ORDER-2017-117 : An Appropriation from Free Cash 01-324001 in the amount of $1,160,700 to various accounts as set forth within.

Transcript (~1 h 1 min @ 6:59)

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▶ 6:48 Peter D. Mortimer: Second. To close public participation made by Alderman Aferna, duly seconded by Alderman Zwirko. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, public participation is now closed. And we will proceed to our first order on the committee for appropriations. It is order 2017-117, an appropriation from free cash 01-324001, in the amount of $1,160,700 to various accounts as set forth within. Alderman Zwirko has made a motion to suspend the rules that we may hear from the appropriate city officials. Duly seconded by Alderman Ferner. All in favor of the motion to suspend the rules, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, we are under suspension. Mr. Della Russo and any other members of the city personnel management you'd like to have with you, please address the board.

▶ 7:45 Speaker 3: Thank you, good evening. Good evening. I've asked that relative to this order you should have two different handouts in front of you, respectfully. And what I'd like to do through the chair is to walk through this free cash request and as we go down the list, I believe the respective department has it here this evening to answer any questions anyone may have. I think it may be the most prudent way to proceed here.

▶ 8:19 Peter D. Mortimer: good sir everyone everyone hear that he's going to address each one and then each department head will come forward and we'll take them for a colloquy individually thank you proceed mr

▶ 8:30 Speaker 3: de la russa thank you and again the order indicates that one million one hundred sixty thousand seven hundred dollars of free cash is being requested before this board for the following purposes i do want to state at the um outset that in the event this order is approved there will be two 234,872.54 of free cash remaining to the end of this fiscal year. Again, 234,872.54 in the event this board decides to approve these requests this evening.

▶ 9:07 Speaker 3: The first one before you is relative to IT computer purchases and upgrades in the amount of $214,000. These are costs associated with the wiring access points for MCAS 2.0, phone upgrades at the elementary schools, and replacement of projectors and school servers. Neil is here, our IT director. If the board would ask that they'd like to speak with him, he's here this evening.

▶ 9:34 Peter D. Mortimer: Would anyone like to address the IT director? Seeing no one wishing to speak with the IT director, he need not come forward at this time. Please proceed, Mr. De La Ruzzo.

▶ 9:44 Speaker 3: Thank you.

▶ 9:47 Speaker 3: The next one is school other funding sources, $210,000. These are costs associated with the increased enrollment and other contractual obligations. The superintendent is here this evening. If Thorp any questions, she has requested this be put before you this evening.

▶ 10:08 Peter D. Mortimer: Would any Alderman like to address the Superintendent of Schools, Senator Timor?

▶ 10:13 Speaker 1: I have a question for Mr. DelaRusso.

▶ 10:14 Peter D. Mortimer: Pardon me, Mr. President?

▶ 10:16 Speaker 1: I had some questions for Mr. DelaRusso.

▶ 10:18 Peter D. Mortimer: Before we proceed with Ms. Tamor. Very good, proceed, and then Alderman Search has questions for Ms. Tamor. Please proceed, President Kahn.

▶ 10:27 Speaker 1: So can you briefly describe what the expenditure is for in a little bit more detail, please?

▶ 10:34 Speaker 3: On the school department? Yes, please. Yes, they're associated with increased enrollment. These are costs that are incurred as of an increase of the number of students that are participating in the school department. These would be your one time costs in general, costs for supplies, materials, etc, that as you have increased enrollment, those costs go with the student.

▶ 11:04 Speaker 1: so Thorp not going to be a matching increase in the next fiscal year budget do you have to roll this money into your next next year budget projections or no i would defer to the

▶ 11:13 Speaker 3: superintendent on that if i may thank you good evening thank you um as you all know we are up

▶ 11:23 Speaker 4: um 100 children and the high school is approaching 995 children so what has happened is there is a need for additional resources at the k2 level um the practice in education now is to use what we call consumables those are those of you who have little ones or have seen little ones they're not permanent textbooks every child gets the book in math the book in english writing journal and their consumables and it's a yearly expense it's pretty much a change in the way we do business the other piece of the increase is as we become more digital the licensing is on a per pupil basis and so as you have an increase in enrollment you have an increase in expenses when mr ellis came a board he helped us review our digital licenses and he has recommended that we have underfunded this line considering the demands that we are experiencing some of it is associated with the elementary some of it is associated with the high school and the increased demands for digital

▶ 12:41 Speaker 1: resources across all subject areas so it sounds like you may have to factor in another 210 000

▶ 12:47 Speaker 4: for next year's budget as well right and and we have discussed that and i believe we will be back in front of you in october as we typically are to address that okay so this isn't going to be built

▶ 12:55 Speaker 1: into the school budget that's going to be sent down it's going to be looking for supplemental

▶ 13:02 Speaker 3: appropriation in the fall most likely unless we can we can work something between now and the time the budget is submitted but as um everyone is aware uh the funds are extremely limited from

▶ 13:16 Speaker 1: the commonwealth this year and if you could mr del ruso when you submit the budget can you let us know what the outcome is relative to this uh this item whether it's going to be in the budget or whether you're expecting to fund it in the fall if you have a change of thinking i'd like to know you know absolutely the budget process that's all i have right now thank you president khan next in

▶ 13:36 Michael P. Zwirko: queue we have alderman Zwirko please thank you mr chairman my questions actually were asked by president khan so i don't have questions at this time thank you very much sir thank you

▶ 13:42 Peter D. Mortimer: next we have alderman mcintyre margolis thank you mr chairman um thank you for coming out on this

▶ 13:48 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: terrible rainy night um uh mr delarusso you mentioned that perhaps some of this was contractual obligations i just wondered if that um entailed any any additional staff or anything

▶ 14:05 Speaker 4: like that that we needed the uh additional staff will be in the fy18 budget um as you know um having been in the role we have contractual um line items for consulting services or for extra services that may be required due to special education esl or some other matter so um that

