Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2017-04-06

Appropriations and Oversight Committee Meeting

This meeting starts at 4:45 in a recording that covers several meetings.

Attendance

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

Agenda

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● APRIL 6, 2017 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 Present Michael P. Zwirko Alderman at Large Present John N. Tramontozzi Ward 1 Alderman Present Monica C. Medeiros Alderman at Large Absent 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 Absent Donald L. Conn Jr. President/Ex-officio Member Present

ORDER-2017-117 Appropriation An Appropriation from Free Cash 01-324001 in the amount of $1,160,700 to various accounts as set forth within. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2017-116 Appropriation Appropriation in the amount of $22,020.82 From Account #620000-319000 (Mt Hood Retained Earnings) to Account #620000-529000 (Mt Hood Professional Services). This appropriation is necessary to fulfill contract obligations. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2017-123 Transfer A Transfer of funds in the amount of $637,366.19 from various accounts to various accounts as set forth within. Of these funds $610,000 will be used to cover the snow and ice deficit and the remaining $27,366.19 will be used to cover departmental salary adjustments and Police Department expenses. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 4/12/2017 10:32 AM Minutes Appropriations Committee April 6, 2017

ORDER-2017-121 Acceptance Acceptance of CZM Grant in the amount of Six Thousand, Seven Hundred Dollars ($6,700) from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM). Said funds to be deposited into Fund Number 4028, CMZ Grant. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2017-120 Acceptance Acceptance of Complete Streets Grant in the amount of Forty Nine Thousand, Seven Hundred and Eighty Two Dollars and Twenty Three Cents ($49,782.23) from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT). Said funds to be deposited into Fund Number 4027, Complete Streets. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 2 Updated 4/12/2017 10:32 AM

Transcript

▶ 3:42 of these donations require any matching money from the city correct correct okay anyone else from okay uh the motion has been made and seconded all in favor aye opposed that order will also be recommended to the full board thank you at our next meeting motion to adjourn second that concludes our orders this evening motion to rec uh adjourn by health of an inferno seconded by Aye. Alderman Goizel, all in favor? Aye. Please stay tuned for Appropriations. Good evening ladies and gentlemen. This is the committee on appropriations for the Melrose Board of Aldermen. This is a committee of the whole. Every member of the Board of Aldermen is a member of this committee. I am Chairman Peter Mortimer, and we are joined this evening by Vice Chairman Gail Inferna,

▶ 5:51 Peter D. Mortimer: Alderman Michael Zwirko, Alderman John Tramontozzi, Alderman Robert Boisselle, Alderman Mary Beth Macatia-Margolis, Alderman Jennifer Lemmerman, and President Donald Kahn. This meeting is being recorded by MMTV and is available for future viewing on their website as well as the website of the city of Melrose. Alderman Inferna has made a motion to open the floor for public participation. Second. Duly seconded by Alderman McAteer-Margolis. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, we are open for public participation. Are there any members of the public who would wish to come forward and make any commentary or ask any questions about any order on our agenda tonight? You're going to speak on the order anyway.

▶ 6:41 Peter D. Mortimer: So you need not come, we'll have a suspension of the rules to let you speak on your order. Motion to close public participation. Second. To close public participation made by Alderman Aferna, duly seconded by Alderman Zwirko. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, public participation is now closed. And we will proceed to our first order on the committee for appropriations. It is order 2017-117, an appropriation from free cash 01-324001, in the amount of $1,160,700 to various accounts as set forth within. Alderman Zwirko has made a motion to suspend the rules that we may hear from the appropriate city officials. Duly seconded by Alderman Ferner. All in favor of the motion to suspend the rules, please say aye.

▶ 7:34 Peter D. Mortimer: Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, we are under suspension. Mr. Della Russo and any other members of the city personnel management you'd like to have with you, please address the board. Thank you, good evening. Good evening. I've asked that relative to this order you should have two different handouts in front of you, respectfully. And what I'd like to do through the chair is to walk through this free cash request and as we go down the list, I believe the respective department has it here this evening to answer any questions anyone may have. I think it may be the most prudent way to proceed here. good sir everyone everyone hear that he's going to address each one and then each department head will come forward and we'll take them for a colloquy individually thank you proceed mr

▶ 8:29 de la russa thank you and again the order indicates that one million one hundred sixty thousand seven hundred dollars of free cash is being requested before this board for the following purposes i do want to state at the um outset that in the event this order is approved there will be two 234,872.54 of free cash remaining to the end of this fiscal year. Again, 234,872.54 in the event this board decides to approve these requests this evening. The first one before you is relative to IT computer purchases and upgrades in the amount of $214,000. These are costs associated with the wiring access points for MCAS 2.0, phone upgrades at the elementary schools, and replacement of projectors and school servers.

▶ 9:28 Peter D. Mortimer: Neil is here, our IT director. If the board would ask that they'd like to speak with him, he's here this evening. Would anyone like to address the IT director? Seeing no one wishing to speak with the IT director, he need not come forward at this time. Please proceed, Mr. De La Ruzzo. Thank you. The next one is school other funding sources, $210,000. These are costs associated with the increased enrollment and other contractual obligations. The superintendent is here this evening. If Thorp any questions, she has requested this be put before you this evening. Would any Alderman like to address the Superintendent of Schools, Senator Timor? I have a question for Mr. DelaRusso. Pardon me, Mr. President?

▶ 10:16 I had some questions for Mr. DelaRusso. Before we proceed with Ms. Tamor. Very good, proceed, and then Alderman Search has questions for Ms. Tamor. Please proceed, President Kahn. So can you briefly describe what the expenditure is for in a little bit more detail, please? On the school department? Yes, please. Yes, they're associated with increased enrollment. These are costs that are incurred as of an increase of the number of students that are participating in the school department. These would be your one time costs in general, costs for supplies, materials, etc, that as you have increased enrollment, those costs go with the student. so Thorp not going to be a matching increase in the next fiscal year budget do you have to roll

▶ 11:10 this money into your next next year budget projections or no i would defer to the superintendent on that if i may thank you good evening thank you um as you all know we are up um 100 children and the high school is approaching 995 children so what has happened is there is a need for additional resources at the k2 level um the practice in education now is to use what we call consumables those are those of you who have little ones or have seen little ones they're not permanent textbooks every child gets the book in math the book in english writing journal and their consumables and it's a yearly expense it's pretty much a change in the way we do business the other piece of the increase is as we become more digital the licensing is on a per pupil basis

▶ 12:11 and so as you have an increase in enrollment you have an increase in expenses when mr ellis came a board he helped us review our digital licenses and he has recommended that we have underfunded this line considering the demands that we are experiencing some of it is associated with the elementary some of it is associated with the high school and the increased demands for digital resources across all subject areas so it sounds like you may have to factor in another 210 000 for next year's budget as well right and and we have discussed that and i believe we will be back in front of you in october as we typically are to address that okay so this isn't going to be built into the school budget that's going to be sent down it's going to be looking for supplemental

