← City Council · 2017-06-19 · City Council Regular Meeting
Public Participation
Agenda original PDF
Minutes original PDF
Transcript
▶ 5:27 Speaker 1: Mr. President, I make a motion to open the floor for public participation. Second. Alderman Mortimer moves that we commence public participation. The motion is seconded by Alderman Boisselle on the motion. all those in favor aye anyone opposed motion passes this is the portion of our meeting where any member of the general public can come forward to the table in the center of the room identify themselves and speak on any item that is
▶ 6:10 Speaker 3: on our agenda this evening hi good evening my name is Jerry Moroz I had asked the chair to take the large group issue here and before public participation but that's not happening apparently the rules specify that we
▶ 6:20 Speaker 1: have public participation okay thank you mr. Mraz that's why it's me help being
▶ 6:25 Speaker 3: held now well so we'll have these young citizens of our city here some discourse here I came here I believe was on June 8th talking about the water and sewer rates and I said very explicitly that I felt it was my determination my reading of the statute that the water and sewer rates that you've proposed would be again be illegal under Mass General Law chapter 165 section 2 B there is there has never been in the last number of years any representation that the city of Melrose has any undue burden of expenses due to increased demand from large volume water users, yet you charge large volume users without any legitimacy.
▶ 7:24 Speaker 3: You know, I raised the issue with that evening that your oath of public office is that you'll
▶ 7:38 Speaker 3: obey the Mass General Laws, and I want to be clear, I did not call anybody any names, did not vilify any person yet i must have hit a nerve by by representing that the statute was being violated because i had not one not two but three members of the board of aldermen say explicitly or imply that somehow i was out of bounds in what i had said that night i exercised
▶ 8:06 Speaker 3: my right to come here and speak to you on an issue water and sewer issues is something i've come here for a number of years to talk about. I've brought facts and figures, I've brought logical arguments, I've brought the basis of my beliefs and understanding, and I've shown you exactly why the conclusions I've come to, I believe are correct. I'd like to think that public discourse would be about facts and figures and theory of arguments to get to a legitimate conclusion. year after year after year when I've come here and others have come here as well
▶ 8:52 Speaker 3: talking about the same issues this board of aldermen has not engaged in the facts the figures the reasoning behind why a certain course of action is proper while another course of action
▶ 9:07 Speaker 3: may not be it was represented at that meeting after I spoke that somehow I was doing at this local level, some of the crazy things that are happening at the national level, that I'm vilifying people and calling names and all this, and I don't do anything of the sort. I came here and spoke to the issue.
▶ 9:28 Speaker 3: If you interpreted it as name-calling, I urge you to go back and look at what I said that night, and please let me know what name I called anybody, anywhere, anytime. I did not. I certainly challenge the legitimacy of what you do. I challenge the language used by some people to imply that some things are correct without a doubt.
▶ 9:54 Speaker 3: You know, when I hear somebody using logical fallacies, fallacy by association, that somehow because a Department of Revenue employee signed some document, that that somehow means that everything that comes to this room is somehow true and proper and correct in every level. When I hear people exclaim that, oh, we've been audited at three different levels about something, when everybody in the room knows that those audits don't go to the level of what we're talking about. They don't go to the issue of what we are. Those of you in finance and accounting know full well that an audit is only talking about what the audit purpose is. and for those people in the city to rely on the fact that some sort of audit is done is somehow a blanket blessing of every single thing that's gone on in that whole operation is true it doesn't do that so again I was at the Appropriations Committee meeting when I spoke about all this the Appropriations committee recommended what I believe is an illegal action to this full board and
▶ 11:04 Speaker 3: so I appeal to this full board chapter 165 section 2b says that you can charge an increasing block rate for water and sewer costs that fairly reflect the resource demand of high-volume water users and as we had mr. Pellerin here that night and I used him as an example I'll do that again now mr. Pellerin's family although it might use more than what I use in my home it's not in my view a high-volume user as that statute contemplates and as I said earlier there
▶ 11:39 Speaker 3: has not been one person no consultant no employee no alderman who has ever made a legitimate case that somehow because somebody uses more water in Melrose that somehow they should be charged more per hundred cubic feet for that water they use and in fact because our water system is inappropriately biased toward a
▶ 12:13 Speaker 3: volumetric rate to encompass a lot of our capital costs in fact even at paying a flat rate high volume users are paying there an inordinate in unfair share of the capital cost of the city compared to low-volume water users I brought this to you for a number of years it's nothing new you know to give maybe an example I
▶ 12:36 Speaker 3: brought inflow and infiltration issues here for a number of years nothing new some of these things sometimes you know somebody realizes oh well maybe we should do something about that and I applaud that we're doing something regarding inflow and infiltration even if it's not really anything of significance in terms of making an impact on the rates the budget that
▶ 13:02 Speaker 3: you're passing tonight for water and sewer includes a huge amount of what you're going to call what you do call indirect costs and there are legitimate things to do to charge indirect costs to the water and sewer if in fact those costs are incurred again my litmus test in this was the city solicitors salary last year sixty thousand dollars the city solicitors hundred and twenty thousand dollar salary was coming out of the water and sewer fund this year it's slightly less but it's still inappropriate it's not a real indirect cost at the water and sewer fund enterprises are costing the city that much money. If you vote to put those indirect costs in there, I think that is a mischaracterization
▶ 13:58 Speaker 3: of what the true costs to the city are of that. At the same time, there are estimates that $450,000 of water and sewer use by city hall, by the schools, by the senior center, by Public Works are not paid by the individual budgets. They're paid by the water and sewer rate payers, which is unfair to them. They should not be paying city costs as part of their water and sewer bill. In fact, those costs ought to be borne by the taxpayers of Melrose, some of which are one and the same as water and sewer rate payers, but the tax of water and sewer is done, as you all know, in a different mechanism than the tax by real estate values for the tax base.
