[Milva McDonald]: Okay, welcome everyone to our meeting. I'm gonna start as usual with the minutes. Did everybody have a chance to look at the main minutes? Move approval. Great, anybody second? Second. Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye.
[Unidentified]: Aye.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so we've accepted the minutes, great. All right, so we're going to move right into the presentation from the Collins Center. Anthony?
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: Thank you. I believe, Marilyn, are you on the call?
[Contreas]: Yes, I'm right here.
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: So what I'm going to do is I'm going to share my screen. I'll share the memo. And Marilyn actually did most of the research on this one, so I'm going to turn it over to her to explain the analysis. So Marilyn, you can go ahead.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: I need screen sharing, Madam Chair.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Are you taking care of that, John?
[Moreshi]: I'm trying.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Thanks.
[Moreshi]: I'm trying to make him a host, but the zoom.
[Milva McDonald]: No, I just enabled screen sharing. So I think that is that going to work?
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: I got I have it now. All right, Marilyn, you can go ahead.
[Contreas]: OK, thanks. We followed up on on the questions that you that you raised previously concerning the creation of precincts and wards, and we've provided a chart of the size of councils and how they're composed and what the options are out there in Massachusetts cities. The discussion of the precincts and putting precincts together to make wards. Has anybody seen this or do you want me to walk through it? We've seen it. Okay. Do you have questions? or do you just want me to hit the highlights?
[Milva McDonald]: Why don't you start with that? Ron, were you going to say something? Go ahead.
[Ron Giovino]: Just one quick question. We already have wards set up, is that correct?
[Contreas]: Yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay, so we don't need that procedure to create that, okay. Got it.
[Contreas]: Right, right. Every community above, I think, Yeah, but 4000 people have to have have to have precincts.
[Ron Giovino]: And just to follow up, just to follow up on that, the number of Councilors or school committee people that we have, that doesn't change the wards at all.
[Contreas]: Like if we have no, no, I mean, if you if you well, actually, the number of words is usually indicative of the number of word Councilors that you would have.
[Ron Giovino]: Right, so there's a potential of that we'd need to, I don't know how many wards we have, if anybody knows that.
[Milva McDonald]: Eight, eight.
[Ron Giovino]: We have eight. So if we were to go to ward representation and have a couple of at-large Councilors, we could create a nine-member council, two at-large seats, and then we could stick with seven wards. But I'm just trying to avoid the complexity of changing the wards.
[Contreas]: Well, no, if you have eight wards, you'd probably have eight ward Councilors and three at large for a total of 11. Because there is sort of a premise that it'd be an odd number.
[Ron Giovino]: Got it. Sure, no, I understand. I'm just, I'm trying to avoid a restructuring of the wards at the same time, not growing the council necessarily based on that.
[Contreas]: Yeah, well, no, if you have eight wards, it's eight wards. And as I noted in the discussion, the precinct lines and subsequently ward lines can be adjusted only once every 10 years. Right. So if you're looking at doing something in the next few years, what you have now is what the basis will be for how you determine the membership of the council if it's not all at large.
[Ron Giovino]: Right, but all those all those a link together. So we went to board representation, minimum, we'd have to have a nine members, minimum, because it would want to have an odd number.
[Contreas]: Right, right. But it would be odd to elect just one at large.
[Ron Giovino]: And is the same rule true that if we change to ward representation for school committee, that number would have to match the city council number? It does exactly match. One couldn't be 11.
[Contreas]: No, it doesn't have to match, but if you had ward representation, there'd be eight ward members on the school committee.
[Andreottola]: Right, gotcha. Gotcha, okay. I'd like to ask a question, please.
[Milva McDonald]: Go ahead, Anthony.
[Andreottola]: I along that the same line of questioning, since our words are just divided by, you know, I guess by number of residents. Could we or is it within our kind of, you know, our ability to kind of work towards, you know, kind of towards establishing boards that are like equitable to people of diverse communities, you know, can we move lines or can we create boards that represent, you know, a certain group or is that something that, is okay. I know Boston's been having struggling with this type of issue and I know that's part of a lot of the talk around charter study was you know having you know more representation of different populations and If we're going down this route, how do we go about establishing precincts or wards that represent different communities so we become more inclusive rather than maybe create exclusive one wealthy ward that's And I was just wondering if you had any experience dealing with communities around that particular issue and what your suggestions might be.
[Contreas]: Well, yes. You can't really you can move the lines to accommodate. You know, something that might resemble, you know, a neighborhood, which some. Which some communities try to do. But you can't do this in the charter. It can only be done every 10 years. So it would be a matter of working with the city clerk and the city council who have to approve this to move lines to create as long as they're relatively equal in size. But you can't do it in this charter process. You'd have to accept the words as they are now. It can only be done every 10 years. It can only be done under the supervision of the state secretary of state.
[Andreottola]: So, is that something that should be done before we even really kind of. think about what representation if we're going to establish wards that may, which may or may not, you know, kind of, you know, have the goals that, you know, we're trying to establish, you know, of having a more inclusive and diverse community, you know. So, I don't know what we're putting.
[Contreas]: The Medford population, there's nothing that triggers the Voting Rights Act, which requires that, you know, communities of color be given an opportunity to have someone run for office, which you don't have now because it's all that large. But there are trigger mechanisms for that as to, you know, how large that population has to be. And I'm not sure that Medford qualifies.
[Andreottola]: but we don't, we don't know, we don't really know that there isn't any study or no one's really kind of looked into as the area, a certain water or neighborhood that, you know, is represents any specific community or has, has, you know, anything that's, you know, significant and meaningful that, you know, we should be, you know, looking at before we kind of, you know, go down the,
[Contreas]: I would, I would, I would, I would sort of engage with the city clerk. I would engage with the community development director in terms of, you know, the populations that are in Medford and where they are.
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: Okay, Marilyn, if I can just get it.
[Contreas]: Yeah, please.
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: Yes. So just a couple of pieces just on the Voting Rights Act and the possible connection to, I think, the impetus to add diversity. just to add a little flesh to that. So there is an analysis, a legal analysis that looks at the candidates in the past as compared to the population in whether it's the ward or the, and there's a formula about how you say there are these many, I'm gonna use the wrong terminology, but possible eligible, that you'd expect these eligible candidates from this population versus the population we see in each election going back some certain period of time. And that's how you, groups might bring a case to say, oh, we're not being represented by the current boundaries or the current election section. I'm sorry, division of wards or just at large seats in the city. or if all of the at-large seats are being elected from this one part of the city where they have a certain demographic makeup, and to the exclusion of other sections of the city that might have a different demographic makeup. Now, in terms of, I think what Marilyn's getting at in some of the conversations is that this committee, while you can adopt a charter that says that councils will be elected from wards this committee can't create the wards even if it says that the charter even if it puts forth the charter that that says that they're going to be a certain number of ward Councilors that will happen by the city from the city council um every 10 years under the supervision of the state got it thank you
[Milva McDonald]: So Eunice and Jean, Eunice, you wanna ask your question first? Sure, thanks.
