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

Transcript (~38 min @ 23:00)

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

▶ 23:00 Robert A. Boisselle: acceptance 2019-9, amendment of Melrose Revised Ordinance Chapter 177-12, snow and ice removal has set forth in. This was sponsored by the President Zwirko and Alderman Wright.

▶ 23:18 Speaker 4: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

▶ 23:20 Michael P. Zwirko: so before i begin i just wanted to state that i received a communication from alderman wright who is in somerville this evening he has a meeting he hopes to be here at some point but he is running late so hopefully he can add into this just to give a little bit of a history lesson this is probably the third time in the last 10 or 12 years that an ordinance of this nature has come up the previous two times it has not been successful most recently by a narrow margin the timing on this is important it is mid-september and the hope is is that if we are to make modifications to chapter 177-12 that we can do so prior to january 1st of 2019 when as this ordinance is currently drafted would be the effective date so i'd like to spend some time this evening having a good discussion about this trying to work out a couple of potential areas of pitfall orders that need correcting it is not a perfect ordinance as drafted I'm looking to my colleagues to help make this one that's workable but we do have about three and a half months to do so our last meeting of the calendar year is December 17th of this 2018 so hopefully we can work on this and get something through my hope also is even though we have addressed this a couple of times certainly not when I was a member of this board but that we can all approach this with a fresh look the most recent attempt that this was during the calendar year of 2015 and as folks may remember 2015 was a horrendous year for snow the MBTA broke down it was called snowpocalypse it was just an awful awful year so getting rid of snow in any neighborhood was quite a challenge folks that commute will remember that the MBTA sent trucks overnight to widen the road that's known as Banks Place so we had a lot of snow I'm hopeful that the past three years we haven't had snow of those amounts although it does seem that when it snows now it doesn't snow in 2 to 4 inches it snows in 10 to 12 so take a fresh look and you know let's try to make this as much of a prescriptive ordinance as it is a punitive one right now as it stands if I don't want to shovel my sidewalk I do not have to and we advertise ourselves as a walking community as a pedestrian community as a commuter in a commuter community and yet in the winter oftentimes I'm sure folks have seen it there'll be mothers and fathers with strollers in the middle of the street because sidewalks aren't completely cleared or clear of snow and it creates a not only a public safety issue but we also do not have busing for our schools so our students as well are walking in the morning and in the afternoon on thoroughfares when they should be on the sidewalk and it's most of the time it's because these sidewalks aren't cleared I will add that for the most part Melrose does a pretty good job we have neighborhoods that clear frequently we have areas of no concern we have areas that are around schools that we don't have concern with DPW does a great job in alleviating some of those burdens on and around near the schools as well as some of the main thoroughfares as well as the areas that are near our commuter rail stops and heading south towards the orange line And there's also an interesting phenomenon when it comes to shoveling and clearing snow. As I'm sure some folks will note, if they're the first one in their neighborhood, they're quickly followed by others to come out of their homes during and after a snowstorm to assist in the neighborhood in cleaning up. There's a kind of a peer pressure, as you will, with clearing snow. So I'm sure that if a sociologist were to take a look and find out if one person goes out, if you build it, they will come. So there are just a couple of things to think about when we talk about this. you know it is a public safety concern we do have folks in the community that are looking for community service hours we have folks that for a nominal fee would be willing to assist generally speaking people do clear their driveway their sidewalk is right next and abutting their driveway so i don't think it's a tall order to ask we're also seeking things in this ordinance to allow for the alleviation of folks who may be physically unfirm there is a warning that comes out we're hoping that the earlier the this ordinance gets passed there could be a public outreach campaign much like we've done with recycling in the past to educate folks target some of our problem neighborhoods our problem areas in the hopes that this is something that's workable this is not seen as some sort of an ordinance that's seeking to you know levy funds in a punitive manner this is really just to help make our neighborhoods safer and allow for folks that either bike ride walk or push the strollers down the streets to have a sidewalk off of the roadway to use i think that's most important because there are some issues that we do need to work out and we do have department heads here who will hear from in a moment is that we take our time on this ordinance we certainly don't need to rush it through we have received some messages of feedback from the residents and i think we should take those into account as well with that that's the introduction and i look forward to a discussion this evening thank you mr chair for the time

▶ 28:28 Robert A. Boisselle: Any other Alderman wish to speak on this particular order?

▶ 28:35 Speaker 5: Alderman Buchoff?

