ORDER-2015-171 : Authorization of a Bond in the amount of $485,000.00 for the purpose of Citywide Drain Improvements

Transcript (~25 min @ 29:38)

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

▶ 29:27 Peter D. Mortimer: The first order we have before us is order 2015-171. authorization of a bond in the amount of $485,000 for the purpose of city-wide drain improvements. I would welcome a motion to suspend the rules, please. So moved. Second. Alderman Forbes has made a motion to suspend the rules, duly seconded by Alderman Inferna. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, we are under suspension. Gentlemen, city officials, would you please come forward?

▶ 30:02 Peter D. Mortimer: at this time we'll have one city official uh the director of public works mr john shenna coming to speak to us about this order mr shenna would you like to make an opening statement or proceed directly to questions and comments so i i would thanks thank you alderman good evening

▶ 30:19 Speaker 3: everyone again the um the order before you is uh to fund drainage improvements city-wide the

▶ 30:26 Speaker 4: improvements include the repair and upgrade installation of piping structures catch basins and other pertinent components of the drainage system and obviously the restoration of existing roadway sidewalk and other surfing surface conditions that are necessitated by this work

▶ 30:44 Speaker 3: the upgrades are aimed at alleviating flooding conditions in accordance with storm water quality

▶ 30:53 Speaker 3: standards i've attached to the order a recommendation from our engineering division

▶ 30:58 Speaker 4: in public works and our city engineer the majority of the funding in this

▶ 31:07 Speaker 4: order would be focused in three areas of work design and construction and two additional areas of additional studies that the engineering office would like to do so that we can better understand the area the concerns in these areas and

▶ 31:21 Speaker 4: move forward with repairs of some sort there as well the first area is Grove at

▶ 31:26 Speaker 3: linwood ave during heavy rainstorms the intersection of grove and linwood

▶ 31:33 Speaker 4: is left impassable i've attached a picture of that to the order as well photograph three and four

▶ 31:44 Speaker 3: now this does not occur during rain events average rain events the issues that we're trying to

▶ 31:58 Speaker 4: address here incur during heavy intense summer rains or the intense rain storms that you the 10-year the 15-year flood that we um that we experience and we seem to be experiencing more

▶ 32:09 Speaker 3: and more of that of those last year in particular in the summer of 2014 it seemed like we went

▶ 32:14 Speaker 4: through a stretch of four or five weeks where every week we had at least one if not two um it's the end of may for instance and where you know we're experiencing weather conditions that

▶ 32:25 Speaker 3: we typically do in july and august right now so there's some impr some unpredictability and what

▶ 32:32 Speaker 4: the weather brings us and these storms seem to be surfacing more and more um the funding that's

▶ 32:39 Speaker 4: this funding request is about 10 percent of the request that this administration put forward years ago when we asked for nearly over five million dollars to address city flooding issues in ward

▶ 32:50 Speaker 3: to in other areas of the city but in my opinion these issues are just as important to the people

▶ 32:52 Speaker 4: that live in these neighborhoods as those were at the time i think this is a good program that

▶ 33:00 Speaker 3: we should move forward with so the first area is grove at lynnwood the second is burrell street from harding to lincoln i also attached a photo there of what happens that's photograph one and

▶ 33:12 Speaker 3: two that i've attached and the last one is um we call it stowcroft road but it's actually an

▶ 33:20 Speaker 4: easement in the backyards of stowcroft between stowcroft and old brook circle very similar to converse lane where we have piping through people's backyards in this instance the piping does go through their backyards and through time the piping is settled it's caused reverse pitch

▶ 33:34 Speaker 3: and during heavy rains the area the low area of these backyards flood and the water stays there

▶ 33:42 Speaker 4: sometimes for days until the system can gain enough capacity to release itself the department

▶ 33:49 Speaker 3: over the winter the engineering office and of the DPW solicited through an RFQ process the partnership of an engineering firm to help us with these with this work they selected meridian associates they've developed some conceptual plans that I also attached for your review and an estimate of not just these project these three project

▶ 34:16 Speaker 3: areas but also the studies as far as the studies are concerned is an area in Fairfield Ave now Fairfield Ave sits high above Lebanon Street it's one of those

▶ 34:27 Speaker 3: finger streets off of Park there's a drainage system there that comes through

▶ 34:32 Speaker 4: woods down to park street down to lebanon street from those finger streets off a park

▶ 34:39 Speaker 3: the system is either blocked or has failed we need to study this to try to figure out what's

