Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2019-03-14

Appropriations and Oversight Rescheduled Meeting

This meeting starts at 4:18 in a recording that covers several meetings.

Attendance

Manisha Bewtra present · Voting; Robert A. Boisselle present · Vice Chair; Scott M. Forbes absent · Voting; Jennifer L. Lemmerman present · President/Ex Officio Member; Kate Lipper-Garabedian present · Chair; Shawn M. MacMaster absent · Voting; Monica C. Medeiros present · Voting; Peter D. Mortimer present · Voting; John N. Tramontozzi present · Voting; Francis X. Wright Jr. absent · Voting; Michael P. Zwirko present · Voting

Agenda

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● MARCH 14, 2019 Aldermanic Chamber, Melrose City Hall Rescheduled Meeting 7:20 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 Kate Lipper-Garabedian Chair Present Robert A. Boisselle Vice Chair Present Peter D. Mortimer Voting Present John N. Tramontozzi Voting Present Francis X. Wright Jr. Voting Absent Monica C. Medeiros Voting Present Scott M. Forbes Voting Absent Michael P. Zwirko Voting Present Manisha Bewtra Voting Present Shawn M. MacMaster Voting Absent Jennifer L. Lemmerman President/Ex Officio Member Present

ORDER-2019-52 Appropriation An Appropriation from the Contract Stabilization Fund (84042- 590000) in the amount of $101,827.00 to the Police Salary & Wages and Overtime accounts(012111-511000 and 012111-513000) to fund year one of the new contract. Recommend Passage Appropriations Committee

ORDER-2019-51 Grant Accept a FY 19 Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Grant in the amount of $7,750.00 Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2019-53 Grant Accept a FY 19 State 911 Department Support and Incentive Grant in the amount of $56,187.00. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 3/26/2019 5:29 PM Minutes Appropriations Committee March 14, 2019

ORDER-2019-56 Grant Accept a FY19 State 911 Department Training and EMD Regulatory Compliance Grant in the amount of $92,636.72 Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 2 Updated 3/26/2019 5:29 PM

Transcript

▶ 4:18 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: The hour being 720 on March 14th, 2019, the Committee on Appropriations of the Melrose Board of Aldermen is called to order. I am the chairwoman, Alderman Lipper-Garabedian, and I'm joined tonight by Vice Chair Alderman Boisselle and voting members Alderman Mortimer, Alderman Tramontozzi, Alderman Medeiros, Alderman Zwirko, Alderman Bewtra, and President Lemmerman. Alderman Forbes is unfortunately homesick tonight and Alderman McMaster had a previous community commitment so they cannot be here this evening. This meeting is being recorded in accordance with the open meeting law. It can be viewed on MMTV as well as streaming on the MMTV website and it will be available on the City of Melrose website. Is there a motion to open the floor for public

▶ 5:07 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: comment. So moved, Madam Chair. Second. Moved by Alderman Mortimer, seconded by Vice Chair Boisselle. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? This is the portion of the meeting where any member of the public can come forward to speak on any agenda item that we have tonight. Seeing no one present, motion to close public comment. Second. The motion to close public comment is made by Alderman Mortimer, seconded by Vice Chair Boisselle. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? This concludes our public comment period. The first order on tonight's agenda is order 2019-52, an appropriation from the Contract Stabilization Fund, that is number 84042-590000, in the amount of $101,827 to the police salary and wages and overtime accounts which is 0 1 2 1 1 1 dash 5 1 1

▶ 5:58 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: 0 0 0 and 0 1 2 1 1 1 dash 1 5 1 3 3 0 0 0 to fund year one of the new contract motion to recommend for passage second we have a motion to recommend for passage by alderman Mortimer seconded by vice chair Boisselle I do see the police chief in attendance tonight if motion to suspend the rules second okay we have a motion to spend the rules made by alderman Medeiros seconded by alderman Mortimer all in favor aye opposed okay chief if you don't mind joining us thank you so much for being here tonight we anticipated having this meeting Monday so we appreciate that you could be flexible and be here with us instead now I believe everyone received a letter from the city solicitor on this explaining the parameters of the contract I'm available for questions

▶ 6:56 Michael P. Zwirko: Alderman Zwirko thank you madam chair this isn't a question chief I looked at the documentation in the letter that we received from the city solicitor I just really wanted to say thank you to the administration yourself and the members of the patrol patrolman's union specifically the fact that this was accepted so soon in my tenure here stretches just over three years and often we're getting an agreement that is just about to restart the negotiation process this they're only asking for money dating back to July of 2018 sometimes we sign off on these agreements and then three months later we're back in the start of a negotiation under a new contract so it's actually nice to see that the city had some foresight here as well as the Union and

