Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2022-01-31
Attendance
Christopher Cinella ; Jack Eccles ; Mark Garipay ; Jen Grigoraitis ; Maya Jamaleddine ; Manjula Karamcheti ; Shawn M. MacMaster ; Leila Migliorelli ; John Obremski ; Robb Stewart ; Ryan Williams
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Public Comment
- Orders
- ORDER-2022-61 : Authorization to accept a grant in the amount of $6,500 from the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency -MEMA (Item #9579)
- ORDER-2022-64 : Authorization to Appropriate $75,000 to Fund Feasibility Study and Schematic Design for Roof Replacement Projects at the Hoover and Horace Mann Schools -Fund #3383. (Item #9580)
- ORDER-2022-63 : Authorization to accept a grant in the amount of $54,918 from the Massachusetts Office on Disability's Municipal ADA Improvement Grant Program (Item #9581)
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS & OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE CALENDAR● JANUARY 31, 2022 Web-based remote meeting Remote meeting 7:00 PM , Melrose, MA 02176 Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Jen Grigoraitis Chair Present Leila Migliorelli Vice Chair Present Shawn M. MacMaster Present Jack Eccles Present Mark Garipay Present Maya Jamaleddine Present Robb Stewart Present Manjula Karamcheti Present John Obremski Present Ryan Williams Present Christopher Cinella President, ex oficio Present
ORDER-2022-61 Grant Authorization to accept a grant in the amount of $6,500 from the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency -MEMA (Item #9579) Recommend Passage City Council
ORDER-2022-64 Appropriation Authorization to Appropriate $75,000 to Fund Feasibility Study and Schematic Design for Roof Replacement Projects at the Hoover and Horace Mann Schools -Fund #3383. (Item #9580) Recommend Passage City Council
ORDER-2022-63 Grant Authorization to accept a grant in the amount of $54,918 from the Massachusetts Office on Disability's Municipal ADA Improvement Grant Program (Item #9581) Recommend Passage City Council City of Melrose Page 1 2/17/2022 10:55 AM
Transcript
▶ 0:00 Jen Grigoraitis: Meeting of the Appropriations and Oversight Committee of the Melrose City Council. It is 7 p.m. and our meeting is now underway. I am Chair Grigoraitis and joining me tonight are Vice Chair Migliorelli, Councilors McMaster, Garipay, Jamaleddine, Karamcheti, Obremski, and I believe Williams, and President Cinella, ex officio. That will serve as a notice of a quorum for the record. Pursuant to an act extending certain cobit, 19 measures by governor signed by governor Baker on June 16th, 2021, that extended the remote meeting provisions of his March 12th executive order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. This meeting of the appropriations and oversight committee will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible.
▶ 0:52 Jen Grigoraitis: we will post a comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the city of melrose website and on mmtv3.org the public can find online access instructions to view this meeting through the city of melrose website under remote meetings at this time i will move by unanimous consent to open public comment being no objection public comment is now open this is the portion of our meeting where any member of the public can speak to any item on our agenda madam clerk do we have anyone wishing to speak in public comment we have some attendees and a couple of viewers if you'd like to speak please raise your hand i think we have one hand raised you see a hand uh from mr mcsweeney all
▶ 1:43 All right, well, and mute him. You're welcome to have the floor. Thank you. Fin McSweeney, 161 West Wyoming Avenue. Just speaking very briefly tonight on behalf of the Fed Bike Committee on Order 2022-63, which is the ADA grant from the Commission on Disability. We, the Fed Bike Committee, are big supporters of the work that the Commission on Disability Has been doing in the city, and we just wanted to congratulate. Mr. Hoff and the rest of the commissioners on getting this grant for the city, which, as we all know, is has been a long time coming. Um, it's I think this council has appointed. All of the members on this commission, and it's great to see. That in such a short period of time, we, the city has been successful in getting this grant.
