APPRO-2023-26 : An Appropriation from Free Cash in the amount of $481,600 (Four Hundred Eighty One Thousand Six Hundred Dollars) to capital stabilization fund.

Transcript (~1 h 6 min @ 1:00:55)

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▶ 1:00:55 Leila Migliorelli: Next up is appropriation 2023 dash 26. An appropriation from free cash in the amount of $481,600 to designate a public works count set forth herein for the city to share of the purchase of an electric trash truck and charging infrastructure. Tonight we have Elena Pagus Ellis, director of D P W and J. Jim Troupe, deputy Director here with us tonight. Thank

▶ 1:01:22 Speaker 3: You. And Martha will be

▶ 1:01:24 Speaker 5: Joining us. And Martha as well.

▶ 1:01:33 Speaker 5: Arthur? Grover.

▶ 1:01:52 Speaker 3: Okay. Thank you. Um, this order, and I believe the next order on the agenda are related to one another. And, um, I do wanna just mention, so this order is a request for free cash, whereas the other is a request for, uh, grant acceptance with no, um, no cost associated. And so as we present this, we'll just clarify. Um, we're seeking to have the grant approval so that we can sign the contract with the state, um, in order to accept this grant. And they've told us that they need that ASAP because we've been asking for extension since January. Um, so that's sort of the, the critical path item. And then the request for free cash, it would allow us to, um, proceed with the purchase, but we'll get into the details. Um, Martha's gonna start out with some information about our electric vehicle program in general.

▶ 1:02:51 Speaker 5: Hi everyone. Martha Grover, sustainability manager for the City of Melrose. As you know, about a little over a year ago, the city adopted a net zero action plan, which laid out a goals for our buildings fleet and electricity supply, energy supply, uh, for the entire community. But it also a component of that, um, mandated, um, that the city lead by example in our buildings fleet and energy supply by removing carbon pollution, fossil fuels from all of those functions that we undertake. So in support of the fleet component, about a year ago, July, as of July 1st of this fiscal year, um, mayor Broder adopted a fleet, an electric vehicle, first fleet policy for all, um, municipal fleet vehicles. We, I think we were only the second or third community to adopt this kind of a policy. Um, and what it does is it sets out, uh, parameters, which is that we need to consider electric vehicles for all fleet replacements first, and as long as it's, uh, feasible and cost effective that we start the purchase of, um, electr vehicles to replace our existing fleet. So in support of this policy, we've been working with National Grid, who is all in on fleet electrification, um, through their Fleet Advisory Services program. We've been participating in this, um, program, which is supported by consultants to take our existing fleet, analyze it, and give us their algorithms and their, um, all of their inputs, uh, gives us some priorities and potential vehicles that have cost effective fleet replacements in that are electric for our fleet. And Elena has some of the details and she can share, share it with you. So it's, it's been a great service and we are, um, constantly, um, you know, we don't re we don't replace a lot of fleet vehicles very often. Um, probably not often enough, um, but I think it's been given us great guidepost and great, um, consultation along the way. They've connected us with a lot of vendors. Um, so anyway, just wanted to lay that out about how this fits in with the bigger plan for sustainability for, for the city. Thank you.

▶ 1:05:32 Speaker 3: So with that, um, from that Fast Program, national Grid identified which vehicles they would recommend for, um, electrification and which they thought were not practical or, or just were not there yet. Um, they're basically recommending that our snow plowing fleet is not there yet. There aren't vehicles that they think can, um, be charged quickly enough and also handle the additional electrical capacity needed for pushing all that snow. Um, so we're not there yet with, with plowing. Um, they did identify some of our light duty vehicles as a good fit for electrification. We did purchase, um, last year. The council approved with free cash, the purchase of five trucks. One of those five we identified, um, is not used for plowing and is a, um, pickup truck. So we ordered a Ford Lightning, which has not come in yet, but it's, uh, it's in production and hopefully we'll be here soon. But, um, so we've been trying to follow that mantra of the, um, electric first policy and we've been implementing it where we can. Um, last year when we presented to council on our vehicle replacement program, we also had a memo that we put together with a number of trucks that we listed as sort of the next in line for replacement. And of all those trucks, the National Grid Fast Program had identified our refuse trucks as a good candidate for electrification. So, um, I was actually just revisiting their report looking for these numbers, and I noticed, so they have a, a particular age at which they think Fleet should be retired. And so their recommendations, um, they showed us retiring 36 vehicles in year one because they all didn't meet their criteria for, for their age. So when Martha said, we, you know, don't replace vehicles as quickly as most, um, and we're actually in the process of working with a fleet consultant right now, and we are certain that their report is gonna highlight that we need to be investing more in our fleet. We need to have a regular program for replacement. We've been coming forward with about a half million dollars a year in free cash requests for Fleet the last few years. And we have that in the CIP p that we're working on right now at the Collins Center. That's our recommendation going forward, is at a minimum we should be investing half a million dollars a year. Um, the Fast program had some figures that I'm, I'm just going to repeat them. I'm not gonna say these are my numbers or that I can back them up, but they said the financial savings across 30 years for the refuse truck would be over a million dollars. Um, and, uh, 2086 metric tons, metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions over 30 years. So that was, they compared all of our trucks and that's where they said your most cost effective truck to replace, um, with electric right now is your referee trucks. So, building on that, uh, this summer, the, this Dura grant came up, where is it? Federal money? It's administered through Mass dep, but I believe it's, I think federal. It's better than money. Yeah. Um, and they will, they will contribute up to 45% of the cost of replacement vehicles and also of the charging infrastructure. So at that time, we started, um, the process of evaluating vehicles. We spoke to vendors. We, I started setting up meetings with vendors. We spoke to our reps for Peterbilt, Freightliner International Kenworth, um, a company called B Y D, which apparently stands for Build Your Dreams, which I think is an interesting, uh, vehicle manufacturer. But, um, and then through Freightliner, through our rep for Freightliner, they brought us to these crane carrier EVs that they felt were more applicable, um, and more readily available, um, to what we wanted to do. We very quickly identified that we did not wanna work with a manufacturer who doesn't manufacture a diesel equivalent of essentially the same truck, because if we're gonna be, um, you know, putting ourselves on the front line with investing in an electric vehicle, in a new technology, we did not wanna also be putting ourselves at the early stages of every other component of a vehicle. Um, we want every little component of window operators and door hardware and, you know, windshield wipers, every little thing. We want it to be tried and true. So that was one of our criteria going into it, is the company has to build equivalent diesel trucks. And then the only sort of new technology is the electrical components, um, similarly with the refuse body on these trucks. So we learned early on that the refuse body is still provided by a different manufacturer. And then those two manufacturers work together to make sure that the electrical components can operate the, um, the refuse body equipment. So the compactor on the back, we're looking only at rear loading, um, trucks cuz that's how we, we use truck 18. Um, and so they have to be able to coordinate where the electric components can also, um, drive the, the components of the refuse body. So we started working also with four different refuse body companies, load master curb tender ha, hail or hale and, uh, new way. So

