Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2015-06-01
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
- Call to Order
- Public Participation
- Orders
- ORDER-2015-172 : Authorization to Accept a Grant and Authorize the Mayor to Execute an Agreement with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council
- ORDER-2015-173 : Appropriation of 699,534.85 From Available Free Cash To Various Accounts As Set Forth Within
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● JUNE 1, 2015 Aldermanic Chamber Committee Meeting 7:15 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 Peter D. Mortimer Chairman Present Jaclyn L. Bird Vice Chairman Present Gail M. Infurna Ward 5 Alderman Present John N. Tramontozzi Ward 1 Alderman Present Monica C. Medeiros Alderman at Large Present Robert A. Boisselle Ward 4 Alderman Present Francis X. Wright Jr. Ward 3 Alderman Present Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis Alderman at Large Present Jennifer L. Lemmerman Ward 2 Alderman Present Scott M. Forbes Ward 7 Alderman Present Donald L. Conn Jr. President/Ex-officio Member Present In Attendance: City Planner Denise Gaffey
ORDER-2015-172 Grant Authorization to Accept a Grant and Authorize the Mayor to Execute an Agreement with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen
ORDER-2015-173 Appropriation Appropriation of 699,534.85 From Available Free Cash To Various Accounts As Set Forth Within Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 6/22/2015 2:03 PM
Transcript
▶ 0:00 Peter D. Mortimer: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It is 7.15 in the evening on June 1st, 2015. This is the Appropriations Committee of the Melrose Board of Aldermen. It is a committee of the whole, consisting of all members of the Board of Aldermen. I am Chairman Peter Mortimer. The Vice Chairman is Alderman Jacqueline Byrd. We are joined by the Aldermen tonight, Alderman Inferna, Alderman Tramontozzi, Alderman Medeiros, Alderman Boisselle, Alderman Wright, Alderman McAteer-Margolis, Alderman Lemmerman, Alderman Forbes, and President Donald Kahn. Is there a motion for public participation, please? Second. Alderman Byrd has moved for public participation. Said motion was duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. All in favor, please say aye.
▶ 0:59 Peter D. Mortimer: Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, we are now open for public participation. And since there's no one here, I'll take a moment to say at this juncture that this meeting is being recorded publicly. Excuse me, being recorded and is available for rebroadcast through a DVD from MMTV. Or you can watch it streaming on the Melrose website or on the MMTV website. Motion to close public participation. Second. Alderman Boisselle has made a motion to close public participation, seeing no one coming forward to participate publicly. Said motion was duly seconded by Alderman Forbes. All in favor, please. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, public participation is now closed. The first order we have before us tonight in the Appropriations Committee is order 2015-172.
▶ 1:56 Peter D. Mortimer: It is an authorization to accept a grant and authorize the Mayor to accept, to execute an agreement with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. Is there a motion to suspend the rules? Motion to suspend the rules to respond to the appropriate promise. We have a motion to suspend the rules to hear from the appropriate city officials from all the Mayor, mcintyre-margolis duly seconded by alderman boycelle all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none ms gaffey i see you're ready to approach this is denise gaffey our city planner whose office is right here in city hall would you like to make some opening comments that'd be great thank you thank you very much um so this is a this is a very exciting opportunity for us
▶ 2:43 Denise Gaffey: to um to update uh the city's master plan which was last updated in 2004 so it's about 11 years old and 10 years is about the time frame that it's suggested that you go back and take a look at your priorities and and do some more detailed current demographic analysis of trends in the community so we um we approached the mapc back in december of this um 2014 and asked about the the availability of grant funding through their district local technical assistance program and they liked our idea and they awarded us a grant so it's actually a technical assistance grant it's there's no funding that's changing hands but they will provide us with forty thousand dollars worth of services and as part of the arrangement the city is contributing twenty five thousand
