Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2019-03-18
Attendance
Manisha Bewtra ; Robert A. Boisselle ; Scott M. Forbes ; Jennifer L. Lemmerman ; Kate Lipper-Garabedian ; Shawn M. MacMaster ; Monica C. Medeiros ; Peter D. Mortimer ; John N. Tramontozzi ; Francis X. Wright Jr. ; Michael P. Zwirko
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Public Participation
- Motions
- Orders
- ORDER-2019-61 : An appropriation from Free Cash (01-324001), in the amount of $102,000.00 to various accounts as set forth here in.
- ORDER-2019-45 : Home Rule Petition to Amend Melrose City Charter, Section 2-11: Filling Of Vacancies, As Set Forth Herein.
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● MARCH 18, 2019 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 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 Present Monica C. Medeiros Voting Present Scott M. Forbes Voting Present Michael P. Zwirko Voting Present Manisha Bewtra Voting Present Shawn M. MacMaster Voting Present Jennifer L. Lemmerman President/Ex Officio Member Present
ORDER-2019-61 Appropriation An appropriation from Free Cash (01-324001), in the amount of $102,000.00 to various accounts as set forth here in. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen
ORDER-2019-45 Home Rule Petition/Special Act Home Rule Petition to Amend Melrose City Charter, Section 2-11: Filling Of Vacancies, As Set Forth Herein. Hold City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 3/27/2019 11:05 AM
Transcript
▶ 0:00 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: The hour being 7.30 on Monday, March 18th. The Committee on Appropriations of the Melrose Board of Aldermen is called to order. This is a committee of the whole. I am Chair Alderman Lipper-Garabedian, and present are Voting Committee Members Vice Chair Alderman Boisselle, Alderman Peter Mortimer, Alderman John Tramontozzi, Alderman Frank Wright, Alderman Monica Medeiros, Alderman Scott Forbes, alderman Michael werco alderman manisha butra alderman Shawn mcmaster and president jennifer Lemmerman this meeting is being recorded in accordance with the open meeting law it can be viewed on mmtv as well as the city of melrose website and it is streaming currently on mmtv online um is there a motion open the floor for public comment so moved madam chair we have a
▶ 0:47 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: motion open the floor for public comment made by alderman mortimer seconded by vice chair Boisselle all in favor aye aye opposed this is the portion of our meeting uh where any member of the public can come forward to make a comment on any item on our agenda we have two items on the agenda tonight motion to close public comment madam chair this is the appropriations committee so we have one order related to free cash uh for some appropriations and then one about a city charter change and then And then we're going to have a full board meeting after this. So I think I heard a motion to close public comment made by Alderman Mortimer, seconded by Vice Chair Boisselle. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?
▶ 1:31 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: OK, that will end public comment. So we have two orders on our agenda tonight. The first is order 2019-61, an appropriation for free cash 01-324-001 in the amount of $102,000 various accounts as set forth herein motion to suspend the rules so we can hear from the city officials second the motion we have a motion to suspend the rules made by alderman Forbes seconded by vice-chair Boisselle all in favor aye opposed thank you if the members from the administration like to come forward to speak to this order we'd love hearing from you good evening thanks so much for being here good evening evening so I don't know if you if you wanted to say anything quickly about the different appropriations for each of your
▶ 2:33 departments sure I'd appreciate any consideration given the the aging fleet of the fire department trying to keep safe vehicles on the road for the firefighters and any and all consideration and passing the fire department's needs would be greatly appreciated Paul Johnson director of inspectional services I'm here tonight asking for $2,500 to my overtime account for emergency inspections for one of my inspectors are called out after hours in nighttime we pay them a differential and this is to pay them I'm Amy Kamosa city clerk the rest I think of the free cash request is to cover the April 2nd election Alderman master Thank You madam chair chief Kalina thank you for being here um i think you're doing a tremendous job as our fire chief and i know that you've inherited
▶ 3:42 Shawn M. MacMaster: an aging fleet of vehicles and i know that's brought some challenges and headaches along the way can you talk about how much you're requesting uh tonight um specifically for vehicle maintenance the 65 000 and um i know you remember we've had discussions about this back in may and at the um the budget hearing and um as recently as last week the vehicle maintenance line item in the fire department's budget last year um was increased by 36.4 so that total line item was 75 000 um And tonight I know that, which is much needed, and again, I know you inherited this fleet of vehicles. Tonight you're asking for $65,000. Can you talk a little bit about Engine 4 and Ladder 2, specifically the age of both vehicles
▶ 4:43 and generally the type of work that you've had to perform on both vehicles over the last year? Starting with engine four, that is a 1999 Seagrave engine pumper. That was our backup piece. Our engine two, which is a 2007 Seagrave pumper, had some major engine problems, which basically had to have the engine rebuilt. that was out of service probably three and a half four months we had a run engine four as a primary piece that also had to have some repairs done to keep that afloat so what one of the vehicles is approximately 20 years old the other vehicle is approximately 22 years old engine four is 20 years old and ladder two is our backup ladder truck and that's a 1995 uh e1 ladder that's 22 years old now typically vehicles are usually taken out of service within
