City Council — 2019-09-03

City Council Regular Meeting

This meeting starts at 24:50 in a recording that covers several meetings.

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● SEPTEMBER 3, 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-2020-23 License - Class II Motor Vehicle Application of DOVALES ENTERPRISE D/B/A CERTIFIED AUTOMOTIVE for a Class II Motor License Assigned to Committee Protection and License Committee

ORDER-2020-12 Appropriation Appropriate the amount of $20,000.00 from account 29032-590000 (Library Fines Account) to account 016112-534200 (Lib Exp Books & Periodicals). Passed Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2020-10 Presentation Presentation Regarding the City's Roll out of Its New Everbridge Emergency Notification System Placed on File Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2020-22 Resolution A Resolution honoring John V. Scenna Placed on File Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2020-8 Bond City of Melrose Page 1 9/12/2019 1:38 PM Minutes Board of Aldermen September 3, 2019 Authorizing a Bond in the amount of Three Hundred, Seventy Five Thousand Dollars ($375,000) under the Sewer Enterprise Account through the MWRA Sewer System I/I Local Financial Assistance Program Passed

ORDER-2020-9 Bond Authorizing a Bond under the Water Enterprise System through MWRA Local Water System Assistance Program bonds for FY2020 in the amount of One Million, Four Hundred Forty Thousand Dollars ($1,440,000) Passed

ORDER-2020-18 Appropriation An Appropriation from Contract Stabilization (84042-590000) in the amount of $61,138.14 to various accounts as set forth herein. This appropriation is to fund year one of the recently settled Local 272 Clerical Union Contract. Passed

ORDER-2020-11 Authorization Authorization to Execute Solid Waste Facility Operating Agreement by and between the City of Melrose and Waste Management of Massachusetts Passed

ORDER-2020-17 Appropriation An Appropriation from Contract Stabilization (84042-590000) in the amount of $5,000 to City Solicitor, Salary and Wages. Passed

ORDER-2019-112 Amending Revised Ordinances Amend Melrose Revised Ordinances by adding Article VI, Section 198-12: Reduction in Single Use Plastic Beverage Straws and Beverage Stirrers in Business Establishments Adopted

ORDER-2020-7 Appointment Appointment of Jennie Wengrovius, 585 Main St., #402, to the Commission on Women for a three-year term; said term to expire on the last day of February. Passed

ORDER-2020-13 Appointment City of Melrose Page 2 9/12/2019 1:38 PM Minutes Board of Aldermen September 3, 2019 Appointment of Stacy Minchello as Director of the Council Aging, effective September 16, 2019. Passed City of Melrose Page 3 9/12/2019 1:38 PM

Transcript

▶ 25:13 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: this meeting is being recorded in accordance with mass general laws it is available on the mmtv website on mmtv and on the city of morrow's website madam president i make a motion to open the floor for public comment second we have a motion made by alderman mortimer to open the floor for public comment seconded by alderman Boisselle all in favor aye aye any opposed this is the portion of our meeting where any member of the public who's here this evening may step forward to the table in front of us to speak on any item on our agenda is there anyone here to speak this evening good evening cargill street i'm here to ask that you put the brakes on the proposed agreement with waste management though i'm not sufficiently informed to make

▶ 26:20 an exhaustive statement which nobody needs to hear anyway i listened to enough of the previous meeting to have a number of concerns about the issue concerns that were raised by some of you and i really appreciate that you raised those concerns i appreciate when mr on alderman's As Werco asked why now, if this has been in negotiation for two years, and even by the city's strategic planning process where there was a mandate for this important, valuable piece of property to be discussed and in an open and public process, why wasn't it? This is one of the rare opportunities in a city with very limited commercial development. This is a large, valuable piece of land, and we should have had a public process.

▶ 27:13 Like so many other things, the public process did not happen. Now it's hurry up and make a decision, just as has been the case with teachers' contracts and any number of other things. That is not good governance. All the stakeholders should have a chance to weigh in on this. This is a very substantial opportunity for the city and also a potential liability. The city solicitor made a bunch of arguments that I considered questionable. One of them, there was a stipulation that perhaps while waste management has operated in a highly regulated fashion, that previous many years of dumping on the land was not with the implication that perhaps there's dangerous contamination in the property. If that's the case, we as a city still own that property and we do have a responsibility

▶ 28:14 to make informed decisions, not bury things under the rug and hope that we don't get sued down the road when some worker at whatever company is operating there, if a company is operating there gets sick with cancer and sues for example this is something we should know something about there should be research there should be a discussion as we've seen with Brazil Street apparently city officials would rather not know what the science of the matter really is but I think that's irresponsible and I think that the concerns raised by some of you about the whole premise of this agreement were valid and should be taken very seriously under consideration and not in a hasty process. You know the million dollar incentive, that's paltry and this company sure they want to

▶ 29:15 know for their own planning what they want, what they're going to be doing long range. That should have been an issue two years ago when negotiations began, and that could have been discussed at that time. I don't believe that that's a good reason to hurry up and sign an agreement right now. I think that that's even more of a reason to hold off, wait until a duly elected mayor is in place, and this process can have a more orderly procedure for it. Thank you. Thank you. Other members of the public who wish to speak? Thank you for being here. Hello. My name is Susan Barron. I live at 18 South High Street, and I'd like to come and speak in support of the plastic straw limitation. I'm sure that you've heard a great deal about statistics concerning the plastics that are

▶ 30:17 choking our seas and filling our landfills, and I can't really add to that. However, I'd like to leave you with two images that walk with me all the time. One image is that of the aquatic animals that are being choked to death by plastic. The other one is an image of the children that walk the street of Melrose. I see them all the time with their parents being walked in their prams, and they're wonderful. But I think to myself, what kind of a world am I leaving them? kind of a world are we leaving them I would like this plastic straw ban is very small when you consider all the plastic that is being thrown into waste but let's take at least this step to help those children and as you vote for

▶ 31:15 this I'd like you to think of those two images together those the terrible waste of the struggling seas and also the children of Melrose thank you for your kind attention thank you Gina McNeil Melrose recycling committee excuse me zero waste Melrose I forgot our new name I wanted to summarize a couple of the points that we covered in the legal and legislative committee I know not everyone on the board was present for that meeting and it's been a few weeks now with a holiday in between, so I wanted to recap a couple of things. Just to follow on to one of the points that the previous speaker made, the conservative estimate by market research firms is there are 170 million straws used every day in the

▶ 32:26 United States. And so if you do the math, that works out to 14,000 plastic straws every day used by by Melrose residents which again these are relatively small bits of plastic but this is a pretty big number when you think about 14,000 plastic straws every day that we use and so the intent again of this law is really just to nudge people not to completely eliminate plastic straws there are instances when people might or a plastic straw or need a plastic straw so really this is just a small effort to to try to make a dent in that 14,000 daily use number but also to really change people's mindset hopefully is the bigger impact of this law to make them think is this maybe I'm not using as many plastic straws as I used to, am I using fewer

▶ 33:13 of other single use plastics as well and that's where we really start to see that snowball effect from ordinances such as these. In addition to that I also wanted to point out that I think that the strong, the level public support that we've seen for this ordinance um and reviewing the items that are part of the agenda packet tonight i think there are 21 letters that were received up to august 20th all in support we had a dozen speakers last time at this session all in support and i know there have been a number of other resident emails received since the august 20th probably another dozen or so at least that i've that i'm aware of and there may be more than that in addition to the endorsement

▶ 34:00 letters from the massachusetts sierra club the mass audubon and the united states humane society i don't know if all of the members of the board were able to see those letters of endorsement that were emailed late last week and then the humane society one came through today i believe so i think it's just a good reminder that the level of public support that we've seen has been all in support of the law in terms of people who have actually bothered to come here to speak and to write to the Board of Aldermen. So thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Good evening. Good evening. I'm Trudy McDonald. I live at 34 South High Street in Melrose. I spoke last time, so I won't repeat anything that I said then, but I have a few other comments.

