Public Comment

Transcript (~43 min @ 0:30)

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

▶ 0:04 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Good evening. The hour being 7 30 on Tuesday, November 13th, I call to order this meeting of the Appropriations Committee of the Melrose Board of Aldermen. This is a committee of the whole. I'm the chair, Alderman Lemmerman, and I'm joined this evening by Vice Chair Alderman Forbes, as well as committee members Alderman Mortimer, Alderman Tramontozzi, Alderman Wright, Alderman Medeiros, President Zwirko, Alderman Lipper-Garabedian, and Alderman McMaster. This meeting is being recorded in accordance with the open meeting law. It is viewed on both MMTV as well as the City of Melrose website.

▶ 0:39 Peter D. Mortimer: Motion to open the floor for public comment, Madam Chair.

▶ 0:41 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: We have a motion to open the floor for public comment made by Alderman Mortimer, seconded by Alderman Lipper-Garabedian. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? This is the portion of the meeting where any member of the public can come forward and sit before us to make a comment on one of the two orders, or both of the two orders before us this evening. Just a couple of points before we get to that section. I just want to mention that we would ask for you to please put your name and your address on the paper when you do come forward. And that the rules of the Board of Aldermen do limit public comment to 10 minutes. So I just ask members to please be mindful of that as you're speaking. One more point is we do have several people here in the chamber this evening. And we want to make sure that everyone has a chance to speak that would like to. the rules of the board do require that all posted meetings begin within a half an hour of the time that they're posted so we do have a full board meeting that will need to start by 815 should we reach that point we will need to recess and start the full board meeting and then we can come back to the Appropriations Committee so that's just a little process for folks at this time we'd like to invite anybody forward who would like to speak on the items before

▶ 2:18 Speaker 1: for us. Good evening. Hi, Sarah Waywell-Tim, East Wyoming Avenue. Do I have to sign in now or can I wait? I don't think the mayor is here tonight, but thank you to Mayor Inferna for presenting this override to the board and thank you, Board of Aldermen, for your service to the city and your consideration of the ballot question. I am speaking tonight because I am tired. I am tired of

▶ 2:36 Speaker 1: showing up every year at school budget meetings and talking about how we are going to cut resources to balance the budget not how we are going to fund initiatives to improve the way we are going to educate our children or how we are going to provide up-to-date curriculum and supportive materials or build on our competence competency based education initiative and have class sizes that allow for impactful implementation or even how we are going to make sports and other extracurriculars more affordable to families. We talk about how we can eliminate positions, continue to work without department chairs, how many printers we really need, and getting rid of some. We talk about how we do not have the money for paras and kindergarten other than the ones required for special needs. We talk about how we know we have substitute teacher problems, and how we pay very low on the scale for pay and how we have no money to address this issue so many times paras are pulled from classrooms to service subs and at the middle school kids sit out periods in the auditorium I am tired of watching our school committee members who volunteer so much time spend all of their time determining what else could possibly could possibly give up and then realizing we have reached the bare bones of compliance I truly look forward to a different kind of conversation but in order for that to happen we need to be able to provide a base level of funding and to those who talk about radically changing the entire public school system please go for it in the meantime we have kids who are sitting at desks in our schools who deserve books teachers and online resources and an education I moved to this city because I thought this the city was invested in its community and its schools and yet it has been 25 years since an override has passed this is not an override just about schools this is an override that asks what kind of a community do we want to live in are we really a community that values families and wants to attract young people here who will shop in our stores and eat in our restaurants and play in our parks and allow Melrose to be all of the things we like to believe it is or are we not I am looking forward to seeing which of you choose to endorse this ballot question for those who choose not to I am looking forward to hearing what your alternative solution is and to holding you accountable to not having 30 kids in a classroom working police vehicles with money that would be freed up teachers getting adequate pay and everything else that this override will allow the city to do the one thing that is giving me

▶ 5:23 Speaker 1: energy is the amazing people I have met and gotten to work with and forming a campaign to help this measure get passed they energize me they make me believe that the right outcome will happen and that the right thing can happen for Melrose and that is all I have to say thank you thank you hi my name is Annie

