Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2024-10-21
Attendance
Cal Finocchiaro ; Mark Garipay ; Ward Hamilton ; Maya Jamaleddine ; Manjula Karamcheti ; Leila Migliorelli ; John Obremski ; Devin Romanul ; Robb Stewart ; Kimberly Vandiver ; Ryan Williams
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Public Comment
- Grants
- GRANT-2025-4 : Acceptance of a Grant in the amount of $14,662.00 to support the Municipal Road Safety Program
- Appointments
- APPT-2025-10 : Appointment of Lori Massa, 145 Bellevue Avenue, Melrose, MA, as Director of Planning and Community Development
- APPT-2025-11 : Appointment of Robert Carrillo, 28 Baxter Street, Melrose, MA as Superintendent of Parks & Open Spaces
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS & OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE CALENDAR● OCTOBER 21, 2024 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Committee Meeting 7:15 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Maya Jamaleddine Chair Present Ryan Williams Vice Chair Present Mark Garipay Present Robb Stewart Absent Manjula Karamcheti Absent John Obremski Present Ward Hamilton Present Kimberly Vandiver Present Devin Romanul Present Cal Finocchiaro Present Leila Migliorelli President, Ex Oficio Present
GRANT-2025-4 Grant Acceptance of a Grant in the amount of $14,662.00 to support the Municipal Road Safety Program Ought to Pass City Council
APPT-2025-10 Appointment/Reappointment Appointment of Lori Massa, 145 Bellevue Avenue, Melrose, MA, as Director of Planning and Community Development Recommend City Council
APPT-2025-11 Appointment/Reappointment Appointment of Robert Carrillo, 28 Baxter Street, Melrose, MA as Superintendent of Parks & Open Spaces Recommend City Council City of Melrose Page 1 12/6/2024 12:41 PM
Transcript
▶ 5:01 Maya Jamaleddine: and in accordance with the open Meeting law. This meeting is being recorded, recorded and broadcast live on MMTV. Um, I will motion by unanimous consent to open the floor for public comment. And, uh, seeing no objection, we are now open for public comment. This is the portion of the meeting where anyone can speak on any item of the agenda. Um, uh, on the agenda for us, uh, for tonight, do we have anyone online? Okay. Um, if there is no objection, I will motion to close public comment. Seeing none, we are now closed for public comment. Um, since we have members of the administration here tonight to speak on the items before us, I would like to entertain, uh, motion by unanimous consent to suspend Rule 37 B before we proceed.
▶ 5:57 Maya Jamaleddine: And seeing no objection, the Rule 37 B is now suspended. First, uh, grants, um, grant 2025 dash four Acceptance of a grant in the amount of, um, 14 uh, thousand 662 uh, dollars to support the Municipal Road Safety Program. And for the record, vice Chair Williams, us, uh, we have Mayor Greg with us tonight. Welcome. Good evening. Thank you Madam Chair and members of the committee. Um, I'm here tonight behalf on behalf of Chief Fowler, who is away at a conference. Um, and we wanted to save our overtime dollars by not sending a member of the police department 'cause I'm free. Um, so this is the Municipal Road Safety Grant, which is administered through the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security Office of Grants and Research.
▶ 6:50 Jen Grigoraitis: Um, these are federal funds that are passed through the state from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and made available to Massachusetts Police Departments to address local traffic safety issues. It's a reimbursement grant. So the city's plan is to use this monies, which is just over $14,000 for dedicated overtime to work on traffic safety concerns, which would include, um, speeding enforcement hands-free violations of state law, seatbelt enforcement, and crosswalk violations. Um, there is no match for this grant, and I'll do my best to answer questions. Great, thank you. Um, do we have any question from my colleagues, um, counselor ro? Yeah, I was looking at the program online,
▶ 7:30 Jen Grigoraitis: but I was just looking for, like, are there actual specifics of what they would do, just like handing out more citations or just on the street more? Yeah, it would enable, it would basically be a dedicated stream of funding for overtime, specifically for traffic violations. But they're, but as far as what they're doing is just more kind of like police presence doing Specifically around traffic enforcement. So either, you know, setting up a speed trap or, you know, setting up an area, where're monitoring crosswalk violations, pulling folks over for hands free violations. Everyone don't do that. Um, that type of thing. Yeah. Thank you. Next, um, counselor Gpe. Thank You, Madam Chair. I'll make a motion
▶ 8:06 to recommend to the full council. Second. Great. We have a motion to recommend to the full council made by Councillor gpe, uh, seconded by, uh, by Vice Chair Williams. Um, on discussion. Seeing none, Madam Clerk. Okay. This is when I go around. Um, okay. Um, president, uh, counselor Jamine. Yes. Councilor Williams. Yes. Councilor Gareg. Yes. Councilor Stewart. Counselor Karen. Karen Chatty. Councilor Osky? Yes. Councilor Hamilton? Yes. Councilor Van Devin. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Ro? Yes. Counselor Ley? Yes. Okay. The motion passes. We have six motion passes. We have six. Seven. Seven, sorry. Eight. Eight. We have eight. Let's just keep Going. Eight to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Yep. Eight. Sorry.