▶ 28:36 Manisha Bewtra: I'd like to make a motion to suspend the rules so we can invite, sorry I'm having a moment, Public Works Director John Chenna and City Solicitor Robin Campana.

▶ 28:49 Speaker 6: Second. Second motion to suspend the rules.

▶ 28:51 Robert A. Boisselle: All right, we have a motion to suspend the rules to bring the public officials up. We'll take the fire, the police chief and the city solicitor and the, have them all together. That works.

▶ 29:16 Robert A. Boisselle: Would any of you gentlemen wish to discuss on the topic this evening?

▶ 29:21 Speaker 6: Mr. Chairman, we're here at the invitation of President Zwirko and we've worked on this ordinance in the past in different forms. And this evening we're here to answer any questions members may have specific to this draft.

▶ 29:44 Scott M. Forbes: Thank you I appreciate it I know I'm a non-voting member so thank you over the last couple of years I know that we talked about collecting data about certain properties that have been shoveled have we ever identified whether these are people that don't have the capacity to shovel their walkways or they're just they have the capacity but it just chosen not to do so I know in the beginning when When it was a pilot program, we were going to start looking at certain properties and just seeing if they were being either repeat offenders or maybe they just don't have the capacity to shovel their walk. Has there been any data collection in that regard?

▶ 30:19 Speaker 7: Yeah. So since this was first discussed in 15, which was after that horrific winter of 14, 15, we started collecting data in the following winter, 16, 17. It was a package we put together after that winter where we looked at the number of houses and how many houses had sidewalks and of those people with sidewalks who shoveled. We followed that up briefly, 17 and then 17, 18 we collected more data. I have two worksheets with me and I apologize I didn't send this ahead of time. been a little distracted the last few days in public works but i will package this together for for you um i i spoke with alderman Zwirko last week and i think it's his intent to uh place this on hold this evening to give the alderman some time to deliberate to think this through so while you deliberate i will send you the information but i do have hard copies which I'll pass around the one that will circulate from all of them with the Garabedian that way is the 16 results and then I have 17 18 which will thank

▶ 31:46 Speaker 7: you I think so what they'll have if I could just highlight something on those

▶ 31:58 Speaker 7: again these are these these were done by our staff it's just a visual observation as we drive neighborhoods looking for corners that could be widened or snow that could be removed we've been looking at sidewalks so originally we looked at three storms we looked at a storm on january 24th 16 february 8 16 and april 4th 16. so if you look at that that's the three storm analysis that i've that i've passed out halfway through um halfway down if you look at percent of parcels that front sidewalks who did not shovel the first storm there were 4.1 of what we saw then it went down on 1.3 by the last storm it was only was less than one percent of what we saw that was not shoveled we repeated the exercise this past winter if you look at the

▶ 33:06 Speaker 7: sheet that says 2018 on the top so on january 4th we had that was right after a storm we went out on the 4th and then again on the 11th that's what we refer to as storm 1. then we went out on march 13th of this past winter and then again on the 15th that's what we referred to as storm 2. and if you follow again percent of parcels the front sidewalks that don't shovel you'll see that about two two and a half percent of melrose was not shoveling so alderman's work goes original

▶ 33:39 Speaker 7: opening remarks this is uh very much like recycling and other things where there's a little care pressure neighborhoods and these two maps show the results and they're clustered and i'll pass these around again i'll send these around digitally and put them on iqm2 but there's a lot

▶ 34:14 Speaker 7: so we have as a department at the request of the board and the mayor's office and then alderman Infurna now mayor Infurna is something that we've been observing and it's something that we've been collecting data on and um in lieu of another conversation which is starting tonight so those are the statistics all of them for upset okay so out of the 8 500 homes

▶ 34:38 Scott M. Forbes: 2.1 represents about 175 to 180 parcels that we're talking about that hasn't hasn't really

▶ 34:49 Scott M. Forbes: shovel in those citywide in those storms yeah yeah okay and then does this include sidewalks that are grass sidewalks and not necessary no we pulled them so if you look at the top

▶ 34:56 Speaker 7: there's um i can walk you down the page number of parcels is the number of parcels in that particular ward number of properties uh number of parcels that front sidewalks is something that we did when we could see the sidewalk so for instance in ward 7 there are 1540 apostles 731 of those have sidewalks okay um and then of those 731 we we subtract out what we do as part of our sidewalk routes and that leaves the amount of parcels left to look at in each ward

▶ 35:39 Scott M. Forbes: great well i appreciate you gathering the data for us i know it's uh it always helps to have the numbers in front of us so appreciate it thank you mr chairman

