ORDER-2023-15 : Acceptance of Two Grants from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Community Compact Best Practices Program in the amounts of $35,000 and $25,000

Transcript (~15 min @ 2:10)

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▶ 2:09 Shawn M. MacMaster: Thank you councilor McMaster. Did you was gonna make a motion to holding committee, but If it's the desire the chair to wait and

▶ 2:15 Leila Migliorelli: see if okay, well wait and see if they show so we'll move on to the next order order 2023 acceptance of two grants from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Community compact best practices program and the amounts of 35,025,000. This is also sponsored by mayor Broder and tonight. We have the director of strategic initiatives Margaret Margo Margot Fleischman. Sorry to speak on this order.

▶ 2:41 Speaker 4: Good evening, Madam chair members of the committee. Thank you so much for this opportunity to come and tell you a little bit about these two grants that the city has obtained from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts consistent with mayor broder's focus on making making needed investments in cities infrastructure. We recently applied for and received two grants from the community compact best practices program one for developing a new capital Improvement plan. And the other one for improving our Fleet Management at DPW. The reason we applied for these best practice areas was to build upon and improve what we're already doing relative to our Capital planning. Thanks to our CIP leadership team Denise Gaffey and Martha Grover. We've made great strides in catching up with the backlog of infrastructure needs in the city and we're excited to take our Capital planning to the next level. By creating a capital plan that matches our Capital needs to our financial capacity to meet them through a robust Financial strategy. So we'll work with consultant team from the Collins Center at UMass Boston to develop a new CIP document that outlines the capital investment strategy and a proposed five-year project plan. So the goal is to create a multi-year capital plan that's realistic and tied to our ability to pay for the necessary Investments to keep up with our Capital needs over time. The Consultants will help us Gather Comprehensive information about all of our known Capital needs across every department and will also assist us with our scoring methodology. They'll also work with closely with our CFO with our financial advisors and with Bond Council to review our current and future year budget and debt projections history of New Growth stabilization fund balances and free cash to determine what resources might be made available over the five years for investments in capital projects at the end of the project. The Collins Center will provide us with a capital project plan workbook spreadsheet tool and our new comprehensive five-year Capital Improvement plan. So the ultimate goal is to create a sustainable multi-year Capital Improvement plan that we can continue to gain internally, utilizing the methodology provided by the Collins Center. And we're also excited for the other Grant which we receive for the community compact best practices program that'll help build our capacity to make data-driven decisions about our Fleet replacement schedule, which is another important component of our Capital planning. The reason we applied for Fleet Management best practice was that we see the need at the DPW to improve our existing Fleet Management operations, and also to create that multi-year replacement plan that allows us to meet both industry recommendations for our vehicles for their lifespan. But also to meet the city's goals for Fleet electrification. We have an aging Fleet and expected lifespan both in miles and age of majority of vehicles and service has surpassed its useful lifespan. And while the DPW does work diligently on an annual basis to specify which vehicles might be ready for targeted for replacement the lack of the comprehensive multi-year vehicle replacement plan is a something that can jeopardize the level surface that the residents expect from the DPW as well as safety hazards for the DPW staff. The other important thing to know is that we have really recently adopted electric vehicle replacement policies, and we've invested a lot of time in planning for Fleet electrification in partnership with the National Grid Fleet advisory Services Program. So DPW will be able to use this grant funding to engage with a consultant to help with us Implement a Fleet Management plan assist in optimizing the software system that we already have to assess our Fleet and identify training opportunities and materials or other operational changes that would move that process forward. So we anticipate that these two best practice grants for Fleet Management and and capital planning will complement each other and we're really excited to move forward with this robust data-driven project in the months and year ahead.

▶ 6:56 Speaker 5: Thank you.

▶ 6:57 Speaker 2: And counselors the questions counselor Stewart. Thank you

▶ 6:59 Speaker 6: madam chair.

▶ 7:01 Robb Stewart: Thank you, Miss Fleischman for being here and giving us a very helpful overview that complements. What was put out in. The documents that were provided to us regarding the capital planning the output that you talked about. Is that going to be publicly available?

▶ 7:18 Speaker 4: Yes, it will be consistent with our Capital planning processes as they are now where they're the final document is publicly available at the only difference will be that it will be a little bit more fleshed out in terms of

▶ 7:32 Robb Stewart: out years. Okay, and if I'm to understand what the output will be it's going to be. Basically a forecast of what we expect to spend over the next five years that will be capitalized.

▶ 7:46 Speaker 4: Ideally would be would be a very comprehensive look at what the capital needs are expected to be obviously that changes over time. And what our expected level investment is matched against the need so in all likelihood you won't be able to fill 100% of the need with 100% of the capacity, but you'll have a good snapshot of what we anticipate being able to afford.

▶ 8:13 Robb Stewart: great and just as feedback, this is something that I've been asking for for quite a while now the reason being is When a request a capitalized request is brought to the council where we don't have anything to compare or understand in terms of forecast. That's fairly Concrete in nature to compare and make Well informed decisions, I think this will help quite a bit, and I'm actually very excited to see the output of this. So I'm in full support of this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you

▶ 8:45 Speaker 2: counselor, sir. Counselor Gary. Thank you.

▶ 8:47 Mark Garipay: Thank you for being here on the Currently on the current on the current capital Improvement plan. We have a b c based on priorities. So my assumption are they going to use that as like a boil plate this the consultant firm that's going to be coming in when they're

▶ 9:04 Speaker 4: So the consultant firm will work with the city internally and with member, you know stakeholders to to integrate our current practices the things that we see as being the valuable portions of our current practice into what they will propose. They do have a scoring system that's very similar to the one that the current committee uses. It's a little bit more automated and help, you know streamline the process a little bit but basically those same sort of life or limb Public Safety critical failure systems those sorts of things are integrated in the same way. It may not wind up being category a b and c but it would create a ranked prioritization list similar to what we see now.

