ORDER-2019-9 : Amending Melrose Revised Ordinances, Chapter 177-12: Snow and ice removal as set forth herein.

Transcript (~26 min @ 21:32)

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

▶ 21:33 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: our agenda this evening is order 2019-9 amending melrose revised ordinances chapter 177-12 snow and ice removal as set forth here in this order came to us from the Public Works

▶ 21:52 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Committee sponsored by President Search and Alderman Wright thank you madam

▶ 22:01 Michael P. Zwirko: chair I did speak with Alderman Wright earlier this afternoon he will try to make it here this evening he does have a work meeting that's causing him to be tardy this evening I was also hopeful at this time since we were still under suspension of the rules if folks had questions for Mr. Shenna he could answer them he may have stepped out for a moment with that being said I'll just do a quick review of where we're at with this this did start in the Public Works Committee as the chairwoman had just mentioned we had a meeting in September on this topic we were fortunate enough to not only receive some correspondence from members of our community but also at that meeting we did have some residents also voiced their opinion on this ordinance as well as this evening I don't exactly know what the disposition of this will be this evening my hope was and that the five weeks since we last discussed this the folks in this committee especially this being a committee of the whole would have had some time to reach out not only to residents but also department heads and any other members that they saw fit for this ordinance and any questions I myself in that time have spoken to two other communities regarding their enforcement policies and procedures and best practices in this regard I I do think and I still will state that I remain committed to hoping to see this pass in some form I think it was summed up beautifully this evening in the conclusion where paraphrasing if you choose not to shovel your sidewalk currently you don't have to and that creates a not only public safety issue but as was brought up by our speaker it's also an economic benefit to having these sidewalks cleared just a moment ago in the order that we approved the mitigation funds we're talking about improving which the areas of near Oak Grove orange line t station a focus of the traffic study is going to be specifically around multi modes of transportation the chairman excuse me the director of the DPW mr. Shenna stated that that would be pedestrian and bike traffic both pedestrian and bike traffic would certainly move more seamlessly throughout the city towards areas of public transportation if the sidewalks were cleared specific pedestrian traffic all that being said I am looking forward to tonight to some suggestions for altering this ordinance if folks see fit I'm looking for direction from this board since it is a committee of the whole as to where people stand I'm looking for any ideas that folks may have about doing this this is a very common ordinance in other communities it should be one here last meeting the director Shana stated that if this were to pass he would appreciate some time to educate the public and the residents about this new obligation the ordinance as written is set to take effect on January 1st of 2019 so I would like to move along with this I certainly don't have to do so tonight but I'm interested in here hearing what others have to say at this time I will yield and complete my opening remarks but I do reserve the right to jump in later if needed but I leave it to the rest of the body of this committee Thank You madam chair motion to retain this order on

▶ 25:34 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: committee madam chair we have a motion to retain this order and committee made by Alderman Mortimer second seconded by Alderman tram and

▶ 25:46 John N. Tramontozzi: tozy on discussion Alderman tram and tozy Thank You madam chair one of the questions I had they notice in the ordinance and oftentimes when we talk about ordinances or changes to bylaws or whatever we look at the financial impact and this has financial impact none and I don't understand why because them I mean

▶ 26:14 John N. Tramontozzi: this this ordinance is punitive in nature which means then that people have right to due process if they're going to get uh fined uh ticketed for something that is required of them to do who's where's the review committee they're going to be appealing going to have court involvement it's the the police department is specifically authorized to enforce this you need a review committee and where's that coming from there's no there's been no discussion i haven't heard and i haven't i don't see any uh thing in our um the submissions here as to what it's going to cost to implement this ordinance maybe that's something that your chair can talk to mr schenner and or the legal counsel for the city i think we need to know that going forward as well so i have concerns about that thank you

▶ 27:23 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you alderman mortimer thank you very much i'm a big advocate of public safety of course quality of life is also very important what we found out when last mr shenna was here

▶ 27:33 Peter D. Mortimer: is that it's one to two percent of the houses with sidewalks that don't shovel That's a small amount.

▶ 27:51 Peter D. Mortimer: And I pointed out last time that this actually hasn't shown itself to be public safety. I've lived in Melrose for 50 years, and again, I've never heard of anyone getting hit in the street because they were walking the street due to a snowstorm. I pointed out six fatalities that we've had in the last ten years. they were all in the summer and in the fall so I'm not sure that this is public

▶ 28:25 Peter D. Mortimer: safety I'm concerned with texting speeding and those have been addressed by the police department and the traffic commission and before I continue I'd just like to say bicycles are not part of this discussion because bicycles by city ordinance are not allowed on the sidewalks of Melrose for obvious reasons sidewalks are for pedestrians bicycles have to go on the street which is another problem I have with how they keep making the streets more and more narrow but that's that's a different issue but bicycles are part of this conversation because bicycles aren't allowed in the street because they would hit pedestrians somebody's trucking along on a bicycle and I love to ride my bicycle and I don't ride it on the main streets anymore, take all the back roads.

