Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2025-08-18
Attendance
Cal Finocchiaro ; Mark Garipay ; Ward Hamilton ; Maya Jamaleddine ; Manjula Karamcheti ; Leila Migliorelli ; John Obremski ; Devin Romanul ; Robb Stewart ; Kimberly Vandiver ; Ryan Williams
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Minutes Approval
- Public Comment
- Orders
- Requesting the Appropriation of $124,500,000 to pay costs for design, engineering, construction, site improvements, equipping, and furnishing of a renovated Melrose Central Fire Station, a new Melrose Highlands Fire Station, a new Melrose East Side Fire Station and a new Melrose Police Station.
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS & OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE CALENDAR● AUGUST 18, 2025 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Committee Meeting 7:00 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Maya Jamaleddine Vice Chair Absent Cal Finocchiaro Absent 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 # 12868) Bond Requesting the Appropriation of $124,500,000 to pay costs for design, engineering, construction, site improvements, equipping, and furnishing of a renovated Melrose Central Fire Station, a new Melrose Highlands Fire Station, a new Melrose East Side Fire Station and a new Melrose Police Station. Ought to Pass City Council City of Melrose Page 1 8/27/2025 10:13 AM
Transcript
▶ 16:56 Mark Garipay: Good evening. The time is seven o'clock on Monday, August 18th, 2025. This is a meeting, the Appropriation and Oversight committee. I'm Mark a, the chair. Joining me tonight are, uh, councilors, uh, Chetty, councilor Williams Chen, Hamilton Councilor Romano Cremsky Council, Vandiver Counselor Stewart and President, uh, ley A. This serves as a, serves as a notice of a quorum for the record, uh, in accordance with the open meeting law. This meeting is being recorded and broadcast live on MMTV. Um, tonight. I will move on. Um, well kinda confused. Um, at this time I will, uh, I will motion by unanimous consent to approve without reading the minutes of the July 21st, 2025 appropriation oversight meeting.
▶ 17:44 Mark Garipay: Seeing no objections, those, uh, minutes are now approved. Um, I will now motion, uh, by unanimous consent to open the floor of a public comment. Seeing no objections, this, uh, public po public comment portion of our meeting is now open. This is a portion of the meeting where the public may speak on any item on tonight's agenda. Comments expressing any viewpoint on other matters are also welcome. If there's anyone in the gallery looking to speak on the order tonight regarding the, um, appropriation for 124,500,000, please come forward seeing no one in the gallery looking to speak. Is there anyone online there is not. Okay. If there are no object obje on no objections, I will motion by unanimous consent to close the public
▶ 18:28 Mark Garipay: comment portion of this meeting. Public comment is now closed. Moving on to orders ID 1 2 8 6 8 Requesting the appropriation of 124. 124,500,000 to pay the cost for design engineering, construction site improvements, equipping and furnishing of the renovated Melrose Central Fire Station. A new Melrose Highlands Fire Station, a new Melrose East Side Fire Station, and a new Melrose Police Station. We have, uh, members of the administration here to speak to this order. We have Ms, uh, Ms. Golden, CFO, Ms. Phillips City Solicitor, and Ms. Amada, the city treasurer Floor is yours. Great. Good evening, counselors. Um, so tonight we have before you, um, an order requesting an appropriation of the remaining amount of 124,500, uh,
▶ 19:29 $124,500,000, uh, to pay for, um, the public safety, um, construction project. Um, as listed in the order, um, as you probably remember in 2024, this council appropriated, uh, a portion of the 130 million that was originally approved by voters in November, 2023. Um, that was 5.5 million we're tonight asking you to appropriate the remainder. Um, and I'll briefly talk about the reasons that we're asking you to do that. So, after an election for, uh, prop two and a half questions, so either override or debt exclusion, um, cities or towns have a reasonable amount of time as defined by DLS, um, to authorize debt for the same project. So what that means for us is an appropriation. So you can either do that before, or you can do it
▶ 20:13 after the election, um, and how it's normally done in cities and towns. Um, and a lot of the times it's a little bit simpler than what we have here because we have four projects, is that they authorize it very soon after the election. As you know, we've only authorized a small amount of this. Um, there's no clear or firm guidance as to what constitutes a reasonable period of time, but as you know, it's, it's been almost two years, um, since the election. So, um, we don't want the project to change substantially from the time the voters initially voted, which was 130 million. That's sort of gonna be the benchmark, the amount of money, it's gonna be hard for DLS to evaluate if we do have any increases that are due
▶ 20:52 to inflation or things like that. Um, if we don't authorize that total amount now, the number is sort of gonna be a moving target and be a little bit more to, um, for DLS to evaluate. So it is the recommendation of bond counsel and we have con um, we have consulted with, uh, DLS as well. And again, like we said, there's no firm guidance on what a reasonable period of time is, but we think we should do this sooner rather than later and not do it piecemeal. Um, again, there will be a bond sch, uh, bond schedule for issuance. Catherine, which Catherine right. So she can, um, go over that with council. I believe it's attached to the order as well. Um, but really this is an appropriation. My understanding is the mayor,
▶ 21:32 Devin Romanul: and there's a memo attached to this order, would still come back before council before, um, we go out for, to market, um, for each phase of the project to review that, those amounts with counsel before those are actually issued. So, um, we're happy to answer any questions counsel might have on this order. Ramo, Thank you so much and appreciate all the, the materials. Um, I understand that DLS doesn't necessarily have, um, you know, firm guidance as, as to, you know, what constitutes a reasonable amount of time. But are there other comparative communities that have undergone these size, uh, infrastructure projects that, that might give us some sort of guideposts in terms of what is normal and reasonable?