▶ 2:39 Jen Grigoraitis: um and it's going to be great to see the city update um this accessibility plan which is a benefit not just to um persons with disabilities but to everyone in the city of melrose so congratulations to the commission um best of luck thank you thank you mr mcsweeney do we have anyone else wishing to speak in public comment i think everyone else that's logged in is a member of the administration so given that i will move by unanimous consent to close public comment Seeing no objection, I just wish to note for the record that we have been joined by councillors Eccles and Stewart. We have three items on our agenda tonight. The first is Order 2022-61, Authorization to Accept a Grant in the Amount of $6,500 from the Massachusetts
▶ 3:29 Jen Grigoraitis: Emergency Management Agency, aka MEMA, item number 9579. And I believe we will be bringing in mr albert to speak to this i will entertain a motion to suspend the rules that we can hear from mr albert chair i'll make a motion to suspend the rules second we have a motion to suspend the rules made by councillor stewart seconded by president sanella adam clerk can you please call the ball vice chair migliorelli councillor mcmaster councillor eccles yes councillor Garipay Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Karamcheti? Yes. Councilor Bremski? Yes. President Sinella? Yes. Chair Grigoraitis? Yes. 11 yes. 11 yes, and the motion carries. The rules are now suspended so that Mr. Alpert can come before us.
▶ 4:39 Just while we wait for him to come on screen, if Councilors have questions, if you can please raise your hands so that i can make a list good evening mr albert how are you good evening i'm fine council members thank you very much for this uh opportunity and it's a pleasure to be here uh the emergency management planning grant empg is a annual grant that's offered from fema to states and municipalities and tribal units to support the preparedness of our region and our area and the funds generally go to preparedness for equipment and training for all hazard types of event. It's nothing new to the community. This is the third such one that we're receiving since I've been on board. And what we have been doing, I don't
▶ 5:33 know if anybody has noticed that we've started some work in the what used to be the EOC on mezzanine floor and one of the line items on the advertisement for the position that i accepted was to build out an emergency operating center so the monies that we've used from the previous grants plus this one has gone a long way to facilitate that process and the memorandum that that I gave to the mayor that I believe he forwarded on explains the latest equipment that we're getting with this. So I'll be happy to answer any questions that anybody has. Thank you, Mr. Albert. Do any counselors have questions? Counselor Jamaleddine. Thank you. Thank you for being with us tonight. I wanted to ask you just for the sake of communities
▶ 6:40 Maya Jamaleddine: and folks who are listening to us right now, If you can explain to us what, you know, the plan and how did you use that? Oh, I'm sorry. Council. What plan are you talking about? So you said you part of the job description is to use that amount of money for, uh, like preparedness for, um, emergency. Um, and and you, you said that the mayor forwarded some information for us. So, if you can share it with the public. Oh, certainly certainly, uh, the Melrose, the city of Melrose had an emergency operating center slash training center on the mezzanine floor that was in full operation up until 2017. When then director and late director at Kelly passed away, the, uh, position of emergency management director was then assumed by the fire department and in doing so the, uh, EOC was was not maintained.
▶ 7:49 And most of the equipment just went to fire department, police department and mayor Inferno, who was the mayor at the time wanted to once again, And put together an emergency operating center, and just for everybody's benefit and for those at home that are watching and listening to this, an emergency operating center is a location when during an emergency, such as. The storm that we just had, it's where all the department heads. Uh, in the mayor's office would gather so everybody is in 1 location and as requests come in from residents. or there are issues that take place that the fire department, police department, EMS needs assistance. Everything is funneled through the EOC rather than going back to the respective fire dispatchers
▶ 8:45 and police dispatchers who are tied up with active emergency calls. So during a situation such as this past snowstorm, we were very fortunate that we did not have the trees down, the wires down that other parts of the state had. Had that taken place, as calls were received in the 911 center for such incidents, they would then be sent over to the EOC and the appropriate dispatch of DPW, fire, police, notification to the utilities would take place. Uh, we have a constant communication with the state emergency operating center. My, my computer was on straight for 2 days in contact with the state and the state offers. A, a web based application. That's not generic just to Massachusetts, but it's called the, uh, web.
▶ 9:47 And this is how we communicate with the state, whether we're asking for requests or any, uh, information we want to pass along, uh, at any time, any of the councils would ever like to come up and have a demonstration on this. It's a great tool and I would like to share anything in emergency management with any council or anybody that would like to know what it is that we do in emergency management because it's not. As noticeable as the fire department and the police department on a day to day basis. But if you notice. When an event occurs, such as a blizzard or a storm, you're constantly hearing reports from NEMA or the governor who was talking about NEMA and NEMA is the coordinating agency for the state.