▶ 34:55 I'd like to reiterate my reasons for supporting the ordinance to reduce the use of plastic straws. I've watched the documentary of Plastic Ocean several times now, and I'm convinced that if every one of you saw it, you'd be voting in favor of this ordinance. And if you haven't seen it, I'm going to be showing it at the Senior Center on October 8th at 1 o'clock. It's in the middle of the day, but I could probably do another showing some other time for the whole dramatic group, if you'd like. So every year, I want to tell you a little personal story. Every year for the first past 25 years, I've gone to the U.S. Virgin Islands to snorkel. I love snorkeling. Not a great swimmer, but I like snorkeling.

▶ 35:35 The fish there are just beautiful. But every year for the last 25 years, I've seen fewer and fewer fish. I thought, well, maybe it's my imagination. But I just read a new study that says that the total number of marine species that is adversely affected by plastic pollution has risen from 260 in 1995 which is about the year I start going there when the first assessment was done to 2 to 690 and 2015 and to 1450 last year and in 2018 closer to home a majority of the fish tested in the Great Lakes contain micro plastics as does 73% of the fish surveyed right here off the New England coast. Microplastics, they're tiny, they're microscopic, we don't see them, we can't see them with our naked eye, but that doesn't mean that they're not there, they're everywhere.

▶ 36:35 Microplastics have been found in our tap water in 94% of American cities that have been tested. I urge you to pass this ordinance. It's a very minor inconvenience for those of us who may have used a straw. The consequence of doing nothing will negatively impact the quality of the life for our children and all future generations. By the way, someone asked whether we had been doing any outreach to the businesses, and I have spoken to three businesses, Starbucks, they seem ready and prepared to take this on. I've spoken to Turner's, and they have already eliminated straws a long time ago. And Bohemian Coffee Shop, they're ordering different kinds of tops for their containers for their cold drinks.

▶ 37:25 So I don't think it's going to be a major hardship for anyone. I do hope that you will support it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any other members of the public wish to speak? No, please. Hi, my name is Janet Ocello. I live on 31 Leonard Road. I just wanted to comment that a lot of places that I frequent do not use plastic straws. I was in, I had lunch in Rhode Island last year in a restaurant and they had a sign up that said they don't use plastic straws. But when I ordered a drink, they brought it with a plastic straw, but it wasn't plastic, it was made out of corn. So it was biodegradable. So you can't really tell that you're using a straw that's not plastic when you have it. WHEN I WENT INTO ANOTHER RESTAURANT IN BURLINGTON LAST WEEK, THEY SERVED WATER WITHOUT THE WAITRESS

▶ 38:19 HAD STRAWS IN HER HAND. NONE OF US ASKED FOR A STRAW AND SHE DIDN'T OFFER THEM AND WE DIDN'T NEED STRAWS. NONE OF US WANTED TO USE A STRAW. SO A LOT OF COMPANIES, A LOT OF RESTAURANTS ARE TURNING AROUND AND REALIZING THAT IT'S NOT A GOOD IDEA TO HAVE THE PLASTIC STRAWS. SO I DON'T THINK IT'S GOING TO BE THAT DIFFICULT TO TRANSITION FOR THIS ORDINANCE TO GO THROUGH. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Other members of the public wish to speak? Just quickly, Rebecca Interbartolo, 33 Woodland Ave, again in favor of the straw ordinance. I think the whole premise of the ordinance is not for people to switch to put a burden on businesses to have to offer paper straws. The point of the ordinance is to say what can we eliminate and do you really need the

▶ 39:40 straw? really like a straw then bring a metal one just like the purpose of the bag ban was not for businesses to have to give you a paper bag the purpose was for people to bring their own bags and the point is just to reduce all of our waste of single-use items across the board so not just switch to paper or switch to compostable but just think do I even need this at all so that is our hope to just get people to reduce their use you know when we walk into a restaurant and we bring our own metal straws and my kids see a person using a plastic straw they say oh there's another dead sea turtle and it's just something that's kind of so prevalent now it's just not it's one small step that we as a

▶ 40:27 community can take to do what we can to try to eliminate plastic waste to try to to get it out of our oceans and try to leave the world a better place. So please, I urge you to vote in favor of it. Thank you. Good evening. Hi. My name is Ginny Vinody. I had an experience recently, actually, Sunday night. I believe this ordinance is supposed to not ban plastic straws, but make it so that it's not the first choice. But when we went out, one of the people in the group we were with did not care for the paper straw. He felt it really diminished what he was drinking. He asked for plastic straw turners, and they said, we don't carry them. You know, I generally don't like bands. I have made a lot of choices in my own life

▶ 41:25 that are better for the environment. I happen to be a vegetarian. That's much better than all the other stuff you guys are doing. My carbon footprint is a third of most people's. but I don't make that choice for other people. Again, I know it's an ordinance and not a ban, but when stores decide, well, we won't carry the other option, then it becomes a ban. And also, plastic straws are not the number one pollutant. They're not even in the top 50%. The number one is plastic cups and one-use drink containers. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening, everybody. Joe Pelrine, 70 Howard Street. I'm just gonna move on a little bit to a different subject. I'm here tonight, I'm sorry I missed the committee meeting

▶ 42:41 on the water and sewer bonding issue, but I have a few questions that maybe we could look at before we say yes or no. I'm wondering if the Mother's Day storm, what was that, like eight or 10 years ago, the city borrowed a ton of money from the MWRA. Has that been paid off yet? And I'm just curious, if not, how much more we owe. These two proposals, one for the sewer for 375,000 and one for the water for 1.4 mil, how long are these bonds gonna be for? And what will the monthly payments be? And more importantly, where will we get the money to pay these bonds? I kind of feel like we're saying yes to these bonds for 2020 and next June the City of Melrose is going to say we have to boost the water and sewer rates again to pay off this bond.

