AI-generated transcript of Medford Charter Study Committee Info Session 06-08-23

[Milva McDonald]: Welcome, everyone. Thank you so much for coming. We're really excited to have you here. Just bear with us. We're working on all this technology because we're hybrid on Zoom as well. And Kevin, thank you so much for helping us get all that going. OK. for charter study committee, we are going to do a very short presentation because we want most of the evening to be devoted to hearing you. So I wanted to alert you to in the back there's a materials table it just has our flyers on it. It has a copy of the generic modern charter that we've been looking at that was provided to us by the Collins Center at UMass Boston. And you'll hear a little bit more about them in a bit. So you can peruse that if you're interested. There's also a suggestion box. So you can write down ideas and drop them in the box. There's index cards back there. There will also be many other ways for you to share your thoughts. We're going to be distributing a survey soon. We also have a feedback form on our website. And you'll be hearing more about that again as well. So first I just want to introduce the committee. I am at Milva McDonald. The other committee members that are here are Anthony Andrea Tola, Danielle Balaka, Janice Brown, Jean Zotter, Ron Giovino, John Moreshi, and Maury Carroll. We also have Mike Mastro Buoni, who isn't here tonight. We are all Medford residents that were appointed by Mayor Brianna Lungo-Cohn to comprehensively study the city charter. Our city liaison who helps us with logistics and whatnot is Frances Nwaje. We're very grateful to her as well. So we can start the slideshow. We have a little slideshow, but. So we are appointed to comprehensively study Medford's current charter. We are gathering input from the community. We are looking at charters of similar communities, looking at best practices trends. Ultimately, the goal is to propose recommendations on changes to the charter and content to the city council and the mayor. Helping us with this process is UMass Boston's Collis Center for Public Management. They're a nonprofit that was established by the state legislature in 2008. They've worked with more than two-thirds of the state's 351 municipalities on more than 800 projects, including many charter reviews. So they're extremely knowledgeable and their help has been really invaluable. Materials, all of the materials they provided us with can be found on our website, our page on the city website, www.medfordnad.org slash charter study. And if you look, there's, if you look under presentations, you'll find all the materials they provided us, including the generic modern charter, which is on the table back there. Okay, we'll go to the next. So the first question that a lot of people ask when they hear about charter review is what is a city charter? It's often referred to as the constitution of a city. It creates the city of Medford as a legal entity, it establishes the city's powers, and it outlines the broad fundamentals of the city government. So it's a very important document. So why review? This is another question that people ask. Well, there's a lot of reasons. One is to keep up with the modern understanding of best practices. Medford's charter hasn't been reviewed in decades. It was reviewed in the 1970s. It was changed, the last change was in the 1980s. So it's been a long time since it's been looked at and a lot has changed since then. Another reason is to respond to the needs and preferences of residents and maintain consistency with state and federal law. Because of the nature of our charter, it works in conjunction with state law and it hasn't been looked at in a long time. There could be conflicts with state law and updating it, looking at it periodically helps maintain consistency with state and federal law. Also remaining consistent with community values and cultural changes. Our city has changed a lot in the decades since the charter was last reviewed. So that's something that's important to look at as well. Also, clarifying text that is confusing or disputed because of the particular structure of Medford's charter, which we'll be getting into. Some of it can be open to interpretation and we would want our charter to be as clear and understandable and accessible as possible so that any resident who's looking to see how our city government operates can go to the charter and they can understand it. Currently, that's challenging because of the nature of Medford's charter. And that also provides transparency on how our city government operates. Okay, so the process, our process, the process for this committee. As I said, we're going to research and review the current charter. We want to gather lots of public input. Tonight is the beginning of that and we're hoping to hear from many, many people in the city about what they want to see in their government. We're looking at the charter as a whole, not just in pieces. We're looking at the entire document. Once we complete our work, we'll submit a final report to the mayor and the city council, and then it's in their hands. They look at it. If they approve it, it's submitted to the state legislature. If the state legislature gives it the green light, then it goes to the residents to be voted on. So nothing that we propose, nothing that we do can be codified until the voters say so. So this is really in the hands of the voters. Okay, Medford's current charter. So many people who look at Medford's charter or maybe know that it's what we call a plan, what is a plan A charter. It was adopted in 1986. Before that, we had a plan E charter, which means we had a city manager as opposed to a mayor. We moved to a mayor form of government in 1986. All these plan governments are outlined in Massachusetts general laws. And only a few communities left in the state are still using a plan form of government. They're considered to be antiquated at this point and Medford is one of the few that are still using a plan form as opposed to creating a more modern charter like the one that's on the table that's right here. You'll be able to take a look at if you like. And as I said, that's also available on our website. The other thing that we've learned about Medford's Charter is that it doesn't exist in a single document. So if anybody, if any of you have tried to learn about Medford's Charter and you go click on Medford's charter from the city website, you'll see a very short couple pages, very short. The reason for that is because it is a plan a charter. So it's described in Massachusetts general laws, and it works in conjunction with other state statutes and special acts, which are laws that were that are specific to Medford. So in order to really understand Medford's charter, you have to track down all these different sources. And that can be difficult. Some of the statutes and special acts go back decades, if not more. So that's one of our goals is to create an accessible charter that people can look at that's in one document. So for instance, if you want to know, if you look at the charter on our website, it doesn't say anything about how the school committee operates. In order to find that, you have to go to Mass General Laws about school committees, and then you have to find whatever special acts passed that apply to Medford in that regard. A new charter, comprehensive, would supersede all that, and it would exist in one document so that any resident could look at it and understand how the city government works. Um, okay, so I'm going to hand this over to Ron and then he's going to talk about some other things.

[Ron Giovino]: Thank you. One of the, before I begin, I just, we said this is a presentation and listening session, and our presentation is brief for a purpose, because really, it's all about the listening tonight. Melba mentioned that the charter has not been reviewed in a long time, so I'm gonna just address a little bit about the form of government that we currently have now, what options we have, and there's really two options. One is a mayor and a city council and obviously school committee. The other one is a city council and a city manager. Now, for anybody who's been here long enough, you knew of a city manager at one point, but now we have the planning government, as was mentioned before, and the mayor, next slide, is the chief executive officer of the city of Medford. She was elected by the voters. She oversees, the mayor oversees, I should make it generic, the mayor oversees the day-to-day operations of the city. The mayor appoints department heads, committee, and commission members. The mayor is currently the chairperson of the school committee. The mayor submits the city budget to the city council and the mayor currently has veto power. Now inside of that, all these things in these choices of government, there's this and there's this, but we're going to be playing in between these two in some way. So there's no blanket. You're going to go with this form of government. These are the rules inside of this is all the things we can do to make it a better charter. The city manager choice means the city council really is the power. City manager becomes the city's chief executive officer. City manager is appointed by the city council, not elected. The appointment is based on qualifications. The city manager is directly accountable to the mayor, to the city council, sorry, with regular performance reviews. City manager has no power of veto. The city council becomes the chief governing body. The City Council appoints all department heads, committee heads, and commission members. The City Council is responsible for submitting and approving the budget. And the City Council elects a mayor to act as mayor for the city. And that is it. I'm going to give this to Danielle. He was he was the city manager. Yes.

