[Milva McDonald]: Welcome, everyone, to the meeting, February 28th, 2024 meeting of the Medford Charter Study Committee, Article 8 Subcommittee. So this is our first meeting, and I know some of you have had a chance to look at the, when I did in that document, which I'm hoping will become a working, sort of a draft document that we can work on. It's basically the section eight of the generic modern charter with the language from the three communities we've been looking at. Obviously, we can look at other communities and we maybe should. And we should probably look at some things beyond other charters as well. I'm sure as if you've gone through it, you've seen that there's a lot of pretty important stuff in there. So What I was hoping we could do tonight is kind of maybe just discuss how we're going to approach the material, figure out what we need more information on, and make a plan to sort of get that information. Does that make sense? Also, I'm open to ideas from anybody about how we should.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I mean, I go along with the fact that, you know, maybe we should be looking at some other aspects as well.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, let's see, I have it, I can share it so we can sort of start looking at it. Well, first of all, wait, before I do that, let me just ask if anybody had any sort of broad ideas about how to approach this section or, you know.
[Jean Zotter]: One idea, I'd like to know what our current process is. which you said is defaulting to state law, but I was trying to find out what the state law was, because in meeting with the community, I've heard there's a varying process on this, and that one of the complaints we got is that the mayor is often the gatekeeper, which doesn't seem to be Gatekeeper for specific or citizen petitions that people that that's what we heard, but I don't maybe they didn't know this was or. So it'd be nice and in practice with the processes and then what the state law says the processes if you don't have it in your charter.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, yeah, I'm sure that whatever the process is supposed to default to state law, and this is one of the issues that we discussed when we first were meeting and realized that we needed to create a new charter because accessing the mass general laws and potentially special acts that there might be is just, it seems like it should be a simple thing, but it can be tricky. Yeah, so because it works that way, I mean, I don't know, do we know of any petitions that residents have tried to put forth?
[Jean Zotter]: Oh, sorry, Eunice. I was just gonna say, I talked to a couple of people who said they tried to do it and they were told they had to get the mayor's approval. And then they went to the mayor and then they never heard anything back. And so it just kind of ended. So that was from two separate people.
[Milva McDonald]: So they were told by city hall or like who told them that they had to get the mayor's approval?
[Jean Zotter]: I don't know. I guess I wish we, I should have known to follow up, but I didn't. Maybe they were told misinformation or
[Milva McDonald]: Who knows? I mean, you know, it's easy to be told misinformation. You know, I feel like when you're making phone calls to different offices. Well, I think it could be good to figure out what the current process is or what state law allows, but... I really don't have a recall.
[Eunice Browne]: a system for recalling an elected official because that's come up in the past. The clerk has told me that that's non-existent. I don't know where this falls under, but the folks who have tried to do charter review in the past, have had to collect many, many, many, many, many signatures and so forth. Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: That's from Mass General Law Chapter 43B that says 15%. I'm not an expert, so I'm not This is not definitive, but I think that there might be different state laws that apply to different processes. Like, for instance, the CPA has its own state law, right, that outlined a pro- because there were signatures collected for that, to get that on the ballot. The CPA, right? I guess. I guess. Community Preservation Act. But that is in line with a specific state law. So, I'm guessing the process is sort of different across the board, and that even if we put a process in the charter, let's say something like a Community Preservation Act would have its own process that, you know, anyway, that our charter would not overrule any state law.
[Jean Zotter]: So... But the talent center, I think, could help us craft language similar to like we did with the multi boards. You know, that carves out those from the charter purview.
[Milva McDonald]: So let's just take a look at the first potential section is free petition. And one thing I noticed was I, again, I'm not, I did this document. It doesn't mean I didn't make a mistake, but I was fairly careful when I did it. We looked at three charters, but only Melrose had this particular provision. So, it's not a requirement that we put this in the charter, and it's different from citizen initiative measures, right? So, which all, which I believe all three of them had, and very involved sections. So, you know, we're going to eventually have to go through these and say, well, do we want to put a free petition provision in? This particular section is just to compel a response from the city government.
[Eunice Browne]: I'm trying to figure out what the actual point of this one is. It is interesting that only Melrose has it, and it would be interesting to find out why they felt compelled to put that in a charter, because I would think that if we had a a robust way of having citizen input at city council and school committee meetings where our elected officials were welcoming community input and listening and engaging in dialogue and willing to making it inviting, which Anecdotally, a lot of people say is not the case, then I wonder, is this necessary? Or maybe it is more necessary because then it does actually compel them to do something.
[Milva McDonald]: This is the charter which theoretically stands regardless of what any current climate is at City Hall or what any future climate might be. So we have to, I feel like we have to just look at it as separate from like, you know, considering what's happening right now at City Hall or, I mean, I'm not saying that doesn't come into it, but it really needs to go beyond that, right? So do we think that it's a good idea to put something like this in, in the first place? And as far as I can tell, this is just, I guess, theoretically, let's say you have an issue and you want to talk about bike lanes. I think that's the example they gave here. And you write to the city council or you write to the mayor or whatever, and they just don't respond. This would give you the opportunity to collect signatures to compel them to address it, right? Is that what, I mean...
[Ron Giovino]: My understanding is that this is just getting signatures to get something put on an agenda to be addressed by the city council. The second one is different because it's starting an initiative to start an ordinance. That's the difference.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, absolutely. That's a good way to describe it, Ron, to get something on the agenda. It's different. I don't know. I think in general, I feel like the government considers issues that are of concern to the community. This would mean anybody could collect 150 signatures to get something addressed.
[Ron Giovino]: My only comment about this whole thing is, number one, it's concerning that it's not in our charter detailed. All of this stuff, not in there. Secondly, as you said, Milner, These are not things that we anticipate will happen, but in the rare case 10 years from now, when someone is being not heard based on some kind of discrimination, they have the right to force the issue to get it on the agenda. Now, I'm sure there are a lot of things. Currently, I think you get on an agenda, you call your rep, he puts it on the agenda, you call the mayor's office. But this is what I was talking about at the beginning of this whole process. It gives the citizens an opportunity to say, you're going to talk about this, here's 150 signatures, just put it on the agenda. Whatever happens, happens. But at least it gets addressed and it gets its fair shot. I think the goal of all of this, is to make sure that in writing it is part of our permanent Medford City Charter.
[Milva McDonald]: So it sounds like you would be in favor of something like this.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, only because it's an option. Hopefully it doesn't get used a lot, but it should be in there to just represent, you know, what our preamble says.
[Milva McDonald]: And Jean, if you have a concern, I want to hear what your concern is.
[Jean Zotter]: I think I erred towards where Ron is. I see this as different than them allowing a public, there's city council, there's always an opportunity to just come up and comment on anything, right? They have that section of the agenda. This is different. This is kind of forcing the body to deliberate about this issue. So I see it as different getting on the agenda. I just worry that, I'm just thinking more devil's advocate that if you're really you could slow it, you could put a ton of things on the agenda and just slow the whole process down. Like, if you really wanted to.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, we can do that now. We can do that. Certain people can do that now if they wanted to. This gives you a procedure to do it. So it's not like if I'm a, technically, 20 years from now, a city councilor who doesn't want to talk about the budget one night could load the agenda up with 30 items so it never gets addressed till after midnight.
[Jean Zotter]: Right.
[Ron Giovino]: So we have the ability to, you know, slow down an agenda at any meeting.
[Milva McDonald]: This is kind of like... Jean, you were talking more about residents slowing down the business of the... Yes, yes. Right. I agree.
[Jean Zotter]: I was thinking more, not that we shouldn't allow it, but just, I liked the, you know, no more, only one hearing on one subject, one time every 12 months. Let's say you don't get the resolution you want, so you put it in every month and it's just like- No, I like that idea. So just some limits on it or some parameters.
[Milva McDonald]: Wait, and did you see that in this Melrose section or is that something that you saw somewhere else? No, it's right here where I highlighted- Oh, there. Okay. So that text there was- the notes in the generic modern charter explaining what each of these things are. That would have been from the Collins Center. Yeah.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Jean Zotter]: I just like some parameters, so it doesn't- I agree.
[Ron Giovino]: Not every week the same issue. Yeah. I think that should be a disclaimer for sure. Yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: Okay. I agree on the parameters and I agree. If you notice, and I don't know how much we're getting into the weeds at the moment, but, I think the threshold number of signatures has to be relatively easily attainable.
