[Milva McDonald]: Welcome everyone to the Medford Charter Study Subcommittee on Articles Two and Three. Okay, our first order of business is to accept the minutes or look at the minutes.
[David Zabner]: Did anyone have a chance to look at them?
[Moreshi]: actually didn't, I'm sorry.
[David Zabner]: Give me a second to pull them up again. I don't remember thinking there was anything that needed changing, but.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. John, you said you maybe didn't have a change order?
[Moreshi]: No, I'm embarrassed to say I did not. I'm looking at them right now.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, that's fine. They're not, I mean, you should be able to look at them.
[Moreshi]: I'm sure they're not troubling.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Do we want to accept them?
[David Zabner]: I move to accept the minutes.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Great, okay, all in favor? Aye. Okay, great. Okay, so basically our agenda is to just keep going through our list, right? David, do you have it handy? I do. So we can see where we left off?
[David Zabner]: Absolutely. I can either share my screen or put it in the chat or both.
[Milva McDonald]: Let's have you share your screen. Let me see if you can do that right now. You should, well, let's see. You know what? I'm gonna decide if I should make you a co-host or, yeah, I think I'll do that. You should be able to, I think that gives you the ability to share screen. All right. Yes, does it?
[David Zabner]: Okay. OK. So we have now gotten through the sections on appointments. Out of this list that we kind of generated together, I wrote a lot of it of just kind of like every power I could imagine being in either section two or three. So we've made it through those. The things that are crossed out, we decided we just weren't going to talk about, for example, budget. Yeah, because that's sort of separate. Our own committee. And we ended on oversight. There were two kind of remaining bits on oversight. One of them was whether or not we wanted to have an auditor. The other one was whether we wanted a state of the city report.
[Milva McDonald]: Um, was someone's was going to do research on audit on auditor, right?
[Moreshi]: Yeah, I didn't research it. But I asked Francis, who very helpfully connected me with Bob Dickinson, who is the finance director. I should have written something up. We exchanged a few emails today. And I'm waiting for one outstanding question. But Broadly, as finance director, he is also the city auditor. So we do have a city-employed auditor. So we also have an outside auditing firm, Roselli and Clark, and they audit the city's financials every year. And they've been doing their audits since 2017. We may look at a new audit firm next year. He said generally the finance director, his office, is in charge of the entire accounting system. They audit in detail. It's an ongoing process. And then they do year-end reports to the state. Then the auditors we hire do spot checks of individual accounts and prepare the financials for the annual comprehensive financial report based on trial balances from the accounting system and fixed asset reporting in single audit for federal funds. So that's sort of the broad overview. I thought it was helpful just to have a rough state of play. Um, I did ask for confirmation of his appointment. I believe he's it would be a mayoral appointment, but just to understand that expressly because what we're talking about and looking at other charters is um It's a council appointment. So what I will um What I can do is prepare just a very very short Document and share with you Which is basically articulating what I just said so we have Yeah, and then we can
[Milva McDonald]: We can then in turn share that with the larger committee. That's great. Thank you for doing that.
[Moreshi]: Yeah. I just sent an email. I didn't do any work.
[Milva McDonald]: You did something. Okay. So basically what we know now is that the auditor is basically the CFO and the auditor is hired slash appointed by the mayor. We do have, I mean, what I, I believe an independent, an annual independent audit is in a lot of charters, and it sounds like we have that anyway, but it might be something that should be in the charter anyway.
[David Zabner]: Because... I'll also say that the annual, like a financial audit is different from kind of what I was imagining the role of auditor to be. Okay. Right, so the example I have for an auditor is the state of Iowa has an auditor, and it is a separately elected position from the governor. I don't know that our auditor needs to be elected. But the auditor in that case is kind of a general government watchdog who is separate from the governor, right? So it is somebody not only who's kind of looking at financial records, but also looking at like, how, what are the processes for getting contracts when there's like multiple bidders, right? They like have the power to look into all those sorts of things. And their general job is kind of to you know, root out any corruption that might exist or generally kind of act as a counterweight to the executive, not necessarily through the power of being able to make decisions, but just through being able to compel information and bring things to light. I think that's a really important role. I don't think that that's the same as like what the CFO is currently doing. I think that's something I'd like to see the city have, but I also would understand why people might say that's overkill or unnecessary.
[Milva McDonald]: Is this role that you're describing a role in addition to what the CFO does or combined?
[David Zabner]: Yes. Okay. Sorry. That's okay.
[Eunice Browne]: I'd be interested to ask the Cullen Center what other
[Milva McDonald]: communities around here have that? Yeah. When a charter describes auditor and says there's an auditor, is it comparable to what our CFO is? I guess. Go ahead, John.
[Moreshi]: I was gonna say, I think that would be a great question for the Collins Center, because looking quickly at Weymouth's auditor language talks about a performance review, and it could certainly be read to be more along the lines of what David is talking about. I don't know that for a fact, but just reading it.
[David Zabner]: So what I just pulled up was the information about what Iowa's auditor does, right? So they have, they do financial audits, sure. But they also do some of the stuff a CFO does. And then they also have this performance investigation division, right? So kind of three different roles. And it sounds like we already have the first and the second one well managed. And it's kind of this third one that I think may be lacking.
[Milva McDonald]: OK. So it sounds like we also are going to need more information before. Can I see what that third one was again, so I can write that down for this investigation? Okay, and John, do you have the Weymouth language on the auditor handy that you can share with us right now?
[Moreshi]: Yeah, I can. I'll drop it on the chat right now.
[Milva McDonald]: Just to get an idea of what they say about auditor.
[Moreshi]: It's certainly an interesting question that I hadn't thought about.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Moreshi]: I'd be interested to know, I mean, we have a state auditor too, I would guess it would be like the Iowa auditor. I know they generally do sort of how are things working reviews, as well as looking at people's books. You know, I don't know if other communities have that, but it would be really interesting to know what this, what Weymouth Town Auditor does.
[Milva McDonald]: You know, what's interesting here too is that it, maybe it seems like the auditor does what the independent audit does in Medford, partly.
[David Zabner]: Partly, yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: So then that raises the question of, is it important to have an outside auditor?
[Moreshi]: Well, I sort of wonder, you know, just reading Weymouth's languages, to what extent is it, um, is this auditor a tool of the council for investigation, you know, in a way that, you know, a finance director or an auditor appointed by the mayor, maybe it wouldn't be in the same way, you know? So I think, you know, it really does go to a core separation of powers question. So this is one I would actually be very, I hadn't thought about it too much, frankly. And then, um, Just discussing it now, it makes me really wonder what they're doing in the communities that have the council appointed one. What would the day-to-day look like?
[Eunice Browne]: Well, would it take away some of the duties from Dickinson and allow him to focus on other things if he's kind of doing two jobs?
[Milva McDonald]: I don't think, it seems like this person would do something different.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, I think that's right.
[Milva McDonald]: this person would do the kind, well, it says financial and performance audits. So Daveed, that sort of speaks to that third piece.
[David Zabner]: Basically having somebody separate from the mayor whose express job is to kind of keep an eye on the executive branch. And yeah, yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so do we feel like we still want more information before we, I mean, we can seek more information to make a recommendation, we can seek more information just to present to the whole committee as part of a larger discussion on this, but it seems like either way, we kinda wanna find out more about how a council, and most of the, in the other charters, Pittsfield and Melrose have auditors. I mean, I know there's probably others that do, but just in the three charters that we're looking at, was Weymouth the only one that had an appointed?
[Moreshi]: I know Framingham does as well.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. So we can look at other communities because there are certainly some that have them. I was just wondering if of the three charters that we've been sort of looking at if any of the other two have them.
[Eunice Browne]: Can we request Dickinson's job description? Yeah, that's a good idea. I jumped on tonight because I watched the other two meetings and I was going to suggest the same thing regarding the city clerk too, if we want to revisit that at some point. But I think having the job description of Dickinson would be helpful to find out what part of the auditing world he does. Do we need him? Do we need a town auditor? And then do we also need an outside auditor? Do we need all three? Do we need two?
[Milva McDonald]: Dawn, when you sort of did your research, I was under the impression from what you said was that the CFO doesn't do the auditing. The outside firm does the auditing.
[Moreshi]: My impression was, I think, as a matter of his duties, he reviews books and takes inventory of the financials. And then we also have the outside auditor yearly. And they're doing spot checks.
[David Zabner]: They're not auditing.
[Moreshi]: But I wondered, and that's one thing I'd actually love to know if Collins can tell us, is that what this town auditor would be doing as well? Is it spot checks at the direction of the council?
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Moreshi]: You know, I think it's really interesting. I don't know that I have a feeling about it either way. I'd really like to know more about it.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, let's find out because then, you know, it also opens the question of, so if in communities where they have this town auditor in addition, and it seems as though it would be in addition to the CFO. Do they also then do the independent audit, you know, the annual independent audit? I feel like that's an interesting question too.
[Moreshi]: I would guess they'd probably still have an outside entity do it.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. I think so. I think it would make sense.
[Moreshi]: That's why I wonder if it's less a formal auditor than sort of... Yeah. So it seems... Yeah, go ahead. Maybe I was thinking of it more as sort of the standard objective, town employee X, rather than sort of a real... you know, tool almost to the council, which after discussing it now sort of dawned on me in a way maybe I didn't appreciate before. So I'd be really interested to know how other councils have used this. And I know Weymouth and Framingham both have it and they're the two newest or two of the newest city charters in the Commonwealth.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Moreshi]: This might be a trend or sort of a new emerging best practice.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, the other thing is it seems like maybe this auditor would have certain powers or certain access to information as you described it, David, that some of the budget procedures that are trying to be put in place, and I'm not saying they wouldn't be necessary, but they might be sort of, it might, this kind of thing could maybe balance it out because this person would, would be able to, you know, get information and share information and things like that. So it does seem like it would be something that we should look at. Yeah, that's a great point. Okay, so one thing we want to do is we want to, this is for the action list, we want to get the CFO's job description.
