Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2016-12-12
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-2017-60 : An Appropriation in the amount of $15,000 from Available Free Cash to the City Solicitor Professional Services account.
- ORDER-2017-57 : An Appropriation from available free cash in the amount of $45,700 to the following Public Works accounts for various municipal building upgrades and repairs to City Hall, The Milano Center and Fire Station.
- ORDER-2017-58 : An Appropriation in the amount of $75,000 from Available Free Cash to Public Works Professional Building Services for a Public Safety Buildings Feasibility Study and Building Envelope Study for Memorial Hall.
- ORDER-2017-59 : An Appropriation in the amount of $20,000 from Available Free Cash to the Public Works –Cemetery Professional Services account for records digitizing, backup and updates of cemetery plots and burials.
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● DECEMBER 12, 2016 Aldermanic Chamber, Melrose City Hall Committee Meeting 7:30 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 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 Absent 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 Present Francis X. Wright Jr. Ward 3 Alderman Present Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis Alderman at Large Absent Jennifer L. Lemmerman Ward 2 Alderman Present Scott M. Forbes Ward 7 Alderman Present Donald L. Conn Jr. President/Ex-officio Member Present In Attendance: City Solicitor Robert Van Campen; Director of Public Works John Scenna
ORDER-2017-60 Appropriation An Appropriation in the amount of $15,000 from Available Free Cash to the City Solicitor Professional Services account. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen
ORDER-2017-57 Appropriation An Appropriation from available free cash in the amount of $45,700 to the following Public Works accounts for various municipal building upgrades and repairs to City Hall, The Milano Center and Fire Station. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen
ORDER-2017-58 Appropriation An Appropriation in the amount of $75,000 from Available Free Cash to Public Works Professional Building Services for a Public Safety Buildings Feasibility Study and Building Envelope Study for Memorial Hall. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 12/22/2016 4:46 PM Minutes Appropriations Committee December 12, 2016
ORDER-2017-59 Appropriation An Appropriation in the amount of $20,000 from Available Free Cash to the Public Works –Cemetery Professional Services account for records digitizing, backup and updates of cemetery plots and burials. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 2 Updated 12/22/2016 4:46 PM
Transcript
▶ 5:00 you thank you very much Alderman Lemmerman yes motion to adjourn sorry second second by Alderman Boisselle all those in favor aye opposed this more this committee meeting is adjourned please stay tuned to the Committee on Appropriations thanks good evening ladies and gentlemen it is Monday December 12, 2016. This is the Committee on Appropriations for the Melrose Board of Aldermen. I am the Chairman Peter Mortimer. We are joined by Alderman Michael Zwirko, Alderman John Tramontozzi, Alderman Monica Medeiros, Alderman Robert Boisselle, Alderman Jennifer Lemmerman, Alderman Scott Forbes, and President Donald Kahn. Would someone make a motion to open the floor for public participation please Alderman Medeiros has made a motion to open the
▶ 7:40 Peter D. Mortimer: floor for public participation duly seconded by Alderman Boisselle all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none we are open for public participation seeing no members of the public in the gallery a motion to close public participation has been made by Alderman Zwirko and duly seconded by Alderman Boisselle all in favor of closing public participation please say Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, public participation is closed and let the record reflect that this meeting is viewable on the Melrose Mass website and on MMTV's website if anyone would like to see it at a future time. The first order we have before us is order 2017-57. It is an appropriation from available free cash in the amount of $45,700 to the following public works accounts for
▶ 8:42 Peter D. Mortimer: various municipal building upgrades and repairs to City Hall, the Milano Center, and fire station. Motion to suspend the rules so we can hear from the city solicitor. Second. We have a motion to suspend the rules so we can hear from the city solicitor, but what we're waiting for is the director of public works and have you a location on him mr. city solicitor all right he should he should be here momentarily we'll just stand by for a second mr. chairman Alderman work oh you up the floor please thank you mr. chairman since we have the city solicitor here I do believe that there's an order order two zero one seven dash six zero which has directly to do with his being here this evening his presence I was
▶ 9:27 Peter D. Mortimer: wondering if I make a motion to take that order up now Alderman Zwirko has made a motion to change the order of business and it is duly seconded by Alderman Medeiros all in favor please say aye any opposed hearing none that order is an appropriation the amount of $15,000 from available free cash to the city solicitor professional services account is there a motion to suspend the rules, please. So moved, Mr. Chairman. Second. Alderman Forbes has made a motion to suspend the rules that we might hear from the city solicitor. Duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, we are under suspension and we are being joined now by our city solicitor,
