City Council — 2020-10-05

City Council Regular Meeting

This meeting starts at 29:15 in a recording that covers several meetings.

Attendance

Christopher Cinella present · At-Large; Jack Eccles present · At-Large; Mark Garipay present · Ward 4; Jen Grigoraitis present · President, ex oficio; Maya Jamaleddine present · At-Large; Shawn M. MacMaster present · Ward 5; Jeff McNaught present · Ward 2; Leila Migliorelli present · At-Large; Robb Stewart present · Ward 3; Cory Thomas present · Ward 7; John N. Tramontozzi present · Ward 1

Agenda

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE CITY COUNCIL BULLETIN● OCTOBER 5, 2020 Web-based remote meeting Regular Meeting 7:45 PM , Melrose, MA 02176 Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Jen Grigoraitis President, ex oficio Present John N. Tramontozzi Ward 1 Present Jeff McNaught Ward 2 Present Robb Stewart Ward 3 Present Mark Garipay Ward 4 Present Shawn M. MacMaster Ward 5 Present Cory Thomas Ward 7 Present Jack Eccles At-Large Present Christopher Cinella At-Large Present Leila Migliorelli At-Large Present Maya Jamaleddine At-Large Present

ORDER-2021-25 Request Requesting the City Solicitor appear before the City Council to discuss whether the City has the legal and regulatory authority to establish and recognize Indigenous People’s Day in the City of Melrose. Assigned to Committee Appropriations Committee

ORDER-2021-26 Grant Acceptance of a grant in the amount of $10,382.50 from the Center for Tech and Civic life for the purpose of supporting the planning and execution of a safe and secure State Election in 2020, said funds to be deposited into fund # 2952 Assigned to Committee Appropriations Committee

ORDER-2021-27 Calling Election Calling State Election-Tuesday, the Third Day of November, 2020 Passed

ORDER-2021-28 Request An Order Relative to the CARES Act Funding for the City of Melrose Assigned to Committee Appropriations Committee

ORDER-2021-24 Request City of Melrose Page 1 11/12/2020 9:36 AM Minutes City Council October 5, 2020 Communication from Massachusetts State Lottery Commission regarding KENO License at Melrose Mobil, 386 Main, St., Melrose, MA Defeated Protection and License Committee

ORDER-2021-14 Appropriation An Appropriation in the amount of $243,285 from Capital Stabilization (account 84052-590000) to Public Works Equipment (account 019313-551002) to purchase a new street sweeper. Passed City Council

ORDER-2021-23 Appropriation Transfer from account 29032-590000 (Library Fines Account) in the amount of $20,000.00; and Transfer to account 016112-534200 (Lib Exp Books & Periodicals) in the amount of $20,000.00 Passed Finance Committee

ORDER-2021-22 Grant Acceptance of the Coronavirus Emergency Supplemental Funding Grant awarded to the Fire Department by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Office of Public Safety and Security in the amount of $49,095.75 Passed Appropriations Committee

ORDER-2021-21 Appointment Appointment of Fatma Ulku Duru, 147 Pleasant St., to the Human Rights Commission for a three-year term; said term to end on the last day of February 2023. Passed Health, Education & Welfare Committee City of Melrose Page 2 11/12/2020 9:36 AM

Transcript

▶ 29:39 Jen Grigoraitis: this meeting of the city council will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible we will post an audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the city of melrose website and on mmtv3.org madam clerk can you please call the role counselor sonala yeah Councilor Eccles. Here. Councilor Garipay. Here. Councilor Dimaldi. Here. Councilor McMaster. Here. Councilor McNaught. Here. Councilor Migliorelli. Here. Councilor Stewart. Here. Councilor Thomas. Here. Councilor Tramontozzi. Here. President Grigoraitis here 11 present 11 present. So we have a quorum and can proceed counselor. So, do we have any meeting minutes for approval?

▶ 30:46 Jen Grigoraitis: I do not at this time. I think we do. I think we had September 8th and September 21st were submitted. Motion to approve the September 8th and the other day. So, we have a motion to approve the September 8th and September 21st meeting minutes made by counselor. Seconded by counselor echoes. Madam clerk. Can you please call the roll? madam clerk can you please call the roll counselor snella yes counselor eccles yes counselor Garipay yes counselor Jamaleddine yes counselor mcmaster yes counselor mcnaught yes counselor Migliorelli yes counselor stewart yes counselor thomas yes counselor Tramontozzi yes president Grigoraitis Yes, 11. Yes. 11. Yes. The minutes are approved. Thank you. Counselor. At this time, I'll entertain a motion to end to open public comment.

