Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2020-12-14

Appropriations and Oversight Committee Meeting

This meeting starts at 20:48 in a recording that covers several meetings.

Attendance

Christopher Cinella present · Chair; Jack Eccles present · Voting; Mark Garipay present · Voting; Jen Grigoraitis present · President, ex oficio; Maya Jamaleddine present · Voting; Shawn M. MacMaster present · Voting; Jeff McNaught present · Voting; Leila Migliorelli present · Vice Chair; Robb Stewart present · Voting; Cory Thomas present · Voting; John N. Tramontozzi present · Voting

Agenda

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● DECEMBER 14, 2020 Web-based remote meeting Committee Meeting 7:15 PM , 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 Christopher Cinella Chair Present Leila Migliorelli 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 Robb Stewart Voting Present Cory Thomas Voting Present Maya Jamaleddine Voting Present Jen Grigoraitis President, ex oficio Present

ORDER-2021-44 A Authorization Acceptance of a donation from the Friends of Milano of a wheelchair accessible, 12-passenger vehicle to be used for transporting Melrose senior citizens. Recommend Passage City Council

ORDER-2021-49 Grant Acceptance of the Mystic Valley Elder Services FY21 Title III B "Teachable Moments" Grant in the amount of $8,500.00. Recommend Passage City Council

ORDER-2021-46 Acceptance Acceptance of Complete Streets Grant in the amount of Four Hundred Thousand Dollars ($400,000.00) from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT). Said funds to be deposited into Fund Number 4027, Complete Streets. Recommend Passage City Council

ORDER-2021-47 A Acceptance Acceptance of Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Recycling Dividend Program Grant in the amount of $14,300 Recommend Passage City Council City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 12/15/2020 1:42 PM Minutes Appropriations Committee December 14, 2020

ORDER-2021-51 Grant Acceptance of an Emergency Management Performance Grant in the amount of $6,500. Recommend Passage City Council

ORDER-2021-45 Grant Acceptance of the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant's (JAG) Local Law Enforcement (LLE) in the amount of $4,350.00 for the purchase and mounting of access points to support uploading of in-car audio and video recordings. Recommend Passage City Council City of Melrose Page 2 Updated 12/15/2020 1:42 PM

Transcript

▶ 21:07 Christopher Cinella: who's also our technological specialist this evening. And pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th order suspending certain provisions the open meeting law and the governor's march 15 2020 order imposing strict limitation on the number of people that may gather in one place this meeting of the appropriations committee will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible we will post an audio or video recording of this 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 or Madam President, call the roll, or not call the roll. I want to take a motion for public comment at this time.

▶ 21:53 Motion open public comment. Second motion made for public comment made by Vice Chair Migliorelli, seconded by Councilor McNaught. Chair Stella? Yes. Councilor Migliorelli? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor McNaught? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor Eccles? Yes. Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Shmueledin? Yes. President Rodriguez? Yes. Levin, yes. All right. Do we have anybody in public comment that you can see with their virtual hand raised? I don't think so. Mr. McSweeney still has a checkmark by him, but I believe that was for the previous meeting. So there's no one else indicating they wish to speak. I'd entertain a motion to close public comment. Motion to close public comment.

▶ 23:12 Point of information, Mr. Chair. I'm just wondering if Mr. Sweeney might want to be heard on complete streets. Perhaps it might behoove us to check if he's still on. sure I can bring him in there was a thing indicating that president Grigoraitis you can actually just unmute him Oh try that right click my yeah my my my hand is lowered actually it's not it's not I think the app is the app is is very different now and I couldn't like I couldn't chat to tell anyone no like I usually can so just FYI okay thank you we appreciate it thank you So that's, so we had a motion to close public comment made by Councilor Stewart, seconded by, seconded by Councilor McNaught. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

▶ 24:19 Chair Cinella? Yes. Vice Chair Migliorelli? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor McNaught? Yes. Councilor Eccles? Yes. Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yeah. President Grigoraitis? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. A point of information on technical stuff. I'm sorry. Kristen, how do I bring Mr. McSweeney back to being an attendee? I don't see an option for that other than making him a presenter. So, if you have her over his name in the participant list right now. He's not. Oh, okay. Oh, wait, I think it happened. Yes, he's gone. Okay. All right. Thank you. We're going out with a bang this last appropriations meeting, huh?

