AI-generated transcript of Medford City Council Committee Of The Whole 06-06-23

[Nicole Morell]: 23-320, Committee of the Whole. Meeting noticed Tuesday, June 6th, 2023 at 6 p.m. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears, Councilor Caraviello, Councilor Collins, present. Councilor Knight, absent. Councilor Scarpelli, present. Councilor Tseng, present. present present.

[Nicole Morell]: Uh, six present one absent. The meeting is called to order. There will be a meeting of the Metro City Council Committee of the whole on Tuesday, June 6 2023 at six p.m. and the Medford City Council Chamber on the second floor of Medford City Hall and via zoom. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the proposed FY 24 budget for the city of Medford paper 23-320. The following proposed departmental budgets will be presented. City Clerk, Electrical, Informational Technology, Medford Community Media, and Legislative. The City Council has invited Chief of Staff, Nina Nazarian, Finance Director, Bob Dickinson, and the department heads for the department's departmental budgets listed above to attend the meeting. For other information, aids, and accommodations, contact the City Clerk at 781-393-2425. Sincerely yours, Nicole Morell, City Council President. We just have one edit is that we, But the new director of it, they're actually going to join us tomorrow night. So the information technology budget will be heard tomorrow night. And we will start, I think, with we'll start with media since I see Mr. Harrington, and let me find out what page that is. Anyone jump in if you beat me to it. It looks like 129. So PEG access for community media, the expenditure summary is $203,160 less $5,033 or 2.42% versus the previous year. And we have station manager Kevin Harrington here if you want to give us any highlights from the budget and then we'll go to questions.

[Kevin Harrington]: Yeah, good evening everybody. I'll keep it brief I'll get right to the budget stuff. Our big kind of positive change I'm excited about is, we were able to move some of our equipment budget line item from previous fiscal years, and we were able to take a portion of that and put it into personnel to create a part time amount. As you see, under part-time salaries, it now reflects $17,200. Included in that is a $1,000, essentially what we're gonna try out as a stipend pool to cover City Hall, Council Chambers, if ever we have any issues and need to have someone on the spot covering meetings. And the 16,200 is for a co-op position that will be in conjunction with Medford Vocational Technical High School. So we will have media tech students, essentially what are rising seniors now or current juniors will take that spot. because of the way the school works, and there's A-Weeks and B-Weeks, it will be one position, but technically two students, as there'll be one student for the A-Weeks and a second student for the B-Weeks. That was sort of our attempt to try to create additional staff position while understanding our budget constraints and not having the ability at the moment to create a full-time position. And so we're excited about that. That'll be in the fall during the academic year. So we'll have plenty of help when those, you know, when we have a lot of meeting volume and for any additional events and that kind of thing. And then just else other relevant changes. We have 11,000 is now in a brand new line item for it's listed as subscription and dues. That was essentially taking money that we were already spending on recurring dues, software as a service platforms, SaaS platforms, and giving it its own light item so it wasn't just jumbled in with video cameras, cabling, that kind of thing, just to give a clear picture of what we're spending our budget on. And then, yeah. And then our equipment light item will be a little bit smaller. It'll be down to $30,000 for next year. And we're hoping that we should still be able to satisfy equipment needs that we have projected for next year. There are a couple of things that we're hoping to deal with next year that would be capital projects, that would be in excess of $10,000 that wouldn't come out of our budget. So I feel pretty confident that we should be still able to maintain the day-to-day stuff, swapping out gear once it reaches end of life, making sure consumables like tape and SD cards and all that stuff is replenished. And yeah, and obviously on the page, we listed some of our fun highlights from last year, but understanding you folks have a regular meeting at seven, I figured I'd just hit the money stuff and leave it open to questions.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Do we have questions from the councilors? Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Hi, Kevin. Thank you so much for what you're doing, my friend. I know that it looks like, so we have two full-time positions, correct?

[Kevin Harrington]: That's correct, yep.

[George Scarpelli]: And that's enough coverage for everything we're trying to do in the community?

[Kevin Harrington]: It's a little tricky. I think we're able to make do all things considered. Yep. There'll definitely be times when We might have to, like if someone wanted to come into the studio, we try not to turn anyone away. But there might be a situation where if one of us has to be here and the other one has to monitor something else, we might not be able to have someone come in. So I think we're able to make do with what we have. But I do think, you know, we would probably be able to do more and grow the studio more, grow the membership more, with a couple extra hands to kind of share some of the work.

