Public Participation

Transcript (~29 min @ 10:12)

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

▶ 10:11 Peter D. Mortimer: Is there a motion to open the floor for public participation, please? Second. Was that you, Alderman Inferna? Yes. Alderman Inferna has made a motion to open the floor for public participation. Truly seconded by Alderman McAteer-Margolis, excuse me, Alderman Medeiros. Get all the Ms together here looking at the list. All in favor of opening the floor for public participation, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, public participation is now open. And may I also point out for the record that this meeting is being recorded. DVDs of the meeting are available and the meeting can also be seen at a future time streaming on the Melrose City website or on the MMTV website. We are open for public, did we take a vote, all in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, public participation is now open. I see there are some people in the gallery who would like to speak on tonight's agenda items. At your will, please come forward. Whoever would like to go first, please step up, state your name and address, please.

▶ 11:16 Speaker 2: I'll go first.

▶ 11:23 Speaker 4: you welcome and I'm chairperson of the board of trustees at station crossing and that's a 48 unit building as you all know we just got a new water bill and I think it was nine thousand four hundred dollars that was for the quarter usually it's about six thousand we're getting killed with the water rates we had to do an assessment and I feel I'm the only one looking out for my residents I have

▶ 12:04 Speaker 4: 54% elderly I have five disabled five adjusted income apartments and it's

▶ 12:10 Speaker 4: costing us now we project it'll be about $38,000 for water with the help of the water department we looked into sub metering all the units and that would be extremely expensive I think the city would provide us with the certain size meters but then we would have to have them retrofit to our piping and I think was about thirty thousand dollars to do the building and in addition um miss cardillo with the water department told me that each person would then have to be charged twenty dollars per quarter just to have the meter so it just didn't make sense to put all that money out and we looked at it and projected that it would take us about 14 years to make up the costs that we would be putting in so we did examine all that as the water department suggested and now we're charged at this high tier rate and we're just people with a little small apartment most of them were elderly Melrose residents that gave up their units we just had another unit sell this weekend to a well-known veteran in the city and you know he's coming in cutting his costs for his home and he's coming to this big expense so as I said we did have to put in a new assessment part of it was for our winter cost which is non related of course but the other part is the high water bills we've cut down our electricity and our other utility bills by using alternative sources but it just seems like it's unfair and no one is really paying attention to these elderly residents and the rest of us in the building they're in a little 1100 square from 700 square feet to 1150 square feet unit and we're being charged at not a residential rate like the little person down the street in a home that size that's it if anyone has any questions

▶ 14:20 Peter D. Mortimer: for me that's that's not the way public participation works we just listen to all the public comments at the beginning all right and then your comments may be be referenced or any questions you may oppose during your participation may be addressed and answered during the course of the meeting but it's it's not a discourse all right thank you

▶ 14:37 Speaker 4: for the opportunity to let me speak thank you very much thank you thank you other members of

▶ 14:54 Speaker 5: the public please seeing that motion to close thank you thank you good evening i'm back my name is lewis franchi from town estate apartments on pleasant street i spoke the other day mr you live there no I don't we're the owners of the property okay and but

▶ 15:10 Speaker 5: what's your what's your home address well I'm sorry it's 16 Pilgrim Road in

▶ 15:16 Speaker 2: Newton 16 what route 16 Pilgrim Road in Newton okay thank you very much thank

▶ 15:20 Speaker 5: you just brief I'm gonna give you a little brief background on town estates town estates it was built in the early 70s it consists of 266 units there are 132 two-bedroom units 132 one-bedroom units and two studios the size of the units range from just over 500 square feet to 800 to 900 square feet there the there are 12 buildings that make up town estates and Each building has approximately 22 units in each building. There is one water meter for each building, so we have 12 water meters that feed 22 units. We also have one, each building has one central heating system and hot water system that supplies the water and the heat to the residents there. it and that heat and water is included in the rent now because of the building system and the age of the building it is physically impossible to separately or sub meter this building like the newer buildings and new apartments that are being built today are required to do or recommended to be done it's physically impossible the buildings would have to be raised and rebuilt in order to accommodate this these units again one bedroom which may have one resident in it or two residents but maximum of maybe four residents at the max we have

