Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2016-12-19
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-2017-61 : Appropriation of $20,000 from Available Free Cash to Planning Exp - Professional Services for Master Plan Project
- ORDER-2017-56 : Authorization for the Mayor of Melrose to execute a Power Purchase Agreement for the installation and location of solar voltaic panels on the roof top of the Public Works Operations Facility
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● DECEMBER 19, 2016 Aldermanic Chamber, Melrose City Hall Committee Meeting 7:00 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 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 Present 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 In Attendance: Director of Planning Denise Gaffey; Energy Efficiency Manager Martha Grover, Sandra Brown, BlueWave Capital
ORDER-2017-61 Appropriation Appropriation of $20,000 from Available Free Cash to Planning Exp - Professional Services for Master Plan Project Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen
ORDER-2017-56 Authorization Authorization for the Mayor of Melrose to execute a Power Purchase Agreement for the installation and location of solar voltaic panels on the roof top of the Public Works Operations Facility Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 12/29/2016 2:44 PM
Transcript
▶ 0:02 Peter D. Mortimer: Good evening. It is Monday, December 19th, 2016. This is the Committee on Appropriations. It is a committee of the whole. Every member of the Board of Aldermen is a member of this committee. I am the Chairman Peter Mortimer. The Vice Chairman is Alderman Gail Infurna. We're also joined by Alderman Michael Zwirko, Alderman John Tramontozzi, Alderman Monica Medeiros, Alderman Robert Boisselle, Alderman Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis, Golis, Alderman Jennifer Lemmerman, Alderman Scott Forbes, and President Donald Kahn. This meeting is being recorded by MMTV. It's available for future viewing on their website and on the Melrose, Massachusetts website. I'm required to say that by law. Motion to open the floor for public participation, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 0:52 Peter D. Mortimer: Alderman Forbes has made a motion to open the floor for public participation duly seconded by alderman boycelle all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none we're open for public participation is there anyone in the gallery who wishes to come forward and say any words tonight seeing no one coming forward alderman forbes has made a motion to close public participation seconded by alderman's werco all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none public participation is closed the first order we have before us is order 2 0 1 7 dash 6 1 it is an appropriation of $20,000 from available free cash to planning expenses professional services for master plan project motion to suspend the rule so we can bring Denise Gaffey forward Alderman
▶ 1:47 Denise Gaffey: Inferna has made a motion to suspend the rules duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle that we may hear from the director of planning miss Gaffey good evening miss Gaffey would you please enlighten us on this order yes of course so I am here to request some additional funding to complete the master plan effort as I explained in a memorandum that I attached to the order and well there a couple of items that I attached there was a memorandum that attempted to provide an update on the progress so far with the master plan and and then there was another document that outlines the scope of services and tasks that are needed in terms of technical services by our consultant with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in order to complete the plan but just in terms of
▶ 2:47 Denise Gaffey: background I was initially here in front of the board back in 2015 the city had received a technical assistant grant technical assistance grant from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council to to begin work on updating the master plan and at that time this was that service was valued at $40,000 and we requested an additional $25,000 from the city to essentially match that funding and put together a scope of services to embark on the master plan update our master plan had been last been updated in 2004 so at the time we thought that while we knew that that was not a particularly robust budget for a master plan they typically run in the vicinity of about $100,000 we were hoping through the efforts of by trying to provide we were hoping that would be able to to keep the
▶ 3:45 Denise Gaffey: cost at a minimum for the city by providing some staff assistance and that the effort would not require as much funding we were hoping that the $65,000 would be adequate to get us through the process unfortunately we were very optimistic and and realized that with all of the other challenges that we had going on in the in the department over the past year that we couldn't dedicate the kind of time that we had hoped to in terms of assisting the consultant with some of the with drafting some of the sections of the plan so we are at a point now where a little bit behind schedule we feel like with the with this additional funding the twenty thousand dollars we can we can complete the project in a timely manner we're really hoping at this point we've done a lot of
▶ 4:30 Denise Gaffey: work we've had a lot of public meetings we want to have one more public meeting in March of 2017 in order to bring the full draft of the plan in our original idea our initial thinking about goals and objectives to the community to get some feedback so we've outlined a process where we can complete a draft of the plan get some feedback through a public process in March sort through that public feedback during the month of April with the master plan committee and then have a draft of a plan to present to the planning board for approval in May so that is our and that is our goal at this point in order to complete the master planning process it's been really fulfilling up till now and we have had
▶ 5:10 Denise Gaffey: some some great meetings the master plan committee meets just about monthly we've also had some focus groups with some interested stakeholders like land use and real estate attorneys and in our senior population so we've gotten some really great feedback through those processes and that's all getting kind of stirred into the equation and and we'll get you know pulled together into a cohesive plan so with that I now request your consideration of this funding and happy to answer any questions thank you very much miss Gaffey Alderman Inferno please thank you very much mr. chairman thank you Denise for coming as the representative the aldermanic representative on the master plan from this board I want to just agree with what Denise had to say and certainly the
