[Milva McDonald]: So welcome, everyone. We're talking about Articles 2 and 3 of the Medford Charter. And this is our initial meeting. So I'm just going to open the floor for ideas about creating a work plan, approaches, et cetera.
[David Zabner]: Yeah. So I guess first things first, do we have A folder in drive so we can see what it is we're working on and work together on that.
[Milva McDonald]: No, we should create a folder. Yes.
[David Zabner]: I'll do that right now.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. And just, you know, you can put it in. I don't think there's a folder for our committee in there. You know, in the subcommittees folder.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, I don't see one.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so that's great. Then you put that in there and I can actually I should put the agenda from this meeting in there as well. And I'll put all our minutes in there, etc. So, so thank you for doing that.
[David Zabner]: Absolutely. Um, yeah, so articles two and three enumerate, as I understand it, the powers of the city council and the mayor, more or less. Yep.
[Milva McDonald]: That's right. Otherwise known as executive and legislative branches. Sure.
[David Zabner]: Um, now when we worked on the preamble, we just kind of jumped into writing, you know, we like read over what it is that we thought should be in there, the notes that we got from everywhere. And then we just kind of sat down and started writing. I imagine that that's not how we should do this one given the complications and the, um, so I imagine probably the place to start is like an outline and discussion debate on what it is. Um, and maybe even to take it a step further back from that, maybe the place to start is like, what powers do we want to give the mayor and the, um, city council together? Right. Like before we even split them up and say, this one should go to the mayor and this one to go to the city council on this one, they should, um, you know, both have to sign off or something. What are, what's the whole list of kind of, uh, powers that we're splitting up? I feel like might be a good place to start.
[Moreshi]: Okay. Like, um, you know, appointments, right?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, that's definitely in here. Appointments is part of articles two and three. So that's, that is one of the big, um, So, and I assume you're talking about appointments of multi-member boards and commissions, because there's also, yeah.
[Moreshi]: Well, even some, I believe some communities require city council approval for even executive staff.
[Milva McDonald]: Department heads. Yeah, so what I'm so like, so let's making a list of questions. One question is appointment authority for multi member boards and committees, department heads authority. The other thing is, as I'm looking at it, it's the powers, but it also covers the composition. And we've already at least covered the ward representation piece of it. But what we didn't determine is how many. So that's something we could look at as part of, because that's in article two. And also the term lengths and whether there's term limits are also in this article.
[Moreshi]: I grouped those in my mind, sort of composition terms. Yeah. Compensation.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, from the way we've been discussing in the committee of the whole, I feel like there was a certain expectation that those two things would be cited by the committee as a whole. And I imagine that the two of them are like, it's not that they're small, but it's just two questions. And so I think those are things we should discuss as a whole committee where like the separation of powers, I think we can kind of take a first crack at it and see where it goes.
[Moreshi]: Yeah. I guess what I envisioned is sort of, you know, Milva a while ago and shared it again, put together a compare doc. So to the extent we discuss these items, I think it'd be appropriate, if everyone else is comfortable, to have a recommendation on what we think based on our survey of other communities. But ultimately, everything's up to the committee. So I don't know that I wouldn't want to leave anything for them, I guess is my feeling. We should think about it, and then it's up to them. They don't have to do it if they want to.
[Milva McDonald]: The other thing I would say about this is, you know, we don't have to go back and say this is what we think or we don't have to vote and say we voted to have term limits or whatever. What we could do is say that term limits, you know, we gathered information on term limits and because that's covered in Article 2 and then at least what we would be doing is giving the committee sort of material that they could base their discussion on, right?
[Moreshi]: That was my hope. You know, some things could have recommendations if we want to make them, but they don't need it. But we could give a skeleton that can structure debate, you know, provide the, all right, most communities do this, or we think this makes sense based on whatever.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Moreshi]: And they take it or they don't.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, David, what do you think about that? Where we wouldn't necessarily be saying we recommend term limits, but we would be saying, you know, term limits. These are the issues that, um, this is the information we collected. And then that would be the basis for the discussion of the whole committee.
[David Zabner]: I think that is super duper reasonable. Um, I guess really just my opinion is like, I was hoping we would focus first on the separation of powers because it's, It's the kind of thing that to discuss it with a group of nine or 10 people is would be exhausting and never ending, even to just get a first draft out. And then once there's the first draft, then you can nitpick with larger groups.
[Moreshi]: So you think we should prioritize the questions that like appointment power ordinance slash veto. Okay. I think that's makes sense for prioritization.
[Milva McDonald]: That's fine and that's good because what I think we are going to be discussing balance of power with the whole committee and potentially as early as the December meeting. So if we did prioritize that, then we could bring that information to the December meeting. So that sounds like that's one potential plan, prioritize that.
[David Zabner]: Let's see the other issues in well, I don't think I got this email versus others. I thought because it's possible that I did and I just haven't read it.