[Danielle Balocca]: So, to answer that question, we currently have plan a. And Ron was just talking about planning and the importance of that is that. Choosing the form of government is a has a major impact on the charter and try to review. Very close. So figuring out which form of government we want to keep or to have is kind of the first point in then figuring out, like Ron said, all the remaining choices that follow that form of government. And that's why it's really important that we talk to the, that we get input from the community of Medford and residents to sort of guide that process. Um, so other things that we would consider or that we that are kind of on the table for reviewing the charter. So right now, the current elected officials that we have are our mayor, seven at large city councilors, and seven at large school committee members. Okay. And all of our municipal elections are nonpartisan, meaning nobody runs for any party. Okay. So things that the charter establishes are term lengths. So right now the mayor is in the office for, our mayor's term of office could be two to four years. Right now our mayor is in the office for two years, but it seems like there's a trend in many communities for a four-year term for mayor. The same is true for city council. So something that a charter could say is, what do we want the terms of these positions to be? And do we want term limits for any of these positions? Something else that the charter can lay out is a procedure for vacancies on city council. Our charter does have that. Like Melva was saying, it's all sort of hard to find and understand sometimes. If you look at the model of a charter, it's all laid out there for you. Our current charter doesn't lay out a clear process for compensation, and that's something that a charter could do. Our charter contains also no specific information about school committee, other than that the mayor is the chair of the school committee. Also, so our total number of city Councilors is, it's usually proportional to the population of a city and many cities in Massachusetts that are a similar size metric have a larger city council. So one thing that the charter can. can say is how we elect city councilors and school committee members and that right now they're all at large meaning like the whole city votes on every city councilor. Other communities have a combination of that plus ward representation and right now the city of Medford has eight wards and seven positions in city council and school committee so it's already not really meeting the size of the population in that way. It also word representation is also something that would give different representation to the different neighborhoods and districts in the city. And so when Medford adopted the plan a form of government, it was a smaller it retained its smaller seven member council rather than increasing to a nine member council, which is normally what plan a outlines. So other considerations that the Charter could address is election procedures, also citizen participation. So there's no citizen participation mechanisms currently in the Charter, and those are things that we would refer to state law for. So examples of this would be petitions, other citizen initiatives, and referendums. The budget also is not something that's that could be like the time frame for budget meetings and submission and protocol for adopting a budget are things that can be outlined in the charter. Other financial procedures such as protocols for capital improvements, independent audits, and other financial issues are something the charter can include. And then general provisions, so processes for amending the charter, periodic ordinance review, periodic charter review, and then uniform procedures for multi-member bodies, also including limitations on office holding. were. And so all of this, you could see examples of in this generic model, modern charter that we have in the back here.

[Ilene Lerner]: That ends our slides.

[Danielle Balocca]: You want to take questions first, or should we? OK, yeah. So if people want to ask questions, we'll ask you to come up to the mic.

[Phyllis Morrison]: First, I want to thank you all. for participating in this. My first question is just a clarification question for myself. How is a ward determined in the city?

[Milva McDonald]: Oh, first, I just want to remind everyone to give your name and address for the record because we have to, we have to do that.

[Phyllis Morrison]: Let me start again. My name is Phyllis Morrison. I live at 32 Andrew Street, Medford, Massachusetts.

[Milva McDonald]: Thank you. Okay, so my first question is, how is a ward determined? That's determined by the state. And I believe every 10 years, is that what we were just told? Because we just actually, and if you go on our website, we just had a presentation on that from the Collins Center at our last meeting. And so there's a little more specific information about it. But what we were informed is that every 10 years, the state reviews that.

[Phyllis Morrison]: And so do you recall if they said anything about based on population? it would be it would be on population. So we currently have eight wards, and seven council members, seven school committee members. That's right, right away. Yeah. So I don't know if you can go back to the first slide. But in the first slide, the committee presented that they're going to research and something else, the charter. And what came to mind for me was, What type of research is this committee going to do is the research going to be research based on how efficiently or inefficiently was the city run when it was under a city manager, or how efficiently or inefficiently was it run under an elected form of government. How will any of that be captured? Is there a way for you to capture that? I mean, I think that's a pretty important question. I mean, my own personal humble opinion is I'd rather elect people to these positions. That's my take on it. I would rather that than people be appointed. I heard someone say that that would be a city manager would be appointed based on qualifications. And we would all hope that that would be the case, but we know sometimes that's not. I think people should have a voice in who runs their city. The other important point for me is that if the charter hasn't been reviewed since 1980 or six, you said 1980, I think was, were there any switch tonight in 1986, we switched to plan a or to plan a, okay.

[Milva McDonald]: Whether it was reviewed at that point as another map.

[Phyllis Morrison]: So has anyone been keeping note or track of what has transpired since that last, how far is the committee willing to go back in its research? I mean, cause I think this is really important and I think it's going to take a lot of work and that's why I started out by thanking you. I do a lot of research, so I know it's not an easy thing.

[Ron Giovino]: I appreciate what you're saying. Absolutely. I just have to throw out this disclaimer. We are not experts. I speak for myself. We're learning this process and we started November. But you're absolutely right. What we will do, I mean, right now, we go to general laws to follow the procedures and we look at the charter. Our hope is, and this is why it's a major undertaking, is to really complete the job to make sure we're covering all the issues. And those issues come from listening. I mean, we all have our opinions. We're all citizens. So we all have opinions. But our commitment is that we listen to what you want. Because eventually, you're going to vote. You're going to have a vote. So if we have a discussion, and that's why we have these public meetings and open ourselves to, you know, you can fill surveys and you can write to us. We have to understand what all the people in the city want. And unless we have that open communication that's not going to happen. So, to your point, we are going to The way I envision, I don't want to speak for the committee, the way I envision it is we're going to come up with the issues. There may be 100 issues. There may be 10. But each one of those issues will have public hearings to it. There'll be more public hearings. And people will make presentations as to what they think the solution is. And you'll present that to the community. And once that's done, then we'll all have to make decisions based on that. But this is, you know, it's not just writing down I want the mayor to be elected for 12 years. No, this is about here's the issue that we're talking about today. And we're going to have meetings based on that. And we're, we're in the process of figuring out the process. So, but trust me, we will go back to, I think we've all committed to, this is the people's process. And I think that that's really what's going to happen. And I think you'll, this is our first swing at a public meeting. We're thrilled with the attendance here. But I think once we start talking about some of the big issues, I think we'll have a room full of people helping us craft and design what the amendment is going to be to go through the process, check it out that the state agrees with us, and then put it on the ballot. And that's really our goal. It's two years, three years, however it takes.

