Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2019-06-13

Appropriations and Oversight Budget Hearing

This meeting starts at 6:44 in a recording that covers several meetings.

Attendance

Manisha Bewtra present · Voting; Robert A. Boisselle present · Vice Chair; Scott M. Forbes present · Voting; Jennifer L. Lemmerman present · President/Ex Officio Member; Kate Lipper-Garabedian present · Chair; Shawn M. MacMaster present · 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● JUNE 13, 2019 Aldermanic Chamber, Melrose City Hall Budget Hearing 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 Absent 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-2019-106 Grant Acceptance of a One Hundred Thousand Dollar Grant from the Executive Office of Housing & Economic Development Mass Marketing Partnerships/Office of Travel & Tourism Program for a Memorial Hall Restoration Envelope Study and for selective repairs and improvements to the building. Recommend as Amended Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2019-104 Grant Acceptance of a Two Hundred Thousand Dollar Grant from the from the Executive Office of Housing & Economic Development Mass Marketing Partnerships/Office of Travel & Tourism Program to upgrade the Performing Arts Center in the Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School. Recommend as Amended Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2019-102 Appropriation An Appropriation from Free Cash, account number (01-324001), in the amount of $2,327,694.00 to various accounts as set forth herein. Recommend as Amended Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 6/18/2019 2:23 PM Minutes Appropriations Committee June 13, 2019

ORDER-2019-105 Transfer A transfer in the amount of $9,000.00 to account number (012911- 511000) to fund the Emergency Management Director position. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2019-110 Transfer A transfer in the amount of $16,000 from Automotive, Salary & Wages (014851-511000) and Parks and Forestry, Salary & Wages (014751- 511000) to Municipal Building Repair (014022-527700). Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2019-85 Operating Budgets (City, School, Regional School) City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2020 in the amount of $86,662,987.61. (Eighty-Six Million, Six Hundred Sixty-Two Thousand, Nine Hundred Eighty-Seven Dollars and Sixty-One Cents). Recommend as Amended Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2019-86 Enterprise Fund Mt. Hood Enterprise Fund Operating Budget for Fiscal 2020 in the Amount of $1,530,353.06 (One Million, Five Hundred Thirty Thousand, Three Hundred Fifty-Three and Six Cents). Recommend as Amended Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2019-87 Revolving Fund/Reauthorization Reauthorization of City of Melrose Revolving Funds table as adopted by City Ordinance June 18, 2018 and further authorized by Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 44, §53E ½. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2019-46 Establishment of Fund An Order Creating an Education, Public Safety & Substance Abuse Prevention Stabilization Fund Recommend as Amended Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 2 Updated 6/18/2019 2:23 PM

Transcript

▶ 6:48 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: board of aldermen is called to order this is a committee of the whole i am a chairwoman for garavidian and i'm joined tonight by vice chair alderman boizal as well as Member alderman peter mortimer alderman john Tramontozzi alderman monica medeiros alderman scott forbes alderman Manisha Bewtra, Alderman Michael Zwirko, Alderman Sean McMaster, and President Jennifer Lemmerman. In accordance with the Mass General Laws, this meeting is being recorded and is available live currently on MMTV, both on the television and streaming, and it will be available through the City of Melrose website. Is there a motion to open the floor for public comment? So moved, Madam Chair. We have a motion to open the floor for public comment made by Alderman Mortimer,

▶ 7:34 seconded by vice chair boys all in favor this is the portion of the meeting where any member of the public can come forward to speak on any order on our agenda tonight and if you would be so kind as to also state your name and address for the record and sign and that would be great thank you Well, I guess we'll do act two here this time, if I do that right. My name is Ted Kenney. I reside at 1062 Main Street, Melrose. I've been in Melrose 21, 22 years. I've had the pleasure back in November and December watching you from home because I was home for medical reasons. And I think what I want to say, if I'm allowed to say it, okay, And sometimes people don't come here because it's very easy to feel intimidated

▶ 8:33 for people that know the rules or they don't know the rules. You know, it's important to understand as a taxpayer, I've raised my family here, every dollar you spend matters to me. Every single dollar, even when you transfer it around, it matters to me. and what's important is when we dedicate money to special things and sometimes it shouldn't go there okay I call it the pet project is what I really call it okay I'm very familiar with politics I've been involved probably over 40 years between here and Malden all right and tonight I started out on the wrong foot and I'm sorry. I have one thing I really want to say to you all. Remember, as elected officials and those that are here or not here, for whatever chosen reason, if you're running

▶ 9:38 for mayor or whatever office you may be running for, people would like to be heard. Sometimes You have to explain exactly how the process really works. You know, sometimes people don't even come to these meetings because they're afraid that if they say the wrong thing, I'm not going to say they target it, but there's that intimidation that happens in an administration for those that know anything about politics, okay? Those that know about politics know exactly what I'm saying. You know, I just ask that you spend our money honestly and really show us that you're spending it where you're spending it, not spending it someplace where it shouldn't be spent, trying to make it look that way. It's like putting things in the proper categories

▶ 10:34 that where you're really spending your money. When you put it in the wrong category, it's misleading. Okay? I've done a lot of public request records. I could do it all over again, and I have no problem doing that, and I don't have no problem showing you when you've done it wrong, you know. I think the only other thing I really want to add to that is that for those that are willing to come to this chamber and speak about facts, and they have all the facts, and sometimes I think this board, school committee, all of you, try to make that person's facts don't look like what they really are. It's my opinion, and I'm entitled to my opinion, okay? But I haven't been here in four years because even right now I feel nervous sitting here talking to you all, okay?

▶ 11:24 You know, it should be a person comes here, you say hello, hi, whatever, before your meeting or something. It's just really, I felt funny as soon as I walked through that door tonight. I felt like I shouldn't even be here. That's a lousy feeling to have, because I can remember coming to meetings where people would walk up, hey, how you doing, I've never met you, whatever, not here, not tonight. Some of you I do know, personally, and I like you all, I respect all of you, okay? But maybe nobody's willing to come to the mic in this community and let you know how they feel. I'm doing it because I mean it, because you should take under consideration every speaker that comes to this and speaks to you, because you don't.

▶ 12:13 You shine them sometimes, I think. That's my opinion. Some of you, you're all very bright, your attorneys and stuff, very bright. People see that. They may not say a word to any of you, but when's the last time any of you walked around this community and talked to people? ask them why they don't come here you probably hear what I just told you well thank you for your time and Peter you did a nice job for 20 years I congratulate you all right enjoy the private time you have with your family I really do you know Peter got into politics 20 years ago and I ran against him it was a three-way three-way three-man race okay Peter was the better man all right thank you very much you all thank you thank you hi i'm jerry morose um i want to

▶ 13:30 talk a little bit about the process you use in the appropriations committee um not specifically about what's on the order tonight but they do apply to them as well as other orders um you know i I'm going to take out of context a quote by John Stewart this week. Completely different topic, and I apologize for even bringing the two together in any way, but he said that accountability doesn't appear to be something that occurs in this chamber. He also said, you know, I'm sorry if I sound angry and undiplomatic, but I am angry, but I believe you should be too. You know, we've had discussions for a lot of years about different topics, and there are rhetorical devices used in this room that seem out of character with what should be an august board of aldermen or city council.

▶ 14:34 You know, even on the munis budget reports that you're working off of tonight, you know, there's a projected column. And we've talked about this before, right? now this year you've redefined projected to be the exact same thing as one of the other columns you know if you're doing budgeting you do want to have a projected number you're not using that number you're not supplied that number I think that's an integral number to defining a budget and the question is why and if you're not going to use a projected column you don't want it why have a duplicate column on the on the on the order all the time it doesn't make sense you know just an example of rhetorical devices that are used i come here and make

▶ 15:19 statements at a public comment session and i respectfully sit down and listen to the meeting and i listen carefully you know when i challenge for instance that the indirect costs applied to water and sewer funds are applied by what i consider beyond the pale a combination of of City Hall staff and aldermen have a dialogue back and forth that serves to act as if, you know, there's no nuance that I'm saying that indirect costs are out of line entirely when I've never said that. I want you to ask yourself, why can't the nuanced conversation occur? Why can't we address the core of the issue instead of somebody going and trying to, you know go way off to the side and act as if the the dispute or the or the

▶ 16:12 discrepancy is something other than it is I appreciate you guys are about finished with your budget process here tonight and in that you know what I'm bringing up is something that's mostly in the past but we brought this up on other occasions and every year we have the same duplicate issues arise you know as i said before when i listen carefully at a meeting and i hear statements made that made by people in the conversation of of an order that they're partly true and i know how they're true but i also know that they're partly untrue in the way that they're presented and again i've mentioned red flags here before that's a red flag like why does somebody feel obliged to go ahead and say something and present one side

▶ 17:17 to gain what benefit rather than presenting the actual in two things you know there are so many different examples that i could give just from what was it monday night alone um of examples like that, that maybe not all of you have been to the Water and Sewer Committee meeting to know what really happened there, or maybe not all of you have studied something that I've studied to know what's really behind a number, and that's okay. It's a lot of work for anybody to do. You should be able to split up the duties. But when things are presented differently than I know them to be the case and they're at a public meeting it makes me wonder why i hope it makes you wonder why as well because i would like to think that every decision that's made here is an informed one is an

▶ 18:13 authentic one has based solid basis in fact and finance in order to make the city best and the last thing i want to say tonight very quickly is that through this whole budget process somebody called out to me the other night and I thank him for it and they call attention to me about an issue that I have come here and often wondered why we call it conservative budgeting but the conservative budgeting ends up socking away money into line items that we know we're not going to use it on but the alternative cost of that money is that we aren't able to apply it by the budget to authentic things that we need to pay money for so when we have when we don't try to budget tightly and as accurately as we can project and we have

▶ 19:02 all this excess money it constrains us from using that money for an authentic ongoing activity rather than and I'm not no nothing to impugn the the free cash applications to retain earnings tonight but now we can only use that money for one-time things whereas if we could have hired somebody for a position that's necessary in the in the schools of the city but we've held up two million dollars that has kept us from having a two or three or four or five or six positions that hurts our city because I see now can't perform a function that it wants to and as much as we made need equipment the police certainly need five police cars public works certainly needs their equipment but if we had a more tightly audited budget process along with you know do we know how old

▶ 19:57 the equipment is how many hours are on it what's the condition of it what would be the maintenance versus repair we're not hearing that discussion because frankly you don't need to because there's so much money there we can just go buy new we can buy new for water and so we can buy new for all these things and again i'm not making any um characterizations about the things on the on the agenda tonight but this is a problem of when somebody says to you oh we're very conservative about that well why wouldn't the Board of Aldermen ask instead tell us what you really think it will be and let the Board of Aldermen as the political body responsible for these things make the determination about how much risk they

▶ 20:34 Paul Brodeur: want to take and if they want to apply the money the resources to something that is a burning need that the Alderman feel uncomfortable and not meeting that's appropriate for them thank you for your time thank you Madam Chair madam president Member of the board my name is Paul Broder I am at 125 Trenton Street I'm coming to talk to you a little bit about a couple of the earmarks that appearing before you tonight because I know it has been a long time coming from the time that the FY 19 fiscal year budget was signed to the time where the monies are actually going to hit the city and and and strengthen a couple of things that are going on. As you all know, sometimes during the state budget process

▶ 21:29 Paul Brodeur: there are opportunities for reps and senators to single out particular needs in their district that might not fall within traditional funding source from the state. Speaking for a little bit for Senator Lewis and myself, the way we have approached that is to reach out to the city and ask what particular needs they might have at any particular time. that might be very challenging to meet in the ordinary course of the budget that you're deliberating on over the last several months. So in doing that, we identified a couple of really arts and culture needs, both at Memorial Hall, which is, you know, has an ongoing need for really rehabilitation and repair and kind of basic infrastructure improvement or maintenance,

▶ 22:14 Paul Brodeur: and at the Middle School or the Performing Arts Center the middle school where you think a very modern facility probably 11 years old at this point why would we need to put money into it well again in cooperation with the city planner and the rest of the the city officials we found a very interesting thing which is that that facility is very competitive in the marketplace that there's a lot of desire to rent it and to keep up with the marketplace to keep that facility modern needs really constant not really maintenance but upgrades and that is can be kind of parceled out as a one-time capital need and it pays tremendous dividends it pays tremendous dividends for our students for the you know the explosion we've

▶ 23:02 Paul Brodeur: seen in the quality and quantity of arts performance within the schools particularly the drama club that and all the drama performances that have really taken off and pushed down and even into the elementary schools and the outside user groups that pay you know top dollar to use it because it is it's an outstanding facility continuing out we're hopeful that in this year's budget we'll be able to continue to make investments in arts and culture there's an earmark in the budget to help follow your art get off the ground as a community arts center not so much dealing with their programming but again basic infrastructure so that they can be ADA compliant which is a can be a very long and very expensive process

▶ 23:47 Paul Brodeur: particularly when you're opening up an old Victorian house to a modern set of programs and clientele and so a couple of other things that are not directly related to the arts but it has been a tremendous opportunity to add to the community to add to what we do here and make it unique you certainly see it at Memorial Hall where we have all-star performances from our symphony and also some more some things we didn't see in the past like like I know Alderman McMaster is a big fan of the boxing that goes on there and we see some other things that are a little bit outside the off off what we used to see at Memorial Hall so I think those investments are worthwhile and I have no doubt that you will approve them but I appreciate the time to talk a little bit about how that

▶ 24:35 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: process work thanks very much thank you motion to close public comment madam chair second motion to public comment made by Alderman Mortimer and seconded by vice chair boys all in favor so public comment is now closed and we'll move to the agenda items our first order on the agenda is order number two zero one nine dash one zero six acceptance of a $100,000 grant from the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development mass marketing partnerships office of travel and tourism program for a memorial hall restoration envelope study and for selective repairs and improvements to the building yes I just put myself in queue a motion to suspend the rules motion to suspend the rules that we may hear from a second second okay we have a motion to send the rules

▶ 25:31 Denise Gaffey: made by Alderman Mortimer second by Alderman's work go all in favor opposed we're under suspension of rules and we really appreciate the city planner and director of memorial hall being here tonight thank you good evening um my name is denise gaffey i'm the director of planning and community development and i'm here with kathy pickett broder who's the building manager for the memorial hall facility and um as has been stated we are here to request the alderman's acceptance of a grant in the amount of 100 000 to do some some critical building envelope work at Memorial Hall. We are specifically using these funds to do what's called a building envelope study. We've hired an engineering company that does this type of work primarily

▶ 26:25 Denise Gaffey: and they're identifying where all of the leaks and other water infiltration is coming in through the building. It's been quite a few years, well decades really, since we've made significant investment in the building envelope. So we're at that point where we really need to do that again. And it's apparent to anyone who's been inside the building that there has been some impact on some of the interiors. So we'd like to identify and address as much as we can of the water that is infiltrating. So we're doing the building envelope study, then we'll be spending some funding we're identifying the highest priority needs including specifically the area over the gar hall and the kitchen which has seen a lot of fun water

▶ 27:14 Denise Gaffey: infiltration so those would be the areas that we're prioritizing with this funding do you want to add anything and this has been um i just want to mention too that i'm assisting kathy with this project sort of doing all the the project management and contract management around it and we're we've consulted directly with the Board of Trustees on once once we became aware of the funding that we consulted with the board about their priorities and they have identified it though the water infiltration being the most important concern I'm happy to answer any Any questions? Alderman Mortimer? Thank you very much, Chairman Lipper-Garabedian, I want to thank you very much, Denise, for the presentation.

▶ 28:01 Peter D. Mortimer: Kathy Bigot-Pirota, I'd like to thank you very much for running a great hall in Melrose Rotary Club, and we have lunch there every Thursday, and it's a great place to have lunch, but I do see the defects that have occurred over the years. Fortunately, the bones of the building are built out of granite, so that's not going anywhere. That will be there for another thousand years, but the roof, always a weak point in any building, and the outside, the interior, the leaking. But you managed to keep it together with wire and chewing gum and duct tape and make a nice presentation. Melrose Rotary has lunch there all the time. As was mentioned, the boxing matches, the Melrose Symphony, which occasionally, fortunate enough to attend.

▶ 28:47 Peter D. Mortimer: oldest volunteer symphony in the history excuse me in the in all of the United States it's a great thing a really nice event we had this year that you were there for was the brawl in the hall the Melrose wrestling team took on the Wakefield wrestling team and they pulled it out at the last minute and won the whole meet by three points but it was great because that attracted enough people because it was Wakefield for us to wrestle against Wakefield and them Well, I used to be on the wrestling team a million years ago, but it was a great event, and like many of the great events there. And I'd also like to extend a hearty thanks to State Representative Paul Broda and Senator Jason Lewis for being able to shake this money down from the state.

