[Milva McDonald]: Welcome, everyone, to the meeting of the Medford Charter Study Committee. The first item on the agenda is to look at the minutes from our last meeting. Did everyone have a chance to look at those? Yes. Okay. Motion to approve.
[Ron Giovino]: Second.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. Aye. Okay. Um, our next item is the city council's, uh, composition, but here comes another committee member, the subcommittee report. Um, let me just let Aubrey in. Okay. All right. So I am going to, uh, the subcommittee has been meeting and has some materials to share with the larger committee as, uh, we discussed. So I'm going to hand it over to Ron.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you, let me just put this up.
[Ron Giovino]: All right, can everybody see that?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yep, yes.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay, so just to remind the committee was myself, Milva, Jean, Maury, and Eunice. And just going to go through this. And if you have any questions, feel free to ask them. I'm going to try to get through this as quickly as we can. So let's begin. So the subcommittee was, created to investigate and research the options for city council composition, specifically to gather that information of at-large council scenario versus a ward representative hybrid option, and report back to the whole committee, which is tonight. I can tell you that the folks on the committee really went above and beyond in doing their due diligence to pull as much research and take as much care in providing this presentation. So I want to thank them all for all their hard work. So let's begin. The current city council right now is seven members. They are all elected in an at-large basis throughout the city. and their term in office is two years. So we looked at three options as we went through this process. The first is to continue with the same situation we have right now, which is seven-member at-large city council. We looked into transitioning into a hybrid ward representative council, which would be, because there's eight wards, would be eight ward reps and either three or five at-large reps. And the third option, which was mentioned, is just to increase the number of the members of the city council still being all at-large members. This is good information. There's a lot of history in there, and Jean and Eunice will go over some of that. But this is the way the wards are broken out now. It's hard to look at, hard to see, but you get an idea.
[Eunice Browne]: Can I make a suggestion back on that slide, please?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: I'm wondering if, since it's hard enough to see and I'm sitting a foot in front of it at the moment, people that are going to be watching this on a screen, can we maybe do a color coded thing underneath where it says ward map and use the colors that are you know like the navy blue is four one yeah is whatever it is and so on and so forth we could do that sure
[Ron Giovino]: This is going to be the presentation once it's edited tonight for the public meeting as well. So that's a good, good update. I was also thinking of creating a poster of this and having it displayed in the hall as we're doing it too.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So there are some options.
[Ron Giovino]: All right. First up will be a discussion about the city demographics by ward. And that would be Jean Sotter is going to take us through that. Jean.
[Jean Zotter]: Sure, so I'm gonna talk about what we investigated was, what are the Medford overall demographics? And then what are the ward demographics based on the data we could receive? And how representative is our city council given the demographics of the city? So right now our total population is approximately 60,708. although it increases every year and has been increasing at least since 2010. We're pretty evenly split between male and female. 22.5% is foreign born and approximately one out of three residents speak a language other than English in the home. which is I think something we should keep in mind when we do our outreach and see if we could have other languages potentially available for people that wanna come to any of our sessions. Approximately 5% of people under 65 have a disability, seven or seven to 8% live in poverty, approximately 20% have incomes above 200,000. were pretty evenly split between renters and owner occupied housing. And then this is the kind of breakdown of the age brackets in Medford taken. So this data comes from the 2020 census and from the city of Medford did an analysis for their FY 24 budget. So you can see that the highest group is 25 to 34, the next group is 35 to 44, and then 45 to 54. Those almost make up 50% of the city. Next slide. So it took me a lot of work to get the breakdown of all I could get was race ethnicity by ward. And so you'll see on the bottom access is the different wards and then on the far right is Medford overall. And then underneath the ward names are the polling locations, just so you know, people often don't know what ward they're in, but they know where they vote. So based on this data, you can see that ward seven is minority majority ward, and that we do have some wards that are a little more diverse than the city overall. And then a couple of wards that have a higher percentage of people who are white. Next slide. This is also a breakdown of ethnicity, so ethnicity is. gathered differently than race because people think of them as Hispanic and they might think of themselves as white or they might think of themselves as black. So as you can see, there's not much variation by ward as far as Hispanic, non-Hispanic, which is the only data that I received for ethnicity. And so that's the demographic data. I wanna thank the, Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability. They worked really hard, had to get me multiple data sets and took probably three months to get this data. So, but I think it's helpful as we think through ward representation and what we might gain if we went in that direction.
[Ron Giovino]: Great. Any questions on Jean's piece?
[Eunice Browne]: My only suggestion would be on the two slides here, just in the interest of clarity and symmetry, on wards two and five, to add Roberts a second time and Misituck a second time to indicate that both precincts are in the same place. Okay. Sure.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Could you return to the page earlier just so I can look at it again?
[Ron Giovino]: This one here?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, just just wanted a screenshot of it.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, we'll send this out to the committee members to after the meeting.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. All right.
[Ron Giovino]: Any other questions? All right. Thank you, Jane. Really, really quite a comprehensive job. Very impressed. Okay, historic city election results, and that will be Eunice will present that. You all set, Eunice?
[Eunice Browne]: Okay, yep, move on.
[Ron Giovino]: Here we go.
[Eunice Browne]: Alrighty, so what this represents here, as it says, is the count of candidates and electeds that have attempted to get into office. So if somebody ran more than once, In this case, for the purpose of this slide, they are counted more than once. So six, how do I explain it? Six people, or there were six tries for Ward 1, and nobody was elected. 18 in Ward 2. 12 were elected. I'm struggling to figure out how to make sense of that in terms of explaining it, guys, because the next slide shows only each unique individual.
[Ron Giovino]: So I think one of the important pieces of this slide are the wards that have zeros.
[Eunice Browne]: Right, exactly.
[Ron Giovino]: That's a real eye opener and a case, a very important piece of evidence. Anybody have, just want to stop here. Does anybody have any questions? It's pretty straightforward. It shows you who ran and who won. So it gives you an idea of representation by ward.
[Eunice Browne]: Right, so I mean, it's pretty clear that wards one and wards four have not had any representation over the course of nine elections, the time span that I worked with. And wards three and six and two have been very well represented. So it's like David has his hand up.
[David Zabner]: Yeah. Yeah. I'm wondering being somebody who's still newer to the city, kind of like, what, what do we know about the words where there have been nobody elected? Um, especially as compared to say like wards two, three, and six, is there a really big difference in who's living there that y'all can think of, uh, money and things like that?
[Ron Giovino]: not money, but you can look back at gene slide and see the composition there. I don't know by income, and I don't even know, is there a way of finding that out?
[Jean Zotter]: Maybe. I did ask for age data, income data. I think basically they can just give you percent living in poverty from the census. Right. It's just, it's hard for them to get me all this data. So we started with race, ethnicity.
[Ron Giovino]: Do you want me to go back to that slide?
[David Zabner]: No, that's okay. I just think it's, it's kind of like worth thinking about.
[Milva McDonald]: Ron, I think it might be useful just to go take a peek back at it now that.
[Ron Giovino]: Is this yeah. So this had some information on it in terms of. but it doesn't show by Ward.
[Jean Zotter]: Not by Ward, it's the next. This one, yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. I think insofar as Ward 4, speculating one of the reasons, and if you go back to the Ward map, Ron, if you can go back there, Ward 4 is that deep blue down the bottom there. And I don't know if you can This is actually my ward, so I'm a bit familiar with it. See where it says 4-2 there in the pink? Yeah. Right to the left of that, there's a road and that's actually Winthrop Street. 4-1 and 4-2 are split. Boston Ave going towards Somerville is 4-1 and 4-2 is Boston Ave, south to the river. And 4-2, and this is just my estimation here or my thought, 4-2 is pretty heavily residential of single and multifamily homes. 4-1, if you follow that road that goes, well, actually, best way to explain it, if you look at the little, is that a trapezoid, I suppose? Geometry teacher is probably turning over in your grave right now. But the right hand side of that deep blue is the Tufts campus. So that's the academic buildings, the dining hall, the dorms, your typical college campus. So I would think that the people however many people that are actually residing there are probably students who are probably not that invested in Medford politics. Ward 4-1 is, in terms of turnout, historically one of the lowest as well. So when you've got a part of the ward being tufts, and then the left-hand side of that trapezoid there is single and multi-families, you know, and I would imagine that students still occupy a lot of those. So, you know, perhaps there isn't a whole lot of representation because there's just not a whole lot of investment in the community from the, you know, the group of people that live there currently because they're students and they're heavily invested in what they're doing on campus rather than the Medford political, you know, world.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I was thinking the same thing when I saw the map that, to me, that's where the largest amount of tough student housing would fall.