▶ 9:48 Mark Garipay: Would okay. I guess my other question is the amount of money that we're getting in these grants will to cover for the cost of the Consultants or will there be more will the administration be

▶ 10:00 Speaker 4: coming back from more money? No, we anticipate that. This is sufficient to hire the Consultants to do these tasks.

▶ 10:05 Speaker 3: Thank you.

▶ 10:08 Ryan Williams: Council Williams, thank you. So when I'm reading through the Memo it says the plan that will meet the community's needs and I'm reading through the rest of it and it feels like it's primarily Financial in nature. Is that correct? That it's that the goal of this is to look at the available Revenue based on however, we're setting up our finances and then match the amount of money. We're putting into the annual plan to meet that Revenue so that we can kind of Move things along more. Yeah, I mean, I think

▶ 10:35 Speaker 4: that the the purpose of having the fight the investment strategy is to identify realistically speaking how much the city could be able to either Bond or expend to meet the capital needs of the city. So I think it it's not the value in the sense that it really does their job is to help us more comprehensively articulate what those needs are and then also to layer on the financial capacity to meet them.

▶ 11:09 Ryan Williams: Can you can you give me an example of how they would help us articulate the community need?

▶ 11:13 Speaker 4: One of the things that is noticeable about our current practice is that there's a certain level of inconsistency across different departments in terms of how often they make Capital requests what those Capital quests look like some are, you know, very granular some departments come with a lot of capital requests others. Not as many and I think in in part, it may be just some communication issues about you know, what just what is justifiable in the capital plan and some of that will be part of the Consultants job is to help articulate that they will go to Every department and explain kind of this process and make sure that every department is really looking carefully at what capital needs they have through the lens that the Consultants provide and one thing that's really nice that kind of matches up with some of our prior Investments is that For example, the facilities department will be doing acquiring a capital asset software that will help them tag. Essentially every piece of Capital Equipment that they have and know what it's useful lifespan is and know when we expect to have to replace it and integrating all that information into one plan over many years will be really helpful for us to forecast what our needs are. I like

▶ 12:37 Ryan Williams: the I like the focus on that whole piece that you just said about, you know, thinking through how the Departments and the requests and kind of thinking how the plan gets formulated in the first place. So yesterday I was I was here at night for a meeting with some sustainability Advocates and we were talking about the open space and Recreation plan and one of the questions that came up was we've got all these great ideas. How do they get into the capital plan? You know and I said, well you go through the department heads basically, but after that it gets a little a little money. So on the front end, I think it's that's that's great on the kind of public facing side. One thing that I've noticed and this is maybe just my fault for being bad at using the city's website. I can never find the capital plan. Like if I go to about or government if I go to search the website and put in capital plan if I Google Melrose Capital plan, I get the minutes for the community or the agenda for the committee meeting, but I don't get like Melrose cap like I do with Planning and Development, you know, Melrose Capital planning process and you go in there. And find it. Sometimes it's a little bit hard for me to to navigate and I think that people I think that that public facing portion of it be something that the consultant could look into as well could a person with as many, you know challenges as myself navigating the site be able to get in there and find it.

▶ 13:53 Speaker 4: Well, I appreciate that feedback. Most certainly make all of our Capital planning documents more easily located on the website.

▶ 14:01 Speaker 2: Anyone else for the first time?

▶ 14:05 Mark Garipay: Okay counts like everything just one other question will I know you said that this committee? Committee will be well, there's Consultant Group will be meeting with department heads, but will they be meeting with any residents stakeholders? Because I know we have a lot of infrastructure and equipment needs throughout the community it but we also have quality of life needs for the residents with parks and stuff. So will we be including residents some residents in that like we did the CIP?

▶ 14:34 Speaker 4: I think that the the plan to move forward would have a CIP component where there would be. I mean there would be a committee component to it. That would have representation. I'm not quite sure on the consultants' perspective whether or not they have like public meetings as part of their their work plan. I think it's more focused internally. I will say that the open space and Recreation plan is a great place for collecting and the other Master plans are great places for collecting that sort of collective wisdom of the community into a document that has a lot of public input and then that can also inform the capital plan so I can certainly happy to speak with the consultant about how they involve the public and how we can be more proactive in terms of gathering that information. But I do think that the existing planning documents do serve some part of that purpose.

▶ 15:29 Speaker 3: Thank you.

▶ 15:33 Ryan Williams: What it motion to recommend? second

▶ 15:40 Leila Migliorelli: motion to recommend made by counselor Williams seconded by councilor Eccles

▶ 15:51 Speaker 1: counselor McMaster. Yes. Counselor Eccles. Yes counselor. Gerepe. Yes. Counselor jamaladin, yes. Counselor Stewart, yes. Council Carm Shady. Yes. counselor bremski

▶ 16:12 Speaker 1: councilor Williams. Yes, president sonella. Yes and chair Migliorelli. Yes. That is 10. Yes.

▶ 16:21 Speaker 4: Thank you very much. Thank you.

▶ 16:24 Speaker 2: nine

▶ 16:35 Leila Migliorelli: all right, so that Thank you for that that as a passing of vote and will be brought to the full council at the next meeting. Next on the agenda is order 2023 - 16 authorizing a bond for the purchase of landscaping equipment necessary to run Mount Hood Golf Course. Also sponsored by mayor Broder tonight. We have treasure Catherine Armada here along with the chair of the Parks Commission Bill Gardner to speak on this order.

▶ 17:05 Speaker 2: for joining us

▶ 17:08 Speaker 7: Good evening, Madam chairman and members of the council just a little background on this request.