▶ 17:10 Speaker 5: approximately 20% of the units are senior citizens we have over 8% residents have been there for over 20 years actually we have five residents that have been residents have been there for over 40 years so they make this Melrose town estates their home and and 13% are 10 years or longer we are in the situation that we pride ourselves on keeping our units and accommodating reasonable rates if you look at our rental rates compared to the others in the area we find that we have been a very I think an important piece of Melrose that people can have an affordable place to live in 2000 from 2008 through 2010 when we knew the economy was in a tough situation we didn't raise the rates at all we held our rates for two years 2000 at 2010 to 2013 we had a modest two percent increase in in our rental rates that was like $25 a month that we went up in the last since this new tiering system in order to we've had a rental water rates excuse me because I'm a little frustrated you know flustered here our water rates have increased for the same amount of usage because we track these and we track these for our own process almost $100,000 in that period same period of usage now we've had to do is now raise the rent rents dramatically in the last three years and we find that you know this is going to be a hardship to some of the residents that we have here we've spoken to our attorney about how trying to work something out for some of the seniors that we have in our building and we're trying to work something out there but mainly we are you know we are put in the situation that the rate we have no way out we cannot change our building structure to accommodate the new tier system and we are stuck we were imposed with the new tier system and we without any recourse or any way out and they can impose any rate they like and we would have in the residence or ourselves which in turn would have to somehow get to the residents would have to pay that rate rate and we feel that an averaging if you average our units which we track on a you were gonna say something so no oh I thought you were about to say something no sir we tracked us on a graphing program and we are on the average we are well below the the first tier level of water usage per unit and I just would just find it fascinating or just frustrating that we were put in this situation now we understand the budget constraints and the needs for the water department from other agencies to to have these tiered systems but a residential program that should be looked at in a different different light. We are not a car wash. We're not a commercial abuser of water. It's just as if we had 260 homes in that particular area. All the water pipes on our property are private, so if we have a break, we're responsible for anything that feeds from Pleasant street onto our property so we're responsible for that repairs so there's not really an imp we're not imposing on the water department in that respect I have a few other notes and I think that's all I have to say I appreciate your time but again I would I hope that the board would look at this and in a different light that you know again it's it's it's we don't have a way out yeah to to solve the problem and and whatever rates the water department imposes where we're stuck unless there's some type of averaging thank you very much for your time thank you sir any other members of

▶ 22:04 Peter D. Mortimer: the public wishing to come forward good evening mr moroz hi boston rock road oh for mount vernon street what number please for the record 62 62 mount vernon street thank you hi as previous

▶ 22:23 Speaker 6: speakers all spoke to the problem here didn't exist before two years ago and i sat here two years ago and said this is not an equitable way that was the word that was thrown out a thousand times in a couple meetings that that year that spring and it's not equitable to be charging some people in Melrose one rate for water and some people in Melrose a different rate for water. It's inequitable. The old system was actually a pretty good approximation of things. It could have been changed a tiny bit one way or another, but the truth is that the MWRA bills us by our unit of water. The more water we use, they don't bill us at a higher tier. They bill us at a flat

▶ 23:09 Speaker 6: rate it seems that underlying the whole change in the rate tier the introduction of the rate tiers

▶ 23:19 Speaker 6: is an element to try to put more costs to put it bluntly on users like the hospital the hospital is using a huge amount of water there's some resentment that we don't get a payment in lieu of taxes from them that we feel is sufficient in some way and so we want to make them pay more so what do we do we have this tier where they pay a huge amount primarily at the third tier all of their the majority of their use but you're hurting all the little people in between time and it's not just the condominiums and the apartments it's also the families that have five or six people there maybe they have you know three generations living together you're hurting those people and you're hurting them directly and of course we need to pay for the

▶ 23:58 Speaker 6: costs of our water and sewer enterprise in some part with the rates that come from water and sewer I do think that in principle that the city owes, or the city has some burden to pay for the infrastructure of water and sewer, at least in part, through our tax base. It's a public good to the city. It's not just the cost of people. And in fact, by apportioning it by the use of people, it makes it even further inequitable. We all benefit from the infrastructure of water and sewer, whether we use a gallon a quarter or whether we use, you know, two million gallons a quarter. We all benefit from the infrastructure, and that's not an equitable way. You're relying on, and you relied on two years ago, a study done by this pioneer consulting group. I don't even call it a study. I don't consider it a study. In fact, in what was produced this year, it just basically did a calculation. Oh, here's the rates. Here's what they'll produce. Here's the rates we propose next year. Here's what they'll produce. They didn't give you alternatives. It didn't say if we do a flat rate structure, at this level we'll cover the same costs. Versus a three-tier structure that they they put in there. There's no study involved. There's no thought involved There's no analysis involved. I believe that the board is relying on something that wasn't well thought in The tiered structure in the first place and that there's been After two years of it now and we know what happens. There's no analysis as to what we could do differently to make it better The old system if I recall correctly assumed that everybody obviously used 100% of the water that came through their meter, and for the sewer part of it, we ascribed that they'd use 90% of that sewer. Whether the 90% was accurate or not, it's probably closer to 100% on average as people use sewer, except for the people that have outside water use for, you know, lawns, gardens, car washing, and pools. And this is another fallacy in the rate structure that I don't think should be there. You were charging people $50 per quarter to have a second meter. You were acting like it was a privilege for them not to have to pay sewer costs for water that they weren't putting down the sewer.

