Public Works Committee — 2022-03-31
Attendance
Christopher Cinella ; Jack Eccles ; Mark Garipay ; Manjula Karamcheti ; Shawn M. MacMaster ; Ryan Williams
Agenda
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● MARCH 31, 2022 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Committee Meeting 7:09 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 The public should take notice that the Melrose City Council may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the City Council consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Shawn M. MacMaster Chair Present Ryan Williams Vice Chair Absent Jack Eccles Present Mark Garipay Present Manjula Karamcheti Present Christopher Cinella President, ex oficio Present Non voting members present include Councilor Obremski.
ORDER-2022-30 Request An Order on the Status of Green and Howard St. Electrical transmission Line Hold City of Melrose Page 1 4/4/2022 8:53 AM
Transcript
▶ 0:09 Shawn M. MacMaster: Good evening. The time being 7.10 p.m. on Thursday, March 31st. I call to meeting, to order the meeting of the Public Works Committee. I'm Councilor Sean McMaster, the chair of the committee. Joining me this evening are voting members of the committee, Councilor Eccles, Councilor Garipay, Councilor Karamcheti, President Cinella Ex Officio, and non-voting member, Councilor Obremski. Vice Chair Williams is unable to join us this evening due to a family commitment. This provides notice of a quorum for the record. In accordance with the open meeting law, this meeting is being recorded and broadcast on our local cable access channel, MMTV, as well as live streamed through MMTV.org. It will be available for future viewing through the City of Melrose's meeting portal as well. At this time, I would entertain a motion to open the floor for public comment.
▶ 1:04 Shawn M. MacMaster: Motion for public comment. Second. Second. Motion for public comment made by President Cinella, seconded by Councilor Eccles. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, the floor is now open for public comment. At this time, any member of the public may come before us to speak to the one agenda item before us this evening. Good evening, sir. Please state your name and your address for the record. Good evening, all. Our name is Joe Pellrine, I live at 70 Howard Street. I'm here tonight to talk about the letter I saw on the meetings agenda portal for Howard Street in relation to the National Grid ongoing project. It talked about work starting around 72 Howard Street and going up to 179 Howard Street.
▶ 2:02 but the scope of the work really wasn't described. And so I'm guessing that maybe the road is gonna be milled down and paved over. I'm here tonight to point out that there was also excavation pits at Howard and Haskell Street. I believe it's number 45. And then further down heading towards Saugus, I believe there was more pits. I think at 207 and 293, which are out of this scope that the letter mentioned. I'm here tonight to ask the city of Melrose to negotiate with National Grid to do curb-to-curb paving from basically Elm Street all the way up to the Saugus Line. There was a lot of inconvenience from this project, a lot of craziness, and a lot of miscommunication. And at the very least, National Grid
▶ 3:09 could make our neighborhood happy again with a complete paving job. I don't know if you've driven up there or have driven on other streets when you go over a patch, how uneven it is. Well, Howard Street is the designated truck route for Melrose and it's no fun at 2.30 in the morning hearing trucks going over those patches. And so once again, I'm asking for the city and you guys to request that we get curb to curb paving. Thank you. Thank you, sir. I don't see any other members of the public in the gallery. Mr. Clerk, do we have anyone who reached out to us remotely? There is no one online. Motion to close public comment. Second. A motion to close public comment made by President Cinella, seconded by Consular Eccles.
▶ 4:02 Shawn M. MacMaster: All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? OK, public comment is now closed. We have one order on our agenda this evening, order 2022-30, an order on the status of Green and Howard Street electrical transmission line. At this time, I would entertain a motion to suspend the rules so that we can hear from City Engineer? Motion to suspend the rules. Second. Motion to suspend the rules made by President Cinella, seconded by Councilor Garipay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, so the rules have been suspended. I do first wanna recognize the sponsor of the order, Councilor Garipay, should he wish to make a comment or ask any questions, or if he wants to defer to the City Engineer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. At this time, I'll defer to the City Engineer.
▶ 4:51 looks like she has she has a presentation that she's going to present and hopefully that'll answer some of my questions okay miss Reese when you're ready you may proceed I don't think you'll be heard from there unless you want to sit maybe you could sit there I'm Bonnie Reese I am the city engineer and I can address some of the questions raised by the gentleman during public comment thank you for inviting me here tonight to talk about this project I know it's been a long and arduous project and the residents have really put up with a lot on howard street over the last couple of years the letter that went out from eversource may have been a little bit misleading there are several sections where we are doing curb to curb paving and it is
▶ 5:56 more than just those addresses mentioned in the letter so i apologize for that the negotiations with eversource have been finalized we have come up with an agreement with them they did give us some cash contribution towards other paving on other streets and then this work that i'll show you in just a second is what they will be performing during the week of april 18th the reason that we picked that week in particular is because it is school vacation week and we wanted to minimize the disruption to parents and teachers at the nearby school So the first section that's going to be paved is curb-to-curb from approximately 169 to 179 Howard Street. This covers pits that were done during the original project.
