AI-generated transcript of Medford City Council Housing Subcommittee 11-22-22

[Kit Collins]: 21053 Subcommittee on Housing meeting notice Tuesday, November 22nd, 2022 at 530pm. This meeting will take place in the Medford City Council Chamber on the second floor of Medford City Hall and via Zoom. There will be a meeting of the Medford City Council Subcommittee on Housing on Tuesday, November 22nd, 2022 at 530pm. in the Medford City Council Chamber on the second floor of Medford City Hall and via Zoom. Maybe I read that twice. The purpose of the meeting on paper 21053 is to discuss the draft Medford Housing Stability Notification Ordinance. The subcommittee has invited Daniel Evans and Alicia Hunt of the Office of Planning, Development, and Sustainability, Public Health Director Marianne O'Connor, Penny Finioli, and Sophie Antoine from the Office of Prevention and Outreach, Chief of Staff Nina Nazarian, and Attorney Shireen Everett from KP Law. For further information, aids and accommodations, contact the city clerk at 781-393-2425. Sincerely yours, Kit Collins, subcommittee chair.

[Unidentified]: Could you call the roll, please?

[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears. Present. Councilor Caraviello-Viello. Councilor Caraviello-Viello appears to be absent. Chair Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Present. Thank you. The meeting is called to order. So this is a follow-up to a housing subcommittee meeting held on September 27th, when we first discussed the proposed housing stability notification ordinance, which was originally proposed by then-Councilor Falco in 2021. At that meeting, we had a discussion about the ordinances of this nature in Boston and Cambridge and Somerville. We compared what is similar about those ordinances, which is very, very much of those ordinances is similar. And we highlighted the few things that are different among those 3 ordinances. And we resolved to have myself as share be authorized to draft a potential jumping off point for a housing still a notification ordinance that could be proposed for Medford. based on a Councilor cover yellows words the best parts of those other 3 ordinances from some of our neighboring communities. So we can scroll through that tonight this draft has been viewed by myself subcommittee members as well as relevant department head so I think we can start by going through that and getting some staff input on some of what was on their minds are getting input into this draft ordinance and then look to next steps. I know that we have a couple. Why don't I start sharing my screen with that draft ordinance and then I'd like to first I'm going to scroll through it just get the highlights and then I'd like to first turn it over to Danielle Evans from planning development sustainability and we have some staff tonight to have short evenings before other commitments some of us go through that quickly and then turn it over to to Danielle there was the one 2nd.

[Unidentified]: Before we start discussion, just to make sure we're all looking at the same thing.

[Kit Collins]: This is the draft that's already been gone over by our Board of Health staff and our Planning, Development and Sustainability Office, as well as our Office of Planning. I'm sorry, Office of Prevention and Outreach. And I hope that some of our attorneys at KP law had a chance to get this scan as well this is our first this is our first draft and again this borrows language from the 3 ordinances in our neighboring communities sorry communities that have already already have this ordinance or version of it on the books. So a lot of this will look similar if you're at our first subcommittee meeting when we reviewed those other ordinances purpose definitions. This is all identical to the ordinances that are on the books in our neighboring communities applicability of the supplies to rental units and housing accommodations in Medford with just a few notable exclusions which mostly apply to rental units in hospitals and nursing facilities and other health facilities. Required notices. At our last meeting we talked about how 2 of the communities with housing spilling notification ordinances have those ordinance require notice to tenants or occupants at both the inception and termination of a tenancy so we know that that is a decision point for us whether we wanted this ordinance to require notice of the beginning and end of the lease or just at the end and it sounded like there's interest from Councilors as well as from city staff and having it be both so that is what this draft reflects There's the section on non-waiveability, severability, enforcement. I want to flag this as one thing that did go through a slight tweak during the drafting process. All of the other ordinances that we reviewed from Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville In those communities enforcement is done by code enforcement officers when this was brought up to both our code enforcement team and also the Board of Health. The input from city staff was that this would be more relevant to Board of Health actually and that they would be more able to enforce this ordinance so with their blessing with change that to the Shelby enforced by the Port of the Board of Health director or their designee. Instead of the same for code enforcement and ideally Mary and if you're able to speak to that a little bit to slightly later on. And then just lastly the final decision point that came up in our initial discussion effective date. This current draft language reads this ordinance shall become effective 90 days after passage by the City Council and other communities. The effective date was immediately after passage this is something that we can continue to discuss and develop to make sure that the departments that will be helping us or that will be implementing this ordinance, have enough time to prepare the documents involved with it and alert landlords and property owners of their new responsibilities under this ordinance. So before we start, yes, Councilor Brescia.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. I just wanted to say that, you know, we had a lengthy discussion in our previous meeting and really looked through all the different options before us and different decision points. And by our motions, you know, I think you've done a fantastic job pulling together this draft ordinance. It seems to me, you know, just looking through it, that it really meets all the points of discussion that we had at our previous meeting. I'm also really glad to hear about the really extensive process of reaching out to city departments and legal counsel for review. So I'm excited to hear from our city staff who are here and move forward on this. I know that this is something that everyone involved is excited to implement and that it will hopefully give real powerful tools to our community to help tenants know their rights and address the issue of housing instability in our community, which we know there's a ton of displacement going on right now. Residents facing eviction or otherwise non-renewal of a lease who are confused about what their options are, are really nervous and afraid about the housing market that they're going into. And you know, really need that sense of stability and community. You know, they want to stay in Medford. They love Medford. Many have lived here for a very long time and are just for the first time facing these kinds of decisions. And also there's people who moved here recently and love it here and also are facing that level of instability. So I'm really glad that we're moving forward on this. Appreciate your work as the chair and the work of all city staff and look forward to hearing from city staff tonight and then moving forward. Thank you.