▶ 34:47 Speaker 4: happening and try to get the water to come to lebanon street in a manageable

▶ 34:51 Speaker 3: manner the last part of the studies is conan park conan park is a little league field

▶ 35:02 Speaker 4: but has a major drainage just like most of our little league and athletic facilities have we have a drainage system that crosses that it collects storm water from as far back as lindfeld lindfeld's

▶ 35:10 Speaker 4: parkway on washington street and brings it through through conant back out to wyoming and then

▶ 35:19 Speaker 3: eventually to pleasant street we need to study that watershed to see if there are ways to improve

▶ 35:26 Speaker 4: it we've had a great spring season there but last year last spring where we had more rain the field holds water and we need to figure out why the field holds water and if there's

▶ 35:37 Speaker 3: something we can do to improve it whether it's before the field at the field so some more study

▶ 35:44 Speaker 3: has to happen there in summary that's the order that's before you i'll gladly answer questions uh city engineer was not able to make it this evening due to family commitment but um

▶ 35:55 Speaker 4: That is the funding that we are requesting.

▶ 35:59 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you very much, Mr. Shenna. May we hear now from President Kahn, please?

▶ 36:04 Speaker 6: Yeah, Mr. President, a lot of us were here 10 or 12 years ago when we had very, very severe drainage problems in many areas. And at that time, the administration proposed and board approved a bonding of several million dollars to address the flooding in the Heywood Avenue area the fells way area and other areas throughout the city and that program happily has been very successful mr. Shana how did you determine that how's the determination made that these sites are sites that need to be addressed was what kind of process did you go through well burrell street the burrell and

▶ 36:53 Speaker 4: stowcroft area are actually part of the same hazardous mitigation grant from about a dozen years ago except you know when you look at the ticking order of the impacts of the flooding and the costs associated with those impacts we just couldn't address it at the time we we did localized cleaning and tv inspection of these areas to kind of bring the problem along but now with everything with other problems resolved it's now at the top of the list but they were part of a hazardous music mitigation grant from 12

▶ 37:26 Speaker 4: years ago Grove at Lynwood is a is a is damaged something happened to that at

▶ 37:33 Speaker 3: the section last year there's an old culvert there called Grove Street sees a

▶ 37:36 Speaker 4: lot of heavy traffic there's unsuitable material in that intersection something has failed and we've TVed it and we've seen some offset joints this failure in that system so it's not something that has occurred for multiple years but it is something that

▶ 37:55 Speaker 6: has recently worsened and how how would the amounts the projected amounts of these various

▶ 38:01 Speaker 3: projects determined we developed the scope of conceptual scope and we have conceptual estimates

▶ 38:08 Speaker 4: that are associated with those and that's how the the numbers that you you see in the estimate

▶ 38:14 Speaker 6: will create it have you had discussions with the owners of private properties that are going to be

▶ 38:19 Speaker 3: impacted by the work actually we did with alderman Lemmerman and her ward at stowcroft we we had a

▶ 38:23 Speaker 4: neighborhood meeting very preliminary last fall we did some follow-up work this spring and once the

▶ 38:34 Speaker 4: order is hopefully passed and we have the funding in place to go full design we're gonna we're going to expedite those and actually start to talk with individual owners one-on-one on this is where

▶ 38:45 Speaker 3: we're going to put the new pipe these are the impacts how could we restore it we do have an

▶ 38:48 Speaker 4: easement in this area so we have the right to access these um these backyards and we're going

▶ 38:52 Speaker 3: to time it in such a way that you know we hope to allow people to enjoy their summers in their

▶ 38:57 Speaker 4: backyards and maybe this becomes a late summer project yeah it always makes me uncomfortable

▶ 39:02 Speaker 6: when we're working on private property is there any way that this project could be done in such a way to divert the pipes so that they no longer pass through people's backyards we looked at that

▶ 39:13 Speaker 3: we looked at bringing the pipe out to stowcroft it escalates the price of the project

▶ 39:19 Speaker 4: probably three times as much as what what's estimated but we did look at that and we don't

▶ 39:29 Speaker 3: think that um drainage pipes run on gravity obviously so we don't think we have the elevation

▶ 39:34 Speaker 4: in the ground to make that happen because we'd have to go further um further east before we

▶ 39:42 Peter D. Mortimer: come south on the system thank you mr chairman thank you president khan alderman forbes thank

