Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2021-03-08
Attendance
Christopher Cinella ; Jack Eccles ; Mark Garipay ; Jen Grigoraitis ; Maya Jamaleddine ; Shawn M. MacMaster ; Jeff McNaught ; Leila Migliorelli ; Robb Stewart ; Cory Thomas ; John N. Tramontozzi
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Public Comment
- Orders
- ORDER-2021-85 : Acceptance of a Donation of Land from Deborah Killam and Dawn Marie Killam into the care and custody of the Melrose Conservation Commission
- ORDER-2021-89 : Acceptance of the Fiscal 2021 Local Cultural Council Grant from the Mass Cultural Council in the amount of $13,000.00. Funds will be deposited into fund number 2543 for grants awarded by the Melrose Cultural Council.
- ORDER-2021-84 : A request for an update on the Mayor’s Free Cash Distribution Plan for Fiscal Year 2021
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● MARCH 8, 2021 Web-based remote meeting Committee Meeting 7:10 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 Jeff McNaught Chair Present Jack Eccles Vice Chair Present John N. Tramontozzi Present Shawn M. MacMaster Present Mark Garipay Present Jen Grigoraitis Present Leila Migliorelli Present Robb Stewart Present Cory Thomas Present Maya Jamaleddine Present Christopher Cinella President, ex oficio Present
ORDER-2021-85 Property: Acceptance of Land Acceptance of a Donation of Land from Deborah Killam and Dawn Marie Killam into the care and custody of the Melrose Conservation Commission Recommend Passage City Council
ORDER-2021-89 Grant Acceptance of the Fiscal 2021 Local Cultural Council Grant from the Mass Cultural Council in the amount of $13,000.00. Funds will be deposited into fund number 2543 for grants awarded by the Melrose Cultural Council. Recommend Passage City Council
ORDER-2021-84 Request A request for an update on the Mayor’s Free Cash Distribution Plan for Fiscal Year 2021 Hold City of Melrose Page 1 3/9/2021 11:21 AM
Transcript
▶ 26:56 Jeff McNaught: have everyone else in the room seeing a lot of happy faces joining us now good The time is 712 PM, the date is March 8th, 2021. This is a meeting of the Appropriations Committee and I am the chair of that committee, Councilor McNaught. We are a committee of the whole, which means that we all vote on this committee. And in lieu of a roll call attendance, joining me this evening are Vice Chair Eccles, Councilor Tramontozzi, Councilor McMaster, Councilor Migliorelli, Councilor Garipay, Councilor Grigoraitis, Councilor Jamaleddine, Councilor Stewart, Councilor Thomas, and President Cinella. This provides a notice of the quorum for the record. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the
▶ 28:02 Jeff McNaught: Open Meeting Law and the Governor's March 15, 2020 order imposing strict limitations a 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 transcript or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the city of morrow's website and on mmtv3.org at this time We move to our portion of the meeting where folks from the public can comment on items on our agenda this evening and only items on our agenda. And at this time, I'll entertain a motion to open public comment. Motion to open public comment. Motion to open public comment made by Council Grigoraitis, seconded by Council Tramontozzi. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?
▶ 29:00 Jeff McNaught: Chair McNaught? Yes. Vice Chair Eccles? Yes. Council of Tramontozzi? Yes. Council of McMaster? Yes. Council of Garrapay? Yes. Council of Grigoraitis? Yes. Council of Migliorelli? Yes. councillor Stewart yes yeah councillor Thomas yes councillor Jamala Dean yeah yeah president Sinella yes 11 yes motion passes and we are now open for public comment madam clerk I don't see any hands raised I see mostly folks from the administration and the press no hands raised at this time okay any I'll entertain a motion to comment motion to close public comment second motion to close public comment but by vice chair Eccles seconded by council Gregor itis madam clerk will you please call the roll chair McNaught yes vice chair
▶ 30:09 Eccles? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor Grigoraitis? Yes. Councilor Migliorelli? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Sonnella? Yes. Lemon, yes. Motion passes. The public comment period is now closed, and being that we have some folks to speak with us from the administration this evening, I'll entertain a motion to suspend the rules. Motion to suspend the rules so we can help the administration. Second. Motion to suspend the rules from Councilor Garipay, seconded by Councilor Grigoraitis. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Chair McNaught? Yes. Vice Chair Eccles? Yes.