[Kit Collins]: Great, thank you so much, Councilor Beres. All right, with that preliminary groundwork out of the way, I'd love to turn it over to our city staff. Danielle, I want to invite you to speak first, if you would like, and then it would be great to hear from other city staff people, anybody else who would like to give comment.

[Danielle Evans]: Good evening, Danielle Evans from Planning Development Sustainability. Yeah, so I think the outstanding issues that need to be decided are who would be the enforcement agency, looking at the three surrounding communities. In Boston, it's Inspectional Services, but their Office of Fair Housing Equity, they investigate the violations and then turn it over to Inspectional Services to actually issue the ticket and make the enforcement action. So I thought that was a nice kind of like hybrid way and also I'm I imagine that the fair housing officer, if they have one in Boston, sits in that department. So they would be investigating kind of probably similar violations and discrimination claims. So this would kind of dovetail in with that. In Somerville, it's enforced by the chief of police and the superintendent of inspectional services. I'm not sure how it works when you have two cooks in the kitchen there. we could talk to our counterparts over there to look into how enforcement is working. And in Cambridge, it's inspectional services as well. Of course, those are larger cities. They're set up differently. There's more hierarchy. I'm not sure which inspectors are doing the enforcement because there's different inspection offices, whether they're you know, under, you know, the health department or a health division, or if it's building and different code violations. So I'm not quite sure, because inspectional services, those departments are quite large with people with very different specializations. So I'm not sure what would work for Medford, but I would leave that to the folks who would actually be doing the enforcing. And my assumption of why Boston has the Fair Housing and Equity Office do the investigation, one, as I said before, investigating violation discrimination is in their domain, but they probably are not set up or have the capacity or the systems to issue the fines, whereas Inspectional Services has that process and systems set up to do that. I wonder how much, if it's just a handoff, like, yes, we recommend or we're asking you to enforce this, how much ISD can disagree or not. I'm not sure, but that's something that we could look into if we were going to have something similar. And so I think it would be a good idea to also involve Frances from Equity and Inclusion to see how she might want to be involved or how this might you know, some like work with her office. Of course, I don't want to put any work on someone else's plate, but knowing that this kind of thing is being looked at by people with similar roles, it'd probably be good to loop her in. And as far as what the notice would look like, I'm thinking it would make sense to just have to make it simple to have one notice that would have, you know, knowing all your rights, whereas could be simple things like how your security deposit is handled and you know when a landlord can raise your rent. And also, the the rights and the steps taken if you are served a notice to quit. And anything that runs the gamut during a tenancy, which could be, you know, falling behind in your rent or not making sure you can make your rent. And also. Tenants might eventually want to. Purchase something in the city, and so having information about homeownership opportunities would also be, I think, a good idea to keep or to put into a notice. I've noticed that of the three communities, some of them are quite robust. I don't think we want to be multiple, multiple pages. But I think between at least my office, prevention and outreach, and diversity, equity, inclusion, we could assemble various resources that we think are the most important to include with links to additional information. And also, we'd have to make sure to keep this updated, because oftentimes information becomes out of date quite rapidly.

