total time: 24.2 minutes
total words: 1840
[Danielle Balocca]: All right, hey Medford Bites listeners. Today in the introduction, I have Dave McKenna here with me, and he's going to give us a little bit of information about the recent complaint against the Medford Police Department. So Dave, I'll hand it over to you.
[David McKenna]: Thanks, Danielle. Yeah, so a story broke a couple weeks ago that The Medford police, according to the complaint last year, stopped two recent Medford High graduates, two teenagers in the Winthrop Street Rotary, and gave them no explanation, pointed guns at them, asked them to get out of the car, handcuffed them, held them at gunpoint, searched the car, found nothing, and then let them go on their way. This was really upsetting for the teens in the complaint, they say that they tried to get a copy of the police report to figure out what could have led to this and they were told that there was no police report. They were not given a copy of it. So all that is alleged in the complaint and just really upsetting to hear about.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, and what was striking about that report too was the, I think the number of times they talked about how they were complying with what the police were asking them to do and still were treated pretty unfairly, it sounds like. And so I'm curious, I think there's been a post on Facebook about a letter that folks can sign. If you could talk a little bit about how we could be involved or what efforts we can have to sort of advocate for.
[David McKenna]: Yeah, great. So a number of groups came together to draft a letter to the mayor about how we can do better. You know, a lot of us sent individual emails to the mayor and we got a response that they're investigating if procedure was followed. And to me, and to the groups that have signed the letter, the Mystic Valley NAACP, Mobilize Medford, Our Revolution Medford, Safe Medford, the question is not, was procedure followed? The question is, what do we want public safety to look like in Medford? And so that is what the letter is about. So we are asking for people to co-sign the letter. There's a version available online. I guess you can share the link with your listeners. Yeah, we think this is an opportunity for Medford to do better.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thanks, Dave. Yeah, and we hope to have some follow up on this in the future. And we will put, I will put some of those links in our show notes so people can sign the letter or have a look at it and decide if they want to sign it. And the rest of our episode today is an interview with Milva McDonald, where we talk about charter review, which is something that's come up a lot when we talk to the different municipal candidates. And so I hope you enjoy and please, thanks Dave for joining me today. and hopefully we'll talk more about this soon. All right, thank you so much for joining me today. If you don't mind starting by introducing yourself with your name, pronouns, and just a bit about who you are.
[Milva McDonald]: Great. Hi, Danielle. I'm really excited to talk with you today. My name's Milva McDonald. I've lived in Medford for almost three decades now. Raised my kids here and Lately, I've been working on charter review, which has been talked about for many of the years that I've lived here. And a group of residents and I are trying to get it to happen.
[Danielle Balocca]: And could you just tell us your pronouns?
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, thanks. It's she her.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thank you. Yeah, I think that's something that I heard about a lot when I was starting this podcast and interviewing candidates for the municipal election. And that was the first time that I'd ever heard about about it. But before we kind of dig into that, I'll ask you the question that I asked everybody that I talked to on the podcast, which is, what is your favorite place to eat in Medford? And what do you like to eat there?
[Milva McDonald]: Well, I think I'm going to give a shout out to a couple of bakeries. Colette. I really like Colette. I like their pastries and Goldilocks bagels.
[Danielle Balocca]: So there's some solid breakfast choices.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: Well, thank you. So you mentioned Charter Review. So could you just tell us what Charter Review is?
[Milva McDonald]: Well, charter review. So the charter of a city or town is often people will compare it to the Constitution of the city or town, it just sort of lays out the form of government. So we have a form of government in Medford called Plan A, and it was adopted in 1986. And it's known as strong mayor. So it means that we have a mayor and a city council. And So the charter just sort of lays that out how many city Councilors we have the terms of office, what to do if one of them resigns or can't serve anymore. Just a lot of things like that and also the school committee. the composition of the school committee. So just sort of the basic form of government, how it operates, whether there are term limits, things like that. The mayor is the head of the school committee. All those things are laid out in the charter.
[Danielle Balocca]: And including how, like how and where we elect school committee and city council members. So right now we have like an at large, it's at large for both of those committees.
[Milva McDonald]: Absolutely, yeah. Whether we don't have board representation, which is actually unusual for a city of our size. So, you know, that's something that could be looked at in a charter review.
[Danielle Balocca]: And so what that would mean is that when you run for either of those, um, school committee or city council, you'd be running for like a specific part of the city rather than the whole city.
