AI-generated transcript of City Council ComMedford City Council Committee Of The Whole 04-18-23

[Nicole Morell]: 23-074 Committee of the Whole meeting Tuesday, April 18th, 2023 at 7 p.m. There will be a meeting of the Medford City Council Committee of the Whole on Tuesday, April 18th, 2023 at 7 p.m. in the Medford City Council Chamber on the second floor of Medford City Hall and via Zoom. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the proposed amendment to the city charter, paper 23-074. For further information and accommodations, contact the city clerk at 781-393-2425. Sincerely yours, Nicole Morell, Council President, Also, this meeting is called to order forget to mention that this is a paper that was, we don't have to call the clerk, you know, you don't have to call them over. And since this is our second meeting tonight. So this was a paper introduced by Vice President Bears. So I'm happy to let him start the discussion unless councilors have anything they would like to add before I believe Councilor Bears has a presentation he wants to share. Seeing none, I will hand it off to Vice President Paris.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. You know over the past year, especially, we've been seeing around the city budget process and a number of issues, the inability of the city council to affect proper oversight over the city administration, and to build a collaborative processes where we can work together and one of the main reasons behind that is that the city charter doesn't really give the council much authority on those matters. So, Last month, I proposed a resolution that we discuss a specific targeted charter amendments that the city council, the mayor could propose to the voters to address these concerns. And I have a presentation on those matters. And I also want to thank my colleagues for the discussion we had in March, and for supporting advancing this paper to committee of the whole unanimously. So just give me one moment to share my screen.

[Nicole Morell]: And just for education, vices and bears, and perhaps you're going to get into this, I know folks are familiar with the or somewhat familiar with the process for charter review, which is different as far as overall petition, whereas this is something that could be voted on and get to a ballot.

[Zac Bears]: Yes, I'm gonna get into that in my presentation.

[Nicole Morell]: Great, thank you.

