total time: 3.34 minutes
total words: 477
[Mastrobuoni]: Melvin, Laurel, there's a bunch of, there's like an iPhone user, a cell phone user. Let me know what you want me to just submit everyone.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, I think John is the last committee member we're waiting for.
[Mastrobuoni]: Here's John, I just let him in.
[Unidentified]: Awesome.
[Mastrobuoni]: So it looks like then everybody else is. Okay, go ahead.
[Unidentified]: And I'm gonna go ahead and start recording on our end. Great. Thank you, Laura. Recording in progress. Okay, so I'll admit all now. Yes, please. Hey, I'd like to welcome everyone.
[Milva McDonald]: And thank you to Mike for being the Zoom administrator tonight, and Matt for taking minutes. We also, we have Janelle Austin from KP Law, Anthony Wilson from Collins Center, and we'll also have, I think, a couple more Collins Center people, and we'll be hearing from them over the course of the meeting. But we wanted to start by reviewing, or has anyone had a chance to review the minutes from our December 12th meeting? Yes. do we feel like we need to review them here or can we just go ahead and vote on accepting them or not? Move approval. I'm sorry, Eunice. Move approval.
[Unidentified]: Yep.
[Laurel Siegel]: Somebody makes a motion and then it's from one second.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Eunice, did you make the motion?
[Unidentified]: Yes, she did and Maury seconded it.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so all in favor of approving the minutes as per Eunice's motion?
[Milva McDonald]: Aye.
[Unidentified]: Aye.
[Milva McDonald]: Any opposed? Okay, great.
[Laurel Siegel]: So the minutes- I abstain as liaison, I can't, but yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: So the minutes have been accepted. That's great. Now we're going to move into the business of the meeting and Laurel is going to take over.
[Laurel Siegel]: Absolutely. Um, so, uh, yeah, basically I'll just, uh, Janelle, I'll go ahead and make you, um, a cohost so that, uh, any materials that you want to present to anybody. Um, so Janelle is, uh, joining us from KP law so that she can give us some guidance on the open meeting law and public records laws. Um, that will inform our work.
[Austin]: Thank you very much. Thank you to members of the committee for having me here tonight. I understand that there were some materials previously provided to the committee, so I'm not going to rehash all of the materials. I understand I have about 15 minutes to kind of touch on some highlights this evening, but really wanted, and I'm happy to supply those materials again afterwards, but I really wanted to focus on a couple of really salient and timely points with respect to the public records law. The open meeting law, we can certainly answer any conflict of interest questions as well. As a starting point, the public records law, open meeting law, and conflict of interest law are all what we call sunshine laws or government transparency laws. And as a public body, you are subject to the open meeting law. So I thought we would start with that discussion first. And then we can certainly, you know, touch upon the other two topics. But I think the open meeting law is probably what the members will deal with the most. You know, many of you have significant experience in open meeting law issues. And for those that don't, certainly it's something that, you know, the Attorney General's Division of Open Government has put out a lot of great materials for public body members. But essentially, members of a public body, a municipal public body, are subject to the open meeting law. And the open meeting law requires that the committee conduct its business the majority of the time in what we call open session, which is a public setting open to members of the public to observe what is inspiring. So essentially, if there's a quorum of your committee, which we have this evening, the body's business has to be conducted so members of the public can see what's taking place. That requires, as all of you know, as you did for this evening, you know, notice 48 hours in advance, you know, an opportunity for members to communicate and deliberate an open session in minutes to be prepared and approved in a timely manner. The bulk of the committee's business will largely be conducted in what we call open session. There is an executive session portion of the open meeting law, which deals with confidential matters. Those are really fact specific. So obviously, if you ever have a specific question about executive session, I'd be happy to answer that as well. It's really dealing with, you know, generally complaints or more sensitive types of information, real estate transactions, litigation, etc. So I'm going to focus the majority of the time on, you know, deliberation, because I think that's really most helpful. And what I see a lot, a lot of questions come up within my work with public bodies throughout the state. The members of the committee know that, you know, a meeting is a deliberation amongst a quorum of the public body's members. You know, a meeting we know isn't if you meet each other on the street. or at a social gathering or private social event, but care should be taken that if you do, you're not deliberating on anything that's within the committee's jurisdiction. So what does that mean? That means if you're catching up on family or friends, or you see each other at a community event, that's fine. We just don't want to have the appearance that there's deliberation outside of this setting at a properly posted meeting. That the term meeting is strictly interpreted. So, you know, it can involve discussions in a hallway or phone calls or email or posts. And we're gonna talk about that in a little bit of detail. And it was in the materials that I had previously submitted to the committee as well. But basically any discussion has to take place so members of the public can see it. The question I get a lot on is what about written communications? And written communications and oral communications are specifically addressed in the open meeting law. And email is also specifically addressed. So what does that mean? For a best practice, my recommendation is that email only be used by members of the committee for meeting agendas, scheduling purposes, or just to provide reports or documents, but that no substantive communications or discussions take place. So we don't want a situation where one member is sending an email, and a quorum of the public body is responding, or what we call a serial communication, where one person receives an email, forwards it to another person, forwards it to another person, and then we have a quorum of the committee, all expressing ideas or opinions outside of this setting, a properly posted meeting. So I always caution members of a public body to use email for a very specific purpose, which is really for scheduling. That would be my recommendation. Some public bodies will include members will include at the bottom of their email, you know, please be mindful of open meeting law considerations, you know, if there's an email even about can we meet, you know, February 1 at 630, or can we meet at seven, so that there's not an instinct to do a reply or apply all that may trigger open meeting law requirements. There's some other practical approaches that I just wanted to share with the members as well. If you are attending another public body meeting in your individual capacity, you might wanna say that. I'm here as a resident, I'm not here on behalf of the Charter Study Committee, I'm here in my individual capacity. Because if there's multiple members of your committee attending, for instance, a city council meeting, that may trigger posting requirements under the open meeting law as well. So I just wanted to flag that. Obviously, if you're meeting with another public body, which can happen from time to time, you would consider posting in a major, you know, quorum of your body's meeting and a quorum of another body's meeting, you'd post a joint meeting. And we can certainly talk about that if that comes up as well. So again, you might want to consider if you're speaking on your own behalf to say I'm speaking in my individual capacity just to dispel any appearance you're acting as a member. So we wanna be aware of reply all to emails, limit the use of email to only scheduling purposes, and also assume that email is going to be forwarded to unintended recipients perhaps, I see that often, and don't ask or express opinions to other members in an email. really be cognizant of the use of email. I would say that also translates to text messages as well. So just because it's on a personal device, and we'll talk about this in the public records context, but because it's on a personal email account or a personal cell phone, It doesn't matter. We know that the guidance from the Attorney General's Office, as well as the Supervisor of Records, says that if you are sending a document related to city business, related to your work on the committee, it's subject to the public records law. and also would trigger open meeting while requirements. So I just want to be very clear about that. That question comes up all of the time. And I know you're all volunteers doing doing this work on behalf of the city. And your use of personal devices doesn't doesn't take it outside of the context of these laws. I'd be happy to answer any specific questions on the public records or open meeting law before I move to public records. I just wanted to also say that the rules for email and text messages also apply, we know from guidance from the state, to social media posts, Facebook posts, Twitter posts, Instagram, blogs, et cetera. And so if there's a quorum, you certainly all have individual First Amendment rights. But if a quorum of the committee is posting and deliberating on blogs or social media on matters within your jurisdiction, it may trigger open meeting law requirements that comes up from time to time as well. So just be aware in terms of practice and really being clear about whether you're posting something as an individual or as a member of the committee. I know there's a lot to digest under the open meeting law. If there's any questions before I move on to public records, I'd be happy to answer those. Or if you want to wait to the end, however the chairs would like to handle it.
