Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2025-05-01

Appropriations and Oversight Committee Meeting

This meeting starts at 29:05 in a recording that covers several meetings.

Attendance

Cal Finocchiaro present; Mark Garipay present · Chair; Ward Hamilton present; Maya Jamaleddine present · Vice Chair; Manjula Karamcheti present; Leila Migliorelli present · President, Ex Oficio; John Obremski present; Devin Romanul present; Robb Stewart present; Kimberly Vandiver present; Ryan Williams present

Agenda

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS & OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE CALENDAR● MAY 1, 2025 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Committee Meeting 7:09 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Maya Jamaleddine Vice Chair Present Cal Finocchiaro Present Ward Hamilton Present Manjula Karamcheti Present John Obremski Present Devin Romanul Present Robb Stewart Present Kimberly Vandiver Present Ryan Williams Present Leila Migliorelli President, Ex Oficio Present Mark Garipay Chair Present

(ID # 12633) Grant Acceptance of the FY25 Firefighter Safety Equipment Grant awarded to the Melrose Fire Department by The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Fire Services, in the amount of $4,282.02. Ought to Pass City Council

(ID # 12610) Contract That the City Council authorize the Mayor to enter into an Intermunicipal Agreement (IMA) with Malden, Medford, Wakefield, Winchester, and Stoneham as part of the Commonwealth’s Public Health Excellence (PHE) for Shared Services Grant initiative. Ought to Pass City Council

(ID # 12647) Appropriation An Appropriation from Free Cash (account 01-324001) in the amount of $48,000 to DPW-Parks (#475) for improvements to the Dog Park. Ought to Pass City Council

(ID # 12650) Appropriation City of Melrose Page 1 5/5/2025 6:27 PM Minutes Appropriations & Oversight Committee May 1, 2025 An Appropriation from Free Cash (account 01-324001) in the amount of $16,000 to the Police Department (#211) for evidence software. Ought to Pass City Council

(ID # 12651) Appropriation An Appropriation from Free Cash (01-324001) in the amount of $90,000 to the Police Department (#211) for the purchase of a new cruiser. Ought to Pass Historical Commission

(ID # 12648) Appropriation An Appropriation from Free Cash (account 01-324001) in the amount of $20,000 to HR (#152) to fund costs associated with physicals and advertising. Ought to Pass City Council

(ID # 12637) Appropriation An Appropriation from Free Cash(account 01-324001) in the amount of $175,000 to DPW Admin (#401) for Lebanon and Sylvan Street Stormwater Project. Ought to Pass City Council

(ID # 12638) Appropriation An Appropriation from Free Cash (account 01-324001) in the amount of $150,000 to DPW Facilities (#402) for repairs to the Franklin School all purpose room. Ought to Pass Historical Commission

(ID # 12639) Appropriation An Appropriation from Free Cash (account 01-324001) in the amount of $100,000 to DPW Facilities (#402) for asbestos remediation projects. Ought to Pass City Council

(ID # 12640) Appropriation City of Melrose Page 2 5/5/2025 6:27 PM Minutes Appropriations & Oversight Committee May 1, 2025 An Appropriation from Free Cash (account 01-324001) in the amount of $68,000 to DPW- Parks and Forestry (#475) for tree plantings. Ought to Pass City Council

(ID # 12641) Appropriation An Appropriation from Free Cash (account 01-324001) in the amount of $50,000 to DPW Highway (#422) for sidewalk repairs. Ought to Pass Historical Commission

(ID # 12642) Appropriation An Appropriation from Free Cash (account 01-324001) in the amount of $25,000 to DPW-Admin (#401) to fund a Stormwater Enterprise Study. Ought to Pass City Council

(ID # 12644) Appropriation An Appropriation from Free Cash (01-324001) in the amount of $75,000 to DPW Highway (#422) for traffic improvements. Ought to Pass City Council

(ID # 12646) Appropriation An Appropriation from Free Cash(account 01-324001) in the amount of $189,000 to DPW Facilities (#402) for repairs to the Franklin School. Ought to Pass City Council

(ID # 12643) Appropriation An Appropriation from Free Cash (01-324001) in the amount of $80,000 to DPW Admin (#401) for Stormwater improvements at Ell Pond Park. Ought to Pass City Council

(ID # 12645) Appropriation An Appropriation from Free Cash (account 01-324001) in the amount of $8,000 to DPW - Parks (#475) for flowers at Veterans memorials. Ought to Pass City Council

(ID # 12649) Appropriation City of Melrose Page 3 5/5/2025 6:27 PM Minutes Appropriations & Oversight Committee May 1, 2025 An Appropriation from Free Cash(account 01-324001) in the amount of $20,000 to the Melrose Cultural Council (#2543). Ought to Pass City Council

(ID # 12653) Appropriation An Appropriation from Free Cash (01-324001) in the amount of $2,000 to the Mayor's Office (#121) for costs associated with the inauguration. Ought to Pass City Council City of Melrose Page 4 5/5/2025 6:27 PM

Transcript

▶ 29:37 Mark Garipay: for the record in accordance with, um, the Open Meeting law. This meeting will be recorded in broadcast live on MMTV. Uh, I will motion by unanimous consent to open the floor for public comment. Uh, public comment is now open. This is a portion of the meeting where anyone in the public may speak on any item on today's agenda. Comments expressing any viewpoint on other matters are also welcome. Is there anyone in the gallery that would like to speak on anything on tonight's agenda? Seeing no one in the gallery, is there anyone online? Okay. If there are no objections, I'll motion by unanimous consent to close a public comment portion of the meeting. Public comment is now closed. Okay. Onto, we got a lengthy agenda tonight,

▶ 30:26 Mark Garipay: but we're gonna move right along to grants id. 1 2 6 3 3. The acceptance of FY 25 Firefighter Safety Equipment Grant. Grant awarded to the Melrose Fire Department by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Fire Services in the amount of $4,282 and 2 cents. And we have Chief White here with us. F Chief. Good evening. Um, fire Department's been awarded a $4,282 funding and a grant for Office of Public Safety and Security Department of Fire Services. With these funds, we intend to purchase two SCBA. Those are self-contained breathing, apparat, the masks, and three thermal imaging cameras. And these are the portable ones that, um, that each person wears on with their SCBA, um, to help them inside a smoke field environment.

▶ 31:24 Um, that will outfit the rest of our, most of our positions have them, but this will not outfit positions. The last positions on engine two, engine three and the ladder truck. Um, and with that, we would like to, uh, hopefully get this grant ran in and, uh, purchase these things. Uh, counselor Williams. Williams. Sorry, it's been a long week. I'm sorry. I apologize. Alright. We'll be working together for four years. You might be reminding me of my name by the end of the, Um, I would like to make a motion to, uh, send this to the full board. Second. Second. Yeah. We have a motion to send this to the full board, uh, by Councilor Williams. Second by Council Hamilton threw me off, uh, on discussion.

▶ 32:14 Mark Garipay: Point of clarification as recommended, right? What's that? As recommended? Correct. Sorry. As recommended. Thank you. Thank you. We have a motion to send this to the full board as, uh, recommended by Council Williams, seconded by Council Ham Hamilton on discussion. All in favor? A Aye, aye. Uh, opposed? Actually, roll call. I was just gonna say, yeah. Roll call please. Vice Chair Jamine? Yes. Councilor Occhio? Yes. Councilor Hamilton? Yes. Counselor Karen Chetty. Yes. Cremsky? Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. Present re Yes. Chair Garipay? Yes. Motion passes. I will get recommended to the full council. Thank you, chief. I think that's all we have for you.

▶ 33:03 Mark Garipay: Thank you folks. Thank you. Enjoy your night. Have a nice night. Thank You. Next up we have order id. 1, 2, 6, 1 0. The City council authorized the mayor to enter into an, excuse me, inter municipal agreement with Malden, Medford, Wakefield, Winchester, and Stoneham as part of the Commonwealth's Public Health Excellence for Shared Services grant initiative. We have, um, Anthony Chu in front of us tonight. Hi. Um, thank you for the council for considering this. Um, I wrote a memo, but I'll, I'll, I won't repeat all of it, but I'll go through some of the basics. So, um, the Public Health Excellence grant, um, the City of Melrose has led this initiative since fiscal year 2023. It is a grant from the Department

▶ 33:51 of Public Health at the state level. Um, we have been the fiscal agent since 2023, but we had this grant in the region since 2021. Um, it has helped us, uh, meet our, um, minimum standards that includes inspections in public health nursing. Um, we have, we have several areas that we like to focus in, including professional development, um, maintaining our certifications, as well as increasing capacity for public health infrastructure. Um, so this, this grant has helped us establish a regional governance structure that includes the six towns in our region. That's Malden, Medford, Winchester, um, Melrose Wakefield, and Stoneham. Uh, as you know, Melrose Wakefield and Stoneham already have an existing inter municipal

▶ 34:33 agreement, uh, where we share staff. Um, but by expanding our region, um, in this grant, um, we are able to provide additional services to our area. Um, this, uh, inter municipal agreement has become a requirement from the Department of Public Health after, uh, five years to formalize the structure of our, of our, uh, six towns and make sure that there is accountability and expenditures. Um, so we are able to continue, uh, to be able to continue to administer these funds. Uh, we need to enter into an IMA where the city of Melrose will continue to be the fiscal agent. Um, in the, in terms of the execution of the grant, nothing will change after this unreasonable agreement. Um, all the Health Directors act as a representative

▶ 35:15 to this, um, to this grant. Uh, and it continues to allow us to share resources such as public, uh, public health nurses, epidemiologists, health inspectors, communication specialists, and a shared services coordinator. Um, this will continue to, uh, increase our capacity and, um, improve our service delivery to the communities. Thank you. Council Ra Uh, thank you for coming here tonight. I don't have any questions. I just wanted to make a motion to Recommend. I'll second. We have a mo motion to recommend by council ro seconded by Council Katy, on discussion. I have Council Stewart. And then Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, thank you Mr. Chuy, uh, for this information. Um, just, so of the 561,000

▶ 36:00 that's allocated, how much are we gonna benefit from that? So we currently, we currently hire a, we're, we're in the process of hiring a public health nurse. We have an epidemiologist on staff, uh, shared health inspector and a shared services coordinator. So those services are distributed, um, somewhat evenly across the six communities as needed. So, uh, in the event when there's a vacancy, uh, we're able to make sure that there is no break in service. Uh, the example would be that there was a time when the city of Medford had a change in change in staffing. Um, so we were able to lend some of our regional staff, um, to go and help out. In that case, we actually have a current vacancy at the, uh,

▶ 36:37 senior inspector position. Um, so we're able to leverage, um, the regional health inspector to come and, um, cover some of our inspections while we are, uh, looking to fill that position. So, um, in terms of value, we've been able to share, um, the, you know, the staffing across all six communities evenly. Um, what doesn't go into staffing and salary is put into, uh, resources as translation services, uh, supplies for inspection services and public health nursing, uh, and training resources such as training in the region, travel and, and such. And I also see that you, uh, indicate that we are the lead municipality and fiscal agent. Correct. So that means we're the bookkeeper, right? Correct.

▶ 37:21 Robb Stewart: Yes. Right. And so is there any additional, um, cost or do we, how does that responsibility, um, take on, uh, within Melrose? Yep. So we, we have additional help from, you know, our human resources department, our accounting department. Uh, we have additional help. We also receive, uh, 15 as the, as the lead fiscal agent. We receive a 15%, uh, agency admin fee, um, as the fiscal agent to cover some of those costs. That's a good amount. Good. It's, I like that. Um, okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Uh, council Jamal, and then Council Williams. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, director Cho for, um, for all the work that you've been joined to get this, um, department running smoothly.

▶ 38:07 Maya Jamaleddine: I do, uh, uh, I'm aware of the override that did not pass in stoneham and it did impact different departments. Um, knowing that, you know, the Melrose is suffering also from, uh, the budget challenges and, um, there is, you know, big, um, possibility about the override, what are the impact that, um, knowing about this grant that could, that is impacting Stoneham and, uh, perhaps we would learn from it as well? Absolutely. That's a good question. So, um, the situation in Stoneham without the override, um, several departments in, in the city or, uh, in the town are seeing, uh, cutbacks, uh, in this immediate next fiscal year. We're not expecting to see, um, a large impact on our department. But that's not to say that, um, if the override does,

▶ 38:57 another override does not pass, or the financial situation remains the same, that we won't also see some, um, decreases across the board. Um, right now we are at capacity with our inspection services team, um, Stoneham and Melrose and Wakefield. I think we're not unique. We're seeing an increased development, uh, which means we're gonna have an increased volume of complaints, increased number of inspections we're gonna need conduct. Um, so we will see a need, uh, increase. And so, um, this grant, I believe is, um, is going to help us alleviate some of that, uh, pressure. The Department of Public Health has made it very clear that, um, their goal is as health equity across the state. So they want to be able to fund all communities, um, so

▶ 39:38 Ryan Williams: that, um, you not, you're not only gonna receive services from communities that can afford it, all communities should be afforded, um, public health services. So, um, I see this grant being crucial, um, to our service delivery moving forward. Got It. Thank you. Council Williams? Uh, if my math is right, 15% is $84,000. That Sounds correct. Is that money going into your budget? That I believe is going into the, uh, the city of general funds. So it's general funds. Do you include it in your budget when you're putting your budget together that there's $84,000 in the general fund that's to use, to be used to administrate the public health work? Uh, I, I do not believe so. You Should. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

▶ 40:16 Cool. Alright. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, anyone else on discussion? Mr. Chair? I'll make a motion to recommend this to the full council that we already had One. We already have one On. Oh, that's right. Sorry. It was very early. We're doing great though. You're confusing me. Mr. Tonsil. Stewart, can we take a call? Right. It's gonna be a long night the way we're going. Calling you. Rolling off right. Vice chair. Jamal Ledine? Yes. Councillor Occhio? Yes. Councilor Hamilton? Yes. Councilor Cameron Chetty? Yes. Councillor Brosky. Yes. Dr. Romano? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Vandiver. Yes. Councillor Williams? Yes. President Moore. Yep. Chair Gar Pay. Motion passes. Yes. Thank you Mr. Chu.

▶ 41:02 Mark Garipay: That will be recommended. Thank everybody. Council, uh, next up we're under appropriations. We have ID 1, 2, 6, 4 7 and appropriation from free cash account 0 1 3 2 4 0 0 1 in the amount of 48,000 to DPW Parks. Number 4, 7 5 for improvements to the dog park. We have, uh, park Superintendent Rob Carillo with us Floor. Your Thank you. Um, so if anyone's not familiar with the dog park, it's across from Melrose High School. Uh, and of the Noel parking Lot. It was installed in 2012. Looking at the records is around 11 grand was appropriated to do the whole thing. Um, the fence is a four foot fence with all the mulch being pushed up against it. It's more of a two foot fence. So the kind of issues we have are like safety concerns.

