Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2014-09-18
Attendance
Jaclyn L. Bird ; Robert A. Boisselle ; Donald L. Conn Jr. ; Scott M. Forbes ; Gail Infurna ; Jennifer L. Lemmerman ; Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis ; Monica C. Medeiros ; Peter D. Mortimer ; John N. Tramontozzi ; Francis X. Wright Jr.
Agenda
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● SEPTEMBER 18, 2014 Aldermanic Chamber Committee Meeting 7:40 PM The public should take notice that the Melrose Board of Aldermen may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the Board of Aldermen consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived John N. Tramontozzi Chairman Present Jaclyn L. Bird Vice Chairman Present Monica C. Medeiros Alderman at Large Present Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis Alderman at Large Present Gail M. Infurna Ward 5 Alderman Present Robert A. Boisselle Ward 4 Alderman Present Scott M. Forbes Ward 7 Alderman Absent Francis X. Wright Jr. Ward 3 Alderman Present Jennifer L. Lemmerman Ward 2 Alderman Present Peter D. Mortimer Ward 6 Alderman Present Donald L. Conn Jr. President/Ex-officio Member Present In Attendance: Conservation Commissioners Susan Murphy (Chair) and Richard Doucette
ORDER-2015-35 Property: Acceptance of Land Acceptance of a conveyance of land to the City of Melrose, into the care and custody of its Conservation Commission; namely two lots located on 10 Elmcrest Circle aka East Rock Park as set forth herein. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 9/19/2014 3:08 PM
Transcript
▶ 11:41 John N. Tramontozzi: Good evening, the time being 7.40 p.m., Thursday, September 18th. This is the Appropriations Committee of the City of Meadows Board of Aldermen. My name is John Tramantozzi, I'm chairman of the board, of the committee I should say. With us this evening is Vice Chair Alderman Bird, Alderman at Large Medeiros, Alderman at Large McAteer-Margolis. five alderman alderman inferno ward four alderman Boisselle ward three alderman wright ward two alderman limmer and ward uh six alderman mortimer and with that uh we'll open the floor for public participation on this one order that we have on this committee agenda i'll make a motion to open the floor for all the minutes mortimer makes the second to open the floor seconded by alderman
▶ 12:31 John N. Tramontozzi: bird all in favor aye any opposing none this is the opportunity for the anybody in the public who wishes to come forward to speak on any matter uh before the committee the appropriate appropriations committee which there is one order on seeing that motion to close public participation second yeah seeing no members of the public who wish to come forward at this time there was a motion to close public participation by alderman inferno second and by alderman mortimer and on the motion all in favor any opposed the public hearing is now closed just for the record i want to make note that this meeting is being recorded pursuant to the commonwealth of massachusetts open meeting laws we do have one order on the agenda and that's order number 2015-35 it's the acceptance of a
▶ 13:19 John N. Tramontozzi: conveyance of land to the city of melrose into the care and custody of its conservation commission it's namely two lots located on 10 elmcrest circle aka east rock park that's set for what they're hear in uh to suspend the rules that we may have the prayer from the chair of the conservation commission second susan murphy yes thank you we do have a motion to uh hear from the conservation commission uh susan murphy by alderman mortimer seconded by alderman boys allen the motion all favor aye any opposed we seeing none we have um yes hello again hello again um to orient you where this is located is if you take porter street past the hospital all the way to the end before you there's a cul-de-sac Indian Hill Lane before that there's a series of houses
▶ 14:06 on the right that have some undeveloped parcels behind them the Conservation Commission already owns five parcels back there that were donated previously ms. hook has generously offered to donate an additional two parcels that are behind her house that are there's a paper Street there East Rock Park I I think they're listed in the assessor's database as being on Porter Street, depending on how you reference them. But that's the general location. The Conservation Commission was interested in these parcels. We conducted a site visit, myself and several other members. And Richard Doucette, who's also a member of the commission, is here tonight as well, for those of you who don't know him. We conducted a site visit, and we think it's a valuable addition to the conservation parcels,