▶ 1:11:26 Speaker 3: we did submit a memo that has a lot of details on this and I'm just gonna run through some of the highlights. So we own two refuse trucks and right now we are coming forward with a request to purchase the smaller of our two to replace the smaller one. The larger one is older, but the larger one is only used for yard waste collection. So we use it about 12 weeks out of the year. The smaller one we use every week of the year, and we use it for our own internal staff to pick up, um, solid waste and recycling from a hundred locations around the city that are the municipal barrels, downtown barrels, parks. Um, we pick those up every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We also pick up, um, well, and plus seasonally now we pick them up on Sundays, um, added last summer. We do metal goods pickups on Tuesdays. That's a scheduled, um, uh, collection that some of you may have taken advantage of. You get a sticker from us. And then we come on Tuesdays, we do the school dumpsters approximately daily. So that requires the equipment to be able to lift the dumpster, um, on the truck and then tip it into the truck. Um,

▶ 1:12:42 Speaker 3: and then we have a handful of dead ends that are a little tricky for J R M Republic to get their trucks up. You know, they do our, they're our contractor for our residential collection. Um, we do those on Friday mornings, we collect from those residences. So it's critical that our truck that we replace it with can have a similar size to still access those tight neighborhoods. Um, that it can still handle the loads from all the municipal barrels. It has to be sized appropriately. Um, so we, we honed in on about a 13 yard truck, um, to replace truck number 18, which is the smaller of our two packers. Uh,

▶ 1:13:23 Speaker 3: we got quotes that range from 452,000 to 498,500. The D grant was based on a cost of 492,000. So that's what we, um, have included for authorization here. That is on the higher side of our range of quotes that we have. But we wanted to be sure that we had enough money to go with whatever option we decided ultimately was the best option. And we do still plan to reach out. Um, some communities are using Mac, um, and we plan to reach out to them for price as well because they do seem to be, um, perhaps the industry leader right now in, uh, electric technology for refuse trucks. So the diesel equivalent, we did get a price from crane carrier who gave us three of the four quotes that we submitted. Um, their price,

▶ 1:14:17 Speaker 3: they just averaged the three different refuse bodies for the diesel truck. The diesel price was 298,000. And the price that we would pay as a worst case for our match is 270,600. So we're looking at a savings of about 28,000 just on the truck alone to buy the electric versus buying the diesel. Um, so because the electric truck truck is less money out of pocket than us for us than the diesel, that's why I did not try to quantify the savings of no longer having to pay for the diesel fuel and the difference in what we would pay for electrical costs. Um, but that's where national grids numbers come in, where they're estimating a million dollars over 30 years. Again, I don't have the backup for that information, but, um, that's what they've said.

▶ 1:15:09 Speaker 3: Um, so that's the truck. Then the charging infrastructure. So originally we had submitted the grant for 105,000. Um, that was the cost of the charging infrastructure. They awarded us 45% based on that cost. But once we got the vendor out to really look at what's required, we need a new electrical service from the street, we need a new transformer, and then we need the charging infrastructure. And so that all amounts to $311,000. We had thought about looking at ways to cut that down, but, um, by going with a, a slower charger charger. But we're finding that the incentives from National Grid are higher with the faster chargers and we're building for the future. We have this, this electric first policy and we don't wanna put in charging infrastructure that then can't charge whatever the next vehicle is. You know, if we really get into the heavy duty vehicle market, if, you know, new things come on the market that are able to plow snow and we need to be able to charge quickly to get back out on the road, we need to be thinking about those things. So ultimately, mayor Burer recommended that we stick with the fast, the DC fast charger and come in with the 311,000 worst case r component of that would be 211,000 because we'd have incentive payments from National Grid and the Deer Grant amounting to a hundred thousand. Um, so the total ask is 481,600. Um, I, in the last, um, eight months, I've learned more about electric vehicles and about refuse trucks than I've ever known before. And I've actually gotten extremely enthusiastic about this project. I think it's the right time for us to start investing in this infrastructure. I think it's great for us to get the charging infrastructure with some incentives and some money back as part of this program. I don't wanna lose the opportunity for the 268,000 that we can get through the Dear Grant. And, um, we're, I'm just excited and I hope the council will support our request.

▶ 1:17:21 Speaker 5: Thank you. Questions from counselors?

▶ 1:17:26 Speaker 5: Council Williams. Thank

▶ 1:17:30 Ryan Williams: You. Um, so you did not quantify the fuel savings, right?

▶ 1:17:33 Speaker 3: Correct. Okay. But the FAST program did attempt to quantify them, but no, I didn't feel that we could accurately assess how much electricity it would take to charge the truck overnight. Yeah.

▶ 1:17:45 Ryan Williams: Um, how much does it cost to run one shift of in in labor? Um, the municipal pickup route? I'm talking Main Street, the common those trash cans.

▶ 1:18:01 Speaker 3: So let's see if I estimate it's three days a week. Um, it's probably about four hours each of those days.

▶ 1:18:16 Speaker 3: Um, so 12 hours a week,

▶ 1:18:22 Speaker 3: I come up with $21,800.

▶ 1:18:25 Ryan Williams: Okay. So I've seen estimates ranging from like 15,000 to 35,000 in terms of how much money you save on diesel fuel using electricity instead of diesel fuel. Right. So my, my question is, with enough operational savings in these trucks, no oil, you know, no oil maintenance, no filters, you know, no fuel filters. Can we add, can we think about adding, uh, another pickup to the common for, um, for trash like a Saturday pickup?

▶ 1:18:57 Speaker 3: So we've added the Sunday morning pickup. Okay. Which I think helped this past summer. That was the first time we've done it. Um, the reports that I always get from the common, from our sanitation folks, especially our foreman, when I tell him, oh, we got complaints that they're overflowing barrels at the common, he has come back to me on several occasions with pictures of, I think we have seven barrels at the common and there will be one overflowing barrel and three other barrels within walking distance that are only half full. So, you know, maybe it's a matter of more strategically placing our barrels. Maybe if everybody keeps using one same barrel, maybe we need to put three there. And we did recently buy some new barrels that we are gonna, um, put in parks and also hope to put some artwork on them. Mm-hmm. Um, and so we could potentially increase capacity at those high frequency locations. Yeah. Um, you know, not necessarily need more pickups, just have more capacity in each pickup. Yeah.