[George Scarpelli]: That was my next question. How's the membership looking? I mean, are we doing more programming? Are we getting more people in the building?

[Kevin Harrington]: Yeah, one of the things we're also doing at the moment is I'm working on putting systems in place for us to be able to report that in numbers we don't have that at the moment, but I can tell you, especially compared to last year, we're having more existing members coming back in, we do have some new members. that are coming in. We've had more days where we'll have one or two people editing projects at the same time, and then someone's coming in later to do a studio recording. So we've definitely seen an uptick since I've started here in October of 2021. And we're just hoping to grow that even more. We would love to have people working on projects pretty much every weekday, if we could.

[George Scarpelli]: And I see we have two lines that are cut pretty drastically. The ordinary expenses, it looks like it's almost cut in half. And then you said equipment was cut in half as well. How does that affect?

[Kevin Harrington]: Yeah, the from what I can see the yeah for us is that the equipment is the big hit. I think, you know, my, you know, from based on what I can see myself spending on that next year, we should be okay. The big if is if there is an emergent need, if there's technology that's foundational to what we have that, you know, we don't have anything that's at end of life yet, but if we have something, have a catastrophic force majeure kind of issue, we would need to probably work with the finance office and be like, hey, we need to address this need. It might exceed our current allocation of funds.

[George Scarpelli]: I think that's why I wanted to bring this up. I think it's important that there's a contingency plan already built into the budget because you know as well as I do if something goes down in the field that you're in going through the whole procurement process is daunting oh yeah and virtually crippling for what the information that the city needs. I'll be honest with you. I was hoping to see a more robust budget in the sense that, you know, being a little bit more creative in the sense that I'm not saying you I'm thinking that this as this administration works together with yourself this council looking at, we don't have a newspaper in town anymore. And that's one of the biggest things, especially our seniors are talking about. And I've talked to a few seniors and they do watch Community Cable and that everybody has it. And, you know, something simple as maybe, you know, every Wednesday trying to find an organization that come in and really just to give brief synopsis of the news in Medford for the week, because they don't have that. I would ask the administration to look and try to actually work with Kevin and try to put in a line here that allows him a contingency plan for any any emergency needed. And the only reason why I say that, because this is time sensitive. I think that what's important with this department, if something goes down and we don't have, we have to go to purchasing, like you said, that could cripple us when you're talking about public access and the community cable. So I would hope if we could put that in form of a question, to the administration just to see what it would look like, Kevin. I mean, I don't see it being, you know, a big ticket number, but something that says that you have coverage in there, because when you look at your ordinary expenses cut by 42% then your equipment's equipment line item by 60% and you said it's fine because nothing is right now outdated or going to come to an end but there is no I don't see anything in this budget that says if something goes down other than what you just said that we go to purchasing And I don't, I don't have, like I said, I work in municipality, something goes down in my office. So we need an electrician at the pool. We have a state contract that we can go through right away that we've already been done the process. So we have, we have a line for that. If we don't use it, it goes back to the city. That's fine. But, but not having that line and waiting it could be. It could be very detrimental for this organization. So I would hope that we would entertain a small number, at least for some sort of emergency fix.

[Kevin Harrington]: Understood.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Caraviello.

[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. Are you currently being funded by any ARPA grants or any grants?

[Kevin Harrington]: We have one ARPA funded project that's in progress right now. That's the upgrade for the city hall chambers. And how much was allocated for that?

[Richard Caraviello]: 50K for that, 50,000. Next year when the ARPA funds are gone, are you going to need that money? going forward?

[Kevin Harrington]: I mean, that was just for that one project. That was just for rejuvenating this space and making it more of an easier implementation for, what's the word? I'm losing the word, hybrid meetings, Zoom meetings, that kind of stuff. I don't anticipate us needing that for that specific purpose, I guess. I don't know if I follow. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, that was just for that grant, it was just for that upgrade project. So it was a one-time only funding thing? Yes, yeah.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Sure, absolutely.

[Nicole Morell]: Vice President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Hi, Kevin. On that question, what's the timeline on that?

[Kevin Harrington]: The timeline is I am hoping to get some bids from vendors this summer and be able to evaluate those and choose one by the time school starts. That's the current plan. If that can go faster, yes, but that's the plan I have in place at the moment. I'm still working on putting together some documentation Sort of trying to stitch in time saves nine. If I can give them, this is what we're currently working with. This is what we want with enough detail. I'm hoping that it'll kind of make that process go faster. You know, if they have as much information in front of them as possible.