▶ 14:28 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: is part of it and this will take it to the end of the fiscal year this will take us to the end of

▶ 14:33 Peter D. Mortimer: the fiscal year thank you thank you mr shannon thank you very much alderman macatia margolis

▶ 14:38 Robert A. Boisselle: alderman voyzel please will any of this money be used for the modules that you're purchasing in the next couple months no the modules as you know are funded by

▶ 14:43 Speaker 4: a different source that you all voted on right and those all include the ff e that's needed for those

▶ 14:54 Peter D. Mortimer: modules thank you thank you thank you alderman boy cell seeing no further alderman wishing to pose any questions or make any comments we'll proceed to the next item and if no one minds And if you don't mind, Mr. DelaRusso, I thought we might take the community garden order next. It's a short amount of money, it's a nice plump for the city of Melrose, but I don't imagine the questioning will be in too great a depth at this time. Is that all right with everyone? Ladies, would you please come forward and sit beside Mr. DelaRusso. You may need to pull up another couple of chairs there.

▶ 15:52 Speaker 2: Hello, hello.

▶ 15:53 Speaker 5: Hello.

▶ 15:55 Speaker 2: um the uh joan bell superintendent of parks um we had a conversation with you previously about there being interest in the community um about starting a community garden that wasn't necessarily on school property but in some place in the community where residents could be a part of it we went through we looked at a lot of different places we had community meetings we spoke um to different groups and we came up with a plot of land that is adjacent to the soccer fields at franklin street so we've been kind of working out the details of what's going to go in there and gosha and her group are going to be the the primary stakeholders so i thought it'd be nice for them to explain to you um what their plans are you'll certainly have enough water

▶ 16:47 Peter D. Mortimer: down there please yes ladies would you all introduce yourselves great idea

▶ 16:52 Speaker 4: Raldeman Aferna I'm Mary Clark so any questions this is pretty

▶ 17:00 Peter D. Mortimer: self-explanatory ladies thank you very much for your attendance Oh alderman

▶ 17:07 Robert A. Boisselle: Boycelle in a number in the design of the garden so forth I've also seen at library that you're going to give some of the plots to some of the senior members in the towers area and so forth one plot for the McCarthy house are the house are you going to have a special lot for that is going to be a raised bed say about three feet so they don't seniors having problems don't have to bend down and kneel to into the garden but they just sort of walk around the garden I've noticed that the Boston flower show this year was it was being advertised quite heavily throughout the show that raised gardens for the seniors and so forth is that being considered all the plots are going to have raised

▶ 17:52 Speaker 4: beds I'm talking at least three feet size it would be possible to make one bed higher yes triple-decker right triple-decker high so that people don't

▶ 18:02 Speaker 3: have to bend over I appreciate that okay thank you thank you very much alderman

▶ 18:05 Peter D. Mortimer: Boycelle Alderman MacMaster Margolis please thank you I just wanted to thank

▶ 18:09 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: you all so much for your work on this I've been working with you on this through rotary and it's a you're a great organization a great group of dedicated gardeners and I know you've actually managed to get a few more beds in there than we had originally planned great I think you're I think you've had a lot of response already to requests right 40 people today 40 people right great so I think you're hopefully going to be able to squeeze in how many maybe 18 beds 18 18 minus one for the mccarthy mccarthy that's great so thank you again for your hard work and we'll continue to look forward to updates and see the flowers blooming okay thank you thank you thank you alderman

▶ 18:52 Speaker 1: mcintyre my goal is president khan please yeah um so ms bell is this going to be a new line in your

▶ 18:57 Speaker 2: budget no no it's just the initial money uh rotary is making a contribution and the city is making a contribution it's a one time the community garden themselves are going to have a 40 50 fee which they're going to manage we're not going to have anything to do with it we're providing the plot of land um and with that we'll bring in some irrigation over to them but it's it's self sufficient for them like it's almost like the dog park or any of friends of uh groups all right so

▶ 19:27 Speaker 1: this is an account that's going to be funded the expenditure is going to be made and then it's going to go away correct it's not going to be a recurring budget item correct okay okay it's just

▶ 19:38 Peter D. Mortimer: set up thank you thank you president khan alderman's workout please thank you mr chairman

▶ 19:41 Michael P. Zwirko: just a quick question do you have any ideas to when this uh will you know there be a grand

▶ 19:48 Speaker 2: opening for this is you targeting june july we were hoping may i don't know the end of may i don't know more realistically the first of june okay but that's we're kind of yeah it's it's may Mayor June. Great.

▶ 19:58 Speaker 5: Thank you. We have water lilies down there.

▶ 20:01 Peter D. Mortimer: Seeing no further questions or comments from the Board of Aldermen at this time. Ladies, thank you very much and this line item will be approved. Thank you so much for your great work in beautifying our community.

▶ 20:20 Speaker 2: Thank you.

▶ 20:23 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you Mr. Della Russo for rejoining us. I see the next item is Department Equipment, Public Works, Vehicle and Equipment. we have our director of public works mr john shenna in the building with us this evening

▶ 20:45 Speaker 6: good evening mr shanna uh good evening everyone evening uh there are several components to the order that's before you that are public works related i can speak to the bombardier first i mean this order is purchasing a new sidewalk tractor for the department trying to get my hands

▶ 21:05 Speaker 6: on a handout and i will um if you don't mind be passing this out please thank you thank you very

▶ 21:23 Speaker 6: much i will um i'll add that to the record tomorrow but that is a photo of a 1993 sidewalk tractor that is currently inoperable in fact during the last storm we rented one and prepared to purchase another one in the event of an emergency we didn't because we couldn't get that running anymore it's a critical piece of equipment giving the demographics and how we run our school system in melrose where sidewalks are important and our sidewalk routes are critically important we have four sidewalk routes that are covered by four machines which help us turn the city back around and prepare for forum for school this is a tractor this purchase would fund the tractor that would go into a neighborhood route and it would actually be the last upgrade to the sidewalk tractor routes and it spreads the purchases out so we're not purchasing more than one at the same time which leads to escalating costs so they're spread out by three years and And we're very fortunate that CFO, Mr. DelaRusso, and the mayor have supported this purchase. We hope that you do as well. This way we'll be prepared for next winter and many winters to come. Fifteen years is a very realistic lifespan for a tractor of this kind.