▶ 1:19:54 Ryan Williams: Maybe. Right. So I went there, I was there yesterday, and the three that are on by the common market were like this high off the can and then had bags of trash all around the bottom, which I haven't seen to that extent. But I was thinking to myself, we're gonna get this new trash truck, it's gonna save us money. Maybe we couldn't like throw an extra, put plow that money back into the, the operations. Yeah. That was, That's, that's, that's the thought that I had. Um, generally speaking, this is fantastic. Right. Um, a lot of communities, as you've noted, have made climate commitments, but it's different to actually put your money where your mouth is and do it. And a trash truck is one of those things that slowly crawls down main street with a diesel plume that erupts a hundred to 150 feet out from the truck, you know, and we've got Parklets out there and we've got kids at the Common and those diesel fumes are running right along the street out into the, the play area. So this is like a win-win win for public health, for climate, you know, for noise, um, and for this city's budget. So hopefully support it and thank you for bringing it to us.

▶ 1:21:01 Speaker 3: Thank you. Yeah, it does. It is a, a use that has a lot of idling, a lot of stop and go. Mm-hmm. So a lot of fumes,

▶ 1:21:09 Ryan Williams: A lot of heavy rpm stop and go cuz they stop and then they gotta push the compactor in and then engine revs up and starts pumping exhaust out. So, yeah, I get it. It's great. Thank you. Thank you.

▶ 1:21:25 Mark Garipay: Anyone else? Councilor Garrett Pay. Thank you. Thank you all for being here. Um, I have a few questions. Um, let's electric vehicles, we all know they, they're here, they're here to stay. Um, my day job is leasing trucks. So, uh, um, we're seeing a large increase in light duty package delivery, electric vehicles. Um, the technology's there. It's, and eventually it's gonna continue on. I have a few questions regarding the electric refuse, um, truck that on the quotes were from Battle Yes. Company out of Ohio.

▶ 1:22:02 Mark Garipay: Um, do they have any local dealerships around here or are we buying it direct? And who would service that vehicle once it gets here?

▶ 1:22:10 Speaker 3: So their local dealership, they're the same, um, the same vendor who, uh, is our Freightliner vendor, they're out of Fruit Tree

▶ 1:22:22 Speaker 3: South Shore. Yeah. Yeah, they're local. They're on the South Shore, um, Boston Freightliner. Yeah, Yeah. Boston Freightliner. It's the same, the same vendor.

▶ 1:22:31 Mark Garipay: So, um, did we, I know we got a, so we got a quote, the quote came from Boston Freightliner. How come Boston Freightliner did not, um, they gave us a quote for a diesel one, uh, as a Peterbilt, which Israeli runs probably 20 to 30% higher than an international or a freight line, which is a good,

▶ 1:22:51 Speaker 3: They gave us a, the diesel quote is also a crane carrier. So the diesel quote we have, we have, we have a peterbuilt quote from our Peterbuilt rep, and then we have three, uh, we have four crane carrier quotes, one electric with a curb tender, one electric with a load master, one electric with Ohio, and then one diesel where they averaged the cost of the three different refuse bodies because they just weren't sure which one it would they would go with. But it was the equivalent diesel cabin in chassis to the cabin chassis of those three crane carrier, um, quotes. The, the Peterbilt quote is another electric quote.

▶ 1:23:31 Mark Garipay: Another electric quote. Okay. Um, how come we didn't, um, get a, get a price from International or Freightliner on a diesel or a electric vehicle? Only? Only because if we talk about consistency and we talk about maintenance and efficiency, we have mechanics in-house that all of our trucks are internationals and, and Freightliners. And we talk about parts availability and, and knowledge and education and training. Um, how come, how come we didn't look at an international or freight liner?

▶ 1:24:03 Speaker 3: So we did, when we started out, um, I contacted Allegiance Trucks, who's our international dealer. Mm-hmm. I spoke to Aaron, I have a bunch of notes here. He forwarded my information to a Jim Ramsey who handles their municipal accounts. I spoke to him about getting quotes. We never got a quote. Um, they never, they never supplied us with a quote with Freightliner. Um, that's where we ended up with Battle Motors. Um, I also spoke to Kenworth and Peterbilt, and then I spoke directly to Nue about the re refuse body. And I spoke to Donovan. Um, that was actually about another component that we were looking at, um, for another electric truck. But, so that was, those were our initial contacts and, and then that Build Your Dreams Company who came in and did a vendor demonstration for us. And then from there we went with the prices of whoever was responsive to us. So, um, international never provided us a price. Freightliner provided us the crane carrier price instead of their Freightliner price. Um, the only one who I think we really need to also get a price from at this point is Mac, because that's what Cambridge is purchasing. They're in the process of purchasing a number of refuse trucks. And that's what New York City's been using. Um, they've piloted a Mac Refuse truck for 11 months and they just purchased seven more. And I spoke with their fleet, uh, manager and he said that, that he recommends that we also get a price from Mac. So we are gonna continue this. The, the free cash request that we're making tonight is, as I mentioned, on the high end of all the costs that we've gotten to date. So we're confident that we can get a refuse truck with the amount that we're requesting, but we haven't decided on which truck we want. And I think it's gonna be important for us to drive these vehicles, talk more to other communities who've purchased them. Um, you know, we, we plan to do all of that due diligence. Um, we may even put out from a procurement standpoint, I'm not certain, um, if we can get state bid or source well pricing on any of these, or if we're gonna need to put out some sort of competitive procurement. Um, so we still have a, a process to go through to solidify those details.

▶ 1:26:25 Mark Garipay: So if we were to go with the battle, our service would be down in Avon at Boston Freight Liner all the way down there. Is that as closest

▶ 1:26:32 Speaker 3: Deal? I I believe that's for support offshore somewhere? Yes.

▶ 1:26:38 Mark Garipay: Um, my concern is, is reliability. Uh,

▶ 1:26:44 Mark Garipay: our company is heavily involved in electric vehicles on a lido on the package delivery. But when we get to the class seven and eight vehicles, I'm a little concerned about the infrastructure that we're gonna have in Melrose. Um, how many other, is, is Republic or Sela, are they buying a lot of these? Have they demoed them? I'm, I'm just worried that if we spend all this money and we can't keep it on the road, it affects the residents. It affects trash pickup up the Carmen and, and in the service to the community. So it's a very, very expensive piece of equipment. I don't feel confident in the reliability right now. Me personally, based on my experience on, uh, my work experience on the class seventh and eight vehicles, you've done a little bit more research than I have on the refuge. So

▶ 1:27:37 Speaker 3: Yeah, we did actually sell, sell Me. We just met with Waste Management. So we've been in the processes. Some of you may know our, our trash and recycling hauling and disposal contract ends next, uh, next June. So in order to enter into a new contract with a vendor, you have to do that over a year in advance. So we've been meeting with Waste Management, Sela and JRM Republic, um, and we were just meeting with Waste Management the other day and we were asking them what their experience has been. So they were piloting, um, I believe theirs was a Mac as well. Do you remember if they mentioned it was,

▶ 1:28:11 Speaker 2: It was applicable to what services that they were providing in terms of they had two different vendors that they had.

