Public Participation

Transcript (~6 min @ 5:30)

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

▶ 4:59 John N. Tramontozzi: good evening monday may 1st 2017 this is the legal legislative committee of the city of meadows board of aldermen my name is alderman trim and tozy i'm the chairman of the legal legislative committee also present this evening is alderman Francis wright he's the vice chairman alderman mortimer alderman forbes alderman's workup and president khan are voting members of this committee non-voting members present this evening alderman inferno alderman Lemmerman alderman mcintyre my goal is and alderman medeiros this meeting is being recorded and it will be televised for future viewing all in accordance with the commonwealth of massachusetts open meeting law um do we have a motion for open this law for public participation mr chairman thank you we have a motion to for to open the floor for public participation by alderman forbes seconded by alderman mortimer on the motion all in favor aye opposed seeing none this is the opportunity for any members of the public who wish to come forward to speak on any um matter on the agenda this evening there's two orders on the agenda

▶ 6:22 John N. Tramontozzi: good evening if you can um identify yourself for the record and who you are hi my name is jerry

▶ 6:26 Speaker 1: murrows i'm here to speak on 2017-124 i've learned since you last spoke about this that apparently the properties down at oak grove actually install sub meters the city didn't have to have anything to do with it they were actually as i understand it they're still on one master meter that the city's billing with the egregious tiered rate system as well and they're passing all the extra costs on to the individual tenants in the property down there based on the chapter 186 section 22 provision that they can sub meter and bill the tenants for them for the bills they get the charges they get from the city so you know given that that's done I tried to research I don't see any mass general law that says that you can't have more than one meter on a property i may miss something i you know i rely on the internet to search for these things in the in the mass legislature's website but what i don't understand is is to ask the legislature for a special act so that we can put a second meter in a couple houses of melrose that don't want to use the sub metering um option that that the state law provides since 2005. i don't understand why i would go into these contortions for something like that again as i emphasized the last time i spoke is if you would just go back to a legitimate rational authentic

▶ 8:06 Speaker 1: flat rate for water and sewer you wouldn't need to go through all these contortions and and it just shows how you know if we're if we're the only city in the state asking for this you know special act of the legislature in this way and somehow maybe there are others but it just shows how far away from reality we've gotten with this tiered rate system that a land that a landlord is now petitioning their alderman apparently to um to ask the legislature to pass a law because of what that alderman voted or all of you alderman voted to do in a tiered rate structure and i understand you relied on on people you thought you could you could you could rely on to establish that structure um i i do submit that i think i provided you good rebuttal to what those people have argued when they've argued for a tiered rate system so in terms of this particular order it would be absolutely unnecessary if you didn't have tiered rates the landlord's going to pay for the two families the the two parts of that house no matter what at a flat rate with no penalty um if the city puts in two meters there the city gets a little bit of a benefit we get an extra customer we get another hire another base charge out of that out of that dwelling that we would otherwise get um but the city then has two bills for that structure and to if the city billing system were competent enough and could remain competent enough to keep track of that when the place gets sold that it's it's done that way it would be there um it this issue doesn't solve the problem for condominiums it doesn't solve the problem for three families or four families or anything else and and before you go and explore all the different permutations that you could help mitigate the harms of the tiered rate again please go back and reevaluate the tiered rate it's not helpful for the melrose it's harmful it's caused i mean if it's it's basically holding itself out there as a red herring that everybody's focused on instead of focusing on the real issues of cutting the cost in the water and sewer system about reducing inflow and infiltration and about having some rational um policy and process around water and sewer so that's all i have to say about that tonight please let go the the contortions let's just go back and deal with the flat and have a flat rate deal with that tiered structure this year you can do it you can ask the water and sewer committee to give you back a flat rate and let you know what that rate would be how it will show your revenues for next year and well mellows will

▶ 10:45 Peter D. Mortimer: we better off for it thank you okay very good thank you motion to close public participation

▶ 10:48 John N. Tramontozzi: mr chairman second is there any other members of the public who wish to come forward to speak on any matter on just the legal and legislative committee seeing none we do have a motion to close public participation by alderman mortimer seconded by alderman Zwirko on the motion all in favor aye very good any opposed seeing none uh public participation is now closed um the first First order on the agenda this evening is Order 2017-124. It's a petition to the Great and General Court to enact a special act, an act authorizing the City of Melrose to allow the installation of secondary water meters in two family owner occupied residential properties. We did receive a communication from Mr. John Shener, who's the Director of Public Works. communication he mentioned that this order was introduced by alderman forbes thank you alderman