ORDER-2015-53 : Acceptance of Mass. Dept. of Environmental Protection Grant; namely, Mass. Electric Vehicles Incentive Program (MassEVIP) in the amount of $30,000.00 to Fund No. 4015; further authorize the Mayor to execute a contract with MassDEP for the $30,000 grant as set forth herein.

Transcript (~16 min @ 13:30)

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▶ 13:29 Peter D. Mortimer: The order we have before this evening is order 2015-53. is an acceptance of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection grant. Namely, Mass Electric Vehicles Incentive Program, that's Mass EVIP, in the amount of $30,000 to fund number 4015, further authorize the mayor to execute a contract with Mass DEP for the $30,000 grant as set forth herein. I think at this time, if I may suggest to the members of the committee, a motion to suspend the rules may be in order, so we may hear from Ms. Gaffey and Ms. Grover to discuss this order. So moved. And that motion has been made by Alderman Byrd and duly seconded by Alderman Tramontozzi. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none. Ladies, would you kindly join us here at the table? State your names and positions for the record, please.

▶ 14:35 Speaker 2: Good evening, I'm Martha Grover, the Energy Efficiency Manager for the City of Melrose.

▶ 14:40 Denise Gaffey: Thank you. And Denise Gaffey, Director of Planning and Community Development.

▶ 14:43 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you very much. Would you like to make an opening statement on this order?

▶ 14:48 Speaker 2: Sure, we come before you tonight to ask for your acceptance of a Mass Department of Environmental Protection grant. It's called the Mass EVIP, Electric Vehicles Incentive Program. The grant, we were awarded at the end of last year for a total amount of $30,000, $15,000 of that is for an electric vehicle charging station. On the condition that we also commit to purchasing one battery electric vehicle, we actually opted to apply for grants towards two vehicles. The grant gives us $7,500 towards each electric vehicle for a total of $30,000. This is an effort by the state to upgrade and grow the electric vehicle infrastructure that's available to anyone who owns an electric vehicle. The charging station would be used at night to charge the two city-owned vehicles and be available in the pub in a public parking lot for anyone to use who's who is downtown shopping eating at restaurants at an event at memorial hall um whatever they're doing so

▶ 16:12 Speaker 2: that's about it i thought i would just open it up to questions thank you ms gaffey would you like to

▶ 16:19 Denise Gaffey: add anything to ms grover's comments um the only thing i would add is that um we were hoping to get a favorable recommendation recommendation from the committee this evening and then a vote from the full board later this evening we're up against a um kind of a tight time frame for doing the installation and the trench work for the charging station if if the order is so approved by the board and um so with the weather and the you know upcoming potential for freeze we're that

▶ 16:50 Peter D. Mortimer: we're hoping to i just wanted to affirm that thank you very much i i have alderman chairman toes was first president khan was second and then alderman wright was third good evening thank you um so

▶ 16:57 John N. Tramontozzi: where is this electric charging station going to be located if you know at this point yeah it'll be

▶ 17:03 Denise Gaffey: here at city hall in the city hall parking lot um right behind um how to describe it it's not quite behind memorial hall building but there's another um lane of parking behind that closer to winthrop Street there's a transformer yes right on Winthrop Street right at that at that corner there so we would just be pulling the wire off of that the power from that transformer and having the two parking spaces so how does that work who pays

▶ 17:30 John N. Tramontozzi: for the electricity that goes into this power station the city does so if if you open it to the public is like the public feed coins into it or something I'm

▶ 17:44 Speaker 2: I'm curious I mean I don't know the cost of charge for a few hours is very minimal couple dollars the expense and trouble of setting up the charging of the charging station that we've selected has the capability for adding you know swipe card charge card at some point but what I'm hearing from other towns is that it's for your first time out it's just a few bucks for for a charge it's almost more trouble than it's worth to go through all you know accepting the credit cards and doing all of that I think we'll monitor it it's it's on one account I'll be able to see how much it increases and what it costs us but I

▶ 18:26 Speaker 2: think in the beginning it'll be a public service that we provide sounds sounds

▶ 18:34 John N. Tramontozzi: reasonable but let me ask you this um there's the grant pay fully for the full cost for this charging station yes it does it pays for the purchase of the

