[McCabe]: I believe that everyone is muted at this point, but it's always the start of a zoom meeting where I wonder if I'm if I have audio so.
[Unidentified]: Good evening.
[Jim Lister]: Good evening, everyone. I'm going to wait till 5 after.
[Dufour]: Hi. I can't change my name right now. That's a little bit of a problem.
[8D6g1gdpE1E_SPEAKER_12]: You should be good to go now.
[Jim Lister]: Couple minutes. All right, I got four after, but want to get started? All right, call the meeting to order. Seth, do you still have background noise?
[Hill]: That was just incidental stuff that you were unmuted and I could hear you, so some folks seemed to question whether or not we're able to hear, but it was just background noise. It wasn't bothering or anything.
[Jim Lister]: All right, all right, okay. I'm in a room, quiet room by myself, so okay. All right, thank you. All right, we're gonna get started. Tonight's format, I think instead of the open format, we'll raise hands to be recognized. and can I get a volunteer to just point out to me if I don't see the raised hands, just say there's someone with a hand up so I don't miss anybody. Would anybody like to do that for me?
[LaFleur]: I can try to do it.
[Jim Lister]: Okay, thank you. I don't mind either. If you see a hand raised, just let me know.
[Hill]: All right. All right. uh, point of information. Are we actually physically raising our hands or are we trying to use the, uh, the zoom reaction?
[Jim Lister]: Well, either off is good for me. I could see you raising hand, but the zoom reaction, I might miss that. I'll see if I guess I'd see it. Fair enough. Okay.
[LaFleur]: I think some people didn't have the zoom reaction in the last meeting either. So, okay. I'll look for both.
[Jim Lister]: All right. Thank you. Thanks. All right.
[Kathleen Kay]: And it only gets cumbersome if we have more than one page of people. Right now we only have one page, so it's a little bit easier.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. All right. The first is the packet. It was brought to my attention. We should have all received an open meeting laws packet originally when we all got appointed. So there would have been no questions about what the emails that went back and forth. We have sent out packets for everyone to read and sign and acknowledge that they understand. So please sign your copy and get it back the sooner the better, but you know, as soon as possible. All right. Has everyone had a chance to review the minutes of the previous meeting? They were put on, I think yesterday or today. Are there any corrections in the minutes or can I get an approval to accept the minutes?
[McCabe]: Somebody like to make a motion to approve the minutes? Point of order, Mr. Chair. I think Lisa had said something about the notes not being able to be approved this week because it was not posted as part of the- So Lisa said she couldn't post them until I got them approved.
[Jim Lister]: So that's why they were sent out to you to read so that tonight you could approve them. Okay, great. So then they will be posted, official. Excellent. Okay, thank you.
[Kathleen Kay]: I think, Lisa, do you have your hand up?
[Evangelista]: Yeah, I just, Jim, you should probably just do a roll call to see who's in before you do anything else.
[Jim Lister]: Okay, thank you.
[Evangelista]: I mean, I have an alpha list or if you want, whatever.
[Jim Lister]: I have a list, I just have to take it out.
[Evangelista]: No problem.
[Jim Lister]: Thank you, because we're Zoom, we should. Okay, can I take attendance, please? Brie Brothers? Here. Ian Puccio? Here. Erin Genia? Here. Beth Fuller? I think Beth had a conflict, right? So Beth's not here. Great, excuse me.
[Giovino]: She's here, she's muted.
[Jim Lister]: All right, I'm sorry. Oh, I see, she's here, I'm sorry. Thank you, Beth is here. Grace Caldera?
[Caldera]: Hi, I'm here.
[Jim Lister]: Okay, thank you. Hendrick?
[Caldera]: Here.
[Jim Lister]: Jim Lister here. Kenneth Mallon?
[8D6g1gdpE1E_SPEAKER_12]: Here.
[Jim Lister]: Kristen Scalise?
[Evangelista]: Here.
[Jim Lister]: Laura Rotolo.
[Evangelista]: Here.
[Jim Lister]: Thank you. Leroy LaFleur. I am here. Lewin Tapa. Here. Maria Rocha.
[Miguel]: Here.
[Jim Lister]: Melissa McGill.
[Miguel]: Present.
[Jim Lister]: Patrick McKay. Here. Paul Donato Jr.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here.
[Jim Lister]: Ron Giovino.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here.
[Jim Lister]: Seth Hill. Kathy Kay. Present. Matthew Havistrop. Here. Kaitlin Shaughnessy. I don't see her.
[Kathleen Kay]: I think she might be late again tonight.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. Thank you. Janelle Garland McKenzie.
[Rocha]: Here.
[Jim Lister]: And Josie DeFore.
[Unidentified]: Here.
[Jim Lister]: All right, thank you. So everybody but Caitlin right now. Okay, thank you. Back to the minutes. Everyone's had a chance to read the minutes. Can I get a motion to approve the minutes?
[SPEAKER_23]: Motion to approve.
[Jim Lister]: Can I get a second? Second. All right, all those in favor?
[Evangelista]: I'm sorry, I have to interrupt. Whoever approved, can you say your name and the second, because I have to record that and I, I'm sorry, everybody yet, okay?
[Jim Lister]: All right, so the motion was made.
[Evangelista]: We'll have to take a roll call. Okay, sorry, bye.
[Jim Lister]: That's all right. Lou, did you make the motion?
[SPEAKER_23]: I did, Lou Antwapa.
[Jim Lister]: And you seconded it?
[SPEAKER_23]: I seconded it.
[Jim Lister]: I'm sorry, who seconded the motion?
[fvIk50DtTTc_SPEAKER_06]: Paul Donato Jr.
[Jim Lister]: Thank you, Paul. Okay, now I'll go down the list for a roll call, I guess.
[McCabe]: Mr. Chair, I have a correction to make to the minutes though.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[McCabe]: The motion that I made was not captured. It looks like it's a partial motion. Who is that? What's that?
[Evangelista]: Who's speaking right now?
[McCabe]: This is Patrick McCabe speaking.
[Evangelista]: Okay. If you can send me what you'd like added, um, Grace sent me hers and Laura sent me hers. And that's what I've done with school committee as well. So if you can send me the, uh, the motion, the way you want it, I will, um, do, I will amend it in the notes and you guys can. choose to accept it with that amendment, or you can table the notes and, um, I, I, I, I, I withdraw that proposed amendment.
[McCabe]: I just, I, we need, we need to keep things moving. I just, uh, I'll, um, yeah, let's keep it moving motion.
[Evangelista]: The committee, please take a roll call. No words. Okay.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. Roll call. Right? Yes. Lisa, you're coming in broken. I'm getting high for what you're saying, sorry.
[Evangelista]: I think because I shut my, because I played with the mute button. No, I just mean in the future and every meeting, just so everybody's aware, if you make a motion, please send me your wording after the meeting so it's appropriate in the notes, okay?
[Jim Lister]: All right, sounds good, thank you.
[Evangelista]: Thank you.
[Jim Lister]: Okay, so on the motion to approve the minutes. Reed brothers?
[Brothers]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Dan Puccio? Dan Puccio. He's giving the thumbs up.
[8D6g1gdpE1E_SPEAKER_12]: Give me a thumbs up.
[Jim Lister]: I'm sorry.
[McCabe]: I don't see him on my screen. Aaron Genia. I think he needs to be made a co-host. OK, someone just did that.
[8D6g1gdpE1E_SPEAKER_12]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Beth Fuller.
[8D6g1gdpE1E_SPEAKER_12]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Grace Caldera. Yes. Hendrick. Yes. I missed that. Okay. Henry, can you pronounce your last name for me? I'm sorry. I'm afraid to.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Sure. It's Gideons. So just put your thumb over the E and then it makes much more sense.
[Jim Lister]: Okay.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: The E is pesky.
[Jim Lister]: Gideons. All right. Thank you. Yep. Tachibot. Yes. Kenneth Mallon.
[8D6g1gdpE1E_SPEAKER_12]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Kristen Scalise. Yes. Laura Rotolo. I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. Laura Ritolo.
[McCabe]: Laura's muted.
[Rotolo]: Thank you. I wasn't able to unmute for a minute. It was telling me the host has disabled that, but yes.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. Thank you. Lou and Tapa. Yes. Maria Rocha.
[Brothers]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Melissa Miguel. She gave a thumbs up. Okay. Patrick? Aye. Paul? Yes. Ronald?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Seth? Yes. Kathy? Yes. Matthew? Yes. Caitlin? She's not here. Janelle?
[Caldera]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Josie?
[Caldera]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Okay.
[LaFleur]: I don't know if you called me, but yes.
[Jim Lister]: Thank you. All right. All right, the rubric's results were out today. Before I get into that, there was a mistake. I'm responsible for, Arthur Dello Russo was taken off the list before we moved that list. There's an Arthur Dello Russo and a Frederick Dello Russo, and they were both past mayors of the city of Medford. And there was some confusion as to Alfred, who's still alive. And that's why the names were taken off. The name was taken off the list. So I would ask that in all fairness, after we come up with a top seven or eight, that we add Arthur Dello Russo's name back to the list for further consideration. Does anyone have a problem with that?
[Rotolo]: Under information, it was my understanding that we had come up with a list of top 15 per the resolution we voted on.
[Jim Lister]: We can agree on 15, that's fine. I mean, did you see the way the grades worked out? We had a top 10, but we can talk 15. I have no problem with that.
[McCabe]: And I'll raise my hand, sorry. Yes. Yeah, so I think the way that the top 15 falls out is there's three people tied for 15, so there's no tiebreaker. So that would give us 17. And I guess I think that's a smart way to look at it, Jim, is that we just automatically put Al Dello Russo. So my recommendation, I'd say, I'd like to make a motion that we have 18 names, the top 15, which turns out to be 17, and then L. de la Russo gets added to that list for our discussion.
[Jim Lister]: Okay, so it's for clarification, it's Arthur de la Russo was the name submitted. Arthur, yes. And you know, there is also a Frederick that was mayor, but we're talking about Arthur, so.
[McCabe]: So my motion would be to include the top 17 on the score sheet and then Arthur Delarusso for the consideration for the rest of the night.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. Is there a point? Seconds, I'm sorry.
[Hill]: Just a point of information for folks to reference the sheet. That would take us up to Pache Sulo, those 17.
[Jim Lister]: Can we, before we do that, can we, let me get a second if this is gonna go and then we'll discuss it, okay?
[Evangelista]: Who made the motion?
[Jim Lister]: Patrick McCabe. Patrick McCabe.
[Kathleen Kay]: Am I able to ask a question about the list?
[Jim Lister]: Let me get a second first and then we will discuss it. Okay, I can tell you.
[Giovino]: Okay, we have a second. Point of information.
[Jim Lister]: Yes.
[Giovino]: There's a resolution on our agenda that addresses part of this piece. So in order of, I think we should separate the Arthur Dello Russo being added as a finalist resolution from what number we're gonna settle on. So that would be my suggestion. I think we should just separate.
[Jim Lister]: That would be an amendment to this motion that I would say.
[Giovino]: Well, I would say if somebody wants to make a resolution that Arthur Dello Russo is automatically a finalist, whatever number it is, we should be able to vote on that.
[Jim Lister]: So why don't we vote, yeah, why don't we have a motion for the 15? to be 17, and then Arthur was added after the fact. So why don't we vote on Arthur first?
[Giovino]: Point of information, I don't want to make this any lengthier. There's a resolution on the agenda that talks about 10. So I don't want to jump the gun here, but the resolution talks about 10. If we vote on 15, I just think we need to do the Arthur de la Ruzo thing, and then we can come together on a number that we want.
[Kathleen Kay]: And I do have a point of information as well. It wasn't one of my names to vet, but I did see a Dello Russo on the list. Was that not the one we're talking about?
[Jim Lister]: It is, but it came off when we were talking about living in the city.
[Giovino]: It was not assigned to a member, is the way.
[Jim Lister]: Oh, OK.
[Giovino]: To be rated.
[Jim Lister]: OK.
[Brothers]: Maria has her hand up.
[Jim Lister]: Hold on, Pat. Who had their hand up?
[LaFleur]: Maria does.
[Jim Lister]: Maria.
[Rocha]: I don't understand why we would be automatically adding Dello Russo to the finalists. I feel as though we had a procedure in terms of research and I understand not wanting to prolong this process. However, it feels unwise for us to just simply add a name because it got cut off and that can get dicey in terms of like other names.
[Jim Lister]: So we left off accidentally. left off accidentally, and a remedy would be to add it at this point. Another remedy would be to scrap the whole thing and do it over.
[Haberstroh]: Point of information, Mr. Lister? Yes. I just want to clarify. You're saying was left off on the final? Was mistakenly taken off as living. OK, I understand. But are you saying that he actually made this list of top 15, a.k.a. 17? Did he make that list, that top list?
[Jim Lister]: He wasn't even on the list of people to be vetted because he was eliminated before. Okay. That's all. I'm just, you know. Sure.
[LaFleur]: I see you, Ron. I also have my hand up. I think my question is similar to the one that was just asked. So what I'm hearing is that he hasn't been scored at all, and it does seem a little bit odd to add him into the scoring. if he has not been scored at all, considering that everybody else has been scored.
