[Milva McDonald]: All right, welcome to the February 1st, 2024 meeting of the Method Charter Study Committee. Hopefully we will have some other committee members join us as in the next few minutes, but we do have a quorum, so we're going to get started. Let's start with the reviewing and accepting the minutes from the January meeting. Has everyone had a chance to look at those?
[Eunice Browne]: Um, I just had 1 question. Okay. And maybe, you know, now that we're doubling up on monthly meetings, maybe this is planned for, um, uh, the mid February meeting. Um, there was an entry, uh. Just down near the bottom part of next meeting's agenda will be to identify major issues not yet tackled and form subcommittees to address them.
[Milva McDonald]: That was in the January minutes. Yep, I think it was the one brought up last time. Okay. So, and can you just explain why you're questioning, I mean, are you questioning that it should be in the minutes or what's your question?
[Eunice Browne]: No, not questioning that it's in the minutes, I guess, just, you know, wondering, I didn't see it on the agenda for this time around.
[Milva McDonald]: We can talk about that as part of next meetings.
[Eunice Browne]: OK. Other than that, I move approval of the minutes.
[Maury Carroll]: I'll second them.
[Eunice Browne]: OK.
[Milva McDonald]: All in favor?
[Maury Carroll]: Aye.
[Milva McDonald]: Aye. Great. OK. All right. So that's good. I really would like more people here before we start on the next topic, but let's start on it anyway. There is an announcement I need to make, but I want more people here before I make the announcement.
[Ron Giovino]: Milva, can I ask a question?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: Have we heard from other members who are not here that they're not coming, or are we just not hearing from them?
[Milva McDonald]: Nobody told me they're not coming, and at least one person told me he is coming, so I'm assuming he's just late. But nobody has told me they're not coming, so I expect that people will be here.
[Eunice Browne]: And there's nobody in the waiting room?
[Milva McDonald]: No.
[Eunice Browne]: Strange.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. And the link is not different or anything. So hopefully, hopefully we will get some people. Okay, so last meeting, we approve the language that you see here in green. We approved that language. The issue of whether the city council should also have the ability to confirm department ads was thrown back to the subcommittee.
[Eunice Browne]: Milfo, I'm sorry, can I interrupt you and answer your meeting question? I apologize. Paulette just texted me. Are you in the meeting? I'm getting host has locked this meeting. Oh, that's weird.
[Maury Carroll]: Okay. I'm seeing the same thing from my David.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, let me see what's going on with that. That's very odd.
[Maury Carroll]: I think David and Jean are in the same situation.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, I am going to try to figure out how to fix that. I unlocked it.
[Danielle Balocca]: However, I don't know how it got locked, but people should be able to get in now. Or I can reply to the email and let them know. I'm doing it right now. Oh, thanks, Maureen. OK.
[Milva McDonald]: We should start seeing the waiting room fill ups. I apologize. I mean, I think maybe just accidentally hovering over a menu item can sometimes do that. OK, here comes David. Sorry for jumping in there. Oh, no, I have to wait a minute. No, no. Thank you for jumping in. Now I have to make a post. Here we go. And hopefully we'll get a couple other people. Oh, here we go. Here comes Francis. Sorry about this. The meeting got locked accidentally. I apologize to the people who But thank you for making contact so we could figure out the problem and let you all in. All right. Okay, welcome, everybody. I think everybody's able to speak now. I think everyone's been given the proper permissions. I'll do it for Jean. And we're good to go. Okay. So Just to give everybody an update who just arrived, we did start the meeting and all we've done so far is accept the minutes. So hopefully, because we did have a quorum and we were able to do that piece of business. I did want to make an announcement before we move on to the next agenda item. And that is that John has had to step down from the committee because of family and work responsibilities. But fortunately, we have an alternate need. And so we're good to go. Okay. Everybody's muted by choice, right? I've given everybody the ability to speak, right? Okay. All right. So our next, so we were about to dive into the, here, I'm going to share this screen again. The question of confirmation authority for department heads. Last meeting, the text that you see in green was approved by the committee and The question of whether department heads should be added to this confirmation power was thrown back to the subcommittee and the subcommittee was basically split on that. And so we're just bringing it back to the whole committee to determine whether, as you can see, there's only three words in red added, but it would add, it would give the city council the power to confirm department heads as well as members of multiple member bodies, committees and commissions. So I will just open the floor for discussion. I have a question.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, Paula. Okay, so I'm applying for as a department head. And I've gone through the whole interview process. And now I've been told I've gotten the job. And then I'm told but it's contingent on the vote of the city council. Why would I bother?
[Milva McDonald]: Well, that's a good question. In this case, I don't think, I mean, they wouldn't vote. They would just have the power to reject the appointment by two-thirds vote. But it's 30 days. But I hear your point.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I hear your point. You've got, you know, let's take a department where it's tough to get someone to apply for that position. I'll just do housing, okay, just out of whatever. And now you're going to say, okay, you've got the job, and the person's all excited, and they've got another offer from another community.
[Andreottola]: okay and they're but they're willing to take the medford job but now you've made a contingent on but you're not going to be officially appointed to 30 day for 30 days that's not real okay um understood good point okay anthony and then i'm gonna go to ron and units anthony uh first i i remembered uh the last meeting i had suggested and i had actually have had some conversation with folks in the administration and before we i go into my comments. Have we talked to the mayor's office, the chief of staff about this? Did we get their feedback? No, no. Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, we're not making, yeah, we're making, we're not, we haven't made the decision. We're discussing it right now and tonight, hopefully we're gonna make the decision one way or the other.
[Andreottola]: Well, I would say we shouldn't even make the decision until that conversation's had actually, They would very much like to give us feedback on this topic, because it is something that they feel very strongly about. So I really think we need to hear from the administration before we would take a vote. on this, at least to hear their side of it. I know the city council wants more power and I know these department head appointments can be quite political and they have been used as political weapons in the past and I in no way want to be have the charter kind of have that continue in the city. I think it's shown to be a problem in the past, just the relationship between uh, the city council getting involved with department heads and, uh, in the mayor's office in the administration. And it really affects the, uh, the ability of the department had to do their job before it, having it become kind of, uh, becoming political weapons. So I really think we have to hear from the administration before we move on with this one way or the other.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Thank you. Ron?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I respectfully disagree with what Anthony says. I think that we obviously know the view from the mayor's office and versus the view of the city clerk's office. I think we understand the power that's involved here. I also think that it's time to move this issue. So we need to vote on this tonight.
[Andreottola]: No, we don't need to vote on it tonight.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, that's my opinion, Anthony. So let me just while I have the time, this is my opinion that we can't, you know, the fall is when this ends for us. So we're going to put some a lot of issues on board to wait for the mayor's office to respond to us just seems to put up a lot of time that we just don't have. My question is, I'd like to hear from the committee what their what's the upsides and downsides that they've gone through. I mean, I have an opinion on this and I'm ready to vote on it, but if the committee could explain the addition of the item in red and what the issues were that the committee uncovered when they had their vote.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you, Ron.
[Andreottola]: I'd like to speak to that, please. just for point of information in our last meeting it was when it was sent back to committee i know for reflecting the minutes that inquiring with the administration was one of the things that the committee as a whole requested of the subcommittee but the subcommittee chose not to pursue that so i i just want to make that clear
[Milva McDonald]: OK, thank you, Anthony. I think I want to hear from Eunice and Jean and Maury, but Maury and David were in part of the conversation. So Maury, I'll let you speak and then we'll hear from David.
[Maury Carroll]: Okay, thank you. I'm going to go back to basically Paulette reiterated my whole statement and sentiments on this. I believe that the mayor is the executive of the city and he or she is the operating Has he has to deal with the day to day operations of the city. Their appointment should be. given to go forward as far as I'm concerned. To have it come in front of the city council and have someone be appointed against whoever the executive is of the city, I believe it weakens the executive's position of being able to be the manager of the city. I believe that the city council, should have really no stay in the appointments.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, thank you. David?
[David Zabner]: Yeah, so I guess I'll lead off by just saying what I'm hearing from folks sounds a little bit different than my understanding of what this reads to say. So to start off, this does not give the City Council any ability to suggest their own candidate. It does not give them any ability to appoint their own candidate. It does not give them any ability to fire somebody who has previously gone through this confirmation process, right? So, to start off, the power that this gives to the city council, I think, is fairly limited. All it allows them to do is, if they feel that the mayor has appointed somebody to a position of a lot of power in the city for probably four years minimum, If they aren't fans of that appointment, it gives them the chance to block it. And I think two-thirds majority is a fairly large hurdle to that. It doesn't require them to vote in any way, right? Like, if they do nothing, the appointment takes place. And to be honest, I plan to vote yes on this change. It's not something I feel very, very strongly about. You won't hear me, I think, probably speaking five or six times in support of this over the course of the evening, or even probably a second time after this. I think this really just boils down to Without this, the mayor has the power to appoint somebody that the city council does not like for 4 full years, right? Because that's how long or 2 years, whatever it is, however long the mayoral term is. with no check on that power. And this is just a small check on that power. That's kind of how I view it. I don't think that in any way it's going to get in the way of the mayor being the boss. The mayor retains full power to remove these people as they wish, with no permission from anybody. It keeps them with full permission to decide who they want to nominate, who they want to put into that position, with this very small caveat, in my mind. Yeah, so that's I think I was the one who insisted we kind of bring this back to the full committee. The last thing I'll say is, Anthony, it sounds like you feel that the mayor would be strongly against this. I agree personally that I think we should vote on it today. I agree with Ron on that. And I think if the mayor wants to let us know why their office feels so strongly about this, we can always bring it back up again in a later meeting. If new evidence arises, if new information comes forward, none of our decisions are final until we send this whole thing to the city council or the mayor as complete. So that's me.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you. Thank you, David.
