total time: 21.5 minutes
total words: 1430
[Danielle Balocca]: Hey listeners, this is Danielle. And Shelly. Shelly is a radical Dravidian and racial equity activist.
[Chelli Keshavan]: And Danielle is a community mobilizer and changemaker. And this is the Medford Bites podcast. Every two weeks, we chew on the issues facing Medford and deliver bites of information about the city by lifting the expertise of our guests.
[Danielle Balocca]: Join us in discussion about what you hope for the future of Medford. And as always, tell us where you like to eat. All right, and Shelly and I are here today. Thank you so much for joining us. If you don't mind just starting by introducing yourself, your name, pronouns, and who you are.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Sure. Mayor Brianna L'Engle Kern. My pronouns are she and her, and I'm a mom, coach, and the mayor of Bedford.
[Danielle Balocca]: A lot of hats. So if, you know, you've been on our podcast a couple of times, but if you don't mind, maybe there's some updates to your answer to our usual question, but sharing what your favorite, your current favorite place to eat is in Medford and what you like to eat there.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Sure. I think we have a lot of amazing spots in Medford, some that have been around for a long time and a few new ones. So I love Bocelli's, their salad and had a marinara and then I've been frequenting the Ford lately. So I did get like a seafood dish there that was, was amazing. And they have changed their menu a number of times to try to, they're working through it to make sure it's on par, but I really enjoy the atmosphere and time I have at the Ford.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. Cool place. I've seen them do a couple like events for where you can bring your kids and like programs for kids. It sounds cool. Yeah.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. I'm actually, my other hat is Elsa might be there on the 21st. They're doing a character, character dinner. So. Wow. Cool.
[Danielle Balocca]: Kiddos.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yep.
[Danielle Balocca]: Great. So we were hoping to kind of use this time to reflect a little bit on your state of the city speech. So if you want to share any highlights from what you shared that night, we'd love to hear them. And then maybe we can just have a little bit of a discussion around that.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Sure, sure. Yes, the state of the city address. I think my communications director, Steve, and assistant Emma and I wrote a speech and it was probably say 15, 20 pages. So it was really hard to narrow it down to a good 10 pages because that's about 25 minutes. But I think that just goes to show what I tried to highlight in the speech. I wanted to highlight. all the amazing employees we have here, our department heads and everybody in City Hall and those who work outside of City Hall that are just doing amazing work in Medford. So that was what the speech was about, highlighting, you know, everything that people have been doing, such as planning, development and sustainability. You know, they're helping us with improving our business districts through the facade grant program. They are making sure we have charging stations that And that network continues to grow. That they, along with Todd Blake, our director of traffic and transportation, are making sure our blue bike network is growing. And just got word yesterday from him that we're going to, this year, 2023, we will be surpassing many communities with that, with our network. We have another multiple going in very soon, and then we just have plans to, we keep applying for grants and obtaining grants and really getting strategic with some of the funding sources we have in the city, like the casino funds, the CDBG, CPA, ARPA, to do all we can. Sometimes it's the hardest thing is spending the money because there's so much work that goes into it, but we have such a great team here working hard. I highlighted, you know, our DPW director and our city engineer. We're working on a number of street and sidewalk projects. We're crack sailing the 94 streets that were highlighted in our assessment with decades of backlog where we are doing the planning and not afraid to do the work. So that's one of the. biggest complaints we get in the city, the streets and the roads are in deplorable condition and climate change is not helping with that, nor is the fact that we only really spent a million dollars a year on it. Also highlighted some good work going on in the school department, highlighted our need to go electric and hybrid for vehicles. We have three new police cruisers coming in that are going to be hybrid. We also going to work through our parking vehicles. Yeah. I think I ended my speech too, just with accountability, you know, cause for all the amazing employees we have here, part of my job during the day is changing the culture in Medford and holding people accountable. And that's not, that's not easy whatsoever. And people are You know, obviously people that I'm holding accountable aren't happy and that brings some of the picketing type situations you see outside my door. But it's something that I think the residents and the community deserve. You know, if you want to work here, we would love to have you. And all we want is a good days worth of work and then go home to your families, but you have to come to work, you have to do your job, you have to be professional. And that's what we're trying to do, professionalize the organization and feel like we've come a really long way and really proud of the team that we're putting together to take care of all of our resident business needs.