[McCabe]: correct. So the reason why I'm putting forward that motion is in the spirit of moving forward as quickly as possible. I think that, you know, the only alternative, I don't think the only alternative is scrapping. I mean, we could assign five people randomly and they can go off and rank this person, but we're going to lose 15, 20, 30 minutes while five people go back and rank this person. So that's the alternative that I see is to spend 15 to 30 minutes for five people to do their assessment of him.
[LaFleur]: Ryan had his hand up. Go ahead.
[Giovino]: I'm just thinking for the general public here and the person that we're missing. Irregardless of who the person was, it kind of voids the whole process because someone was taken out inappropriately. The only resolutions to my mind are what Jim has suggested, because we're gonna have to, you know, the people on the top 15, some of us, did not have any say on how they got to the 15th. So they're on the list, whether you like them or not, we don't even know because only 25% of everybody got to vet that person. So the Arthur Dello Russo omission is the only way to fix this is by putting them on as a finalist and go through the process just as another name. Otherwise you are looking at scrapping it because it's just, it's completely invalid.
[Jim Lister]: Right. Can we vote on The motion that we have to be 18. Is everybody all set with that? We can move this motion. Did I get a second? Second, Grace. Thank you, Grace.
[Caldera]: Thank you.
[Jim Lister]: Any more discussion? We're all set on discussion.
[Rotolo]: The motion on the table is that instead of 15 we have a top. 18, including Arthur deliver so or not including, so it would be.
[McCabe]: If you look at the list, if you look at the score for number 15, it's the same score as number 16 and number 17, like Seth had said, down to Achilles Sulu. So those would be 17, and then we would add Dello Russo, so we would have 18 finalists.
[Rotolo]: So then I would have an amendment, a proposed amendment to Mr. Lister's motion would be that in the next few days we assign randomly five people to- But there's no, you can't propose any amendments now because it's a motion on the floor. All right, so then this is just discussion, I suppose. Another idea would be to assign five people randomly to rank Arthur de la Russo, and if he receives a nine or above, which would be tied, right, for the bottom three, that he would be put automatically into the list, but only if he receives a nine or above.
[LaFleur]: Thank you, Laura. I see Ron waving and raising.
[Giovino]: Right. So, I have two points. First off, it doesn't cost anything to put out the dollar was on the list. Number one, number two is I don't know if you all looked at the schedule but you know, to get to the end of the month and have a decision, this adds another piece to the prize. You know, we'd have to come back, we'd have to vote on the list, then we'd have to open it up to the public. But I'm also concerned that the way, you know, there is a resolution on our agenda that should come before any of this discussion about 17, 18, 19, 20. So again, my resolution, I think the resolution should be, does Arthur Dello Russo become a finalist? That's one vote. Then we can move on through the agenda.
[McCabe]: I think on the other one, Ron, I'm sorry, I'm going out of order. I think Josie had her hand up. Josie here.
[Dufour]: Well, it was my understanding that the next like step in the process was to, was for us to like, look through the names that made the top 15, 18, and we would like vote through those. So the whole committee would score them, sorry, whole committee would score them. And, um, so if we added Arthur Delarosa's name onto it, I think it would be fine because we're still scoring him along with the names.
[Jim Lister]: Thank you. So there's three motion, three resolutions on the floor tonight that also we did the rubrics. Now the next resolution involves, it's another exercise in looking at the names. And then there's two more that are offered that are, exercises in survey and in, I believe the fourth one was to let the kids at the school vote. So I think they all play into, I really, I don't want to get into debating the first list until we've had the other three exercises. So let's vote up this first one. We're in the middle of voting this, the 18, by inserting out of the De La Rosa number 18. Can we go through and vote this, and then we'll get on to the next resolution?
[Giovino]: As a point of information, I mean, I'm just trying to understand the rules. Last week, we went in order by resolution, and we took Dr. Grace's resolution first. This supersedes my resolution, so I have a concern with talking about 17 and 18. That may be the number, but there's a resolution out here that should be followed first.
[Caldera]: Uh, point of order. Are you, um, is Ron, are you asking that we postpone this discussion until after your resolution has been voted on or are we severing the motion?
[Jim Lister]: So we have to vote the motion. It would be a no. If you don't want to go through with the 18 and then we'll go to the next resolution.
[Giovino]: just point of information. I'm saying that procedurally we're in error. I don't care what the result is, but going forward, I think you know, we should be talking about severing the issue of Arthur Dello Russo being a finalist, then move to my resolution, which will accomplish what all of you are looking for, which is settling on a number. But to jump my resolution, I just think is out of procedure from what we did last week.
[Caldera]: The point of order, we need to go in what is already listed on the agenda, and thus we need to maintain that current order, which has, First to collect aggregate rubric evaluations from the community and then discuss how to solicit public information. Then it comes to your resolution and then resolution on public participation. So we can move to sever the current resolution and take up yours out of order or we continue this discussion.
[McCabe]: Point of order, the old business comes before new business. So the 17 is just a clarification of the motion that we made last week. The motion we made last week was for the top 15. So if you cut it off at the score where the top 15 is, there's two other people that are tied. There's three people that are tied. So it's just a clarification of the motion from last week is what the 17 is. So, I mean, I think you're right. I mean, as far as the argument about adding Dello Russo being new business before the committee, but the 17 is just a clarification of the motion from last week. So I, you know, if you want to, I can sever it, but I mean, I, I think it's totally in order for us to go down to 17, just to clarify that last week we said 15 and 16 and 17 are tied. They're all tied for 15.
[Giovino]: So can, can someone show me in the resolution? I don't have it in front of me where it says the rating system will be binding to the top 15. I don't see that.
[LaFleur]: I don't think, I don't think it, maybe I'm talking out of order. I don't think it says that it's binding, but- Nothing's binding.
[Giovino]: Well, just for the fact that we're making the top 17 those people, that means that that rating system was binding, does it not?
[Jim Lister]: Well, in that exercise.
[Giovino]: So let me say that in that exercise, we're gonna have- There's no resolution on the table yet that says the top 15 ranked there is the list. We don't have that.
[Caldera]: There doesn't need to be, excuse me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that since we already voted on this previous resolution that stated the top 15 or an event of a tie, this is what happens. That is a binding resolution that is bringing us forward and that is what we're following. Until the resolution no longer exists, which it currently does as we voted it in last week. And so that is what we're moving on.
[Giovino]: Point of information. I just would like someone to show me where the resolution says that the fact that I did not get to rate all people on that list, that that list becomes binding. I don't remember seeing it. If somebody wants to show me that we voted on it.
[Jim Lister]: Everything we're doing is non-binding. This whole committee is non-binding.
[Giovino]: No, I got it, but I don't remember it saying, I understand the exercise. The final piece was the top 15 that were ranked, we're not necessarily gonna be binding, right? So now you're saying that we're gonna make 17, 18 of the top of that rating system binding. That's my point.
[Hill]: Point of order. So I'm just going to read from the resolution that we passed last week. whether or not the information is binding or not. Yes, we could put forward any names, but from a parliamentary procedure, this is what we passed. And number five, the 15 submissions receiving the highest average score advanced to consideration by the whole advisory committee. We will then So we're going to, all of the committee is going to review all of the names that advance. Number six, the advisory committee conducts additional research and solicits public input.
[McCabe]: Number seven. I withdraw my motion. I withdraw my motion. The motion of the, the, what we passed last week does bring us down to 17. Thank you for clarifying.
[Jim Lister]: Thank you. All right, we're back to Ata De La Rucha. We wanna hold him and go to the next resolution, because it's part of Ron's resolution. Anybody's hand up?
[LaFleur]: So can we... I don't see any hands, but the glare on my screen has gotten horrible.
[Jim Lister]: So we can move to Ron's resolution.
[Scalise]: Can I ask a question? Yes. Especially with these, the local figures, there is not a lot about them. And I struggled to find information on some of the people whom I was assigned and was not that familiar with, but I was able to. I was just doing a search for Mr. Dello Russo. and I can find practically nothing. So I don't even know how, you know, we're expected to vote on some of these. The most information is on a website that looks like it was made by a, it's a nice way to say it, a muckraker. It's not, obviously not a legitimate source of information and I wouldn't want to use that in my research, but how would we even go about you know, I struggle with that. And if we're going to put another person on to rank who there's not a lot of information about online or how are we going to rank it? Before we rank more, how should I, how should we rank?
[Jim Lister]: If we left him off inadvertently, if we put him back on, then through the process, he won't rise to the top of the list. He'll just get his, viewing and research as best as we can.
[fvIk50DtTTc_SPEAKER_06]: I think I saw Lisa's hand. Lisa.
[Evangelista]: If I could, Arthur de la Russo was a mayor. So information would be available in the city clerk's office in the historical society. The family itself has been here since forever. I think Arthur was one of the founding people for the Delrus Funeral Home. So you could trace it. It's just a little bit extra on whomever gets assigned it. But the family, Arthur and Fred were both mayors. And I believe, I know Fred was a state representative. So that kind of, that stuff you can follow through governmental channels if you really need to get the background on paper. somebody has to have it because they served on the office and took an oath.
[Jim Lister]: Thank you.
[Kathleen Kay]: Um, I don't, I don't know if this would be considered a motion or what it would be considered, but would it be possible for however many people were in a group to randomly put people in a breakout room right now and do the research and then come back to us? Or is that not legal?
[Jim Lister]: I don't know if that's legal right now.
[LaFleur]: I see Dan's hand.
[Puccio]: So I, my family has a pretty good history with the Dello Russo family and at the Dello Russo, just so everyone knows was the first Italian American alderman and mayor of Medford. I believe Frederick was his cousin and Frederick's son more recently served on our city council for a numerous amount of years. My feeling personally is to eliminate or leave him off any list is a great disservice to that family who has been a part of MedFed for, like Lisa said, forever. So if some folks don't know about the Dello Russo family, maybe you're not qualified to vet that rubric on them. That's my feeling. I don't think we should move forward without that name on the list. So I think whatever we need to do to make it happen would be a good thing. It'd be the right thing to do. I agree.
[Jim Lister]: Can I get a motion to add it to the list?
[Hill]: Motion to add to the list.
[Brothers]: We have more people with hands up.
[Jim Lister]: Can I get, wait, let's, we got a motion. Can I get a second? And then we'll discuss it.
[McCabe]: Patrick seconds.
[Jim Lister]: Thank you, Patrick. All right. Discussion hands up. We run.
[Giovino]: Um, my only point is putting him on is not a liability. Keeping him off in open meeting laws and the city of Medford public is leaves us open to a lot of issues. So I don't think there's another other. I don't think there's another resolution besides Putting them on the list.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. Anybody else have some other hands that aren't up again now that Maria is. All right, Maria.
[Rocha]: Well, I don't understand why we would just simply add a name to the list without having researched and vetted it preliminarily. as we voted to in a motion.
[Jim Lister]: When it was explained, it was accidentally left off. I mean, other than doing the whole thing all over again, what's your answer?
[Rocha]: I understand that it was left off accidentally, yet I do not believe that we should just be adding this name to the next step based off of the personal feelings of a few people on the committee. And it does not make sense to me why we could not just have a group of five, as we did with every other name, research independently. I understand that that might add a little time to the process, but Well, it is only fair. It does not make any sense why we would allow Dello Russo to jump the process when no other name did, even if it was out of an oversight, a logistical oversight.
[fvIk50DtTTc_SPEAKER_06]: Would you like to start the process all over again?
[Jim Lister]: No. So we have a motion, we have a second. Is there any more discussion?
[LaFleur]: I see Seth's hand. I mean, there are other hands up, so I see Seth's hand.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. I saw them and then I didn't see them. I think he took them down. Seth. Oh, Hendrick and Seth, Ron. Okay. Seth, go ahead.
[Hill]: Yeah. Hi. Seth Hill speaking. So Parliamentary procedure is there to make things easier. It's not necessarily there to fully prevent mistakes. So there was a mistake made, we can fix it. But I think we also in good faith need to address how to make it more fair. So I think putting it on the list and perhaps also either assigning five people to where, whether or not, if those five randomly assigned folks come up with a score that doesn't necessarily meet the threshold that we're talking about now, that name will then drop. We also, whatever the next list that we are progressing with, All of us, all 23 members will be running the rubric according to my understanding of the motion passed last week. All 23 of us will be running the rubric on all 17 or 18 names. I wasn't aware we were re-rubriced. That doesn't feel like we're doing it again. Number six, the advisory committee conducts additional research and solicits public input.
[Jim Lister]: Yes, that doesn't necessarily mean read rubric.
[Hill]: Please, number seven, all members of the advisory committee evaluate the remaining submissions according to the rubric. Evaluations previously made in step number four cannot be modified. That was what we passed. Yes.
[Brothers]: We have other hands up.
[Jim Lister]: Um, yeah, I'm just reading that to me. That doesn't say we read rubric though. That's taken the original, original rubric and discussing along with other inputs from the public, other resolutions that we made or other exercises that we may take on. All right, who's hands up? Patrick. Patrick.
[McCabe]: Patrick, go ahead. Yeah, I think.
[Brothers]: Patrick, you're muted.
[McCabe]: Thank you. The issue is whether or not we have five of us look at this and then potentially 23 of us look at it or just have 23 of us look at it now. So I guess my question to, I think it was Maria and Laura were talking about scoring them. I mean, what's the timeline in your head? When does that happen? as far as the process. I understand your concern. It's just my concern as well is not to be held up another week. We wanted to get this done as quickly as possible in a fair way. So that's the question for Laura or Maria. What's the timeline that you're talking about? Do we lose a week doing it the way that you're talking about?
