[Milva McDonald]: Welcome, everyone, to the September meeting of the Medford Charter Study Committee. I know that we met the new members last month, but I wanted to just, this is, I think, Aubrey's first official meeting, so I just wanted to acknowledge that and say hi, and we're excited to have you. And we also have our alternate here, David Zabner, who's gonna participate in all the work of the committee as a non-voting member, and then if, If anybody has to step down for any reason, he will be well-prepared to step in. So thank you so much for that interest and for being here to do that.
[Ron Giovino]: Milva, can I just suggest we, as we do with all members, just a little synopsis of who they are, and then they can sing the theme song for us as part of their welcoming.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, you want to go around to do introductions? Is that what you're saying?
[Ron Giovino]: No, just for the two. Oh, yeah, yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Would you like Aubrey and David? Yes.
[Ron Giovino]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, go ahead, guys. Aubrey, you want to go first?
[Maria D'Orsi]: Good evening. My name is Aubrey Webb. I'm a resident of Medford. I live in the Central Park near City Hall. And it's lovely to be here. For my day job, I work at the State Department of Education. And I'm a policy analyst specializing in data and data visualization, evaluation, and research. Lovely to meet you.
[Milva McDonald]: Great. Thank you. David, can we hear from you?
[David Zabner]: Hi, everybody. I'm a resident of South Africa. I'm actually a PhD student studying computer science education. I did one computer science, reform software engineer, and I'm really excited to be here and perform the fight song.
[Milva McDonald]: Great, thank you. Welcome. Okay, so our first order of business is to review and accept the meetings from the August 3rd, I mean the minutes from the August 3rd meeting. Did anyone have a chance to look at them? Yes. Move approval.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Second.
[Milva McDonald]: Great, okay, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Great. Okay, so that's done. Um, the next thing I wanted to do was, um, I sent around the updated work plan and I want, and I just wanted to check in and, um, see if everybody had a chance to look at it and it's revised quite a bit. And I would like this target date to actually be the one that we, that we consider, um, a work plan that we're gonna aspire to. I know the last work plan was very aspirational. I feel like this one is more realistic. So what are people's thoughts about it?
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I think it's more realistic. One question that I would have, and it kind of might come up a little later on in our agenda, Are we going to have, we have our public session in October, and then we have, you know, focus groups, we're doing the survey. Are we going to have any more public sessions?
[Milva McDonald]: I don't know how people feel about that. I know what my thoughts are, but what are people's thoughts about that?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Well, simply, I think you can't have enough public sessions.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. My feeling was that we would keep doing the outreach that we have been doing since we started meeting in the form of the survey, the focus groups, the public meetings, and then that we would wrap those up and sort of turn towards focusing in on the decision-making and the drafting starting in January or February. So I think we should have maybe at least one more in January, and then just focus in on, it doesn't mean that we won't take any public feedback after that. It just means that our focus would shift to taking all the data that we have collected and applying it to decisions and drafting. Because what I've heard from the call-in center is that the drafting stage takes about eight to 10 months. If we start that in January or February and October is our target date for our presentation to the city officials, that gives us about that much time.
[Ron Giovino]: So on that point, I think that this is a great plan because we need, I mean, we could discuss one issue for 10 years. We're putting a timetable on this, and I am a strong believer in the subcommittee process. And I think that turning these into subcommittees is going to be a tremendous benefit. It gives us another outlet to prepare. It gives us a faster way to put things together. And, you know, the Ward Breakdown Subcommittee is an example of how you can produce a decent presentation uh, within a much, I mean, we couldn't do it if we're in these, you know, in these meetings. So I'm, I'm all for that. And I hope that everybody grabs a hold of some of these, um, subcommittees and we, we build each one of these should have their own subcommittee. So I love that.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. I mean, based on the work plan, we would have 10, 10 or no nine subcommittees. So we already have one. And I think that this subcommittee we have currently for a city council that's focusing on researching ward representation can morph into the legislative branch subcommittee. And that doesn't mean that other people can't join it. If there's anybody interested in that, they can join that subcommittee. In terms of what Eunice brought up about the public meetings, do we feel like October and January is, I mean, we could conceivably plan another public meeting like later in the spring, just to like let people know kind of where, what our status is and share information. But in terms of the information gathering from the public, October and January, that would give us three full public meetings before we start focusing in on the subcommittees and the drafting. Does that sound?
[Ron Giovino]: Plus the surveys. So, I mean, I think, and we would continue the communications out to everybody. Yeah, I agree. I think that, you know, and then, you know, November, December, you're not going to have a meeting at that time. It's just this scheduling nightmare to do that. So I like the idea. But I also think, too, that there may be one large presentation to the public prior to, you know, just let everybody know that in October when we present the big one, Everybody has to, you know, it's going to eventually come down to the voters eventually. So, I mean, it's kind of like, you know, be on board with what, you know, this is your chance to do it. And so I think so far, anybody has the opportunity to communicate. There are some issues on participation, which, you know, I'm very much interested in. And I just want to ensure that if somebody has an issue, and if you watch, if you watch recent council meetings, you know, there are issues. issues that could be resolved by a proper charter ordinance or article that could address why these things are not happening. And if you watch them, the meetings, you see there's a lineup of issue after issue. So I really want, I'm assuming that the citizen participation piece involves in that too, that somebody out there in the public, if they have an issue that they're waiting for us to talk about, waiting for us to see if we're going to touch. I just want to make sure that those folks know that. Put it together and bring it. There's no way anybody knows every issue you're having. I think we're addressing the major issues, but to me, I want everybody who's listening and takes the time to listen to this and read the information, should have the ability to say, how come you're not talking about this? And that's what I want to make sure that there's a process for for that as well.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so we need to keep talking about that. For sure, but thank you. David, you had a comment.
[David Zabner]: Yeah. Maybe I should just wait and I'll hear the answers eventually, but I'm wondering in terms of these subcommittees for the different sections, what's the timeline for getting people assigned to them? Should those subcommittees actually start meeting even before we have kind of the final results of all of our surveys and polling so that like those groups can start get oriented around kind of like How do other nearby cities organize this stuff? What kind of stuff do we as a subcommittee value? Those kinds of questions. Or even just like, how are we going to understand the answers to the questions we have asked the voters, right? I think it could be good to get started on that sooner.
[Milva McDonald]: Absolutely. And that we sort of already have a start with the city council subcommittee. Tonight, we're going to talk about forming the school committee subcommittee. So I think what we will try to form these, I mean, based on the work plan, we're going to try to form the subcommittees over the next, you know, in the fall over the next few months. So after tonight, we'll have two formed and we already have the city council subcommittee is already getting some good work done and the school committee one will start and, um, I think we're going to talk about the preamble tonight to determine whether we want a preamble, whether we even want, that is an optional section of the charter. So hopefully we're going to have these subcommittees assigned and working over the next few months. Does that sound right to everybody or does that sound doable?
[Ron Giovino]: Nova, could you just go through these subcommittees just so I have an under, is it just a broad based, you know?
[Milva McDonald]: Well, based on the work plan, basically what I was proposing is creating subcommittees based on the different sections or articles of the charter that we're going to create. So one subcommittee is preamble and article one. So the preamble we're going to discuss tonight, whether we're going to choose to create a preamble, Um, and article one is just basic definitions stuff. It's, it's not, you know, uh, it has to be done, but I would say, depending on what we decide about the preamble that that subcommittee could be formed later or sooner. Cause if we decide we want to preamble, we might want to form that one sooner. Then we have legislative branch, which is basically the city council subcommittee executive branch will focus on. Mayor, and we already did make one tentative decision about Mayor City Manager that we would stick with Mayor barring any response from the public that shows us that they would like to switch. And so far, we're gonna hear about the survey later, but so far the survey doesn't show that. So that subcommittee, there's still a lot to look at with the executive branch regardless. Then we have school committee as a subcommittee. for that section of the charter. And then the other sections of the charter are things that we haven't talked so much about, but they're really important parts of the charter. There's the administrative organization, which is Article 5. Financial procedures, which is Article 6. And I think that that's one that's going to be important to talk about, important to people. Elections, Article 7. Citizen participation mechanisms is Article 8. And then articles nine and 10 would be together in one subcommittee, and that's just general provisions and transition provisions. So that was my vision, was that we would have subcommittees based on the different articles of the charter. And if anybody thinks there's a better way to organize it, I'm happy to hear it. Right now, I know Eunice has had her hand raised.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, to kind of piggyback a little bit on what Ron was saying about watching the city council meetings regularly, the same, how do I put it? Issues come up and the same sort of reasons why things don't get done come up. And as a pretty avid watcher, you know, over the last, I don't know, since we kind of started all this, I've been making little notes to myself about things that I have thought, you know, if we put something somewhere in the charter, then these things wouldn't crop up, you know, and just kind of going through, you know, three or four of them as examples. you know, requiring the mayor to meet with the city council once a quarter, um, requiring the warrant articles, which I believe are the monthly bills to be available to the council on a monthly basis. Um, you know, things about participation, um, you know, requiring city meetings to be held no earlier than say, picking an arbitrary time, 6 30 requiring all You know, meetings to have a zoom component so on and so forth, things that, you know, I think, have a may have a place in the charter, because the things that keep propping up that the Councilors in the school committee. bring up that are impediments to doing their job in the best way they can. And maybe these things are surfacing in some of the interviews that we're doing as well, um, may have a place in the charter so that, you know, if the mayor is required to meet with the city council once a quarter or twice in a calendar year or something like that, you know, now, you know, she can meet with them or not. But if there was an item in the charter that requires her to do it or him, maybe some of these problems wouldn't be creeping up. If the mayor was required to send the bills to the council, maybe we wouldn't be in the predicaments that we're in. So I think some of these things may have a place in the charter and I'm not quite sure you know, would they fall under particular subcommittees to provide further discussion and, you know, for that subcommittee to write into the charter that, you know, the mayor must do X and, or the city council is required to do Y. Um, so that some of those things get incorporated.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. So what I would think I, what I, I mean, what I hear, um, when you're speaking is, If you could maybe, or Ron, whoever is noticing these things and has these ideas, if we can create a running list, you just mentioned two, we can research where they would go in the charter. Also, we can run them by the call-in center to determine whether I'm pretty sure that I've seen charters that create parameters around the mayor meeting with the city council, you know, requirements, things like that. But I think the first thing we could do is we could find out if these are things that would actually be in the purview of the charter.