▶ 29:35 Peter D. Mortimer: It's good when we can grab money from the state. It's always an important thing. Heaven knows the people of Melrose pay enough in state taxes. I wish most of that money would stay in Melrose, but people in Melrose pay a lot of state taxes. So I'm really happy when State Representative Broda can get some of that money to come back to serve the people of Melrose instead of other people all over the state. And at this time I'd like to make, one quick question. There's no, I know what, but there's no matching grant on this. This is a straight up. That's correct. Yeah, I knew the answer anyway, but I want to let the people know, no money from the Melrose budget on this. is straight up money from the state no matching funds needed and at this time

▶ 30:16 John N. Tramontozzi: I'd like to make a motion to recommend this order for passage second motion to recommend the order for passage made by Alderman Mortimer and seconded by Vice Chair Boisselle we do have a few Member in the queue Alderman Tramontozzi thank you madam chair Alderman Mortimer said and commented essentially what I was going to say as well the question about the matching funds this order as well as the next order i assume of both non-matching funds and it's great and i appreciate and thank our state legislators representative broder and senator lewis for making this happen for us the memorial hall and the middle school finance center well deserving of this funding and the great great venues for for the city so thank you and uh thank you sure alderman Medeiros

▶ 31:11 Denise Gaffey: Thank you. Thank you. I know back in late 2016, early 2017, we had appropriated $75,000 from free cash towards an envelope study for Memorial Hall. Could you just talk about what happened with that? So I am not directly connected to that request so I'm not exactly sure I just want to just want to reveal that so in case I misspeak and misspeak but I don't I don't know if it was that much funding and I believe that was for a feasibility study it wasn't specific it was not for I know it was not for like a building envelope study I think it was more intended to be a feasibility study that looked more broadly at all of the needs in the building I believe it's actually having to pull it up since we were talking order 2017-58 it was

▶ 32:11 Denise Gaffey: appropriation the amount of 75,000 from available free cash to Public Works professional building services for a public safety building feasibility study and building envelope study from Memorial Hall so it's joint between the too oh the director public that was given to public works yeah so it is so it is a it is a it was some of it was more an envelope study for his funding through the public works department so I would recommend that you speak with them directly I'm not as familiar with it it sounds like it sounded like it was it was combined with the public safety study is that public public safety buildings feasibility study and building envelope study for Memorial Hall okay I I guess I don't know I don't know the answer except that so it was related to

▶ 33:02 two different projects I mean two different projects were combined for that one director people W join us I don't know if you can answer this question good evening everyone up that funding was for two studies the public safety building study which is complete and the Memorial Hall feasibility study for pending projects that we could complete in the near future that is not complete and i made mention of that i think a week ago at my public works hearing that money's still available in the public works budget and as soon as this project's complete we can move forward with that there's about 25 000 of that original appropriation still available in the public works budget okay thank you so um i didn't realize it was categorized as a building envelope study i

▶ 34:02 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: I thought that was specifically for feasibility studying but in any event it makes more sense to use the grant yes it definitely makes sense and so we won't be doing it we've just receiving one building envelope study area I expected that would have been addressed so tonight so I apologize thank you any other questions we have a motion on the floor to recommend for passage duly second it all in favor any opposed great we'll make that recommendation to the full board thank you thank you our next agenda item order number two zero one nine one zero four acceptance of a two hundred thousand dollar grant from the executive office of housing and economic development mass marketing partnerships office of travel and tourism program to upgrade the Performing Arts Center in

▶ 34:56 the Melrose veterans Memorial Middle School we're still under suspension of rules good evening I'm Cindy Tame or superintendent of schools so representative rotor I think did a fairly accurate representation of the reason for this money the building is 12 years old it gets an exceptional amount of use not only by our students and our increasing performing arts programs both drama musical band orchestra and chorus but also with rentals um if you came onto campus in the past six weeks you know that there was a lot of dance troops who rent us um starting in july the wakefield repertory theater rents from us not wakefield so we do have an awful lot of use as well as using it for public events such as the veterans day the memorial day and anything else

▶ 36:00 as the city may want there has been tremendous wear and tear on the floor of the stage the curtains a year ago during production season both the light board and the sound board failed and we were able to buy replacements using the revolving fund monies but they seriously need to be upgraded to be competitive with what you see is being built out in wakefield and other venues among the small things we were able to do again using our income from the property is we upgraded to led lights we replaced some of the mics we did whatever we could but we did have tarpe come in a couple years ago and as you know they built our theater they also built wakefield and they did a complete assessment and at that time they were recommending 800 000 of repairs and upgrades

▶ 36:53 Scott M. Forbes: we of course are not pursuing that we're doing what is within our budget this two hundred thousand dollars from the state helps tremendously towards that work thank you alderman mortimer thank you very much i'd like to make a motion for all the aforementioned reasons to recommend this order for passage second okay the motion made by alderman mortimer and seconded by alderman Tremont ozzy on discussion thank you just a quick question I believe last year you came before us with a couple of items that you were going to be making improvements on within the hall and they were left over monies that were from various bond projects I believe it was that's right can you talk about the is this in addition to the work that was done if you could just kind of let us

▶ 37:43 Denise Gaffey: know and kind of maybe tie everything together for us oh yeah this this this $200,000 grant is going to supplement that funding as as Cindy mentioned there they were about there we identified about $800,000 worth of need in the in the facility and the 230,000 roughly that was appropriated or it was a transfer of funding but it was approved by the alderman about a year ago was only going to allow us to do a fraction of the work in the in the in the auditorium including this the stage and some of the AV sound system work with this additional 200,000 we're able to obviously do a lot more including the carpet and the stage lighting so we're really going to be creating I know we use the word state-of-the-art all the time but um you know a state-of-the-art

▶ 38:34 Denise Gaffey: a current a current state-of-the-art theater those funds haven't been actually use yet that's correct that would be in addition to that's correct so we are many of the projects that we're using the grant funding for right now are we're we're doing are happening right now and they're happening before the end of this fiscal year we're also going to be later in the summer when those when the the auditorium is not in use and into the early part of the school year we're just keeping the facility closed so we can do the stage and the lighting work great that's the timeline was my next question so I appreciate you getting there before me thank you very much the plan thank you autumn and Madeira's thank you thank you just I don't know if you have those the

▶ 39:24 Monica C. Medeiros: numbers but about how much rental revenue does the facility take in don't have that off the top of my head okay is that something that we could get for the full board meeting I know a representative Broder had mentioned you know that this is vital to keeping it going so it would be I think maybe helpful to be able to demonstrate the revenue that is coming in from the rental of the facility and that's all handled by Public Works and facilities that handles the yes and do you have any is it something that we're actively trying to continue to rent the yes yes when Wakefield opened we were concerned that they would be drawing from us and we've worked hard to maintain our relationships with the companies that have rented from us for many years as

▶ 40:21 well as to expand opportunities you know witness Wakefield chose to stay with us and not go to Wakefield so it's an important part of the revenue what has happened though is as our performing arts program has expanded that has restricted some of the rental time because the way we work this with public works is the schools get first choice on all dates we closed booking between the beginning of September till usually Columbus Day weekend and after that GPW opens it to outside renters to pick dates so the students will get first first yes exactly thank you thank you all the minute master thank you madam chair thank you both for being here this evening can you talk a little bit about the grant administration requirements for this particular grant this is not a

▶ 41:16 Denise Gaffey: school grant this is a city grant so that would fall to the city side what what are they quite there's so there's no quarterly reports and who's responsible for it right so I'm doing the grant management and there's no matching funds for this grant just like with the other one they they've asked for identify identification of the scope of work which has been provided and a final report once the work is complete along with of course all the copies of the invoices and that kind of thing so when there's there's obviously a direct benefit to the Melrose community but there's a particular benefit to the school department is it standard for the city to be involved in grant administration without the school department is there ever any scenario in

▶ 42:09 Denise Gaffey: which they would be shared administrative responsibilities and if so what would that be well I think it would be cumbersome to share the grant management responsibilities on a project like this but I mean certainly I we work together with the school administration on developing the scope and the timeline and obviously you know we've worked with a lot of different parties including the drama all the user groups as well on this particular project so there's been a lot of interaction I've just I think because I've worked so closely in the middle school and over the years with on school facilities it sort of naturally felt to me but I you know I think the issue of trying to do it trying to manage it with two entities would just be cumbersome so how is that typically

▶ 42:54 determined when there's a grant that has a particular benefit to the school is that who made who makes that decision in terms is it a is it a capacity issue is it's a facilities issue so anything that is a facilities issue typically falls to either dpw or the the city planner because they do manage all our buildings for us that does not mean we're not involved i think both ms gaffney and mr chena will tell you and all the building projects we've done together for seven years i attend all the project management meetings i meet with all the contractors and all the workers are quarried through my office I do week weekly walkthroughs of the projects because we want to make sure that the the final outcome is what will serve us best but as terms of the

▶ 43:46 Denise Gaffey: day-to-day management I certainly am very happy to leave that to Miss Gaffney Miss Gaffney you're obviously very busy if you have the bandwidth to do the administrative responsibilities related to this grant yeah I do and actually been getting a lot of support with this particular grant from from the facilities department from Ann Wade in particular who's terrific we're able to get a lot of these services from the state contract and she's she's an expert at that so to be honest and she's and she's also just familiar with the scheduling around the the use of the auditorium so work as a team very well thank you both I just have one follow-up question oh I'm sorry Alderman Zwirko thank you madam chair leaning in so I heard a couple of things I just wanted

▶ 44:37 Denise Gaffey: to you might not know them all now but I'm just curious as to what some of the improvements are gonna be so I heard stage lighting I heard the sound and light music board I heard the carpet I heard the stage itself curtains potentially anything else that you're looking at did you hear carpet yeah carpet and some of the seats have to be repaired so okay so in addition to stage lighting we've also done all the house lights completely replaced them all which is a really difficult task to do because of the staging that's required so there were quite a few that were out after the ten years but instead of just cherry-picking they replaced them all and they'll last another ten years because we have the scaffolding there and we had the funding to do it which is

▶ 45:18 Michael P. Zwirko: really really great the rises and risers to there'll be a new set of risers for the choral groups. The seating capacity is a great draw I'm sure from a rental standpoint you know we were in there for a grad night and we're very meticulous we make sure that the kids stay in a very specific area and they're not running around but you know when there's only a group in there it's it's like a huge cavern it's a great theater. I was just gonna say a simple upgrade for you to visualize if you're familiar when we do productions you usually walk in on soundboard and the light board is usually right there on the right side when you walk in that will go away everything will be digital everything will be done from the booth

▶ 46:03 right so that's a simple upgrade to visualize right that's great thank you very much thank you madam chair um alderman medeiros will that allow for additional seating capacity well that's not a place where we normally have seats but you do know that we try to keep certain spaces open for handicapped seating so that will allow for more wheelchair accessibility thank you thank you just a quick question so our the fiscal year 19 is almost over so is there a requirement that these funds be expended or encumbered by the end of this month how does that work there is a requirement to encumber the funds by the end of this month and um that is not going to be a problem for this and i'm sure that's i know we've already pat i recommend the last one

▶ 46:51 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: but i'm sure it's the same for that as well the memorial hall great thank you we have a motion duly second it all in favor aye opposed great thank you very much thank you good night third order on our agenda is order number two zero one nine dash one zero two an appropriation from free cash account number zero one three two four zero zero one in the amount of two million three hundred twenty seven thousand six hundred ninety four dollars to various accounts as set forth herein we have a number of Member from the administration so we welcome them up good evening good evening this order requests an appropriation in the amount of two million three hundred and twenty seven thousand six hundred and ninety four dollars from uh free cash to a number of items um

▶ 47:59 and i thought that just before we get into we talk a little bit about what free cash is why we have it and um what where it comes from um i've said it before and i'm not in love with the caption free cash it's um can be concerning i'll leave it at that i prefer the term available fund and they do use that interchangeably and the objective here is that on a fiscal year end the community would have between three and five percent of their budget in what's called available funds each year. So how that is derived is that you strive to have your revenues come in higher than you had anticipated. You strive that your expenses are less than you had anticipated. And in a very short way, that would enable there to be some available revenues that at

▶ 49:00 end of the year when you turn your balance sheet and your financials over to the department of revenue that they would make a determination as to how much of that is available for future appropriation the same thing occurs every single community in the commonwealth and it also affects the water sewer ambulance and mountain hood enterprise fund they go through the same precepts There's the same structural review by the Department of Revenue, and they, too, sign off as to what is available. So it's a healthy thing. It provides a community the necessary revenues that they may need for an upcoming year, given the factors, economic and non-economic, that can affect your budget. everything from the market going down bust which would affect your local

▶ 49:58 receipts to all of a sudden you're losing interest because we're just not gaining that type of income from the money that we do have in the bank so there's a lot of factors building permits you go up and down excise tax a lot of these you can't control so you have to be very careful as to what you're considering dedicating to the budget at the end of it the day it's the department of revenue each fall when we go there to set our tax rate they review what your estimates are they have to sign off on them if they feel that they're extreme or not realistic they'll advise us and we'll have to make an adjustment but that's the process i think it's a good process it's healthy you'll see that it helps us pay generally for our snow and ice

▶ 50:45 deficits so that we don't corrupt the current year's operations trying to pay for snow and ice and that type of a thing because you're always always going to have um expenses that's the nature of what we do here that you just can't foresee municipal work is very unique in that sense and as you're aware when you have issues that affect public safety and infrastructure you have to address that promptly so it's advantageous to have resources to do that um so it up right up front if i believe if you look at the order you'll see that it identifies the the account number and the description of what is being asked for if it if it's the will of the chair and the board i'll go through the list and i believe all the department heads are here you can ask them

▶ 51:37 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: to join me if you have any questions that would be i'd be happy to do that and proceed through this methodically in accordance to what you have in front of you that sounds fine if you'd like to proceed thank you all right the very first one is um it's captioned entitled capital outlay public work vehicle and equipment 473 000 and i believe um the dpw director is here this evening if you like you can come up and answer any questions you may have we did receive the board received and our committees kindly printed for us a memorandum that we can add to the order if so moved that describes a little bit of the different projects as well I'm not sure if they're related specifically to the vehicle and

▶ 52:26 equipment but I know there are a couple of different appropriations recommended for DPW good evening everyone and if I if I just make through the chair walk the the board through this memo there's three main components to the public works requests that are in the free cash order one has to do with components of subject matters the first has to do with Ward projects and pieces of this section of our requests may be familiar to individual Ward alderman these are very organic these programs came from residents a lot of these requests came through the year or through the years and attempts to make neighborhoods more accessible and safer to pedestrians and to children walking to school so it's an

▶ 53:20 appropriation the amount of four hundred twenty five thousand one hundred dollars to various line items and the first chat breaks down which line items those are the funds are gonna will be encumbered at the end of this fiscal year against existing contracts that we have in place to complete a listing of roadway sidewalk and traffic safety improvements citywide that are aimed at repairing failing infrastructure and improving pedestrian safety and the walkability of the neighborhoods so the projects include the following number one we'll using these funds to install uh three more sets of rrfb signals that's what we installed at howard at ruggles streets the flashing yellow pedestrian activated they don't flash unless they're pressed

▶ 54:12 they'll be located they'll be installed on franklin street at vinton on upham at ashcroft and on main street at linden that's a critical crossing for kids cutting through to the middle school high school campus the and I said the signals are very they're very similar to the ones recently installed on Howard at Ruggles and they have proven to be rather successful at that location number two we're going to use the funds to make some significant patch repairs to Upham Street especially in the areas that have heavily deteriorated over the past two winters now this is not a complete reconstruction by any means but these funds will allow the department to make significant patch improvements to that to that travel way

▶ 55:05 number three will be repairing and or adding handicap accessible ramps in some areas of Upham Street once again it's a heavily traveled route in the morning for children getting to the high school or the middle school or one side of up them getting to the Winthrop school we'll also be using these funds to add handicap ramps and crosswalks on Lebanon near Appleton Street and on Lebanon near Beach and possibly on Howard Street east of Ruggles were looking at a location at collider road the first two crosswalks that i mentioned have already been passed by traffic commission and the third will be on their agenda next wednesday we're going to be using these funds to also reconstruct the intersection of cottage and foster streets through the years our office

▶ 56:06 and alderman wright have received several phone calls about safety and the crosswalk crossing foster street from the front of the levi gould going to coa and back as you come down cottage street that intersection is very wide cars don't stop to take the right they just slow down and go and if someone is in that crosswalk especially if that if if they're not as mobile they're they're just out in the crosswalk and it becomes a dangerous situation what we're going to try to do is use some complete street design standards to narrow that narrow and shorten the crossings both across cottage and across foster and and get a little bit of distance so cars have to slow down before they take the right or left um the fifth area is