▶ 26:12 Speaker 6: If you're not using the sewer, and you can show you're not using the sewer, you shouldn't have to pay that cost. I actually think that it was a fairly fair system where the people who had the second meters, the sewer deduct meters, were paying 100% of their water use because we were clearly showing their outside water wasn't getting sewerage at all. Whereas other people who didn't have the second sewer deduct meter were able to take a little percentage off. Let's say it was 10% off that we were assuming that they were putting in the sewer. That probably wasn't bad, it could be maybe 95% instead of 90% as we had it, but it wasn't far from real. What you have right now in apportioning the cost amongst members of the community is very far from the costs representing the real cost to the city of the people's water use. I don't believe you should have this sewer deduct fee, even with the $35 reduced as you have it now. $50 was actually, I want to be clear. talk about annual rates you were charging people $200 a year just to have a meter that would show that they weren't using some water and putting it in the sewer now you're choosing to change that to $140 a year I still feel

▶ 27:36 Speaker 6: that that's an egregious amount of money now again I don't think that the board can make a decision an honest decision without having an alternative before it you've had one thing that you're considering either vote up or vote down and of course with no alternative you're probably going to vote it up but I think that the if you're going to hire a consultant and pay all these thousands of dollars to a consultant they ought to do some analysis they ought to show you what the options are they ought to address the issues I know there was some I I'll tell you I try to go to water and sewer committee meetings but you know I'd almost have to be clairvoyant to figure out when they are and you know be able to look at the city exactly 48 hours or within advance to find the meeting and get to it. I've tried, I've been to a couple over the years, but I understand from seeing some of the minutes that they were talking about trying to do some kind of a procedure for some type of people to make it a little bit less onerous on them because of this thing. But if you do it for a few people in some circumstances, but don't do it for everybody, the whole class of users, you're not doing it well. The old system wasn't broken. You wanted at some level to have

▶ 28:42 Speaker 6: the apparent water rates that you can show us, that tier one rate, look as low as possible, I believe, for relatively political purposes. You want people to think, oh, we have a good water rate, and oh, well, yeah, we have to pay more because we just have a lot, we're using a lot of water. And, you know, you act like you're trying to punish people. The presentation a couple years ago was that you were trying to punish people for being egregious users of water. Most people aren't egregious users of water. The people that use more water typically willing to pay for it the issue that you often respond to here as as aldermen is the fact that people do get leaks in their house and their water use suddenly shoots way up and they think they haven't used any more water but it turns out their toilet was running or there was a hose faucet left open for four days in a row or something and that that that that's a real issue but a flat rate of water is a fine rate of water so that everybody uses water and pays the cost

▶ 29:45 Speaker 6: of the city and in fact if you keep a flat rate of water you actually still put a burden on the people who are larger water users if our water rate is apportioned that a lot of our infrastructure costs are covered in the water rate. The people who use higher amounts of water are paying proportionately more for infrastructure purposes than the people who use small amounts of water. I think that is still inequitable. I think it would be better to have, as I said before, the city pay the city's portion of the infrastructure. You could certainly apportion some of the infrastructure costs into the Water and Sewer Enterprise Fund. But at some level, I think that a fee-based system ought to be charging people for the marginal cost of what they use. So for every extra hundred cubic feet of water you use, you pay the amount that it costs us from the MWRA almost for that extra hundred cubic feet of water. I'm not saying it has to be exactly that. We can certainly, you know, there's certainly things that can balance the equation on different sides.

▶ 30:55 Speaker 6: So the same things apply with sewerage, a little bit differently. Sewerage isn't a flat rate from the city from the MWRA to the city but at the same time a large portion of our sewer costs are because we have inflow and infiltration that we don't manage or don't manage as well as we could or as effectively as we could as I've said before I think that we ought to be investing in in I&I work at a at a pace faster than other communities because that in and of itself will save Melrose and all of our citizens here more money than almost anything else we do and the savings that you could show by making investment in INI would bring those water well the sewer rates down certainly much that lower than they are now the three tiers of sewer is still a tax on the people who use more water I feel it's an unfair tax and I think that that could still be a flat rate for all people in the city that you pay the same amount per 100 cubic feet of sewer

▶ 32:06 Speaker 6: whether you use 100 cubic feet or 200 cubic 200 hundred cubic feet or whatever it's not it's not an unfair system again to rely on the study that was done two years ago last year this year that wasn't a study you could have somebody even within the water department do a very competent study without paying separately for it to say that you know it's a simple spreadsheet this many cubic feet of water to cover this much cost this is the price per cube per hundred cubic foot now there's one other element that i'd like to address is the water and sewer enterprise accounts to me