[Eunice Browne]: I'll give you another two examples. Currently, or at least last I checked, there was a Malden resident sitting on one of our boards. And when I questioned it, because I would imagine that there's probably a Medford resident that might like to sit on that board, I was told that there is nothing in the charter that says to sit on one of our boards, you have to be a Medford resident. Now I can see that maybe in a board in one of our business districts or something like that, a business owner that lives outside of the city might have a vested interest, but somebody that just lives in another city, the individual in question used to live in Medford and moved out. And then the other thing was that there are cases where some of our city councilors have some behaviors, I suppose, that sometimes leave questions and how they're treating our residents or their attendants and such. There's nothing in the charter, I was told by the council president, that gives the council president any sort of power other than to say to a council member, hey, can you not do that anymore? But if the councilor who is doing the behavior doesn't really think that there's a problem, he or she can continue. There's no repercussions because the charter doesn't allow for it. So, just another couple of examples of things that possibly could go in the charter someplace that maybe other communities have that we could look at.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. I have the list that you've given and I will contact the call-in center about all those things and find out where they might fall in the charter if they're in the purview. So I want to hear what you have to say, Anthony, but Phyllis has had her hand up for a little while. So let's hear from Phyllis and then Anthony.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Well, the first thing I wanted to talk about is I do think it's time for us to break into these subcommittees. And I think that they're very well defined. I think we can do a lot by looking at those parts of the charter, looking at those as a group and taking that there. But with Eunice's conversation, this is a question that I had while she was talking. Is there no code of conduct of no code of ethics anywhere in the charter or anywhere stipulated within any of the documentation for administration or executive branch in our city? I would find if there isn't, then I think that, you know, maybe talking with the Collins Center is something that we need to incorporate that into.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, that's a good.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah, I really think that's the way we could go about that. But I just want to say that I really think it's important that we get to these subcommittees.
[Milva McDonald]: Great. Thank you for this. Yeah. Anthony, did you? Oh, and yeah.
[Andreottola]: I just remembering what Eunice brought up about the member not being living in the community. This was already addressed by the call-in center when we first met, and I believe their response was that the reason that you may not want to eliminate somebody who doesn't live in the community because loss of expertise if they're particularly like a expert on a particular subject that you know they would be still benefiting the city and you may not want to disqualify people from contributing to the community just because they don't have residents in the city, but they still may have an interest, whether it be, you know, traffic or bicycling or whatever, disability or whatever. You know, there is a, there is kind of another side to that, why somebody who no longer lives in the city may still be valuable to keep on a board or a commission. I just wanted to throw my two cents in with that.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you, Anthony. David.
[David Zabner]: Yeah. I guess just like, first of all, I absolutely agree with what Phyllis said. I'm like really excited to get to work on these subcommittees and to hear how they're making progress. I imagine that that's kind of, again, this is my first meeting, so I have no idea, but I imagine that that's where the really concerted work will be happening. And I guess I also want to say, like, should we consider adding an additional section to the charter to cover things like, you know, behavior that would cause somebody to be removed from office, or kind of like what makes somebody allowed to be, to hold office, to be on committees? That sounds like it could possibly be its own section of the charter. That may be worth consideration. Although I think it's also worth um worthwhile to like balance those considerations with the idea that a group like the city council should probably also have some flexibility to decide what wasn't was not allowed kind of in its own chambers um so it probably makes a lot of sense to like explicitly give them those powers to decide um and and maybe there are things that the charter should say are absolutely not allowed um but I imagine that we may want to err on the side of flexibility there.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Thank you. Ron.
[Ron Giovino]: Um, no, but just one comment. It appears to me, my suggestion would be, uh, article two and article three, uh, legislative and executive, uh, changes to one is going to affect the other. And I'm just wondering if we should not combine that into a super subcommittee because you're going to be looking at, well, we take this away from the mayor. Do I have to call the other subcommittee to add it to? the council. So they seem to be very connected. I would just ask that you take a look at making that all one.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, that's a good point. And I think that that's a good suggestion, actually. And especially since we've done, we've already sort of pretty much decided on the executive branch in terms of mayor versus city manager. So thank you for that, David.
[David Zabner]: I might further add that like, It sounds like the group that's currently working on city council is thinking really hard about how city councilors get elected. And it might make sense actually to separate the issue of how they're elected from the separation of powers or from the enumeration of powers to various groups. Especially because I imagine that those are kind of the two most contentious or difficult parts of the charter. It might make sense to have one group focused on like Are we doing ward at large representation? How is that being set up? And a separate group thinking about like, yeah, what powers does each branch have?
[Milva McDonald]: So the subcommittee that's currently meeting is focused on ward representation because the committee hasn't made a decision about that at this point. So right now the plan is for that subcommittee to present to the whole committee at the October meeting And then we will deliberate on that and have a discussion and perhaps a decision based on our, I mean, our survey is open until December 1st, but so we can maybe have a tentative decision or we can at least know a direction. And then after that, perhaps Ron's suggestion of combining legislative branch and executive branch into a subcommittee makes sense because then the balance of power issues, I think that you're referring to. would be looked at also by that subcommittee. And of course, all the subcommittee work comes before the whole committee. No decisions will be made without the whole committee. The value of the subcommittee is, you know, there's so much information and data that the smaller groups can collect and then bring back to the larger committee. And then once decisions are made, then the subcommittees will also work on the drafting of the language. And then that would also be brought back to the larger committee. Okay, that's great. I love these are great suggestions. And I think the combining makes sense. Thank you, Ron and David for that. Does everyone agree with that? Okay. So are there any members of the public that want to weigh in on the subject of the work plan and what we've just discussed here? Great, okay. So the next item, is there any committee members that need, do we need to say anything else?
[Ron Giovino]: I feel like we've pretty much- No, but just one final point. What is your plan for establishing the subcommittee members?
[Milva McDonald]: So, like I said, I think next month after the City Council Ward Representation Subcommittee presents, we can then talk about morphing that committee and see if anybody else wants to join it, or if anybody says, I don't want to do that, I want to do something else, who's already on the committee. Tonight, we're going to form a school committee subcommittee, and maybe, like I said, we're going to see what happens with preamble, and then I think next month we'll, well, I think that will actually cover sort of the main things. But we could, you know, we could possibly jump ahead to the, I know that financial procedures is important to a lot of people. So we could form that one maybe next month or the month after. But I think by the end of the year, we'll maybe have about half of them form. And then maybe starting January, February, we'll have the rest formed. Does that make sense?
[Andreottola]: Yeah. Miller, can I ask a question?
[Milva McDonald]: Yes.
[Andreottola]: Please. Especially on the Finance Committee. That committee will be very important. And I know there is a lot of discussion about that. And will there be the availability of getting some, I know the Common Center will work with us, but some more kind of, outside help, because that's going to be a very complicated legal issue. You know, just seeing what's going on with Boston and their changes. And, you know, there's already lawsuits and kind of, you know, collective bargaining issues and things that are, you know, for me, I would think would be not that, you know, for a lot of us may not be our, you know, our strong suit. You know, like how do we get the kind of consultation, you know, to draft that type of, you know, procedure on policy, even, you know, even, you know, the city of Boston struggling with it right now.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. Well, I think the first thing that the, I mean, the subcommittee would have to maybe figure out how they would get good data and information. to help the rest of the committee make the kinds of decisions that we have to make in that section. We have that particular section, since there was a charter amendment on the budget proposed by the city council, I think that subcommittee will probably have to look into that and look into some of the issues surrounding that and whether there are recommendations related to that that we want to make. So yeah, I think there's going to be a lot of research involved and maybe a subcommittee will find just like with, with the ward representation subcommittee, we are, you know, we're finding different people to check in with that know more about this stuff than we do in terms of the demographics that we need to discover to help, um, I don't know. I don't know how to create recommendations or present to the committee so that, that, you know, that that information there. So I think that that will be part of the job of the subcommittee. Does that make sense?