[Eunice Browne]: Right. I mean, for office, you know.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, who's walked the streets. The other thing I just wanna go back, when we were looking at the other slide, which said no one's been elected in these areas, I just am gonna ask you or caution you to please say there was no representation. So really what you wanna say is there was no one elected from this area because since we are, everybody runs on a citywide basis, these people were represented, we all had city councilors.
[Ron Giovino]: It's a very good point, I think.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I know what you're talking about, so I'm just saying if you're presenting in public, I would make that point. Distinction, yeah. Distinction, thanks Eunice.
[Jean Zotter]: Okay. Paulette, is that about the heading or just how we present it when you change the heading?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Count of candidates and elected for office. No, I think that's fine. I think it was just as you talked about. Okay.
[Ron Giovino]: Right. So it's a very good point. It's really a measure of which candidates are residents in that particular ward. Okay.
[Eunice Browne]: OK, if nobody has any other questions on that, then certainly, as I said, highlighting the two wards are important. And then this, yeah, and stay there. And then this indicates the number of individuals who actually ran. So over the time span that we're talking about, four people in Ward 1 ran for office. and nobody won. So the other slide said six, but that's because I think there was one individual who ran twice, attempted it twice and didn't get elected. So four people over the time span, four unique people ran, none got elected. And then moving along toward four, Three people ran, nobody was elected. And again, going back to six, three, and two, that's where most of our elected officials have come from over the past nine elections.
[Milva McDonald]: But most people, that's where, Ward 6-3, there have been actually three Councilors that have resided in Ward 6? Is that what this means?
[Jean Zotter]: Yes, it's their place of residence.
[Eunice Browne]: Some of our Councilors have moved over the years, so they ended up perhaps in a couple of different buckets, both in terms of who ran and got elected and who ran and didn't get elected. So, for example, Adam Knight has moved a couple of times over the course of the number of years. Curtis Tudin, I think who ran and didn't get elected, also moved. And I know Brianna has moved a few times throughout the city over the past number of years. So depending upon what year or election it was, she would have been, you know, attributed to the ward and precinct that she was living in at the time of that particular election. So, um, So some people, you know, same person might be in a different ward, you know, more than, does that make sense?
[Ron Giovino]: Yep. You list where they were living when they were on that ballot in that given year.
[Eunice Browne]: Right, exactly. So, so as I said, she's, she's moved throughout her various states. She's been in politics for so long. She's had various stages of life at this point. And in each different stage of life, she's lived in a different spot. So it represents where she was at the time on the ballot. If anybody asks, I certainly have names to back things up. If they ask who a particular Councilor was or who ran or so forth, they're all public officials. I don't know that we need to get into names if we don't need to. I'm not quite sure what else I can add because I think the graphs are eye-opening certainly, but pretty self-explanatory as well.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah. Are there any questions?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay.
[Eunice Browne]: And I'll just add as well, I had wanted to do something with regard to turnout, voter turnout and so forth. And I wasn't able to get all of the data that I wanted. I did stop in yesterday to see Melissa Ripley in the elections office. She did give me some additional Help in terms of the, um, a public records request that I made if anybody knows how to convert. From a text file to an Excel file, I might be able to pull some other stuff together. I'm not sure that I can do it in time, but I can certainly try. I'll be able to get a little bit about turnout. So. All right, moving on.
[Ron Giovino]: Thank you, Eunice. I know how much work you put into that.
[Eunice Browne]: Oh, and then moving on over here, this is more of a pie chart of similar. So wards six, five, and three certainly had the highest percentage of Councilors in each ward, whereas one and four had zero.
[Ron Giovino]: I think John has a question.
[Moreshi]: Yeah, sorry to interrupt. I'm sorry if I missed it. Do we know the current makeup of the council by ward residency? I don't know.
[Jean Zotter]: We do. You have that, Eunice.
[Eunice Browne]: I do.
[Moreshi]: Did I jump? Jumped again.
[Eunice Browne]: Keep talking and I'll find it.
[Moreshi]: Thank you. Sorry. It's something I can get after too. I don't need it immediately.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I'll send it out to everybody.
[Moreshi]: Great, okay.
[Ron Giovino]: All right, very good. And there's this one, Eunice.
[Eunice Browne]: And then this is a chance of success of people who actually ran and got elected. Now, Gene, I'm a little fuzzy on this one. We worked on this one together.
[Jean Zotter]: Yeah. Basically, I just took the count, not individuals, but the first slide that Eunice showed and did that and just looked at, you know, if you ran in that ward, how likely were you to be elected?
[Ron Giovino]: I see, success rates, yeah.
[Jean Zotter]: So that's like a success rate is what I was calling it. So, and it's a pretty evenly split except for award one and four.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Right, yeah, right.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay. Is there any questions on that? Again, thanks Eunice.
[Adam Hurtubise]: You're welcome.
[Ron Giovino]: So Milva has done some, by the way, all committee members were doing other research that didn't, some of it made it to this presentation, some of it didn't, you know, I don't know if there's going to be a question we won't be able to answer because I know how hard everybody worked, but Milva did a little research and I'll give it over to Milva to present.
[Milva McDonald]: One of the things that we had known, we knew that Lowell, switched from an at-large to a war system relatively recently, and we just wanted to look at their process, and it involved a lawsuit actually in 2017, a lawsuit that alleged that their at-large voting system violated the Voting Rights Act by denying Asian American and Hispanic Latino voters an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. Two years later, the city settled, And Lowell now has a hybrid ward representation system for the city council and the school committee. And certainly our demographics are different from Lowell's, but Medford does have one majority minority ward and our population is continually becoming more diverse. And there have been concerns on from the public and on our committee about diversity of our elected officials. So we just felt like this was an important case to look at. And that's really all I have to say about it.
[Ron Giovino]: Any questions?
[Eunice Browne]: Go ahead. Going back to the first point there, lawsuit alleging that they violated the Voting Rights Act, I guess my question and probably that of others would be is, why?
[Milva McDonald]: Because the minority populations were not having an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.
[Moreshi]: My memory is if I can, is that all the elected officials were from one part of the city, which was the wider part of the city. All the voting power was concentrated there and it swamped the different communities in the city. It's my memory. I'd have to look it up to be sure.
[David Zabner]: I'll just add that under the Voting Rights Act was in particular designed to stop folks from dividing up minority populations into a bunch of different wards in a way that kept them from being able to elect people like them, whether that be similar skin color, similar language, similar background, whatever else. And that certainly fully at-large voting is one way of doing that, right? Because it means that a minority population will never be a full majority. Um, and so I can see the arguments.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, that was. Thank you for that explanation.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay, any other questions.
[Ron Giovino]: So as a committee, we worked on a list of pros and cons to present, just to give you some base point for discussion and the decision that you're going to have to make on this. So we took some predetermined pros and cons, and we spent some time editing them. uh, whittling them down and did the best we could. They're not all the pros and cons, but, but certainly it's a, it's a good starting point. So, uh, I'm just going to go through each one. It's really, it's impossible to post them all at the same time. It's probably 10 on each side here. So, uh, we'll go through them quickly. If you have any questions, stop me. Um, But I just, and I will email this out to the group right after the presentation so you can see them all at the same time. But let's just start with this. So the pros, ward representation guarantees at least one Councilor from each ward. Fewer candidates on the ballot allows voters to become better educated and informed about their choices.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Wait, Ron?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Why would there be fewer candidates?
[Ron Giovino]: Because in your ward, you'd only worry about Ward 2. You wouldn't have the candidates of Ward 5, 6, 7, and 8.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So if it was only by ward representation and not a hybrid?
[Ron Giovino]: Well, remember that if you are doing, everybody would look at the at-large. So your ballot would have your ward's candidates and whoever the at-large candidates are. So by fewer candidates, it means you, if you're in ward two, you're not going to have on your ballot wards one, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. That's what's meant by the fewer candidates. But yes, you would have, your ballot would show ward two candidates and all the at-large candidates.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Um, yeah, I think the word fewer is, um, um, difficult.
[Jean Zotter]: Um, Paulette right now you can have seven choices or, well, I mean, you have even more, but you're electing seven. You're selecting seven.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay.
[Jean Zotter]: Um, yeah, I, oh, I see what you're saying though. A lot of candidates, but you're electing less. Councilors. So instead of like, if I'm in Ward two, I'd elect one ward. And then if it's three, I'd elect three at large, right? Well, 20 candidates, is that what you mean? There could be 20 candidates, right?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: For say, there could be.
[Jean Zotter]: Yeah. So it's the wording of this, right?