[Eunice Browne]: I'll just note that in the past, I don't know, 18 months, maybe, we've actually, just for a perspective for those who may not know, is I know that we've added two precincts, I think, Might've been ward six and ward seven. Don't quote me on that. But I know that we added two precincts. They just went through the whole process a little over a year ago. I know it was in effect for the election last fall. That there was a little bit of, they did get the word out. I think people were a little flustered about it and so forth. But we have added a couple of, precincts and the city is growing as we all know, um, with more and more, um, high rises coming up and condo conversions and all of that stuff. Um, so I know from what I read and what I, I knew as well, that the wards and precincts are usually plus minus about 4,000 people. So, um, down in the Wellington area, particularly, um, that area is growing, by leaps and bounds with a new. uh, new project, um, you know, in the permitting process right now for Mystic Valley Parkway, um, and so forth. So, you know, I fully expect that there will be changes, you know, down the road, um, maybe in the not too distant future. I don't know quite how all of that, you know, is going to work, but as we talk about, you know, wood representation, we have eight woods and precincts now, you know, That may well change to nine or 10 in the not too distant future. So I just want to add that as a little bit of perspective.
[Jean Zotter]: Thanks, Eunice. Jean, you had a question? Yeah, I had a question and a comment. So the census website provides demographic data by census track or by wards and precincts and I was playing with the census website to try to get like a demographic breakdown. by our wards just to see if there are particular wards that either are more diverse or more economically diverse. Is that something that Collins Center, I couldn't get that far. Is that something that Collins Center could do for us is look at our eight wards and give us the demographics just to help us understand whether there are if you went to award representation, would it actually result in a potentially a more diverse city council? So that was one question I had. Even if it doesn't, there are benefits to, I just wanna say there's some benefits to award representation. having city council have ward representation, it's easier to run. It's much easier for people economically to run by ward. So you might get more economic diversity that way, because you don't have to cover the whole city. So these are just things that the council should, or we should consider as we're hearing from the public and thinking through some of these structures.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, thanks, Jean. Danielle, did I see your hand? No.
[Danielle Balocca]: I was going to say what you just said, the benefit of running in your own ward.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. I have a couple of questions. One is, do any cities, or is it even a possibility, to combine wards, have ward representation and say, you know, to have one count, like say we have eight wards, you would have four ward Councilors and each would take two wards. Is that something that any municipality does? Is it even possible?
[Contreas]: It's nothing that I've seen. Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: So generally it's one Councilor per ward that's... Okay, thank you.
[Contreas]: There is a proposal, there is a proposal in the legislature right now from the city of Beverly to add school committee members who would be elected, one would be elected from wards one, two, and three, and one would be elected from four, five, and, wards four, five, and six. So that you would have, and they were referred to in the charter as, or in the proposal as district that those three wards would constitute a district that could elect one person to the school committee.
[Milva McDonald]: It's possible in theory, but it's not really done or it hasn't really been done thus far.
[Contreas]: I've never seen it for a city and the Beverly one is new. This is the first time I've seen that too. And I don't know how the legislature is going to respond to that.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. John, you have a question?
[Moreshi]: I was going to say it's tangentially related to your question, but I believe Boston has districts. They don't operate off wards, even though they effectively have ward Councilors. So I'm not sure exactly how they square with their... I think that's just terminology.
[Contreas]: Okay. People use the word district to refer to You know, wards and wards can be made up of the minimum size of a ward is two precincts, but some words have three or four. Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: Um, so one of the things that you're, the materials you put together, um, there was a sort of looking at sort of comparable cities and how they work their city council. Um, so, you know, I, I just wonder if we can circle back and look at that and, um, see if maybe we can, um, get some discussion around that. And because most of the, um, most of the examples you gave us, I think have ward representation. So I'm just trying to get a sense of how, statewide, what's the most common situation? Do most cities have at-large?
[Contreas]: Yes, most cities operate with a combination of ward and at-large members, with ward members being in the majority. That's in 33 of the 54 cities that includes the town council cities. Then you have the second group that where that large members outnumber the ward members, but there are still ward members. And there's the all at-large council. And there's one community that elects its entire council by precinct. And that's in Barnstable. And they have no at-large members.
[Milva McDonald]: So that's pretty big majority of the 33 out of 54, right? Yes. Okay. That's good to know. Thank you. In terms of exploring this. Do you think it would be helpful at all if we sort of looked historically at the representation on Medford's Council, let's say in the last decade or so, just looking at where the council comes from and see sort of What that looks like, is that something that a committee like this would do just to determine? Okay, so that could be useful just for us to look at just to determine whether there's certain areas of the city that just haven't, I mean, theoretically, they've all been represented because we have that large Councilors, but that haven't had.
[Contreas]: Yeah, but if you haven't had candidates coming out of certain words ever, you know, in a long time, yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay. Okay. Marilyn, a quick question. If we went to ward representation and one ward did not have a candidate, they'd just become another at-large seat?
[Contreas]: No, no. Somebody would write their name in, and they'd become the ward Councilor.
[Unidentified]: Got it.
[Milva McDonald]: I think, okay, I think, Jean, did I see your hand?
[Jean Zotter]: And Anthony answered it in the chat. OK, just about the you know, how do we get the demographic? Information, but for the wards. Great.
[Milva McDonald]: OK, so um. Do we do we have any? Oh Danielle, I see your hand.
[Danielle Balocca]: Alright, I just was thinking it through. So if so, with word representation plus at large, when you vote you'll be voting for like whoever's running in your ward plus for whoever the at-large Councilors are so you take like the top three like say you had say we were talking about um eight and three you would take like the top three at-large votes and then whoever wins in each ward okay so it could be like a lot more candidates potentially too like right i mean some some communities um aim to
[Contreas]: involved the voter to the greatest extent possible uh... in terms of uh... trying to get them to elect as much of them as close to the majority of the council as possible so if each each voter is going in and electing four members and it's not and it's it's an it's eleven member council so they're not a you wouldn't be electing a majority but It seems to give a sense that the voters have chosen these people.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. There would be more candidates, but we would actually, people would be voting for fewer people because now you can vote for up to seven because we have seven. And would each ballot in each ward, wouldn't necessarily list all, but they only just have their ward, the at-large candidates and their ward. So you wouldn't see the other ward. candidates on your ballot, right? No. Okay. Ron?
[Ron Giovino]: Marilyn, just to jump on what Danielle was saying, is it possible to create a scenario where the at-large, the folks that win the at-large bid come from the pool of the ward people that just have large numbers, or you have to declare that you're an at-large rep?
[Contreas]: you have to, you have to be an at large candidate. Yeah.
[Jean Zotter]: Uh, Jean, is there like a recommended size for city council?
[Contreas]: Um, is there, no, there's, there's nothing recommended. They, they tend to, they tend to cluster around 11 to 13. Um, although I note in the chart that I, that, that I produced for you, a lot of them were nines. Um, but 1113 are the common numbers.
[Milva McDonald]: So Marilyn, can I just add on that? When you say a lot of them were nine in chapter 40, I mean, I know most.
[Contreas]: On the chart I gave you, there are a lot of communities where the total is nine.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. And I'm just wondering whether I know that plan A says nine and Medford doesn't have nine because they made they passed an exception in a special act. But I think that's part of the reason why nine tends to be a common number.
[Contreas]: No, I was it's it's really driven by the number of wards in the community.
[Milva McDonald]: Ron. No, okay.
[Eunice Browne]: Eunice. Yeah, to circle back to something that you said a few minutes ago, Marilyn. So if somebody, if let's say I'm in Ward 4 Precinct 2, and there's no candidate under Ward representation for Ward 4, But everybody writes in John Smith's name. And so now, all of a sudden, by default, John Smith becomes the ward Councilor. But what happens if John Smith says, I'm flattered, but I don't want to do this? Then what happens?
