ORDER-2018-190 : An Appropriation from free cash (01-324001) in the amount of $980,000.00 to various accounts as set forth within.

Transcript (~15 min @ 1:36:10)

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▶ 1:36:09 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: recommend we have a motion to recommend for passage by presidents work oh seconded by alderman tram and tozi any further discussion all in favor any opposed that will be moved forward as well we will now move on to the third

▶ 1:36:26 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: item on our agenda this evening which is order 2018-190 and appropriation from free cash account zero one dash three two four zero zero one in the amount of nine hundred and eighty thousand dollars

▶ 1:36:55 Speaker 1: to various accounts as set forth herein we're joined by mr del russo good evening good evening

▶ 1:37:06 Speaker 5: The order before you, if passed, will just about exhaust the free cash balance of the city for this fiscal year. If, in fact, the total is passed that's been proposed, there will remain $78,072 period in free cash for the remainder of the fiscal year.

▶ 1:37:33 Speaker 5: the bulk of the request pertains obviously to snow and ice and as this the superintendent indicated 825 thousand dollars will be put forward to address the deficit we're very fortunate that we're able to cover the deficit this year with the available funds that we had in free cash as was indicated uh it was a very rough winter and the uncertainty behind it and the expense behind it and the uncertainty behind that makes it very difficult at times to uh get just how much you're going to expend before the end of the fiscal year that's a challenge right there and i commend dpw and their ability to manage that effectively i also think you'll see a request in there for approximately 25 000 related to tree program which sean can speak to

▶ 1:38:36 Speaker 5: obviously um and we've been asking 65 000 for the capital stabilization fund which i believe we've indicated in part as to what the purpose would be to expend that and we're asking fifty thousand dollars for the medicare account that's the 1.45 percent that we're required to contribute each year on wages salary and wages in particular as salary and wages go up for staff is high we incur more cost that cost in kind goes up and i think you'll see that in fiscal 19 we're asking for an 80 000 increase to that budget and the treasury will speak to that at the right time but just to keep pace with what we're seeing for expense so we are trying just as we were trying with snow and ice and police and fire overtime the budget is close to what we believe was realistic and actual that we can um because we don't want to have to count on this media at the end of the year to fund the uh balance of our activity that's not a it's not a good way to do business um but having said that i you know i had asked the superintendent

▶ 1:40:04 Speaker 2: if he has any other comments the four main components related to public works i guess 825 000 is going to towards snow operations 15 000 of the free cash is going towards um batting cage improvements at both conan park and lewis monk melrose little league 25 000 is for a tree planting program we'll probably plant late summer early fall of this year right now there's 280 resident requests for trees this funding will plant about 45 to 50 trees

▶ 1:40:48 Speaker 2: so it puts a little bit of a dent in that backlog the 65 000 that we're requesting be placed in the capital stabilization fund is for the purpose of making repairs to the retaining wall along the property line between the melrose east side common fire station engine 3 and 268 east foster street the wall was originally constructed by the city of melrose during rehabilitation of the station several decades ago it's failed and it's requiring extensive repair It was first brought to our attention a few years back. We looked at it. We went back after this past winter, and it's deteriorated in that 12-month window as well.

▶ 1:41:41 Speaker 2: Once it's designed and bid and all the agreements are in place with the resident in terms of right of entry and how we're going to build the wall, make sure it's all across our T's, dot RIs, where we will come back to the board and request that the funding be taken out of the capital stabilization and brought into an existing FY19 public works account so we can proceed with the work. I'm hoping that by September we're in a position, September, October, we're in a position to do that. But by putting the funds aside at the stabilization fund, now we know we have a real project and our engineering group can start to work towards designing and obtaining the necessary permits and hiring a contractor so we can get a real cost. The $65,000 is based on an estimate. It's based on an estimate that we put together in engineering based on a wall that we built on Franklin Street. If you recall the Highlands Project, we added some parking and we built a wall to add that parking. it's it's a block type of wall and a static block type of wall that's what we estimated that was the basis of our estimation but like i said we're going to work with the resident and the fight apartment and try to figure out how best to build it and how to build it and then we'll be back to request an appropriation from stabilization into an active account

▶ 1:43:02 Speaker 5: just as a point of information right now the fund the capital stabilization fund has just over 17 thousand so if this is approved you'll have um just over eighty two thousand thank you

▶ 1:43:20 Michael P. Zwirko: president Zwirko thank you my chair uh just some quick questions um when you see a line item for a storm of you know 825 000 i wonder why i don't live in arizona um but uh it's not as bad as 2015 so um we'll take it it was weird too because it seemed like winter started in march um just didn't end so this is a good use of the free cash is actually what we really should be using free cash for and you know we don't want to you know obviously capital improvements but it's nice to see this zeroed out every year you know just a point that we actually can understate law run a deficit in this area on snow and ice it's not generally wise to do so because then you start off your fiscal year with a deficit but sometimes cities and towns have difficulties closing their deficit in this area thankfully we do not so thank you for the efforts there and i just because we had a gentleman um come before us this evening and you you mentioned it uh mr shenna you know to the extent that uh you can work in concert with um the property owner and try to be as not disruptive as possible and you know see that project come to a good a good completion we'd appreciate that but i i know you'll you've written it here in the order yourself so i just wanted to make that note um other than that um my only question is the backlog in trees generally speaking per year i mean how many trees do we order is that an average number 40 to 50 or is

