Public Comment

Transcript (~19 min @ 51:10)

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

▶ 51:09 Mark Garipay: Um, public comment. I will motion by unanimous consent to open the floor for public comment. Seeing, uh, no objections, we are open for public comment. This is the portion of the meeting where the public may speak on any item on tonight's agenda. Comments expressing any viewpoint on other matters are also welcome. If there are, um, just, just just a reminder that the public comment, uh, is an opportunity for the public to share comments, counselors will not respond. Individuals have up to five minutes for comment. Um, if there's anyone that would like to speak, feel free to come up and just, uh, state your name and, uh, the your city.

▶ 51:58 Speaker 5: Hello, members of the council. My name is Mike McLaughlin. I am a resident of Melrose, originally from Everett Councillor Mki, and a direct abut of the BB I wish to speak today, not only about the land that is being transferred, but the neighborhood that surrounds it. We are a very residential, tightly knit community. We are a neighborhood of little libraries of joke trees, annual Easter egg hunts and Thanksgiving flag football at G***h Park of New Year's Eve. Parties in beer pong tournaments of holiday cookie swaps and Memorial Day block parties. We have a neighborhood band, Florence Street and the Machine, and we celebrate both summer and Winster winter solstice together. Believe it or not, we are the kind of neighbors that help push a giant chicken coop up a near vertical hill. And when our neighbor locks himself in said chicken coop, another neighbor calls his wife to make sure he gets out. Okay. So I ask you to remember that you are not only voting to transfer the land, but to transform a neighborhood. We didn't ask for this change to happen, but we would welcome any group moving into this property. As neighbors, as neighbors is the important part. The building needs to fit the neighborhood aesthetically. And in terms of size and scale, I took the time and saved you the time to look at all the police stations in Middlesex County, the 20 closest towns and cities in Middlesex County, and checked how many homes abut their police stations. No town or city had more than one side of the police station bordering a residential community.

▶ 53:37 Speaker 5: This would be bordered by three sides. No town had more than three homes. This would have 20 residential homes, single and two family homes. This would be an unprecedentedly residential setting for a police station. And I think that's important context for the land that you are considering transferring and the building that would then go on it.

▶ 54:02 Speaker 5: And the good news is that our desire for a smaller building that fits the character of the neighborhood matches quite well with the council's fiduciary responsibility. The building plan is currently over budget. That, of course, is not where you want to begin before you're even swinging hammers. On the first building of many of the most expensive public works project in the city's history, it is fairly early to be already over budget. So my request would be,

▶ 54:29 Speaker 9: and it is a bit of a confusing process for me.

▶ 54:32 Speaker 5: So my request would be to hold the land transfer until the council is confident that the land you're transferring and the plan to build on it can be done within budget and is also fitting in the character of our close knit community. Thank you.

▶ 55:00 Elizabeth Kowal: Good evening. Um, my name is Elizabeth Koal. I live at 3 0 1 West Foster Street in Melrose. That is the house directly next to the BB property. Um, so obviously I'm here to talk about that as well. Um, I am also the citizen representative on the working committee as of November. Um, as many of you have heard from us individually, and thank you again, I echo what my friend and neighbor Henry said last week. For those of you who have taken the time to talk with us, um, we feel we are actually as abutters very late to this process. So we are frantically trying to catch up. Um, but I'm speaking to you tonight, um, not only as an abutter to the bb, but also as a tax paying citizen. Um, I greatly respect and quite frankly, do not envy the job that you have ahead of you, which is to safeguard and protect the finances of this city. And I do know from listening to you that you take this role very seriously. Um, as one of the people who is gonna have to live through this project. It's gonna be a massive disruption. I work from home. Um, it's gonna be a massive disruption to my life for almost two years. I have a lot of questions and concerns about this process that have yet to be answered, but I am cautiously optimistic that those will be answered in, in due time. So today I'm here to speak to you about what my, again, friend and neighbor Michael mentioned, which is the budget and my belief that the current proposed budget, which was done by the last administration, does not act accurately reflect the costs that this city will accrue. There are a lot of unanswered questions and a lot of what ifs. And I believe that if the budget for the police station stands as is, the city will ultimately only be left with two options, either to forego the work on the east side fire station or to come back to the citizens to ask for more money. And I think we all know that that is something that none of us want to see happen. Applying logic to this situation, it makes sense to look at the size and cut the size of the current proposed police station. Smaller station, less costs upfront, less costs down the road. The proposed station currently stands at 27,000 square feet. To reduce it by 20% would be negligible to the police force, yet meaningful to both the neighborhood and to the proposed budget. There were three principles sold to us to get us excited about this project, and so far none of them have come true. One was to revitalize as much green space as possible. The second one was to respect the city's historic design with a modern day approach. And the third was to create a sense of community through transparency of public spaces. We are currently working with the city on number two as the design has that has been presented in no way, shape, or form represents the design of the, the current neighborhood and the, the idea of creating a sense of community. Um, the, the original plan proposed a community space. When you ask, when we actually dug into that, it is not a community space at all. Um, and the police station is actually entirely meant for police station use. So what we're asking for is if you reduce this current, uh, proposed station by 20%, you, we have a fighting chance to hit one of the proposals that were given to us, which is to revitalize as much green space, space as possible. As currently stands, the property is all building an asphalt for parking, even removing the playground that is currently there and could be used for green space that is intended to be parking. I urge you to look at what Burlington is doing. 17,000 square feet approaching the same timeline as us, same size force, same size city. They are only building what is absolutely needed, not only for now, but also for the future, but are managing to do it with much less space and at less cost. Please, please look at what Burlington is doing. I urge you to take a deep dive into the finances of this entire project and apply the kind of logic that you would apply if this was your home. And there were so many un unknowns. There is only one thing that logically makes sense to forego and to understand what may be minimal costs and some additional time to redo the design, but to make sure that all phases of this project are done in a way that everybody deserves. The police force, the fire force, the citizens who voted for this, and the neighborhoods who have entrusted you with their money, it makes only makes sense to make this station smaller. We are asking that you hold again, I am also confused about how you do this, but we are asking for whatever process or procedure you will take to hold it or to move, to ask questions, to get the answers we need that we sorely deserve for those of us who voted for this budget. Thank you.

