Public Service Committee — 2022-11-21
Attendance
Christopher Cinella ; Jack Eccles ; Manjula Karamcheti ; John Obremski ; Robb Stewart ; Ryan Williams
Agenda
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMITTEE CALENDAR● NOVEMBER 21, 2022 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Committee Meeting 7:25 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 The public should take notice that the Melrose City Council may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the City Council consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Robb Stewart Chair Present John Obremski Vice Chair Present Jack Eccles Present Ryan Williams Present Manjula Karamcheti Present Christopher Cinella President, ex oficio Absent Councilor Garipay, a non voting member was also present.
ORDER-2023-37 Appointment Appointment of Emily Anderson, of 106 East Foster Street, to the City of Melrose Conservation Commission for a three-year term, said term to expire the last day of February 2025. Ought to Pass City Council
INFO-2023-9 Informational Melrose Kind Day Recommend Place on File City Council City of Melrose Page 1 11/22/2022 12:56 PM
Transcript
▶ 0:01 Robb Stewart: Good evening, the time being 7:25 on the 21st of November 2022. This is a meeting of the public service committee. I am counselor Stewart the chair. Of the meeting joining me our vice chair obremski consulars Eccles Williams and karmchetti. We also have non-voting members councils Williams and garapay. This takes this takes place in place of a roll call this provides a notice to the corner of record in accordance with the open meeting law. This meeting is being recorded in broadcast on a local cable access Channel mmtv, as well as live streamed through mmtv3.org. It will be available for future viewing through the city Melrose website. and without objection I will open the floor for public comment.
▶ 0:55 Robb Stewart: This the portion of the meeting where any member of the public may speak on on items on the agenda. Do we have anybody interested in speaking? Anybody online there's no online at this time? Okay, then without objection. I will close the floor for public comment. We have two orders. Well two items on our agenda tonight one of which we will require some. Input from the mayor. So without objection I'll suspend the rules. Okay rules are suspended the first item on our agenda is order 2023-37. This is an appointment of Emily Anderson of 106 East Foster Street to the city of Melrose Conservation Commission for a three-year term said to term to expire on the last day of February 2025, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman
▶ 1:55 Paul Brodeur: and members of the committee would be remiss did not say Happy Thanksgiving. I am dazzled by console a carmichetti support of USA soccer. Penalty kick and I'm just saying anyway, again, my apologies. So I'm here before you this evening with an outstanding nominee for the Conservation Commission. Emily Anderson Emily as you can see from her resume is a professional engineer. My brother is a professional engineer. I can tell you it is no easy task to get that to get that qualification in the work that she does in her professional life is exactly the kind of work that is done by our Conservation Commission. If you had a chance to review her qualifications, you will know that she appears before conservation commissions and
▶ 2:50 Paul Brodeur: other permitting and Licensing authorities to do this exact kind of work. So her qualifications are exemplary and they include a civil engineering degree from Northeastern University and again, the professional Background in experience that I hope you will find to be outstanding and without much further Ado. I'd like to introduce Ms. Anderson so she can say a few words and answer any questions you may have Good evening counselors. Thank you. Good evening counselors. My name is Emily Anderson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor for introducing me as he said I've been a civil engineer for about seven going on eight years now and received my professional licensure about three years ago. So I've sat on the other side of
▶ 3:41 Manjula Karamcheti: the table from the Conservation Commission on multiple occasions presenting projects to them and I've always been interested in the process. from the kind of town side and City side of things, so I'm very interested and would like to be a member of the Conservation Commission happy to answer any questions. Come charity. Well first thank you so much for being interested in being on the Conservation Commission. It looks like you haven't be it. Haven't been in Melrose for too long and just that you're willing and able to volunteer your time to be a part of this is really appreciated. I'm the counselor for Ward one and we are actually a neighborhood that has a lot of development happening right now and some
▶ 4:26 Manjula Karamcheti: of that development impacts. In the butts Conservation Area, so I'm just super interested sort of in reading your resume and looking at it that you're part of design and permit for plans and such in your role as on the Conservation Commission. How do you see yourself being involved in development? And I'd love to learn more. Sure. So I've like I said, I've been presenting to conservation commissions for several years now. So I'm familiar with the regulations from the development side of things. And I know that the Conservation Commission has purview over. Floods flooding areas Wetlands as well as there's conservation land in Melrose. So as far as development goes can only really look at the projects that come across the table. So and
▶ 5:17 see if they meet the standards of the wellness protection act, Massachusetts stormwater standards on. big pretty comfortable reviewing that kind of plan and if it meets it, that's really all the Conservation Commission can look at thank you so much. Any of the questions from the committee? I am a member of the Oh. Yes, you are console Williams. Thank you. You have been across the table. From conservation commissions. What was your least favorite part of that experience? um waiting some of the meetings can go a bit long as you know, depending on your place on the agenda, but no, it's It's more just kind of the public speaking part of it took some practice getting used to defending yourself. Even if you feel confident in