▶ 22:56 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, Mr. Shenna. Our first in queue, we have Alderman Inferno, please.

▶ 22:59 Gail Infurna: Thank you very much. thank you mr. Jennifer coming here this evening and for all the work that your you and your team has done this winter I'm just curious I know in the past and when we've talked about sidewalk plows there are some areas at least I know in my ward because as everybody knows I'm very parochial to my ward and that these previous snow plows have been too big to put on some of those sidewalks is this one a little narrower or anything that could reach some of those sidewalks I

▶ 23:30 Speaker 6: wish i could say smaller is better now but these machines they don't these this is 50 inches wide all of our new sidewalks are five feet 60 inches so we have no sidewalks and they are school routes

▶ 23:41 Gail Infurna: so i mean i would really would have hoped that it could kind of hit some of those streets and

▶ 23:48 Speaker 6: the difficult part isn't just the width of the sidewalk but sometimes it's the location of the utility pole within the sidewalk right that provides a bottleneck that we can't get around but we're actually our operations manager and our engineering group we've been we've been discussing going out into the sidewalk routes to re to identify some trouble spots we've had we want to do it this summer when we get our interns so that we can try to maybe improve those type of

▶ 24:14 Gail Infurna: situations let me know i have a couple so great thank you i understand you know that what it is what it is but that would be nice if we could kind of help out some of those sidewalks so it's a

▶ 24:25 Peter D. Mortimer: valid point thank you thank you alderman fernie and that's not a bad idea for people if anybody's listening if you have lawn ornaments or any decoration shrubs that are close you might think about over the summer moving them back so they don't get destroyed by this new plow

▶ 24:42 Robert A. Boisselle: alderman boys help please that's a good point especially on main street you have sort of benches in front of businesses that are close to the building or large oversized flower pots and so forth they're still they are holding plants and so forth do you notify the owners to remove these during the year or or during the winter especially or we try to get around them we try to and if

▶ 25:05 Speaker 6: Thorp a major issue in something that can be moved we try to make that adjustment after the first storm when we identify it it's the hard fixed objects that are most difficult to overcome and work around traffic signals utility poles those type of things that you really can't adjust

▶ 25:23 Robert A. Boisselle: Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 25:25 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, Alderman Boyce-Hell. Alderman McAteer-Margolis, please.

▶ 25:28 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know this past winter, although it was an easy one for the most part, I had some calls from people about the sidewalk plow not being able to get through the corners where the intersections were. Will this apparatus give you more power? Will they be able to go around to some of those corners to break through where maybe the older plow wasn't able to?

▶ 25:54 Speaker 6: we we this would be the third of this type of bombardier it's called sidewalk bombardier will be our third one and the two that we have the strongest sidewalk plows in our in our fleet they come with snow blowers as well so that we could snow blow and try not to make as much damage on the on the on the sidewalk so

▶ 26:18 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: the grass strips so I just I just have as I say people were concerned that it It would, the plow would go by on the sidewalk, which was great, but then when the street plow went by, it would plow in the corner. So if Thorp a opportunity to address that over the summer with your interns, when you're looking at the routes, it might be helpful.

▶ 26:35 Speaker 6: And a lot of that is coordination too. We try to push back first and then come through with the sidewalk tractors.

▶ 26:41 Speaker 2: Thank you.

▶ 26:42 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you for your feedback. Mayor Margolis, seeing no further aldermen, wishing to comment on this section of the order, We will proceed to the next section of the order, which is Police Salary Overtime.

▶ 26:58 Peter D. Mortimer: Chief Lyle is here with us.

▶ 27:15 Peter D. Mortimer: Good evening. Good evening, Chief Lyle.

▶ 27:25 Speaker 7: The $135,000 is split between two line items. One is police overtime, the other is court time. We've exceeded both categories this year.

▶ 27:38 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, sir. President Kahn, please. Any more arrests?

▶ 27:42 Speaker 1: So, Chief, if we pass this order, just relative to your overtime, how much will you have overspent the budget by in overtime?

▶ 27:52 Speaker 7: Right now, we're at 341, 371.13 for overtime. With a deficit of 359, somewhere around 460, 470.

▶ 28:09 Speaker 1: So if we pass this, the total expenditure will be 460, 470? And is this going to get you to the end or not?

▶ 28:17 Speaker 7: And I'll say the typical response, I hope so. It depends. Right now, we've had a bad year. We had three officers injured. We had an officer that's been out since September that came back last month. And a week later, another officer went out with a major injury, and I don't think we're going to see her until next fiscal year. Couple that with military deployments.

▶ 28:41 Speaker 1: I was going to ask you as well as how many people you have on long term military deployments.

▶ 28:45 Speaker 7: No, fortunately right now we have four officers in the military and nobody is deployed. But they do get weekend drills and periodically they go away for 14 days to 30 days at a time.

▶ 28:58 Speaker 1: So you have four long term injuries and four-

▶ 29:01 Speaker 7: No, over the course of the fiscal year. Right now I have one officer out injured.

▶ 29:08 Speaker 7: And then I actually have another officer out that's been on long term illness since January.

▶ 29:20 Speaker 1: Okay, have you started to put together your budget for next year yet?

▶ 29:24 Speaker 8: It's still in the process of discussions.