▶ 43:44 Now if the Mother's Day bond is paid off then obviously there's room for more borrowing but if we're borrowing on top of that it just doesn't seem right. So I was wondering if we could take the $375,000 bond out of the sewer enterprise fund. We were all sitting here years ago when the handpicked consultant from the city of Melrose urged everybody to have a savings account. And when we asked what will we do with that money, the consultant said, you would use that money to pay for small repairs or fix things and you won't have to borrow any money now the city is saying that we can't spend that money because it'll affect our bond rating well in june early june i sent an email to everybody and i'll ask you again tonight if

▶ 44:43 we were to spend the money and our bond rating was to go down how long would it take for the bond rating to come back up six months seven months it doesn't seem like i have to borrow money to pay for things and if i have a savings account i use it and we have a huge savings account in those two funds and then lost my place of course with no reading glasses okay i guess that's it for now i just am asking for everybody to reconsider before we push ahead on this what's the rush why do we need to vote on this tonight we have a new administration coming in in january hopefully a new dpw director who might have a different thought pattern of which way to go on stuff like this so you know i'm sure the mwra loan will still be there in january or

▶ 45:48 february and still have plenty of time to plan for the construction next summer thanks thank you I want to start by talking about the waste management contract. Some of you made good points, as Ms. Corkamella said earlier the other night. I find it strange that this long-term process is condensed and squeezed around a Labor Day weekend. There's something that's certainly not transparent about that. But in terms of doing due diligence in this contract, it wasn't that this was a surprise to us in any way. The administration actually knew about it years ago. Waste management approached them two years ago. Over all that time, what diligence did the administration do to see what other uses of the site would be productive?

▶ 46:57 Did they put out an RFP? I think the answer is no. Did they approach any other waste management companies to see what they might be willing or interested in that property? I never heard any mention of that. they can consult with a real estate professional to evaluate the site and its possibilities they didn't in the discussion the other night they were there were irrelevant things brought up while the relevant things were missing and this is a pattern of the administration that coming to this board of aldermen they aren't giving you the information you really need to make a competent decision they're coming in with a rush job oh we have to do this as a deadline we have to get it done there's you know something's going to

▶ 47:36 happen if we don't you know that you're being disrespected I urge you to understand that you don't have the information you need to sign on to a contract today it's not there how many times does waste management currently handle a year what are the tonnage rates the 125 or 150 per ton that they're proposing how do they compare to the to the market was that presented did anybody do an evaluation of what other sites in the area or transfer stations are operated similarly, and how many are so close to Boston? What competitors of waste management are jealous that waste management has that site? Did waste management buy the waste firm in part to get that site in the first place? All these elements weren't discussed.

▶ 48:21 Now, there's certainly things in a contract negotiation that you don't want to publicize, but did the administration ever come here and have an executive session with you to talk to you about the parameters of the contract, what they were negotiating, what they were considering, what they'd like to see? It sounds to me like the answer to that is no as well. This isn't a collective bargaining issue where you're constrained by collective bargaining laws or the agreements not to talk about things publicly. You know, we have a pleasant fellow here from waste management. You know, the city solicitor identified him as a liaison. Well, waste management is a global, powerful, sophisticated firm. They negotiate with contracts all over the world,

▶ 49:05 all the time. They know how to get a contract done to their benefit. That's how they make money, 15 or 16 billion dollars a year. At some level, Melo's is an easy target. How sophisticated were, if they didn't do the due diligence, did we get walked all over? The one million upfront payment is a red flag to me. That's a common tactic people use in negotiations all the time. Make something look good because it's right there and it's so enticing, they grab that million dollars so people won't look at what they're missing the three, five, seven years down the road, right? Oh, that money's really beautiful, isn't it? You know, the claim that somehow waste management is helping us to the tune of 250 or $300,000 a year

▶ 49:56 by letting us use part of our property, maybe they have been, but why would we codify that same agreement, that same permission if you will into a long-term agreement if we need that property we use it it's our land why don't we hold it why don't we sign an operating agreement for the rest of the property for them and hold on to what we need as beneficial to us then the question is is why is our ancillary use of the property to the tune of what they estimate is 250 or 300 thousand dollars worth more than waste management's for-profit use of that property on an ongoing basis, right? Our passive use of the property to store some things there is claimed to be using $250,000 or $300,000. That's the worth of it. But the value of waste management's

▶ 50:43 use of our property is only $135,000 to date, and even under these agreements might be, what, $175,000 through 2021, and a minimum of $200,000 beyond that. There are so many issues that weren't addressed, it makes one wonder, what are the real issues here? An earlier speaker mentioned about the toxic waste that might be on the site you know mr shenna I think it was you know mentioned that oh you know the old-timers at DPW have stories to tell about the dump over there well you know if this toxic waste in that site we have a responsibility to identify it and remediate it nothing short of that we don't want to stick our head in the sand and say oh well let's just went to waste management because it won't come out for another eight or ten

▶ 51:29 years you know leaving toxins in the ground is not environmentally sustainable and if you want to talk about other environmentally sustainable things you don't leave toxic waste in the ground if you believe it might be there if you don't know you ought to do the work to figure it out put it sink some test wells do some soil samples do a lot of things there to figure it out I don't know the specifics of that site is a dump probably very few people around town do but we ought to find out if we own the property and I find it interesting that we're composting and giving people compost to put in their gardens on land that might be a hazardous waste site a little bit unfortunate there you know all the information that wasn't brought to the

▶ 52:14 table and all the irrelevant information that was makes me wonder what are they trying to hide why are they doing this did administration drop the ball on something they're trying to cover it up do they feel that the toxic waste issue is so much they don't want to talk about it and so let's just you know be hush hush and do a thing with with waste management you know backroom deals are backroom deals they may not be cigarette smoke filled rooms now maybe they're filled with some other kind of smoke but it's not working for the city of melrose this kind of government process is not what the citizens want it's not transparent this has been sprung on the board of alderman as well as on the public of melrose for those of you who want to remain alderman who want to become mayor

▶ 53:01 what needs to change in Melrose isn't who's in the office it's how the business is done too many times year after year after year we have these things where administration comes, springs something on the board and says oh it has to happen this way there's no other alternative this is not a binary alternative, it's not waste management or nothing you could have a four month extension until January, give a new mayor a chance to look it over and figure things out sign a two-year additional contract extension with waste management to get us till 2023 that gives them four years to evaluate other sites in the area they might find that melons is worth a whole lot more than they're willing to pay right now because they can't find an equivalent place around

▶ 53:44 that's this close and they'll get the business for them there are a lot of issues here that are at play that if you vote for this you are ignoring you are basically making an uninformed decision And an uninformed decision is worse than no decision at all. Because an uninformed decision, you're working on things that are counter to reality, not on the reality itself. You know, I do find it so strange that waste management knew more about this process ongoing. the people with whom is on the other side of the bargaining table with us knew more about this process for the last two years than any of you apparently knew and that's another red flag so the red flags of the million dollar upfront payment why is that

▶ 54:40 enticement there you know what it is it's to bind us in so we find it harder later once we spent the money to be able to get out of the agreement when we find there's a better thing you know the red flag is that the 250 to 300 000 of city benefit is not something additional and tangible on top of the waste management lease payments the waste management lease payments we don't know whether they're market or not we don't know whether the tonnage rate is market we don't know what other sites in the area are you know it costs a lot more for a hauler to go up to you know somewhere a lot farther away to make a transfer than to drop off here and go and make another run there are so many things that might be desirable about this but we don't even know it because

▶ 55:15 nobody did the work if nobody did the work i suggest that start with a four month extension if you want go with a four month time before you act on this or vote for a two-year extension of the contract that puts waste management the position they were in two years ago if they want to go and do their due diligence and figure out what are the sites in the area they might want to take and leave us alone that's fine we can investigate the parcels next door that we own and that sagas owns that maybe we want to do some work with them we can do a project that's a much better project for the community and the environment possibly There are lots of possibilities that have yet to be examined. To have the binary decision of waste management now or nothing else ever,