▶ 35:50 Shawn M. MacMaster: thank you mr chairman thank you all for being here mr shen i just had a question um with respect to staffing levels and reviewing the minute meetings from 2015 there were various meetings between march and december and at that time you had indicated that in order to enforce this order and you mentioned this multiple times there would need to be supplemental staff have staffing changes occurred at all between 2015 and today no we've not added any any staff to enforce

▶ 36:20 Speaker 7: i mean i really don't see us as an enforcement agency um we observe and sometimes i we observe ourselves and try to correct ourselves and make ourselves more efficient in what we do that's how we collected this data we're out doing other things and hey look at the sidewalk let's see who's shoveling our trouble um i'm not sure what the will of this board is going to be but to go out and actually start ticketing and collecting fines and that's something that we really are not staffed to do to continue to do this and identify pocket areas and problem areas it's absolutely something we'll continue to do because that helps us do our job that's my only question at this time

▶ 37:09 Robert A. Boisselle: thank you mr chairman but the records show that alvin wright has arrived all of them do that thank

▶ 37:16 Manisha Bewtra: you um and also thank you chief lyle sorry i didn't see you walk in the room earlier um and thank you all three for being here um can you clarify more on which uh how the city determines which sidewalk routes on the city plows um so they've been long-standing routes

▶ 37:32 Speaker 7: um they've stood the time they've been around since i started so that's 20 almost 20 plus years now what they did was they originally were identified by the school department and the then superintendent of public works and every year we revisit it but they're intended to identify pocket ways for pocket neighborhoods to get children in pocket neighborhoods to get onto a main drag and walk to school all the schools elementary high school now as demographics change as school districts get refined a little bit not officially but at least where kids are going and what school they're going to is comes to light year to year we sit with the superintendent and the principal on a yearly basis and base if we if there is a need to tweak we tweak if not

▶ 38:27 Manisha Bewtra: we just stick with the roots the way they are thank you um and additionally um So, I'm noting in this draft that there's sort of the differentiation between residential properties and commercial properties, and then now there's a fee structure sort of imposed on both. In the past, have you had to levy the fee, I don't know if that comes out of your office, on the commercial properties?

▶ 38:53 Speaker 7: I don't think we've ever levied a fee, but we've issued several letters which threaten the fee and that usually gets action and we do that together with the mayor's office uh mike lindstrom and i typically work and i'd say on a yearly basis there were probably a handful of commercial properties at the beginning of the winter that we we'd get down to one or two that we would send a letter to and that eventually did do the right thing i think there might have been only one where at the end i went and did it and we backcharged them but that's how we that's how we handle commercial properties in the past thank you um i think if i have other questions

▶ 39:41 Manisha Bewtra: at this time i mean i think i can just share a couple of thoughts i have um i'm inclined to hold this in committee which is i think the thought that we were starting off with um just to kind of work through the language a little bit more and also although i think there is the opportunity for public engagement after an ordinance is modified i think having a little bit more public engagement and awareness that this is something coming before us would be very useful i'm also concerned about the fee structure it doesn't sound like a lot but at the same time depending on what kind of winter we might have or how aware people might may be uh i'm just concerned about you know that we do that really thoughtfully and um you know like a an opportunity to look more at what mastod and other municipalities have done because a lot of i was actually surprised to learn that you know like over kind of the course of the last couple winters that we didn't have this mechanism already in place so i applaud this um this effort and i do think we need to do something um but i also would like to see kind of what has worked in other places um and better understand that sort of where which sidewalks are getting plowed i happen to live on grove street so i'm one of the the lucky ones that gets plowed by the city and i actually always assumed it was related to the fact that the bus comes down which is sort of the similar it's a main drag um similar thought process but sort of looking at that and how that kind of fits in into this picture as well um but for the moment those are all my comments

▶ 41:29 John N. Tramontozzi: thank you mr chairman so i'm looking at um there's a lot to study here i know but i just want while we have you guys present um section paragraph e or section e paragraph one begins the enforcement provision and we've already heard from public works director mr shenna that he doesn't see the department of the dpw as an enforcement agency and he's not he doesn't have the staff for it i noticed that the section also allows the morrow's police department to be authorized to assist in the enforcement chief i do you have the manpower for enforcement of this uh ordinance uh i mean do