[Ron Giovino]: I think 150 is, I know the Wachling Center issue that was, Wachling Center, the issue that was last week or the week before, they had a petition signed by 1,000 people.
[Milva McDonald]: So, I don't think 150.
[Ron Giovino]: Melrose only has 50.
[Milva McDonald]: I think 150 is reasonable. Look at, I mean, okay, so what, I mean, we don't have to go into those details right now, but let's say number of signatures is something that we're going to want to address in the language and also guardrails, you know, or whatever. I don't know what, yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: I'll just- Do you want to say a year, Jean, or six months before the issue can be on the agenda again?
[Jean Zotter]: Sorry, I'm still trying to finish dinner.
[Ron Giovino]: Oh, no, it's been a long day.
[Jean Zotter]: Yeah, I don't I don't I don't know if I feel strongly. It's either six months or 12 is fine.
[Ron Giovino]: Maybe we can leave the general the whole group to decide those details.
[Milva McDonald]: You could say, well, if the government body just doesn't want to deal with it, they can just have their hearing, talk about it, be done, and say, OK, we did it, and not really. But again, you shouldn't be able to submit the same petition over and over again.
[Ron Giovino]: But then again, you would have to come up with 150 new signatures. I would imagine how you prove that. Yeah, you would.
[Milva McDonald]: You would.
[Ron Giovino]: I don't know how you prove that.
[Milva McDonald]: So do we all agree that we want to stick with 150 signatures?
[Eunice Browne]: I would like to go a little bit lower. If you don't want 50, do you want to split the baby and do 75?
[Milva McDonald]: Or 100 in between 50 and 150? Yeah, 100. Let's put 100 and let's say six months. In the meantime, we can maybe look at some other charters around the state that might have this particular section and compare.
[Eunice Browne]: The other thing that I would mention, and it says it, and this is going to be, I think, applicable in a couple of different places. When they talk about doing petitions and getting signatures and things, they need, like Melrose says, Signed by not less than 50 voters along with their addresses, etc. And if you go into some of the other sections in this in Article 8. You get the same thing with, you know, the names and the addresses and. You know, I suppose you can. you know, create a template or a Word document with, you know, and hand it out. But if you want to do something like change.org or something like that, which, you know, in this digital age, and we came across this with the Columbus School stuff a few years ago, is that a lot of those online petition sites that people use don't provide a place for an address. So, um. You know, I, I mean, I, I get the point that they have to probably, you know. Verify that it's voters, but, um. If you're creating a Word doc or a template and stuff and scanning outside of stop and shop with it, but people do things digitally now. How does something circulate where you get the addresses as well? Because it's like change.org and stuff don't do that.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, the rule is it has to match up against the voter registry. So however you got it, you'd have to have name and address. And then it has to be verified that they're active on the voter registry. The same way you would pull papers to run for whatever.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, this isn't interesting because if you pull papers to get signatures, when we were collecting signatures to try to get charter review, an elected commission, you know, they were specific sort of official petition sheets that had to be used. You couldn't just use a piece of paper, you know, that then you then hand those in to the city. So for something like this, I don't know, how, you know, what kind of guidelines you would, yeah, well, could you just take a piece of paper out of a notebook and just collect people's names and addresses?
[Ron Giovino]: I think it would be as simple as having the city website have a site to download that form. I mean, I don't think it's, I think you'd have to have the form only because the people who have to verify and certify those names shouldn't have to go through a piece of paper and everybody has a different format.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, so maybe what we need to do is a question we need to ask is, are such our petition forms, general petition forms available from the city?
[Ron Giovino]: Right.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. Because like I said, I'm pretty sure the ones for running for office are like specific to that purpose.
[Ron Giovino]: Right.
[Milva McDonald]: That probably comes down from the state. I don't know if the city ones do.
[Ron Giovino]: I don't know. I think if we write it in our charter, they'd have to do it. Let them worry about how the form's going to come out.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. And we can maybe ask other cities that do it. If you have a free petition process, how do people, you know, do you provide forms for the signatures or what?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: So we can look into that. Okay. Okay, so my takeaway from this is that we agree that this is a good idea, but we want to make sure that there's a limit on how many hearings on any one subject can be required, and we have some questions about signature collecting, and we're landing right now at 100 signatures, but after we do some research, it may or may not change, right? Okay. So this section is different. It's a little maybe a little more weighty in terms of it's not just putting something on an agenda, right?
[Ron Giovino]: It's- Right. This is a legal process. It involves city solicitor, whatever that is, and being able to legally put something on there that's going to go to a vote. So this is definitely a more technical legal piece.
[Jean Zotter]: Okay. How is this different from what you were trying to do, Milva, for charter review?
[Milva McDonald]: Well, charter review, the signatures for that fall under a state law. It's outlined in state law process. This wouldn't be. Like I said, CPA is also a state law, right? So if you want to get CPA passed, you're going by the state law, the process outlined in that. So this would be more... This is strictly city and... Go ahead. I'm just reading and talking at the same time.
[Jean Zotter]: I thought this was about getting something on a ballot so that people could vote on it, but it's not that, or it doesn't read that way to me. It's like requesting a legislative body pass a certain measure.
[Ron Giovino]: It's the passing, and if it gets rejected, that starts the process, I think, to go to a ballot issue. It says, if rejected by a legislative body, may bring petition direct to ballot.
[Jean Zotter]: Okay, so it's a first step in going to a ballot.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, it is kind of confusing, but I think it's a way to initiate an ordinance other than a city councilor doing it for you.
[Jean Zotter]: Right, the way like for state, state government or state state law. My brain's a little fuzzy. You can put things on a ballot every other year.
[Unidentified]: Right.
[Jean Zotter]: Like the millionaires tax and. So it's the same local process as that, I guess. But this, you have to go to city count. You get a certain number of signatures, and then it has to go to, say, city council school committee, and then they vote on it. And if they vote no, then you've got to go again and get more signatures, and it goes to ballot.
[Ron Giovino]: I think that it goes from the city solicitor is involved, in its legality, then I think because the citizens have started the process, there is a way of moving it through to go above. The way I understand it, there's two pieces. One is you get it to the city council, which they have to vote on the, for lack of a better word, an ordinance. And if that fails, the citizens still have an option to petition to go above, like a home rule petition, I'm guessing.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, I don't think it would go. I'm not sure it would go to the state. A home rule petition goes to the state.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm trying to see.
[Milva McDonald]: This is at the local level.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I thought, though, it does go somewhere. Let me see.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, so it looks like.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it goes right to the ballot, then?
[Ron Giovino]: So it goes right to the ballot.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, it looks like it has to go through the city solicitor to make sure it's not breaking any laws. That's right.
[Ron Giovino]: Right.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, but it's in. And then if it's good with them, it goes to the clerk.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, that seems really strange.
[Milva McDonald]: I'm not so sure is going to I don't understand this at all.
[Eunice Browne]: Um, Yeah, we need to study this more carefully.
[Ron Giovino]: It sounds way too simple to get 500 voters to sign a petition that you bring in front of the city council. If they say yes, you won. If they say no, it goes to the ballot. There's no way it goes like that.
[Milva McDonald]: No, we're going to have to look into this more carefully.
[Ron Giovino]: Our ballot would have 100 issues on it every election cycle.
[Milva McDonald]: So we need to study this and we need to like, it looks like Weymouth also has a process. And every one of these three processes looks pretty much the same, right?
[Jean Zotter]: As the somewhere you have to get 10% of registered voters. That seems 10% is a lot. That's a lot to get.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, you can't think of that.
[Jean Zotter]: At some point in the process, you need 10%.
[Eunice Browne]: Well, the interesting thing is, when you look at the three communities, Melrose, Pittsfield, and Weymouth, they all seem to have the same thing, same sort of process with different thresholds of the amounts of Signed, you know, voters that you need to sign and then signatures and I thought it might have correlated to population. But Melrose has about 29,000 people. and they require the initial initiative to be signed by 500 voters and then later on get 15% of the vote of the voters, total number of voters. Then if you move over to Pittsfield, who has 43,000 people, they require the petition be signed by 250 and get 10% We're missing something.