▶ 13:01 appropriation in the fall most likely unless we can we can work something between now and the time the budget is submitted but as um everyone is aware uh the funds are extremely limited from the commonwealth this year and if you could mr del ruso when you submit the budget can you let us know what the outcome is relative to this uh this item whether it's going to be in the budget or whether you're expecting to fund it in the fall if you have a change of thinking i'd like to know you know absolutely the budget process that's all i have right now thank you president khan next in queue we have alderman Zwirko please thank you mr chairman my questions actually were asked by president khan so i don't have questions at this time thank you very much sir thank you

▶ 13:43 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: next we have alderman mcintyre margolis thank you mr chairman um thank you for coming out on this terrible rainy night um uh mr delarusso you mentioned that perhaps some of this was contractual obligations i just wondered if that um entailed any any additional staff or anything like that that we needed the uh additional staff will be in the fy18 budget um as you know um having been in the role we have contractual um line items for consulting services or for extra services that may be required due to special education esl or some other matter so um that is part of it and this will take it to the end of the fiscal year this will take us to the end of the fiscal year thank you thank you mr shannon thank you very much alderman macatia margolis

▶ 14:36 Peter D. Mortimer: alderman voyzel please will any of this money be used for the modules that you're purchasing in the next couple months no the modules as you know are funded by a different source that you all voted on right and those all include the ff e that's needed for those modules thank you thank you thank you alderman boy cell seeing no further alderman wishing to pose any questions or make any comments we'll proceed to the next item and if no one minds And if you don't mind, Mr. DelaRusso, I thought we might take the community garden order next. It's a short amount of money, it's a nice plump for the city of Melrose, but I don't imagine the questioning will be in too great a depth at this time. Is that all right with everyone?

▶ 15:21 Ladies, would you please come forward and sit beside Mr. DelaRusso. You may need to pull up another couple of chairs there. Hello, hello. Hello. um the uh joan bell superintendent of parks um we had a conversation with you previously about there being interest in the community um about starting a community garden that wasn't necessarily on school property but in some place in the community where residents could be a part of it we went through we looked at a lot of different places we had community meetings we spoke um to different groups and we came up with a plot of land that is adjacent to the soccer fields at franklin street so we've been kind of working out the details of what's going to go in there and gosha and her group are going to be the the primary stakeholders so i thought

▶ 16:38 Robert A. Boisselle: it'd be nice for them to explain to you um what their plans are you'll certainly have enough water down there please yes ladies would you all introduce yourselves great idea Raldeman Aferna I'm Mary Clark so any questions this is pretty self-explanatory ladies thank you very much for your attendance Oh alderman Boycelle in a number in the design of the garden so forth I've also seen at library that you're going to give some of the plots to some of the senior members in the towers area and so forth one plot for the McCarthy house are the house are you going to have a special lot for that is going to be a raised bed say about three feet so they don't seniors having problems don't have to bend down and kneel to into the garden but they just sort of walk around the

▶ 17:34 garden I've noticed that the Boston flower show this year was it was being advertised quite heavily throughout the show that raised gardens for the seniors and so forth is that being considered all the plots are going to have raised beds I'm talking at least three feet size it would be possible to make one bed higher yes triple-decker right triple-decker high so that people don't have to bend over I appreciate that okay thank you thank you very much alderman Boycelle Alderman MacMaster Margolis please thank you I just wanted to thank you all so much for your work on this I've been working with you on this through rotary and it's a you're a great organization a great group of dedicated gardeners and I know you've actually managed to get a few more beds in there

▶ 18:23 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: than we had originally planned great I think you're I think you've had a lot of response already to requests right 40 people today 40 people right great so I think you're hopefully going to be able to squeeze in how many maybe 18 beds 18 18 minus one for the mccarthy mccarthy that's great so thank you again for your hard work and we'll continue to look forward to updates and see the flowers blooming okay thank you thank you thank you alderman mcintyre my goal is president khan please yeah um so ms bell is this going to be a new line in your budget no no it's just the initial money uh rotary is making a contribution and the city is making a contribution it's a one time the community garden themselves are going to have a 40 50 fee which

▶ 19:11 they're going to manage we're not going to have anything to do with it we're providing the plot of land um and with that we'll bring in some irrigation over to them but it's it's self sufficient for them like it's almost like the dog park or any of friends of uh groups all right so this is an account that's going to be funded the expenditure is going to be made and then it's going to go away correct it's not going to be a recurring budget item correct okay okay it's just set up thank you thank you president khan alderman's workout please thank you mr chairman just a quick question do you have any ideas to when this uh will you know there be a grand opening for this is you targeting june july we were hoping may i don't know the end of may i

▶ 19:50 Peter D. Mortimer: don't know more realistically the first of june okay but that's we're kind of yeah it's it's may Mayor June. Great. Thank you. We have water lilies down there. Seeing no further questions or comments from the Board of Aldermen at this time. Ladies, thank you very much and this line item will be approved. Thank you so much for your great work in beautifying our community. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Della Russo for rejoining us. I see the next item is Department Equipment, Public Works, Vehicle and Equipment. we have our director of public works mr john shenna in the building with us this evening good evening mr shanna uh good evening everyone evening uh there are several components to the order that's before you that are public works related i can speak to the bombardier first

▶ 20:54 i mean this order is purchasing a new sidewalk tractor for the department trying to get my hands on a handout and i will um if you don't mind be passing this out please thank you thank you very much i will um i'll add that to the record tomorrow but that is a photo of a 1993 sidewalk tractor that is currently inoperable in fact during the last storm we rented one and prepared to purchase another one in the event of an emergency we didn't because we couldn't get that running anymore it's a critical piece of equipment giving the demographics and how we run our school system in melrose where sidewalks are important and our sidewalk routes are critically important we have four sidewalk routes that are covered by four machines which help us turn the city

▶ 22:06 back around and prepare for forum for school this is a tractor this purchase would fund the tractor that would go into a neighborhood route and it would actually be the last upgrade to the sidewalk tractor routes and it spreads the purchases out so we're not purchasing more than one at the same time which leads to escalating costs so they're spread out by three years and And we're very fortunate that CFO, Mr. DelaRusso, and the mayor have supported this purchase. We hope that you do as well. This way we'll be prepared for next winter and many winters to come. Fifteen years is a very realistic lifespan for a tractor of this kind. Thank you, Mr. Shenna. Our first in queue, we have Alderman Inferno, please.

