Public Comment

Transcript (~6 min @ 1:03:38)

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

▶ 1:03:42 Michael P. Zwirko: public comment mr. president we have a motion on the floor to open the meeting for public comment that has been made by alderman Mortimer has been seconded by alderman Boisselle all in favor aye any opposed this is the portion of the meeting where any member of the public could come and speak to anything any item that is on the agenda this evening are there any members of the public willing to speak this evening could you please come sit down write your name address and tell us what's on your mind please good evening everyone thank you

▶ 1:04:10 Speaker 5: for giving me the opportunity to talk about this issue my name is Tom Schinkel and I live on the corner of Upham Street and Lebanon Street on the issue of so

▶ 1:04:27 Speaker 5: I'd like to make two points I moved into moved into Lebanon in to Lebanon and up in that house four years ago first year I was totally unprepared for the snow

▶ 1:04:37 Speaker 5: and I decided to take action and I bought myself the strongest residential snow blower I could find and I went to place in Minneapolis where they know a lot about snow and I found a beautiful very strong powerful snow blower everything good we got the first round of snow and my driveway it's clear now I'm working the sidewalk and of course I have a long sidewalk on two sides of the street and the first round everything is clear now come the snow plows barreling down from Appam Street and they take a sharp turn on Lebanon and they blow four feet of snow right back on my sidewalk to the point that even my snowblower from Minneapolis cannot handle the snow. I cannot get through. So for the next two months, there is a pile of snow and it blocks the entire corner. It's an important corner. There's a lot of elderly people living there but also a lot of younger people parents with strollers with young kids that want to cross the streets and it is during the winter a real mess and as a resident there is no way i can handle this by myself with my residentials no bro there's no way so if i had a backhoe at my disposal I would be more than happy to volunteer to run backhoe over the various corners there that would not be a problem but with my residential equipment I cannot do it there's too much snow that's number one my second point is that on my side of the corner of the street I have to do the cleaning myself on the other side of the street invariably every couple of days i think the city cleans the street and i'm thinking how come they can't do it on my side i also like the point you made namely it is the sidewalks are public property i think you're very eloquent sir and i fully support what you say i again um if there is an opportunity to volunteer with equipment so that i can help out on that corner i'd be more than happy to do it but my own resources are insufficient for that corner thank you very much thank you sir for

▶ 1:07:18 Peter D. Mortimer: your time motion to close public comment second any other members of the public willing to speak

▶ 1:07:24 Speaker 9: at this time go right ahead thanks kate sure thank you sir if you don't mind just stating

▶ 1:07:30 Speaker 10: your name and address please sir uh my name is mal i live on eight mystic ave okay so uh about the snow ordinance so this has been brought up as a public safety issue and yet there has been no public safety numbers that have been brought up as the gentleman alluded to earlier so how can we say the public safety issue if we don't have any public safety numbers to go with secondly um uh you say like yeah with this administration you won't use this as a revenue um gaining initiative but maybe you guys might not but maybe future administrations might decide to use it as a revenue positive uh uh thing and second thirdly um they were saying that only maybe two percent of the population don't uh clear the snow right also you can impose a punitive thing on 98 of the other population that do uh shovel the snow doesn't seem right to me thirdly uh chairman issue uh alluded to that other cities uh are doing this so we should do it because other cities are doing it doesn't seem like a valid argument i mean uh just because they're doing it doesn't mean they uh is valid i mean they might not value their civil liberties as people in melrose do i mean i do not take lightly uh the city taking away my rights and uh imposing your uh you know for for something that two percent of the population don't do you're gonna impose your um thing on me i mean i value my civilly more i value my civil liberties more than those other people in the other uh cities you know i give up their rights just because you know they want their uh for one two percent snowplow so uh that's my those are my comments thank you sir for

▶ 1:09:16 Michael P. Zwirko: your time any other members of the public wishing to speak on any items that are on our agenda this

▶ 1:09:21 Peter D. Mortimer: evening seeing none motion to close public comment mr chair mr president a motion made to close