ORDER-2017-25 : Amend Section 220-89 of the Melrose Traffic Code to adjust commercial permit parking fee

Transcript (~28 min @ 20:22)

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

▶ 19:58 Peter D. Mortimer: motion to close public participation Alderman Forbes has made a motion to close public participation said motion duly seconded by Alderman Boyce L all in favor please say aye any opposed hearing none public participation is now closed and we will proceed to the orders of the evening the first order we have before us is order 2017-25 it is an order to amend section 220-89 of the melrose traffic code to adjust commercial permit parking fees is there a motion to suspend the rules so move mr chairman

▶ 20:36 Peter D. Mortimer: alderman boycelle has made a motion to suspend excuse me alderman forbes has made a motion to suspend the rules seconded by alderman boycelle all in favor of suspending the rules please say aye aye any opposed hearing none the rules are under suspension ms gaffey would you join us please and oh you also have mrs werka with you as well and the mayor is going to sit in on this

▶ 21:08 Speaker 6: additionally thank you mr chairman members of the board uh tonight's a very important night we are have addressed as an administration five targeted areas improvement in the city over this year next they include improving downtown parking for a growing and thriving business district a very aggressive influence infiltration program that will attack soar rates in the city which are really at the heart of of the challenges that we face in rates third is to address the school overcrowding issue while keeping the K to five six seven eight high school nine to twelve model fourth that will bring before you in the next few months is some substantial improvements in substance abuse both alcohol and drugs as well as mental health in the community and last as we begin this Wednesday with President Kahn in former chief O'Brien as well as our current chiefs a review of the public safety facilities in the city with a recommendation for the public's consumption in the next year so tonight we are moving with with your help on three of these five issues the first being parking tonight we are proposing the next phase of our comprehensive plan to improve downtown parking in Melrose in 2012 the city completed a parking study of our downtown and adjacent parking lots the study concluded that downtown Melrose has an ample supply of parking however that the management of available public parking needs to be adjusted so that people see parking near where they want to go and that's different than having enough parking since that time we have implemented several measures to improve the situation that include changing parking limits from two hours to three hours to encourage shoppers downtown and eliminate inconsistent signage that was found throughout the district, improved ways of finding available lots that the growing number of individuals who do not reside in Melrose in many cases live far away to visit our restaurants when they come to Melrose have a better understanding of where to park and most substantially which I think we have already seen of substantial improvement in the Dill's Court is the purchase of one Kimball Court to create 25 new parking spaces. In addition I created a parking working group to think creatively about what measures could be taken, and that group's efforts has helped us to get where we are today. They included Allison Socha from RE-MAX, Joan Cassidy from the Melrose Redevelopment Authority, Joan Ford Mongeau, Chamber of Commerce past executive director, Chris Sinella, president of the chamber at the time and owner of Edward Jones Financial, Joe Turner of Turner Seafood, Kevin Deviney of Eastern Bank, Steve Trulli of Whittemore Hardware and representatives from DPW our Police Department my office in the Office of Planning and Community Development our proposal tonight is the next major step in improving parking management by directing employees which at our peak time is over 400 employees to park in designated areas therefore leaving the spaces closest to businesses available for customers because the customers have got to come first we believe this proposal is beneficial for both businesses and customers however it is change substantial change new employee parking the new employee parking program would allow employees to park in certain designated locations for free sticker based permits to receive a permit the employee must present proof of employment new signage would be installed at these 170 spaces designated for employees on Berwick Street where there'll be 50 spaces City Hall and back of City Hall 60 spaces Friends Court behind Papa Gino's 16 spaces Larrabee lot behind Giacomo's 34 spaces Livermore a lot behind near the Caruso block is a 10 spaces so these businesses

