Good evening, everybody.

This is the October 15th meeting of the Public Utility Public Works Committee of the Summerville City Council.

It is now 602.

I am Jesse Klingon, the chair of this committee.

And before we do a roll call, I'm just going to read this blurb that allows us to do this meeting remotely.

And so that is 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 uh Clerk for Salise with us this evening.

Clerks for Salise, could you please uh call the role to establish quo this is roll call, Council McLaughlin?

Yeah, Councillor Scott.

Present.

Councillor Klingon.

Present.

Mr.

Chair, all members are present.

We have a quorum.

All right, item one on the agenda.

So we have just five items.

It should be a fairly quick meeting.

You know, I just want to keep up on things in the box as we get close to the end of the year with different changes in, you know, the council or chairs and so on.

So that said, um item one is the approval of the minutes of the public utility public works committee meeting of June 2nd.

I'm just gonna lay that on uh the table for approval at the end of the meeting, Peter.

Uh moving on from that item, we have been asked to take uh an item out of order.

We have uh staff, we have the commissioner of BPW, Jill Aetham here this evening to address item five, which is Order 25-1133 by Councillor Saeed that the Commissioner of Public Works increase sanitary maintenance of the streets and sidewalks in Maboon Square.

Um so I hadn't had a chance to speak to the to the um to the counselor, but um I'm assuming this means I guess I don't know, like uh spraying, you know, spraying down of the uh the sidewalks and just general general sort of upkeep.

Um so here to speak on that is is Commissioner Latin.

Uh Commissioner, go ahead and take it away.

I don't know if you had a chance to speak to the counselor.

Uh maybe.

Leading chair, uh Joe Lakeland, DPW Commissioner.

Uh, thank you for allowing me to come tonight.

Um, they did speak with the counselor.

I guess this had to do with uh trash and the barrels, um the condition of some of the barrels and the big bellies and condition of some of those big bellies.

Um we also kind of did some walkthroughs.

My team did some walkthroughs of that area.

Um some of the tracks that we've noticed were, for example, we had some significant amount of um cigarette buds and some tree wells at which we've already cleaned up.

We do regular clean Magoon Square weekly and we dump the trash, you know, daily.

Um the big bellies, we are gonna they're gonna be on a maintenance on a maintenance kind of contract.

Uh we did take a look at those to see the condition of those bellies, some of those may need to have some minor maintenance.

Um, a lot of the stuff that may be seeing in McGoon Squares, 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.

Um, for example, we noticed there was a significant amount of cigarette buds we picked up that were thrown in tree wells right in front of um a cigarette bin by the market.

So regardless of you know what we're gonna put out there, and people have to choose to actually use the receptacles that are readily available for them to dispose of their trash and their cigarette butts.

Um but having said that, DPW does regular clean McGoon Square.

We we will be power washing um those uh trash barrels in big bellies, and we'll be sending out maintenance, our maintenance crews um to work on those bed bills to see what kind of things are having in the minor issues with those.

But as we dove around, we didn't see any significant amount of overflowing barrels or trash concerns besides the cigarette nets and some tree wells, or should we clean that?

So that's kind of what we are.

Uh thank you, Commissioner.

And um, I'll open up to colleagues in a minute.

Um, I know I mean we we all have sort of well, Jake Council Scott has Union Square and you know, Council of Laughlin has uh the East Summerville Business District, and I have some business on Winter Hill.

And um, so I guess um, and you know, we don't have like extra hands, if you will, or um so I I mean I understand what you're saying about the business district and the business kind of everybody kind of doing their part.

I don't know what the regular sort of like general maintenance protocols are, like or schedule in terms of obviously they pick up the DBW guys are great, they pick up the trash.

Um, 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 do we not?

Mr.

We really don't simply do that unless there's uh, you know, we do when we're doing the leaf stuff and our squares, um, we'll do some blowing of leaves and picking up, but we're not out there regularly with uh we need some some additional uh resources uh with that kind of equipment and power washing and uh water trucks and things like that.

So that's not something currently you know in our ability.

Our water and trucks currently really have to focus on um our plants that we have to kind of walk us about the city um with the limited watershop resource we have currently.

Okay, I just thought of that because you know, this is somewhat of a broad um council order.

And you know, I know that with Davis Square and the issues down there, I know that everybody is really focused on sort of um general maintenance as well, uh, cosmetic, uh, you know, and just general upkeep.