[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah, I think you're being kind to yourself when you say two to three years. And I think you should allow for that. You should realize this whole committee that this is probably going to be a long journey with an end date some point. Given that, if Eunice hadn't posted on Facebook today to remind me about the meeting tonight, and if I hadn't gotten a robo call from Mayor Brianna this afternoon, I just don't see a lot of this being advertised anywhere. I know it's good to say we can go to the city website, But that doesn't count it I think a lot more people would be here. I mean, I think it's really important given. No, I just read something just recently, and from 2020 to now, we've had an increase in almost 6000 people move to Medford, when cities and towns in our state are losing people all over the place. That's got to say something about Medford, you know, and how do we capitalize on that and what is the best way we can move forward. So again I thank you, I will have a million questions, and I hope to come to as many meetings as I can. And I would offer my assistance in any way I could also which I think anyone here would do also. But, I think another critical important piece is our demographics, and I don't see a lot of young people here. No deference to us. I'm older than all of you sitting up there. Just so you know, I realize that. I would like to see a few younger people on this committee, and I think that would be a recommendation. Young, young, but you know, and you're all younger than me. But what I would like to see is a few more younger people. Sorry.

[Milva McDonald]: Thank you for your time. First, I just want to say, any thoughts you have about publicity, check with me later. I would love your ideas. I will. Just to quickly address also your question about research, we are interviewing current city officials, and we also are going to check in with past city officials just to hear their thoughts. And so that might address some of the things that you were wondering about. And we're also looking at charters in other cities and all that. Right. Well, I know you know already there are two types of research.

[Phyllis Morrison]: Okay, so there's you know the standard research where you gather data and you crunch the numbers. And then there's also qualitative research where you talk to people like you say you're going to do, but I do think it's important to talk to some of the different age groups like the senior citizens, the kids in the high schools, the kids that are going to Tufts, the kids that are To get that, the qualitative research can be very challenging. You know, we can all fill out a 100-survey question, and you can do that, and you can analyze the data, which is great. But the qualitative research might give you a little bit more insight. Thank you.

[Danielle Balocca]: So I think that's exactly what we're trying to hope to, we're hoping to try to do tonight is get some of that qualitative information. So we have a couple of questions just prepared, just like kind of open-ended to see kind of what's bringing folks here and what you want, what kind of, what input you want to give us around the charter. So the first question is just to kind of hear from you all. I know this is like kind of a complex, complicated process, and there's a lot of folks here that have been working on this for a long time, and some of us are really just learning some of this stuff. I know something has brought all of you here tonight, so we're really interested in hearing what brought you to this meeting. What is bringing you here? What are you interested in, in terms of the charter and charter review?

[Phyllis Morrison]: Sure. This is it for me. I'm back again, Phyllis Morrison. I came because I really care a lot about the city. I'll give you a little qualitative data. I grew up in Somerville, the arch enemy of Medford. and I moved away, and when I moved back to the United States, I moved to Medford, and I fell in love with Medford. I have great neighbors. I think the city does a great job on a lot of things. I think our schools could be better, but I think all schools could be better. But I came because I care a lot about this city, and I care a lot about what goes on in this city, and I think that we can do more. We can do better. That's why I came.

[Sharon Deyeso]: Good evening, my name is Sharon DSL I live on circuit road corner of mass have in Medford. I've been a resident for a boy hate to say it 71 years. So I guess I come here, concerned about the city like this nice woman here, and many others. Yeah, it's really hard to advertise especially to older people because a lot of them don't have computers. A lot of the marine seniors housing would like to, you know, voice some of you, or they have concerns that may be different than some of us because you're all younger than I am, except for maybe, Mr. Andrea Tolo, who I met a long time ago through lions club, and I'll, I'll say, I'll contact you this week. I'm just wondering a little bit about the system of how you were appointed. What was the criteria? Did you just get a phone call one day? Did you make applications? Because I didn't see any ads posted for applying for a commission position. I may have missed it, et cetera, because we really don't have a widely distributed local method paper anymore. So I'm just curious how we find out about your backgrounds and whose hands we're in. I don't know if that's public information or not, and I think it is important. Also, I think addressing some of the charter concerns, we thought we were going to be running on a ballot, a lot of us who were in a charter group for many years, and I have like about a thousand signatures just at my home that are just sitting there. I think looking at the problems of the city that are most irritating at the present time concerning money and, you know, other vital needs in the city. There are people who have had experiences in the city that are wonderful entrepreneurs, they've been like an icon with us, and they certainly have been through the mill. So we want to know how often you might plan these meetings and how we learn about your backgrounds. Thank you.

[Eunice Browne]: think I can address part of that insofar as how we ended up sitting here so to speak the mayor put out as she often does and I don't know if it's anywhere else but online you'd have to ask her that but I do know that that is probably a dozen or more boards and commissions in the city of Medford that are largely volunteer staffed. And every so often when there are vacancies, she puts out a call for volunteers to serve on those boards and commissions. Posted in the paper or where is it posted? As far as I know, it's only been online and on the city website, and then it migrates itself to various Facebook groups and so forth. And I know that that's not terribly helpful for a lot of people, nor the best way to do it. We don't really have a city newspaper. I think it goes in Medford Patch every so often. So she put out a call for forming this board. I think it was sometime last summer, maybe July or so, folks who were interested. There's a standard application on the city website if you go to boards and commissions. a standard application that asks you to fill out, you know, your name and address and so on and so forth. And then, you know, what board you might be interested in. And then you can upload a resume if you wish. You can indicate, you know, whatever reasons you want. you are applying for whatever board it is. And I think that's what all of us here probably did. And she then gathers all of that data and makes her choices. I have no idea what her parameters were in this case. What you can do, if you wish, is a public records request to the mayor's office and ask for the applicants and then you'll find out who applied and those of us who were appointed to the committee. I don't know how much is there in terms of our backgrounds and so forth. I submitted a resume. I don't know what other people's submitted, but she has all of that information in her office. But as far as I know, that is how this board was appointed and how, in general, I think other boards and commissions are staffed as well. So I think that helps a little bit.

[Sharon Deyeso]: We used to be able to read about some openings through the Wicked Local publication. And now some of them are posted in the, my friend's newspaper, Somerville Medford News. There's a lot of news in there. So many of us were looking around and we didn't see it. So I was just wondering how widely it was advertised, that's all. And also how we would find out about some of your expertise, backgrounds. Thank you.

