City Council — 2021-08-16

City Council Regular Meeting

This meeting starts at 1:15:15 in a recording that covers several meetings.

Attendance

Christopher Cinella present · President; Jack Eccles present · At-Large; Mark Garipay present · Ward 4; Jen Grigoraitis present · Ward 6; 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● AUGUST 16, 2021 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Regular Meeting 7:45 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Christopher Cinella President Present Jack Eccles At-Large Present Maya Jamaleddine At-Large Present Leila Migliorelli At-Large 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 Jen Grigoraitis Ward 6 Present Cory Thomas Ward 7 Present

ORDER-2022-12 Appointment Appointment of Chris Redfern. 2 Spear St., to the Conservation Commission; said term to expire on the last day of February 2024. Assigned to Committee

ORDER-2022-13 Appointment Appointment of Sarah MacLellan to serve as Chief Assessor for the City of Melrose Assigned to Committee

ORDER-2022-14 Appointment Appointment of James Oosterman, 54 Ellis Farm Lane, to the Affordable Housing Trust, for a two-year term, said term to expire the last day of January 2023. Assigned to Committee

ORDER-2022-15 Appointment Reappointment of Douglas MacDonald, 47 Botolph St., to the Cemetery Commission for a three-year term; said term to expire on the last day of February 2024 Assigned to Committee

ORDER-2022-16 Amending Revised Ordinances City of Melrose Page 1 8/30/2021 3:27 PM Minutes City Council August 16, 2021 Amending Chapter 198 of the Revised Ordinances of the City of Melrose Solid Waste and Recycling Ordinance Update and Schedule of Fees Assigned to Committee

ORDER-2022-17 Grant Acceptance of Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Grant from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EOEEA) in the amount of $108,655 Passed

ORDER-2022-18 Grant Acceptance of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grant in the amount of $8,374,174. Assigned to Committee

ORDER-2022-19 Grant Authorization to Accept a Grant in the amount of $101,108 from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Program; and Authorize the Mayor to Execute a Contract with EEA Passed

ORDER-2022-20 Grant Authorization to accept two grants in the amounts of $6,500 and $10,068 from the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) Passed

ORDER-2022-21 Amending Revised Ordinances Amending Chapter 228 of the Revised Ordinances of the City of Melrose Water, Sewers, and Drains Assigned to Committee

ORDER-2022-22 Informational Informational Update - Sewer Asset Management Grant Progress Placed on File

ORDER-2022-23 Grant City of Melrose Page 2 8/30/2021 3:27 PM Minutes City Council August 16, 2021 Acceptance of Fifty Thousand Dollars ($50,000) from a FY2022 State Budget earmark providing grants to Councils on Aging Assigned to Committee

ORDER-2022-24 Bond Request for the authorization to issue $1.5 million bond to fund for the roadway component of the City's Multi-year Utility and Roadway Improvement Program Assigned to Committee

ORDER-2022-25 Amending Revised Ordinances Amending Chapter 198, Article II , Section 198-2 of the Revised Ordinances of the City of Melrose Collection and Disposal Assigned to Committee

ORDER-2021-160 Request Requesting that the Honorable City Council review and take action relative to recommendations made by the Board of Registrars of Voters for the consolidation of non-ADA compliant polling locations in the City of Melrose in accordance with information provided by Secretary of State William Galvin's office. Passed as Amended

ORDER-2022-2 Appropriation An appropriation from Capital Stabilization, account number 84052-590000, in the amount of $20,000.00 to Veteran's Professional Services, account number 015432-529000 for restoration of the Veteran's Honor Roll. Passed Appropriations Committee

ORDER-2022-6 Appointment Appointment of Greg DeLaurier, 90 Grove Street Apt B, to the Council on Aging; said term to expire on the last day of February 2024. Passed

ORDER-2022-7 Appointment Appointment of David Kourtz. 64 Moreland Rd., to the Council on Aging; said term to expire on the last day of February 2024. Passed

ORDER-2022-9 Appointment City of Melrose Page 3 8/30/2021 3:27 PM Minutes City Council August 16, 2021 Appointment of Thais De Marco, 323 Grove Street, to the Affordable Housing Trust, for a two-year term, said term to expire the last day of January 2023. Passed

ORDER-2022-10 Appointment Appointment of Lillian Yadgood Kelly, 117 Boston Rock Rd., to the Board of Health for a three-year term; said term to expire on the last day of February 2024 Passed

ORDER-2022-8 Appointment Appointment of Gwendolyn Orford. 28 Otis St., to the Conservation Commission; said term to expire on the last day of February 2024. Passed

ORDER-2022-3 Grant Authorization of Accept Two renewable AFDA grants in the amount of $2,500.00 each for the Health Department Passed Appropriations Committee

ORDER-2022-11 Informational An Order on the Status of Various Park Commission Projects Placed on File Appropriations Committee City of Melrose Page 4 8/30/2021 3:27 PM

Transcript

▶ 1:14:34 adjourn. Second. At this moment we have no more orders. We have a motion to adjourn made by President Sinella, seconded by Councilor Stewart. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Good evening. Welcome to the August 16th City Council meeting. I am President Sinella and doing things a little out of order tonight because we have to gavel in the council meeting by 8.15, so we'll just start that and then we'll get to appropriations. I know most of you are probably here for appropriations, but this meeting is called to order and Madam Clerk, if you could Please call the roll. Councillor Eccles. Here. Councillor Garipay. Here. Councillor Grigoraitis. Here. Councillor Jamaleddine. Here. Councillor McMaster.

