Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2016-09-22
Attendance
Robert A. Boisselle ; Donald L. Conn Jr. ; Scott M. Forbes ; Gail Infurna ; Jennifer L. Lemmerman ; Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis ; Monica C. Medeiros ; Peter D. Mortimer ; John N. Tramontozzi ; Francis X. Wright Jr. ; Michael P. Zwirko
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Public Participation
- Orders
- ORDER-2017-12 : Petition to the Great and General Court to enact a Special Act to authorize the city of Melrose to amend the Melrose city charter to replace the term "Board of Aldermen" with "City Council" and replace the term "Alderman" with "Councilor"
- ORDER-2017-22 : An Order invoking Section 9-6 of the Charter for the City of Melrose, calling on the Mayor and the President of the Board of Aldermen to establish a special committee to complete a periodic review of the Charter.
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 Aldermanic Chamber Committee Meeting 7:45 PM The public should take notice that the Melrose Board of Aldermen may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the Board of Aldermen consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Peter D. Mortimer Chairman Present Gail M. Infurna Vice Chairman Present Michael P. Zwirko Alderman at Large Present John N. Tramontozzi Ward 1 Alderman Present Monica C. Medeiros Alderman at Large Present Robert A. Boisselle Ward 4 Alderman Absent Francis X. Wright Jr. Ward 3 Alderman Absent Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis Alderman at Large Present Jennifer L. Lemmerman Ward 2 Alderman Present Scott M. Forbes Ward 7 Alderman Present Donald L. Conn Jr. President/Ex-officio Member Present
ORDER-2017-12 Home Rule Petition/Special Act Petition to the Great and General Court to enact a Special Act to authorize the city of Melrose to amend the Melrose city charter to replace the term "Board of Aldermen" with "City Council" and replace the term "Alderman" with "Councilor" Without Recommendation Board of Aldermen
ORDER-2017-22 Request An Order invoking Section 9-6 of the Charter for the City of Melrose, calling on the Mayor and the President of the Board of Aldermen to establish a special committee to complete a periodic review of the Charter. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 10/3/2016 4:21 PM
Transcript
▶ 15:14 Peter D. Mortimer: It is a committee of the whole. I am the Chairman Peter Mortimer. We're joined by Vice Chairman Gail Inferna, Alderman Michael Zwirko, Alderman John Tramontozzi, Alderman Monica Medeiros, Alderman Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis, Alderman Jennifer Lemmerman, Alderman Scott Forbes, and President Donald Kahn. Is there a motion to open the floor for public participation, please? Second. Alderman Lemmerman has made a motion to open floor for public participation, duly seconded by Alderman Forbes. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, we're open for public participation. Seeing no one present, Alderman Zwerchel makes a motion to close public participation, duly seconded by Alderman Tramontozzi.
▶ 15:54 Peter D. Mortimer: All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Public participation is now closed. This meeting is being broadcast on MMTV. It's on the city website for viewing in the future if anybody would like to review this meeting at a future time. We have two orders before us. The first order is a petition to the Great and General Court to enact a special act to authorize the City of Melrose to amend the Melrose City Charter. To replace the term Board of Aldermen with City Council and replace the term Alderman with Council. This is order 217-1217-12, Alderman Lemmerman please. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman and I appreciate the committee's indulgence in allowing me to speak on this. time now that it's before us I just do want to take a moment to clarify or
▶ 16:41 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: address the process proposed by this order a home rule petition is is completely legal and viable and recognized method for changing a charter the home rule amendment of the state constitution provides several routes for revising a charter but there are two that are considered to be main charter change routes and right on mass gov under the cities and town section of the DOR website they list what they quote most familiar they consider the most familiar and those are electing a home rule Charter Commission and petitioning the state legislature for a home rule petition which is the latter of which is is what this order would propose these were confirmed by in this committee by the city solicitor and in writing by both the house and Senate Council of the
▶ 17:30 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: State House which I would be happy to share or even submit representative Broder and Senator Lewis are both very much aware of this order and both have said that they would take this up on the state level should it be the will of this board. And there is no mention from them of any concern about an undue burden being placed on the great and general court. And in fact, Newton did it this way just last year. And they passed it through the state legislature without incident and they are now operating as a city council with city councilors. Individual aldermen obviously may have an opinion on whether they want to do it this way, which is a discussion we should and certainly have started and can continue,
