AI-generated transcript of Medford City Council Ordinances and Rules Subcommittees 05-03-23

[Zac Bears]: Medford city council subcommittee meeting on ordinances and rules meeting notice Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023 at 6 p.m. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Councilor Collins. Present. Councilor Knight. Councilor Knight is absent. Vice President Bears is present.

[Zac Bears]: And we also have Councilor Caraviello present non-voting. There'll be a meeting of the Medford city council subcommittee on ordinances and rules on Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023 at 6 p.m. in the Medford city council chamber on the second floor of Medford city hall and via zoom. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the proposed waste tolerance paper 22-605 and to review city ordinances regarding body shops and auto repair facilities paper 23-086 subcommittee has invited dpw Commissioner Tim McGibbon health director Marianne O'Connor and Alicia hunt director of planning development and sustainability to attend this meeting. For further information, aids and accommodations, please contact the city clerk at 781-393-2425. Sincerely yours, Zach Behr, Subcommittee Chair. So we are here today to talk about the Waste Tolerant Ordinance, which is an update to the Solid Waste slash Recycling Ordinance, and kind of just very start, early start, get into discussion about auto repair and body shops and their impact on street parking, especially in the Mystic Avenue area. We're going to start with the waste hauler ordinance, which I will pull up. We've met on this a couple of times now. We had feedback from all department heads present. We also got feedback from the building commissioner, and that's incorporated into this draft. And it's really just one or two final things to go over here before we report this out. So I'm going to share my screen. So this is the draft of proposed updates to the solid waste ordinance. I'm going to come back to Article 1 in a minute, but just to quickly review, last time we basically went over all of this Article 2, had a few outstanding questions, and those edits, as well as edits that were made at the last subcommittee meeting, have been incorporated into this draft. Um, the one of the main questions outstanding was around construction debris and temporary dumpsters. And that, uh, as after comment from the building commissioner, as well as the health director, that's outside of the scope of the waste hauler, um, the preferred hauler ordinance. There's still this question about legal provisions. This was in here from a very early draft. I think if and when this is reviewed by council, that's up to council if they want to put anything in there. We have an effective date that most of the ordinance who are making updates to definitions, et cetera, would go into effect immediately, but that the preferred hauler sections, we all discussed that going into effect when the new waste contract goes into effect, which would be July 1st of 2024. essentially the new sections 70-71, 7-73, and 7-74, which outline the bundled service requirement and the other requirements for waste haulers, as well as the preferred hauler approach. So just jumping back up, one of the other outstanding questions we had was around, well, I'll pause there. Is there anything that Director O'Connor or Commissioner McGivern want to add that they've seen in this draft of the preferred hauler and solid waste and recyclable section before we report that out of subcommittee? Seeing none. Alright, so the last thing to talk about are these sections here which are really more around solid waste in general. It's pretty old language around not dropping or throwing trash in the street or leaving it on the sidewalk. It talks about ashes, cinders, glass, crockery, scrap iron, those are not quite the waste products that we see today, although I think we all agree that waste on our public streets is still a problem and something that needs to be addressed. The building commissioner reviewed these and really said that most of this is about trash and waste in the public way. And so that would, he suggested, really fall more under DPW or potentially the police. And so I was wondering, Commissioner McGivern, around these sections around dropping or throwing refuse in public way or placement on streets and sidewalks of waste. or the placement of waste receptacles. You know, I know a lot of this is not our standard practice around not putting things out until 9 a.m. on the day appointed by the city, et cetera, and that it's the duty of police officers to enforce the placement of trash bins. That's all pretty outdated. So I really wanted to go to you and see what your thoughts were on these enforcement sections and kind of what you would like to see here rather than maybe necessarily what's in here from the past. It's actually on page one.

[Adam Hurtubise]: 70-2?

[Zac Bears]: Yes, and 70-3, 70-4, 70-5.

[Tim McGivern]: I mean, let's see, my thoughts really are the same to yours. It's outdated language. Yeah. The enforcement would go to DPW, I believe. And you're saying building commissioner said that it wouldn't fall under code enforcement, because I believe right now code enforcement deals with dumping. To me, this falls in the category of dumping.

[Zac Bears]: He said, because it would be dumping, this is more about like dumping and placement of receptacles in the public way versus dumping on private way that he would defer to you. That's the communication I received. He didn't see any issues with this other than some of the outdated language and some of the practices that maybe don't, specific times of day.

[Tim McGivern]: And as a reference under the enforcement section, I guess I would be more concerned about that about what DPW would need to do for enforcement because right now, I believe, if somebody dumps something, it doesn't really matter where it is. It's not allowed, but you gotta almost catch them in the act to find them. I believe code enforcement does that, but we end up picking it up and bringing it to our dumpster is what typically happens. And I'm not sure how to change that without putting cameras everywhere. You know what I mean? Catching them in the act is the tough part, right? Let's see. I'm just trying to find it on the fly here if it says what happens for enforcement.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, it says any person who violates the provisions of this section, at least this is around putting out rubbish bins too early would be liable for a fine as provided in section 1-13.