▶ 31:57 Jen Grigoraitis: Motion for public comment, so we have a motion to open public comment made by counselor seconded by counselor. Mcnaught madam clerk, can you please call the roll? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Yes, Stuart yes, Thomas. Yes, yes, yes. 11, yes, 11. Yes. So public comment is open at this time. Members of the public can speak to any item that is on the council's agenda. If you are logged in and interested in speaking, please raise your digital hand. We have anyone wishing to speak? I don't see anyone at this time. Okay. Motion to close public comment. Second. Second. So we have a motion to close public comment made by Councilor Stewart, seconded by Councilor Migliorelli. Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll?

▶ 33:11 Sinella. Yes. Eccles. Yes. Garrapay. Yes. Yeah, McMaster. Yes, like, not. Yes, maybe really. Yes, Stuart yes, Thomas. Yes, yes, yes. Yes. 11. Yes. 11, yes, so public comment is now closed. Madam clerk of committees, can you please read the communications from his honor the mayor and other city officials. Order 2021 dash 25 requesting the city solicitor appear before the city council to discuss whether the city is the legal and regulatory authority. To establish and recognize indigenous people's day in the city of Melrose. This order will be sent to the appropriations committee. Order 2021 dash 26. Acceptance of a grant in the amount of 10,382 dollars 50 cents. From the center for tech and civic life for the purpose of supporting the planning and execution of a safe and secure state election in 2020.

▶ 34:24 Jen Grigoraitis: Said funds to be deposited into fund number 2952. This order will be sent to the appropriations committee. Order 2021 dash 27 calling state election Tuesday, the 3rd of November 2020. Madam president, I'd like to motion for immediate consideration. So, we have a motion for a media consideration of order 2021 dash 27 made by council. Is there any objection to this? Okay, seeing none, the order is now before us. Is there anyone wishing to speak to this order? What is the will of the council motion for passage? So, we have a motion for passage made by council. Seconded by counselor echoes. Is there any discussion? Madam clerk, can you was there any discussion? Sorry. Madam clerk, can you please call the roll? Counselor? Yes. Counselor. Yes.

▶ 35:32 Jen Grigoraitis: Counselor. Yes. Counselor. Yes, counselor. Yes. Counselor. Yes. Counselor. Yes. Counselor Stewart? Yes. Counselor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. Eleven yes. Eleven yes. So the election will happen on the 3rd of November 2020. Just a point of information that all wards and precincts will again vote at the middle school on election day. Madam Clerk of Committees. Order 2021-28 an order relative to the CARES Act funding for the City of Melrose. This order will be sent to to the Appropriations Committee. Do we have any orders out of order? Do we have any orders from Committee? Councillor Stewart. Madam President, I'd like to pull order 2021-24, Communication of Massachusetts State Lottery Commission regarding

▶ 36:35 Jen Grigoraitis: Kino License at the Melrose-Melville, community 6 Main Street, Melrose, Massachusetts for conservation. Do we have a second to pull the order from Committee? So, we have a motion by counselor Stewart, seconded by counselor, not to pull order 2021 dash 24 from committee. Adam clerk. Can you please call the roll? Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Thomas yes, chairman. Yes. Yes 11 yes 11. yes. So the order is before us. Madam president, I'd like to make a recommendation, not to pass to the full council. Okay, so we have a recommendation based on the committee for the order to not pass. we so we have a recommendation by councillor stewart seconded by councillor sanella for the order not to pass is there any discussion seeing none madam clerk can you please call the

▶ 37:51 role um councillor sanella yes councillor eccles yes councillor Garipay yes councillor Jamaleddine yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor mcnaught yes councillor Migliorelli yes Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Thomas? Yes. Councillor Tramontozzi? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. Eleven yes for it not to pass. Eleven yes for it not to pass. Thank you. Do we have any reports under Rule 53? Councillor Eccles? The school committee is going to meet next Tuesday, October 13th, and they'll continue talking through the comprehensive return to instruction plan as they move forward closer to the date of beginning hybrid instruction thank you any additional reports okay seeing none um we'll move to the

▶ 39:04 Christopher Cinella: calendar madam clerk of committees order 2021-14 an appropriation the amount of 243 285 dollars from capital stabilization account eight four zero five two dash five nine zero zero zero zero to public works equipment account zero one nine three one three dash five five one zero zero two to purchase a new street sweeper counselor sanella uh yes madam president uh this order comes from appropriations with a recommendation for passage and i moved for passage and um just wanted to add some clarity When in appropriations committee, we do not need the super majority vote. So I know there was some confusion around that. You can blame that on the chair. We need it in the full council reference the city charter section 2 dash 6.