▶ 29:16 Peter D. Mortimer: But this is really not public safety, it hasn't shown itself to be public safety. What I would recommend that is a more important aspect of public safety, when we found out at the last meeting, is that 31% of our sidewalks, excuse me, of our households, our frontages on properties, residential properties, don't have sidewalks. So those people have to walk in the street

▶ 29:52 Peter D. Mortimer: 12 months a year, not just in the winter. They have to walk in the street 12 months a year.

▶ 30:01 Peter D. Mortimer: And when it comes down to the winter, when there's a storm, it gets cleared up, it melts. Really, it's probably more like 12 days a year that people, because of winter storms, have to walk in the street, but in this 31% of

▶ 30:19 Peter D. Mortimer: our residential homes that don't have sidewalks in front of them, those people have to walk in the street all the time. So I think a better use of any funds that we might have for public safety would be to create more sidewalks. I have sidewalks that are broken up and need to be fixed in front of the Cochran House, We're finally getting some sidewalks in the Altamont Ave. We got a sidewalk that's being fixed at the corner of Gooch and Upham. But we don't have many sidewalks, and some of the sidewalks we have are in very, very tough condition. And that's the public safety, is we need more sidewalks. The communities, if you think of them, that have a shoveling ordinance, have over 90% sidewalk coverage. So they might go ahead and say, okay, let's make the people shovel these sidewalks. But I think that for Melrose, and we're discussing how this ordinance fits for Melrose, that's putting the cart before the horse. We need to have over 90% sidewalks and use the money, as Alderman Tramontozzi mentioned, the money that it would take to compel people to shovel those sidewalks. We need to have the sidewalks before we compel people to shovel those sidewalks. Because those people have to, the people, the 31% in those neighborhoods, they have to walk in the street 12 months a year, and again, bicycles aren't part of this conversation. Bicycles are not allowed on sidewalks by ordinance in Melrose for obvious and good reasons. Yeah, the six people who were killed in the last ten years, of course they were hit in the street because that's where people get hit. It would be a rare day and a rare sorrowful day when someone was hit on the sidewalk, but they were hit in the street in the summer and the fall.

▶ 32:20 Peter D. Mortimer: This would become, besides the points I just made, this would become a bureaucratic boondoggle. Who gets exceptions? How long does the exception last? But if you have a death in the family and you have to go out of town and a snowstorm hits, you get the warning. And I know we're supposed to be educational with this, but I have friends that I talk to all the time who live in Malden and suddenly they got a ticket in the mail, $50 ticket, you didn't shovel your sidewalk. So who gets the exceptions? What's the warning, as Alderman Tramontozzi mentioned? It could be a bureaucratic boondoggle. And we can use our public safety money to make more sidewalks in Melrose before we put the cart before the horse and set up an expensive enforcement apparatus. When they were here last time, the chief and the director of public works, whose departments are both out flat. They're stretched out beyond their resource sources and we said who's going to enforce this and they both pointed at the other one. they can't they don't have the resources to enforce this and DPW would rather use their resources to build more sidewalks I would venture to say so our public

▶ 33:42 Peter D. Mortimer: safety dollars and again it's not really public safety because no one's been hit it's a convenience new winter is a nuisance winter is a pain in the neck and some people who may be in favor of it with all due respect and concern for citizens they may find out that they wish they had been careful what they ask for because early in the morning you've got to get an early start you're off to work early you have to drop your kids off now you have to get back home and shovel before you go to work or you have to get home leave work early and get home and shovel or wake up early the next day and shovel at the latest and And for the 1%, I think we'd be better off spending our dollars on putting sidewalks on the 31% of residential frontages,

▶ 34:33 Peter D. Mortimer: residential frontages of properties that don't have sidewalks. That would be putting the horse before the cart rather than the cart before the horse. That would be a better use of the funds that we have. Thank you very much. Thank you.

▶ 34:49 Speaker 2: Alderman Medeiros.