[Eunice Browne]: Eunice? Go ahead, Anthony, that's okay.
[Andreottola]: Just in response, the mayor and the administration would like to speak on this, and since, you know, in our last meeting, it's something that, you know, we as a committee sent back to the subcommittee, and why wouldn't we? Why wouldn't we? We're supposed to be getting input before we make decisions, not after. You know, why are we doing this?
[Milva McDonald]: We have had input we have had input in some interviews, um on The topic we've heard from some department we've heard from we interviewed some department heads and so it's not like we've had no input And are we going to share that It's all in the it's all in the it's all in the interviews folder, but there it it was in line with the concerns about similar to the concerns Paulette was raising, that it could discourage people from applying. That was a concern that we heard from one department head.
[Eunice Browne]: Eunice. I'll touch on sort of from the approach that Maury had and the approach that Paula had to sort of different vantage points. From the, you know, perspective Maury had from the mayoral perspective, I think it does weaken or undermine the mayoral authority. I don't think department heads And anything having to do with department heads has any place in the city council at all. So, I, I feel very strongly that this needs to be removed. You know, so from that perspective, I think it undermines the mayor's authority from the point of view as Paulette came at it from if I were a candidate and I have to sit and wait for the city council to approve. I would wonder, even though I work for the mayor, and that is what my job description says, what my chain of command says, I would have some questions in the back of my mind about what is the chain of command here? Who is the boss, actually? whether my, what do you call it, the stock org chart or whatever says, and it says the mayor is, it's optics. Partially optics and partially, when I'm a department head and I'm coming before them at budget season or to request funds mid-year or for any of the other dozens of reasons that we've seen department heads come before the council, I feel very uncomfortable if I knew that the city council had a hand in whether I was standing there or not. I'm not in favor of this at all.
[Milva McDonald]: All right, thank you. Eunice, Jean.
[Jean Zotter]: I guess I'm falling in line with different people. We've heard pretty strongly through the survey, listening sessions and meetings that people want to realign the balance of power. And there aren't many ways to do that in the charter. The executive body has most of the power. This is one of the few ways that we can do it. I see this more as the city council can reject someone that the mayor proposes, but there's no change in who the department head responds to. It's just basically a sign off. I do wonder if we could get more information, sort of follow up with Anthony on what the employment process is. Because I worked for state government and I hired a lot of people. And it took a long time to hire. There were multiple layers of things that had to get approved. I'm assuming in that time, if it also went to city council, while they're doing all the other employment processes, it may not actually affect the timeline that much. But I would be concerned that if we did this and we already are having trouble hiring good department heads, if it would discourage some people from applying. So I would like to know that. I would like to know not what is whether the mayor wants this or not, but what is the employment process and how might this fit into the employment process? And is it a significant deterrent or a significant delay, time delay? So I'm leaning in favor of this because I feel like this is what we've heard people want. I think city council wants this also, so they may put it in themselves when this comes before them, but yeah, that's it.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you, Jean. Paulette.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So when the school committee makes, when there's certain appointments that are made by the superintendent, There are certain ones, let's say a principal. What happens is the superintendent sets up an interview session, which the members attend. We don't get to vote. We don't get to say, hey, and we might see two candidates, we might see three candidates. We don't get to vote. But there's an opportunity for the committee members to learn about that candidate and to give some feedback to the superintendent. And I certainly recall one time we had somebody come in, the superintendent, the prior superintendent was ready to appoint him when it came and interviewed and faced, frankly, you know, the public, if you would. The appointment fell apart and we the superintendent changed his mind. and went out again for someone else. What I'm really trying to get at this is not to say let's duplicate that process, but why are we doing it in this way? If we want to get more cooperation between the city council and the mayor's office, why aren't we being more creative in saying, hey, when it comes to appointing department heads, we're going to do a different process that gives the city council a seat at the table at the time of the interviews, you know, so that there can be a better discussion between the city council and and the mayor. So I've just put that on the table and say, are we really being creative enough if we're doing this? Because I truly have a very grave concern about making someone applying for a job wait for 30 days. The other point I just want to mention is that Phyllis and I are going to see the mayor next Wednesday to discuss specifically school committee issues. But if there was something that you wanted us to have feedback before the next meeting such as this, we certainly could ask her directly about this. sorry, since we already have an appointment set up.
[Milva McDonald]: Great. Thank you, Paula. Maury. You're muted, Maury.
[Maury Carroll]: I think we've all brought up good points here. I'd like to move, I'm gonna do what Ron said. I'd like to move the question on this and see where this goes. And other suggestions, just like Paulette made and other folks, Anthony and so forth would like to add. We can bring them up at a later date. But at this point, I think we should move the question and move forward. We have a big agenda and we've gone through this long enough.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so you're going to make a motion. Okay, before you make the motion, I just want to check and see if anybody else has anything to say because we had decided we were going to invite members of the public to speak after the agenda items. So I want to just see if there's any member of the public that wants to speak on this. Okay, so if you want to make a motion, Maury.
[Maury Carroll]: I would like a motion to deny this motion. I'm voting no on this motion.
[Milva McDonald]: So you're making a motion to not include department heads.
[Maury Carroll]: That's correct.
[Milva McDonald]: Hang on, let me just get in. I don't have the exact section number there, but do not include department heads in language about city council confirmation power.
[Maury Carroll]: That's correct.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[David Zabner]: I'll second that motion, reiterating that a yes vote in this case is to not include the department head's language.
[Maury Carroll]: That's how the motion is.
[Milva McDonald]: I'd like to amend the motion if Maury would like to just
[Andreottola]: deny this until a later date? Because maybe it does make sense, but I want the feedback from the administration. And I wanted some questions about how this would be impacted by collective bargaining. If the people are union members, if you're promoting a union member, can they go before the city council? Like, What, you know, are we opening a Pandora's box? I want, I just want more information before the vote. So I'd like to deny it for now, but I don't want to make it a hard, no, hard never, because maybe it will ultimately end up in the, in the charter, but I'd like it to be fleshed out more.
[Ron Giovino]: Just a point of information, Milva. The process that we're in involves nothing goes anywhere before it gets in front of the city council and the mayor's office. So the mayor's office has the ultimate, getting her opinion, and I think we know what the opinion is, does not stop us from making our recommendations. Because it has to go across the city council and the mayor's office before it even goes to the state house.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, okay, so we have a motion on the floor and the motion is to not include department heads in the language about city council confirmation power. And then we, I think Anthony, you're less of an amendment as a request to.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Yeah, can I can I request an amendment to fix to flip the language. Yes, that is included. Yes, so
[Milva McDonald]: Aubrey, does anybody have a second to Aubrey's amendment, which is- I'll second that as well. Okay, thank you. So right now the motion on the floor is to include department heads in the language about city council confirmation and confirmation power. And I think, Anthony, we can, I think it was already been pointed out that You know, we can change our minds at a later date if we get more information, but I want to go ahead with the vote and that will also give us a sense of kind of where the committee is at on this.
[Maury Carroll]: So Melva, go back on that again. So what's that vote now?
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so the motion is to include department heads in language about city council confirmation power, which means that if you vote yes, you want to give the city council the ability to confirm or deny appointment heads.
[Andreottola]: I want to second Maury's original motion to strike it.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, this is the same motion, it's just a different, it's just, it's a little easier to- No, no, no, it's not, really, no. Well, you're just voting yes or no the other direction.
[Maury Carroll]: make sure we get it right. Yeah, I know. Accept the way that that it's written that you've shown us on the split screen.
[Milva McDonald]: When I say all in favor, it means that you want the city council to have the power to confirm department heads.
[Maury Carroll]: Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Maury Carroll]: So that would be a yes vote if you want that? Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: So if you are in favor of giving City Council the confirmation power, say aye or raise your hand.
[Danielle Balocca]: Can I ask one quick question?
[Milva McDonald]: Sure.
[Danielle Balocca]: The way that David was describing it and the way that it's being talked about, I'm just a little confused. It's automatically that they would have to approve or deny department heads, or they would have the option to do that if they had a problem?