▶ 42:11 Speaker 8: you see yourself going out there and uh i don't see it's the means of it so if it's a snowstorm they're already dealing with accidents and multiples or complaints from dbw as far as vehicles in the roadway it's very difficult for them to do that but i will say when dbw contacts the police department someone's blowing snow or throwing snow on a street we'll go up there and tell them to knock it off but as far as the check sidewalks that would be a lot of work for us that

▶ 42:34 John N. Tramontozzi: we don't have the manpower i also say it does also allow the director of inspectional services we don't have mr johnson here today but he has also enforcement authorities i would ask that question be directed to him as well i don't think he has a support staff i would suspect to be out there

▶ 42:55 John N. Tramontozzi: enforcing the snow removal ordinance but i think if we keep this in committee maybe the chairman

▶ 43:11 John N. Tramontozzi: of the committee can address that question to mr johnson i mean i think the the city does a good job in keeping the snow clear the sidewalks around the schools and making the ability to get to schools that's the city's responsibilities the city sidewalks i think mr shenna the department does a fine job in doing that um i haven't received many complaints about inability to to get to schools at least in my ward but i'll open it up to others my my other concern that i have is um i've heard from our senior citizen population i mean some of them just can't get out there and um in shovel um i mean i think we have to i think we're we gotta we gotta find community of people and we do have volunteers student volunteers that will go out and help with clearing i don't think we should underestimate the ability of our citizens to to shovel and keep the sidewalks clear voluntarily and of their own free will. I mean, we do have provisions now in our ordinance for the business community, and I think that will stay in place. I don't have a problem with that. I think it's a very, I mean, to revise our ordinance to make it punitive for essentially a very small percentage of the population that doesn't shovel, So I'm not sure it's kind of not really forward thinking, but just a couple thoughts that I had.

▶ 44:53 John N. Tramontozzi: I know I would like to see this stay in committee, review it further, hear from the public more, and we'll see what happens. Thank you.

▶ 45:05 Speaker 5: Alvin Mortimer.

▶ 45:06 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 45:11 Peter D. Mortimer: Alderman, I am opposed to this ordinance as I was the last two times it came up. And was defeated after thorough analysis and debate. And I have four reasons that are against it. And I would respectfully ask my fellow aldermen to consider that if you cannot refute all four reasons, that we should not make a change in our ordinances regarding snow. Some of the issues have been touched on indirectly so far, but here are the four arguments that I have. The first thing is, it's not fair. Some people get their sidewalk plowed because they're on the school route, some others don't. It's also not fair, because those sidewalks belong to the city, not to the homeowner. We are essentially drafting our citizens into forced labor to shovel our sidewalks, and that's not fair.

▶ 46:27 Peter D. Mortimer: They don't own those sidewalks, they can't put their alma mater logo, they can't put their frat house logo, They can't put their favorite sports team or some social issue or candidate support that they want to paint it on the sidewalk. They can't put it over the smooth brick or flagstone. It's not their sidewalk. It's our sidewalk. And some of them we shovel for the safety of the children, and some of them we don't. Some places do tell homeowners what they can't do. You can't paint your house a certain color, you can't change out certain windows, but to tell people that you must work and shovel, you must pick up a shovel and shovel your sidewalk, that's not fair. They're being drafted. It's conscription. And then the answer is, well, they can hire somebody else to do it. Well, that gives me the idea that in the Civil War, people who were drafted could buy their way out for $300. So you either have to shovel or pay. And some people, as was mentioned, can't pay. Some people can't pay and they can't shovel. And then you have the health exemptions. So that becomes an administrative kerfuffle. Who gets the health exemption? And that takes me back. I was a little young, but the kids older in my neighborhood were being drafted to Vietnam, and they were faking some. Some were genuine, but some were faking Meaning that, oh, they couldn't serve because of health reasons. So now you're going to have people who don't want a shovel coming down and saying, oh, I have this health problem and that health problem. And we don't have the staff, we're already short staffed here, to sort that out.