[Milva McDonald]: This is what I think is happening. This section outlines the process. That first number of signatures, which is a lower threshold, sends it to the city council or school committee to consider, say. If it's rejected and they don't pass the ordinance or they reject it, Then in these sections, and we could include it if we chose, then there's a process to get it onto the ballot. And to get it onto the ballot, then you have the higher threshold of 10% or whatever. So this gives an opportunity, it gives a way for people to have the city council vote on an issue, an ordinance, and it also gives a process for trying to have the people decide on it if that doesn't work.
[Ron Giovino]: How does that differ from the next section, which is the citizen's referendum?
[Milva McDonald]: That's a good question. Let's look at it.
[Jean Zotter]: Yeah. The way I read what you provided for that section, it just looks like it keeps going back to the elected body. I don't see any way. No, no, then publication is when it goes to the ballot. I see. Okay. All right.
[Milva McDonald]: What I don't, yeah, I don't know how this differs from the, say the citizen, because this prior section also outlined putting it on the ballot, right?
[Jean Zotter]: Yes. That publication section.
[Milva McDonald]: Form of question. Yeah. This says process for requesting that the legislative body reconsider action on a measure.
[Eunice Browne]: Maybe if 8-2 doesn't work, we move on to 8-3?
[Jean Zotter]: Or is this if they pass?
[Milva McDonald]: Wait a minute. This is if they pass it. Yes. Yes. So this is if they pass an ordinance and you don't like it, then you can go around and collect these signatures and. And do what another group just did. That's what it looks like. What it looks like.
[Jean Zotter]: Well, it's just asking them to reconsider their vote. but it doesn't give you an option to put it on the ballot as far as I, it's just asking them to hold a hearing and reconsider their vote. Is that, that's all I'm hearing. Yes, yes.
[Milva McDonald]: No, but it also says if the measure is not rescinded, the city council shall provide for the submission of the question for determination by the voters at a special election. Oh, okay.
[Ron Giovino]: It sounds like slowing government to a dead halt, and this would not become a rare occasion. It would actually be how we process everything.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, hopefully it wouldn't. I mean, 10% is a lot of signatures.
[Ron Giovino]: But my point is that if you don't like something, that only would start a process of, you know, making changes. And it could be anything from that bike lane to hiring or firing personnel.
[Milva McDonald]: So there's several levels of... Well, I don't know about hiring or firing personnel because that wouldn't happen through an ordinance.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, I mean, the way that they're looking at, well, I'm not, I don't want to get bogged down on that current issue, but I'm just saying, I don't, I just don't, I think this should be an exception to the rule and not the rule. And it sounds like without knowing more, I just would like to understand how often this happens in these towns and cities.
[Milva McDonald]: You know, and because what's interesting is that all the three charters we've looked at do include this. Right.
[Ron Giovino]: So- Can we ask the Collins Center their opinion on this particular piece?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: This particular piece as opposed to- Well, I think the recall section is a little bit different because it would only happen under unique circumstances. This stuff here is kind of like, You know, it appears, on the surface, it appears to me to be too easy to do.
[Milva McDonald]: Really, you think getting 4,000 signatures is easy?
[Ron Giovino]: Well, first I would say that the 4,000 is unrealistic, and given in a town that only does 20% of the electorate, and we don't even know how many, you know, we don't have 43,000 people voting.
[Milva McDonald]: I know, but I think the number of registered voters is about 40,000. I was thinking 10%.
[Ron Giovino]: No, no, right. Of those 40,000, historically, have we ever gotten more than 15,000 in an election?
[Jean Zotter]: No.
[Milva McDonald]: That's not what they go by. They go by, you know, the percentage of registered voters.
[Ron Giovino]: No, no, I understand. I'm just saying we have the ability to set the number. So, you know, that obviously has to be, you know, if you only need 7,000 votes to become mayor and you need 14,000 to get a bike lane, then we have some imbalance there. So I guess that's my point.
[Eunice Browne]: Right, right. You need to make it attainable.
[Milva McDonald]: Not not easy, but OK, so I'm a little unclear because I thought OK, so we have the citizen and so the first section we looked at free petition. Is pretty, you know, it's basically just to get something. So we're pretty OK with that. We just need right to get a little more information. These two eight section 8283 one which allows. It allows the citizens to get the legislative bodies to consider a measure, and if they reject it, it gives citizens a way to get it on the ballot. A three gives residents a way to basically protest an ordinance that's been passed and potentially overturn it on the ballot, right? So those are pretty different things, I think. So what more do we want to know?
[Jean Zotter]: Can they send us research on like, how this affects government. Yeah, is there research on does this help with democracy? Does it democratize things? Or does it create more inefficient government? I don't know if I was trying to Google that a little bit just to see. Yeah. Because it would just be helpful to know whether anyone's looked at whether it actually increases
[Ron Giovino]: Because actually, when we're talking about it, it sounds like it's a it's going to slow down our process.
[Eunice Browne]: But I mean, I guess I would want to know, you know, from the call center, I guess, how Some examples of where these things have been used before. Some concrete examples, they did this, a group in XYZ community did this in order to accomplish X, or undo X, or whatever, whether it be bike lanes, or the CPA, You know, a building or whatever under what circumstances and how often. You know, is this something that gets used with some frequency?
[Milva McDonald]: I'm guessing it's not used with frequency.
[Ron Giovino]: I'm guessing that too. I look at this as the goal of this is to when a citizen feels shut out by their government, this gives them an opportunity to push it on back onto the table. That's how I look at it. This sounds like the balance of power goes into the citizens' hands and kind of… I think we're just missing something.
[Milva McDonald]: It sounds like that, but I mean, I need more information too, but on the surface, I like these ideas, because it sounds like that, but These are not easy lifts. Getting thousands of signatures and getting something through a ballot is not an easy thing to do. So it's not like people would be able to frivolously say, oh, well, we're going to go and we're going to get this. We're going to make you guys vote on this again. And if you vote no, we're going to let the citizens vote on it and overturn it. I don't think it could be done frivolously. But that said, I do agree that it's a good idea to sort of look into, you know, how this has played out in communities that have it. And even if you find one example of it, that wouldn't necessarily negate, you know, any positive effect that it would have. You know what I mean? One bad example. So I don't know. I mean, if people talk about checks and balances in the city, and mostly we've talked about the balance of power between the mayor and the city council, our elected bodies, but this is a pretty strong check on the city government.
[Ron Giovino]: I 100% agree. My concern is I want it to be difficult. And I know the 4,000 is difficult. The 500 vote signature to get something into this process doesn't seem as difficult to me.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, let's see.
[Jean Zotter]: I thought the 500 votes was to get the clerk's office or the election office to print out the thing you had to get signed. I've signed these before, and they're official documents from the city, and it has the language of your suggested law on it.
[Ron Giovino]: I thought 500 meant that it would be addressed in the city council. Yeah. And then a vote would take place. Then when you lose your vote, then you start the 4,000 vote process.
[Milva McDonald]: I get it. I mean, Melrose had 12%, which in Medford would be more than 4,000. Yeah, 15% is what we would have needed to get the elected Charter Commission, and that was going to be between 6,000 and 7,000 signatures.
[Ron Giovino]: And here's to my point about being a part of the written document called the Medford City Charter. The example I will use is the renaming of the schools. When that vote was taken, everybody thought there was no other option. If this was the option, getting 4,000 votes could have happened.
[Milva McDonald]: Signatures, you mean?
[Ron Giovino]: Signatures, and it could have forced it to be on the ballot. So I like the idea that you have the ability to change what's wrong, but I just don't want it to be something that we do, you know, I'd like to see us do under five of these a year, not 55 of these a year.
[Milva McDonald]: Personally, I don't really think that's a danger.
[Ron Giovino]: I hope so.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, I don't think so.
[Ron Giovino]: I do want it to be part of the process that people have.
[Milva McDonald]: All right, so we need more information. The other thing that we could potentially do is if anybody wants to I mean, we can look at research and we can see like, has it been done in another city? We can talk to people in other cities too. We can call the clerk in one of these communities and say, you know, we see that in your charter, you have a citizen referendum procedure and you have a citizen initiative petition process. How does that work? Have you experienced people using it or whatever? So we can do that too.
[Ron Giovino]: I'll volunteer to call the Malden chief of staff.
[Milva McDonald]: Great, thanks. And we'll find out. We'll first check Malden's charter and see if they have it.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, she'll know. She'll read it for me. Okay. I'm sure they'll know from that, from the mayor's office. Someone will know that.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so this, we can't really make a decision on whether we think we should recommend this until we have more information.