[Milva McDonald]: Um, it's basically just what it is, is the generic modern charter that was provided by the call center with the language of, I mean, and met there's many, many sections that have no language from Medford because Medford charter is.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, I don't think I got this email. It would be awesome if you.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I will send it to you. But right now, this is section one is definitions. We kind of skipped over that. But the good thing about this charter is the actual sort of writing of it is that the calling center will draft it for us. So really, our job is to make the decisions as a committee. OK, so there was composition, term of office, eligibility. You know, I'll just put that on our list, but we don't have to prioritize it. And then, oh yeah, this is also, you know, the kind of thing that we don't have to prioritize this either, but how the president and vice president are chosen, the powers of the president and vice president. Prohibitions, yeah, there's a lot of stuff in here. Compensation, which doesn't mean that we would determine what their pay is. It's more how the compensation is decided. And I think it's generally done by ordinance. So then we come to this general powers, which is, I think, pretty much canned language that just says they have these general powers that are outlined in state law. that stuff about quorums and whatnot. I mean, there's so many details, right? This one I thought was kind of interesting because it speaks to how the city council gets access to city information. And I mean, that's something that they've complained about, I think.
[Moreshi]: I think this is a very hot topic in a few different communities.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. So I don't know, you know, let's put it on our list and I don't know. Yeah. So that, that may be one that's, I mean, I think what we'll do is look at all these and then sort of decide how we want to focus. Does that sound right?
[Moreshi]: Yeah. Yeah. I think today's a good day to sort of get our arms around.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. And when I send this to you, you'll see kind of what the other, what the other charters, what these other charters say about, um, about like this one, for instance, says things that the mayor has to do regarding information. And then this is the appointment section, which, oh, and this is what I, this isn't necessarily about the multi-member boards and commissions, which is what we were talking about. This is about actually the city clerk, um, It's funny because I didn't pull, Medford doesn't have language in our charter in that little two-pager about the city clerk, so it must come from state law. As in Medford, I believe the city clerk is the only person that the city council hires, right?
[Moreshi]: I think that's how it works in Malden too.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Moreshi]: I'm from Malden, so I always think of that. I'll see if I can find the statute.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, but you can see in others like in Weymouth, there's town auditor, town clerk, clerk of the council. You know, I don't, I think probably we'll keep city clerk, but we'll probably just want to move that into the charter so that it's not, you know, it's not like you have to go digging in state law to find out about how Medford handles that. And I don't, You know, I don't know that people want to add any. I mean, the other part that's in here, this is the confirmation that we were talking about. So this would be the section, section 210. So let's, I'll write that down. Section 210 is going to be one thing we're going to focus on. And filling of vacancies, that's another, you know, so many. There's just so many. I mean, I guess maybe we could figure out the bigger decisions that we're going to make, but ultimately there's all these details as well. Now we're in executive branch. I feel like there was another section that I may have gone over that is also an issue in Medford, which is the hiring of staff. Because the city council really wants to be able to hire staff. I feel like that was in Article 2.
[Moreshi]: So I think that was one of the, correct me if I'm wrong, that was one of the proposed charter amendments in the committee, but I don't know if any other community, Cambridge does.
[Milva McDonald]: Are you talking about the legal council?
[Moreshi]: Well, that's right, I'm sorry, Medford was just the legal council. I'm trying to think of other communities that have staff dedicated to the council. Um, Cambridge does, I don't know.
[Milva McDonald]: Let me, it was section two eight. So I'm going to look back and see what, what these other places say. Uh, it was under appointments seems, um, whether the city council is allowed to appoint staff. So in, so it would be in that section. Um, And in this, I'm just looking and see what Melrose just... So Melrose has the city clerk, a clerk of committees. I don't know what that's. And a town auditor in Weymouth, town clerk, clerk of the council. Hmm, I don't know what I don't know the difference between those positions.
[Moreshi]: So, I guess the clerk of the council sort of runs the council meetings like the postings and stuff, whereas the town clerk would do. you know, run the elections and receive documents on behalf of the town.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, yeah. The city clerk in Medford does run, is sort of responsible for the minutes and distributing the agendas and all that, right?
[Moreshi]: Yeah. I think, I think that I would guess probably just splits the duties from the town clerk and puts the council specific ones in the council.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. So I don't see, anything specifically in these other charters that allow the councils to hire their own staff, but I think some charters have it.
[Moreshi]: Could we ask the call center that specific question, how many city councils have not just a role in appointing municipal staff like department heads, but actually have their own staff as council staff? Beyond Boston and Cambridge, I guess I'd be surprised to find many, if any did.
[Milva McDonald]: I will ask them that. And the other question is, even if it's possible for them to maybe have a part-time person to help with stuff, is that something that needs to be in the charter?
[Moreshi]: Right. Yeah, I think, didn't Pittsfield, was it Pittsfield that said, as needed by appropriation, something like that?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, yeah, I think you're right, yes. So something like that. I think I moved into the ordinances, yeah. The Pittsfield was up here. Yeah, subject to appropriation. That's pretty simple. The city council may employ staff as it deems necessary.
[Moreshi]: Yeah, I love that in a charter. It's nice, you know, flexibility, but it's clear what people's powers are.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, so that's another, and you know, the issue, the question of whether it can hire its own legal counsel, I think is the controversial piece, right?
[Moreshi]: That- It's really interesting to me, just thinking out loud now without having read it, but a lawyer has certain obligations. So when you're town council, you have a duty to the town, and having two lawyers for two parts of the town, I would be interested to know sort of what the dynamics would be.
[Milva McDonald]: It's not, I mean, when the Collins Center has said that they're not aware of any charter that gives the city council their own legal counsel and they're not sure that the state would let it happen because of the issue that you're talking about.