▶ 41:51 Um, a dog jumping over that fence. We have soccer, lacrosse, any sports going on over there? Um, I've been in this role since September, I believe it's been 12 requests to DPW to patch the fence. So right now, if you go drive by there and look at the fence, it's all patched up and just twined together. So it's definitely due. Um, the quote I got for this fence was for something that we're gonna set and forget. I don't wanna have to keep dealing with broken fences or asking DPW to pull the mulch back. It's a six foot fence. It's a little bit more heavy duty. Um, the company also quoted to do the mulch to do this project, the mulch gonna have to be removed for, from about 50% of the dog park.

▶ 42:28 Cal Finocchiaro: Um, so they're gonna take that out. They're gonna do mulching. They're gonna have a six foot fence with higher quality, um, steel or aluminum, whatever it is for that. Um, yeah, so, and the, the dog society has been requesting this for a, a long time, much longer than I've been in this role. Um, and the issue's kind of been funding for it. So I figured I'd put up to the city council's decision Council Fano, Thanks for being here tonight. And I'm in that dog park a lot, uh, with my dogs. And yes, it's actually, I've been there and they've almost jumped over the fence because we, the mulch meets it. It's literally like a foot and a half, two feet high. Yeah. Um, is it gonna be another chain link fence, do you

▶ 43:09 Know? Yes. Six foot chain link. Okay. Um, the gate rails and the corners are gonna be thicker. Okay. Poles. And then it's gonna be the same three inch poles around six foot tall. Okay. Great. Um, I know fencing is expensive and that's a big park, so I'm assuming this is the, this bid is correct, but yeah. Um, I'll make a motion to recommend. Second, We have a motion to recommend by Council Gerra. Seconded by Council Romano Ramal on discussion. Council Jamal. Thank you. Um, are all the materials, um, like in, in stocks and that is needed for this, uh, project? I believe so. So it's not something that we, we will need to order and we will need to get quotes on everything. The company's on the state bid list.

▶ 44:02 Maya Jamaleddine: Um, they've done work with the city before. Um, they give us the quote with materials, labor, everything included. Knowing that what's going on right now in the country. All the quotes are about, you know, it used to be at least a month, um, uh, before it expires. Now there is some quotes one day or 24 hours. Are these, uh, is this the case in this order? I'm not a hundred percent sure. I got, got this quote two weeks ago, so I can double check. Okay. Once I get outta this meeting, I can give the guy a call and find out, but I, I believe that's, um, ongoing with that price. Well, thank you Council Stewart. Thank you Mr. Chair. Um, just for the public's awareness, um, how long, how long will we shut down,

▶ 44:52 uh, when you're gonna do this? Um, depending on if the money's appropriated, um, I'm guessing summer is probably a good time to do it. Just piggybacking off of, um, councilor John Modine's point there, if the prices are gonna change, probably the sooner the better in a situation like that. Um, I didn't get an estimated date for it when I got the quote. I was just kind of get a ballpark of what it would cost. Okay. And how long would it, how long roughly do you think it would be down for? Not Sure. Not sure? Okay. Alright. I think it's 520 feet of fence around the border. So I'm guessing they have a full team out here. It's not a small job. It's not like a, a backyard. So I'm guessing they'll have a good amount

▶ 45:31 Kimberly Vandiver: of people out here to take care of it. Okay. So in three days instead of two days. Right. Alright. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Council Vandever. Thank you. Um, uh, well, I don't have a dog. We, my toddler and I like to watch the dogs, the dog park. Um, is there, has there ever been anything from the dog owners about, um, you know, if we're doing this fence right now, is it, is the dog park definitely in the correct configuration to, you know, as far as the shape, the size? Like, is there any other change that you might foresee making that you would wanna do before, you know, equipment inside? Anything else you might wanna change out before doing the fence? Um, so that was one of the first things I learned about this job is I walked

▶ 46:08 with the President of the Doc Society and a few other members, and 90% of the conversation was them talking about the fence. Um, they had a few ideas to kind of upgrade some of the things in there, but there was no comment on adding new structures or anything like that. It was kind of just updating. Um, they talked about adding like a, a grip tape to some of the climbing structures. 'cause dogs were sliding. But in terms of expanding the area, there's been no request. Awesome. Thank you so much. Any other councils take a roll call. Vice Chair Jamine? Yes. Council Occhio? Yes. Councilor Hamilton? Yes. Council Karara Chetty? Yes. Councilor Reky? Yes. Councilor Romanul. Woo. Uh, yes. Stop part Stewart. Sorry. Council Stewart?

▶ 47:00 Mark Garipay: Yes. Council Vanderberg? Yes. Council Williams? Yes. President Elli? Yes. Chair Gareg? Yes. Motion passes. I will get recommended to the full council. Thank you. Thank you. Julie Knight. Next up is ID 1 2, 6, 5, 0 and appropriation of free cash account 0 1 3 2 4 0 0 1 in the amount of 16,000 to the police department. Number two 11 for evidence software. We have Chief Alia with us tonight. Good morning. Uh, good afternoon, evening Chief. Darn It. You remembered my name though. That's good. Good, good evening. Now We're gonna let that one Down. Good evening everybody. Uh, I did have a memo and it's, it's relatively brief, so if, if you can endure door me for a minute, I will read it. And if you have any questions, obviously I can clarify.

▶ 47:46 Um, so we're looking for $16,000, uh, for the purchase of evidence software. Uh, the 16 doll, $16,000 will cover the software licensing, the hardware that's gonna come along with IT training, and, uh, more, more importantly, the migration of all of our existing data, um, in our current system to the new system. Uh, and the system is called, uh, software is called Tracker Products, LLC. Uh, updating our evidence intake and tracking system has been a priority of mine since I became chief, excuse me. And with the upcoming move into the new police station a few years or so, it's even more of a priority. We have 6,000 plus pieces of evidence and properly property currently logged into our system,

▶ 48:30 and we need to account for that accurately. Uh, certainly prior to moving and transporting the 6,000 pieces of evidence and property into a new station. And this particular product is vetted through numerous agencies across the Commonwealth, and I can attest to its value and its, um, its quality. Having utilized the same product in my previous employment in another agency, um, monitoring evidence and staying up to date is vital not only to protect the best interests of our personnel, but also to ensure that we as a city are doing what we can do to maintain the best industry practices as we move towards accrediting accreditation and complying with the continual changes and requirements of the law.

▶ 49:11 We're, we're constantly, uh, asked to do more things, uh, you know, uh, tighten up things by, uh, statute and this will certainly get us, uh, to the best industry practices. I also met with our city IT department and they sat in with a couple meetings with the vendor, um, that we're looking to purchase this from. And they're all on board with it. And it actually saves a lot of, um, storage space and sort of a accountability on the city. And as far as this is all cloud-based secure, um, evidence that the city, uh, IT department will no longer have to store in our own server. And, uh, that's by memo. Thank you Chief Councilor. Jamal. Thank you. Thank you Chief. Um, can you explain to, um, ask

▶ 49:56 Maya Jamaleddine: and for, uh, those that's watching, um, uh, the process of how, when that transition and when you're starting new, uh, software or how those evidence are being integrated into the new, uh, software and how, how much are we protecting confidentiality, uh, in a way? Um, that's my first question. My second question, you shared that there is different agencies that do have access to that. Is ICE one of them? Um, no, they wouldn't. The, so I can answer the first question first if you don't mind. Um, which now you threw me off a little bit. Oh, the intake. The intake and migrating and stuff. So, so the biggest thing in, when I worked in Medford for 28 years, obviously you guys know my history. So 11 years I ran detective division,

▶ 50:48 which my primary responsibility on one of them was overseeing evidence and supervising that. And we migrated from, uh, our previous system to this one. No, no issues, no flaws, no nothing. And, uh, meeting with the vendors in IT and my own people, um, it's a very secure, uh, way they do it. Um, so it's vetted through, like I said, through other agencies. I just sent my, uh, evidence guys to, uh, a seminar to learn the updated rules, regulations, laws, and the, uh, vent, um, instructors that taught this. A retired, retired chief who lives in the city and another, uh, current lieutenant over at S pd. And they, they, they, they use the system as well as Bedford pd, the migration system, which I talked about briefly.

▶ 51:31 What I didn't say was our current record management system, IMC software will now be integrated with this as well. So it'll, they'll talk to each other. Our current evidence systems is not, it will save man manpower issues where we're not doubly entering things. And as far as your second question, as far as if, would ICE have access to it? No, no other agency, even though they use the product, will have access to our Merose PD evidence. Uh, the way we operate, it's very strict. It's, there's only two people who have access to it right now, supervisor in charge of detectives and, uh, the patrol officer, detective who works for him that have administrative access, certainly every patrol officer,

▶ 52:08 Maya Jamaleddine: everybody in the department will get trained to use it and enter evidence. As far as protecting the sanctity of it, uh, no, it's, it would be just Merose Police. And that's actually one of the other advantages I talked about in removing pictures. Photos and stuff entering into Merrill's, uh, city of Merrill's soft, um, servers and computers. You know, that's quite frankly, not the best industry practice to begin with. So we'll be moving away from that where it's ultimately secure when no one can get access to it. Awesome. Thank you so much for clarifying, for the clarification. Um, and this could be, you know, indirectly related to this project, but what if other agencies like ICE would ask for to access, uh,

▶ 52:51 Robb Stewart: those information? And I don't think they'd have a need to, uh, quite frankly, but if they were to No, they, they would be denied access to. They would be denied. Yeah. If, if, if any agency, quite frankly asked or anybody outside of our sworn personnel who have authorized access to it, they would not be allowed in. Awesome. Thank you so much. Sure. Council Stewart? Thank you Mr. Chair. Um, thank you. Uh, chief Elliot, just to confirm, you, you are acquiring the cloud version, not the on-prem version. What, what, I'm sorry. You're, You're acquiring the cloud version of the software and not the on-prem version of the software? Yes, everything's stored in the cloud. Yeah. Great. Yeah. And just,

▶ 53:33 Robb Stewart: and just for, I, I've been looking on the website, um, they do, I know this feel a little bit, um, they do have extremely stringent requirements. Um, so I, I will compliment your, your statements 'cause they're using a FedRAMP, fisma, those are all very secure lockdown, um, components that, um, I think is great to secure this information. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Anyone else? Councilor Williams? Just two things. Um, if you could send like the quote or whatever so we can append it to the record so that we can just have it for posterity. And then I, I know that probably a lot of this cost is, um, the license. Do you know off the top of your head? Correct. I'm looking actually at a, at a, um,

▶ 54:22 Ryan Williams: 2024 quote from the same company to a police department in Kentucky. That was about like eight $8,500 of a, of a, um, $14,000 quote. 8,500 was the, was the annual license? Correct. So that's about what we're looking at. Annual like Yes, exactly. 84 80. Um, so this, this, this $16,000 will cover FY 26. Got it. With the two licenses and all the migration training, et cetera, et cetera. FY 27 will have a cost of 84. 80 Okay. Per, per Year. Thank you. Yep. Counsel Vandiver. Thank you. Um, real briefly, um, with the 6,000 pieces of evidence, um, is there a time horizon after which those get taken out of the system, or are they stored indefinitely? Um, they're, they're stored indefinitely for sure.

▶ 55:10 And that's why I'm excited that we can get this ball rolling this year, uh, because we can do our full audit, full migration of everything, and now we'll know exactly what we have and if there's any inconsistencies, we can rectify that before we even pack up and, and move to the new location. Mm-hmm. Is there, is there any point in time at which, you know, the case has been over for long enough where I, I, I'm just wondering, you know, 50 years in the future, will this pile pile up? Pile up, Or, oh, you mean at some point? You mean physical, like the physical evidence? I thought you meant like the, the computer entries into the Yeah. Uh, no. Well, that's one of our projects that we have, we just started doing now, uh, is

▶ 55:47 how much can we get rid of Okay. Prior to the move. Uh, and it's very time consuming. Um, and property is one thing. Evidence is a different thing. Uh, and you need, uh, court orders to do that. And it's, uh, it's, I went through it. It's, it's, it's gonna be labor intensive, but we're, we're gonna try to streamline everything that we can do before we Okay. Great. Yeah, that's the direction I was, was asking in. And anything, even though it's labor intensive that you can do before the move and before the entry into the software did, kind of Hundred percent. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Anyone else? What's the will of the, uh, Stewart? Yeah. Mr. Chair, I make a motion to recommend to the full counsel.

▶ 56:27 Mark Garipay: Second. Second. I have a motion to recommend to the full council by council, uh, Stewart, seconded by councilor uh, Al on discussion, full vote, please. Vice chair Jamal Dean? Yes. Councilor Occhio. Yes. Councillor Hamilton? Yes. Councilor Cameron Chetty. Yes. Cremsky? Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. Present mere. Yes. Chair Gar Pay? Yes. Motion passes. I will get recommended to the full council. Um, one more for you Chief id. 1, 2, 6, 5, 1. And appropriation of free cash account. 0 1 3 2 4 dash, I'm sorry, 3 2 4 0 0 1 in the amount of 90,000 to the police department for the purchase of a new cruiser? Yes. Thank you. Uh, I will read the memo again if, uh,

▶ 57:20 if you, uh, endure me again. Uh, so we'll, we are looking for $90,000 to purchase an outfit, an unmarked administrative police cruiser, to replace, uh, our oldest unmarked administrative vehicle, which is a 2013 Ford Taurus. It's has 90 1003 92, roughly 92,000 miles on it. Um, engine hours. We were unable to determine. It's got transmission issues, front end issues, and other various mechanical issues. And it's approaching 13 year olds. It's the oldest vehicle on our fleet. Numerous issues. And I just stated, uh, we also don't have a, uh, and we, we've been lacking this. We don't have a dedicated, um, uh, unmarked slash detective vehicle for a mental health detective that we created, uh, a few years ago.