[Rotolo]: And I was hoping we could do it in the next few days. But now hearing Lisa evangelist to say that we need to build like a paper records. It might be a little tougher, since there isn't something very easy to find online.
[Evangelista]: No, I didn't. But certainly for the next all the city clerk's office. I mean, they would probably send you an email if you needed it, but same thing with the state legislature, they could probably email you something, but yeah, you would probably have to get on the phone for it, for the information. He did serve in the early 30s or 40s, so it is gonna be paper, unless the history society has something in writing on their website.
[Rotolo]: I would say in the next, you know, two days or so, if possible, I know that we all did. We researched 14 people in just a few days. So I think we can certainly do it before the next meeting, maybe the next two or three days.
[Rocha]: I'd also like to state that, quite literally in the time that we've spent discussing this, we could have had five people go and research and rubric, and I am in no way advocating that we delay the process. And simply speaking that in terms of fairness, it seems absurd to me that we would have this name just simply added to the top 15, especially if now we're introducing the question of whether or not we're going to re-rubric as an entire committee, because that was my understanding of the motion that we passed last week.
[LaFleur]: Any more discussion? Ryan's hand is up, and I believe there is a motion. Did you say there is a motion on the floor? Motion for, yep, seconded. And Matt is waving too.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Matt's waving.
[LaFleur]: Go, Ryan.
[Giovino]: Yeah, just, you know, it doesn't have to be the Dello Russo name. Put anybody's name in there, one of your top three, and assume what we would do because we failed to follow the process. What's just, we are all, Again, all of us are going to vet every one of the finalists. We are all gonna have input from the public coming to influence that. I just don't understand why one of the name on that list, whoever it is, I don't care what the name is, we've failed the process and now we're saying, a process that is shaky to begin with, in my opinion, but now we're saying, okay, what do we do with this guy? And, you know, if you want to do, if you want to go and do the research in the next hour, which I think is fair that you would take at least an hour, then I have another motion that would extend this beyond May 24. I mean, I don't want to do this because it's fast. I want to do it because that name was left off this process and easily to add him on the process, it doesn't influence anything. He could be number 18th when we vote. It's just, you know, I just don't understand what the issue is and take out the Dello Russo name, put any name in there that is in your top three. And then let's figure out how we would do that.
[Haberstroh]: Oh, I just wanted to mention that we didn't get our list of names to research anyway until what, Friday or something like that. So we met Tuesday, we didn't get to Friday. I'm sure Laura or whatever people are assigned to this name, it can happen in 48 hours and we can have it in the group of 17 or 18 people. I don't see it really delaying the process much at all. Yeah, so that's all I really want to say. I don't think it would delay much. I think it's a good idea. But I also have to say that I feel a little uneasy about people who do the riskless family buying from them, with all due respect. There's nobody here talking about Bloomberg. So I just want to make sure that we understand that some people are uncomfortable about people who know people really well in those families, regardless of how important they are to the history of America.
[Jim Lister]: Okay, all right, we have a motion on the floor. Can we vote this up or down? Maybe then we can table. If we vote it down, we'll table Arthur Dello Russo until we can have a random generated, five generated, and then some scores submitted. Somebody read the motion.
[Caldera]: Are there hands up? There are two hands up. Can I just pop in information with the rubric itself? The original motion does have the whole committee, again, kind of use the rubric in order to evaluate the rest of the remaining names. So adding the name, is not a big deal because it will be evaluated again. And since it didn't hit that original evaluation, it should be evaluated. And in an effort to try and move this forward, this, you know, I'm perfectly fine with adding the name to the list. It gets evaluated anyways, and we can move on from there.
[LaFleur]: Thank you, Dr. Grace. Seth?
[Hill]: Uh, thank you. One other option. Um, and I'm fine either way, but one other option is to, uh, just. Assigned by people and advance it, uh, if it hits it, and I think we could make, uh, uh, you know, if, if it's, uh, If the name score is nine or above, then it's going to be 18. If it doesn't, then it's going to be 17. I think we could probably pass a dependent resolution on that for our next step. We'll add the name if five people that are randomly assigned through the rubric come up with an average score above nine within the next 48 hours. Um, and then after that, uh, we will have, uh, the rest of the week, um, to evaluate either 17 or 18 names.
[Jim Lister]: All right. Thank you. We have a motion on the floor to add them to the list. You would take to vote them up or down, and then we would go to the next, if it's voted down Patrick. Maybe hand up.
[McCabe]: Yeah, so I think to reinforce what Dr. Caldera was saying, I mean, it's, if this person, if Mr. Dello Russo is gonna come in at number 30 on our list and get very few points when five people do it, the odds of that, him then coming in and it's top three with the rest of the group is infinitesimal. So I think us, you know, if he's worthy, to be in the top three, he would clearly clear the bar for top 15. If he's not, then when we evaluate everyone, then he won't make top three. So there's no harm in bringing him in here. And I think the other part that Dan had brought up is that part of what we're trying to do here is bring people together within the city and to have very prominent Italian American excluded from consideration because we made a clerical error to hold up the process because we made a clerical error. I think, you know, the harm that's done by doing those things is much greater than, you know, what we're doing as far as moving, you know, moving him forward with the group of 17.
[Jim Lister]: Thank you. Nicely said. On the motion. No more hands raised. On the motion to add them to the list.
[Genia]: Can I ask, sorry, can I ask a question? I think it would be helpful for me to understand, you know, in my vote here, what the process will be for the next step. Because if we are gonna be re-rubricing everybody, then that's one thing. But if there is additional process that will happen, that will bring in additional considerations or other processes into deciding whether this person's name will be on the list, then that to me seems like a different process. So how will that work?
[Jim Lister]: What is the... So I'm hoping this exercise, and there's a resolution on the floor, on the agenda tonight to, I believe, give each person on the board, the ability to speak for a couple minutes on their top three or their top one. And then I believe there's another resolution to go back out instead of having an open meeting with the public speaking for three minutes a piece, it's to have another survey done, let people write 250 word essays and submit it to the superintendent again to do a survey to the city to see what their feeling is. And then the last resolution was to have the principal, Kathy, have the students do an election of who they think would make the right name from our top 15 or 10 or whatever we come down to for conclusion. And then I would hope after those, two of those would be completed through the following week, And then after we've got all that, I would say next week we debate all these lists and all these suggestions and come up with our final three, five, I don't know, start off final 10, then maybe final three to put forth to the school committee that we've taken everyone in the cities that we can get opinion without opening up to giving everybody three minutes. I think the survey, that's a motion tonight, a resolution. That's what we're trying to work towards so that we have, we include everybody, we get everybody's opinion, not get tied up in what we're tied up in now, adding one name because it was left off. I'm sorry for that. But if he's meant to be there, he'll rise to the top. If he isn't, he won't rise. He'll stay where he is at the bottom of the list.
[Evangelista]: Jim, just for clarification, the top 15 or whatever you guys decide, those are the names that would be submitted for the survey for the general public, right? That we're not starting from scratch with them again, correct?
[Jim Lister]: So correct, I would think.
[Evangelista]: That's what I thought the resolution was gonna say.
[Jim Lister]: Right, and then like the next resolution would address, and there may be somebody that's not on the list that they wanna talk about, Yes, the top 15, and because there's a tie, it's gonna be 18, I guess. So the motion is to add Arthur Dello Russo to the list. He would be number 18 for further consideration. I'm gonna go through the roll call. Is there any, there's no more hands up.
[Caldera]: Just a point of information. So the committee would, as a whole, evaluate all of the 18 names and also consider other factors to make that decision for the final three, according to the resolution we passed.
[Jim Lister]: Correct. Correct. Correct. And those other considerations are our resolutions that we have on the floor and the agenda tonight. Okay, all right, so let me go through the roll call. Reed Brothers. Yes. Daniel Bianpuccio. Yes. Erin Genia.
[8D6g1gdpE1E_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, yeah.
[Jim Lister]: Beth Fuller. Beth, I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Yes. Grace. Yes. Hendrick. Yes. Jim, myself, yes. Kenneth. Yes. Kristen. Yes. Laura. Yes. Leroy.
[LaFleur]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Lou. Yes. Maria.
[Miguel]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Melissa.
[Miguel]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Patrick. Yes. Paul. Yes. Ron. Yes. Seth. Yes. Kathy.
[Kathleen Kay]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Matthew. Yes. Caitlin showing up yet. Caitlin.
[Jim Lister]: Thank you. Janelle.
[Rotolo]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: And Josie.
[Evangelista]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. Thank you. So the next. So the discussion on the rubrics. Can we hold any further discussion and go through the three resolutions and then discuss the rubrics, the top 15? Does anyone have an objection to that? No, okay, thank you. So the next resolution, I believe Ron, Would you read your resolution, please? Yep.
[Giovino]: Whereas the committee has begun its ranking system using the scoring rubric, whereas the committee will compile the list and rank the results, I'm going to strike the next line. I move that each committee members submit up to three, their top three picks from the entire citizen submitted names. I move that the vote be tabulated by the chair. And from there we have 10 or whatever number of nominees you want for a finalist list.
[Jim Lister]: Can I get a motion for the resolution? Drawing your motion. You motion our resolution?
[Giovino]: You want a second? You mean a second? You want a second?
[Jim Lister]: No, you're on the motion.
[Giovino]: I need a second now, not from you.
[Evangelista]: Excuse me, sorry. Ron, what did you X out of your resolution?
[Giovino]: I Xed out the non-binding part. That'll be another issue later.
[Evangelista]: So just take out that line, whereas this is a non-binding system?
[Jim Lister]: Yeah.
[Evangelista]: Thank you.
[Haberstroh]: I have a question, sorry.
[Jim Lister]: We need a second first, sorry, and then we'll go into discussion. Okay. All right. Can I get a second on that motion. I'll second it. Okay, Lou second. All right, discussion. Go ahead.
[Haberstroh]: I just, I just want to ask one. So, The third line, I moved that each committee member submit up the three top names from the entire list of citizens. So that's kind of superseding the rubric we voted on, correct?
[Puccio]: Correct.
[Haberstroh]: Correct. So in other words, all members of the advisory committee evaluate the remaining submissions, 17 or 18, according to the rubric. So if we pass this resolution, we're not doing that anymore, which is why Ron was saying, you know, this resolution will take care of Ron's.
[Giovino]: Well, it's going the other direction, yes.
[Haberstroh]: It's going the other direction if we vote on Ron's resolution in the affirmative.
[Giovino]: If you would allow me just to give you a couple of comments of this resolution. Okay. If that's, I mean, Matt, are you, I don't want to.
[Jim Lister]: Through the chair, I'm sorry, go ahead. Go ahead, Ron.
[Giovino]: Okay. So, so far in our process, Each one of us has been given 25% of the names to rank. Each one of the 23 of us has been appointed here to have a vote on who the name should be. The reason why you're all been appointed is because we trust that you will gather the information, you'll listen to the input of the public, and we'll have a vote, and we'll make a vote. not a rating system that I have nothing, that this is why I voted against it last week. The rating system needs, if we wanna go with the rating system, then I would propose that we have another long discussion so we all understand how to rate everything. I don't think that's happened yet. So my point is this, we all have, we should have, I mean, maybe not, maybe I just have, a top three to five in mind that we think fits. And we're yet to hear from the public on some, as someone mentioned, I don't know that person and there's not a lot of information on that person. So we need to have that input from the public. I just believe that we need to stand up, each name, each one of us by name, and stand in front of the Zoom screen and say, I voted for this. Not that we all ranked and here's the average ranking. I just don't understand the difference between the rating system and actually standing up in a democratic way and saying, this is what I voted for, up to three names. That's my point of this. And you guys can vote it up or down, but that's my point.
[LaFleur]: Any more discussion? There are hands, Jim. Five hands.
[Jim Lister]: I gotta find them.
[LaFleur]: Yeah, maybe more. Maria is in my top left.
[Jim Lister]: All right, here we go. I'm sorry. Hendrik first. I got Hendrik at the top.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Hi, this is Hendrik. From my perspective, what we are doing here is service to the community. We said we wanted to help with this process to find the name that was the right name for Medford for this school. And we're not here because We think that our belief is the most important belief and that we should be able to choose who we want. We're here to do a job, which is the service to this community. We already voted how we are doing this. And the fact that we're doing this motion now, after we already decided how we are gonna do this, is a step backwards. It means that everyone wasted their time. The whole point of the rubric and having things assigned randomly was to allow the people who submitted names that we didn't know a chance to be evaluated on their own merits. I found out two or three super interesting people that I'd never heard of that were really worthy of consideration. And because we were doing it randomly, that was the only way that I was able to find out about those people. Pauline Young was amazing to me. This is not about us. This is about what's best for Medford. This is service. And I don't want to go backwards. I want to go forwards.
[Jim Lister]: Maria, thank you, Henry.
[Rocha]: I truly cannot comprehend why at this point after we spent a week deliberating in terms of the randomization, in terms of our research, why we would just go and completely wash that out for the sake of getting to pick our favorite names from the whole list. It does not, It does not make sense to me why we would have spent a week of our time when we already have a tight timeline, essentially wasting our time. And that we would, rather than considering this in a very objective way with a set rubric that has considerations that ultimately people may or may not think of when they think of their favorites. One thing that stands out to me is important or representative of marginalized groups, because that is an essential aspect of the work that we're doing, making sure that this is representative of all of Medford. And so to just have this piecemeal decision of, oh, these are my favorites, just seems unwise. It does not align with the work that we're supposed to be doing here. And I, I, it does not make sense to me why we would vote to pass this.
