Public Participation

Transcript (~10 min @ 18:10)

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

▶ 17:41 Peter D. Mortimer: A vote of all the members of the Board of Aldermen. Having been taken for the President Pro Temp, Alderman Peter Mortimer is Election President Pro Temp. And we can now proceed to business. Is there a motion to open the floor for public participation, please? So moved. Second. Alderman Forbes has made a motion to open the floor for public participation, duly seconded by Alderman Voizel. in favor please unless there's discussion you need to do have discussion on this on public

▶ 18:12 Monica C. Medeiros: participation i think we didn't officially call the role and have the salute the flag

▶ 18:16 Peter D. Mortimer: uh all right i was going to wait for the full president on that but uh i i think that's a wonderful idea thank you very much uh madam city clerk would you uh call the role please

▶ 18:27 Speaker 1: Arvind Bewtra. Here. Here. Arvind Boisselle. Here. Here. Arvind Forbes. Here. Here. Arvind Lemberman. Here. Here. Arvind Ripper-Garabedian. Here. Here. Arvind Medeiros. Here. Here. Arvind Mortimer. Here. Here. Arvind Tramontozzi. Here. Here. Arvind Wright. Here. Here. Arvind Zerco. Here. Here. Ten present.

▶ 18:47 Peter D. Mortimer: Ten present. Being the necessary quorum, would everyone in the room please join me in saluting the flag of the United States of America.

▶ 19:00 Speaker 2: To the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

▶ 19:13 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you all, and I think there has been a motion made and seconded for public participation. I'll let that motion stand. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none. Public participation is now open. Good evening, Mr. Moroz.

▶ 19:39 Speaker 1: Hi, my name's Jerry Morose. I was here with the earlier committee on order 2018-124, and I know it's been recommended to this full board. But I feel there's some other issues that I'd like for you to consider before you approve this. This is the order whereby $750,000 is being transferred from various accounts to fund high school roof replacement and some middle school auditorium improvements.

▶ 20:13 Speaker 1: My expectation is that there are going to be some difficult financial decisions that have to get made in the next year or two.

▶ 20:26 Speaker 1: And what we're doing here is we're taking some leftover capital money and applying them to something that's pretty quick and dirty capital expenditures, which to my view aren't absolutely necessary, and that there are other things that we can do with that money. There are more capital projects we have around town. There isn't a prioritized list of what's highest priority, second, third, fourth, and we've just picked out of the air two things to fund. My concern is that we do have other important capital projects to fund, and we're going be needing to use other money from our budget to fund those because we'll have used up this money for these these two items um i i didn't state there's about a hundred thousand dollars for elevator repairs which i'm not disputing if they've been determined they need to repair that's that's fine a hundred thousand dollars seems like a good estimate although i would guess that even though we have quotes from one company that comes under the state bid process if it's a hundred thousand dollars in in total i would expect um so the issue about these is number one the high school roof if it's got a rubber roof on there yes it might have leaks but there are there's there are people and there's equipment that can identify where a leak is coming from and rubber roofs are easily repaired and inexpensively repaired um there were a lot of presentations the other day that oh well maybe we can have solar panels on there or something else but frankly i think we we ought to be conserving our capital to be used for something that we prioritize that will either that we're going to have to spend money on immediately or or shortly or to make an investment that will have a return on that investment in the future more than this expense on the middle school roof I'm sorry on the high school roof I misspoke there but the issue with the height the middle school auditorium which is on my mind is that it's very vague with these improvements being planned. I see that there was a memo that came to the board today, and I don't know if any of you had a chance to see it yet, but it talks about different things that need to be, the rigging is outmoded and inhibit performance capabilities, but then the specification of what's gonna be done here is basically that they're proposing to replace the stage floor, and by my calculation, I found some documentation, the stage floor is 84 feet wide, Possibly it's 60 feet deep. You know, a 5,000, 6,000 square foot stage floor does not eat up $233,000 by any means. And they're talking about upgrading the sound system specifically. No specification as to what that upgrade would be. And replace the video projector, which is not, I mean, it's an expense and it's in the thousands of dollars, but it's not something of the scale that we're talking about of 233 000 here um you know i just came here from a meeting at the high school where um you know we were reviewing the superintendent's budget narrative and the high school has 150 students more more than 150 students more now than it did just a few years ago and it's it's in desperate need of staff um these you know you can't fund one thing without considering everything else and it just felt to me from the presentation the other night and they and you know the city auditor wasn't here um the city treasurer wasn't here to state what the what the time frames are if there's a two-year time frame to use this money so that it doesn't um you know that we can comply with all the regulations we don't know the exact rules around this money and when it has to be used and to jump very quickly into funding these two things which i would never say are the top priority and i want to thank alderman forbes for reminding me of my passion regarding inflow and infiltration issues in this town and frankly if we were to invest in inflow infiltration we would have a payback on that money in short order that would free up other money in the future for us to be able to use for other things now obviously i and i is right now funded out of the water and sewer enterprise accounts but i envisioned a time whereby the water and sewer enterprise accounts will not be used to fund the city's obligation of paying for the city's water and sewer services as it's been I again I don't believe that that's it's an appropriate to use that money to work around prop two and a half regulations that I don't believe that the water and sewer ratepayers ought to be paying for obligations of the city which would be due out of the city's tax base not out of the water and sewer ratepayers I know we've gotten away with it I don't think it's appropriate and it may be only be a matter of time before it's challenged in a court but again it feels like there's a rush to this this seven hundred fifty thousand dollars in total a hundred thousand for the elevators is fine but there was very vague representations made the other night and I think that this board would do well to find out some more specific information but what are the parameters around the timing of this money need to be spent what other priorities are identified around the city that could use the equivalent of six hundred and fifty thousand dollars another element that wasn't put out there with the school building assistance money I tried to listen carefully by the way just so you all know it is difficult in the back of the room to hear what many of our public servants say at this microphone because they're talking this way to you there's no amplification here and um so i i apologize for not picking out every single thing people say but it's difficult in the room here but to the reason why i mentioned that is i did not hear whether or not the 429 000 or so for the roof whether that what is the expected price of the roof and whether that was supposed to cover all of it or that was supposed to cover a half of it if this if the school building assistance money was going to come through with the other order you did so you know it was all very vague it wasn't specific there's not a specification of the work to be done it was just kind of thrown out there it's like yeah replace the roof and some insulation maybe and and i feel very uncomfortable with this board going forward even though it's been approved and recommended to this board the full board here i think there are more questions and it doesn't feel to me that you can unless there's a requirement that we have to appropriate the money before you apply for the assistance on the roof funding i don't know what that might be but it doesn't feel that other than that issue that it would be harmful to take a step back and get some more information and be more specific about these things and identify you know what other issues we have in town that need to fund everything comes out of one bucket in the end and obviously capital funds have to be used for capital but if we do that to some other capital resource we don't have to use other budget money to fund that and so i i please ask you to even if you want to go forward with this to to request and receive more specific information

▶ 27:36 Speaker 1: about why the city staff recommends that you do these things thank you thank you mr morose

▶ 27:44 Peter D. Mortimer: ms ringan miss into bartolo are you here for public participation either of you Thank you very much. Is there a motion to close public participation? Motion to close public participation. Alderman Forbes has made a motion to close public participation, duly seconded by Alderman Boisselle. All in favor of closing public participation, please say aye. Aye. And we can rewind that vote. Do you have a point of order, Alderman Lemmerman?