[David Zabner]: And the top clerk, it sounds like, or the city clerk.
[Milva McDonald]: City Clerk. Yeah. I'll look into that.
[Eunice Browne]: Lisa Crowley is the head of HR.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Okay. I'll put myself down for that. And we also want to sort of look more at other communities that have these auditors and So I'll see if I'll ask the Collins Center and maybe we can do some research on that. You know, and I'm just wondering, too, I mean, this is a separate section than the budget section of the charter, but we are going to be diving into budget over the next couple of months, and it seems like it could be related. So. Is there anything else that we want to wait? We're going to get these job descriptions. We're going to research, get more information with the Collins Center and try to get more information on how the auditor works in other communities that have a council-appointed auditor. Is there anything else we want to follow up on with this?
[David Zabner]: Not that I can think of.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Eunice Browne]: That's it for now.
[Milva McDonald]: The only other piece I would think about is the independent audit when it's codified in the charter, the annual audit, I don't think goes in articles two and three. So I guess it's really, it goes later. So we'll just leave that to the side. Okay, great. That sounds like an action list on that topic.
[David Zabner]: So then back to the state of the city report.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[David Zabner]: Weymouth has communications to the town council. I gave that a read. I thought it seemed super reasonable, super nice. Not, I think, overly explicit. The joys of having upstairs neighbors. I don't know if y'all just heard that. They're wrestling upstairs.
[Milva McDonald]: OK, so.
[Eunice Browne]: The mayor has done a few times at least a state of the city report. She's done it in chambers and it's been televised and so forth. I don't know that the council has gotten it beforehand. They're invited to attend just like the rest of us. Sometimes they show up, sometimes they don't. But I would think that that piece would go along with, there was a section, I think you guys talked about it, I don't know if it was the first time or the second time you met, about compelling information. I think it kind of goes along with the council having better communication with the mayor. I don't think it's necessary that she show up to every council meeting, but I think there's been a few occasions and it was, I think with Mayor Brianna and Mayor Burke prior, where they had attempted to do like quarterly committee of the whole meetings with the mayor to sit down and talk about specific issues to kind of Keep the communication flowing and that's kind of since gone by the wayside. But that might be something that would go along with the state of the city report.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, so. State of the city report is that this is this is called communications to the town council. So.
[David Zabner]: It's basically a state of the city report, right?
[Milva McDonald]: So that's what okay, but as I read this it it does seem to reflect some of the um things that I That the council is asking for in terms of communications and that they're trying to codify in ordinances Or put into ordinances. So, um So again, related to the budget, but not in the budget section. So how do we feel about this? Does this communications to the town council look like something that we wanna include?
[David Zabner]: I think it's a really great idea. Again, just kind of in terms of, even as a citizen, it would be great to be able to look up How did the city do last year and have that be in one place and have that be a requirement for the mayor? Also, I think it doesn't require a speech. It can just be a report that's furnished to the council.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. John, what do you think?
[Moreshi]: I like it too. I think it's a good example of politics, right? It's a good opportunity to make your case, tell your story, give something the council to react to. You know, I think creating situations like that, because we ultimately have an adversarial political system, right? But an opportunity for sort of engagement, it can be constructive. And I think it can be informative for people. So I like that. I certainly wouldn't want to do it every week.
[Milva McDonald]: right once a year centered around uh the previous fiscal year successes challenges i really like that idea so if we want to say we want to recommend that um that we have a state of the city report that the mayor be required uh to submit this um well if the collins center is going to be helping us with drafting the language but we would need to communicate What we want this to say, what do we want to be in this report?
[David Zabner]: Is this- I think this nails it.
[Milva McDonald]: I like, I don't- Yeah, you like the Weymouth communique. So we'll just say we, I mean, and we can pick this apart with the whole committee and see if people want to change it. Okay, communications. There was another thing though in that section that I feel like we didn't Special meetings the mayor may at any time call a special meeting of the council. Did we did we talk about that? We didn't talk about it Is that something that we want to talk about?
[David Zabner]: Yeah, do you want to talk about that next?
[Milva McDonald]: Um
[Moreshi]: It's certainly interesting. I wonder to what extent, this is just a question, I don't know the answer, is it an older idea? Because the council meets fairly regularly now, I believe.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Moreshi]: The president, for example, can call Congress in a session, but now they're more or less always in session.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. You're right. And, you know, when the mayor usually needs to do that, you know, she sends a communication and there's, I mean, this would be like in case of an emergency, right? But even still, it has, you know, there has to be 48 hours notice according to that. So I don't know. I think you make a good point, Dom. Is it necessary because there are regular meetings? They're every other week now, right?
[Eunice Browne]: They're every other week and they require, you know, as we well know, you know, 48 hours in advance, they can schedule meetings within the 48 hours. I think there's two other kind of levels of, I think they can do it in less than 48 hours or they could even, you know, schedule a same-day meeting if there is, you know, a legitimate, you know, crisis.
[Milva McDonald]: You're talking about the council itself?
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. Right. But I think that's all part of, you know, certainly open meeting law.
[Moreshi]: I mean, given that they're not meeting weekly, I'm not opposed to it. I'm just sort of wondering with the practical necessity.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. No, no, that's a good point. And could it be something that could sort of, I don't know. I mean, what do you think David?
[David Zabner]: I also don't see much reason for it. I don't know why the mayor would want to call a meeting that like the president of the city council would be so against and it would need to happen within two days instead of two weeks. Like, yeah. If it's an emergency, I imagine the president of the city council will also want to have a meeting or whoever calls those. Okay. Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Do we want to just leave it on the list when we report back? It's going to take us more than, I mean, the reporting back to the larger committee, we're going to probably discuss these so we won't do it all at one meeting, but should we put it in there and just say that we looked at that and our opinion is that it's not necessary?
[Moreshi]: I think we could, I certainly think we should flag it, but yeah, I don't know. Other people might have a perspective, but I think we all seem to think, do we need it?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, so, and this is special, it's special sections or it's the mayor's power to compel a meeting of the city council that we're talking about, right?
[Moreshi]: Yeah, I think that's like a key element of it, the mayor.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, so let's, yeah.
[Moreshi]: It's interesting, yeah. I mean, that would be another thing we can grab when the call center is on the call. Yeah. Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: OK. That's good.
[David Zabner]: I'm going to move up and say that next we should talk about vacancies, mostly because we've already covered it to some degree.
[Milva McDonald]: Can I just be, did we talk about compelling mayoral attendance of meetings?
[David Zabner]: We did, and we said that the city council should be able to kind of copy Melrose's somewhat, and that we would allow- Oh, Melrose's is good.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, I see. Okay, good.
[David Zabner]: That we wanted the city council to be able to compel mayoral attendance, and also of any city employee. I remember now.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, great. Yeah, we can move to vacancies.
[David Zabner]: Great. So we already covered just to some amount for the mayor. So we maybe don't have to talk about that again. Oh, and for the city council already covered.
[Moreshi]: Yeah, that's funny. Cause I remembered the city council discussion and not the mayor's until you mentioned it. Great.
[Eunice Browne]: I have a question there in terms of vacancies, I guess, or more lines of succession. is, you know, the president's down for the count, then we have, you know, the vice president, you know, nationally, what happens? I don't think I saw in our current charter anywhere, any sort of line of succession, if the mayor were to be incapacitated for any reason, out of the country or under anesthesia or whatever.
[Milva McDonald]: Is it mass general law, right?
[Eunice Browne]: I don't, I don't, I don't know.
[Milva McDonald]: I feel like we found, we saw it.
[David Zabner]: I mean, we can put, we will put it, I mean, I think it's, we probably should put it in the charter, but I think- I mean, this is what we, the thing we decided to put in the charter was that if the mayor is incapacitated, the president of the city council has the power to appoint an acting mayor from among the city council or department heads.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[David Zabner]: And then a special election is set by the city council within 120 days, as long as the next election is not within one year, was the rules we came up with.
[Moreshi]: Yeah. I think, correct me if I'm wrong, is asking about what if they're under anesthesia? Yeah, I mean, something that's, you know, temporary.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. Out of the country or, you know.
[Moreshi]: Some charters do account for that. I actually think Melrose might.
[David Zabner]: Um, I don't know that the mayor is like making the kind of game time decisions where that would be important.
[Eunice Browne]: No, you never know.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, let's say there was, um, a illness that required like six weeks recovery or something. Is that what you're thinking of something like that?
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. I mean, certainly something like that where, um, you know, certainly if it's not too bad, they can still be working from there. hospital bed or they're confronting at home, but if it's, you know, something where it's, you know, a long slog of a recovery or even I think that there should always be a contingency plan for something as simple as going in for a minor procedure or something where you're under anesthesia or something. And what if a crisis happens, a major fire in the city, a criminal activity of some sort, anything that would require mayoral action. I think that there needs to be somebody that should step in.
[Moreshi]: Yeah, go ahead. Oh no, Melrose also leaves that to the city council president. Yeah, I feel like that idea we can do, we maybe just specify it applies to, you know, temporary absences or if the mayor is going to be out in perpetuity, it's city council president. And I think we just, if we like Melrose's language already, we can just steal more of it.
[Milva McDonald]: Do they define what a temporary mayoral absence is?
[Moreshi]: It's a reason of sickness, absence from the city or other cause. And then it limits the acting mayor's powers as well.
