijuana facility I also know that the abutting property which is owned by aggregate industries they recently and this is again taken from the master plan which is a very good roadmap signed an agreement with the town of Saugus in February of 2017 to fill the quarry and reclaim the land to make it suitable for mixed-use development the town of Saugus will work with aggregate industries on a plan for reuse of this site and given its proximity to the Melrose border the city of Melrose should act should actively engage in this planning effort ten years is a really really long time but I believe the quarry closure process

▶ 30:25 Michael P. Zwirko: was like a 15-year process I I'm sure it was especially when I mean it's it takes

▶ 30:28 Speaker 3: a while to take these parcels that have been industrial for decades and make

▶ 30:38 Michael P. Zwirko: them suitable for redevelopment absolutely and at times you deal with as as we've seen with redevelopment efforts in the greater boston area brownsfield reclamation remediation it's it's a process for sure and and we don't have as melrose knows very small portions of our land is actually either developed or even zoned for industrial so this is a it's it's so rare that it's so valuable um and to extend this lease when we knew that it was going to expire we've known this for a very very long time we have pointed to this in many meetings commissions discussions our master plan I certainly think this this bears much more engagement specifically from the public I think we have much more work to do on this I don't think that we need to do this now two years we still have two winners we could go through before we you know have to deal with any city operations I think that I just we've known about this for a very long time and this this is coming to us now to extend I just think is a little bit of too much of a rush especially when we have all this documentation of an anticipation of being able to use this and leverage this for even more capital without a million dollars over ten years really doesn't amount to much in my opinion I'll defer at this time but those are all the questions I had at this moment Thank You madam chair Alderman Bewtra thank you I think many of

▶ 32:07 Manisha Bewtra: my questions were addressed but I kind of wanted to get a better sense of just how waste management and the DPW operations that happen on those couple of parcels how they interact with sort of the neighborhood in terms of the conservation land at Mount Hood circulation and traffic and are there any particular kind of resident concerns for nearby neighbors which I realize is from an access point is maybe not direct but maybe a budding kind of from their

▶ 32:41 Speaker 2: backyards or that kind of thing we've never had an issue there we call snow up there middle of the night waste management lets us in we haul up there on the weekend when waste management's closed like I said we have access to their site they have access to our site we're very good neighbors with each other and we've worked extremely close over the years to the point where we we We have used, and if this agreement goes through, they've agreed to allow us to continue to use pieces of the parcels that they've leased for our own use. So when they're leasing parcels of property from Melrose, and then yet they're allowing a DPW to put snow on it. Which creates runoff and creates issues, but we've worked together because he realizes that we had a need and we want to maintain that partnership. um you know i i could tell i could tell you that much we've had very few problems with that site

▶ 33:38 Manisha Bewtra: that's helpful um and also can you speak to the topography of the site

▶ 33:42 Speaker 2: well it's like it's boarded on on one side by mount hood by parkland and i believe you know as allman's work was said correctly aggregate is to This is one side of us, the other side is another commercial entity, DNR contracting. I believe the front piece of it is also a cemetery. Rita along the frontage, there's a cemetery. I can tell you that the topography is not, this isn't a flat piece of land. Rita. A lot of ledge, there's a lot of ledge outcrops. And as far as I know, everything I've been told, it's always been used as a dump site. and not a regulated dump site decades ago right now waste management is heavily regulated in what they do they hold the permit for the site the transfer station permits with waste management if they go the permit goes so if we were to you know make our own create our own transfer station or partner with someone else we would have to start over like like us as a list of VanCampen said the end of the agreement requires them to return the piece of land the way they found it that means scale the scale is gone the weight station is gone the the offices are gone the actual garage where they put their trash all of it would go away which will require somebody else to come in and stop know if that's what they're gonna do they're gonna continue as a transfer station and you know there's no telling what you're gonna find when you start digging up there because if the stories hold true from the old time public works employees and people in town that they used to just dump up there that was that was the dump we've never excavated because we've never had the need to to see what's there but you know that would have to be I'd strongly recommend that if we're going to study to do something other than what we're doing up there we have to look at some more of the topography look at some more of the soil conditions the Tennessee gas line crosses that property and that creates its own set of restrictions in fact they just cleared the vegetation around it was part of a several municipal project that they did up and down the North Shore so those are some of the obstacles that you're up against and in terms of topography but we've worked very well with them I don't foresee it changing if we were to

▶ 36:20 Manisha Bewtra: continue this that's helpful and I guess my final question at this point is is regarding aggregate industries and to what extent the city of Melrose has been in communication with Saugus on on what what they're planning there because I think again sort of aggregate industries next to waste management was sort of compatible but thinking about how if they're going towards more of a mixed development to what extent are we part of those conversations I know that

▶ 36:50 Speaker 3: Denise Gaffey our director of planning and community development I know she's been at some of those quarry closure committee meetings in the past so she has kept somewhat of a she's served as somewhat of a liaison to that process they're still my understanding is several years away from you know aggregate is a fully functioning processing plant still there's still several years before that quarry is filled capped closed whatever they call it and capable of being redeveloped so again in the grand scheme of what we're talking about tonight we're talking about essentially an eight-year extension of our relationship with waste and I want to correct maybe what is a misunderstanding here this is not a lease extension where we are taking ownership of the buildings and the assets on our land and then in exchange we're entering into an operating agreement with waste management to allow them to operate a solid waste facility inside our building using our scale on our land but one of the nice things about this agreement is we have the best of all worlds it's It's our land, they're our buildings, but waste management's responsible for every cost, every expense, every utility, every damage, every improvement, every renovation. That's what this is. This is not a lease, just so folks understand. We're terminating the lease, assuming this passes.

▶ 38:27 Manisha Bewtra: Thank you. Those are my questions for now, thank you.

▶ 38:30 Speaker 4: Alderman Tramontozzi.

▶ 38:33 Speaker 2: Thank you, Madam Chair.

▶ 38:37 John N. Tramontozzi: You may call it an operating agreement, but it really looks like a lease. And the reason I say that is because we do, I understand, we terminate the original lease. We become the owner of the buildings, the improvements on the property. So we're owners of it. also our responsibility and any um liability that may be incurred you're requiring um waste management to carry insurance for that uh that's fine and dandy but i think liability is still an issue that the city has to be faced with but anyways putting that aside you you mentioned in your opening that this also gives us the opportunity to look at what the best future long-term use of the property would be but you're how can you do that if you're giving them a set term that they can run this facility for so are you suggesting that you could terminate this operating agreement two years from now three years from now if you found a better use for the property

▶ 39:48 Speaker 3: yeah there's language in the operating agreement that actually gives the city that option but what just so folks understand the result of that is that the one million dollar one-time payment is returned on a prorated basis to waste management so if we if we were to terminate this in five years we would owe waste management the five hundred thousand dollars right that's exactly

▶ 40:10 John N. Tramontozzi: what that's the point i'm making correct sounds nice you say oh we get a million dollars uh in for this fiscal uh year to spend we spend it we terminate the operating agreement now we're going

▶ 40:24 Speaker 3: to find some money to repay them but i think at that point alderman you're looking at a cost benefit analysis to determine whether or not terminating the operating agreement at that future date if the return that we would realize in doing that would outweigh that prorated payment

▶ 40:39 John N. Tramontozzi: back to waste management yeah that means we're still then then we then we make that decision away the fact is that we're still stuck with the uh continuation of the operating agreement if we don't find the resources to pay pay that back um that's that's one fault i see in the in this operating agreement um and um you know that that troubles me um and for the same reasons that alderman has worked or mentioned about what the master plan i mean i recall the many years that i've been sitting here in the as an alderman in this board uh talking about the potential use for that property in the future once that lease is terminated i don't recall ever talking about that we're going to be faced with a situation we're going to extend our continued operations there for that matter i think we we felt strongly that there may be some other alternative uses and that we should be exploring that we did take the steps i understand it hasn't come through but but i think in in the past years we've been looking forward to the opportunity to change the use of that premises and so I'm not in that inclined to to agree with it for the for the reasons that I think the dilemma we have as a as an

▶ 42:00 Speaker 3: administration maybe as a city is that this is a I mean this is mountainous this is if anyone's ever been on this site this is this is a mountain of I mean it's it's it's quite a swath of land i know alderman Mortimer probably hiked it in the past but i mean it's a it's a pretty difficult tract of land if you were going to develop it it's really almost suited for the current um uses that are put to it but we really haven't really explored

▶ 42:34 John N. Tramontozzi: those options haven't i mean have we correct okay correct correct and hopefully and hopefully uh

