[Nicole Morell]: So 19-070, Committee of the Whole, meeting Wednesday, June 1st, 2022 at 6 p.m. is called to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears. Councilor Caraviello. Councilor Collins. Present. Councilor Knight. Councilor Scarpelli. Present. Councilor Tseng. Present. President Morell.
[Nicole Morell]: present.
[Adam Hurtubise]: And I see the vice president bears has just arrived.
[Nicole Morell]: All right, so, uh, five present to absent. I apologize. I forgot to mention that Councilor Caraviello is missing as well. Again, no one told me that they would miss this, so hopefully they'll be join us when they can. There will be a meeting of the Medford City Council Committee of the Whole on Wednesday, June 1st, 2022 at 6 p.m. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the revised draft of the tree ordinance 19-070, The City Council has invited Attorney Robin Stein of KP Law and DPW Commissioner Tim McGibbon to attend. For further information, aids and accommodations contact the City Clerk at 781-393-2425. Sincerely yours, Nicole Morell, Council President. I do see Councilor Knight joining us.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Excellent. Okay.
[Nicole Morell]: So I do want to know so we do have Attorney Stein on the call with us tonight. Unfortunately, Commissioner given is unable to attend because there is a ever source community meeting happening at the same time that we just learned of very recently, I would not have intentionally schedule these at the same time. Unfortunately, we just found out about that kind of at the 11th hour. So we do have, this is our second committee of the whole meeting on this topic. Last time we had some technical difficulties, so we didn't get to review the document too thoroughly, but I have shared with the council and folks that are interested, the draft document of a ordinance related to trees within the city. We have a number of comments from Attorney Stein as well as Commissioner McGivern on the document. I'd be happy to share my screen and review those comments that were made on this draft ordinance, but also if fellow Councilors would like to start the discussion before we do that. Seeing no hands, I will share my screen and we can walk through this. Can everyone see my screen. Yes, sir. Yes, yes. Thank you. Okay. So with regard to the intent and purpose, so Attorney Stein noted that Article 2, Division 2 of the C's ordinances currently applies to the tree ward and Article 3 applies to trees. She recommends being specific here and about any amendments intended to make, made to those sections. Actually, since we have you Attorney Stein, would you mind just giving kind of a brief synopsis of your comments as we come across them?
[Robin Stein]: Sure. I mean, I think like some of them, for example, I think that one, you know, it's fairly self explanatory, but I was just pointing out that you do have an existing ordinance that relates to trees in the tree warden. And so if this is intended to be a new standalone ordinance, you'd want to reconcile those. Um, and it may be that it, um, you know, maybe it's worth giving some thought to whether or not this should be split into two ordinances. One that's covering your chapter 87 public shade trees and one that is covering trees that are not covered by chapter 87. So if that was the case, you could work within the existing or chapter 87 and then theoretically or potentially develop a new ordinance for the trees that aren't covered as public shade trees.
[Nicole Morell]: Okay. Thank you. So going on, we also have opening comment from Commissioner McGibbon that they're very real impacts to DPW contained in this proposed ordinance. I do not believe it could be implemented successfully with existing DPW resources and structure. I recommend that the ordinance be evaluated against current human and monetary resources and include an assessment of projected full-time employees required for a successful implementation of this ordinance. My gut tells me somewhere between two and three full time employees that information could be used to initiate a strategy to arrive at that required support to make the implementation of the successful but is not there yet. And then moving on. You noted attorney sign if you could speak I think there's reference to this a few spaces as far as. I think this was a bit of a push-pull in the one meeting we had too, as far as the applicability or the ability to apply this in ordinance to private property trees.