▶ 1:17:48 Christopher Cinella: Here. Councillor McNaught. Here. Councillor Migliorelli. Here. Councillor Stewart. Here. Councillor Thomas. Here. Councillor Tramontozzi. Here. President Sinella. Here. 11 present. Thank you. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Aye. First item this evening, if there is no objection, I would like to approve our July 19th minutes without reading seeing no objection those are approved and without objection I'd like to open the floor for public comment on any item before the City Council agenda we have anybody wishing to speak this would be on City Council not appropriations do we have anybody in the remote world looking to speak on any item on the council we do not no one's in the room no one's in the

▶ 2:28:27 from his honor the mayor and other city officials order 2022-12 appointment of chris redfern 2 spear street to the conservation commission said term to expire on the last day of february 2024. that'll go to public service committee order 2022-13 appointment of sarah mcclellan to serve as chief assessor for the city of melrose that will go to the committee on finance order 2022-14 appointment of james osterman 54 ellis farm lane to the affordable housing trust for a two-year term said term to expire on the last day of february 2023 that'll go to the committee on health education and welfare order 2022-15 reappointment of douglas mcdonald 47 batal street to the cemetery commission for a three-year term said term to expire on the last

▶ 2:29:19 Christopher Cinella: day of february 2024. that'll go to the committee on health education and welfare order 2022-16 amending chapter 198 of the revised ordinances of the city of melrose solid waste and recycling ordinance update and schedule of fees that will go to the legal and legislative committee for 2022-17 acceptance of municipal vulnerability preparedness grant from the massachusetts executive office of energy and environmental affairs in the amount of one hundred eight thousand six hundred fifty five dollars mr president i move for immediate consideration on this item we have immediate consideration uh before us on 2022-17 any objections seeing none This matter is now before us. If there is no objection, I'd like to suspend our rules so that we can hear from some of the administration.

▶ 2:30:13 So seeing no objection, our rules are now suspended. Welcome. Good evening. My name is Jay Coy. I'm the deputy city engineer. Elena Paragasalis, DPW director. Thank you for coming. I'd like to speak to the... Yes. So we were awarded a grant from the Energy and Environmental Affairs Office in the amount of $108,655, which I'll point out that there's no cash match coming from the City of Melrose. It's a two-year grant that's in the purpose to do a stormwater flood study analysis to determine where flooding is happening, how we can resolve to reduce and prevent that flooding within the community it's like I said it's a two-year grant that we're going to be doing in collaboration with 16 other communities in the Upper

▶ 2:31:14 Mystic watershed region. Any questions from councillors? Councillor Stewart? Thank you Mr. President. So where would you focus? Would you focus on the West Knoll for one? So we're focusing on in there's going to be 17 communities as I said it's Melrose it's it's the Upper Mystic community communities that I can list them for you it is Arlington Belmont Burlington Cambridge Everett Lexington Malden Medford Melrose Redding Somerville Stoneham Wakefield Watertown Wilmington Winchester and Woburn so it's a it's a collaboration between all communities where we're studying where the flooding is happening due to stormwater and our aim is to be able to reduce and prevent stormwater flooding in a 2070 10 percent event so that's our goal

▶ 2:32:18 and in order to really make it effective we do it collaboratively with the other municipalities so we're not piecemealing each city by city and this way you get the kind of a overall bigger bang for your buck in that way um you it's more effective that way and just to add to that um it is focused only on the mystic river watershed portion of the city because it's part of this mystic resilient mystic collaborative work and so it's anything that discharges to el pond el pon brook spot pond brook that side of the community also where it comes in from wakefield and stonem that's part of the el pon watershed or the mystic river watershed so anything that goes the other direction towards bennett's pond brook or toward the cemetery you know the lebanon sylvan

▶ 2:33:05 flooding that um that area is actually lebanon sylvan eventually ends up in spot from book so take that back but um generally more that side of the city does not go toward the mystic river watershed so it would not include that so what parts will be a part of this impact study so the whole northwestern section of the city is sort of the upper watershed and then coming down through el pond so anything that drains to el pond and then the outlet to el pond comes down main street and then goes through corey street and some other areas out toward spot palm brook along the train tracks and then down toward the malden line by oak grove so anything that's tributary anywhere with the drainage system or the surface runoff is tributary to those areas so it kind of

▶ 2:34:05 Robb Stewart: is you know a swath that follows that path down through the city all the way to the western edge of the city sure and i appreciate that but so anybody that's lived here for a while knows the spots that flood right not where it might flood but no spots that will flood and that's what i think what we really care about is which areas that do flood will be examined so that remains to be seen that's that's up to the yeah that's the so the year one is the study is the it's the figuring out where it floods why it floods and the year two is to coming up with a toolbox on how to address those to change policies and let's see yeah so we come up with a toolbox to look into our regulations whether it's zoning storm water building in order to address those so that in the