▶ 56:01 or that we're going to not have any money coming in, that's absurd. Thank you for your time. I hope that you can step back from the brink here, and it never hurts to take a little bit more time to figure something out for real. Thank you. Oh, one last thing on water and sewer. I have to ask you to... and I'll be very quick with it one of the consultants the other night said something that was untrue on his slide he didn't show the 2018 data on inflow and infiltration it's been publicly out there since January I actually had a conversation with that same gentleman about it after one of the water and sewer committee meetings again why was it left out it was left out because it shows that in 2018 the sanitary sewage that we contributed that went to

▶ 56:48 people's houses and went to the pipes was only 37.3 percent of our flow for the whole year 50.1 percent was due to infiltration through the pipes and 12.6 percent was estimated to be due to inflow they don't want you to see it because their aggressive campaign is not getting the job done that's what the issue here is we've talked about this before we'll talk about it again but water and sewer can't just wait for you know only for a bond authorization in the fall and a water and sewer rate in the spring somebody needs to take control of the water and sewer system and make it better because again we're wasting the environment we're wasting resources by putting by this account six 62.7 percent of the flow we send to mwra shouldn't be in that

▶ 57:38 flow thank you other members of the public wishing to speak this evening motion to close public comment second president you have a motion to close public comment made by alderman mortimer second by alderman Boisselle all in favor aye any opposed public comment is now closed we have no communications from her honor the mayor and other city officials this evening we can move on to new business order 2020-23 application of duvalis enterprise doing business as certified automotive for a class two motor license that will go to the committee on protection and license are there any orders out of order no orders from committee uh motion to remove order uh 2020-12 uh appropriate the amount of twenty thousand dollars from account two nine

▶ 58:44 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: zero three two dash five nine zero zero zero zero library finds account to account zero one six one one two dash five three four two zero zero um library books and periodicals account alderman butcher makes an a motion to remove order 2020-12 from the uh from committee uh where it comes to us with a recommendation for passage all in favor second second the motion oh my apologies seconded by alderman mortimer thank you all in favor any opposed the orders before you motion for passage alderman butcher makes a motion for passage of the order second second by alderman mortimer on discussion all in favor any opposed the order passes oh i actually i apologize this should be a roll call vote alderman Bewtra yes alderman Boisselle yes alderman forbes yes

▶ 59:39 Shawn M. MacMaster: alderman Letter garabedian yes alderman mcmaster yes alderman medeiros yes alderman mortimer yes alderman Tramontozzi yes alderman wright yes alderman Zwirko yes president Lemmerman yes the order passes uh continuing with orders from committee alderman mcmaster madam president i would make a motion to remove order number 20 20-10 presentation regarding the city's rollout of its new everbridge emergency notification system from the protection and license committee second the motion to remove the order from committee we have a motion made by alderman mcmaster seconded by alderman mortimer to remove order 2020-10 from committee all in favor any opposed the orders before you motion to place on file madam president second we have a motion to

▶ 1:00:32 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: place the order on file made by alderman mcmaster seconded by alderman mortimer on discussion all in favor aye any opposed that order will be placed on file continuing with orders from committee alderman Letter garabedian thank you madam president um i move to remove order number 2020-22 a resolution honoring john v shena from committee second order made by alderman Letter garabedian seconded by alderman mortimer to remove order 2020-22 from committee all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The order is before you. Motion to place on file. Second. I have a motion to place the order on file made by Alderman Lipper-Garabedian, seconded by Alderman Mortimer on discussion. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The order will be placed on file. Continuing with

▶ 1:01:20 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: orders from committee, Alderman Lipper-Garabedian. Yes, thank you. I move to remove order number 2020-8 authorizing a bond in the amount of $375,000 under the sewer enterprise account. through the MWRA Sewer System I&I Local Financial Assistance Program. Second. We have a motion to remove Order 2020-8 from the Appropriations Committee made by Alderman Lipper-Garabedian, seconded by Alderman Mortimer. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The order is before you. Motion to approve. We have a motion for passage made by Alderman Lipper-Garabedian. Second. Seconded by Alderman Mortimer. On discussion, Alderman Medeiros. Thank you. uh in response to uh one of the questions from the members of the public this evening

▶ 1:02:06 Monica C. Medeiros: there is a file that is in this order it's entitled amort november 19th sewer however that is the amortization schedule that shows the payments for i believe it's a 10-year bond however i receive a an error when i click on this showing that it's corrupt the files corrupt so i'd just like to move that it won't open on my computer anyway so i see thank you johnny his head but when i click on it it it gives me uh now it's giving me i actually like how that works okay now i'm being able to open it just fine i did report it while we were in the middle of this but yeah so it's a 10-year bond then for discussion and it is a total principal and interest payment of thirty seven thousand five hundred dollars

▶ 1:03:01 uh annually thank you and yes it can be found on iqm2 for any member of the public wishing to access it any further discussion a motion has been made and seconded for passage of the order this is a roll call vote alderman Bewtra yes alderman Passed 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 president lemmerman yes the order passes continuing with orders from committee alderman Letter garabedian yes we also have order number 2020-9 authorizing a bond under the water enterprise system through mwra local water system assistance program bonds for fiscal year 2020 in the amount of one million four

▶ 1:03:53 Monica C. Medeiros: hundred forty thousand dollars i move to remove this from committee second we have a motion to remove order 2020-9 from committee from appropriations made by alderman lippert garabedian seconded by alderman mortimer all in favor any opposed the orders before you motion for passage second we have a motion for passage of the order made by alderman lippert garabedian seconded by alderman mortimer on discussion i'll move yours thank you and again i want to point out that there is in IQ m2 attached to this order in our online system there is an amortization schedule entitled amort water November 19 it is also a 10-year bond with a annual principal and interest payment of 144,000 and this is paid out of the water enterprise fund and that would just uh thank you thank you also available

▶ 1:04:53 online and i believe that was included in our budget when we budgeted this year because we were anticipating this expenditure thank you any further discussion the motion made and seconded to rick to for passage of this order also a roll call vote alderman Bewtra yes alderman voyzel 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 president lemmerman yes the order passes moving along with orders from committee alderman Letter gary thank you i'm president we now have order number 2020-18 an appropriation from contract stabilization number eight four zero four two dash five nine zero zero zero zero

▶ 1:05:44 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: in the amount of sixty one thousand one hundred and thirty eight dollars and fourteen cents to various accounts as set forth herein this appropriation is to fund year one of the recently settled local 272 clerical union contract i move that we remove this from committee second we have a motion to remove order 2020-18 from the appropriations committee where it comes to for recommendation for passage made by alderman Letter garabedian seconded by alderman mortimer all in favor aye aye any opposed the order's before you motion for passage second a motion for passage made by alderman Letter garabedian seconded by alderman mortimer on discussion this is a roll call vote requiring eight alderman Bewtra yes alderman boys all yes alderman forbes