So that's all I have.

Um and and I understand completely the you know the limitations of what our crews can do and and the amount of time they have and the and the resources they have.

Uh anything from colleagues on this one.

Uh Council Scott.

Yeah, thank you, Ms.

Chair.

I uh council uh uh Commissioner Lathan, of course, uh really appreciate your efforts and the efforts of the uh grounds crews uh to get out there and take care of this.

Um, you know, and that's always been my experience as well when when some areas have needed a little love, uh just reaching out to DPW is helpful.

Uh I think I think this does speak to, like you said, a question of capacity.

Uh you know, this has been an ongoing concern of mine with all the green infrastructure and uh stormwater uh 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 of uh first rule being a good business is being a good neighbor.

And just like uh neighbors should clean up the streets in front of their houses and keep their uh tree wells uh neat.

I think you know, uh a public education campaign down here uh for folks in Union Square might be helpful on that front, but we do have increasing numbers of these um 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 uh in what was previously the street.

I'm thinking about on some uh summer ad uh summer street.

There's a giant uh triangular one put in there.

Are those going on a rotation to have the city pay attention to those?

Uh and if not, if it is a you know resource allocation problem, um 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.

The chair, um, you're correct.

There are a significant amount of tree wells and new new kind of infrastructure kind of put in um yearly.

Um as we continue to beautify the city and continue to do phenomenal um additions to our city, that will require additional resources.

There's just there's no way around that.

I mean, we do have um it is on our on our queue and on our schedule, and almost, you know, bottle repairs and cement work and current repairs and trimming trie trimming and you know, mowing.

It's you know it's a part of the incredible work that my crews do every single day in the city.

Um 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 um meet those capacity weeks.

All right.

Well, I appreciate that.

Uh let's just say uh hope that's conversation.

It starts with our new mayor as soon as the election's over.

Uh because I certainly hope you'll still be our DPW commissioner after that.

Uh all right, thank you very much.

Uh Ms.

Chair, I'm all set.

Great.

Anything else from colleagues.

All right.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Um, we're gonna work complete this item.

Uh good night, unless there's something else for you to be here, and then um we will return to the regular order.

Um Mr.

Clerk, that would be item number two that the commissioner 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 Lathan who this order is directed to, except that um there is a memo uh from director Rinfret of the director of traffic and parking.

Uh, because this is sort of more of a traffic, uh, just uh it's more of a um traffic enforcement situation with regards to the type of vehicles that are able to go down the streets.

Um I don't know how much of a rush uh commissioner Lathan's in, but actually I did when I did speak to um Liaison Hutter, you know, this it's an interesting situation.

I you know, the memo is there for anybody to read.

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 uh uh a unique or I don't know about how unique it is, an interesting situation where um one of the garbage trucks from Boston Carding that you know, or whatever the name is now, come down the street, same street, same spot every week, week in and week out.

And for some reason, one week um 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 kind of really hanging low.

Fire department came and all that.

So I'm just wondering, like, you know, again, I'm not I'm not I don't expect you to be a wire expert per se, but I I I just figure 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 ones.

Like if someone's concerned, like could we maybe put in place where lights and lines they have like, and 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 kind of low, and but those aren't necessarily in the roadway, but like if someone becomes concerned, because it just really did kind of blow my mind as to how this wire all of a sudden got snagged when the same truck has with 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's just kind of this incident may be completely different, but because counselor uh Strasbo 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 um you know 18-wheelers or whatever, like huge, you know, uh semi semi-trucks coming down streets.

And though that's an issue absolutely in Somerville, where we don't want trucks coming down the wrong street.

But I just figured I would at least throw out there 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 the city could do to sort of like preempt these scenarios from happening where people lose power or you know, internet or whatever.

Mr.

Chair, that's actually a great observation.

And I think I know that my lights and lines to crew is do work regularly and communicate regularly with ever source.

And it will just be a matter of how we would methodically kind of and strategically kind of figure out a plan how that would happen in our streets.

And you know, sometimes, you know, um there'd be a tree lamb or a freak windstorm um is gonna cause some you know extra damage and you know, that's that's kind of how we're aware of certain conditions throughout the city.

Um that's actually some food for thought.

I'd like to kind of take that back to my lights and lines crew and kind of get their thoughts on that to see how would that be how would that be actually manageable in a realistic and sustainable way?

I think that's yeah.