▶ 25:28 Christopher Cinella: At this time, I'll entertain a motion to suspend the rules before we get to our. Motion to suspend the rules. 2nd. Motion to spend the rules made by vice chair. I mean, they're only second by council. I'm not. Madam clerk. Yes, yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Thomas? Yes. Councillor Jamaleddine? Yes. Councillor Grigoraitis? Yes. 11 yes. Okay. Our rules are now suspended. I'll give our president some time to pull in our guest speaker. We have order 2021-44A, acceptance of a donation from the Friends of the Milano Center of the Wheelchair Accessible 12 Passenger Vehicle to be used for transporting Melrose senior citizens. I believe we have with us.

▶ 26:43 She's fully in. I think she's, oh, yeah, I believe, Ms. Montello, yeah, there we go. Hi, welcome. Hi, good evening. Good evening. Do you have some prepared remarks in regards to, um. The order did you just announce the order of accepting the donation from the friends of the Milano? I did yes, so, um. I can take questions if you want. It's a pretty simple request that the friends of the Milano are offering to. 100% pay for the coverage of purchasing a vehicle. The DPW has acknowledged that it is a good purchase. And the money would be transferred into the revolving fund in and out. No extra cost to us initially. Great. Did I see anybody raise their hands for questions? You want to put your hand up now otherwise, what is the will of the committee?

▶ 27:47 Christopher Cinella: Motion to recommend for passage. Motion to recommend passage made by Councilor Eccles, seconded by Councilor McNaught. Any other discussion? And Madam Clerk, if you can call the roll, if you're still there. Chair Cinella? Yes. Vice Chair Migliorelli? Yes. Council of Tram and Tozi? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor McNaught? Yes. Councilor Eccles? Yes. Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. Councilor Rodriguez? Yes. 11 yes. Okay, next order this evening, and I think we have miss Michelle talking on this 1 or 2021 dash 49. Acceptance of the mystic Valley elder services fiscal year 21 title 3. Teachable moments granted the amount of 8500 dollars.

▶ 28:50 Do you want to touch on that at all? Yes, so, um, uh, good news. We've received the grant. It's, uh, like you said, 8500 calls mystic Valley. I have till September of next year. To exhaust those funds, obviously, because of the virus, I have to modify my offerings, but, um. It's split between meeting the social needs of LGBT elders. And social injustice, so basically some educational workshops to guide the elders with a history of. You know, what's what is black matters and how does this, how does this affect us? And it's just exactly what it says. Teachable moments. Anybody have any questions, uh, consultation. Hi, thank you, Mrs. Nechelt, for being with us today. Can you just touch base a little bit or give us more details on whether we started an outreach for these resources, or do you have a plan or any kind of schedule?

▶ 30:03 actually our events have been delayed but I'm hoping for February to kick off the teachable moment side of it for social injustice there's actually an author that grew up in Melrose that wrote he wrote the book the agitator and politician so it gives you a history of Abraham Lincoln's life growing up and then how he got into politics and then of course all the way to ending slavery and then we've purchased access to great courses so there's another slavery course that's a that's a pretty lengthy one so that's going to take us through the summer and then I hope that August and September we can end with hopefully in-person seminars and workshops where the seniors can ask questions and interact. We're partnered with many organizations on this Melrose Human

▶ 31:08 Rights Commission, the library, of course Mystic Valley, and then the housing units. And is that going to be in person, especially now taking into consideration COVID? I hope, because I'm projecting that August and September of 2021 we may be able to meet in person, but my backup plan is if we can't meet in person, it actually weather-wise could be an outdoor activity. So I do have to see where we're at and modify the plan accordingly looking forward to hearing more about this ban it's definitely something that would benefit the whole community and especially our elderly thank you yes vice chair migliorelli you didn't have them oh uh president Grigoraitis and then i have council trematosi after

▶ 32:07 John N. Tramontozzi: president and sella thank you ms mancello for being here tonight and bearing with us on I just really wanted to say how happy I am to see that we have this grant and to hear that you're collaborating with so many partners across the city. It's amazing how such a small amount of money can have an impact when you, when you collaborate. So, thank you for your efforts on that. That's all. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, and I also want to thank you, Ms. Minchella, for getting this grant. I think it's a very well-worthy grant for the city. My only question is whether or not there is additional city matching funds that are required for this grant. the um the grant requires 15 matching funds which i have listed as in kind meaning that i will