▶ 1:06:28 yes alderman Letter garabedian yes alderman mcmaster yes alderman medeiros yes alderman mortimer yes alderman Tramontozzi yes alderman wright yes alderman Zwirko yes president lemmerman yes the order passes moving along alderman Letter yes we now have order number two zero two zero dash one one authorization to execute solid waste facility operating agreement by and between the city of melrose and waste management of massachusetts i move that we remove this from committee second we have a motion to remove order 2020-11 from the appropriations committee where it comes to us with a recommendation for passage made by alderman Letter garabedian seconded by alderman mortimer all in favor aye aye any opposed opposed the order is before you

▶ 1:07:19 Michael P. Zwirko: uh motion for passage per the recommendation of the committee second we have a motion for passage made by alderman Letter garabedian seconded by alderman mortimer on discussion alderman mazzarco um thank you madam president so i thought we had a good meeting the other night when we met on this order i learned a lot more at that meeting than i than i did with just the items that were attached to the order but i still have a ton of questions um seeing that we have the city solicitor here this evening uh may ask that we suspend the rules i moved to suspend the rules so we could ask questions. Second. Second. Motion to suspend the rules made by Alderman Search, seconded by Alderman Lipper-Garabedian. So we may hear from City Solicitor Van Kampen

▶ 1:08:04 Michael P. Zwirko: who's with us this evening. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? You're under suspension. Good evening, Mr. Van Kampen. Good evening. Thank you for being here this evening. Thank you. Appreciate it. So my first question is, and apologies if it's not available, but there was a pretty good discussion around a statement of understanding, and I didn't know, or a memorandum of understanding with respect to um an agreement that we have given the relationship between the city and waste management over time is i would imagine given that we met pretty lengthy on thursday evening with one business day but two business days until we met that there's nothing there's not a document yet to show for but work is going on in that area uh yes so uh following

▶ 1:08:46 last thursday's meeting i have had discussions with um mr nacella from waste management and gail lynch who i believe is the general counsel at waste management as recently as this morning i have the broad framework for that that what i would call a letter agreement that would be attached to any approved operating agreement and that would set forth the terms of the sort of operational usages that are that have been occurring historically on the site that's relating to snow storage on the site relating which is currently the least premises yard brush disposal things of that nature so all those areas that director shenna identified last thursday would be reflected in that letter agreement and my hope is to have it finalized

▶ 1:09:34 Michael P. Zwirko: as quickly as possible but i can represent to this body it would merely reflect all of the items that mr shena spoke spoke to last thursday and um following up again is the tonnage rates that were referenced in the contract um what do do we know what the what that facility's tonnage rate was historically over like let's say the past three uh five years so we know that waste management is permitted under their current permit for I believe 600 ton per day out of that facility I also believe they're not even close to hitting that limit today the hope is that at some point with with a expansion of their hours for example they would be able to hit that limit or come close to it and how do we come to determining the tonnage rates I don't know what market

▶ 1:10:34 analysis was done to determine what yeah I mean that's a that's a very fair question and what I would represent this evening is that there's not a lot of data as far as this type of an operating agreement and the tonnage rates I would I would say that the rates that are reflected in the operating agreement that's before you including the one-time payment are all negotiated sums at the end of the day including the escalator clause that kicks in after the fourth year there really is not a lot of data out there in terms of operating agreements of solid waste transfer stations so as far as you know market analysis like you know i heard one of the speakers during public comment mentioning market analysis and you know that information not being

▶ 1:11:19 Michael P. Zwirko: totally complete it's not complete because quite frankly i don't think there's a lot of data out there for us to rely on hence the lengthy negotiation that that two administrations went through to get to where we are at this point and um the lengthy negotiation that you just referred to um it was just with one company there weren't other discussions of other companies about the use of the site right no well there couldn't have been because we're under a lease with one company today it expires in 26 months or so november of 2021 correct so we wouldn't have gone into negotiations with any other company until that lease had expired correct we wouldn't have been able to and um my last question regarding um the item of potentially hazardous

▶ 1:12:09 materials do we have any idea as to what may be contained in that site we have no reason to believe or not believe that there are hazardous materials subsurface on that site that is all at this point speculation uh i have no indication whether from the health department or elsewhere that there are hazardous materials beneath the ground. As you would with any site that has been used for heavy industry for decades and generations, one can assume at some point in time before the various federal laws were implemented that certain activity occurred on those sites that would probably not be deemed clean today. But that is all speculation on anyone's part at this point. I appreciate the answers to these questions.

▶ 1:12:57 Francis X. Wright Jr.: THOSE ARE ALL THE QUESTIONS THAT I HAD THIS EVENING. I STILL REMAIN OPPOSED TO ENTERING INTO THIS AGREEMENT. I THINK THAT THE CONTRACT ISN'T FAVORABLE FOR US AND I CERTAINLY DON'T THINK THAT THE PROCESS WAS FOLSOME ENOUGH EITHER, BUT I DO APPRECIATE THE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS THIS EVENING. THANK YOU, MADAM PRESIDENT. THANK YOU. ALTERMAN RATE. THANK YOU, MADAM PRESIDENT. I JUST WANT TO CONFIRM SOMETHING WITH THE CITY SOLICITOR, MY UNDERSTANDING FROM THE agreement from the testimony of the night committee is that you're representing that the termination for convenience clause in the contract not only exists but would allow a new mayor to to terminate the contract at some point should they take the new man take a look at it and determine that there's

▶ 1:13:48 a better use for the property or a better deal could be had correct I'm I'm sorry, Alderman, I didn't hear the first part of your comment, but yes, there is a termination for convenience clause in the proposed operating agreement, and any future administration could certainly make the decision to unilaterally withdraw from the operating agreement to go in another direction with this parcel. Obviously, as we mentioned during committee last week, there is an early termination payment that would be associated with that, and that is, as you know, that is standard for such provisions. Okay, and that would be a return of a percentage of prorated amount of the million dollar upfront payment? Correct.

▶ 1:14:28 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Okay. And the agreement that's in place now, that will expire not, for another what, two years? The lease agreement will expire on November 30th, 2021. Okay, and this new agreement will go into effect when? would go into effect immediately upon execution by the mayor, subject to your approval, and the lease currently in effect would terminate simultaneously with the execution of that operating agreement. Okay. So, arguably, but one will, and we're getting a better rate in the new deal than we are with the existing deal. Correct. And the new mayor can come in and terminate at any point, despite the fact that we've had a benefit of a better deal for whatever the period is between when this becomes effective

▶ 1:15:20 Francis X. Wright Jr.: and when the new mayor makes that decision if that decision were to be made correct the new mayor has a great deal of leverage over waste management to take the position even on you know sort of day one in office this was a bad deal and i'm pulling out and at the end of the day the city would be obligated to return a million dollars to wage waste management, which at that point wouldn't have even shown up in your free cash certification yet. So those funds would be readily available in the event the new mayor decided to do that. Okay. So at a minimum, at least for the first two years, whether you like this deal or not, for the first two years, we would have been, if we don't approve this tonight, we're committed

▶ 1:16:00 Manisha Bewtra: for two years at a lower rate. Correct. I think we generate approximately $135,000 in lease payments on that site. This new deal would generate $175,000 minimum and in addition the $1 million one-time payment which if you annualize over the 10-year life of it, the first year would be $275,000. Thank you. Thank you Madam President. Thank you. Further discussion. Alderman Bewtra. Thank you. Of course we're in between DPW directors so this may be more of a question for DPW and you don't have the answer if we could please get that information I I know we don't know the extent of potential contamination but I'm curious about what types of precautions are taken with regards to the DPW activities particularly composting that happens on the site and if you have a fear aware of