▶ 22:15 Uh, I think that's my first question. And my second would be, um, what is the comparative advantage of doing it in one lump sum versus piecemeal as each of these, the major phases of these projects roll up? Um, so the first question, they did not give us any comparable questions or communities there. Um, guidance was simply that there's a lot of communities that do this, but they don't usually have four projects at once with $1 amount. So it's a little trickier. Um, but at the same time, um, I'm trying to think the 130, so, sorry, I lost my train of thought. So with that, um, so they also said that it usually occurs, how they have seen it is that it's soon after the election. Um, so they haven't seen a lot of cities
▶ 23:02 and towns waiting any length of period of time. So they don't have any real guidance as to what they would consider reasonable. Um, but I think our concern is the longer we wait, it could be considered unreasonable since we are now two years out, um, obviously the project costs could potentially increase for things like inflation. And if we go over that 130 million mark at any point, that is something we would have to get approval from DLS and submit documentation of why it is over that 130. And it would be a little harder for them to evaluate at that point if we didn't get the appropriation upfront. That is the will of the voters that they voted on in 2023. So, um, I think their guidance was simply
▶ 23:39 Devin Romanul: that there should be a vote and you should be appropriating what the will of the voters was in that election within a reasonable period of time. And our concern is just that it's been such a long period of time that, uh, we feel it's, it's right to do at this juncture. Gotcha. So you're saying that, that the further we get away from the actual vote in terms of the, uh, a gap between the vote and the bond issuance, um, potentially we fall into trouble with DLS when it comes to potential flexibility, It could become a little riskier. Gotcha. Is that what they've advised us? Yeah. Gotcha. Um, and I get that we're maybe not singular, but, uh, a bit of an outlier Yes. With regard to the number of projects that we're doing.
▶ 24:17 Kimberly Vandiver: But, um, but appreciate that feedback as well. Thank you very much. That's all for now. Thank you Council at the end of Our thank you. Um, so just thinking about this, um, kind of pros and cons to the councilor's point, um, of having waited, continuing to wait, it seems that with such a large amount that we're borrowing, ideally we would be able to spread any bonds, you know, there are fluctuations over time. So, so as opposed to the risk of kind of going all in at once, that ideally we would like to spread out our taking on of debt to kind of dollar cost average across whatever interest rates, something like that. Um, it seems like we all other things being equal, taking out the debt is later
▶ 25:01 because right now we haven't had to pay interest on two years worth of holding onto the debt. Right. So that seems mostly favorable other than interest rates moving around. Is that accurate? Um, to date we have taken out funds, right. 'cause Denise needed to do a study to find out to, to actually finalize the cost or get a closer idea of that. So we have paid interest over the last year and a Half. Oh, okay. The schedule that's attached as an example, is based on the current estimated cash flows. So I went to Denise said, what does your project look like? What does the rollout look like so that we can update what was put before the council two years ago. Right now, this schedule shows 122 million.
▶ 25:50 It shows the debt that's rolling off from the school projects, a little bit of bands, and then staggered bonding as we need the funds. So that, as you said, we we won't put all our eggs in one basket. Right. Interest right there. Yeah. That, that makes a lot of sense to me. To, um, to stagger the bonding in for you to have the control to do that in the way that will set us up for the best, um, best on average outcome of those decisions. Excuse Me, if you could just speak into the mic. Oh, push the mic over a little bit. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. There are also spending rules when you issue debt, so we have to be cognizant of that. We can't raise a whole slew of money that we can't spend in a reasonable period of time.