▶ 10:15 Attorney Robert Van Camper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. This expenditure is connected to the services that my office received from an economics expert who was retained to assist in our recently concluded fire JLMC proceeding so the gentleman spent considerable amount of time conducting an analysis of our contract in relation to other contracts and the expense in front of you is for the services he rendered to the community he was also scheduled to serve as an expert witness as part of that proceeding but as you all know we were able to come to agreement just short of that proceeding so this is an invoice that i currently owe this individual thank you mr van campen are there any aldermen with comments or questions at this time
▶ 11:07 we have alderman wright first in queue and also please let the record reflect that he has joined us thank you thank you mr chairman um did you let us who exactly was the expert so the gentleman's name is Ethan Zimmer and he conducts a number of these types of analyses for cities and towns for state agencies that are dealing with interest arbitration so he came highly recommended from some of my former colleagues okay what is his background professional economics he's got the PhD in economics many years of experience in the field. Do you know what his hourly rate was? I believe it was $165 an hour. That sounds reasonable. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Alderman Wright.
▶ 12:00 Peter D. Mortimer: I'm seeing no further Alderman wishing to be heard. Is there a motion? Motion to recommend. Second. We have a motion to recommend for passage from Alderman Forbes, duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, this order will be recommended for passage at our full board on the 19th. Thank you. You're going to stay for a bit yes thank you the next order that the committee will take up is order two zero one seven dash five seven it is an appropriation from available free cash in the amount of forty five thousand seven hundred dollars to the following public works accounts for various municipal building upgrades and repairs to City Hall the Milano Center and the fire station would you please
▶ 12:45 join us mr. Shannon we're under suspension still good evening would you like to make an introduction to this order office absolutely absolutely just getting my bearings this request this request for an appropriation um is to fund various unanticipated repairs and some upgrades that have presented themselves to city hall the milano center and fire stations i sent some correspondence along the end of last week there's six main areas that this appropriation will fund the first is the repainting of the milano center the exterior of the milano center very similar project to what we did at the bb we just recently procured that and we have some very good pricing as a kickoff project to the spring so we'd like to um to fund it so
▶ 13:47 that's where we can execute the contract and start to plan for that work to take place in march or april the uh a small portion of this funding also is to cover ceiling repairs that were made to tanny hall tanny hall was completed by the friends group who are also right now aggressively pursuing another interior project up in the second floor um so for several years now we've made these partnership was with friends groups where we contribute an upgrade and they can tip contribute an upgrade they did Tierney Hall we painted the ceiling now they're doing some more interior work and we're trying to match it with an exterior repainting of a building that's 20 years old plus so the timing the time
▶ 14:37 is there a a segment of the funding is also to restart replacing some rugs in the second floor administration offices of City Hall there are also a handful of windows that either don't open or abruptly shut when open so we need to we need to start to work on some of that mechanism and a significant piece of this funding is to upgrade or install two new connections to the Plymouth vent systems at the central station and at engine to the Plymouth vent is the hoses that the fire engines attached to when there's no hose the exhaust goes right into the station I attached some backup correspondence email correspondence between the chief and I in that regard and then we're on this some also some plumbing repairs at the central station and engine three which
▶ 15:31 we completed that this funding is for as well Thank You mr. Shana motion to recommend alderman Boyce L has made a motion to recommend this order for passage. Duly seconded by Alderman Forbes. On discussion, Alderman Zwirko, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The install on the Plymouth Vent systems, is that going to be done in-house, or are we using a vendor for that? No, we have a vendor that maintains the Plymouth Vent systems in those buildings. The existing ones? The existing Plymouth Vent systems. Okay. Thank you. That was the only question I had. Thank you, Alderman Zwirko. Alderman Forbes, please. Thank you. Just a quick question on some of these items. Are we going out and getting multiple bids or estimates just to make sure that we're getting the best price available as far as
▶ 16:14 Peter D. Mortimer: contract work is concerned absolutely okay so we we received multiple multiple estimates that's correct okay thank you mr chairman thank you alderman forbes any other alderman wishing to be heard uh seeing none a motion has been made to recommend this order for passage by alderman boyce l duly seconded by alderman forbes all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none This order will be recommended for passage at our next full board meeting on December 19th The next order we have before us is an appropriation in the amount of $75,000 from available free cash to public works professional building services for a public safety buildings feasibility study and building envelope study for Memorial Hall
