[Fred Dello Russo]: to order. Madam clerk, please call the roll.
[hFAk--zIv7g_SPEAKER_20]: Present with seven members present, none absent. Uh, I remind everyone here tonight that yesterday we observed the 72nd anniversary
[Fred Dello Russo]: of the Great Crusade, the Operation Overlord, the invasion of Europe by the Allied forces to make an end to tyranny in the world and to bring democracy and freedom to the oppressed peoples of Europe. The American military played a pivotal and significant and perhaps the dominating role in that endeavor. And many people died, many soldiers died, and so as we pledge allegiance to the flag, I hope we keep in mind that great endeavor. Aye.
[Richard Caraviello]: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands,
[Fred Dello Russo]: Chair recognizes Councilor Knight. Mr. President, I call for suspension of the rules to take paper 16532, please. On the motion of Councilor Knight to take paper 16532. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion carries. 16-532, request for expenditure from law department claims over $1,000 to account number 0101515762. Date, May 31st, 2016. To Frederick Dello Russo and the honorable members of the Medford City Council, from Stephanie M. Burke, Mayor. Claimant, Mark Hennessey. Date of accident, August 14th, 2014. Date of settlement, May 31st, 2016. Date of trial request, not applicable. Amount of request, $3,400. A description of alleged claim. The claimant, Mark Hennessey, of number 32 Russell Street, narrows mass, seeks compensation for property damage, suffered as a result of an accident involving a DPW vehicle on Governor's Avenue on the 14th of August, 2014. Mr. Hennessey's vehicle was parked at that time. The case was settled prior to trial. Necessary release has been obtained from the claimant. Breakdown to amount requested. Medical costs, zero. Lost wage, zero. Property damage, $3,400. Total settlement, $3,400. The Chair recognizes the Assistant City Solicitor at the podium to make explanation on this matter. Madam Solicitor. Please state your name and address for the record.
[k3Xg1illaRI_SPEAKER_15]: Kimberly Scanlon, assistant city solicitor 75 Ashcroft road in Medford. Thank you. Members of the city council is the Mr. President has stated this is a claim in regards to, uh, would fall under chapter two 58, the Massachusetts to our claims act that occurred on or about August 14th, 2014 on governor's Avenue. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. President appears that everything's in order here. I'd move for approval of the paper.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion for approval by Councilor Knight, seconded by Councilor Caraviello. Seconded by Councilor Caraviello, yes. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.
[hFAk--zIv7g_SPEAKER_20]: Councilor Caraviello? Yes. Councilor Bailão? Yes. Councilor Knight? Yes. Vice President Lindell-Kern? Yes. Councilor Marks? Yes. Councilor Scapelli? Yes. Vice President Bailão?
[Fred Dello Russo]: Yes. With the vote of seven in the affirmative and none in the negative, the motion passes. Chair recognizes Councilor Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: Mr. President, while we're under suspension, can we take paper 1530 and 1531 out of order, please?
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion of Councilor Caraviello to take these petitions out of order, 15-530 and 15-531. 15-530. petition for a common vitilis license by 711 Incorporated, 3200 Hackberry Road, Irving, Texas, 75063, doing business as 711 number 3772H at 133 Main Street in Medford. On file are all appropriate certificates. Is the petitioner present? Please state your name and address for the record. Please state your name and address for the record. Name is Andrew Chang. I'm a field consultant for 711 situated in a resident in Medford.
[Richard Caraviello]: Councilor? Mr. President, 133 Main, that's the one right over by the police station, correct? Yes, sir. Are you going to, is that still, is it going to be maintained as a 24 hour facility as it is now? Yes, sir. Mr. President, does that, Do we need to vote on where it's a change of ownership, the 24-hour license?
[Fred Dello Russo]: I don't have that information, Chairman of the Licensing Committee. I think that in many instances, the 24-hour openings were left only to the particular licensee and not with the location. We need clarification on that. Madam Clerk, do you have that information present?
[SPEAKER_14]: No, I don't.
[Richard Caraviello]: Madam clerk does not have that with her. Mr. Chairman. Mr. President, I find the papers to be in order. And, sir, it looks like you're going to be doing some remodeling? Not at this time, no. But it says right here.
[hFAk--zIv7g_SPEAKER_05]: It will be in the future, yes.
[Richard Caraviello]: In the future, it will be going through mine. Mr. President, I find the paperwork in order, and I move for approval. On the motion for approval by Councilor Caraviello.
[Fred Dello Russo]: All those in favor? Opposed?
[Adam Knight]: have a determination as to whether or not they need a special license for extended hours at this point in time?
[Fred Dello Russo]: We don't know.
[Richard Caraviello]: Yes, we don't have the particulars on that.
[Adam Knight]: I don't feel so comfortable.
[Richard Caraviello]: If we could just find out if there's a problem, let the gentleman know that he has to obtain a 24-hour license. Mr. President, I'd be supportive of the measure if we granted a normal
[Adam Knight]: license and allowed the gentleman to come back and petition for extended hours at a later date. Provided.
[Fred Dello Russo]: There's no request for extended hours of operation.
[Adam Knight]: If you look at the petition, it says 24-7.
[Fred Dello Russo]: I'm sorry?
[Adam Knight]: The petition says 24-7. So my concern would be that we're approving it for 24 seven, but he may have a requirement to go through a special permit as well. Okay.
[Richard Caraviello]: So we have a motion for approval on the floor. What does the council wish to do with the amendment that if there is, if there is, uh, uh, if it has to be changed, if they have to come back to change the hours, we'll, we'll notify the gentleman.
[Fred Dello Russo]: So, uh, approval is granted. Uh, and if they need a permit to have 24 hour operation, they will be notified by the city clerk's office. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. So on the motion for approval, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Just one question, sir. The comment will be mailed out or? See the clerk's office. Thank you. 16-531 petition for a common vigilance license by a sub Kim, president of Soda Barbecue incorporated 27 Riverside Avenue mass method mass on file, all certificates and, uh, uh, communications. Councilor caveat chairman of the, uh, uh, licensing. Thank you, Mr. President. Is the petitioner present? Mr. President, um, with the position of barbecue of Boston,
[Richard Caraviello]: Would the petitioner not be present, Mr. President, if we could table this? On the motion of Councilor Caraviello to table it.
[Fred Dello Russo]: All those in favor?
[Adam Knight]: Aye.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Those opposed? That is tabled.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. President, we're under suspension. Can we table item number 16533 until our budget discussions and budget hearings are complete?
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion of Councilor Knight to table 16533, the submission of the city budget. On the motion of Councilor Knight to table, undebatable. All those in favor? All those opposed? Budget is tabled.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. President, motion to revert back to the regular order of business.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion of Councilor Knight to revert back to the regular order of business. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion carries 1516-528, offered by Councilor Marks. Be it resolved. That lane markings be painted on Route 60 West heading into Medford Square, starting at Pure Hockey. Additionally, that clearly marked left turn lanes coming from City Hall Mall Road onto Route 60 be painted in the interest of public safety. There we are. Thank you, Councilor Marks. I apologize.
[Michael Marks]: Thank you, Mr. President. And, um, I know we have a resident here, Max, uh, that would like to speak on the issue. Uh, this has been an issue that's, uh, been, um, on the agenda for the city for several months now. And if anyone's familiar with the area, if you're coming down route 60 going West, heading into the square, uh, right around, uh, pure hockey, the lane markings are non-existent. And when cars are merging onto that portion of Salem Street, they really don't know which lane to be in. And coupled with the fact that if you're on City Hall Mall Road, which is right next to City Hall, and you're coming onto Route 60 from City Hall Mall Road, and you're taking a left there, There are no markings when you get onto Salem Street which lane you should be in. So you could be in the far left lane trying to get into the right lane so you can go towards West Method. And it's really a free for all. And I'm shocked there hasn't been a major, major accident or even pedestrian safety concern there based on the lack of markings. Now, this has been reported for the past, I believe, close to two months. on C-Click fix and it's been escalated up to the DPW, but I'm not quite sure why lane markings that were already established. We're not recreating a new road. We're not asking for engineers to go out there. We're asking to repaint the lane marking in the area of, in the interest of public safety. why this can't be done. So I'm offering it tonight, Mr. President, with the hopes that this will go immediately to DPW. I don't think this is a traffic commission issue. It's just a mere painting of already existing faded lane markings. And I would ask that the DPW go out there immediately in the interest of public safety and rectify the left turn lanes coming from City Hall Mall Road onto Route 60, and also coming down Route 60 West, heading into Medford Square, right about where Pure Hockey is going forward. So I would ask that in the form of a motion, Mr. President. And I know we have a resident that has the same concern, Mr. President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Councilor. And on the motion for approval by Councilor Marks, Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. President, I think this is a great resolution. It's something that I'm going to be supporting. I hope the gentleman doesn't mind if I amend it to request the same at the foot of Forest Street at Salem with a right turn onto Forest Street and a left turn onto Main as well as the arrow that goes straight up High Street because I see a lot of confusion in front of Modern Pastry in that area as well. But I think it's a great resolution and it's certainly something that I support wholeheartedly, Mr. President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: As amended by Councilor Knight and seconded. Sir, you wish to address the council? Welcome.
[SPEAKER_12]: Please state your name and address for the record. I'm Maxim Weinstein, 57 Ashland Street in Medford. Yeah, I was one of the people who contributed to what has become a fairly lengthy comment thread on the see if you click fix item that was reported by another resident six or seven weeks ago at least. And, you know, I want to first say that, you know, I want to give credit to the administration and to the city council for supporting the C-Click Fix efforts because I think it is a really valuable tool both to improve the ability of residents to report these issues and for the city to be aware of them and to track them and to provide visibility. into what's going on. I do think one of the sort of growing pains we've seen with the system so far is that issues get added. And frankly, I will say that some of the residents don't seem entirely clear on how to use the system to the maximum effect either. But, you know, I think the city has at times It left some of these issues languishing without any sort of response or communication back as to what state they're in. I noticed this particular issue when I just looked at it about 15 minutes ago was marked as closed for no apparent reason. And by the way, I think anyone with a login can mark an issue as closed. I don't think only the city has the power to do that. I'm not 100% sure. I was just sitting there marked as closed, even though clearly it isn't. I walked out there before the meeting. It's not resolved. So I marked it open again, by the way. But, you know, I do think that as much as anything, you know, first of all, I agree with Councilor Marks that it doesn't seem like repainting the lines should be something that should take that long necessarily. I don't know all the processes of the city, but it does seem like a long time. But it also is a communications issue, and I think the administration should be encouraged to ensure that they're making use of this system, not just to record these issues and to address them, but also to ensure they're communicating effectively with the people who are reporting them and other people who are looking at the system and trying to use it for that purpose. So, that's all. Thank you.
[Michael Marks]: I think what we heard tonight is yet again more important feedback that Max just mentioned about when we met with the mayor last week about how we can improve C-Click Fix. And one of the issues was that we noticed that C-Click Fix is turning into a blog session where people just blog back and forth. And you could say, well, I think you know, we need to paint the crosswalk. And then someone else comes on there and says, Oh, that's ridiculous. Uh, you know, what do you, what do you think you're doing? Or, you know, and that's not what the intent is. The intent is as Max mentioned, uh, to get a quick response from city hall, uh, and also to be logged into the system and then get a response back on when a completion shall take place. And clearly that's not currently happening right now. And I think there is an omission in the system with reporting back to residents and, uh, just to close out an item to make it look like the city is responding is not necessarily the best approach. And I'd rather see items open and still trying to be resolved than just to quickly close an item and then hope it goes away. Because I think that's what's currently taking place right now. So that's why I put this on tonight, Mr. President. And I want to thank Max for coming up and the other residents that brought this to the attention. of the city.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you very much, Councilor. So on the motion for approval by Councilor Marks, seconded by Councilor Knight, and amended by Councilor Knight, roll call has been requested. Madam Clerk, if you would kindly call the roll. Yes. Yes. Yes. Seven in the affirmative. Motion passes. Chair recognizes Councilor Caraviello to take a paper off the table. Thank you, Mr. President. On motion of Councilor Caraviello to take 16-522. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. 16-522, Class 2 Auto Deal License A-Tech, 67 Mystic Street in Medford. It was tabled last week. We had a public hearing on the matter that was voted favorably on the petitioner's behalf. However, when we got to dealing with the issuing of the license, the petitioner somehow had exited the building. And so now we have her here. If you would come state your name and address for the record. Thank you for coming down in this delicate time in your life.
[SPEAKER_26]: All right. Eliane Caraviello. And my address is 51 Tufts Street, Summerville, Mass.
[Richard Caraviello]: Welcome. Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilor Caraviello. Thank you, Mr. President. I apologize for last week and for the mix-up. Quick question. How many cars did you plan on having in the lot?
[SPEAKER_26]: Twenty.
[Richard Caraviello]: How many?
[SPEAKER_26]: Twenty.
[Richard Caraviello]: Twenty.
[SPEAKER_26]: Twenty.
[Richard Caraviello]: How many are there now? Are there 20 there now?
[SPEAKER_26]: No, it is, what I have now, it is 12.
[Richard Caraviello]: You only have 12 now?
[SPEAKER_26]: We have a possibility for 20 and a lot.
[Richard Caraviello]: Mr. President, I don't know if the property is capable of handling 20. I'd like to keep it at 12, that's there now. for at least a six month review. And if we feel that she can add eight more there, then she can come back for a review.
[Fred Dello Russo]: So on the motion for approval by Councilor Caraviello, amended that there be a limitation of 12 cars on the property and that the petitioner report back to us. for a six-month review to see how the operation goes and if it's capable of accepting more automobiles on the premises.
[Richard Caraviello]: On that, Mr. President, I find the papers in order. I recommend approval.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On that motion, all those in favor? All those opposed? Motion carries. Congratulations, as amended. Thank you. Thank you.
[Adam Knight]: Councilor Knight. I'm seeing here in the paperwork that was submitted by the code enforcement officer that an auto establishment in the C2 zone requires a special permit from the city council. That was the matter that these people are here before us for, but he also made a recommendation that the parking area associated with the business be limited. And I think that that's what Councilor Caraviello is trying to implement at this point in time. However, I think that it's also important that they produce to this council a copy of their parking plan so that we can actually see.
[Richard Caraviello]: Councilor Knight, they don't park any cars on Mystic Avenue. They're all in the back there, but again, With the mechanic shop going in there and the used car, I think 20 might be pressing it a little bit.
[Fred Dello Russo]: We just disposed of them all.
[Adam Knight]: Well, I know, but I meant by that.
[Fred Dello Russo]: But that's all right. I rest my case, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Council. Do we have a motion to return back to the regular order of business? All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion carries 16-529, authored by Vice President Lungo-Koehn. Be it resolved that a member of the President be allowed to address the City Council with regard to public pedestrian public safety, I apologize. Madam Vice President.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, President Dello Russo. I'm going to actually move to table this until next week.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion of Vice President Lungo-Koehn to table the matter. All those in favor?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for suspension of the rules after that.
[Fred Dello Russo]: All those opposed? The motion carries. On the motion of Vice President Lungo-Koehn for suspension of the rules for what purpose, Madam Vice President?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: To take paper from the hand of the clerk with regards to the Shaw's development.