▶ 18:14 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: but I just want to be very clear that it's 100% an appropriate and, in fact, standard route for making a change. I can't go further in my discussion of this without mentioning the other order on our agenda tonight, tonight and i hope for the chair's leniency a little bit on that but i promise i won't go too far down that road that that's fine especially since it's on the agenda later this evening thank you um there are many substantive reasons to to have a charter review um absolutely and and i look forward to that discussion next um this is a symbolic change which was brought up during our last discussion it's not about policy or roles or the makeup of our city government it is about symbol and symbols matter and words matter and that was recognized by Newton
▶ 19:04 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: last year it was recognized by several communities over the past decade other examples that we see on the national level was recognized by the military in June of this year when the Marines changed 19 of their titles to the gender neutral term recognizing that that was more appropriate for the makeup of the people who are serving in those roles so I see this as our opportunity to do this quickly and cleanly and appropriately and demonstrate that it matters to us how we choose to present ourselves to residents and while that symbolic that it does in fact matter and to take that decisive action as this board instead of passing it off to a hypothetical unnamed group that could potentially be in a
▶ 19:49 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: multi-year process you know if the tables were turned and Alderwoman was the classic term that was being used. I can promise you that I would not, if I can pick on my colleague here, I would not be sitting next to Alderwoman Tramontozzi, and that is not because he would have felt that he couldn't run because he's a man, which I know is something that we discussed whether women have been discarded from running, obviously they haven't been, but it would be because I guarantee you it would have been swiftly and decisively changed many years ago because it's silly, and I'm not sure why it's not silly that I'm an Alderman so I just again thanks everyone for the really thoughtful dialogue I think we've had some great discussion on it thanks to the residents who came down
▶ 20:35 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: during our last meeting to speak took time out of their day that was in fact a major goal this order was to have more public to participation and we've had a lot of it here on this order I would also like to recognize the people who wrote in and took time out of their lives to write to us on this order and make sure that they're given at least the equal recognition to some of the less official testimony that was read into the record during our last meeting so I'd like to start if I made by making a motion that the following communications are attached to this order and IQ m2 and those are an email by Don Lehman, dated 8-15-16, an e-mail by Sam Hammer, dated 8-15-16, an e-mail by Bill Kramer, dated 8-22-16, an e-mail by Jen McAndrew, dated 8-24-16, and an e-mail by Sarah Waywell-Tim,
▶ 21:30 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: which was dated 8-25-16. Alderman Leibman has made a motion to include the aforementioned letters, e-mails, into our record. Is there a second? seconded by Alderman Zwirko. Any discussion on that motion? Seeing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, those emails will be added to the record. Please proceed, Alderman Lemmon, you still have the floor. Thank you, and thank you for that. I would like to, at this time, given the discussion that we have had, we are not a full committee tonight, I would like to ask for this committee's consideration, and I will make an order, or a motion, I'm sorry, to move this order forward to the full board without recommendation. Alderman Lemmerman has made a motion
▶ 22:20 Michael P. Zwirko: to recommend that this board with no recommendation for any particular action. Second. To move it forward without recommendation. That motion was seconded by Alderman Medeiros, was that? Yes. Alderman Medeiros. On discussion. You're concluded, yes. Thank you. Alderman Zorico, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I also wanted to thank this board and Alderman Forbes for allowing me to submit comments when I was away, when this originally came up back, I believe on the 23rd of August. So it meant a lot to me and I appreciate that getting, having those comments read into the record. I also want to point out that there's a lot of hard work that was completed here by Alderman Lemmerman to get this.
