Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2023-05-30
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
- Grants
- GRANT-2023-12 : Acceptance of a State Economic Development Earmark Grant in the Amount of $100,000 (One Hundred Thousand Dollars) for Repairs and Improvements to Memorial Hall
- Appropriation
- APPRO-2023-28 : Fiscal 2024 Operating Budget in the amount of $101,173,341 (one hundred and one million, one hundred seventy-three thousand, three hundred forty-one dollars and 00/100 cents)
- ORDNC-2023-1 : Reauthorization of City of Melrose Revolving Fund table as first adopted by City Ordinance June 18th, 2018 and annually thereafter. Revolving Funds are further authorized under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 44 Section 53E 1/2.
- Department Schedule
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS & OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE CALENDAR● MAY 30, 2023 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Budget Hearing 7:00 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Leila Migliorelli Chair Present Maya Jamaleddine Vice Chair Absent Shawn M. MacMaster Present Christopher Cinella Present Jack Eccles Present Mark Garipay Present Robb Stewart Present Manjula Karamcheti Present John Obremski Absent Ryan Williams Present Jen Grigoraitis President, Ex Oficio Present
GRANT-2023-12 Grant Acceptance of a State Economic Development Earmark Grant in the Amount of $100,000 (One Hundred Thousand Dollars) for Repairs and Improvements to Memorial Hall Ought to Pass City Council
APPRO-2023-28 Operating Budgets (City, School, Regional School) Fiscal 2024 Operating Budget in the amount of $101,173,341 (one hundred and one million, one hundred seventy-three thousand, three hundred forty-one dollars and 00/100 cents) Hold Appropriations & Oversight Committee
ORDNC-2023-1 Revolving Fund/Reauthorization Reauthorization of City of Melrose Revolving Fund table as first adopted by City Ordinance June 18th, 2018 and annually thereafter. Revolving Funds are further authorized under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 44 Section 53E 1/2. Hold Appropriations & Oversight Committee City of Melrose Page 1 7/24/2023 4:53 PM
Transcript
▶ 0:02 Leila Migliorelli: Good evening. The time is 7:00 PM on Tuesday, May 30th, 2023. This is a meeting with the Appropriations and Oversight Committee. I am, um, chairwoman Lila Elli. Joining me tonight are Counselor Son Eckles Gepe Carm Chedi McMaster Stewart Williams, and President Greg Ex Officio. This serves as a notice of a quorum for the record in accordance with the open meeting law. This meeting is being recorded and broadcast, broadcast live on MMT v I will now motion by unanimous consent to open the floor for public comment. Seeing no objection, we are now open for public comment. This is the portion of the meeting where anyone can speak on any item on our agenda tonight. There's no one in the audience. Is there anyone online?
▶ 0:49 Leila Migliorelli: Not at this time. Okay. If there's no objection, I'd like to close public comment. Seeing none, we are now closed for public comment. Since we have members of the administration here tonight to speak on the items before us, I'd like to motion by unanimous consent to suspend the rules before we proceed. Seeing no objection, the rules are now suspended. The first order on our agenda tonight is a grant grant, 2023 dash 12 acceptance of a State economic Development earmark grant in the amount of $100,000 for repairs and improvements to Memorial Hall. Tonight we have, uh, Kathy Pig, Broder, director of Memorial Hall here with us to speak on the order. Thank you. Thank you. Um, in, in FY 23, um, thanks to the effort of, uh,
▶ 1:37 Senator Jason Lewis and State representative Cape Lip obedient Memorial Hall, um, was approved to receive the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Massachusetts earmark and the amount of a hundred thousand dollars. Um, the board of trustees has voted to use these stunt funds to start the repairs needed in the Gai room, which include, but are not limited to the sailing, the sailing am, wall plaster repair, the floorboards and trim in addition to some drapery work and wallpaper versus painting of the walls. Um, this work will not be started until after the present project is done. Um, and then we'll, which probably won't be to the end of the, the end of this year. Great. Any questions, councilor Garrett? Yeah.
▶ 2:28 Uh, just one question. When's the, um, grant have to be started and completed by? If we accept the, Um, it has to be completed by, it can be started at any time. It has to be completed by the end of FY 25. FY 25. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Council Stella. Uh, motion to, uh, recommend Second. Second. A motion to recommend made by Counselor Ella, seconded by President Gregs. Anyone on discussion? See none. Mr. Clerk, will you please call the roll? Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor Son? Yes. Counselor Eckles? Yes. Counselor Garrette? Yes. Counselor Stewart? Yes. Counselor Che? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. President Greg Regards? Yes. And Chair Elli? Yes. That is nine. Yes. Unanimous. Great. That order will, uh,
▶ 3:20 Leila Migliorelli: be brought to the full counsel at the next meeting with a recommendation for passage. You can stay right there cuz Next up is the continuation of our annual budget hearings, um, with appropriation 2023 dash 28, fiscal 2024 operating budget in the amount of $101,173,341 and 0 cents. Um, tonight, first up is Memorial Hall with, um, director Pagan broader here. And, um, introduce the chair of the Soldier and Sales Memorial Building trustees, Mary Sexton. Thank you Mary. Hi everyone. Excuse Sexton. Um, as I'm fortunate to be here, uh, with everyone tonight. Thank you for coming. Um, and I just wanted to mention, and it's really, and there's a banner right outside the building, what I'm talking about,
▶ 4:07 the gala at Memorial Hall on Saturday, October 16th. I can't tell you how important it is, I think, for the city that we get as many people as possible to attend. Um, so I was looking for some support, um, for the gala. And the great news about that is that the committee, um, for the, uh, Memorial Hall that has brought this all about, um, was because they couldn't stand looking at g the Ga r room. Um, so they formed their own committee, friends of Memorial Hall and have been collecting money over the last couple of years. So it's really been, they're doing that has pushed us and we're hoping to have it be very successful. Wonderful. Um, I've just done some, I just wanna read about Memorial Hall.
