ORDER-2015-193 : Amending Melrose Revised Ordinances, Chapter 228-15 by adding paragraph A (3) relative to Unit Averaging as set forth herein.

Transcript (~16 min @ 2:08:32)

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

▶ 2:08:28 John N. Tramontozzi: Motion to place it on the file. Moves to place it on the file. Second. There's a second by Alderman Byrd on the motion. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

▶ 2:08:42 Speaker 2: The order is filed.

▶ 2:08:44 John N. Tramontozzi: Moving on to Order 2015-193, amending Melrose Revised Ordinances, Chapter 22A, by adding paragraph a subsection three relative to the unit averaging as set forth herein

▶ 2:09:01 Speaker 9: this is the order that um correct i jumped the gun i apologize so that's so we've already

▶ 2:09:03 John N. Tramontozzi: have we have we had an opinion relative to this right um opinion is no no go yeah well i i issued

▶ 2:09:10 Speaker 9: an opinion to the director of public works on june 3rd yeah i i don't know where that opinion went I presume it's part of your packet it's not I remember seeing it that earlier

▶ 2:09:26 Speaker 9: occasion okay so happy to make it part of the record of this meeting this evening and the the conclusion essentially is that to take a unit averaging system and implement it would effectively frustrate the purpose of the tiered rate system that Melrose currently employs by providing preferential treatment to higher volume users at the expense of lower volume users you would distort

▶ 2:09:54 Speaker 10: the rate this we looked at extensively right there in the last two years of rate setting discussions that within the committee this is actually the paul this is actually the opinion that led us to the policy of individually meeting metering condos we felt we that this averaging of condo associations per unit was a way to more adequately pass on pass on the costs but um when this when this opinion came from our solicitor we decided to put a policy in place of allowing condos to individually meter themselves and then we would individually read and individually send bills to each condo owner as a melrose taxpayer

▶ 2:10:42 Monica C. Medeiros: thank you as the maker of the order thank you uh and i'm glad that uh i get to talk about this because unfortunately this this order is not really unit averaging unfortunately when i had sent four orders to the city clerk back in may i had to find some way to differentiate them and i

▶ 2:11:07 Monica C. Medeiros: used that word and that's not really what this is and really the purpose and intent of my order here is to to determine usage by averaging the amount of usage per meter by the number of individuals of human beings that are on that meter and in in that way you know because we've been talking about this in terms of who are the big high-end users and talking about consumption and you know i look at users as individuals as homeowners as individuals rather than as one complex being the user and i think this actually goes so far as to really embrace the idea

▶ 2:11:58 Monica C. Medeiros: of a prorated system and of averaging I know this if we were to do this we would have to look at the the tearing rates my intent when I filed these orders back in the end of May was that hopefully they would come up during our discussions of

▶ 2:12:15 Speaker 8: our water and sewer they had appropriations for water and sewer

▶ 2:12:18 Monica C. Medeiros: setting the rates and setting our budgets and such and the idea here is to

▶ 2:12:26 Monica C. Medeiros: average the usage and determine consumption by looking at the number of people and their usage per meter we have these situations we do have large we've had lots of discussions or have had people come in from the public and speak of public participation here in your water and sewer committee meetings they said they've taken action to institute conservation measures they've installed low flow shower heads they've done the things like put aerators on their faucets and yet when you look at the average amount that is used for consumption the individual unit owners are using less than you know considerably less than what's being used in single family homes on average and this here is to

▶ 2:13:21 Monica C. Medeiros: a proposal that I think would treat all kinds of ownership of homes differently at the same I should say not differently where if you have many people in a single-family home and you're all using the faucet it's it's really very likely that you're automatically going to go into that second tier if you have a family of say five people and this would take into account that you would have the family of five people that you're not necessarily using more water per person than say a home with one person in it they might the person with five people in it might be actually more efficient so this is a way of looking at it that i think cuts across and treats single family homes two family three family homes and your apartment and condos alike i know it's not necessarily a perfect system but i think that you know we just started this system back in 2013 just two years ago you know we've already known when we got into this system that there were some things that might need changing and obviously we just changed the second meter program that you know this might be something that we that you know needs taking a look at and i hope that you know whether or not this be exactly the right way to go that this might be referred back to the water and sewer rate committee and that would keep an open mind and look at how we can address the problem because we went from a system that we had in place for decades with a flat rate system that we're told that is inconsistent with the law that was written in 94 or so we had in place here in the city and we switched it just two years ago when we did that we now do treat the way i look at it as individual users that live in these big buildings differently than we treat people who live in a single family home so i'd like to see us come to a situation that treats people more equitably across thank you

▶ 2:15:29 Francis X. Wright Jr.: thank you mr chairman um i believe i understand what alderman Medeiros is trying to accomplish share and i think it's laudable that that we're trying to provide some relief in situations and

▶ 2:15:39 Francis X. Wright Jr.: correct me if i'm wrong if you've got 10 units and one unit has one person in it and the other ones have five each that that person in one unit that one person in the one unit will get less of a bill than the other other nine units with five residents each in um but my question would be for the city solicitor and and for the uh for mr shenner is uh one do we build that way or do we just build is there just one bill for the for for the building oh and two uh can we legally do this and is this something you'd need time to look at well i'll let mr shenner answer the billing

▶ 2:16:21 Speaker 9: question then i can talk theoretically about the um the legal question i can speak to how we build

