City Council — 2019-06-17

City Council Regular Meeting

Attendance

Manisha Bewtra present · Alderman at Large; Robert A. Boisselle present · Ward 4 Alderman; Scott M. Forbes present · Ward 7 Alderman; Jennifer L. Lemmerman present · Ward 2 Alderman; Kate Lipper-Garabedian present · Alderman at Large; Shawn M. MacMaster present · Ward 5 Alderman; Monica C. Medeiros present · Alderman at Large; Peter D. Mortimer present · Ward 6 Alderman; John N. Tramontozzi present · Ward 1 Alderman; Francis X. Wright Jr. present · Ward 3 Alderman; Michael P. Zwirko present · Alderman at Large

Agenda

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE BOARD OF ALDERMEN BULLETIN● JUNE 17, 2019 Aldermanic Chamber, Melrose City Hall Regular Meeting 7:45 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Manisha Bewtra Alderman at Large Present Robert A. Boisselle Ward 4 Alderman Present Scott M. Forbes Ward 7 Alderman Present Jennifer L. Lemmerman Ward 2 Alderman Present Kate Lipper-Garabedian Alderman at Large Present Shawn M. MacMaster Ward 5 Alderman Present Monica C. Medeiros Alderman at Large Present Peter D. Mortimer Ward 6 Alderman Present John N. Tramontozzi Ward 1 Alderman Present Francis X. Wright Jr. Ward 3 Alderman Present Michael P. Zwirko Alderman at Large Present

ORDER-2019-113 Utility Petition Petition of National Grid to break approx. 3 ft. of sidewalk to install underground cable and conduit from pole 854 to feed 24-30 Hurd St. in accordance with Plan #28148647 Set Public Hearing

ORDER-2019-114 Acceptance Adoption of the 2019 Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan Adopted

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). Passed as Amended

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). Passed as Amended

ORDER-2019-106 Grant City of Melrose Page 1 7/22/2019 2:35 PM Minutes Board of Aldermen June 17, 2019 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. Passed 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. Passed

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. Passed as Amended

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. Passed

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). Passed

ORDER-2019-46 Establishment of Fund An Order Creating an Education, Public Safety & Substance Abuse Prevention Stabilization Fund Passed 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. Passed Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2019-95 Transfer City of Melrose Page 2 7/22/2019 2:35 PM Minutes Board of Aldermen June 17, 2019 Transfer of $22,500 from Account #013012-547300 to various accounts as set forth herein Passed as Amended

ORDER-2019-109 Acceptance Acceptance of MGL Chapter 44 Section 53 F 3/4, establishment of a PEG Access and Cable Related Special Fund #2922. Passed as Amended

ORDER-2019-111 Transfer A transfer in the amount $25,000 from account 013012-547300 Essex Agricultural Regional School to 014752-537300 Fence Materials. Passed as Amended

ORDER-2019-88 Amending Something Previously Adopted AMENDING REVISED ORDINANCES Amending Melrose Revised Ordinances, Chapter 228, Article IV, Section 228-30 (Sewer Rates Established) as set forth herein. Passed as Amended

ORDER-2019-89 Appropriation An Appropriation from account number 6000-319000 (Sewer Retained Earnings) in the amount of $575,100.00 to various accounts as set forth herein. Passed as Amended

ORDER-2019-90 Appropriation An Appropriation from account number 6100-319000 (Water Retained Earnings) in the amount of $591,100.00 to various accounts as set forth here in. Passed as Amended

ORDER-2019-91 Enterprise Fund Water Enterprise Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2020 in the amount of $5,412,677.54 (Five Million, Four Hundred Twelve Thousand, Six Hundred Seventy-Seven and Fifty-Four Cents). Passed as Amended

ORDER-2019-92 Enterprise Fund City of Melrose Page 3 7/22/2019 2:35 PM Minutes Board of Aldermen June 17, 2019 Sewer Enterprise Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2020 in the amount of$8,199,171.51 (Eight Million, One Hundred Ninety-Nine thousand and One Hundred Seventy-One and Fifty One Cents). Passed as Amended

ORDER-2019-94 Enterprise Fund Ambulance Enterprise Fund Budget for Fiscal 2020 in the amount of $939,684.03 (Nine Hundred Thirty-Nine Thousand, Six hundred Eighty- Four and Three Cents). Passed as Amended City of Melrose Page 4 7/22/2019 2:35 PM

Transcript

▶ 0:00 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Good evening. The hour being 745 on Monday, June 17th, 2019, I call to order this meeting of the Melrose Board of Aldermen. This meeting is being recorded and it can be broadcast, it will be broadcast on both the MMTV website and the City of Melrose website after this meeting and can be accessed there. If you could call the roll. Alderman Bewtra. Here. Alderman Boisselle. Here. Alderman Forbes. Here. Alderman Lipper-Garabedian. Here. Alderman McMaster. Here. Alderman Medeiros. Here. Alderman Mortimer. Here. Alderman Tramontozzi. Here. Alderman Wright. Here. Alderman Zwirko. Here. President Lemmerman. Here. President, please rise and join me in saluting the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,

▶ 1:02 and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Madam President, I make a motion to open the floor for public comment. Second. We have a motion to open the floor for public comment made by Alderman Mortimer, seconded by Alderman Boisselle. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The floor is now open for public comment. Good evening. Hi, good evening. My name is Jerry Morose. I'm here to speak in public comment. the portion of the meeting when I can say things and then after the fact you can exploit your rules to misrepresent what I say and mischaracterize what I say. What we have here in part is a communication problem. When I come here to speak about an issue, I don't claim everything done by

▶ 2:02 this board is wrong. I don't show up for the majority of your meetings. I don't say we shouldn't spend money on on authentic items of course we should somehow some of you hearing me actually believe that I'm saying everything's wrong with the city I'd like to think that we have a higher level of discourse than that in this city you know continually when I come here I met with elected officials and city city staff not not exclusively everybody but I met often with elected officials and city staff choosing to use logical fallacies to misrepresent me and what I'm saying. Does anybody in this room believe that it's civic-minded to deny that our city needs improvement? Conversely, do you believe that someone

▶ 3:03 who criticizes some element of the city in order to get it to improve is not a civic-minded person? Maybe we need to take a step back and see what our beliefs are here. You know, this board as an institution, I believe, should be embarrassed when members exploit your rules to get to a circumstance or a representation that's anything other than the truth. You know, to mischaracterize a private citizen's views by manipulating the conversation after the private citizen has to sit down and can't say a word, that's abusive it's abusive of rhetoric rhetoric it's abusive a lot of things why does this board continually bend over backwards to give opportunities for the city staff to misrepresent things that you know they're misrepresenting to mischaracterize things out

▶ 4:14 of context in a frame that's not real why do you do that how does that help no rose i don't think it does. You know, when I question the money grab that indirect costs are way beyond the pale, I'm met with a straw man argument that I can't actually address afterwards in the meeting. The argument is that, oh, I think that they're representing that I'm saying that indirect costs are just wrong. I don't say that at all. Indirect costs are real. But the straw man argument used there stands out to me. And in fact, you know, it's funny as I sit here and I sat here the other night and I go through these proceedings it's like a philosophy 101 course you know we have the ad hominem argument certainly the straw man argument

▶ 5:05 the appeal to ignorance false dichotomy slippery slope circular arguments hasty generalizations red herring appeal to authority equivocation bandwagon appeal to pity all these arguments are thrown up there, and I ask, why do you think they are? It confounds me as to why. I must be an optimist, however. I come here regularly, right? Hoping that the members of this board will finally engage honestly with the issues that I raise. But instead of being met in this august chamber with honest discourse year after year, I'm met with the same logical fallacies. and again I ask why it's a red flag to me there's a number of red flags I asked why the chart that I gave you right now is a legitimate representation in a good