▶ 42:40 Speaker 3: you know in the waning weeks of the inferno administration and the new administration will tackle it a bit more aggressively than it has been tackled over the last several years but this opportunity arose and the only thing i could say in response to some of your remarks alderman is that if if we just allow the lease to run out and have community engagement about new zoning and new new traffic studies and all these things with no developer with nothing else the city of Melrose will be left in November of 21 with a piece of land that no longer has an operating transfer station on it that's generating no revenue that's just the you know that's just the balancing that we asked the board to consider which is the balancing we considered and I also would just reference to the fact that during our negotiations waste management originally proposed a deal that would have resulted in a 35-year operating agreement and nothing in terms of a one-time payment so mayor inferno when she took it from mayor dolan was pretty adamant about the term being as short as possible and in exchange for the 10-year term waste management was willing to make that substantial one-time payment to the city and you know the prorating piece on it if we early terminate it that that's you know something if mr de la rusa wants to

▶ 44:09 Speaker 2: address but if i may through again with the chair i think and that's a great great point um all of them in termitose there are covenants and agreements that waste management was would enter into assuming they had this property for this length of time for the use of this property if in fact it's shot cutted in the midstream and now they have costs they've associated with making their commitments based on this being you know another eight years of course they're going to incur some costs so i think the objective would be that um recognize that there's a cost if we you know if it doesn't work out to them too i understand it's a business decision uh for them that's where that i think originated from it's both sides but i think that the current

▶ 44:56 John N. Tramontozzi: administrations look look at this whole issue and not wanting to be a longer term just reflects the history and not the past discussions that we have had in the prior administration as well keeping that if anything a shorter term mr. Shannon one of the things you mentioned is the cooperation that exists between the city and in waste management I appreciate that it there's not a lot of language in this agreement relative to that cooperation other than one small paragraph and basically just says that um the um the waste management still has the um the authority and the power to do what they want on it on the property within reason and that uh you maximizing the city's use of the property surrounding the swf to allow for alternative uses but but you don't it doesn't specifically say that we're authorized to use a section of the the property for snow dumping and things like that. That has to be a verbal, an understanding between the parties. That's not addressed really in the contract.

▶ 46:04 Speaker 2: No, no, it's not, but I can tell you that we absolutely are going to continue to operate like that. And we discussed possibly doing a memorandum of understanding between public works and waste management to allow our operation and their operation to continue. A lot of what the agreement does talk about is waste management looking at options to enhance the site.

▶ 46:25 John N. Tramontozzi: Rita. And anything that they do would be with the city's involvement. And in those discussions, they wouldn't limit what we could do on the site as well with them. So, well, I mean, they want to advance the options that they have available. And using the facility which may then reduce, or maybe not eliminate, but certainly reduce the city's options. They've never said that they would reduce what we do there. They always said that whatever their future is, it would include what we do today. And with this agreement in place, it's to the city's benefit to allow them to increase their tonnage. They have existing permit and Mr. Sella's here and he can speak to it.

▶ 47:12 Speaker 2: They're permitted to process a lot more trash than they do today. And they can't process to their permit levels because they don't have, the site's constrained.

▶ 47:23 Speaker 2: There's mountain, there's a ledge outcrop to the left as you go in. Trucks have to go all the way up to the second level to turn around to come back down. A truck can only come down, the truck has to wait. The truck at the bottom has to wait for the truck to come down before it comes up. There are all kinds of restrictions, and because of those restrictions the site presents waste management, they're limited in what they can process in terms of tonnage, although they're permitted to do more. So if the city in the future move forward, can work with waste management to make some accommodations to allow them to process more. We'd see more money in the future because the minimum payments are set on basically what they're doing today. If anything more they do, that the payment, because there's the per ton fee, we could see even more money. I mean, these are based on what they're doing today. Yeah, but not just on this City of Melrose disposable waste, but then opening it up for other communities. Rita. I understand, right. Or for waste management accounts in other communities to come to Melrose for that transportation. Rita now, they're just limited, and Mr. Selleck can speak more eloquently to that, but they're permitted to do a lot more than what they're currently processing. And because of this, if you were to stop the lease, go to the operator's agreement, the city has the ability in the future to gain more at a time when funding's needed.

▶ 48:54 John N. Tramontozzi: We have our own set of problems right here, right next door, public safety. a discussion that's going to be had in the future about the library so a change in in this revenue stream over the next 10 years while we further develop what we can do there is something that we considered positive yeah i don't think it but frankly i don't think it's going to generate as much as you know you would hope because of the limitations as you say on the use of the site anyway so but anyways i appreciate that i'll defer to others as well thank you for the time alderman

▶ 49:27 Scott M. Forbes: force thank you um you know it seems like a lot of our questions are based upon the anticipated use of this this this property i guess the first question i would have is why denise gaffey wasn't a part of these discussions because i feel like that her feedback would have been uh you know a valued uh resource for us to make that kind of determination and i'm not sure she was she wasn't a part of you know your uh group that was coming to present before us this evening um but anyway

▶ 49:59 Speaker 3: that's neither neither is that a question or if you can comment she's been part of the discussions and i know denise has actually been in meetings with waste management with their representatives in the past i also know she had a conversation with olivin Zwirko yesterday i believe she provided him with some information on her sort of view on this and at the same time i understand she had a personal commitment tonight she couldn't be here so that's the only reason she's not here this

▶ 50:22 Scott M. Forbes: evening okay well i guess my question just revolves around i think this may be the the question everyone wants to wants to ask is why act now instead of wait a couple of months when a new administration can come in evaluate the situation make a well-informed decision and not have to deal with the ramifications like alderman Tramontozzi said where if they want to back out of something now we're on the hook for you know a block of money that we received and now have to

▶ 50:48 Speaker 3: to give back um what i'm going to do ultimately i'm going to have mr nacella from waste management just explain to you the the thought process he has about why waiting any longer since we've been negotiating for two years may not make the most sense understood for at least for his side and

▶ 51:04 Speaker 1: we can we can speak to the city side yep right thank you um yeah so so um the the issue that we have and the reason why why we uh approached the city uh a few years ago uh has to do with just the timetable it takes to to you know to a site a facility of this nature somewhere else it's an operation that we're going to continue to to have you know whether it be melrose or in a surrounding community in order to do that when you go through the state regulatory process it's it's about a two to three year process between permitting and then if you have to construct versus taking another facility over um that's the period of time that that you're faced with um the state right now is you know in a dilemma uh not that that necessarily um is melrose is concerned but it's in a dilemma in terms of how to deal with and handle solid waste um you know there's very very limited capacity for disposal and so you know we need to be able to transfer material in near future likely further um and so uh in order to to have a facility to be able to do that you know we need that timetable that time to to be able to to do that so it's changed it's you know it's went through two administrations you know i understand that's just something that you know has happened here uh our intention was really to have this um agreed upon or not agreed upon uh about a year ago so it's it's kind of strung out a little bit too long for our liking and you know in order for us to just operate we need to either kind of make a decision to to continue here with this relationship which we you know hope adds a lot of value to the city uh or to you know um look for another you know facility and and you know this is a I don't know how many of you have been on the site maybe all of you but you know when Bob talked about the nature of the site itself it's a really really choppy site it is difficult to operate on but you know the devil you know right so we've figured out how to do that there's probably some opportunities to make some subtle improvements but nothing that would impinge or impact on the city's operations as they are today we fully expect that everything the city gets to do will continue to get to do that and then some of those improvements may help down the road as you start to look at you know the long-term future the other thing you know I understand you know you want to look for the you know the best and use for a um you know for that property um i might be biased and think that that's probably the only use you're going to have on that piece of property when you look at trying to develop something like that the site costs are going to be astronomical because of the way the the structure of that you know that that land is um but the fact that matters is that if we do close it down and then we do restore the property um i don't think you the the site would not pass the regulatory hurdles that are in place today to have a solid waste transfer station so you know you may buy time and then you know move that facility out i don't think you'd be able to replace that facility under the current guidelines um and then if you don't have a development plan or a developer you know you have a facility that produces you know no revenue which is probably not in the best interest you know of the city or the rate payers um you know as well and then i think the last point is when you go into development particularly uh development um you know let's say you were thinking about some type of mixed residential or industrial type use um you're talking about a probably a 10-year plan right by the time you study you get public input you get somebody that is thinks there is something else that could could happen with that i would tell you that i think you're you're really the plan and why the mayor and the administration rejected our our longer term offer for 10 years is really quite in sync with what's going on with aggregate and what would need to happen develop to develop a parcel like this into something different which you know we feel maybe never will happen but but you'll have the opportunity to do that have your studies happen and still be able to enjoy the you know the flexibility the operations and the revenues that the site generates