▶ 1:28:17 Speaker 3: So they've been piloting Class eight vehicles, we're looking for class seven, but they were piloting class eight. They found that, um, that they were reliable. Their only complaint was their using them for, um, automated pickups. So they are also, they also have the electrical load of that arm going all day long, which this truck wouldn't, we're just looking for a rear loader with manual for the municipal barrels. Um, they found that their only complaint is the truck doesn't go quite as long as they had hoped they're getting about six hours out of their truck. Um, but that's a whole lot of additional electrical load from the automated pickup. So, um, they felt that, you know, a a full day, you get a full day, um, without the automated. On a, on a related note for manual, um, the city of New York who's been piloting for 11 months, the Mac, Ellie, um, class eight 72,000, uh, gross vehicle weight. They said that they're getting, um, they run their trucks for about six hours a day. They have an eight hour shift. They run the trucks for about six hours, you know, if you subtract outbreaks and lunch and such. And they are only using half of the, the battery capacity for that six hour time period. Um, they're driving on average 10 to 13 miles a day and hauling on average, uh, 12 and a half tons of trash. So, um, they felt very comfortable. So they've, they've now, uh, purchased seven more of the same truck to, to build out their electric fleet. The one big difference in New York though is that they plow snow with their trash trucks, which is very different for us. Um, so they're still trying to figure out that piece cuz they're, they're not confident that these trucks are gonna be able to plow for them. Um, but they feel very confident in their use for the, um, for the refuse pickup.

▶ 1:30:15 Mark Garipay: I'm sorry, how long did you say Republic was, um, was demoing these or piloting?

▶ 1:30:20 Speaker 3: Uh, waste Management was piloting it for about a year.

▶ 1:30:25 Mark Garipay: A year. Yeah. And they're a multi-billion dollar company. I mean, I, they have all the infrastructure and the financial, well, we have withal to be able to, to handle these. Um, I just think it's a, at this size vehicle, it's a little, it's a little risky. Um, how many class seven and eight vehicles, you had mentioned that the National Good came in and looked at our fleet. Um, how many class seven and eight vehicles would be possible candidates for elec to convert over to electric if we're not gonna use it for plowing? We use our dump trucks for plowing. We use a lot of multi, we use our equipment for mul multiple uses. Uh, trash is dedicated. Um, so would there be any other large equipment coming in that would be electrical down the road?

▶ 1:31:08 Speaker 3: So the only ones they recommended for electrifying long term, they thought our street sweeper. But as you know, we just replaced that. So we certainly aren't gonna do that anytime soon. Um, they did have some heavy duty trucks that they recommended. These Sea Electric, um, Ford F seven 50 s, they're a retrofit on F seven 50 s. We did actually reach out to them for this project as well, and they told us that they're not making those anymore, but they, they show nine, um,

▶ 1:31:42 Speaker 3: nine vehicles. Is that, am I interpreting that correctly? Um, that they referred to as heavy trucks that they were recommending, um, in the long term. So those would presumably be our, our large salters. Um, we just purchased our new roll off and when we tried to do the math for that, for an electric, the, at the time a couple years ago when we placed the order, the um, finances didn't work out at all for the roll off. So, um, so we did purchase the diesel, but I would imagine by the next time we're replacing that truck, maybe that would be a candidate too.

▶ 1:32:20 Mark Garipay: I don't disagree. I think technology and then in 10 years will definitely definitely be there for the heavy duty vehicles. Um, so how many, how many did you say heavy duty trucks would, uh, be, uh, candidates for electric?

▶ 1:32:32 Speaker 3: It appears that they're recommending nine

▶ 1:32:35 Mark Garipay: Nine and none of those are used for plowing. Just so

▶ 1:32:38 Speaker 3: Well that's the issue. They're used for salting and, and some are used for plowing. So I mean, we wouldn't consider those at this time. Yeah, yeah. There'd have to be some more advancement in the market for, for us to feel comfortable plowing and salting with them. Yeah.

▶ 1:32:54 Mark Garipay: I know we have a need. I just, I'm, I'm just concerned with the reliability of investing all this money right now. Maybe it makes sense in the next go round, um, for this vehicle to, to go electric. Cuz we'll have, uh, some, some other vehicles also. We could just have one electric vehicle for the next eight or nine years at, at that capacity. Right. Um, the,

▶ 1:33:16 Speaker 2: the, what was it, the, the electric upgrade, the, what was it, the third,

▶ 1:33:23 Mark Garipay: there's three, three stages of the electrical upgrade. Right. And we're doing number three, um,

▶ 1:33:28 Speaker 3: The level three charging level

▶ 1:33:29 Mark Garipay: Three. Yeah. If we don't, if we don't go forward with an electric rubbish truck, do we need a level three upgrade for the city odd or would it be a level, level two?

▶ 1:33:40 Speaker 3: So we can actually, we've been told by New York that we can actually get away with level two charging for the refuse truck. Um, but the issue that we have is if we invest in all the infrastructure to just do the level two, we, national Grid has told us that they can't give incentives for sort of future proofing. So we can't necessarily get the electrical, all of the, uh, electrical service equipment into the site. If we're not doing the level three charger, they're not gonna give us the same incentives to put in the service that we would need for the level three charging the transformer that we would need. So we, we just didn't feel that we're building for the, for the possible future because the fast charging really comes into play when we're getting into the 24 7 operations storm response, you know, plowing, salting, um, the need for fast charging is gonna be there and we don't wanna build out a, you know, a fairly expensive bit of new infrastructure that only meets our needs for the next five years and doesn't last longer than that.

▶ 1:34:51 Mark Garipay: So if we move forward with an electric, um, refuse truck, we haven't got a price for Mac. So right now, the, the candidate is Battle

▶ 1:35:01 Speaker 3: Right. Or Peterbilt, they both fit into that price range. Okay.

▶ 1:35:06 Mark Garipay: And, um, because I, in an article I read from November of 2022, there were Battle had only had 50 units in service. They have a bunch of orders, but they'd only had 50 units in service. Right now, I just think, I'm just nervous that we're investing all this money and, and, and not, and not gonna have the reliability. So, um, those are all my questions at this point.

▶ 1:35:31 Speaker 5: Thank you Counselor Gepe. Counselor Stewart.