▶ 23:00 Gail Infurna: Thank you very much. thank you mr. Jennifer coming here this evening and for all the work that your you and your team has done this winter I'm just curious I know in the past and when we've talked about sidewalk plows there are some areas at least I know in my ward because as everybody knows I'm very parochial to my ward and that these previous snow plows have been too big to put on some of those sidewalks is this one a little narrower or anything that could reach some of those sidewalks I wish i could say smaller is better now but these machines they don't these this is 50 inches wide all of our new sidewalks are five feet 60 inches so we have no sidewalks and they are school routes so i mean i would really would have hoped that it could kind of hit some of those streets and

▶ 23:48 the difficult part isn't just the width of the sidewalk but sometimes it's the location of the utility pole within the sidewalk right that provides a bottleneck that we can't get around but we're actually our operations manager and our engineering group we've been we've been discussing going out into the sidewalk routes to re to identify some trouble spots we've had we want to do it this summer when we get our interns so that we can try to maybe improve those type of situations let me know i have a couple so great thank you i understand you know that what it is what it is but that would be nice if we could kind of help out some of those sidewalks so it's a valid point thank you thank you alderman fernie and that's not a bad idea for people if anybody's

▶ 24:29 Robert A. Boisselle: listening if you have lawn ornaments or any decoration shrubs that are close you might think about over the summer moving them back so they don't get destroyed by this new plow alderman boys help please that's a good point especially on main street you have sort of benches in front of businesses that are close to the building or large oversized flower pots and so forth they're still they are holding plants and so forth do you notify the owners to remove these during the year or or during the winter especially or we try to get around them we try to and if Thorp a major issue in something that can be moved we try to make that adjustment after the first storm when we identify it it's the hard fixed objects that are most difficult to overcome

▶ 25:17 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: and work around traffic signals utility poles those type of things that you really can't adjust Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Alderman Boyce-Hell. Alderman McAteer-Margolis, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know this past winter, although it was an easy one for the most part, I had some calls from people about the sidewalk plow not being able to get through the corners where the intersections were. Will this apparatus give you more power? Will they be able to go around to some of those corners to break through where maybe the older plow wasn't able to? we we this would be the third of this type of bombardier it's called sidewalk bombardier will be our third one and the two that we have the strongest sidewalk

▶ 26:04 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: plows in our in our fleet they come with snow blowers as well so that we could snow blow and try not to make as much damage on the on the on the sidewalk so the grass strips so I just I just have as I say people were concerned that it It would, the plow would go by on the sidewalk, which was great, but then when the street plow went by, it would plow in the corner. So if Thorp a opportunity to address that over the summer with your interns, when you're looking at the routes, it might be helpful. And a lot of that is coordination too. We try to push back first and then come through with the sidewalk tractors. Thank you. Thank you for your feedback. Mayor Margolis, seeing no further aldermen,

▶ 26:47 wishing to comment on this section of the order, We will proceed to the next section of the order, which is Police Salary Overtime. Chief Lyle is here with us. Good evening. Good evening, Chief Lyle. The $135,000 is split between two line items. One is police overtime, the other is court time. We've exceeded both categories this year. Thank you, sir. President Kahn, please. Any more arrests? So, Chief, if we pass this order, just relative to your overtime, how much will you have overspent the budget by in overtime? Right now, we're at 341, 371.13 for overtime. With a deficit of 359, somewhere around 460, 470. So if we pass this, the total expenditure will be 460, 470? And is this going to get you to the end or not?

▶ 28:17 And I'll say the typical response, I hope so. It depends. Right now, we've had a bad year. We had three officers injured. We had an officer that's been out since September that came back last month. And a week later, another officer went out with a major injury, and I don't think we're going to see her until next fiscal year. Couple that with military deployments. I was going to ask you as well as how many people you have on long term military deployments. No, fortunately right now we have four officers in the military and nobody is deployed. But they do get weekend drills and periodically they go away for 14 days to 30 days at a time. So you have four long term injuries and four- No, over the course of the fiscal year.

▶ 29:04 Right now I have one officer out injured. And then I actually have another officer out that's been on long term illness since January. Okay, have you started to put together your budget for next year yet? It's still in the process of discussions. Okay, Mr. De La Russa, are you going to be increasing the police overtime budget in the upcoming budget, do you foresee? Yes, that is my goal, both for police and fire. I don't want to talk prematurely, but that would be the objective. To bring them back, to bring them to a level where it minimizes the one-time revenue aspect that we're experiencing this evening. Okay, and Chief, when you indicate you want to get, you hope you'll get to the end of the year.

▶ 29:54 I mean, is the money that we're transferring in already spoken for, or is this for prospective over time? Well, it'll zero out the accounts as well as give us the funds to make it to the end of the year, fiscal year. Okay, so this is for prospective over time, not- Yes, yes, this is forward forecasting, yes. That's all I have right now. Thank you, President Kahn. Seeing no further, Alderman wishing to ask any questions or make any comments, we will proceed to the next section of this large order. It is public works, snow expenditure, salt and chemicals. Mr. Shannon, would you return please? So this appropriation is going to be used to address the snow deficit for this past winter. Our snow deficit is $730,000.

▶ 31:00 We spent just over 1.2 million. The original budget was 550,000. We had 25 events that covered 58 inches of snow. About 40% of the budget was salt and chemicals. 35% went to contractors, 15 to 18% of it was overtime. The balance was repairs on fleet and other miscellaneous expenditures. That is pretty much in line with what proportionally to what we spent last year and what we spent two years ago. Thank you very much, Mr. Shenna. Alderman Pernaut, did you signal me and change your mind? Yes, I did. Okay, thank you. Alderman Zwirko, that wasn't a signal? Yeah, no, I had a question. Okay, Alderman Zwirko is first, followed by President Kahn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So I just had a question.

▶ 31:58 Michael P. Zwirko: So we have a, you said that the deficit is 730K? Yes. So Thorp an order later on transfer of funds. I see that Thorp 610 that will be diverted to cover the snow and ice deficit plus the 120 that makes the 730, is that correct? Correct. So I'm just curious, why did we not choose free cash for all, what's the difference between the two? Yeah. It's a great question, I'm glad you asked it. But throughout the process, and I would only hope it could apply to other costs as well. The objective of my office is to try to match the expense within the year that it's incurred. Thorp no expense was incurred this fiscal year. I prefer not to raise it on the recap next year. It's not really an 18 expense, it's really a 17 expense.

▶ 32:48 If I can match current revenues, that's why you'll see a transfer from one of those other accounts. That we've already resided within the budget to cover that cost, I'm really doing apples to apples. When you have to go to a third source, for example, a free cash, another funding source, it's not your primary objective. It doesn't satisfy the best practice, but it does get the job done. But you try to avoid that, so the decision that I made was to stick to the protocol. to match the current year expenses best you can with current available funds so you don't bring it into next year and and it's it's more it's it's more representative about what you actually expended quite frankly uh all right well thank you for that and i mr shen i i missed what you had

▶ 33:35 said um when you broke down the costs i'm sorry do you mind just repeating those again in terms of the overtime the the contractors and the materials 40% of the expenditures assault and chemicals roughly 35% was contractual hired equipment we bring in to assist us and 15 to 18 percent of it was overtime those were the three main components to balance went to fleet repairs and other miscellaneous and I just want to remind everybody these are the snow expenditures for the entire city school grounds included Public Works removes snow throughout the city so this is the all-inclusive expenditures in regards to snow and ice and this was a winter that although mild compared to two years ago the temperature differentials really create issues and I think we all clearly

▶ 34:29 remember that morning when it was okay at 515 and at quarter of six the entire city became a sheet of ice that costs money that storm right there will cost you twenty five to thirty thousand dollars because of the price of salt and how expensive it is to treat the city but you don't really have a choice and that that morning was a perfect example of what happens with temperature differentials in a winter so you really have to look at the events that you that you have and the temperature issues during the winter in addition to the to the snowfall accumulation but 2015 16 sorry 2014 15 we spent just over two million dollars we had 104 inches of snow this year so 55 58 inches of snow 1.2 million so it's the again proportionally our expenditures are

