Sustainability and Infrastructure Committee

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Sustainability and Infrastructure meeting of October 26th. I am Chair Jesse Clingan And before we get started, I must read this blurb that allows us to do this meeting remotely. So pursuant to Chapter 2 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 on local access government channels. That housekeeping out of the way, Madam Clerk if you could call the roll to establish quorum please.

Scott. Present. Councilor Hartman. Present Chair Clingan. Present Alright, with that everyone is here so we do have quorum

Okay, excellent. So we just have a couple of items to take up before the meat of the meeting which is the double poll issue. We do have representatives I said from different utilities to discuss that my intention really is as Both of my colleagues here were the originators of this particular order. I've had my go with double poles in the past, and we're all concerned about them, and Whoever wants to kind of take the reins to some degree. I did send over questions to the representatives so that will kind of frame the discussion on this topic. Let me pull up those questions for myself. But that said, we're going to go in order. So let's just the item number 126-1209 approval of the minutes. We'll just lay that on a table for approval at the end of the meeting.

And then item number two, which I believe we have staff here for by Councilor McLaughlin that the Director of Inspectional Services update this council on enforcement of the vacant properties ordinance. Now, I'm looking forward to what that update might be at the moment. We have multiple staff members here to speak on it and probably we'll end up keeping it in committee for further discussion depending on where things go. So that said, I guess who wants to? I know Director Klein is here as well as Colin Ziegler. Kevin, are you going to be speaking on this first?

Yeah, I can. We had discussed the commercial and the residential being a little bit Different residential being, you know, people is a lot less of those who's people turn over their properties. They want to sell them. We think the registration, we've kind of discussed maybe Colin taking that on in the health department and he can comment on that in a minute. The commercial aspect of, you know, we all know there's a lot of open commercial spaces and there is a registration fee. It's $50, which I think is reasonable. I think we should come at this with a place where we're trying to help people fill their spaces and help them, guide them to get their properties done. OSPCD is really doing it in Arlington which we... They kind of dropped the residential. So I think that's kind of a good idea or work it in a different way. It should be split up. And I think it was Tim who brought up good points is

Some connections over in Arlington, which is working very well. So Colin, if you want to comment on what I just said, please do.

Sure. Thanks, Kevin. Through the chair, the Public Health Division is ready to take on certain aspects of the vacant properties ordinance. In terms of enforcement that we're currently doing, I've instructed our inspectors to be diligent with identifying and ticketing properties that are vacant or in disrepair. This has been a pretty effective tool in our ability to engage with the AG's office and their neighborhood revitalization program. We have engaged with them on a couple of different properties in the area to get them to motivate property owners to do the work associated with Securing the property or doing some of the work that the city's been asking them to do, like cutting back overgrowth or treating rats or things like that. The AGE's revitalization program's intention is for cities that have had troubles with vacant properties and getting them reestablished.

to essentially go through the process of trying to contact them, putting the home through the property, through the processes of receivership conducting that work and then giving it Back to that particular person to then manage and pay for the appreciation process. And I can't speak exactly to the AG's office particular processes, but That is a powerful tool in our tool belt, and I believe as our inspectors become more familiar with our changes in internal policy and becoming more diligent with addressing some of these. Vacant residential properties and using the AG's office as a tool will be in a better place, but there aren't too many. There's a few, but you know we're always keeping our eye out for those properties that and many more.

they're being occupied is another question so I'm happy to take questions about what our plans are what we're currently doing in terms of vacant properties or if there are any properties that you have in mind that we should check out we're happy to to work with you to address those. So thank you.

Just a quick question and I'll go right to Scott. Do you happen to have numbers on rough, even just rough numbers on residential properties or in commercial?

I do not have rough estimates right now. I know there are not many registered vacant properties as a self-service program, I think it was roughly 12 that currently have a license with the city. Kevin, do you have any idea for commercial or from residential?

Commercials are a lot more. I do not have an exact number but I know it's definitely... An issue that we all want to address in the right way and a helpful tool to help people get the commercial properties closed and renovated. So it's definitely, that's a bigger problem I believe

Scott, or do you want to let IGA go first?

Oh, well, let's give everybody enough.

Okay. Amanda, go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Amanda Najum-Williams, Director of Intergovernmental Affairs. Thank you to Directors Klein and Ziegler for the overviews that they've shared. I think in terms of commercial, I don't want to misspeak but I can also confirm with our I know that while they're not reflected here in the staff who are presenting, They have really been taking a proactive approach to identifying vacant commercial spaces, but also trying to work with folks who find a plan to address those vacancies. I think I know Director Klein had previously mentioned in his remarks that staff, including staff from the city clerk's office have recently met to just kind of talk about

Things that we've learned in the past and I think there is definitely a consensus across the board that we're looking for more clarity in our definitions, recognizing that there are different interests for residential and commercial housing. vacant properties and as such we need to have a different approach to addressing each of those that incentivizes the you know the owners respectively Thank you for that. Councilor Scott?

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to City Staff for those introductions. Director Ziegler, your comments there really focused on the Neighborhood Renewal Division and the Neighborhood Renewal Project out of the Attorney General's office. When did Somerville start working with the AG's office and their Neighborhood

To the chair, thank you, Councilor. We started working with our contact at the AG's office sometime early last year.

Yeah, okay. Well, that's glad we're trying something new. That's exciting. You know, that project, that neighborhood renewal division started I believe back in 2009. Have you found that they've been aggressive in following up with the city of Somerville? I mean, have any properties gone into receivership through that partnership?

Through the chair, not to my knowledge. However, they have been valuable partners in finding contacts for particular properties that we have had a long-term interest in. So it's been good

Finding contacts. You mean something beyond the ownership records that we have on file as part of our property tax records?

Correct.

So like phone numbers, emails?

A mix of both.

Oh okay all right well you know it was something that I was curious about because um The project itself seems fairly defunct. They had a biannual report requirement and the last report they published was back in 2019, so it doesn't seem like it's particularly active effort on the AG side.

You can see everything. Ken, it made $15 million at the box office this weekend.

Somebody... All right, we got somebody. I got a YouTube tab in the background. You know, I've been meaning to go watch that documentary and I haven't gotten around to it yet so I hope it's still at the Somerville Theater when it gets done. Yeah, it seems like a somewhat defunct program so I'm glad they've been in communication. Have we gotten them to do anything other than just provide contact information for property owners?

Through the chair, we have had them keep us in contact when a particular property did go to auction and keep us up to date on what moves were occurring there and get us in with the new owner at the time to do things like replace fencing or address overgrowth.

Okay, well that's positive I suppose. So it sounds like we've had one property addressed since sometime last year. Okay All right, well I've got some thoughts here. I'm hearing some confusion, it seems like on what the definition of a vacant property is. At least I think that's what I heard. I heard somebody say we'd like to get some clarity. What is the confusion about what a vacant Or maybe I misheard. Did I misinterpret somebody?

I think we're looking for some clarity on how long it's open for where we declare it vacant or we should clear that up and make sure we know what the guidelines are for a vacant property. We had a nice meeting on it. I think there's a couple of questions, but I think like I said the commercial properties are more robust in this problem we have than the residential so I think the commercial is where we want to really focus on and Arlington is pretty much done with the residential they're just doing commercial is my understanding from our meeting last

Oh, okay. All right. Did the director of IGA want to expand on that?

Through you Mr. Chair To that point, expanding a little bit on what Director Klein had already shared. I think there's also... In terms of what staff had looked at and comments that we've received in the past, things such as is a vacant lot also included in vacant properties? These are other questions that folks have raised. so just being very specific on what does this ordinance or if there are going to be multiple ordinances that address different aspects of this what exactly is being defined as you know vacant or sometimes folks are determining something's vacant just based on the aesthetic of it but in fact according to our ordinances are not vacant so just being very clear for folks on what that definition is.

Okay, so maybe I can ask a follow-up question there Mr. Chair in section 11-111 that's the vacant properties ordinance Section B2 says for the purposes of this section, property subject to registration shall mean any vacant ground floor commercial unit. and then some other elaboration. Or B, a building or structure in which every unit is vacant regardless of the purpose for which such property is used or has been used. Where's the... What's the point of confusion there? What extra clarity can I help provide? Because I wrote it, and I know that I'm not always the clearest. So can somebody help me with what's unclear in that definition? Who are you, Mr. Chair? Anyone?

Well I guess to my point before If it's just vacant that one day, so the last person moves out Is that when we go in there and say okay you're a vacant property We want you to register That seems like what that says If so, that's fine I haven't read it through, but we just had discussions. Is that a fair question? No, it's a fair

Every owner of a vacant property shall register with the superintendent of inspectional services in writing within 90 days that property is becoming vacant. So 90 days would seem to be the answer there, Director.

That would seem that's correct and I think that's pretty reasonable to be honest with you. When it first came out they wanted two weeks and I thought that was unreasonable. 19? 18, 19?