[Laurel Siegel]: I think if we have questions now, it looks like Ron has a question. We should go ahead and do that.
[Giovino]: Thank you. My quick question is, you know, I've been in these open meeting committees before. Google Docs and the access to Google Docs and preparing presentations and giving everybody accessibility to edit and whatever, what are the limitations in terms of collaboration and subcommittees or whatever like that that allows one person to go in and edit or add a document? What kind of rules do we need to follow in that regard?
[Austin]: That's an excellent question. And that has come up a lot more in the past couple of years, where remote meetings have been authorized. The use of Google Docs or document sharing software is generally not permissible for members of a public body. Because essentially, if you have a document and everyone is sharing their opinions and beliefs in that document, amending meeting minutes that comes up from time to time as well. You're essentially communicating beliefs or ideas outside of a properly posted meeting. And so the best practice, in my opinion, would be it's fine to have electronic versions, but you'd really want to only discuss your individual comments at a properly posted meeting. And so that's something that based on the use of evolving technology, we know that that would constitute or may constitute a deliberation depending on what is shared outside of a properly posted meeting.
[Unidentified]: Good question. Do you want to go ahead?
[Browne]: Yeah, thank you for your presentation. I have two questions. The first one relates to remote participation. that we're where we are now with the laws that we're working under that have been, I think, revised a few times through this pandemic time. And I think the laws are changing again, or whatever law we're operating under now is expiring or something at the end of March. What are, or will be, if you know what the law will be in terms of remote participation from public body members, if we were to, if the law changes to go to, you know, well, I guess we can meet in person. This body has chosen to meet on Zoom for the time being. Will body members, if we choose to, for personal reasons, be able to continue to participate via Zoom? That would be my first question. And then my second question relates to the use of social media. I'm somewhat of a prolific poster on social media involved in local politics and things, my opinions and so forth. And I think what we all hope is that we can engage the public in this process. both formally when we have public engagement meetings down the road, but certainly to get people interested in what we're doing and, you know, coming on to meetings and so forth, and sharing facts and progress and so forth about, you know, what we're doing here. How can we do that or can we do that via social media, sharing, you know, what we're up to you know, getting the public interested so that they do jump onto our meetings in the future and sharing what could go into a charter, what a charter is, just in general about our work and following on the right side of the law.
[Austin]: Thank you. Those are two excellent questions. I'll start with the first one. You are correct that under the COVID legislation, which has been extended several times since 2020. Currently, the legislation that allows remote participation without a remote participation policy is expiring March 31, 2023. We are closely monitoring that legislation to see if it will be extended. When it was extended this summer, there was some discussion at the state house in terms of a permanent extension for this. And so that's closely being monitored. There's different bills that are pending to allow this to be on a permanent basis. Nothing has passed yet, but we're monitoring that. If come the end of March, that legislation goes away, there's no further extension or no permanent measure, then in my opinion, the city would still have the option to adopt what's called a remote participation policy, which does allow members to participate remotely. It's different than what's allowed under the COVID relief, because it does require some members to be present, including the chair. But there is an option to do that. And I can certainly send some information as necessary. But like I said, I'm closely monitoring what's happening at the state level, because I've heard this from multiple public bodies. So I can certainly keep obviously keep you all updated. In terms of In terms of online posting, you know, I know that there was the announcement when the committee was formed, you know, best practice again, not because anyone is doing anything wrong or doesn't mean well, but just to avoid any appearance of deliberation outside of a properly posted meeting. If there's a staff, you know, a city hall staff member or a liaison that can post. it's always better than having a public body member post. And usually it comes up where, you know, member A would post something and then member B would chime in and member C, and it's all very non-intentional, but it could trigger the open meeting law. So, you know, as I said, everyone has first amendment rights, but if you're posting in your capacity as a committee member, it may make sense just to have the city through the city's website, put general updates up, which may take it outside, you know, certainly your minutes are gonna be prepared and approved. Scheduling, I don't have an issue with, you know, alerting members of the public, but it may make sense to send that out, you know, on an official basis through City Hall, if that makes sense.
[Browne]: Yeah, I guess what I'm more getting at is things come up with, you know, people wondering how do I explain this? You know, our elected officials now have, don't have term limits. They have two year terms and so forth. And something may come up in a discussion. Well, you know, how come we don't have term limits or how come they only serve two years or how can we recall a politician or something like that? Well, we would have to change our charter in order to do that, you know, and, you know, trying to explain things to people so that, you know, there's a method to this and trying to educate people about what a charter is, what charter review is, what we're doing here, I guess, you know, leaving that to the city to do.
[Austin]: Yes, and I think that that would be fine as long as there's not this interaction with respect to other members. And I know it's really hard to kind of figure out where the line is drawn, but you certainly wouldn't want to direct your comments to other public body members or, you know, essentially engage in a conversation that would occur at one of these meetings. online, right? That's the spirit of the open meeting law. And so, you know, if you're directing comments, and I'm not saying this is what's happening, but if there was a direction and other people chime in, I think that would be problematic if it was done. But if it's just, you know, one way interaction, Trying to educate people. Trying to educate people. And it's not, again, it goes back to that definition of deliberation. Is it a deliberation amongst members of the committee? Right. So we just want to be very cognizant of that not occurring.
[Laurel Siegel]: Okay, thank you. Just for a clarification here. Um, would it be a distinction, you know, if, if one of us is making a post, obviously, you know, as just a lay individual, as opposed to saying, I am a member of this committee, and I'm saying this, does that does that alter the conversation at all?
[Austin]: It does. I mean, I think, again, it's kind of hard because you're all in the position and you've been appointed to the committee. So everyone understands you're coming from that vantage point. But again, you know, no one is suggesting that people don't have their First Amendment rights to comment on municipal government or the city. It comes down to really, I think it makes sense to clarify that. that you're not speaking on behalf of the committee, and this isn't the official position of the committee, however, X, Y, and Z. But just sometimes, like I said, when I see this, and it's usually in the context of responding to an open meeting law complaint, it's very non-intentional, and it just kind of, not spirals, but it goes from one communication to the other very quickly. And when it's put together, it could constitute a deliberation. caution to be very conscientious in terms of online communications.
[Unidentified]: Jean, you have your hand raised.
[Zotter]: Hi, Janelle. Thanks for presenting today. I have a question about subcommittees because we have talked about having subcommittees. I just want to confirm if we create subcommittees that they will need to meet open meeting law, including quorum and posting a notice and public participation. If you could just confirm that.
[Austin]: That is correct. So subcommittees that are created by public bodies that are subject to the open meeting law, such as yourself, are also subject to the open meeting law. That requires notice, open meetings, unless there's an executive session purpose, and minutes to be kept. The only exception to that rule is if, for instance, a superintendent or a mayor who's not subject to the open meeting law creates a subcommittee to advise, you know, herself on those particular issues, that wouldn't be, but that's not what we're dealing with here. So in my opinion, yes, it would be subject, any subcommittee created by your committee would be subject to the open meeting law.
[Laurel Siegel]: All right, do we have any other questions on the open meeting law or otherwise we can move on to the public records law?
[Unidentified]: All right. I think, did Anthony, did you have a question?
[Andreottola]: Yeah, just real briefly. Do you have any recommendations on how to kind of differentiate, you know, personal opinion and being a member of the committee? You know, do you have to identify yourself as a member of this committee, say on a political question on social media or when you're commenting? Do you have any recommendations on how to make sure we don't cross that line?
[Austin]: Sure. So I used to say before the proliferation of social media that if you were attending a meeting, you would say, you know, I'm here. My name is Janelle Austin. I'm a resident of 123 Main Street and I'm speaking on my own personal behalf. Right. And so I think you don't have to give your address, but I think the equivalent would be something online. Like I said, if you are speaking about a matter that isn't within your committee's jurisdiction, I think it's a little bit easier. So if you're commenting about something before the city council or another public body, it's easier. I think it's a little bit harder to say, oh no, I'm speaking in my individual capacity, but I'm a member of this committee. Again, it is difficult in this day and age, but I'm just, I would be very cognizant to not share opinions amongst a quorum of all of you online.