▶ 18:42 Denise Gaffey: equipment and for the installation that's the that's the $15,000 portion of the $30,000 grant the other 15,000 is split between two electric vehicles if the city chooses to do that so 7,500 contribution towards one and then 7,500

▶ 19:02 John N. Tramontozzi: towards the other what's the cost of electric vehicle well right now all of

▶ 19:05 Speaker 2: these the vehicles and the charging stations have to be purchased off the statewide contract and so those prices are available so I you asked about the vehicle so there are two fully electric vehicles on the list there's the Ford focus and the Chevy spark and they're about $29,000 so less the $7,500 incentive it comes out to just under $23,000 is that money come from the

▶ 19:35 Denise Gaffey: general budget so the the funds that we actually have funds available from for rebates from the electric company as related to the ESCO project so through all of Martha's hard work and getting those demonstrating the efficiencies through those projects we we got quite a bit you know we got some rebate funding available from that so we were we were planning to apply the rebate funding

▶ 20:05 Speaker 6: towards the first vehicle so who gets to choose the vehicles if you approve it

▶ 20:09 Speaker 2: tonight I would then hand it over to Public Works and he'll decide who gets side and figure out how it's going to be used and we're in the fleet but what car

▶ 20:24 John N. Tramontozzi: comes out some vehicle will come out of service or there's some an old Ford

▶ 20:35 Speaker 2: Taurus I see tooling around excellent oh great well thank you that's what I have

▶ 20:41 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you alderman Tramontozzi ozi president Kahn please thank you so charging

▶ 20:44 Speaker 5: station is fully funded by the grant and that will be available as a public service to our citizens and you're gonna watch it it's gonna be separately metered so we'll know how much that costs and whether that's something that we can continue to provide or whether we'd have to make changes and all funding for the two vehicles is already all lined up you've got the ESCO money

▶ 21:11 Denise Gaffey: no we have funding lined up for the first vehicle the one this grant requires that we purchase at least one vehicle so we have the funding lined up through the escrow rebates for the first vehicle my understanding is that John Shen actually submitted an order for your next meeting to fund the second vehicle so that it's not in front of you tonight I think that'll be in front of

▶ 21:35 Speaker 5: you the next meeting does the grant expire on the calendar year or the fiscal year we have to get everything done by the end of the calendar we have

▶ 21:41 Speaker 2: until mid-february 2015 okay do we have to have both vehicles purchased by then

▶ 21:47 Speaker 2: No, I got an extension to have the second vehicle purchased by June 15th, 2015.

▶ 21:55 Denise Gaffey: And just technically, we only have to purchase one vehicle.

▶ 21:59 Speaker 5: What would happen to the other $7,500? We would lose that. Okay, so if we got one and didn't get the other, we'd forfeit the $7,500. Correct. But we wouldn't be compelled to pay anything else. Correct. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 22:12 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, President Kahn. Alderman Wright is next, please.

▶ 22:16 Francis X. Wright Jr.: thank you mr chairman um following up on alderman khan's comment my and your own um my understanding from talking to the administration is that these will indeed be vehicles that will be replacing vehicles now in service and that they will rather than being old one new gas guzzlers

▶ 22:38 Francis X. Wright Jr.: will be able to get smaller more efficient vehicles that whether they were gas or electric powered are more efficient and therefore will allow you know whether inspectors or various city officials to travel around Melrose they're not going to go on the highway they're not short trips yeah short trips within you know the four square miles to make up Melrose so as they you know I think there's a commercial on TV that says you know you wouldn't take an electric small electric car you know for willing we don't need a four-wheel SUV for various city officials to drive around the city so seems to make good sense we look forward to hearing from mr. Chenna and I think that you know once again Melrose is keeping pace with technology and my understanding my experiences that other cities that I work with have gone this route and it's a service to the community and it's also an opportunity for the city to learn about electric vehicles so I think it's a great thing thank you thank you mr.