[Jim Lister]: Thank you, Laura.
[Rotolo]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do want to appreciate Ron's resolution. I think there's many different ways we could have gotten to this, many different rubrics or methods we could have chosen. I do really like what we chose at our last meeting. And the two reasons are that, first of all, it's really transparent because we do have a rubric that the public has seen, and we are grading them all as best as we can according to that rubric. having that out to the public to see really allows everyone to see what everyone's being judged on. But secondly, I think we do get to one what Ron is talking about in number eight in the resolution we passed, which is when we will be deliberating to select three names and trying to get to a consensus. By then we will have all looked at all of the top 15 names. We will have put them through the rubric again. We will have heard from the public. And then in an open meeting, we're going to get to discuss our top three. I'm not ready to pick a top three right now. I've learned a great deal over this past weekend about people I didn't know. And I really am looking forward to doing more of a deep dive into those 15 or 18 people that we are going to be looking at so that we can actually have that deliberation. I think that is what Ron was envisioning. And I agree that that's important. I think we'll get there anyway.
[Jim Lister]: Can I just say something next? Thank you. Just for clarification here, I know we voted for the rubric, but the rubric to me was one exercise in this. I mean, we have other things we're supposed to reach out to the public and we're gonna do a survey, and then we're gonna reach out to the students. So this rubric is one exercise. I mean, Ron is proposing another exercise, and then there's two more to be proposed. And then we'll deliberate We'll have our top 15. If we make any changes to that, I don't know, but we hopefully will get our list smaller. But I think that my feelings on Ron's is that we're just trying to incorporate more thought into the process and to eliminate that we might've made a mistake through the rubric.
[Caldera]: Just a point of information, the rubric on the resolution we voted in last time, the rubric is in fact used again as another evaluation tool for the rest of the names. So it wasn't just a one-time use.
[Jim Lister]: I understand that, but it wasn't voted to be the exclusive reading process.
[Giovino]: Point of information. If I could just, I don't want to jump everybody.
[Jim Lister]: Sorry, go ahead, Ron. Oh, sorry. All right, let me go back to my hands raised, then I'll get back to you. Seth.
[Hill]: Yeah, I mean, I just kind of want to echo some of the other things that people have been saying. I mean, Dr. Caldera's point that what we voted on last week has 10 different steps to it. That is what we had adopted. you know, with, there is some, I mean, as a body we can do whatever we want to do, but I don't think that we need to necessarily go over something again that is going to just create additional points of information that aren't relevant. We have, Names that were submitted by the public as a body, we decided how we were going to go through those names and voted on it and adopted it and now are moving forward.
[McCabe]: Point of order, Mr. Chair. Point of order, Mr. Chair. I feel that this is a backdoor way of, it's a reconsideration. It's a motion to reconsider is what this is. If we're taking a motion to reconsider, then we need a two thirds vote before we reconsider the motion that we passed last week. I mean, this is not an additional motion. This is not an addition to what we agreed to. This is a reversal of what we agreed to last week.
[Jim Lister]: Ron, would you like to reword your motion?
[Giovino]: I'll withdraw my motion.
[Jim Lister]: Would you withdraw or reword?
[SPEAKER_02]: Withdraw.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. Thank you. All right.
[Giovino]: I do want to put a point of personal privilege, though, to say that you're not understanding my point is at this point, we are creating a list based on a bunch of candidates that I had 25% input on, number one. That bothers me. I do know that the final decision, the deliberations will happen. And I just don't think we've deliberated enough on how this rubric works. And at the end, it's all coming down to everybody standing up and taking that vote. Incorporating the great rubric that's been created, the input from the city and whatever other research you've done. So, to not understand what I'm saying is, that concerns me. But, you know, I get you know I'm fine with moving to that step but step eight of the process is what I'm asking to do too so I'm just trying to protect somebody who has done some research, and by the way I've done research on every single candidate nominees name. I know the names. I don't think, my point is just procedural. I don't think the names are gonna change if we vote or if we don't vote on it. So I'm withdrawing based on that and hoping that all of your top three or whatever number you have in your head appear on those 18s. That's all.
[LaFleur]: Kristin's hand is still up and I see Brie.
[Unidentified]: Kristin, please.
[Scalise]: Well, I guess it's not as necessary to say if Ron withdrew the motion, but I think the good thing of the, you know, the good way that we looked at it through the rubric was, I think the point was, and what it did for me was to eliminate my personal biases. I could give you my top three people, but how does that serve the city of Medford. They submitted people and I think we took a mathematically sound way to divide it in such a way that the work that it was going to be randomized and you know, spread out enough so that wouldn't be people getting the choices that they, you know, preconceived notion that they wanted. And, you know, I got to learn a lot about the people on my list that I previously didn't know about. And I think it was good for me to have to do research on people that weren't as familiar to me and that weren't my top three. I feel like that maybe it's not as good for me. Maybe I don't get my vote, but this isn't about me. This is about Medford and the kids getting a name for their new school. So I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, and I think it helped me learn a lot.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[LaFleur]: Did I see one more hand? Breeze, who is that?
[Jim Lister]: Bree.
[Brothers]: Hi, Bree speaking here. I was just Kristen actually summarized that pretty well, but I don't really care about my top three. I don't want Medford to care about my top three. Like I said, this isn't really about what I want. And you said at the beginning, Ron, that like we were chosen as part of a democratic process to do careful research. on all of these names. And if we really trust that that was happening, we would trust that everyone here did that quality research and that each one of us would not have to individually research 67, 68, however many names. I think it's really awesome that you did that. But I mean, if we truly believe that we're all here for the same purpose, That shouldn't be necessary. And like I said, I don't, I don't have a top three. The name that I picked originally isn't even on here. And I'm just, I'm, I'm learning a lot. My top three have changed if I had to pick, but I don't think I don't care. So to speak.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. Thank you. I just want to, I want to remind everybody of, you know, uh, public through submissions through the original survey had made us you know how many times some names were submitted just they should probably be in our top list and I think they all are so I'm not sure that well I don't know but that would be the only thing is the public talking is this how many times a name was submitted needs to be reviewed and compared to our rubrics.
[Haberstroh]: Jim Lister, may I? Yes. So I just want to make a point on what you just said. So there's a lot of people in the city that knew a certain person that's topless, a lot of family members, a lot of co-workers and stuff. One wonders, for me anyway, like people who are deceased and their families are a long time ago, maybe like some past person who lived here a couple hundred years ago. So we're going to get a lot of people that comment on a certain candidate that knew that person. And so when you're saying that, that has to be considered the number of times that they're submitted is directly relational to how the people are living here right now. But we're trying to do something about the past as well.
[Jim Lister]: Does that make sense? I understand, but we're trying to, when this is done, We want a celebration. We want a win-win situation. We don't want to lose-lose situation. And, you know, we need to involve as many of the public as we can, not just have some name set in our head, but go with it. So I hope we're all open-minded and we all listen. And I think that's what Ron's motion was, not necessarily a favorite three, but just to let each member here speak for peace.
[Giovino]: Point of information, Mr. Chairman, the motion has been taken down. I would suggest a discussion. Thank you.
[Jim Lister]: All right, anything else? We'll go to the next motion.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Oh, there's a hand up. I actually have something to say.
[Jim Lister]: All right, sorry, I didn't say it.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Hendrick, yes. The other problem with paying attention to the number of times that people submitted certain names is there was a few people that submitted the same name over and over again on that list. And that is not in the spirit of public participation. And the reason that I suggested doing an essay is it requires people to put more thought in it. And it also means that they understand that they have an opportunity to say the reason that they feel that person is valuable and why they would be honored by having the school named for them.
[Jim Lister]: Okay, I'm sorry, can I stop you for one second? Can you read your motion? Because this is your motion. Your resolution, could you read your resolution?
[Hendrik Gideonse]: I'm actually not speaking about my resolution right this second. What I'm saying is paying attention to the submissions from the public. The numbers, this is still based on that ranking idea that we kind of threw out, is that we can't listen to the number of people that submitted for one name or another name from the previous submissions, because those lists are invalid because people cheated. They submitted the same name over and over again. There was a number of instances where people made a vote for the same name, but then had every member of their family's name. Like that's not, to me, that's not fair. public participation that's stacking the scales.
[McCabe]: Point of order, Mr. Chair. There's no motion right now. So, I mean, we need to have a motion to have discussion, so.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. Hendrick, would you like to read your motion, your resolution?
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Yeah, just give me one second to pull it up. It's going to take me a sec.
[Hill]: Hendrick, would you mind if I read it?
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Absolutely, that'd be swell. Sure.
[Hill]: Be it resolved that one, once the committee has chosen the 15 candidates from the public submissions, the committee will issue one public input survey to solicit feedback. Two, the survey shall be available as a Google form and as a paper version available at Medford High School. Three, there will be one week for the public to respond to the survey. Four, publicity of the survey shall be made through the administration via the channels that are already approved for publicity. Five, the survey shall include the name of the resident, address of the resident, which of the 15 names, They are writing to support and an essay of no more than 250 words addressing why the committee should include their candidate in the group of three submissions to the school committee. Six survey results shall not be considered votes, but will be considered individually on their own merits.
[Jim Lister]: Thank you. All right. That's his resolution. Hendrick makes the motion. Can I get a second before we discuss?
[8D6g1gdpE1E_SPEAKER_12]: Ken Mellon seconds the motion.
[Jim Lister]: Ken seconds it. Okay, discussion. Ryan, your hands up.
[Giovino]: Yeah, just one small change. Hendrik, you're not limiting this in any way. People can write 10 essays if they wanted to, correct?
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Hang on one second. I'm struggling with the different window. I'm suggesting that each person picks one person to write on. I'm not suggesting that one person can submit many essays.
[Giovino]: I'm just suggesting change in the words so that people know that that's it. Every resident is limited to one essay submission, maybe what we want to put in there because
[Hendrik Gideonse]: So what number five says is the survey shall include the name of the resident, the address of the resident, and which of the 15 names they are writing to support. And an essay of no more than 250 words addressing why.
[Giovino]: I'm just suggesting that each resident- Which one of the- That was my suggestion.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Okay, so I just added the one to the document that is in our shared folder, resolution for public participation. Okay, and the other correction is- It should be 17 or 18 names.
[Giovino]: Well, whatever that is. But the other suggestion is that the charge from the school committee is up to three names. I don't wanna leave it out there that we're definitely have to resolve on three names. because that's not, you know, up to three name submission, just so we have it in writing.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: That's all. Those are my two clerks. Up to three submissions to the school committee.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. That's all I have.
[Unidentified]: Okay. I'm sorry.
[Evangelista]: All right, can I just, Jim, can I just clarify? I'm sorry. What? Ron said, every resident is only allowed to submit one essay.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Is that how you wrote it, Henrik, into your, or just- Yes, it is. So I just this second changed the wording, and I did it in the version that's in the public folder so that you'll have that written. But it says which one of the 18 names they are writing to support.
[McCabe]: I don't think, point of information, I don't think that that clarifies that you can only submit one. Someone could say, I'm submitting this one, and I'm submitting this one, and I'm submitting this one, so.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: I will just write residents may submit only more than one essay.
[Kathleen Kay]: Mr. Lister, can I ask a point of clarity question?
[Jim Lister]: Yes.
[Kathleen Kay]: So when you're saying one essay, it also means they can only vote for one name from the survey that we put out there. Is that correct? One name, one essay.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: I mean, it's not a vote.
[Kathleen Kay]: But I mean, so are we asking the community to vote on one name from whatever it is we put out after tonight's meeting?
[Giovino]: Point of information.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Asking the public.
[Giovino]: I think I understand the question. We're talking about how many essays people can write on one person can only write for one name. And then when they submit them to us, that's a whole different process. But this is just the gathering of the public's information. So I believe I want to speak for Hendrick, but it's you can't vote for name one, give us information on number one and number four. Hendrick is asking you to make a choice and send that information in.
[Kathleen Kay]: So it's just fact finding, it's not voting.
[Giovino]: Correct.
[Kathleen Kay]: Okay.
[Giovino]: I don't wanna.
[Haberstroh]: Thank you. Point of information that just. Yes, Tom. Matt, sorry. That's okay. So we're talking about Hendrick's resolution, which is actually just clarifying the rubrics number six public input comment, correct? So we're just getting down to the nitty gritty, how are we gonna get the public input from the rubric?
[Jim Lister]: Yes, it's one of the ways public input. Okay, so it's- Doesn't say it's the only way.
[Haberstroh]: So, you know, when you say that, Mr. Lister, I'm just wondering what the other ways are gonna be, are they listed somewhere?
[Jim Lister]: Well, so I'm sorry, the next resolution is for the kids at the school to vote.
[Haberstroh]: Okay, so I just wanna make sure that what Hendrick is proposing is that really this is a definition of how we're gonna get public input to our rubric, correct?