▶ 29:26 Speaker 1: Okay, Mr. De La Russa, are you going to be increasing the police overtime budget in the upcoming budget, do you foresee?

▶ 29:33 Speaker 3: Yes, that is my goal, both for police and fire. I don't want to talk prematurely, but that would be the objective. To bring them back, to bring them to a level where it minimizes the one-time revenue aspect that we're experiencing this evening.

▶ 29:50 Speaker 1: Okay, and Chief, when you indicate you want to get, you hope you'll get to the end of the year. I mean, is the money that we're transferring in already spoken for, or is this for prospective over time?

▶ 30:03 Speaker 7: Well, it'll zero out the accounts as well as give us the funds to make it to the end of the year, fiscal year.

▶ 30:09 Speaker 1: Okay, so this is for prospective over time, not-

▶ 30:12 Speaker 8: Yes, yes, this is forward forecasting, yes.

▶ 30:15 Speaker 1: That's all I have right now.

▶ 30:16 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, President Kahn. Seeing no further, Alderman wishing to ask any questions or make any comments, we will proceed to the next section of this large order. It is public works, snow expenditure, salt and chemicals. Mr. Shannon, would you return please?

▶ 30:49 Speaker 6: So this appropriation is going to be used to address the snow deficit for this past winter. Our snow deficit is $730,000. We spent just over 1.2 million. The original budget was 550,000. We had 25 events that covered 58 inches of snow. About 40% of the budget was salt and chemicals. 35% went to contractors, 15 to 18% of it was overtime. The balance was repairs on fleet and other miscellaneous expenditures. That is pretty much in line with what proportionally to what we spent last year and what we spent two years ago.

▶ 31:44 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you very much, Mr. Shenna. Alderman Pernaut, did you signal me and change your mind? Yes, I did. Okay, thank you. Alderman Zwirko, that wasn't a signal?

▶ 31:52 Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I had a question.

▶ 31:52 Peter D. Mortimer: Okay, Alderman Zwirko is first, followed by President Kahn.

▶ 31:56 Michael P. Zwirko: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So I just had a question. So we have a, you said that the deficit is 730K? Yes. So Thorp an order later on transfer of funds. I see that Thorp 610 that will be diverted to cover the snow and ice deficit plus the 120 that makes the 730, is that correct? Correct. So I'm just curious, why did we not choose free cash for all, what's the difference between the two? Yeah.

▶ 32:19 Speaker 3: It's a great question, I'm glad you asked it. But throughout the process, and I would only hope it could apply to other costs as well. The objective of my office is to try to match the expense within the year that it's incurred. Thorp no expense was incurred this fiscal year. I prefer not to raise it on the recap next year. It's not really an 18 expense, it's really a 17 expense. If I can match current revenues, that's why you'll see a transfer from one of those other accounts. That we've already resided within the budget to cover that cost, I'm really doing apples to apples. When you have to go to a third source, for example, a free cash, another funding source, it's not your primary objective. It doesn't satisfy the best practice, but it does get the job done. But you try to avoid that, so the decision that I made was to stick to the protocol. to match the current year expenses best you can with current available funds so you don't bring it into next year and and it's it's more it's it's more representative about what you actually

▶ 33:30 Michael P. Zwirko: expended quite frankly uh all right well thank you for that and i mr shen i i missed what you had

▶ 33:36 Michael P. Zwirko: said um when you broke down the costs i'm sorry do you mind just repeating those again in terms of the overtime the the contractors and the materials 40% of the expenditures

▶ 33:44 Speaker 6: assault and chemicals roughly 35% was contractual hired equipment we bring in to assist us and 15 to 18 percent of it was overtime those were the three main components to balance went to fleet repairs and other miscellaneous and I just want to remind everybody these are the snow expenditures for the entire city school grounds included Public Works removes snow throughout the city so this is the all-inclusive expenditures in regards to snow and ice and this was a winter that although mild compared to two years ago the temperature differentials really create issues and I think we all clearly remember that morning when it was okay at 515 and at quarter of six the entire city became a sheet of ice that costs money that storm right there will cost you twenty five to thirty thousand dollars because of the price of salt and how expensive it is to treat the city but you don't really have a choice and that that morning was a perfect example of what happens with temperature differentials in a winter so you really have to look at the events that you that you have and the temperature issues during the winter in addition to the to the snowfall accumulation but 2015 16 sorry 2014 15 we spent just over two million dollars we had 104 inches of snow this year so 55 58 inches of snow 1.2 million so it's the again proportionally our expenditures are

▶ 35:23 Michael P. Zwirko: pretty much in line yeah I would thank you for that and also the work your crew did this year is greatly appreciated especially as a commuter so thank you Those are all the questions I have, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 35:32 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you very much, Alderman Zwirko. Seeing no other aldermen wishing to be heard on this matter, we will proceed to our next item, which is fire, salary, and overtime. Thank you. Chief Leary is here in the chambers with us.

▶ 35:48 Speaker 3: And that amount is $75,000 that he's requesting.

▶ 35:51 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you very much. Good evening, Chief Leary. Good evening.

▶ 35:56 Speaker 1: The fire department has similar issues that Chief Lyle has in the police department. We've had several members out with long-term illnesses, another with a long-term injury, and we had a member return in October from a two-year military deployment. And in addition to that, the winter's been really tough with illnesses running through the station. I mean, all but maybe four members of the department have been out sick with different things. I do believe this will carry us to the end of the year, barring any catastrophic events.

▶ 36:27 Speaker 5: Thank you very much, Chief.

▶ 36:30 Peter D. Mortimer: President Kahn, please.

▶ 36:31 Speaker 1: So Chief, what's your total overtime expenditure going to be after we- We're going to be close to 600,000. Excuse me? 600,000. And how does this compare with last year? Last year was- 480. Do you think the fact is that you've just enumerated relative to injury and military deployments is the reason for the spike up? Yes. How many firefighters are out on long term injury or illness right now?