▶ 31:08 Jeff McNaught: Councillor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councillor McMaster? Yes. Councillor Garipay? Yes. Councillor Grigoraitis? Yes. Councillor Migliorelli? Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Thomas? Yes. Councillor Jamaleddine? Yes. President, yes 11 yes, the motion to spend the rules passes and, um. Before we speak with anyone from the administration 1st up, we have order 2021 dash 85 acceptance of a donation of land from Deborah Killam and Don Marie Killam into the care and custody of the Melrose Conservation Commission. Adam Clark, um, can we bring in. anyone from the administration who's going to speak on this sure i'll bring in mr van campen good evening mr chairman can you hear me we can uh welcome back thank you nice to nice to be back
▶ 32:25 um so mr chairman the order before the committee this evening um is as was was what it says is in order to accept a donation of land from uh deborah and don marie killam they are the ears of the late Elizabeth Killam, who passed away over 10 years ago. She took title to this parcel in approximately 1968. This is an undeveloped parcel of land. It is contiguous to existing parcels of conservation land. The Killams approached the Conservation Commission in September, and at that time, the Conservation Commission expressed its support for this transaction as a way to preserve the natural landscape in that area. This is an area for members who may not be familiar with it, that is off of Swains Pond Avenue.
▶ 33:17 I've talked to Councilor Thomas about this and as most of us know, Ward 7 has seen a lot of development activity in recent years. This is one way to do a couple of things. Number 1, to preserve in perpetuity this particular parcel, which is approximately, I'm looking at my screen, 0.43 acres of real estate for conservation purposes, and it simultaneously will help the Conservation Commission effectively connect their trail system, if you will, or perfect their trail system in that area. So, the steps in this process are a vote of the City Council to accept the donation. As I said, this is a 0.43 acre parcel. And in advance of any question that may be asked on this. The current assessed value is 36,200 dollars and I asked the city treasurer to give me.
▶ 34:15 John N. Tramontozzi: The last 7 real estate tax set 7 annual tax bills on this property and the highest is in 21 and it's 429 dollars for the year. So the financial impact for the city would be would be minimal given the tax bill. The family has graciously agreed to donate this parcel. We think it's a great fit for that particular area, and I would ask for your favorable recommendation this evening. Thank you, Mr. City Solicitor. We have some questions from our counselors. First up is Councilor Tramontozzi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Van Kampen, just a quick question. I think it's wonderful to be able to preserve land open space like this and the donation is wonderful from these people and to the conservation commission so i just want to make sure we're not inheriting any issues
▶ 35:15 John N. Tramontozzi: environmental issues hazardous waste or anything like that on the property i just want to make sure that we're not going to be faced with any liabilities that this property might encounter correct that's a that's a great question counselor and i've had that conversation initially with the family. I'm not aware of any particular environmental issues at that site, but in the event the transaction is completed, those issues will be addressed and the issue of liability vis-a-vis the folks handing the property over will be dealt with. So I assume at some point there'll be a suitable agreement with the landowner, the current landowner, to address any of those potential issues. Great. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you,
▶ 36:00 Cory Thomas: Council Chairman Tose. Next up we have Councillor Thomas. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Van Kampen, thank you for your appearance and welcome. Thank you for the conversation we had earlier today about this very same matter. I want to thank first the Killam family. This is an incredibly generous donation to the Conservation Commission. As you noted, it's over four-tenths of an acre. It's in a wooded lot. It's in Knox Memorial Park. I was able to walk this lot last weekend off the Knox Memorial Trail. It's a beautiful spot. It abuts a new construction on Fern Street and new construction on Cunningham Way. It's very close to a bluff that overlooks Twain's Pond. And again, as you said, the residents in Ward 7, specifically in this area
▶ 36:52 Cory Thomas: around Worth Street, Maple Grove Street, Maple Terrace, Hillside Park, This is 1 less lot that anyone will try to develop in this area. I think it's a great win for the neighborhood and the residents and an incredibly generous donation from the killing family. So, thank you for being here once again. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Thomas, Councillor McMaster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Mr. for being here. Can you go over again? You mentioned. um something about the uh the taxes on the on the land i didn't catch all that my apologies sure my my apologies so the the current assessed value is thirty six thousand two hundred dollars and um i had the city treasurer poll the last seven years worth of real estate bills