▶ 33:10 incorporate it into the existing it's mostly salaries um and it would be um in kind if um the seniors needed transportation so i would put the drivers on the road to transport them to any events we have very good that's perfect thank you and thank you mr chairman i didn't any other hands go up did i miss anybody seeing none what is the will of the committee motion to recommend second motion to recommend passage made by councillor stewart seconded by councillor Garipay discussion seeing none madam clerk please call the roll chair sanella yes vice jim Migliorelli yes councillor Tramontozzi yes councillor mcmaster yes floor mcnaught yes councillor eccles yes councillor Garipay yes councillor stewart yes councillor thomas yes

▶ 34:10 Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. Eleven yes. Great. Thank you, Ms. Michella. Thank you. Have a good evening. Bye-bye. Next up, Order 2021-46, Acceptance of Complete Streets Grant in the amount of $400,000 from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Transportation. Set funds to be deposited into account number 4027, which is Complete Streets. And I believe so, so present Grigoraitis to make to remove Stacy, hover over her name, right? Click. Change role to attendee. Oh, okay. There we go. Take it's a little bit of a delay getting it to show up. Sorry. And then am I bringing in the director? Correct please Mr. troop is in as well. is this one jim you're doing great madam president no pressure she really is there

▶ 35:12 is a bit of a lag you're correct all right all right good evening can you hear us uh elena hey elena can you hear us yeah my audio went away oh we can hear you now i can't hear anything oh what happened i don't know i moved it over here we can hear you but you can't hear us so i guess it doesn't really matter okay can you all hear me yes yes okay i couldn't hear anything that was said for the last two minutes so i'm not sure what uh it was all good okay the screen is yours we want to talk about the order okay um so we have applied twice uh for this complete streets grant this is the same um construction grant that we had applied for when we got the um the last complete streets uh authorization a couple years ago um this one is for improvements in the hoover school neighborhood

▶ 36:49 where there's a lack of sidewalks and some other safety improvements that we'd like to make in the vicinity of the school the um the maximum grant award is four hundred thousand dollars and there's no match component our project estimate came in roughly around 410 000 and so we received the full 400 000 and the remaining 10 000 would be contributed using our chapter 90 funds um i've been working with counselor thomas on this project uh quite extensively over the last five months or so and we did have a large public meeting a couple weeks ago that i thought went very well and then we'll be working with the neighborhoods um to finalize the design and then starting construction in the spring council thomas did you have questions thank you mr chairman

▶ 37:47 Cory Thomas: uh miss elena proeca sellers welcome thank you for being here um this is a great opportunity for mellaro's uh not only for ward seven in the hoover school uh but all of melrose and um so many people that travel in and around the hoover school neighborhoods um as you touched on um there are a number of sidewalks and streets that need improvements um main roads main commuting roads to the hoover school that don't have sidewalks i just wanted to thank you for all your hard work and efforts on this um a number of people at the hoover school the pto the ped bike committee did a great job as part of the application process and i was happy to hear you say you know uh you touch on um the input that we need from the director butters um i've met a

▶ 38:36 Cory Thomas: half dozen times with the groups of people that live up there now um i was just up on echo street right near the hoover school on month last week meeting and walking the space with one of the neighbors it's a great opportunity to really expand this neighborhood it's a great hidden corner of melrose um great neighborhoods great people up there uh it's a wonderful opportunity and thank you all again for all your hard work on this thank you does anybody else have any questions council tramitosi uh thank you mr chairman i just a point of personal privilege i want to take this opportunity to thank elena for the uh the uh the crossing light on franklin street that was installed today thank you you're welcome appreciate it and i think the neighborhood would

▶ 39:35 Christopher Cinella: appreciate it as well yeah i think it's a big safety benefit to that neighborhood thank you and what is the will of the committee motion to recommend check it clear we should recommend passage made by council chairman tozy seconded by councillor thomas madam clerk please call her off chair sanella yes vice chair Migliorelli yes councillor traymond tozy yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor mcnaught yes councillor eccles yes councillor Garipay yes councillor stewart yes councillor thomas yes councillor maladin yes president Rita yes 11 yes next order this evening order 2021-47 a acceptance of a massachusetts department of environmental protection the second dividend program grant in the amount of fourteen thousand