▶ 5:01 Not that you don't all know about it. I know, but I just wanna remind you, um, first off, I wanna talk about my staff. Uh, the Memorial Hall staff consists of myself and four-time, uh, part-time operations assistant Rob Mason, Dave Coir, bill Dumont, and Luke Kenny. We just came on. They're responsible for the initial event, set up, onsite event assistance, then the cleanup and the reset for the next event, which oftentimes is the very next day. In addition, they are responsible for the interior general maintenance of the building. New this year. Memorial Hall has five hours per week administrative support from the fabulous LaSandra Santa, who is the Santana, excuse me, um, the Mayor's office administrator.
▶ 5:44 I'm extremely fortunate to have such a dedicated, hardworking team that they truly care about the building as much as I do. In FY 23, Memorial Hall had an overall increase in the number of event bookings and the attendance at these events as the public became more comfortable with indoor events and FY aren't 23 this year. We are on target for 260 events, and we will welcome over 49,000 guests as of today, which is different than what you see online. But today we have Monday, May 30th. We have received requests for 192 events and fiscal year 24, and most of them have already received their rental applications. Our customer event database is made up of 68% non-profit organizations and 32% businesses.
▶ 6:32 73% of our customers list Melrose as their organization's addresses with 27% listing as outside Melrose and FY 23. We hosted several seasonal events, annual events we usually have, which include the Maros Youth Ballet Nacr season, which runs from October to December. The Merose Symphony Orchestra season, which runs from September to May. Maureen Hancock postcards from Heaven, Ty typically does six to eight events a year in the weekly Melrose Rotary meetings. We partnered with several City of Merose departments for public programs this year. The Covid and Flu Shot Clinics, mental Health First Aid Training, emergency Management, regional Training, mayor Broad, a Senior Resource Fair Council on Aging Holiday Party,
▶ 7:21 our monthly Veterans Mobile food mat, which I believe we were in our 10th year for that, the Veterans Day Breakfast. And this past weekend we hosted them Veterans Day Memorial Day Breakfast. In addition, we were the registration site for the Memorial Day Parade. Additionally, some of the other 260 events included Melrose, Oz Festival, Melrose Highlands Congregational Church, fabulous Beer and Bites, Knights of Columbus Fundraiser concerts. This year, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra, um, requested, rented from rehearsals of their group. We also had no Bo boundary, my tie matches and Boston Boxing matches Kids Curtain Call Stage Productions. We had a private company use us as a filming location for a wrestling movie.
▶ 8:09 How appropriate, um, Oche Chaplain School of Irish Dance, Irish Fest Fish, the Royal Scottish Country Dancer Ball from Boston, Roman Over Entertainment brought over, um, Bulgarian dances and held several performances throughout the year. The Outreach Community Center of Malden, the Miami Hispanic Flamingo Ballet, came to our building. Middle Sec Sheriff Peter Tusk held several of his correction offices, graduations this year. Various dance communities from the surrounding communities. Um, the dance schools, uh, came from Malden Everett besides Mells, Malden, Everett, Burlington Wubin, and I believe Medford this year. We had another different one we had this year is there are several private music
▶ 8:57 schools in the area, and they rented Memorial Hall for their annual showcase. And another one rented it for their piano recital. And in addition, we had the normal private parties and, um, birthday parties, anniversary parties, and, um, christening celebrations. Now the big question, the Building Exterior Renovation Project that you can all can see as going on, it was started in October f Y 23, and it will be completed in the summer f y 24. This project includes window renovation with new interior shades and exterior shades. I'm happy about this to enable us to have the main Hall Theater dock with the press of a button, um, all on brand new organ door. The back lobby doors are being replaced. There's repairs to the beams,
▶ 9:45 repointing and washing of all the granite and Macy and repairing as needed. The roofs are getting repaired along with new gutters. The project has, has really progressed very smoothly, and the contractor has been incredible and really worked around the event schedule with minimal and I mean minimal disruption to our customers events. The next step is the g I Room Interior project that, um, uh, chair chairman section spoke about. Um, additionally, the Civil War, her Veterans Heritage Project report will be finalized this week. This project, as you can remember, was completed due to the awarding of the Schwab grant. The State Historical Records Advisory Board gave us a, a matching grant. Um, this project included the first time cataloging of all the artifacts that are
▶ 10:34 housed at Memorial Hall with recommendations for storing and maintenance of the items, a collection, policy and procedure research on the plaques in the Gai room that are located all around the room. And recommendations for the next steps for an interpretive live tour, which I was ho I'm going to do, is we're gonna have QR codes on everything so people can scan 'em and they get a little summary of like what this plaque means or what the big pitches mean, where they came from. And they have helped me with the wording and they've given me recommendations on the best steps to take to do that. The Memorial Hall Building FY 24 budget is level founded, um, except for the increase in the elevator maintenance line item.
▶ 11:15 Robb Stewart: This increase is due to the annual contractual International Union of elevator contractors labor rates. Um, as always, it is an honor to be the executive projector of the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building. And I will love to answer any questions you might have regarding the memorial building budget or the operations. Thank you. Questions from counselors. Councilor Stewart. Thank you Madam Chair. And thank you Ms. Picketer for, uh, that very comprehensive description of what's going on at, uh, Memorial Hall. Um, we have income as well that comes from Memorial Hall. The, can you give us a general feel for what that is for the year? Sure. Um, the revenue comes from rental rates only. Yep. Um,
▶ 12:01 and then there's the restoration fee, which is what comes from the customers a dollar, but mostly it's the rental rate. Uh, the rental of the building. If there's additional work that has to be done, like set up like the, um, the backdrops have to be hung, that's very time consuming. So there's an additional fee for that. But the, uh, if they have rehearsals, they have an additional, a separate fee for that. And that all goes into the general fund and back to you guys, the city. So that, that goes back into the general city fund mm-hmm. Into the general fund. And so this is the complete funding. You don't draw from that separately? No. No. Okay. I, I, it goes right into the, I deposit it directly into the general fund. Okay.