▶ 35:21 Peter D. Mortimer: pretty much in line yeah I would thank you for that and also the work your crew did this year is greatly appreciated especially as a commuter so thank you Those are all the questions I have, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, Alderman Zwirko. Seeing no other aldermen wishing to be heard on this matter, we will proceed to our next item, which is fire, salary, and overtime. Thank you. Chief Leary is here in the chambers with us. And that amount is $75,000 that he's requesting. Thank you very much. Good evening, Chief Leary. Good evening. The fire department has similar issues that Chief Lyle has in the police department. We've had several members out with long-term illnesses, another with a long-term injury,

▶ 36:05 and we had a member return in October from a two-year military deployment. And in addition to that, the winter's been really tough with illnesses running through the station. I mean, all but maybe four members of the department have been out sick with different things. I do believe this will carry us to the end of the year, barring any catastrophic events. Thank you very much, Chief. President Kahn, please. So Chief, what's your total overtime expenditure going to be after we- We're going to be close to 600,000. Excuse me? 600,000. And how does this compare with last year? Last year was- 480. Do you think the fact is that you've just enumerated relative to injury and military deployments is the reason for the spike up?

▶ 37:00 Yes. How many firefighters are out on long term injury or illness right now? Three. In addition to that, we have some members that have been using FMLA for family illnesses or issues. Okay, so you have people who are working overtime to cover for FMLA related absences as well? Correct. All right, that's all for now. Thank you, President Kahn. Seeing no other aldermen wishing to make commentary on this order, we will proceed to our next section of the order, more appropriately stated, which is public work, parks, and forestry hired equipment. Thank you, Chief. Again, it's $45,000 that they requested for planting approximately 90 new city trees, city-wide. Thank you, Mr. De La Russo. Would you like to add anything to that, Mr. Shenna?

▶ 38:01 No, just I want to make sure I get my statistics correct. Thorp about 211 requests on our tree list right now. Some date back to 2014. The majority of the trees that we'll plant are the requests that came in in 2015. So we have about a two-year backlog, which historically is not that bad. But even after we plant these 90 trees, 90 plus and minus trees, they'll still be another 100 plus on the list. So I'm very, very happy that we have this opportunity. And we take trees down, especially the last two, three summers. Trees have been infested and have died, so it's good to repopulate that canopy in the city and and spread those plan things out thank you very much sir first in line we have alderman MacMaster my goal is police Thank You mr. chairman Thank You mr.

▶ 38:58 Shanna can you just for the information for public information how do people get a request how do they make a request for a treat well you could call the department okay good old-fashioned telephone call will always work in public works you could also you could also request it through our work order system online you can access that through the website if you want to send us an email that's fine any tree that we take down request is automatically generated by the department and you know we try to replace those not in the same location but roughly so if you lose a tree a work order is automatically generated by by dpw and did you have to um take down some trees this because of the ice storms and all this winter yeah

▶ 39:51 well you know winter winter's winter's weakened the tree canopy but you always feel those effects sometimes in the summer as late as the summer sometimes as late as the fall when you get those tropical wind storms and heavy rain and and that weakened tree doesn't have the time to recuperate so we did have some damage um more last fall than this winter but it was a it was a difficult with at least the last two storms especially but the public should know that if they if there was a tree taken down on their street or whatever there already has been a automatic order work order put in for a replacement that's correct unless the people come out while we're taking it says please don't put anything back and then we will defer that planting to some other place does it get

▶ 40:35 further up the list because it because you had to take it down no no when it comes to plantings we typically take them chrono by request date and you know that's what we do we have these spreadsheets that we download and um finally do we have a tree donation program if people wanted to donate a tree for somebody's memory or something like that we don't what we've done in the past it's unofficially if someone's called the department and either wanted to purchase their own tree to plant on city property or i know that our superintendent of parks joan bell has have people approach us sometimes they've purchased the tree and public works has planted it and we try to care for it at least initially so we do things like that unofficially if people call

▶ 41:19 great thank you very much thank you mr chairman thank you alderman mcintyre margolis alderman Boisselle please in this grant are you limiting the height of the trees and the type of trees that you're getting so these trees will be planted contractually and we are planting from a variety of trees uh red maples plum trees lilac trees um and little leaf linden trees so and our engineer our engineering group with our operations group together our tree foreman will go out to these 90 plus locations and look at if Thorp under wires and try to find the appropriate tree to put there that was my next question you don't put a red maple under uh one of these wires or telephone lines and so forth that's case by case i leave the selection process to them but we do have

▶ 42:15 when we put the contract out we have a library of trees that we can turn to now do you is it all one type of tree on the street or do you sort of alternate between types of trees well these are this program is focused throughout the city right so we look at what's existing in that area and we either comp we try to complement it by either matching it or sometimes planting something in the same family same family okay good thank you thank you mr terry thank you very much alderman boycelle seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard on this order we will proceed to the next section which is fire expenditure motor vehicle repair and maintenance and again that is forty thousand dollars to cover costs associated with repair and maintenance of the

▶ 43:03 Peter D. Mortimer: fire department fleet and we are rejoined by chief larry good evening again chief evening so we have a couple of outstanding invoices with and some additional work that needs to be completed on our spare ladder truck and in addition we have to perform um our maintenance on the vehicles over the next few months i anticipate this should get us through with any without any issues major issues thank you sir seeing no alderman wishing to be heard on this section of the order we will proceed to our next section of the order thank you which is public works school contractual in the amount of thirty eight thousand dollars good evening again mr. Shana good evening um if I'm if I made through the chair Thorp another line the municipal building repair for 15,300 if if you'd

▶ 44:03 allow me to speak to both of those concurrently certainly some page two of this handout right so these are these expenditures are pretty much for several unanticipated repairs and both our municipal and school buildings a a majority of of this funding is going towards elevator maintenance that we performed not this is above and beyond the regular elevator maintenance elevators run on hydraulic oil Thorp an oil reserve on it and similar to a car if you don't change that oil it thickens and components of it get into the mechanisms of the elevator cause significant damage the first summer that public works was involved in the schools there was actually a fire at the high school that was related back to this oil there was a fire in the elevator shaft

▶ 44:56 small but still significant and we were very fortunate to share that the auditor and the mayor had these funds available where we went in and replaced all the oil in these elevators the nine throughout the city both school and municipal including city hall where um we can now get the elevators up to up to code and and moving forward we have a basis of we know when we did it we can start to put them in some type of a program that was a piece of it we also had an air handler at the roosevelt school that this past winter right actually right before winter uh failed on us it required extensive shaft work and we had to take the entire air handler in the gymnasium apart one weekend it was right before winter right before heavy gym use it was a

