Legal & Legislative Committee — 2023-06-15
Attendance
Christopher Cinella ; Jack Eccles ; Jen Grigoraitis ; Maya Jamaleddine ; John Obremski ; Ryan Williams
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Public Comment
- Orders
- ORDER-2023-94 : Personal Property Minimum Value Requesting both the Acceptance of M.G.L. c. 59 § 5, cl. 54 for the purpose of allowing Melrose to establish a minimum value of personal property subject to taxation, and that City Council set this minimum value to $3,000.
- ORDER-2023-95 : Request that the City Council Approve the Written Determination that the Lease Transaction of the St. Mary’s Parish Parking Lot is a Unique Acquisition of Property pursuant to M.G.L. c. 30B.
- ORDER-2023-96 : Approval of Lease Agreement with the Archdiocese of Boston For the Lease of The Parking Lot Near St. Mary’s Church at 46 Myrtle Street, Melrose MA
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE LEGAL & LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE CALENDAR● JUNE 15, 2023 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Committee Meeting 7:01 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 Ryan Williams Chair Absent John Obremski Vice Chair Present Christopher Cinella Absent Jack Eccles Present Maya Jamaleddine Absent Jen Grigoraitis President, Ex Oficio Present
ORDER-2023-94 Accepting Act of Legislature/Local Option Personal Property Minimum Value Requesting both the Acceptance of M.G.L. c. 59 § 5, cl. 54 for the purpose of allowing Melrose to establish a minimum value of personal property subject to taxation, and that City Council set this minimum value to $3,000. Ought to Pass City Council
ORDER-2023-95 Lease Request that the City Council Approve the Written Determination that the Lease Transaction of the St. Mary’s Parish Parking Lot is a Unique Acquisition of Property pursuant to M.G.L. c. 30B. Ought to Pass City Council
ORDER-2023-96 Lease Approval of Lease Agreement with the Archdiocese of Boston For the Lease of The Parking Lot Near St. Mary’s Church at 46 Myrtle Street, Melrose MA Ought to Pass City Council City of Melrose Page 1 7/20/2023 1:30 PM
Transcript
▶ 0:00 Go. Good evening. The time is now 7 0 1 on June 15th, 2023, and this meeting of the Legal and Legislative Committee. I am Councilor John Osky, and I am the Vice Chair of the Legal and Legislative Committee. Counsel Williams, the chair is absent due to a work commitment. I am joined by Councilor Eccles and Councilor Gia, president x officio. This meeting of the Legal and Legislative Committee is being recorded live on MMT V and will be available online on the city website at city of Melrose door o.org. At this time, if there are no objections, I will open the public comment portion of our meeting with unanimous consent. As a reminder for the public, this is the portion of the meeting where any member of the public may speak to
▶ 0:57 items on our agenda. Public comment is now open. Is there anyone online for public comment? No one online at this time. Is there anyone present in the chamber who would like to comment, seeing no members of the public looking to speak in person or virtually? And if there are no objections, I will close public comment. Portion of the meeting with unanimous consent, public comment is now closed tonight. We have three orders before us. If there are no objections, uh, I would like to take the first order, uh, order number 2 23 dash 94 personal property min minimum value requesting both the acceptance of for the purpose of allowing Melrose to establish a minimum value of personal pro property subject to taxation.
▶ 1:53 And that city council set this minimum value to $3,000 sponsored by this account. Uh, at this time tonight, Let me see. Uh, right now I'd like to suspend the rules and bring before us, uh, Sarah McClellan and Catherine Amara, seeing no objections, suspend the rules. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you, Mr. Chair Bki and members of Illegal and Leg Legislative Committee. Thank you for having us here this evening. Um, I'm Sarah McClellan, the Chief assessor, and I'm joined by, um, treasury collector, uh, Catherine Armada. So under Mass General Laws Chapter 59, section five, clause 54, the city of Melrose has the option to adopt a policy which allows the assessor to establish a minimum value of personal property subject to taxation under the
▶ 2:57 clause. The minimum value cannot be more than $10,000. The purpose of the statute is to exclude the issuance of small dollar tax bills that cost near as much to collect as the collection itself. Uh, Mr. Mata and myself have conducted an analysis, and we are recommending the minimum value of the personal property subject to taxation and Melrose be set at $3,000. Um, so the overwhelming majority of personal property collection comes from the top, uh, 300 roughly of roughly, um, 500 personal property accounts. Um, and many of our, uh, surrounding cities and towns have adopted this local option. Um, so Catherine is, or sorry, Mr. Arrad is gonna speak as well about some of these details in Melrose details by, by emitting the businesses with less than $3,000 in value,
▶ 3:50 the impact would be approximately $5,000 in annual revenue, or 0.2% of the total personal property taxes billed. So it's a very minor portion of our personal property taxes. In order to collect that $5,000, the assessor and the treasurer collector departments have to follow the same steps as we do to collect one $5,000 bill. So it has to be valued, it has to be assessed, uh, it has to be processed, printed, mailed, uh, abatements and exemptions have to be deliberated by the assessor's department, and then it goes into the processing. And then again, if they don't pay, we have to keep on sending out mailings until we can hopefully get ahold of them. So all of this carries a cost, um, that we estimate brings us back to basically break even on these
▶ 4:44 bills. So it is for this reason and for providing goodwill and support of small businesses in the community that the assessor and I are recommending establishing the minimum value of personal property subject to taxation at $3,000. Do you have any questions? We're happy to answer any questions that you have. Counselors motion to recommend. Second is a motion by Councilor Eccles and a second by President Kegar to recommend to the full counsel at this. Uh, um, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. At this time, we recommend to the full counsel. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next order before us, uh, is order 2023 dash 95. Request that the city council approve the written determination that the lease
▶ 5:58 transaction of the St. Mary's Parish parking lot is a unique acquisition of property pursuant to MLG C 30 B agenda and legal Legislative Committee. Uh, at this time, I would like to suspend the rules again and bring Shannon Phillips before the committee. If there are no objections, we will suspend the rules. Seeing no objections, the rules are suspended. Uh, Ms. Phillips, Good evening. Um, through the chair. This order is before, um, this Honorable committee tonight, uh, requesting the approval as mentioned of the written determination that the new lease, the renewal lease for the St. Mary's Parish parking lot, which is located at 46 Myrtle Street, uh, in Melrose, be declared a unique acquisition of property under general laws Chapter 30
▶ 6:50 B, section 16, which is the procurement law in Massachusetts, the city may enter into a lease agreement for real property, which includes parking lots, uh, without issuing an RFP and invitation for bids. If the government body, which in this case is the city council, determines in writing that advertising will not benefit the government body's interest because of the unique qualities or location, uh, of the property in question, given the location and size of the parking lot in question, which is 53 public parking spaces provided to the city of Melrose, um, through this acquisition, through this lease located at 46 Myrtle Street and its proximity to Main Street, um, this serves as a direct benefit to the residence of Melrose and area businesses.
