Public Works Committee — 2021-07-19
Attendance
Christopher Cinella ; Jack Eccles ; Mark Garipay ; Shawn M. MacMaster ; Robb Stewart ; Cory Thomas
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Public Comment
- PUBLIC HEARING
- Orders
- ORDER-2021-158 : Petition of National Grid to install approximately 880 feet of concrete encased electric ducts from existing manhole A-510 to an existing pad mount transformer at 585 Lebanon St. in accordance with Rowe St. Plan #27967397
- ORDER-2021-159 : Petition of National Grid to relocate 1 JO pole (# 1570) on Orient Ave beginning at a point approximately 276 feet north of the centerline at the Orient Ave and East Emerson St intersection. To be moved +/- 14 ft north
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● JULY 19, 2021 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Committee Meeting 7:25 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 The public should take notice that the Melrose City Council may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the City Council consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Cory Thomas Chair Present Mark Garipay Vice Chair Present Shawn M. MacMaster Voting Present Jack Eccles Voting Present Robb Stewart Voting Present Christopher Cinella President, ex oficio Present
ORDER-2021-158 Utility Petition Petition of National Grid to install approximately 880 feet of concrete encased electric ducts from existing manhole A-510 to an existing pad mount transformer at 585 Lebanon St. in accordance with Rowe St. Plan #27967397 Recommend Passage City Council
ORDER-2021-159 Utility Petition Petition of National Grid to relocate 1 JO pole (# 1570) on Orient Ave beginning at a point approximately 276 feet north of the centerline at the Orient Ave and East Emerson St intersection. To be moved +/- 14 ft north Recommend Passage City Council City of Melrose Page 1 7/22/2021 5:01 PM
Transcript
▶ 26:42 Cory Thomas: Joining me are Vice Chair Garipay and Voting Member Councilors McMaster, Councilor Eccles, Councilor Stewart, and President Sinella Ex Officio. Thank you. Now this is the notice of the quorum, this provides a notice of a quorum for the record. In accordance with the open meeting law, this meeting is being recorded and broadcast on our local access channel, MMTV, as well as live streamed through MMTV3.org. It will be available for future viewing through the City of Melrose's website meeting portal as well. This is the point in the meeting open for public comment. anyone has any member of the any person of the public may speak on items on this agenda tonight seeing no objections I'd like to open public comment now is there
▶ 27:38 anyone here for public comment or anyone online we have a letter we'd like to read into the record we would like to ask these two questions one if this poll is to be moved what would be the notification to the neighbors specifically how much time I notice will we get and how long will the service be interrupted as we all work from home question to presently the pole is positioned away from all other trees the position that it's being asked to move to would move closer to a tree we are concerned that the location may negatively impact our service through tree damage are there any consideration of that impact and plans to adjust the location or make changes regarding the tree chris pierce and i do have someone online as well do we have an address for oh sorry
▶ 28:34 i'm not on the email but i believe it's a relative coming on right now we can ask miss pierce can you hear us yes i can hear you now great if you could just state your name and address for the record sure it's joanne pierce p-i-e-r-c-e 24 or in app dollars all set for your comment we just had a couple of questions one was whether any consideration has been given or what mitigation might be done if the pole is going to be moved closer to the tree that's there on that side of the street and then the second question we had was how much notice will we have and how much um and for how long might our service be disrupted yes great thank you is there anyone else online or joining us in person for public comment
▶ 29:44 if you'd like miss you'd like to make a statement and say your name and address you're more than welcome to address the committee um my name is sharon 21 orion avenue melrose i have lovely neighbors welcome mrs winn and those are our very valid questions we all want to know how long it would uh make us uh without service and i was pleased to find out not too bad um the the question of whether the the poll goes closer to the tree i would just add i'd be thrilled if you took down the tree fine by me that's it thank you very much for coming out tonight anyone else online or in person for public comment uh buying objection i'd like to close public comment motion to suspend the rules mr chairman so that we may hear from the utility company
▶ 30:40 Cory Thomas: thank you we have a second thank you mostly suspend the rules by council mcmaster seconded by president sanella rules are now suspended i'd like to welcome moses i apologize sir from national grade yes moses welcome nice to have you in the city council chamber again thank you sir good evening Councilor my name is moses okokuro i'm here on behalf of national grid my address is 170 medford street in malden so basically this poll as customer just mentioned they want to extend you know her driveway so we are obliged to move the pole to accommodate that driveway okay go ahead excuse me sir um so we're talking on order 2021-158 this is a petition of national grid to install approximately 880 feet of concrete encased electric ducts from existing
▶ 31:37 manhole a510 to an existing pad mount transformer at 585 lebanon street in accordance with rose street plan number 27967397 okay so i'm sorry i took you back yeah thank you so there's this is actually for the purpose of providing electric service to merrill's wickfield hospital yes thank you so there's actually an existing service but we've been having issues with um squirrels going up a tree over our pole line construction that strips the electric service to this customer so this is something that's needed urgently thank you yeah yes thank you for being here i have a just a couple questions regarding regarding Rose Street, how long do you think that this project is going to be going to take?
