[Zac Bears]: 20-006 Subcommittee on Ordinances and Rules Meeting Notice Tuesday, May 3, 2022 at 6 p.m. There will be a meeting of the Medford City Council Subcommittee on Ordinances and Rules on Tuesday, May 3, 2022 at 6 p.m. The purpose of the meeting on paper 20-006 is to discuss the draft beautification ordinance. The subcommittee has invited Chief Stephanie Nazarian and City Solicitor Kimberly Scanlon to attend. For further aids and information aids and accommodations contact the city clerk at 781-393-2425. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Councilor Collins. Present. Councilor Knight. Present. Chairman Bares.
[Zac Bears]: Present. Three present, none absent. The meeting is called to order. So this is to discuss the beautification ordinance requested by the council as well as some language. We met on this last week and kind of narrowed down to three essential areas. We don't have the solicitor tonight, but I believe that we can make the policy decisions of the subcommittee and then submit those to the city solicitor for her review. Um, those three areas of discussion are the purpose and functions of the beautification committee, uh, that kind of boiled down to, is this an advisory committee or is it something more? Uh, the solicitor said that, um, if we wanted to go beyond advisory, she would have to review some additional language, but she would certainly do that if we requested it. In terms of membership that's pretty self-explanatory but essentially the question is what we want the membership of this committee to be and who do we want to appoint those members. And as well as the qualifications for being a member and then finally the other main decision is how often we believe that this committee should meet so those are kind of the 3 areas for discussion. happy to take them in order. I'm also happy before we do that to recognize Councilor Knight as the sponsor of this ordinance, as well as Councilor Collins, if you have any comments before we get going.
[Adam Knight]: First of all, Mr. President, thank you for filling me in on what happened at the last meeting. I wasn't able to make it through a flat tire. I was waiting for AAA, actually. When the meeting was going on, I apologize for not being able to be here. When I put the measure forward back in 2020, the idea was to make a, dedicated and committed effort to increasing the curb appeal in our community to bring a little bit more vibrance to our downtowns to really shed some more light and focus on some of the city on parcels and what we can do to make sure that they're up to a standard that the taxpayers deserve. So I thank you for bringing us to this point thus far. I certainly in addressing the first question, I always envisioned this as an advisory committee, not a committee that has actual power and authority to and act policy and the like, but really to act as eyes and ears for the community and to act as a conduit to express the concerns that we're hearing through neighborhood groups, community groups, business groups, and the like about what our quality of life is in the city, how the city looks and what steps we can take to beautify it so that we can compete with surrounding communities.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Knight. Councilor Collins, do you have anything before we get going? No? All right. Well, I will then share the draft on the screen so we can all see it. Moment. How does this look out here? Should I zoom in a little bit? Yeah. All right. So unless there are objections or edits, the short title, this chapter shall be known as the Beautification Committee Ordinance. And the establishment, there is created and established a committee of the city to be known as the Beautification Committee, and herein referred, hereinafter referred to as the committee. That seems pretty self-explanatory. I have no edits or comments there. In terms of the purpose and functions, the purpose of the beautification committee is to act as an advisory committee to the city and make recommendations on projects designed to maintain and improve the appearance of public areas within the city. The committee will also endeavor to recognize the efforts of residents and businesses within the city who have demonstrated exceptional efforts to improve the beauty of the city. So we'll start there. Do we feel that that captures the intent of this ordinance or is there additional language that we would like to have included beyond what's there? Sure, the purpose of the beautification committee is to act as an advisory committee to the city and make recommendations on projects designed to maintain and improve the appearance of public areas within the city. The committee will also endeavor to recognize the efforts of residents and businesses within the city who have demonstrated exceptional efforts to improve the beauty of the city.
[Adam Hurtubise]: All right.
