Public Utilities and Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody. This is the October 15 meeting of the Public Utility Public Works Committee of the several city council. It is now 06:02. I am Jesse Klingen, the chair of this committee. And before we do a roll call, I'm just gonna read this blurb that allows us to do this meeting remotely.

And so that is pursue pursuant to chapter two of the acts of 2025. This meeting of a city council committee will be conducted via remote participation. We will post an audio recording, audio video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City Of Somerville website and local cable access government channels. That said, we have, clerk Forsalis with us this evening. Clerk Forsalis, could you please, call the roll to establish the roll?

This is roll call. Council Mclaughlin?

Here.

Councilor Scott?

Present.

Councilor Klingon?

Present.

Mister chair, all members are present, we have a quorum.

Alright. Item one on the agenda. So we have just five items. It should be a fairly quick meeting. You know, I just wanna keep up on things in the box as we get close to the end of the year with different changes in, you know, of the council or or chairs and and so on.

So that said, item one is the approval of the minutes of the public utility public works committee meeting of June 2. I'm just gonna lay that up on the table for approval at the end of the meeting, Peter. Moving on from that item, we have been asked to take an item out of order. We have staff. We have the commissioner of BPW, Jill Aetham here, this evening to address item five, which is order two five dash one one three three by council Saeed that the commissioner of public works increased sanitary maintenance of the streets and sidewalks in Maboon Square.

So I hadn't had a chance to speak to the to the to the councilor, but I'm assuming this means, I guess, I don't know, like, spraying, you know, spraying down of the, the sidewalks and just general general sort of upkeep. So here to speak on that is is commissioner Latham. Commissioner, go ahead and take it away. I don't know if you had a chance to speak to the counselor. Maybe yep.

Good evening, chair. Jill Lakeman, VPW commissioner. Thank you for allowing me to come tonight. They did speak with the counselor. I guess this had to do with, trash and barrels, the condition of some of the barrels and the big bellies and condition of some of those big bellies. We also kinda did some walk throughs. My team did some walk throughs of that area. Some of the tracks that we noticed were, for example, we had some significant amount of cigarette buds in some tree wells that we've already cleaned up. We do regularly clean legumes for a weekly, and we dump the trash, you know, daily. The big bellies, we they're gonna be on they're on maintenance on maintenance kind of contract.

We did take a look at those to see the condition of those bellies. Some of those may need just some minor maintenance. A lot of the stuff that may be seen in McDonough Square, like many of our squares, the business owners really do have to have some responsibility in cleaning up around their particular area and their sidewalks. For example, we noticed there was a significant amount of cigarette butts we picked up that were thrown in tree wells right in front of a cigarette bin by the market. So regardless of, you know, what we're gonna put out there, people have to choose to actually use the receptacles that are readily available for them to dispose of their trash and their cigarette butts.

But having said that, DPW does regularly clean McDoomsbury. We we we will be power washing those trash barrels and big bellies, and we'll be sending out some maintenance our maintenance crews to work on those bedbills to see what kind of things they're having, any minor issues with those. But as we drove around, we didn't see any significant amount of overflowing barrels or trash concern besides the cigarette vents and some tree valves. Those tree thinned up. So that's kind of where we are.

Thank you, commissioner, and I'll open up to colleagues in a minute. I know I mean, we we all have sort of well, counsel Scott has Union Square and, you know, counsel McLaughlin has the East Summer World Business District, and I have some business on on Witcher Hill. And so I guess and, you know, we don't have, like, extra hand, if you will. Or so, I mean, I understand what you're saying about the business district and the business kinda everybody kinda doing their part. I don't know what the regular sort of, like, general maintenance protocols are, like, our schedule in terms obviously, they pick up the DBW guys are great.

They pick up the trash. But, certainly, you know, getting more in-depth, like, whether it be like, do we have a power wash the sidewalks in any areas? Is that is that, like, a every so often thing, or or do we not?

Mister chair.

Mister chair, we really don't. Should we do that unless there's a you know, we do when we're doing the leaf stuff in our squares, we'll do some blowing of leaves and again, but we're not out there regularly with we need some some additional resources with that kind of equipment and power washing and water trucks and things like that. So that's not something currently in our in our ability. Our watering trucks currently really have to focus on our plants that we have to kind of water throughout the city with the limited water truck resource we have currently.