[Milva McDonald]: They would have the option to deny. If they did nothing, nothing would happen. I mean, the department head would just take the job. This only would give them the ability to, within 30 days, say, you know what, we're denying this. Thank you. All right, so a yes vote. A vote in favor right now means you want to give the city council the ability to do that. So all in favor.
[Maury Carroll]: Roll call vote.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, Danielle. Yes. Eunice. No. Ron.
[Ron Giovino]: No.
[Milva McDonald]: Aubrey. Paulette. No. Jean.
[Jean Zotter]: Now I'm confused. A yes vote is to keep the department head in?
[Milva McDonald]: Is to give the city council the ability to deny the vote.
[Jean Zotter]: Because I thought that's what, Ron, you said you were in favor of earlier. So I was confused by Ron's vote. Did you change your mind?
[Ron Giovino]: No, I think we're just getting the question confused. Milva's made it as simple as possible. Yes means you want the city council to have involvement in those choices. No means you don't. And I do not want
[Jean Zotter]: Okay, I thought you said you did. Okay. Yeah. All right. Yes. I'm a yes. Okay. David?
[Maury Carroll]: I'm a yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Maury?
[Andreottola]: No.
[Milva McDonald]: Anthony?
[Andreottola]: No.
[Milva McDonald]: And I am also vote no. So I didn't miss anybody, right? There's only nine of us here tonight. So that's no, three in favor and six opposed, so we will strike that.
[Ron Giovino]: Isn't there ten of us?
[Milva McDonald]: I know, so that's what I'm trying to say. I think you missed Aubrey's.
[Maury Carroll]: No.
[Milva McDonald]: I know there were only three yeses. Oh, I see what I did. I put the line through five little marks instead of five. I mean, four, you know what I mean.
[Adam Hurtubise]: It's okay, we got it.
[Milva McDonald]: So, seven, again, opposed and three in favor. So, we will take out those three words and we'll move on to the next agenda item, which is term links for mayor and city council. So, I sent out a bunch of material, which included the current charter language, charter language from other charters, the public feedback we've received, have people had a chance to look at that?
[Andreottola]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. And also just sort of some, well, I didn't call them pro-cons, but just, I guess, what you might call them pros and cons.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So I will open the floor for discussion.
[Milva McDonald]: thoughts, and we're discussing mayor and city council tonight, so we could break it down and do mayor first. What are we talking? Term lengths or term limits? Term lengths. David?
[David Zabner]: Yeah, I say that we start on city council first, because I imagine that'll be a little less, there'll be a little less disagreement there.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[David Zabner]: And I just want to say that personally, I think the two-year terms for city councilors is great. I can very much see the argument for why we might want four-year terms for councilors at large, especially given that they'll be running much larger, more expensive campaigns. Again, I don't have super strong feelings on that one way or the other, but I can see why there would be a good argument for those at-large campaigns to be every four years.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, thank you, yeah. And that was the other piece that the subcommittee thought that four years for the three at large and two years for the wards would make sense, although it is not commonly done, but we did find at least one community that does it, which is Framingham. So it is, there is a precedent for it.
[Andreottola]: Thoughts? I'm sorry.
[Milva McDonald]: Go ahead, Anthony, and then Jean.
[Andreottola]: Just just just real quickly, you know, Framingham stuck out to me because Framingham is, you know, really the model that that I personally like. I know it's not up to me and it's not my city, but I really kind of like the idea how Framingham set it up with the districts, the war. So you have two-year district Councilors, four-year at-large Councilors, 12-year term limits. I'd love to hear from someone in Framingham how it's working, just because it just seems like something comparable that they're a city maybe a little bit bigger than Medford. I was just wondering how it works, if it works well there or not.
[Milva McDonald]: Jean, I think you had your hand and then we'll go to Eunice. Go ahead, Jean.
[Jean Zotter]: I like the Framingham model also with the at-large four years and the ward at two. I did wonder about, did you talk about staggering? I know for school committee, that's something that's being discussed. I don't know if there's the same issues of if you have a big turnover of people, whether you lose some of the institutional knowledge, it seems like city council has a lot of the same layers. So maybe that's not as much needed as it is in school committee where it seemed like the school felt like they were always having to work with new people. Yeah. So I don't have you thought of staggered?
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, you know, we Yes, that I think there was one example, language from one charter, and it was also mentioned in the memo from the call and center. And they gave the example of Melrose school committee, half of its members elected at each election. So But I don't think it's common because it presents complexities.
[Jean Zotter]: You couldn't stagger the ward because they're every two years, so that's not staggered. Right. You could stagger the at-large, I was thinking, but that's only three members that we have right now. I don't know if it makes sense. I was just wanting to have that conversation, I guess.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. I think when we talked about it with the city clerk, who had been the elections manager in the past, you know, there was just comments about how complicated it could make the elections process. So, okay, Eunice.
[Eunice Browne]: you know, mentioned Framingham, aren't they newly marked as a city? So maybe their charter is brand new and this is, you know, if they've only been at this a couple of years, then maybe they're just trying to figure out what works and what doesn't work. Maybe they don't quite know that yet.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I think you are correct that it's a relatively new charter.
[Eunice Browne]: Right, exactly something that they may not have had at all before. So they, the jury might still be out on whether things are working well or not. As for my comments is they relate to Medford. I guess I would lean towards the two year terms for city council. I do wonder though, I know that this has come up in the school committee subcommittee and. Was addressed with Paulette and Phyllis talking with the superintendent where she felt strongly that 4 year terms for the school committee, because once they get in there, you know, there's no consistency. They spend 1 year working another year campaigning. and then there could be turnover and so forth. So she feels very strongly, and if I'm paraphrasing their conversation with the super correctly, that she supports four-year terms. Could the same argument be made for city council where they get in, they work for a year, they campaign for a year and It's like, every time you turn around, you're sort of starting over building new relationships and so forth. So. I I'm ambivalent right now. I'd like to kind of hear how what the superintendent is saying regarding the school committee. applies, does that, you know, apply to city council as well? And I'd also, you know, be thinking about staggered terms as well. I find it very alarming that most of the institutional knowledge on city council right now is gone. And there's frankly not much institutional knowledge on the school committee either. So, you know, finding a way to, you know, make sure that that's not happening, you know, is also something that I would be thinking about as well.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Thanks. Just in terms of, you know, the school, this concern with the school committee. I, I don't, I can't really speak to it that knowledgeably. But I, I think if we look at what the job of city council is, which is to approve to vote on the budget and to write ordinances. I don't know that they would have the same zoning right. I don't know that they have the same sort of long-term project. type of work that other bodies have, but I could be wrong about that. It's just that's my gut, but okay. Maury and then Ron.
[Maury Carroll]: I'm looking at it differently. I'm looking at not as our city council exists today with seven members at large. I'm looking at that. We've already said that we're supporting a ward alderman type where the ward representative every two years, as David said, I'm 300 percent behind what he said, that the individual wards, every two years, and your ultimate lodge for the entire city would be every four years. To me, it makes sense to do it that way. But like everybody else has said, I'm open to listening to everybody else. So that's my two cents.
[Milva McDonald]: OK, thanks, Maury. And I just wanted to throw out that maybe in some sense that creates a feel of staggered terms as well.
[Maury Carroll]: Exactly.
[Milva McDonald]: OK, Ron.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, just first off, the school committee issue is still in subcommittee. So I don't think we should really be discussing the impact of that yet. Well, we haven't even gotten to that point yet. But on this issue with at large being four years, I think you have to be concerned about a balance of power in that you're going to have a city council with 11 members, and three of those members will be guaranteed to go through a process of four years. And when planning is being done and options are being done, you're going to have eight councillors racing to get in through their two, while the three fours are not under that pressure. I think we've made a major compromise by going toward representation, to lower campaign costs, make it more accessible, make it more diverse, make it more representative of the total population. To go to four, to me, just creates a lopsided imbalance. To me, it's either all 11 go four or all 11 go two. I think when you have, you know, you're creating a, leadership tenure that you may not want to have in regard to that. It's just my opinion. I'm for the two-year length of term, basically because of our ability to go to ward representation and know that the campaigns are going to be a lot easier to run once you're running in your ward.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you. Phyllis?
[Phyllis Morrison]: You're muted. I was trying to unmute myself. I'm sorry I'm late. I had a very sad thing happening at my former school and I was dealing with some people there so I apologize for my lateness. You know, I've been giving this a lot of thought about the two-year v the four-year term and I know we're not going to talk about the school subcommittee yet but some of the things that we talked about there was Two years, it doesn't seem like enough time to really get traction on some of the things that need to be done. And I think that's something that would be evident in both the council and any type of committee. I just think that two years is too short a term. I know we don't wanna go to three. I know there was talked about that and I know there was staggering. And if we're going towards, Why wouldn't it? To me, that would even be the balance of power thing that Ron was talking about. If we're going to wards and we're going to have each ward represented, I just think it makes more sense, in my understanding, for a four-year term. If we can't do three, I'd rather have four so that people can go through all of the things. Like if we have to start projects and some people are leaving and some people are being elected and doing this, that's just my honest two cents. I think two years is too short a term.