[Robin Stein]: Sure. So, and again, we definitely discussed this last time. My job in looking at this is to flag potential issues. So I'm not saying this is necessarily a problem, but if you're gonna be regulating private property independent of any other permitting scheme, um you need to have a public purpose in place for that and I don't know yes or no um if just maintaining a mature tree canopy would suffice if this was challenged in court but generally speaking you know if you're going to be regulating or requiring permitting um or mitigation associated with trees on private property there has to be a nexus between and a rough proportionality between the mitigation, the adverse impacts, you know, it has to be tied to a legitimate public purpose, which this may be, but, you know, it's certainly my job to flag to you potential issues. That's what I'm doing there. And I don't know that we need to repeat it as we go. You're right, there are references throughout as it comes up. But again, this may be one of the areas where the city might want to think about, do we want to just have a separate ordinance of dealing with kind of a private tree issues versus the chapter 87 public shade tree issues? and for clarity, it may make sense to split those out. So just something to think about.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Attorney Stein. Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Thank you very much, Madam President. Councilor, I was just wondering maybe would it make sense for us to look at this in a way where, you know, if the intent is to protect the tree canopy publicly, right? And the tree canopy of the community, and we have private shade trees that, you know, participate in that function. to limit this to a scope. I offered an email earlier that would make a recommendation to limit this to maybe residential parcels that are exempt residential parcels over 5,000 square feet that is seeking to remove one or less trees, something like that, or maybe limiting it to parcels that are only subject to site plan review, which are parcels that are a little bit larger you know, I think there's six units or more. Will we still face the same complications that you mentioned earlier or would that be something that might change things because they're larger scale parcels? I mean, ultimately the idea behind this when I brought it up was that there were a couple of developments that were proposed in the community, one of them in Winthrop Street and the other one up in the Fulton Heights area where they clear cut probably close to 250 trees. So the idea was that we want to prevent that from happening again on large scale parcels like that. That was my intent anyway when I brought it forward. It's changed a little bit since then. But ultimately, it was to prevent that type of clear cutting on large scale parcels without having some sort of community mitigation and reimbursement back. So would we face those same concerns that you had raised even though the parcels would be residential, but larger scale parcels.
[Robin Stein]: So it's something we could take a look at. I haven't seen your specific email, but we can certainly look at options for limiting this to certain projects of a certain size that may have more of an impact. So then that would be more tied to the community interest to mitigate against that impact.
[Adam Knight]: Right, because I think the person that's trying you know, take a tree down out of their front yard because they wanna put a swing set in is a little bit different from the person that wants to, you know, take down three full grown oak trees because they wanna put a different, a second house on their double lot or someone that wants to, you know, add substantial square footage to their, you know, a boat. So I think that that's really, you know, when you talk about community impact, I think that's right on the nexus that we need to head on.
[Robin Stein]: No, we can certainly take a look at that. And we can also take a look at how those changes might intersect with existing zoning. If we just get maybe a little bit more detail about what you folks are thinking, then we can get back to you on it.
[Adam Knight]: And then I also had a question about whether or not, you know, obviously if it was residential, it's residential, but we've been having some discussions about private ways versus public ways. And would there be any type of differentiation between a tree in a private way versus a tree in a public way?
[Robin Stein]: I mean, there certainly is for the statute. There's a statute is covering public shade trees, which are defined in there. And that again, is something that we can take a look at when we have some direction on how you want to regulate those.
[Zac Bears]: Point of information. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Vice President Bear, sorry, I was just switching to AirPods.
[Zac Bears]: My apologies, Madam President. I just wanted to note for Councilor Knight as well that somewhere in here, Tim McGivern commented that he would be very concerned about the city taking responsibility on private ways when we aren't, you know, that are not accepted. So I think that would be something we'd really need to take a look at as well.
[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Knight, would you like to put any of those recommendations in the form of a motion?
[Adam Knight]: The clerk muted me. No, ultimately, I think this is something that's gonna be hashed out in further meetings. I don't think this is gonna be something that's gonna be hitting the council floor after tonight. It's just some, I guess we call it food for thought.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Knight. Councilor Collins.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Morell. I wanted to kind of going off of this same topic, I was curious if the attorney knew perhaps from other communities ordinances on the same topic or just in general, on the point of, you know, we need to clearly articulate the public purpose for which we're regulating potentially private property. Is there a way that we can sort of semantically reframe what we already have to articulate more clearly the public purpose apart from just maintaining the tree canopy, for example, specifying clean air, protection from soil runoff and flooding, other ecological effects? I guess I'm curious if just specifying the public purposes in the ordinance would get at that issue of liability in the event of a legal challenge. on the regulating private parcels side of things.
[Robin Stein]: I certainly think that it would be helpful to include all of the purposes, you know, in detail. So, you know, in the ordinance, what would happen on the challenge, I can't say, but certainly if there's more reason, then yeah, I would definitely include all of the reasons for, you know, all the public purposes that go with the ordinance. Yeah, definitely.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. Amanda Bowen, I see you have your hand up. Just name and address for the record, please.
[Amanda Bowen]: Hi, I'm Amanda Bowen. I'm from Trees Medford and I just wanted to make a quick point, which is that there are numerous municipalities throughout the Commonwealth that have ordinances in place and we borrowed a lot of what we have in here from those. And so I think it really has to be acknowledged and any work on this document should really make reference and we'd be happy to share some examples with anybody who's interested. There are many, many of our surrounding towns that have similar works in documents in place. That's all. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Amanda. Attorney Stein, to that point, are you do you have experience or you're seeing ordinances like this be challenged around the state?