[Unidentified]: So those are my initial thoughts.

[Kit Collins]: . Thank you very much, Daniel. I think there is a lot there that could inform the implementation of this ordinance should it pass. I want to go to councilmember harris.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, madam chair. And thank you, Daniel, for your comments. I reserve what I'm about to say to also hear from the other folks from city staff that are on the call. I think something we have tried to do in this ordinance is not overprescribe how city those collaborative, you know, the collaborations and needed consultations up to city staff. I mean, just knowing the partners who are on the call right now, you know, we have, have some strong collaboration and knowing that other folks who weren't here, you know, did have outreach to them and kind of said, you know, this makes maybe more sense under your wheelhouse with the board of health versus the building department. So, you know, again, reserving it, I think, you know, we could, put an amendment into the ordinance, you know, and this is not, I'm not proposing language right now, I'll write it down and then propose it later in the meeting. But we could put something in that, you know, the offices of Planning, Development, Sustainability, Board of Health, Office of Prevention and Outreach, Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion shall be consulted on the, you know, creation of a of a notification by the city, you know, something like that. We can also put in there that the notification shall be updated, you know, annually as information changes, something like that. But again, I think, you know, I'm kind of glad to hear it sounds like we're moving into that implementation phase and folks are thinking about how it will be implemented. And I do think us not tying the hands of the staff who will implement it by putting something in the ordinance that maybe isn't a best practice at a later date is probably the way to go. But I think we could put some sort of consulting language relative to the intent of the council that kind of brings in the points that you were bringing up, Danielle, but doesn't, you know, force a process or force a procedure on to all of you as you work through the implementation of this ordinance. So thank you so much again for your comments and looking forward to hear from everybody else as well.

[Unidentified]: Thank you, Councilor Bears.

[Kit Collins]: Are there any other members of city staff here tonight who would like to comment on the draft ordinance, how they see their department being implicated by it? Don't wanna put anybody on the spot, but Director O'Connor, I'm glad you're with us here tonight, and thank you for being willing for the Board of Health to take on the mantle of enforcement. Would you like to speak to your department's capacity to do so?

[Unidentified]: Okay, I. Hi, thank you.

[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Good evening. Um, yeah so I did have the opportunity to speak with the symbol office of housing stability, about, about their ordinance and what they're doing around enforcement. And they, they talked about it a lot more like they look at it more as an educational opportunity, as opposing to trying to be really. strict on, you know, ticketing and that type of thing, which I know the ordinance does speak to a warning, initially, prior to going to ticketing. My only concerns is a couple of things in that we are. We do do inspections for certificate of occupancy. So that's typically when an apartment turns over, we are supposed to go in and inspect the apartment prior to occupation. So that's really easy to do when we have new construction and new apartments being built and the owners know that they need these in order to occupy the new rentals. It's a lot harder for us to know just broadly in the community when apartments are turning over. and whether or not this information will be then handed off the way it is prescribed in the ordinance. Obviously, the only way we would eventually find out on those occasions would be through complaints. in which case we would then follow up. So that's one concern. And then how broadly, you know, that this ordinance will be promoted and folks will be aware of its presence and what they're prescribed to do. The opportunity for whatever information we do require is in multiple languages. When I looked at some of those, they do have It on multiple languages on their brochure that just basically says this is an important piece of information and you can go to some of them and see it in different languages on our website, because that's that will certainly be be an issue. So I guess, I guess those are my thoughts around the enforcement piece that. You know, it's, it's, it's going to be difficult for us to know if it is or isn't occurring. And again, it'll probably come through the form of complaints. When folks do get a notice to quit or, you know, when they are having issues with their landlord, the new housing code which is supposed to be coming out this spring. Um, does require that tenant rights are dropped off during every inspection that we that we do again those typically complaint inspections. When folks are having difficulties getting things fixed in their apartments or having difficulties with their landlord. So that you know and that is something that we have done in the past obviously whenever, whenever we feel tired or need, we have those tenant right information brochures that we hand out so I'm just putting out there that enforcement will be a little bit difficult and I know there was a question about like, how do you go forward with unpaid fines. And we do I believe at this point in the city have the ability to attach those to taxes, so that that will be an option as well and probably could be and should be written to the ordinance to, so I would leave that to the attorneys to decide but those are my thoughts about the difficulties around knowing if and when this is or isn't happening and how to follow up on those issues. But I could see where building did say that the code enforcement folks may not be the most appropriate and that we do deal a lot more frequently with tenants and housing issues. So we would have more access than the building department would in that respect.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you so much, Marianne. Really appreciate your perspective on this. Really appreciate your willingness to think on this and potentially devote some of your departmental resources towards it definitely hear you on. You know the difficulties inherent in making sure that this is broadly concert members comprehensively equitably known about enforced community wide across so many different types of areas and really interested in kind of an ongoing discussion about how we can help increase city capacity to get at that issue, which is certainly not limited to this ordinance or the harms that it's seeking to prevent. I just wanna quickly follow up on one of the concerns that you mentioned, because we do have Attorney Everett on the call. You mentioned the issue of unpaid fines being attached access and I know that we have other ordinances that we've discussed that also you know have this non non non criminal disposition and fines for non compliance snow shoveling ordinance comes to mind. Attorney Everett while we have you is it necessary to include language on what happens in the case of delinquent fines into the ordinance or is that addressed elsewhere in our court of ordinances so it doesn't need to be articulated here.

