Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2023-10-05
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
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS & OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE CALENDAR● OCTOBER 5, 2023 Web-based remote meeting Remote meeting 7:31 PM , Melrose, MA 02176 Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Leila Migliorelli Chair Present Maya Jamaleddine Vice Chair Present Shawn M. MacMaster Absent Christopher Cinella Present Jack Eccles Late 7:33 PM Mark Garipay Present Robb Stewart Present Manjula Karamcheti Present John Obremski Present Ryan Williams Present Jen Grigoraitis President, Ex Oficio Present
APPRO-2024-6 Authorization Authorization to Borrow MWRA LLP Request for Authorization to borrow from the MWRA LLP for lead water service identification and removal. Ought to Pass City Council City of Melrose Page 1 10/10/2023 4:42 PM
Transcript
▶ 0:09 Leila Migliorelli: Good evening, everyone. It today is, um, October 5th, and the time is 7:31 PM Pursuant to current allowances under the Open meeting law enacted under chapter two of the Acts of 2023, this meeting of the Appropriations and Oversight Committees being held remotely via the city's Zoom platform. I am, um, chairwoman Lila Elli. And joining me here tonight, our Vice Chair, Aldine Councillor Ella Eccles, no, no. Um, councilor Repe Karam Shady McMaster OB Bruski, no. McMaster Osky, Stewart Williams, and President Greg Exofficio. This serves as a notice of a quorum. For the record, please note that because we have, we are participating remotely, all motions will require a roll call vote in accordance with open meeting law.
▶ 1:02 This meeting is being recorded in broadcast live on M M T V and will be posted to the city's website. As soon as possible. I will entertain a motion to open the floor for public comments. Matt and Rochelle make a motion to open the floor for public comment. Second, motion to open, public comment made by Councillor Stewart, seconded by President Gita. Mr. Clerk, will you please call the role Vice Chair Jamal? Um, here, Counselor Ella. Councilor Ella. I think he's having sound issues. Okay. Uh, Councilor Eccles has just joined as well. All Right. I'll come back to Councillor Ella. Um, Councillor Eccles. Here. Councillor Repe here. Yep. Councillor Stewart? Uh, yes. Thank you. Um, Councillor Carcetti? Yes.
▶ 2:20 Cremsky? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. Uh, president Greg? Yes. Uh, Councillor Ella. Alright. Um, chair Elli? Yes. All right. Um, so Councillor Ella is present online. I'm gonna, uh, That's okay. We have a quorum, I think, enough to, to open public comment. So, public comment is now open. Right. This is a portion of the meeting where anyone can speak on the item on our agenda tonight. Is there anyone, um, in online? Uh, there's no one online at this time, besides the presenter for this evening, so. Okay. Madam shall make a motion to public comment. Second. Motion to close public comment made by Councillor Stewart. Seconded by Councillor Carm Shady. Mr. Clerk, will you please call the role Vice Chair Aldine?
▶ 3:33 Yes. Councillor Eccles? Yes. Councilor Repe? Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Chetty? Yes. Councillor Rems? Yes. Councillor Williams? Yes. President gti? Yes. And I'm gonna allow, uh, Councillor Sun to talk and ask for his vote. Hopefully it works this time. Councillor Ella, there's a motion on the table to close public comment. Why don't we? Yeah, that's true. Uh, why don't we just close this out so the public comment is now closed because we have a number of people that we're able to close public comment. Right. And we can maybe, um, mo motion, uh, I'll entertain a motion to take a minute so we can see. Make sure all of our tech Could we, uh, have a motion to recess for a minute? Motion
▶ 4:50 Leila Migliorelli: Recess for a minute. I'd like to make one Second Motion. Recess made by Councilor Carrum Chaney, seconded by Councilor President Greg. Mr. Clerk, sorry to call the role. Sure. Uh, vice Chair Jamal? Yes. Councillor Eccles? Yes. Councilor Garrette? Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Carrum Chetty? Yes. Yes. Councillor Reky? Yes. Councillor Williams? Yes. President gti? Yes. And chair ly? Yes. All right. For now, recess for a minute, and we will take that minute to see if we can get Councillor Snell online. Thank you. Back from our recess. Um, since we have a member of the administration here with us tonight, speak on the order. Um, I'll entertain a motion to suspend the rules. Madam Chair, I'll make a motion to suspend the rules.