[Zac Bears]: All right, then we can move on to membership. Currently, this follows, I think, this section follows one of the, what I would call more traditional approaches that we've taken in Medford, which is appointments by the mayor with no role for the council. So I could get into the details and read the full sections, but it's pretty standard language. I don't know if, If this is the approach we want to take and certainly interested to hear from Councilors what they think we should look at in terms of membership Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: I thought it might make sense that each councilor gets an appointee to the committee and they could act as eyes and ears. But I think when you look at our charter and our form of government, the way that we really do things over here and our capacity as a legislative body to sift through applications and make this something that will be apolitical and more procedural, I don't think that that's necessarily the right approach, right? Normally in this community, the mayor has appointing authority, which is okay, but most of that appointing authority does not come with council advice and consent. And I think that that might be a fair compromise to make all the appointments subject to the approval of the council. And then there's also a question as to whether or not we want to say that there should also be a member of the PACS board that serves, a member of the DPW that serves, uh you know chamber of commerce that serves something like that to delineate our business owner in each business district i mean you could really get into the the nuts and bolts of it but ultimately it's going to be important to have a business voice on the committee someone that can kind of take into consideration the impacts that our squares are having relative to flight and what we can do to make them more vibrant so we can attract more people there. So I think that the business focus is something that's important in this endeavor. So if we're going to define membership and qualifications, maybe we could say, you know, appointed by the mayor with a representative from the business community, a representative from the recreation community, whether it be Little League or Um, you know, lacrosse league or something like that. Someone that has some involvement in the parks and recreation side of things, um, might make some sense or representative from walk Medford, you know, um, to take a look at something like that. But I think that that's, we're on the right track. Um, I just certainly think it might be a little bit more conducive to progress if we define who the people are that are able to serve. So that when the mayor appoints them, we know we're dealing with threat.
[Zac Bears]: Got it. Yeah. And just to add a little context, this currently lists five member committee qualifications being that the, I mean, in addition to seeking outstanding individuals, I believe this says the qualifications would be one member from each of the four distinct geographic areas of the city. So I just want to say that's how it's drafted. Yeah, I think that's mumbo-jumbo to me. It lists South Medford, North Medford, West Medford, and Wellington. I'm certainly willing to look at a different approach. Councilor Collins?
[Kit Collins]: I think I'm also open to other approaches. At first flush, I like the idea of making sure that there's a geographic distribution, but I think it's important to make sure that all of our distinct neighborhoods are represented. I think that the Four Corners approach is kind of a blunt approach, like if there's a better way to do that without getting too into the weeds, like we're not, I think it's probably too weedy to say we're going to have word-based representation for our beautification committee when we don't have that for anything else. But I'm certainly interested in looking at approaches to just really codify that this is a, you know, properly representative committee, I think that making sure that there's, for example, business parks DPW representation in addition to the five members is a good idea to make sure that collaboration can be done efficiently and hopefully projects can be attended to more quickly, having all those voices in the room.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I guess for as one councilor, I certainly find the idea of having the, you know, city staff who would be kind of interfacing with this committee, either represented in some way or perhaps serving as ex officio or perhaps, you know, as clerk to the committee, something of that nature, you know, really could go any way on that, but I do like that idea and I tend to agree. I think maybe we could say, you know, identify some interest, interest types, you know, a business business, recreation, maybe not get into specific groups, but, you know, access, you know, infrastructure, accessibility, maybe that's just Walkman for the only one we got, but, you know, kind of pick a few of those and then give some role to the DPW. I would be open to that. This currently says five members. I think we may want to bump that up. Yeah. So, and then, I mean, we can also add instead of making it, they have to be from each geographic area but just say, make every effort to ensure that all areas of the city are represented. Something like that. Exactly.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay.
[Adam Knight]: And I mean, something like that. I'm sure the whole council's going to want the rest of the body as well. It's going to want to voice some input. Right. On that. So, that's probably when we can just chalk up for committee of the whole.
[Zac Bears]: unless either of you have a motion.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Let's see if I can come up with something. I think I can do the math right.
[Zac Bears]: And I'm open to certainly hearing from Committee of the Whole and other councilors, but just so we have a list of qualifications.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Let me just amend some language.
[Zac Bears]: Just in terms of like a comment, let's just, I think it might be good to brainstorm a bit of a list of those groups. So we said a business community, recreation, organizations maybe is the best way to phrase that.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Infrastructure or mobility access might be the best way to phrase that.
[Zac Bears]: Are there other groups that we want to put into this list?
[Kit Collins]: I was looking to see if I could find the paper that would give the answer to this question, but are we allowed to have constituents under 18 on committees? Because if so, I think it could be great to have a youth representative on this committee, mission rather.