Okay. I just thought of that because, you know, this is somewhat of a broad council order. And, you know, I know that with Davis Square and the issues down there, know that everybody is really focused on sort of general maintenance as well, cosmetic, you know, and just general upkeep. So that's all I have. And and I understand completely the, you know, the limitations of what our crews can do and and and the amount of time they have and the and the resources they have. Anything from colleagues on this one? Council Scott?

Yeah. Thank you, mister chair. I countscom commissioner Lathan, of course, really appreciate your efforts and the efforts of the, ground crews, to get out there and take care of this. You know? And that's always been my experience as well when when some areas have needed a little love.

Just reaching out to ZPW is helpful. I think I think this does speak to, like you said, a question of capacity. You know, this has been an an ongoing concern of mine with all the green infrastructure and, storm water, things that we're putting in right now. And for the ones that are right in front of businesses, I agree. I think it's a responsibility first of of being a good business is being a good neighbor.

And just like, neighbors should clean up the streets in front of their houses and keep their, tree wells, neat, I think, you know, a public education campaign down here for folks in Union Square might be helpful on that front, but we do have increasing numbers of these call them expanded tree wells, for lack of a better term, the green drainage infrastructure that are either in front of city infrastructure or are previously, in in what was previously the street. I'm thinking about some, summer ad Summer Street. There's a giant, triangular one put in there. Are those going on a rotation to have the city pay attention to those? And if not, if it is a, you know, resource allocation problem, is this a thing where a dedicated three person crew expanding the expanding the staff with an extra three person crew would allow the city to have capacity to take care of that infrastructure?

Through the chair, you are correct. There's a significant amount of tree wells and and new did new new kind of infrastructure kinda put in yearly. As we continue to beautify the city and continue to do phenomenal additions to our city, that will require additional resources. Resources. There's just there's no way around that.

I mean, we do have it is on our on our queue and on our schedule along with, you know, pothole repairs and cement work and curve repairs and trimming tree trimming and, you know, mowing. It's, you know, it's a part of the bevel work that my crews do every single day in the city. As we continue to grow and continue to to build this phenomenal city, we are going to have to continue to look at how we're going to meet those capacity needs.

Alright. Well, I I appreciate that. Let's just say I hope that's a conversation that starts with our new mayor as soon as the election's over, because I certainly hope you'll still be our DPW commissioner after that. Alright. Thank you very much, mister chair. I'm all set.

Great. Anything else from colleagues? Alright. Thank you, commissioner. We're gonna work complete this item.

Good night. Unless there's something else for you to be here, and then we will return to the regular order. Mister clerk, that would be item number two that the commissioner of public works discuss with this council the recent snagging of overhead wires by the semi truck that took out the electricity in Ward 7 and what plans have been put in place to prevent a similar occurrence. So on that item, I know we did just have commissioner Latham who this order is directed to except that there is a memo from director of the director of traffic and parking because this is sort of more of a traffic just it's more of a traffic enforcement situation with regards to the type of vehicles that are able to go down the streets. I don't know how much of a rush comes commissioner Lathans in, but, actually, I did when I did speak to liaison Hutter, you know, this it's an interesting situation.

I I you know, the memo is there for anybody to read. It it it relates to, you know, using apps and, like, excluding trucks from going down certain streets, putting up the no truck signs, which are somewhat hard to enforce. But, you know, I had this thought. I don't know. At the regular meeting of the council, I had a unique or I don't know how unique it is.

An interesting situation where one of the garbage trucks from Boston Karding that, you know, or whatever the name is now, come come down the street. Same street, same spot every week, week in and week out. And for some reason, one week, the top of the garbage truck snagged a wire and pulled the wire off of my landlady's house. And we didn't lose power, but it was, like, kinda really hanging low. Fire department came and all that.

