City Council

City of Salem, Massachusetts “Know Your Rights Under the Open Meeting Law, M.G.L. c. 30A ss. 18-25 and City Ordinance Sections 2-2028 through 2-2033.” The City Council Committee on Administration and Finance co-posted with the Committee of the Whole met in the Council Chamber on _June 3, 2025______________ at ______6:00_______P.M. for the purpose of discussing the matters(s) listed below. Notice of this meeting was posted on ___ May 8, 2025__ at ___ 11:39 A.M.__________________ (This meeting is being recorded) ATTENDANCE A&F – Merkl (chair), Davis, Harvey, Stott, COW – Jerzylo, Morsillo (Zoom) From the city – Mayor Pangallo, Lisa Peterson, Chief of Staff, Anna Freedman, Director of Finance, Neal Duffy, Director of Sustainability & Resiliency, Tom Daniel, Director of Planning & Community Development. Absent Were: A&F - Watson-Felt. COW – Prosniewski, Hapworth, Cohen, Varela. SUBJECT(S) • Sustainability and Resiliency • Planning Planning, Conservation Commission, Planning Board, Market & Tourism and Historical Commission • Capital Improvement Plans Merkl - Administration and Finance Budget Committee hearings for our fiscal year 2026 proposed budget. The meetings will run through mid-June. The agendas are posted on the city calendar, which include a link to the fiscal year 2026 proposed budget, almost 700 pages, and other financial information, including the fiscal year 2026 budget, in brief. It's an overview of budget priorities, timelines, breakdown of revenue sources, and where your money goes. These budget hearings are a great opportunity to learn about what each of our city departments do, and their vision for the department moving forward. If anyone from the public has any questions regarding the budget hearing, please email me at amerkl@salem.com. We are starting with the Sustainability Dept. section 19, page 499. Duffy – Our department has 4 full time staff plus me and one part time admin. We are adding a UMass Lowell graduate student for the summer and fall which is funded through the Celt Institute. As I think you're aware, our department supports the sustainability resiliency efforts both from a city operations perspective, but also citywide in terms of trying to support and provide resources for residents and businesses as we try to meet our climate action goals of reducing emissions and also preparing for the impacts of climate change that we're all experiencing now, and we'll be experiencing in an increasing way into the future. That’s really the mission of our department. In addition to having projects that we manage we also support a lot of the other departments. We work with the schools and the energy performance contract and the efficiency measures that they're doing there. The fire department has some projects happening. this fiscal year to do some partial electrification of their buildings that we're helping with. The police department is putting in a fast charger for their electric vehicles. I think they're going to have 3 electric vehicles this year. We’re supporting them with both of those. That’s the support that we provide for their departments. As well as with residents in terms of trying to navigate their power bills. That's the MassSave programs, renewable energy options. FY25 was a busy year. We received several grants that are supporting a lot of the work we're doing. We have 2 CZM coastal resilience grants right now, one for the Collins Cove area, one for Winter Island Park. We also have an MVP Grant which will be going into FY26 as well, to continue the work that we're doing in the Point. We have several other smaller grants, some in technical assistance capacity, and some in terms of funding to support some of the other additional resiliency work that we're doing. We're looking forward to moving towards to continuing to reduce emissions and better prepare the city to adapt to our changing climate. As far as the budget goes. You probably noticed there's not much significant change. The staff is the same. Stott – Great job on the number of grants this year. I like that you are tracking the number of electric vehicles in Salem. What is the plan for that data? Are you going to see if you should add charging stations? Duffy – The solar charging stations and heat pump installations are from our inspections. The solar panels and heat pumps are difficult to track because there are different sources of info, so we use what the city can track through inspections. Tracking the number of electric vehicles in Salem is from the state registration. As far as the heat pumps, it is difficult to know what the purpose them are, whether it is to decarbonize their home, or heating a previously unheated room. The utilities and MassSave may be coming up with better data later this year. I also wanted to mention and thank the council because about a month ago, we were designated as a climate leader community partially due to the specialized code adoption that was a requirement. Among other things, it makes us eligible for $150,000 in a planning grant for decarbonization work. Also, up to a $1,000,000 action grant that can go towards a decarbonization project so in the next year we will be strategizing about the best way to use those funds. Stott – I love seeing the work that you are doing. I know you work with the police and fire as well as serve on the High School Building Committee. How closely do you work with the schools on utility usage? Duffy – Beginning with the energy performance contract, we started working closely with facilities department and Elizabeth Pauley. We are working with them on ongoing projects as well as helping them to understand the cost of energy and anticipating utility costs. We are working on the decarbonization of the existing school buildings which is a complicated project to figure out. Jerzylo – I want to thank you for coming to our community