[Chelli Keshavan]: There's some highlights I could probably go on and on, but... I mean, for sure. At high level, a lot of the state of the city to me felt like a conversation of pursuing best practice for the ecosystem that is the city and the kind of growing pains that are necessary in order to get there. And of course, everyone will have their own sort of stake in the outcome and the messiness of juggling, keeping everybody a little happy and everybody not happy at the same time. I don't know. That kind of felt like a takeaway for me.
[Danielle Balocca]: It's a hard job. Yeah, it's like a lot about a lot of competing interests, too. And yeah, I think, you know, we did we listened on Zoom, so we couldn't hear the honking, but we heard you talking about it. And it was like, you know, I'm sorry to hear. I think I guess I'm wondering sort of I think, you know, I think the purpose of the state of the city is celebratory. It sounds like it was a way for you to thank your staff and thank all the people that have been involved in all the hard work. in the last year. I wonder if you think about kind of hopes for the coming year, sort of like what you see as things that you want to like see some progress in or see some change, kind of what your goals are there.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Sure. Yeah. I mean, that just goes along with some of the highlights too, you know, for three years, we set a lot of goals. I feel like we, that was one of the speeches about too, because of the staff, we've been able to meet those goals and we just continue to make new ones and continue to push through. So my chief of staff, along with the fire chief, I set out day one to make sure that our fire department personnel have places. to work in that are safe and welcoming and live to the standards that they should. So we've done 20 plus projects, about a million and a half dollars worth of work on things like windows, roofs, kitchens, on all, all of our fire stations. We've also been working very hard on the fire headquarters, which we do have a OPM that has been hired, owners project. Manager, we are working through, we did pick an architect working through a contract and now we'll eventually go out to bond to do most likely, I think they're going to recommend a brand new station. So, you know, people are saying we're stalling. We are not stalling. It's just a ton of work and we are actively working through getting that contract signed so we can move forward. So we're hoping to see breaking ground in the next, you know, year, year and a half. and getting that project through the finish line. And that my chief of staff started with that role when she came in as special project manager. It was fire stations and then she was working with our procurement department. That's something that we're very proud of that we're working on and we're going to continue to work on. Then we also have, you know, our parks were kind of, they were neglected as well. We would have like every five years prior administrations did a great job making sure to redo like one park at a time. And I just thought. Coming in knowing there wasn't CDBG money from 2014 and on that just wasn't spent. We had an opportunity there and the personnel we have in place now, I set out, we set a committee, we put a committee together of internal staff to make plans, figure out what needed to be done, to create surveys, gain public input. have open public meetings, and we've been able to do that. So once a month we meet and we have a list of 100 projects. Some are complete, like the new tennis courts at Duggar Park, new basketball courts at Playstead and Barry Park. We are going to break ground on Morrison Park this spring, summer. That's over a $400,000 project for a new play structure. We're going to break ground on Gillis Park, which is an over a million dollar project. That started because it's inaccessible. We want to make sure that that park's accessible to all, but it's turned into a project where there'll be, you know, new baseball field and accessible entrances, as well as, you know, exercise equipment. Then we're going to be breaking ground on Carr Park, which is a multimillion dollar project. Super excited about it. That's been our baby for a year and a half now. We've gained great community feedback, so we're very excited about that. But we have a list of 50 other projects, smaller in size, that we're working on. to get all that work done. Takes a team effort, a lot of hard work. So exciting to see all that, you know, all the planning come to fruition. You'll start seeing a lot of groundbreakings and ribbon cuttings and continue on with that path. Yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. Carr Park is our local park. So I'm excited to come find you. Yeah. So I also I also heard the McGlynn Playgrounds getting a whole new revamp. Exciting.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Glenn Playground is exciting too. There's a great committee working hard to gain the funding and helping on the funding end. And Dr. Cushing's been really great leading that charge. So we're very excited. It's long overdue, especially with the flooding that is going on over in that area. So drainage comes first and then new park for all of our kids and the whole community.
