APPRO-2023-28 : Fiscal 2024 Operating Budget in the amount of $101,173,341 (one hundred and one million, one hundred seventy-three thousand, three hundred forty-one dollars and 00/100 cents)

Transcript (~51 min @ 3:34)

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▶ 3:18 Leila Migliorelli: Great. That order will, uh, be brought to the full counsel at the next meeting with a recommendation for passage. You can stay right there cuz Next up is the continuation of our annual budget hearings, um, with appropriation 2023 dash 28, fiscal 2024 operating budget in the amount of $101,173,341 and 0 cents. Um, tonight, first up is Memorial Hall with, um, director Pagan broader here.

▶ 3:46 Speaker 3: And, um, introduce the chair of the Soldier and Sales Memorial Building trustees, Mary Sexton. Thank you Mary. Hi everyone. Excuse Sexton. Um, as I'm fortunate to be here, uh, with everyone tonight. Thank you for coming. Um, and I just wanted to mention, and it's really, and there's a banner right outside the building, what I'm talking about, the gala at Memorial Hall on Saturday, October 16th. I can't tell you how important it is, I think, for the city that we get as many people as possible to attend. Um, so I was looking for some support, um, for the gala. And the great news about that is that the committee, um, for the, uh, Memorial Hall that has brought this all about, um, was because they couldn't stand looking at g the Ga r room. Um, so they formed their own committee, friends of Memorial Hall and have been collecting money over the last couple of years. So it's really been, they're doing that has pushed us and we're hoping to have it be very successful.

▶ 4:57 Speaker 3: Um, I've just done some, I just wanna read about Memorial Hall. Not that you don't all know about it. I know, but I just wanna remind you, um, first off, I wanna talk about my staff. Uh, the Memorial Hall staff consists of myself and four-time, uh, part-time operations assistant Rob Mason, Dave Coir, bill Dumont, and Luke Kenny. We just came on. They're responsible for the initial event, set up, onsite event assistance, then the cleanup and the reset for the next event, which oftentimes is the very next day. In addition, they are responsible for the interior general maintenance of the building. New this year. Memorial Hall has five hours per week administrative support from the fabulous LaSandra Santa, who is the Santana, excuse me, um, the Mayor's office administrator. I'm extremely fortunate to have such a dedicated, hardworking team that they truly care about the building as much as I do. In FY 23, Memorial Hall had an overall increase in the number of event bookings and the attendance at these events as the public became more comfortable with indoor events and FY aren't 23 this year. We are on target for 260 events, and we will welcome over 49,000 guests as of today, which is different than what you see online. But today we have Monday, May 30th. We have received requests for 192 events and fiscal year 24, and most of them have already received their rental applications. Our customer event database is made up of 68% non-profit organizations and 32% businesses. 73% of our customers list Melrose as their organization's addresses with 27% listing as outside Melrose and FY 23. We hosted several seasonal events, annual events we usually have, which include the Maros Youth Ballet Nacr season, which runs from October to December. The Merose Symphony Orchestra season, which runs from September to May. Maureen Hancock postcards from Heaven, Ty typically does six to eight events a year in the weekly Melrose Rotary meetings. We partnered with several City of Merose departments for public programs this year. The Covid and Flu Shot Clinics, mental Health First Aid Training, emergency Management, regional Training, mayor Broad, a Senior Resource Fair Council on Aging Holiday Party, our monthly Veterans Mobile food mat, which I believe we were in our 10th year for that, the Veterans Day Breakfast. And this past weekend we hosted them Veterans Day Memorial Day Breakfast. In addition, we were the registration site for the Memorial Day Parade. Additionally, some of the other 260 events included Melrose, Oz Festival, Melrose Highlands Congregational Church, fabulous Beer and Bites, Knights of Columbus Fundraiser concerts. This year, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra, um, requested, rented from rehearsals of their group. We also had no Bo boundary, my tie matches and Boston Boxing matches Kids Curtain Call Stage Productions. We had a private company use us as a filming location for a wrestling movie. How appropriate, um, Oche Chaplain School of Irish Dance, Irish Fest Fish, the Royal Scottish Country Dancer Ball from Boston, Roman Over Entertainment brought over, um, Bulgarian dances and held several performances throughout the year. The Outreach Community Center of Malden, the Miami Hispanic Flamingo Ballet, came to our building. Middle Sec Sheriff Peter Tusk held several of his correction offices, graduations this year. Various dance communities from the surrounding communities. Um, the dance schools, uh, came from Malden Everett besides Mells, Malden, Everett, Burlington Wubin, and I believe Medford this year. We had another different one we had this year is there are several private music schools in the area, and they rented Memorial Hall for their annual showcase. And another one rented it for their piano recital. And in addition, we had the normal private parties and, um, birthday parties, anniversary parties, and, um, christening celebrations. Now the big question, the Building Exterior Renovation Project that you can all can see as going on, it was started in October f Y 23, and it will be completed in the summer f y 24. This project includes window renovation with new interior shades and exterior shades. I'm happy about this to enable us to have the main Hall Theater dock with the press of a button, um, all on brand new organ door. The back lobby doors are being replaced. There's repairs to the beams, repointing and washing of all the granite and Macy and repairing as needed. The roofs are getting repaired along with new gutters. The project has, has really progressed very smoothly, and the contractor has been incredible and really worked around the event schedule with minimal and I mean minimal disruption to our customers events. The next step is the g I Room Interior project that, um, uh, chair chairman section spoke about. Um, additionally, the Civil War, her Veterans Heritage Project report will be finalized this week. This project, as you can remember, was completed due to the awarding of the Schwab grant. The State Historical Records Advisory Board gave us a, a matching grant. Um, this project included the first time cataloging of all the artifacts that are housed at Memorial Hall with recommendations for storing and maintenance of the items, a collection, policy and procedure research on the plaques in the Gai room that are located all around the room. And recommendations for the next steps for an interpretive live tour, which I was ho I'm going to do, is we're gonna have QR codes on everything so people can scan 'em and they get a little summary of like what this plaque means or what the big pitches mean, where they came from. And they have helped me with the wording and they've given me recommendations on the best steps to take to do that. The Memorial Hall Building FY 24 budget is level founded, um, except for the increase in the elevator maintenance line item. This increase is due to the annual contractual International Union of elevator contractors labor rates. Um, as always, it is an honor to be the executive projector of the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building. And I will love to answer any questions you might have regarding the memorial building budget or the operations.