[Moreshi]: Yeah. And, you know, to the extent they want staff who can help with legislative drafting, for example, it doesn't have to be legal counsel. It could be legislative staff. I don't know, I'm just saying it out loud.
[Milva McDonald]: No, that's an interesting point because that is one of the, you know, that's one of the points that was brought up as kind of a legitimate reason why the city council would need legal counsel because they would maybe want help drafting ordinances.
[Moreshi]: Yeah, it doesn't have to be a lawyer.
[Milva McDonald]: So if the committee decided that that was, you know, because we know that the council put, they put forth an amendment saying that the city council would have its own legal council. If our committee decides on that, I think the important piece is the language. It has to be very specific of what that legal council could, you know, would be doing.
[Unidentified]: But yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: It's not something that's in other charters, for sure, that we know for sure. So, okay, so that's... So then we move into... Those are the main... Those are sort of the main issues from Article 2, and there's also many details, as we saw. And then Article 3 is the mayor. Is there anything from that article that we feel like we want to prioritize? Once again, term lengths and limits are in there. And let me just see, what does it say about the powers in there? This is the beginning is all the concert term lengths and limits and qualifications, all those things.
[Moreshi]: I think vacancies will be a big one on the council, but then also in department heads.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Executive powers enforcement of ordinances. This is a lot. So this is how they work together, right? Because this section also covers the multi-member bodies and the department heads and whatnot. So it basically kind of covers the same thing, right? So if we talk about, if we focus on the appointments issue, we're doing it for both sections.
[Moreshi]: Yeah, so I think, right, so maybe the umbrella is appointments, and then under that it's who are we talking about, or excuse me, you know, role of city council, the people to whom that role of city council extends, you know, we're talking about department heads, we're talking about member, multi-member bodies, firing or suspending the city council have a role there, Yeah. Filling vacancies. Although that's an interesting one, because, well, multi-member bodies will have set terms.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Moreshi]: So then you would be filling vacancy, not just appointing someone. But then we'll also have to look at state law, because some of our committees would have provision in state law for- Yeah, that's the weird thing about it.
[Milva McDonald]: And I think the language on the committees and commissions, it only, it sort of applies to the ones that I mean, I think there's certain, just for instance, there are a couple of committees or boards in Medford that the city council does approve, right? I believe so. I can't, I don't know off the top of my head which ones they are. So even though our charter specifically states that the mayor, without approval of the city council, does that. There are a couple that the city council is involved in, and it's because some of them are created outside of the, right, like this committee, for instance. Even if the council had authority to confirm appointments, it probably wouldn't count for this committee because we're just an ad hoc committee. Right? Is that right? Do you think that's?
[Moreshi]: I think broadly, that sounds right. I know there are some statutes that establish municipal communities, disability commission, I think parks is a general law, generally will provide for the mechanics of appointment. So it says with consent to the city council.
[Milva McDonald]: And is it that whatever we put in the charter whatever authority we put in about these committees and commissions, it's for the ones that are sort of created by ordinance?
[Moreshi]: I think, but we could also, you know, if it's a general law, we could provide otherwise in the charter, you know, certainly if we're going the special act route, right? You know, it would stay in that section and the charter would govern. So this is actually, this would something we'd benefit from looking at other charters, see how they tackle it.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so that's what I was going to say next, is how are we going to collect our information to discuss this issue? And we all agree that we're going to start, we're going to focus on the appointments to start with?
[Moreshi]: Yeah, I think Daveed's right that, you know, there are core, I'm sorry, I'm plugging in my laptop. Okay. you know, there are core things that will engender the most debate. I think appointments is definitely one of them.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes. Um, okay.
[David Zabner]: So I view the role of each of these subcommittees as kind of like making a first attempt, because once you have something concrete, then we can like truly discuss what it is we like and don't like how we want to change it, all of those things. And so I think part of it too, is just kind of let's, make progress as quickly as possible. So what I started with was while we were talking here, I made a document. I shared it in the chat with just kind of a list of powers to divide up. It is still incomplete. I'd love to see the, I still don't think I've gotten the email from you with all of the examples.
[Milva McDonald]: Oh yeah. Let me send it to you right now.
[David Zabner]: Yeah. And I figure we can kind of just like fill up that list of every possible power we might want to give the city council and the mayor. And then we can start discussing how we want to divide it up.
[Moreshi]: So my immediate thought, and I could be misremembering, I think we don't have budget, right?
[Milva McDonald]: Budget is later in the, I mean, it's later in the charter. It's not in articles two and three.
[Moreshi]: Maybe I'm just dodging, dodging trouble here.
[David Zabner]: No, it's good.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, we are going to be discussing budget. It's going to be a huge, it's going to be a huge topic. But technically it's not in articles two and three. And I think it's a separate one. And I think there's probably, yeah. So maybe we should take that off this particular list.
[Moreshi]: I wonder, I think most, I'm just looking at your list, what else? Vacancies, I believe would be here, but if we wanted to include recall provisions, I don't think.
[Milva McDonald]: I think those are later too.
[Moreshi]: Okay.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I mean, we can.