▶ 39:49 Scott M. Forbes: you mr chairman um you uh used to live on linwood ave now right around the corner on mystic ave i know that both ends of this street uh flood and i'm glad that we see that we're going to address the area down a globe grove in linwood but i just was wondering i know it's not on this program estimate but if you could just uh discuss the area at the other end of linwood where sylvan street and lebanon street meet because that is an area that has flooded for decades there's always been drainage problems there i know it's a basin it's a natural basin i know that the fairfield project is going to be a step in the right direction because that is basically just a 12-inch pipe that comes down from the woods in an inclement weather just basically releases thousands of gallons of water that will just release and stream into lebanon street that'll compound that existing problem um is that a is that area a a a concern for the city

▶ 40:52 Speaker 4: Lebanon and Sylvan? Yes. We continue to monitor that all the time during heavy rainstorms. We've

▶ 40:58 Speaker 3: cleaned the pipes. We've TV'd the pipes. We've made improvements within the cemetery. So that's

▶ 41:03 Speaker 4: the upstream portion of that drainage system. It's the furthest point away from where it outflows. From Lebanon and Sylvan, the drainage system goes through the cemetery and ends up in a brook behind pine banks at the pine banks property line with the cemetery correct where it becomes open but we have to get the water from point a to point b there are elevation challenges with that there

▶ 41:30 Speaker 4: are hydraulic challenges with that and there are piping challenges with that we intend to to look

▶ 41:36 Speaker 4: at that intersection again when we study fairfield to see if deterioration has occurred in the cemetery if there's a block if there's an offset joint so we'll continue to improve that but i

▶ 41:50 Speaker 3: think you said it in your opening statement it's a bowl it's very low that intersection is very low

▶ 41:54 Speaker 3: and when you get those flash floods it's very difficult to get the water out but we we haven't

▶ 42:02 Scott M. Forbes: abandoned that attempt at all so we're going to continue to still look at those studies and try

▶ 42:06 Speaker 4: to come up with solutions for that yeah yeah and we want to do the same with sewer because parallel with the drainage system is a sewer system and we'll do the same there now for fairfield like

▶ 42:13 Scott M. Forbes: i said i know it's an open pipe i know you know the area well and uh i was able to walk that area with some of the neighbors there and they expressed their concerns are we looking just to try to get that water to go underground are you looking to re i know that's what the study is

▶ 42:29 Speaker 4: all options all options are on the table whether we can get the water to go the other way or we

▶ 42:34 Speaker 4: can control the water in the manner it's coming down the hill now in a more efficient way all options are at the table and we weren't ready to present project yet so that's why we want to continue studying with this consultant firm over the summer

▶ 42:49 Scott M. Forbes: okay and then my last question just because it is at both ends of Linwood I know you expressed that uh at Grove Street it was just failed infrastructure again at that end that other end of Linwood could it just be it is it is it field infrastructure underneath is it cracked pipes or drainage in in the wyoming cemetery

▶ 43:13 Speaker 3: area is it possibly that the drainage within the cemetery i can't say it as confidently as in the

▶ 43:17 Speaker 4: street but in the street we clean those pipes consistently and in the summertime on a monthly

▶ 43:25 Speaker 4: basis and the infrastructure is is intact could there be a problem in the cemetery that's what hopefully our studies over the summer will confirm one way or the other the infrastructure in the

▶ 43:33 Speaker 1: cemetery is old okay all right thank you mr chairman thank you alderman forbes next can

▶ 43:41 Monica C. Medeiros: we hear from alderman Medeiros please thank you uh thank you very much uh mr shenna i just uh the area at uh burrell and stowcroft does that where does that drain to does that drain into bennett's brook yes as well okay do you think that the the improvements that we made in the

▶ 44:06 Monica C. Medeiros: other part of ward 2 have caused this area to back up at all no these were always problems

▶ 44:11 Speaker 4: i mean they were identified at the same time um it doesn't this these areas don't connect into the

▶ 44:18 Speaker 4: the new pipes that come from there they connect into the fellsway into an existing pipe that was always there that makes its way down um to bellevue golf course and you start to see that open brook

▶ 44:29 Speaker 3: zigzag all the way across back and forth all the way out to route one that's where this water goes