▶ 11:35 Speaker 1: Thank you. Questions from counselors. Councilor Stewart.

▶ 11:38 Robb Stewart: Thank you Madam Chair. And thank you Ms. Picketer for, uh, that very comprehensive description of what's going on at, uh, Memorial Hall. Um, we have income as well that comes from Memorial Hall. The, can you give us a general feel for what that is for the year?

▶ 11:57 Speaker 3: Sure. Um, the revenue comes from rental rates only. Yep. Um, and then there's the restoration fee, which is what comes from the customers a dollar, but mostly it's the rental rate. Uh, the rental of the building. If there's additional work that has to be done, like set up like the, um, the backdrops have to be hung, that's very time consuming. So there's an additional fee for that. But the, uh, if they have rehearsals, they have an additional, a separate fee for that. And that all goes into the general fund and back to you guys,

▶ 12:27 Robb Stewart: the city. So that, that goes back into the general city fund mm-hmm.

▶ 12:32 Speaker 3: Into the general fund.

▶ 12:33 Robb Stewart: And so this is the complete funding. You don't draw from that separately?

▶ 12:37 Speaker 3: No. No. Okay. I, I, it goes right into the, I deposit it directly into the general fund. Okay.

▶ 12:41 Robb Stewart: Great. Great. Good to know. Um, and then, um, you talk about all these different events. Is there schedule that's published

▶ 12:49 Speaker 3: Online? I have a very detailed online calendar. If you go to the Memorial Hall page, you'll see you can pop up the calendar and it's, you click on any, when you look at the calendar by the month, you'll see any of the events. And if you click on the calendar, I put, um, the, the rental time. That's usually with listed like three to nine. But next to the title of the event, I write the time of the actual event so people know what time the door is open. In addition, if you scroll down the, in the right upper right hand corner of the page, I, I hound my customers to get like a flyer or something about their events. So I put the flyer online and it's constantly, all the flyers, constantly scroll. And the upper right hand corner, including the gala on Saturday, October 14th, is there if you want more information. And down below there is, um, the, a description about the gala Okay. And the website to get more information. And below that, I have all the, I have larger size of all the event flyers. So if people wanted to read them in more detail, great. And I update it as soon as someone books, I immediately remove it from the, um, remove the date available for rental from the calendar date. However, it does take a few hours to update. Um, but if I get a bunch of them, I can send an email to City Hall Systems and they can update it immediately for me.

▶ 14:06 Robb Stewart: Great. And, uh, just one comment that I wanted to make, um, I, I hear that you have hired Mr. Kenk on a part-time basis.

▶ 14:15 Speaker 3: Yes. Temporary part-time basis. Yes. It's

▶ 14:17 Robb Stewart: Great that you're bringing in some young people to help you out. Uh, and appreciate that. Um, I actually, I know him. I coached him when he was a young man. He's a great kid. Yeah. Yeah.

▶ 14:27 Speaker 3: He's a hardworking kid.

▶ 14:28 Robb Stewart: Yeah. Yeah. So thank you for bringing in some kids to be able to help out, give him jobs. That's great. Great to see. Thank you. Venture Council

▶ 14:37 Mark Garipay: Garby. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, both for being here. I just wanna follow up on, uh, councilor Stewart's question. Um, understand it goes into the general fund, but what is the total revenue that we bring in and haul rentals compared to,

▶ 14:48 Speaker 3: Compared to usually this year? I'm hoping, I'm still collecting fees. A 90 to 92,000. Um, before Covid I had finally, unfortunately was like, took me 12 years, but I finally hit the, uh, six figure mark for revenue and had collected over a hundred thousand. Um, but then covid hit, so I'm working back up again.

▶ 15:07 Mark Garipay: Have we, um, seen a lot of renter, new renters, or renters? Same ones coming back now. That

▶ 15:14 Speaker 3: More what I've seen, I, I got several new renters here, which is like the Romanian Entertainment and the Malden Islamic Center. And the, uh, another group where they rented, they came back, you know, they called me cuz they had heard about it. And then they called after the event, they called again and they rented, like the Ramona Entertainment Group came back three times. They had only rented once, but they rented two more times. So we are getting new renters and they're becoming repeat event renters.