▶ 58:05 And part of our grant that we're on with the co, uh, co response and the clinician is to re is to do co response. And we don't even have a dedicated unmarked vehicle for them. So this would certainly help us 'cause I can shuffle around to different cars and now they will have their own if we're fortunate enough to get this administrative vehicle. Um, and not only does that mental health detective do that, he does general police work, uh, in detective work. And we've had few serious cases, and unfortunately in the last few years with, um, you know, homicide and a couple other suspicious deaths where we didn't even have enough detective vehicles in which I had to send people to various locations

▶ 58:43 to do follow up investigatory work. And one of our detectives had to, he actually take his own car to get there. So this certainly helps. I've, I put some free cash requests and I believe the last two, um, budget requests that weren't, um, um, approved, uh, never got to this point, but, um, I've been trying to get, uh, uh, new vehicles. So, um, I do have quotes on file. I just also wanna note too, that, um, the vehicle that we'd be looking to get is a, is a gas powered vehicle. And, you know, currently the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources still currently exempts police vehicles from the fuel efficient vehicle policy, mostly due to market availability. The last, um, hybrid vehicle that we got for the Mark Fleet,

▶ 59:21 Cal Finocchiaro: um, it took almost a year to get it. And, uh, when I looked into getting quotes for this and another mark unit that's not in front of, um, you people today, um, there, there are no hybrids available. Um, so, um, we'd be looking for a gas powered vehicle. I just wanna let let the council member. Thank you. Council ro. Thank you, chair Carpe. Um, thanks for being here tonight and, uh, for explaining all that. I just wanted to check on two things. Do you, will it be a forward Taurus today end replacement, like a exact car, or do you, are you gonna, do you have a Car? I have, I have two quotes. Uh, we're looking at a Chevy Tahoe. Okay. Or a Ford, um, SUV. Mm-hmm. And you think that $90,000 will cover it, or do you think

▶ 1:00:08 It it'll get us right there? Yeah. The, the quotes for the vehicles I have certainly are, is under 90,000. Then we have to outfit and I have quotes for that, uh, mark, you know, lights mm-hmm. You know, outfitting it. And then, you know, um, as counselor said, uh, the quote's still good, uh, but if we delay, we don't know with, uh, the changes. So I, I, 90,000 should get us right there for sure. I, we'll be good. Great. And I think an SUV is the way to go if you can do something. So thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Aldi. Thank you, chief. Uh, what are the, um, qualifications or like special features that are in the card, especially that you mentioned that this would be, uh, designated for mental health, um, use in a way.

▶ 1:00:52 So, I, I just wanna clarify the, he, the, the mental health detective is probably not gonna get the brand new car. Uh, it's a seniority thing. Um, and I've already had these discussions. The sergeant in charge of the detective vision, we will be cycling cars around this will, now, the mental health detective will get a different vehicle that he does not have, and someone else will get a, a different car. And quite frankly, I, I may take the car just to put, put it out there, uh, as the chief and my car will go, uh, to the detective sergeant. Mm-hmm. Okay. My car's in great shape too, so, uh, we're just shuffling vehicles around. Okay. So the new car would be going to you for the chief fuse?

▶ 1:01:27 Maya Jamaleddine: Yes. And then, um, the, uh, mental health detective will take, um, you know, you'll pass, uh, another car from that is existing. Correct. Um, is there any specification, um, that has to be in that car to be used by mental health detective? No. No. No. Um, just your standard unmarked detective administrative vehicle? We wouldn't be transporting anybody, uh, generally in that car that would require any type of special equipment. So it, just like any other of our unmarked administrative cars, a radio, some lights, and It's about it. Okay. And are all the cruisers have the same features? Same. Um, We, they don't, um, it's a weird question. Um, it's a weird answer I should say. 'cause they're all different. They're all different makes,

▶ 1:02:14 Kimberly Vandiver: we're all mismatched of, uh, we got some Chevys, we got some Fords, we got some Tauruses, we got this and that. Uh, but the general interior structure is the same. Uh, but sometimes you get, you run into things with where the radio is gonna go when, because we have to purchase a radio, certainly. And those, those are just aftermarket things that the outfitter figures out. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Vandiver. Thank you. Um, with the existing, um, car that would be retired is, is there somebody that is now not having a car because of that? And, and what will happen to that vehicle when once it's replaced? So it, it's a little bit of semantics when I wrote that. So the replacing is replacing that,

▶ 1:02:53 that currently the court prosecutor uses that, uses that, which is kind of good because there's not a lot of, um, basically it's, it's, we're not taking it off the road, is what I'm saying. I I'm replacing it and gonna be moving that, uh, the mental health detective may get that. Like I, we haven't fully made up our mind. So it's not replacing to take it and put it in surplus because, um, that mental health detective never had a car to begin with. So this, this extra car, other car will now suffice for every, every detective that will need a car to respond for whatever reason, will actually have a vehicle and not be without if something happens. Anyone else? Council Jammal for a second. I'll make a motion to command. We have a motion.

▶ 1:03:41 Mark Garipay: Second on the floor by Council Aldi. Seconded by Council Ro on discussion. Roll call. Vice Chair Jamine? Yes. Councillor Ro? Yes. Councilor Hamilton? Yes. Councilor Karen Chetty? Yes. Councilor Bruski? Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Council Vander? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. President Meley? Yes. Chair? Yes. Dear Gar Pay Yes. Passes that will get recommended to the full counsel. Thank you, chief. Thank you. Thank you. Next up we have ID 1, 2, 6, 4, 8, and appropriation from free cash account zero one dash 3 2 4 0 0 1 in the amount of 20,002 HR to fund costs associated with physicals and advertising. Good evening. Good evening. So, um, this is a, a brief one. So I'm here tonight

▶ 1:04:42 Maya Jamaleddine: to request a free cash appropriation in the amount of 20,000 for advertising and pre-employment exams. Normally this is funded through the operations budget, however, due to the budget, cons, constraints, and the unknowns of what the override, uh, holds, we are looking just for the next fiscal year to shift that funding through to, uh, free cash and kind of reduce the pressure on the operating budget. Council Aldi, Thank you. Aye. Hi. Um, so what is, uh, usually, uh, the amount that is allocated for, um, advertising and all the other stuff on a yearly basis? 8,000 for advertising and 12,000 for pre-employment exams. So it's the same, so same amount we, we allocate every year, 20,000, but instead of including it in a budget, we are gonna, um,

▶ 1:05:45 Maya Jamaleddine: request it from free cash this year. That's correct. We're simply shifting it to free Cash. And, um, can you explain to us, um, what is the use like for advertising? What are specifically like, you can just give us examples. Sure. Um, we advertise using various recruiting sources. Um, some are free, um, but some do cost money. So we use the Mass Municipal Association for more specialized municipal jobs. We use, indeed, we use various specialized professional organizations and it costs money. Okay. And is there, um, are these, um, like a membership or is it based on It's, it's based on the particular, um, vacancy particular job ad. Okay. So some one year you may use more than 8,000 Yes. And one year you may use less than that, right? That's,

▶ 1:06:46 That's correct. So we don't just have a membership to MMA and then we can post X number of jobs. It's all based on, um, the individual ads that we, um, have. Got it. Mm-hmm. And you usually use all this amount, like based on the posting and the use for that? It, this is their amount? Depends on, Depends on the year. Uh, last year we had, um, increased it because we had seen, um, higher utilization depends on the vacancies we have, which is exactly why we're looking to shift it to free cash because we are not anticipating to fill, um, really many any vacancies or it, it all depends. Um, right now we have a freeze on hiring unless the positions are required by law or there are key positions we have to fill,

▶ 1:07:41 Maya Jamaleddine: Which is, and, and that, I'm sorry to interrupt, but that leads me to the question. Since we, you know, we don't have the capacity for hiring, how are we manage, like how are we for forecasting that we are going to use that $8,000 in advertisement if we are really mm-hmm. I mean, we, we are simply shifting it from operating budget to the free cash. It's really hard to forecast for fiscal year 26 because we, I, we don't know what the future holds. We don't know if the override's going to pass or not. Um, so it's really hard to forecast. That's why it's in, in free cash. Yeah. And was everything used from last year, like the 8,000, was it used in The majority? Majority, yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Mm-hmm.

▶ 1:08:40 Manjula Karamcheti: Councilor Kati and then Council Stewart. Um, just to clear. Hi, how are you? Good, how are you? Hi. Good. Nice to see you. I, I, I think I would, based on Councilor Laine's questions, I just could use a little clarification. So you are requesting free cash of $20,000, like proactively for what you may or may not need in the 20 25, 20 26 budget cycle, which as a council, we haven't gone through yet in terms of what's been, what's in that budget. So, but am I understanding correctly, like this isn't free cash to pay for something that we owe. This is possibly something that we might need in 20 25, 20 26, but you're proactively taking it out of your budget for 20 25, 20 26 and moving it to free cash.

▶ 1:09:44 Yes. It's for fiscal year 26. So this has nothing to do with the current fiscal year 25. Right. So starting July one, July is for first. Yeah. Yes. Okay. I'm just slightly confused by that strategy, but mm-hmm. Maybe it's just me All set. Yep. Council Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, but we're pulling from, we're pulling from this fiscal year right? On the free cash? I, Right. I Just, yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Just one clarification on that. Thank you, Mr. Chair. President Elli, Um, just through the chair, I, I think this is the practice of using free cash to, To allocate for the, the next following fiscal year isn't all that uncommon. It's just that I think in this situation, what's giving me

▶ 1:10:50 Leila Migliorelli: not, not pause for necessarily not approving it, but it's because unlike the, let's say the chief's car, you know, you know that you're going to buy that and maybe you will buy that in FY 26. And so I think maybe the point of slight confusion here is that we are trying to, um, well, it's a, a trust issue. You know, you're saying that you will need $20,000 because you have used $20,000 in past years and to pull this out of the operating budget, um, because it's a, a like a fixed cost. Mm-hmm. It's not a, it's not a salary, it's not, um, something built into the budget. I mean, the only thing that I, I would just sort of agree with counselor, Jamal Dean's point, um, physical exams aside, I'm actually looking at the FY 26

▶ 1:11:37 Leila Migliorelli: budget, which shows FY 24 spend and FYI 25 year to date. And it seems like physical exams is something we always spend money on advertising. I, I do agree that if we, even with the over, I mean, it's a override isn't, we haven't even voted on putting that on the ballot yet. So I, I would just assume that under a hiring freeze, you wouldn't be advertising for as many positions year to date, you spent like 5 50, 400 on advertising. Um, so we would likely spend that much, or maybe a little bit less. I think just the council's vote is to, whether we feel confident in giving mm-hmm. That money and allocating it for that purpose. Um, $8,000. So just, I, I dunno, hopefully that clarified some things for some people.

▶ 1:12:30 Ryan Williams: But Thank you. Council Williams. I just threw the chair. I want to, um, make sure that I understand this clearly. The free cash doesn't live in the operating budget, right? It, it, it's outside the operating budget. So we, you know, the free cash is the free cash. We can put it in the operating budget, which is what we're kind of starting to do a little bit of here. And it's showing the cracks in the, um, you know, in, in the city's ability to maintain operations without an override. Um, but I appreciate that that's the position that we're in. So, uh, that's what we gotta do. And that's a small amount, thankfully, we're not taking, you know, millions of dollars out of free cash to pay for salaries or anything crazy like that.

▶ 1:13:08 Cal Finocchiaro: Like some communities have done. Um, yeah. Thank you. Thank you Councilor Ro I guess, um, my only question would be if the funds don't get used, you know, in the, in the upcoming year, do they just sit in account for with the HR department or, Um, I don't believe so. They don't sit with the HR department. Okay. It's just for this fiscal, for the upcoming fiscal year. If they don't get used, um, I believe they just go back to free cash. Okay. Thanks. Council Vandiver. Thank you. Um, through the chair. I think maybe one way we could think about this is basically is putting money into stabilization fund. It's just that we don't have a stabilization fund, but it would be similar to putting money proactively into any

▶ 1:13:54 Mark Garipay: of our stabilization funds for future use when we might not have money available. That's how I would think about this. Thank you. Um, I had a lot of the same questions that Council Jamal Ledine had and Councilor Ache had. Um, I question how much, how, how many individuals we're gonna be hiring, but I do realize that we do have positions that we are going to need to replace that are currently in the budget. Right. That we're potentially are not gonna be cut. So we are gonna have to use that, that money. Um, so yeah, I, I have the same questions, but the more I'm thinking about it, I think we're, it's not the, the best practice, but it's, it's where we are. And, and we had to, we're gonna be presented a balanced budget, I'm assuming,

▶ 1:14:45 Maya Jamaleddine: assuming we have to be on Monday. So they had to make cuts where they could. So, council Aldi, Thank you. Second, this order does not pass. Would you be able, and let's say you needed to fund for a position that you need to post, um, what would be the solution for you? Would you come back to us and ask for specific amount of money? Or how would you, you know, uh, problem solve? I'm sorry, can you just repeat the question? Didn't hear the beginning. So if this order Yeah. Does not pass, let's say, okay. Uh, worst case scenario does not pass. And let's say next year you, you don't have that budget to post for any position. Uh, what would, how would you problem solve? I mean, I can only use the money that I have available

▶ 1:15:43 that allocated for a certain purpose. So I will have to come to the city council and request the money. Otherwise, I cannot start recruiting. So you can always come back and request that amount of money? Right, right. It'll most likely delay the process, but that is, um, my option. Yeah. Okay. Um, just for the, for the record, they would be able to come back for free cash when it is certified, which wouldn't be until January. Potentially. Or, or November. Or November. So, um, councilor Hamilton for the first time, council Stewart and Councilor m Thank you. Um, real quickly, so for this to get before us tonight mm-hmm. Does this ha this has the blessing of the administration. Like, this isn't you on your own, right?

▶ 1:16:35 Robb Stewart: It was not my idea. Yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm. It was an administration's idea. Yes. Mm-hmm. Thank you. And I support it. Thank you. Council Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Mr. Chair, and through the chair. Um, I agree that it's, it's not, um, it's not ideal for what we do, but, um, I believe that if anybody understands the requirements of hiring, it's gonna be Ms. Lada, um, more than anybody else in the administration. 'cause that's what she does for the, the, the, the whole administration. So, uh, for that reason, I would support this, um, with the understanding that this is not something that we want to do at a greater extent. Um, and, and I understand that we are in a certain situation, so, um, I'll support this. Thank

▶ 1:17:25 You President. Merely. I'm all set. Thank you. All set. Councilor fro, I'm Not sure if there's a motion on the table. I was just gonna make a motion to recommend May have motion. Second. Motion to recommend by Councilor fro. Seconded by President Moore on discussion. Roll call. Vote please. Vice chair. Jamine. No, I'm sorry. Can't. Um, I'm sorry. Could you say that again? Sha No. Okay. Counselor Occhio? Yes. Counselor Hamilton? Yes. Counselor. Karen Chatty. Yes. Councilor Reky. Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. President Moore? Yes. Chair Repe? Yes. Motion passes Will be recommended to the full council. Thank you, Ms. Lata. Thank you, Julian.

