AI-generated transcript of Medford City Council Committee Of The Whole 09-28-22

[Nicole Morell]: 22-301 and 22-421, Committee of the Whole meeting on Wednesday, September 28th, 2022 at 6 p.m. The meeting is called to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears. Present. Councilor Caraviello. Present. Councilor Collins. Present. Councilor Knight. Councilor Scarpelli. Present.

[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Tseng present present present present one absent the meeting is called to order. There will be a meeting of the city council committee of the whole on Wednesday, September 28 2022 at 6pm and the Medford City Council Chamber on the second floor of Medford City Hall. The purpose of this meeting is to get an update on the parking program slash department and enforcement policies procedures and revenue. The council has invited parking director Faye Morrison to attend. For further information aids and accommodations contact the city clerk at 781-393-2425. We do have Director Morrison on the call tonight she's going to give us a presentation. Before we get into things the council is also given some packets of information. I do know this is a topic that gets a lot of people fired up. So I do just ask that people act in the utmost respect and understand that we can all be working hard and we can also things not be working the way we like them to be both can be true. So as we move forward, keeping that in mind, I hand it over to director Morrison. If you'd like to share your screen or how you'd like to proceed.

[Unidentified]: Okay.

[Faye Morrison]: So I don't have anything to share with you on my screen. Everything that I gave you, you have been given hard copy.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. For those folks in the audience, could you give us an overview for the council?

[Faye Morrison]: Sure. So I'll start with the, if you have your books in front of you, I'll start with my report and give you that general overview. So myself along with leadership staff have put together an overview of the parking department triumphs. We are open and fully functional and issues, some of which are because we have not yet been able to purge or correct all misinformation, which we inherited. However, my team doesn't take no for an answer. And even when faced with these challenges, we figure out how we can correct this as quickly as possible. That isn't always the case. There are times we need additional information from the partner or resident, which is frustrating for them. But to fix these things, we need their help and patience. For the most part, that is happening. Parking control specialists. At this time, I have four staff members actively working and one out on leave. We continue to cover all of our shifts, but we are hopeful when the higher freeze lifts, we can put more specialists on the street, especially as the GLX is about to open. Parking clerks. We are lucky to have them fully staffed. We have two full-time clerks and two part-time clerks. This allows for window coverage, breaks for the clerks, something we did not have in January. And I'm proud to say we have built to the level so that this office doesn't have to close during lunch breaks. All phone calls where messages left are returned same day, if it is before 3.30 p.m. After 3.30, it will be returned the following day, as it takes us that hour to close out at the end of the day, all of the financial issues that have come across the window. A generic email address for the parking clerks allows all of the clerks access and any question can be answered by any one of them, not just the head clerk, as it was in the beginning. Appeals take 10 business days. Most are resolved within four business days. At the time of this writing, there are only 10 appeals waiting to be adjudicated in the system. The average return of a phone call in the surrounding communities, including Boston, is 48 to 72 hours. We are well within industry standards for both phone calls and appeals work, something the city should be proud of since we have been open less than a year. Parking meter repair. We now have three staff members on board, increasing that number in June. And although that is enough to check machines on a regular basis, there's not much we can do with the failing infrastructure, but replace as we can. We have done approximately $70,000 in repairs and upgrades to date and may need to do another 20,000 once we have turned over Medford Square and see what we can deploy to other areas from those machines. We have two projects going on right now. the Medford Square project, which has begun, and the Lobby Kiosk project, which I am just beginning to work on. We also have some outstanding issues in the office that I'm hoping that we will be able to correct soon enough. The director's office space is not big enough and is scheduled to be increased. Some pipes that shouldn't be exposed to be closed in and some other air filtration issues that we're having in the office need to be addressed. The outer office space, we have asked for a sill for the customer window when people need to fill out checks, there's nothing for them to lean on. Right now they use a bookcase that I need to put my books in. We also need a second hole in the window at the proper height. When that window was created, without consulting me, the holes were set for wheelchair accessibility. They're much too low, and it makes it difficult for us to hear people on the other side of the window. The police came in and audited the room and suggested we have a camera at the window connected to the police department for violent confrontations at the window. We should have a key fob for the door between the assessor's office in case of emergencies so that we have safe access out of the building should there be one. Right now, we would have to climb out of the window. Are there any questions?

[Nicole Morell]: I don't see any questions at this time.

[Richard Caraviello]: I'm reading your report about your working conditions in the office. Who are these inspectors, these workplace inspectors that are making these recommendations?

[Faye Morrison]: The police department came in.

[Richard Caraviello]: know about the, the, the, uh, the, uh, the air filters and, uh, uh, the mayor hired a company to come in.

[Faye Morrison]: And I believe someone from the state from work, workplace, um, some of the workplace environment company came in. That would probably be a better question to ask who the mayor's office hired. I just know that they came in.

[Richard Caraviello]: So they came in and, and, and, and the recommendations they made have not been, uh, Fixed, correct?

[Faye Morrison]: Not yet. No, but we got an email update that came in just before this meeting. I haven't had a chance to read it, but hopefully there's some information about how that's all moving forward.

[Richard Caraviello]: How they came in?

[Faye Morrison]: I didn't hear the last part. They came in over a month ago. I believe it was approximately a month ago, maybe a little bit more here and there.

[Richard Caraviello]: So are people getting sick at that office?

[Faye Morrison]: We've had some issues. The carpet, especially when they come in and vacuum, it tends to kick up a lot of dust because it's just disintegrating under our feet. You can actually see the cement in my office through the carpet. So that does cause some lung irritation and some breathing issues. We spend some time in masks here in the office to mitigate that.

[Richard Caraviello]: So I'm at last night city council meeting. One of the union people express some dismay with some of the employees there were now who are working days now have to work nights and days in there, and in order for them to get their 40 hour work week, they have to work on a Saturday is that correct, that my, my.

[Faye Morrison]: employees are not members of Local 25, so they're still working like a regular employee. They work 35 hours a week, and there are employees that do work half days on Saturdays to complete that 35 hours. That is correct.

[Richard Caraviello]: I'm a little confused. Who are the employees that he was talking about last night?

[Faye Morrison]: I don't know. None of my employees work 40 hours, so I can't answer for whoever you spoke to last night. I can only tell you that all of my employees work 35 hours a week and get an hour for lunch. Okay.

[Nicole Morell]: Any other questions at this time on this topic? Director Morrison, please continue.