[Robin Stein]: You know, it's a little bit different when you're talking cities versus towns, because, so, the dog is barking. The Attorney General doesn't review ordinances passed by cities. The Attorney General only reviews bylaws passed by towns. So I have taken a look through probably, I think when I searched the records back in 2016 on the AG's website, I saw one town that had a similar approach, different in the details. And I do see the Attorney General's comments on that. I'm not aware of any court challenges on them. So there's definitely a lot out there in different versions. And they are very fact specific as far as connecting the level of regulation to the actual community need and the public purpose. And they don't all regulate to the same degree and extent, but certainly there's examples out there. There isn't a lot on interpreting them.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Attorney Stein.
[Adam Knight]: Thank you. Madam President, thank you very much. Councilor, do you think it would make sense, number one, for us to look at this as an ordinance or as a zoning issue?
[Robin Stein]: Are you directing me or to one of the councilors?
[Adam Knight]: No, you, Councilor. I'm sorry. Oh, sorry.
[Robin Stein]: You know, I think it's worth looking at zoning and thinking about whether or not if you're interested in splitting this into separate ordinances regulating public and private. Zoning doesn't usually regulate the use of public waste, so zoning's not going to normally, in most instances, regulate public shade trees because they're within public ways. But if you decide that you want to split this out, we could give some consideration to whether or not it would best fit into existing zoning or whether or not it would still be better to be a general side ordinance. But that would probably only make sense if you were only seeking to regulate the private side. And then to the point that you made earlier, Councilor, we can look at whether or not this is something that might just fit into site plan regulation if you're only trying to reach what trigger site plan as opposed to something different. So there are all things that we can look at. as we get some more direction on the real details of what you're trying to regulate from a land use perspective.
[Adam Knight]: And then on that note, we have also included in this proposal a initiative to create a advisory commission. And I think that's a great idea. It's something that I wholeheartedly support. I think that where we're gonna get stuck up in the weeds is really gonna be in the details of this ordinance relative to what the specifics are regarding the permitting and regulatory functions of the tree removal, not necessarily whether or not we need an advisory commission. Would it make sense for us to take the advisory commission out of this ordinance and deal with that as a separate piece of paper?
[Robin Stein]: You know, ultimately, especially if you decide to put some of the regulation into the zoning ordinance itself. So once we have a better handle on really how this is going to go forward, then we can help advise about the best ways to do it, but it may be that it ends up being the combination of general and zoning regulation, maybe a general ordinance to create the advisory committee. And it may be some, you know, zoning within the realm of site plan that ultimately makes the most sense, you know, but it may not. So once we have a better sense of the degree of regulation and how it all fits together, we can help advise on that.
[Nicole Morell]: Got it. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilor. Vice President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President, and to Councilor Knight and Attorney Stein's points, I think closer to the end of this meeting, I'm planning to make a motion that basically that we look at a, we take the content that's in here and we look at distributing it, or the council would look at distributing it.
[Nicole Morell]: I think we're losing you, Vice President Bears. Nope, that's me.
[Zac Bears]: Nope, it's me. Can folks hear me?
[Nicole Morell]: Yes.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Zac Bears]: Okay. Um, sorry, just basically saying that I'd like to distribute kind of everything that's packed into one ordinance here across the relevant sections of the current ordinances. So, you know, the, I think to Attorney Stein's point, the chapter 87, you know, really look at updating the public shade tree. Um, if we think that the private, you know, looking at the private properties best done through the zoning ordinance and that could go there. The tree committee could then fall, you know where it would be in under our boards and commission section of our ordinances. So I am planning to make that motion at a later time. I'm just putting that out there for discussion, so we don't necessarily need to keep repeating. And I think that that makes more sense as a path than kind of trying to smash all these different pieces into one new section of our ordinances.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Vice President Bears. Councilor Collins.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Morell. And yeah, I just, I'm happy to hear that. I think that that's a motion that I would support, you know, in thinking through this, you know, the content that we have here, which makes for a fairly long proposed ordinance and also, you know, taking seriously Commissioner McIvern's comments about if enacted as written, what a undertaking enforcing this proposed ordinance to the letter would be for the current capacity of the DPW. I'm also, you know, curious to have that discussion of if breaking it up into parts potentially, you know, because of the legislative process, phasing those changes in in chunks, if that could at least help with the capacity issues. You know, I want to see a very strong tree ordinance or tree ordinances implemented, but I'm also aware that we can't wave a wand and put more full-time employees into the DPW overnight. So I'm glad that that will be on the table for the discussion. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. And to that point, I do want to note that at the previous meeting, we had requested the chief financial officer to join as well. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to make that happen with the administration due to the newness of the person that role. So hopefully at future meetings on this, that person can attend because I do believe further in the ordinance, there is some language about potential self-funding after a certain point in time of some of this being enacted, if so chosen. So moving on, we have addressed Attorney Stein's note about zoning or not. I think, and then we just have a general note. If you want to speak as Attorney Stein, but just basically saying the definitions we need to go, these need to be adjusted. I'm sure relative to what already exists in our ordinances, as well as what is the most common language around these terms, if that's what the goal was there. Yes.