[Zac Bears]: So tonight presenting specific targeted proposed city charter amendments. There are three common sense measures to increase transparency, accountability, and democratic oversight in Medford city government. First, I'm going to start with a why. The reason that I'm proposing this is as I just outlined that Medford needs a more open budget process and a city council with real oversight authority. The Medford city charter, as I mentioned, is one of the most unbalanced strong mayor city charters in Massachusetts. Pretty much every elected official in the city agrees that the office of the mayor of Medford is one of the strongest mayors in the entire state of Massachusetts, and that, as such, the weak city council under that system holds very limited authority for oversight and accountability. These targeted charter amendments that I will go into in a minute can significantly improve the transparency of city government by providing the city council with powers that many other city councils in Massachusetts have. Another reason why is that residents deserve a voice in the city budget process through the city council. Right now the city council has almost no authority over the city budget process. I think we've all experienced the confusion that gets created when the city council can only approve, reject or cut from the mayor's budget proposals and the inability of Councilors to really address the concerns of residents. And then finally, the city council needs true independence as a separate branch of city government. I think we've all seen that while we work often closely with city staff hired by the mayor's city administration, there's situations that come up where the city council requires independent staff advice or legal representation. Under the current charter, the council can only receive that independent support with the approval of the mayor. And also the city council does not prove the mayor's appointments to boards and commissions, which means that we don't really have equal status as a separate branch of city government. These three amendments, which I'll go into more detail later, to fix that would one, give the city council a voice in the budget process by allowing the city council to amend the mayor's budget proposal, which of course the mayor could then veto. Secondly, it would put into the city charter that the city council is allowed to hire staff members and independent legal advice and support. And finally, it would require that the city council confirms the appointees of the mayor to city boards and commissions. So under Massachusetts general law, there are several ways to amend the city charter. What we've heard over many years and what we currently have a charter study committee looking at is something called charter review. And this is the process of creating an entirely new city charter, or going through the existing city charter and making extensive revisions under that process you can alter any provision of the city charter. There's a few different ways to go about that, but to go into the two main ones. One is that voters could sign an initiative petition to create a charter commission, which then voters would elect commission members, the commission would hold hearings, make a recommendation, and then voters would approve or reject that recommendation. The other way is the special act charter, where the city council could form a review committee, the charter study committee, like we have now, or could petition the state legislature through a home rule petition to create an elected charter commission, which is something that's come before this body several times in the past few years. And then again, that committee or elected commission would make a recommendation, voters would approve or reject it. The city council could then vote with the mayor's approval to send a special act charter proposal to the state legislature. And if the legislature approved, that new charter would then go into effect. What we're talking about today is something completely different from charter review. It is amending specific charter provisions. And this is done under Massachusetts general law chapter 43 section, 43B section 10. There's specific restrictions on what changes the council can propose or the council or community can propose under this provision. You cannot change the composition of elected bodies the mode of election or the terms of office. So things like ward representation or changing who's on the school committee or changing term limits, for example, or extending the mayor term are not allowed under this process. However, the three amendments that I am proposing tonight would be completely allowed under this process. And how that would go is we would have to have a two thirds vote of the city council followed by at least one public hearing within three months. The approval of the mayor which, and then the amendments will be reviewed by the attorney general before going on the ballot for the voters of the city of Medford to approve or reject those amendments. As you can see here, well, that's not the right screen, is it? But we'll go here. This is what, this black box, that's the process we're looking at here under Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 43B, Section 10, and a little bit of Section 11. One of the key differences here is that the amending of specific charter provision can happen much, much faster than a charter review can happen. So if we were to move forward with this tonight, we could hold a council vote to start the process and hold public hearings over the next several weeks before coming up with a final proposal, which would then go to the mayor for approval and then go through attorney general review. And that would happen by about July 2023 after the full process would go into effect. That would allow these specific amendments to go on the ballot this November for this municipal election and to go into effect next January. Now, a charter commission, which we currently don't have an elected one, if voters were to gather enough signatures, the earliest that that commission could be elected would be November 2023. They would then have 18 months to propose something. Voters would then have to approve their recommendation, which would likely happen in November 2025. And the new charter wouldn't go in effect until January 2028. Under the special act process, the review committee can set its own timeline, but still very likely, I don't believe at least currently that a charter would be on the ballot, a charter would be on the ballot for this election, certainly in November, 2023, it would likely be on the ballot in November, 2024 or November, 2025. And then again, the charter would not go into effect until January, 2026 or January, 2028. So a couple of additional key facts here, as I was saying, you know, the city council would hold public hearings. If we were to move forward, I would propose that we hold two public hearings, one in the subcommittee on ordinances and rules to invite feedback. And then another committee of the whole public hearing to incorporate additional public feedback into any final proposal. Secondly, the city council could place these amendment language on the ballot without mayoral approval. The only difference between that would be that they are non-binding in that case, so it would not be a binding procedure under Chapter 43B, Section 10. And finally, something that's again, really important to remember, this is a completely separate from the charter review and the existing charter study committee that exists. And that the existing charter study committee or a future elected charter commission could change these amendments, remove them, amend them, add them, adjust them when they review the charter and propose a full comprehensive charter review. a new charter at whichever point that happens. So again, I wanted to keep that relatively short and sweet. Here's some of the sources that I used for this presentation, and I'm happy to entertain further discussion with my council colleagues to go through the specific language of the proposals or really anywhere else anyone wants to take this. Thank you.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Councilor Villes. I know that You know, when, when the method community sits and says, Zack bears is proposing something, and it should be so negative in one side and the other says, you know, well George Scarpelli is going to, you know, beat it up, because the other side. I think people have to understand where this is coming from where this was born. This is a direct impact of the lack of input that we've had from the city administration when it comes to the budget. And question was, George, well, you didn't support the charter review. I said, I didn't because I didn't trust the administration and their processes. But when we look at this situation and where we are, and I remember one of the first, One of the first letters the mayor sent out when she was running for office was transparency during the budget time and how inconsistent and disrespected the city council had been back in the previous administrations, whether it be McGlynn or Burke. And I would love to be in the administration with McGlynn and Burke for the fact that The questions that we're getting right now, the issues we have in our community right now stems, it has something to do directly to the budget. And we talked about the concerns we had with the budget. We talked about concerns that we had with safety at the high school. We talked about the budget at the high school and the school system, what's going on. And we have members of the mayor's cabinet coming up and asking for millions of