So I'm just wondering, like you know, again, I'm not I'm not and I don't expect you to be a wire expert per se, but I I I just figured we could have a conversation around, you know, if the wind is able to sort of stretch wires over time, almost like a piece of dough, if you just imagine, like, you know, over time, like, strong winds. Like, if someone's concerned, like, could we maybe put in place where lights and lines, they have, like and none of this may be already in place, but there's some sort of, like, measuring stick that, you know, there is a bare minimum to which we will allow a wire to hang across the roadway. Not necessarily. I know sometimes, like, some of the cable lines like Comcast can get kinda low, and but those aren't necessarily in the roadway. But, like, if someone becomes concerned because it just really did kinda blow my mind as to how this wire all of a sudden got snagged when the same truck has it put the same guys on it.

I mean, exact same truck, same crew have been driving down the same street for years, and all of a sudden, it grabs the wires. And I have it on, you know, video and stuff like that. So, anyway, that just kinda this incident may be completely different, but because councilor, Strezo put it in, it made me think it may be, you know, just even worth just kind of putting a spotlight on that scenario with the garbage truck because the the memo speaks more to, you know, 18 wheelers or whatever, like, huge, you know, semi semi trucks coming down streets. And though that's an issue absolutely in some of them, but we don't want trucks coming down the wrong street. But I just figured I would at least throw out there this this concept or idea of, like or or is there a way that we sort of address wires?

And I know it's the utility company, but is there something a city could do to sort of, like, preempt these scenarios from happening where people lose power or, you know, Internet or whatever?

Mister Chu, that's actually a great observation. And I think I know that my lights and lines to crews do work regularly and communicate regularly with Eversource. And it will just be a matter of how we would methodically kind of and strategically kind of figure out a plan on how that would happen in our all of our streets. And, you know, sometimes, you know, whether it be a tree limb or or a freak windstorm, it's gonna cause some, you know, extra damage. And, you know, that's that's kinda how we're aware of certain conditions throughout the city. Mhmm. That's actually some truth of thought. I'd like to kinda take that back to my lights and lines crew and kinda get their thoughts on that to see how would that be how would that be actually manageable in in a realistic and sustainable way if it makes sense.

Yeah. I mean, it's like I just imagine, like, a minimum clearance because and I'm sure the utility companies already try to make sure they're up high enough, but I I feel like if there's a scenario where over time, they sort of somehow sag on their own, whether it's the wind, again, just citing this case of mine as evidence. But, anyway, yeah, that's all I'm really asking just just to put it out there, have a conversation with lights and lines. But as far as this particular incident, you know, we do have this memo addressing it. So that's all I have on this subject.

Colleagues, anything? Okay. Well, the, so the memo was attached for anybody listening, and I'll I'll let councilor Strezzo know as the de facto sort of temporary ward seven, you know, counselor. Looking out for those folks down there. I will let her know this memo is attached and that we have this conversation.

So thank you, Commissioner Latham. Moving on to and we will work complete that, Peter. Moving on to item number three, which is a resolution by councilor Scott that the administration, including the director of mobility, discussed with this council a process for establishing municipal standards for furnishings at bus stops and shelters. I see count under governmental affairs director Singh for this speak. I know when I spoke to liaison Hutter, this one is, as you would imagine, a little tricky with regards to the MBTA's equipment and so on.

So we don't have a memo or we may be keeping this one in committee, but but we I see that the director is prepared to say something. So I'll turn it over to you, director Singh.

Through the chair, thank you for the opportunity. Unfortunately, mobility director, Brad Rossen, could not attend, but I'm here to speak on this item. We as soon as we received this request, you know, we started having internal conversations. We also reached out to councilor Scott as the sponsor of the item, and we agreed that, you know, we need to we need to have additional conversations to come up with some standards citywide standards on this. So I don't have an update for you on this item just yet, but I can outline for you some of the next steps that the city will be working on in case that's helpful.

So Mobility will review and document our existing city standards for streets, parks, schoolyard furniture, of course, working with other relevant and impacted departments. We will also review and document MBTA system wide standards for bus stop furnishings. We will also review and document MBTA bus stop asset inventory in Summerville, and then we'll take all of this information, and share it with, relevant city boards and commissions, including PTAC, commission on persons with disabilities, council on aging, to seek their input and solicit their feedback on what bench standards should look like in the city. And then based on those conversations, we will either, you

know,

make changes to our planning and design process and and come up with a sort of long term process and, standards for the city. So look forward to, coming back to the council with some updates on those, next steps.