[Contreas]: Then you'd probably have to have a special election. OK.
[Eunice Browne]: Interesting, all right, thanks.
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: And also, just to add, Marilyn, and stop me if I'm going off script here, but in most charters, there's usually a provision to deal with either somebody vacating a seat earlier, there being some sort of vacancy. So the older way to do it, or at least the way I've seen communities without a revised charter do it, is the council can pick someone, and I think this is correct, Marilyn, a lot of charters are going to having a special election or something. Is that right, Marilyn?
[Contreas]: You can do that, but it has to be in the charter, what your approach is. If the seat is vacant, then the council could choose someone. They would be electing this person to serve as the Ward 4 Councilor.
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: And those would be procedures you guys would be recommending in the charter?
[Milva McDonald]: This is, I guess, a similar question, but do any municipalities ever face a situation where they have, let's say, eight or nine ward Councilors or whatever, and that there's not anybody who steps up to run in a particular ward? I have never heard of this. Okay. Yeah, I don't know that it would be likely. I just wonder.
[Contreas]: Yeah, I can't recall an instance where I've seen it. I've seen it, you know, for boards of selectmen, especially three-member boards, and one member resigns, and you can't have a board of two. So there has to be, there usually has to be a special election in that place, in that case, but that's for towns. Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: Any other questions? Can we just maybe focus a little more on the size of council? Here, sorry. You talked about 11-13 is common, 9, Medford if we move- 9 is probably a good runner-up. Right. But in Medford, if we move toward representation, nine wouldn't really work for us, right? We'd have to do probably 11. And if we decided, say, if we decided not to do ward and we're just talking about size of council, Medford seems to have a smaller council than most cities, and I know that that was something that- All except one.
[Contreas]: Okay. There's only one other seven-member council in the community of under 20,000 people. The town, it's Palmer.
[SPEAKER_11]: Wow.
[Contreas]: Those of you who drive the MassPike.
[Milva McDonald]: And are they at large as well, do you know?
[Contreas]: They have four from what they call districts and three at large.
[Milva McDonald]: OK. So they must be smaller if they only have four wards or districts.
[Contreas]: Right. Hi, Maury. I can't remember. Anthony, do you know how big Palmer is? I mean, the last time I looked, it was like about 14,000.
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: Yeah, not off the top of my head, but 14,000 sounds correct. Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, Jean, you had a question.
[Jean Zotter]: Do most of the city councilors serve for two year terms or I think some you said are four years.
[Contreas]: There are a few there are a few instances of four years.
[Jean Zotter]: But most are two. And if they're four years, do they stagger them at all? Or? I think
[Contreas]: Yes, when does.
[Jean Zotter]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_11]: Thanks.
[Andreottola]: Excuse me. Do some do staggered voting that that part of the city council is. two years, and then some of the rest of the council is voted in, and in the next two years, is that? Or am I confabulated?
[Contreas]: In a staggered term situation, let's say in the 2023 election, somebody gets a four year term, the election is for four years, and they would serve until 2027. Then the council elected in 2025 would serve until 2029. It's to provide this overlap. And provide some continuity.
[Milva McDonald]: How common are staggered terms on the city councils?
[Contreas]: Rare. I said, only one comes to mind off the top of my head, which is Winthrop. another community of about, you know, 22,000 people. You talk about frozen. Some of that was some of some of that staggered term consideration in winter was driven by the fact that they were formerly a representative town meeting community and representative town meeting members were elected to staggered terms so that they were trying to sort of carry that to be able to get that. Premise forward into the town council government.
[Milva McDonald]: Thanks Eunice. You're about to ask a question.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah Um, you know, I'd like to see if we can find out. Pros and cons of going with. And I guess there's three scenarios here. all at large, are there pros and cons to each three scenarios?
[Contreas]: Well, I, the premise of, of the premise of having ward Councilors is to assure geographic, geographic representation throughout the whole city. That's, that's why it was, it's the most popular. And historically, it is it has always been the most popular. Okay, so you're not so you're not sort of reliant on hoping that and all that large council will sort of cover the city. This is this is the only guarantee that that's why it's there.
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: And Eunice, maybe you could flesh out what you mean by pros and cons, like what are the, you know, factors you'd be looking at? Because we may or may not even be able to sort of do that sort of put things in buckets like that.
[Eunice Browne]: I'm not quite sure what I was thinking, actually. I mean, we just I've heard so much about.
[Contreas]: I do think one of the one of the other members spoke to this in running a running a campaign being candidate. is less expensive if you're running from a ward, and as a result, may attract candidates who don't want to do a lot of fundraising. That's always a concern that comes up in an all-at-large council.
[Eunice Browne]: Right. I've heard so much of the positive of it. I just wondered if there were any downsides.
[Contreas]: It depends on. It depends on what you consider a pro or a con, doesn't it?
[Milva McDonald]: One thing I think with all ward, one could imagine a scenario in which a resident didn't feel satisfied or whatever with their ward Councilor, and then they wanted, or they wanted to have more representation. So that's why when you have three at large Councilors, I don't know, I could see that maybe being something that just as a voter, well, you have more than one Councilor. Exactly.
[Contreas]: And we talk about voters going to the polls, We want some motivation to get them there and if you're only electing, you're only going into vote for 1 person. You may not go, you know. Yeah, Ron.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, just a point of clarification. The all ward choice is not something we can do because we have eight wards and that wouldn't be a city council. The point that I want to make too is that the 9, 11, 15, 20 person council, they're still all our reps. I mean, I don't have to just go to my ward to rep and say, I want this passed. If I don't agree with him, I can go to the other eight reps and get them to, to fight it for me. So, I mean, it's not like I don't have full representation across the whole council. Is that, would you say that's correct, Marilyn?
[Contreas]: Yes. Yes. Any citizen can approach any Councilor.
[Milva McDonald]: And, and our, our ward in general, our ward Councilors, do they tend to be as responsive to all citizens, even if the citizens aren't from their ward or the voters?
[Contreas]: Well, that's kind of hypothetical. They're most responsive to the constituency that elected them. But you have to remember that most of the business that comes before the city in terms of passing an ordinance. They usually have citywide implications, so they're not there to only represent their ward. They're there to represent the best interest of the city and their ward.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Andreottola]: Can I ask a question? Yes, Anthony. With ward representation, Does the charter establish how long, say, a candidate would need to live in a particular ward to be eligible to run to represent that ward? I always think of the scenario where someone just moves to an area because they know that they're more likely to be able to be elected in that area, even though they're not, you know, they really don't represent that neighborhood, you know, like they have no ties or real no connection, but there isn't a candidate in that neighborhood. Do they have to be a resident for a year or six months or is there, would that be like established in the charter?
[Contreas]: The requirement is that you be a voter, that you be a registered voter. Usually that's the only requirement that you're a registered voter in the city.
[Andreottola]: do you have to live in the ward?
[Contreas]: To run for ward Councilor, yes, you have to be a resident of the ward.
[Andreottola]: Say for a day?
[Contreas]: Yeah.
[Andreottola]: Interesting.
[Milva McDonald]: Ron, did you have a question or did you just forget to put your hand down?
[Ron Giovino]: No, this time I actually have a question.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, go ahead.
[Ron Giovino]: Marilyn and Anthony, in your opinion, Does ward representation make the mayor a stronger mayor?
[Contreas]: Well, I really don't have a view on that, Anthony.