▶ 6:11 frame of how you can compare the average water and sewer bills of a community what was represented in exhibit 10 in your packet which is just a list of the average water and sewer bills for all the different communities didn't account at all for the amount of varying use of the communities for your city staff to put that out there I'd like to believe they know full well that that's they're not not a good representation of where Melrose lies but they put it out there anyway do they believe that you're dumb enough to let it go by you or do they believe that you're complicit enough in their representations to as some of you do, to jump right on. But where it was being described that, oh Mellow's down in the middle of the list, well you know we use very little water

▶ 7:02 and sewer per average household here. 50, 100 cubic feet is what we use as average. It's very low. Now look, there's a lot of variables in anything you do and it comes down to how do you evaluate them, right? You've got your data but you got to put a frame around it about what you can project from that, what it implies what the limitations of it are we never have that conversation here do we we have documents brought out that are we have documents presented regularly that there is a much better representation of the issue that's supposedly at hand that could be brought forward but it's not so instead of mellows being in the middle of the pack on this document this document and i i may have missed

▶ 7:57 made a mistake of this i said 2018 average residential account it it's from the 2018 mwra retail rate survey it might be 2017 i don't know for sure but what i want to say is that Melrose here is the third highest in the MWRA of the average cost of their water and sewer bill in the context of the average amount of water used in that bill. The misrepresentation, the misdirection of exhibit 10 is another red flag to me. Why do people choose that? Why do they use things that they know don't support it and are orthogonal to what the issue is. I challenge this board, when you vote on water and sewer operating budgets, when you vote on indirect costs, when you vote on the water and sewer rates ultimately,

▶ 9:03 I challenge you only to vote in the affirmative if you know for a fact that everything that's been presented to you is correct, is honest, is real, is presented in a context that's legitimate, you know all the underlying information and especially for all of you who are running for mayor or running for board of aldermen again i challenge you especially because i will hold you accountable if you make an affirmative vote i'm still saying if i'm hoping if you make an affirmative vote on this i will challenge you as to what you're wrong about and why you know for the city to come here with that thing they think they were going to put that one by on me you know I understand it's irrelevant when the city

▶ 10:03 auditor misrepresents an audit as implying anything other than what the audit was designed to find that's professional something I'll let you use the word right to represent that because somehow somebody looks at one tiny piece of something about a budget implies that the whole budget is then therefore stamped and certified by somebody is ridiculous the five million dollar example of school security funds over the last eight years is a prime example of that you know the issue of reserves in the water and sewer account what are we reserving the money for to build it up and sit there because our grandchildren would like to say oh we have you know twenty million dollars in reserves that we never use never will use i mean i i kind of feel that this this city is budgeting

▶ 11:00 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: the way it does because it feels like it's incompetent but it feels like they can't figure out approximately what the real numbers could be so let's just thank you mr morales your 10 minutes has expired thank you thank you are there any other members of the public wishing to speak in public comment motion to close public comment madam president second motion to close public comment has been made by Alderman Mortimer, seconded by Alderman Boyce-Sell. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Public comment is now closed. Moving on to the agenda, we have no communications from Her Honor the Mayor and other city officials this evening, so we'll move to new business. Order 2019-113, petition of National Grid to break

▶ 11:46 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: approximately three feet of sidewalk to install underground cable and conduit from Pole 854 to feed 24 to 30 Hurd Street in accordance with plan number two eight one four eight six four seven alderman Tramontozzi madam president i move for immediate consideration of order number 2019-113 for the purpose of setting a public hearing on this matter for july 15 at 8 p.m we have a motion from alderman Tramontozzi for immediate consideration of the order is there objection to immediate consideration seeing none the order is before you move to set the public hearing date for july 15th at 8 p.m second a motion to set the public hearing date for july 15th at 8 p.m on order 2019-113 made by alderman Tramontozzi and seconded by alderman mortimer upon discussion all in favor any opposed

▶ 12:39 John N. Tramontozzi: all right we'll set the meeting date uh move to a placement file on the table on the table on the table we have a motion made by alderman Tramontozzi and seconded by alderman mortimer to place the balance of this order on the table all in favor aye aye any opposed the order is laid on the table order 2019-114 adoption of the 2019 natural hazards mitigation plan alderman Tramontozzi thank you again madam president i move for immediate consideration of order number 2019-114 um it is um it's necessary uh to adopt this uh so that we can the city engineering and the public department of public works can apply for a one million dollar grant and it has to be done before july 12th and um we will miss that deadline if we don't

▶ 13:31 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: act on this uh today because our next meeting uh thereafter is july 15th we have a motion from alderman Tramontozzi for immediate consideration order 2019-114 to allow for a timely consideration is there an objection the order is before you a motion to suspend the rules to hear from the proper administration personnel second the motion a motion to spend the rules made by alderman Tramontozzi seconded by alderman mortimer to suspend the rules all in favor aye any opposed you're joined by miss elena perregas alex and mr john chena thank you for being here this evening oh thank you for harris and i appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight um we we received some feedback from female last week that really forced our hand in expediting this and i appreciate

▶ 14:16 the opportunity to come before you in an expedited fashion this evening so the national the natural hazards mitigation plan is a project that public works has been working on for well over a year our engineering office has been the lead on it and what it does is provide documentation of natural hazards and mitigation and planning that into integrate community derived priorities so in other words what happens during national natural emergencies in melrose and how does melrose respond what where are our hazards where are our weak points when we first did this some 12 years ago the majority of the natural hazards were drain focused we were we flooded a lot in various areas of the community fast forward 12 years dependency on electricity is significantly higher than it was

▶ 15:15 we've improved our drainage system because of that study and subsequent funding that we were able to acquire because we had that plan in place and focus changed so what we did was we did a series of outreach meetings the national the natural hazards mitigation team was led by public works again our city engineer did most of the leading with this we had input from the planning office in the mayor's office and then we had a community team that consisted of public officials and regional organizations i'm going to list a few of the groups involved in our meetings we had representation from the mayor's office fight apartment park and open spaces mel's historic commission our state representative's office was involved national grid the chamber of commerce our

▶ 16:11 health department um the hospital we reached out to conservation hallmark emergency preparedness group was involved the police department mima friends of the fells mystic valley elder services those were a few of the many that participated in our outreach meetings and obviously we always included this this board and in our in our groups and in our meetings we had four main meetings public meetings the first was a workshop that we held in april of 2018 we followed that up with one in june of 20 june 21st of 2018 we had a regional input meeting at memorial hall in september of 2018 that's when we really reached out more outside of melrose to our neighboring communities to see what they did and what their

▶ 17:11 needs were see if we could create any overlaps and then we had one last meeting at the learning commons at the high school on march 11th once accepted by this board we become eligible to uh be awarded grants we already have two grants pending um they were they were very generous in allowing us to apply for grants and and over the winter with the intent that this would become official by middle of summer before the grants were awarded that's why we're here tonight um did i miss anything in my overview so we're here to answer any questions that you may have technical or regards to the process and you've all been provided a digital copy of the report as soon as one gets as soon as these get copied and bounded we literally just received the okay

▶ 18:08 Manisha Bewtra: last thursday from fema we will provide this this group with with their own copy thank you there are questions from the board thank you uh thanks for being here tonight i just wanted to ask what the grant proposals are regarding first and then I just also wanted to ask when I think I had attended the meeting back in September that was the regional regional hazards mitigation team and one of the things that came up was also other types of hazards and emergency management planning and just wanted a status update on on the um crossover between those different so i'll answer the first part and then i'll let elena handle the second part uh we have two pending grants the first is for a generator for purchase and installation of a generator for backup power

▶ 19:09 to this building the technology for nearly the entire city is housed in this building when we lose power here we lose our ability practically our ability to function when we go back to paper and paper and old style ways of doing things um that's one grant that's pending um it's not a full grant there is a match but um i don't know the breakdown 75 25. okay the second is a drainage issue that's aimed at improving conditions on lebanon street at sylvan street uh to do that we we're planning the pro the project proposes to do work inside the cemetery along pine banks at the malden line where there's an outfall that backs up the water right now elena spent a lot of time literally going house to house on that neb lebanon sylvan street neighborhood meeting

