Finance Committee — 2016-10-13
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
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE FINANCE COMMITTEE CALENDAR● OCTOBER 13, 2016 Aldermanic Chamber Committee Meeting 7:15 PM The public should take notice that the Melrose Board of Aldermen may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the Board of Aldermen consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Scott M. Forbes Chairman Present John N. Tramontozzi Vice Chairman Present Francis X. Wright Jr. Ward 3 Alderman Absent Peter D. Mortimer Ward 6 Alderman Present Michael P. Zwirko Alderman at Large Present Donald L. Conn Jr. President/Ex-officio Member Present Robert A. Boisselle Nonvoting Member Present Gail M. Infurna Nonvoting Member Present Jennifer L. Lemmerman Nonvoting Member Present Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis Nonvoting Member Present Monica C. Medeiros Nonvoting Member Present In Attendance: Elections Administrator Linda Lee Angiolillo, City Clerk Mary Rita O'Shea
ORDER-2017-29 Request Be it hereby requested that the appropriate designee of the City Clerk of the City of Melrose appear before the Board of Aldermen of the City of Melrose to discuss the implementation of the new "Early Voting" procedures. Recommend Place on File Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 10/14/2016 10:40 AM
Transcript
▶ 0:00 Scott M. Forbes: The pools will be second. Good evening. It is 715. Welcome to the Finance Committee. My name is Alderman Scott Forbes. I'm your Finance Committee Chairman. Member of the Finance Committee include Alderman Tramontozzi, who also serves as Vice Chair, Alderman Zwirko, Alderman Mortimer. Non-voting Member include Alderman Boisselle, Alderman Infurna, Alderman Lemmerman, Alderman McAteer-Margolis, and Alderman Medeiros. This meeting is being recorded and can be watched on MMTV or logging on to the City of Meadows website and hitting the corresponding links. Motion to open the floor for public participation, Mr. Chairman. Second. We got a motion to open the floor for public participation made by Alderman Mortimer, seconded by Alderman Zwirko.
▶ 0:45 Scott M. Forbes: All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Chair recognizes President Kahn. This is the portion of our meeting where anybody from the general public can approach the table and speak on behalf of the one order that is before us. us seeing nobody from the general public here to speak tonight i have a motion to close public participation made by alderman Zwirko seconded by alderman Tramontozzi all those in favor any opposed public participation is now closed we have one order before us tonight it is order number 2017-29 be it hereby requested that the appropriate designee of the city clerk of the city of melrose appear before the board of alderman of the city of melrose to discuss the implement implementation of new early voting procedures motions oh sorry no good motion to
▶ 1:34 Scott M. Forbes: suspend the rules and emotions to spend the rules made by alderman's work i was seconded by alderman Tramontozzi all those in favor aye aye any opposed the rules are suspended uh can i have you approach welcome thank you for joining us this evening just give us a uh explanation about the the new early voting uh procedures for for the general public then we'll open up to questions if necessary well it begins on october 24th it goes through november 4th it's the first time we're offering it in the state of massachusetts so we really don't know what to expect um we're prepared for it we're going to be doing holding it in the chambers here we're hopefully and we're doing a next couple of extended hours we're going to do one night until 9 00 p.m and we're going to
▶ 2:28 Michael P. Zwirko: to do a saturday nine to ones for people that can't get here during the day it will be available from 8 30 in the morning till four at night for those two weeks and it's open to anyone who wants to early vote very good you have questions all of us work well please thank you mr chairman and thank you both for making it here this evening on your extended time so i do appreciate that i i was just curious I know this is new and a lot of other cities and towns are rolling this out and I was just curious if has there been any financial benefit provided to us from the state to implement this is this something that you work we're kind of on our own and and if you could just to kind of explain the process this is the first foray that we've done this here in the common they
▶ 3:15 weren't offering anything but they have put in this grant application which they're offering depending on how many voters they may give us a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars okay but we don't know if that's going through but it's kind of contingent on turnout kind of well not turnout it's just it's an incentive to get us to do the extra hours and by doing the extra hours the state by opening up on a weekend they were offering this grant we haven't heard you know that it's finalized but it should be to help pay have a cost for that but other than that they're not how many registered voters that's the amount the amount on how many registered voters so for 20,000 and above to a certain amount for the threshold yeah yeah and where do we stand currently about