dollars. And I purposely have not voted for a penny. that didn't have to do with something dire or time with a time restraint, because two big issues. One, we have yet to see a true budget. We have yet to see anything dealing with the budget in front of us so we can make the decisions that affect our community directly. The chief of staff sat here the other day and talked about the reasons why we're not getting the information is because the software that's in place cannot deliver what we're asking. I purposely asked the director of finance, I said, has the software changed? He said, no. So that's not telling the truth. So when you see these little pieces that keep adding up, what happens? Questions start to arise and people ask us, George, what's going on with the city? Why aren't we doing this? Why aren't we doing that? I don't know. Why? Because there's no communication with that office and this organization. And my frustration was growing and growing and growing. We get to the point where council president has done yeoman's work, trying to set up a meeting with the school department. And from what she has told me, the school committee has worked hand in hand with the president, trying to get a meeting to talk about the budget during a most dire situation. And that's a children's safety and what happened at the high school a few months ago. And we asked for the process to meet with everybody involved so we could look at the budget process and start that early. So we could see what the schools need and what the safety concerns and where we've come to. And it's funny when I read different posts and people call me and tell me, oh, Nicole's holding this back or Jenny's holding this back. No, no, the mayor is holding it back. She's not allowing us to have this conversation. So when we sat together as a unit, as the body that's elected us, we sat and said, you know, we don't see eye to eye in some things, and that's okay, as long as we respect it. But when Councilor Bears brought up, Vice President Beas brought up this proposal, for someone that's at the beginning, totally was so for charter review, the need for charter review was so important, it was one of my top three initiatives. But as I started seeing the process of the mayor's office with different commissions and different processes and the way the budget was not being presented, I could show you, I could share the writings when she ran for mayor, how disgusted she was that not having a budget that the city council can work together with the city administration and how disgusted she was. And that was the first initiative was to transparency in the budget. with the city council. We didn't even get a budget last year. We still haven't seen a budget. I know they tell us what, go online, right? Go online, you could see it online. Oh, thank you. What this does right here, it puts people's feet to the fire and it makes this organization, this body that was elected by the people of this community to be the watchdogs of our finances, to get more involved and put a streamlined process in place. So this happens whether George Scarpelli loses next year, the council that's gonna be people that are gonna be sitting in this year, in this seat, or it's gonna be me again, at least we'll have a process in place that makes us relevant, that makes the people that voted for us relevant. So I know there's oftentimes we go back and forth. that we get, you know, maybe get angry when the meeting's done, we move forward, but enough with the negative dialogue in this community that there's any sort of, you know, sides here. We're all united with this issue. We're united with the lack of leadership in this community by our mayor. So I, again, I'm winded, I apologize, but I want people to realize You know, it's funny, because I'm sure, Zach, you're going to get phone calls later and say, holy cow, is George applying for the revolution? Because I'm going to get the same questions, right? But this isn't it at all. What this is, is this is a well thought out process that helps this organization, every single one of us, get more involved and have the transparency that this mayor cried about for years, sitting right there next to me. So I appreciate your effort. I, again, for the comments and phone calls I got about the Charter Review Commission, this is a, I appreciate what they're doing, but this has nothing to do with that. It's a separate entity in my eyes. So again, thank you, Councilor Bears, and I apologize, Madam President, if I was a little harsh. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Councilor Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Morell. I, you know, a lot of what Councilor Scarpelli said resonated with me. I like the way you put that, you know, keeping the council relevant. I think that that kind of gets at the heart of why I feel supportive of these amendments that Vice President Bears has put forward. You know, I think when it comes to the value of transparency or any other value, I think it's always better to put goals in binding policy rather than relying on people to always act perfectly or always do the right thing because people are imperfect, everybody is imperfect, administrations change, administrations change focus, but the community always deserves transparency and they always deserve for all of the representatives to have real influence and be empowered to do more than just talk. I think that these amendments get at I think this is no surprise to anybody in this room, they get at the things that we that give us the most consternation on the Council all of the time. The fact that we need independent legal counsel to support our legislative work. The fact that we need more meaningful involvement in the budgetary process and financial planning. really frustrated a lot of the time because we do not have the staff to allow us to do our legislative priorities. And that leaves us unable to really make good on our priority issues, whether that's zoning or housing or environmental policy. Some of these priorities are universally shared, others of them, you know, some of us feel more strongly about than others, but the fact is we're a legislative body and it's really hard for us to legislate. Under our current charter, you know, like you said, Councilor Scarpelli, we don't really have the power answer questions even about what's getting funded or what's getting done or why not and when that's going to change. We can sometimes point to the staff that can answer those questions, but we can be liaisons or we can be sympathetic ears. I think we all ran for office to try and be a little bit more than that. And our current extremely strong mayor charter is the changeable factor that's so severely constraining of our ability to have a more direct impact on passing policy, passing budgets that actually reflect the will of our constituents, which is, you know, I don't have to tell you what we're here to do. So I think these proposals could be really additive. I don't think that they're negative and I don't think that they're punitive. They're not personal. This is about the city charter. You know, our current one has been in place for 40 years. It's not about a specific administration. Through these, you know, and perhaps they'll change a little bit as we're going through subcommittee, as we bring them back to committee of the whole, the council could have a more real involvement in the budget that gets passed, not just essentially be asked to be a rubber stamp, though, of course, nobody would ever put it that way. But when you look at the process, it's hard not to draw that conclusion. And the community would get seven more avenues through which to advocate for their priorities and ask questions. In addition to the public forum of the council meeting, And the executive branch gets the collaboration of 7 other elected in crafting that budget that tries to meet the community's needs and wants. I would hope that that could be a really generative collaboration and actually be better for everybody you know again I don't think that I think this is I don't think this is a 0 some proposition. I also do want to, you know, just again, touch on, you know, it's already been said, I want to acknowledge the hard work of the ongoing Charter Review Commission that process. I know that residents are volunteering and working really hard on that process, it's totally necessary. It's overdue. You know, and just to shore up the point that these proposed amendments to specific provisions don't supplant that work at all. They're targeted proposals that I really do think we could make use of in our very next but will not this budget cycle, but the one after it. And I think that we need them in place. you know, for fiscal year 25, you know, we need to empower this council to get its own legislative assets. And of course, in contrast to that, the Charter Review Commission, that's long-term, that's deliberate, that's gonna be comprehensive. These are just specific proposals to make sure that we can get what we need in this room, you know, whether that's legal counsel, whether that's the information that we need. you know, on a faster time track. So I think that these two tracks, they really do rhyme together. I don't think that they're in opposition to one another. I don't think that they, you know, again, that they could have some overlap in a productive way, you know, in three or four years, but these are really urgent. And so I'm glad that we are getting a jump on them. I look forward to hearing more feedback, you know, in the next couple of meetings. So thank you for the time.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Tsengmin, Councilor Kavriel.