▶ 6:53 The next section that we negotiated with them is not curb-to-curb, trench side only, in the vicinity of Cochrane Street and 115 Howard Street. and the reason that it is only on one side is because the other side is in very good condition was not disturbed at all and so we felt that this was a fair compromise I should note that all of the work that's being doing being done by Eversource is two inch mill and overlay and then they will infrared the trenches so they'll so they'll be nice and smooth they won't there won't be any of that bumpiness that the previous speaker spoke of another section that was disturbed by the original work that they're going to take care of is from Haskell to Hasseltine this whole section will be curb to curb mill and overlay so
▶ 8:06 there'll be a nice smooth transition there through that entire section and that'll take care of the existing trenches and the work that was done there and then this last figure shows the pits that were done during the emergency work that they did last summer there were three main pits this is in the vicinity of Ruggles and this will also be curb to curb overlay from a practice well from approximately 70 Howard Street up to about 90 Howard street so um this is the last section that they'll be doing are there any questions from the from the council or from the committee that's lagaripay yeah um i'm just curious what what would be the difference in cost i mean we got a lot of it seems like we're doing a
▶ 9:15 Mark Garipay: good portion of the whole road why wouldn't we have just requested that they just go from sweet when there's nothing in here for on sweet water sweet water also i think had a pit at the end of sweet water down by the sagas line how come we wouldn't ask them to just do the do the whole street i mean based on what we're seeing the whole well so the street was in fairly good condition before they started and um what was negotiated um was the repairs that i've laid out here it didn't make sense to us to grind up perfectly good pavement and spend and have anybody's whether it's the town or eversource spend money on something that didn't need to be done because because i understand that that the road's in good shape so my i would say we should continue
▶ 10:09 Mark Garipay: to keep it in good shape and going curb to curb oh absolutely i believe the roads less than 10 years old right eight years old as it is and and I don't disagree with that philosophy when they're done though it'll be a nice smooth transition between these sections because of the infrared treatment that they give to it so that basically melts the new pavement into the existing pavement when I was over there the other day it looked like there was some more spots that would dug up around 201 207 219 those houses and up by sweetwater um if were those not part of this project a little farther up past carlita maybe it would have been or right before i don't think those were part of this project i do know that the gas company has been doing some work i would have
▶ 11:07 to double check and see you know who's responsible for those for those trenches that you're talking about because i remember it looks like they were digging right at carlita because we were getting detoured down carlita that and they were working right there so um if you can get back to us on if that was part of this project i would like i can i can definitely look into that and get back to you on it i know that the intersection at carlita was not part of at least the emergency work and i apologize because i wasn't here when the original work was done but we used carlita as a detour for the emergency work because it was outside of the work area and just to piggyback on to that carlita is also going to get paved during this time period that's going to be done however
▶ 11:59 Mark Garipay: by city city contractors okay um if yeah if you can if as as i mentioned if if those houses after 179 if there were any pits or holes that were dug up as a result of um this project if we can go if we can go curb to curb on that too if you can get back to us i would like to get back to you on that um you did ask i didn't answer my questions regarding haskell i went back on the last meeting and that was part of the conversation and as mr pellerine said i didn't see that in their memo so thank you for for that information um uh cochran i did notice that we're going to do carlite is on the on the schedule for this year but cochran it looks like we're only going to do um damon to howard and the rest of that with all the traffic has really taken a pretty pretty good
▶ 13:00 Mark Garipay: beating and it's in it's in rough shape so is that um where does that stand on on getting getting any money so the gas company is going to be doing fordman and lovell we are doing this piece of cochrane to tie into the paving that was done last year on damon all the way down to borden boardman we don't have plans at the moment to do the rest of cochrane um but we've but we're doing that piece of carlita and that that short piece of cochrane this year so that's what's on the list for this year so what what would take to move that up i went on i went on the website and you have cochran's rated as a fear a poor street carlighter's fear but that was done prior to all this construction have we surveyed that street since all this
▶ 14:03 construction's been done and to see if it's in worse shape than it was prior we do the road assessment survey every three years and i believe we are due next year to go to re-survey all the streets and adjust those scores accordingly as we do paving projects we've been we've been updating our database so we can definitely put that on the radar i can tell you that compared to many of the other streets in town cochran is in pretty good shape okay um i yeah okay um Um, um, I'll see if someone else has a question right now. President Sunilla. Thank you. Um, thank you for coming out tonight. For Carlisle, is it all the way to the very end, which turns into Cranmore, it's, uh. Right at the bend, right at the corner there.
