Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2020-02-24
Attendance
Christopher Cinella ; Jack Eccles ; Mark Garipay ; Jen Grigoraitis ; Kate Lipper-Garabedian ; Shawn M. MacMaster ; Jeff McNaught ; Leila Migliorelli ; Robb Stewart ; Cory Thomas ; John N. Tramontozzi
Agenda
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● FEBRUARY 24, 2020 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Committee Meeting 7:15 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 The public should take notice that the Melrose City Council may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the City Council consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Kate Lipper-Garabedian Chair Present Christopher Cinella Vice Chair Present John N. Tramontozzi Voting Present Shawn M. MacMaster Voting Present Jeff McNaught Voting Present Jack Eccles Voting Present Mark Garipay Voting Present Leila Migliorelli Voting Present Robb Stewart Voting Present Cory Thomas Voting Present Jen Grigoraitis President, ex oficio Present
ORDER-2020-52 Administrative Order Amending Chapter A, Article II of the Administrative Code of the City of Melrose by inserting a new Section A-221 Establishing a Commission on Disability Recommend Passage City Council City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 2/25/2020 3:32 PM
Transcript
▶ 9:37 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Councilor eccles Councilor garipay Councilor migliorelli Councilor stewart Councilor thomas and president Grigoraitis this meeting is being recorded in accordance with the open meeting law and is available live on television and also online through mmtv and will be available on the city of melrose website hereafter at this time i'd entertain a motion for public comment seconded by Councilor Stewart all in favor any opposed this is the portion of our meeting where any member of the public can come forward to speak on the order on our agenda tonight and we will also pause again at 7 30 because it has been duly noticed that we would have a public hearing on this order as well but seeing no members of the public here tonight
▶ 10:29 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: motion to close public comment second motion to close public comment made by Vice Chair Cinella and seconded by Councilor Eccles all in favor any opposed so tonight we have one order on our agenda it's order number 2020-52 amending chapter a article 2 of the Administrative Code of the City of Melrose by inserting a new section a-221 establishing a commission on disability and we're honored tonight to be joined by our mayor and city solicitor so we motion to suspend the rules made by vice chair Snellen and seconded by Councilor Migliorelli all in favor any opposed we're under suspension of rules if you'd like to join us check problems that we had a little bit earlier and the rather but we've learned
▶ 11:24 Paul Brodeur: to be very very stringent requirements of the of the open meeting law but I'm delightful to be here with you today to talk about a commission on disability I will start with the good news that the this law really started in 1981 where the state legislature created a mass office of disability and this is the purpose of the mass office of disabilities to ensure the full and equal participation of all people with disabilities in all aspects of life by working to advance legal rights maximum opportunity supportive services accommodations and accessibility in a manner that fosters dignity and self-determination over that that law contains a a local option that a prior collection prior city council adopted i
▶ 12:17 Paul Brodeur: think for obvious reasons that we are normally we lead on things like this but there are almost 200 cities and towns that have created a commission or committee on disability and by we've already adopted that underlying order but what we need is the bones to make it work there are a couple of choices that we have to make really one particularly important choice which is how many members the the Commission will have the statute sets out a range and I believe the order before you has has seven members there are certain requirements in terms of membership of folks living with a disability family members a public or appointed member of the government and I would urge you to act on this you know we have other
▶ 13:08 Paul Brodeur: Commission's that act in a similar vein and I suspect and hope that their success something in particularly of the Human Rights Commission and the Commission on women will give our community more of an opportunity to examine some of the issues facing folks with disabilities and their families you should really understand that the scope of this law is very very broad it includes folks with physical disabilities folks that have may be disabled due to an injury including a traumatic brain injury and also people with um intellectual developmental disabilities so it really does run the gamut and to give you a sense of the the scope of that in massachusetts all approximately 25 percent of our population is living with a disability and there
▶ 14:04 Paul Brodeur: is a ton of information out there that can explain in any particular silo what that means if you look at educational opportunities particularly in higher education for folks with developmental and intellectual disabilities that is a place where the state has started to make progress and there's real opportunity there you know in our own district schools we strive very much to be inclusive and i would hope that this commission might have some input on how we build that curricula and how we and how we implement it certainly issues around mobility we know a lot of things we know our public buildings are regrettably very very very old and we are ambitious about that we have we hope to make a lot
▶ 14:53 Paul Brodeur: of progress on a lot of fronts that way one thing we're going to need to think about is making sure that those are accessible in many many many different ways I think the Commission can have terrific input on that in terms of life outcomes think folks with disabilities are more at risk for obesity smoking generic inactivity and you know these for a social service infrastructure to be most effective it relies on things like uh least restrictive setting and maintaining independence in the community what we mean though by independence in the community is building in enough supports so that folks can be as independent as possible in with whatever they bring to the table and i'm hoping that this commission will also make progress on that front
▶ 15:52 Paul Brodeur: i do think it is a uh a real opportunity uh to move the move the city and all its residents forward because it touches on all the issues that we that we care about i also want i would be remiss if i didn't thank uh former alderman at the time frank wright who was the member at the time from ward 3 who brought this forward and made sure that it got passed and it is now before you again so that it can be adopted and implemented one other thing i would add which is a little bit off topic as you know this would be a public commission subject to the open meeting law and public records law uh that also means that the uh the council will be able to approve any uh nominations to the commission that i make and to that end and this will be true