[Jean Zotter]: Thank you. I just wanted to, because I think what the superintendent told The group that's working on the school committee is similar to the city, just from reading Alicia Hunt's feedback, where she said two-year terms are problematic, particularly for the mayor, because government moves slowly, significant projects can take more than two years to complete, and a new mayor and or city council can throw a wrench into that process. Longer terms for city council would also help with efficiency, particularly if they're staggered. So that's partly just want to remind people that we did hear a little bit from some city government and that was their input.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you for that. Phyllis, did you want to say something else?
[Phyllis Morrison]: Right. At one of the other meetings, also the assistant superintendent stated his concern with the two-year terms, how a lot couldn't get done. things might just start going, and then they'd have a whole new crew come in, and they'd have to be learning all the processes again, too. So we heard not only from the superintendent. I wasn't on that interview, Paula. It was someone else. But we did hear from the assistant superintendent on the public Medford School Zoom meeting that we had. And he echoed that same sentiment.
[Milva McDonald]: OK. Thank you. Thank you.
[Andreottola]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Anthony, was that you?
[Andreottola]: Yes. I'm a little confused about this two-year, four-year and the staggering. just about the elections as well. We have November elections every two years. If you go into a staggered term, would that mean elections every year? Would they be in November? Would some city councilors run during the state election or presidential election years? There's a matter of fairness too. And if we go to wards and there's, we don't even know what kind of, you know, voting will happen in certain wards. We might have tiny, tiny turnouts. And if there's only an election for a couple of ward Councilors, when there's not a mayor or a mayor, a mayor election, you know, are we going to get any turnout? You know, like there were things that, you know, there were moving pieces that we're not able to kind of, you know, correct for. or maybe we need to explore them a little bit deeper before we make a decision. And also the one good thing about the two-year term for the city council is that it is a part-time job. And, you know, when you have people, you know, who have, you know, have careers and have the skills and expertise to take on something like the city council, make a four-year commitment, you know, might not be as attractive to someone where say, well, you know, I can do this for two years. I can be a public servant that can help my community. I'll run for two years, but four years is, you know, a big time commitment. And I don't know what goes through candidates' minds, but I would think that that might, you know.
[Milva McDonald]: No, and we have actually heard that from some people. Thank you for bringing that up. Okay, Danielle.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, it's actually going to make a really similar point. That's something that stuck with me from some of our discussions was this, like, accessibility of of running for city council when it's when you're only committing to 2 years. I know it's time me. So, and then. The choice in that Framingham model, the choice to run for your ward or a city or at large. When we're thinking about 2 years for ward representation, 4 years for at large, I think that can give people a little bit of a choice of how to decide which way to run if they really are thinking that they have the time and resources to commit to a longer term. Um, longer term term, and I think we've seen. Like, evidence that people aren't really voted out of city council, the way that we have. That that things are set up right now, people are just choosing to leave and I think that they're or that's how their terms have ended. And I think a great example is somebody like Nicole where, like, life circumstance made it so, like. made the job sort of inaccessible for her at the time. So that's what I assume. But so like, I think that that's a that's realistic, right? If people if we're saying you have to serve for four years, I think that's going to eliminate a lot of people for a lot of different reasons.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. All right. Thank you. Maury and then Eunice.
[Maury Carroll]: I'm going to go back. Let me try to help out. Anthony, I think the election cycle would still say the same, whether it be two years or four years. More would be eligible in the second four-year would be the local ward representatives, as well as the at-large. And then on the two-year following, it would strictly be the individual wards. But looking at that, it should not have any kind of an influence what it's having because it's going to stay on the same year turnover for municipal elections. So I don't see a problem with that at all.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. And the thing that would make it overlap with state elections is if we were looking at three-year terms, which we have not so far done.
[Andreottola]: But the point I was trying to make is that If we had, you know, the mayor at four years and the at large Councilors at four years, and they all ran at the same time.
[Maury Carroll]: But right now they're doing that already. Every two years, you have the mayor and the city council and school committee all running on the same municipal ballot.
[Andreottola]: Right, and we can't get any people to get out and vote at one time. But now, just say the mayor and the at-large councillors are running for four years. So the ward councillors run every two years, so we'd only have a ward councillor election. And we're still having that every other year.
[Maury Carroll]: For them, at large, running for the entire city would be every fourth year. And if the mayor, whether we decide to go two years or four years, would fall into that category also.
[Andreottola]: Right, but there'd be a two year where the only ward people would run.
[Milva McDonald]: Right, if we went with this model and it came to pass. That is right. Okay, Eunice, and then Ron, and then Paula.
[Eunice Browne]: A couple of things. I think in terms of what Maury and Anthony have been talking about with us, I think it would be helpful to me if I could see some sort of graph or picture of it. I'm a little bit more of a visual person to figure out when things occur and obviously anytime that you'd have like a state or presidential election, it's going to bring out a whole lot more people. So we have to think about that. But to go back to what Danielle said, I think she's got a good point. If you're, if somebody has to commit to a four year term and life happens, If you're in a two-year term and your life circumstances, for whatever reason, change maybe midway through your term, maybe you can, and maybe this is what happened to morale, who knows, but that, okay, I can, I can deal for another year and then I'm just gonna walk away, you know, knowing that you sort of have, okay, it's only another year I can manage and then that's it. But if you are midway through a four year term and your circumstances change, it's a little bit harder to suck it up and deal for two more years than, you know, you might either resign midway through if your circumstances dictate that, or, you know, that's another pull almost what is a term now to deal until you can, you know, walk away. And then the other thing that I think you need to think about is how this would relate to term limits. If you've got, you know, a four-year term and we do, how many do you do then term limits, you know, looking at city council, two terms, and that would put, you know, Councilor X potentially in office for eight years. And maybe after a period of time, Councilor X isn't effective. then we're sort of stuck with Councilor X for two terms. Whereas doing shorter terms, I think, as they relate to term limits, I think works a little bit better. So that's my thought. Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: Ron.
[Ron Giovino]: So just a reminder that this committee has already voted to do ward representation, which has changed the dynamics of how we vote in this city going forward if it gets passed and becomes part of the charter. Secondly, part of that decision to go with ward representation was to make the voting more local, make it more friendly, and make the voters feel more involved in their government. If you go from uh, with eight, two year and three, four years, you're, you're causing a scenario that makes them different. You know, it makes, it makes you different. So if I'm, I'm West, my West Medford guy is there, but I know that that large guy is going to be there for four years. I just think four years is too much, and it needs to be balanced. I think everybody on the council needs to be in the same boat. Then you have every two years, you have an election for eight ward reps. Then the next two years, you have it for the entire council. We want to make voter-friendly elections, not, well, who's running this year? I don't know who's running this year. I can't find it. It's like finding an NFL game on a Sunday night. You know, where the heck is the game? So that's why I want to keep it simple. And I think we've done a monumental job of going toward representation that ensures that the citizens have a local personal attachment to their leadership. So my opinion will be to stick to two years for all of them.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you, Ron.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Paulette. Yeah, I just wanted to say that no matter two or four, one of the things we should be doing in this charter is spelling out the process for replacement of a member who has to step down for whatever reason.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, agreed. Okay, Maury, did you have something else you wanted to say? No, no, I'm sorry, I'm all set. That's okay. Okay, so I just wanted to just, this was on our sheet, but I just wanted to throw out, you know, based on our survey, a majority, more people thought that we should not increase city council terms to four years. But I mean, it was 54.5% said no, and 32% said yes, and about 11% weren't sure, and three had no opinion. So just throwing that out there. So it's not a huge majority, but definitely a majority.
[Eunice Browne]: Is that accounting for all the new surveys that have come in over the past two or three days?
[Milva McDonald]: That was a few days ago. When we have our meeting on the 15th, we're going to have a whole, a report on the survey results. We'll get the final numbers then. Okay, so I want to just maybe shift gears and start throwing in discussion of the mayor's term. We've talked about, it sounds, my sense is that there's some interest in doing four years.
[Ron Giovino]: Point of information, are we tabling the length of term for the city council or are we, I mean, I think we should just either
[Milva McDonald]: You want you want to?
[Ron Giovino]: Okay, I just want to separate because the mayor, the city council and the school committee are totally separate. So either we can table it or we can move to vote on it. I'm prepared to do either.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, well, some people are interested in the interaction, but I'm fine if you want to make a motion to vote.
[Ron Giovino]: No, don't get me wrong. I love the interaction. The issue that I'm having is I don't want to confuse the city council piece that we've just finished talking about with now moving to the mayor's piece without closing a door and moving one off the table.
[Maury Carroll]: That's my- Okay, Maury? I agree with Ron 300%. Let's clean up this issue before he goes and wants to move on it.
