Legal & Legislative Committee — 2015-09-24
Attendance
Jaclyn L. Bird ; Robert A. Boisselle ; Donald L. Conn Jr. ; Scott M. Forbes ; Gail Infurna ; Jennifer L. Lemmerman ; Monica C. Medeiros ; Peter D. Mortimer ; John N. Tramontozzi ; Francis X. Wright Jr.
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Public Participation
- Orders
- ORDER-2016-33 : BE IT ORDERED that the City shall cause all water meters in the City to be read between June 15th and June 30th of each year for the purpose of issuing water and sewer bills for the quarter ending June 30th.
- ORDER-2015-182 : Be it ordered that the Rules of Order of the Melrose Board of Aldermen be amended to add Rule 32B and Rule 32C as set forth herein.
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE LEGAL & LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE CALENDAR● SEPTEMBER 24, 2015 Aldermanic Chamber Committee Meeting 7:30 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 Francis X. Wright Jr. Vice Chairman Absent Peter D. Mortimer Ward 6 Alderman Present Scott M. Forbes Ward 7 Alderman Present Jaclyn L. Bird Alderman at Large Present Donald L. Conn Jr. President/Ex-officio Member Present Robert A. Boisselle Nonvoting Member Present Gail M. Infurna Nonvoting Member Present Jennifer L. Lemmerman Nonvoting Member Present Monica C. Medeiros Nonvoting Member Present
ORDER-2016-33 Request BE IT ORDERED that the City shall cause all water meters in the City to be read between June 15th and June 30th of each year for the purpose of issuing water and sewer bills for the quarter ending June 30th. Referred to Water Rate Comm Legal & Legislative Committee
ORDER-2015-182 Amending Rules of Order of the Board of Aldermen Be it ordered that the Rules of Order of the Melrose Board of Aldermen be amended to add Rule 32B and Rule 32C as set forth herein. Recommend Place on File Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 9/25/2015 1:47 PM
Transcript
▶ 5:39 John N. Tramontozzi: It is Thursday, September 24th, 2015, and this meeting is being recorded and televised pursuant to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Open Meeting Law. Motion to open the floor for public participation. Second. And we do have a motion to open the floor for public participation by Alderman, let's say Mortimer, he is a voting member. And who made the second? Alderman Forbes, also a voting member. With us also this evening, just for the record, is Alderman Byrd, President Kahn, voting members. And non-voting members this evening are Alderman Boisselle, Alderman Inferna, Alderman Lemmerman, and Alderman Medeiros. So we have a motion before us to open the floor for public participation. This is the opportunity for any members of the public who wish to come forward to speak on any order on the agenda of the legal and legislative committee this evening.
▶ 6:37 John N. Tramontozzi: anybody want to come forward all in favor aye I'm looking at some members of the public but nobody's not coming forward motion to close public participation second we have a motion to close public participation by Alderman Forbes seconded by Alderman Mortimer on the motion all in favor aye any opposed seeing none public participation is now closed we have two orders on the agenda this evening of order number 2016-33 be it ordered that the city shall cause our water meters in the city to be read between june 15th and june 30th of each year for the purpose of issuing water and sewer bills for the quarter ending june 30th and we president khan as the maker of the order thank Thank you, Mr. Chairman, as many of you recall, one of the principal reasons, or at least, well, I'll speak for myself.
▶ 7:34 I suppose I shouldn't speak for the collective because usually that's not a good idea for me. One of the principal reasons that I supported, well, actually it was the principal reason I supported the water meter replacement because we were informed that the new water meters that were currently installing throughout the city would be of a sufficient technology so that we could if we wanted to read the entire city within a very very short period of time my understanding is that we're more than 30% along with the water meter replacement project at this point in time um by the time that this order would take effect next spring hopefully will be 80 90 or more down the road in terms of our water and sewer
▶ 8:29 replacement program so we will be able to and i vetted this with mr shanna before filing it to make sure that he believes that it's feasible to do this and he believes it is so i would suggest that this water is the solution to the the back billing problem where we're carrying over billing from one year to the next this gets us to a point where we're very close to the turnover in the year um this is why i supported the order for the water meter replacement um i would uh well i'm not going to urge you to support the order tonight because i'm not going to ask you to vote on it tonight what i would like to do is refer this to the water sewer committee to have them give a formal opinion as to whether they think this is an appropriate proposal i hope that they'll agree with me then
▶ 9:25 John N. Tramontozzi: i hope that the board will pass this and then i hope at long last we will be able to put this issue to rest but i think that this is an order that solves a problem in the city and i hope that when it gets to the point of voting that you'll all support this motion to hold this order in committee in the legal and legislative committee so that it may be referred to the water committee Very good, we have a motion on the floor by Alderman Mortimer to retain this order in committee. With the understanding as we will refer the order to the Water and Sewer Commission for recommendations. There is a second to that motion by Alderman Byrd. Any further discussion? President Clark. Mr. Chairman, as our representative on the committee, will you ensure that this gets on the docket for one of the upcoming meetings so that it is in fact discussed, please?
▶ 10:16 John N. Tramontozzi: i will uh an email was sent to uh the mr schenner uh asking for the a date for the next meeting um i haven't received the response yet so maybe another the next meeting has not been scheduled yet but i will notify the board as soon as that meeting is scheduled so everybody has an opportunity to be present and i will see that this order does get to before them anything else father Madam Medeiros. Thank you. I'm a non-voting member of this committee. However, I applaud President Kahn for taking action on this. This is something that, and actually this type of idea is something that I had been considering doing. I wasn't sure that we were going to be ready to do this in time for June 30th. I do hope we are.