▶ 1:35:35 Robb Stewart: Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Mr. Tru, miss Grover and Ms. Fe Gonzalez for being here tonight. Uh, appreciate you being so prepared. Um, just couple, have you driven one, have you seen it? Have you demoed it? Has any of your folks given you feedback on it?

▶ 1:35:50 Speaker 3: We have not demoed it, but we've, uh, all, so all of our operations folks have been involved in all of the meetings that we've had. Um, I say all of our operations folks, our, our, uh, operations foreman, our, um, highway foreman and our operations manager as well as Jim and myself, have been in all these meetings. Um, they're very enthusiastic about seeing, uh, and trying out this equipment. They've been to trade shows where they've seen some equipment, but they haven't been allowed to drive it. Um, there was an alt alt motors, alt wheels, alt wheels, um, conference they went to. And, and we're planning on going to more of those, um, the Battle Motors. Uh, if we end up with the crane carrier, that's what we ultimately select. Or even if it's not, they have offered that we can visit the manufacturing facility in Akron, Ohio and we can drive these trucks. They're actually manufacturing three of them right now. Um, so they're, they're manufacturing them ahead of selling them at this point because they just want to have them available to try to sort of get a jumpstart on the communities who want something right away being the, the one company that has them in stock. Um, and our operations folks are enthusiastic about the possibility of actually flying out there and, and trying out these trucks. I do think if we're gonna buy something, I think we should, we should test drive it. We should make sure that we're comfortable with it.

▶ 1:37:23 Speaker 1: You know, it,

▶ 1:37:25 Speaker 3: as long as it's within reason for us to get there, I think it's something that we hope to do.

▶ 1:37:34 Robb Stewart: Great. Thanks. Um, this might be a question from Ms. Grover. Do, do you understand the, the battery life of these, what's the expected battery li battery life of these vehicles?

▶ 1:37:43 Speaker 5: I don't know whether that was included in this quote.

▶ 1:37:46 Robb Stewart: Eight to 10 years is what I I

▶ 1:37:48 Speaker 5: Think it's 10 years is the standard.

▶ 1:37:51 Speaker 4: So we would have to replace it. There's

▶ 1:37:53 Speaker 5: A lot of, I mean, there's a lot of new, new things happening in the battery world and I think that they're getting smaller and lasting longer. I I don't know specific to these, what, what they, the batteries that these companies are using.

▶ 1:38:06 Robb Stewart: Yeah. Because it's my understanding that the battery is an extremely expensive part of the vehicle and if you, the battery's gone, you pretty much have to replace the vehicle is the way I understand it. Or you have to go through significant cost to replace that battery. I just want to make sure I understand that.

▶ 1:38:26 Speaker 3: That's something we'd have to follow up with the different vendors on.

▶ 1:38:29 Speaker 4: Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um,

▶ 1:38:32 Robb Stewart: how many communities currently do this in mass besides Boston and Cambridge? I'm aware of those two are, there are the other communities that have,

▶ 1:38:42 Speaker 5: I'm not aware Of. I know some are buying buses, you know, Beverly's been in the,

▶ 1:38:46 Speaker 4: I'm talking about the, the trash,

▶ 1:38:47 Speaker 5: But the, I mean, that's pretty much the same large battery, um, technology. Um,

▶ 1:38:54 Speaker 3: The cabin chassis is the

▶ 1:38:55 Speaker 5: Same. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I'm not sure of others who are doing the ruse truck. Okay. Use case. Yeah. But there are many that are doing buses, electric buses

▶ 1:39:08 Speaker 3: Also. The Peter built the, um, the two 20 ev and the green carrier. They're, they're the, they're those manufacturers standard class seven electric vehicle. So they're selling these as delivery trucks. They're selling them as, you know, box trucks. Um, most of the, you know, pictures in the brochures are box trucks, delivery trucks, that sort of thing. And so this is just, this is the same cabin chassis. It just has a different body on the back.

▶ 1:39:41 Robb Stewart: Right. Okay. Madam Chair, uh, um, I'm all for, uh, electrification in the, the net zero goals. My concern here tonight is that there are a lot of unanswered questions and whereas I don't want to, um, preclude the goals of the administration now and in the future, I'd be very reluctant to vote if this came to vote tonight. So, uh, I just want to pass it along and through the chair to the, to the council. Thank you Madam Chair.

▶ 1:40:10 Speaker 5: Thank you. Councilor Stewart, president Greg Reis.

▶ 1:40:13 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you, Madame Chair. Um, thank you all for being here tonight and for such a comprehensive explanation. Um, I do want to just highlight the incredible work that you three and I'm sure many others have done, and that this is an example of the partnership and the cross collaboration among city departments. That's really, really exciting to see. And the amount of information you provided is incredible. I really appreciated the direct outreach from Ms. Perellis at, you know, to have an opportunity to answer questions like you did it. All right. Thank you. Um, it, it does not, it goes, it's noticed. Um, I just wanted to ask a couple follow up questions as it relates to the actual timeline of getting the vehicle. You had mentioned that we may have to go through a procurement process, given that this would exceed the $150,000, which I think is the threshold for the municipality, for municipal contracts. Um, if we need to do that, what do you think is a realistic timeline if this is approved from when we would actually have this vehicle?

▶ 1:41:06 Speaker 3: So if this is approved, if the funding and the grant acceptance are approved tonight, our intention would be to move immediately on the charging infrastructure. We have a vendor, we, it's within procurement thresholds. We're able to move on that immediately. And there's a lot of work to be done there with the new electrical service, the new transformer, you know, national grid timelines can, can take a while. Um, so we would move immediately on that and I think we would be lucky to have the charging infrastructure in place. Um, I think realistically we'd be looking at maybe nine months to a year, but if we, um, were lucky, maybe we'd be looking at six months, but I, I think the more realistic timeframe is the nine months to a year. Yeah, I say nine months to a year. Um, so during that time, we would continue our due diligence on which truck we want to purchase and, and if we had the free cash, um, allocated tonight, we would know what our total budget is, you know, the outside limit of our budget. Um, and we would just continue these meetings with the various vendors and putting a specification together. Um, I had a fantastic conversation with New York about what they recommended we put into our, um, solicitation if we do like a competitive bid. Um, they were suggesting lead times should be a factor, um, warranties, uh, where, similar to what Council Gar Repair was saying, where the local dealer is, where the local service center is, um, you know, setting limits on that, that has to be within a certain radius, um, right sizing all of the equipment to our actual, uh, usage. So we would spend a little bit of time putting all that together and could put that out to bid as soon as we, you know, have our ducks in a row with the solicitation documents. Um, so I think if the charging infrastructure was here in a year, the, the truck would probably be following along shortly thereafter. If we go with crane carrier and we go with the load master, uh, no, the curb tender body, that's what they're building right now. Now in Ohio, three of them that they haven't sold to anyone yet. So they said, oh, we could have a truck for you in a few months, but that's only if we buy that one specific truck. And I'm not sure that that's the one we would pick.