[Fred Dello Russo]: We have residents- On the motion of Vice President Lungo-Koehn Paper from the hand of the clerk in regards to the Shaw's development. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion carries. Offered by Vice President Lungo-Koehn, be it resolved that the Medford Zoning Board of Appeals refrain from rendering, I apologize, a written opinion with regards to the development at the Shaw's site unit after next week. until after the next city council meeting and after an open public hearing on that motion.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you, president dollars. So I think the council would like to have been more up to date on this issue. And I'm sure we each know a good deal, but not in its entirety, what's going on with the Shah's development because the last two zoning board of appeals meetings were held during our city council meetings. In the meantime, I know the last, within the last couple days, it was brought to my attention that a decision is going to be rendered in favor of the 400, and this could be rumor, but in favor of the 490 units proposed, apartment units proposed at the site, including retail space, with only, I believe, 781 parking spaces. There's also a request by the I mentioned linkage by, I can be correct, stand corrected, but a million dollars, which I haven't heard of that in my tenure as a city councilor, and I find definitely concern with that figure being reduced. Linkage has never been reduced. Within the last, I think it was probably 10 years ago now, with regards to the apartments behind 9th Street, I remember attending a meeting opposing the massive size of that development. And at that time, there was a public meeting. It was held at the McGlynn Middle School. It was highly attended by the residents. And I think that's one thing that I'm definitely looking to ask the Zoning Board of Appeals to do before a decision's rendered. I know this, a lot of people want to come, a lot of residents want to come to the council meeting, and I believe at least one or two councillors want to put this on for next week to have a formal discussion in council chambers. But in the meantime, I'm just simply asking that The zoning board of appeals let the council catch up, let the residents be heard, and hold off on filing that decision. I know there has been a possible complaint filed with regards to how those meetings were run. That's definitely an issue that I need to look into further. And the massive size with the traffic and parking impact in that neighborhood is something that people are, Those meetings were highly attended, but more people, obviously, we need more attention to this issue, we need more publicity to this issue, and we need more time to allow the residents to voice their concerns. It's something that I see that should be reduced in size, and that's just my opinion, but no matter what, we just need public input, and the council needs to, obviously, we're getting calls since we've heard the decision is gonna be rendered, phone calls and emails and reading about people being unhappy. And I just believe that the residents deserve, and the city of Medford as a whole deserves, time to voice those concerns and ask questions in a more appropriate manner.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Madam Vice President, if I might ask, why wasn't this brought to the council before?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I had asked questions of residents. Are you talking about from me? From me? Or in general?
[SPEAKER_17]: No, why wasn't it brought to the city council? Is it under our jurisdiction to have approved this?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: We don't have approval as variances. I'm asking for the public meeting that the zoning board had when the 9th Street apartments went up. I didn't get involved. I don't think the council got involved. I didn't think it was going to happen this fast. I did have opinions that I planned on voicing when I caught up with the issue, but I think anything's under our purview when people are complaining and have concerns. I think we definitely need to get on top of it.
[Fred Dello Russo]: But we don't have jurisdiction over the project.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I'm not asking for jurisdiction. I'm asking for the zoning board to give it more time before the actual decision is rendered so the public has more time to voice their concerns. A public meeting, an open public meeting. The last one was held at the McGlynn. Hundreds of people were there. And this issue is catching on where I think we could get close to that. 490 units, not enough parking, a million dollars in linkage. It's unheard of. I can't believe that that was even being allowed. And I knew it was thrown out there. I knew it was a request to the developer. But I never in a million years would have ever believed that that reduction in linkage would be approved. And I'd like to learn. I don't know if there's any residents in the audience that can speak to the fact. The decision hasn't been in view.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Whether it was that allegiance that a dispensation was granted?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: That's the rumors, and that's what I want to try to get to the bottom of. Yep.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Very good. You all set? Madam Vice President?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, I'd like to.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Good evening. Welcome. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Jeanne Martin]: Jean Martin, 10 Cumming Street. And so I'm a direct abutter to this project. So thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak. I went to the meeting last week, and the residents, first of all, I want to humanize the residents in that small scale residential neighborhood. that abuts this project, that's how they referred to us, the small-scale residential neighborhood. That's what Cumming Street was. Four of the direct abutters down the street were there. They're all women, all senior citizens. Two of them have been in that neighborhood. They were second mothers to me. I take one of them to their doctor's appointments. I just want you to know that these people that directly abut this property, You may have opinions on me, that's fine, but they all showed up, these four women at the bottom of the street, all senior citizens. They're intimidated to speak. One of them didn't speak at all because she just, the process just intimidates her. So I'm going to try to get them to come down to this open meeting next week if we can, so that they can have a voice. We had each three minutes a piece to speak on the issue and that wasn't enough time. This is 490 units. It's too big of a scale of a project in my neighborhood. I'm having a not in my backyard moment here. This is directly in my backyard. And they designed it so that they could maximize the lot to put the most units in to get the most money out of this. It's clear because they go all the way to the boundaries. They said that they were going to put in retail space. They said that they were going to have 7,000 square feet or something. And they are going to keep my bank, which is great. I go to Eastern Bank. They're going to keep the bank. But outside of that, they're going to have one or two more stores. It's not going to be completely storefronts on the bottom and then condos on top. That would benefit me as a neighbor. I wouldn't have as much of a problem with that. Put in a CVS or a Rite Aid or something that can be used by everybody. Put in a coffee shop. That would be good. maybe 150 to 200 condos above it. I know that that's gonna blow their minds and that it impacts their bottom line, but they are business people, they are developers, and they're looking out for themselves and their bottom line. It's up to the zoning board to look out for us, the people of Medford that are here now. This is just too large of a project. Now, if you put in 200 units, maybe it... I don't mind businesses on Locust Street. I've lived on Cumming Street all my life, and I have no problem with the businesses that are on Locust Street. Businesses don't bother me. They bring in money to the city. If they want to use it for business, please do. I mean commercial business. I have no problem with that. I've lived with it all my life. They bring in income for the city, and there's not as much traffic. But that aside, if you're going to put in condos, please make the whole bottom floor retail spaces and make it friendly for us to walk in and walk through. They want to keep the entrance to Cumming Street open to this project, and that's because they are going to have pedestrians and they are going to have bicyclists that need a safe road to go up to Riverside Ave. And we are very convenient for them to go up to Riverside Ave. So if I wanted to, I could talk to my residents, my people, and have them block it off with a fence, because it's legally their property. And they could fence it off. We could gate that off if we want to. I don't want to. We actually fought when, not Shaw's, but the Star Market went in there. And we fought to keep that pedestrian walkthrough so that it would benefit us to get to Shaw's, to get to the Star Market. I don't want to block it off. But if they're going to block us off, why not block them off, just to not be nice neighbors? If they're not going to be nice neighbors, why should we? And so that's a lousy way to look at it, but that's how I feel. I feel like this is being rammed through, rammed down my throat, and I'm going to be living with the consequences on Riverside Ave and Locust Street. The traffic is crazy. As it is, they should take out a couple of the businesses on Riverside Ave just so the buses and the trucks can get through. That is a trucking zone. Trucks and buses go down Locust Street from Riverside Ave, and they can hardly make that corner now. Okay. So when you have all those cars, it's going to be backed up to, to, to, and wait until the casino comes in. It's just going to get really fun. But, but, but that aside, that's casinos, you know, we, you don't have any say over the casino, but you do over this project. And I want you to scale down this project. I want the powers that be listen, these women that live down the street have been there for all their lives. They cook for me. I cut their grass. They cook for me. I love them. They are people. They are people and they're not a small-scale residential neighborhood. I mean, you can have arguments with me all day long, but you can't argue with them. They've been in this city forever and they deserve to be respected. They came out. without my prompting. They got the letters, and they came out without my prompting. Now I'm going to let them know so that they can come down to speak and hopefully talk. But remember, these are old school people, and they're very intimidated by the whole process. And they're intimidated, and they might not speak. They might be here, but they might not have the gumption to speak. So I hope their presence alone makes a statement. So thank you very much for listening.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Jean. Welcome.
[Jean Nuzzo]: Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: I haven't taken a name and address for the record.
[Jean Nuzzo]: I'm Jean Nuzzo. I live at 35 Paris street. I thank you for your time tonight to hear our concerns about this topic. Um, first I'd like to tell you that I am a lifelong Medford resident by choice. Um, I purposefully made the choice when it came time. I'm sorry. I purposefully, how's that? So I purposefully made the choice to stay in Medford and it is my desire and intent to age here and remain here a lifelong resident. I love this city. I'm passionate about Medford and I am very passionate about construction and development. It is what I do for a living. So to say I'm fully in support of responsible development of the city of Medford would be an understatement. I see our city as beautiful, even in its dusty and dirty state. I love it here. I do, however, believe that there are some people, rather than seeing Medford as a diamond that should be studied before it's cut apart and turned into something as merely the ugly sister who can't get a date so we should accept whatever developer comes in and wants to put a building up. And that is what this feels like to me. I'm confused as to why our Board of Appeals entertained this application for the duration that they did or the amount of time that was given to them the night of the meeting. We were there very late. They had the floor for a majority of the meeting, and when the residents got up to speak, I would say by about 10.30, they kind of cut off folks because it was, in fact, getting late. But I'm confused as to why the application for the variance was considered because the request doesn't meet the requirements of Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 48, Section 10. The three arguments that they made are invalid. Their arguments were that they needed relief because the property was brownfield property, but they purchased it that way. They made the argument that because of the groundwater underneath, they could not put underground parking, so they had to build the structure higher. However, they could do as they're doing on Rivers Edge, the new development by Davis. They're doing what they call a Texas wrap. So they put the parking in the middle and the units around the perimeter so you don't have to go into the ground at all. And then the third position I heard from them was that they could not find a commercial solution for the property. that they had looked but nobody was interested because of the Wegmans building going across the street and because of its location. Although Assembly Row, which has 441 units and 256,000 square feet of retail space is going into its phase two development and will gain another 157,000. putting it just shy of 500,000 square feet of retail space. They, if they could find a way to build more buildings and put more retail, they could lease more space. So I would ask, and I did ask, why then they couldn't find more retail? In addition to that, the city of Cambridge has a deficit of life science property. And there is a outward migration, not only of residents, but of Cambridge businesses in the smaller life science groups that are moving out to Somerville and Belmont and Watertown, which are all further away than Medford. So I would argue that their positions were perhaps not as well thought out of what the marketplace would actually bear. I think there's good opportunity for Medford to avail themselves of this potential type of development. I'd also like to point out for your consideration that although the abutters will be impacted and they were in attendance, those that were there expressed the fact that they were never provided an opportunity to participate in the development or provide feedback on any portion of the design of that unit. The first time they were seeing it was either at the community development meeting or at at the variance application meeting, that hearing that we were in attendance. And I did attend both. I attended the development board meeting. I attended the board of appeals meeting. In both instances, residents expressed the desire to reject this application and that it wasn't good for the city. And in both instances, everybody was looking to come to a compromise, asking them to make it smaller, to design it more to the intent of what Medford architecture looks like. a bit belligerent. They were very sure they were going to get their variance and they didn't really care to listen to what Medford residents had to say. I'd also like to point out that I think true public hearings are critical because although this affects the abutters, it affects the city, not just from a traffic perspective, but if we have this unit come in this large, that doesn't consider a strategic plan for the city of Medford. We are inviting other developers of this type to come in. And we miss the opportunity to work with some of the big developers that I'm feeling certain would be interested that have helped to develop some really landmark properties around the greater Boston area. We should really be looking to benefit from what they're calling the urban edge or the urban ring outward migration. We are centrally located. We, you know, real estate, location, location, location. So we can either just take whatever comes our way, or we can really be mindful. And I'd like you to, if you've seen, I'm hoping you guys have all seen the rendering, it's a very tall building. It's 75 feet or so tall. It's glass, but the perimeter of the building matches the perimeter of the property. There are few trees at the front. but the true courtyard space is reserved specifically for residents. I'd like you to consider developments like that on High Street and Salem Street and Mystic Ave and Riverside Ave. I'd like you to consider that if we let this unit go through, we are sending a signal to this type of developer that they can come in and put those units wherever they see fit. Now certainly, I know that some people don't like station landing. It didn't turn out the way that we were all promised. But where it was located, it was not an eyesore. There was nothing there. So what it was was better than a big barren field. But in these instances, we would be losing real estate opportunities to these huge developments. And I understand the need for housing, but I think that there's a balance that we should look to attain and I urge you all to consider that and I would urge the people, residents sitting behind me in attendance and if there are folks watching at home, I would urge them to think about that and think about if this is their vision for the city of Medford. And if not, I call you to action because now is the time. If we do not step forward and say, not in this way, not without purpose, then these developers will come, and Medford will be another type of city, and it may not be the type of city we want it to be. So I thank you for your time. I'd urge you to put forth a letter requesting the board to withhold a final judgment until the general public truly gets to speak on the matter. Thank you.
[Richard Caraviello]: Chair recognizes Councilor Caraviello. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I thank Councilor Longo for bringing this forward. I think we've all either heard, either through the social media, people about the project and how large it is and people's concerns about it. You know, in my short time here, in my four years, five years here, other companies have had the courtesy to come before this board and show us their plans of what they're going to do. And I wish this company had the same And I would hope that all companies coming into the city would have the courtesy to come before this board and at least give us the opportunity to see what they're going to be doing. I have a problem and I understand our options here are limited what we can do, but the same appeal board denied a project which was of much smaller size for parking reasons and similar to this. and which made the building owner unhappy. In this project, you know, we talk about affordable housing, they're only giving us 3% of affordable housing out of this here. From what I understand, there's only going to be 14 units of affordable housing? Yeah, that's, I think we should be getting more affordable housing out of this, which is another, but again, And also, this property is also zoned industrial, and it's time that we look at our zoning laws and maybe start looking at changing them to the current times, Mr. President. So again, I thank Council Member for bringing this up, and maybe they're moving a little too fast, but again, and I know our options are limited here.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Chair recognizes Councilor Falco.
[John Falco]: Thank you, Mr. President. And I want to also thank Councilor Longo for bringing this up tonight as well. This has been one of my major concerns as being elected. And I made a resolution earlier in the year, back in March, that we need to take a complete look and review our zoning. Because it's at the point now where Mefford has become very desirable, which is great. We have all kinds of developers that want to come in and do whatever they want. And that's a problem. I'm for development. I like development. But it needs to be smart development. It needs to be well thought out. We are in a great location. We're close to Boston. But development needs to be thought out. And I think a lot of our zoning is outdated. It needs to be looked at. And we're at the point now where we've let it go for so long that trying to reel it in is going to be pretty tough. I had a resolution to take a look at complete zoning for the city of Medford. It's an expensive endeavor. It probably costs probably maybe about a quarter of a million dollars, but I think in my mind, it's probably money well spent because we are at a pivotal moment now where we have a lot of developers coming in and we're either gonna go in a direction where we're gonna just develop all over the place or we're gonna put on the brakes and say, wait a minute, we need to actually have a master plan as to where we want our city to go. And I really think that we need to take a look at this. My opinion, I will be honest with you, I think it's too big. 492 units in that neighborhood with Wegmans coming in, a casino down the road. I mean, the traffic, it's a two-lane road now. Can you imagine the traffic when you have 492 units of Wegmans the casino and just the traffic that we have in that neighborhood now. It would be out of control. I recommended early in the year that we hire a traffic engineer. It's not in the budget this year. It's not in the budget. We need a traffic engineer now more than ever. If we're going to have development, it has to be thought out. The way I look at this, this has not been well thought out. They're going to come in, they're going to try to build this huge development, and this is going to be a major problem for everyone in this city. And it's not just in that neighborhood. We actually have traffic nightmares everywhere. We have a lot of concerns here. They need to be addressed. They need to be addressed now. I know the resolution I had with regard to zoning went to the zoning subcommittee. I believe we've had one meeting on it so far, and we'll have more to look at it, you know, again. But it's something that we need to act on now. And I thank Councilor Longo for bringing this forward. I think it's, you know, the citizens need to speak up about this. Everyone should have a chance to weigh in. With regard to the project that Donna, I believe Councilor Caraviello mentioned earlier at 7 Canal, I was against that one as well. I actually spoke up on it at the meeting. That's how strongly I feel about it. I'm not, it's not that I'm against development, but it needs to be smart, well thought out development. And a lot of these developers will come in and say, well, it's going to be transit-oriented. People are going to walk to Wellington Station. They cannot guarantee that. They can't guarantee that people are not going to have cars and that they're going to walk to Wellington Station. They always claim, well, they're millennials, and millennials don't own cars. They take public transit everywhere. That's what they were trying to sell us in the project at Seven Canals. That's not true. I know plenty of millennials. I'm not a millennial, but I know plenty of them, and they all own cars. They all need a place, they all need a way to get somewhere other than public transportation. So I think, you know, we are at a pivotal point. I thank Councilor Lungo-Koehn for bringing this up. I think this is something that the residents should weigh in on. I welcome their thoughts and opinions on this and, you know, I look forward to talking about this issue. But I will be honest with you, I feel it's too big for the neighborhood. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Councilor. Chair recognizes Councilor Marks.