Great. Thank you. And just, just a couple of quick questions sort of should just bear out sort of what you know, I mean, these can be directed towards you director or to the council, the originator of the of the order. You know, furnishings see, when I see an order like this, to me, what brings to mind is, like, furnishings meaning, like, could really mean anything from the type of seating to even lighting or whether or not it's a covered bus stop. And, you know, it would be great to sort of have a standard where, like, whenever we have enough and I know these are subject to change because one time you may have enough room for a for a a covered thing, or or we may well, we may also sort of have a standard for where and why if it's it's a really popular bus route and, you know, visit and there's maybe a senior, you know, a senior housing thing nearby.

Like, we should be trying to get it covered covered thing, stuff like that. But but I guess the standardization would be great. Like, so I have a bus stop on Mystic Ave that, you know, has, like, no light. Like, it's on a telephone pole, actually. It's a unique situation. So so things like that. So so I guess the question is is is real quick question is just the MBTA so we dictate we can we can affect where actual stocks go. Can we affect, like, who decides what the furnishings are? MBTA provide, like, pays for those furnishings. How much influence do we have over the furnishings?

Just to set the table for a future conversation.

Through the chair, I don't wanna misspeak, so I can definitely take this back to the mobility team. I I do know that the bench that prompted this conversation with the sponsor of the item, it was paid for by participatory budgeting funds.

Okay. Alright. Well, that that's good. Alright. Thank you. I'm satisfied. Anything from colleagues? Council Scott, do you do you have anything to add as far as just obviously, sometimes it can be participatory budgeting. Sometimes it does come from the MTA, or that's a

No. The I mean, this is these are city funds. The furnishing there are city funds. And, you know, part of this that is is the reason for the order is that it it's frustrating for people to see city funds used in a manner that they feel like it's, you know, hostile architecture. So when I first reached out to mayor staff and credit to the mayor staff, we've been meeting weekly for months now, including on this topic.

You know, it it's clear here that there were guidelines that the MBTA, wanted and, to streamline the purchasing process going with, those default vendors as I understand it was part of it. I'm sure, director Rawson will explain more when he gets here. But to to echo some of your sentiment, I mean, yeah, this is this is about more than just, the hospital architecture installed in these new bus bus shelters along Washington Street. It's also about, furnishings and standards at at all these bus stops. I mean, you mentioned one on Mystic.

I've got one on McGrath. One of some real crossing guards, Jose, has been asking for a bench, at this one particular stop for now a couple years. It's it's frustrating. So I think, you know, this is, this is not a situation where we are or where the city is in a position to tear up these benches and put in new ones. Although, I certainly, think that's an option.

We can replace the benches that are in there with ones that are more of the city standard design, those, black rod iron ones that everybody's familiar with. Mhmm. But more so, this is, an opportunity and a call for developments to, departments to come together as, the director described. And the wheel will turn slowly on this, I anticipate, but my hope is, that it will turn and will end up with a uniform, standard that meets our policy goals and that can then be used in the future for all of these infrastructure improvements. So I I'd ask, that we keep in committee so that, director Ross can be here, And, hopefully, we can, you know, just get this, get more of the story on the record and help folks understand, what all these, dedicated city employees are doing to improve the situation in the future.

Alright. That sounds good to me. Clerk force Elise, we're gonna keep this one in committee. That'll move us to our final item on the agenda, which is item number four, which is by council Saeed, Wilson, Burnley, the Eversource explained the reason behind repeated power outages in Magoon Square and share what they have done to address them in the near term and what is being done to prevent long term reoccurrence. To that item, we have a really good memo from, well, it's for it's it's from Bill Fisher, the director of emergency management.

But it's it's it's well, it's it's from Jason Wright, Eversource community relation representative to the city of San Diego liaison, via, mister Fisher. And I'll just read a little bit of it because, yeah, the these power outages, they've been almost a yearly occurrence. And I I think it has you know, you don't have to be a genius to figure out. Like, it it always seems to happen in August when the load is really heavy with a lot of air conditioners and so on, but it's enough that it's really, really disruptive to people's everyday life as far as the outages and extended outages. I mean, I can just just coming from the memo, I can tell you, in the time frame identified, there were 26 unplanned outages in the area.