[Milva McDonald]: I think only in a primary, I think in the general election, there wouldn't be.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, no matter If you go to an at-large process, you will have less candidates on your ballot than you would if you were at an all-at-large ballot. That's just the fact. You would not vote for Wards 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8's candidates, so they would not be on your ballot, which makes it less than what is there now. So I understand the wording may need to be changed.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right, it's only the wording.
[Ron Giovino]: I've wrote down the note. I will change. I understand. I understand. It needs to be cleaner.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: You might just say ballot is easier to use or something like that.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah. Well, we could just say candidates on the ballot. Yeah, I'll figure it out.
[Adam Hurtubise]: OK.
[Ron Giovino]: Anyway, yeah. Okay. Makes running for office more accessible. We heard a lot from the interviews and surveys and talking about it that, you know, obviously running a campaign, and Paulette, you can talk to this, you know, you would not have to run a citywide campaign if you decided to be a ward rep.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So makes running for office more accessible for ward reps.
[Ron Giovino]: Correct, yes, this is pros for ward representation. The hybrid, yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right, but for your at-large candidates, it doesn't necessarily- Doesn't change, right. So it makes running for office more accessible for those seeking ward positions.
[Ron Giovino]: Yes, in terms of cost and accessibility, so.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: All right. Having a point of contact within their ward, residents in their ward council neighborhood could have improved communication and accessibility.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So drop the word half could improve communication accessibility. Having a point of contact within their ward residents and their ward Councilor neighborhood could improve communication accessibility.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay.
[Ron Giovino]: Got it. Eliminates duplication of work. And what that is talking about is the pro side is you would, if the theory in theory is that if you have a ward rep, the likelihood that you would complain about a tree or a sidewalk would be that you would go to your ward rep uh, and let them, uh, deal with the issue as opposed to calling six at large reps at the same time and figuring out who's doing what. I just, I, that's one possible, uh, benefit that we heard of. That makes sense.
[Eunice Browne]: Yep. Um, check the chat. Um, cause Francis said something to say about the last slide.
[Adam Hurtubise]: The chat.
[Frances Nwajei]: Yes. I just, I would like to see if we can explore a different option for using the term accessibility. When you use accessibility, you're talking about communication modes and things of that nature.
[Ron Giovino]: So we sort of want to... Why don't we just say, why don't we just drop in accessibility? Improved communication explains that. Yes?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay.
[Jean Zotter]: Or you could just say access, but.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, we can work on the particulars of this.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I'm making a note. I'm making a note. And when I send this out to everybody, you can look more detailed and make changes and let me know. Ward representation often increases diversity of representation. Again, these are not facts. These are opinions.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, I mean, there have been studies that have shown this.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Which doesn't necessarily make it fact, but it also doesn't make it opinion, so.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Would it be board representation may increase diversity of representation?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, it could be that.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Or is likely to?
[Ron Giovino]: Well, I think often kind of said there's a success rate of that.
[Frances Nwajei]: doesn't show studies show that would representation often increases diversity of representation that's how you're citing it to the fact that it's based on study and not based on me or you know our own individual opinions yeah okay got it are we using the word often or you want it to be
[Ron Giovino]: So we write it as studies show what representation often increases diversity of representation.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, increase may increase.
[Frances Nwajei]: Or just increases, right? Because from where I sit, a lot of time, what is diversity, right? It's often linked to increasing ideas, increasing thought processes, increasing positive outcomes, right? So I think the word often is fine.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah. But if you say studies show, then that makes sense.
[Ron Giovino]: So you want to leave often?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, and Anthony from the Kahn Center suggested citing the study on the slide, and we can do that.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay.
[Ron Giovino]: I'm just taking notes. Okay, increases number of Councilors. Increased number of Councilors would improve council efficiency. Now this goes towards the fact that A hybrid solution would definitely add more Councilors to the council. We think it's 11 or 13. And just by numbers alone, there'd be more Councilors running and heading subcommittees and doing special projects. So that's, I think that's what really that's talking about.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. I certainly understand what you mean, Ron. As someone who has served, you know, the more people you have would improve council chaos. Could also end that sentence, but you know, I know these are the pros.
[Ron Giovino]: That's the con side. I don't even know if that's in there, but I'm sure it's something. All right. Outlined representation will still exist with a hybrid solution. Pretty self-explanatory?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay. The needs of each neighborhood in a ward better understood. Okay.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yep.
[Ron Giovino]: The hybrid ward system is the preferred method throughout the Commonwealth.
[Eunice Browne]: Can we add some data to that? Sure, we can.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah. Yeah, that should be pretty.
[Milva McDonald]: It's pretty, um, it's, it's, um, Okay, Anthony, can you give us predominant? Thank you, that is definitely a better word, predominant.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay. All right, here are the cons. And after we get through this, you'll have plenty of time to add or subtract what you think are the cons and the pros. Ward representative may focus on only the award needs and not those of the whole city. Okay? Residents vote for fewer candidates candidates, voters cannot vote for or against the entire council. Good? Make sense?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Ron Giovino]: Ward boundaries may not reflect how communities see themselves.
[Eunice Browne]: I think you might want to have an example of that.
[Ron Giovino]: Um, yeah, I mean, uh, I think that, um, I mean, I'm sure there are a thousand examples that would make you not comfortable with the, your ward rep, but I mean, that's, uh, that's very, that's very possible. And that's why we vote. And I, you know, I guess you would say that if, and we talked about this too, is that, you know, if you don't, um, The scenario that was talked about was, you know, in a smaller ward neighborhood slash neighborhood, you know, the people, and if you're in front of a You know, at a traffic light holding a sign for the candidate that lost, you may not feel comfortable with that ward rep. So that he's not presenting the needs that you think are the needs of your community.
[Jean Zotter]: Ron?
[Ron Giovino]: Yes.
[Jean Zotter]: I think this point is the wards are politically drawn. And may not reflect the cohesiveness of neighborhoods, so that there might be, you know, I mean this isn't the. case, but I live in the Heights. And if the line went right through the Heights and divided the Heights, and we might feel like the, you know, we're in different wards. So it's, I don't know if this is true in how our words are divided, but it is true, like across the country. Sometimes the divisions that are created politically don't reflect how the new people see themselves as a group.
[Ron Giovino]: So, yeah, I understand. But it's still a valid reason to be against board representation, I guess, is that's what this is. Ward population changes can result in unequal workloads for Councilors.
[Andreottola]: Can you explain that? Because I thought the awards are balanced.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Andreottola]: Population wise.
[Milva McDonald]: We do have the call-in center here tonight, so they may have some insight into this.
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: Just briefly, this is a great conversation. I don't want to bulldoze over it, but under state law, the wards will have to be structured in a way that they all have an equal number, an equal population. Right.
[Ron Giovino]: What happens in a case where those numbers are needed to be changed because population has shifted into particular wards? Does that happen instantly or does it happen over a period of years to change the balance? It happens every 10 years.
[Wright]: 10 years the Secretary of State is... Based on the federal census. Got it. And then it goes back to the city. Usually the city clerk will propose new precincts because it's not just the wards, it's the precincts. And then that goes to the city council for approval. That's generally the way it works. Um, I will say, I mean, I was a ward city councilor in Melrose. So there were maybe times when there were projects going on in certain wards that would create, you know, more questions, more activity for a particular ward city councilor, but those things have been flow. Um, some things, most things, I suppose the city wide, uh, but, but, you know, people are concerned about whether it's a street, you know, street work, you know, they're repaving or, or you've got issues with snow plowing in certain areas. Um, that's just kind of the nature of the business and I think each ward may have its own unique issues or questions or things that the ward council has to deal with. And that just comes with having ward representations. I've never heard anyone express it. My experience is, neither I nor anyone I ever served with over 14 years, ever expressed any negativity about that. I actually think people got possessive of their words, so. Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ron, I'm not really sure why this one has to be in there.
[Ron Giovino]: OK.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'm not.
[Ron Giovino]: Listen, Ron didn't write these. I'm not sure that this one makes sense. OK. I agree.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, I agree. I think. Yeah.
[Jean Zotter]: I mean, I'm looking at the word data. They're all between 7,000 and 8,000 people.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah. Well, my recollection, and Mildred, you can help me with this, is this came from the interviews. Is that correct?
[Milva McDonald]: I think it was an interview that Gene and Unistud, is that correct?
[Ron Giovino]: Not to put a name on it. Yeah, I know.
[Milva McDonald]: But I don't think I was at the interview. That's all.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, no, no, no.
[Ron Giovino]: I just don't want to devalue it. But I agree with what you're saying. I like to explain where this came from. And it came from an impassioned interview that told us that.