2019. I don't think it's been amended since that, sir.

Yeah, good. 90 days I think is a reasonable thing. So thank you for that clarity.

All right. Yeah, I'm going to make sure there's no confusion for the clarity that at least can clear up. So... Given that we have an answer that 90 days, if a property has been vacant for 90 days and they haven't registered it, then that's where we start saying there's a problem. And given that we know what a A big question mark open to interpretation. It's actually referring to units within a structure, whether that's for a commercial unit or for an entire building or structure where every unit is vacant. So hopefully we've got that cleared up. I guess I continue to, you know, so there's a registration fee that is due and payable at the time of registration. But the ordinance actually doesn't specify what that amount would be.

Was that a $20 number or was that a 50 dollar number?

I think it hurt $50.

You heard $50? Okay, well see this is where I lack clarity but that wouldn't have been something that was set by ordinance so was that the fee in Arlington or is that the

I believe that's us.

Oh, okay. All right. So there's a whole lot of maintenance requirements and inspections and just in terms of Purpose, Legislative Intent, let's say. You know, we've actually had a number of structures in Ward 2. I'm just going to speak for my neighbor. that have literally fallen over onto the structures next door. And I know that likely, That would be some kind of structural issue that somebody from inspectional services, you know an inspector pokes their nose in they probably spot something like that. The Fiesta Bakery had a tree about two feet around growing up through the basement that eventually knocked down an exterior wall onto the building next to it. I'm sure that would have gotten spotted. So there's, I think, a public interest

in regular inspections on these properties just to make sure that we can mitigate the public health hazard, the risk to neighboring property owners or God forbid somebody walking by on a sidewalk. when a building falls down. And that's why the ordinance actually requires both rodent mitigation within 30 days of registration, but also regular six months inspections. Does six-month inspections seem like a good duration of time between to spot issues that might lead to structural integrity or, say, a new rat infestation?

Through the chair. And in terms from a public health perspective, that's a reasonable period of time. But again, staffing issues might contribute to delays in those regularly scheduled inspections.

Of course, of course. I mean there's a lot of properties in Somerville right? But not so many that are vacant. It sounds like we've got just a few handfuls of registered vacant properties. It doesn't sound like it'd be that big of a burden to get down and take a peek at them. Not for nothing, but one of the complaints that I get from constituents all the time is, A neighbor has a property that's poorly maintained, whether it's vacant or they just don't care about their yard. Or it's an absentee landlord and the tenants aren't taking care of it. So when there's a rat infestation and neighbors suspect it's coming from that property, one of the biggest problems people have is they say, well, we called inspectional services. But inspectional service came down and said, well look, we have to look from the sidewalk. We have to looked from the public way. because we don't have the property owner's authorization to go on site. We can't go on there and issue a citation.

This vacant property ordinance would give an inspector not just permission, but the requirement to go onto the property and make an inspection. Would that be helpful in being able to address these neighbor concerns about rat infestations?

Through the chair, correct. Licensed vacant property would give us access and the ability to do enforcement work for rodent control. I would like to note, however, when inspectors do look at violations and they see a violation present then they will issue a violation. Pay close attention to those problem properties and take regular action against them in terms of finding violations and recording those.

Absolutely, and I've actually seen some of those tickets go out. It's very reassuring. But, you know, it's pretty tough to document overgrowth and document borough entrances that are in somebody's backyard or tucked in by a shed behind the house when you can only look at it from the sidewalk. Right?

Through the chat, that was correct.

Yeah. So I guess this... You know, and I... I think I might feel a little bit different about it if I was looking at a proposed ordinance versus something that's been the actual law in Somerville for seven years now. This seems to be a pretty powerful tool that y'all would be excited to use in terms of actually being able to get inspectors to look at these public health and public safety hazards. So I guess... Why would we be focused on our internal discussions and asking Arlington what they're doing as opposed to looking at our own law that is on the books ordained by the city council? and how to enforce that. Is that a strategy choice?

Through the chair, Tim Snyder, Tim Duncan Who was it? I'm sorry.

Tim Field.

Correct, through OSPCD.

Oh, Tim Field and OSP CD. Okay, okay.

Correct. Sorry, Councilor. Through the Chair, the internal discussions also have a lot to do with maybe looking at the ordinance to decide if there are aspects that could be More oriented towards commercial properties and delegating certain responsibilities to offices who are concerned with, you know Economic Revitalization, getting people back into these places helping facilitate the permitting process all of those types of things and clearly delineating those responsibilities. Those are Part of the internal discussions as well as looking at capacity internally on enforcing the ordinance as it is currently written. Those are the main purposes and clarifying a lot of this.

I got a question for you, Councilor Scott. Because I wasn't as hands-on when you were all writing this. I'm just curious, how come we didn't come up with our own... Bad owner list. How come the council isn't just creating a list? Because I think what we're hearing is, like's being said, and then also where the... Where it can get complicated, like for instance I have an empty lot that has a bunch of dirt over near the corner of Wheatland Street and Broadway, but like the owner might say oh I'm parking some stuff on there you know like how do we deem And then the question about the commercial is, and I'm hearing what ISD's saying and the reason why I've thought about that a lot about businesses wanting to have something in there. But then...

It occurred to me that what I see happening is like with Patsy's, where you had a Chinese national that bought the building and just was land banking. And we just sat there with Out of the country investor investing in our community. And that's set there vacant for years. So we have to figure out a way to pass these things out somehow so that we know, you know... and it would almost seem to make sense like we would know I mean like a fire is active anything under active construction is considered not vacant although I would think a fire would be A quick way to get on the list anyway, at least because then in terms of the motivation. But they're also waiting for insurance money too. So I know I'm rambling a little bit but I feel like maybe you know a retooling or something is what it sounds like everybody's kind of talking about and I hear your frustration for this to be on the books for seven years and I know there's been turnover in ISD so I don't know how much of it is that but

it's um but this is the law that we we wrote and put on the books and it is frustrating to hear that you know we're so out of tune with it yeah thank you for that Mr.

Chair I would say that you As legislators, we write ordinances. The implementation of those ordinances is a function of the executive branch. In fact, we have been warned... Several occasions about how directly targeting some of these ordinances can be, you know, certainly updating an ordinance with an amendment process through the city council every time a new property went vacant would be I think not the right way to go about doing it, but I suppose we could pass a law. But it would tend to run afoul of... targeting individual property owners if you had an ordinance that applied literally to only one right or a small list of properties within the city as opposed to the overall policy aim we have. of not letting a property rot, abandon until the tree grows up through it and knocks it over onto the building next door.

So I can appreciate that as an idea of how we might be able to spur action Because I share your frustration, right? This has been on the books for a very long time. I guess I you know, the commercial property section of it. I've heard OSPCD or I guess now they're calling themselves strategy and development. I've heard them come up several times in this discussion and it's interesting because, you know, this ordinance doesn't actually reference or call upon them in any way. I've heard it described several times about really trying to find the right carrot to encourage property owners to place people in their buildings. And I know OSPCD maintains a list when I was looking for A vacant property or a property in which I could start a business in Somerville all the way back in 2010, I contacted OSPCD and they gave me a very nice Excel spreadsheet of What they had available, what they thought was available in the city.

And as far as I know, that spreadsheet is still being occasionally updated. But it It doesn't address the public health concerns. This city seems to be approaching this problem entirely all carrot, no stick. And the state part of it, I'm not even looking for issuing massive fines to somebody who has a property that they just haven't had the wherewithal to improve. For example, there's a property just down the block. It's been empty for over 15 years. So I think by anybody's definition of it as a six-unit building that's been entirely vacant for 15 years I think it probably safely fits under the definition of a vacant property. and as far as I know you know there's never been an inspector in there now this isn't uh as you said a foreign national who's not around this is somebody who i see in the neighborhood from time to time that owns that property

and while I appreciate that he does do some work to make sure the backyard doesn't Harbor Rats, the property itself. Who knows what's happening inside? When it comes to difficulty in enforcing some of these public health ordinances and particularly the difficulty in locating an order sometimes It would seem to me that by just leveraging the tool that is on the books right now, it would allow for whether its inspectional services or health division to actually be able to help people when they call with issues or complaints as opposed to just saying, well I'm sorry we have to stop at the sidewalk. You mentioned a fire and that is actually a good one Many, many violations and repair orders are only

cited once there's been a fire at property, right? Because when there's fire at a property, the fire department's there. Inspectional services comes on in part to determine if the structure is needs to be boarded up, needs to secured or demolished. So there's a lot of citations that happen once ISD inspectors walk into a property it's getting them there in the first place. That seems to be the problem. And with no tenant in a building, Since our inspection process is entirely complaint driven, there's nobody there to file a complaint. And likewise if a neighbor says hey I don't know what's happening this building doesn't look too good it looks like it's about fall over Again, absent use of this ordinance. I'm not sure what inspectional services could do that so maybe I'll ask Director Klein

If you do get a phone call saying, hey, this building looks like it's about to fall over without contact of the property owner. Is there anything you can do about that?

