[Adam Hurtubise]: in progress.
[Milva McDonald]: All right, welcome everyone. We have a pretty packed agenda and hopefully we're gonna get through it all. We should have one more committee member also arriving a little late. So the first order of business, did everyone have a chance to look at the minutes from our last meeting? Yep. Any issues or any comments?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Everything looks good, move approval. Any second? Second. Okay, all in favor?
[Milva McDonald]: Aye.
[Ron Giovino]: Aye.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Ron Giovino]: Wilbur, are there any folks from the public that want to get into the meeting or?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, we have one person and I've let everybody in so far. Okay, great. Okay, so first is to review our June 8th event. Um, I made some notes and, um, we want to, um, we have a recording of the event and, um, once we go through the notes and approve them, I'm going to send the recording, the PowerPoint and the notes to the city so they can be posted on our website. So, um, people's thoughts about the event, about the notes, about anything.
[Eunice Browne]: I'll get started. I think it went well. I think it was a great first step. I think we got a lot of great feedback and input from the folks that were there. I have one big takeaway and then two buckets of comments, logistical and content. mentioned my takeaway first, and then my logistical comments. And then I think the content comments will, through the course of conversation, we might end up covering a lot of them. My big takeaway from it all was the enormity of the task that we have at hand. The length of time that it will take, the scope of work that will take, the lasting impact it will have on Medford. What we do, the charter will get reviewed long after we're dead and gone, but what we do now is the baseline for all of that. It's, you know, on a selfish side for all of us, I think it'll be our legacy. I find it very overwhelming and humbling both at the same time, that we're doing this for the good of our city. And I think two people's comments particularly struck me in terms of bringing home the scope of work, the enormity of it all. And I see Phyllis is here with us and she's one of them who talked about the research and the qualitative, the quantitative and so many other questions and involving the feedback and how, you know, that's all going to take heaps and heaps of time. And then the other person whose comments struck me most was Mr. Garrity's as well, in terms of, and I'm not really sure, and I think we'll get into this maybe later, how much of what he was talking about is really within our scope. But if even some of it is, wow, that's a lofty task. So that's my big takeaway. My logistical comments are, and somebody mentioned this, I think it was Ms. Lerner, that we, as well as the public, need a little training in how to use the microphone properly. so that people are standing close enough or we're holding it close enough or whatever for people to hear us both within chambers and at home. I think we mentioned it while we were there, we should have had a sign-in sheet for folks and we could have used that to contact some of the attendees to personally invite them tonight and kind of keep doing that down the road or to the Ice Cream Social or the Focus Group or the, if you know, they live in South Medford, the event at the South Medford Fire Station, whatever it is. I don't know if you guys had a chance to watch the replay. We need to be behind the rail the next time, I think, because the way the camera was angled down, You're kind of mostly seeing the tops of our heads. So I think if we could be behind the rail, that would be.
[Adam Hurtubise]: We can't use the desks.
[Eunice Browne]: We can't.
[Milva McDonald]: No, Francis, is that what you were gonna say?
[Frances Nwajei]: Yeah, I'm sorry, you can't be behind the rail. Behind the rail is reserved for councillors and it's actually written into ordinances. Okay. But there is a different way that the camera can be angled and maybe we can, I can ask Kevin to have a look at it because it doesn't appear that way when people are speaking to council. during council meeting. So I can ask if the setup can be a little bit different if we choose to do it that way again. Okay.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. I kind of thought we probably couldn't be behind the rail, but then, you know, it's some sort of a different camera angle because I was watching it and like all of it, anybody seeing is the top of our heads. They're watching, you know, either the replay or if they were watching live at home as well. And then my other couple of notes from a logistical point of view, and I was looking at this online and I didn't have time to follow through, but I think there are like suggestion boxes out there that you can buy that are, you know, a little bit more official looking. So you might want to invest in one of those. And I think they're fairly short money too. We'll look into that. Yeah, I'll pop on Amazon sometime and see what I can find. We had a small enough crowd where it wasn't an issue, but I think if we are fortunate enough to get a bigger crowd, I think we have to make sure, and I think we talked about this, is instituting the three-minute rule. Everybody gets their three minutes at the podium, and then they can circle back around afterwards. That way everybody gets a chance to speak. And then my last comment, You know, given the enormity of all of this, we need a bigger team, I think. You know, we lost Laurel and Matt for various reasons. And I'd like to, I think we should ask the mayor to go back to the pool of candidates and see if there's anybody from that pool that originally applied and would like to serve with us. And I think it might be helpful if there were a choice of, you know, a few different people, you know, cause we're already, you know, well, midstream into this, somebody who'd already had an interest in charter review, or maybe somebody like John and Mike and somebody who do this in their other life too, so that we don't have to, you know, We can bring them up to speed, but so that it doesn't have to be a, you know, let's start from step one. This is a charter, you know, but I think we, we need more of us. Okay. Thanks. So that's my two cents for now. I'm sorry for talking too much.
[Milva McDonald]: Thanks. No, that's great. And any other thoughts? Are we okay with the notes or do we want to add anything, change anything wrong?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I just have a couple of comments. I thought for the first time out, it was a good turnout. I'm extremely disappointed that we can't go behind the rail. I thought that was the people's room. But I think we need to, if we get to the point where there's 100 people in that room, it's not going to be as smooth as it was with the 15 people that were in that room. So I think we should look into that. A couple of things that I think Yes, it's an overwhelming task, no question about it. But also thinking about what was going on and listening to the well thought out comments and the real goal of what we're trying to do. And I don't know if we've actually thought of our mission statement. I know we've had a charge from the mayor of what we need to do. I really believe, and I'll share this, is that I think this charter process is a living document. It's not a let's pick three items out of it and let's move on. I think what we have to really establish, and hopefully with the help of the Collins Center, is a process. that folks can come and lay down, I don't like this process. Well, what do you do in the city when you don't like the process of the charter? Anybody can do a charter, change the charter. It's not something exclusive to us. And I think one of the things that we need to do is, first of all, have a process in place for our committee so that those folks who were there the other night have an opportunity to identify in this lengthy, If you've read the Charter, you know how lengthy it is. If you've read the general laws, you know how even more lengthy it is. but if you have an issue in the city on how the city does one thing, it may not be the, you know, how many years the mayor is in or the real highlight issues, but there are small issues that I may want to, you know, submit for an amendment to change the way we do things. And I think that we owe it to the folks who are building this charter. And it's, I know where nine of us are kind of the vessel for everybody to get this done, but, It's really it's the whole city as we saw at that meeting, those folks are passionate about change, and I want to be able to. soon give them an opportunity to communicate with us better and tell us, hey, I don't like, and I always use this example, I don't like how the trees are planted on this street. Well, whatever that process is, how do I come to us and say, I want an amendment in the charter now that we're going through this that says, instead of this, I want it done this way. And that's a small example. There are other major examples that, you know, my personal feeling is the school committee's policies and procedures are not, you know, need to be reviewed. And I think they need to be reviewed because they're not in the charter, they're just general laws and we can update them and we can change those. But my goal is to make sure that this is a living document, that not it's 40 years from now will be looked at again. It should be a process that says, I want this. And I also think, you know, we heard clearly from those folks, you know, public participation is key. And I think that this is where we started. You have the right to participate in how your city is governed. And if everybody agrees with you, then it should be changed. So those are the things that I, you know, I thought that the folks who presented and commented were well thought out. A lot of veteran citizens who've seen a lot, and some of the stuff is within our realm. remind everybody that, you know, we did not pick this committee. We were picked to be on this committee. I don't know what qualifications the mayor had to pick us or if she wants to have more, but that's not something that, that's something the mayor picks. And if you want to know qualification, I know somebody, some folks mentioned our qualifications. I don't know. I, you know, I don't know. I'm a good listener. I think that's a real good qualification. But those are my thoughts.