[Andreottola]: Okay. Tell me how you're going to do it. I'd like to make a motion that we keep the city council term to two years. Because, just to kind of justify my motion, because of the transition to ward-based representation that that it's gonna be a transition, and we want it to be as smooth as possible. When we're starting to change, some two years, some four years, some running this time, some running at a different time, let's just get the ward representation done and keep it to two years for now. And who knows, maybe in the future it'll change, but my motion is to keep it at two years for now.
[Milva McDonald]: So we'll need a second, but I also see- I'd like to amend that.
[Maury Carroll]: Okay. Go ahead, Amanda. I'd like to keep the ward alderman representation at two years and the alderman at large at four years.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, that would be a total different amendment. You have Anthony's vote, and if Anthony's vote fails, then you have your vote. But you can't amend that vote without making it a vote.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. So I guess we'll keep. First, I just want to hear what Aubrey has to say before we finish the motion.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Just a quick preference that I'm fine with having this city council and the mayor's conversation separately, but I like having the term limits. And term links conversation together because I think those are highly related.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Okay, so Aubrey would like to bring term limits into this term length discussion about the city council, but we do have a motion to keep the terms of all- I'm going to second that motion. And David is seconding it. So I think we're just going to have to go ahead and vote on that. The motion is to keep city council terms at two years. All 11 city councilors. So I'm going to do a roll call vote. Danielle? Yes. Eunice? Yes. Ron?
[Ron Giovino]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Paulette? Yes. Jean? Yes. Phyllis?
[Phyllis Morrison]: No.
[Milva McDonald]: Aubrey? Yes. Maury.
[Maury Carroll]: No.
[Milva McDonald]: Daveed.
[Maury Carroll]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Anthony.
[Jean Zotter]: No. Did Anthony already vote? Well, it was his motion, so I don't know. Does that mean that's his vote? I think.
[Andreottola]: I'm sorry. I have to press the bar to speak. Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. I'll also vote yes. So that's nine in favor, two opposed. So the motion to keep two-year terms for city councilors carries.
[Jean Zotter]: Melva, did we open that up to public comment before we voted? Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. But right now, I will open it up to public comment. Because remembering that every decision we make, you know, this is a process. So we're making decisions that can be revisited. Does any member of the public have any comments? Okay. Okay, so there was an interest expressed in doing the term limits discussion before we moved to the mayor. Should we open up the term limits for city council? Because we also had a lot of material.
[Maury Carroll]: Let's go ahead.
[Milva McDonald]: Do it.
[Maury Carroll]: Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: How do people feel about term limits for city council based on, I mean, I tried to pull together. There's not a lot of research on municipal term limits. There's a good bit of research on, state and federal term limits, and term limits are very uncommon but not unheard of in the state for municipal elections.
[Maury Carroll]: Maury. If we're talking about the entire city council, whether it be Ward-Alderman or Alderman-at-Large, I would say yes, keep it at two years. Two terms you mean? For term limits, I would say 12, six terms.
[Maury Carroll]: 12 years.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So you're throwing out the idea of 12 years.
[Maury Carroll]: No matter what. 12 year term limit. Exactly.
[Danielle Balocca]: Danielle. And some of the stuff that you sent, I think I remember reading, like, the word consecutive coming up a lot. So I don't know if that, like, I was sort of confused if you have to run in consecutive terms, or could you choose not to run or not be elected and then run again? Is it like an accumulation of 12 years? I don't know why, but I like that number too. Yes, I just, I don't know.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, that's a language thing. It's true. And I think what it means is that you're limited to 12 years, but they don't have to be. Well, we could do whatever we want.
[Maury Carroll]: I think we've always been talking consecutive. You could jump from school committee, and then it would reset if you get on city council or if you become the mayor. That was always been my interpretation. I could be wrong.
[Milva McDonald]: But if you did two terms first and then stopped and then ran again, does then it, for city council.
[Maury Carroll]: I would think it restarts again. Restarts. Two terms and then it goes again.
[Milva McDonald]: So you're suggesting 12 consecutive years. Exactly. Is the limit. Okay.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Exactly.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, Colette.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Um, I, I guess, we've built in a, we have ward and at large, and for me, it, I guess I had always sort of thought about that a ward person might then move up to running at large. But If you're just saying, well, all city councilors have a term limit of 12, there's no incentive for someone to come out of their ward and run at large. I guess, so the reason to have a term limit, if you're having a ward representation, Is the fear that someone would get stuck in a particular ward for a lifetime? Or could they go from, if we did a term limit for the wards, could they then run for one of the at-large spaces? I'm just- Yeah, no, good question. Trying to think this through.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Maury Carroll]: I would think they could, because it's a different position than what they had.
[Milva McDonald]: So they could conceivably serve 24 years on the council, 12 as a ward, and 12 as at-large.
[Maury Carroll]: Exactly. 12 years on school committee, then go 12 years as a ward alderman, and then 12 years as a alderman at-large. I think the position dictates how long you can go consecutively.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: OK, OK. But but, Maury, you've made a difference. You've changed there because we don't change. Yeah. You're saying Ward and at large are different. And you can run because they are to the other.
[Maury Carroll]: They are a poet. Yeah. I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just making. Yeah. And shame on me for not clarifying it clear.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, no. Just want to be clear. So so that we're all on the same page. You know, I still go back to the, we do let the citizens decide. you know, when you have an election, the citizens are deciding. And, you know, I'm a little stuck on that sometimes with term limits. Over the course of my tenure, there were people who absolutely did not get to go on. And there were people, you know, who stayed on a long time, like myself.
[Maury Carroll]: But you're always one of the biggest proponents that the citizens decide on your terms.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, you know, that's my right or wrong. Yeah. I mean, you know, as I as I look about it, I mean, I see the thing is, there's a reason why I could favor term limits, too. But it's different than all of yours, because I'm looking at it as a candidate saying, oh, man, help me. Help me get off of this. But that's very different.
[Maury Carroll]: If that was the case, you wouldn't rerun.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: That's not always true, Maury. But anyway, that's really an aside. Okay. All right.
[Milva McDonald]: I want to hear from David.
[David Zabner]: Yeah. I personally am pretty strongly against term limits. I think that especially we were just talking about how important it is to keep the expertise in government. I think that the version of term limits that was just described where somebody could realistically serve 24 years in a row on the city council. Like, we might as well not have term limits if they're going to serve 24 years. Conceivably, or if it's going to reset. They switch positions briefly. And I think anything, you know, I, I just don't think that there's kind of any. Limit that is reasonable. and also lets us keep expertise within the government, right? You know, if we're worried that 14 years is a long time, well then, we could lower it to eight, but like, eight is maybe just enough time for a city councilor to really know what they're doing, right? Like, I think we can have this argument in all directions, and I think at the end of the day, we should let the voters decide who to represent them, and if the voters want to choose the same person ad nauseum, for 20 years, I think that that's the choice of the voters.
[Milva McDonald]: Thanks, David. And I will just point out in relation to that, more than one of the studies that I cited and that I found specifically mentioned legislative bodies as suffering more from term limits because of the learning curve. Um, so, uh, so that was an issue. That was what that was a finding in some of the research that the, um, just what you were talking about, uh, became a problem. Okay. Oh, Danielle and then Anthony and then Eunice. Go ahead, Danielle.
[Danielle Balocca]: Um, yeah, I think that part of the reason that I voted to keep everyone at two years terms was like, was this sort of being careful to not make one type of city council representation, like ward versus at large more important, like, it felt like we were kind of talking like a hierarchy, like, if you're at large, that's a more important role, which I don't think we should be thinking about that way. And so I guess, like, I don't know how that figures in terms of the kind of last mentioned that there, but the. I, I do see that, like, switching toward representation. 1 of the things we talked about was since we do tend to, like, incumbents have a real advantage in Medford, as we've seen so far. How that would work in word representation, would it be harder to. to like elect someone new in a ward because of that. And so would, I don't know, I kind of, I'm interested in this idea of like, could you be limited in how long you could be in ward representation versus at large? Or like, would you eventually have to switch to run as an at-large Councilor? I don't know how I think, I don't know what I think about it necessarily, but I think it's like an important thing to consider.
[Milva McDonald]: Great, thank you. Eunice and then Ron.
