Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2022-05-19
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
- Departments
- Orders
- ORDER-2022-119 : City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2023 in the amount of $95,256,080 (Ninety Five Million, Two Hundred Fifty-Six Thousand and Eighty Dollars)
- ORDER-2022-117 : Acceptance of a Fifty Thousand Dollar Grant from the Executive Office of Administration and Finance for Streetscape Infrastructure Upgrades
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS & OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE CALENDAR● MAY 19, 2022 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Budget Hearing 7:00 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Jen Grigoraitis Chair Present Leila Migliorelli Vice Chair Excused Shawn M. MacMaster Absent Jack Eccles Present Mark Garipay Present Maya Jamaleddine Present Robb Stewart Present Manjula Karamcheti Present John Obremski Absent Ryan Williams Present Christopher Cinella President, ex oficio Present
ORDER-2022-119 Operating Budgets (City, School, Regional School) City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2023 in the amount of $95,256,080 (Ninety Five Million, Two Hundred Fifty-Six Thousand and Eighty Dollars) Hold Appropriations & Oversight Committee
ORDER-2022-117 Grant Acceptance of a Fifty Thousand Dollar Grant from the Executive Office of Administration and Finance for Streetscape Infrastructure Upgrades Ought to Pass City Council City of Melrose Page 1 5/20/2022 10:37 AM
Transcript
▶ 0:00 Jen Grigoraitis: Thing it is Monday. Oops. Sorry Thursday, May 19 2022. The time is 7 pm. And this is a meeting of the Appropriations and oversight committee. I'm councilor Grigoraitis the chair and joining me tonight. Our counselor's Eccles garapay. Jamaladene Stewart Carm chady Williams and president. Sonella ex officio Vice chairmagliarelli and counselors McMaster and obremski were unable to be here this evening this serves as a notice of the Quorum a quorum for the record. This meeting in pursuant with open meeting law will be broadcast on mmtv. And the recording will be available later on the city website for those that wish to view it. At this time, I will motion by unanimous consent to open public comment.
▶ 0:44 Jen Grigoraitis: Do we have any members of the public wishing to join us online? We don't have anyone online at this time. Okay, see no one in the actual or virtual chamber. I will motion by unanimous consent to close public comment. The first items on our agenda tonight are various Department budgets and first up. We have Department 911 pension and we have Adam trevinsky joining us from the administration. Please feel free to approach the table and I will entertain a motion to suspend the rules so we can hear from Mr. Trevincial moved second. So you have a motion to suspend the rules made by President sinellas seconded by councilor Eccles all in favor any opposed motion carries, welcome the floor is yours. Good evening Council. My name is Adam trevinsky. I'm
▶ 1:28 Mark Garipay: the director of the Retirement Board and this evening. I'm here to ask for a vote on your behalf, which would basically be increasing our retiree cost of living from the current 12,000 base to 16,000 base. And that's what you'd be directly voting on. Are there any questions from the council counselor garapay? Thank you. Thank you for being here. quick question you wouldn't mention in your Information you sent out you said the city has not raised. This since 1997 correct? And on the information that you gave in the packet. It showed that a lot of communities have done it in the last five years. Yes, is there any best practices that communities do in order to assess this or review? These more frequent
▶ 2:17 occasion is or is it typical to go? 20 no, I think so every two years. We have to look at getting a new Actuarial evaluation and adopting a new funding schedule. So every two years we're looking at those numbers anyways, so, you know, I guess it also matters, you know, how much you raise in the base, you know in our case we're going 12 to 16. So that's a significant jump maybe some communities are just going 12 to 13. So maybe they're not looking at it or maybe they're looking at it more frequently. But the way the Investments have been happening the last couple years with the retirement boards, I think now is the time that a lot of communities are looking to give back to the retirees. Because they look at it at 60% only comes out to ten dollars a
▶ 2:56 month. We're looking at inflation of 8% for people that are on fixed income. So great. You know, my recommendation would be to see if we can address this a little bit more often than 25. 25 years 25 years sounds good. So thank you any other counselors with questions. What is the will of the committee? I would entertain a motion to move the bottom line. Unfortunately move the bottom line. So we have a motion to move the bottom line on Department 911 made by President. Cinella seconded by counselor gemalidine. Is there any discussion Seeing none Mr. Clerk. Can you please call the roll? Councilor Eccles, yes. counselor garepe yes Counselor jamaladin. Yes counselor Stewart. Yes. Counselor karimshady, yes.