▶ 6:02 Speaker 1: Bray I live dude I live I'm ward 4 thank you for allowing me the chance to speak I have to admit I'm terrified but I tell my children to use their voices so I'm gonna try to use mine tonight my husband and I have lived here for almost 11 years where the parents of three children at the Winthrop school I'm an educator having worked in elementary schools in both Cambridge and Lowell I'm here to share my support for putting the mayor's proposal on the ballot I think folks sometimes get the idea that an override is a symptom of mismanagement or government waste as you all know that's not the case here for towns like ours passing overrides is standard in regular practice just to keep up with an inflation and growth not to mention the withdrawal of state and federal funding and the soaring costs of special education and other unfunded mandates as you also all know since proposition two and a half became a law Melrose has passed a single one this means that primarily residential towns like ours or as a result our schools are direly underfunded and the city is forced to perpetually redirect funds for other city services as we struggle to meet mandated minimum school spending from my perspective to vote no and allowing the mayor's proposal to go to ballot is tantamount to throwing a life preserver back when you are drowning because you're going to wait for a better one in In 2015, I heard opponents of the campaign argue that the override was somehow indicative of an attempt to keep up with or become a more affluent community like a Lexington or a Wellesley. While I disagree, I certainly understand this sentiment. My family chose Melrose because it is not one of those towns, because of its greater socioeconomic diversity and its motto, one community open to all. the facts make clear that this overrides isn't about Melrose trying to be something it's not even a cursory glance at the mayor's proposal shows that it's just an attempt to keep us from drowning the proposal isn't for fancy new luxuries and cutting-edge technologies it's for the absolute basics necessities that other communities take for granted such as adequate staffing to meet the demand of our growing population and higher back middle school teachers already lost fair and reasonable pay and this is the one that pains me the most to restore classroom supply budgets to appropriate levels for needed materials we're not trying to be Wellesley we're trying to buy paper and crayons current curriculum updated technology licenses adequate numbers of devices to comply with state mandated testing requirements I haven't been in the classroom for nine years but But I will speak as a teacher when I say that those of us who choose this field do not do so to get rich. It is a vocation, a compulsion for some, and we know we will be underpaid when we sign on to do this work. The teachers and administrators in Melrose are heroes in my estimation. They are the men and women who make it work, however they can and despite the odds, because the bottom line is and will always be the children so while the pay raise this override would afford them is a necessary part of retaining them it's just one part it's also hiring enough teachers so that they have manageable class sizes and it's supplying them with the materials technology and curriculum they need to do the job they signed up to do on the soccer field last weekend I heard another parent describe why she left her position in the Melrose public schools to teach in Wakefield. Two things, she said, my meager salary and the fact that I was spending a huge chunk of it to buy supplies for my classroom. To not be in favor of using the override mechanism in Melrose in 2019 is incomprehensible and inexcusable to me. This is what it was designed for, situations just like these. We're in no position to politicize. This is an emergency, and I employ you all to take the life jacket and allow the mayor's proposal to go to the ballot. I genuinely respect and admire all of you who commit yourselves to public service. I'm grateful for your work and dedication, but please give the people of Melrose the chance to save our city.

▶ 10:33 Speaker 1: Thank you. Good evening.

▶ 10:51 Speaker 2: good evening my name is arnold and um my father of two girls who have been a part of the mineral school system for four years and um certainly there's there's a lot of um crowding the school but i've never seen any any classroom that my daughter's been in that's had more than 23 kids but i want to talk a little bit about as far as how we got to this point um and what i think um are some issues um as far as the mayor's proposal where i think we have some problem at the end of the day i think we have a lot of common ground with this as opposed to differences but i i believe that any override ballot should be put to the voters by a mayoral administration that was elected by melrose voters not by 461 voters from ward 5. um a mayor unelected by the voters of melrose may not represent the will of the people and should not ask the authority and should not have the authority to ask for an override yes i understand about the charter but let's make no mistake about it as we're all sitting here tonight we knew that mayor dolan was leaving in december of 2017. if his effective date for leaving i think it had to be by january 8th we knew he was leaving in december i believe at that point we should have had a special election and we could have it would have been in the first two years of the charter excuse me first two years of his term i just think that all the issues that we have we're going to need a debt exclusion for either a fire station or a police station i think that should be the person putting forth that proposal should be elected by the people of melrose now i understand that there maybe inert a sense of urgency i guess what i would say is the mayor's proposal is five million why don't we you know put on you know 1.5 2 million like we did last i think it was 2.5 last time and then at that point maybe in the subsequent year after we have a mayor let them put forward another proposal um and i know there's other options too um instead of this whole five point million going into fiscal uh 2020 you can set up the ballot and i think section 59 of the master of laws allows you to accept a ballot so you can have it uh fiscal 20 let's say 1.5 million fiscal 21 1.8 million fiscal 22 1.8 million so we spread that all in over three years