▶ 37:13 Speaker 1: Three. In addition to that, we have some members that have been using FMLA for family illnesses or issues. Okay, so you have people who are working overtime to cover for FMLA related absences as well? Correct. All right, that's all for now.

▶ 37:30 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, President Kahn. Seeing no other aldermen wishing to make commentary on this order, we will proceed to our next section of the order, more appropriately stated, which is public work, parks, and forestry hired equipment.

▶ 37:47 Speaker 3: Thank you, Chief. Again, it's $45,000 that they requested for planting approximately 90 new city trees, city-wide.

▶ 37:58 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, Mr. De La Russo. Would you like to add anything to that, Mr. Shenna?

▶ 38:04 Speaker 6: No, just I want to make sure I get my statistics correct. Thorp about 211 requests on our tree list right now. Some date back to 2014. The majority of the trees that we'll plant are the requests that came in in 2015. So we have about a two-year backlog, which historically is not that bad. But even after we plant these 90 trees, 90 plus and minus trees, they'll still be another 100 plus on the list. So I'm very, very happy that we have this opportunity. And we take trees down, especially the last two, three summers. Trees have been infested and have died, so it's good to repopulate that canopy in the city and

▶ 38:50 Peter D. Mortimer: and spread those plan things out thank you very much sir first in line we have alderman MacMaster my goal is police Thank You mr. chairman Thank You mr.

▶ 38:56 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: Shanna can you just for the information for public information how do people get a request how do they make a request for a treat well you could call the

▶ 39:07 Speaker 6: department okay good old-fashioned telephone call will always work in public works you could also you could also request it through our work order system online you can access that through the website if you want to send us an email that's fine any tree that we take down request is automatically generated by the department and you know we try to replace those not in the same location but roughly so if you lose a tree a work order is automatically generated by by dpw

▶ 39:45 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: and did you have to um take down some trees this because of the ice storms and all this winter yeah

▶ 39:51 Speaker 6: well you know winter winter's winter's weakened the tree canopy but you always feel those effects sometimes in the summer as late as the summer sometimes as late as the fall when you get those tropical wind storms and heavy rain and and that weakened tree doesn't have the time to recuperate so we did have some damage um more last fall than this winter but it was a it was a difficult with

▶ 40:18 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: at least the last two storms especially but the public should know that if they if there was a tree taken down on their street or whatever there already has been a automatic order work order put

▶ 40:27 Speaker 6: in for a replacement that's correct unless the people come out while we're taking it says please don't put anything back and then we will defer that planting to some other place does it get

▶ 40:34 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: further up the list because it because you had to take it down no no when it comes to plantings

▶ 40:38 Speaker 6: we typically take them chrono by request date and you know that's what we do we have these

▶ 40:46 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: spreadsheets that we download and um finally do we have a tree donation program if people wanted to donate a tree for somebody's memory or something like that we don't what we've done in

▶ 40:52 Speaker 6: the past it's unofficially if someone's called the department and either wanted to purchase their own tree to plant on city property or i know that our superintendent of parks joan bell has have people approach us sometimes they've purchased the tree and public works has planted it and we try to care for it at least initially so we do things like that unofficially if people call

▶ 41:19 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: great thank you very much thank you mr chairman thank you alderman mcintyre margolis alderman

▶ 41:25 Robert A. Boisselle: Boisselle please in this grant are you limiting the height of the trees and the type of trees that

▶ 41:31 Speaker 6: you're getting so these trees will be planted contractually and we are planting from a variety of trees uh red maples plum trees lilac trees um and little leaf linden trees so and our engineer our engineering group with our operations group together our tree foreman will go out to these 90 plus locations and look at if Thorp under wires and try to find the appropriate tree to put there

▶ 42:04 Robert A. Boisselle: that was my next question you don't put a red maple under uh one of these wires or telephone

▶ 42:12 Speaker 6: lines and so forth that's case by case i leave the selection process to them but we do have when we put the contract out we have a library of trees that we can turn to now do you

▶ 42:22 Robert A. Boisselle: is it all one type of tree on the street or do you sort of alternate between types of trees well

▶ 42:30 Speaker 6: these are this program is focused throughout the city right so we look at what's existing in that area and we either comp we try to complement it by either matching it or sometimes planting

▶ 42:40 Robert A. Boisselle: something in the same family same family okay good thank you thank you mr terry thank you very much

▶ 42:43 Peter D. Mortimer: alderman boycelle seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard on this order we will proceed to the next section which is fire expenditure motor vehicle repair and maintenance and again

▶ 42:57 Speaker 3: that is forty thousand dollars to cover costs associated with repair and maintenance of the

▶ 43:05 Peter D. Mortimer: fire department fleet and we are rejoined by chief larry good evening again chief evening

▶ 43:09 Speaker 1: so we have a couple of outstanding invoices with and some additional work that needs to be completed on our spare ladder truck and in addition we have to perform um our maintenance on the vehicles over the next few months i anticipate this should get us through with any without any issues major issues thank you sir seeing no alderman wishing to be heard

▶ 43:28 Peter D. Mortimer: on this section of the order we will proceed to our next section of the order thank you which is public works school contractual in the amount of thirty eight thousand dollars

▶ 43:51 Speaker 6: good evening again mr. Shana good evening um if I'm if I made through the chair Thorp another line the municipal building repair for 15,300 if if you'd allow me to speak to both of those concurrently certainly some page two of