Do the chair. Yeah, we've been mostly fielding complaints. We send a guy right out there and then we track down the owner. We find them. when it comes up like that. This ordinance has been mainly complaint-based. Yes, if someone calls us we go right out. Well, I've been sending people right out on different complaints from any one of the public or the counselors which we hear from you know in a pretty regular basis. We have communications with you guys. So yeah, we do get right out there. We do start fining with violations when we get in there. Especially when a tree is down or if structure has been down. There's been certain cases where it's happened recently, not just fires.

Sure. I guess I just... Mr. Chair, I've got more thoughts here. I understand I've taken up a chunk of time already at the start of this meeting so I'm happy to step back and let you and Councilor Hardt ask some follow-up questions here but I guess what continues to stick with me at the moment is that Every piece of confusion, once we go back and actually read the text that's in the ordinance seems to clear up that confusion. Every obstacle getting action on an issue seems to already be spelled out in pretty plain language here so at some point it just has to be a A policy choice from the executive branch to not enforce the laws written by the legislative branch.

Since I'm not one that generally goes to motive, I think I'm gonna have to sit with that for a moment. So I'm happy to sit and listen to your questions and Councilor Hardt's while I gather my thoughts. Thank you.

Well, Councilor, I actually don't have any questions. I actually think this discussion's probably been really informative to staff and You know, we're happy to let you keep asking. And then like, yeah, we have representatives from utilities here. I did not think...I wasn't sure how this conversation would go. I didn't think it would be all that long because I didn' t think they would have a handle or plan on It's obvious, right? This hasn't really been even being looked at all that much. No offense to anybody through the years because no one's really owned it. We had turnover of staff You know, Colin's now just being put on. It sounds like he's getting a handle on it. Like, you know, so but I hear you. It's definitely been something that has been basically ignored and we get heat. You'll see things on Reddit like what's going on? This is actually frustrating for me, this whole thing in general, because there is a dance between who's a bad actor, who's just trying to get this property going.

but maybe if we had a systematic approach to it you know we could definitely like I'm building 15 years vacant just doesn't make any sense. I'm not even sure why or how that would be the case I mean like i said i do have a vacant lot in my ward so i do know that family things probate like different different things can hold things up but um but it does get to the point of you know and then of course there's there's the challenge of you know everybody uses Amazon like brick and mortar it's like only service industry things like hair, nails food um you know there's not a lot of brick and motor businesses that are able to Sustain an income. So there's this empty one in Davis Square, it's like they're either land banking because they know what's going to get sold at some point or they just can't find a tenant I know we're not trying to punish those people.

The fee is small, but the public has a really high expectation of what we can dictate to people on their private property. Um, even with the you know so this but we have to at least start by with this ordinance. I agree and i just think maybe give them some more time to come back um but if you have more questions go ahead so we can

I appreciate that, Mr. Chair, and I think you're exactly right. The only cost to an owner here is $50 to put your name on the list, and that's it. And if you're maintaining your property... then there's no other fees. There is no other penalties. I guess the biggest potential problem is that you're going to have an inspector come on your property and if you've got a proper problem there they're gonna expect you to solve that problem Now, you know we have in 115 a pretty clear expectation of What has to be done in terms of keeping the property free from rats, mice and other vectors? We have abatement requirements on there. We have in Section D-3 maintaining owner must maintain the building property for duration of vacancy or abandonment uh maintaining the condition of the building and the property And I agree with you, right?

There's always something. It could be that it was an inheritance and the person who inherited the property doesn't have the resources to do a remodel or renovation but in the meantime I don't think it's beyond Thank you for joining us. I'm sure there's somebody out there. There doesn't seem to be any shortage of folks looking to buy property in Somerville. Similarly, the murder house at the corner of Newton and Webster... You know, that one finally got demoed. That had been vacant for well over a decade as well with no rat abatement. The rat problem that gave Ms. Sugar White down the hill just headaches for years.

Aside from the fact that the property was uncared for, did burst into fire at one point and has been home to various... Human and other sorts over the years of its reign at the top of the hill there as people come into Union Square. So again, a problem that... That property was held in inheritance by a group of family members. It took them a number of years to figure out what they were holding it for and when they could sell it for. So in my opinion, just as a policy map if this encourages people to for example go ahead and sell that property and let somebody else do something with it I view that as a net positive. If it encourages

A storefront owner to drop their rent expectations so that one of these smaller service-based businesses could actually afford to rent there as opposed to some of the exorbitant rents that properties are charging in Union Square right now. Again, I view that as a public good. And I guess in terms of my final thought, I appreciate your desire to give grace and some patience to see what folks can come up with. With all due respect to everybody in the room, I only have three meetings left on this council. and I've been waiting for over seven years after putting these exact words on paper. So if I appear to be somewhat impatient, Then I hope you'll chalk it up to my long experience and my short tenure with me. So no offense to anybody, perhaps to explain part of my urgency.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't think we're going to get any further answers tonight.

No, not on this. That's what I'm saying. I think this was a good initial conversation. You know it sounds crazy to say like you said after seven years I do plan on putting this one back on the next agenda. We have a question from Casa Hardt, who hasn't been heard from yet.

Thank you, Chair. I wanted to just add on that note that for the next conversation, I think it would be really helpful to have somebody from Strategy and Development Thank you so much for joining us. and so to have a broader conversation would be great.

Okay, anything else on this? All right thank you both for your time Yeah, hopefully we'll make some headway on this. You know, I know institutional knowledge is a thing too. Like Nick was the ISC director, I think when we, you know, throughout this whole time until recently now, Kevin, your acting. I don't know, you Who was the lead on this? If somebody within the department, if that ever was even discussed. But now it seems like health... Department folks seem to be heading up. So hopefully we can make some progress here. All right, so for that one I'm just going to keep that on a committee Madam Clerk and I think I saw Eric. So Amanda, can you just refresh my memory? So basically the next three things are taken up altogether which are the double pull items.

I think that Peter took off because we may have disposed of the barrel at the park order. So, I don't know what else there is. Oh, I'm sorry. Eric, it's here for the double polls because lights and lines is – yeah, we all have to work in conjunction. All right. So let's just get through this. So item number three is a communication from a citizen, Chris Dewan, submitting comments on utility double polls. I'm going to take that up this evening. Item number 426-0628 by Councilors Hardt and Scott, that the Commissioner of Public Works and the Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management be Prepare before this council to discuss the process of monitoring progress on addressing double poles and abandoned wires with the goal of eliminating potential hazards, tree damage, and nuisances associated with both.

and then item number 526-0627 by Councilors Hardt and Scott that representatives from Eversource, National Grid, Comcast, Xfinity, same company. Astound and Verizon appear before this council to discuss plans for addressing double poles and abandoned wires with the goal of eliminating potential hazards, tree damage and nuisances associated with both. This is kind of a you know it's kind of Big discussion in a sense, right? There's like state legislation that speaks to this. I think they're also looking to amend some state legislation. This has been an ages-long issue with multiple... Former counselors who were really, you know, double poles was really just a hot topic and it keeps coming up. and I don't think, I have never had it in my committee where I've tried to pull in the... And I think they probably have had representatives here before.

from the utility companies pulled in I think actually in Mr. Duan's comments he mentions that there was somebody from one of those utilities so We have this issue of double poles. At one point, Jesse Moos and his former position as construction liaison had a working list of I think it's 175 Double Poles and Somerville. I sent over some questions to kind of frame the conversation with the utilities, and hopefully we can make some progress on getting some answers on whether or not they have a plan and just you know how we can go about addressing this. And then I remember five is so it's funny because this is sort of this is something that YouTube put in but I've had this problem before where

I've asked the city, so when someone calls 311 we tell them to call whoever it is. The confusion becomes if it's just a cable wire Verizon can't touch You know, if it's just a Comcast wire hanging. So there's multiple issues, multiple levels to this all. But I'm going to try to introduce folks and then I'm first going to take up item number three. No, you know what? I'll wait on that. But I do see Chris Dwan in the thing and I know that he just wanted to if he wants to make some comments. So who do we have here? We have Brian Postowate, the Director of Engineering for the City of Somerville who probably is aware of Jesse's work and has several polls as far as the city is concerned. We have the DPW or director of DPW, Eric Weissman

and we have Jason Wright from Eversource, Ronit Goldstein from Ebersource and Tatum Kelleher from Verizon. So obviously when it comes to polls, Eversources and Verizon are the two utilities that Own the Polls in our city. I don't know how the breakdown is. Like I said, Jesse has a spreadsheet or had a spreadsheet. Last count was 170. Yeah, so I guess first we'll just turn it over to the representatives from... We'll start with Eversource. And if you know... Just thank you, first of all. Thank you both for your time. Thank y'all for coming. I don't know who wants to speak if it's Jason or Ronit first but we're just trying to get a sense What kind of handle you have on the double pull situation in Somerville? So that's why some of the questions that I sent over current inventory, how many double pulls do you have in Somerville?