[Ron Giovino]: And maybe you can reach out to the call-in center, too, to get there. They seem to understand who's using it, how it's being used pretty readily, so.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, and they seem, they're also pretty good at if you're going to include something, like, for instance, Melrose didn't have that, you know, no more than once a year on any one issue, and they kind of put it in there. So they're pretty good at saying, well, if you do something like this, you know, think about adding such and such, because they're good at knowing kind of like where the pitfalls might be.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right. Yes, yes, definitely.
[Eunice Browne]: And I think the thresholds need to be achievable, but not insurmountable. You know, I think, you know, when we were working on the charter stuff before this, and, you know, the people that even came before our citizen-led petition, I mean, this has been, you know, going on for years and years and years, you know, and trying to collect six, seven, you know, thousand signatures. That's, in my mind, insurmountable. Yeah, I mean, it's not it needs to be hard, but not like, you know. Well, here, let's throw a number out there. They're never going to reach it. So we never have to worry about this. I don't think that's right either.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. So you have to find the right number. Right. This would be an important section if we did decide to recommend citizen. Yeah. So this would be important. Yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: And remember where it goes after that too. So we have to make it reasonable as well. I mean, it goes to the city council first, then it goes to the mayor's office, then it goes, you know, so we have to negotiate some kind of reasonable numbers. Like Lake Uniset has to be tough, but not impossible.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. But this section says what would not be, like, so even if you were mad about the school committee budget, you can't put it on the, you know, so there's, so it would be important to include these, I think. And it looks like they're pretty much the same in, you know, but we can look carefully at if there are differences between these communities.
[Ron Giovino]: They look like they come from Mass General Law, so that stuff would have to be.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, some of it's bargaining agreements, personnel, things. Stuff we won't touch. Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Now, recall. This is, you know, potentially controversial and we should talk about it and see what we think.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah. Well, I believe that it's part of mass general law anyways.
[Milva McDonald]: Is that true?
[Ron Giovino]: I believe so.
[Milva McDonald]: I don't know. I'm not sure about that.
[Ron Giovino]: When you go and look in Mass General Laws, it's a nightmare to get in there. But I was in there. And I bailed out just when I started drowning and lost air. But it is in there that you must have the right to recall what the restrictions are. And I'm sure, and I wish I remembered the, I want to say, I don't want to quote the article number, but if you go in there, there is a section. I can't say I'm an expert on that section.
[Milva McDonald]: Would it be for municipal elected officials or just state?
[Ron Giovino]: No, no. I searched under city council. So, you know, when you search in that general law book, it gives you 50 articles that contain the word City Council recall, and then you have to read through millions and millions and millions of documents to find what you're looking for. Again, call-in center would be a good resource for this, but I do believe it's your, it's a city cannot say, a city government cannot say to the citizens, you have no right to recall, at least in my world. So it has to be all the stuff that's garnered by the mass general laws.
[Milva McDonald]: One of them has got to be the protection of the citizens to recall somebody who is... Okay, so whether or not there is an ability to do it now under state law, which we don't know the answer to the question, it sounds like, Ron, you would be in favor of putting a recall petition into the chart. What about you, Eunice and Jean? What do you think? Absolutely.
[Jean Zotter]: I'm unsure. I think for the mayor, it makes sense because it's four years, but other offices are only two years. I feel like you can, I just want to understand the difference between. Well, like for example, yeah. Like, cause that's not that long, but is this just for any reason or are you in favor? I mean, definitely if there are criminal. You know, like the Fall River, is it Fall River? Like if there's corruption, unethical behavior, then I think definitely. But you're just unhappy with someone and they get voted in every two years. I don't know.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, theoretically, if they got voted in, it would be kind of hard to vote them out with a recall.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, you couldn't. There's definitely rules like the first six months of their service, you can't do it, or the last six months of their service, you can't do it. So to your point, Jean, about the two-year folks, there's a very limited time to do it, so it probably wouldn't happen. But again, back to your point, I mean, of course, criminal is, you know, criminal actions, illegal, unethical. But there also could be situations of misrepresentation, you know, non-representation. people should have, particularly if we go into ward sections too. If I felt like I have a ward rep who is not doing anything for me and is hurting my ward, I would like to have the opportunity to at least let the voters have another say at it. I would hope it never gets used.
[Jean Zotter]: Is that how it works? The recall petition goes to the voters?
[Milva McDonald]: That's well, yeah, it depends on what we would put in the charter. Like just looking at Weymouth, it doesn't just skimming through. I don't see any anything about the reasons that somebody would be recalled. Weymouth does say that the affidavit should say what the grounds for recall are.
[Ron Giovino]: Right. But... The way I understand it, to answer Jean's question, is the ballot question would be, should that person be recalled, yes or no?
[Jean Zotter]: And is it at the special election?
[Ron Giovino]: Special election, correct.
[Jean Zotter]: At any time?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah. But the purpose of the vote to get it on the ballot is to give that representative the opportunity to resign. So if you know the folks have voted to have a recall ballot, that representative has an opportunity to resign, which makes it a recall election next time to vote for the replacement. So there's all kinds of.
[Jean Zotter]: I like the voters having an option to remove someone in office they're unhappy with, especially if there's unethical or misrepresentation. I would want to craft it in a way that it's not overruling the will of the majority of voters, because sometimes these recall elections have very small turnouts. They get rid of someone who was elected with a huge amount of votes and a small number of voters turn out for the special election and are able to get rid of someone that might be wildly popular. At least in other states, it seems to happen that way. So I just have some perspective of it being less democratic, a less democratic way of
[Ron Giovino]: I understand exactly what you're saying. The problem is, like everything else, it's the voters need to take action. And if the voters, like you say, 500 voters come out, it's going to be a sham.
[Milva McDonald]: But it would still count.
[Ron Giovino]: What I'm saying is hopefully this is such a rare event that it would be as much as a full election would be to vote yes or no. I mean, I hear what you're saying. And the last thing we'd want to do is have somebody get up there and, you know, The potential's there for three city councilors to be up on a ballot, yes or no. The potential's there for 600 voters to get rid of them. But what is government? Is government is the fact that 7,000 people voted when 43,000 are eligible. So we're just kind of, it is an ugly piece of government.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, we can't recall our state or federal elected official.
[Ron Giovino]: Are you sure of that? Because they can recall the governors.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, we can't recall the president. I'm pretty sure we would have maybe seen a recall.
[Ron Giovino]: No, but they did in California. They had a recall election for the California governor.
[Milva McDonald]: So maybe California allows it, but I don't think we can.
[Ron Giovino]: I think it would be interesting to find out.
[Jean Zotter]: Can we ask the Collins Center?
[Ron Giovino]: What did they do in the Fall River guy? Did they recall him?
[Jean Zotter]: Or they just... It went to city council and the city council... Because he was arrested maybe?
[Ron Giovino]: Maybe because he was a felon?
[Jean Zotter]: Maybe he was arrested and... Well, he wasn't at that point guilty, but he was under charges, right? Like he wasn't... Did he go through the trial and be found guilty? But... He appeared guilty of the charge, but... I think city council removed him, but I don't...
[Ron Giovino]: Something tells me the Collins Center has been asked this question before.
[Milva McDonald]: What are we specifically asking them? How common are recalls? What are we asking them?
[Ron Giovino]: We're trying to understand the power of a recall and how we can make it a unique event and not a, as Jean says, a political view event. However, if for some reason school committee members want to change the entire school system, I would imagine we have the right to You know, although in two years, I do doubt that the process would even be finished before we got rid of them. But listen, I'm all for the vote being the reason why they're in office. So I mean, if a person was recalled and they won the replacement election, they would come back in.
[Jean Zotter]: Yeah, it just seems messy. And other part of it doesn't seem. I guess it'd be nice to know. if some, at least do some cities just do it for the mayor who serves longer? Like you were saying the governor, but not other, or how often is a recall?
[Milva McDonald]: Does a recall happen? Well, these charters don't differ in, they don't say only the mayor. I don't think it would be right to say only the mayor personally.
[Ron Giovino]: I agree. It's the same standard, I think.
[Eunice Browne]: They did do a recall in, Fall River, it looks like this is back in 2019. 7,829 votes. Almost 62%. And then I think. So they voted to recall him, Correa, I think his name was, and then they held a special election, I think a little while later, and he ran again.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, these charters say no person recalled shall be eligible to be a candidate to fill any vacancy created by the Senate.
