Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2021-03-18
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-2021-98 : Appointment of Jennifer Strasburger, 88 E Foster St, Melrose MA., to the Human Rights Commission for her first full term, said term to expire on the last day of February 2024.
- ORDER-2021-91 : Acceptance of a Melrose Wakefield Healthcare grant to support behavioral health programming
- ORDER-2021-92 : Acceptance of 911 Support & Incentive Award to support dispatch costs
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● MARCH 18, 2021 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 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 The Appropriations Committee is called to order by Chair McNaught. This meeting is recorded and may be viewed on www.mmtv3.org
ORDER-2021-98 Appointment Appointment of Jennifer Strasburger, 88 E Foster St, Melrose MA., to the Human Rights Commission for her first full term, said term to expire on the last day of February 2024. Recommend Passage City Council
ORDER-2021-91 Grant Acceptance of a Melrose Wakefield Healthcare grant to support behavioral health programming Recommend Passage City Council
ORDER-2021-92 Grant Acceptance of 911 Support & Incentive Award to support dispatch costs Recommend Passage City Council City of Melrose Page 1 3/19/2021 1:51 PM
Transcript
▶ 18:35 Jeff McNaught: It is March 18th, 2020 and 21, 2021. This is a meeting of the Appropriations Committee and I am Councilor McNaught, the chair of this committee. In lieu of a roll call attendance this evening, the following voting members of the council are all present. I will read them off by names. All our voting members, Vice Chair Eccles, Councilor Tramontozzi, Councilor McMaster, Councilor Migliorelli, Councilor Garipay, Councilor Grigoraitis, Councilor Cimolini, Councilor Stewart, Councilor Thomas, and President Cinella. This provides a notice of the quorum for the record. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law and the Governor's March 15th, 2020 order,
▶ 19:29 Jeff McNaught: imposing strict limitations on the number of people may gather in one place this meeting of the appropriations committee will be conducted by a 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 before we get to any business this evening I did want to turn to Councillor Jamaleddine who wanted to take a moment of personal privilege. Councillor Jamaleddine. Thank you Chair. I would like to start by saying that this week we had unfortunately we had a heinous act in Atlanta and we'd like to give our at most condolences and grief for the victims and their families. To our diverse community,
▶ 20:37 neighbors and families, we see you, we hear you, we appreciate you and our heart breaks for the pain you are feeling and the social injustice you are experiencing. We will strive each other and every day to make our community a safer place. I would like to take a moment of silence. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Jamaleddine. Moving on to public comment, if there is no objection, I'm going to move for unanimous consent to open the floor for public comment. Seeing no objection, the floor is open for public comment. Madam Clerk, do we have anyone in the the queue wishing to speak believe everyone in the room is going to be speaking to an order does anyone I'm missing someone if you want to raise
▶ 22:07 Jeff McNaught: your digital hand at this time I don't see anyone so again I'll move for by unanimous consent to close public comment if there's no objection bless you counselor Stewart seeing no objections public comment is now closed we do have some members from the administration with us this evening who We'll speak so again, I will move by unanimous consent to suspend the rules. If there is no objection. Seeing no objection, the rules are now suspended. And I will read the 1st order of business. We have before us tonight order 2021 dash 98 appointment of Jennifer, Jennifer Strasberger, 88 East Foster Street, Melrose mass to the human rights commission for her 1st, full term. said term to expire on the last day of February 2024.
▶ 23:13 Paul Brodeur: I believe we will have the Mayor coming in with Ms. Strasburger. Coming in now. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I want to start off by thanking Councilor Jamaleddine and all of you for recognizing what happened in Atlanta when the pandemic started and we saw evidence of bias, hate crimes attacks against asian americans in our communities um the city stood strong and the city continues to stand strong and i appreciate you taking the time to recognize that and have a moment of silence is appropriate i i'm excited to bring before you the nomination of jennifer strassberger uh jennifer has been active with the human rights commission in the past and expressed and interest uh quite frankly uh uh probably about a year ago in uh interest in in signing
▶ 24:22 Paul Brodeur: up she is as you can see from the resume uh that has been submitted uh outstanding academic credentials and uh really a very quite frankly intimidating um athletic career and while um as a member of it's an alum of a rival patriot league school off your college i have minor qualms about advancing a competitor but i hope you will take a look at a resume and i do want to point you to something that will be a bit of a quite frankly i think a unique perspective on the on the hrc and that is if you look at her professional credentials and awards you'll note that she served on BU's athletic social justice and inclusion committee as an ad hoc member that is really something we haven't had an opportunity I think as a community to talk about
▶ 25:17 Paul Brodeur: with any depth and Jennifer's experience and in that in that world both as a student from high school to college, and now in the coaching world at BU, I think will be a tremendous asset and bring a new perspective to the HRC that will be welcomed by the members. I appreciate your consideration of her candidacy and hope you will move to recommend. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Ms. Strasburg, if you would like to say a few words, the floor is yours. Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here and I'm just really honored for the opportunity to be even considered for this position to serve the city since I've moved to Melrose. I felt so. Welcomes and just such a great sense of community and in this town, and I want to do anything I can to help continue that and expand that. So that anyone who comes here as opportunity to be here.