▶ 1:16:55 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: that I can I can have someone from DPW provide something in writing to the board um i could represent to you that knowing mr schenner as well as i know him at any federal and state environmental regulations and laws that are applicable to composting and other such uses at the site we would have strictly complied with but i can certainly have someone from dpw if that's your wish provide something in writing along those lines yes that would be good thank you thank you you any further discussion thank you I just wanted to confirm that in addition to the MOU that you're working to prepare the as you said a letter agreement there is also you're also planning to refine the draft operating agreement that we have in front of us with respect to the payment in lieu of

▶ 1:17:47 taxes I believe you are on the record as suggesting that in fact we will continue to collect property taxes on this correct just with the intervening holiday weekend alderman I wasn't able to finalize that work with waste management's tax counsel but I can represent that what the provision that's in the agreement this evening could potentially be struck and I anticipate it will be given the I think it's 59 to be of the general laws the taxation statutes but the provision will be struck and we would be taxing waste management at full value rather than the payment in lieu of taxes which is referred to in the agreement this evening okay so this is coming just into my mind now I haven't really prepared this question but I'm wondering if we're

▶ 1:18:34 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: suggesting that this is an operating agreement and not a lease so in other words it's our property why would waste management be paying property taxes on it because we would impose that obligation on them as part of the as part of the agreement okay so in other words they're a tenant and sometimes a landlord would suggest that the tenant is responsible for the property taxes the only difference i want to just highlight here is that waste management under an operating agreement wouldn't be considered a tenant right i do recognize that they would be considered the operator of a solid waste facility that the city of melrose owns which is what we would do through the operating agreement and our relationship with waste management is we would pass on the

▶ 1:19:19 taxing component if you will of the real estate to them they would be obligated to pay that are you familiar with any other municipality that has an operating agreement like this that essentially is identifying a contractor to manage a solid waste facility on the behalf of the municipality the the one example I can share with you this evening that I'm aware of is in Middleborough and it is a a it's not a transfer station it's a landfill that waste management operates for the town of middleborough and the the same sort of tax implications apply there as well it's town owned but managed under an agreement by waste management they pay taxes at full value on that that real estate okay um i think that's all that i have right now thank you thank you

▶ 1:20:15 Peter D. Mortimer: alderman mortimer thank you very much madam president i appreciate alderman Wright analysis and he points out very aptly what a sweet deal this is for melrose on one hand we have a good deal that when we have a new mayor in 70 days after they get settled 90 days possibly that isn't going to get better But this thing has been hammered out through two administrations for a couple of years. This is the end of the road, and it's a good road. It's a good road for Melrose, it's a good deal. It's a good deal for waste management, and it's a win-win situation. And that's what we have on one hand, a good deal for Melrose that we can walk away from. If we want, we have that cancellation for convenience clause in the contract, as was aptly pointed out.

▶ 1:21:19 Peter D. Mortimer: If the new mayor, whoever that mayor may be, doesn't like it, looks around, they can change it, but it's there. So it's a good deal for Melrose on one hand. On the other hand, waste management has been saying for some time that they need to make a deal. Because if they can't make a deal, they have to look elsewhere. So we have a good deal for us that is right there. And we'll slip through our fingers if we don't close on this. I like public process, but some things just happen when the city solicitor is negotiating things and there are conversations about it. We're constrained by the open meeting law. But there comes a point where we have to let the administration make a presentation to us.

▶ 1:22:15 Peter D. Mortimer: And there are many things that come up before us, and we get tons of emails, there's tons of input on social media. In fact, we have one tonight, the plastic straw, which is a great idea. And we got tons of input on that, all favorable, by the way. And there was tons of discussion on Facebook about that. But sometimes things happen, and there was time for people in the public to comment on this, this has been ongoing. And some things get covered more vigorously by the press, and others don't. But we're doing a good thing for the public here. This is a representative democracy. And I trust City Solicitor Van Kampen. I trust Mr. Della Russo. I trust Mr. Shenna. And I looked over this material myself as well.

▶ 1:23:19 Peter D. Mortimer: I happen to know the site. I've been there a hundred times. It's not suitable for anything else except for a waste management. It really isn't, it's half like the surface of the moon. And this is a good use, it serves everyone well. We can't have a two month discussion about this. And even if we don't, even if we pass it tonight, the new mayor, as one of the most important things said here tonight, by Alderman Wright, was the new mayor can cancel this, but waste management is locked in. It's a good deal, it's a good deal. And I haven't heard, I heard a few members of the public criticize it. But this was out there, this was on the patch, this was on Wicked Local. And a lot of times you put some issue on Wicked Local and the city blows up.

▶ 1:24:28 Peter D. Mortimer: Talk about we're going to have a marijuana party, marijuana for partying. I don't even like to call it recreational, but are we going to have a party store on Main Street for marijuana? The people went crazy on Facebook about that. There was opportunity for people to weigh in. People either know this is a good deal or they trust the administration that they've gotten us a good deal. And I've looked it over, and from what I see, it's a good deal. And not everything turns into a big hundreds of posts on Facebook and hundreds of emails to us, which sometimes is a good thing. We have had, if not a hundred, then dozens of emails supporting the plastic straw over these months. And that's a good thing.

▶ 1:25:24 Peter D. Mortimer: But sometimes, when we have contracts and you get into something that requires a deep legal analysis and a deep understanding of contract law that was so well delineated by Alderman Wright. And Alderman Lipper-Garabedian, when you look at contract law, sometimes it's not the type of thing that you're going to get a plethora of public participation. It's something that sometimes you have to leave it to the experts, Mr. Shenna, Mr. VanCampen and Mr. DellaRusso and the aldermen. And we have to look at it and make a decision. And then the trap door on the whole thing, even though it's a good deal, is we can get out of it anytime we want. We can get out of it in January, in December. The new mayor comes in in November.

▶ 1:26:22 Monica C. Medeiros: the new mayor can get out of it in november december january next june the new mayor can bail this is a good deal and we have the trapdoor if it turns out not to be a good deal for me this is this is easy to vote yes thank you thank you alderman medeiros thank you mr van campen um it was represented at the last meeting that this piece of land if if it was if the when the lease ends that exists currently that waste management has to return the land take take down the improvements to the land take down the buildings and return it to its the state it was in when they found it is that correct correct and it was represented that if somebody wanted to come in and put a transfer station there at that time when we've stopped operating as a transfer

▶ 1:27:26 Monica C. Medeiros: station that they would not be able to by current i believe current dep standards and i was wondering if we had any documentation to support that support to support the premise So what's changed in the law that would not allow that use today? I mean, I can't comment specifically this evening on what's changed in the various environmental laws and regulations in the, you know, preceding 25 years. I'm certainly happy to have Mr. Nacella speak to that if you'd like this evening, but I can understand why you'd want to hear that from me. I don't have any documentation per se other than 25 year history of what we've witnessed in Washington and Massachusetts as far as environmental regulations are concerned.