[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, we don't do that now. I believe code enforcement would do it if it came about.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah. Well, you know, given what you said, I'm open to coming back to this at some point, but we could take section 70-4 and 70-5 And instead of having all these specifics about where receptacles shall be placed and what time by which they should be put out or cannot be put out, we could do something that we've done elsewhere in this ordinance and put forward a, essentially say that the placement of receptacles and conditions of their collection shall be determined by the DPW commissioner or something like that.

[Tim McGivern]: That's okay. Yeah, that's okay. I'm not married to the 7pm number. I think it's, I think it works okay the way it is but allowing some flexibility there if the city council would like that I can do that too. Okay, and I see Director O'Connor I'll go to you, Director.

[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Yeah, I'm just a little confused about the. not putting it out till 9am. Right now we allow haulers to come in to the city. No earlier than 7am. But we've had issues obviously with them coming in earlier and it does cause residents to be concerned because they're woken up but it's a 7am pickup at 7am to 8pm I believe. deadlines for for hollows to come in.

[Zac Bears]: And that's under. And that's under your regulations regulations.

[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Yeah. So, I think, you know, waste management now does come in early and seven and it does residents to complain. So 7am is the earliest that they can men, and I believe it's 8pm. This latest, so. But putting it out at 9 a.m., you know, it's a little late as far as pick up is concerned.

[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, I would say that I don't think that that piece of ordinance is followed. The operations of it are seven.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, and so this is the current ordinance, Marianne, and so it's just really out of date and not aligning with current practice or other regulations. So that's where I fall on the line of saying this should be the purview of DPW commissioner and potentially we could say the board of health regulations as well for places to look towards this. I just don't, I don't think it makes sense to put it in the ordinance because then we end up in a situation where 50 years later, we're looking at an ordinance that nobody follows. So.

[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Yeah, it's outdated. Yeah, thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I'll pause there. Any questions from Councilor Collins or Councilor Caraviello? Councilor Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you. Yeah, I think this is definitely the area to hone in on now. I know we talked about the hours of collection a lot last time. My inclination looking over this was to keep it more broad to kind of place the power to specify hours for collection, or at least a no earlier than, no later than power to put that in the hands of one of our departments, whether that's the DPW, or the building commissioner, or whoever the department heads feel that it's appropriate. I definitely think that we should stay away from putting actual hours into ordinance, because inevitably, those are going to get outdated and then need to be changed legislatively. That's very burdensome. you know, I had sketched out potentially we could, you know, have some sort of time frame that seems reasonable, you know, no earlier than 24 hours before scheduled collection, but I think better would be to place it under the discretion of a department. And then if we circle back to, you know, 72, 73, after we figure out the time piece, you know, I'm happy to propose some language for how to simplify and condense some of the outdated language in those sections as well.

[Richard Caraviello]: Okay, I don't think in the past we've had a lot of problems with putting the rubbish out early I mean, most people maybe put it out the night before. or in the morning, but you're right, nine o'clock is too late because someone's gonna call up and say, well, you know, it says nine o'clock and I put my barrels on, the guys already come by my house. And now you have to come back. So yeah, I think seven o'clock is the time that they start. And I think the other problem is people leave the barrels out there after. for two or three days after the rubbish collection. I think that's where the, you know, they should be brought in within 24 hours after they get picked up. That's where I see the issue is, is the after. Now, you don't really see rubbish out there much before the time. You know, the only place I have an issue is just the rubbish in the square. You know, put out the night before, especially in the business area. I don't know if that's been talked about, you know, with the new contract. Maybe getting picked up at night or something. But let's say, but over the years, I don't think we've had much of an issue with people putting the barrels out too early.

[Tim McGivern]: The primary concern was to get it away from bags and debris on the street to containers. That's one of the primary focuses.

[Richard Caraviello]: I know some years ago, I think before you came on, there was talk about putting a dumpster in a site when the people like in the offices would take this stuff and just dump it on their way home. I don't know if you have like a common spot.

[Tim McGivern]: That's also one of the things that we're gonna try to, or we'll have to work out with the new contractor, especially for areas in Medford Square, where there isn't space for a container, like a dumpster to hold the refuse. So a shared space, and maybe they do have to move a little bit to get it to where it needs to go. So we've committed to coordinating or helping to coordinate that with the different businesses. So that's where that stands. So more to come there for sure. Just to note on the conversation here, there is an ordinance that defines time that is very useful, that my office uses a lot, police use a lot, and that's the sound ordinance. So no construction noises, which I think includes the motorized arms on the waste trucks, I believe, I'd have to confirm that, but it's 7 a.m., so no loud noises, construction-esque type noises before 7. So we do refer to that quite a bit.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I just want to reference here too. We do have here as part of the new section that we created, essentially that the Commissioner of Public Works or designee will determine requirements for collection of solid waste and recyclables, including container requirements, separation of materials, separation of leaves and yard waste, separation of composted waste and other requirements. We could potentially add to that list, you know, time. time when containers should be placed or some, you know, I think it falls into this already as any other requirement to say that there's a specific time, but I'll go to Councilor Collins on that. I know you had a suggestion for what we could do here.