[David Zabner]: Recall would be like a grand vote across the city, right? Separate from like,
[Moreshi]: For mayor, I think that, but if we, if we, or at large, I think, but if we were to have ward councils, it'd be confined to the ward.
[Milva McDonald]: Sorry, go ahead.
[David Zabner]: It's all good. I put removal of city council members, mayor, school committee members. You see that at the bottom. Cause I imagine we could, if we chose give say the city council, the ability to remove the mayor, the unanimous vote or something. I don't know that we want that, but like,
[Moreshi]: Yeah, I'd be interested to see if there's anything like that there might be in other communities.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, the recall in Section 8, there is a recall section, but it's actually under the citizen participation. So, it's different from what you're talking about, David. Maybe what you're talking about would be in Section 2 and 3, because it's under the powers of, you know, it's not a citizen recall.
[Moreshi]: That's a good point. Do we have, oh yeah, ability to compel information I think is a really important one.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. I mean, the other thing that we've been hearing from some people at the listening sessions and other public feedback is they want the mayor to be required to go to city council meetings. So I think that kind of falls under the information section.
[Moreshi]: I think in a lot of the town city manager communities, it would definitely be reasonable to have sort of a compelled appearance, like quarterly or upon request or something like that.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes. So I think that would fall under that. and that would be in this article.
[Moreshi]: I think you caught all the ones that I sort of had in mind.
[David Zabner]: Melva, did you send me that email? I'm sending it right now.
[Milva McDonald]: I'm sending it right now. Sorry, because I realize I only had five. I think I just sent it to you. I only have your email in the charter study. So I now I now have it in my personal email, and that's what I sent it to her. Okay, so let's see. We were looking at the list. And we're basically looking at this now to decide what we kind of want to keep on the list for our committee, right? Should we put some sort of subcommittees under ability to compel information access? No, we don't have to, we can appointment.
[David Zabner]: Feel free to edit that document as desired.
[Milva McDonald]: Charter amendment process, you mean for the city council or the mayor? Sure.
[David Zabner]: I'm just putting in like every possible power I can imagine. I could imagine we say with a unanimous vote, the city council can completely rewrite our charter. That's probably not something we want to do, but like.
[Milva McDonald]: I don't think. Yeah, I don't think we could. I also don't think that that would align with state law. What do you think, John?
[Moreshi]: No, I think as a general matter, the amendment process is always like the last article and It's like a 10 year review or something. So I wouldn't put it here at the very least.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Moreshi]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: And also the citizen ordinances comes later in, um, cause there's a whole section, section eight is about citizen participation mechanisms.
[Moreshi]: So we'll, um, initiative petition. Yeah. Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: So that's going to be under section eight, but vacancies definitely. And veto power, definitely. Um, um, state of the city report. That's interesting. Yeah.
[Moreshi]: We could probably put that in compelling the information.
[Milva McDonald]: Yep.
[Moreshi]: So I'm, I mean, just thinking about sort of buckets, you know, it looks like appointments as a bucket.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Moreshi]: Um, ordinance generation slash veto is a bucket. Vacancy is a bucket and then, um, oversight information access as a bucket. Does that sound.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, did you get that David? Can we make those buckets on this document?
[David Zabner]: Yeah, you go for it. I'm just starting to read through these now and see if there's anything else we missed.
[Moreshi]: I'm writing. Please check my work.
[Milva McDonald]: Thanks. Awesome. Because I'm also trying to write some notes here. Appointments oversight is a bucket. Excellent. Okay, and are you, those last things on the bottom, are you trying to just, are we going to put those in the buckets? In their respective buckets? Is that what you were thinking, John?
[Moreshi]: Yeah, I figured that way if we have, you know, I'm always like, okay, section, subsection, parent, like how do we break these down to make it into digestible chunks?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, so we can put those in their respective buckets. That's awesome. Even though we're not going to prioritize it, technically, it's in Article 2 and 3, so should we add the bucket about the composition and the- Oh, yeah.
[Moreshi]: Compensation.
[Milva McDonald]: Compensation, composition, and what about the term lengths and term limits?
[Moreshi]: Um, I think the council, the committee is pretty set on. Ward representation, but yeah, you know. Word versus at large, you know, maybe we want to think about some nuance there.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, I have a question about that. I get the feeling that the number of words in a city changes very rarely. But do we want to write the Constitution in such a way that if the number of words changes, we don't have to rewrite the... Yeah, that's... You know, so it's like, if we go up to nine words, we, you know, maybe remove one of the at-large Councilors, or if there's only one, there's no at-large Councilors, or I can imagine that being a thing.
[Milva McDonald]: That's a good point because I think that it was actually pretty recent history that Medford almost went to nine wards. I believe there was a lot. There was some. I'm a little unclear, but I know the state every 10 years determines the wards, but I heard a lot of talk that there was city council vote on adding another ward. So I don't really, I don't understand all the legal ramifications, but I know that there was a, even when we were meeting in the subcommittee, there was a certain amount of confusion over whether Medford had nine wards or not, because somebody, one of the committee members had gotten some material that said Medford had nine wards. And it came from this. relatively recent discussion about whether Minnesota is going to have nine wards. So it could happen very soon. And we know our population is increasing quickly. So that's a good point. So what we're talking about is how many at large in addition to the eight ward, and then making sure that we have a provision that would either take away an at-large or add an at-large if the wards change.