▶ 44:37 Monica C. Medeiros: it doesn't go to l pond uh and um you know i just i want to say that you know there were so many people that the work that we did in in the other part of war ii was very successful there were many individuals and private property owners that really stepped up and allowed us to to put easements across their property and new easements and um you know these especially in this in you know throughout the whole city but especially in these areas where we have easements and we have culverts you know it really is our responsibility as to be as a good citizen being the city to take care of these and if they're you know if they're failing um to look into fixing them and i i do i can speak from experience that i believe the city did a very good job of returning the private property to you know as good a condition as as it could um obviously there's some bumps along the way but i i hope that the same commitment will be held here in these projects yeah that

▶ 45:41 Monica C. Medeiros: is our that is our commitment and uh through this first stage will it be very disruptive for the

▶ 45:51 Speaker 3: homeowners um nothing we do is really not disruptive but we try to accommodate vehicle

▶ 45:55 Speaker 4: passage and dust control but there will be i can't say that it's not disruptive everything we do is but we always have the citizens concerns and um you know in our best in our in our mind in our

▶ 46:13 Peter D. Mortimer: mindset very good well thank you very much thank you alderman medeiros next we have alderman Lehman

▶ 46:18 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: please thank you mr chairman thank you mr shenna um i just wanted to echo some of what's been said particularly around the the stowcroft and the burrell street area um you know this is something that has continued to pop up we've been hearing from residents and depending i can think of a few storms last year depending on the severity of the storm it goes from being an inconvenience to being a hazard and even causing some damage so i'm happy to see this moving forward in the plans and and also just want to say that throughout the process your you and your team have been very communicative with the residents down there so thank you for that between the neighborhood meeting but then also i know there's been a lot of one-on-one conversation with the residents and um you know i've seen conversations all the way down to um talking about the specific landscaping in their backyard and how to kind of handle getting around those types of things when the work is to start so um just wanted to to mention that and say that i i appreciate all the communication i know the residents do as well and i'm looking forward to seeing this get started so

▶ 47:22 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you thanks we look forward to moving forward thank you thank you mr chairman thank you alderman

▶ 47:27 Scott M. Forbes: 11 moment alderman forbes please yeah i just wanted to uh follow up on something that you said you said that during the summer time you're going to be doing a study in the cemetery in the drainage system could you just uh elaborate just real quick what type of uh video inspection video

▶ 47:40 Speaker 3: inspection video inspection and you know we'll see what the video identifies the video could identify cleaning the video could identify repairs but we do intend to video inspect

▶ 47:49 Speaker 4: um drain and sewer in the cemetery during the summer outstanding thank you mr chairman thank

▶ 47:58 Speaker 6: you alderman forbes president khan please yeah i usually look for something to springboard myself into an area that i probably shouldn't be discussing um so i'm going to support this project

▶ 48:13 Speaker 6: and sadly we don't get to we don't get to set up the budget and we don't get to establish the priorities of spending much as i would like to and so it's not a situation where we can we can pick this project or defer the money into another area that's obviously something that the mayor administration have to do during the budget season so i think in general In general, this is not a bad project, if someone can figure out a legal way where we could set budget priorities. I would certainly be more than happy to try to accommodate that, but that is all for now, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 49:00 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, President Codd. Alderman Boisselle, please.

▶ 49:04 Robert A. Boisselle: John, Grove Street in Linwood, a year ago or two years ago, you did a lot of work on Grove Street. part of the same problem that's going on or just something that well several years ago we did um

▶ 49:22 Speaker 4: the force main sewer force main right and we replaced all the sewer pipes on um grove street

▶ 49:26 Speaker 3: at the time the system was functional that's why i'm more of the mindset that something happened

▶ 49:35 Speaker 3: last summer that um deteriorated the conditions to the point where you see the the flooding to

▶ 49:37 Speaker 4: the level that we have recently but uh no that that was um i don't remember the exact year but

▶ 49:43 Speaker 4: i think it was six or seven eight years ago when we did the sewer force main from upham street and that was all sewer that we upgraded on grove street not drainage okay now this project's

▶ 49:53 Robert A. Boisselle: going to cost 485 000 according to what i see here uh is this an mwra grant or is this we're

▶ 50:05 Speaker 3: going out straight out the bonds this is a straight up bond the mwra doesn't offer um no

▶ 50:08 Speaker 4: bonding grants for storm water they do for water and so i've been off of this all right so the

▶ 50:11 Robert A. Boisselle: total cost then with the interest would be about 862 000 for this project i'll defer to the treasurer

▶ 50:32 Speaker 9: for that okay that's the tool good evening that's the total projected cost that's a very conservative I had an estimate on the interest rate at 5%, these are all estimates.