[Kit Collins]: Or I think what you just noted, I think that it makes the most sense to lump this in as another condition of collection. Okay, Councilor Grumio.

[Richard Caraviello]: Maybe we could just, like for the Um, that barrel should be the receptacle should be brought in, uh, by the end of the day of the of the scheduled pickup.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah. Tim, what do you think about if we gave you the authority to determine requirements or rules or regulations? Could you put something out on that request and people return their barrels from the street by a certain time?

[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, I think so. And it would be like 24 hours. Yeah. Um, I mean, that's up to you if you if city council wants to codify that or if you want to leave it in my hands, I would most likely do something like 24 hours.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I would say let's not let's not lock you into it in the ordinance, we give you the authority to do it you say you're going to do it. The place where it's actually going to matter most is probably the green book that goes out every year around the waste collection and making sure that that's in there somewhere. Yep. So, you know, that's where most people are going to see it. I'm okay with that. Okay. Director O'Connor.

[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Again, Tim, you don't have to rely on the noise ordinance. There is already a Board of Health regulation that states no contractor shall remove a dumpster contents prior to 7 a.m. no later than 8 p.m. So, and again, I want to make sure we're in alignment here. I think definitions have to be in alignment, like our definition for solid waste. is different from the definition I'm describing here. We're going to have to add, you know, recyclables to our definition. So I just, again, I'm concerned that We make sure that this is an alignment, and I've been trying to push that issue and make sure that folks have been looking at these things, but I would appreciate making sure that we're permitting these haulers, that folks are aware of these regulations, and we are gonna be in alignment. And I'm concerned about the, common space or what we've done that before with other folks in the square, trying to find common spaces and it's not easy. So I would like all of those issues to really be looked at ahead of time before we put something in place that we can actually have come to fruition because we've had issues already.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, that is well taken and I think at least the intent here, my intent and I think the intent of the subcommittee here is to write something where those details are in the hands of the Board of Health and the DPW commissioner by regulation or other requirement rather than in the ordinance itself so that you don't have to come back to us to update something if a circumstance changes or some sort of practice becomes unworkable relative to the preferred hauler program or the trash contract, I don't know. what other folks think of that. And then Marianne, if there's anywhere in here that you think we're not doing that, I'd really, if you wanna flag that, that would be helpful as well, because I wanna make sure that we are, make that this process is being done through Board of Health regulations and the determinations of the Department of Public Works and the Commissioner of Public Works as much as possible. I'll go to Councilor Caraviello, then I'll go to Director Hunt. Councilor Caraviello.

[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you. Some cities have like a trash police to go around and monitor this. I mean, we don't, you know, the DBW obviously doesn't have the manpower to do that, but I mean, we're creating an ordinance for these barrels at people's homes that unless really somebody complains, we really, you know, don't have a person that's gonna drive around the streets and, you know, put a thing on your barrel. But I know like, but I know there are some cities that have people that go around, they're part-time people and they monitor the rubbish and they, and they do put like little stickers on your barrels. So maybe that might be something to look at going forward, you know.

[Zac Bears]: We haven't looked at that, but I mean, if, I think this ordinance would certainly allow something like that.

[Richard Caraviello]: Yeah, so maybe I'll maybe hire a couple of pod sign people, but you know, obviously the DBW officers, they don't have the manpower to just send someone around, you know, looking at people's houses. Yeah, Director Hunt.

[Zac Bears]: The microphone's off. Oh, there you go.

[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, I was listening to what Director O'Connor was saying about the definitions not being in alignment, and I wanted to find where in the regulations, the Board of Health regulations they are, because I think we need to understand now, is it that we need to change some words in this document or is it that the Board of Health needs to change some words in their regulations, just so that if it's in this document, that we can address that now? And I just wanted to flag that, because I'm very much in agreement that things need to be, our own things need to not be in conflict with each other, but I don't know the Board of Health regulations, so I want to make sure that we're making that alignment.

[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Yeah, thank you Alicia. It's both. How's that. So the solid waste to waste definitions need to align, which they don't currently in either. So both would need to be kind of alignment and as well as our hollows regulation right now. In general. describes them as any person engaged in the collection and transportation of solid waste, septic, awful, medical waste, grease rendering, shall obtain a permit from the Medford Board of Health. We specifically do not say recyclables. Again, this is an older regulation and would probably, and that language again, to match your language, would need to be updated. So these are the things I've been trying to to look at match, because in our regulation, we specifically say that it includes non-recyclable paper, garbage, and other solid waste. So I just want to make sure both of us are in line.

[Alicia Hunt]: Is this the Board of Health regulation number five that you're looking at?

[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Yes.

[Alicia Hunt]: I can shoot you guys an email with this URL. On the Board of Health webpage, under City Ordinances and Board of Health Regulations, there's one that says solid waste removal, septic, awful, medical waste, grease rendering, transportation and dumpster permitting and operation regulations. Mary Ann, are there? Sorry, Director O'Connor. It's been a long day. Are there any other Board of Health regulations? I see that the next one is dumpster regulations and licensing of dumpsters.