[Eunice Browne]: Wow, this has been an enlightening 20 minutes. My opinions are changing a little bit. My initial thought was if city council is at a term of 2 years, then I was inclined to think. A 4 to 5 year term limit, 4 to 5 term limit was enough. So that would be 8 years or 10 years enough for people to gain some experience in the job enough to. for them to have some institutional knowledge, but not enough for them to, you know, make it a lifetime achievement job. You know, as was pointed out earlier, these are part-time jobs, you know, and that's what they are meant to be, not somebody's career. If they want to go up to the state level, then, you know, those are, Those are full time jobs, but a city Councilor is not meant to be your primary job. You know, we had, you know, going back to. Well, I guess, let me put it this way. The people who have run and stayed in office for years, some of them, you know, why are they staying in office? Are they staying in office because their performance is that wonderful? and the people are that happy? Are they staying in office because we have a pretty apathetic voter turnout? Are they staying in office because they're incumbents and they end up after a couple of terms having a political machine behind them and nobody stands a snowball's chance of getting elected? And again, if you're not on the slate, then maybe you don't have a chance either. Um, you know, so I think we need to think of a lot of things. Um, I. hear what people are saying, you know, is it consecutive, or if, is it a case of, you know, somebody does a few terms, steps off, maybe because, as we were talking earlier, life gets in the way, and then they choose to get back on again, and they get re-elected, then does the clock reset? Is it a case of somebody can start as a ward rep, and then at large, or jump from one body to the other, to the other, so that we're seeing somebody in office for a long, long, long, long time. I think it's really complicated. I don't, you know, I started out when I was taking notes for tonight as being a fairly cut and dry decision for me, and now it's not. So I'm baffled. That's my answer.
[Milva McDonald]: Thanks. Ron.
[Ron Giovino]: I have the same sentiments that Paulette does. I have a vote. I, in the city, I have a vote and nobody should tell me that I can't vote for a Councilor just because he's, you know, reached his end of term. I think we always think of the, the evil Councilor who we can't wait to get rid of. I like to think that this ward representation thing that we're, we're representing here gives us the thought that somebody from my neighborhood is doing such an unbelievable job for my neighborhood, that he gets the people's vote every year. And he just continues or he or she continues to do the work. And if we want to get rid of somebody, we still have the vote and nobody's believing in the vote anymore for whatever reason. I, I tend to, you know, believe that, um, this ward representation gives the city a break breakup so that everybody feels represented. And I don't want to, uh, limit anybody who's doing the job. in their given ward. So I'm going to be against any term limits, I think.
[Milva McDonald]: All right. Thank you, Ron. Paulette?
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, Anthony, I'm sorry. I think you were. Yeah, go ahead.
[Andreottola]: Hi. Sorry, Paulette. I'll be brief. That's OK. I just wanted to just, you know, I'm listening to everybody, and I'm going back and forth as well. But, you know, Was it George Washington that only wanted, you know, eight years? Because, you know, if you'd stayed in too long, people would view you as being the king. And I think that in politics that, you know, sometimes people get in there and they stay in there and they just become a fixture. And, you know, I like somebody throwing out the number 12, 12 years for any position. And, you know, and maybe it's time to take a break and give somebody else a shot. You know, uh, we're a city where incumbents stick around for a long time. No, uh, we haven't had an incumbent, uh, be, uh, defeated since, uh, Brianna beat, uh, you know, uh, Mayor Burke, uh, the city council, any incumbent has been reelected. Every, uh, school committee person has been reelected and, uh, and, uh, They do a good job, they've done a good job, but how long do they stay there? Do they become a permanent fixture in City Hall? Is it okay to mix it up? We're talking about representation. We need to kind of get as many people active in the city as possible. We need, you know, people from different communities to have opportunities to run and win. And sometimes the people who've been there for a long time need to step down and let somebody else have a chance. That's the way I see it. But I do see, you know, the, you know, if you have a real good guy and you want him there and, you know, you know, but, I mean, if they can give 12 good years to a city, I think that's good. Maybe that's enough. That's all I want to say.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you. Two things. Over the course of my last, let's just say the last 20 years, there's absolutely been people on the school committee who weren't reelected more than multiple times. So it's not true that incumbents always get reelected because there have been instances where they certainly weren't.
[Andreottola]: The other thing- I did say it's up late since, since Rihanna defeated May Berk, there hasn't been any.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah. Um, but that was only recent. And I forget my other point. Darn. Anyway, I'll think of it. Sorry.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, thanks, Paula. Jean.
[Jean Zotter]: I guess the main thing I want to say is if we don't do term limits, because I'm a bit on the fence about it, I do think we should have recall provisions. We're talking a lot about the kind of corrupt politician type that you can't get out of office, but something like that could be covered by a recall petition. Yeah. I don't want to undervalue how hard it is to legislate or be on school committee. And the institutional knowledge that people bring when they're there for multiple terms, I think, can be really positive. And I think the studies that you sent us, Milva, kind of say that. in the states that had term limits, and that's a state legislature, they were less efficient because they had a lot of newer people who weren't able to legislate as well. So I don't want to undervalue. I'm kind of on the fence about it, but I do think we should insert a recall petition. I also just want to put out there a larger concern I have is that if we make too many changes to how things run in Medford, that this will be a harder sell for people either for city council but primarily for voters. I think we'd have an easier time if we had a few things that we're asking voters to do differently than if we're changing a ton of things. that it might just get more complicated. So it's just something we should consider, because hopefully, there will be 10-year regular reviews, and some of these things could be added in a future charter review. We might want to pick our battles, like what are the things we care the most about?
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you, Jean. I see Daveed. Oh, wait, Daveed. OK. Paulette, did you remember what you wanted to say?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I did. Oh, I just, um, it's important when we talk about term limits, though. Um, I think you have to think of the school committee position, the city council position and the mayor as separate. Um, so that you might, if you were going to put a term limit, it would not prevent somebody. I mean, quite honestly, you really want somebody, um, not necessarily to stepping stone between school committee and city council. But between city council and mayor, you absolutely wanted to have someone who's had the experience of the city council. So just be very clear that we're not lump summing all three together.
[Milva McDonald]: No, we're just talking city council right now. Thank you though. Aubrey.
[Maria D'Orsi]: And I just wanted to share my thought about wanting to put these together was because I was concerned potentially about the two and four at large and how that would play in. So right now I'm leaning towards no term limits. But if we were to go to term limits, would we have to include separate provisions in the charter for the at large and reward?
[Milva McDonald]: I don't think so. It would depend on how we decided to structure the term limits. But I think probably maybe the best step is to kind of see where we're at on term limits before we go into those details. I just want to point out that Our survey shows that term limits are very popular with the public and that is consistent with, in general, term limits are very popular with the public. So we have a lot of voters who want term limits. I guess having looked now at the research on term limits and seeing that most of the things, most of the reasons that people want term limits don't, aren't realized with term limits. Makes me feel better about voting against them, which I, you know, I'm sort of leaning towards right now. The other, David pointed out one issue with, the competency of legislators. There was another issue that I just wanted to bring up, another thing that the studies pointed out, is that when term limits are in place, rather than focusing on the current job, the legislator is often looking to the next, or the elected official, not necessarily legislator, is often looking to the next job. So they know, okay, I can only be in here for a couple of terms. So I'm going to put my focus on, you know, a state job, for instance, or the next job in politics. So that's another downside. Oh, okay. Thank you for letting me know that in the chat. Okay, Maury.
[Phyllis Morrison]: You're muted.
[Maury Carroll]: You're muted. Here we go. How's that? I'm going to agree with everybody and say, you know, let's one step at a time and Jean, you hit it right on. And so let's. If we can get through just Ward Alderman and maybe in five years on our next review of the charter, we take a look at it from there. But right now, let's just try to get the prime essentials that we'd like to see changed here and move forward. That's my two cents.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Ron and then David.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, just quickly to Jean's point about the recall, I think it's a great point. And I don't remember seeing it in the city charter, but there has to be state law, general laws that show how you provide that process and who initiates and how it's done. I'd love if we could find that research to make sure it's clean for us so we can understand that, because that should be part of our charter. How does it get initiated? How does it get approved and what the procedures are? So I didn't want Jean's
[Milva McDonald]: uh thought to go without uh making it a formal thank you and that's definitely something we're gonna we'll be looking at thank you uh david i'm gonna move that we vote to not include uh term limits in the charter you mean for c right now we're talking about city council for city council yes so there's a motion um to not impose term limits for city council I'll second that. Maury seconds. Okay, before we do the roll call vote, I want to just ask if there's any members of the public that want to speak. Okay. So the motion is to not impose term limits for City Council. Daveed? Yeah. Danielle? Yes. Eunice?
[Eunice Browne]: I'm completely unsure. Can I abstain?
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Eunice Browne]: Paulette.
[Milva McDonald]: You're muted. Sorry. Yes. Okay. Gene. Yes. Phyllis. Yes. Aubrey. Yes. Ron.
[Ron Giovino]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Maury.
[Ron Giovino]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Anthony.
[Ron Giovino]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: And I will also vote yes. So we have 10 in favor, one abstain, two not impose term limits on city council. Great. David, is your hand up from before or is that new?
[David Zabner]: Yeah, just up from before, sorry. I guess I'll move since it's eight o'clock to end the meeting.
[Milva McDonald]: No, we go until 8.30.
[David Zabner]: Sorry.
[Milva McDonald]: I was going to second that, David. So we have time to at least start the discussion.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yes. I thought the meeting said it said from 6.30 to 8.