▶ 20:06 with people getting information on that the type of loss that they've seen in their time in those dwellings and we put a i i believe we put a pretty positive um grant proposal together for that project as well so those are the two that are pending in terms of integration we now have an emergency management director and this has been with him since his first week here and do you want to explain how that got tied into the actual report a little bit sure so um so this report and some of the meetings that john was mentioning were dovetailed also with the municipal vulnerability preparedness program for which we got a grant from the state for 19 000 last year and that program was mainly focused on climate resiliency for climate change

▶ 20:57 whereas the hazards mitigation plan accounts for all hazards now and in the future so we we combined that all up into the natural hazards mitigation plan and that plan encompasses it really broadened the scope from the plan in 2004 I believe it was to include not just the infrastructure improvements that were needed but also societal and environmental improvements so a lot of that is in the mitigation measures that are recommended in this report there's a lot of outreach to residents there's a lot of planning that hopefully the emergency management director will be able to do and by way of updating our comprehensive emergency management plan and as part of that we're looking at evacuation plans and shelter plans and all those sorts of things and a big

▶ 21:51 Manisha Bewtra: piece of that is also educating the public as to what those plans are and you know what to do in the event of an emergency and then hitting the more at at-risk populations, the elderly, people who might be on life support for, you know, who need power for whatever medical devices they have, people who might not be native English speakers. So the report gets really broad in its look at what types of hazards we're looking at and then what types of mitigation measures we're trying to implement. Great. Thank you. also i appreciate that you mentioned the mvp program because um you know having seen a lot of hazard mitigation plans before there's always been that sort of tension where fema wasn't necessarily focused on climate resiliency and i was really glad to see how we are integrating

▶ 22:47 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: that into our planning thank you thanks for being here tonight thank you alderman Boisselle my questions were answered thank you any other questions uh alderman Letter garabedian sure thank Thank you, and this is a very comprehensive document, 300-some pages, including the appendices. And it was good to see the level of community involvement, the cross agency or departments, rather, who were sitting down. I did notice that all of your meetings, the four major ones that you mentioned, were during work hours. So, is the focus for these developments or for the presentation of this document really um it seemed looking for sort of the different departments to be working on it and then obviously our partners for example at the hospital the chamber etc yeah i think the

▶ 23:33 the report didn't actually list the time so two of the meetings were tonight okay the one at the middle school that was the informational meeting um that was the second one i think that john mentioned and then one at the learning commons when we presented the final plan those were both evening meetings that's great and we did get we did get residents to come to both of those meetings and it was good because some residents had the background they were here when we did our first one and they were able to communicate the differences this time around as well right and the plans were always also posted online in advance of those public meetings and we had comment forms as well that if someone either couldn't attend or just didn't want to raise

▶ 24:15 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: their hand in the meeting and wanted to provide feedback we gave them forms where they could jot down some ideas and people did submit those not not a ton of people but the most interested folks right and i think the mayor also blogged about it to let people know that this was being developed you mentioned that it had been that some people were who who worked on the most recent plan were able to weigh in this time around and i noticed that fema in its comments you know strongly encouraged us not to wait 15 years to develop our to revise this plan any sense of why it took so long for us to update our plan well i think it was just a matter of finding finding funding we went through a period where we didn't have an emergency management

▶ 24:55 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: director and we went through a change in fire chief so once we were able to secure the funding we realized it was time to upgrade and we were still working on our original plan we still had projects and it was it was a couple of years back we were really start okay it's time to focus on this again and start a new agenda i think it's really nice that um our emergency management director came on board in the middle of this because of his background and his extensive professional career i'm sure it was helpful to have his perspective as you were drafting well it's um it's a very comprehensive plan like you may notice of so it's good for someone it's a good tool for someone from the outside to come in and quickly learn about the communities

▶ 25:40 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: and its strengths and its weaknesses and who its community representatives are i mean it's a great go-to guide for anyone that's involved in emergency response in melrose that doesn't have the 20 plus year history of being here to watch it all i appreciated some of the different tables that you have um sort of that identify hazards of concern and the nature of them and the likelihood that they would occur and then you've also done a nice job in a one of the tables identifying all of the high-priority hazards and the steps that you're hoping to take or that we are continuing to take from 15 years ago and on that I noticed that flooding still remains one of our primary concerns because just about the more

▶ 26:27 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: like it's more likely we would face flooding as opposed to an earthquake for example and there's a mention of two dams and stone them that if they actually flood if they failed some millions of gallons of water would come down toward Melrose but we consider that risk to be low is that right yeah those are the MWRA dams at their reservoirs up in the fells okay and they do a good job maintaining their infrastructure so it's probably a low likelihood but it is something that warrants a little bit more of a look a lot of the things in plan you know unfortunately you touch on all these things in this plan but you don't have the chance to really delve into any of them in developing the plan you're just identifying them listing them

▶ 27:17 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: you know kind of prioritizing them but that's certainly one right well that's why i thought the chart on i guess it's page three four was really helpful because it identifies issues like that as you know what's the probability and then if it happened how big of a deal would it be so you kind of can do that intersection what about for invasive species so there are a lot of current plants that may be in in melrose that are considered invasive and how do we address those i think to date that's been more of a concom issue um can you can you explain what that conservation commission sorry that's okay um yeah the the conservation commission when they review plans and when they um you know if you're doing work near wetlands and you have to do some

▶ 28:05 restoration they require native species when you're replanting and everything and native seed mixes for grasses and so they're really the ones who have gotten more involved with that in terms of residential properties if you have invasive species on your property there's really nobody right now telling you to do anything about it but you know maybe there's some education that can be done so that people understand which species those are and try to replace them with something native i think i read that there's a potential for an arborist position at some point that that's something we could maybe envision happening yeah we always love to add staff if we get the opportunity right now we have a few members of our staff that have experience and entries and

▶ 28:53 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: identifying the health of it when we get tricky situations we'll bring an arborist from an outside company whether it's a tree removal company or a nursery to supplement but and that is one of the things that they do mention and to your point it could also just be a certification for an existing employee okay um i'm just looking over my notes another thing that i saw that we would consider doing is adding sprinklers to this building that we're in and it said consider that when building upgrades occur are there building upgrades on the in the horizon for this building well nothing no not for this building but i know that building upgrades in general have a thorough review by the building by inspectional services they bring in fire prevention as well and that

▶ 29:43 is one of the items that fire prevention looks at during their review and that is an item that when we reviewed it with the consultant from cdm smith that that was their recommendation that it was you know it would be too all-encompassing of a project to try to sprinkle this new building when you're not doing anything else and you know measuring the risk versus the the cost-benefit right that it probably wouldn't come out too high to just do it on its own but it would certainly be beneficial if you're doing another large project okay one of the only I think action items that was identified in 2004 where there was no work done as opposed I think every other action item either is completed or in process was this community rating system where if we

▶ 30:34 applied to participate in it citizens would qualify for flood insurance rate premium discounts be familiar why did we not end up doing that well all right we never really we never really got to it but we did get to it without in that area in and around our pond okay that because of the drainage improvements we were able to petition FEMA and we got a change in floodplain elevation which helped the policies we did it in that aspect and in the other aspects own people just i think people just did it on their own the city never came forward to do it in an organized fashion okay and um and is that sort of an archived issue at this point or is it something that's still open for review our consultant looked into it and frankly their consultant

▶ 31:23 works for fema all the time too and is intimately involved with this and they had to actually go and look up what that was okay they weren't really familiar with it so i don't think it's something sort of a promise thing me I think it's yeah I think it's something that was put into the old report because it is a program that you can't apply for but I think it's very uncommon and when they looked into it they found this program does still exist so they carried it forward as a recommendation and so we know we can take a look at this down the road so it's just two more questions one of the other I now one of the identified action steps moving forward is around in in the short term which is set to be within the next five years would be around ordinances

