City Council — 2016-05-16

Attendance

Robert A. Boisselle present · Ward 4 Alderman; Donald L. Conn Jr. present · President, Alderman at Large; Scott M. Forbes present · Ward 7 Alderman; Gail Infurna present · Ward 5 Alderman; Jennifer L. Lemmerman present · Ward 2 Alderman; Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis present · Alderman at Large; Monica C. Medeiros present · Alderman at Large; Peter D. Mortimer present · Ward 6 Alderman; John N. Tramontozzi present · Ward 1 Alderman; Francis X. Wright Jr. present · Ward 3 Alderman; Michael P. Zwirko present · Alderman at Large

Agenda

1. Call to Order (0:00)
2. ORDER-2016-179 : Regular Meeting of the Board of Aldermen to be held on Monday, May 16, 2016 at 7:45 P.M. in the Aldermanic Chamber, City Hall, Melrose, MA
3. Public Participation (0:44)
4. ACCEPT MINUTES OF BOA (18:50)
5. PUBLIC HEARING - 8:00 P.M. (28:20)
6. ORDER-2016-163 : Amending Melrose Revised Ordinances, Chapter 228, Article II, Section 228-15 (Water Rates Established), as set forth herein. (29:15)
7. ORDER-2016-164 : Amending Melrose Revised Ordinances, Chapter 228, Article IV, Section 228-30 (Sewer Rates Established) as set forth herein (1:17:06)
8. Communications from His Honor, The Mayor And Other City Officials
9. TABLED
10. ORDER-2016-120 : Presentation by Raftelis Financial Consulting & Woodcock & Associates regarding water and sewer utility rate setting. (19:23)
11. ORDER-2016-178 : Transfer of $5,000.00 from Workers Comp. Acct. #019122-543102 to Municipal Building Repair, Acct. #014022-527700 (20:40)
12. New Business
13. ORDER-2016-180 : A Resolution Recognizing National Police Week 2016 (21:50)
14. ORDER-2016-181 : Application of Chun Fai Chan for a Common Victualler License: Mancang, Inc. d/b/a Number One Taste, 381 Franklin Street, Melrose, MA (1:18:20)
15. ORDER-2016-182 : Second Hand Dealer Licenses Renewed commencing May 1, 2016 (1:18:53)
16. ORDER-2016-183 : Second Hand Dealer Licenses Not Renewed commencing May 1, 2016 (1:19:04)
17. ORDER-2016-184 : Hackney Carriage (Taxi) Licenses Renewed commencing May 1, 2016 (1:19:15)
18. ORDER-2016-185 : Hackney Carriage (Taxi) Licenses Not Renewed commencing May 1, 2016 (1:19:25)
19. ORDER-2016-186 : Livery Car Service Licenses Renewed commencing May 1, 2016 (1:19:34)
20. Orders Out of Order (1:19:46)
21. Orders from Committee (1:19:51)
22. REPORTS - BOA (RULE 53) (1:19:56)
23. Calendar
24. ORDER-2016-168 : Reauthorization of the Council on Aging Donation Revolving Account # 2811 for FY2017 (1:20:20)
25. ORDER-2016-170 : Reauthorization of Inspection Services Revolving Account #2658 for FY2017 (1:22:10)
26. ORDER-2016-171 : Reauthorization of Police Department False Alarm Revolving Fund # 2665 for FY17 (1:23:00)
27. ORDER-2016-173 : Reauthorization of the Melrose Veterans Events Revolving Fund #2607 for FY 2017 (1:23:50)
28. ORDER-2016-174 : Reauthorization of Revolving Fund #2657 Waste Collection & Recycling for FY17 (1:24:38)
29. ORDER-2016-175 : Transfer of $l,632.00 From: Health Insurance, Group Health, A/C #019142-549201 To: City Clerk - Professional Services, A/C #011612-529000 as set forth herein. (1:25:15)
30. Adjournment (1:26:15)

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE BOARD OF ALDERMEN BULLETIN● MAY 16, 2016 Aldermanic Chamber Regular Meeting 7:45 PM

ORDER-2016-179 Opening Statement Regular Meeting of the Board of Aldermen to be held on Monday, May 16, 2016 at 7:45 P.M. in the Aldermanic Chamber, City Hall, Melrose, MA Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Robert A. Boisselle Ward 4 Alderman Present Scott M. Forbes Ward 7 Alderman Present Gail M. Infurna Ward 5 Alderman Present Jennifer L. Lemmerman Ward 2 Alderman Present Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis Alderman at Large Present Monica C. Medeiros Alderman at Large Present Peter D. Mortimer Ward 6 Alderman Present John N. Tramontozzi Ward 1 Alderman Present Francis X. Wright Jr. Ward 3 Alderman Present Michael P. Zwirko Alderman at Large Present Donald L. Conn Jr. President, Alderman at Large Present

ORDER-2016-163 Amending Revised Ordinances Amending Melrose Revised Ordinances, Chapter 228, Article II, Section 228-15 (Water Rates Established), as set forth herein. Recommitted Appropriations Committee

ORDER-2016-164 Amending Revised Ordinances Amending Melrose Revised Ordinances, Chapter 228, Article IV, Section 228-30 (Sewer Rates Established) as set forth herein Recommitted Appropriations Committee

ORDER-2016-120 Presentation Presentation by Raftelis Financial Consulting & Woodcock & Associates regarding water and sewer utility rate setting. Tabled Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2016-178 Divided Order - Transfer City of Melrose Page 1 10/17/2016 6:12 PM Minutes Board of Aldermen May 16, 2016 Transfer of $5,000.00 from Workers Comp. Acct. #019122-543102 to Municipal Building Repair, Acct. #014022-527700 Passed

ORDER-2016-180 Resolution A Resolution Recognizing National Police Week 2016 Placed on File

ORDER-2016-181 License - Common Victualler Application of Chun Fai Chan for a Common Victualler License: Mancang, Inc. d/b/a Number One Taste, 381 Franklin Street, Melrose, MA Assigned to Committee Protection and License Committee

ORDER-2016-182 License - Second Hand Dealer Second Hand Dealer Licenses Renewed commencing May 1, 2016 Assigned to Committee Protection and License Committee

ORDER-2016-183 License - Second Hand Dealer Second Hand Dealer Licenses Not Renewed commencing May 1, 2016 Assigned to Committee Protection and License Committee

ORDER-2016-184 License - Hackney License Hackney Carriage (Taxi) Licenses Renewed commencing May 1, 2016 Assigned to Committee Protection and License Committee

ORDER-2016-185 License - Hackney License Hackney Carriage (Taxi) Licenses Not Renewed commencing May 1, 2016 Assigned to Committee Protection and License Committee

ORDER-2016-186 License - Hackney License Livery Car Service Licenses Renewed commencing May 1, 2016 Assigned to Committee Protection and License Committee

ORDER-2016-168 Revolving Fund/Reauthorization City of Melrose Page 2 10/17/2016 6:12 PM Minutes Board of Aldermen May 16, 2016 Reauthorization of the Council on Aging Donation Revolving Account # 2811 for FY2017 Passed

ORDER-2016-170 Revolving Fund/Reauthorization Reauthorization of Inspection Services Revolving Account #2658 for FY2017 Passed

ORDER-2016-171 Revolving Fund/Reauthorization Reauthorization of Police Department False Alarm Revolving Fund # 2665 for FY17 Passed

ORDER-2016-173 Revolving Fund/Reauthorization Reauthorization of the Melrose Veterans Events Revolving Fund #2607 for FY 2017 Passed

ORDER-2016-174 Revolving Fund/Reauthorization Reauthorization of Revolving Fund #2657 Waste Collection & Recycling for FY17 Passed

ORDER-2016-175 Transfer Transfer of $l,632.00 From: Health Insurance, Group Health, A/C #019142- 549201 To: City Clerk - Professional Services, A/C #011612-529000 as set forth herein. Passed City of Melrose Page 3 10/17/2016 6:12 PM

Transcript

▶ 0:00 Okay, welcome to the chamber this evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Donald Conn. This is the regular meeting of the Melrose Board of Aldermen for May 16th, 2016. Ms. O'Shea, could you call the roll, please? Alderman Boisselle? Here. Here. Alderman Forbes? Here. Here. Alderman Inferna? Here. Here. Alderman Lemmerman? Here. Here. Alderman McAteer-Margolis? Here. Here. Alderman Medeiros? Here. Here. Alderman Mortimer? Here. Here. Alderman Tramontozzi? Here. Here. Alderman Wright? Here. Here. Alderman Zwirko. Here. Here, President Conn. Here. Here, 11 presidents. We have a quorum. Could everybody please rise and join me in saluting the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and

▶ 0:44 to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Mr. President, I make a motion to open the floor for public participation. Second. Alderman Mortimer moves that we commence public participation. The motion is seconded by Alderman Boycelle. On the motion, all those in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? Motion passes. This is the portion of our meeting where any member of the public who wishes to speak on any order that is on our agenda may conduct themselves to the table in the center of the room, identify themselves, and we will listen to whatever you have to say that's relative to the orders. I am still Phil Taymor from 44 Lark Point Road.