[Milva McDonald]: Thanks, Ron. I just want to say a couple of things. First, I just want to say, Phyllis, thank you for being here. And our process is that we have public participation at the end after we talk. So we look forward to hearing from you. I also agree that I think it went really well. And while it is a big task, I also think I would like us to be mindful of the time because, We are charged with this job, and that's one of the reasons I created a work plan, which we're gonna look at either tonight or at the next meeting, because I just would like us to set a goal. It doesn't mean that it can't be flexible goal, but I just want us to have that in sight. Some of the things I think that you brought up, Ron, I think are, part of the charter and some of them I don't think are so I'm we're going to learn more about that as we go. But that's part of the process. Um, I, one of the things I wanted to look at was just the, what I had written down in the notes was suggestions that we got from the people. So, and Ron, you brought up one of them, the qualifications. So I had actually thought about this earlier, but I just won't, um, but, uh, the comment at our meeting made me think we should maybe follow up on it. Uh, that maybe we could each write a little bio for ourselves and put it on the website. So that way people, um, anybody going to visit our page can at least see something about who we are. So, um, I'll, I'll send out a message to the committee and just ask everybody to do that. Cause that's one simple thing we could do. Um, the other thing that, I mean, there were a lot of suggestions, but, um, Jean had written to me, somebody had suggested focus groups. That was Phyllis. And Jean's daughter, who couldn't come tonight, wrote to me with the points that she wanted to make, had she been able to come. And one of them was that she said she would volunteer to work on that, because she has some experience with that anyway. And so if that's, do we feel good about that? Do we feel like we would like to go ahead with that? I mean, focus groups means, You have to decide who's going to be in the focus groups and what kind of groups you're going to focus on, right?
[Adam Hurtubise]: So do we need discussion on that? Or do we feel good about Gene sort of taking charge of that?
[Eunice Browne]: I think we need anything that is going to bring in public input, absolutely. in terms of specific groups or specific topics. I think the two biggest things that we heard the other night, in my opinion, were publicity, getting the word out, which, as somebody noted, without a newspaper, which we can't do anything about, it presents quite a challenge. But I think we have to find ways to make that work. And I think, you know, getting the word out and getting people aware and then getting them involved. So focus groups, surveys, you know, sessions in the different neighborhoods, like Maury said, taking the show on the road. and so forth. Those are the two of the biggest things that I think we heard the other night. Anything that will move that along, I think is a given.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So I think I will ask Jean to maybe come with a little presentation and talk to us at our next meeting in a couple of weeks about what her plan would be to oversee the focus groups. Um, we can also maybe start putting together a list of the locations that we want to have two or three of us go to and talk to people like the senior center, like the community centers. Does somebody want to take that on?
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I'll do that.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Thank you. Okay.
[Eunice Browne]: Uh, great. Um, question on that. Maybe that's. Part of my task or not, or maybe. We know that our Francis knows that, but does it have to would. Locations have to only be. City run places. Or I don't think so. I think we talked originally. that it couldn't be like private homes.
[Frances Nwajei]: It wouldn't be advisable to go into people's private homes. It's just, it's not best practice, but it doesn't have to be city run locations. Some of the benefit with city run locations is that you get the traffic, but, you know, think about maybe non-traditional city run locations, right? Like the fire station, the main one, you know, will they host a something? And then you can, you know, you can be there where people might feel more comfortable going to the fire station that they might feel elsewhere.
[Eunice Browne]: I'm just trying to think off the top of my head about, you know, hitting the different neighborhoods, you know, so could it be you know, a church hall, you know, definitely, you know, pastor or priest or whatever.
[Frances Nwajei]: Definitely, you know, when you say church, and I'm thinking of Shiloh Baptist Church, who, you know, I did work with in collaboration for Black History Month, but they're not the only one, you know, last year, I was at the Haitian Evangelical Church, on the other side. So definitely, you know, our pastry shops that, you know, that get a lot of traffic. So I think that there are lots of different spaces. Danish pastry. You know, that this can be done in. Okay, yeah, I'll see what I come up with.
[Milva McDonald]: Great, thanks for taking that on. Okay, so within the document, that we created about this event. There is a sort of a summary of the public feedback that we got there. We also have a working document because we have a form that people can fill out. And we've also gotten a couple of emails that people have emailed us. So is everyone aware of that? Has everyone had a chance to look at it and sort of keep apprised of it? No, John, you're shaking your head. It's in a Google Doc that you should have access to. It looks like this. And so I'll make sure that it's shared with you. The other thing, one of the other things that Jean offered to do was create tracking sheets with themes, sort of the themes that came up. And we heard some of the big themes that came up were representation, balance of power, things like that. So Jean said she has experience doing this kind of thing in her work and that she would create tracking sheets separated out by issues. And maybe she plans to use these in conjunction with the focus groups. But I just wanted to throw that out there. And I think, how do people feel about creating some of those resources just to help us keep into a container the public feedback so that we can access it effectively?
[Ron Giovino]: As we, as we continue, if I could just, there's not any gathering of data is vital to what we're doing so I don't think there's any, the, you know, I took a really deep dive into the survey, because I think the survey kind of guides focus groups and data collection. you know, what's important. And again, my concern is that we create a process that folks can say what they want to say about whatever they want to say. So we kind of focus on what we assume are the top issues, and I'm sure we're correcting those. I think if any of us wrote the top five issues, we'd all know what they are. The there may be folks out there in a certain area of the city, certain groups, certain demographic that says, you know, item number 211 is important to us. So I want to be able to give that opportunity. And that's why I talk about this being a living document that can always be adjusted. So I took a look at the survey, because I really think Jean will benefit from the survey, because if we look at the top issues from the survey, those will be the issues that we'll have focus groups about. So I think they all come in hand in hand. And I did take a look at the survey because I think, you know, it needs to be trimmed down to, you know, a more of a, these are the important things, then let's go to a focus group and talk as opposed to the next level questions that were asked in the survey. So when we get to that survey piece, I'll have more to say.
[Milva McDonald]: I think we're ready to go on to the survey. So let's pick it apart. My hope is that we can finalize it. Hello, can everyone hear me? Yes, Anthony. I'm sorry, but I couldn't see you very well. Were you trying to raise your hand? I'm sorry if I missed you. Did you want to speak?
[Andreottola]: Yes, I've been trying to.
[Milva McDonald]: I'm really sorry about that.
[Andreottola]: Can people hear me?
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, definitely can hear you.
[Andreottola]: I'm sorry. Can I, can I please say something?
[Milva McDonald]: Absolutely.
[Andreottola]: I've been trying to, I don't know if I have a bad connection. You know, I, my first comment, I thought the meeting went well, but I am a little worried about, you know, our direction and that, you know, we haven't really even come up with the questions for our survey and we're already getting, we're getting a lot of general like information and people's opinions and stuff. But what we really need is to come up with questions in order to get data for It's like a positive kind of talk, but... I think you are breaking up a little now.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, Anthony, it says your bandwidth is low. I don't know what that means. Network bandwidth is low, but something's going on there.
[Milva McDonald]: So if you... If we hear you again, well, hopefully you can finish that thought or you can repeat it so we can all hear it. But I did hear you mention questions and we do have questions in the survey. So one of the pieces of feedback was that people thought the survey is too long, correct?
[Eunice Browne]: Yes. Okay. I took it and it took me, what was it? 14 minutes, I think, to complete it. That's way, way. Does Collins Center have surveys that we can use as templates?
[Milva McDonald]: The template, the draft that we have is taken from materials that they had and from surveys that other committees have used. So that's what we're working with. So I guess the question is with Danielle.
[Danielle Balocca]: Go ahead. I kind of wonder, like, maybe this is what Anthony was trying to say, like, if we kind of. Like the work plan, I think you sent, Milva, that was kind of breaking down the different topics that we're gonna discuss. Like, I wonder if it's like, we send out periodic like mini surveys that are addressing like, how do folks feel about city manager versus mayor? Then how do people feel about like ward representation? And like, send them out in like kind of a targeted way. And then it's like maybe more digestible for people as well.
[Milva McDonald]: So that, I think that that's a good point. We don't have to do only one survey. Oh, wait, Anthony's coming back. We'll be better now. What do people think about the idea of creating kind of one, survey that addresses broad issues across the board or focusing in on different issues and different surveys?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Well, I'll speak.
[Ron Giovino]: My background is in sales and marketing, so I'd be happy to work with Gene on developing it, but I believe that The focus group is a great idea. And I think that a survey that is very broad gives us an opportunity to say, hey, the citizens want this. Now let's break it down by our questions. OK, here was the question. What did you folks mean by this? This is what we're going to talk about in the focus group. And then you expand from that. But I just caution that we remain open to whatever, again, our prejudice is that we know the top 10 issues, but there may be issues out there that are pressing to parents, elderly, taxpayers, environmentalists, that we haven't even talked about yet. So I wanna keep it, and that's my focus, is to make sure that we're listening and a good survey says this is what the folks feel and give them an opportunity to say well what about the trees what about the highway what about And then we move to focus groups and develop that. So I agree, I think we have to gather a ton of data and this is going to give us a great process to hear and develop in small groups and then bring it to the big table at the big citywide meeting. So I agree, we need a timeline. But we also need to, for lack of a better example, what the city council did with their three amendments, they're not gonna go back and look at the charter again after they've done their three amendments. We can't afford to do that. We need to look at the whole picture before we... But we can also, in our timeframe, we can do 40% of the charter and make changes to 40% of the charter. as long as we leave a process in place to change whatever else people want over the next 40 years, that gives them an easy way to change it. So that's where I'm coming from in terms of, but I think the survey needs to reach some pain points and that should move into a great focus group and then to a general assembly so that everybody can, I think it will help us develop what our goals are.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, Danielle, did you wanna say something else?