[Justin Tseng]: Thank you, President Morell. For me, I'm gonna tell the folks watching at home and in the chamber why I'm excited about this process. A lot of it overlaps with what's already been said, but ultimately I see this as a tool to help us meet constituents' expectations of what we should be doing. Could people at home, residents in the city expect the city council to be a branch of government that holds the executive office accountable Especially during budget season, and they expect us to be legislators as well as well and do that legislative work and to have that legal support to do the work that they voted for us for. people voted for us with that expectation that we would be able to do that work. But unfortunately, we don't have the tools right now. And I think every week, all of us around on this side of the rail, talk about how we're lacking those tools, we talk about the need for more budget transparency. We talk about the need for legal representation. This gives us a chance to act on all that talk. Um, I think, Councilor Scarpelli speech really underscores and highlights the fact that most of these ideas are ideas that we all share their ideas that aren't us versus them left right center their ideas that are just good for the city that are. It's good for democracy, good for accountability good for transparency. I also see this, this. Another reason why this excites me is, I see it as a compliment to the Charter Review Commission which I think is doing great work, I'm personally very excited for. This, this is an issue that we didn't all vote for but I did vote yes on it. Um, and I'm excited to see this be an immediate and urgent compliment to the work that's been doing there. I'm excited to see us put this in place, hopefully if the voters allow us to. and excited to see the Charter Review Commission review it as it's in action. And this gives us a few years to test these proposed amendments, which are active in different cities and the Charter Review Commission in collaboration with residents can decide whether these amendments are working. But we know something for sure, which is that what we have right now is not working. Ultimately, I see this as a question of democracy, a question of transparency and the question of accessibility. I'll talk about, I'll speak to that in two ways, process and substance. On the process front, this would institute an open process where we, Councilor Bears mentioned, we'll have more meetings on this. We get to engage stakeholders across the aisle, across the city, residents can come and speak about these specific proposed amendments. And ultimately we let them speak in a vote. I think that's the ultimate democracy. When it comes to the substance will gain budget transparency, more opportunities and forums for residents to come up to, to, to the podium, or on zoom to speak on the budget, and to speak on issues that affect our whole city and that finance, the financial health of our city. And ultimately I see it substantively as a, as the institution of a collaboration with the executive office across the aisle across the hall. that those are just some of the reasons why I'm so excited for this. With all of my colleagues, I think that we can do really good work here.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Councilor Caraviello.

