##VIDEO ID:87wmk46XC1c## sing as it is 7:00 the Monday September 16th 2024 Gardner city council finance committee meeting will come to order the clerk will please call the rooll councelor dwit Pres councelor Mack pres president kazus Pres is anyone here recording tonight's meeting okay we will begin with the review and approval of the meeting minutes of the September 4th 2024 finance committee meeting move to wave the reading of the minutes and accept them as presented second motion made by councelor DN La seconded by councelor Ma to wave the reading of the minutes and accept them as presented is there discussion on the motion all those in favor say I I I those opposed say no the motion passes item 11388 a resolution to support the administration's request for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation to take over a custodians ship of Route 140 from Green Street to the winteron Town Line Mr Mayor thank you madam president this is something that the town of winon did a couple years ago on their own end uh basically there are portions of Route 140 that the Massachusetts Department of Transportation overseas in terms of Maintenance and construction costs or any uh repair work um and the section from Green Street to the winon town line is actually under the city's jurisdiction uh yes it was repaved a couple years ago but that's because we were able to get a Federal grant to repave it and do the work there but if there's any uh maintenance issues if there's any type of uh repair work line painting uh everything but plowing that we have a right now a contract with the Department of Transportation that they'll plow and salt it um everything else falls under the city uh the state is looking at taking full ownership of Route 140 because they own everything before Green Street and everything after the win in town line on 140 so this would make it so that they have full ownership of the state rout uh and get the maintenance liability off of the city and onto the state uh because this is just transferring custodianship of the road above the land this isn't a conveyance uh that would have required eight vots by the council it's Declaration of surplus going out to bid and everything under chapter 30b like we would normally do with any other property but this isn't selling the underlying land it's just uh transferring the custodians ship of the road itself so since this isn't selling any land the city still maintains the fee interest under the street of the land it's just the actual work on the road uh so this just requires a resolution from the council and then I accompany layer from the mayor uh saying that they are uh that we as a city are uh granting codian ship of the route to mop questions comments from the committee um it's been input from both the law department and the DPW on this item yes so the law department has reviewed the full uh amount the DPW is in favor of it and they were the ones who actually suggested that we move forward with this once Mast do reached out uh the state um state representative John lck has been involved in these conversations too he's how mot first came to the table on this matter uh so it's one of those that it's been a full collaborative and reviewed process up to this point Thank you further questions comments with the committee has this been discussed for SE before okay I I I thought this has been brought up to us before thank you yeah there were items that were brought up saying that this is something we were looking into now that we've got the full legal process and it's been vetted in I think it's it's the action step for it thank you uh when this first had come up I had a lot of questions but um I've been included on some of the communications and spoken the DBW uh my only um other question kind of more for the public is when uh I I have full confidence that the state will maintain in the custodianship of the street and it will be great is there way to just hold accountability is it just a conversation yeah to have with them and just okay um that's the information I had got I didn't know if you had gotten anything else um and like I said I have full confidence that it's going to be fine I just want to be sure for the public that they know that we have conversations and we're able to you know hold people accountable for what they're supposed to be maintaining um because it isn't a conveyance and it still is you know part of garding further questions comments is there a motion I move to recommend adoption of the resolution to a full councel second motion made by councelor J seconded by councelor Mack to recommend passage of the resolution is there discussion on the motion all those in favor say I I those opposed say no motion passes item 11389 an order authorizing $2,139 35 payment of previous fiscal year bill for public building utilities mayor's unclassified account uh Mr thank you very much Madam president uh similar to what we had the last time this does relate to uh bills that were paid for utilities for the Waterford Street uh soon to be Community Center building uh the uh auditor's office has asked for additional time though because they just want to double check to make sure the numbers as they're closing out and everything from the fiscal year these numbers may change slightly so uh either more time if you'd like to resubmit we can do either of those things uh for you but the auditor just wants to take another look at this for he thought he was done and then some more information came out today during his review so he just wants to do a double check thank you Mr Mayor questions comments from the committee I think we're as we're waiting on um just the further information the auditor falling um I think the best option here is to remove the item from the um from our calendar I would agree with that as well and I um when it is resubmitted I would also um just suggest that it's like the full package all the bills are in there it's all very clear because we did have that information it would be end up being part of the record but I just think um you know in our best practice of full transparency that that's all included in it and that way um you know we do want to get the bill paid we just have to make sure we know what we're paying that's part of our job so um that would just be my piece of it is there part of no is there a motion Ive to remove the item from the coun second motion made by councel General allow seconded by councel m to recommend to the full Council to remove the item from the calendar is there a discussion on the motion all those in favor say I I I those oppos say no the motion passes item 11390 a measure authorizing a 5-year contract period for school district copier printer Services uh Mr Mayor thank you very much Madam president the uh general laws of the Commonwealth require that the council vote to approve any contract for a period than 3 years uh up to 5 years uh the 5ye contract T to get us better pricing and we go out to bid because it's a longer term commitment uh so that's one of the practices that we typically do we do do a slew of these at the beginning of the fiscal year and throughout the year if there's other ones that come up uh periodically those like these two that you see before you here today um are ones that we'll bring up at that time so these will go out to bid shortly but it's just so we can get a better pricing questions comments from the committee uh just make sense that we do this say um you know it is going to get better pricing for the schools and I know the schools has many they have many cop ear and they repeatedly need constant servicing this is something that we do often enough in order to get the better