▶ 16:40 Paul Brodeur: of all boards and commissions we're going to change the way we do business a little bit and that we are going to make sure all those opportunities not just the disability commission but all the opportunities we have throughout the city are posted on our city's website with a brief description of what each board of commission would do what we anticipate the time commitment would be and try to solicit a broader input because we have tremendous tremendous volunteer uh support in this community we would uh we would really suffer without it but i also think we're we're at a point where we need to start thinking about bringing new people into the process i'm very conscious of that as we fill this brand new board and as we commission excuse
▶ 17:24 Shawn M. MacMaster: me and as we do with some of the vacancies on the boards and commissions that already exist with that if you have any questions i'd be happy to answer them otherwise i appreciate your consideration counselor mcmaster thank you madam chair i don't have any questions just a couple of comments i'd like to thank you mayor broder for making this a priority during the campaign and also fulfilling your pledge to get this up and running as one of your first initiatives as mayors as you know this has been lingering some time and I think it really took you coming in to get this moving I know this is also not an issue that is new to you it's something that you prioritized as a legislature it's also as a legislator it's also something that you were intimately involved in at
▶ 18:06 Shawn M. MacMaster: the executive office of elder affairs because we know there's an intersection between elders and disabilities so thank you for that and also just like to acknowledge ward 5 resident katie kennedy who has been very active behind the scenes she's brought fresh ideas and passion and energy to this issue and i think will be an asset to us as a community as we continue to move forward on this and then the final comment mayor is just one thing to think about is having served on the human rights commission and chaired that body myself maybe thinking of mechanisms to avoid duplication of efforts or work because I would say that just the number one call at least when I was on the Human Rights Commission is disability concerns so just so we're not creating any type of
▶ 18:55 Paul Brodeur: secondary trauma figuring out some way for the Commission's to work together and perhaps you've thought of that but absolutely no it's a terrific idea because to your point there can certainly be some some overlapping interest amongst our Commission's and I don't say we've been negligent that but there are certainly opportunities to make those connections and have impact in the community which is ultimately where we want to be you don't want people guessing about it was this the right slot I have to go to at the right place I have to plug in we want to make it easy for people that need help or want to have some input thank you again mr. mayor thank you chair Councilor stewart i'm sorry Councilor thomas thank you manager chairperson good evening
▶ 19:39 Cory Thomas: publicly challenged they're not part of this good evening mr mayor thank you for being here um i want to echo uh Councilor mcmaster's sentiments as well uh no questions uh just a couple comments i think this is a great thing uh i wanted to thank you and uh former alderman Francis wright for bringing this forward uh in my day-to-day work uh i deal a lot with mass commission for for the Blind, Mass Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Developmental Services, Mass Rehab. I see a number of people that are struggling with different things in a day-to-day manner, and to see this coming forward for the City of Melrose, I think it's a wonderful thing, so thank you again very much. I think that's part of the opportunity. There really are robust services available
▶ 20:20 Paul Brodeur: for the disability community, but sometimes it's hard to connect. If you don't know, you don't know part of the job of this commission i would think would be to make sure that the that we drive those services down to the to the community level and make sure that people absolutely the services are available but you know like you just said they're not always available you know people don't know that they're available to them so i think this is a great thing and we can really reach a local level uh people that need these services there's also actually this opportunity there are grand opportunities available um the the town of amherst just got about 40 a little bit more than 44 000 to do some sidewalk and downtown improvements to
▶ 20:58 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: to help with mobility and um you know i think that's something that we're well positioned to take advantage of once we get this up and running thank you mr mayor thank you motion to recommend second we have a motion to recommend made by council Tramontozzi and seconded by counselor thomas um just one question and maybe then two comments do you want oh and also then we'll pause for the public hearing but um do you anticipate that this commission would have a small budget like some of the other commissions that we have codified i would expect 21 so maybe we'll see that as part of the budget process and okay and um then i would just commend you on um bringing this forward as my colleagues have i'm really appreciative as well of your attention to sort
▶ 21:46 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: of broader access and information for the community because i i think we have a lot of great advocates and experts in melrose who will be really passionate about this issue and so it's nice to know that you're thinking about ways to make sure a lot of people hear about this so we can um have some really good activity and passion there um and to um to the conversation just a few minutes ago i mean one thing to also consider is to the degree that this commission's work will intersect some with the com you know the human rights commission perhaps the commission on women there may be opportunities even for those boards missions to have a joint meeting right and that could be really interesting and helpful for that engagement so thank you again
▶ 22:25 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: so we do have a motion that was duly seconded but because we also have a public hearing in exactly two minutes i wonder if we should wait to vote until we ensure that there's no member of the public who wants to speak on this um so we could just do that um and it looks like we may have someone who is here so um to that degree um we could potentially recess for two minutes and then we'll come back i'd entertain a motion to recess make a motion for a two-minute recess second motion for two-minute recess made by Councilor Garipay and seconded by Councilor migliorelli all in favor any opposed okay we'll be right back our recess being over we're back to the business at hand which is there was a duly noticed public hearing