▶ 56:59 repairs renovations and upgrades to livermore park that is the that is the park off felton place off of upham street i know it's called felton park it has several names with the official name is livermore park the improvements will include upgrades repairs and replacement of the playground equipment currently joan bell our superintendent of open space has begun outreach with several of the stakeholders i don't know if she's here oh she is here so i'm sure she'll add her commentary to this section of our order but we're looking to best utilize these fundings to make both equipment and other upgrades to this park the funding will also be used to address sidewalk gaps on the west side of mount vernon ave this is between rock view and sylvan street and this

▶ 57:53 will give that neighborhood a direct access to pine banks alderman mcmaster has met diligently with that neighborhood this is one of their top requests for several years now to finish adding sidewalks where there are none this way we can have that continuous walk the funding will also purchase and install two additional 25 mile an hour solar powered signals these are the ones that are on up on men on howard they've proven to be extremely successful they don't they not not only warn and warn motorists of their speed but they also collect statistics that chief Lyle and sergeant Clark has found extremely successful in determining speed rates and vehicle counts so we'll be adding two more one will go on Lebanon Street in Ward 7 that southern part of Lebanon Street and a

▶ 58:53 And the second will go heading south on Washington Street in Ward 5. We'll also be installing, purchasing and installing a flashing crosswalk sign, a little bit different than the one on Howard at Ruggles. But the Melrose Police Department, through a grant, were able to acquire one of these to put anywhere in the city in a heavily used pedestrian crossing. the administration decided to roll these out in at both the Lincoln School District and the Roosevelt School District so we'll be using these funds to purchase a second and we'll be installing them upon successful passage within a few weeks lastly we'll be using the funds to purchase and plant 80 trees citywide and that is off a resident request list that is probably for if not

▶ 59:53 more years old so that's the first part of it the second part addresses the snow deficit and the last part addresses fleet equipment upgrades over the past fiscal year the city auditor the assistant city auditor and the mayor's administrative assistant and director of community services and I all met with department heads throughout the city we met to conduct an evaluation and a needs assessment on all of the city fleet the department heads came and they explained that their existing fleet to us the condition of that existing fleet some of the issues that fleet presents and what their future needs would consist of through the discussion we were able to prioritize the needs in each department

▶ 1:00:52 and rank their top priorities this appropriation begins to address the top needs and both public safety groups and also in public works so the chiefs are here to discuss their top needs I'm just going to briefly speak about public works is top needs and then uh turn it over to them the public works managers presented a five year capital replacement program to the committee this be this addresses maybe two-thirds of year one of that of that presentation and it starts to um it starts to replace equipment that no longer has useful value some of the photos are in the attachment that i i sent along ultimately we'll be purchasing four trucks and two lawn mowers the lawn mowers obviously are replacing what the green team uses on a daily basis those were purchased seven years ago

▶ 1:02:00 and they've exceeded their useful life of five years so we got a few extra years on those the we're replacing a we're purchasing a midsize six-wheel dump truck for our park and forestry group a highway crew truck that's for the highway crews that go out and repair street lights and traffic signs and roadway sidewalk improvements purchasing a large six-wheel dump slash sander in our facilities division we'll be purchasing a 300 um a rack truck that's a truck that can be used for moving items one location to another one school to another we're constantly moving items for the school department whether it be paper or school supplies or desks or one teaches belongings from one school to another whatever the case may be we don't have a vehicle that can do

▶ 1:02:56 that in a safe manner this will have a tailgate in the back that allows to lift the equipment up and into the truck in a much more safer and convenient manner so those are the three areas at least in Public Works I can answer your questions and though regarding that or if you want to hear from the other department heads I'll just sit wait so we do have a couple alderman in queue maybe we'll go there for department public works and then we can move forward um so i'll go in tremendous uh thank you madam chair actually my question is more directed to mr bella russo don't don't get me wrong i think many if not all of these line items are appropriate especially the public works believe me i've heard many um

▶ 1:03:52 John N. Tramontozzi: And I've gotten received many calls from constituents asking for the needs of the street repairs and the flashing lights and so forth. I see the need for equipment repairs and so forth. But let me ask you this, Mr. DelaRusso, because I've also got inquiries from constituents to try to get a handle on this free cash and availability. Certainly. I know the term is one that you don't normally like to use, but it's free cash slash available funds. And you put together a memo, somebody did, which was appreciated by me and I'm sure other Member of the board. We define it as a surplus that accumulates from previous fiscal years. And is it fair to say historically that we have, for the most part, experienced the 3 to 5% available funds for the past 5, 10 years?

▶ 1:05:04 John N. Tramontozzi: Yeah, that's a fair statement, 3 to 5%. So, and when you submit a final budget to the state, the Department of Revenue that certifies the remaining money as free cash. Does that certification comes out around this time of year, every year? Great question, through the chair. Last year, it came in on 1030, the end of October. That's when we got our certification letter. It's generally done in the fall, and typically, the community strive to have their balance sheets and information into the Commonwealth because they'd like to get it done before they set their tax rate. And when did we, I mean, do you have an idea of how much money that you would become available for the next fiscal year and how many months before our budget season begins?

▶ 1:06:01 Do you kind of get a sense for what you might have available? It's a great question. there are two issues and i don't want to go off track too much but when when you when you submit your balance sheet for each fund as well as the cities the the department of revenue then looks at all your other receivables anything that's overdrawn any grants for example that we anticipated getting that they have not materialized and they they would charge that against your available funds or your free cash number for the sake of it this evening then they also look at any outstanding receivables this past year our real estate receivables over a million dollars personal property taxes receivable over 125 000 and then they add in any deferred revenues

▶ 1:06:57 which was four hundred and twenty seven thousand so that was submission is in part a making of a conservative budgeting because we strive to do that but also we are always subject to reimbursements for grants that if they're not timely then the state will credit you or take away from your free cash because the grant money that you would do hadn't come in timely there's There's nothing you can do about it, a lot of it may take a year, a year and a half. So they also charge that against what you have for what they call available funds. So it's a process that takes time and it's back and forth because as we get closer to having that number certified, they will ask questions, would you be able to give me a breakdown of this, this, and this, for example.

▶ 1:07:52 no the state does not put any on uh put any limitations on uh what the available free cash can be used for right yeah yeah correct and typically the the um objective is to use it for non-recurring expenses because it's not guaranteed year to year you may have it this year may not have it next year and as we found out if you get caught in that trap where you're using it it to try to fund ongoing expenses it can really cause a lot of stress in the city if the city administration knows that there's going to be a potential budget issues for example the schools you could potentially use available free cash for the school's budget um i guess my my point is this when did you when did the administration be become aware that there's a there was a

▶ 1:08:43 There's a potential $2.3 million free cash availability for fiscal 20 budget. We receive this information and that's as a result of the prior year's fiscal 18's operation, not 19. So the free cash we have here is as a result of the operation of fiscal 18, not fiscal 19. So you're always a year behind, I'll just say that for the sake of this evening. So again, because you don't have the opportunity to make the final certification when the state does, you have to wait for them to do it. Well, I appreciate that. I appreciate the fact that this available funds can be used for the projects that we want. These are important projects. I'm just wondering what effect this might have had if the public was aware that we potentially could have had $2.3 million available

▶ 1:09:46 at the time that the citizens voted for the override that could have been used potentially for the schools. Now again, granted, I'm glad that we're using these funds for these public works projects because I think it's important. we need it's you say the state the Department of Revenue recommends that we have a free cash balance of three to five percent budget do we have to is that a requirement it's best practice and secondly is that's just the Department of Revenue Standard & Poor's wants to see us have between our free cash balance and our stabilization fund balance they want to see us have at least five percent of reserves which is the combination of both which we do have so you have you're trying you have to meet the requirements of good practice

▶ 1:10:35 for the Commonwealth and you also have to meet the requirements a good practice for the outside rating agency that's going to determine what you pay an interest so you strive to make that goal because you want to pay you don't want to pay a premium when you borrow you want to get the best rate you possibly can I feel it's a balance yes it's consistent in this consistent and that's that's that's why it's so important but another good feature and glad we're talking about it is um you'll see that this year you're giving about a third about 35 percent of this free cash is going to stabilization funds so that's another feather on our cap because it shows that we're thinking ahead and outside of snow and ice which is my first consideration for funding my next

▶ 1:11:22 consideration is to ensure that the stabilization funds that we have are going to be able to meet the expenses of not next year but also the year after should that be necessary and so that's why you'll see that you snow and ice deficit concerns you'll see stabilization funds and again about a third 820,000 is being dedicated to stabilization funds just to ensure that we're going to be able to meet our obligations and fund needs that are for example with special education that's a great question though I'll stop there and I'll let others ask some questions thank you thank you I just wanted to take a minute to recognize that it's nice to see a lot of the items that I think we've been discussing over the last year or a couple of years I

▶ 1:12:15 Manisha Bewtra: make it to this list for example I think some of the crosswalks sidewalk repairs and other additions to improve accessibility of our sidewalks the additional trees and I think in particular I'm excited to see on the appropriation for the repairs renovations and upgrades to Livermore Park because I've heard from residents of that that use that park feeling that it's been neglected for a long time so I'm really pleased to see that that is on the list as well as outside of the DPW request the public safety vehicles and the phone system upgrade for City Hall again a lot of these came up in our budget discussions last year as well as throughout conversations regarding the state of our city's finances so I'm pleased to see those just curious I you

▶ 1:13:18 know obviously when you're in making a list like this you're always making trade-offs and I just kind of wanted to get a sense of items that might not have made the cut um whether dpw are up from other department requests well in terms of public works um i mean the you could you could have expended all this free cash just plants and treats but we try we try to we try to keep a balance and every aspect that we work in um there is one thing that we may have had the possibility of investing a little more in but we're not quite sure exactly what we need and how much we need but we'll be back for it and is that's in um in the um the stormwater quality epa requirements that are coming down the line

▶ 1:14:10 but rather than put money towards something where we really haven't defined the scope we took the approach of we have enough money to hire somebody to define the scope and then we'll we'll come back within a year and hopefully through next year's free cash we can we could properly fund that program so we avoid fines from the epa and the dep that was one thing that i know personally i tossed with a lot um you know and then there are other there are other needs sidewalk repairs there's several capital needs in the buildings alone but we're trying and we'll try to address those with other programs as we move forward excellent well i think a lot of these are are tangible uh improvements that the city or residents will see those investments

▶ 1:15:01 Robert A. Boisselle: right away and others are sort of behind the scenes that um i've heard staff mentioning over time so i look forward to the rest of um the department's uh comments and my colleagues but i'll Yield the floor. Great, thank you. Vice Chair Boisselle. My question is basically to Public Works and the point. Going to number two, the patch repairs on Upham Street. I believe from Lincoln Street to Waverly, the road is really in bad shape. Is this gonna fill the holes, or are we going from curb to curb, we going from curb to middle of the road to fix the patches we're going to grind out sections curb to curb it won't be curb to curb it will be the all right the most heavily traveled half a road then we could switch to the other side or some sections maybe the whole thing currently

▶ 1:16:01 Robert A. Boisselle: we're going to stretch the dollar as much as we can i know but this half uh street does this doesn't work I mean Stratford Street and Garfield Street is a prime example and people after a while are moving over to go down the street into the paved area and trying to keep off the rough road and I hate to see that in Upham Street where people are trying to move into the south westbound Lane instead of staying in the eastbound Lane and going through or just vice versa and so forth I would recommend curb the curve from at least Lincoln to Waverly and that area and just to prevent that type especially it's it's a close to school crossing area and so forth you don't want these cars moving all over the highway trying

▶ 1:16:47 Robert A. Boisselle: to not to get into some of these holes because once you pave one side the other side begins to deteriorate and it just doesn't work and we talked about Stratford and get Garfield and the gas company cuts up one side of the street and they fill that side and the other side of the street is in bad shape and my recommendation also with the gas companies that's curb to curb but they're going to cut up 15 holes in the street they should do the entire street curb to curb to prevent that type of a transfer of traffic on side to side of road i don't disagree when we're doing those type of neighborhoods but upland street right now is is unsafe that is correct and the first objective is to get it into a safe condition and that's what

▶ 1:17:38 this funding's for okay again start to say that we're going to close our eyes to upland street moving forward we're looking for ways to to address all of upland street including the sidewalks but this is more aimed at trying to make that travel way safe again all right but i do recommend curb to curb in this particular area and on on upham street thank you thank you madam chair alderman medeiros thank you uh how much does this additional amount to snow bring our total snow expenditure for the past fiscal year second is that yeah eight is that correct 830 144 i believe that's uh um that's gonna take out the yeah great to know that that's you know been a pretty relatively light year and um hopefully that's slightly below our um average

▶ 1:18:45 Monica C. Medeiros: 10-year average now of $998,000, if it makes sense. And we budgeted $900,000 for the coming years. The fiscal 19, we budgeted $625,000, and we ended up with the $205,140 deficit. But you're absolutely right, I mean, we had a milder winter, thank goodness, because as you're aware, not a lot of these projects wouldn't be possible if we all dedicated to snow and ice at least a good portion of them yeah some there's been years where we've spent uh one and a half million or something i think that's so crazy got a couple of real tough ones um i want to echo the comments that i'm happy to see the expenditures on the the road and sidewalk and accessibility repairs I wanted to ask in regard to Livermore Park is there any friends group in place

▶ 1:19:42 there and I see a couple of them went out and got suggestions of what they'd like to see what type of equipment what age group um so they brought back all the information to me i've met with a couple playground reps at the park we've gone through it they're now in the timeline of they're going to come back and give us some drawings of some that are a little below the money that we have some right on the money we have and one maybe that's a little bit above in case they want to do they've mentioned that if it's something that they really feel is important for them to have that they'd like to do a little extra fundraising to get it and and um and what's the the the target age group if you will here so um most playgrounds have two to five and five to

▶ 1:20:46 Monica C. Medeiros: twelve year old equipment the one that's there now is mainly five to twelve they are looking for two to five and five to twelve that's great and i'm glad to see the the group formed that are forming and i just also wanted to take a minute to actually thank the ptos because i know in some of the other schools they've been the parks that have been adjacent to the schools they've spent with mary livermore is um it's it's in a neighborhood that's really turning over that you know whole hillside ave like there's a lot of young families coming in i mean it is one of of the packs that's been on our radar um to do so it's it's good to see that the you know the people are coming out and and saying you know getting involved in it and really embracing the community

▶ 1:21:35 Monica C. Medeiros: neighborhood and i'm glad that we can use this money to bring that to the next level yeah absolutely thank you very much uh and just in general on uh free cash unrelated to thank you I just wanted to clarify this amount of free cash from FY 18 when it was certified was actually 3.6 million is that correct or 3.5 close I'm gonna see let's just double check right over there one second there's a reason I bring everything with me it was three million five ninety one 881 three million five five ninety one eighty one five ninety one right on the money so that came that was certified as of last October and that's correct and we've actually expended through a couple of different orders so far this year some

▶ 1:22:37 of this free cash and then this is what's left over that's definitely correct and if we did not expend this money what happens at the end of the fiscal year at the end of the fiscal year whatever is not expended will simply roll over into the next fiscal year and then it's not available for us to use and until until the state does their work again and then they make an And identification as to how much is available for cash all over again. And it's funny because it's a good question because often times if you turn over 100,000, you're hoping that it's going to mean next year there's going to be 100,000 that becomes available, but it may not happen. There may be offsets that you're just not aware of yet that can make that 50,000 or 75.