▶ 34:51 Monica C. Medeiros: thank you I actually here is mr. Shana just in perfect timing and wondering

▶ 35:04 Monica C. Medeiros: since we're under suspension of the rules if he might join us I wanted to bring up one of the concerns or suggestions that I had had at the last meeting is that perhaps we need to look more at our snow shoveling routes and in particular we had resident at public comment talked to us about her experiences walking along Tremont Street and Brunswick Park and I have up on my computer screen which is in the ordinance is the map of the study that the Department of Public Works did for the storms over the period I'm looking particular at FY 18 the last winter that we just had and I see that on Tremont Street between between Melrose Street and you know there's there's one on each side between Melrose Street and Franklin Street where there was one house on each side that missed one storm and it looks like there's a little bit of activity down near West Emerson and Tremont Street I don't see any houses marked that

▶ 36:30 Monica C. Medeiros: didn't shovel for Brunswick Park at all and these routes are all sidewalk plow routes so how do we I'm wondering if you could sort of talk to you know how do we

▶ 36:42 Monica C. Medeiros: get to a point where we're you know we obviously you did a study as best you could and found only you know one house on each side that Tremont that didn't shovel and and that there was no problems at Brunswick place but obviously you know we're hearing from residents that there was more of an issue there and this is also a sidewalk plow route so could you sort of talk to and what I wonder is and I think it's something that is one of my concerns in this ordinance is that I think the ordinance is very subjective you know it's asking that we remove all snow and ice and all snow and ice is is quite a lot to remove in for the width of two people walking side by side which I think that's a very subjective you know answer and so for instance so what did you use to say that the street was all cleared and was this study done before the sidewalk plow went out or after or I don't know if you can speak

▶ 37:44 Speaker 3: to that let's take the site so the studies were done after the sidewalk routes went out school doesn't reopen until the sidewalk moves go out the area that the resident spoke to is a very tricky area I agree I look at the complaint log every day multiple times a day after a storm that's typically what I do that area under the bridge is tricky to navigate we can't get machines underneath there we typically shovel it by hand or sometimes by snowblower there is a piece as you come under the bridge and back up the hill to go to Brunswick that's always an area that we're concerned about and we try to address it as much as possible and as quickly as possible in terms before you continue in

▶ 38:33 Monica C. Medeiros: an area like that is it possible to go the width of two people I'm not sure if

▶ 38:40 Speaker 3: the sidewalk is that wide no sidewalks very narrow in that area in fact we worked with the MBTA to install a handrail under the bridge because the sidewalk was so narrow there I think that is there were a lot of exceptions to the rule when you look at the city in general I mean there's some areas between the sidewalks there's some areas with grass strips some areas with no grass strip with the sidewalks wider there are areas that have utility poles that narrow the pedestrian passage with it's very different it's as you navigate you know throughout the city in that regard so we try to do our best when it comes to the sidewalks as far as the process we review it every year we started last week internally we look with our operators we we travel the routes right now in the fall we look for areas that may have changed improvements that we may have made over the years we look at you know utility poles that maybe were replaced and narrowings that have shrunk where we're not gonna be able to get the machine through we're in the process of doing that the superintendent that I meet and we review we look at school needs things that she hears through her PTO s and principles so that's all part of the process of what we do in the fall before we go forward and early December and go public

▶ 40:10 Speaker 5: with what our sidewalk routes are going to be and so you know in thinking about

▶ 40:13 Monica C. Medeiros: okay how does an area that's had the sidewalk plow go by then become unplowed and that you know and I think I spoke at the last meeting where I've had this experience where the sidewalk plow sometimes has gone by or we've cleaned up the whole sidewalk on our own and then sometimes you know trying to get by the snowballs the snow banks fall in completely on the sidewalk and you have to go back to start all over again which is not the easiest thing in the world to do and sometimes I would say close to impossible with the icy snow but that might be one what reason that happens another reason might be that people are snow blowing their driveways and re-blocking the sidewalks and that would not be allowable under the ordinances today if that's what they're doing

▶ 41:07 Speaker 3: correct yeah you can't take private snow put it onto the public way so a lot of people is that a lot of people that snow blow onto the street or hire private vendors to plow their driveways and they're plowing out onto the road that technically is a violation of the ordinance well we don't go around enforcing it but if people are if people are totally making the road impassable and we catch them or or they block a sidewalk route that's in a school route we tend to we tend to knock on the door in those instances but yeah you're right the existing ordinances do cover things like people plowing out onto the street

▶ 41:45 Monica C. Medeiros: or snow blowing out onto the street so if a resident comes across an area that's that's the situation and you can tell that you know there's no bloated up and you know and police chief