▶ 40:41 and three hundred dollars and i believe elaine will be speaking on that as well uh james jim troop will be presenting this one mr true uh good evening council happy holidays to everybody uh thank you for the consideration of this grant acceptance uh the memo in the order itself i think uh explicitly show the the benefits of the grant and the fourteen thousand three hundred dollars that uh will go directly towards our solid waste and recycling program uh these efforts supplement our budget and allow us to maintain a lot of events provide a lot of education materials uh that can go out there that help divert trash and take it out of the the incinerator The benefit is reduced costs for us as a city,

▶ 41:34 Jen Grigoraitis: but also a direct service to the residents of Melrose, and then in some collaborations that we have with Stoneham. The big thanks in this program has to go to our solid waste recycling coordinator, Samantha Flanagan. She did all the legwork, provided the application to DEP, and has done a tremendous job for the DPW, so she should be recommended for her work here. Uh, thank you for the consideration. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you chairman. Thank you. Mr troop and Miss for being here tonight. I just had. 1 question I know it said that the maximum amount possible to be awarded was about 30,000. so we're and we're getting about half of that. What do we, as a community need to do to make it to that 100% for the grant kind of where, where can we do better on recycling?

▶ 42:28 Yeah, that's a great question to ask. If we go through the checklist of things that we qualify for, we actually have qualified for the maximum allowable components of this that are available to Melrose. The things that we would have to change are really large-scale changes to our entire solid waste and recycling programs that unfortunately would involve significantly additional funding, significant changes in both behavior and the way that we do our trash. And right now, it's not really the best time to incorporate some of those things. These are long-term changes that would need both the councils, the mayors, and the resident support. So an extensive list of the things that we can qualify for are found on the DEP website and through the Recycling Dividends Program.

▶ 43:21 But I can say that we have maxed out where we are. We may be able to qualify for one or two more, but I think now that we have the team in place at the DPW, we can we could aggressively go after those. But that's a that's a great question. Thank you. I'm glad to hear we're doing what we can do. any other questions i didn't see any hands go up did i miss anybody motion to recommend second motion recommend passage made by counselor stewart seconded by counselor eccles any discussion being done madam clerk please call the roll chair sanella yes vice chair Migliorelli yes councilor Tramontozzi yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor mcnaught yes Yes. Councillor Eccles. Yes. Councillor Garipay. Yes.

▶ 44:17 Councillor Stewart. Yes. Councillor Thomas. Yes. Councillor Jamaleddine. Yes. President Gregg Roache. Yes. 11 yes. Great, thank you. Thank you for coming tonight. Have a good evening. Thank you, you too. Next up, order 2021-51, acceptance of an emergency management performance grant amount of six thousand five hundred dollars um is mr albert with us this evening or i'm bringing him in hold on take your time mr albert can you hear us uh mr albert mr robert i don't have an option to unmute him or mute him mr albert can you hear us i could try to email him can you hear me now not sure if I have a cell phone one second I don't have a cell Jen if you want to make the chat back to the people it's a little technical sorry if you go

▶ 46:16 to the top of the screen where it says event it might be beyond council so it looks like there's a mute unmute button yep that just appeared here we go mr. Yes, all right. I am here. All right. We just don't have your screen on, but that's, that's okay. If you want to speak to this grant. Yes, definitely I'm here all, all, all, all, except for being on the audio, but from from my side, I can see everybody over there. Good evening everyone and hope everyone's well and healthy. I know for several members of the council, this is your first term and at least in emergency management, you may not be overly familiar with the 3 levels of intergovernmental operation. But I'm always available to and look forward to meeting with any of you to explain how federal state and local emergency management functions. But for tonight, it's about the emergency management performance grant as it's called. It's on the agenda.