▶ 17:00 Hall. Please proceed, Mr. Shana. So this funding, this request for appropriation will fund a feasibility study to explore possible upgrades, repairs, renovations that are required at the Melrose Police Station, Central Station, Engine 1, sorry, Engine 2, which is at Tremont Street, and Engine 3, which is at the Common. additionally the funding will allow for building envelope study of memorial hall to assess some possible repairs that are going to be required at that facility this past summer if i can backtrack a little bit mayor dolan established a public safety building committee to begin exploring options and advise his office on some ideas and some possibilities on how best to uh to address these aging facilities the committee's chaired by former Melrose
▶ 17:57 fire chief John O'Brien and myself alderman president Khan is serves as the alderman Representatives on that board we have chief Larry chief Lyle representatives of the police and fire department in the series of residents and volunteers that have experience in either architecture or public construction or even public safety operations so it's a really good group we met over the tail end of the summer we visited the facilities we met and had some brainstorm sessions what this funding will do is allow us to move forward in the procurement of an architect to do a feasibility study there's three main parts to the feasibility study an assessment of existing conditions a discussion and an exploration with both fire and police
▶ 18:50 staff on their operations so this way we can have a professional opinion on what kind of space those operations will will dictate and then the last part is possibilities to for upgrades within each site or the option of a combat a combined facility next door to City Hall at the central station that's what we're looking to do once we have procurement in place we can go out and and follow that procedure and hope to have an architect on board by late January early February to begin his work in parallel with that we're going to work with Kathy Piggott Broder and the Memorial Hall trustees to do to follow a similar process at a smaller scale to look at that building when you walk into the main hall and you look up and you look around you there are obviously defects
▶ 19:45 but are those are those the priority are there other issues that we should address so we're going to try to hire a professional come in and help us help us with that as well the end goal of both of these processes is to come up with a recommendation on how to address these municipal buildings that haven't really really had the attention that they deserve in the last few years. That's what this funding and that's what this order is for. Thank you Mr. Shenna. President Kahn please. Yeah, condition of the central fire station and the police station, I believe to be significant infrastructure needs to the city. Committee can't really go forward until we get some expert analysis as to what our options are.
▶ 20:32 So I would hope the board, realizing the importance of upgrading these facilities, their age, and the problems that exist relative, then we'll pass this order so that we can engage an expert and we can hope to come up with some solutions to buildings which sorely need to be either upgraded or replaced. Thank you, President Kahn. Is there a motion? Motion to recommend. We have a motion to recommend from Alderman Boisselle. Second. Duly seconded by Alderman Boisselle. Forbes on discussion alderman Medeiros please thank you we were just talking in the order prior about the friends of the friends of the the aging and at the Senior Center I know Memorial Hall has a fund where people can make donations and
▶ 21:25 Monica C. Medeiros: in fact some of the the ticket sales go into that fund do we know how much money is available there or is there any as far as you are aware any any friends group that's kind of active along with the Board of Trustees to well I don't know the details of that Kathy Pickett broader manages that but what I can do is have her provide you with that information before the next full board meeting and we can attach it to this order that would be helpful and I don't are there I know you said I don't recall us receiving maybe we had an update on the on the Public Safety Building Committee's meeting over the summer are there any meeting minutes or anything that you might be able to share with us for the next week we met officially once and I have those minutes I can send
▶ 22:17 Scott M. Forbes: those along as well I think that would be helpful just to kind of idea get an idea of where the scope of this experts time will be directed we can we can do that thanks okay thank you very much Thank You alderman Medeiros alderman Forbes please Thank You mr. chairman just in a point of clarification too I know for everybody watching at home $75,000 sounds like a lot of a lot of money but we are looking at three buildings here correct Memorial Hall police department police building and fire station those public safety buildings I assumed the cost of the $75,000 is inspections engineering and any type of funding for plans and specifications recommendations just for the people at home so they understand where the $75,000 yeah the study will