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, sorry, I guess I don't know that like you can't do all those things like I do see that there's like some value to knowing what the top 10, like, I think, was it around like there are maybe like the top 10 issues, and then there's other stuff that folks want to talk about, and I feel like we could do both like. Start working on some of those sort of like the stuff that's right there that we kind of know folks are engaged around and then and while also doing some of those more like qualitative like Interviews about okay, like what else is there? Like how do we capture or figure out a system to capture all of it?
[Ron Giovino]: 100% I think we will end up at where we think we're gonna but you're absolutely right I'm surprised if those are the issues we deal with
[Milva McDonald]: Would it be helpful to just look at the survey now, go through it and see what people, where we think we can cut? Because since I think there's, seems to be general agreement that it's long, right?
[Eunice Browne]: Melva, can I make a respectful request? Sure. I know that we agreed, you know, months ago that we would have public participation at the very end, but this is a pretty heady topic. And I believe, you know, Silas had told us outright that she's got a good deal of experience in this. And I see her popping up in the chat a couple of times. I wonder if the group would, you know, be agreeable to letting her chime in from time to time, give us some suggestions.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, do we want to revisit our public participation policy? And I mean, I think we would have to
[Adam Hurtubise]: vote on changing it, since we voted to do it this way?
[Phyllis Morrison]: Could I just say one thing? I can wait till the end, but I can put things in the chat that you can look at, rather than you have to go through this whole process. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Eunice, I really appreciate that, but that's why I've been trying to put some things in the chat, because that's why I'm doing it there, because I get that. I didn't know I had to wait till the end. I'm happy to wait till the end. Okay, thank you things in there.
[Milva McDonald]: And then you can revisit that later because this is you know yeah yeah thanks and I didn't notice that you asked about rank choice, and I assume you mean rank choice voting. Currently in the draft of the survey we have now it's not in there, but we can talk about whether we want to add it or not. So I just want to check with Danielle is your hand up again or is that from before.
[Danielle Balocca]: Sorry, that's from before.
[Milva McDonald]: OK, no worries. So if we want to trim, I think somebody had suggested that we don't need this information in the beginning. I mean, asking people about this has been in some other surveys, but asking people how they know about the charter, have they read it, where they found it. How do people feel? Is that a place where we can trim?
[Ron Giovino]: Definitely. Yeah, I wouldn't I would, you know, if you want to say, are you aware of the the charter? And that's the only question you ask. It doesn't really matter how they know what they know. We'll find that out.
[Milva McDonald]: Or we could start it here. Right? This has a little tiny bit of information about Medford's charter lays out the functions of the government. How do we feel about these sort of general ratings? These are sort of bigger issues about responsiveness of the government, transparency, accessibility, representation. This is sort of the lead into the more specific questions. Is it important to keep these general values questions or issues questions in?
[Ron Giovino]: I'll just keep throwing my comments because I don't think this is a referendum on how the government works, not necessarily the charter. So I don't think we need to know where they're at with how government's working today. I think that's a question that could be eliminated.
[Milva McDonald]: OK. I mean, that's fine.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I'm just giving my opinion.
[Milva McDonald]: No, I'm glad. I want everybody's opinion. Just to present, I think the thinking behind including something like this would be if everybody says that the accessibility is terrible, then that could potentially be addressed in the charter by creating Um, by say, okay, we want to focus on public participation, section, um, citizen participation mechanisms, or if people say, well, representation is an issue, then we know that that's something that they care about. And we should look at that because that's something that charter can influence. That would be the basis for including these.
[Ron Giovino]: I agree a hundred percent. I want to just offer a different question if I could, instead of that. The question is, how do you feel about your ability to have access and participate in how this city governs? One, I feel I have full access to effect change. Two, I feel the city allows me to voice my opinion and effect change. Three, I do not need to effect change. Four, I do not think the city cares what I think. And five, I do not have any access to the process of governing and having my voice heard.
[Milva McDonald]: OK, so that would be a different way to phrase it. I see Francis.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Did you raise your hand? OK. You're on mute, Francis.
[Frances Nwajei]: Sorry, I was trying to get off mute. Yes, I did raise my hand. Whilst, you know, I can't vote or say do it this way. The way that Ron has phrased it is a manner that is actually easily translatable in other forms of language. I was just looking at accessible. And I was trying to figure out, you know, would all our language groups, just our language groups alone, not even all the demographics have that word accessible and what would it mean? Okay. So representative of the city's diversity, like where is the, where would the connection be? But the methods that Ron has used can be easily translated and it's easier for people to know where they fit. The one, two, three, four style, that's very ambiguous.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: So, Anthony, did I hear you? Did you want to speak?
[Andreottola]: Yes, please. If I could, I've been having trouble with audio. I'm sorry. That's okay. But I just, you know, I just also, I want to let the group know I had the opportunity to interview the mayor the other day and I have her questionnaire filled out and I'll email it to the group as soon as I hang up on this call. It's handwritten. So I don't know if I send it to you, if I mute myself after I talk, I'll, I'll forward it to you so maybe you can share it with the, with the group, but in, in, just in, in, and not to speak for the mayor, but a couple of in her response you know one of the things that you know that she's expressed concern about is that you know that that. that our survey contained all the questions about every part of the charter that we intend to change and modernize, that people can input on. all the, all the areas. And, you know, I think we should just focus on what the, you know, the questions are going to be like, do we want a council? Do we want this? Do we want that? Do we want a school committee? Do we want, you know, term limits? Do we want all this other stuff? Like, what are we going to do with it? You know, what are we going to do with that information? We, we need, you know, the basic yes, no, yes, we want it. We want to know how people will vote and what the public wants in this charter. Not really what their opinion is about the politicians or how the process works. This process is very I don't even know what we're doing. We're in a process that we don't even know if anything we do is going to go anywhere. As it stands right now, we're in the middle of a turf battle with the mayor and some of the city council. We're in limbo. Our only weapon or our only tool is going to be the answers from the community, you know, we say the community says this, the community wants this, not necessarily what the politicians are pushing for right now. I think that's our responsibility. I think that's like our major task is to report on what the community wants in their charter. Do they want, you know, the city council to have, you know, extra powers? Do they want the mayor to have a four year term? Do they want, what do they want? Not, What, you know, if we start getting into people's feelings, I mean, how are you gonna, you know, how are you gonna quantify that research? Like, it's really important for us just to try to be as basic and as thorough as we can. And I think that starts with just asking the, you know, nuts and bolts questions, not, you know, all the fluff stuff.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you, Anthony. So what I'm hearing is we could probably dispense with the first, like that little introductory section of the survey could all go and possibly we could start right here at this page. Um, I do want to just say one thing about ideally we would put in a survey everything that we plan to address, but it would be a lot longer than 15 minutes because there's, um, There's the sections on capital improvements, citizen participation mechanisms, things like that, that we probably will look at. And that may be where we start with one survey, where we look at sort of these big questions about form of government, term limits, et cetera. And then once we zero in on get those questions answered and look at that, then maybe we could address those other pieces in a different survey. OK. How many sections in the survey? Well, I don't know if we have a specific number, but let's look at it. So Anthony, this is the kind of questions you're talking about, I believe, right? These are the more specific.
[Andreottola]: Well, the first three questions will be the questions that definitely have to be in the survey, the three questions that are being proposed by the city council. Those are things that, you know, You know, we need to know how the public feels about them.
[Milva McDonald]: So, I agree. I mean, I think we still don't know what what's gonna happen with those questions. So, but we could put those in. I mean, there is, let's look at what's in here and then we'll talk about what we need to add in.
[Andreottola]: So this is- Okay, I'm gonna step out and try to get this mass survey to you guys. So I might be off for a few minutes. Okay. Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: So do we feel like this page is pretty clear in terms of, Um, each in and the way it's written, there's, uh, minimal amounts of explanation so that, um, people have a little bit of background in, um, in, in, um, in answering the question. For instance, mayor council, um, and city manager. Do we want to give people that kind of background, or do we just want to ask them a yes or no question without giving them background?