▶ 4:11 Michael P. Zwirko: practice 20,300 perfect 343 and the I think I have this correct at the date to register the deadline to register to vote in this upcoming elections October 19th is that correct next Wednesday will be open till 8 p.m. for voter registration only and my final question and I know that you've put a lot of work into this I've spoken to folks so I do appreciate the work that's gone on behind the scenes I'm just curious have you encountered any challenges with complying with this I mean I know it's new but is any difficulty any concerns we have lots of concerns um it's a totally different ballot from an absentee we have an absentee going on the same time we have an early voting going on it's we need to make sure we keep everything separate locked up
▶ 4:57 different cases we've had to purchase equipment to cover this early voting we don't know what to expect it's you know they're not knowing right now you know they could be two people they could be two thousand people yeah and sorry I do have just one file is this something that can be applicable for all elections going forward right now it's just this election just this election right thank you those are all the questions I had mr. chairman appreciate thank you all let's work well do we have any other questions from voting Member non voting Member all the moment arrows please thank you thank you very much for coming tonight I filed this order in an effort to help explain this process to the
▶ 5:35 Monica C. Medeiros: public because it is new for all of us and I appreciate you coming here I just wanted to clarify in terms of the dates and the times and locations so the early voting would be held here in the aldermanic chamber at City Hall and that's regardless of what Ward or precinct you live in in the city and is that going to require will there be like if somebody wants to vote early do they come to your election office first or they come right here to come right here we're going to have a computer set up right here because we have to keep it separate from the absentee so someone has to be in the office for the absentee voters and we have to keep the early voters over this way and right now you are the only staff in the elections office right so you know you can't be in
▶ 6:27 two places at one time how are we going to handle that we're trying to hire we did hire one person part-time we have Shirley already here I'm trying to get one other person we're probably gonna need two full-time people for those two weeks in addition to myself and Shirley I mean that's we've already had 500 absentee ballots and that's in one week so we usually during a presidential year get about a thousand to twelve hundred absentees we thought the early voting might curve that a little bit but if we're already halfway there and it's only been a week we're probably gonna have a thousand absentees on top of that the state is guessing at 10% turnout for early voting which is 2,000 people do
▶ 7:21 you have a an estimate of what the total cost additional will be to implement all I can tell you is it's probably going to be two grand to 2,500 for additional staff maybe to put two full-time people in supplies I'm gonna probably we've already spent $1,000 I've had to buy sealed boxes locked boxes so that I can put the early voting ballots in and lock them up at night so they're gonna be wheeled down here used all day and then wheeled back to the office and sealed and kept in a sealed are there requirements for a pole warden the same way that there are during regular voting no so we don't have to have a police officer a constable here no we're my board suggested one for the weekend or maybe the night one just to have a police officer here but we may have
▶ 8:18 additional cost not during the week while the building is open it's more security in and what are those dates what's the the the night that you're going to stay open late the new one T no no the second November 2nd and the Saturday is the 29th is October 29 yeah and do you have the hours on Saturday 9 to 1 9 to 1 and could you talk about what kinds of controls they'll be in place to you know keep track and make sure people aren't voting more than once for instance well for early voting they come in and they are checked into the computer and there is an ex put in their name so when I I'm not I usually print the voter list after voter registration has ended I cannot print it until the weekend before the election so early voting ends on the 4th I will be here
▶ 9:21 all weekend doing the list and when I print the list is going to be early voter next to their name like there is the absentee but the X is going to be crossed off meaning they voted once you've early vote you cannot go to the polls we are an absentee person can if their ballot hasn't been turned in so it will be entered right into the computer system yes will there be any kind of paper record in case there were a computer failure which we don't want to see happen but this is yeah it's a state it's a state-run computer it's not we don't we're not really worried about that but it's gonna go right into the system I am gonna print a list I mean I do print I still print my list at the end but when people come in to vote they're coming over to a computer and