▶ 2:34:58 Robb Stewart: future with those regulations they address the climate change when it comes to the stormwater flooding so that it will prevent it in the future and and the reason why i'm pressing a little bit i'm not trying to be too hard here but uh my ward ward three gets a lot of impact from the drainage that comes off the big hill there and as you know like for example the fells way where there's flooding down there and that then contributes to um it's more in stoneham but uh where west wyoming avenue uh typically has all that flooding so it'd be helpful to know where and what can be done in other words with this money while you do this i will support it obviously but i think would be helpful for the community to understand specifically who is going to get

▶ 2:35:50 benefit from this i would say that a good reference point for that is anything in our natural hazard mitigation plan that we did a couple years ago that has a chapter that's entirely dedicated toward known flooding areas and so if we were asked for a list right at the beginning of the project of areas that we know to be the worst that's our list we've already done that background work so i would reference anybody back to that list okay great thank you i would also say that any any policy changes zoning recommendations or regulations that are recommended as part of this project they would likely want those to apply to the whole watershed or even the whole city if we thought they were helpful citywide okay great thank you both thank

▶ 2:36:35 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Councilor Gimaldi. Thank you, President Sinella. Thank you for being with us tonight. During this study, would residents living around this area, like the flooding zone, be affected by that study? Like, would they see any actual activities happening to the point that we have to not divide them in advance to say that there is a study happening? would think at most you might see people surveying the the drainage network um and whether in the in the catch basins or drain manholes but we have a lot of that information already that we can so i should back up so the mystic river watershed association is the one who's they're really spearheading this effort um melrose is just really the the face of the the grant money and the

▶ 2:37:28 project manager but they're doing all of this and this is their third go-round um with the same exact project they started in the lower mystics focusing on cambridge they moved up to lexington and another community as well and now they're moving into these upper mystic into the 17th so they successfully have done this basically the same exact project just in other communities so they're they're the ones spearheading the the infoworks model which is a big study of of the watershed modeling i would assume it's going to start with a desktop analysis first so you probably won't see much activity in the city at all and i honestly don't know if they will need to have people on the ground doing um any sort of um you know any sort of work or not but certainly

▶ 2:38:19 Maya Jamaleddine: you know we would notify people if if we have to if we have to thank you and you mentioned that um there there is or this work is already being done on other communities can you tell us a little bit about what results they have came up with or any solutions i i so i don't know what the results are looking like because so this is a two-year grant and the first year is the study and the second year is the the tools so i don't know where they are i think they're in year two of their first go around so i think they're figuring out um all of the results now so we're kind of a year behind so i don't i can't speak to the results they're getting for the other communities and would you know if there would be a changing in the zoning in a way that you know some of the areas that

▶ 2:39:09 are not in a flood zone would go back to be in a flood zone or vice versa so the flood zones so i can't speak to that only because i know that's a fema issue when you go in with flood you know flood zones and flood maps i don't think this is going to affect that but i'm not sure it's more it's more of a storm order calculations of where the the flooding is happening rather than a a hundred year flood zone type calculation but i'm not sure if that could roll into have the flood zones changed um and then you know and then impact that so i'm not sure if it goes into that that's something i'd have to look into okay thank you i would guess that on at least on the immediate el pond area we just redid that flood analysis in great detail with a consultant

▶ 2:40:01 and got it approved by fema a couple years ago so that one shouldn't be changing because that's based on all the current information okay thank you councilman mcnaught thank you mr president i'm just wondering that since the mitigation study that was done a couple years ago where we learned of all the hot spots if you will or regular areas that flood what have we done to address those areas most of what we've done is chase grant funding and some successfully and some unsuccessfully so we've been trying to get um so the the hazard mitigation plan and the municipal vulnerability preparedness process the workshops that we did resulted in a priority list and from that priority list the the generator for city hall was the absolute top priority

▶ 2:40:51 we sunk a lot of time into repeatedly applying for different grants to try to get the generator paid for and as you know they were repeatedly unsuccessful which is why you all approved the free cash for it this past year that was our top priority in both plans so now we're finally in design and we should have that out to bid very soon the city hall parking lot was another area that we identified as having substantial flooding and that we've again applied for grants a couple times and have not gotten them we have another grant application out right now and we hope to get that um and combine it with some city funds uh the lebanon at sylvan flooding was deemed to be probably the worst in terms of property damage and so that actually does qualify

▶ 2:41:41 for fema funding because of the level of property damage and we have been in the application process since i believe 2018 and that application is still active and they still plan on approving it but that's apparently the timeline for a fema approval so so those are the ones that we've really pushed forward as highest priorities but we have some smaller items just more emergency planning um part of the generator project now we've added in a connection for backup generator at memorial hall because that is identified as one of our shelter locations and we identified in the plan that we have shelters that have no backup power which is really pretty useless as a shelter in a lot of situations um so that's going to be solved through the generator project