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: Yeah, I don't think I guess I would say I'm not I don't. I wouldn't say I've been in cities with ward Councilors and with all at large. And I, in terms of the executive, I haven't seen any impact on the executive by just that particular. Yeah, I was just curious.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Jean Zotter]: Okay, thanks, Gene. It's not in the memo you did for us this time, Marilyn, but I feel like I read somewhere else. And something that you did that the mayor mayoral terms are often four years.
[Contreas]: We have about 40% of the mayors in Massachusetts and Alex go for four year terms.
[Jean Zotter]: Okay.
[Contreas]: So, and, and there is, there is a consideration in, in public that, that, that, that makes the mayor. um stronger because he's not running he's she is not running for a re-election every two years so in those situations most of the city council is two years but the mayor is four yes okay just seems like running every two years is a lot of work to me but running it every two years is a lot of work but from many of the charter commissions that i have worked with Finding a candidate that says, yes, I'm willing to do this for four years to be a Councilor is harder. People will say, I'll do this for two years, and if it's working, I'll keep going. But to take that first step and say, I'm committing myself for four years, it's hard.
[Jean Zotter]: But it's easier to find mayors that will run for four years? Yes. It seems like mayor wise you just get started with some of your longer term projects and then you have to run again and then those projects.
[Contreas]: That's one of the arguments to having a four year term that the mayor can present an agenda and have a three and a half to four year plan to implement it.
[Milva McDonald]: I'm interested in what you said about the sort of the four year term looking sort of daunting for city council because I mean, we are city councillors in Medford tend to stay in office for quite a long time. Is there an average? Is that common for city councillors to kind of stick around for 10 plus close to 20 years?
[Contreas]: Um, that's, that's very community dependent. I think it would be, you'd have to do some, some more research in terms of, um, uh, the length people come. The other question that that comes before you as charter commission is whether you want to have, whether you want to have term limits guarantee some, some turnover on the council.
[Milva McDonald]: Um, and is that something that we commonly see, or is that.
[Contreas]: Term limits? To date, it's been fairly rare in Massachusetts. Massillon has it. Barnstable has it. It might be a couple of others. Those are the ones that come to mind right away.
[Milva McDonald]: But in a community like ours where there do tend to be the majority of elected officials stay in office for a long time, it's maybe something to look at, for us to look at, maybe.
[Danielle Balocca]: Danielle? I do wonder if that would change with word representation though if it's if we're getting like different types of candidates like, I would say that there's probably some similarities between the folks that stick around that like maybe we're seeing different types of people running for city council in the last few years but like, so I do wonder if like word representation would shift any of that. I mean, I think a lot of this current city Councilors. live in a similar one. So yeah, I just wonder if that would change that at all. Also, it's like being the mayor is a job that you can do for four years.
[Contreas]: That's a full-time job with a salary and benefits. There are different considerations there.
[Andreottola]: I have one other question, please.
[Contreas]: Sure.
[Andreottola]: With the term limits for the city council, are any of the communities, say, does anyone have, say, at large Councilors having a four-year term, excuse me, a four-year term in ward representation, say, being a two-year term? Does anyone mix and match, or is that something that- Yes, Framingham does that. That would make sense for continuity. When you start something new, especially if you go to a bigger council to have people who are established that are already working on projects and have you know, being in the middle of something large like zoning, you know, redistricting or doing something like that to have more time and have some people who've been around. If you had all new city councilors come in all at once, how would they, you know, get off the ground without having, you know, some leadership?
[Contreas]: Well, in a lot of the communities that switched from being a town Um, to becoming a city, um, a lot of, uh, some members of the boards of select men in that were formerly board members of the boards of select men in those communities, uh, ran for council. Uh, and that was, that was how the, these communities attained some continuity. They had someone who had been in service to the community before.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you.
[Eunice Browne]: Uh, Eunice, you had another question? Uh, not a question, but a, uh, point of information, as it were, um, since we're on city council, um, for the group, um, I happen to ask the city clerk, um, recently, uh, what the current mayoral salary is, as well as the council salaries. Um, and, uh, just for everybody's information, uh, currently the mayor makes $135,930. Um, the council president, uh, which is currently Nicole Morell, uh, makes $32,550. The council vice president, which is currently Zach Bears. See if I can read my chicken scratch here. $30,000. I think it says 690, thereabouts. And the remaining Councilors who don't hold another particular role make $29,360. School committee, I'm not sure. I'll find that out for us.
[Milva McDonald]: In terms of the issue of salaries, the charter does address salaries, but doesn't necessarily set them.
[Contreas]: Right. It's usually set by ordinance, although Anthony, I know, has noted in the past that Medford was more accustomed to doing it by special act of the legislature.
[Milva McDonald]: but could the charter sort of outline a mechanism for setting salaries and say, you know, say that it would be by ordinance or, you know, what does the charter do in terms of that?
[Contreas]: Usually in the transition provision, you'll set the initial salary for any of the elected officials who receive a salary. And then there's a provision in the body of the charter that says it can be set by ordinance. City of Boston, I think it requires that if the mayor is going to get a raise, the council gets a raise. They're tied together. Okay.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[Contreas]: The council can't give themselves a raise without the mayor getting a raise.
[Andreottola]: Didn't that recently happen though and then the mayor vetoed the raise? Or am I making that up?
[Contreas]: Okay. No, it has been.
[Andreottola]: So she vetoed her own race along with it. Okay. Thanks.
[Milva McDonald]: Any other questions on city council ward representation? Any comments?
[Danielle Balocca]: I'm sorry. This, I think this was mentioned, but would the system that the charter says like decides for city council match school committee, or can you have different systems? like ward representation for both or one?
[Contreas]: Yes, it doesn't, no. If you have a city council composed of warden and at-large members, the school committee can remain all at-large.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you. We saw how ward representation, combination of ward and at-large is by far the most common Um, situation for city council, but that is adult school committees.
[Contreas]: School committees tend to be more at large all at large. Somerville has ward representation. Beverly has ward representation. There are a few other communities I can look up.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Eunice Browne]: Okay, what about provisions for a recall from any. particular office?
[Contreas]: Uh, that would have to be in the charter. Um, about 50% of home rule charters have some kind of recall provision, but some don't. Okay. Um, there are a couple where it's only for the mayor because the mayor has a four year term. Um, two years is considered, uh, That, you know, you can just turn the person out at the next election unhappy.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, any other final thoughts. I'm wondering, one of the things that came up in this discussion was sort of trying to look at. I mean, we didn't determine a timeframe, but I don't know, 20 years, maybe that's too much, 15 years, or sort of the composition of our council, just to see what kind of representation we have been getting on the council. Does anybody wanna, is anybody interested in doing that research? Just looking at what wards the Councilors have come from for, I don't know, it's 20 years too far back, or? What do you think?
[Jean Zotter]: Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: Jean, you said you would do that?
[Jean Zotter]: Yeah. Okay. I would need, how would I do that? I would do, I would need a little guidance. Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, we can do it together if you want. Eunice and Jean? Okay. Sure. Yeah, I mean, I guess, I don't know, the clerk, we could, yeah.
[Contreas]: Yeah, he's my neighbor. The clerk, the clerk has has a record of all of all city elections.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. And then you can report on that at the next meeting. That would be awesome.
[Jean Zotter]: Sure. We said, look back 20 years.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, that would be great. And now find some of it online. Yeah, and that would just help us sort of see how well, or in terms of representation, how well the current system has been working. Awesome. OK.