▶ 1:23:30 Unfortunately, it's not a one-to-one guarantee, but yeah, we'll just get turned over. Anything you don't vote on, we'll just go right into next year's determination of free cash. That's all. It doesn't go anywhere else. And the only way to really keep it available would be to potentially put, as some of this is, into stabilization funds, which would be for a specific purpose. Absolutely. and again through the chair that serves so many purposes which we're going to talk about them in a moment but the feature there obviously is that you're protecting the interests of the community in many many ways contract wise suit you know suits and claims capital and at the same time requiring this board to vote the money in and this board to vote the money out so there's

▶ 1:24:22 Monica C. Medeiros: total total transparency can't go in unless you vote it and it can't be used on anything unless you vote it so that's another good feature thank you to the chair I believe that attorney van Kampen is not able to be here tonight would this be an appropriate time to ask a question about contract stabilization that's fine we do and it is in the public record that the city solicitor provided us with a memorandum regarding his particular line so I I would assume that hopefully his colleagues could respond to your question thank you so I I guess that mr. Dell it was like since we're kind of on that topic could you just talk briefly about the contract stabilization fund the 365,000 and what that entails absolutely right now and the fund itself we have just over four

▶ 1:25:22 hundred and ten thousand dollars if this is approved we have just over seven hundred and seventy five thousand which in my opinion is where we'd like to sit today in the fund and there's multiple reasons for that first and foremost again as we've talked about briefly that as contracts come up for collective bargaining in particular public safety public works other unions non-union oftentimes particularly with some of the large units these contracts may not be settled in that same year you're working together it may span two years may even go into a third year the stress for the community is that as those years go by you have a built-in liability that you have not budgeted for and it's sitting there waiting and then as two years go in now

▶ 1:26:25 you have two years of that obligation sitting there that has not been funded and then finally you strike a chord where you both come to terms and you go it's time to pay and and meet your obligation that's where this fund becomes critical you're able to go to that fund draw what you need and then maintain the same service level you have right this minute nothing is interrupted nothing's corrupted you don't have to lay off anyone you've made a proper provision and life goes on and business is conducted the way you don't want business conducted um it also provides us an opportunity with the rating agencies because they asked as you're aware they asked many questions how you how you're doing in your

▶ 1:27:11 contracts how many are still unsettled what are your plans for when they do settle how are you going to fund it so it really really goes to the core of what we do and why we're here sometimes if I make the chair just if you don't make that provision and you assume that well it's going to take care of itself it never takes care of itself if you don't address it it's not going to happen so the comfort that the board can have is that you've made the provision and and the numbers may sound large 775,000 but I can assure you that two years retro on any particularly large union public safety or other public works can eat up a half a million dollars in a blink it's not uncommon and there's also compounding that takes

▶ 1:27:58 place so if you behind one year the next year is not only the new contract year but it's a compounding of that prior year so that obligation can really be significant and that's just one unit so you have to take into account that there's multiple unions settling you know three year contracts and ideally if we don't have to add anything next year to the fund because we're on target unions are funded etc then that's great then there'll be no need for an appropriation to increase that amount then it can be spent under the purposes for that fiscal year that'd be great however it's always in the back of your mind you want to always be looking and saying what's coming up what's going to need to be addressed

▶ 1:28:38 Peter D. Mortimer: and how best to address it that's why having that provision provides you that opportunity to negotiate in good faith and i think both sides win again it's designed for the entire city in that sense um no particular union or group it's just what's available overall for all for all unions in the city thank you thank you alderman mortimer thank you very much Thanks Chairman Lipper-Garabedian. This order is somewhat along the lines of end of the year housekeeping. That's what happens when you have a fiscal year that runs from July 1st of one calendar year until June 30th of the subsequent calendar year. I liken it to a household budget. Mm-hm. You have a household budget, you say, this year we expect to spend $500 on milk.

▶ 1:29:37 Peter D. Mortimer: for the kids, we expect to spend $300 on diapers. We expect to spend $1,000 on gasoline for the automobiles. And then you get lucky, an uncle dies and you get an inheritance, a grant. Or maybe somebody hits the lottery who lives in the family and you get a good piece of money. Or on the other hand, Sometimes, the transmission goes, or your child has an accident and you need to get a new car. Constructing a budget is not something that is a sculpture done in stone. It's more like trying to make a wall around a bay in an ocean. It's always a moving target. So when you try to say, well, this year in our household budget, we're going to spend $500 for milk. Maybe you do, but maybe you spend more than that, or maybe you spend less.

▶ 1:30:43 Peter D. Mortimer: And if you spend more, then you can maybe buy one of your kids a new cross stick, or a new outfit, or maybe some better crosswalks and better traffic regulation signal. Sometimes you get lucky. I know four years ago we got unlucky. We got wrecked by a terrible winter, subsequent large snow storms. 12 years ago, we weren't unlucky, quite the contrary, we were very lucky. And we had practically no snow. And Mayor Dolan and I and some others who were around then, we were able to create A fund with permanent, free, all day kindergarten for the children of Melrose. A, through an annuity, something that very few communities, very few other municipalities have. So it's a moving target, but if you want to know what's good,

▶ 1:31:53 Peter D. Mortimer: you look around and the proof is in the pudding. Now, if you listen to some of the comments that get made, a public comment here, only listen to that. You'd say, wow, if you walk outside that chamber, you must be looking at a mud hole of a city. But we're not. But I'll get to what it looks like outside the doors of this building momentarily. First, I'd like to say what the official people who count money and count nickels for a living. The state auditor says our budgets are good and fine. An outside auditing agency, Powers and Sullivan, looks at our budget and says, it's good, it's fine. Standard and Poor, who, they still have their communion money. And they do not give the AA plus bond rating we have in this city,

▶ 1:32:46 Peter D. Mortimer: lightly, the best bond rating this city has ever had. That's correct. If you only listen to some of the public comment that happens around here, you'd think that this city was some kind of saloon in Dodge City, just running by the seat of our pants. But it's not, and that's just the official money people who do that for a living. They recognize that this city is not mismanaged, as some would say, but it's very, very well managed. Now let's take a look at what you see with your own eyes when you walk outside this city. We have a fire department that provides every month dozens of beautiful prompt service to people who are injured or in some other type of physical distress with the fire department and the ambulance service.

▶ 1:33:33 Peter D. Mortimer: The police department is here tonight and Melrose has one of the lowest crime rates around. Melrose is one of the lowest crime rates around. We have a very low accident fatality rate, and that's due to DPW and the police. And the great job that all the personnel of the fire department and the police department do. Absolutely. Great men and women who are dedicated to our city. DPW does all kinds of good work. Look at the parks we have, including Mount Hood, the Common. When I was a little kid, the common was a mud pit in April and it was a dust bowl in August. Now it's green and lush all year round. Mount Hood is a paradise. You know, if we wanted to, we could pass this, go up to the state house,

▶ 1:34:21 Peter D. Mortimer: ask them we could sell all that and have single family homes up there. And we wouldn't have to pay any taxes, anyone, for ten more years, but we don't want that. We want to have a city that has a municipal golf course so our kids can go up there and play sports. So people who live in the city can have a place to have some recreation. This is the Melrose that we've chosen, well managed. And now we're going to take care of some more parks, because the money came in. You look around Melrose and listen to what you see. Don't listen to some of the comments you hear. Melrose is well managed, and the people who would dedicate the schools, schools are here tonight. Look at the list and the colleges that the kids in Melrose go to.

▶ 1:35:05 Peter D. Mortimer: It's fantastic. They do great work. Everybody gets a good education. We just got a big music award. Melrose has one of the best musical educations. Our arts department, our robotics department, constantly winning awards. Every other month, you read some magazine, New York Times, Boston Magazine, Finance, all rating. Melrose, top-rated city, one of the most livable places in the world. So, the budget is not written in stone. Sometimes we get lucky, sometimes we get unlucky, but at the end of the day, the proof is in the pudding. And so, just because an order comes in at the end of the year, that might be 2% of our overall budget. We have contracts that come in, you pointed it out just now. You don't know when they're going to come in.

▶ 1:35:56 Peter D. Mortimer: And you even said both sides come together. Sometimes an arbitrator, if it goes to arbitration, just says, this is what you have to pay. There's no getting around it, and the personnel, I wish we could pay them 10% more every year, but we can't. We have to keep things tight, and we do keep things tight. And practically 2%, 2.5% of our budget at the end of the year to do a little bit of housekeeping. Because you cannot predict down to the dime how much gasoline, how much DPW, how many trees are going to fall over. Whether we're going to have a hurricane, you can't predict whether a fire truck is going to fall apart. We're already driving police cars that are falling apart, and then they go. We're doing everything we can, and this city is very tight with the dollar, very well managed.

▶ 1:36:49 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: And the proof is in the property values, what the magazines say to us, what the financial agencies say. So, this order is certainly something we can pass without having any problems, any reservations, or any deep concerns. Thank you very much. Thank you. President Lemmerman. Thank you very much. Thank you for this information. I just before, I do have a couple of questions, but also just wanted to say that as a ward alderman in particular, I think other ward aldermen here will agree with me. always have a running list of things in the in the ward that it would be great to be able to work on should the funding become available and I appreciate mr. Shana you your work in your department of always being very creative and

▶ 1:37:37 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: helping to try to find ways to do those things throughout the time that I've been on the board but it's always very nice when we are you know able to work collaboratively to do some word projects and it doesn't it doesn't happen all the time but it was great to know that we could do a couple of things in the main street crosswalk that you mentioned is very important for kids walking to school it's a very it can be a very dangerous intersection leading up to the fells and then also I'm hopeful that through the traffic commission we can work on the Howard Street crosswalk as well as been working on the east side of that street rightfully so but but the other end they're leading up to Saugus if people go down that way we'll notice there's actually no crossing all the way

▶ 1:38:20 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: to the town line so it would be great to have that so just wanted to say I appreciate that very much so tonight we're looking at you you mentioned some of the pieces of equipment that we would be replacing through these funds that were identified through this five-year capital replacement program just to provide some context um so we also discussed monday four pieces of equipment through the enterprise fund um that are related to water and sewer work uh that live under dpw were those also identified through this five-year capital plan or is that a separate process we in terms of the study in terms of the discussion we public works presented water and sewer separate this is um all the other divisions of public works outside of water okay um and so so if those are done

▶ 1:39:17 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: the water and sewer piece separately um does that also you mentioned that this brings us about two thirds through the first year of the capital plan or are those part of that as well will that help no that has its own it's totally separate okay um the other piece so we we do have a memo here that's in our order that we all received and i know that chief lyle will be coming up and speaking to us in a bit regarding the amount um that he needed for for the overtime um that could potentially be reduced a bit due to some we'll go over the details but due to some changes in the circumstances in the police department we also received a memo from the mayor's office recommending that that could be used for sidewalk repairs i was hoping that you could talk a little

▶ 1:40:05 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: bit about so we have some in here already for sidewalk repairs which you mentioned and if we were able to add a little bit more where does that bring us citywide in terms of sidewalk repairs and i know there's a long list um so what in total where would that bring us so i actually um i provided the mayor a memo late this afternoon i'm not sure if i've got into your packets but i can forward this tomorrow to all of you we we receive requests from residents for sidewalk we call them sidewalk safety issues it's a trip hazard it's a lip at a tree and what we do is we immediately assess those and we try to make safety the safety repairs some of the safety repairs are not aesthetically pleasing sometimes we put the cumin mix over a cement sidewalk just

▶ 1:40:57 just to make it safe, sometimes the safety repair is just painting it orange so it becomes visible. Some other issues are, some other issues with the sidewalk surface in the winter. It could be a depression, it's the opposite of the sidewalks lifting. It could be a depression creating a puddle where the water stands, becomes ice in the winter. So what we do is once the safety issue is set aside, we keep a running list of that. now our list goes back to 2015 on these requests it's four pages long so we have a line item in our budget that we we use annually to address this list but this would allow us to double the locations that we can we can get to next fiscal year what would probably do is address this fund

▶ 1:41:49 this fifty thousand dollars of repairs immediately in july and august and then we transition right into in september when we typically do our sidewalk program we would transition right into it so um you know we usually get 12 to 15 locations with our regular program so hopefully this will get us you know in excess of 30 30 work requests that are out there okay so it would as you said double what you would normally do in this time frame so take a decent chunk out of the yes a very long list great thank you very much thank you honor mcmaster thank you madam chair good evening mr shen i first just like to thank you for the projects you highlighted um as it relates to uh the work in ward five so thank you for that mr delarusso you talked a little bit about free cash

▶ 1:42:39 Shawn M. MacMaster: not being a reliable source of money and you explained that it's most appropriate for one-time expenses based on that is it fair to say that the free cash before us tonight would not be sustainable as it relates to hiring new teachers and teacher salary adjustments yes and through the chair um i would i would not um ever ever invoke using free cash to hire a permanent employee for any department city or school it's just not reliable and it's interesting and it's a great question uh just for a purpose of an example back in uh fiscal 2015 we spent just under 2.1 million dollars was our snow and ice deficit so when you look at this 2.3 million dollars that would have been eaten up just with the snow and ice deficit that no one in this room

▶ 1:43:32 could have possibly you know seen coming had you hired employees based upon the prior year's activity relative to snow and ice for example you'd be laying off those employees that next year so that's why it's not advantageous to consider that because there's so many variables including including not limited to mid year reductions in state aid there's been years we've seen six hundred twenty two thousand reductions state aid mid-year when things don't go well and they ascertain the revenues for the year then they have to make adjustments to cities and towns so again you're subjecting those same people to those risks um which i would never support and mr shena is it fair to say that the neighborhood improvements uh that you highlighted

▶ 1:44:24 Michael P. Zwirko: this evening three of which are in ward five would not be possible uh were it not for the available money uh that we're discussing tonight no we wouldn't be able to do these thank you both thank you madam chair thank you alderman Zwirko thank you madam chair i'd just like to state that i feel bad for peter's uncle um so i really just have one question this has very been a very thorough presentation for a large part of the order that we're appropriating this evening i just have to use the prop that was given to us this is a picture of a 1998 i believe um well flat what was a flatbed truck without the bed um so i'm just curious mr shenna can you just talk about that truck so it's it's over almost 21 years old um what was that truck used for and what

▶ 1:45:18 will you be replacing it that was a facilities vehicle so that rack body truck will replace that vehicle um we don't use that that vehicle obviously can't get a sticker anymore it's a skeleton true yeah but it just goes to show like we've had to park we we've neglected our fleet for several years and and and the last two three years we've had to park some vehicles and we've had to share some vehicles we've had to be think out of the box and you know in the wintertime we've even had to rent equipment because we just didn't have enough of our own week to put out with our employees so i mean i'm happy that we're able to really supplement the public works fleet we have to we have to give our employees the resources to go out and do the work

▶ 1:46:09 we have plenty of work we send their way but we have to resource them correctly and this is a great order for that and i'm happy that we're able to do it and i'm happy we're finally able to move on from pitches like that and um hopefully in the years to come now now that we have an outline of what we we want to do maybe we don't have to do this as aggressively next year but if we keep investing on a year-to-year basis we can avoid pitches like that yeah well and thank you they're helpful just so we know you know the condition of the fleet and glad that we're replacing some of them so thank you for all the work and time alderman forbes thank you uh i know by now most of the questions have been asked so i will be brief uh the line item for the 250 000 for the

▶ 1:46:53 capital stabilization fund which i believe is an appropriation for a piece of uh fire equipment just wondering if that is something that you could just explain to us uh what the process is and what the timeline would be in order to uh obtain that piece of equipment well i know our fire chief is here front line fire suppression racked it's a top need in the fire department um the fire chief Chief can fill you in a little more on his process for that. But these funds would be set aside for the front line fire suppression equipment, whether it be a pump or a ladder. But Chief Kalina is here. Could you join us, Chief? If you could, Chief. Good evening. Good evening. So the 250,000 would be used to,

▶ 1:47:50 Scott M. Forbes: for the purchase of an engine pumper, which we're in great need of. The down payment, yeah. The down payment. Yeah. And, you know, also the ladder truck is in need. But our apparatus is aging, and this is the first step in getting us in the right direction to have safe equipment for our Member to operate off of. Do you know, in terms of total cost, how much that piece of equipment would run? A pumper runs around $6,000 to $650,000 equipped. And then a ladder truck? A ladder truck, excess of $1 million. Okay. So pretty substantial investments, long-term investments that we need for the city. Yes. And then as far as the timeline, I understand this is just for the down payment, But do we know how far down the road that would be in terms of either finding the right cost, the right vehicle?