[Jean Zotter]: We have, we have a couple people on zoom that want to speak so I'm going to call on them. Can you hear me okay. How about now. We could do brief introductions. Sure. I'm Jean's daughter I've been here 15 years I live in North Medford. I have a law degree. I work in public health right now, doing public health policy, and I have a son that just graduated from Medford High.

[Milva McDonald]: I'm Milva McDonald. I've lived here for almost 30 years. I have four children. I have three grandchildren. I've been hearing about Charter Review for many years and sort of worked with a citizen group to try to get Charter Review to happen. So I was quite interested in getting into, in being part of this committee when it was announced. Thank you.

[Moreshi]: My name is John Marishi. I moved to Medford in 2019. I live here with my wife and my daughter. I'm having a son soon. I'm a lawyer in public law, so state and local government. And so I've worked professionally on charters for a few years, and I thought it would be fun to see what it was like on the other side.

[Maury Carroll]: Hi, I'm Maury Carroll. I'm a resident of Medford of 70 years, and family's been in this city since the late 1800s. In fact, various businesses, and I still have one going now in Medford Square. Kids are all, my children are all graduates of Medford High School. I'm a graduate of Medford High School. My parents before me. So, love the city, care about the city a lot. Been active over the decades of trying to move the city forward and keep it up with everything around us. So, and I pledge to be continuing to do the same.

[Ron Giovino]: I run GVNO, I'm 64 years, Medford, North Medford. I've been involved with many charities in the city, autism, baseball, try to give back as much as I can. I was a member of the illustrious Columbus School Renaming Committee. I also have three children, five and a half grandchildren, and most of us live in Medford. And to answer your question, I think that the mayor would know best what the qualifications are that she was looking for, but I just chalk it up to being a nice guy, that's all I was talking about.

[Anthony Andreottola]: Hi, I'm Anthony Antriadola. I've been living in Medford probably for the past 50 years. My family's been here for probably over 100 years, going back many, many years. Grew up, we're all Medford schools. Oh, I've got to hold it close. OK. Almost in my mouth. Wow. Like I said, long time Method resident. My family's been here forever. Went to Method High School. My kids went to Method Public Schools. I'm currently the director of the Michael Judge Recovery Center at St. Anthony's Shrine. I work in mental health and substance abuse, and I've been doing that for the past 35 years. I have a strong commitment to the city of Medford. trying to help people with substance use issues, disabilities, and any of my neighbors that could use help. I really feel that this is a community on, you know, I sometimes joke, I call Medford the promised land. I really believe that. I think we're a city on the verge of being great and hopefully with some changes and In the system, we can make it function a little bit more efficiently and better for all of our citizens, young and old. And I think that was a great suggestion about getting young people involved because we're doing this for them. And I hope that we can get that to be part of our work.

[Danielle Balocca]: Thank you. I'm Danielle blocker. I've been in Medford since 2014. lifelong Massachusetts resident, but I have two kids who are in Metro public schools. And I'm a social worker. I don't have like a lot of relevant charter experience. But I do think I do have a strong interest in sort of the goings on in Medford and politics and thinking about, you know, it's really important to me that I kind of understand what's happening in the city and have some sort of influence in that as my kids kind of get older and they will, you know, live in the city for a long time.

[Eunice Browne]: My name is Eunice Brown. I'm also a lifelong Medford resident in the hillside area. My family also has been in the city probably since the 1920s. I'm the third or maybe fourth generation owner of my home. Professionally, I've worked in administrative support work in development and fundraising at the secondary and higher ed level. Currently some health issues, I'm not working at the moment, but I have been very interested in local government watching city council meetings probably the past 30, 35 years. Remember when we went from plan E to plan A and kind of watching all of that unfold. So, I became interested in this because I've been, you know, keeping an eye on City Council and School Committee for a number of years. Also was involved for a short time in a group that was looking at the charter sort of on citizen-based level before the mayor's appointed group and chose to apply and found myself here. So hoping that we can listen to the community and make some changes that are going to make us more efficient and better operated. Thank you.

[Danielle Balocca]: All right, I think we have some people on Zoom that have been waiting for a little bit. So I think Erica

[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. Erica Reinfeld, I don't know if I'm supposed to state name and address, but I'm on Forest Street. So I'm answering the question of what brought you to this meeting. And so I've been interested in charter review for a long time and really looking at the structures. But what brings me here is mostly to learn about the options that are available, what is and is not possible with the existing regulations and protocols and policies. through the state and look at the options for the city. I'm very interested to the end of combating misconceptions and having dialogue in the community, having better informed conversations because I think this effort requires a lot of education and I want to be able to speak confidently and competently about what What those options are and what those implications are so i'm also here to express support for putting this on the ballot ballot and bringing it to voters, but again with that education component of making sure the voters know what their options are and what they're voting for. And I don't have strong opinions at this point about what the Charter should or should not be my only. real deal breaker for me at this point is to amend it to include a regular review as part of the charter, because I think it has been far too long. And I think we should build that into the structure to revisit. Is this government working for us or not? And the structure is regardless of the individuals involved. So that's why I'm here. Thank you so much for hosting this.

[Danielle Balocca]: Thanks, Erica. Susan is next.

[Gerard]: My name is Susan Gerard. I live at 26 Farragut Avenue in East Medford. I used to live on George Street. I've been in Medford for 42 years, but only became really involved and interested in Medford politics really in the last 10 years. I was a community college teacher in Lynn and more interested in statewide issues. But yeah, the concerns which bring me here are, I would say diversity and democracy. I feel like the city has become more diverse and I would like to see ways in which there's more diverse representation in the city. One possibility is again, ward representation, ward voting rather than citywide. Also ranked choice voting is often seen as something more democratic that has worked well in some of the places. I'm also someone who has attended quite a few city council meetings on zoom. And I'm really struck at the frustration of the city council feeling extremely powerless in many areas. So I think somehow, and I'm not sure what form this would take, but there needs to be a better balance of power between the city councilors And the mayor, and I'll just, I'll just stop there. I think there are probably many, many issues obviously involved in all of this, but these are my concerns. I think that that fighting that's been going on between the mayor and the city council has become kind of. holding the city back at this point. And last thing is I'd like to see more transparency in terms of budgets and other matters between the government and the residents. Thank you.

[Sharon Deyeso]: I forgot to mention this Sharon to so 130 circuit road massive. You mentioned, suppose, in a year and a half you did your study, and you formalized recommendations to go to the mayor. And you said then from the mayor goes to the council, does that mean she can. arbitrate with you, or she can reject parts of it flat out. And what she does approve goes to the council. Does that mean they vote on it? You know, this is not exactly what we had expected. So it's a whole different system. Like, you understand what I mean? We would hope that they would look at this, you know, in a very rejective way, but Speaking off the cuff, I would just tell you that many issues have come before the mayor and the council is not, I would say in the majority, if they, the residents had to vote and voters had devoted wouldn't come out that way. So, I just would like a little bit more clarification what happens when it goes from desk to desk. Thanks.