[Frances Nwajei]: Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Okay. Okay. So the next item is. Interview reports and status. And by the way, all the people who have been interviewed in the main folder for the committee, there are interview reports from all the people that have been interviewed and for the committee to look through and read. I was charged with contacting several former city officials and I was unsuccessful in getting contact information for many. But I did reach Patricia Brady Doherty, and she's available September 12th to be interviewed. Does anybody want to interview Patricia Brady Doherty on September 12th? And no time has been set yet. That will have to be worked out with her.
[Eunice Browne]: I'm away.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, and it doesn't have to be if we don't have anybody available on September 12th. I guess the first question should be, Does anybody want to volunteer to do that interview? David, okay.
[David Zabner]: As a PhD student studying education, I have a lot of interview training, so I'm happy to do more interviews.
[Phyllis Morrison]: I'm sorry, I had to leave for a minute, I apologize. I had to get a drink of water, I'm dying of thirst too. Are we talking about the school committee?
[Milva McDonald]: No, no, we're talking about the interviews and Patricia Brady Doherty is a former city official who has agreed to be interviewed and she's available September 12th. So we're looking to see if anybody's available too. Okay, so David and Phyllis. Right.
[Phyllis Morrison]: And I do like this committee, I have been trying to reach our superintendent for weeks. Yeah.
[Phyllis Morrison]: No, it was not.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so and phone calls. Okay, well, that's good to know.
[David Zabner]: This is the beginning of the school year.
[Phyllis Morrison]: David, I'm an administrator in education. I know.
[Milva McDonald]: So I'm going to write back to Patricia and Cece, Phyllis, and David, and you guys can set that up. Great. The other person they contacted, and there's not a specific date that's been mentioned, but Paul Camuso is available and is happy to be interviewed. Anybody want to volunteer to do that interview?
[Phyllis Morrison]: I will.
[Milva McDonald]: Was that you, Anthony?
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: OK. Anybody want to join, Anthony?
[Phyllis Morrison]: I can join.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So I will write to Paul and Cece, Anthony and Aubrey, and you guys can set that up. Great. So now in terms of, I've already heard, we've already started to hear about the superintendents. Yeah, Phyllis and somebody else was gonna try to contact her, Anthony. So you guys haven't had success yet.
[Phyllis Morrison]: And I'm honestly telling you, I have emailed and I have called. And I started back after our very last meeting. It wasn't that I waited. And I know the summertime is busy and I know the beginning of the school year is busy, but I'm in school too. And you answer an email or you answer a call.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I know it's hard. I've had the same issue. I've been trying to set up an interview with the CFO and I haven't been able to get involved.
[Phyllis Morrison]: I was wondering if they don't want to talk to us.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, it's possible. I mean, the elections manager has declined to be interviewed in person, but said she would answer. So she has now questions for me and Jean. So we're going to hopefully get answers, basically, in interview and write. So it's possible. That's one possibility. Or it's just, I mean, there's no requirement for these people to be interviewed by us. It's just we're asking them to, you know, take time and talk to us if they are willing or if they can, but it's not a requirement. So if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But it's good to keep trying. So thank you for doing that. Oh, I will. Yeah. Was that you, Anthony?
[Andreottola]: Yes, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Before I forget, I have an interview scheduled tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock. with Paul Russo from the school committee in Method Square at the Dunkin' Donuts. If anybody'd like to join, you're very welcome. I wasn't able to buddy up with anybody, but it's scheduled for 10 tomorrow at Dunkin' Donuts. There's another member that has the time. Please just let me know and come on over. And Milver, also, if you can email me another one of those interview forms. I somehow can't find it. So I just wanted to forward it to him so he could fill it out if he chooses.
[Milva McDonald]: OK. I will send that to you. I would be happy to go. I'm just not in town right now.
[Phyllis Morrison]: So I can't. I'll be in school, Anthony. I'm sorry.
[Andreottola]: It's OK. If anybody's available, I'll buy the coffee.
[Milva McDonald]: It would be great if somebody could join. But I don't see Maury here tonight. Maury's pretty available. So you might email him tonight. He might be able to. Or when I send you the questionnaire, I'll CC Maury. So maybe he'll pop into it.
[Andreottola]: Excellent. Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Um, okay. Now, uh, the other, let's see, we we've interviewed several city Councilors, George Scarpelli. Somebody was trying to get in touch with George Scarpelli.
[Ron Giovino]: That's me.
[Milva McDonald]: And have you had any success?
[Ron Giovino]: We're talking, but we haven't picked a time.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, great. Um, and what about Adam Knight? Has anybody gotten in touch with Adam?
[Ron Giovino]: He's on my list too.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Um, And as far as school committee members, at least we're getting Paul, and we've interviewed Jenny Graham, Sharon Hayes, Paulette, and Maury, we're gonna do that. Neither of them are here right now. And Eunice, were you gonna contact Kathy Christ?
[Eunice Browne]: Mia and Kathy, I think Jean and I are both gonna do those. Okay, good. I'm away next week, but I will see if I can contact Jean first, see what her schedule is, toss a couple of times out to Mia and Kathy and see if we can get them sometime in the next few weeks.
[Milva McDonald]: And Melanie McLaughlin, I have Paulette and Maury, and you are also going to do Mia. Yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: Gene and I are going to do Mia and Kathy.
[Milva McDonald]: OK. And then Paulette was going to contact Michael McGlynn and Stephanie Burke. I could not find contact information for Michael Marks. I think Maury is in conversation with Bob Penta. I would like to interview Michael Marks because I know that he was a big part of the talks to try to get charter review to happen when he was a city councilor. So I think it would be great to interview him.
[Eunice Browne]: So if anybody- Let me give you an email for him. I think it's pretty simple.
[Milva McDonald]: I think it's- You wanna put it in the chat? Yeah, let me see if I can find it first. Were you going to say something, Aubrey?
[Maria D'Orsi]: Oh, just the chat's disabled, I think.
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, OK. Thank you. I will fix that. OK. All right. So and of course, if there's anybody that, if you have any ideas for other people that we can interview. What about Bob Scarry? Yeah, he's on the list, but I couldn't, the only people that I successfully was able to contact was Patricia and Paul Camuso, but I tried to find contact info for the other people, but I couldn't. So if anybody can, please go for it.
[Andreottola]: And I have Paul's out to the police.
[Milva McDonald]: Great. Thank you. Oh, I tried that one, Eunice. It didn't work. Um, hmm. So I might just, I might actually, I might try a different route other than email. Okay, so next is survey status and, oh David, do you want to speak first?
[David Zabner]: Yeah, just really quick. Have we considered or have we already interviewed Yeah, that's a good idea.
[Milva McDonald]: I talked with the mayor of Malden and the mayor of Malden's chief of staff, but we haven't actually officially set any of those up. But I think that that's, what do people think? Do we wanna start interviewing people from other municipalities too? I think we should finish our own house first.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, the only suggestion is the same way that we use Malden is I think from a subcommittee level, there may be a connection you want to make. If you're in finance, you want to talk to Everett's finance people to make it more focused because our general interview questionnaire is more, what do you like? What do you think? But if we, as subcommittee folks, like we did in Malden, we specifically talked about ward representation and other issues, but I think it comes better from the subcommittee. That's just my opinion, but certainly we gained a lot of information from Malden.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I think that's actually, I think that makes sense. So, and there might be a particular community that let's say if you're on the finance the subcommittee that's looking at the budget procedures and the finance procedures and there's a particular community that has something in place that we want to look at and find out about then that would be a really, I think, a good thing to do. Does that sound right? Does that sound okay to everybody, that we would handle the speaking with people from other communities in that way? That if there's a particular practice in place that we want to find out about, then we go out of our way to find that out. Like, for instance... Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. There's an issue in Lowell right now that's come up as part of our subcommittee that I'm interested in finding out about. So maybe I'll contact somebody in Lowell to ask them about that. David, does that sound, does that, okay, great. Okay, so survey, Danielle is doing the survey report and unfortunately she's not here yet. I think she's gonna be here very shortly. Um, so we could push that. Actually, let's push that ahead and switch it with focus groups because the problem with the focus groups report is that Jean is, uh, was unable to come tonight and she's spearheading that. But, um, what I do know is that we're still, we're still trying to organize, um, some assistance from the city in getting those going. And we're still planning to try to do them this fall. So, and as Jean mentioned, that people on the committee will volunteer for trainings to facilitate focus groups. The list of topics, right, or focus groups right now is, we had talked about older adults here. I have the list right here, so I'm just going to say what it is. All right, we have somebody has suggested candidates for office who were not elected. And there's a question of whether that should be a focus group or whether we could just interview them. Not sure about that. But youth is one, a potential focus group. Non-English speakers, older adults. people with disabilities, people who live in public and affordable housing, and I think the Collins Center had suggested business community. That's a lot of focus, that's probably as many focus groups as we can handle if we do all those. Is there a group that people think that we really need that has not mentioned? David.