▶ 15:40 Mark Garipay: Um, and I see on the grant that we got for the ga I run, what do we think that the total cost to, to get the ga uh, room back up and running? Do we have an estimate on that? And how much more money are you gonna need in order to get

▶ 15:56 Speaker 3: This? I don't know. I, I would love to answer that. Everyone's asking me, and trust me, I'm bugging. I go to Denise constantly saying, what do you think? What do you think? I mean, like the middle section, if you go into the G a R room and that middle piece where the, uh, lamp is hanging, um, as you recall a few years ago that the room got shut down cuz that had to be repaired and that all we did was we repaired that middle section and that was $8,000, you know, to do the front doors. I want the top half of the front doors done. Um, if, if you get on Main Street and see they, they refer refinish the front doors and I, the top part wasn't included. So the friends of Melrose's Memorial actually is, is going to pay for the top half to be done. And that is $15,000 because the entire door has to be taken apart to do it. 200, 300, 400 I, I don't know. I'm starting out with a hundred. I'm hoping another a hundred in this fall of the fall. And at least to get, I would like to get the plastering done, the rest of the ceiling. I know you all know if you look on the side, there's that horrible where the water comes in, where the plaster is, it just comes down constantly. Yep. And in the corner where the piano is, you can see, um, on the floor that the wa uh, floorboards have to be fixed along with all the trim around the room has just been broken off. So that will all have to be replaced. And in the corner above where the piano is, that corner plaster has to get repaired. If you go out to the south par, which is the room you enter before you go into the g r, if you look up in the corner, the plastering in that corner has to be repaired. Additionally, the wallpaper's coming down. So that's all gonna have to come down. But when we take that down, we all know the wall's coming with it. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's never been taken down. So all, I don't know, councilor Gar pay, I don't know what to tell you cuz there's so much that has to get done, but I just know there's repairs that have to get done quickly. Yeah.

▶ 17:55 Mark Garipay: I would just, um, encourage, um, the trustees maybe to take, take a look at that with, you know, we do have free cash every year and we have the CIP p if it's a, if we're in the middle of doing this project, is it like we, when we looked at the outside, it made sense to do it all at once than do half and, and, and piece mail it. Right. So that's, um, I'm just encouraged to see what move forward and see what the total cost is for

▶ 18:20 Speaker 2: the g r room. I know the, I know the hall's gonna be a lot more, so thank you. No more questions,

▶ 18:27 Speaker 3: Counsel here. Oh, sorry, go ahead. Yeah, I just wanted to say, we all know we've all bought houses and they've been falling apart or not. And as soon as you take one thing off, either the wall comes, the ceiling comes with it. I mean, that's a room that has been falling apart for years. Mm-hmm. So hopefully what you see, hopefully that's the worst it is. But I doubt it, especially that ceiling. Yeah.

▶ 18:51 Speaker 2: Thank you.

▶ 18:53 Speaker 3: Thank you Counselor Williams.

▶ 18:56 Ryan Williams: Hi. Um, so my question was about the mechanical systems with regard to the electricity and the gas heat. Does that building use a gas powered boiler? Or is it a furnace that blows air

▶ 19:08 Speaker 3: To heat the building? It's, uh, gas powered. Is it, is it, it's Actually, um, 1, 2, 3, 4 boilers.

▶ 19:13 Ryan Williams: They're boilers that heat like radiators or something, that heat mm-hmm.

▶ 19:16 Speaker 3: Space. Mm-hmm. And there's, um, vents that come out of the main hall. Yes. You sit on the other side, you can feel the, yeah. Okay.

▶ 19:20 Ryan Williams: Okay. And have you thought about or talked to Martha Grover about incentives for clean energy, you know, taking the building off gas, bringing in mini splits, things like this, because there's a ton of rebates and incentives right now for heat pumps and mini splits and all these things. And some of the work that you're doing on the windows is gonna alleviate a lot of heat loss and it's gonna better insulate that space. And that might, and I would caution not to take this, my word for it, but there, some of these incentives depend on updates like that. The state comes out and they say, oh, you've done great work to better improve the efficiency in the insulation on this building. So now we'll give you a rebate on the cost of, or a zero interest loan on the cost of upgrading these, um, heating and cooling systems, which can save you a lot of money in your electricity and gas heat, which looks like it's projected to be about $30,000, um, $32,000 this year.

▶ 20:16 Speaker 3: Well, one of the things they're doing is they're putting clearstone windows on the interior of the windows, which will help tremendously on all of the windows, which will help tremendously. Um, we have not looked into the HVAC system. Um, I maybe Martha's looking at I have not. Um, but there is, we're starting a dialogue about possible, um, solar panels on the building.

▶ 20:36 Ryan Williams: Yeah. I mean, if you're thinking about solar on the roof, having electric heat in there, um, with the little units that, or even with a, with a, with a unit in the basement that blows air throughout the building, I think you would, with solar, you'd see a pretty substantial reduction in costs. So we'll look into it, talk to her. She'll, she'll have some information for you. Okay. Sure. That's it. Thank you,

▶ 20:58 Speaker 1: Counselor. Carm Shady.

▶ 21:01 Manjula Karamcheti: Um, the question I was going to ask, first of all, thank you for being here. And I'm such a huge fan of Memorial Hall. I'm so grateful that we have it in our city. It's such a great place to build community. Um, I was looking to find out how many, uh, people Memorial Hall can ac accommodate for an event. Um, but I have found the information online on our amazing website while I was waiting. Um, but the reason why I wanted to ask about the number of seats, you know, obviously Memorial Hall is such a wonderful resource in our community and we're looking for ways, um, that we can always, um, bring more money into the city. And so thinking about Memorial Hall, how many does it seat? What are the options, um, having been to the Chevalier Theater and other places in surrounding communities, just sort of wondering about Memorial Hall's capacity for more, uh, events in the future. So that's, but I answered my own question.

▶ 22:00 Speaker 3: Um, if I can just say please, it's different. It's, it's 800. The building code is coded for 800 in the main hall, um, for auditorium seating and 100 max in the g r room. Um, if I do tables, I can have up to 30 tables on the floor with 10 seats per table. The auditorium maroon seats that everyone knows it. There's 434 of them, so the rest of it goes on the floor.