▶ 5:51 Shawn M. MacMaster: 10 years is that fair to say you can run an engine or ladder front line piece with good maintenance 10 to 12 10 to 15 years then it should be put into reserve and at 20 years it should be decommissioned according to nfpa 1911. um and i know we've talked about this chief um that you might can again i know this needs to happen but my concern is that continued vehicle maintenance work at some point is going to exceed the cost of new apparatus if it hasn't already done so can you talk about what the cost would be for a new engine and a cost for a new ladder truck new engines depending on size can run you anywhere between 590 and 650 equipped a ladder truck a million dollars maybe a little bit more chief are you currently working
▶ 6:54 Shawn M. MacMaster: on any short-term plan to address the immediate or what is likely to be on the horizon vehicle maintenance needs for the next let's say three years and then have you had some maybe conversations at least initial conversations about a long-term plan to invest in new apparatus yeah i've had conversations with director dpw and cip apparatus replacement okay and just so the public is clear mr shenna has been charged as the superintendent of dpw with doing an assessment of our fleet of vehicles citywide is that correct that's correct okay great um i think that's all i have again thank you chief for all of your good work and for being here this evening thank you madam chair any other questions all the members thank you uh chief has that money the 65 000 already been spent
▶ 7:55 Monica C. Medeiros: uh not all of it but there's a good portion of it that'd be uh spent for work it's already been performed and uh and i have an engine in the shop now that you know we don't know what the what that bill will be but and it has the initial budget line item of that 75 000 already been spent down yes yes and um okay thank you and then i thank you very much um i also had a question uh for our city clerk ms camosa um the i've had a lot of questions from constituents about how much the special election would cost and it looks like if all of your line items are included that that's thirty four thousand five hundred is the is the uh city clerk salary overtime is that entirely for the special election yes so that's the cost um the way our budget works the elections
▶ 8:55 Monica C. Medeiros: administrators salary comes from my from the city clerk's budget so um the overtime that gets accrued during the in prepare preparation for the election during the election then the post-election work to validate all the ballots and report to the state that's should account for all of the extra hours devoted so even though it says city city clerk salary overtime it's not necessarily your specific no it's not no I don't get over time no that's the election administrator which is a straight route salary thank you appreciate that clarification definitely and I just wanted to also move we have an email from Carrie Ann Golden that was forwarded to the board via our clerk of committees dated March 8th 2019 and it was in regard to free cash and I'd like
▶ 9:50 Monica C. Medeiros: to move that this be included in the record that's it's high Kristen the current balance of free cash is $2,429,694. If order number 2019-61 and the amount of $102,000 is approved, the remaining balance in free cash will be $2,327,694. We have a motion from Alderaan Medeiros to incorporate the email that she just read. i think you said it was march 8th yes uh 2019 into um the record second the motion add to the record seconded by alderman forbes all in favor opposed okay we'll add that to the record thank you thank you and so just you know just a couple more comments as we're um debating you know the use of free cash and and spending this so i thought it's sort of important to kind of put this in
▶ 10:46 Monica C. Medeiros: perspective of our budget as a whole so at the end of fy18 we had about 3.6 million dollars worth of certified free cash of course we just heard before these expenditures there's two million four hundred twenty nine thousand six hundred ninety four dollars after these expenditures two million three hundred twenty seven dollars and six sorry two million three hundred twenty seven thousand six hundred and ninety four dollars Mayor Inferno in talking about the budget has mentioned that you know should the override not pass that we might have a two to three million dollar deficit Alderman Medeiros are we you're talking strictly about the decision to appropriate this free cash right right so we're talking about you
▶ 11:36 Monica C. Medeiros: know free cash and whether or not we should spend it so I think it's really important to make sure that you know we we talk about the fact that you know we are hearing from the mayor that we're gonna have a serious deficit and you know whether or not we expend free cash I think is very relevant because we have you know when this is especially when this is all said and done 2.3 million dollars will be left right now there's 2.4 million dollars and you know it's something we could be considering asking the mayor not to spend but instead to you know these city officials qualified to speak to free cash or they here to speak to apparatus I'm not asking so much as I am did you are you taking a position on the order before us tonight are you just speaking more generally
▶ 12:27 Monica C. Medeiros: Because I think we want to try to limit it to what the order is before us. And if you have concerns about this particular appropriation, we'd certainly welcome them. Well, I think there's certainly something that we're seeing, sometimes a trend in, you know, spending money before it's come to us. And which is, you know, we have to make sure that if we're going to be looking forward and spending our free cash, which is, you know, a limited time thing that we, you know, we look at the whole financial picture. so I think it's certainly worthwhile to be talking about what happens if we don't spend it and that would revert back into the general fund it could potentially be used again next year because that's the trade-off that we