▶ 7:38 Monica C. Medeiros: everybody could come together and get this done in a quicker fashion and I'm glad that the terms were reached and agreed to thank you for your comments I'm a Medeiros thank you I'm hoping if you could share for the public where we are and so this is the patrolman patrol patrol officers contract yes the supervisors are out they were both out as of July 1 of last year and this just funds one year of contract yes and I should mention too that we have some correspondence I'm not sure if it has made it to the order but I'd like to move to include the email from Carrie Ann Golden to our clerk of committees dated March 8th 2019 where she says hi Kristen the balance in the contract stabilization fund number eight four zero four is five hundred ten thousand

▶ 8:41 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: four hundred seventy six dollars and fifteen cents if order number 2019 dash 52 in the amount of one hundred one thousand eight hundred twenty seven dollars is approved the remaining balance will be four hundred eight thousand six hundred forty nine dollars and fifteen cents second the motion to amend the addendum we have a motion from Alderman Medeiros to add a correspondence to our clerk related to this contract seconded by Alderman Mortimer or I'm sorry to the balance the balance of what's left so all in favor any opposed okay we'll add that to the public record thank you thank you thank you any other questions chief I just thought it would be helpful we do have in in the record both the letter from the city solicitor as well as a basic

▶ 9:29 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: overview of the high-level components of the new contract so it includes a cost of living increase it includes a mid-career step increases and then I also notice it talks about compensatory time provisions which is something I wasn't too familiar with and can you just explain what the new term of the contract entails for that essentially is a number of officers if they stay late for a car accident or they're stuck doing a report they have the option to take comp time or overtime a lot of them take comp time so when the shift supports it an officer can have a weekend off or a night off whatever it may be an appointment this basically assists the officer as well as the city of Melrose because if an officer takes an evening off and the shift falls low

▶ 10:19 the the request is that the officer take four hours because we hire in four hour increments and that's pretty much what exactly what it is just to cover the the absence okay does that allow for the city for to be a little bit more predictable in terms of budgeting to sort of say it assists the police department of myself and the the admin staff as far as overtime because if an officer leaves and we have to backfill and he leaves for an hour and we have to fill for four hours so the net gain is not right so this was would would fill that loophole right pretty pretty straightforward as far as that as far as overtime it's minor impact on overtime okay that's still our biggest monsters our injuries, illness, military and training. Any other questions? We have a

▶ 11:12 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: motion to recommend and it's been duly seconded. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay thank you. This motion will be recommended to the full board. Thank you. You can hang out with us a little longer. Order number 2019-51 accept a fiscal year 19 pedestrian and bicycle safety grant in the amount of seven thousand seven seven hundred and fifty dollars thank you um this is an increase of 22 2250 over our previous year so i would you know thank the commonwealth for that um we generally use a lot of these funds during the first few weeks of school to get the kids and the parents acclimated to the new school environment especially the new ones coming on excuse me coming on board we also use some of our funds for target enforcement crosswalk enforcement and

▶ 12:04 Michael P. Zwirko: pedestrian enforcement alderman's work go Thank You madam chair to the to the extent possible chief could you explain why this year out of past years we may have received just a little bit of a bump in funds I would think it's because of the the fatalities the city of Melrose has and those were with pedestrians crossing the street yes there were pedestrian fatalities yes and you had stated that the general time frame that you end up using this grant money is for the schools and I was just curious if a lot of times people will forget the training the parents the kids crossing the walk you know we're coming towards the end of the school season so obviously do this at the start of the school year you've heard that there's been a lot of chatter regarding the

▶ 12:49 Michael P. Zwirko: drop-off at situation on Melrose Street yes and if you could use some of the animal morning if you could put some of these monies towards some of that I'd appreciate it i know that the drop-off does get quite chaotic especially with the changing of the times and some issues on ashland and melrose street so don't forget albion albion that's right yep they just changed it to a one-way so and people don't read those signs too well yeah um so certainly i we can address that great thank you so much and um it's unfortunate that we have these accidents and sometimes it is difficult with sun glare and people jumping in and out of cars but it's you know we do have a lot of sidewalks downtown so we just hope that people educate