[Jim Lister]: Yes, but not limited to, I would like to say that it's not limited to. Okay. I mean, because we had a proposed resolution before that was withdrawn that also had public input, so. I don't want to get, I feel like I'm getting trapped into this rubrics. When I was under the impression, the rubrics was an exercise, not the complete procedure for this entire action. You know what I mean? It's not the complete procedure, which seems to be what's happening. Correct. To go through this rubrics, but it wasn't made that it was going to be the only thing we did. because there's other ways the public was supposed to get involved. That's all.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: It is not the only way that we're evaluating names. Okay. There's discussion. There's public input. And I suspect that there's going to be people that did research that Members of this committee have never heard of that they will talk about in this meeting and we would we may be swayed to think differently. Okay, yeah. And I think that that the opportunity for the public to submit these essays, like, you know, this is a way for our people to say, you know, what Danny was just saying. He's like, this family is really important to my family. It's important to other families that have been in Medford for years and years. And I want to say what they've done for Medford. This, you know, this is a personal connection for me, but, you know, maybe the rules that Del Russo made in the 40s have changed how things happen for a lot of people. And that's what we really need to hear. And frankly, I'm not gonna know that. So we have to have somebody like Danny saying, these are the things that are important to me and write it down and then we can learn about it because we don't have all of this knowledge.
[Jim Lister]: I agree, thank you.
[McCabe]: Don D'Amico, COB OSMP, is that correct? talk about different elements that we need to consider. And number eight on what we voted on last week and approved is the advisory committee deliberates to select three names by consensus, weighing the submissions average scores, average values on each rubric dimension, public input and research. So it seems like folks are concerned, like we're not getting enough public input or we're not, we have that, we've already built that into the vote. We built that into the process. So we take into consideration the rubric as well as public input and research that we do as a group. So that's number eight from our resolution that Dr. Rivera submitted.
[LaFleur]: We do have hands up, Jim. OK. Lee, you want to go next? Sure. My question, I think, is pretty quick. I was curious about the essay itself and whether it is a requirement or it's optional. Obviously, for the paper ones, it's optional in the sense that someone could return one without it. But if we do an online version, is the idea that someone can vote without including an essay?
[Unidentified]: Henrik? You're muted.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Sorry, I'm muted. Um, someone could do that. But the thing that would be supportive, like, that would help me sway me and might make me want to support somebody is them saying, I feel strongly about this, this is the things that I feel strongly about. This person helped my family. This person supported people that I cared about. This person created something for these students. That's the stuff that really matters to me. I don't really care if a whole bunch of people say, I wanna vote for Galileo. It's why is Galileo important? That's the thing that matters to me.
[LaFleur]: Yes, I understand. I just wanted to make sure we weren't marginalizing people or not including people who wanted to vote without the essay. Yes.
[Jim Lister]: So the essay is priority.
[McCabe]: Point of information. Is there a vote? I don't see anything in the resolution about a vote of the public.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: It's not a vote. They're just expressing support for one person. Okay.
[Giovino]: Point of information, the guidelines that the school committee gave us, we need some way of getting public input. And I think this is the best way of doing it.
[Jim Lister]: I agree. Melissa, do you have your hand up?
[Miguel]: Yeah, just a point of information. I think the word essay can deter a lot of people. I think we should maybe say a brief description. I just don't want to turn people away. Sometimes when you hear the word essay, it might be a little bit overwhelming. English may not be their first language. They might be concerned about conveying. So I think maybe we should just say a brief description of why you support this person. And I think you'd be more likely to get more people to submit that way.
[Jim Lister]: Excellent. I just- You accept that friendly amendment? Yes. Thank you.
[Miguel]: I know me being an engineer, being more into numbers, when I hear the word essay, it's very overwhelming to me, because I like to do better with numbers. But if you tell somebody a brief description, I think that might be a little bit more, you know, a short paragraph, something. Essay to me sounds very formal.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: What about argument?
[Miguel]: Is that word negative?
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Submit one written argument in favor of the candidate.
[Miguel]: Sure, well, unwritten defense. Yeah, I just wanna be careful of the word we use that we don't turn people away.
[LaFleur]: Maybe a statement.
[Miguel]: Yeah, yeah, I like statement.
[LaFleur]: Statement of support.
[Kathleen Kay]: Or the word we use with the kids at school is a persuasive letter.
[Miguel]: Oh, that's a good, yeah.
[Jim Lister]: Yeah. Okay, thank you.
[Miguel]: And I also just wanna put some input that I don't think it's important how many people per household vote. I know here in South Medford, we have very dense housing, and you may have four adults in one household. And I think that each person in that household, including my fourth grader at the Columbus, should be able to submit a name. So I'm not sure if their name and address, and I know the city council is voting on that today. Tonight, I don't know if name and address is necessarily important, because I know on this committee alone, we have one household taking up two spots on this committee. So I think to then turn to the public and say that they can't do that would be hypocritical of us. So that's just my two things that I've been listening to everybody today. Yes, I did miss last week because I was out of town. So I want to thank everybody for really rehashing what we did last week. And for the things that I heard today, that's just my information that I wanted to provide. So thank you all for listening.
[Jim Lister]: Thank you. Aaron, would you like to speak?
[Genia]: Yes, thank you. I have two questions about the resolution and the request to the public. One is, will they be given any information about the person or name proposal? Will there be a description provided for them or will they just you know, have to know on their own what it is. So that's one question. And then the other question is, how will we evaluate those essays or those statements? And what will the process be for that?
[Jim Lister]: So I think the first question, I think that they will have to do their own background to figure out the history behind the name. The second part, how would we evaluate? Kendrick, I suppose we would all read them and then if we're going back to a re-rubrics era, whatever, we would consider it.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: So my thought was that everyone on the committee would read all of these statements and that we would be using that You know, if it speaks to us, then it affects our decision. If it doesn't speak to us, it doesn't affect our decision. I don't think that there's a formal way that we could evaluate what people write, other than whether or not it's persuasive to us. The reasoning behind the address and name is to make sure that we're getting people that are in Medford. Each individual would have the ability if they lived in Medford to participate. So I'm definitely not limiting participation from other members of the family, and I would love it if children would write in.
[Jim Lister]: Okay, thank you. Kathy Kay, would you like to speak?
[Kathleen Kay]: Yeah, I have a question. At this point in the game, I think it would be important that if the teachers wanted to be involved as well, that they should be, and not all of the teachers live in Medford. And so that would exclude that group. I don't know if that creates a problem for the committee here to allow that. I mean, obviously the students live in Medford, but the teachers who work at the school, not all of them live in Medford, so that they don't get to have a say.
[Jim Lister]: That would be another friendly amendment. Hendrick, would we be in favor of that?
[Kathleen Kay]: You're muted, Henrik.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Yes. I'm going to learn to use these mute buttons at some point before this whole thing is over and we don't have to do this anymore.
[Kathleen Kay]: We all, we all, we all think that, but we all still do it. So don't feel bad.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Um, so I will, I will add, uh, how about residents and employees of the school.
[Evangelista]: Could the teacher just sign the letter? The address would be the Columbus School. Do you know what I'm saying? So if I taught at the Columbus School, my name would be Lisa Evangelista, my address would be Columbus School, 37 Hicks Ave.
[Kathleen Kay]: They would need to say that in the directions too though, because if it doesn't state it, teachers might not apply. I believe that.
[Giovino]: I think Hendrick had it right by saying employees of the Medford public school system work. That's good.
[Rocha]: There was also in the survey for name suggestions the term Medford community member and a question asking about connection to Medford. Would that be something that you would be interested in adding or?
[Hendrik Gideonse]: I'm sorry, I was typing and now I can't remember what you just said. So can you say it one more time?
[Rocha]: In the survey for suggesting names, there was the term Medford community member, which encompassed employees of the school, residents, students, et cetera. And there was a question that asked, what is your connection to the Medford community? Would that be something that you'd be interested in adding?
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Um, it sounds like we would have to think a lot about who, not to say that I am opposed to thinking, but, uh, we would have to figure out who, who would be allowed to the community. Yeah. Does anybody have any ideas on that?
[Giovino]: My only comment is it's not a vote, it's just gathering information. So if somebody who travels into the city or works here knows of something, we just read their suggestion. It's not like they're voting, so we don't have to really restrict it, but.
[LaFleur]: Yeah, I was thinking that too.
[Giovino]: If it's valued information, I sure would like it.
[LaFleur]: unless we have a run from, you know, Somerville and, you know, people who want to write essays and submit them, I mean, statements and submit them, I think it's probably fine.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. All right. So was there any more hands that I didn't see? There are. Laura?
[Rotolo]: Thank you. I feel like a lot of what I wanted to say has already been said, but I just wanted to take one quick step back and say how I view this as being consistent with the resolution we passed last time. And I know that we've had sort of different opinions about what that means. The way I see the resolution is not exclusive, but certainly it is a roadmap. We did agree to do those 10 steps, right? And I think now we're getting into the nitty gritty of how we do those steps, especially the step about how we get public input. But I just want to be on the record to say that I do believe we are bound to do those 10 steps by what we voted on. And there may be other steps that we may add in and it's not exclusive but we we did agree to do those 10 things.
[Jim Lister]: Okay, thank you. Brian, do you wanna speak again?
[Giovino]: Yeah, sorry. I just wanna really pare it down so that, you know, we now have, I assume we now have a list of 18. I just like the mechanics of it, how it's gonna be displayed. I think we talked about doing the survey. I just, in the interest of being exact, what happens to somebody who writes a 350 word statement? Are they, we're not gonna review it?
[Jim Lister]: I would think that we would review it. I just think that we're trying to keep it under 250.
[Giovino]: Yeah, I mean, I'm just saying.
[Jim Lister]: I wouldn't say we would exclude anything, but the incentive is to keep it under 250. Yeah, you can limit the form.
[Giovino]: And the other point that I wanna make is we now know what we need to know to do this. I think we should develop a timeline of start date, end date, and how this is all gonna, just this part is all gonna happen. So I know you said a week. Do we say it starts tomorrow and it ends next Wednesday? I think also that should be in the resolution.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: My intent was that we make the form and that however long that takes determines when we start, because we want to start as quickly as possible. And I'm probably not the right person to make the Google form.
[Jim Lister]: I think I can get Susan to take care of that for us.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Matt has his hand up.
[Jim Lister]: Yes.
[Haberstroh]: Thank you. Go ahead, Matt. I just wanted to ask how the names are actually put on the form. I'm hoping alphabetically and not a ranking system, i.e. not. Not in order of how they fell. Right. But alphabetically does.
[Jim Lister]: OK. Did you get that, Lisa? Okay.
[Evangelista]: Yep. Well, I was going to suggest that alphabetical is probably the easiest.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Jim Lister]: All right. Is there anything else on that motion?
[McCabe]: Can we go through the list? Mr. Chair, then I think Ron, you said you wanted to include a timeline on it, but what, what is the timeline you wanted to add to the resolution?
[Giovino]: Well, I think Hendrick answered the question. It depends on how long it takes to do that survey. But if we all understand that it's a seven-day window for citizens to submit, then that's fine with me. The more information we have, it starts on May 18th, it ends on May 25th, that all has to be in there. So as long as we agree it's a one-week survey, that's fine. I don't think we can come up with a date just yet.
[McCabe]: Well, is this something that we can have created tomorrow? I mean, I don't know what the, yeah, I see Lisa's got her hands up.
[Evangelista]: Um, I mean, no, I don't mean to cause a problem, but I do know that, you know, it's a Columbus school renaming committee. It's also budget time. And so Susie and myself were very involved in that too. So you just have to keep that in mind, like we have a budget hearing on Thursday that we have to prepare for. So, you know, maybe if we could have it done by the end of the week so that we could go Monday to get it out across the school messenger and however else the survey was distributed, maybe, I mean, I have to double check with Susie, but. I mean, the timeline may be really tight, but I don't know if she can get it done tomorrow, or we could get it done tomorrow. I just can't commit to that without talking to her first.
[McCabe]: I would just like to say. Beth has had her hand up, I think.
[8D6g1gdpE1E_SPEAKER_12]: So I just have one quick, sorry, I'm sorry, Maria. I just have one quick comment in that we, somewhere along the line, and it could be in the back and forth of the emails, Someone was suggesting that we also needed to be mindful of maybe the negative information that members of the community might want to submit to us. How does that, if we're only limiting people to one statement of support or persuasive letter, How would we handle negative information?
[Hendrik Gideonse]: That's a good point. My feeling is that each member of the committee would evaluate whether or not they felt like that negative information was persuasive or if it was just part of the noise that we didn't want to hear. And each person would vote based on their own feelings. Someone makes a negative argument and it's persuasive, then it is.
[LaFleur]: I'm thinking Beth's question is if I want to vote for someone, but also give negative information about someone, I don't have an opportunity to do both.
[Unidentified]: It's a tough group.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. Maria, did you have your hand up?
[Rocha]: Yes, I was going to comment that making a Google survey does not take a very long time. Um, and I would be happy to volunteer to make one if anyone else would like to help. Um, I just don't think that there's any reason to be delaying because of budget season, et cetera, et cetera.
[Evangelista]: I think that you have to understand that it's still going to have to be, um, sent through the superintendent's office in order to get to everybody. So you can certainly submit something to Susie if you wanna do that, or somebody wants to work on that, but it would still have to go through the process of getting it out to the same people that the survey initially went out to, and that stemmed from the superintendent's office. So in order to get everybody to participate, we have to keep it as public as possible. So whatever assistance you wanna provide, absolutely, but it should go to Susie for a final okay.