[David Zabner]: I could see maybe instead of saying only English speakers or in addition kind of maybe a particular focus on Portuguese speakers since I know that there are a large population here. Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: I think that part of the issue with the group that's organizing the focus groups was to deter, you know, was how to, it wouldn't just be a bunch of non-English speakers. We might have more than one focus group of non-English speakers. And one could be what you mentioned. So there might be different ones, but yeah, that could certainly be one of them. So thank you for that. Okay, so hopefully, Jean will have more of a report on that next meeting, and we might actually be contacting people to start organizing trainings and such. Danielle, I'm trying to decide if we should just, I should just wait for, we should move on. I'll wait for Danielle because I would like her to do the survey report. So the school committee subcommittee. I know that Paulette Van der Kloot is interested in it. This particular subcommittee, I think what we need is we need a group that's gonna really like dig into discussions and data and research on the composition of the subcommittee. We will have survey results on how people feel about ward representation on the school committee, how people feel about the mayor being chair. So, and I know that's a big question, whether the mayor should be even on the subcommittee. So this subcommittee would be looking at all these questions and maybe reaching out to other communities, anybody that, you know, and finding information and that they can bring back to the full committee. Does anybody? Does anybody have interest in being part of this?
[Phyllis Morrison]: It's already raised. My hand is raised. Phyllis, Aubrey, Eunice, Ron.
[Eunice Browne]: I can continue my data nerd stuff. Yeah, Eunice, you can.
[Milva McDonald]: And OK, so Paulette, Phyllis, Aubrey, Eunice, Ron, and David. I just noticed that I maybe have pronounced your name wrong, and I apologize. So that's six.
[David Zabner]: That sounds like too many people and I'm happy to keep my focus elsewhere.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, because that is a core, yeah. It might not be too many people, but if you don't, that's five. I mean, and when we form these subcommittees, they become their own entity. So that means that, you have to follow all the open meeting laws. It just means you have to post the agenda and the meeting.
[Ron Giovino]: I think- Just a point of information. I think because David is a non-voting member, he doesn't, the real number is five. That's right. Yeah, so it wouldn't impact that quorum issue.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, so you're welcome to come to all the meetings and- As is everybody. Yeah, of course, that's right. Um, so officially, yeah, that would be a subcommittee Eunice.
[Eunice Browne]: I have a question about how this alternate business works. Um, I know that some other boards and commissions in this city, I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I'm just, I think they have alternates. So, you know, if there are 10 people on a board or 11 people say, because it's usually an odd number. and only 11 people plus the alternate making it 12, and only 10 people show up for a meeting, then that alternate person does get a vote. But if all 11 people are there, then the alternate is just there to listen and participate, but without any vote. So I think we need to define more clearly what this, you know, David's certainly seems to have very good thoughts and contributions for us, and I welcome them, but I think we need to make sure that we're sitting on the right side of legal here.
[Milva McDonald]: I will look into that. I will research it. I had envisioned the alternate as basically a non-voting member, unless an opening happened on the committee, but the point you make, Eunice, if there's If there's an even number of people because there's absences, I will look into that.
[Eunice Browne]: I wonder if France knows she's here tonight with us.
[Frances Nwajei]: I don't know. I'm sorry, Eunice. I don't know the answer to that one. I don't have alternates on my board.
[Milva McDonald]: Ah, OK. Yeah. I will look into it, though. Thank you. Um, okay. So I think this is really good. We, so this, so Paulette, Phyllis, Aubrey, Eunice, and Ron will be the official school committee subcommittee. Um, I mean, we, we, Ron is, we don't have a, we didn't like officially decide on the chair of the city council subcommittee, but Ron has been kind of the organizer. So, um, it would, somebody will have to volunteer to organize a meeting. etc. Anybody want to feel like they can be the leader of the school committee subcommittee?
[Ron Giovino]: The only the only suggestion I make is that Paulette certainly carries the most knowledge and base of the the school committee so maybe we should ask her if she would like to guide us through because she seems to be the knowing what the Medford school committee is all about.
[Milva McDonald]: I agree. Basically though, what I'm saying now is asking just for somebody who's gonna take the initiative to contact all the committee members, find a date, organize a meeting. And then that person can talk to Paulette and ask if she wants to chair the meeting, that's fine. But does somebody wanna, does one of the subcommittee members that volunteered want to be the organizer of finding a date and a time, and then that person will also have to, I mean, the first meeting's agenda will probably be very simple, but it still needs to be sent to the city. And I can give you access to the charter study Zoom, and you'll have to send the date and time and the Zoom link, unless you decide to meet in person. That will be part of the work. No, okay, how about, I was gonna say I would join the committee and do that, but that would make six and that's, I'll just do it and I'll probably come to the meeting anyway, but I'll be just a participant, I'll be there. I won't necessarily be a voter. It doesn't really matter. The subcommittees are gonna bring the issues back to the larger committee anyway. So I'll do that, okay. I will send out dates and organize this first subcommittee of the school. Okay. Um, David.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, this is again, maybe a question that has already been discussed, but I guess if the subcommittees are bringing everything back to the large, the committee at large, what, What are, like, the precise deliverables of these subcommittees? Are they supposed to come back with, like, here are three possible options? Is it an issue of, like, here's the thing we've decided is best? Here's our first draft. Here's the information we've collated and follow it a day from there.
[Milva McDonald]: Um, that's a good question. We actually had a pretty specific task for the city council subcommittee. Um, and in terms of this subcommittee, um, I think it would, they can bring back recommendations or just information, but there won't be any decisions made without the whole subcommittee. I mean, without the whole committee. So, um, Francis. Oh, I think Francis had her hand up. Maybe she stepped away for a moment.
[Frances Nwajei]: Sorry, I was still on mute, talking away to the ghosts. If you're going to be there and it's already a quorum, just make sure that you identify that you are participating just as a member of the public, because it's still technically considered a quorum.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, thank you for that, Francis, because I was a little unclear because my understanding was that once you form a subcommittee, then it's its own committee. And then, like, for instance, the school committee subcommittee, two of you can't meet because you wouldn't be a quorum, right? So because there's five of you and you need at least three to have a meeting. Is that right? Is that your understanding, Francis?
[Frances Nwajei]: I'm not so sure how the school committee works but I know that on mine we need five to have a quorum right so and I don't count as a voting member or as part of the quorum so if a sixth person was going to be present Even if they weren't voting, if I recall correctly from the presentation, it's just best to err on the side of caution and identify that you were simply there as a member of the public, even though you do sit on another commission or on the actual commission.
[Milva McDonald]: OK, thank you. That makes sense. And that means for safety's sake, because we're all sort of not really serious experts on open meeting law. We shouldn't have any subcommittees more than five people.
[Maria D'Orsi]: I can, I can step down and join a different subcommittee.
[Milva McDonald]: No, I mean, no, it's fine. I think it's fine for you. I, I might even drop off the, you know, I might, I'm not going to be a member of the school committee subcommittee. If, if Paulette steps up to organize the meetings, then yeah. In fact, I might not even go to the meeting. I'm just going to organize it. But if I do, I will make the distinction that Francis.
[Frances Nwajei]: I will share with you the presentation that was done and the link to the recorded meeting of that commission session so that you can hear the back and forth questions, which is always helpful.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Thank you. David and Eunice, you guys have your hands raised? David, you want to go and then Eunice?
[David Zabner]: Yeah, I'm just, uh, my recommendation from being on a few committees before is that when we form some subcommittees, we should ask them for very specific deliverables. And I would guess that for the purposes of progress actually happening, what we should ask them for is, um, you know, uh, first drafts of written out, uh, versions of their articles. Um, if they choose to present multiple options, I think that's great. Um, But I think it's really good to empower groups to like make decisions, because otherwise the subcommittee doesn't have, they aren't doing much if they can't, if they don't have a strong, explainable deliverable.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, thank you for that. Eunice, do you want to say what you need to say? And then we'll talk.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I think, you know, in order to, you know, err on the right side of the open meeting was, if all it If what we need to do just to get things going at the moment is, you know, Paulette sounds like she's expressed an interest in being on this committee. So I think what we're trying to do is ask her if she would take the lead, which, you know, I can't speak for her, but I imagine she might want to. Then if all it is now is getting in touch with her and saying, Paulette, would you like to chair this? And if so, take the ball and run with it. Then I'm happy to shoot her a message or somebody else on the committee can shoot her a message and say, if you'd like to chair this committee, then set up a meeting.