[Michael Marks]: Thank you, Mr. President. And I want to thank also Councilor Longo. And I want to thank some of the residents for coming down tonight. You know, this is nothing more than just pure greed. The size of the project, without any hesitation, is purely based on how they can cram the most units in and the biggest bang for their buck. And that's without any regards to infrastructure improvements. I haven't heard anything about infrastructure improvements. Tonight we were talking in budget regarding some of the concerns we hear on Riverside Ave. I happen to live off of Riverside Ave, so I'm fighting that traffic almost on a daily basis. And I can tell you, when you're coming down Riverside Ave, going to the square, right before you get to Locust Street, the cars queue up from Locust Street to the new Panera. It's a nightly religious thing now. You have to wait in 15 minutes of traffic just to get up to Locust Street. The other side is the same. The cars queue up on the other side. So clearly, this development is not in it for anything other than getting the biggest bang for their buck. You know, you talk about transit-oriented. You know, living in the area, I live on Wellington Road, but I could actually walk across the street to Station Landing. But let me tell you, and I advise my kids also, You never cross any of those streets because you risk your life crossing those streets. So if they want to sell these seven, $800,000 condos or these $3,000 a month units and tell people they're going to be able to walk to Wellington, good luck to them. They better sign a big health insurance policy because Let me tell you, that's not going to be an easy task walking to Wellington. You know, it was mentioned also about this community not being in front of the curve. And again, I'd have to state, our Office of Community Development consists of one director and one part-time person. That's what the Office of Community Development consists of. And, you know, if you look at the Green Line extension where Mephitt had no seat at the table. If you look at any development in the city, it allows the developers to come in and the city takes a back seat. And that's exactly what happened in this project. The speaker prior was exactly right. There's no one out there from the city administration looking out for the interests of the residents. And let me tell you, Madam Mayor, who was quoted in the paper saying, this is great for the community, that she's excited about it, and so forth. People live in that area, Madam Mayor. You may not think so, but people actually live in that area. And, you know, the whole talk about quality of life, whether you live on Placelet Road, or if you live on Cummings, or if you live on Riverside Ave or Parish Street, quality of life is the same throughout the community. So whether you're about a commercial district or live in purely a residential district, you have that same right for quality of life. And to think that there's no residents that live in this area, and geez, we're putting in an area that really no one's going to notice, is being shortsighted, in my opinion. I like the idea of asking the board, because we have no control over the board, but asking them to hold off their final judgment until there is a full public hearing where people can attend. And also, I've never seen, since I've been on the council, the number of variances issued for a project. It's unheard of. I've never seen that number of variance issued. And to stick a project in where, you know, we have Wegmans, you know, the Shaw site, for a number of years, people probably heard the rumors a market basket was going to go into the Shaw site. And people of the community, because Market Basket has very competitive prices, were welcoming Market Basket into the community. And from what I heard, the owners of the property, for whatever reason, kept Market Basket out. They didn't want Market Basket in there. Some of the other shopping markets didn't want the competition. and now we're stuck with 490 units, of which my kids won't be able to afford, your kids won't be able to afford, and many people in this community are priced out of even the affordable units you can't afford in these particular buildings. You know, when we sold the old schools back some years ago, we went to centralized schools, we had the unique opportunity with city-owned buildings to use for purposes we needed in the community. You know, there are purposes in the community right now. If you have a senior parent that lives in the community and they need assisted living, guess what? You got to send them out to Reading, Andover, not Method. We don't offer that in Method. You got to send your parents outside somewhere else. Senior housing. When seniors call me up and say, I'd love to get into senior housing. Well, ma'am, I'm sorry to tell you, you may be 75 years old, but there's a five-year wait. You know, these are the issues that we're confronted with in the community that we don't have. And if the city had some vision for assisted living, senior housing, more affordable housing, these are the things I think that we should have given direction to and maybe offered incentives. I realize it's private property, but offer a tax incentive asking that anyone would like to bid on assisted living would get whatever tax reduction to come into the community. These are the benefits we see, and just adding housing for the sake of adding housing over and over again really is doing nothing for our community. It's really, when you think about it, if anything, you're doing away with the commercial, who pays a higher tax rate, you're bringing in residential, which pays a lower tax rate, Eventually, when all our commercial areas are dried up to housing, which that's the way we're going, your property tax is going to go through the roof. Let me tell you, your property tax. And we already heard from the city assessor last night that the assessments are going way up again, which is another thing we're going to have to tackle soon. But again, Mr. President, I thank Councilor Lungo for offering this. I hope this is not the end, but the beginning of some discussion and dialogue. I know within the budget, the Office of Community Development, the Board of Appeals asked the mayor for an increase in their stipend because they work so hard. And I'm not doubting they work hard. I think that board does do a lot of work and, you know, they work very hard. But I would say, Mr. President, at this particular time, that I would hope that the board hold back on their final judgment until this is open and notorious throughout the entire community. There's no reason to ramrod this. Give people enough ample time to digest it, see what's going on, talk about infrastructure improvements, talk about lighting improvements in the area, pedestrian safety that we've been talking about, talk about ways that maybe we can reduce traffic flow in the area, You know, their traffic report said no traffic impact. Traffic impact? You're creating 743 parking spots, 490 units, no traffic impact. I find that hard to believe. I turn on the news tonight, Channel 5, they said over the next few years, there's going to be an additional 80,000 cars on the road because of the housing market in this particular area. So, you know, they're talking about congestion already in the roads, coupled with that, coupled with these giant projects, you know, we're just, we're gonna kill the quality of life in this community, and we're gonna get nothing in return. We got nothing in return for station landing, our taxes didn't go down, our city services didn't improve, and now we're gonna add a giant other project, yeah, and we're gonna get a million dollars in, what's the, linkage money. which goes to the city. We're going to get a million dollars in linkage, and the mayor's going to have a ball spending the linkage money, along with the council president. There's three people that spend the linkage money. And other than that, we're not going to get any benefits, other than the additional traffic, the additional smog in the city, and the addition of, in my opinion, housing that we're already overhoused in this community, and we need better use and utilization of what we currently have. So I thank you, Mr. President, for the time.
[Fred Dello Russo]: No, thank you, Councilor. Chair recognizes Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. President, thank you very much. I, too, am opposed to the project. I feel as though the scope is far too large. The impact that it's going to have on traffic, the potential impact it could have on our public schools, the certain impact that it's going to have on the quality of life of the surrounding neighborhood, as well as the lack of affordable units certainly make this a project that I feel as though something that I can't personally support. However, this matter is not something that's before the council. And I, for one, would certainly support and stand away from trying to influence unduly the decision that the Zoning Board of Appeals makes. However, the matter that's before this council doesn't ask the Zoning Board of Appeals to oppose the project or to approve the project. The matter asks for the Zoning Board of Appeals to delay its decision until more community input can be made. And that's something, Mr. President, that I can certainly support. I feel as though that the Zoning Board of Appeals should operate free from or under influence, but I also feel as though The decisions that they're making have a direct and significant impact on the quality of life of the residents in this community. One thing that I haven't heard any of my colleagues talk about is, with an addition of 790 units, there's going to be a need to provide additional city services. And although we've seen an improvement in the way we've been providing services in recent weeks, in recent months, I don't think we have the capacity to deal with that as well right now. The impact that it's going to have on our actual underground and aboveground infrastructure, Mr. President, is something that's going to have to be looked at a little bit more. with scrutiny. So for those reasons, Mr. President, I am going to be in support of this resolution, asking that the Zoning Board of Appeals delays this decision until a public hearing can be heard.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, councillor. Chair recognizes Councilor Falco.
[John Falco]: Thank you, Mr. President. I'd like to amend the resolution to get a report back with the, to find out what the variances that were requested are.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Report back an amendment on this paper which is offered under suspension of the vice-president Long and Kern that amended by Councilor Falco that we receive a report back on how many and what were the variances requested.
[John Falco]: Exactly. And I guess which ones were approved.
[Fred Dello Russo]: And which ones were approved.
[John Falco]: Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: That's it?
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you very much Councilor. Chair recognizes Councilor Scarpelli.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President. I, too, thank Vice President Longwood-Curran for bringing this forward. That area alone is, I believe I made a resolution a few months back when this was discussed about, I know Councilor Knight brought it up a bit, but the impact on the McGlynn and the Columbus schools. And when you're talking about 400 and some odd units, and families coming in, the impact that'll make and that's in the school department. Um, we still hadn't heard anything and what kind of an impact that would make. Um, and I too echo the remarks of council Falco and understanding where we want to go as a community and having a plan in place of our vision, whether it be two year or four year or 10 year. Um, I believe that's what neighboring communities have done and looking in the direction they want to go. I mean, I too have heard the stories in the last week that, you know, the new auto mile on Mystic Ave and what we could have done there as development. But I understand that I also agree with Councilor Knight that the Board of Appeals has their own process, but I think that we need a voice from the community to share their thoughts and their concerns because It is a major concern, I think, for me, is the safety of that area. And we talk about cut-throughs and traffic issues and the heights and the cut-throughs and how dangerous the areas are. What frightens me is how crazy that area is at the McGlynn School. And we talked about that being not a commuter school at a time when we were on the school committee. and the number of cars, and lack of parking, and the congestion in that area, and the effect it's going to have on the educational piece. I think that it needs to be weighed. So, again, I thank my colleagues, and it's good to see the community stand up and have that love of Medford and passion to see the other directions it might go in. So, thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Chair recognizes Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Um, Mr. President, thank you. I'd like to further amend the paper as well. Um, I'd like to ask that the zoning administrator report back to the city council as to what the current zoning is at the site, what the conforming uses are.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Further amended by council night that the zoning administrator, um, report back to the city council as to what the zoning, how the property is now zoned and,
[Adam Knight]: How the property is now zoned and... How the property is now zoned and what the conforming uses are currently based upon a zoning table.
[Fred Dello Russo]: And what the conforming uses are. And the zoning officer would be the... Building Commissioner. Building Commissioner. My apologies.
[Unidentified]: I'm done.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Are you all set, Councilor? Yes, I am. The Chair recognizes Vice President Longo.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Just briefly, I know there's people that want to speak. While we're making our amendments, I just want to ask if Councilor Caraviello offered that the developer come before us. I just want to make sure that's in the official record. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Did you get that as a resolution? Oh, you did. That he asked for the developer to come. So that was an amendment. I apologize, Councilor. I didn't catch it as such. Welcome. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Robert Penta]: My name is Robert Penter. I live at zero summit road, Medford mass, a former member of this August body. Uh, to get to council night's question brought up at the council, at the, uh, appeals meeting. And that's an industrially zoned piece of property. Number one, and it's 490 units that are being asked over there. There are 11 variances that were being presented, 11 variances more than any other time. And I believe all 11 of them were asking for relief. And according to the preliminary decision, they've been granted. That's an awful lot of variances on a one single piece of property. I think folks really need to understand something, that that night on that, it was an extremely hard night. And the residents that were there, they waited all night long to make sure that their comments were made, while the developer took as much time as needed, and rightfully so, to present their position. But there were some comments that some folks still wanted to make. Unfortunately, at the very end, they weren't allowed to because I don't know if it was because of the time or for whatever the reasons might be. But there are two sites and sections of our own municipal laws that need to be reviewed. And that's Chapter 94, Section 1, which is our zoning ordinance, which says that the change cannot cause congestion or confusion. And also under our site plan review under Section 94, Section 33.1, excuse me, section 331, it states that the community, the neighborhood has to be taken into consideration. Is it compatible with the neighborhood as it relates to this? Now, just think of the traffic on the traffic issue alone. You're going to start off with the new Lumineers, which is 160 units. Then you have the ice skating rink. Then you have across the street, you have Coles and Marshalls. Then you're going to have the new Wegmans. Then you're going to have 490 units if that goes through, 7,000 square feet of office space. Then you're going to have, going down the street a little bit further, two office buildings, and I think there's six remaining commercial pieces of property. Take that and then go to Wellington Circle, where 200 more units of affordable housing are going to be taking place and coming on. Now just imagine in the middle of the day, 8, 9, 10, weekends, night times, whatever it might be, taking into consideration once the new casino comes in. You have Riverside Avenue, you have Locust Street, Mystic Valley Parkway, Harvard Street, and all the side streets that spin off of that. Do you realize how much traffic that that's going to cause? And for them to say it has no traffic input makes absolutely no sense at all. I would respectfully ask whoever made that request for next Tuesday night to ask how they made that determination of no traffic input. Because the developer himself acknowledged that on an annual basis, at a minimum of 1%, traffic will increase. And they acknowledged by their own development that traffic will increase in that particular area. But to get back to what you were talking about, smart growth, Councilor Falco. Some years ago, I made an offering regarding growth and development here in this community. for which we didn't have any review with the prior administration. We asked for a moratorium for which at that point in time the council was in favor of, but the city's administration never went forward with it. We have no development that takes place in any part of this city that can tell you it's going to work, whether it be smart or not, whether it be compatible or not. This development that's taking place down there off of Riverside Avenue in the Wellington area has an environmental impact. It has a community impact. It has a neighborhood impact. And when you look at the development that's taking place by this developer wanting 490 units and a full packed room of residents that were there, and you go back a month prior to, and you look at the 40 units to a four-story building in West Medford that didn't have anywhere near the amount of complete neighborhood support for not wanting the project, how can you say one gets supported and one doesn't? That doesn't fit well. It doesn't bode well. And I'm glad that the majority of almost every one of you councilors are on board for not only having the meeting, but to having open public dialogue. And Councilor Lungo-Koehn is correct. Some years ago when they were doing the 9th Street project, because it was such a large particular project, at that point in time the council asked, and the developer agreed, they came before the council, committee of the whole, and then before the council, and we had a complete community meeting on that. Talked about what units were going to be affordable, which ones weren't going to be affordable. I think it really needs to be understood, and I think Jeannie Martin, you said it right in the beginning, small-scale residential neighbors. Even if it's one person that's impacted, that's one too many. And when you get the administration, and this President Mayer and her administration, making the comment on April 27th, as reported in the paper, that this is a great place to develop a new neighborhood and we're excited about it. How can you be excited about it when the neighborhood itself wasn't even aware of it, didn't even have an opportunity to come and speak? Well, maybe the Board of Appeals offered their opportunity for the public hearing and never got here. You're right when you're saying that your zoning should be reviewed. It should be reviewed only because of the fact you don't want to keep going through things of this nature. This is a huge development. This isn't singular. This is coupled upon that for which is already there. And that for which is already there will totally decimate that particular neighborhood. This isn't even a three or a four-way road. This is a two-way road going in. And just imagine all the stores that I just mentioned, Coles, Marshall, Wegmans. Luminaires, the ice skating rink, 490 units, 7,000 square feet of office space, two apartment buildings, and seven other, you know, public, other commercial pieces of property at any one point in time, at any one day. What do you think's gonna happen? Councilman Marks is right when he talks about what the three new stores that opened up on Riverside Avenue, on any one given night or weekend, or especially on holidays or shopping. You need not only smart development, you need a stop and look to see where this city is going. Just development for the sake of development doesn't mean anything. If you want to have something that reaches the niche of every single person, whether it be senior citizen housing, whether it be more medical space, whether it be more space for your education, or whatever it might be, I don't know if it's going to take $250,000, but I know this, you would want a complete community interest. You know, we don't have to be like some of them. But we can beg, borrow, and steal like Somerville does in a smaller way in smaller sections of the city. And let us not forget one important thing. At that meeting last Tuesday night, the neighborhood was most conciliatory by saying it wasn't that they were against the project. It was way too large, didn't fit the neighborhood, and they were willing for something that would be much more reduced, that would be more compatible, and at least people could live with. That's all that they're looking for, something that they can live with, not something that's going to be thrown down their throat because they didn't have an opportunity for input, but more importantly, just because the city's going to garner approximately $2 million in taxes and approximately $1.6 million in linkage fees, this administration's looking at the money and they're cutting the beans as fast as they can. And who's going to pay for it? The neighborhood's going to pay for it. The people who have been there, who have taken care of their property for years. All the side streets off of Riverside Avenue. Try to get off of Harvard Street now in the morning, add this to the congestion, and wait until Wellington Circle takes place and the 200 units over there. Is everybody going to have a car? Absolutely not. But even if it's 10% more on that road, it's 10% more that it can't handle. We have a police department that's in desperate need of help. We have a school department. We don't know if it's getting maxed out because of these units. You have a fire department that's stretched. We don't even know because the administration won't let them do a trial run into Wellington Circle to make sure we have a satellite fire station or a police station there for which the prior administration looked into but never did anything about it. You have so many issues that are confronting you here, and to have the Board of Appeals just vote preliminarily to go forward and grant the easement, it's only going to satisfy those money-hungry developers coming in. Look at Lumineers. They're not even in there a year, and they sold out for $66.6 million. Think about it. Who's to say this company won't do the same thing? But there's one thing that you can't sell out, and that's the integrity and the brains of the people that live in the neighborhood, because they know what's right They know what's good for them, and they're paying their taxes, and I'm quite sure they don't want their taxes paid for something like this, which is going to absolutely make their neighborhood a deplorable place to live. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Welcome. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Hi, I'm Cheryl Rodriguez. I live at 281 Park Street, which may not sound like in a butter, but I am a perfect cut through from the Fellsway to Riverside will lead right to this development. I attended both meetings, the community development meeting and the zoning board meeting and Bill Brown, Park Avenue, New York represented equity one. And the statement that is ringing in my ears from that meeting at the end, he turned around and looked right at us. All the citizens who'd sat there for an hour and a half presentation, And then he got a rebuttal after that. And he said, it's coming. Just deal with it. It may not be me, but it's coming. You live in Medford, you're close to Boston, and people are going to build and build and build. My response to that was, no, Medford's going to say no. We're not going to let anybody come in and build anything they want. We're going to have some common sense. Unfortunately, I was wrong. But some of the things that he asked for and is granted, I did speak to Dennis McGonnell, I believe it is, and he said that this has passed. They just haven't had time to write it up. He is adding over 1,000 toilets to Locust Street, and the city engineer asked him to expand the water line. He said, sure, I'll expand the water line. It'll cost me about $950,000. I'd like that deducted directly from my linkage fees. The city said yes. He said, I'd also like to build a path to get to Freedom Way, probably because the people renting those units don't want to pay for the second parking space if they want, and he's going to charge rent for that. They'll park at Hormel. He also wants to, the city is going to pay for that pathway because it's cheaper for him to build it, but he shouldn't have to pay for it. He also wants to build a path to Cummings. Someone from Spring Street said, is that so people can park on Spring Street? He asked the city to pay for that because it's on city property, so he shouldn't have to pay for it. He wants to give the city nothing. He wants to take everything. He thinks nobody drives, but he's building 781 parking spaces. He said that the community will not be coming onto this property because he's going to build 7,000 square feet of retail, but it's just going to be convenience. Someone said, will that include a coffee shop? He said, no, that won't include a coffee shop. So we're talking convenience store dry cleaner, possibly, and an Eastern Bank. So we're going to have three new driveways that are going to feed traffic onto Locust. His traffic study only included Locust Street. No other streets. This is going to impact Riverside. This is going to impact 16. This is going to impact Park Street. This is going to impact the square. This is going to impact everywhere. It's too large. More of the room was full of residents. It was 85 degrees. They turned the lights out on us so they could show their PowerPoint presentation. We all sat and we waited and we waited and we all said, we're not opposed to development here. We were told in the transcript article, it said the mayor was expecting a stations landing type development. This is not a stations landing type development. It's too big. It needs to be scaled back. We need to consider the needs of the city. The schools are already crowded. And they're building a pathway to Freedom Way. You think that's not because they're going to have children in the schools? It is. We need to consider this. Seriously, we need to stop this, or everyone else will keep coming. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Citizen, please welcome. State your name and address for the record.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Yes, Mr. President. Andrew Castagnetti, Method, Massachusetts. I was only going to bring up one point when Ms. Jean had spoken. It's been a lengthy conversation and I come up with some more points. I'm sure I'm not going to take up 10 minutes, whoever knowing me. So anyways, first off, I'm not for or against this development. I don't know enough about it. 490 units of apartments for residential. I believe that's the number that's they have applied for. It seems like a big number to me. Can someone give me an idea like a block away from this location behind the old metal glam mall? Well, where miss is gonna go. I think Marauder. Mr. Marauder built some condominium complex kind of a large built I'd say does anyone can answer my question like how many units that is to give a comparison perspective a little bit someone please ballpark anyone 140
[Adam Knight]: I can say that the building on the corner of Winthrop Street and High Street has 116 units in it.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Do you know who Mr. Marauders is?