[Zac Bears]: I think I'm personally fine with that. I don't think there's anything that was restricted.
[Kit Collins]: I wasn't sure if I had I vaguely remembered seeing, are you 18 or older on some commission forms? I wasn't sure if that was a requirement, but if not, that could be the potential for some municipal, you know, high school, middle school collaboration fund projects around the city.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Are we cool with that?
[Adam Knight]: It's supposed to be serious business. All right, I'm on the committee. I'm going away to college two years later.
[Kit Collins]: Sorry, I can't hear you.
[Adam Knight]: I'm not particularly crazy about the idea, but that's just me. Yeah, obviously, you know, there's just so much to talk about in terms of where we can invest in beautification. paint, for example, you know, they paint the bottles, you know what I mean? So they're doing their work to beautify it, but we need the buy-in from the infrastructure. So, you know, I think it's important that we have that infrastructure side there.
[Zac Bears]: Well, I wonder if we may be able to somewhere else in here, say, you know, this committee shall reach out to Medford Public Schools and youth organizations to solicit input, something like that.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay. Yeah, that's fine.
[Adam Knight]: I mean, CCSR, for example, would be a perfect resource for them to utilize, right? Right.
[Zac Bears]: Do you think we, just in terms of structure and organization, would that be something we'd want to include in this rules and regulations section, or maybe we just send it as a general comment and see?
[Adam Knight]: Let's give them the discretion. They're going to be the committee, not us, right? Right. If we had all the ideas, we wouldn't need them, I guess, right? I can do it with all the great ideas we want to commit.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I'm I'm fine with that. Members.
[Zac Bears]: Okay so business community recreation organizations mobility access advocates. And then do we want to have a member or do we probably should consult with DPW to see what they would want, but what kind of relationship do we foresee this committee having with the DPW?
[Adam Knight]: I think it's important that if we have a committee that's going to start looking at the stuff that they have a sounding board to talk to so that that sounding board can respond back and say, this is what we're doing. There's going to be a full court press to say, let's beautify our downtowns. And DPW is in the process of a three-year plan to do that. Nobody knows about it. This is a way we can share that information and communicate it as well. So whether it's the community development board or the office of planning or whatever, there has to be some sort of conduit between this committee and the coroner's office to make action happen. I know it's an advisory committee, but what we see, I really think it would probably be the community development board or the community development office, similar to what the bicycle advisory committee does, right, where they attend planning meetings and like and make recommendations to what our master plans are going to say and what the applications are going to say to the state money and how to put this type of infrastructure in place. I think the planning office would be very important. PPW, the planning office.
[Zac Bears]: about that. One representative of the Department of Public Works and one representative of the Office of Planning shall serve as non-voting exhibition members of the committee. Sounds good to me. Council regarding these additional community groups. They can plug that into that section. Committee members must reside in the city. That seems pretty, pretty standard. Election of officers at the first regular meeting. They shall elect the chair and vice chair. Rules and regulations. The committee may make its own rules and regulations submitted and approved by the mayor. We wanted to add as well in membership, did we want to add that the council shall confirm? I think so. Councilor Collins. Yeah, I agree. Honestly, whatever council comes back with, I'm sure they'll find a better way to say this than I did. And qualifications, that's pretty good.
[Adam Hurtubise]: You're there.
[Zac Bears]: And then in terms of meetings, you know, Solicitor Stanlin seemed pretty insistent that she felt that committees should meet regularly, monthly, or more than monthly. I, as one Councilor, considering kind of the body of work that this committee would be taking on, I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to saying six meetings per year.
[Adam Knight]: No, I'm not opposed to that. It's a volunteer position.
[Zac Bears]: Let's not talk to these people.
[Adam Knight]: Right, exactly.
[Zac Bears]: And that was something that Councilor Collins had brought up in the last meeting as well was, do we have even a standard analysis of compensation of boards and commissions? Some are volunteers, some get compensation. When were these decisions made? I mean, I know it's kind of a tangential conversation here, but I think it's something we should be considerate of. Absolutely. So, I'll make that change if everyone here is comfortable.
[Kit Collins]: That sounds good.
[Zac Bears]: And that gives some discretion for the summer months as well.
[Kit Collins]: Right.