▶ 13:09 Michael P. Zwirko: have when we spend it so of course it could be put in a stabilization account as well thank you Alderman's work oh thank you madam chair chief Kalina this question comments for you I wanted to echo the comments of my colleague Alderman McMaster in the job that you're doing as a fire chief if we didn't fix the engine would that put Melrose and the residents in a bind when it comes to public safety yes so you think that spending this money to repair the engine for a ladder and an engine is money well spent have to keep apparatus on the road that's safe to operate for the firefighters firefighters I'm sure everybody's residents homeowners insurance would be very happy that we have a full functional fire department Thank You madam chair just a quick it's
▶ 14:10 Peter D. Mortimer: a little bit off point if you'll allow me a little leniency I want to thank you in your department for the amazing job they did at the fire on Swains Pond Avenue today I saw the response that was in the neighborhood and it was just amazing how well they did that as I understand there was a minor amount of property loss but there was no injury to any human beings whatsoever due to that quick response yeah we did have one injured fireman he just got released about 45 minutes ago from the hospital and he is he all right I hope it's right And I think that buttresses Alderman Zwirko point that this is money well spent. And in the interest of public safety, we absolutely have to make sure that our fire department is fully equipped,
▶ 14:59 Peter D. Mortimer: fully trained, and fully able to respond in the excellent manner that they did today, and the excellent manner that they did on First Street a few weeks ago. and that's that is money that is money well spent from our limited available funds we have to make sure that our public safety is kept at the highest order and I appreciate you and your department for doing so thank you madam chair thank you and thank you chief Kalina for being here and for all three of you for being here tonight and particularly echoing alderman Mortimer our alderman Mortimer comments I'm stumbling on my words tonight um you referenced an organization in terms of the sort of best practices or recommendations can you just mention that again and what their general
▶ 15:49 guidelines are and you know is that standard practice that most communities follow NFPA 1911 is the it's a standard national standard for apparatus maintenance repair it's it's pretty extensive document yeah that makes sense but not that we are now an OSHA regulated fire departments and they're going to reference the standards of NFPA 11 on our maintenance and how we track things and going forward great and can that document be found online if people wanted to sort of check in on those things do are you the 1911 yeah yes okay great thank you thank you for the second time and just you know to clarify that this that some of this free cash could go into a capital stabilization account which could of course be used for equipment for fire and and the like is
▶ 16:57 Monica C. Medeiros: there any could you speak about is there any and how we got into the situation we have these aged vehicles is there anything that's stopping us from buying new equipment in terms of the places to house this equipment there's nothing stopping you from buying new equipment like that actually but we are limited in space we have seven apparatus base and I recall from conversations in past year is that there's some issues with the height of some of the doors and some of the new equipment correct but we if we will to order new equipment we would have it manufacture it four miles thank you very much thank you motion to recommend second sure just I have just a quick question for the building inspector and I appreciate very much of being here you'd also provided us with a
▶ 17:55 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: the memo last week and you mentioned that the appropriations in the in the amount of about thirty seven hundred dollars for overtime related to a couple emergency situations that have occurred and then just ensuring that there's just enough and in anticipation of others when you have to go out after hours how what would be the cause of that and does the the building owner carry any sort of responsibility or have to pay any sort of amount of money to the city for that to the building owner no typically it's in a storm situation over the past year i've had my electrical inspector out 15 times and it ranges from a tree coming down pulling their electrical service off the house so he's called out and i don't want to say in most instances but a good
▶ 18:53 portion of those times we're able to work with the electrician that shows up to get their power back on that night so they don't have freeze-ups in their pipes and anything like that that's our goal so that's typically you know once in a while it'll be due to a vehicle into the side of a house pulling off a service off the house the electrical service and then we've had three times for our gas inspector one was for a co level carbon monoxide level one was for a gas boiler issue and another one was for a gas leak one of the downtown stores and typically we're called in uh nine times out of ten by the fire department okay on the lines of public safety right very good well i'm glad that you all are able to be there for that so we have a motion to recommend for passage i think it was
▶ 19:49 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: was made by Vice Chair Boisselle and seconded by Alderman Forbes all in favor be opposed this motion will carries and this order will be recommended to the full board I believe tonight thank you yes I just like to make a note that it is 750 board meeting should have started at 745 so if you would entertain a motion to recess so we would go that I would make that motion right now second okay we have a motion to recess me by Alderman Forbes and seconded by Vice Chair Boisselle all in favor be opposed okay we're in recess thank you good evening the hour being 7 52 on march 18 2019 i call to order this meeting of the full melrose board of alderman madam clerk if you could please call the roll alderman Bewtra