[Faye Morrison]: Okay, so I wanted to talk about the Medford Square meter replacement project. So we will be replacing all on-street kiosks, and this suggestion came through the commission work that was done and through your chamber, that the kiosks on street in your squares, people didn't like having to look for them. They wanted to park and get out and pay. So we're taking those kiosks out, and we're putting in individual meterheads. If you go to Citizens Bank in Bedford Square, you'll be able to see an example. We've set up an example here that you can look at. It has the full decorative cover on it. We tried to match them to what you have out there for streetlights. You know what I like to say curb appeal, I think that it just shouldn't be about parking we should also be about enhancing the area so that it looks you know, inviting and kind of New England-y, so I'm proud of the way it looks. I'd be happy to have feedback from all of you, but there is, you can look at that setup. The new meterheads will be contactless if you choose to do so. You can use a smartwatch, a smartphone, a tapped credit or debit card. However, for those folks who still want to do it old school, you'll be able to also slide your debit or credit card, or you can pay with coin. We will not have a dollar portal. Because of the weather in New England, those things fail all the time and they end up costing you more money than they're actually worth. So we're not going to do that. The project began Monday, September 19th, with Cali Corp, who is our subcontractor, came in to start drilling, coring the holes for the pole installation. The poles should be in the end of this week and on Monday he will actually start cementing the poles into the ground. The meter crew that we already have can do the work of installing the mechs and the meter heads and they've already started to put that stuff together. And our goal is to have those meters live and operational by October 20th, barring any unforeseen circumstances, October 20th, 2022. And I put in your packet, along with the pictures of what the meters will look like what the cost was for those meter heads. I want to thank the city and the mayor for giving us the funds to get this started. I would like to do because I know that the other city squares will want what what Medford Square is getting and so I have put in a capital request for the balance to do the other city squares. Are there any questions that I can answer about that project?

[Nicole Morell]: Any questions at this time? Seeing none, please proceed.

[Faye Morrison]: Okay, so the next one. I hope will make city council happy because for months, there has been talk about folks not able to pay with a credit card at the window. And so along with Jim Silva, who is doing special projects for the mayor's office, we did some searches for a kiosk, a standalone kiosk that would be outside the window, and have made a choice on one. And the build time is about six to eight weeks. It is our hope that that will be ready before the holidays so people can start using it. But we didn't just want to focus on just credit card payments if we were going to, as you can see by the bill, these things are not inexpensive. So for me and Jen, it was a challenge of finding something that could be used for multiple different things, but also didn't put another fee on the person using it. So had we have just put in a credit card, something just use credit cards where you swiped it and could pay, that would put an additional $3.50 fee to the person using the kiosk. And I just didn't like that. I think we wanted this to be a benefit and not something like that. So what we basically had built was a desktop that will allow them to still use their credit card, but it would be just the same if they were at home paying and using their credit card. So this machine will have the ability to accept the payment using our already established payment portal. We'll have four languages on it using your demographics. They are English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole. Those screens will guide the person using it to the proper portals they should be in to do the business that they're looking to do. They will also have the ability to scan documents in. So someone who has been dropping off their appeals at the window in writing can now go to that kiosk, scan in their appeal, put it in online, which will make it move a lot quicker. and we prefer them to be online so that we can track them. They're assigned a number. If there's a problem, it makes it easier to find if we can go to that number. The person also who's putting in the appeal can check for any outstanding tickets and obviously also be able to purchase a permit if they wish. The machine is two feet by four feet. The picture looks big, but it's not big and intrusive. And we'll sit to the right of the window in the corner, right next to the door to the assessor's office. But it should not block that. We will have to make sure we stay on top of flow so that we're not you know, impeding work at the treasurer's office and also blocking people from getting into the assessor's office. So that should be, like I said, where our hope is that we'll be up and functional barring any issues. before the end of the year. The cost of it is the only cost associated with it. There's no processing fees, there's no operating fees. Paper, we can buy locally. This business has companies locally. And if there's repairs, we do have a warranty on it, and they will come in and do any of the repairs.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Director Morrison. I do have a question from Vice President Bears at this time.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Director Morrison, for the presentation. I just had a quick question on this. I think it's great that this kiosk is going to be installed. It sounds like it's going to work well for what folks are looking for. Did the idea for the kiosk kind of come from your department? And I asked that question because a few months ago we kind of had a, I don't want to say dispute, but there was a discussion where we were talking about credit card payments and you had said we'd have to talk to the treasurer's office. Then we had a conversation with the treasurer. And she said it's not our issue it's the parking department's issue I'm just wondering, did this solution come from you, or did the mayor, try to solve that problem.

[Faye Morrison]: It was a group of effort I have a park meeting and actually the clerks. It was something on their list from the very beginning. When I said that it's something that the treasurer's office would do, in other cities that I've worked in, all money transactions happen at the treasurer's office, and so if there was any credit card transactions or any kind of machine, it was always there. That is not what we are offering now. This is our solution to that, barring that, because the gentleman that runs finance said if we were going to try to have some kind of credit card situation, everybody would have to be involved in the city and we would have to negotiate fees and prices and what would be charged. So rather than wait for any of that, it made sense to us, to the mayor, and to the rest of us in the parking group, that we find a solution that we could do quicker. And this is that. It wasn't just one person. We're always working on trying to solve problems to provide customer service that is smooth and effortless and to improve things. But again, I keep having to remind folks We've been doing this less than a year so we're working. We're running as quickly as we can to try to fulfill those requests but I don't want to do anything kind of a knee jerk reaction or quickly, that will then impact the city and cause financial situations or you know, monies to be paid out that are unnecessary. So it took us some time, but this is a good solution. And having a special projects manager in Jim Silva is helpful because my day-to-day office is still a very busy one. And so having someone to assist with these things, especially on the technical end was very helpful. And so I appreciate the mayor making that happen.

[Zac Bears]: I appreciate that. And thank you for the answer. You know, I'm glad that this is going to work and that now we're going to have a solution in the parking department for this question. And just to confirm this kiosk is only going to be able to be used for parking related issues.

[Faye Morrison]: That's correct. It doesn't mean that it couldn't be expanded for other issues, but that would be a conversation that whoever wanted to expand it would have to have with Dinah touch and G tech now. because these machines are used in various different ways. The ones that they have here in Massachusetts right now are used primarily at the IRS and at the Housing Authority for people to pay things from their rent to their utility bills. So these machines can be built to do quite a bit of work, but it takes meeting with them and them figuring out what you want and then them coming back and telling you what they can do.

[Richard Caraviello]: OK, thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: And we have a question.

[Richard Caraviello]: I see you have the multiple languages here, but one of the fastest growing part of the community is our Asian community. I think we have over 8,000 Asian people in that community.

[Faye Morrison]: Is there something for them in there? Well, we went by demographics. And the way these machines are built out is that usually 5% or less, they don't do a special screen. They are expensive. And 5% or more. So these three that we picked outside of English range between 9% and 7%. So that's where we're starting. But it doesn't preclude us, if the need arises, which it hasn't at the window so far, to add another screen. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. And going to Councilor Tseng.

[Justin Tseng]: Thank you, Director Morrison. This is a project that I'm quite excited about since it addresses some of our concerns as a council, and I think we'll make customer service flow smoother. So I guess this is somewhat related to Councilor Caraviello's question. Is there going to be a feedback form or something a few months after this is rolled out where residents can kind of provide feedback and we can reevaluate our needs when it comes to the programming inside this machine. Yeah, if we see a need, you said it was the system's flexible. So perhaps if we start hearing about a need for some particular service to be provided by this machine or some particular language, maybe that would be helpful.

