Public Comment

Transcript (~7 min @ 0:30)

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

▶ 0:02 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Good evening. The hour being 730 on Thursday, April 11th, 2019. The Committee on Appropriations is called to order. This is a committee of the whole. I am Chair Alderman Lipper-Garabedian, and I'm joined tonight by Vice Chair Boisselle and Alderman Mortimer, Alderman Tramontozzi, Alderman Medeiros, Alderman Forbes, Alderman Zwirko, Alderman Bewtra, Alderman McMaster, and President Lemmerman. in accordance with the open meeting law this meeting is being taped and will be available on the city of Melrose website it is also streaming and being shown on TV currently by MMTV motion to open the floor for public comment we have a

▶ 0:42 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: motion open the floor for public comment made by Alderman Mortimer seconded by Vice Chair Boisselle all in favor aye opposed this is the portion of the meeting where any member of the public wishing to speak on any of the four orders before us tonight is welcome to come forward and share your perspective please be sure to sign in and also speak into the microphone for folks at home

▶ 1:16 Speaker 1: and i live at 10 ravine road in melrose i grew up in grew up in melrose and my parents lived here for most of their adult lives working to make the city an inclusive environment in which to live a city that respects everyone i'm a member of the commission on women but i'm speaking as a private citizen this evening to express my support for changing the name of our legislative ball body from alderman to council i know that there were people in melrose who think that this discussion is wasting valuable time and keeping this governing body from discussing other issues facing the city i disagree the name of the legislative body is a symbol and paints a picture of who we are it's a reflection of the personality of our community and what it stands for words and names do matter and the name alderman is a word that sounds exclusionary to a large portion of the population including me unique is not a positive in this instance melrose can find better ways to be unique by working to be even more inclusive and showing respect for all its citizens while it may not be exclusionary in fact its name implies that it is obviously i'm not alone in my belief as we are the last community in the commonwealth still debating this issue for those who saw this discussion as a waste of time i say that the time to end the discussion is now and make the change in order to bring Melrose into the 21st century. For those who see this as a liberal issue, I would say language evolves. When was the last time you flew on a plane with a stewardess rather than a flight attendant, or had your mail delivered by a postman rather than a postal worker? When was the last time you heard reference to a fireman instead of a firefighter, or a policeman instead of a police officer? next time I exercise my right to speak before this legislative body I hope to be addressing the Melrose City Council thank you thank you if you didn't sign

▶ 3:17 Speaker 2: in please do thank you hi everyone my name is Jane Allen I live at 179 East Foster Street and like Karen I believe language is powerful and in subtle ways it can make us feel included or excluded from different spaces and for that reason I would welcome the change to City Council thank you thank you thank

▶ 3:58 Speaker 3: you hi I'm Jerry Morose I'm here to speak about the order about the issue of

▶ 4:06 Speaker 3: the mayor's term whether it ends with the election or not I firmly believe that you know if there's an interim step that interim step ends as soon as we have somebody identified by the population to become the new mayor I especially am troubled by the way that a lot of these things come up you know this came up Monday today you're hearing about it it'll be done sometime soon I remember the Charter the Charter review committee met for week after week for months going over all kinds of things and to spring something like this on in such a short fashion in a short manner and trying to act on it so quickly in a time when a lot of people are distracted because they go on vacation next week for school holidays and everything else I just find that the timing is suspect in some ways also especially given the manipulations that happened around the changes on this board that this board made when you had already elected a President of the board and then reverse direction clearly to have somebody else become the acting mayor interim mayor It feels as if it's another step along that way of trying to manipulate process in order to benefit somebody now I don't know You know, I don't really have a clue about retirement issues You know does mayor Infurna get an extra retirement bonus because she's then get 125 plus thousand a year for two years out of three years average with her old alderman salary i don't know how that works but the whole thing smacks of a little bit of a little manipulation and i think this board ought to be above that if if there's a legitimate reason to do it everybody in this room had an opportunity to speak to it in the whole charter review process that went on and on and on um if you wanted to do it now you could take your time but clearly if you do something now you're clearly doing it for a person not for a principal and that is what a board board of aldermen or a city council should not be about right um you know there are so many important things that you could be discussing and working on and that we keep having these things come up and i'm not representing anything but this type of thing that it comes up on Monday today is the hearing and then you know in no time it goes again next

▶ 6:33 Speaker 3: week it's it we need to spend some time and some effort and some deliberation about important issues in the city and these distractions really do harm the processes that need to happen to make Melrose better in so many ways so I urge you that if anybody had wanted this before you could have had it if you want now let's take time let's have some public hearings about it let's not just make this a quick thing and go um please i i hope that you can all sit back and leave the charter alone in regard to the mayor and um and we can look at it next year you'll have two years to look at it after the election because clearly we would have a new election if this mayor if the new mayor left at that point and so we have a lot of time to deal with this thank you thank you motion to close

▶ 7:26 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: motion to close public motion to close public comment made by alderman Zwirko seconded by alderman mortimer all in favor aye opposed thank you this concludes our public comment as i mentioned we have four orders before us tonight the first is order 2019-47 petition of national grid for multiple toll and conduit relocations throughout melrose as set forth herein as part of electrical transmission line upgrade project motion to suspend the rules that we may hear from representatives of national grid