▶ 55:59 Scott M. Forbes: okay and i i can understand and appreciate that these negotiations have been a long you know complex process but for me considering that the framework is now in place you know would waiting two months three months for a new administration to come in and make that evaluation and if they think that it's the best decision that they can immediately go into negotiations i mean i i wouldn't think that another two to three months would be a deal breaker in any of this what it really is it is it is we we are at a critical stage right now we've passed that point um and you know look we've we've had um many many many months months of years of negotiations

▶ 56:36 Speaker 1: um and i think you know the city has done a a a pretty good job the administration of uh of bringing this to a point where it's kind of a deal that makes hopefully sense for the city uh certainly uh we are at our break point in terms of financial um um so so to say that we could enter into negotiations i think we're you know pretty complete uh when it comes to to that we've you know we started at a place and the city has moved us a long way to you know to you know increase the financial benefits to the city to the point where it doesn't really make economic sense for us to go you know any further so between that and the timeline that that we have to go out and develop another piece of property uh time is absolutely critical and you know to think that you would have a change of administration and that in a matter of one month a new administration would come in and look at something that's been negotiated for two years and make a decision we wouldn't be able to rely on that okay thank you for your time thank you alderman mortimer

▶ 57:54 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you very much chairman Letter garabedian thank you gentlemen for being here tonight

▶ 58:03 Peter D. Mortimer: i see that when we examine any issue we should look at who what where when why and how And there's been focus now on the when. But I think it's more important that we look at the what, which is the contract, the why, the how, the where is pretty obvious. And people have asked, why now? But it could also be asked, why not now? I think the what of those questions, who, what, where, when, why, and how is the most important. What? Is this a good deal? Is this a good deal? Yes, this is a good deal. It's a good deal now, it'll be a good deal in two months. But, as we just heard, if we're listening carefully, this deal might not be here in two months. Many of us have worked on a lot of deals and you're close and it looks good. Turns out it's going to be a win-win and then people hesitate, drag their feet a little bit. And as you just heard, one of the party walks and the deal's gone. This is a deal we should take, and it doesn't matter when, it doesn't matter whether it's now or in a few months. Question is, what? Is this a good deal? And yes, it is a good deal. City Solicitor VanCampen's right. I've hiked that area many times. I've rode my mountain bike through there. You see the upside down orange and white striped candy canes that are vents for the Tennessee Valley gas pipe that comes up and supplies us all with gas from Tennessee. It comes all the way that supplies our homes, and if you were looking for a spot to have a waste management facility, you couldn't, if you designed it yourself, you couldn't ask for a better spot. You got a golf course on one side, and once in a great while it can be a little annoying to the golfers coming off the 13th tee. But mostly not, mostly it's not a problem, it's pretty quiet. You have a car dealership on the other side, no big deal. You have a cemetery on the other side. You have aggregate preparing the asphalt on the other side. It's a perfect location for a waste management facility. And conversely, if you look at it for the site for residential development, you almost couldn't think of a worse site. It's pitched, it's rocky, it's ledge. There's a couple of brooks, vernal pools, you'd run into all kinds of conservation commission problems. But because it's already established, it's grandfathered in. This is a good deal. It's a win-win, and it doesn't matter when, and we don't want waste management to walk. We definitely don't, I'm sorry to tip my hand, and it doesn't matter, this contract was probably negotiated. There's been ongoing negotiations by Mr. De La Russo and Mr. Van Kampen, very experienced negotiators. And I'm sure that they've done a great job making sure that we've gotten all that we can get for Melrose. And that would be a terrible thought for housing, terrible. And I don't know why we have to have more housing all the time in Melrose housing. Yeah, there's a housing shortage apparently in the northeast of the United States, Why does Melrose have to solve that? We have to take care of what's good for Melrose, and this deal is good for Melrose. One of the things you can do, and I've done it, is it's a two ton minimum, but you can go down there with a van or a pickup truck. You roll onto the scale, they weigh it, you take your dumped material, and they check it to make sure it's clean. And then you give them, last time I hauled anything down there in my van, it was $150, what's the fee now? That sounds about right, yeah. Yeah, it's $150 for 2,000 pounds for a ton. And a lot of the contractors, friends of ours in Melrose that we all know, go down there, it's very convenient. And yet, it's not right there in downtown Melrose. We've got a dump site, and there it is. Changing the use would be terrible. This is a perfect spot. It's a good deal. So I say, let's grab it while it's there. been worked on. There's no need to wait any further. This isn't something like we're hiring somebody and we don't want to lock the new mayor into a contract of any type. This is something that's a deal that's going to go on for a long time. It's a good deal. It's

▶ 1:02:47 Peter D. Mortimer: a win-win. People talk about a master plan. There are master plans that come and go. The master plan gets annotated and changed every year, what really counts is they can have master plans and talk in different areas and this meeting and that meeting and master plan. What matters is what the aldermen want to do. That's what we're elected for. If this is a good deal, we should jump at it. Not worry about what the master plan in 2010 said, not worry about what the master plan said in 2015. We have a good deal in front of us right here.

▶ 1:03:24 Peter D. Mortimer: And the reason that they're going to walk if we don't grab this, and I know that weakens our bargaining position. I'm sorry gentlemen, I know you've worked very hard on this to make sure, but it seems like you've worked out a good deal. And I don't like those deals where take it now or we're going to walk. But waste management started making those noises a year ago. We got to do a deal here, let's get down to brass tacks or we might be walking. This isn't like they came in at this minute. This isn't a used car salesman saying, buy this car today because it's not going to be a lot tomorrow. No, this is an ongoing deal. And frankly, if I were waste management and I knew I wasn't getting the cooperation, I'd start looking around too because it's expensive to set up. But right now, the way this is set up, it's a good deal for everyone. It doesn't matter when, what matters is the why, how, and mostly what matters in this is the what. Who, what, where, when, why, and how, the what, and is the deal a good deal? The what is the deal, and is the deal a good deal? Yes it is. Thank you.

▶ 1:04:32 Speaker 4: President Lemmerman?

▶ 1:04:34 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you all for being here this evening and for providing this information. I would say I very much agree that we should follow the the plan to have a public process around land and opportunities for the city but that

▶ 1:04:58 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: hasn't happened yet and so ideally would have happened it has not we now have this this offer in front of us that we need to evaluate if we started I know we heard Mr. Gnisella give his assessment of how long he thinks a process would take to evaluate this land from the city side if we started this tomorrow we went through a public process got public input did the assessment you know whatever feasibility studies needed to be done how long would that process take if you could think back to you know other other times that we've done this

▶ 1:05:31 Speaker 3: in the city that's really a question for the city planner I have I have no idea okay i mean i imagine it takes a year to do a real thorough process but i i would only be guessing at

▶ 1:05:44 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: that point and that's the the public input piece correct okay and then if you're going to do it

▶ 1:05:47 Speaker 3: right i mean having one meeting with the public and then saying you check that off that's not

▶ 1:05:57 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: doing it right a good year i'd say yep okay and then that would obviously kick off another series of assessments and and studies that would need to happen um as you mentioned um city solicitor this amounts to an eight year difference from what we're currently working with to the proposal on

▶ 1:06:20 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: the table um and we we currently do not have an alternate plan i think there are in my opinion more pressing priorities within the city particularly related to our infrastructure and and our properties that need to be addressed first such as our police and fire buildings mr shenna mentioned the library you know those things before likely we would even be able to do that process here pushing it out even further i think it's important as as alderman mortimer has just mentioned that this is not what we're talking about is not extending a known subpar option this is not a consolation prize this is something that continues a productive successful relationship that has been mutually beneficial for waste management and for the city and what we just very explicitly heard is that this offer is going to go away so we need to decide if you know we could go through that entire process and and decide that this this was the best use um you know it's not that we're you know filling time it's it's this is one of the options that will be discussed um through through a public process through an assessment um and and continuing this not only brings in revenue for the city it allows us to do that process in the meantime is there anything in this that would stop us from being able to start this