[Unidentified]: Can you hear me now?

[Everett]: Yes. Okay. My apologies. I haven't had a chance to look at your ordinances. I received a copy of this proposed ordinance yesterday afternoon, and I really haven't had a chance to go and see where it would be appropriate for the assessment of fines to be placed, but that would be, you know, the non-criminal disposition, it would be the natural place for such fines to be in place. collected and enforced. So if you would bear with me and I can take a look in the next meeting, I can definitely get back to you on that answer. But that's what my expectation is, that it would be under a non-criminal disposition proceeding to collect on those fines. If the city is interested in adding that to the taxes, we'll have to do some research on whether this could be construed to be a municipal charge or lien, which could get added to the taxes. And that's something I can research and get back to you on. So my apologies, I don't have a full response right now, but I expect to get you a fuller response very soon.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you very much attorney Everett that that's okay I don't think it's mission critical for this meeting to know whether the fate of an unpaid fine that's I'm glad that we're getting towards the point of being able to get into the weeds a little bit here. But I don't think that that hampers our ability to move forward on this, but thank you for being on the call and we definitely look forward to getting your legal review of this ordinance before our next meeting. And so I'd like to invite, if any other members of city staff would like to weigh in with their perspective on other aspects of this draft ordinance, if there are any specific questions or concerns relating to how the ordinance is written, that in your professional opinion would allow it to be more easily, effectively, or equitably implemented, would love to hear from our other city staff on the call about that at this time.

[Unidentified]: feel free to raise your hand or just unmute if you're empowered to do so. Yeah, Penny.

[Funaiole]: Hi, so I'm gonna say this not knowing enough about how things are working from the assessor and the tax records to how, but it feels like if we really wanna get this message out, to and make sure that these things happen. Obviously there needs to be a budget for printing and mailing and direct to folks that are residing throughout the city. But the other thing is too, is who are the landlords, right? And what is their responsibility? Again, I don't know. So I could be just, this could already be in place, I don't know. But I'm curious to know how do we, as is, what if, just like in the case of, In a case of an emergency that we've recently had emergencies where we weren't able to get in contact with residents of large, large apartment settings. And so it's like there seems to be something like a layer under this. That is that it that needs to be addressed it's like nice to it's definitely nice to get this information and we have plans and I would love for Sophie to comment on some future grants that we've applied to, but to really support this ordinance and make it come to life, but what happens after a grant goes away so I'll hold back on that but my, my real question is, how how can we communicate with renters in this community and is there a way in which there's you know every tax cycle that there's an extra question on that tax questionnaire that adds like you know at least once a year we get a snapshot who resides within the buildings that these uh that have You know, you know, whether it's three family or it's 100 units, you know, like, how do we know who's where enough to even get them information, because it's the way it is right now, the privileged or the high risk crisis folks are the only ones who would have the knowledge because they pay attention to city council meetings right that this is happening and that this is available to them and then the folks that are in an extreme crisis and are about to lose their housing they're the only ones that are going to get this um these worksheets you know this this information this education so i i feel like there's a layer here that we need to kind of look at how can we operationally do this best Because it is a really important thing to have for people to know about it. So that's my only comment. I have no feedback on the ordinance. I think it's an excellent push forward and really is getting towards where we need to be going, which is supporting our renters and the community.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you so much, Penny. Really appreciate those comments. And even as obviously this conversation is constrained to this, this one ordinance and what's in our jurisdiction of the city council to do I do really appreciate. I think the conversation on you know that that underlayer and how can we more effectively treat the conditions that this ordinance is seeking to address and it's sort of one targeted away. It's really necessary to to bring up that conversation again and say you know what else do we need to feel that conversation and hopefully more interventions that will allow us to be more effective at protecting our renters and housing stability community-wide through this and other measures. So I really, I appreciate that. I wanna go to Danielle next and then Sophie.