[Eunice Browne]: I'm just thinking along the lines and thinking about things that are kind of coming down the pike here in Medford right now. At some point, Mystic Ave is going to get redeveloped. Whoever would be that ward rep is going to have a lot of concerns, have a lot of the area residents, you know, interested in what's going on in that area versus, you know, the ward rep up in the Heights where such a development, you know, could never happen.
[Ron Giovino]: Don't say never.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: But if ward representation creates, if we're afraid that it's going to create Councilors who have blinders on only looking at their own issue, Um, then we've got a problem. Um, you know, when I, when I, uh, throughout the time that I've served either on the school committee or watch the city council, there's only some people who work harder in, in some ways than others. I mean, you know, that's not necessarily Constance. It can change too, but if I'm running, um, and concerned about the workload. I don't know, I just.
[Ron Giovino]: I hear it. I hear it.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: All right, it's gone.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So somebody had this concern. Correct. And it may have, you know, but I'm not necessarily sure it's resonating with.
[Jean Zotter]: The person this came from, sorry to jump in, is, works in multiple cities. And so has this comes from their experience with another city that has ward representation. But if so, I don't know, but I don't think it was population changes. Maybe it was more just the makeup of a ward. If you have a ton of business zoning or something, maybe you have more workload.
[Ron Giovino]: So do we want to delete this one? I know John's got his hand up and somebody else has their hand up, so. Yeah, Maury does. Yeah, Maury was first. Maury?
[Maury Carroll]: Well, that's all right. We just kind of just covered what we were talking about. So I kind of go along with what we're saying. OK, John?
[Moreshi]: I think Gene hit my point, but I would like to echo it just based on my experience, which is more with legislatures than city councilors. If you strike population changes, I think that your constituency can create more work. Some areas are going to have more particular needs, whether that translates into casework. Or I think Gene mentioned, if you represent a business district, you may have more day-to-day concerns in x circumstance. So I do think there is something here. I don't think it's tied to population changes. And I'll be candid. I'm pro-ward representation, so I don't know that I want to do us any favors. I think there's a good idea here.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay, so you want to say ward representation may result in unequal workloads for a councilor?
[Moreshi]: Yeah, I think in my experience, that's fair. You know, how unequal, I can't say. You're time sensitive, but I do think that's a real... So it is something.
[Ron Giovino]: So ward representation may result in unequal workloads. Want to just say it like that, or you want to say it?
[Milva McDonald]: That sounds right for now, yeah. Do we have an idea?
[Andreottola]: I'm sorry, can I ask a question?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, and then I, go ahead. And then I think, was that Aubrey that I heard? Yeah. Okay, so Anthony, and go ahead.
[Andreottola]: Hi, I guess this is my question more for the connoisseurs. when we get deep into this ward representation stuff, is there a way of combining wards and having four ward Councilors and, say, five at-large Councilors? So when we talk about wards, and we're a small city, and you'll have one side of the street in one ward and the other side of the street in a different ward, you know, is there a way of, you know, kind of doing like East, North, you know, West kind of, you know, just like four, four, well, I guess they wouldn't be wards would be, you know, kind of different sections rather than the eight at-large councils. Because I think that would be a drastic change to our city.
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: So I'd start this with a quick preface. So this body should just be aware that it's not going to draw the ward boundaries. It can specify a number of wards, but it's not going to actually draw the boundaries. Now, to your point, the wards are comprised of a certain number of precincts. And again, like we said before, they have to be of an equal number. So you can divide, you can decide the numbers, right? You can increase the, I guess, in theory, you could increase the number of words or decrease the number of words as long as they all have approximately the same population. And then, you know, somewhere down the line, someone else will. You know, actually draw the lines. So the short answer to your question is, yes, you can have a, if I understand your question correctly, you could have four wards, you could have the current number of wards, I forget what that is now.
[Milva McDonald]: Eight.
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: Yeah, you could have the eight wards, things of that nature.
[Milva McDonald]: I'll just say one thing about that, Anthony. When I was looking at Lowell, as their settlement, they actually have eight wards as well, and they now have eight ward Councilors and three at large, but for school committee, they have the same size school committee as we do, but they, I'm just gonna get this right, four are ward and two are at large, and the four that are ward, one city school committee member is from a combined two combined wards. And I think that's what you're asking about. But I also will say that when I did have a conversation with the Lowell city clerk, and he told me they had to hire a specialist because if you're gonna start combining wards, you have to make sure that what you do follows state law.
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: So that- It's a complicated process.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, yes. So I think it can be done, but it's not generally done. And if you do it, you have to, make sure you're following the law and somebody with more knowledge than us would have to figure it out.
[Jean Zotter]: Right, because you could run afoul of the Voting Rights Act if you dilute a ward that's minority majority, like we have one.
[Wright]: Yeah, for analogy's sake, if you're following the news about Alabama, today's news was that from a congressional standpoint, their districts were thrown out in federal court, and they were allowed to go back and redraw them, but the court found that they are still not properly representing the population. They only had only one minority-majority district, and so the court said, no, we'll draw the lines. will decide where the congressional districts will be. So that's the latest coming out of there. And the same thing can happen on a statewide or citywide basis. It's the same idea, equal representation. You want to draw your precincts in such a way that you have a relatively equal number of people in each precinct.
[Milva McDonald]: Thanks. I think, Ron, you can move on to the next slide, but I think Aubrey had a question.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Yeah, go ahead. I did have a question. I'm thinking of this unequal workloads. Did you all discuss the possibility or have any examples of it either working or not working for ward representatives having a different role than at-large representatives? And if those, how they exist together?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah. We did, in some of the out-of-city interviews, ward representation does have different connotations for different cities. And, you know, Malden, for instance, has each ward rep has a budget, a small budget to, you know, do things that they want to do for their wards. But I didn't hear any. The only thing I heard from the interview with the city of Malden was that ward representation works really well for them. And they didn't mention anything about the unequal. Gene mentioned where most of that question came from. And it may be true and it may not be true. But I don't have any more specifics than that. I don't know if I answered your question or not. All right, so I will update that with John's changes there if we're all set to move on. Yep. Again, this is, if you don't vote for a ward candidate who gets elected, will they serve your needs? I mean, you may agree or disagree with that statement, but It's out there.
[Milva McDonald]: I think it's worth saying, yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah. And I do believe this came through the interview process too, Milwa, is that correct?
[Milva McDonald]: I don't know. I thought it did. Not from anybody I interviewed.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: But yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: All right. Any questions on that one?
[Maury Carroll]: Yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: Good. Who's talking?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Maybe a question mark after?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Well, basically, yes.
[Jean Zotter]: And maybe we should say, because they don't know who you voted for, but if you work for the opposing candidate, will your ward? It's more of that, I think.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, that's what I had mentioned before. Yeah.
[Moreshi]: Is the concern because it's not a multi-member race, there'll be retaliation?
[Ron Giovino]: No, it's a concern of, I chose one candidate over you, now I'm coming to you to ask a question. Maybe I don't feel comfortable with that. I don't think it's any more than that.
[Jean Zotter]: Or maybe the elected person doesn't want to talk to you.
[Ron Giovino]: Oh, they've reversed, correct.
[Jean Zotter]: Yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: Or won't take your, yeah, what Francis just said, the perceived power dynamic, or they won't take you seriously, or they'll, you know, It gives you a little short shrift.
[Moreshi]: Yeah, I'll look into that.
[Eunice Browne]: And they never did.
[Moreshi]: I'm sorry to talk over you. I'm sorry, say again? Couldn't that happen now under our current large system?
[Jean Zotter]: Right, it does.
[Moreshi]: That's what I mean. So how is it a con for this?
[Ron Giovino]: Well, because your attack would be focused on the person that you perceive is your ward rep. So it's more fine-tuned, I'm guessing. This is not my opinion. Again, I'm just trying to explain.
[Moreshi]: Oh, no, no, I know. I'm just trying to understand.
[Eunice Browne]: More of a narrow window. I mean, right now you have seven councillors to go to with your concern. If councillor number one doesn't get back to you or whatever, or you don't have a good rapport with them, then you you know, go to Councilor number two and so on and so forth.
[Moreshi]: So that's a really great thought, I think. I didn't get that, but what you just said makes sense to me. Maybe we could refine that. I'll mediate on that.
[Wright]: Can I comment on that?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Wright]: And I'm going to go back to my own personal experience. If people perceive, maybe they didn't vote for me, how would I know that? But maybe they worked for my opponent and they perceived that I wouldn't want to take a telephone call from them. If it was a, um, you had at large elected city councilors as well, then you would have, depending on how many boards you have, three or four at large councilors who you also voted for and who also represent you, who you could call. I think the answer to the question is really personality driven by both the person and the Councilor, because I always saw my getting a call from somebody who I understood didn't like me as an opportunity to change that person around. Now, whatever they wanted, that issue with trash pickup, they'd like a tree in front of the house, wanted to talk about when the street could get paved, If I had that opportunity to speak to that person, I always was happy to do it. And sometimes it changed them, and sometimes it might not have, but a lot of times I probably didn't know. But I really think it depends on the individual. I don't think you can stereotype the position and the people who hold it.