▶ 1:07:51 Speaker 3: process that has not gotten started no I mean quite frankly we had hoped to start that study process in 2017 but as everyone knows a lot has happened in this community over the last couple of years so that this hasn't been top of the of the radar so to speak and when we were negotiating with with waste management we always looked at given the fact that we had this sort of the pause that had to occur when we when we transition between mayors we we always looked at it and said if we're going to ever have the opportunity to redevelop the site for whatever use is the best it would still it would still not be any earlier than 2027 or 28 anyway in terms of the actual development shovel in the ground so to extend waste management for eight years to and generate this kind of new revenue in a city that's you know desperately going to need it going forward for other purposes it did seem like a good deal and i will just say that to a certain extent the city from a negotiating standpoint we waited mr nacella out with all due respect because four years ago he put nothing on the table by way of a one-time payment and then we waited and got a little closer to his deadlines and all of a sudden with all due respect mr nacella we now had a million dollar one-time payment offered to the city of belrose so it was give and take here but at the same time you know alderman water said it this is mortimer said it this is this is the best deal we could negotiate under the circumstances while giving the city the ability over the next eight to ten years to truly consider what redevelopment options exist for route 99 for that whole swath of land all the way up to mount hood thank you um i would also

▶ 1:09:42 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: mr jenner you you mentioned you know the possibility of of an mou of some kind um we did hear very clearly tonight that there's no intention to to stop allowing the city to use it in the way that we have um i do think that that you know if an mou was something that could be possible that would be probably a smart thing to do um i but you know i think that's just that's

▶ 1:10:08 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: just an aside that we heard tonight that i would strongly recommend if we were to move forward with this um i do want to just mention i just want to say in the context of this order but i think in lots of things that we discuss i think we need to move past the mentality that city business should come to a stop because we have an election coming up i think we need to continue to do our work and that we have we have business in front of us that is going is time sensitive and is going to go away and so i i think that's something that is detrimental um to us to be making decisions based off of that so i just want to mention that um i'll just you know i think i've said what i

▶ 1:10:52 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: need to say i think this is a good deal we're looking at potentially having an empty piece of land in a couple of years because we didn't take a deal in front of us that could is certainly the best deal now and could end up long-term being the best deal but allows us to continue to do that assessment in the meantime so that we can determine where this should go beyond the length of this extension and perhaps even earlier if something comes along we do have the option to

▶ 1:11:26 Speaker 2: take advantage of that thank you if i'm in plain information to the chair um from from my perspective it was three factors that we i looked at personally one was the entity itself and if they have proven themselves over the years but there was credibility to what services services they provide in the community, second was revenue stability, which we absolutely have to have in this community. We have learned in the past that we can't count on anyone else but ourselves, I don't want to forget that. Because we have one good year of state aid doesn't mean you're going to have another year. We've seen years and years where they just haven't come forward, whether it's for education, special ed, whatever the case may be. It may be, it's sporadic, which is just what we don't want, this avoids that. And the third thing is, there is no possible way in two years that we are going to turn around and say, okay, we're all going to do this capital work now, whether it be for police or fire. We just took off the table $400,000, where did that come from? Well, you're going to lose at least $165,000, $170,000, what you're getting right now today, between this money and the real estate taxes. You're also going to pick up a new cost between $200,000 and $300,000 a year to do the work you're getting done now. It's not costing the city any dollars out of pocket. So now you have to have that cost taken care of, which no one in this room, including myself, would know how to do that. Rita now, it hasn't been determined, how do we recover that? How do we produce that service that we're getting now from the value that we're getting from the agreement? And secondly, we are losing the regular, the dollar itself. So if you want to say the dollar's secondary, it sort of is in a way. But the important thing is, what do you put in its place and where do you put it, and who's going to run it? And we don't have that answer this evening, other than the fact that we know that what's in front of us will give us revenue stability. It will buy us time, and I appreciate Alderman Zwirko position, and anyone else on the master plan, and Alderman Vitra, etc. However, when a business comes before you, which we don't control, their business operation, and they come to the city at a point we didn't anticipate, we just can't walk away or ignore it and say we don't have to listen to you because we have two more years. That's not how it works in the real world. Now his own situation as a business impacts us whether we want to accept it or not, because it does. So we're going to work with this organization before us, whether it's ABC company, whoever it is. We're going to decide to take a different route, but we can't have it both ways. And we can't have the same services delivered for nothing, because they're going to cost us something. And this is the same time as everyone's mindful that we're looking at police and fire, Public safety, the library, all these situations need help, Memorial Hall. And now we're going to take money right off the table that would go towards providing some type of service for capital because we reduced our ability to support what we're getting today. So that plays both ways. So from my perspective, I support the agreement because for the time being it covers what I believe is ferocity right now from my point of view. for stability as we're going forward and i think it works best at this point and i know it's eight years it's not the ten and we did um work to bring that down i believe the original year was like 35 years he was looking for so we negotiate down to eight so it was it wasn't something that wasn't done in a painful way i'm sure he'd like a longer term he could speak for himself but we didn't want

▶ 1:15:02 Monica C. Medeiros: to go that far but thank you alderman medeiros thank you uh thank you attorney ben campen could you talk a little bit about the history of ownership of this parcel of land this has always been owned by the city of melrose and and what's happened so i don't know the year but i

▶ 1:15:15 Speaker 3: think decades ago it was the city dump i'm not sure what years that would have encompassed then at some point it became a permitted transfer station and then in 96 as i said mj conley took the permit for a transfer station there and then ran forward to waste management their successor today but it's always been um this type of use for as long far back as as as i know is that like the

▶ 1:15:54 Speaker 3: 1960s is that 1920 like do we do a chain of title or anything i'll go back to the 1960s but so i i don't want to i don't want to have all the more across debate but he probably is more of an expert

▶ 1:16:06 Monica C. Medeiros: than i am i moved here in 69 and it was a dump then yeah and uh as far as you're aware in the time from it being the city dump to the time where mj connelly came along was there any cleanup of

▶ 1:16:18 Speaker 3: the land well that's what we don't that's the unknown in all of this you know we go through the process of doing feasibility studies and and you know land valuation assessments and we don't know if there are contaminants on that

▶ 1:16:34 Monica C. Medeiros: site do we know if the city of Melrose conducted any cleanup I don't have that

▶ 1:16:42 Monica C. Medeiros: information I'm not sure but it's probably likely that there may have been

▶ 1:16:46 Speaker 3: contaminants yeah and it's probably likely as mr nacella said that any any redevelopment that the site work itself whether there is contamination or not on that site would be extraordinarily

▶ 1:17:02 Monica C. Medeiros: costly and um before land would say transfer to if we say we wanted to move this to residential use

▶ 1:17:12 Speaker 5: there would have to be significant environmental cleanup of the property.

▶ 1:17:16 Speaker 3: Correct.

▶ 1:17:20 Monica C. Medeiros: Not just waste management returning it to the state that they found it in, but deeper soil cleaning.

▶ 1:17:27 Speaker 3: Correct. There would be a tremendous amount of earth moving that would have to happen to do it. We actually had an entity approach us, probably four years ago, and he was interested in essentially processing all of the rock that comprises this multi-acre site all the way to the top, and to process the rock in such a way to bring the entire topography to the street level with route 99. um but even that for him became way too cost prohibitive um we've talked about the

▶ 1:18:13 Monica C. Medeiros: the butters can you talk about the access into the parcel and you know how much access there is

▶ 1:18:26 Speaker 2: to the main road yeah john do you want to talk to that yeah we share the main gate off route 99. we so the access up our recycling composting area in the back we entered through the front gate at

▶ 1:18:38 Monica C. Medeiros: route 99 so basically the the remainder of this parcel is it was it safe to say it's sort of landlocked there's no other so you know again if and this isn't currently is residential use

▶ 1:18:53 Speaker 3: allowed currently under this is only this is owned industrial so that so we

▶ 1:18:56 Monica C. Medeiros: would if we wanted to explore something like multi multi-use residential or some other kind views that did include residential let's just say we would have to make zoning changes through the Board of Aldermen Planning Board public

▶ 1:19:18 Speaker 3: process I don't even know if you have because of the way the lot is configured from route 99 it like funnels in from route 99 i don't even know if you had sufficient frontage to do anything on this process minimal frontage under any zoning under any zoning and

▶ 1:19:34 Monica C. Medeiros: certainly we would have an emergency access issue correct can you talk about

▶ 1:19:53 Monica C. Medeiros: the part of this agreement includes includes if increased tonnage is processed through through

▶ 1:20:00 Monica C. Medeiros: waste management the city would receive more money for instance what kind of waste are we talking about are we talking about trash are we talking about compost are we talking about like what kinds of you know from from our perspective right we're always trying to reduce waste and we're seeing like in the city we've actually been able to reduce some of our trash tonnage but we're increasing other things like a recycling tonnage is this

