Public Comment

Transcript (~17 min @ 7:20)

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

▶ 6:41 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: being 7 30 on thursday june 13 2019 the appropriations committee for the melrose board of aldermen is called to order this is a committee of the whole i am a chairwoman for garavidian and i'm joined tonight by vice chair alderman boizal as well as members alderman peter mortimer alderman john Tramontozzi alderman monica medeiros alderman scott forbes alderman Manisha Bewtra, Alderman Michael Zwirko, Alderman Sean McMaster, and President Jennifer Lemmerman. In accordance with the Mass General Laws, this meeting is being recorded and is available live currently on MMTV, both on the television and streaming, and it will be available through the City of Melrose

▶ 7:27 Speaker 6: website. Is there a motion to open the floor for public comment? So moved, Madam Chair.

▶ 7:30 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: We have a motion to open the floor for public comment made by Alderman Mortimer, seconded by vice chair boys all in favor this is the portion of the meeting where any member of the public can come forward to speak on any order on our agenda tonight and if you would be so kind as to also state your name and address for the record and sign and that would be great thank you

▶ 7:59 Speaker 2: Well, I guess we'll do act two here this time, if I do that right. My name is Ted Kenney. I reside at 1062 Main Street, Melrose.

▶ 8:07 Speaker 2: I've been in Melrose 21, 22 years.

▶ 8:12 Speaker 2: I've had the pleasure back in November and December watching you from home because I was home for medical reasons. And I think what I want to say, if I'm allowed to say it, okay,

▶ 8:29 Speaker 2: And sometimes people don't come here because it's very easy to feel intimidated

▶ 8:36 Speaker 2: for people that know the rules or they don't know the rules. You know, it's important to understand as a taxpayer, I've raised my family here, every dollar you spend matters to me. Every single dollar, even when you transfer it around, it matters to me.

▶ 8:59 Speaker 2: and what's important is when we dedicate money to special things and sometimes it shouldn't go there okay I call it the pet project is what I really call it okay I'm very familiar with politics I've been involved probably over 40 years between here and Malden all right and tonight I started out on the wrong

▶ 9:24 Speaker 2: foot and I'm sorry. I have one thing I really want to say to you all. Remember, as elected

▶ 9:33 Speaker 2: officials and those that are here or not here, for whatever chosen reason, if you're running for mayor or whatever office you may be running for, people would like to be heard. Sometimes

▶ 9:45 Speaker 2: You have to explain exactly how the process really works.

▶ 9:52 Speaker 2: You know, sometimes people don't even come to these meetings because they're afraid that if they say the wrong thing, I'm not going to say they target it, but there's that intimidation that happens in an administration for those that know anything about politics, okay? Those that know about politics know exactly what I'm saying.

▶ 10:19 Speaker 2: You know, I just ask that you spend our money honestly and really show us that you're spending it where you're spending it, not spending it someplace where it shouldn't be spent, trying to make it look that way. It's like putting things in the proper categories that where you're really spending your money. When you put it in the wrong category, it's misleading.

▶ 10:41 Speaker 2: Okay? I've done a lot of public request records. I could do it all over again, and I have no problem doing that, and I don't have no problem showing you when you've done it wrong, you know. I think the only other thing I really want to add to that is that for those that are willing to come to this chamber and speak about facts,

▶ 11:01 Speaker 2: and they have all the facts, and sometimes I think this board, school committee, all of you, try to make that person's facts don't look like what they really are.

▶ 11:14 Speaker 2: It's my opinion, and I'm entitled to my opinion, okay? But I haven't been here in four years because even right now I feel nervous sitting here talking to you all, okay? You know, it should be a person comes here, you say hello, hi, whatever, before your meeting or something. It's just really, I felt funny as soon as I walked through that door tonight. I felt like I shouldn't even be here. That's a lousy feeling to have, because I can remember coming to meetings where people would walk up, hey, how you doing, I've never met you, whatever, not here, not tonight. Some of you I do know, personally, and I like you all, I respect all of you, okay? But maybe nobody's willing to come to the mic in this community and let you know how they feel. I'm doing it because I mean it, because you should take under consideration every speaker that comes to this and speaks to you, because you don't. You shine them sometimes, I think. That's my opinion. Some of you, you're all very bright, your attorneys and stuff, very bright. People see that. They may not say a word to any of you, but when's the last time any of you walked around this community and talked to people?