▶ 26:28 Can feel similarly, I don't pretend in any way to be an expert on these topics, but I do think. They're important, no matter how uncomfortable and. Challenging they can be, and I think I'm hoping that this will help me in both places of the work that I'm doing with my team and within the athletic department. And kind of the synergy that that can create, but. Again, I just, I appreciate your time. Thank you. Mr. and I'm just looking around now to see if anyone has any questions. For you, thank you. Mr. chairman and thank you. Mr. for appearing tonight and for your application to the human rights commission. I was a former member of the commission, so it's always nice to see folks in the community stepping up to take on this responsibility.
▶ 27:27 Leila Migliorelli: What would you say some of the, you know, since being in Melrose, maybe taking from some of your experiences would be some of the initiatives or plans that you might have, particularly around reaching some of the, you know, bringing more people into the fold and the Human Rights Commission. I think part of the issues we all have with organizations is that you start to talk with your similar groups and the same people over and over again and kind of, you know, I think what we're always trying to do is trying to kind of broaden that reach. So wondered if you had any thoughts on that. One thing that immediately comes to mind is just listening to Erin Henneman, I'm sorry, I'm not sure, earlier when she was talking about her nomination
▶ 28:13 is just that those are some of the issues she's talking about kind of coalesce with the things I think the Human Rights Commission can work with. And that similarly, the Women's Commission has reached out to the Human Rights Commission about a vigil possibly this weekend around the attack in Atlanta. I think it's probably in coordinating amongst ourselves first, because I feel like there's a lot of great commissions that are doing overlapping work. That's the thing that comes to mind at the moment, but I feel like if I keep talking, I'm just going to make stuff up. No, thank you for your answer. Any other counselors have any questions for Ms. Strasburg? Seeing none, Ms. Strasburg, I would just say, thank you for stepping up to help out on the HRC. I am meeting a lot of BU people in Melrose lately, and I grew up in a BC family, so.
▶ 29:16 Jeff McNaught: But we can still be friends, so don't worry about that. Thank you very much. I think mayor broder i don't know if he's come back on now but um what is the will of the committee motion to recommend second motion to recommend by council Grigoraitis seconded by councillor gemology madam clerk will you please call the role chair mcnaught yes yes vice chair eccles yes councillor traymond tozy yes yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor Garipay yes councillor Grigoraitis yes councillor Migliorelli yes councillor stewart yes yes councillor thomas yes Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Sinella? Yes. 11 yes. The motion passes. Ms. Strasburger, your candidacy will move forward to the next City Council meeting,
▶ 30:24 Jeff McNaught: which you will not have to appear at. Thank you for your time this evening. Thank you, Mayor Broderick. Thank you. My apologies for the frozen screen. I do not know why that has happened. With you in audio. Happened to us all. Next order is 2021-91, Acceptance of a Melrose-Wakefield Hospital Grant to Support Behavioral Health Programming. And again, I believe we have our Health Director with us, and I don't know if Mayor Broder is still on the phone. Health Director's coming in now. Okay. Director Clay, can you hear us? Yep, I can hear you. Yep. Sorry. I'm here. Good evening, Ms. Clay. The floor is yours. Thank you. So this is a relatively small grant, $14,000, a three-year grant. It's a Melrose-Wakefield
▶ 31:27 combined grant from Melrose-Wakefield Healthcare. I don't know if any of you remember the old DON Determination of Needs money that the state has had for many years but basically when any of the hospitals invest in a large amount of capital they have to set aside a certain amount for grants to the community for 25 years I've been here the hospital hasn't been in that position but recently with the addition of a facility in Medford this money did become available so we applied for it it is basically twofold it is to decrease the stigma involved with behavioral health and mental illness as well as increase the use of behavioral health services among some of our harder to reach populations. The first year is primarily planning and the $14,000 is used mostly
▶ 32:46 for four hours a week staff person. The person will be Kara Showers who's already an employee of the city. She does the Mass in Motion grant with Melrose and Wakefield already, so she's well acquainted with both communities. She's also the youth advisor in Wakefield for their substance abuse prevention coalition. Thank you, Ms. Clay. I see that Mayor Broder is back in the waiting room. I don't know if he was coming in for this as well, Madam Clerk. We can Certainly bring them back in if you'd like to go. No, I'm just a, I'm just an observer right now. Okay. We're going to get a questions from the counselors. So, 1st up, it's counter genealogy. Thank you chair. Thank you for coming before us. Do you have any idea of what I know? The focus is on.