[Danielle Balocca]: Sure. Yeah, I wonder, too, if this is a good way to transition to talking about the schools and some of the stuff, you know, you know, obviously happening in the high school. And I think something that you've talked about for a while is the state of the high school and sort of future plans for how to address that. And I wonder about how that maybe connects to some of the budget stuff. So we've talked about ARPA being a temporary fund, sort of what you're hoping for as we emerge from COVID and different ideas of what revenue will look like or how you'll think about funding for some of those big things.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Sure. Yeah. We, before we recorded, we were talking about Mr. Murphy and he is actually staying on with the city. He had a big part along with our superintendent to make sure that we did the proper studies to be able to put forth the best application we could to the MSBA. So we submitted that last year. And we did the walkthrough, which I was present for. Last year, they funded 17 new high schools. This year, they funded 10 and we fell between the 10 and 14 mark, unfortunately. But the good news, which we're super excited about, is that we are getting ready. We're going to submit again, which is The application's due in April and fingers crossed, it sounds like we have a really good opportunity here. So once we hopefully get good news in the fall, then we will start the public campaign, put a committee together to help with the process and start a public campaign because we're gonna need a debt exclusion to be able to fund a new high school. I know Attleboro High School is in the 300 million range. So the taxpayers did vote for debt exclusion to help fund that. And I truly feel that Medford residents are ready and able and willing to. It's time. It's time for our first debt exclusion that I'm aware of. And it's something I'll be actively, actively pushing for because our students deserve a flagship school that they can be proud of, they feel safe in. It has proper air conditioning and heat and we're struggling there. You know, we've spent some ARPA dollars on different projects and there's ESSER funding that we've been using, but that high school needs a remit and it needs it as soon as possible. So fingers crossed and we're going to keep doing whatever we can to make that come, become a reality. Did you say what a debt exclusion is?
[Danielle Balocca]: I'm not sure I've heard that term before.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, a debt exclusion is something that the taxpayers will have to vote on. It will have to pass by more than 50% of the voters and a debt exclusion will drop once the project's paid for. So an override is something that would last in for eternity, but a debt exclusion would, would drop off. Taxpayers, property taxpayers would pay a certain amount per year until that project was complete.
[Danielle Balocca]: So a temporary raise in maybe not taxes, but temporary raise in what we would.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Temporary raise in taxes, but that would fall once the project's paid for.
[Danielle Balocca]: Interesting.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: So your FUSO tax base we're voting for, do you agree with a debt exclusion to build a new high school? Well, we are an override, which we are, you know, kind of gathering the data for and doing forecasting, budgetary forecasting. Or if we did a three, five, six million dollar override, that would be every year, forever. We'd get that additional funding.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Thank you. I didn't, I didn't hold that difference. You didn't know that?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah. And there's discussion, you know, between the council and myself, there has been on the need for an override and we know we need a new high school. So that's just a delicate topic that I just really want to make, I want to make that decision myself through the data. So that's what we're doing now. We're, we're forecasting, we are getting ready to figure out what is needed and We can't do anything to jeopardize a new high school. And now everybody knows it's just with inflation, it's tough. You know, I get people who want an old ride and then the next email will be, I can't afford to heat my house. So it's a delicate balance, people's ability to pay and the need of the city. So I see the need, you know, I see the five to 10 positions we put in place with our ARPA dollars and how that has helped us move the city forward. So I see both sides and I want to just make the best decision for our taxpayers, for the city that I can make. So that's just something we are exploring and trying to figure out what the right answer is. We have a little time because our, the revenue replacement funding that we can use through ARPA, we have that for another two budgets. And if we didn't override right now, the override money would come in and it would just reduce what we'd be able to use for revenue replacement. So it makes, it does make sense to, if we do need an override to, to make sure that, that, that kicks in once ARPA dollars fall. Doing it now might hamper what we could even use for revenue replacement.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: I've also heard to talk about like different development happening around the city. Are there, are there other sources of revenue that you're hoping will kind of start to show up?