▶ 44:10 Speaker 6: this handout right so these are these expenditures are pretty much for several unanticipated repairs and both our municipal and school buildings a a majority of of this funding is going towards elevator maintenance that we performed not this is above and beyond the regular elevator maintenance elevators run on hydraulic oil Thorp an oil reserve on it and similar to a car if you don't change that oil it thickens and components of it get into the mechanisms of the elevator cause significant damage the first summer that public works was involved in the schools there was actually a fire at the high school that was related back to this oil there was a fire in the elevator shaft small but still significant and we were very fortunate to share that the auditor and the mayor had these funds available where we went in and replaced all the oil in these elevators the nine throughout the city both school and municipal including city hall where um we can now get the elevators up to up to code and and moving forward we have a basis of we know when we did it we can start to put them in some type of a program that was a piece of it we also had an air handler at the roosevelt school that this past winter right actually right before winter uh failed on us it required extensive shaft work and we had to take the entire air handler in the gymnasium apart one weekend it was right before winter right before heavy gym use it was a significant expenditure that the department didn't anticipate but um had no we had no choice but to do it there were also several boiler repairs to at the bb and ripley school the superintendent and her staff and attorney van campen renegotiated an agreement would seem collaborative so part of that agreement we were fortunate enough to pass on some of our maintenance day-to-day maintenance responsibilities to the tenant including some of the heat issues in those buildings and that's great because it frees up our resources to stay in our school district and our municipal buildings but before we pass the buildings on we had to we had to make some repairs to issues that were that were faulty so that was another significant expense that we incurred in the fall that we're trying to replace the balance was for materials supplies and furniture to we upgraded several offices at City Hall we did a lot of painting this is what the green team that supplies to furnish the green team all went along we did painting at City Hall we replaced some furniture at City Hall we repainted the cells at the police station we did some work at the library I think we did the conference room at the Milano Center and we did several school projects during vacation off hours we were able to switch some ships within the department so again this supplements some of some of those expenses um as well thank you mr shana alderman boycelle please you meant you

▶ 47:28 Robert A. Boisselle: mentioned in your discussion passing on the maintenance in this paragraph here uh to the new scene sem contract is that what you're you're passing on to the individuals within the building

▶ 47:42 Speaker 6: the bb and the ripley school and superintendents here if i misspeak but the bb and the ripley school are leased by seem collaborative right and they run their school their school function out of that school now as part of the agreement some day-to-day issues that they used to call public works for they now respond to themselves so they they have an outside contractor that comes in or

▶ 48:08 Speaker 6: they have their own group of contractors they have their own custodian now they always had They don't have their own custodian, but they have their own group of contractors that they can turn to. Okay. And again, frees up a lot of resources in the department.

▶ 48:20 Robert A. Boisselle: Good, thank you.

▶ 48:21 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Boycelle. Seeing no further, President Kahn, please.

▶ 48:26 Speaker 1: So Mr. Shannon, essentially this order is to transfer money to compensate for bills that you paid to third party vendors. Correct.

▶ 48:37 Peter D. Mortimer: That's it. Thank you, President Kahn. Seeing no further, Alderman wishing to be heard on this section of the order, we will proceed to the next section of the order, which is the website in the amount of $35,000.

▶ 48:54 Speaker 5: Mr. De La Russo, please.

▶ 48:55 Speaker 3: Yes, these are costs associated with the city and school websites. This request being made, Amy will speak to it this evening.

▶ 49:06 Speaker 2: um yes so we need to upgrade both our municipal website and our school website for a number of reasons one is security and reliability the other is to have a more responsive design which in web terms means something that's mobile friendly the current city site is not mobile friendly and since we've done some analysis on the use case and 70% of our users actually are trying to access it from tablets or phones so we need to change the way the websites designed so in the process we can also add a lot of features that will make everything more mobile in web friendly so you can actually access forms online rather than doing everything through PDFs and make it a better experience for our citizens

▶ 49:50 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you very much mr. Moser well it's work oh please mr. chairman

▶ 49:54 Michael P. Zwirko: will those design enhancements be applicable to the IQ m2 system or is it just the city website itself I know that they're kind of they're different

▶ 50:02 Speaker 2: there are two separate things um right now no it will just be the website itself the iqm2 is kind of its own independent okay um element the one thing is the provider we we're going to use is much better at integrating um the two the separate third-party providers there are other things that we use that are also third-party sources but they'll actually fit inside the website itself rather than something that you'll have to get directed to a second url for okay

▶ 50:31 Speaker 1: Yeah, understood.

▶ 50:33 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Zwirko. Seeing no further Alderman wishing to be heard, we will proceed to the next section of the order, which is mowing and maintenance in the amount of $21,000. Thank you. We are rejoined once again by our Superintendent of Public Works, Mr. Shenna. Good evening again, Mr. Shenna. Good evening.

▶ 50:55 Speaker 6: so this funding is to reseed and do an extensive turf maintenance program at the West Knoll the the middle third of that field has failed and it's really a need of of heavy seeding and slice seeding and to try to rebuild or reestablish some grass in that middle third so we were very fortunate again our superintendent of parks joan bell worked with youth soccer and the various user groups for the spring and we were able to close the field we will install some fencing to keep the the stragglers off the field and spring summer we'll see we'll see significant um work on that field to try to get grass to grow back in that middle third and have it ready for the fall varsity soccer season and reopen youth soccer in the fall as well on that field thank you

▶ 51:54 Peter D. Mortimer: mr shenna seeing no alderman wishing to have any questions about this section of the order we will proceed to the next section which is cemetery expenditure hired equipment

▶ 52:10 Speaker 6: please proceed mr shen so this funding is um eighteen thousand dollars by the way so this This is a continuation of trying to maintain the perimeter wall that is along Sylvan Street and Lebanon Street. It's a stone wall with mortar joints, hundreds of years old. Several of the joints have failed to do the entire project. You're looking at a half a million to a million dollars. But again, the cemetery committee is very strong at advocating to determine how we can prolong the life of what's there. And this gives us the opportunity to hire a mason to come in and at least address the worst parts of that wall to prevent further damage. And we hope that this is a recurring thing and maybe something in the future that we could put right into their budget so they can address that yearly.