▶ 12:33 Speaker 2: ask them why they don't come here you probably hear what I just told you well thank you for your time and Peter you did a nice job for 20 years I

▶ 12:42 Speaker 2: congratulate you all right enjoy the private time you have with your family I really do you know Peter got into politics 20 years ago and I ran against him it was a three-way three-way three-man race okay Peter was the better

▶ 13:24 Speaker 3: man all right thank you very much you all thank you thank you hi i'm jerry morose um i want to

▶ 13:30 Speaker 3: talk a little bit about the process you use in the appropriations committee um not specifically about what's on the order tonight but they do apply to them as well as other orders um you know i I'm going to take out of context a quote by John Stewart this week. Completely different topic, and I apologize for even bringing the two together in any way, but he said that accountability doesn't appear to be something that occurs in this chamber. He also said, you know, I'm sorry if I sound angry and undiplomatic, but I am angry, but I believe you should be too.

▶ 14:19 Speaker 3: You know, we've had discussions for a lot of years about different topics, and there are rhetorical devices used in this room that seem out of character with what should be an august board of aldermen or city council.

▶ 14:34 Speaker 3: You know, even on the munis budget reports that you're working off of tonight, you know, there's a projected column. And we've talked about this before, right? now this year you've redefined projected to be the exact same thing as one of the other columns you know if you're doing budgeting you do want to have a projected number you're not using that number you're not supplied that number I think that's an integral number to defining a budget and the question is why and if you're not going to use a projected column you don't want it why have a duplicate column on the on the on the order all the time it doesn't make

▶ 15:15 Speaker 3: sense you know just an example of rhetorical devices that are used i come here and make statements at a public comment session and i respectfully sit down and listen to the meeting

▶ 15:28 Speaker 3: and i listen carefully you know when i challenge for instance that the indirect costs applied to water and sewer funds are applied by what i consider beyond the pale a combination of of City Hall staff and aldermen have a dialogue back and forth that serves to act as if, you know, there's no nuance that I'm saying that indirect costs are out of line entirely when I've never said that. I want you to ask yourself, why can't the nuanced conversation occur? Why can't we address the core of the issue instead of somebody going and trying to, you know go way off to the side and act as if the the dispute or the or the discrepancy is something other than it is I appreciate you guys are about

▶ 16:19 Speaker 3: finished with your budget process here tonight and in that you know what I'm bringing up is something that's mostly in the past but we brought this up on other occasions and every year we have the same duplicate issues arise you know

▶ 16:41 Speaker 3: as i said before when i listen carefully at a meeting and i hear statements made that made by people in the conversation of of an order that they're partly true and i know how they're true but i also know that they're partly untrue in the way that they're presented and again i've mentioned red flags here before that's a red flag like why does somebody feel obliged to go ahead and say something and present one side to gain what benefit rather than presenting the actual in two things you know there are so many different examples that i could give just from what was it monday night alone um of examples like that, that maybe not all of you have been to the Water and Sewer Committee meeting to know what really happened there, or maybe not all of you have studied something that I've studied to know what's really behind a number, and that's okay. It's a lot of work for anybody to do. You should be able to split up the duties. But when things are presented differently than I know them to be the case and they're at a public meeting it makes me wonder why i hope it makes you wonder why as well because i would like to think that every decision that's made here is an informed one is an authentic one has based solid basis in fact and finance in order to make the city best and the last thing i want to say tonight very quickly is that through this whole budget process somebody called out to me the other night and I thank him for it and they call attention to me about an issue that I have come here and often wondered why we call it conservative budgeting but the conservative budgeting ends up socking away money into line items that we know we're not going to use it on but the alternative cost of that money is that we aren't able to apply it by the budget to authentic things that we need to pay money for so when we have when we don't try to budget tightly and as accurately as we can project and we have all this excess money it constrains us from using that money for an authentic ongoing activity rather than and I'm not no nothing to impugn the the free cash