[Zac Bears]: Is any of the access materials gonna go into rooms 201 and 207 to make those easily used for hybrid meetings?

[Kevin Harrington]: Um, so you mean like the, for the, for the amount allowed for the ARPA project? Like if, if for instance, we only get, we get a winning bid for 30, would we use the 20?

[Zac Bears]: Or even like, if you're going to, I'm guessing you're replacing these screens, could these be mounted in those rooms for commissions and maybe for council subcommittees to meet in those rooms instead of this space?

[Kevin Harrington]: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as you know, the way I, especially the way I proposed the project, it was mainly with this space in mind. And given the idea that a project of this magnitude could take a decent amount of funds. But I absolutely, anytime you have working equipment that still works and can be put somewhere else, I'm all for that. We also, in 207 at the moment, we do have What we have at the moment is we have a speaker phone, we have a webcam, and we have an adapter that can go USB-C into any laptop. The tricky thing is, like you kind of already mentioned, there's no dedicated monitor in there, and there's no dedicated computer in there. So I think once we get those in there, that would be an easier sell. If someone ever comes up to me and says, we would love to have a meeting in there, we can help them get that squared away. But because there's no dedicated monitor or computer, that is a little bit of an obstacle. I also think that from talking to some Some folks if they're meeting in person have also would rather be either in a space like this or traffic commission, for instance, use West Metro Community Center because of its more open nature and that kind of thing. But yeah, I am absolutely open to and enthusiastic about repurposing working equipment wherever it can be used. No reason to throw it out if it's still operational and that kind of thing.

[Zac Bears]: Right. Yeah, great. And I think that kind of goes to my next question. Because having the dedicated monitor and computer would make it a lot easier to not need one someone from your office, which is already, you know, on a very tight schedule trying to meet the needs of the community with your staffing levels, you know, it'd be good if the clerk or even, you know, someone of the clerks of the many city boards and commissions could pretty easily just know how to start those up and know there's going to be a computer and a screen in there. I didn't quite catch what you said about the part timeline. There's some part of it is about having extra space in case someone needs to come to one of a meeting in the chamber. Could you just say that again?

[Kevin Harrington]: Yeah, sure. So essentially, this is it's something we're kind of trying out. As one of the suggestions I made was that, you know, we have Shane obviously here Tuesday nights. And we often will have committee, the whole meetings on Mondays, Wednesdays. And that means either a cat or myself has to out be out here. And so I was thinking, oh, you know, if we had the ability to. you know, have some kind of a pool that we could pay, you know, people like, you know, $50 or whatever the rate would be, right? We would pay them per DM to cover some of those other meeting nights that would, you know, just help us out. And especially, you know, one of the things that can happen is because we're only a staff of two, one of us goes on vacation and the one that's left minding the store gets sick, we're in deep trouble, you know? So if we had, you know, a group of folks that, you know, we would go through the proper channels and make sure, you know, we would bring them on. I've started talking to HR a little bit about figuring out the best way to implement that. Like I mentioned, this is something that we're going to try out, but that would be kind of the idea is we would have a couple of folks we would go to, and we would have them fill in as needed, and then we would have that little pool there to pull from. I think I might have referred to it as stipend pool. It might not actually be a stipend in the letter of the law or how it's actually implemented, but that's kind of how I was picturing it.

[Zac Bears]: Got it. Last question is, do you know what the PEG access fee that the city brought in was for this year?

[Kevin Harrington]: I do not have that at the moment. I could reach out to both Comcast and Verizon and get that for you, though, for sure.

[Zac Bears]: Sure. Thanks, Kevin. And Madam President, Can we just add for the end of the meeting a motion to request a breakdown of local receipts in revenue? I'm not sure if Peggy's in there or not.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Any other questions from the council?

[Adam Hurtubise]: Do you want that as part of the committee report or do you want that as a full report?

[Zac Bears]: Whatever we did for the previous request. That's fine.

[Richard Caraviello]: Yep.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you.

[Richard Caraviello]: If we could amend a council based question now, where were the, where were the pig funds allocated to? Okay.

[Nicole Morell]: Do you have that? And Kevin, I apologize if I miss this, the timeline on, on the hybrid project to completion.