▶ 40:02 Christopher Cinella: B, where we need 8 votes on appropriation matters. In the full console, and if I may while on discussion, assuming we're going to discussion. um i've remained still in full support of this order we've now received three memos on this purchase the first one the initial uh order on august 4th and then the second one a series of questions that were answered by our gpw director september 18th which was um very helpful and now recently october 1st with a life cycle cost analysis that compares new versus outsourcing versus used so shy from the city council going on a field trip to a street sweeper dealership i don't know how much more you know our dpw director can do to make the case for a new one

▶ 40:57 Christopher Cinella: in this last latest memo from october 1st which i'm assuming somebody will add that to the record once we dispose of this motion for the public. We have option one, a new street sweeper with a 15-year life cycle cost analysis of 1.5 million. Option two, outsourcing all the sweeping with a 15-year life cycle of 2.3 million. And then option three, a used sweeper with a 15-year life cycle cost analysis of 1.6 million so 1.5 2.3 or 1.6 and it looks to me like option one new is the best option for the city for the long term and um i think that we should put our trust and confidence behind director paracas ellis on this uh decision and i thank her for the added analysis it was it was very helpful and reaffirmed my thank you thank you councillor

▶ 42:01 Jen Grigoraitis: sanella just before we move on just to square everything away procedurally so we have a motion to recommend for passage made by councillor sanella is there a second for that motion before we move on to further discussion of it so second so we have a motion by councillor sanella seconded by councillor mcnaught for passage of order 2021-14 councillor Garipay on discussion thank you miss president um i just want to say during during our appropriation meeting last week i stated that i was uh i was not opposed to doing something with regards to a to a street sweep sweeper i did however express my concern about supporting this appropriation because i believe that all the options should have been researched in detail along with their

▶ 42:44 Mark Garipay: financial impact i also expressed my concern about using such a large sum of money from the capital stabilization fund especially not knowing where we are headed in this financial climate since uh since i've been on this council i believe my approach in making decisions about financial purchases has been very consistent based on the information provided at the time of that of those discussions in the past week i had a long conversation with patrick delarusso where i discussed my concern regarding the capital stabilization fund in that conversation He told me that this appropriation regarding the balance of this fund is still going to be in the range that they had set for a goal when this fund was created.

▶ 43:34 Mark Garipay: This past Thursday, as Councilor Sinaloa had mentioned, we received a thorough financial analysis regarding the three options that were discussed in our prior meeting. uh this type this type of analysis that was provided is what i was hoping for and was extremely is extremely helpful when our council is trying to make financial decisions in which we feel are best for the city my career outside the chamber is analyzing providing multiple solutions in their financial impact with transportation equipment so i have quite a bit of experience in this um after renewing after reviewing the analysis which was provided and looking at the differences in these three option which i believe all all have benefits i feel comfortable

▶ 44:20 Mark Garipay: in supporting this order tonight i i would also like to thank ms prowakis ellis for providing such a detailed uh spreadsheet that will be added to uh it will be added to the uh the agenda or to the file at the at the end of the meeting i also hope that in the future when we see large appropriations come before our council no matter what department it is that such detailed information is provided especially around the financial options as i mentioned last week i wasn't i'm not trying to add additional work for any any department head but we have a fiduciary responsibility for the residents who elect us and thorough analysis helps reinforce that i am making the best possible decision so i will based on the thorough spreadsheet and analysis

▶ 45:09 Robb Stewart: um but the three options i feel comfortable in supporting this uh appropriation uh tonight thank you thank you councillor Garipay um i don't see any other oh councillor stewart thank you madam president and i do want to uh express my thanks to miss ferguson for going forward and making that effort and uh to providing her perspective on the finances um i do not believe however though that this is purely uh an roi exercise um i think what's missing in this is risk um there's anybody that is uh has done any kind of forecasting for a living knows the fundamental rule of forecasting is that all forecasts are wrong uh and you know at at the beginning and the and the reason being is you cannot predict the future it could you know we could all be doing different things um

▶ 46:11 Robb Stewart: so from that standpoint um it is inherently riskier in my perspective to go forward with this because it's not years one through five that i worry about it but it's used 60 10 and and beyond that that we have no idea if this um this vehicle is going to have a fairly major cost associated with it if something happens to if it breaks down it doesn't work anymore we can come up with a million different scenarios of what may or may not go wrong but inherently there is risk as opposed to when you go and you outsource a service like this it's predictable it's understood it's easily accounted for you can budget for it and you don't have to worry about it in addition you don't have to put staff services and other resources to

▶ 47:03 Robb Stewart: worry about it to manage it uh to to take care of it all of those components go away when you outsource um additionally when i looked at how the street sweepers are being used this game uh today and for the foreseeable future, we rarely use it. It sits idle for 75% of the time. And the reason why we have to contract out to begin with is to meet the bare minimum. We don't do anything more than the minimum beyond what's required by the state. And to me, that is a service that can be provided as opposed to having to buy a street sweeper. When I look at what's to be coming down the road next year i think we're going to be in a little bit of a different situation from a financial perspective and so for me uh when i look at this purchase