[Milva McDonald]: And does that mean that any time the mayor took a vacation, the city council president would be mayor?
[Moreshi]: Or they could appoint one conceivably.
[Milva McDonald]: Right.
[Moreshi]: for no more than 60 days. So yeah, so maybe we'd want to put a break on it. And frankly, I mean, even the last two years have really changed your ability to work. You know, being out of state isn't a barrier to problem solving.
[Milva McDonald]: That's what I'm wondering. And how are we going to describe vacation? Like, what if you go to New Hampshire for a weekend? Or like, you know what I mean?
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, yeah, I think John is correct. Certainly, with Zoom and all of the technology that's available, not being right there is certainly not a barrier any longer, but I don't know. I mean, I think that there needs to be something there, but under what conditions, I suppose.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, that's what that's what I that's the only my concern about this is because it sounds good and it sounds reasonable but then what is What is you know, how are we defining sickness and vacation?
[Moreshi]: I think this is a great point. I mean as a as a practical matter at the state levels if the governor Is out of the state than the acting governor is Yeah, the lieutenant governor, I believe and if they're both out it's the secretary of the commonwealth. So
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, and that's a case where there's actually, you know, a person, the Lieutenant Governor who is, you know, that's part of the role, right? We don't have that person really here. I mean, we are maybe going to make the President of the City Council that person. That's what we're talking about, right? But again, like you say, John, if the mayor's out of the state or the city in this case, we're not doing that.
[Moreshi]: I don't know. I think just being out of the city is not sufficient ground for anything.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, definitely not. Yeah, if they go see a play in boston, yeah The city council president gets to do whatever they want the only reason I brought that up was because of what you said about the Governor, you know because the governor's the governor of the state, but if she leaves the state But that's not true of the president if the president leaves the country He's still the president.
[Adam Hurtubise]: He's still Yeah, right.
[Milva McDonald]: So So, I don't know. I guess I just I guess i'm just concerned about definition. That's all you know, what do these things mean?
[Moreshi]: I'm just being mindful of someone's capability to work.
[David Zabner]: I think this is also a place that we're like, if we're kind of clear that this is what we want it to mean, then the call-in center can clean up the language to be as precise as it needs to be from a legal perspective.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, what I think is, can we make it so that the mayor, I don't know, maybe this isn't a good idea, but that the mayor, in the case of a temporary absence, the mayor decides whether to call, whether to empower the president of the city council. So if the mayor decides, okay, somebody needs to be acting mayor for a period of time, then the mayor decides that. That doesn't work if the mayor is unconscious, I guess.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I mean, I think she can, she or he can, you know, make an appointment to the, you know, president of the council. But, you know, what if, God forbid, he or she gets in an accident, you know, or whatever. I mean, I hate to be morbid, but, you know, that's kind of... So what I wrote was... Something that's not planned for, in other words.
[Milva McDonald]: The mayor, if capable. That's...
[Eunice Browne]: Sounds good. And if not capable, then what?
[Milva McDonald]: Then it's a president of the city council.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I think that covers it. Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Okay, what's next?
[David Zabner]: Next is compensation and composition. How many Councilors, ward versus at-large, terms, lengths, and limits. How do we count for addition or subtraction of wards? That's why I included compensation there.
[Milva McDonald]: Because was that in Article 2 or 3? It definitely is, yeah.
[David Zabner]: So that's probably why. I'm going to separate it out, though, and say, you know, separately, compensation of CC and Mayor.
[Milva McDonald]: And I think the compensation piece is just about how the compensation is decided. It's not what the compensation is, right?
[David Zabner]: Okay, so we... You know, it would be fun to set their, uh, set their compo... No, we shouldn't. Um... Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: So should we, should we go compensate composition first?
[David Zabner]: I think so.
[Milva McDonald]: So the good news is that we, the committee already made the provisional vote to do the hybrid ward, to recommend a hybrid ward system. So the question is the number, right? And what are our thoughts on that?
[Moreshi]: I think 11 makes sense. I mean, it seems what everyone does. Not too big, not too small relative to the demands of eight ward councils and then a few at large.
[Milva McDonald]: I think you're right. I don't think anybody wants to do nine because that would make one at large. Yeah. And there was talk about five at large because there was concern about, you know, whether the ward Councilor, you know, the ward Councilor having too much influence in their wards, and maybe if there were more at large Councilors that could counteract that, but we don't really have evidence of that. And five would put us to 13, which would be a really big change from what we have now. It would almost double. So, I agree that 11 makes sense.
[Moreshi]: Yeah. And it's an odd number, ideally, for type purposes.
[Milva McDonald]: David, what do you think?
[David Zabner]: Here's how my math brain translated what we just said. So starting with one Councilor per ward. Second of all, we're going to have at least two at-large Councilors. And the third rule is that the total size of the council must be odd and greater than 10. I guess maybe at least two, I could say either two or three.
[Moreshi]: Yeah. Well, if it has to be odd, then we have eight.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, if it has to be at least three.
[David Zabner]: Well, but it's the number of wards is not described in this document. Right. And I think that's something that the I don't know how wards get decided, but in the case that we get an additional ward, I think it's better to have the flexibility to say, you know, if we move up to nine wards, then we have two at-large Councilors instead of three, and it's still open.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, so I guess in the other charters, do they specifically say the exact numbers or do they sort of have a system in there so that, so that it could be applied even if the number of wards changed. And our mail rule specifies 11 members, four of whom shall be...
[David Zabner]: So I guess- Maybe the number of wards never changes. I don't know.
[Milva McDonald]: No, no, that's not true. In fact, I believe we almost recently got nine. I don't really understand it because my understanding is the state determines the wards every 10 years, right? That's what we've been told.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, every 10 years when they do the census and every ward has to be around about 4,000 people, not photos.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. There was also some city council vote in recent years about whether to increase to nine wards. I don't understand that whole process, but we did almost get nine wards, that I know.
[David Zabner]: So for flexibility reasons, this is how my math brain would define. And if somehow in 40 years, there's a million people who live in Medford, and we have 47 wards, then we have 47 wards and two out large Councilors. That's just, yeah.
[Moreshi]: I think from what I can tell, oh, sorry, Weymouth, Framingham, and Melrose all specified the number. I don't know exactly how the mechanism for adding a ward, but I think the way it works is in Massachusetts every 10 years, the municipality itself re-precincts and sets the precincts lines. Then it goes to the secretary of the Commonwealth's office for approval. And then those are generally, it didn't happen last time because of COVID threw things off, but then the legislature uses those as the building blocks for the districts and the legislature and Congress.
[Milva McDonald]: So maybe that was the discussion on the city council was whether to, like, they wouldn't have the final decision on whether to add another ward, but yeah, maybe that's what it was about.
[Moreshi]: That's interesting. That's another good call center question.
[Eunice Browne]: I'm very curious to see what happens. I mean, once we're finished with this, you know, and it goes out to a vote, it'll be probably, what, 18 months or so from now, and then, You know, whatever parameter that we put in here for review would probably be 10 years down the road. And then.
[Milva McDonald]: We haven't, yeah, maybe, maybe not.
[Eunice Browne]: I'm just sort of hypothetically. Yeah. Waiting based on what, you know, best practices of other communities. And if the census, you know, we just had, you know, over the last couple of years, got us to almost nine wards. There's a whole lot of building in, the pipeline here in the city with apartments going up, proposed things that may come to fruition in the next maybe three to five years. Down on Mystic Valley Parkway, where the old furniture store was near Bertucci's, something's going in there. Housing's going in there. There's probably housing going in over in Wellington. you know, we may be increasing our population significantly in just the next few years. So would we need, would we end up with another ward, you know, maybe in five years.
[Milva McDonald]: So I guess I yeah, I see this as the question for the call-in center because is because from what we've seen the charter tends other communities charters tend to specifically state the number of city councilors and that's based on their number of wards. So what would happen if the ward if you know if this community got another ward, what would happen to that section of the charter? So we can ask the Collins Center that. And we can also ask if there's a way to do what David is talking about, which is to not really explicitly state the number of Councilors, just say one Councilor per ward, either two or three at-large Councilors total, yeah. So let's say, so that means if we did get another ward with this, we would still keep this council at 11, but there would only be two at large, right?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Exactly, yep.
[Milva McDonald]: And do we think that's good? Or do we think if we had another ward, we should go to 12? I mean, we should go to, well, we'd have to go to 13. 13, yeah.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I think 13 is a lot.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, that's big. Yeah. Yeah, so.
[Moreshi]: I guess I'd be inclined to follow their lead because presumably those charters are accounting for whatever the. Exactly, yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, so we can throw this out there and they'll tell us if there's a reason not to do this.
[David Zabner]: Either way, it sounds like we're in agreement as to the goal here. Yes, exactly.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. So that's good. Okay. Next. Next is a biggie.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, term lengths. I think personally that two years for the city council is pretty reasonable. I don't know if we talked about this as a group, but I feel like four years for the mayor would be more reasonable than two, given that it's a full-time position.
[Milva McDonald]: I totally agree. I think that's the easier one to talk about because I think there's a lot of general agreement that that's a good idea. Do you agree, John?
[Moreshi]: Totally. I think it should definitely be four years.
[Milva McDonald]: We also hear that from the community loud and clear.
[Moreshi]: I also like two years for Councilors. I just note that as a conversation piece, I wouldn't support it. Framingham actually provides it, so ward Councilors are two years and at large are four years. I think four years is an awful long time for a Councilor.
[Milva McDonald]: I think Melrose does the same. That actually was suggested at the listening session we did at the library by a member of the public. I think it's seen as sort of a compromise because people are like, well, four years is too long for the city council, but two years is kind of short. And so maybe they see this as a compromise that the three at large would be four year terms and the rest. you know, the ward would be two years.