▶ 26:37 Kimberly Vandiver: So there are a bunch of rules and analysis that are going into how we lay out these bonds. Got it. And I guess my other question would be, I, my understanding is we said 130 million total, that is not 130 million in 2020 $2 or 130 million, 2020 $5, it's just at whatever point we take that out, 130 million. Is that accurate? Uh, I'm, could you rephrase that? I'm, I didn't quite get, Uh, sometimes, uh, sometimes, especially over a longer period of time when we, when we talk about a certain amount of money, if we talk about a million dollars in 19 $90 or $2,000, that that would be different. Like there's no kind of adjustment calculation being done based on if we take the money out sooner or later.
▶ 27:19 Robb Stewart: Right. It's just $130 million at some point, $130 million is what the voters approve. Okay. Thank you. That's all my questions. Thank you. Anyone else looking to, uh, councilor Stewart? Uh, thank you Mr. Chair. Uh, thanks for coming to, for this evening. So my one concern about all this is, uh, being able to understand the, um, the, the budgetary, um, actions per building, right? When you, when you appropriate this lump sum for four buildings, that does not really clarify, at least to me, what the individual allocation of that monies to each building is. And where I think that could cause problems down the road is you do fire station one, then you do the police station, then you do fire station two,
▶ 28:20 and you get to the third fire station, and we only have half the money. So why are we doing it in one lump sum when we could be more accurate in terms of being able to have defined number for each building? You answer that. Sure. When all, I'm sorry. Um, all of the costs are not finalized right now. This is, uh, it's a living animal. Um, and we're getting updates from the committee through Denise as things evolve. Um, I I, it wouldn't be in anybody's best interest to run out of money if the voters did vote for the 130 for four buildings. Um, and I believe, I can't speak for the committee, but I would think that they would be planning within those boundaries. And I believe that the mayor will be providing updates
▶ 29:23 Jen Grigoraitis: as the, and Denise will be providing updates as the, um, project progresses. I'm happy to join in. Um, just good evening, everyone. So to answer that question, I think there's two parallel processes happening here. There is the daily work of the committee, um, which we talked about at length at last month's meeting, where you all received an update, which included a detailed timeline and schedule and budget per building. Um, and so there's a lot of work that's happening around that that really detailed where we're at with each of the four projects. What are the estimated costs, what are the estimated savings at this point in time? Um, and then the timeline. And then there is this larger bond conversation
▶ 30:07 Jen Grigoraitis: where we are feeling very keenly from our legal counsel that we need to be following their advice and the advice of DLS, which is to be tying as closely back to the timeline when voters told us they wanted to authorize this project. Um, so I think those two things are happening kind of on parallel tracks. Um, and obviously there needs to be an awareness of one and the other, but it is, the four buildings are still happening within the confines of what's been put forward to the voters. And then just most recently to you all last month. Um, but there is concern that as we move toward project four, which wouldn't actually break ground until 2030, we would be seven years out from the voter's approval
▶ 30:47 Jen Grigoraitis: of this bond, which we need the council to authorize in order to move forward with. And who will be in all of these seats in the administration is a big question. And we've really kind of gotten away from what was the will of the, of the voters, what they told us to do. And then if we suddenly had a council that said, no, thank you, we don't wanna do the fourth building, then we've really put the city in a tricky spot where we've had a vote, a public vote taken, but then we've had 11 elected representatives or a mayor say, we don't wanna move forward and that's not where we wanna be. Does that help? It it does help. Um, I could play devil's advocate there. Sure. Um, well, because if you roll a clock forward seven years,
▶ 31:27 Robb Stewart: we have a different, uh, demographic in the city and it may require another vote, um, for if they want the fourth building or not to the people. I mean, you know, if in in that argument It would only go the, I don't believe it could go back. I mean, there would have to be a request to put something back on a ballot. And I think maybe there's legally a way where the public could ask to undo that, but that would be a whole process. Yeah. Understood. Understood. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I I think you understand the gist of what I'm saying though, right? Is that demographic could change and, and that seven year period, um, let me shift the, the narrative a little bit. Um, how, how can we and more importantly the public be aware of the fact