[Faye Morrison]: City Councilor, at the moment I'm juggling three projects and I actually have a project meeting at seven o'clock with my West Coast vendor. So I haven't had time to think about feedback yet. I want to get it working first, but certainly once I get it up and operational, I can work with communications and Steve Smearty about putting something together and putting it at the city's website that people can fill out and send in. And we'd be happy to have that feedback.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: If we can, I know that the director is leaving at seven. I know that we've had constituents that are here and on Zoom that wanted some answers directly to ask the director. I think that before we run out of time, I think we should let our residents an opportunity to ask some pretty important questions. And I'll hold my questions until after. I'd rather have the constituents, our residents have asked some questions first.

[Richard Caraviello]: Absolutely and then just I can wait till I would um the question I'm going to ask is um you you and in the report you gave us some charts here and um I kind of don't understand what the charts are trying to tell me if if you could explain um um which charts are you talking about there's quite a few well let's say there's there's like three pages of charts here right before finance clerk and parking

[Faye Morrison]: So the appeals clerk put together charts about, we've had folks, we've had two issues that we have discovered, actually three total. So when we first started doing enforcement, we noticed quite a few display decals on cars that were totally blank. And we didn't understand what was going on with that. After going through our system and doing an audit, Geotechnica did an audit of the information that we received from Reef Republic. We found that we had Some folks who thought they had had hold releases done at the registry that, for whatever reason, didn't go through. There was a litany of issues, according to the R&B from, you know, the information not matching what they had on file, so on and so forth. So we have had to manually help those people get their registrations released so that they could renew either their registration or their license. So I know one of those charts shows you when those tickets were supposedly paid and the other column is meant to show you when we actually got them released because it didn't happen at the original date. There should also be another chart in there that shows we found 550 permits that had an expiration date of 1999 and had a zone of Medford. Those permits do not exist in your ordinances. That would give someone a citywide permit that never expired. So we had to go in and put an expiration date on those for the end of this year. And then those are the folks that are getting ticketed because they have a Medford zone instead of a street. So as they get ticketed, and this has been happening since March, they will come in. We will look up and see that we don't have their street. We get their street and correct the permit and reissue it and dismiss the ticket without appeal. So that's the only way we can correct that information because we have no way of knowing who those 550 people are.

[Unidentified]: Does that answer your question or can we revisit that?

[Richard Caraviello]: We can revisit that. Yeah. We have, we have people in the audience. I'll let them speak first.

[Nicole Morell]: I do want to open it up. I want to open up to public participation. Um, any questions, comments, please direct through the chair, direct through me. And, um, I want to make sure everyone can get heard while we have a director Morrison with us until seven. So, um, we'll see how, how many people we can get through. We'll try to get through everyone. Um, either raise your hand on zoom or come up to the podium.

[Unidentified]: Whoever would like to speak.

[Anita Nagem]: Anita Nagum, 9 Norton Ave, Medford. I'm not here to speak about the actual parking enforcement, which is going on right now. I'm here to speak about the plans for extending permit parking in the city. I will say that I am astonished that these plans were developed with so little understanding of the neighborhoods in Medford, A one-size-fits-all approach does not work. There are a myriad of small streets in this city, one block, two block, three block long. Having street-by-street parking makes it frequently virtually impossible for many residents to find parking on their street. I live on Norton Avenue, which is a very small private way. It is extremely narrow. If anyone has renovation or construction done, if there is significant snow, or if anyone has visitors, we need to have them park or we need to park ourselves on an adjacent street. I've been here for 33 years. There has never been an issue. In addition, Walkland Court residents live on the other side of North Street, and they are also in the same situation. There's extremely limited parking in Walkland Court. Many of them have to park on either North Street, Auburn, or some of the other adjacent streets in order to, keep their cars, which allows them to maintain their independence. There was a proposal to extend permit parking all the way from the new College Ave Greenline Station to Route 16. The residents in my area got very short notice of that. Everyone that I spoke with in my area was opposed to it. Residents of my street would only the ones who are but North street would have been able to get a variance to park. I contacted Todd Blake, the city engineer. He said that the rest of us could appeal to the traffic commission and we may in italics be able to get a variance. That is completely unacceptable. You need to make allowances for people who are in situations like that. There are a huge number of private ways in Medford having street by street parking is not feasible. If this is extended, it should be done zone by zone. In addition, if this is truly about parking for the Green Line and concerns about people coming and parking in that area and walking to the Green Line, then the 24 hour a day, six day a week restriction is excessive. 8 to 5 or 6 p.m. would be more than sufficient. My son lives in New York City. I've been driving down there for 15 years. There is no permit parking in New York City. I have a neighbor who visits people in Jamaica Plain, very close to an Orange Line station. Again, permit parking restrictions end at 6 p.m. If this goes into effect, it would have a significant effect on the lives of residents in the area. No one would be able to have visitors until Sunday. Then that would be the only day that people would be able to have visitors. One of my neighbors got married during the pandemic in her yard. If this had been in effect, she wouldn't have been able to have anyone even attend her wedding. It seems, especially having this 24-6 parking or permit parking in effect, seems to be a thinly veiled attempt to raise revenue. And I certainly hope that if any plans to make permit parking be extended throughout the city, that you will go street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood and discuss the particular concerns in each neighborhood before this is done. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. And Director Morrison, I understand that the parking doesn't have a spot on the traffic commission who is leading this decision-making.

[Faye Morrison]: And it's not appropriate for someone, you know, you have to have checks and balances. So that's why I'm not on there. I can say that I know that the, not to speak for them, but I know last night they looked at a proposal for people to be able to opt out of these new permits for these new, I believe it's 14 streets that we have. And I've heard, for people who have started to come in and get their permits for those streets, I've heard it goes both ways. Some people are happy to see it, and some people are not. So I'm not trying to offer a solution because, like you said, I wasn't part of the decision making. But I believe they are looking at a way for folks to opt out. Yeah, you have a you have a parking problem on your streets you have too many cars and not enough street. And I think this is just an attempt by the commission to try to ensure that the people that that live within this new extension are just inundated with folks parking and just taking the tea. So it is a difficult. thing to solve. But I would hope that folks would, you know, zoom into the commission meeting and share how they feel.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. And I appreciate that answer. Director Morrison. I just have a kind of a couple additional questions around the coordination between city departments and kind of how that happens. First to follow up on this question. So I hear you when you talk about not being on the traffic commission and balances. Is there, you know, are you consulted or are you involved in discussions when it comes to thinking about zone parking or, you know, you said you weren't involved in the decision-making, you know, were you involved, consulted at all about this expansion?

