ORDER-2024-39 : Amending Chapter 228 of the Revised Ordinances of the City of Melrose Water, Sewers, and Drains

Transcript (~13 min @ 1:13:00)

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▶ 1:12:49 Ryan Williams: And we have currently, but it's also non-voting member Kurt, counselor Cal fro and, uh, Councillor Mark Repe. Okay. So we have one more item on the legal and Legislative Committee meeting, which is order 2024 dash 39 amending chapter 2 28 of the revised ordinances of the City of Melrose Water Sewers and Drains. As a reminder, we're still operating under suspension of Rule 37 B and 21 CAKA, allowing free discussion between, um, attendees and the council, and also allowing the chair to speak on, uh, matters.

▶ 1:13:26 Speaker 2: take it away.

▶ 1:13:27 Speaker 3: Thank you. Um, so in your packet, you have a memo from the, uh, water and Sewer Rate Committee. Um,

▶ 1:13:43 Speaker 3: Just making sure I'm in the right memo here. So, along with the water and sewer rates that we discussed at the, um, meeting, the rate hearing last Monday, uh, the water and Sewer rate Committee had, uh, recommendations for ordinance changes in chapter 2 28, which is the water, sewer and drain section of the ordinance. Um, there were three recommended changes. The first is, uh, to change the low income water and sewer discount thresholds from 15,020 3000, single and married, um, gross income to 35,000 and 40,000 respectively with annual water consumption not to exceed 6,250 cubic feet for consistency with the threshold for the 100% trash fee. Um, there are presently no households that qualify for these extraordinarily low, uh, low income thresholds. These are the, the only non senior program under the water and sewer discounts had these thresholds of 15,000 for single and 23,000 for married household income, uh, gross income. And so we were recommending bumping those up to 35,000 and 40,000. Um, the second change is allowing for the, we have a condo discount right now that we allow for people, for senior citizens who live in a condo who wouldn't otherwise be eligible for the, um, ordinary senior discount. We have a method of calculation for them so that they can also get a discount. We're recommending extending this to, um, two family property owners who are senior citizen owner occupied. And if the, the two family divided their usage divided by two meets, the 6,250 threshold, they would be able to get the condo discount, which is a set number each year based on the average discount that the other seniors are getting. Um, so we'd like to extend that. Right now, the program is only allowed for, for two families if the whole property uses less than 62 50, um, which is our threshold for the other seniors. So this is a more fair way of, of allocating that. Um, and then the third item is just a change in our, the way we charge for meters. So the city provides five eighths inch meters, and we provide replacement meters when the meters break and when they are old and need to be replaced. Um, we've been supplying three quarter and one inch meters for free as well, but we found that new development tends to want one inch meters when there's really not a need for them. And they actually do have a, the, the cost differential has been going up over the years, so we've been paying that cost differential. We don't think the city should be subsidizing that. Um, additional meter size. So where the ordinance language allows for the city to charge the difference between the 5 8 8 inch meter and the threequarter or the one inch meter. If someone's requesting a larger size, we'll still pay for the cost of the five eights and then they have to pay the difference. Um, larger meters have to be supplied by the, uh, developer owner anyway. So that's a non-issue. It's just this in between sizes of and one inch that have this present issue. So that pretty much summarizes the changes to the ordinance language. Um, happy to take any questions. Okay.

▶ 1:17:07 Speaker 2: Any questions from the council? Councilor Vanderberg.

▶ 1:17:10 Kimberly Vandiver: Thank you. Um, thank you for being here again. Uh, overall I'm, I, I'm supportive of all of these changes. I have, um, two, uh, two questions. The first, uh, the first is about the, uh, senior citizens occupying two family homes. Uh, do you have a projection of how many, uh, once the change is made to, uh, a six here, do you have a projection of how many additional households may qualify for the, we

▶ 1:17:42 Speaker 3: Think it's only gonna be a handful. This is based on Lisa Patterson. Our water and sewer billing administrator has fielded questions from folks in this situation for a number of years, and they're a handful who, um, you know, have repeatedly asked. And so we don't expect it to be any major change.

▶ 1:18:01 Kimberly Vandiver: Okay. Great. And then, um, the other, uh,

▶ 1:18:07 Kimberly Vandiver: point here is that in our previous agenda item, um, I proposed, uh, and we voted to recommend a, an amendment increasing the, the, um, trash, uh, the eligibility for the trash fee for the a hundred percent exclusion, um, from 35,040, uh, 35 and 40 to 45 and 50. Um, and, uh, and you had commented that, you know, this, this one had was just moving up to meet the previous one. Um, and it may cause complexity for them to be different. Um, so, and, and the goal with this one, we would move up from currently zero households qualifying to probably three households, qualifying. And, and if we moved up to that again, higher level, we have an unknown number that would meet that additional income threshold. Um, so I, I was curious if you, if you wanted to comment on, in your estimation, would it be better to leave this one at, uh, your current proposal of 35 and 40, or to raise it to 45 and 50 in alignment with the other proposal?

