Public Participation

Transcript (~8 min @ 1:25)

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

▶ 1:17 Speaker 3: As with all of our meetings, our meeting this evening will be televised on Melrose Cable Television in accordance with the dictates of the Massachusetts Open Meeting Law.

▶ 1:27 Peter D. Mortimer: Mr. President, I make a motion to open the floor for public participation.

▶ 1:32 Speaker 3: Second. Alderman Mortimer moves to commence public participation. The motion is seconded by Alderman Boycelle. All those in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Motion passes. This is the portion of our meeting where any individual who is present and wishes to speak on any item on our agenda can come forward to the table in the center of the room, identify themselves, and they will be heard.

▶ 2:06 Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Jerry Morose. I'm here tonight to talk about a couple different things I see that you have water and sewer related ordinances on the agenda again and you know ever since months ago I've been looking regularly to see when the next water and sewer committee meeting is going to happen I don't I haven't seen it yet but um you know I hope there's some way of posting those meetings in advance instead of often they posted two days in advance and if you don't happen to see it on the

▶ 2:37 Speaker 3: day you missed the meeting um not to interrupt you mr morris but while we have the opportunity and we're on television the meeting will be i believe november 5th okay thank you and is that that's at nine in the morning alderman Tramontozzi i'm looking at my email right now and if i give me a few minutes i'll confirm that so i believe that anybody wants to go to the water and sewer rate commission meeting i believe it's november 5th thank you that saves me a month of looking

▶ 2:58 Speaker 2: nightly to see if it's going to be up tomorrow um in you know i i appreciate all this i'm sorry

▶ 3:06 John N. Tramontozzi: it is november 5th at 9 00 a.m and up in the mayor's conference room the mayor's conference

▶ 3:16 Speaker 2: room upstairs thank you um the the different water and sewer ordinances that are there and i don't know why they're on the agenda here tonight in some ways is unfinished business um

▶ 3:28 Speaker 2: but i see that what those ordinances are trying to do proposed ordinances are trying to do is is basically to kind of make some contortions to mitigate the harm of this strange tiered water rate system. And I pulled out the data from the MWRA, and MWRA bills us at a flat rate per million gallons, like $3,368 per million gallons. works out to about two dollars and forty two cents per hundred cubic feet and you know that our water rate is way more than two dollars and forty two cents per hundred cubic feet and you know I'll get into as much depth as anybody wants to but you know there are other factors to involve but but what the issue comes

▶ 4:19 Speaker 2: down to is that there is no benefit to conserving and not conserving high water rate users don't cost the city any more than low water rate users a flat rate is what it's appropriate at some level and and one could argue even that a flat rate actually puts a larger percentage of the burden of the fixed cost of our system on to higher higher volume uses anyway but you know Alderman Medeiros has made a number of proposals you know some about trying to get second water meters and some dwellings that you could theoretically separate the two services a two family or the 20 services in a 20 family or whatever it might be and all those contortions won't work for everybody and i appreciate the intent of it but they won't work for everybody what works for everybody is going back to the rational process of a flat rate for water and sewer and then it takes all those other things off the table in terms of the pro rating i appreciate alderman khan's proposal that's um i saw somewhere here um about making certain we just read all the water meters with the new meters that we can read them quickly read them all in that last two weeks of the of the fiscal year and build them at the fiscal year the old fiscal year rate so people aren't harmed by we don't even need probation at that point we can just build everybody for the fiscal year in which they use the water and sewer it eliminates another problem simple is better than complex and to argue that munis can't calculate this or the billing system can't do this we all know that it works fine for years as a flat rate and and again i'd love to see this be decided and talked about well before next spring when we get into the middle of that um i do want to say one more thing about um i think there's it's order 2015 182 about a rules change um i wrote down rule 32b um i've heard different comments from from board members about that if we're already doing it it shouldn't be a problem to kind of codify it in the ordinance that we're going to continue doing it if we're not doing it what my concern is that if there's information that's coming before the alderman and with which you're making your decision about something that comes before you you, I think it's important that you give the public an opportunity to see what items you have in front of you on which you're basing your decision. And whether it's somebody saying some wacko thing or somebody saying the most rational thing, it's important that I, as a member of the public, know what I need to respond to to know what you're seeing. And I'd like to believe that all of you are thinking the same way I do. I know that's not true. And we've proven that year after year, but, you know, what it comes down to is that if

▶ 7:13 Speaker 2: you do get a report from the mayor's office, if you do get a letter from a person in the community, let everybody see, and I mean this goes to basic transparency, let everybody see what it is you're looking at so we can all understand, and it's to your benefit as well if somebody's giving you some information that supports your the decision you ultimately make don't you want people to know the underlying basis for your decision rather than just question the result they can understand how you got there and I think that it's a perfectly reasonable ordinance to say that things that are presented to the board get posted to the website it doesn't seem like it's that that onerous of a problem I know you know today when I was on there I saw a number of the things that that I even had sent to you months ago as a as a letter that were there so I I don't think that it's a rule a proposed rule that should just be kind of shrugged off as oh well we do that anyway or that oh it's too burdensome because even if it is to some degree burdensome that's what's appropriate is for everybody to be able to know and be on the same page about everything that comes before it not that one alderman gets one piece of information other one gets another the citizens don't know who's gotten what and that type of thing um but again i thank you for your time and um i look

▶ 8:38 Speaker 3: forward to the meeting thank you thank you sir is there anybody else who would like to speak this

▶ 8:41 Peter D. Mortimer: evening motion to close public participation mr president let's make sure is there anybody else

▶ 8:49 Speaker 3: here who wants to speak okay has a motion been made by alderman mortimer seconded by alderman Boisselle to conclude public participation all those in favor of the motion aye aye anyone opposed motion passes the public participation portion of our meeting is concluded order 2016-35