[Milva McDonald]: I will ask her before I send out anything to organize a meeting, I'll ask her first.
[Eunice Browne]: And then that solves the problem.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, thank you. But in terms of David's comments about deliverables, what do we want? Hi, Danielle, by the way. We're talking, we just formed a subcommittee to look into the school committee and be kind of, the subcommittee that looks into the options for the school committee and eventually drafts A section. Aha. Look, Paulette's here right now. This is awesome. Oh, well, there we go. That solves the problem. So, yeah, well, I'll wait till she gets on and then I'll restate what we're talking about right now. Paulette, can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Great, Paula. So we've just formed a subcommittee to delve into the school committee and you're on it. So one question is, do you want to wrangle that subcommittee, send out an email, set up a first meeting and sort of be kind of a leader of that subcommittee?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I can do that. I'm going to mention that I'm going to be away for two weeks. So in the next four week period, I'm going to be away from September 20th. So I would probably set up a meeting right away for next week. Okay. So I will send you
[Milva McDonald]: an email after about the people who are on the subcommittee, and then you can just start organizing that, you can organize it, you can send out a meeting, a message tonight, and you can get that organized. The thing that will have to be done is the, when it's organized, the city will have to be notified at least 48 hours in advance, and- Oh boy, okay, that's tight, yep. Yeah, so we'll see, I think it is 48 hours, right? So, and- Yeah, what else do you think is hours? So that's an issue as well.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: The other thing that- Can I just ask you- Yeah, go ahead. Can I ask you whether, does it have to be a Zoom meeting, one? Can it be an in-person meeting? I mean, can subcommittees be in-person is what I'm asking. I don't know whether people want that or not, I just want to ask the question. And two, I would need some help setting up the Zoom meeting. But I will talk to everybody who's, maybe somebody already knows how to do it.
[Milva McDonald]: I can help you set up a Zoom meeting. And if all the members of the subcommittee want to meet in person, I just don't know. I think maybe there's a room at City Hall or something. I think because of it, it's a public meeting, it would be open to the public. You would have to have a location that might have to be at a city location. So if people wanted to, I think you could explore that.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: OK. So sure, that's fine. That's great.
[Ron Giovino]: Just a point of information, too. I mean, the meetings, even subcommittee meetings, are open meetings. So there would have to be some mechanism for public participation. So my recommendation, Paulette, once The Zoom gives a little bit more comfort to, and allows you to do that in a much easier way. And Milva really helps you with that. So it's pretty, and I can help you with that as well.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah. Okay. And I guess the next question is, are subcommittee meetings always at night?
[Milva McDonald]: No, they can be whenever people are available.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I don't know who signed up, but I will certainly reach out to everybody.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: I mean, it's challenging to find a time, but hopefully, you know, in terms of, you know, poet being away and trying to schedule something for next week. I mean, you know, this is a, you know, we have another subcommittee going now, you know, I feel at least that. you know, while getting things, you know, done sooner than later, it's better. You know, it can certainly, you know, the first meeting can certainly wait a couple of weeks. This is gonna be, you know, an ongoing thing.
[Milva McDonald]: But to David's point, and we did this with the city council subcommittee where we did actually create directives. And we asked, we had a timeframe for when we wanted those, that information presented to the committee. So we could do that because we're not necessarily at the point, although it's not out of the question that subcommittee would use a drafting as a means to achieve the directives, but we're not necessarily at the point where we're asking the subcommittee to do that. So let's just try to create the directives that we want for this subcommittee. Okay. So one thing I think that is the composition of subcommittee of the school committee. Right. Do people agree with that?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: So. The everything is in the folder in terms of the interviews that have been done. So anybody that's any city officials that we've talked about that have mentioned school committee composition or the school committee at all, you can refer to that. We also have a spreadsheet in that folder of public comment from our events and things like that. And the committee will, the subcommittee will also have access to the survey. So those are materials that subcommittee can use in addition to whatever else. to investigate that. So what do we want specifically? We want the school committee subcommittee to investigate ideal composition of the school committee in terms of numbers, right? And the size of the school committee and the issue of ward representation or not. We agree that that those are things that we want. Okay.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Ron Giovino]: I think balance of power should be in there too.
[Milva McDonald]: And you're talking about the mayor.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah. Well, I mean, whatever, whatever we, it is, but it's very similar to the city council, but there's so much more to the school committee. I feel that we want to stay focused, but I do think balance of power balance of powers is, is, um, talks about the role of the mayor versus the role of the school committee members.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah. So are you including the question about whether the mayor would that be part of our discussion, be a member or?
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, the role of the mayor. Yeah, the role of the mayor in terms of chair, member or not at all. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Danielle, did you have your hand up? Sorry. That's okay.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I was just gonna say the same thing that Ron said.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, good. Okay, so right now we have the directives that we want the subcommittee to look at the ideal composition of the school committee in terms of size, ward representation, role of the mayor. What about term lengths and term limits? Oh, yes. Okay.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, there's some, you know, The budget and how it relates to the city council and the school committee are different processes. Would that fall under school committee or would it fall under budget? Our financial subcommittee.
[Milva McDonald]: Was that you, Paulette? Were you gonna say something?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, that wasn't me.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. That's a good question, Ron.
[Ron Giovino]: So just so the city council subcommittee was focused on the makeup and the composition. And now there'll be another subcommittee to talk about the executive and legislature branch. Is that the plan for this? Because the school committee, we could talk about those issues that we just discussed, but there are so much more to the school committee. function that we need to go into. Is the plan to create another subcommittee that will just work on that?
[Milva McDonald]: I guess that's my question. No, I don't know. Well, I guess, what are the other issues that you're thinking about?
[Ron Giovino]: Well, I mean, I think we talk about code of conduct, we talk about procedures, we talk about things that, you know, understanding. I mean, the school committee is unique in the fact that the guidelines of Department of Education and the state of Massachusetts really govern a large portion of that. But there are some issues that I think are the, and that's why Paulette is the quintessential rep here because she brings us history and she brings us up to current with the school committee. So I'm just, I don't wanna close the door on things that need to be changed in the school committee. by just saying, okay, here's, we've done the same thing with the, I would like to see us look at the same thing we did with the city council. Is that, are there other issues that we need to talk about outside of, uh, you know, roles, responsibilities, and balance of power. And I don't want to close. I don't want to be that that presentation closes the door and checks the box school committee's done. I think there's. There's a ton more that need to be in there. And that's, that's the only, I mean, I, I agree a subcommittee should be focused and I think to give them the whole thing is just overwhelming, but I would, I would hope that there'd be another, uh, school committee, um, you know, the, the, uh, there's an unofficial, uh, school committee, uh, guidance, uh, operations plan. that I think we should look at. I think there should be things inside there that can be tweaked. So I think... The school committee is a huge, huge part of what we do.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So, I mean, as we, we also know that there are certain things that the charter can't, I mean. Yes, I get it. The role, the charter's role is limited, I think, with the school committee powers, but maybe that could be part of what this committee does is sort of look at what, what does, what is within the purview of the charter in relationship to the school committee other than composition and etc. Um, Eunice.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I mean, I, I think to that end. Can we can this subcommittee as part of its 1st. Meeting have 1 of the agenda items to be. Discuss debate and decide on what our actual deliverables will be.
[Milva McDonald]: I don't know. I feel like it would be good right now that we're going to sort of decide on the deliverables and we're going to ask for a date for them to be delivered. That doesn't mean that that subcommittee won't continue on and look at and address other issues related to the school committee after it, I think.
[Ron Giovino]: That's fair. I think that's a good compromise to put in there that the committee could also make recommendations to continue research on other items as well.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Daveed?
[David Zabner]: Yeah, I was just going to say, After Ron's point, I think it makes a lot of sense for the school committee subcommittee to start by focusing very narrowly on the issue of representation and structure, and then possibly move on to other issues. I also would add that I think In my opinion, the code of ethics and those types of things should probably be universal across everything and probably shouldn't be different for the city council versus the school committee for the mayor. Which I think would also be good in terms of splitting the workload among various committees.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so right now I have the directives as The school committee subcommittee will research and come back with data and possibly recommendations on the composition of the school committee, meaning both the size, whether there would be ward representation, and if so, how that ward representation would be structured, role of the mayor on the school committee, term lengths and term limits, and Any, and whether there are, you know, what is the purview of the charter in relationship to the school committee? In other words, what other issues should a school committee subcommittee be researching? Is there anything else other than what these things that I've just outlined that the charter would cover? So do people have thoughts about a date that we want the committee to report back to the whole committee on these topics?