What prevents removal on a statutory night? So what we do here typically is like, we're having a conversation in public for the public to understand how we're trying to address this and Aboff, Is it Ronit that you're going to go first? Or Jason? You could just use the hand feature.

It's Ronit, but I'm going to let Jason take it up here for moral support and support in general because I am well versed in this topic along with Jason. But I'm gonna let him take the lead here.

Yep, I'll start with answering your first question. Asking how we track these, there's a... a system that's known as engines for short it's the national joint utility notification System. And what that system is, it's in essence an inventory if you will of all utility poles in Eversource's service territory. They're tracked by number. and they're assigned ticket numbers if you will so typically um Say there's a Carver's poll and the poll is taken down, we have to set a new poll. Our ops folks will submit a ticket with our clerk in Somerville. They'll set the poll if they can at that time of setting the poll. Say it's an emergency, they'll do our transfer. and as part of that, a ticket will be entered into engines that'll say

Next to go so in essence when we're when these third parties are moving um you know whether it's phone cable street light typically or we work top down So again, looking at any utility pool you'll see Eversource on the top and then there may or may not be secondaries underneath that feeding households. And then the cable providers will follow suit. Once we transfer, in essence, we hit a button on the system and it'll queue up or alert the next provider that has to move. We call it NTG or Next To Go. That provider will move. and so on and so I'll work its way down the list. Again, Eversource will set the poll and then Verizon once they're in queue we'll be responsible for coming out and removing the poll. Specific to Somerville, we ran a report middle of last week in the engine system and we're currently showing about 125 double poles in the city.

I would caution that's kind of a it's a living breathing list meaning that you know those polls will be added to and subtracted live if you will so on average but there's about 120 double polls in the city

Thank you. But I am correct in saying Verizon has their own poles, right? And then Eversource has their owns poles.

In Somerville the poles are jointly owned. So if you look at one utility pole, both Eversource and Verizon.

So there isn't like a breakdown. It's not like this area happens to be...

Eversource you both own them together that's correct in Somerville and other cities and towns that can vary in Cambridge for instance there's a delineation if you will of the street I forget what street it is but specific to some of all the polls are jointly owned

Well, that's bad luck news for us I guess in this situation. Must make things complicated. All right, I see Councilor Scott. Go right ahead. I have questions too, but I don't know what to let you out. So you and Councilor Hardt have had it, asked your questions. I know you guys have put these in. I'm sure you're hearing about it. Double pulse. Go ahead, Councilor

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do hear about it from constituents and I walk my kids to school every morning, and that's about 150 feet. And I pass three. Deviled Poles on that short walk. So I definitely see the problem a lot. I just wanted to follow up on that. So Engines, the National Joint Utility Notification System, that's been around for a long time. Mr. Wright from Eversource, could you send me a copy of that export you did last week? I'd appreciate that if you could get it to me during this meeting might be helpful for the discussion but if not we can always do this again next week So I guess, you know the last version of a spreadsheet I had showed 129 polls in Somerville.

you know living and breathing and all that uh at the time only and many more. provided a list just by driving around and looking at polls. I've got some questions, you know in the In the engine system, one of the core functionalities, the core module of it is the pole transfer, the PT plus module. So that handles notifications for line removals and pole replacements. Once something goes into the system. So I guess my first question, since apparently these poles are now jointly owned, who's responsible for entering these poles into engines when they're reported as being leaning or doubled?

If Eversource will create the tickets for the polls. Everservice sets the poll so the tickets will be created and submitted to our clerk in the Somerville Work Center when the double poll is set.

Okay, so if poles are just never making it into engines and the buck stops with Eversource on that one. Is that correct?

Yeah, the utility poles should be accounted for in the engine system. That's correct.

Okay. Well I've got a few to look up then. You've got the list in front of you. Ivaloo Street has 179-3 and 1796. Now, they were in the engine system as of 2024. and with a notation of Cable TV next to go. Could you let me know what the status on those are right now? What's the NTG on those?

I don't have that in front of me, but my understanding was the double polls on Ivyloo have since been addressed.

Oh, all right. Well that's good to hear. You know Mr. Chair you did mention a resident from Ivaloo Street was present in the meeting. I'd be happy to sponsor that resident to give us an update on whether those polls have been addressed and when.

Yeah, we can get to that. What I should have did was I should've had, I'm sorry, we have Tatum Kelleher here from Verizon and I want her just piggyback off of what Mr. Wright said as far Where Verizon's coming from in this situation?

Sure. Thank you, Chair and committee members for having an important discussion tonight. So my name is Tatum Kelleher I'm with State Government Affairs with Verizon here in Massachusetts We're a joint poll owners as referenced by Jason from Eversource, so we work closely with Eversources. The communications wires are typically at the very bottom of the poll, so Verizon are typically the last ones to transfer our facilities to the new poll. And to echo Jason's Discussion around engines, it's something that As a joint poll owner, it's something we pay for. It's free for all the attachers to participate in. So whether that's municipalities, cable, fiber companies Whatever it may be, it's free of charge for them.

And we strongly encourage participation from all third-party attachers to ensure that there is, as Jason referenced, a top down So there is an order for everyone to move their attachments in a timely manner.

Okay, and then You said your title. Jason, I meant to ask you too and just state your name for the record and your title for the clerk.

Yes, of course. Jason Wright, Community Relations for Eversource and my colleague Ronit Goldstein's Manager for Community Relations.

Great. Okay, yeah before we get to... I have a few more of those questions that you know they're kind of basic It's the second one. What prevents a removal within the 90-day period? Again, I need these very basic questions answered so people understand at home. So who wants to take that one? Wait, let me just ask you a question. So you said Eversource is the one that actually put it into the engine system? Like Verizon doesn't do that entering part?

Because our source, and I don't want to speak on their behalf, but they're at the top of the poll. So they are setting the polls so they're starting that ticket.

Okay, this is all very helpful information. I did not know.

Okay, yeah, so... Yep, no, just to add to that, one of the process improvements that I think we're starting to see, we signed an agreement last year to that end where, again... Eversource will set the poll and then Verizon will pull the poll so previously you know Verizon could set and or poll Verizon would set poll so there was the agreement itself is meant as a means to um Be more efficient. Again, Evisos being the utility provider, we're often the first to move so we'll set the pole. Thought being that most of the time Verizon will be the last attachment on the pole and once Verizon again I don't want speak for Verizon but When Verizon would transfer that last attachment while they were there, they could also pull the poll as well. So it reduces I want to say redundancies but again it's meant to increase efficiencies

Regarding what keeps the 90-day, I will say and we've spoken to it already that no single company controls all of the attachments on said pole. So in essence where... For lack of a better word, we're at the mercy of the other. Whether it's telecom, whether it's cable phone municipal light fire department wire When it's time for them to transfer, we're on their clock, if you will. Sometimes it's easy if there's a primary, maybe a secondary or a couple attachments. That's obviously easier but I'm sure you've driven by utility poles where there's numerous attachments on there so it's a matter of... The other third-party attachees removing theirs in suit, if you will.

Okay, because you know like just as somebody who's lived in the city pretty much you know my whole life I've never seen a pole being switched out so it doesn't happen like you know that there's videos out there right where they have like these machines that kind of like They speed up the video and it shows them replacing a pole. How do you all do it here? Is it obvious to somebody going by that that's what's happening? I've never seen the process in real time or at play where there was entire... I don't want to say that's probably because you've only been doing double pulls. Have you all fixed any double pulls and made a single pull again in Somerville?

Yeah, yes, of course. Yep, absolutely. I mean the Well, maybe we can back up and say, you know, why do we set... Why will we set what causes double poles? I mean, there's a couple of reasons for double poles. I think the most obvious is a carverous pole, you which is emergency response obviously we're out there as soon as we can to fix them to restore power. There could be upgrades to poles meaning you know we require additional infrastructure on the top that could be you know a larger transformer anything to Address, Lode on that street. There could be a poll it needs to replace because it's near the end of its useful life. I believe it's every five or seven years so don't quote me on that number. We have a third-party contractor who will go out city by city and they'll do an inventory of the poles to make sure that they're healthy, for lack of a better word. They'll knock on the poles, they'll dig around the bottom to make

So if, again, without stating the obvious, if a utility pole needs to be replaced, we'll dig safe it and then we'll come out. We'll set the new pole and then will sister the old pole to the new poll. And again, while we're there, if we can, we will do our transfer Sometimes we can't do the transfer then because it'll require an outage, meaning that well you know it could be two o'clock in the morning we'll say okay we're going to do an out of chair will notify will do either phone blast or mailing if this time for it. If not, we'll do the phone blast of the numbers on their account and we'll take an outage for a four or six hour window in the middle of the night to be less disruptive. And then why that outage is a reporting period for that I think it's... Probably 30 days we like to give if we can. And again, that can delay our transfer, if you will. But that's when we would do our transfer again. may or may not require an outage it's pole to pole street to street but

And when they put the 90 days in effect, did they consider the 30-day notification situation? Because it would have seemed to me that at this point we shouldn't be doing any double polls. It's just like Since there is a 90-day, anytime that there's a need for one, you might as well just switch it out. But I know that's probably not possible unless you guys really all get together and figure things out. Yeah, it's... I don't know.