▶ 47:58 Robb Stewart: right now i feel as though it is a bit extraordinary uh given uh the other priorities that will be coming forward to us uh you know this does not mean that i would say no to this forever i think if we were in much better times uh if we had a position where we could demonstrate the financial strength strength of the community to support something like this then yeah then i would potentially consider going forward uh but at this point i do not think it's prudent i was put in this seat uh based on my financial prudence and i feel uh strongly that we need to adhere to those kind of policies so i cannot support this going forward thank you madam Thank you. Counselor Stewart. Counselor Thomas. Thank you, Madam President. A couple of weeks ago in appropriations, I was against

▶ 48:54 Cory Thomas: for a new street sweeper. I too wanted to see additional options other than a brand new sweeper. Thanks to the work that Director Elena Proy-Casales did through the DPW, she came up with the cost analysis for new used and contracted out i also contacted um an industrial equipment uh leasing firm uh and they they basically said the same thing you know a leased street sweeper would be around the cost of a new street sweeper as well um so based on all that information um i think moving forward and the fact that this we paid off um i think about five or six years director pro I said, I will be supporting this tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Counselor Thomas. Is there anyone else? Okay, Madam clerk, can you please call the role?

▶ 49:50 Counselor, yes, counselor. Yes, yes. Counselor, yes, counselor, McMaster. No, yes. Counselor, yes, counselor Stewart. No, counselor Thomas. Yes. Yes, present. Yes, 9 yes 9 naps and the order passes. Madam clerk of committee. Oh, yes. Right? Right. Still on the calendar order 2021 dash 23 transfer from account 2, 9, 0, 3, 2 dash 5, 9, 0, 0, 0, 0 library finds account in the amount of 20,000 dollars. And transfer to count 0, 1, 6, 2 dash 5, 3, 4, 2, 0, 0. Library expense books and periodicals in the amount of 20,000 dollars. counselor Migliorelli yes madam president this comes um from the finance committee with a recommendation for passage do we have but this comes with a recommendation for passage do we

▶ 51:22 have a second second so we have a recommendation for passage made by counselor Migliorelli with a second by counselor mcnaught on order 2021-23 is there any discussion madam clerk can you please call the roll counselor sanella yes councillor eccles yes councillor Garipay yes councillor Jamaleddine yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor mcnaught yes councillor Migliorelli yes councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Thomas? Yes. Councillor Tramontozzi? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. 11 yes. 11 yes and the motion carries. Madam Clerk of Committees. Order 2021-22 acceptance of the Coronavirus Emergency Supplemental Funding Grant awarded to the Fire Department by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Office of Public Safety and

▶ 52:23 and security in the amount of 49,095.5 cents. Councilor Sinella. Yep, this comes from appropriations or the recommendation for passage and I move the passage at this time. Second. Second. So we have a motion to recommend for passage made by Councilor Sinella, seconded by Councilor Migliorelli for order 2021-22. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll? Councilor Sinella. Yes. Counselor Eccles? Yes. Counselor Garipay? Yes. Counselor Dimaladeen? Yes. Counselor McMaster? Yes. Counselor McNaught? Yes. Counselor Migliorelli? Yes. Counselor Stewart? Yes. Counselor Thomas? Yes. Counselor Tramontozzi? Yes. President Grigoraitis yes, 11. yes 11. yes. And the motion carries. Madam clerk.

▶ 53:26 For 2021 dash 21 appointment of Fatma. 147 pleasant street to the human rights commission for a 3 year term said term to end on the last day of February 2023. Councilor Eccles thank you. Madam president this order comes from the health education welfare committee with the recommendation for passage and I move for passage at this time. 2nd, so we have a recommendation motion to recommend for passage made by. Counselor echo, seconded by counselor McMaster for order 2021 dash 21. is there any discussion? Seeing none that I'm clear, can you please call the roll? Counselor, yes, yes. Counselor yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Councilor McNaught? Yes. Councilor Migliorelli? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi?

▶ 54:28 Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. 11 yes. 11 yes and the motion carries. Congratulations to Ms. Duro. I believe that is everything on our agenda for this evening. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. motion to adjourn made by counselor stewart seconded by counselor mcnaught madam clerk can you please call the roll yes snella yes eccles yes Garipay yes Jamaleddine yes mcmaster yes mcnaught yes Migliorelli yes stewart yes thomas yes chairman tozy yes rigoritis yes 11 yes 11 yes and we are adjourned thanks all see you in a few weeks go pats second half starting up

City Council — 2020-10-05

Attendance

Agenda

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Transcript

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