[David Zabner]: I don't know. I mean, the other thing is like those, uh, those at large candidates are going to be spending a lot more money, right? And the thing we were talking about was kind of wanting to get a little bit of the money out of politics. Um, and so that, that does for that reason as well, that feels reasonable.
[Milva McDonald]: So John, when you brought that up as an example, you seem to maybe not think it was the best idea.
[Moreshi]: Um did I is that what I heard? Yeah I think two years is is reasonable um you know the council is an entity so I think there's a certain niceness of having everyone come in together.
[Milva McDonald]: So yeah I mean three years would be the compromise but for a number of practical reasons three years I mean do we want to consider three years?
[Moreshi]: No, it would be amazingly expensive, I think. Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: And the other thing that people have talked about is the staggered terms, which again, sounds really great, but then has all these practical implications in terms of the cost to the city and the issue of turnout, because there's elections at different times every year, pretty much. So are we crossing three-year terms and staggered terms off the list, or do we want to discuss those further?
[David Zabner]: I think we can cross those off the list. I think it could be worth bringing up to the group as a whole the idea of four-year terms for at-large. Okay. I'd be comfortable saying that as a committee, that's not a recommendation.
[Milva McDonald]: But would you be comfortable saying that we recommend that ward Councilors be two years?
[David Zabner]: No, no, what I'm saying is as a group, I don't know if you feel this way, but I'd be very comfortable saying one of the things we talked about was four year terms for at large. That's not our recommendation. It's like not what we thought was better, but we thought this was the kind of question that we should bring back to the group. Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. No, I just was unclear on whether we thought that the two-year terms made sense for the, you know, in general, are we saying maybe that the whole committee would decide that the entire council, including the ward ones, should have four-year terms?
[David Zabner]: Again, like, the whole council, I think, can override any decision we make, right?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, yeah, that's right.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, the committee, yeah. I think two years certainly, certainly for the ward-based,
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so we want to specifically bring the idea of two years for Ward, four years for At-Large. Do we want to do any sort of further research on this or like research how many communities do it that way, look at maybe how it's been working?
[Moreshi]: Yeah, it'd be interesting to get someone's perspective who's engaged, you know, just to, you know, it's funny and the rules are different even when they are two year terms from just my understanding talking to people. You know, one of the reasons I like ward representation is because you know who to go to when you have a ward question. But the flip side of that is there's an advantage to running for Councilor at large because you don't often field those kinds of questions. You know, my trash wasn't picked up, street problem, that kind of thing. So even if it's the same term line, there can be incentives to being a Councilor at large.
[David Zabner]: I was going to suggest one more possible incentive for being a Councilor at large. And this is something that just occurred to me. I don't have strong feelings on it. We could say that the city council president must be one of the at-large Councilors. That's an interesting- Extra person, extra power, maybe they should be elected by the whole city.
[Milva McDonald]: especially because we're giving the city council president the vacancy power to be acting mayor and whatnot. So what do you think, John?
[Moreshi]: You know, it's funny. I think I saw a council that did that, but I could be wrong. I mean, I wouldn't want to limit the council, you know. That's the balance on that, yeah. Canadians and outs, right, is my feeling. I'd be inclined to say they get to pick who they want.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. And you're only limiting them to three.
[Moreshi]: Yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: That's true.
[Milva McDonald]: That's true, but I... But the point of the powers, the extra powers that we're giving the president, that we've discussed giving the president, such as the power to be acting mayor.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Or to appoint acting mayor.
[Milva McDonald]: Or be or appoint acting mayor, right. What do you, I mean, that does seem like maybe it makes sense for that to not be a ward council.
[David Zabner]: On the flip side, right? Like at the end of the day, the city council gets to choose who they choose. And in that way, the city council president has, I think, um, you know, authority derived from the whole city voting. So yeah, that's one of that mix.
[Eunice Browne]: maybe that's where going to find that large Councilors makes a little bit of sense.
[Milva McDonald]: It doesn't seem like a good enough reason though, right? It's not like one reason and there's other maybe too many, like if you had a scale and you put the reasons to do and the reasons not to do it, the reasons not to do it would be greater, I think, right?
[David Zabner]: Yeah, I think in spite of bringing it up, I would vote against doing that, this thing I brought up.
[Moreshi]: I bring up ideas I end up arguing against all the time.
[Milva McDonald]: No, it's good, because we have to consider all this.
[Eunice Browne]: I think passing it out to the whole group would be a good idea.
[Milva McDonald]: So should we keep it on the list for when we bring it to the group?
[David Zabner]: I'm going to cross it out and say again, kind of like not our recommendation.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So I'm going to also ask the call-in center about this split term lengths on the council and see if they have any ideas and maybe try to connect with a community that does it and see if we can get some research on that. I think that even the communities that do do it, there probably aren't that many, it's probably pretty new. But we'll look into that and try to get some more information about that too.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay. Is that good on that subject?
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
[Milva McDonald]: Compensation. Is this one of those things that has pretty standard language in charters? In general?
[David Zabner]: It's somewhat standard from what I remember.
[Moreshi]: I think the key thing for us is that pay increases don't take effect for x amount of time. So the next session.
[David Zabner]: So the rule for Melrose is you have to Salary increases must happen, like you have to vote on it during the first 18 months of a council session, and they don't take effect until the next session.
[Milva McDonald]: And how is that different? Let's see. Pittsfield looks like it has more text.
[David Zabner]: The only thing Pittsfield adds is a two-thirds vote of the full city council. which does not feel unreasonable, well.
[Moreshi]: And they also provide for reducing the salary, which I don't expect to have.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, I mean Melrose just says set by ordinance.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. And is that for the council? Because we also have to look at the mayor too. And then this one, Weymouth also says something about expenses.
[SPEAKER_03]: Subject to appropriation. Okay. Yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: Is there something in there that dictates upon what interval the compensation is reviewed?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, if it's set by ordinance, that could be taken care of in an ordinance, right?
[Moreshi]: Yeah. I think that's right. You could peg it to inflation too.
[Milva McDonald]: Uh, I mean, I feel like we can't the charter shouldn't go I'm singing ordinance. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. No, I I I I thought that you were saying that but but that makes sense to me because this this Shouldn't go into detail about it.
[Milva McDonald]: I don't I agree but As it is we're weren't we told that the mayor's salary is set by a special act So if we lay out that it's set by ordinance, then that's how it's done.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not, you know, the particulars get figured out in the ordinance. But at least we know that that's the procedure.
[David Zabner]: So I guess all three of these are similar. Of the three, I think my favorite is the Weymouth one in particular, cause I like that they add the expenses, which feels super reasonable to me. Um, and, uh, I don't, you know, the, the two thirds vote of the city council, I'm not sure that we need the two thirds vote of the full city council to increase salaries. I don't know, I'm very much in two minds about that particular bit, so.
[Milva McDonald]: So this is basically saying that the city council, I don't even know how the city council's salary is decided right now. But this means that they can decide their own compensation because they write the ordinances, right?
[Milva McDonald]: I don't know if that's different from what happens now. I don't know.
[Moreshi]: Well, the mayor would have a veto. That's true. If we give them one.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, I mean, based on what the Collins Center told us, every city in Massachusetts gives the mayor veto power. Oh, I was just, I wholeheartedly agree. We would be rebels if we didn't do that, but yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: The current charter says for the mayor's salary, the salary for the office of mayor shall be, and this must be old because I know it's different.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Can we focus on the city council first?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, yeah, let's do the city council, then we'll move to mayor. I don't see any city council in here. Yeah, there's nothing about city council in there. Yeah. And I just, I was curious. I don't know how it's decided now. So we like Weymouth and the only thing that Pittsfield adds is the two thirds majority, right?
[David Zabner]: Yes. And I'm, I'm just like very much of two minds about it, but I think it's worth us. I don't know if nobody has strong feelings about it. I'd rather leave it out actually.
[Moreshi]: I would leave it out as well. I would say, even when we have a recommendation, it makes sense to flag the things we didn't recommend and to say why. I think there's enough choke points. And I do think people should be compensated for service in a job like that. The mayor can veto. People can vote them out.
[Milva McDonald]: OK, that's great. So now we ready for mayor?
[David Zabner]: Yes.
[Moreshi]: Or just to put a point on it, are we limiting the effectiveness of an increase to the next term?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, so what I wrote was copy Weymouth.
[Moreshi]: Oh, OK. I was reading. OK. I just looked at the bullet. I see. Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: So Eunice, what you were starting to read, I believe that our current charter actually means a salary.
[Eunice Browne]: It does, but it's not what she currently wants.
[Milva McDonald]: No, it's not. So what I think has happened is that since then, which that must have been the 1986 salary.
[Eunice Browne]: Well, it says in parentheses below the text of what it is, It says acts of 1986 chapter 605, but it goes on and on acts of 1990. Right. That's every one of those is a race, right? And the last one evidently came in 1999.
[Milva McDonald]: Wow.
[Eunice Browne]: That's, that doesn't seem right, but no, I think she might have 135 or one 50 now.
[Milva McDonald]: I thought it was one 35, but I don't know, but I have it somewhere else. Anyway, what we need to do is not have the mayor salary be set by a special act. Right. I think that's right.
[Moreshi]: I think that's key. And just my general sense of things is, I think it makes sense to worry about the city council setting its own raises maybe, but mayor's salaries don't seem to increase that often or that high, particularly relative to their responsibilities. I did see something, but I don't know if it's anywhere else that city council can't lower a mayor's salary while the mayor is in office. I think that makes sense.