[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Right. So we should be looking at those definitions too. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

[Alicia Hunt]: So it's to the nature that we're all aware, the process to change a board of health regulation would be that somebody would propose a change to the board of health who would then have it on their agenda, discuss it and vote on it, right? Like there's nothing more complicated. You don't have to go to some other outside body to do it.

[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Now we're, we're just updating it there wouldn't even be a need like for, you know, public hearing or anything of that nature.

[Alicia Hunt]: I don't know who I want to hire more staff. I had a great intern working on this but she's currently looking for jobs in New York City now so.

[Zac Bears]: So so Marianne, just just to clarify yourself, basically, the main issue is just around these definitions that I have on the screen and making sure that they are the same in both documents as best as close as possible.

[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Yeah, yes. And yeah, so there's no confusion when we do come to permit, you know, these these folks and we ask them for the required documentation. So there's no confusion between and and again, like, you know, the 7 a.m. thing, there's just minor details that need to be, make sure we're in alignment on. Yeah.

[Zac Bears]: Okay. And would you say it's more technical alignments, not necessarily substantive policy alignment?

[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Yeah, I don't think it's policy alignments, although, again, I am concerned where there is space issues for a lot of these establishments. And, you know, we've tried to propose common areas previously to address some of the issues. But there are legit space requirements for these establishments. And if we're going to be asking them to do this, I mean, I think that's why Alicia's idea of maybe sending this out for comment or whatever to, I think I forwarded the newest list with just the waste haulers to email it out to for their opinions because, or even maybe some of the food establishments, we could do the same because there are some serious space limitations. And if we're asking them to do this, I think We really, you know, whether we were going to make exceptions or whatever. I think that has to be noted as well.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, okay. That is well heard and again, you know, on the definitions and getting those in technical alignment I think that's something we can do quite easily on the, on the specifics of what you guys are talking about around you know, bringing in the new trash contract and then we're trying to set up this preferred hauler system and looking at solutions that work best for different areas of the city. You know, I think from a council perspective, from an ordinance perspective, our goal again is to set up this ordinance so that you guys can make that decision as needed and adjust those decisions as needed as practice dictates. So it sounds like we're not seeing any issues in here in this ordinance locking us into anything specific. If anyone sees something like that, I think this would be the time to raise that point. Otherwise, I think I'll go to Councilor Collins, and then we can look at a couple motions here to get this on its way. Councilor Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, yeah, just to wrap up on this current conversation. It does seem like the actual process of aligning whatever is kind of fuzzily aligned currently in this draft ordinance and the Board of Health Regulations, to myself as one Councilor, I think that that work is kind of outside the scope of updating this ordinance. I'm personally very happy to sit with our department heads to make sure we get that list of what needs to be updated. I'm happy to help with just if there's procedural work that's outside of the scope of this ordinance as it sounds like there is, I'm absolutely happy to. Um, throw in with that and, you know, also just to show up the point that you just made vice president bears, you know, in reviewing this, um, you know, of course, our intent here was to make it so offering, you know, among other things, among doing a comprehensive update, just to make it so that, um, offering recycling as a condition of also offering. solid waste collection in the city of Medford. And then exactly, you know, the implementation of that, what it looks like in business districts, what it looks like on our residential streets, you know, that per se is not like prescribed by the ordinance. It just tries to, you know, expand, expand the availability of that type of collection citywide at the ordinance level. But I hope that this will be something that will be flexible on the implementation level. And of course, if there's an area where that's not clear, I think this would be, you know, certainly I'd like to hear it to make sure that we're clearing that up now. But if not, I did just have one small thing to flag before we put motions on this, and this might've been something that I misread, but if we can go down to section 70-73. which is permit required for haulers. Before we report this out, I just wanted to make sure that this wasn't like a placeholder that was left in there. If we go to 7073CA, the last sentence says permitted haulers shall use X industry standard table. Is there supposed to be a word there? I wasn't sure if that was a placeholder.

[Unidentified]: Okay.

[Zac Bears]: That was definitely a placeholder. We were requiring an industry standard table for estimating the tonnage of specific load for disposal or recycling. Did we lock in on what specific industry standard table we should be using?

[Adam Hurtubise]: I don't recall the conversation.

[Alicia Hunt]: To me, because I didn't hear what they said. Okay, so I think we need to ask Gary, one of our consultants, Gary Elise, because this is something that he said, there's an industry standard, there's a table. And it was actually, we also spoke with waste management who said, there's an industry standard, there's a table. So I think we actually,

[Zac Bears]: Let me do you want us to just say an industry standard table designated by.

[Alicia Hunt]: You know what that's actually better, because what if that table changes what if it's a different table so yeah. designated but. I think the Department of Public Works, because we wouldn't want to say designated by an outside source or DEP, Department of Public Works or the Mass Department of Environmental Protection. That way, you know, we can defer to them if they came up with something.