[Eunice Browne]: A lot of people probably don't even know that there are alternatives.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. So at least, because some people might not know what a city manager is, so are we OK with this brief explanation here? Is that enough for people to answer the question? Is it too much? Is it going to be easily translated?
[Eunice Browne]: I mean, I, it's, you know, certainly gets the point across. I mean, like I've said, you know, from day one, you know, the next time you're in Wegmans or the next time you're at the soccer field with your kid or, you know, standing at the bus stop and ask somebody, ask the person next to you, what do you think of the charter? You know, 99% of the people have no idea. So a lot of this is going to be, you might as well be asking them to talk about quantum physics or something. People just don't know, and I don't know how to get around that. I mean, what's there is as simple enough explanation as it is, and I'm sure people can answer not sure, because behind that question, there's pros and cons to everything. So, I mean, if they have a strong opinion, for mayor council, they'll tick that box. They have a strong opinion about city manager, they'll tick that. Most people are not, may answer not sure or no opinion because they don't really know what the implications of either are. Right.
[Milva McDonald]: Um, okay. So that's sort of the first basic question. Then we do the links, the term links, which again has a little bit of explanation.
[Eunice Browne]: That's something that everybody can pretty much relate to.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. The option of other is there in case somebody thinks it should be a different term. And then comes the representation question, ward representation. Should the council remain exclusively at large? Should there be a combination of ward and at large? Uh, based on what we learned from the call and center, we remove or I removed the question of exclusively ward because we realized we can't really have an exclusively ward council because we have an even number of boards. Make sense.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, definitely.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Then comes the school committee. So, um, I wanted to just, um, Anthony had brought up a question about including an option for an appointed school committee. And I did a little bit of research on that and to the best information, I asked the call center, the best information they have is that they don't think that that's a possibility because state law refers to school committees being elected. Boston does have an appointed school committee, but Boston sort of operates outside Boston can, Boston is not, Boston is like a different animal. They do in fact, you know, the state law that specifically talks about how certain aspects of municipal government operate and the state laws say in every city other than Boston. So I don't think that we can, I don't think we can even do it. So, has anybody, does anybody have any knowledge other than that, or?
[Eunice Browne]: What about school committees, you know, based around, and maybe it would be ward representation, I guess, but, you know, based around the, you know, two from the Brooks, two from the Missituk, two from the, you know, the McGlynn, two from the, what's the one that I'm, Roberts, I guess, is the other one. Yeah. Something like that.
[Andreottola]: A question, I know that that, you know, the three questions that the, you know, the city council are proposing are only ones that the city of Boston have none of the other. cities like you just mentioned yeah the budget amendments so you know the city council feels that you know they can go forward with you know things that are out of the box you know and you know in one of the And I believe in one of the responses from the mayor in the interview, I think, in her handwritten responses that she thought it was a question that should be posed to the public, whether it passes muster or not, I don't know, should the public have the ability to respond. to say yes or no to all the things that, you know, that are being out there, whether they're, you know, Attorney General's gonna let them go or not, you know, or whoever makes a decision, the legislature, I mean, you know, this is uncharted territory that we're in right now.
[Eunice Browne]: There's three amendments that the councilors are putting through. have to be blessed by the mayor first. If she doesn't, you know, she has to approve them to go to the AG's office. And if she says no, then, you know, that's the end of it for now. And, you know, I don't know if everybody saw the, you know, I know I'm getting off on a tangent and I apologize. but there's something circulating from three of the city councilors that want an answer from her by the time the budget gets approved next Tuesday. So, you know, we may have some resolution on that by then.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, so we won't know, and we don't know what the mayor is going to do. We know that they're basically on her desk, and we also don't know if she did put them forward. We don't know whether the AG would allow them to go through because there's, we don't know if they would, I mean, the Collins Center has told us that there's an open question about whether the attorney general would approve at least the budget amendment and even the legal counsel amendment. So there's a lot of things we don't know about that. In terms of putting them into the survey, I mean, we're talking about the survey right now. So we're gonna have to talk about, do we want to include those questions in the survey? And it seems as though we probably should because the city council is actually asking for them. On the other hand, I feel like part of our guidance that we've been getting from the Collins Center is that putting things into the draft charter that are controversial in the eyes of the state may sort of hang it up. You may hit a snag with those kinds of things because you'll hit a snag at the state. we haven't made a decision about whether we want to put, whether, and I suppose maybe asking the people, if the people feel strongly that they want it, then we should put it in there. But knowing what we know from the Collins Center, which is that these are not common practice, the amendments that are being proposed by the council are not common practice. And the state, may look on them skeptically, because it's our responsibility to create a charter that is sturdy, that can hold up. So those are questions that we're going to have to address. We can't really address them right now, but we need to make a decision about whether we're going to put them in the survey. So be thinking about that as we move through.
[Andreottola]: Can I ask you, can I ask you, why wouldn't we put them in a survey? Why wouldn't we want to know the public's, why wouldn't we want the public's input?
[Milva McDonald]: I'm not saying that we wouldn't want the public's input. I'm saying that we, when in deciding whether we want to put them into the survey, I mean, they're not our idea, they're the city council's idea. The information that we've gotten from the knowledgeable Collins Center is that they're not common practice. And so we would only be putting them in the survey because the city council has come up with them, not because we have. And we can do that, but I just wanna throw that out there, Ron.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I respectfully disagree with this process. If we're here to design 10 questions to get the survey of who wants what, if 500 people respond and 300 say yes, 200 say no, is our work done? Because we voted, we found out 300 people agree with it. I think that we're failing the process. And if we all vote to do this, that's fine. But if we're looking at, picking 20 items, reading the survey, where do we go from there? If we have a survey that says 70% of the people want it this way, what would we do next? What would be our next step? And as far as the three questions go, that's all going to be decided in November. It doesn't have anything to do with our process. So if we address it later, that's fine. The folks are going to vote on that in November, or they're not going to have a chance to vote and there's nothing we can do to stop that so my again I'm going to stick with and I'll, I'll stick with this until you, it's voted down but I don't see the giving the giving a list of items and people choosing what benefits. Everybody, if we not if we're just going to look at that and say well 80% agree, well let's just okay that's the amendment, but we're failing to set up a process, we're failing to open it up to every facet of the charter which is the charge that we were given by the mayor's office. And, you know, I get it, boy, I get it. I don't want to be here two years and get, you know, there's a lot of work to be done, but I'm here because of that. And if we do not, you know, if we're putting out a 10 question survey to the citizens, we're saying, here's the issues, tell us how you vote on them. And now we'll take that back and say, well, 75%. What would I say to that? Because we haven't had a discussion. We haven't heard opinions. We haven't heard presentations, you haven't heard process. I mean, I have amendment, I have an amendment that over the next two years, I'll be adding to this discussion. It hasn't been discussed at all yet, but it's very important to me. So I think there are other citizens out there that feel the same way. I'm not going to share my amendment until we get through this process, but you know, I'm just saying there's a, there's a lot that we're missing here. And I don't think a rush to come up with a 10 page. you know, how many years should the mayor be in? Well, why? Why do you think that? That's what focus groups are about. And if we're getting a response from, you know, 2% of the city, I don't know if that really speaks for what we're trying to do, but I'll shut up now, but that's what I thought the charge was from the mayor, was to listen to the people and have the people decide. And I get why we do surveys, and I think that's absolutely true, but if we're giving, you know, yes or no finalized answers to surveys, and it comes back 80-20, what will the people think that we already voted? So I just caution that we have a lot of steps, process, presentation, focus groups, discussion, and then we'll decide. But that's just one person's idea.
[Milva McDonald]: Thanks, Ron. Also, I just want to throw out there that since I'm sharing screen, I can't see everybody's box. So if you raised your hand and I'm not calling on you, just throw in your voice. The reason I might not have called on you is because I don't see your box. I think if you press raise hand, it pops up, but in case it doesn't, I just want to throw that out there. Yeah, I think the survey would be just sort of one piece of what we're doing to give us sort of a broad idea. I think, ideally, the survey would be the biggest response that we would, I mean, the survey has the potential to reach probably more people than we can maybe with focus groups and even events. So, But it doesn't mean that it's not like a ballot, that when we look at what the survey says that we have to do what it says. It's a piece of the whole picture that we're putting together, because we are also going to hear from people in other arenas. So let's keep
[Eunice Browne]: I'm sorry, I'm just trying to get some clarity from Ron. Are you saying then that we should be doing the. outreach in the focus groups first and then the survey later on. I'm not sure that I'm understanding.