[Unidentified]: If that's helpful. Thank you.
[Laurel Siegel]: And I think that was all the questions. If you want to move on to public records law, that would be great. Sure.
[Austin]: And I know the materials that I previously supplied were very detailed. So I just wanted to touch on a couple of particular items that I thought were most relevant. One was, as I mentioned before, the use of private email accounts or private cell phones for text messages does not necessarily take those communications or those records outside of the public records law. So let me start by saying what the public records law is, is It's a law that governs both the retention and the scope of records created or received by the city or its officials or volunteers or employees. So essentially your records in your capacity as members of the committee are subject to the public records law. If you are using personal email accounts, cell phone numbers, et cetera, personal computers to do work on behalf of the committee, those records would also be subject to the public records law. And so, you know, I often get the question, well, I sent this email on a Gmail account or I sent this text message on my personal cell phone. if it relates to municipal business on your, based on the work the committee's doing, in my opinion, if there was a public records request, we would have to ask you for those records. Now we all use emails and phones all of the time, but I just wanted to flag that for all of you because You will be a busy committee and certainly, you know, any official business is going to be in your meeting minutes, but just be cognizant of email and text messages as well. So the public records law will govern your records as well as the open meeting law will govern your meeting minutes. So that requires that the meeting minutes be timely prepared and approved. And there, I assume, will be put on the internet for members of the public to see. So if you received a request for those, we would process that under the open meeting law or the public records law. So I just wanted to identify that for you as well. Certainly, you know, if you have any specific questions about the public records law, definitely let me know. There are exceptions to the public records law, which are fairly narrow in scope. Obviously, items that contain, you know, certain personnel information or attorney-client privilege information, but generally speaking, records created or received by you would be subject to the public records law unless they're otherwise exempt.
[Unidentified]: Any specific questions on that? I got one.
[Leming]: Sure. Just for the meeting minutes, which I'm taking right now, and I'm a person that doesn't have the most experience in the world as secretary, but are the meeting minutes supposed to be like more like a transcript, so everything everybody says, or is it supposed to be just like a summary of the key points that were said during a meeting and that's acceptable?
[Austin]: Sure, so they do not need to be a transcript under the open meeting law. They do need to have certain items and I'll tell you what those are, but it has to have the members present at the meeting, the date, the time of the meeting. I can send you a summary of this if this is helpful, but the date and time of the meeting, the members present or absent, a general discussion of the business that's conducted by the committee, and a record of all votes taken. So it does not need to be a transcript. It also can't be very sparse. It has to basically, I always use the analogy that if you picked up a copy of your meeting minutes and a member of the public was at home and didn't attend the meeting, would they understand what transpired at the meeting? And if the answer is yes, then they're probably sufficiently detailed, but it doesn't need to be a transcript.
[Unidentified]: if that's helpful. We have any other questions regarding the public records law? All right.
[Laurel Siegel]: Are there any other materials you wanted to share with us to know?
[Austin]: I just wanted to touch on I know there were a conflict of interest training was also conducted. I know that members, you know, understand that they have to complete the State Ethics Commission training. I don't know if everyone's already done that. Certainly, that's my recommendation. Those materials are online. If you need them, just certainly let me know. I'd be happy to provide them. I just wanted to flag two things that I think would come up based on the work of your particular committee. And this may be something you already know, but I always highlight it. You know, certain gifts are not allowed. Gifts, written disclosures required essentially under the ethics law, if it's related to your office or action. And it's less than $50 gifts over $50 are not permitted. There's very specific conflict of interest requirements for members of public bodies. So I just wanted to, to, to share that with you. Obviously we want to give, make the, we want to present that there's no appearance of just, you know, impropriety, which of course there isn't. Um, but certainly we want to just be cognizant that includes food and beverages, um, and other gifts, you know, obviously if there's someone's birthday or it's a friend issue, that's different, but just wanted to flag that for you. Um, the other thing, and you know, I, I just wanted to identify, cause I get the most questions on the gift issue and also, you know, acting as an agent, so to speak, and that's a 268A, conflict of interest law, section 17 matter. Essentially, you can't receive money from or act as an agent for someone. So, if your professional background is an attorney or it is an engineer, for instance, there are some very specific limitations in terms of presenting or being before the city on other things or representing clients. So I just wanted to identify those as well, those particular two points to highlight, and then just make sure that everyone knew about the state ethics training as well.
[Laurel Siegel]: Unfortunately, actually, this is, we had not previously been informed about the state ethics training. So if you could provide those materials to me and Milva, we'll make sure we share that out to the committee.
[Austin]: Okay, I will email those out tomorrow. Thank you.
[Leming]: Also, if we already finished the state ethics training for something else, we have to take it again.
[Austin]: I think it's every three years is my recollection.
[Unidentified]: But I can confirm. Does anybody else have any further questions for Janelle?
[Austin]: I would also just not to backtrack on the open meeting law, but there is the open meeting law certification as well. I just want to make sure everyone has completed that. And if you haven't, I can send that along as well. Yes.
[Laurel Siegel]: Unfortunately, we have not yet received materials on any training. So if you could furnish that, that would be great. Absolutely. No problem. Well, thank you so much for your time and for the clarification. Jean, did you have a question?
[Zotter]: Oh, are there forms then that we have to get you Janelle or after the forms are filed with the city clerk's office? Okay, and which forms are those are you'll send it?
[Austin]: Yep, I will send I will send the certification forms and the instructions in terms of who they need to be returned to.
[Unidentified]: Okay, that's great. Thank you. No problem. All right, thank you again, Janelle.
[Austin]: Thank you all, nice meeting you. Have a good evening everybody. Further questions can be helpful, let me know. Thank you all, happy new year. Thank you too.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, now we are very excited and grateful to be working with the Collins Center during this process. We have Anthony Wilson from the Collins Center, Michael Ward, and was Marilyn also coming? She, okay.
[Michael Ward]: That's her phone number.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Michael Ward]: Down in the corner there.
[Milva McDonald]: Great. So I'm going to hand over the program to you. And I know that you all are interested in connecting with the committee members and you can start your presentation. Thank you.