[Adam Knight]: That was one of his buildings, and I think it's a... You think it's a... There's 116 units on the corner of Winthrop and High at that building. And that's just in one building. So, if it's a... The scope of that's six times the size.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Approximately, if it's a twin size, that's about 100 units, 120. So this is like three, four, five times, who knows, if we're accurate, number one. That's huge. However, Ms. Jean brought up a good point, and I believe ex-councilor Pinter, who spoke a little while ago, alluded to this same comment that Jean had made at past council meetings, when he said we should, I believe his words were, something to the effect that we should have bought that corner piece of real estate on Riverside Avenue, Locust Street, where the trucks have trouble making that turn. When we had the muscle, it was more affordable, and maybe we had some free cash back then also. And I believe the building is up for sale now, or it was recently sold, and maybe that's part of a development cost for a developer. Now, I read in the local newspaper, method transcript, that someone was quoted, I believe, saying that this building was going to be mixed use. Mixed use is great. That's how the Roman Empire took care of business in Europe. When they would conquer a city, like whatever it was, they'll call it Paris. You don't have to fight. We will be your army. We build a round wall, plenty of land. Now we're going to put the Coliseum in the center. That's your entertainment. No more blood and war. We built City Hall, the Forum, the churches. Anyways, what they did was once they filled up that community in a round circle, they farmed the land outside. But then they would not develop from Boston to Somerville to South Medford to North Medford. They would say, let's go 50 miles away. We'll call it Worcester instead. and start a new development. And that was perfect mixed-use from 2,000 years ago or more. So mixed-use is great. I remember from the North End, they had businesses downstairs, upstairs. They would sleep in their apartments. Don't need a car or a bicycle. It makes great sense, mixed-use. However, if you're talking 500 units and The average apartment is supposed to be 1,000 square feet, I believe, from my real estate days, I recollect. So that's a half a million square feet of residential space. So they're talking 7,000 square feet on the ground floor for the mixed use end, not even a coffee shop. That's not even 1%. I mean, 10% of half a million is $50,000. They're talking $7,000. Mr. President, I'm over here. So, this doesn't make sense. Now, my major concern as being a person that's trying to get owner-occupied real estate tax exemption for Medford, because some of our Everett and Malden does it, but we don't do it for the owner occupies in this city. So I'd be concerned if this was a sweetheart deal. First of all, I'd like to know what the residential real estate tax value is going to be before it's built. I also want to know, I request to know what the tax rate is going to be. for, and what it is called, if it's called residential, or condominiums, if they go condominium down the road. I don't know. Councilor Falco has been trying for zoning, or looking at new zoning, and I think it makes good sense for the new development that's coming in. As a matter of fact, in 1960, As a child, I was living on Mystic Avenue. And one of my ideas was the city should have taken all of Mystic Avenue only on the Route 93 side. And they could build a ring road to keep the people that would be living in the new buildings off Main Street, unless they really wanted to go to deeper squalor in those days. And I would have built all high rise office buildings, even 20 stories high. And if you worked there, you'd be at work now, as Marshall Sloan took the idea and put it on his billboard five years ago. and helped to lower the real estate tax on Mar and Pa back in the 60s, mind you. Now it's 2016. Now the people realize we're not a bedroom community. Route 93 is here. Boston is five miles away. Good luck.
[Fred Dello Russo]: The chair recognizes Councilor Falco.
[John Falco]: Thank you, Mr. President. I'd just like to make one more amendment to the resolution, and that is if we could obtain a copy of the traffic study.
[Fred Dello Russo]: That the Medford City Council be given a copy of the traffic study that was presented to the Board of Appeals?
[John Falco]: You are correct.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Did this also appear before, did this go to the OCD board or whatever it is?
[John Falco]: It did go to the OCD board and then it went from there to the ZBA.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Okay. So we'll send that up to, we'll send that to both offices. Make sure one of them have it.
[John Falco]: Thank you very much. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Welcome citizen. Please state your name and address for the record.
[hFAk--zIv7g_SPEAKER_05]: My name is Pasquale Nuzzo. I live at 35 Paris street and I can help out a little bit with the traffic study as to how they came up with no impact. What they did was they removed the traffic that was impacted by the grocery store and did not factor in the traffic from Wegmans so that they were able to have a zero impact. It was pretty much a wash, the same numbers for the grocery store would probably be about the impact for the Wegmans in their opinion, but they never added it into the final total. So that's one thing. The other thing is, of the people that were there, there was one person that was for it, and I believe that it was for the low income, but I believe he was confused because the difference between low income and affordable is low income is based on the income of the area. Affordable housing is something completely different. From what I was told with the community development meetings, people brought up elderly housing, veterans, stuff like that, and they were vehemently denied. That's the base of what I've heard from them. Also, when we were sitting in there, they were talking about how they were going to get reimbursed for this or reimbursed for that. They were calling it easements. I'm a general contractor, a much smaller scale. I don't get reimbursed for anything. If I pull a water line, I factor it into my budget. If I have to upgrade something, I factor it into my budget. In their plans, there was nothing for, like you were speaking, Councilor, about infrastructure. There was nothing for the power to drain from the building. We have brownouts constantly in the city. Imagine 490 more air conditioners going on a 90-degree day. City's going to be dark. I won't even get started at the sewer system. That's a messy situation. But the water demand, they're upgrading the pipes because they think that it's a benefit to us. If they brought that building up, they would pump those lines up to over 80% of capacity. which means they have to do that. They were talking in there about how they would have to build and conform to energy code. Yay, everybody that builds something now has to conform to this. This is no special thing that they're offering us. They're trying to say, oh, yay, I'm doing my job. Please help me out because I want to make more money. I'm sorry if that sounds a little harsh, but I'm not a friendly public speaker. Now, yes, people develop. People are going to build something there. Progress happens. We don't need anything that big. We don't want anything that big. And there are so many other ways that this project could have been done that would benefit everyone. I don't believe that they presented even a fully thought out plan as to what the impact of the area is to anyone involved. And I'll probably think of more when I step away from the mic, but I think that's about enough for today. Thank you very much for your time.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Welcome. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Robert Cappucci]: Thank you, Mr. President. I'm Rob Capucci of 71 Evans Street, which is not a direct abutter, but very close proximity to this massive project that's coming. And, you know, there's not too much more to add to the conversation except to touch upon the infrastructure problems that the city already has. I mean, here in this building, the high school, the police department, I was up here last week talking about Evans Street. We're not against the development, but something this big, I definitely agree with Councilors Knight and Falco, that this is just something that seems to be too big, and it seems to be coming in with the impression I'm getting, with a lot of expediency. I mean, actually being told, the citizens, by this developer, it's coming, deal with it. That's unprecedented. I want to thank all the other speakers that spoke. When this traffic impact happens, you know, and it gets clogged on Fellsway and Riverside Ave, these folks are going to be looking for, you know, quick shortcuts to get back to their house. They're going to be going down Evans Street. That's not fixed yet. I want to thank Councilor Knight for informing me that the bids are in to replace the water pipes. And once those bids seep through and one is decided on, they're going to come in and fix Evans Street, which is in the top five. of streets that needs to be fixed. But there's probably a hundred or more streets that needs to be fixed. And what happens when this added traffic is on the roads when Evans Street is shut down for, who knows, a month for fixing? And other streets are too. It seems to me that we don't want to discourage development. But at the same time, we got to fix what we got first. We can't build on a faulty foundation. Our streets and roads, our water pipes, the parks are being looked at. I mean, this location seems to me a good location to put a joint police and fire station instead of this massive project. It just seems to me that there are other things to look at. in this city first that need almost at a critical level of attention before we start entertaining massive, massive projects like this. I mean, there's a public safety issue too with all these cars going down the streets. I mean, in my neighborhood, there's at least 20 young kids that live on that street that are all over it. If they can navigate through all the rocks on Evans Street, Sorry for the jab on that one again, but still, I mean, in all of these neighborhoods with more cards on there, the safety risk goes up, and if it goes up even 1%, that's, I'm sorry, that's too much for my liking. I really don't understand how this city council doesn't have jurisdiction over the appeal or whoever's approving this. It would seem that you must have something in the books put some kind of injunction. And that's another thing. Why doesn't this body communicate with the DPW or with the police station or with other things to find out, you know, there's a lot of infrastructure problems in this city. You know, let's talk about this impact on the city and the taxpayers. Why don't we get together and maybe not approve this, especially in the manner with which they're keeping people in a dark room on a hot night and giving them three minutes to speak, and then they're being told. One of the speakers that spoke earlier that called everybody to a public action, I can't emphasize and ditto her and echo her more. That's what we need, not for just this issue, but I would love to see more people at this podium and in these chambers every week because when more voices are heard from all different parts of this city, more projects will have a fire lit under them, and more things will get done for the benefit of all of us, everybody on the city council, the administration, all the small businesses, and all the taxpayers, and all the residents, the kids in the schools, and everything else. Politics is really not a spectator sport. But I hope you consider all the things everybody said tonight, and I thank you for your time.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, citizen. The chair recognizes Councilor Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, if I could amend my earlier motion about viewing the project, if we could also view the Wakeman's project also.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Further amended by Councilor Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: Side by side, across from each other. Seeing that we're doing it, we might as well look at both of them.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Welcome. Please state your name and address for the record.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Hello. My name is Christopher Donovan. and I live at 4 Lorraine Road. I'm going to speak loud. I'm going to speak clearly because I was in the back of the room and I have a difficult time hearing maybe because I'm getting old, but I think it may have to do with some of the infrastructure. First, I wanted to say thank you to all the Councilors because I was lucky enough to be at the last two budget meetings, subcommittee meetings, and I saw the amount of time that you all put into the subcommittee meetings. I thank you for doing that because it takes a lot of time. But I do have to say I was shocked and a little embarrassed to see department manager after department manager come up and say that where city is outdated, the infrastructure is old, and the communication between departments is almost non-existent. So if anyone here in the room knows me, and most of the councils know, I'm a big advocate for access, public, educational, and government. And I know there's been issues with the public access side, and that's a story for another day. Educational is the high school, and that's the school committee, and that's a story for another day. But the government channel is your channel. And I understand there's jurisdiction, and I'm not sure where that falls under. But I think one of the main reasons, and I'll get to the Shaw's thing in a minute, that there is no one here is because there's no communication. So I saw it in the departmental level. I see it in the sound system and the video system that's been here since 1980. People don't get information. We're lucky enough to have some great people here who use Facebook and send the information out. And that's how I learned about the city. Lucky we have Alex here from the transcript who sends information out. Otherwise, I wouldn't know a thing about the city. And I challenge all you Councilors in a positive way to get your messages out there. People are looking for these messages. People see what we talk about, or people, when they talk to you individually, see that you're with them. And when you're up at the council, here's where I get confused. It may lead to chatter of you, which I'm not strong enough to understand what that's about. But if all of you are against this kind of project, I don't know who's for this project, and if we can't stop it between this body right here, maybe charter review is the key. And again, I don't understand what charter review is about, but I saw people make an effort to try and make something happen for charter review and change the city to get updated, to be compared to the cities around us. We ask our students to get graded all the time. Let's grade our city, not by ourselves, by about some other entities finding out if our city is up to spec. And I love Medford. I love Boston. I love the United States. We are so lucky. But I'm sitting back there five rows deep and I cannot hear. I have a channel that I don't watch. I'm going to ask you, I have a very wise owl that told me, take small incremental steps. Here's the incremental step I'm asking you to do. Put $1,000 into an audio system that people in the chamber can hear. As people get older, it's more difficult to hear, so it should be easier. A speaker, a speaker, pretty simple, but a line item budget for sound system to be improved. because I can't hear and I'm determined to listen to what's going on. And the other small step, that being step one, step two, replay this video, this council meeting, four times a day, every day. There's nothing else on the channel. There's nothing else on our government channel. Put it on. I don't watch it at six o'clock, seven, whatever time it's on live or rebroadcast. I don't. We're in a new information age where it's on demand. And thank you for whoever is posting these things online through some other external system. We have people that are being paid huge money in this town for communications offices. I don't want to get to personalities or responsibilities, but it's not getting done, and that's why there's no one here. Not because they're indifferent. It may be family life, and that's why I thanked you early for spending that time to try and make Medford better, but get the message out. Get the stuff on Facebook. Get it on our old, outdated website. Upgrade, change. I saw the budget. I know you councils are fighting for it. Push harder, but find out who is stopping you from doing what you need to do. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Welcome. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Joyce Paul]: Hi. Joyce Paul, 8 Mason Street in Medford. It's late and I've appreciated all that I've heard tonight and I'll be very short. I was a contracting officer for the federal government for 22 years and we build things and I understand about building things and from what I've heard, we are not ready to go forward with this project. I would just say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and I understand that it's not easy for you either, but I do hope that you will look into and try and get as much information as you can up front. Thank you very much.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you very much. Welcome.