▶ 37:43 And the current bill amount for tax year 2021 is $429.24 for the entire year. So they're getting a quarterly tax bill of about $106 a quarter. Are the current owners current on their tax liability? I believe they are. Just give me one second. I'm just wondering if we'd be forgiving anything as part of this transaction. I've got this as paid up to date, Councillor. I can certainly check in with the city treasurer and if the council wishes, I can certainly make the transfer contingent on full payment of any outstanding liability in advance. I think that would make sense unless the agreement was that we would forgive any outstanding taxes as part of the donation. if that's something we are in your legal opinion able to do well the quit claim deed references the
▶ 38:52 transfer is for consideration of one dollar so uh i'll work with the property owner i don't suspect there's a there's a liability an outstanding liability here but i'll work with the property owner to deal with that if there is thank you thank you thank you council mcmaster i didn't have anyone else in queue did i miss anyone seeing no hands raised what is the will of the committee Motion recommend 2nd, motion recommend for passage by Council Tram and tozy seconded by Councilor Thomas on discussion. Seeing 1, Madam clerk, will you please call the roll. Sure, I'm not yes. Vice chair. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Council, yes, yes. Yes, council. Yes. Counselor Stewart. Yes. Counselor Thomas. Yes, yeah.
▶ 39:59 Yeah, president. Yes. 11 yes, motion passes. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. next we have order 2021 dash 89 acceptance of the fiscal 2021. Local cultural council grant from the mass cultural council in the amount of 13,000 dollars funds will be deposited into fund number 2543 for grants awarded by the Melrose cultural council. Bring in chief of staff and Jason web of the Melrose cultural council. Good evening everybody. It's great to see everyone. I hope I can be heard without issue. Really, the whole point of my being here tonight is to introduce Mr. Webb, who serves as treasurer of the local cultural council chapter. As many of you probably know, the Massachusetts State Cultural Council appropriates funds according to a formula to every other council in the Commonwealth. I believe there's close to 351 of them. Probably just shy of that.
▶ 41:21 Many of you are already familiar with the tremendous work that our local cultural council does. I'd like Mr. Webb to kind of expound on that. Before I do, I think one of the priorities for Mayor Broder has been and will be making sure that we are highlighting the arts, using the arts as an economic development tool, Celebrating the artists that are already here and reimagining public space. To invite the community to think of new possibilities of how they can move about the city and how they call this place home. This will be especially important as we move through. Full vaccination of our city, and how we kind of bounce back and demonstrate our resilience in the months and years to come. The cultural council will be a very important part in that process.
▶ 42:12 And so really, this is just to highlight the great work that they do. So I hope for a moment you might be able to hear from Mr. Webb and ask any questions you might have subsequently. So with that, I will turn it over to Mr. Webb. Great. Thanks very much, Patrick. I appreciate the introduction. Can everybody hear me okay? We can hear you. Great. Thank you for the opportunity to come here and speak before you. And I really appreciate on behalf of the Melrose Cultural Council the support from you and from the mayor's office for the arts in Melrose. It's really important work. I'm pleased to be here to represent the Cultural Council. If we have a minute or two, I can give a brief update and then I can answer any questions that you might have.
▶ 43:02 For the past several years prior to the pandemic, I would say the cultural council would primarily meet later in the year to determine grant recipients and we would conduct a community survey every three years. Generally, there were not too many surprises and we would work with the grant recipients and we would work with the city to ensure that everybody was paid according to the rules. and that was a large portion of what the focus of the council was. With the pandemic, with COVID, this was all thrown into chaos. The majority of the grant applications are predicated on the notion of an in-person gathering, and so I think as everybody's well aware, the arts community writ large was really thrown into chaos with this pandemic.