[Robin Stein]: And anytime you have an ordinance as noted, this is pretty lengthy. I just like to flag, you know, once you're done making all the adjustments to go back and check these definitions and make sure everything still lines up and that things haven't changed and they're still being used the way that it's intended. Cause sometimes the meat of the ordinance will change and then that needs to review. So I just, it's always good. I think early stages to flag that. you know, this is gonna need some additional review. And then there were some particular items, you know, for example, I asked about a construction permit. There were some particular terms that I had specific questions about, but, you know. Okay.
[Nicole Morell]: So moving forward. Yeah, again, as we mentioned before, Commissioner McGivern's questions just regarding private trees or private property. So something we need to look into. Um, and the same thing as reference to private ways. Um, again, so as we do see, you know, a lot of repeating comments from attorney signing commission commissioner given, um, regarding private property and private ways. So, um, further comment from commissioner McGivern is how is a tree verified to be protected? Uh, Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Yes, madam president. I just saw that, um, article in there that was highlighted talking about construction of low and moderate income housing, affordable housing units, and whether or not they'd be exempt in them. I was just wondering if we could talk a little bit about that. I mean, down a little bit under applicability into three. Any project otherwise for the construction of low and moderate income housing? Number two, yeah. We could talk a little bit about that.
[Nicole Morell]: Absolutely.
[Adam Knight]: Would you like to start? Well, I didn't write it.
[Nicole Morell]: sure I think yeah this is yeah so just a reminder so this came at this went to the zoning subcommittee of the previous council that asked the trees Bedford group to work on a draft ordinance so I think that's where and as they as Amanda said this is coming from a lot of other referencing a lot of other towns that have passed this so I mean I don't know if you want to speak to the intent there or we're happy to just speak.
[Adam Knight]: I guess the question is are they exempt or not exempt based upon this is it applicable it looks like it's applicable. to any project, right? Otherwise, any project otherwise for the construction of. So that would exempt the low and moderate income housing developments. Is that correct?
[Amanda Bowen]: Yeah, there was, let's see, there was a considerable debate about this. And I think that that is something we would not want. And there are many examples in surrounding towns. And there's actually a bunch of examples in Boston right now. of low income housing being exempted from these restrictions. And that we have considerable debate about that. And so I think it may very well be better for you guys to decide that. But we have advocates among our group who think that this is very important.
[Robin Stein]: So can I just ask a clarifying point, please? And it's similar to Councilor Knight's question, but I think this needs clarification either way, the way it's written, but does the word otherwise in there mean it was intended to be exempt or not? Because I don't think I was reading it that way, but Councilor Knight raises a good point.
[Amanda Bowen]: Yeah, you'll have to forgive me because it's been a few months and I have only looked at this document briefly recently. I think that we did, we did intend to exempt them.
[Robin Stein]: Okay. I think that language probably is going to need some clarification either way.
[Adam Knight]: My, my, my desire will be to exempt them. I mean, ultimately there's a publicly funded developments that, you know what I mean? Use taxpayer dollars. We're going to. charge them money to do something. It's just tax dollars that are going back in the circular fund. You know what I mean? It doesn't make sense to me to. put them through that.
[Amanda Bowen]: Can I just make one little point there, though, that that it is often the case, and you will see it all over and in surrounding towns, that that housing, public housing developments have the fewest trees in general, usually. And and that is something that is discriminatory and not appropriate. And so protecting trees as much as possible that exists when you modify a public housing project or build a new one is to the benefit of those people and has to be considered that way. So that's my problem with accepting this, although we did exempt them.