▶ 10:33 So, this equipment is going to allow us to to build out an EOC in the training room. The training room has already been used by myself. I did some web EOC training where two members of NEMA came down and our city clerk joined in on it, as well as the fire department, the health director. And also the fire department has done a four-day hazardous materials training course. And once we get this fully up and running, it'll be available for any one of our departments that have to do any type of training. So again, I would encourage anybody to stop by, come in and see what we're doing. I think it's great. Thank you. Do we know when this will be up and running? We're in the final stages, COVID-19 and the restrictions by COVID-19 really brought us
▶ 11:28 back a lot because the vendors just aren't out there to produce the products. IT department is doing a wonderful job assisting me with their section of it, but it's a little slow again because of COVID. I'm hoping that sometime within the next two months that we will be operational and the EOC component will also have an area where fire and police dispatches will do their training and also during the activation of the EOC they will be able to communicate directly with not only their departments but our partner agencies and in the event that something happened in either the police station or the fire station uh they will then have a location where they can temporarily operate from melrose is one of many communities in the commonwealth that doesn't have an immediate
▶ 12:38 backup should they have to evacuate the station because of a power failure or an odor of gas or even a fire in the building so this will act as a backup as well for fire police dispatch Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Councillor Jamaleddine. Do any other councillors have questions? I didn't see any hands. Hey, what is the- oh, Councillor Stewart. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will make a motion to recommend this to the full council. Second. So we have a motion to recommend for passage made by Councillor Stewart, seconded by President Cinella. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll? Vice Chair Migliorelli. Yes. Councilor McMaster. Yes. Councilor Eccles.
▶ 13:31 Yes. Councilor Garipay. Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine. Yes. Councilor Stewart. Yes. Councilor Karamcheti. Yes. Councilor Obremski. Yes. President Sinella. Yes. Chair Grigoraitis? Yes. Unanimous. So that motion passes, this will be recommended to the full council. Thank you very much Mr. Alpert for being here this evening. Thank you very much, councillors. And again, I, once again, extended invitation to please send me an email. Let me know a day a time that's convenient and I will make sure that I am there to give you a little walkthrough about emergency management and give you a first hand look at the EOC training area. Thank you. We love a field trip. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Our next item on the agenda tonight is order 2022 dash 64 authorization to appropriate 75,000 dollars to fund feasibility study.
▶ 14:34 And schematic design for roof replacement projects at the Hoover and forest man schools. Fund number 3, 3, 8, 3 item number 9580. And I believe we have Denise from the office of planning and community development joining us. We do. Ms. Gaffey, I'm going to unmute Ms. Gaffey because it's not giving me a panelist option. Denise, can you hear us? I can hear you. Yeah. We unfortunately cannot see you, just hear you. But you can hear me. Correct. Okay. That's odd. That's unfortunate. Should I proceed? Yes, please go right ahead. All righty. Great. Well, Thank you. I'm pleased to be here this evening to speak about this order. This order is to authorize funding for a feasibility study for both the Hoover School and the Horace Mann School roof repairs or roof replacements, I should say.
▶ 15:37 Denise Gaffey: And this order will be familiar to most of you on the Council. um i was before you excuse me last may at that time we indicated we would be expressing a statement of interest to the massachusetts school building authority for this grant program and um that's the first step in the process is to submit a statement of interest and um and at that time we reported if we were successful and being invited into this program we would be back in front of the council so um we were fortunate to be invited into the program this was a very this is a very competitive process um but um are the the roofs on both of these schools um would appear to meet the criteria which at this point is that they're at least 29 years old we
▶ 16:32 Denise Gaffey: believe they are older than that so we're not concerned about meeting the criteria um but at this stage the way the msba works they will invite us in to do the engineering and design work um sufficient in order to identify what the scope is going to be and then um then we will go back we'll have an estimate for the total cost to do the projects into in these two schools and then we will be back in front of the council once again for the full authorization for for the work so at this point um this is this process is completely prescribed by the msba through their accelerated repair program so this language in front of you is actually the language that um that they require um and um of course the benefit of this program
▶ 17:21 Denise Gaffey: which we've used for other projects in the past including the hoover window replacement and also the science lab project among others at the high school this MSBA reimburses about approximately 50% of the cost of this project so we know these roofs really desperately do need to be replaced they have been a source of concern for the school department for the facilities department for for many many years so we welcome this opportunity in order to take advantage of this grant funding and do this work so I'm happy to answer any questions folks might have humans gaffey councillor Williams has a question hi thanks for bringing this order up it's the first time I'm reading it I'm I'm curious about the timing of signs and input into the roof and whether there's been any discussion of facility features, not just talking about
▶ 18:29 Denise Gaffey: solar panels here, but in-roof features and the like. And if you could tell me what the timeline of opportunity might be to introduce those ideas into this discussion. Certainly, yes. So we are at the very early stages. We haven't done any design work whatsoever. So, during this initial phase, once we have an engineer and a project manager on board, that is when we would start looking at identifying exactly what the scope of the work is going to be. And we would, we would talk at that stage about sustainability measures and, you know, the appropriate levels of installation and the types of materials to use. I mean, I think we all share the same goal here and trying to be as sustainable as we can. So, um, that is certainly something we are going to pursue.