▶ 5:54 Leila Migliorelli: Second Motion is suspend the rules made by Councillor Stewart, seconded by Councillor Carrum Shady. Um, Mr. Cler, will you please call the role Vice Chair Jamine? Yes. Councillor Ella? Yes. Councillor Eccles? Yes. Councillor gpe? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Carrum. Shetty. Yes. Cremsky? Yes. Councillor Williams. Sorry about that. Yes. Um, president Greg? Yes. And Chair Elli? Yes. That's unanimous. Okay. The item on our agenda night is appropriation 2024 dash six authorization to borrow the M W R A L L P request for authorization to borrow from the M W R A L P for lead water service identification and removal. We have the city engine speak on this. Welcome. Thank you. Good evening. Um,
▶ 7:14 this request for appropriation is for our lead water service removal program. Uh, the M W R A has received federal, federal funding of a hundred million dollars to provide to the communities in the M W R A system for identification and removal of lead water services. It is a first come, first serve, uh, program. And so we are going to be asking for 1,000,300, uh, sorry, $1,035,000 to put towards, um, the program. It will, in the work that we'll be doing with that money will include, uh, finalizing our inventory of lead services, doing building inspections and test pits to confirm material in areas where our records show unknown or we're not quite sure what, what the material of the lead services is, um,
▶ 8:19 outreach to property owners. And also, we are currently providing a $1,000 incentive to private property owners who have lead services to remove their service. It's a, it's a refund program. So once they remove their lead service, we refund them a thousand dollars towards the cost of that. So this funding from the M W R A, we will help us to continue this program that we're doing right now, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Okay. Any questions? I see Councillor Repe. Thank you. Uh, thank you Madam Chair. Thank you, uh, Ms. RA for being here. Um, you answered my one question on what the incentive would be. Is that, um, is there a, is there a cap on how much, um, is it like a $50,000 cap or is it just, uh,
▶ 9:15 Mark Garipay: unlimited depending on how many people take advantage or There? So with these new funds, we have not set a cap. It will depend on finding a balance between actually, uh, completing our inventory, determining where we have LED services, and then going after them. Um, you know, with over a million dollars, I think we'll have a, a large sum of money to put towards, um, the residential reimbursements. Um, but that, that number has not been determined yet. And is it from, is a reimbursement from the connection in the street to the house or a, anything like if they have lead inside the house, but the connection from the house outside to the street is not lead, is that possible, uh, that, that would happen? Um,
▶ 10:12 Mark Garipay: and we give an incentive incentive inside the house. Is it more for work outside, I guess from the house to the street? It's for, it's for the portion of the line that is from the curb stop or the property line into the meter. Uh, e p a so far has not provided any guidance or funding for, for residents who have lead pipes in their house, uh, after the meter. Okay. And then on, um, I see that this is gonna be paid through, uh, the debt will be paid through the water enterprise fund. Um, we have a pretty health healthy balance in that fund. I know. Did I, forgive me, but did we raise water rates, uh, or sewer rates this year as a result of, um, as a result of, uh, we, we, um, we're a little lower than we thought, I think, in the, in those funds.
▶ 11:01 Right. Uh, so we did raise water rates this year. Um, I know that Catherine Armada took a look at the debt schedule for this. We do have a couple of debts coming off the books in the next couple of years. The first payment on this loan would not be due until a year from now. Um, and so she, uh, she looked at the debt schedule and how that all works together, and she feels very comfortable with us going after this. It's a 0% loan. Um, and so the payments, the annual payments would be $103,500. Okay. Thank you. Um, I mean, I support this order. I just had one other question and, um, I think it's probably more for, um, Andrew, if, uh, if, um, the clerk, if he can maybe get some clarification from the city solicitor on the order.
▶ 12:04 The last sentence on the order says in that the mayor is authorized to take any other action necessary to carry out this project. That just seems a little vague to me on that. Can we just get a little clarification before the final vote on this? But, uh, I do support this order. Thank you. I will, uh, get that clarification and, uh, send It to the council. I lost internet connection for a second there. Councillor. Gar, are you finished with your questions? Okay. Councillor Williams. Thank you. Um, I wondered about whether there was any kind of prioritization of households by any criteria, whether it's justice criteria like, um, you know, age or a, uh, presence of small children or, uh, income or anything else.
▶ 13:10 Is there any way that we're structuring the outreach to kind of reach the folks who might have the most need first? Or is this a first come, first serve? Is it street by street? How does it actually roll out? So right now, this is a voluntary program in terms of the people on the private side replacing their services. And, um, believe it or not, we have run into residents who have no interest in replacing their lead service. So, um, it is a first come, first serve. Uh, we will be, um, letting people know that the program exists. And, um, there, once the inventory is done, I believe that we also are going to be required to notify people that they do have a lead service, so that they know that, um, if they,
▶ 14:02 Ryan Williams: if they want to move forward with doing something, um, that they can. So that's, that's how we're structuring it at this point. Okay. Um, help me understand the order of operations. Um, in the memo that's attached here, there are a series of bullet points, which feel to me like they're chronological. So, uh, correct me if I am wrong, but as part of this funding, the city is going to verify the lead service line locations via the inspections and test pits, and then send that information to the E P A so that they can build out their database of homes with lead service lines. Is this right? Um, that is roughly correct. We, uh, you know, we have our water tie cards and our, you, you know, vault full of plans.