▶ 43:51 Immediately, the majority of the grant applications could not be fulfilled as they were originally designed. Fortunately, the Massachusetts Cultural Council granted a fair amount of leniency to allow grant recipients to modify their grant applications, and we were able to work with the majority of them to modify their applications to work under pandemic restrictions. A few of them were not able to meet any alterations in their grants, Um, and so that money did carry over into the fiscal year 2021. so in fiscal year 2021, we're fortunate to have a healthy amount of funding. Um, and we were also happy to see that many of the grant applications were very creative and found ways to deliver on the mission of supporting arts and culture in Melrose, even under the restrictions imposed by the pandemic and uncertainty.
▶ 44:49 imposed by what we don't have a certain timeline, but they have contingencies within a lot of their proposals to deal with that. For anyone who may be interested in knowing the details of how the funding has been allocated in fiscal year 2021, I just want to take a minute to highlight the website that we have, which is a relatively website. I'll just post a link to the chat there. Actually, let me post it to everybody. That has a lot of information on the site. Even on the landing page, there is a listing or a link to a listing of all of the grants. Then there's a news section which actually has also, you can see the podcast that the mayor did with the two high school students that we added to the board this year.
▶ 45:46 So there's a lot of good information out there about some of the people that we, some of the grantees that we work with. And since it is a new website, we would definitely welcome any feedback from you all as to what we could potentially do to continue to make that a useful tool for everybody. A couple of additional items to mention. We did complete a community survey this summer which was helpful in guiding our decision making on the grants. A couple of findings worth mentioning and perhaps not too surprising. There was a strong interest in funding youth and educational programming. There was a strong interest in outdoor events, public art, and in having more diversity and inclusion. Our grant making decision decision making reflects
▶ 46:33 this. For example, we funded public art in the parklets, Melrose Dance Festival, and several outdoor events such as music at the farmers market the popular porch fest and blues at the bb the melrose symphony orchestra is also a grant recipient and personally as a violinist in the orchestra desperate to be able to play again i'm i'm really counting on us having a strong return in the fall so looking forward to that um so the pandemic coupled with recent economic and social events have caused i think many community groups the melrose cultural council included to become aware of a need for change in our society and as a result the council is now meeting more frequently than it ever has in the recent past and to help us make this change we've also recently added two new
▶ 47:23 members to the council from the melrose high school uh ruby robich show and nirvana ragland those are the two that are in the mayor's podcast and we're really looking forward to their energy and enthusiasm and helping us create positive change in melrose with the arts so with that i'll stop and take any questions uh that you might have uh yes uh mr eccles thanks um i just didn't see the website come through in the chat and for anyone who's watching at home what's the what could you say that loud oh sure it's um sorry if it didn't come through it's melroseculture.org but if you also just do an organic search on any of the web browsers i believe the search engine optimization it'll come up pretty quickly if you just do melrose cultural council
▶ 48:12 it'll be one of the top hits you'll see it on the you know the first page there so that was my only question thank you very much for coming here sure happy to be here i don't see any other hands raised did i miss anyone seeing none what is the will of the committee motion to recommend second second motion to recommend for passage by council Tramontozzi seconded by councillor Grigoraitis madam clerk will you please call the role chair mcnaught yes vice chair eccles yes councillor Tramontozzi yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor Garipay yes Yes, Councilor Grigoraitis. Yes. Councilor Migliorelli? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Sinella? Yes.
