Public Comment

Transcript (~13 min @ 47:26)

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

▶ 47:20 Maya Jamaleddine: and in accordance with the open Meeting law. This meeting is being recorded and broadcast live on MMTV.

▶ 47:31 Maya Jamaleddine: I will motion by anonymous consent to open the floor, uh, for public comment. And seeing no objection, the floor is now open. This is the portion of the meeting where anyone can speak on any item on our agenda for tonight.

▶ 48:01 Speaker 1: Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Joe Pal. Ryan, 70 Howard Street. I'm just here to, I had a few questions about this bond that the DPW is putting forward. Um, I'll just say before I get going that this format's kind of unfair because I'm gonna say some things and it's gonna be in a question format, and then somebody's gonna give an answer to it. And I might have another question, but I don't get to talk. So, moving forward, I'm hoping we can revise the way this works. Alright, so the city is asking for a $1,650,000. And on the first page it says City Hall Parking Lot and Road Bonds. Yet when you kind of scroll down through, there's a list on how the money is gonna be spent. And nowhere in the list is the City Hall parking lot. It looks pretty good to me. I don't know why that's in there. The other thing that I was just kind of curious about is that The, uh,

▶ 49:24 Speaker 1: city is asking to borrow all this money yet for FY 26 in FY 27 for the total of 450,000 for each year. There's absolutely no identification on how the money's gonna be spent. And that seems crazy to me. But even more crazy is why are we borrowing the money now for one in two years down the road? Why would we be paying interest on that money if it's just sitting in a bank account? And the other thing that makes me a little nervous about putting all this money in one fund is that we're all homeowners. Things happen. You had your vacation funds set up, the roof is leaking. Whoop, we'll take that money and move it over here. And I think that that has the potential here, where the school department is in such dire straits that this money might be there, but it won't be used for road repairs. It'll be used, maybe something broke. We need a new dump truck. You know, I'm not quite sure, but I just feel a little uneasy having money unidentified on how we're gonna spend it. And then the last thing is that the treasurer Is requesting, they like borrowing the money three years at a time, not one year for this year for 250,000, then next year coming back and saying, oh, we need 400 K for this year. And then the following year coming back and saying, oh, we need 400 K for this year. Why does it have to be, oh, well, this is the way we like to do it. But I know you guys aren't borrowing money for two years down the road and letting it hang around. I don't know. I don't think we should be either. All right. Thanks for your time. Oh, one more thing. I know We're gonna talk about trash tonight, but I'm just gonna say, you know, I'm an active member in the community and there's a lot of confusion about this new trash program, and we'll get to that day that we could talk about it. But I think the city should be putting up a YouTube video or something showing what the trash barrels are. Nobody knows what a 64 gallon trashcan is, what's a 45 gallon trashcan? And people are nervous. So we don't know which way to vote. Should we go collection every week or every other week? Just my thinking. Thank you.

▶ 52:22 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Do we have anyone else, um, online wish to speak?

▶ 52:26 Speaker 1: Uh, we do. Let me unmute Ms.

▶ 52:32 Speaker 1: Katz. Can you hear us? Ms.

▶ 52:37 Speaker 1: Katz?

▶ 52:40 Speaker 5: Good evening. Can people hear me?

▶ 52:43 Speaker 1: Yeah, we hear you. Please, please proceed.

▶ 52:46 Speaker 5: I'm sorry, can you hear me? We can, we can. Okay. Sorry. Thank you. Um, so my name's Ellen Katz. I live at 70 Line Street. And, um, I just wanted to, um, make a brief, um, some brief comments about the recycling and trash item. I know that you're gonna be taking it up in more detail in a few weeks, and I'll probably, you know, have a little bit more to say about it then. But I just wanted to, um, make sure you're aware that I, you know, I'm speaking for myself, but also many other people I've spoken to, um, around town who feel very strongly about keeping recycling every week. It would be a huge step to go backwards, um, to recycle every other week. And, um, you know, I I I think we're all somewhat price sensitive and, and aware of the increases and nobody wants to pay more fees, but the difference is, I believe $60 a year to actually cut recycling back completely in half. And, um, I just feel like it's the wrong direction the city is going in, in terms of providing services and also on behalf of, of the environment and climate protection. So thank you for the time to speak,

▶ 54:14 Speaker 1: Ms. Vandi.