If it's a planned outage, we have to submit a permit with our permit desk and then the notice will be given. But again, if it's an emergency response, then we'll do a phone blast and in essence, we'll As soon as we're out there, we'll cut the power just to obviously facilitate restoring power more quickly.

Ronit, River Source. I see a hand. Go ahead.

Thank you. Yeah, just a couple of points I think that are germane to the discussion. So first there as Jason referenced a number of reasons why double poles are created. And much of the time, again, sometimes a car hits a pole. We see that all the time. That necessitates an immediate poll next to it. We transfer our facilities. A lot of our upgrades require, you know, if we build an entire circuit, we will replace all those polls while we're at it through that capital project. If a community, and I'm not saying Somerville is one, but if a community has a fiber project. Fiber goes at the top underneath... Any municipal and fiber go right underneath electrical. Oftentimes there's space requirements, not often there are space requirements. And so it necessitates taller poles again. So we're installing Taller Poles, transferring our facilities and so it goes on and so forth.

So you never really to your earlier question of have we ever removed? Yes but The number will never be zero. It's very unlikely because we continue to build the infrastructure. Second to that, the engine system I encourage the municipality in fact I'm sure Jason will speak to Brian or to others or to Eric Municipalities can see the poles in engines on which they have infrastructure. So it could be street lights, it could a fire alarm if that still exists in the city, it and other infrastructure. Some municipalities don't realize that they can go into engines it's a free service as was referenced and we encourage you and can support helping you to get on to engines. I believe you're allowed three participants in the municipality that can help you and work with us And last, that would be again germane to this conversation. I've been with the company in my ninth year and double polls is something that I recall

From day one, we've made a lot of progress but there's still work to be done. We do think that there will be efficiencies realized with the agreement with Verizon. They made an agreement with National Grid several years ago and You know, it's a resource issue. Right? So if we've created this efficiency where reset they pull no utility has to go more than once National Grid is already seeing years into their agreement with Verizon Efficiencies, and ProgressMate. So we do feel that we'll follow that same trend. It's just going to take some time. I don't know if I missed anything, Jason, but I felt that all of these points would be germane to the discussion. Yep.

Thanks, Renée. I'm going to recognize DPW director or commissioner Eric Weisman.

Eric Wiseman, Commissioner of DPW. Just wanted to say for the record we do have staff that accesses that system and is using it. Thank you.

All these questions? Councilor Scott, you just had your hand up and then down. Just trying to get your attention, sir. I don't know why I can't see. I think your camera was off. Okay, who wants to go first? Is it Councilor Scar or Councilor Hardt?

I'm happy to let Councilor Hardt go first. I do have some broad general questions here especially since Verizon we've just referenced before I get into the specifics.

Absolutely. I'll give you all the time you need. Go ahead, Councilor Hardt.

Okay thank you Chair. Yes, just following up on that information. First thank you I'll just repeat thank you to everybody for being here. I think this is a really important and useful conversation. I'm wondering what, so given that we have this list of double poles, you know, what are the goals for how quickly, you This list should be gone through to make progress on this. Goals for shrinking the list, what's The rate of progress that's expected on removing those and given the ownership of the polls, I understand you're waiting on Maybe RCN or other companies. But what is the process? I understand they get notified when there's a ticket in engines,

But then what's the follow through? What's the process on that to get them to comply, to move their lines?

So what I've seen and we've had success in Somerville and other municipalities is, but let me back up. We have a standing meeting every other week with engineering The city has always been helpful to us in sending their priorities forward. typically what I've had again success with other cities and towns is they'll send a priority list if you will whether it's 10 15 or so polls um that could be at you know prominent intersection or whatnot. And they'll say these are the priorities from the mayor's office and what we'll do, what I'll do is we'll go through it. I'll see who is in essence next to go a lot of times again Eversource more often than not has already transferred for reasons we've already discussed so if it's a Comcast is next to go I'll reach out to their representative and I'll say this is a priority poll removal For the city, can you please schedule and facilitate timely transfer?

And in essence, we'll just work our way down that list from poll to poll.

Okay, thank you. That's helpful. So what I'm understanding is it's incumbent on city staff to come up with the polls right? themselves.

No, no, not incumbent. It's more of an ask if there's a particular poll and I don't want to speak for the city but there have been instances in the past where the Whether it's a sidewalk reconstruction project and that pole needs to be moved, for instance, the city will say this is a priority for us. Can we facilitate a quicker removal? which we'll, of course, accommodate. It's just helpful for myself as being the liaison Many cities and towns in this area so I can have a list, if you will. We have internal meetings called customer care and I can bring those to the team internally and say... These are the priorities for the city. Again, whether it's five polls, ten polls, we have standing meetings with Verizon. Our electrical ops team has standing meetings

Need to transfer a poll or excuse me, have a whole poll pulled. So again, it's more it's dialogue, it is collaboration and it's coordinating Amongst really all of the entities to have these addressed in a timely fashion.

Well, I see that Director Pulsway has his hand up so he can probably speak to that Councilor Hardt. Go ahead.

Thank you, Chair. For the record I'm Brian Fulstowate Director of Engineering My team is the one that predominantly does major construction projects on the city's behalf for streetscape and utility work. One of the things that, and Chair you mentioned Jesse Moose and his famous double poll list. That list was mostly captured so that we could coordinate our city construction projects more efficiently. And, and that list along with coordinating with engines gave us the ability to know like which double poles were We're going to impact future city construction projects and we could plan ahead and provide Eversource and Verizon

A list of what polls that we were going to need them to prioritize as our construction projects approached a location that they were working. I have to be very clear that Eversource and Verizon have been very supportive on our efforts. It's a pretty rare day currently that we struggle with Eversource in adjusting utilities in and around our construction projects. And I know from time to time We've been able to leverage that positive relationship on DPW's behalf. I'm sure Eric can expand a little more, but We've had situations from an operational standpoint where we needed support and Eversource has supported us on that.

Commissioner Wiseman? Thank you.

I just want to echo what Director Postlewaite said. In our case, it tends to be health and safety issues. where we have to elevate these requests to the utilities and they, in my limited experience as commissioner, they've always been Very responsive when we do reach out. So I did want to say that.

Counselor Hardt, the floor is still yours.

Thank you. Well, I appreciate both of those comments but now I will let Councilor Scott go ahead.

All right.

Thank you so much. I appreciate this. You know, Verizon's been referenced a few times. So I guess I'm going to start with Ms. Kelliger. Hello, Ms. Kellyger. How are you doing this evening? You feeling all right?

Yes. Thank you.

All right. Well, I was getting a little bit worried about you. You know, when we've had this conversation in committee before where we've representatives from Eversource, Verizon, RCN, Comcast You know, the folks down pole have been very responsive. So when something comes into engines... once they see that their NTG, I forget what the time was but I believe both of those mentioned it. They had cleared every NTG for them for moving services within 72 hours. I think it was 72 hours Um... So that was when we identified that only about 20% of some of those polls were actually hitting into engines. For Verizon, do you have a sense of when your MTG how long those things stay in the queue for y'all to clear?

Typically, we do have an internal goal. Obviously there's external factors that are sometimes out of our control that can dictate that timeline but internally we like to move things out of court Typically around the 30-day range. So typically, as of right now, we don't have any double polls in our court in Somerville.

Oh, so you're not NTG on any of these things?

No, but it's contingent on any of the resources that may be diverted by some of the attackers above us once they sort of start to pool their resources. It will come into our court.

Sure, well I mean 30 days sure beats the heck out of 15 years. So I love that. I guess once you change your designation because you've moved your lines and maybe you're last to go Does this new arrangement mean then that Verizon becomes responsible for pulling the old pull?

Yes, so this agreement is just coming up upon maybe a year I would say. It's mentioned by Eversource it's an agreement similar to what we had with National Grid and other Municipalities, and we saw the benefits of that. And so we had worked with Eversource on this agreement. It was more sensible to Reduce the amount of dispatch to address a double pole or there are times where you're addressing a double poll and you need police detail depending on what the situation is. being able to cut back on some of those things. If we're there moving our facilities and were the last ones to remove, you know it makes sense to be the one pulling the pull yes.