[Moreshi]: How do we account for ward addition or subtraction? That might be good because we re-precinct, subtract, how the heck do you spell subtraction? I just have one of those like, you know, when you just, you lose it.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, I do. I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. I think the basic question would be in that case, would you add an at-large or take away an at-large? That's what that would be. And that might depend on how many at large the committee decides. One, three, or five, right?
[Moreshi]: A quick survey. It looks like pretty much every community is at 11.
[Milva McDonald]: 11 is a common number. You don't want to get like Newton, which is, well, they have like over 20, I think. 24.
[David Zabner]: 24, yeah. The world champions in this, right?
[Moreshi]: Well, see, you know what's crazy about Newton's is, I may be butchering this, but my memory is they have ward Councilors, but they're elected citywide, is my memory.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, they have a weird system, yeah.
[Moreshi]: It's very strange. Yeah. But it went to the ballot and people decided to keep it.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, because they did a charter review, right? And they voted down the new charter. See, that's one of the things that I think that maybe change is hard, and a huge overhaul might be hard for people to swallow.
[Moreshi]: I think that's generally true.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. OK, so we have a pretty good list here of things. This is a lot of work over time. going back to what we decided to focus on, right? To start with appointments. Do we still feel that way?
[Moreshi]: I think so. I think there's a lot of little prongs in it. I think it's a big one. It certainly gets to the heart of power dynamics. Um, you know, maybe it'll help us clear up how we feel about ordinances in the veto, for example.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Right.
[Moreshi]: Um, you know, if we know what that, the appointment dynamic is that the ordinance dynamic should probably flow from that. So I think everything will be easier after appointments that looking quickly, that'll be the toughest one for us. So.
[Milva McDonald]: Sounds good. So how do we want to approach it? What kind of information do we need to have a meaningful discussion or be able to have a meaningful opinion?
[David Zabner]: I mean, for me, go for it.
[Moreshi]: No, I've been talking too much, please.
[David Zabner]: Okay. Just as a member of a committee, as a person who was appointed, I think that like the current process is certainly, um, it's not transparent. Um, and so I would like for whatever process we recommend out of this body to be more transparent. So that might, so like, for example, the current process we have is basically you email the mayor or you fill out a form saying, Hey, I'd like to be on a committee. And then, uh, You either get an email back or you don't. So I think it would be really good, first of all, to like compel whoever is doing these to kind of like respond to those requests in a timely manner, even if that response is just a no. Personally, I think that like, it doesn't, I like that the mayor has the power to do these, that it's just in a single person. I don't think we want to have to wait on seven city councilors to put a new person on the Zoning Board of Appeals or whatever. But I think that the city council should have the ability either to remove people or to reject those appointments or something like that. Yeah, those are my thoughts.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so I just, first I just want to say, I mean, what your comments make me think is that maybe what, maybe one thing we could start with is getting really full information on how appointments are done. Because, I mean, this committee is an ad hoc committee. It's, I don't know, there might be a different process for the committees that are created by ordinance or, what do you think, John?
[Moreshi]: Yeah, I think that's definitely true. We are sort of an interesting committee because we're so advisory. I definitely think, and this is something I don't know if it would happen now, is the council should be notified, certainly, of new appointments. I suspect they are, but can they do anything with it? Now, I would assume not. I'm definitely, Daveed hit something that struck a chord with me, which is when you have any board anywhere doing anything, there's gonna be delays. So giving them appointment power for anything, particularly a board that needs to take action would make me uncomfortable. So having that in the mayor makes sense to me. Do we wanna create some sort of two thirds override? for really, you know, if you're bad enough that two thirds of the council doesn't want you on it, then while giving the mayor their prerogative to appoint people that they work with every day, I think that makes sense. You know, our boards with set terms different than department had their reports differently to the mayor. I think so. So for me, the mayor is the executive official. They should get their staff in my mind.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Moreshi]: So yeah, I mean, these are things we'll have to flesh out.
[Milva McDonald]: So, I mean, when both of you talk about the ability to remove or reject or with a certain vote, I guess, reject makes me go back to the issue of the confirmation, because that was one of the amendments that the city council put forth. One thing I think I should do at this point is gather the public feedback we've gotten and the interview feedback that we got about this issue. One thing that we heard from, and I can look back at all of it, but I specifically remember one of the department heads that we interviewed who, express concern about a confirmation process, specifically the confirmation process that was outlined in the Charter Amendment, because, you know, most of these positions are volunteer positions, and a lengthy confirmation process, I think they gave themselves 30 days, it could extend it, it would be harder to get volunteers, also knowing that you would have to be just sort of put forth in a public arena, right? That, oh, I got appointed, but now I have to get publicly approved by the city council might discourage people. And that could potentially affect the operations of the city. So that was a concern that was expressed. And yet we have seen, it's certainly not, uncommon for mayors to have this authority, but in the document that we just got from the Collins Center, I believe it's only 27% of cities where the mayor has the sole authority without the city council being able to confirm the appointments. So I guess we've heard these concerns about it, but maybe what we need to do is find out in cities where the city council has this authority, how does it work? You know, how did they, you know, what is the process that avoids some of these pitfalls that have been expressed? What do you think?
[Moreshi]: Yeah, I'd love to know what you say, David.