▶ 25:21 Speaker 6: Teachers and these employees will have places to park. It is a strategy that we utilized when we opened the Early Childhood Center. The Early Childhood Center has probably 15 spaces for 200 plus 3 and 4 year olds. We demanded and rented space from Mr. Sautel at the old lot which is now Whole Foods to have our teachers park there because our customers have to come first. it is not next door to the front door of their business but we want that front door space available to the senior citizen to the mother to the shopper that needs to either be there for 15 minutes to pick up a hammer or there for two to three hours to enjoy a meal with their family so all employees can park in these areas at any time however we are discouraging the use of parking permits with yes will be a loss of revenue to the city but we feel strongly that the continued growth of our downtown and we're already seeing proposals for the old moynihan plaza as well as some other areas that might pop up in the next few years we need to address the employee sticker program so therefore we are proposing a 600 per year which is one dollar in 64 cents a day for a permit this sticker based permit will receive a person will be able to park in the closest areas but we are also proposing that these $600 stickers be capped at 35 so our planning office has done a tremendous amount of work we have had several community forums that many of you have attended and we would like your approval to go forward and begin this begin implementation of this

▶ 27:16 Peter D. Mortimer: program thank you thank you very much your honor uh first in line we have alderman aferna thank

▶ 27:21 Gail Infurna: you very much mr chairman um i just want to state that this came before the traffic commission a few weeks ago and the plan has already been accepted by the traffic commission so we're here to look at the fee structure of this and i fully support the 600 for the year that's 50 a month i think if you look around and do little surveys you'll find that fifty dollars a month is not bad for parking um to go to work every day um in in some instances so i will be supporting that i wonder um mr mayor if you could talk about enforcement because this will only work if it's really enforced and when i um when the order came before us regarding um the added um parking spaces from judge killiam's law office there i had a very hard time with that and i was really relying on this kind of a plan working to make that difference so that we can really reap the benefits of that purchase so i am i i'm really concerned about enforcement and and making that work so if you

▶ 28:28 Speaker 6: could tell us about that sure yes uh enforcement is uh going to include two one we currently have one civilian we're adding a second civilian ticketer to go downtown obviously ticketing or enforcement is going to be critical because if someone is you know paying a commodity to have a parking space and we're asking people to park there and it's not and they see the same car there every day this whole this whole thing breaks down so that that is going to be key and our police department has ensured us that that will happen great thank you and i i appreciate the

▶ 28:58 Gail Infurna: support of the chamber of commerce and and the merchants downtown i think it is the way to go and we do have a very vibrant downtown and parking is a fun problem or a nice problem to have i guess so hopefully this will help bring the customers and keep the merchants here in melrose

▶ 29:17 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you thank you alderman inferna next we have president khan please yeah um i wanted to ask a

▶ 29:22 Speaker 3: couple of questions about the financial impact but my take on this this is more of a planning measure it's certainly not a revenue raising measure is that correct yeah we've we think

▶ 29:32 Speaker 6: i mean patrick's not hearing it but in our discussions that does you know the city may lose between 20 and 30 000 in revenue in this uh obviously because we were selling a number

▶ 29:47 Denise Gaffey: of permits for a hundred and two fifty we were selling two we were selling about 94 permits a

▶ 29:53 Speaker 3: year for 250 right so what i wanted what i wanted to ask you is how much we were deriving from the

▶ 30:01 Speaker 2: current permit system i know aaron has that figure in 2015 which is the last calendar year that the commercial permit was sold because we put it on hold during 2016 as we were rolling out this program there were 94 permits sold to businesses at 250 dollars a permit so that total is 23 500

▶ 30:22 Speaker 2: For the upcoming year, for 2017, for the calendar year, if we were to max out the 35 permit cap at $600 a permit, it would be $21,000. So the gap is just a couple thousand.

▶ 30:34 Speaker 6: The loss comes from the number of tickets. People weren't buying these passes, so we were ticketing people consistently. Because if you make $10 an hour working at Store X, they weren't getting the permit. so we were tagging people ticketing should go down once people learn so there'll be some loss there that was substantial at the time but i'd rather have a easier cleaner plan that that if you work here you know where you're going to park and and you go there and it's a little bit of a walk but that's that's what you do you get it for nothing do we have any sense of how many people are

▶ 31:11 Denise Gaffey: interested in buying these 600 permits um we we know who all the permit holders are now we have that data and we've talked to the major permit holders they tend to be the bigger companies or the doctor's offices the or the entities that need a little more flexibility they may work you know as a vice president of a bank in a couple of different locations so they want to be able to you know arrive and find a parking space close to where they work just for the flexibility so we've talked to those like the eastern banks and the pediatrics and those entities and we know we know they're not interested in buying as many as they've currently they currently bought