▶ 32:12 Jen Grigoraitis: that you are tracking on budget for each of the four efforts? So I think that's a great question. I know we talked about this a lot back in July, um, but there is monthly budget summaries that are provided to the facility committee that are posted on the city website. Um, and then obviously the entire process of bidding for these projects is heavily regulated by state law. So we are going through, you know, the competitive bidding process under, um, why am I 30 B mm-hmm. 30 B, um, to, um, bid these projects, which includes providing all sorts of cost estimates. And so that's all being regularly shared with the committee, and those documents are all available for public viewing. Okay. Um, and just, um, providing feedback specific
▶ 32:58 Robb Stewart: to the police station, given that it's in my ward and I hear from my represent, uh, my constituents, uh, there's still concern about the fact that design is incomplete, um, and that they are waiting for that second design to come forward, um, that we are appropriating the money that is, um, not entirely complete in terms of what that design is. Um, I think that, and I'm expressing what I'm hearing, right? I, I want you to understand mm-hmm. The, the feedback that I hear. Um, there's also, um, some concerns about, um, again, the size of the building, and I'm sure you've heard that time and time again. Um, and I want to express that, um, I, I do want to comment that there was good feedback on the trees
▶ 33:57 Robb Stewart: and the wall situation. So thank you for hearing and being able to accommodate what they need there. Uh, I think that's important. They're happy with that. Um, and, uh, I, I think that, um, my understanding is that there is a little bit of an overrun on the police station, but it is compensated by an underrun on the other building. So we are at this point, we are in a, a pretty good place. So I just wanted to confirm that, because that's what I'm hearing Correct, Is the entire project team was here in July and presented that. We are currently running for the all four buildings, $7 million under the 130 million. So obviously that's based on the current, um, you know, assessment that we've gotten back the first two buildings,
▶ 34:42 Ward Hamilton: the police station, and, um, engine two will be going out to bid in the coming months. So we'll be getting more refined estimates as time goes on, but that's where we are right now. Great. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilor Hamilton. Thank you. Um, I just wanna ask some questions, uh, that I think will address some of Councilor Stewart concerns, which I understand and appreciate, but I think that it would help if we had some clarification. And I'm looking at Solicitor Phillips's memo from April 5th, 2024, which includes the specific language of the ballot question. Mm-hmm. And the dollar amount, whether we call it 130 million or 129.7. And then there's been discussion over the last,
▶ 35:31 Ward Hamilton: I guess a year at this point about budgets in buildings and budgets within the bigger budget. My understanding, and you please correct me if I'm wrong, is that the budget is 130 million or 129.7 million in that we have created individual building budgets to help guide planning. But the only real budget number, and by real I mean the thing that we're tied to is the overall number. And I definitely understand and appreciate Councilor Stewart concern about going out to bond before the police station is done fully designed, but we also have two other buildings that have mm-hmm. We haven't even started design. Um, so if you could, that's, that's my first, uh, question, comment. If you could speak to, are we locked into
▶ 36:28 Ward Hamilton: individual budget numbers by buildings or is that a, a number that slides and can move based on what we encounter? And, uh, one of the, uh, at some point somebody suggested that back before this was a debt exclusion vote, the Public Safety Building Committee presented these numbers to the community of like what we thought each building would cost. And so there was some need to try to adhere to that, but I would also suggest that we present it to the community that we're gonna build the police station in one place and we've done it in another. So I, I, I don't, unless you as our attorney tell us otherwise, I don't think we're locked into numbers for individual buildings. I think the larger big number,
▶ 37:20 which right now is running under budget by several million dollars is where we are. So we did have a, a pretty lengthy discussion and, um, did a lot of research into this with DLS as well as Biden Council. Um, I, I do agree that 130 million is the number that we're locked into. I think that was very clear, um, that that was the number contemplated at the time. Um, this council voted to put the question on the ballot and the time the voters voted on the question. The other individual costs were just estimates as far as I can tell, looking back at all of the minutes and documents provided they were estimates as to what each building would cost. Um, I don't think we're tied to those exact numbers.