[Ron Giovino]: Here's what I see the process. I think the survey should generate issues, not solutions or definite decisions. Then we have the focus group, then we have presentations. Then you have a survey that says, do you think this is the right idea? After we've listened to and educated everybody on the process. That survey now, I think, is very dangerous. If we say, I want the mayor to have four years, and that survey comes back and says 80%. Do you know over the next two years, how many people will say, well, 80% of the people who filled out the survey thought the mayor should have four years?
[Andreottola]: And I just don't think that should be the pressure on us. That should be the pressure on us as a committee to do what the people want. We need that information. If 80% of the citizens of Medford want something to happen, it is our responsibility to put that in our recommendation.
[Ron Giovino]: Nothing I've said, Anthony, would deny us from doing that. My process is more listening to the people, as opposed to giving them a 20 questionnaire and say, okay, this is your vote. That doesn't, if we send out a survey and get 1000 people, is that enough people that we know what the citizens want?
[Andreottola]: So you're just going to have a dialogue with 56,000 people in the city? That's not going to happen.
[Ron Giovino]: That's a fantasy.
[Andreottola]: That's not going to happen.
[Ron Giovino]: I think respectfully, I think we need to listen to the people more than what we have so far. We've had one meeting with 30 people at it. And if you think that it's time now to pick, the 10 issues to ask the people yes or no on. I strongly disagree. But if that's the way you want it, then we'll be wrapped up. We'll put it on the ballot in November. If you want to rush to that, I think we have to sit down.
[Andreottola]: No, we're not putting it on the ballot in November. You know that that's not what we're trying to do, Ron. You're really kind of convoluting the process. We have a task to make a recommendation to the mayor. And it's going to take us about a year. We're going to take us a year to do it, right?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah.
[Andreottola]: We have to find out what the people want.
[Ron Giovino]: What are you going to do after this? We send out the survey, next month we get the results. Then where do we go from there?
[Andreottola]: Well, I don't think we're going to get the results next month. I think it's going to take many months to get the information.
[Milva McDonald]: We'll talk about how long we want to keep the survey open. That's another thing we're going to talk about.
[Ron Giovino]: I just want to on record saying I think it's premature to start asking those questions and not having input, more input from focus groups, presentations and discussion. I just, that's my record and you know, I just wanna be on the record of saying that.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, thanks.
[Ron Giovino]: Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: Let's finish going through the survey and then we'll talk about whether we want, whether or when we wanna move forward with it. So we had a, basically these are sort of foundational questions, right? mayor, you know, the form of government, mayor, city manager, term of the mayor, composition of the city council. This is about composition of the school committee. The, you know, the little bit of information is that Medford is, while Medford City Council is not in step with the rest of the state in terms of not having ward representation and being so small, the school committee is actually, is in step with the rest of the state. So because state trends, most school committees are at large, and seven is a pretty common size. So the question here is, should they remain at large? Should there be a combination of ward and at large? it does occur to me that we could actually have all at ward. I mean, all ward with the school committee because the mayor being the ninth member.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So we could add that question, right?
[Eunice Browne]: Because, um, well, yeah, I guess, um, if we want another question, it would be, do we want the mayor to be a member of the school committee? Um, you know, which is, I think, something that, you know, we need to address as well.
[Milva McDonald]: We do need to, but I have to double check this, but I think it's in state law. Whether the mayor is chair of the school committee, I could be wrong about that, but we should look into that.
[Ron Giovino]: No, but I also thought that Collins Center said something about board representation on school committee. I'm not sure if they said you can't do it or whatever, but we should definitely check it.
[Milva McDonald]: I'm positive that they didn't say you can't, but it is definitely not, it's not the way ward representation is common on city councils. It's not common on school committees, but there are school committees that have ward representation. So it is possible. Whether the mayor has to be on the school committee, we should look at that. I think it's state law, but I don't want to say for sure. So research that, It's definitely not required that the mayor be chair of the school committee. Okay, this is about term length for city councilors, and this is about term length for school committee members. And then there's a question about the chair of school committee of the mayor. In comparable Massachusetts cities, I think it's about 50-50 with the mayor being the chair of the school committee. And in other scenarios, the mayor is a member of the school committee, but the committee can elect their own chair. So that's what these questions reflect. Should the mayor remain as chair of the school committee?
[Adam Hurtubise]: term limits. I mean, you know, people talk about them.
[Milva McDonald]: It's something that I think we should ask about. And then there's questions about the term limit, also city council, also school committee, and then comes balance of power.
[Eunice Browne]: We want to get into the nitty gritty in this of what we think the term limit should be, two years, four years, six years, or just, yes, there should be, no, there shouldn't.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so just, so we could revise these questions to- And then they trim things for us? So for the term limits.
[Andreottola]: Wait a minute. May I make a suggestion?
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, for a term limit, yeah, go ahead. So that would take out this question here.
[Andreottola]: Now, if you just did a yes or no on the term limits, right, then you can go to what ROM is proposing, more dialogue, focus groups. And then in those groups, you can say, yeah, we, you know, the citizens want term limits. How long do you think they should be? And then you can get like a consensus. And, you know, then the committee can, you know, say, well, you know, we talked to a lot of people and most people think three terms for the mayor is more than enough. Then we really have the will of the people.
[Milva McDonald]: I agree. I think a yes or no on the term limits, we could probably cut those other questions out. I mean, balance of power was definitely one of the issues that came up as a big issue at our meeting last week. So this is basically, so this first question, for instance, is one of the non-specific questions that there's been some discussion about in terms of the effectiveness of those questions. Um, basically it's just a broad question asking us, you know, getting, trying to get people's perceptions of whether they think the mayor has too much power or the city council has too much power or, or what do, can we do away with that question? I mean, you know, it also is followed up. by if you answered A or B, please indicate your ideas on balancing Medford's governmental power. So I mean, this survey also at the end, we'll have chances for people to give longer input and hopefully we'll get some of that. But I guess in the interest of trimming, do we wanna just take out the sort of broad question about people's perceptions about the balance of power in the city?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, I think that's more, Feelings type thing. Yeah, OK.
[Milva McDonald]: So then we go to the specific question department heads. And then there's the another question about board committees and commissions.
[Eunice Browne]: I think I think some of these questions are might be getting a little too far in the weeds. You know, especially for me.
[Milva McDonald]: they address balance of power.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So yeah, but I mean,
[Andreottola]: But there's also practical information that people would need to make that decision. Like, would the general public understand the difficulty a mayor has in hiring folks who know that they have to go then to be kind of grilled by a city council and either be voted in or voted down? A lot of people would choose not to put themselves in that position, and it can make it very difficult for the city to retain good, qualified folks at City Hall. So, like, people have to know a little bit about that particular question before I think they can make a kind of an informed kind of decision. Like, do they know that, like, if you give the city council this power, it could have a negative impact on the process. Or maybe they might be able to weed out a bad choice, but I think that's a decision that people have to have a little bit more information before they can say, yeah, that's a good idea, or I support that, or I don't.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, one of these questions speaks directly to one of the amendments that City Council is currently proposing. So we had earlier talked about, do we want to include those questions and this would be including one of them. The one about approving appointments to boards, committees and commissions. So I just wanna throw that out there.
[Andreottola]: Well, I guess I would come back with how it's worded would be very important if you can put it in a neutral kind of way. Because at the face of the question, it sounds like, sure, let the city council. If I didn't think about it, I'd say, yeah, why not? Let the city council approve everybody.
[Adam Hurtubise]: What would make it more neutral? What do you think would make Trump?
[Andreottola]: Let's see, without asking an open-ended, I'm trying to get to like not open-ended kind of questions where people, you know, kind of give kind of opinion rather than kind of, I'd have to think about that because I'm not sure if there is an easy way to do that without doing like a whole tutorial on it, you know.
[Milva McDonald]: Uh, exactly. So, I mean, my feeling is that this is as neutral as you can get. It's state the fact and then it asks a yes or no question. But, um, but even if we got this back and we and what we heard, what we got from the survey and what we heard from our focus groups and all that is because we did hear a lot of people last week saying that they feel that the city council needs more power. Um, Even if we got this back and it felt like overwhelmingly people wanted the city council to have the power to approve appointments, it would still be our job to look at the details of that if we decided to go ahead with it.
[Andreottola]: No, but I didn't hear that in the meeting. I didn't get that feeling. I didn't get that feeling at all. So I don't know if I was kind of, I heard some people talk about the frustration with the city council. I didn't really hear anyone talking about, they wanted them to be more participate and have kind of have more input. I didn't see anybody saying that, you know, the city council needs more power and they want them to, uh, to kind of make this type of, uh, you know, decision.