[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. I've sat in this room, I'm going on 12 years now. And as I go around the community, I hear people, people say that the council's a joke. I'm tired of people saying that to me, councilors doing anything with nothing. What's our purpose here? And this gives us a purpose. This gives us the tools and the things we need to do to keep us here. This administration has done its heart to make this council irrelevant. And this council should be a partner with the mayor and the rest of the city. And the way things go right now, we sit here and like I said, like everyone says, things are just thrown at us with no time or no anything. And let's say there's questions that have to be answered throughout the year. And let's say, this will give us tools to implement things and keep this council up to date with what's going on. I mean, the same people vote for us, vote for the mayor, vote for the school committee. So we're entitled to the same respect that everyone else gets here. And this is, in all honesty, this is probably the most unified council that I've sat on in my 12 years. Because like Council Member Scott says, we're not, We may not agree on everything but on the major issues in the city, this council is together. Everyone stands together on this. In the past, I didn't support the charter review because I had some reservations about it. I think going forward, that may change. This package has the tools in it that we need to keep this council relevant and to keep the people informed on what's going on in the community.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Caraviello. I actually just have two questions. Also, I want to thank my fellow councilors for their comments. I agree with pretty much everything that's been said, and I also just want to put a point down again, as everyone has said, thanking the Charter Study Committee. Like Councilor Collins said, these are things I can run parallel. I don't want it to seem like this is overrunning the work that you're doing, which is very, very important. I'm gonna wander into the weeds for two questions. One is for the commission appointments, can that apply to ad hoc commissions or is it just commissions that are written into the charter?