Oh absolutely well that's great so that agreement only went into place about a year ago

I would say about a year. Yep, yep. So I think we're still seeing you know it takes a little bit to get our groove and redirect some of our resources but i think we are starting to get into that groove

Okay, so what I'm hearing is that by the time it hits Verizon as NTG or I guess you guys would be LTG Then within 30 days, your aim is to have your service moved and ideally pull that old pole at the same time so you don't double up on details and all the rest of it. Correct? And right now there's no double polls waiting in your queue. There's nothing in Somerville on that LTG list.

Not as not I checked mid last week on the numbers and there were none. So on the 15th is when I checked.

OK, so that means that somewhere upstream of you. Either RCN or Comcast, which at last check moved all their wires within 72 hours of it going in the system. Or perhaps, you know, Eversource hasn't either gotten their... Maybe they only put up a support poll and didn't actually transfer service. Or maybe they transferred service and just didn't update engines to notify the next people in line that it was time to go. Am I understanding that right?

Yep, and there could be municipal attachments. There could be non-participating attachers which I think there might be a couple in there that codes are not assigned to them so they may not be getting notified

Interesting, interesting, interesting. Now a non-participating so you know here in Somerville we don't run any municipal fiber all of our fire alarm box infrastructure I believe is underground So a non-participating provider in that sense, would that be like somebody who had a 5G antenna repeater attached to the pole lower down? Or what kind of participants are we talking about there?

It could be a variety of participants. I think when I pulled the report last week, the non-participating member codes were fire and street so Although the city does have a designated member code, I don't believe that those are... If they're abandoned fire alarms or not, I'm not sure. It's something that could be consolidated under the city or they could each have their member codes but as of right now it appeared to me that those did not have member codes

Oh, could you send me a list of those polls that have those codes attached? Those kind of dead letter codes?

Sure. And those could be outdated too and not actually have an impact if those, if you're saying fire is now underground, those could just be You know, abandoned. But I'm happy to send you those numbers. I can talk to the operations team.

All right. Well, I've got a broken foot right now, but I bet I could get on an e-bike and go around and check those out.

Yeah. Anything that you're asking for, just have them send it to public comment, like the ones that will go on the agenda for the council meetings.

Sure, yeah, let's have you perhaps when... When you generate that and when Mr. Wright generates that or sends us that updated dump from last Wednesday, they can go to public comments at SomervilleMA.gov so that everybody in the public can see that So I guess I remain confused then I was a... You know, I... I was a little bit worried about you because it sounded like Verizon was maybe getting thrown under the bus there. I didn't want you to get too many tire tracks on you, but you're saying right now that you don't have... There's nothing pending in Verizon's queue. So when it comes to, I've got a short list of some of the biggest offenders. Let's say ones that have had multiple public safety complaints about them Several that I've actually conditioned that the leaning poles need to be repaired and the doubles replaced before further permits were issued to Eversource.

So, I mean, I've got a few of those that I'd love to check in on. You know, Mr. Chair I'm open to hearing from you how to do that I've got a whole list of them here, but we also still have that resident that I had intended to sponsor to speak we felt it was appropriate so given that i've gotten my kind of big picture questions out of the way how would you like to proceed before I come back to some of these specifics

Yeah, no, I see Kalt's or Hardt's hand back up. I would like to maybe jump to her then give it back to you and yeah we can sponsor that resident to speak at any point.

Great. I'll come back with more specifics later, thank you.

Councilor Howe?

Thank you Chair and I definitely want to hear from the resident as well but this is kind of along those same lines of what The conversation at this point. So I have an Engines account, so I pulled a list and I don't think I captured everything, you know? Know how to use it that well, but on the list that I was able to pull of... It definitely looks like Comcast and... RCN, I mean yeah RCN and Comcast are the two biggest buckets of next to go. So one question is just I'm curious if they Maybe this is a question for Director Nagin-Williams. Like, did they respond? Because I think that they were supposed to be invited as well tonight and I don't know if they failed to... I am wondering, there are things and maybe again

That this is because of my inexperience using the search function, but there are polls that say Eversource and it says to be pulled that go back. You know, more than a year. So I'm curious about those as well.

Who's that? Do you have a source?

I think we could look into it if it's an erroneous. There are disputes, there are something that you know there are forgive me for jumping in I'm getting more of an education on engines these days as part of a group that's discussing it internally. There are such things as disputes, right? And sort of when we're unsure and there are some mistakes in the system. It's not a perfect system. it's relatively newer. There was a previous system It's better than it's an improvement, but there are still mistakes. And I would say we welcome you sending us what you find and we can all collectively take a look Yep, and to... Run that to ground. Yep.

Thanks, Janine. So to that end, yep, there is a dispute button. My understanding is also that prior to or right around the time that this new agreement was ratified Eversource took on a small amount of polls or agreed to pull those polls. And then once that line was drawn in the sand, i.e., that the document was executed with Verizon, every poll after the signing of that document in essence went into Verizon's queue. I don't recall the total number. It was a handful of polls that Eversource maintained responsibility for polling and then again everything after the date that document was executed went into Verizon's court

Thank you.

Councilor Hardt. So, yeah, I... I did the inviting. I never, I don't think I've ever had a situation where my committee was inviting like outside entities so i don't know maybe it's technically supposed to be the clerk's office they might have somewhere in the city probably good emails on people I did the best i could with what i could find on the internet um and so i did invite numerous people from email addresses i found from both Comcast and Astound and Comcast Xfinity and Astound. And I did not hear back from them, so I can try to get some better emails that we could get him to another meeting since if they're holding up a lot of this work But yeah, that's on me.

Thank you, Chair. Appreciate that info.

Yeah. So Council Scott, back to you. I'm sorry, Council Hardt, did you have more questions?

No, thank you.

Scott.

Thank you, thank you Mr. Chair. Well I am looking particularly...I think I've referenced polls 191-0 and Those are ones that I had actually included in the conditions to write a grant location permit for Eversource not too long ago. These are and leaning over pretty darn far. And in fact, the wires that connect across them go across the MBTA right away. They're hanging pretty low. One of these days an engine is going to snag those and then we're going to get multiple utility outages not just the Electrical service but also the commuter rail you know I just don't think that's a great situation so uh that one let's see um I believe the other one that's probably a grave concern to thousands of parents for our Genziano school 358-47 so I just want to put those numbers out there.

Hopefully somebody could open engines and take a look and tell me what the status on those polls are and who's next to go But I'd also, while folks are looking that up, I think it'd be a good time now to hear from Mr. Duan who submitted that item number three if we could sponsor him to speak? Sure

Well, first of all, I just want to say... Oh, I want to ask, actually. Do you all have like... I mean, you must have almost like a Street View type system, right? Where the polls... You can see which ones are really, really... Hideous looking and egregious. Well, you could probably just use Street View to do that but do you plug those like numbers in that are on the polls? Like did you have pictures of these polls in your data?

Not... No, not like actual pictures. We do have a system that marks out or shows where all the utility poles are. The utility pole number is where they are in relation you know underground infrastructure going up the pole risers things of that like a real-time photo um i think we use google maps yeah you can use this i was gonna say always do a site visit yep

Yeah. All right, so I'm We had some public comments come into the council that it's on this issue. So we had it sent to committee and this resident has been working diligently for a long time to get these issues addressed. It sounded like maybe They were addressed, right? There's a little confusion. Madam Clerk, can you just go to the agenda and pull up the email from the resident and then also unmute Resident Chris Dewan? and just like cue that cue it up to like the photos the photos page so like scroll down a little bit this was just he just sent these on for basic public comment but now we have Yeah, if you could just make that a little bigger. Yeah, that's fine. So and just unmute. Unmute. I am unmuted, sir. Yeah.

So yeah, Mr. Duan So thank you for coming and hopefully we can get this issue addressed. If it hasn't been already, I sound like there's some confusion whether it has been addressed But we appreciate you giving your resident account of how the situation has impacted you personally. So, we'd like to just turn it over to you to ask some questions or address some concerns while you have representatives here.