▶ 1:18:23 Mark Garipay: I, next up we have ID 1, 2, 6, 3, 7. And appropriation from free cash account zero one dash 3 2 4 0 0 1 in the amount of 175,000 to DPW admin for Lebanon in Sylvan Street Stormwater Project, we have Ms. Proac Ellis and Mr. Troop with us for the foreseeable future. Thank you. Um, so I'll give a little bit of background on this project. Um, back in, well, back when I started around 2015, this, uh, the Lebanon Sylvan intersection and the associated drainage that floods during pretty low volume storms, um, floods routinely and also floods into the cemetery. The drainage goes through the cemetery out to and outfall that's right on the Pine Banks and cemetery, uh, border. Um, it has been one of the most significant flooding concerns

▶ 1:19:24 that the city's had in the entire time I've worked here. We applied for FEMA grants two different times for this project. MEMA was very much in support of funding it, but FEMA ultimately denied it after about a three year process, um, application process. We then submitted it for an earmark, a federal earmark, um, about a year and a half ago. And it got approved. In the meantime, back probably five years ago, we requested $129,000 to get the design started when we thought that the, when we were in one of the approval processes for that FEMA grant, and we thought we would get the grant awarded if we did a little bit more design work. Um, so we got 129,000 and we've been working with a consultant, um,

▶ 1:20:11 on some preliminary design and modeling and such for that. Um, for that project, we've now been awarded the million dollars of congressionally directed spending. Um, and provided that nothing changes on the federal level, we require the additional 175,000 to meet our, uh, match component. There's a small component also of in-kind services, but the 175,000 is the remaining match component for the city. Um, the design work is going well, and I guess, and oh, just to be clear, the million dollars, it only can fund the investigatory and design work, bringing it all the way up to biddable plans. But it can't fund based on the way the earmark was written. It cannot fund, um, construction. But the goal of this is to have

▶ 1:21:02 a completely biddable project at the end of the day that we can then resubmit for grant funding with FEMA and hopefully get it the fact that they opted to fund the, um, the design work through the, uh, earmark process. But it also still goes through fema. Um, we're hoping means that we can come out in the end with a project that FEMA approves of that meets their criteria for benefit cost ratio. And then hopefully we can get construction funding down the road. Um, but if anything changes on the federal level with this, um, with the congressionally directed spending, we would just continue to spend the 175,000 on the design. Um, we wouldn't be able to complete the design, but we would just move the project

▶ 1:21:47 Devin Romanul: that much farther forward. I think this is a critical project that we need to be putting money into, whether we have the million dollars or not. So, um, I would recommend that we move forward despite the uncertainty on the federal level, but we are hoping that since this was an already approved project, um, that we, that our funding hopefully is secure. Councilor Romanul and then Councilor Williams. Um, thanks so much for bringing this to us. I can just share with my colleagues. This is the number one intersection for me for constituent service, um, inquiries, complaints, and, um, so I'm very enthusiastic. I think I've lost a recycling bin to the water going down the hill. I'm just a few blocks away. Um, two quick questions.

▶ 1:22:32 Devin Romanul: Uh, I wanted to ask about a timeline for the proposal, ultimately to be able to have a biddable project, number one. Number two, is there any interplay to the TIP project that is, that is looming on Lebanon Street? Yeah, those are both great questions. Um, timeline wise, I would say the design will take about a year. Um, and then ideally we would be eligible. We also need to finish our hazard mitigation plan update to be eligible for FEMA funding. And we're doing that right now. That will be done within the year timeframe too. So hopefully in about a year we'll have a, a, a project to resubmit to fema. Great. Mm-hmm. Um, regarding the relationship with the TIP project, the work, most of the work won't be in the actual intersection,

▶ 1:23:15 but I do anticipate that there'll be some regrading in the intersection, and that's critical to factor that into the design of the TIP project. Great. Thanks so much. Yeah. So Council Williams, Sort of a similar, so similar vein. Um, so FEMA has sent us this money, or it's an escrow or something? No. Okay. Um, so we presently have two FEMA projects. Yeah. The, the other one is the brick grant project. Mm-hmm. They're both reimbursable projects. Okay. But in terms of the Brick grant, the money has been sent from FEMA to mema and MEMA administers the grant to us. Um, and we got a letter the other day saying that that one was secure, and that was the one that we thought was, was at the time, more at risk because the whole brick program has been pulled

▶ 1:24:09 from FEMA completely. Mm-hmm. Um, so any project that wasn't already secured and underway got their money definitely pulled from the brick program. Um, this is through the hazard mitigation program that is a little less sort of politically charged, but that doesn't mean it won't get pulled. Right. So, yeah, it's really hard to tell. Um, but, but we don't have a signed contract on that one yet, so it does put it at greater risk in that regard. Okay. So we give $175,000 and that we take that and we say to the feds, we have this money for the match, can you please send us the million dollars? Right. Okay. So, Well, it's still reimbursable though. Can you please send fema, uh, send MEMA the million dollars?

▶ 1:24:54 Ryan Williams: Right. Yeah. And the state will give it to us as we spend. Got It. Okay. So, you know, in, in the, um, potential outcome where fema, there's no one left at FEMA maybe to answer the phones, and they just never send it to mema, this $175,000 that could not go to use for this purpose goes where, or what happens to It, it still gets spent toward design of this problem. Okay. It just doesn't have the benefit of the additional million dollars to complete the Design. That's a lot. That's a, that's like a, a million versus $175,000. What kind of design could you do for $175,000 that, that, like where does the extra million Go? So, from what we've done so far, um, we had been hopeful that our initial design would be considered a full solution,

▶ 1:25:43 which is upsizing the pipes through the cemetery, running them in a better location. Right now, they run under the dog park, so we can't even access, we can access the manholes, but we, we can't dig through the dog park to put in new pipes. So we were gonna relocate them to the road and upsize them. Um, that will solve a portion of the problem. But I guess the, the modeling has shown that that's really not the ideal solution. My impression from our most recent meeting with the consultant is we're gonna have to be looking at sort of a multi-pronged solution to this problem. Um, we will still have to upsize those pipes. We'll have to put in probably a new outfall. We'll probably have to dredge some down the, um, the stream

▶ 1:26:26 that it enters as it leaves Melrose and goes into Malden. Um, we might have to do some other downstream improvements in Malden. This is technically a joint project because it's required to be, um, because we have to look at downstream impacts. We may end up wanting to do something to, to redirect some of the drainage toward Main Street at Sylvan. Um, there's a separate drainage system that goes in that direction to spot Pond Brook that might be offsetting part of it. There's a drainage basin in the cemetery. We may want to do something to enhance that, give it more storage capacity. So there's all these little projects. So perhaps we, we pick the most significant, uh, beneficial project of the many projects

▶ 1:27:13 Ryan Williams: and we just advance that design and try to construct that one. Um, but yeah, there are a lot of unknowns still as, as the modeling continues before we can really answer that question. So, so this is a, this is a stormwater capacity and storage potentially project that goes between Melrose and Malden under the cemetery into Pine Banks Park, connects to, uh, spot Pond or something, or spot on Brook or something else? Yeah. Farther downstream. It connects to, it may even be Malden River By the time it connects. Wow. Yeah. Um, okay. And with the tip, you could regrade the intersection if you had the right Yes. Specs. Yes. So you can certainly regrade the intersection Yeah. To make it higher. But that's not gonna solve, right.

▶ 1:27:57 That's not gonna solve funding problem because it's just, it's too extensive to solve just by raising the road. Okay. Well it's good that you've got a couple of things to pull from, from this. 'cause tip is 2028, it's in 26 30 right now. Provided that we can fund the remaining, the 25 to a hundred percent design. So we've funded the 25% design. Right. We're looking at over 900,000 to fund the remainder of the design. Okay. Um, we're hoping to take bits and pieces of Chapter 90 and such when we have, if we have anything left over. Um, but we're gonna have to at some point figure out where that money's gonna come from. Okay. Alright. No more questions for me. Thank you Councilor Ro? Yes. Um, thank you. And thank you for being here.

▶ 1:28:43 Cal Finocchiaro: I just have one follow up question. So, just to clarify, um, if we approve the $175,000, you submitted the request for a million dollar grant, that was for what? For whatever reason we, we didn't get it. You were saying that you would We could use that 175,000 towards other smaller projects in the city. We would still use it toward the drainage issue at Lebanon and Sylvan. Okay. We would just continue to advance the modeling and the design as far as we could with the money that we have. We haven't even completed spending the 129,000 that we had. Okay. We've been working very slowly on it because we've been kind of holding back. We didn't want to go too far if we weren't gonna get any more money.

▶ 1:29:23 Um, but yeah, we would, we would advance as much of the design as we could. Okay. And with a lot of these grant projects, not just through FEMA but through the state's, um, MVP, the municipal vulnerability, uh, preparedness program, um, a lot of these grant opportunities, they like designed projects, they like shovel ready projects. So if we can get something shovel ready, if we don't get the million dollars we would apply for other grants. Yeah. Because it's obviously not a small chunk of money. So, um, I would just wanna make sure that we could do something with it. And I mean, do you think that we would be able to get the million dollar grant? Like just knowing I Previous, I Think we're, we're fairly well positioned for it.

▶ 1:30:12 Mm-hmm. And MEMA definitely wants us to get this money. Mm-hmm. Um, but we really can't control what happens on the federal level. Mm-hmm. If they pull the entire hazard mitigation program, all the money that hasn't been allocated from it, then, you know, we have really no recourse for that. But if we're set up with, with the design, I'm saying No, no, you answered my question. I'm sorry. I'm just following up with that. If, if we're set up with 175,000 design maybe a year from now or whenever, could you reapply with the design? Yes. Okay. Thank you Council Stewart. Thank you Mr. Chair. Um, so I'm just thinking about this. If we didn't do anything right, I mean, this is a lot of money that we're spending on moving water on, right?

▶ 1:30:58 So, if we didn't do anything, what is the cost of managing the current SI situation, like on a yearly basis? What d what does the DPW have to spend to deal with the current situation? So the money the DPW spends to deal with the current situation is not substantial enough to offset the cost of this project. For sure. 'cause we had gone through the cost benefit analysis the first time we submitted to fema, and we did find that there was cost benefit, but it's mainly in prevention of private property damage. Um, damage to cars driving through it, damage to the, especially the six or so homes that are in the vicinity. I actually had to go to gather the information for fema. I had to meet with the homeowners in each of those homes.

▶ 1:31:42 I gathered pictures of their flooded basements. Um, excuse me. When the road floods, it actually gets into the sewer system as well. And these folks get sewer backups into their homes. Um, we do end up paying out some insurance claims for those. Um, so I would assume it affects our insurance rates. Um, so the cost directly to the city is not, doesn't get offset by doing the project. But, um, the cost to the, the property owners and the city combined is we determined originally that it has a cost benefit. We'd have to go through that whole exercise again, um, once we complete the design, if we were gonna apply for more FEMA grants. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I I get it because, and you're dealing with people that are struggling

▶ 1:32:31 Mark Garipay: with a terrible situation. Um, how many, how many residents are impacted by This? So the immediate impacted area is about six homes that routinely flood. And then the, the broader area. I wanna say we had estimated there were about 20 to 30 homes that were in a potential flooding area for a larger storm. Yeah. Okay. Alright. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Anyone else? Anyone else? Um, just a couple quick questions. Um, if anyone's been down there during a flood, I grew up, down that we're not talking inches, we're talking feet over the wall into the cemetery, all the graves. Um, so it, it does get, does get pretty bad. But, uh, if you would've raise that intersection without, grade it up without doing this project,

▶ 1:33:23 Mark Garipay: where's that water gonna go? Would it go, would it flow into the cemetery more? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a simple volume for volume change, right? If you, if you take up X number of cubic feet by raising the road, that number of cubic feet of water that used to sit in that spot will just disperse elsewhere around. And so it would be the intersection of Sylvan going through the cemetery, connecting in to pine banks potentially is what the original FEMA grant was. Right? Yeah. Um, didn't we already do work? Uh, this was probably right maybe when you, when you started, but in like 1516, didn't, didn't we already do the row? Uh, the piping underneath the cemetery, A little bit of piping was done.

▶ 1:34:05 There was one section that was, uh, upsized to I think a 24 inch. But we're talking about like 48 inch plus for the end section, um, down to the outfall that would have to be installed at a minimum to really address the issue. So yeah, something was upsized, it must have been deteriorating, was just before I started. Um, we also did, right when I started, we did a bunch of exploratory work. We tried to clean all those pipes, we tried to TV inspect them. Um, we did the little project at the end of Fairfield, which was another issue, another water issue. Um, that was all with the same consultant. But yeah, we, we never solved the intersection flooding issue. So would we have to replace all the pipes

▶ 1:34:48 that from Sylvan to the connection? Is that what I'm hearing? Or would we keep the new ones, the 24 inches that we, I think we would leave the pipes that we've already upsized, but I, I'm not certain. But our original proposal was to leave the ones we already upsized and then to upsize further from there. 'cause there's another, there are two sections of drainage that come together in the cemetery. And we were going to, that 24 is upstream of that. Why were they joined together? We were gonna replace everything from that point down to the outfall originally. Mm-hmm. But again, um, it all depends on the modeling work. Alright. Um, that's, that's all I had. We Okay. Talk about this wrong, um, counsel remind,

▶ 1:35:32 Mark Garipay: Motion to recommend. Second. Gonna recommend by Councilor Romanul seconded by Council Ro on discussion. Roll call. Vote please. Vice Chair Jamine? Yes. Councilor Occhio? Yes. Councilor Hamilton? Yes. Councilor Karen Chetty. Yes. Cremsky? Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. President Re? Yes. Chair Gar? Yes. Motion passes That will be recommended. Next up ID 1 2 6 3 8. An appropriation from free cash account 0 1 3 2 4 0 0 1 in the amount of 150,000 to DPW facilities to, for repairs, to the Franklin School. All Purpose Room. Thank you. So this one would be a complete rehab of the All Purpose Room. Um, a couple years ago there were some ceiling tiles

▶ 1:36:27 that were falling and there was a lot of concern from, uh, school staff about, you know, the safety for children. They're not large or heavy tiles, but it, it is certainly an issue. Um, and something that we don't want, you know, we don't want in a school. Um, at the time we had looked at a proposed project to replace the ceiling, and then we determined that there's asbestos wrapped pipe above the ceiling and there's asbestos floor tile in the room. And so at that point, Jay McNeil had recommended that we do all the asbestos remediation, redo the ceiling, the floor, um, and then some other ancillary items. I know painting, um, replacement of the window treatments, the lights and the stage curtains, um, which is

▶ 1:37:18 Cal Finocchiaro: the, those ladder items are a smaller component of the total cost. But if we're in there doing the floor, the ceiling, and taking the asbestos off of the pipes, you know, once we're sort of dismantling the whole room, it makes sense to rehab the whole thing. Any questions? Council ro? Um, thank you. I went to the Franklin School 75 years ago, and if it still looks the same, it would say it definitely needs to be replaced. Um, that being said, we have a lot of old schools in Melrose. Um, I'm thinking of the Winthrop and like the hardest, um, do those fall in line? Are they as bad? How did you choose Franklin? Yeah, the Horseman had a major upgrade about, I would say eight years ago. Mm-hmm. Um, so all

▶ 1:38:07 of the immediate needs have been addressed there. There are some, like the all-purpose room at the Horseman doesn't look great. Mm-hmm. But at least the immediate needs have been addressed. Um, the Hoover all purpose room is exactly the same as the Franklin same age, same condition. And so originally when we put this project into our CIP several years ago, we actually proposed doing both. Um, possibly doing both at once to try to get some economies of scale with, you know, putting it out to bid altogether. Um, but where the Franklin is, where we have had actual falling tiles that kind of bumped that one higher up on the list. Um, so it's been fairly high on our, our capital improvement list for a while now.