[Zac Bears]: As this language is written, it would be amendments that are created by ordinance. So it would not, if the mayor were to appoint ad hoc task forces, that would not apply.

[Nicole Morell]: Right, so for example, the Charter Study Committee, that would be something that wouldn't apply.

[Zac Bears]: Of course, the mayor could always submit them for our confirmation if she wanted to, as she could now.

[Nicole Morell]: Right, and then this may just be on me to follow up, is just, can public hearings be held in committee or do they have to be held, this is like capital P, capital H public hearings?

[Zac Bears]: I will double check on that, but I believe so.

[Nicole Morell]: Great, thank you. Going back to you, Vice President Harris.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. And I just wanted to thank my Councilors for all of your comments. I think, you know, if this moves forward and if the voters, you know, if the mayor and the council, if the council votes for it and the mayor agrees to put it on the ballot in a binding way and the voters approve it, it will give us a chance to work together more closely, work together in partnership and have more disagreements. And that's the work of government right and we work best when we actually are working together and working through disagreements and not not avoiding them or not working together to find the answers, but I just wanted to say a few things about the specific language before before we hear from maybe members of the public, which is one that these are targeted and reasonable amendments. The budget one specifically. would say that the mayor would submit the budget by the second Wednesday in May, the council would act by the second Wednesday in June, that the council could not cut the mayor's budget, which we saw almost happened last year, but also at the mayor could not count the council's budget that the council could amend the budget but it couldn't increase it more than the total amount that the mayor has allocated. It gives a voice, it builds collaboration, it builds relevancy and purpose, but it does so in a targeted way. This isn't just the council could spend a million dollars more than they want to, or the council could move all the money from the mayor's office to the council budget. It doesn't allow stuff like that. It actually asks us to come to the table and work together. Second is that pretty much all of this language in all of these amendments either exists in another city's charter or is recommended by other cities charter review commissions. So in that sense, it has been vetted. The third thing, and I just wanna, I wanna double down here is that this can happen now. And I think councilor Tseng's point that we can do something now to address real problems that we experience almost every meeting. is important and it's a test bed. We can put these into the charter, we can see how they work. If we have, I'm sure that we will find things that we would like to tweak to it. That can then be part of a comprehensive charter review process that takes, that by law generally will take much more time than this kind of specific targeted process. And the last thing I wanna say is I actually wanna bring it around to basically what everyone said here in a few different subtexts. This is about unity. We may have all of the Councilors agreeing that these are tools that the council should have. I think we have a mayor who sat on this council so much time for 20 years, and also thought that these were tools that the council should have. And I think that if seven Councilors and the mayor are willing to trust the voters and say, these are tools that we think will help government work better and voters, listen to that and say that they agree to, and they vote to put this in the charter, then we have a council, a mayor, and the public all saying this is a path to move forward. So that's my hope here. I know that there's always going to be questions and frustrations and adjustments, and we'll never get 100% of everybody to agree with everything, but I think this is something that can unify people across political differences, ideological differences. generations, you know, and different beliefs and a really important way to move the city forward. So that's why I wanted to move us down in this direction. And I really thank the council for entertaining it and for your thoughtful comments. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Vice Mayor Barras. Any further discussion from the council at this time? Are there any members of the public who wish to speak either in person or on Zoom? If you're on Zoom, you can raise your hand. In person, you can come up. Not seeing any at this time.

[Zac Bears]: If I could, before that, in the spirit of that motion, two specific motions. One would be to report this out favorably and place the proposed amendment language on the council agenda for April 25th. And I'll wait for the clerk to grab that when I have a second motion.

[Nicole Morell]: More, did you want to speak or? Okay. Yeah, you can come right up. I just saw him shifting, so.

[Maury Carroll]: Maury Carroll, 31 Richard Street, Medford. In all transparency, I am a member of the Charter Review Committee. I'm speaking more as a citizen and not as a member of that committee. First of all, I want to applaud the council for once looking at charter review because every time it's come up previous to this, it's been shot down. It's almost like we're trying to spot zone here. And that's a little, George, you mentioned that you got uncomfortable with things on charter review. Makes me a little uncomfortable too, as a citizen saying, why all of a sudden now, and why are we only looking at specific details when we've talked for years about a total charter review? And it always falls upon deaf ears and the Councilors are the strongest, opponents to charter review. which has gone on for years also. So I applaud you for taking a step forward. I hope this is just the beginning of how this body and future councils will look at charter review to get this archaic process that we have to live under for the last 40 years that has been changed. Been a strong mayor for 40 years, everyone knows that. This council has been put under very difficult restraints because of the charter. So let's try to keep it all moving forward and work together. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you.

[Maury Carroll]: Yes, please.

[Zac Bears]: Yes. And I'll get you that specific language, and I'm actually going to hold off on the second motion week I can make it actually at the meeting on the 20th.

[Nicole Morell]: Okay, I have a second on that. I'll take Councilor Caraviello. So on the motion of Vice President Bearsar, seconded by Councilor Caraviello. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. I'm just gonna do one last call if anyone else would like to speak just because there's a handful of folks on Zoom. Seeing no one else who'd like to speak, do I have on the motion of Councilor Tseng to adjourn, seconded by Councilor Collins. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. Meeting is adjourned.