▶ 31:45 Speaker 3: i mean as a result of all these meetings and the chamber's involvement i mean do we think it's

▶ 31:51 Denise Gaffey: going to be 10 do we think it's going to be five we think it uh could be anywhere between 20 and 35

▶ 32:00 Speaker 3: 20 and 30. no okay so we could be dropping down to maybe 15 000 of revenue from 22 000. we could and it did did the chamber of commerce vote to support this proposal they did as far as i know

▶ 32:16 Speaker 3: yes and this is not general fund revenue this is money that goes into the parking maintenance account is that correct correct and what what's what's the cost of the rollout of this program in terms of new signage new new part-time employee whatnot um so i've spoken with uh

▶ 32:33 Speaker 2: representatives or employees with DPW and they are working on providing a cost estimate for the signage I don't have that number right now so we're gonna do

▶ 32:44 Speaker 3: the signage in the in-house sign shop yeah they hope to do the majority of

▶ 32:53 Speaker 3: them in-house okay yeah and the other thing just so people who are watching at home understand during a time I think in the mid 90s when I was not on the Board The Alderman ceded control of many issues relative to parking by creating the traffic commission. So the only thing that we do, and our only role in this process is we get to approve or disapprove the fees. It seems like we always get stuck approving or disapproving the fees. But that's really the only role that we have left now based on the establishment of the Traffic Commission, for which I'm not responsible because I wasn't here. I'm not going to tell you how I would have voted, but I think you can probably guess.

▶ 33:41 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, President Kahn. Next, we have Alderman Zwirko.

▶ 33:45 Michael P. Zwirko: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to those that are here tonight to explain this for us and for all the work that went in. I know this was over several years, and I read the parking plan, the study that came out, so I know that it's nice to finally arrive at this point. Just a few questions. So how will this program be reevaluated over time based on its success, its failures, any way to tinker with the existing program? Is that something going forward that your office, Denise, will be looking at on a go-forward basis, speaking in with the Chamber? I mean, this doesn't represent the end, but maybe the next step in this phase. So I'm just curious as to how that evaluation will occur.

▶ 34:26 Denise Gaffey: yeah we we um we absolutely intend to evaluate it on a regular basis and we we've established really close working relationships at this point with the um treasurer's office which is the entity right now that that you know sells parking permits and we'll we'll continue to do that and um we've you know we um we understand i mean we want to we will we'll use this first year to assess how successful you know the the 35 permits if that's you know not enough you know i'm sure you know know we'll get direct feedback from the from the business community about that and you know our intention is to use this first year to evaluate it very closely by talking to all the parties between the treasurer's office the police department the chamber business community thank you for that because you

▶ 35:10 Michael P. Zwirko: know as Alderman Khan mentioned you know there's a there's a term that's used in economics called diminishing returns and you know sometimes your fee can get so high that you actually don't get the return I mean I do feel you know it cost me about $25 a day to park in Boston this fee would be $50 a month I mean obviously that's a great deal and there's a benefit for having that permit so you know I do think that it's a it's a it's a fairly you know below market rate certainly for the parking so I you know I appreciate the work that's gone into it I was just curious um has there been any thought and again this could come out of the evaluation process but as to changing the level of a fee for a a ticket for illegal parking overdue parking in response to this new program was that at all considered during this process is it maybe it's not necessary

▶ 35:58 Denise Gaffey: I'm just sure just curious as to we haven't tackled that question at all as part of the parking working group no what it did allow us to do as you know

▶ 36:04 Speaker 6: there was a number of we had too many options for permits and people were buying certain permits and in taking advantage of them to commute because Oak grove was going to what six nine bucks nine dollars a day so they were buying a a half day overnight and parking over here it was they were working within the rules in a minute what that was questionable seeking out loopholes so that that's been eliminated also yep with this