[Danielle Evans]: Yes, so for this to be successful, there'll have to be, very robust public outreach. Our first thought was that we should have an insert in either the water, sewer and the tax bills. However, I know with Alicia Hunt had brought up a good point that people that opt out of paper mailings and get their water bills electronically wouldn't get those inserts. So that would just be one prong of a outreach effort, at least to reach the landlords. I'm wondering if they're, I mean, we must have data on how many, how many property owners receive their bills electronically versus paper. So we would know how big a percentage wouldn't get those inserts. I'm sure Treasurer Kelly and Ryan, someone must have that. And then, but we also want to make sure that we're reaching all the tenants where I think that the direct mail Um, I think that's what it's called. Like our, we had that, um, housing resources, COVID flyer that went, it gets basically, it gets dropped at every house. Uh, so like every mailbox will get, you know, we, I imagine it would be something bright, you know, a card. Don't do it during election season or it'll get mixed up with all the other ones that you get. So make sure it's not in that cycle. Um, so because. Because it probably will be complaint-driven. Absent of having a rental registry, which Boston has, Chelsea, I think, has. There's a few other communities that do. A couple of summers ago, I had an intern that was working on this and was looking at how to spin something like that up, because I think that would be important. We would have contact. We would know which units are being rented, which ones aren't. There could be inspections and we would have, not sorry to go off topic, but we would have more interaction with the tenant, at least during lease up and during some kind of interval time, maybe it's every five years, that way the city can catch violations rather than the tenant having to report violations where they might be nervous to do that because of the power imbalance and worried about their own housing and security. So if we could get ahead of that with this is your year, the month that you're going to be inspected and we found XYZ and oh, did you pass this out? But that would be down the road, but something that I would like to see. And you know, using social media, just plugging in whenever we can. Robo calls. And hopefully, you know, people will, you know, start to realize that it's a thing, especially if maybe if they move from one of our neighboring communities that have an ordinance and they get used to that being something that their landlords are supposed to do.

[Unidentified]: So definitely the outreach.

[Danielle Evans]: Okay, Alicia writes in the chat that in February, was it 15,052 water bills were mailed and 715 were email only.

[Unidentified]: Okay. So most people are getting them mailed.

[Kit Collins]: Yeah, thank you, Danielle. It's good to get a sense of, you know, how the city's existing communication structure could help the initial implementation of this. And you know, while we kind of have that parallel conversation, mostly borne by city staff about how to increase and strengthen that communication structure so as to deal with the equity implants, sorry, equity, disequitable effects of implementation just inherent to the level of outreach that we currently do have the bandwidth to do citywide. I wanna go next to Sophie, I'll ask you to unmute.

[Unidentified]: Hi, can everyone hear me? Yes, we can hear you.