▶ 32:37 And my understanding is we're going to be digging a trench in order to do that. Well, it may actually take, I can't be definite as to how long. Maybe, I'm not sure, maybe two weeks, plus, minus. i don't know how long to take them you know to take you know to dig let's say if they do well let me not be too straightforward you know i have to you know confirm and probably get back to you yes we actually contract this out to a civil you know different contracting firm i don't know usually typically the turnaround time yeah in looking at the list in the application there's a lot of neighbors that could be impacted along rose street what's the process going to be for a neighborhood meeting in order in order to uh inform them and keep them informed of when the
▶ 33:31 project's going to start what's what to expect well similarly we sent out letters you know for this petition here and we can also inform them prior to the construction fees to let them know within this you know time frame we'll be doing this section up from the you know beginning of from Green Street down to the hospital location. Yeah, so we'll send out letters to them. Will the neighbors be able to have a meeting right on Rose Street so they have any concerns or questions that can be answered? Sure. If we could set that up, I would like to be involved in that. Okay, that's fine. And then what communication has there been with the hospital And have we had the public safety, any of the public safety police and fire involved in this where that's going to close down Rose Street for potentially eight hours a day, I would assume, for two weeks?
▶ 34:28 And that's the direct route for the emergency room. Well, that's a good question. We are still at the planning phase. I'm sure when we get close to construction, we'll make adequate arrangements for that. We've actually been in touch with someone from the hospital, Mr. Jerry. we had a meeting with him with hi bonnie was present and we all walked through the entire length of the conduit run and he's already aware so whatever requirements we have to make in order to make the job move forward i'm sure we'll be glad to do it yes okay and and then after the after the project's complete what's the plan um for repaving the road um that's a direct access for public safety for ambulances you know we tend to see all the time if we just do the trench and
▶ 35:19 we we just put a top over it they tend to sink and and the roads deteriorate a lot quicker so is there a point i can answer that question um bonnie race city engineer it's nice to actually meet you all in person welcome sorry i'm late i thought we were up at 7 45 i would have been here sooner um so the road restoration um elena and i have discussed this typically we would ask they their trenches all on one side of the road so typically we would ask them to pave from the gutter line to the center line of the road and in some cases since that road is not in great condition what we do is we figure out what the value of that paving would be and they just give us um a donation and we put it towards our road restoration program so the city then would go back
▶ 36:14 Mark Garipay: and do a full curb to curb mill and overlay through that section um that's most likely what we'll end up doing yes i appreciate you taking time today to speak with me but um that i think that section of of uh row street from porter to green is in is in shape as is porter from from row up to bellevue um so yeah anything we can do to to make sure we're done when the project's done that it's paved and and we're not going to be dealing with the city's not going to be dealing with the expenses down the road um that would appreciate that and i'm sure the residents would too um thank you i've uh and just to address some of your other questions also um as as we get closer to actually them starting the work we will have more coordination with public safety um i do
▶ 37:02 Cory Thomas: have a memo of conditions for them and one of those conditions is that they coordinate with the hospital on access for ambulances and also general public safety and keeping traffic flow moving and we will definitely have a neighborhood meeting with the residents in fact i just came from one that we did for a gas project earlier this evening so we'll set that up as soon as we know when they're going to be starting great i appreciate it thank you thank you for being here thank you mr race um barring objection i'd like to uh close the public hearing for order 2021-158 public hearing is now closed um i'd like to make a barring objection i'd like to make a motion to order open order 2021 159 a public hearing petition of national grid to relocate one jo