▶ 48:17 Peter D. Mortimer: The next argument, argument number two is, I've lived here for 50 years before I was a teenager. And Melrose was a walking city then, as much as it was. Granted, there were less cars here then, but everybody walked around everywhere. And I have never, ever heard of anyone getting killed or even injured, hit by a car, because the sidewalks were blocked. Just never heard of it. I've heard of people wearing dark clothes at night who've been hit, like that poor, mentally challenged kid on Lined Ave. Speed was probably involved with that. Brother Barzo was killed down here near St. Mary's. That was probably substance abuse or drunk driving, and the person took off, and he died a short time later. We've had deaths due to solar glare over on Howard Street, the landscaper, and maybe excessive speed. Minor McClain was killed on Franklin Street because of solar glare in the eyes of the T bus driver, who ran right into him because he couldn't see. We've had speed. We've had drunk driving. We've had texting accidents. but I have never heard of in my 50 years anyone who's been hit because they couldn't pass by a sidewalk and one in the street. Alleman Tramitosi is right. People are generally more careful driving and walking when there's a snowstorm. This is a solution looking for a problem. This is overkill. This is too much. There's not enough of that. Another thing that was touched on is this is revenue negative. give. It's not our purpose here to get a lot of revenue, and we won't. So we're going to be trying to have more staff. Somebody has to do it. If we pass it, we just don't want to pass an ordinance and then let it slide. We're just flapping our gums if we do that. So who's going to staff it? And first the letter has to go out, and then there has to be a fine and it's a small fine so we'll be spending way more than what we're collecting this will be regular rent revenue negative and most of the people that I've talked to about this so far are the people who may be undecided or opposed to the override that's going to be coming up and if we tell them we have enough staff to go out and make sure you shovel to your sidewalk and give you were fine if you didn't they're going to be asking well what do you need my

▶ 50:51 Peter D. Mortimer: override money for if you got staff if you got money to do that what do you need my override money for and we have enough things going on I mean we all know it takes a while to get potholes filled in spite of the very best and excellent efforts of our DPW people want them filled faster they don't want people out looking at their sidewalks I got a wall at the fire station up on the east side that's been two years waiting to get rebuilt and I'm not saying that in any harsh or critical way because I know the staff is overworked the police are overworked the city solicitors overworked DPWs overworked they're all overworked we can't put this on them as well and and we're going to scare away a lot of people who might help us in other areas and we don't want to do that it's also an administrative nightmare you're gonna have things like neighbors tattling on each other when there's a dispute this one didn't shovel their walk this one did shovel their walk you know again who's exempt who's on the exempt list that they don't have to do it the police DPW or whoever might enforce this is going to have to look and say oh is that grass under that snow or is that a sidewalk? Are we gonna have a list that they're gonna have to check as they drive around? We don't have the staff for that. And then there's the excuse, well I shoveled it but the plow came by and we plow curb to curb in this city. A very nice thing that we do for our citizens here. But then people say, well the plow kicked the snow back onto my sidewalk. Not to mention the mounds of snow that are sometimes necessary at certain corners. There's no way around it. We have tight streets here. This was originally cart paths when Melrose was built. So those people aren't going to be able to shovel off their sidewalks. And again, I've never seen a problem with this anyway. And at that time, as the chief pointed out, us DPW crews are busy as can be at that time. Going around making sure the streets are plowed and the sidewalks near the schools are plowed. and making sure everything's right, they don't have the time to look around and see who shoveled their sidewalk and who didn't shovel their sidewalk. It's an administrative nightmare. And the police, they're investigating accidents, car accidents. I haven't heard of one where a car has hit a pedestrian in a snowstorm. You know, maybe there have been some, but not as much as these other cases I've heard, solar glare, drunk driving, texting. Again, it's a solution looking for a problem. And the other administrative problem is the appeals. People will say, well I shoveled it and then it melted and re-froze. And then the city solicitor, if they refuse to pay the fine, has to do it or if they appeal it. Now the city solicitor has to run to court and argue the case there. We've already lost our deputy city solicitor due to a lack of funds in this city. So the city solicitor is running amok, busier than he's ever been. He doesn't have, we need to spend our money on other things, potholes, schools, fixing walls. And I know, admittedly, it's true, anything we ever spend money on, somebody will always say, well, you could have used that money for something else, and their favorite item, whatever it is. But in this case, we really do have more important things to do. This is not a major problem. The numbers we saw here of people who didn't shovel for all three storms were half a percent and one percent. If that's the problem, I think if people carefully walk around, and who knows, those people may qualify for the exemption. When all is said and done, if we go through all this work and all this rigmarole, they may be the very people who will qualify for the exemption, and we'll still be right back where we started. This is too much, this is too much. It's something we can deal with. I know, it'll be horrible if I say this and then this winter somebody's killed, but these are the facts. We have priorities and we have to sort out our priorities here as the Board of Aldermen.

▶ 55:13 Speaker 5: That's all I have, thank you. Thank you. Alderman Wright.