[MCM00000940_SPEAKER_03]: All right, so I don't necessarily have any concerns. It's just, I just wanted to add on to what Maryann, Danielle, and Penny had mentioned. In my previous role as a health inspector, one of the issues that we frequently encountered were absentee landlords, and a lot of occupants did not know how to, did not know of their rights. And something Danielle explained is that some people may be nervous to even put in a complaint. So I guess our approach now is, when Penny mentioned some of the efforts that we're working on in the Office of Outreach and Prevention, is having a co-response and a teamwork and definitely a massive outreach effort when it comes to that. So as an inspector, I definitely worked a lot with the building inspectors, the code enforcers. We go to a lot of these complaints or even emergency calls like a fire on the weekend or anything of that sort. So, the issue would always be not being able to get a hold of that property owner what is on the assessors or vision is not what be the information that we have so I did not know of the rental registry. I think that's a really good idea just to know who to contact. Unfortunately, it is in the housing code for property owners of two or more units to have their information listed, but not everybody does that in Medford with my experience. Not necessarily concerns I've had, it's just mostly To add on to what my previous colleagues have said and, and yeah so we're working, I'm guessing we, we do have our community liaisons who can always, we can also assist with the outreach efforts in multiple languages, and some people do know what's happening and having this communication from the city to the residents so they know of their rights and so now with the new housing code we instructors will be leaving that behind. And hopefully that will be in different languages if not, that's something we can definitely work on with the translation so people know like when to call nicely wait like for us to find out like the, even though they do come to complaints but that they will be a little more. at ease to actually put in a complaint to call the health department. It's like for a personal experience, I did not know that I could call a health department until I started working at the health department. So there's like a lot that that I like me as someone of Haitian descent, I had no idea what we could do, like telling your landlord that so it would be to me. So yeah, putting people at ease that are residents in Medford and to make sure they can actually call the health department, like we are around. It is like a lot of work for the department, but like we're always around to help. So yeah, just massive outreach, making sure these resources are available in multiple languages. And yeah, and we're definitely here to support and work as a team and have a more of a co-response approach. and educate people on the housing code, the ordinance that we have coming out. That's pretty much my input on that.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you very much, Sophie. I think that adds a lot to the discussion and it makes me think of the point that we made previously in the discussion about wanting to not overly bind the hands of city staff because clearly there's so much energy and really productive collaboration that is already going on and already being planned. to be amplified and further supported. So that gives me personally a lot of faith. I really appreciate you sharing that.

[Unidentified]: I'll go next to Director O'Connor. Can you hear me now?

