ORDER-2016-33 : BE IT ORDERED that the City shall cause all water meters in the City to be read between June 15th and June 30th of each year for the purpose of issuing water and sewer bills for the quarter ending June 30th.

Transcript (~13 min @ 19:40)

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

▶ 19:39 John N. Tramontozzi: Motion to remove them from committee, bring them forth from unfinished business.

▶ 19:45 Peter D. Mortimer: in the motion to remove the Order from committee mr president alderman treyman tozy moves to remove

▶ 19:49 Speaker 1: water 215 195 215 194 215 193 215 192 and 216 33 from the appropriations committee the motion has

▶ 20:05 Monica C. Medeiros: been seconded by alderman mortimer legal and legislative excuse me sorry that's from legal

▶ 20:10 Speaker 1: and legislative committee i'm sorry you're right um on the motion to remove the Order from committee is their discussion all those in favor of the motion please indicate by saying aye aye anyone opposed motion passes the Order are before you mr.

▶ 20:27 John N. Tramontozzi: president if I if it's the will of the the board I can give a summary of what

▶ 20:33 John N. Tramontozzi: occurred at the water and sewer committee meeting do you have the floor

▶ 20:41 John N. Tramontozzi: Alderman Tramontozzi. Thank you. On Thursday, November 5th, I attended, as the Board of

▶ 20:48 John N. Tramontozzi: Aldermen representative, the Water and Sewer Committee meeting. You all have in front of you copies of documents that I had received at this meeting for your viewing. In attendance

▶ 21:02 John N. Tramontozzi: for the city, among others, was Mr. John Schenner, Director of Public Works, Mr. Patrick De La Russo the auditor and chief financial officer and mr. Arthur Flavin

▶ 21:12 John N. Tramontozzi: the city treasurer the five board of alderman Order sent to the water and sewer committee were read into the record and there were some discussions

▶ 21:23 Speaker 2: no action was taken in the Order remain in the committee the concern expressed

▶ 21:25 John N. Tramontozzi: by the city officials was that they did not know what the financial impact the Order would have and that this needed to be addressed it was also noted that

▶ 21:36 John N. Tramontozzi: the city contract with pioneer consulting the previous consulting on

▶ 21:45 John N. Tramontozzi: the water and sewer matters had expired and it was the intent of the committee to put a new contract out for bid and once the new consultant is retained the

▶ 21:56 John N. Tramontozzi: issues presented in our Order will be addressed in the financial impact will be known I got the sense that our Order would be ready for discussion maybe sometime in March about 2016 so they're gonna put the this bid out retain a new

▶ 22:15 John N. Tramontozzi: consultant I review the the issues involving our Order and then present to

▶ 22:21 Speaker 8: our board some recommendations additionally at this meeting was

▶ 22:25 John N. Tramontozzi: discussions about addressing the water infiltration problems in the status of

▶ 22:33 John N. Tramontozzi: the meter replacement program specifically as to the water infiltration problems there was a recognition by the committee that there

▶ 22:44 John N. Tramontozzi: are problems some areas of the city have been addressed other areas will be addressed and is anticipated that the water and sewer committee will be presenting this board with proposals on how they will handle these problems there was discussion about I mean obviously that there are costs associated with this these programs that there are MWRA funds available these are interest-free loans but I remember that there is cost we need to do what we can

▶ 23:19 John N. Tramontozzi: to get funds available and start making these repairs and move on this the

▶ 23:29 John N. Tramontozzi: problems with the infiltration the what you have before you is just some of the materials that was presented including the letters of various citizens the next meeting of the water and sewer committee is Thursday December 10th at 9 a.m. in

▶ 23:52 Speaker 1: the mayor's conference room i think that's a brief summary alderman Tramontozzi you've handed out a number of documents uh to the members of the board are you seeking to make these documents part of

▶ 24:03 John N. Tramontozzi: the public record relative to these Order yes i will um i moved there are um some documents

▶ 24:11 John N. Tramontozzi: could you please identify the documents sure uh the first document is entitled the ii project results in future program possibilities this involves the infiltration in flow

▶ 24:21 John N. Tramontozzi: the the the copy of the diagram is not color so you don't really get a good sense first the color copy did show areas of the city that have been tackled and repaired and unfortunately doesn't come out in the copies but the The idea is that they are addressing or looking into the area of infiltration. There's also a letter presented to the committee from Alderman at Lodge Monica Medeiros who was present and spoke at the committee meeting. That's the second thing. There's a third, there's a letter from Mr. Jerry Meraz, who was also present at the committee hearing and that presented his letter and spoke as well.

▶ 25:22 John N. Tramontozzi: There's also a email from Leo Norton of the MWRA

▶ 25:28 Speaker 2: addressing some of the wastewater flow reports.

▶ 25:32 John N. Tramontozzi: And that's an attached, there's an attachment to that email.