▶ 12:41 Great. Great. Good to know. Um, and then, um, you talk about all these different events. Is there schedule that's published Online? I have a very detailed online calendar. If you go to the Memorial Hall page, you'll see you can pop up the calendar and it's, you click on any, when you look at the calendar by the month, you'll see any of the events. And if you click on the calendar, I put, um, the, the rental time. That's usually with listed like three to nine. But next to the title of the event, I write the time of the actual event so people know what time the door is open. In addition, if you scroll down the, in the right upper right hand corner of the page, I, I hound my customers to get like a flyer or something about their events.
▶ 13:21 So I put the flyer online and it's constantly, all the flyers, constantly scroll. And the upper right hand corner, including the gala on Saturday, October 14th, is there if you want more information. And down below there is, um, the, a description about the gala Okay. And the website to get more information. And below that, I have all the, I have larger size of all the event flyers. So if people wanted to read them in more detail, great. And I update it as soon as someone books, I immediately remove it from the, um, remove the date available for rental from the calendar date. However, it does take a few hours to update. Um, but if I get a bunch of them, I can send an email to City Hall Systems and they can update it immediately for
▶ 14:06 Robb Stewart: me. Great. And, uh, just one comment that I wanted to make, um, I, I hear that you have hired Mr. Kenk on a part-time basis. Yes. Temporary part-time basis. Yes. It's Great that you're bringing in some young people to help you out. Uh, and appreciate that. Um, I actually, I know him. I coached him when he was a young man. He's a great kid. Yeah. Yeah. He's a hardworking kid. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you for bringing in some kids to be able to help out, give him jobs. That's great. Great to see. Thank you. Venture Council Garby. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, both for being here. I just wanna follow up on, uh, councilor Stewart question. Um, understand it goes into the general fund, but what is the total revenue that we bring in and haul rentals compared to,
▶ 14:48 Compared to usually this year? I'm hoping, I'm still collecting fees. A 90 to 92,000. Um, before Covid I had finally, unfortunately was like, took me 12 years, but I finally hit the, uh, six figure mark for revenue and had collected over a hundred thousand. Um, but then covid hit, so I'm working back up again. Have we, um, seen a lot of renter, new renters, or renters? Same ones coming back now. That More what I've seen, I, I got several new renters here, which is like the Romanian Entertainment and the Malden Islamic Center. And the, uh, another group where they rented, they came back, you know, they called me cuz they had heard about it. And then they called after the event, they called again and they rented,
▶ 15:30 Mark Garipay: like the Ramona Entertainment Group came back three times. They had only rented once, but they rented two more times. So we are getting new renters and they're becoming repeat event renters. Um, and I see on the grant that we got for the ga I run, what do we think that the total cost to, to get the ga uh, room back up and running? Do we have an estimate on that? And how much more money are you gonna need in order to get This? I don't know. I, I would love to answer that. Everyone's asking me, and trust me, I'm bugging. I go to Denise constantly saying, what do you think? What do you think? I mean, like the middle section, if you go into the G a R room and that middle piece where the, uh, lamp is hanging, um,
▶ 16:14 as you recall a few years ago that the room got shut down cuz that had to be repaired and that all we did was we repaired that middle section and that was $8,000, you know, to do the front doors. I want the top half of the front doors done. Um, if, if you get on Main Street and see they, they refer refinish the front doors and I, the top part wasn't included. So the friends of Melrose's Memorial actually is, is going to pay for the top half to be done. And that is $15,000 because the entire door has to be taken apart to do it. 200, 300, 400 I, I don't know. I'm starting out with a hundred. I'm hoping another a hundred in this fall of the fall. And at least to get, I would like to get the plastering done, the rest of the ceiling.
▶ 17:00 I know you all know if you look on the side, there's that horrible where the water comes in, where the plaster is, it just comes down constantly. Yep. And in the corner where the piano is, you can see, um, on the floor that the wa uh, floorboards have to be fixed along with all the trim around the room has just been broken off. So that will all have to be replaced. And in the corner above where the piano is, that corner plaster has to get repaired. If you go out to the south par, which is the room you enter before you go into the g r, if you look up in the corner, the plastering in that corner has to be repaired. Additionally, the wallpaper's coming down. So that's all gonna have to come down. But when we take that down,
▶ 17:40 Mark Garipay: we all know the wall's coming with it. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's never been taken down. So all, I don't know, councilor Gar pay, I don't know what to tell you cuz there's so much that has to get done, but I just know there's repairs that have to get done quickly. Yeah. I would just, um, encourage, um, the trustees maybe to take, take a look at that with, you know, we do have free cash every year and we have the CIP p if it's a, if we're in the middle of doing this project, is it like we, when we looked at the outside, it made sense to do it all at once than do half and, and, and piece mail it. Right. So that's, um, I'm just encouraged to see what move forward and see what the total cost is for
▶ 18:20 the g r room. I know the, I know the hall's gonna be a lot more, so thank you. No more questions, Counsel here. Oh, sorry, go ahead. Yeah, I just wanted to say, we all know we've all bought houses and they've been falling apart or not. And as soon as you take one thing off, either the wall comes, the ceiling comes with it. I mean, that's a room that has been falling apart for years. Mm-hmm. So hopefully what you see, hopefully that's the worst it is. But I doubt it, especially that ceiling. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you Counselor Williams. Hi. Um, so my question was about the mechanical systems with regard to the electricity and the gas heat. Does that building use a gas powered boiler? Or is it a furnace that blows air
▶ 19:08 Ryan Williams: To heat the building? It's, uh, gas powered. Is it, is it, it's Actually, um, 1, 2, 3, 4 boilers. They're boilers that heat like radiators or something, that heat mm-hmm. Space. Mm-hmm. And there's, um, vents that come out of the main hall. Yes. You sit on the other side, you can feel the, yeah. Okay. Okay. And have you thought about or talked to Martha Grover about incentives for clean energy, you know, taking the building off gas, bringing in mini splits, things like this, because there's a ton of rebates and incentives right now for heat pumps and mini splits and all these things. And some of the work that you're doing on the windows is gonna alleviate a lot of heat loss and it's gonna better insulate that space. And that might,
▶ 19:47 Ryan Williams: and I would caution not to take this, my word for it, but there, some of these incentives depend on updates like that. The state comes out and they say, oh, you've done great work to better improve the efficiency in the insulation on this building. So now we'll give you a rebate on the cost of, or a zero interest loan on the cost of upgrading these, um, heating and cooling systems, which can save you a lot of money in your electricity and gas heat, which looks like it's projected to be about $30,000, um, $32,000 this year. Well, one of the things they're doing is they're putting clearstone windows on the interior of the windows, which will help tremendously on all of the windows, which will help tremendously. Um, we have not looked into the HVAC system. Um,
▶ 20:28 Ryan Williams: I maybe Martha's looking at I have not. Um, but there is, we're starting a dialogue about possible, um, solar panels on the building. Yeah. I mean, if you're thinking about solar on the roof, having electric heat in there, um, with the little units that, or even with a, with a, with a unit in the basement that blows air throughout the building, I think you would, with solar, you'd see a pretty substantial reduction in costs. So we'll look into it, talk to her. She'll, she'll have some information for you. Okay. Sure. That's it. Thank you, Counselor. Carm Shady. Um, the question I was going to ask, first of all, thank you for being here. And I'm such a huge fan of Memorial Hall. I'm so grateful that we have it in our city.