▶ 54:16 Speaker 2: Hello, my name is Janine Vandi. Uh, um, a resident of Altamont Mass. Uh, with regard to the recycling, this is a giant step back. I remember working for a decade to get curbside recycling. This finally became a reality in the nineties. Before that, starting in the early eighties, we had drop off at the city yard, starting with paper and cardboard and free trash pickup. There was no fee. Obviously, fewer households recycled, then we got biweekly and more joint and even more when it became convenient as putting out your trash every week. If we attach a growing cost and make it less convenient, we will see a decline in recycling. Right now. Everyone in the city is suffering from inflation. It's hitting everyone everywhere. And then to have the city do this, it's really poor timing. If the city would return the city yards to being open six days a week as it was in the past decades, that would increase accessibility. For those who don't want to want or need curbside pickup, opening the city yard six days a week would not be much of an effort. We used to just have a volunteer on Saturday and Sunday. Yes, we had the city yard. Once upon a time open on Sundays, I think the city should go back to its budget and get the school budget under control so that it doesn't continue to take from other departments. We haven't forgotten why we're here. It's because of the school department going over its budget and other things being canceled that were slated to be done. I recall the Lebanon Street Project that lost its funding. In the meantime, the city should use free cash. So it's not to have to cut the service or pass the additional cost to residents. Again, this is poor timing. Everybody is suffering from inflation, uh, and many people are now losing their jobs. We've seen this happen. People are getting laid off. Everyone remembers giving the city an additional 5 million with the assurance that services would not be cut or fees increased. That was only three years ago. Yet here we are, exactly that happening. In addition, they will be reducing the amount that will be picked up weekly with the switch to containers. That's a big impact. I put out one small kitchen bag each week so I don't have to take a barrel back in. I like that it's convenient for me. So these, you know, it's not gonna really affect me in that regard. Um, in Europe, they have containers and various locations throughout the city to make recycling as convenient as possible for residents. That should be something that the city should look into. The know in the city how parking lot would be good locations. Uh, and if you could put that out there, that would mean people that for whatever reason, can't afford the increase in re, you know, the fee. They could just manually handle their own recycling as we did in the past, you know, once upon a time called the eighties. Um, if we're going to increase the fee, it should go by usage rate and not by household as we do for water and electricity. I'm a smaller household. I should not be supplementing a household with three adults, two, two parents and three grown adults. They're gonna produce more trash and more recycling. This would not be diff difficult. This information the city has available from its daily census data. So it's not like that can't be found. As we know, the more people in a home, the larger of their consumption, whether they that be waste of water, slower households should not be have automatically supplement either ones. That's just not fair. And that's not what we do for anything else. There also should be an option for those who cannot afford the higher cost to opt out and manually take their items to the city yard or these, you know, city locations. Also, I've read that most recyclables picked up are not actually being recycled since China is no longer taking this recyclable material material. If mirrors residents have to pay more for the service, we should have a full document of what and how much of what we pay to be recycled are actually recycled. And how we shouldn't know what the afterlife is for each recycled item and how much action makes it onto that purpose. We need to ensure the city is a better steward of our money and trust. But again, we need to make sure that we take into account that other people are gonna feel this cost. You think it's just $60 and for many households, that's nothing. Um, but for some households we're they're, they're, they're struggling that that's a big cost and they'll have to cut something else. You know, it should be something that people get to opt in and out. Just like I don't have cable. I opt not to have that. I save that money. My neighbor chooses to have table, and they're willing to pay for that. That should be their choice, but it shouldn't be one that they make for me and I make for them. So please, uh, make this as, uh, user friendly and as many options for different households for their different needs. Thank you. Bye.

▶ 1:00:01 Speaker 3: Thank you. Do we have anyone else?

▶ 1:00:04 Speaker 1: I don't see anyone with their hands raised at this time.

▶ 1:00:11 Maya Jamaleddine: Okay. And, um, since we don't have anyone else, um, in, uh, public participation, if there is no objection, I would like, uh, to make motion to close public comment.

▶ 1:00:23 Speaker 3: Seeing none, we are now closed for public comment.