▶ 1:28 I'll sign at the end of this from the past several meetings it appears that the board of all them is inclined to let the city's problematic water and sewer rate decisions stand nonetheless I'll continue our conversation first I'll respond to points made at the last meeting by the city and the board about the city's change in billing practice to charge rate pay attack ratepayers for its own internal water and sewer consumption the state the city still hasn't justified its change. The city originally disclosed the change in the Melrose Free Press earlier this year and said it was based on advice from the Massachusetts Department of Revenue that such costs should be addressed within the water and sewer enterprise funds. Now the city says it simply implemented good

▶ 2:15 and appropriate practice as per its auditors. I've talked at length to the Department of Revenue who said the change was not mandatory, encouraged or discouraged. The prior and new practices were equally acceptable. The city's consultant Mr. Woodcock in fact said at the last meeting that as many cities charge internal consumption to their property tax budget as don't. Alderman Forbes asked the city to clarify for today's meeting Department of Revenue frequently asked question number 17 which he thought might prohibit water and sewer enterprises from charging the city's property tax budget. I've also talked to the Department of Revenue about this item the department said this FAQ 17 absolutely in no way relates to or precludes enterprise funds from from

▶ 3:04 excuse me from charging the city budget for usage as they would any customer FAQ 17 was written only to stop bothersome past practice by which some city departments and funds have been invoicing each other every time an employee work with another department of fund nothing more so what compelled the city to make the unnecessary billing practice change and shift two hundred seventy thousand dollars of incremental annual cost of ratepayers and why didn't the city regardless offset the cost to residents as it could and should have and why doesn't the city correct the situation now second I'm surprised that the board is not probed at all the average annual 14% increase for the past two years in city-controlled water and sewer spending and allocated indirect charges from

▶ 3:51 the property tax budget. The Board seems simply ready to institutionalize these increases by approving the 2017 budgets. As recently as last week, the Melrose Free Press reported that the allocated indirect charge component has been increasing at an average double-digit annual rate for the past four years, and that annual pension costs have increased by $294,000 or 2.7 times over the past five years. All these data beg questioning that's not taking place. Third and finally, let's discuss tiered rates again. I continue to be mystified how 13 MWRA cities are still comfortable using uniform flat rates, but Melrose considers them illegal. Regardless, tiered rates are allowed only to the extent they fairly reflect the impact of increased consumption. I heard many grand

▶ 4:41 judgment driven potential reasons for tiered rate differentials all unrelated to cost of service at the last meeting to inspire conservation even though the MW IRA water and capacity are abundant to assure affordability without defining for whom and at whose expense and to what degree and to reflect other broad policy considerations I heard very little about the actual cost differences to provide service to customers across the three tiers I also heard no specific great impact numbers to use for the top tier conservation and affordability reasons, which numbers must get pretty darn artful and arbitrary. So facts bear repeating. Melrose's current top tier combined water and sewer rate is a significant 33% higher

▶ 5:28 than the MWRA top tier average. Melrose's top tier is an unsupported 36% higher than its own lowest tier, and more meaningfully 93% higher when excluding constant per unit MWRA charges. The city has a tiered rate problem on the face of it. The city cannot today but must going forward support its rate differentials between tiers with proven cost differentials per unit of consumption. The city is selling setting utility rates here not graduated tax rates. Add on a judgmental something for conservation and affordability if it must but stop overreaching contrary to what was implied at the last meeting no other public utility provider would ever be allowed to charge one set of customers at rates anywhere nearly as substantial

▶ 6:16 dramatically tiered and pervasive as the city's in order to merely and excessively subsidize others subsidies for needy residents are certainly appropriate but they should be targeted at the truly needy the vast majority of Melrose residents can afford unsubsidized rates. The city needs to collapse its dramatically tiered rate structure much greater than any option being presented today. The very fact that no one can explain or quantify the elements of today's tiered rate differentials, evidences that they were chosen arbitrarily, in contrast to what some aldermen have opined, the city doesn't have a communication problem. It has a computation problem. Alderman Kahn appropriately highlighted

▶ 7:02 at the last meeting the fact that the lowest tier rates would have to increase in order to collapse the tiered rate structure. This simply is required to correct today's huge insupportable erroneous subsidy. Extrapolating from Raftelis Financial's technical memorandum, flat rate structure would have decreased combined 2016 top tier rates by 20% and increase lowest tier rates by 8% which would represent the maximum impact of a full collapse of two tiered rates if the city also reversed its billing practice change for internal consumption as it should lowest tier rates would have increased by a lesser net 6% not trivial but a moderate impact equivalent to one year's recent typical rate increase the city can and should collapse tiered rates significantly

▶ 8:10 thank you sir anyone else who wants to speak this evening hi i'm jerry morose um i understand uh birthday wishes are in order for today for somebody on the board of aldermen is that correct anyway i was set up to say that we're here again uh mr taymor and i um you know there are some aldermen that believe that mr taymor and i are wasting the time of the city and of the mayor of the water and sewer committee because we choose to engage and choose to become informed and to try to contribute to the process and um and you know i i certainly reject that idea that somehow i'm wasting the city's time by trying to bring forth good data valuable data supportable data defensible data to me the waste of time the waste of money is when we pay $30,000

▶ 9:16 or more to a consultant who gives people what they want politically instead of giving us the facts that we can we can base our decisions upon we're in the situation today with water and sewer enterprise funds because for a number of years we haven't done the right thing we're doing better now than we did 20 or 30 years ago absolutely and I applaud that but it's not sufficient to make things better here the first point I want to address about water and sewer tonight is this idea that we have to charge people some ridiculously high amount of money for the second tier or third tier of water that somehow that will cause them to conserve now we all think about Los Angeles California and and you know a lot of California cities San Diego San Jose as having horrible

▶ 10:11 water issues well I went and did some homework over the weekend and I looked up all the LA district water and sewer ordinances and their book of rates and variances by zip code and wet and dry areas and all these things and come to find out that their fourth tier in Los Angeles is below our second tier here in Massachusetts and then upon a little bit of further investigation I went to water districts all around the country and then I came back home to the MWRA and the MWRA has an advisory board and the advisory board does a wonderful thing every year they put out a retail rate survey of all the water and sewer systems in the MWRA communities and beyond and and they also include in there some things about around the country so very quickly I looked at

▶ 11:07 first the annual there's one metric I want to define here for you there's a standard used by the American Water Works Association to determine how costs are how cross compare between water districts all around the country and around the world and they use a consumption amount of a hundred and 20000 cubic feet of of consumption that would be the equivalent to somebody in Melrose using 3,000 cubic feet per quarter okay so it's a little bit higher than what our it's higher than what our average uses but it's what they put out there interviews for a number of years as a standard comparison amount with that comparison looking at only the water charges for the city of Melrose that we charge to residences again at 3,000 cubic feet that would amount in

▶ 11:54 Melrose to $870 per year for the charge. I have a graph here that has a lot of 35 MWRA communities on it that are served by both water and sewer. The very top line here that goes way over here is Redding. It's $1,060. The next line down says Melrose, $870. Again, way over here Redding, right here Melrose. I spoke of the town of Reading I didn't get a good source person there but they're telling me that they have some costs for recently joining the MWRA and being involved in that but I don't know the exact issues around that I want to be clear but if you notice from $870 in Melrose the next one down is Newton 824 we come all the way down here we're going to ignore Woobin at 205 at the bottom because they

▶ 12:44 just assess one charge until next year but Everett Everett the local city nearest $269 for the water costs average water costs for the city of everett now what's really interesting about everett is that their first tier of water and sewer is actually below what mwra charges them for water it's an example where more than twice as much they're they're below what this mwi charges them somerville is another interesting thing it comes in at 645 dollars for water again melrose 870 all these we're the second highest there's what 33 below us Then, when I look further, and this is distressing to see, just like when I found the inflow and infiltration data that we were the top, the leakiest city in the MWRA in inflow and

▶ 13:32 infiltration, it was distressing to see this come up. Sewer only charges. Again, same metric, 120 hundred cubic feet per year. Melrose comes here in sixth. We weren't quite so bad. We were at 1,184. However, it goes all the way down here, you know, Woburn, well, Woburn's not good, Arlington 599, we'll ignore Clinton, Winchester 313. Clearly other towns are finding things to do, but again, here's a huge amount here, way out on the right here, and all these others are way below us. Next chart I want to show you is a similar chart, but it's a combined water and sewer use. I don't want you to think that I didn't show you everything here. Water and sewer use. The worst one in the MWRA is Belmont, 2349, under the same 120, 100 cubic feet.