▶ 1:28:19 Twenty-five years ago there was not an issue with plastic straws and obviously now we all have learned over history that there is a problem with them. So I can't really answer that, that I have any documents, but other than to say I suspect all of the laws have become much more rigid and tight with respect to environmental protections that have to be in place at these types of facilities since we're under suspension of the rules and I see that we have mr. Nocella here perhaps he would come up and may be able to speak to this possibly so determination of use obviously has to be submitted to the DEP the issue that would face on this property if that facility was taken down would be setback requirements now that

▶ 1:29:13 are required between you know the next property the street there would be those issues and then you know obviously you'd have a construction period right so if you know if we had to remove the facility at the end of the lease um between permitting and construction you'd you know you'd look at probably a couple of years to do that so you'd be vacant for that period of time and then then you'd have to construct a facility to be presumably a lot more expensive because of not just setback in size requirements but also potentially the design of the building itself and those things evolve they change you know pretty regularly in terms of what the state requires when you construct a new facility so it's always difficult to say what it's going to be until you actually

▶ 1:30:06 Monica C. Medeiros: go through the permitting process and you get an order of conditions from the DEP that you have to meet. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. You know, I still generally, I feel, back for a minute, you know, it's, there's a lot of frustration here, and it feels like this is rushed, and we are trying to sort of jam this through, you know, coming back from Labor Day weekend, and it's frustrating, you know, from my perspective here, being on the board of aldermen that i think this is something that was in the works obviously we've heard from the mayor's office for about two years now and now you know we feel like we've got to make a decision now sitting here in this board of aldermen chamber i generally in my gut feel that

▶ 1:30:59 Monica C. Medeiros: this is a good deal as i think alderman Rita you know broke it down fairly well however there are some things that you know we have mentioned and been looking for that are not available today including the clear delineation of how much we're going to get in a payment of in lieu of taxes with this agreement and that memorandum of understanding or that letter agreement designating what what the agreement between the city of melrose and waste management is in order in terms of the use of you know composting and the site for those kinds of actions i would suggest that we may consider tabling this for two weeks until our next meeting just in order to get those things ironed out and have the board of all of them be able to see this letter agreement and

▶ 1:32:04 Peter D. Mortimer: have the exact numbers for the taxes and um and go from there so if there's uh will with the committee after everyone's had a chance for discussion i'd like to make that motion point point of order madam president we have a motion on the table um i'm happy to withdraw my motion for to recommend if the second one we can consider that first since it seems like a more procedural step toward passage we would need the the seconder to also or to first withdraw mm-hmm I will not remove my second we have a motion on the floor for passage and I seconded that and I have spoken in favor of it and heard other people people speak in favor of it with good points so I think we need to take a a vote on this motion for passives this evening Madam Chair I would just I would

▶ 1:33:02 also just represent to the board the full board that I believe Thursday evening the administration did recommend that we generate approximately thirty four thousand dollars in tax revenue from the from the parcels that are at question that I can represent in my discussion with the chief assessor is the amount of money we will tax waste management at or higher the letter agreement i referred to earlier will encompass all of the points operational issues that mr shena raised thursday evening i would just respectfully represent to the board of alderman that side letter agreement is not subject to this board's approval so mr shena certainly could or mayor inferno could certainly sign such an such an agreement such a letter agreement um i would

▶ 1:33:50 Monica C. Medeiros: just represent that to you this evening madam chair and i would ask this evening that this matter be acted on rather than further delayed thank you yes thank you if I still have the floor then you know again it's it's sort of frustrating that this is the way we've gone down this path but however I do think the two years as it was said last week I think the two years out now is a little bit too soon to be able to adequately begin the public process that we should have or what What should we do for the use of this site? I hope that the new administration begins right away to start that process, to look at this and to look at any kind of environmental impacts that are on the site. However, as Alderman Wright pointed out, this contract does allow an opt-out.

▶ 1:34:43 Monica C. Medeiros: I do have a question. If we were to receive this $1 million as payment, it's going to go through the free cash process and then be subject to appropriation certainly there was there was some discussion about you know what could be done with that money to make sure that it wasn't necessarily all spent so that we if we did want to opt out of this contract we could maybe put it in contract stabilization or someplace like that would it be then subject to a judgment for a collective bargaining to think that we've got money, if we put money aside from free cash for the purpose of making sure we have the ability to opt out of this contract later on, would that be, you know, if we went to the JLMC or if we had some reason to have some collective bargaining, you know,

▶ 1:35:37 Monica C. Medeiros: would we be in a weakened position because we had that money there? I don't believe so. As you know, we have a contract stabilization fund for that purpose that has a current balance in it. The question of where this payment would go is entirely subject to the discretion of the next mayor and the next Board of Aldermen as far as free cash is concerned. So I wouldn't be that concerned about that particular issue. So, you know, again, I think, you know, the burden, the burden of the hand is worth two in the bush. And we have this agreement before us that I think is overall more beneficial to the city than the potential of having a vacant, unused site at the end of two years. And so, therefore, I'm going to support this today.

▶ 1:36:31 Scott M. Forbes: Thank you. Thank you. Alderman Forbes. Thank you. I know a lot of my colleagues here are saying that this is a good deal, but my question is how can anybody determine if this is a good deal for Melrose when we haven't done anything to figure out what the alternative is? We've had plenty of time to assess this property. I think that the city took the direction of this is the way they wanted to go, but for me, and I know the collective bargaining process goes back and forth, but in our last meeting it was presented to us that the city admitting to waiting waste management out so they could get a better deal so in that aspect what that does to us is it shortens our window of opportunity to to sit down and make a well-informed decision so i'm of the mindset to measure twice and

▶ 1:37:16 Scott M. Forbes: cut once i don't want to sign a deal only to give the money back two years later i wouldn't sign a an agreement for anything based on that premise alone so for me i i don't think that waiting another few months and if you think that that's the the scenario where they could walk away was it ever considered to signing a short-term deal with a two-year extension so we could sit down and actually make you know have a robust conversation and make a good informed decision not just for the property for the community as a whole when we when we started this process we contemplated a five-year deal which was the city's initial proposal to waste management which effectively would have amounted to a three-year deal that was our initial offer

▶ 1:37:59 to waste management and we've met at ten years essentially but it's a fair point alderman Forbes in the final analysis you know our role as an administration was to negotiate what we felt was a was an agreement that is in the best interest of the city of Melrose and I'm confident to represent to you this evening that what's in front of you accomplishes that objective but we did start out at a lower term in the in the hope that five years maybe allows the city in the shorter term the ability to stop the public process that I know alderman Medeiros and others have talked about during these deliberations but in the final analysis the deal that's in front of you still in my view is in the best interest of the city yeah understood and I understand that you

▶ 1:38:43 Scott M. Forbes: have a role to play in those negotiations I completely understand and respect that but for me to be sitting here now and saying that we have to make this decision now I I I'm not gonna be in favor of this order tonight so I'm going to vote no I think that there are other alternatives that we could discuss that would be better than locking us into a long-term deal and after two years just handing back the money to me just doesn't seem like a good alternative for me so thank you any further discussion motion has been made and seconded for passage of this order all in favor Any opposed opposed Do we have a voice vote? Voice vote we can we can ask for one Alderman Bewtra. Yes Yes, I'm in Forbes. No, I'm in the for Garabedian. Yes, I'm in McMaster. No

▶ 1:39:48 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: No. Alderman Medeiros? Yes. Alderman Mortimer? Yes. Alderman Tramontozzi? No. Alderman Wright? Yes. Alderman Zwirko? No. Alderman Lemmerman? Yes. And President Lemmerman? Yes. Seven. Seven. The order passes. Thank you very much. Thank you. Continuing with orders from committee, Alderman Lipper-Garabedian. Yes. Thank you. We now have before us order number 2020-17, an appropriation from contract stabilization 84042590000 in the amount of $5,000 to city solicitor salary and wages. Motion to remove from committee. Second. We have a motion to remove order 2020-17 from committee made by Alderman Lipper-Garabedian, seconded by Alderman Mortimer. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The order is before you.