▶ 1:38:48 The Winthrop needs a major overhaul. Okay. And I think, you know, based on the financial state of the city, it, it's very difficult to say what should be done next. And we have that school master plan that's happening now. They've been doing walkthroughs of all the schools. They're looking at both conditions and demographics, and hopefully they're gonna come up with recommendations as to timing with like an MSBA core project mm-hmm. To either completely replace the Winthrop or to completely renovate it. Um, or they just say, you know, replace the roof through an MSBA project and then chip away at it like we have with other, other projects. But a lot of this comes back to the same thing we talk about all the time,

▶ 1:39:33 which is deferred maintenance. We have deferred maintenance in every one of our school buildings, and we're in the habit of attacking things piecemeal. Mm-hmm. And so we have projects like this. We have projects like the, the one we're gonna be talking about later at the Franklin. Um, you know, if we don't do major investment mm-hmm. Then we have to do these little projects all the time. I agree. And, um, you have a bid for this already, or? So we have quotes. Um, Jay had had recommended that we do that we work with several different, um, state contract vendors. Mm-hmm. So he had obtained quotes for the asbestos removal, separate quote for the new floor installation, um, and ceiling installation.

▶ 1:40:18 Cal Finocchiaro: And then our electrician, our on-call electrician would do the lighting. Mm-hmm. Um, and I have to look and see if he had quotes already for the window treatments, but he had gathered all the information and had given the cost estimate based on a whole bunch of different vendors doing different pieces. Great. Well, I support this only because I, I think that we don't do a good job. Well, it's because fiscally we don't have the money to invest to rehab, you know, a full room where, like you said, we're always patching. Um, and this is what we need to start doing in the years to come, especially with these old buildings. So, um, I'd like to make a motion to recommend. I'll second, We have a motion to recommend by council ro seconded

▶ 1:41:00 by counselor Che. Uh, on discussion I have Councilor Jamal Ledine, and then Councilor Hamilton. Thank you. Good evening. Um, good evening. So you mentioned that we do, uh, have right now asbestos in the, uh, at the Franklin the school in the, uh, on the ceiling. Right. It's, uh, pipe insulation up above the ceiling, but also we have a lot of asbestos floor tile throughout the school district. So is it exposed? It is exposed, but it's not, um, you know, it's fryable asbestos that is a problem. So it's when it becomes damaged and that's when it becomes, you know, it can get into the air and it can be inhaled. So every time we have any damage to an asbestos tile area, we replace it. So currently we don't have that situation on the floor

▶ 1:41:53 Maya Jamaleddine: or any tile area? No, we do have that situation inside one closet, in one classroom right now that got water damaged about two months ago. Okay. And, um, uh, if this, you know, hopefully passes, when would this project would take place? We would hopefully be able to do it this summer. Okay. And, um, I, and um, I may be totally wrong, but is there any summer, um, programs that are run? No. This summer the programming will all be at the Roosevelt. Okay. So there is nothing that's going to happen at the Franklins Yes. Accurate, right? Correct. Yeah. Okay. And, um, how would the remedy remediation going to happen as for the asbestos and especially to ensure that when students are back, everything is clear and,

▶ 1:42:45 and so communication with the parents as well? Yeah, so we actually, communication with the parents isn't an easy one. We send out an annual letter in September, um, that's a state requirement, um, through the asbestos. It's the Hara program. I don't, do you know what that, the acronym? Yeah. Um, there, It's there, it's right here. Oh, asbestos. Oh, I even put in the memo. Well, I put in the asbestos memo. Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act requires us to send an annual letter to the parents. Um, so we do that anyway, describing any work that we've done and that we'll be doing. Um, the entire room or the entire building would, if we're working in different areas too, because we also have the asbestos, um, order gets,

▶ 1:43:31 Maya Jamaleddine: uh, isolated the, you have to hire a specialty contractor who is licensed to do this work. You also have to have a contractor as separate consultant who does air quality monitoring. And so that happens throughout the project. Um, and then everything gets thoroughly cleaned before, um, before taking down the isolation curtains. Um, and then obviously the new floor would be installed and new ceiling would be installed. So there wouldn't be, you know, all the asbestos containing material would be removed from the site. And It would be, uh, obviously this, uh, everything would be disposed at a, um, designated, uh, place disposal. Right. Yes. And, um, is there, once this project is complete, do we still have, um,

▶ 1:44:21 Maya Jamaleddine: other places or areas that do contain asbestos? Yes. And is that, and is this a, um, at, at Franklin? I'm talking just, uh, at Franklin. Yes. So are we, do we have a plan to continue like, uh, phase two or? Yeah, so the, the later order about asbestos removal is for a hundred thousand dollars to continue on our, we're in a constant state of replacement. Um, one thing that Jay McNeil brought to the city that I think was a real benefit is that he essentially would not do just one area of a classroom because the bulk of the cost is in setting up the isolation equipment. Um, and then removing the whole floor is not a large additional cost compared to removing half the floor. So any asbestos removal that was done while he was here,

▶ 1:45:14 we did whole classrooms, whole hallways. Um, so a large portion of the asbestos at the Franklin has now been replaced, but we still have a few areas that that need to be replaced. Okay. So it's a, it's a good, uh, news that a larger, uh, area has been replaced. So we have hopefully smaller area, uh, to be worked at. Right. Yeah, I think, um, I think in the other memo, Um, I think the best way to answer that though is that although if you could make a general assessment that anything built before, let's just say 1980, you're probably gonna have asbestos in some of the building materials. But what we don't have is we don't have an imminent threat to any of our students in this city. What we have is we have a plan

▶ 1:46:00 Maya Jamaleddine: and then we have, uh, everything that we have to follow in terms of compliance to keep moving forward, to make sure we not only minimize, but also remove any immediate threat as it comes up. So it's kind of a combination of, uh, what's going on with this, uh, all purpose room. And then, uh, the next, uh, the next order that's, that will be in front of you. Okay. And, um, and thank you for that. And, uh, is that, you know, once we, uh, start this project, um, is it going to be, um, are we going to adopt like a newer, um, uh, you know, like flooring and all the other stuff to, um, so that the whole thing would be renovating following this new, uh, room? Or is It following the old design? So we typically install, install vinyl tile, um,

▶ 1:46:54 Ward Hamilton: standard like 12 by 12 vinyl tiles, um, that we strip and wax every summer before the school year starts. So we would continue on with that. We've, we've been, that's been the standard of what's been installed for probably decades at this point. Okay. Well thank you Councilor Hamilton. Thank you. Thank you for being here tonight. And thank you for all of the work you do. Caring for our infrastructure. It's our largest asset. We appreciate that. Um, just last Monday, which seems like forever ago, uh, we appropriated, uh, 250,000 in free cash for feasibility studies for projects at the Franklin and the high school. Um, and we've got three free cash appropriations in front of us tonight that are going towards work at the Franklin.

▶ 1:47:46 Um, just a question, uh, would we do the study first and then plan the work? Or are these things that are outside the scope of that study? So the study is for the building envelope project, so focusing on roof masonry windows and doors. So it's really all exterior. So the, the, um, study won't touch on any of the a PR or the asbestos. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Um, I do have one quick one. Uh, with regards to the all purpose room that where this 150 thousands going, um, ceiling tiles, was that the what I heard on this or was this just asbestos on the all purpose or There was a number of things, right? Ceiling tiles, Yeah, ceiling tiles, window treatments, painting floor lighting, curtains, curtains.

▶ 1:48:41 Mark Garipay: Did we have leaks in that over the all purpose room or do we, that would've caused the damage? And why would we be doing the, I mean, I understand the asbestos, but if we haven't done the, the roof, the $250,000 study on the roof, I'm just questioning why this is before us without knowing. That is a good question. We have, we've been repairing the roof at the Franklin for years, um, doing spot repairs. I'm not aware of any current or recent leaks in the all-purpose room. Um, I am aware of leaks though, that have happened in the hallway that's, uh, near the all purpose room. Uh, that is a good question. If you Have any thoughts. There's nothing major that is out there and, uh, posing as a, as a threat

▶ 1:49:33 Mark Garipay: that would compromise anything that we would do here. The one nice thing that we have now is one of our tradespeople is actually specialized in roof. He has a history in roof repair. So we've actually come a long way in being able to handle a lot of that, a lot of that stuff in house. And he brings with him, uh, extensive knowledge on how to take care of the rubber roofs. Uh, and any shingle roofs, the ballast roofs, they, they stay, uh, quite a bit of a challenge. Yeah. So I understand that. My concern would be that we do this work and then we, a leak appears like we like the high school gym, you know, I mean that, that's leaking again and buckling and you know, the floors. So that's, that's just my concern with, with this.

▶ 1:50:21 Mark Garipay: I understand. We, we kind of have to do it. We have asbestos there, but it's sounds, it seems like we're putting the copy for the horse on, on some of this stuff. And I know we've had delayed maintenance on a lot of things, but, um, I, I'm struggling with, with this one right now, to be honest with you. But what's the will of the, um, the committee? It is, there's already a motion. It Is already the motion. I'm sorry. You're right. We have, I have it, I have, it was, uh, motion by council ro second by council ache. Uh, anyone else wanna speak? Well, No, it's not. So through the chair or Through the chair? I, I just a follow up on that. So the, the feasibility study that's going on, is that going

▶ 1:51:04 to look at the roofing in at Franklin? Yes. And so that's just a study. We don't actually have funds to actually replace roofs or That's, so the MSBA process, they would, they typically put up about half of the money if we get accepted into the MSBA program. Um, the first step is the study. Mm-hmm. And then that identifies the scope of the project. Mm-hmm. The cost estimate. And then we would be looking at whether the city can fund its half, roughly half of the project. Mm-hmm. So until we get to that point, we don't know if we have a project that we can afford. Mm-hmm. Um, but that would be, those would be the steps toward replacing the roof. Okay. And that could be a few years from now potentially, or,

▶ 1:51:50 Um, hopefully if we got into the program, it would be next summer. Mm-hmm. At the latest it would be the following summer. Mm-hmm. And just to reiterate, you haven't experienced like, leaking in the all-purpose room? Not to my knowledge. Okay. Um, We do a walkthrough at the end of every school year and identify the list of projects and the roof over the all-purpose room is not one that I recall ever mm-hmm. Hearing about. But it is true that we have had ceiling tiles that fell, and oftentimes when you get that sort of damage, it is the result of water from mm-hmm. At some point historically. Um, I was gonna look real quick at the, we have the roof report from the architects, um, when they first looked at it, just to tell you at least

▶ 1:52:38 Mark Garipay: what, what type of roof it is over the all purpose room, if you're interested. Mm-hmm. Um, that's anyone else's? I'm, I'm, I'm good. We have a motion on the floor or we, or if you would like to get us more information, we could pull that and hold it. Whatever you, whatever you, whatever the will of the council is. We have a motion on the floor right now, so, So just, could I ask one more question? If we appropriate this money this evening? Um, actually forget it. So, so if I, so if I heard you correctly, I'm sorry, counsel Lu, that this is the design is for the MSBA. Right. Which we're not sure if we're gonna get. Mm-hmm. So in essence, we're gonna have to probably do something with this room even if we don't get it right. Mm-hmm.

▶ 1:53:34 Correct. Okay. Okay. Got it. Um, roll call. Vote Vice chair. Jamine? Yes. Councilor Occhio? Yes. Councilor Hamilton? Yes. Councilor Karen Chetty? Yes. Councilor Reky? Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. President Melli? Yes. Chair Garipay? Yes. Motion passes On ID 1 2, 6, 3, 9. And appropriation from free cash account 0 1 3 2 4 0 0 1 in the amount of a hundred thousand to DPW facilities for asbestos remediation projects. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, in, in front of you, this is, uh, an annual request that we, we've been making over the last couple of years to keep moving forward with the total asbestos remediation across, uh, all city schools.

▶ 1:54:36 Uh, we've identified several projects over the last four or five years. Uh, I looked it up to the tune of nearly $500,000. This continues our efforts to make our schools safe. We have identifiable projects, specific projects, one of which is, uh, to complement the, uh, all purpose room. We have work going on at the Winthrop School, and then with any monies that are left over, it'll be spread out over anything that we have found to Dean, uh, to fit the project and to fit the money, uh, at all the schools. This isn't school specific. This is citywide and this allows us to continue all the good work that we've done to, uh, remediate all the asbestos, uh, that we found throughout the city and all the schools.

▶ 1:55:20 Thank you. Any questions? Council ro Uh, thank you. I just wanted to follow up a question that, um, council Aldine had earlier, the previous, um, just to clarify, when they remove asbestos, they use like that negative air system, correct? They're, yeah. The, the contractors, it's the contracts that do this are so regulated. Uh, the building has to be clear. Everything is sealed off. There are hygienists in involved that have to make sure that the everything is cleaned properly and that everything is pure. So it's a very involved process, one that we, uh, don't undertake on our own. We bring the experts in to take care of things and make sure I've seen it in action. It's pretty remarkable, so. Right.

▶ 1:56:06 Maya Jamaleddine: Um, and the building can't have any occupants rights? Correct. Okay. Thanks. Council. Jamal, Um, would any, uh, of the, you know, like furnitures and everything that is there will have to be removed. Is that the case? So would be the, the, is it just that, uh, room would be emptied or is it Whatever area is being isolated gets completely emptied? So anything, any furniture or anything is moved outside the isolation area. And, uh, it would be moved to the school, not somewhere else. Right. Yeah. In the hallway or something like That. Yeah. Okay. And, uh, is that part of the work that the contractors are going to do or you guys would do it? We usually do That. You would do it. And is that something like, um, extra?

▶ 1:56:59 Maya Jamaleddine: Um, We would add that to the list of summer work. If this, if anything is scheduled in the summertime, we would add that to the list of the summer projects at that particular school. So the custodians and any helpers would prep that. Okay. And just for a little context, we have to empty every room to strip and wax the floors anyway. Yes. So our summer helpers do substantial help removing the furniture from every room and putting it back. So when you say summer helpers, that would be the, the youth that are from, from school, which is, um, you know, this is one of the instances that we would be looking for. What is the use? Uh, correct. Correct. For that program. So I do appreciate this. Thank you. Thank you.