▶ 13:17 Speaker 2: one of one of the things that concerns me about the mayor's proposal and i hear a lot on her website and very informative she's had a couple of listening sessions very informative i wish we had a little bit more q a sessions i think we should be having every single uh department speaking every week you know justifying their budgets but one of the things that concerns me about what the mayor uses what i like to consider scare tactics just look at the mayor's website regarding the enterprise fund when she talks about useful water and sewage usage you know we all understand that the former mayor and the alderman created the water and sewer enterprise fund to circumvent prop two and a half well this may be a legal workaround to prop two and a half the alderman regularly raised water and sewer rates to balance the city's budget we have the third highest rate of the 66 MWRA communities the mayor's website if you look at it promoting the override the mayor's website says these funds are kept separate from the operating budget so we don't have to lay off teachers because the water pipes need to be replaced is it an interesting that the mayor the mayor mentions laying off teachers rather than say city hall dpw workers central office police etc why is it that we never hear about laying off any any other departments apparently the mayor's administration believes there is no route better to rating the taxpayers pocket than using the kids and i mean i'm as a parent i'm tired of the propaganda administered by by city hall i think they try to scare us into voting for something that and by saying we don't value education if we do me and my wife both certainly value education we're in the school we're in the pto we're in there raising money you know my i know my wife volunteers uh reading um working at the library at the horus man so we

▶ 15:15 Speaker 2: certainly believe this um if the mayor wants 5.18 million dollar services from city government i believe reform should be made the mayor the mayor states city has no money for teachers however and this is not going to be popular when i say it i'm sure however a few months ago the mayor entered into collective bargaining agreements with um the police unions and they again included the lucrative quinn bill what do we know about the quinn bill we know that about 10 years ago the state stopped funding half of that and in the course in 2012 said the cities don't have to pick up the difference but yet we continue to fund that there's 32 police officers that made up they're comprised of the top 50 paid employees of the city of melrose one of them made over 210 000. should they get the quinn bill i i don't know but when you say

▶ 16:05 Speaker 2: that the city doesn't have enough money um should police officers that are making 200 000 get these educational benefits i mean you get 20 added to your base salary if you have if you have a bachelor's degree 25 if you've got a master's degree um i just don't think that's something that minerals can afford you know I understand this isn't popular to talk about and it does because it doesn't fit the narrative for an overrider pass but

▶ 16:57 Speaker 2: I mean we playing hide-and-go-seek here thank you thank you my name is Bill Butler and I live at 102 Crescent Avenue I just wanted to touch on two things of

▶ 17:10 Speaker 2: support for the override from two perspectives one of them as a parent of two kids that go to Mystic Valley charter school my kids I have a twelve-year-old and a ten-year-old that have been going to the charter school since kindergarten and one of the challenges if I can speak kind of granularly with respect to the charter school is teacher turnover it's a it's a chronic issue at the school that has a very detrimental effect on the community of the school and the continuity of the school when you have a year like this year where unofficially at least 60% of the teachers are new to the entire school it's had effect a detrimental effect on the overall morale of the school the community of the school which ultimately has a trickle-down effect on the kids enthusiasm I would hate to see that happen here in my community here in Melrose secondly from the perspective I am a local real estate agent here in Melrose and would like to speak to why Melrose has become such a popular

▶ 18:46 Speaker 2: community in which to move 90% of the traffic that comes through to open

▶ 18:58 Speaker 2: houses here okay excellent job 90% of the open house traffic that comes into Melrose here is our young couples from between the ages of 27 and 34 they either are coming in with a child expecting a child or want to have a child and how I would know people that would want to have a child just being somebody holding an open house is the questions that I get from them and the most the question that comes up the most with people visiting open houses and Melrose is how close are we to the school which school did we do we get to go to here by living here and unfortunately I have to respond by saying well it's going to depend on a system that's not determined by proximity of where you live versus where the school is located and every time I respond in that way I met with a an expression of shock disappointment and concern by people who are considering Melrose as a place to raise a family that question is always followed by well what's what do you mean and what's being done to do it and sadly I haven't had a narrative to a compelling narrative to come back and tell them well don't worry it's gonna be fixed we just haven't had that opportunity this override proposal I think gives us that opportunity the I