▶ 21:08 Manjula Karamcheti: It's such a great place to build community. Um, I was looking to find out how many, uh, people Memorial Hall can ac accommodate for an event. Um, but I have found the information online on our amazing website while I was waiting. Um, but the reason why I wanted to ask about the number of seats, you know, obviously Memorial Hall is such a wonderful resource in our community and we're looking for ways, um, that we can always, um, bring more money into the city. And so thinking about Memorial Hall, how many does it seat? What are the options, um, having been to the Chevalier Theater and other places in surrounding communities, just sort of wondering about Memorial Hall's capacity for more, uh, events in the future. So that's, but I answered my own question.
▶ 22:00 Um, if I can just say please, it's different. It's, it's 800. The building code is coded for 800 in the main hall, um, for auditorium seating and 100 max in the g r room. Um, if I do tables, I can have up to 30 tables on the floor with 10 seats per table. The auditorium maroon seats that everyone knows it. There's 434 of them, so the rest of it goes on the floor. Thank you. Thank you so much. And again, thank you for what you do in, in this space. I've got to watch you in action a lot this weekend. I Know you've Been in a couple of events. I've Been in tomorrow A lot lately. We hosted the Maros High School Band. Exactly. Thank you. Anyone else? President Greg Rey. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you both for being here. Um,
▶ 22:46 Jen Grigoraitis: just as you're talking about the numbers going back up, it just reminds me that for those of us who have been here since 2020, what a, what a journey it's been for Memorial Hall through a global pandemic. And I just wanted to say thank you to you, Kathy, and to the trustees for sticking it out. It was a lot of creativity, really pivoting to support all sorts of needs of the city, um, which you did flawlessly. And I'm really happy to hear that we're kind of predicting being back to quote unquote normal, whatever that looks like. So, um, it's nice to be here with you both in person and know that hopefully all of that's behind us. And with that, I'll make a motion to recommend seconds. Move the bottom line. Excuse me. Move the bottom line.
▶ 23:22 Um, president Greg motions to move the bottom line on account. 6 93. Seconded by Counselor Williams. Anyone on discussion? Mr. Clerk, will you please call the roll? Councilor McMaster? Yes. Counselor Sin? Yes. Counselor Eccles? Yes. Counselor Gepe? Yes. Counselor Stewart? Yes. Counselor Che? Yes. Counselor Williams? Yes. President Gregs? Yes. And Chair Elli? Yes. That's nine. Yes. Unanimous. And that motion carries. Thank you both for being with us tonight. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I hope to see you all at the gala. Did you hear that? I don't think we can miss it. All right. Next up we have Planning and Community development with director Denise Gaffey. Good evening. Welcome. That's a tough act to follow. Um, so the, the planning department,
▶ 24:18 Denise Gaffey: um, budget is, um, it's a, um, essentially level funded. There's a slight increase over f um, the previous fiscal year. Um, the department is, the budget is primarily comprised of salary and wages for the five, um, staff members in the budget. The, um, senior planner, assistant planner, planning director, sustainability manager, and their GIS analyst. Um, the, um, there's an overall increase of 4% from last year. 3.4% of that is an increase in the salary and wage line item, which is, reflects the, um, standard cost of living adjustment for employees. And, um, the city's new salary plan for non-union employees. And then the other item that is a new line item in this budget is, um, the energy related costs. Um, for the, um,
▶ 25:12 Denise Gaffey: energy Commission, which is now called the Melrose Energy in Climate, they, they, in the past, they've had their, um, budget line item, budget number in a separate line item, and it's been folded in to the planning office, uh, department budget. And, um, that's $2,500. It's relatively modest, but it's used to, um, um, perform a wide variety of outreach activities in support of the net zero action plan. So that's the, um, that's the major change and the, um, increase in the budget for next year. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you Ms. Gaffey. Questions from the council? Council Stewart? Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Ms. Gaffey for being here this evening. Sure. Um, just the, the Messina Arts Grant, can you talk a little bit about that? Um,
▶ 26:03 Robb Stewart: and specifically I see that it's been budgeted level funded for 10,000, but we really haven't achieved that. I'm assuming that maybe because of the, the recent Covid events and so forth, but can you talk a little bit about what that's used for and funding? I believe all of those funds have been expended for the year. They just, we just haven't received all of the invoices yet. Okay. Because it's a, it's 49 40 for, uh, 23 year today. Expensive From What I Okay. I'm expecting that we'll get Okay. Um, additional invoices for that. Can you talk a little bit about what it's, oh, Sorry. It's okay. It's your opportunity. So, um, yes. The Messina, um, fund for the Arts is, um, is designed to provide, um,
▶ 26:47 Denise Gaffey: small grants to arts and culture organizations in Melrose, um, to support, um, just to support these organizations and provide, um, arts and culture events and programming throughout the year for, for the community. And it's a great, um, boost for our local artist and for, um, for the local economy as well. So it's, um, there's a, this is an annual allocation and there's a committee, um, of people the, um, that makes decisions. They, they, they, um, put out a, um, request every year for, for projects, and then they review them, they rank them, and then they, um, they, they allocate funds toward them. Great. And this is targeted for local artists? Mm-hmm. Okay, great. And, um, and they have access on the website on
▶ 27:34 There is, if you Google it, you'll, um, yes, there's a website for the Messina Fund for the Arts. Great. Great. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Gaffey. Thank you manager. Anyone else? Council Williams, Just to clarify, um, so the Melrose Energy Commission doesn't exist anymore? Well, they just changed their name, but they Don't exist as the Melrose Energy Commission. Right. They changed their name to Energy and Climate, But now they're like a volunteer group. Um, They're not affiliated with the city, so the money that was being funded in the city budget to support their activities is being, I mean, Martha was doing it anyway. Mm-hmm. So it was like, no different, but mm-hmm. Correct. Yeah. Yes. Okay. How are they taking that?