▶ 3:38 Denise Gaffey: dollars, so that we would have a $65,000 effort, essentially. And that's considered kind of modest for a master plan initiative. We think it's completely sufficient for us, because we have an excellent plan to build off of. The one that was done in 2004 was a comprehensive plan, so we know we have some good material to build from. have some great staff expertise that we can lend towards this project so we think the sixty sixty five thousand dollars is going to give us sufficient master plan product and I did I did attach to the order a copy of the scope of work so hopefully you've all had a chance to look at that but that pretty much outlines all the tasks and timelines that are envisioned for this
▶ 4:29 Denise Gaffey: this is technical assistance grant with the metropolitan area planning council and as you can see from the from this document it'll be the final master plan document will contain all the typical elements of a master plan a chapter on housing a chapter on economic development a detailed land use and zoning assessment chapter on transportation energy since that's such a big component of the work that we do here in Melrose open space and recreation which will basically just be building off of the most recent open Space and Recreation Plan. We won't have to do a lot of new work for that chapter. And historic and cultural resources and public facilities and services. Most of these categories are categories
▶ 5:13 Denise Gaffey: that are outlined in the Mass General Law for what a standard master plan needs to consist of. Ours is uniquely tailored to Melrose, for example, like that energy component. That's something that we want to add in to the master plan. So we also talk about a timeline in here. We think this entire initiative will take about a year. We hope to be complete by June of 2016. We hope to get underway with forming the committee and having a couple of committee meetings this summer and then really sort of opening up the process, kicking off the process in a sense in the fall with the Victorian Fair, getting a booth and trying to do some outreach to the community and get some feedback that we would then use
▶ 6:02 Denise Gaffey: part of a community-wide vision process and public meeting process a little bit later in the fall so we intend for this to be very interactive and to reach out to the community and get as much feedback as we can and we'll also be also be getting in touch with the president of the Alderman to talk about a representative from the Board of Aldermen the way we structured this ten years ago we had representation from the Board of Aldermen from the school committee and then we try to target we tried to target all those different elements and get some expertise from the various subject matters so that's the approach we were contemplating this time as well it's pretty much my overview and I just I wanted to mention that associated with this order is the order
▶ 6:47 Peter D. Mortimer: number 173 which is where the funding right now is being requested the $25,000 match so I don't know if you want to talk about that piece of it now 2 or um motion for concurrent action on the two orders mr chairman president khan has made a motion for concurrent action on the next order on our agenda for tonight it's order 2015-173 it is an appropriation of 699 534 dollars and 85 cents from available free cash to various accounts has set forth their rent a small piece of it belonged to the planning department most of us most of it did belong to the dpw and it was just discussed extensively on thursday night past uh for that part but the part that belongs to the planning department uh can be discussed tonight
▶ 7:39 Peter D. Mortimer: and that's the explanation a motion has been made for concurrent action duly seconded all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none on discussion yes uh in the order 2015-173 the planning ex professional services is that the category you're talking about it is now you've been discussing $25,000 and this is an extra excuse me Alderman Boycelle let's take the vote on whether we're gonna have you asked for discussion no I did ask for discussion because I thought you wanted to discuss the motion for concurrent action sorry but this first we have to have the vote on concurrent action all in favor of concurrent action please say aye aye any Any opposed? Hearing none, the two orders are joined together.
▶ 8:23 Gail Infurna: There are people in queue before you, Alderman Boycelle, on the beginning, namely Alderman Inferna. I might also be able to explain. But you haven't finished, we'll get to Alderman Boycelle's question in a minute, but Alderman Inferna did raise her hand first. Thank you very much. Alderman Inferna, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to state that I was a member of the master plan committee back in 2004, And it was a great committee to work on, and it's very exciting to see how much of it has really come to fruition. So I think this is an exciting project to keep moving forward, so thank you for your time in that. And looking forward to seeing how it revolves again and things come to.