[Michael Ward]: Great. Can you make Anthony a co-host to share his screen? I already did. Oh, excellent. Thank you very much. Well, and thank you to both of you, the co-chairs and to all the members of the committee for the opportunity to work with you. We are very excited to meet you all. We're excited to support your work. As you can see in my name there, my name is Michael Ward. I'm the director of the Collins Center. I'm also a member of our center's charter team, and we'll be helping a bit of the background and popping in here and there. I'm not going to be part of the main project team, but I certainly hope to be involved as needed. With me tonight are two members of the project team that are going to be on this as, as the co-chair mentioned, Anthony Wilson, who will be the team leader, I'll turn it over to in a moment and Marilyn Contreras, who's here, who's on by phone as well. We've got two more members who will be joining the team at future meetings. We've decided to keep our presentation, uh, brief tonight, um, because we want to, um, have time to answer your questions and also to learn about you and from you that will help us customize, um, uh, our approach to the needs and interests of this committee. Um, every charter committee, every commission, um, every charter project, it tends to be a little bit different. And the more we can, uh, understand, um, kind of where you're coming from, the more we can really. Taylor, what we're doing and how we work with you to help you out as much as possible. So we'll look forward to that at the end. I'm going to just briefly tell you a bit about the Collins Center and about our charter work, and then I'll turn it over to Anthony. So first, to get to know a little bit about us, the Collins Center was created back in 2008 by the Patrick administration and the legislature. We are part of the McCormick Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at UMass Boston. We have a mission, a legislatively provided mission, to provide technical assistance to cities, towns, school districts, state agencies, quasi, pretty much any public entity out there on public management topics. You can think of us a little bit like a consulting organization with a public service mission. In our 14, now pushing 15 years, we have completed over 800 projects, mostly cities and towns, mostly Massachusetts. We've worked in over two thirds of the 351 cities and towns, including all of the largest cities, as well as several of the smallest, including the town of Gosnold, population 70. Beyond the charter work, our sort of main practice areas include finance, HR, we do operations work for different departments, we do analytics, we do executive recruitment training, IT, we do some performance management, regionalization, and of course the charter and structure work. I think it's important to note that we do have these other practice areas, because they really do inform our charter work. And if we, if the committee, if we come into a, for example, a deep question about finance, or about HR, we can, that we can't answer within our charter team, we can go beyond to our other HR team, our finance team. and build further expertise as needed. So let me just, you know, give you a quick flavor of our charter work. And actually, I think this is a little, there's a couple of these that need updating or adding to, but you got to just to give you a bit of a flavor here. I know this is very small text. We've worked in about 30, on about 30 charter related projects as a center. It's about 7% of the cities and towns in Massachusetts includes Some major, some of the larger cities, it also includes some small towns, everything in between. And beyond the Collins Center's list of charter projects, Marilyn, who's with us, and then another member of our team, Steve, who will be joining at future meetings, both have worked on many charter projects in their past lives prior to joining the Collins Center. In fact, I don't, Marilyn, I always say Marilyn has worked on more charters than anyone else in Massachusetts charters than anyone else in the Commonwealth. So it's, we really have a lot of experience working with different committees, different size cities, different approaches, different interests. Um, we currently just so you know, have, uh, active charter projects going, uh, in, um, the cities of Beverly Cambridge in Somerville, um, um, as well as a bunch of, uh, several small towns. Um, and you know, I obviously am biased, uh, but I believe that the charter work is some of the most critical work we do at the call center, because as you'll find, as you'll hear late in a moment, um, you know, we're. And as you probably already know that the charter is really setting the foundation for everything in a city and town does it really is at the core. And, and because of that, you know, I want to take a moment to thank you all for your service on this committee. We know you're giving up your time, your energy, you know and to be on this, you may at times wonder what you've gotten yourselves into, but it's, it's so important. It's incredibly important. for the city, for the community, the work that you are undertaking. And it's a critical opportunity for the community to step back away from the day-to-day, look at what's working, look at what's not working, and looking at what can be improved so that the city of Medford can continue to provide the best possible services to the community. So I guess with that, I'm going to, you know, just thank you all again for your service. And I'm looking forward to hearing more about you and your questions and your interests at the end, but I'm going to turn it over to Senator Associate Anthony Wilson, who's going to take you on a brief tour of charter history in Massachusetts. And then we're going to talk about the reasons for charter review and the types of things that get reviewed in a charter review. So thank you. And Anthony.
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: Thank you, Mike. So I'm going to just go through some of the brief history of charters in Massachusetts, how we got where we are today. And that'll touch on sort of probably why you are in the middle of a charter review now. So 1821, the Massachusetts Constitution was amended to allow cities with populations of over 12,000 to adopt a city form of government. In 1915, the legislature codified the law relating to city government offering planned city governments. That's what we see today as Chapter 43, which provides citizens a citizen petition process to adopt the city form as defined by the state. There are several plans, four were part of the initial statute and two more were added later. And I'll just go to the next slide. So this is just some general facts about the charter situation in Massachusetts. So no city has adopted a CD or F charter. The text of each plan is modest. That's a nice way of saying that they're sparse. They don't cover all the things that we think about today in a modern charter. The plans do not enjoy significant popularity. A lot of cities that did adopt a plan charter have over time modified them or modified them at the time of their adoption. and modified them through the special act process. So the process for adopting a plan from a government has been repealed. Oh, excuse me. With the home rule amendment that was adopted in 1966, the Massachusetts amendment importantly provided for limited home rule. So as we're gonna find out throughout this process is that communities in Massachusetts have much more power than they did prior to shape a charter in the way that best fits their community. So this next slide, I'm not gonna read this whole quote, but it's a quote from the National League of Cities. And essentially what the quote says, and it's very true, is that the charter is the municipal equivalent of a state or national constitution. So as Mike said, this is the foundation of how your city will be operating moving forward. So there are five types or five reasons for charter review. They seem pretty self-explanatory. We're going to go through them a little bit. The first one is to update your charter to reflect the best practices for municipal governance, to be responsive to the needs of the population, to ensure that the charter is kept consistent with state and federal law, to ensure the charter is consistent with the values and cultural changes, and to clarify any text that has caused confusion or disruption in its interpretation. So modern charters, Traditionally include an automatic review process, you can set the time or the time period on under which the review will happen. Usually, it'll be 10 years. It provides a mechanism for reorganization of departments, again, with time cities may offer more or different services they have in the past, and therefore Having a flexible way to structure your city is often important. A capital improvement process plan and reference to electronic and online access information. As you will have already seen from your conversation with the attorney from Kaplan and Page, there's a lot of conversation about how this new electronic world we live in affects the way that we govern. So these are just some examples of the areas that these five reasons for charter review impact. So in regard to responsiveness to the needs of the community, the size and composition of the city council may need to change depending on the size and population of the community. And as we all know, those things change over time. And the terms of the mayors, there's been some There's conversations in some communities about how long should the mayor's term be, depending on how effective they'll be in terms of pushing certain policies or implementations forward. In the area of staying consistent with state law, there've been several changes in HR law. In fact, just today, there was a, I think the federal government is discussing new policies about non-compete clauses, which could affect municipal government. Procurement law, open meeting law, as you guys had a training on earlier. And cultural changes, many modern charters no longer use gender pronouns. Many modern charters have changed the names of committees or boards to, again, reflect the changing gender norms. So whereas we used to have board of selectmen, I'm sorry, yeah, board of selectmen, we have a select board or other terms of that nature. and to clarify any text that may have caused confusion or disputes in the past. Examples can be recall or referendum provisions, as well as defining key terms that are used throughout the charter. There can often be some confusion when reviewing a charter to see what, perhaps it's the division of power between the branches of government, what are the city council scope authority, what is the mayor's, and there may be confusion around the terms that are used to describe that division of power. And this is some recent sort of in-depth charter changes that the Cowen Center has done in the past couple of years. I don't know if Mike or Marilyn, you wanna chime in about anything noteworthy about any of these?
[Michael Ward]: I'll say a few things and then I'd love to hear Marilyn add on as well. I may not stick exactly totally to the ones on this. There are a few others we'll talk about that I don't see on here. We'll start with, Um, Amherst and Framingham, uh, which changed form of government to, to, from town to city, uh, in, I think, 2017 and 2019 approximate, maybe 2018, somewhere around there. Um, we also, um, saw some other major changes of the city of Everett about 10 years ago, replaced what was the last bicameral, uh, city council in the, in the state with a, um, a single city council. Uh, that had their prior, uh, forum had existed for over a hundred years. I believe, um, more recently, um, we have seen. Um, Somerville, they try to review committee has finished its process. It's now passed a new charter to the city council for its review. Um, and the Somerville new Somerville charter, um, take some steps to modernize, um, uh, some of those charter was also over a hundred years old, um, was predated the plans. Uh, Cambridge is in process looking at, um, um, they have a plan E form. They're not sure whether they're going to keep the form or not, but they have decided to move on from the plan E text, even if they keep the form the same. Um, we recently completed a project with Watertown, which kept the council manager form, but made. a bunch of modernization type amendments around things like communications, legislative capacities, and so on and so forth. Marilyn, do you want to talk about any of the other, you know, recent charter changes in the last 10, 15 years?
