[Zac Bears]: 20-006 Subcommittee on Ordinances and Rules meeting notice Wednesday, April 27th, 2022 at 6 p.m. There will be a meeting of the Medford City Council Subcommittee on Ordinances and Rules on Wednesday, April 27th, 2022 at 6 p.m. The purpose of this meeting on paper 20-006 is to discuss the draft beautification ordinance. The subcommittee has invited Chief of Staff Nina Nazarian and City Solicitor Kimberly Scanlon to attend. For further information aids and accommodations, contact the city clerk at 781-393-2425. And Madam Clerk, when you're ready, you may call the roll.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, Chairman Bares?
[Zac Bears]: Present.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, Councilor Collins? Present. Okay, and Councilor Knight, we'll wait for him to join us.
[Zac Bears]: He is absent, and when he joins us, you can mark him present at that time.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[Zac Bears]: So, thank you all for being here. We are meeting to discuss the beautification ordinance framework pursuant to paper 20-006. I know that Solicitor Scanlon sent this to us many moons ago now in 2020. It was based on a resolution proposed by Councilor Knight. So I am hoping that he will be able to join us soon and kind of let us know his intent. But in the meantime, I think we could maybe start by either taking a look at the draft or even if maybe the Chief of Staff would want to start us off with some of the beautification work that is ongoing through the administration, and then we could, we could kind of get an understanding of where we are right now and how an ordinance may assist with that. I don't know if you're, if you're willing to do that, Madam Chief of Staff, but I think it might be a helpful overview.
[Nina Nazarian]: Yeah, I mean, I apologize. I was a bit distracted by a message that came in just a moment ago that seemed a little urgent. So I'd be happy to try to do anything that I possibly could. I left off at... Councilor Knight was the one who made this proposal.
[Zac Bears]: Got it. Yeah. And again, if you have something urgent you need to address, we totally understand that. But just the thought was, if you could maybe let us know. I know the administration has been doing some work around beautification around the city. So if you could maybe just get us up to date a little bit on that. And then that could help us understand the context where a ordinance may be helpful.
[Nina Nazarian]: Sure. I mean, some of the general things that I can speak to at this point is that there are light posts that are being worked on. There's basically a scrape and paint light post project that's out there. I think it kicked off on Friday, which is very exciting. The posts that are being repainted, I think are clearly pretty vivid in terms of the difference between the prior post or the prior coloration of the post and the, you know, all the years worth of just weatherization and or postings on those light posts. So it's really, it's gonna cause for a lot of light posts to really stand out quite a bit better. So projects to work on the welcome to the city of Medford signs in the various areas of the city, which are in kind of rough shape, especially if you look at them more closely and could certainly use some work. There is other work that I'm maybe not pulling to mind at this point in time, but perhaps others in the group know of other work that's going on and could assist.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, absolutely. And just some of the other things I was thinking about where, you know, I know there was a committee that was working on the high school in previous years, some sprucing up there, the various planting boxes that have been placed in some of our squares. And I know that there is a big cleanup day coming up as well. So that's, to me, that's kind of a Saturday, this on Saturday. Great. You know, so those are just some of the some of the things I was thinking of and much appreciated for that work. So I just wanted to lift that up. I guess at this point, I could turn over to Solicitor Scanlon. I'm happy to share the document that you sent us in 2020 on our screens. And if you want to give us a rundown of that, that could be very helpful. Great. And if folks let me know, I can zoom in a little bit, make this a little bigger.
[Unidentified]: All right. Madam Solicitor.
[Kimberly Scanlon]: Thank you, Mr. President. So simply put, when I initially had drafted part of the council's request for the framework for a beautification ordinance, in research in various communities, I found that there are very little that do so by way of ordinance. With that said, the framework that provided below, which is framework for any ordinance, really, and it includes the establishment, purpose, and definitions. term limits, open meeting law, very similar things that you would find in any ordinance upon drafting thereof. Mr. President, I don't know if you received an updated version two of a draft ordinance that I did have upon further request by the council that was provided by KP Law, which I also provided to the mayor's office and to the city council. If you don't have that, I'm happy to give it to you. It might be a little bit easier to run through, and that way you can just pick and choose what language you want to keep and what you would like to change.
[Zac Bears]: That would be great. I think I'm maybe a little behind the times on the document.
[Kimberly Scanlon]: Give me one second, OK?
[Unidentified]: I'll flip it to you now. Thank you. Thank you. Wonderful, I just received it. You have it? Yes, and I'm going to pull it up right now. There we go. All right.