▶ 47:27 The EMPG is an annual allotment made available through the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, to municipalities to help promote the four phases of emergency management, which are planning, training, exercising, response, and recovery. One of my objectives, as it was written in the job posting, is to establish an emergency operating center which will also function as a training center for emergency management, fire department, police department, and any department that needs a training facility. Both the fire chief and police chiefs are very supportive of this, as neither one has a facility for classroom training. the emergency management planning grant funds are an excellent start to this endeavor

▶ 48:24 the funds can also be used for any purpose stated in the fema authorized equipment list which is also as an acronym ael which i believe all of you have received now more than ever although several years ago when we did have an eoc under the auspices of then director the late ed kelly we need a state-of-the-art training room which can also be used as an eoc the empg funds and any other grants i can obtain will go a long way to see this becomes a fruition without using city funds and again i reiterate if anyone would like to learn more about emergency management and melrose please feel free to give me a call thank you very much thank you um do we have any questions for mr albert i didn't see any hands go up uh what is the will of the committee

▶ 49:25 motion to recommend we have a motion to recommend passage made by second seconded by counselor mcnaught adam clark please call chair fenella yes vice chair Migliorelli yes councillor Tramontozzi that's a piece on that councillor mcmaster yes councillor mcnaught yes councillor eichols yes councillor Garipay yes councillor stewart yes councillor thomas Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. Councilor Grigoraitis? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Try one more time. Ten yes. Great. Thank you for being with us this evening, Mr. Alpert. Well, better late than never. I finally made the video. That's okay. Thank you. Thank you. Our next order this evening, order 2021-45, acceptance of the Burn Justice Assistance

▶ 50:43 Grant, local law enforcement in the amount of $4,350 for the purchase and mounting of access points to support uploading of in-car audio and video recordings. I believe we have lyle but i think we have to make some room for him is that correct yeah sorry it's i don't yet have the option to mr albert do you mind turning off your camera i'm going to see if that will me to um bottom where it says uh activate video right in the lower level i found that very very late in the presentation so if the chief can find it it may bring him on board and right now i will go off thank you sir okay i don't yet have the option to add to add audio okay chief lyle can you hear us we can't hear you but to see your mouth over chief like a saturday night live skit

▶ 52:16 where'd you go that should work can you hear me we can hear you but we can't see oh there you are Would you like to speak to this grant? Certainly. We applied for this grant earlier this year. The cap was 40,000. We applied for 39,900. Unfortunately, they shared this pretty well. We went up with 43,500 to support Wi-Fi system access points on the outside of the building, actually the rear of the building. In the event that we purchase in-car video, it would automatically download and upload to the Cloud to our vendor directly, supporting the PD. Any requested information from that will be done through the vendor and make it simple for us. There is a financial impact to the city on this. It's $2,637.

▶ 53:21 My assistant, Kim Upton, had sent an e-mail to Kristen this afternoon. I hope you all got it. Yes, I'm available for questions. We have Councilor Garipay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Chief Lyle, for being here. I just wanted to follow up on the information that you sent. What was the change? It's not a large dollar amount, but what was the result of the change that we've got this afternoon compared to what was submitted? What was the reasoning for that? Initially, we were working with our IT department on the project to set up the Wi-Fi booster system for the exterior of the building. We based our numbers off of what Neil was coordinating with me, and ultimately, when we got our vendors, the numbers were higher than what we were awarded.

▶ 54:18 we did get a lower number but after speaking with neil he felt that the middle vendor was the best vendor to use because he felt that the other number was low and they were going to be looking for add-ons to do additional work that may not be in the scope okay uh thank you very much that close it up does anybody else have any questions for chief lyle seeing none what is the will of the committee motion to recommend for passage second motion to recommend for passage made by president Grigoraitis seconded by vice chair Migliorelli any discussion seeing none madam clark please call over chair sanella yes vice chair Migliorelli yes councilor Tramontozzi Councilor McNaught. Yes. Councilor McMaster. Yes. Councilor Eccles. Yes. Councilor Garafe. Yes.

▶ 55:26 Christopher Cinella: Councilor Stewart. Yes. Councilor Thomas. Yes. Councilor Janolajian. Yes. President Grigoraitis. yes then yes great thank you uh chief have a great night thank you all and happy holidays everybody that concludes our last appropriations meeting for the year i think and um we're going out the way we came in with that i'll uh extend a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn and excuse me motion to adjourn made by councillor mcnaught seconded by councillor Peter madam clerk please call the roll chair sanella yes vice jim Migliorelli yes councillor treeman tozy councillor mcmaster yes councillor mcnaught yes councillor eccles yes councillor Garipay yes councillor stewart yes councillor thomas yes councillor malady

▶ 56:38 yes tech extraordinaire president Grigoraitis yes and yes thank you all for your patience have a good night thank you attendees as well yes happy holidays happy holidays here all night

Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2020-12-14

Attendance

Agenda

Minutes

Transcript

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