[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Okay. Thank you, Sophie, for that. And yeah, just again, I just wanna make sure that We follow up and we really look closely at the enforcement piece and, you know, if and how much more of a workload this is going to be on an already really stretched thin board of health. So yes, and I would like us to take an educational approach prior and maybe even postpone enforcement for like the audience goes into effect we take a good two three months to really promote to really get it out there to make sure that it's it's well known prior to us actually going out and trying to do enforcement. and then making sure we're doing it in a really thoughtful way. But I think the new housing code, allowing us to drop that information off would be great. I think a registry would be huge, but again, that's staff, that's budget, that's work. And we don't, we just, I think in Boston, folks have to register like only once every five years or something, and then the inspection is required at that point, which is great, because then at least we would get to those places that we never even get to, because we don't even know. So if they if they're required to register that would be that would be really helpful in allowing us to get at those places that we haven't even been able to lay eyes on. But again, that's a, that's a, that's an entire dedicated process and staff and budget so just want to put that out there, but I appreciate it. Thanks.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, Marianne. Yeah, I, you know, appreciate your perspective on that. even as we work on this specific ordinance, I hope that we can continue to plan for how to make these bigger dreams be actualized in the future as well. Go next to Councilor Beresford.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Chair Collins. Thank you to all the staff who are giving feedback and already working so much on this issue. I mean, I think that's something that's definitely, you know, I mean, it's honestly been clear since I started on the council and we two months in, we're in the middle of a global pandemic and this team that's here now had jumped into action on not just the health issues, but on this housing issue and housing stability issue. And I think directly to what everyone said, right? Like, The goal here from the Council, and what what our scope of our authority is is to create a local law that hopefully gives our, our staff, you know, a tool, an educational tool you know, an enforcement tool at the discretion of staff to go to someone and say, you know, this is a requirement. This is the law of the city of Medford. And that can give tenants more certainty. It can give quite frankly, the landlords more certainty, and it can give our staff something to point you to say, you know, this is a requirement. That's why we're putting this together. That's why we need you to issue it. That's why we're putting it out ourselves. So I think that's the intent and the goal here. You know, we could talk a ton about the need for an integrated communications infrastructure that really provides broad support to all the departments in the city where we have one list of folks we could reach out to and there's departmental support for getting messages out through multiple mediums. And I think, you know, that's so, so important. Our rental registry would be amazing. But all of those things are things that require staff and budgetary, you know, investment. And that's heard loud and clear. I think, you know, we should get into, obviously it seems like the one outstanding question here, and I have a proposed amendment as well, but the one real outstanding question is just the, on the enforcement and fines, you know, does that potentially turn into a lien or however, you know, that piece of the law works. but when it comes to the intent of the council, I really think our goal is to say, you know, other than we want notices, you know, we, we think that notices should go out at the inception of tenancy and the conclusion of a tenancy, you know, we think that notice should be standardized and updated annually. We really trust you as the staff who are working on this to, um, you know, have that enforcement discretion. If enforcement, you know, in a really deep way is not something we have the capacity for, or not something that we think we have done enough education to start at that point, you know, we're not going to be dogging you for that as a council. And that's really how you think this can be implemented best. So I just want to really put that out there, you know, that we just, you know, we think the intent of this ordinance is that we have a document that's available to the people who need it, that your offices have at your discretion to get out there and to make sure that landlords are getting out there to their tenants. And, you know, it'll be a growing process as it is, and maybe it actually will help us move into some of these other questions. We may hit a roadblock or find something, a real strong collaboration, successful collaboration. that points us in a direction around how we communicate about this or how we're keeping track, you know, how the city can better help keep track of who's renting units and how often those leases and tenancies are expiring. So at least from my perspective, totally heard loud and clear that this is an area that needs investment and support and that if we're gonna go beyond, you know, just the educational purposes here of having this notification be an educational tool for our city staff to use and for residents to use. That they'll need to be a discussion and then a proposal probably in the city budget around that. So thank you. to all of you. I hope what I said maybe relieves some concern about how much we're asking of all of you through this. Definitely, again, heard loud and clear that there are capacity and budgetary questions about how deeply this can get out into the community. And I think Those are things that we can address the other piece of that they'll be addressed just through time and the process and iterating this and also discussions for the discussions that we're going to need to have about budget and investment and staff capacity I think. at least the two of us certainly share a lot of agreement that pretty much everyone on this call could use a ton more staff support to expand and improve and add to the fantastic work that you're all doing. So thank you so much for your input. It's always incredibly helpful and I'll turn it back to you, Madam Chair.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, Councilor Beresant. Yes, resounding agreement with what you just stated. Well, in sum, it sounds like we, I haven't heard any major changes proposed on the content of the ordinance as written. I think this has been a really great discussion of sort of the context surrounding this question, framing some of our aspirations for what this can be one, albeit small tool in addressing, what else we'd like to see added to the milieu so that over time, this tool and other tools can be more effective at enhancing housing stability in Medford, but to dial it back more narrowly to the scope of this ordinance right now as written, as chair, I cannot make a motion, so Councilor Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Yes, I'll be happy to make three motions, which it'll be consolidated three-part motion, Mr. Clerk. The first one is I would just move to amend section 49-34 titled required notices to add the following sections. And I did actually email this to the chair and the clerk if you maybe want to pop it in the chat. if you are able to, but it would just add a section C or a subsection C that the Board of Health Director or their designee shall consult the Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability and Office of Prevention and Outreach on the creation of the required notices. and it would create a subsection D that the required notices shall be updated annually and shall provide information regarding online access to additional resources and language translation of information included within the required notices. And I'm proposing those both to maybe add a little bit to the intent, but not to be prescriptive or controlling of the process that you all choose to undertake. Other than that, those of you who are talking to each other, keep talking to each other, which I think you all do. So that's the first part. I'd also move that we ask attorney Everett to review the enforcement section. and it's already been committed to, but just for the record, putting it into the record so that we can review that question around potential liens for unpaid fines being included in the draft ordinance. And then I would further move that we report out the draft ordinance as amended to Committee of the Whole.

[Unidentified]: You want to be ready? Oh, yes. Yes.

[Adam Hurtubise]: I have two motions. I have a consolidated motion.

[Kit Collins]: All against Bush passes. But I do that right.

[Zac Bears]: I saw a question chat or 3 of the.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you. Marianne notes any funds collected could go to a revolving account to support education outreach. And Danielle asks could find also go to the future housing trust.

[Zac Bears]: And boy, does that speak to our need for revenue, huh? I'm right there with both of you, right?

[Kit Collins]: We'll take every $300 check we can.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah. I think, yeah. I mean, I think again, that would be a budgetary decision by the mayor as this is currently written. But if, you know, again, we're going to have a committee, the whole meeting on it, if, if folks want to talk about potentially including language within this, that would, you know, put the fines in a certain direction, I'm certainly open to hearing that. I'm also open to leaving it up for administrative decision.