[Kathleen Kay]: Okay, thank you. And Mr. Lister, can I make a request as well for that information?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Kathleen Kay]: That's shared with me as well as the principal of the Columbus so that I can share it with all my families too, just so that they get it in more than one way.
[Jim Lister]: Okay, did you get that, Lisa, to add that on? Okay.
[McCabe]: Thank you. Point of clarification, Mr. Chair. I mean, on this, What the superintendent is doing, that's the minimum where it needs to go out. We can send it out through Facebook or send it out wherever else, right? There's no... I would agree, but they would have to go to the website to get actual access to submit.
[Jim Lister]: Right.
[Evangelista]: Yeah. They could go to the blog, the blog spits it out to Facebook and Twitter, just so we're, um, and obviously if you all have, you all would be CC'd on it. So if you have members of the public that are asking you, obviously you could say, you know, you could send it out yourself as long as it's all returned to Susie. So we can, you know, provide the information to the, to the committee. Correct.
[Jim Lister]: Thank you. Melissa, would you like to speak?
[Miguel]: One quick thing, point of information. Ms. Beth Fuller brought up a great point. I'm sorry, my dog is going crazy, but how do we verify that if any negative or say derogatory information is provided, how do we prove that as fact? Because I know there's been argument, it's hard to find certain information. Um, to prove that either positive or negative, how do we go about proving that that negative input is in fact truth?
[Jim Lister]: And I think that's something that's going to be tied to every input is going to be tied to even individual that. Uh, sent the information in. So I would hope that if we had some, something that was damning that, uh, it would go back to that person.
[Miguel]: Thank you. That was, I just wanted to make sure that that's something that we also thought about because I'm kind of the longer we allow this statement as a paragraph to be, I feel like we're going to get more noise. Um, then then good.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Jim Lister]: Thank you.
[Kathleen Kay]: Breeze had her hand up for a very long time.
[Jim Lister]: I'm sorry for you. Go ahead.
[Brothers]: That's okay. I just, I don't have the raise hand as a, Co-host. I'm sorry.
[Jim Lister]: I don't have you on my screen. That's why I'm not saying it. Sorry.
[Brothers]: Okay. Um, I was just also to what, uh, Maria said, I'm happy to help it. It, um, I also, I mean, I hate that a lot of the heavy lifting is falling to Lisa or Susie or whomever. Um, I know there was a little bit of hesitance. Hesitation like with having committee members do some of the work for this week, but Assuming there's no randomization or anything like that to happen for a Google survey. I'm also happy to to help with that. And then I feel like if we as committee members can, can do a brunt of the work and then just get it to who it needs to go to, to go out to the proper channels, then that will save a lot of time.
[Evangelista]: That's fine. If you and Maria want to work on something, I'm not saying you can't, I'm just saying that we would need to have it so that we get it out to the proper people, because we're going to get the calls if X, Y, and Z didn't, you know, couldn't participate or something. So, and if there's something on the Google form that you know, may or may not go. I mean, the superintendent would have to look at it. So in case we got any calls, you know, we would be the ones speaking for it. When I say, I mean like central office. Does that make sense? Yes, yes.
[Jim Lister]: Okay.
[Hill]: Seth, do you have your hand up? In the chat, which I know that not everybody has access to, I wrote a proposal to solicit both positive and negative information on any of the other names that might be considered a number seven. So Hendrick, this could be a potential friendly amendment. And what I read or what I wrote was, if there is any additional information about any other name, I'm sorry, if there is additional information about any other name, positive or negative, please feel free to write it. And then I said, either here or send it to an email. And I don't know whether or not it makes more sense to have it as part of a form or a document. or have it sent theoretically to the superintendent's office or the chair directly and then distributed to the committee.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: I think that we should have it go in the same form so that we don't have to chase the email.
[Hill]: Yeah, I think that's a good idea.
[Jim Lister]: OK, so that's a friendly amendment to the resolution.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: I'm working on incorporating it.
[Jim Lister]: OK.
[Hill]: Hendrik, can you see my chat?
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Yes, I actually copied your thing, and I'm figuring out how to stick it in. Great.
[McCabe]: OK. Pat, go ahead. On that issue, though, we say positive or negative. I mean, now we're letting people go long form on multiple submissions, right? And we wanted to limit it to one. So do we just say, do you have any concerns about the people on the list, any negative information or something like that? We're only allowing them to write on one person. Right. But we're adding this piece here at the end that says, is there any negative information about any of the individuals listed above? Seth had said, any addition to one?
[Hendrik Gideonse]: I'm trying to make it into one.
[McCabe]: Yeah, no. Jim, were you saying someone had like two negatives?
[Jim Lister]: I understand what you're saying, yeah. We're convoluting what we're asking here.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Yeah.
[Jim Lister]: positive report and then we're asking for negative if it's possible and they talk about multiple people. I mean, we're making this kind of confusing.
[McCabe]: Yeah, so it's one positive and then as many negatives as people have, I would think we want to know. We don't want to name a school. I see Laura's doesn't like that. But, um, I guess I'm thinking like if someone has information that's negative about two or three of these candidates that we have, I, you know, I would like to hear that. I would, I don't want to be back here next year, renaming a school after someone, you know, if we find additional negative information in the future.
[Jim Lister]: So let me just read this, somebody, maybe just comment text box for negative character concerns, separate from the essay on person they support. Sorry, Leroy.
[LaFleur]: I said there are hands, I see Lou, Kathy, Kay and Ron again. Oh, and Dan.
[Jim Lister]: You said Lou? Lou, you got your hand up?
[SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, I do, I'm sorry. Going back to who can write these statements, I kind of have a problem with just, if you just work in Medford, that you can have a say in the school. I mean, I understand the teachers of the Columbus, but I don't think every teacher of the Medford Public Schools should have a say in it. Or if you just work in a store, that you can just have a say in it. I mean, I work in Lowell a lot, I'm sure they don't want my input on a local school. You know, that's, I think we've got to draw a line somewhere that would be in the form of an amendment to, uh, limited to met for residents only. And, uh, Columbus school teachers, Columbus school teachers are Columbus school employees. Well, employees, I mean, that's their building. They work in there.
[Evangelista]: Well, to be fair, some people might've started working at the Columbus, but now are at a different school.
[SPEAKER_23]: And some left Medford and then someone could just leave Medford.
[Evangelista]: Well, that's fair too. I mean.
[SPEAKER_23]: I don't think it's fair.
[Evangelista]: Why?
[SPEAKER_23]: Because if they're there right now and then they just leave.
[Evangelista]: Yeah, I don't mean they leave because they want to, they might've got an advanced degree and moved to a different school.
[SPEAKER_23]: They could've moved to a different city.
[Jim Lister]: No, no, no, I meant like- All right, so please don't, it's through everything through the chair. I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_23]: Don't go back and forth, just- I was just trying to get my point is- I understand. You know, there could be a teacher there today and then they leave Medford and go to another school next week or next year.
[Jim Lister]: That's, they could have a good or a bad or a, it's either or as far as a- I would second Lou's amendment. Okay, all right, we have a second on the amendment. Any more discussion? We're discussing the amendment now and then we'll vote on the amendment first. Patrick.
[McCabe]: I didn't lower my hand. Sorry about that.
[Jim Lister]: Ron, would you?
[Giovino]: I just want to comment on this amendment to say that We're not giving people a vote. We're giving them an opportunity to give us valuable information. That's all we're asking for. Whether, you know, let's say name number two 25 years ago would be doing something in Malden and the people in Malden knew about it. I think back to Patrick's point, we just wanna ensure that the name we pick is not gonna be tarnished in 20 years. So I'm for anybody who wants to give information, we can validate. information, but it's only information gathering. It's not a unless, you know, the other the other point I have, I'll say the other point on this amendment. That's my point.
[Jim Lister]: Okay, thank you. Maria.
[Rocha]: Yeah, essentially, I just want to reiterate what's already been said in terms of this is not about voting. This is about information. I also could see in some ways that we might want to limit it to Medford community members, in which case, even considering your amendment, I would say not just Columbus teachers or employees, but rather Medford public schools employees, because ultimately they're all part of the larger Medford community. We are all in a way impacted by the names of our schools, particularly if that could be a damaging or positive theme.
[Jim Lister]: Thank you.
[LaFleur]: Lee? Yeah, I'm also going to agree with that sentiment because it is not a vote. It really is information gathering. And I think that, you know, if we were really concerned about, again, being overwhelmed with information, which is not typically a real issue in this case, when we could add a box that just, you just check it and say, if you're a Medford resident, but we're not weighing the results of these, we're reading them and learning from them. So there's, it's not in the end, there's no ranking of what came in.
[Kathleen Kay]: So the first point I was going to make is, you know, we could call this a fact finding survey, and not even actually really use the word survey though I think fact finding something. And that would then let people know we're just looking for information, right? They're not voting. And my second point was when we were kind of getting, I think, hung up in tell us negative things, would it be better to just create a second box that's also has a size limit that says, please add anything additional you wanna tell us here. And so if they want to give us positive information, they can, if they wanna give us negative information, they can do that too.
[Jim Lister]: Thank you.
[LaFleur]: There's a note in the chat saying Dan has had his hand up for 10 minutes.
[Jim Lister]: Dan, I'm sorry.
[Puccio]: It's okay, no worries. I'm always the forgotten one. I just wanted to make a quick comment. I was scanning through the original survey that went out and it was great to see that we got somewhere around 300 back. I just wanna make sure that we use all our resources as far as this one goes, because for a city with 57,000 plus residents, you know, folks that live here. I just want to make sure that we're not forgetting some of the folks that aren't computer savvy. So, you know, I know it's difficult and I know there's probably money involved, but I'd love to see some of the, you know, some of the folks that, you know, don't necessarily have computers to not be left out of this. That's all.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Thank you. We did say that there would be paper versions at the Medford High School. So we won't be able to hold them to 250 words, but if someone's writing longhand, if we don't, I think we should just let them have the extra words if they're gonna write it out.
[Jim Lister]: Okay, I got one more. Let me see. Well, let me, I got something in the chat here. Can I read this? And then Maria, I'll let you speak. If we are seeking to gather both negative or positive, I'd like to know if we can make the names of the submitted confidential or does that violate public information laws? I would think that it violates the public information law. I may be wrong. Maria, would you like to speak?
[Rocha]: Yes, I would just like to say that in terms of possibly adding an additional information box. I feel as though that could get dicey in terms of we did say that we would limit the statement in support or persuasive letter to one name. And so I think that we don't really want to be adding that additional information box and then it just becomes a place where people start talking about other names that they support. I do think that we should have something that explicitly states that we want to hear possible negative information.
[Jim Lister]: I feel like, you know, I feel like we should have a subcommittee on just the form that we appoint four people to just work on this form and get back to us. I mean, it's, we can go round and round here.
[Kathleen Kay]: Rhi has her hand up.
[Jim Lister]: Rhi, go ahead.
[Brothers]: I was just going to say to Kathleen's point, if we kind of just, I think if we reframe the whole way we're thinking about this survey, we could effectively do two birds with one stone. If we just call this fact finding, as opposed to a show of support, it would essentially free up community members to provide facts, whether they are positive or negative, facts, you know, like, to each their own. But if we don't call it a show of support, and we just ask for information about these top 17, 18, whatever the number was, candidates, I feel like we could effectively get a plethora of information that could accomplish both of these.
[Jim Lister]: I feel like that now we get off of how many people we're about, we're allowing the submission to talk about.
[Brothers]: Well, no, it would still be for, you might be right.
[Unidentified]: All right.
[LaFleur]: I was also just going to say somewhat agreeing with you, Jim. I mean, maybe it's just better to go forward with the resolution as being modified to just, and just come up with a separate process for getting other feedback, you know. But we have one process, which is your show of support. And then if you just want, if we just stand up a separate process for providing additional information.
[Jim Lister]: Does any other information you feel that should be made public, you know, whether it be negative information We need some avenue for that to come forward.
[LaFleur]: We can do other things. I like the original idea behind this, but it is difficult.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: So one of the things that I don't want to lose if we change the language to be fact-finding, I think that we may lose the emotional feelings that people have about the candidate. And at least the way I feel when I'm supporting somebody or arguing against somebody, it's not just about the facts, it's about how I feel about it. You know, it could be a fact that, you know, very few people actually know the person that you're supporting, but that you feel very strongly about it. I don't, I think that that the argument and what satisfies the public is not just about providing facts, but also being able to have their emotional usage, their impassioned support or impassioned argument. And I think that that's an important part of what these statements could be. If it's only fact, I don't know, I'm starting to get like, I don't care what we vote on, I just wanna go home, except we're already home.
[Jim Lister]: Can we pass the amendment and I'll appoint a committee to come up with a form for us that we'll have to approve. With working on your resolution, And everything we've heard here, we'd have to get something together the next day or two and get it up.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: I don't think that we couldn't approve the form in a day. We can write the form in a day and submit it to Lisa or Susie to get it put out. But if we're going to approve the form as a committee, that would push our schedule out?
[McCabe]: Yeah, I mean, I think that's an administrative task. I don't think we have to approve it. I think if we just agree to delegate it to the chair and and all the staff, and I think that, not staff, the volunteers, sorry. And I think we just need to avoid the miscommunication that we had last time where one group of folks thought that they had responsibility and Jim thought he had responsibility. So we just need to clarify the roles there. If we do delegate this out to a subcommittee to do, which hopefully, my opinion is hopefully we do, because I don't want us to wait another week or two to approve a form that's administrative. I think we just need to clarify the language here.