▶ 53:03 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, Mr. Shenna. Alderman Zwerchel, please.

▶ 53:07 Michael P. Zwirko: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. to see this line item here um i actually frequent the cemetery quite often and um i do notice some of the decay on the exterior wall which is also actually very pretty too i was just curious um Thorp a lot a lot of that wall is covered by ivy and i'm this is just really just for my own i've understood that ivy's actually somewhat corrosive as well is there going to be any removal of that to kind of slow down the decay has that been discussed at all as well i'm just

▶ 53:35 Speaker 6: um occasionally we trim it back and again it depends ivy tends to grow into the wall right into the joint right removing it could further weaken the joint um so in some instances the the crew that that's down there tries to groom it but in some instances it's best to just let it be

▶ 53:55 Peter D. Mortimer: okay all right thank you thank you alderman's worker seeing no further alderman wishing to to be heard on this order we will proceed to the next section which is the World War two monument in the amount of sixteen thousand five hundred dollars and we are joined by mr. Driscoll in this juncture joined by major Driscoll

▶ 54:20 Speaker 6: and so similar to other memorial projects and park projects and the community garden this is another continued partnership between the city the administration and veterans advisory committee this will purchase will help purchase a monument for World War two but I'm gonna let mr. Driscoll explain what it is that we're looking to build and how it is that it's going to come together this is something that will put together late summer for an opening in

▶ 54:55 Peter D. Mortimer: the fall thank you and may I point out for the record that mr. Driscoll is who is joined by our Veteran Service Officer, Ms. Redden. Please proceed, Mr. Driscoll.

▶ 55:05 Speaker 8: Thank you, good evening. Three years ago, we came up, the Veterans Advisory Board and the Veterans Office and the Mayor's Office. We came up with a ten year plan for the Knoll to revitalize it. So we started with the World War II Memorial in the front. We added the Korean War Memorial two years ago. got some grants to upgrade some of the Civil War memorials down at the cemetery this is again part of our 10-year plan we've raised half of this money as we have for all the others through private donation fundraisers which many of you have helped support and I thank you for that we too so we have half the money that we raised this would give us the other half and the concern that we had on the board the veterans office in in the mayor's office is our two vets are leaving us at a rapid pace and so we wanted to accelerate getting this memorial and also so you have a copy of the design we work with woodlawn memorials who have done our other memorials and they work with us at on they just pass along their costs so they don't make any money on it so we're very fortunate for that we're very fortunate to have the skilled people down at the DPW who save us a lot of money doing a lot of the excavation work the engineering parts and we're challenging challenging them this year that circle in the middle is actually a fountain similar to the one in Washington DC so So this is really going to be a challenge for the DPW. So this funds will get us where we need to be to construct this. We have a goal of having a ceremony on Veterans Day to unveil the memorial for our World War II veterans.

▶ 57:14 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, Mr. Driscoll. Would you like to add anything, Ms. Redd? Thank you very much. Alderman Boycelle, please.

▶ 57:20 Robert A. Boisselle: Have you picked out a location for this memorial?

▶ 57:23 Speaker 8: Yes, it will be, as you enter the Knoll, with the World War I memorial on the front, it'll be to the left. So it'll go World War I, World War II. And then the Korean. The Korean, and the goal in ten years is to go around the majority of the Knoll. We have different plans to do that, and to take care of the trees that are there, the grass, and also irrigate in that area.

▶ 57:47 Robert A. Boisselle: Okay, I see you have two monuments themselves representing the Atlantic and Pacific War and so forth Are you going to have names on the monuments like you had at the Korean one?

▶ 58:00 Speaker 8: No, we will there will be not we will not have names We've done research the Melrose veterans memory project has been researching and I believe they have 80 some odd names 80 But we will not be putting Those names on the memorial. We're still working with woodlawn talking about at the World War II Memorial in Washington there are stars gold stars that signify the members that were lost so we're still looking at maybe doing that but that's not concrete at this time you're thinking of putting

▶ 58:37 Robert A. Boisselle: a star to represent like 40 the 40 to 50 per monument so in Washington one star

▶ 58:45 Speaker 8: represents a thousand oh okay yeah and so it would be something similar to

▶ 58:46 Speaker 3: I've seen that, yes.

▶ 58:47 Speaker 8: For our 80-some-odd, yeah.

▶ 58:48 Speaker 3: Very good, thank you.

▶ 58:50 Speaker 8: Thank you.

▶ 58:50 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, Wilderman Boycelle. Thank you.

▶ 58:54 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: Wilderman McAteer-Margolis, please. Thank you very much, it's really amazing, the work that you've been doing down there, and I think it's, you know, it's raised the consciousness of the whole community in terms of acknowledging our veterans. And I just wanna publicly thank you for the wonderful ceremony yesterday, That you both worked on so diligently and that was so successful for our Vietnam vets and the Vietnam era veterans. There were a lot of guys there who didn't necessarily serve in Vietnam, and it was just an amazing, an amazing event. So thank you for doing that, and for all that you do.

▶ 59:33 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Seeing no further aldermen wishing to be heard on this section of the order, we will proceed to the next section of the order, is highway traffic and signal maintenance in the amount of fifteen thousand four hundred dollars

▶ 59:53 Peter D. Mortimer: mr shanna this is pretty self-explanatory but um it is but i just um

▶ 1:00:03 Speaker 6: again i'll forward this one tomorrow but i have a handout

▶ 1:00:22 Speaker 9: Thank you, Mr. Shannon.