Yeah, thank you sir. I really appreciate it. I can confirm that the double utility pools at either end of the block where I live, the oldest of which had been doubled since 2015 are both now resolved. I think that the attention of the City Council got that fixed. I'm grateful. I don't think it's a great way to prioritize work in the city, particularly active residents driving the attention of the council, driving the intention of the companies but it did work to my benefit in this case so thank you for that. I will Start, I became interested in city things in the construction on Beacon Street. And I know that some folks have been Paying attention long enough to remember when they put in the new bike lane in August of 2018 and an Eversource poll, Eversourced had

Not been moving their poles in the way of that construction, which went on forever so long as I could tell. and eventually the crews who were putting in the bike lane just put it in and painted it green, and the pole was sitting in the middle of the bike line. And finally the news came, and that shame drove Eversource to prioritize finally moving the pole. So this is sort of the way that has conditioned my understanding of the situation, that it takes public shame to get these things done. In the letter that you're looking at there was work being done under the agenda item 209559 in 2020 early while we were still meeting in person. and there was this wire that was rubbing up against a mature big tree very near my house, and it would spark and smoke. And it was obviously because the power line was rubbing against the tree

and I spoke at the time to a representative from Eversource, and she assured me in person that it would be taken care of. that they would protect the tree, they would shift things around. It was not done as part of that work it was never done eventually the tree had to be removed as it became dangerous so It was incredibly frustrating to watch that happen, to see this sort of irreplaceable piece of civic infrastructure be destroyed through negligence. I would mention that somebody, I believe it was Eversource mentioned that there's a phone blast that goes out. I've lived where I live for 12 years we've had multiple replacements of all of these never once has my phone rung I if that is supposed to be the system it is incomplete at least as regards me so i would encourage uh the representatives should take that back

Take it with a grain of salt if people say they're alerting residents to maintenance outages. It is not happening, for me at least. and I would just conclude this with the fact that we have these conversations most city council meetings where we do grants of location and Councillor Scott has mentioned a couple of times that things were conditioned On making repairs and it is very, very rare in my experience that those repairs are actually made. So with Respect to all of the individuals in the room, I urge the Councillors to take with a grain of salt things that are said to them verbally in Council meetings and committee meetings. by the representatives of these companies because those are clearly not the people who do the work or follow up on it and there's a gap there which over time leads to an erosion of my trust at least that's I don't really have any particular questions for anybody but thank you for the opportunity to share that publicly.

Thank you, I'm glad to hear that was resolved obviously after a long Frustrating process. Well, thank you for weighing in on that. I can turn it back over to you, Councilor Scott. I have a little bit more on this but these folks have been pretty gracious with their time but if you have more questions go ahead and ask

Well, I appreciate that. You know, I did make the general ask there. I know that Ms. Kelleher and Mr. Wright, even Councilor Hardt has access to the engine system. So I'm just curious, did anybody happen to look up those three numbers that I listed out?

I have not at this moment, but I'm happy to do so. Maybe after or tomorrow, Councillor, we can connect and walk through those.

I suppose we can or you know the next time Eversource comes up for a grant to location we can talk about it then

Yeah, I can also drop in. I know I'm a frequent flyer at your office hours on Friday morning, so I'm happy to drop in then as well.

Sure. My concern is that several years ago we had a version of this conversation It sounds like the progress has been that many of the poles that existed at that time as documented by Jesse Moos were entered into engines, but that since then... We once again have reached a point of failure. It sounds like the agreement a year ago to place responsibility for removing the polls once all services had been transferred falls now to Verizon. which frankly I take as a good news piece because I've got more confidence in Verizon's ability to execute on these moves. I just, I remain baffled that this continues to be such a widespread problem that even though it is already state law that these things have to be moved, that we have an ongoing legislative process

effort taking place, House Bill 5562. And admittedly, Mr. Chair, this is nobody's problem here. This is something for me to take up with our state delegation. But even though the current state law requires all polls removed within 90 days, the current policy... that's in discussion here actually gets rid of that 90-day deadline and it is challenging for me to understand How I can look at my neighbors with a straight face and tell them that their concerns are in progress and being addressed. So, I will have to sit on this. Regardless of how we conclude this conversation tonight, sir, I personally don't feel like this has been addressed. I'd request that this be kept in committee so that we can come back to it perhaps after I get those updated documents have been requested.

As it stands, I'm grateful that it was acknowledged that it's not the city's responsibility to identify these things. It is not DPW's responsibility or engineering's responsibility. I appreciate the comment from Director Postlethwaite that When Eversource has been in the workflow of a municipal project that they have been more proactive about actually getting out of the way of those and conducting the work that they need to do. But this is not this is not a new issue it is not an issue in search of a solution we have solutions uh that just need to be implemented seems to be a theme for the so um

I continue to be frustrated and once I have those source documents, I think we'll be able to follow up more pointedly perhaps. Thank you.

So before we move on, Councilor Scott, to you and both Councilors Hardt. Because I think we all have our ideas about... We know there's a lot of polls as the representative said, Ms. Goldstein They'll never be at zero. What do you hope to get out of... I know we want to keep this a committee and we will, but what is it that you're... What do What would be a goal of this conversation? And I know these are just representatives and like Mr. Duan said, doesn't always translate back but

Speaking personally, sir, there's two different issues here. There is a workflow issue And we need to be sure that when these issues are being reported to Eversource about a leaning pole, about a double pole, entered into engines which was the case for very many years then there's no possibility for the system to actually work once that is once we're seeing that happen and maybe we are seeing that now I just don't have the documentation on it then uh reviewing that workflow right to say okay how many days from issuance to uh Service Transfer is it and we can pull that data right say okay for each given service with the goal being that maybe at the utmost that we're talking about

Six months from a time poll issue is observed to when it is resolved with a new poll and all services transferred. We heard from the representative from Verizon that they have an internal goal of 30 days, even if we gave them 60 days to get that thing polled. That's not an unreasonable timeframe to have these things resolved in six months. So I think ongoing, I would like to see process improvements that get us to that place. In the meantime, we also have polls that have been doubled for literal decades that continue to remain here in Somerville. and frankly, my frustration at that is hard to overstate. And there are limited penalties that we can incur but as has been my habit in recent years When these issues are not being addressed, I see no reason to exacerbate the situation by extending new grants of location when existing issues with grants of locations are not rectified.

Thank you. And you said that the new legislation, they're actually updating the current legislation to take away the 90 days?

Yes, sir. It's a little bit complicated. There is a House Bill 5562 which was it's a sweeping economic development bill There is language that certain state reps have embedded to help, uh, to basically create a working group that serves as an informational resource according to reporting from GBH. However there was also Mara Healy's Municipal Empowerment Act, which was H-56. That would have extended the time to 180 days and given municipalities the authority to enforce a $1,000 penalty on missed deadline there But that language has been removed. So there's a lot of moving pieces at the state level.

Got you. Dr. Hardt, anything else?

Yes, just to piggyback on what Councilor Scott was just saying and to your question. I appreciated what Mr. Duan said that We don't want to leave this to be incumbent upon residents who have the wherewithal to contact their counselor. So I would love to see a process where that everybody is on board with, that's addressing the double pole systematically. And then also what to do about ones that... do pose a particular problem and we haven't gotten there yet in the system, like a more direct response to things like that as well. But also the overall systematically going through them. So thank you.

Yeah, so thank you to the representatives. I just have a couple of sort of last final comments questions. So do you all does it sound like you all feel Confident that this new agreement with Verizon coupled with the sort of Self-report, like the recommitment to, as Conor Scott said, like that. The fact that you're really trying to use engines You know, in a much more aggressive way where maybe it wasn't getting used before. Is this all working towards like, do you all have an idea of like, could you come up with a plan? I know that like Ms. Goldstein said, you'll never be at zero because somebody could hit a car, a car could hit one tomorrow. So it's ever...

it's an ever fluid number but like are there any goals or like could we set a goal for a city like Somerville where you know over x amount of time like we could get that just the number to to um A much smaller number. So I guess it's two-part, do you all feel confident that these changes that are happening with regards to the onus being on Verizon having this agreement and is there plans because as you know like there is a state legislation are there plans to sort of set goals well I don't really care about any mostly just only care about Somerville so I'm asking you to Actually do that here in Somerville. We are a really dense city, really urban city as you saw from those pictures. In the case of Mr. Duan when it rained, the electrical wire was rubbing on a tree

and that's obviously a hazard so yeah if you could just speak to to that give us some hope here that things are going to improve because of these new agreements and and yeah, just what are you thinking?

So as it relates to the agreement that is something we did proactively. It's something that we wanted to work towards. Verizon is always You know, self-evaluating to find better processes and work towards shorter timeframes in addressing double poles. So that is something that working with Eversource on you know and the teams going back and forth to come to that agreement did take some time so and it's now that we're a year in we're starting to see some of of the returns on that, I think. As it relates to the constituents' photos, sometimes the people who live right there Thank you so much for joining us.