▶ 45:48 significant expenditure that the department didn't anticipate but um had no we had no choice but to do it there were also several boiler repairs to at the bb and ripley school the superintendent and her staff and attorney van campen renegotiated an agreement would seem collaborative so part of that agreement we were fortunate enough to pass on some of our maintenance day-to-day maintenance responsibilities to the tenant including some of the heat issues in those buildings and that's great because it frees up our resources to stay in our school district and our municipal buildings but before we pass the buildings on we had to we had to make some repairs to issues that were that were faulty so that was another significant expense that we incurred in the fall that we're

▶ 46:40 trying to replace the balance was for materials supplies and furniture to we upgraded several offices at City Hall we did a lot of painting this is what the green team that supplies to furnish the green team all went along we did painting at City Hall we replaced some furniture at City Hall we repainted the cells at the police station we did some work at the library I think we did the conference room at the Milano Center and we did several school projects during vacation off hours we were able to switch some ships within the department so again this supplements some of some of those expenses um as well thank you mr shana alderman boycelle please you meant you mentioned in your discussion passing on the maintenance in this paragraph here uh to the

▶ 47:35 new scene sem contract is that what you're you're passing on to the individuals within the building the bb and the ripley school and superintendents here if i misspeak but the bb and the ripley school are leased by seem collaborative right and they run their school their school function out of that school now as part of the agreement some day-to-day issues that they used to call public works for they now respond to themselves so they they have an outside contractor that comes in or they have their own group of contractors they have their own custodian now they always had They don't have their own custodian, but they have their own group of contractors that they can turn to. Okay. And again, frees up a lot of resources in the department.

▶ 48:20 Peter D. Mortimer: Good, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Boycelle. Seeing no further, President Kahn, please. So Mr. Shannon, essentially this order is to transfer money to compensate for bills that you paid to third party vendors. Correct. That's it. Thank you, President Kahn. Seeing no further, Alderman wishing to be heard on this section of the order, we will proceed to the next section of the order, which is the website in the amount of $35,000. Mr. De La Russo, please. Yes, these are costs associated with the city and school websites. This request being made, Amy will speak to it this evening. um yes so we need to upgrade both our municipal website and our school website for a number of reasons one is security and reliability the other is to have a

▶ 49:17 more responsive design which in web terms means something that's mobile friendly the current city site is not mobile friendly and since we've done some analysis on the use case and 70% of our users actually are trying to access it from tablets or phones so we need to change the way the websites designed so in the process we can also add a lot of features that will make everything more mobile in web friendly so you can actually access forms online rather than doing everything through PDFs and make it a better experience for our citizens thank you very much mr. Moser well it's work oh please mr. chairman will those design enhancements be applicable to the IQ m2 system or is it just the city website itself I know that they're kind of they're different

▶ 50:03 Peter D. Mortimer: there are two separate things um right now no it will just be the website itself the iqm2 is kind of its own independent okay um element the one thing is the provider we we're going to use is much better at integrating um the two the separate third-party providers there are other things that we use that are also third-party sources but they'll actually fit inside the website itself rather than something that you'll have to get directed to a second url for okay Yeah, understood. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Zwirko. Seeing no further Alderman wishing to be heard, we will proceed to the next section of the order, which is mowing and maintenance in the amount of $21,000. Thank you. We are rejoined once again by our Superintendent of Public Works, Mr. Shenna.

▶ 50:51 Good evening again, Mr. Shenna. Good evening. so this funding is to reseed and do an extensive turf maintenance program at the West Knoll the the middle third of that field has failed and it's really a need of of heavy seeding and slice seeding and to try to rebuild or reestablish some grass in that middle third so we were very fortunate again our superintendent of parks joan bell worked with youth soccer and the various user groups for the spring and we were able to close the field we will install some fencing to keep the the stragglers off the field and spring summer we'll see we'll see significant um work on that field to try to get grass to grow back in that middle third and have it ready for

▶ 51:48 the fall varsity soccer season and reopen youth soccer in the fall as well on that field thank you mr shenna seeing no alderman wishing to have any questions about this section of the order we will proceed to the next section which is cemetery expenditure hired equipment please proceed mr shen so this funding is um eighteen thousand dollars by the way so this This is a continuation of trying to maintain the perimeter wall that is along Sylvan Street and Lebanon Street. It's a stone wall with mortar joints, hundreds of years old. Several of the joints have failed to do the entire project. You're looking at a half a million to a million dollars. But again, the cemetery committee is very strong at advocating to

▶ 52:40 Michael P. Zwirko: determine how we can prolong the life of what's there. And this gives us the opportunity to hire a mason to come in and at least address the worst parts of that wall to prevent further damage. And we hope that this is a recurring thing and maybe something in the future that we could put right into their budget so they can address that yearly. Thank you, Mr. Shenna. Alderman Zwerchel, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. to see this line item here um i actually frequent the cemetery quite often and um i do notice some of the decay on the exterior wall which is also actually very pretty too i was just curious um Thorp a lot a lot of that wall is covered by ivy and i'm this is just really just for my own

▶ 53:25 Peter D. Mortimer: i've understood that ivy's actually somewhat corrosive as well is there going to be any removal of that to kind of slow down the decay has that been discussed at all as well i'm just um occasionally we trim it back and again it depends ivy tends to grow into the wall right into the joint right removing it could further weaken the joint um so in some instances the the crew that that's down there tries to groom it but in some instances it's best to just let it be okay all right thank you thank you alderman's worker seeing no further alderman wishing to to be heard on this order we will proceed to the next section which is the World War two monument in the amount of sixteen thousand five hundred dollars

▶ 54:08 and we are joined by mr. Driscoll in this juncture joined by major Driscoll and so similar to other memorial projects and park projects and the community garden this is another continued partnership between the city the administration and veterans advisory committee this will purchase will help purchase a monument for World War two but I'm gonna let mr. Driscoll explain what it is that we're looking to build and how it is that it's going to come together this is something that will put together late summer for an opening in the fall thank you and may I point out for the record that mr. Driscoll is who is joined by our Veteran Service Officer, Ms. Redden. Please proceed, Mr. Driscoll. Thank you, good evening.

▶ 55:07 Three years ago, we came up, the Veterans Advisory Board and the Veterans Office and the Mayor's Office. We came up with a ten year plan for the Knoll to revitalize it. So we started with the World War II Memorial in the front. We added the Korean War Memorial two years ago. got some grants to upgrade some of the Civil War memorials down at the cemetery this is again part of our 10-year plan we've raised half of this money as we have for all the others through private donation fundraisers which many of you have helped support and I thank you for that we too so we have half the money that we raised this would give us the other half and the concern that we had on the board the veterans office in in the mayor's office is our two vets are

▶ 56:02 leaving us at a rapid pace and so we wanted to accelerate getting this memorial and also so you have a copy of the design we work with woodlawn memorials who have done our other memorials and they work with us at on they just pass along their costs so they don't make any money on it so we're very fortunate for that we're very fortunate to have the skilled people down at the DPW who save us a lot of money doing a lot of the excavation work the engineering parts and we're challenging challenging them this year that circle in the middle is actually a fountain similar to the one in Washington DC so So this is really going to be a challenge for the DPW. So this funds will get us where we need to be to construct this.