▶ 14:23 Redding, 2231, then Melrose comes in at 2055. We look down below here, not going to the very bottom with Winchester moving in Clinton, Everett, 1002. I notice Somerville here is 1653, again, compared to 2055 for Melrose. We're at the top of these charts of the MWRA water service area. Now you'd say, okay, but we have this expensive sewer system for MWRA and it costs a fortune. That explains that even though that's it, this is the most expensive place in the country. You can't compare it to the rest of the country. Well, the MWRA advisory board did. They put out a list of all the water and sewer districts, 27 large US cities here. And this is the 2016 water rate survey based on 2015 water rates.

▶ 15:18 Actually, the rate that we have today is in this here. So the worst combined water and sewer in the country is Seattle, Washington, 2,214. They have issues there. San Francisco, California, 2,194. Number three on this list of 27 large cities plus Melrose is Melrose. We are one of the most expensive water and sewer systems in the country. If that doesn't have an impact on you finally, I don't know what does. The issue is that our first tier rate, which we all agree is a subsidized rate at $6 and something, is above what much of the rest of the country in some of the worst water supply areas charges for their highest tiers. What we're talking about, but ignoring these facts doesn't get us anywhere.

▶ 16:18 Going along and saying, oh, everything's just fine and we're doing terrific and we just have to have this crazy rate so that it looks better on the lower end for people and we'll give senior discounts, something's not working here. And I wish at some point we could have the real conversation about Melrose. Now, I don't believe that our water and sewer people are doing horrible things. We know what the MWRA charges. There's a lot of MWRA communities that are charged the same as we are with the same rate structure and they're doing far better in their water rates than we are. The question becomes is when are we going to look at what's really going into this? We can certainly imagine that the city ought to be paying its own water bill.

▶ 17:05 I didn't look to find out whether Los Angeles pays their own water bill. We could also really evaluate these indirect costs and how large they are. One thing that Mr. Taymor said that I wanted to repeat is that we've seen no evidence of any of these expressions of cost centers that we have to somehow fund in public. Has anybody audited what we're calling indirect costs to the Water and Sewer Enterprise Fund? You know, this year's charge for 100 cubic feet of water is $2.61. I talk about water frequently because it's a more simple calculation than looking at the sewer side. It's a much more complex calculation, but some of the principles still apply in terms of what I'm talking about. Mr. Ramirez, we're going to pick this up again in a couple of minutes when you can speak at length at the Water and Sewer Public Hearing.

▶ 17:55 If you could hold that thought for now. i'll do that and i'm just going to pass out to you if i may the um this chart that shows 27 cities in melrose if i may for anybody else who wishes to speak this evening we will be having later on in the evening a public hearing again relative to water and sewer and speakers are welcome to come forward uh and speak at that time again if they wish motion to close public participation for the main meeting alderman mortimer moves to conclude public participation the motion is is seconded by Alderman Boycelle on the motion. All those in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? Motion passes. I will point out for the public and anybody who will be watching in the future

▶ 18:50 that this meeting is being taped and will be broadcast in accordance with the Massachusetts Open Meeting Law. Mr. President, I'll quickly make a motion to accept the minutes of our meeting of March 21st, 2016 without reading. Second. Alderman Mortimer moves that we accept the minutes of that meeting without reading. The motion is seconded by Alderman Boycelle. All those in favor of the motion, indicate by saying aye. Aye. Is there anybody opposed? Motion to accept the minutes passes. Okay. If we could move, please, to tabled orders. Order 2016-120, presentation by Raftelis Financial Consulting and Woodcock & Associates regarding water and sewer utility rate setting. Alderman Forbes. Yes, Mr. President.

▶ 19:45 like to remove order 2016-163 from the table alderman forbes moves to remove the order from the table second the motion motion is seconded by alderman mortimer all those in favor of removing the order from the table please indicate by saying aye all right it's the wrong it's a different order number oh i'm sorry uh 2016-120 okay i apologize thank you all those in favor of the motion to table please indicate by saying aye aye anyone opposed this order is removed from the table uh i will point out to the audience here and anybody watching at home that the consultants are here this evening and i think we will be possibly hearing from them later on in the meeting if that is the wish of the board motion to return to the table second the order for now is uh moved

▶ 20:34 to be returned to the table made by alderman Medeiros seconded by alderman mortimer on the the motion all those in favor anyone opposed motion passes order 2016-178 transfer of five thousand dollars from workers comp account zero one nine one two two dash five four three one zero two to municipal building repair account number zero one four zero two two dash five two seven seven zero zero motion to remove from the table second alderman Medeiros moves to remove the order from the table the motion is seconded by alderman mortimer on the motion all those in favor all right anyone opposed motion passes the order is before you motion for passage second alderman medeiros moves for passage the motion is seconded by alderman forbes is there any discussion relative

▶ 21:23 to this order ms o'shea could you call the roll please alderman gazelle yes alderman forbes yes yeah alderman inferno yes yes alderman lemmerman yes yes salomon mccarty margolis yes yes all the medeiros yes yes alderman mortimer yes yes alderman tozy yes yes alderman right yes yes alderman's records going president khan yes yes 10 years that order passes if we could turn to new business please order 2016-180 a resolution recognizing national police week 20 2016. mr president i move for immediate consideration of this order please alderman Lemmerman asked for immediate consideration of the order is there an objection to immediate consideration there is not thank you mr president um i make a motion to suspend the rules second the motion to suspend okay there's a motion made by alderman

▶ 22:19 Lemmerman to suspend the rules seconded by alderman mortimer for the purposes of presenting the resolution this evening all those in favor of the motion please indicate by saying aye anyone opposed motion passes welcome to the moment if you want to approach the podium thank you very much and i'd like to invite chief lyle and the members of the maurice police department to join me as well thank you thank you to the members of the board for uh allowing for immediate consideration of this order so we may read the resolution with chief lyle here and the members of the maurice police department present and thank you to all of you for for coming down tonight just wanted to give a little bit of background before we read the resolution national police week takes place

▶ 23:25 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: every year in May. It's a time to recognize the incredible duty and responsibility that all police officers take and the sacrifices that they make to do the job. We're thankful to the Melrose Police for the work that they do every day that allows us to live safely in this community. It's also a time to pay special recognition to those law enforcement officers who lost their lives in the line of duty. Tens of thousands of police officers, surviving family members, and supporters gather in Washington DC every year at this time to attend a series of events, and they include conference workshops and support groups and remembrances. And during one of these events in particular, a candlelight vigil that takes place

▶ 24:02 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, a roll call lists the names of officers who were added to the memorial that year. Over the weekend, Officer Garrett Swayze was one of those honored. Officer Swayze grew up here in Melrose. He graduated from Melrose High School in the class 1989 and in 2009 he became a police officer with the University of Colorado Police Department. On November 27th of last year he responded to a call of an active shooter and he was killed protecting his community. As many of you know this is a topic that couldn't possibly be closer to my heart. Police week and the memorial in particular are very emotional for those who are mourning an officer on the wall but it's also an incredible honor and a recognition of the sacrifice that