[Joe Viglione]: Please state your name and address for the record. Good evening. Joe Villione, 59 Garfield Ave. Medford Mass, 02155. Joyce Paul, Chris Donovan, and Mr. Cappucci all echoed things that I was going to say. Amazing. Amazing. So the community is in agreement. The late Patrick Fiorello came up to this council and complained about Eastern Bank going into the LOCA staff. And the council didn't know how to deal with my good friend, Pat. And I went over and tapped him on the shoulder and said, Pat, we have bigger fish to fry today, meaning TV3. And Pat walked away. God bless him. We did have bigger fish to fry. Patrick, if you're watching us, we need you, because now this is the issue that you really want to sink your teeth into, Pat, with your TV camera. No public access and an issue so vitally important. Locust Street is, Mr. Capucci, a good place to put the fire station and the police station. It's innovative, it's novel. You have plenty of buildings there. When you look behind the new Wegman structure, there's a river, a stream, and there's so much trash in there. What are we, a third world country? And if they build this new development, will we have more trash behind it? We have to clean up what we have right now. You got that road, I think it's Commercial Street, which goes by the the storage unit and the old DPW and stop and shop and harbor freight. And that road's a mess. And you've got the courthouse there. So you have all these cars coming through. And now you're going to add more cars, but the streets are a mess. So now they want to build something while the infrastructure. And if you all recall, Central Ave and Locust were two of the worst streets in Medford. How long did it take them to fix Locust, which was like a roller coaster ride? right at the bottom of the street where all the police cars usually are at that fix-it shop. It was like a roller coaster ride. Now the street still isn't even. And as you turn into Eastern Bank, there are potholes galore, which they fixed three or four years ago, and they're back. I mean, huge. I don't know if they've been fixed today, but last week they were not. So we have to fix the infrastructure before we make great plans to build this new empire. We have to clean up behind Wegmans. We have to clean up these streets. There are streets near Evans Street that are even worse than Evans Street, Bob. There are streets that are even worse. Garfield Ave needs a new pave over. And I thought the council president said that National Grid was supposed to put all these streets back into pristine condition. I'm hearing from other cities and towns that it's the MO of National Grid that they do not. So they're not just taking Medford and making Medford an example. I hear that National Grid allegedly is not doing business. the way they should in other cities and towns. Maybe we should get together with the other cities and towns and say, hey, these roads need to be paved. They dug up our roads, let's pave them. So it's impressive seeing people here, and I agree with Mr. Donovan. If we had public access TV, there would be more people here.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. On the motion of Councilor Lungo-Koehn, as amended by Councilors Caraviello, Falco, Mox, Scarpelli, and Knight. One final amendment.
[Michael Marks]: Just a quick one. Where this council is going to have an open public meeting next week through a resolution, I would ask that the administration do a reverse 911 call. This is an extremely important meeting, Mr. President. And if they want, I would hope they do the entire city, but if they want to do just particular areas, That would be fine with me, but a reverse 9-1-1 call needs to go out to notify residents. You know, we get calls for returning your old prescriptions.
[Fred Dello Russo]: I get three or four phone calls a week, Mr. President, for things that don't concern me. Mr. President, I'm still speaking.
[Michael Marks]: I get three or four calls a week on things that really don't concern me. And I hear the same thing for residents. And the things that do concern me, I think we should be receiving phone calls about. And these are the important quality of life issues. So I would hope that a call go out immediately notifying people next Tuesday at 7 p.m. There's going to be a public meeting, not a hearing, a public meeting on the Locust Street project, the 490 units. And residents are more than happy to come up and voice their opinion on the project itself, Mr. President. Vice President Longo.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Briefly, thank you, President De La Rosa. Just one more amendment, because I don't think it was put forth. We are seven people. We are the city council. And obviously, we don't have as much power as the mayor. So I respectfully request that she reach out to the Board of Appeals and let the Board of Appeals know how the council voted and that she strongly feels the same way. This issue is going to That is something that is needed to stall this decision, whether or not she opposes it. There are grave concerns here, and we've seen it tonight, and we didn't even actually put it on the agenda. Next week it will be on the agenda, and we're going to have more people speak out. This is of grave concern, and as I've heard the rumors that it is being approved, I've also heard rumors that there's a possibility of lawsuits by the neighbors. We all know what happened several years back with the VNA. We don't want it to happen again. Please stall that decision from being rendered and do the right thing. We'll have an open public meeting, but the city should have one in a bigger form than this, just like we did years ago with the 9th Street development. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. On the main motion as amended, all those in favor? Roll call. Roll call vote has been requested. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.
[SPEAKER_14]: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Yes. With a vote of seven in the affirmative, none in the negative, the motion carries. On the motion of Councilor Marks to refer to the regular order of business, seconded by Councilor Knight. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is granted. 16-535, offered by Councilor Marks, be it resolved that the municipal and school budgets for fiscal year 17 include a line item under the operational budget for water and sewer expenses. Councilor?
[Michael Marks]: Thank you, Mr. President. This is a great issue to talk about, during budget deliberations, which this council for the past two nights have met with department heads. A little known fact that people may not be aware of that the municipal side of the city and the school side do not pay a water and sewer bill. Now, in my opinion, water and sewer, like any other utility, should be part of the operating budget. in the city. And the annual non-payment right now of water and sewer by both the municipal and the school department results in an annual deficit of roughly $400,000 a year. And the city's quick to say, not a problem. All we do is pass this on to the ratepayers. They'll pay for it. So depending on your water consumption, it adds between $30 to $90 for each of the 14,000 meters in this community onto your water and sewer rate a year. That may not seem like a big cost, but that cost should be included within the confines of the budget. There's no reason why that should be outside of the budget. It's part of electricity bill, a gas bill, water and sewer bill, like every homeowner pays. It's part of your operating expenses. And I would ask, Mr. President, that the city and its budget deliberations include a line item in the operating side of the school and on the city side that would include operating expense for water and sewer. You know, when we talk about accountability, what better when we talk about accountability that the city knows exactly what they're using for water and sewer, and exactly what they should be paying. We talk about conservation. How can the city say, let's conserve Method residents, where they don't really care what their bill is, because they're just passing it on to you, the rate payer. And, you know, you could take a look at conservation. Any day you go out in front of City Hall, it's like Niagara Falls out there. You know, with the water sprinklers going on all day. And I think that's one of the reasons why we need to take control of this particular issue. The MWRA has a giant meter, believe it or not, and that's how they charge the city for water that's coming into the community. And roughly 19 to 20% of the water coming into our community is what they refer to as unaccounted for. And you'd say to yourself, well, how is it unaccounted for? We have a giant meter that's accounting for it. And then we have separate meters here at City Hall. We have them at the school buildings. We have separate meters in everyone's home. How do we have unaccounted for water? And there are different ways that we do have unaccounted for water. One of them is leaks through the distribution system. And the city tries to address those particular leaks within the water grid that we have. And the other is there are still some entities in the community on the municipal side and on the school side that aren't needed currently right now. And the lion's share of it is the municipal school side and the municipal and the school side. And that's what I'm trying to address through this resolution tonight. I think we have to be mindful that, you know, the ratepayers are paying enough on their water and sewer now. And just to add on the city and school side, like it's not their responsibility, To me, I have a problem with that. And I don't think anyone should be paying over and above, other than the operating costs, to run a water and sewer program, which is included in the rate payers' bills. They shouldn't be paying for this unaccounted for water. Because guess what? We can account for it. And I have a sheet in front of me, for instance, As I mentioned, it was about $400,000 in unaccounted for water. The schools are about $190,457 broken by school by school. And municipal buildings are about $43,566. Irrigation, so these are the different parks throughout the community, $152,000. And then we have the fire stations. That is $6,290. So if you add these all up, and the water commissioner voted to, we have a tiered system now, three tiers. They voted to do tier two, which is the middle of the pricing system. And that comes out to about $393,000, almost $400,000. So that would be my resolution and motion tonight, Mr. President. to have the city administration include a line item for water and sewer, and the operating expense on the municipal and on the school side in the interest of fairness, the interest of accountability, and the interest of water conservation in our community.
[Adam Knight]: On that motion, Councilor Knight. Mr. President, I think we discussed this matter just a few weeks ago, and I think this was something that we were all on the same page We're sitting here, we're asking our school department to conserve water. We're establishing a tiered system to encourage our residents to conserve water. But we're not monitoring our own intake. And I think what's good for the goose should be good for the gander. And I certainly support Councilor Marksley's resolution wholeheartedly, Mr. President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Chair recognizes Vice President Alago-Kern.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you, President Dello Russo. I also concur with my colleagues, Councilor Markson and Councilor Knight. I, too, agree that $400,000 should be a separate line item. We, as the city, pay for all other utilities except for water and sewer. It brings no accountability for the use and misuse of this utility. $400,000 is being put onto the ratepayers' backs rather than being put into the city budget, which I believe is where it should be as well. So I 100% agree with this. I'd like to also amend while we're on the water and sewer issues, if we can, get an update from the mayor's office with regards to the leak detection program that Louise Miller and the Water and Sewer Commission put into the budget, I believe, probably six months ago. I did hear that that was taken out of the budget. And if we can get an explanation as to why. This council advocated for a leak detection system, I think, many, many times. And we finally got the resolution we wanted. Water and Sewer Commission is in full support of this. They voted to approve it. And it was recently taken out of the budget. So if we could get a report back with regards to why the leak detection system was taken out of the budget, if that is the case.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion for approval by Councilor Marks, seconded by Councilor Knight, and as amended by Vice President Lungo-Koehn. All those in favor? Councilor Marks?
[Michael Marks]: I just want to give a special thanks to who provided some information to me, Mr. Dominic Camara, was very helpful. And just to touch upon what Councilor Longo mentioned, that was also a bullet point mentioning that the Water and Sewer Commission voted to approve funding for citywide leak detection. So I guess that is going to take place through maybe the MWRA leak detection program or through the assessments here in the city.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I'm not sure how it's going to take place. As of today, I did hear from a very similar source that it was taken out of the budget completely. So I just want to make sure either it's put in some sort of some other way or, you know, want to get a report back from the mayor's office of if we're not going to do it at all, because I think that's important to discuss.
[Michael Marks]: Maybe we'll ask that during the budget to see.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, we'll ask that during the budget too, but if we could get a report from the mayor's office on what the plan is.
[Fred Dello Russo]: All those in favor?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Roll call.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Roll call. Motion passes. 16-534. President Dello Russo and members of the Medford City Council, from Mayor Stephanie Burke, re-authorization to engage in community electricity aggregation under General Laws, Chapter 164, Paragraph 134A. Dear President Dello Russo and members of the Medford City Council, I respectfully request and recommend that your honorable body authorize the city of Medford to engage in community electricity aggregation pursuant to the provisions of General Laws, Chapter 164, Paragraph 134A. The appropriate language for this authorization is as follows. Be it ordered that the Mayor and the City Council authorize the City of Medford Office of Energy and Environment to research, develop, and participate in a contract or contracts to aggregate the electricity load of the residents and businesses in the city and for other related services independently are in joint action with other municipalities and authorize the Mayor to execute all documents necessary to accomplish the same. Alicia Hunt will be in attendance at the City Council meeting to describe the elements of this program. Sincerely yours, Stephanie M. Burke, Mayor, signature on file. Before us at the podium is the Director of the Office of Energy and Environment, Alicia Hunt, and she'll explain this to us. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Alicia Hunt]: Good evening. Alicia Hunt, 41 Wasson Street here in Medford. With me this evening is Patrick Roche of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, our regional planning agency, because they have a lot of experience with this and they've been offering us help and guidance in this area. There may be regional questions that he would know the answer to that I didn't. We did discuss this at a committee of the whole, and so Patrick did research a number of the questions that were asked for. but for the benefit of everybody who did not have the benefit of the Committee of the Whole, I don't usually prepare a written statement, but because it's long and it's late, I do have it sort of spelled out that I'm gonna primarily read to make sure that I don't miss any of the key points. So municipal aggregation, on every electric bill, there's a separate charge for the electricity supplied and charges for the distribution of the electricity. Massachusetts electricity has been deregulated in an effort to provide competition in the electricity market. This is not new. However, under Massachusetts law, electricity utilities only profit from the distribution charges. The supply charges are just a straight pass-through to them. Therefore, they don't benefit from supply, and our utility is perfectly happy that we get our electricity from whoever we want to. Large consumers of electricity take advantage of this and buy their electricity on the open market. Electricity is a commodity traded in this area, and the price fluctuates constantly and is dependent on many things, including how much you buy, the length of time of your contract, and the exact timing of when you make your purchase. As with any commodity, it goes up and down day to day, in fact, hour to hour. You can buy it on a spot market, in fact. The city has been buying electricity through a secondary supplier at a good time of year for us, aggregating our use and getting good pricing. And we usually sign contracts between one and three years, depending on what's being offered to us at the time, what's the best rate. So right now, National Grid purchases and supplies electricity to all of our residences that have not signed up with another supplier. However, the state regulates when National Grid can buy the electricity. They're limited to one specific day in October and one in April. As such, the price changes for our consumers twice a year, April and October. While they buy a large supply, so you would think they could get a good rate, as anybody knows, when you have to make a purchase on a particular day, you're not getting the best rate you could if you could time it, your purchase, to when there's a sale or a large supply so you can work with the market. So they are regulated by the state and do not get good the best prices possible for our residents. So municipal aggregation allows the city of Medford to contract with a consultant that would help us aggregate the volume of our residents and businesses who have not already done their own contract on their behalf. For example, Tufts University has already done this same process, and so they would not be part of this because they already contract for their supply. They would be able to do that. They would be able to time the market to make a strategic purchase on behalf of our residents. So they'd both be aggregated and the purchase would be timed to be best for them. And they would be able to look, we would look at the timing of that as well. And so how long the contract is. Sometimes you get a better rate if you commit to two years. Sometimes you get a better rate if you commit to one year. It's very market dependent. So this would provide for our residents two major benefits. a competitive price compared to what they're getting from National Grid, and also price stability, because at least for a full year they would know what the price is. So while no one can guarantee price savings, that is the goal of this program. And we could guarantee price stability. We could tell them, here's when your price will change again. And this is especially helpful for those who are on fixed incomes to know what the rate is going to be. for a longer period of time than six months. So you may have already heard from some Medford residents about this. This is because Melrose did this last year. So this past January, Melrose residents started participating in a municipal aggregation. Melrose is one of 70 municipalities that are doing this in the state. There are a number of others who are in the process. I've been talking with Cambridge. They do their own thing. But Somerville, which is another of our neighbors, sorry, Cambridge is complicated in this area right this minute, but they do have every intention of contracting on behalf of their residents, and Somerville is actually going through this process right now, as is Winchester, Woburn, and Arlington, which are some of our neighbors. They're in this stage of the process, actually. So the municipal aggregation program would allow residents and businesses to leave the program at any time with no penalty cost. So if we contracted for a rate and a resident said, I want to go back to National Grid, they could just call up National Grid, call up the consultant and say, I'm out. And they would be out and there would be no penalty to them to be getting to leave the aggregation. This would provide residents with an additional choice. in addition to being able to pay the national, like instead of National Grid, this would be a choice for them. However, so let me just keep going. I don't want to confuse things. As part of the program, a consultant would create an outreach plan specifically for Medford that would educate our residents on electricity purchases and give them the option to opt out of this program if they want to. That same consultant would take us out to bid for an electricity supply and oversee the program. I also like that because it gives us an opportunity to educate people about electricity, and I would want to educate them about conservation as well. In addition, we can use the municipal aggregation to lower the carbon footprint and greenhouse gases of the Medford community as a whole. Specifically, this program would allow us to increase the amount of local clean energy in each resident's electricity supply. a small amount above the minimum that's currently required by state law. That small amount allows us to maintain the price savings of the program, but it adds up to a very large purchase on behalf of all the residents, and such a large purchase is likely to help add new local clean energy to our electricity grid over time. The outreach program would allow residents to opt out of the program completely, opt out of just the extra renewable energy portion of the program, or actually to opt in to 100% renewable energy if they wanted to. If approved tonight, we would have permission to begin pursuing municipal aggregation on behalf of our residents. To start, we would contract with a consultant who would create an aggregation plan, which includes the local outreach plan. There would be a public comment period and the City Council would have to approve that public outreach plan. We would then send that to the Department of Public Utilities for approval and the Department of Energy Resources for their review. Once all the approvals are received, we actually anticipate that to take two to three months. The consultant would then time the market to get us the best possible price. And I know I've spoken with a couple of you about the fact electricity rates are lower in the fall. They're lower in the spring. You cannot get a good rate for electricity in the summer or the winter. So you actually do have to pay attention to when you're implementing the program. So if this was approved tonight, our current plan, what we would like to do is to work with Good Energy, who is a consultant that MAPC has done a selection process for, has identified. I myself have met with them and looked at the documents. They would also actually aggregate our load with Somerville, Brookline, Gloucester, Woburn, Arlington, Winchester, Sudbury, and Stoneham, and possibly others. There's a few others they're still talking to, to get the best possible rate for our customers. So they would not just put out Medford's electricity. They would put all of it and say to the companies, look at all these residents you would get, give us a good rate for this right now. And our goal would be for the new rates to take effect in January 2017, if not sooner. I don't think that we could make this process move any faster than that. I think that would be the soonest that we could get it all done, but we would need, the goal is to have them buy the electricity this fall, or to make the contract this fall. So we do have some answers to some of the questions that you had asked previously, or if you have any other questions right now. So one of them was how many of the communities that have been doing, so this has been an option for almost 15 years now. And of the communities that have been doing it, how many stopped? And three of them have stopped, like out of all of them that have ever been approved, Ashland, Lunenburg, and Marlborough have stopped. And all of them are actually now in the process of reactivating and looking to go back into doing this as well. And I think that I was asked, sorry, it was, what's the opt-out rate, like how many people choose to opt out? So we're only able to really get that for the companies with good energy, because we don't have access to the other consultants' datas. So they have 24 municipalities in Massachusetts for whom they've already gone through the full process. Their average opt-out rate among residents is 6.5%. with a minimum of 4% and a maximum of 9% in those 24 municipalities. I think that was it.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Madam Vice President.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, President De La Rousseau. Ms. Hunt, thank you for your explanation. I think it answered some of my questions, too. I just wanted to confirm, you said the residents could opt out with a simple phone call?