▶ 1:43:42 Jen Grigoraitis: Okay. So probably this is a, you know, the reality is this is a year out. Do you think the existing trash truck, given all of the comments about the, um, our elderly fleet, um, is gonna survive that long?

▶ 1:43:55 Speaker 3: Yes. We actually are required by this, by the Dira grant program to replace a truck that we say has three years of useful life left. So we are, our plan is to keep that limping long. We did, uh, put some significant money into it a couple years ago on the engine. So, um, you know, it's rusting. It's, it's not in good shape, but I think we can keep it working.

▶ 1:44:21 Jen Grigoraitis: Okay. Thank you. And I just, through the chair, I, I hear counselor Stewart's concerns. I don't think that I necessarily share them. I think this is the future. I'm excited to see us moving forward and upholding our commitment. I do know for me personally, recognizing this is a significant chunk of free cash and we are still awaiting final numbers for the school budget. That feels tricky for me. That is not the problem or responsibility of any of the three of you. I recognize that I'm in support of this. I do wish the timing was such that we were talking about this after we had some confidence about the schools. But again, that's not, um, your issue. That's the challenge that all of us agreed to be a part of with this. So I am in support of seeing this move forward. Thank you. Thank you. Councilor

▶ 1:45:01 Speaker 5: Eccles.

▶ 1:45:02 Jack Eccles: Thank you Madam Chair. Um, talking about the current state a little bit, what do we do when the unit we're replacing needs an oil change or we need to spend some money on the engine? How do we approach that today

▶ 1:45:16 Speaker 3: Through our operating budget

▶ 1:45:18 Jack Eccles: And how do we approach it from as far like a replacement in operations?

▶ 1:45:23 Speaker 3: I'm not sure I understand the question.

▶ 1:45:24 Jack Eccles: So it'll be offline for X amount of time.

▶ 1:45:28 Speaker 3: Oh, right, yes. Um, when we, when we had to take the truck offline for a significant amount of time, we did have to have a vendor come in and do the school dumpsters for us. Um, what did we do the municipal trash with?

▶ 1:45:43 Speaker 2: Yeah, we would take advantage of the other truck in that situation. It would be very challenging to get up to those one way streets and what have you. But, uh, the other option would be to reach out to our current vendor Republic mm-hmm. Or somebody else that would be able to supplement that type of a service. There's some small, uh, local, uh, waste haulers that would be able to subsidize that, but it's, uh, extremely cost-prohibitive to enter into a long-term agreement for that.

▶ 1:46:11 Jack Eccles: In in what frequency does this happen and what's the usual reason that that truck would go offline? We,

▶ 1:46:18 Speaker 2: We reached out once in maybe the last six to nine months for an outside vendor, not Republic, to come in and do that. And that was because of an extensive repair necessary to that truck that we couldn't service in-house.

▶ 1:46:33 Speaker 9: What was the repair,

▶ 1:46:35 Speaker 2: If I remember correctly, there was a hydraulic line that, uh, had busted and, uh, needed to be replaced and it was fairly extensive.

▶ 1:46:44 Jack Eccles: Got it. And then Ms. Pergo, you mentioned that we put significant money into the engine. What's significant and did that take the truck offline?

▶ 1:46:55 Speaker 3: Um, that did take the truck offline, and I think I have that, um,

▶ 1:47:02 Speaker 3: in the memo from last year's fleet assessment, uh, we invested 22,000 to rebuild the engine. Um, that was probably in 2021.

▶ 1:47:12 Speaker 2: And, and it should also be noted too that there was some welding work that needed to get done. So that number would approach approximately 30,000 if we wanna throw a true number to that.

▶ 1:47:23 Jack Eccles: Got it. Um, I guess what I'm getting at is just that there's, you know, costs that are incurred by diesel engines and they're taking offline often for transmissions, oil changes that aren't part of electric vehicles. And so electric vehicles, there may be some risk, but you know, it's not, we're not, uh, achieving 100% uptime on our diesel fleet either. Um, I'm in agreement with President Krugers that this is a good way to invest in our kind of what we've all stated is our next step with the Climate action plan. And I am in favor of this tonight.

▶ 1:48:00 Speaker 5: Thank you. Council Echoes Cremsky.

▶ 1:48:02 Speaker 4: Um, I, I know you said the state of the Feds need an answer on the grant, A s A P. Do you have a time, like an exact timeline on that? Cause my concerns, I share the same concerns as, uh, gigit in the context of the school budget and where we're going with that. I know that's not, uh, she said, you know, your concern, but do you have, like, when you say asap, what is that timeline?

▶ 1:48:28 Speaker 3: So my answer here is twofold. One, uh, the grant was awarded to us in January and they wanted us to sign it within two weeks. Right. And we've been asking for an extensions ever since. And so we had a call about two weeks ago now with, um, the grant administrator from D E P and we said, you know, how much longer can we take? And she said, you really, you have to sign it. Like we can't just keep holding on this. So this was like a, you know, sign it as quickly as you possibly can. She did say there's zero obligation to signing the grant paperwork. If we sign it, we just get in the queue to get the money and our 268,000 gets set aside for us. Mm-hmm. And then if we decide not to purchase the trucks, or if you were to not pass, if you were to accept the grant, um, but not ever pass the free cash and we can't proceed with the purchase, there's no risk that we just tear up the contract and Right. So there's no harm there. So in my mind, signing of the grant just to secure the money is kind of a no-brainer because why would we lose the opportunity? Um, the second half of my answer pertains to the overall budget. I did meet with, uh, CFO Del Russo today and asked the exact same question because I knew this was going to come up. Um, he indicated that he has money set aside that he plans additional money, um, that he plans to set aside further for the schools and that this component of the free cash, because we would normally be coming forth every year with a vehicle, um, request that if, if this doesn't go, this 481,000 doesn't go toward this purchase, then he fully expects that we will resubmit for a free cash request for additional vehicles for the next vehicles in line. Right. And come before the council with that request and that he supports that use of those funds. Right. So he, he doesn't see this as related to the filling of the gap on the schools because he has other funding that he's setting aside for that.

▶ 1:50:33 Speaker 4: Okay. So if we approved the grant this evening and waited on the free cash until we saw the school budget, that would be something that we could possibly do

▶ 1:50:42 Speaker 3: That would be feasible. Yes. Thank

▶ 1:50:44 Speaker 4: You. All right. Thank you.

▶ 1:50:47 Speaker 5: Um, anyone else for the first time? Counselor Stewart? Second time.