▶ 6:03 Robert A. Boisselle: office is a very busy office and with her leadership and everything I think we're going to pull this through and have an exciting master plan for you for everyone to read so I hope everyone will support this funding Thank You alderman Inferno alderman Boisselle please in your email of December 14 funding for master plan project you've given off the sort of looks like the time schedule for 2017 projects and schedules and at the bottom you have in the budget how you're spending or how the money is being spent in a different categories one category is interesting is the public facilities which is probably the largest category in all of these are you considering or is this also involved a new well the
▶ 6:53 Denise Gaffey: public safety building or the new library that just kicked off its own master plan last week I believe is that being incorporated into this master plan well it'll certainly double counting here we're not no I mean we will reference in the public facilities and services chapter we will reference some of the current planning efforts that are going on the library master plan and the feasibility study for Public Safety and Memorial Hall things of that nature but we are not doing we are not doing those plans as part of the master plan we will just reference that that work is is going on currently okay good i'm just wondering if there was some sort of double counting that was going on all right thank you very much thank you mr
▶ 7:33 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: chairman thank you alderman boyce alderman mcintyre margolis please uh thank you mr chairman and thank you miss gaffey um you've been doing a great job so far we've seen lots of um outreach to the community on this and um i think it's important that you get to finish it i know your office is extraordinarily busy with many other things and projects I did just want to clarify so we had that technical assistance grant and was that 40,000 it was $40,000 and then we added the city we budgeted 25,000 correct and now another 20 so we're basically with that grant like $85,000 so it's still pretty much under where a normal plan would be and the city has contributed only about half of that amount correct if we support this
▶ 8:24 Peter D. Mortimer: tonight right great well I think as I say you've been doing a great job reaching out to various stakeholders and we look forward to the final report thank you thank you very much Alderman McAteer-Margolis is there a motion recommend mr. chairman Alderman Forbes has made a motion to recommend this order for passage at our full board meeting later tonight said motion was duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. Seeing no further discussion, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, this order will be recommended to our full board meeting later this evening. You need not stay around. Thank you very much for your presentation this evening. Thank you very much. Have a wonderful evening. Thank you. The next order we have before us is
▶ 9:16 Peter D. Mortimer: order 2017-56 it is authorization for the mayor of melrose to execute a power purchase agreement for the installation and location of solar voltaic panels on the rooftop of the public works operations facility we are still under suspension and we will ask miss grover to come forward and make her presentation please very good it was that's just for the record that's sandra brown welcome miss Brown thank you for coming hi my name is Martha Grover I'm the energy efficiency manager for the city of Melrose and this is Sandra Brown of blue wave capital a consultant that we've been working with now for about a year and a half two years on a variety of projects and this is the first project that we've been able to bring forward to you in this latest round of
▶ 10:21 renewable energy projects for the city of Melrose and we're really excited to have this opportunity to put solar panels on the public works facility roof the south facing roof there's a photo of the layout in your packet which I think it's a great project because it's visible people driving down Tremont Street will be able to see it and see the city's efforts to diversify our electricity supply by using renewable energy and you know it's it's in contrast to the project that we put on the high school middle school route years ago that nobody sees so it's kind of you know out of sight out of mind people kind of forget so i think this is great um i provided to you the the agreement which is a department of energy template so then there's also an addendum where we you know with our
▶ 11:23 city solicitor and blue wave capital worked with the developer to work out some addendums and edits to the agreement and then there's also an easement that is included in the agreement so tonight you'd be approving both the agreement and the easement to provide access to the to the roof and in my memo I've outlined just the highlights of this and I'm happy to answer any questions the solar development team was procured through the Metropolitan Area Planning Council there are 17 communities who took part in this procurement and the proposed project is 61.2 kilowatts of solar which will produce almost 76,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually and the way that it's going to work is the same way as the high school middle school system which is that the city
▶ 12:24 does not put any money up front we pay for it or it's partially funded through our guarantee or this agreement to purchase the electricity that it produces over the 20 years of the agreement at a fixed rate and then where we get the savings is a credit that comes back to the city by the utility in the way of a it's called a net metering credit and the Delta between that credit and what we're paying is the savings so first-year savings is 2000 projected to be about two thousand six hundred and seventy nine dollars and then over you know those savings accumulate over the life lifetime of the system so that's all I have it's pretty straightforward we're pretty comfortable now with these systems because we you know we now we've had a few years of experience with the