[Alicia Hunt]: Yes. And so you have the experience with how they're doing it. So, um, the original opt out will actually be sent to them. Um, and they would have the choice of going on a web form and opting out through a phone call or they could send a paper letter if they so choose to do so.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Um, and how does the city plan on educating each, you know, rate payer? with regards to the possibility and the option to opt out?
[Alicia Hunt]: So part of what the consultant would do would be to design a plan for the city of Medford. So we're very open to how they should do that. But obviously, we have traditional methods. We would hope that our local paper would write one or more articles about it. And we'll certainly issue them press releases. But I think the articles are more stimulating sometimes. We would put stuff on the web, through Facebook, I would suspect that this would be worthy of a robocall. I believe the plan has to have a public meeting.
[SPEAKER_06]: Is that correct?
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. Everybody gets a paper mailing, at least one. And so I was trying to think about how you would roll the robocall in, because this would be something that you want to make sure residents hear about. And I feel like it's more than just doing a call saying, hey, you got this in the mail, make sure you look at it. But trying to think about what would be, how you would best educate that. I would expect Good Energy would have a table at the Harvester Energy Festival to talk to people about it. And I would certainly see about my energy committee having some time at the farmer's market to let people know about it. Although I think that's a very small population. Although I think it's actually a pretty big population that comes there, but the same people every week.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I was looking for the answer, too. Everything helps, but I was looking for the answer of the paper mailing, because we can try and try to get public educated, just like we tried to get them with the CPA, and obviously people were upset. Some people were upset with that. So conventional methods aren't always the best. I think the paper mailing is definitely a must. And I think the question I sent to you over the week, which I'm not sure if you addressed tonight, there's no possible way we can enter into the program with allowing people to opt-in.
[Alicia Hunt]: So let me, so I can clarify that. So a couple of people have asked overall about sort of having an opt-in program. So the way the municipal aggregation law is written, you cannot, it requires opt-out. So if we were to say this is municipal aggregation, this is what we're doing, we're using this format through DPU, it cannot be an opt-in program, it has to be an opt-out. We have sort of looked into could you put out a solicitation, could you identify a company, that sort of thing. And there are other states where they do opt-in programs, and the take-up rate is so low that electricity companies, companies that sell electricity, don't want to give you a good rate because it's not a good enough number of people who opt into programs like that. Or if they're willing to give you a good rate, they don't give you very good terms. And so that's one of the things that we can also, like having this no termination fee is a big deal because many companies who want you to sign up as an individual have a large termination fee. And so that's actually one of the better terms that we can provide to residents. But if you do that, you wouldn't be able to control, you would either lose price or you would lose terms. based on experience in other state. I would also selfishly say it would be significantly more work for the municipality to do it in that sort of program as often, and I'm not sure that it would be worth it for, if we were gonna have 10% or 15% of people enroll in it, is it actually the best use of your municipal resources to be doing something like that when you're not gonna get them as good a rate as this would get you?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And you can't guarantee, thank you for the answer, you can't guarantee price savings, so there's a possibility that the rates would be higher than what National Grid's offering?
[Alicia Hunt]: So that's sort of the problem with anything. There's no guarantee, right? So we would contract in November, we would go out in that window, which is a traditionally good time. We would absolutely get a rate that is better than the current National Grid rate, or we wouldn't accept it. If they were offering us rates that were higher, we would say, no, thank you. We'll try again in the spring. So at that time, the rate would be lower. But because National Grid contracts buys electricity twice a year, something could happen to the electricity market. There could be a crazy dip in electricity prices, and they could drop dramatically. and we would have no control over that. Residents would, they would still be allowed to opt out of the program. So if our rate was suddenly not better, they could choose to leave. Our goal is that on average over the course of the year, the rate is better, such that over the course of a year's use of electricity, the rate, what you pay is less than you would have paid if you'd stayed with National Grid that entire time.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And I guess my last question, because I see the problems, and that's where I'm having a problem with a yes vote right now. Or, you know, I'm on the fence. It's a tough issue. But my last question, you said this would go out to a public hearing and have to come back to the city council for definite approval. I just, that language in 16-534, that we allow research development and participation in a contract throws me off.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. Is that something you can answer? Because she's right.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah. So I think when it talks about the contract, I believe that's the contract with the consultant or the broker who's going to help design the plan and would eventually be your broker to take you out to bid. But if you don't approve the plan, then the process stops.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. So actually, I think I can get that. So for example, I'm saying that if you approve it tonight, then we will sign something with Good Energy and MAPC that says, we want you to create a plan for us and get this project started. The point that it's of no return is the point at which the electricity prices come back to us in November. And if in November, the prices come back and the price is not good, then we throw it out the window and we say we don't do it. And if the price is good, we would move forward. There is a, so in order for us to submit to DPU our outreach plan and our plan for how we're gonna do this, we have to be able to say that the Medford City Council saw this outreach plan and approved it. So at this point, you're approving us, allowing us to work with Good Energy to develop the plan, then you would have to approve the outreach plan before the Department of Public Utilities can review it.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: That's all the questions I have for now. And I appreciate your passion for this issue. And I know it must make sense on a serious level. It just seems a little risky at the same time. And I don't love the fact that people have to be put into the program and have to take the time, energy, know that they can opt out of it. So that's where my concern lies. But I appreciate, you know, you putting it together and starting the conversation, at least, depending on how my colleagues feel.
[Alicia Hunt]: So, thank you. If I might actually sort of point out the way this works is if we—if, say, you take the chance, we approve it tonight, and you decide in two weeks that this was a bad idea and you don't want us to do it and go further, maybe you hear from residents or whatever, then if the city council never approves the outreach plan, then I cannot submit it to DPO. They won't accept it from me. So it's like another place where you have another check. So it might be, well, I don't object to the outreach plan, but I'm not voting for it because I don't like it. I don't see why that would happen, because I think this is a really good program, or I wouldn't be bringing it to the city council. But you do have that step in there.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you.
[John Falco]: Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilor Falco. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Alicia. So you had mentioned earlier, you had mentioned that three communities decided to get out, I think we talked briefly about that at the Committee of the Whole. I think we figured out the length of contract. They only did it for a year, so they really couldn't get the discount that they wanted, because the length of the term wasn't really long enough to get the savings that they thought they were going to get.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, six months.
[John Falco]: Exactly. So they decided to leave. Do we know why they're going back in now? Is it truly because of the terms?
[Alicia Hunt]: I can't speak completely to their situations, maybe Patrick can, but I can tell you that historically there was a period of time where this was considered a great idea. There was a period of time about five years ago where people thought that cities could make a lot of money from this and do great things. generate revenue for energy efficiency programs. And there were some consultants who actually tried to get us to get in on this windfall. And I'm like, I don't like the sound of windfall. That makes me nervous. And we stepped back. We actually had Tufts students do a study on community aggregation on that time about three years ago, because I was here. Actually, it was when Kerry Dukes was still the director. The Tufts students did a study for MAPC and the city of Medford jointly. We were the clients. And they were like, you can't do this windfall stuff. This is not as good as it sounds. And we were like, oh, and we backed off. What's happened now is the electricity market has gone way up. And electricity is way more expensive. And we can really get better rates for our residents by timing the market, by buying the electricity at a good time, by aggregating. So we know that we can do that. And we're not trying to go after a windfall that the city is going to get a pile of money. And so that's sort of been pushed off. These communities were part of it at that time. And I think there were some problems with that. I'm pretty sure that Lunenburg was one of the ones that was named in that report. I haven't actually pulled it back up as sketchy. It wasn't clear what was going on there. They stopped. They have new consultants. They're starting over. They're doing it fresh.
[John Falco]: OK. So now, if I'm correct, Currently in our current state, I could go out and negotiate my own rate with a supplier, right?
[Alicia Hunt]: In theory.
[John Falco]: In theory, okay. In theory. Okay.
[Alicia Hunt]: How much they would negotiate with an individual is the theoretical part.
[John Falco]: Okay. Just because I know, I talk to a lot of just residents after the committee, the whole, and a lot of them actually seem to be interested, especially because if there could potentially be a savings there, why not? And especially if you can opt out, that seems to be a pretty good deal. So in the communities that have actually gone with this, do they find, is there an average cost savings over a year?
[Alicia Hunt]: I think, is there a number that's being sort of looked at?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, so for good energies programs that are being implemented currently for those 24 municipalities, they're looking, I think, towards the end of this year, for around, I think it's around like $60 per household. But the range that they sort of would talk about expecting might be $40 to $120. Can you say that again? It might be $40 to $120.
[John Falco]: So it could possibly be in the range of savings per year between $40 and $120 a year. Yes. Thank you very much.
[Alicia Hunt]: Of course, the more electricity you use, the more you save. But I don't like to say that because I would like everybody to use less electricity.
[John Falco]: Absolutely. deserve. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Councilor.
[Richard Caraviello]: Chair recognizes Councilor Caraviello. Thank you, Mr. President. Alicia, I thank you. We had a good meeting last week, and I appreciate all the hard work you do for the city in saving energy. Since we last talked, I had the opportunity to talk to two electrical consultants that do similar work. One of them was a Constellation person, and he explained to me that when it works, it works. When it doesn't work, you get a problem, he says, especially on the city side. And one of the things he told me to ask is, is the city of Medford willing to accept any liability if the rate goes up and the residents start saying, hey, I'm paying more on my electric bill? Or are we willing to buy an insurance policy to cover the liability in the case that this does go up?
[Alicia Hunt]: taught by my lawyer friends that if you're asking about liability, we should ask the city solicitor, not me. I can't speak to liability. Yeah, actually, Patrick actually has an answer for you.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I would just like to say that in the aggregation programs that operate in Massachusetts, municipalities do not take out any additional insurance. Individuals can leave at any time, and so there is no contractual obligation for the city to pay a certain sum of money or to use a certain amount of energy. So if everyone left, that is a risk that the supplier takes.
[Richard Caraviello]: Well, in the other question you told me, it says most people don't opt out, because they never even were aware they were in the plan. Because again, like Mr. Dunman spoke a little earlier, we have a communication problem in the city. We have no access to television to get the message out. When we sweep the streets, I get a thousand phone calls, nobody told me, nobody knows. It's been in the papers, and when there's a snow emergency, you get the same calls. I didn't know, nobody told me. How do we get to everybody in the whole city to say, I want in, I want out? I mean, somebody owns a three-family house, so they get a bill there for the owner gets the bill, and what do they do with the tenants?
[Alicia Hunt]: Each tenant should be getting their own electric bill.
[Richard Caraviello]: In all due respect, most people don't, most people when they get the bill, they open and they pay it. They don't look at all those little things that are in there. And, um, my other question is, um, if more people start opting out, uh, how does that affect your rate, our rate to the city? If, if, if more than six or 7% does that,
[Alicia Hunt]: So this, one of the terms, so when you go out and buy electricity, you look at the terms, and the terms include what if your usage varies, that your contractual usage varies. And so one of the terms that we would look for was something that your friends at Constellation would understand, 100% swing, which means that if 100% of the people opted out, it would be no effect, it would be no change. So that would not have an impact on the program if everybody chose to opt out.
[Richard Caraviello]: Now, we're also going to be dependent on advice from an outside source. So what if the person we hire gives us bad advice?
[Alicia Hunt]: I mean, that's a risk we take every time we hire a consultant, but if we never—but we can't all be expected to know everything. That's why consultants exist.
[Richard Caraviello]: And I'm also told that, you know, I know you said about National Grid. I'm also told that when you opt out of National Grid and you want back in, they're not the happiest person to let you go back in, and you may not get brought in. at the same rate you went out at either.
[Alicia Hunt]: So by law, National Grid has to take you back?
[Richard Caraviello]: They'll take you back, but they don't have to give you the same rate.
[Alicia Hunt]: I do want to point out that Good Energy and Constellation are direct competitors, just so you're aware of that.
[Richard Caraviello]: No, I talked to a couple of them, two different companies. But again, I'm afraid for the city liability end. If the rate goes up, if something goes bad, I can hear everyone's phone is going to scream on the thing. I mean, I have no problem doing this on a voluntary basis, but I don't know if we have the ability to get the word out to everybody that has an electric bill in the city. Because we say we just don't have the resources to do that. I mean, and also, maybe before we vote on this, I prefer maybe have a public hearing. with a robot with a call going out to say to me, listen, this is what we're going to do. Let's have a public meeting. Listen, I have an all-electric house. I'm the first guy looking to save money on electric. So, I mean, I'll, you know, so. Again, but I'm just, I'm afraid that if it doesn't go good, it's not going to go good for the room, yeah.
[Alicia Hunt]: So, I would suggest respectfully that a public hearing on something very concrete, like a plan presented by the consultant, would potentially be useful, but that a public hearing on a theoretical idea would be very difficult for residents to get their teeth into and to understand. And so I would like to take it to that step where we have a plan that the public could weigh in on. And if the public was then opposed to a municipal aggregation, you would then disapprove the plan at that time.
[Richard Caraviello]: I have reservations. It's unfortunate that the city of Medford is in the function hall business that some people want us to get into. We're in the auditorium business that we shouldn't be in. I don't know if we need to be in the electric business. I mean, we have a hard time doing government sometimes.
[Alicia Hunt]: So this is providing an additional choice for our residents that they don't otherwise have.
[Richard Caraviello]: Again, I have reservations and I would want more public input before I made a decision on this.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Councilor. Chair recognizes Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you both for being here this evening too. I appreciate your presentation. So as I understand it, based upon what you're telling us, the paper before us is for the city council to authorize your office via the mayor to enter into a contract with the MAPC in good energy.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right.
[Adam Knight]: And how did the MAPC and Good Energy become the people that we said, these are the ones we're going to go with?
[Alicia Hunt]: So MAPC does regional procurements on a variety of various topics, and sometimes it makes sense to work with them. I had met with Good Energy as well a few times. I've actually met with other consultants about this in the past as well when I was less enamored of the program. MAPC went out and did a full search, a request for qualifications, reviewed various programs. What I really actually like best about their program is Good Energy has been working with the Mass Energy Consumer Alliance. to include this additional clean energy as part of the purchase. It's a proposal that's a new idea from them that other consultants had not thought of before. It actually came out of Melrose. And I really like how this would, by everybody having a tiny bit more renewable energy, it would actually be a pretty significant renewable energy credit purchase on behalf of the city. and make an impact on our greenhouse gases. So that is actually particularly why I'm interested in this specific program.