▶ 2:42:34 as well so um yep those are those are the ones we've moved forward okay but we really haven't been able to do much because we don't have the money to do it is that right well the the purpose of the natural hazard mitigation plan is you know from a federal perspective the purpose of that plan and keeping it active every five years is to qualify for fema grant funding and so we have continuously applied for FEMA grants um you know and moved forward with it in that respect we haven't other than a little project here there we haven't done anything other than that that's specific to it I do know that there's been discussion of emergency management Alan Alpert moving forward with a lot of the planning that we identified as necessary

▶ 2:43:25 John N. Tramontozzi: like updating the comprehensive emergency management plan and continuation of operations and that sort of planning and i can't speak to the status of that i'm not sure what his um what he's done on that thank you council chairman tozy thank you mr president um is this 108 000 grant earmarked specifically earmarked from melrose or is it part of it's part of the entire package i believe it's part of the entire package does that also mean that the other cities and towns have to vote to accept the grant before it can be applied i i don't think so no no since we we applied as the lead community so that's why we're here before you but the other communities are just riding on our coattails okay well that's that's interesting well well good good job in uh

▶ 2:44:19 John N. Tramontozzi: stepping forward and uh and applying um it's uh it's to our benefit i guess and it's the other cities and towns lost so that that 108 really is the entire amount that is going to be available for use for this study okay thank you thank you thank you counselor thomas thank you mr president um quickly you just referenced uh well welcome i'm sorry uh you referenced the fema grant for the lebanon street and sylvan corridor um it's still pending do they have any idea of one that is going to go through we have answered so many requests for additional information and they come like every six months mima sends us a new request from fema and we answer the questions and then we wait and then we get another letter six months later asking for more information

▶ 2:45:08 Cory Thomas: this this is my first go around with even getting this far through the fema process so i don't know what it looks like when you actually get funding i'm hoping that we know that soon but i know mima is very much in our court for getting this funding um and and so they've been pushing fema to try to approve it more quickly but has mima provided any updates or timelines for us in anticipation of acceptance of it they've given us a lot of apologies um and that's about it all right thank you you know not only does this affect residents but it also affects uh the melrose wyoming cemetery uh you know so you know it affects people not only in melrose but you know other communities neighboring as well thank you for the update

▶ 2:45:50 counselor eccles um i was going to make a motion for passage but um on discussion i'll make the motion for passage emotions passage one more question in relation to flooding generally we do have the fema maps for the city right how often do those have to be updated flood maps yeah i don't know if there's a have to be it's kind of on fema's schedule sometimes they do like sweeping updates of you know a whole chunk of the state um and then if we go before them and we request an update like we did with el pond they'll update the map just in that one area after they go through the approval process but i don't know that there's a set yeah i'm i'm not sure to be honest would you mind looking into that for if statutorily if the city is supposed to

▶ 2:46:42 update the flood maps every you know x amount of years or would you mind reporting back on that and on top of that do you know when the last time the city of morrow's flood maps were updated um not a gotcha question if you want to report back on that that's within five years yeah within five years but was that just when we did el pond okay thank you okay yeah well we can get that information appreciate it so we have a motion before us made by councilor eccles i didn't hear a second because councilor mcnaught jumped in there with a question about being called on but um seconded by council mcnaught councillor Garipay did you have a question on discussion any discussion madam clerk could you please call the role councillor eccles yes

▶ 2:47:37 councillor Garipay yes councillor Grigoraitis yes councillor Jamaleddine yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor mcnaught yes councillor Migliorelli yes councillor stewart yes councillor thomas yes councillor Tramontozzi yes president snella yes 11 yes thank you thank you thank you thank you order 2022-18 acceptance of the american rescue plan act grant in the amount of eight million three hundred seventy four thousand one hundred and seventy four dollars that'll go to the appropriations committee order 2022-19 authorization to accept a grant in the amount of 101 108 dollars from the massachusetts executive office of energy and environmental affairs municipal vulnerability preparedness program and authorize the mayor to execute a contract with eea

▶ 2:48:33 Shawn M. MacMaster: council michaels yeah i make a motion for media consideration on this order we have a media consideration before us this order any objection seeing none mr president we just have a proffer on the reason for um for uh media consideration this is now the second before us tonight just so we have some sense it's hard to say if we're going to object if we don't know the reason why something's being sought for immediate consideration so if the profit can be made by the movement department i think denise would you want to speak to as to why immediate consideration um yes good evening denise gaffey director of planning and community development i'm here actually to fill in for martha grover who couldn't be here

▶ 2:49:12 Denise Gaffey: she's on vacation this was a grant that she applied for and um the grant funding agency actually was is holding up the contract signing for for us right now they were hoping to get this contract signed by the end of july and they um they would really like to kick off the project in september it's about a 10-month process and the completion is required to be before the end of the fiscal year thank you mr president okay thank you so this matter is now before us i don't know if you have anything else to add to that um to the grant itself or uh happy to yeah just briefly this is um this is the same program that you just heard from from engineering the municipal vulnerability preparedness program we applied for this grant in collaboration with the