▶ 1:48:52 Can you explain that a little bit? We've established a committee, the union and myself, with Member of the fire department. We have some great talent on the fire department, some diesel mechanics and stuff. and uh they're going to start meeting with uh reps spec and out apparatus and based on the needs for the community that will determine the cost and we would hope to have that by the fall sometime and get that get that process going very good and as i spoke again to the board um prior to this on this item the objective would be that we'd use this 250 000 i use a trim down payment as payment towards specifically the pumper in an ideal world if we could pay the pumper in cash with the next round of free cash or that materialized that would be the um you know my uh

▶ 1:49:50 Scott M. Forbes: my hope if not um we'll just roll it into a debt obligation for both the pumper and the ladder and this would offset the cost of the bond but it's definitely going strictly for fire apparatus pump a pumper right now and uh in the latter obviously is going to follow that that is my priority thank you um and the reason why i i wanted to bring this up is because if we are going to make long-term investments in in our equipment which are definitely needed the question or the concern that i would have is to be able to make these investments and have them housed in substandard facilities and buildings i understand a couple of years ago there was a feasibility study done with our public safety buildings i hope that in this

▶ 1:50:35 Scott M. Forbes: calendar year that those discussions can continue because you know you don't want to you don't want to park a porsche in a garage that's getting ready to fall over right so we all want to do the right thing and and be able to engage in those discussions and i understand that may be a little bit off topic in terms of tonight's free cash but i think it does all tie into the overall you know the overall facilities because we want to have adequate facilities for all of our equipment on both fire and police so thank you very much thank you so we've uh oh i'm sorry another cop is it about yeah sorry go ahead uh ultimate chairman tozy thank you so um mr de la rusa yes um i hear what you say and i think it's an important point

▶ 1:51:18 that this money in available free cash is appropriate for one-time expenditures. Sure. Capital improvements and capital- Ideally, ideally, correct. So it would not be appropriate for, in the example Alderman McMaster mentioned about hiring teachers. No, it would not. But it would be good, it would be appropriate for repairing municipal buildings like the fire department. absolutely in buildings anything like that window windows police department any type of repairs that you know you have to make that would be ideal school for example obviously if this was a large number that might help right now this is what it is yeah absolutely it's uh wherever we need help it is there to help thank you so we do have a number of other city department heads and

▶ 1:52:10 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: attendance tonight on some of the other lines that we haven't discussed there's the special education stabilization reserve fund we also have a couple lines related to the police department and a couple related to IT investments so maybe we could have the we could talk about we'll just go down the list so I think the next on this special education stabilization reserve fund for a hundred fifty five thousand dollars thank you for being with us thank you as I mentioned when the school committee presented their budget we're having an uptick in some extraordinary costs we have had a number of move-ins as we've talked about some that we have to assume responsibility for immediately and some we have to assume responsibility for as of July 1st secondly we're seeing a rise

▶ 1:53:08 in children with behavioral health disorders this is not specific to Melrose and when superintendents and special ed directors get together we're all seeing a similar rise in need and the the other thing that is happening is as we've talked about we try very hard to keep our students here in Melrose but sometimes those programs come with additional costs for example in the fall we will be beginning a program for children with severe needs many of them have complicated medical needs in an effort to keep them in their local community so all of this contributes to unexpected costs we have looked into applying for what SPED directors typically refer to as pothole money it's a fund that sometimes when you have a sharp uptick in your special ed costs

▶ 1:54:04 Michael P. Zwirko: the state will give you a little bit of extra money we did not qualify for it and I also mentioned that we're trying to do a cost share on one of the move-ins and I don't think we will win that appeal to the board for what is called LEA assignment local education agency assignment so we think that we will have quite a large hit beginning July 1 Alderman Zwirko thank you madam chair we spoke about this issue when you came before us so I don't need to belabor the point I actually I'm glad that we have the funds available to address this this pothole as you put it I just wanted to actually give you the opportunity if if you'd like very quickly we have two teachers that I think just won an award

▶ 1:54:51 so I think you know you were present Tuesday night that's right dr. Bill Hurley who is a marine and environmental science teacher at the high school is the aquariums teacher of the year and Isaac Havens who was the Latin teacher at the high school in the middle school is the Massachusetts foreign language new teacher of the year both wonderful additions to our staff great thank you thank you manager thank you any other questions or superintendent thank you for being with us tonight thank you appreciate it and then we have two lines related to our police department one for capital outlay and vehicles and the other for overtime and and also through the chair that may be one on the last page be so and the be safe thank you yeah we can speak a wall

▶ 1:55:44 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: The capital outlay, I believe, is for $118,850. Our police salary over time, I believe, it's for $50,000. There was a change that we can discuss. And then the police be safe was for $5,600. Yes. Thank you. You want to start with the vehicles? Is that fine? That's great. We're going to replace one patrol vehicle, Car 81. It was a 2010 Dodge Charger that we scrapped because the motor went, and it wasn't worth putting another nickel into that vehicle. It was just a bad investment. We traded it in for a very small fee when we bought the last round of cars. And then we have one admin vehicle, it's a 2011 Ford Fusion. It needs a transmission, it has 118,000 miles on it, and like the Dodge Charger that we

▶ 1:56:33 scrapped, it really isn't worth putting any additional money into it. So those are the two vehicles outfitted. The patrol vehicle is approximately $66,000, and the admin vehicle is approximately $42,000. Then you have to add in radios, a laptop in that patrol vehicle, AEDs, graphics, and there's some additional police equipment. And the trade value is approximately $500 on that fusion. So it comes out to 11895143, just over what we asked for. And do you want to just speak to the other two as well, and then- Certainly, as far as overtime, we've ran our calculations. We had an officer that was due to have surgery. He opted to have it done when he was on military leave, and it helped us out as far as financials, as overtime.

▶ 1:57:27 We got hit pretty hard this past fiscal year. We at one point we had seven officers out injured and one officer deployed in the military. And every week we go through our budget and we look at our overtime and our projections for the next 30 days out. So we're very fortunate to reduce our exposure. Be safe program too. And the last item is the Be Safe program. It's something that actually supports our school system and I added in the library. So it's mapping for all the schools. So if there's an emergency, whether it's a medical emergency or an intruder, I'll use that term instead of active shooter, there is an intruder in the building and it's in room delta 142. We would go to our map, it's in our cruisers, on our laptops, as well as fire, we'll have the same access as we have.

▶ 1:58:16 Monica C. Medeiros: And we could go in there and we could locate that individual for treatment or intervention. here it is yeah okay any questions on these such items Alameda DeRose thank you thank you very much she woke I was hoping you might be able to just talk a little bit about we heard some of the in the public works section but some of the traffic improvements that are in this order and some of the successes that that you've had with these electronic speed signs, or the need? You know what, they're not the answer to all, but they certainly supplement our enforcement when there's an officer not on scene. And they record every single vehicle. For folks up on Howard Street, at one point we did a survey, there was over a million vehicles,

▶ 1:59:06 and it was over a long, long period of time. But it gave us very, very accurate data as far as speed counts, percentiles and such, so it was very effective for us. And the average driver will see it and slow down. And every time I come back from Route 1 and I hit the sign up on the street, it reminds you. And so it's an effective tool. I know Director Schenner mentioned about the solar powered crosswalk lights. I went to a police conference and I first saw them and they basically fit right over the existing stick figures and slide right on and they're solar powered and they work both sides of the roadway and it's a strobe light like a police light bar as very effective as far as notifying traffic that

▶ 1:59:51 Monica C. Medeiros: there's a pedestrian in the roadway that's great uh so thank you very much i'm glad to have those included and i just saw president leonard's hand goes up and i suspect she's going to ask you maybe what i was going to just i don't know go ahead okay i thought you might be able to just talk a little bit about what's going to happen at horace man You're all welcome. Tuesday, 9-11, I will allow it for spectators if you'd like. I will remind all the folks at our home that if you live in the Horace Mann area, you will hear pop-pops. Obviously, these are sim rounds. They're much lower powered. They sting when you get hit. We put protective gear on. It's an active shooter drill in a school setting.

▶ 2:00:37 I want to thank the superintendent and her staff and the principal from Horace Mann for allowing us to go up there. and DPW is gonna probably help out in the end after we're done so people in that area should expect a large police presence there may be some media there I know that the free press may show up but certainly the board is willing to to come if you have time to drop in Monday Tuesday or Wednesday approximately 8 to 4 will be there and school is out of session yes and we waited thank you president Lemmerman thank you very much yes and to just piggyback I just do want to emphasize because we did hear from some people in the community that the school is out of session yes yes there's no one on site but unfortunately this is

▶ 2:01:26 a very necessary training so we're appreciative that you're and you're more than welcome to come any any member of the board if we'd like to come Member of the school department school committee I see certainly welcome the drop in thank you if you just have one question about the be safe program that you're mentioning so this is a new program it's been around for a while it's something that we've really tried to incorporate us in our police department and obviously that assist the fire department they go to a medical emergency so do we have it yet in so we have it in a smaller form it's it's old paper and we want to get up with the times whether it would be in the cloud where we'd be able to look at it and if they put in a window in one of the

▶ 2:02:10 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: schools would be able to locate that window or a new doorway so that if the doorway is no longer there and we're going to try to go in that door we're gonna have a problem so that's part of the program there's a maintenance program it's 120 dollars a year per building and certainly the library needs it as well so that actually gets a little bit at my question I will just say you know these are situations where obviously every second counts makes a difference so I'm sure yeah so I'm sure it could really make a difference in getting to the emergency quickly so it is an annual amount the service and it's been put into the budget put it right into our budget maintenance and it covers st. Mary's it covers both the schools the Ripley as well as the Beebe

▶ 2:02:58 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: and is it your department that would be responsible for inputting those changes like you said yes or through the be safe program through the vendors yes yes they've already came out as a courtesy and I believe during the winter break and they measured all the schools for us great great and it's and it's in the budget yes it is perfect okay well it seems like worthwhile spending so Thank you very much. Thank you. I just have a question. So 2010 is the patrol, and 2011 is the administrative vehicle. Those aren't incredibly old. I drive a 2008 sometimes. But you probably put a lot more mileage on it than the average citizen. The admin zone is bad. It's the patrol vehicles. We have seven line cars, and they go 24-7.

▶ 2:03:51 And we've always tried to give them a break eight hours off so that they don't run 24 hours but one or two of those vehicles go out of line offline with it with you know a medical I'm excuse me a mechanical issue we're running cars 24 7 and the miles rack up real fast and it's not so much the miles it's the idling time of these vehicles is almost almost double so when we have a vehicle 118 thousand miles on it it's well over 150,000 miles okay and And I will say this new patrol car we're kind of excited about, it's a hybrid. So it's gas electric. So it will save us fuel, there is a fuel savings there. I spoke to the planning department, Martha Grover. There is a small grant out there that will assist us some of the up charges for the hybrid.

▶ 2:04:40 So, and we're hoping they're supposed to land sometime the end of the month. And there's a small window for this grant before June 30th, so it's going to be tight. we need is the VIN number well that's an exit that's exciting and good to know you'll notice it's just slightly bigger than the SUV interceptor you did you just said in your comments that it was a bad investment that patrol car and I wasn't sure well you know I shouldn't say it's Chrysler it was Dodge and they came out with a you know it was supposed to be the ideal vehicle that Dodge Charger they first got we first got them they were great and then you know steering calls are going engines were going transmissions front ends and we

▶ 2:05:21 backed away from them we stopped them after 2011 and they got very expensive the repair they were extending the warranties they knew there was something wrong with these vehicles I don't know if Chrysler has gotten better with them but we're sticking with our Fords so you feel like the other cars that you've purchased since then you're not well Ford did away with decisions Ford did away with the backbone for law enforcement which was the crown Vic it was it was a great vehicle for law enforcement and they went to the SUV or the city and that which I drive right now and it's the same platform same as design just a different shell on it and they've stood up pretty well we've had it since 2013 okay thank you oh yes Alderman Forbes thank you I'll be brief

▶ 2:06:08 Scott M. Forbes: chief thanks for being here tonight in terms of police overtime I know it's an animal that we tackle every single year yes you know obviously we don't put a you can't put a price tag on public safety but just in terms of your of your personnel can you just go over you know what you currently have on the on the on the force in terms of in terms of personnel and numbers as far as patrol there's 33 patrolmen 9 sergeants full lieutenants and myself I can break it down further but I think we'd be here all night with the different so you got Prosecutors and detectives. Forty-seven total, right? Yes. All right. And out of those 47, you said there were a number of people either on deployments or if they're on disability?

▶ 2:06:50 Scott M. Forbes: Right now, we have two officers out injured. Two officers injured. So out of your 47 you have on the books, you have 45 active? Yes. And then per our city ordinance, how many police personnel are we supposed to have? Sixty-one. Sixty-one. Yes. So that's a difference of about 15, so it's about 25%. We haven't had that since 2000. Okay. Well, again, you know, when it comes to the term doing more with less, I think that, you know, you're a perfect example when it comes to that. I will say, although of course it was a management study, and the management study, and I remember very clearly said, you know, this day and age, obviously with walking boots, boots were a thing of the past. I still think they have value in certain areas of our city.

▶ 2:07:32 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: 61 was too many. But when we were down to like 28 patrolmen, 28 patrolmen certainly wasn't enough. Understood. thank you chief I appreciate it thank you right and I think that it'll do us on police thank you very much for being here thank you and we do have two lines related to city IT one is the city IT phone system for a hundred thousand dollars the other is capital outlay for the city IT munis for eighty thousand dollars and it looks like we might have just lost our director of IT he's probably coming right back we did it is in the public agenda there is an attachment that does describe this it's two items in the order address technology needs for items that are instrumental to our daily city

▶ 2:08:39 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: operations first upgrade required upgrade to the city munis accounting software for $80,000 second replacement of the city's unreliable and antiquated telephone system throughout municipal buildings for $100,000 I don't know if either of you can speak to these we may not have many questions but yes on my Madeira's thank you just a bit while we're waiting for mr. Ellis I just thought perhaps you might address are we expecting to there's the request from the mayor's office to make an amendment to this order we're looking for an emotion to accept the mayor's amendment I think we'll do let's do that right off now that we've got sure panel yes and we also I think which have a couple motions to add a few things to the record as well or to the order yes so I just read

▶ 2:09:25 into the record what we have in the public record but if you would like to speak any anymore to the munis accounting software or the telephone system upgrades so I'll start because he just came back so my name is Donna Cardello I'm a systems analyst for the city of Melrose I am looking with this money to purchase two additional modules sophomore modules for the munis system One of them is Tyler Content Manager, which is an electronic filing cabinet, if you will. It's sort of like a paperclip and email where you attach things to your Vendor Master, your invoices, payroll. You can attach certificates. So we would have everything electronically filed rather than a file cabinet. So we think that that is a worthwhile piece of software.

▶ 2:10:12 The second one is Employee Self-Serve. this is where employees would log in and they'd be able to access their payroll information their payroll direct deposit advices so we don't have to just print them and distribute them like we are currently doing so we would start out really small with that and then we would expand and try to give more information through the person through the employee self-serve system so we hope to implement those this year starting with Tyler content manager probably in October and maybe by the first of the year have employees self-serve implemented thank you that's any questions oh well it when we hear from you as well on the telephones yep Neil also the chief information officer for

▶ 2:11:04 the city and schools one of the the things we're looking to do is the the new voice over IP phone system the current phone system basically that the in in 1993 when I started college at UMass Amherst they just installed a new phone system about two to three years prior and it was the phone system that have right now so if you're doing the math in your head that's 29 years it's basically like if you left your computer on for 30 years and you hope it keeps running it's basically what we're looking at so we're looking to replace that upgrade some of the functionality um and hopefully just have a working phone system that is reliable uses a lot less power and cooling so much more efficient also part of that is a lot of the the

▶ 2:12:06 Scott M. Forbes: funds for that is um goes towards uh cabling because it's going to be on on a on a network so we need to wire to those new phones we can't use the phone uh wire any longer great alderman forbes thank you um in terms of the phone system did we and maybe you can maybe this jockey Member did we ever allocate hundreds of thousands of dollars for the phone system in the last fiscal year in a supplemental budget back in December of either 2017 or 2018 I think maybe we didn't do anything specifically for the phone system we did purchase a server on which we could run a phone platform on okay I may be mistake it may more have been like telecommunications or doing something in regard to more of an IT function in the phone system but is

▶ 2:13:10 that something you'd be able to either look in research in the last like year or yeah because I feel like that there was a substantial amount that was allocated to that phase one part phase two of two phase project the munis server in the mail server needed to be upgraded actually a lot of the servers in the service room needed to be upgraded so we I think you had 80,000 for that project we had 80,000 for a server project okay it didn't have any it wasn't allocated to us but we needed to have that done so we could upgrade munis we have to upgrade to a new munis version and then we're hoping to implement these two modules so those things need to be done before we could even move forward with this I'm not sure if that's what you're referencing yeah

▶ 2:13:57 Scott M. Forbes: I'm just more or less I it just jogged my memory when I saw the line item so I didn't know if it would be possible just to take a deep dive back 12 to 24 months to see if there was one I can obviously do that as well but that that was the only question I had I just didn't know if that was in addition to that song but thank you I'll be Alderman Bewtra thank you I'm just curious for these new software and phone upgrades what plans you have in place for training because I know a lot of times learning it's great to have the new system but it takes a while to learn how to use it well it Donna Donna's the training master I'll let her talk about the Venus training so so we have to get through the installation process but we do have a training room and we will be doing

▶ 2:14:41 training once we learn how to do it in-house but I don't I don't think we're there yet for the for laying out training I haven't figured that out exactly how we roll that out but usually what we do is go in phases so we would start small and start with the auditor's office and make sure that we all are on the same page and then we would walk through and have training in the training room for all the departments we also include the training for the schools when we do that so we roll it out with the schools and the schools come over to the training room we have sessions so usually we have two hour sessions for training so we will roll all that out employee self-service a little different because the HR and the payroll

▶ 2:15:28 department will be involved in helping us make decisions as to what we're going rollout initially so that might be a slower rollout than what you know might not be all of the employees all at the same time so but Tyler content manager won't be that difficult it will really just be attaching files to to what we're already doing in munis right now great and what about for the phones I've been through a couple of phone upgrades at different jobs they there's usually like all these cool bells and whistles but it takes a while to roll them out or then when you get a call you don't know how to transfer the call right yeah so we will definitely do that we did we did a phone rollout with four schools in a

▶ 2:16:18 prior year or maybe that's the funding that you're referring to we make you correct we we did have some funding for for the schools for phone rollout and we did do one-on-one training with the folks who are using those systems it was it was tight because the folks most of the folks who use those systems came back on the day that they needed to use them so we went school to school school on that day and did that sat down with everyone and train them the phone systems whatever we pick it'll make sense to pick up and answer the call it went out but you're right I mean there's transfer there they've got new fancy screens and funky buttons and yeah we'll have to get people together in a room and show them how to use the new phones great I mean obviously you're gonna do

▶ 2:17:04 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: that but I'm just hoping that that's sort of part of your your planning process and it is some thought into yeah thank you sure thank you so at this point I would entertain a motion to amend the order to add the memo that we have from DPW tonight and then also a memo that we received from the mayor with respect to a change in the requests so moved second okay so that was moved by Alderman Forbes and seconded by Vice Chair Boycelle all in favor aye and also we entertain a motion perhaps Alderman Medeiros would you like to make it with respect to the line items that would change here in the requests I'm putting on the spot but good you were good to flag it yes this is a it's a little bit different than normally what we would see and so I I was happy to

▶ 2:18:02 Monica C. Medeiros: receive the call from Mayor Inferno today about this who said that we do have the authority to do this but I'm usually we don't necessarily get the authority to add things this is really coming from the mayor so I'm gonna make this motion assuming that we hopefully have the authority to do so I'm making a motion to accept the change outlined in the memo dated today June 30th 2019 from Marin Ferna she says that she respectfully requests that order 2019 dash 102 be amended by adding the sum of $50,000 to account number zero one four 222-527307, bringing the total from $102,600 to $152,600, and subtracting the sum of $50,000 from account number 012111-513000, bringing the total from $100,000 to $50,000.