▶ 57:01 We have a goal of having a ceremony on Veterans Day to unveil the memorial for our World War II veterans. Thank you, Mr. Driscoll. Would you like to add anything, Ms. Redd? Thank you very much. Alderman Boycelle, please. Have you picked out a location for this memorial? Yes, it will be, as you enter the Knoll, with the World War I memorial on the front, it'll be to the left. So it'll go World War I, World War II. And then the Korean. The Korean, and the goal in ten years is to go around the majority of the Knoll. We have different plans to do that, and to take care of the trees that are there, the grass, and also irrigate in that area. Okay, I see you have two monuments themselves representing the Atlantic and Pacific

▶ 57:54 War and so forth Are you going to have names on the monuments like you had at the Korean one? No, we will there will be not we will not have names We've done research the Melrose veterans memory project has been researching and I believe they have 80 some odd names 80 But we will not be putting Those names on the memorial. We're still working with woodlawn talking about at the World War II Memorial in Washington there are stars gold stars that signify the members that were lost so we're still looking at maybe doing that but that's not concrete at this time you're thinking of putting a star to represent like 40 the 40 to 50 per monument so in Washington one star represents a thousand oh okay yeah and so it would be something similar to

▶ 58:46 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: I've seen that, yes. For our 80-some-odd, yeah. Very good, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Wilderman Boycelle. Thank you. Wilderman McAteer-Margolis, please. Thank you very much, it's really amazing, the work that you've been doing down there, and I think it's, you know, it's raised the consciousness of the whole community in terms of acknowledging our veterans. And I just wanna publicly thank you for the wonderful ceremony yesterday, That you both worked on so diligently and that was so successful for our Vietnam vets and the Vietnam era veterans. There were a lot of guys there who didn't necessarily serve in Vietnam, and it was just an amazing, an amazing event. So thank you for doing that, and for all that you do.

▶ 59:33 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Seeing no further aldermen wishing to be heard on this section of the order, we will proceed to the next section of the order, is highway traffic and signal maintenance in the amount of fifteen thousand four hundred dollars mr shanna this is pretty self-explanatory but um it is but i just um again i'll forward this one tomorrow but i have a handout Thank you, Mr. Shannon. So, about eight to ten months ago, Chief Lyle and his traffic group installed this radar speed sign on Howard Street, and its results have been very positive. We read studies, but you never know how these type of things play out in your own community but the uh the planet the chief is here but he's been very

▶ 1:00:53 very happy with its response um from someone who drives that street every day coming in um it is a it is effective even to me at times so the the program in this funding will will purchase five more of these that will be one will be assigned to franklin street um one to wyoming ave two on upham and an additional one will go to howard street going the other way the exact locations again will be filled we feel verified by chief lyle staff and our engineering staff on you know where best to put it but it will look like the picture i just passed out if you go over the speed limit it tells you to slow down if you are under the speed limit it tells you thank you so we'll purchase five more of these the other component of the order will fund um

▶ 1:01:53 new 25 mile an hour signs and some other signs traffic calming signs throughout the city that send the message that come become excuse me in june we will become a 25 mile an hour community throughout the city citywide we'll try we'll start to deliver that message as soon as you come in there are 13 points you can enter the city from each one of those points we'll have a new sign that says 25 mile an hour citywide we're also working at creating a sign to put somewhere near that not with it but near it that sends a message to um that you know we do share the road in melrose um whether it be with bikes or people or pedestrians so that's what this funding those are the three pieces of this funding order that's before you thank you mr shenna and first in line

▶ 1:02:44 Gail Infurna: we have alderman inferno who is also the aldermanic representative for the traffic commission so she's very well versed on the signs you just described please proceed all the minute i think that's all i have to say no i just really wanted to thank you and to thank chief lyle for his work on this as anybody i know some of the aldermen have attended many of the um traffic commission meetings and the number one thing we hear all the time is speed especially on those streets so um this is great i think it's a very friendly way of saying to slow down without being totally intimidating and it's just a great reminder and you know if it gets three out of ten people to slow down that go along those streets it's a successful so um thank you thank you if you

▶ 1:03:26 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: work on that too chief lyle oh thank you walderman inferna walderman lemon please for the first time this evening thank you thank you mr chair um howard street is in in ward two and we've had this one sort of um i guess as a pilot since we're seeing it um going in other places and i just want to say i echo what you said mr senator that it's been very successful thanks so much to chief lyle for all your work and finding the funding for that one and getting it down there we've you know had our issues on howard street this is sort of one of the tools and many that are needed there um so i'm happy to see another one going in the other direction because it does continue um just to um confirm that the new ones will be solar powered as well

▶ 1:04:12 Peter D. Mortimer: so Thorp Thorp no is that right so Thorp no cost in sort of wiring them or continuing to put electricity through them or anything like that no they'll all be solo powell to be exactly like the one in the picture on our street great great okay thank you very much thank you thank you alderman levelman seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard on this matter thank you mr shannon we will proceed you can stay right in that seat to the next item which is municipal building repair in the amount of fifteen thousand three hundred dollars so that that's the line that that's That's the line we covered. All right, if you combine it with the other one. Yeah, and if I, yeah, we covered that one.

▶ 1:04:51 All right, then, would you like to elucidate us regarding the next section, which is adopter sites in the amount of $10,000? Sure, so last year we aggressively started to partner with some people interested in adopter sites. Joan Bell coordinates the adopter site program, and we had some vendors come forward and you know we really want to do something nice would the city consider partnering with us for the initial startup cost in those instances and um one one is the welcome to melrose site that comes quickly to mind in those instances public works purchased the material and then whether it was a contractor or people they would do the labor to install it and then maintain it from that point forward she's in discussions to recreate adopter sites at bellevue at the

▶ 1:05:45 lindfels parkway that island right there possibly a large adopter site near the high school near the high schools the entrance to the high spread green field from the middle school side there are a couple of others that don't come to mind right now this money is going to be used to continue that program this summer for people who are interested in starting an adopter site revitalizing their adopter site that need a little bit of help in some in some manner from the department to do that thank you very much mr shenna seeing no alderman wishing to be heard on this matter we have concluded all of the no line items oh mr paging thank you very much all the Alderman Inferno. The next item we have is public works,

▶ 1:06:40 Peter D. Mortimer: highway expenditure, and street signs in the amount of $4,800. Mr. Shannon, please. So this portion goes along with the radar signals. This will purchase the signs for that project that I spoke to a few minutes ago. Correct. I'm seeing no Alderman wishing to be heard on this matter. proceed to our next item which is public works facilities and supplies in the amount of four thousand two hundred dollars and and this was the third component of the facility discussion we had some time ago this um this supplements expenditures paint and supplies that we did we used to update offices throughout the city thank you very much mr shanna i'm seeing the alderman wishing to be heard motion to recommend on this order we have we have a motion to recommend

▶ 1:07:33 Peter D. Mortimer: this order for passage at our next full board meeting on april 24th from alderman inferno duly seconded by alderman boisselle the entire order once again from all those items accumulated is one million one hundred and sixty thousand seven hundred dollars all in favor of alderman motion to recommend this order for passage, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, this order will be recommended for passage at our next full board meeting. And that concludes our first order of the evening. We have four others, also with significant amounts of cash. And the second order is 2017-116. There is an appropriation in the amount of $22,020.82 from account number 620000-319000, Mount Hood Retained Earnings,

▶ 1:08:35 to account number 620000-529000, Mount Hood Professional Services. This appropriation is necessary to fulfill contract obligations. Mr. De La Russo, please. Yes, thank you. As you just indicated, it is necessary to fund the full contractual agreement that is part of the golf course. The amount of money being asked would be coming from the free cash of Mount Hood, which this past year was certified at $241,105. If this order is approved by this board, there remains $219,084.18 in free cash. That's related specifically to the Mount Hood Enterprise Fund. Thank you, Mr. DellaRusso. President Kahn, please. Yeah, just for anybody who's watching at home, this is not general fund money. This is free cash that's generated by Mount Hood that's being transferred for another purpose at Mount Hood.