[Faye Morrison]: I don't know if consulted is the word. They did have a meeting with me to let me know what the plan was for not only this extension, but for some other things they're considering. We do have some issues with sidewalk parking as well. So definitely I'm part of the discussion, but I just want to be clear. No city allows their parking director or manager to sit on that commission primarily because it is your emergency folks who should be making some of those decisions, and your transportation planning lays out your streets and really should be making those decisions, mine would be very selfish. There, it is appropriate that they're thinking about the city as a whole, and not just parking and individual streets, but it is a difficult, it's a difficult balance and, you know, I don't You know, I'm not quite sure how you're going to get there. I haven't been long enough to solve that problem, but no, we do communicate. I do have parking meetings where I invite these parties in so that we can share what I'm doing and they can share what they're doing. And so there is some discussion, but not for everything, for the bigger things, but not for small, minor things like their insistence and that type of thing.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Just a couple more questions along those lines. When it comes to, you know, do you have any consultation with DPW, you know, relating to maybe the signage, that kind of thing?

[Faye Morrison]: I have met with Tim McGibbon, and we've done a ride we actually him along with my meter crew we wrote around town and I shared with him some of the concerns that I have for signage that, you know, needs to be corrected and needs to be done. But I understand the DPW has a heavy lift. And so I try not to. you know, pound the desk. I have to be patient because he's doing the whole city. There's some signs out there that we know need to be corrected and so, you know, I have to thank him that he is prioritizing the project that I have going on right now in Medford Square. We do have some accessible parking there that's unfortunately fire hydrants went into and so we're trying to correct that so that folks with vans and real needs are able to get to the curb. safely and we're hatching out some areas to create some safe turning off governors. So, you know, he's helping me, you know, one kind of project at a time, but we do communicate and he does respond as quickly as he can when we find issues and problems.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. My last question is on the police department. You know, we've been on some email chains where folks have, you know, asked the police department to come out and do some enforcement when control specialists may be busy on another area of the city. The response we got was that the, you know, police department, you know, had not been trained on the new permitting system. It sounds like that's happening now.

[Faye Morrison]: I don't know where they are in that process. They don't consult me on their training, but I do know that I met with the chief, I wanna say maybe two or three weeks ago. And I know that G-Tech is in the process of updating their laptops so that they can see that information when they're out in the field. They do have a command center in office on desktop, just like we do. So they can see it from there, but that doesn't help them when they're out in the field. So I think they're upgrading those laptops now. so that that could be done. And I think you've said it would take maybe three or four weeks. So by the time the GLX opens, they will be able to monitor permits just like my crew can.

[Zac Bears]: OK, thank you. I appreciate that. I'll leave it there for now.

[Faye Morrison]: That's what I know. You should probably reach out to the chief and make sure that I'm being accurate. But that's what I know as of when we met a couple of weeks ago.

[Zac Bears]: Got it. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Going to have Eunice on Zoom have their hand up for a little bit.

[Unidentified]: Eunice, name and address of the record, please. I think she's still muted, okay.

[Eunice Browne]: Yep, there we go, thanks very much. Eunice Brown, Greenleaf Ave. I don't know, through the chair, I would like to know why, and hear me out for a minute, why the decals went away, the window decals. Right now, it is impossible for residents of a permit parking street to tell who belongs there and who does not. When you see, you know, an odd car that you don't know, you don't know whether or not, you know, if it's a new resident that has a permit now or something or other, or just somebody showing up and parking on the street. I've had two white vans parked either on my street or the adjacent street for the better part of a couple of months. They have Florida plates. So that likely means that they cannot have a permit Um, I know that the police have ticketed them for other reasons, but the police have told me that, you know, they're not privy to what they can ticket for, for, um, you know, permit parking violations. And I'm also told or hearing through the grapevine that, you know, the parking enforcement people come around, you know, as they can, you know, I know they have a lot of streets to manage and so forth. They come around as they can, and that we are not to call the parking department with what we perceive to be violations. So, you know, in summary, Why are the stickers gone? Could we get them back? And if we see what we perceive to be a violation, who do we call? Or should we be calling anybody? Thank you.

[Faye Morrison]: First of all, if there are two vans with a floor and a plate, they don't have permits, so there's nothing for the police to check. If they're there in violation, the police can take it and tow them. Parking cannot. We get when people let us know these things we go down those streets and check. Sometimes the vehicles are there, nine times out of 10, they are not. But if they are a vehicle that has been there in violation for weeks and should be towed if they are in violation, that is not something the parking has the authority to do. Only the police traffic has the authority to do that. And that's why when people call, we tell them to call traffic. If they want the vehicles removed from their streets, only traffic can do that. We cannot.

[Eunice Browne]: Okay, thank you.

[Faye Morrison]: You're welcome. And so as insofar as the window stickers that we had under the plan to return to that I'm comfortable with the ability of my people to monitor the streets and take it the people who are there incorrectly. And I think once traffic is on board, that will extend that and make that much smoother. But no, we have no plan to display. Those things come with problems. Like I said, we ran into a lot of blank ones. If it's wintertime and they're covered in snow, I'm not gonna ask my people to be touching people's cars. It's easier to scan the plate and it is working just fine and that's the way we plan to continue.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Thank you. Uh, going to former Councilor Marks. They may rest for the record.

[Michael Marks]: Thank you, Madam President. Michael Marks, 37 Wellington Road. I'd like to thank the members of the council who got back to me so quickly when I put out a panic call last Friday regarding an incident that took place on Wellington Road, Madam President, that impacted the entire street. So I would like to believe I'm up here tonight on behalf of my entire street, not to point a finger, but to try to find out how we can improve customer service, which I heard from the director seems to be a major priority for the parking department. So last Friday, let me give just a brief Back about a year and a half ago, there were a few residents that got together and said, we'd like to turn Wellington Road into resident permit parking. We got petitions together. Residents were very excited about the new parking process on the street. And in November of 2021, we implemented resident permit parking for the first time on Wellington Road. Move ahead 10 months last Friday after 10 months worth of enforcement. I came out of my home and I noticed this violation on my car, which I was kind of surprised. I have actually three cars myself and my kids have two cars. And there were tickets on the cars. I happened to look because I wanted to see if anyone else got tickets. And sure enough, there was a line of tickets on both sides of the street. Come to find out, we got tickets for resident permit parking. And I have clearly a sticker on my windshield and so did the other residents. So I came up to City Hall and they said, you are in the wrong zone. And I said, you know, just being curious, how am I in the wrong zone after 10 months of parking on my street every night, never getting a ticket for any of my cars, nor my fellow residents. And now I'm in the wrong zone. Well, you're in the wrong zone. You have to bring up your registration for each car. I said, well, if I already gave you my registration, maybe it was to park method or whoever took the sticker at the time. Why do I have to give my registration again? Can't you go into the system and say, these are residents of Wellington Road. They have a permit parking sticker. Although the zone says Fulbright Street, which I found out is located on Mystic Ave. It's the carwash behind Mystic Ave, that's Fulbright Street. There's no residences on Fulbright Street, but that was issued as my zone. So for 10 months, there was never an issue with having Fulbright as my zone for whoever was doing the enforcement. And it was like a switch went off that all of a sudden we got tickets and everyone had a parade up to city hall in order to show their registration that their car was valid, I guess, and you couldn't show one and say, these other ones that you gave me the list for, those two are my cars. These are my cars as well. Can you change the zone to Wellington Road? you know, nothing's changed. I gave you my the car I'm in right now. I gave you the registration. What about these other guys? Now you got to bring each up. And that's where I say about customer service. I think, you know, to me, I don't know why the ticket was issued. And that's why I'm up here tonight to see if we can come up with a better process. But secondly, when someone does come up, and if they have multiple cars, to me, a customer service request would be to allow all the cars to be valid with that pocket permit that was originally issued and never had a complaint that I paid for. So, that's what I'm trying to find out. And if there's any other questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Vice President Bears, and then we'll go to Councilor Caraviello.