▶ 1:57:41 Mark Garipay: Council Vandiver. Thank you. Uh, just wanted to make a motion to recommend second Motion to recommend by Council Vandiver a second by Council Fanuc Chiro on discussion. Adam Clark, can you please call the role? Yes. Vice chair Jamal ine? Yes. Councilor Oppi? Yes. Councilor Hamilton? Yes. Councilor Karen Chetty? Yes. Councilor Reky? Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Vander Barr? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. President Elli? Yes. Chair Garipay? Yes. Motion passes That will be recommended. Um, next stop. ID 1, 2, 6, 4 oh and appropriation for pre-cash account 0 1 3 2 4 0 0 1 in the amount of 68,002 DPW parks in forestry for tree plantings. Thank you. Um, so this is another annual request.

▶ 1:58:36 As you were well aware, councilor gpe, we don't have a line item in the budget for trees. I know that you and I both share the interest in eventually someday having a line item for trees, but the budget really has never allowed it, um, in the time that I've been here. So, um, we are requesting 68,000. Um, that has been our typical amount. I think last year we had a little bit less because of just the constraints with the free cash available. Um, this allows us to keep up with our tree replacements. Um, the money that we're requesting allows us to fulfill all of the requests that we have right now, uh, over the course of the next year. Council, Jamal and Council Williams after that. Thank you chair.

▶ 1:59:23 Um, so this would fulfill all the requests that we currently have. How do you know how about how many requests do we have? We have about a hundred right now. Um, we don't like to, so a lot of them are a result of when a tree comes down, we replant. Um, we automatically put in a request in our system to replant in that same, along the same frontage. Um, it's not good to replant within a year of removing a tree because the roots are still active. Mm-hmm. Um, so we, we might spread this money over a little bit longer. We wouldn't necessarily do all the planting this fall with this money. Some of it would wait till next spring, so we probably use half of it in the fall. Half in the spring. We have over

▶ 2:00:11 Maya Jamaleddine: a hundred requests right now. This is enough money for 120. Mm-hmm. So it means that we'll have enough to, um, you know, take the next handful of requests that come in now as well. So that means that we are not going to be able to do everything this year. It's going to be expanded over probably next year or so. It will hopefully all be spent within the next fiscal year. So all within fiscal 26? Yeah. Half in the fall. Half in the spring. Okay. Um, but yeah, it wouldn't be spent all in one planting round. Okay. And, and can you remind us of how much do you usually allocate for these kind of project? Or do you request, uh, on a yearly basis? Normally 68,000 is what we've requested last year. I think we were only able to request something in the range

▶ 2:00:59 Maya Jamaleddine: of 30,040. Was it like 40? 40? Yeah. Um, so this is what I wanted to say, and that would tie to all the requests that are coming to free. C um, um, I am all for, uh, you know, planting trees. And, you know, this is something that definitely I would appreciate seeing, uh, as improvement in, uh, our community, uh, with all the struggles and the challenges that we are going through. Um, as you know, any, uh, head of a household would set their priority if I wanted to see if this money would be allocated for something that is more, uh, as a necessity. I wonder if you would allocate this project as a necessity in comparison to all the other ones. And I understand this probably not a question that

▶ 2:01:56 Maya Jamaleddine: should be asked for or requested from you, but if the administration is not, is not, um, allocating money for this project or probably for the project that we discussed prior, that makes me wonder and, and, and, and pause in a way, uh, into, is this a necessity that we wanted to allocate that money for it? Or should we consider that money because now we are in a position where every penny and every dollar counts. And I wonder if this money should be considered for other projects that are more pressing, such as the asbestos, such as safety concern? Or is this something that we should prioritize in terms of the tree planting? Um, I would say that it's, it's certainly not the highest of priorities for the city.

▶ 2:02:56 Um, the addressing the deferred maintenance in our buildings is my highest priority. Mm-hmm. Um, but tree planting, it does, it helps the environment. Obviously it sequesters carbon. It, um, it addresses heat island issues. Um, obviously there are aesthetic benefits. And I think what we found is that, you know, we, we wanna keep a healthy tree canopy in the city. And we were at a point, at one point in the time that I've worked here, where we had over 400 requests that were unfulfilled. Um, and, you know, each individual request might not seem like much of a priority, but to the person who's been on the list for three years, four years waiting to get the tree planted, it becomes, you know, something that we hear about a lot.

▶ 2:03:49 We hear a lot of complaints about that. And so, probably four years ago, we allocated a big chunk of money to catch up and we finally caught up. And so the last two to three years we've just been maintaining, which is a, a great place to be. And so, yes, it's not the highest priority, but at the same time, if we let it slip back to the point where we're getting years behind in the planting requests, it just means we're just kicking the can down the road to sometime when we're gonna be looking at a couple hundred thousand dollars, um, for tree planting. So I think it's, it's good practice to keep up on it. And like I said at the beginning, I think ideally we would be in a position where it would just

▶ 2:04:29 Maya Jamaleddine: be in the operating budget. Um, same with the asbestos removal. Anything that's a recurring expense at about the same value year over year really belongs in the operating budget. We're just in an unfortunate position with chronically not enough money and looking for the easier things to cut, and those things become easier to cut. Right. And I a hundred percent agree with you. This is something that would benefit indirectly, you know, in terms of the environment, in terms of the greenery, in terms of the, you know, uh, purifying the air and, uh, the, uh, the oxygen. However, my, my also, uh, respond and not to, to you as much as the, the constituents that are asking for, uh, putting those requests is,

▶ 2:05:16 Maya Jamaleddine: that's one of the reason why we need the override. This is one of the reasons that even if you don't have student, uh, uh, kids in school, this is one other way that you will feel why this override is important. So if we are, if we are in a position where we don't know if this override is going to pass, we have to set our priorities to where is the most necessity. And unfortunately, we are at the position where do we invest in the safety? Like those, um, uh, buildings make, making sure that our constituents are safe or putting, uh, uh, those trees. I would have to pick and choose and set where, which one is my priority. It's very tough decision, but unfortunately, it's either we have to make

▶ 2:06:10 Ryan Williams: that tough decision or we have to ask our constituents to choose, uh, and vote for the override and advocate for it. So thank you so much for being here, for advocating for that. And, um, I just have to say, uh, yes. Thank you. Okay. All set. Um, council Williams. Thanks. Um, you remember we talked about the watering issue. I was concerned that the contractor that we're paying isn't doing the follow up to water. The gator bags, are they on the hook for like one watering right? When they plan it? Is that the idea? Do they come back around? Yeah, so we have an optional watering service with them. Okay. So, uh, a line item in their contract. So, um, they are required to put water in the gator bag initially.

▶ 2:06:58 Yeah. And then we do deliver notice to everybody gets the tree recommending that they water it. Um, but in drier years, we have sometimes used that option to have them do one round of watering, two rounds of watering whatever we think is necessary, but they're not on the hook to keep the gator bags watered every week. Okay. Okay. Great. Um, and I notice in here this police detail. Do you, can you quantify the cost that goes into this appropriation request that would go to the police department? It's a pretty small component. Um, I think we pay right now, do you remember the hourly rate? 60? It's about $70 an hour, I would say for our detail rate. So for an eight hour shift, about $500, Like every tree?

▶ 2:07:42 No, it's per day. So per day. And we tend to plant, um, when we do a planting round of about a hundred trees, it takes us about five days. Okay. The, the contractors, so, you know, maybe $2,500 of it goes toward, um, police details. I'm trying to remember when we had a tree planted in front of our house, did, did the police go to every tree or is it just like prioritized based on what's the, you know, so We are required to hire police detail for that work. Anything that's happening basically in the right of way with an outside contractor. DP W's required to hire a police detail required by an agreement with the police union. So it's not a, it's not a state law or anything. I see. That's an agreement that predates me. Yep.

▶ 2:08:25 Cal Finocchiaro: But, um, so it's a requirement. Okay. Good to know. Thank you. Okay, Councilor Ro? Yes. Thank you. Um, for the chair, I just wanna echo, uh, the comments made by, uh, councilor Aldine. Um, I fully support trees being planted in the ci in the city, like never would not support that. I am having a little bit a hard time supporting $68,000 at a time where we don't know where we're gonna end up next year. Um, so I know, you know, you guys know the budget, you've been doing this for a long time. You know what the city needs. Um, like you said, you, you kind of got to a point where you had all of these requests and you didn't have the funds, and you don't wanna get to that point again. Um, I would personally like

▶ 2:09:20 Cal Finocchiaro: to see this money go towards more sidewalk repairs. I mean, that's, I think a lot of constituents compare, uh, complain about that. Uh, I know we have free cash, um, for 50,000, uh, snacks in the agenda. Um, or maybe we choose another portion of a school that we, uh, fix. Um, again, love the trees, would love, I want the people that want, or they're on a list to get them. But I am having a hard time, um, like fully accepting this, uh, for, I would like to see that money go towards something else right now. So just wanted to put that out there. Yeah. Understood. Council Stewart, Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, uh, thank you. And, and through the chair, I would agree. Um, I think there's a couple of good points

▶ 2:10:05 Robb Stewart: that have been made by the, the council here. Um, but I see your point as well. I, I don't believe that we should fully eliminate the tree planting. Um, I think there's benefits, uh, both from, uh, the maintenance as well as, um, the, uh, the aesthetics of, of what we're doing to continue to, uh, you know, help improve, uh, the city. Um, so with that being said, I would like to make a motion to amend, uh, this order, uh, from 68,000 to 34,000. Cutting at half Second, we have a motion to amend this order down from 68,000 to 34,000 by Council Stewart, seconded by Council Hamilton on discussion Councilor Vandiver, and then President merely, Um, thank you, um, through the chair. I guess I would just say that, you know,

▶ 2:11:07 Kimberly Vandiver: it's, it's hard to compare. We have a dozen things in front of us, and, you know, personally, I think trees are more important than sidewalks. Um, despite the fact that I push a stroller around. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, I think it's really hard to compare. We've got flowers for the Veterans Memorial. We just talked about the dog, excuse me, at the dog park and putting up a fence. I, I think it's really hard to compare A to B2C here. There, there, there are different types of needs for different types of groups. Um, but I would be disappointed to see this, um, not be spent or less spent on the trees here. Thank you, President. Merely, Um, through the chair, I agree with Councillor Vandiver. I think this is a, to reduce this

▶ 2:11:50 Leila Migliorelli: and not reduce something else, uh, where I understand totally where every other counselors are coming from, that we are in a reduced budget environment. It, you know, this is a free cash, for lack of a better word, plan put down by the administration with input from the departments as to what they think should be funded through free cash. If there was a mechanism, which there isn't for the council to say, say, we're not gonna spend from this. We want, you know, we wanna move it here, then that would be a different conversation. But what, by cutting or reducing one line, we're just sending it back to the mayor to have, um, her decide what to spend it on. And, uh, you know, that could be a strategy,

▶ 2:12:32 Leila Migliorelli: but it, you know, it may not go in the direction that you hope it should. So, um, again, I think Councilor Vandiver hit the nail on the head here, the, just cutting this one line item versus, you know, whatever. We have nearly 15 free cash requests ahead of us. Um, I, I, I don't, I don't support that. Thank you. Counsel Stewart. Um, council Williams on, on the motion first. Sure. Okay. Um, yeah, I think that the, to, to reflect back on the points that have been made by President re councilor Van Devin, um, the decisions that we make in the council, you know, it took me a long time to realize this. They sort of like, they represent our priorities in our voices, you know, and when we say things like, you know,

▶ 2:13:21 Ryan Williams: I think that the free cash for trees, you know, we deserve half as many trees that sends the message to the mayor. And the mayor takes that into consideration when she's thinking about the budget for next year. And I worry that if we, for free cash for something like this, that's a fairly small capital cost, that if we start making cuts here, that things might not come back. That we might be in the same position that we were in years past where we had dead trees littering the city and Norway maples, you know, leafless and falling over like I had on, on the, on the street I used to live on. Um, so I, I think it is a great, it's a great point, um, that we're in a constrained fiscal environment,

▶ 2:13:58 Mark Garipay: and that we need to be thinking really carefully about what we spend our money on. And in that context, I think that the trees are worth it. So I would not support emotion to cut this Council. Stewart? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair. Uh, I'm offering this motion because I don't believe that the, the full amount is gonna pass. And this is a concession, this is why I put the motion on the table. Thank you. Um, just a, I can, I'm, I am not gonna support this motion either. I've been advocating for trees. There's a lot of, um, tough decisions that, uh, need to be made. Um, and as ward counselor, there's, I have, I have, I have cust, I mean, customers, I have constituents that think, that, think, uh, trees,

▶ 2:14:48 Mark Garipay: trees are important to them more so than sidewalks. So we're trying to, trying to do the best we can to, to help everyone out. Um, so I would not, uh, support this motion. Um, I appreciate it, um, but I would not support the motion to reduce it. So let's take a roll call. Vote on the motion to reduce, uh, this id, ID from 68,000 to 34,000 Vice Chair Jamine? No. Counselor Occhio? Yes. Counselor Hamilton? Yes. Counselor. Karen Chetty? No. Councilor Brosky? No. Councilor Romanul? No. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Vandiver? No. Councilor Williams? No. Present. Elli? No. Chair Ape. No. Nose. Half it. Motion doesn't pass. Okay. So we have, we don't have a motion on the floor to pass. Uh, so what, so what's the will of the, yeah,

▶ 2:16:00 what's the will of the committee Motion to recommend to the full counsel? We have a second. Someone who second. Oh, sorry. Yeah, sorry about that. Uh, motion to recommend by Council William. Second by Councilor Romano Romanul. Sorry. Uh, on discussion. Madam Clerk, can you please call the role Vice chair Jamal? No. Councilor fro? No. Counselor Hamilton? No. Counselor. Karen Chetty? Yes. Counselor Reky? Yes. Counselor Remodel. Yes. Counselor Stewart? No. Counselor Vander? Yes. Councillor Williams? Yes. President Elli? Yes. Chair Gar Pay? Yes. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Seven. Seven holds four. Yes. It passes. Motion Passes. I will recommend it to the full counsel. All right. Next up. Uh, ID 1, 2, 6, 4, 1.

▶ 2:17:11 And appropriation for free cash account 0 1 3 2 4 0 0 1 in the amount of 50,000 to DPW Highway for sidewalk repair. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, again, annual, uh, allocation. This has been, uh, something that we've appeared in front of the council and the committee, uh, a number of occasions. Uh, this is for, uh, sidewalk repair throughout the city. It is not ward specific, it is citywide and the amount of $50,000 we currently have, uh, numbers consistent with the, uh, memo in front of you. Uh, there are 56 asphalt, uh, work orders open right now. 95 concrete, 34 safety and 86 assessments, uh, out there that are, um, to be addressed and to be addressed soon. This 50,000 would replace approximately 115

▶ 2:18:08 Ryan Williams: concrete sidewalk panels, and it would be done through a combination of in-house as well as contracted services. Thank you. Any questions? Councilor Williams? How do you decide what goes in the sidewalk repair list versus what you pull from chapter 90? Well, the chapter 90 would probably be more a wide scale. Got it. Full neighborhood project. Okay. Understood. Um, well, I have you, uh, right across the street from my old place, there's been a sidewalk panel flagged for repair for like three years running. It's got a big orange stripe on it, so that might float to the top of the list if it is, uh, if it happens to be on the list. As long as I think it has. Thank you. That's on Malvern Street.