▶ 1:00:24 Speaker 6: So, about eight to ten months ago, Chief Lyle and his traffic group installed this radar

▶ 1:00:38 Speaker 6: speed sign on Howard Street, and its results have been very positive. We read studies, but you never know how these type of things play out in your own community but the uh the planet the chief is here but he's been very very happy with its response um from someone who drives that street every day coming in um it is a it is effective even to me at times so the the program in this funding will will purchase five more of these that will be one will be assigned to franklin street um one to wyoming ave

▶ 1:01:20 Speaker 6: two on upham and an additional one will go to howard street going the other way the exact locations again will be filled we feel verified by chief lyle staff and our engineering staff on you know where best to put it but it will look like the picture i just passed out if you go over the speed limit it tells you to slow down if you are under the speed limit it tells you thank you so we'll purchase five more of these the other component of the order will fund um new 25 mile an hour signs and some other signs traffic calming signs throughout the city that send the message that come become excuse me in june we will become a 25 mile an hour community throughout the city citywide we'll try we'll start to deliver that message as soon as you come in there are 13 points you can enter the city from each one of those points we'll have a new sign that says 25 mile an hour citywide we're also working at creating a sign to put somewhere near that not with it but near it that sends a message to um that you know we do share the road in melrose um whether it be with bikes or people or pedestrians so that's what this funding those are the three pieces of this funding order that's before you thank you mr shenna and first in line

▶ 1:02:42 Peter D. Mortimer: we have alderman inferno who is also the aldermanic representative for the traffic commission so she's very well versed on the signs you just described please proceed all the minute i think

▶ 1:02:57 Gail Infurna: that's all i have to say no i just really wanted to thank you and to thank chief lyle for his work on this as anybody i know some of the aldermen have attended many of the um traffic commission meetings and the number one thing we hear all the time is speed especially on those streets so um this is great i think it's a very friendly way of saying to slow down without being totally intimidating and it's just a great reminder and you know if it gets three out of ten people to slow down that go along those streets it's a successful so um thank you thank you if you

▶ 1:03:27 Peter D. Mortimer: work on that too chief lyle oh thank you walderman inferna walderman lemon please for the first time

▶ 1:03:34 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: this evening thank you thank you mr chair um howard street is in in ward two and we've had this one sort of um i guess as a pilot since we're seeing it um going in other places and i just want to say i echo what you said mr senator that it's been very successful thanks so much to chief lyle for all your work and finding the funding for that one and getting it down there we've you know had our issues on howard street this is sort of one of the tools and many that are needed there um so i'm happy to see another one going in the other direction because it does continue um just to um confirm that the new ones will be solar powered as well so Thorp Thorp no is that right so Thorp no cost in sort of wiring them or continuing to put

▶ 1:04:19 Speaker 6: electricity through them or anything like that no they'll all be solo powell to be exactly like the one in the picture on our street great great okay thank you very much thank you thank you alderman

▶ 1:04:26 Peter D. Mortimer: levelman seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard on this matter thank you mr shannon we will proceed you can stay right in that seat to the next item which is municipal building repair in the amount of fifteen thousand three hundred dollars so that that's the line that that's

▶ 1:04:42 Speaker 6: That's the line we covered.

▶ 1:04:44 Speaker 5: All right, if you combine it with the other one.

▶ 1:04:47 Speaker 6: Yeah, and if I, yeah, we covered that one.

▶ 1:04:50 Peter D. Mortimer: All right, then, would you like to elucidate us regarding the next section, which is adopter sites in the amount of $10,000?

▶ 1:04:59 Speaker 6: Sure, so last year we aggressively started to partner with some people interested in adopter sites. Joan Bell coordinates the adopter site program, and we had some vendors come forward and you know we really want to do something nice would the city consider partnering with us for the initial startup cost in those instances and um one one is the welcome to melrose site that comes quickly to mind in those instances public works purchased the material and then whether it was a contractor or people they would do the labor to install it and then maintain it from that point forward she's in discussions to recreate adopter sites at bellevue at the lindfels parkway that island right there possibly a large adopter site near the high school near the high schools the entrance to the high spread green field from the middle school side there are a couple of others that don't come to mind right now this money is going to be used to continue that program this summer for people who are interested in starting an adopter site revitalizing their adopter site that need a little bit of help in some in some manner from the

▶ 1:06:19 Peter D. Mortimer: department to do that thank you very much mr shenna seeing no alderman wishing to be heard on

▶ 1:06:25 Peter D. Mortimer: this matter we have concluded all of the no line items oh mr paging thank you very much all the

▶ 1:06:35 Peter D. Mortimer: Alderman Inferno. The next item we have is public works, highway expenditure, and street signs in the amount of $4,800. Mr. Shannon, please.

▶ 1:06:47 Speaker 6: So this portion goes along with the radar signals. This will purchase the signs for that project that I spoke to a few minutes ago.

▶ 1:06:54 Speaker 10: Correct.

▶ 1:06:56 Peter D. Mortimer: I'm seeing no Alderman wishing to be heard on this matter. proceed to our next item which is public works facilities and supplies in the amount of four

▶ 1:07:09 Speaker 6: thousand two hundred dollars and and this was the third component of the facility discussion we had some time ago this um this supplements expenditures paint and supplies that we did we used to update offices throughout the city thank you very much mr shanna i'm seeing the

▶ 1:07:29 Peter D. Mortimer: alderman wishing to be heard motion to recommend on this order we have we have a motion to recommend this order for passage at our next full board meeting on april 24th from alderman inferno duly seconded by alderman boisselle the entire order once again from all those items accumulated is one million one hundred and sixty thousand seven hundred dollars all in favor of alderman motion to recommend this order for passage, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, this order will be recommended for passage at our next full board meeting. And that concludes our first order of the evening. We have four others, also with significant amounts of cash. And the second order is 2017-116. There is an appropriation in the amount of $22,020.82 from account number 620000-319000, Mount Hood Retained Earnings, to account number 620000-529000, Mount Hood Professional Services. This appropriation is necessary to fulfill contract obligations. Mr. De La Russo, please.