[Zac Bears]: I'm happy to hear the response.

[Nicole Morell]: Do you have a response you can offer for that?

[Faye Morrison]: I already answered that question earlier in my report. We had over 550 vehicles that were not zoned correctly and were never set to expire. We don't have any way of seeing who it is when we have misinformation in the system. As I said before, we can correct as much as we can. But unfortunately, something like that, people seem to think we have all of their information and we can see everything about them. We cannot. All we can see is that those are out there, we don't know who they are assigned to. So yes, we're asking everyone to bring in their information so that we can accurately correct the situation and confirm that everything is as it should be. And we can't do that without information from the partner. So yes, it might have been inconvenience, but we did not enter the information originally into the system. All we're trying to do is correct it so that when people renew in December and January, these things don't happen again.

[George Scarpelli]: Point of information though, Mr. Morrison.

[Faye Morrison]: We need to know what street people live on. That's the information we need for the zone.

[George Scarpelli]: So the question I have, Mr. Morrison, is that Mr. Marks said for 10 months, we've been driving up and down that street and it hadn't been an issue. But all of a sudden, that's not a red flag to you.

[Faye Morrison]: We haven't been enforcing for 10 months.

[George Scarpelli]: I haven't finished my question, I'm sorry. Once I'm done with my question, I'm sure I'll give you the respect to answer. So when we talk about the trained parking enforcers that we have, isn't it a little odd for them to see, geez, we haven't given tickets to this street, Wellington Road for 10 months. Now I'm going to submit 40 tickets on this street. Isn't that a red flag? Wouldn't that be something?

[Faye Morrison]: Let me know when I can answer. I'm happy to do so. Can I answer that? We have not been enforcing anywhere for 10 months. I haven't even been here a year yet. We've been enforcing since March. We noticed the anomalies in March. And we couldn't figure out a way to fix it. So our only, finally, decision was to ticket. And then we began issuing warnings. But the tickets we have immediately dispensed. There's no way for us to get the information other than the parker reaching out to us. We can't, when we scan your plate, we don't see your name and address. We just see whether that car has a permit. And when that car comes up and it says it has a citywide permit, which doesn't exist, and that it never expires, which also isn't how our system works, then we take it so that we can hear from the park or the resident and correct the information. And like I said, we have been doing that since March or April. Probably the only reason why we're discussing it today is because, just as surprisingly to us, there was a full street of these mistakes. I'd like to know how they happened to I wasn't here when that stuff was injured. I don't know what the Parker or the resident knew about the expiration date for their, for their permit, or the fact that they weren't on the right street. I have no idea what they knew, but we would like to get answers to those questions too.

[George Scarpelli]: So, so thank you so I to follow up with that this is why I'm bringing this point up. We are obviously, Ms. Morris, I've realized that we are very, very understaffed and I understand that completely, but these are the issues where neighboring communities, and I'm sure in your past experience in working in traffic and parking and other communities, they've been thorough, transparent meetings with all residents to both talk about permit issues with zone permitting, with permit concerns or parking concerns in different areas. And when you unveil this process, it's a thorough community process. So these issues, for instance, to get a ticket, not to think, if 20 or 40 people get tickets, 20 of those people are senior citizens that maybe have a tough time to get around, Now have to come all the way up because it's easier for the traffic and the method parking process just to write a ticket. Isn't that just that that's poor customer service and that's lack of lack of communications to our constituents. This is why to us, and the phone calls we've been getting as Councilors. we are a little befuddled that we're not putting a halt to this and stop giving tickets until we all understand and we all put the process in place before we put our residents in fury and in disbelief and distrust. And what we're seeing right now is where we are right now. And don't get me wrong, I realize that you're understaffed. But if the solution is not our fault, so we're just going to ticket everybody, doesn't that sound unreasonable?

[Faye Morrison]: Can I answer now? I don't want to interrupt you. First of all, we didn't just take it willy-nilly. It was a lot of thought into figuring out how we communicate. But the reality of the situation is that we're talking about we'll be in October. And by the end of November, the misinformation that's in the system that we inherited will no longer be there. And we'll be operating on our own system. And everything should be correct, because we've corrected it. I realize that some people are inconvenienced, and if you think we handled it inappropriately, I'll take that criticism. But like I said, this isn't something that just started to happen last week. We've been correcting these things for months, and 95% of the people who come to the window once it's explained to them understand what is happening and are happy to have the ticket written off and their system corrected. So if we drop the ball with some of our residents, then we apologize for that. But we're doing the best we can with the resources that we have.

[George Scarpelli]: My final comment is very simple. My final comment is that I think as we move forward, and I know you have to leave in a minute, and I know we have some more questions, but my final comment then, why are we giving tickets if you don't have the process in place that's giving you the right information? Why don't we halt this until we figure this out and then proceed? Why do we keep going in circles?

[Faye Morrison]: City Councilors, to answer that question, if we don't correct it now, when they renew, the problem will just keep going. So we're just trying to correct the problem now and it'll be over and it shouldn't happen again.

[Michael Marks]: Madam President, can I just make one point? My sticker on my windshield gives the month and day it expires. So to say we don't know, or this permits forever, it has an expiration date. Not only that, I received this list from the pocket department that clearly states for my cars, the start date, 11-17-2021, end date, 11-17-2022. It's on each car. So to say that this is an open-ended permit makes no sense. And I think that is some of the angst that residents are having when we're being told that we're in a different zone, this was open-ended. All the city needed to do was wait till November And guess what? Michael Marks would have paraded himself up with this $30 and said, I need three parking passes on November 17th of this year. And they would have got my registration. They would have got all the info they needed, but instead they decided to give Michael Marks and 40 other residents tickets to bring them up a month and a half before their sticker expires, which makes zero sense after waiting 10 months. So that's, you know, and I'm not trying to point a finger. I'm just saying, I think, you know, if we want to talk about customer service, you know, I think we have to be mindful that residents lead busy lives and just parading them up to city hall to fix a system that may need fixing is really not the resident's concern. It's city hall's concern. Thank you very much for your time.

[Nicole Morell]: We'll go to Vice President Bears, then Councilor Caraviello, then Councilor Tseng.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Just two quick questions. One, Director Morrison, when the control specialist, you know, when this pings as a permit for, you know, that's not in the correct place, does that Medford zone show up? Can the control specialist see that when the issue pings on their technology?

[Faye Morrison]: Yes.

[Zac Bears]: Would it be possible to issue a warning instead of a ticket?

[Faye Morrison]: That's what we have been doing. We've been now issuing warnings for about a week and a half.