Two of two of the distribute distribution circuits that feed Magoon Square have had a bulk of unplanned outages. They've been the bulk of the unplanned outages. There is one four k v circuit that has several equipment failure issues this year in particular. Eversource system planning has identified the v k, v k sorry. Four kV station and circuits, and they will be converted to a 13.8 kV in the next ten years.

And the circuit has had outages this year is on the conversion plan. But the conversion primary and secondary cable will be replaced along with the switches and other equipment. In the meantime, before the conversion, several sections of cable have been replaced. Additionally, switches have been replaced in order to increase reliability and the ability of operations to pick up load more quickly and reach more customers in the event. So so very great work done by city staff to get that information and memo from ever our partners at Eversource for this meeting, for this memo, to answer the councilors' concerns and questions and hopefully residents.

So I don't have anything on this. The memo kind of settles it all. I don't know if any other colleagues do. I'll open it now or if or if the administration wants to say anything or anybody at all before we call it a night.

Mister chair?

Sure. Yep. I can

just point out

that while it's a you know, it's good to have an explanation of some of the mechanics behind this and getting in details of a four k cert four kilovolt circuit versus a 13.8 kilovolt circuit, Great. But one thing that I noticed is missing from this is a date of when the work that they say they're they're saying they're gonna be replacing replacing a four kilovolt station circuit to be converted in the next ten years. Right. They say it's on the conversion plan. So ten years is a pretty broad window, and having annual outages there for ten years, I'm pretty sure would not be something the folks in Magoon are are eager about.

So I didn't know if we would, want to follow-up with, mister Wright and see if we could get a little bit, more detail on where on the timeline, this work is.

So, yeah, I mean, through, so miss so, counselor, you know, my thinking was, again, we didn't see any towards the end of the summer, so I didn't know if the the, upgrading of the cables and the switches had addressed it, but was also welcoming the the news of a of a replacement, as you said, within the next ten years. Hopefully, that's in two years. But I I'm I'm happy to you know, I I think it's fine to to pursue this and and and, get a more, concrete answer as to when they when where it is on their plan on their timeline. You know? So we know what to expect.

Yeah. I mean, we could keep this particular one in committee and try to get the Eversource representative. When I say Eversource, is it Eversource? Or yeah. Sorry. I mean, because we have two nationals in Eversource. Some of them yeah. So, I could try to get the Eversource representative here to to maybe address that, or or I could just talk to the counselor and have her put in, you know, another separate order.

You know what? I'll I I think, it's I think it's fair enough to just note that that information is missing. We can mark this particular item more complete. I can follow-up with the counselor. And, yeah, because we've got a long history in PUPW of the Eversource community relations, person coming coming before us, and I'm gonna save that bullet. But I'll I'll have to follow-up also with

I mean I mean, honestly, counselor, I don't think it's out of the question that they would, but I think if just another order is put in asking, you know, maybe they we can get another memo, with a timeline, like, asking specifically in your last memo, you you know, whatever. In the last memo, they said, maybe there's just a way to to get the information we need, without trying to get them to committee or, you know, even keep it as credit. So I'll let, yeah, I'll let you follow-up with the council on that. I'll I'll talk to the the councilors as well. And, definitely, this is something that's on my radar because it did start to spill over into not that not that we only obviously, as councilors, we don't only care about our area anyway.

We care about the entire city. But just for note, I did notice that, and I don't know if it was related to this, but there was at SCC's building at 360 36 357, I think it is, and and a few other area pockets in the Winter Hill area had some outages around the same time period. So so I'm keenly interested in making sure that, you know, this gets resolved, and we don't see rolling, you know, blackouts, rolling outages throughout the summer months. So, more to come on this for anybody here for this particular item. But for now, we will work complete this one.

Clerk forcefully. So do you have everything down, in terms of we're just keeping the one item, item number 325Dash1425 in committee. The rest are were complete.

Okay.

And so we will now vote on the minutes, from the 06/02/2025 meeting as well as adjournment. Councilor McLaughlin moves to adjourn. Could you please call the roll on adjournment and the approval of the minutes, mister Clerk?

On approval of the minutes and adjournment, councilor McLaughlin? Yes. Councilor Scott? Yes. Councilor Klingon? Yes. All members have voted to accept the minutes and to adjourn. We are adjourned.

Have a good evening, everybody. Thank you. Take care.