▶ 50:44 Speaker 9: So that's the way the amortization schedule I gave you reads, that's the amount.

▶ 50:48 Robert A. Boisselle: Okay, so at this point is this an expected amount, it could be lower.

▶ 50:53 Speaker 9: I expect it to be lower, but like I said, we're conservative in those things. We don't want to not have, we're not authorizing interest payments with this order. authorizing the allocation, the loan amount of $485,000.

▶ 51:10 Speaker 7: Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, John. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 51:15 Speaker 5: Thank you, Alderman Boycelle.

▶ 51:17 Peter D. Mortimer: I have for the first time, before we hear from Alderman Medeiros for the second time, Alderman Byrd, please.

▶ 51:24 Jaclyn L. Bird: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a quick question, Mr. Shenna. So the part about Conan Park that's just going to be studied in further depth over the summer, is that correct?

▶ 51:32 Speaker 10: That's correct.

▶ 51:34 Speaker 3: That's the time frame? I mean, we've taken some measures just internally on our day-to-day operations.

▶ 51:39 Speaker 4: Like we put some hay bales.

▶ 51:44 Speaker 4: We've, you know, to be honest, I think in the early spring we actually even created some sump areas where we've pumped to keep the field dry.

▶ 51:49 Speaker 3: But that's just to keep the kids playing. We need the purpose of the study is to understand is there a problem there?

▶ 51:56 Speaker 4: And if there is a problem there, what's the root of the problem? And how can we improve it? Okay.

▶ 52:00 Jaclyn L. Bird: So people shouldn't be expecting solutions anytime soon as far as that. It's just, it's looking at it in depth and that, you know, we're looking to find out a little bit.

▶ 52:06 Speaker 3: No, we want to work with the Little League, with the Park Commission. We want to work with the towers, the condos right next door to see their drainage system, you know,

▶ 52:16 Speaker 3: could there be an increased flow from there? Did they do something inadvertently?

▶ 52:20 Speaker 4: There's all kinds of things we want to look at.

▶ 52:24 Speaker 4: We want to look at some of the stormwater that comes off the fells, you know,

▶ 52:33 Speaker 4: and um and rule out mwra and um and that watershed because that's all coming towards conan park so that those are the type of things we want to do with the study okay excellent thank you

▶ 52:40 Peter D. Mortimer: mr chairman that's all for now thank you alderman byrd alderman medeiros please thank you um i just

▶ 52:43 Monica C. Medeiros: wanted to point out too that when we have these incidents of large flooding that's on street and that's not you know flowing through with the storm water is not flowing through the culverts the way that we want it to that goes into the ground and if we have pipes with leaks that's getting into our water and sewer pipes correct sometimes

▶ 53:11 Speaker 3: it could get in through infiltration that's that flooding would have to

▶ 53:17 Speaker 4: penetrate through the ground and get into the sewer pipe but yeah that could

▶ 53:20 Speaker 3: happen if but the majority of infiltration happens in the spring when

▶ 53:23 Speaker 4: groundwater is high these flash floods happen in the summer when groundwater is

▶ 53:31 Monica C. Medeiros: low possibly the fixing this could reduce some of the other issues and reduce our burden with the MWRA but this isn't the major I wouldn't think this

▶ 53:47 Speaker 4: just has a major impact on I and I these programs won't have a major impact on I

▶ 53:50 Monica C. Medeiros: and then I guess as as our speaker earlier this evening pointed out that you know obviously if water is going into people's basements we remind them that it doesn't belong in the storm drain right and or it doesn't belong in the storm drain yes yes so we have to make sure it's in the storm drain and

▶ 54:14 Peter D. Mortimer: not in the sewer correct Thank You Alderman Medeiros I'm seeing no further further Alderman wishing to be heard on this order. Is there a motion, please? So moved. Second. Is that a motion to recommend for passage? Motion to recommend, Mr. Chairman. We have a motion to recommend for passage from Alderman Forbes, duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. Seeing no further discussion, all in favor of recommending this order for passage, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none. This order will be recommended to the full board for passage. The next order we have before us is order 2015-154, it is the City of Melrose operating budget for fiscal year 2016 in the amount of $72,885,826.66. This order is currently laid on the table. Is there a motion to remove this order from the table, please? Second. Alderman Byrd has made a motion to remove this order from the table. Was that you all who seconded Alderman Boycelle?