[Milva McDonald]: Exactly. So there's eight wards and, um, if let's, let's say the, the. Charter got reviewed and ward representation was implemented for the city council. It could mean that you'd have eight. Ward representatives and then a certain number of at-large or maybe the wards would be maybe a council would run for two wards. I mean, these are all things that a charter review committee or commission would closely look at to determine, you know, what might work best for Medford. The thing about at large, one of the things about at large is that it makes it harder for people to run for office in some ways, because it takes a lot more resources. You know, you have to come up with the money and the time to campaign all over the city. And the other issue is that some people feel underrepresented because they don't have a Councilor that's from their ward, even though all the Councilors are at large and they represent the entire city. There's maybe certain awards that have had much less representation over the years. So I think that that is definitely an issue that people are interested in exploring.
[Danielle Balocca]: I could also see why, because I live in Fulton Heights, and I think a lot of elected officials also live in Fulton Heights. And so I could see why there could be some resistance in the voting for the charter review, if it were to include changing toward representation from those committees, because that could mean fewer of them would be able to be elected.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I mean, it could, or maybe not. I mean, and the other thing with the charter review is, We don't, I mean, it would be looked at, but we don't know. That's not, it doesn't guarantee that we would have board representation. It's definitely one of the pieces that would be looked at. And, you know, and whatever group does review the charter is gonna look at other communities, you know, actual data and just, you know, information that will really help them determine what's best for Medford.
[Danielle Balocca]: Mm hmm. Yeah, I think that idea of having folks, you know, being able to focus on a ward rather than the whole city is, it sounds really helpful. It also sounds like it's not a guarantee with the with charter review. But it feels like having gone to some of the city council meetings where they talk about it, that feels like a piece that is meeting some resistance from some of the city council.
[Milva McDonald]: Um, well, it was specifically mentioned at one of the recently the mayor put forth a home rule petition to ask the city council to vote on putting electing a charter commission to review the charter charter review the commission and be voted for three. but that's probably not enough to get it over the hurdle at the state house so our group is looking for other ways now. But during those meetings there was ward representation was specifically mentioned by one of the Councilors as a concern and part of the reason for that was because a different Councilor had asked for ward representation to be part of the elected charter review commission that the mayor was trying to get going. So yeah. And, and, uh, you know, there were, there weren't big discussions about it, but yeah, there definitely was one Councilor who expressed concern about it.
[Danielle Balocca]: That's a confusing piece. Cause that's the difference between the home rule petition and actually voting on charter review are two separate things, but it seems like in some of those conversations, it got a little muddled. Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, it's the whole it. It is. I mean, it's definitely complex and right now, our group. I've learned a lot myself in the last few months we've only been meeting for a few months and we're all learning as we go. right now we're just in the process of trying to get the charter review to happen and there's a certain level of frustration that it's so difficult to do that because it seems you know it seems sort of like a given um gee yeah let's look at it let's review it the the review process however it unfolds is going to take Time and then, and the voters will be involved and no changes, you know, any changes that that are proposed will not happen quickly so it's not like a radical or, you know, rushed idea to. to have voted on this home rule petition or to get it going. I mean, it's going to take a lot of time. So the fact that it's taking so much time just to get to the review is kind of a little frustrating. But we're really committed and we're going to make it happen one way or the other. There's two ways to do it. The way that Medford has tried to do it is kind of a different way from the, like, if you look at sort of, if you Google charter review in Massachusetts, you'll find documents that say, well, there's two routes to charter change. And the route that Medford took was actually sort of a hybrid of those two. So one is outlined in Massachusetts general law, chapter 43B, and it involves collecting signatures from 15% of registered voters in the city. And then the question of once that's done the question of whether to review the charter and candidates for an elected commission bow on the ballot. And at the next municipal election, which in our case would be 2023 and then that commission works for 18 months. the changes they propose, if any, then go to the voters. So that's, you know, we're talking at that, with this process, assuming that we collected all the signatures, we would have a new, potentially have a charter changes on the ballot in 2025. So the other way is to do it through, it's called the special act, and that kind of charter is called a home rule charter. A special act charter, basically just goes through the city council as a home rule petition. So most cities in town to do that, they form a committee, the committee reviews the charter, takes as long as they need to. And there's many cities and towns, most of them probably do it this way because the burden of collecting the signatures is pretty high. So this committee takes however long they need to take. example of a community community that's doing that right now is Somerville, and they have, you know, clearly, it's a process that can involve a lot of public participation in there in their case, there's tons of public participation. They're constantly communicating they're constantly trying to get people involved to hear what What kinds of things, you know the community wants, and then when they propose their changes they go through mayor and the city council and then they go through the state house, and then most likely to go on the ballot so. So what Medford did with that home real petition was took. portion of Chapter 43B and made it into a Home Rule petition. So it was kind of a mix. It was like, we're going to try to elect the commission without collecting the signatures and doing it through a Home Rule petition instead. But it hasn't worked. So we're pursuing these other avenues now.