[Kit Collins]: Yes, I would say the same. And I'd say if anybody on this call or elsewhere in your departments has thoughts on that, they'd like to share at our upcoming discussion and committee of the whole. Obviously, we'll be circulating that when it gets scheduled. You can also feel free to reach out to me directly to make sure that those comments or suggestions are included in the discussion and committee report. go to Alicia.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you, Madam Chair. I would actually suggest that it would be beneficial to check either with Attorney Everett and or our finance director about whether we need to specify in an ordinance how the fines are used if we want to use them for one of these. There's both the question of, are we allowed to, under any circumstances, use fines for these various methods? And if so, does it have to be specified in this ordinance so we can just handle it right off the bat? And I don't know which of those people would be more appropriate to answer that question or both.

[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you, Alicia. That sounds like a good research project for me, or we can make sure to have them present at the Committee of the Whole.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I would certainly make a motion to that effect. I can try to word it for motions purposes, but motion that Attorney Everett and Finance Director Dickinson let us know whether we need to explicitly name the potential affordable housing trust or an education and outreach revolving fund as a destination for fines that are, fines that are charged under, by the enforcement of this ordinance.

[Adam Hurtubise]: second motion.

[Kit Collins]: On the motion by Councilor Bears, all those in favor? Aye. All those against? Motion passes. I see Chief of Staff Nazarian has raised your hand. I'll go to you, Nina.

[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you very much. And apologies, I'm trying to manage a small child who's a little chatty at the moment, so hopefully that doesn't come through right now. But the only other thing I would suggest that I don't know has been discussed, it sounds like, I don't know the history of this particular ordinance very well, but it sounds like a complete review of the ordinance has not been completed. But if it has, perhaps the subcommittee could educate me or Madam President, you could educate me. So I would suggest that the entire ordinance be reviewed by legal. Thank you.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, Nina. I completely agree. We did request that for this meeting when it was scheduled. apparently the ordinance and make it to attorney Everett's desk before before yesterday so we have requested a full legal review before our meeting committee of the whole and just to reiterate discussion from last meeting which is that the ordinances that this language is drawn from for the text that this ordinance is drawn from is from ordinances that already have been passed on the books in Somerville Cambridge and Boston. just for context, and of course, we are anticipating and looking forward to a full legal review by Attorney Everett for our next meeting on this ordinance. So thank you for making sure of that. We appreciate it. Any closing thoughts from members of the public, city staff, my fellow councilor?

[Zac Bears]: My one closing thought is go Mustangs. You can watch tonight the Medford-Malden game on TV3, I believe, and also Medford Community Media at medfordtv.org. And with that, I also think this is our last meeting before Thanksgiving, so happy Thanksgiving, and I would motion to adjourn.

[Kit Collins]: Excellent. I will second the motion, but first I see that Chief of Staff Nazaria raised her hand again. I'll unmute you once more, Nina, before we adjourn.

[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you, I appreciate the opportunity for closing thoughts. I'm with you, Vice President Bears. Go Mustangs and also happy Thanksgiving. The only other closing thought I have is just from an enforcement standpoint, these ordinances or this ordinance might individually be reasonable potentially for a department to enforce. As we add ordinance after ordinance after ordinance, the implications from a staffing standpoint, and Councilor Bears, you said that, Vice President Bears, you said that today, and I appreciate that very much, is something that could weigh heavily on city staff and their already burdened workloads. So thank you for acknowledging that, and I just feel like it wouldn't be, it would be an opportunity missed for me to confirm my concern on that matter, thank you.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, Chief of Staff. Heard loud and clear. Understand your perspective there completely. And, you know, I think that's why we're very grateful to have the robust input of city staff who might be implicated by this ordinance so that we can consider both capacity for short-term and long-term capacity for enforcement and implementation, and at the same time, you know, have that factor into the Council's continuing conversation around overall city capacity and what we need to really make it on our goals and the type of municipal experience that our constituents really deserve and so that we can use what's in our jurisdiction to you know try to create policy to to really create that that reality that are that our constituents have asked for and that we're trying to manifest through all of our individual and collective channels. Thank you very much we appreciate we appreciate that. You're here. Councilor Beres, you already motioned to adjourn, or did I just imagine it? I did. You did? I did. Great. I second the motion. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those against? Motion passes. Thank you all so much for being here, and hopefully you have a very festive and happy Thanksgiving. Go Mustangs.