You know, whether that's to call Verizon or the city. We are dependent sometimes because they are, you know, the first ones to walk out of the door and notice something. But we, you To evaluate sometimes because there's so many attachments and facilities, it might not always be clear to the resident which company's attachments are the long hanging wires or whatever. It may be, but in my experience and working with some of the other companies whatever company is contacted a tech is you know sent out to evaluate or notify another company if it wasn't their wires the courtesy of letting the other company know and so that's how Verizon works with the companies if it's not

RYR, if a tech goes out you know I work with the other companies whether it's um you know um Comcast or whatever company maybe we communicate um we have we have a good communications

I know that you said it's only a year in with the agreement with National Grid, so it's going to take some time obviously to get a groove going with Eversource with this agreement. but do you envision like have you all already started talking about a plan to tackle certain areas as you know this is obviously there's a lot of Activity at the state level around this, it's something that's like long overdue. You guys are definitely playing catch up and it seems like there's some effort going into this. Do you... What I'm saying is like, you should pilot Somerville. You guys should pilot some role. You could be heroes like, just cut that 120 number down to 60 and whatever. Aboff,

I'm trying to figure out if you all have a holistic plan to really attack the issue or if it is just kind of Get their report, you know. And then like this goal scene was saying, we had to put another double pull up as an emergency. How are we going to get that number down?

Yeah, and Chair, one thing that I've had success with in some of the other cities and towns is establishing what we'll call a working group where A contact or representative from each utility or company, again cable you know private comms and we'll have a quarterly meeting. We'll obviously be working all from the same list and in essence, we'll work down that. A rep from the city will usually attend. In prior cities I've had mayors, I've council presidents or the appropriate counselor depending on the committee That way we're all, in essence, in the room together whether it's physically or virtually and we say okay these are the ten priorities for said city and town. Get an understanding of who's next to go on these polls and focus in on those. So that's been an effective way or tool that I've seen work firsthand It's about the cities and towns.

I think that's an approach that we could... And again, understanding we have these standing meetings with the city where... communicating with various reps from the city on an almost daily basis. Understanding and aligning on that, I think would be a good first step and certainly invite A. Councilor, you know, Councilor Scott or the appropriate councilor to Be part of that. I know Council Scott's been active on this before. We've talked through this, so I think... He's on his way out. He quit.

I still know where he lives, though. Councilor Hardt will do it. Ms. Goldstein, did you have something you want to add to that?

No, I think Jason said it well. I want to just emphasize that it's a... Collective effort of all the utilities along with the city so you've only got two utilities here and that's not by no means am I trying to throw any other utility under the bus. because I certainly wouldn't want them to do the same to us. However, I've always emphasized and I've had two double poll meetings in the last month with other municipalities. I did exactly... I joined these meetings exactly as Jason is articulating and we've had Again, these in large cities and small towns. A lot of work has been done. I have seen that there's more of an emphasis. I can tell you historically you know just over time I've seen more of an emphasis on this issue from Eversource Again, case by case and each pole, you know, is there's no pole is alike. Right. And it all depends on what is what is on their attachments and even the type of construction of the pole in the location.

But there are a lot of eyes on this, and we can make a commitment today for what we have control over. I will say that we can do that.

That's why I just worry that someone was getting like a short end of the stick because it's so I will say, forgive me for interrupting but a hundred and something polls in a large city like Somerville you're actually relatively speaking Well, when you say large we're 4.3 square miles I mean we're like a postage stamp compared to other cities Councilor Scott, you've been waiting Thank you Mr.

Chair I just wanted to share a photo and ask a specific question here So I'm going to grab the screen for a second. I'm just going to check and see, you know, this particular example of the double pole, you can see down here in the corner that's right in front of the elementary school How long is a good time for a poll to remain in that condition? Mr. Wright, do you have an opinion?

I don't know that we could speak to that in terms of how long it can stay in that position. But if there's safety concerns, I would encourage and this has happened in other towns your public safety officials to give us a call. We'll have folks go out there and take a look but we're off the poll just to be clear.

Oh, certainly, certainly. You know, I can see here that wires from this pole are actually laying on city infrastructure there, the pole that has the The street lights mounted to it. You know, kids walk underneath this every day on their way to school and back. Not for nothing, this photo was taken in August of 2024. This is the current Street View in Google but having Taking my kids to school this morning, I can assure you it's still in this condition. So what's my timeline on expecting that to change?

I don't know that we can answer because it's not every source that's on the poll to my if i'm looking at it yeah it's hard to tell it looks like there's only one and only one service one attachment on the bottom yeah miss keller do you recognize that service

It's unclear to me in this photo, but are you able to zoom in on the poll number?

Oh, I absolutely can. I'm so glad you asked. It's the one that I referenced twice earlier in this meeting, 358-47. Okay.

I can certainly look that up for you and see where it is in the process.

Okay. So, Mr. Chair I've got a few others that I might since I didn't get responses on those earlier Let's just zoom right over here. We can take a look at 191-0. Does that does that look like a good poll to y'all? Here, let me back up a little bit so you can see it better. Does that look like a problem or not?

So I don't know that we can really have the authority as to whether, one thing I will say and I wanted to talk about leaning poles There's a tension between polls. So if we straighten out a poll, another poll is going to be leaning. I'm not insinuating that polls need to lean. We can certainly take a look at that poll number and have our operations take a and answer the question in terms of integrity. I don't know that neither myself, Jason or Tatum could answer that question tonight.

Okay, well you're right. Polls do pull on each other. In fact if we go down Kent Street here the next poll is also leaning over that looks to be a good 15-20 degree angle 191-1 was another one I referenced which also has a nice lean and as we go down here hey this one right here at the end also has good bend in it's starting to get down pretty close to that Rail, Right-of-Way. And I happen to know that these other two polls down on Kent Street on the other side also are problems. Those are problems that have been identified as far back as 2023 That's polls 190-1 and 190-2. And those are both marked on my 2024 list as ready to remove all transfers complete as of April 27, 2023. I don't suppose anybody could tell me if 190-1 and 190-2 actually have been removed yet, have they?

I'm glad to hear it.

Mr. Chair, I just had to put it up there because I think sometimes folks don't understand just how Embarrassing. I mean, I'd be embarrassed if it was my job This is and how ridiculous it is to be talking about this as if these are questionable Thank you. I'm going to let it go for now. I think my blood pressure is high enough. Thank you everybody for taking the time.

Duly noted. Councilor Haag, go ahead.

Thank you. Just quickly while we have everybody in the room I was wondering if somebody here knows who the contacts are for RCN, Comcast, so that we can be sure to get the right person to follow up with.

I don't know there's been some turnover at Comcast but we can um

Yeah, I got a couple bounce backs like from email.

I don't know if the people left or what but yeah there's been some turnover that we can take as an action item to follow up on appropriate government affairs or community relations folks at some of the other utilities

We do have a contact at Comcast that attended a joint meeting with a municipality recently. I don't know whether this is their territory, but we can certainly inquire as to who's responsible for this territory. Thank you. Great.

Okay. Well, I think that'll do it for this evening. Appreciate your time. Appreciate you coming. I would leave with an emphasis to say that it'd be really cool if Yeah, it'd be great if you guys come up with an action plan for like bringing down that number specifically in summer. We'll call it a pilot where I don't know. because our focus is Somerville and as you've seen, some of these polls look really unsafe. They're leaning. I mean Kent Street looks like a case where you could just maybe have to do the whole street all at once. But yeah, so we here you know I know that you guys have these working groups and I know you're in touch with Brian and other folks within the city but we as counselors we have our constituents come directly to us. And, you know, so we hear it.

So that's why we take these issues really seriously and somewhat personally as far as our awards go and just getting these things addressed. So appreciate you taking the time. We may do this again in the near future if you're willing to. If we can work the scheduling out, it'd be great to have all of the The representatives, but it sounds like we have some as counselors, like some legwork in the sense of, like you said, talking to the mayor's office and see if they want to set up some sort of working group or something where there could be regular... check-ins and do that so all right well thank you very much for this evening I really appreciate your time and with that madam clerk anything else from anybody

If I may, Councilor. I just want to say thank you for your time, your advocacy on this issue. I will say it's a priority for myself. I see a double pole when I'm driving around Somerville. I make note of it as well. To say that no progress has been made respectfully I think is a little misleading. I think this has always been number one in my queue when we have our internal calls is double polls because I know it's a sensitive issue for the mayor's office, for the engineers obviously for the council Regarding safety, if somebody calls in a safety issue, we start every meeting at Eversource literally with the safety brief. I don't want it to be... thought of that you know if there's a concern with the double pole and phone calls made that it's not addressed we have troubleshooters that actively respond they're called troubleshootters just for that reason you know

Eversource Respond so uh and then just lastly you know again consider me a resource for the council I know your constituents reach out to you you know don't hesitate to reach out my cell phone numbers in the email um always happy to assist

as needed so again I just want to thank the council for that time appreciate that uh madam clerk so um we're going to work complete item three discharge that you know um Public comment. And then we are going to keep items four and five in committee, please. And so we'll just need to vote on the minutes and the adjournment discussion on the Minutes colleagues from last meeting. So you have everything?

Yes, I've got it all.

All right, cool. Yeah, so just call the roll on adjournment in the minutes.

All

Yes, please.

Councilor Hardt? Yes. Chair Clingan? Yes All right with that that is all votes in favor of approval and it is 7 59 pm and we are adjourned great thank you everybody good night