[Contreas]: Sure. A new report had a plan B charter, so, and moved on to a home rule charter. And once again, it was a significant modernization exercise, and they did provide a four-year term for the mayor. North Hampton took its 1888 charter and brought it forward with more modernization, also provided a four-year term for mayor, made some changes in the school committee. And Pitfield was a 1932 charter, that also focused on the term of the mayor. And once again, bringing those features that we talked about, such as a capital plan and how to explain the electronic notices and that kind of thing, you know, into the charter. I think one of the things that we've touched on is that the charter is your legal foundation. But it's also another way to think about it is you want someone to be able to pick it up and read an accessible document that basically explains how the government is structured. And what features are included that continue no matter who is mayor, no matter who is on the council, no matter who's the police chief, whatever, these are the things that you always want to have. And that was the point I wanted to make. Thank you, Marilyn.
[Michael Ward]: And Matthew, I see your hand raised.
[Leming]: Yes, I'm not sure if I was supposed to wait till the end, but this seems like a good slide to ask my question. So you mentioned the city council reviewing these charter changes. Can you talk about the tendency of the city council and these other towns to approve the recommended changes of the charter study committee and if there has been trouble in that how much it came into discussions as to like the likelihood of the city council to approve whatever changes we gave.
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: So Matthew, I'm just going to put a pin in there because it's it's we kind of touch on that in the next slides. So I'm going to come back to it. We're just going to go through the next slides. And it's I promise you it's folded in there. Yep. So pathways to revisions of a new charter. So Home Rule, as we discussed earlier, the Home Rule Amendment, Chapter 40, spelled out in Chapter 43B. There's also the Special Act Charter route. Flexible, different time standards, and the charter revision process, which It sounds like Medford could be in the midst of Marilyn. Do you want to say anything? Maybe, maybe explain a little bit more about these. This may, you may be able to answer a little bit more about that. City council question talking about these three, that's to adoption.
[Contreas]: Sure. Your, your committee is going to present a set of recommendations to the, to the city council and the city council will review that and determine what they like and don't like. In answer to your question, yes, some of these things do not go forward. And in terms of the ones that we've worked on, I can think of a couple that died in the city council. You have to be aware of what will draw the city council's attention. We do have examples where contentious issues were kind of set aside, and a lot of the modernization changes were made, such as, like I said, the electronic notice, the capital plan, a standard budget-making process, but they didn't want to change the term of the mayor, that kind of thing. And it's also important to remember that once the city council approves it by majority vote, it must be approved by the mayor before it can go to the state legislature. So you've got two, you've got two sort of vaults to go over.
[Michael Ward]: And then Marilyn, you just referred to the third, the third one, which if the charter is, does not include anything that hasn't, you know, that's out of the ordinary. The legislature is likely to push it through on its own timeline, but it's likely to push it through. If the committee starts to, you know, look at doing things that have not been done before, that will probably draw some attention to legislation, not saying that they'll reject it or ignore it, but it will certainly draw more attention and more discussion than it would if it was a pretty standard charter. So your question is a great one. And I'm glad you've asked it early because it's something that the committee probably should be grappling with as individual committee members and as a committee throughout this is, you know, there's the, what do we think as a committee is the ideal optimal charter? And then there's, you know, what, what can, what do we think is, is an improvement that we think is, is going to be acceptable to the majority of players. And, and then of course, the last stop in all of this is the, is the ballot box. And so, so the committee, you know, we'll have to, you know, keep that in mind as well, that the voters will, will get the final say at whatever is put forward. So I know it may feel like that, then you there's, there's a lot of steps and there's a lot of hurdles, but at the same time, the committee, you know, it has some political clout. You've been, you are residents who have been appointed for your perspectives and expertise. And so, you know, crafting something and presenting that to the councils will carry some weight and, and, and shouldn't be discounted. So it's a great question. I'm glad you asked it. We don't have a clear answer. There are examples. as Marilyn said, that we've seen where a council has sat on it or not moved it forward. But there are also many examples where they have obviously moved forward what has come out of a committee like yours.
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: Yeah, and just to add to that, committee members have already sort of alluded to this during their questions to Kaplan and Page about conversations on social media. The committee probably does want to have a thoughtful consideration about how it does bring in viewpoints and perspectives from other members of the community that aren't on the committee that will help to shape a strong proposal that reduces the likelihood of rejection at the various points in the process that it has to go through to ultimately be enacted. So that's the end of our presentation. We're going to open up to the committee for questions. I would like to start with, It helps our team to work better to know who it is that we're working with. So we'd love an introduction from the committee members. And if anyone has any thoughts about what they're looking to get out of this process or how they'd like to see it progress, that will help us in advising you even at this early stage. Thank you.
[Unidentified]: I'm turning it back over to the chairs.
[Milva McDonald]: Does anybody do you want us to just sort of introduce ourselves to start with?
[Michael Ward]: That that would be great. Yeah, if you could, you know, introduce yourselves and and and, you know, relevant, you know, background Of course. And then we'd love to hear, you know, what's on your mind, whether there's a question for us about something we said, whether it's a question for us about something we didn't say, whether it's a thought you've got about, it's been in the back of your mind about Med, you know, a question about Medford's charter, an issue that's been bothering you, whatever it is, you know, the more we hear the better we can start to think about, okay, well, how can we, you know, work with, with the committee to, to craft a process that that's going to be most effective for you.
[Milva McDonald]: Awesome. Okay. I'll start and then I'll call each committee member and invite you to introduce yourself and comment on some of the things Michael mentioned. I'm Melva McDonald. I'm one of the co-chairs. I've been hearing about charter review in Medford for several years and started to get involved in trying to get a review to happen. uh, about a year ago and it's taken, it's taken a while just to get this committee up and going. So I'm really excited about it. Um, I think for me, the fundamental issue is what Michael and Anthony and others have alluded to about the charter sort of being the core document that guides the city. Um, and that's my main reason for being interested, um, in, in looking at it and updating it and. seeing what would work best for Medford. So, and Laurel, do you wanna go next?
[Laurel Siegel]: Sure, so I'm Laurel Siegel and I'm co-chair with Milva. And like Milva, I've been part of a resident group that has been working to raise the question of charter review on the city for some time. And yeah, really it's just a matter of taking a closer look at what we've got. We know that we have a very basic document that's not as expansive as many other municipalities. And it's also 40 years old. So, you know, taking a closer look with the eyes of the current times and what makes most sense for our city.
[Unidentified]: Great, thanks.
[Milva McDonald]: Anthony, do you wanna go next?
[Andreottola]: Hi, I'm Anthony Andreodola. By profession, I'm a mental health Councilor. I've been a longtime Method resident, been here more than 50 years. I'm interested in helping our city move forward. I remember before we had an elected mayor and how we functioned in the past. And I see a city that's and in need of change. And I want to do whatever I can to kind of help that process move along. I did have a question. You know, this, the city has been talking about a charter for a number of years, charter review for a number of years now. And I know the last two times that we as a city tried to get this charter review going, it was turned down by the legislature because there wasn't a super majority of the city council in favor of it. Is that still the case where we need to get five votes on the city council to move this forward or would it just be enough to get a majority? That's something that concerns me. And with next year being an election year, is this going to, go past this election, or is it something that we need to kind of address quickly, or is it something that will kind of go on, you know, for years before we, you know, finally have a decision one way or the other?