[Adam Knight]: I understand that. I mean, you have to also weigh the benefits of construction labor and, you know, permitting and that they go into those types of developments and the cost of remediating them and looking at what we have going on right now, a walk-in court and 120 more beside that, for example, you know, we have a two multi multi-million dollar projects that are going on there. They're going to bring a number of jobs to this community that are going to revitalize the developments for the people that live there. So, you know, it's, it's one of those, you know, You got to find the equal balance, right? I mean, what's the balance? You know, if we can, we can build the development to make it nicer for the people that live in there. Um, and that, and that means we have to take some land and remove some trees then, you know what I mean? What's the, what's the, what's the cost benefit ratio, right? I mean, that's where we're trying to develop right now. That's what we're trying to figure out. But, uh, I think that ultimately, you know, when we're looking at a housing authority and the limited resources that they have right now in the limited parcel, of space that they have right now across our community, it makes sense. But then you gotta look at also the private developments that come in, the 40Bs and stuff like that, that are looking at, you know, developing tracts of land and doing it outside the scope of the housing authority, right? And those are also affordable, moderate, or low-income housing developments. So yeah, it's definitely something to take a look at, but I think ultimately, you know, with the way the housing crisis is right now, creating impediments to large scale, low, moderate income housing developments is probably puts us at a disadvantage in terms of what we're trying to do for the greater good of our community.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Knight. Councilor Collins. Thank you, President Morell.
[Kit Collins]: Yeah, I think that this is certainly an element that we should flag for further discussion. I was wondering if, and I know we're gonna discuss this further too, if this ends up being split off and considered as part if, well, and there's kind of two pieces here because there's developed lower moderate income housing, and then there's subsidized housing in the event of developer driven lower moderate income housing. You know, I think this potentially to me sounds like the type of thing that could go before, you know, a special permitting board. You know, I think we talked about this with parking spaces as well. This strikes me as the type of construction adjacent element. that would be considered by a special permit granting authority when those developments go up. So I just wanted to flag that, that I'm not, I certainly don't have an opinion I don't wanna hang my hat on tonight. And I'm wondering if that is a decision that could be deferred to an SPGA, if this ends up, at least again, for the privately developed lots, if this ends up going into the zoning ordinances.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. Councilor Knight, and then I'll go to Sarah.
[Adam Knight]: Thank you, Madam President. I think Councilor Collins makes a good point. And I think that that brings us back to the discussion we had earlier about whether or not this should be applicable to only projects that require site plan review, right? Because that's where the special permit granting authority comes into play. So I think that that makes a lot of sense. And that's something that really does need to be hashed out, when we first brought the site into the table, it was about those clear-cutting, large-scale developments, not the residential homeowner. And ultimately, the biggest goal that we need to focus on here is to protect the residential homeowner from impediments from their life luxury and happiness. You know what I mean? Maybe we could have a residential exemption. I know there are many communities, like Newton has a residential exemption. I believe Cambridge has a residential exemption as well, which indicates if you live in a certain property for a certain period of time, then this doesn't apply. or if you, you know, there are certain criteria, I don't want to get into it because I'm not as well versed on it as I'd like to be right now, but I know that there's other options that are out there as well. So I think that that's something to look at, but she makes a good point. You know, when you're talking about whether or not it makes sense, the special permit granting authority can weigh these community interests on a case by case basis, as opposed to us painting a broad brush.
[Robin Stein]: Councilor Morelle, I think Sarah might be speaking but is muted.
[Sarah Gerould]: Can you hear me now? One of the things that we discussed was a comment that was made during our review period by someone who, can you hear me now? Apologies, I think I'm having connection.
[Zac Bears]: Yes, the president's issues. Yep. Gotcha.
[Sarah Gerould]: Okay. Let's see. The statement that was made by one of our commenters, which said, who said that in, and I'm not an advocate, I don't know anything about public housing. So this is, you know, this may or may not be true. But what they said was that, that many housing projects go through with one or two public housing, lower income lower middle income units in it, and they call it public housing. And in many cases, it's it isn't really public housing and it gives it opens a door to taking down all the trees and That plus the issue that Amanda raised related to making sure that these public housing places don't become treeless, barren wastelands, which doesn't make their environment as friendly as it could be if there were trees on the property.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, sir. I'm hardwired in so hopefully everyone can hear me. Great, thank you. And I think that is also I think we could probably be on this point for a long time because a lot of our affordable housing or any affordable housing that seems to be proposed in the city is 40 B and 40 B has the ability to go around certain zoning regulations. So I think just To a few points that have been made, I do think my hope would be maybe to separate this out to a few different parts, because I do think there is that kind of immediate need as Councilor Knight originally brought this forward to prevent that clear cutting for these larger developments that may be site plan review. And maybe that's something we could move forward first. And then we work on kind of the more nitty gritty that we're getting caught up with here as far as more smaller projects and get to really the additional intent of this ordinance. So I will continue to move forward. Let's see. Just address that. Yes, and I think there's just a desire from Commissioner McGibbon for just more clarification on what exactly a protected tree is and when an ordinance like this would kick in regarding the pulling of permits, which I think we've also discussed already. Attorney Stein references existing ordinance as well. Um, and then, um, attorney said, if you just want to reference, um, the reasonably related to relief sought, um, this comment here for, uh, regarding the tree warden, um, and the duties and responsibilities.