[Kevin Harrington]: Oh, it's a complete to completion. That's trickier to guess, but by the near term that I'm thinking of is trying to get the bids. getting the bids this summer and then selecting, you know, going forward with a bid by the fall. And, you know, the, you know, a lot of that stuff, obviously with, with, um, contractors like that, it can depend upon what the queue is. When I talked to, um, Lorena Escalero, who's running the ARPA implementation, my understanding that as long as we have, um, have the services rendered and have begun that project by I think she said December of 24 something like that, that, you know, we'll, we'll be okay at least in terms of like the funding part of it, you know, I would of course love to get it done sooner than that but you know it'll be a, you know, a decent amount of wishing and hoping on our part. But that'll be something that we'll be able to make good progress on this summer. And I think especially with the co-op students that we'll have sharing some of the load in the fall will help kind of move things along a little bit as well, hopefully. So.

[Nicole Morell]: Okay. Great. Thank you. Any other questions from Councilors? Seeing none.

[Kevin Harrington]: All right.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you so much.

[Kevin Harrington]: Thank you so much.

[Nicole Morell]: Ben, if you have something to add on this budget.

[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you. I just, Madam President, through you to Councilor Scarapelli, as far as the questions about specifically, you know, having additional funds should something occur, you know, from that perspective, in FY 24, we will have access to ARPA. So if there was ever something that should occur, and we would need to appropriate funds, we could certainly do so in FY 24. Also, you know, obviously, stabilization fund, worst case scenario, those kinds of things could be called upon. Hopefully, you know, we take that up before June 30th and stabilization fund is established as well for obviously those very neat, those very reasons for emergent needs. Um, and furthermore, we have made probably a couple year effort now, if not longer, that may predate me to pull capital matters out of the budget, right? So we intentionally want them to be separate. So we're happy that they're not included in the budget as it stands today. And we've chatted about that. And then finally, the only other thing I would say is our procurement office certainly works with state contracts. They have access to state bid lists, and they're very well-versed in that subject. And furthermore, if there was ever some sort of unforeseen circumstance, I'm not saying it wouldn't have a delay, because there would always be almost a delay that's impossible to avoid one. But our procurement team is well-versed in actually applying to the state for exemptions through the proper channels. So hopefully that's helpful. Thank you. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you so much.

[Kevin Harrington]: Thank you. Hope to see you at graduation tomorrow.

[Nicole Morell]: The other ones we have are City Clerk, Legislative, and Electrical. I'm not seeing Mr. Randazzo here for Electrical, so we could do City Clerk, which is page A4. So City Clerk, expenditure summary, we have $384,156, an increase of $19,638, 5.39% over the prior year. Mr. Clerk, would you be speaking on this?

[Adam Hurtubise]: Sure. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, councillors. I also want to thank my team. I want to thank Sylvia DiPlacido and Karen Fabiano and Janice DePace and Annie Kelly. We are fully staffed in the clerk's office. I have the best team in City Hall, and we are working fairly seamlessly as a team. Slight adjustments from last year, but no major adjustments to last year's budgets.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Questions from the council?

[George Scarpelli]: Just curious, Madam President, to the clerk, the $50,000 that we're asking for, is that through legislative, through the clerk's office?

[Adam Hurtubise]: I believe that's legislative, Councilor.

[Nicole Morell]: Okay, thank you. Any other questions?

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Mr. Clerk, if you want to talk about any of the FY 24 goals, they look pretty good to me. Sure.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Um, at some point we would like to move some of these transactions online. Um, the only transaction we have right now that is basically fully online is dog licensing. Um, that can be done in person or online. Um, some other municipalities have moved, uh, birth, death and marriage certificates online so that right now we have a somewhat antiquated system in terms of people requesting birth certificates. They can either come in in person or they can request them through the US mail with a self-addressed stamped envelope. If there were a credit card or debit card option, people could request things through email and could do a secure transaction that way. That might make things move a little more quickly in terms of, we process everything the day we receive it, but we could be a little faster with our processes if we were able to take some transactions online. We're also going to look at updating our marriage license software, which I believe was one of my predecessor's first purchases when he became city clerk in 1998. That software is a little bit clunky. IT is constantly downstairs fixing it, so we're going to look at potentially updating that, which should make it easier for the team as well. And then this is more on the legislative side, but as you are aware, Vice President Bears, we're gonna be transitioning to new legislative software, which is not only gonna make it easier to track committee meetings and council meetings in real time, but it's gonna make it easier for the team to produce council agendas, and it's gonna make it easier for customers, visitors, and constituents to sign in, to opt into the, to the email distribution list for the uh for the agendas to opt in to opt out and and to get some other information.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you.