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: The main one we're working on and counting on is our new growth. So that's what hopefully will kick in, not this fiscal budget that will start July 1, fiscal year 24. By fiscal year 25 is when I'm expecting to see, we'll see some in 24, but I'm expecting to see a whole lot of new growth in fiscal year 25. And fingers crossed, like some projects may stall a bit because of the economy, but We are working on the acres and acres of land above the Wellington Tee parking lot, which can be a multi, you know, million dollar project, great for our community. Tee-centered, you know, that create multi-use for hopefully housing and commercial and life science and restaurants. Then we also have the Forty Beans developer who changed his scope a bit and we have a billion dollar project proposed for Mystic Ave with commercial on the bottom floor and life science buildings. Then we're also working on our two other 40Bs which will be one we've negotiated with and they've already gone back to the ZBA that will add an additional I believe 350 units, 25% of which will be affordable and that's on Mystic Valley Parkway, somewhat behind Wegmans. And we also have one on the Fellsway and we have our Four negotiated community host agreements, three with retail marijuana sales, one with a cultivation. He's already broke ground. They're on Mystic Ave. So you'll, you'll see the art center hopefully in the next year. Then you have one on Riverside Ave. You also have big developments across from where Sanctuary will go on Riverside Ave. That's 400 under Riverside Ave. That's going to be a potential research and development location along with 15 Sycamore, which will also be research and development. And that's just to name maybe five, six, seven projects out of the 30 that we're working on. But Medford Square is a big one. We have MAPC working with us doing a community-driven, a final community-driven approach to hopefully get an RFP out on one, two, or three of those lots. My, it's sometime in 2023, the sooner, the better. I'm also working with a consultant to work on the waterfront. Right. In Bedford Square, all the way down to Sleepy Hollow, which will be more recreational. I see like water art and a dog and maybe a location for our seniors to go and residence during the day, a place where we could have a beer garden. Maybe I see the doors swinging open to like a natural play area and kids could be there too. Nice wall. with art, beautiful art on it, and then go down to Sleepy Hollow through from the walkway and potentially a dog park.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, wow.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah. Yeah. So those designs, those designs, that's my vision, but obviously they're designing that now through meetings we've had, and then we'll put that out to the public to get input. But. Yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. The one other budget thing I remember hearing about over the summer was sort of the, we, you know, we, like you mentioned a little bit about the teacher contracts, but I wonder if there's like, so when you go to renew their contracts in several years, will there be like, how are you thinking about like the sort of continued increase in that budget? As far as?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, we settled the contract and that, that's what I did do. I think I mentioned it a bit ago. We, I offered, we offered the 3% to add an additional year to the contract, like I said, to help settle things down and to get them that, you know, good 3%, which is when I feel we'll have the new growth to be able to, to afford that. We had. Some of the retro came out of the fiscal year 22 budget. Some will come out of this budget. I think it's a balancing act now because we have another number of units that we're negotiating with and they want the same as what the teachers got, which is something that I'm trying to work with finance on to see what we have the ability to afford because we want to do what's best for our employees and be as fair as we possibly can. But at the same time, we have budget restraints. And we had a tough budget gap last year and we're going to have another tough one. Like I said, fiscal year 24 is not going to be any easier. That's why you're going to it's another reason you'll see the pickets out there, too. I'm trying to do what's best for our employees while trying to make sure we can afford it and that we're not cutting other services to be able to afford it that our taxpayers deserve. So that's where the forecasting and the budgeting has come into play. And we are well in advance of where we were last year with the budget. It's, we're working on that now. We have a great CFO who came on board. We were out one for. 11 months, we have a great budget, new budget director that came on board. That's, that's some of the city struggles. There's lack of finance personnel that people are just not going into government. So the state is actually working on an, like an apprenticeship program for assessors because there's a lack of assessors out there. And through DLS, we're able to request that one of these apprentices, once they're trained, that they come to our community and help work in the department, gain the training so that we have more assessors in the field overall, and that's paid for by the state. So that's how tough it is to find an assessor. And then city solicitor, same boat like Somerville has, is looking for four or more. We are having a tough time hiring anybody with any experience as a city solicitor. Thankfully we have outside labor, outside counsel that has been great and really helped move this city forward, but we're just struggling in a few areas where I know other communities are too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thank you.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yeah, maybe talk to me about Tufts. So I am 100% unaware of the details of any of this conversation, but I also often find myself wondering about the relationship between Tufts University and the city of Medford and what that means for just space and property and taxes. And in addition, what it means for our families to feel sort of served by their programming. And then later on, as kids get older, for our kids to feel like they belong on a college campus and that college belongs to their future, if, should they want it and et cetera, et cetera. It sort of tethers into the high school. And we have the scientifically, educationally, digitally advanced high school. What does that mean for who gets pulled into the city? You know, all the, they're, they're all combined, but I wondered if you had thoughts.