▶ 9:17 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you. Sorry. Second vote. We'll get nine. Thank you Madam Mayor. And, um, next we have appointments, um, 2025 dash 10. Appointment of Flory Masa 1 45 Bellevue App, uh, mayor Mass as a Director of Planning and Community Development. And we have the mayor. And Ms. Masa, Thank you again, Madam Chair. I am thrilled to be here tonight to present Lori Masa to you as my appointee as the new director of planning and community development. I think many of you know Lori from her current work in that department, and also as a fellow Melrose resident. She lives in Ward four. Um, she brings over 15 years experience in planning. First with the city of Somerville and then here in Melrose since 2016. She holds, uh, masters of Design from UPenn
▶ 10:04 Jen Grigoraitis: and has worked extensively on multiple projects in Melrose, including the most recent zoning amendment reification, working on various projects including way finding, um, and various housing development projects. So, um, Lori was selected after an open and competitive process. I'm really excited to have this opportunity to promote from within and to have her take this next step in her career. Thank you. Um, would you like To speak? Sure. Thank you, um, for those kind words and for, um, entertaining this appointment tonight. I am, uh, passionate about municipal planning. I've been doing it for my whole career and, um, feel, um, you know, privileged to be able to, to work here in Melrose. It's an amazing community
▶ 10:48 Ward Hamilton: and, um, there are a lot of urban planners that live here because of the structure has been designed as a garden community. And, um, there's wonderful opportunity here. Um, so I, um, yeah, look forward to any questions you have. Thank you. Um, look forward, um, to have you as well. What, um, any, uh, question from my colleagues, councilor Hamilton. Thank you. Uh, Madam Chair, thank you for being here with us this evening. Um, the position that you are accepting and moving into, um, I think was Ms. Gaffey 27 years? Yes. In that position? Yeah, something Like That. Um, some big shoes to fill and, um, certainly that position, you know, and under her guidance, um, had a tremendous amount of influence on the direction that the city has taken.
▶ 11:45 Ward Hamilton: It's a very important position. Um, would you be kind enough to talk about, um, items that are on your agenda? Um, I guess specifically recommendations of the housing production plan and other things that influence, you know, zoning type changes? Sure. Um, so, and thanks for the heads up ahead of time. I did go go through the, um, the housing production plan and looked at the strategies, um, and actions. These, these plans don't sit on shelves in our office. We do look at them. Um, so, um, we, we do incorporate them into, um, into our work. Uh, I did take a a look at the, the list though, to try to be comprehensive about it, um, in response to this question. Uh, so one of the strategies is talking about missing middle housing,
▶ 12:33 um, which is a component of housing, you know, with kind of a small scale, um, like three to eight units, um, which we do have here in Melrose, which is pretty unique. Um, and some of the, the strategies and actions in the housing production plan is making sure that we can continue to have that kind of housing, um, here. And, um, looking at kind of our existing zoning regulations, um, and making sure that they, they match what we want to continue here in Melrose with our kind of dense neighborhood, um, development. Um, a lot of times the zoning regulations don't match what the built environment is, and we wanna make sure that people can continue to build in that way that we, we, we love. And that's why, you know, we love Melrose.
▶ 13:19 Um, so one of the first priorities after the three ratification effort, um, is to look at those dimensions, um, within our neighborhoods. Um, and also, um, again, kind of re reevaluating what's happening with some of the redevelopment, um, districts in our, in our city. Um, and kind of with that is the accessory dwelling unit regulations, which, um, we need to tackle first because we need local regulations by the beginning of February or else the, the state law that was recently passed takes effect without any local, um, specific regulations around that. So that's kind of the top priority. Um, so there are a whole bunch of, um, other strategies and actions in the, the housing production plan.