▶ 19:18 Speaker 3: applications to retain earnings tonight but now we can only use that money for one-time things whereas if we could have hired somebody for a position that's necessary in the in the schools of the city but we've held up two million dollars that has kept us from having a two or three or four or five or six positions that hurts our city because I see now can't perform a function that it wants to and as much as we made need equipment the police certainly need five police cars public works certainly needs their equipment but if we had a

▶ 19:53 Speaker 3: more tightly audited budget process along with you know do we know how old the equipment is how many hours are on it what's the condition of it what would be the maintenance versus repair we're not hearing that discussion because frankly you don't need to because there's so much money there we can just go buy new we can buy new for water and so we can buy new for all these things and again i'm not making any um characterizations about the things on the on the agenda tonight but this is a problem of when somebody says to you oh we're very conservative about that well why wouldn't the Board of Aldermen ask instead tell us what you really think it will be and let the Board of Aldermen as the political body responsible for these things make the determination about how much risk they want to take and if they want to apply the money the resources to something that is a burning need that the Alderman feel uncomfortable and not meeting that's appropriate for them thank you for your time thank you Madam Chair

▶ 20:55 Paul Brodeur: madam president members of the board my name is Paul Broder I am at 125 Trenton Street I'm coming to talk to you a little bit about a couple of the earmarks that appearing before you tonight because I know it has been a long time coming from the time that the FY 19 fiscal year budget was signed to the time where the monies are actually going to hit the city and and and strengthen a couple of things that are going on. As you all know, sometimes during the state budget process there are opportunities for reps and senators to single out particular needs in their district that might not fall within traditional funding source from the state. Speaking for a little bit for Senator Lewis and myself, the way we have approached that is to reach out to the city and ask what particular needs they might have at any particular time. that might be very challenging to meet in the ordinary course of the budget that you're deliberating on over the last several months. So in doing that, we identified a couple of really arts and culture needs, both at Memorial Hall, which is, you know, has an ongoing need for really rehabilitation and repair and kind of basic infrastructure improvement or maintenance, and at the Middle School or the Performing Arts Center the middle school where you think a very modern facility probably 11 years old at this point why would we need to put money into it well again in cooperation with the city planner and the rest of the the city officials we found a very interesting thing which is that that facility is very competitive in the marketplace that there's a lot of desire to rent it and to keep up with the marketplace to keep that facility modern needs really constant not really maintenance but upgrades and that is can be kind of parceled out as a one-time capital need and it pays tremendous dividends it pays tremendous dividends for our students for the you know the explosion we've seen in the quality and quantity of arts performance within the schools particularly the drama club that and all the drama performances that have really taken off and pushed down and even into the elementary schools and the outside user groups that pay you know top dollar to use it because it is it's an outstanding facility continuing out we're hopeful that in this year's budget we'll be able to continue to make investments in arts and culture there's an earmark in the budget to help follow your art get off the ground as a community arts center not so much dealing with their programming but again basic infrastructure so that they can be ADA compliant which is a can be a very long and very expensive process particularly when you're opening up an old Victorian house to a modern set of programs and clientele and so a couple of other things that are not directly related to the arts but it has been a tremendous opportunity to add to the community to add to what we do here and make it unique you certainly see it at Memorial Hall where we have all-star performances from our symphony and also some more some things we didn't see in the past like like I know Alderman McMaster is a big fan of the boxing that goes on there and we see some other things that are a little bit outside the off off what we used to see at Memorial Hall so I think those investments are worthwhile and I have no doubt that you will approve them but I appreciate the time to talk a little bit about how that process work thanks very much thank you motion to close public comment madam