▶ 2:19:10 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Sincerely, Gail M. Inferno, Mayor. second okay so we have a motion to accept those changes made by Alderman Medeiros and second by President Lemmerman just for those watching at home these are we discussed these tonight this would be adding $50,000 for sidewalk repairs and removing $50,000 from the police salary over time in light of the presentations we heard from the respective department heads so we have a motion duly second and any further discussion all in favor aye I opposed great so we'll recommend that for the full board and we really appreciate all of you joining us tonight and sticking with us it was very informative our next order is order number two zero one nine dash one zero five a transfer in the amount of nine thousand dollars to account number zero

▶ 2:19:59 one two nine one one five one one zero zero zero to fund the emergency management director position that may through the chair again this order is designed to fund the position of the emergency management director for the rest of the fiscal year mr. Allen Albert was hired on 227 2019 and what we're doing here is providing him the additional compensation he's entitled to for the salaries for the rest of the year and the money's coming from both the regional school assessment due to reduction of students of one thousand sixty seven dollars and twenty two cents and again the health salary and wages seven thousand nine thirty two seventy eight and that was the health director salary and wages that were able to transfer because of the change and

▶ 2:21:03 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: and personnel that was handled in position so that's really the bulk of it but this would satisfy the obligation for this fiscal year motion to recommend your motion to recommend this transfer made by uh vice chair Boisselle second second by alderman Bewtra any discussion all in favor aye any opposed okay we will make that recommendation The next order on our agenda is order number 2019-110, a transfer in the amount of $16,000 from automotive salary and wages 014-851-511-000 and parks and forestry salary and wages 014-751-511-000 to municipal building repair 014-022-014. dash five two seven seven zero zero so this is a end-of-the-year housekeeping order the funds are available due to vacancies that existed various parts of

▶ 2:22:28 the fiscal year both and our shop our fleet division and also Park and Forestry we're transferring into it into our municipal building line item that's the line item we use to maintain a public safety buildings the police station City Hall Library Council and aging we project what that line should be based on prior year expenditures and if you look back that line is continuously increased because of the needs that we're finding in these buildings some of the some of the more notable expenditures that weren't expected were we had an exhaust pipe of the from the generator events the generator at the central station it failed and that was wrapped with asbestos insulation so we had to abate that before we could fix it that was pretty costly the Department of I believe labor

▶ 2:23:30 standards toward the police station with chief Lyle and made some recommendations on facility improvements and we quickly went in and did that and made those repairs but again things that we didn't expect and that we'd use that funding for the city hired emergency management director and we purchased some furniture and some other items in the building for that new hire so things come up and we're just happy that we're able to transfer it from within our own budgets and we don't need any outside funding to make those line items all before June 30th motion recommend second The motion to recommend made by Alderman Chairman Tozzi, seconded by Vice Chair Boisselle. One discussion. All in favor? Aye.

▶ 2:24:18 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Any opposed? Thank you. We'll make that recommendation. That takes us to order, the sixth order on our agenda. This is order number 2019-85, City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2020 in the amount of $86,662,987.61. and we have tonight a couple departments starting with our council on aging department number 541 thank you for staying with us on this absolutely good evening I believe you should have the department head budget questionnaire filled out we do that was a nicely done and for the purposes this evening just if i could briefly just talk a couple of highlights for those at home um that are worth noting first and foremost is that most people aware that the minerals council on aging is a community

▶ 2:25:21 focal point for social and support services to older adults families and caregivers some of the services that they administer include information referral transportation services outreach services the property tax workout program and more The Milano Center it indicates is a place for socializing learning wellness and volunteering more than 60 programs are available each week including weekday lunches a variety of wellness and fitness classes our courses computer instruction educational programs and more They've served over the last nine months, over 2,273 lunches. They've handled over 5,539 phone calls, again, over nine months. They've had visitors of over 750 over the nine months, and they also do

▶ 2:26:20 social services, 21 new cases in nine months. In addition to that, as indicated, they provide transportation programs um for total riders they had 5 352 out of town medical rides 343 and in town medical rides 769 and i guess i would just highlight the last two there's so much here that's uh really wonderful that that does happen where they do um participate with the property tax workup program according to the documentation they've had 37 placements which amounted to over 3584 hours of assistance to the city in 2018 and 36 584 of property tax abatements to participants on top of that there's 37 placements for fiscal 19 that are as of this reporting that are actually working and the last thing i'd like to mention on the on the handout

▶ 2:27:25 was that the uh they also coordinate and run the melrose emergency fund and fiscal 19 today to the date of this just uh material um they had distributed nine thousand three hundred thirty nine dollars and fifty cents to forty nine households and um during the first nine months of fiscal 18 they had done sixteen thousand one hundred eleven dollars for 42 households which is you know wonderful overall and on a budgetary basis um if you look at their budget um it's strictly level funded outside of uh salary and wages that are increased by two percent The budget represents a $3,736.93 increase over the prior year, and it's all resident within salaries. Every other item is level funded. Thank you for that overview.

▶ 2:28:23 Monica C. Medeiros: The memorandum from the department is also available online. Very thorough. Alderman Medeiros. Thank you. Thank you very much. I just want to take a moment to thank Ms. Velopoulos and her staff. Absolutely. And I know she's unable to be here. this evening just let them know and and i just wanted to take a moment because i know it's something that came up recently in some conversations and just let people know that there is transportation available for senior citizens uh through the senior center that people can call that is free of charge there's two vans but we do accept gratefully accept some donations if you're if you're able to do it but that's an option that's uh available and I was going to ask Ms. Philopoulos, and I'm not sure if you know the answer to this question,

▶ 2:29:13 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: but is the FISH program still active? That I don't know, I'm sorry. So I'm not sure if it's still going, but that was a volunteer ridership program where some people would volunteer to take people to appointments in their personal vehicles, and that was being run out of the Council on Aging as well. so there's some options available for people if i might i did go to the annual volunteer recognition ceremony and sat at a table with some people who are still driving as volunteers so i do believe the program that you're referencing exists maybe not exactly as you um as you last discussed it but there certainly are volunteers in the city who are supplementing the vans that the council on aging has so that's good to know thank you thank you do i have the bottom line second motion to

▶ 2:30:08 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: move the bottom line provided by president Lemmerman seconded by alderman Tramontozzi all in favor aye any opposed excellent so we will do that thank you thank you very much thank you and then the next um and very patiently waiting department on our agenda is um our parks department uh for pine banks pine banks pine banks i'm sorry pine banks i apologize yes the keys if you come forward i'm here i can help that's right thank you so much for joining us tonight for your patience we really appreciate you being here and you've heard a lot about what's going on in melrose today we're excited to hear what's going on at pine banks well i'm henry kieser president of the pine banks park i live at 633 lindfels parkway and i'm one of the mel melrose representatives here with me tonight is

▶ 2:31:24 andrew walsh morris high class of 2002 that's our superintendent we circulated a report which i think you probably uh have all gotten to see the cover page inside is the fairy house festival which has become an annual event in august which is kind of hard for me to explain but it draws a lot of kids the format of the report is as it has been in prior years we are founded by a statute of the legislature in 1906 and they provide minimum amounts for funding of the park based on the total assessed valuations run through a formula the department of revenue sheets on that computation are at page four and five The city of Melrose is the lesser assessed at five billion 217,000 It has gone up considerably in the last year. That's based on property valuations and that's the properties going up

▶ 2:32:36 But the total threshold on that is six hundred ninety five thousand Which is our benchmark for financing our budget On page 7 is the summary and page 8 is salaries and wages which are carried over onto the first part of our budget summary on page 7. All our employees, our leased employees from the city of Melrose run through the Melrose HR Department. subject to the policies and provisions of Melrose as they've adopted them over the years and the city of Malden pays in its responsible share quarterly that system has been going on since 2012-13 and it seems to be working pretty well The area between line 6 on page 7 and line 42 are the operational funds broken down by the line items that we've had traditionally.

▶ 2:33:46 That's all flat lines and zero based carried over for the second year with no increase. I should say also with compensation and benefit summary that there is a small increase there, as you can see, on line three. That's because one of our staff Member went on the family plan for medical, which was a significant increase. It sort of gives you a good example of what that impact is. line 43 through 55 are capital purchases or non-recurring purchases that's where our ball field amortization is included at line 45 that's a bond that we got through mass development it allowed us to finance at a fixed rate three and a quarter i believe for 10 or so years uh Long-term borrowing at municipal rates didn't affect the city's budgets, which was a good thing

▶ 2:34:49 The summary is there in lines 55 through 69 There's a little red box over on the right-hand side and that's the amount each city is being asked to put in for operations over and above compensation and Separate from the ball field amortization And so the total amount is $841,000, $842,059, and that's $420,000 for each city, marked in yellow there on line 69. And the amount over the mandate under the statute is really for the amortization of the ball field and the bond and the equipment. that's the financial side of it and i just yeah if i may just through the chair i think if you the board would have an opportunity to reference um budget 931 for capital outlay there's a line in there that's um entitled pv projects that's your pine banks capital obligation that he's

▶ 2:35:58 talking about here which is on line 47 you'll see the 101 294 18 that's in our capital outlay budget so that's part of the budget for pine bank so that's where that resides thank you thank you thank you so that's the rest of the program we open the dog park data claim and would you like to add something I don't have much that I can answer any questions you guys have about the park in general we did open the dog park which has been a pretty big success I think a lot of it's gotten a lot more use this year than it did when it first opened no one really knew where it was but I think it's a nice value for both cities or for the whole community you know the surrounding community really so at the dedication

▶ 2:36:59 ceremony which was last fall a citizen from arrows was watching us off to the side and she asked what we were doing we're dedicating the dog park he said oh I love this dog park she went to her car and she pulled out ten $100 bills and handed us a thousand dollars for we have named a bench in the dog park after her deceased dog which was it's not often that you have a ribbon coming someone comes up and wants to give you a contribution. Thank you. Any questions? Alderman Medeiros. Thank you, thank you and field usage is up and busy and Ms. Bell helps to organize that as well. Just give me the thumbs up down here. Yeah. Yeah, Joan's very, very helpful with all the goings on at the park. Both Melrose and Malden, the liaisons, have been extremely helpful

▶ 2:38:01 in organizing their youth programs, the high school sports, et cetera. So it makes my job a lot easier, yeah. It's a great place to be, and you do a great job. We don't charge scholastic or city users, youth users or adults, but we are approaching $40,000 a year. yeah revenues come up a lot a lot since I've started more bill more availability opening up again Joan and everyone sort of tightening up what the city's need and actually use as opposed to just kind of allotting slots that go unused a lot of time it allows me to rent out the fields to people who want to come in and I think I get requests almost you'll use that to turn a lot of people away so it's a good thing and a bad thing but we're able to supplement

▶ 2:38:55 what we do with with with those contributions so and it goes right back into the park which is nice and lots of community functions like the fairy house festival and several walks runs yeah a lot of stuff goes through the park I would say that Elijah Converse who is the mayor of Malden who dedicated this property made rubber shoes on Washington Street it's coming up to his 200th birthday next year and the Converse family is going to have a confab at the park actually is between the park and Malden Library which was also one of his projects it's going to be in June sure they're going to be an awful lot of Converse folks running around Malden and Melrose a year from now so it's going to We'll mark our calendars and I'm just going to give a shout out to

▶ 2:39:46 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Councilor Mary over in Malden for putting the Cary House Festival together. You go. I play a small role in assisting. It's surprising. Thank you. Motion to recommend. Second. We have a motion to recommend the bottom line I think for both are we talking pine banks and then also the the line portion of the capital outlay number line number five five one zero nine nine yes made by Alderman Tremont ozzie seconded by vice chair Boisselle all in favor any opposed great so we will make that recommendation to the full board and thank you again for with us tonight thank you very much next up is our parks department nice to see you both thank you for sticking with us and we're happy to have any introductory

▶ 2:41:01 my remarks and then we'll go to questions so we're here to present the Mount Hood budget okay my name is Joan balance superintendent Mount Hood and public open space so I have a split job between the parks department in Mount to a golf course chairman yep and our budget is pretty straightforward I think there's not a lot of line items on there it doesn't change much year to year its revenue based in the sense that it's dependent on the golf revenues at least the Mount Hood part of it is in the in the weather dictates whether or not we make money on a year-to-year basis or not. So far it's been a little dicey, but it looks better at this point in time. Our budget is based in a lot of senses on certain contractual

▶ 2:41:57 commitments we have, and one of them is we have to spend money on capital improvements at Mount Hood at the facility as well as at the golf course at a minimum of $50,000. We We usually exceed that on a regular basis. We work hand in hand with Golf Management Company, which has been the bidder for the last, I think, 15 years. Third contract. The third contract with these guys. And they've been a pleasure to work with. They've been good for the most part, so that our budget um doesn't change much on a year-to-year basis and i don't think there's much we can add to that for the most part thank you honorments work oh thank you madam chair i really just had two questions um that i wanted to bring up that i saw in some of the materials that were provided

▶ 2:42:49 Michael P. Zwirko: thank you for being here as we approach the witching hour it's getting a little late but thank you for staying through um it's actually one of the i guess i would say more fun line items of the budget because you know we get to talk about mount hood and all the parks and all the work that goes on so it's uh you know they're beautiful and we benefit from having them so um can you talk a little bit about the change in management uh personnel at mount hood and um what that actually means for just kind of like uh day-to-day month-to-month operations continuity and things like that i think it's been good in the sense that uh they've they've tightened up the professionalism on the golf side. For sure, if you walk into the pro shop, you'll see that it's stocked

▶ 2:43:34 more than it's ever been. They've increased the focus, the golf management folks. They had a change internally. There was two brothers who owned the company, and one bought the other one out. They've changed the focus a little bit on what they do. There's still some you know rough patches we're trying to you know work some you know some bugs out with these guys but for the most part the professionalism on the golf side is it has been great and I think if anybody's been up there for a function recently it's it's been definitely an upgrade the food side food is that food and beverage side has been tremendous we see on a monthly basis they come to us and tell us you know what what they have for functions and stuff and it's been