▶ 23:07 Michael P. Zwirko: This wasn't just something that came out of the blue. put a lot of work and advocacy and well as research to get this order done as previously stated I do support the change there's one other thing and she alluded to the order that we'll be discussing next but this is a fully baked order so other than a vote that needs to be taken here by the board that work will be complete and we no longer have to do anything the next order requires a lot more work and we'll be taking on a lot more as we'll get into decision-making but this is done this is approved it goes to the court great in general court and they deal with it on their end and then it hopefully sure it will go through and the change will will be made so the decision here is to make
▶ 23:54 Michael P. Zwirko: a simple name change it's not a you know this the name as it exists alderman I'm very happy to be called an alderman I'll be happy to be called a counselor I've been called a lot worse so I think it's a it's a common-sense change it makes sense people understand what a counselor is it's a title that's contemporary and I just feel that there's we shouldn't have anything to derail this I would really like to see this order go through and with that I yield the floor thank you very much aldermen's work oh are there any other aldermen wishing to be heard before we call for the vote seeing none we have a motion to move this forward to the full board without recommendation do least by alderman lemmerman duly seconded by alderman's work oh all in favor please say aye any
▶ 24:41 Peter D. Mortimer: opposed hearing none this order will be sent to the full board without recommendation at our next full board meeting the next order we have before us is order two zero one seven dash two two it is an order invoking section nine of the Charter for the City of Melrose, calling on the Mayor and the President of the Board of Aldermen to establish a special committee to complete a periodic review of the Charter. This was sponsored by Alderman Zwirko. Alderman Zwirko, you have the floor. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman. So this order, quite simply, this is just good hygiene. To review the Charter, or what I consider an administrative document, it's been 10 years since there has been a review. if I recall correctly the last time this was approved and reviewed was in the
▶ 25:27 Michael P. Zwirko: 2006-2007 timeframe at the city level we conduct a master plan review every 10 years I see no reason why we shouldn't do the same for a charter that is the administrative document of the city section 9-6 itself states quote at 10 year intervals the reason for this review is simple it's always good to dust things off it's always good to take a look at what we have before us with a contemporary eye in my read of the charter most of this doesn't require any update nor change but there are some items that certainly should be looked at just for a periodic review on a 10-year interval it's a good document but there's no reason why at this time we shouldn't impanel a special commission to review all of the items and sections within the city charter where I work we
▶ 26:18 Michael P. Zwirko: actually have this term that we use quite frequently it's called Kaizen it's an Eastern philosophy of continual improvement and we bring that forth with processes that we employ structures that we build and ways that we can from our industry be more efficient and I feel that you know that this type of Folsom review of the document is appropriate at this time I know that other aldermen will have some comments so with that I may speak again but with that I yield for thank you very much alderman Zwirko um thank you go ahead alderman Medeiros thank you um i i take a slightly different view than alderman Zwirko on the i guess on how often and how frequent the charter should be changed i think it's something that we should have and should
▶ 27:14 Monica C. Medeiros: be fairly constant but that being said we we had for a long time since 1900 or so and there may have been some update in between but i don't think there had been until 2005 and which we had some major changes and i do think that it is appropriate and i think it would be a good idea to kind of evaluate to put together a committee and to evaluate the the changes that were made and the effectiveness of those changes so um you know i certainly would be supportive of this i could recommend a few changes myself and i would like to express uh to our president that uh should this pass i would very much like to serve as one of the aldermen on that committee thank you thank you alderman Medeiros president khan please yeah just so anybody watching at home is clear we didn't
▶ 28:11 changed the charter in 2005. what we did is we took the old charter and we threw it in the trash can and we created a completely new document so it is important to review this because this was changed in total everything was changed the entire charter was changed the old charter was scrapped so an initial review is probably the most important after this initial 10-year period and the other thing is i mean there's an there's an assumption and obviously i'm not going to repeat what i said at the last meeting there are things that i would like to see change but the fact that it's going to be evaluated does not necessarily mean there'll be tons of changes but it should be evaluated and it should be discussed and we should try to uh to correct any weaknesses
▶ 29:04 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: or deficiencies in the charter that we can uh see so hopefully uh if the order passes a good committee will be appointed and um you know good recommendations will come forward and if the if the committee and the board uh wills it then maybe these things will get on the ballot so i'm going to support this order thank you very much president khan alderman MacMaster margolis and then alderman Forbes please thank you mr. chairman I'm going to support this order as well I just do have a question for the maker of the order if I may because it's been over ten years really since we reviewed this or really created this new charter I'm wondering if in your language you've indicated that we want to begin this in