[Jean Zotter]: But they could run in the next election when there's somebody that's not vacant. Potentially. It's not a vacant office anymore.
[Milva McDonald]: And I don't know why these charters don't prohibit that. There might be laws about, you know, people being able to run for office.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, it does look like, with or without what we put in the charter, Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, Article 8, embedded in the Massachusetts frame of government, citizens have the right to recall public officers through the ballot box in the case of elected officials or through other means built into the statutes. Um, I was told a few years ago that our charter didn't allow recalls. Well, it doesn't our charter doesn't allow anything, but it would have been nice for the, I think it was the clerk at the time to say. But statewide does allow you to do it.
[Ron Giovino]: just to uh just to jean's other question i'm just looking a little further into this document that you're showing here it does have pittsfield does have a requirement for voter participation on these kind of issues these citizen initiatives yeah they demand that 20 of the voting population be participate in this kind of an election so we have i think we may have the option gene i like that you know only if You know, it would have to be a number that's realistic for historic Medford voting. But that would answer your question that would stop 400 people from removing somebody. You'd have to have 10,000 people or 5,000, whatever the number is.
[Milva McDonald]: 20% is a lot. 20% is a lot because in Medford, 20% is between 6,000 and 7,000. We don't get that.
[Ron Giovino]: It would have to be a number that we could work with. 10% is a lot.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, I mean, maybe 20% is a good idea. I don't know. I'm just saying that would definitely be a lot.
[Ron Giovino]: We would maybe want to match the number that the last election cycle vote was. So if there was 13,000 voters, we would take a percentage of that to make this work. We'll have to work on a number, but I think we have the ability, Jean, to prevent 500 votes from making that happen.
[Milva McDonald]: So my other question about recall is, If it really is possible right now under state law, do we need it in the charter? Could the charter just say elected officials may be recalled as under a procedure outlined in Massachusetts in state law? And that way people would know that it exists.
[Ron Giovino]: Again, I would just reiterate my initial statement is that I want this Medford Charter to be the document, the book, where people will go to tab number recall and open this up and say, this is how it is. And so that it just, and for all that we do, this entire book, the more information that is in this document that we're all trying to create here, the better off the citizens are. Because if you go into that basement hole called General Laws of Massachusetts, you're either going to not do it or it's not going to be known. And it's that. I agree.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, I do agree with you. I'm just thinking for this particular issue, because it is controversial. Yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: you know could we just put what state law it can we just mirror that's the other thing we could do is just yes i say this is what's in state law yeah we can maybe we should look at that maybe we should look at what actually is state law we haven't done that either so we should if state law says 50 of the registered voters have to vote then we may want to look at that so um
[Milva McDonald]: I'm thinking maybe the Secretary of State is a good, they have an elections division or, but see, they don't deal with, they wouldn't deal with a local, I don't know. I don't know what department to call. I would bet you you would have to have them involved in some kind of a... So maybe somebody could call the Secretary of State or I don't know if the AG has a particular branch in the AG's office that might be able to answer. Didn't that call-in center tell us if there's? Oh yeah, we can ask the call-in center too.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, put that on your email to them and see what they say. They may have strong advice as to.
[Jean Zotter]: But what's the, what were you hoping to get from the, talking to those groups?
[Milva McDonald]: Just finding out what the, you know, what the statutory reference and the process.
[Ron Giovino]: In our limited research, we know three towns and cities that do it and have it in their charter with different guidelines. So they're not just typing in the general laws of Massachusetts. They've actually gone in there. So it'll be interesting to find out from the Common Center.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, they might reflect there are some differences.
[Ron Giovino]: I'm sure they do reflect. I'm just saying the call-in center may have the quintessential recall document that we can start neutral from and just say, okay, that's what most people do, then that sounds good for us.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. I'll ask them about that.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: So if we, so this Section 86 required voter participation would, if we included it, which it looks like only Pittsfield has done so, would apply to, or could apply to a recall provision if we chose to include it, and an initiative procedures if we chose, you know, if we included them. And then that, I'm thinking, you know, that, I mean, do we agree that it should be for initiative procedures as well as recalls?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I mean, what does it say? What does it say under the initiative? Does it have a number on that?
[Milva McDonald]: Well, for Pinsfield, they say for any measure to be effective.
[Ron Giovino]: No, I'm saying in the write up for citizens initiative, I thought they said something about
[Jean Zotter]: The citizens initiative would go on a regular voting schedule, right? It's not gonna be a special. I'm not sure about that. Right, is it?
[Milva McDonald]: We'd have to look back and see. We could put special election, but.
[Jean Zotter]: Because if it's at a regular voting time, then you have the regular number of voters that turn out. Not many.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, how many actual voters voted at our last municipal election? Do we know?
[Ron Giovino]: I want to say it was like 13, 14,000 in that range.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, that sounds about right. The count was probably the lowest. The high in the recent past was 2015 when McGlynn wasn't on the ballot. And then it's dipped lower and lower each time. I don't think that. Yeah, I think it dipped after that. And then I think when it was Burke. Brianna, it went up a bit, and then it's come down. This was her third term, so I think it's, you know, since it was Burke-Brianna. 19, it's dipped in 21 and 23.
[Milva McDonald]: And now the number is sticking in my mind that it's about between 30 and 35 percent turnout.
[Eunice Browne]: I think it's closer to 30 these days.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. So 20 percent, you know, maybe is reasonable. That would be about 8,000. Right.
[Jean Zotter]: I mean, I guess to me, if you get that, I feel like then it's representing
[Ron Giovino]: It would need to be, you know, we'd have to remember two things that people talk about. The 43,000 number is not accurate.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, it is accurate. It's the number of people who are registered voters.
[Ron Giovino]: It doesn't mean that's how many votes. No, no, no. What I'm saying is it's not necessarily, you know, there's an error ratio in there somewhere.
[Milva McDonald]: What do you mean?
[Ron Giovino]: Like 43,000 voters, people die every day. People move out of the city every day. So I'm just saying, it's a moving number.
[Milva McDonald]: They all say as of the last recent regular city election.
[Ron Giovino]: Right, but I don't think, and I'm not an expert in this at all, but if you don't sign up in your census, the only thing you can't do is when you go to your election, you have to prove who you are. But that doesn't take you off the voting registry. So technically, if I left the city and no longer voted for six years, I don't know if there's a cleanup process for the city.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, but those are... I mean, I think that there is eventually, but I don't think those numbers would be big enough to significantly, you know... No.
[Ron Giovino]: My personal thing is if 7,000 votes wins a city council seat, then we should not... Less than that wins a city council seat. Yeah, and we're less than that for a school committee.
[Milva McDonald]: Like 5,000, you know. Yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: So I mean, I'm just saying to me, it's like, what should the expectation be 14,000 or 8,000 when the mayor doesn't even get that amount? So I don't know, we have to figure out that number. I don't know what that number is.
[Jean Zotter]: Yeah, that's a good point. We like this provision, but we don't know the amount, the percentage.
[Ron Giovino]: I think it answers your concern about being able to run through a process very quickly, but I think it should be minimums.
[Milva McDonald]: Question on number. Okay.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Submission of other matters. And now, and I don't ability of city. Oh, okay. So this, this is the ability of the city council in the school committee to submit a voter referendum provision. That's interesting.
[Jean Zotter]: Yeah. I like that too. Can they already do this though or no?
[Milva McDonald]: I'm not sure because, well, the interesting thing about this is, like you would say, well, why wouldn't they just pass an ordinance, right?
[Jean Zotter]: Well, I think it could be something like two and a half override, which I can't say. I don't think they could do that. I think that's a state law. No, but I'm just saying if they wanted to gauge the will of the voters before taking action, they could put some kind of question on the ballot.
[Milva McDonald]: That's non-binding.
[Jean Zotter]: Non-binding. Yeah. They could put non-binding to understand where people are.
[Milva McDonald]: That's not what this is saying. It's not about non-binding. So that would be different. OK. And I don't know if that's something, I'll make a note, so, about non-binding questions. And, okay. I mean, the only thing I would say about that is, I don't know what kind of effort and expense it, it is to submit questions to the voters.