▶ 2:44:22 it's been really really an increase yeah sure so it's been great we have Brian Doyle is the new manager slash golf pro he came out of one of their near ham New Hampshire courses he was at an 18 hole golf course and then he managed one of their 36 hole courses the great thing about Brian is that he manages the golf much much better tighter he knows how to you know keep the flow moment flowing so that you don't get the pace of play down he manages the leagues you know a lot tighter so that he's able to fit in more time but not not lengthening somebody's game so those types of things for us are really important because that's what people talk about you know they don't want to be out there for those are the

▶ 2:45:14 complaints we get yeah I think Marge is their food and beverage manager they brought down also from one of their New Hampshire courses she's changed up the menus a little bit she's hired all new staff and she seems she's really on the ball so yeah I think that you know they're kind of playing with their menus it'll be interesting to see where they kind of fall out I think that they look at our proximity to Boston so I think you know we're gonna see some changes the Mount Hood test kitchen so speak yeah I think I've said in the past when I've been up here that Tom Friel who's who's the principal now in golf management is the one who says listen I'm 12 miles from Boston I'm still sitting up on a hill and I'm looking out here why can't this be a great you know

▶ 2:46:05 wedding venue or you know that type of venue so I think that they have the right idea and obviously we as a city will benefit from whatever success that they can do well and to that point with the the spring that we've had the wet spring how has the well honestly we've had and I know from doing permitting in the parks we have had a horrible spring I think this is one of the worst springs I've ever been through and we have spring and the worst part about it is it's the weekends right it's like I've never canceled more on the weekends but a golf that's a killer because that's their main um their main day and as of today we're up 63 000 over the last year so it's just it's i think being managed well and the benefit too is i

▶ 2:46:52 Michael P. Zwirko: remember a couple years back we had to drill for more wells right and yeah we won't have i'm sure i'm sure it's lush up there yeah yeah we haven't really played with the irrigation one of the capital improvements is we're putting new uh pumps in the pump house and that's been one of the benefits of doing all the work and it's taken a couple weeks is we really hadn't had that used worry about it too much you know about the greens dying on the fairway so great yeah my last question um and this has come up a little bit really with the parks commission at their meeting and i'm just i'm hopeful that you could provide an update maybe maybe you you can't but with respect to the um the feasibility study around the knoll could you just kind of give us an update with that

▶ 2:47:30 where not only that stands but what maybe the long-term plan would be yeah i think that um from my perspective anyway i need more green space i want to pack the paint the parking lot's green so that we have more space for the kids we're always short and there's such a great um demand for it you know from our city and from people you know uh au type of programs that aren't necessarily from one city but a bunch of cities that have melrose kids and they all kind of want to play in their home fields so i think one of the things that the park commission has been very interested in is is doing a feasibility study on the west no field to see if it could possibly be turfed and i think that for a few years we brought it up but really didn't discuss it because there were

▶ 2:48:13 issues um surrounding um conservation in the pond and um drainage yeah and a few communities around us have made big moves and put in um you know four or five fields with kind of the same circumstances So I think it's kind of opened the door for conversation again, but it's on the front burner. I mean John Mercer who sits on the Commission with us is Joan he's on the subcommittee John's on the subcommittee Definitely Spearheading that for sure what we're hoping as well is the MBTA the the bridge over by the On the fells way the MBTA has indicated that you know they want to you know rent some of the space on the knoll if the timing works out right we might be able to get some funding for any type

▶ 2:49:08 of field that we're talking about in the West knoll if if in fact they can utilize that space they want to pay some money yeah is a staging staging thing they're required to do it but unfortunately it seems like they move slower than I do I don't know we'll see what happens but but but those are the types of things that are under discussion have been come up in them in the Park Commission meetings for sure and there is a subcommittee that's already been appointed with various city officials to explore that for sure okay great those are all the questions I had just did want to say I believe I saw that you'll be a grandmother soon is that correct very happy for you thank you so thank you those are all the questions I had Thank You madam chair

▶ 2:49:58 Monica C. Medeiros: thank you I'm gonna be really brief it's been a wet spring but this budget season is generally dry and I just want to I believe this is you fill out the questionnaire miss Bell right I just want to read the last sentence of you if will and it's quote if I could forecast anything from my 2020 budget it would be sunshine 79 degrees and a light northeast wind I also want to just add on the pack side when we were talking earlier about Mary Livermore Park where I get sidetracked was the nice part about when you were saying that elementary schools you know have fundraising groups and PTO groups and it's the little pocket parks that don't have that so when you get free cash it really is a blessing to be able to get something to be able to go out and work

▶ 2:51:00 Monica C. Medeiros: with the residents and not necessarily put the burden on them to fundraise but to be able to go in and work with them and and put something in there in their neighborhood back that they all want to say yeah and it's in Mary Livermore is a very important figure in the city of Melrose history the first Melrose woman alderman and you know for my for my friends on the Republican side I have to say that she was a Republican too but we are definitely you know happy to be able to keep her honor. It helps that I had Mr. Kiesa sitting beside me because we get to squeeze on for the Piccolo Foundation. The fact that you that we last was a good thing because we squeezed them for a couple that's great no and it's it's nice to be able to you know we we honor our parks and things in

▶ 2:51:55 you know in people who passed in name and we want to be able to honor them by leaving you know something in good shape that's used and enjoyed just like Mount you know we think mr. Slayton for you know another thing I should mention is it's also nice when you talk about people making donations we've had numerous people who have made donations the last couple of years for benches in the park and I think that's a wonderful opportunity for people to be able to to do something we had up at the common Abe's market Abe's daughter called and she just purchased a beautiful granite bench to put out there with a nice saying on it for him and and it's funny everybody in the neighborhood has made comment on it that grew up and knew you know Abe's market and the candy counter

▶ 2:52:44 Scott M. Forbes: and so it's you know it's another opportunity for people to do things thank you no I gotta I gotta say my one thing right here as somebody that grew up in Melrose and learned how to golf at Mount Hood I knew what Mount Hood used to look like and to see how it has changed now and I think anybody that's grown up in Melrose can certainly appreciate that and also the fact that we do keep it local and you still offer a residential rate as opposed to the non-residential rate I think that has a great hometown feel as well also this weekend I spent time at my family at Foss Park right behind the Washington School which is where I went to school as a kid and just to see the transformation with the fields and the families is a very very inclusive

▶ 2:53:28 Scott M. Forbes: environment that is definitely a tribute to you when you have the right people in the right places great things happen so I just want to say thank you that old chess that old check I was gonna ask you about that after the meeting because I know we're at the end but if you want to hang around yeah the bench the way that the woods like if you're gonna fix all that like that would be awesome I have tree stumps that have already been cut and varnish that are in my office you're speaking my language thank you thank you and I'd be remiss if I didn't say it as I do every time we come before you folks every year is Melrose is lucky to have Joan Bell run in the running the show as I you know what Frank with the

▶ 2:54:05 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Recreation Department I mean the volunteer job that I do is easy because of these folks there's no question about it thank you I I would actually just like to move to add the the questionnaire the department the Mount Hood questionnaire it's in the city of Melrose operating budget order but to to request that a copy be added to order 2019-86 the Mount Hood enterprise operating budget which is the next order before us right yep okay so we have a motion to add the questionnaire that we have before us for the operating budget to the next item on our agenda Second. Mr. Dooley, seconded by Alderman Forbes. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. We'll be on that one in just a minute. I'll also just echo my colleagues in saying that we really appreciate, first of all, you being here as late as you are.

▶ 2:55:07 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: And as a sometime golfer, there's a baby that got in the way, and then board meetings sometimes also delay me from getting out. It's really great to hear that you're happy with the new management. I know when I was on hoodwinks that it could take a really long time and toward the end of the summer I didn't actually get in nine before it was too dark to play. So it's nice to know that, you know, there's Really managing all those little things so much better. Yeah, and then also as Alderman Forbes neighbor I'm pleased to hear that there's some exciting things in the works for Foss Park as well. That's great And Alderman Chairman Tuzzi, were you about to make a motion to recommend? second all right we have a motion to recommend for passage maybe alderman

▶ 2:55:49 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Tramontozzi second by alderman Forbes all in favor aye any opposed so that concludes our work through this particular order number and getting through all of the different departments so is it in order to have a motion to recommend the full order now to the board we have a motion to and you might want to stick with us just are you also on the revolving yeah so we have a we have a motion to move a full order number two zero one nine dash eighty five to the board made by alderman's work oh and seconded by alderman Forbes all in favor all right and then we do have a seventh on our agenda order number two zero one nine dash 86 the Mount Hood Enterprise Fund operating budget for fiscal 2020 and the amount of one million five hundred thirty thousand

▶ 2:56:42 three hundred fifty three dollars and six cents did you want to just speak briefly to this I think this was just an accounting type thing we had this is it a revolving part donation okay this is for the permit fund okay so this is the fun where when we rent out the fields most of the time our fields are taken by Melrose residents Melrose youth groups but there is some opportunity to get some rentals and especially spring into summer we have the Melrose Americans and a few other groups that rent the field so that's what this fund is for it's the rental money that comes in what we do with this money is it's put back into the yes I think this is you're talking about the revolving account which we did

▶ 2:57:32 hear about but maybe the city auditor could join us this this is the enterprise fund that's any that's Mount Hood we did mono that was pop oh so we just we've already discussed it I'm so sorry so we just need to this is a different fund this is an accounting thing I think we we take in money from the permits for Fred you know down at the high school fields and we were advised that we should segregate those funds because that's the appropriate way from accounting way to do it so that's what that's what the revolving fun is for um the money goes back into the fields that take the most abuse from outside user groups using it you know we buy that extra clay or we have extra work done on morelli field it's also

▶ 2:58:19 nice to be able to use it in parks that don't have a great friends group you know the dog park when they need mulch down there you have to you know you have to use the mulch that playground mouse so that it doesn't irritate the dogs you have to get specific stuff for it we use it for doggie bags that type of stuff um so all the money goes back into the parks for the parks that are used that we rent but the fund itself creates transparency for the funds that come in from the use of the from the rentals and then it goes back into the fund back into the maintenance okay so i think we maybe are did we move to order number eight yes yes we're actually on order number 2019-87 reauthorization of city of melrose revolving funds table as adopted by city ordinance

▶ 2:59:07 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: june 18 2018 and further authorized by massachusetts general laws chapter 44 section 53e and one half and this was the last of the table that we were saving for tonight yeah correct so alderman medeiros yeah i don't i don't think we ended up taking the final vote to move forward the mount hood enterprise fund i i thought not as well so i think we that is what i had suggested was the item on our agenda we do have it as a separate order from the overall budget it has its own order number yeah yeah um and it's in the it again it's the mount hood enterprise fund operating budget in the amount of one million five hundred thirty thousand three hundred fifty $53.06 motion to recommend second with the questionnaire added yes that has

▶ 3:00:00 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: been done so we have a motion to recommend that made by Alderman Tramontozzi seconded by Alderman Medeiros all in favor aye opposed and now we are on the revolving funds table which you have so ably explained the funds that are related to your division are there any questions on the revolving funds motion to recommend second okay so this is a motion to recommend order number two zero one nine dash eight seven which would be all of the revolving funds that we've reviewed over the course of the last few weeks including yours oh there is one for coa bb estate okay for those watching at home there are no changes to the bb estate revolving fund number 2750 for last year those are fees associated with the rental of the

▶ 3:00:50 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: building and donations with a 30,000 annual cap Oh Council on Aging right those are donations made with an annual cap of 25,000 okay so I think we had a motion duly seconded all in favor opposed okay we'll make that recommendation to the full board thank you so much tonight the last item on our agenda is order number two zero one nine dash four six in order creating an education public safety and substance abuse prevention stabilization fund this is sponsored by alderman work oh would you like to update us yeah thank you thank you madam chair and thank you to the Member of the board that are still with us I know that it's late this order is before you this evening and we are hearing it this evening because it is timely it would need to pass on Monday

▶ 3:01:59 Michael P. Zwirko: June 17 should it should pass so that this fund can be established as of July 1st 2019 and that's important so we can start the three-year clock on this this fund I'll back up a little bit this was now the third time that we've heard about this in this committee I wanted to also say thank you to my fellow Member here to helping to improve this order by not only their questioning and and requests that were made of the city department heads and also of myself but we've kind of worked through this and and I think in a very positive way and you know the efforts as I'll allude as I'll allude to now but speak to in a moment and in order to compromise so some of the things that have changed since we last heard about this on May 10th there the city has entered into a

▶ 3:02:52 Michael P. Zwirko: community host community agreement with garden remedies which will be providing adult use recreational marijuana in the city of Melrose the city takes 3% of the total sales that that report outlines we also here through this board have elected to collect a three percent excise tax on those sales as well when you combine the two the city is actually getting six percent you could look at it that way of all sales of retail marijuana that three percent that they collect on the total under the community host agreement goes to the general fund the three percent on the excise tax will go to the general fund if we do not pass this order this order has this order seeks to create a take that three percent

▶ 3:03:36 Michael P. Zwirko: excise tax and put it into a stabilization fund in order to fund education public safety and substance abuse prevention some of the changes that I have made based on the conversations from this body as well as information that we've received from department heads I have sought to take that 3% and cut it in half make it 50% so 1.5% and a quick sidebar here by making it 50% not 100% it's actually 25% of the total revenue that we would receive from marijuana it's 1.5% of the 6% so I don't want to get all mathy on you but so what this basically would do is it would take 25% of all the revenue received and an earmark or place in a stabilization fund for those three uses secondly the change which is at the very end of this order is to call out in fact

▶ 3:04:34 Michael P. Zwirko: to demand a reauthorization of this account on or before june 30th of 2022 there is an a memo from the city solicitor that answered about six questions that were proffered to him and his office and all stabilization accounts can be retired after three years of existence this is no different this operates just like all stabilization funds across the commonwealth is certainly within the city of melrose but i know that there was some apprehension that sometimes things get created and then they don't go away so this is written in a mechanism to demand a reauthorization vote within three years i will also add that it is very unlikely that in the first year well let me let me back up we will not have retail marijuana revenue as of july 1st

▶ 3:05:24 Michael P. Zwirko: garden remedies is not up and running we don't anticipate they're going through the ccc the cannabis control commission right now in order to get their licensing i i don't anticipate and i think that they they would say this as well that we probably won't have any revenue streams from retail adult use marijuana until 2020 but i think it's very important to get the account up and let the clock starting to tick it's also from an accounting standpoint and it allows us to see where exactly we are in terms of funding this i will also add cindy taymor is no longer here this evening but a couple of weeks ago with the school committee they had mentioned that they're probably going to need to spend upwards of 900 000 to replace all of their smart boards

▶ 3:06:07 Michael P. Zwirko: they don't have a line item for that query whether or not this fund could be used to help offset some of those costs so there are needs there definitely are needs with our public safety we've heard from training perspective from maybe new equipment that they may need certainly there's always a need of public safety substance abuse prevention you could just have one conversation with you know maureen busby and our own substance abuse prevention coordinator and we're not even going as far as probably as we should in terms of prevention and certainly this could help buttress some of their their efforts so trying to be as concise as possible but those are the changes that are before you those are the reason behind those changes and also the reasoning for creating such a fund

▶ 3:06:51 Michael P. Zwirko: i will i will pause with this one last statement after this one last statement that there are other communities that are doing this as well we have referenced those in the past i know salem's using one percent of their excise for affordable housing springfield's using it for community neighborhood mitigation i believe there's one in new bedford or another town down in the on the south shore so this is happening and it is a creative way to kind of segregate these funds for specific use my final comment is with the vote being as close as it was back in the fall of 2016 i think that there's a lot of apprehension about this new market especially in melrose and i think that it would assuage some concerns from folks if they know that there is a dedicated source for

▶ 3:07:38 John N. Tramontozzi: a portion of these funds again it being 25 percent of overall revenue so i will stop Thank you. Alderman Tramontozzi. Thank you. While I agree that the state legislature has authorized the establishment of these type of stabilization funds. And I would also agree, and I thank Alderman Zwirko for alerting us to the the needs of the public safety and substance abuse and education needs that the city and municipalities are going to be experiencing in the future in light of the legalization of marijuana I still i have concerns because as i expressed early on my opinion is that there's these funds should go into the general funds and we can address the needs of public safety substance abuse and education needs through specific orders that can come

▶ 3:08:48 John N. Tramontozzi: before this body in this board where we can discuss those specific orders and fund those needs at that time so although I do recommend all the men's work oh for putting this together and spending a lot of time and I respect that and thank you but I I simply will not support it because again I feel that the the funds are more appropriate in the general funds it's a tax that should go to the general funds thank you thank you I am inclined to support this order I I've kind of gone back and forth for a lot of the same reasons I think all of you around the room have per our previous discussion I like the idea of having sort of something that the public can see in terms of where some of this revenue is going and what we're applying it to and while we could do that through other mechanisms