▶ 32:04 reviewing some of our ordinances can you speak a little bit about that sure i think the the biggest ones are looking for opportunities when anyone is building whether it's the city or private developers to implement green infrastructure there's a big push especially with our new stormwater permit where you know we have opportunities to look not just at stormwater quantity not just how much runoff is leaving a site when you're developing a site but also the quality of that runoff especially where so much of our runoff eventually goes to l pond and the vast majority the rest of it goes down to spot pond brook so um the the push would be to take every opportunity we can to look at stormwater quality improvements and stormwater keeping

▶ 32:54 stormwater treated on-site as much as possible our current ordinances do require a good amount of capturing and infiltrating stormwater on-site when it's feasible so this would just expand that and I think there are opportunities in zoning regulations planning subdivision regulations and then also DPW as part of the NPDES program is going to have to have some sort of a stormwater ordinance of our own so looking at it there as well that's what I had made reference to a few weeks back there I know Public Works presentation will be will be soliciting and entering into a contract with a consultant to really pull that program together and this won't be the last time you hear us coming up here to talk about stormwater quality it's the new direction and it's

▶ 33:45 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: not just about stormwater management but now it's about the quality of what you discharge out of developments and out of new construction okay that's helpful my last question is when I was looking at all the different maps which are really impressive and I you can I mean maybe I'm reading them wrong but it does seem like the vulnerability is particularly high on Main Street and down toward Oak Grove in terms of any number of things like flooding and it reminded me that there is a big undertaking that's happening with National Grid where they're also looking at I think downtown and the power situation and I'm wondering if there's some overlap there and it's really helpful for everyone to know the National Grid was involved in this but if you could just speak to that

▶ 34:29 intersection of the work that National Grid may be doing over the course of the next few years and then also our efforts to address hazardous hazard conditions yeah so we've had one meeting with National Grid on this on this downtown study since uh there was a condition that was included in one of the board's orders that required that and then they've come in since then with a couple of their engineers and um john mentioned earlier that you know as flooding is becoming not less of a problem but a little bit less than it was certainly or maybe a lot less than it was when the whole pond area used to flood power issues are becoming possibly the higher concern where we don't have generators in a lot

▶ 35:15 of places and then tied into that is the the fact that older downtowns they just weren't built for the type of development that they're seeing now and now that our zoning ordinances allow three and four story structures downtown and the downtown areas in these old communities also tend to be where all the infrastructure is underground so there's no it's not as easy as we'll just throw another transformer on that pole and run another wire to this new building so national grid is actually their approach to this study is there they're looking at it as if it's one big project coming in we gave them planning department gave them a build-out analysis of all of Main Street from Emerson down to I believe it was Wyoming and what the development

▶ 36:03 potential was of every one of those Lots and then in down Essex Street too and then they said we're gonna design this as if there was a project coming in to do this entire development at once and we're gonna put forth what we would do if that were the case and then that will advise as each developer comes in like the MTV building and the building across the way here on Essex Street where there's some discussion when those come forward with these projects they can look to that plan and see well what would we be doing if we were building out the whole thing and then try to build out those components of it piecemeal with these different projects they're not allowed to build for the future they're not allowed to put in more power and more transformers

▶ 36:49 than they are currently using i don't know if it's a safety issue or just a cost issue i think it's a little bit of both so so this is a good way for them to um you know look at the big picture and then account for it as these projects come in right okay thank you thank you alderman's worker thank you madam president um most of my questions have already been asked to just uh when this is finalized uh pending you know favorable approval this evening will this be posted somewhere the public can access absolutely yeah we i think we have a section right in our dpw engineering for this website um yeah for this okay thank you very much it's all questions i had okay thank you alderman medeiros thank you

▶ 37:34 Monica C. Medeiros: i definitely found especially the information just there about national grid very helpful i just want to take a moment which is somewhat slightly off topic but on this i as i was looking through the maps and we see just how much damage there had been in the city previously i just want to you know say thank you to the engineering and the public works department in particular for the work that has been done over the years in particular when i came on the board of aldermen as the ward 2 alderman it had been slightly slightly after some of the major flooding that we had for the mother's day storm and some houses had experienced tremendous amounts of damage and you know because of the work and the investment that the city made in in those projects and the

▶ 38:22 Monica C. Medeiros: work by your departments um and mr beshear who i have to mention as well although he's not here and i know mr shen has been here right along and um it's just it's made a tremendous difference and it's it's nice to see that that's been addressed in this report and you know there are always things and improvements that can be made along the way and because that was addressed we can work on some of the other issues flooding is always going to because of our topography flooding's going to always remain probably a top concern for us but that we're able to then put some of these other issues about these vulnerable populations who may be on oxygen machines or things like that that could really suffer if the electricity went out for any prolonged period of

▶ 39:09 Peter D. Mortimer: time i'm happy that we're able to to move forward and try to address those problems and that safety for our communities thank you thank you thank you very much madam president a great deal of work has been done to mitigate flooding already in the city and i'm glad to see that it's going even further because we do have a great deal of flooding melrose was called at one time pond field Rita behind the fire station was a pond called Dick's Pond, D-I-X. And the water's just everywhere. Melrose is all underground streams and ledge. There's one that runs down from the common between Laurel and Grove. They're all over the place. I was on the conservation commission for five years before I became an alderman 19 years ago.

▶ 40:09 Peter D. Mortimer: And I just learned more about hydrology and topography than I ever had known before. And it's amazing what's happened already. The Haas Road and the Haywood Road area, the flooding has been mitigated there. The entire Lynn Felsway corridor from the Melrose Towers all the way down to the railroad bridge. including the Roosevelt School, the flooding there has been eliminated or nearly eliminated, completely mitigated, it's wonderful. Some of the projects that helped do that was the second outflow project where instead of going behind the Coolidge School and running behind Main Street, the water now also can leave Melrose from the El Pond part anyway, down Myrtle Street, now there's a culvert,

▶ 41:11 Peter D. Mortimer: a buried conduit that goes under Myrtle Street as well. And then takes it to the big open culvert that runs alongside Oak Grove, which is so big and voluminous that that never floods. That's a great outflow that we have and makes it way down to Wellington Circle, to the Mystic River. We also have outflow to the Saugus River, up around Dead Man's Curve, where Melrose-Upham Street turns into Essex Street and Saugus. And all these outflows, Mount Hood, the golf course used to flood on the first and fourth holes, and now it's dry. They used to be flooding in the Mount Hood neighborhoods, and now that's been addressed by a good plan that make sure that those, that neighborhood and the golf course doesn't flood as much.

▶ 42:05 Peter D. Mortimer: The middle school was built, it used to flood all the time. When it was the old high school, when I went there and there'd be sewage and the cafeteria would be closed for a week due to raw sewage pouring in. And in 2007, we opened the new middle school, which never floods. Just set it back, put it on a big slab, no more basement. And the projects that have stopped the flooding have been immense along Sylvan and all over Melrose. Because we do have so much water, so much underground water, aquifers and ledge, which blocks the water sometimes and then it accumulates in areas. So I'm really happy with the work that both of you have done and your department has done. heretofore and I'm glad to see that it's being taken even further.

▶ 43:03 Peter D. Mortimer: Because change is inevitable, the only constant in life is change and Melrose is becoming more dense, not a big fan of it, but it seems like it's something unavoidable, but we have to manage it well. And part of it is having more electricity, as you aptly stated a moment ago. And part of that is to make sure that we don't have the flooding. Some of the areas that people have built probably shouldn't have been built originally. With the original layout and the hydrology of the area, they probably never should have built there, but people just go ahead and build. But now we're finding ways that since buildings are there, can we alter the water flow and the hydrology and engineering that your department and both of you have done is amazing and fantastic.