[Ron Giovino]: Does this have to do with, I mean, the first line in all three of these says the city council may by its own motion in shall at the request of the school committee.
[Milva McDonald]: Does this mean that?
[Ron Giovino]: Is this saying that this is the school committee's way of creating an ordinance?
[Milva McDonald]: It says that it, I mean, the school committee's, so, I don't know what ordinance the school committee could create that, you know, they don't really operate that way.
[Ron Giovino]: No, but what I'm saying is they could appeal to the city council to force this action. It doesn't make sense to me. I don't understand. Like you say, the city council has the ability to do this on their own.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Right, they can pass an ordinance.
[Ron Giovino]: Why would a city councilor say, well, let's let the voters vote on this?
[Jean Zotter]: I don't know either. Well, I guess I was assuming, and I only used two and a half as an example, is that if you're considering some major undertaking that either is an expense or you may want to ask the voters where they are on it. That's all I was thinking.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah. But how does that differ from two and a half in the charter approval process? that would allow the city, it's gotta be rules that say, like the charter process can't go from the city council to the voters. It's gotta go through, and I'm sure 2 1⁄2 must do the same route.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, 2 1⁄2, it's state law, so I haven't read the law, so I'm not that familiar with it, but I don't think we could say- Plus this new 2% rule.
[Ron Giovino]: I don't know how that, I would hate to, I would doubt that the city council would ever have an incentive to put it on the ballot.
[Milva McDonald]: But what are you talking about, 2% rule?
[Ron Giovino]: The 2% sales tax for property.
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, you mean the real estate transfer tax they're talking about.
[Ron Giovino]: Right.
[Jean Zotter]: Yeah, that's all I was, I mean, we can ask the Collins Center if it's ever used or why they have this here, but I was thinking if it's some big thing that maybe they're like.
[Ron Giovino]: It's funny, they all have it.
[Jean Zotter]: Yeah, exactly.
[Ron Giovino]: It's almost like they looked at the general laws, and that's why they all have it. And then they just made tweaking motions to it.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I wonder where the boilerplate of this actually came from.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, I don't know. I'm not sure. But what we kind of want to know about this is, what is the purpose of this?
[Ron Giovino]: There's something confusing, because the city council has the power to do whatever they want. Why would they put it to a vote?
[Eunice Browne]: And what's it got to do with the school committee?
[Ron Giovino]: Unless they made an ordinance that the mayor rejected and they can't get enough votes to override, maybe that's what that is.
[Milva McDonald]: Maybe, maybe. I'll see what the call center says. School committee can't pass ordinances.
[Adam Hurtubise]: No, no, no.
[Milva McDonald]: And I don't think they could put, this is, and they can't, this is just not letting them put something on the ballot themselves. They have to go through the city council, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's right.
[Jean Zotter]: Sounds like city council has to approve it if they don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[Milva McDonald]: No, it says they shall at the request of the school committee.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's very confusing.
[Milva McDonald]: If the measure pertains to school committee affairs that are under the jurisdiction of the school committee. So it doesn't sound like they have to approve it. All right. I don't think. That's what shall means to me.
[Jean Zotter]: Shall is you will. You will do that.
[Milva McDonald]: And this language is the same in every charter, right? So.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: All right. So we have. Clear as mud. Yeah, we have questions about that. Oh, wow. Inflicting provisions.
[Jean Zotter]: Well, this seems like if there's two ballot initiatives and they're different takes on the same topic. Right.
[Ron Giovino]: Which is interesting because part of the process that we've read at the beginning is that it goes through the city solicitor's office for, you know, I would imagine that's something they would check.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, no, I think what this is envisioning is if one group of citizens did the work and got all the signatures and got this measure on the ballot, say to vote affirmative for bike lanes and another separate group of citizens got a question on the ballot and says vote no on bike lanes so there's two questions on the and then more i think more if i could just i i think more is and they would put on the ballot i want bike lanes without helmets i want bike lanes with helmets
[Ron Giovino]: both of those conflict with each other. Those could not be both on the same ballot.
[Milva McDonald]: No, they could be. I believe they can be. What this is saying is they can be on the ballot, but if they both succeed, then you have to say which one actually takes effect, because they can't both take effect, right? Right. If they conflict.
[Ron Giovino]: And the greatest number of affirmative votes shall dictate that? Right.
[Jean Zotter]: Yeah. What is success? How do you succeed when it gets to, is it 50% of the voters? I didn't see that. Did we?
[Milva McDonald]: Well, if it's a yes or no question, whichever, you know, like if you get more- Largest number. I mean, theoretically- So it's the largest number?
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay. It just says the greatest number.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, theoretically, this is highly unlikely, right? Because if something is, you would think if the same number of people are voting, they're gonna vote yes on one,
[SPEAKER_00]: how conflicting it is.
[Jean Zotter]: But I guess it's just- I can see like, let's say you have a tree ordinance. I'm just making stuff up, but. Yeah. And one is the trees have, if you can't cut down a tree, if it's a hundred years old, I don't know. And then there's somebody else does an ordinance, you can't cut down a tree that's 50 years old.
[Ron Giovino]: Here's what I think the reason is, back to my bike lane. If there's a valid question that says, the ballot question would say bike lane without helmets, yes or no? Bike lane with helmets, yes or no? So if both of those passed, yes versus no, then you have two initiatives passed that conflict. But what I'm saying is on the ballot, the choice is not I want helmets or no helmets. The question is bike lane with helmet could pass, by itself, then bike lane without helmet could pass at the same time. Right. You could have two new initiatives that conflict. Right. Because you can't have both. That's what I think, in primitive terms.
[Milva McDonald]: I think that's it, yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: That's what it is.
[Milva McDonald]: I think this is highly unlikely, but it's people thinking about potential problems, which is good.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes, I think so.
[Milva McDonald]: Because if such a thing happened, you'd want to know what to do, right? Yeah. Okay. So if we adopt, if we decide to put, you know, some of the initiative petitions, we probably would want to include this too, right?
[Ron Giovino]: Just because. Yeah. I would think 8.8 is pretty easy to do.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. And that's the last one.
[Ron Giovino]: So just at this point, I would like to propose Section 8.9. okay which is the same process as we've been talking about only specific to charter reform and again it's putting what i'm saying what i'm saying in here it gives a process a procedure so that if you wanted to not wait five years till we review the whole thing again if you wanted to initiate a change into the charter, you would have the same steps that allows you to make that change.
[Milva McDonald]: I'm virtually positive that that would be in conflict with state law, but we can check.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I don't know. Well, I'm not saying it's an ordinance. I'm just saying that we have the ability. We don't have to wait five years to change the charter. So anybody can change the charter as it's being done now. We have our charter process. They have their charter process. What I'm saying is in our charter, this charter, it says to the citizen, here's a process. Get 5,000 signatures, figure it out, form your own. Anybody can form a charter study review. Anybody can do it.
[Milva McDonald]: I'm pretty sure that this isn't gonna be allowed, but I will look at, we'll check it.
[Ron Giovino]: But me as a citizen by myself, I don't need any authorization to create a, like you folks did before the charter study was formed. That was not, you weren't authorized to do that. You got signatures, you tried to get it through and it didn't.
[Milva McDonald]: I'm just saying put the- We never got the, that wasn't any signatures to change the charter. That was signatures to ask the people if they wanted to review the charter and put candidates for an elected commission on the ballot. Okay, so what I'm saying to you is make any changes.
[Ron Giovino]: Currently, today, if you, Melva, want to change the charter, How do you do it?
[Milva McDonald]: You can't. A resident can't change the charter. You can try to get a charter review to happen, which is what we did and which is what we're doing right now. And there's those two ways to do it. You either override the city and state government by having an elected commission, which then you have the heavy lift of 7,000 signatures, or you do what we're doing and you go for a special act charter, which is customary. It's not in the law, but it's customary to have a committee, an appointed committee, do the charter review just as we are doing, but ultimately the city council and the mayor then have to submit the homegrown petition to the state.
[Ron Giovino]: All I'm saying to you is what I envision this book to be is a how-to guide to government for individuals.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Right.
[Ron Giovino]: that what you just described could be in here so that if I know that I can go to this book and say, oh, look at this. This is what I have to do. How many folks do you think are out there that know this process? I didn't know this process.
[Milva McDonald]: However, I mean, one of the things we are going to be looking at, including in the charter, is a regular charter review. So if there's a regular charter review, then you don't need to know how to do it. The reason, because it's going to get reviewed, right?