[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, that would be fine, because I think the purpose of this was to collect the weight, right?

[Zac Bears]: Yes. If they had to estimate tonnage, there'd be a specific table that would determine how that's estimated.

[Alicia Hunt]: Right, I think we discussed that, like, if it's a dumpster that gets waste from a restaurant, it's a different weight than if it's the same size from an apartment building, but there are standards.

[Zac Bears]: You know, I'm going to just leave Commissioner and Public Works. If the commissioner wanted to use the DEP standard, then that's on the commissioner's choice. I just, as I read that, I said, or, and then someone could question or, and then we're in a whole mess of or, so. Hey, I'll take on more decisions.

[Alicia Hunt]: I appreciate that. I just sort of think forward to like, well, what if there was somebody in this role who was like, I don't know this, why would I know this? You should, yeah. Okay. we've moved past that error.

[Tim McGivern]: I hope so.

[Zac Bears]: Okay. Um, thanks for catching that Councilor Collins. It sounded to me like for, um, these at least these to the placement of receptacles and the collections from business establishment times that we felt that Another section of this designates that power to the commissioner to issue regulations on those subjects, as well as the Board of Health Regulations issues the 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. requirement for dumpsters. So is there a motion to just strike these two sections? We're all in agreement that that seems okay? It'd be a motion to strike sections 70-4 and 70-5. I'll second that motion. We can take motions at the end. All right. And it sounded like there's really still one outstanding thing, which is getting the exact wording of all the definitions in alignment. Is there a motion to request that the DPW director, the planning director and the health director work to align those definitions. I can help. Which document is changing? Maybe both. Okay. It sounded like from Marianne's point was that maybe both documents need to change. There may need to be an update on both ends. Okay. Is that okay?

[Kit Collins]: Yeah.

[Zac Bears]: I'm also happy to help and liaise with that. Okay. We'll work together on that. We'll keep going. Sounds good to me. Core team, core team.

[Kit Collins]: I'll do the grunt work. I volunteer myself.

[Adam Hurtubise]: I have some motions to request that the BBW commission appointed director of public health work together to align all the definitions.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, the definitions in this ordinance and the definitions of the board of health regulations. We'll get it done. Councilor Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you. I know that we have to move along as we have a second topic to this meeting, but I was wondering if there might be a brief way to take another look at 70-1 and 70-2 to try to, at the point that we're updating and consolidating and modernizing the language elsewhere in this ordinance, I think that those two first sections are still kind of, if a layperson were to read them, they're a little confusing.

[Alicia Hunt]: may I yeah is the request really that we want to take this and not really change the the intent of section one is that you cannot. clutter your private property with garbage. You can't hoard garbage on your property. That's what we're trying to get at.

[Zac Bears]: 70-1, I just want to say was the one thing where the building commissioner said, this is useful. Let's keep this with some small amendments.

[Alicia Hunt]: Right. It feels like we want the substance of it. We would just like it to not sound like it was written in 1940. Right, like that's the bottom line. And so what we want to do is just reword this a little bit to be modern language and reference potentially modern items and not coal and soot, which might be in this one or the next one. Yeah.

[Kit Collins]: It's Dickensian.

[Alicia Hunt]: This one's not as bad as the other ones. I feel like I could give this to a student and ask them to do it in five minutes, or perhaps a newfangled AI.

[Zac Bears]: No person shall saw any wood or place such wood upon the footpath or the side. That's a big problem, sawing wood on the side. Yeah, there's all these local carpenters constantly sawing their boards. Yeah, I mean, I think that's fine. I again think it's technical Councilor Collins, what do you think?

[Kit Collins]: Oh, no, sorry.

[Zac Bears]: No, I'm good.

[Kit Collins]: All right. I didn't have a suggestion prepared for 70-1 for 70-2. I think this might get to the meeting with fewer words. No debris, refuse or other waste, including yard waste or construction debris may be placed or dumped in any public place or public way in the city. All waste must be properly contained and placed for collection on scheduled collection days.

[Zac Bears]: And is that for 70-3? 70-2. Okay. Maybe what we could do here just for the essence of time, if you want to draft something for these sections, I think the general consensus here is maintain intent but update language to be comprehensible. Maybe we could just move to that end, you can make a motion to that end and we can, that's something I feel like if we come back to committee of the whole and say, here's a few red line changes that are not really substantive, but just technical or, you know, about, you know, understanding and comprehension, that's probably fine. Yeah. So I think a motion for Councilor Collins to review section 70-1, 70-2 and 70-3 and suggest some modernization of the language.

[Adam Hurtubise]: So the motion is to review 70-1, 70-2, and 70-3, and suggest modernization of that. Yes.

[Zac Bears]: Okay, and that's a motion by Councilor Collins and I will second the motion.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah. Okay. So given that, and that we also already have these going out to the draft going out to the waste haulers. At the very least we can send them the version updated from tonight I have already been making edits as we go along I can send that along to this group. And then we'll be waiting for responses from them. We'll be waiting on that review of the definitions and aligning of the definitions. And Councilor Cohns will be working on updating a few suggestions here around this early section around what can be placed on streets. With that, should we move this to Committee of the Whole?