[Andreottola]: I just have a quick question.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Andreottola]: Just in regards to that, you know, coming up with a, like a kind of a plan, you know, I think David had mentioned before, you know, would it not make sense to have options, you know, to come up with, you know, a b or c you know uh different possible scenarios because the reason i say this you know just say if we're going for ward representation you know if we you know in this the city council uh group thinks you know we should have ward representation for the city council you know it would also kind of fit for the school committee, you know, like, how do you mix and match things? Like, if you don't have different options, how can we as a larger group kind of vote on what, you know, what, you know, after we get input from the community on what's the best fit, you know, if there's only one option, like, and we'll say, no, we don't want to do that. And things don't change.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I do. And the subcommittees are designed to bring back sort of a report to the larger committee, which can include recommendations, but part of the recommendations would be sort of an explanation of the reason for those recommendations. And it could also, which would also mean that they would say, well, we looked at this, we looked at this, we looked at this, and these are the pros, you know, this is what we see as the pros and cons of this. I think that the subcommittee would be doing enough in-depth work that they could report back. They would come back with a report that would essentially include more than the option that they're just recommend. Does that make sense?
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Yes. Okay. Um, I guess if nobody has any thoughts about, uh, a date that we, that we want to ask the subcommittee to report back by.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Um, well, I think that it should be pushed back a little bit because if we can't meet, you know, for a couple of weeks, which is fair. I mean, this is life, you know, I don't think it could be the expectation that we will report back. Maybe December, I don't know.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, December's been thrown out. David, is that, what were you gonna say?
[David Zabner]: I mean, I think it might make the most sense, since we're planning on kind of wrapping up data collection in the January timeframe, it might make the most sense to have that presentation happen in February, so that if there's anything from that data collection that they wanna include in their findings, that can also be complete. And then in theory, in February, they can present and we can vote and be done with whatever it is that they've been working on up until then.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah, but one of the things I might add then is that if we wait for all that data then, I mean, then we're scrambling toward the end. I don't know. I mean, we may have to update the report is what I'm thinking. We may make a presentation. And then if we have enough data that we think it would have an impact on our deliverables, We take a look at it and then we would update that report.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Okay. Um, Ron.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, the, um, the ward representation subcommittee really, uh, moved on the calendar the same way the public meeting is. So where our target is to present to the committee of the whole, the presentation with recommendations, uh, to gain agreement. and then present it at the public meeting, which is our best opportunity to reach the most people. So if we're having, are we having the next public meeting after that is January? Or is it before? So if we target ourselves to be ready for the January public meeting, that involves being, you know, presenting to the committee. So everybody's comfortable with the presentation somewhere, you know, a couple of weeks before.
[Milva McDonald]: Um, so I think that, um, I think Phyllis's suggestion of December is a good suggestion. Um, I mean, we will, the subcommittees will present to the whole committee and we maybe will potentially make decisions, but we're mostly making tentative decisions. we're making open decisions so that if something comes up, like let's say in the last, I mean, the survey's closing December 1st, but let's say at the public meeting or we, something comes to our attention that says, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait, there's all these people that in the public that have this other idea, then we can then factor that in. So we're not really necessarily setting in stone, But if we get the presentation in December, it gives the entire committee sort of the benefit of hearing the wisdom that the subcommittee has gained from their discussions and research. Does that make sense? Eunice?
[Eunice Browne]: I think we need to wait and set a date on a presentation until when we figure out when we can actually meet. Because I mean, like Paulette just said, meeting next week, given the 48-hour notice, the earliest that we could probably meet would be maybe Wednesday. So you're looking at Wednesday, Thursday. And I highly doubt that we can pull things together to meet that quickly. So then I think we're looking to wait until Paulette comes back, which I think is fine, which will put us what, you know, at least beginning of October, first, second week of October to meet, you know, so then I think, you know, December might be a bit early, possibly doable, but I think you're looking at probably January, you know.
[Phyllis Morrison]: But don't we have a responsibility to make a report to everyone in January?
[Milva McDonald]: Not, I mean, you mean for the public meeting? We don't know because we haven't planned that yet. Okay, all right. Okay, so if I can just say one thing.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes, Paula, go ahead. I think that if we, I think the bulk of this work will have to be done because I'm going to be away in October and November, so our goal, setting a December goal seems appropriate, but once we're into it, we'll have a much better idea where we're at and what it's going to take. Some of the complexities of this were alluded to in that, you know, are you going to have a different setup for school committee, i.e., the wards than for city council? I've been a proponent all along, but I'll remain open-minded that I loved being a school committee member who represented every student. And it was a mindset of saying not just part of the students belong to me, but all of them. And when I've talked to other school committee members, many felt that way too. So that's, you know, that's someone suggested that there might be different scenarios and I, you know, I think that that, you know, part of it is we're also going to have to see how our piece fits in with ultimately will fit in with the city council piece.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Aubrey.
[Maria D'Orsi]: I have a question about the subcommittee's role in March to July. Will the committee still be able to meet? I'm imagining with Paulette's last comment that there will be some iteration happening during that and we could take time between meetings to meet and come back and do additional research if needed then as well.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Thank you. So I just wanted, you had a question in there and your question is for the subcommittee's role in
[Maria D'Orsi]: to say March to July hashing out of new draft charter language.
[Milva McDonald]: So theoretically by March, there will be sort of decisions made about, let's say what we're gonna propose as the composition, if we're recommending any changes to the composition, any changes to the role of the mayor or whatever, but actually there is no section in the charter right now that even there's no section for the school committee. So the role at that point would be, okay, committee knows what we want to recommend, and this subcommittee is going to draft the language. The Collins Center has had a lot of experience with helping committees draft the language, so that will be a big resource that we'll have. And obviously, we have the three Charters that the Collins Center provided us with, and any city's charter can be accessed. So we have models that we can look at, too. So I guess what I think is that we've already outlined and sort of discussed the directives for the subcommittee, and I think maybe we can ask for a report in December. It doesn't mean that the subcommittee's gonna have everything they need, you know, but they'll present the whole committee with a report. Does that make sense? We can present what we've accomplished to date.
[Phyllis Morrison]: That's right.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, great. Awesome. Okay, Danielle, it's all you, survey time.
[Danielle Balocca]: So I can't share my screen on this computer.
[Milva McDonald]: I actually have the, do you want me to share the screen? Sure. The survey because I think I have it right here. Okay, and then I can scroll as you would like me to refresh in case like somebody filled it out in the last half hours. Okay. No, 288. Okay.
[Danielle Balocca]: So, I mean, honestly, I hadn't prepared too much to say, but I think it's a little self-explanatory, but you can see we have 288 responses. Sorry, there's kind of a lot of background noise. And I think there weren't like a ton of surprises. So you can see like the first question that we asked was the form of government that would be best for Medford moving forward. And it seems like a majority of people agreed that keeping the mayor was like 69% voted that with the second being no opinion and then city manager. or sorry, not sure in city manager. Same with the term lengths for the, okay, so term length of Medford's mayor is two years for the mayor's term be like a overwhelming majority is set increased to four years. Is it helpful for me to just go through this? I know, I'm sorry, I know that most people can't see it, can't see the responses. Should we just- Oh, I can see them. Oh, I mean, like on your own before, Oh, I guess I'm wondering is the objective just to show what the results are.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I just wanted to give everybody an idea.
[Danielle Balocca]: I just want to be too boring with it so okay yeah so then it looks like the yeah the majority of people. thought that we should increase the term to four years with the runner up being stay the same, which is two years. And then let's see, should the mayor, should Mayor, should Medford City Council change so that some city councilors represent the entire city at large and others represent particular neighborhoods or wards? Overwhelmingly again, a combination of ward and at large with the runner up being changed to all word representation, which we've sort of said isn't always an option based on the- Yeah, that didn't get cut out, but that's okay.
[Milva McDonald]: It still gives us this information about how people feel about word representation.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. Okay. And then should, sorry, can you guys hear the Pokemon in the background? Let me make sure- That's all right. Okay. You can.
[David Zabner]: Okay, no, we can, we can barely hear it, if at all.