[Jean Zotter]: I'll also reach out to see if we can get demographics by ward. That would be great. Yeah, if you want to do that too. Community development. Okay, great.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, thank you so much for that presentation. That was a really helpful information. Okay, and what do we have next? Oh, meeting with city officials.
[Eunice Browne]: I think Anthony just sent us what we need, Jean.
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: That's not 20 years, it goes back to, I think, 16, or I'm sorry, it goes back several years. It might be 20 years, yeah.
[Jean Zotter]: Does that tell us what ward they're from?
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: Well, you may have to get the addresses from the clerk, but that shows you who ran and who won.
[Jean Zotter]: Okay, great.
[Milva McDonald]: So that's what the research will be done, is finding out what wards they're all from. Great, thank you. Okay, so are we ready to move to the next agenda item? Okay, so I was sharing a signup sheet, but Google was doing weird things and would only let me share it with some people because I don't really understand why. But I thought maybe we could just discuss it right now and sort of see who wants to volunteer and maybe we could, people could sign up right now. Did everybody have a chance to look at the list? Ron, you have a question?
[Ron Giovino]: I do. I'm wondering, as I'm looking at that list, if it's not a good idea to bring the group together as a school committee whole and ask the questions and have a discussion with them, as opposed to individual meetings with each one. In terms of time and space, it may open up new discussions. If we're in with the school committee and we understand that four of them have the same you know, belief or whatever, maybe stronger. I'm just throwing that out.
[Milva McDonald]: No, I understand. I just don't know how that interacts with open meeting laws if we have the entire body there. Anthony or Marilyn, do you know?
[Contreas]: It would need to be an open meeting if you have a quorum of the school committee there and a quorum of your group.
[Milva McDonald]: Maury, did you have your hand up?
[Maury Carroll]: No, I was going to say that would be a violation of the open meeting.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So this is a pretty long list. I guess my first question is, does anybody think that there's somebody that we really should talk to that's not on the list?
[Ron Giovino]: Just before we move to the next step, Marilyn, did you say that our committee has to have less than a quorum or the group that we're with has to be less than a quorum?
[Contreas]: Both.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay.
[Contreas]: Both would have to be less than a quorum.
[Ron Giovino]: Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: So yeah, so our whole committee then couldn't meet with one school committee member either, right?
[Contreas]: Right.
[Jean Zotter]: Jean? Oh, I'm responding to your, did you leave anyone out question? Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Should I move on?
[Milva McDonald]: No, no, go ahead. Yeah. Go ahead.
[Jean Zotter]: I didn't know if we should also interview our representatives and senators or at least our representatives. Cause, um, the charter will have to go to the legislature for approval.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. You mean the state reps?
[Jean Zotter]: Yeah. Yeah. And also they represent Medford residents.
[Milva McDonald]: So like Christine Barber, Sean Garvely, people like that?
[Jean Zotter]: Right. Donato was on there because he was formerly city councilor. And then I don't know if you need to reach out to Jalen. or not as a senator, but, cause it goes, I don't know, it goes through the house.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, I think it goes through a commit to a committee first. I'm not, does it have to clear a committee before it goes to the full legislature? Is that right? In terms of the special act?
[Contreas]: Yeah. Yes. Yes. You have a hearing before the committee on municipal and regional government. They have to report it out. It goes to the, And then it will go to, and that, that includes both, um, representatives and senators. Then the usual path is to go to the house first. It's subject to review by the house council and the Senate council, their lawyers that determine that it's in the proper form and that there are no adverse consequences to the state. The results of passing this legislation and. then it would go to the Senate and then to the governor's desk.
[Jean Zotter]: Okay. Sorry, go ahead, Jean. Oh, so we should do Senator Jalen then too.
[Milva McDonald]: Is that something that these kinds of committees or groups usually do, is also talk to state representatives or do they tend to focus on the city or town?
[Contreas]: Usually, you focus within the community. I, you can certainly ask.
[Eunice Browne]: Okay, Eunice, I think you're looking at the list. I mean, we've got all of our current officials in terms of. Well, a couple of things I think with. George who's currently a sitting city Councilor and with John Falco, who is passed, you will get the perspective because they they've sat on both bodies. So I think that you'll get interesting perspective from them. That's true.
[Milva McDonald]: They both were on school committee and city council.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. And Michael Marks too, actually. Although his tenure on school committee was quite a long time ago, because he was a city councilor. Again, another one that served for quite a long time. I might add, as somebody where you'll get a dual perspective as well, I think Paul Camuso sat on both bodies. Um, so that might be an interesting perspective. I think in terms of, you know, you've got a fair amount of. Past and present city Councilors, I think, in terms of school committee, Paulette Vandercoat. Served on school committee for a very long time and recently retired from her role. Erin to Benedetto. She serves on the election election commission so I'm not sure if you'd want to dabble in something else that's kind of politically charged but doesn't hurt to ask. Bob scary is another one who served on a school committee for quite a long time. you know, so I think that those are, you know, some that might give us pretty decent perspective.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so we have a we have a long list of people. We have the current. We have the executive branch with the mayor and her chief of staff. We have the city council school committee, um, certain city officials like superintendent, elections manager, etcetera. And then we have a list of former, um, elected officials. So I, there's nine of us. I don't know what kind of energy people have to talk to everybody on this list, but I think we should at least cover the mayor and the president and vice president of the city council and school committee and probably some of the city officials. So, and I think if we could do that soon, that would be awesome. So Ron, you have a question?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, Marilyn, can you just logistically give an idea of what you think the interview process would be? Is it a 20 minute, a 40 minute, a 60 minute discussion? Or do you think it's something that we can, you know, we can set the guidelines or we just want to leave it open? The other thing too, is when I saw the list, I'm willing to be, and I'd love to be at any one of these because I think they're all valuable and I'd love to get that. The issue is scheduling and is it possible that we can get five people at City Hall back to back so we could do lump sums as opposed to, okay, we got Donato Wednesday at two, we've got McGlynn Tuesday. I think those are the only things that I didn't fill out because you can put me down for anything as long as the schedule matches.
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, I mean, I think one of the questions is, are we going to, um, we, we can't have a quorum interview, do the interviews, but do we want to have two committee members or should we just say, well, if one, you know, one committee member can want, you know, just interview one official and, um, Oh, could we do a couple of us with a couple of them so that we can, you know, and I guess,
[Eunice Browne]: you know, and the like-minded, like the mayor and her chief together with two of us, maybe two of the councilors with a couple of us, that way. And we can do sort of a, like you said, you know, we should do the mayor and her chief first, the vice president, the president, the council, and so forth, and have kind of a tiered system, and then go to the sort, and a couple of the, you know, more prominent past city officials, and then if schedules don't match or they're reluctant or, you know, whatever, then we go to the next tier down. A couple of us, a couple of them, so that we're not breaking any, you know, open meeting rules. And we get more done.
[Danielle Balocca]: I like Ron's idea. If maybe one or two of us sign up for a slot of times, maybe we set aside, here's the week we want to do it. We have two people for each day. And that way you can send out links to everybody and they can sign up for the time. So the people that we want to interview, they can say, well, I'm free Tuesday at 2. I'm going to put my name in for that. And it'd be great if we had a space at City Hall to do that or something like that. So we could get a lot done in a shorter amount of time.