▶ 3:58 Jen Grigoraitis: Counselor Williams. Yes. President zanella. Yes. And chair goodness. Yes. That is yes. Yes. So the motion carries. Thank you Mr. Trevinsky for being here tonight. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. So next up we have several departments that fall under human resources. And unfortunately HR Director Latta is unable to be here this evening. So she's requested that we hold these Department budgets and she's hoping to be able to join us next Thursday, May 26th. So at this time, I would enter presence now motion to hold 152. second 9 12 913 and 9:14 in committee Second so we have a motion by presidents and Ellis seconded by councilor. Karmchatie to hold departments 152 912 913 in 914 in committee.
▶ 4:52 Jen Grigoraitis: Is there any discussion Seeing none all in favor. I any opposed okay that motion carries. So we will hold those budgets until Miss Latta is able to join us last but certainly not least in departments and it's an oversight that we all fail to catch on Monday night. We have Department 693 Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building There is a memo that was provided to us some time ago online and they had been on the agenda for Monday night and we simply lost track of them. So at this time or is there any discussion by this body or emotion? Motion move the bottom line Second, so we have a motion to move the bottom line on Department 693 made by councilor Williams seconded by counselor Eccles. Is there any discussion
▶ 5:39 Jen Grigoraitis: All in favor any opposed. Okay, and that bottom line is moved. Next up we have order 2022-19 city of Melrose operating budget for fiscal year 2023 in the amount of 95,256,080. I will entertain a motion to hold motion hold. Second. We have a motion to hold order 2022-19 made by President. Snella seconded by councilor Carm Shady any discussion. All in favor any opposed and that is held until Monday night. Last on our agenda. We have ordered 2022-17 acceptance of a fifty thousand dollar Grant from the executive office of administration and finance for streetscape infrastructure upgrades, and we have MS Gaffey here from the administration to speak to us and since our rules are already suspended. Please come on up.
▶ 6:35 Denise Gaffey: Good evening. My name is Denise Cafe. I'm the director of the office of planning and Community Development. And I'm here to request your approval of a grant that we received from the executive office of an Administration in finance in this grant is in the amount of $50,000. There is no matching funding that is required. And the purpose of this grant is well, the desire is to use it to purchase trash and recycling containers. That can be mobilized throughout the community. And also to combine this funding with the funding that we received previously for a way finding so that we can leverage some additional wayfinding signage through this program and just to refresh your memory about a while ago last year
▶ 7:32 Denise Gaffey: when we were when we had the funding request for the way finding we did mention that we were hoping that we would get a grant an additional Grant to leverage more more funding around that initiative. And so we were excited that this grant did come through for us. It was a little slow to get to us and so consequently was sort of been delayed in terms of implementing the entire way finding initiative, but now that we have this funding Grant in place. We are ready to plow ahead with that. So so we're excited. Get to get going on it. I think there's a lot of interest in there's a recognition that we need more trash and recycling receptacles and that the ones that we do have are many of them are in disrepair and also don't function all that.
▶ 8:25 Denise Gaffey: Neatly. So working with zero waste Melrose and keep Melrose beautiful and public works department. We've come up with the A particular container which I did reference in the memo that I sent to you. Hopefully you've had a chance to look at that that we think will work more create a kind of a cleaner look in a more cohesive look for the community and also be easier for the Public's work staff to pick up and create less overflow and trash problems in our parks in a playground. So We're excited to try them out. We're also hoping we may be able to combine some public art component with the trash recycling containers. That was something when we did our first phase of wayfinding and we had a community survey. That was like our number one the
▶ 9:17 Ryan Williams: number one interest of the community to see more trash Recycling and also combined public art with that. So so we're excited to kind of see to play with that and see if how that might work with this funding as well. Thank you. Any questions from counselors counselor Williams? It's great to see this returning from limbo. I wonder and I was on the email that Jonah sent which kind of pressing because he was asking about this and so Jonah chirans is a former chair of the PED bike committee and was on the way finding committee. Are you going to seek are you gonna have like a another meeting with the way finding Committee just a refresh since it's been so long? Yeah. Yeah. We absolutely that is our intent now that
▶ 9:59 Denise Gaffey: we've engaged with with the Consultants. Well, we're just starting the Contracting for that portion and we're getting that underway. We're planning to convene the way finding in place making committee and you know, we're certainly open to new members as well. So we'll take a look at that. But but we'd love to bring bring that group back together and work with us on this next phase. Who are you Contracting with if their names celebrate Perkins design? Yeah, they we work with them on the first phase, but we had to do another procurement and we're fortunate that they were still available. Interested in gave us the best price. So awesome. My last question is on the location of the trash cans. Are you considering school playgrounds for any