▶ 24:47 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: these officers paid and the loss experienced by their families and their colleagues the support is echoed by communities across the country as they do their part to participate in police week so after tonight's meeting i plan to send a copy of this resolution to the swayze family and it's my hope that through this gesture melrose can add our voice to those messages of support and show officer swayze's family and his community that we continue to stand behind them during this difficult time and that through this resolution we show our gratitude to all law enforcement officers who regularly put the safety of their community ahead of their own and i'll read this into the record but before i do that i want to ask chief lyle if you'd like to say a few words thank you touching

▶ 25:31 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: i commend the award and particularly jen for all she's done to get this done on behalf of the officers here and the most police department garrett will always be in our prayers and his family as well thank you so i will now read this resolution a resolution recognizing national police week 2016. whereas there are approximately 900 000 law enforcement officers serving in communities across the united states including the dedicated members of the morose police department and whereas the board of aldermen honors and commends all those who risk their lives while serving the citizens of Melrose in order to protect our safety and welfare. And whereas May 15th is designated as Peace Officers Memorial Day in honor of all fallen

▶ 26:17 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: officers and their families. And whereas the names of these dedicated public servants are engraved on the walls of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C. And whereas 252 names of fallen heroes are being added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial this spring. And whereas among the names added this year is that of Melrose native University of Colorado Police Officer Garrett Swayze. And whereas the service and sacrifice of Officer Swayze and all officers killed in the line of duty were honored during National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund's 28th Annual Candlelight Vigil as part of National Police Week, which takes place this year on May 15th through

▶ 26:54 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: the 21st. Now therefore be it resolved that the City of Melrose is committed to continuing to honor officer Swayze's memory and the loss felt by his family friends and colleagues be it further resolved that the Melrose Board of Aldermen formally designates May 15th through 21st as police week in the city of Melrose and publicly salutes those men and women who have committed their lives to public safety in our community and communities across the nation this 15th day of May 2016 thank you the brief recess second Alderman Zuerkow moves for recess motion seconded by Alderman McAteer-Margolis on the motion all those in favor aye aye opposed board will stand in recess for a very short time 16-180 is before you

▶ 28:12 what's your pleasure folks make a motion to place on file second alderman lemmerman moves to place the order on file the motion is seconded by alderman mortimer on the motion all those in favor aye anyone opposed that order will be placed on file okay at this point in time pursuant to prior vote of this board we are going to convene a public hearing relative to order number 216 163 and 2 6 2016 164 these are orders to amend the melrose revised ordinances chapter 28 228 article 2 and article 4 relative to water and sewer rates motion to convene the public hearing Alderman Medeiros moves to commence a public hearing second by Alderman Fern on the motion all those in favor motion passes this is a public hearing any member of the general

▶ 29:13 public who wishes to come forward and speak relative to these two orders may proceed to the table in the center of the room and speak in no particular order whether you're in support of or opposed to the motion is there anybody who wishes to speak at this time I thought you might be back I do ask again for a good sufficient opportunity to have some real dialogue on this that addresses the the issues that are important to Melrose that's what I haven't heard from the consultant at this point at all I've heard applications of of kind of average national scale things to Melrose without without actually addressing the Melrose data this issue of conservation I did some research into that as well, and it's certainly not comprehensive, but I certainly found

▶ 30:13 reports of some studies that talk about that indoor household use in the United States has decreased 22% between 1999 and 2016. Significantly, this study says that the decline in use from 177 gallons household per day to 138 is not due to a green wave of environmentalism breaking over the suburbs. it's basically attributable to better toilets better washing machines better dishwashers okay that's one issue and since time is limited I'm gonna move on there's another issue that the consultant brought up because I haven't talked about a lot of flourish of things at the last meeting and one of those things was this idea that um you know we have to worry about the amount of water in carbon reservoir now obviously it's a dynamic situation carbon reservoir is loaded

▶ 31:09 right now we have plenty of water carbon reservoir and i want to make put this on the record mwra has a lot of good data out there you got to go looking for it but you can find it if you try carbon reservoir can support 300 million gallons a day of water to be produced for the whole area out of the carbon reservoir even as a safe level of use even in drought conditions all right back years and years ago we were using more than that I have a graph here somewhere if I can find it for you I'll show it to you years and years ago we were using more than that but um before 1980 or so but I mean we still had water it's just that if we had had a drought at that time we could have been in trouble some ways but you know we were

▶ 31:55 We were using about 300 million gallons back then, but now we're using 200 million gallons in the whole area. We don't need to conserve water in our rate structure, certainly. If there was an issue where we had a drought come on for a period of years, we could certainly take steps to have water bans and have other kinds of conservation measures. You don't need to have conservation, although we all want to conserve for good reasons in general just for energy use, it's not, it shouldn't be the factor in Melrose that drives what we do here and in fact i think conservation being brought up here is just an artificial reason to try to again load more money on some people to benefit other people and

▶ 32:36 it's not it's done arbitrarily the way that it's done we had mr van kampen here the other day you know he was give us again his interpretation of the statute anybody can read the statute if the statute said we had to have increasing block rates and that's all they wanted they would have put a period at that point in the statute. They would have said that said base rate shall be increased period, but they didn't. They went on to say at an increasing block rate, they could have said at an increasing block rate period, I'm sorry, they could, but they went on to say to fairly, important word, fairly reflect the resource demand in consumption of high volume uses of water. I can demonstrate if anybody wants to see that there is not a resource demand that is

▶ 33:20 at in any way significant to Melrose based on the amount of water somebody uses I have here I do have here the LA some of the LA rate structure and you know they have all different things in the LA rate structure because they do have to worry about water supply we don't have to worry about that it's not in the MWRA's rates to us we don't have to put it in our rate to somebody else they are we are not constrained in any way we are not added to cost in any way beyond the marginal cost to the mwra of water that people use through their houses the consultant is going to get up here probably later on tonight as we had the consultant come back here three years ago and two years ago and last year and say something contrary to what i'm saying and you always tend

▶ 34:01 to believe him because you're paying him i challenge you allow me at some level to address these issues with the consultant in front of all of you and let's find out where the truth really lies here. Let's examine the issues. One thing that I'm especially frustrated about with our consultant this year is that paying in the order of $30,000 for a contract, the first thing you do when setting water and sewer rates is to do a cost of service analysis. You want to analyze what the costs of the system are and by the function. What function do they provide to the system and so how do they apply? Do they apply, you know, if they take the amount of cost of a meter, well that applies for every account that has a meter, which is every account.

▶ 34:42 If you take the cost of a water service from the corporation valve to the curb clock, well, that's a cost to every account. The cost of the billing department, mailing out a bill to everybody every quarter, is a cost to an account. The volumetric cost is only for the water we use here in Melrose mainly. The issue is that we can put in a flat rate. It's legal. It's fair. It's simple. It's transparent. It gets rid of every issue about the penalty to people in condos and apartments. You don't have to go and try to, you know, offset the craziness of the tiered rate system by trying to figure out per capita use, how many people live in a house, and if we really are trying to punish people, do we want to punish the larger families, or are we trying

▶ 35:27 to punish people who use beyond a certain amount per person? You get rid of all that ridiculous stuff, put in a flat rate. I want to say out loud here in public that a flat rate, at a flat rate, people who use high volumes are actually paying more than their fair share of the pipes in the ground, of the pumping stations for the sewer, of the personnel in the water department and the sewer department, of the trucks and all the capital improvements, they are paying more money than their proportionate share by account of what they would be incurring as a cost for those services to them. This is a complex set of circumstances. I appreciate that not all of you have the willingness, the desire, the time to get into

▶ 36:18 all this stuff. But don't let this be another surface conversation where you go and you say what somebody tells you that they want you to hear. Look at the facts yourself, evaluate it. At least let two people come together and show where the issues really are. Because here's the problem in Melrose. We have a difficult situation with water and sewer that needs to be addressed. And as long as we talk about these ridiculous extremes and we don't get into the nuances of the middle, we're not going to solve these problems. Now in establishing a system for next year, going to a flat rate, you're going to have some rate shock. You would have some rate shock given that we did this distorted rate starting three