▶ 2:18:55 Kimberly Vandiver: I don't live there anymore. For the record. Yeah. Uh, council fro My sidewalk. Yeah. I just wanted to make a motion to recommend. Second, We have a motion to recommend by council fro seconded by Councilor Williams on discussion. I have Council Vandiver. Thank You. Um, is there anything, I guess, um, about these repairs that are constantly coming up? Typically, um, is there anything that can be done to, to make them last longer? Are there areas that come up again and again because of the same tree root or, or anything like that? So we have made an effort in our tree planting program to plant species that don't typically have the root uplift problems. Um, so I think we've been a little more deliberate about

▶ 2:19:39 that than maybe, you know, some of these hundred year old giant oak trees and such that are planted in a tiny grass strip. Um, we also, we try to be strategic about where we're doing asphalt sidewalks versus concrete. I mean, in the replacement program, we're mostly just replacing, but in, um, new sidewalk installation where we're doing long stretches, um, we do concrete in areas that are, we consider sort of the more urban parts of town. And we, we tend to do asphalt in areas that are more sort of woodsy. And the asphalt tends to be much easier to maintain when it gets lifted up by tree roots. It, it's easier to go up and over things. Thank you. Yeah. Anyone else? What's the, uh, well, we have, uh, we have,

▶ 2:20:35 uh, a motion on the floor. We take a roll call. Yes. Vice chair Jamine? Yes. Councilor Occhio. Yes. Councilor Hamilton? Yes. Councilor Cameron Chetty? Yes. Councilor Reky. Yes. Councilor Romanul. Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Vanderberg. Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. Present mere Yes. Chair Garbe? Yes. Motion passes. I will be recommended. Next up, ID 1 2 6 4 2. An appropriation from free cash account 0 1 3 2 4 0 0 1 in the amount of 25,000 to DPW admin to fund stormwater enterprise study. Yeah, so this is an interesting one. This came about, um, from two different directions at the same time. Uh, Jim and I were talking about it in the context of our budget, our proposed budget for next year,

▶ 2:21:25 and, um, creative ways to, you know, ensure the city has enough money to do the things we are mandated to do by the federal, uh, nip D'S storm stormwater permit. Um, so at the same time, there was some chatter, uh, from some residents about having interest in having a stormwater enterprise fund, um, who contacted the mayor's office and were asking some questions. So the mayor thought it would be a good idea for us to explore this option. She thought it was not a good option to try to institute for next fiscal year because it's just too quick to, um, put together another enterprise fund and, and everything that goes into that. Um, but she requested that we study this, um, with a consultant who's done this type of work.

▶ 2:22:13 Um, and so our intention would be to use this 25,000 to fund a consultant study on, um, recommending the various ways that we could implement a stormwater, uh, enterprise fund, whether it makes sense for Melrose or not. Um, and just to give a little background on how these work, typically a stormwater enterprise fund is you take all the stormwater line items that are in the budget, and you put those now into the enterprise fund budget. So that would be all the compliance. We have several drainage compliance, um, line items. We have drain maintenance, um, we have catch basin cleaning. Even street sweeping is technically part of the Nip Ds program. Um, so you would take all of those costs and then you decide how to allocate them across the city.

▶ 2:23:03 And it could be, some communities do it based on impervious area. So if you are a business with a large parking lot, you'd pay a higher fee. If you're a homeowner with a tiny driveway and all grass, you'd pay a lower fee. That's if it's divided up by impervious area. Some communities just have a residential rate and a commercial rate, and it's just a flat fee. It might be, you know, 25 to $50 it appears once a year or divided up on your, um, usually on your water and sewer bill. And that money offsets these budget items. The, the intent of doing it as an enterprise fund is that these are federal requirements that we have to meet, and it's basically an unfunded mandate by the federal government to meet these requirements.

▶ 2:23:53 Ryan Williams: Um, sometimes these are things that get cut when there are other budget cuts, but there are things we're required to do. So this just secures a funding source that is reliable, sustainable, um, to go against those items that we need to do. Any questions? Councilor Williams? Sure. I mean, this is something that I talked about with Vannie years a couple years ago, and, you know, I've talked about it with you. So I think it's a great idea. Um, it's a good example of, of like studying a new way to bring revenue into the city by, um, applying a fee to a activity that has a cost that we're currently just not charging people for. Um, and I know that people hate fees, but, um, you know, as a reminder, most people don't have,

▶ 2:24:46 Ryan Williams: you know, a hundred car parking lots on their property. So it's not really something that's gonna hit homeowners, um, much if at all. Um, and I know I was just looking through some of the other cities and towns in Massachusetts that have done this. A number of them do not exempt nonprofit entities such as hospitals from this fee. And so, um, there's just, there's a lot of, um, I think good evidence that this is something that could end up paying for itself over time if we actually were able to implement it. So I'm, I'm happy to support it. Um, and I appreciate the thoughtfulness of bringing it forward. What's the council there? Romano? Motion To recommend. Second. Motion to recommend by Council Romano.

▶ 2:25:26 Mark Garipay: Seconded by Council Williams on discussion. Madam Clerk, can you call the role please? Yes. Vice Chair Jamine? Yes. Councilor Occhio? Yes. Councilor Hamilton? Yes. Councilor Karen Chatty. Yes. Cremsky? Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Van Ver? Yes. Council Williams? Yes. President Moore? Yes. Chair Gareg? Yes. Motion passes That will be recommended. Next up Id 1, 2, 6, 4 4. And appropriation from free cash. 0 1 3 2 4 0 0 1 in the amount of 75,000 to DPW Highway and traffic improvements. Thank you. Um, this is an item that has come up in the discussions with the Public Safety Building Committee. Um, there have been questions from the neighborhood about, um, traffic impacts

▶ 2:26:16 and there's been specific concern brought to the traffic commission about the intersection at Foster Maple and Florence and Vinton. Um, and the, uh, the traffic commission recommendation was to wait until the traffic study was completed from the consultants for the police station. Um, those consultants are in the process of evaluating options, and we know the neighborhood based on our traffic commission meeting is strongly in favor of some sort of reconfigure, reconfiguration of that inter intersection. Um, this was not something that was identified as part of the Public Safety Building project, so there's a desire to fund it from outside of the allocation for that project. And we took the 75,000 as roughly the, um,

▶ 2:27:05 cost of the modifications we made at the Emerson Vinton intersection. Um, so it's, it's a rough number. It's a placeholder, but we think it should be able to address any issues at that intersection or other immediate areas around the police station that, that come up from the discussions about the police station. So, for clarification, if you don't mind, um, this is just for the, um, east West Foster Vinton intersection. This One, it is for that intersection. And anything else? I worded it in the memo that, um, Yeah, I got it. I'm sorry, I looked at the wrong one. I got it. Yeah, no, that's okay. To improve pedestrian and vehicular safety, the proposed funds will be used for this and any other traffic safety projects identified

▶ 2:27:54 as beneficial in the neighborhood of the new police station. So it would be restricted to that neighborhood. But I did want it to be a little bit more broad because we are allocating a somewhat random number and if we only need 50,000 for that intersection, but if the neighbors also want something else down the road, literally down the road, I wanted to have money available. Thank you for that clarification, counsel and Hamilton. Thank you. Um, is This something, and I support this, is this something that instead of using free cash, we could use funds from the public safety building projects to pay for? I think that would be fantastic if we could. Um, but the, I was told that the project didn't,

▶ 2:28:39 Ward Hamilton: since it didn't have that in its original scope, it's not likely to have the funding for it. Um, Did we have anything like this in the original scope when we thought we were gonna be out at the Ripley? No. Okay. Um, but with public safety, the public safety product project over there, we are doing a traffic study for that area and there'll be recommendations that come out of that. And that will, I imagine we'll dovetail with this. Yes. And this will be the money that will fund the improvements. Yes. Thank you. I support this, Uh, council Williams and President Ley Riley. Sure. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Council Jamal. Sorry she was head. Sorry. Mistake. Sorry. It's fine. Thank you. Um, just to clarify, so is this based on the study

▶ 2:29:27 Maya Jamaleddine: that was done and completed? So the traffic study is still underway. There's not a final report yet. We've seen some preliminary sketches of, of the options that they're evaluating. So it is based on assuming that we will move forward with some sort of either tightening up of that intersection or changing the configuration. So that's very random number. We don't know if it's gonna be lower than 80,000 or more than 80,000. This, the number that I put in there is what it ended up costing us to do the intersection at Vinton and Emerson, which we deemed to be a fairly similar project. So that's where we took the cost estimate from. Okay. So, but you mentioned that if in case anything that got added, we do have extra amount.

▶ 2:30:14 Maya Jamaleddine: No, we don't have extra. I was saying if it comes in under budget that we would use whatever extra we had in the same immediate neighborhood. So we may come under budget, It may come under budget. Yeah. Okay. And just so that, um, whoever is seeing us, if someone is seeing us would understand, uh, what if you receive tomorrow because of that statement hundred of requests, what kind of requests are you able to accept and how can you consider that moving forward? Because now that, you know, if I live on that intersection and I hear your comment, I am going to say, well, we probably need to have a traffic coming, um, or, or lights or flashing lights or stuff like this there, or stop sign, whatever it is.

▶ 2:31:05 Um, so I would submit a request to you and then you would take it into consideration? Or how is that going to happen? Yeah, it all depends on exactly what the item is that's being requested. If it's a regulatory item, it would have to go before the traffic commission for consideration before anything could be approved. Um, if it was a traffic calming item, our standard is that we, we put that onto our list for the traffic calming toolkit and then we pilot projects. Um, we hope to pilot a couple projects every year and then decide which projects merit based on the pilot, um, installation. So, you know, it's, if somebody came in and said, I think we should have a raised crosswalk at, you know mm-hmm.

▶ 2:31:49 Maya Jamaleddine: To the Milano, we, we wouldn't necessarily say, okay, we'll just use this money for that. Um, we would, it would have to go through the same process of, So there is a process for this and, um, would, uh, are we going to be able to get an update on this project in terms how much it costs and how much, uh, we have left? Uh, just so we would open it then for public, say that we are extending, if in case we have any money left, we're extending for other projects? Yeah. We can certainly provide an update at any time upon request. I would say that the, the neighborhood is heavily involved as a group in the public Safety Building committee process. And so chances are we're going to hear through that form

▶ 2:32:36 what the priorities of the neighborhood are with regard to traffic. Um, and so hopefully that would also, you know, it's sort of a separate process from our usual, but hopefully that would also inform any future decisions about anything else in the neighborhood. Alright. Can you talk to us about what are the, um, uh, like suggestion or recommendation that came up in terms of what this project is going to specifically cover? I think it's a little premature to, they have an issue to final report, so I don't wanna get too specific, but I will say that intersection right now is sort of an awkward configuration of two offset streets and one more, more major street, but not much more major. I think there's a desire and there's a lot of pavement.

▶ 2:33:24 Ryan Williams: I think there's a desire to tighten there, streamline in some way the flow of that traffic, um, to, to just make the crossings shorter and the, the movements a little safer. Got it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Uh, council Williams. Thank you. Uh, I just wanted to provide a little context for this because I, I was at the December traffic commission meeting and I talked to a couple of the folks there. Um, and of course, Councillor Vanderberg was also at the December traffic commission meeting as a traffic commissioner. Um, so this is a, um, one of the key things to understand about this intersection is that it's a really highly trafficked pedestrian intersection for kids. Um, kids going from the north to Lincoln,

▶ 2:34:09 Ryan Williams: kids coming from the south of Roosevelt, kids going to the middle school. If you go down Vinton in particular, anytime between like 7 45 and eight, it is packed with kids. And because of the, the offset design of this intersection, which I can't figure out for the life of me, what the purpose of the design is, it must have been a streetcar or something. Um, you have a lot of instances where kids are like really having to dodge traffic as they cross this street. And it's, and it's unexpected because it's not Linville's Parkway, it's not Lebanon, it's not Main Street. You know, it's a little neighborhood street with a park next to it. Um, so I know I personally have heard, 'cause I now, this is my route to school.

▶ 2:34:45 Ryan Williams: I go, I'm a Lincoln parent. I've personally heard from a number of parents who are very excited that this is moving, uh, forward and very thankful that it's, that it's being considered after all the discussion that people had at the traffic commission meeting and with the public safety building. So, so thank you, um, very much. And, um, is there anybody else in queue for question? Uh, president Ley. Okay. That's it. That's it for me. Thank you. I was just gonna make a motion to recommend. Second. Okay. We have a motion to recommend by President me seconded by Councilor Fanucchi on discussion. Councilor Vanderberg. I'll just comment since I was also at the traffic Commission meeting that, um, having heard similar context,

▶ 2:35:25 Mark Garipay: I, I definitely support this work. Thank, um, anyone else on discussion? Madam Clerk, can you please call the role? Yes. Vice Chair Jamine? Yes. Councillor Ro? Yes. Councillor Hamilton? Yes. Councilor Karen Chetty? Yes. Cremsky? Yes. Councillor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. President Melissa? Yes. Chair. Ope? Yes. Motion passes. I will get recommended. Next up ID 1, 2, 6, 4 6 in appropriation from free cash account 0 1 3 2 4 0 0 1 in the amount of 189,000 to DPW facilities for repairs to the Franklin School. Thank you. Um, so the Franklin School roof project that we've been, uh, that's been under construction for the last several months had to be put on hold

▶ 2:36:18 because the, um, initially when they were removing the, uh, the ballast, there was a whole section of, uh, the metal roof deck that was completely deteriorated. So when the ceiling was removed in the classroom, you could see clear through up to the sky. Um, we did a change order using the contingency money that we already had from, from this project in general. We did a change order for, I believe it was $26,000, um, to replace that section of the roof deck. Um, at that time, our hope was that the remainder of the roof deck was not in nearly as bad shape. Um, and the good news is that it was not in as bad shape. It didn't have giant holes, but there were pin holes everywhere. And so the recommendation from the architect was

▶ 2:37:11 that the whole metal roof deck should be replaced upon replacing the metal roof deck. Um, there is also a need to meet additional codes because now that we're replacing, we're proposing to replace the whole thing. Um, the new codes for wind and snow loads are different than the codes when the building was built. So there's also an additional steel beam that needs to be added. Um, so the contractor has come in with a change order price of $189,000 and, um, that accounts for removing the entire metal roof deck and putting down the deck, putting down the board that goes over it. And then the, um, the replacement of the roof beyond that is from the original scope. So it, it accounts for just the additional replacement

▶ 2:37:59 Ward Hamilton: of the roof deck, the board over it and the additional beam. Councilman Hamilton? Thank you. This is the item I've been waiting for. Um, so the four hours? Yeah, so the, um, and, and for all the right reasons, not anything crazy. Um, so we're gonna do a study that's gonna look at the envelope and obviously the roofing system. And in that cost, does it include invasive, um, so that we can see if other areas of the roof deck are also rotted? Yes. This is a big surprise. It does. Um, we did do, they did do cores when they explored this roof as well. Mm-hmm. But the extent of the damage, you know, the, the spot that they happened to do the course didn't have the damage that they found ultimately.