▶ 11:06 Monica C. Medeiros: As this goes to the Water and Sewer Rate Commission, I wasn't sure whether we'd be voting on this tonight or not, but one thing, and I did briefly mention it to President Kahn. As it stands right now, although the end of our fiscal year is June 30th and remains June 30th, the alderman may set rates at any time throughout the year. And in particular, you know, for instance, this year, our new rates start June 29th. So I would have proposed an amendment saying instead of, say, June 15th, that the meters be read no less than, say, 10 or 15 days before the implementation of a rate change. So, as this goes to the Water and Sewer Committee, if you could, might consider asking them to review that as an option as well.
▶ 12:12 John N. Tramontozzi: Okay, very good. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we have a motion on the floor. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, that motion is passed. Our next order on the agenda this evening is Order 2015-182. be it order that the rules of order of the Merrill's Board of Aldermen be amended to add Rule 32B and Rule 32C as set forth herein. Just as a procedural matter, I note that Order 2015-182 had been recommitted to the Legal and Legislative Committee to give me, as Chairman, an opportunity to speak to the City Clerk and the Clerk of Committees about this proposed amendment. to the Murrow's Board of Aldermen Rules of Order. So I've had that opportunity to speak to both the city clerk and the clerk of committees.
▶ 13:08 John N. Tramontozzi: And both have expressed legitimate concerns about the enactment of this proposed order. And are in agreement that this proposed order is inappropriate. Currently, the long standing practice of the Board of Aldermen with respect to orders it receives is as follows. Orders come to us with supporting documentation inside. documents from the city administration board of heads department heads utilities and the like are the evidence we members of the board of all of them need to review and make informed decisions these documents also contain evidence of the financial impact to the city we then have the makers of the orders come before us to answer questions this is all done in public pursuant to the massachusetts open meeting law what the proposed order would do is require the city clerk
▶ 13:58 John N. Tramontozzi: and the clerk of committees to insert into the order all communications received from the public and outside entities whatever that means some may be in the form of emails and from past experience most usually opinions puffery and rants some signed and acknowledged by the authors others not are these communications intended to be made public what if not intended to be distributed are we violating privacy rights are these communications factually based and supported by evidence or simply personal opinion how do we trust and verify through the open meeting process that's how we do it we have at every meeting public participation where anyone can come forward to speak on an order this is the proper forum to present opinions or
▶ 14:51 John N. Tramontozzi: evidence public participation is where this information can be presented and then debated not by simply inserting into an order something that cannot be verified the public is free to come forward and present their case it's not uncommon for the board of member for this board members to request an amendment to an order to add some document to the order and make it part of the order that has been a practice and we've done that but this practice is done in public again with the opportunity for debate and we can at least confirm that the author of the document intended it to be public information so with that in mind the clerk the city clerk and the clerk of committees would ask that this committee not recommend the order to the
▶ 15:41 Monica C. Medeiros: full board what is the will of the board the committee i'd like to make a motion to place it on file and alderman bird has a motion to place this order on file is there a second second second by alderman mortimer on any further discussion alderman medeiros thank you again mr tramontosi mr chairman uh this order is an order that i filed uh again i am not a voting member of this committee uh i filed this order to try in an attempt to make the way that we receive and share information a little bit more consistent because in some cases I find that these steps are being taken and in other cases not always for instance I had asked that if we had communication from different city officials members of the
▶ 16:41 Monica C. Medeiros: administration that they be added automatically to the public record the intent here being and for example tonight with the Appropriations committee meeting that we're going to have in a minute the board of aldermen received a communication via email from mr pesos about the order that's before us on our agenda but that email is not included in the official packet that's on iqm2 or at least it wasn't as of this afternoon and it's just a matter of for instance in terms of communications from the public you'll see that I said when there are communications that are that are addressed to the Board of Aldermen then it is my understanding that you know communications addressed to the entire Board of Aldermen may be received from the administration the public or outside
▶ 17:38 Monica C. Medeiros: entities just for some clarification that might be a consultant for the city it might be the mapc who we're working with might be the lottery commission that if these communications are addressed to the board of aldermen as a whole then i think it is the intent of the sender to include them in the public record oftentimes we have people come before the board to speak about their opinions during public participation certainly they're not all fact uh been lots of it sometimes is puffery but these are meant to sway our opinion these these emails and other communications are meant to to sway our opinion and oftentimes i'm sure that they do certainly if they're communications from city officials that we take as sometimes as as you know true and
▶ 18:39 Monica C. Medeiros: we expect them to be truthful anyway that they sway our opinion and the decisions that we make and i feel like it's more open and transparent to have these communications included in the public record I'll give you one other example of sometimes oh you know there's still to this day there are two members of the Board of Aldermen that don't have a public email address and I don't know whether or not they receive all the communications all the time but even if you do have a publicly available email address there are certainly times where I've found that communications have ended up in my spam folder one instance there was a letter a few months back that I think alderman Mortimer had moved to make part of the public record and I
▶ 19:29 Monica C. Medeiros: hadn't noticed it at all because it had gone into my spam folder if that email had been included in the order agenda that's available to the public and to all of us I think would be more consistent that would be getting the same information for our consideration so I would ask as a non voting member of this committee that we consider this for passage thank you any further discussion seeing none we do have a motion on the floor for the place it on file and it's been seconded all in favor aye any opposed seeing none that order is filed that concludes our business for this evening motion to adjourn Mr. Chairman Alderman Mortimer makes a motion to adjourn seconded by Alderman Byrd all in favor Aye.