[Milva McDonald]: Um, okay. I mean, I, I thought I heard balance of power as a concern and, um, we've, it's also in the, um, document we have of the, uh, feedback on the feedback form and emails, it's been an issue in almost every single one that we've gotten, so.
[Eunice Browne]: There was a talk about balance of power definitely between the mayor and the city council, but I think it was more certainly surrounding the budget, which is a big, big conversation, but I feel like I'm gonna take a step back for a minute and Um, a lot of people, I just feel like some of this is getting into the weeds because you're putting this out and let's say we put out, you know, 5,000 surveys. You know, most people don't watch city council and school committee meetings. Most people don't have a lot of awareness of how the government runs. It just sort of does. And, you know, For example, I mean, the government, how the city government runs impacts every citizen in the community, but I don't think most people. give it a whole lot of thought unless they're either really paying attention like some of us do or they run into an issue. I'm going to give you a sort of a strange example, but the Office of Planning and Sustainability put out a survey a few months back about waste and trash and things. Well, we all put out trash. you know, every, whatever day of the week your trash day is. And that is something tangible that, you know, we can sort of all relate to. Trash pickup impacts every single one of us too, just the same as how the city government operates. But it's something that people pay a whole lot more attention to. The trash gets picked up or it doesn't. The leaves get picked up or it doesn't. You know, how come we don't have a, you know, a leaf pickup in December because my tree is still falling at the beginning of December. I think with some of this stuff, they don't know anything about department heads. Some people in the city may not have ever dealt with a department head in the city for anything. We, you know, we were talking, we are, we are one of the. Well, we're committee, but boards and commissions for, you know, kind of the umbrella of it. You know, I mentioned the other night in response to somebody's question that. Medford has probably a dozen boards and commissions that citizens serves on. And I've mentioned that to other people before too. I don't think most people even know that. So I think we're getting a bit too far into the weeds. I think the first survey that goes out has to kind of, you know, cater to the broadest issues. Okay. Kind of the lowest time in denominator.
[Milva McDonald]: I don't know how many surveys we're going to be putting out. I don't know that we can, I mean, we can definitely do more than one, but I don't know that we should try to do a bunch. These questions are going to have to be answered by our committee, whether or not we put them in the survey. So I just want to put that out there.
[Ron Giovino]: Can I just make one quick, one more statement? I'm Italian. So I like to have the last word. But I'm also married, so I know it's not always doable. But I think Eunice and Anthony are making my point in saying that the knowledge base is not necessarily there to give justified responses to some of these questions. So why wouldn't we look at maybe listing 25 items and having folks pick what's important to them. Then the survey gives us this. It gives us 60% of the people want to discuss the mayor issue. 60% want us to discuss this or that. And we come up with a list so that you just quickly look at the list and say, this is important to me. And you check as many as you want. And at the end, you have a space that said, these are the other issues I want. What we're trying, we have to understand what we're trying to get out of the survey. And out of the survey, we should be getting what is important to the folks. Then we can go into the education and then we have a real true survey that says, as far as the mayor goes, I didn't realize six years term would mean this or that because I heard the discussion. That's what I think is fair.
[Milva McDonald]: Can you be more specific and like just sort of say what kinds of, say a couple of the questions you're thinking of.
[Ron Giovino]: The length of term for a mayor. Okay. How long they can stay in office.
[Milva McDonald]: So we have that in there.
[Ron Giovino]: I'm just saying, the question is, of these 20 issues, What do you want us to focus? What do you want us to discuss? So all we're saying to them is, this is important to me. So is the council important to you? Whatever it is, it gives us a list. And I think that's really a good thing for us to have that says, These are the 25 items we suggested. 17 of those are priorities for more than 50% of our respondents. And then here's another 20 issues that they wrote down the bottom. And that gives us like a, okay, I'm sure all the issues we've talked about, boom, boom, boom. But that's also gonna give us a chance to say, these are our issues. We're gonna schedule presentation on this one, focus group on this one. But we're always dealing with the issues that are important to the citizens. And I agree with, with Anthony. I think we need to listen to the people, but what is their priority? In asking these questions, You know, we've talked about, you know, maybe folks don't have all the background they need to make a decision. That's not for us to decide. But for us is to make sure that we've done our due diligence to make sure they're educated on both sides, understand the stuff that Collins Center has taught us about these issues, and set them up so that when we do have that survey that says, do you want this or not? We know that we've done our due diligence to educate. Right now, it's not, as we've said a couple of times as we've gone through this, I'm not sure that people understand this or that. So to me, as I'm rethinking this, I think the survey should be, what are your top issues? Here's 25, do you want it? Yes, just check it.
[Milva McDonald]: And then- So you would just ask them to check boxes.
[Ron Giovino]: Whatever the topic is, right. Balance of power, you would define it a little bit more and just say, you know, how much power should the city council have in determining committees? And then we check if they're interested in that topic. No yes or no.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, gotcha. So just to finish going through what we currently have, these are directly related to the amendments on the table and they're in there because the amendments are on the table. This one about the budget is, what they're asking for in their budget amendment to increase dollar amount of line items, as well as reducing and rejecting. Hiring its own staff is also another. So I think what I'm hearing from people is take out those questions. Now, earlier, I believe it was Anthony felt that we should have those questions in there because they exist out in the community.
[Andreottola]: Well, would we be doing our job if we just ask people questions that we want? Or is it our task to ask all the questions? One of the responses from the mayor on her survey, I know we haven't had the opportunity to interview a lot of the other current or past polls, but one of the things that I think I forwarded to you guys was one of the things that she wants, you know, the public, you know, the citizens of Medford to weigh in on all this stuff. In survey, you know, that's what she wanted us, that's what she tasked us to do.
[Milva McDonald]: In a survey and when you say all of this stuff, you mean all the issues on the charter?
[Andreottola]: I don't know if you could open her responses. They're handwritten. They're a little hard to.
[Milva McDonald]: We're going to look at those at the next meeting. We still have other items on our agenda and we're running out of time. I do want to wrap up, we can't we just came to the end of what we have for a survey, a lot of it was cut because there was a length question and so the end is just demographics. Um, so basically what my notes say at this point are, cut the beginning, go straight to the specific questions, um, and then cut specific questions about term links. Um, cut the questions about, uh, basically the balance of power, the whole balance of power section.
[Eunice Browne]: Can we go back to the demographic section for just one second?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay.
[Eunice Browne]: I wonder if we can make this section a little bit easier on ourselves for tabulation purposes regarding the age range, instead of having people put in, you know, that they're 42 years old, can we do it in blocks of, you know, 18 to 25, 25 to 30 or whatever increments that we choose. And then the same with how long have you lived in Medford, you know, zero to five years, six to 10. you know, and that way that will make tabulation a little bit easier.
[Milva McDonald]: We might get help from that from, this would be distributed through the city and they might even have a demographic section that we can reuse. You know, the reason to ask these questions would be for us to say, okay, we haven't reached, you know, let's reach out to the senior community. We haven't heard a lot from them or, it just sort of gives us an idea of maybe what other groups we need to reach out to.
[Eunice Browne]: And it will also tell us that, you know, perhaps the homeowners who have been here for 60 years want X, whereas the young family that's been here five years wants Y. And, you know, trying to bring us all a little bit more together. And the same with the racial and ethnic too. Can we do that with choices rather than them writing in one hand?
[Milva McDonald]: Possibly, we'll look at that. So to wrap this up, the hope was that we could finalize the survey and start distributing it so that we could have a more robust body of public feedback and we currently have, because we're gonna start deliberating on these questions, some of the main questions in the next month or two. We've heard a lot tonight about, I mean, we had Ron's suggestion that we just send out a survey that lists topics and ask people what they want us to focus on. I mean, The current survey that we have, I feel like we've shortened it. It's pretty compact now, and it basically just asks really just big questions about form of government, composition, and term length and limits.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Phyllis, go ahead. She needs to unmute herself. You're muted.
[Milva McDonald]: Wait a minute. She's muted.
[Adam Hurtubise]: You're muted.