▶ 13:23 Monica C. Medeiros: themselves about the safety for that so thanks for this work thank you thank you manager alderman medeiros thank you uh thank you very much and likewise chief uh i wanted to mention i know i've received a lot of uh feedback about the pick up and drop off at the lincoln school and uh some of the especially due to the chi sorry the change in time of uh the class schedule that it's running into sometimes the train schedule and you know some requests that perhaps some you know guidance or direction of traffic might be able to we do have a traffic officer on days monday through friday officer brown and he spends a fair amount of his time going from elementary school to elementary school and i'll certainly make sure that he gets note on that thank you you're welcome

▶ 14:09 Manisha Bewtra: um anyone out alderman dutra thank you um so uh thanks um so the grant specifically is for compensating patrol officer staff time effectively or is okay there's a small portion approximately 500 we're going to buy some ankle ankle bands that are reflective for one for when folks are pedaling and also in stop signs and all some some of you have seen the inserts the reflective insert goes into the metal bracing and we're going to purchase some of those so we allotted 500 dollars for equipment we call it and all of that is outlined so um i guess the question is can the grant a couple questions can the grant be used for other things um not necessarily in this fiscal year if that's what you've outlined but just generally what's eligible and the second question

▶ 15:02 being like to what extent is this grant um sort of sufficient funding versus is it like a drop in the bucket in terms of overall need i would say we'd take all funding for traffic enforcement i won't say drop in the bucket but um when you start applying and i'm looking at our campaigns so for instance in march we're supposed to have two four-hour shifts um april two eight-hour shifts this is not a lot of time for traffic enforcement or pedestrian enforcement um i try to clump it all together so we we really saturate at one one point um certainly we're looking for other funds as well to assist with traffic enforcement one officer during the day is not enough we try to get the other officers when they're free but as as the days have progressed

▶ 15:54 Just over the years of my career, I've seen us going from call to call, and in between call to call, there's a lot of paperwork involved. One of my missions this year is to do some online reporting to free up sectors, so if somebody loses a cell phone, somebody loses a credit card, we'll be able to have folks do online reporting to free up officers from sitting down with someone to fill out one of those mundane reports. thanks and and and to the other part of the question can these grants be used for other purposes like how did you arrive at sort of how you wanted to use dictated in the grant itself what it can be for pedestrian bicycle safety thank you in years past we bought helmets and then that you know the helmets are we

▶ 16:40 Manisha Bewtra: bought 50 helmets last year and we donated them to folks and never picked them up they're still sitting up at stone and bicycle show um the reason i ask i mean i think some of the other things that have come up in the community are are for example the speed um signs that that the lit up i forgot what they're called but the lighting that show how fast you're going um when you're yeah is that what they're called quite simple um i thought there was like a fan we have we have i used some federal drug asset money that we seized and i bought the first one for howard street and they caught on pretty quick they are an effective tool are they the answer all no no there's nothing better than random enforcement so we can't put an officer on every

▶ 17:27 street every day because as soon as we go away speed goes up so we want the motorists to never know when we're coming got it so your your feeling is that this year you'll see empty police cars in our community and it followed up with live radar so your feeling is that applying this funding to the random enforcement is ultimately sort of a more bang for our buck than yes another speed sign or something like that um you know i'd love to buy more speed signs but they would never i try to buy solar powered crosswalk lights and i got shot down okay but i did find some drug money so i bought one one set for one crosswalk that he's sitting in my office right now thank you for that information motion to recommend for passage second we have a motion to recommend

▶ 18:12 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: for passage by alderman one more second by vice chair Boisselle anybody else have any questions i just thought chief it would be helpful you had been kind enough a month or so ago to share with me um the aggregate numbers for accidents in 2018 through i think mid-january of this year and we had 331 resulting in 90 injuries across the city and i noticed that more than half of those injuries occurred on the following streets Maine Lebanon Franklin Upham West Wyoming and West Emerson so I'm sure you're attuned to those quarters I think you missed Howard Street to our streets oh right well yes I think that's right and also just in terms of pedestrian safety I saw that the mayor has mentioned that they're going to be a couple meetings coming up one next week in the one one

▶ 19:01 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: the week after that about the north to south bike corridor that they're working on a bike route so that information Monday morning yes okay good so hopefully your your department will be able to weigh in and be collaborative in that effort so thank you any other questions or comments all in favor any opposed we'll recommend that order to the full board thank you our third agenda item is order number two zero one nine dash fifty three accept a fiscal year 19 state 9-1-1 department support and incentive grant in the amount of fifty six thousand one hundred and eighty seven dollars motion to recommend for passage second we have no condition to recommend for passage bailor and Mortimer seconded by Vice Chair Boyce L any questions alderman