▶ 32:43 Peter D. Mortimer: miss mr morose we we have a 10 minute limit okay you're getting close to that you have it 11 minutes now okay i'll finish up i'm going to allow you to continue for a few more minutes okay thank you but please keep a view towards wrapping up thank you this is my last point

▶ 32:58 Speaker 6: it appears as if we're loading a lot of city costs into the water and sewer enterprise account now i know that you can say that certainly the public works director spends some time on water and sewer and the deputy does and other people do and the people that clearly work within the water and sewer department do when they're working on water and sewer but at the last meeting i think a couple meetings ago i heard you know that well the water and sewer guys were plowing snow and my question is did anybody account for the fact that was snow plowing rather than water and sewer work and so is their salary still built into the water and sewer enterprise fund that's a small amount of it though a larger issue is i don't see anywhere that the city is actually paying from the city side its water and sewer bills it appears to me that the expenses of the city for all the schools for city hall for for the public works property the police station the fire stations are all put into the water and sewer enterprise account those expenses are all put in there there's no city funds from the tax base paying for them and you're relying on water rate users to do that that again is taking stuff that should be part of the tax base and apportioning it to people at an unfair rate you're basically taxing people at different rates on that city use of water and sewer clearly let's add that in there that's the larger cost um for that the larger higher water rate users are paying more of what should be paid by the tax base than the lower water rate uses again that's a cost that's added into the water and sewer enterprise account that i don't believe should be there i think the city ought to be paying at the same rate and if so the city and where we all bear this is the burden is part of the tax base but we are the city is going to be paying a lot of water at the tier 3 rate and that's going to be a lot more money and maybe then you'll be more sensitive to the fact that maybe we the three tiers isn't quite so so rosy um another element about that is that it sounds as if there are more positions you know i don't know why anybody would say that the recycling coordinator some of her salary would come out of water and sewer that the water users should be used and why the mayor's assistant salary part of that should come out of water and sewer and and i i looked and looked because i thought that there was going to be posted a um a listing of all the different salaries online and what proportion in the water and sewer account versus the city account i didn't see that is i can just ask the question is that posted because i thought that was requested at one of the meetings a couple a week ago and i haven't seen that but perhaps someone will

▶ 35:24 Peter D. Mortimer: answer your question during the meeting but this is not a conversation okay well it's just it's

▶ 35:28 Speaker 6: just that i was hoping to have that information for tonight because i did want to address that directly so in summary the issue is is that the water and sewer account is paying for a lot of things that ought to be paid by the property tax base or the tax revenue not the water and sewer revenue and um and the idea of tiers just makes no sense you know you didn't have this issue of people years ago coming up and complaining about the rate tiers and the people had a hundred thousand dollars extra for a property you are putting you are treating different classes of citizens differently people who tend to live together who are living in a in a place with more people in one place you are penalizing them it's almost you know against the right of freedom of association and so i wish that you would in this year correct this issue correct it now if somebody wants me to to give me the numbers i'll do the calculations and figure out what the rate should be for this if you'd like to make it a flat rate because it's not right that it has this three tiers without any support there's no support in that study at all justifying why three tiers is good and and you know the the the words that are thrown about equitable and conservation all these other things they don't apply all you're doing is taking more money from some people and and hurting

▶ 36:47 Peter D. Mortimer: them and hurting them thank you thank you mr morose any other members of the public wishing

▶ 36:55 Speaker 2: to come forward no no we don't i'm sorry no no you're good if you wish well am i honoring my

▶ 37:03 Peter D. Mortimer: absolutely yeah one of the aldermen just didn't see you making your move she was ready to close public participation but you are more than welcome to speak okay well that's going to be a hard act

▶ 37:12 Speaker 7: to follow joan layton 49 melrose street number 5c i was here monday night i've also sent you written information and i'm not going to add a whole lot to what you already know but it occurred to me it's kind of odd we're 164 individual unit owners we get 164 tax bills real

▶ 37:37 Speaker 7: estate tax bills and just a guesstimate is we pay and this is just based on my unit which is a one-bedroom unit at least three hundred sixty thousand dollars a year in real estate taxes and it's obviously more because there is an equal number of two-bedroom units whose taxes are higher if there were two or three single-family houses on this very same property you wouldn't begin to get

▶ 38:08 Speaker 7: that amount of money in real estate taxes so here we are 164 units and we're individual units but when it comes to billing us for our water and sewer usage because we have only one meter in each building 55 people in one

▶ 38:30 Speaker 7: building are considered one so we were billed as if these this group of 55 people was one individual consuming obviously 55 people are going to consume more water than just one so there seems to be some kind of disconnect or contradiction here and as i've said a million times this really isn't fair and as of the other people have been saying it's not fair to over bill i don't think some of us so that that's basically it thank you miss

▶ 39:09 Peter D. Mortimer: layton any other members of the public wishing to be heard i think we're ready now alderman inferno