[Michael Ward]: I'll take the last part of that, and then maybe pass over to Marilyn on the city council majority, super majority piece. Um, you know, the timeline, um, you know, is really at the discretion of the committee. Um, uh, you know, within whatever constraints you've been given from your mandate, um, from the, um, from the city. Um, however, there obviously are, um, external timeline constraints, if you were to say, if you wanted, if you wanted to put something on the ballot in November, that is an extremely challenging timeline at this point in time, certainly, or at least for something, you know, at least for a major change, maybe for minor changes, it's still, you know, still still doable. But if you're talking, you know, really significant things, you're going to need a lot, a lot more, potentially more time. And that's because, you know, if you back it out to get it on the ballot, it has to go to the clerk in a certain amount of time. And before that, you know, the It has to go to the legislature, the governor. Before that, it has to go to the mayor and the council. And before that, you have to finish your work. So there's a lot of steps that would have to be compressed into between now and November if you wanted to put something on the November ballot. Not saying you can't, just saying it would be tricky. Beyond that though, it is really up to the committee, how fast or slow, how big or small you all want to move. Marilyn, do you want to take a swing at the majority super majority question?
[Contreas]: Sure. The law requires a majority. The legislature likes to see more than that. So I think, you know, if it was five to two, I think that they would take it up, but four to three would make them uncomfortable. And in terms of is this really what the city wants if three people don't think it is, three elected officials don't think it is. So that's my sense of it from watching this process for decades.
[Michael Ward]: This might be a good point to just pop in this slightly tangential bit of information here, but worth keeping in the back of your minds. As Anthony noted in one of the slides, there are two pathways to a charter review. The way you've been talking about tonight, the way this committee would most naturally follow would be the special act route, wherein after the committee completes its work, it goes to the council, the council mayor, you know, put forward a home rule petitions, the legislature for a new charter or amended charter. It goes to the legislature, the governor and back to the voters. That's all one pathway. There is a distinct pathway, which we mentioned briefly, the charter commission route spelled out in chapter 43B, which circumvents the council and mayor. They don't have a role in it and circumvents the legislature. It's an elected charter commission. It has to follow very specific steps that are laid out in the general laws, but it is an alternative pathway to get to a charter that is provided In the situation where people are frustrated with something about their form of government and they don't for one of the steps in the special act processes is, is, uh, they can't get around. So it's a long process. It's a complicated process, but it's worth just tucking in the back of your head. It does not the primary one. That I believe this committee to be on, but you should be aware of its existence.
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: And we have an explainer which we can send to the committee after this meeting. I believe it's originally from the state, which explains the two pathways in detail, and the one that Mike was just talking about.
[Michael Ward]: It involves gathering signatures, it's a whole process.
[Unidentified]: Great, thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: Mike, do you want to go next?
[Mastrobuoni]: Thank you, uh, no, but thank you, Anthony, Michael, and Marilyn for your time. Um, we really appreciate it. I think I speak for everyone. I say that, um, I'm the, uh, by day I'm the budget director in Somerville. So this is a process, um, uh, about which I am a little bit familiar. I've been involved in the charter review, especially with respect to the, the CIP and the sort of the role of finance and things like that. Um, I'm relatively, you know, compared to the rest of the group, probably I'm very new to Medford. So what's important to me as a newer resident here, at least in this process, specifically kind of like, you know, what extent do we want to hear from the mayor, from the council? Can we hear from the mayor and the council? or are we simply negotiating with ourselves to find out sort of what can or cannot pass? I think I come at this from obviously like an administrative good governance bias, right? Just because of my day job. And I wanna find out what relevant comparisons in terms of size, scope of government there are between like Medford and the surrounding communities I'm not interested in. In reinventing the wheel here, there's best practices. We're not the first ones to do this. So trying to figure out what's worked in other places and what have been pain points. And then really trying to strike the middle ground between flexibility and creating strong guardrails. I think at the end of the day, well, I'll leave it there.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[Contreas]: Great.
[Michael Ward]: Marilyn or Mike.
[Contreas]: Yeah. Can I speak to that a little bit? I think one of the considerations for the committee is, is having some sort of public forum and inviting the mayor and, and the Councilors, um, to testify if they want and, and to say, If you can't come, you know, we'll accept written testimony until X date. That was done in one of the communities that I'm now working in. And it was a very successful process in the sense that the committee learned a lot and they took some of those comments and concerns into consideration in what they finally proposed to the council. So that is an avenue that is available to you. And I think it can be a valuable one.
[Unidentified]: Great, thank you. Okay, Maury, would you like to introduce yourself?
[Terrell]: Hi, thank you for having me, everyone. My name is Maury Terrell. I'm a lifelong resident of the city of Medford. I'm president of the Chamber of Commerce. Our family's been in the city since the 1800s with various businesses. Obviously, there's quite an attachment between myself to the city. I was on the outside looking in on the previous charter review, like Laurel said 40 years ago, when we went from a plan E type of government to the strong mayor government that we have today. You know, I've listened to everything, what everyone has to say tonight, and knowing the sentiment through the existing city council that's there right now, we've got our hands full, because when you talk charter review to any of these existing polls, I'll say with the exception of the mayor, They're nervous, they don't want to say anything about it, they're afraid of whatever we may come back with, and no one's come back with anything, and they're already saying no. So, I mean, it's kind of, it's really fascinating to me because you put it to them and you say, well, what are you afraid of? Well, you better not do this, do that. We haven't done nothing. You know, all you're doing is reviewing our charter, that's all, which is the right of the citizens of a city of 58 to 60,000 people that hasn't had a review in 40 years, and that's all we're doing. No one's suggesting anything here, but you would think that you were gonna throw them out, you know, into the ocean to be on their own, and it's just, it's very unnerving, you know, and I'm happy that the mayor sees the advantage, and all I want to do is hear what our possible changes could be. Maybe everybody likes everything. Maybe they want a little change here or a change there. Who knows? But I'm glad we have the opportunity and I'm very happy to be part of it and move forward from here.
[Unidentified]: Great. Thanks, Maury.
[Milva McDonald]: Matt, do you want to go?
[Leming]: I'm Matt Leming. I'm a postdoc over at Massachusetts General Hospital where I work in deep learning for neuroimaging diagnostics. I was involved in the same group as Melvin, Laurel, and a few other people on this committee as well. That was a citizen's advocacy group for charter review. I'm interested in charter review because it's the political foundation of this entire city. And I would like to see a lot of changes happen in this city. And the charter review seems like the most fundamental one. So I do have an interest in seeing that happen. And this committee seems like the best hope of getting that done. What's on my mind is sort of, Going off of the question that I asked earlier and what Maury just said, I do know that some city councilors are nervous, just about the idea of this and I would say, you know, perhaps needlessly so. But what I would be interested in hearing is just a little bit more about the experiences of doing this in other towns, specifically, which issues brought contention from the city councilors and the mayors that later approved it. I heard you say that the Mayor term limits were rejected. And that makes sense why, you know, they wouldn't want that kind of a change. But what I'm thinking is like what other issues were sort of hot button things that brought contention from the city council in the past, as well as some strategies for combating those. And you already said some strategies like the public forum with mayor and councilors invited, that was great. But yeah, that's what's on my mind right now.
[Unidentified]: Thanks, Matt. OK, Jean.
[Zotter]: Hello. Thanks for presenting today. And I'm Jean Zotter. I have a law degree. I worked as a public interest attorney for 10 years and then was in state government working on public health policy, and now I'm a consultant. I'm interested in having an effective city government that is transparent and engaged with residents and is representative. We're a diverse city, yet we haven't really had diverse elected officials. I would like to find a way where our government can be more responsive and more representative of the city. My question for you is, I'm hoping that you'll, you went through the slides pretty fast and I saw that the different plans, and I'm hoping you'll give us a more specific grounding and what all the options are. And are we stuck with, my understanding is we're stuck with whatever those options are we can't go outside of it. So that's one thing I'm curious to understand is like, what are our options are?
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: Yeah, Michael's just gonna say we don't, you're not stuck with the plans. And I think the trend is to move away from the plans. And maybe Mike and Marilyn can explain that.
