ORDER-2017-45 : Petition of National Grid to Extend Gas Main 130' of 6 " Plastic to serve #85 Ferdinand St. as shown on Plan No. GP-MEL 1115681-16-152, dated 8-02-2016

Transcript (~9 min @ 35:02)

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

▶ 34:26 Speaker 2: Order 2017-65, appointment of John Capuano, 31 Leonard Road, to the Council on Aging to fill the unexpired three-year term of Jane Ahern DeFilippi, said term to expire on the last day of February 2018. That order will go to the Committee on Health, Education, and Welfare. Order 2017-66, acceptance of the Fiscal Year 17 Traffic Enforcement Grant in the amount of $7,500 from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security to Fund No. 2528. That order will be referred to the Committee on Protection and License. Tabled Order No. 2017-45, Petition of National Grid to Extend Gas Main, 130 feet of 6-inch plastic to serve No. 85 Ferdinand Street, as shown on Plan No. GP-MEL 1115681-16-152, dated August 2, 2016.

▶ 35:27 Gail Infurna: Motion to remove it from the table.

▶ 35:29 Speaker 2: This order was laid on the table at the last full board meeting. alderman inferno moves that remove the order from the table the motion to remove the order from the table is seconded by alderman mortimer on the motion to remove the order from the table all those in favor aye anyone opposed motion passes the order is before you motion to suspend the

▶ 35:46 Gail Infurna: rule so that we may bring the applicant from the representative from national grid and i believe we We have Elena Proekes in the audience this evening also, as well as the applicant himself.

▶ 36:02 Speaker 6: Second the motion.

▶ 36:03 Speaker 2: Alderman Inferno moves that we suspend the rules so that we can receive the answers to all questions. The motion is seconded by Alderman Forbes. On the motion, all those in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? Motion passes. Could you folks please come forward to the table and provide us with whatever additional information you have for us?

▶ 36:23 Gail Infurna: sure why don't you bring it here up ever could just sit at the side too anyone like to bring

▶ 36:46 Speaker 2: us current as to what if anything uh new is before us since the last time you were here

▶ 36:54 Speaker 5: um i believe uh uh steve di lorenzo i'm the supervisor from national grid

▶ 37:05 Speaker 5: um i believe we submitted a new set of uh drawings that states uh we will be installing 130 feet of six inch plastic i believe the original set said we were installing uh 130 feet of 160 feet of two inch plastic so that was um that was updated since the last meeting this is a plan uh under

▶ 37:22 Speaker 2: the date of december 19 2016 grant of location proposed six inch gas main correct any anybody

▶ 37:41 John N. Tramontozzi: have any questions for any of these folks alderman Tramontozzi tozy uh yes thank you mr president uh this matter came before the committee and there were some questions raised i'm satisfied with the public works engineers plans and recommendations and requirements this is just an extension of the main line to add the gas service to the homeowner who is in Ward 1 I've reviewed the plans in their specifications and requirements as produced by Public Works and I'm satisfied that they meet all of our requirements the the line that crosses the street is on Ferdinand Street is going to be paved over one one inch beyond the cut one foot sorry one foot beyond the curb to curb there was the rest is along the edge so which is which is consistent with the rest of the Ferdinand Street as it goes down to Main Street and it was just a matter of extending the main line to add that you gas service to the homeowner. So with that, I think you've answered all the questions that we previously had. It's on record and in the file here, and I would ask that this board approve and recommend this order to be done forthwith as soon as hopefully soon to provide the gas service to the homeowner.

▶ 39:03 Speaker 2: You're making a motion to recommend the passage of the grant to the location?

▶ 39:07 John N. Tramontozzi: That would be an appropriate motion that I would make at this time.

▶ 39:10 Speaker 2: Seconded by Alderman Boycelle. Further discussion? Alderman Medeiros, then Alderman Forbes. Thank you.

▶ 39:15 Monica C. Medeiros: Thank you very much. I wanted to check with the homeowner. You know, at the last meeting, there were some questions in regard to cost and such. Are you comfortable with this plan going forward and the agreement that you have with National?

▶ 39:32 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm comfortable with the plan. We want to have gas delivered to the house. I just, I guess I would ask, is it standard for if a gas line by a public utility is in place and it needs an extension to go to houses that pre-exist, that the homeowner pay for the extension? And if so, that's fine with me. I just, being the first time ever doing this, I just wonder if there's an answer.

▶ 40:01 Monica C. Medeiros: I believe so. Perhaps our city engineer might better be able to.

▶ 40:06 Speaker 5: I'm not sure. i could answer that with regards to utilities in general and typically that is the case but perhaps you can answer specific to national yeah that would be the homeowner's cost to uh extend domain okay and a service line that's standard good enough for me thank you thank you and uh

▶ 40:23 Monica C. Medeiros: in kind of reviewing our ordinances and things i i realized that we in recall that we i believe we do have an ordinance on the books that basically prohibits no street opening permit granted between the 15th day of november and the 15th day of april in in case of necessity as approved by the city engineer and and obviously this has kind of been around for a little while and um you know i think we've gotten to this point i don't know if this is the time to to bring this up except for that you know is this something that we are doing it you know

▶ 41:01 Speaker 5: Yeah, this is something that last winter with the fairly mild weather, we did pretty much allow construction through the winter, but this year we've been back to being more strict about our moratorium, which is, as Alderman Medeiros mentioned, November 15th to April 15th. So we have actually denied some applications for street opening permits. All of that permitting happens through the engineering division through Rick Cantone, who manages the permitting program. And he has had a couple of requests where there was no hardship, there was just, you know, somebody just wanted to open the street, and we've told them that they have to wait until the spring. The ones that we have allowed have been things like a sewer blockage that required digging in order to make the repair.

▶ 41:48 Speaker 5: And we have had a couple who wanted gas heat in one case where there was a failure and they needed to change their heating source. And we have allowed those. so um it is it is an ordinance that we have been enforcing and considering on a case-by-case basis

▶ 42:02 Speaker 2: if there's a specific reason i would say there's no hardship here we'll we'll wait okay so so we

▶ 42:09 Monica C. Medeiros: can approve this today and then if if we so choose and it ultimately it will be up to uh the

▶ 42:20 Speaker 5: engineer's discretion to yeah national grid would come before us for a street opening permit before the work could be done and so that if if there's no hardship then we would wait until the spring

▶ 42:31 Scott M. Forbes: thank you thank you very much thank you mr president uh that was my question if we had an anticipated schedule of work uh summarize uh start date end date how long it'll take to actually do the work and make the final connection uh would you be able to shed any any light to that

▶ 42:44 Speaker 5: uh this time of the year uh depending upon frost in the ground normally a project like this would take three or four days tops but now like i said it's at least in some areas there's at least a foot of frost on the ground and that would definitely extend the project and maybe another

▶ 43:07 Scott M. Forbes: three or four days depending and this is uh this is nothing out of the ordinary this is just standard work correct we've done it done a million times right yeah okay thank you that's all i have

▶ 43:17 Speaker 2: thank you anyone else okay there's been a motion made and duly seconded to grant uh this grant of location order all those in favor the motion indicate by saying aye aye anyone opposed thank you folks the order passes thank you eagles soar order 2017-69

▶ 43:38 Speaker 2: election of a clerk of committees pursuant to the Charter for the city of Melrose section 2-8 appointments of the Board of Aldermen this is a new order