▶ 36:59 years ago. To offset that, I think it would be good to A, don't budget for reserves for next year. They aren't necessary. We don't have all that stuff I've talked about at other meetings, treatment plants and aquifers to protect and wells to drill and everything else in the world. We don't have that. The MWRA takes care of that. All the capital of the sewer system is on the MWRA as well through our contributions to them. We don't need to pay for reserves. We don't have to hold reserves to any large extent. Capital costs are funded in one of three ways, either prepayment through putting the money aside in advance, you build up the money, then you pay for the capital, or you pay for the capital you budgeted every year and you expended every year for capital improvements or

▶ 37:39 as we do here in Melrose we bond for capital and we post pay it we pay it down the road not a bad either any of those three things are fine even the post payment is not you know any any harm or blame in fact it can take take advantage of low interest rates and future inflation to make our costs actually be lower right we don't need the reserves to pay for all those capital costs. We can bond for them. We can do that. That's a better way to do it than hold money in reserves that isn't working for us. We need to invest in our system with that money, not leave that money on the table doing nothing for us. Elderly discounts. I'm all for giving discounts to people that can't afford a water and sewer bill at some level. Not every elderly

▶ 38:27 person, especially as the baby boom generation is now becoming elderly, and many of them are well off they don't need a discount just for being elderly i i at first i thought it was just people weren't mentioning it but i looked in the details i don't see anywhere it says an elderly person with low income is able to get these discounts i don't believe every elderly person ought to i'm sure that will lose some votes if you vote not to do that but the truth is is that we should be doing this for poor people if we're doing it one can certainly argue that that given that this is a city enterprise fund and the enterprise fund is an accounting method perhaps the city side of the budget ought to have a social welfare element to it where it contributes costs

▶ 39:08 to the enterprise fund for those discounts i would i would put that out there it would help get us from looking as embarrassed as being second highest and the third highest in the country on on combined water and sewer rates there are so there are other issues here regarding water and sewer rates for next year if you stay with the tiered system you're getting further and further away from being able to correct it in the future the rate shock to correct it is going to be there i'm look i'm looking to propose to you to offset the rate shock this year at least by not doing the reserves by having the city pay for its own water and sewer charges as it i believe it should and by because nobody's looking at these indirect costs just i would say the easiest thing to do

▶ 39:52 right now is cut the indirect costs in half say if we're billing this many indirect costs let the city absorb some indirect costs this year of course we all know that the reason for all these contortions around water and sewer rates is basically to do an end run around prop two and a half lay it on the table if you want to avoid prop two and a half that's what you're doing that's how that's one way we're doing it we're doing with the trash fee as well we're making, what, $400,000 on the trash fee. Their end runs around Prop 2 1⁄2. The problem is that we got these things out of the city budget, and then we filled them in with other things, so the city budget's full. It's not a simple solution to

▶ 40:32 resolve it, but the problem is that nobody was honest with the taxpayers or the ratepayers last year with the override about what the override really could have done. We didn't do that. The Water and Sewer Enterprise Fund has not had a fair, or the Water and Sewer system and the budget for it and the rate structure has not had a fair hearing at this point it has had a distorted presentation from the mayor's side which i put the water and sewer committee with and the consultants with i don't know where this process is going to go this year but when you talk about making these things defensible what they've been doing for the last three years is not defensible if you want to have a more defensible thing let's have the conversation let's do the

▶ 41:21 hard work, let's evaluate the real options, and let's make the hard choices that we need to make to figure out how to do this. We want water and sewer. We want good, healthy water. We want to get rid of our sewer. We don't want to have huge inflow and infiltration. We want to cut our rates, our costs and our rates. We can do that with the right planning. I look back at some of the Alderman's meetings over the last three years and the minutes that were very well kept for these meetings, and I've been talking about inflow and infiltration for three years. Every year we hear, oh yeah, we're going to plan next year to start getting going inflow and infiltration. Here we are three years later, we're not a whole lot better off for it.

▶ 41:58 We missed three years of investment opportunity that we could now next year be getting the benefit of some inflow and infiltration work that we would have done three years ago. We're not. These are issues that we can work together to address, to resolve, to make it better for the next generations of Melrose residents instead of playing games to make things look better than they really are from 2017. as you know there's so much more i could say um i'll stop here i just um i appeal to you you know find a way to do something i will be here at other meetings if we aren't making progress i'm certain to let you know about that and i'd rather just be quiet thank you thank you sir good evening julie d lolo from circuit street um i wasn't going to

▶ 43:07 to speak tonight uh but after listening to uh mr taymor and mr moroz uh it dawns on me i pay attention to this stuff but i will tell you it is so confusing i think you need to have a very layman's conversation with the public because when they talk all the the about infiltration and cubic feet and all of that i pay attention and i have a hard time following it i know my rates go up but I'd really like to understand in layman's terms what it what decisions are being made and why not about tears and the hires and the lowers and the substitutes and all that but in layman's terms I think it would help the public a great deal because I think a lot of people start listening and it's it's so confusing that they stop listening and then it's just

▶ 44:01 accepted so I would ask that if there's a way to do that that we should do that that's it thank you thank you thank you anybody else wish to speak this evening Alice Shattuck at 140 Grove Street I came to talk about the water rates because I think this is such a great opportunity for the Board of Aldermen to have all these options and the impacts of them and I think it's a great opportunity to talk to the community about it and really seek the input of the people who live here because water bills have continued to be a contentious issue throughout the city especially as newer people move here a lot of times you know I'm friends with lots of people who moved here more recently and have gone oh my gosh what is with the water rates in the city they seem so much

▶ 45:10 higher than anywhere else I've ever lived and people who've never cared about or noticed water bills or how they're calculated all of a sudden start caring about the water bills so I think to have all these options is really a good time to talk about how these costs are distributed and on whom the impact really falls of these these rate increases and I'm especially struck by seeing the uniform rates options I know that there's been this back and forth about you know that they're not they don't conform with Massachusetts general laws to have a uniform rate structure but certainly it you know our rates could be much flatter you could have tiered rates that are a penny apart if you wanted to do that and that would meet the requirement that the you have

▶ 45:57 tiers and that would essentially be the same as the uniform rate so so from that point of view I think it's still useful to look at and it's useful to look at because when you see how disparate the impact of putting a uniform rate on the city of Melrose right now would be that that it would be such a large bump up for the lower bill sizes and it would actually be a rate decrease for the larger bill sizes that that's so important to see because that all that difference is that is the impact of putting in the tiered rate system so when you look at that those people that would actually have their bills go down going back to a uniform rate these are the people that saw this huge disproportionate impact of going over to the tiered rate and it's it's an impact

▶ 46:46 of that size so I mean I think it would be really nice to see the historical of since the tiered rates were put in what these same for the same bill sizes that are in the rate options of what the increases have been since those tiered rates were put in because I guarantee what we're going to see is that these people whose rates would go down if we went back to uniform have had massive increases over the last several years and not all of them are you know big corporations or something who have the larger bills we have a family across the street from us who has three generations living in a multi-family home and you know they've seen an enormous water bill increase and I think it's just a question of basic fairness I know that we've talked about how the how the the

▶ 47:30 larger users do impact the system more and the cost associated with the larger users are higher but but I know I don't know that it's as much of a higher cost on the system as we're making them pay and I I really believe that these users that are in condominiums or multifamily homes that they're subsidizing other people so that you know so that the city can cushion the impact of these higher bills on a certain set of people that they feel are the people that they don't want to notice how much these bills are going up because they're really going up lot and and and I couldn't find in this report although I'm sure it's somewhere how much the the MWRA assessments increased in terms of rates and I think

▶ 48:20 it was from what I've been told was under 3% for an overall rate increase to the residents of 5% so that means that since the MWRA assessment is about 60% of the water bill that means that that what we pay for in our water rates on the city side is has gone up quite a lot and and I think that that should be something that residents see and notice and not just certain residents because we have a tiered rate system but it really should be a little bit more uniformly shared across the residents of the city and the people who got water bills so so I would encourage us to look at historically what's happened and see we can ease some of the impact on the people who've really been hit by the tiered rates quite a lot

▶ 49:06 thank you thank you is there anybody else who wishes to speak this evening doesn't doesn't look like we have anyone else motion to close the public hearing second alderman inferno moves to conclude the public hearing motion is seconded by alderman mac tamar billis on the motion all those in favor opposed these orders are now before you and i would point out that we have the consultants here from raft Ellis financial consulting and Woodcock associates also a pay lengths of other city officials who were here as well what's your pleasure relative to these orders I'll remember dearest if I could perhaps have the city auditor for a moment like this just request some information for our next meeting in