[George Scarpelli]: I have one more question. One thing that came came about during some questions about um the um you know the issues with uh dogs off leash uh yep how do how does that how do our numbers look for uh licensed dog owners?

[Adam Hurtubise]: I would need to get that information for you. It's generally around 500 a year, I believe, we order. So way under. I think we're, I think we're supposed to have about, according to the, according to the to the to the vendor which is since merging another vendor with our population we're supposed to have around, around 5000 dogs in the city, right, and we usually have somewhere between 400 and 700 licenses I would actually have to check that but I think it's usually around there.

[George Scarpelli]: And I think that's important as we're moving forward to try to look at some sort of a plan. Adam, you and your team do such a great job, and I don't even know if you have the bandwidth to do that, but when you're talking about what's the understanding when we talk about true numbers of dogs off leashes or dogs that we have in our community, It speaks volumes when you have the true data, and I think that's important and whether it's I mean what what is what is the fee right now for dog license, it's it's $15 if the dog is not spayed or neutered it's $10 right so it's not it's not anything that's going to make make a break a family, but it's something that you know I think we have to do. have to do a better job in really getting dogs licensed so we can look at when you talk about open spaces when you talk about you know dog parks and when you talk about looking to fund or having grants that possible out there and having those numbers to show that because I do think we have a serious problem in some of our public parks that have clear ordinance of dogs off a leash and believe me I'm You know, I'm a dog owner who loves his little Gabby, and she wants to jump off the leash too, but unless it's in a dog park, it's very tough to do. So I think all of it plays a part of it. So I think that might be something that I'd like to look at maybe this year. I appreciate it. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you to jump on that just since we're on this very specific path. Is there something in that online software that can just provide reminders for folks? Because I actually, I do buy a license and I forget every single year because there's nothing to.

[Adam Hurtubise]: remind me to renew my license that I can that I can look at. Um, the other issue that you've raised that you have, they have not actually spoken out loud, but our dog license term goes from January to December. And so if somebody comes in in August and gets a dog license, their dog lessons is only good until the end of December. So, um, at some level, I'd like to look at, you know, getting a 365 day license as opposed to a calendar January through December license.

[Nicole Morell]: Right. Yeah. And to the point, it's like, it's, it's generally not costs. It's literally, you just, you're like, I got to do this again in four months and you forget it.

[Adam Hurtubise]: I mean, I was, I was city clerk before I knew the dogs had that my dog had to be licensed. So sorry. Um, did that right away as soon as I became city clerk, but I didn't know until I was, until the dog was five years old, the dog had to be licensed.

[Nicole Morell]: So any other questions for the city park budget? Seeing none, let's go to legislative on page 76. Expenditure summary is $261,869 minus 51,000 or 16.31% versus the prior year. So my understanding is that is the zoning consultant that is not included in this budget. And correct me if I'm wrong, Madam Chief of Staff, just the 51,000 added to the legislative, that's the zoning consultant not included in this budget. Sorry, we're on legislative now.

[Nina Nazarian]: Yes, thank you, Madam President. Um, as as has been stated at this time, the 50,000 is not in the budget, but the mayor isn't opposed to including it in the budget. She just wants to make sure budgets are not essentially cut.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. And I just wanted to make sure that was the amount because I know we haven't done some work on different services or removing the services we were paying for in room 201. So I just wanted to make sure, not 207, I forget. So I just wanted to make sure I'm looking at the right amount of money. Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: So if I can, so if we ask for cuts, the mayor isn't gonna entertain us, is that, but just so I can understand.

[Nina Nazarian]: President Morell, through you, Councilor Scarpelli, I think we just wanna work together. And last year's budget, I understand, don't even wanna bring up last year's budget for my sake, even for anyone's sake here, but you know, We just want to work together, that's all.

[George Scarpelli]: I will tell you, a sign of working together that starts off by saying we're not going to fund something that you agreed on last year isn't a very good start. So, thank you.

[Nina Nazarian]: And with all due respect, you know, I mean, it was just, that's kind of how last year worked out and proposed cuts were made at the last minute. We're trying to avoid that. We're trying to work together. you know, openly, President Morell, we're not opposed to this. And we're saying that multiple times.

[George Scarpelli]: So for the record, if you can message to the administration, I will definitely 100% not vote on this budget if this isn't implemented before we vote. So just a message to the administration for one out of the seven votes right now, because of this, I would definitely not, this isn't working together. This isn't even an olive branch. This to me is total opposite of that. So, um, that for the record. Thank you. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Uh, any other questions on the legislative bunch?

