total time: 8.86 minutes
total words: 175
total time: 1.03 minutes
total words: 96
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Good afternoon, this is Stephanie Muccini-Burke, and I'm coming to you live from the mayor's office. I wanted to have this opportunity to speak to you about some of the work of the various transition teams that I put together early in my, well, actually right after the election. With me today are members of the Constituent Service Committee, and they comprise Paul Camuso, who was our chairperson, Elisa Cantor, Beth Folks, Chris Murphy, and Joe Bruno. And there are several others that I'll list, John Greco, Neil Osborne, Laurel Bruma, David Klein, and Rachel Tienenhaus. This committee was tasked with meeting with various constituencies throughout the city in order to determine how best we can communicate with our citizens as well as our citizens with us. So I'll have Paul Camuso, the chair, say a few words about the meetings that were held.
[Paul Camuso]: Thank you, Mayor Burke. And it is a pleasure to be here today. You know, early on after the mayor was elected, she put together these teams. And right off the bat, she was adamant that we make sure that we include all different areas of this community, as well as the different demographics. And I think that based upon the meetings that we had, the survey that was put out and completed by over 300 residents, as well as the public meetings, I think we accomplished that task. The report that the mayor is going to highlight I think is inclusive of many areas where the city as well as the different department heads can improve as well as a focus on making sure that we're here to have the needs of each and every constituent met. I want to once again thank the mayor and look forward to working with her administration as we move this city forward. It's been an honor to serve with my fellow members here and once again thank you Mayor Burke.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you, Mr. Camuso. Well, I need to mention that they held several community meetings throughout the city. And I believe Paul just mentioned about 150 citizens attended those meetings. And they were held throughout the community. So they really did their best to reach out to the citizens to determine what the needs are and how would they like City Hall to be better for them. And we used Facebook. We used Twitter. We used our city website to try and get people to these meetings and the survey captured these citizens that were unable to attend. And from that survey and the work of this committee, we have several recommendations that have been made and that we will definitely attempt to implement in the very near future. One has to do with voicemail. We've heard it over the last few years, the need for voicemail in our community. People do not like the phone ringing ten times and then jumping to another person and maybe ringing additional times. So I have been working with our system, the phone company that deals with our system, and they are very close to coming into each department to determine how we can set up the voicemail system to best achieve what we need from the city. We want to be responsive, and we also want to make sure that the citizens' issues are being attended to in a timely manner. So along with having voicemail, we will also have a policy implemented so that every employee of the city knows what their requirements are for reaching back out to the citizens. And if I could just add, that would apply to email as well. So when we receive an email, it's our job to reach back out to you in order to accomplish the goal of transparency in our community. and correcting the problem that's at stake here. Also there's an issue that was overhauling our city's website. I think you've already seen some changes that we've made to our website and there will be more to come. One having to do with the citywide calendar and that was in place and we are getting reports from our various committees and our various boards and commissions So they are now submitting to the mayor's office their calendar items and we are posting them along with the minutes subsequent to their meetings. So we're definitely on board with that and we are working to fulfill that promise that we will include all the boards and commissions. Another item was to develop a comprehensive communication strategy and social media presence. And I hope that the citizens, I hope that you've noticed that we are trying to reach out to you and we are trying to provide information in a very timely, manner so that you know what's going on in our community. And please follow us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and you'll get even more information as well as the city's website. Another thing is adding a staff member to deal with constituent issues and we have named Lauren Felch to be our constituent liaison in this office. So if you're having trouble with a given department or you just feel like people aren't hearing your issue, call the mayor's office, ask for Lauren and she will assist you and she will make sure that the issue is taken seriously and answered as well. Implementing an online or telephone-based constituent reporting services and I'm very proud to announce that we have been working with CClickFix to bring the program in its full capacity to the city of Bedford. And we actually have a meeting scheduled for next Wednesday night in the council chambers from 5 to 6 p.m. And if you'd like to come on down, they're going to show you how to download the app to your phone. how to work it from the computer, and also see some interactive information on what we have been testing internally. So I'm really proud to announce that it will go live next Wednesday night, so please come on down. We're going to videotape that session as well, and that will be posted up to our website. The other thing is organizational charts for all of our departments and we are working on that. It's also going to be part and parcel of the budget that we present this year. So the work that's being done for that will play a role in two different avenues, one with our budget and one online so that you know who the staff are and who to reach out to for your given concerns. The last one is to do more to actively engage in the city's minority and non-English speaking population. As you may know, if you do not speak English as your primary language and you call City Hall, there is a line that we're able to connect to in order to provide a service to us so that we each can understand one another. That has been in place. It hasn't been used that greatly, but it definitely is in place. And we're also working on the website so that it translates into different languages. And we do have that going in a few. We're working on creating it for much more. As you know, our community is very diverse. and we need to reach out to all the citizens, not some of the citizens. So we will work on that and we vow that we will accomplish that goal. And there was another item that was a little off constituent service, but they mentioned it, they felt it important to put into their report, which was assessing and improving traffic patterns and pedestrian safety across the city. And as you may realize, the city signed a compact with the Commonwealth of Mass, and one of them is called the Complete Streets Program. And the idea behind Complete Streets is allowing people on pedestrians, bicycles, transit users, cars, trucks, buses, everyone to be able to coexist in a safe manner. So we signed a compact with them. We are now a priority for funding from the Commonwealth of Mass for our roads. And we will be utilizing that and submitting certain streets in order to be funded through that mechanism, as well as our Chapter 90 allotment. But whenever we do do repairs, we will be incorporating a complete streets methodology and including our bike head committee and our arts community and the citizens of Medford at large to make sure that we fulfill that promise. We will be posting this report online as soon as this press conference is completed. And so please feel free to check it out and also the results from the poll. It's quite an intense document. It shows you all the questions, who answered them, the percentage from each part of our city, as well as the age bracket and own, rent, all the differentiations throughout the whole. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Curtis Tootin's name. He helped us put this survey together. He helped the committee. And he also accumulated the data. So a big shout out to Curtis, who works up at Medford High, for assisting us in getting this complete. Lastly, I just have a couple of announcements. If you are coming to visit City Hall, we have declared visitor spots right out front of this building. So all the spaces that face City Hall at the front entrance can be used by our visitors. And we want to make it easy for you to come in and out and not have to struggle with parking. So certainly come on down and please, we ask that you actually use the front. It is a better location for you to park. Lastly, I have a really new announcement. I met with the Comcast team today and we will be working on going live streaming for our meetings. So city council meetings and school committee meetings are being worked on so that we can come live to you and you can watch it on demand through some of our websites. So we've listened, we've heard, and we are acting. Be patient with us. We're trying to do it, and we're trying to implement changes in the way that we communicate with you. So if you have any great ideas, please feel free to call our office. This doesn't end today. Really, the implementation starts today. But I urge all of the committee members to stay involved and offer their suggestions, as well as you, the citizens. So please, feel free. Call our office with an idea. And we will listen and take it seriously. So once again, I'd like to thank the transition team members for all their hard work. They gave up many a night. to meet with you the public and amongst themselves so that they could come up with this report that will be posted tonight.
|
total time: 8.86 minutes total words: 175 |
total time: 1.03 minutes total words: 96 |
||