▶ 50:09 Monica C. Medeiros: advance mr del russo could you come forward i apologize because i had hoped to have this request in before we had adjourned last thursday um in particular i think we've heard a lot of i've heard from a lot of residents asking about some of the other costs that are involved in water and sewer and some of the costs from the city side and in particular I'd like to see us find a way to sort of explain some of the indirect costs I think a little bit better and a little bit more detail so I have you know I've been kind of looking into it to myself so I can better understand it and better explain it and I have some of the numbers from you know what we've been paying in from those eight use in terms of indirect costs and I see things like

▶ 51:16 Monica C. Medeiros: health insurance pension shared employees shared facilities legal and insurance and I was hoping that perhaps for our next meeting maybe if I could email this off to you and perhaps you could explain like the way we did for munis some of the definitions of what's included in each of those and kind of how those calculations are determined I think those costs are when I say indirect cost there's a cost that we're I know what I see the the lump sum number coming in through the under other funding sources documents but I think it's hard for us to really understand the impact of you know what that has on the regular operating budget and since it's not clearly defined in our and not included actually in our water and sewer budgets that people would be helpful to

▶ 52:13 Michael P. Zwirko: sort of supplement that so thank you thank you anyone else any questions for mr. de la Rousseau for mr. Shana mr. van Kampen or the consultants I have a question this is for our city engineer miss Paracas Ellis thank you so much so I know that you're somewhat new to the city and I just wanted to you know take the time to say thank you for all your work I know that you're quite busy with the many many items going on so we frequently see you when we have road cuts coming in and otherwise so hats off to the work that you do I appreciate it you I have been told that you are very well versed in what we call or refer to as I and I and just in an attempt to help educate the public could you speak about that a little bit you know as much as I think I know about it I'm sure I

▶ 53:24 Michael P. Zwirko: don't sure so if you could just kind of explain what that is and where the benefits of recapturing and other methods of I and I are helpful in this area and also if there's any plans for structural repairs or fixes to our own I&I system just not only for educating the public but also myself sure so I guess starting out if I miss any of your multi-part question let me know starting out in terms of the what I and I really is so it's inflow and infiltration into the sewer system infiltration is a little bit easier to understand that's just water that comes in when the groundwater table is typically higher than the the depth of the pipes and you can have especially in systems as old as melrose's you can have leaking joints

▶ 54:17 you can have leaks in old brick manholes so that's what's considered direct infiltration and then inflow is rainfall induced extraneous water coming into the sewer system so it's rain water that gets in through manhole covers that have holes and again it could be leaking joints or pipes but this would be when rain water is actually falling it could be cross connections between the drainage system and the sewer and then there's indirect inflow which is sump pumps essentially it's water that comes in after it's rained when there's a longer term impact like people have floods in their basements or they have or another private inflow source is roof leaders that are tied into your sewer system so private inflow

▶ 55:10 is illegal any connections between the drainage system and sewer system are illegal and so that's one type of I and I that can be tackled and then there's fixing the actual pipe defects in the older pipe systems to tackle the infiltration and the immediate inflow during rain the the issue in Melrose is largely the older system and also the issue is that the way the MWI assessments work so for water it's a very easy calculation it's just basically how much we use and they assess a different rate each year based on usage and percent share of of the system to set the next year's rate but for sewer there's a calculation in the rate setting that takes into account your peak month and peak month in New England is entirely driven by inflow and infiltration we

▶ 56:06 never have a peak sewer use month that's because everybody's flushing their toilets at once Melrose's percentage in the 2015 data or I think it's actually 2014 data that MWRA has available is on the order of 59 percent of our sewer flow over an annual average is from INI so we get charged not only per gallon for those extraneous flows then we also get charged an extra basically what amounts to a surcharge for having a high peak month INI is something that you need to constantly be fixing and preventing and eliminating if you do it a little while and then you take a decade off from from repairing ini it comes back it new leaks crop up sometimes you fix leaks in one place and it just forces the water to go down to the next

▶ 57:00 available place where it can then come into the sewer so it does require an ongoing and a fairly holistic approach to solving it we've done some substantial investment in ini in the past years but coming in with a fresh set of eyes what I can see is that we've we've targeted areas that were known problem areas within the sewer system so they might be areas where we've historically had blockages or other issues but those aren't necessarily the areas where the peak flows are coming in so what we're doing right now is we're actually in the final week of a 10-week flow monitoring period so we have 30 flow meters throughout the city they take a reading every 15 minutes and they download that data and we're getting all of that data

▶ 57:46 as it comes in and as of next week we will have 10 weeks worth of 15 minute data for 30 different locations at that point our consultants from Weston Sampson will do a fairly lengthy analysis where they divide up what's in flow what's infiltration and which sub areas contribute the most and then from there you do additional investigations to find what's actually causing it so we plan to target the the most leaky areas and like I said it splits out what's influence infiltration so you know what areas do you just need a lot of public education for sump pump disconnections and you know you can do smoke testing for to see if you have your drainage system tied into your sewer system so there's different targeted approaches that are for inflow versus infiltration

▶ 58:36 so we'll embark on those and we plan on coming back in the fall for an appropriation or a loan from the MWRA I think I mentioned last time that I was in front of you that the MWRA program for this coming year is 75% grant money and it's money we absolutely need to take advantage of it's our money that we're giving MWRA and so if we're not using it a different town is taking advantage of those grant funds thank you for that so you had mentioned about the average month but there's no real peak with this type of it's the peak the peak month it's the month that they select but there's no real month that I guess what I'm saying is throughout the year we're pretty on average right I mean do we have one we have giant we have giant peaks the peak times tend to be spring

▶ 59:27 Michael P. Zwirko: rains snowmelt and sometimes snowfall depending on how excessive it is and the you had said that it's it's a it's something that we that needs to constantly be maintained in order to kind of keep your head above water lack of pun intended and attacking this problem so my question is was there a period of time where you put you know hit pause on I and I infrastructure repair I mean I guess what I'm saying is if our figures are high and the return on investment is good why all of a sudden do we have a large you know why is our peak so high I don't think I think we've made efforts over the years and tried to keep up on it but I don't think we've kept pace with where we should be so I think we've fallen behind and the other issue with the MWRI assessments is that

▶ 1:00:20 not only do you need to do really well but you need to do better than your neighboring communities because the MWRI is fixed costs aren't really changing And so if everybody's doing the same quality I&I removal job that we are, then we're all just keeping pace. We need to do better so that our rates come down compared to everybody else. Anyone else? Questions or comments? Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else on these orders this evening? Alderman Forbes. Yes, Mr. President. I know we have the consultants here. I just, if you'd like to come up here and maybe address some of the things that have been said this evening. Or there's just a couple of questions that I have for you as well.

▶ 1:01:22 Scott M. Forbes: So since we have you here, we might as well take advantage of the time, correct? Let's start with your questions. Could you gentlemen identify yourselves again, please? My name is Dave Fox, Reptiles Financial Consultants. I'm Christopher Woodcock, Woodcock & Associates. thank you all right i went and did a did a little math when we had the the first tiered rate which was i believe fiscal year 14 up until what fiscal year 17 is with our proposed rates it's pretty much a a 20 increase across the board from fiscal year 14 to one of the rate models we have for fiscal year 17. i think when we started these tiers um i think it was our mindset that we were going to be looking at something more modest and I think that's what that was

▶ 1:02:14 Scott M. Forbes: where that was what was presented to the board and so now we have the issue where you have people in the bottom tier that are experiencing a 20% increase over the last three years people in the middle tier people in the upper tier all in the same way so I it's a system that we can sit here and say you know everybody's not happy with and they just want answers I think the whole board is just looking for for answers and be able to like we said to justify the numbers so when we have rates where you're saying that it's six dollars and 35 cents for tier one is that just based upon how much we owe the MWRA is there an analysis where there's six dollars and 35 cents is a dollar for water a dollar for sewer is there some type of formula that you plug in there or is it just