[Danielle Balocca]: Wow. And so that would mean, so the way that you're describing that Somerville is doing this is like they, they come up with the proposed changes and then go to city council, then the mayor, then the state house. And what I'd heard was the voting in city council then goes to the state house. And then, and then you can start that process of proposing changes to the charter.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, they, the, basically it goes to the city council as sort of amendments to the charter. And, um, and then that. And then it sort of becomes, it's a home rule petition and then it goes and becomes a piece of legislation so a home rule petition becomes a piece of legislation at the State House. You know, I mean, part of what I've done in trying to understand all this is I'll go to the Massachusetts legislature website and just search charter review. And you can see there's any number of bills from different communities. And they all have different things in them, but like amendments, you know, it's the language of whatever they want their new charter to be. And so they have gone through the process of however they came up with those amendments, whether they had a committee of residents doing it, or then it's gone through the city government and then it goes to the state house and then they vote on it. And it's not in the law that it has to go back to the voters of the community, but when there's significant changes, generally the state wants the people of the community to vote on it. So any significant changes most often either whether whether you use the signature route or the special act route, go back to the voters to vote on.
[Danielle Balocca]: It seems like we need like a snappy schoolhouse rock song to describe charter.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Or as my husband keeps saying, well, you need a flow chart. And, uh, I said, yeah, we do need a flow chart. I mean, the, one of the issues in Medford is that we, we still don't exactly know which route we're taking. Um, we don't know, you know, our group is like, we say we're, um, we're doing parallel tracks. We're working on, we're laying the groundwork to collect those signatures if we need to do it. Um, but we're also trying to work with the mayor's office to see if we can get a committee going. So we're kind of doing both. Um, so that, uh, cause, cause we were gonna, we're gonna get this one way or the other. Um, but, uh, But yeah, once we know which route we're taking, it will be much easier to talk about it, because then we'll just sort of be ready to go. Right now, we're just trying to get it going.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, and hearing about the timeline, that's something that I didn't really know a lot about before you kind of laid that out. And it does seem particularly frustrating that you've been at this for a long time. The charter hasn't been reviewed, right, for maybe longer than you've lived here, is that right?
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, absolutely.
[Danielle Balocca]: Wow. And it seems like there's support from residents across the board, right? Like there's no sort of like political alliance around charter review.
[Milva McDonald]: It does. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, COB.: : Think there is no I mean our group, you know, I mean I HAB-Charlotte Pitts, COB.: : There are people from all over the city. It's not, you know, I mean, it's, it's actually kind of awesome, you know, to to get together with other residents and get to know neighbors and I've worked on and off in different groups in Medford, but this group, it's really, and everybody's kind of there for the same reason. We're like, we really want charter review to happen. That's what we're working on. That's the sole agenda. And yeah, it's great.
[Danielle Balocca]: And it sounds like the 4-3 vote in the city council historically hasn't been enough for the state house to say, well, you can advance this to try to- Yeah, the state house has wanted a super majority.
[Milva McDonald]: I think that's three times the council has voted that same way. This current council has voted that way twice. And the council before this council also was 4-3. And, you know, that was also particularly frustrating for us because one of the first things our group did, because we knew that homeowner petition existed, was we reached out to all the city councilors and we tried to have meetings with the councilors who had voted no last time. And we were able to meet with two of them. One of them just didn't respond to us. And they were both really supportive. And in fact, the ward, one of them said, I really want word representation on this commission. And so we contacted the mayor, we got that into the home rule petition. And we felt really, really positive about those conversations and about the support that the Councilors, I mean, we, our intention going into those meetings was let's hear what their concerns are. And what we heard was that their concerns were about representation and then we were able to address them, which felt great. And they both expressed support and then they changed their minds. So it was tough, it's hard, but we're moving forward.
[Danielle Balocca]: And can you write us the name of the group that's working to advance strategy?
[Milva McDonald]: Well, we're the Medford Charter Review Coalition, and we do have a website, medfordcharterreview.org. I mean, I consider us to be sort of an ad hoc group that we've come, I mean, this particular group has come together, I think it was like December or January, January, I think, but I don't wanna take away from the fact that people have been working on charter review in Medford for many years. Jim Silva, a big part of the group now. He has been working on it for a long time. Michael Ruggiero, who actually has since moved out of the city, but he worked on it for a long time and they undertook the Herculean task of the signature collecting and actually got close to 5,000. So, you know, I mean, right now our estimate is that we'd have to get about 7,000 signatures. It's just, 15% is just under that, but you kind of need a pad. So, and, you know, so they came and it would have been fewer when they were doing it, because they were, you know, it's probably the, there were fewer registered voters, but they came really close. And so, you know, that just sort of is a testament to how many people want it and the amount of work that people have put into it.