[David Zabner]: Examples we have, they're all very similar. So by ordinance, establish an annual salary for the mayor. Yeah. The one difference is Pittsfield. So both, oh, this is Melrose. So both Melrose and Weymouth have the new salary tick effect after the next election, not mayoral election, the next city council election, right? So if the mayor is four years, it's still. And I think the one difference here, is that Pittsfield specifically says that. Increasing or reducing. Let's see. Adopted during the first 18 months of the term for which the mayor is elected as opposed to the city council. and unless it provides that the compensation increase or reduction is to take effect. So basically, the way Pittsfield wrote it, the mayor by default only gets a raise every four years, or is only capable of getting a raise unless the city council specifies otherwise, which seems unnecessarily complicated to me. Yeah, I agree. I feel like, I don't know that it would be unreasonable for us to say the mayor can't get a raise until the next election, like the next mayoral election, but I don't think it makes any sense to say, well, they normally don't get it unless the city council changes their mind. That seems weird.
[Milva McDonald]: And none of these, they don't have cost of living increases written into the raise. So the mayor has to wait. Yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: Tying the mayor, what do I want to say here? The city council is setting the mayor's salary. If there's any adversarial relationship there, then that could be fraught with issues.
[Milva McDonald]: It does seem to be done though, all these three charters do it.
[Moreshi]: Fairly standard.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Moreshi]: Otherwise, it would be the mayor giving themselves
[Milva McDonald]: Right, right. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how the special act works right now. Who, what, maybe the, you know, who sends a special act through the council. Yeah. So, and the way this is written, it's sort of just an obligation. It's part of the city council's job to do this, right. They just do it periodically as it's described in the charter. and it's part of their routine job, right?
[David Zabner]: No, so the way this is written, the town council or the city council never has to do this. They can just let it sit. They can let it sit. For as long as they want.
[Milva McDonald]: But that, I mean, okay, I mean, I feel like it should at least be reviewed, that they should have, I don't know.
[Moreshi]: I think that's an interesting idea, I would guess. I've noticed a trend. I'm sure other people have too. A lot of city mayors leave to become town administrators and make a lot more money.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Moreshi]: So is there an incentive to build something like that in? I think so, maybe. I certainly would argue against any limitation on giving the mayor a raise whenever the council wants to. I don't know that the mayor should have to wait four years or it should be 18 months. I think it makes sense to have that sort of limitation with the council because they're giving themselves the raise. So an intervening election is nice. So that's my only thought on reviewing these. I don't feel compelled to have that sort of break.
[Milva McDonald]: So we like parts of these, but there's not one of them that we like completely. Is that what I'm getting?
[David Zabner]: I actually. I'm sorry. One of these, I don't really like is the. Cause I just think it's overly complicated. The other two I think are completely and totally reasonable. You know, like. Not to. Do go to house of cards on it. Right. The nice thing about forcing an intervening election before the mayor gets the raise of at least the city council is that it stops the city council from buying off the mayor, which I don't know why that would happen. But it's probably better to have a situation to avoid the possibility of the city council saying, hey, if you do what we want, we'll raise your salary. Yeah, yeah. I don't know how much this structure makes a difference for that, but.
[Moreshi]: I also remember there's a state ethics opinion about city council voting on raises because the number of the councilors were considering running for mayor, which is another circumstance to think about.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, do we know of an alternative model for setting the mayor's salary?
[Moreshi]: I think the council has to do it. I think it's a reasonable thing. I think the question is what sort of breaks. Right. Do we want to put around that?
[David Zabner]: One, I think given that all three of these are almost identical, it feels like a situation where we copy what everybody else is doing to me.
[Milva McDonald]: Or these three. I mean, we could, we could maybe, if we, if we wanted to, or if we thought it was important, we could look at some other charters.
[Moreshi]: I do like your idea about a periodic review. though, just in light of what seems to be a trend where mayoral salaries are low relative to their responsibility. And I think we could, that's something we could just generate, you know, a sentence.
[Milva McDonald]: Part of their job that they, you know, they review the mayor's salary and at which time they could.
[Moreshi]: Yeah. I don't know, five years or something.
[David Zabner]: So salaries say within the first, you know, six months of, uh, Oh, I like that idea.
[Moreshi]: That's a good idea. Mayor's term. I like, yeah, I like that idea. I don't know. I don't want to speak to them all.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. No, that's, um, and outside of that piece that we wanted to potentially add, um, That's a good question, too. What does review mean? Was there, which, Weymouth or Melrose, was there one that we want to say, okay, we like this one?
[David Zabner]: I think they're almost identical. So Melrose is at the top.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. All right. So, and then in terms of the, and I love that you're asking these questions, because definition is important. What, what does review mean?
[David Zabner]: I would say just maybe producer reports, like comparing mayor's salary to other mayors in the area.
[Moreshi]: Yeah, I think that's maybe the best thing to do.
[David Zabner]: And mayors and city managers, something like that.
[Milva McDonald]: Um, I don't know, do we feel like we want to make them produce a report?
[David Zabner]: I don't know what review means if they're not producing a report, I guess.
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, yeah. I mean, well, they do have they have open meetings. So I guess you know that whatever they discuss would be reported on in the minutes. I was just me saying that they have to review it, they have to address it, they can't just let it sit and never never decide to give the mayor a raise. I guess that's what I'm thinking. But maybe report is the right way to go.
[Moreshi]: I think the existence of a report that is consistently pointing out that our mayor, for example, is the lowest paid mayor among Malden Melrose. Okay. I think that that's something, at least if the mayor pursued a raise, you could justify it.
[David Zabner]: So this- So this- To require a report, we could require an ordinance, must pass an ordinance affirming or changing the mayor's
[Milva McDonald]: Salary for the next term Yeah, so so what you're saying is they have to do an ordinance no matter whether they're right, you know That's going to address the mayor's salary one way or another one way or the other um And and did we are we is this every two years? Yeah, how how often two years in the first six months of each session is what I wrote Of each council session.
[David Zabner]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. No, that makes sense. Okay, that's great Yeah, I like it
[Moreshi]: I do too. I think that's a really cool original idea.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay. I don't know how original it is, but.
[Moreshi]: Well, usually I like to just steal things from other charters. So I, I don't know. I like it too.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, well, you know, we'll see when the call-in center comes on, you know, you never know, they're going to be like, wait a minute, you can't do that because whatever, but that's why that's good. That's why we have that because they've seen it all. And they'll know if it's actually not a good or maybe it's not original and it's not in the charters because there's a reason. And if there is, we'll find out. Okay. What's next?
[David Zabner]: The next thing I have is other mayoral roles. And the thing I was specifically thinking here is mayor is not on the school board, the school committee.
[Milva McDonald]: And I feel like that's not in articles two and three, right?
[Eunice Browne]: I think that's in article four, the school committee subcommittee. We'll be talking about that. I'm on that subcommittee. We'll be talking about that in our upcoming meetings.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, so I don't think we need to address that.
[David Zabner]: Do you wanna, like, I don't know if this is an issue, but like, could the mayor in theory right now also hold other roles within the city?
[Milva McDonald]: Well, I feel like when we were looking at one of the charters, I saw something about that. Prohibitions, it was right under compensation.
[Moreshi]: Oh yeah, usually you can't. Right there, prohibitions. Some charters will say you can't hold another city office.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, is that what you're talking about, David?
[David Zabner]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: It seems pretty standard, right?
[David Zabner]: Yeah, I'm good with that.
[Milva McDonald]: So we want to include standard language about mayoral prohibitions, right?
[Unidentified]: Mm-hmm.
[David Zabner]: All right. So is our school committee paid?
[Eunice Browne]: Yes. They get a stipend. It's not a lot.
[David Zabner]: Well, but this would exclude the mayor from the school committee? No. I don't think the mayor would get that school committee money.
[Milva McDonald]: No, she doesn't get paid to be chair. It's just part of her job, right?
[Moreshi]: Yeah, she's ex-officio.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: No, she's not ex-officio. No, she's not. She's the chair. He's the chair.
[Moreshi]: No, well, it might be my ignorance. I thought ex officio meant you got it because of your title.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, as opposed to ex officio meaning you're not a voting member? Is that what?
[Eunice Browne]: That's what I was thinking. Maybe I don't understand what the terminology means either, so.
[Moreshi]: Yeah, I'm sorry for being pretentious. It just means because she's mayor, she's on the council.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. But it's because the charter puts her there. Right. You're right. Again, that's going to be part of what the school committee section looks at. The other pieces that you were talking about, David, are pretty much addressed in the prohibitions paragraph, right?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Okay. Do we want to look in more detail at that paragraph? or are we just gonna take them? I think it's fine.
[Moreshi]: I think it tracks the ethics law at least for the first part too. You really can't get paid twice from the same local government, I don't think.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, great. So that goes blue now?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, the ordinances veto power. So, On this ordinances section, the veto part is in the mayoral in the section two, and then other pieces about the creation of ordinances, et cetera, is in the legislative branch section, which is three, right? Unless I got it backwards.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I think legislator is two.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Which one are we going to look at first?
[David Zabner]: Between which two, sorry?
[Milva McDonald]: Ordinances, veto, veto power. Well, that would be the mayor.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, let's look at, I mean, veto power, it seems, again, to be quite standard.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Yeah, that looks pretty much the same in every one of those charters.
[David Zabner]: So that's easy. Unless we wanna do something unique.
[Milva McDonald]: Is there any reason to think about that?
[Moreshi]: Yeah. I think the standard is where I'm at.
[Milva McDonald]: And does the standard language all gives the city council two-thirds override? Is that right?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yep.
[Milva McDonald]: I'm pretty sure that's the case, that that is currently what the city council has. Is that right? Can the city council override? I think so.