[Robin Stein]: Yeah, it's just a general comment that, um, you know, conditions of a permit be reasonably related to. the purpose of the permit and the relief sought for just a general comment.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. And then moving. It looks like the tree warden would need to review each building or non building project situation determine if the tree is protected or not, then the warden is responsible to give approvals and denials right conditions and enforce the ordinance for non-building related trees. This is a scope of work well beyond that in the current DPW. Successful implementation of the potential ordinance must be discussed. As written, I do not believe there's a framework for implementation existing today, which again, I do think Councilor Collins touched on and Councilor Knight touched on as well with the idea of an SPGA for certain aspects of this, should we separate this out into a few different pieces. And then Attorney Stein just referenced under the court enforcement officer, just a need to generally clarify this section. And then going into the tree committee, some general comments as far as the number, which again, I think there is an expressed interest in the tree committee, as far as the nitty gritty, as far as the number of members, I think it's something that could be revisited as we move forward with these types of things. So I just wanna get more to the, ordinance itself. Attorney Stein noticed that we need clarification on if we decide on a permit, how the process of obtaining a permit, for example, do you want to require any regular, any particular notice for public hearing besides what's in chapter 87? So this references our existing processes and the desire in this ordinance to potentially expand on them. And then Commissioner McGibbon, just referencing, just needing to look at our policies once more to see if we are adjusting them or we're referencing what already exists. And again, I think, again, comments referencing just examining our current language in our ordinances and how this would update it or go beyond that. So the idea of a tree removal permit to make it just referencing that this procedure does not currently exist and is an administrative process that would need to be staffed. Again, going back to the clarification on permits. So looking forward, I think these final comments are a lot around permits, the permitting process, sources of funding and how that might, how this could potentially have a true fund could work to help fund the positions needed for this. And that would also be, I think that would be a reference to employees, but also when we can get the CFO in to discuss how that might work financially for the city. Attorney Stein, I know that the city has accepted general law chapter 40 section 57 is unclear of a fine issue not under general law chapter 40 section 21 D is covered thereby not familiar enough with the sea ordinances to define or support this. So this is just a reference of the fines or proposed fines for those who do not follow the process outlined in this for tree removal and a permit to do such. And then Also referencing, you know, would this be a job of the tree warden to decide on corrective actions or would this go to another body? So Councilor Collins.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Morell. And I have a few comments on some aspects of this, including several seconds ago. So if there was, it sounded like you were leading into something, I'm happy to wait if you were.
[Nicole Morell]: No, I think that that's the end of the comments. And I was just noting that it seems like we're kind of, although there is a number of comments, it seems like we're looking at issues of just kind of clarification, how the permitting process would work and reference to existing permits, how funding would work, and then just the ability of staff to have the people to enforce it and what enforcement would look like. So it seems like we kind of, and of course the private public issue as well. It seems like those are the kind of the main issues that are occurring over and over within the draft language.
[Kit Collins]: So please go ahead. Thank you. Yes, I would agree. I was just trying to assimilate that into bullet points in my mind. There's a lot of topics. Okay, well, just to go in the order I originally had in my head. So on the personnel issue, to go back to section four, describing the tree warden, this may well tie into the overall project of potentially breaking this into pieces that correlate to extant ordinances. I was just kind of curious how much overlap there was in this section that describes the role and responsibilities of the tree warden, if that was inconsistent with where that was currently in our personnel ordinances, if this had to be reconciled. I mean, if we're breaking this up into parts, maybe that it's just an issue of making that Venn diagram. work. And going along with that, again, this may be more nitty gritty than is useful for this conversation if we're just kind of dealing with the main organizational aspects, but I was feeling a little confused about the balance of responsibilities between the code enforcement officers described in the fifth section and the true warden. Some of those responsibilities described seem like they would have to be done by the tree warden, which I think probably gets back to Commissioner McGibbon's overall point about staffing up for this level of implementation.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, it's my understanding. It looks like the two, the tree warden and the code enforcement officer might work in concert if that's the most effective use of either of their time to work like that. I'm not sure. And as you said, I think it goes back to Commissioner McGibbon's point about just needing more staff, period. Do you have more questions, Councilor Collins? I'll defer to my fellow Councilors. Okay, Vice-Chair Bears and then Councilor Knight.