▶ 1:20:28 Monica C. Medeiros: specific only to trash tonnage or what kind of tonnage is included in the site

▶ 1:20:34 Speaker 1: itself is is permitted to handle you know what's classified as municipal solid waste under the state guidelines so would be trash construction materials bulky wastes that type of thing we can transfer recyclables but we don't it's it's not necessarily the best you know use up there so the host payment is based on the you know the inbound tonnage that comes you know and it'll be solid waste and construction materials primarily and so we're kind of

▶ 1:21:08 Monica C. Medeiros: anticipating that that's going to go up and be increased but yet all of our collective you know not just in Melrose but in you know collectively in Massachusetts I think our desire is to try to reduce our our waste tonnage so I

▶ 1:21:27 Monica C. Medeiros: mean obviously we have minimum a minimum payment in this but I you know how likely do you think it is that that tonnage is actually going to increase

▶ 1:21:35 Speaker 1: its its process they given the the dilemma that the the state is in right now and looking at the 10-year solid waste master plan there'll there'll be a need for additional volumes to come through some facilities and that's really because of you know multiple closures of solid waste facilities around the state so while we don't think the general public is going to generate more waste we just think there's less you know less facilities around to be able to handle that and it'll require us to transfer you know longer distances so you know the the minimum payment is there the likelihood that you know would increase I would say is it was it's there you know requires like what mr. Shana said probably some view of the operation to try to make it just you

▶ 1:22:28 Monica C. Medeiros: know a little bit more efficient to do that and do you have other facilities nearby or in what proximity to to this one other waste facilities we handle a

▶ 1:22:36 Speaker 1: number of solid waste facilities so we have similar transfer stations in Lemonster and Marlboro Massachusetts and Raina Massachusetts so they're they're generally cited you know in geographic areas to take a zone and then we have solid waste you know landfill you know agreements as well to help serve those

▶ 1:23:01 Monica C. Medeiros: how difficult is it to find another spot that that would allow this kind of use

▶ 1:23:09 Speaker 1: the the issue with with citing a facility generally is it's going to be more the size the acreage of a facility to be able to just meet all the setback requirements so you know there's been a few facilities transfer station facilities you know cited in the last few years i'd say it's a little bit more difficult to cite like a landfill operation so that that becomes a little bit more problematic because you need a lot of acreage you need a lot of open space and that's that's generally a you know a situation that's more difficult to cite than a transfer station itself right and um and attorney van

▶ 1:23:53 Monica C. Medeiros: camp and um we've talked about at the end of the existing agreement that waste management

▶ 1:24:07 Monica C. Medeiros: is required to return the land as it was is there anything stopping us from asking them not to take down certain buildings and um scales and things like that i mean we could certainly

▶ 1:24:18 Speaker 3: I can only ask, but I imagine in the lucrative solid waste market, I can't imagine any corporation would agree to allow us to hold on to this valuable and give it to a competitor.

▶ 1:24:35 Monica C. Medeiros: And just for example, how much does something like a scale?

▶ 1:24:40 Speaker 3: I have no idea.

▶ 1:24:41 Monica C. Medeiros: I mean, we're getting this one time payments basically kind of for the, like it's for the buildings and the improvements that are on the land um no the the payment is to

▶ 1:24:51 Speaker 1: just continue the the relationship we've already invested in the scale and so it's it's nothing that the city has actually ever purchased or supplied so we we supplied all of that you know

▶ 1:25:05 Speaker 3: initially and i think just to your point alderman medeiros when uh mayor inferno came into office and these discussions were ongoing the the goal was always for us internally to annualize the deal at 300 000 net per year that's not including the tax payments that waste management will make so if you look at the minimum host community payment the annual host community payment and you annualize a million dollars over 10 years we pretty much hit the 300 000 and most years going forward after the first two uh we'll exceed it and we hope to have more tonnage generated at the site so we can you know we can pull that out of the water uh i have to agree i would very much

▶ 1:25:48 Monica C. Medeiros: hope to see something in writing that would protect our uh rights if it if you will endure a memorandum of understanding or something to really uh codify our relationship and you know we're making we're being asked here as aldermen to make decisions today based on the understanding that we are you know receiving a savings by being able to use this parcel of land and i would say very much that probably will factor into the decisions of many of us here today so i would like to see that memorialized in in writing you know i share the frustrations that have been

▶ 1:26:33 Monica C. Medeiros: expounded on here today i mean this obviously is not necessarily something that we didn't expect was going to come up right there was we know the lease was set to expire 2021 and obviously we have waste management who came to the city you know two years ago or pretty close to it it sounds like to request this process you know begin from their perspective and you know it's it was communicated to the city but it's frustrating because as you know alderman mortimer pointed out it's ultimately it's up to us here in the board of aldermen to make these decisions and you know that this kind of information really wasn't communicated to us more than say you know two weeks ago or so when the order came up before us so never mind to the public and it certainly has been the discussions in this board of aldermen over the course of several years including you know being mentioned in the master plan that this is the you know this is the single i i think it's the single biggest parcel of land that we own that's and it's you know it's been mentioned and referred to many times as one that was possibly available to us to possibly look to develop for residential use or mixed-use development that's been discussed i mean we mentioned the public safety buildings have been mentioned many times it's been you know referred to here and there is the possibility of you know a place where we could maybe move public work so that we could use the tremont street location for some kind of public safety building there's been lots of things mentioned over the years but obviously we haven't had that public process and the communication that does need to happen and it's frustrating because it probably should have happened you know at least two years ago if not even before but that being said you know I think we're here and we find ourselves in a situation where you know we can say we should have and I think if obviously I

▶ 1:28:47 Monica C. Medeiros: think the you know the next administration has to begin this process immediately to look at this use and it may very well be that this is the the best use for this piece of property I you know as discussed here tonight to do anything with this property it has very limited access it you know to the road it there certainly would be environmental concerns to make it some other kind of type of use there is a benefit here that there are not neighbors that are disrupted but at the same so you know right now we have to look at the situation we have in at hand and I think it goes to the bird in the

▶ 1:29:38 Monica C. Medeiros: hand is worth two in the bush and you know I have frustration by the lack of communication to to us and to the public but at the same time I think this is probably something that we should move forward with and and hope that the next administration begins reviewing this in a more thorough basis thank you alderman wright

▶ 1:30:02 Francis X. Wright Jr.: thank you madam chair some of the points i had were touched on already so i'll try to get through this quickly um just to confirm there is a determination for convenience clause is that correct mr van keppen okay and um do you or mr delarusso who will be responsible for auditing

▶ 1:30:23 Speaker 3: the tonnage that passes through so john and jim have had that discussion i don't know if john or jim wants to address how we would reconcile the tonnage and so the the way the facility operates

▶ 1:30:30 Speaker 1: everything comes over the scale is recorded and so what will happen is electronic record of that scale report each month will go to public works along with the host community payment and so you'll you know you'll be able to see that we also duly have to report those same figures to the state as part of a the condition of the operating permit okay so similar to like prevailing wage or something very much so yeah great thank you three guys to the prorated but the potential for prorated return of all the part of the 1 million dollars I assume they would the intention is to have a plan in place so that we aren't going to be a position where Marin

▶ 1:31:20 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Ferner is intending to take the first half of that money and spend it on a public safety vehicle or whatever and then have to then come up with several hundred thousand dollars should the next mayor decide that he wants to pull out of this agreement I mean I thought processes is it are we looking at potentially putting it into some type of stabilization fund or I don't know revolving fund would be appropriate so that you could draw it down and maybe draw it out if you if there's the need exists to spend more than what we

▶ 1:31:56 Francis X. Wright Jr.: basically know we've earned my the way I'm looking at it is we're getting a million dollars over ten years we earn it as time passes we no longer would have to pay back so we could spend it down accordingly and it would be earning

▶ 1:32:12 Francis X. Wright Jr.: into with the understanding that if we needed it for a public safety down payment on a public safety construction project or something like that we could have that as long as there's a plan in place that if we as we study the site yeah yeah we have to realize that we there's a buyout provision that we have to meet so I just want to make sure and it sounds like that's all been thought

▶ 1:32:34 Speaker 2: through yeah and again through the chair what would happen ideally because this money as part of this agreement is general fund money it requires appropriation from the board of aldermen for a million dollars as it comes in alderman Rita what will happen is we'll apply the two payments half a million half a million we'll then turn over into free cash for the following fall fall of 20 and then through the board you could you could appropriate that money to suits and claims fund as what we already have set up as a way to mitigate any negative consequences that may result if this is terminated or portion thereof you may do half a million if you decide that that's reasonable but you do have the fund already set up so that's exactly correct