▶ 14:53 And we, we started this, um, probably close to two years ago going through, we scanned all our watertight cards at this point. Um, and we have been working with Tada and Howard for about a year now to confirm, uh, lead on the private side and also lead on the public side. So the public side is from the main to the curb stop at the property line, and the city is responsible for replacing any lead services there. Um, so we've been working and, and just so you're aware, the E P A doesn't consider the lead service fully removed unless both sides are done. Mm-hmm. So, um, we have been working with residents that where we've identified lead services. So we've been working with our operations people where we know there's lead on
▶ 15:48 the city side, but there's copper on the private side, so then we can get credit for full removal. Um, we are under an administrative consent order right now with d e p. We have to remove 25 services a year at a minimum. Um, and so we've been working towards that. We also do, uh, e p a mandated sampling. We're in the middle of our sampling program right now. Um, and since, uh, may of 2022, we have had 24 full replacements. Um, so either both sides were replaced or one, one or the other side was replaced. Um, so yes, you are. So it is kind of a, a stepwise process. To go back to your question, to answer your question, um, we look through our record documents and then if we're not sure if the records are accurate or if there's a reason to believe
▶ 16:51 that we need to do further investigation, we'll go up and do building inspections. We see, we look at what the material is at the meter, um, and if we're still not sure, or there's still some question, we will do test pits at the curb stop, which will show us what the material is on both sides of the curb stop. Um, and the outreach to property owners is something that's ongoing through all of these activities. Um, and then obviously if we find a lead service, we make the homeowner aware that there is a financial incentive to replacing their side. So with regard to the timing of outreach, is it conducted kind of in a, in a sequential order, like down a list of streets? Is it, you know, like how do you,
▶ 17:39 where do you start and how do you choose what direction you go in? Do you start north to south, you know, how do you, how do you do it? Um, well, right now we're, because we're working on the inventory as soon as we verify the locations of lead services. So again, we, you know, we've got this mandate. We have to do so many per year. We, um, we're trying to, we're kind of looking for the low hanging fruit right now. Um, and so it is, we're not doing a street by street approach, although there are streets where we know that, um, most of because of the age of the houses, when the street was built, all of that, that, um, there's a high probability that there are lead services. Um, but, you know, sometimes we run into a situation where a,
▶ 18:31 an old lead service was replaced at some point down the line, but it just never got documented. So, um, we're, we're still very much in the early stages of verifying things. Um, for, in terms of low hanging fruit, an example would be all of the streets where we've done water Maine in the last 10 years, we replaced the public side service with copper. So we know that's copper. So we're looking at the records for those houses on those streets to see if we can find lead services on the private side that can be removed. So in terms of outreach, I guess what I would, what I would say, what I would suggest is you might want to coordinate with Melrose Public Schools to do some kind of an, an outreach announcement to parents of children,
▶ 19:19 Ryan Williams: because I'm thinking about, you know, you might do just the, the time constraints of how long it takes to stage to research and to plan this stuff, and the fact that, right, obviously the little kiddos are the most susceptible to the effects of lead in their water. And so it, you know, if you had a big outreach to parents that said, Hey, we had this incentive program call today. Or, you know, email this address and ask, you might get a really quick, um, uh, group of folks who have small kids who wanna be put in the program that could be prioritized given their more vulnerable status. I know when we moved in, it was the first thing we did was ask about the lead service line and had it removed. So I think the schools might be a good partner in terms of outreach.
▶ 20:06 I appreciate the, the information. This is a great project. Um, and thank you for answering all the questions and, and speaking to us today. Any other questions? Seeing none. What is the will of the committee? Councillor Stewart? Uh, Madam Chair, I'll make a motion to recommend to the full council. Second Motion recommend made by Councillor Stewart, seconded by Councillor Eccles. Mr. Clerk, will you please call the role Vice Chair Aldine? Yes. Councillor Sun? Yes. Councilor Eccles? Yes. Yes. Councillor Repe. Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Carcetti? Yes. Councilor Reky? Yes. Councillor Williams? Yes. President Greg? Yes. And Chair Elli? Yes. That's unanimous with 10 yeses. Okay, great. This order will be brought to the next full council meeting with a
▶ 21:18 recommendation for passage. Thank you very much. Thank you. Have a good night. Bye. Okay, now I'll entertain a mo. Motion to adjourn. Madam Chair, make a motion to adjourn. Second. Motion to adjourn. Made by Councillor Stewart. Seconded by Councillor Ella. Uh, Mr. Clerk, will you please call the role Vice Chair Jamal? Yes. Councillor Ella? Yes. Councilor Eccles? Yes. Councillor Garbe? Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Chetty? Yes. Councillor Reky? Yes. Councillor Williams? Yes. President gti? Yes. And Chair gl? Yes. That's 10. Yes. Unanimous. All right, we're now adjourned. Thank you. Night everybody. Good night. Goodnight. I.