▶ 1:40:46 Motion for passage. Second. We have a motion for passage of the order made by Alderman Lipper-Garabedian, seconded by Alderman Mortimer, on discussion. This is a roll call vote requiring eight. 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. President Lemmerman. Yes. The order passes. Do we have any reports under Rule 53 from boards or commissions? Seeing none, if we can move on to the calendar. Order 2019-112, amend Melrose revised ordinances by adding Article 7, Section 198-12, reduction in single-use plastic beverage straws and beverage stirrers in business establishments.

▶ 1:41:44 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Article 6, excuse me. This order comes to us from the Legal and Legislative Committee with a recommendation for passage. Alderman Wright initially I'd like to move to add the correspondence that we received including those received through this evening with regards to the ordinance Alderman Wright moves to add the email communications that we have received since our previous meeting to the order or the motion is seconded by Alderman Mortimer all in favor those will be attached second I'd like to move for passage second a motion for passage of the order made by alderman wright and seconded by alderman mortimer on discussion alderman mcmaster thank you uh madam president i'd like to thank alderman wright for filing this order i'd also like to thank members of the public who appeared

▶ 1:42:33 Shawn M. MacMaster: before us this evening and also at our last meeting and i'd like to thank miss mcnail for her comprehensive answers to the questions that i emailed her prior to the last meeting i'm going to be brief because i anticipate that this order will pass this evening but i did want to make it clear for the record why i will be opposing it my concern with this order is that i'm afraid that it may be counterintuitive to its purpose although this order may reduce the use of plastic straws at restaurants in melrose what it won't do is change people's attitudes and belief systems about straws and plastic more generally put another way it won't change the culture and i'm afraid that legislating this without more of a concerted effort to engage

▶ 1:43:24 Shawn M. MacMaster: and educate members of the public and business owners and try to seek voluntary compliance from them will only alienate them and i believe that when people are alienated their attitudes and their beliefs become hardened and an opportunity to affect change becomes lost so this order of past may change the behavior of customers in melrose but people will still use plastic straws when they eat at restaurants and neighboring communities and at home so any law that is meant to be a values-based statement needs to begin with changing the culture and i don't believe that we have taken that step for these reasons i'll be voting against this order tonight thank you madam president thank you alderman wright thank you madam president um

▶ 1:44:17 Francis X. Wright Jr.: i just want to make sure it's clear i think everyone on this board understands it but to the extent the public doesn't this ordinance is in its simplest form intended that if you walk into a restaurant or any place where you're served a drink and I cup that doesn't automatically come with a plastic straw you can request the put you could walk into Dunkin Donuts and say I'd like an iced coffee and I'd like a straw like a plastic straw and you will get it as long as they're willing to provide it to you there's no prohibition no ban on straws it's just an opportunity to reduce in some way a level of plastic being used in our community plastic that is not recyclable plastic that often ends up in our gutters and in our parks

▶ 1:45:07 Francis X. Wright Jr.: but understanding that some people would still want them some people still need them people who have physical challenges often require a plastic straw so i would in no way want to prevent that they'll still be available there's no no ban on sale by shaw's or any of our convenience stores or anything like that so um this is no not intended to be a ban it's not intended to be a situation where if you don't get a straw they're going to give you something automatically that isn't plastic and be prohibited from giving you a plastic straw they can give you a plastic straw they can give you you know somebody indicated tonight they got something other than a plastic straw and they didn't like it well that isn't a result of anything that that that the community

▶ 1:45:54 Scott M. Forbes: would require in melrose that that would be a choice of the establishment so i just want to clarify that to the extent there's any any um issue as to what it is that we'd be voting on tonight thank you any further discussion alderman forbes thank you um i'm not going to get into my comments that i made the other night i just want to say that i honestly feel that we could do the very same thing without an ordinance you can have a retail establishment offer plastic plastic straws and have them offer a paper straw alternative they could be presented to the consumer and nothing needs to be held behind the counter and the consumer can pick what they want putting something behind the counter and then asking for it it it shines a light on somebody and I don't

▶ 1:46:40 Scott M. Forbes: think that we need that not in the community so for me you can do the very same thing that we're talking about without an ordinance and because of that I don't see a reason why I would need to support it because there are other ways to get to the same place without making an ordinance so for that reason I'm gonna vote no thank you any further discussion motion has been made and seconded for passage as this is a new ordinance it does require eight all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Opposed. We have a show of hands on the on the opposed. May we have a roll call vote please? Alderman Bewtra? Yes. Alderman Boisselle? Yes. Alderman Forbes? No. Alderman Lipper-Garabedian? Yes. Alderman McMaster? No. Alderman Medeiros? No. Alderman

▶ 1:47:39 Mortimer. Yes. Alderman Chairman Tozzi. Yes. Alderman Wright. Yes. Alderman Zwirko. Yes. President Lemmerman. Yes. 8. The order passes. Moving on with orders or with the calendar please. Order 2020-7 appointment of Jenny Wengrovius 585 Main Street number 402 to the Commission on Women for a three-year term said term to expire on the last day of February. This comes to us from the health education and welfare committee with a recommendation for passage motion for passage second a motion made for passage by Alderman Mortimer second by Alderman Boycelle on discussion all in favor what a 2 0 2 0 dash 13 appointment of Stacey Manchello as a director of the Council of the Council on Aging effective September 16th 2019 motions to us also with a

▶ 1:48:40 Scott M. Forbes: A recommendation for passage from the Health Education and Welfare Committee. Motion for passage. Second. We have a motion for passage made by Alderman Medeiros, seconded by Alderman Mortimer. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Opposed. This order passes. Alderman Forrest. A moment of personal privilege, please. Please. I just want to let everybody know that on Saturday, September 28th, the Melrose Veterans Open Golf Tournament will be taking place at Mount Hood. this is an annual event that is much relied upon to help with the ongoing memorial projects that we have in the city of melrose these things are not under any type of budget items so they are relied upon by members of the community in their generosity so if anybody is interested

▶ 1:49:24 Scott M. Forbes: in participating in this great event i will be there you can contact me at 978-873-0916 that is my cell phone you can also contact veteran services karen burke she could be reached at 781 nine seven nine four one eight six and we hope to see you all on the 28th thank you thank you motion to adjourn matter president second a motion to adjourn maybe alma mortimer second by alma Boisselle all in favor aye aye opposed we are adjourned

City Council — 2019-09-03

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