▶ 19:21 Denise Gaffey: Thank you Councilor Williams, Councilor Stewart. Thank you Madam Chair and thank you Ms. Gaffey for being here this evening. In reviewing the letter that was sent out by Mr. McCarthy. It states that the City must approve funding by January 28, 2022. And it is now January 31st. Is there a cause for concern about that? Yes, we missed the deadline and that was apparent to me back in December when I was preparing to submit this order. I think the January meeting schedule was not, how should I say, not a typical January meeting schedule. So it became It became difficult to meet that deadline based on the way the schedule was set up with the election and a few other things. So, I reached out to the MSBA and asked for an extension and they granted it. I have a letter that
▶ 20:24 Robb Stewart: that verifies that. So they're comfortable with that. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. And what is the extension deadline to? They had asked to they agreed to an additional 14 days. Which I think if this is voted on by the meeting. The upcoming meeting will be more than adequate. Okay, and then in looking at this. When they say randomly assigned consultants. That that gave me pause. consideration can you talk a little bit about what that process is i don't know if you've been through this process before but to me without having you know some way of you having an input uh and comfort in the consultants that they assign uh you know we want this to obviously be uh thought through so could you speak to that yeah i can i can absolutely explain that that does
▶ 21:28 Denise Gaffey: I know um it so the reason one of the reasons they call this an accelerated repair program is they are trying to they recognize that these these need these capital needs are critical by the time we get an application and so it gets approved by them these are critical repairs that are needed so they try to take some of the some of the work out of it by pre-selecting design engineers and And project managers, so, instead of my going through a designer selection process. Which would add another 6 weeks to 2 months to the project. At the front end, once they, once they, once we submit. So, this language authorization, they'll go ahead and assign us an engineer through. So they've already pre selected qualified engineers.
▶ 22:22 Robb Stewart: they have pre-selected qualified project managers through their own procurement process and then they assign them out to the different municipalities the different projects so my experience with this has been um been excellent they they typically or they they've always um identified and qualified very very qualified uh consultants through this process thank you and my last my my last question is regarding uh the submission to uh the council where it stated that um this this uh request for the appropriation of seventy five thousand dollars uh is for a grant that we may be eligible for but is is that a guarantee or is that something That is, we may have to eat that 75,000 dollars. So, this again, as I said before is, um.
▶ 23:22 Denise Gaffey: This is required language of the, um, I'm. Uh, they, they require all of their grant recipients. For all the recipients who are invited into this process. Um, to, um, sign on to that language. And what they are saying is they haven't, they have not guaranteed us a grant until after they approve. The scope of work that's developed during this feasibility phase. The only thing that would jeopardize our ability to get a grant would be as if. If the consultants we hire. We're to say, we're to say that our roof, the roofs in these 2 buildings were not. Oh, twenty nine years or older and our, our view based on the records that we have is that that's not a concern. And so we don't think that's going to happen and I think.
▶ 24:16 Mark Garipay: Even if it were to happen, which I don't again, I'll repeat. I don't think it's going to happen. I mean, the money wouldn't exactly be wasted. We would still be developing design plans for roof projects that need to happen. Okay, okay. Thank you. Ms. Kathy. Thank you. Thank you. Counselor Stuart counselor. Thank you. Madam chair. Thank you. Uh, Miss Kathy being here. Uh, just 1 question, uh, counselor Stewart and, um, brought that up the date, uh, the January 28 date. Um, my question is, what's the process, um, that we take from from the time we're notified on, um. On grants or being accepted into this program, what's the process in order to that your department takes in order to send that down to the council? It looks like we were notified October 27th.