[David Zabner]: The reason I suggested the either like that the city council has the ability to remove people or the like slightly smaller power would be The ability to, like, within 30 or 45 days of an appointment, reject somebody is I think it sets up a situation where. Within the charter, we're making it clear. We're basically giving the city council the ability to, uh, the same power. But we're setting it up in such a way that we're making it clear that that's not the norm we expect. Right. It's the default is the mayor appoints them and they get to be on the committee. And in special cases where there's a problem, the city council has the ability to do something about it, as opposed to like, I think about. uh, you know, the president appointing people in the Senate having to confirm. Right. Like the default there is a complex, arduous process. Um, and so I think we're, we're setting up the same process, but just with a kind of different default assumption. Yeah. Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: And it would mean that the city council would have to sort of go out of their way. Right. Yeah. It wouldn't be just that, I'm sorry, I'm looking for something while we're talking. No, I think that's an interesting way to approach it. I'm just trying to find the other charters just to see what they say so we can access to information. Melrose, that's the city clerk. Do you remember whether the other charters, John, Pat, gave the city council that?
[Moreshi]: I'm scanning myself. I don't remember. Yeah. I do think it's common for certain roles. As I said, to me, it makes more sense for a set term board member for the council to have input than a department head.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. So this is, I just found them. So this is what Melrose says. The mayor shall submit the name of each person the mayor desires to appoint to any city office. Oh, this says as a department head as well, or as a member of a multiple member body provided that this provision shall not apply to appointments. City council shall refer each name to a standing committee of the board that shall review. Okay, so this is the kind of longer process that we were talking about. This gives them 45 days. The committee may require any... Okay, so these people don't necessarily have to go before the city council, it sounds like. But it does extend the process potentially by 45 days, which is even longer than the amendment that was proposed by our city council. And Pittsfield, And this is also goes to sort of the information because there, I don't know right now if the mayor has to notify the city council about who they're appointing as department heads before they do it. Okay, so this Pittsfield, it looks to me, it's like more like what you were talking about. It's that the, the people that the mayor appoints will automatically be appointed unless the council rejects them within 45 days, right?
[Moreshi]: Yeah, and so Weymouth also has a two-thirds vote of the council to stop it, which I think I like, right? The appointment takes effect after a certain time unless two-thirds have a problem. That would be my bias, you know, without, we obviously will have further discussions, but right now.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, I mean, the only change I would make to the Weymouth version is I, like, in my mind, the appointment should be immediate and the city council should have 21 days to kind of change their mind about it. Because if the mayor wants to appoint somebody to a committee the day before a meeting, so that there's enough people to make it happen. Well, I guess I can see also the issue with that. So maybe not immediately, but like, huh?
[Moreshi]: It's probably better to do the review just as a practical matter before someone starts. Absolutely. Yeah. And then they start their 21 days in a job and then they're fired.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. The other thing I wish that I had in front of us right now is the actual amendment that was under consideration by the, you know, the city council wrote. Just because I mean, I'm interested to see right now how different here it is. Wait a minute. I think I have it right here. Well, no, this isn't the actual document. This is just a document that says what they want to do. Anyway, I think that's something that would be good for us to look at. We just have to find it.
[Moreshi]: I found the agenda, but not the yeah, it looks like it was in May.
[Milva McDonald]: Let me see if I can find it in my email somewhere. So, if you. I'm also sort of trying to take notes here, but I feel like we've come to a pretty, I think what we're talking about is allows the city council to have some power over committees and commissions, but maybe avoids the concern that some of the concerns that we heard expressed.
[Moreshi]: Yeah, like choke points. Yeah. Like if it's, I think if it's going to stop, it should be an active choice to stop it rather than a failure to act.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. Yeah, so that's.
[Moreshi]: I think that makes sense, because it'll ideally catch problems, but keep things moving otherwise.
[Milva McDonald]: Here they are. I found it. I knew I'd find it. All right, we'll just take a look at this. And then I don't want to. everybody too much longer after we said we were going to end. So there's the budget one. This is the hiring staff that we're going to be talking about. This might not be the most recent draft that they were working on, but at least it will give us pretty much the. So this is So this is different than the charter language that we just looked at in those three charters, because it says immediately subject to confirmation by the city council by majority vote, and it seems like that would be a simple majority.
[David Zabner]: What do we think about the city council removing people from such positions, or the mayor for that matter?
[Milva McDonald]: Well, the mayor can do it, right?
[David Zabner]: Okay, we get to decide, don't we? Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, we get to decide what we're putting in the draft, yes.
[Moreshi]: I mean, I definitely think unless there's a contract or a term in statute, again, my bias would be the mayor can remove generally.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, you know, This actually, when I look at the second paragraph, it is similar to what we've been looking at. It doesn't look like they're saying that these people have to go before the council. They basically just have 45 days to It's confusing to me though, because it does in the first sentence say that the appointments are subject to confirmation. So can you explain this to me, John?
[Moreshi]: No, I think you're right. They're requiring it and basically saying if we don't do it in 45 days and after a 15-day extension, then it can be approved, which I think- Or even without a 15-day extension. What did you say, David? I'm sorry.
[David Zabner]: even without the 15 day extension, right? If the city council fails to file an extension, they get approved.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. I guess the part I don't understand is it says the first sentence says the mayor shall appoint subject to confirmation by the city council by majority vote, which sounds to me like the city council will vote, which has to be public.