[Zac Bears]: Great. So here we go. I'll turn it back over to you. It looks like a lot of these first sections are pretty self-explanatory, so maybe I can scroll down, starting here at the purpose and functions.
[Kimberly Scanlon]: Sure. So the purpose is, is that so long as everyone can see it's, it's basically an advisory committee, so that they, the commission can make recommendations on projects designed to maintain and improve the appearance of public areas within the city. So it's this particular ordinance is strictly advisory now there's two particular types at least from what I could see in other communities, neither of which are by way of ordinance but in any event. beautification programs. There's a beautification commission in the city of Salem who are on a strictly voluntary basis, and it was formed by the mayor at the time. And there's other beautification programs in other municipalities that involve the Division of Parks Department. This draft was closer to the former, which is the advisory commission type of ordinance. strictly because um in in order to include this in the division of parks department well first of all that you know they should be aware of it along with any staff um constraints resource constraints and the like so i'm open to hearing whatever direction the city council would like to take um however that's my opinion on how this was drafted the way it was great yeah i'm gonna go through and
[Zac Bears]: PB, David Ensign — He-Him, He-Him. He-Him. He-Him. Go ahead. No, no, no, no, I, I was, I was gonna ask you to go. So, thank you.
[Kimberly Scanlon]: So, here that you know that the number of five was picked that obviously can be changed and looking through other. commission's within the city that were done by way of ordinance. It's generally not less than three, no more than eight. Three seems to be the solid member, but not more than seven or eight. So we picked the number five, it obviously can be changed.
[Unidentified]: Got it.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I know that. One thought here was potentially that council or Councilors may be involved in the appointment process as well. So that may be something we loop back to. All right, qualifications. Okay, so I see some stuff in here. Happy to hear your thoughts on it or how we got to this draft language.
[Kimberly Scanlon]: Yeah, simply just, you know, to make sure that everyone was included within the city, which is why the four distinct geographic areas of the city were included. Okay. Residency requirement for committee members, that's standard for all of the commission ordinances that I've reviewed.
[Zac Bears]: Yep, and that makes sense to me. Anything here on election of officers or rules and regulations that you think may stand out or do you think these are just kind of pro forma?
[Kimberly Scanlon]: Pro forma. I would make sure that open meeting law, which is included in here is also included in the final draft, but you already know that so. Yep.
[Zac Bears]: Oh, yes. And then meetings, I see some notes here.
[Kimberly Scanlon]: So at least once a month, but again, that can be changed.
[Zac Bears]: Okay. And then yeah, so that could be we may, could we leave that up to the discretion of the body itself?
[Kimberly Scanlon]: I suppose I would suggest that they are held at least once a month. Okay. But if you know if they want to be held more sure if the committee wishes to hold more that I'm fine with that too. I, you know, I'm stating the obvious here but. Most, if not all commissions are comprised of volunteers. So it might be hard, you know, for them to meet more than once a month, but I'll leave it to the discretion of commission when it's formed and to the city council.
[Zac Bears]: Great. And I'm guessing here on the quorum that that highlight on the number three is just that it might change if the number of members were to change.
[Unidentified]: That's correct. Great.
[Zac Bears]: All right, and is this the end of it here with the annual report and the compensation?
[SPEAKER_04]: That is it.
[Zac Bears]: Okay. At this point, are there any questions from members of the Council, from my fellow Councilor, Councilor Collins?
[Kit Collins]: Thank you, Vice President Bears, and thank you, Solicitor Scanlon, for going through this. It's very helpful. It all seems pretty clear, pretty self-explanatory. I don't have any questions so far. I know this was on Councilor Knight's initiative, so I'm mostly interested to hear from him on his vision for this ordinance and this committee. I did just want to note, and this is not at all specific to this proposal or this ordinance, but rather something that I would like to bring up about any commission I know that there are some commissions that are compensated but for the majority that are not. I really think that we should be compensating all committee members. You know, in the interest of eventually achieving class and racial parity across our those who serve on our city committees. So that's not a great without. this proposal in particular, but something that I think that we need to budget to get towards eventually across our various city commissions. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. On that point, and I know I'm totally putting you on the spot, maybe both of you, Madam Chief of Staff and Madam Solicitor. In your experience, either through your research or whatever it may be, do we have Any examples of communities that have kind of a standardization along those lines, like almost a commission, a board and commission compensation plan, for lack of a better word, or some sort of minimum standard? Because that could be an interesting way to go about that. And I saw the Chief of Staff on mute, so I'll go to you first, Madam Chief of Staff.