[Milva McDonald]: That's on the 15. If I did that, then I was wrong.
[Phyllis Morrison]: No, no. It's 6.30 to 8.30. I don't know that I'll be able to stay on until 8.30. The agenda says 8.30. That's OK.
[Milva McDonald]: The agenda says 8.30, yeah. But the 15th, it is till 8, because I figured I wouldn't make you guys do two-hour meetings twice a month. Yeah. Okay.
[Maury Carroll]: Thank you for that.
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, sure. So the mayor, now we made some excellent progress on city council. So we have the issue, we can discuss them together, the mayor's term and term limits. thoughts? I think we should go ahead.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Sorry.
[Milva McDonald]: Do you want to say something, Paulette?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: You can go ahead. Yeah, I think we should we should make the mayor's term four years.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. I agree. Okay, Jean and then Maury and Daniela. Go ahead.
[Jean Zotter]: I think the mayor should be four years. I think it's hard to get work done in the city and accomplish, especially if you're trying to do a big project.
[Milva McDonald]: OK, great. Maury.
[Maury Carroll]: I'm going to make a motion right now that we should make the mayor a four year term. We've had enough input from both the from all our conversations with the public. And I'm going to make a motion right now so we don't have to go through all this.
[Milva McDonald]: So we have a motion on the floor, but I wanted Danielle had her hand up and so did Eunice. So I just want to, do you guys want to say something quickly before we vote?
[Eunice Browne]: It's going to go with four years. And I do think that there should be term limits for the mayor, three terms.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So right now the motion is just about the term length. Okay, so the motion on the floor is that the mayor mayoral term should be extended for years. Nova, did you want to ask? Yeah. And do many members of the public want to weigh in before we vote? Okay, Maury.
[Maury Carroll]: Can you repeat that? I thought it was just on the mayor. This is on the mayor. It is. Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: The motion is that the mayor.
[Maury Carroll]: How many years of a four-year term?
[Milva McDonald]: We're not on the limits. We're just on the limits. Okay. Yes. Okay. Eunice? Yes. Danielle? Yes. Paula? Yes. Phyllis? Yes. Aubrey? Yes. Ron?
[Ron Giovino]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Anthony?
[Ron Giovino]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Daveed? Yes. Okay. You didn't ask me. Oh, sorry, Gene. I'm yes too.
[Maury Carroll]: I always ask you, Gene.
[Milva McDonald]: Gene's a yes too. Okay, so that's 11 yes, None opposed, so that motion passes unanimously.
[Eunice Browne]: Great. I think that's the quickest, easiest decision we've made in over a year. How many meetings you want me to run?
[Milva McDonald]: There was a lot of agreement on this in the survey and the interviews and so.
[Ron Giovino]: Just a point of information, Melva, the ice cream at Wright's Pond was a complete unanimous vote.
[Milva McDonald]: Um, okay. So let's, um, what about term limits for mayor? Uh, Eunice, is that what you were going to speak to?
[Eunice Browne]: Uh, yeah. Um, I'm in favor of that. And I think, uh, three terms, 12 years. Okay. I don't think we ever want, um, another 30 year mayor.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. I mean, our Medford unique history makes this a, um,
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: If we were to have term limits, I actually would vote for 16 years, not 12. Because when you have 12, you set it up so the first one is the one you're learning everything, and then you got the middle one, and then the last one you're leaving. Somehow or another, I just, I just think it would be better if we're going to say, OK, we want to set a term limit. My vote would be for 16. OK. And I know that's not typical, but I'm going to throw it out.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. OK. Maury, is that your hand?
[Maury Carroll]: Yes. Paulette, I agree with what you're saying, and I hear what you're saying, but if we're not putting term limits on school committee, we're not putting term limits on city council, and we haven't addressed the school committee yet. As much as I believe in what you're saying, I tend to kind of stay away from it on the mayoral also.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Maury, I said if we were having term limits, and that was a very big if for me because I don't think I really necessarily agree on term limits for the mayor. But if we were going to do it, the place where I would fall would be at 16. I wouldn't go to 12.
[Maury Carroll]: You don't want to go to 28?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: You know what? I could go 20. 18 would be, I always think about it as how long does it take for a kid to go through the school system, actually.
[Maury Carroll]: But there's no longer the chairperson of the school committee. We don't have to worry about that.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. All right. Thank you. Anthony, were you going to say something?
[Andreottola]: Yes, please. And I don't know if she put it in her notes on her interview. I actually talked to the mayor about this, and she does not oppose term limits for the mayor, even for herself. If I remember correctly, I'm probably gonna hear it that I misspoke, but I'm pretty confident that she wasn't opposed to term limits, and she's in the job right now. I remember that from her speaking. Yeah, 16, 12, 16, four-year terms that she would have to be, just talking about the mayor that's there now, because this will affect her. I couldn't see her being eligible to be there for more than 12 years. If she can't accomplish what she needs to accomplish in the next 12 years, I don't know. Do we want a 28-year mayor? We've experienced that. I don't know. I think Medford wants a change. And I think the surveys reflect that.
[Milva McDonald]: OK, thank you. Ron.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, just to fall back on the length of term too, we also in that charter, we need to put down when that election happens. Is it a midterm election? Is it a presidential election year? That's something we should consider, because I think the mass governor is a midterm election. So we'd need to be consistent with that. And I support four-year terms.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, we just voted on four-year term links, but oh, you mean four terms as the limit?
[Ron Giovino]: Four terms as the limit.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so 16 years. Okay, great.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Eunice?
[Milva McDonald]: No, I'm good. Okay. I thought I took it down. Any other thoughts? make a motion to uh move to four consecutive terms of four years each for the mayor so the motion is to speak i know i know i'm gonna get to that um we're gonna the motion is to put a term limit of four terms on the mayor which would be okay so that's a motion on the floor before we vote i want to hear from uh we have a member of the public who wants to speak bill You should be able to unmute now.
[Bill Giglio]: Yeah, I'm unmuted, thank you. I just had a quick question. If we talk any type of term limits for anybody, I thought I heard last week that there's a certain amount of years you have to work before you get a pension. What's that amount of years? I would imagine we have, if you set a term limit, you have to hit at least those amount of years. I don't know what the amount of years is. Does anyone know?
[Andreottola]: It's 10 years for municipal pension.
[Bill Giglio]: All right. All right, so in order to do term limits, you would at least have to hit, like Maury said, the 12 year mark anyways.
[Milva McDonald]: That's a good point, thank you. Anything else?
[Bill Giglio]: No, that's what I was just sort of thinking that because I know, I would imagine it wouldn't fly if you put term limits in and it was made under the 10 years.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, thank you for that, that's a good point. Yeah. Okay, so before we vote, I think Daveed put his hand up.
[David Zabner]: Yeah, I just wanted to clarify it. Are we saying four consecutive terms? Yes. Are we going to say that it's a 16 year limit or that you can only be elected four times in a row? I'm just wondering in case maybe like a mayor gets elected as a replacement halfway through a term, you know, do we count that as a full one or what? It may not be super important to the committee, but yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: No, I hear you.
[Ron Giovino]: It's an important point. I think we should list it as four complete terms, four years. So if the mayor has to come in two years into one term, they would be able to be eligible for 18 years as opposed to 16. Yeah.
[Andreottola]: And just with the mayor and the incumbent. Consecutive or not? I think they should be consecutive. And just, you know, we do have to make some provision for the incumbent mayor that, you know, because she's been already elected to three two-year terms. It would be three, I mean, four four-year terms.
[Maury Carroll]: Can I say something here right now? Yeah. Anthony, I understand what you're saying, but we're not concentrating on the municipal government the way it is today. We're looking at it as a whole. So to take and see, well, how many of these councils are sitting there and the mayor is there? I don't think that's quite the direction we want to go in. We're looking at the future and how we want this to look at. in the future.
[Andreottola]: We do have to decide. We do have to decide what terms the mayor can run for. You know what I mean? We do have to have something that, you know, it's unclear right now.
[Milva McDonald]: I agree. And I think that the Collins Center will be able to help us with that language. If we voted for the term limits, I think the Collins Center would. OK. Okay, Daveed, got it. I think the Collins Center would be able, would help us, you know, they would say, okay, you have to create transitional language and they would help us with that. I think that that would be addressed with their help, but we would need to address it. So thank you. Gene and then Aubrey.
[Jean Zotter]: I was just going to say, I like how Barnstable has theirs. They say three consecutive terms of office or 12 consecutive years. So we could just do something like that, say four consecutive terms of office or 16 consecutive years, and then that would cover.
[Ron Giovino]: Just a point on that, Jean, is that scenario where somebody fills in, you couldn't have somebody in there halfway through their last four-year term leave because they've hit the 16, I don't think.
[Jean Zotter]: They say whichever is greater. Then it would be the four consecutive terms, right? Okay. Got it. But Collins Center, I think, could help us with that.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Okay, Aubrey and then Paulette, and then we're going to vote.