▶ 29:53 Michael P. Zwirko: each year ending in a nine so that would not be for like three more years so I wondered if that if you if if that is your intent or if you mean like maybe start at this time and then going forward doing it in in years ending in nine may respond you you certainly may please do through the chair that is not intent um i don't read it as a hard and fast year ending in nine i i you know i my read is that um it can get up to a year ending in nine what i would say is i don't think that's a hard and fast date my goal or intent with this would be to form the special committee um which that alone will take some time and then if you read further along it says uh recommendations of the special committee shall appear before the board of alderman's agenda uh excuse me should be sent
▶ 30:47 Michael P. Zwirko: to the city clerk by the first date of may again this is a review so there won't be any consultant to be hired this is going to be a redlined document of considerations by that special commission of nine i don't think that having a report of recommendations by may 1st is completely out of the realm of the possible that being said if that target and goal gets hit the full board would then look at this again by june 15th and with the hopes of that being placed uh before the on the ballot for the fall of the 2017 election year that that answers my question sort of but I'm still wondering if in the language of your order you want to specify if you want to really specify the year ending in nine or if you want to say something about starting next year and subsequently
▶ 31:43 Scott M. Forbes: ending in nine I don't think I can change the language of the actual section so I guess what I'm saying is I don't think that the year ending in nine clause is something that your leeway mr. chairman certainly okay thank you thank you very much alderman Forbes next Thank You mr. chairman I do want to commend my colleague alderman's work over writing this order I think it's a common-sense order we write a master plan in order to write the script for years moving forward and if you look at where we were ten years ago as to where we are now I could think you could say the community looks totally different I think it only makes sense that we have a periodic charter review because where we are ten
▶ 32:29 Michael P. Zwirko: years forward it's going to be different totally different from where we are right now now my question for almonds workers would you want those two things to be linked correspond with one another with the development of a master plan that that coincides with the you know a charter review I don't think that they necessarily through the chair i don't necessarily think that they should be linked and i wouldn't want to hamstring another department on this particular order i think the interval of 10 years is a very good interval so i would appreciate a master plan review every 10 years and i would appreciate a charter review every 10 years as well so i think that that interview is good but i don't
▶ 33:03 Monica C. Medeiros: quite agree with the linkage of the two but i think the analogy is a good one i like that i i like your answer that that was my one concern i didn't want them like they want to be totally separate side i i do plan on supporting this order uh and that's all i have thank you mr chair thank you alderman forbes um for the second time uh we had alderman Medeiros first then we have alderman's worker thank you i i just wanted to clarify and i think uh probably alderman's worker was getting there um that this i believe that what's the language that's in this order is the language from the charter so it's not something that that's being it's not an ordinance change that we're providing right now and it's not anything that we can amend or tie to
▶ 33:43 Monica C. Medeiros: something else it's without going through the charter process and I did get a chance this afternoon to speak with with president Salary trying to make city solicitor formerly an alderman in a different city at Van Campen who confirmed with me verbally that we do as the Board of Aldermen in fact have the authority to invoke this section and he wanted to clarify to me that the the time frames here if we do do this we weren't really able to do this before 2009 because the the Charter hadn't been in place for 10 years at that time but if we do that do this now we won't be able to do this again until the next 10 year period after 2019 so it's a it's that and the time people I think was just discussed Thank You Alderman Medeiros Alderman
▶ 34:45 Michael P. Zwirko: Suarco please yeah and again thank you to my colleagues for their comments and that's helpful and I'm glad that we're able to clarify these and I will say that I believe that the section given the years ending in what will be hopefully seven I believe that the section nine six will be altered to reflect that so I think changes like this are something that will along the process go but I also just want to state I don't think that there's a lot of work here that needs to be done but you have to get nine people together to have a couple of meetings so the scheduling so I you know the time to get this for May you know it's I don't want to say it needs to be accelerated but you know we're not doing a whole we're not starting from scratch so I don't I don't
▶ 35:25 Peter D. Mortimer: think that this is a heavy lift so I just you know but it also is not going to come out to come without work that's all I'm saying so I'm I'm hopeful that this order will pass and we can actually you know get a good recommendation to the clerk by May 1st so that's my hope with that I would like to make a motion to recommend to the full board on this alderman's work always made a motion to recommend this order for passage to the full board second second by alderman inferno seeing no further discussion all in favor of the motion to recommend this order to the full board for passage please say aye any opposed hearing none This order will be recommended to the full board at our next meeting for passage.
▶ 36:05 Peter D. Mortimer: Motion to adjourn. Alderman Forbes has made a motion to adjourn, duly seconded by Alderman Lemmerman. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, the Committee on Appropriations is hereby adjourned. Thank you one and all, go Patriots.