[Michael Ward]: Yeah, the, the, there are only 12 cities left that have planned forms including Medford modern charters are have moved away from them have been are drafted from scratch. There is the limitation of the, there in Massachusetts, sort of four basic forms of government available. Now within each, there's a lot of variability and a lot of permutations. And so there's a lot of ways to customize them. Of course, that's why, I mean, that's what a lot of the work is, but the, you know, four basic at the highest level forms, you have the mayor council form, which you have the council manager form, You have open town meeting and representative town meeting and we will get in, you know, we'll do a presentation of will maybe less on the towns we can probably I assume. I assume we can skip over that and focus on the two city forums and what the variations are within each, talk about the examples that there are, and walk you through some example charters of each forum, assuming you want each forum. I mean, if you know you're continuing with this forum, then we can just go into examples of that. That's fine, however you want to proceed. But absolutely, we'll give you examples of what the options are and, you know, answer any questions as we go through them.
[Unidentified]: Great. Thank you. John.
[Moreshi]: Hi, I'm John Moreshi, and I assure you, I have to pay attention on my daughter's in the other room and she keeps running around. But thank you. So my name is John Rushy. I am currently first assistant town council to the town of Brookline. And up until a few months ago, I was deputy council to the Massachusetts Senate. So I have a lot of charter experience, but always in mechanics and law, I'm really excited to engage in the substance of it. One issue that I'm particularly interested in, I'm wondering if you could help a little bit, I think this is probably what Maureen that we're alluding to a little bit is we elect our Councilors at large. And I know Lowell had an issue with that a few years ago entering into their consent decree. And so I guess I'm curious, would you be able to provide data on proportionality of representation as it stands now? Because I would guess that where we're at large, our council makeup is probably not as representative of the city as it would be if we're award-based. And yeah, that's my question.
[Unidentified]: I look forward to working with you.
[Michael Ward]: Yeah, we can certainly get into the at-large versus ward, the balances between them. And yes, you're right, Lowell, under consent decree from the federal government, moved to add, I think it was consent decree, but moved to add districts about two years ago, a year ago, where previously they were all at-large. and we can look at some of the data around other comparable cities and see what they look like.
[Contreas]: That was also true in Springfield and in Everett. There was a finding in Springfield. I think Everett took action because they were warned there would be a finding in terms of violations of the Voting Rights Act.
[Unidentified]: Great, thank you. Ron.
[Giovino]: Thanks, I'm Ron Chivino, lifelong Medford citizen, and I'm retired now, but I have five Medford grandchildren, so I'm fully invested in the future here. To Marilyn's point, I think one of the best things we can do is provide for a wide open forum, so the public gets to see and have full input. I would like to see obviously after 40 years, it's time for more than just a review. My goal is to see that, you know, roles are defined in city government so that there's no ambiguity, there's no room for interpretation. I also think that we need to look at the balance of power. I think we also need to encourage one arm of government to communicate with the other. And however that works out is great, but I think those are the things that we should focus on. My question to you all is that there's a big temptation to go look at other charters. You can get them online pretty easily. My question to you is, if I looked at the Collins Center projects, charter projects now, would I see a common thread amongst them all? Or are they absolutely unique to each form of government that each city and town that you work at?
[Michael Ward]: They're pretty unique. There are certainly some common themes that run through them. But, you know, we've worked with towns that only made small changes. We've worked with towns that converted to cities. We've worked with cities that have made all different kinds of changes. There are certain best practices that we do encourage, and Anthony provided some examples. First and foremost is the 10-year charter review itself, which older charters lack, and therefore you get into situations where it goes a long time. So I would be willing to bet every charter we've worked on has a 10-year review built in. So I guess I would say on more, I don't know, mundane's not the word, but on more practical, on more administrative type issues, you will see pretty common themes and threads and language that we recommend. particularly where it's highly technical. For example, the processes for recall referendum initiative and so forth. we encourage you to use a set language that has been vetted and approved. You can change the thresholds. That's up to the committee entirely, what percent of voters, number of voters, how long, all that stuff. But in terms of the actual process, the language, we strongly encourage places to use the same because it's been vetted and it's so complicated that it's easy to mess up if you kind of wander off a bit. So I guess that's a long-winded answer to your question. You'll see common themes, some best practices, but around the big picture stuff, that's driven by the committee, driven by the community, driven by where you all want to go. Thank you.
[Contreas]: And if you do go online, I mean, you're going to see a lot of charters in a very standard format. that there are charter articles, usually referred to as charter articles, sometimes referred to as chapters, but they pretty much follow the same kind of table of contents. So if you say I read this before, yeah, you did. Thank you.
[Unidentified]: Thank you. Okay, Eunice.
[Browne]: Okay, Eunice Brown. I'm also a lifelong Medford resident. I have been watching local political meetings for probably 25 ish years. And particularly recently in the last, I don't know, three, four or five years, I've been watching pretty much every city council meeting, every school committee meeting, and a whole bunch of subcommittee meetings, city council, committee of the whole meetings, board and commission meetings, and so forth. So I've had an opportunity to really see what our elected officials are doing. And I have sort of tuned into ways where we're ineffective, inefficient, not transparent, or just falling short, I think, in places. And I'm going to be very interested as we go through to find out what can be included in a charter to make us better in a whole lot of ways, as Ron alluded to. to see our bodies work better together, to ensure better public participation on our bodies in a variety of ways. I recently came across an instance, something that I would like to see changed or at least addressed. On a couple of our boards and commissions, we have folks sitting on them, who are no longer Medford residents, making decisions for Medford residents. And when I approached the mayor about that, I was told that there is nothing in our city charter that states that to sit on a board or commission, one must be a Medford resident. And I found that pretty incredulous. I can see, I suppose, If you operated a business in the city, you'd have a vested interest, but in some cases, it's just not the case. So something like that, you know, I think could be something that could be looked at seeing the, you know, groups working together, watching the city council consistently asking the mayor for what they call the warrant articles, which I guess are the bills to be paid. She's under no obligation to provide them. Should she be? I don't know, but that would be something that I think would be worth looking at. So I think there's a lot of places where I jot down to myself as I'm watching a meeting, well, how come this isn't required? And should it be required? I don't know what the answer to that is, but it might at least in a warrant further discussion as to what could or could not go into a charter. So that's what I would like to see is, I know I understand the big ones, what representation or not, term limits, length of terms, the different plans and things. There's so many other things that, it seems like we're not functioning as well as we could. And I don't know if there are elements of the charter that could help us function better. I also have the same concerns as some of the others where we have some Councilors who are reticent to go forward with this. And so how do we work with that? So those would be some of the things that I would be interested in recalling elected officials if the need were to be, to arise. I don't think we have a provision for that right now. Um, our only request is the next election. And, um, you know, there should be, um, that should be looked at as well. Um, and my final question, I guess, is, um, somebody commented that we probably couldn't get anything on the ballot for November yet, because backing it out, we would have to be finished with our work pretty quickly. which is probably not in the realm of possibility. If we couldn't get something on the November ballot, could we have a special election? Like let's say if we finish our work later in the summer or early in the fall and then backing things out, would a special election like next winter be a possibility or would we have to wait until the following fall? Thank you very much for your presentation. I appreciate it.
[Michael Ward]: Marilyn, do you wanna take a swing at the special election piece and then I can address the following, the other part of about the fall.
[Contreas]: You can actually, the text of the special act can provide for a special election. You would include it in the act that an election will be held on X date, you know, for the voters to consider this question. That would be what I've seen done before.