[Moreshi]: That'd be pretty brutal.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Eunice, do you know off the top of your head the city council can override a veto with a two-thirds vote?
[Eunice Browne]: I'm not entirely sure. Let me see if there's anything in our existing chart around it.
[Milva McDonald]: I don't think there is, but well, maybe there is. But all of these have the two-thirds override. We'll just put standard language.
[Eunice Browne]: I wonder if there's anything in the city council rules on it.
[Moreshi]: Um, well, I don't think the rules wouldn't govern the veto power.
[Milva McDonald]: No. Okay. I mean, they, you know, we'd probably have to go dig into the plan a mass general, but we're, but no need, I don't think because we're okay with this standard language here. Right. Now are we looking at the city, the legislative side of the ordinances? Yep.
[David Zabner]: Limits of ordinances, I wrote. Okay. And I think veto overrides are already covered by this.
[Milva McDonald]: In that, yeah. Yeah, there you go. That's good.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[David Zabner]: That's easy peasy. Okay. So the limits I'm seeing is, that Melrose has this no ordinance shall be passed finally on the date it is introduced. Pittsfield takes a slightly different approach where if a single member present objects to the taking of the vote, it gets postponed.
[Milva McDonald]: That means any Councilor can do that?
[David Zabner]: Yes. Yeah, I don't like that idea. I don't like that idea, do you? I don't like it. I mean, yeah, I don't feel. I'm seeing a theme, though, of there being ways of slowing ordinances down. So Weymouth, again, has this no ordinance shall be passed finally on the date it is introduced, unless it's an emergency.
[Milva McDonald]: That makes more sense to me than the other one.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I think ordinances require three readings.
[Moreshi]: Probably. That's usually like an internal rules thing.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. So do you think even saying no ordinance shall be passed on the date it's introduced is too much ordinance management in the charter?
[David Zabner]: I mean, everybody else is doing something along the same lines, right? Like, if anything, I think actually, like, the Pittsfield approach, I like better.
[Milva McDonald]: And so and what is Pittsfield says that one person can stop the vote? So can you say, I was just gonna say, can you say why you like that? Because john and I both sort of had a negative reaction to it. So I would like to hear I would like to hear what's the upside is.
[David Zabner]: So the Weymouth version and the Melrose version is there's no way to pass an ordinance on the day it's introduced. The Pittsfield version is if anybody objects to passing the ordinance on the day it's introduced, then the vote gets put off.
[Moreshi]: Can I read Pittsfield? You know, and I can pull it up too.
[Milva McDonald]: So that's just for the day it's introduced? I thought it was in general.
[Moreshi]: That's what I thought it was too.
[Milva McDonald]: OK. We don't like it in general, but if it's just the date it's introduced, it's a subtle difference between the others and this one for just the date that it's introduced.
[David Zabner]: Well, so they don't say it. The thing that Pittsfield doesn't do is they don't have the rule that you can't pass it on the date it's introduced. And I feel like instead they have this charter objection thing.
[Moreshi]: Could you go back? Yeah, sorry. No, it's okay. On the first occasion of the question.
[Milva McDonald]: That does say on the first occasion though.
[David Zabner]: Right. So adoption of an adoption. Right.
[Moreshi]: So it's, but that's not, that's not introduced.
[Milva McDonald]: It's different words. What is the adoption of a measure? What does that mean?
[David Zabner]: I assume it's the, the, the, like the passing of an ordinance.
[Milva McDonald]: But then what is the vote? Because the person is objecting to the taking of the vote, what would they be voting on?
[David Zabner]: On whether or not to pass an ordinance.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, but if the adoption of the measure on the first occasion that the adoption of the measure, so on the first occasion that an ordinance is put to the council. So that's, I think it's the same It's the same concept.
[David Zabner]: That's what I'm saying. I feel like they're very similar concepts, but this version actually gives the council more flexibility because they can unanimously decide.
[Adam Hurtubise]: They can if they're unanimous.
[Moreshi]: Exactly. So I actually, if I read the other ones, it's saying day it's introduced, but if I'm reading the charter objection one, it's not the day it's introduced. It's the day it comes up for passage.
[David Zabner]: Yes.
[Moreshi]: It's gone through committee. It's been vetted and then you can kill it. I see.
[Milva McDonald]: I I would not support that that I would I agree with you don I wouldn't support that but I would support it for the day.
[Moreshi]: It's introduced That they that if um, they could vote on it if if unanimously they wanted to vote on it I could support that as long as we have sort of a relief release valve with emergency ordinances Do you see what i'm saying? Yeah um But as I read the charter objection, it just, like, you've gone through the process, you're about to adopt the ordinance, and then, oh, no, we're not doing it. We have to do it in two weeks.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, we can't do that. Are the other charters, do they call it a charter objection?
[David Zabner]: The other ones don't seem to have it at all. Yeah, I think they do.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, OK, but they do have the thing about the first day.
[David Zabner]: Exactly, yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: They don't call it a charter objection. Yeah. So when the call-in center described what this section contains, can you go up a little bit, David DeVito? How ordinances are established, requirement of mayor approval, veto emergency measures, and raising a charter objection to voting on a measure. So that does seem to be a separate thing that of these three charters only Pittsfield has.
[David Zabner]: Exactly, yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Oh yeah, I just saw that. Hope she hasn't been waiting long.
[David Zabner]: She just popped up.
[Milva McDonald]: Oh good. Well, do we need, do we want to, I mean John and I have not, we're very wary of the charger objection, I think.
[David Zabner]: That's fine.
[Milva McDonald]: But do we want to find out more about it?
[David Zabner]: I, you know, honestly, I don't, the one thing I liked about it was that it seemed like a way to avoid this first sentence from Weymouth and from Melrose. That is like not entirely my favorite because I like giving the city council more flexibility than that. But I also don't think that that first line is in any way unreasonable, right? Like requiring... some time for everybody to like read the ordinance and think about it before it's voted on, unless it's an emergency, I think is massively reasonable. So I'd be happy just taking something similar to either Melrose or Weymouth's version.
[Moreshi]: No, we could do, David, I don't know if this would, you'd like it, but what if we steal from Melrose or Weymouth, but uh, that first sentence we say except in case of an emergency involving health or safety or unanimity. Sure.
[Milva McDonald]: Ah, there you go.
[Moreshi]: Yeah. Cause then they'll get what you like out of Pittsfield, I think.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah.
[Moreshi]: Sounds good.
[Eunice Browne]: Okay. So. You're into 10 o'clock at night, John.
[Moreshi]: I know, I'm, I'm so tired. Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: I know. I am too. So, um, so limits of ordinances, copy Melrose, add unanimity. Okay. Do we have any curiosity whatsoever about the charter objection? I mean, I guess the fact that the Collins Center put it in the description of what that section could include actually makes me a little curious.
[Moreshi]: I bring my baggage because I worked in the Senate for so long where one member of 40 could table a bill. So you've gone through this whole process, revisions, and then it would just stop dead.
[Milva McDonald]: You're right. I don't like that.
[Moreshi]: Because of one person. And I just, I think if you can muster, if it was more than one, you know, if you can muster a real number.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Moreshi]: I find it more compelling, but I think just one is.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So, so charter objection is not something. Yeah.
[Moreshi]: At least for me.
[Milva McDonald]: I agree with you. I just started to be curious about it because on the face of it, to me, it seems like kind of a no way thing, you know, no way, but then I'm thinking, but maybe there's something I don't, you know, I'm not seeing.
[Moreshi]: I think it's a good one to flag for the group, you know?
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Moreshi]: I think it's a good conversation piece.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, also when the, if the call centers there, they can, you know, they can address. Okay. Great. Um, so what's our next, um, what's our next piece.
[David Zabner]: Somebody wrote city council order decisions. I don't actually know what that means.
[Milva McDonald]: Don't need, um, didn't you make this list or did I, I didn't, did I make this list?
[David Zabner]: I mostly made it, but I gave y'all editability. It's possible. Um,
[Milva McDonald]: Do you think you might have put that in, John?
[Moreshi]: I don't think so, but I wonder if it relates to like, I just did a control F in Weymouth, all questions of order. So relative to procedure, decorum kind of things.
[Milva McDonald]: You saw something in Melrose about that?
[Moreshi]: Weymouth.
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, Weymouth, okay. Oh, there we go. That gives a council president, but that's kind of what the council president does now, pretty much, right?
[David Zabner]: Oh, so it seems like Melrose, Pittsfield, they all say something specific about what the city council president can do. So maybe that's, I'm going to rewrite this as hours of CC presidents.
[Milva McDonald]: Do you think that it would be helpful when we put this document together and sort of try to when the committee makes all you know. when we present it to the committee, when the committee decides that we put sections under all these topics, or?
[David Zabner]: A thousand percent, yes. I think we should reorganize this, and I think even maybe take a first crack at writing it in the kind of language that comes out of these.
[Moreshi]: I think we definitely should share models, at least.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, okay. I mean, you know, the Collins Center should be available to do the drafting, but if we give them a head start, that's fine.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, so, but I think, you know, this was a first crack.
[Moreshi]: That's my fault, I think I suggested the buckets, I don't know if they were.
[Milva McDonald]: No, I was just thinking that ultimately we'll want to break it down.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, for sure.
[Eunice Browne]: I think it would be helpful too for the entire group to have Whatever you produce ahead of time There's a whole lot here to digest, you know and jumping out now on your third meeting Other people who haven't seen this at all or listened to either of any of the other meetings There's an awful lot here, you know, we'd want to come prepared Yeah, and there's no way we're doing this all in one meeting.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean this just next week we're with the whole committee. We're going to look at the um appointments uh, confirmation powers of city council for multi-member bodies. Um, so- and that's only one piece of this, so- Yeah, I have some notes.