[Unidentified]: Is that moved?

[Zac Bears]: Okay, moved. Yeah, we'll add this as another motion to refer this waste hauler ordinance to committee of the whole. Anything else on waste hauler? Seeing none. Okay. On the motions of a Councilor Collins a seconded by myself. All those in favor. I always opposed motions pass.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Sure.

[Zac Bears]: All right, thanks you guys. I don't know, Tim, if you could stick around for 10-20 minutes. Yeah, what's the next one? We're talking about, Councilor Caraviello proposed a resolution around auto repair and body shops, mainly around the issues where we have these parking issues in your neighborhood, in your neck of the woods around the DPW yard, James, Swan, and Mystic. Maybe both of you as Traffic Commission members could be of value to this conversation. And Director O'Connor, feel free to stick around if you want to talk about a lot of cars parking on the sidewalk. You're good? Okay.

[Alicia Hunt]: I'm sorry. May I just say now so I don't interrupt. I have a community development board meeting at seven, so I won't interrupt the conversation, but I'm going to leave at seven and you'll know why.

[Zac Bears]: Great. All right. Thank you. And if you have to leave early, that's fine, too. Um, really, the intent of this conversation is just to kind of get an early start here. Um. On exactly what are our goals? What's the existing ordinance and then kind of coming up I will actually go to Councilor Caraviello if you just want to explain why you put this forward, and then we can talk through some, some quick next steps.

[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Mr. President. This is something I put forward on the advice of Chief Buckley. And it's not really a city-wide problem, but it seems to be in that Mystic Avenue area where there's a cluster of auto repair shops, body shops, specifically around where the DPW yard is, and maybe a couple of other areas in Mystic Avenue. And what's happening is these repair shops and body shops They're parking their cars all over the streets. If you go down Swan and James, you'll see cars down there with no hoods, no doors. They shouldn't be there. And I understand parts are hard to come by these days, so they're sitting longer in the shop than they should. But they're leaving them on the streets. There's nowhere for people that work in that area to park. If you go to a couple of the repair shops on Mystic Avenue, some of them have got 30, 40, 50 cars on site. So if there was ever a fire there, you'd never get a fire truck in there. And on top of that, they're parking all over Mystic Avenue, they're parking on the side streets, and the neighbors are complaining. And if you drive by, if you go down Mystic Avenue on a Saturday night at 11 o'clock, on over by the BMW dealership in that open lot. Those, that street is full of this. There's no homes there. So these are all people's cars that are coming from these shops that are just being left over there. And then you go a little further down on Raiden Road, the repair shop across the street has got 10 cars parked on Raiden Road. So the business on Raiden Road have nowhere to park. And you go down Alexander Avenue, you get the body shop there. The residents don't have anywhere to park because there's a dozen cars sitting on the road every day and every night. So that's, it's not a citywide problem, it just seems to be contained to that Mystic Avenue area. And I said, as Chief Buckley says, he says, I can't enforce it because we don't have an ordinance that allows me to enforce it. So that's the, that's the purpose of is. to have these people get the cows off the street, bring them inside and repair them inside. Don't leave them out there all day because they're becoming an eyesore into taking up valuable parking spaces in neighborhoods. So that was the intent of this ordinance.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Caraviello. Yeah, so I think that that's a pretty clear summary of the issue here. Definitely there are some core problem areas around Mystic Ave. I do just want to be clear that likely whatever ordinance we pass would apply everywhere so we should take that into consideration. say there's certain areas of the city that have different conditions on the other or that would probably then move us into a zoning conversation versus. Right, so, so just want to put that out there. But I think the goals are pretty clear. One other thing that you had flagged that I just want to bring up to is. how many vehicles are these businesses permitted for versus what they actually have, and is that an enforcement question as well or something that we should be taking into consideration? A quick review of the existing ordinance, Chapter 14, which is the business chapter, Article 6, has a section on auto repair facility. It's basically just a permit process. There's not many requirements there. The language seems to be from either before 1974 with some amendments in 1980, so it's pretty far out of recollection of certainly anyone in this room. And the only other piece in our ordinance is that car graveyards, quote unquote, are banned, which is basically car junkyards are not allowed in the city. In terms of outreach, I know we've mentioned the fire department and fire prevention as someone that we want to reach out to on this. Also invite auto repair and body shops to comment. It seems to me that the other folks we may want to include would be potentially obviously police department and traffic enforcement. Um, we have, you know, also building department and code enforcement if necessary. And then we do have our planning director and our D. P. W. Commissioner here who are members of the Traffic Commission. So, um, if they have any insight, uh, we would love love to hear your thoughts on on maybe where we want to go with this or or how you want your offices to be involved in the discussions that we have on this topic.