▶ 19:51 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Mortimer no matching funds right none of the grants have matching funds we're fortunate it's all I have madam chair thank you all right all in favor any Any opposed? We'll recommend that to the full board. And then our final order of the night is order 2019-56, accept a fiscal year 19 state 911 department training and EMD regulatory compliance grant in the amount of $92,636.72. Motion to recommend for passage. Second. We have a motion to recommend for passage by Alderman Mortimer, seconded by Vice Chair Boisselle. Alderman Medeiros. Thank you. So how are you again, Chief? you uh we're excited to have a grant at any time especially non-matching um could this is a state 911 training and emd compliance grant can and i see that it says this will be used to defray the

▶ 20:43 cost of annual personnel recertification enhanced 911 training and for the police department and certified emd resource for cataldo ambulance can you just talk a little bit about what that actually looks like and if so so as far as part one emd is our resource it's catalbo ambulance and that's eighteen thousand dollars out of out of the grant the rest of it is for for training for instructors and overtime for the officers but as far as cataldo so to take so the folks at home understand so when you dial 9-1-1 and the officer answers what's your emergency and you're saying i'm having chest pains we're going to transfer that call to cataldo ambulance and malden at their dispatch center they'll analyze it whether it's an als advanced life support or bls

▶ 21:30 Monica C. Medeiros: life support in turn they contact marvel's fire the ambulance is dispatched or an als as the ambulance is dispatched that's the process and it goes very quickly and that's what we pay the eighteen thousand dollars for excuse me and so cataldo is our backup uh als bls really als ambulance service is that correct so do they are they aware if our als ambulance advanced life support ambulance is already out and on the street and do they immediately dispatch themselves or just does it that i would think the fire chief would know but i would think that um to tell the ambulance knows that everything every medical call that's going on within our city they have scanners just like most folks like we do as well and they know exactly what

▶ 22:20 mellows fire is doing in mellows police department is doing um but i further i think uh chief kalina could probably answer that better than i could and that's um it's for for people to do the training is they do the call service they're all certified emd resource dispatchers and uh will this result in any uh officers being you know so i don't want to say out of the office but of course they're always out of the office but um you know is this training time that we'll need to fill with uh maybe so the remainder of the grant is each officer each dispatcher where we have three positions one of them is unfilled anybody can jump in when i mean jump in take another call so we if the phones are ringing an accident they all light up so the

▶ 23:12 supervisor would jump in and answer the 911 call so we train the entire police department it's 16 hours of annual recertification um they're actually doing it this week and i mean did they do that during their regular staff time or is this off hours so if it's a day off we it's it's a schedule uh challenge for lieutenant ma but he does do a good job of it and he schedules them around their schedule so on their days off some may work doubles and you said uh we have one vacancy in the dispatchers not right now no i thought you said one is unfilled it well it's always historically it's never been filled since we went to 9-1-1 in the mid-90s and so we it's just a position that it's they say that we need it but it doesn't need to be filled so it's not

▶ 24:00 been filled so currently we have two dispatchers in dispatch and then one when i say unfilled it's another station that can be utilized by anybody in the building if the calls go up okay thank you thank you alderman's work out thank you madam chair uh chief the same question is the last grant that i had questioned you on so it seems that we got a little bit more than fiscal year 18 here any reason as to why is it is it increase in service or a thank you for the board in the city of melrose because the officers got increases in their salaries their supervisors are out for three years and they settled and then their contract expired approximately two months later so is it formulaic in terms of this grant yes yeah okay those are the only questions i had thank you

▶ 24:41 Robert A. Boisselle: uh chair vice chair Boisselle uh chief in the enhanced training in the recertification process is that training online or classroom or it's classroom right now um we lost our site in melrose so we actually uh stone and police department so gracious to allow us to use their training room so we're up in stoneham training and is that a day course or a week they're four hour blocks so there's four four hour blocks so 16 hours of recertification training yes annually thank you thank you we have a recommend a motion to recommend for passage all in favor aye opposed this motion carries and will be recommended to the full board can uh is there a motion to adjourn we have a motion adjourned made by alderman mortimer seconded by vice chair Boisselle all in

Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2019-03-14

Attendance

Agenda

Minutes

Transcript

Original documents