[Eunice Browne]: I- I listened to your last meeting, your first meeting, and I have a whole lot of notes on that. Okay.
[David Zabner]: I mean, I also just imagine, though, in general, you know, my experience with these things is that when you have something real in front of you to read, that's when you, that's when kind of the objections and the arguments finally really start because people have something to push back against or to support.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, and some of this is going to go a lot is going to go fast. I mean, then there's certain like the confirmation power is more maybe going to require more discussion. Some of these will go pretty fast, I think, with the whole committee.
[David Zabner]: So it looks like this is fairly standard for president and vice president. The only difference is that Weymouth has a separate subsection for vice president and Melrose and Pittsfield just have, by the way, there's a vice president who shall preside in absence or, uh, you know what, actually Melrose doesn't even have a vice president.
[Milva McDonald]: So they're just saying they're because I mean The president is the one who's given special powers in the charter, right exactly So it makes sense to me that they would you know, I I feel like the charter should only include stuff that's Really essential. Yeah, um And I think it's I think it's fine for the city council to decide themselves about the vice president stuff, but I don't know What do you guys think?
[David Zabner]: I think that's super reasonable
[Moreshi]: I'm inclined to agree.
[David Zabner]: Okay. So for that, we'll copy Melrose. One question, does the city council president currently make a different salary from everybody else? Yes. So should we explicitly allow for that?
[Milva McDonald]: It's not much of a difference, but.
[Eunice Browne]: Of the seven of them right now, five make one salary. The vice president makes a little bit more and the president makes a little bit more than that.
[Moreshi]: we can put that in the ordinance language, you know, just expressly say you can, um, the city council may prescribe additional salary for council. Oh, you know, one thing I noted and I, I think we were supposed to talk about it and didn't it, do we talk about term limits?
[Milva McDonald]: No, thank you, John. That was a, that was a big, that's a big one.
[David Zabner]: I know for sure.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, we only have 25 more minutes to get through this whole thing. I mean, we can have another meeting, but we thought we were going to wrap it up on this one.
[David Zabner]: I'm against term limits. I realize that's a hot take in the year of our Lord 2023, but That's just me. No, I agree.
[Milva McDonald]: This is a really tough one because my experience has been that people are really very much for it or very much against it. But what we have heard from all our public feedback is a pretty strong support of term limits. I think that comes directly from the history of Medford. But so I don't know where to go with, like if, you know, what we're gonna have to decide is how much are we gonna weigh that?
[Moreshi]: My understanding generally is that term limits are something that are always very popular, but that the social science and political science weighs heavily against them.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Moreshi]: Because as soon as someone knows what to do, they're gone. And I think if we are able to make elections more competitive by establishing ward elections, creating incentives for people to do it by maybe fixing some problems, then the elections take care of the problems people perceive exist that they want to address.
[Milva McDonald]: for the council for sure. The other thing about the council is if you have a, you know, if you, it's a council and there's, well, there's seven people on it now and there could be more potentially. So even if one or two of them stay on for 30 years, you know, there's gonna be some turnover no matter what. But I think there is a concern about the mayor.
[David Zabner]: Listen, if we wanted to say for the mayor, mayor may not serve more than four consecutive terms, like, or five consecutive terms, whatever.
[Milva McDonald]: It would be 20 years.
[David Zabner]: Exactly.
[Milva McDonald]: If the if the term goes up to four. Yeah.
[David Zabner]: Yeah. To me, having a mayor serve for 12, 16, 20 years is actually a really good thing. You know, like having that level of consistency at the top of the government is actually a positive. I could totally see those saying, you know what, at 20 years, you're old cheese and it's time for It's time to at least give somebody else four years. And then if you want to run again, go for it.
[Milva McDonald]: John, what do you think about the mayor piece?
[Moreshi]: Yeah, I mean, I definitely see, like the history of Medford in particular, making that a more significant issue. But again, at the end of the day, You know, we have competitive elections. To the extent we're keeping someone bad from staying in office, my immediate reaction to that is it's incumbent upon us as citizens to address someone who's bad in office. Right. Maybe that sounds too idealistic.
[Milva McDonald]: No, I mean, I guess my feeling like I guess my feeling on this is that We have heard, you know, we have strong public feedback in favor of them. And you made the point, John, that that's typical, right? But I feel like this is going to be one that maybe the whole committee is going to have to chew on. And I do think, though, that it could be good to collect some of the data and the research that you were referencing, John. You know, because I think we're going to need that.
[Moreshi]: I hope I can find it now.
[Eunice Browne]: I think we're at an interesting crossroads right now in terms of our elected officials, because going into starting in January, I think on the City Council, you'll only have one member who has served more than, what, four terms? Or is it three terms? More than three. More than three. And on the school committee, not counting the mayor of the six, I think you'll only have one member who has served 17, 19, 21. Four terms. So I guess the question is, of this newer group of politicians that we have in the city now, are we going to see churn going forward?
[SPEAKER_03]: They're very young, so we don't know.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, they're young, so does that mean that they're going to stay there for a long time or that they're going to go on to other things.
[Milva McDonald]: No telling.
[David Zabner]: No telling.
[Eunice Browne]: The jury's out.
[David Zabner]: I think either way, you know, the charter should be written as though it will be the charter for a thousand years. Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: I think that what we need to do is get, I mean, John, if you can look up some of that research, I'll try to see what I can get my hands on. And I will also ask the Collins Center for stats, because I mean, What I know is that term limits are uncommon in municipal government, but maybe we can get some stats from the Collins Center.
[Moreshi]: I think Framingham has them. Yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: Can we go back to the powers of president for a minute? Sure. I wonder if we can include a power for the president to be able to deal with some of the members who may not act in the best interest of the city in some ways. And I'm speaking of a couple of particular instances where two different council presidents have told me that based on some behavior of some of the members that is not, you know, what we would want to see in a Councilor that other than saying, you know, please don't do that anymore, that there is nothing that they can do in order for, there are no disciplinary measures. And to be a little bit more specific, Councilors who don't treat residents with respect when they come up to the podium, in one instance, and in another instance, attendance issues where you know, everybody misses a meeting here or there, you know, life happens. But when you're, you know, missing upwards of, you know, 20, 30, 40 meetings, and there's nothing that the council president can do other than say, hey, what's going on? And there's no, there's nothing that they can do to compel them to attend or to, no repercussions whatsoever.
[Milva McDonald]: Right, I guess my feeling is that this is not really charter material. I feel like it's more like, maybe the rules of the council. I don't know.
[Eunice Browne]: What do you guys think? There was nothing nothing in the charter, so they couldn't couldn't do anything.
[David Zabner]: Right. So the thing we had previously discussed was we talked about, um, powers for the removal of the city council members, many members, et cetera.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[David Zabner]: And the thing we discussed was that's part of section eight, maybe, um, under recall, um, in terms of, You know, like what other powers could we give the city council president? I don't know that I'm comfortable with giving the president or even the like whole committee minus one, the ability to like take somebody's pay away. You know, I don't know, like we did see there was one. One charter that gave the city council subpoena authority. Um, so they couldn't theory like subpoena a city council member who is not attending meetings to, to show up. Um, beyond that, I like, I assume that the president and the council already have the ability to like, take away somebody speaking time or something, if they're being rude.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[David Zabner]: Um, or, you know, censure them or otherwise kind of, I don't think so actually.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, what would that, I mean, censure meaning that they could, I mean, you know, what would that, what should they be able to do?
[Moreshi]: I would guess the city council could vote, for example, to say some behavior was inappropriate. Exactly. Wouldn't have a real consequence. But I do wonder, like, you know, what consequences could there be? You know, I would feel uncomfortable, for example, if a city council president or a council said, oh, you don't get to be a city councilor anymore.
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, they can't do that.
[Moreshi]: You know what I mean? They're elected. If someone's not showing up, they shouldn't be reelected.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. Yeah, that's what I don't think there's really any because these aren't hired because, you know, it's not like a job where they have a boss. I mean, your boss is the public that elected you.
[David Zabner]: So unless I mean, Eunice, do you have ideas for for what powers we might give the president?
[Eunice Browne]: I think I need to think on that a little bit more, but I found it very disturbing in these two particular instances that in the instance with the rude and inappropriate behavior to residents, getting up and walking out when residents were coming to the podium or you know, the points of information that were unnecessary, um, you know, and I know that the council president, this particular case spoke to the Councilor in question. Um, but other than telling them that, you know, really that's not appropriate behavior behind the rail. Um, the Councilor was free to continue and did, um, with no, particular repercussions, you know, and I just, I find it very disturbing that that is allowed. And when you think about the fact that very few people watch the meetings or attend the meetings and Councilors continue, are allowed to continue inappropriate behavior, unwelcoming behavior, disrespectful behavior towards residents. I just feel like there's got to be something that the president can do other than say, hey, you really shouldn't do that. Yeah.
[Moreshi]: I think what you're describing, I don't know exactly what you're talking about, but it all feels very subjective.
[Milva McDonald]: I agree with that.
[Moreshi]: you know, what's disrespectful, one. And two, if people aren't paying attention, you know, maybe this person is representing their base of support, right, by opposing something vehemently.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, I think at the end of the day, the other thing is just like, at least from what I can think of, and maybe we should think and see if there's anything else we can think of, the only things you can do to a city council member are take away their pay or remove them from office. And I don't think we want to give the city council the ability to do either of those things.