▶ 28:18 Denise Gaffey: It was their decision. Yeah. Good. Okay. Uh, no questions. Thank you. Uh, president Grigoraitis. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Gaffey. It's always lovely to see you. Um, just one quick follow up question on the Messina Grant. That may be a question instead for the, um, the mayor's office, but had there been discussion at some point about possibly increasing that line item? Yes. Okay. Yes. Do you know what happened there? Well, I believe, um, I believe the mayor is making a transfer to, um, to increase the funding. He had, um, he had represented that he wanted to, um, double the funding for this program because there's, there's been so much interest in it. Um, there, there were more grant requests, um, in funding than there was funds available,
▶ 29:04 Denise Gaffey: um, this year. So my understanding is he's transferring, there's an order coming down to transfer the just transfer of funds into, um, the budget for next year. So it's being done as a transfer out of existing, um, an existing account that, um, isn't going to be spent this year. And then I think it's going to be encumbered and then rolled over into the budget for next year. Okay. And so, and again, I know you're not Patrick Del Russo, so you can say you don't know the answer to this question, but then that doesn't, that won't be reflected when we put their budget for the next year. Will it be increased to 20,000 when you get a get a Munis report? Or will it, I believe that is the intent that it would get transferred in to the, um,
▶ 29:46 Denise Gaffey: to the FY 24 budget. Um, yeah, in The, okay. So that, that would be the new foundation budget. Exactly. Exactly. And then I think the goal is to monitor how, um, how, uh, how much participation and how much interest there is to see if going forward, it, it makes senses to fund it at that, um, amount or fund it, it at some, um, lesser amount. Okay. So I think that was kind of the, the way they decided to. Okay. Thank you. Approach it for that clarification. I really appreciate it. And then, um, not so much a question, but more just a comment. When Council Williams mentioned some of the, um, energy efficiency issues at other buildings is, um, just the inflation reduction Act, I think is gonna be a huge opportunity for municipalities.
▶ 30:27 Jen Grigoraitis: Not that we're giving you any more resources in order to go after that money, but I just think as we have conversations around, um, the many needs, I think that could be a place where we can try to, um, move some of our infrastructure into being more sustainable. Um, so however we can be helpful, which I don't really know what that is, but I think it's gonna be a really great opportunity that I hope we're able to seize on. And I know Ms. Grover is, I was just about to Say that Grover, as you know, is on top of this, and, um, it, it is, it is. There's a lot of information out there. We're trying to distill it right now and this, and I think that we're in the same position as many other communities just
▶ 31:04 Denise Gaffey: trying to figure out exactly how best to go after this funding. And it's, I think it's, it's gonna take a little while. I think they're really the federal, um, government is trying to figure exactly out how to trickle it down into the states. And so I think we'll be, you know, we'll be learning more over the coming months and positioning ourselves to try to take advantage of these programs in the funds. Great. Thank you. Yeah, it's definitely an evolving process, but it's really exciting and I'm thrilled that Martha's so engaged on it. She certainly is. Thank you. Sure. I will motion to move the bottom line. One second. Motion to move the bottom line made by President Greg, seconded by Councilor Sin on discussion.
▶ 31:45 Ryan Williams: Councilor. Yeah. Sorry, I can't believe I forgot about this. Um, I wanted to ask you about your opinion on the capacity of the planning department to engage more on transportation planning mm-hmm. Within the city. Um, I know that Martha does an excellent job of energy and climate related work. Um, but, um, it doesn't feel like we have the capacity that we need to do transportation planning. Is that something that you've thought of sharing with another community? I don't disagree. Yeah. Yeah. Um, there's a grant opportunity called the Safe Streets for All program, and, um, the Central Transportation Agency at MPO is leading implementation. The money's gonna go through mapc and, uh, we had a brief conversation with one of the, um, the folks,
▶ 32:38 Ryan Williams: the planners who's managing the deployment of it and planning grants. And I think it would be a good opportunity for us to look for funding with this that would tie into potentially a master transportation plan. Okay. Um, that Mapc would execute and could be funded through mm-hmm. Safe Streets for all money. Does It provide capacity building too, or is it just for profit? It is it, and I, I it's like 5 billion of funding over the course of several years. And the first stage is these action plans. Okay. And then there's capacity and Got it infrastructure funds on top of it. That, That's really helpful. Yeah. So, um, this just came through about a week ago, but I'll forward it on, we can, we can talk about it. Great.