▶ 25:10 Denise Gaffey: On this, yeah, I mean, we weren't. We weren't actually planning to send the order down right away just because we were dealing with some other. Other work, just basically from a workload standpoint and. Other constraints that we have mean, if you read the original letter, it does talk about a February 25th deadline. For all the prerequisites, so that was really the deadline that we were targeting. So, I, I feel like we have plenty of time to meet that that deadline. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Are there any other questions from his gaffy? Seeing none, what is the will of the committee motion? I recommend for passage. second you have a motion to recommend for passage made by councillor Eccles
▶ 26:11 seconded by councillor Jamala Dean is there any discussion seeing none madam clerk can you please call the roll sure before I do that I just want to capture council Williams vote on 2022-61 I overlooked him sure thank you Vice Chair Migliorelli. Yes. Councilor McMaster. Yes. Councilor Eccles. Yes. Councilor Garipay. Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine. Yes. Councilor Stewart. Yes. Councilor Karim Chady. Yes. Councilor Obremski. Councilor Williams. Yes. President Cinella. Yes. Chair Yes. Unanimous. 11 yes, so the motion carries. This will be recommended to the full council. I believe, Ms. Gaffey, you're sticking around for our next order. I am. Thank you very much. And yes, that's correct. You're welcome.
▶ 27:19 Jen Grigoraitis: All right, hold on while we just queue that one up. Our next item on our agenda is Order 2022-63, Authorization to Accept a Grant in the Amount to $54,918 from the Massachusetts Office on Disabilities Municipal ADA Improvement Grant Program, item number 9581. And I believe joining Ms. Gaffey will be David Hoff, who's the chair of the Melrose Commission on Disability. Did we have him? Up here comes Mr. Hoff. All right. All right, Gary. Good evening, the floor is yours. Okay, thank you. Madam chair, um, so this particular grant is from the master's office and disability. It is part of an annual grant, uh, solicitation they do. Uh, for municipal grants, uh, um, to improve accessibility. In municipalities throughout Massachusetts, um, we applied and we're successful.
▶ 28:27 In with our grant application, which we were very pleased to see the funds will be used. To update the city of Melrose. Transition plan for compliance with the Americans with disabilities act, and that will entail a, a self evaluation of the city's facilities and programs and policies regarding accessibility for people with disabilities and then creation of what's called a transition plan. which is a lengthy document that is essentially a work plan um to you know for any issues that have been identified and lays out um priorities estimated costs and is intended to kind of guide the city over the next several years in terms of improving accessibility uh the last it is a requirement the transition plan self-evaluation actually our requirement of federal law under
▶ 29:21 title two of the americans with disabilities act the last time the city did this was 1996. so clearly there's a need for updating this and the funds would be used mostly to hire a consultant um to actually conduct the work the self-evaluation and development of the transition plan um we have um three potential vendors identified to perform that work who are very experienced in doing that work and feel comfortable with them and we've had discussions with the city regarding the solicitation for that work um the work does need to be completed by june 30th that is probably the one thing that is um there's a sense of urgency about this um we did receive a grant award mid-december um but we do have to get all the work done by the end of june
▶ 30:08 Manjula Karamcheti: i'm confident that we'll be able to do that um myself and the members of the commission on disability will support this effort and help guide it and make ourselves available any way possible. So, we would certainly appreciate the committee's support for this grant award. Happy to take any questions. Thank you, Mr. Hoff. Councillor Carn, Shady. Mr. Hoff, thank you so much for being here, for applying for the grant. I know that in and of itself is a lot of work, so congrats on receiving it. couple of questions I think the first in regards to the municipal buildings that were selected I noticed that the police department wasn't on there and I was just curious about that at the beginning of my run for City Council I did get a
▶ 31:02 Manjula Karamcheti: tour of the department and had some conversations with Chief Lyle about accessibility so I was just curious as to why that wasn't there so I guess I'll start with that question I'd have to look at the original application I believe it was listed it was not it was an over set because they're going to do in a survey of every every single building that's used by the so it's of every city building including the school buildings will be among those will be will be surveyed so and evaluated and obviously um older buildings often have as you can imagine accessibility issues so yeah absolutely i didn't see it there but i might have missed it um and then my second question i noticed that in one of the pieces it said like it's