[Ron Giovino]: No, not at all. I agree with you.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I agree with a lot of which Frank said that it's always the opportunity to work with somebody who you know wasn't your original supporter. I do think if you're gonna include this one, you should write if you don't support a ward candidate who gets selected as opposed to vote because nobody really knows who you voted for. I would suggest the word support.
[Milva McDonald]: Anthony from the Collins Center also wanted to make a comment.
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: Yeah, I just wanted to interject a little bit, sort of more broadly about this pros versus cons section, because it took me a little while to wrap my head around it. And I guess as I understand it, this committee has conducted interviews and spoken to people and done surveys. And some of these things have come out of that process. So I think it may not be the best framing as pros versus cons versus concerns or thoughts that have been developed because it The way the presentation at least appeared to me was that the committee at first was taking a position on this is a pro or this is a con. And maybe that's not how you want to present it. Maybe you just want to present that you've heard these things and you want to bring them to the forefront in the community discussion. If I'm understanding the presentation and how it's been brought forward.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, it's definitely not the opinion of this committee for these pros and cons. It's just that we just, you know, we just vetted as best we could what those were. I understand what you're saying. This is not the opinion. Maybe that's, maybe that's what we need to put up front is this is not the opinion of the committee. Show how it was gathered with a disclaimer.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Thanks. That's a great comment. Thank you. And thank you, Francis, for the comment that you gave as well.
[Ron Giovino]: Is everybody, is there anybody online waiting? Okay. Board representation may limit voter candidate options. Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: This goes back to not having as many people to vote for.
[Ron Giovino]: Uh, it has to do with that and it also has to do with, um, you know, uh, I I'm guessing it also has to do with if there are four candidates in a certain ward, uh, right now, um, those four, uh, need to make decisions, whether they're going to be the ward rep or be the at large rep. So, um, if, uh, and it was mentioned in some. research that we did, if there are three incumbent candidates in Ward 3, for instance, and two decide to run for ward rep, only one can make it, which means you lose an option for that incumbent rep based on the fact that they chose to run for ward versus at-large.
[Andreottola]: But that would be their choice.
[Ron Giovino]: Absolutely. But it's still, it's still, you know, it's different from the at-large scenario, which they don't have to make that choice. That's all that's talking about.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay. This was a clear statement. The purpose of the city council is to represent the whole city. I think that assumes a lot in that con, but it's a con.
[Jean Zotter]: Can I add a little bit more here?
[Adam Hurtubise]: You certainly can.
[Jean Zotter]: But I can't remember if this goes to this one, so let me know, Ron.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Jean Zotter]: There's some research that we looked at that across MIT, I think, looked at multiple cities that went from at-large to ward representation or ward hybrid.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Jean Zotter]: And housing production in those cities overall decreased by 20%. And they attributed it partly to ward representatives being more focused on their neighborhood and wanting to be less concerned about, say, housing production overall and wanting to preserve their neighborhood. Milved, would you add anything to that? Or am I
[Milva McDonald]: The only thing I would add is that we can share that with the committee. And the only other thing I would add is that the study reached those conclusions, but I believe the study authors also qualified them with various. So they reached those conclusions, but there were also qualifiers. And we can share that with the committee if people are interested in looking at that.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay. There's an opinion that says ward representation may divide the city. Do the reverse of what everybody thinks. I think it's self-explanatory. I don't want to curtail this discussion, but we are up against quite a big agenda here.
[Milva McDonald]: How many more slides are there?
[Ron Giovino]: There you go. That was it.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Ron Giovino]: So, um, that is, again, thanks to all the committee members who really worked tirelessly to get all this done. And there are so much more that's not in this presentation. Um, but you can see that the 15 minute presentation has, uh, delivered, uh, an hour's worth of discussion. So, um, I'll leave it open for any quick comments or questions.
[Eunice Browne]: Were there two more slides, Ron, that you sent out to the subcommittee earlier today?
[Ron Giovino]: There are two that we left to there in case it came up. Those were two slides, yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: Oh, okay.
[Ron Giovino]: We didn't take them off. Those were always if necessary slides.
[Eunice Browne]: Ah, gotcha.
[Ron Giovino]: Yep. Any comments?
[Eunice Browne]: Is there any reason for the subcommittee to meet again to find June's stuff?
[Ron Giovino]: No. Not that I don't love you guys, but these are just, they'd be just edits now, I think, unless we decide something. I mean, we've made some, there's a list of edits here. So, you know, if I could, I'd like to, I know that we had contemplated, you know, voting on this and eventually that will happen. I just don't think we're ready at this point. So I'm just, I'm gonna, I'm going to make an amendment that we table any decision on this. By the way, we had three straw polls during our subcommittee meetings just for, and it's complicated, it's not as simple. But I'd like to table this to after the public meeting on the 19th, that way it gives us a little bit more input of what the folks thinking out there. And then at our next meeting in November, actually have a vote to decide which way we're going to recommend on this one. Does that make sense, Mova? Oh, Jeanne, sorry.
[Jean Zotter]: Oh, I just need a reminder of, because I know we have some members of the public here. Are we opening to them so they can make some comments before we move on? That was all I wanted to.
[Milva McDonald]: So first, I just want to see if anybody else on the committee has any other comments. And Ron, if I take what you just said, I think you made a motion to table a vote and take a tentative vote in November. But let's hold that for a minute. David, do you have a comment?
[David Zabner]: Yeah, in the interview I did with a former city councilor, she was pretty specific about being worried about word bosses as a kind of historical issue. Um, I don't remember seeing that. I mean, I think it was captured in some of the other cons. Um, but it was like, you know, kind of a specific historical trend that she was worried about that might be worth, uh, making a slide about.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah. Um, There are some communities that do actually have more powers to the ward representative for his ward, his or her ward. So that is a, you know, it's a valid point.
[Milva McDonald]: So Anthony or Frank from the Collins Center, can you speak to the issue of ward bosses, maybe even to define that, what that might mean and how that might, how possible is that?
[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: So I don't have any information right now to present to the committee on that. I can look into studies about the political strength inside a specific community with war council situations. I can say that I've done some research relative to this committee, and I haven't seen any, but I can double-check specifically on that issue. I mean, the stuff that I've seen is, to put it in sort of a pro and con context, is that, and this committee's already covered it, relative to, ethnic or racial minority groups where representation is beneficial in terms of getting candidates elected. And then purely on the fiscal side, there's some evidence, there's some research out there that says that there is, for lack of a better term, sort of more of an instance of pork barrel spending, basically directing funds to projects in specific wards, because there are retention folks there. So that might get to that piece a little bit, but I don't wanna, I'm not prepared to say that. I wanna look at some more research and then get back to the committee. There may not be any definitive research on that specific question. So it may just be left open. Got it.
[Milva McDonald]: Even speaking from a definition standpoint, because I'm not sure I exactly know what is meant by ward boss. Do you know what is meant by that term?
[David Zabner]: More or less a ward boss is generally an elected person representing a ward or a small region who is able to use their power on the council to reinforce their power in the ward and vice versa, right? So they're able to kind of use their ability to get particular things done or to stop particular things from happening to maintain a political chokehold over a small region of the city. I don't know that that's actually really a risk here, but if you look at like a city like Chicago, which is a completely different context than Medford, they have much more powerful word representation system and there's a long, long history of of councillors abusing and holding onto their positions in ways that I think most people agree are less than ideal because of the way that they do ward representation.
[Milva McDonald]: Thanks. Okay, Ron, do you mind stopping the share for a minute? Just easier for me to see everybody. Yeah. Is anybody else on the committee or do we, I guess first I'm going to ask if anybody else has any comments or questions and then we can go back to Ron's motion.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'd just like to thank Ron and the rest of the committee.
[Milva McDonald]: Thanks.
[Ron Giovino]: It was a lot of fun.
[Milva McDonald]: OK.
[Ron Giovino]: Ron, do you want to do the public? Do you want public input at this point?
[Milva McDonald]: OK. And then you want to hold your motion until after that? OK.
[Ron Giovino]: Yes, please.
[Milva McDonald]: Is there any member of the public that wants to speak on this topic of ward representation for Medford? Okay, seeing none, Ron, you did restate.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I just would, I'd like to table the vote until our November 2nd meeting, make it simple.