▶ 33:16 Denise Gaffey: Yeah. Thank you. That's it. Thank you. Thank You. Um, I just actually have a follow up question on the Messina, um, arts Fund. Is that a, it's not a separate 5 0 1 [unknown] [unknown] If it's funded through, I don't think it is, but, um, I'm not entirely sure. Yeah. And did the history of it being under your department, um, rather than somewhere else within? So It's a good question. Yeah. Um, it is primarily in our, um, it was primarily, primarily put in our department. Um, I guess it somewhat ties to some of the arts and culture work we have done historically, but, um, we don't really engage with it on a day-to-day basis. We really are like, um, process the warrants for it and just review the invoices and make sure it's all
▶ 34:00 Leila Migliorelli: being, you know, spent properly. Um, but I think that's, I think it's related somewhat related to sort of historically some of the local arts and economic development kind of work that the planning office engaged in engages In. So maybe my follow up questions would be for the mayor's office, and because I would, just being in the philanthropic world myself, I feel like, you know, seeing who's involved in the Melrose Fund for the Arts, having that, that list of who makes the grant decisions mm-hmm. Who the grantees are, it's not available on a quick search on the online. So just something. And I, I don't mean to, uh, imply that your department needs to take on that management of it, if that makes sense,
▶ 34:39 but it would be interesting to see a more sort of robust description on the website. So I will That's great advice. I can definitely pursue that. Okay. Thank you. Um, all right. So the, anyone else on discussion motion on the table is to move the bottom line on 1 75. Um, Mr. Clark, will you please call the roll Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor Ella? Yes. Counselor Eckles? Yes. Council Gepe? Yes. Counselor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Chet? Yes. Counselor Williams? Yes. President Greg? Yes. And Chair Elli? Yes. That's nine. Yes. Unanim, That motion carries. Thank you very much for being here. Very Great night. Thank you. Thank You. Right. Next up we have the library with Director Lyna Gardner. Welcome.
▶ 35:38 Thank you for having me here tonight. Um, it has been a unique year for the library, um, in fiscal 23 library staff and services. Moved to our interim space at the baby school. We closed the West Emerson Library on August 13th, and we opened up a BB on September 13th. The library is now open our regular hours, uh, due to the limited publicly accessible space in the temporary location. We are partnering with the Milano Center, Memorial Hall, the Parks department, the Y M C A, the Congregational Church on, um, west Foster to provide satellite locations for our book groups and children's programs. We've also been trying to continue the, what we've been developing over the last several years of really engaging in
▶ 36:35 pop-up libraries at any community events and that type of thing. We'll be at the farmer's market in a couple weeks. Um, we've worked to ensure that the public knows where we are, um, and that they are aware of our wealth of online resources as well. Um, although the public space is relatively small, if you've been there, um, we are really thrilled that the first floored classrooms at the baby allow us to have our entire collections available, rather than a lot libraries have to take a significant percentage of the collection and put them in storage and have them completely unavailable for the duration. So we did not have to do any of that, which is wonderful. Um, before getting into the fiscal 24 budget,
▶ 37:27 I want to take a moment to recognize the library staff in this year. I have been so impressed with the work that they have done over this past year. They organized, they planned, they adapted again. Um, they cleaned and packed up a building that hadn't been moved from in over a hundred years. Um, none of us was in anybody's job description, I'm sure. Um, and they really just worked very hard to figure out how to make all of this work and how to make it as seamless as possible for the public. Um, it's been a lot of effort and creativity, and they have remained maintained an incredibly positive attitude throughout. Um, so I just wanted to put forward that I think the city is fortunate to have that
▶ 38:15 dedicated group of employees. Um, in the library department's fiscal 24 budget, most budget lines are level funded. Um, postage has once again seen a slight decrease due to more and more people using electronic communications. Um, the telephone services, you may not have vanished. Um, when we moved into the bb the telephone system was transi transitioned to the city's telephone system. Um, so we had a fax line and one phone line that were eliminated. And the IT department now services the, uh, the phone system. Um, and that will remain true when we move back. And lines 53, 400 hundred and 50 through 53 4 2 40 in total, represent the variety of resources that are provided directly to patrons
▶ 39:22 for their use. So it's AV materials, physical books and periodicals, downloadable eBooks, e audiobooks, e magazines, electronic databases, and museum passes. Um, in Munis, when you look at the budget, the museum passes are listed as lib passes. I think probably originally library passes, but so when you see this thing that says lib passes, that's really museum passes. Um, line 53, 4 20 books and periodicals is increased a bit due to a notification that we received this year from a primary vendor regarding increased processing prices. Um, the elimination of an underperforming subscription in electronic formats resulted in a decrease that has been applied to downloadable av. So we can really support a ambos online resources.
▶ 40:25 Um, line 53 5 3 4 2 20 represents our over overdrive based subscription. The current cost for that is 29,058. Um, so the amount not covered in this budget will be paid through donations and the support your friends. Um, and that's, that's the, the overview, I think. Um, I just wanna also thank you for your time and this process. Um, it's a lot of work at this time of year for you, and I appreciate the work that you do, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Questions from the council. Council, Les, Thank you. Um, thank you Ms. Gardner for being here for the satellite spaces. Is there any cost associated with that, or is that kind of being donated? Oh, Sorry, It's the satellite spaces. Is there,
▶ 41:20 Mark Garipay: is that being donated from the non-city organizations like the Y M C A in the church, or is there a cost associated with that? Some yes, some no. Um, but the costs have been very nominal. Thank You. Less than we might be paying if, you know, we were any food for programming. Right. Thank Councilor Gepe. Yeah. I just have one quick question. In your, uh, in your, um, email that you had sent out regarding the budget, you had mention mentioned next year you're gonna reassess some staffing needs for the new building. Uh, are you think an increase or you think we're gonna because of efficiencies new building? We may. Yeah, the new building is bigger. Um, and we have a separate team room, which we haven't had before. Um, I'm also expecting, before covid,
▶ 42:13 we had really reached a point where we were both for space and staffing at capacity for what we could be doing. Um, we had demand for programming that, that we just, we didn't have the people order space for. We're now fixing the space part of that. Um, but I do expect that that demand with this wonderful new building is going to be right back up there. And also, again, making sure that, uh, the spaces that we have are appropriately staffed. Okay. Thank you. No more questions. Councilor Stewart? Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you Ms. Gardner for being here. Appreciate it. Um, while you're here, can you give us a status on the new building? Um, I can briefly, uh, we, uh, as you can, you can almost see a lot of the status. Um,
▶ 43:10 if you go down the street that I have for you, the demolition is pretty close to complete. Um, they're little bits. There's a, a piece of an elevator shaft that they can't take away until they have a wall behind it. Um, but it's really coming along, um, with the demolition and the demolition inside the building. Um, much more careful and getting ready for restoration in the historic building. And I think over the next few weeks you'll start to see the new addition, um, starting to, it's, we we're moving away from the taking away, and we'll be moving into the building up phases. Great. And from the standpoint of what we're doing here, are we still on time and on budget? I don't have exact answers for that right now.