▶ 33:59 um um addiction and uh social emotion but how are we promoting how are we spreading the word that this service is gonna be available for our residents so um uba wasn't clear about the grant it's uh it's not about addiction uh it's about behavioral health issues in general um as far as the statistics we've been getting from interface which is the group that we contact with even before the pandemic stress and anxiety were the number one and number two issues and i'm sure that is the same if not even higher with the last year of the pandemic and the grant, especially the first year, is to come up with a communication plan by looking at the different populations, talking with the different populations to find out the best ways
▶ 35:03 to communicate with them. Remember, Wakefield has a significant homeless population. It also has a significant number of group homes. And both communities have small but significant ethnic populations with different languages. So it is not the purpose of the grant is to come up with a plan for that. Okay. And you mentioned that Wakefield has a large homeless population. Do we know what is our population, homeless population in Maros? Right now it's one. Okay, thank you. Councillor Garipay. Thank you, Chairman McNaught. Thank you, Ms. Clay, for being here. I don't have any questions on this order, but I personally would like to acknowledge everything that you and your department has done over this last year during this
▶ 36:15 Mark Garipay: this COVID pandemic, we haven't had the opportunity to interact a lot over the last year with everything you have going on, but I wanna publicly acknowledge everything that your department has done through the pandemic with setting up safe flu clinics, testing, all the vaccination sites that we've had within the town. So I wanna personally thank you and thank all your department for that, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other councils with questions? Seeing no hands raised, what is the will of the committee? Motion to recommend? Second. Motion to recommend for passage by Councillor Garipay, seconded by Councillor Eccles. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Chair McNaught? Yes. Vice Chair Eccles?
▶ 37:17 Jeff McNaught: Yes. Councillor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor Grigoraitis? Yes. Councilor Migliorelli? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Abstain. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Sinella? Yes. Ken, yes. The motion passes miss clay. Thank you for your time this evening. Thank you very much last up this evening. We have order 2021 dash 92 acceptance of a 911 support and incentive award to support dispatch costs offered by the mayor. And I believe we have the chief of police. She fly away with us can you hear us loud and clear? Good evening, Chief. Good evening, everyone. We'll let you take the floor. I don't know if Mayor Brown are planning on speaking,
▶ 38:33 but we know he's having some technical difficulties. No, the Chief can handle this one. The 9-1-1 grant is a critical part of an ongoing effort by to support our local PD. We are delighted to have this opportunity to continue accept their support could you be so inclined thank you chief the floor is yours if i can go backwards to go forward originally our grant for many years was 56 187 i know that number pretty well uh two years ago we had an opportunity to take on mobile calls or cell phone calls and we did and in FY 20 a grant went from 56 187 to 81 187 it wasn't a complete year and this year we've hit the cap of 90,000 505 so it's been an increase in the mobile calls when we pick those up from 9-1-1 that's a mobile call say
▶ 39:43 someone was lost in pine bags within 50 feet of that person we should be able to Locate them pretty quickly. So that's a win win for the community and the police department and public safety. That being said this year, a breakdown of our cost of personnel cost of 7129370. That offset some of our personnel costs and dispatch. And then we, there's another 350 dollars. We have our. Filters clean for the 911 room annually. This year, we're pretty fortunate that we got two new laptops for our cruises. Some of them were getting a little tired, so we were up that. That was 10,647.30. They cover a small portion of our console, which is our dispatch console, the 3,240. Then we have a system called Regional Alerts with other communities.
▶ 40:33 We know a crime, for instance, everybody must have heard recently that a lot of vehicles are having their catalytic converters being stolen. So, a couple of our neighboring communities have got hits with multiple accounts of those being stolen. So we get a heads up. We notify our sector offices to be an alert. And the other part is that playback system, it's acorn recordings, our vendor. They do a playback system for us when we have to play back a call. And that's the total of the grant motion to recommend. I apologize for that council chairman, as we started to make a motion to recommend, uh, do we have a 2nd, 2nd, uh, motion to recommend for passage made by Council Tramon. Tosi seconded by Council Grigoraitis. Madam clerk, please call the roll.
▶ 41:39 Chair McNaught? Yes. Vice Chair Eccles? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor Grigoraitis? Yes. Councilor Migliorelli? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Jamala Dean? Yes. President Samala? Yes. 11 yes. Motion passes. Chief Lyle, thank you for your time tonight. Mayor Broder, thank you. Thank you and good evening everyone. That concludes our business for the evening. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Second. Motion to adjourn made by Councilor Thomas, seconded by councilor Grigoraitis madam clerk will you please call the role chair mcnaught yes yes vice chair eccles yes councillor Tramontozzi yes yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor Garipay yes
▶ 42:51 councillor Grigoraitis yes councillor Migliorelli yes councillor stewart yes yes councillor thomas Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. We are adjourned Monday night.