▶ 14:07 Um, we have tackled, you know, some of them already. Um, we looked at the, um, sustainable design guidelines. We, we now have those. Um, we worked with MAPC, um, on those, um, we're working on, um, with, with MAPC again and some of the inner core committees looking at a, a toolkit for, um, managing and, um, allowing for rent decreases for affordable units that we have right now. Um, we, one of the strategies talks about, um, making those units more affordable, deeper, deeper, deeper levels of affordability. Um, which is something that, you know, we need to continue to look at, but right now we're having trouble with, you know, the rent increases of the units that we currently have and making sure
▶ 15:00 that there is displacement of those units and that they're, they're operating as, um, intended. Um, so I kind of initiated that with our, with our inner core committee of MAPC. And it's kind of taken on this, um, as a big project that, um, we're, you know, leading the charge on that. So that's a huge component of the housing production plan that will, um, that's being worked on currently. Um, so let's see some other things. Um, we, um, are, you know, continuing to look for grants to ways to, IM improve our public, um, realm and, um, making sure that we continue to be a walkable city. So keeping the neighborhood serving businesses, um, so that we, we have places to, to walk to and, uh, be able to, you know, go to a corner store and,
▶ 15:53 Maya Jamaleddine: and get, um, things that we need without having to hop in the car all the time. Um, so those are, uh, some of the kind of high level, um, priorities. Thank you. Mm-Hmm. Thank you for providing all this, uh, these informations. Any other questions? Councillor, Kyra. And then, um, vice Chair Williams. I was just gonna make a motion to recommend, but I'll second that motion. We have a motion to recommend made by council re seconded by Vice Chair Williams on discussion. Seeing none. Um, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You still with this? And, um, last item is appointment of, um, Rob appointment 2025 dash 11 appointment of Robert Carillo, 28 Baxter Street, merose Mass, uh,
▶ 16:57 Jen Grigoraitis: superintendent of Parks and Open Spaces is welcome again and welcome, Mr. Uh, Carla. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm also thrilled tonight to be able to present Rob Carillo to you as my appointment to the Parks and Open Spaces superintendent position. I think many of you know that this was a position that had been held by Joan Bell until her retirement to become a full-time Mimi, um, earlier this fall. Um, some of you are probably familiar with Rob from his work in our rec department, where he's been managing many, many programs. In addition, he also is a private coach and has been running several of his own programs and also has been working extensively with our, um, park department and our commission.
▶ 17:40 Jen Grigoraitis: And so I'm really excited to see him step into this new role. Um, he's been able to have some guidance from Joan given that we are in peak, um, use season for fields. Um, but I think he's more than ready for the challenges that lie ahead, and we're really excited to see him grow into this role. Great. Thank you. Um, any, um, would you like to say a few words? Yeah, I, I appreciate you taking the time. Um, I'll leave tonight and Mayor Jen, thank you for the kind words. Um, um, excited to grow into this role. Obviously it's really big shoes to fill, Joan being there almost 25 years, but I think with the mix of myself working for the city for the last three years alongside Frank Veri and Julie Pino in the rec department, kind of building
▶ 18:20 that relationship with, with Joan Bell and Cindy Brickley over in Parks, kind of set the tone for this. Um, and obviously I'm, I'm a Melrose resident and I grew up here like, more specifically, I grew up on those fields and on those parks. Like, I understand the importance of having those ready for, for games and activities and recreational, whatever it may be. Um, how important that is to kind of fostering young men, men and women in the community. And that's kind of why I work in this field. That's why I work in athletics. That's why I coach. That's why I'm now the superintendent of park. So I'm, I'm excited to kind of grow off it and hopefully I can leave a legacy like Joan did after 25 years.
▶ 18:53 Maya Jamaleddine: Um, that's kind of the goal, seeing what she did, making this city in terms of green space, open space parks better after 25 years, hopefully the end of the day, once I work my final day for the city of Mar, I can look back and say I did the same thing. So thank you. Great. Thank you. Any question? Seeing none, what is the will of the committee? Motion to motion to recommend? Second. We have a motion to recommend made by Councilor Gpe, seconded by Councillor Ro on discussion. Seeing none. Um, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. This motion carries. Thank you so much and looking forward to see your announcements. Congratulations. Okay. And this, um, now there is no objection. I will entertain a motion to adjourn.