▶ 13:21 one on the high school and middle school and it's gone quite well it's great to have somebody else own it and maintain it and and someone else monitoring it and you know it's a for us it's kind of a financial arrangement more than anything else but also the visible which I like about this project the nature of it so any questions from anyone very good thank you very much for your presentation and first we'll hear from president khan please yeah i i think this is a good order i'm gonna i'm in support of this order i would like to ask you a question though um would it be possible for you to quarterly update the board on savings relative to this and the other solar agreement that we previously entered into because we see these things and then they go but uh
▶ 14:12 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: i i would like to get periodic i've got a lot of data i just never know what you what you at would be interested in I just did for instance my green community annual report and I don't know whether it just floods your inbox or you know but I'm happy I keep spreadsheets on all of these on the savings on the system and data on green communities may be very interested if you could follow us at least on the financial piece nice to know you're interested in that so yep thank you thank you very much president Cron Alderman McAteer my goal is thank you yeah I think this is great it's exciting I'm also think it's great that it's going to be visible you know to foot traffic and people on the on the street I was going to ask about that if it is it contributing to our green
▶ 15:00 communities level that we've been aiming for in any way no the green communities commitment is a reduction in usage so this doesn't impact our usage so much um mostly because it's not behind the meter it's going out on to the grid but and it's also as a um it's a pretty pretty small portion of the overall city energy right usage but it will um offset the cost of the the utility cost utility cost at that building yes and um that building is relatively new so you don't have the roof is new so it's great you don't have any concerns about the roof yeah which is why this this project has come forward you know a lot of our school rooftops are just too old to consider a 20-year even the Lincoln is really too old now okay consider a 20-year solar array well I'm
▶ 15:59 I'm happy to support this thank you thank you very much alderman McAteer Margolis alderman Medeiros please thank you thank you thank you very much yes I i just wanted to ask is you know we're involved with the community aggregation of electricity which includes the purchase of some you know local massachusetts renewable sources is this possible that this could end up being one of those sources that provide not directly but not not this project however we have a small 50 kilowatt system on the high school middle school that the city actually owns um and we are selling the class one wrecks that that system produces and it's in the cities then buying those class one wrecks it's very very small very very small amount of money but yes we're doing it on that system but because this
▶ 17:00 is net metered and going out into the grid it's harder to claim yeah those credits thank you very much thank you alderman Medeiros motion recommend second we have a motion to recommend by alderman mcatea margolis duly seconded by alderman inferna on discussion alderman boyce l please in the development of the solar panels and hookups and so forth has there been any pushback by the utilities for payment to hook into their system well in this instance and sandra can talk about it the one thing that we have we will have to do or the developer will have to do is is install a transformer yeah presently the location is served from a pole mounted 45 kVA transformer that's directly outside if I'm not mistaken
▶ 17:56 please please don't take me it's on the diagram you can exact numbers but um we need to upgrade that to I want to say 75 kVA for the system to move forward It has about a $6,000 cost that's associated with it based on an estimate or a worst-case scenario estimate that we've received from National Grid. So these aren't really costs that we would anticipate being outside of the realm of what is normal. So I would say, no, we haven't really received any pushback, but we do have interconnection costs that are associated with installing the system. So, National Grid is passing the cost of that new transformer onto the developer, which then eventually, you know, gets... We're not paying for it, except through the process.
▶ 18:41 Robert A. Boisselle: Okay. Also, the second aspect of that, besides just the transformer you were referring to, utilities have been pushing back on solar generators in other states, and Hawaii and I think Georgia and some of the southern states, and they're actually charging the individuals for the putting the electricity into the grid system to pay for the grid system. Now there's, depending on which state you're in, it's either a charge for it or a lower cost in the purchase of electricity. So you haven't heard anything in Massachusetts about this, or have you been approached by the utilities? There is a variety of efforts that are being discussed presently because the current solar incentive programs are slowly being phased out.
▶ 19:32 We're anticipating them being phased out over the next few months, and a next generation solar incentive program being put in place. There's a large discussion about what will that program look like, and it's ongoing. being facilitated by the massachusetts department of energy resources presently there was also recently an act on solar energy that did include a potential provision for a minimum monthly contribution in the case of your system that minimum monthly contribution would be targeted directly at the the owner of the meter which would be the financial partner wouldn't be the city so you guys would not or the city of melrose would not be um okay that's that's what i was hoping thank you very much directly responsible for that yeah thank you thank you mr chairman thank you
▶ 20:24 Peter D. Mortimer: alderman boy cell seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard a motion to recommend this order for passage has been made by alderman makatia margolis and duly seconded by alderman inferna all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none this order will be recommended for passage at our full board meeting tonight you need not stay for that meeting we've heard all the information we need at this time and thank you very much for your excellent presentation thank you thank you have a wonderful evening motion to adjourn mr president excuse me alderman forbes has made a motion to adjourn duly seconded by alderman boisselle all in favor of adjourning the committee on appropriations please say aye aye aye any opposed hearing none the