▶ 55:18 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm not quite sure how to follow that. One thing I will say, Alderman Mortimer, is the people you referenced who were struck by vehicles were all in the street.

▶ 55:31 Peter D. Mortimer: In the summer, sorry, I apologize, I shouldn't have spoken. Gentlemen. I apologize, my apologies.

▶ 55:36 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Mr. Shenna, I drive to work every day, I pass through four communities. Your staff does a great job plowing the streets. Would you say you would agree with that?

▶ 55:51 Speaker 7: you know they're exceptional what they do I mean there's always room for improvement but we strive to produce that outcome every storm and the city

▶ 56:00 Francis X. Wright Jr.: has made great strides or certainly considerable efforts to make the city more bicycle friendly and the city through its various programs have tried to make it efforts so to make the city more pedestrian friendly correct and And we've made efforts to try to make the commuter rail and the routes to Oak Grove more enticing so people use public transportation.

▶ 56:30 Speaker 7: Yeah, we've built around them.

▶ 56:35 Francis X. Wright Jr.: And, Chief, you indicated that your department is extremely busy during snowstorms, correct? Yes. Not so busy two days later?

▶ 56:47 Speaker 2: Not to that level. Well, we run three sectors, we do three sectors. Great, thank you. Remember, for the traffic, how we have a traffic act.

▶ 56:57 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Okay, but I mean, during a snowstorm, you're busy, and nobody would deny that. But two days later, you get a call, more routine call, you're able to respond to it, generally. I mean, circumstances can always be different every day, but generally speaking.

▶ 57:12 Speaker 2: This is true, yes.

▶ 57:21 Francis X. Wright Jr.: you know I co-sponsored this order not as a revenue raising device I would agree the city solicitor has better things to do with this time but I don't think he'd say no if we told him that this was something we're doing and there's an appeal and you have to handle it of course he's going to handle it but you know I didn't write again I didn't file this as a revenue raising device and certainly we're not in a position as all of them in Mortimer would agree under the Emerson College test we're not in a position to raise revenue through fines only allowed to recover our costs but I filed it because a number of

▶ 58:06 Francis X. Wright Jr.: people at least in my ward like to walk to downtown the people in the Levi Gould the people in the fuller house the people in the Cephalo house the other elderly members of our community the mothers with young children they like to walk to downtown and they'd like to do that safely but when you've got nicely plowed streets people able to drive and i think we can all agree that some there's people out there who forget that it snowed and drive like it hasn't snowed and beyond that accidents happen whether it's solar glare whether it's drunk driving whether it's any other reason and if you're not in the street you can't get hit but if you come up upon a sidewalk and there's a foot, foot and a half of snow or ice and you have to walk in the street to get by while you're pushing a baby carriage or pushing a shopping cart or God forbid with a walker or just walking along just trying to get home for work or trying to get to the bus stop you could get hit There are a number of communities in our area that are similar to Melrose that require their residents to shovel their sidewalks. This is not unique. This is not intended to be punitive. Oliver Mortimer, they had a block party in my neighborhood the other night. Had two live bands, and they went beyond. They said they were going to end at 9. They went to 11. Not one resident. chief did you get any calls about music in the uh sanford street area on saturday night i can't recall so i'm going to assume no since i didn't see any blue lights people aren't looking to report their neighbors for not doing anything if i have an elderly resident living near me i'm going to go out and help them shovel but if i have an absentee landlord and one of the two families in my neighborhood and they're too busy to come in from concord or georgetown to shovel that sidewalk i want the city to take some action i want that person told that the residents of this city should not have to travel in the street in order to get to the bus stop in order to get downtown in order to get to their neighbors to check on them so um i guess my last question

▶ 1:00:25 Francis X. Wright Jr.: would be to the city solicitor uh has there been any recent case law in the last year or two that would in any way relate directly or indirectly to residents having to

▶ 1:00:41 Speaker 6: shovel up I'm not aware of any other than to say that there is a statute that's put on the books for sometimes that does give cities and towns the authority to implement this type of an ordinance in residential neighborhoods

▶ 1:00:51 Francis X. Wright Jr.: and that that's never been challenged not not to my knowledge ultimate okay and are you aware of other communities that have similar ordinances to the one

▶ 1:01:03 Michael P. Zwirko: proposed i am thank you thank you motion for recess under rule 21c second oh sorry not about

▶ 1:01:09 Robert A. Boisselle: all right there's a recess been called by president Zwirko and second by alderman Peter we will be back after the board of uh alderman meeting all those in favor