[Maury Carroll]: I'll second that.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so the motion is that we will vote on whether the committee will tentatively decide on ward representation or not at the next meeting. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. Opposed? Okay. So in November, so that will give people time to think and we'll also share the studies that were mentioned. So people can look those over as well.
[Ron Giovino]: And I'll have the update of edits and information by the weekend.
[Milva McDonald]: Great. Okay. So, um, the next item on the agenda, I think I actually want to move it because I'm worried about time and I don't want to give it short shrift. And I want to make sure that, um, is that okay with people? If I, if we, if, uh, Gene, you go next and talk about the, um, listening sessions. Sure, make sure you have time for that.
[Jean Zotter]: Okay. So I volunteered to pull together focus groups on my vision was the committee would be conducting the focus groups and I have experience supporting focus group outreach. However, and the local board of health offered to help me with the focus groups. But as we I was researching the feasibility of us conducting sort of a low budget focus group ran into some challenges that seemed a little insurmountable. Both the Board of Health and the Collins Center. we're concerned with the model of us leading the focus groups as potentially looking to residents like we sort of put our thumb on the scale of the outcomes. And it might appear, even if we didn't appear to the results from the focus group could appear to be biased. So both the Collins Center and the local board of health raise those as potential appearances that could harm the results. and talking to Petty at the Board of Health, to hire someone to conduct the focus groups and potentially even analyze the data could run around $20,000. Just to do the focus groups could be $3,000, but then to analyze all the data, which I thought maybe I could do, was a significant amount of money. In talking about it with the work group, which was Maury, Milva, and Anthony, we decided we're going to not do focus groups, but instead do something similar, but isn't as technical or require as much resources, is to do listening sessions, which government entities do all the time. They go into communities and they ask questions, or they just listen to the community on a topic. So what we came up with is a list of 10 places. We tried to cover every ward so we could have a listening session in every ward. And what I've developed is a sign-up sheet. We're trying to make it very easy for you. And I'm still working on some of the documents, but I have a sign-up sheet for you to sign up for the listening session. We have a agenda model agenda for you. We have a checklist for you so you kind of know what all the steps are to hold a listening session. And then we have a list of do's and don'ts for the listening session and then I'm pulling together what I don't have yet is a flyer and kind of a blurb that you could use to post your information on the listening session. Milva is hoping we can do these October, November, December, so that we maybe January. We think we should have two people. So one could facilitate the listening session and a note taker. So that we can get the information from the listening session. So before I share all of that with everyone, is that something that this group wants to do? You were interested in focus groups. This is very similar. But it does require you to pull together the meeting, make sure you have a location, post information so people come. maybe get co-sponsors, and I list some co-sponsors. So is this something people are still interested in doing?
[Ron Giovino]: Jane Francis sent a message asking what locations.
[Jean Zotter]: Sure. Yeah, so I'm going to share my screen. And these are just ideas, so we can change it if you want to change it. Let's see.
[Eunice Browne]: If I could just add here, a while back I had put together a list of I think it's in our folder gene. Okay. And I had sorted them by ward.
[Jean Zotter]: Great.
[Eunice Browne]: Whether they were, you know, I think I had indicated whether they were handicapped accessible, if I knew off the top of my head. And on what the. you know, bus line and parking information was, if I, you know, if I knew that offhand. So if you're, you know, looking for other ideas or want to replace one place with another, it's in the folder. So you can take a look at that. Great.
[Jean Zotter]: That's a great resource. Okay. So, This is the location, then, if you were to sign up, I can share this link with you, you'd put your name here. So we came up with Walkling Court, doing a session there, West Medford Community Center, Medford High School. Medford Chamber of Commerce would help us get to some of the business leaders, the Interfaith Clergy Association, Medford Senior Center. And then, so we had six. And then I was trying to like look at the wards and figure out what wards were missing. And so I basically wrote the polling locations here. Because I thought people know where they vote. Maybe we could just do it at the polling locations. Some of the other ideas we came up with were Medford Brewing, Tufts, the library. So it's a mix of locations by ward, but also groups that we might want to hear from. Maybe working with the Board of Health and having a listening session with nonprofits in the community. And so, you know, I list, you know, a little description, what ward, address, and then I just put links to make it easy for you to contact people. So if you took this on, you could at least go to their website to figure out how to contact them.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I had some of those on my list. I had the Firefighters Club on my list. I think most of the schools, most of the American Legion, Laughlin Court, of course, the library, the senior center, the police station has a community room.
[Jean Zotter]: So, yeah, so maybe- Fire station has a community room. Yep. And I've also heard some of these larger housing complexes have community rooms that you can rent. So if we're trying to reach like 20 to 30 year olds who we don't see in our survey, maybe we would go to one of those housing complexes where in Wellington Center or around there. So I can add more, like these are just, these don't, like I can add more here and you can pick what you want. Like Francis, I see in the chat says you could try to do one at Danish pastry house, maybe get some tough students. I mean, people would have to agree that we can use their location. I was also trying to think how we could get, you know, more people who are from other countries or speak other languages and maybe Oasis restaurant, but I was just kind of brainstorming places here. And then Ron asked me, what is the desired group? Listening sessions are open. I mean, it's nicer if you can have a conversation, but we're not going to limit who comes. And given turnout, I think we won't be overwhelmed with people. So as many as we can get, as much as we can publicize this would be great. I'll stop sharing. I'll just could show you. So I created a model agenda, which people can comment on that just would help you walk through how to run. Like I thought we should do a little bit of who we are. why we're holding them, what is the charter, why it's important. And then if nobody's talking, I created questions that, you know, kind of go with what we're trying to grapple with, like ward versus at large or make of the school committee or term links. So we can edit those questions. I was just trying to give you something in case no one's talking. Other things I created is a checklist. So you can just go through here. Hopefully it doesn't look too intimidating. But I was trying to get everything you might need to pull together. and then a list of do's and don'ts. And I'm working on a blurb and a flyer. I'm hoping that, you know, if someone is disabled and needs, you know, either accommodations or translation, the Board of Health said they would help us with translation. So I'm hoping that we can have some assistance perhaps if we can get some people who maybe need some help. And Frances has her hand raised.
[Frances Nwajei]: With regards to the translation from the Board of Health, it really depends on the, it's a word count issue because the connectors who do the translation do it based on a grant and the grant does not necessarily cover the work of the Charter Committee. So it's sort of how they can fit it in, and they're really just 10 hours a week. So when it comes to the materials, I've actually been using an basically going through a translation service, right? If somebody needs ASL accommodation, that's very different. That, you know, is going to take me at least two weeks to secure, depending on who they are and how long this is for, at least two interpreters. hopefully I can get a linguistic match right away. So we might want to make sure that if when we do decide to put this out, if that's the direction we go, we specifically state if you need a reasonable accommodation, you know, you have to let us know by a certain time. There could also, I don't know, it's up to you, think about the option of doing it verbally for those who might need a reasonable accommodation, such as an ASL interpreter, because it's easier for me to get virtual interpreters than to get the in-person, coming-to-the-location interpreter. Okay. So they're just some logistical things that we'd have to work out.
[Jean Zotter]: And Francis, can you, when I said translation, I actually meant interpretation for the meeting, which is what Penny offered is that they could potentially come to a meeting, but sounds like maybe they don't have the time. to do interpretation?
[Frances Nwajei]: I mean, I think it will depend on when we have the meeting, right? I mean, if we're having it next week, then that might be tough. But if we're having it in the future, then maybe Penny's planning on building it into their 10 hours of work. And it would be the connectors, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, it would be the connectors.
[Jean Zotter]: Right, okay. They're community health workers, yep. Okay. Well, I can put all of that in the checklist. I was hoping that we could make accommodations to people who need it, and maybe this would be a way for us to reach people we're not reaching right now.
[Frances Nwajei]: Oh, definitely, without a doubt. And I could also, I mean, we have the big disability fair coming up too. I'll find a way to have some charter information on the commission's table and see how much interest that garners. People want to sign up, let's say, for info.
[Andreottola]: Thank you. I'll be there on Saturday as well. Oh, fantastic. I was hoping to get some surveys to hand out at the door.
[Frances Nwajei]: Oh, wonderful, wonderful.
[Eunice Browne]: And Eunice? Yeah, I mean, I think this is a great idea. I think, you know, we're getting ambitious again in terms of our time frame. You know, this is, you know, the beginning of October. Our next big thing is our public info session in two weeks that I think, you know, we have to, you know, all hands on deck to make sure that that goes well. And then after that, you know, probably getting to this. And so then you're looking at, you know, a week or so in October, a few weeks in November, probably discounting Thanksgiving week, extracting that week out. I think if you don't, if we don't get these done by the first full week of December, which I think ends the eighth, then, you know, we're probably taking some of this into January. Um, right. So I think, you know, we need to be cognizant of the, um, the timeframe. And how much can we get done by, you know, basically the first week of December. Right. Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Um, yeah. So I think first, Jane, thank you for putting together all those materials. Cause it really lays a roadmap out for, um, people to actually be able to realistically do this. Um, I think that January, I think February 1st is when we really want to start turning to the decision making and drafting process. So the question I think for the committee is, are people available to volunteer to organize these listening sessions?