price said um and I would to recommend authorization to the full councel second motion made by councel D seconded by councelor m to recommend authorization to the full Council um for the city to negotiate the 5-year contract area is there a discussion on the motion all in favor say I hi those of post say no motion passes item 11391 a me measure authorizing a 5year contract period for fire alarm and sprinkler testing services um this item is um very similar to uh the previous item and it is something that we as conow said about the past item it's something that we see pretty much every year is there anything um you'd like to add to that Mr Mayor no just that these monitoring things have annual tests so if you're just wondering how the what the frequency of these is it's an annual required test that we have on all our buildings thank you I make a motion that we move the item to the uh Council uh for approval second motion made by councelor Max second by Counselor General to recommend approval to the full council is there discussion on the motion all those in favor say I I post say no the motion passes item 11393 a measure naming the property located at 62 Waterford Street as the Waterford Community Center Mr Mayor thank you madam president the official name of a building is actually set by Council vote um this is something that may change in the long term whether we keep the word Waterford whether we move to Garden Community Center whether we come up with a different name for the location uh but what this move does is it officially makes it it officially loses the school designation of the building and allows us to move forward uh the lease the first draft or I should say final draft of the lease agreement was uh finalized today and received by my office from the Law Department uh we're working right now on finalizing that with the gardener CAC uh so that should be coming soon um to the city council and then um we'll be moving forward from there however uh we just need to lose the school designation of the building in order for us to move forward with the next steps in the process uh so that's what the request here is to uh just name it the community center for now the Waterford Community Center for now instead of Waterford Street School that way we can at least keep the ball rolling and get things going and then maybe look at a different name once everyone's in the building and we're ready for a full fully utilized grand opening of the building so as I understand it this is the this is an administrative action at this point yes and I just would want to be really clear to the public that this would be something that the naming is is a vote and is something we do but this really right now is Administrative so that we can move forward with filling the building making it the community center that it's supposed to be um if that's in the plan um because that was my first question to you when I received this just to be sure like wait a minute are we like naming a building right now this is like a bigger process um so I appreciate that explanation and also I know that was also Ved by the Law Department as well it was yes it's a procedural move that the Law Department suggests to be done just to clarify that this is no longer a school building Boston's officially lifted the school designation of it on their end so this is our almost confirmation of that action thank you further questions comments from the committee further questions I will be uh recommend to the F Council to authorize the measure to designate the property located at 62 Waterford Street as the Waterford Community Center second motion made by Council all seconded by Council M to recommend to the full Council to designate the property located at 62 Waterford Street as Waterford Community Center is there a discussion on the motion all those in favor say I I those post say no the motion passes item 11 1289 an ordinance to amend the code of the city of Gardner part one thereof entitled administrative legislation we've talked about this at previous meetings we've had more time this is a large document that has been uh um revised many times there's been a lot of questions on it it is basically a document that makes things more uniform amongst different bodies um that have different functions within the city and so that people are really clear on a lot of the processes and the way that these bodies are made up and um the terms and all all kinds of different details so it isn't very much an administrative document um any have any questions or comments I think the as it of all the new parts of the beginning thinks at the beginning is going to be helpful um been going through it as we stated it's a long long document um and taking down notes I feel there's more things I want to compare on it um and um possible changes not signific changes but small tweaks to make um because as we've discussed before if we're going to do this we might as well do it right it's functioning now um make the edits we need to um and then have something in place that's appropriate going forward so I would I would recommend asking for more time again I agree I think it's worth the time we've taken on it and I think we should continue to take the time on it that we need and it doesn't change right now it doesn't change much it's not something that's you know it's time sensitive but it is something that we want to make sure is done correctly I agree and um when I I continue to go through it when it says like uh Delete section five um eventually in the final document I I want section five you know or I want you know to see it to see what we're taking out you know for a comparison you know if we're if we're taking out a a sentence and replacing it I I want to see the original sentence with strikeouts in what we're replacing it just it's I mean we've been in in my former career we did that with even the program of studies to the school committee with strikeouts and stuff because it's not a document that they look at every day um and this isn't something that we all look at every day so we're really when we take that vote we really see everything in front of us together thank you so on this item um I think we would recommend to the council that we take more time on the item there's no action at this point but I think we have so we'll take more time okay item 11387 a resolution relating to the future of Coleman Street School Mr Mayor uh thank you very much Madam president this was submitted by councelor Brad hegan at the last council meeting uh just basically looking for a uh plan moving forward on Coleman Street School it's currently rented out by mock uh the school school committee uh had a uh lease agreement with that one that hasn't been renewed in quite some time so I have no objections to this I think it's fine to review the process and quite frankly we've done it similar with most of the other school buildings that we have that are no longer being used as schools and it's just making sure that we're keeping our properties uh into the state that they are and maintaining that we have a plan moving forward for all of our buildings so I think it's a great move thank you questions comments from the committee I make a motion that we recommend to the council to pass the resolution second motion made by councelor Mac seconded by councelor generals to recommend to pass the resolution to the council is there a discussion on the motion all those in favor say I those in post say no motion passes all a motion to adjourn so moved second motion made by counselor Max seconded by councelor General to adjourn all those in favor say I I I close say no motion passes meeting stand thank you everyone