▶ 49:18 Jeff McNaught: 11 yes. The motion passes. Thank you very much. Mr. Prendergast, Mr. Webb for your attendance and presentation tonight. We appreciate it. Thank you next. We have order 2021 dash 84, a request for an update on the mayor's free cash distribution plan for a fiscal year 2021. This is presented by counselors, Grigoraitis and. Mr chairman yes, go ahead. Thank you. So, my understanding is that the administration is not available to us. tonight to review the memo that they had provided and answer our questions. As such, I'll be making a motion to hold in committee until they're prepared to come before us. But first, just wanted to speak on the matter of the order itself on behalf of me and my co-filers,
▶ 50:24 Leila Migliorelli: Councilors Grigoraitis and Jamaleddine. The impetus for filing this order is to provide fiscal transparency to the public. The City has one-time funds available to use this year in the amount of 5M dollars in free cash. We have already seen a handful of orders come before us, but I'm reluctant to approve more expenditures without an overarching plan for how this unique pool of money will be distributed. The memo that was provided to the Council on Wednesday described a free cash plan that looks similar to what has happened in years past with a few exceptions. However, these past 12 months and likely the months to come have been unlike any we've experienced in recent history of the City. As such, the way we've always done things is no longer sufficient.
▶ 51:06 Leila Migliorelli: It's incumbent on all of us as public officials to take these unique circumstances and act on behalf of our constituents. We've heard from residents who are eager to see improvements to help meet the unique challenges we've been facing, most with an underlying theme of making the best use of the outdoors. whether it's improving sidewalk conditions, more summer programming for the rec department, street paving for cyclists, improvements to our parks, and even investing in creative options for outdoor learning for our children. We need to shift into a COVID recovery mode to help move the city forward in these areas, and many more, including housing, social services, and infrastructure, just to name a few.
▶ 51:43 Jeff McNaught: So suffice to say, I know that many of us here have made requests for ways in which free cash can be used to maximize public benefit, and we're hoping that the mayor will present a comprehensive financial plan for the city so that the council can make more informed decisions when we approve free cash requests moving forward. Thank you Chairman McNaught. Thank you Council Migliorelli. And we have a motion for me to hold this in committee. I didn't hear if we had a second. Second. Okay, so we have a motion to hold order 2021-84 in committee made by Councilor Migliorelli, seconded by Councilor Grigoraitis. Is there any further discussion? Council McMaster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, either to you or through you to one of the makers of the order.
▶ 52:34 Jeff McNaught: Do we have a reason why the administration is not available to speak on this tonight? We did have the mayor on earlier. We had the chief staff. We had the city solicitor. So, I'm just wondering before we hold this thing committee, was there a reason communicated and do we expect the administration to prepare before us at a later date on this order? I think I can speak to that. There was a memo received from the city auditor, Mr. Delarusso. Mr. Delarusso has a personal conflict this evening and couldn't be here. If I'm missing anything or mischaracterizing anything, Councilors Migliorelli, Jamaleddine, or Grigoraitis, please let me know. I think I have that right. That's my knowledge. That's the reason.
▶ 53:19 Jeff McNaught: So, just the personal conflict, um. Anything further council McMaster. No, thank you. Mr. Any further discussion from any other counselors. Seeing none, Madam clerk, will you please call the role. Chairman not yes. Vice chair Eccles. Yes. Council trim and cozy. Yes. Yes. Council McMaster. Yes. Council. Yes. Councilor Grigoraitis? Yes. Councilor Migliorelli? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Zimaldi? Yes. President Smilla? Yes. 11 yes. The motion passes. That concludes our business for the evening and appropriations and I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn made by Councilor Garipay, seconded by Councilor McMaster. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?
▶ 54:28 Chair McMott? Yes. Vice Chair Eccles? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor Grigoraitis? Yes. Councilor Migliorelli? Yes. Counselor Stewart? Yes. Counselor Thomas? Yes. Counselor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Cinella? Yes. 11 yes. Motion passes. We are adjourned. And I believe our last meeting of the evening is protection and licensure. Which is can begin anytime now. Right now. Chair Garipay? Thank you. Chair McNaught? Appreciate it. Good evening. It is 740 on March 8th, and this is the meeting of the protection and licensing committee. I'm constantly the chair joining me. Our vice chair to do it. Voting members, Councilor McNaught, Councilor Bergeritis, Councilor Thomas.