▶ 2:50:00 Denise Gaffey: cities of malden and medford and melrose is taking the lead on this grant initiative it is primarily technical assistance that will be provided by the metropolitan area planning council and the purpose of the grant is to develop sustainable and resilient um building design guidelines by working with the three communities and there's no cast a cash match for the grant we the essentially this program will will help us develop guidelines for sustainable buildings in support of our net zero goals and it's coming at a really interesting time for us because having just gone through the zoning process with incentive zoning developing sustainable design guidelines was actually a little bit of a challenge there's not a lot of we didn't have a lot of great information

▶ 2:51:02 Denise Gaffey: at our disposal so this is going to be a really important effort to help us develop those kind of guidelines which will also help homeowners renters and and developers as they endeavor to build in more sustainability and resiliency into new buildings and retrofitted buildings. So it's also great for us in terms of the housing production plan that we're in the process of completing too, because there are goals around affordability and equity tied to this effort. So we're really excited about it. think ultimately what um the grant funding agency is hoping for what mapc is hoping for and we're excited to contribute to is like a best practices manual that other communities can also take advantage of all right any questions what is the will of the council councilor Grigoraitis motion

▶ 2:52:05 to approve second motion to approve by councilor Grigoraitis seconded by councillor Migliorelli any other further discussion wait a minute i think it's a motion for passage oh sorry motion for passage yes thank you for the clarification no further discussion madam clerk please call the roll councillor eccles yes councillor Garipay yes councillor Grigoraitis yes councillor jamal adin yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor mcnaught yes councillor Migliorelli yes councillor stewart yes councillor thomas yes councillor trey montozzi yes president sanella yes 11 yes thank you very much thank you order 2022-20 authorization to accept two grants in the amounts of six thousand five hundred dollars and ten thousand sixty eight dollars from the

▶ 2:52:55 massachusetts emergency management agency mr president i move for immediate consideration at this time similar request mr president for proffer do we have an answer to as to i'm sure why immediate consideration is being seeked at this time mr president if i may just wanted to clarify that the reason that we're asking for immediate consideration of these grant requests is that we must expend these funds by september 30th and just with the delays due to covid and the vacancy in my position during the past several months we didn't have the opportunity to bring this before you until now thank you mr president so seeing no objection this matter is now before us if you'd like to good evening mr president Margolis fleischman again i'm the director

▶ 2:53:45 of strategic initiatives and communications in the mayor's office and i'm joined by emergency management director alan alpert and fire chief kalina this evening to present to you these two grants from the massachusetts emergency management agency one in the amount of 6500 which is an annual grant that the city of melrose receives to address our emergency management preparedness focusing on all hazards but essentially can be used for the needs of the city and we do you we do come before you annually to accept that grant the second one is a one-time grant of ten thousand 68 that was awarded to the city of melrose for emergency hazmat training that we would like to be able to offer to all city departments the purpose of accepting these two grants together

▶ 2:54:35 tonight is to allow the training facility that we currently have for emergency trainings to be upgraded to meet the needs of our emergency preparedness and first responders as well as city departments for regular municipal trainings as well as well as hazardous material trainings great thank you any questions what is the will of the council motion for passage second motion for passage made by council tramitose seconded by councillor eccles any discussion seeing none madam clerk please call the role councillor eccles yes councillor Garipay yes council Grigoraitis yes council chamaladeen yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor mcnaught yes council Migliorelli yes councillor stewart yes councillor thomas yes councillor Tramontozzi yes

▶ 2:55:29 president sanella yes 11 yes thank you thank you very much thank you very much voter 2022-21 amending chapter 2-8 of the revised ordinances of the city of melrose water sewers and drains that'll go to the committee on legal and legislative order 2022-22 an informational update to the sewer asset management grant progress council thomas like to move for immediate consideration you'd like immediate consideration is there any objection to immediate consideration seeing none this matter is now before us so i'll tell you I'll keep this brief because of the hour but I'll give you a little bit of why I'm here and then I have to figure out how to be able to operate that while I'm near a microphone the sewer asset management grant is one that you

▶ 2:56:38 approved last year it's a state revolving fund grant through MassDEP it was in the amount of $60,000 and then we had a $20,000 match and a $20,000 in-kind services component the grant deadline is the contract deadline is august 30th and one of the pieces of our our requirements was to present what we've done to the public and since this board a lot of the the impetus for this project came from this board i thought the best forum to present the information of what we've done was to present it to you all in case you had questions about what we've done but given that the grant deadline is august 30th and we we just completed a lot of the work and you know we wrapped it up in the last few weeks so we really couldn't have

▶ 2:57:29 presented it earlier so that's hence the request for immediate consideration and we're not looking for any actual vote i understand that in the future this might be there might be a better way for us to put this into the queue instead of an order as just an informational item but we will figure that out for the next time so let me see if I can switch over should be so this Chromebook was back to us That's a good sign. this is kind of, yes. Yes? I see it. No. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Can we use your settings? Can we use your settings? It was right there. It should just. There it is. Yeah, okay. All right, so if you can go to the side chair. And I might have to come over here to the end for a few minutes that we'll then.