[Adam Hurtubise]: just in case we can't pull everyone together in August or July. Changing from Sean Everett to Sean Holt.
[Kit Collins]: I endeavor to do lots of things.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah. I endeavor to do quite a bit today.
[Adam Knight]: Have I always succeeded? No. I was going to say no less than six, right?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Zac Bears]: Perfect. Seven members. So, quorum would be four members. There was this annual report section. The committee shall submit an annual report to the mayor and city council in the later than September 1st of each year. A summary of worker activities undertaken by the committee in the prior year, worker activities planned for the upcoming year, and recommendations and proposals for future projects. I like that. Do we think September 1st is the right date?
[Adam Knight]: I'm wondering if Council pulled it out of the air of my other appointments rather than certain government functions.
[Zac Bears]: I can ask that. My preference would honestly be for a springtime report given the budget cycle. If we just passed the budget in late June or hopefully earlier than late June, September 1, then we're looking at nine months to get back in. I think it might be better if we had it in March maybe. Yeah.
[Kit Collins]: Yeah, I think that maybe. May. Yeah, I'd be curious. Certainly not all beautification projects will involve the DPW, but I know that their active time is in the summer, so. Right. I don't know if that would mean May or September or neither, because it depends, but.
[Zac Bears]: We could meet in the middle. I think, well, is your point that we'd want to have it after or before?
[Kit Collins]: Before.
[Zac Bears]: Before, yeah, exactly. I would think maybe April 1. that gives us a few months and it gives, you know, construction season starts up around now. I think that was just, the solicitor didn't seem to say that that was some sort of statutory or legal. I think it was just a thought. So we'll put an April one. Members shall not receive any compensation. We certainly tentatively agree with that section. Yeah, I'm open to take it out. I mean, I don't know. I'll put it in here. We would prefer to take it out. I don't know if the solicitor included it specifically, because if it's left vague, it could open us up to some sort of litigation.
[Adam Knight]: Well, if it's left vague, we could just create a cathart and pay them a stipend. If not, then this just concludes. the issue. Right. You know, make it go ahead with the legislative process. Right.
[Zac Bears]: We'd have to amend the ordinance.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Right.
[Zac Bears]: To ever allow it versus being able to allow it. That's a good point.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So, let's just yeah, let's let's get rid of it.
[Zac Bears]: and we'll see. We'll see what council says. I think that's pretty much the substance here. Um I
[Adam Hurtubise]: seven members, ex-officio members, council confirmation.
[Kit Collins]: Maybe a representative from the community arts community would be one to add under section- That's a good idea. That's a great idea. Something, Medford Arts Council. Or CASH or something. Or both.
[Zac Bears]: I think, yeah, I think we could leave it open and then it could be- Yeah.
[Adam Knight]: CASH, it might not be there in 25 years. It might be something else, right?
[Zac Bears]: Well, right, and that's the same thing, I think, on all of these, right? If we pick Walk, Medford, who knows what it evolves into, who knows what Little Leagues, and everything changes, and we know that well. So I think giving a category.
[Kit Collins]: Yeah. No, I completely agree.
[Zac Bears]: Great. That's a great, great catch. I like that. I'm not seeing anything else, so maybe we'll wait for Councilor Knight. Oh, I do see a hand actually from Chief of Staff Nazarian, so I will recognize you now, Madam Chief of Staff. Sorry about that, it's hard to see on the screen share.