[Zac Bears]: I'll defer to Councilor Knight.
[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Knight. I think I have to keep unmuting you.
[Adam Knight]: Madam President, thank you very much. Ultimately, is there a way that we could pass the cost of determining, you know, we have a standard that's established, right? That says this is a, you know, tree that we need to preserve. Can we pass that cost on to the permit applicant? Can we say, you know, you need, if you want to take a tree down, you need to measure it and come to us and say, this is what it is. And have the certified arborists that they hire do that and make them bear the cost of it. And that would take away the administrative burden from our side.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Knight. Attorney Stein, can you speak to that?
[Robin Stein]: It's a little bit kind of outside my area. I think that's probably more of a technical question, but from reading his comments, It appears that regardless of who, I mean, I think the applicants would be providing the city with the information, but the way I read this, at least in four and five, your tree warden and your code enforcement officer are still going to have to verify it. They're going to have to look at it. And I think this is again, where you get into the distinction between how public shade trees are already treated and handled and now adding this. private review component and looking at how that intersects with those roles. I do think Councilor Collins makes a good point and again these are policy decisions so I'm not weighing into them. I don't have an opinion about what you should do but the way I read this there does appear to be duplication in the efforts of the tree warden and the code enforcement officer, which I think council Collins makes a point should be looked at just from a resources standpoint. It's a policy decision, how the city wants to approach this, but it certainly appears if you read four and five, that there's some duplication and review and permitting and conditioning that probably needs some clarification, but may also be a resource issue. And, you know, again, given the extent of this, you know, I encourage folks as you're reading it, to kind of, and this is what I try to do, and that's why I've noted a lot of things in here that seem to need clarification, is if I was a regular person and I just went on the website and read this from start to finish, would I understand what I need to do? You know, does it read in a way that makes sense to a regular user? Like, that's the goal that we want to get to as we dial down into all the various concerns, is, you know, can you implement this? Can the tree warden of the building, inspector of this and one member of the public be able to easily use it and follow it and not run afoul of it. And there does seem to be, you know, some clarification when you look at four and five on its face, that could be helpful.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Attorney Stein. Did that address your question? Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Yes, ma'am.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Vice president bears.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. I have two motions. They're both a little long winded. I've already forwarded them to the clerk for his ease of note taking and I'm sure that he will send them around to everyone who's currently in attendance and who couldn't make it tonight. The first one tries to capture this idea of taking the draft language and splitting it up into the relevant places of the city ordinances. So it would be a motion to request that the city solicitor and or legal counsel take the proposed language of the tree preservation protection and replacement ordinance and properly place the proposed changes within Medford's existing city ordinances. This shall include changes to existing ordinance language regarding public shade trees that fall under chapter 87, creating a proposed general or zoning ordinance relative to the protection of certain trees on private property. separating section six into a tree committee ordinance to be placed in chapter two, article three of the city of Medford ordinances. And it may include any other sections or proposed amendments that council deems necessary. These new drafts shall preserve the intent of the proposed language discussed by the council and shall cite any relevant state statutes or case law that may put any of the proposals outside the legal authority of the city. So that's the first motion. I can try to summarize it if it was too long.
[Nicole Morell]: Do any Councilors need clarification around that motion? Do I have a second for that motion? Second. Second by Councilor Collins. And your next motion Vice Mayor Bears.
[Zac Bears]: And my next motion would be that after those new draft amendments to the ordinances are received, that the building commissioner, as well as the DBW commissioner in consultation with the tree warden, provide an estimate of the additional staff needed to enforce the proposed ordinance, as well as list necessary collaborations with other city departments with the intent that the council could draft a budget and policy request to the city administration that would accompany the ordinance changes if they do end up being passed.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Do I have a second on that motion? Okay. My Councilor Tseng, are those your motion? Yes.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I'm sorry to interrupt. I'm having a little bit of trouble with my email. The system just went down. So I have to, I have to reboot my email to get the, get vice president bears a second motion. Hang on just a second.