[Ron Giovino]: I understand what you're saying. I'm just suggesting that in my vision, it's a how-to guide to get representation in the city. To me, if I said, how do I impact this particular part of the charter? How do I get started? Who do I go to? I like this to be the Bible for the city. That's all I'm suggesting.
[Jean Zotter]: So you just want a reference to existing law?
[Ron Giovino]: Exactly what it is right now by state law. So you're not... I'm just saying... No, I don't want to change it at all. I just want folks to know that this is... To know where to go, okay. That's what I'm saying. I'm not saying... I have no qualms with the way this was set up. I'm just saying that I want a new person to the city who has a thousand people who hate this part of the city can look in this book and say, oh, my God, we got to do all this. Forget about it. Oh, my God, this isn't so bad. Well, let me talk to the Charter Review Committee that did it last time. We'll never do it again. But that's awesome.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I mean, we can look into that. I mean, it's complicated, you know, because if you start, you know, it's not that easy to understand how you get charter review to happen or how you change the charter. And then you can say, if you look it up, you see these two paths, because you're either, the only thing you can end up with is a home rule charter, which is using Chapter 43B, or a special act charter, which is what we are aiming for. But then Medford had Home Rule petitions, which did this weird hybrid thing. And it said, well, we'll take Chapter 43B, and we'll put it in our Home Rule petition. So we would have had an elected commission, but we would have ended up with a Special Act charter. Although I'm still not exactly sure, to be honest, what they would have done. Because the Home Rule petition kind of said that it would follow Chapter 43B. except for a few details. So that makes me think it would be a home rule petition, but it's moved because the home rule petition never made it through. I don't even know the answer to that. So all I'm saying is it can get complicated. You can say, well, there's only two paths to charter review and then, but actually Medford tried this other thing, you know, which was sort of not exactly sure what it would have been.
[Jean Zotter]: And we modified our charter quite a bit through those special acts, it sounds like.
[Milva McDonald]: In 1986, because it wasn't reviewed in 1986, it was changed through a special act. Right. When it was changed to plan it.
[Jean Zotter]: Oh, right, I thought that there were like charter, nevermind, I don't want to just jump.
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, I know what you're talking about. When you look in our charter, there's a bunch of special acts.
[Jean Zotter]: Yeah, and they never went to the voters, but they changed the charter. So that part I totally understand.
[Milva McDonald]: I don't know how much they actually changed, like I think the mayor's salary is a bunch of those special acts. There's certain things that you can't, I mean, you know, I don't think the state would allow any substantive changes without putting it to the voters.
[Ron Giovino]: They usually don't. Even if we said charter review and change, see general, mass general laws, and give them the actual general law number, So it makes it, I feel better that we've educated somebody with that. Simple as that. I don't want to discuss that. I don't want to change anything. I just want a book that says, boom, here it is, CMASS General Laws, and then you go figure it out.
[Milva McDonald]: I know. All I'm saying is I'm pretty sure that there's going to be a discussion about whether we're going to recommend including a regular charter review in our charter.
[Ron Giovino]: Absolutely. It should be in that. It should be the next part of that that we mandate. I thought we said five years and then 10 years after that.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. So if we do that, then these other I mean, we would have a special act charter, and I suppose there's nothing that would prevent somebody from collecting 7,000 signatures and trying to get a home rule charter.
[Ron Giovino]: We have a lot of people walking the city getting signatures, I think.
[Eunice Browne]: People have tried that before, and it's not that effective. Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, this is a quick comment. I didn't know.
[Milva McDonald]: Thank you. So we have a pretty long list of questions for the call and center and Ron, you're going to call Malden. And so how do we want to proceed from here? with these because we, I mean, nearly, you know, the first section seemed relatively simple and we thought, okay, we can agree on that, but then everything else was like pretty complex. They're very important things to think about, but they're not simple.
[Eunice Browne]: I don't think we can do much more until we have some answers from, you know, the Collins Center. So I think, you know, the next step would be waiting to hear back from them. and then circulating what they have to say and then scheduling our next meeting after that.
[Ron Giovino]: Is there anything else, Mova, that you want to add to this Article 8? Or do you think that at once, because as Juna says, I think we're just missing a little education as to what's currently being done across the state.
[Milva McDonald]: But I mean, I. Well, what I'm wondering is, do we want to do anything besides ask? I mean, you're calling Malden, but and besides asking the Palmer Center, do we want to try to. do some of our own research. Do we want to, like for instance, does somebody want to talk to Fall River about their experience with a recall? I don't know.
[Eunice Browne]: What's the best way to, I mean, I would assume, and I think most city charters are online, but there are 350 cities and towns in the Commonwealth. You can be taking a stab in the dark, like, oh, I'll try this one.
[Milva McDonald]: The Excel spreadsheet that I sent out has links to, those are all not all 350, but they're mostly cities and the cities are the ones that we should be looking at. because all the other charters are going to have town meeting and things like that. So that has links, which should take you to the charters. Caveat, you know, the thing about the internet is it's not always easy to tell if you're looking at a current document. You know what I mean?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, when was the last time it was updated?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I can't remember there was one thing I was looking at. I can't remember what it was when I was researching something and I was like, what's going on with this? How come, you know, and I asked the call center and they're like, Oh, yeah, that's from, you know, 2020, you have to look at this one. But, you know, so it's not always It's not always easy to tell if you're looking at an active document. So, if you really want to find it, you go through each community's website, you know, the city website, and you get it that way. But you can check, you know, they are all linked in that Excel spreadsheet I sent out. Or you can check, you know, go to the City of Malden website and look under charter and it should take you to their charter.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I don't mind looking at a few to see, I guess I'll just look at that comparable spreadsheet and pick 3 that. You know, look like they're similar to us in terms of population and so forth.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, the other thing is, you know, you don't always know the age of the charter you're looking at. And what we do know is that these three charters that the Collins Center provided us with are, you know, pretty recently updated. So, and to me, it's sort of telling that each community had most of these provisions.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. I don't know if that means. Well, maybe, but that's one thing the Collins Center will be able to tell us. Well, you know, it's, yeah, it's, um, people are really starting to put recalls into their charters or whatever. It doesn't mean we should do it, but it would be interesting information.
[Jean Zotter]: Well, I'll, I'll volunteer, or I'm curious about just Googling like local recalls, local citizens and just seeing like, what's happening in Massachusetts. So I could just do like a... I think it's a good idea. Okay, thank you. Google our analysis of...
[Milva McDonald]: And if sometimes, so that's good to find out sort of news and things like that. But if I'm looking for research, sometimes I go to Google Scholar. Yeah, I was thinking more like news articles. Yeah, yeah. But if you're looking for both, Google Scholar, sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not any better. Never heard of that.
[Jean Zotter]: Right. That's where all the published articles, like the periodicals and stuff.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, Eunice, if you're ever looking for studies, you just Google Google Scholar, and it'll give you a search engine. And then you just put the topic of the research you're looking for. And you can filter it and find studies on it in the last 10 years or whatever.
[Eunice Browne]: OK. And I'll take a stab at looking at a few of the comparables. OK. If that enlightens me at all. I want to add something is as Ron said he wanted to add a section. Well, we have to 9 run.
[Ron Giovino]: My suggestion was it just we're at 88. I was adding 8, 9, but we haven't decided to add that yet.
[Eunice Browne]: So, okay, well, that's, you know, up to welcome to be. So, I'd be looking to add an 810. When I first looked at this section, it wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be. There certainly had some things like the recall and so forth that had been on my mind for a while. But the other thing, when I was reading through the National Civic League section on role of public engagement and it talks about accessibility, transparency, meeting people where they are, and so forth. And it might be getting a little bit into the weeds, but I would be interested in having a conversation at least about making sure that meeting, talking about how and where meeting notices are posted, times that meetings are held, where they're held, and just ensuring that people have the opportunity to be informed about when meetings are, what they contain, where they are, times they are, and so forth.
[Milva McDonald]: So some of that is covered. Yeah. Isn't that some of that covered by open meeting law in terms of the postings, when they have to be posted and things like that?