▶ 59:42 Speaker 6: Thank you. Anyone else?

▶ 59:53 Speaker 7: Good evening. Lisa Loveland, 180 8 Florence Street. Also in a better of the, uh, the proposed site. Mike spent a couple minutes introducing you to all of us, and I wanna do a little bit more of that. Um, first of all, I want you to tell you about a little bit about our neighborhood and who lives there. Uh, I'm not gonna introduce everybody behind me, but, um, our group and our neighborhood has a lot of children. A majority of them attend the Lincoln School or have attended the Lincoln School in the past every morning. If you look at the BB school, there are a large number of children headed past the BB school toward the Lincoln School, or if they're headed to the high school in the middle school from the other side of town, they're going right past the BB school. Additionally, um, our senior center, the Levi Gould home and Fuller Home, are both within a stone's throw of this site, which means that our elderly population is also there. As you've heard, we have a very close knit and invested, uh, group of neighbors. Additionally, we are a lot of US professionals and we've been lucky enough to have in our group professionals in urban planning, professionals in state and local government professionals in engineering. And, um, we've also spent a great deal of our own personal time, uh, looking at the building and how it could be. Uh, myself, I've had the pleasure of reviewing all of the city ordinance, um, how you, um, get a police station accredited and a whole bunch of e EC guidelines as well. Um, we've really, really done a lot of homework and we're somewhat disturbed by what we have seen. I also wanna address some myths that have come to light about our group. First of all, we really, really appreciate our police, and for the most part, we understand that the police station is going to go at this site. We get that, and we want to welcome the police into our close neighborhood. We want them to join us in some of the activities that you already heard about. Uh, this is not truly about the police station. It is about the way the situation has been handled, but also about what we have envisioned and what we have seen this, um, site could be. And, uh, we believe that Melrose can do better. We def desperately want our police and our fire departments to have the most modern facilities with the best technology. Um, we know that that benefits us and our neighborhood. I personally voted for the debt exclusion. I wanna see these happen. But once again, I do think that there are ways that this can happen that can really bring Melrose as a leader. Um, we're also not nimb. We're not not in my backyard people. Um, that's not what this is about. Again, we've really dug deep here, um, educated ourselves. We've looked at these plans over and over and over again. We've discussed how they can look, how this plan can look. Um, and we know that it can be really, really great. And again, I know you've heard it several times, but please look at Burlington. Number one, they're replacing a historic building with an almost identical building. Brand new, but looking historic, fitting in with the neighborhood. What is planned does not look anything like Elizabeth's house does not look like anything like the BB estate. Um, they also did a really robust public process that was significantly lacking here. Um, and I think that's part of why you're hearing a lot of frustration from us, um, because we've seen what can happen and we do feel like at times it is falling on deaf ears. I also wanna talk about the budget. 'cause I did do extensive research. Um, and I think that there have are some significant myths about debt exclusions. And the way this works a couple of years from now,

▶ 1:04:08 Speaker 7: if this police station is the size that it is, that the budget that it, it is, if it goes way over budget, if phase two next door, the, uh, fire station goes way over budget, they're gonna be coming to this body to ask either A, to cut back or not. Do the third fire station on East Foster, or B ask you to approve additional funds taxes on the city of Melrose to finish up this project. And yes, I think the fallacy that has been promulgated is that somehow this has to go back to a vote on a dead exclusion. It does not. It comes to this body and you are going to be asked to choose between another fire station or taxing the citizens of Melrose. And so I wanna be really, really clear that that's where this is going. Now, I also want the city to look forward a bit. I know we're mired in a lot of financial crises and, and I get that, um, one of the things that we have asked for is geothermal. Um, it'll keep our neighborhood quieter. We won't have, um, HVAC systems in the backyards of people on high on, um, south High Street. Um, It costs a little bit more money. So what we are hearing is cut the geothermal. You're worried about the budget, we're gonna cut the geothermal. But what geothermal actually does A, um, it helps the environment, but b, it saves your operating budget in the long term because it actually saves on energy costs for the building. And for years and years. Um, what's being asked is to cut the budget now to make the bigger building instead of looking at the budget going forward in ways that we can make the operating budget more sustainable as well. Um, again, I'm going to make the same as that they did. I would ask that this be held in committee so that we can get more information on the budget. We can hopefully get some information about whether or not this project can actually fit in with our neighborhood and, um, whether or not they're still considering geothermal. So thank you very much.