[Nicole Morell]: Okay.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I should have 30 seconds to a minute.
[Nicole Morell]: Sure. Are those all of your motions vice president bears?
[Zac Bears]: Yep. Just those two.
[Nicole Morell]: Okay. Do I have any other motions from Councilors? Is there any additional discussion or any members of the public or trees member folks who would like to speak? I see Councilor Collins.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Berline. Just wasn't quick on the draw. For raising my hand, I wanted to, just so that we can hopefully get the ball rolling for when we get the updated format on these ordinances back from legal counsel. I think I'd also like to make a motion to request an opinion from the city's finance director on if donations, fines, fees, penalties may be held all in one tree fund, if we end up going that route, or if the two funds will be required so that we can deal with that issue expediently before we get to it.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Collins. Second. On the motion of Councilor Collins, seconded by Vice-President Bears. And then, Claire Curnaby.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I didn't get all of Councilor Collins' motion. She wants to remove requests from the CFO on whether this could all be done in one fund or whether a second fund will be required?
[Unidentified]: Yes. Okay.
[Nicole Morell]: And then Sarah, just unmute you. Go ahead.
[Sarah Gerould]: Okay, I have two comments. First is thank you very much for looking at this and giving it a lot of thought. I really do appreciate it. It's something that we really care about in Trees Medford. And then the second comment I have is about the tree fund. As we had thought about it, this was a fund to buy trees and to prepare areas for planting trees. Now, I do note that when the city of Arlington developed a tree fund and when Cambridge developed a tree fund and funded it in this way, they were kind of overwhelmed with the amount of money that they had. So, you know, and at this point, and that's probably because developers just were willing to just pay and Um, and it wasn't as much of a deterrent as it needed to be in order to keep the trees. Um, but, uh, I think Medford currently doesn't have enough money in its budgets to plant all the trees that it needs. And I would hate to see all of the money in this tree fund, go to funding positions and still be in the position of not having enough money to plant trees in Medford. and to prepare those areas for trees that need that kind of preparation.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, sir. I think that's an excellent point. Any further discussion? Vice President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Just relative to Councilor Collins' motion for the clerk, I believe that is specifically in reference to section nine, the Medford Tree Fund section.
[Kit Collins]: Yes, thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Any further discussion.
[Adam Knight]: We do have cancer night approval and custom business motion because the cause of motion.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Knight. Mr. Clerk, if you could read back, would we like to take, is there a motion to take all of these at once with one vote, or would we like to take them separately?
[Adam Knight]: Motion to consolidate.
[Nicole Morell]: So on the motion of Councilor Knight to consolidate the three motions on the floor, second by- Second. Councilor Tseng, Mr. Clerk, if you could please call the roll.
[Adam Hurtubise]: This is on the motion to consolidate. Vice President Bears. Yes. Councilor Caraviello-Viello is absent. Councilor Collins. Yes. Councilor Knight. Yes. Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng. Yes. President Morell.
[Nicole Morell]: Yes, six in the affirmative and one absent, the motion passes. Would anyone like the motions read back or do we feel confident in the language?
[Adam Knight]: Confident in the language, move to approve.
[Nicole Morell]: Great. So on the motions of Vice President Bears and Councilor Collins, seconded by Councilor Knight. Mr. Clerk, if you could please call the roll.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Can I have a second? on the consolidated motions for approval. Vice-president Bears. Yes. Councilor Caraviello is absent. Councilor Collins. Yes. Councilor Knight. Yes. Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng. Yes. President Morell.
[Nicole Morell]: Yes. Six in the affirmative, zero in the negative, one absent, the motion passes.
[Zac Bears]: Motion to keep the paper in committee and adjourned.
[Nicole Morell]: On the motion of Vice President Bears to keep the paper in committee and adjourn seconded by Councilor Knight. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Keeping committee and to adjourn. Vice President Bears. Yes. Councilor Caraviello is absent. Councilor Collins. Yes. Councilor Knight. Yes. Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng. Yes.
[Nicole Morell]: Yes, 16 in front of zero and the negative one absent the motion passes and the meeting is adjourned. Thank you everyone. I will ask the clerk to load this current draft in the Google Drive just so people can see it. And then as soon as we have an updated draft, we can put that there as well. So thank you all.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thanks.
[Robin Stein]: Just email me the written motions as well. Great, do you have that Mr. Clerk?
[Adam Hurtubise]: I've got them all.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Attorney Stein, wonderful. Thank you.