Finance Committee

REPORT OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE MARCH 6 2013 A meeting of the Finance Committee was held on Wednesday, March 6, 2013 at 7:00 p.m. in the Aldermanic Chamber. Mayor Donnalee Lozeau, Chair, presided. Members of the Committee present: Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire, Vice Chair Alderman-at-Large David W. Deane Alderman-at-Large Barbara Pressly Alderman June M. Caron Alderman Paul M. Chasse, Jr. Alderman Arthur T. Craffey, Jr., Arrived after Roll Call PUBLIC COMMENT COMMUNICATIONS From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: Purchase of El Dorado CNG Powered Bus Requested by Nashua Transit System (Value: $422,162) MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AWARD THE CONTRACT THROUGH STATE OF MINNESOTA CONTRACT #40758 TO NORTHERN BUS SALES IN THE AMOUNT OF $422,162. FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE IN DEPARTMENT 186, TRANSPORTATION, TRANSPORTATION CAPITAL PROJECT FUND, TRANSIT ROLLING STOCK CNG BUS ON THE QUESTION Mayor Lozeau Some of you may recall we during the escrow talked about buying two CNG buses. There’s only one before you tonight. We’re waiting to see if the state can come up with their share of the match for the second bus. We’re ready for it when they’re ready for it. I’m happy to answer questions I might be able to answer. Alderman Pressly I would just like to know out of interest, what is the different for a comparable regular old bus instead of the CNG powered? What’s the difference in price range? Mayor Lozeau The differential as you’ve seen for some of our trash trucks and other things is it’s pretty significant. Actually for buses, it’s less. It’s about $15,000 because one of the first vehicles they made with CNG was buses so they’ve come way down on price. The differential is only about fifteen. Alderman Pressly What is the differential in the cost to maintain and the gasoline? Do you have any idea? Finance – 03/06/13 Page 2 Mayor Lozeau Well it’s a significant savings in the price of gas. It’s $2.30/gallon right now with the contract that we have for the CNG gas. As far as the maintenance, the engine lasts about 25 percent longer than a regular engine. I don’t think anybody has actually done the math; somebody may have in some community, but I haven’t looked at the numbers in awhile since we looked at upgrading the fleet. And of course it’s very good for the environment. Alderman Pressly Very interesting. Alderman Deane Who’s going to maintain the bus, this new CNG bus? Mayor Lozeau The transit department as they do their other buses. Alderman Deane This is a new piece of equipment. Are they being trained to repair this motor? Mayor Lozeau They will be. Alderman Deane Is that part of this cost? Mayor Lozeau No, actually the way we’re going to manage that is the same way we did with the streets garage. Nashua Community College put together a training program and our streets mechanics have gone through that and the transit mechanics will go through it as well. Alderman Deane So the transit mechanics are going to be the ones repairing this. Mayor Lozeau Yes. Alderman Caron Is this a regular styled bus or is this that trolley style bus? Mayor Lozeau No this is a regular style bus. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 3 Alderman Chasse How are the other vehicles holding up, maintenance wise? Mayor Lozeau They are doing pretty well. I don’t think they’ve had a lot of trouble with them. The typical bus that they have now has about a ten-year lifespan, 10-12 maybe. The one that is being replaced with this will be one from 2000. I think that they are going to probably try to start rotating some of them out. The last model that they’ve had was a 2003. I think they are coming along as funds make themselves available, they will be looking a that. We’re hopeful that it’s one of the fleets that we can replace with CNG. Alderman Chasse Rumor has it that some of our CNG trucks, trash pickup trucks, have gone back to the manufacturer Mayor Lozeau No Alderman Chasse For repair or under warranty. Mayor Lozeau There may be some repairs, but we’re not having problems with them that I’m aware of. If you know something I don’t know, I’d love to know it so I can look into it, but no, I don’t think we’ve had any real trouble with them. They are all still under warranty. Alderman Deane I’ve heard the same thing. I’ve heard that they can’t be towed until after dark. Mayor Lozeau Why not? Did something happen to the light? Alderman Deane Because people don’t want them. Mayor Lozeau Oh you mean sneaky? Alderman Deane I’m not saying sneaky. I saw one broken down on the highway a couple months ago, a month or so ago. My question, mayor, and it’s kind of away from this a little bit is what are doing with all that stuff at the dump? There is lines and lines of vehicles down there. Why is all that stuff still sitting there? All the new dumpsters are in. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 4 Mayor Lozeau Right. Alderman Deane And all the trucks that we took out of service are lined up as you go up towards the fire department’s training facility, they are all lined up. There must be 30 vehicles there. Why are those still there? Mayor Lozeau I don’t know, but I can find out. For the CNG, the vehicles that we received state grant funding for they have to be taken out of service. I know we had a plan for it. I can’t recall off the top of my head now. They can’t be traded like a regular truck because the grant money was energy money. Alderman Deane They had to drill a hole through the block of the motor and destroy the motors so nobody else would use it. Mayor Lozeau Right because the money that came was to get those kinds of vehicles off the road because it was environmental funds. I don’t know if there’s Alderman Deane Why is all that stuff still sitting down there though? Mayor Lozeau I don’t know. I would have got you an answer if I knew the question. I’ll be happy to get you one. Alderman Deane Can you ask the director? Maybe she knows. I’m just interested because I went Mayor Lozeau I have no doubt that she knows so I will ask her. Alderman Deane I went and bought my dump sticker. I had an interest in dumpsters for school projects because we’re renting them. I went down there to see what we had kicking around for dumpsters that we might be able to use on school projects instead of paying rental fees. Although it’s not a lot of money, but if we have them sitting down there doing nothing. I know some of them are seasonal behind Holman Stadium and stuff like that but I went down and I saw all the new dumpsters for the schools were all down there. There’s got to be 40 or 50 dumpsters down there. Brand new dumpsters that are sitting down there. Mayor Lozeau We’re replacing the roll off Finance – 03/06/13 Page 5 Alderman Deane Ya, the roll off ones with the front loader dump. Mayor Lozeau The front loaders. Exactly. This is very recent. The one behind city hall just got replaced like two weeks ago. Alderman Deane There’s a ton down there. I think all of them came in. Mayor Lozeau They all came in but now we’re going through the process of replacing them. The schools, I think, are not going to have just front load, but again, I can’t remember that off the top of my head. The old dumpsters we’re likely going to put them in for metal scrap and receive some funds that way. That’s the plan. I’ll find out about the vehicles for you, Alderman Deane. MOTION CARRIED From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: Contract Award for the Annual 4th of July Fireworks Display Requested by Park Recreation Department (Value: $17,250) MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AWARD THE CONTRACT TO RS FIREWORKS IN THE AMOUNT OF $17,250. SOURCE OF FUNDING IS DEPARTMENT 177, PARKS & RECREATION, GENERAL FUND OPERATING BUDGET, 55 OTHER PURCHASED SERVICES ON THE QUESTION Alderman Caron Can you tell me how long this company has been in business? Mayor Lozeau About nine years. My understanding is they are providing this service to Salem, to Londonderry. I think to Meredith, Hampton. There’s some other municipalities that use them as well. Alderman Caron This is going to be a funny question, but who’s going to count the shells since they are a new company? I remember doing that a long time ago. Mayor Lozeau Nick and Tom have volunteered to do the physical onsite audit. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 6 Alderman Caron Great. I know shells are in shells so you have to take that into consideration. But when we changed and went to TeleStar, the one that sold out, I sat there with a counter. Myself and Richard Brewin from the Park- Rec Commission and we literally counted the shells. Mayor Lozeau I can’t think of a bad shell at Holman. There’s always been a good show. Last year, I thought it was remarkable. I was a little concerned when we were looking at changing vendors. Alderman Caron I have no problem with that. I think it’s great. They’re community-related. They’re across the bridge. I think that’s great, but those were my questions so I’ll be watching for Nick counting shells. Alderman Pressly I just want to say I defer to the Alderman’s experience and her Mayor Lozeau Professional firework knowledge. Alderman Pressly Yes. Hopefully we’ll get a report next meeting. Is it really time to do this again. Hard to believe. MOTION CARRIED From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: Contract Award for Portable Toilets Requested by Park Recreation Department (Value: $16,225) MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND EXTEND THE CONTRACT WITH UNITED SITE SERVICES IN THE AMOUNT OF $16,225. FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE IN DEPARTMENT 177, PARKS & RECREATION, GENERAL FUND OPERATING BUDGET, 54 PROPERTY SERVICES ($11,000); DEPARTMENT 186, TRANSPORTATION ($660); DEPARTMENT 169, WASTEWATER ($2,640); HOLMAN STADIUM ETF ($770); AND, MINE FALLS ETF ($1,155) ON THE QUESTION Mayor Lozeau This is our annual porta-potty contract. I think the committee might be interested in knowing the discussion that we had at the Board of Public Works about having this contract and this price honored by them for other groups that we work with. If there’s a soccer tournament or a baseball tournament and people want to bring in additional porta-potties, what they have done in the past was contract out with whichever company they choose to do that work. At the Board of Public Works, we talked about wouldn’t it be nice if the people that rent those additional ones could get this same price and the same quality. One of the upsides of this company is that they clean them more frequently than others do. A letter is going out to those groups to let them know that they are able to do that. I thought you might be interested in that. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 7 Alderman Wilshire When you talk about other groups, are you talking about downtown events and things like that? Mayor Lozeau Exactly. Any downtown event, any soccer group, any festival that might happen. Anybody that’s doing something kind of in partnership with the city will be able to get the same price. Alderman Caron My understanding is that previous companies were supposed to clean those three times a week. Have they kind of gone downhill over the years? Mayor Lozeau This company hasn’t. The company also does the state. Their contract with the state only requires them to clean them once a week. Our contract requires the three. Alderman Caron I saw that. Thank you. Mayor Lozeau But other companies that some of our groups, like we’ve had a soccer tournament before for more than a week and the group has rented additional ones. Those companies have not come through so people get the impression that those are the city’s. We wanted to make sure that we could try to overcome that problem. MOTION CARRIED From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: Installation of Cutter Pumps Requested by Wastewater Treatment Facility (Value: $12,685) MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AUTHORIZE THE PURCHASE FROM AAA PUMP SERVICE IN THE AMOUNT OF $12,685. SOURCE OF FUNDING IS DEPARTMENT 169, WASTEWATER, WASTEWATER FUND, 81 CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS ON THE QUESTION Mayor Lozeau You may recall just about a year ago we purchase these two pumps. At the time, we talked about using city labor to install those pumps. We’re down staff at wastewater. One of the mechanics that we’ve been counting on to do the work has been out an extended period. We don’t believe we should be waiting any longer. When you look at the second page of the memo from Mr. Adie to Mr. Gabriel from this company, you’ll see a list of what this work includes. All of the items that are listed are things that we would have had to purchase anyway for installation. At the end of that list you see the hourly labor to perform all of the above. You should know that the additional cost that we’re incurring because our staff isn’t going to be doing this, although we do pay our staff as we’ve had that discussion before, is about $4,000. Just so you know. More than 65 percent of this cost would have been a cost that we incurred anyway. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 8 Alderman Deane Would we have avoiced any cost if our staff had done it instead of these people? Mayor Lozeau It’s the same discussion that we’ve been having back and forth on the sidewalk. If our staf idd it on an overtime cost, no. If our staff did it on straight time, yes. Alderman Deane It would have been less if our staff had done it on straight time. Mayor Lozeau Correct, but the cost of sending staf out to this pump house because of clogs is going to end up costing us more than it would to install it and solve the problem. Alderman Deane Mayor, let me assure you. There’s nothing worse than sewer backing up into your house. Mayor Lozeau I would agree. Alderman Deane I would look at these pump stations as a number one priority. They do nothing but take abuse. That’s all they do is take abuse. They run and they’re abused. Mayor Lozeau We’d like to actually put thse specific cutter pumps in all 13 pump houses. So far this will be the second one we do but they are the most problematic areas. I don’t know if they have more babies in that area for bum wipes or what, but I’m not going to even talk about that. Alderman Deane What year is and people are still sending diapers down the toilet. Mayor Lozeau They do. MOTION CARRIED From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: Contract Award for CSO #4 Storage Tank Construction Phase Requested By Public Works Engineering (Value: $849,000); MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AWARD THE CONTRACT TO DELOURY CONSTRUCTION IN THE AMOUNT OF $849,000. FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE IN DEPARTMENT 169, WASTEWATER, WASTEWATER FUND, STORAGE TANKS-CONSTRUCTION\ Finance – 03/06/13 Page 9 ON THE QUESTION Mayor Lozeau This is the CSO at the end of Burke Street. The design was done and approved by this committee to have that design done about 1 ½ year ago. This is coming in. This first one is for the company doing the construction. As you can see, it went out to bid. There were 12 bids and this was the low bid. The next communication and motion is relative to the oversight of that construction by the company that did the design work. That’s what’s before you now is the construction phase. Alderman Deane Did we do reference checks on this group? Mayor Lozeau We did. Also if you look on the first page after the memo that bid document is pretty small because there were 12. I don’t know if any of you noticed, but I had Mr. Gabriel put a large copy of this bid sheet in the office. I thought some of you had seen it. He put it in a pretty obvious place. I could read it in my office with the light but I can’t read it in here with the light. Alderman Deane How did their reference come back? Who checked their references? Mayor Lozeau Our engineering department checks the references of bidders when they narrow down the field. As you can tell this group consisted of Mr. Griffin, Engineer Gill and Engineer Dookran, along with Mr. Gabriel. Alderman Deane Have they been cited for any OSHA violations? Mayor Lozeau Not that we’re aware of. I suppose that’s possible, but not that we’re aware of. Alderman Deane What other big projects have they done? Mayor Lozeau I can’t tell you the answer to that, Alderman Deane. Alderman Deane Can Mr. Gabriel? Mayor Lozeau I don’t believe he can. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 10 Alderman Deane Thank you. MOTION CARRIED From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: Contract Award for CSO #4 Storage Tank Construction Phase Services (Value: $174,981) MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AWARD THE CONTRACT TO HAZEN AND SAWYER IN AN AMOUNT NOT-TO-EXCEED $174,981. SOURCE OF FUNDING IS DEPARTMENT 169, WASTEWATER, WASTEWATER FUND, STORAGE TANKS –ENGINEERING SERVICES ON THE QUESTION Mayor Lozeau This is the second part of it. The oversight which will be done by Hazen and Sawyer who did the design work. Alderman Deane So it’s $850,000 to build it and $175,000 to watch it be built. Mayor Lozeau Yes, sir. It’s a requirement of the consent decree that it happen in three parts. That it’s designed, that it’s constructed and that the company that designed it oversees the construction work to make sure that it’s built to spec and that it’s held accountable for the standard that they’ve designed. Alderman Deane When the firms are hired to do the design, they are guaranteed the next contract. Mayor Lozeau DES prefers the oversight is done by the design company. If you think about it, it really makes sense because if you don’t do it that way and something goes wrong, the company that designed it said: Well we designed it right; they built it wrong. The company that did the oversight said: Well we didn’t design it or build it, we just watched them put it together and everything met code and did what it was supposed to do. DES has said that this is their preference using the engineer on record for design. I think it does make sense. Alderman Deane It’s their preference but it’s our money. Mayor Lozeau But the consent decree that we have holds things to a certain standard, Alderman Deane, and we have to work with them. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 11 Alderman Deane So if change orders need to be made because their design doesn’t work out, those will be done on site? Say their doing something and the contractor comes back and says this doesn’t work. Their oversight would be involved with redesign. Would we be charged for them to redesign something to make it work if there was a need for a change order because of a deficiency in the original design or how would that work? Mayor Lozeau I know that you have raised before issues surrounding the payment of somebody if they design something incorrectly and it has to be redone. The position has been, because I looked into it the first time we talked about it, and the position has been if their design was faulty and the work has to be done, you’d have to design it to go from here to there anyway then that cost will be covered by the contract. If, on the other hand, they designed it totally incorrectly and it really doesn’t, I’m trying to think of an example. Alderman Deane Let’s put a pipe in that pitches the wrong way. Mayor Lozeau Then it would be their responsibility to take care of the associated costs, I would assume. Alderman Deane I think the issue that I brought up that you might be referring to was the hydraulic modeling which huge mistakes were made. Then the design because of the capacity increased significantly so the cost of the project and the design, the overall cost of the project increased because the hydraulic modeling that we paid for to have done was incorrect. I believe I was told or you were told, I remember being told by someone that: Well, we had to do it anyways so it doesn’t matter whether they were wrong. Or, it doesn’t matter whether the hydraulic modeling that we paid them to do was incorrect. We have to build a facility that’s going to meet the capacity of the real hydraulics that is in that area. That was down on Bridge Street. Remember the modeling that was done? They didn’t include a whole section of Bridge Street that went into those lines. Mayor Lozeau Right, and so the argument was whose responsibility is it and if we would have had to design that anyway, we would have paid to design it. Alderman Deane The argument was we paid somebody to do the hydraulic modeling and they screwed it up and we paid them anyway. That was the argument. Mayor Lozeau I don’t know that I would agree to that was the argument. Let’s say for instance that you needed to consider ten locations to design something and they considered eight. We paid them for the work for eight and then we determined that well you didn’t do the other two. We would have paid them for the other two anyway. Their contract was for the eight. Should they have done all ten? Yes. When we found out they should have, we would have paid anybody to design for those last two. I think that’s more the argument. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 12 Alderman Deane But the project cost went up significantly because of that. Mayor Lozeau But that was because, and I’m just using the same eight and ten example to try and help me to wrap my brain around it, the cost would have been up significantly to do all ten to begin with. So we had a price that was less than it should have been to start with. That’s the argument about how that goes. That’s different than if they would have modeled for all ten and then got it wrong and then we had to pay them to get it right. I think that’s a fair argument. Alderman Deane We agree to disagree. When you pay somebody to do something, they should know what they are doing. Mayor Lozeau I can’t disagree with that. Alderman Deane But we paid them anyway. Thank you, mayor. Mayor Lozeau I only manage the things that are on my watch that I’m trying to manage. Alderman Deane I’m not expecting you to do it. You have plenty of highly paid staff members that are very talented who know how to do this stuff. Mayor Lozeau I try not to make those mistakes anymore. I mean when did that happen? That was, I hate to say the company’s name because every time I say it, I think your blood pressure goes up ten points. Alderman Deane I don’t see them winning many bids though. Mayor Lozeau Okay then. There’s a reason, right? Alderman Pressly I just want to comment for those of us that don’t have the knowledge and skill as Alderman Deane to know the workings of these, it’s a matter of just having to trust somebody. Yourself, the people that do the ordering. When there is a disagreement, does it often get into litigation which would be so expensive and time consuming? If they say it’s not our fault, it’s your fault. Do a lot of these big ticket items end up in a big battle over whose error it was? Finance – 03/06/13 Page 13 Mayor Lozeau No. We have from time to time. An example is we had somebody once not do the soil wall correctly at the landfill. We called their bond to pay for it and to get it done right. Companies like this will have things like that. I and the staff that works on some of these projects are not afraid to pull that trigger. Alderman Pressly So they all are bonded? Mayor Lozeau They have to carry a bond. Alderman Pressly Equal to what? Mayor Lozeau To the cost of the project or greater depending on if there’s any other things that could go wrong. A company really doesn’t want you to call their bond. That’s really a problem. When we think that we’re in the right and can make a good argument and legal and everybody, the team, everybody backs it up then we follow through on it. From time to time mistakes, as Alderman Deane mentioned, some of which happened early on in this project, back in the early 2000’s, there were some that they felt they could go after and others that the legal department said you can’t. You’ll spend a lot of money and you’ll still not going to end up where you need to go. It’s a judgment call and a balance. Some of the things that Alderman Deane pointed out early when I started here were things that we started to work on and try to make a plan to overcome. But you have a $70 million project that you’re doing under court order with oversight from DES and others, that has its own challenges. But I do think it’s important that we do the best we can, and I do think it’s important that people get what they paid for. MOTION CARRIED From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: Purchase of Main Street Granite Landscaping Beds (Value: $12,000) MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AUTHORIZE THE PURCHASE FROM SWENSON GRANITE IN THE AMOUNT OF $12,000. FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE IN DEPARTMENT 161, STREET DEPARTMENT, CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS-STREETS FUND, MAIN STREET PROJECT ON THE QUESTION Alderman Pressly I’m so pleased to know what they are called. I wondered. Their proper name is granite landscaping beds. People call them potted plants. Mayor Lozeau I usually refer to them as planters but the official name would be landscaping beds because they are designed for us to fill with plants as soon as we get the season appropriate. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 14 Alderman Pressly I’ve been so interested in those because I’ve worried a lot about them. I know in the summertime when there are flowers in there they are going to be beautiful. I have worried about the conditions in the wintertime. I do drive by there a lot and so I pass them all the time. I took it upon myself to call some of the people whose are in front of their shops and they seem generally pleased. One was very pleased. The other was neutral. One employee said they were just a real pain during the winter. But the question that came up, one of the planters or beds replaced a whole line of machinery. The newspapers containers and I believe even a post office box that was right in front of their building. Mayor Lozeau This is in front of the Framery and the Telegraph building. Alderman Pressly Yes, and they were pleased that it was off to the side. They wanted to know will it stay off to the side or are they going to put them back in? Mayor Lozeau No, the plan is to keep them off to the side for the post office box because that was the post office box that mail carriers go to just to take things out. It’s not like a citizen’s mailbox. Alderman Pressly I see. Okay. It’s a transfer. Mayor Lozeau Right, so that’s going to stay off to the side. As far as the newspaper boxes which I think when we’re not looking procreate all over Main Street, we’re replacing those with what’s called a newspaper condo. It’s a single unit that has multiple homes in it so to speak. You can put in three or four different newspapers and have them in strategic locations throughout the downtown. The final decision on locations for those have not been made yet but that’s where we are heading with those. So when you see the yellow one and the organize one and the green one and the blue one, you’ve seen a lot of different locations. Those will be gone and replaced with a streamline. Alderman Pressly A single, more concise looking. Mayor Lozeau Right. Alderman Pressly We talked about this at one of the other meetings and there was a lot of discussion about them. Someone referenced that they had surely an engineer had determined where they should be placed. I haven’t seen any of that. Is there something that we could look at? Did the city engineers determine where these should be placed? Finance – 03/06/13 Page 15 Mayor Lozeau The landscaping beds? Alderman Pressly Yes. Mayor Lozeau No, actually it was done together with the engineers and the landscape architect. As I’ve mentioned, Mr. Nickerson and I’m thinking of Jen’s last name at Nashua Regional Planning. The other landscape architect. I think it’s Denoval? I think she was in the other night at PEDC. Alderman Pressly Kerrie Diers or Tim Roache? Mayor Lozeau No, she’s the Executive Director. In that organization they have a landscape architect. She designed the change to the roundabout up next to Rivier University. Alderman Pressly Yes, they showed us that picture. Mayor Lozeau The two of them working with our engineers and a group of us worked with us on where to place them for different purposes, both aesthetic as well as kind of where the sun is and isn’t. Then safety wise to see past. The concern that you raised about the winter because they went in so late in the season last year, there really wasn’t an opportunity to put anything in that could really take root. The plan is to plant them in a way that there will something in them year-round even in the winter. There are some green type of plants, small ground covers that can stay all year long and at least bring some color and not have it turn into like a big ashtray or a trash can. We’re consciously aware of that, and they are working with us on what that can look like. The plan to see what’s next like where these are going to be located, we’ve come up with pretty much the draft of what we think the final design is going to be for block two. We’re waiting for the input from the two landscape architects. They met, kind of everybody laid out a plan, it’s been drafted, now the yare going to com back to the table and look at it and see if anything needs to be tweaked. One of the things that we’re going to try to incorporate in the rest of downtown, when you look at Block 1, there’s a city park there, there’s the bridge and the water and the river walk. There’s a lot of different elements already there. When you start getting into Block 2 and 3, you don’t want these long barren stretches that’s all cold concrete and granite. We’re working with the landscape architects on other ways to incorporate some green space that isn’t defined only in a planter or only a tree. We’re particularly interested because we think we can use them both for that purpose and for potential rain gardens in places where we have drainage problems. That discussion has to take place. When that’s done, hopefully in the next couple of weeks, we’ll have Block 2 laid out. Then we’ll start making the visits with the business owners again with those plans. Alderman Pressly Who’s going to be doing all this planting? Will our park-rec, and I’d defer again to the Alderman with that experience, will this require a new person? I would think it would take a lot of work by somebody. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 16 Mayor Lozeau We have a mix right now. We have to come to some final conclusions on it. First of all let me say that all of the planting beds have an irrigation system in them so nobody is going to have to go around and water up and down Main Street. Some of the stores would like to adopt the ones in front of their stores. What we’d like to do is come up with like a selection of plants from the landscape architects that will be health, as I said. Seasonal, but year-round and that won’t affect us if we want to do something like for the Holiday Stroll a little different in the planting box. I’m making that up in case that happens. Once we have kind of a list of those tings that could go in it, it might be park-rec that comes in and does the initial planting. Then it might be some of the store owners that then take ownership of it. We’re going to see. There’s probably going to be a mix of that. Park –Rec right now is going to try to do an analysis prior to this year’s budget on the work that they’re doing and how much it’s grown and whether or not they can manage it with the staff they have because frankly we keep adding a park or an area or a trail or something and then we expect that they can keep up with cutting the weeds and mowing and we’re a little concerned about that. Will we end up with more people in Park-Rec? I don’t know. They are doing the analysis now and I expect to have that discussion while we’re going through the budget process. Alderman Pressly I’ve been concerned about drivers stopping to let people off at certain stop and not being able to stop because of these beds. Is that one thing that you will be considering because that particularly effects seniors that need to get off closer to the shop. Mayor Lozeau I think I’m more concerned about people stopping in the travel lane than I am about the landscape bed. The landscape beds are all in travel lane areas so people shouldn’t be stopping in those areas. For instance, take the one in front of Darrell’s. A very bad place to stop and let somebody off whether the landscape bed is there or not because the travel lane has a right-turn lane. You don’t want to do that. We do take into consideration are there areas in that same block, just for purposes of explanation, there’s a parking spot now that has been added in that area on Water Street. A loading zone and an additional parking spot. Although they couldn’t park in the loading zone because you want to keep it open for the truck that’s moving in the pianos and other things like that, there is an opportunity for it to be a drop of if the space is available. And in that line up of spaces that comes down along the bridge and then stops about where Bicentennial Park is, that’s a good drop off location too. People using the proper drop off location is the right thing to do. MOTION CARRIED From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: Contract Award for the Purchase and Installation of Additional Main Street Curbing (Value: $38,791) MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AWARD THE CONTRACT TO CLASSIC CURB IN THE AMOUNT OF $38,791. SOURCE OF FUNDING IS DEPARTMENT 161, STREET DEPARTMENT, PRIOR YEAR ESCROWS FUND, MAIN STREET PROJECT ON THE QUESTION Mayor Lozeau I just want to point out in your memo, the third paragraph down where it talks about the bids being open, that date should say January 30, 2013, not 12. