ORDER-2017-166 : Petition of National Grid to install one (1) new SO Pole and one (1) new SO anchor on Pratt St., Melrose in accordance with Plan #24043322

Transcript (~12 min @ 51:35)

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▶ 50:58 Speaker 1: Okay, moving on down our agenda, we have order number 2017-166, petition of National Grid to install one SO pole and one new SO anchor on Pratt Street in Melrose in accordance with plan number 24043322. Motion to remove the order from the table, Mr. President. Second. Alderman Mortimer moves to remove the order from the table. Motion is seconded by Alderman Forbes. On the motion, all those in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? Order is removed. And at this time, we will commence the public hearing. Is there anybody who wishes to speak relative to this public hearing?

▶ 51:45 Speaker 1: Hi, my name is Fred Smith. I'm a member of Faith Evangelical Church at 200 Franklin Street. I'm a member of the official board of the church. I just want to let you know why we actually instigated this project because we have a very old tree in our front yard that was in bad condition and we wanted to remove it. It turns out that there's a long guy wire that comes down Pratt Street and across Franklin and ties to our tree. So right now the top of the tree has been removed and the trunk is still there holding the guy wire. We're simply hoping that you'll allow this project to proceed so we can take that tree out and plant a younger one that's not yet rotten thank you for your time so this this work was initiated at your request sir yes thank you thank you anyone else who wishes to speak

▶ 52:37 Speaker 1: sir if you could describe the work to be done and particularly it will save us a lot of time if you describe any disruption to the public sidewalk public road and if you indicate whether any police details will be required and if you indicate to me whether you are familiar with the letter from our Public Works Department dated June 19th 2017 certainly Tim

▶ 53:00 Speaker 6: Leifert National Good Electric 170 Medford Street Malden Mass yes the the list of conditions has been reviewed and approved going down the list a meeting will be set up with the the city engineer to go over the installation and answer any questions that they may have about the the new pole and anchor any

▶ 53:30 Speaker 6: existing utilities that may be in the area will be surveyed during the dig safe that is submitted before any type of installation of this sort any any impact

▶ 53:49 Speaker 6: to the residents in the area there may be temporary disruption of pedestrian traffic on that particular sidewalk during that day it may have to be temporarily diverted to the sidewalk across the street but we don't anticipate a disruption more than a day's work anywhere between four and eight hours for an installation of this type many sidewalk panels that are disrupted during the installation will be replaced in full sorry what were the

▶ 54:36 Speaker 1: other questions do you know when this work will be done I don't have an exact

▶ 54:38 Speaker 6: date right now if that's a request of the board a whenever that date is is scheduled I can I can forward that along I'm sure that somebody's gonna ask you

▶ 54:50 Speaker 1: whether it can be held until school is recessed for the summer yeah I don't see

▶ 55:00 Speaker 6: that being a problem most likely it will be anyway but certainly I can I can make

▶ 55:10 Speaker 1: that a request any questions for this gentleman Alderman Tramontozzi Thank You mr. president I was looking at the schematic

▶ 55:17 John N. Tramontozzi: diagram that's part of the order and also the the conditions set out by the public works it's it's noted that there's a there's already two existing poles that approximately 170 107 feet apart and also that there is the placement of the new pole is basically 15 feet from one of the existing poles and we're curious as to why this pole is necessary if you could is it possible to use one of the other existing poles there do you have an answer for that

▶ 55:55 Speaker 6: question unfortunately the exact positioning of this new pole is strategically placed to counterbalance the weight of the existing overhead infrastructure in that area unfortunately there is both overhead and underground infrastructure on the existing pole closest to the new installation, and unfortunately that infrastructure cannot be moved unless there is significant cost in relocating all of that

▶ 56:26 John N. Tramontozzi: existing infrastructure. So from what you're telling me, it appears then that the existing pole that will be approximately 15 feet from the new pole is going to remain. Correct. How tall will the new pole be in comparison to the existing poles it will be a little

▶ 56:41 Speaker 6: bit shorter than the existing poles on that street I believe the design for the pole called for a 30-foot pole to be installed so because the existing one is

▶ 56:51 John N. Tramontozzi: is it needs to be higher because of the heavier duty responsibilities that the

▶ 56:59 Speaker 6: pole has correct yeah the equipment for that particular pole construction required a taller pole for safety clearances working clearances and

▶ 57:12 John N. Tramontozzi: everything everything of that sort now it would appear that this tree needs to come down because of its being diseased or rotted I think that's why the request came right is there any other alternative that you that the the national grid could propose other than installing a new pole is there any other

▶ 57:31 Speaker 6: possible alternatives we do get a lot of these requests in every year for you know trees dying I mean we we got to get rid of the the old tree guys back in the day it was you know just pick a tree put in a support wire and then call it a day that standard doesn't exist anymore so we can't just replace it with another tree guy unfortunately the only way to do it is to install a pole and an anchor to to replace the existing support okay thank you no other questions thank you