▶ 3:01:57 Oh, okay. Yep. In the beginning. Okay, thank you for your patience. So as I said, this is just an update on our sewer asset management project. Next slide, next. These were the tasks that were part of the grant application and then thus part of the work that we did. So we developed a strategy for asset management focused solely on our sewer collection system. So the pipes and manholes in our sewer mains and pump stations. And then we updated our wastewater GIS environment. um we developed mobile apps we in order to gather data from the field on our sewer system we purchased hardware and software we have five of these really slick new tablets we're waiting for the right cases to come in these have been deployed to our field staff and

▶ 3:02:56 we've done training for our field staff we recently had a training where the consultants from cdm smith trained our water sewer and highway some of our foreman and more senior staff as well as engineering and some of our management to be able to use these in the field next slide so the updates that we did and I know some of this was part of a discussion with the council earlier on but we were missing a lot of the age data in our sewer gis so they poured through all of our historic plans all of our historic tie card information as to when services went in and came up with an age for almost every sewer pipe in the city so they populated all of that data then they also went through our inspection videos

▶ 3:03:43 and reports and they updated any missing data on sewer sizes and sewer materials so we now have all of that and I'll I'll show that to you in a minute when I go back over to the computer and then internally we scanned all of our 8,000 plus tie cards so every single house has a card in a book that shows how it connects from the house out to the street we've scanned all of those in-house and named them by address and then we had an intern this summer who linked them all to the parcels in the the gis database so i'll show you that as well when i go over we can now click on a parcel and see the sewer tie card um and then we put all the data online in a a password protected system but it all sits in the

▶ 3:04:31 cloud now so it's accessible from anywhere that we are and cdm smith did a qaqc check on all the data next so we now have five applications that are actually all on these tablets so the staff in the field has these different links for the different esri online products and so they can go to a map of our entire sewer system and then they also have those are the first two that allow you just to basically view the data they have collector forms so we have if there's a sewer blockage we now have a form where we collect all the data that we need right there in the field we can take pictures link it to the to the incident it's going to help immensely with our claims process which tends to be lengthy when we're trying to gather

▶ 3:05:22 all the information of when did we first hear about the problem and what time did we respond and who responded that's all going to be in the forms that the guys will now enter into the tablets right there in the field we're also going to start tracking all of our sewer line cleaning so when we do have an issue and we're asked well when was the last time you were out there what did you find we'll have data that says the last time we cleaned a pipe whether we found roots or grease or other blockage issues or you know anything that we find in the pipes that'll all be documented and that's using both the survey123 and the collector app and then there's a dashboard that allows us to see the aggregate of the data like how many blocks did we have last

▶ 3:06:06 year how many were in the sewer mains how many were in sewer services um and and that sort of data next okay and then i just want to show you a couple things on the actual computer there okay so this is the new map and we're not seeing a map oh it's not on the screen now okay there you go there's a map okay um so from this map we can zoom in on any pipe in the city we can click on it we actually have now linked all of our old sewer plans so this is actually the original plan from you know probably the 1930s or so it shows the whole sewer profile and everything so that's all linked to the maps every one of those plans no matter where you click you find a plan and the red pipes are MWRA the green pipes are ours and then these dots here are we

▶ 3:08:11 just during training we entered in fake blockages just to practice using the form so if you clicked on this blockage you would see the customer name date and time the weather again when did DPW become aware of the issue how was it reported who reported the issue so that this is all the data that we need to be gathering when we have a blockage to facilitate the whole process that follows and then in the actual GIS so this that's this is more the dashboard that the guys will have out in the field and then this is what I have in the office and so this is every manhole in the city and then every pipe that connects it and I can zoom in on an area and I can click for information on the pipe I got a street name by mistake and here we have the pipe size the year it was installed so

▶ 3:09:11 this one's 1897 it's on Ashland Street and six inch diameter and so I can go to I can go to the attribute table for this entire layer and so if I want to see like you're installed I can sort it from newest to oldest and I can see the ones at the top are Regan's Way because that was recently installed Boardman Ave was recent we don't have Patrick's place in there yet but that's new and Blueberry Hill Lane those will be brand new sewers but you can see the year installed category we now have data for almost every pipe in the city and so now we can we can map it we can say I want to see every pipe that's older than we can say I want to clean every pipe that's that's a hundred years old and prioritize that and then the the field

▶ 3:10:18 staff will enter those forms in and then we'll see those all light up on the map as clean and it's all real time when they're out in the field and they fill out a form and show that they've cleaned a pipe someone else on a tablet two streets over who wants to know did they finish that one yet it's real time as soon as they click submit on the form every tablet every device sees that information so it's pretty cool we're moving into this century finally so that's it thank you we might eventually make the tie card links oh so I didn't show you that but that's just if you click on a parcel you can go here to hyperlinks and it'll pull up the this is the scanned page from the book that shows how this property ties

▶ 3:11:19 into the sewer and exactly where the connection is made as compared to the next manhole it's ten point two three feet from the downstream manhole and it's a hundred ninety point four feet from the manhole on this side and so we eventually make that available to the public so people can look up their information about their own house but there are generally there are water and wastewater security issues where you don't want to publish the entire gis database of your entire system because then if somebody wants to do something right you know nefarious exactly then they have all the information great thank you okay thank you thank you richard any any questions quick question council chairman tozy