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 17 Alderman Deane There’s a design right after the blue page. This curbing is going from Factory to? Mayor Lozeau Water Street. It’s Water to Factory and Park to Temple. It’s what we call Block 2. Alderman Deane What’s out in the middle of the street? Mayor Lozeau That’s a mid-block crossing. Alderman Deane Is there curbing out there? Mayor Lozeau There will be curbing out there. Alderman Deane Is it going to be raised? Mayor Lozeau Very slightly. Alderman Deane Is it going to be plowable? Mayor Lozeau It is. Just like we’re incorporating these mid-block crossings, we’re going to redo the crossing at those. All the mid-block crossings that we currently have are going to be redone in the same method that we’re going to be doing the one on the bridge. It will have kind of a respite area in the middle that will be not a straight across so there’s kind of a little safety area. Then it will have hopefully the lights in the ground. We certainly want to see how they work out on the bridge because that’s going to be the first one that we do, then the curb and brick there. Alderman Deane What are all those things that looks like a Barbie’s playhouse or something. It looks like a little stove and refrigerator. Mayor Lozeau You mean along the sidewalk? Some of those are the landscape beds that we were just talking about. They have different shapes. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 18 Alderman Deane Those are plants? Mayor Lozeau Landscape beds. If you look at that sheet from the last communication, there’s some pictures of different shapes. Alderman Deane I saw shapes of pieces of granite. When this bumps out, that bump out isn’t currently there? Mayor Lozeau Actually I think this is the one at 100 Main Street. So it is kind of a bump out already. Alderman Deane But this is going to go out even further? Mayor Lozeau I don’t know that it will be much further, Alderman Deane. It might be a little bit longer. Alderman Deane Are we losing parking spots? Mayor Lozeau No, I don’t think we’re losing any parking spots. Alderman Deane This was drawn up by the city engineer’s office. Mayor Lozeau Yes. This is the design that I was just talking about with Alderman Pressly for some final things as it relates to landscaping that will be done. Alderman Deane Is there going to be lighting in the street here like there is on the bridge? Mayor Lozeau That’s going to be the plan. They’ll follow the crosswalk on the sides where the approaching traffic is. Alderman Deane It’s really hard to read what it says it is. The little arrows with the words that are pointed at things. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 19 Mayor Lozeau I agree. When that plan is finalized, like I said, over the next couple of weeks after we get the final weigh in from the landscape folks, I’ll be happy to provide it to the aldermen so you can see it. Alderman Deane Are there any kiosks in this area? Mayor Lozeau You mean like the newspaper ones? Alderman Deane Ya. Mayor Lozeau Ya. There’s currently a lot of them everywhere. Alderman Deane There’s a lot of boxes all over the place. Mayor Lozeau Right, so we plan to get rid of those and then put in the condominiums. I’m certain there will be some in this block. Alderman Deane Are the owners of all those vending boxes or newspaper boxes or whatever you want to consider them, are they complying with city ordinance? Mayor Lozeau No, they’re not. Alderman Deane Then why don’t we take the things off of Main Street? Mayor Lozeau We have. We have taken some of them. They’ve all received letters saying that they have to be permitted and allowed there. Alderman Deane They’re supposed to be permanently attached to a pole. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 20 Mayor Lozeau No. Alderman Deane When I read the language, they’re supposed to be permanently attached. They’re not supposed to be movable. Mayor Lozeau I didn’t know that. The ones that we’re going to put in are gong to be permanently attached. Alderman Deane I just hope those don’t turn into a dumpster. Mayor Lozeau I agree. Alderman Deane If it were me, I would go down Main Street, and I would take every one of those things off of Main Street. I went by the other day, they are tipped over. Mayor Lozeau I agree. Alderman Deane It just makes a big mess and then who’s cleaning up the mess? There’s papers blowing all over the place. I agree that you go down there and the next thing you know like where did all these things come from? Mayor Lozeau Exactly and we have taken dozen of them off and they just reappear. The newest ones are the real estate brochures. Those boxes just show up. Alderman Deane When these new kiosks things go in that’s not going to be allowed anymore? Mayor Lozeau That’s correct. Alderman Deane Are you going to send these people a note. If those things appear then they’re going to be taken off the street? Finance – 03/06/13 Page 21 Mayor Lozeau Right away. I shouldn’t say right away because that sounds like we’d instantly deploy somebody, but yes. Alderman Deane How many city trucks drive up and down Mani Street every day? Mayor Lozeau Exactly. Alderman Deane A guy can stop, get out of his truck and throw the thing in the back, right? Mayor Lozeau The plan is we pick up trash every morning downtown. Alderman Deane So there you go. Just put them right in the back of the trash truck. Mayor Lozeau Exactly. Alderman Deane It’s not that I’m against people advertising or selling newspapers. Mayor Lozeau I don’t disagree. There a hazard too for people that are walking and trying to get around. They become obstructions on the sidewalk. It is a problem. We agree. Alderman Deane Was this the same firm that put the curbing in last year. Mayor Lozeau Yes. Alderman Deane Good. I watched them do that. It was like army ants. Mayor Lozeau They did a good job. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 22 Alderman Deane They had I don’t know how many people, 20 or 30 people show up, and they just laid it out and they were done. They got in and out of there. They get paid by the foot, I would imagine that’s how they bid it. Mayor Lozeau This comes out to about $33/linear foot. Alderman Deane Imagine if this wasn’t the Granite State how much it would cost? MOTION CARRIED From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: Main Street Lights Change Order #1 (Value: $40,455) MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AUTHORIZE CHANGE ORDER #1 TO THE CONTRACT WITH KING LUMINAIRE FOR A NET CHANGE IN THE AMOUNT OF $40,455. FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE IN DEPARTMENT 161, STREET DEPARTMENT, CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS- STREET FUND, MAIN STREET PROJECT ON THE QUESTION Mayor Lozeau You’ll see this one is for the lights and the next one is for the poles that the lights are going to go on. Alderman Deane This issue was brought up at one of our previous meetings about the change order. I was under the impression that the change order was made because this is the firm that made the other lights. Is that correct? This is just an addition to an order that we had. Mayor Lozeau Exactly. You’ll see Change Order 2 will come in for Block 3. Change Order 3 will come in for Block 4. It will go like that. Alderman Deane Water Street, are these the lights going up the bridge? Mayor Lozeau No. Alderman Deane What’s happening with those? Finance – 03/06/13 Page 23 Mayor Lozeau The ones that have been removed from Water Street? Alderman Deane Ya, are they being replaced? Mayor Lozeau Not so far, no. Right now there is nothing on the drawing board to replace those lights. Alderman Deane How were those metered? Are we still paying an electricity bill for those? Mayor Lozeau For the ones on Water Street? Alderman Deane Ya. Mayor Lozeau No. Alderman Deane The metering of these, how is that done? We pay an average fee of $25 per month per light per street light, on average, right? Mayor Lozeau But that’s because we also pay a maintenance fee for those lights. What happens is PSNH in the past, they have owned the poles and we’ve owned the light head. Then we pay for the electricity to go to it for the main charge for it and we pay for a maintenance fee for them to maintain changing out the light bulbs and that sort of thing. Alderman Deane But we pay $300 - $400 every time we change a light bulb so why are we paying a maintenance fee? What are we getting for that? Mayor Lozeau It’s $165 to change out Alderman Deane One bulb. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 24 Mayor Lozeau It’s $165. What we’re doing downtown is we’re going to own all of us. We’re just going to pay for the power to go to them. Alderman Deane And how is that being charged? Mayor Lozeau We’ve put in Alderman Deane A meter? Mayor Lozeau Yes, on High Street in the garage. We’ve now wired it for what our needs are for downtown. Going with the LED lights we expect to see a significant decrease in the cost of operating the lights. Alderman Deane I guess I have to look a little more at LED. The cost of the lights are coming down but anytime you see a usage and cost comparison, it’s always at 11 cents per kilowatt hour and it’s always only if it’s on for three hours a day. Now what we’re going to do is run these LED lights and they’re going to be metered separately and we’re going to be done with paying Public Service. The demand charge is going to be hit on the meter and the maintenance … Mayor Lozeau And the maintenance will be our responsibility. Alderman Deane Was there any money left for rebates for using these bulbs and fixtures? Do they qualify? Mayor Lozeau I know that we’ve got a few folks looking at any of the work that we’re doing and what’s rebatable. We’ve been working with PSNH on this project right along. Alderman Deane But you can’t fool around, Mayor. Everybody and their brother is going after this money. Last year, I think Sean Smith said by March it was gone. Gone. They had stuff that would have qualified but they couldn’t get it in. They couldn’t get the paperwork in because everybody they do something and they get rebated on it. This is a small, I mean it’s not small, but I mean it’s always nice when you can get some money back. Mayor Lozeau If we qualify, we’ll be applying. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 25 Alderman Deane But we don’t know. Bob Gabriel probably knows. They’ve got a long list of stuff that qualifies. Mayor Lozeau I understand that. Alderman Deane All the equipment, all the motors, all of that stuff is all listed on their website. Even Liberty Utilities has stuff for boilers and things like that. Mayor Lozeau We’re doing a lot of different things with these poles. We’re also putting electrical outlets on all of these poles. We’ve got a company that we’re looking at for engineering the design plan for how we’re going to hook all of these into the boxes that we’re putting in place. We’re getting rid of some of the wires that go from poles to buildings and things like that. We’re relocating some of the traffic boxes and turning them. There’s a lot of those things that are part of this project. Alderman Deane Where are the 60 watt fixtures being used? Mayor Lozeau So as you know the lights that we have now, they’re double cobra heads, they are pretty high. The top one is 33 feet. The second one is like 31 feet. The new lights are 26 feet and 15 ½ feet. The 15 ½ foot one is over the sidewalk. That’s the 60 watt. The taller one is over the roadway, that’s the 200. So far people really like the pedestrian height light so much better than the double cobra heads over the street. Now we don’t have any that are actually lighting up the sidewalks. They are all pointing over the street. Alderman Deane I think you can get a 11 watt LED that equates to 60 for ten dollars. I don’t think you could walk that out into a 200 watt, but I bet the bulbs are three, four, five hundred bucks? Mayor Lozeau I can’t tell you. I didn’t price out the separate bulb. Alderman Deane Well we have to think of the future when they burn out. I know they’re supposed to last for eternity, but things happen right? Mayor Lozeau I understand but if they’re replaced five or ten years from now that cost might be significantly different in five or ten years than it is today. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 26 Alderman Deane The bulb is supposed to last 30 years. I don’t think we’ll be here watching the people unscrewing them to change them but there’s always that possibility. Mayor Lozeau My point is you can’t really price something out that you’re going to replace in 30 years in a market that’s going to change. When you buy them for your home and it wasn’t that long ago that they were $15, $20 a bulb. Today they are a lot less than that. It’s a demand base kind of product. Alderman Deane It’s still expensive. Mayor Lozeau I agree that they are expensive but the cost that they save you. Alderman Deane It’s part of going green, I guess. Mayor Lozeau Well as I like to say, it goes green both ways. Alderman Deane The one thing about the bulbs though it that more often than not they’re non-directional. That’s the problem with them. If I want to put in a lamp at home and see what it does, it hits the ceiling. Mayor Lozeau I have one in a lamp at home, and I almost never turn it on. Alderman Deane But it only costs you 78 cents a year to run it at three hours a day. That’s why because you never turn the lamp on. MOTION CARRIED From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: Main Street Light Poles Change Order #2 (Value: $88,160) MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AUTHORIZE CHANGE ORDER #2 TO THE CONTRACT WITH UNION METAL CORPORATION FOR A NET CHANGE IN THE AMOUNT OF $88,160. SOURCE OF FUNDING IS DEPARTMENT 161, STREET DEPARTMENT CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS–STREET FUND, MAIN STREET PROJECT ON THE QUESTION Finance – 03/06/13 Page 27 Mayor Lozeau I’m noticing that it’s Change Order No. 2 on Mr. Gabriel’s memo, but as I look down it’s called Change Order No. 1 on the Board of Public Works memo. Mr. Gabriel, I don’t expect you to know right now but for the next one when this comes along if we could just make sure that we have our numbers so we’ll know whether the next change order. If you could straighten that out before we get to Block 3 that would be great. Alderman Deane You mentioned outlets. Are those being incorporated in the pole, itself, or are we going to see a piece of conduit coming up out of the ground. Mayor Lozeau No. If you look on the back of the first white page. Alderman Deane I have m.b. squires. Mayor Lozeau Yup, that’s the page. The first box where it says “union metal” and they walk through it. Alderman Deane GSCI? Mayor Lozeau Yup. The GFI outlets in there, the flag holder’s in there. Alderman Deane Is there GFI outlet on the other ones? Did Johnson wire GFI’s by the flagpoles that come out? Mayor Lozeau Is there an outlet up that high? Alderman Deane Ya. Mayor Lozeau No, I don’t think so. Alderman Deane The outlets are going to be put well above reach. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 28 Mayor Lozeau If I recall correctly, I think there’s a special key to open them. Not anybody can walk in and charge up their cell phone while they’re waiting on the park bench. It’s at a height that is safe. Alderman Deane At a height that’s out of the water and out of the snow and out of the ice so they don’t get all… Mayor Lozeau Yes. They’re a height that we don’t have to worry about it but at the same time if we’re having an event downtown and we want a vendor to be able to plug in or if we want to plug in a wreath that we’re going to light up on the pole or something like that, we have the availability. We’re trying to get rid of those things that clutter or that require extra maintenance. It’s all incorporated into the body of the pole. We’re going to stop putting the flags in the ground along the sidewalks down Main Street. We’ve had a lot of theft and other things with that. Our flags will now go up on the street poles which I think will have a whole different look for downtown. Alderman Deane I liked them in the sidewalk. Mayor Lozeau I think there’s something attractive about them being in the sidewalk. The problem is they become a problem. Alderman Deane If Monday’s a holiday and you put them out on Thursday, what do you think is going to happen? Unfortunately people take things that don’t belong to them. Alderman Chasse Then they sit on my lawn. MOTION CARRIED From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: Single Stream Recycling Change Order #1 (Value: $20,000) MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AUTHORIZE CHANGE ORDER #1 TO THE CONTRACT WITH INTEGRATED PAPER RECYCLERS FOR A NET CHANGE IN THE AMOUNT OF $20,000. FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE IN DEPARTMENT 168, SOLID WASTE DEPARTMENT, SOLID WASTE FUND, 55, OTHER PURCHASED SERVICES ON THE QUESTION Alderman Deane This isn’t good. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 29 Mayor Lozeau No, it’s not. Alderman Deane What does the Director of Public Works predict? What are they looking at the commodities market? Mayor Lozeau It’s still not good. This contract has been a three-year contract. It expires in June of this year. Up to this point, it’s only cost us $25,000. Alderman Deane Have they been taking the stuff out of the landfill? Mayor Lozeau They have. Alderman Deane So even though they’re taking a bath on it, they’ve been hauling it away? Mayor Lozeau They have. They’ve been in discussions with us about what they think it will cost for the rest of the year and what they’ve lost the start of the year as it has increased. In the final analysis this contract will end up costing up $15,000 a year. But the problem isn’t the same problem that you recall when you were the liaison to the Board of Public Works and we had that one year when we were really having a hard time. They could have kind of left us high and dry and they didn’t. Alderman Deane That was the metal guy. Mayor Lozeau But he was also doing some of the other recycling as well. There was a lot of costs and we ended up really having some trouble, but this contract we have an agreement that we’ll follow what’s called the yellow sheet which is an index of the costs. You’re going to see the next one is about the electronics too because we’re having the same problem there. Alderman Deane So this increases the contract by $20,000? Mayor Lozeau Right. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 30 Alderman Deane You said something about $15,000 earlier. Mayor Lozeau Because it’s a three-year contract. If you take the $25,000 that we’ve paid them to date basically and you take this $20,000, you add the two together, it’s $45,000 for a three-year contract. That comes out to $15,000 a year which isn’t horrible considering the benefit that we’re getting. Alderman Deane Does this have to be approved by the full Board since it’s a change order over a three-year period? Mayor Lozeau No because this contract expires in June. Alderman Deane Oh okay. Mayor Lozeau The recycling committee has had it first meeting and one of the things that we’re talking about is the cost of commodities and what does that mean especially if we’re looking at potentially expanding recycling. Alderman Deane When the market skyrocketed, did the reverse happen? Did they write us a check? Mayor Lozeau Yes. Alderman Deane They did? Mayor Lozeau That hasn’t been in this three-year period. That was very early on, I want to say 2008 or just before I got here or just after I got here, something like that. Alderman Deane The market has been up and down but there was some really good times with commodities. Mayor Lozeau But not during this period for this contract. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 31 Alderman Deane How long has this contract been in effect, a year? Mayor Lozeau No. Alderman Deane This is the last of the three years? Mayor Lozeau Yes. I think it’s been able to maintain it at $25,000 for more than two years now. That’s 2 ½ years. I think back in the day when somebody wrote a check for it, that was I think before I got here. I do remember conversations around that. Alderman Deane What’s the equation of $20,000 of cubic landfill air space? How many cubic face? I’ll ask the director. She knows. Mayor Lozeau I’d loved to dazzle you and tell you the answer to that, although I try to store significant amount of information. Alderman Deane That’s how I look at recycling. I don’t think it does anything but save landfill airspace. Mayor Lozeau I would agree. Alderman Deane Want me to talk about a bottle with you? Mayor Lozeau No, thank you very much. Alderman Deane You don’t want to hear that story again? Mayor Lozeau No, but thank you. Alderman Deane You know what a bottle is made out of, don’t you? Sand. Is there a shortage of sand? I don’t think so. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 32 Mayor Lozeau The recycling committee has requested information about the land space and what the value is. Alderman Deane It’s important. Action and air space. Mayor Lozeau We have the only working landfill in the state. One of the reasons that it’s still successful is because we are careful with what we put in there. The decisions that have been made over the past ten or 15 years have really made a difference in the life of the landfill. MOTION CARRIED From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: Electronic Recycling Change Order #1 (Value: $40,000) MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AUTHORIZE CHANGE ORDER #1 TO THE CONTRACT WITH UNIVERSAL RECYCLING TECHNOLOGIES FOR A NET CHANGE IN THE AMOUNT OF $40,000. SOURCE OF FUNDING IS DEPARTMENT 168, SOLID WASTE DEPARTMENT, SOLID WASTE FUND, 55 OTHER PURCHASED SERVICES ON THE QUESTION Mayor Lozeau Now Alderman Deane this contract is a little bit different because the expiration on this contract is 2015. We anticipate that this contract price is going to go up every year. We will back to finance. Instead of trying to make a prediction and increase it through 2015, instead we’re going to come each year and look at what the cost is. What’s happened with this one is the volume has increased significantly. Our contract is based on the unit price and that unit is a pound. Right now we have about 16,000 pounds a week leaving the landfill and being recycled. Alderman Deane We live in a disposable world. I’ve been down there and I’m absolutely amazed by the amount of electronics that people, I swear, they get tired of the color of them or something. I see stuff down there, TV sets, it’s just unbelievable. Mayor Lozeau One of the big increases that we’re seeing is the big box TVs. Alderman Deane The projector. Mayor Lozeau People like that nice thin flat screen type of thing so they’re getting rid of those old big TVs that they used to have. I have to say our citizens get two free electronic drop off a year. TV and a computer, two TVs, Finance – 03/06/13 Page 33 however they mix them up. After that it’s $5/item which doesn’t even cover the cost of us getting rid of the item. It’s something I think we have to look at at the Board of Public Works. It seems to me that it makes sense to offer this to our residents so we’re not sending people out in the woods pulling out TVs or the side of the road where people might drop them off or throw them in the trash or dumpster. But I can’t help but wonder in the surrounding communities, people just don’t have friends that go: hey, bring your TV up here, I can bring it to the landfill. I can do two this year. I don’t know that to be the case. But just based on the sheer volume, I worry about it striking the balance between keeping it out of the landfill and not picking it up on the streets, how that might work. Alderman Deane Do you think we might be an influx of out-of-town television sets hitting our landfill? Mayor Lozeau I do. Alderman Pressly That’s interesting. Alderman Deane You know what the biggest problem is a lot of this stuff is so cheap now. Technology changes so quickly that people just dump this stuff. I had a projector TV. I put it on free cycle and it was there for ten minutes and some guy from French Hill came over and picked it up. It took five of us to move it. Mayor Lozeau You were happy. Alderman Deane I was happy and he was even happier. How do they keep track? When I go down there that electronic recycling, I just see people pulling in and just throwing stuff out and driving away. Mayor Lozeau We’ve talked about this for awhile on whether or not we ought to have a better way to kind of enforce where people are coming. It’s very confusing. You go to the landfill and you pull in and you go: Okay, am I supposed to go the scale house? Wait, I’m a resident and I have a permit. Maybe I don’t have to go to the scale house. Oh, well there’s the area that I can just go drop off a TV. The way it’s supposed to work in theory is you have