▶ 6:09 Ryan Williams: the design of something being able to say it. like exactly why you're comfortable with that design and speaking in front of A board such as yourself and you know just kind of putting yourself out there. It was a leap for me when I first started doing it. So it's something I practiced over time. Yeah, and even though it's not a part of the Conservation Commission, I'm interested in your thoughts on slow protection with regard to particular your expertise on Water Management runoff stormwater management erosion the value or need for these things. Sure. definitely extreme constraint in a lot of places like the maximum slopes that you can do. A lot of places we tried to minimize steep slopes so
▶ 7:00 that you know, you can still access any stabilized slope for like mowing mowing it I find when you go any steeper than like a three to one slope. So that's like Three feet of run one foot of Rise. It can be more difficult to maintain or it has just a really kind of To put it plainly ugly look to it. But and then you know between that kind of slope and then At one to one slope is just a wall. So a lot of people try to avoid walls because they're more expensive but sometimes they're more practical than doing like a really steep slope. And in terms of erosion control, there's techniques you can do. To manage the erosion most the most preferred is just seating it. with sod or you know landscape plants but
▶ 7:57 mostly just dependent on the conditions of a particular site. Do you feel that the regulations that apply to Conservation Commission go far enough? few years about expanding the kind of definitions of floodplain talking more about sea level rise, which even though Melrose is not particularly like on the ocean. It would still apply to some areas floodplains get higher over time. so I think it is going in that direction and I'm excited for it to go in that direction. It's important to kind of protect the resources. We have against climate change. Thank you. Nothing further. Thank you very much. Any other questions? Console echos. Well, thank you very much for stepping up. I was going to make a motion to recommend to the full Council second.
▶ 8:52 Robb Stewart: We have a motion to recommend by counselor Eccles seconded by Council camchetti. all in favor opposed alright, so this will be recommended to the full console which will come before so I believe later on this evening. You don't need to stick around if you don't want to. Unless you really enjoy watching the process are so you should be all set at this point. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman Member of the committee. Appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, the second item on our agenda is an informational order on Melrose Kind day Consular Eccles. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I sponsored this order with councilor Garipay and we have two members of Melrose kind here to speak with us this evening.
▶ 9:39 Hi everyone. Thanks for inviting us to come and speak. This was our yesterday. Whereas our seventh annual Melrose random acts of kindness day. and but I like to say something that started kind of just as a thought a fleeting thought has really taken over and has become a movement in our community. Stephanie and I are amazed at how many people and organizations get involved and want to talk about kindness and address kindness and join us in our celebration of kindness. twiva really quick video that we like to show even though it's from 2019. I think that it gives a really good background on how our day became as big as it is and I'm gonna go ahead play. But one thing I wanted to just interject when
▶ 10:37 WBZ came to follow us the reporters that I only have three to five minutes to follow you. And we said, okay and when he started to see what the mission and the movement was about he said, oh actually I have a little bit more time and he spent three and a half hours with us. So we're super proud of a little snapshot of it's really easy to look at the news and to see the bad things are happening and we don't spend enough time within the good. Created a warmth and brightness all their own. This is kindness day in Melrose people in businesses all over the city are working this day with random acts of kindness. This is the fourth time the city has celebrated kindness and it is spreading. Yay, people Rock
▶ 11:28 hoodies to overtimes and delivered several times people Rose hated forward with kindness. We have people do things like quarter in the laundry room. We've had lots of people going to the library how the library America Darwin got the idea four years ago as a concrete way for people to put the eye in kindness. We just think it is a break into celebrate what we have in common and we always have kindness in common. That's what the orders of Buffalo's General Store did by sharing these treats with residents too and realize that you know, there's lots of people out there just sometimes you It makes all the difference in a while. My mother always said to one kind. Just about Melrose Bank picked up the parking tab
▶ 12:22 for about 200 spots in the city's commuter rail Lots publicly while you're at five o'clock in the morning at six o'clock in the morning jumping on the commuter rail said but a nice advice this one and just down the street. Julie Nolan gave up coffee and Hawks. It's changed my whole thing. Yeah, it is miserable. Oh, yeah, but the cooling thing is how many other communities have reached out to us. He said hey we wanted to do that on our community too. So we're hoping that it spreads Beyond Melrose. Would you like a hook? Thank you so much. that what a wonderful. And not my face and you know, if every community in Massachusetts is 300 51 Community right in Massachusetts. Yeah, if everyone picked a day we could cover just what every day of the