[Phyllis Morrison]: I now am unmuted, but you had muted me, so I could not unmute myself, which is fine. I'm sorry. I didn't do that on purpose. I didn't even know I did it. No. I don't know if this is a public part, but I would like to offer some really, I think, important observations about this survey. both parties are correct. I think the important thing about a survey is the first thing is that, how do you introduce the survey? That's number one. What are your directions for this survey? Thank you for the time for doing the survey, your answers. Yeah, that's really important. The difference between feelings and facts is really critical in some of the questions. And then facts and feelings are more important in the focus groups or the qualitative part of the survey. So Anthony, I agree with Anthony on this. We need to know what people know about the charter. We need to know what they know about the charter. That's listening to the people. That's understanding where they're at. So for some of the questions you have, do you think we should have? No, it should not be worded that way. Should there be a balance of power between the mayor and the school committee? Yes or no? That's it. They can think about that. That's their thought. But the questioning is important also because it eliminates Oh, I'm a City Council person. I can't stand this. I think the mayor's been in office too long. Because a lot of that's going to happen. I'm telling you that I'm the method public. I'm the person you want to hear from. And I think those questions that you have, if they were just reworded or introduced a different way, and many of the options delineated, You're going to get a better understanding. And then you get to where Ron is that. Okay, well, this is what we heard from the people 80% of the people think the school committee whatever the question is wrong because I haven't really studied the survey but I saw the questions that come up tonight, right. But I think that if this is really about the charter, and Ron, you said it early, this is a living document. It's not static, it's dynamic. It's always gonna be moving. There's gotta be changes made to it as there should be as we progress as a people, as a city. But it's important, even from the standpoint of, let's say I get the survey. And I'm asked to randomly, I'm randomly selected, I'm asked to serve to complete the survey. I have two choices. I can complete it or not complete it. So I'm going to complete it. And I'm looking at the survey and I'm going, oh. I didn't know this, what do I think? So it gets me more engaged. And then when I get to those things like my trash wasn't picked up, or I don't think senior citizens should pay taxes, or I don't think these things. But I think critical to listen to the people, we have to understand where the people are first and foremost about how our city operates. And it could be very limited information. I think the questions themselves, are okay, but just the phraseology of them. Instead of, do you think, should. Some of these things, it removes the feelings. This balance of power thing, I think that's gonna create a lot of emotion to people. And when you get to the focus groups on that, I think you're, you know, that's when the questions, once again, are gonna be really important. You know, you've been at this for a while, and I'm gonna say it again, I truly appreciate everything you're doing. But I've learned the hard way. the questions have to be structured in a manner that will give you the information that you really want to have. Instead of going on through this other stuff, well, maybe they think this or I don't think so. I think no, yes or no for some of these. And then and then if you want, Ron, you do a rank choice. What are the issues? What are the issues in the charter? You know what the issues are for you. But you're right. We need to find out from the people what the issues are for them. But I think One of the great things that a qualitative survey does is, first of all, it points out what group are we missing here? What part of the demography of our city is missing from here? And how can we reach out to them to include that? Because if they're not included, then we've missed a big chunk. Even just the demographic portion of the survey is going to be a big help because you can identify where you need to do more outreach. Okay, that's really important. There's going to be some people, how is the survey going to be, is it going to be randomly? No. It's not going to be random? No, we're going to distribute it as widely as we can. Okay, but is it going to be anonymous? These are questions you have to ask. Yeah. And that's important, because I think that people will be far more apt to respond to the quantitative survey, the check. If it's anonymous, I do.
[Milva McDonald]: OK, thanks. All right, so we need to wrap up the survey, and we need to make a decision about how we're going to move forward with it. I think there was consensus on how we could shorten it. And so now we just need to decide, are we gonna go make those changes and go forward with it? So we can get sort of this basic big picture information. We could use the questions we have and add um, a question such as Ron suggested, where we list the issues and ask people to rank their most important issues.
[Eunice Browne]: I think that's a good idea, but I also think that we need to take, um, some of, um, Phyllis's, um, input and go back and reword some of those questions. So I think that, you know, whoever was, I don't know if it was Danielle or somebody that was, you know, working on this, you know, for the first round needs to go back and, you know, make the adjustments. And then we need to take another look at it. I mean, I know we want to get it out, I get that, but, you know, we get one shot at this. So, you know, I'd rather see it, You know, take the feedback and make the adjustments and, you know, if it takes us, you know, until sometime after next meeting, then, you know. it'll be a better product.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, I'll make the adjustments. We'll vote on it at the next meeting. We're also going to be deliberating on mayor and city manager at next meeting. So just so we know that.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Can I just say one more thing? The great thing about adding that question about what about you list in the issues and having them rank choice them and then you can put one line for other. They can write one in. Then you know, then you have your top issues right there. Okay. Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so interviews. Thank you, Anthony, for interviewing the mayor. That's our first completed interview. Did you get it? Did you send it to the Medford Charter Study email?
[Andreottola]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm sure it's there, but we'll definitely, next meeting on the agenda is gonna be reviewing the completed interviews. Uh, Maury and I have one set up with Denny Graham and, um, Gina and I have one set up with Zach Bears. Danielle and I are almost have one set up with Nicole Morell. Um, and how, how, how's everyone else doing on scheduling? Are there any other scheduled?
[Eunice Browne]: Uh, no, I have not. I, I need to find a Al for, I think it was with me or a Kathy. I can't remember. Kathy Kreatz and Mia. I thought Jean's daughter said she would join you for Mia. That's what I have written down. Yeah, I'll have to see. Maybe she'll join me for Kathy as well. I have a question though.
[Milva McDonald]: If not, I'll join you.
[Eunice Browne]: Oh, okay. I have a question. These are, we're doing these via Zoom, so are we using the Zoom link that we use for our meetings? Are we using like a setting up our own link?
[Milva McDonald]: They can be Zoom or in person and you can use whatever Zoom works.
[Eunice Browne]: Okay, because I know that with, obviously the Zoom link that we have for these meetings must be like the business plan or something because we've been sitting here for over an hour and a half. If you do like a personal Zoom, you know, with a free Zoom. I think you get 40 minutes and it starts counting down at 35 and then at 40 minutes.
[Milva McDonald]: So if you need to use the charter study one just to make the meeting longer, that's fine. Just check in with me and we'll make sure that happens.
[Eunice Browne]: Right, because I don't think two groups can't be using it at the same time.
[Milva McDonald]: Yep, I can facilitate that. Okay. Ron, you would have contacted city councilors and haven't been able to set any up, is that correct?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, the consensus is once the budget's passed, they'll do it.
[Milva McDonald]: So you're going to check back in with them? Yeah. OK. And you heard back from Kit Collins and Dustin Sang. What about George and George Scarpelli?
[Ron Giovino]: We got back from Justin and John Falco.
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, OK. That's great. But John Falco, but you didn't set it up with them.
[Adam Hurtubise]: We have not set it up. We had a birthday this week.
[Milva McDonald]: And who's joining you for that?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Maury, I think.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Adam Hurtubise]: On the list.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So another question that was raised was about budget issues in terms of if we make any change to the charter that would affect the budget, how does that work? And that's something that I'm sure we'll discuss over time, but it led to the issue of interviewing the chief financial officer, which is one of the people on our list. Does anybody, does anybody, I mean, we have city clerk, elections manager, chief financial officer, planning development and sustainability, superintendent, communications director, and nobody has signed up yet for these folks.
[Andreottola]: Is this superintendent of schools?
[Milva McDonald]: Mm-hmm.
[Andreottola]: I'd be willing, and I also have put my name in for, what was his name? Paul Russo, I'm looking for someone else who might want to, you know, do that with me. I actually met with the mayor in person. Maury wasn't able to attend. And I didn't know if that's, you know, that's okay. You know, if one person, you know, we scheduled two people. He just didn't come. And with these other folks, I'd be willing to kind of reach out. But if anybody else is interested, I'd be, you know.
[Milva McDonald]: Anybody, consider me. If you can't find anybody else, just consider me. I will talk to all of the people on the list. I'll be the second for anybody, okay?
[Eunice Browne]: Um, these are absolutely necessary.
[Milva McDonald]: Um, they're not all absolutely necessary. I mean, um, you know, I think some of the city officials, it would be good to talk to the CFO. It would be good to talk to planning, development and sustainability. Some of these positions have City clerk, they sort of have more interaction with issues in the charter than others. Also talking to the former city officials, I think could be helpful so we have a long list of those and so far john Falco is the only one that. people have volunteered for. So we could talk to Michael McGlynn, Stephanie Muccini-Burke, Michael Marks, Bob Penta, Bob Maiocco. These are the people on our list. Patricia Brady-Doherty, Paul Donato, Paul Camuso, Paulette Vanderkloot, Aaron DiBenedetto, and Bob Skerry. So we don't have anybody signed up for those. And we don't have to talk to everybody. The other possibility is we could potentially ask people to fill out the questionnaire, even if we can't personally interview them. How do people feel about that?