[Adam Knight]: I mean, that's the only change, uh, put them, uh, madam president. Thank you very much. I apologize. I was eating dinner with the family. Um, I just hope that this isn't like, you know, at the 11th hour come, you know, June, January, June 30th, that the mayor's office comes in and says, we get $50,000 right now. And this is what we're going to do to get the budget passed like they did last year. That's not going to work this year.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Any other questions on legislative? Seeing none, we just have electrical left. I don't see Mr. Randazzo online. I obviously don't see him in person either. So does anyone Do you know?

[Adam Knight]: On that, Madam President, I will say this. Since being appointed to the Superintendent Alliance, Mr. Randazzo has been able to deliver us a budget that's been pretty sufficient, pretty viable. And he's been able to realize, you know, close to what's probably adding up now to almost $2 million worth of savings from the conversion of the maintenance of our lights and the conversion to LED. So, you know, Mr. Randazzo is shining a light on this administration. So it's nice to see somebody. run a department and be so open and responsive and transparent as Mr. Mendoza was. I thank him for his work. This is a gentleman here that's shown up to work. I think every time I see him, he's just coming off of another surgery of some sort. But he's always here ready to work, always here ready to get down to business, and most importantly, always ready to help people, which is not always a common thing. So I thank him for his service, Madam President, and hopefully he can join us shortly.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Knight. So we're out of departments at the moment if we don't have a serendazo. And again, IT has been moved to tomorrow night because they were unable to attend tonight.

[George Scarpelli]: So Madam President, if I can, I know again, I apologize, but my daughter's graduation is tomorrow and we have family coming in from across the area. So I'll be celebrating my daughter's graduation. So I won't be here. I know that Mr. Randazzo is always someone we could depend on, but his personal service expenses were decreased by almost $50,000. So if someone could pose that question when he does show up, it's tomorrow, that'd be important. So thank you, Madam President. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: It's a tricky month for scheduling. I apologize.

[George Scarpelli]: No, no, I don't blame anyone. I think that you've done, you've gone above and beyond trying to schedule multitudes of meetings, Madam President. So I don't, this is something that it falls on that date. And, you know, but I, you know, if we look at what we've done here, this council has done a good job to show up and be present, you know, when you've called upon that. So thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Do we want to recess and see if it's turned out was able to make it to adjourn.

[Adam Knight]: I'm satisfied with some of the questions to Mr. and doesn't have to respond in writing.

[Nicole Morell]: Okay. So, work for every other Councilor.

[Zac Bears]: If I could just put, if we're going to do that, that's fine with me. My two questions were just one. They're losing the full-time clerk in the office. So I was just wondering what the plan is there, how that's going to be addressed. And $132,000 was spent on vehicles that was unbudgeted in FY2023 and is also not budgeted for FY2024. And I just would like to know what that paid for. I'm assuming a vehicle,

[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you. Thank you. I'm happy to speak to a couple of items on the budget just for clarification. The first is the clerk in the department. It was just organizationally listed under the electrical budget in the past, and now it's organizationally listed under the building department budget. So it's a net neutral. There's no change, no modification. sits in the same office, so for all intents and purposes.

[Nicole Morell]: And there's no change of duties?

[Nina Nazarian]: No. Essentially, I think the only material change is it works directly for the building commissioner, but they all work collaboratively together and support electrical as well.

[Zac Bears]: That's mainly about permitting? I'm sorry? Is that mainly about permitting?

[Nina Nazarian]: You know, I don't know the exact division of duties, so I couldn't speak to that. But I understand that the duties are the same duties as they were before, and everyone works collaboratively. And then as far as the truck, I certainly welcome any clarification Steve Randazzo, our superintendent of wires has on this, but we did take delivery of a vehicle that was in a couple of year prior capital budget, which was slowed down by the pandemic and manufacturing. That delivery came in sometime in this fiscal year, which I believe, you know, logically has contributed to a high cost in terms of maintenance. But again, that one is yet to be clarified and confirmed. Thank you. Certainly.

[Nicole Morell]: Do I have a motion to adjourn?

[Unidentified]: Motion to adjourn. Second.

[Nicole Morell]: A motion of Councilor Scarapelli to adjourn, seconded by Vice of Affairs. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Unidentified]: Yeah, it's a question. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.