▶ 14:52 Francis X. Wright Jr.: particularly because it already abuts some that we already own, and we would appreciate the city accepting this gift. and ask that you approve this order very good alderman wright thank you mr chairman um good evening appreciate you coming this is a generous gift um are these uh landlocked parcels or uh is there street access there's a paper street so theoretically you could build out that street um it goes between two houses this so the parcels that um are being donated would be you know the next two house slots on that street so it that that street would be subject to being built as a street and these parcels could be developed okay so there's access for the conservation commission to these lots and the public arguably anyway yes these lots okay and is there any um
▶ 15:54 way to differentiate from where these lots begin and the private property ends or it's it is difficult in that area it's also it's true for the parcels that we already have there it's a little hard to tell they're there with this one they'll be i believe two parcels left back there that are undeveloped that would not be owned by the conservation commission one of them is pretty obvious because it has an old tennis court on it so it's got chain link fence and stuff and then And then the other is all the way at the end, sort of beyond where the conservation parcels are. So this actually kind of rounds it out so that it's most of it that you would think to walk through is owned by the conservation commission.
▶ 16:33 Francis X. Wright Jr.: And so these lots can be monitored, not that I assume anything is going to happen intentionally and at worst accidentally, but were the abutting landowners to somehow encroach on them. But it sounds like you will have the access to the paper street. You will be able to monitor them they will remain undeveloped yes we believe that will be relatively easy to do in this particular location great thank you very much thank you mr chairman you're very welcome auburn bird i think was next thank you mr chairman and thank you ms murphy um for coming tonight um i spoke with ms hook this afternoon uh who is a neighbor of mine right across the street almost and um thanked her for the generous gift but i just want to thank her publicly as well that she's doing
▶ 17:19 Peter D. Mortimer: this i think it's a great thing i believe she's donated in the past as well to the parcels that you've referred to and um we appreciate it so thank you very much and i intend to support the order thank you very much thank you very much chairman chairman tozy i too want to thank miss hook for coming forward with this gift it's very kind of her back when bob boycelle was the chairman of the conservation commission we were on the committee commission for five years together another, Priscilla Hook, would come to almost every one of our meetings. She's very interested in conservation, a very nice lady. And her friend, Sharon, what was Sharon's last name, do you remember? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, but she and her friend would always come.
▶ 18:02 Peter D. Mortimer: The question I have is, I went up there today on my mountain bike and rode through this parcel. Are the parcels that we're accepting, the tennis court one will remain private? Yes. um but do we have to cross private land to access that conservation land no there are paper streets so that and the conservation commission will now on both sides of the paper street so there's actually is is is clear access between the two houses in and then um that parcel is just off to the side it actually only hits that parcel only hits the paper street sort of at a corner so you you don't have to cross that parcel at all and all the other parcels are accessible from the paper Street and we own to you to the center line of the
▶ 18:46 Peter D. Mortimer: paper Street and so what's the total acreage of conservation land now in that neighborhood be behind Indian Hill and between Porter and would say I actually was trying to figure that out today and I didn't have all the numbers if they're all small parcels they're all about you know probably an eighth of an acre but now this will bring them up to seven so it'll it'll be something approaching an acre of land but they're small parcels so around an acre of conservation land so not not too big right not really nothing worth putting a trail or a marker we're not big enough for a trail it doesn't really lead anywhere sometimes they'll lead to open space in other communities and we'll be able to sort of connect connect things up and in this case it's it's more you know it
▶ 19:32 Peter D. Mortimer: preserves it as green space but it's probably it's not useful for trails very good well it's nice that it's back there if anybody ever just feels like taking a walk in the woods who lives in that neighborhood who lives in your neighborhood alderman bird excuse me for the crosstalk very friendly crosstalk though and you know that that's nice that people can they just want to take a look at some woods without going too too too far it's nice back there if you want to meant back yeah I do feel like you're in the woods and it's nice to have those pockets in these neighborhoods yeah I was up there on my mountain bike today was it was very peaceful and bucolic and thank you very much for your work on this and thanks again to miss hook Thank You mr.