your permit. You drive up to the window. You say I have two TVs or whatever. They check it off. You come the next time, they go: “oh you’ve done your two TVs this year, Donnalee. You’ve got to pay $5 for this other one.” Alderman Deane But you couldn’t do that on a Saturday because traffic would be backed up to the highway. Mayor Lozeau Exactly, but that’s one of the things that we’re talking about is how can we change that system and how can we put almost like a little info collection booth like you see at state parks where people when you first come Finance – 03/06/13 Page 34 in, you kind of can’t get past this area until they check you in. That’s part of what we’re looking at how to design kind of once you get past a certain point in the landfill, how can we divert you a little differently. We’re having those discussions now. But I think there’s a market for people that don’t have an opportunity to drop off their electronics somehwere that might be swelling to pay for it if they knew that they didn’t have to worry about them. What’s that right dollar amount? If it costs us $7 let’s say to get rid of a TV, is someone willing to pay the $7 instead of throwing it in the woods or doing something else with it? Maybe they would be. If it costs us $7 and we’re charging them $10 or $20, maybe they wouldn’t be. We’ve talked about this at the Board of Public Works and I think we have to try to figure out what we’re doing. And when you think that 16,000 pounds a week, that’s just amazing to me. Alderman Deane You better be careful with that. You don’t want to be known as the Mayor that created the TV highway over here. Mayor Lozeau Oh, I know. Alderman Chasse Has the Board of Public Works ever thought about charging for every piece that comes through, even if it’s only $5? Mayor Lozeau We’ve talked about some of that. Remember we looked at trying to increase the price of the annual permit for the landfill and did not meet with success. Nashua is $5 for a whole year. Alderman Deane How about charging landlords that have units that are three family or above? Try that one over there and see how that goes over. Mayor Lozeau I think that we have to look at this and see what’s coming through and try to figure out the best way to strike the balance between what it costs. Alderman Chasse Five dollars is not going to hurt you if you’re getting rid of a TV or an old computer. When you get a freebies, you’re taking down the bottom line. You’re losing and then you’re losing even more when you start paying the $5 because it costs you more to get rid of it. Mayor Lozeau Right. Alderman Chasse At least your catching that ten dollars for the first two freebies. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 35 Mayor Lozeau We’ve tried to keep them out of the trash can. Now those big huge box things can’t go in the trash can, but you’d be surprised the things people throw in the trash can. Alderman Chasse Or they just leave them on the street. Mayor Lozeau The high density neighborhoods in the downtown, when I got here the staff was in the habit of taking pictures of things like this trash is overflowing. They’d snap a picture and say we’re not picking it up. There’s a coach over here or there’s a TV. I finally said to them. Alderman Deane Pick it up. Mayor Lozeau What good is that going to do? Now you’ve got somebody whose trash you’re not picking up because it’s too full. What are they going to do with next week’s trash? By the time you get to it now it’s all over the street and everybody else has to look at it. If you try to find the guy who put the TV on the corner and you say to this unit, hey you just had a move out so you’re throwing a bed, a TV, a coach, well they’re long gone. So then you fight with the landlord. Well how are you going to prove it came out of that unit. Because the guy down the street said I just went and put it in front of his unit. It just got to be to me terribly ridiculous. So I said look our policy is we pick it up. You call in where the problems are so we can map them so if we have to talk to the landlord and the tenants then we’ll do that. But in the meantime, you pick it up because it’s going to get there anyway. Alderman Deane I just wanted to remind my colleagues that we provide the landfill with a significant supplemental form the taxpayers. Close to $4 million; $3.8 million. So we do pay to have our trash picked up. The $5 fee is the $5 fee, but as far as I’m concerned the $3.8 million is a lot of money. Mayor Lozeau It is a lot of money, and they provide a significant amount of service. Alderman Deane I’m not debating that. Mayor Lozeau I know you’re not. Alderman Deane I’m just saying it’s high time that we look at that landfill and try to understand why is it still an enterprise account. An enterprise account is set up for revenues to offset the cost of operations. That hasn’t Finance – 03/06/13 Page 36 happened down there since 1973. It’s time to look at what the benefits are of staying in an enterprise account as compared to just a regular straight appropriation and have the balance fall into the general fund. Mayor Lozeau I know that we discussed that. I think I’ve not had a budget year yet where we haven’t had that conversation. Alderman Deane We’ve done nothing about it though. Mayor Lozeau No, but we’ve had the conversation multiple times. I don’t think everybody necessarily agrees that it shouldn’t be an enterprise fund. Alderman Deane I haven’t heard anybody speak against that idea. Who do you know that’s vehemently against it? You’re not at liberty? Mayor Lozeau Tonight is not the night to talk about it. Alderman Deane Give me the opportunity to lobby some of these people to vote on something that I approve. I just think it’s time to do it. Why is it an enterprise account? Mr. Griffin, is there benefits through loans or the state? What’s the benefit of leaving it like that when it truly isn’t. Mayor Lozeau I understand your point, Alderman Deane. Alderman Deane Are we going to do something about it this year? Mayor Lozeau I don’t know that we’re going to do something about it this year. I’m sure we’re going to talk about it again. Alderman Pressly Who’s decision is that to make a change or consider it? Mayor Lozeau The Board of Aldermen. Finance – 03/06/13 Page 37 Alderman Deane We can legislate it. Alderman Pressly It is an interesting point. What are the advantages and disadvantages of both. I don’t know. Mayor Lozeau I don’t disagree. You look at wastewater. That’s a fully funded enterprise fund that revenues offsets its costs. We increase the wastewater fee to do what needs to be done. If you look at the landfill, we don’t increase the permit fee and we do trash pickup and other things and not everybody has a permit. People are dropping off free stuff. Ya, so it’s not generating the revenue that could make it self-sufficient. Alderman Deane That will never happen. Mayor Lozeau Exactly. I don’t disagree with you. Alderman Deane The problem with the landfill mayor was when the requirements changed for closure. We had to start banking x amount of dollars for perceived closure costs down the road and capping the old cells. That’s where all the costs came in. Years ago when they went down and dug a hole and sold the dirt and filled the rest of it up with trash, that’s when there was a different story. Today with the environmental requirements. Mayor Lozeau There’s environmental equipment around capping it, opening it, building the soil wall, looking at the groundwater, monitoring the methane. It’s a very expensive endeavor but I would argue that it’s less expensive than what other communities have found once they closed their landfill, still have all of those monitoring requirements that now has a transfer station. Alderman Deane Some day the day will come when we have that. Mayor Lozeau I agree. Alderman Deane They don’t have the acreage that we do. MOTION CARRIED UNFINISHED BUSINESS - None NEW BUSINESS – None Finance – 03/06/13 Page 38 DISCUSSION RECORD OF EXPENDITURES MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE THAT THE FINANCE COMMITTEE HAS COMPLIED WITH THE CITY CHARTER AND ORDINANCES PERTAINING TO THE RECORD OF EXPENDITURES FOR THE PERIOD FEBRUARY 15, 2013 TO FEBRUARY 28, 2013 MOTION CARRIED PUBLIC COMMENT POSSIBLE NON-PUBLIC SESSION ADJOURNMENT MOTION BY ALDERMAN CRAFFEY TO ADJOURN MOTION CARRIED The Finance Committee meeting was adjourned at 8:16 p.m. Alderman Paul M. Chasse, Jr. Committee Clerk