▶ 1:19:16 Speaker 3: Um, I could see an argument both ways. I think my inclination, given the complexity of the water and sewer rate modeling process, um, would be to keep this one the way it is. I think it'd be unfortunate to have them be misaligned for this first year. But we're hopeful that we're gonna be looking at this whole program, the whole discount program, um, in advance of our fiscal 26 rate setting process, so we could make a final adjustment at that time. I think the, um, you know, with the, with the trash fee, it is literally a simple calculation of what is our projected total cost of the program divided by, you know, subtracting out the a hundred percent people altogether and then subtracting out half the number of the 50% people dividing by what's left and coming up with a number. The water and sewer modeling process as Councillor Hamilton is now well aware of being on our committee is extraordinarily involved, and to not reflect a possible change in the offset column of senior or discounts the discount program, um, I would fear that our rates wouldn't have been properly set to match that change. So I guess I would recommend not changing the water and sewer at this time.

▶ 1:20:31 Kimberly Vandiver: Okay. Um, thank you. I, uh, I would be interested to, I guess to hear discussion from other counselors about if they'd prefer to make a change there or not. Um, but I, you know, I can see arguments both ways and I, I feel stronger about the trash and, um, recycling discount because we're increasing the cost of that program. And that's a big change right now. So, um, you know, I'd be happy to make or not make an additional adjustment here. Um, I don't know if Councilor Hamilton would like to speak to that one.

▶ 1:21:02 Ryan Williams: Are there any other voting members of the legal and legislative committee that have questions?

▶ 1:21:09 Speaker 2: Yes. You Okay.

▶ 1:21:11 Ward Hamilton: So thank you. In, um,

▶ 1:21:13 Devin Romanul: I'm sorry, point of order. Councilor Romanul, did you have a question? 'cause you looked like, sorry. No, no. I just, uh, uh, through the chair responding to my colleague just to say, um, thank you so much and in, in approval of, uh, the amendments that you proposed and would love to work with you in the coming year to make sure that we can bring all of our discount programs in alignment. Um, you know, uh, not to cause too much, uh, challenge for you with the differential between the trash and everything else, but, uh, but really excited to look at a holistic view of all city programs and how we can best support you doing that. But, uh, I'm, I'm, uh, with my colleague and, um, trying to support people, uh, uh, to pay their bills appropriately. But, um, but yeah, I, I wouldn't want to shift with the calculus right now. Thank You. Thank you. And with my apologies to Councillor Hamilton, please go ahead. Thank

▶ 1:21:59 Speaker 1: You. I thought you were looking at me

▶ 1:22:00 Speaker 2: General direction. Yeah, thanks.

▶ 1:22:02 Ward Hamilton: Thank you. And through the chair. Thank you, um, Elena, for being here and, and I know I missed most of, most of the discussion, but one of the things we talked about over the last few months was, um, having consistency in, um, how we set discounts and make them and, and make them based on need. And also making them something meaningful. It's no sense in having discounts, nobody qualifies for, or, you know, painfully small number of people to, um, Elena's point. The, uh, the model is very complicated. And so I think there is, on our committee, there's a strong desire to, uh, create a structure, um, for water and sewer, which then would probably align with trash and recycling. And we want, we want to do something that makes sense that's consistent across the board. And we didn't want to just arbitrarily come up with numbers. We wanted to find some standard to point to. So, um, I would certainly defer to, uh, this committee and what you all decide. I, um, but that's something that we're gonna work on in the next year.

▶ 1:23:09 Speaker 7: Thank you

▶ 1:23:11 Speaker 2: President Elli.

▶ 1:23:13 Leila Migliorelli: Thank you, chair Williams. Um, thank you for being here. And although I wasn't part of the trash conversation, um, the rate increased conversation for this order, it sounds like it makes sense. Like you are already proposing, um, an increased threshold, um, for, for receiving Yeah. Or decrease threshold for receiving a discount. And I think, uh, it makes sense to that you've, because you've had a committee sort of weighing in on how it happens. And like you said, the calculation is a little bit more nuanced than just the trash fee. Um, I think it makes sense to go forward with this. I think if, obviously it's an ordinance change, so at any point, if, you know, six months down the road we're seeing some kind of situation in which people are in more need of the help or whatnot, we could act on it then. But, um, I'm inclined to support this as amended, um, per your recommendations, given the background work that's gone into this, this piece.

▶ 1:24:10 Speaker 3: Thank you. Any

▶ 1:24:14 Speaker 2: other counselors have questions?

▶ 1:24:18 Ryan Williams: Counselor, uh, Romanul, vice chair, Romanul motion. I forget what committee we're in a motion to recommend. Sure. Okay. Alright. Um, on discussion, I agree with my, with my colleagues. The, um, we're talking here about a 20% discount for, for water. So it's not like the trash discount where you get the whole thing for free if you qualify. So, um, while it's a little bit less of an impact, um, you've already brought it up to 35,000, which is great. You know, the, the, the discussion point floating around is whether to go just a little bit higher. I would love to see, um, a really robust discussion about, you know, the impact on the model as well as, um, what the estimated number of residents in Melrose would be that would meet this threshold. Because I think we all have to challenge ourselves on what is and is not a lot or a little bit of money given the last few years have really upended, um, costs for a lot of people. Um, so I'm really excited for that discussion to, to move forward and would love to be a part of it. Um, and definitely we will, um, we'll, um, support these amendments as proposed. Thank you. So we need a second on Councillor All motion. Second. Okay. So motion to, um, amend chapter 2 28 of revised ordinances as proposed in the agenda by Councilor Romanul, seconded by Councillor Vandiver. And can we call the role