▶ 23:07 take us basically to conceptual and then from that point the committee can make a decision a recommendation of the mayor the may can decide and then it's up to the board to fund design on how to proceed so this is just to basically study the buildings their existing condition what we can do what we can't do to them at the same time look at the programming needs of both police and fire operations and then come up with some options on on what we can do based on phase one phase two results that that can that can conclude in a project but that project has to come back before this board for full design full design funding Thank You mr. Jenna in order for us to move forward this is a necessary first step so I will fully support this order Thank You mr. chairman Thank You
▶ 24:03 Alderman Forbes, Alderman Boycelle, please. John, is this part of the feasibility study for a consolidation of the fire and police department into one building or one public safety building? That's an option we'd like the architect to consider. Okay. That would be an option. All right, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Alderman Boycelle. We have a motion to recommend this order for passage from Alderman Boycelle, duly seconded by Alderman Forbes. before we call for the vote. For the second time, Alderman Medeiros, please. Thank you, just one quick question. Will this also incorporate taking a look at parking needs of any facility and how that will affect those surrounding? If we were to consolidate, there's the option
▶ 24:50 Peter D. Mortimer: of what do we do with the old buildings, what do we do with the old land, and it could spill over into a situation where maybe some of these other buildings are no longer going to be used can be converted into parking could be sold not sure what that end solution is going to be will recommendations be included in yes out of this yes thank you thank you alderman Medeiros uh alderman boycella has made a motion to recommend this for passage duly seconded by alderman forbes seeing no further discussion all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none this order will be recommended for passage at our next full board meeting on december 19th the next order we have before us is order 2017-59 it is an appropriation in
▶ 25:40 Peter D. Mortimer: the amount of twenty thousand dollars from available free cash to the public works cemetery professional services account for records digitizing backup and updates of cemetery plots and burials motion or discussion or would you like to make an opening statement on this so just in in general terms this was going to fund various digitizing and backup of plots and burial files at wyoming cemetery and if i could go backwards a little bit on this order as well the wyoming cemetery committee for the last 18 18 24 months or so since it has turned over has made this a top priority they were working with the former i.t group at putting the hardware in place so that this software could be upgraded and it's an on it's been an ongoing project
▶ 26:34 through 2000 the early 2000s plans were scanned what this project does is we'll go back to the time when the scanning stopped re-scan everything and then digitize it in such a place to such a manner that we can search it i passed along a five-phased approach to this project and you can tell this is there's a there's been a lot of thought that's been put into this we have assembled a team that includes our city engineer i.t director chief assessor jane pitts from planning has also helped because she has a lot of expertise in the gis they've guided this process along for our new cemetery administrator and given the cemetery committee the type of expertise opinion to make this work the first phase includes scanning the second the
▶ 27:29 first phase is the digitizing of plans all we have we don't have anything that's computerized at the cemetery we have hard plans of everything now there's the the opportunity through technologies presented themselves is to take these hard plans and turn them into a digital file the digital files you can create gis maps from once you have the files in the computer you scan the data into it and you can have the data into these files and that's when you get start to get information behind the picture the end the last phase of the program the end goal is to have a day-to-day operating software system that the new administrator can use to search to add files to and eventually once we give confidence and that we can open up to
▶ 28:21 the general public if they were to look in search for a loved one or you know where's my plot where's my information that type of that type of information can be made available so that's what the project is thank you very much mr. shanna president khan please yeah um mr shenna do you know how much money is in this uh professional services account prior to this transfer right now we don't have we don't have anything it's actually a new line that we created in the budget there's no funding in it and is it your intention to to fund this account at twenty thousand dollars in the upcoming year budget no we feel that this project that we've actually failed based on some of the pricing we received even as late as this
▶ 29:06 Michael P. Zwirko: morning that the 20 000 may be able to complete the project that's all i have thank you president khan Alderman work oh please thank you mr chairman i had a couple of questions um this is relative to phase four it says um there will be a drone flyover i was curious will the city be purchasing a drone or using a drone through a vendor no we wouldn't purchase we would hire a vendor you'd hire a vendor to use the drone and again that is that's the pick that's to improve the pictometry of the files that we have and some of the gis files we have no i mean in this instance it's actually a very smart use of the technology i just it could actually be used for other things in the city um traffic mitigation and and you know many