▶ 1:09:47 Peter D. Mortimer: So this is all money that's fully funded up there and it's going to obligations of Mount Hood. General fund is not impacted at all by this transaction. Thank you, President Kahn. Seeing no other Alderman wishing to speak on this order. Motion to recommend. Alderman McAteer-Margolis has made a motion to recommend this order for passage. Absolutely seconded by Alderman Zwirko. All in favor of the recommendation for passage, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, this order will be recommended for passage at our next full board meeting. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Delarusso. The next order we have before us is order 2017-123. It is a transfer of funds in the amount of $637,366.19 from various accounts to various accounts as set forth within.

▶ 1:10:40 Peter D. Mortimer: Of these funds, $610,000 will be used to cover the snow and ice deficit, and the remaining $27,366.19 will be used to cover departmental salary adjustments and police department expenses. Mr. De La Russo, please. Yes, thank you, through the chair. this order specifically 95 percent of this order 610 000 will be used to cover the snow and ice deficit of 730 000 that the city incurred to date i pray that that's it um having said that there are some additional requests relative to a transfers again these are transfers these are not appropriations these are the difference is that a transfer is an existing fund something already raised and and in motion if you want to call it that within a respective

▶ 1:11:40 department funds are being transferred from one department to another so Thorp no net increase i.e on the expenditure level for the fiscal year it's the use of the funds and what and the transfer provides an option to to basically reuse a fund if it's not needed in one department to assist in another and Thorp no greater need clearly than to address our snow and ice deficit that way and eliminate it so that it doesn't carry forward into future years we've been very very very successful doing that and i want to continue that through the participation of this board having said that i think you'll find the first three items relative to high equipment 250 000 salt and chemicals 240,000 snow overtime 120,000 for a total of 610,000 on top of

▶ 1:12:37 that Thorp a request of ten thousand four forty one ninety six relative to the alderman salary and wages I think everyone here is well aware that there a transition and we had a retirement and this also allowed for training for amy during that transition the next one is a city solicitor of 5777.11 and that has to do with the responsibility that was asked of by kelly cargavan to assist in the cemetery department to do additional work as well as workers compensation act work that previously was not assigned to her and his additional work was done and completed at that time and that is to cover that cost for this fiscal year mr. van camp and I believe is here if Thorp any additional questions the next items Thorp five in a row

▶ 1:13:42 relative to police expense uniforms radio systems upgrade training an amount of 32 59 29 professional services 920 dollars and the last one is the police building and maintenance of 260 dollars I believe chief chief Lyle is here if Thorp any questions on any particular item president con please yeah thank you I'm fully supportive of retiring the snow deficit in whatever year it's incurred, if we possibly can. I had a couple of questions relative to the funding sources, Mr. Del Russo. Certainly. How is it that we have $420,000 available in the group health account? thank you Thorp a letter that was prepared to the board of all them to the chair on april 5th on marianne long um specifically she indicates that the 420 000 that we're able to provide to

▶ 1:14:47 this effort is due to the fact that we now have 80 employees opting out of the health insurance the opt-out program which saves significant dollars per employee the program pays 3 000 per year for an individual that decides not to participate in the city's insurance plan and it pays 6 500 per year for a family plan to interpret a person not to participate this is paid every year and what's happened uh in a successful ways that we've been able to her office in particular with the school department to meet with employees to discuss this option make it available and to actually work to you know make it something that would be of interest and she's been very successful yeah that that has been a successful and forward-looking

▶ 1:15:45 program and very much so do do we know at this juncture or do we have to wait till um later in the year to to have a sense of whether we're going to have similar numbers of people taking the insurance from the city in the upcoming year i'm hopeful for that i do know that they're specifically that they have set up actual sessions with the school as well as the city but the school to actually meet with various groups on this point forward over the next month and so in particular to engage them um because open enrollment is april 5th to may 3rd whether we've had our own enrollment period so we are actively um seeking uh through her office in particular uh in the school department so they're working hand in hand to to try to bring uh interest to

▶ 1:16:38 people now um and allow us to have savings obviously going into fy18 and thereafter so it's a continuous program and i really am happy she's been very successful when you when you build your budget for health insurance for next year by the time you send the budget down are you going to have a sense as to how many individuals are going to be opting to take insurance through the city yes i anticipate that by the time that what receives the budget which I believe it will be May 8th, we'll have at least a general understanding as to how many employees. Some employees, I believe, have actually joined in mid-year also. We've seen that transition, but again, it's a matter of us keeping it out there, letting people know it's not a one-time

▶ 1:17:27 payment, it's an annual payment. And so, as we present the health insurance budget this year, Obviously, this is going to help with the appropriation itself, so it's a double win this year and next fiscal year and the year after. And we'll let you know how many employee sheet that we anticipate, but 80 is a very, very good number. If you recall, it's only been a few years that we've had this in place, and it's really grown. I'm hoping it continues. Thank you. Those are all the questions I had, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, President Kahn. Next in line, we have Alderman Inferno, please. was all said i really had a point of order but he just clarified it i thought i heard eight and then the letter says 80 so i was a little confused but it is 80. that's correct zero thank you that is

▶ 1:18:15 Peter D. Mortimer: correct very good thank you alderman inferno i'm seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard on this order is there a motion to recommend alderman mary beth mcintyre margolis has made a motion to recommend this order for passage 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 for passage to our full board. Thank you very, very much. At our next full board meeting. Thank you very much, Mr. Delarusso. Thank you. The next order we have before us is order 2017-121. Acceptance of the CZM grant in the amount of $6,700 from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management, CZM,

▶ 1:19:05 said funds to be deposited into fund number 4028CMZ grant. It should be CZM grant. Please proceed, Mr. Shenna. Good evening again. So the department is respectfully requesting the acceptance of this grant. um this grant builds on the work that was done last year with our 604b grant from mass dep i'm not sure certain if many of you remember that but our engineering division and atp consultant tom paulina from melrose were successful in obtaining a grant that studied the the drainage watershed north of el pond the focus was in flood remediation the focus of that grant was stormwater quality and it took a lot of samples of various watersheds that empty into l pond to identify um you know where's the storm water dirty where of most