▶ 20:48 Speaker 2: think there will be people who are not in favor of this override with respect to real estate or real estate values because they don't really care about you know whether their property value goes up right because they don't have any plans of moving they don't have any plans of selling and they're just gonna live in their home for the rest of their lives and that's fantastic and and that's their right and god bless them and that's great and they love Melrose they don't really care that their value goes up to them though I would ask them a question of would you care exactly who would be your new next-door neighbor would you care who's going to be moving in across the street from you would you want that person to be fully engaged with the community the schools committed to the community as well or potentially would you would it be somebody who wouldn't be all that engaged in the community or potentially somebody who moves in that doesn't even own that property and the owner is living elsewhere thank you so much thank you I think we do have an empty seat or

▶ 22:17 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: two maybe in the back and over here for those of the folks who are standing in

▶ 22:22 Speaker 1: the hallway if you'd like to come in hi Julie D Lolo circuit Street good evening

▶ 22:29 Speaker 1: I just want us I'm gonna start because I just want to read something this is from June of 2016 when the last teacher contract was finalized and the school committee voted unanimously Tuesday to approve a memorandum of agreement with the Melrose Education Association which approved to deal last week it goes on to say the 1% raises will be supplemented by market adjustments within the steps and lanes that determine teacher pay based on professional qualifications and experience those adjustments said school committee chair Margaret Driscoll are intended to more competitively attract and retain teachers mayor Rob Dolan said the contract balances fiscal responsibility with a desire to keep good teachers in the district the focus of the contract is to live within our means but also invest in teachers and in particular teacher retention in lanes and steps Dolan said I think both parties targeted that and it was a very successful conclusion for teachers for students and for taxpayers yet here we are less than two and a half years later saying the same thing that there are

▶ 23:46 Speaker 1: teachers aren't paid enough two years ago we wait market we adjusted to market we adjusted to what other communities that's market in order to attract and

▶ 23:58 Speaker 1: retain and if that didn't work and two and a half years later we're here again then are we doing the same thing are we really finding out why teachers are

▶ 24:12 Speaker 1: leaving is it really the pay in addition you know we say oh they got a 1% but they increase steps and lanes so as teachers move each year between the steps or the lanes they're getting an increase in addition to what that 1% 2% whatever the cola is so sometimes it could be two three four percent that they're getting when we talk about the teachers our teachers being paid the lowest if our teachers if we constantly say our teachers are young they're young teachers well that means that they are early in their careers they're on the lower end so if in Melrose there's three teachers there are three years they're making each making 50 Stoneham Wakefield there's three teachers and they're ten years I'm just throwing these because I don't have the exact numbers and they're making 60 yeah it's gonna look like Melrose is paid less but in fact it's our teachers it's where they sit in these steps and lanes that's what we need to look at to come up with a true number of what we need there may be a

▶ 25:22 Speaker 1: true override number I don't believe it's five point one million dollars

▶ 25:29 Speaker 1: we're recapturing the Beebe school but two years ago two years ago we were told we could not take back that BB school that it would cost us too much money to renovate it two years later we can do that but we what we don't have we're saying six hundred twenty five thousand without a plan what's the plan for it why should we recapture it if we don't know what we're gonna do with it and are you gonna come back to us a year from now two years from now asking for a debt exclusion to renovate that school and debt exclusions for i don't know what happened

▶ 26:13 Speaker 1: with the library they had a grant what happened with a public safety building that two years ago we couldn't believe our police and fire were working in these horrific conditions and we don't hear anything about police and fire anymore it's sitting on a back burner we don't hear about the library it's sitting on a back burner it is hard to believe what we truly need as a city when these stories keep changing the first part of this proposal is we're gonna go back to prior funding we're going prior funding levels well what prior funding levels what what data are we basing that on we brag since 2015 when the prior override failed we have bragged about how great our schools are we talked about how well our kids do on MCAS how many how the percentage of kids taking AP classes has increased and how well they're doing we talked about our award-winning schools and the gentleman who just spoke yeah families are moving here not because we have mediocre schools our schools have

▶ 27:31 Speaker 1: not suffered so there is a number and I would employ you guys to go back and set and ask for data on this and to figure out what that true number is because if

▶ 27:45 Speaker 1: 2016 we said we're gonna increase salaries and we're gonna attract and retain it's right here and it didn't work you guys should be asking the questions if two years ago that BB school we couldn't take that no way we spent five million over five million dollars to put pods in place should be asking the question what's the plan and if you're gonna come back to us with the debt exclusion or some something in the near future we should know about it so I just ask you to please consider that this 5.1 is not the true override I