▶ 22:26 Manjula Karamcheti: Thank you. Thank you so much. And again, thank you for what you do in, in this space. I've got to watch you in action a lot this weekend. I

▶ 22:32 Speaker 3: Know you've Been in a couple of events. I've A lot lately. We hosted the Maros High School Band.

▶ 22:38 Speaker 4: Exactly. Thank you.

▶ 22:41 Speaker 1: Anyone else? President Greg

▶ 22:43 Jen Grigoraitis: Rey. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you both for being here. Um, just as you're talking about the numbers going back up, it just reminds me that for those of us who have been here since 2020, what a, what a journey it's been for Memorial Hall through a global pandemic. And I just wanted to say thank you to you, Kathy, and to the trustees for sticking it out. It was a lot of creativity, really pivoting to support all sorts of needs of the city, um, which you did flawlessly. And I'm really happy to hear that we're kind of predicting being back to quote unquote normal, whatever that looks like. So, um, it's nice to be here with you both in person and know that hopefully all of that's behind us. And with that, I'll make a motion to recommend seconds. Move the bottom line. Excuse me. Move the bottom line.

▶ 23:22 Leila Migliorelli: Um, president Greg motions to move the bottom line on account. 6 93. Seconded by Counselor Williams. Anyone on discussion?

▶ 23:31 Speaker 1: Mr. Clerk, will you please call the roll?

▶ 23:34 Speaker 2: Councilor McMaster? Yes. Counselor Sin? Yes. Counselor Eccles? Yes. Counselor Gepe? Yes. Counselor Stewart? Yes. Counselor Che? Yes. Counselor Williams? Yes. President Gregs? Yes. And Chair Elli? Yes. That's nine. Yes. Unanimous.

▶ 23:50 Speaker 1: And that motion carries. Thank you both for being with us tonight. Thank you.

▶ 23:53 Speaker 3: Thank you very much. And I hope to see you all at the gala. Did you hear that? I don't think we can miss it. All right.

▶ 24:02 Leila Migliorelli: Next up we have Planning and Community development with director Denise Gaffey.

▶ 24:12 Speaker 1: Good evening. Welcome.

▶ 24:14 Denise Gaffey: That's a tough act to follow. Um, so the, the planning department, um, budget is, um, it's a, um, essentially level funded. There's a slight increase over f um, the previous fiscal year. Um, the department is, the budget is primarily comprised of salary and wages for the five, um, staff members in the budget. The, um, senior planner, assistant planner, planning director, sustainability manager, and their GIS analyst. Um, the, um, there's an overall increase of 4% from last year. 3.4% of that is an increase in the salary and wage line item, which is, reflects the, um, standard cost of living adjustment for employees. And, um, the city's new salary plan for non-union employees. And then the other item that is a new line item in this budget is, um, the energy related costs. Um, for the, um, energy Commission, which is now called the Melrose Energy in Climate, they, they, in the past, they've had their, um, budget line item, budget number in a separate line item, and it's been folded in to the planning office, uh, department budget. And, um, that's $2,500. It's relatively modest, but it's used to, um, um, perform a wide variety of outreach activities in support of the net zero action plan. So that's the, um, that's the major change and the, um, increase in the budget for next year. I'm happy to answer any questions.

▶ 25:50 Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. Gaffey. Questions from the council? Council Stewart?

▶ 25:55 Robb Stewart: Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Ms. Gaffey for being here this evening. Sure. Um, just the, the Messina Arts Grant, can you talk a little bit about that? Um, and specifically I see that it's been budgeted level funded for 10,000, but we really haven't achieved that. I'm assuming that maybe because of the, the recent Covid events and so forth, but can you talk a little bit about what that's used for and funding?

▶ 26:18 Denise Gaffey: I believe all of those funds have been expended for the year. They just, we just haven't received all of the invoices yet.

▶ 26:24 Robb Stewart: Okay. Because it's a, it's 49 40 for, uh, 23 year today. Expensive

▶ 26:28 Denise Gaffey: From What I Okay. I'm expecting that we'll get Okay. Um, additional invoices for that.

▶ 26:35 Speaker 5: Can you talk a little bit about what it's, oh,

▶ 26:37 Speaker 1: Sorry. It's okay.

▶ 26:39 Denise Gaffey: It's your opportunity. So, um, yes. The Messina, um, fund for the Arts is, um, is designed to provide, um, small grants to arts and culture organizations in Melrose, um, to support, um, just to support these organizations and provide, um, arts and culture events and programming throughout the year for, for the community. And it's a great, um, boost for our local artist and for, um, for the local economy as well. So it's, um, there's a, this is an annual allocation and there's a committee, um, of people the, um, that makes decisions. They, they, they, um, put out a, um, request every year for, for projects, and then they review them, they rank them, and then they, um, they, they allocate funds toward them.

▶ 27:26 Robb Stewart: Great. And this is targeted for local artists? Mm-hmm. Okay, great. And, um, and they have access on the website on

▶ 27:34 Denise Gaffey: There is, if you Google it, you'll, um, yes, there's a website for the Messina Fund for the Arts. Great.

▶ 27:39 Robb Stewart: Great. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Gaffey. Thank you manager.

▶ 27:44 Speaker 1: Anyone else? Council Williams,

▶ 27:49 Ryan Williams: Just to clarify, um, so the Melrose Energy Commission doesn't exist anymore?

▶ 27:52 Denise Gaffey: Well, they just changed their name, but they

▶ 27:54 Speaker 6: Don't exist as the Melrose Energy Commission.

▶ 27:56 Denise Gaffey: Right. They changed their name to Energy and Climate,

▶ 27:59 Speaker 6: But now they're like a volunteer group.