▶ 1:50:54 Robb Stewart: Thank you Madam Chair. Um, so, so I just want to clarify, I think what Councilor Osky was leading toward is if we approve the grant tonight, but we either hold this order for the

▶ 1:51:14 Robb Stewart: purchase until a later date, there'll be no impact on that grant. And that would give you time to sort through the remaining questions that seems like you have open right now.

▶ 1:51:25 Speaker 3: Correct.

▶ 1:51:26 Robb Stewart: Okay. Thank you Mr. Ellis. Thank you. Mad chair

▶ 1:51:30 Speaker 5: Council. Gar,

▶ 1:51:31 Mark Garipay: When you were talking about the, uh, million dollar savings, was it over 30 years, was that just for the refuse truck or was that for our whole place?

▶ 1:51:37 Speaker 3: That was specific to the re refuse truck from the National Grid, uh, fleet advisory program report. Okay. I think it was,

▶ 1:51:42 Speaker 5: but it was for more than one.

▶ 1:51:44 Speaker 2: Yeah.

▶ 1:51:45 Speaker 3: And it, oh, okay. Yeah, that was for, that's what, and it's for across 30 years, so I'm not sure. Yeah, I guess it says for five. I'm not sure why. Yeah. Or the five, we don't have five refuse trucks. So Yeah. So I guess by that, if it, if this is five refuse trucks,

▶ 1:52:06 Speaker 3: um, yeah,

▶ 1:52:09 Speaker 3: I mean I presumably that would come out to 200,000 a year, I mean, uh, per truck over the 30 years. So again, that's why I was saying I don't, I don't have any backup for this information. This is just what was out of their report and I wouldn't, um,

▶ 1:52:28 Speaker 3: pretend to know exactly how they calculated those numbers.

▶ 1:52:31 Speaker 2: And typically, um, Mr. Tru, a 12 year old rubbish truck diesel right now is gonna ha 12 years old is gonna need it extensive repairs. Correct. No matter, it's not like we're getting a new one. Right. So, correct. Yeah. That's not uncommon to have to rebuild an engine for 22,000. Right. No, and and I think it should also be noted that, uh, when we do get the report back from the consultant that they're talking about as we are extending the life of these vehicles mm-hmm. We're significantly spending more money to keep them on the road than it would be to replace the vehicles. And that's the challenge that we face right now. And I, and I, one one thing to note too is, you know, I can understand the fear of this as maybe being new technology, but the other thing that we want to invest in is, is our staff and to be able to service these vehicles. And this would create a tremendous opportunity and launching PAD for our in-house mechanic staff to get properly trained, not only to service this electric refuse truck, but also electric vehicles that may be coming down the path in the future. And I, I I, I'm looking at this as a tremendous springboard opportunity to make Melrose a, a leader in the electrifying of the fleet, whether it's the electric truck or not. That remains obviously to be seen.

▶ 1:53:49 Mark Garipay: I, um, I hear what you're saying. Um, I still think, um, I could support a diesel truck. I think right now we have some major funding issues that are gonna be coming up I for over the next year, and if anywhere we can save, I I see this is costing us an extra about $200,000. We're all all in. So, um, yeah, I, I understand what you're saying. I just don't know that I'm, I'm, I'm there yet on, on this boat.

▶ 1:54:18 Speaker 5: So just one note on the, on the long term expense is that putting in electric vehicles at D P W and putting in the required infrastructure is going to require new transformer new. I mean that's, that's a lot of this cost. The extra $200,000, it's, it's very expensive to do. And um, it would be practic, it's all new because it's, everything that's there is maxed out all right now. Um, so that expense is gonna have to happen anyway either this year or next year or the following year. Cuz as we electrify our fleet, we've got to bring in, um, new infrastructure.

▶ 1:55:01 Speaker 3: Right now we are plugging in our two Ford Focus electric vehicles. We're plugging them into an outlet on the front of the building and the outlet doesn't have the capacity to charge both at once. So we alternate whether my vehicle or facility manager Jay McNeil's vehicle gets charged each day. And when the Ford Lightning comes, that's gonna be plugging into another outlet on a different circuit elsewhere outside the building because we don't have any electric charging infrastructure and we don't have the capacity to add it without the new transformer.

▶ 1:55:34 Speaker 5: The the other thing that was made clear to us by National Grid, they have a new, they have new 500 million of, um, rate payer funds that they're using to fund electric vehicle infrastructure across the Commonwealth. And um, we can only access those funds once per location. So the, there's another incentive to kind of do it right this first time and to maximize the incentives at our one and only bite at this particular Apple.

▶ 1:56:07 Speaker 5: Um, I have some questions, um, before entertaining a motion, um,

▶ 1:56:12 Leila Migliorelli: which my counselors, fellow counselors have asked, but just getting some clarification, my personal concerns too, or have nothing to do with the project itself because I agree this has been well presented, well thought out and we need to be moving forward, um, on electrifying our fleet. Um, my concern as others have voiced, are about the other things that are on our plate in terms of prioritizing. Um,

▶ 1:56:38 Speaker 10: so I guess,

▶ 1:56:40 Speaker 5: and particularly the size of the free cash request, if we are, if we support this grant,

▶ 1:56:48 Leila Migliorelli: the remaining amount in free cash is more or less based on whatever vehicle you you ultimately pick. And this, this, this total amount is just based on a range of what you've heard. But it could go up, it could go down. Um, and I guess my question is on the timing. So if this is, you know, I wrote down nine to 12 months before it gets in, at what point would you need the infusion of free cash to, for the remainder? Like is it now to go out to bid? Or like how much, how much time do we have for the city to, um, contribute to this vehicle?

▶ 1:57:31 Speaker 3: So It's kind of a tough question because the, the charging infrastructure on the one hand, we really want to act on that as quickly as possible. So we maximize our incentives and you know, just get that moving on the truck end. I feel like we do have a little bit of time as we solidify, you know, we could put out a solicitation, get the prices back and have a specific truck that we're recommending before we need the exact amount of free cash. Um,

▶ 1:57:59 Speaker 3: but in order to proceed with the grant, they really kind of go hand in hand. So, you know, I,

▶ 1:58:08 Speaker 3: I don't think we could necessarily act on the charging infrastructure if we don't know that we're going to be able to purchase the truck.

▶ 1:58:14 Leila Migliorelli: So. Okay. So cuz the grant itself is 268,000 for installation of one rubbish truck and the charging station. Correct. And then the free cash is covering the remainder of both. It's not like one is being taken care of. And I think you made a compelling case for why we need new charging equipment because, uh, we need to not be charging things off of an electric, uh, outlet in front of a building. Um, and the reasons why. So the grant, when the grant was submitted, did you have a sense of how much of a free cash request you would need to have at, at that or the, when you applied for the grant?