I mean, it's like I just imagine it like a minimum clearance because 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 to put that 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 the subject.

Uh colleagues, anything.

Okay.

Well, the uh so the memo is attached for anybody listening, and I'll uh let Council Strezzo know.

Um as the de facto sort of temporary ward seven, you know, uh 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 Lathan.

Uh moving on to, and we will work complete that, Peter.

Moving on to item number three, which is a resolution uh by counselor Scott that the administration, including the director of mobility, discuss with this council a process for establishing municipal standards for furnishings at bus stops and shelters.

Um I see um uh intergovernmental affairs director Singh for this speak.

I know when I spoke to Liaison Hutter, um 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 um, but we I see that the uh 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, um mobility director uh Brad Rossin could not attend, uh, but I'm here to speak on this item.

Um we as soon as we received this request, um, you know, we started um having internal conversations.

We also reached out to Councillor Scott as the sponsor of the item.

Um, and we agreed that you know, we need to um we need to have additional conversations um to come up with um uh some standards, citywide standards on this.

Um 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 um in case that's helpful.

So um mobility will review um and document our existing city standards uh for streets, parks, schoolyard furniture, of course, working with other uh relevant and impacted departments.

Uh we will also review and document MBTA uh system-wide standards for bus stop furnishings.

Um we will also review and document MBTA bus stop asset inventory in Somerville, and then we'll take all of this information and share it with um relevant city boards and commissions, including PTAC, uh Commission uh on persons with disabilities, council on aging, um, to seek that input and solicit their feedback on what uh bench standards uh should look like in the city.

Um, and then based on those conversations, um we will uh either you know make changes to our planning and design um process and and come up with a uh sort of long-term uh process and um standards for the city.

Uh so look forward to um coming back to the council with some updates on those uh next steps.

Right.

Thank you.

And just um just a couple of quick questions sort of should just bear out sort of what you know, and these can be directed towards your director or to the council, the originator of the of the or 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 um, 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 uh a covered thing, or we may well, we may also sort of have a standard for where and why if this it's a really popular bus route, and you know, there's a and there's maybe uh uh a senior, you know, a senior housing thing nearby, like we should be trying to get a covered covered um thing, stuff like that.

But but I guess the standardization would be great.

Like, so I have a bus stop on Mystic Av that um you know has like no light, like it's on a telephone poll, actually.

It's a unique situation.

So things like that.

So um, so I guess the question is is real quick uh question is just the MBTA.

So we dictate we can we can affect where actual stops go.

Can we affect like who decides what the furnishings are?

The MBTA provides, like pays for those furnishings.

How much influence do we have over the furnishings?

Just to set the table for a future conversation.

Um I don't want to misspeak, so I can definitely take this back to the uh mobility team.

I I do know that the uh bench that prompted this uh conversation with the sponsor of the item.

Um, it was paid for by participatory budgeting uh funds.

Okay.

All right.

Well, that's good.

All right, thank you.

I'm satisfied.

Um, anything from colleagues, Council Scott, do you you have anything to add as far as just obviously sometimes it can be participatory budgeting, sometimes it does come from the META or no?

I mean, this is these are city funds, uh, the furnishing there are city funds.

And you know, part of this that is um is the reason for the order is that it's it's frustrating for people to see city funds used in a manner that they feel like is you know hostile architecture.

Um so uh when I first reached out to the mayor staff and credit to the mayor's staff, we've been meeting weekly for months now, uh, including on this topic.

Um, you know, it it's clear here that there were guidelines that the MBTA uh wanted and uh to streamline the purchasing process going with uh those default vendors as I understand it was part of it.

I'm sure uh Director Rosson will explain more when he gets here.

But to echo some of your sentiment, I mean this is this is about more than just uh the hospital architecture installed in these new bus shelters along Washington Street.

It's also about uh furnishings and standards at all these bus stops.

I mean, uh you mentioned one on Mystic.

I've got one on McGrath.

One of Summerheels crossing guards, Jose has been asking for a bench uh at this one particular stop for now a couple years.

Uh it's it's frustrating.

Uh so I think you know, this is uh 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 uh think that's an option.

Uh we can replace the benches that are in there with ones that are more the city standard design, those uh black rod iron ones that everybody's familiar with.

Uh but more so this is uh an opportunity and a call for developments to uh departments to come together as uh the director described.