▶ 14:51 Speaker 3: I ask you one more time tonight, please, let's start having some rational presentation of what the costs are of water and sewer that are considered indirect costs, and let them be part of the budget but at the same time it is at a minimum disingenuous for the
▶ 15:14 Speaker 3: city to charge I forget the amount $900,000 of indirect costs to water and sewer and some of which I clearly believe are inflated while at the same time the city isn't paying its bill for its own water and sewer use the city's
▶ 15:31 Speaker 3: water and sewer use, if you really want to honor what some of you have expressed as a goal for conservation in the rates, there is no incentive for any city department, schools, fire, public works, parks, anybody to conserve any water whatsoever if they don't reflect the cost of that water and sewer in their budget. budget you have tonight doesn't represent any cost of water and sewer in any of those city departments I believe that budget is defective in that way
▶ 16:09 Speaker 3: it's obvious that money doesn't come out of the sky to pay for city services but there is a law in the books called prop to proposition two and a half which says that the city has to spend within its means of what it has for revenue that comes in legitimately and I believe that this water and sewer funding mechanism and I've said this before and some of you object but I believe it is an end run around prop two and a half by taking costs that ought to be borne by us as taxpayers and putting it on water and sewer ratepayers so I've called no one
▶ 16:57 Speaker 3: any names here tonight. I haven't vilified any people. I've spoken to the facts. I've spoken
▶ 17:02 Speaker 3: the same facts as I've spoken for a number of years. I would like to see some rational discourse
▶ 17:17 Speaker 3: around this issue. If you believe I'm wrong, tell us why. Show me why. Don't disrespect me and other citizens that have come here by just exclaiming that they are wrong or even as you do sometimes you just ignore that anybody's even raised an issue I was especially disconcerted at the meeting last time when there was a member of the public who had
▶ 17:47 Speaker 3: sent a letter in writing to you where that person was excoriated by a member of the city staff and by members of this board for putting out there his thoughts and concerns and explanations about things, and he was called names, saying he has no understanding of anything, that he's ignorant of this. You know, that is not legitimate discourse. So please, when you
▶ 18:17 Speaker 3: go and choose to mischaracterize what I've said, please look in the mirror at what was
▶ 18:25 Speaker 3: said that night about me and about a number of another member of the public and let's move on let's have rational discourse let's discuss the real issues about how we can make a better more efficient water and sewer enterprise system for all the citizens of Melrose whether they are ratepayers or taxpayers or both thank you for your time anybody else who wishes to speak
▶ 19:01 Speaker 1: this evening good evening my name is Bob Driscoll I'm the chairman of the Melrose Veterans Advisory Board and I'm here tonight to talk about operation recognition and I'm basically here to say thank you so I wanted to start by saying thank you to the board for their support I know we've come a long way when I see most of you standing in front of crockpots at our chili chowder fest that you're there behind us supporting us and I appreciate that I want to say thank you to our state delegation who's behind me representative Paul Broder for his support I want to thank upstairs mayor Dolan and his staff for their support I want to thank the Veterans Office for their support this this year operation recognition was our sixth trip we took over the six years we've taking
▶ 19:58 Speaker 1: over 80 veterans and over 100 students to Washington to see their monuments this year was no exception each year we get a great bunch of students and I always say to myself these are great kids you know next year you know I'm not sure we're gonna have as good of a group and every year these kids surprise surprise me we they just keep getting better and better and better this year we had 65 students sign up we can only take normally 12 to 15 students this year we were able to squeeze in I believe 18 students we have a lot of room underneath the bus so we were able to bring more these kids these students excuse me these students do a lot of hard work during the year with the help of lisa lord they they learn a lot about research and in the history of our veterans here in the city so tonight i just want to say thank you to the students also for their hard work they go off as of tomorrow they're off to high school in in the fall so um i said to them um how much they affected the city this year and i can't wait to see how they're going to influence the city as they go into high school
▶ 21:32 Speaker 1: i look forward to that so thank you thank you motion to close public participation mr president make sure that we have nobody else is there anybody else who wishes to speak this evening
▶ 21:40 Speaker 1: Alderman Mortimer moves to close public participation. Motion is seconded by Alderman Boisselle. On the motion, all those in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? Motion passes. That concludes the public participation portion of our meeting. As with all of our meetings, this meeting is being videotaped and will be rebroadcast for your viewing pleasure.