[Danielle Balocca]: And what do you think, so, I mean, it's, I, I heard Carter, have you kind of described one says like, or like, you know, kind of compared to how you go for like a yearly physical or like, you know, there's different things you have check in on your health and that this sort of, yeah, being this for being kind of related to like the health of the city. But what do you think, like, how would you describe the importance of charter of you?
[Milva McDonald]: I feel like it's fundamental. I mean, and I've felt this way for a while because I, you know, I hear so many people talking about issues that they're concerned about. And I always think, you know, charter review could make a difference with that. I mean, in particular representation, people are concerned about representation. Charter review could make a big difference with that. You know, I hear people talking about I mean, there's, you know, I, I don't have an opinion on this because I haven't looked at the details or I haven't really looked at it closely but some people say well the mayor. You know, if the mayor wasn't the head of the school committee, then it would be better for the school committee. It would be better for the mayor. I, like I said, I don't know, cause I haven't looked at it, but that's an issue that would have to be looked at through charter review. I hear people saying, you know, what about term limits? I mean, we had a mayor in office, I think for, was it 28 years or something like that? We have Councilors in there for decades. I mean, I don't, again, I don't know, because I haven't really looked, I don't have an opinion really on, a strong opinion on any of these issues because I haven't looked at them closely enough. But I do think, I do have enough of an opinion to say, yeah, that's definitely something we should look at. And the only way to look at those really and to make a change is through a charter review.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah and you know that when you talked about the relationship between the mayor and the school committee and term limits and length of term right like that when when these folks have a two-year term half of their term is spent sort of trying to get re-elected right and exactly that's definitely another one of the things I hear people say two years is too short for the mayor because they're constantly campaigning so
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I've heard that many times over the years. And that's, again, comes back to charter review.
[Danielle Balocca]: Is there an option in reviewing the charter to put something in the charter about its own review, like a time limit on when you can do that?
[Milva McDonald]: That's absolutely that. And many other communities have provisions in their charter that say the charter will be reviewed every 10 years or every eight years or whatever. And that's definitely something that people are interested in doing so that every decade or whatever is decided when the committee or commission looks at the data. So this doesn't have to happen again. We don't have to go and try to fight to review our city government. I mean, because it's starting to feel like, yeah, we have to fight for this, which, astonishes me.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I heard a comment at one of the city council meetings about like this, this being sort of like a threat to our democracy, like how do we keep being able to have a say and like, you know, the power of sort of the voice of the residents versus the politician?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, yeah, I yeah. Definitely. I agree with that.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, and so your group meets about once a month over Zoom?
[Milva McDonald]: We meet once a month, and we will sometimes have smaller groups or meeting. I mean, there's subcommittees, but everybody is invited to them kind of every two weeks, in the middle of the month, we might do that. If we have something, like recently, while we were making brochures, things like that, getting the website up and running, I'm trying to get plan out the game plan for the signature drive if we ultimately have to do that, talk about you know how we're going to approach the mayor. So, so if we have something pressing then we'll, we'll add an extra meeting.
[Danielle Balocca]: And other than attending those meetings, what are ways that folks can get involved or support the work that you're doing.
[Milva McDonald]: definitely check out the website, because the website sort of it's it talks about the group, but there's also a resources section where people can look at. I mean, I think looking at what other communities have done and are doing is really helpful. And, you know, if anybody sort of interested in, you know, I mean, the details about how charter review works or how it happens, we have resources on our website. So I would say just learning about charter review is a great way to get involved. And the meetings are open to anybody in Medford, so come to a meeting. And if we collect signatures, we'll be looking for volunteers for that. And the more people that get educated and get involved the more they can interact with the committee or commission and perhaps even decide to be on or to try to apply to be on a committee or to run for the commission. Because we do need, I mean, we do need representation on whatever committee or commission that's up and running. So yeah, so those are some ways.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, if there were to be that commission, like those elected folks to look at the charter, would those have to be people that aren't already elected to other positions or is it just, could it be a combination of both?