▶ 28:01 Ryan Williams: Um, They're not affiliated with the city, so the money that was being funded in the city budget to support their activities is being, I mean, Martha was doing it anyway. Mm-hmm. So it was like, no different, but mm-hmm.

▶ 28:10 Speaker 7: Correct. Yeah. Yes.

▶ 28:16 Speaker 6: Okay. How are they taking that?

▶ 28:18 Speaker 7: It was their decision. Yeah.

▶ 28:21 Speaker 6: Good. Okay. Uh, no questions. Thank you.

▶ 28:26 Speaker 1: Uh, president Grigoraitis.

▶ 28:28 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Gaffey. It's always lovely to see you. Um, just one quick follow up question on the Messina Grant. That may be a question instead for the, um, the mayor's office, but had there been discussion at some point about possibly increasing that line item? Yes. Okay. Yes. Do you know what happened there? Well,

▶ 28:44 Denise Gaffey: I believe, um, I believe the mayor is making a transfer to, um, to increase the funding. He had, um, he had represented that he wanted to, um, double the funding for this program because there's, there's been so much interest in it. Um, there, there were more grant requests, um, in funding than there was funds available, um, this year. So my understanding is he's transferring, there's an order coming down to transfer the just transfer of funds into, um, the budget for next year. So it's being done as a transfer out of existing, um, an existing account that, um, isn't going to be spent this year. And then I think it's going to be encumbered and then rolled over into the budget for next year.

▶ 29:28 Jen Grigoraitis: Okay. And so, and again, I know you're not Patrick Del Russo, so you can say you don't know the answer to this question, but then that doesn't, that won't be reflected when we put their budget for the next year. Will it be increased to 20,000 when you get a get a Munis report? Or will it,

▶ 29:42 Denise Gaffey: I believe that is the intent that it would get transferred in to the, um, to the FY 24 budget. Um, yeah, in

▶ 29:49 Jen Grigoraitis: The, okay. So that, that would be the new foundation budget.

▶ 29:51 Denise Gaffey: Exactly. Exactly. And then I think the goal is to monitor how, um, how, uh, how much participation and how much interest there is to see if going forward, it, it makes senses to fund it at that, um, amount or fund it, it at some, um, lesser amount. Okay. So I think that was kind of the, the way they decided to.

▶ 30:10 Jen Grigoraitis: Okay. Thank you. Approach it for that clarification. I really appreciate it. And then, um, not so much a question, but more just a comment. When Council Williams mentioned some of the, um, energy efficiency issues at other buildings is, um, just the inflation reduction Act, I think is gonna be a huge opportunity for municipalities. Not that we're giving you any more resources in order to go after that money, but I just think as we have conversations around, um, the many needs, I think that could be a place where we can try to, um, move some of our infrastructure into being more sustainable. Um, so however we can be helpful, which I don't really know what that is, but I think it's gonna be a really great opportunity that I hope we're able to seize on. And I know Ms. Grover is, I was just about to

▶ 30:51 Denise Gaffey: Say that Grover, as you know, is on top of this, and, um, it, it is, it is. There's a lot of information out there. We're trying to distill it right now and this, and I think that we're in the same position as many other communities just trying to figure out exactly how best to go after this funding. And it's, I think it's, it's gonna take a little while. I think they're really the federal, um, government is trying to figure exactly out how to trickle it down into the states. And so I think we'll be, you know, we'll be learning more over the coming months and positioning ourselves to try to take advantage of these programs in the funds.

▶ 31:27 Jen Grigoraitis: Great. Thank you. Yeah, it's definitely an evolving process, but it's really exciting and I'm thrilled that Martha's so engaged on it.

▶ 31:32 Speaker 7: She certainly is. Thank you. Sure.

▶ 31:34 Speaker 8: I will motion to move the bottom line. One second.

▶ 31:38 Leila Migliorelli: Motion to move the bottom line made by President Greg, seconded by Councilor Sin on discussion.

▶ 31:45 Ryan Williams: Councilor. Yeah. Sorry, I can't believe I forgot about this. Um, I wanted to ask you about your opinion on the capacity of the planning department to engage more on transportation planning mm-hmm. Within the city. Um, I know that Martha does an excellent job of energy and climate related work. Um, but, um, it doesn't feel like we have the capacity that we need to do transportation planning. Is that something that you've thought of sharing with another community?

▶ 32:15 Denise Gaffey: I don't disagree. Yeah. Yeah.

▶ 32:17 Speaker 6: Um,

▶ 32:20 Ryan Williams: there's a grant opportunity called the Safe Streets for All program, and, um, the Central Transportation Agency at MPO is leading implementation. The money's gonna go through mapc and, uh, we had a brief conversation with one of the, um, the folks, the planners who's managing the deployment of it and planning grants. And I think it would be a good opportunity for us to look for funding with this that would tie into potentially a master transportation plan. Okay. Um, that Mapc would execute and could be funded through mm-hmm. Safe Streets for all money. Does

▶ 32:54 Denise Gaffey: It provide capacity building too, or is it just for profit?

▶ 32:57 Ryan Williams: It is it, and I, I it's like 5 billion of funding over the course of several years. And the first stage is these action plans. Okay. And then there's capacity and Got it infrastructure funds on top of it. That, That's really helpful. Yeah. So, um, this just came through about a week ago, but I'll forward it on, we can, we can talk about it. Great. Yeah. Thank you. That's it. Thank you. Thank

▶ 33:18 Leila Migliorelli: You. Um, I just actually have a follow up question on the Messina, um, arts Fund. Is that a, it's not a separate 5 0 1 [unknown] [unknown] If it's funded through,

▶ 33:27 Denise Gaffey: I don't think it is, but, um, I'm not entirely sure.