▶ 1:44:47 Speaker 2: this just the the amount for the line item last year we did um a higher higher amount close to 65 or 70. i think that's more in the range of what i'd like to see but i'd rather see 45 to 50 than none sure we don't budget for tree plantings it's always something we've been able to do with supplemental funding one-time money so you know i'm hoping it's a program that continues the the backlog i think dates back to 2015. so we're in 18 a couple years old when we do this project we should be able to get through 15 and into 16. so we'll have a list that's about a year and a half old that list is created when we remove a tree or when someone's in that wants a new tree that's how we track it and that's how we generate this list

▶ 1:45:34 Speaker 6: thank you for that those are all the questions i had

▶ 1:45:37 Scott M. Forbes: thank you uh just one quick question the 78 000 that's left over in the next 30 days do it is there going to be a home for that do you do you foresee that going anywhere in particular yes a

▶ 1:45:49 Speaker 5: great question that's going to um find the majority of what we need for police overtime and i think as we talked earlier at the move to increase their budget by the hundred thousand yep it's an effort to minimize our need to do this in the future but yeah we do have a home for that and you'll be seeing the order before the end of the

▶ 1:46:17 Scott M. Forbes: fiscal year great this would say thank you again uh normally in years past we'd only get a one page item with a breakdown we have five pages of supporting material so it's a tribute to you and i appreciate your work thank you very much thank you alderman Medeiros thank you yes i too i wanted

▶ 1:46:29 Monica C. Medeiros: to thank you for the especially the detailed uh memos with some of the information which really you know make it so much more clear to to i think the alderman and also the public i appreciate that i'm very glad that we can close out the year without a deficit and support that as well as the you know increase in the snow budget which is anything yeah because we don't know if we will have this kind of free cash in the future so it's always um something so you know these are you know pretty much one-time expenditures and i definitely support them um the trees i did happen to notice over the weekend that there's a couple of trees down in the parking lot behind memorial hall are those planned to be i don't know if you know off the top of your head about those couple of trees that if they're

▶ 1:47:25 Speaker 2: coming back or um so the trees in the city hall parking lot have been diseased for a couple of years we're watching them very carefully we don't want to cut them down unless we have to i think we had to cut one down there was not much left to it we're hoping they come back we don't have funding to do any type of fertilizing or any that type of revitalization

▶ 1:47:51 Speaker 2: of the tree canopy but um at this point we're carefully monitoring that situation i see those trees every day so something that and and thank you for finding some

▶ 1:47:58 Monica C. Medeiros: funds to to repair this wall between the fire station and a private owner i did have a chance to go out and view the the wall and it definitely is deteriorating um i have been told by the homeowner that sometimes the fire trucks though it's not all the time but if sometimes there's mutual aid agreements and things like that that there are sometimes trucks that park pretty close to the property line so i do think it you know i'm sure you will take that into your engineering

▶ 1:48:37 Monica C. Medeiros: um account that's that you know there's some pretty heavy weight load that's that's there i think it's important to do this and not wait too long because you know obviously we don't want the the wall to really fail but if it were to have to fail where there was a truck there that could you

▶ 1:48:56 Monica C. Medeiros: know cause real public safety issue if there was somebody that needed service we agree with the

▶ 1:49:00 Speaker 2: need we agree with the need and we're fortunate that we were able to have you know set aside the

▶ 1:49:08 Monica C. Medeiros: funding to start to solve the problem very good well i i do hope uh as well and i'm sure you will work with the homeowner and the fire department to you know find the best solution and um i did

▶ 1:49:20 Monica C. Medeiros: see that the wall that's there i i did not see any like drainage um and i know there is you know

▶ 1:49:34 Monica C. Medeiros: them because of the gradations in the ground level there it's certainly would be something I would hope we'll see in a new wall there's a line there is a line

▶ 1:49:41 Speaker 2: identifies the train pipe so that was considered in the estimate excellent

▶ 1:49:53 Monica C. Medeiros: thank you very much and I this is not already a motion on the floor I move to

▶ 1:49:58 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: recommend there's a motion to recommend for passage order 2018-190 second second uh made by alderman Medeiros seconded by alderman Boisselle on discussion alderman Letter gary beaton sorry

▶ 1:50:12 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: i just had one quick question um following up on the conversation about the tree planting program am i correct then that the way that you prioritize the trees is really based on just when a work quarter is filed it wouldn't be based on for example the proximity to other trees

▶ 1:50:33 Speaker 2: or any sort of other variables there's we do two planting programs this type of program is just service driven customer resident request driven so we'll go to the most aging one and then we'll go out we try to correct we try to select a species that fits the neighborhood or that fits the property and we look at they look at you know wires and proximity to sewer pipes and gas pipes and stuff like that the other way we plant trees is with our road program that's when we that's when we will select and areas with without tree canopy and we'll go in and add a tree even without a request and um and we try we address those plant things that way to try to get a nice uniform look

▶ 1:51:18 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: when we walk away from a road program so it's possible then a property owner could bring to your attention a desire to have a tree that actually might meet the qualifications for your roads program so that it might not have to wait in a queue okay that's great thank you well

▶ 1:51:31 Speaker 2: we just paved north and south high and i think there are four or five residents that will end