▶ 7:30 And the transaction, in my legal opinion, does meet the definition of unique acquisition of real property. As such, I did draft, um, an order, uh, from the Melrose City Council proposed order that we're seeking approval on tonight, um, relative to the unique acquisition and the unique qualities of this location. Um, if approved by counsel, this would be filed in the central registrar, uh, with the state of Massachusetts for 30 days prior to the mayor's execution of any lease agreement. And I'm happy to answer any questions on this. Uh, the committee may have, Uh, president gig. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for being here tonight. Just one question procedurally, so we file this, um, if this moves forward tonight,
▶ 8:20 Jen Grigoraitis: it then has to be voted on on Tuesday by the full counsel, and then it moves to be filed. Does that impact the fa like the lease expires on June 30th? Do we have, how does the, It already informed them of that? So I did inform St. Mary's that I would let them know of council's vote, um, which I expected could take place next week. Okay. Um, and there could be a bit of a delay in just, um, formally executing a copy of the agreement, given the timeline that we have to publish. Okay. And we have at least a verbal reassurance from them that Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. Uh, what is the will of the committee? I'll make a motion to recommend for passage. Second, councilor, president Giggers makes a motion to send
▶ 9:02 to the committee with approval and Councilor Eccles seconds. All in favor? Aye. Aye. You have, uh, sent it to the full committee. Uh, the next order of business is order 2023 dash 96, approval of lease agreement with the Archdiocese of Boston for the lease of the parking lot near St. Mary's Church at 46 Myrtle Street. Um, at this time, I'll spend the rules again and, uh, Ms. Phillips Excellent. Thank you. Through the chair. Um, so this order is the actual lease agreement with the Archdiocese of Boston for that property we just discussed in the previous order. Uh, so it's the St. Mary's Parish parking lot, um, at 46 Myrtle Street. Again, 53 parking spaces solely for municipal and public parking lot use.
▶ 9:51 This is a renewal of a previous lease agreement that's been in existence since 2017 for these 53 same parking spaces. Um, since 2017, the lease has been 30,000 annually. Um, it's now been up to 35,000. Um, we did with an inflation calculator figure that 35,000, um, today was 30,000 2017. There's no other way to really value this property given its unique, um, character, and that it's only parking spaces when checking with the assessor's office. So we think the 35,000 annual rent adjustment is a fair, um, adjustment to this lease lease agreement for the next three years. Um, otherwise everything in the lease has remained the same from previous terms. Uh, and prior to 2017, I might add, I, I believe the city has had a lease for spaces within the slot since at least
▶ 10:40 Jen Grigoraitis: 2009 or before, so I'm happy to answer any additional questions on that. Council may have President gig. This may be a little bit outside your purview, so please feel free to say that, but so if there, if there it's parking spaces for public and business use, are we, is there two hour limits? One hour limits? Um, I mean, since the city is putting $35,000 a year toward these parking spaces, how are we ensuring that they're, you know, allowing for sufficient turnover of use during the day? Uh, my understanding is it's they're solely dedicated to municipal parking lot, loose parking lot use. Um, I can't speak really further on that at that at this moment. I would need more information from those that run the parking lot directly.
▶ 11:30 Okay. But yeah. Thank you. At this time, what is the will of the committee Motion to recommend? Second. There's been a motion to recommend by Eckel, seconded by President G. All in favor? Aye. Aye. At this time, you have passed the order to the full council. Um, at this time, we have concluded the business of our, our agenda, and I will entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. At this time present, G has moved to adjourn. Seconded by counsel are Eccles. All in favor? Aye. Aye. And we are adjourned. Thank you. Good evening. The time is 7 31 on Thursday, June 15th, 2023. This is a meeting of the Appropriations and Oversight Committee, and I am chairwoman Lila Elli. Pursuant to current allowances under the open meeting,