[Ron Giovino]: Would we look at Zoom calls? That would be, yeah, that would be fun. If we could do Zoom calls.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: I think you'd become much more productive with getting people to sign up for a Zoom call as opposed to have to drive to City Hall. Just a thought.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. No, I think that's a good idea. Maury?
[Maury Carroll]: I'm available for any book, you know, I just, I don't think, I would not advise that it would be just a one-on-one thing. You know, we always want to have a backup and someone to be able to make sure that no one's misquoted, you know, and that sometimes the things don't go the way that they like it, it has a tendency of happening. So, but I'm available for any one of them.
[Milva McDonald]: So what I was hoping was that we could just go through the list and we could get maybe two committee members to say, you know, volunteer for each person or however many as we can. to accommodate and then those two committee members can just deal with contacting the official and setting up the interview and then just report back to us at the next meeting. So going on that model, does anybody have a particular desire to interview the mayor?
[Eunice Browne]: Can we take a look at the questions and so forth first before we take assignments?
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, one thing that I sent you was, this is something that we don't have to use, we can use it. I did see that some communities used a thing that they called the pre-interview questionnaire, which just, did everybody look at that? That just gives pretty broad questions. And I don't know, I mean, we're gonna talk about the survey next, but we don't necessarily have a list of, questions for every person we're going to interview. If we want to look at that pre-interview questionnaire, let me just see.
[Maury Carroll]: I'd be happy to do that, ma'am.
[Milva McDonald]: So would I. Yeah, so this was something that I had thought about we could potentially use, but you can see these questions are pretty broad. Um, and they're just meant to get, uh, generate discussion because we're really just sort of, um, getting their thoughts, listening. We're going to be mostly listening. Um, and if they have any questions, um, so, um, okay. So, um, I think I heard Maury and Anthony. Is that what I heard?
[Maury Carroll]: Yeah. I, I'd be happy to interview the mayor.
[Milva McDonald]: And Anthony, did I hear you say that you would as well?
[Andreottola]: Yeah, I'd be willing to do maybe three or four different people. There may have been one of them. And I prefer to meet with people in person. Zoom is not my best way of communication. And I think if you really want people to just kind of talk and share face-to-face is for me always works.
[Milva McDonald]: So I'm going to leave it up to the, you know, you and Maury can connect with each other and set up however you want to do it.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: Can we record these? I mean, you know, that's something that I, we could ask Marilyn and Anthony, is it common for people, for committees to get recordings of these interviews? I mean, I think we could ask, but I don't know.
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: I'm not sure. I'm not sure if I would say it's common or not common, but just be aware that your recordings may be public record because you're doing it in your official capacity. So they'd have to be stored and saved by the city's record keeper.
[Contreas]: And anything recorded would be available as a public record.
[Andreottola]: And this is an election season as well, so if you really want people to speak freely, I think asking them to go on record and be recorded at this time would not make a lot of sense to me.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay, Anthony, just just one other point though when we're in the meeting, we're going to be asking to take some detailed records, and those records I assume will become public record as well so that if there is a, you know, this way I lean more towards the recorded version if the person agrees is because If there's a, I never said that, then, you know, where are we? I mean, if notes have to be public information, the recording has to be public information. I don't really see the difference. The only thing I see is that, for me, if I'm in a meeting that's recorded, I can go back to that meeting and look over those notes to make sure I got everything right. So, I'm more of a fan of the Zoom record. I understand everybody's opinion, but I think record keeping is very, very important at this point, unless we're not going to quote anybody, if all this stuff from the meeting is sealed and just in our heads.
[Milva McDonald]: So, Marilyn and Anthony, is that common with other committees where they would do these kinds of pretty much informal interviews and then make reports and those would be public record?
[Contreas]: My experience is that you conduct the interview, and then you bring your notes back to the committee as a whole. And once they're in the hands of your committee, it's a public record.
[Milva McDonald]: The notes? Yes. OK. Got it. Jean, and then Danielle.
[Jean Zotter]: Back to the questionnaire, like an interview guide. The public health person in me feels like we should have standardized questions that we ask everyone just so that they're all getting the same questions.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, well, how do people feel about that questionnaire? I mean, you know, it's, it's designed, those questions, I think, are designed to be very sort of broad and open. But How do people feel about that?
[Andreottola]: Well, I think you would ask them. I'm sorry.
[Danielle Balocca]: Well, my question was sort of similar. It was like, what do we want to know from them? I feel like this questionnaire sort of reads more for just the general public, maybe. I wonder, are we asking them about what's their experience working in city government? What do they think could be better? What is what are you like likely to support in like a change to the charter? Like, is it are we asking them? I don't know. Like, what sort of capacity do we want to question them in or both? Like, what's your sort of personal perspective? What would you be likely to support if we were to propose it? Or like, what do you want to see change?
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, Do you know we could ask them. I mean, I feel like we would get a sense of what they would be likely to support in the course of the conversation, but we could ask that direct question. But, you know, if we're going to try to have a questionnaire that we use for everybody that kind of question wouldn't apply to the city officials or the former elected officials so
[Andreottola]: You know. And I think you would ask different questions to say Mike McGlynn, Paul Donato, you know, who have like the more know the history of, you know, our plan A and why we only have seven city councilors. Then you would ask maybe a first term city councilor. You know what I mean? That maybe wasn't he maybe was not even born when, you know, the plan A came to be. So I think there's different questions to ask different people, so we get all the information, all different perspectives and get the history of why we're here and what needs to change. If you ask all the same questions, you're going to get a lot of the same answers, but you're not going to get the true background that you need.
[Jean Zotter]: Just to follow up, I think you could add additional questions based on your audience. But if we're leaving the questions up to the interviewers, people may come into this very differently with very different questions. And I think our information gathering might not be as fruitful if we're not asking at least base similar questions with the understanding that you may add questions depending on, it's just a start. I'm not saying that you can't ask other questions, but I think we should have similar base questions we're asking everyone so we can compare and contrast the answers.
[Eunice Browne]: And then something different depending upon what their role is or was.
[Jean Zotter]: You could add other questions too, but we don't want to end up and be like, oh, I never asked this basic question. Just to make sure we're all getting the same data at the start for some of the things.
[Milva McDonald]: OK. Ron, you're going to?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I guess I have a different point of view in that these are all professional government politicians or administrators. They know what the charter has done and what their limitations are. I think the question that's kind of challenging for all of us is to not pinpoint this whole process into a four issue charter. I think we go into these meetings and say, well, you know what we're doing, we're trying to, what does the charter mean to you? And whatever comes out of it, if the chief of staff says, I want a better way to approach the city council president, that may not be something that Paul Venato would ever say. So I think the open-ended question that says, what was, you know, you would, in the government 20 years ago, what were the issues that challenged you that the charter held you back? You know, and contrast that to what the people are saying now. I'm sure you're not going to have to ask Zach Beers 10 questions to get two hours worth of information. These folks are prepared They've thought about it, hopefully, they've thought about the weaknesses of the charter, what they think is, and it's our job is to just listen. Same way that everything, you know, our first meeting coming up, it's to you tell us what's important. Maybe, you know, I'm sure that the things we're talking about are very important, but Maybe where trees go in the city is something that's really, really important to somebody. We have to keep it open. This large charter document has a lot of pages to it. And if we ask questions, we're kind of getting into the pinholing of the last question would be anything else? Well, I think that should be the first question, is what is it that's important to you? And then we listen to that. And then we have a discussion based on that. And I think we can learn a lot. And to Jean's point, I think there will be significant similarities in, you know, talking about ward representation and the mayor's role and pay and all. I think you're going to hear that, but maybe not from everybody on that list. So maybe the folks that used to be on this may have a different perspective. I think the open-ended question that says, well, you know why we're here. What do you want to see? Tell me. And I think that's the message we should send on the 8th, and I think it's the message we should send right up front, is that, you know, these guys are listening. They have no preconceived notions based on any crazy directed questions. We have, the question should be, in my opinion, What do you think of the charter? What do you think we should do with it? And then listen to them for as long as they wanna speak. That to me is the interview. That to me is the, and then get in that discussion. You know, what do you mean by this? What do you mean by that? And today the call-in center has given us some great backup information. If they say we want nine, two at large, we'd be able to talk to them a little bit about what we know. So I'm very strong with saying, and I'll be consistent with this, particularly when this June 8th meeting comes, We're there, we're just listening. We don't, you know, we're talking about, we want them to know that we're the, we're the trusted people that are going to be able to process them. But to me, these are professional people who have answered this question before. And they've had this discussion about the charter before. We should just sit back and listen to what they're talking about. So that's, that's just long winded.