[Michael Ward]: And then the other piece of that, it could be done the following fall, which is 2024. However, we're still, so we know it can be done. What we're not sure about, and we're trying actually for another, for another committee has asked the same question about this. The only time we've seen it done in the recent past, unfortunately, because it's a state and federal election, there actually were two separate ballots and two separate machines and two separate sets of checkers when a charter was put on the ballot on the same day as the state and federal election, which gets pretty complicated. So we are trying to get clarification from the secretary of state's office, whether it is possible or not to have a charter question on the same actual ballot as state and federal. We don't have an answer to that yet, which has recently been asked again by another committee. So we will find out an answer hopefully soon on that. You certainly, so it is possible in 2024 in November, the same day as the presidential and all the other state and federal offices that are up to have a vote on the charter, it might end up being, you actually have to have two physical separate ballots.
[Unidentified]: We're not sure yet. Okay, thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you so much for this presentation. I think we have a lot to look at. I have a question. When you talked in your slides, there was the option of a complete rewrite or revisions. And given that we currently have a planned government, if the committee decides we, Does that mean we have to decide not to keep the plan and just write a charter that's separate from the plan government? Would that qualify as writing a new charter? Or if we just want revisions, does that mean we can keep plan A and make revisions to it? How would that work, given that we already have a plan government? So you could- Go ahead, Mary.
[Contreas]: Okay, thank you. We have great concern about trying to go inside plan A and make it responsive. And it's a pre-home rule law. Much of state law has moved forward since plan A was written in 1914. I'm not saying it hasn't been amended along the way. There are all these references, for example, to elections. but the state election laws were completely revised and reorganized with the elimination of certain redundancies and clarification of procedures in the late 1970s. So everything that's in plan A regarding elections is no longer followed. So there is a, you make a very strong case that you were given an assignment to review the charter But you can also present recommendations that say, you know, plan A is no longer responsive to our circumstances and just in terms of modernization alone and present, you know, a proposal for a new charter.
[Unidentified]: Okay. Thank you. Do we want to give Frances an opportunity also to chime in here? Thank you, I'm Frances Wojciech, I'm the Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for the city, and I'm appointed to sit on this as the city's liaison. Thanks, Frances. Laurel, do you want to take over?
[Laurel Siegel]: Unless we have any further questions for the folks from the Collins Center. Mike, did you have a question?
[Mastrobuoni]: Yeah, just just really briefly, I'm wondering what our ongoing engagement with the call center looks like? Is there we are we going to have presentations on specific topics from them on our regular meetings? Or are they going to be advising us answering questions that we have? Like, what does that look like?
[Michael Ward]: I'm I'm happy to take that if, if you'd like. So we do have an agreement for a fixed but but expandable, if needed, number of meetings to participate in. uh, with those is, you know, we work with the co-chairs and whoever else the coaches designate, if, if there's any other one else involved in agenda setting, um, to, um, come up with, you know, materials based around the topic that you're interested in the topic or topics that you're interested in covering in a particular, uh, meeting, um, to, and depending on whether that's depending what those look like, that could come in the form of, um, of a memo from us with different pieces. It could also come in the form of other presentations or documents. We're really going to kind of, again, follow your lead on what's going to be most helpful. Following each meeting that we participate in, including this one, we'll follow up with materials that are responsive to questions that come up. So for example, if you know questions come up in the meeting that we don't, we can't answer during the meeting, what we'll do is we'll continue to do the research after and then we'll, we'll report back what we find will be available. Um, uh, to the co-chairs between meetings, uh, to assist in kind of thinking about what the, you know, what they want, what you all want the arc of the work to be, how you want to proceed, how you want to take it. Um, because as I think I alluded to, there's a, we've seen committees approach the work in very, in many very different ways. And it really depends on sort of what the committee wants, wants to do, how you want to proceed. Um, so. You know, we'll kind of adapt, you know, to the, the, the pathway that we're following to what you all are telling us is going to be, you know, what you want. We obviously will be happy to advise on that and say, well, you know, you may not want to take this before this. You may not want to look at this topic until you've figured out this. There are best, you know, best practices and sort of an order sequence of how to take this stuff. So that you don't end up kind of unwind, you know, making a decision, then unwinding it, you know, shortly thereafter, obviously, it's all interconnected. So along the way, you may end up making a decision that has to be unwound, but we want to keep that as minimal as possible to kind of keep things moving forward. We'll want to hear, you know, kind of, we'll want to discuss as our internal team, as well as with the co-chairs and other, and you know, your feedback to them after, you know, what level of change you're, you're contemplating, uh, what, um, you know, these questions of speed that you have raised and what you want to get done by when, um, this, the question that I think Matthew started with at the beginning, which came up then several other times though, at the course of this, of thinking about, you know, what the committee wants to do within the parameters of what actually that you all think it can move forward. Because obviously what you don't want to do is put together something that is, you all think is ideal, but then doesn't, you know, end up, you know, going forward. So, so weighing that is, is an important piece of this. So I, you know, We're here to help. We'll be as flexible as we can in customizing how we're approaching it with you. And we're just excited to be here and to support the critical work you're doing.
[Unidentified]: Thank you. That's helpful sort of context of the menu of options. So thank you. Any other questions? All right. Thank you again. All tremendously helpful.
[Laurel Siegel]: as we move ahead with this process. We realize it's going to be a complicated process of a lot of nuances. So having your expertise is incredibly valuable for all of us. So the remaining agenda item is just going back over discussion of scheduling of future meetings. We have already scheduled our next meeting for Wednesday, February 8th at 6.30 PM. Based on our conversation at the first meeting, I just wanted to reconfirm. We had one person who had issues with Thursday, but it appears that their schedule will be opening up as of March. And so based on the numbers, the notes that I took at the last meeting, is there anybody just among the committee members who would not be available on the first Thursday of the month if we set that as our regular meeting date? All right. So that looks like that works for the entire group. So starting in March, we will aim to have our meetings on the first Thursday of the month. next meeting following the February meeting would be on March 2nd. So wonderful. So that's everything for our agenda.
[Leming]: We do- Sorry, when is the next meeting set for again?
[Laurel Siegel]: February 8th is the next meeting, Wednesday, February 8th. And then lastly, we do have a couple of members of the public on the Zoom. So we wanted to provide the opportunity if there were anybody who wanted to make a comment at this point to go ahead and speak up if you wanna raise your hand on Zoom. If you could please introduce yourself, your name and your address for the record. So it looks like it doesn't anybody. So we've got Bill, you wanna go ahead?
[Leming]: And should we, sorry, should we clarify as well that it's a three minute time limit?
[Laurel Siegel]: Yes, certainly. Yes. We agreed upon at our prior meeting that public comment would be limited to three minutes. So Bill, if you want to go ahead.
[Giglio]: Hi, my name is Bill Giglio. I live on Winthrop street. I won't even take more than 30 seconds. I just wanted to let you guys know as a citizen, you know, as a citizen of Medford, we really appreciate the, Personally, I really appreciate that you guys are all taking the time to look at this because it's definitely very long overdue. And I think from some of the people that I know on the committee right there, we're definitely in good hands. So thank you guys very much.
[Laurel Siegel]: Thank you for that. Tony.
[Puccio]: I just echo what Bill just said. I just wanted to thank everybody for volunteering their time. on behalf of the citizens of Medford and I'm sorry, Tony Puccio, Tanner Street, Medford, I apologize. But I just wanted to thank everyone for their time. And many of us residents appreciate the sacrifices you are making to do this important work. So thank you. And I also wanted to comment to say thank you for allowing the public to be part of this. And hopefully you'll continue to engage to public and I'm sure you will, as Bill alluded to, this looks like a great group and I'm looking forward to see what comes out of this. And I hope you continue to allow the public to be watching these meetings and hopefully be able to chime in from time to time. Thanks again. Good night.
[Laurel Siegel]: Thank you. Thank you. Do we have anybody else who would like to make a comment from the public? All right, with that, unless we have any other questions from the group, I think we can adjourn and we will see everybody on February 8th.
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