▶ 43:59 Peter D. Mortimer: And that you can go ahead and apply for a grant and get someone outside the city to pay for it, to preserve our tax dollars for the many excellent uses that the tax dollars are applied in the city. It's wonderful, and thank you so much for achieving that. That's all I have, Madam President. Thank you. Any further comments or questions? We have a motion. Motion for passage. We have a motion for passage made by Alderman Tramontozzi. Seconded by Alderman Boisselle. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The order passes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. We have no orders out of order this evening, so we will move to orders from committee. Alderman Lipper-Garabedian. Yes, thank you, Madam President. I would move to join all 10 orders in the orders from committee for the purposes of removing them from committee and placing them before the full board.

▶ 44:47 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: We have a motion made by Alderman Lipper-Garabedian to remove the 10 orders that are currently before us from committee, from the Appropriations Committee. Second the motion. The motion has been seconded by Alderman Mortimer. That's okay. No, no, that's okay. They do all need to be read, and so I will go ahead and do that. The first is Order 2019-85, City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2020 in the amount of $86,662,987.61. The second is Order 2019-86, Mount Hood Enterprise Fund Operating Budget for Fiscal 2020 in the amount of $1,530,353.06. sense. The third is Order 2019-106, acceptance of a $100,000 grant from the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development Mass Marketing Partnerships Office of Travel and Tourism Program

▶ 45:43 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: for Memorial Hall Restoration Envelope Study and for Selective Repairs and Improvements to the building. The fourth is Order 2019-104, acceptance of a $200,000 grant from the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development Mass Marketing Partnerships Office of Travel and Tourism Program to update the Performing Arts Center in the Melrose Veterans Memorial School. The fifth is Order 2019-102, an appropriation for free cash, account number 01324001, in the amount of $2,327,694 to various accounts as set forth herein. The sixth is Order 2019-105, a transfer in the amount of $9,000 to account number zero one two nine one one dash five one one zero zero zero to fund the emergency management director position the seventh is twenty nineteen dash one one zero a transfer

▶ 46:36 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: in the amount of sixteen thousand from automotive salary and wages zero one four eight five one dash five one one zero zero zero and parks and forestry salary and wages zero one four seven five one five one one zero zero zero to the municipal building repair uh or uh account zero one four zero two two dash five two seven seven zero zero the eighth is order 2019-46 in order creating an education public safety and substance abuse prevention stabilization fund the ninth is order 2019-87 reauthorization of the city of morrow's revolving funds table as adopted by the city ordinance june 18th 2018 and further authorized by massachusetts general laws chapter 44 section 53 e and one half the tenth is order 2019-95 transfer from 20 of twenty two thousand five hundred dollars from

▶ 47:28 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: account zero one three zero one two dash five four seven three zero zero to view these accounts as set forth herein the motion has been made and seconded to join all the point of order um Um, 2019-95 was from finance, so I don't know if you intended to, wasn't it? Ah. Is that correct? Yes. Yeah. Great. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Um, so if the maker of the order would- I would amend my order to say the first nine. Okay. Great. Um, thank you. We have, and the seconder? Second. We have a motion made and seconded to join orders one through nine for the purposes of removing them from the appropriations committee where they currently sit on discussion all in favor aye aye any opposed the orders are now before us joined okay so i would make a motion oh

▶ 48:21 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: sorry please i like to okay well i was going to make a motion to unjoin you or i don't know what the proper term is for that actually divide thank you divide i'm an english major on a math major divide the order so that we can vote on each separately alderman the pre-garbanian moves to to divide the orders which i point of order uh we've made a motion to join them but we didn't make a motion to remove them from that's true thank you you have to make a moat and then we'll divide them so we can address them individually i retract my previous motion and i would second alderman Mortimer motion we have a motion made to remove all of these orders from the appropriations committee when made and seconded all in favor aye aye any opposed now i would make

▶ 49:03 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: a motion to divide those orders so we can consider each separately we have a motion to divide each of the orders which um to be considered separately as some require different rules than others second no need there's a privilege order yeah or a privilege motion excuse me so the orders are now before us separately we will consider the first order 2019-80 uh 2019-85 first this comes with a madam president this comes with a recommendation um to approve as amended i would make i move with that motion we have a motion to approve the order as amended in committee second seconded by alderman mortimer on discussion this is a roll call vote please call the role alderman Bewtra yes alderman Boisselle yes alderman forbes yes alderman Letter garabedian yes

▶ 49:58 alderman mcmaster yes alderman medeiros yes alderman mortimer yes alderman Tramontozzi yes alderman wright yes alderman's worko yes alderman lemmerman yes okay the order passes the next before us is order 2019-86 this is the mount hood enterprise fund operating budget alderman Letter garabedian this also comes with a recommendation as amended for passage and i would move that we accept or pass this order we have a motion made by alderman Letter garabedian to pass order 2019-86 seconded by alderman mortimer on discussion all in favor excuse me this is a roll call vote welcome um alderman Bewtra yes alderman Boisselle yes alderman forbes yes alderman Letter garabedian yes alderman mcmaster yes alderman medeiros yes

▶ 50:51 alderman mortimer yes alderman Tramontozzi yes alderman wright yes alderman Zwirko yes alderman Lemmerman yes the order passes the next order is order 2019-106 uh alderman Letter thank you president Lemmerman this also comes with a recommendation for passage from committee and i would move that we pass order number 2019-106 second the motion the motion for passage on order 2019-106 made and seconded on discussion all in favor aye aye aye aye i think that's a roll call too this is a voice vote i believe all right any opposed the order passes the next is order 2019-104 this also comes from the appropriations committee with a recommendation for passage and i would move that we pass order number two zero one nine dash one zero four second order

▶ 51:52 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: made our motion made and seconded to pass order 2019-104 on discussion alderman medeiros thank you um in committee last week uh we had or i had requested the rental information for that building uh for the auditorium i was wondering if that came i didn't see it yeah i have not received anything at this point we can certainly follow up that would be greatly appreciated sure thank you okay the motion has been made and seconded for passage any further discussion all in favor aye any opposed the order passes the next is order 2019-102 alderman Letter guy obedience yes this comes from uh the probations committee with a recommendation for passage as amended and i would move that we pass order 2019-102 as amended second the motion we have a motion made and seconded for

▶ 52:48 Monica C. Medeiros: passage of order 2019-102 this is a roll call vote on discussion alderman medeiros apologies thank you very much um thank you and i wanted to move to uh add the memorandum uh from mr shenna the director of public works to the mayor dated june 13 2019 it's a a memo that was sent to us it's a in regard to the request to appropriate funds for the sidewalk repairs and it is the outline of the outgoing the sidewalk repairs that go back to 2015. second the motion to add that document we have a motion to amend the order to add the document point of order i i see it posted under the order it is it is posted it's in there do you see it just to make sure it was officially official um and if we are uh if i under suspension

▶ 53:46 Monica C. Medeiros: of the rules if mr shanna might be able to come forward mr shanna you may join us thank you thank you very much for providing this for us and i know it the memo says that the requests go back to 2015. uh i actually see a couple i said i the date back to 2014 including one i had sent forward uh is it the intention that all of these will be addressed with this fifty thousand dollars no we go to the oldest and we work our way up okay so we'll we'll start from the oldest it's not necessarily in order of some kind of other priority ranking or anything we'll just go from the oldest first okay thank you very much thank you any further discussion before we take a vote this is a roll call vote okay thank you alderman Bewtra yes alderman Boisselle yes alderman forbes

▶ 54:46 yes alderman Letter garabedian yes alderman mcmaster yes alderman medeiros yes alderman mortimer yes alderman Tramontozzi yes alderman wright yes alderman Zwirko yes alderman Lemmerman yes your order passes the next order is order 2019-105 alderman Letter garibedian this comes with a recommendation for passage from the appropriations committee and i would move that we pass order number 2019-105 second we have a motion made and seconded for passage of order 2019-105 on discussion this is also a roll call vote alderman Bewtra yes alderman Boisselle yes alderman forbes yes alderman Letter garabedian yes alderman mcmaster yes alderman medeiros yes alderman mortimer yes alderman Tramontozzi yes alderman wright yes alderman Zwirko yes