▶ 28:23 Speaker 1: don't know what it is and maybe there is something with increased enrollment but there isn't enough data here to say that this is the number thank you thank you

▶ 28:46 Speaker 3: good evening my name is Sheila Gauch I live at 18 Boston Rock Road I'm the chair of the special ed advisory council for parent advisory council for Melrose I have recently created a PowerPoint that I've shared with Manisha and Peter and any aldermen that are interested in seeing it what it highlights actually is the data that a lot of people are talking about regarding our school system so I'm here to talk on behalf of CPAC to talk about the importance of just funding the school budget the PowerPoint I created actually indicates goes through really specific data including average teacher salaries I compare it to us to nine districts in the area we are the lowest by about $5,000 on in all 10 districts for average teacher salaries we are also the lowest in per pupil spending I'm at 12,000 below all of our neighboring cities and towns what I would like to speak to I'm also an educator I'm the director of a therapeutic day school 766 day school and I'm also the parent of two children in Melrose public who are both out of district place currently because of their needs and what I'd really like to talk about is just the numbers of how honestly given this data that I've pulled and shared with everyone and we'll also share it at Parent University this Saturday that Melrose public school employees are kind of like magicians they have done a lot with a whole little real little and they've done it through really creative programming through MTSS which is the Massachusetts tiered support system that actually ensures that all learners get equal education and all learners are targeted for supports it infuses supports throughout general education and special education when you start to pull back on the ability to provide supports for all learners at all tiers whether regular ed or special ed what starts to happen is students look like they struggle more so kids that are functioning really well in regular ed education start to look like they need more supports when you pull back on reading support you take away the dibbles set in the elementary scale school now you're not catching struggling readers now they're in fifth and sixth grade and they can't read but you didn't catch it because you pull back on those early warning supports so lots of things happen and so the regular kids start to look like maybe they need evaluations maybe they need special ed this district has actually kept their special ed numbers incredibly low we're the lowest in those nine districts at 13% that is far lower than any of our neighbors who also kept our out of district costs low and 75% of our kids are in full inclusion classes it's pretty stunning data to look at I would also say that if we don't fund the budget if we don't fund the schools what ends up happening is we actually require more of those students look like they need more specialized instruction who may not need it but they start to look like they're really struggling at which point parents ask for evals kids get on IEPs and now you're under the federal umbrella by DEA and federal mandate and now you're still paying for students so either you inevitably you end up paying for students one way or another it would be a whole lot better if you just paid for them those students up front and so you could just catch the struggling students and remediate and help support

▶ 33:07 Mark Garipay: them so thank you thanks good evening my name is mark garapay i live at 71 moreland road i've been a resident of melrose for 47 years fourth generation and i'm a proud son of a melrose high educator for 36 years like all of you and everyone behind me everyone in this room whether you're for or against this override you love this city i'm here to speak in favor of the override and to request all of you to vote unanimously in favor of putting this question on the ballot for the citizens of melrose to decide not our elected officials melrose has a revenue issue that is not sustainable it is not a result of mismanagement the reason why i know that is because all of you in this room have voted to approve last year's budget budget and the tenured members that have have served longer have approved the last five budgets. In doing so, I don't recall there to be many line item changes that would make up for the large revenue shortfall that we experienced last June or will be seeing in this fiscal year 2020. There were drastic cuts to our budget last year, which will not change. So tonight, I ask each of you, what have you done over the last six months or since the last override to come up with solutions to this problem it's not going away snow shoveling ordinances and social resolutions are issues that need to be addressed but I believe the financial stability of our community is the number one priority and it is your responsibility as a fiduciary board of the city to make sure that happens as a as a resident it disturbs me that some members of this board are not putting the voters largest investment that their homes as a top priority as a parent it deserves me disturbs me even more that some members of this board are not putting my child's education or the education of all the children in this city as a top priority it's a time it's a time to stop playing politics it's time to stop playing politics in choreographing your next election and political dream it's time to start pointing fingers it's time to stop blaming each other. It's time for our community to fix this problem that has gone on for decades. We are not getting help from the federal government or the state government. This is our problem to solve together. I'd like to thank the members who have already expressed their support. I would still also implore all of you to put politics and personalities aside and vote unanimously to let the citizens decide what Melrose's future should be. Thank you.

▶ 35:50 Speaker 1: Thank you. Good evening.