▶ 3:12:08 John N. Tramontozzi: um elena fascinating i um i was just wondering is any way we can adapt that to track the movement of rats in the city to tracking what the movement of rats in the movement of the rats i'm teasing it away but there is as you know that i have uh occasionally had we've all had complaints from um citizens but uh i mean you could certainly have an online form where whoever if it's the health department whatever department is getting the rat complaints could certainly drop a point on a map that says rats and then you could see where all the rat complaints are or if you want to go put little tracking devices on their legs you can thank you thank you mr president anybody outside councilman mcmaster thank you mr president thank you miss paracas ellis for that presentation

▶ 3:13:01 Shawn M. MacMaster: how much of the data regarding the location of sewer backups is historical or is that all perspective and so what we have right now for sewer backups is paper forms that have been scanned in so we have those dating back many years but those aren't being populated this is really from this moment moving forward um because we have the data if we ever needed to recall something about an old backup we can just look up the scan of the paper form by year um so this will be just moving forward so is there so that will be so in the future if there's backup that will be input into the system absolutely yeah is there any reason even though the information exists because the information exists on tie cards in terms of the makeup of a of a pipe or the year of the pipe

▶ 3:13:49 is there any reason that historical information wouldn't be input or wasn't input as part of this process about backups or backups um we just didn't see a need because the the frequency with which we need to go back and look at old backups is infrequent but um you know we could we could enter in data about old backups at some point just so that we know where there have been multiple backups or that sort of thing but we kind of have that we have this the sewer periodical list which are the sewers that we go out and check every month because we know they're problem areas and we know where those are um so you know that that's really fed that that's been fed by the data about historic backups if we find that there's a use for that we can absolutely go back and and start

▶ 3:14:38 inputting you know just so we have them in the system i know in in a prior community where i worked i had done that with water main breaks i created a new layer we started tracking our water main breaks like this and then i thought well i'd like to go back and input all the old ones so we went back like 30 years of historic records and put those on the map too so that when we had a new break we could see is this a chronic problem area or or not so it's something we could consider doing if we felt there was a benefit so when when you talked about problems that originate in either the main line or the lateral line that's information that you'll be looking to collect moving forward yes so that's part of the form is the form that they would answer on here was

▶ 3:15:21 Shawn M. MacMaster: whether the backup was in the main or in the private service yeah and just one additional question have any protocols been developed for dpw when responding to a backup in terms of utilizing the tool so if there's a is there a backup if there's a backup is there something that's supposed to happen with respect to looking information up first before any decisions are made in terms of how to proceed or is this just to have when there's a question that arises as the end to a response yeah the intent I mean since we're just starting to use it and if we're just starting from today moving forward then there's not going to be a lot of data at the beginning but the intent would be that when you get out there and you take your tablet out with

▶ 3:16:08 Cory Thomas: you in the field and you look at the location where there's a backup you would see those red dots for other backups and you would know oh there were six backups here in the last year and every time they were marked as heavy grease so that's what we're going to be encountering you know most likely so that would be part of the protocol moving forward is that not only are you entering the data but you're also using the data that you have to to decide the best path forward thank you thank you mr president counselor thomas thank you mr president um it's an incredibly large amount of information and data that's been put into that gas mapping um kudos to you and the dpw staff and i believe you said an intern for doing all that work um thank you for the

▶ 3:16:52 presentation uh motion to place on file second motion place on file made by counselor thomas seconded by counselor eccles any other discussion seeing none all those in favor aye aye aye any opposed see none thank you thank you order 2022-23 acceptance of 50 000 from a fy2022 state budget earmark providing grants to council on aging gotta go to the appropriations committee order 2022-24 request for the authorization to issue 1.5 million bond to fund for the roadway component of the city's multi-year utility and roadway improvement program that will go to appropriations any new business order 2022-25 amending chapter 198 article 2 section 198-2 of the revised ordinances of the city of melrose collection and disposal that will go to legal and legislative committee

▶ 3:17:56 and orders from committee we do have quite a few hold on sorry uh i guess we'll start with we'll go in order of the committees as they came before us so counselor tramitosi i have uh mr president some orders to i'd like to make motions to pull up from committee right we're going to start with counselor tramitosi's committee i didn't know if he had a rule 53. sorry i couldn't hear you no that's a mask sir that's all right muffling thank you Mr. president at this time I would move to remove from committee order number 2022-8 the appointment of Gwendolyn Orford 28 Otis street to the conservation commission said term to expire on the last day of February 2024. okay is there a second second so motion made by council tramitosi to move 2022-8 out of committee

▶ 3:18:52 Maya Jamaleddine: seconded by council Garipay all those in favor aye any opposed seeing none the matter is now before us thank you mr president uh this order um was heard earlier uh this evening at the public service committee where there was a recommendation for um for passage and at this time i would uh move to uh for passage of order 2022-8 second motion for passage made by council tramitosi for 2022-8 seconded by councillor Garipay any discussion seeing none all those in favor any opposed okay thank you order passes thank you councillor Jamaleddine i would like to conjoin ORDER 2022-6 2022-7 2022-9 and 2022-10 um do we have a yeah go ahead you're conjoining yep i would like to conjoin them um in purpose of uh recommendation for passage second