▶ 31:55 Manjula Karamcheti: also like policies procedures even looking at like some websites so i was just interested does this grant um also look at not just physical disabilities but thinking about neurology and those kinds of things given the broad spectrum of the americans with disabilities act and section 504 um i noticed you're going to be talking to a lot of groups and it looks really inclusive so i was just wondering about that piece the buildings tend to lean themselves to physical but i was wondering if it expands more than that um so actually to your previous question i did look it up yes we did did not include the public safety building on there but that was an oversight by us so that would definitely be included so thank you for pointing that out um in terms it's
▶ 32:41 all disabilities it is i mean you know the way i look at disability it's interesting the question is interesting because people often think of physical disability and yet disability is very broad um there's physical disability uh sensory disabilities um mental health issues um the list goes on and on so there's very much of a universal approach with these kind of evaluations and obviously things have evolved and and you know we learn a lot more how to accommodate the needs of people with disabilities um obviously we've got much better in terms of strategies and we start with a universal approach of a term called universal access and that's the emphasis that's placed it's not about accommodating each disability but how we make it accessible to all
▶ 33:25 folks with disabilities a key piece of this plan will be getting input from the community and i'm sure we will get lots of input hopefully from a broad spectrum of folks with disabilities with all types of disabilities so um it's critically important awesome well thank you so much for your work for answering those questions and look forward to seeing the results and how we can help our city be more accessible to others thank you Thank you, Councillor Carham-Cheney. Next up I have Councillor McMaster followed by Vice Chair Migliorelli and Councillor Williams. Councillor McMaster, we can't hear you. You want us to come back to you while you were on talk? Okay. Vice Chair Migliorelli. Madam Chair and thank you, Mr. Hoff, for being here. And I think this grant is obviously,
▶ 34:32 Leila Migliorelli: we're way out of date with this given 1986 was the last time we entered in a process like this. So, just to clarify 1, small point of clarification is the, um, so the majority of the grantees can be used for the consultants to conduct. This self self evaluation or help lead the departments through a self evaluation process. Oh, yes, so actually the vast majority of it will be used. There's probably a little bit of money that will go to the city. For their support, um, so, and actually. Because of the chairman rules, we actually want to keep the solicitation to under 50,000, which will streamline the solicitation process. We've already had discussions regarding that because we can't really be delayed on this.
▶ 35:15 We don't have months and months to do a solicitation. So we're going to move it forward very quickly. So, the consultant would probably slightly less than 50,000. Thank you and then it would be the commission's role to sort of manage the consultants and their interaction on all of these projects and seeing it through to completion. Uh, yeah, I mean, we're going to have, I mean, we're going to have as a volunteer group, we are definitely going to have oversight responsibility. I've already made it clear that fortunately the flexibility of my, my, my job that I can make myself available during the day. As needed, but we will also need a good deal of cooperation from the city. Paul Johnson is the designated coordinator for the city. And we're going to certainly.
▶ 35:55 Denise Gaffey: Mr. Johnson's assistance with this, as well as other city officials and employees to just guide us through this process, get us access to buildings, access to policies and all of that. So it's definitely going to be a partnership. With the city on this. Yeah, and this is Denise here and I can just speak to the fact that we're planning to have a steering committee of. Of city city department folks, including myself and Elena and Paul Johnson. And my God, from the mayor's office, just sort of. Key people, I'm probably missing 1 or 2 that will be working closely with the commission on this. That's great. Thank you. Yeah, because I know as a volunteer group. With day jobs that it can be a lot to manage a consultant. Um, so it's good to see that there's support within the city for this and they can help you along.