[Milva McDonald]: That's a question that has been asked and I haven't been able to get the definitive answer, but the answer that most people I've asked seem to think that it's not, limited that anybody can run for those positions, even people who are already elected to office. I don't know that they would, but you know, it would be a process of running for office. It would mean that the people would have to collect signatures to get on the ballot, you know, nomination papers, and I mean, I don't know how many people ever run for officer know what's involved, but you have to get you have to get signatures, get on the ballot, and then you get on the ballot, and then you have to campaign, you have to get your name out somehow. And, and this is, you know, completely volunteer position. So, again, there's a huge burden in collecting the signatures is a huge amount of work. And then once those signatures are collected, people have to run, and then whoever chooses to run has to put in the work to get on the ballot campaign, and then put in the 18-month term of learning about the charter, coming up with those recommendations, and it's all volunteer. So it's a big ask. So from that point of view, appointing a committee of people, they're still volunteers, it's taking away some of the burden that, you know, maybe somebody who really wanted to be involved in charter review might be willing to do it, but if they found out they had to run for office, which is a considerable amount of work.
[Danielle Balocca]: And like costs, I would imagine too.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, exactly. It is cost if you want, create literature. You want to, you know, do a mailings are very expensive. So yeah, there's that.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, that's something that I actually hadn't thought of. So that's yeah, quite an undertaking. And I wonder too, about like, like you were alluding to who that would exclude from the process, right? People, you know, need to do that could either fundraise or support their own campaigns.
[Milva McDonald]: Exactly.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, interesting.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: Very interesting. Well, are there any other questions that I haven't asked you that you think are important for us to hear about?
[Milva McDonald]: I don't think so. I mean, I just, I really hope that people just continue to get involved in Charter Review. I know, you know, we started, like I said, meeting, I think our first meeting was in January. And it was pretty good turnout for first meeting. I just put it out like on the, you know, Medford politics groups on Facebook and And there were about 30 people. And since then, we have over 100 people on our list now. And one of the things that we talk about is outreach. We really wanna find ways to reach out to just different groups in the city, go to like the West Metro Community Center, the Senior Center, the churches, the Chamber of Commerce, just as many places as we can to reach different populations that hopefully will get involved in this and either learn about it. We really want people to learn about it. Either maybe they'll be interested in actually trying to serve on a committee or commission or just communicate with whoever does that so that this review is truly a community voice, you know, we want the voice of people in the community to be involved in this because it's our city government and it makes a difference in everything, in our lives, in our daily lives.
[Danielle Balocca]: And I think when you laid out that timeline, folks who would be able to vote when we're actually able to vote about these things, so who might not be a voting age yet, so younger folks getting involved, like I wonder if there's an interest there.
[Milva McDonald]: Absolutely. I mean, that's another group that we want to reach out to. Well, there's the CCSR. I think that's the right acronym at the high school that gets involved in a lot of civic issues in the city. But yeah, absolutely. I mean, getting young people involved is very important to me. I'm glad you brought that up.
[Danielle Balocca]: You actually, I think, are the first parent-child group that I've had both on the podcast. So Abigail was on the podcast during the election season as well.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, that's right.
[Danielle Balocca]: An active family. Yep. Great, well, I learned a lot. I also think it would be normal if people came away from this interview feeling a little confused, because it is a complicated process, right? So I think reading up and, yeah, go ahead.
[Milva McDonald]: It is complicated. I think the complicated part is understanding the roots to charter review, and that's where we are right now, because we haven't been able to actually, once the charter review is initiated, then we'll just be talking about charter review. Right now we're talking about getting the charter review to happen. So, and, and we don't know which route we're taking, but we're, you know, like I said, we're, we're preparing the signature drive if we need to go that route, but we're also communicating with the mayor, and to see if we can get an appointed committee. And once that happens, we'll be more focused on actually talking about the things that matter to people. Right now we're just like, hey, we want this to happen.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, which I think could feel like a hard thing to talk about where there's not, you know, it's like just getting to that point has taken so much work. But I really appreciate all of your dedication and the other folks' dedication to getting this moved forward.
[Milva McDonald]: Thanks. I mean, it feels really good. It just feels like, I have no doubt that it is going to happen. We are going to have a charter review one way or another, and that feels really exciting. And so it just feels good. It feels good to work on something that I know is going to be successful.
[Danielle Balocca]: I like that concept. Well, thank you so much for talking with me today and for delivering us all this information. And hopefully we can talk again soon.
[Unidentified]: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thanks so much to Milva for today's conversation. A reminder that there are some links in the show notes for more information about Charter Review and the Charter Review Coalition meetings. Thanks so much to listening to today's episode. And as always, if you have feedback about this episode or ideas for future episodes, you can email medfordpod at gmail.com. You can also subscribe, rate and review the podcast on Spotify and Apple podcasts. Thanks so much for listening. Guys, what's the name of the podcast? Never Bites!
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