[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I believe it would go to the council first. And I believe, yes, that they can look at different pieces and maybe say, yeah, well, we're OK with this, but not this. So there is a certain amount of hashing out at that point, as I understand it. But once the committee is done with our job, it's sort of in their hands.

[Paul Garrity]: Hi, my name is Paul Garrity. I live at 40 Cedar Road in Medford. And again, thank you very much for taking time to speak to us tonight. A little slow recovering from a full knee replacement, so I'm hobbling along. I want to take a little bit different approach here and take it from, I'm hearing a lot of conversations that kind of at the tactical level. So I wanted to get up to the strategic level. And one of the things I'm hearing is that you're gonna speak to a lot of people. So I'm saying, well, one of the questions I would say to the councilors or whomever saying, what would you say is needed to achieve, what would your goal be for the revision of the city charter? you know, does it talk to growth? Does it talk to prosperity? Does it talk to social progress? You know, I would be asking the people I, you know, interact with, excuse me, what do you see as the goals that should be achieved by whatever format we finally adopt would allow us to be successful as a city? You know, I see the charter as it needs to be a unique document for the needs of the city, Medford, not some other city, but this city. I also think it needs to be based on innovation, not duplication. A lot of smart people here, a lot of attorneys in front of me. We have the horsepower. We should be looking at innovation. I don't think that the charter should be a boat anchor. I think it should be the wings that we can set sail on. We need something that has the flexibility to take us into the future. Things we don't know that are going to happen. You say, chat, GBT, my God, what's going to happen? We need to have a vehicle that will allow us to be flexible enough to deal with the future. And I also think that, you know, we're in the digital age. We need to have digitized systems to track what we're doing. Those are my goal statements. I think we need to look at or ask questions about what do you think your representatives should do to be successful in this environment? if we're going, whatever, whatever structure we take, you know, to me, the mayor, whoever it is needs to show leadership and that leadership is reflected in the budgets they present. The council needs to show advise and counsel and when appropriate come in with discussion and vetoes if necessary. I think that the council should have the ability to veto not only parts of the budget, but appropriations. Right now, when we budget something, it's appropriated. It's gone. There's no way to check it. Where's the checks and balances? And one of the things that I don't hear in this discussion is what is going to be the role of the school committee? We need to educate and take care of the health of our youth. I want to know what is the oversight role of the school committee and what is the methodology they're going to use to assess the performance of the superintendent and the school district as a whole? What's the rules? Um, I think it's imperative that you ask questions about what policies and procedures should be in effect to support the execution of, you know, city services, delivering city services. The person here said that, um, You know, we need to have regular audits. I have gone around to many people in this city and said, would you support an external audit of policies and procedures? Why? Policies and procedures drive the budget, drive the expenses. But people will say to me, well, we do an audit. Well, you do an audit of the final expenses. You need to start at the front of the game and audit the policies and procedures that drive the expenses. And the structure that we have needs to reflect that. I think the policies should be documented, digitally recorded, externally audited on a regular basis for modification, removal, or additions. And finally, people should know how to access them. If they have an issue with it, watch their recourse. We heard the other day about the engineer no longer supports fixing in private ways. We have an issue. Finally, my biggest concern is structure. We need to have a digital system to capture the activities of the city and the school department. We need to know We need to capture data so that we can analyze it, use it for planning, use it for monitoring, use it to see what performance is, use it for administrative decisions. We need to put into place a digital enterprise resource planning software system that can capture data, allow us to extract that data for planning, and use it as a historical reference for future planning. And again, that's what I was talking about, the flexibility. So you need to have something that's ongoing. I hear councilors saying, well, we lose the... institutional history when people leave government. Well, if you have it in a software system, it's there for future reference. Whatever form of government you adopt, you need to have an enterprise resource planning software in it. Thank you.

[Danielle Balocca]: I think we're gonna go back to zoom Marsha person.

[Unidentified]: Marsha.

[Marcia Kirssen]: Hi, I'm sorry. I apologize. My unmute wasn't quite where it belongs or something. I'll try to stick to why I'm here. I think the wonderful deep planning that I'm hearing is great too. But I will start with the fact that I live in Medford, I live on Upton Terrace, and I've lived here for five years, so I'm relatively new. And I see the influx that was mentioned of new people. Also, I'm required to mention that I'm a member of the Commission for Persons with Disability, although my term is ending at the end of this month. My background includes a long history of advocacy wherever I've lived. I walked into Medford and was upset with the lack of accessibility at Lawrence Memorial, being included in the planning, and I spoke to the city council quite a few times before I joined. I think that I would, my priority would be to include as many people as possible in the process. And that's been brought up. And other people, there are lots of different ways to do it. But I have done outreach I've experienced in doing outreach in my previous position as a liaison in the Cambridge school system. And it was a learning process for me. And I could share some of that. Maybe it will be helpful. Not now. I would like the city to be able to be more inclusive by its structure. And that does not necessarily mean adding more Councilors, although that might be a good idea on its face. But there are other ways to do this kind of thing. These issues have brought me to this meeting, and I do have specific ideas, and I agree with many of the ideas that have been presented, but I think we want to leave that for a future meeting. If you want my resume, I have one. Okay. Thank you for your time, and thank you for all this work. I know it's a big task.

[Danielle Balocca]: Thank you. Next year Steve snap.

[Steve Schnapp]: Thank you. My name is Steve snap I live at 36 hillside have right up the hill from the library in the square. Since 2011. the first speaker's question or comment about the difficult and monumental job before this commission reminded me that Tufts University is a potential source of assistance. Two programs in particular, Urban and Environmental Policy, known as UEP, and the Tisch College of Civic Life both offer student projects in collaboration with nonprofit and public groups such as this. And if in fact, this is a multi-year project, there's plenty of time to find the right people to speak with and take advantage of that resource. So I appreciate the work you're doing. It's a monumental task. Just one additional comment. Previous speaker who spoke about strategy and important to get to the strategic level. I thought were terrific questions that should be addressed to the administration, to the city council, to the school committee. It should be discussed in churches and community groups and all over the city. Here we have an opportunity to structure the results of those discussions. This commission is about how government should be structured to best facilitate the kinds of goals that the people of Medford want. So those are good questions, but right now we have to figure out how best to implement a structure for realizing the goals the city sets before. Thank you.

[Danielle Balocca]: Thank you.