[Danielle Balocca]: Okay, great. And then the next one should Medford's school committee change so that members represent the entire city at large, and others represent particular neighborhoods or wards. This one was a little bit less of a majority, but combination of ward and at large seem to be the majority opinion, followed by a stay as is, which is just the seven or the six plus the mayor. Then should the term length of city Councilors be longer than two years? Overwhelmingly, no. With some, you know, also the runner up being yes. The next one, it was about term length for school committee members. They also agree that it should not, or also thought that it should not be longer than two years, with a closer runner up saying that it could be longer than two years. Should the mayor be the chairperson on the school committee? Seems like a majority of people said no. And then the next closest being yes, but pretty far behind there. Should the mayor be a member of the school committee? Seemed kind of close between no and yes, but with a little bit of more of a leaning towards no. And then keep going. I can slow down too, but should there be a limit on how many terms the mayor can serve? Overwhelming majority said yes, there should be a limit. Should there be a limit on terms for city council? Yes, mostly said yes. Should there be a limit on how many terms of a school committee member can serve? Also mostly yes. I'm pretty close there. So this question was like pretty complicated to put into the Google, what's it called, the survey. So I'm not exactly sure how to read it either. So basically what we asked people to do was rank. They had like 12 choices and rank them like most important to least important. So I'm thinking what this says is that 60 people had their first choice as executive branch city versus city manager, that being their priority. And then it's sort of hard to understand, but I think so the most people that had and a lot of like 50 people said city council, the ward representation being second choice. And then I think this is so, I think it's ranking it. I don't know. I would have to kind of look at this a little differently. It's kind of confusing, but I think this question was also confusing for people answering it, but I think they're ordered by the way that they were ordered in the survey. So I'm not quite sure exactly how to, how like to find,
[Milva McDonald]: So we need to sort of look at how to evaluate this ranking question more.
[Danielle Balocca]: And perhaps ask it differently. Because I think just putting it, this was like the only way to ask it in this forum. In this forum, yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: We also have a lot of comments that we'll have to, I think I'm going to, or somebody will need to take some time to take all the, well, we also have demographics. Do we wanna look at the demographics?
[Phyllis Morrison]: There was also- I'd be interested in which group responded the most, yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, let's look at the demographics first, and then we'll look at the comments. And wait, before we do that, I see Daveed's hand up, and I can only, I can't see everybody's hands, because the screen is being shared, but Daveed, do you wanna speak?
[David Zabner]: Yeah, I just want to say that, like, as somebody who designs these types of questionnaires, that's not a very good question. And I would probably just ignore the results to it and maybe delete it from the survey going forward. Yeah, there's like, there's just no way, given how complicated that question is, that people are or understanding it appropriately and answering it in a way that they, like, I'm not convinced they would come back tomorrow and answer it the same way, right? Like, it's, I don't think it's a good question.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you. I mean, it was intended to just give us an idea of the ranking of issues. It was intended to just give us an idea of if there was some issue that was really overwhelmingly important to people that we wanted to make sure we prioritized it. And it doesn't look like there are any surprises.
[Danielle Balocca]: I think we get some sense of that from the comments, like highlighted certain things.
[Milva McDonald]: Absolutely. Yeah.
[David Zabner]: If we wanted to update it, I would recommend like, you know, which of these 12 are like your top three issues is going to give you, I think a much more understandable, both question and data set.
[Milva McDonald]: No, thank you. That's a good idea. Okay. So Danielle, do you want to talk about the demographics now?
[Danielle Balocca]: Sure. So I think the color greens are kind of close together, but I think what this is saying is that, yeah, the most 29.3% of people between 35 and 44, then 23.7% 45 to 54. 22.6 for 65 and up and then 55 sorry 11.7 or 55 to 64 and then some a small amount of folks that were younger and then some prefer not to answer.
[Milva McDonald]: OK, thanks. So the young people, we're hearing less from young people, I would say. And also, what do we have for the 65 and up?
[Phyllis Morrison]: I think it's really interesting that between the 25 to 44-year-olds, we get the majority. I think that's great. Yeah, no, you're right. I definitely think that's great.
[Danielle Balocca]: yeah it's we had a lot of like engagement at the rights pond event like there were several people that kind of talked to us for a long time and i would say that was like kind of the age range yeah that's true that's that could be part of the reason for that
[Ron Giovino]: Danielle, do you have it broken down of how many popsicles versus ice cream sandwiches that day?
[Phyllis Morrison]: She has the rank choice too broad.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Rank choice.
[Milva McDonald]: That's right. Okay, so this is, this I feel like we have to put this together if people really want to see how long have you lived in Medford. We also had a lot of comments about this question, right?
[SPEAKER_11]: Right.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, I don't see them here. But yeah, see, a lot of people were like, didn't like the question.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Why is this question asked? Yeah. Yeah. This question offends me deeply. I mean, that's very telling. Yeah. Yeah.
[Andreottola]: Yeah.
[Phyllis Morrison]: So.
[Andreottola]: Well, if you remember, I brought that up. You know, that really was something that we should have taken out.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah, should be removed.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, they were welcome to say, prefer not to answer. Residential status, this is really interesting to me that, I mean, we're not reaching the renting population, but we're not reaching very many renters.
[Phyllis Morrison]: So- Yeah, 9%. Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. So that's something to consider maybe. I don't know how we might in a focus group or something, but I don't know.
[Andreottola]: How would they, How would anyone know that? That we're not reaching renters?
[Milva McDonald]: Well, if they looked at our survey results, but we know it because we're looking at our survey. In our survey, we're not reaching renters. Right.
[SPEAKER_11]: If I can make one overall comment. I thought we were talking about comments. Were these comments from people?
[Phyllis Morrison]: No, this was numeric equation. Yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: My only comment is that we're looking at a survey, and David would know this better than anybody, that is less than 1% of the voting population of the city. So we really have to take that into account. And for those listening in public, this is a big piece of data for us. And if it's at less than 1% results, how can we pay attention to this and really hope that we're covering everybody? So I know this is one tool that we're using, it shows me that we should make a much stronger effort. I know we're pushing it, and I know the numbers are getting better and better, but I'm hoping that we have another push towards getting this done again in the fourth quarter so we can compare and see what we've got, maybe change or sweeten up some questions. But at this result, CNN would never- Yeah, the sample size is not the best. Yeah, CNN would never- Yeah. never projected.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, one of the things I wanna talk about, and we don't have a lot of time left, and there's still stuff on the agenda, but I wanna talk about ideas for, we have this survey open until December 1st, to getting it to as many people as possible and getting more responses. The city has put it out in their newsletter and in robocalls, but if there's anything we can think about to do that, that would be great too. And here is the last demographics question, and that's pretty self-explanatory.
[David Zabner]: I'll say actually that right around 300 people for a town of 65,000, I don't know how many are voting, is actually considered quite a powerful survey if it were a random cross-section of the population. Like that would be considered a very good amount of people. It turns out with the statistics we know, if you get 300 people at random out of 65,000, you can answer a lot of questions that will hold pretty true. I would actually say probably the bigger issue is that this is definitely not a random cross-section of the people in Medford. 300 is a really, really good number.
[Unidentified]: Thank you. That's good to know.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, the bigger issue would be like, yeah, we don't see as many renters as we might expect. We don't see as many men or women or 18 to 25. Those would be the bigger issues.
[Phyllis Morrison]: It's very skewed toward one part of the population.
[Milva McDonald]: And that was one of the reasons we asked about the demographics, so we could figure out which groups we want to try to reach. And so at the end here is, oh, we also have a mailing list now, so that's awesome. Actually, I don't want to show this on.
[Unidentified]: Hey, look, it's me.
[Milva McDonald]: OK, sorry. There's also many comments. And so I'm going to try to create, we have that Google spreadsheet of feedback comments. So I'm going to try to add those in there so everybody can see those as well. But I did want to talk about ideas for getting it out and getting even more responses and potentially trying to get some of the groups that we know we have not had represented in the survey response, as we discussed, maybe renters and the other groups. So does anybody have any thoughts or ideas about how we might make that happen?
[Andreottola]: I just, just something that David said about, you know, randomized, you know, once, once you really start targeting a particular group. you're kind of losing that, you know, that valuable piece of a survey that it's, you know, randomized to the general public. You know, that's something just to consider. You know, should we just like keep blasting it and, you know, have a goal of having 600 people to have a big sample size of randomized people would make sense. That's just my initial thought. But to say, well, we're going to go get renters. And then we're going to get 300 renters. And then now we're going to kind of skew the results, that this is a renters survey. Just something to think about.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, no, I agree. Thank you. David, and then Eunice.