▶ 10:47 Robb Stewart: of this? I think I right now the locations haven't been completely determined. So so we'll definitely look at all the possible possible locations. Great. Thank you. Counselor Stewart, thank you madam. Chair. Thank you Ms. Jeff for being here tonight. My question is actually quite related to council Williams regarding location is the plan to have it more centrally in. the center of town or more evenly distributed uniformly distributed across the different Wards. I mean speak a little bit about your thoughts not yeah. Sorry exact locations. I think Arthur we haven't yeah there we haven't we're really not there yet. But I think the thinking is that we would try to spread them out. We would also try to Target some of the locations which
▶ 11:36 Denise Gaffey: we know are. Don't have sufficient trash and recycling containers. Now, there's trash. Yes. It is really a need good. and on the way finding just for the the public interest. Can you talk a little bit about what the way finding signs will sure provide to the yeah. Yeah happy to do that, you know a couple years ago actually during the first year of the pandemic. We we rolled out this first phase where we will finding is a fancy word for signage by the way. So we we had this initial phase when we with the consultant on board where we took a look at well, we did a sign inventory we sort of they they looked across the the city to see where we might want to Target signage in order to better enable people to
▶ 12:30 Denise Gaffey: get to particularly to our business districts and to some of our Landmark buildings and to help people both, you know residents and people who may you know, be coming here for the first time. So we were, you know, we really wanted to create sort of a brand if you will too or an image through this signage and make it cohesive, so they did the inventory and then they did an exercise with the community through this through a workshop and a survey where they presented three different signage types like different types of you know, Like Victorian theme and like two other themes and so so we got some initial feedback from that and we'd like to kind of like advance that that through another Community process
▶ 13:22 Robb Stewart: and then select actually select one of those themes and then fabricate some signs. So actually put some new new signage around Melrose that will help people, you know more easily get to like the parking areas and the downtown and the other neighborhood business districts. Okay? Yeah, that sounds good to the theme the reason why I ask is I received some feedback on me, maybe some of the other councils have as well that and typically it's from people that have been here longer time that it feels like it's turning into sign Utopia. Yeah, you know and that the the amount of signs is a bit overwhelming for someone that you know, maybe older and just you know, but if there's A differentiation like if it has a Victorian
▶ 14:13 Denise Gaffey: feel for it or whatnot that I think that would help. Yeah dismiss some of those concerns just as feedback. That's great feedback. And I I've heard that feedback as well. And I understand what you're saying. I think we I think these will probably be viewed almost more artistic and they'll have a theme and I don't think I don't think certainly yeah. I don't think they'll be viewed as clutter. So okay, but I appreciate this the comment right? Thank you. Thank you manager counselor Garrett. Thank you. The previous two console is just asked my question regarding the location, but did you mention that there was going to be a different? Different design to these barrels that did you did I miss that they had sent something out. Oh I said
▶ 14:56 Denise Gaffey: is in the memo that I that is posted to the order. There's a link to the containers. Okay. Yeah. So if you click on that link, then you can see the the combined. It's a trash side by side trash recycling container. That's what we're intending to purchase. Okay, and if I could put a plug in for More containers on Main Street. It's very much needed. Sure. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Any other counselors counselor Williams again? Um, I just looked on the way finding and placemaking site the page and I didn't see the design. Document that I remember seeing that had some of the examples it was part of the survey. Okay, and if it's possible to put that back up on the site somewhere. I think it would be helpful members of the council and
▶ 15:48 Jen Grigoraitis: public to see because we've already basically excuse me wayfinding committee and the design team had come up with a bunch of designs and the community had voted on them and had settled on these like nice Victorian kind of reddish signs. So yeah well and they had great examples. So thank you for reminding me about that on the website. We will we will plan on certainly plan on refreshing that once we as we kick this off. That's it. Thank you. anyone else I'll just oh counsel circles. I was gonna make a motion soon. Okay. I was just gonna add that. I'm really excited about this. I've talked with Ms. Gaffey and director Pro casellis about our new from our receptacles on Main Street and also up at the common particularly during organized Sports
▶ 16:31 Jen Grigoraitis: season. So I'm thrilled to see this and I just wanted to also thank keep Melrose beautiful and zero waste Melrose and you're willingness to collaborate with them. I think we're always better when we can, you know, pull multiple areas of expertise together. So I'm very excited and I will entertain emotion counselor Eccles motion recommend for passage second. We have a motion to recommend for passage made by counselor Eccles seconded by counselor Williams. Is there any discussion Seeing none all in favor any opposed right that carries. Thank you for being here tonight. Thank you very much. And that concludes our agenda. So I will entertain a motion to adjourn so moved. Second so we have a motion to adjourn made by