meetings with the residents to talk about resiliency. What was the name of the program that you were working on? Duffy – It is a home resiliency audit program that is still being developed, and we are working with a non-profit, Ensure. They are developing a tool that residents can use by inputting their address and, hopefully, it will be available in the fall. It is a pilot program so part of it will be testing the tool. Stott - Motion that we recommend for approval of the sustainability budget personnel line item of $265,053 and an expenditure line item of $5,600 for a department total of $270,653. Seconded by Harvey. Motion carries 4-0. Merkl – Next is the capital improvement plan, which is section 7, page 232. Duffy - A hydraulic and hydrologic model development for the city. This is really to help us be more strategic as to where we focus our efforts, our resiliency and adaptation efforts when it comes to flooding, especially from rainfall events. There are some great tools that the State provides, especially for coastal flooding. But we don't have a more holistic tool citywide, and it seems like ever since I started here, when speaking with engineering, this was something that she really thought was important for us to understand. Water, as you know, is very dynamic when you have flooding events. Even if you experience flooding from extreme rainfall in a certain neighborhood or area, or on a certain street, it doesn't mean necessarily that the solution exists right there. We want to be able to better understand how that happens and where we should be focusing our efforts to try to mitigate the flooding that we experience. The funding that we're asking for is for a part of the scope for a full model development. We have a grant source that we think could help to pay for some of the other tasks that are involved in developing this model and hope to have confirmation on that soon. A good example of this is the city of Worcester. They developed a citywide H. And H model and their city. They're not a coastal city, but the focus of what they're doing, to try to help mitigate flooding is in the higher areas of the city, because the rain is flowing into the lower areas. It’s not necessarily always working on the ground right where the flooding occurs. We’d really like to understand that better. It would be helpful and important for us to do that, to make sure as we're proposing projects that we're proposing the right ones. Merkl – Moving on to Planning. That is in section 18, page 461. Daniel - Couple of highlights from the past year, and things that we're working on and moving forward in the next year. Ono year blends into the next. It's not often that there's a distinct thing that flows in one year. For instance, our housing work is continuing, and I know there's been several matters before the Council that's continuing the parking minimums. Discussion will be coming. We're looking at SROs in the second half of this year. The big accomplishment last year was the transaction on the port with Crowley and Mass CEC and the offshore Wind Port Development has hit some headwinds just with the change in the Administration in Washington, DC. There is still movement happening there, but I wanted to speak to some of the things that you don't hear about, and that's regional work around, not just offshore wind, but more broadly, climate tech. This is aligning with the Healy Driscoll's administration with the Mass Leads Act for Economic Development and looking for Massachusetts to be a global leader in climate tech. Salem has a very clear role in that and it's not just for the port but it's for related businesses and industry. Salem's been the lead municipality at a regional level, trying to make connections with private sector, public sector, nonprofit sector, and labor academic institutions. We are working very closely with the North Shore Alliance for Economic Development, MassHire, North Shore Workforce Board, UMass Amherst, the Glass Marine Station and we're collaborating with Merrimack Valley as well. Trying to make it known to the State and to the world that there's opportunities here and assets here in our region and in sales specifically that can leverage. The State is making an investment. We want our share of the investment to support our business growth as well. And at the local retail level, there's close working relationships between the city, the Chamber, Main Streets, other partners like the Creative Collective, Destination Salem, working to support businesses downtown and other areas in town. The big policy accomplishment that I wanted to flag was the flood hazard overlay and climate resiliency overlay districts that were approved last year. That was years’ worth of work leading to that. It ties into what Neal was talking about with the H. And H. Study. We work together a lot. Water affects all departments. We're approaching this work collaboratively, with a little bit of a different lens. We're working locally and we're also working regionally on that. That same team that's talking about climate tech is also looking at regional resiliency, and its relevancy. When we're talking about resiliency, it's economic resiliency. Being able to respond to changes in the economy. It's ecological and environmental resiliency. There's also community resiliency as well. Another thing I just wanted to flag is Old Town Hall and the exterior restoration work and the accessibility work that's going on. Now that'll be wrapping up. It may slip a little bit into July, but that work is proceeding well. This is the 1st phase, the bigger phase will be the interior work which we're going to need $10,000,000. I can talk about that when we get to the capital plan. We have started our Jefferson Avenue corridor planning. This is building from a workshop we had last fall with the Urban Land Institute to look at that