[Nina Nazarian]: Not a problem, thank you. So President Bears and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss this proposed ordinance and the proposed changes with you all this evening. couple of items in specific, increasing the number of members is generally. It creates more appointments to fulfill. And by creating a council confirmation, it adds to the process from an administrative standpoint on the workload end. So certainly isn't preferable. And most recently the city council has been indicating that it would like additional steps by the administration to present members for confirmation. So I think I could speak for the mayor and certainly myself when I would say that we would propose having just the mayor be the appointing authority for simplicity purposes, because it does take quite a bit of time going through all the general laws, all the ordinances, all the different requirements that each and every board and committee on this community require to ensure that we're following the various statutes and ordinances. It takes a bit of staff resources to do that. And we're continually going through that process to obviously update and have new appointed members completed. So that's time on the part of staff to get those appointments prepared, presented, and then follow through with notification to the city clerk's office. Then furthermore, in order to have them confirmed by the city council that would then require a paper be written, submitted to the city clerk's office, who would then present that information to the city council on their agenda. As you can see, I'm trying to outline all of the additional steps that would be required by not only increasing the number of members, which I'm not objecting to, but also by requiring city council confirmation. And then furthermore, I would also provide input on the subject of the director, the public works department and the office of planning and development sustainability. By requiring members of those boards or those departments specifically, in the case of the department of public works, there's not a single member of the department that is non-union with the exception of the department head. So essentially, by default, this ordinance would require that the department head, the commissioner of public works be a part of the board, and it would add to the workload of the commissioner. It will also add to the workload of the Office of Planning and Development and Sustainability. As the city council probably knows, many if not all of our departments are strapped for resources as far as staff time based on the workload in the community. So, those are comments and suggestions as to areas that I think are going to create impacts, and by and large this ordinance will create an impact by obviously adding in a new committee, but understanding the objectives of that. recommend that the council or the subcommittee consider reverting some of these aspects back to the original proposed. I definitely understand and appreciate the additions relating to business community members, arts community members. None of those have material impacts other than potentially narrowing and requiring a little additional input and work to get those specific criteria met on the committee, but I'm concerned based on some of the experiences I recently had in trying to present the council with appointments and then not specifically referring to any one specific appointment or otherwise, just the process that's unfolding and the amount of work that's required. Thank you for your time and attention.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam Chief of Staff. Any comments from the council regarding the comments from the Chief of Staff? Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Motion to put the paper out favorably.
[Zac Bears]: Councilor Knight has moved to report, well, do we want to report the language to, okay, report to committee of the whole and send the amended language to council, is that, all right. On the motion of Councilor Knight to report the paper out to committee of the whole and send the amended language to council for review, seconded by, seconded by Councilor Collins. Do you have a comment to the chief of staff's comments?
[Kit Collins]: Yeah, thank you. I think that, You know, I think it's important that we be very conscious about how our council actions affect our already strapped administrative staff. I think that that sort of, I think it sort of looms over everything that we do because everybody, every department, you know, needs and deserves more capacity than they have. So I think that the chief of staff's comments are well taken. I think that's something that we should discuss more in committee of the whole. At the same time, you know, I think it's very important that we maintain some of the, what's the word? You know, I think it's important that the council collaborate with the mayor's office on appointments to this committee. I think it's important that we do have these departments represented. So I think that there's a discussion to be had there. I look forward to having it in the committee of the whole, and I thank the chief of staff for her input.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. And as a Councilor, I thank the Chief of Staff for her comments, and I understand the tension points raised. I personally, on two fronts, one, do believe that, well, three fronts, actually. One, I do believe this Council wants to be an active partner with the administration, maybe in ways that have not historically occurred under this charter that we have, but certainly that our under the legislative authority provided to this council. Secondly, you know, I as one Councilor have pretty consistently sounded the call that we do not have the level of revenue needed to support the level of services that the people of this community need. And I would certainly support and entertain any proposals to change that. And I think that that's where we should be going. I understand the difficulties placed on us by municipal finance law, but there are options. And I think it's time that we begin to explore those options. And on the third front, on the idea of appointments and confirmations, I'm sure that this council and council leadership would be happy to sit down with the office of the mayor to develop a streamlined and clear and consistent approach to all confirmations of appointments made by the mayor when confirmations are required by the council. So that's where I'm coming from. Madam Chief of Staff, I do see your hand still raised, so happy to recognize you again.
[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you very much, actually, that's a carryover.
[Zac Bears]: Okay, thank you, Madam Chief of Staff. On the motion of Councilor Knight, seconded by Councilor Collins to report this out to Committee of the Whole and send the amended language to council for review, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. You are muted.
[Adam Hurtubise]: And Councilor Collins is the second one, that's correct? That is correct. Here comes the roll call. Councilor Collins? Yes. Councilor Knight? Yes. Chairman Bares?
[Zac Bears]: Yes, three in the affirmative, zero in the negative, the motion passes. Any further business? Motion by Councilor Knight to adjourn, seconded by Councilor Collins. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Councilor Collins? Yes. Councilor Knight? Yes.
[Zac Bears]: Chairman Bares? Yes. Three in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you.
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