▶ 20:10 Monica C. Medeiros: chairman that's all I have all the Medeiros thank you thank you very much I was just curious what the topography of that land is is it is it very wet is it just dry or is it um that part is not wet if you keep going towards some the backside of the Indian Hill cul-de-sac there's a wetland back there this portion is sort of a hill and then goes down and so it's more rocks and upland is is it possible for us to get for our next meeting on the 6th to have included with this sort of a map of the layout of the idea I'd be happy to do that I have one here but I can give copies for all of them that would be terrific and and And this is my final question is, is this land that we have with the conservation commission,
▶ 21:01 I mean, that sounds like it's very tucked away. I didn't realize that it was there to be honest with you. And it sounds like we have already several parcels there. Is any of this ever looked at like to be, not to say policed, but to see if people are dumping or is there a regular schedule of? Yeah, that's something that we have struggled with in some cases. This particular area is valued by the neighborhood and they do a good job of sort of keeping an eye out for it. We do have some parcels around where they're sort of an isolated parcel and it's a little harder for us to control. One of the things we've been trying to do is put more signage out so people know whose it is they'll know who to call if there's an issue um so we've we've spent some funds on some uh some
▶ 21:58 more signs that we're putting on some of these areas this one in particular i think is is really valued by the neighbors and and is not a worry in that way that some of them are we have been struggling with that same issue though of not knowing people won't use something if they don't know they can so we've designed a sign you'll see them they've already started to pop up around the city at the at the key entry points to the larger parcels and we'll work our way down sort of in size we'll start with the big ones so the people know this is a place they can go and walk and walk the dog or go for a bike ride or what have you and we have the number of the larger ones shown on the on our map with trails on it as well thank you i appreciate that and i also
▶ 22:43 Robert A. Boisselle: want to add and thank miss hook for for her donation thank you very good oh all the boys up you mentioned you a few minutes ago concerning your maps where can the public get a copy of the map is it online or can they come down here or can you they can they send you an email of some sort to get a copy out to them showing the trails in melrose is it on the website i don't know if it is it's not sure if it's such a simple thing we should have thought of that um yeah it's printed on sort of large sheets so I think at one point we were gonna put them on the website I don't know if they are we certainly for anyone who wants to email conservation at city of Melrose org we do send out trail maps we were at the Victorian Fair and probably gave out a hundred and
▶ 23:33 Robert A. Boisselle: fifty of them at the Victorian Fair they are available in our office on the second floor of City Hall so that's those trail maps show our larger parcels the ones that have trails through them we also have all the parcel maps showing the the conservation areas but that's parcel map by parcel map so that's a little less suggestion and get it out what you're talking about outreach and so forth just be a good time if you could get it on the city website leading to your conservation website and have that maps pop up because the weather to fall weather is coming well it's going to be coming tonight from what I understand the trees are going to be changing color and the trails at this time of the year become very beautiful you don't have to go to New Hampshire to
▶ 24:20 John N. Tramontozzi: see the trees and the color and so forth you can see it right in your own backyard on these trails all right thank you very much Thank You mr. chair and very well motion for passage nothing second seeing nothing further we do have a motion for passage by Alderman Mortimer and a second recommend for that's right motion to recommend for passage by Alderman Mortimer seconded Alderman Boisselle little tank twister on the motion all in favor aye any opposed seeing none this sub order will be recommended to the full board out at the full board meeting on October 6th motion to adjourn mr. chairman motion to adjourn Alderman Mortimer seconded by Alderman Boisselle on the motion all in favor seeing no opposition we are adjourned thank you