▶ 9:04 Denise Gaffey: So, thank you. Thank you very much, Alderman Aferna. Alderman Boyce, out please. All right, back to the order 2015-173 in the professional services. a number of thirty one thousand five hundred you've been mentioning twenty five thousand as a city's portion what's the extra six thousand four sixty five hundred actually and the reason for that is concurrent with this master plan planning process is also a small piece associated with a school demographic study and I want to actually start off by apologizing because I thought that you all had a copy of the agreement between the New England School Development Council and the city for this demographic study as part of your order but I learned at the end of the day today that it was somehow not
▶ 9:51 Denise Gaffey: uploaded to the order and I apologize I didn't initiate that particular order and it was intended to be so in any event you have in front of you I believe because Mary Beth Harrington is going to make it available to you a copy of the agreement and I know you've also heard both mayor Dolan and superintendent Tainmore speak about the need for the school demographic study the concern that they have about the incoming kindergarten class and trying to get a handle on the school population over the next next ten years so superintendent a more and mayor Dolan reached out to NES deck earlier this year to talk about and doing this demographic piece and it's very much associated with the master plan we do a lot of demographic research and census data analysis as
▶ 10:36 Denise Gaffey: It's part of the master plan, so we consider this sort of a companion piece. But it is a separate contract, and it is a separate funding source, the $6,500. So that's where the $25,000, which is the piece that will be spent on the MAPC staff, and the $6,500 on the NASDAQ study totals $31,500. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Terry. alderman boycelle any other alderman wishing to be heard on these joint orders alderman medeiros please thank you uh thank you miss gaffey uh i know that so this information when completed uh will be put together into the master plan and so this is the the entirety of the master plan will there be an additional cost and step beyond this first study um the study which study for the the work that we do with mapc the work that we do with them nope that is we
▶ 11:41 Denise Gaffey: anticipate that to be the entire cost of completing the master plan document and i probably should have brought a copy of the one from 2004 which i think you can still see um you can still get download online but it's a comprehensive document it will provide a you know like i said an analysis of existing conditions and census data and some projections and then of course go into all the different components that i mentioned so it's a very comprehensive document and we absolutely expect that'll be completed with the funding source that we're asking for today and i know you you mentioned that the open space plan that what's been done with mapc will be sort of included and incorporated into this and then i know um at one of the i think was the very first
▶ 12:31 Denise Gaffey: meeting about the highlands that MAPC had mentioned that they did some demographic studies for the Tremont Street corridor yep is that information available to us now and yep that information was all folded into the real corridor plan that we published in 2013 which is again it should still be on the website I know when they reconfigure the website some information was lost but that document should still be on the planning department so some of that might get oh yeah and some of that would certainly get folded in to this correct thank you uh thank you thank you alderman medeiros any other alderman we should uh alderman boisselle please for the say any other alderman for the first time alderman boisselle please thank you um
▶ 13:20 Robert A. Boisselle: the mapc in the demographic study for the schools is that going to overlap in any way i mean i'm I'm looking at the first current conditions, we'll do priorities, research, and analyze population data trends, and will be compiled into a report for current conditions and trends. I mean, when I'm reading the demographic study, it gets pretty close to what I'm reading here. Is there any overlap, or is one feeding the other? Well, the agreement and the work that NASDAQ does will feed demographic piece that MAPC does we will just we will tell them that they do not have to focus on that since the NASDAQ will be doing the school population piece and they and they frankly better suited for that that this is what this
▶ 14:08 Peter D. Mortimer: is pretty much all they do is school when it comes to demographics is study school population trends so it makes sense for them to do that work so basically the group that's collecting information is going to share it with DMAPC, which is great. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Tarrant. Thank you, Alderman Boisselle. No other aldermen wishing to be heard? The order is before you. Motion to recommend. Second. We have a motion to recommend the joined orders. That's 2015-172 and 2015-173. Seeing no further discussion, all in favor of the motion to recommend made by Alderman Forbes and duly seconded by Alderman boy cell please say aye aye any opposed hearing none these two orders will be recommended to the
▶ 14:59 Peter D. Mortimer: full board for passage thank you for coming miss gaffey president khan please yeah um before you adjourn mr chairman at our may 14th uh appropriations committee uh the committee asked that the city solicitor provide us an opinion relative to uh various grants that were in the city budget and he did provide an opinion a written opinion dated uh may 20th 250 and i would request that that uh that wreck that letter from the city solicitor become part of our record for our budget deliberations please president khan has made a motion to include the aforementioned letters from our city solicitor into the record regarding those orders is there a second second Second the motion. Alderman Forbes has seconded the motion on discussion.
▶ 15:46 Peter D. Mortimer: Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those letters from the city solicitor will be added into our record. Thank you, President Kahn. Motion to adjourn. Second. Alderman Forbes has made a motion to adjourn, duly seconded by Alderman Inferna. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none. The Committee on Appropriations is adjourned now at 7.31. And the full board meeting will begin at 7.45 in 14 minutes. Thank you, one and all. Meeting adjourned. Welcome to the chamber this evening, everybody. My name is Donald Kahn. This is the regular meeting of the Melrose Board of Aldermen for June 1st, 2015. Ms. O'Shea, could you call the roll, please? here yeah yeah 11 constitutes a quorum if everybody could please rise and join