[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you very much, President Bears. My experience has been that there isn't, but that doesn't, I certainly haven't surveyed all 351 cities and towns, but in the communities that I've worked in, I have not seen compensation for boards and committees by and large. What I have seen is compensation has gone away in some cases, especially for even, you know, the most prominent boards and committees, but it's starting to come back. But it hasn't usually trickled down to all boards and committees because of budgetary constraints across organizations. That's been my experience, but that doesn't mean that's the majority of communities in Massachusetts. I can't speak to that. All I can say is, in my experience, that compensation has been, by and large, solely for the either legislative or executive branch, if it's a board or committee, and also a school committee, and then possibly even one or two other boards beyond that. But that's just been my experience.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Madam Solicitor?
[Kimberly Scanlon]: I really don't have anything to add. I'm not aware of any, but I, in fairness, I haven't researched that particular question either, so.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I just came into my head. So maybe it'll be something we, we, uh, well, coming to my head, he came from Councilor Collins, but, um, but, uh, but, um, I think, uh, that may be something we can look at going forward, uh, outside of this conversation. Um, I haven't received an update from Councilor Knight and I think, um, even with my efforts to maybe elongate the discussion a little bit, we may have run out of runway here. So I'm wondering, in terms of next steps, it really is just looking at kind of this question around the advisory versus is it more involved with the parks department and a little bit more that way. the number of members and how they're appointed, as well as the frequency of meetings. So those seem to be the big three outstanding questions. In terms of moving forward, maybe we could do two things, unless Councilor Calderon, I just saw you on mute. So if you have a suggestion.
[Kit Collins]: I was readying myself to make a motion to keep the paper in committee, unless you had a better idea, which I'm sure I would be open to.
[Zac Bears]: I definitely think we're going to want to do that. Um, I was wondering maybe we could, um, uh, put out a motion as well for a public comment period, um, asking, uh, maybe the, the questions of, um, what are the kind of powers and let me get the terminology exactly right. Um, the purpose and functions of the committee, um, the, you know, maybe a suggestion on what people think the membership should be and how they should be appointed and how frequently the commission should meet. And we could do a maybe a seven day comment period on, or a six day comment period on that pursuant to the council rules.
[Kit Collins]: I think that's a great idea. I would make that motion.
[Zac Bears]: Great. So there's a motion from Councilor Collins. to hold a six-day public comment period to see if members of the public have thoughts around number one, the purpose and functions of the Beautification Commission, number two, the membership of the Beautification Commission, and three, the frequency of meetings of the Beautification Commission.
[Unidentified]: And Madam Clerk, you just let me know when you have that. And you are on mute, Karen. You are still muted. I should be able to, maybe I can unmute you. Okay, can you hear me now?
[Zac Bears]: Yes, we can.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so the motion from Councilor Collins would be number one, the purpose of the function of the Beautification Commission. Number two would be how many people or membership would be on this commission. And then number three, how many meetings to hold per month.
[Zac Bears]: Correct, yeah, and it would be for a public comment period for six days. Six days.
[Unidentified]: Yes. And how would you do that, the six days?
[Zac Bears]: That I can, essentially it would just be that people can email the city clerk with their comments at his email address.
[Unidentified]: Email, okay. Okay, I have that.
[Zac Bears]: Great, so I will, given that it's just the two of us, I will second that motion.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so Councilor Collins passes it and you second it, correct?
[Zac Bears]: Correct, yep. Okay. And then, When you're ready, you can call the roll and we will vote on it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay. Chairman Beers? Yes. Councilor Collins? Yes. Great. Thank you so much.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Two in the affirmative, one absent. The motion passes. And then Councilor Collins, is there a motion to keep the paper in committee and adjourn?
[Kit Collins]: So moved.
[Zac Bears]: Motion from Councilor Collins to keep the paper in committee and adjourn. I will second.
[Unidentified]: Okay, I have that.
[Zac Bears]: Great, and when you're ready, Madam Clerk, you may call the roll.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so Chairman Bears? Yes. Councilor Collins? Yes. Thank you. And then I just wanna make sure we have, I'm gonna use first names, I'm sorry, but Nina and Kim. Anyone else in this meeting?
[Zac Bears]: We did have, I believe, you know, no one from the administration. Okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what I need to know. That's all I need to make sure.
[Zac Bears]: Great. All right. Thank you. adjourned, and I will I will close this out. Thank you for being here. Thank you. I appreciate your help. You got it.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thanks, all.
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