▶ 1:03:05 based upon the money that we owe that you back into the number that way and then go through the tiers accordingly sure that's a great question it's it's really a little of both of those that's involved in it water and sewer are separate the amounts that are related to water are related to the cost of water that are in the water budgets and sewer related to the sewer budgets of the city of Melrose so those two are separate and distinct from each other in terms of the amounts for each tier it's really a mix of costs and policy considerations involved in doing it there are some suggestions earlier that we didn't do any cost analysis or cost of service analysis and that's that's not true there was certainly analyses of portions of the costs where we were able to do it

▶ 1:04:09 to do a full cost of service study that's traditionally done the accounting that you need the breakdown of your costs needs to be something that's different from what Melrose has and that's not a criticism of the city of Melrose it's it's it's the same situation in all 351 cities and towns in the Commonwealth it's really a function of the accounting system the Department of Revenue has where you don't break down your costs into treatment transmission distribution services fire hydrants metering billing collection etc and you really need that kind of detailed breakdown of all of your costs all of the assets all of the capital costs all of the operating costs to go through with that full study to do all of those to the extent we can do it

▶ 1:05:01 based on information that we have for those places that do have those kinds of breakdowns and there are some that do have and private water companies do some of the other states in New England have breakdowns like that Maine that in Rhode Island in particular where there's utility commissions involved with some of the municipalities where they do have that kind of breakdown that will enable us to do that so to the extent we could identify the costs that are in the base charge and we talked about those on Thursday night those new base charges we've done those to the extent we can the other thing that goes into it is that first step really should at least pay for the MWRA's cost that's a cost of

▶ 1:05:44 what water is delivered to the city limits if you will by the MWRA or in the case of sewer of the the cost of the sewage when you take it at city limits that goes eventually to Deer Island and so that first step really ought to cover those costs and it does and that's something that we looked at here to make sure that it does that beyond that it starts to get into some policy issues and I know there was some discussion Thursday night there's some discussion again tonight about plenty of water we don't have to worry about it there's tons of water in the Quabbin etc etc yeah there is there is a lot of water right now in the Quabbin Reservoir but as we discussed Thursday night there's a lot of policy consideration and setting rates and one of those policy

▶ 1:06:29 considerations that you all decide is is what to do with different aspects of it and one of them is conservation and conservation is important thing within the Commonwealth right now and as I said Thursday night this isn't just a matter of saving water if it was matter of just saving water we probably wouldn't be spending time or the emphasis on it that we are because there is enough water in the Quabbin and the Wachusa reservoirs as we sit here in May of 2016 that wasn't always the case as Mr. Moroz had said earlier there was in the early 80s problems with that and there and we were running up against how much water was available at the MWRA since then there's been a lot more communities there's been

▶ 1:07:12 a lot of reductions in consumption certainly some of them are due to the plumbing standards. There's no questions Mr. Ross is absolutely correct about that. Those are part of the reasons there have been reductions in consumption. As I said Thursday night, I believe the adoption of conservation rate structures, particularly increasing block rate structures, has also had a big element in doing, in encouraging water conservation and making sure we are below that safe yield. Again, as I said Thursday night, this isn't just a matter of conserving water resources. There are a lot of resources we're talking about here. We're talking about capital resources, money used to expand systems, put in new pipes,

▶ 1:07:56 larger pipes, either MWRA or in Melrose. So there's capital resources related to water. There's capital resources related to sewer. To the extent you cut back on water use, you're probably cutting back infiltration and inflow aside. But the sewage, the sewage that comes out of households, to the extent that's reduced by water conservation, there's less treatment cost associated with the MWRA, and that saves the MWRA in the long run. Not the short run. There's been a lot of discussion about how the MWRA's costs are primarily fixed, and that's true. But in the long run, they aren't fixed. And when they went ahead with the design of Deer Island and the outfall pipe and the hundreds of millions of dollars involved in that.

▶ 1:08:41 We were looking at, and I was involved in that, we were looking at what the new consumptions were and the reduced consumptions, not the increases in consumptions, and that I think probably saved everybody within the MWRA service area some money and continues to save it by not having to build as large facilities to treat the wastewater. And then on top of that, there's the energy cost. The treatment of water, the treatment of wastewater, the pumping of water and wastewater to get to households involves a considerable amount of energy and the um the conservation of the energy resources the impact on our carbon footprint on climate change are enormous and shouldn't be underestimated and to characterize it as only related to water resources um is a false argument

▶ 1:09:27 there are a lot more resources than just water resources involved and that's what comes in in in setting those next steps, getting back to your question, Alderman Forbes, about the amounts in there. And that gets into a little bit of art as well as science as to how much those increases there should be between the different steps. The Commonwealth, in their conservation standards, makes it clear that the difference between the steps should be significant. They should have meaning. If you're going to charge $5, $5.01 and $5.02 on the tiers, tears are irrelevant they don't mean anything if you've only got a penny or two difference in between them and it's only because of the the differentials in

▶ 1:10:10 them that it starts to get people's attention and makes them conserve now whether a dollar a day for water two dollars a day for sewer is so expensive that it's going to force people to go back and start putting bricks in their toilets like we used to ages ago and cutting way back on water consumption probably not but when you start seeing water bills going up more and more it does get people's attention and if you see your water bill going down maybe you're not going up as much as people who don't conserve it also gets people's intention and I think there's a certainly a mentality out there amongst consumers and it's not just residents it's businesses too that have to pay water and sewer bills that they're starting to pay a little more attention

▶ 1:10:55 Scott M. Forbes: to what the cost of water is and it's through those higher rates through the tiers knowing that if I use more and more water it's going to be more expensive than it was in the first year or in the second tier for the case of the very large users going to be more than that that starts to get them to think about what kind of investments can I make at my business at my home in plumbing to help cut back on water consumption and that's that's really the difference in where those those numbers come from okay and when we talk about the tiers like at the end this is this would be my final question before I I yield the floor to my to my colleagues when you talk about the tiers going from tier one to tier two tier two to tier three do you have a model on how you

▶ 1:11:37 Scott M. Forbes: increase it from one to two and from two to three is there is there a science to it is you're saying that from one to two you know we're gonna go up 20% in the rate due to a B and C okay can you explain that to us yeah I guess the easy answer is it's probably more art than science and how that's done some of the alternatives that we gave you were just across the board from what you have now and so those are really dictated by what you adopted before in rates and what those tiers were and how those came about we also looked at options that had only two tiers we looked at an option that collapsed the tiers too because of some of the comments that have come from the public that have been heard and so

▶ 1:12:23 Scott M. Forbes: we did look at those to look at those the exact numbers know this it's not a number that's exactly there it's more of a policy and how much policy how much emphasis you want to give to the tears or not give to the tears and remain true at least to the law that's that's there and I think your your solicitor has already explained his position at least on that law sure I think the reason why we're all you know there has to be this dialogue is because you know I don't have I don't have chapter 165 section to be in front of me but when it says that it fairly reflects you know the tiered rate block structure that failure reflects usage for consumption I know I'm paraphrasing here but there's no guideline you know there's there's no standard the it's out there and it's a

▶ 1:13:11 Scott M. Forbes: statement but the reason why I think we're having these discussions and we're trying to figure out what is the best way to charge the ratepayers is because beyond that it's almost that the municipality can make up whatever structure they want to make up because they're saying that it fairly reflects the law when in actuality there's no guideline to hold any municipality to give them a set of standards moving forward I mean I think that would be easier for everybody if we had those but unfortunately that's that's not where we are so that's why these you know this is rolling over from meeting into meeting so we can make sure that we're going to dot our I's, cross our T's, and come up with the best plan

▶ 1:13:52 that is for all of our residents, because I'm voting to raise my own water bill. You may not believe it, but there's a lot that Jerry tells you that I agree with, and I couldn't agree more with him than his characterization about the wording of the law. I think it was unfortunate. I think it's poor wording, but I'm not in the legislature. I don't get to make those decisions on how to do it. It would be very nice if there were more guidance. There is There's some guidance outside that law that comes from American Water Works Association and looking at what's in those tiers. As I said, some of that guidance looks at that first step, at least cover the MWRA cost. That seems to be a pretty well agreed upon method to come up with that first tier.