▶ 2:38:52 Ward Hamilton: Are the, um, this, this is over room 26? Yes. Are the ceilings, um, elsewhere in the building? Are they like acoustical ceiling tile where we can remove them and see up? Or are they like a fixed? Some are, but not, Yeah, that's a weird construction of that building. There's a lot of different decking and things like that. It just happens that because the scope of this project is over just room 26. Right. That's where the focus of the investigation was. Do you know if, uh, and if you don't know, it doesn't matter, but, um, if, if the, uh, ceiling tiles or whatever the, the finish is, if it's not hot materials, I would certainly encourage some exploration, you know, from the bottom up. Um, because this, so this is the last Franklin item

▶ 2:39:41 Ward Hamilton: and we corresponded a little bit. Um, in the last five or six years that I've been paying attention, we've put a lot of money into this building, which we should. It's one of our buildings and it needs the attention. Um, and I'm glad that we're gonna do this, you know, overarching study to look at the whole envelope instead of, you know, masonry windows roofing. And, um, so I, I, I think it was just after, or the day before school resumed, and maybe it was August, late August, I took a walk around the building and took a look. And, you know, we've communicated about it since that you, you know, you look up at the, the masonry, particularly above window openings and up at the para Pitt where the roof is a lot of work Yeah.

▶ 2:40:24 Ward Hamilton: In that building. And, um, so thank you for, for all that you're doing, tackling it. This was a surprise, I'm sure for everybody. Not a pleasant one, but Yeah. My hope initially was that this change order would come in at, you know, 50, $60,000. And so it's Right. The cost is, you know, a little sticker shop. Understandable. Uh, it are, are is there a class current? There's not a class in room 26? No. So fortunately there's a classroom that was used for a variety of, um, you know, OT and other services, um, that they were able to, that was intermittently used, and they were able to relocate some of that elsewhere and move the classroom from class 26 into that classroom. Okay. Um, so they've been basically permanently moved

▶ 2:41:06 for the remainder of the school year. Thank you. Thanks to Council ro Thank You, uh, through the chair. I just wanna follow up on what, um, councilor Hamilton said. So are, are you going to, is someone gonna be inspecting the other classrooms for the from, you know, Underneath? Yeah. So, so the, um, the MSBA work includes the entire roof other than roof section E mm-hmm. Which is the section we're working on now. Okay. And the only reason we advanced that one faster was because it was a dire need. Mm-hmm. Um, to replace that roof roof. 26 was basically, if you saw, I don't know if you ever saw the pictures with the tarps and the hoses draining the water. Um, so that is its own separate project,

▶ 2:41:53 but when the MSBA project takes place, assuming we get the money mm-hmm. Um, when we do that study, we'll make sure that they're looking from the top down and from the bottom up. Okay. Great. Good. Motion to recommend. I'll second. Motion to recommend by Council Fanuc. Seconded by Councilor Common Chaney on discussion. Madam Clerk, please call the roll Vice chair Jamine? Yes. Councilor ra? Yes. Councilor Hamilton? Yes. Councilor Karen Chetty? Yes. Councilor Reky. Yes. Councilor Ram? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. President Elli? Yes. Chair gpe? Yes. Motion passes. Uh, we'll get recommended. Next up. Uh, ID 1, 2, 6, 4, 3. And appropriation from free cash.

▶ 2:42:49 0 1 3 2 4 0 0 1 in the amount of 80,000 to DDPW admin for stormwater improvement at L Pond Park. This is your last one tonight, baby. Wonderful. Jim might be up here for the next time. Um, this one more. So this is another, uh, earmark Federal earmark project. This one's administered through the EPA. Um, it is a million dollar grant and it's specifically for stormwater improvements at Alpine Park. Um, this grew out of the Alpine Park feasibility study. We had a lot of really great, um, components of that project that relate to stormwater. And so, uh, the mayor's office at the time had applied for this grant, um, to advance some of those stormwater improvements. The, uh, the city's component, the match component

▶ 2:43:48 of the total million is over 80,000. But the way the project is split out is there's a design, there are two design phases, and then phase three is construction. This gets us through the match component for, for phases one and two, which brings the project fully to the end of the design phase. The reason we split it out separately is because this is the, um, the discussion surrounding Alpine Park. I know from being on that feasibility study committee, um, it's a hot item when it comes to anything that relates to the playing surface of the field. And so, um, we anticipated that folks would feel a lot more comfortable approving the funding for the design only. Um, that is, which actually includes the permitting too,

▶ 2:44:39 and that is, is irrespective of what the final playing field's surface is. Um, and then from that design, we would design basically as many of the stormwater improvements as we could for the whole project up to about a 25% design. And then we would do final design for the ones that we think we can afford to construct with the grant. And then at that point we would return and request the construction match component, um, which I think is about a hundred thousand dollars to be able to construct the project. But we just felt like with it being such a, um, uh, I don't wanna say contentious, but such a hot topic with the public, um, that it would be better for the council to know what your, what the money's going toward when we're

▶ 2:45:28 Ryan Williams: voting on construction funds. And at this point, we can't say specifically what the construction project will be because we have to complete the design first. Council Williams, The purpose of this is to manage stormwater from Linville's Parkway down into El Pond, correct? Yeah, I'm looking, so it's on, it's on page, I don't know, 23 of the El Pond feasibility study. It's not soil drainage. Some of it is infiltration most likely. Okay. I mean, if I had to guess what, ultimately we'll be able to construct with the money that we have. We have a proposal in the, the wetland as there's a pipe that comes under Lin Fells Parkway. Mm-hmm. And then there's an outfall and there's a wetland that leads to the pond mm-hmm.

▶ 2:46:17 That is a mess of invasive species and just, it's just a really low value wetland, um, that we've proposed restoring and trying to add some storm water treatment benefit to it. Mm-hmm. You can design it so that there's the storm water gets slowed down, stuff settles out, some stuff filters into the ground. So that's one component that might be part of the ultimate project. Um, another is, I think we had some rain gardens in a couple of spots, so that could be part of the project. And then the big one is whether we wanna do any storage under the Knoll parking lot. If we wanted to try to infiltrate more water mm-hmm. To have it filter before it enters the pond, that would be a big water quality benefit.

▶ 2:47:02 So those are the types of things we'll be looking at. Um, in addition to under the field, there's, whether it's a artificial turf or a natural turf field in the long term, there's gonna be half, there's gonna have to be some sort of enhanced drainage system. Mm-hmm. So we'll bring all the storm water up to that 25% design, and then we will decide what we think we can actually do with the construction money. We'll bring that to final design and then come back for construction money, Is any of it designed to help meet MS four the phosphorus permit? It, it would help meet it for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Anything that we do in that watershed that infiltrates or that treats will help with that. Okay. Any overlap with the DCR project?

▶ 2:47:47 That outflow or that culvert is fairly close to the Yeah, we'd really be starting where the culvert outflows into the wetlands, so we wouldn't really be doing anything in the right of way there. Okay. That's it for me. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? It's the will, Uh, motion to recommend to the full counsel. Second. Motion to recommend by Council Williams. Seconded by Council Romano on discussion. Madam Clerk, please call the role Vice chair Jamal Dean? Yes. Councilor fro? Yes. Councilor Hamilton? Yes. Councilor Chetty. Yes. Cremsky? Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. President Elli? Yes. Chair Garipay. Motion passes Now we'll get recommended.

▶ 2:48:41 Mark Garipay: Thank you for being here. That's it, right? Thank you very Much. That's it with you guys, right? No flowers. Flowers. Jim? Jim's gonna stay up here. Oh, I had that as, uh, Lauren. I'm sorry. It Is. No, it is, it was Gonna be me. You can. Oh, okay. Oh, I didn't know Mr. Troop was still with us. Im sorry. Do I let him go home Or do I let Him keep going? He wasn't getting up quick. I was like, alright, next up. Sorry. Um, Mr. Troop, I'm here to support you. Id, ID number 1 2 6 4 5. And appropriation for free cash count 0 1 3 2 4 0 0 1 in the amount of 8,000 to DPW Parks for flowers at Veterans Memorial? Yeah. In collaboration with the Mayor's office. Uh, last year, uh, we saw the construction of a beautiful

▶ 2:49:33 memorial up in the knoll for the veterans. Uh, the DPW funded that, uh, at the direction of, uh, the Veterans Commission. And, uh, the budget just vastly exceeded what we had available. We called on a contractor to perform some in-kind services, so there were no, no cost to the city on that. They just fulfilled their obligation as part of their contract. But then we, uh, put flowers to make it ready for the Memorial Day, uh, services and, uh, programs. Uh, this was something that we talked about last year. And again, in collaboration with the Mayor's office and, uh, specifically the chief of staff here, uh, we have, uh, identified a funding need of approximately $8,000 to properly, uh, you know, seed plants, flowers

▶ 2:50:20 that will come up in bloom every year. Uh, not only here, but also with any remaining monies to spread throughout other veterans' memorials throughout the city. Thank you. Thank you. Good. Yeah, no, um, I, um, what he said is true and then after, um, DPW had to kind of hustle last year to make it look good, I went up there just, uh, about a month ago with Joe Hobbs and Kevin Naughton, just, I'm sure you've been up to the Gold Star Memorial. Um, and it's not something that we can sustain in the operating budget, but ahead of Memorial Day, we needed to look good for our veterans. Um, so this is a way that I think the team can get creative and, and make it look nice ahead of that. It makes it far more maintainable moving forward

▶ 2:51:05 Too. Moving forward too. Thank you. Councilor Ra? Yes. Um, our, I, I think I was there last year, um, for the services in the Veterans Group wants a specific flower planted. Is that correct? No, I think it's just, I mean, they like the idea of having yellow mm-hmm. Right. And the sort of points of the star up there. Um, and I know that Joe Hobbs and Kevin are gonna do the best they can to, to do yellow. Um, but what happened was they were all dead. And so that's gotta get pulled up every year. So they're looking at perennials and things that I was just gonna say, is there related perennials? Things can last longer. Yeah. So I have no idea what that is. Mm-hmm. But I trust them and their expertise to

▶ 2:51:45 Mark Garipay: Yeah. We could do some perennial, something really nice. Exactly. Save some on the budget each year, but some of that comes up Nice. Perfect. Yeah. Great. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to recommend Second, Make a motion to recommend A motion was made by Council Ache, seconded by Council Ro on discussion. Um, I would just say I was up there for the dedication last year. The monument came out great. I do think in the long run, this will probably save us some money than having to plant all those flowers in that star. And, um, I think, uh, I think it, uh, could look great, the flowers, but I think this money will go a long way and beautifying that a little bit better. So, uh, Madam Clerk,

▶ 2:52:31 Mark Garipay: Vice Chair Jamine? Yes. Thank you. Councilor Occhio? Yes. Councilor Hamilton? Yes. Councilor Rum Chetty? Yes. Councilor Reky? Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Council vanderveer? Yes. Council Williams? Yes. President Re? Yep. Chair Garipay. Yes. Motion passes. I get recommended Next up. Last and final. Thanks. You're still off. Jump the Come on now. I mean, we can wrap it up after I gotta, I wanna go home, I guess. Huh? 1 2 6 4 9 An appropriation for free cash accounts 0 1 3 2 4 0 0 1 in the amount of 20,000 for to the Melrose Cultural Council. Sure. So this, um, replaces or replicates last year's free cash that this body approved, um, for $20,000 that went to the Melrose Messina Fund for the Arts.

▶ 2:53:25 Um, which, um, during the last, uh, fiscal year, the Messina Fund for the Arts has been, um, we've done away with and moved fully into the Melrose Cultural Council. For those of you prior to being on the council in the last few years, the Messina Fund was a line item in the planning department for about 10 or 15 years, I think. Um, mayor Dolan started it and last year we moved it off the operating budget for the various re reasons we've all been talking about this evening. So this is to fund the, um, to give money to the Cultural Council for Grants for Arts and Culture. Any questions? I'll Make a motion to recommend. Second Motion to recommend by Councilor Che. Second by Councilor Romanul. Uh, on discussion.

▶ 2:54:17 Mark Garipay: Madam Clerk, can you please call the role Vice chair Jamal Dean? Yes. Councilor Occhio? Yes. Councilor Hamilton? Yes. Councilor Cameron Chetty? Yes. Cremsky? Yes. Councilor Romanul. Yes. Council Stewart? Yes. Council Vanderberg. Yes. Williams? Yes. President Elli? Yes. Chair oppe? Yes. Motion passes, Uh, will get recommended ID 1, 2, 6, 5 3 in appropriation from free cash. Zero one dash 3 2 4 0 0 1 in the amount of $2,000 to the mayor's office for the costs associated with inauguration. Yes. And I apologize, counselors. I did have a memo and I just synced it. Um, it's in the order now. It was very brief. Um, but this, the inauguration, which happens every two years, um, for council and city and school committee, and then every fourth year for mayor,

▶ 2:55:10 um, was normally funded outta the community outreach line item in the mayor's office, um, at her direction. We've zeroed that out for fiscal year 26, knowing that we'll have to have an inauguration, or we would like to have an inauguration in January. Um, we're hoping to use free cash for that and then figure it out two years from then when we have the next inauguration. Let's, Uh, I take a motion to recommend. Second. Motion to recommend by Council Ro Seconded by Councilman Romano. On discussion. Madam Clerk, please call the Role Vice chair Jamal Dean? Yes. Council Occhio? Yes. Councilor Hamilton? Yes. Councillor Karen Chetty? Yes. Councilor Reky? Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes.

▶ 2:55:56 Mark Garipay: Councilor Van Barr? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. President Migli? Yes. Chair Garipay? Yes. Motion passes. Thank You. Okay. Um, that concludes our business. Just a reminder on Saturday for the council, um, the anniversary is at Memorial Hall between 10 and 12, and I think we all got an email from the mayor. So, um, other than that, I'll take a motion, Mr. Chair. I'll Make a motion to adjourn. Second, We have a motion to adjourn by, uh, council Stewart. Second by council pun chiro on discussion. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Post Host Adjourned.

Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2025-05-01

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