[Moreshi]: I'd say particularly the city council president.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, like even, you know, I don't even think the whole city council minus one person should be able to. I mean, maybe the ability to like dock pay, you know, a slap on the wrist. Like that doesn't feel super appropriate either.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. That's not their boss. The council president's not their boss. Yeah.
[Moreshi]: Um, you know, I, I, I always try to be very polite. I think it's a really important value, but I don't know. I mean, sometimes people are impolite.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, and in section 8, right? Like the city council president. In section 8, there are, um. Uh, you know, maybe we could give. The city council president the ability to initiate a recall election.
[Milva McDonald]: um Or the city council as a whole the ability to to initiate a recall election um But beyond that So yeah, and maybe so this is something maybe that should should be in the discussion of section eight so when we do go to section eight and we talk about Because as you say david, what else what is there is no other than what units you described the city council president already did there's no sort of tangible recourse, um, other than what you described and that's addressed in section eight. So, uh, so I mean, it is a concern for sure. And I've heard residents talk about these concerns too.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I have a feeling you know exactly who and what I'm talking about. Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: So, um, But so we'll we'll address it in section eight. Does that make sense?
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I haven't read that far. So I will go through and read that. But it the council president, you know, specifically told me that absent something in the charter, there's nothing that they could do.
[Milva McDonald]: But I also see your point where, you know, it's something we can also, you know, yeah, we can, we can look and see if other city how other cities have dealt with it.
[Eunice Browne]: It would be interesting to ask the Collins Center as well.
[David Zabner]: Yeah. I think we could also ask current and former city council presidents, what powers would you want? Because I'm sure they've thought about it harder than we have in the past five minutes.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I think if anybody's going to sit down with John Falco, I think he would be an interesting person to ask that question to.
[Moreshi]: Also, I would guess there's some Roberts rules stuff around this. Roberts. Yeah, I'm not reading it, but okay.
[David Zabner]: We have 10 minutes left, and I think we can finish this up. Emergency ordinances we already covered above, so I'm just going to go delete that. City Council quorum.
[Milva McDonald]: Do we have to define, is that just a definition? Is that what we're talking about, or?
[David Zabner]: I don't know. Do we want to say that the- Exercise of powers, section 2.6.
[Milva McDonald]: Let's go to that and see. Oh, wait, can we just look how authority is exercised? What constitutes a quorum? Rules, okay. So this is a lot of rules. Rules stuff.
[David Zabner]: Public comment. Fairly standard. For some reason, they all say six members, I guess, out of... Well, if we had 11, six would be... Yeah. So should we say 50% plus one? Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. I mean, that's the standard definition of a forum anyway, right? Yeah.
[David Zabner]: I didn't see anything in here. Maybe we can give this a second look.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, because special meetings. Yeah, there's some procedural stuff.
[David Zabner]: I'm just hoping that if we get through these, we don't need to have another one of these two hour meetings.
[Milva McDonald]: I know, I agree, I agree. Yeah.
[David Zabner]: So how do y'all feel about, you know, assuming there's nothing weird in there, 50% plus one for the quorum, standard stuff across the board. Final thing, I wrote taxes and Prop 2.5 overrides.
[Milva McDonald]: Um, is that and do other is that in the sections two articles two and three and the other charters?
[Moreshi]: I couldn't tell you well, so prop two and a half is um Governed by state law.
[David Zabner]: I don't know that we can do much And taxes apparently are only mentioned six times in here and they're section 10. So yeah, you don't have to cover that either Yeah, texas
[Milva McDonald]: So can we just look a little more at that last section? I just wanna look at it a little more carefully, the standard stuff that we talked about.
[Moreshi]: I just flag in the quorum stuff, scan them quickly. The same section often talks about rules of procedure as well. Yeah, right. I'm comfortable saying the council can set its own rules of procedure.
[Milva McDonald]: Is that what the city, that's basically what this says. Yeah, that the city council's, yeah, that makes sense.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Regular meetings held at, yeah, that's pretty much how it works now. Yeah, special. Yeah, this does look all pretty standard. And are they all pretty much the same, the other communities? Yeah. Looks like, yeah, that looks pretty much the same. Yeah.
[David Zabner]: The only difference is whether on the call of any three or more members or four or more members.
[Milva McDonald]: The special meetings. Yeah.
[Moreshi]: And, um, I wonder if that's because Weymouth has a different number of them.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Yeah.
[David Zabner]: Yeah. Somehow they all say six members. Yeah.
[Unidentified]: Also, why is it even, not that it really matters, I guess.
[David Zabner]: Um, Yeah, these look super duper standard. Do we have strong feelings on three or four for a special meeting?
[Milva McDonald]: For the special meeting? I think three is fine, personally.
[Moreshi]: I'm good with three.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, if there's three that think there's a reason for a special meeting, then yeah, the rest of them should come along. Awesome. I was about to open for public comment, but I think our two members of the public got hired and went to bed. This is great. So just for our last five minutes, I guess what I wanted to ask is if David, if you or John want to, so what we're gonna have at the next meeting is the City Council, I mean, the City Council, the Collins Center is going to do a little presentation on multi-member bodies, such as we asked for, right? About the creation of the bodies and a little more basic information. And then I was hoping one of you would sort of introduce what we had come up with as recommendations for multi-member bodies and open the discussion. And then if all goes well, we can have a vote on it. Do either of you want to volunteer to do that?
[Moreshi]: I can do it. I'll have to look and see what we did. Yeah, it's...
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, that would be awesome.
[Moreshi]: It'd just be like one page, probably, if we're just talking about multi-member bodies.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, yeah, basically what we decided as a recommendation for the multi-member bodies, the confirmation hours.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I'm sure there'll be a discussion about it with the whole committee.
[Milva McDonald]: And then we'll be able to have that discussion with a little more knowledge after the If I, you know, the call-in center tends to send their presentations at the last minute, but I'll get it to you as soon as they send it in case it will inform, you know, in case it will inform what you put together. But basically, it's going to be just this material right here, right, that we decided.
[Moreshi]: Okay.
[David Zabner]: Is this- And then we need to start, you know, to take this list of decisions we've made and start actually building sections two and three out.
[Milva McDonald]: If you would, are you volunteering to do that, Vivi? Yeah, sure. I'm not sure that I'll have it done for the meeting next week, but- No, you don't have to, because like I said, for next week, John is going to talk about the appointments of multi-member boards and commissions, and that's pretty much, because that's just a bigger piece You know, and so we'll cover that. And then in future meetings, we'll probably do it in chunks just because of the, yeah, probably do it in chunks. But that would be great. So John is going to present December 7th, and David is going to put together, okay, document.
[Moreshi]: David, could you send me a link to this doc?
[David Zabner]: This one? Um, yeah, it's also in, I already put it in the chat, but I can put it in the chat again. Um, and it's also just, it's in this, um, if you look in the subcommittees articles two and three folder, it's the list of powers to divide. rather.
[Milva McDonald]: And that's up to date in terms of the edits. Awesome. Yeah. Fantastic. Okay. Is there anything else that we need to bring up?
[David Zabner]: I'll just go through really quick once and say the things that we left for later.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[David Zabner]: So that's the position of auditor. Yeah. The creation of multi-member boards and commissions and term limits.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so the creation of multi-member boards and commissions should be, we'll get information on that because that's going to be part of the call-in center presentation. Term limits is just one of those big thorny ones that, and so in the minutes in the action list, I will, you know, I'm going to try to get a little more information on cities that have auditors and how that works. And we're going to try to collect some research and some on term limits and some statistics on how prevalent they are in Massachusetts.
[Moreshi]: We don't need that for next week, do we?
[Milva McDonald]: No, no, we don't need that for next week. No, that's, I mean, as it is, we're not going to schedule another meeting, right? So, I mean, we can schedule another meeting just to sort of revisit those things, like maybe a month from now. How do people, well actually a month from now, I don't know, how do people feel about late December? If we want to just push it to January is fine.
[Moreshi]: Yeah, I'd be interested to see how how people respond next week. Maybe we can make a call after that.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, I mean, I think if we wanted to do, like, even the 21st or the 14th of December, 21st might make more sense. If we want to start going over the actual bits that I've written in, we can also, I think, do that to a certain degree asynchronously. Yeah, 21st won't work for me.
[Milva McDonald]: But is 28th OK with people?
[Moreshi]: I actually can't do the 28th.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, see, everybody's busy. I just have my relatives from out of town that are going to be here, and I just don't want to do that on the 21st.
[David Zabner]: I mean, the other thing is, come December 12th, my schedule is empty, which is not to say I'm not going to be working like a crazy person.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, it doesn't have to be a Thursday night.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, exactly.
[Milva McDonald]: What are you going away after Christmas Don is that why you couldn't do the 28th I have concert tickets, okay Yeah, I can do that, okay, so let's just say tentative meeting on 1227 with the agenda of Auditor and term limits. Did I forget one thing? I don't think so.
[David Zabner]: Assuming that I've written out actual sections two and three, we can also start just kind of going over those and put a nitpick on language or if there's anything that we've missed in this discussion.
[Milva McDonald]: That's great. That's perfect. Okay, I will put that in the minutes and we can check in in mid-December and see Are we doing, you know, how do we feel? Are we ready to do this 27th meeting? And then we can try to cover those pieces. The term limits will be a big discussion, so it will be really good to have some actual, you know, material data and facts and materials to support that discussion when we have it open.
[Moreshi]: Yeah, it'd be interesting. I scanned some. I mean, I found at least a few things that point my way. There's certainly advocacy groups that go the other way. Yeah. And they have data of their own, I'm sure. So we'll figure it out. OK. Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Great. Does somebody want to? Somebody wants to? Great. All in favor?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Have a good night.
[Milva McDonald]: Great. Thanks, everybody. See you next week.
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