▶ 3:09:51 Manisha Bewtra: this is i think a very clear way to do that um i think having reviewed the host community agreement and seeing that again per alderman zorco's points that that we're going to be getting three percent of all sales as well as the three additional three percent through the excise tax i think helps to allay some of those concerns around tying up too much of the money into the stabilization fund versus having them available on the general fund and I think finally I think you know one of the concerns I had earlier on is is do these three categories tie kind of neatly to I guess the sale of retail retail sales of marijuana and I think I've kind of come around in the sense that I again it's a it's a clear way of showing how we're using

▶ 3:10:52 Manisha Bewtra: particular new revenue for specific community purposes and I think any one of these three categories could have more than enough funding needs to of Of course, we don't know exactly what the revenue is gonna be yet, but I anticipate, given what we know about the three categories and their funding needs in the past, we'll have no problem coming up with orders to, for use of these funds or receiving orders from the next mayor as such. So, yeah, and I also think the addition of having it come back before the, at that point city council um will help i think with reviewing whether or not the fund is working as intended uh those are my comments for now thank you thank you alderman forbes thank you

▶ 3:11:48 Scott M. Forbes: uh i appreciate alderman's worko for the for the updated version of this order um you know to me i think it's common sense uh the the problem with being able to take anything out of a general fund as they can go anywhere and you don't know where it's going to go you don't know where it can be pulled it can go you know to have a dedicated resource to go specifically and have it earmarked for you know local education to me there's nothing negative in saying that i don't it doesn't matter where the income is coming from i that this is a legal thing now i wasn't necessarily in support of it back then but you know as you sit there and you you learn to to understand and you know how things evolve then we have to adjust and and go accordingly so to be able to set aside a

▶ 3:12:34 Monica C. Medeiros: specific set of money uh towards the investment of our children in our education system i don't see anything that's negative about that so i would be inclined to support this order this evening As somebody that has known people who have lost their lives to addiction, including one of my very close friends, and seen so many people struggle with, one of my best friends, see so many people struggle with addiction and the families the individuals the families the the friends the the greater network and we often we wonder what we can do and it sometimes seems helpless and you know we we try to do our best here as a board of all of them we try to do our best as a city and oftentimes it's those things like like Narcan and the

▶ 3:13:38 Monica C. Medeiros: substance abuse coordinator that are on the fringe of whether or not we can fund them and you know of all the things that are set aside in this the substance abuse prevention to me is the most important it's the one that most easily were dependent on grants and that funding could go away this would be an opportunity for us to say that this is a priority for us and that we want to make sure that we are doing whatever we can as a community to make sure that we've set aside funds from this new revenue source to make sure that they go to substance abuse prevention and to hopefully help help somebody who's going through addiction but hopefully help somebody not get there and I I support this as i have from the beginning and i hope that we move it forward and pass it thank you thank you

▶ 3:14:31 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: president lemon thank you um i do appreciate some of the changes particularly the three-year mark of um writing into statute that we would have to revisit this it helps me to see it more as a pilot and to see if it would be working i i still really struggle with i wholeheartedly agree with with alderman medeiros there is a very direct connection there and there's a very clear need there i think there can be a direct connection also to public safety and we know that they will be impacted by this market in our city borders i still struggle with things like why for example the smart boards would be paid for through this i mean i obviously do um i want our schools to have everything that they need i don't see this the same direct connection that i see with some other

▶ 3:15:24 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: things there and i think that if we're going to be segmenting off money um and and you know restricting the way that it can be used instead of it going to the general fund it should have that direct connection um i would be more inc i am more inclined to support it with the three-year mark because if after three years it seems like it is not going to things that are directly connected to the addition of this market to our city i feel like i could have that analysis and um at that point would could decide whether or not to support it going forward um but that's the one piece i really struggle with is i want to see it connected um to this and and some of them i just don't see that thank you for the first time ottoman zirko thank you madam chair and just to address some

▶ 3:16:19 Michael P. Zwirko: of the questions that have been raised and i also just want to reiterate again that i deeply appreciate the work of my colleagues in raising some of the questions and also reaching out to me and and working through this and hopeful that this gets passage so um so thank you um they're act so i was toying with the idea of whether or not to remove the education when i was thinking about this over the past month and the reason i didn't is because if we if we left it out and there was a need over the next three years we can't put it in without restarting the clock on the stabilization fund right so i was worried that any manipulation i was i was i was set on keeping this a pilot set on keeping this for the first three years so i said okay well i'll leave

▶ 3:17:05 Michael P. Zwirko: the education in because then at least if we do need to fund some sort of an education uh component through this fund it's available versus striking it out i'll also add that there doesn't under the the statute you don't need to have a direct connection to marijuana like salem's using their funds for affordable housing i don't know where the connection to marijuana and affordable housing would be but here the purpose and the reason i have public safety and substance abuse prevention is because there is a direct connection right so there is gonna be a strain on those resources for sure so let's let's prop them up through the funding that comes from that actual resource the education pieces I just

▶ 3:17:44 Michael P. Zwirko: know it's it's not only broad enough but there are issues that we deal with in the schools with respect to marijuana there are issues that we deal with with respect to substance abuse in our schools as well as potentially even some programs maybe some training for teachers in this regard so I was I thought very hard about removing education or even defining what it could go to and I felt with the education piece it was best to leave it broad specific you know we do have three years I think we'll probably only have about two and a half years really where there's funding coming in on this so we could see see what comes up and again maybe the demand will be so large in the substance abuse prevention area that we won't ever get to the other two

▶ 3:18:32 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: potential uses maybe it'll be very large in the public safety component and we won't get to the others so I thought about it and I thought it was best to have this body deliberate over it and if they wanted to further amend we could but that's that's really the purpose as to why I left it there I guess I just I have a question about the last component the sunsetting essentially if I could so it reads after three years of being established this education and public safety stabilization fund must be reauthorized by a vote of the melrose city council before june 30th 2022 did the city has a city solicitor looked at that okay because i understand the intent but i wonder for purposes of drafting if we need to be clear that it's to be able to continue essentially is

▶ 3:19:20 Michael P. Zwirko: what you're saying right it needs a an affirmative vote of the board to not sunset after three years yeah and and i and i thought about the i'm sorry yes i'm at yes please i'm asking um so uh i i thought about the language and so it's an interesting provision because basically i i i essentially had to add a kicker right i had to add a provision that that mandated a reauthorization or a vote to reauthorize um so on the language piece i was a little unsure basically you can have a stabilization fund and the only time it can be killed or removed or unauthorized is after three years of its existence someone moves to have a vote on it otherwise it just continues in perpetuity like our contract stabilization fund etc so here because we needed or I needed to have

▶ 3:20:12 Michael P. Zwirko: something be a catalyst of the vote that was the language that I chose listening to you read it back to me though I think maybe the word reauthorized might be wrong I almost vote to authorize or it would it be after three years of being established this education and public safety stabilization fund shall be deauthorized unless reauthorized by a vote of the Melrose City Council is that what you're essentially trying to say I guess I'm trying to me it sounds like it automatically is dissolved unless there there's a vote there has to be a vote after the third year to react that was that that was the thought because i want yes because i wanted folks to know there was apprehension about this going beyond the three years so i wanted

▶ 3:21:02 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: something that was going to mandate us to authorize it to go forward yes so i think the way that it's written though it simply says you you must re it must be reauthorized i mean it's okay just wonder if to be perfectly clear it could say after three years after three years of being established in order to continue comma or in order not to be deauthorized these it must be reauthorized you so I guess it's not clear as written must be must be reauthorized that's what it says right Yeah, all right. I will I Have to yeah I think it's reasonable to assume whomever the city solicitor would be would would understand that the intent the intent is pretty clear They could go to the legislative history history, which is right now if it's not reauthorized does it default to the general fund?

▶ 3:22:01 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Yes, yeah, okay No, he doesn't hang out there in limbo until someone know we just in May we discussed that point Yeah, it goes and it's actually in the city solicitors memo as well yeah from June okay yeah as long as yes president Lemmerman thank you this is not about that piece so I do understand that other cities have used this for for other uses Mike for me for what would make me want to support this I feel it needs to be connected and I you know I sort of feel like if the concern is that that something else might come up that is of higher need that's not directly connected and we wouldn't wanna not, we wouldn't wanna take these funds away from being able to use for that, then the question to me is why are we doing it

▶ 3:22:52 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: and why would it just go into the general fund? So I'm wondering, and my computer died about 30 minutes ago, so I don't have the language in front of me, so maybe one of my colleagues could help me, but through the chair, if a amendment would be considered would be considered that that said something to the extent of funding decisions or you know items for funding will be prioritized based on demonstrable connection to the sale of recreational marijuana in the city of Melrose you say that again undemonstrable I don't know if connections a great work her legislation but you know some way to it say that it is the is the intent of this body and in setting up this fund that we would that the money that we are

▶ 3:23:51 Robert A. Boisselle: recognizing that there will be needs in this city based off of this new market and that is we are attempting to ensure that funding is available to meet those those needs, and so therefore, we would prioritize those needs first through this fund. Vice Chair Boisselle. Would you consider prioritizing, we'll say, public safety? I mean, there was a discussion about a year ago that the life saving medication for overdoses was in short supply, and you needed funds for that. And that would be your priority if public safety came in for either the fire department or the police department who are the first responders that we need another thousand dollars to get another series of uh medications for overdoses absolutely i mean that's what what i mentioned

▶ 3:24:44 Manisha Bewtra: the public safety the um the things that are connected to substance use you know as opposed to like the example the smart boards would just change I appreciate the intent of this amendment I think my concern would be if we could maybe broaden it so it's not specifically whatever the language used but demonstrable connection to marijuana sales but rather sort of substance use and abuse more broadly given sort of I think what we know and will be learning about marijuana use specifically like yes there will be probably more pressure on on substance substance use prevention as well as public safety as a result of these new this new facility but at the same time there's also science out there that

▶ 3:25:57 Manisha Bewtra: shows that marijuana sometimes another substance used in place of more harmful substances that lead to overdoses so I think that would be my concern there is can we broaden it so that there is some language that the funding the priority would be given to uses related to substance use and substance abuse I don't know we have to define substance more specifically than that as a way of maybe handling that but then also perhaps leaving room of again saying priority but but a secondary use could be non related public education uses in the event that these this revenue is so great that we've funded all of the things that could be funded that are more directly tied oh and actually I had one more thought on the last the last point regarding the language at the

▶ 3:27:04 Manisha Bewtra: end i don't know if this is more or less what you just suggested too but um if perhaps we added a sentence saying so it says after three years of being established this education and public safety stabilization fund must be reauthorized by a vote of the melrose city council before june 30th 2022 and if this is literally what you said i apologize but um uh pres or chair lippert garabedian but something like if no such vote is taken any um revenue received by this city that would have i don't know any revenue that would have been placed in this fund would then go back to the general funds i'm not exactly sure how to word that at this point but if that a second sentence might address that lack of complete clarity

▶ 3:27:59 Michael P. Zwirko: thank you alderman trim and chozy that's okay okay point of information madam chair yes is there an amendment on the table there is no amendment on the table did you is that all right now yes thank you madam chair so let me let me try to address uh president Lemmerman comment here i think i can actually let me work through this in live open meeting law all right um so the last whereas I know that your computer died sorry the last whereas actually this would be the last page of the amendment I'm looking at the red line version just so folks know if you look at page two supplementing funding to the Melrose public schools and her prevention efforts I would add after efforts comma with a direct relation to I'm trying to think of the words here with a direct

▶ 3:29:10 relation to any adverse effects of retail adult use marijuana so is that a motion to amend well I guess before I make the motion I guess I make two minute recess to just think about language independently yes out our own stations and we have a motion to recess for two minutes so that we can all sit here and work on a possible amendment is there a second second all right all all in favor aye opposed opposed I guess that motion carries it's a simple majority to recess is that right so we're in recess for two minutes but keep in mind open meeting while we're not actually continuing this conversation we're just working on a language together separately excuse me back from recess and alderman uh i don't know who has the floor would you like the floor is the

▶ 3:30:35 Michael P. Zwirko: maker of the order thank you again and thank you for the recess um i i hope i can still craft something here um same section uh after the last sentence in the final whereas this is the sentence that starts on page two on the red line um i would strike the period make a comma with priority given to expenditures associated with or showing a direct correlation to recreational marijuana or substance abuse okay and is that a motion that is okay so we have a motion to amend the order before us this would be in the last whereas i apologize inclusive of the for other amendments on the red line yes including the other amendments of the red line we have so um in the last whereas i'm reading the that statement to read the stated purpose of supplementing funding to the melrose public

▶ 3:31:43 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: schools and its administration public safety police fire and or ambulatory services and or substance abuse prevention efforts with priority given to expenditures associated with or sharing a direct correlation to recreational marijuana or substance abuse for a second for that second okay so we do have a second for that amendment to the motion along with the other red lines that were presented tonight to make this 50 of the funds received from the local option excise and retail sales and adding the language on the last in the last paragraph related to the need to reauthorize this essentially in three years alderman Lemmerman thank you um and thank you for the amendment i do appreciate the consideration of the concern um just one if the

▶ 3:32:33 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: maker of the moment would be willing to consider one nitpicky change just related to the language that we use if we could change it to misuse instead of abuse a request has been made to change the word abuse in the new language to misuse to accept that what we need to ask that there's a friendly amendment yeah yeah for sure all right okay other discussion Alderman Bewtra would you mind reading the new amendment or as I hear it the languages and I read the entire provision whereas the education public safety and substance abuse prevention stabilization fund will allow 50 percent of funds received through the local option excise on retail sales of marijuana for adult use of three percent imposed by the city on the sale of marijuana and marijuana products to

▶ 3:33:24 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: consumers by marijuana retailers to be utilized for the stated purpose of supplementing funding to the melrose public schools and its administration public safety police fire and or ambulatory services and or substance abuse prevention efforts with priority given to expenditures associated with or sharing a direct correlation to recreational marijuana or substance misuse um i i may go with this amendment but i just wanted to read um what i had written down um to see if there's any um so i'm kind of i i think we already have a substance abuse challenge or substance misuse challenge within our community and and again i recognize that the purpose of the stabilization fund is specifically intended to deal with revenues

▶ 3:34:17 Manisha Bewtra: related to recreational marijuana but i think my concern is that the needs will be around other substances so i made a more general amendment which was priority for use of these funds will be given to substance abuse prevention efforts we can say substance misuse prevention efforts and to address public safety concerns arising from substance misuse if these funds are to be used for other purposes it may be dem it must be demonstrated that no priority uses need funding um with a question for clarification regarding the amendment is that now the amendment by alderman's work oh is it now intended that it would only be used for correlated purposes based on your amended languages through the chair um this is not to just single out

▶ 3:35:11 Manisha Bewtra: misuse of marijuana no i heard that i heard that sorry i'm sorry then what's your question no the new amendment and this is a give partially just that it's getting late and so i'm like trying to a process in real time but the new amendment will address President Lemmerman concerns about making sure that the fund is tied but does it it doesn't allow for if by chance this revenue were so great that we had extra funds left over that we could use them for a purpose that's not correlated that was my question through the chair I guess I would respond by saying so we you can always modify the intent of the stabilization fund however in doing so it resets that three-year clock so should we be in a position where we have

▶ 3:36:07 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: more funds than we can dedicate to because of this scope we would this board would then have to debate should they want to modify it so there there is lever that one can pull there's just a counter to it and if I might add I think that to answer your question as I read it if we had an excess amount of money beyond those needs relate specifically called out in theory there could be other appropriations made to education public safety and substance abuse prevention because we're giving a priority we're not saying it's exclusive so the language was that was recommended and second it was with priority given so it would take priority but not exclusive there thank you okay so we do have a motion on the table to amend the order before us with the

▶ 3:37:03 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: language added tonight as well as the red lines provided in advance that were in the public record duly seconded so this is a motion to amend the order all All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, so it is now amended. So these have been accepted and are part of the order, which is now before us still. I make a motion to recommend for passage as amended. Second. There is a motion for passage as amended, made by Alderman Zwirko and seconded by Alderman Medeiros. Any additional discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Opposed. two opposed so this uh motion i think fails because is this does it this need to be a super majority or just a majority just a majority oh i'm sorry right so to the full board we have a

▶ 3:37:56 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: recommendation for passage apologies um made with two um nays all right wow guys this was a long time together tonight thanks for bearing with us motion to adjourn second all right we have a motion to adjourn maybe alderman Zwirko seconded by vice chair Boisselle on favor aye any opposed thanks for watching

Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2019-06-13

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