[Zac Bears]: Okay, second question just sounded like I just want to make sure I heard it right. You're saying that kind of by the end of the year when the new permits are being issued in December and January, that will correct a lot of the data because folks will come in for a new permit and bring their registration and that will allow us to update the data within our new database system.

[Faye Morrison]: It is our hope that before that, all of that information is in the database system, so that if someone chooses to do their permit online, it will be correct when they do it.

[Zac Bears]: Okay, thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Sanctus, he hasn't had a chance to ask a question yet.

[Faye Morrison]: I've got a couple of minutes, sure.

[Justin Tseng]: This is a rather quick question, kicking back off of what Councilor Behr said. Instead of a warning, would it be possible to leave a notice? I mean, it seems like that would be reasonable, just a notice saying there's a problem in the database. Can you come into City Hall?

[Faye Morrison]: A note is issued along with that, but we are very careful with touching cars. We've had a lot of incidents where people have had dogs sicced on them, people have threatened to hit them for touching their cars. So we are very mindful of how much interaction we're having with the vehicles out there. But like I said, we have left notes, we have left warnings, they come with no dollar value, so that people contact us and we can correct it. Hopefully we are coming to the end of that. And I think that it's a problem that will come to an end. And to speak to the former person at the podium, I didn't say every problem had a never ending expiration date and the wrong zone. I said, those are the two issues that we are running into with permitting that were issued by Reef Republic. So I do appreciate you guys giving me this time to talk to you. I wish I had more time. But I do have a project meeting that I do have to go to at 7 on Zoom. So if you have any additional questions, I'm happy to answer them. If you want to send me an email, I'm happy to answer them in time.

[Nicole Morell]: We can collect them, the clerk can collect additional questions and have them send them off to you.

[Faye Morrison]: Absolutely, I'm happy to do that. So thank you for this opportunity, President Morell and Vice President Bears, and you guys have a very good evening.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Director Morrison. Councilor Caraviello.

[Richard Caraviello]: Obviously, she's gone, but so Councilor Saint was going to bring it right up to point one. So, you know, if you give a half a dozen tickets, you see them all wrong, say, well, geez, maybe Why not put a piece of paper on and say, hey, there's an issue with things here? So you don't have a problem putting a ticket on the car because people don't get banned, but you have a problem putting a notice on the car saying that there's an issue, please come and register. What about the people who got tickets and said, oh, and just paid them and didn't even, I don't know, because people do that. They just pay the ticket and move on.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Morell. Actually, both my questions were answered already. Thank you.

[Justin Tseng]: I did have one additional question. So it seems like there's been a lot of talk about the Medford zone tonight, but I do wonder if in Councilor Marks' case, it wasn't Medford that popped up, but it was just named the other street. Fulbright, Fulbright. And so I was going to ask the director if they had spotted any cases where a street was rezoned, was wrongly entered as another street, because that might be a separate type of problem to fix. And that might mean that there are more than, it might mean that more than 550 cases need to be resolved.

[Nicole Morell]: And I do wanna know, we do have Chief of Staff, Ms. Aaron, on the call as well, if there's any questions that can be, or general administration questions related to parking.

[Michael Marks]: Can I make one point? Sure. And I was told this by someone that didn't want their name mentioned, but I guess Park Method was when they did their resident permit parking enforcement, they didn't look at the zone. If you had a sticker in your car, you were fine. And I think that policy has since changed where now enforcement officers are looking at zones. And hence, there lies some of the problem. So you went from one system to another system, and that's why residents are getting.

[Nicole Morell]: Whereas the bad data previously didn't matter, and now the bad data is impacting.

[Michael Marks]: Right, now the bad data matters. And that's why I said, if we waited till these stickers expire, which mine does clearly, we could have just resolved it then.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Thank you. President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: I just had one question that maybe Chief of Staff Nazarian could answer or the clerk could submit to Director Morrison. And it's around the office issues. It's not so much around the air quality situation, but something in this report that was really striking was that Director Morrison made recommendations nearly a year ago about The setup of the office, I know some of that was mentioned tonight. The sale, the size of the director's office but lack of ability to get a desk in there the lack of an area where someone can fill out a form. And so those were all noted last October, 2021. Director Morrison tonight said that, you know, noted that it's been nearly a year, the recommendations and concerns, but there has been some sort of update. Is there an actual timeline for when the office is going to have the physical configuration that is necessary to conduct the best possible customer service? Is that timeline another year or several months? I just think it was striking to me that those recommendations had been made last October and still changes hadn't been made to the physical configuration of the office as of yet.

[Unidentified]: Are you able to address that? And welcome back. Good evening.

[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you. Good evening, President Morell, members of the city council. Appreciate the welcome back. Vice President Bears, on your question, There are a number of pieces that are essentially intertwined with one another. In particular, for instance, we've been working on a project to expand the parking director's office. I'm not sure if all of you have had the chance to visit that space, but it's a very small space. And we've gone through a nauseating process to attempt to get quotes to have a wall taken down to expand that space. And then to determine that we need to look at whether that wall is load bearing. We did all of this in consultation with the former building commissioner, Paul Moki, who was helping us tremendously on these projects. And as well as the window project, which former commissioner Moki was assisting with, and frankly was the person who accomplished the work that was done. Originally, you may recall the treasurer collector's office previously had that space that was those staff members were consolidated across the hallway. And now the treasurer collector's office is in one place. At that time, the three windows, the parking director indicated that three windows were not needed. And so those three windows were moved across the hall. There was a lot of coordination and discussion and parts of which I wasn't involved in parts of which the parking director were involved in the former building commissioner. So I'd have to consult with them on how that transpired. aware of the interest or the request now, and I don't believe it's been a year to expand that window. It's been much less than a year, but at this point in time, I admit I'm just beginning to transition back into my work. I'd actually need to consult with my colleagues to see what the status of those things are.

[Zac Bears]: I appreciate that. And I can understand how, you know, having positions like that, the building commissioner position on the field could create gaps in, you know, the progress of getting that work done. But I just will say, like, I have it in writing in front of me. When I started on October 18th, 2021, I was shown an office and asked what it needed to be a good working space to date. None of the major things have been done. So I understand that it may not feel like a year, but that's what's written in front of me. And I'm not trying to get anyone in trouble for saying that, but it just seems like a long time. So I appreciate that you're gonna look into it and I can understand how having major positions unfilled could impact the timeline. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Any other questions, comments from the council at this time? Councilor Tseng.

[Justin Tseng]: This question is on a different topic. Some residents have asked if we can look at how we refund tickets and see if, you know, if the ticket was wrongly issued, if there was a permit in that case, is there a mechanism for us to automatically provide refunds so that people aren't paying bills that they shouldn't be paying? I don't know if the chief of staff would have an answer now. I don't know what the process looks like, but it'd be helpful to get a response from either director or the chief of staff.

[Unidentified]: Thank you.