▶ 44:05 I think maybe Denise and I would be happy to give you a more formal update on that at some point. Sure. It's not part of the operational budget, so I didn't prepare. Sure. Understood. Understood. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Richard. Councilor Sin Motion To move the, uh, bottom line. Second Motion to move the bottom line of, let me see. Bottom line on six 11, made by Counselor Ella. Seconded by Counselor Eckles. Anyone on discussion? Scene none. Mr. Clerk, will you please call the Roll? Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor son? Yes. Counselor Eccles? Yes. Council Gue? Yes. Counselor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Carcetti? Yes. Council Williams? Yes. President of Yes. And Chair Mcle? Yes. That's nine. Yes. Unanimous. That
▶ 44:54 Motion carries. Thank you very much for being here. And finally tonight we have in instructional services with Director Al Tallarico. Welcome. Hey, everyone. Um, like to thank the council for the opportunity to discuss the in Instructional Services operating budget for fyi 24 brief words about the inspectional services and what we're responsible for. Uh, we are mandated to ensure the minimum requirements to safeguard the public and pri and property from fire and other hazards attributed to the built environment, and provide safety to firefighters and emergency responders during emergency operation of these structures. These responsibilities include supervision and enforcement of all provisions of the state building code, electrical code, plumbing code,
▶ 45:52 energy code, mechanical code sheet, metal code, and a host of other state statues. We are also in charge of interpreting and enforcing all provisions of the city of Melrose's zoning ordinances. At our core, we are a public safety agency whose help prevents loss of life and property, and contributes to making Melrose a safe and attractive place to live and work. The building department consists of myself, one administrative assistant, three part-time inspectors, building inspector, electrical inspector, gas, and plumbing inspector. We're a very busy office. Last year, from April 1st, 2022 to April 30th of this year, our office processed 3,636 applications, inspected thousands of construction projects,
▶ 46:40 and collected just above 1.1 million in annual fees. My budget request for this year is outlined to the memos of the council, is an increase of 11.2% from last year. Much of that increase is for the non-union salary plan approved by the council. The other two line items, a slight increases in seminar and continuing education in addition, and in addition of a part-time administrative assistant consisting of 18 hours. To add a little more detail to those two, uh, items, currently our inspectors have $1,300 for mandated continuing education credits. This amount does not accurately reflect the expenses generated by my inspector's yearly. An additional $1,300 is needed to offset the shortage. The administrative assistant position, from my understanding,
▶ 47:34 was approved in 2015, but was never funded it. I'm asking for $20,368 to fund this position for 18 hours weekly, starting, uh, January 1st, 2024. As I've outlined also in my memo, this position would help with the workload to maintain the level of service expected from this department. Um, this position would enable us to be proactive instead of reactive, while assuring backups during vacation, sick time, and ascension planning. Thank you for these time and consideration. I can answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Council Williams. Hi. Thank you for being here. Um, that's a lot of requests, right? It is. Um, I'm wondering if you could at all characterize whether that represents an increase in the number of requests over, let's say, you know,
▶ 48:28 Ryan Williams: last year or another point in time. Do you feel like your department is getting more throughput on these? They're, uh, I'm not sure. How, Do you feel like you're handling more requests now, executing more requests? Are the timelines improving? Are you able to Put more request request as far as applications? Applications Sure. Permits Anything. So, um, yes, we are, we're the system that was, again, I think it's almost five months I've been here. Hmm. Maybe a little over. So I can't really compare apples to apples from last year to this year, but I can tell you that, um, looking over my predecessor's, uh, information regarding how many permits they've done, uh, what the revenue was from last year, typically it's around $800,000.
▶ 49:17 A little. Uh, you know, because of covid obviously some things went down. Um, but I feel like the permitting system that we have, although not the best, has increased, um, the number of applications coming through. It's just, it's a faster process now. We have solar companies that are doing it. Uh, I mean, literally, I probably have like, uh, 15 a day. Uh, uh, a lot of energy work, uh, a lot of insulation work being done throughout the city. Uh, those are constant constantly every day. Um, so there is, there's a, a larger request this year than there was last year. Um, I can't give you all the breakdowns, um, but, uh, we're doing, um, a lot more work, uh, than we were last year. And obviously the best, uh, um,
▶ 50:09 Ryan Williams: enforcement is to not have to enforce because you get everything right the first time. But knowing that you're stepping into a situation that's been, uh, in operation for a while, do you feel that the department has what it needs to do enough enforcement of code violations that are reported to you? Um, yes. As far as inspectors, we, we do have, I feel like right now, um, again, I'm just getting my feet wet and trying to figure out what the best method of, of handling some of these issues. Mm-hmm. Typically, lately I've been doing them myself. Um, it's just, you know, getting outta the office and, and, and, uh, getting out there and starting to meet people. Um, I, I feel at this point we do have enough, um, uh,
▶ 50:54 the enforcements aren't as bad as other cities that I work for. Um, I find that most people, uh, just need a little more guidance. Mm-hmm. And, uh, going back to, um, enforcement, as far as the, um, as far as the software system, the ability to have, um, to go online anytime and, uh, fill out an application is a game changer when it comes to people, you know, wanting to do a roof. Most of the time they, they, they, there's violations there because, you know, it's raining out or they don't have time to do it. Now, with the ability of going online, they have accessibility 24 7, and we find that there's less violations. Uh, typically it's always roofing inciting the, the biggest violations. Um, so,
▶ 51:44 um, in essence, I mean the, the, the system is working on my end. Um, there's some, there's a lot of disconnects with other departments, which goes back to, I think the first time I, I met, uh, everyone here was how long it was taking to process the applications. I think, um, it's moving a lot faster, but it could be, uh, it could be a lot better than it is. Thank you. Anyone else? Counselor McMaster. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good evening. Just wanted to go back to the education, uh, seminar line item. The increase there, um, just to be clear, is this for certifications, recertifications, or professional development? It's both. Um, seminars are professional development. I have, because the inspectors have different, um, requirements.