[Jim Lister]: And Bree, I'm fine with them coming up with it and submitting it to Lisa, so that Lisa and Susan could get it out there. I mean, we need to have an agreement on what the language is that we have. I mean, we've gone round and round with this language now for a half an hour. I mean, we agree on the resolution. It's just as far as what we're putting in it for language. We haven't passed the resolution yet, by the way, but.
[fvIk50DtTTc_SPEAKER_06]: There are multiple hands, including Lisa's at some point. Lisa, you first, please.
[Evangelista]: I'm sorry, I just wanted to say that the superintendent's office, we do try to translate these documents into four other languages. So our EL director always asks us to be as basic as possible in these forms or in these surveys because they have to be translated. So whoever's gonna work on the forms, we could just keep that in mind. That's all, thank you.
[Jim Lister]: Thank you. All right, I got two more hands.
[Giovino]: Ryan just quickly, I think we should just move the resolution. If we can add that a committee will be assigned by Jim to help Hendrick and then we just move on. Let's just, I trust that we Hendrick and those people understand.
[Jim Lister]: The vote's been called. Can I go through the line up here?
[McCabe]: I'll just point of order, Mr. Chair, is that there's an amendment right now on the floor about who's qualified to fill out this information. And we never made a decision on that. It was brought forward by Lou and seconded. Correct. Thank you for reminding me. We need to vote on that amendment.
[Jim Lister]: We need to vote on that amendment. One time, can I get the amendment? Lou, could you just say what you wanted to restrict?
[SPEAKER_23]: You wanted to people that- I want it to be to Medford residents and Columbus school employees.
[McCabe]: Okay. All right, we're gonna vote the amendment. Just point of clarification. That's not a friendly amendment. Is that correct, Hendrick? You want it open to all faculty and staff of Medford school system?
[Rocha]: I think he wanted it for Columbus school staff. And yes.
[McCabe]: No, I was saying Hendrick, the original motion.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Yes, Hendrick was- In the original motion I wrote, actually I don't have it in front of me anymore because I've been chicken scratching it. The last thing that I had written was employees of Medford Public Schools and Medford community members is what I have written right now. based on people's suggestions. Okay.
[McCabe]: Yeah. So that would require a vote. It's not, if it's not a- That's not a friendly amendment.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Okay. It feels friendly to me though. So I'm okay.
[McCabe]: Well, if you're okay with it, I don't think we need to take a vote on the separate amendment.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: I would like to get the input of other people. I'm I've been just putting a, most of the suggestions just in.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. So he's restricting it to just residents and employees of the Columbus.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: And I would like to do the vote so that I'm not the one that makes the decision.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. Okay, so we'll move on the amendment. Reed brothers.
[Rotolo]: Excuse me for a second. For a point of information. Can you clarify? I'm a little lost on the amendment. The language of the resolution currently says it's for residents and all school staff. And the amendment is residents and Columbus school staff. Is that correct?
[Hendrik Gideonse]: I also have and other Medford community members may also submit. So that's the language that I have right now, which I added as we were talking about this.
[Jim Lister]: So that isn't what the amendment we're voting on now is.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: The amendment is to limit it to Columbus- To residents and employees of the Columbus School.
[Evangelista]: Okay, thank you. Yes. Who seconded Lou's amendment? I mean, Lou's resolution.
[Jim Lister]: I believe Paul did. Ken Mallon did. Ken Mallon did, yes, sorry. Thank you. Okay. Brie Brothers?
[Brothers]: No.
[Jim Lister]: Dan Puccio? Yes. Aaron Genia?
[Genia]: I'm sorry, this is just for the amendment, right? Yes. Is there a third option? Can I stand aside?
[McCabe]: You can abstain. Abstain.
[Genia]: I'll abstain.
[Jim Lister]: Beth Fuller?
[8D6g1gdpE1E_SPEAKER_12]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Grace Caldera?
[Hendrik Gideonse]: She left.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: No.
[Jim Lister]: Myself, Jim, yes. Kenneth Mallon?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Kristen Scalise? No. Laura Rotolo?
[Rotolo]: No.
[Jim Lister]: Leroy LaFleur?
[LaFleur]: No.
[Jim Lister]: Lewin Tapa? Yes. Maria Rocha?
[Rocha]: No.
[Jim Lister]: Melissa Miguel.
[Miguel]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Patrick McCabe. Pat.
[SPEAKER_02]: You are muted, Pat. Patrick.
[Jim Lister]: Sorry. No. Walden Ido.
[Kathleen Kay]: I don't see him on the screen.
[LaFleur]: He's giving a thumbs up. He's giving a thumbs up. Yes, I think is what he's saying.
[Jim Lister]: Ron Jovino.
[Unidentified]: No.
[Jim Lister]: Seth Hill. No. Kathy Kay.
[8D6g1gdpE1E_SPEAKER_12]: No.
[Jim Lister]: Matthew. No. Caitlin.
[Rocha]: No.
[Jim Lister]: Janelle. No. Josie?
[Dufour]: No.
[Jim Lister]: Okay, I think we had more nos than yes. Somebody have a count?
[Evangelista]: No. 14 nos, seven yeses, Grace left and Aaron abstained. Does that work out?
[Evangelista]: Thank you.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. Now to the motion.
[McCabe]: Move the motion. Can we have a reading of the motion?
[Kathleen Kay]: Yeah. I was just going to ask the same thing.
[McCabe]: Yeah.
[Jim Lister]: Would you like to read your motion again?
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Yeah. I might have an extra sentence or something. Uh, but I'll read what I can.
[LaFleur]: What kind of information, Jim, is part of this motion to move it to a subgroup? To accept it. And move it to a subgroup for wordsmithing, or is it done?
[McCabe]: So I believe we're going to accept it, and then we'll have to... Yeah, we could do a separate motion on how to implement the motion that Hendrick has passed.
[Rotolo]: We're voting on a resolution, right? Not a motion?
[Jim Lister]: Resolution, yes. It's been motioned and seconded now.
[Giovino]: Point of information, I think we're just voting on this resolution with the caveat, like we did last week, that it would be rewritten by Hendrick and his committee.
[McCabe]: We would need a second motion to do that. I mean, we can't vote on something that we don't know what it is, right? So if we delegate the task to a separate group, that can be a second motion.
[Brothers]: Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I thought the subcommittee was just to possibly reword the Google form, not the motion or the resolution, sorry.
[Jim Lister]: All right, thank you. Correct, I think that's what we, just to reword the Google form and submit it to Lisa, so that they can get it out. We all agree on that? All right, so now to pass the motion.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Reed?
[Kathleen Kay]: Can we hear the motion again though?
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Yeah, I need to read it. I just have to write the last sentence about the subcommittee will be formed to author the Google form for participation.
[Evangelista]: Who seconded Henrik's resolution? Sorry.
[McCabe]: He hasn't made it yet.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Okay. So I will read the resolution as it is currently written. Resolution for public participation. Whereas pursuant to the advisory committee's charge, the committee will hold at least one public hearing or issue one public input survey to solicit feedback on the options they are considering per the charge of this resolution as at least one of their meetings. be it resolved that, one, once the committee has chosen 18 candidates from public submissions, the committee will issue one public input survey to solicit feedback. Two. Yeah.
[Rotolo]: Hold on, just one second.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: The survey shall be available as a Google form and as a paper version available at Medford High School. The 18 candidates will be listed in alphabetical order. There will be one week for the public to respond to the survey. Publicity of the survey shall be made through the administration via the channels that are already approved for publicity. five, the survey shall include the name of the community member, the address of the community member, which one of the 18 names they are writing to support or argue against, and an essay of no more than 250 words addressing why the committee should include their candidate in the group of up to three submissions to the school committee. I just realized that that sentence doesn't make sense.
[Rotolo]: I thought that we had pursuant to Melissa's friendly amendment change the word essay to I believe statement.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Yes, I changed it in one other. Place but not in this place, hang on. A statement. Of no more than 250 words addressing why the committee. Should or should not. include their candidate in the group of up to three submissions to the school committee. Residents, employees of Medford Public Schools and other Medford community members may submit. Medford community members may submit only one written persuasive statement supporting or arguing against their candidate of choice. Survey results shall not be considered votes, but they will be considered individually on their own merits. A subcommittee will be formed to author the Google form for participation.
[McCabe]: Can we add who's on the subcommittee?
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Uh, sure. Um, I, I heard Maria volunteer and Brie volunteer.
[McCabe]: Is that right, Jim? It was Maria and Brie only.
[Jim Lister]: Anybody else want to volunteer for that subcommittee?
[Dufour]: I would like to volunteer.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. So Josie too.
[Dufour]: Okay.
[Jim Lister]: and they're gonna create that Google form and get it to Lisa. Okay.
[Miguel]: Jim, this is Melissa, point of information. I'd like the committee to look at that form before they submit it, please.
[Jim Lister]: Sure.
[Miguel]: I'm not comfortable with just being submitted without the whole thing.
[Jim Lister]: So that's the committee, put it on the Google documents for us to just look at it before it goes to Lisa.
[Giovino]: I don't have information. I just think the only thing we can edit is clerical stuff. We can't change the substance.
[Jim Lister]: Right. Just to see it. So we're all in the loop.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: I think that it would be all the work for that would be done in the shared drive anyway.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: As soon as we're finished with a decent draft, we'll send out an email letting everybody know with the link. and hopefully people will be able to go over it and get back quickly.
[Kathleen Kay]: I think there's a way with Google, if people have access, they can make comments and it comes up on the side for everybody to see and then the authors accept it or not.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Okay.
[Kathleen Kay]: Bri, you're shaking your head, is that right, do you agree?
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Okay. We will use commentary from committee.
[McCabe]: Point of order, Mr. Chair. The concern is what Ron brought up is that if we're having extensive discussion about this form, we risk violating open meeting law. More than 12 people or 12 people or more from this group comment, it could be considered that it's an open meeting. I believe that's how we understand open meeting law.
[Jim Lister]: So, I mean- I would think that the submissions would be to the committee, the subcommittee that's preparing the document for us. It wouldn't be a group discussion, wouldn't be, and no one should be discussing the documents in the comments with anybody other than the committee that's making this document for us.
[Hill]: From a point of information, speaking to that open meeting law, from what I understand, if you have a concern over whether or not the form itself is going to be appropriate, then get on the subcommittee and take a look at it, because the subcommittee is what we're voting on in order to do the work. We're specifically delegating our authority to them in order to get this administrative form.
[Jim Lister]: Melissa, do you want to join the committee? Melissa, would you like to be part of the subcommittee?
[Miguel]: Yes.
[8D6g1gdpE1E_SPEAKER_12]: Okay.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Okay, so I have changed the last sentence to be a subcommittee will be formed to author the Google form that's for participation. Hendrick Gideons, Maria Rocha, Josie Dufour, Brie Brothers, and Melissa Miguel will be the subcommittee members.
[Giovino]: I'd like to move the amendment, vote on the amendment.
[Kathleen Kay]: I'd like to second that.
[McCabe]: Actually, that requires a two-thirds vote to move it.
[Giovino]: Well, we have to vote on the amendment, correct?
[McCabe]: Hopefully, we just vote instead of moving it. I'm totally lost.
[SPEAKER_23]: I'm muted.
[Kathleen Kay]: Jim, you're muted.
[McCabe]: I didn't understand what was just... No, Ron had said procedurally that he moves the question and that requires a two thirds vote. So I don't think there's any further comment here. So I don't think we need to do a roll call of two thirds.
[Jim Lister]: I agree.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Okay.
[Jim Lister]: Okay, so where are we? Voting on the amendments.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Okay. On the amendment. What is the amendment?
[Jim Lister]: Was Lou's amendment to No, we voted.
[McCabe]: No, the amendment is the committee. This is the resolution that we're voting on right now, the original. Somebody said amendment, then left me lost.
[Giovino]: I just assumed that the committee piece was an amendment.
[McCabe]: Friendly amendment is modified by the person proposing it. Got it.
[Jim Lister]: All right. On the resolution, on the motion. Three brothers.
[Brothers]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Ian Puccio. Yes. Erin Genia. Yes. Beth Fuller.
[8D6g1gdpE1E_SPEAKER_12]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Grace Caldera.
[Kathleen Kay]: She's left. She's gone.
[Jim Lister]: She's gone. OK. Henrik. Yes. Jim Lusta. Yes. Kenneth Mallon. Yes. Kristen.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Laura.
[Unidentified]: Oh, yes.
[Jim Lister]: Leroy? Yes. Lou?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Maria? Yes. Melissa?
[Miguel]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Pat? Aye. Paul? Paul's still here. He's giving two thumbs up. All right. I don't have him on my screen. Sorry. Ron?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Seth? Yes. Kathy Kay? Yes, please. Matthew? Yes. Kaitlin?
[Rocha]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Janelle?
[Caldera]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: And Josie?
[Dufour]: Yes.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. I think we have 22 yeses. All right, thank you. That passes. So the next resolution, I don't have it written in front of me. I believe it's, I don't know why I have it, I can't find it, but it was to have the principal, Kathy, hold an election at the school with our top 18 now for the students to cast their votes.
[Rocha]: I don't see that on the agenda at all. Does anybody else?