▶ 33:30 Leila Migliorelli: Yeah. And did the history of it being under your department, um, rather than somewhere else within? So

▶ 33:38 Denise Gaffey: It's a good question. Yeah. Um, it is primarily in our, um, it was primarily, primarily put in our department. Um, I guess it somewhat ties to some of the arts and culture work we have done historically, but, um, we don't really engage with it on a day-to-day basis. We really are like, um, process the warrants for it and just review the invoices and make sure it's all being, you know, spent properly. Um, but I think that's, I think it's related somewhat related to sort of historically some of the local arts and economic development kind of work that the planning office engaged in

▶ 34:15 Leila Migliorelli: engages In. So maybe my follow up questions would be for the mayor's office, and because I would, just being in the philanthropic world myself, I feel like, you know, seeing who's involved in the Melrose Fund for the Arts, having that, that list of who makes the grant decisions mm-hmm. Who the grantees are, it's not available on a quick search on the online. So just something. And I, I don't mean to, uh, imply that your department needs to take on that management of it, if that makes sense, but it would be interesting to see a more sort of robust description on the website. So I will

▶ 34:44 Denise Gaffey: That's great advice. I can definitely pursue that.

▶ 34:46 Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. Um, all right. So the,

▶ 34:51 Leila Migliorelli: anyone else on discussion motion on the table is to move the bottom line on 1 75. Um, Mr. Clark, will you please call the roll

▶ 34:57 Speaker 2: Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor Ella? Yes. Counselor Eccles? Yes. Council Gepe? Yes. Counselor Stewart?

▶ 35:05 Speaker 9: Yes.

▶ 35:06 Speaker 2: Councilor Chet? Yes. Counselor Williams? Yes. President Greg? Yes. And Chair Elli? Yes. That's nine. Yes. Unanim,

▶ 35:14 Speaker 1: That motion carries. Thank you very much for being here. Very

▶ 35:17 Speaker 6: Great night. Thank you. Thank You.

▶ 35:20 Speaker 1: Right. Next up we have the library with Director Lyna Gardner.

▶ 35:34 Speaker 1: Welcome.

▶ 35:39 Speaker 10: Thank you for having me here tonight. Um, it has been a unique year for the library, um, in fiscal 23 library staff and services. Moved to our interim space at the baby school. We closed the West Emerson Library on August 13th, and we opened up a BB on September 13th. The library is now open our regular hours, uh, due to the limited publicly accessible space in the temporary location. We are partnering with the Milano Center, Memorial Hall,

▶ 36:17 Speaker 10: the Parks department, the Y M C A, the Congregational Church on, um, west Foster to provide satellite locations for our book groups and children's programs. We've also been trying to continue the, what we've been developing over the last several years of really engaging in pop-up libraries at any community events and that type of thing. We'll be at the farmer's market in a couple weeks. Um,

▶ 36:46 Speaker 11: we've worked to ensure that the public knows where we are, um,

▶ 36:50 Speaker 10: and that they are aware of our wealth of online resources as well. Um, although the public space is relatively small, if you've been there,

▶ 36:58 Speaker 11: um,

▶ 37:00 Speaker 10: we are really thrilled that the first floored classrooms at the baby allow us to have our entire collections available, rather than a lot libraries have to take a significant percentage of the collection and put them in storage and have them completely unavailable for the duration. So we did not have to do any of that, which is wonderful.

▶ 37:25 Speaker 10: Um, before getting into the fiscal 24 budget, I want to take a moment to recognize the library staff in this year. I have been so impressed with the work that they have done over this past year. They organized, they planned, they adapted again. Um, they cleaned and packed up a building that hadn't been moved from in over a hundred years. Um, none of us was in anybody's job description, I'm sure. Um, and they really just worked very hard to figure out how to make all of this work and how to make it as seamless as possible for the public. Um, it's been a lot of effort and creativity, and they have remained maintained an incredibly positive attitude throughout. Um, so I just wanted to put forward that I think the city is fortunate to have that dedicated group of employees. Um, in the library department's fiscal 24 budget, most budget lines are level funded. Um, postage has once again seen a slight decrease due to more and more people using electronic communications. Um, the telephone services, you may not have vanished. Um, when we moved into the bb the telephone system was transi transitioned to the city's telephone system. Um, so we had a fax line and one phone line that were eliminated. And the IT department now services the, uh, the phone system.

▶ 39:02 Speaker 11: Um, and that will remain true when we move back.

▶ 39:08 Speaker 10: And lines 53, 400 hundred and 50 through 53 4 2 40 in total, represent the variety of resources that are provided directly to patrons for their use. So it's AV materials, physical books and periodicals, downloadable eBooks, e audiobooks, e magazines, electronic databases, and museum passes. Um, in Munis, when you look at the budget, the museum passes are listed as lib passes. I think probably originally library passes, but so when you see this thing that says lib passes, that's really museum passes. Um,

▶ 39:53 Speaker 10: line 53, 4 20 books and periodicals is increased a bit due to a notification that we received this year from a primary vendor regarding increased processing prices. Um, the elimination of an underperforming subscription in electronic formats resulted in a decrease that has been applied to downloadable av. So we can really support a ambos online resources. Um, line 53 5 3 4 2 20 represents our over overdrive based subscription. The current cost for that is 29,058. Um, so the amount not covered in this budget will be paid through donations and the

▶ 40:46 Speaker 11: support your friends. Um, and that's,

▶ 40:48 Speaker 10: that's the, the overview, I think. Um, I just wanna also thank you for your time and this process. Um, it's a lot of work at this time of year for you, and I appreciate the work that you do, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

▶ 41:06 Speaker 1: Thank you. Questions from the council. Council, Les,

▶ 41:09 Jack Eccles: Thank you. Um, thank you Ms. Gardner for being here for the satellite spaces. Is there any cost associated with that, or is that kind of being donated? Oh, Sorry, It's the satellite spaces. Is there, is that being donated from the non-city organizations like the Y M C A in the church, or is there a cost associated with that?