[Jean Zotter]: Thank you. I wasn't, you can ask very open ended questions they can be so that could be the question, maybe we just have three and that's one of them so I'm not saying it has to be very specific, just that maybe we want to ask the same.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Questions. Yes, I am. I just want to be mindful of time because we still actually have quite a few agenda items. We have an open-ended, we have a questionnaire with some open-ended questions. Do we wanna, and if we, do we wanna vote and say, okay, we're comfortable going ahead with interviewing, starting these interviews, using this questionnaire with pretty open-ended questions to sort of, you know, get the conversation going, or do we feel like we need to wait? How do people feel?
[Andreottola]: I say, get it started, you know, the sooner, the sooner the better. There's a lot of people, it's going to take a time to get all those, all those interviews set up.
[Milva McDonald]: Jean, how do you feel?
[Jean Zotter]: Were you going to say something? Oh, I don't feel like I saw that. So I missed that email.
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, so you didn't see the questionnaire? No. Okay.
[Ron Giovino]: I like the form because it lists the person's name, what job they held, a little historic information. And then you go to those basic, I think those questions are very good. They're basic questions that start the discussion. So I think that's a great form that we should use across the board.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, basically it just says what aspects allows or allowed you or your office to work well. Do you have concerns or issues regarding government structure that you would like to see addressed? Aspects of government operation that you think function well or need improvement? Do you have questions regarding the process? Anything you would like to share that is relevant to the charter review process? So those, again, they're pretty open-ended. And so do we, Does anybody want to make a motion that we should move ahead with the interviews using this questionnaire or not? Or we can just agree.
[Andreottola]: I'd like to just add to that. I'd like to make sure that we send that questionnaire out to the people beforehand so they have a little time to kind of get their thoughts together.
[Milva McDonald]: Yep, absolutely. Okay, so I really want, I want to move to the next agenda item. So, so far, I have Maury and Anthony that are willing to interview the mayor. And I think, Jean, you signed up for Zach. I can join you in that. And maybe what we should do is you all have a list Does anybody want to say right now? Yeah, I want to talk to Nina Nazarian, or I want to interview Nicole, or is there anyone? I'll do Kathy Kreatz and Mia. OK, so Eunice is going to do. OK.
[Danielle Balocca]: I'll do Nicole.
[Milva McDonald]: OK.
[Jean Zotter]: I'll do Mia, too. OK, so.
[Andreottola]: I'll do any three random people that haven't been assigned anybody.
[Moreshi]: I'm happy to do anybody. You can just plug me in at the end.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, there's plenty. There's a lot of different people here. So we talked about at least covering president and vice president. So does anybody want to join Danielle to talk to Nicole? I could do that too, but if anybody wants to. I'll do it with you, Danielle. And what about Jenny is president of the school committee, Jenny Graham and Paul Rousseau. Okay, is Paul Russo the chair?
[Unidentified]: I'll do Paul Russo.
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, right, right, because the mayor is the chair, yes. Jenny's the vice chair, Paul is the secretary. Thank you. Who said they would do Paul Russo?
[SPEAKER_11]: I'll do Jenny Graham.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, Maury is gonna talk to Jenny. Was that you, Anthony?
[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: And you said Paul?
[Milva McDonald]: Does anybody wanna join Maury and Anthony in those conversations? Okay.
[Ron Giovino]: I was gonna say, I'll take the whole city council.
[Milva McDonald]: You'll take the whole city?
[Ron Giovino]: If it doesn't have anybody, put me down for the city council.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Anybody else wanna talk to city councilors? I can do those with you too. Oh wait, who's Maury?
[Maury Carroll]: Was that you? I could do other Councilors. I could do all the farmer Councilors, you know, whatever you want to do. Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Um, what about the city officials? Um, city clerk, elections manager, budget manager. I mean, we don't have to fill these all in tonight, but it would be nice if we could at least get started with, uh, That's what we've already had. All right, people, think about who else you might want to interview. OK, so now the next thing on the agenda is a survey. We have the survey. Did everybody look at it? I'll put it up here. So Jean made a couple of comments, and I did incorporate those comments. Any thoughts on the surveying? Was this adapted from another city? Pretty much. I mean, yeah, it's pieces. I put it together from other surveys that I found.
[Eunice Browne]: OK. 14 pages? That's a lot.
[Milva McDonald]: So that's a good point. Is it too long? Do we need to make it shorter?
[Eunice Browne]: Ay-yi-yi.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, you know, and yet it doesn't cover probably nearly everything in the charter.
[Danielle Balocca]: So, but- How many questions is it?
[Milva McDonald]: Is it, because it looks like a lot of texts, like, so how many, it's like- Well, there's, you know, I mean, it's just, maybe it's 14 pages because of the way it's spread out in the Word document. I mean, I don't know how many questions it would be. A lot, probably a lot. There's a lot of questions in here.
[Danielle Balocca]: If you don't make them all required, then people can answer what, you know, if they stop in the middle, I think we'd still get like the, whatever they've.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, there's always, there's usually always in either don't know or not sure option. So, you know, I guess that's a way that people could just sort of. How are we sending this out? I don't know. First we have to decide on the survey and then we'll talk about that. But I just wanted to see if we feel okay about this survey, if we think it'd be shorter, longer, different.
[Andreottola]: Can somebody take the survey and figure out how long it takes someone to do it? So we know like we're asking people, if we're asking people, you know, take five minutes or we're asking them to take an hour, because I think that'll really kind of influence, you know, the outcome.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, that's a good idea because I do sometimes see surveys where they'll say at the beginning, you know, this survey should take, you know, takes 10 minutes or something like that. 10 to 15 minutes or something.
[Eunice Browne]: And there may need to be, if it is, you know, longer than, you know, just. 3 minutes, I'd say, and which obviously, I think this 1 is going to be, and it might require thought as well. It's not just a quick checkbox thing. But once we decide what. mechanism, mechanisms, if we're gonna use something like SurveyMonkey or whatever, you know, different types of constant contact maybe or something, an option to, you know, if they get to, you know, the fourth question and their baby starts crying, they're gonna have to put it down and come back to it. So there should be an option to pause and return. Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: First, I saw somebody's hand. Did I see someone's hand? Ron?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I just had a quick question. Are you, your expectation to have this survey available June 8th?