▶ 1:58:53 Speaker 3: We did apply. Uh, so we applied for them to cover the full 45% of the truck price that we submitted at that time, which was a little higher. The prices have come down a little in the trucks, um, and the charging infrastructure that we thought would be sufficient, but we found that because we didn't have the electrical capacity once we got farther down the, down the process, so we, uh, the state gave us a little bit less money than we asked for. Um, and then the charging component ended up, the quote was a little bit, was a bit more money than we asked for, so we wouldn't have had the right number with the free cash request at that time. Now we have real numbers, we have real quotes on both the charging and the truck. If we were certain that we wanted one specific, one of these quotes of these trucks, we could go out and execute the purchases immediately. Um, and we know that the free cash amount we've requested can cover any of those scenarios, but, um, but it is true that with the way we're approaching it right now, we could end up with a little more free cash than we actually need when we go to make the purchases. And we've said in our memo that we would apply that to additional charging stations, additional ports for the D p w. Um, but that doesn't have to be what would happen with any excess.

▶ 2:00:19 Speaker 5: Okay. Thank you Cremsky. Uh,

▶ 2:00:23 Speaker 4: Move to accept grant 20 23 11 and send to the full counsel for approval.

▶ 2:00:30 Leila Migliorelli: I think for now we have to vote on the, what's the first order in front of us, which is the free cash order. Um, that's appropriation. Um, 2023 dash 26. And then next is the grant, 2023 dash 11. So right now in front of us we're, we have appropriation 2023 dash 26,

▶ 2:00:52 Speaker 5: which is the free cash portion. Counselor Carmie. So I'd like to make a motion to hold, uh, appropriation 2023. 2026 in committee.

▶ 2:01:01 Speaker 4: Second,

▶ 2:01:02 Leila Migliorelli: Motion to hold, made by Counselor Carmie, seconded by Counselor Stewart on discussion.

▶ 2:01:09 Speaker 6: Councilor Stewart.

▶ 2:01:13 Robb Stewart: Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, uh, I appreciate the, the motion to hold in, in committee by, uh, my fellow counselor as, uh, I, I just, I worry if that we vote on this, uh, and it passes at this point right now, before we're in full budget,

▶ 2:01:31 Robb Stewart: the optics of the difficult situations that we've had over this past year and the priorities that this, that has been brought to us by the administration, then all of a sudden this comes up as a half a million dollar purchase. And I know that free cash is different than the operating budget, but it's the optics that I worry about in that this is something where there are certain things that we can still get answers for. I think that would clarify, uh, a number of the questions. Uh, it would be my concern that if we did not hold this in committee, we voted on this, it, it's putting both sides at odds. I think this is an opportunity for us to get more, to give a little time to get more answers. Thank you. Mad chair,

▶ 2:02:21 Manjula Karamcheti: Councilor Carm Shady. Yeah, I think that, uh, holding this committee gives us the opportunity to,

▶ 2:02:30 Manjula Karamcheti: I th Hold on, let me back up. Clearly, I think from the counselors who have asked questions, there is interest in this, and you've brought us very thoughtful information. Good rationale and reasoning for moving forward with this in some way, shape, or form. I think it is. The pieces outside of what you can control that are, I think, impacting. I know my desire to wait, so we have a better picture of the finances of the city and other priorities that we deem very important explicitly the school department and our needs there. Um, so I think this gives us the opportunity to get more information on, on those pieces so we can feel comfortable about moving forward with this.

▶ 2:03:18 Speaker 5: Councilor Gepe?

▶ 2:03:22 Mark Garipay: Yeah. Um, just to the makers of the motion, I guess, uh, uh, what type of information are we looking for back, um, from, from the group in front of us? From this group? Yeah. Are we just holding it or are we requesting more information, uh,

▶ 2:03:36 Manjula Karamcheti: Through the chair? I think I, what I was trying to express was that it isn't actually this group that we need, uh, that I need further information from. We have some other meetings coming up, our joint meeting with the school committee where the mayor's presenting to us. Having some of that information, I know for me, and that is a priority, will be helpful in whether other spaces where we're spending free cash make sense at this time.

▶ 2:04:03 Mark Garipay: Okay. And if I could just make a request, um, you talked about a Mac option for Can, can we see if we can get a price also on a, on a Mac? Only because the more research I did with, um, um, Brattle, uh, which used to be, um, the, uh, carrier crane carrier, yep. They've been rebranded new owner in the last two years. I've just want a little bit more information. Max, a rep, reputable company that's been around for years, been building trucks, so I'm a little nervous on, on, on a company that's just been rebranded and fairly new. Um, on, on the electric side of rubbers. They've made LNGs, they've made diesel. Um, but I'd like, I'd like to, to see another price, just to see where that stands. It might make me more comfortable in making this decision. Okay. Definitely.

▶ 2:04:57 Speaker 5: Anyone else on discussion? President Greg.

▶ 2:04:59 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, just a few points on it. I wanna see this succeed. I think this is a great idea and we need to do it. I also recognize that for this to succeed, it needs six votes in this committee and then eight votes in the full council. I think if it a little bit more time to get through what feels like a particularly momentous 48 hours from a city finance perspective, um, enables my colleagues to feel like they're able to get either the bigger picture information that we're all looking for or some more specifics. That to me feels like, um, a good use of a few extra days. Also, because we're entering budget season, this committee meets every Monday and every Thursday from now through, um, the end of June. So I feel I would, you know, certainly encourage that this is something we take up quickly so that we can get you all hopefully moving forward.

▶ 2:05:46 Speaker 5: That's my comment. Anyone else on discussion? Council Eccles,

▶ 2:05:49 Jack Eccles: I guess just through the chair, that would put us at the council meeting, which would be two weeks from next Monday.

▶ 2:06:01 Speaker 9: And we don't see any risk approving this free cash at that point.

▶ 2:06:04 Speaker 3: No. I, I am hopeful that the, that the council will consider approving the grant acceptance tonight. That's where the risk lies. Right.

▶ 2:06:12 Speaker 9: Cool. Thank you.

▶ 2:06:16 Speaker 5: Anyone else on discussion? None.

▶ 2:06:20 Leila Migliorelli: The motion on the, uh, floor is to hold the, um, free cash order in committee. Mr. Clerk,

▶ 2:06:31 Speaker 2: Vice Chair Jam. Jamal Dean? Yes. Councilor son? Yes. Counselor Les? Yes. Councilor Gepe? Yes. Counselor Stewart? Yes. Counselor Carcetti. Yes. Cremsky? Yes. Counselor Williams? Yes. President? Yes. And Chair Maguire? Yes. That's 10. Yes.