▶ 38:00 Ward Hamilton: Um, based on, um, our analysis of this, however, um, we would be hesitant to say, for example, if each building was say, 30 million, you'd now decide to build one building for only 2 million if you, if you really go way outside of the scope of what those numbers were. So we would say, I think we're still in the best position to try to stay as close to those estimates as possible, but we're not tied to those by any means. Thank you. And, uh, to address some of the other concerns that Council Stewart brought up, which are excellent concerns that the neighborhood shares. Um, and I'll share this, I guess with my, you know, report to committee during the full council, but, um, the, uh, police station is two months behind, and that's largely
▶ 38:54 Ward Hamilton: because the decision was made to press pause and to seek additional input from the community, which has been very helpful in, um, making design changes. But otherwise, I think that, uh, things are on track with the police station and they're looking good. And I believe, uh, the community overall is supportive. Last month, um, you know, this was presented, we had Ms, uh, gaff and, and others from the design team that came in to present. And, uh, I didn't hear any objection from the community. And we do have a community representative who, um, I've engaged with who I think is, is a good voice from the neighborhood. So, um, I, I think things are headed in a very positive direction. I understand the logic behind the decision to borrow.
▶ 39:44 Ward Hamilton: Now, I certainly understand, um, councilor Vandiver comment about borrowing now versus year. There may be some changes in the fall with rates, and it was explained to me from the administration on how, you know, we would certainly wait to borrow at the right time. So, um, for what it's worth, and in my involvement with the Public Safety Facilities Advisory Committee, I think, I think things are going very well. It's not one building, it's four. And even though we aren't onto designing three and four already, the mayor, uh, with her leadership has seen, she's seen and, uh, directed us towards a few op a few ways in which we can better val value engineer the project. For example, it looks like we're gonna focus on the building
▶ 40:31 Mark Garipay: next door last and doing the East Side Station next instead. And, uh, there are many, many good reasons for doing that. So, um, you know, from a fiscal perspective, I think we're, we're doing things the right way. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Next up, I have Councilor Williams, but I'm gonna motion to recess so we can gather to legal and ledge and we'll come back. Right back. Um, so, uh, I will entertain a motion to recess. So move Second. We have a motion to recess made by Williams, seconded by Council Elli, uh, on discussion. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Uh, we're recessed. Good evening. The time is 7:25 PM on Monday, August 18th, 2025. This is a meeting of the Legal and Legislative Committee.
▶ 43:01 Ryan Williams: So, and I'm sorry if I missed this. I was fighting with IQMQ for a little bit. We're still fighting. Um, when we approve these bonds, if we approve these bonds in a lump sum, does that change the impact to residents as taxpayers? Um, the speed at which the full amount of the, uh, of the tax increase hits their bills. You know, there was a schedule and it's in, it's in I QM two for this item. And it was like essentially 2029, I think, when the sort of full impact was gonna be felt. If we bond all of this at once, does that accelerate the full impact? Um, the, the intent with the approval for the appropriation isn't to bond everything all at once. Right. Okay. So it still will be staggered. The amount and the timing at which we issue the bonds
▶ 43:48 Ryan Williams: or sell the bonds will depend on the spend schedule Yes. For the money. Okay. Thank you very much. I just wanted to, to clarify that. Okay. And, and confirm that, but I assumed it was the case, so thank you for, for that. Um, and then my, the second question I had kind of came up as everybody's talking about how this is sort of a moonshot thing for Melrose. You know, it's very far in the future. It's a lot of buildings, there's a lot of unknowns. Um, we appropriate the $124 million and let's say that we come in way under budget in eight years. Do we just take that money and immediately pay that portion of the bond back? We can't. I know we have to go to voters to get more money. What happens if we need less money?
▶ 44:26 Uh, we most likely will not have issued it. I see. What we do when we go into a new phase is we, we may issue bans I see. Until we get a, a tighter grip on the, the cash flow needs. So it could be that at the end, if we're 8 million under, we only issue 122 million and we have the eight that's issued, but unauthorized. And there are rules in how you can divert that Great. Uh, to other projects. Okay. Thank You very much. That's it. Anyone else? Uh, looking ask questions. What's the will of the council? A motion to recommend? Second. We have a motion to recommend id 1, 2, 8, 6 8 by Council Williams, seconded by council, uh, Romano on discussion. Um, Madam Clerk, will you take a roll call? I will. Councilor Hamilton? Yes.
▶ 45:26 Mark Garipay: Council Karen Chetty? Yes. Councilor Reky? Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. Present mere. Yes. Chair Garipay? Yes. Motion passes. Alright. This I idea will be recommended to the full counsel on September 2nd meeting. Um, that concludes our business for tonight. I will entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Second. We have a motion to adjourn by Council Williams, seconded by council ver on discussion. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? We're adjourned Musical chairs. Good evening. We're resuming our legal and legislative hearing out of recess. I believe we did minutes and public comment. Uh, first item on our agenda tonight is ID number 1 2 7 2 9.