[McCabe]: I don't have it either. It's not in writing, but it can be brought up as a motion under new business.
[Jim Lister]: All right, I'll bring it up in the new business. I spoke to Susie, and I thought that she was going to put it on for me. All right, so on the new business, was there anything else here for us? OK, can I bring that up on the new business?
[Brothers]: Sorry, I had one question before new business.
[Jim Lister]: Go ahead.
[Brothers]: Have we defined a timeline for the subcommittee? Is there a deadline for us to have something for the rest of the committee to look at?
[Jim Lister]: Well, didn't we say it would only take a day or two? You thought you girls could take care of it quickly for us.
[Brothers]: Oh, I can. We can. I just, I didn't know if we wanted to formalize it.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. So today's Tuesday. You'll have it by Thursday.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: So, my understanding was that Melissa was had joined the group so that we, we would let people know what it was that we had done, but that being on the committee. would correct me if I'm wrong, Melissa. I'm just kind of paraphrasing.
[McCabe]: Yeah, there's no need for this committee to discuss the form. We'll make it available.
[Jim Lister]: As soon as the committee can have it ready.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: OK.
[Jim Lister]: Thank you. OK. Anything else?
[Haberstroh]: Am I missing any hands? Yeah, I just, I don't know if this is new business or resolution, but can you Mr. Lister explain to me where this new, this resolution of the Columbus students having a vote, where did that come from?
[Jim Lister]: So it's not a binding, it's a, I don't want to say mock, but it was to give the students some input as to, it was felt early on that the students should have play a role in this somehow.
[Haberstroh]: Where did this originate from? I understand what you're saying, but where did the idea originate from?
[Jim Lister]: So I don't, you know what, I don't know exactly. I discussed it with a few people and I put the resolution forward. Okay, so it's coming from you.
[Kathleen Kay]: I think it might have also been stated by Paul Rousseau in the school committee paperwork, I think. But I'm not, I don't know for certain, 100%, I don't have it in front of me to be, you know.
[Jim Lister]: It was discussed, when I was told, when I was discussed taking the chair and I was, you know, it was one of the thoughts that we were talking about was, and I thought it came from the school committee. So yes, that's where it came, as far as I'm concerned.
[Giovino]: Mr. Chairman, I don't know if we have control over this resolution. I would certainly think we have the control to ask the school to do it, but where it's non-binding and it's not part of this committee, I think it's great information. I would love to have that done by Columbus School, but it's not something that we can enforce as a committee, I don't think.
[Kathleen Kay]: And I was point of information as well. I would also like to request that whatever information gathering we've we've got on these 18 names were shared with me so I can share them with the teachers. because as already been stated this evening, I mean, I learned a lot about the people that I vetted that I never would have known, but I can't expect the teachers to take the time, it's MCAS time and we have a quick turnaround to be able to do all the research that we've already done. So perhaps if we could put together some kind of document that I could then share with the staff that they could then instruct the students, give them a little feedback that we have, where they're not just blindly voting for a name, if that makes sense.
[LaFleur]: Okay. I don't have a proposal or resolution for this, but I'm on 18 names seems like a lot. And I'm just wondering if, I mean, given just the time tonight, I like the idea of them having a vote, but maybe further along in the process when we, when we could prepare that kind of document for a shorter list.
[Haberstroh]: Yeah. Point of information. I agree with Mr. Leflore. I mean, if we had a smaller set of numbers, has more information down the road. Okay.
[Jim Lister]: I'll withdraw that motion till after we complete next week's work. Okay. I got a few hands up. I'm sorry. One hand up. A couple of thumbs, one hand up.
[McCabe]: Yeah, yes, I think my concern about us putting forward like a narrative to people, I'm really concerned that we'd be too influential. We would have to agree among ourselves about what 18 statements we're providing to people. Otherwise, I could put a glowing thing together for my top choice and something terrible together for somebody else that I don't think should get it, right? So it's just, I think if people are concerned enough that they need to take the time to do a little bit of research, I don't think anyone's busier than most of the folks on this call.
[Kathleen Kay]: But I don't see the children being able to do that. It's K through five. They just don't have the ability. And then it's gonna be their parent influence. And now we're not really getting a vote from the children, possibly.
[McCabe]: Yeah, I mean, those are great points, I guess. I just don't know, absent us doing 18 narratives and agreeing to 18 narratives, how we do that, so.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: It could be a list of links for people to follow, and then they get to evaluate for themselves whether or not they think that the link, the content of the link is legit or not, maybe.
[Kathleen Kay]: And I think the idea that was raised before about narrowing down the list a little bit before we give it to the kids is a really good one. because then it's not as much work to have the kids learn.
[Mackenzie]: I was just gonna kind of reiterate that I think it should be a shorter list for the students to see with information, even if it was just very factual, like this person lived in Medford, something very basic for the students to kind of understand before they vote. But definitely a smaller than 18, I think would be key.
[Jim Lister]: Okay, I agree. Thank you. Ron?
[Giovino]: Again, I don't think it's in our purview as a committee. I think Principal Kaye can ask for any resources she wants and creates a survey and gets us that information on her rules. I don't think we should be declaring how the school should run their own survey. So I don't think that this is a resolution for this group where it's gonna be non-binding. Principal K could simply conduct the survey on her own with their own rules and submit a submission to the site and tell us what the results were. So I don't wanna, I think back to Patrick's point, I don't wanna influence it in any way and make it, put our name on it as sanctioned because we said it. So that's my opinion.
[Jim Lister]: Okay.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Dan's had his hand up quite a while.
[Jim Lister]: I'm sorry, Dan.
[Puccio]: Go ahead. Thank you, Hendrick. I just want to make a quick comment. As far as the kids in the school go, a good point was made about them getting influence from their parents. One of the things that I'm personally concerned with is can we receive any backlash from some of the parents that don't want their children involved in this process? I'm sure there's folks in that school that were against all of this. I mean, how do we handle that? Do we need to come up with a plan for that? Or are we gonna just kind of shoot from the hip and assume everybody wants participation and changing this name? Personally, I mean, I've talked to a handful of people that felt negatively from that school community about it. Is this something that we should probably discuss?
[LaFleur]: Defer to the principal.
[Kathleen Kay]: So I would like to say that normally when we do things like this in the school, it's voluntary. If the students don't want to participate, they do not have to. And we put it out to everyone and probably I would use a Google form as well with the names. But I do just wanna state again, as everybody has said, it's a very busy time of year. And I'm not asking for statements of opinion about the people. When I vetted my names, I went to websites and I just copied and pasted you know, lots of dialogue that I took from other people that helped me make my decisions on how I voted. And so I'm just looking for a biographical type thing because I think it's, we're not gonna get what we want from the kids if we don't give that information to the teachers and they have to look it up on their own. It's just gonna be much more cumbersome.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. So we've agreed to table that anyway until next meeting. So is there anything else?
[Giovino]: I have a quick question for the group. An envelope was left in my mailbox about one of our nominees. It's about 13 pages. I have it, was given to me, I guess. It's not one of my nominees. It's not anybody I know. Does the group want me to submit this to Susan so you can all see it? Or do you want me to just hold on to it? I've already scanned it in, so it'd be nothing to do. It's an envelope, it says Ron on the envelope.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: That's super creepy.
[Giovino]: Yeah, so there's 13 or 14 pages here from what appears to be people who know this person very well. Would you wanna see it or do you wanna go through the process? I'll leave it up to you guys.
[Haberstroh]: Is it a person that's on the top 18, Ron?
[Giovino]: Yes. I'm just not, I'm not gonna send it if somebody doesn't want it, but I can put it on, you can get it put on the Sierra Drive.
[Scalise]: I'm curious. Can I ask a question?
[Giovino]: Yes.
[Scalise]: In a situation like that, would that be considered like additional public comment? And I know in all of the meetings I attend, when you make a public comment, you're supposed to say your name and your address.
[Giovino]: The names are on here.
[Scalise]: Oh, the person who gave it to his name is on there. No, that was my question. Like, it's a very well, I'm literally asking, I don't know the answer is anonymous commenting aloud from there are names.
[Giovino]: There are no addresses, but like I said, I don't want to- That's a little creepy. Well, it's not as creepy as I'm making it sound, but somebody concerned sent it to me, and I don't know this person, and I have this information. It's quality information, and it looks like it's all vetted. It looks like it could help you all, in my opinion, but if you want me to hold on to it, I'll hold on to it. And please, the public, no more to my house.
[LaFleur]: Anyways, maybe you should just summarize it for us, but not now.
[Giovino]: Well, you gotta, I mean, so just, I don't even, do you want to see it or you don't want to see it?
[Hill]: No, I don't think through open meeting, I don't think we can from a point of order. I mean, if this is, we had specifically time periods where we solicited public input,
[Giovino]: This is not a new name. This would be under the category of what we're doing now with the survey, so.
[Hill]: Right, but it's outside of the methods that we have agreed to as a group.
[Jim Lister]: I think it's out of order, Ryan.
[Hill]: Fine.
[Jim Lister]: All right.
[McCabe]: Patrick, would you like to speak? Just briefly, I know we said this will be a discussion for later, but I think that what we need to think about before we send out a vote is, is this committee ready to go against a vote of the students, right? So if we send out a vote and one of the name, the majority name that's picked is not one of our three, or, you know, if they pick- I think it's just, it's non-binding and it's just- Right, but I'm just saying the public, I mean, the public face of it, right, is the kids vote and, you know, our number one pick wasn't submitted, right? So that's a potential, you know, a potential issue there.
[Jim Lister]: I'm not- The potential of the survey that we're putting out to the city doing the same thing. That's why we're picking three. Okay.
[Kathleen Kay]: I think in some of the discussions I had with some of the committee members, if I may, sorry, Mr. Lister, was that perhaps the name, the one name that got the most votes at the elementary school would come forward to the committee and that we would then put that forward with whatever we put forward to the school committee. I don't know if that's binding or not. And it was just some discussions I had back and forth. And that way the kids would feel heard in a sense, but if the name wasn't chosen by the committee overall, the school committee, it would be one of the ones we put forward and then it rested in their hands.
[Jim Lister]: So it would be like four names.
[Kathleen Kay]: Well, I mean, we said up to three, right? So if we pick three and we added theirs as the fourth and one of whatever they pick might be something that we would pick as well.
[Hill]: From a point of order that wasn't part of our founding documents.
[Kathleen Kay]: I know, cause we, that's what I did discuss was if the kids are going to vote for a name, oftentimes they're going to think it's the winner. You know, they're, they're little kids. They think if they all vote and they choose the name, it's like, Oh, we picked the name of the school. And so we wanted it to be a child friendly so that they understood when they were involved, it might not necessarily be the name that's chosen for the school. And that would have to be clear.
[Haberstroh]: I think when we get down to three names, that's when we should present to the kids, the three names. And then present that information to the school committee saying here are three names that the committee came up with. And by the way, here's what the kids voted on. It's one of our three names or it's a fourth you might want to consider. I don't know.
[Giovino]: This point of information, we've tabled this till next week. So maybe we can have that discussion next week.
[Jim Lister]: Yeah. Okay. Or anything else? I see hands. Uh, Laura.
[Rotolo]: Right. That was an old hand.
[Jim Lister]: Okay. All right. Paul. Would you like to say something?
[Kathleen Kay]: He says he can't unmute, that's what he said earlier.
[Hill]: Is Paul a co-host? I am now, I guess, yes. Thank you. I'm all set.
[Jim Lister]: OK. Ryan, is your hand still up, or do you want to speak again?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I've done enough.
[Jim Lister]: All right. Anybody else? Is there anything else tonight?
[Kathleen Kay]: Are we meeting again next Tuesday? Or is the date not yet decided?
[Jim Lister]: I'm not available next Tuesday. I was hoping for next Thursday myself. And I'm hoping that allows enough time for us to get a return on the public survey.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: I'm personally not available next Thursday. But if everybody else is then
[Rocha]: Yeah, I'm not available next Thursday either, personally. I don't know.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Maybe we have to do another doodle poll.
[Jim Lister]: We can do that. We have to allow seven days for the survey to take place, right?
[Haberstroh]: Okay, Mr. Mr. I'm assuming that after this meeting we start to that top 18 correct and get our in our numbers to Miss Weiss.
[Jim Lister]: Good point. Good point. I guess if we're going to do another Yes, we're going to do another rubrics.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Um, we're not allowed to if we already voted to vote again on the same person.
[Jim Lister]: Right. So it would be the rest of them. Right.
[Giovino]: Are we not going to wait for the community input before we do that again?
[LaFleur]: In theory, we should, or at least be prepared to look at it once it comes in.
[Kathleen Kay]: I mean, I don't... Yeah, why would we vote again without all that information? They're going to give us more information that might sway our mind another way.
[Giovino]: And we already know the 18 anyways, nothing's going to change. If you rank them, it doesn't really matter.
[Jim Lister]: Correct.
[Rotolo]: We can certainly start researching them.
[Giovino]: Yeah, absolutely. That can be done all the time. Yeah.
[Jim Lister]: Yes. Okay. Is there anything else? Am I missing any more hands? I don't see any. All right. Unless someone else has something else, a motion to adjourn in order?
[Giovino]: Second.
[Jim Lister]: All right. Thank you, everybody.
[Kathleen Kay]: Good night. Thank you. Night. Thank you. Thank you.