▶ 36:37 Michael P. Zwirko: plan it and just one final um it's just an observation i've noticed and this this happens in other lots um you know maybe they certainly have the space but i've noticed that um especially in the lots behind shaw's we don't have spaces or a space that are designated for expectant mothers or mothers with infants and i would just hope that at some point maybe we could look into designating a space or two for that particularly close to cvs preferably or maybe shaw's those are some nice benefits that some communities and private businesses allow in addition to handicap spaces if that's something that we could look into i'd be supportive of that thank you that's all the

▶ 37:16 Peter D. Mortimer: questions i had mr chairman thank you alderman twerko alderman medeiros please thank you thank

▶ 37:18 Monica C. Medeiros: you i'm glad to see this proposal come through and see you know i know there's been many months of working on this with the uh parking working group and uh definitely to see some action from the 2012 parking report so so this is this is good um i think the you know certainly we're not downtown Boston but it's a $600 fee is it's not cheap but I think it's probably reasonable for the people who really need those spaces and I think it's a reasonable expectation now that those permits are only from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. do

▶ 38:01 Monica C. Medeiros: you know I know sometimes the hardest time to park here is around 7 p.m. do

▶ 38:11 Monica C. Medeiros: you think that this will have an effect on the early evening parking sort of the

▶ 38:17 Denise Gaffey: dinner rush and was that brought up there in the parking yeah it definitely was and I think we and we've talked and reached out to all of the major restaurants in the city and explained to them that we expect their employees to buy into it and then you know it's an education process here but and we expect them to encourage their employees to park in the City Hall parking lot for example in the evenings that parking lot routinely is virtually empty in the in the evenings unless there's a meeting going on or Memorial Hall has a big function there are 170 spaces there so if you know if the food service employees were to park in this location I think that would really take away a lot of the pressure and more of me probably starting earlier right and just

▶ 39:00 Speaker 6: at night we have our most employees and most people right so so one the new LED lights have in terms of safety in these parking lots have really made a major difference in terms of of the amount of light and secondly I know they do all things well but Turner's has already implemented it before this even began a program where all their employees have to park outside and if one of their employees is caught parking in a primary parking space they are disciplined in some way and and where we've worked hard with the with the restaurants because if think about any particular restaurant you may have 10 people in the back of the house 10 people in the front of the house plus plus plus that's a lot of employees and I do think the wave of the future downtown is going to continue to

▶ 39:51 Monica C. Medeiros: be dining in restaurants now in terms of the the restricted parking are those spaces going to be designated specifically for employees or will will regular non-employees be able to to park in us this was the most controversial

▶ 40:07 Speaker 6: piece and ultimately the and we even argued about it sometimes we finally we finally and I came to the conclusion also as a as one member that we are going to make an employee and customer because the last thing we need during a particular time on a Saturday or having 15 to 20 open spaces that are sitting there so we feel that there is enough space to to house employees some are better than others and allow customers who probably wouldn't want to park there but in a case of the symphony and restaurant week whatever you know big

▶ 40:49 Monica C. Medeiros: moments that you can park anywhere yeah I'm glad to hear that and in particular it was you know especially first city halls a lot for when we have those instances and in Berwick Street because we do have you know few businesses including a pretty tasty breakfast spot that hopefully there will be spaces for customers to park as well and those are those are my major questions and I know

▶ 41:13 Monica C. Medeiros: I have one more that just slipped my mind but I'm glad to to hear this is

▶ 41:23 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you very much Alderman Medeiros, and if the committee will allow me a little latitude, I'd like to interject. I've spoken with some of the restaurant owners, and besides having the employees who might be stopping work at 10, 11, 12 at night, they have a plan to walk the employees who may feel vulnerable to their cars behind City Hall, so their safety would not be put at risk. Alderman Lemmerman, please.

▶ 41:48 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. you very much um i just wanted to we spoke a little bit about this but just to highlight it and reiterate it for anyone who might be watching this um plan is strictly for the downtown district right so other business districts in the city such as franklin square are not subject to these changes not this time so then their current parking formation remains the way that it is

▶ 42:12 Denise Gaffey: with the traffic commission did recently um study the the parking patterns and the signage in that area and did make some some changes which i believe have been successful but you're right

▶ 42:24 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: there's no permit downtown for them perfect thank you very much that was it thank you mr chairman

▶ 42:27 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you alderman Lemmerman uh seeing no one further in queue is there a motion please oh alderman boyce a motion or further discussion question further discussion proceed please