▶ 1:33:20 Francis X. Wright Jr.: great thank you thank you okay um i have to be honest with you i'm somewhat conflicted about how we got here tonight and some previous speakers have talked about that um i think it would have better served this board in the city if we at least had a sense of this was coming and we could have expected that you might be here at some point that said and having a position similar to mr van kempen's i understand that in order to get to the point where we're at tonight and get to a working agreement for this board as a body to consider you need to get the principles at the table and the mayor is the chief executive and the mayor is the person who has to be at the table and the person the mayor appoints and you just can't bring the 11 members of this board to the table to get to the point we're at tonight so while i would have liked to have known something was going on in the background i also understand the potential of

▶ 1:34:22 Francis X. Wright Jr.: what that means so so well i might have done it differently i respect i understand it's reasonable

▶ 1:34:31 Francis X. Wright Jr.: how you got here. Just on the bottom line, you know, to echo what the President said, from my perspective, and I guess all of them and Mortimer to some extent, as I go through the agreement, I see there are things that I would want, and I think we all come to the table for when we try to negotiate a contract and have a wish and we know what we want but I also recognize that when you at the end of

▶ 1:35:01 Francis X. Wright Jr.: the day you have to figure out whether there's a good deal before you that both

▶ 1:35:11 Francis X. Wright Jr.: parties can live with and I think that we can't get too caught up on how we got

▶ 1:35:22 Francis X. Wright Jr.: here and because I am a little bit conflicted about that we are where we are in the process and i think we have to look forward and not backwards and ultimately we need time to study the site um the options for it um and what the opportunities and market might be like uh as relate to not only it but the adjoining lots and whether deals can be made to conjoin lots and that type of thing all that takes time um i've had the privilege of being involved in some major projects in a municipality nearby and my experience tells me that these things take many years to come to fruition so I see that you know while the timing for this may not appear good at first glance ultimately my sense is that it's a good

▶ 1:36:20 Francis X. Wright Jr.: deal for the city. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

▶ 1:36:26 Shawn M. MacMaster: Alderman Master. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good evening.

▶ 1:36:31 Shawn M. MacMaster: Thank you for being here. Mr. De La Rosa, you indicated that the one million dollars would go into the general fund, correct? Correct. If the board passes this or the if the committee votes favorably and this goes before the board and it's passed, when would the anticipated time be that we

▶ 1:36:49 Speaker 2: would receive that payment? It is broken out in here. The two payments it'll be it's um actually on 5.3 so that it talks about the um one million dollars where 500 000 is going to be remitted within 45 days of execution of the agreement and the remaining 50 500 000 will be remitted on before march 1st of 2020. so this is a hard date in there

▶ 1:37:13 Shawn M. MacMaster: for both is there any plan right now or conversations within the administration to earmark that money for anything in particular within that time period that you just discussed

▶ 1:37:24 Speaker 2: at least the first five hundred thousand dollars um ideally i really can't because that would require action from the department of revenue to say the fund that kind of money is even available and it would require like a free cash certification

▶ 1:37:41 Speaker 2: which is not advantageous. Secondly is that I think the way we laid it out is we will have assurance that before the end of this fiscal year. That's before we will have a million dollars and the contract was adhered to. And then again, we close it out at the end of the year because it's unbudgeted revenue. been allocated to anything specific it will flow to free cash and at that point you'll get the free cash certification which will have that amount in there and then at that point we go to the board and indicate that x percent should go to suits and claims stabilization fund to insulate the city in the event of a negative consequence of the agreement however there may be an opportunity to put x percent for capital if we feel that you know when we're confident they're not confident But I mean, you'll have that opportunity to discuss that here, because every single dime has got to be appropriated by this board.

▶ 1:38:40 Speaker 3: And that will ultimately be up to the next mayor.

▶ 1:38:43 Shawn M. MacMaster: So that was what I was going to say essentially is that it's not as easy as the money just being deposited and a decision being made unilaterally by this administration that there's a process by which the next administration would identify what that money might be used for and then bring the matter before the board. My other question relates to the payment in lieu of taxes. It looks like it's $7,000 as part of the agreement under section 5.4. What is the current payment in lieu of taxes right now?

▶ 1:39:15 Speaker 3: Yeah, so we've had discussions in the last couple of days about that particular provision. And I'm now working with Waste Management's Tax Council. We're trying to get a consistent determination of a particular section of the taxation statute. I think at the end of the day what's going to happen is that payment in lieu of taxes is going to, that provision's going to come out of this agreement before the mayor signs it. And waste management will be taxed at full value for their use of that site. Currently it's about $34,000, I think, in total that they pay the city mowers in taxes. They're taxed currently because they're under a lease agreement with us, conducting a commercial enterprise. under the operating agreement, although it was 28,000 in this agreement ultimately, McMaster. What's ultimately going to happen, I think, is that that provision's going to come out, and we will essentially apply the same formula that we currently apply to them from a taxation standpoint.

▶ 1:40:16 Shawn M. MacMaster: And then, Mr. Van Campen, you talked a little bit about the assets over which we would take ownership. I'm not sure if this would be more appropriate for Mr. Shanna or Mr. Masella to talk a little bit about what are those assets.

▶ 1:40:29 Speaker 1: Yes, so on the property there's a constructed, the solid waste facility, which is constructed concrete floor, concrete barriers, metal building. There's construction, if you will, scale house, office trailer, and there is a waste scale and system, the adjoining systems that the scale runs on. Those are the three primary pieces of equipment that are there.

▶ 1:41:02 Shawn M. MacMaster: So when Mr. Van Campen said that we would essentially take control over those ownership, what does that mean for us as a city?

▶ 1:41:10 Speaker 3: Title would vest in the city of Melrose. So ten years from the date of execution of the operating agreement, the city would own in absolute fee those assets. So waste management couldn't raise the structures when the agreement ends and walk away leaving us with nothing. We would actually have a valuable asset on the ground even at the end of this agreement.

▶ 1:41:34 Shawn M. MacMaster: And do we have any sense what the value of the assets are?

▶ 1:41:39 Speaker 3: I don't know specifically what the waste station and the building would be valued at.

▶ 1:41:45 Speaker 1: Hard to say because if you look at replacement value, it's a lot maybe different than standing value but um you know uh taxing them at thirty four thousand dollars annually so it's so those

▶ 1:41:55 Speaker 3: are currently taxed yes it's correct so you could probably tax back the tax rate out of that number and come up with the valuation that we are assigning to it and i just want to reinforce

▶ 1:42:05 Speaker 2: that although although we will own it the agreement requires them to maintain and repair it and if we want to upgrade they would do that at their cost and then at the end of the agreement

▶ 1:42:20 Shawn M. MacMaster: it would just all be turned back to us so from a resource perspective there's nothing that is being asked of of the city in terms of operating costs that aren't currently in our our this year's

▶ 1:42:30 Speaker 3: operating budget the only thing i'll represent all the mcmaster is that the lease is terminated we're obligated to return the security deposit to waste management that was made several

▶ 1:42:42 Speaker 3: you know who knows how long ago and we still have that money in a segregated account for this purpose.

▶ 1:42:48 Speaker 2: The parking of $14,000, I believe.

▶ 1:42:52 Shawn M. MacMaster: Like Alderman Wright, I'm somewhat conflicted too because it does seem to be a matter of urgency in some sense, but I also have concerns just understanding that it's been a two-year process and we have before us an eight-page agreement.

▶ 1:43:11 Shawn M. MacMaster: I think just for my understanding as I contemplate how to vote on this matter, can you talk a little bit about why that why that's a two-year process to have eight pages in front of us and I understand a lot of work goes into putting together a document like this but from a work product perspective can you just talk about what those two years have looked like what type of communication we've had with waste management has there been a lapse in communication which resulted in the delay anything to just really help me and I think this is an offset of what alderman forbes had asked is or the concern that he had which is the the timing of it um again understanding started two years ago but we are i understand city business has to go on but i am sensitive to the fact that um 68 days from now we know who the next mayor will be um and i'm concerned about tying his or her hands uh without them having an input uh in this so

▶ 1:44:13 Speaker 3: Can you just talk about the process a little bit? Sure, so we took a very methodical approach to negotiating with waste management. And as in any negotiation, parties walk away from the table and say, that's not good enough. And a month goes by, or a month and a half goes by, and a party comes back and says, we really want to get a deal done. You know, it's the process of negotiation. So were there lapses where I would email Mr. Nacella and six weeks would go by? Probably, I think there were, because as an administration, we weren't simply willing to say yes until we got the best deal. So that process, that methodical process, did take almost two years. And that's why we're here tonight, because now we're at a point where we're almost crossing over a line where waste management's going to have to say, We need to look somewhere else if we can't get this done. But for two years we were very methodically looking at this and we simply, under both Mayor Dolan and Mayor Inferna's direction, we weren't just going to say yes to any deal just to continue the relationship. We wanted to make sure that financially it made the most sense for the city, that we had something to show for it when it was over, and that we had an ability to get out in the less than ten year term. If something really lucrative arose for that space.