▶ 2:16:26 Speaker 10: today all of our entire system is based strictly on consumption it's consumption that that that goes through a meter on a service if it's a condo association right now and this changed last year this was not the case but if it's a condo association those five individual units that you made reference to in your example can all put individual meters on their units we will set up five accounts in each of their names and build that all five of those owners individually individually the association itself would would get the difference between the master meter and this and the summation of all those individual meters if it's an apartment building it's a different story it's an apartment building it's one meter one account one bill and then it's up to the owner it's it's up to the owner of the apartment building to figure out how best to

▶ 2:17:30 Speaker 10: divide his consumption okay and that would be a business decision and that's a business decision exactly okay last year at this time con condos and associations were all considered that option of allowing individual meters in the condos didn't exist but that option exists today for for the association to come together and individually meet of their entire unit and then we would set

▶ 2:17:54 Francis X. Wright Jr.: up accounts and there are people that have done that okay and so that's kind of for some relief for the for the the unit which may only have one or two occupants but may be presently absorbing a bigger share of the overall water bill because they use less water they have less occupants

▶ 2:18:11 Speaker 10: whatever and it was so that argument you made is exactly what we heard so so my question for you

▶ 2:18:15 Francis X. Wright Jr.: mr van kempen would be one um legally can we do this where there's only one you can't individually individually meter the condo units in a condominium building and can we do it for an apartment building where we have one owner but multiple tenants renting you know those units so now and I don't necessarily expect you to have an

▶ 2:18:49 Speaker 9: answer of course of course and I'm happy to look at the question you know in a little more detail but theoretically if you're if the intent is to impose an averaging system whether it's per unit or per occupant in my view and again I will look at this if the if the alderman would like I'm happy to look at it even further but in my view this evening it would have the effect whether intended or unintended of distorting the water rate system because the individual, the single widower living in an apartment on the first floor below a family of five is actually not

▶ 2:19:35 Speaker 9: paying effectively less of a water bill because if we're averaging based on the five upstairs versus the one downstairs, then the way I understand it, the one downstairs would be paying a subsidy to provide effectively a lower water rate for the folks upstairs, because they're a higher volume user.

▶ 2:19:56 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Okay, and that's my understanding from Alderman Medeiros, which is, I believe you're trying to find a happy medium between the tiered system and the individuals who may find themselves using less water, having less occupants, but still absorbing an average bill

▶ 2:20:15 Monica C. Medeiros: the number of units in the building yes you know and for individuals who have large families in

▶ 2:20:21 Francis X. Wright Jr.: one house yeah so i mean i i again i think that's that's a um creative way of looking at this because it doesn't doesn't impact the tiered system and the other users in the system but um my question goes to legality so i guess i would appreciate if you could expand your research on

▶ 2:20:42 Speaker 9: this to look at this i think for purposes of tonight's discussion i still maintain as i did on june 3rd that it would be a distortion of the rate structure but i can look at it i can consult with the department of revenue we can certainly um we can do that right thank you what's that

▶ 2:21:01 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: yes thank you thank you um if you're going to inquire um anyways counselor um

▶ 2:21:07 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: my question would be basing it on the city census that's reported how do we determine the legality and accuracy of the census it's like a little thing that you get in the mail and people don't fill it out or they fill it out or they don't fill it out correctly and you know I mean I would just know if

▶ 2:21:25 Speaker 9: it's would be I think it would be difficult to build the baseline from which you're going to begin right so given the data itself might be flawed

▶ 2:21:31 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: just to back the whole thing up that would be my basis of kind of basing it on the census I don't know how that would be done so that would be my

▶ 2:21:49 Monica C. Medeiros: question to any further discussion yeah just to say to you that i mean i i definitely recognize that this is something that you know if we did move forward in this direction would need some edits on some things that i have thought about since then as we might want to consider for purpose for this purpose to make a certain since a child a half a person uh in order to and it's

▶ 2:22:10 Monica C. Medeiros: comes off complicating it further but in terms of trying to really make it more equal and and really recognizing that um you know because certainly an infant uses less water than

▶ 2:22:22 Monica C. Medeiros: you know i would argue my kids use more water than i possibly they do um but and then i i would expect that if we went in this direction that we would have to adjust the the tier rates because our tier rates right now are based on consumption for a household and this is making consumption on an individual level so i do recognize that thank you president yeah um

▶ 2:22:51 Speaker 11: maybe i'm missing something but respectfully alderman Medeiros i don't understand this order

▶ 2:23:00 Speaker 11: it appears to apply to every dwelling from single all the way up and

▶ 2:23:09 Speaker 11: And so if I have two children living at home with me,

▶ 2:23:14 Speaker 11: it appears to me my bill would be different if I have two children not living at home. I don't understand that. And I'm not trying to be argumentative. I just truly don't understand this order. So hopefully if it's going to be discussed further, it could be dumbed down to a point that I can understand it because I really don't understand what we're doing here.

▶ 2:23:43 Speaker 2: Alderman Wright.

▶ 2:23:46 Francis X. Wright Jr.: No, and I would agree that I think that the language, I think Alderman Medeiros has said this, and Alderman Conner, I agree. I think that the language needs to be cleared up, tightened up, whoever you want to put it, to express what I understand to be the intent of the order And perhaps when we hear back from Mr. Van Campen, we can, it will have a better understanding of what we can do and what changes may be appropriate, if any, and then we can move forward on this. And based on that, I would move that we keep it in committee.

▶ 2:24:24 John N. Tramontozzi: All right. Alderman Wright moves to retain this order in committee, seconded by Alderman Byrd. Any further discussion? Seeing none on that motion, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed, seeing none. All right, that is retained in committee.