[Moreshi]: Yeah, I would.
[Milva McDonald]: Right?
[Moreshi]: Yeah, I think it's a little, it seems to suggest two different things.
[Milva McDonald]: That's what I'm wondering. You're the lawyer, so that's how it looks to me, but I think, okay.
[David Zabner]: Well, I mean, again, I always compare these to the thing we're all comfortable with from civics class, which is even in our national process, the president has the ability to do like if the senate is not in session the president has some way of appointing uh they're just temporary appointments i think yeah but like you know there's i don't know i remember there being a discussion of like basically if the senate refuses to act on an appointment the president being able to force it through somehow, right? It seems like that's basically what they've written here, is that if the city council refuses or fails to act, the mayor gets what they want. I don't know. It's certainly odd. It's not how I would prefer us to write our draft either.
[Milva McDonald]: The thing that threw me was just the subject of confirmation.
[Moreshi]: Right. I think if it was just that second paragraph, it would be where I'm at.
[Milva McDonald]: And I'm and I think based on what we've looked at with the other charters, we're pretty much looking at the 2nd paragraph. Right. Right. So, what we. And what we're talking about doesn't require a vote by the city council in order for these committee and commission members to be appointed. But what it does allow is for the city council to reject one if they choose, they have to take that action. Am I getting this? Is that what we're talking about?
[Moreshi]: Presumably they could approve it earlier than 45 days. You know, if the mayor appoints someone they love, they're like, oh yeah, we'll just vote on the next meeting. So then you don't have to wait 45 days. You know, maybe that's a good thing.
[Milva McDonald]: And, but David, I feel like what you were saying was that the committee members could start their jobs that they just, you know, might not, they might get ousted. Right.
[David Zabner]: Right. Um, well, I actually walked that back kind of under the, um, You know, kind of thinking of the worst case where the mayor is unhappy with a decision that the zoning board made. And so they remove everybody. The morning of the next zoning board meeting, they appoint an all new slate and that slate makes a decision before the city council even has a chance to meet. It's probably not great to allow for that. And like, I would hope we would never elect a mayor who would behave that way. Right, right, right. So I think like a 21 day, giving the city council a full 21 days to reject people before they take office probably makes sense when I think about.
[Milva McDonald]: What do you think about that timeframe, John, 21 days? I mean, we're looking at the charters that give them 45. I think that's a lot.
[Moreshi]: You know, and maybe, I guess I think of it the different roles. 45 does seem like a lot to me though. Particularly if it's an unpaid board.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Moreshi]: Yeah. I don't know that you need 45 days.
[Milva McDonald]: Do we say 20?
[David Zabner]: Sorry, I think 21's reasonable. Because even, imagine that we're trying to hire somebody to run a department here, and the mayor says, OK, you've got the job, subject to a 45-day waiting period. and somebody else says, hey, no, no, no, you're like hired tomorrow.
[Moreshi]: I think David's right. I mean, you have to give notice at your old job. When do you give notice?
[David Zabner]: 45 days is a long time to possibly lose the gig.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, is 14 too short?
[David Zabner]: The only reason I would say 14 too short is I imagine like, If the mayor again, if the mayor decides to appoint somebody December 20th, is the city council going to be able to get together before January 3rd? which is why I feel like 21 days makes a lot of sense.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. I'm just trying to envision how this process would actually work in practice. The mayor submits the names to the city council, and then the city council has 21 days to say yay or nay. That means they do have to discuss it at a meet. I'm just trying to understand the public aspect.
[David Zabner]: The thing I'm thinking is, is they have the power to say, like, we write it in such a way that the expectation is that the city council does nothing. And in special cases where they want the person appointed faster, they can say yay the next day if they want. And in special cases where they don't like the appointment, they have the 21 days to discuss it and say, no, this person is not getting that.
[Milva McDonald]: And if they do nothing after 21 days, the board is.
[Moreshi]: Yeah, I like that.
[Milva McDonald]: So, so what it comes down to is any individual city Councilor would could potentially say at a meeting I would like to just, you know. I would like this candidate not to be appointed. They would have to name particular individual names. Most likely, no people would be mentioned at a city council meeting unless they really wanted them on right away or they really didn't want them on.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, exactly.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. I think that You know, one thing that I've noticed about our committee is they really like to know how you made that decision. And we basically made this by discussion and we looked at other charters and did we need to do, do we want to do more research than that? Or I feel pretty comfortable with this. I think it's reasonable.
[Moreshi]: I like this result.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Moreshi]: You know, the only thing I would say is maybe it'd be worth further discussion on or looking at department heads versus boards, because those are meaningfully different to me.
[Milva McDonald]: I agree with you in my understanding in this discussion that we were talking about multi-member boards and commissions and not department heads. Do you agree with that, Daveed?
[David Zabner]: I absolutely do. And I think it's worth a discussion. But at the moment, I think my opinion is also that We should treat like, I think it should be two separate sections. We should treat them differently. I also think it's a process that makes perfect sense to me for the, the, um, department heads as well.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So this is really good. Um, and I think we need to close and I guess the question is, do we, do we want to just say, I'm going to send out an email about setting up another meeting, but do we want to at least decide what we want to tackle next?