Uh and the wheel will turn slowly on this, I anticipate, but my hope is uh that it will turn and we'll end up with uh a uniform uh standard that meets our policy goals and that can then be um used in the future for all of these infrastructure improvements.

So I I'd ask uh that we keep it in committee so that uh director Ross can be here and uh hopefully we can uh you know just get this uh get more of the story on the record and help folks understand uh what all these uh dedicated city employees are doing to improve the situation in the future.

All right.

Uh that sounds good to me.

Uh third force release, we're gonna keep this one in committee.

That'll move us to our final item on the agenda, which is item number four, uh, which is by Council Said, Wilson, Burnley, the Ever Source explain the reason behind the 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 um well, it's for it's it's from Bill Fisher, the director of emergency management.

Um, but it's it's it's well, it's it's from Jason Wright, Everstorce Community Relation Representative to the City of Summer World Liaison, uh, via um Mr.

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 the extended outages.

Uh, I mean, I can just just coming from the memo, I can tell you uh in the time frame identified, there were 26 unplanned outages in the area.

Two of two of the distributed uh 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 4 KV circuit that has several equipment failure issues this year in particular.

Ever so system planning has identified the VK uh VK, sorry, 4K V station and circuits, and they will be converted to a 13.8 KV in the next 10 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 and the events of so uh very great work done by city staff to get that uh information and memo from every our partners at Ever Source uh for this meeting for this memo uh to answer the counselor's uh 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.

Uh 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.

Uh Mr.

Chair.

Sure.

Yeah.

I 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 the details of a four case circuit, four kilovolt circuit versus a 13.8 kilovolt circuit.

Green, but one thing that I notice is uh missing from this is a date of when the work that they say uh they're they're saying they're gonna be replacing uh replacing a four kilovolt station and circuit to be converted in the next 10 years.

Right.

They say it's on the conversion plan.

So uh 10 years is a pretty broad window, and having uh annual outages there for 10 years, I'm pretty sure it would not be something the folks uh in Magoon are eager about.

Um so I didn't know if we would uh want to follow up with uh Mr.

Wright and see if we could get a little bit uh more detail on where on the timeline uh this work is.

So yeah, I mean three uh 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 uh upgrading of the cables and the switches had addressed it, uh, but and was also welcoming the the news of it of a replacement, as you said, within the next 10 years.

Hopefully that's in the two years.

But I um I'm I'm happy to, you know, I I think it's fine to to pursue this and and and um uh get a more uh concrete answer as to when they when where it is on their plan on their timeline, you know.

Um so we know what to expect.

Um yeah, I mean we could keep this particular one in committee and try to get the Eversource uh rep representative.

Um I say Ever source, is it Eversource or yeah?

Sorry.

I would because we have two national grid and ever source.

Some of them, yeah.

So uh you can try to get the uh Eversource representative here to to um maybe address that or I could just talk to the counselor and have her put in you know another separate order.

You know what?

I'll uh I I think uh it's I think it's fair enough to just note that that information is missing.

Uh we can mark this particular item work complete.

I can follow up with the counselor.

Uh and yeah, because we've got a long history in W of the Eversource community relations uh person coming coming before us, and I'm gonna save that below.

Um, but I'll I'll happily follow up also with you.

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 uh with a timeline, like just asking specifically in your last memo, you you know, whatever.

In the last memo, they said um maybe there's just a way to to um get the information we need um without trying to get them to committee or you know even keeping the security.

So I'll let yeah, I'll let you follow up with the counselor on that.

I'll I'll talk to uh the counselors 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 counselors, 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 uh at SCC's building um at 360 36, whatever 357, I think it is uh Broadway uh and and a few other uh area pockets in the Winter Hill area had some outages around the same time period.

So um I'm keenly interested in making sure that you know this gets resolved.

Um and we don't see rolling, you know, blackouts, uh rolling outages throughout the summer months.

So um more to come on this for anybody here for this particular item.

Um for now we will work complete this one, Clerk Forcille.

So do you have everything down um in terms of we're just keeping the one item, uh item number three two five-145 in committee.

The rest are work complete.

Okay.

And so we will now vote on the minutes uh from the June 2nd, 2025 meeting as well as adjournment.

Um counselor McLaughlin moves to adjourn.

Could you please call the roll on adjournment and the approval of the minutes, Mr.

Clerk?

On approval of the minutes and adjournment.

Council McLaughlin.

Yes, council Scott.

Yes, counselor 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.