▶ 41:28 Speaker 11: Some yes, some no. Um, but the costs have been very nominal.

▶ 41:33 Speaker 10: Thank You. Less than we might be paying if, you know, we were any food for programming. Right. Thank

▶ 41:44 Speaker 1: Councilor Gepe. Yeah.

▶ 41:45 Mark Garipay: I just have one quick question. In your, uh, in your, um, email that you had sent out regarding the budget, you had mention mentioned next year you're gonna reassess some staffing needs for the new building. Uh, are you think an increase or you think we're gonna because of efficiencies new building? We may.

▶ 42:04 Speaker 10: Yeah, the new building is bigger. Um, and we have a separate team room, which we haven't had before. Um, I'm also expecting, before covid, we had really reached a point where we were both for space and staffing at capacity for what we could be doing. Um, we had demand for programming that, that we just, we didn't have the people order space for. We're now fixing the space part of that. Um, but I do expect that that demand with this wonderful new building is going to be right back up there. And also, again, making sure that, uh, the spaces that we have are appropriately staffed.

▶ 42:47 Speaker 2: Okay. Thank you. No more questions.

▶ 42:51 Robb Stewart: Councilor Stewart? Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you Ms. Gardner for being here. Appreciate it. Um, while you're here, can you give us a status on the new building?

▶ 43:02 Speaker 10: Um, I can briefly, uh, we, uh, as you can, you can almost see a lot of the status. Um, if you go down the street that I have for you, the demolition is pretty close to complete. Um, they're little bits. There's a, a piece of an elevator shaft that they can't take away until they have a wall behind it. Um, but it's really coming along, um, with the demolition and the demolition inside the building. Um, much more careful and getting ready for restoration in the historic building. And I think over the next few weeks you'll start to see the new addition, um, starting to, it's, we we're moving away from the taking away, and we'll be moving into the building up phases.

▶ 43:55 Robb Stewart: Great. And from the standpoint of what we're doing here, are we still on time and on budget?

▶ 44:02 Speaker 10: I don't have exact answers for that right now. I think maybe Denise and I would be happy to give you a more formal update on that at some point. Sure. It's not part of the operational budget, so I didn't prepare.

▶ 44:14 Robb Stewart: Sure. Understood. Understood. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Richard.

▶ 44:20 Speaker 1: Councilor Sin Motion To move the, uh, bottom line.

▶ 44:23 Speaker 6: Second

▶ 44:25 Speaker 1: Motion to move the bottom line of, let me see.

▶ 44:30 Leila Migliorelli: Bottom line on six 11, made by Counselor Ella. Seconded by Counselor Eccles.

▶ 44:37 Speaker 1: Anyone on discussion? Scene none. Mr. Clerk, will you please call the

▶ 44:39 Speaker 2: Roll? Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor son? Yes. Counselor Eccles? Yes. Council Gue? Yes. Counselor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Carcetti? Yes. Council Williams? Yes. President of Yes. And Chair Mcle? Yes. That's nine. Yes. Unanimous. That

▶ 44:54 Leila Migliorelli: Motion carries. Thank you very much for being here.

▶ 44:59 Leila Migliorelli: And finally tonight we have in instructional services with Director Al Tallarico. Welcome.

▶ 45:05 Speaker 3: Hey, everyone.

▶ 45:16 Speaker 9: Um, like to thank the council for the opportunity to discuss the in Instructional Services operating budget for fyi 24 brief words about the inspectional services and what we're responsible for. Uh, we are mandated to ensure the minimum requirements to safeguard the public and pri and property from fire and other hazards attributed to the built environment, and provide safety to firefighters and emergency responders during emergency operation of these structures. These responsibilities include supervision and enforcement of all provisions of the state building code, electrical code, plumbing code, energy code, mechanical code sheet, metal code, and a host of other state statues. We are also in charge of interpreting and enforcing all provisions of the city of Melrose's zoning ordinances. At our core, we are a public safety agency whose help prevents loss of life and property, and contributes to making Melrose a safe and attractive place to live and work. The building department consists of myself, one administrative assistant, three part-time inspectors, building inspector, electrical inspector, gas, and plumbing inspector. We're a very busy office. Last year, from April 1st, 2022 to April 30th of this year, our office processed 3,636 applications, inspected thousands of construction projects, and collected just above 1.1 million in annual fees.

▶ 46:46 Speaker 9: My budget request for this year is outlined to the memos of the council, is an increase of 11.2% from last year. Much of that increase is for the non-union salary plan approved by the council. The other two line items, a slight increases in seminar and continuing education in addition, and in addition of a part-time administrative assistant consisting of 18 hours. To add a little more detail to those two, uh, items, currently our inspectors have $1,300 for mandated continuing education credits. This amount does not accurately reflect the expenses generated by my inspector's yearly. An additional $1,300 is needed to offset the shortage. The administrative assistant position, from my understanding, was approved in 2015, but was never funded it. I'm asking for $20,368 to fund this position for 18 hours weekly, starting, uh, January 1st, 2024. As I've outlined also in my memo, this position would help with the workload to maintain the level of service expected from this department. Um, this position would enable us to be proactive instead of reactive, while assuring backups during vacation, sick time, and ascension planning. Thank you for these time and consideration. I can answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Council Williams.