[Eunice Browne]: I think I'll take Erin off of your list because, no, wait a minute, don't write anything down yet. Erin is on the Elections Commission, and so she doesn't get involved in anything political anymore. So, I think I may have asked her, or I think I asked you something else and she steers away from anything remotely political because she's on the elections commission now. So.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, the elections manager is on our list to talk to, so. Right. And because there are issues. She may run too. Well, I mean, this isn't inherently political. It's about, I mean, it would potentially could help their office run more smoothly if we made changes to the charter, you know? So, yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: And I think we should, you know, certainly, you know, concentrate on the current officials first. before we get to the past electeds.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So it looks, I think we have some interviews set up. We can eat, we can, hopefully people will schedule more and we'll have at least a report at our next meeting from about the interview with the mayor and probably some others as well.
[Andreottola]: Okay. Can I just make a quick suggestion? Yeah. Would you, the committee consider just inviting people to come to one of our, you know, one of our monthly meetings and, and, you know, fill out the survey and maybe come and just, you know, give us, you know, 10 minutes of their time to kind of just, you know, summarize, you know, their answers for us. So kind of everybody can kind of, you know, gain, you know, their knowledge and their perspective, you know, we could Like, I wish everybody was in the room with the man, you know what I mean? Because you would have gone, you would have like, oh, like, that's what she's kind of saying. You know, she wrote it all down, but it's like, when you just answer the questions, and then, you know, you can't kind of like, you know, put it in your own words. It's, I don't know, I think it loses its value a little bit.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I mean, it's a different kind of thing. having people come and speak publicly in a committee public meeting is different than the kind of information we get from the informal interviews. And I think, you know, from what I've gathered from the call-in center that the most committees do this, do the informal interviews. So, but we can consider. Okay, so just to wrap up events and planning circle the squares this weekend, I'll be there with a table flyers etc.
[Andreottola]: Um, do you know exactly where you'll be.
[Milva McDonald]: No, not I mean Medford Square.
[Andreottola]: No, because I was thinking of stopping by. I was actually thinking of coming by with my old car, and I think that would like to draw a lot of people to your table.
[Milva McDonald]: That would be fantastic. I'll know where it's going to be when I check in.
[Andreottola]: Okay, well let me know if it's anywhere in there. I think if you're kind of perched on my antique car, you might attract some folks.
[Milva McDonald]: If you want to email your phone number, then I can text you where the location is once they sign. Okay. Um, we have farmer's market on August 31st, and then, um, we're trying to plan this ice cream social event, which I think we could do at city hall, like on the lawn outside. Um, Danielle and I are going to meet tomorrow morning to talk about planning that. And Francis, you, um, I've talked about it a little bit with you too. I don't know what you're probably busy tomorrow morning, but. If you wanna just throw out the ideas that you shared with me, that would be great.
[Frances Nwajei]: I'll throw out the ideas I shared with you about, I felt that next month, all the signs, the big signs that are taking up the lawn space are gonna be down, there won't be no hashtag pride sign, the dad sign will be gone. So there's some nice green space, you could just say, hey, we're going to be hanging by the City Hall front lawn, come by, you know, for an ice cream and a chat. If somebody, you know, somebody has a guitar and they're playing some music, that's great. And, you know, the most important thing is just to make sure that there's not what is considered a quorum of members of the commission. So that's another way to have more intimate conversations with people.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes. So we're going to try to look at that. And you were suggesting, I think, a Wednesday evening. Is that what you suggested?
[Frances Nwajei]: No, not a Wednesday evening, because Wednesdays we're here till 730. Okay.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Friday evening.
[Frances Nwajei]: Okay. Friday City Hall closes at 1230. You know, we have to be, you know, we have to recognize that there are people who really don't have any interest in coming to the city building. So this is a different way to reach people.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, we'll be discussing that more and we'll have more details in the August meeting. A Facebook page has been created. Oh, yeah.
[Frances Nwajei]: I'm really, really sorry, Bilba. I'm so sorry to be rude and interrupt, but I'm actually literally on hour number 13 today. Yeah, no, that's fine.
[Milva McDonald]: That's fine. We've gone over anyway, so.
[Frances Nwajei]: Yeah, I have to return tomorrow for another event and I have a bit of a drive, so I've got to get on the road before I actually- Okay. I'm too tired. Thank you, Frances. I thank you, everybody. I'll see you again soon. Thanks a lot, Francis. Have a good night.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Thank you for all your work.
[Andreottola]: So just one last question on the bios. You want us to forward those to you?
[Milva McDonald]: That would be great. I'll send an email to the whole group. But yeah, I'm going to just ask everybody to send a brief bio. And then I will ask the city communications director to put them up on the website. web page. So the Facebook page is there. I know Maury found it because he's the only follower. I picked up a free picture of City Hall. There's no pictures. There's nothing. It's only to be used for announcements and sort of Maybe education. It's not really we can't discuss issues on it. But I guess if any, if you all look it up on Facebook and start following it. If somebody wants to be a administrator. Talk to me and We'll figure we have to start getting people to follow it I mean because we could announce we can announce our events on there we can announce our meetings on there, etc. Okay, I just wanted to throw that out there.
[Andreottola]: Can people post comments on it or not.
[Milva McDonald]: The, you know, I'm not really that good with settings. It's not comments have not been turned off, it could be turned off, they're not turned off right now. I think the thing we can't do is we can't really, we can't have discussions. on there so people can make comments we just can't respond which which is okay we can answer questions basic questions um you know the admin would have to review the questions yeah yeah um what is the name what is the name of the site medford charter study committee just what you would think so see if you can find it um We can talk more about that. I did post to this meeting on there, even though there's no fault. There's just Maury. Maury somehow found it. I don't know how, because I didn't tell him about it. Can we share it with us? Yes, yes. Yeah, we need to start getting followers. I mean, it could have better graphics. But I didn't have any photos or anything.
[Eunice Browne]: I may think about being an admin. Let me ponder that, because I have another group. election season coming that requires a lot of babysitting.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so I want to just offer public participation if any members of the public want to speak, address any of the issues. We've heard a little bit, but anything, any other thoughts, questions, or comments from members of the public?
[Phyllis Morrison]: I guess my only question would be is, I think just from an observational point of view is that, you know, this is a lot of work. You may get little response. And I hate to say that to this group because it is a lot of work, but I think the more time and thought put into PRIA will really reap a great benefit. And trust me, I know because it took me years to do a national study. And that's why I'm sharing this with you. The more specific a question can be and the less choices for a feeling to enter is very important on the quantitative part of the survey. It's very important. You all know what you're talking about when you take the survey. You already know that, you know the questions. The mayor knows, you know, but you know, That would be my one suggestion, be as direct as possible. Thank you.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah. I need that tomorrow.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So our next meeting is July 6th. I will send minutes out to folks, but we have a small action list, but I'll send the minutes out and you'll be getting an agenda, et cetera. Anybody want to? Go ahead, Eunice.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. Jean and I are working on a project that we got assigned last month going through. She's doing school committee. I'm doing city council and mayor, which is a smaller pool of people, going back and looking at the election results from the past, I don't know, probably 10, 12 elections. So going back to early 2000s, Um, we've got a spreadsheet going, um, with candidate names and then each ward and precinct and then how many. Um, you know, votes that they got and so forth. Um, and so, um, I had to, um, some of the data going back further than I think 2017 wasn't on the city website anymore. It used to be. And then when the. Website transition to something new earlier this year, it. Got lost in the shuffle so I went back to Melissa in the elections office and she got that up and on the site. Within the last couple of days, so we're going to go back and revisit that and get back to work on that. So hopefully. It's a bit of an undertaking, but we might have some of it done, and then we can delve into the demographics a little bit later. But we're working on it.
[Milva McDonald]: That would be fantastic. That's going to be hugely helpful. I'm hoping to do that deliberation on the ward issue, ward representation issues in August. So you have time. But it would be great to have a report on your progress at the next meeting. So that's great.
[Phyllis Morrison]: OK. Phyllis. I don't know which one of the gentlemen brought it up on offers Anthony around but I do think you need more people on the committee. I think that should be very obvious to this whole group. I mean we do this isn't our whole group, but yeah, even the whole group, I really think you need more people. Okay, thank you. I don't know why, but I can't do anything. I can't close out of the meeting. I can't do anything. Anytime I try to leave, I can't click on it. So I'll have to wait till you shut it down. I'm sorry.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Um, so just, uh, are we ready to adjourn motion to adjourn? Thank you. All in favor. All right. I will see you. See you all in July six.
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