[Andreottola]: Well, I'll say I'm willing to do one or two. But I think it's important that if we do decide to do it, that we at least hit every ward. We have to be consistent so we can say we sampled the whole city and all the wards, and not just have them be subject to to people saying, you know, you didn't get target this population or you don't have enough under 30 people or it really has to be, you know, kind of. kind of, we have to blanket the city, you know, and not so much how many responses, at least we have to allow people the opportunity, uh, you know, to be heard. So, uh, we can, you know, incorporate that into our presentation to the city council that, you know, we did go out into the community and we did listen to, you know, anybody who wanted to be heard.
[Jean Zotter]: If we all did two, I think we might cover every ward.
[Milva McDonald]: I think Maury has his hand up.
[Maury Carroll]: Yeah, I was going to say, if we have enough of us, we can bang out three wards in one week. Two people in one ward and two in another ward and two in another one. We could do this within a reasonable time frame. We don't have to wait to just do one ward a week and so forth. We have enough manpower here if everyone's willing to jump in and do a couple of these. And we'll be able to do it, I think, in a relatively quick time.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, I'd like to see the, you know, the guidelines that Gina's put together just to see what is involved and if there are going to be questions from that, too. I mean, I don't want to rush it to get it done, but I think if we're comfortable with the guidelines, we should be able to, like Mari says, get some done, so.
[Milva McDonald]: Francis, I think, wanted to say something.
[Frances Nwajei]: Yeah, whilst I can't do the listening sessions for you, if you would like, I can support on the back end by connecting with like the authorities. So when I say the authorities, I mean like Jeff Dugan over at Medford Housing and Christine Connor, because I do know that they have resident meetings. And maybe if we know ahead of that time, I can sort of help to facilitate that process and Perhaps, I'm just thinking off the top of my head, arrange for one of those, if it's done there, one of those meetings to be advertised as, let's say, the accessible meeting for people who may need a different cadence for the information to be delivered, ASL interpretation, that sort of thing.
[Jean Zotter]: I mean, I think it'd be great if people, I know people want to see the materials. And I guess if you, I can send all that out to, Milva can send it out with the, you know, send it out to everyone. And you can look, it's all in our shared folder. And then if, If Francis, if people are amenable, then if you find out when those are, I could just put those dates in and then we know a date of when the next housing authority resident meeting is and people could, then you have a date and you could sign up for that date, if that makes sense.
[Frances Nwajei]: I'll work on that next week. Okay.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: For the West Bedford Community Center, I know that sometimes have luncheons. I wonder if we could pair it, you know what, for some event that they already have, as opposed to people coming out for a separate meeting. I'd be willing to contact them and ask them. That'd be great.
[Frances Nwajei]: Yeah, they just had their big luncheon last, was it last week? Oh no, September 19th, so there would probably be another one for October. They usually have like the big senior luncheon once a month, but maybe Terry or Lisa can share more.
[Milva McDonald]: I think, Maury, did you have your hand up again? You're muted. There you go.
[Maury Carroll]: Francis, correct me if I'm wrong too, I believe the city could do targeted robocalls to the certain areas that we're looking to do. I believe that would might be an option also to get to work.
[Frances Nwajei]: I can look into it with Steve. I know that there's a way to do targeted robocalls. I just don't want to confirm that it's going to reach the communities that we want, because I don't know how that's set up. But let me talk to comms and find out about that.
[David Zabner]: I'll also say that robocalls are technically not allowed to call cell phone numbers most of the time. you're not going to get anybody who doesn't have a home phone.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, the city does call cell phones.
[Jean Zotter]: I get it.
[Frances Nwajei]: Robocalls are an opt-in option. It's not the style of robocalls of people who want to come and clean your chimney and you don't even have a chimney in your house. You basically sign up saying that you want this information.
[Eunice Browne]: You mean your car warranty when you don't have a car?
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so I just want to be I know that a lot of a lot of people on this committee are, you know, have jobs and are really busy. And so I don't know, I just want to think about if we're going to do this project, and we need to do 10 to 12 listening sessions, how do we determine whether we actually have the labor available on the committee to do that. So can we just maybe make a plan for that? I mean, I think Paula just volunteered to contact West Medford Community Center and maybe do a session there.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right. I want to see what they've already got going that maybe we could piggyback on. You know, I do recall many times trying to do meetings and the school committee tried to target areas. And well, it was really useful if there happened to be a PTO meeting or something like that, that was going on. So people were there because if we just did it, you know, you got so few people show up. So, you know, I certainly, I mean, what Jean has put together is great and will help us all, but it is, You know, I want to make sure we can get people, an audience. That's my concern.
[Jean Zotter]: That's why I was thinking co-sponsors.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, I think co-sponsors because I certainly know that I would feel better with somebody else.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. I'm just, I'm just concerned about the, you know, as Melva said, I mean, I have more time than most, but I mean, We're all, you know, doing different things and you have different responsibilities. And I just, this along with everything else, you know, has to be done in such a way that, like Anthony said, that we can't do a couple wards, we have to do all eight. If we're going to do certain groups, we have to do as many groups as we can. And now we're just wrapping up one subcommittee. We've got another one, the school committee subcommittee, nipping at its heels and knowing how much work that the city council subcommittee did to produce what we've produced tonight. And now with the school committee subcommittee getting started in another couple of weeks, that's going to be equally as much work for the handful of people that are involved in that, plus daily life. We need to get the public input, most certainly, and that's critical, and stay on some sort of a schedule. But, you know, I'm just seeing, you know, that a lot of us can be spread pretty thin. I don't know what the answer is.
[Jean Zotter]: Ron?
[Ron Giovino]: Jean, I'm just trying to make a suggestion to everybody's point. Is it possible that, you know, when you say, will you help? Yes, I'll help, but I can't do Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you know, so there's all kinds of, details that have to come before the commitment. But I'm just thinking, is there a way that we can determine the eight locations in each ward that we can work towards securing a place and a date? And then, you know, I'm available. You know, I think this is a very positive thing to do. But I'm available to do these and I can almost guarantee that I could be at each one of the eight if you needed that kind of help. But I think it's more of let's pick eight locations, one in each ward that accomplishes that goal and start from there. And then we come up with a date. Then when we ask the group who can do it, you know, all good intentions aside, I can actually commit to that date. That's just my suggestion.
[Milva McDonald]: So the suggestion is to actually contact the locations, set up a date and time, and then look for the volunteers?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, secure, at least secure, you know, that they would accept us and what dates are available. And, you know, just by, just we know that setting up meetings and subcommittee meetings, scheduling is a major undertaking more than just saying I'm willing to do it. You have to really understand. You know, is it a morning thing? Is it an afternoon thing? Is it an early evening thing? Is it days? So all those things become a factor for the 11 of us that, you know, we need to work out. But I think step one, you know, I don't really have any thoughts, but if we come up with a location for each ward, I'm happy to make phone calls. I mean, we're not asking for them to do much, but give us a room with a light, you know? So I think you could, In fact, I'll start looking at it once I finish this presentation edit.
[Milva McDonald]: So people, so Jean's signup sheet can be used. You can look at Jean's signup sheet and sign up for one of those locations and then contact the location and see what the, what details there might be about setting up a date.
[Ron Giovino]: What would really be nice if we could announce the locations of some of them on the 19th.
[Ron Giovino]: It'd be great to give us some indication of who's interested in but I don't know if that's feasible. Let's try to figure that out first, is what locations. It looks like Colleen's has become the epicenter for politics in the city. You know, Riverside, apartments, West Medford Community Center.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, I'll look into that one already.
[Ron Giovino]: So if we get through the fire station in, you know, I mean, Frances would know this better. Are schools something that you could use, Frances, or do they kind of stay away from that?
[Frances Nwajei]: I do a lot of stuff in schools, but I know schools have a lot of activities. I do know that with the Brooks, I know that they have an afterschool that goes until six, and then custodians are on site, so I think till 11, so it's shut to 11. I could talk to Principal Demas and see if that's, if she would be willing to let us use the cafeteria.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah. All right, let's, Gina, I'll help you. Okay. Let me make some thoughts as terms of, you know, what the eight locations are, and I'm happy to make any phone calls and see how far we get with each one. I mean, I don't think we're talking about more than a dozen people at most at these events, but who knows?