[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Hi, I'm Bidan Fairchild, 54 Dwyer Circle, and I'm a member of the Medford Bicycle Advisory Commission as well. I'm mostly here because I'm interested in making sure that we have a more representative city government. And I think that the Certainly the all at large city council doesn't really do that very effectively. I definitely would like to see. potentially ward Councilors, but even better, perhaps, proportional representation. I lived in Cambridge for a few years and they have ranked choice voting there that seems to work pretty well. So I think it'd be great to explore that. And just sort of in general, making sure that it's not just the squeakiest wheels that get the grease. when it comes to city government and people getting their voices heard, that people who might not be able to make it to every meeting still have a voice that people can find out what's going on and have some influence. There might be other options like participatory budgeting, all sorts of possibilities. Thank you.

[Bill Giglio]: Thank you.

[Phyllis Morrison]: Of course, my mind is racing now. My mind is racing now because of all the great input from everybody here and on Zoom. But a couple of things come to mind for me quick. First, I'd like to know, does the state have to have approval on the charter or is it just contained within the city? So the state does have to approve any charter that is put forth in addition to the council, the mayor and everyone else. Okay, that's question number one off my plate. The other thing is, is that I think the last two or the second last gentleman spoke a little bit about this I thought his idea probably bring in Tuftson is great also. But if a charter is going to be revised updated. I think the council, and you probably already have done this, but I think we have to spread the net wide. I think that the committee should look at doing a citywide survey. I think there should be focus groups. I think these are really important things if we really want to. I think one gentleman over there put it so nicely, let the charter be the wings that brings us forward. I thought that was so beautifully put. But if this is going to be your undertaking, and it's a lofty task, I think these are the things that, you know, someone talked about the structure. And the Collins Center is at UMass Boston. I'm sure they have a plethora of surveys that you could adapt to do citywide. And if you make it available to all the citizens, then we can honestly say to people, you had an opportunity. You had an opportunity, and then from then you get the focus groups based on the different areas of priority that the people identify that the charter should be revised in or updated in. You people have been meeting for months, this is my first meeting of this and I have to tell you, I'm very impressed that you're going to take this on, and it's going to be a lot of work a lot of questions and I know my mind won't stop so you'll be hearing from me, but thank you for your time. Thank you.

[Marcia Kirssen]: Thank you. I'd like to respond to the idea of a survey a little bit. I think it's an important step, but if it's your only step, then you're missing the communities that are underserved in this city, which is probably in total the majority, I would guess. If you look at different forms of of minority and underserved people. And I think it's very important to reach out to community members there who are leaders and to try to arrange a process of getting input from as many people as possible with as much diversity as possible. So it means more than one way of communicating, and it means the multilingual line is a good thing to have. I wonder how many people know about it, for example. And so again, I'm going to stop because this requires a detailed discussion of the group. Thank you.

[Ilene Lerner]: Hi. So my name is Eileen learner and I moved here in 2015. And I love Medford. But when I started watching the city council I was absolutely horrified. And I was horrified by more than the yelling and the screaming and the dysfunction that I saw here. but also the unwillingness of people to look at new ideas. You know, for example, when I once testified and I said, well, in Cambridge, they do this because I thought it was a good idea. And I was told we are not Cambridge and we're not Somerville, you know. And to me, that's so crazy. We need to be open to new ideas, not stuck in the past, you know. And I think also There are a lot of older people, and others who are not computer literate and so they're cut off but there are ways to reach them for instance, if you guys went to the senior center went to the West Medford Community Center may be appeared at words of music. If you go to maybe some of the churches and see if you could meet after a church service, you know, maybe when they're having coffee and donuts or whatever, you know, but we need to look at new ways to reach people and also maybe going to the, you know, the housing, the public housing. and putting up signs and saying, we're gonna have a meeting. We invite you to come because I'm not happy. I am not happy with the showing this evening at all. It's just a few people here. And this is important to every single person in this city. And people don't even know what's going on. And part of it is that we don't have a newspaper. That is a horrible thing. We have been left in the dark. But that's not something that you guys can do anything about or that we can do anything about right now. I just hope that somebody starts a newspaper here, you know. But yes, I would like to see a better relationship between the city council and the mayor. It's really awful to hear the city council disparaging the mayor like they do. I don't like it. I mean, if we have disagreements, let's just agree. Let's talk about the issues. Let's not be so nasty to one another, and to a woman mayor too, to be so disgusting. It just sickens me, you know, and it's not functional. And I think we're here because we want to have a more functional government, something that works, that isn't, you know, just a venue for venom. So anyway, thank you so much for all that you're doing and, and I would like to, you know, help in whatever way that I can as well.

[Maury Carroll]: If I could just take a second to address a couple from this woman here and the previous caller. We plan on bringing this on the road. We're going on the road with this. We're going into all the neighborhoods. We're going to advertise strongly with all the merchants and robocalls or whatever we can do. The protocol hasn't been quite established yet of just about how we're doing it. But this is going on the road. This is going to try to hit as many neighborhoods to be as inclusive and to be an earpiece to everybody that wants to see change and what their input is. Thank you.

[Leonard Glionna]: Len Glyona, 86 Channel Road. First of all, I'd like to thank each and every one of you for serving. I've served on boards and commissions in Medford myself, and I know how much work it is, so thank you again. As somebody who's lived through both Plany, Faiz, and Strong-Mayer in Medford, I would advocate to continue the strong mayor system plan A because I think it works the best and it makes the mayor accountable to all of us. As far as the city council, I would urge you strongly consider ward representation as we have in our neighboring cities of Somerville, Malden and Everett. As far as a term for the mayor, I still like the two-year term, which I believe Somerville has, Malden has, Everett has the four-year term. And the school committee, I think should be water representation as well. I think water representation allows people that do not have the financial resources to run for public office. It's very expensive to run citywide in a city of 60,000 plus people. It also fosters what I would call inclusive representation. We haven't had many minority people elected to the school committee or the city council recently. We do have Justin Singh. And we did have, you know, city councilor Ken Holmes and school committee member George White. But you know, that's few and far between. And I think that needs to change as the city of Medford is changing. And again, thank you for your service.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: We have more Zoom pictures. Hello, Andrew Castagnetti of East Medford. I'm 68 years resident and been a graduate of 1968 Method High School. Attendance-wise, I was wondering, there's like 13 in the audience. Can you tell me how many are on Zoom, please? And is this publicized? Is this on television also? Channel 22 for Comcast? Right. And you probably could have given them the Zoom ID number in case they wanted to Zoom in and ask you some questions. But there's not really a lot of people on there anyways. You don't have to make any suggested changes to the charter whatsoever, I believe, correct? You don't have to have any ideas of change, period. That's one option. Okay. But if you do make change or changes, what is the deadline for you to send it to the council and the mayor for approval or being rehashed? What is the absolute deadline in order for it to get onto the ballot? And on which year ballot would that be in November?