[Tim McGivern]: I don't know if this particular topic is addressed in the parking policy and enforcement work that that committee did, and they're done with it now. So that would be worth checking. I completely agree. I drive there every day, just about, and it's a free parking. I don't know what to call it. They're taking advantage of the free parking on the city's public ways, quite significantly so it hasn't bubbled to the top as far as priority for my work, but I think it's definitely within the purview of city council to try to address this. And then the only other thing I would say is that that document and that committee that I referenced, they have I do know that there's a recommendation to head towards zoned parking in the city of Medford, as opposed to street by street permit parking. you know, there's a potential solution there. If the entire city, you need permit parking, depending on the zone, then you're treating sections of the city differently as you referred, but you'd have to move into that zone parking thing. So I guess my only recommendation is to try to work in concert with that document and those recommendations.

[Zac Bears]: Okay. Um, and and just quickly on that. It's kind of my understanding, and you you need to remain be able to speak on it, quite frankly, that the parking department has seen their role as enforcing whatever parking rules and decisions are made and not necessarily inputting directly on parking policy. Is that the parking director. Does that sound like a correct understanding to you guys? Yes that that's my understanding to that. It's just enforcement of existing rules. Okay so we'll take that into consideration as we'll probably let them know. We're looking at it, but maybe they might just say we're not going to comment until you've decided a policy. Councilor can I go to director Hunt? And then you can I go to director real quick? Sure. Director Hunt.

[Alicia Hunt]: So I will say, I If it's something like can she enforce it or right there have been occasional times in the traffic commission will say, you know, here's a rule this makes sense to us and then she'll come back and say, I don't have a mechanism. It doesn't work with our system. So that would be one reason to include her as well, would be to make sure of that. I feel that it is important that I just raise the counter argument on it so that we're looking at all the pick the sides of the picture and we can say we've we've taken it all into consideration. and that is over many years, a number of businesses have come to rely on that as part of their business model. And so it is likely that if we said no more, can't park your vehicles out here, some of those businesses will not be able to survive because they now rely on that model of the free parking. And I just, we like our businesses, we like having businesses, we like having successful businesses in Medford, We don't like it when it really is a causes problems for the residents. On the other hand, we talked about our business tax base and our commercial tax base and that we rely on the commercial tax base, so that the residents can enjoy lower taxes. So I just sort of want to flag that. that it is very likely that this is part of their business model. I look at those businesses and I don't see those as being major corporations that are making a killing. I could be wrong, I've never seen any of their books, but this is not some large corporation that this is just milking this for everything. My general impression is that these are small businesses that are relying on this in the city. And I just think that it's important to consider that as part of this process. And maybe there needs to be some conversations with them offline where they can talk to us about the realities of their business on one-on-one meetings so that we can better understand what the issues are and if there are any solutions that exist for them without things that would make it restore the quality of life for the neighbors. without, you know, killing their businesses. And I could be wrong too. I'm just making an assumption based on what I know of the businesses in that area in general, so.

[Zac Bears]: Okay, thank you, Director Hunt.

[Richard Caraviello]: You are 100% right. They are, you know, small businesses. They're not big businesses. But what's happened over the years is these companies are getting chased out of Somerville and Cambridge and Everett. because their land is more valuable. So they're coming here and they're taking our valuable land that we can be using for better things. Every other city has ordinances that said you cannot park, you cannot do work on the street, and you cannot park the cars that you're servicing on the street. Overnight or anything, you should have a lot. or they have to be brought inside. If you go to some of the places, you know, they have licenses for 12 and 16 cars, not 50 and 60 cars. So, as I said, we're not trying to put them out of business, but we're trying to help our community with the look of our community. And that's what's happening. So, And the intent is not to put anybody out of business, but we have to have some type of rules, because there is no rules right now. And every other city has very simple rules, just can't leave your cars on the street. You own a business, don't take in more work than you can handle. And that's what it is. And listen, I get the whole thing, parts are hard to come by nowadays. No, you wait, I just had a situation with my cars, but we have to have something to stop the proliferation of all these cars just being dumped on streets. So that's really what it is. And it's not, we're not meant to hurt anybody. And I've talked to these, some of the businesses about it. He says, listen, when we have the meeting, come down and give us your input, but we have to have something in place like other cities have. We can't just keep allowing businesses to come here and do whatever they want.

[Alicia Hunt]: I think I don't disagree, necessarily I just want us to be cognizant of the whole, the whole picture, as we're doing it. So, you know, the reality may be that Medford residents may need to drive to another town to get their car fix sometimes. So, and we do have car dealerships and repair shops that are big enough that have places for the off street parking. You know, I look at the, there's one on Mystic, I'm trying not to name names too much. There's one on Mystic Valley Parkway. They don't have put their cars out on the street. They've rented some space from the shopping mall next to them to put some of their overflow vehicles. We just keep yelling at them to keep their cars out of the wetlands over there. And I am sorry, I'm gonna have to go upstairs.

[Zac Bears]: All right, thank you, Director Hunt.