corridor, and how it may evolve over time. With water, because it's prone to flooding with potential change in the DPS facility with the South Salem commuter rail station. Last month we kicked off a study for that. There'll be a lot of public engagement over the next 12 to 18 months around that corridor planning as well. In terms of the budget itself, there are a few fees like our adobe subscriptions and things that increased in cost. We had some cuts that reduced our expenses. The only increases is salaries. I want to thank the mayor for kicking off the salary study and compensation classification study. I want to thank Anna and Lisa Cammarata for leading that. Again, I'm grateful for the team that I get to work with and compensating them fairly is important, because it's easy for highly qualified folks to move to another community. Davis – Can you tell us about the work on single room occupancy and efficiency housing? Daniel – That involves internal research with other departments, health, fire, etc. We are looking at properties that are currently operating as single room occupancy buildings and how they are running and what issues they have had. We are researching with other communities to see how they handle this as well. The parking minimum has taken priority over the SRO but now that that is moving in the direction of the council review, so we will be able to do more work on the SRO and hopefully will have policy options by the end of the calendar year. Stott - Motion to recommend approval for the planning department. General administration budget personnel line item of $730,324 and expenditure line item of $123,860 for Department Total of $854,184. Seconded by Harvey. Motion carries 4-0. Merkl – Next, we will move on to the Conservation Commission. Section 18, page 449 with the summary on page 452. Daniel - We manage 11 boards and commissions and committees, and Rachel is one of our newer hires who is the conservation agent and planner working with the Conservation Commission. About 3 years ago, a new ordinance was adopted for the Commission as well as rules and regulations. So that's part of what they've been implementing. I will say that I just want to thank for the support last year for the Highland Trails area study. This is something that city dollars went towards. The Conservation Commission contributed an equal amount of funding towards that study which is underway. Rachel's been managing that project as well. Stott - Motion to recommend approval of the Conservation Commission Budget Personnel line item of $33,705 expenditure line item of $1,513 for Department total of $35,218. Seconded by Harvey. Motion carries 4-0. Merkl – Next is the Planning Board in section 18, page 458. Daniel - Very briefly the planning board is a hardworking board. Change is the former chair retired. We have a new member and new chair. It is an important board that reviews larger projects and they participate in zoning ordinance changes as well. Stott - Motion to recommend approval for the planning board budget personnel line item of $36,800, the expenditure line item of $3,763 for Department total of $40,563. Seconded by Harvey. Motion carries 4-0. Merkl – Next, we have Marketing and Tourism on page 475. Daniel - The bulk of this money goes towards supporting Destination Salem’s work. Ashley Judges’ leadership. One of the things in Salem is the strong partners that we have. I was speaking earlier about partners at the regional level, but want to emphasize those at the local level Destination Salem, the Chamber of Commerce, Main Streets, Creative Collective and the city of the Salem and the Enterprise Center. We all work to support Salem's economy. Some of those organizations are exclusively focused on downtown or more focused on downtown than others. Destination Salem plays an important role. Stott – Motions to recommend approval for the Marketing and Tourism budget expense line item and department total of $309,550. Seconded by Harvey. Motion carries 4-0. Merkl – Next is the Historical Commission page 481. Daniel - Another hardworking board that meets twice a month and works a lot with the planning board. They are often dealing with land use attorney and working with homeowners and are trying to help homeowners through the process. We received funding through Mass Historical Commission to do a survey and planning grant of Mack Park and the Mack Park neighborhood. Stott- Motion to recommend the Historic Commission budget personnel line item of $41,481, expenditure line item of $1,382 for Department total of $42,863. Seconded by Harvey. Motion carries 4-0. Merkl – Moving on to capital improvement plans. It is in tab 7, page 230. Daniel – We want to do a study on Artists’ Row to help us think about the next iteration of Artists’ Row. There are roof issues. There are some structural things that need to be addressed. It's very expensive to do some of the repairs. This is trying to take a step back and look at what might be a better approach for maintaining the structures or rethinking those structures. The programming has been successful. There's a new crop of tenants there this year. We want to do a study on the Church Street, community visioning process. This is building from the parking study that we did with the transportation department and looking at investing in a parking garage. Increases at some point. There is a request for funding to support engagement around Dickson Chapel, to finish the chapel restoration. The Highland Avenue Trail study. We are looking at some grant programs to support some construction projects in FY27. I mentioned phase one of Old Town Hall. We are looking to see how to get support for $12,000,000 through grants. We are looking at how we might work with someone on some fundraising as well as grants. Stott – What are the study fund going to go to that your staff cannot fulfill?