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, Tufts increased their pilot payment to the city in 2019 or 2020 to, it was around the 200,000 mark and they had been very, they've been great always providing that now $450,000 check to the city. So they pay that annually. They were amazing, amazing to us through COVID. You know, they were the ones that helped us set up the, all that you saw in the schools with the testing. So like for that, I'm forever thankful. They're pretty good about telling us ahead of time with any development details and they will work with us and have community meetings that they're doing it for a few homes they're redeveloping now. They also just had a community meeting dormitory they're proposing on Boston Ave.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yeah.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And I, we, you know, we have a really good relationship. I know that more needs to probably be done with a full pilot. We just, that's one thing that I worked with the committee on to try to try to get that organized and it's kind of on my to-do list. But they, they don't have written pilots with Boston. I don't, I don't, I'm not sure if they have one with Somerville. So it's one of those things where you could have a full agreement or you can just get there yearly. They do almost a magazine where they show all the community benefits that they provide, tutoring, community day. So I know they're doing, they're doing what they've always done at least, but always willing to. hear from the community members on what else you want to see from Tufts, because I do always propose different ideas to them and ask them for help. Like we had a pre-meeting for, after everything that happened in Martha's Vineyard, we had a pre-meeting in Medford, you know, internally in Medford, you know, let's get ready in case this happens in Medford. Right away when I asked Tufts, I'm like, Tufts, would you be able to house, if this happened to us, would you be able to help us? And they said, absolutely. We have a dorm that's not being utilized. We are in, we are here to help you here in Somerville if this ever does happen. So sometimes they say no to certain things, but they really have been a great, great partner to work with.
[Danielle Balocca]: I would love to see a resident, a membership to their gym.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: They do for, they do for the local. Yeah, they do for the surrounding neighborhood, but I don't, it's not something that's available to every resident. Yeah. I guess I have to move, I guess.
[Danielle Balocca]: Move closer. No, don't leave us.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Don't leave us in the heights, Danielle. Bigger car park coming.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I know. I'm excited. Great. Well, anything else that you want to make sure to mention before we wrap up?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I think, you know, there's,
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Doing this job is tough, you know, and never can make everybody happy. And I know there's narratives out there on a number of things and some things I can't talk about if it's like personnel related. So that part's hard because the narrative is one-sided and I can't give my... you know, take on it. But I think I said it in my speech, you know, there's certain things that I just won't tolerate. You know, I won't tolerate racism. I won't tolerate abuse. I won't tolerate, you know, just there's things I won't tolerate. So like I do, I do hold people accountable. I think that's what the community deserves. And sometimes I can't explain my side, which is tough, but like I said on Wednesday, just please trust me. Like if we're doing things for reasons, we're always checking with counsel before we do things and we're trying to do what's best on every issue we deal with. So that's just something, you know, it's hard to not be able to give your side on things, but I really appreciate the time here today to, you know, let you know some of the great things going on in Medford and highlight the speech and I'm glad we've settled with the teachers and things seem to be going very well in the school and our kids are very important to us, so.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thank you. Yeah, we actually I didn't mention it yet, but it seemed intentional and we really appreciated seeing the presence of three women, three of our like female city officials.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Oh, I texted Daniel, I go, are you seeing this? Do you realize that all women and mothers are running this tonight?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, that's why I asked. That's one of the reasons. That's one of the reasons why I asked them, like, this would be great. We have a president. It's, you know, female of the council. We have the vice chair is female. And I, I'm like, I think it would be great. So when I asked them and they were like, yes, right away, I was like, this is going to be awesome. And then Terry, Terry started us off with a beautiful, beautiful poem. And he's always, he's amazing. He's our poet laureate through the fiscal year. So we'll be doing the application process. He had a two-year term. We'll be doing the application process for. him to pass the torch July 1. A lot of great things. Yep. Working on a beautiful mural, art mural at Wright's Pond that will be painted in June and hopefully during the season opening so the kids will be able to watch it get painted. So a lot of great things.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of great things. Wow. Thank you so much. Looking forward to it. And thanks for joining us again and hopefully we'll talk to you in the future. Happy to. Yeah, happy to. Have a great weekend. Stay warm. Stay warm, Terrence. Yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. The Medford Bites podcast is produced and moderated by Danielle Balacca and Shelly Kasheman. Music is made by Hendrik Giedonis. We'd love to hear what you think about the podcast. You can reach out to us by email at medfordpod at gmail.com, or you can rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts. Thanks so much for listening. Guys, what's the name of the podcast? Never Bites!
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total time: 21.5 minutes total words: 1430 |
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