[SPEAKER_15]: What's the cost of usually doing business historically? I'm sure Good Energy and the MAPC have gotten together and entered into these contracts in the past with municipalities. And what's the average cost for a contract like that?
[Alicia Hunt]: So the way they would be paid is that they are paid a very tiny percentage on the electrical bill. So the city of Medford would not actually pay the MAPC or Good Energy directly. Residents pay their bills to National Grid, passes the money to whoever it is that the contract is with for the supply, and the supplier gives them a very tiny percentage. I believe it's one thousandth of a penny. One thousandth of a penny. per kilowatt hour. Oh, one one thousandth of a dollar. One one hundredth of a penny. So it's a fraction of a penny per kilowatt hour that the consultant.
[SPEAKER_06]: $100,000? Yes, for the year. Per annum?
[Alicia Hunt]: And so that would be for all the outreach and stuff that they do, the buying of the electricity.
[Adam Knight]: And the reason I ask is because it seems like This is going to be a contract that's over $10,000. It seems like it's something you're negotiating, and you've selected the vendors already. We might be able to get more bang for our buck if we put out an IRP and said, three vendors come and give it to us. I don't know if we can do that through municipal aggregation, and I guess that's one of the questions.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. So part of actually why I like sometimes doing regional procurements is because this was a procurement on behalf of a lot of municipalities. So if we went out right now, we would be doing it on behalf of Medford and asking a consultant to work with just Medford. Right now, Good Energy is working with, who are the ones that are going out right now? About eight or ten? The one, all those that I just listed.
[Adam Knight]: So actually. The RFP is going out. It's, I mean, a request for proposals and bids are going out. You guys are doing it on a larger scale.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. They do it on a larger scale when they can do it on behalf.
[Adam Knight]: They're doing the administrative work for us.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. And so they actually did the administrative work. If we were to start from scratch right now, we would do a request for qualifications for consultants we would have to have, I would have to have a procurement officer on board. That would take period would take a couple of months, a couple, two months easily. And then, um, we would then start the rest of this process. So we would not be able to do it for this winter because we could never complete it just by the legal procurement laws by this winter. And so it would be another year before Medford residents would see reduced electricity rates.
[Adam Knight]: So what I'm understanding is that good energy is the, preferred vendor that's been selected by MAPC through their due diligence process?
[Alicia Hunt]: Yes, through their due diligence.
[Adam Knight]: Okay. And as you were filling me in on some of these questions that I had, I did hear you say, so we'd get a bill and a bill would come in the mail and it would be, today it's national grid, tomorrow we're entering into municipal aggregation. Is it, you know, good guy energy or is it still a national grid bill?
[Alicia Hunt]: The bill would still be national grid. And there's one line on that bill that says supply. And in that place, it would be, it would not say good energy. Sorry. It would not say good energy. It would say the name of whoever the electricity ended up being purchased from. Um, for example, direct energy is a company that, uh, I can't even remember who this is.
[Adam Knight]: we might contract with. We enter into a three-year contract for municipal aggregation, and I decide to opt out. Two and a half, I say, I want to opt back in. Am I allowed to opt out and in as many times as I want with no penalty, no charge, no fee, no pain, no suffering?
[Jean Nuzzo]: I have no idea. I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_06]: Generally, I believe when you opt out, you can get back in at the next contract start. We have seen, in a rare case, I think the city of Lowell has gone three years, but most cities go one or two years, often a lot do one year for their first year of the program, too. So if you opt out, you're up for the term of the contract.
[Alicia Hunt]: You would opt out for the rest of that term of the contract, and then you could come in on the next contract.
[Adam Knight]: And then the scope of contract would be limited to a three year contract by law because it's a municipal contract.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, so you would never actually strategically buy electricity for any longer than three years either. Right now, one to two year contracts seem to be the right length of time to enter into. Things are in flux in the electricity utility world. Longer than that, you don't know what you're getting into.
[Adam Knight]: That answers all my questions, Mr. President. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you, Councilor Knight.
[George Scarpelli]: Chair recognizes Councilor Scarpelli. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Ms. Hunt, for everything you do. It's so important that you're involved in our community and pushing us in the right direction. But my question is, for those people that have been proactive and they've purchased their own electricity and they like their rate, What would happen to those people?
[Alicia Hunt]: For anybody who has already contracted with another company for their supply, they would not be included in this automatically. They would have to independently exit that contract if they wanted to be part of this, but they would not be automatically included. This is only for people and businesses on the default rate, not on—who already have a supply. So it would actually include all small businesses that have not gotten outside contracts. They would be included in this as well, the better rate.
[George Scarpelli]: So if I'm with Zoom Energy and my rate is better, I can stay?
[Alicia Hunt]: You in fact would stay. Right. You could only join if you made an effort and you contacted them and quit being with them and then asked to be part of it. we would not automatically enroll you.
[George Scarpelli]: So wouldn't, okay. So I mean, that, that, that was my biggest fear is like what Councilor Caraviello said, the lack of information sharing is probably my biggest fear as well. And I'm making sure that we have those ants, those questions answered. Right. So we can, so constituents don't fall into that, that same situation. So,
[Alicia Hunt]: So we do have residents who have contracted with other companies. My general, what we've generally seen is that those companies offer a good rate but very difficult terms for ending the contract. And in fact, they do end contracts but keep you on with them at the, what they call the market rate. But because the market fluctuates hour to hour, they tend to charge varying amounts and nobody can say whether those amounts are reasonable or not. One of the benefits that this provides is that we, our consultant, would know when this contract was ending and would make arrangements. because it's the better rate right now, and that's what our consultant. We have a contract. National grid can offer us.
[George Scarpelli]: Okay, thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Councilor Schiappelli. Chair recognizes Councilor Falco.
[John Falco]: Thank you, Mr. President. One quick question. That is, do we know how many residents in Medford are on the default rate? We'd like a percentage. Do we have any idea?
[Alicia Hunt]: Percentage?
[John Falco]: Yeah.
[Alicia Hunt]: I would, I mean, I'm going to guess easily 95% of residents. Okay. Um, not of necessarily our load because large businesses, the hospital tops, those big eight companies, they use a lot of electricity. I would hope that they've all actually gone through this process themselves. and contracted separately.
[John Falco]: Because, I mean, just thinking and talking to people in the community, it just seems like most people would be on the default, right? Because I think they're just not aware of what they can do with regard to electric.
[Alicia Hunt]: And a lot of them have had their doors knocked on by companies that are trying to get them to sign up. And part of my concern, there is another reason to do this, and that is that those companies offer poor terms. And I have to be careful, because I can't legally speak poorly of any specific company, but there have been problems with them. And if you looked at, like, exposés on the news, and the people who are most likely to end up signed up with one is actually somebody who is extremely careful and watches their bills very, very closely and has read all those terms. Or sometimes we have people who don't pay attention. think they've gotten a really good deal, and then a year down the road, they're suddenly getting huge electric bills, and they don't know why or what to do about it. And so I get nervous. And this is a way of once you've done this in the city, those companies probably, as their experience, don't go door to door in your community anymore, because you're all signed up already with somebody else.
[John Falco]: OK. Thank you very much.
[Michael Marks]: Thank you, Councilor. Chair recognizes Councilor Marks. Thank you, Mr. President. And Alicia, I appreciate the time and effort, and also the gentleman next to you who appeared before the Committee of the Whole meeting. I have a little different slant on this, and I think I mentioned it at the Committee of the Whole meeting. I don't feel comfortable as an elected official dictating to residents who their supplier should be. That's, first, my fundamental difference with this. I'm all in favor of giving savings. I think that's a great concept and I think we could have some type of voluntary plan where the city goes out and procures a supplier to come in, a reputable supplier, and you get as many residents who voluntarily want to sign up and good luck to them. Second point is that this would have been an easier pill to swallow if you came to us and said, you know what? The city of Medford wants to embark on this particular plan, this aggregation plan. And we're not going to consider the residents right now. We're going to have the city embark on it. We're going to have all the municipal buildings go into this municipal aggregation. In over a two-year process, we're going to let the residents know how much money we saved as a city. And then we're going to roll out to the residents. But what we're doing is the reverse. The city's not going to get involved in this, is that correct?
[Alicia Hunt]: The city actually already has a secondary supplier for our electricity rates, and we've had that one for longer than I've worked for the city, but we contract periodically for that.
[Michael Marks]: But the city is not taking part of this. So whatever is decided with this particular proposal, because there's a lot of things that have to be decided with the proposal, we can go through the organizational and role responsibility of the public entity. We can go through the degree of local control. We can go through the energy service side, renewable energy components, what percentage you want to have for renewable energy. The city's not going to partake in that. You're already out in your own little island doing whatever you're doing. So you're separating it now. You're separating the residents from the city. And I think that's a mistake. And I think whatever was done, maybe you should have included the city to take part in this as well as the residents all at once. so we could do this together. And I think that was the number one mistake that was made. Second point, when the city comes to me and says, you know what, we're going to save you money, guess what? Big red flag goes off in my head. Big red flag. Because if the city was that concerned, they would have looked at my cable bill five years ago and said, you know what, you're paying for a community access station that we haven't provided in five years. They would have saved me money then for the last five years. The city is not in the business of saving residents money. You know that as well as I know. It's just not in the business of saving residents money. So that's the second red flag in this particular proposal. The way I read it too, you mentioned about ARPA, This is from the Department of Energy Resources. It says, in a municipal aggregation, customers have the right to return to standard offer service without penalty by opting out before enrollment or up to 180 days after enrollment. Has that changed?
[Alicia Hunt]: So that's actually different. If you, if the program rolls out and over the first bill or two, suddenly a resident says, Hey, I didn't sign up for that. They can actually be removed from the program and charged for those previous two months as if they had never been in it. So if this rate was lower than national grid, they would suddenly owe the difference. Um, if this rate was higher, but we would never contract if this rate was higher. So that's talking about them withdrawing as if they had never been in it, as opposed to opting out of the program at any time, where you say, I've had my six months of savings. Now I don't want to be in this. I want to go back to the default rate. Then they can opt out. So that's a different piece there, subtlety.
[Michael Marks]: So the state legislature was wise when they created this. They created an opt-out rather than an opt-in. Because if it was an opt-in, you'd probably be at 6%. You'd probably be at the reverse. So they were smart. They said, take on the masses. And then the masses aren't going to be wise enough, because they're not going to get the notification. And a majority of the people are going to stay on there, because they're not even aware that the electricity was changed. They're not even aware. So, you know, and I'm not saying this is a bad idea. I just fundamentally disagree with me deciding what someone's supply is going to be. I don't think that's my role as an elected official. I don't think I should be in that business. Secondly, we're hearing a lot about having the council take a vote, take a vote, take a vote. We don't know the cost of implementing the program. And you're saying all these other cities and towns that have already done it. The cost of implementing the program in terms of staff time, external consultants necessary to design and operate the load aggregation plan, that's number one. And then the city needs to determine whether or not if this cost outweighs what the benefit is going to be to the residents. So why isn't that presented to me first?
[Alicia Hunt]: So there is no request for money. The only cost to the city is some of my staff time. There is no charge to the city for a consultant. So there will be no future charges and there will be no money gained by the city from this program. So there's no reason for us to trick residents into joining it or the state legislature to trick them because they don't, the state doesn't get money out of this and the city doesn't.
[Michael Marks]: Are you saying we're not going to hire a consultant?
[Alicia Hunt]: We, so the consultant is paid out of a slight, a small amount on the electricity bill.
[Michael Marks]: Yes.
[Alicia Hunt]: On the electricity bill. So we don't directly pay the consultant. No.
[Michael Marks]: Right. And who decides what percent of, uh, the, um, renewable energy is going to be part of a particular program.
[Alicia Hunt]: So there's an amount regulated by state law. This year, it's 11%. It goes up 1% annually. The amount on top of that is an amount that we've been discussing with consultants in other municipalities. How much can you buy that it makes a difference and it's worthwhile, but does not impact significantly the price that residents would pay?
[Michael Marks]: I'm asking, who makes the decision? What percentage of renewable energy will be part of this proposal?
[Alicia Hunt]: You know, I haven't had this discussion with the current mayor, but the former mayor said he made all decisions. And so I would hesitate to say I make that decision because it would have to be approved.
[Michael Marks]: So someone from the city is going to say, okay, you know what? We're going to opt in as 6% renewable energy. And that's, that's great. It's a, it's a worthy cause. I get my bill and I said, wow, What's the extra cost here? Oh, renewable energy. I have to now opt out of that, right? Once I'm opted in, then I have to opt out of that portion from what you stated earlier, which is another step.
[Alicia Hunt]: The amount we're looking at is looking at would be two-tenths of a penny per kilowatt hour. I find it unlikely that any- I don't think you understand.
[Michael Marks]: I think the question is, residents should have the right to determine Because right now, I could determine, when I get my bill, it says, do you want to have a portion of it for renewable energy? And I make that determination. I don't want you making that determination. I don't want some bureaucrat here at City Hall making that determination, with all due respect. And that's what you're saying is going to be done right now. So whether it's a penny or a small amount or this or that, I just fundamentally, I just have a problem with this. If people want to go out in the open market, and if the city wants to assist, and trying to get as many people as possible in this city to join those other communities, then I'm sure they'll take us on. Fine, let it go that way.
[Alicia Hunt]: They won't take us as an opt-on. They will not agree with that as part of the plan.
[Michael Marks]: Well, we don't know. Maybe the state legislature can create a new law. But, you know, there's just too many what-ifs on this. And I'm not going to be one that's going to tell the homeowner that all of a sudden now you have to use this supplier. And we're going to have a set of eyes on it, whether it's a consultant or someone at City Hall. And we're going to try to save you as much as possible. And like Councilor Caraviello said, if things go wrong, who are they going to point the finger to, Alicia Hunt? Or are they going to call the council and say, why the hell did you vote on that? My bill is more than it was last year. Who are you to get into my business? That's what's going to happen. That's what's going to happen. And ultimately, I have a problem with this. So you're not going to get my vote. I told you this last week. So this shouldn't be a surprise to you. You're not going to get my vote on this. If you came with some facts and figures on what it's going to cost for time, staffing, consultants, and then determine what the savings is and compare that, compare to what it's going to cost us in our budget to run this, then maybe I'd take a look at it. But I'm not going to do that after the fact. I'm not going to let the horse go down the street and say, well, now we're going to determine. So, you know. Not gonna get my support tonight, but I wish you well on it.
[Alicia Hunt]: So I appreciate your candor, and I will repeat that there is no cost to the budget, and there will not be, there would also be no revenue in this to the city. So this is a benefit only to the residents and small businesses, and not a financial benefit or cost to the city.
[Michael Marks]: Alicia, if you take five minutes out of your day to do something regarding this program, that's a cost to the city and a cost to the budget. And you've already spent numerous time on this already. So to say there's no cost to the budget, is being naive, to say the least. There is a cost in the budget. There's a cost of doing business, and there's a cost for consultants, and every other underlying issue in here. There's a cost for renewable energy. You may want to do renewable energy. My mother, who can't afford to do it, may not want to do renewable energy. And she shouldn't have to opt out every time. I want to opt out of this. I want to opt out of this. You know, because we know what's going to happen. Residents aren't going to opt out. We know it. I mean, let's face it. Let's face it. That's what's going to happen. That's why the state legislature created the way they did. You opted in automatically. What a crazy idea that is. Opt everyone in. But I thank you for your time.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Marks. Chair recognizes Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. President, I think it's rather clear, based upon the tenor and tone of the discussions that we've had this evening, that we're not going to be able to make a decision as to whether or not this is a matter that should go forward. And as such, I would recommend to make a motion that the matter be tabled. The motion to table by Councilor Knight.