[Eunice Browne]: When they're posted, not where they're posted. And the other thing that I've learned over the last while is that some communities, Medford being one of them, the Mass State Government allows communities to be an online posting city. And I think most communities do this to some extent where their official posting is like on the city website or something. Medford is what's called a physical posting city. So the only, and this is on a spreadsheet on, I can send it out to everyone. All that they're required to do Is post a meeting on a piece of paper and tack it on the bulletin board outside the city clerk's office. And that constitutes posting. Whereas.
[Milva McDonald]: Have you done research about where each municipality decides what their requirements are going to be for this?
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I think the municipalities decide whether they want to be an online posting city or a physical posting city. Most people have now gone to the online posting city, where the requirement is only posting online. And not just for city council, I'm talking about a school committee who do a reasonably decent job at putting things up on the calendar, but I mean, we're encompassing the whole city. So I'm talking about all of the boards and commissions and so forth, and talking about their agendas, how their agendas and minutes are posted and where and in what sort of a timely manner. where in addition to either outside the clerk's office or on the city calendar are meeting notices posted because a lot of people have no idea when meetings are. Where else do you think they should be posted? In a variety of places online, perhaps the library. I think this would be the responsibility of somebody in the communications office.
[Milva McDonald]: When you say a variety of places online, what do you mean?
[Eunice Browne]: I'm talking about all the local Medford Facebook groups, the neighborhood groups, the senior center group, and then the West Medford Community Center. You know, different the city clerk has an email distribution list. That if you get your name on it, he'll send you out the. You know, the next week's agendas school committee doesn't have anything like that. Perhaps they should and it's, you know, your option to. To then, you know, participate in that there's a lot of people in the city that. are very ill-informed because the city doesn't always make it easy to be informed.
[Milva McDonald]: How do you envision that that would be included in the chart?
[Eunice Browne]: Talking about accessibility or transparency.
[Milva McDonald]: And did you see things like that in the National Civic League's model charter?
[Eunice Browne]: It talks more about City Shall Treat Engagement as a multi-channel endeavor, meeting people where they are geographically, holding meetings in different locations, using different information technology tools and platforms. It talks about transparency, accessibility. Schedules should accommodate a variety of participants. Some meetings are held at like four o'clock in the afternoon.
[Milva McDonald]: What section of the charter in the National Civic League, do they have this under citizen participation?
[Eunice Browne]: It doesn't get so much into the weeds. It talks about it more a little in general. It's article, actually, in the National Civic League, it's actually Article 7, the role of public engagement in local government.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. In our generic model charter, Article 7 is elections. So it sounds like article eight is the comparable section. I'm really sorry. I have to go. That's OK, Jean. Thanks. I'll just email to set up another meeting.
[Adam Hurtubise]: That works.
[Milva McDonald]: Thanks. Bye, Jean. Eunice, would you just copy that language that's specific to what we're talking about in this subcommittee and share it and we'll look at it at our next meeting. Okay. Because from what you're describing, it sounds like it's more aspirational language because we can't go into the specifics of this physical location, this online group or whatever. But that's what you just were reading out sounds sort of like a more aspirational kind of like this is the culture that we want to create in the city.
[Ron Giovino]: And you'd have to do it to enhance the open meeting law rules, which are pretty specific to as law. So I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I hear you. But I'm thinking, I'm looking at Milvern. I'm saying Milvern would be responsible for distributing all that information. Or we have a difficult time getting our agenda out for 48 hours and all those things. Plus the fact that there's a large, as you said, a large population that has zero access to social media. Computers and they would require a handwritten letter to every location.
[Eunice Browne]: So there's a lot of talking about the boards and commissions and things having to do this. I'm talking about this coming out of the communications office.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, that's what I know. I understand that, but it's, it's, it's a. I mean, if you're adding that on, I think as Melva said, I think you'd have to really. be able to justify different from the open meeting law that already exists of the 48 hour notification and all that stuff. So I don't, I don't, I hear you. So it's a big problem. I hear it all the time. Yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: I guess where I'm coming from, you know, is. You know, like you just said, getting people informed is a problem, right? how can the charter help to solve that problem? Or maybe it can't.
[Ron Giovino]: We could buy a community newspaper and we could all run in the newspaper.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. And I'm not sure that's the role of the charter, but I don't know. I am interested in looking at that language from the National Civic League, what they recommend.
[Ron Giovino]: Maybe see. I'll ask the mayor. I'll ask the mayor of Malden. I mean, they have newspapers, so they don't have this issue.
[Eunice Browne]: I would be interested to see if the Collins Center has seen anything where they get a little bit, anyone's charter, maybe this will be something I'll look at when I compare things is, does anybody else get into the weeds or is the Article 8 that we just read, that we just spent the last hour and a half rehashing, is that what public engagement is? Because to me, public engagement means more.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, I think public engagement does mean more, but it's not necessarily like the charter is the charter. It's not responsible for all the public engagement in the city. So, you know, so I don't know. So I don't know. You know, I feel like it just because it's not in the charter doesn't mean that you don't have it. And then what kind of language do you want to put in the charter that isn't, like, when you say get into the weeds, you're talking about, like, saying things like, you know, meeting notices have to be posted at least 10 locations in the city.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. Getting into the weeds. But then again, but that's not, you know, not the responsibility of, you know, the board, you know, board or commission chair or whatever, it's, you know, like in your case, it's you submit to the, you know, Steve Smurdy or, you know, Emma or whatever, I can't remember her last name. And then it's up to them to be able to disseminate more widely than they are now.
[Milva McDonald]: Right, which is now they posted on the city calendar.
[Eunice Browne]: The city calendar and You know, sometimes on the on the. City Facebook page, whereas what I try and do, you know, just me and you've seen it is that I'll take that information and I'll post it everywhere. I can think of and I think it makes a little bit of a difference. But, you know, why am I doing that? You know, I'm not getting paid to do it. That should be somebody's job. Yeah, and they should be, you know, again, I mean, it comes back to where understaffed and, you know, undermanned and so forth, but the city, and we don't have a newspaper. And that's a problem. And that's not something that we're going to solve. But in lieu of that, somehow or another, the city has to find a way to
[Ron Giovino]: Well, I think you're 100% right, Eunice. I just, I think Milva's point is, how do you charterize that to make it a doable event that is punishable if you don't do it? You know, I think that's the
[Milva McDonald]: I hear what you're saying, but I just think- Well, that's why I'm interested, Eunice. I think we should start with you just circulating that language from the model charter, the National Civic League's model charter, just so we can look at it. Because just from what you read, it sounds like it's not that type of thing, what you just said, Ron. It's more sort of like, this is the goal.
[Eunice Browne]: Essentially, and I guess, you know, my other point is that, you know, just because. It's not in article 8 or anywhere else in the charter. It doesn't mean that it couldn't be. Yeah, we can be trendsetters.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, so definitely send that language around just so that we have an idea and we can start thinking about it. Okay, and I'll put it on the list. And so I will send around an email to see when we can have our next meeting. But what we don't know is how long it's going to take us to get any answers.
[Eunice Browne]: And I don't think that there's a point to meeting until we do. Right. So should we just wait to set up?
[Ron Giovino]: Maybe we should put a two week hold on discussing next meeting and then we decide where we are at, where we're all at with the information.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so I'm going to make a note for myself. I'll put two weeks from today, look into scheduling another Article 8 meeting.
[Eunice Browne]: Because as it is, we have our regular meeting next Thursday. And you guys have a school committee meeting. Tuesday night. So, you know, I mean, we're kind of booked next week.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, but we do have an October deadline, so. It's going to be an interesting summer. I think I'm not going to be seeing my place at the Cape that much. Well, I mean, if we're really going to be submitting a final report in October, by the time summer rolls around, we'll be writing the final report.
[Ron Giovino]: The good news is I think this Article 8 will write itself once we have the information we need.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I think so too. Yeah. I mean, the big thing is going to be whether the committee thinks that these ideas are good to put into the charter, how the committee feels about recall, et cetera. Yeah. I agree.
[Eunice Browne]: It'll be interesting to see what the city council is going to do with their April meeting.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. We'll see. We don't know.
[Ron Giovino]: They got their hands full too.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes.
[Ron Giovino]: Good luck to them if they want to rewrite the charter too.
[Milva McDonald]: All right, so that sounds like a plan, and I will send out the minutes.
[Eunice Browne]: Thank you. Okay, that's going to have all of our homework on there, right?
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, it will.
[Eunice Browne]: Thank you. Have a good night. All right, thanks, guys. Good night.
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