▶ 55:46 alderman Lemmerman yes your order passes the next is order 2019-110 alderman libra garvedian this comes with a recommendation for passage from appropriations committee and i move that we pass order number 2019-110 second we have a motion made and seconded for passage of order 2019-110 on discussion this is also a roll call vote alderman Bewtra yes alderman Boisselle yes alderman forbes yes alderman Letter garabedian yes alderman mcmaster yes alderman medeiros yes alderman mortimer yes alderman Tramontozzi yes alderman wright yes alderman Zwirko yes alderman Lemmerman yes order passes order 2014 um excuse me 2019-46 alderman look for gary bedian um i believe this comes from a creation committee with a recommendation for passage

▶ 56:47 um rather than hold and so i would move that we pass or number two zero one nine dash four six thank you that is correct and it was as amended my apologies we amended it in committee We have a motion made to pass the order as amended, made by Alderman LeBrigade, and seconded by Alderman Search on discussion. This is also a roll call vote. Second. Some discussion. Excuse me. I'm sorry. Alderman Wright. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't oppose the idea of setting up this fund. I think the percentage is still too high, so I will be voting no. Thank you. Thank you. Alderman Search. Thank you, Madam President. I just wanted to thank my colleagues for working this order through some of the sausage making I think we've created an improved product doing so and I look

▶ 57:40 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: forward to the passage of this order and I just wanted to say thank you to all of you for working through this over the past couple of months thank you further discussion Alderman Lipper-Garabedian I just was I'm looking at the documentation online I just want to make sure was the addition that we made do we see it is it in the notes is that how it would work in the minutes because we did add a one provision beyond the red lines that we have in that particular document it's a point of order I think should be reflected in the minutes yeah those minutes are not complete at this point okay the motion will be as amended completely through the Appropriations Committee thank you Alderman Tramontozzi.

▶ 58:21 John N. Tramontozzi: Thank you, Madam President. The position I've taken all along on this particular order has not changed. I still believe that the tax dollars that were generated is not appropriate for this type of stabilization fund, but should be in the general treasury. So I will be voting against it for that reason. Thank you. Thank you. No further discussion. This is also a roll call vote requiring six votes. Alderman Bewtra. Yes. Alderman Boisselle. No. Alderman Forbes. Yes. Alderman Lipper-Garabedian. Yes. Alderman McMaster. Yes. Alderman Medeiros. Yes. Alderman Mortimer. Yes. Alderman Tramontozzi. No. Alderman Wright. No. Alderman Zwirko. Yes. Alderman Lemmerman. Yes. The order passes with eight votes. Next order before us is 2019-87, Alderman Lipper-Garabedian.

▶ 59:21 Yes. This comes from the Appropriations Committee with a recommendation for passage. So I would move that we pass order number 2019-87. Second the motion. A motion for passage made by Alderman Lipper-Garabedian, seconded by Alderman Mortimer on order 2019-87 on discussion. This is a roll call vote as well. Alderman Bewtra. yes alderman Boisselle yes alderman forbes yes alderman Letter garabedian yes alderman mcmaster yes alderman medeiros yes alderman mortimer yes alderman Tramontozzi yes alderman wright yes alderman Zwirko yes alderman lemmerman yes order passes the tenth order before us as uh alderman future pointed out it comes from the finance committee i believe the recommended recommendation for passage it's order 2019-95 motion to remove from committee

▶ 1:00:23 Manisha Bewtra: we have a motion made by Alderman Bewtra to remove order 2019-95 from committee second seconded by Alderman Mortimer all in favor aye any opposed the order is removed from the Finance Committee and is before us I want to make a motion to add an email from City Auditor Patrick de la Russo explaining that we budgeted for seven students to attend essex north shore agricultural school but only four actually enrolled this was explained in the meeting but wasn't reflected in the notes for the meeting so motion to add that email which i forwarded on to the clerk of committees second the motion to amend we have a motion to amend the order to include the memo from mr del russo made by alderman Bewtra seconded by Alderman Mortimer all in favor aye opposed the order is amended motion for passage

▶ 1:01:14 we have a motion for passage as amended of order 2019-95 made by Alderman Bewtra seconded by Alderman Mortimer on discussion this is a roll call vote Alderman Bewtra yes Alderman Boisselle yes Alderman Forbes yes Alderman Letter Garabedian yes Alderman McMaster yes Alderman Medeiros yes Alderman Mortimer. Yes. Alderman Tramontozzi. Yes. Alderman Wright. Yes. Alderman Zwirko. Yes. Alderman Lemmerman. Yes. The order passes. That brings us to the end of orders from committee. We'll move on to reports under Rule 53 from any commissions or boards. Alderman Boisselle. The Transportation Commission will be having a meeting this coming Wednesday, June 19th at 530 in this chamber. Thank you. Any further reports? Alderman Medeiros. Thank you. I wanted to give a report from the school committee, a school committee liaison. First, I wanted to start off and say congratulations to the class of 2019 who graduated just this year. We're proud of them and wishing them the best of luck.

▶ 1:02:24 Monica C. Medeiros: Most importantly, the school committee has announced that they have come to reconciliation of three contracts, all with wage increases, with the drivers, with the traffic supervisors, and most notably, the teachers. The teachers' contract is, of course, the most anticipated. A three-year contract was approved and will be effective July 1st. It includes a creation of a health and safety advisory committee and additional time in the school day to promote wellness and movement for both students and staff the superintendent has recently given an update on the late start of the school day and after one year of implementation most notably tardiness has decreased in the older grade levels at the middle school they

▶ 1:03:09 Monica C. Medeiros: were tardiness was down 43 percent which is very significant and at the high school down 17.3% so it's too early to track the effect of this on student outcomes but certainly on tardiness it seems to be having a positive effect there still remain traffic concerns and you believe that really when we have about 2,000 people adults and students arriving at the campus of the middle school in the high school at the same time we're probably going to have traffic commission traffic congestion regardless of the time of day so we're still you know working through that and that's so far so the situation and one last comment is in regard to discipline as a system we've been engaging in restorative justice and it's seeming to be effective at the meeting

▶ 1:04:02 superintendent tamor announced that we have not had one suspension all year which is again really virtually unheard of so that's the report from the school committee thank you very much any further reports we will move on to the calendar please order 2 0 1 9 dash 1 0 9 acceptance of mass general law chapter 44 section 53 F 3 quarters the establishment of a peg access and cable related special fund number 2 9 2 2 this comes to us with a recommendation as amended for passage from the Appropriations Committee yes I would move that we pass order number two zero one nine dash one zero nine yeah a motion made by alderman the pre-caribbean to pass the order as amended second by Alderman Mortimer on discussion this is a roll call vote

▶ 1:04:55 alderman Peter yes alderman boys out yes alderman Forbes yes alderman the pre-caribbean yes alderman McMaster yes alderman Medeiros yes alderman Mortimer yes alderman Tramontozzi yes alderman Rita yes alderman's work oh yes yes order passes what are two zero one nine dash one one one a transfer in the amount of twenty five thousand from account zero one three zero one two dash five four seven three zero zero Essex Agricultural Regional School two zero one four seven five two dash five three seven three zero zero fence materials this order comes to us from the Appropriations Committee with a recommendation for passage as amended so moved second motion made by Alderman Lipper-Garabedian for passage as amended of order 2018-111 seconded by Alderman

▶ 1:05:51 Mortimer on discussion this is a roll call vote requiring eight Alderman Bewtra yes alderman Boisselle yes alderman Forbes yes alderman Letter Garabedian yes alderman McMaster yes alderman Medeiros yes alderman Mortimer yes alderman Tramontozzi yes alderman Wright yes alderman Zwirko yes alderman Lemmerman yes order passes order 2019-88 amending revised ordinances amending Melrose revised ordinances chapter 228 article 4 section 228-30 sewer rates established as set forth herein this order comes before us from the appropriation committee without recommendation motion to suspend the rule so that we might hear from our director of dpw with any questions we have remaining we are currently under suspension so