▶ 36:47 Shawn M. MacMaster: Um, that's that's it for questions. Thank you very much. Looking forward to supporting this. Thank you. Thank you Vice Chair Migliorelli. And back with prepared microphone is Councilor McMaster. You can hear me? Okay, thank you. Thank you Mr. Hoff for being here. You mentioned the consultant. I'm wondering if there's any expectation that the consultant will engage in any public engagement and input process to identify opportunities that maybe we're not thinking of at the city level in terms of infrastructure sidewalks crosswalks any type of uh process plan for public engagement and input uh and if so what would that entail in terms of surveys focus groups anything of that nature if not is that
▶ 37:44 something we can look to do um so we are planning as part of this um in terms of of the work of the consultant is working on a great deal of public engagement um to get their input and the details of which are worked out but doing some focus groups community surveys um to get as much input as we can that's really really critical i think your point is well taken that you know i'm an expert at disability issues a lot of people are supposed to know but you really have to get from the public because they're going to be the folks who are going to guide you and really lead you and identify all sorts of issues that we just identified aren't aware of um so we absolutely yes that will be definitely part of this process um we are um you know and and i just want to be
▶ 38:35 clear that the um and you know one of the challenges like this is it is focused on the city itself so in city services and city buildings throughout the community as a whole to be accessible but it really is the focus of this grant is on the city of meadows although that's pretty widely encompassing you know everything from physical buildings to how meetings are operated policies to public events the city sponsors all those things so very good thank you mr cobb thank you thank you councillor mcmaster councillor williams uh not so much a question as a vote of confidence and show of support for all the work that you're doing david and the efforts that you're undertaking with this survey i know that a lot of folks think
▶ 39:17 Ryan Williams: of disabilities as being kind of an othering factor that only happens to a small number of people and you know a lot of the work that i do as part of the ped bike committee in melrose is about how we look at that through the lens of lifting everybody up for kind of universal standard of care and design so you know for me it's the the the independent senior who has limited mobility but isn't willing to accept the title of disability at small children who hard time getting around and stumble and trip a lot and can't reach things and also people in wheelchairs and mobility assisted devices and walkers and with sensory disorders and all of these things people who don't know they have a disability yet i think it's great that you've
▶ 39:59 Jen Grigoraitis: taken on this challenge and i personally can't wait to help you work on these surveys and try Try to get the best. Thank you. Thank you. Counselor Williams. I just wanted to echo the support of my colleagues. I was a freshman in college in 1996. so I really. Hope we can start to do these more often than once a generation because I know a lot's changed in my life, but just some quick follow up questions because I feel like what's been clear from here is how important it is and how overdue this is. This is a max contract, which means we have this much money and then it expires on June 30th. And Denise, do you believe that there would be a commitment from the city that if we, there are delays in this project, which it's a really tight timeline to begin with.
▶ 40:44 Denise Gaffey: If the city would continue this work, even if the funding goes away, I'm really concerned about getting all this done in a. Inclusive way in 6 months. Yeah, I, I think I think since the funding is really essentially all going to 1 consultant, we can commit all the money. By that deadline, and without being concerned about. You know, missing out on me missing the deadline. I think we can satisfy the requirement to complete by the end of June. Just by committing the funds with the consultant. I mean, that said, I think we're going to endeavor to get the study, you know, get the work done by then. But I'm not worried about losing that. Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from counselors? Counselor Eccles.
▶ 41:34 Thank you, Mr. Hoff. Just one. Is the commission going to be in charge of selecting the vendor? Are you going to make a recommendation? So, the city is going to ultimately make that decision. We've talked through the mechanics of the solicitation. So, the way this will work, if we keep it under $50,000, a letter will go out asking for vendors. We have three vendors identified, but we actually have one that we prefer. They actually helped us create the budget for this um they've done this work you know lots and lots of places in massachusetts um so we feel confident we've seen the work we've seen samples we feel that they would be an excellent organization to undertake this work so so yes we do have a preferred vendor um but we have to obviously
▶ 42:14 follow the policies of soliciting vendors and i think we've got the we've already got the materials basically created to do that once we get the approval of the full council for accepting this grant awesome well thanks for all your work so far and the work that you'll probably be putting in the next few months thank you thank you councillor eccles what is the will of this committee motion to approve second so we have a motion to recommend for passage made by president sanella seconded by councillor carm shady is there any discussion seeing none madam clerk can you please call the roll vice chair migliorelli yes councillor mcmaster yeah councillor eccles yes councillor Garipay yes councilor maladin yeah councillor stewart yes
▶ 43:15 Jen Grigoraitis: councillor karen shady yes councillor Obremski yes councillor williams yes President Cinella? Yes. Councilor Chair Grigoraitis? Yes. Eleven yes. Eleven yes. So this motion, this will be recommended to the Council for passage. Thank you, Mr. Hoff for being here and for all that you do on behalf of our community and thank you to Ms. Gaffey as well for being here tonight. And I believe that concludes our agenda for this evening. I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Madam Chair, I'll make a motion to adjourn. Second. Second. We have a motion to adjourn made by Councillor Stewart and seconded by, I think, everyone, but we'll go with Vice Chair Migliorelli. Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll?
▶ 44:04 Vice Chair Migliorelli? Yes. Councillor McMaster? Yes. Councillor Eccles? Yes. Councillor Garipay? Yes. Councillor Jamaleddine? Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Karamcheti? Yes. Council Obremski, Councillor Williams. Yes. President Cinella. Yes. Chair Grigoraitis. Yes. Eleven. Eleven, yes, and we are adjourned. Have a good evening, everyone. Take care. Have a great night. Thank you.