[Tim McGivern]: Great. In the interest of capturing the whole picture, there are other issues, especially with mystic Avenue, people parking their long term. I think I personally seen the same car sitting there for. Many, many days, it may not be an auto body repair shop, it's somebody who's taking advantage of the free parking, and they might hop on the bus and go somewhere, you know, and then the other area that I noticed this free parking being a problem is commercial street and trucks. So that's another area. that this might be able to address. Yes, you know, you brought it up before.

[Richard Caraviello]: There's that motor home that's been there for four months. Hasn't moved. There you go, right. Everybody that parks on commercial street, they're all based in Everett, and they're all parking, they park all the trailer trucks there every single night. Real sore spot for me. There you go.

[Tim McGivern]: And that corridor is seeing some development. I think you are aware of one project there where Gold's Gym used to be. That's quite a large project. And then the GE site right across the street is also ripe for development. I'm not sure exactly what they're doing there, but we can expect something.

[Richard Caraviello]: I had spoke at the meeting and I said, hopefully when those two projects that we could have the traffic commission know, change the rules allow no overnight parking there. Yeah. And, you know, get those trucks out of there, because you know like you said you've got two projects that can happen there. And that's the last thing we want is. trailer trucks, travel parts back and they're all day and night. And the drivers probably are sleeping anyway. No, they live in Everett.

[SPEAKER_05]: Go by and look at the trucks, they're all based in Everett. Got it, got it. Well, I just figured I'd bring that up if we're talking about the whole picture.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Mr. Commissioner. I also noticed that we were joined by Building Commissioner Forty. Commissioner, if there's anything you want to share or discuss around auto body shops, auto repair shop ordinance, We're mainly looking at their overflow parking onto public ways, but if there's other stuff that you think we should be looking at around that, especially as regards to safety, we would welcome your input.

[Bill Forte]: Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't have anything at this time. I'm not really prepared to make any comments about it. I'm gonna just kind of watch a little closely. If I have something substantive, I'll certainly submit it to you in writing. I mean, obviously this is a problem in every city in town. I dealt with the same thing in the city of Waltham. And a lot of times these smaller repair shops are having the hardship of being able to store vehicles And I do realize that it's a problem, but I would say that my concerns would usually end at the private property line because I really don't get involved with traffic on public ways or storage of vehicles, although it is completely caused by obviously businesses on private property. But if I can think of anything that I can contribute to this, I'll be more than happy to submit it to you in writing.

[Zac Bears]: Great, thank you. And we're pretty early on in the stages of just kind of setting some goals, looking at existing ordinances, and then kind of pulling up an outreach list. So we'll make sure that you're consulted along the way. The city ordinance rights right now are pretty slim on this topic. So we ban car graveyards and that there's a permit process for auto repair shops.

[Bill Forte]: So- Yeah, I do know that, sorry, Mr. Chair, I didn't mean to interrupt. Go ahead. I do know that there are repair shops that, you know, that probably store junk vehicles on their property, you know, cars that otherwise, you know, I think what might help with making room in some of these areas is the one thing I could suggest is require that, you know, that a mechanic, a local mechanic is required to have only cars that are registered on their property. I think a lot of times these lots are filled to the brim with vehicles that otherwise are in disrepair. You know, repair shops are notorious for leaving cars in the parking lot so they can either fix them up one day and sell them, you know, a lot of times they become a backyard project for a guy who's just trying to make ends meet. And, you know, it does more harm than good and this is what happens is when the, you know, the proper amount of parking spaces is you know, occupied by otherwise, you know, junk vehicles, that is one thing that we can as an enforcement team, we can definitely help to, you know, clean up and navigate help help owners navigate their and manage their property, you know, responsibly so that they don't have any unregistered vehicles, because the the ordinance regarding unregistered vehicles still applies to commercial properties, it doesn't necessarily, it's not necessarily limited to residential property. So you know, I think that we've got an opportunity here to maybe work with the audiences that we have and maybe make a contribution, you know, in that sense.

[Unidentified]: Great.

[Zac Bears]: That sounds fantastic. I think we'll make sure that that's incorporated in any discussions that we have. And I think at this point, if there was a motion to, you know, review the minutes of this, or the records of this committee meeting, let me put this way, a motion to have the chair review the committee report and pull together some relevant ordinances from other communities to look at potential regulations here, and then also to reach out to the city departments and the auto repair facilities in the city for a future meeting. I think that would be probably where to take it from here. I would make the motion of the motion of Councilor Collins seconded by myself.

[Adam Hurtubise]: I didn't get the wording exactly right, so let me just read back what I had. Councilor Collins moved to have the chair review the committee report and pull out ordinances of other communities and to reach out to relevant repair facilities in the city for feedback.

[Zac Bears]: And city departments. City departments and repair facilities, I would say. City departments and repair facilities. Anything else Commissioner McGovern? I was just gonna ask permission to be dismissed. You can head out anytime. Thanks, Tim. Thank you. All right, great. On the motion of Councilor Collins, seconded by me. All those in favor? Aye. The motion passes. Is there a motion to adjourn? Motion of Councilor Collins to adjourn, seconded by Vice President Bears. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? None. Meeting adjourned. Thanks everybody.