▶ 10:10 that's how we're getting them into the system and it will still be a paper yes ballot and normally during an election there's certain rules that you can't stand so close to a polling place you couldn't hold a sign too close to a polling place were those will those no rules be in effect no no so someone could perhaps they can you there's no hundred and fifty foot rule it's only apply to election day so someone can come in with the button on we can ask them to take it off we can ask them but if they're coming in to pay a water bill and they have trump hat on and they have a clinton button on they are allowed to you know keep doing that we can't stop someone from paying a bill and you know during those two weeks so if they come in to vote into here i can ask
▶ 11:03 Monica C. Medeiros: them to remove anything and then obviously not going to stand there with signs and some of the other things that sometimes happen sometimes pull the candidates will send a representative to sort of observe and poll watch well there you know I haven't heard that because it's such a long extended time that it'd be insane to have someone sitting here for two weeks you know I I wouldn't think so but it's not prohibited not that I know of they could if they wanted to I appreciate that so everybody should know that they can there's no special requirements in terms of you know for an absentee ballot for instance you have to have legitimate reasons exactly to this is no excuse but it's not coming in as long as people understand it's not coming in filling
▶ 11:54 out your ballot putting it in a machine and it's gone you were coming in you're filling out an envelope you're putting your ballot in that envelope you're sealing it and we are carrying it to the polls on Election Day and they'll be counted on Election Day it will be counted just like the absentees okay well thank you very much I appreciate this and look forward to learning so we did order some voting screens privacy screens that will be on each Alderman's just so that when people vote they can sit down and it's it's a cardboard screen that's how it will look yeah and of course it's been well publicized in the newspaper yes yes and on the website yeah thank you thank you thank you what is the will of the committee oh all the mac tamar
▶ 12:51 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: goals i'm sorry i just have um one question and you did touch on it briefly about um after people vote they'll put their ballot in a sealed envelope and they'll hand it to the poll worker who's here me you well I'm gonna be here doing the early voting and I'll have someone down there doing the absentees and then you'll put them in a sealed box in the election office and bring them down physically to will you enter them all at one site or will they go by we take them to each ward and precinct you know take them to each warden because they have to go through the right machine so that they counted towards that one so people can be assured that their ballots will be taken to the right place and put in and you
▶ 13:36 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: generally do those absentees anyway as well but at the beginning of the day or just when you have it depends we're supposed to wait till the mail comes in so that any mail comes in we can do it and we're not running there twice so but these we may do depending on how many we have I mean if it's that we have to try and squeeze in remember everyone's voting too so if you have a thousand to two thousand of these ballots that have to go through the machine you don't want to disrupt the people that are coming to vote so we have to see how that works so in that line is there the regular hours for voting at the polls always yes you have to close the date but if there are people in line at 8 of course they're
▶ 14:16 Scott M. Forbes: allowed to vote if it takes till 9 then and if we can't get the ballots in we are allowed to put them in after the close okay great thank you thank you motion to place on file second we got a motion to place on file made by alderman Zwirko seconded by alderman mortimer all those in favor aye aye any opposed motion will be placed on file uh also just uh just to point out too that there is a uh all this information can be seen on the city matters website that was on the mayor's blog with a post dated on october 4th anybody who is watching at home if they need more information they can contact the elections office uh thank you very much thank you for your presence here this evening motion to adjourn mr chairman we got a motion to adjourn made by
▶ 14:56 Scott M. Forbes: alderman mortimer second second by alderman's worker before we adjourn for the evening just a point of personal privilege this saturday october 15th is the melrose veterans open third annual to benefit the melrose veterans memory project which is a great local organization that does a lot of great work i hope that all of you can make a make an effort to be there you can log on to melrosevetopen.com to find out more information how to get involved all those in favor for adjourn aye any opposed thank you finance committee is now over stay tuned for appropriations good evening ladies and gentlemen this is the appropriations committee of the melrose board of aldermen it is 7 33 on october 13 2016. this is a committee of the whole