▶ 48:16 Ryan Williams: Hi. Thank you for being here. Um, that's a lot of requests, right? It is. Um, I'm wondering if you could at all characterize whether that represents an increase in the number of requests over, let's say, you know, last year or another point in time. Do you feel like your department is getting more throughput on these? They're, uh,

▶ 48:36 Speaker 9: I'm not sure. How,

▶ 48:38 Ryan Williams: Do you feel like you're handling more requests now, executing more requests? Are the timelines improving? Are you able to

▶ 48:46 Speaker 9: Put more request request as far as applications?

▶ 48:49 Speaker 6: Applications Sure. Permits

▶ 48:50 Speaker 9: Anything. So, um, yes, we are, we're the system that was, again, I think it's almost five months I've been here. Hmm. Maybe a little over. So I can't really compare apples to apples from last year to this year, but I can tell you that, um, looking over my predecessor's, uh, information regarding how many permits they've done, uh, what the revenue was from last year, typically it's around $800,000. A little. Uh, you know, because of covid obviously some things went down. Um, but I feel like the permitting system that we have, although not the best, has increased, um, the number of applications coming through. It's just, it's a faster process now. We have solar companies that are doing it. Uh, I mean, literally, I probably have like, uh, 15 a day. Uh, uh, a lot of energy work, uh, a lot of insulation work being done throughout the city. Uh, those are constant constantly every day. Um, so there is, there's a, a larger request this year than there was last year. Um, I can't give you all the breakdowns, um, but, uh, we're doing, um, a lot more work, uh, than we were last year.

▶ 50:06 Ryan Williams: And obviously the best, uh, um, enforcement is to not have to enforce because you get everything right the first time. But knowing that you're stepping into a situation that's been, uh, in operation for a while, do you feel that the department has what it needs to do enough enforcement of code violations that are reported to you?

▶ 50:26 Speaker 9: Um, yes. As far as inspectors, we, we do have, I feel like right now, um, again, I'm just getting my feet wet and trying to figure out what the best method of, of handling some of these issues. Mm-hmm. Typically, lately I've been doing them myself. Um, it's just, you know, getting outta the office and, and, and, uh, getting out there and starting to meet people. Um, I, I feel at this point we do have enough, um, uh, the enforcements aren't as bad as other cities that I work for. Um, I find that most people, uh, just need a little more guidance. Mm-hmm. And, uh, going back to, um, enforcement, as far as the, um, as far as the software system, the ability to have, um, to go online anytime and, uh, fill out an application is a game changer when it comes to people, you know, wanting to do a roof. Most of the time they, they, they, there's violations there because, you know, it's raining out or they don't have time to do it. Now, with the ability of going online, they have accessibility 24 7, and we find that there's less violations. Uh, typically it's always roofing inciting the, the biggest violations. Um, so, um, in essence, I mean the, the, the system is working on my end. Um, there's some, there's a lot of disconnects with other departments, which goes back to, I think the first time I, I met, uh, everyone here was how long it was taking to process the applications. I think, um, it's moving a lot faster, but it could be, uh, it could be a lot better than it is.

▶ 52:11 Speaker 4: Thank you.

▶ 52:14 Speaker 1: Anyone else? Counselor McMaster. Thank you,

▶ 52:16 Shawn M. MacMaster: Madam Chair. Good evening. Just wanted to go back to the education, uh, seminar line item. The increase there, um, just to be clear, is this for certifications, recertifications, or professional development?

▶ 52:28 Speaker 9: It's both. Um, seminars are professional development. I have, because the inspectors have different, um, requirements. Some are seminars, some are continuing education, like a way to measures is not, uh, it's, it, it, there is state, um, um, like courses that they take. But it's not like a huge, um, it's not as organized as, as the building department. Like, uh, the inspectors have it. Uh, I'm not sure if their association is, um, widespread. I think different, uh, municipalities don't, um, don't adhere to the same, uh, association. So I'm, I think I answered it. Thank you.

▶ 53:16 Speaker 1: Anyone else? Council Gepe? Yeah.

▶ 53:18 Mark Garipay: Uh, just a quick question on, um, on your email that you had sent out to us. Um, any events or changes you anticipate in, uh, FY 24? You have, uh, permitting software changes, recommend, uh, that's just recommended. That's not included in the budget, right? The, uh, OpenGov?

▶ 53:36 Speaker 9: No. I, um, yeah, I'm talking about OpenGov, but no, I, these are some of the changes that I hope to Okay. Um, to, um, uh, bring up. But, uh, no, they're, they're not on this. The only two items are the, uh, increase in the seminar and continuing education and for the part-time administrative assessment. But you're,

▶ 53:58 Mark Garipay: you are one of the departments that actually more than cover your budget, so, uh, and fees. And so it's, um, anything that we can do to try to make it more efficient and continue to generate more revenue, it's gonna pay for itself. You know, I would, uh, highly support. So, um, thank you. No more questions.

▶ 54:22 Speaker 1: Anyone else?

▶ 54:25 Leila Migliorelli: Motion to move the bottom line. Second. Motion to move the bottom line. Um, made by counselor sin. Uh, bottom line on 2 41 by counselor Son. Seconded by Counselor Williams. Anyone on discussion? Mr. Clerk?

▶ 54:40 Speaker 2: Councilor Gepe? Yes.

▶ 54:46 Speaker 2: Um, councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor son? Yes. Counselor Les? Yes. Counselor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Che? Yes. Counselor Williams? Yes. President Gu? Yes. And Chair Mcle? Yes. That's nine. Yes. Unanim,