▶ 42:38 Robert A. Boisselle: we're talking about security especially these restaurant people who are leaving 11 12 1 o'clock in the morning and so forth uh has there been a survey of what these places look like at this point a particular concern about the southwest portion of the city hall area where it's heavily trees and the light is sort of hidden behind the leaves and so forth and it gets very dark in that particular corner it's when you come into the driveway next to the memorial hall and you go all the way down at that end and i was just wondering has the other parking lots have been reviewed at midnight with the new lighting system uh at this point they all been sort of checked

▶ 43:22 Speaker 6: before we really get involved in this we we have we have checked them there's some areas we might need to improve on the thing the concern that i have to be honest is it's going to be a a little a slightly greater burden on our dpw during inclement weather to make sure that those spaces are cleared yeah right that's a commitment we have made um as it pertains to making this plan successful we can't move and pile snow in certain areas we're gonna have to haul but at the end of the day we need parking downtown or people are simply gonna head towards route one um i don't think there's another community i mean wakefield uh has a a severe occupancy problem yet you can't find parking in downtown wakefield and half this not half the script but there's some considerable openings in wakefield um but we're gonna have to move we have to move snow and make it as safe as possible for people at the same time employee employers are going to have to take some responsibility also like the walking program and those programs okay we can't have it both ways

▶ 44:28 Robert A. Boisselle: it's just not going to work anymore now do you find we were talking about the impact of the mso and other activities that occur there uh when these activities occur on the on the weekend and so forth this parking plan goes down the tubes at this point is that i don't think so because uh

▶ 44:43 Speaker 6: well you want to answer this but but the night time the dynamics of where people park is different is different at night it's very different in there there might be less parking here and down in back of City Hall but there might be more parking in the other areas that have been designated okay there's on those few nights the parking some of the options that people have are going to be a little farther away and probably not incredibly desirable to them but again the focus has to be on the customer okay all right thank you very much Fairness to the employee.

▶ 45:17 Robert A. Boisselle: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 45:19 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, Alderman Boycelle.

▶ 45:21 Speaker 2: Motion to recommend.

▶ 45:22 Peter D. Mortimer: Second. It's an order, but discussion will continue. Discussion will always continue after motion. There's been a motion to recommend this order for passage by Alderman Inferna, duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. On discussion, we will continue with discussion. Alderman McAteer-Margolis, please.

▶ 45:39 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is great work. I know you have all been really diligent doing your research on it and I'm happy to see that you've come up with a plan that looks like it might work I just I wondered a couple of things you mentioned that there were like 400 employees at peak hour is that peak hour like that's not really that that I'm not sure that yeah that's a that's a the

▶ 46:06 Speaker 6: whole time because there's it's not one taking it staggered their ship is about

▶ 46:10 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: time employees it looks like there's like less than 200 spaces 170 right right so I knew somebody was going to catch that like no it's they're not all there at the same time right okay so that in and that it sort of includes the nighttime workers as well yes yes so um I wondered just I remember like a few years ago somebody was offering valet parking in a private lot and um I wondered if it's um something that it was discussed with any of our restaurant owners in terms of like the customers and allowing you know them to provide valet parking for their customers and using lots like behind you know city hall or even further away if anyone were to come to us with a proposal we'd be

▶ 46:59 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: more than happy to work with them okay okay great that's that's certainly fair thank you oh that's

▶ 47:03 Peter D. Mortimer: it okay thank you very much alderman any other alderman wishes we heard briefly second time

▶ 47:09 Monica C. Medeiros: alderman Medeiros thank you uh just a question on is that the the floating permit the six hundred dollar one will that be or any of these permits will will they be specific to a vehicle yes so they couldn't be shared correct there'll be a sticker with a license plate number written on it

▶ 47:29 Peter D. Mortimer: it thank you Thank You alderman Medeiros is there a motion please oh wait the motions were made and seconded excuse me for that all in favor please say aye any opposed hearing none now this motion this order will be recommended to the full board for passage thank you very much for your work on this thank you

▶ 47:48 Robert A. Boisselle: chairman like to make a motion to take order 2017-27 out of order and begin