▶ 1:14:44 Now I will tell you that there are communities where the first tier is below the MWRA cost And what they have done is they have decided they would make the lowest tier cheaper than the MWRA cost in order to make it available for elderly or poor customers and don't have some sort of a discount. It's a terrible way of doing it. Your income status, your age status has nothing to do with how much water you use. But there are communities that do that, that set that first tier low to make it affordable. Now, everybody gets it, whether they've got, you know, a million dollars or have no money. Everybody gets that affordable way. So it's not a very good way of doing it. I think that the discount that Melrose has is probably a better way of delivering that

▶ 1:15:32 treatment to the elderly customers in terms of that amount. Other guidance goes to a meaningful difference. Again, not a huge amount of help. What's meaningful? I think we can probably all agree that a one-cent difference isn't meaningful. We can probably all agree $0.05 isn't, is $0.50, I don't know, maybe some of us would agree and some of us wouldn't. Is $1, you know, that's where it starts to get gray, and that's where it gets into, I think, frankly, an awful lot of policy, if you will, which is why you guys get all the big bucks to decide those policy issues. All right, well, I thank you for your time, and we're relying on you to give us valuable input, So I appreciate the dialogue, and I know that we'll be talking again.

▶ 1:16:18 Michael P. Zwirko: So thank you, Ms. Christensen. Thank you. Anyone else with questions or comments for these gentlemen? I just have one quick question. Alvin Zorco. Thank you, President Kahn. So this question is for Mr. Fox. Excuse me. On Friday, I had sent what I've called like a hybrid proposal. I didn't hear from you or the sender, so I was just curious. Did you receive that proposal? I was not able to complete that for this evening. I apologize. No, I didn't think that you would have time I just didn't know if you received it. That was just my question. Yes No, I have all the information. I just like I said didn't have time. No, I apologize. I understood. Thank you That was all right. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Thank you gentlemen

▶ 1:17:06 Monica C. Medeiros: Any other questions or comments relative to these two orders it it's some point when we conclude our discussion this evening They're gonna go back to the water and sewer Back to the Appropriation Committee for further discussion. Do I have a motion? Alderman Medeiros? I move to take concurrent action on Order 2016-163 and 2016-164. Second the motion on concurrent action. Alderman Medeiros moves to concurrent action on the two orders that we've been discussing. The motion is seconded by Alderman Forbes. On the motion, all those in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? Motion passes. motion to uh remand those orders to the appropriations committee second alderman medeiros moves to return the orders to the appropriation committee the motion is seconded

▶ 1:17:56 by alderman forbes is their discussion on this motion all those in favor of them uh uh just uh for point of clarification uh if our clerk might clarify the date of our next expected it's june 9th we'll be discussing these orders thank you any more discussion relative to the motion to return the orders to committee on the motion all those in favor all right anyone opposed those orders will go back to the Appropriations Committee say if we could move on to new business please order 2016-181 application of Chun Fei Chan for a common victual or license man Kang Incorporated doing business as number one taste 381 Franklin Street Melrose Mass that order will go to the committee on protection and license order 2016

▶ 1:18:53 dash 182 secondhand dealer licenses renewed commencing May 1st 2016 committee on protection and license order 2016 dash 183 secondhand dealer licenses not renewed commencing May 1st 2016 that order will also go to the committee on protection and license. Order 2016-184, Hackney Carriage Taxi Licenses, renewed, commencing May 1, 2016. That order will also go to the Committee on Protection and License. Order 2016-185, Hackney Carriage Taxi Licenses, not renewed, commencing May 1, 2016. Committee on Protection and License. Order 2016-186, Livery Car Service Licenses, renewed, commencing May 1, 2016. I will also go to the Committee on Protection and License. We have any orders out of order this evening?

▶ 1:19:46 Are there any orders from committee? Do we have any reports from aldermen who are designees on outside committees under Rule 53? Okay, before we proceed to the calendar, the Chair would request a brief recess if someone would make that motion. So moved, Mr. President. Second. Alderman Waterman moves to recess. The motion is seconded by Alderman Inferno. On the motion, all those in favor? Aye. anyone post take two minute warning recess we are moving on to the calendar order 2016 dash 168 reauthorization of the council on aging donation revolving account number 2811 for fiscal year 2017 motion for passage yeah that good this disorder comes to us from the Appropriations Committee with a recommendation for passage there's a motion that's made by alderman medeiros seconded by alderman

▶ 1:21:24 voice l for passage is there any discussion i'll be medeiros i just point out for purposes of uh discussion that this order the the limit is not changing from the existing limit and i don't believe it is changing on any of the remaining orders on our agenda tonight i believe you are correct i think we're just reauthorizing existing accounts at the existing levels on this order could you please call the roll yes yes Solomon Forbes yes yes Solomon Inferno yes yes all the Lemmerman yes yes all the Macatama goals yes yes all the Madeiras yes yes all the Mortimer yes yes all the matrimony yes yes all the night all in circle yes yes president Conn yes yes 10 yes that order passes order 2016-1 70 reauthorization of inspection services

▶ 1:22:17 revolving account number 26 58 for fiscal year 2017 this order also comes from appropriations committee with a recommendation for passage motion for passage all the boys they'll move some passage of the order is their second motion seconded by children McAteer Margolis is there any discussion relative to this water did you call the roll please Alvin Bozell yes yes Alderman Forbes yes yes Alderman Inferna yes yes Alderman Lemmerman yes yes Alderman McAteer-Margolis yes yes Alderman Medeiros yes yes Alderman Mortimer yes yes Alderman Tramontozzi yes yes Alderman Zwirko yes yes President Cronin yes yes ten yes that order passes order 2016-171 reauthorization of Police Department false alarm revolving fund number 2665

▶ 1:23:08 for fiscal year 2017 this order was passed in the Appropriations Committee motion for passage mr. president second Mortimer moves for passage the motion is seconded by Alderman Forbes is there any discussion could you call the roll please Miss Alderman Wiesel yes yes Alderman Forbes yes yes Alderman Inferna yes yes Yes. Alderman Lemmerman. Yes. Yes. Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Yes. Yes. Alderman Medeiros. Yes. Yes. Alderman Mortimer. Yes. Yes. Alderman Tramontozzi. Yes. Yes. Alderman Zirkov. Yes. Yes. President Conn. Yes. Yes. 10 yes. That order passes. Order 2016-173, reauthorization of the Melrose Veterans Events Revolving Fund, number 2607, for fiscal year 2017. 2017 that order was also a recommendation recommended for passage

▶ 1:23:59 by the Appropriations Committee motion for passage mr. president second motion for passage by Alderman Mortimer seconded by Alderman Forbes is there any discussion could you call the roll please Alderman Boisselle yes yes Alderman Forbes yes yes Alderman Inferno yes yes Alderman Lemmerman. Yes. Yes. Yes. Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Yes. Yes. Alderman Dearest. Yes. Yes. Alderman Mortimer. Yes. Yes. Alderman Tramontozzi. Yes. Yes. Alderman Zwirko. Yes. Yes. President Conn. Yes. Yes. 10 yes. That order passes. Order 2016-174, reauthorization of revolving fund number 2657, waste collection and recycling for fiscal year 2017. this one was recommended for passage in the Appropriations Committee motion for

▶ 1:24:47 passage mr. president second second by element for cell is there any discussion could you call the roll please yes Solomon Forbes yes yes Solomon Inferno yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes Yes, President Conn. Yes. Yes, 10 yes. That order passes. Order 2016-175, transfer of $1,632 from Health Insurance Group Health, account number 019142-549201 to City Clerk Professional Services, account number 011612-529000 as set forth herein. The Finance Committee recommended this order for passage by the full board motion for passage mr. president second motion for passage is made by Alderman Forbes seconded by Alderman Mortimer is there discussion would you call the roll please Alderman Puzell yes yes Alderman Forbes yes yes Alderman Inferno yes yes

▶ 1:25:58 Alderman Lemmerman yes yes Alderman McAteer-Margolis yes yes Alderman Medeiros yes yes Alderman Mortimer yes yes Alderman Tramontozzi yes yes Alderman Zwirko yes yes president yes he is ten years okay that concludes our agenda for this evening motion to adjourn mr. president Alderman Mortimer moves to adjourn the motion seconded by Alderman Zwerchel all those in favor of adjournment please indicate by saying aye anybody who is opposed to adjournment the board is here by adjourn

Original documents

• Minutes (CivicClerk PDF)
• Agenda (IQM2 PDF)
• Agenda packet (CivicClerk PDF)
• Agenda packet (IQM2 PDF)
• Other (CivicClerk PDF)
• This meeting on the city portal