▶ 41:52 Speaker 3: lyle is very good and the melrose police department are very good at helping us with that sometimes all it takes is the police to drive by especially that some of the stuff happens at the wee hours of the night when it's dark so you know police come by with the lights the next thing you know it stops um but yeah that those are the type of things we do look at those are the type of things that do cause problems today and it's usually after a storm after

▶ 42:22 Monica C. Medeiros: we've completed ninety percent of our cleanup and for areas that are corners and your policy and philosophy and I think what's been in practice the last few years is to to really shovel and not shovel but to cart away a lot of the snow that the city has been doing that on on corners sometimes that takes a

▶ 42:43 Speaker 3: little while right we try to we really try to do that as much as possible it's not an ordinance it's not a proceed but it's it's what we believe is right as a department we just don't say okay pack the stuff let's move on we try to keep the community moving and we realize that these corners some of which we create need to be addressed and those we have we you know with the right equipment and manpower and a place to bring the snow to you know we're able to address it and Some people are very patient in that regard, and we can, with a little bit of time, we can make these problems go away when they fall.

▶ 43:23 Monica C. Medeiros: Thank you. You know, I just, I want to just say this again. This is some of my concerns. Again, I feel that this is a little bit subjective about, you know, who, what is two people wide? What is all of the snow and ice? You know, obviously, in some storms, it's almost impossible to get all of the ice off. I think this is something that could end up being selectively enforced instead of fairly enforced for if I'm going to support an ordinance I want it to be fairly enforced I want everybody in this you know this side of the room to be treated the same way as the people on that side of the room to be treated the same way as the people who are out and not in this room and when we have something like this and the idea of what's subjective or if we're waiting for a resident or a neighbor to call and you know tattle on their next-door neighbor or on somebody on their walking route then well somebody else you know gets away with not doing it then we're not being fair and the only way to be fair about this is to enforce it with everyone and I don't think we have the manpower or the funds to do that and I you know we've talked about public safety and I am waiting for some information from Melrose specific but I did want to share with you a study that was done by the University of Montreal Hospital and Research Center where they studied a hundred and twenty eight thousand heart attack cases between 1981 and 2014 and more than 68,000 people who died and so this was this is mostly Canada because they get a lot of snow that's where they studied but they found that men were 16% more likely to have a heart attack and 34% more likely to die from a heart attack when at least eight inches of snow fell and you know I think that's pretty significant and we we look at things you know for a public safety perspective and you know that's

▶ 45:34 Monica C. Medeiros: those are some you know 34% more likely to die is is a big deal and you know if we're looking out for public safety thankfully we haven't had any instances and I think we can do a lot more to address you know that 2% of the population that is not being neighborly and not doing the right thing by you know maybe having a public more of a public outreach campaign and perhaps you know really more not necessarily having to be the police but maybe being some of us to you know knock and see if there's some reason that that person can't shovel because there might very well be people who are away people who are sick people who've had a death in the family and I think we could address this you know use more of the funds that would be otherwise used for enforcing this ordinance to do things like get the snow out of the corners you know and in a way and to make those routes safer to do some maybe some follow-up on the side well on the snowplow roots or expand them into areas that are more pedestrian

▶ 46:46 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: and MBTA routes thank you thank you very much we do have to in accordance with With the rules of the Board of Aldermen adjourn or recess this meeting, we do have other aldermen in queue to speak on this order. However, the full board meeting must start within 30 minutes of its posted time, which has passed.

▶ 47:02 Peter D. Mortimer: Motion to recess, Madam Chair.

▶ 47:04 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Point of order. Motion to recess, made by Alderman Mortimer, seconded by Alderman Boyce-Zalem, discussion, President Virchow.

▶ 47:09 Speaker 6: There's a motion already on the floor to hold this in committee, so I'd like to dispose of that motion before we take care of the motion to recess.

▶ 47:16 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: the makers of the original motion, which I believe, Alderman Mortimer, you made the motion.

▶ 47:22 Speaker 7: I did.

▶ 47:23 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: It was seconded by Alderman Tramontozzi. It would need to be withdrawn by both of those members, otherwise we would need to vote on it.

▶ 47:28 Peter D. Mortimer: Point of order, Madam Chair. I think a motion to recess is an intervening order. I think we can leave the motion on the floor, because if we deal with that motion, that will forestall any further discussion. And if we're going to just take a vote on the motion to retain the order of the committee, which is fine with me, then we may as well just have a motion to adjourn, which is also fine with me. I just want to make sure we understand, a motion to adjourn is always in order. Always in order. But I did see other people wanted to speak, and I certainly want to afford them that chance. So, just so we know what we're dealing with here, President's work over.