▶ 1:20:17 pollutants located the end product the deliverable was a was a report that's in engineering right now that identified pockets throughout that watershed where improvements could be made so this this grant follows up on that this um this grant through the coastal zone management group of the commonwealth of massachusetts is going to look to design rain gardens and select locations to pilot the use of green infrastructure to enhance stormwater quality nip these stormwater regulations is something that is now common in in the public works industry and construction storm water quality storm water protection and construction projects a second phase of that is looming and that second phase focuses on storm water quality so the work we

▶ 1:21:13 did last year through a dep grant the work that we continue to do this year through this grant will set us up for for that next regulatory act that sooner or later the the state will pass down on to municipalities thank you very much mr shanna ultimate voice l please well john this evening we heard about community gardens could you tell us a little about this rain garden that you're referring to what what what is it so what they do again very in a very common explanation what they try to do is intercept the drainage system and run it in the grass strip from the street run it through some type of natural greenscape filtering system and then take that water and reintroduce it back into the drain system they like

▶ 1:22:06 to do this in grass strips an area that they've they've looked at the the engineering team with our consultant has looked at possibly doing this is orient out because we have a drain line that comes down there so this funding will give them the opportunity to go out to that neighborhood explain this to the neighborhood and design the system and show that neighborhood and the rest of the city what something like this could look like if this is something we want to entertain in the future moving forward when that regulation comes into play okay so doing a rain situation you're sort of pounding the water and filtering it is this going to cause a mosquito problem during the summer in any any way that's a good question

▶ 1:22:55 that's something i'm sure will come up during the public the public outreach piece of it the intent is to clean the water not to create further health hazards so that's something i'm sure they'd vet out during the design process that this grant funds okay so when will this outreach be occurring to the public we orient av you said yeah we orient we're ready to sign the contract as soon as we we have authorization from the board to to accept the grant we'll sign the contract they'll go to work so at some point this summer this will um this will this will take place and obviously it's in ward force and that's something that will keep you abreast of but when will the outreach occur to the public oh right away right away right away all right thank you

▶ 1:23:39 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: Thank you, Walderman Boycelle. Walderman McAteer-Margolis, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This sounds very intriguing. I like the idea of it. I do think you're going to need to do some outreach to the public. But it does look like we have to put some in-kind funds towards this in terms of staffing and design. Is that something you feel like your office can manage, the design piece, or bring someone in? yeah we have to put I think about 50 $1,500 of staff time uh-huh we have to dedicate to the to the project and the actual direct contribution is $700 which we can handle as part of our own highway budget we have funds for these type of these type of projects and it just say it doesn't actually this grant and what

▶ 1:24:31 we're contributing doesn't actually fund the construction if you get to that point that's correct Thorp a Thorp a third phase to the grant program it's called a 319 non-point source grant that you go back to the dep to apply for that grant with a design this is new to melrose we don't have this but it's this is something in terms of storm water that's coming in the future um and before it gets regulated upon us i think it's good and and i i commend our engineering group and our city engineer and her consultant teams for finding these grants to pilot these type of programs people may like it people may not but we if we don't try we won't know so this is a great opportunity to pilot something so that we can get some hands-on experience off

▶ 1:25:24 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: the budget and then so presuming this gets approved tonight you would go forward with some outreach and some design and then apply for the next phase of the grant which would actually hopefully cover most of the construction unless we have some obligation towards that correct that would be the game plan and ultimately the goal of this is to improve the water quality in el pon from the waters that drain from wherever this gets put in the city this is exactly the case great thank you alderman MacMaster margolis so maybe i'll get my fountains seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard on this order is there a motion please motion to recommend mcintyre margolis has made a motion to recommend this order for passage

▶ 1:26:12 Peter D. Mortimer: said motion was duly seconded by alderman boy cell all in favor please say aye any opposed hearing none the motion passes and this order will be recommended for passage at our next full board meeting our fifth and final order of the evening is order 2017-120 it is the acceptance of a complete streets grant in the amount of forty nine thousand seven hundred and eighty two dollars and twenty three cents from the commonwealth of massachusetts department of transportation mass dot said funds to be deposited into fund number four zero two seven complete streets mr shadow police so in 2016 i think many of you are aware mayor dolan um formed the complete streets working group the working group is chaired by our city engineer it's comprised of staff

▶ 1:27:08 members from public works myself included and us some of our staff engineers members of the planning office mayor's office the police department the mass and motion working committee and the ped bite committee and now the board of aldermen are represented through alderman voyzel that's the working group the majority of last year was spent developing a complete street policy the policy outlines some of the core commitments that melrose would follow the some of the best practices that we would commit to following in our roadway projects and our infrastructure projects and it also explains how we would implement the complete street philosophy which is basically the street belongs to more than just a car and projects should

▶ 1:28:02 address that pedestrians pedestrian handicap accessibility bike bicycle access and bike lanes those type of those type of a traffic calming measures are all in this program so once the policy was complete we applied to mass thought to enter the Complete Streets program the the working group received a score of 100 on its our application so it was very well received it was a really nice piece of work collaborative piece of work from all those departments throughout the city after that we issued an RFQ to solicit a consultant to work with that working group at the end of that process the city hired beta group to come in and do that work we reapplied to MassDOT for MassDOT to pay for the initial work that beta had to do it's $50,000 for their work some is

▶ 1:29:02 digitizing in some of our plans into GIS but the the end product the deliverable is going to be a list of projects that meet the goals we outlined in our policy that MassDOT will possibly fund next fiscal year during FY 18 for construction that's where we stand right now beta is working we're ready to to accept, we've signed a contract with MassDOT, we're ready to accept them $50,000 or just short of that, $49,782. We're ready to accept that. This way we can move forward and present, start presenting back to the working group and to the general public what our 15 priority projects will be that we will go back to MassDOT in hopes of them funding. Thank you, Mr. Shanna. First in line, we have Alderman Inferno, please.

▶ 1:30:02 Gail Infurna: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 19 years ago when I sat here, there was never any talk of street repairs or sidewalk repairs. And I have to say, under this administration, it's been a great improvement. I just want to publicly thank you and Mayor Dolan and the whole administration for putting money into this and looking for different grants and doing all this work because I sat here for four years and it was very hard to try to get street work done. It's one of the things that our constituents, where it's right outside their door and they travel on every day, be it pedestrian, be it bike, be it vehicles. They really look at and it's a big issue. So thank you for the work that you have done and applying for this grant and getting 100% on your grade.

▶ 1:30:51 Peter D. Mortimer: So thank you. Thank you, Alderman Inferno. Is there a motion, please? Motion to recommend. Second. Alderman Zwirko has made a motion to recommend this order for passage. Said motion duly seconded by Alderman Inferna. 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. Thank you, Mr. Shenna. Thank you, Mr. Della Russo. A motion to adjourn from Alderman Lemmerman. Second. Seconded by Alderman Inferna. All in favor of the motion to adjourn, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the Committee on Appropriations is hereby adjourned. Thank you, one and all. Think back.

Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2017-04-06

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