[David Zabner]: Um, I mean, I think continuing this process as we did today is, uh, works for me. Um, just kind of working our way down this list that, uh, that we made of positions and.
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, you even put in what we decided. That's awesome. Um, but we do have a question. City council can remove by. Do you mean, uh, is that removing someone who's already on a committee or a commission?
[Moreshi]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Um, so maybe we have a vote.
[Moreshi]: I think that's a, I like that idea because again, like. No one's going to come up with a unanimous vote to remove someone unless there's a real. Yeah, so I like that failsafe. Okay, because it doesn't, it's a, you know, it's a failsafe. You know, the mayor is a disaster and won't remove this disaster, and the city council has to do it themselves, I think. Yeah. I think it's unlikely to run.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I do too. So I just want to draw a line. Can we do, maybe we can do a color. Put the things in color so we know that we've already worked, we've already settled that. And then we, right? And then the next, here, I'll just put them in.
[Moreshi]: Oh good, yeah, and you get the two thirds both.
[Milva McDonald]: No, no, that's not what I wanted to do. I didn't want to highlight. I wanted the text.
[David Zabner]: Um, here, I've got it. Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you.
[David Zabner]: I like, uh, we'll go highlight instead of.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so there we, so we know where we're at. So is there any, any information that we want to gather before we move on to the next or. I guess people can just make their own judgment about that. You know, this is, we're going to go down this list in order. And if there's any information that you want to gather, you think you need, we have the charters to refer to. I believe it was one, at least one question I was going to ask the center.
[David Zabner]: How many counts are dropping the amendment that failed into that same folder with this document could be really good.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I will, I will, I will get that document. Let me write that down for myself.
[Moreshi]: Um, I think the call center question was about, um, yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: So I can do that and add draft amendments to folder. Okay. Awesome.
[David Zabner]: I mean, and I have to say, personally, on the staff thing, having talked to a lot of elected officials about it, I think that city council should be able to hire staff. Like, it's, it is so hard. It's taking, you know, 10 of us to a dozen if we include the call center to write these things and months and months and months. And I think it should be possible for the city council to say, like, wrap this thing for us, please.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Go ahead, John.
[Moreshi]: No, no, please. What were you going to say?
[Milva McDonald]: Well, I will also pull out, you know, one thing I'm going to do is go through all the interviews and all the public feedback and pull out the information we've gotten, but the department head that I'm thinking of also felt that it would really be useful for the efficiency of the government if city council could hire their staff. The big question is the legal council. That's another, you know, that's kind of separate, but.
[Moreshi]: Yeah. And then, because I think, I don't know, we'll talk about this. I think splitting the clerks, so there's like a, like a council, not each individual Councilor has their own staff, but there's like a clerk to the committee and then maybe a staffer under that. I think sort of council staff makes sense to me.
[Milva McDonald]: That makes sense, yeah, because what this person was saying is that it gets really sort of weird and confusing because the clerk is the only person that the city council hires, basically. So the clerk is under the city council, but so when the clerk needs, because the clerk's job is a big job, and when the clerk needs help, they have to go to people that were hired by, you know, that are under a different, you know, so it just,
[Moreshi]: No, I'm actually going to see if I can learn a little more about the clerk of the committee versus the clerk of the city.
[Milva McDonald]: That would be awesome, John. Thank you.
[Moreshi]: I think that could be a cool model we could build on, potentially.
[Milva McDonald]: That would be great. OK. Do you want me to just send out an email to try to schedule? There's only four of us. Or should we try to schedule now and see what more we can do?
[David Zabner]: I think we just do the same time next Saturday.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So, um, and that is that November 18th, November 18th.
[David Zabner]: Um, oh, I mean, I'm on, I might not be able to make it at the same time next Saturday. Uh, but, um, retreat over the weekend, but so is there another time that you could do if we wanted to do next week? Um, I am completely free on Thursday evening. No Wednesday? I could do, no, no Wednesday's crazy.
[Moreshi]: Yeah, Lauren actually has a PTA meeting that night.
[David Zabner]: Okay. We have, I'm bringing 30 high school students to Tufts next Wednesday for a full day activity.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, I teach until 8.30 on Thursday. I don't know how you feel about 8.30. That's fine with me.
[Adam Hurtubise]: On the other hand, if you're gonna be exhausted, what do you teach?
[Milva McDonald]: I have just a couple of students, and we do writing, literature, and a little history. Very cool. I mean, they're, yeah, so. It's more like tutoring, but not really exactly that either. So OK, let's say Thursday, which is November 16. Yes. Yep. at 830. Awesome. And then, you know, we're gonna have, I mean, this is great. December meeting is going to be big. Yeah, we're gonna have a lot to report. And you guys, thank you for the work you did on the preamble. I really am completely delighted with it. So we'll see what everybody else thinks. And great. Thanks for the work. And John, thanks for looking into that. I think that's going to be important for our next.
[Moreshi]: Yeah, I'll see what I can pull. I know there's some reference to it. Maybe some other communities do it too.
[Milva McDonald]: Great. Thank you so much.
[Moreshi]: Cool. Have a great weekend.
[David Zabner]: See you all on Thursday.
[Milva McDonald]: Bye.
[Moreshi]: Bye.
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