▶ 15:06 That's Cranmore. Like that's my, my house is actually right there, which turns into, it's a weird kind of how the street goes and then it turns into the first couple of houses are actually Cranmore. And that you said will be scheduled in April, too, or is that Cranmore is not scheduled to be paved. I mean, Carlita Carlita. We are going to try to get that done in April. We just rebid our road and sidewalk contract. So that depends on how quickly we can get contracts signed and get a contractor out there. But ideally, we would like to do that during the school vacation week as well. Thank you. bermsky um thanks for being here tonight i'm a non-voting member of this committee but um a lot of this is in my ward so just uh to piggyback on what councillor Garipay was saying in terms of
▶ 16:01 that stretch of howard um is it possible to get a cost of what it would be to do the entire stretch that he was speaking of and to see if the city has uh funds and free cash to do the whole stretch of howard it is possible to get a cost to do that we've already negotiated this with eversource though so the so they are paying for it right i'm understanding that but if um if we on the other side uh would it be possible for us to fund what they're not funding this year no we already have we already have this very long list of streets that need to be done based on um so just to give you a little background we we do the road assessment ratings but then in addition to that we coordinate with gas projects water projects sewer projects
▶ 17:01 and try to get all the utilities done before we pave a road and then we have a five-year moratorium after a road is paved um and so all of the streets that are on the list this for this year are being done after the utilities have been done and um so that you know then nobody will touch them again for a long time and so we have this system of prioritizing things and um as i'm sure you probably know you know we have we pulled money from chapter 90 we pull money from complete streets we've got we've got like many different funding sources and we still can't seem to cobble to get together enough money to do all the streets that we want to do um so the short answer to your question is no i do not believe that's something that could happen this year but we can get the
▶ 17:57 cost difference we could run the numbers for you but um the eversource is not going to pay for that and and we don't have the money in the budget so i could run the numbers for you but that that's really all i can do for you would you take a guess no i would not no all right no i would not um i guess uh so you were saying that the information that you gave us uh in terms of the stretches was not correct is that right no i'm saying that the addresses that were in the letter that went out to the residents uh didn't really fully cover everything that was going to be doing going to be done by eversource and yeah but you're going to correct that yeah we can send out a new letter i can ask them to
▶ 18:48 Mark Garipay: do that yeah that would be great all right thank you are there any other questions yeah just uh one more question going back to cochran you said that's on the list to be done uh in the next couple of years i guess is that a i did not say that oh i'm sorry um it's on the list to get done um it was a portion of it getting done but i i'm sorry i thought you i said we could take another look at it but um it's not i i i could not tell you if it's on the list for next year or the year after and when it's on the list that's because we are going to redo everything in there the lines the gas line correct is that's how that's how the program works when we're making a list yes okay yeah thank you um in addition to the roadway ratings as well okay but that but we use those
▶ 19:41 Mark Garipay: ratings also to encourage the gas company to go in um so for example in our water main program And next year we're planning to do Sewell Woods Road, which is in very, very poor condition and we know it needs to be paved, so we want to get the water main in and then go in and do the paving afterwards. And we've been having conversations with the gas company as well. Okay. Um, and I know we have a lot of needs on roads throughout the community and this isn't even in my ward, but it's something that's, I drive down that street a lot, but, um, if, if it's So after you make your assessment, if you can go on and take an assessment of Cochran and just let us know what you think of that condition as it is now after all this traffic.
▶ 20:30 Mark Garipay: And if you could let us know how you would rate it based on the scale that's online. If that's something that is going to be five or six, seven years down the road, is there any way that we could find money? or is there any way that well and we could advocate it as the city council to just grind it and put a coat on there because those residents suffered for two years of how many cars a day going by their house um and you know they as mr paul ryan said with the truck road they heard all the noise and i understand there's many roads throughout the community but there's also many roads and many residents in certain areas that didn't have to deal with the inconvenience that this neighborhood dealt with so if you could take an
▶ 21:19 Mark Garipay: assessment of that and then you know if we if that is just something that's probably going to be five or ten years down the road if it's something that could just be grinded and done like we do like we did on Grove Street two years ago when Upham Street just to make it smoother and something something a little bit better for those residents I'd like to I'd like to see that like to that as an option so that's that's all i have for questions are there any other questions okay what is the will of the committee um at this point i'll um i'd like to hold this in committee one more time until the um until the paving's all done on howard street uh before i entertain a second mr clerk when was do you know when this was sent to us from the prior council meeting
▶ 22:08 Shawn M. MacMaster: when it was remanded back um what was it i believe i'll tell you right now i think it was march 7th but let me confirm for sure okay the 45 day um clock uh starts anew so we still have some some time to hold it in committee okay all right so we have a motion that's made by council the garipay to hold this in committee uh we do not have a second at this time second that's seconded by president sanella all in favor aye any opposed okay so that passes this matter will be held in uh committee mysteries thank you for coming uh this evening uh at this time i would entertain a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn second motion to adjourn uh made by councillor karma J.D., seconded by Councillor Garipay. All in favor? Aye. Can you oppose? We stand adjourned.