▶ 37:58 Cory Thomas: pole number 1570 on orient avenue beginning at approximately 276 feet north of the center line at the orient ave and east emerson street intersection to be moved plus or minus 14 feet to the north and once again we are under suspension of the rules we'd like to welcome moses okokoro from national grid and once again miss race from the department of public works engineering okay thank you so my name once again is muzzle crow my address is 170 medford street in malden i'm here on behalf of national grid so the customer 21 orange app she wants to expand the driver so we are obliged to move the pole about approximately 14 foot nuts was to accommodate that new driver thank you yeah council garrett thank you this is also my word so i do have a
▶ 38:51 Mark Garipay: couple questions one I would I would just hopefully you could answer some of the Pierce's questions that they called in how long how long will this change of the service take to install the pole and how long will there will there be any interruption service and how long will it be typically the the pole relocation is less than a day's worth of work the pole movements yes but while they are moving the pole no service will be interrupted it's after you know then they can actually check and then you know adjust but relocating the service shouldn't take up to an hour's worth of work yes so the customer will be out for less than one hour less than one hour yes and they'll move the total they'll install the pole and do they do everything the same day or do they come
▶ 39:43 back a couple weeks later so that's a good question so this poll is a jointly owned poll so we own 50% with Verizon so national good will do install poll installation will move all our red wires to the new poll and then call the poll at the top rise on another third-party attachments will be expected to transfer so Verizon actually takes out the poll at the end of the day yeah so we will just install the new pole and the Verizon will be expected to take out the existing pole so okay and is there will they what will the notification be to the neighbors I think that was one of their other questions yeah usually with all the weather events I'm sure they still give the neighbors if any member of interrupted you know like the days what you know notice ahead of time to
▶ 40:39 let them know to be interruption or probably moving something around especially where it's going to impact anybody yes but there's not going to be any major impacts they may do their work without you know notifying these neighbors yeah okay and and there's enough room to put the pole in where that tree is or will there be some trimming of the trees there will definitely be like some tree trimming required yes okay thank you I have no Any more questions? Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Garipay. Councilor McMaster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good evening, both. Thank you for being here. I just wanted to make sure I understood the impetus for this. Did you say, sir, that it's to expand the length of the driveway?
▶ 41:19 Yes. Okay. Yeah. The owner of 21 Orient Ave, she wants to expand her driveway. So the pole would be just right in the middle, if you look at the sketch. So we have to move, you know, not to obstruct the vehicular flow in and out of her property. Okay. And Mr. Reese, does that driveway work require any type of an easement that the city would have to be involved in? No, I don't believe it does. I think it conforms with our curb cut requirements that we have. Okay. Thank you. This is still on public way, so I don't think there's no need for easements at this point. Thank you, Mr. Okakoro. Thank you, sir. Are there any other questions for any Member of the committee? seeing none i would like to firing objection i would like to close order 2021 the public hearing
▶ 42:15 for order 2021-159 i'll entertain a motion to adjourn the public could we argue what is what is the will of the committee for order 2021-158 what should i recommend second motion recommend from president sanella seconded by councillor eccles what is the will of the committee for order 2021-159 i'm on discussion did councillor Garipay i didn't i didn't have a question i'll call the role madam clerk sure chair thomas yes vice chair Garipay yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor eccles yes councillor stewart yes president sanella yes six yes what is the will of the committee for order 2021-159 motion to recommend second Second. Motion to recommend for President Cinella, seconded by Councilor Garipay.