▶ 3:20:04 um i'm joining for taking them out of committee yep yeah so we're conjoining um 2022-679 and 10 um to pull those out of committee second by counselor stewart all those in favor any opposed seeing none okay those are all now before us and so those orders comes from the health health education and welfare committee and with a recommendation of passage and at this moment i would like to move motion for passage second so you want to make a motion for the combined do you want to just read off those uh orders or the so i already read them do you want me to read it read them again should i read them again 2022-6 2022 but the appointment's actual language okay sorry that's okay uh 2022-6 appointment of greg delorier um and to the

▶ 3:21:06 Maya Jamaleddine: council on aging set term to expire on the last day of february 2024. order 2022-7 appointment of david kurtz 64 moreland road to the council on aging set term to expire on the last day of february 2024 order 2022-9 appointment of thais de marco 323 grove street to the affordable housing trust for a two-year term set term to expire the last day of january 2023 order 2022-10 appointment of lillian yet good kelly 117 boston rock road to the board of health for a three-year term set term to expire on the last day of february 2024. thank you now mr president i will second second okay so motion but these combined conjoined orders all coming with a recommendation for passage made by council jimala dean seconded by councilor stewart any discussion seeing none

▶ 3:22:05 Jen Grigoraitis: all those in favor aye aye any opposed okay and we have what do we have next legal and ledge um order i'm motioning to pull order 2021-160 requesting that the honorable city council review and take action relative to recommendations made by the board of registrars of voters for the consolidation of non-ada compliant polling locations in the city of melrose in accordance with information provided by secretary of state william galvin's office upfront committee second so motion made by council Grigoraitis to pull order 2021-160 out of committee seconded by councillor eccles all those in favor aye any opposed okay this matter is now before us so order 2021-160 comes with the following recommendation from the legal and legislative

▶ 3:23:02 committee to consolidate all polling locations for the november 2021 election to the melrose veteran memorial middle school and that is a motion and i motion for passage okay motion for passage second council Grigoraitis seconded by counselor stewart any discussion council tramitosi like a roll call vote in that i will do a roll call vote in that any other discussion seeing none madam clerk please call the roll councillor eccles yes councillor Garipay yes councillor Grigoraitis yes councillor Jamaleddine yes councillor mcmaster no councillor mcnaught yes councillor Migliorelli yes councillor stewart yes councillor thomas no councillor Tramontozzi yes president sanella yes nine yes okay what else we have appropriations yep my turn he's

▶ 3:24:05 Jeff McNaught: Mr. President, I'd like to make a motion to pull 2022-11 from the Appropriations Committee. This is the order on the status of various park commission projects that comes with a recommendation to place on file. Second. Motion made to pull this from committee by Councillor McNaught, seconded by Councillor garipay all those in favor aye any opposed seeing none this time i'd like to make a motion to place 2022-11 on file okay motion made to place 2022-11 on file made by council mcnaught seconded by council Grigoraitis all those in favor any opposed seeing none this time mr president i'd like to pull order 2022-2 from appropriations it's an appropriation from capital stabilization for the 20 000 to the veterans professional services that comes with a recommendation

▶ 3:25:15 for passage second okay motion to pull 2022-2 out of committee by council mcnaught seconded by Councilor Eccles all those in favor aye any opposed seeing none this time Mr. president I move for passage for order 2022-2 so motion for passage for 2022-2 made by Councilor McNaught seconded by Councilor Grigoraitis and Madam Clerk if you could please call the roll Councilor Eccles yes Councilor Garipay yes Councilor Grigoraitis yes Councilor Jamaleddine yes Councilor McMaster yes yes councillor mcnaught yes councillor Migliorelli yes councillor stewart yes councillor thomas yes councillor Tramontozzi yes president sanella yes 11 yes okay did i miss anything one more mr president that's right order 2022-3 i'd like to pull this from committee as well

▶ 3:26:16 i'm making a motion for that this is the authorization to accept two renewable afda grants um for the health department okay motion to pull 2022-3 out of committee made by councilman mcnaught seconded by counselor Grigoraitis all those in favor aye any opposed okay this matter is before us at this time mr president i move for passage on 2022-3 second motion for passage made by council mcnaught seconded by council Migliorelli any discussion seeing none madam clerk please call the role councillor eccles yes councillor Garipay yes councillor Grigoraitis yes council jamaaladeen yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor mcnaught yes council amigliarelli yes councillor stewart yes councillor thomas yes councillor Tramontozzi yes president sanella yes 11 yes okay i think

▶ 3:27:15 Maya Jamaleddine: that's it for committees and we do not have any unfinished business nothing from the calendar Is there anything in the report under Rule 53 that would so help you? I would like to remind the Meadows community that tomorrow, actually the 18th, will be the library community forum, so I would like to invite them as the liaison of the library to attend that and would be an option for remote participation or in person all right do you have the time and place it's at the uh common okay and thank you any other uh reports okay well i want to send a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn second motion to adjourn made by councilor stewart seconded by council Migliorelli all those in favor

City Council — 2021-08-16

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