▶ 29:50 Michael P. Zwirko: many other things i could think of so i was just curious if the city was actually going to use these funds to purchase it to keep it in-house but it's we'll just be using outside the intent right now is to hire a vendor to do that okay um and then also i noticed that this is uh there's gonna be a significant use of gis and um i i also want to speak to the the extremely usability um of this system gis is an amazing tool that municipalities can use for multi-layered information in coordination with gps activities so i'm really happy that we're actually doing that here we do it for other things across the city i know our visual budget has leveraged gis as well so the continual use of this technology is it's fantastic i actually
▶ 30:38 Michael P. Zwirko: studied it in college as well so it's it's i'm familiar with it and i'm glad that we're doing it here and the final thing i wanted to state on the um it's also actually on phase four a lot of the members of the community on Memorial Day weekend they replaced the flags of the veterans at the cemetery and the only way the volunteers can find out if there's a veteran buried there is if there's an existing flag so the fear is is that sometimes where we might be missing some men and women who may have served for the country and I was just curious it seems that we're trying and trying to get all this information and you alluded to it earlier being the hope of being able to look up a plot or someone who is laying in rest the work
▶ 31:29 Michael P. Zwirko: the hope is is that for all this mapping that occurs we can have some very good information exactly where members of men and women who serve the country could be buried so we won't miss a flag come on Memorial Day weekend is that one of the parts of this project I noticed it in phase four and I just wanted to try to think if that's exactly what they're looking at part of the project is to digitize the file behind each grave and the data information includes whether it's a veteran or not a veteran if there's a veteran marker so that would that would be available and I think that's when we get to that point it's a good field to add into the query right so you know it's just an Excel spreadsheet of a bunch of files but you know it could have name date of death
▶ 32:14 Monica C. Medeiros: date of birth we could also add veteran status into it and maybe that would lend to something like that in the future yeah but that's the that's the the power of GIS it's a good picture but you know you really want that information behind the picture and that type of feedback is critical well thank you a good idea and I'll pass it along I appreciate that I'm all set mr. chairman thank you Alderman worker alderman Medeiros please thank you yes along those lines I I was going to actually suggest that and ask if you would be in contact with the historical commission and perhaps the library, because I think that there's so many people who, especially for genealogical purposes and otherwise, that are very interested, and certainly the veterans
▶ 33:01 Monica C. Medeiros: are very interested in cemetery plots, and I mean, Melrose is an old history, this is an old cemetery with a lot of history, that I think there would be people who are interested in it and i think perhaps willing to help and assist from a different angle other than just the the nuts and bolts of getting the information together so i just encourage you to to think about contacting them and working with them yeah i don't disagree it's a very good point and i know the veterans have a i think they call it memory project where they look at graves and in that regard and bring high school students down there i mean once the system is up and running again this funds creating the system and but when it's up and running the there are a lot of capabilities
▶ 33:49 Monica C. Medeiros: that don't exist today in terms of searching and researching records um other than doing it manually so yeah that that is another good idea and i'll bring that back to the cemetery committee as well that's good and i just wanted to point out that we did receive an email from carrie ann golden and the auditor's department and she informed us that after if all the orders tonight taking money from free cash go through that the ending balance in that account would be one million three hundred ninety five thousand five hundred seventy two dollars and fifty four cents so I just wanted to make sure that everybody had that information and the public was aware as well and just say that I very much support this order and wish you luck in implementing thank
▶ 34:43 Peter D. Mortimer: you Alderman Medeiros seeing no further Alderman wishing to be heard is there a motion please Alderman Forbes has made a motion to recommend this order for passage at our next full board meeting duly seconded by Alderman Boisselle seeing no further discussion all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none this order will be recommended to our next toward the full board at our next full board meeting on next Monday, December 19th. Motion to adjourn. Alderman Suerco has made a motion to adjourn. The Committee on Appropriations duly seconded by Alderman Forbes. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, we are adjourned. Thank you, one and all. Thanks, everybody.