▶ 13:09 year but the day of pass. Yeah, and you know, it picked the perfect day to do it to give those shots. Absolutely. The crazy thing for me about that video is even though they did a great job of showing what kindness is I think of how far we've come since then I mean I said hug a library and now we're bringing the entire Library breakfast and it's not Stephanie and I bringing them breakfast. It's people in the community you say we want to somehow be involved. Should we put together here a list of everything that happened this year unkindness day, and we just wanted to kind of quickly go over it. We had 2,000 letters that we distributed from elementary school students to Melrose senior citizens in our community
▶ 13:57 this year Stephanie and I went in and read the letters to a lot of the seniors and it was just incredibly touching is awesome. We had 1,000 thank yous from Melrose High School students to impactful teachers today. I I mailed 15 that were in out of District. So one was in New Jersey when we was in Malden a couple of Vermont, so not just not just teachers in Melrose, but outside of Melrose. Students wrote to we had many many cards from middle school students to hospital staff and patients and we were at the dedication of healthcare Heroes way on Friday morning, which was pretty exciting. We joined the Boy Scouts a local Boy Scout Troop showered Scott McCauley with love handmade cards and some homemade goodies Scott
▶ 14:49 as you all know has provided 37 Thanksgiving dinners for folks that would otherwise Has spent Thanksgiving alone. He's pivoted, you know the big word with covid and he's still providing that dinner. So he's providing dinners to go for those individuals. The humanitarian Club worked with us to shower the police department. We provided dunks gift cards and Melrose hats to the crossing guards that take care of our students across the community. Let's talk Melrose took care of the Department of Health. I mean, there's just so much. We actually surprised Jenny and Linda who are local animal Heroes that help locate lost dogs or rescue Wildlife Girl Scout surprise them with some cards and some gifts. It's just
▶ 15:43 we feel like it's an opportunity to highlight the good work that's being done in the community and the individuals that often don't want the acknowledgment but deserve it. One one kind of personal note is when we started the movement. My youngest son was in middle school and he was like, oh my God, Mom. Do you really have to do this? And then a few years later? He's in high school and he came home and he slammed the door and he I said don't slam the door and he said no Mom I had to tell you something. I was in Dunkin Donuts in a lady came in and she said I'm buying donuts for all of you. And he said it's working mom. It's working and then this year now he said he's a sophomore in college and he texted me I screenshot
▶ 16:28 from a janitor. He was my son was a janitor last last summer. The ECC. Yes, the ECC in a janitor the janitor there texted him and said, hey your mother just gave me a gift card and celebration of my kindness. Do you know anything about that? And he's like, oh, yeah, I know about that. It's pretty cool and see one other kind of neat thing to points out Mary Beth and I were at a parent University on Saturday morning and a proud mom walked up and said my son was the recipient of a gift card. He's an eighth grade boy from another friend and the friend said hey, it's kindness day. So I wanted to do something nice. and what it made Mary Beth and I think there's so much of that that's probably happening that we're not really capturing and
▶ 17:17 we don't know about but we're thrilled that this ripple effect is actually taking yeah. Yeah, we're already thinking about more plans for next year every year we do more. And every year we feel as if we haven't done enough. Because in in a world that we live in kindness should be celebrated and the power of kindness should be recognized constantly and that that's what we want to keep doing year round and we kicked off the whole celebration on Friday morning with the band 40 members of the band. Thank you, Mr. Repucci. And yeah playing songs to have kids walk into the middle school and the high school and you just hope that it at least initiates a conversation. Why was the band out front playing and then like I said,
▶ 18:08 you just hope that it has that ripple effect and it's motivates you to continue to do kindness not just on that particular day, but throughout the year our hope is as our children grow and you know take off into the world. And people ask them where they're from. They can tell them that they're from City of kindness and that's that's our hope is that we keep spreading it. So thank you for being up. Thank you for allowing us to come here and share what happened over the last week and we look forward to next year. Thank you. Thank you very much. Are there any comments feedback from the council? Oh, well, just really a big. Thank you. It is a wonderful time of year to be celebrating kindness, and I do think that it has an impact that
▶ 19:00 Robb Stewart: ripples not just on the day or the weekend. It seems to keep going. So just thank you for bringing it to the community and sticking with it even during covid and you going with your positive energy. So that's huge and we definitely need it. Thank you. Thank you for having us and what is the will of the committee? I'll make a motion to adjourn to file. Excuse me a motion to file second. We have a motion to follow me by Council Williams seconded by Council current cheddy all in favor. Aye opposed that will be brought to the full Council. I believe later on tonight. And I will now entertain a motion to adjourn now. I'll make a motion to address. Okay? Yeah, give a motion to adjourn made by Council of Williams seconded by non-member