[Milva McDonald]: We don't have a deadline. Since we are an appointed committee, there is no deadline. In general, 18 months is considered A reasonable amount of time to do this if, if we had gone through the other avenue to charter review and had an elected commission, they would have a deadline and it would be 18 months. So we're currently at about six months, so we don't have a deadline but. You know, we're hoping I mean I think 18 months is a good window, but if we need more time will take more time. And whether you know when it goes on the ballot that's all going to depend on when we finish our work, how long the city council and the mayor sit with it, how long it sits in the legislature, and all that. It would either go on a municipal ballot. If there's a state election, it would have to be a separate ballot because currently the Secretary of State won't allow municipal issues to go on a state ballot on the same ballot. And the other option would be a special election. But of course, those are always problematic for turnout. So all that

[Andrew Castagnetti]: Good explanation. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. And I commend you for who knows how many future hours you're going to be doing this. Good luck.

[Milva McDonald]: Any more comments, questions? Our meetings are generally the first Thursday of every month. We have an extra meeting this month. Our next meeting is June 15th, and then we'll also be meeting on July 6th. Those are our upcoming meetings. Everything is housed at medfordmap.org slash charter study. You can watch every single meeting we've had. You can look at all the materials that have been provided to us from the call-in center. We have handouts on mayor versus city manager. We have the ward precinct information that was referenced earlier. Comparisons of the composition of Medford City Council to surrounding communities, other things as well. Also a whole little memo on the complexity of Medford's charter that I found pretty interesting in case anybody wants to check that out. that explains some of the issues of why Medford's Charter is so inaccessible right now. Yeah, and we will be having more public meetings. We will have a table at Circle the Square on June 17th. We will be at the Farmer's Market, and we'll be looking at other events. We will be interviewing current and former city officials, and we'll also hope to go out to, groups in the city like the senior center, the West Metro Community Center. So we'll be looking at all those those things as well. Um, and would love to hear any ideas that people have about reaching out about anything about the charter, etcetera. Question. Yes, we do. So if you come to our meetings, at the end of every meeting, there's time for public participation. We also have, well, you can email us anytime with comments, and we also have a form on the website, a feedback form that you can fill out to give us feedback. We're in the process of finalizing a survey, and I hope that it will be circulating by the end of the month. Maybe that's a little optimistic, but that's what we're shooting for. It's in the works. Thank you. Um, yeah.

[Ilene Lerner]: Talk to them right now. Talk right into it.

[Anthony Andreottola]: Talk right into it. Hi, it's Anthony again. I just want to ask you, the public, for assistance in the fact that we all know that this is election season. And please, when people campaign and talk about being elected to office, ask them about charter review. Ask them where they stand. Ask them, you know, how they will participate in this process. I think that'll be a great help to us. I hope people can feel comfortable asking people to get involved with us. Thank you all for coming out.

[Ron Giovino]: Really do appreciate you being here too. To some of the points, the reason why the school committee's information is not in our charter is because it rests in the Massachusetts general laws. We're going to try to fix that. We think that personalities need to be, we're not really focused on who's in the seats that we're talking about. Our charter is talking about the seat. And our charter, and we're committed to the fact that the more we get rid of the gray areas in our policies and procedures, the less bickering will be allowed. and the resolution to all those issues so that's that's that's truly our goal and you all helped us with this tonight, and it is, it is the baby step number one. I'm encouraged by what I've heard tonight. And I think that this is a great group of people who will listen, and that's really what we're here for mobile has done an incredible job of putting us together and making sure that that's what we're doing. I mean, we all have opinions, but we're all listening. And that's, that's our goal. You'll hear our opinions as we go through this. And I encourage you to listen to our meetings on zoom, or get the recordings and hear what we're talking about. But it's really, it's a fascinating education that we're getting already in the first six months, but I do appreciate y'all coming.

[Sharon Deyeso]: Just wanted to offer a comment because someone said that they were surprised at the size of the crowd that was here tonight. Being spring people are out doing more things too. And I think because charter was discussed about three or four years ago and even longer. Mr. Carroll knows that too. People just kind of lost track of it. They thought it was almost like a quote dead issue. I did speak to some people today who are quite active in the city, and nothing criticizing you. They just said, we're not going, we give up. They feel it's a ring around the Rosie. You know, that's why I asked what happens when it gets to the mayor's desk, what happens when it gets to the councils. So, I'm hoping that through the meetings, too, is there any way that we will know what has been accepted and rejected at those desks? And also, if you need any participation from us to offer, you know, social spreading and even flyers in some of the communities, you know, feel free to get our names and whatnot. We'd like to help. So, thanks.

[Milva McDonald]: Thank you. Was your question about what's accepted by the city government or what's the discussion among the committee? Was that your question?

[Sharon Deyeso]: Suppose you made 14 changes and the mayor didn't like 10. So she just has the power to just get rid of those or does it come back to you for arbitration? And do we know which ones she's rejecting?

[Milva McDonald]: So I think that should be an open and transparent process. When we complete our final report, we will submit whatever revised charter that we ultimately come up with, along with a written report detailing the process that we used to come to those decisions. And we will make a presentation to the city council, and that will be public. And any deliberation the city council, uses to address it will be public, and anything they vote on will be public. So that should all be very public.

[Sharon Deyeso]: So at that point, it's really out of our hands.

[Milva McDonald]: Yes, and it's out of our hands, too, at that point. Thank you.

[Ron Giovino]: You have a vote. You have a vote. You have a vote. So it's not out of your hands. If you don't like what happens in this process when it gets there or anywhere, you have a vote. So that's our process.

[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, and hopefully at that time, there will be turnout at those meetings and the charter will be, we will do everything in our power to make sure that the draft charter is widely circulated so that people in the city can see it as well and they'll know what's being discussed and what's being voted on so that if residents have thoughts about it, they can connect with the elected officials and let them know. how they want them to respond to it.

[Sharon Deyeso]: Okay, thank you. Good luck with the reading.

[Dixon]: Ben Dixon, 61 Ronald Street. I loved your comment about the issue of elections coming up and talking to the councilors, because they're gonna be, whoever is in this council is gonna be approving what you guys come up with or changing it and getting their opinions about things like word representation, which, On the face of it, they might be against because they're going to lose power if they, if it, this is dropping out, Ward Representation Day, because there's, for example, no Councilors from, I believe, South Medford. There's no Councilors that live in West, East Medford, et cetera. There's parts of the city that aren't represented at all. And so they may or may not lose their, their district, or they will be several of them in one district and none in another. So they'll be running. It'll be changed the dynamics of the council and they may or may not like that. Also, if more Councilors are added to the council we have a very small council compared to other cities. They might not like that either. They'll lose power because there'll be more Councilors. So if in the race, we're asking them what their attitude is towards these issues, that's, I think, a very important thing. I think that's a great point to raise, to sort of bring these issues up in the city council race that's coming up. They are also changing, trying to change the charter a la carte by changing the budgetary process. That's a charter change in essence. And they're trying to just do it, whereas you guys are looking at the whole charter and the balance of power between the mayor in a holistic way, and they're doing a little a la carte, trying to do a little a la carte change, which is another issue that should be raised in the, because they're trying to basically get more power for the council without looking at the whole balance of power. And I think that's a very important issue also that should be raised in the city council race and questions should be asked. Those are my issue. Thank you.