▶ 1:06:43 Monica C. Medeiros: we could uh bring mr shena forward good evening again so we um we gave a rather lengthy presentation last week and um back if there were any questions regarding this order thank you thank you very much and i'm glad that we did get a chance to move this forward without recommendation i think it was helpful to have the extra time to look through the lengthy package with information and i did want to point out because there had been a typo on the order in the computer system here that we used for the meeting agenda portal that had incorrectly stated the rates as fy19 that has been corrected so anybody from the public can see that we're looking at the fy 20 proposed rate changes which is which is terrific um that being said i i am

▶ 1:07:47 Monica C. Medeiros: going to support this order tonight to change the rates as proposed this is adding basically a five dollar base increase charge to the base charge for the sewer rates and we're able to keep the volumetric rate the same i think it was mr shenna who said at the last meeting that stability is important to the residents and i do think there is something definitely to be said with that as we take a look and as we look at these rates as alderman we do not know all the answers we make the best choices with the decisions with the material that's provided to us and we use our own judgment to discern what's what's before us and and you know sometimes obviously i just i do want to sort of address some of the comments that were made earlier in public comment um

▶ 1:08:48 Monica C. Medeiros: you know we at least i feel that i can recognize that you know some of these some of the charts which show how Melrose is consumption rates and and rates of the bills are to other communities may be coached in a way to make us look a little bit better but you know we're very cognizant that our our rates are high our residents are often struggling with paying these bills they can be very painful so but we do have to provide the service and i'm glad that we had the extra time to review this material i know one of my questions was if we were having significant seemingly significant money in reserves and seemingly significant money in retained earnings free cash coming through should we actually raise the rates at all or should we should we give lower

▶ 1:09:51 Monica C. Medeiros: the rates I was glad to have a little bit of time to read the package and to see in detail the memorandum from raft Ellis the consultant which does address this and that our consumption rates in Melrose are actually down about 1% I believe it said from the previous year and they had advised that due to potential volatility which you know we all know we can see if we even reduced our consumption 2% our rates would be unsustainable so it is important that we do keep that in mind when we set the rates I do believe that there are still some some things that are in this rate structure that i'm i don't really agree with and i think we don't necessarily recognize the that the consumption level of many of the residents who

▶ 1:10:50 Monica C. Medeiros: live in buildings that share a meter are often paying rates as if they consume more than a single family household and in reality it's oftentimes just the opposite i would like to see us move forward and be able to try to address this in coming years i know in the last time when we did change the rate structures we had tried to not increase the rates on those populations but you know i think we still need to look for at con conservation as a community and in particular conservation as a city especially when we have so much of our city usage that is paid for by the water and sewer rates so i hope that we will continue to do that and take a stronger look at that i'm happy that we are have an aggressive plan that's been out there and aggressive work

▶ 1:11:48 Monica C. Medeiros: in ini and i think the more we are able to address the leaks in the system and the inflow and infiltration i do think we will see eventually our you know our assessments from the mwra not go up as much and maybe at that point we can look at least at keeping the rate stable you know moving forward or possibly reducing in the future thank you thank you any further discussion alderman Zwirko thank you madam president um i'll speak not just to this order but the next few that are about to come up my comments will be the same for all of them so I think that you know I do have some concerns with everything that's been put together here but on the whole I want to say that I feel that we're improving our water and sewer system I think our program is improving I think

▶ 1:12:41 Michael P. Zwirko: that our infrastructure is improving certainly maybe not at the rate at which some would like but you know we are making iterative changes to not only our distribution but how our system works as a whole that's really miles of where we used to be even five years ago I'll also add that the appropriations that we're making in terms of equipment are going to be very helpful one of the trucks wasn't even being used because it was beyond its workable life so there are some very good components of this rate structure I would even add that the amount of indirect costs over time has gone down with certain positions in the city knowing the frustration that some members of this board have expressed with the amount of time and costs to the system so there have been improvements

▶ 1:13:39 Michael P. Zwirko: they might not have been as rapid as some would like but it has improved we're very fortunate to only have to make a base charge on the sewer here and I know that the director Shana and also our city engineer are fastidiously working to continually improve our system where they can so I appreciate those efforts and it is always you can only ask for improvement I don't think we're going backwards I think we're actually going forward so I'm looking forward to supporting these orders this evening. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Alderman Peter. Thank you, Madam President. Good evening, Mr. Shana. I wasn't here, as you know, at the last meeting. I was traveling out of state on business, and I haven't had an opportunity to

▶ 1:14:23 Shawn M. MacMaster: review or watch that meeting, so my apologies. And if you could just indulge me with this question, as well as my colleagues. It's a question that I had last year. I was new at that time, as you know so I was rather rather reticent and didn't ask it can you just help me understand the indirect cost percentages that are applied in the budget how to how do we arrive at those numbers so the the public works yes percentages the chart is an approximation of what the department feels each individual position spends over the course of a year and in those particular avenues of the department we sit and meet with the auditor and he memorializes that in the budgets the indirects of other departments percentages that the auditor

▶ 1:15:23 sets and at the end of the year everything is reviewed by the outside auditor and also by the doi and i know you um you can really only speak for uh dpw but are there time logs that um helps you quantify the amount of hours that are spent we don't track minute by minute it's a it's an approximation we're not a legal consulting firm or an engineering consulting firm we come to work every day we all multitask and at the at the end we have you know our management team will get together so okay what what do we feel is appropriate and we make adjustments to those in fact mine mine adjusted further away from water and sewer for the upcoming fiscal year because i feel that the director will will ultimately be more focused in other

▶ 1:16:20 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: directions than water and sewer in fiscal 20. thank you mr shenner thank you madam president thank you any other alderman wishing to speak for the first time alderman libra grabading thank you and thanks for being with us again tonight um one thing that i agree with my colleagues that it was really helpful to have a little extra time to look through the materials that you provided last week and i very much appreciate you putting together this packet and one thing i just wanted to follow up on that we talked a little bit about last week was the degree to which you were monitoring city building use which i think is commendable and i believe you've moved to monthly tracking now is that right that's correct so that's another

▶ 1:16:57 example of an improvement in the process that probably took a little bit of time to get up and running but now hopefully is ingrained into the the daily work on this issue switching to monthly in regards to municipal use is important in the parks especially where when that meter could run only a quarter of the year and if we go out to read it and the meter's not working we missed the opportunity to track that water tracking it on a monthly basis allows us to make adjustments over the course of the summer and also to see if monitors of meters are working or not working right that's one of the primary reasons we switched to monthly right that and the municipal buildings and the schools where we can hopefully see consistent use month to month and if you don't

▶ 1:17:40 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: then presumably you could reach out and suggest for example that there might be a leak in the building or right so that's really that's another example of continuous progress in this area and one thing that we talked about you and I talked about with respect to exhibit 10 which was looking at our rates or our average household bill versus others in the MWRA community that that table comes directly from mwra is that right the information comes directly from the mwra we created the table and and again the whole purpose of the package i put together and sent was those were all exhibits that the water and sewer committee looked at over the course of the fiscal year the purpose of me sending it was so there was one clear concise package to the board that can go on file with

▶ 1:18:30 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: the rate structure about all that had all of the items that we discussed and we presented it wasn't any intent to mislead or do anything of that sort it was a it was a presentation material that we that we put out there that we had a long lengthy discussion at one point one meeting and again it was another source of information that we could provide forward and we have different rates depending on the type of user that we have in our community we have volumetric rates and the more you use obviously the more you would pay right and presumably other communities do as well that's correct and one thing that you and I talked a little bit about was that other communities also may have a different composition of clientele from ours which is so heavily residential

▶ 1:19:26 without a lot of big industrial users or commercial users can you talk a little bit about that yeah so take um for instance malden everett some of these other communities that have a lot of commercial based even if they have block rates which volumetric rates they have more demographics in those higher blocks than melrose does so they have the ability to to capture more revenue from those higher blocks than melrose does i think 80 percent of our bills stay within the first block it's how we crafted our rate structure because that's what we were looking that's the impact we were looking at we have very little capability and that's why we pass out the top users that's why we look at the top users but there's very little out there

▶ 1:20:18 Monica C. Medeiros: we don't have an encore casino opening up in melrose or anything to that nature we don't have the type of commercial buildings that malden has whether it be on route 60 or in their downtown area so we don't have the ability to capture revenue on those top blocks so that is true and that is something that we talk about during our meetings and that's something that we talked about when we put that information out on that shot okay thank you so much thanks Alderman Medeiros. Thank you. I know I had moved and it was voted to accept the water and sewer indirect cost allocation to services packet that our city auditor, Mr. De La Russo, had provided at the last committee meeting to this order. However, I see that it did not make it into the order.