▶ 1:45:39 Shawn M. MacMaster: I hope that answers your question it does I think that if this doesn't pass there's still a skeleton that exists I don't think it necessarily means that we go back to the drawing board or we start from a blank slate and I understand what waste management has represented to us but it also sounds like from Alderman Medeiros this question is that there's not a lot of options and I just can't can't help but think if it may be mutually advantageous to both the new administration and also waste management, which seems like they were talked down quite a bit from where they started to enter into a new negotiation based off of the skeleton that is in front of us. So I'm torn on this, but I think you've answered all of my questions. Thank you, Madam Chair.

▶ 1:46:31 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Before we circle back for people for a second time, I just wanted to, for my own clarification, Mr. Van Kampen, you mentioned that currently our lease payment is $135,000 a year. Is that correct?

▶ 1:46:44 Speaker 3: That's an approximate number. $137,626.

▶ 1:46:48 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Okay. And on top of that, we also, you mentioned, get...

▶ 1:46:53 Speaker 3: About $34,000 in real estate taxes. Okay.

▶ 1:46:59 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Okay, and it sounds like section 5.4, the additional payment, which currently is drafted to be a $28,000 payment in lieu of taxes, may be renegotiated based on advice from tax attorneys to just return you, turn us to status quo of property taxes.

▶ 1:47:18 Speaker 3: Sure. This was raised by our chief assessor, and under 59, I think it's section 2B, which is the tax statute essentially even though waste is operating under an operating agreement there's the law still requires that the city of Melrose tax them at full value so the $34,000 tax payment currently received is going to likely continue and that provision itself would just be stricken from the agreement okay

▶ 1:47:50 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Are there any other terms of the operating agreement draft that we have here tonight that you can anticipate are going to need to be adjusted or edited like the one that we just discussed now?

▶ 1:48:03 Speaker 3: No, no, I think the tax component is the only component that was a bit of a moving target over the last couple of days. But other than that, the agreement as drafted should remain unchanged. Okay. There may be some typos and other things addressed, but it should remain unchanged.

▶ 1:48:18 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: possibly you could consider an inclusion of a reference to an addendum that's a memorandum of understanding related to the use of the property correct we'll probably do that in

▶ 1:48:27 Speaker 3: some form of a side letter agreement with waste okay mr nacella and mr shenna can execute it

▶ 1:48:33 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: okay those are all my clarifying questions vice chair boyza i'm sorry if i missed you before

▶ 1:48:45 Robert A. Boisselle: thank you for coming gentlemen this site as a transfer station within 128 state in Massachusetts is regulated by the state of Massachusetts, the EP, is that correct? Correct. You have yearly inspections, I believe. And John, has there been any problems with the inspections in the past that you are aware of?

▶ 1:49:10 Speaker 2: No, the last few years, the only real issue that we've been called upon was the issue we created with runoff from snow melt. Snow melt was coming down, so we had to put some erosion barriers and controls, and Jim got the call, so it wasn't even their operation, it was something we had done on their parcels that got called on.

▶ 1:49:31 Robert A. Boisselle: All right, and the piece of property that we're talking about here is surrounded by a golf course, which is always nice to be near, but we have an asphalt plant, we have an aggregate plant, and we have a major gas line coming through the profit is it coming through

▶ 1:49:57 Speaker 2: the property or just edging through the property that's quite a bit of is it

▶ 1:50:03 Robert A. Boisselle: worth that much money with all that aspects around it that's that's not my

▶ 1:50:11 Speaker 2: expertise but there's some I feel there's some substantial challenges to that site graphically with the gas line and with the fact that it's been used as a dump unregulated and now regulated but I'd be more concerned about those decades where it was an unregulated dump and what's under that ground to begin

▶ 1:50:35 Robert A. Boisselle: with this form from the past history that we talked it was a dump going back 20 30 years ago and it is true within the 128 belt it takes three to five years to even locate a transfer station and you're lucky if you can get a transfer station within the 128 belt within 495 it's probably two to four two to five and beyond that beyond 495 it's less than that so this site is becoming very very important to waste management and in their aspects this city has used

▶ 1:51:18 Robert A. Boisselle: that site in the past for situations especially doing emergency situations I remember probably a number of years back when one of the hurricanes came through New England and we had a lot of trees that came down and we had to put those trees just to open up the roadways we have to put them there we had people solving them up but not enough to clear all the area but they were moved to the Mount Hood area into the site that you're referring to so we're DPW and the city is getting a lot of side benefits for this which would cost us a

▶ 1:52:09 Robert A. Boisselle: lot of money in the long run and i would at this time like to make a motion to

▶ 1:52:16 Peter D. Mortimer: motion for passage of this order at this time second second the motion to recommend recommend it's a recommendation to the full board second the motion to recommend for passage

▶ 1:52:26 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: madam chair okay we have a motion to recommend for passage uh approving this operating agreement made by vice chair Boisselle and seconded by alderman mortimer um we have others in queue are you just are you done with your comments thank you man thank you alderman's work go thank you madam

▶ 1:52:41 Michael P. Zwirko: chair um realizing it's my second time i won't speak too long um i do um first i want to state that you know i do think that government is functioning here in the city and i think that we the board are functioning as well just a couple weeks ago we passed a major ordinance to enhance vacant properties as well as reduced plastic straws and i look forward to the one of them passed and i look forward to the other passing we are doing work here and we're actively doing work and i think we should continue to do that in light of any election that is on the forefront if we pass something or don't pass it that's still business occurring and you know the master plan that we went through was a very involved process it cost us over a hundred thousand dollars it took two years and involved private consultants it involved several meetings with the public this the first master plan or excuse me the master plan prior to that there's the fingerprint of that plan is all over our community the smart growth district solar panels on our middle school the middle school itself that was actually in the previous master plan enhancements to traffic redeveloping the downtown so these aren't things that we just do and we put on a shelf and we say oh that's great people's careers are built around making master plans consultants do these these what we did in 2017 is a significant forward-thinking view as to what we the community want to do and we specifically drew out this parcel of property and I think my frustration along with many of the others in this room is over the process that occurred so we've known that there was negotiations going on in 2017 we also had the master plan at the time I still can't get away from the fact that we should have at least had discussions outside of this chamber with the public about what we're going to do maybe we find out that we're exactly where we are tonight maybe that's the case but we don't know that because the the due diligence that has been done on this has been one-dimensional and I say that because we're talking about well we you know no one's going to want to come in because there's probably going to be remediation or you know the frontage isn't wide enough for that we still don't know I mean land is at a primary premium here in greater 128 and whether or not it's residential whether it becomes an amusement park i mean who knows but we don't know because we haven't gone through the process to discuss what a as a community we want this to be or b who would be willing to even enter into a property i mean down in everett they just had a huge remediation property that went through major reclamation i understand it was to the tune of two billion dollars and that's not what we're talking about here but my point is developers are always interested in property especially in 128 they're willing to take on contingencies knowing 10 20 30 years out that there could be something there and this is just something that we haven't even haven't even opened the door to even considering and i really think that we're running roughshod over the public as to what their intentions were with this parcel knowing that it was going to expire at the time i appreciate that we have a good relationship with waste management and that they've always honored um with dpw i agree with many of the folks around this horseshoe that we should have a memorandum of understanding codifying that relationship this isn't personal it's just business and we have to make a business decision and i think when i think about the business decision that we're going to make for our community and being eight ten years out i think we need to look harder at this and it stinks to be here with a gun to the head needing to make a decision on this now because i find it very hard to believe that there's no business contingency for waste management on this i mean they made 15.1 billion dollars last year they're a national company they have over 314 transfer stations across North America and they've known about this for a long time if we ultimately ended up through due diligence through vetting every possible avenue that this is where we were going to end up and the community knew that then I understand that but this isn't something that we woke up and we're just kind of hit on the head with and it just it bothers me because there are a few moments in this chamber where we have the ability to affect the makeup and the the vision of this community for the next 10 years and this is one of them so i i just i'm i just wish that we had more time to talk about this outside of this chamber instead of having to deal with this now when this this came before us on august 15th at 4 p.m um i don't have any questions it looks like we're going to move forward on this this evening it's i it's it just really it's it puts us in an unfortunate in a bad position here as a board and me personally because I was looking forward to the expiration of this lease and being able to do something good with this parcel that's

▶ 1:57:28 Francis X. Wright Jr.: all I had madam chair thank you support alderman Boisselle motion I want to make clear that my being conflicted is strictly three guys to a block of communication as i said we are where we are and we have to look forward and not wring our hands over what might have been or should have been we have to look forward we have to move continue to

▶ 1:57:58 Francis X. Wright Jr.: move the city forward the deal seems fair i've gone through it and we have an obligation a fiscal obligation to the city not to put us in a position where what was it um um mr delarusso you know both dollars and and um in kind contributions would be four hundred thousand

▶ 1:58:19 Speaker 2: dollars yeah between what we would lose for actual high dollars being 137 plus 34 000 and then we Then we would pick up a brand new cost of between $250,000 and $300,000 to do the work they're doing now that we don't pay for. That we would have to begin to pay for, let alone any setup and installation cost to provide that operation. So it is a revenue loss of at least $400,000 overall.