▶ 52:38 Mark Garipay: Some are seminars, some are continuing education, like a way to measures is not, uh, it's, it, it, there is state, um, um, like courses that they take. But it's not like a huge, um, it's not as organized as, as the building department. Like, uh, the inspectors have it. Uh, I'm not sure if their association is, um, widespread. I think different, uh, municipalities don't, um, don't adhere to the same, uh, association. So I'm, I think I answered it. Thank you. Anyone else? Council Gepe? Yeah. Uh, just a quick question on, um, on your email that you had sent out to us. Um, any events or changes you anticipate in, uh, FY 24? You have, uh, permitting software changes, recommend, uh, that's just recommended. That's not included in the budget, right? The, uh,
▶ 53:35 Mark Garipay: OpenGov? No. I, um, yeah, I'm talking about OpenGov, but no, I, these are some of the changes that I hope to Okay. Um, to, um, uh, bring up. But, uh, no, they're, they're not on this. The only two items are the, uh, increase in the seminar and continuing education and for the part-time administrative assessment. But you're, you are one of the departments that actually more than cover your budget, so, uh, and fees. And so it's, um, anything that we can do to try to make it more efficient and continue to generate more revenue, it's gonna pay for itself. You know, I would, uh, highly support. So, um, thank you. No more questions. Anyone else? Motion to move the bottom line. Second. Motion to move the bottom line. Um, made by counselor sin.
▶ 54:33 Uh, bottom line on 2 41 by counselor Son. Seconded by Counselor Williams. Anyone on discussion? Mr. Clerk? Councilor Gepe? Yes. Um, councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor son? Yes. Counselor Les? Yes. Counselor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Che? Yes. Counselor Williams? Yes. President Gu? Yes. And Chair Mcle? Yes. That's nine. Yes. Unanim, That motion carries. And, um, the next up related to inspection services is the revolving account, 26 58. Um, any questions from the council or do you wanna make any remarks? Um, director Tallarico before we, Um, just, I think I, as far as the revolving account, this account, um, is for a certificate of inspections. Again, I haven't had, um, enough time to kind of go through this plan right now. Um, uh,
▶ 55:39 my predecessor did spend some money on copiers and some other, um, some other equipment for the, um, that's why we didn't use that total amount, but I, I do anticipate using that full amount. Um, the certificate of inspections are annual biannual inspections that are, uh, state mandated, uh, any, uh, place of assembly, any business hospitals, uh, Melrose Wakefield Hospital. Um, we need to inspect all those places. And there's obviously a fee associated with it, but, um, the program wasn't really instituted yet or fully instituted here. There's some gaps in between, um, what we should be, um, charging people and or, or notifying people. And I, I believe I need those funds to, uh, notification outreach to a lot of the,
▶ 56:36 a lot of these free family homes is supposed to be inspected, um, on a biannual basis. And a lot of people aren't aware of that. And when you start sending out information on that, you get a lot of pushback. So there's gonna be a lot of phone calls, there's gonna be a lot of emails going back and forth. There's gonna be a lot of education. Um, right now we're targeting the places of assembly, uh, the large places, churches, um, restaurants, um, uh, that, you know, the, uh, hospitals, um, uh, all, all the large, uh, places. But the smaller ones, uh, we're not, we're not really, um, utilizing, uh, our staff to kind of go at, um, start that program. So I do anticipate that we're gonna use those funds.
▶ 57:22 Leila Migliorelli: Questions from the council? Just, I guess I have one question on the revolving fund balance sheet that we were provided. Um, it says the balance as of May 4th is 26,000, and the revenues are zero. So that reflects with, wait. Is that your understanding? My request is not for 26,000. It's, No, it's not the request, it's the balance that's in the revolving fund. The inspection services revolving fund 26 58. Yeah, that's something Auditing can probably answer better than I can. I, I, you know, I have an allocated amount and I know that there's some transfers and balances in there that, um, that kind of seem off, but they're probably better to answer that question than I. Thank you. Um, is there any other questions or,
▶ 58:13 Leila Migliorelli: motion by Counselor Council, I shall make a motion to Move this to the bottom line. Second. Motion to Move Inspection Services revolving account 2 6 58 made by to the bottom line made by Counselor Stewart. Seconded by Counselor Car Shady. Anyone on discussion? Mr. Clerk, will you please call the roll? Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor son? Yes. Councilor Eccles? Yes. Council Gepe? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Che? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. President Gregs? Yes. And Chair mc? Yes. That's nine. Yes. Unanimous. That motion carries. Thank you very much. Thank you Everyone. Have a great night. Thank you. Have a Good one. Thank you. Uh, I'll entertain a motion to hold appropriation 2023 dash 28 and committee.
▶ 59:00 Leila Migliorelli: Motion to hold. Second. Second. Motion to hold made by President Greg re seconded by Counselor Eckles. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Also entertain a motion to hold Ordinance 2023 dash one in committee. So Moved. Second. Counselor Williams Motions to hold. Hold. Ordinance 2023 And Committee Seconded by Counselor Ella. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Motion to adjourn. Madam Chair. I'll make a motion to adjourn. Second. Motion to adjourn made by Counselor Stewart. Seconded by Counselor Ella. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? We are now adjourned.