[Milva McDonald]: I don't know that we'll have it available. I don't know. I mean, I would like to have it circulating by the end of the month, but we have to agree on the content first.
[Ron Giovino]: I agree. I'm just suggesting that because we have some big agenda items still that we haven't gotten to yet, that we table this to figure, so everybody commits to looking at it again. But I mean, we haven't really talked about the June 8th meeting yet, so.
[Danielle Balocca]: That's right. I volunteer to put it into like a Google form and send it to everybody. So you could try to taking it yourselves and see what you think. That would be fantastic.
[Milva McDonald]: That's great. Um, so yeah, that's awesome. And as far as the content, Jean had a couple of comments, but why don't we do, why don't we take that step then? Danielle is going to. put it in a Google Doc, I mean, a Google whatever. Okay.
[Andreottola]: Any chance to put it in a PDF or, because I can't access Google Docs. So just my accessibility, I'm incapable of using that format.
[Danielle Balocca]: I can put this in this form here in Google into a PDF, but I don't know how, if it would like translate to like the survey style, but I'll see what I can do.
[Milva McDonald]: And I don't know how much different it would be than the WordDoc that you already have, Anthony.
[SPEAKER_10]: So. Oh, the WordDoc that you provide. Oh, it's the same. It'll be the same text.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. But although there is, I can, you know, I should send you a new one because it's slightly different based on the comments Gene made. So. Daniel, I can send Anthony the updated Word doc.
[Danielle Balocca]: And this is what, this is what you want me to work off of for the Google form? What you have here?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, the one that's it, the Google doc that has the pages. Thank you for doing that. Um, okay. So, um, let's see. June 8th, we have an event coming up. Um, that's next week. Ron, there's been a few people working on it. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?
[Ron Giovino]: Sure. We met at City Hall. I mean, I'm excited about it. I think the presentation is great. I think the plan we have for Danielle to run the meeting, the setting of the meeting, of course, the concern is graduation and rain, but that'll impact us. But I think what's important, and I had mentioned this to Milva when we met at City Hall, and I think it's very important, so I'll say it. This is really our first, it's like opening day for us. And I think it's really the time where we make an impact, even if there's two people in the audience, The word will be getting out. I think our role is to sit back to listen and to all be there as much as we possibly can. I know that schedule isn't whatever. Not everybody can be there. But. we need to show at this opening day is that this is the group. We're ready for what you want to give us. And we have to become the trusted people so that they will talk to us and feel like their words are going to be listened to and acted upon. So I think that Milva's done a really great job. And with Laurel not around, I mean, she's really had to double her efforts. And I felt very comfortable what's going to happen at City Hall, but the piece that we really need is that everybody's there, either by zoom, or, you know, physically there would be better to greet the people talk to the people let them see who we are. and then listen and gather data. That's really what we're doing. We're not gonna make any decisions for another 18 months supposedly. So I really, I think this is a very good group, solid citizens who are representing the fact that we care enough about the charter, but we cannot do it without their input. And whether it's three people, as I said, it's still a success because it opens the door to the next one. So, you know, congratulations to Melba for all the work she's done. But I think from our standpoint, doing whatever we can to get there at 530 or six o'clock, so we're all, we know what's going to happen. There could be some glitches that we have to work through, so I'll be there at 530. I think we have a good plan and folks have questions. I think now's a good time to figure out what we need in the upcoming week to get it ready. But that was my comment.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you, Ron. Is there anybody who isn't going to be able to come next week? That'd be great if we're there in force. And any questions about the event? I mean, I think I would, I would encourage everybody to talk it up as much as you can. Um, I know that we were on the robo call from the mayor this past week. Um, but we really need to get as much mobility as we can out there.
[Eunice Browne]: So, um, I, I sent out to about 20 houses of worship. Um, I didn't really get anything back. So I have no way of knowing if they're, you know, conveying that to their Community or congregation or whatever it might be. I did get something back while we were meeting. I sent it to. The superintendent, her assistant, and it's going out in the super's weekly memo. It's just going to be, I think it might be just a line item. She does all of her stuff and then upcoming events. And, you know, school stuff and different things. So might just be a line item, but it's, it's something. Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: Um, the other, I, you know, we're out of time, but I wanted to also talk about some, we have events coming up this summer, but, um, We had a small committee that worked on the planning of this event. Do those people or some of those people or any new people want to form a small subcommittee to just plan? We have circle the square where you talked about planning and ice cream social. We have the farmer's market. Anybody interested in having a small subcommittee that because it's just planning, it's my understanding is it's not subject to open meeting law. We're not deliberating or anything. We're just planning events. Is there anybody who's on board for that kind of planning events this summer?
[SPEAKER_11]: Yes. In what months?
[Milva McDonald]: July, I'm kind of... Well, we have Circular Square is June 17th.
[SPEAKER_11]: Oh, still in June. Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: And Farmer's Market, I believe we have on August 31st. And I was hoping to do an Ice Cream Circle in July. But Danielle, I'll get in touch with you. Okay. I don't know if I'll be at some of those events, but I'm happy to help.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Thank you. Okay. I also wanted to run by a draft work plan that I shared with you earlier today, but I guess we'll leave it at that.
[Eunice Browne]: Melva, can I just pop in one thing about the June 8th? I suspect it might come up about what is the difference between what we're doing, our process, and what Zach bears and the city council are trying to do with their targeted amendments. Um, and perhaps some of them might even be there that night. Um, some of our Councilors. So I think that, you know, we need to be prepared to address that.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I agree with you. And I think it's probably important to address it. Um, because you know, it's important to make sure that people understand the difference. Yeah. So. Yeah, I agree with that. Okay. The other, you know, everything else will table, but I wanted to talk about the next meeting because it would be July 7th. And there's been a suggestion to not have it on July 7th and have it on June 29th instead, given, you know, the holiday week and all that. Any thoughts about that?
[Andreottola]: It's my wedding anniversary. I won't be available on July 29th.
[Milva McDonald]: June 29th? Okay.
[Andreottola]: Right.
[Milva McDonald]: How do people feel about July 7th? Does that feel like no way or? You mean 6th? July 6th? Or 6th? Is that what it is? 6th? Sorry. 7th is Friday. Okay, then it's 6th.
[Contreas]: Okay.
[Danielle Balocca]: I'm available. Yeah, it'd be better for me than having like three meetings in one month. It's like today.
[Milva McDonald]: So do we want to, so would you want to just keep our regular July 6th meeting? I mean, our first Thursday meeting? Yes. Okay. That works for people. Okay. So and as far as the survey, Danielle, you're going to make a copy of it. I mean, my hope was that we could start circulating it before the end, you know, mid June, mid to late June. But.
[Danielle Balocca]: Can we, go ahead, Danielle. If I get it into Google forms and we agree and like you guys try it out and you like it and we can make whatever edits you want, we can use that to get it out to people as well. So it could be like an expedited process that way too.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Danielle Balocca]: Let's, let's shoot for that then.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Um, we need to open up the floor for public participation. Do we have, um, anybody who wants to speak tonight?
[Ron Giovino]: I don't see anybody on.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Oh, wow. We managed to only go over by six minutes. Um, okay. Are we adjourning? Cause it looks like we're adjourning. Anybody want to adjourn? Great. Thank you. Great. All in favor. All right. Great. Thank you everybody. We've got a lot done tonight.
[Unidentified]: Bye.
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