▶ 35:52 Speaker 4: good evening my name is Carrie Scott and I actually am not a resident of Melrose but I teach at Melrose High School and I have been teaching at Melrose High School for the past 17 years and when I started at Melrose High School 17 years ago class sizes of 28 to 30 were sort of an anomaly now they're the norm at the high school and some people might even say that's a small class to have 28

▶ 36:24 Speaker 4: students and I have seen excessive turnover especially in my department I teach in the science department and we've had numerous teachers I've had barely a year in my 17 years where we've had the same department from one year to the next and I will tell you that the increased class sizes have significantly increased the amount of time it takes me to grade the work of my students to be able to give them meaningful feedback which means less time that I have to plan meaningful and good lessons so and you know I'm not using the same lessons that I started with 17 years ago things are changing we're constantly trying to improve changing technologies so you always have to be changing and planning new lessons and there's less and less time for that every day I also think the class sizes and the amount of time that it takes to do all of this excessive grading and planning really takes away from my ability to actually get to know my students more individually and be able to give them the important feedback that they need to help them grow and I also see the toll it takes on our new teachers who come in for a few years are exhausted realize that they can go someplace else maybe not work as hard and make more money and then they leave and they've taken with them the experience all the knowledge and the time of the experienced teachers who are still here doing that work year after year I think at this time it is not sustainable and it's not acceptable to allow Melrose to be a district where new teachers developing teachers come in use the experienced teachers to get some knowledge to gain you know experience and knowledge and then take it someplace else I think it's unfair to our students to our staff and to the families of Melrose and I think that it's really important speaking as a teacher I think we need to be doing more to give our students the community and the schools that they deserve thank you thank you

▶ 38:47 Speaker 3: good evening hi my name is L Rupert live on Wyoming good evening my name is L

▶ 39:00 Speaker 1: Rupert I have lived in Melrose for the last five years I really care about our community this past spring my husband and I had to move and our number one priority was that we would get to stay in Melrose and we for we went for some things we didn't want so that we could stay here so I really care about what's happening in this town I have worked in education for many years I ran an after-school program for migrant students and English language learners in Gettysburg Pennsylvania I have also run an after-school program at a school in Lawrence in the city of Lawrence and I currently work as a parent liaison and teacher at a school on the North Shore based on all of my past and present experiences I believe strongly in the opportunity that educational institutions have given to young people and I have also seen the ramifications of underfunding very clearly it is clear that without proper funds training and good educators that there will be a very negative impact on the growth of our young people I feel that it is important for me to mention that I do not have children and I do not plan to have children anytime soon so this override might not have a clear direct impact on me but I believe that improving the education of the young people in Melrose will lift up the whole city I am committed to making sure that our community has well-funded schools because I am also committed to creating spaces that allow for the best education possible for our children in the course that I teach I talk to my students about the education gap and the difference in opportunities for students who have received stellar education and for those whose schools were left behind the reaches the research shows that lack of funding stifles success for students because of this I am willing to pitch in in order to ensure that the children and young people of Melrose are given their best tools to succeed that the teachers in our community are supported and respected and to do my part to make an investment in the future of our city and our country I believe that it is worth

▶ 41:18 Speaker 4: it thank you good evening my name is sereno costa i'm a junior at malden catholic high school i went

▶ 41:23 Speaker 4: to melrose high school until late january of this year i felt obligated to provide a student

▶ 41:33 Speaker 4: perspective on this override i personally oppose this override i don't believe our town needs this tax increase don't get me wrong the teachers at morris high school were good but i found that the administration didn't handle situations correctly some or most situations i found they handled correctly were in regards to safety i'm not saying that i know all these intricate details of what's going on how the administration runs it but i know that the administration

▶ 42:03 Speaker 4: has mishandled situations which were key points to school safety and it was at no fault to lack of money but to the fault of the administration i find that safety and support is more important than getting new technology for students and it doesn't cost a nickel in regards to the cost for

▶ 42:20 Speaker 4: our town i think it's excessive according to melrose wicked local in an article by connor powers smith it said that the 5.18 million dollar override in hands of melrose alderman mix that up but uh it will cost an additional 554 dollars per year for like the average household all that extra money doesn't benefit the majority of melroseans it goes to a few very few that's called client politics which is the majority have to pay for the minority for example our senior citizens are private school families as as i like me couples with no children etc are paying for

▶ 43:12 Speaker 4: something that doesn't affect them this tax crease i personally don't believe it's fair for all of our citizens who have to foot the bill for a minority of this town thank you very much for listening to me and i hope you'll take this into consideration thank you madam chair at this time