[David Zabner]: Yeah. In a similar vein, I'm at Tufts. I imagine I could start reaching out to the majority of Tufts students or renters who are not living on campus. That being said, I don't know that that is necessarily, that may or may not be the group we really want to be hearing from. Tufts students as a whole, from what I know of them, are fairly unaware of Medford politics. I talk to them all the time about the stuff that's going on in Medford politics, and I've never met a Medford student who can name Medford's mayor or anything like that, which, you know, may or may not mean we want to discount kind of their thoughts and opinions on the matter. But yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: Okay, thank you. Eunice? I think we need to be following couple of different tracks here, the usage of social media and electronic, and then the good old fashioned paper copy. I think, you know, we need to be each personally pushing it, you know, through our own Medford groups that we belong to, the ones that at least allow political stuff, not all of them do. Along with, you know, just to our own feed, and you know, getting it out there to our Medford friends. I think going to some of the, you know, city leaders and specialized groups, the sports teams that we have, the churches, the houses of worship, anywhere that, you know, the chamber, the Medford Family Network, the Medford Mustangs, anywhere and anything where they can disseminate it to the people in their orbit. And then I think to go the paper route, I think we need to be photocopying and leaving them at the library, leaving them at the senior center, leaving them in the front hall at city hall, at all of the local schools, anywhere anywhere that the public might go that, you know, the people that are there would welcome having a survey there and they can fill it out and, you know, mail it back to city hall, drop it off at city hall, you know, or something, you know, deferring of course to David and others who, you know, do this more for a living. I'm not sure you know, we have 60 some odd thousand people in the city and, you know, 40,000 registered voters. I'm not quite sure how, and maybe correct me if I'm wrong, if I'm misunderstanding that 300 or 600 responses is very good. I would think we would need a heap more of that. So I don't quite understand how, you know, a city of 60,000 people and 40,000 registered voters at 600 is good.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, we can maybe, I'm sure David can tell us, but I'm just getting a little worried about time right now. So I think those are great ideas, Eunice. The issue is that we have, the survey closes on December 1st. So that's the amount of time we have to push it out. I like the idea of what I was thinking of when we saw that we didn't really get many renters. I don't know if there's like a renters organization in Medford, but something, you know, just organizations, I think if we can just get the word out to different groups and organizations in the city. I know Frances was at the West Medford Community Center and she let me know that she had talked about the survey there. And so that's just what I think we need to try to make happen in the next couple of months. Danielle?
[Danielle Balocca]: I think Kit Collins works with a bunch of renter advocacy stuff. We could maybe ask her to.
[Milva McDonald]: That's a good idea. Does anybody want to ask Kit if she knows a good way to? I can do that. OK. Danielle's going to ask Kit if there's a way that we can send out the link to that population.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Has anyone asked the churches?
[Milva McDonald]: In terms, ask them if they would send it out, send out the link.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Leave them at the back of the church?
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. I tried to contact the churches about our October public meeting and sent out an email to every email that I could find for any house of worship. Asking them to promote our October public meeting. Now, I don't go to these places, so I don't know if they did mention it or didn't, but I didn't get one single response back saying, oh, great idea. I'm happy to do that or anything. I don't know what happened.
[Milva McDonald]: So we have an option here. We can try to assign some people to do outreach on this survey. We can all individually commit to sending it out to whatever channels we are a part of. I mean, I know everybody is busy. You know, adding more tasks on at this point might be hard. We are getting, you know, the city is putting it out through their channels. So it's not like, you know, it's not like it's not reaching anybody. What do people think about how much work we wanna do on trying to, you know, get this thing to- I have a suggestion.
[Andreottola]: Okay. if we just keep blasting it everywhere for the next month or two, but to really then organize something maybe on election day, where we would be at every polling place and ask people as they were coming out to fill out a survey.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, we have to be a number of feet away, right, I think, legally.
[Andreottola]: Yeah, no, we won't be campaigning, we won't be campaigning, we're not campaigning.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah, we won't be campaigning, that's true, that's true. We're not campaigning, so. But I would still check to see if that's allowed at polling places.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: There are regulations about how far away you stand and whatever, but I actually was thinking along the same way, because that's the one time when at least people who are voting, we could approach and say, are you aware of Um, you know, and here's if we could put together a card with the website so that they could respond to give those out. I think that would be effective.
[Milva McDonald]: We have a QR code. Um, yeah. So let's, um, let's put it on the agenda for the next meeting to talk about that. At the very least, we can make sure that we have signs with a QR code. Okay. Awesome. Um, okay. Um, you know, we don't technically have 10 more minutes and I apologize because I don't know, maybe it's because I'm out of town. I feel like I let this meeting get away and we haven't gotten to deliberating about should Medford's charter have a preamble and I don't want to give that short shrift. So I think I'm going to move that we table it until the next meeting. Okay. Does anybody want to second that motion?
[Phyllis Morrison]: I'll second that motion.
[Milva McDonald]: All in favor? Aye.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Melva, can I say something?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, and then I know Francis wants to speak.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Just about this. I cannot be at the October 5th meeting. Okay. But I want to know if I can go on record today as saying after having read all of the preambles and thought about this quite a bit before this meeting tonight, I would be in favor of a preamble. I don't know if that counts, but I just want to go on record to say that I think a preamble would be pretty powerful and pretty important.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you. Okay, Francis.
[Frances Nwajei]: I just wanted to remind you that you have that what is a charter flyer that's at a glance. It's short, it's simple, it's translated, and it has the QR code if I'm not mistaken. So, you know, try to avoid reinventing the wheel and use what have. And also the non-traditional routes, right? Does anybody know that on Saturday at the Andrews School they're celebrating Brazilian Flag Day? You've had the surveys, the flyer, the glossary, all these things have already been translated. So those materials are available and should be used.
[Milva McDonald]: Is anybody planning to go to Brazilian Flag Day? I am going to be in the car all day. So I know I'm not. Because that would be a great opportunity to redo. We have glossaries. We have translated materials. OK. So in terms of events, that's the next on the agenda. Ice Cream Social, does anybody, I mean, I thought it was very successful. We talked to a lot of people. That was when we sort of brought out the survey. The farmers market was also, you know, we had a table there. We talked to, I think, about 35 people. We made a little bump in the survey after each of these events. The only other event that we have on our schedule that people talked about doing was the Oktoberfest on September 30th. But in order to do these events, we need somebody to be at a table. So does anybody want to be at a table at Oktoberfest? We already crossed off the Mystic River celebration because we didn't have anybody. Okay, so Maury might, I know it's Maury's kind of, you know, he's in the, it's a Chamber of Commerce event, so maybe he'll be willing to do it, or we'll find somebody to do it, but as of now, maybe we won't have a table at Oktoberfest. We do have the October 19th City Hall events, though, and we do have to plan that. So we have one meeting left before that event, last time we had a subcommittee that sort of, cause we had, we planned, you know, we planned the whole presentation, et cetera. So we might need to do that again, Danielle.
[Danielle Balocca]: I'm just wondering if like nobody could be at some of these events, if there's like, like public health table or some other table that maybe would just put a flyer there.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Well, um, I don't know about the mystic river celebration. I don't know. I think, I mean, to do that one, we, we would have had to have paid for a table anyway, and I don't know. I will ask Laura Brereton about that. And we can ask Maury about Oktoberfest. And possibly the thing about the Brazilian flag day, somebody would have to provide the materials. They might be willing to put them out on a table, but somebody has to provide them.
[Frances Nwajei]: I think you have to be careful because it was, Even though I was at the West Medford Community Center, and I made it very clear that I'm simply sharing information. A lot of questions came back to me and it was being referred to, I was associated with the city and it was being referred to as the city is changing the charter. So I just, I think there has to be a clear distinction. Like if I go to Brazilian Flag Day, I'm going as me for city work. Right? And I don't think that there's a problem if the flyers are there, but somebody from the Charter Committee really should be there with those flyers.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, thank you.
[Frances Nwajei]: Because it can be misinterpreted that it's the city that's pushing this, and it's really not. We're doing a study so that you can solicit opinion from people within the community. in order to inform on what the community says. But the minute there's a city person present, it sort of gets overshadowed.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you. Yeah. I mean, and people do have a, I mean, just having done this at Circle the Square and the farmers market and people definitely have a lot of questions when they see the materials. So that's a good point. Thank you, Frances. So in terms, we know we are having an event on October 19th at city hall. Does anybody want to, does anybody want to be on a subcommittee to plan that event? Danielle, okay. And this is a planning committee. So it's not, I don't, I think we can just have, have the committee meetings. We don't have to post agendas and whatnot because it's not, it's just planning. It's not, um, yeah, it's, it's, uh, I think that we, we, that whoever's on that subcommittee would be able to do that. So, um, Danielle, you, you and I will plan it. Okay. Well, we'll do is we'll get together and then we will, um, talk to everybody about it in October, but... Frances.
[Frances Nwajei]: So, Milva, you're not having a subcommittee, you're just... You and Danielle are just going to plan for the event.
[Milva McDonald]: That's right. Yes. That's... Okay. Thank you. Linguistically, that's right. That's what we're doing. So, we will get together, and if anybody else is interested, just contact me. I think...
[Eunice Browne]: Going back to the post-mortem that we did after the last one and incorporating any thoughts that we had after that one in terms of changing formats or, you know, we talked about, you know, the microphone, we got the suggestion box, we have the banner. So any other, I think going back to the post-mortem that we did on that one and making any adjustments that we felt needed to make, you know, would be one place to start in terms of, you know, the logistics of it. And then, you know, the content obviously would be a different story.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, thanks, Eunice. That's good suggestion. Okay, I think that's our agenda at this point. Our next meeting will be on October 5th.
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