▶ 25:41 John N. Tramontozzi: Also, there's two additional pages, both front and back, of graphs. One, these are from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, showing the total water supply to all of the MWRA revenue customers. And in the back of that sheet is just specifically Meadows water consumption for

▶ 26:09 John N. Tramontozzi: time frame of from 2013 2014 2015 and then finally there is MWRA water supplied to various districts a comparison rate sheet showing where a marrow stands in comparison with other cities and towns in the MWRA system and on the reverse of that sheet is some water sewer billing in revenue for fiscal year 2016 and this is as of October 31 2015 this is specifically

▶ 26:42 John N. Tramontozzi: Melrose City of Melrose the water bill the revenue and what the fund expenses in the sewer fund the water fund expenses and sewer fund expenses in a comparison of fiscal years 2015 and fiscal year 2016 as of the dates indicated I think one other thing is in my notes if I took it down correctly

▶ 27:09 John N. Tramontozzi: because there's always a question of what we have in the reserve fund and I

▶ 27:24 John N. Tramontozzi: I think I can say that I, if I remember correctly, I wrote it down, that we was asked about what we have currently in the reserve fund, and we were told that there's $241,208.12 currently in the reserve water, and there's $225,229.32 currently in the reserve sewer account.

▶ 27:45 Speaker 1: are those up to date figures alderman i i believe so i think they seem curiously similar to

▶ 27:53 Speaker 2: last year's figures yeah that was i don't recall specifically the date but that's what was

▶ 28:01 Speaker 1: presented by um this auditor if you could confirm that with the committee please i believe and somebody can correct me if i'm wrong but i think i authored an order that was passed by the board that indicated that we were supposed to get a communication each october relative to the amounts that were certified to these funds but i'll i'll check that out before our next meeting

▶ 28:22 Speaker 1: okay very good and i i would suggest that somebody might want to make the chart that was uh submitted during public participation part of our record for this order but uh i'll move yep

▶ 28:36 Speaker 1: second alderman mortimer moves that we uh adopt the graph that was given to us on public participation motion seconded by um alderman forbes on that motion all those in favor that will become part of the record of these Order as well one final thing if i could

▶ 28:57 John N. Tramontozzi: um upon questioning by myself and i can confirm with what the public speaker spoke about this evening uh relative to the billing practice of the city for water and sewer municipal buildings and schools my understanding is we can measure the usage of the city municipal

▶ 29:14 John N. Tramontozzi: buildings because they are meted but that they don't the city itself the city

▶ 29:22 John N. Tramontozzi: doesn't bill itself for the water usage and the sewer usage of its municipal

▶ 29:32 John N. Tramontozzi: buildings discussion by I remember the treasurer saying that you know it's it's a it's a billing thing um and i don't know how that could be worked through but i'm sure it could

▶ 29:41 John N. Tramontozzi: be um it's like taking from one left pocket and putting into the right pocket you're billing the

▶ 29:49 John N. Tramontozzi: city uh for its own usage but the uh the speaker did make a good point in the sense that if the

▶ 29:58 John N. Tramontozzi: water and sewer enterprise funds uh are paying it then it is part of the uh the rate that the water and sewer rate pay his pay um so that's um so that i can confirm that that that is the case

▶ 30:09 John N. Tramontozzi: when best i understand and whether or not that's uh to be changed um you know that's certainly something we can consider and talk about how the billing uh should be done in the future

▶ 30:24 Speaker 1: thank you further discussion relative to these Order we have a motion relative to the Order

▶ 30:39 Speaker 1: um motion to wait to retain in committee return to committee alderman Tramontozzi moves to return the five Order to the legal and legislative committee to await response from the water and

▶ 30:48 Speaker 1: sewer committee motion is seconded by alderman Boisselle on the motion alderman inferno on the

▶ 30:54 Gail Infurna: motion um yes just um maybe some clarification because maybe i misunderstood along the way but um through you mr president to alderman Tramontozzi did you say that we wouldn't probably get any word back on this until like march because of the new consultant coming in and whatnot that we wouldn't have a lot more information until that time or or did i that's my sense is that

▶ 31:22 John N. Tramontozzi: they want to wait for a new consultant to be retained and then at that point which which probably means going into the you know the into the 2016 early 2016 by this time the bids are

▶ 31:38 John N. Tramontozzi: um are opened in the consultant chosen and then the consultant has to do their work uh so yeah i don't think that we're going to get these uh any responses from the water and sewer committee

▶ 31:48 Gail Infurna: before then so my question to you then mr president is um and correct me if i'm wrong on on this one also do we have our Order good for 90 days well this rule if we keep on tabling like you know how is that for our process well rule 8

▶ 32:03 Speaker 1: requires that after 90 days they would show on the calendar for the for the regular Board of Aldermen meeting the Order would remain viable they don't

▶ 32:16 Gail Infurna: they don't die oh okay where I was going with that if they did die I thought well maybe if we want to just file these and then as we get information back in March if Alderman Medeiros wanted to maybe go with that information make some more appropriate or more current Order regarding to whatever information came out of the water sewer committee but if they're going to stay alive then I mean

▶ 32:40 Speaker 1: I guess we can just keep on as the maker of one of the Order is I want my order to go back okay so that can be discussed I was just thinking that might clean it

▶ 32:45 Gail Infurna: up if they were going to be you know dead issues or whatever at that point

▶ 32:52 Speaker 1: thanks okay motions been made and duly seconded to return these Order to the legal and legislative committee on the vote motion all those in favor all right anyone opposed motion the Order are returned to committee do we have any