[Maria D'Orsi]: I was going to say something similar to Gene, so I don't need to say it again.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, great. Thank you. Paulette and then Phyllis.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'm a little concerned about the consecutive because what it suggests to me is that I could, okay, I'm the mayor, and then I decide, okay, I won't run this time, I'll put my buddy in, and then I'm going to come back and can run again. And then I could continue to run. It's kind of, I mean, this is all hypothetical, but it kind of sets you up for a, for potentials that you're in fact trying to do away with. So.
[Milva McDonald]: I see what you're saying, yeah. So you're saying with a consecutive, then somebody could serve for four years, not serve, and then run again and serve for four consecutive terms, which would end up being a total of 20 years.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right. When I read that, I thought, gee, I wonder how those communities deal with that. If, in fact, you're trying to put a term limit in, then you're creating a very funny thing. OK.
[Milva McDonald]: So I can't even remember. whoever made the initial motion maybe wants to amend it, but we'll see. I'm going to let, Phyllis was going to speak, right?
[Phyllis Morrison]: No? I was going to say, I just, so we voted on terms for the city council tonight. We're going to vote on terms with this, but we're not going to do the school committee till moving in the future. March. Right. Yeah. Okay. But, you know, we have no term limits with the city council.
[Milva McDonald]: right voted that just in yeah and i'm okay so we're doing school committee later thank you that's all okay so right now the motion is that the mayor would be limited to serving four consecutive terms of office or 16 years and that was seconded so unless there's an amendment we're going to vote on that um or 16 years except
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: if the mayor comes into the position and fills out the remainder of someone else's.
[Milva McDonald]: I think, didn't Jean, you said something like it said whichever is greater? No.
[Jean Zotter]: I did. I did. Yeah, it was whichever is greater. So it would be four consecutive terms or 16 consecutive years, whichever is greater.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, all right, I understand. Okay, so that's the motion on the floor. Okay, I'm gonna do a roll call vote. Danielle.
[Danielle Balocca]: I'm so sorry, can you repeat what we're voting?
[Milva McDonald]: Can you just say what we're voting? Yes, the motion is that the mayor shall serve no more than four consecutive, shall be limited to serving four consecutive terms of office or 16 years, whichever is greater. Yes. Okay. Uh, Eunice. Yes. Paulette. Yes. Jean. Yes. Phyllis.
[Phyllis Morrison]: No.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Uh, Aubrey. Yes. Ron.
[Ron Giovino]: Yes.
[Andreottola]: maury no anthony i'm i'm reluctant to vote in the sense that just because i am concerned about the language with the incumbent mayor who's already would have served six years you know if that we get clarification from uh how to how to do that properly that you know gives her you know that's fair to her in the process. But in general, I'll vote yes, but this does need to be cleaned up.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So I'll count you as a yes. And I will vote yes. So that's nine in favor to oppose. I think you counted David. David voted before he dropped out. Okay. Great. Okay. Well, guess what? We pretty much made it through those agenda items. That's fantastic. We have just a few minutes and I just wanted to basically thank Jean for her amazing work on the listening sessions. They were really, really important. And I think we all had some excellent conversations with people. We got a lot of great feedback. So thank you.
[Maury Carroll]: Maury? I want to reiterate the statements, Jean. You're just above and beyond through all of this. And I really appreciate it. Jean and I did a few of these together. And it was certainly a pleasure. And I appreciate all your work.
[Eunice Browne]: Yes, thank you. Sorry. And Eunice. Um, yeah, definitely. Uh, kudos to Jean. I'm not quite sure how she kept all that straight. Um, so we, we all owe her a drink or something.
[Jean Zotter]: I'll take you up on it.
[Eunice Browne]: I am curious though, um, about how many people, uh, Total, did we have an attendance and how is the representation in terms of. You know, all types of diversity that we would be looking for.
[Jean Zotter]: I made a little slide show.
[Eunice Browne]: Oh, that's fantastic. And I just want to add that Maureen and I tried to do a first responder one. We both spoke with Harold McGillivray from the Medford Fire and Bobby Jones from Medford Police and then Medford Fire. They both told us that something like that wouldn't be well received. It wouldn't be a whole lot of attendance because a lot of their personnel don't live in the city. So that kind of didn't go anywhere. We tried. Well, thank you for that.
[Milva McDonald]: This is beautiful.
[Jean Zotter]: I haven't collated all the responses, because I know, Melva, you've been using them. So I'd like to get you something that you could use for the listening sessions. But we had 15 listening sessions, 11 in person, four virtual. And then this is an estimate. I think we reached 91 people, approximately 90 people. We had residents who were youth, older adults. parents, people with disabilities, people living in public housing, business owners, church members, members of community organizations, homeowners, renters, immigrants, people of different races, and non-English speakers. So we had translators at least one of our sessions. I think it was a great way of getting people engaged with the charter, and we got good feedback. So this is just, I know, Anthony, you wanted like a ward breakdown. So there's about four wards that we didn't reach, but these are the locations, who we partnered with, what ward they were in, and whether they were in-person or virtual. So I can send these slides to you, Melba, to put them in the... Absolutely, and this is gonna be great for our final report. Yeah. And then let's see, so right now based on each.
[Eunice Browne]: Each location, not including our own staff, not including us.
[Jean Zotter]: Yeah, some were small. I could put that in here. I mean, I think it's fine just to have the total number. OK. Yeah, some we had like 10 or 15, and then a few we had two or one. So it was hit or miss sometimes. And it also depended on weather and if there were other things going on that day. So I'm just right now trying to make sure I have notes from all the sessions. So I'll reach out to you if I can't find the notes, and then I'll try to compile them for the committee so we can just have a sense of what was the overall feedback that we got through the listening sessions. We had a great two sessions with high school students on Monday. I don't know if Milva or Paulette, you want to say anything about that, but they were really engaged. I was really impressed with the students.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, it was wonderful.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: We did separate ones. And I mean, the kids were so engaged and really had a fun time with the Jeopardy game. That was fantastic. Yes. Danielle, thank you for that, because it was perfect. Yeah, created that was great. And so it was really fun.
[Jean Zotter]: Yeah, awesome. So thank you for helping with that. I really appreciate it. Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: I just want to say our survey closed. We're around 600 and around 650 respondents and David who has expertise in information collection and statistics and all kinds of stuff like that is going to put together a report so we'll have that on the 15th and we'll be able to really look at it and see and we also
[Eunice Browne]: I'm sorry, I don't know how you're going to. Analyze the data, but it would be interesting to see not only the overall sort of. You know, 60% of the people, um, you know, uh, favor, you know, uh, for your term for mayor, but. of that group, how many are, you know, in each demographic, you know, how many are long-time residents versus how many are, you know, shorter-term residents and so forth?
[Milva McDonald]: I'm not sure that the technology differentiated to that level, but maybe. I don't know.
[Andreottola]: I'd like to say something about if the thing about surveys is, you know, The way you correct for like the self-selection bias of a survey is to kind of keep them random. The more if we break it down and, you know, and just say if you start looking at, well, we didn't get, you know, any, you know, little old ladies from West Medford, you know, then you're, you know, this is just a, a survey that's generalized of the population, because if we break it down into those little pieces, it could really kind of expose, you know, biases in the survey that may or may not be there. And we're not experts, and we didn't set up the survey, you know, that good, you know, to kind of, do that type of analysis accurately, I believe, anyway.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, it was not intended to be a scientific survey. It was intended to get a sense of where people are at. And mostly we included the demographics so that we would sort of know if we had certain groups that we wanted to try to get more feedback from, I think. But I think if that capability exists in the data, I'm pretty sure David will
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah, it depends on what type of software he has also too. I mean, it was just, it was a Google survey. Yeah, but even Google, they have some, you can set it up to have that kind of reporting. You can download a spreadsheet from Google.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, well, I'll check in with him and see, you know, what he's planning. Paula.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, I just, before we leave, I just wanted to announce that the next school committee meeting or meeting about school committees will be on Tuesday, February 13th at seven o'clock.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, changing it.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: We had originally said the 6th, we're changing it to the 15th.
[Phyllis Morrison]: So we have two meetings, the 13th and the 15th.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, because our next meeting is on the 15th from 6.30 to 8. And you'll all be getting an agenda soon. And we do have to end right now, but we didn't uh, talk about identifying any new subcommittees, but, um, we'll wait and see if we need to do that on the 15th. Um, what we are going to, we're going to look at the survey results on the 15th, and we are going to talk about compensation, which has come up as an issue in the city, um, and maybe something else. I'm not sure. That's what's coming. Thank you, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Nice to see you all. Nobody made a motion to adjourn, but I promise I'm behind you.
[Maury Carroll]: All right, great. Good night, everybody.
|
total time: 33.4 minutes total words: 2582 |
total time: 9.74 minutes total words: 854 |
total time: 0.66 minutes total words: 71 |
|