[Milva McDonald]: Thank you. Do we have anyone else on Zoom? Do we have any final questions or thoughts?

[Bill Giglio]: Okay, sorry about that. So I'm in favor of definitely ward representation. I've been in this city for 20 years. I come from a city that has ward representation over in Malden. And then coming here, it was like, it was like a shock. I mean, you don't, there's no, there's no person to go to. You have a question, you email into a pool of seven people and hope that somebody returns your, you know, answers your question or whatever you have. not in their part of the city. There's so many benefits to having ward representation. It brings it down a little smaller. The ward Councilor can do so many things in their little area. I know from Malden, every year there's some sort of a 4th of July in their little section, whoever is representing that. I'm not saying that, but they have their own little way of communicating with their ward. So I'm definitely in favor of ward representation. I know I can't speak as far as money. Council now gets like 30,000 or something in Malden. Each ward represents only it's a big jump. I think it's well worth looking into or definitely exploring ward representation. Thank you. Sorry.

[Milva McDonald]: Any other thoughts or questions? Oh, great.

[Erika Reinfeld]: Hi there, I am also in favor of ward representation combined with at-large. I like the model of having more representation with additional at-large kind of universal candidates. I think Somerville does this and I think it works very well. And then I wanna echo the in-person speaker who said building more transparency into this and timelines that allow for measured public comment and incorporating that knowledge into the process. None of this rushed budgeting at the last minute. I would like to see more presentation. Oh, somebody's vacuuming outside my office. Thank you.

[Milva McDonald]: Thank you. When we heard from the Collins Center on city councils, we did learn that Medford is really in the very small minority, not having ward representation. And the hybrid model that Erica just referenced is by far the norm of a ward. Ward Councilors and a few at large is the most common situation. So that's what we've learned so far about that. Any other questions or thoughts?

[Dixon]: Just on that point, Glenn Dixon, Monument Street, 61 Monument. The number of Councilors for a city this size, is there any data on that as compared to other cities?

[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, we are really the only, there are only, I believe, two other communities that have seven member councils and they're significantly smaller than Medford. So we really are an outlier in that regard as well. Yes. That's right, yes, we have eight wards. So we would have to enlarge the council and actually exclusively ward representation is probably not an option for Medford because we have an even number of wards. So you would be looking at a council of nine or 11 probably to go to ward.

[Sharon Deyeso]: Um, that's all right. Thank you. Um, it could be done. I'm thinking I'm not politically astute on these things, and I don't like to make this as a comparison. This is why the original electoral college was found, because there are some states that have totally different landspans and different amount of populations than others. So if you do that in comparison, you may want to contact some people in other cities who have had a similar problem and how did they, if in fact they were able to, go to ward representation. In other words, ward one may have 500 residents, okay, and ward two may have 7,000. I mean, that's not a good comparison, but then one would have more than the other. So it would, seven could go to nine or nine could be 11. That's, I don't know if that would work, but I'm just making a suggestion. So that would be a little bit of population study. And it would change, but you could also go back and see also from public records and also from registration of voters what the percentage of change may be very, very minor from every two years or something.

[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I mean, the state does set the wards and there's also state, you know, I, I mean one question we asked at our last meeting was whether any, whether having sort of a Councilor having word representation where you have four ward Councilors and each Councilor takes two wards and that's not really done. So that. You know, the question of that's not something that's done. And one of the things, when we talked about the state approving the charter, I mean, they're mostly looking at it to ensure that it complies with state law. That's the main reason they're looking at it. But when you put something in the charter that's unusual, they could question it.

[Sharon Deyeso]: Right. But I think population would be a factor in that in different wads.

[Ron Giovino]: From what we understand, the adjustments like that are not only way above our pay grade, but they're also done at the state level with the Secretary of State. So we don't have, we're not empowered to even suggest that would be your, the state legislation, it's a major, major project. We did receive the demographics description of each ward, and we'll use that because certainly diversity and representation is very, very important to us. But that is not part of what our charter would say. So we would have the option of keeping it at seven, or if we went to ward representation, just from what they've told us, we're looking at probably 11. Because if you had one additional at large, it doesn't promote candidates at large. So if I'm picking my ward, I'm going to be in my ward. But you have to really look at your ward and see how popular you are. then what's in it for me at large? That's why more people do three at large seats, just to justify an odd number of members and at the same time, an open election for more representation. But to answer your question with more words than I needed, it's way up here when they decide to change that. And, but we are looking at, we are looking at the demographics and we'll know what those are. And, and I think there's pluses and minuses, obviously word representation gives you diversity more than at large, but thanks.

[Milva McDonald]: Thanks. We're going to zoom. Yeah.

[Marcia Kirssen]: Marcia? Hi. I'd like to comment on this topic, too, because I do see the problem with wards and at large getting too big. And I think you should really take a serious look at rank choice voting, because it's my understanding that if you have maybe nine councils instead of 11. And I'm not sure how small it can be in actual work, but most people have a choice of theirs. It may not be the first choice, but one of the people they've chosen is on the council when they voted. Does everyone understand what it is? Or should I try to explain it?

[Jean Zotter]: Is the question, do we know what rank choice voting is? Yes. Yes, we know. I think we might want to look at what it would be for Medford and how it might impact the city.

[Milva McDonald]: So rank choice voting doesn't, it can be addressed in the charter, it doesn't have to be addressed in the charter. From what I have, from the information I have gathered, one of the issues about including it in our charter is that it's not done very much. It's not been instituted in very many communities in the state. And it's one of the issues that the state might flag. And we did have a state ballot question on it. And since Medford, Medford voted in favor. When you look at the breakdown of how Medford voted on rank choice voting, there was a majority, but it wasn't a large majority. And so we don't really know how the state would respond if that were put into the charter, but it has been raised here by more than one or two people. So it's definitely something we will look at.

[Marcia Kirssen]: I think maybe it's not something that is immediately obvious to voters. And possibly the low response was because not everyone understood it yet. Although there could be many other reasons. They don't like it. I don't know. That's something to think about. What was the reason for the lower acceptance of it?

[Milva McDonald]: Thank you. OK, do any committee members have any sort of final thoughts that they'd like to share? Anybody? Yes. Yes, thank you so much for coming. Yes, and please be in touch with us. Come to more of our meetings. And thanks again. Good night.