[Fred Dello Russo]: All those in favor? Mr. President, I withdraw my motion to table. The motion is withdrawn. Chair recognizes Vice President Lungo-Koehn.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I agree that's probably the best thing to do. But my suggestion would be, if it tabled and it can come up again. I would ask that you look into a public comment period, whether that be, not necessarily a public hearing, but some way that residents can voice their opinions on this to give us some feedback.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'd be happy to put out a survey online that people could fill in whether they'd be interested in such a thing. I don't know how much of a response we'd get to something like that or ask people to send you email or me email? I certainly am not encouraging residents to email their Councilors.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah. I don't think something that should be discussed tonight, but maybe that would be something that would help the council in deciding on their vote. I would love the input from our residents. Um, cause I think my vote is, I'm not ready to vote on this tonight. So I agree to take, um, counseling nights, motion table, but I'm just, I'm just giving a suggestion to try to hook a few people. Sure.
[Alicia Hunt]: If there were other questions that we could answer, Other than that, I mean, to further inform you.
[Adam Knight]: Councilor Knight. Mr. President, I don't think that it would be harmful either if I'm in part of the motions table. We also put a referral maybe to the subcommittee on energy and environment for further investigation.
[Michael Marks]: Okay.
[Fred Dello Russo]: He withdrew it already. We're going to let some residents speak if you would. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Jeanne Martin]: Jean Martin, 10 Cummings Street. And I do appreciate Ms. Hunt and all the work that she does. And if I can, if they make it affordable, I'll put solar panels on my roof. I'd be the first one to talk to her if I was going to put solar panels on my roof or do something like that. But the government is in my life too much as it is. Believe me, they're in my life. And the CPA has required me now I had to go and get the exemption for low income, and I had to present my birth certificate. I had to present my tax return. I had to present, which I never had to do, just for this one little thing in the city, just for this one little thing. I had my tax return. I had to put in—I get rental income. They never had to know what my rental income was. Not that I care. I don't overcharge my tenant. In fact, I undercharge him. That's not the point. It's nobody's business if I charge them $1,200 or $2,200. It shouldn't be their business. But it is now because for the first time, I have to give this information out to the city just for my taxes. And I mean, everybody knows everything about my economic status. I mean, it's not news. But it's an invasion of privacy. And back to the city and how they do business. The water and sewer business is what you're in. which is a commodity or it's a mandated thing, the water and sewer. And look at the situation that the city is in with water and sewer. And that is a, and I'm not against the saving money and the electricity and all of that, but we don't need one more layer of bureaucracy in this city for the reasons that Mr. Caraviello pointed out. And, um, the water and sewer pipes need replacement and we can't demand from the government that they get replaced under the ground. We can't, we can't get them to move on that. We can't get the city government to run properly now. whether it's a fire department, police department, there's a lot of areas that are insufficient in the city government now, especially water and sewer. And it's comparable to what this issue is, which is electricity. which is something you need in your house right now. And I'm all for, if I can afford to put solar panels on my house and go, you know, renewable, all the more power to me, right? That's awesome. There's other also complexities. At one point, I needed National Grid to give me a cut in my electric bill because my income was low. before I got my disability check. So I needed that extra money. So that was another thing. I had to go to the National Grid and I got a break in my electric bill when I had a very, very low income. So would I be able to negotiate that with the new provider or whatever? It's just too complicated. So it's just one more layer of the local government. And again, I want her to work here. I want her to save money for the city and put up solar panels and wind farms if it's doable. In fact, the wind farms should be going towards putting this city electric bill on wind farms and on solar. More power to her if she can figure out a way to do it. That's what she should be doing. And so I just think that there's enough government in my life. Trust me on this. I live inside the government. The government lives inside my head. So we get enough of that going. So anyway, thank you for listening. Bye-bye. Name and address.
[Robert Cappucci]: Thank you, President Lungo-Koehn. Robert Capucci, 71 Evans Street. I have to say really briefly, I really enjoy saying President Lungo-Koehn. That would be a great thing for this body. But I digress. Is this matter going to be tabled? Oh, OK. I believe we're going to have that offering, yes. I'm confused. I mean, all through this discussion, a couple of things came to my mind that Ronald Reagan often said. as scary as nine words, I'm here from the government and I'm here to help. And the government that governs least is the government that governs best. President Lungo-Koehn, what Councilor Marks said tonight was 1,000% spot on. I think the vote should be taken and this should be voted down. I'm confused. Ms. Hunt said to Councilor Caraviello that she wouldn't want to have a public hearing on a theoretical proposition, but they want to have the vote tonight on a solid proposal. So I don't understand how it changes from a solid proposal to the city council to take a vote. to a theoretical proposition to the citizens that are suffering, do as I say, not as I do. I'm really confused on that. How is that possible, that for the residents, it's a theoretical proposition? But there's an ironclad proposal here tonight that's going to bind the residents of Medford Inn. That's why I asked President Lungo-Koehn. this was going to be tabled, because if it's going to be tabled, then my point is moot. But I really think this should be voted down, unless the city's going to get in on it, too, like Councilor Marks said. But I think the residents of this city need to have 1,000 questions, all sorts of input. since, you know, they're being basically forced into something. Thank you, President.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Mr. Kouchi.
[zSHhVpiqwJA_SPEAKER_09]: Ladies and gentlemen of the council, Dave Champey, 35 Greenhall Street, Medford. The whole thing, the item number request, I don't know if you people read the last line, and authorize the mayor. to execute all documents necessary to accomplish the same. Sounds like republic parking all over again. And tell you the truth, if I'm opted in, well, the city goes for this, I'm opted in, I opt out because national grid basically does have a better rate over the long run than good energy. and I have to go into default payment plan with National Grid because I was out, then I opted back in, who's going to cover that? City of Method going to cover that? Unwilling participant forced into something by the city government. I'm not going to suffer financial loss. And basically, if you go and, you know, the consultant, oh, the consultant is going to get $100,000. 0.1, what is it, a tenth of a percent per kilowatt hour? Well, what is it? Through the chair.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: It's a thousandth of a dollar. It's a thousandth of a dollar. Per kilowatt hour. Tenth of a penny. Okay.
[zSHhVpiqwJA_SPEAKER_09]: So this consultant isn't going to be just a consultant for the city of Medford. It's going to be a compilation and the consultant is going to come from metropolitan area planning council, which was when it was created, a bureau for retired hacks, political consultants and anybody else that needed a job. I've worked with them. I've written grants for them. I don't believe this is a good plan for the city of Medford, especially if people are going to get screwed and be forced to pay a higher rate because the city thinks it's a better plan. Well, we know how this, is that going to be like the water account? We're paying so much, you know, one year we have a budget surplus, and next year we have a deficit, and meanwhile we've got, what, eight, nine million dollars sitting in the fund. How can you have a deficit one year and, you know, this is ridiculous. People have got to come up with a system better than this, and like I said, the last line, and authorize the mayor to execute all documents necessary to accomplish the same. If you vote yes on this tonight, you're basically telling the mayor, go ahead. Been advised. Thank you, Republic. You've given us a great example.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Motion to table, Madam President. One more? I think we're all going to vote to table this thing.
[Robert Penta]: Mr. President, Madam President, my name is Robert Penta, Zero Summit Road, Method Mass.
[k3Xg1illaRI_SPEAKER_15]: Motion to withdraw.
[Robert Penta]: My motion.
[k3Xg1illaRI_SPEAKER_15]: Motion to table.
[Robert Penta]: Thank you. I can appreciate the idea that Ms. Hunt and the Energy Office has brought before the council, but I don't think her tenure here has been long enough to understand what the citizens of our community have expected. We can digress and go back a few years and talk about Stations Landing. When Stations Landing was coming here into the city of Medford, people, or we were told, that that would be the new panacea of no new growth in this community or a stability in growth. And we've all seen what's happened since that point in time. The taxes have gone up each and every year while we've collected well in excess of a million and a half new dollars each and every year from there. Now, the next argument could possibly be the banks here in the City of Medford. The City of Medford goes out on a daily basis to get the best possible rate on interest rates for the money that they deposit. Is the City of Medford going to go out of its way now to tell the taxpayers of this community to go to a particular bank that they go to? And the more people that go to that bank, they're going to get a better interest rate? because we're getting a good interest rate, which is better than the bank that you're going to. Same thing with the insurance company. We have to buy our insurance. We go out and we get the best bid. The best bid will probably be less than the bid that you, Mr. and Mrs. Medford, possibly might be getting. I don't know. But Mr. Champ, you just brought up a very interesting point when you talked about water and sewer. You folks have in your budget right now in excess of a $400,000 deficit or a debt on the water and the suicide from the city and the school committee. Why isn't the city paying for that? But right now, they're so concerned about your electric bill, but they're not concerned about the $400,000 that every single taxpayer in this city is paying for because the school department in the city side won't account for their own water. And hopefully, you people will pass that when the budget comes. You know, you talk about the state legislature passing these laws, and I think you're right, Councilman Marks. I think they got this upside down. opting in rather than opting out. The best way a community or a city can operate, when they talk to their taxpayers, when they have better communication, but when they don't have good communication, and the only public forum that they have is this council, and the rail here at this council that they can come up and talk, then that's what the conversation should be about. You shouldn't be talking about taking a vote which mandates somebody that they have to join, and then they might have to figure out when, within 180 days, have to opt out. That's not the right way to go. And if we're going to expend municipal time through its employees on projects on behalf of every single taxpayer in this community, then why are you mandating it rather than making it voluntarily so you could show them this is a better way for you, Mr. and Mrs. Medford, to save money rather than be at the option of April or October to a $100,000 consultant who was going to be making money trying to tell the city of Medford who might, on a particular day, get the best possible rate, and who might not get that best possible rate during that period of time, but the consultant still makes his money. I don't think this is a good idea. I think there are more important things to do here in the city of Medford, and I would hope that this Medford City Council does not entertain this particular matter. Thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Name and address, please.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Andrew Castagnetti, Method, Massachusetts. Thank you. Don't get mad at me, but you're the prettiest VP, Vice President I've seen today. Thank you. So anyways, I want to thank Mrs. Alicia Hunt for performing her job and trying or implying to save us the residential electric payers some money on their bills, hopefully, if it ever goes through there. However, I know what I pay for my supply service side of the electric bill from National Grid on Cushing Street, and that rate is X amount of cents per kilowatt hour. Coincidentally, direct energy, I'm sorry, you didn't get that? I'm paying X amounts cents per kilowatt hour. I left it blank on purpose. Thank you. Thank you for paying attention. So coincidentally, direct energy knocked on my door and I actually gave them half hour of my time this time instead of zero time. And they gave me a contract just to use and read, but he didn't want me to keep it. But this is it. He came back later, and I compared it to what he offered. He offered X amount of cents less than what I'm paying. And much to my chagrin, he told me a lot of my neighbors are paying less than I am. And I did not know that. So I presume some people are paying even more than I am. That sort of tells me that there is no set rate, I guess, period. It could vary. I'm not sure how much it could fluctuate. So through the chair, I never did hear what the cost would be, presently speaking, or through Alicia's energy connections in her department. What is the latest rate that you heard of per kilowatt hours on the supply side? No one would I pay. And people out there that may be in the audience listening, that they may go home and check their bill, see what they're paying. Can you please answer me for the chair?
[SPEAKER_17]: Good question.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: What is the kilowatt hour rate, the latest that you know of?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: With good energy.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Do you understand the question? Do you understand the question?
[Alicia Hunt]: So just to be clear, we would go out to bid in November and we would get a rate given to us then. So we can't guarantee that, but we do know what rate Melrose got last year for their aggregation. I had it, but I don't have it in front of me. Patrick knows the rates Melrose has.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, I think Melrose has a rate of 9.6 cents and the other three communities that Good Energy has got a rate of 9.4. They contracted for different term lengths.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: If I may, from the chair then, and what is National Grid? So what is the savings?
[SPEAKER_06]: So National Grid's winter rate was, gosh, I think it was about 11 cents. I don't have it on my list.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. So just to be clear, there was a rate, um, national grid had a rate in the winter time and that rate. So if you look at your bill, November through, uh, April, you'll see one rate. And then I think it's may through October, you'll see another rate. Um, I know that their amount was much better than the winter rate and may not have beat the new summer rate. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Thank you very much, Mrs. Hunt. Okay, direct energy offered me 0.09 cents, which is, as they would say, two-tenths of a cent less than what the latest one in Melrose was. So direct energy, I believe, is two-tenths of a cent cheaper per kilowatt hour on the supply service charge. If I took this offer from direct energy, if it's still available today, from May 30th, I'd be saving 16%, and that would always be 16%. For one full year thereafter, there is no guarantee in life. That's what the market rate would be. If someone brought up solar energy, if I may go off course, but stay on the grid of solar energy, this is from a method transcript I believe. And there's a picture of Senator Patricia G. Holland. Jalen, thank you. She was among one of those who voted to pass the solar energy bill signed into law by the governor on April 11. This is in the transcript on April 28, 2016. And in a nutshell, it says, legislature passes solar energy bill, lifting the net metering cap. So the first paragraph I'll only read, the Massachusetts legislator recently passed legislation that raises the solar net metering cap. Net metering allows consumers, businesses, and municipalities to produce solar power and feed it back into the electric grid for discounts on electric expenses. The legislator raises the net metering cap 3 percent for private facilities and 3 percent for public facilities, which will allow solar projects currently in the development pipeline to move forward. I guess it is an incentive of sorts to get these projects more off the oil addiction, as Mr. Bush would say. My point or question is, if the state really cared about us, they wouldn't have any cap whatsoever. And we could sell it all back to the electric company and tell them to get a real job instead. Thank you for listening.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Motion to table. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Papers tabled. Councilman. Paper 16-537 offered by Councilor Scarpelli. Be resolved that the DPW Director or Energy City Engineer report back to the City Council on what type of patching material must be used when utility companies perform work on our city streets and roads. Councilor Scarpelli.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you. If you can, can you tie in the second one? Sure. If we can, I should have put it together.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Let's do them together. 16-536 offered by Councilor Scarpelli. be it resolved that the city engineer report back to the Medford City Council with guidelines dealing with hours of operations for patching streets from work performed by utility companies. Councilor Scafelli.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Madam President. If I can, I know it's been a long day and night for us, but I'm getting a little concerned and upset with our public utility companies that are coming into our community. and understanding when the hours of operations. We had an issue on Butler Street last Tuesday evening when National Grid did a service change. And that evening at 1030, the construction company for National Grid came in and put hot top down. I had a few phone calls. I live in the neighborhood. I went out, I talked to the gentleman, and they stopped. But I know I talked to the acting DPW director today, and what's alarming to me, they don't have a record in who was working there. And the other piece of this that we need some clarification on is that the street's relatively new. They did this over about less than 10 years ago. Now the sidewalk in front of 12 Butler Street is now half cement, half concrete, half hot top. So if we can, we just need some guidance in understanding what we're doing with our utilities. Because the more and more in the short time that I've been on this council, it's really irritating. And if they can get back to us, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: What time were they doing work on Butler, if I may ask?
[George Scarpelli]: At night with two families with small children.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: So you're moving approval on these two papers? Please. Seconded by Councilor Knight. All those in favour? All right. All those opposed? Papers pass. Be it resolved, offered by Councilor Falco, be it resolved that the Mayor contact the DCR To turn the gas at the corner of Webster and Fountain Street, Councilor Falco.
[John Falco]: This has come to my attention over the past, well, recently. I believe it's DCR property that it's at the intersection of Webster Street and Fountain. So if you took a left on the Fountain, it's that really odd, it's like an off-ramp, but you can go left and you can, it's like a two-way street. It's very dangerous to begin with. But the grass there has gotta be, if I'm guessing, two and a half to three feet tall. And when you come out of there, if you're taking a left, it's really a safety issue if you're trying to take a left coming out of there. So I would ask that the mayor contact the DCR to actually have that cut as soon as- It's the DOT? Okay, the DOT, whoever owns that property, DOT, DCR, to have that trimmed immediately. It's a safety hazard and it needs to be addressed as soon as possible. Thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Motion approval by Councilor Falco, seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. Offered by Councilor Scarpelli, be it resolved that the City Engineer report back to the, that's the same thing? Done twice, okay. Offered by Councilor Marks, be it resolved that the Medford High School crew team be commended for winning the silver medal at the State Rowing Championship. Be it further resolved that they appear before the City Council citations. Motion for approval. Motion for approval by Councilor Marks. All those in favour? All opposed? Paper passes. Offered by Councilor Marks. Be it resolved that the potholes on St. James Road be repaired in the interest of public safety. Motion for approval. Motion for approval. All those in favour? All those opposed? Paper passes. Motion to table the records offered by Councilor Knight. All those in favour? All those opposed? Paper kept. Records are tabled. Motion to adjourn.
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