▶ 58:06 Gail Infurna: very much mr. president our city engineer Elena was unable to be here this evening but I did get a call late this afternoon from a city clerk and there seems to be a lot of concerns on here and I believe we're looking to place this on hold for now and I feel I believe the way the engineer spoke of it that um they wanted some of these concerns addressed before we really approved the action

▶ 58:33 Speaker 1: alderman inferna is moving to place this order on hold second motion is seconded by alderman McAteer-Margolis this is discussion on the motion alderman treyman tells you this discussion on the

▶ 58:47 Speaker 7: motion we're still here yeah no excuse me are we still in the public hearing yeah actually

▶ 58:50 Speaker 1: yeah we actually yes yeah actually we need to close out the public hearing

▶ 58:55 Speaker 1: let's wait and see if any is there anybody else who wishes to speak on this issue this evening there is not chair will entertain a motion motion to close the public hearing second second alderman

▶ 59:05 Speaker 1: inferno moves to close public hearing motion seconded by alderman mortimer on the motion all those in favor aye anyone opposed motion passes the order is before you alderman inferno you've had the floor motion to place on hold second alderman inferno moves to

▶ 59:19 Speaker 1: place this order on hold the motion is seconded by alderman MacMaster margolis is there discussion

▶ 59:32 John N. Tramontozzi: on the motion to hold well i i i have a question i don't know i just wanted to um the question would be addressed to the petitioner i just want to ask a question about whether or not there's anything in the works okay before we invite somebody back up i think there's other aldermen who want to have some discussion anyone else on discussion for the first time i i would second

▶ 59:49 Monica C. Medeiros: alderman trey montosi's move to suspend the rules to hear from the applicant okay sir could you take

▶ 1:00:01 Speaker 1: the bench again please the bench second second the motion to suspend to hear from them again the motion to suspend all those in favor aye aye anyone opposed motion passes thank you mr president i just have a couple questions for you because this is my ward so i want to make sure that we all addressed the issue relative to our area of Melrose. But I think the president's concern about maybe waiting till after school, the summer recess, is appropriate. In this way, disrupting the kids going back and forth. But school is just about over anyways. And the other question that we have is, there are some concerns that we have, the public works has, relative to the poll. It looks like, I think it's going to happen. But is there anything that's pressing uh regarding that tree is there any any emergency conditions could it wait a little bit well the power company's um arborist actually came around a year ago and topped it which took off most of the dangerous parts that were you know could have fallen on a pedestrian or on the church building uh now we're left basically with a trunk standing there that's uh i haven't measured it maybe 15 feet tall it's goes about a foot higher than where the guy wires attached and that's not as rotted out as the upper parts were but it's probably not real solid as long as it's been standing there i don't suppose a few more months would hurt we do however really think that the front yard of the church needs a nice tree there it's had that nice shade tree for years which we've discovered wasn't so nice after all so we would like to get that out of there so we can grind the stump and plant another tree there right well it's it sounds like it's mostly aesthetics at this point in time i'd like to see it go too i know the tree is referring to it so yeah yeah so good well thank you i appreciate that yeah thank you mr president thank you alderman Medeiros

▶ 1:01:55 Monica C. Medeiros: thank you and i just had a follow-up question too i i do see of course that in accordance with our public hearing the abutters have been notified but i was just wondering if you know if you from the church before you began this project or during the during the project had talked to any of the neighbors around so are they you

▶ 1:02:14 Speaker 1: know kind of aware of what I haven't I don't know the pastor is on friendly terms with the neighbor on the other side of the building I don't know that we've heard from them or anyone else in fact I don't know if you're familiar with the layout it's in this narrow triangular plot at the corner of franklin and albion and this is on the narrow end of the plot where there's really no butters except

▶ 1:02:43 Monica C. Medeiros: the streets yes that's that's what i thought but uh it's good to know that just i mean it would be good to know if you had already spoken to them of course but uh we do know that we did notify everyone and the city of melrose is one of the biggest debaters so if it was back at the

▶ 1:02:57 Speaker 1: other end of the property next to the neighbor's house i'm sure we would have thought to do that but being where it is it's really only adjacent to the two city streets and uh the thought never

▶ 1:03:10 Monica C. Medeiros: crossed my mind okay well i uh i know alderman inferno did speak with the public works although i did not and but we do of course not have another uh full regular meeting until mid-july so you know we're on we'll be on summer schedule pretty quickly so

▶ 1:03:28 Speaker 1: so July 17th is the next full board meeting so things will operate slowly on

▶ 1:03:31 Speaker 7: our part after that thank you any further discussion on the motion to

▶ 1:03:40 Speaker 1: table this at the full board all those in favor of the motion please indicate

▶ 1:03:45 Peter D. Mortimer: by saying aye thank you sir that motion will be tabled and will be considered at the next meeting mr. president mr. president I make a motion to suspend the order of business and take order 2 0 1 7 9 it's an authorization to accept a grant to take that order out of order Alderman Mortimer moves to take that