▶ 23:48 Peter D. Mortimer: chairman Thank You alderman right next in queue we have alderman Mary Beth

▶ 23:55 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: McAteer-Mongols thank you mr. chairman this is great it's really exciting do happen to know if there are residents in Melrose that have electric cars that

▶ 24:06 Speaker 2: would avail themselves of this I think I see more hybrids which they could access the plug-in there are all electric battery electric vehicles in Massachusetts they're only as of September 1400 okay so it's one of those chicken and egg things you've got to get the you know you don't want to buy it if you don't know the charge and what we're installing what we're required to purchase and install is the level level to 240 volt charging station where the charge takes three to four hours to fully charge a vehicle the vehicles that we're looking at can get a hundred miles from a charge and so you don't

▶ 24:45 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: anticipate any problem in terms of monitoring it like you know people fighting over access to it or not not like the gas lines way back you know in the 80s we have the electric charger lines there are requirements to put you

▶ 25:00 Speaker 2: know visible signage obviously that these are dedicated to electric vehicles so from what I understand what other cities and towns experience is non electric vehicles parking in those designated spots so that would be

▶ 25:15 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: basically the only monitoring enforcement probably type issue that you

▶ 25:23 Speaker 2: might anticipate which I think we'll have to talk about it in the evenings during an event at Memorial Hall mm-hmm how those would be used they'll prop the

▶ 25:30 Denise Gaffey: cars will probably be stationed there because you're gonna put the city cars

▶ 25:40 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: there yeah it's a dual head yep okay okay great and does this help us in any way in our green community oh yes it gives us more points or will help us down the road in terms of qualifying for perhaps more the amount of gas diesel

▶ 25:54 Speaker 2: that we consume annually is part of our our baseline in our annual measurement against our goals so yeah it would help a lot especially if we were to get rid

▶ 26:09 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: of the crown mix well that sounds exciting I've been hearing about like Like as Alderman Wright says, a few other local communities doing that, making those kinds of stations available as well. So I think it's great that we're on the cutting edge of that. Thank you for your work on it.

▶ 26:25 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you. Thank you very much, Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Anybody else wishing to be heard at this time? Seeing none, I just had a question there. It will be first come, first serve. If two people are already at the dual head charging station, whoever's there first. And right now, the use is small enough that there won't be any problems with people saying, I was here first, no you weren't.

▶ 26:49 Speaker 2: I don't anticipate anything.

▶ 26:50 Peter D. Mortimer: Nothing like that. And are there any protections in place to prevent vandalism? Will the people be able to keep an eye on it to make sure? I mean, right now, our vehicles are locked in the city yard at night or, But with the loose wire, and especially at the downtown location, I'm wondering if there's any thought about making sure that, even at the least, just mischief, the kids unplug the car, and then there's no car in the morning. Is there any concern about that? Okay, my idea is.

▶ 27:27 Speaker 2: Definitely something to consider.

▶ 27:29 Peter D. Mortimer: Yes. And how about insurance? Has there been any thought about insurance? Just in case that if a member of the public who has an electric car should shock themselves and injure themselves or worse, is that covered under our blanket suit?

▶ 27:49 Speaker 2: From what I understand, it's very difficult to do that. There are a lot of safety precautions in the way that the things, the plug-ins are constructed,

▶ 28:02 Speaker 2: that it's very difficult to do that, but that's another thing we could ask, and I can find

▶ 28:09 Peter D. Mortimer: whether other communities have done that yeah it's it's idiot proof to not to not kill yourself yeah people can't shock themselves to death no hopefully um all right uh that sounds good i'm sure the public works will work it out maybe they'll have a a lock-up system or something at night when the trucks are down there just to make sure and that's all i have motion to

▶ 28:32 Peter D. Mortimer: recommend we have a motion to recommend this order for passage at our full board meeting later Seconded tonight by Alderman Tramontozzi. Second. Duly seconded by Alderman Byrd. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, and respective of your comments earlier, Ms. Gaffey, I would fully anticipate that based on this vote, that this order will be passed at our full board meeting, which will begin in just a few minutes. I don't think any members of the committee would need you to stick around. I think all business has been taken care of. So thank you very much for your attendance this evening, and thank you very much for this forward thinking action, keeping our city ahead of technology and in step with technology as Alderman Wright said. Thank you ladies for attending this evening. Thank you very much. Thank you.

▶ 29:17 Speaker 6: Motion to adjourn.

▶ 29:18 Peter D. Mortimer: We have a motion to adjourn the Finance Committee from Alderman Tramontozzi. Second. Duly seconded by Alderman Byrd. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The Finance Committee is adjourned.