[Maury Carroll]: Gene, I'd be happy to jump on what Ron said. I'll be there to help you, whatever you want to do, whatever phone call.
[Eunice Browne]: Take a look at that spreadsheet that I put together. It's in our folder that has a couple of dozen, at least one in each ward. Some of them are city locations that should be pretty accessible to us. Others are more private enterprises like churches or places of business and things like that. So, but, you know.
[Ron Giovino]: Jean, how long did these sessions take?
[Jean Zotter]: I was just thinking an hour. I wasn't thinking long.
[Ron Giovino]: Ideally is have one in the morning, one in the afternoon and, you know, bang out two a day or, you know, for those of us who have traveled more than 90 minutes to get to the city, that would be helpful.
[Jean Zotter]: So maybe the next two weeks we'll try to pick locations and then I'll send a link out to people and you can sign up. So Francis, if you can reach out to folks and Paulette, if you reach out to West Medford Community Center and then we'll try to like at least by November have the list finalized and maybe people signed up to do it. Does that sound good? All right, great. Thank you, June.
[Milva McDonald]: Um, okay. So I think, um, we're once again, going to table our, um, preamble discussion. Uh, so that just gives us even more time to think about that. Um, just as a check-in on interviews, there were, there were just still a few inter people on left on the list that we haven't interviewed. And I don't know if anybody wanted to give a status report on anybody who's working on. I know there's a couple of city Councilors we haven't gotten through to.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, George Scarpelli is reviewing the questionnaire and probably will do something next week.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Melba. Yeah. So I sent out a notice late in the afternoon about setting up the first meeting for the school committee study. And I suggested the dates either Tuesday, October 24th, or Thursday, October 26th. I've heard from two of you so far. Aubrey, I need to hear from you. And there's one other person. who I forget is on the committee. I think we're going to try and do the Thursday date, October 26th at 7 p.m. I will be in contact with all the members of that committee, also asking whether they want to reach out to some of the school committee members that haven't been interviewed yet. I did find an old email from you, Milva, that mentioned Sharon Huzik and that you wanted to be on that. So I'll reach out to Sharon and see if we can set up a time for her.
[Eunice Browne]: Gina and I were going to do Mia and Kathy, and I just haven't gotten around to it yet. My apologies. No worries.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: OK.
[Milva McDonald]: OK. So I also just want to say, I think that there have been some interviews that have been completed. So, um, if people who have done interviews and haven't written up a report and put it into our interviews folder, just a reminder on that. That would be great. Um, October 19th is coming up very soon. Uh, we have a, um, event at city hall. Um, Danielle, do you want to talk a little bit about that? Cause we have discussed it. Um, but first I see David's David's hand up.
[Ron Giovino]: He's muted.
[Milva McDonald]: Is he? Yeah. He should be able to unmute, I think. I think he went out and came back in. Maybe he stepped away. Yeah. OK, Danielle, go ahead.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, sorry. Yep, I'm back. Could somebody email me a link to where to put that report? I've been late in writing it up, but I also don't know where to put it.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, do you know our main folder on our Google Drive? I'll send it to you.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, thank you so much.
[Milva McDonald]: Sure. Okay, Danielle.
[Danielle Balocca]: Um, thanks so I'm trying to write on my notes about what we talked about, but I think what we talked about was. Trying to have the folks that presented today do some of their presentation for that meeting. And then we would want to have paper surveys available for folks that are there, but also to try to leave like most of the time, most of the other time for people to like comment or give feedback on the content of the presentation, but just generally. I had a lot of other ideas, but they weren't conducive to the sort of open meeting thing. But I think, is that what we discussed? Or was there more than I'm saying?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, no, the only other thing that we said we would start with like a general committee introductions and just general information about the committee. And then we will do the presentation, which will be improved based on the suggestions tonight. And then we will have open discussion and we'll also have the survey QR code and we'll have hard copy surveys in all the five languages that we have the survey translated into, as well as the glossaries, et cetera. And, you know, we'll probably bring the Jeopardy game just for fun. Um, so, you know, that's, that's what we plan. I don't know if anybody, um, how many people are going to be, are, are not going to be able to come on October 19th. Okay. Okay. Okay. So that'd be great. I mean, last time we had a pretty good showing of the committee and, um, uh, so that's, that's great.
[Andreottola]: Um, can I ask a question?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, go ahead, Anthony.
[Andreottola]: I just was wondering, since it's going to be so close to the election, would it be appropriate to invite candidates for public office to come? Maybe we might get a bigger turnout and get some more feedback and input from people who are actually open to be elected leaders of this city.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, yeah, I don't know. What do people think about that? Gene, let's see. Ron, you have your hand. I don't know who's responding to Anthony and who has a separate comment, so. I had a separate question. Ron was, I think, wanting to respond to Anthony, so let's do that, and then we'll hear Gene.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I mean, I don't want it to be a political event, and I don't think that Any candidate is welcome as a citizen to join this. And I don't want to give the impression that a politician has more of a say than everybody else. So I would not think that that's necessary. I understand why you want that. I understand it. But I don't want it to become a political thing. And I don't want them just to be there because they're on the ballot. So they're welcome to come, but not in official capacity, in my opinion.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, Maury, did you have a comment?
[Maury Carroll]: Yeah, I'm not sure on the 19th, there's a pretty, for me, it's a pretty good size event in July, and if that's the case, I'll probably be out of commission that night that I won't be able to attend.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Maury Carroll]: But I'm not saying definitely one way or the other right now. I'll do the best I can, as you well know.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, thank you, Maury.
[Eunice Browne]: Eunice? Two things. can we at least get it mentioned at the city council on Tuesday night, the 17th, either by one of us or by President Morell, just because people watch and listen to the meetings, not as a political thing, but just as a, hey, this is happening, so people know. And then the other thing is, that we had a pretty good post-mortem meeting after the last one. And I know I had written up some notes, which I'd be happy to share to the group or put it in our folder just so that we're going back and looking at the things that we talked about after the June one and making some course corrections where we needed to and stuff.
[Milva McDonald]: That would be great if you want to share that. as we, we're very close, we're less than two weeks, well, two weeks away. Jean.
[Jean Zotter]: Sorry, I was multitasking. Are we doing Zoom for this meeting?
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, and I need to, yeah, we need to contact Kevin Harrington. Yeah, we need to contact him. Yeah, there's a lot that has to be done pretty much right away. And do you want to contact Kevin?
[Jean Zotter]: Do you want me to do Zoom like I did last time?
[Milva McDonald]: That would be great, Gina. Thank you. I can contact Kevin Melva. Thank you, Eunice. Maury.
[Maury Carroll]: To Ron's point about the politicians and being in an election year, We tried to stop that at Oktoberfest a couple of years ago and we were told that we did not have the authority and we were in violation of something that they have every right to campaign in any event that they go to, as ridiculous as it sounds. But I think we have to be careful of that.
[Ron Giovino]: My point was only that it's not a political event. They want to stand up and give their opinion. I have no problem with that. They're citizens, but I didn't want it to be a here they are. You know, I don't want to get too much.
[Milva McDonald]: The question was, should we send them invitations?
[Maury Carroll]: We tried to do the same thing in Oktoberfest to not make it a campaign political event, but we were stopped from saying you can't campaign or say anything. So what I'm saying is, you know, we have to be careful that if someone that's running for something gets upset, you know, how to take it from themselves. I mean, how we cut them off. I think it's got to be just watch it. That's all.
[Ron Giovino]: No, I agree. I think everybody gets the same amount of time to speak whether who they are.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so I want to be mindful because we have three minutes left. So, Francis.
[Frances Nwajei]: Yes, very quickly, if the firefighters club on Salem Street is only available by rental. Do you want me to look at the, the one in South Medford that I believe that's the one that has the community room. It does. Okay, I'll look at that as an alternative.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, thanks. Okay, the only other items on here were, we talked about survey outreach on election day, that maybe we could hold signs with the QR code at polling locations, but I don't know if we have the bandwidth for that. So that is, if anybody is interested in that, contact me and we'll see if we can make it happen. But our survey is open until December 1st. and we have about 400 responses right now. Okay, any other comments on these last items from the committee? Do we have any members of the public who wish to speak? I think everybody left. I don't know, maybe not. Yeah, I don't think there's anybody there. Okay. I mentioned- Yeah, our next meeting is November 2nd, but I will see most of you in a couple of weeks at City Hall. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. Bye.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you. Good night.
[Milva McDonald]: Good night. Wait, did somebody make the motion? Make a motion to adjourn?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I think Maury did it.
[Frances Nwajei]: I second.
[Milva McDonald]: Everybody's in favor.
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