[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you. Through you, I would suggest placing that on the list for the parking director. At this point in time, I'm not fully back to the office, so I don't wanna slow down the process. I'd be happy to participate or move things forward in any way that would be helpful, but I am not full-time at this point in time.

[Unidentified]: Thank you. Thank you and welcome back. Thank you. Any other questions, comments from the council? Any members of the public would like to speak? Please. Does anyone else want to speak before Mr. Castagnetti?

[Andrew Castagnetti]: Yes. Andrew Castagnetti, Cushion Street, Medford East. Council President, I have a question. How many people are on Zoom at the moment?

[Nicole Morell]: 17, but that also, so probably about 14.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: An average, 14, 17. Yeah, a couple of them are us. Is the parking director still with us on Zoom?

[Nicole Morell]: She had to attend a meeting at seven.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: She's not on Zoom right now?

[Nicole Morell]: She's not on Zoom, she had to attend another meeting at seven. I can, we will have these questions reported out to her.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: Is she gonna come back later on this evening?

[Nicole Morell]: I do not believe so, she hasn't, yeah. Okay.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: In her absence, I'd like to wish her a great success, Director Faye Morrison, to get this done in a properly way, because it's a lot of aggravation for a lot of people. If I may, I'd like to give you my saga. This is what happened to me. And I'll try to make this very brief. A month and a half ago, I received a notice from the registry of motor vehicles and said that my registration will expire at the end of this month, September, which I agreed. They want their money. And then on the following day, I received another letter from the registry. And it said that, wait a minute, time out, you have two outstanding tickets that have to be cleared and addressed and taken off. So having a lot of papers in my house, not as many as Councilor Penta, but I checked my files. Sure enough, I found the two culprit ticket numbers. and I had them on full page documents. I had appealed both of those tickets and Mr. Durham sent me two separate forms that I had won the appeals. So a very, very unfunny thing happened to me on the way to the forum, the Parkin forum downstairs. I went in there and asked if there's any problems, because I'm having problems renewing my registration. And they plugged me in and said, well, yeah, maybe a couple of tickets. So I pulled out these two forms from Mr. Durham stating that I won both appeals. And those ticket numbers match exactly to what the registry sent me. So I said, great. So you believe Durham's reports? Yeah. I said, then please clear these two tickets via electronically with the registry of motor vehicles. And he says, so sorry, cannot do this. I said, what are you talking about? He says, we're having a problem. And it sounds like a communication problem. He was stated. And it seemed like there was a problem with Park Medford's communication with the new parking department. And I don't know if that's true or what is true, to be honest. So he said, I'll do you a favor and I'm gonna give you this great form, I believe he's gonna fill this out. And I said, well, I appreciate your help. But he says, you're gonna have to go to the registry in person. And I said, but I have two documents saying the tickets were baloney and you can't clear them electronically. He says, that's right. Sorry. So he gave me the form. I believe it was a gray color. And it stated that I paid $220 in tickets. No ticket numbers were on the form at all. And he says, I'm putting an inflated amount on there purposely. to make sure to cover those two tickets, which they think I owe on, which was fake information. And we're gonna put extra money on there to make sure if you have any other tickets that you had paid in the near past future, in the near past. So he gave me the documents, he goes, I strongly recommend, but he says, just go to the Woolman Registry and only there. So I started thinking, why would he say such a thing? So he goes, they know how to deal with this gray form, I believe it was. So I get on the phone with the registry, two hours on hold. Finally got through at 4.30. They didn't hang up. They wanted to. She was complaining about my phone with Bluetooth. I said, I have no idea what you're speaking about. Get her a speakerphone. I said, listen, lady, please don't hang up. I've been on hold two hours. So finally, she was very nice, eventually. And says, I have an appointment for two days later, Friday. Go to the registry, Wilmington. Thank you. I got there. I'm walking up to the, let's say the maitre d' as you check in. which booth, which line, and I already had an appointment, so I went to the express line, and I'm walking towards the lady, and she says, and I'm five feet away from her, five feet away. She sees my gray form and a bunch of other papers to read in the riot act. She says, oh, you're from MEPHA? I said, I said, no, yeah, but East MEPHA, East Medford, actually. Unbelievable. So finding out that I'm one of not tens, hundreds, thousands with this problem, that's insanity. That's duress. So I couldn't believe that. And she was laughing about it. So what I'm trying to say is now, if this problem still exists, this lack of communication from Park method and the president administration of parking, as consulate de Jacobo used to say, I guess what we have here is a failure to communicate. That's what I was trying to say last night. Now I go to, They gave me a number. They're texting me. I didn't even know they were doing it. Instantaneously, phone kept going off. I have a new phone. I couldn't figure it out. Things beeping like crazy. Finally, the woman says, how are you? Hurry up. You're the second one. You have to fill out a form. I'm going to fill out a form. I'm going to scribble real fast. And all of a sudden, the numbers go from L, they go to B. I wasn't the second person in line, they switched the numbers around. So now I start writing a little slower, hoping I'll have this form filled out in advance. So they said, okay, my number was, I don't know, L515. So you're next, I go to station number seven, whatever. And I'm walking to the gentleman, he was very nice. And I said, I'm here to renew my registration and to get my new license, which I never had in my life. He saw the gray form and goes, what's that? I said, well, the city of Medford. So I have to bring this to get the release, to clear on two tickets, which was belonging to begin with. He says, I don't know what that is. So finally he calls over someone. I'm not gonna mention his name, because I want to keep him from my friends. That's why he told me to go to Wilmington. This gentleman comes over, pays the doctor, he goes, oh, he says, I know what this is, you're from Medford, right? I said, that's correct. He said, I'm gonna, I'll take care of this for you. He says, as a matter of fact, he says, I called the registry in Boston, the main office, and told them how to fix this problem, and they have not done it yet. Trust, but verify what I'm saying. This is like the Twilight Zone. So anyways, I'm going for my license. I pass my license. He gave me a temporary license. He says, go home. We'll mail it to you in five to seven days, which all happened perfectly. But I got no registration still. I'm confused, but they must have cleared it for me to get the license, I also presume.

[Unidentified]: So anyways, make a long story much shorter. What about this duress and aggravation?

[Andrew Castagnetti]: And you know, there ought to be a law against that if Park Method is not communicating with the computer downstairs or maybe we need a class action lawsuit. What is the answer? I wish the director was here because it sounds like Park Method purposely or unpurposely is screwing up the works or it could be vice versa. If any of you Councilors can help me, I appreciate it because you met one of the thousands in the future. They have to go to registry in person for a ticket that you had already paid and show proof and all that jazz. I know I talk too much, but trust me what I said, please help. people out of 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts the great paper meets me.

[SPEAKER_14]: I recommend we have Mr. Cassini as a liaison for the great form if we can from Roswell.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: I don't know if it's Greg. If she was here, the director would say, Andrew, that's not Greg, it's Green. No, I'm colorblind, that's why I'm not a racist.

[Nicole Morell]: I'm colorblind. We have a blue form in our registration packet, maybe it's blue. It might be, I don't know.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: Again, I apologize for being colorblind.