▶ 1:06:36 Speaker 6: Thank you. Anyone else looking to speak person?

▶ 1:06:42 Speaker 6: Is there anyone online looking to speak?

▶ 1:06:44 Speaker 4: Is there anyone online that would like to speak?

▶ 1:06:48 Speaker 10: Good evening. This is John Central.

▶ 1:06:53 Speaker 4: Okay. Do you hear him? No. No? Okay.

▶ 1:06:57 Speaker 4: Lemme see if I can get this louder. I need a mic.

▶ 1:07:00 Speaker 9: Pull that mic down.

▶ 1:07:06 Speaker 4: Where is the speaker? Okay, go ahead.

▶ 1:07:10 Speaker 10: Very good. Can you hear me alright?

▶ 1:07:12 Speaker 4: Yeah, that's good. Alright, great.

▶ 1:07:16 Speaker 10: So my name is Jonathan Piros. I'm an abutter of the BB property.

▶ 1:07:20 Speaker 10: I live at 3 0 9 West Foster Street, uh, and is a, is a Lincoln parent who struggles to get their kids to school by 8 0 3. I I really appreciate the opportunity to participate remotely. So, uh, I understand it's getting late. I want to be, uh, mindful of your time. But, uh, so I'll try to make these remarks brief. Uh, but I am online tonight to say that I care really deeply about the process that's unfolding around the city's proposal to cite and construct new police station at 2 63 West VA Street is to stone store away from my house.

▶ 1:07:53 Speaker 10: As Mike McLaughlin said earlier, taking the police station out of the Main Street area, putting it in the heart of a residential neighborhood, it's gonna fundamentally change the character of the area that we live. It's gonna change the character of Melrose. Uh, and so with the majority of a betters is homeowners, as you've already heard. Uh, I really think Melrose needs to get this right. If we're really intent on making a residential neighborhood the hub of the city's law enforcement. It needs to be done right and it needs to be done appropriately.

▶ 1:08:24 Speaker 10: Uh, I want to talk a little bit about the process so far as, as I've seen it.

▶ 1:08:27 Speaker 9: And so, you know, the,

▶ 1:08:29 Speaker 10: the Public Safety Facilities Advisory Committee that the mayor stood up, uh, is running a really important process. That's the group that's setting the program, which is the design, the size of the new police station.

▶ 1:08:43 Speaker 10: And then later on the fire stations, uh, I've heard this group is described as advisory. But this is the group, this is the body that is working It's the group that's setting up the size of the police station.

▶ 1:09:00 Speaker 10: It's not subject to open meeting laws. Uh, and it's really important for this group, uh, to make sure that the work they're doing is checked. And then if it's unchecked, uh, that group's gonna play judge and jury with taxpayer dollars. And I think that's, I think that's inappropriate. So I really, my request here tonight, uh, as you think about accepting the land, uh, is to think about the role that group is playing and the check that you can play on it,

▶ 1:09:27 Speaker 10: and your very important role in this overall process. Uh, and when you think about the proposal

▶ 1:09:32 Speaker 10: to cite the police station on West Foster Street, uh, really think about if what is being proposed is appropriate for a truly residential neighborhood. So by that I mean the size, the design, uh, the noise that could be generated, if the costs of the program that we've been presented are really commensurate with the city's needs and the budget that's been set aside. And if there's enough transparency and foresight in the current process to ensure that all phases the project, not just police,

▶ 1:10:03 Speaker 10: but fire is coming, uh, to stay within budget. So I'm asking you to be a check on all the processes, but really importantly, the work of the Public Safety Facilities Advisory Committee, uh, for B and for other Melrose residents. Thank you for the time.

▶ 1:10:19 Mark Garipay: Thank you. Is there anyone else online? Is there anyone else, uh, that would like to speak?

▶ 1:10:28 Mark Garipay: Okay. Um, if there are no objections, I'll motion by unanimous consent to close the public, uh, comment portion of our meeting. Seeing none, we are now closed for public comment. Uh, moving on. Um, at this time, I'll motion by unanimous consent to approve without reading the minutes from our October 21st, 2024 meeting in our December 9th, 2024 meeting. Seeing no objections, those minutes are now approved, um, onto the agenda. Uh, next up we have item 1, 2, 2, 7, 3, and appropriation in the amount of two thou, $244,658 and 24 cents from PEG access to MMTV Melrose Public Schools and for legal services and expenses related to cable license renewal.