▶ 1:58:45 Francis X. Wright Jr.: And would the money we're generating from such things as medical marijuana, Would that in any way supplement our present budget to make up for that loss?

▶ 1:58:57 Speaker 2: No, in my opinion, I don't see that right now.

▶ 1:59:01 Francis X. Wright Jr.: So we don't have a way of making up this money.

▶ 1:59:08 Francis X. Wright Jr.: I just don't see why we would walk away from this because they didn't follow the master plan, which I agree should have been a consideration. But it wasn't doesn't mean we can't continue to look at the site. There is a termination for convenience clause considering this site For future development is going to take time We have to make a determination how much this city wants to invest in Studying that site or what type of deal we want to make with a developer a potential developer master developer to consider that That's going to take time so So we can make this deal, we can move forward, we can up the payment to the city in the meantime. And the new mayor can start that process pursuant to the master plan. And if we get to a point before this contract expires, it makes sense for the city to go in a different direction, and we can do that.

▶ 2:00:08 Speaker 2: Thank you.

▶ 2:00:10 Speaker 4: Alderman Mortimer.

▶ 2:00:12 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you very much, Chairman Libby Garabedian.

▶ 2:00:20 Peter D. Mortimer: The master plan organizations that we have with the advisors are just that, they're advisory. They advise us what we need to do, or what they think we need to do, or what they recommend and suggest what we do as aldermen. But ultimately, on a contract like this, the buck stops here, and we have to decide. The contract is not that long, you could read it in one sitting, Unlike many contracts that your own attorney, John Tramatozzi's attorney, your own attorney, this is not really that involved and complicated a contract, it's readable. And we knew this was coming. This wasn't foisted on us at the 11th hour.

▶ 2:01:10 Peter D. Mortimer: I've been aware that it's been in the works for the last couple of years. It's been on the back burner, but I knew it was coming. I knew it's always been something that could happen. And it's not, this isn't an airtight analogy, but Mr. Della Russo and Mr. Van Campen are kind of like our real estate agents. And we're the sellers or the buyers of a house. And they come to us and say, the buyer wants to do this, the seller wants to do that, the buyer wants to do this. Now they've come and said, this is the deal. This is as far as the seller or the buyer, pick whichever side of the deal you want, is willing to go. And the, we'll call it the seller, the seller could walk. The seller could walk, or there's somebody else, and this is a representative democracy. We're elected by the people because we're competent people, Because we have experience, we have experience in government, we have people here who are attorneys, city solicitors, people who are city planners, people who have been on the school committee before, people who, you know, I'm not going to give all our resumes and praise us all to the zenith. But we got elected because we're smart people and we know what we're doing. We're not going to trot out every time a contract comes, we're not going to trot it out and have a town meeting. We don't have town meeting government here in Melrose, where out in Sherbourne or something, 150 people come out and they all gather in a barn, and they all yell at each other and talk about things. We have representative democracy here, and that's what we do. That we all knew that this contract was possible. It's been a hot issue, although it's been on the back burner. It's always something that's been on any alderman who's paying attention, it's been on our radar. And we knew this could happen. It's not only contracted, it's, and the bottom line is, regardless of how we got here and yeah, it would have been nice to know that this was going to happen six weeks ago, but sometimes it just doesn't play out that way. And there's no malevolence, there's no misfeasance, There's certainly no malfeasance that this happened, but not even misfeasance or non-feasance. This is just the way sometimes things come down. We got it in time, we had time to read it, and the bottom line is, it's a good deal. This property really is not suitable for any other use. I've been playing up there for 50 years, and it's rough property. And what drains out, we have three drainage ways that water leaves the city of Melrose. One is to the Malden River, the Calvert Oak Grove, and the other one is to the Saugus River out at Deadman's Curve. This one drains into the Chelsea Creek. It ends up going through that, being on the conservation committee for five years before I was an alderman. You learn things, but this one ends up in that marsh that you see down in the reverse cinema. That's where that drains out to.

▶ 2:04:28 Speaker 2: The three areas that, but I digress, and I'll stop digressing because I do have ADD.

▶ 2:04:31 Speaker 3: Excuse the boot. And- Thank you, Alderman Mortimer.

▶ 2:04:33 Peter D. Mortimer: No, I'm not done. I just said I'll stop digressing.

▶ 2:04:35 Speaker 3: Oh, I apologize.

▶ 2:04:37 Peter D. Mortimer: I didn't say I'd stop talking. I still have six more minutes, but I won't use them all, I promise.

▶ 2:04:44 Peter D. Mortimer: But the bottom line is, this is a good deal. This is a good deal for the city of Melrose. We're not going to get better. It's extremely doubtful that we'd get a better deal than this. And it's also a possibility that waste management could walk. And then we'd be in a world of trouble. And I don't want to be in a world of trouble. We could use that money for so many different things.

▶ 2:05:11 Speaker 4: Thank you very much. Thank you, Alderman Bewtra.

▶ 2:05:13 Speaker 5: Thank you.

▶ 2:05:16 Manisha Bewtra: I wanted to clarify a couple things for the record with regards to the master plan. what this conversation we're having tonight I think I concur with my colleagues frustrated with maybe lack of communication but we are fully within what is recommended within the master plan because planning for the expiration of this lease was a medium term priority the plan was adopted I believe in June 2017 and so in the four to seven year time range we are still within that time frame which is not to say again a plan is ultimately an advisory document it's not really it's supposed to set the framework to alderman Mortimer point the other point I wanted to clarify is that while that document did cost probably around a hundred thousand dollars to produce the city of Melrose only spent about if I recall correctly about $45,000 of our funds on it most of it was grant funded and it was funded through mostly through staff time at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council so again in summary I think the major points here have been stated over and over again but the site is really challenging it will take us a while to do a planning process properly and and I would have loved to have known about this a little earlier than tonight given that the negotiations have been ongoing but I also think that the proposal before us makes sense for where we are at the moment thank you thank you seeing

▶ 2:07:03 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: no additional comments we have a motion to recommend for passage made by vice Chair Boisselle and seconded by Alderman Mortimer. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Opposed. I think

▶ 2:07:16 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: that was seven yes, four no. Should we, do you need a hands? Sure. So all those

▶ 2:07:26 Speaker 4: Madam Chair, can we have a roll call? Sure. If you would like that, that's fine. Do you

▶ 2:07:33 Speaker 5: want to call the roll? Sure. Alderman Boisselle. Yes. Alderman Mortimer. Yes. Alderman tramontosi no alderman wright yes alderman Medeiros yes alderman forbes no alderman's worko no alderman buter yes alderman mcmaster no alderman president lemmerman yes chair Letter garabedian yes seven four six seven seven yes seven yes four no

▶ 2:08:02 Speaker 4: okay so that will be recommended to the full board for passage

▶ 2:08:08 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: thank you thank you very much maybe if i don't mind speaking out of turn to the degree that anything changes between now and our next full board meeting which is i think just around the corner so it may not you're welcome to sort of submit that for the record including the

▶ 2:08:23 Speaker 3: provision that you discussed likely changes between now and tuesday i would certainly

▶ 2:08:29 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: transmit to the board thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you all right the next item on origin day we're going back to our regular orders so um number one order number two zero two zero dash eight authorizing a bond in the amount of three hundred seventy five thousand dollars under the sewer enterprise account through the mwra sewer system ini local financial