▶ 1:21:15 Monica C. Medeiros: And, for instance, I think that may answer some of the questions that Alderman McMaster had. It is on one of the other items that are in the presentation, but it really should be included in this order as the indirect costs are directly paid by the rates. So I'm not sure if I need to move to add it again. but i don't think it's necessary to act to do since we did make a motion but if we could just ask um his foot to just make a confirm that i can't access the in-depth information on this computer yeah and there was several uh several orders that that i had moved to add it so i can easily see how it could have got passed but if you if you think it's best that i move to amend to include this now just in case it was missed i'd like to do so sure we have a motion made by

▶ 1:22:08 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Alderman Medeiros to add the packet of information from Mr. Shenna that was presented that evening. Second. Seconded by Alderman Mortimer. All in favor? Aye. Is it the packet from Mr. Queen of Order? Is it a packet from Mr. Shenna that you're describing or the packet from the auditor? From the auditor. Excuse me, from the auditor. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That will be added. Any further discussion we have a motion on the order yes motion to motion to pass we have a motion for passage of order 2019-88 second second second made by Alderman Lipper-Garabedian and seconded by Alderman Search this is a roll call vote requiring eight alderman Bewtra yes alderman boys out yes alderman forbes yes alderman Letter

▶ 1:23:07 garabedian yes alderman mcmaster yes alderman medeiros yes alderman mortimer yes alderman Tramontozzi yes alderman wright yes alderman Zwirko yes alderman lemmerman yes the order passes Order 2019-89, an appropriation from account number 6,319,000, sewer retained earnings in the amount of $575,100 to various accounts as set forth herein. This order comes to us from appropriations with a recommendation for passage as amended. Alderman Lipper-Garabedian. Yes, motion for passage as amended. Second. We have a motion for passage as amended, made by Alderman Lipper-Garabedian, seconded by Alderman Mortimer on discussion. So roll call vote. Alderman Bewtra. Yes. Alderman Boisselle. Yes. Alderman Forbes. Yes. Alderman Lipper-Garabedian. Yes. Alderman McMaster. Yes. Alderman Medeiros. Yes. Alderman Mortimer. Yes. Alderman Tramontozzi. Yes. Alderman Wright. Yes. Alderman Twerko. Yes. Alderman Lemmerman. Yes. The order passes.

▶ 1:24:15 Order 2019-90, an appropriation from account number 6100-319000, water retained earnings in the amount of $591,100 to various accounts as set forth herein. This order comes to us from appropriations with a recommendation for passage as amended. Alderman Lipper-Garabedian. Motion for passage as amended. Second. Motion for passage of order 2019-90 as amended, made by Alderman Lipper-Garabedian, seconded by Alderman Mortimer. any discussion this is a roll call vote alderman Peter yes alderman Boisselle yes alderman forbes yes alderman Letter garabedian yes alderman mcmaster yes alderman medeiros yes alderman mortimer yes alderman Tramontozzi yes alderman wright yes alderman Zwirko yes alderman Lemmerman

▶ 1:25:07 yes order passes order 2019-91 water enterprise operating budget for fiscal year 2020 in the amount of five million four hundred twelve thousand six hundred seventy seven dollars and fifty four cents. This comes to us from the Appropriations Committee with a recommended recommendation for passage as amended. Alderman Lipper-Garabedian. Motion for passage as amended. Second. We have a motion for passage as amended of order 2019-91 made by Alderman Lipper-Garabedian, seconded by Alderman Mortimer on discussion. Alderman Bewtra. Yes. Alderman Boisselle. Yes. Alderman Forbes. Yes. Alderman Lipper-Garabedian. Yes. Alderman McMaster. Yes. Alderman Medeiros. Yes. Alderman Mortimer. Yes. Alderman Tramontozzi. Yes. Alderman Wright. Yes. Alderman Zwirko. Yes. Alderman Lemmerman. Yes. Order passes.

▶ 1:25:59 Quota 2019-92, Sewer Enterprise Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2020 in the amount of $8,199,171.51. This comes to us without recommendation from the Appropriations Committee. Alderman Lipper-Garabedian. Yes, in light of the conversation and questions we just had with respect to the earlier order, I would now move for passage. We have a motion for passage of order 2019-92 made by Alderman Lipper-Garabedian, seconded by Alderman Mortimer on discussion. Alderman Forbes. Thank you. Although this will be my last budget that I vote for on water and sewer, if you just give me a minute of latitude, I'd greatly appreciate it. Serving on the Water and Sewer Committee, I know that we've come a long way from the

▶ 1:26:43 Scott M. Forbes: last five years that I've been a part of this board. However, I'm always still concerned over the fact that in a sewer budget of $8.1 million a water budget of almost five and a half million dollars that the salaries for direct costs which also impacts indirect costs come from projections it's one of those things where it is not an exact science I understand that we are trying to do the best we can in terms of allocating the correct amount however I do think that it would be mindful of everybody to have a more robust discussion on how we come to these percentages and allocations I know there's a city election coming up in November maybe that's going to be one of of those topics. But with a new administration coming into play, I think we need to be more

▶ 1:27:23 Scott M. Forbes: mindful on how we allocate when it comes to almost $15 million of our operating budget. That being said, too, I hope that in future investment for water and sewer that we try to do more than what the allocations are for our MWRA allocations. If we stay on course with our communities and we do just as much as them, the pie shrinks, but our percentage stays the same and our mwra percentage stays the same as well so if we can try to have a discussion to do more than our neighbors and to be more productive then we can see immediate costs benefit us in terms of water and sewer when it comes to our quarterly sewer bills thank you thank you any further discussion on the motion to recommend uh we have a roll call vote alderman

▶ 1:28:08 Buttreff. Yes. Alderman Boisselle. Yes. Alderman Forbes. Yes. Alderman Lipper-Garabedian. Yes. Alderman McMaster. Yes. Alderman Medeiros. Yes. Alderman Mortimer. Yes. Alderman Tramontozzi. Yes. Alderman Wright. Yes. Alderman Zwirko. Yes. Alderman Lemmerman. Yes. The order passes. In the final order, order 2019-94, the Ambulance Enterprise Fund budget for fiscal year 2020 in the amount of $939,684.03. This comes to us from the Appropriations Committee with a recommendation for passage. Alderman Lipper-Garabedian. Motion for passage. Second. Motion for passage of 2019-94 by Alderman Lipper-Garabedian, seconded by Alderman Mortimer on discussion. Our final roll call vote of the evening. Alderman Bewtra.

▶ 1:29:00 Yes. Alderman Boisselle. Yes. Alderman Forbes. Yes. Alderman Lipper-Garabedian. Yes. Alderman McMaster? Yes. Alderman Medeiros? Yes. Alderman Mortimer? Yes. Alderman Tramontozzi? Yes. Alderman Wright? Yes. Alderman Zwirko? Yes. Alderman Lemmerman? Yes. Order passes. Motion to adjourn, Madam President. Second. We have a motion to adjourn made by Alderman Mortimer, seconded by Alderman Boycelle. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you all for your work on this budget. We are now adjourned.

City Council — 2019-06-17

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