[Nicole Morell]: I will, the clerk, I'm sure has all that. I will also follow up with Director Morrison, first thing. You know I'm not.

[Richard Caraviello]: Madam President, the moral of the story is, what if Mr. Castagnetti wasn't retired and had a job? He would have had to take a day off of work to get this done. People don't have a half a day to make an appointment to drive up. It's not that Wilmington is far away, but it's not up the street from your house. So let's say, if this gentleman had a job, he would have had to take a half a day off of work to fix something that should have been fixed already.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: Thank you, Councilor Caraviello. Believe me, you don't want my job. Too much pressure. I'm working 24 hours a day.

[Kit Collins]: Okay, Councilor Collins. Thank you, President Marlin. Thank you, Andrew, for that tale of woe and hopefully some achievement at the end. My partner actually had the same issue with having to get his registration renewed and not being able to because of outstanding tickets issued during the Park Medford era, which appeals for which were filed, which Park Medford never followed up on, these were years old. I just want to use this unfortunately commonly experienced case study, you know, to sort of, you know, the context surrounding what we're looking at right now with the parking department. I think there was some pretty severe mismanagement under Park Medford that the city is still trying to unknot that tangle, you know, you add that to the staffing issues, you add that to, you know, a hasty rollout. I think as we try to partner together to just work with the parking department to figure out how can we get to solutions. for our residents and our business districts more quickly, I think that it behooves us to look at, you know, to not discount some of the genuine shambles that were left over from the Park Medford era, and then say, with all that in mind, of course, what we need to do now is just improve things as quickly as possible. But I do think that it needs to be acknowledged, some of the challenges that were left behind from problem to the department for whatever that we're not resulting good faith and we're not communicating good faith to the parking department that we have now. That also kind of tests that Wilmington is the best RMV. Absolutely.

[George Scarpelli]: Councilor Collins for comments I agree. I agree what you're saying I just think that The first line should be the city entity. That should be the first group to stand up and say, okay, there's been mistakes. Let us see what we can do for you. What we're seeing, unfortunately, is the opposite. We're saying that somebody made a mistake. I don't disagree. I think Park Method is a huge, huge piece of that. But instead of saying Park Method's an issue, let's educate our constituents. Let's find a way to make their lives easier. We've done the total opposite, because the phone calls I've gotten and the understanding that I not having the director here right now is bothersome to me because these are the issues that when it comes out right now to explain the way he explained it and for them to understand it. But the biggest thing I think, I talked to counsel Max for one person, educated, well-versed, understands the process. And if you talk to him, he's same situation. He understands what we're seeing, right? But at the same time, It's frustrating that our constituents, our residents have to deal with the impact, not the city that gets, people get paid for it in that office. So I think that's the biggest piece right now. I think they just, I think the residents want to hear that we have some issues. We have to look at ourselves first. And let's see what we can do to help you first. We're not hearing that. What we're hearing is, too bad. What we're going to do is we're just going to ticket everybody, make everybody uncomfortable, make everybody work outside and look at this process in a negative light. And that's what I find disingenuous. So I agree with you 1,000%. In the real world, I think that that process, if that was done, I think everybody in the world understands, especially in Medford, that it's not just one person's fault. It's not just Park Method's fault. We see the issues they have upstairs that they don't have downstairs. They don't have enough staff. We understand that. But this is where you take a deep breath and say, okay, let's look at the management system in a whole and let's see what we need to fix before we now start putting the burden back on our residents, which has been a mess for years. So, but thank you for bringing that up in that context. I think that's important to hear.

[Zac Bears]: So thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Just a couple of things. Number one, Mr. Castagnetti, you've spoken before us many times. That will go down as my favorite one. So I appreciate it. Something, two things stuck out from what you said. One being you're five feet away and you have the gray form and the person at the desk says, oh, you're from Medford. That's not the first time I've heard an, oh, you're from Medford. issue lately. I'm actually hearing it a lot. I'm hearing from folks who are in, you know, municipal workers and other communities that, you know, maybe someone from here has moved to another community and there'll be an interview process and people in the interview process will say, don't worry. It's not like Medford here. You know, I've heard it, from fellow Councilors from other neighboring communities and not so neighboring communities when they see something in the news and, or we're talking about an issue and they're talking about how they work with their city administration I'm talking about how we work with our city administration they go it's not like Medford here. So that's an all too common refrain that I'm hearing lately. And it's not just related to, I mean, quite frankly, the fact that it's a clerk level person at the registry of motor vehicles knows, oh, you're from Medford, I think speaks volumes. So that's just more of a point that I'm hearing lately. And we heard it last night, you know, from, uh, some, some folks who work in other communities that, uh, the circumstances that we're facing here in Medford are not being faced in other communities. Um, when it comes to having 10 to 15 department head or assistant department head level positions open at once. Um, but the other thing that I think, uh, from what Mr. Castility said that I, uh, could be a valuable next step, It's become overwhelmingly clear and I think it was clear from the beginning and one of the reasons that we moved away from the Park Medford system and Park Medford as a contractor was that they were not fulfilling their obligations to the city. we were in a transition period, they were transferring over, you know, their physical infrastructure, their databases, and still seemingly we have some issues where we don't have the access to the RMV communication that we need because Park Medford still has it, or there's no communication from Reef Republic Parking about it. So I understand that there was kind of a, tenuous, you know, detente with Park Medford, where we didn't wanna get too angry, because who knows what they're gonna withhold from us. At this point, it seems pretty clear the database is crap. The kiosks are, you should really read the report on the kiosks in here, because that is terrifying, the condition that the kiosks are in, and that you're, it says that on a rainy day, most of the, after a rainy day, most of the kiosks don't work, and the only way to fix it is to open it up, pull out the motherboard, put the motherboard back in and half the time it fixes it. I think it would behoove us to explore legal action on Reef Republic. I think someone should review that contract, see where they fell down on the job and see if we can be compensated for it as a community. Because clearly they were here for almost 10 years, taking millions of dollars a year, only had two people working. Councilor Mark says they weren't even looking at the zone on the permit the whole time. So as long as you had a permit, you could park wherever you wanted, any permit parking in the city. You know, the database is broken. The truck we got was broken. All the kiosks are broken. It sounds like we are left holding the bag. For 10 years of parking, we were supposed to be handed something when they left and we were handed a pile of trash. And now we have to pay with ARPA money and tax money and whatever else to fix it. So I would make a motion that we request that the city administration, I mean, I'd send it to the city solicitor, but that the city solicitor, the city administration, Whomever else is legal counsel, fully review the... Oh, sorry. Fully review, if Siri could get the answers, that'd be great. Fully review the Park Medford Reef Republic contract and see if there are any grounds for legal action for us to recoup some of the money that we've clearly lost due to their incompetence and mismanagement.

[Nicole Morell]: So on the motion of Vice President Bears, seconded by Councilor Tseng, all those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. Any further discussion from the council? Do you wanna keep paper report out the questions or? On the motion of Councilor Caraviello to report the questions and adjourn, seconded by Vice President Bears. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes, meeting is adjourned.