[Milva McDonald]: All right. Welcome to the March 4th, 2024 meeting of the Article 7 Subcommittee for the Medford Charter Study Committee. First order of business is to accept the minutes. Did you both have a chance to look at the minutes?
[Unidentified]: Yes. Yeah, I'll make a motion.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Unidentified]: I second.
[Milva McDonald]: Great. All in favor?
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Okay, so what we need to do is sort of wrap up what we started on last time. Unfortunately, I did not. I did not hear back on our questions. Hopefully, we'll be able to. The call-in center is coming to our meeting on Thursday, so we can just ask them then. But I thought we could just look through the blue parts, and those are the parts that... Oh, this I just put in blue. not because we had talked about changing it, but just because we're not sure how school committee is going to end up yet. So I just put that in blue to show that it's tentative, because we haven't decided on the composition of the school committee yet. So this was one of the things that we were talking about, the timeline, which I didn't get any information from City Hall. So I think we should just put in something we think is reasonable. And all of this is going to get reviewed by the whole committee. It's going to get reviewed by the call-in center. It's going to help us with drafting. So if they see something egregious, they'll let us know. And of course, it's going to be reviewed by the city council and the mayor eventually. I have one question. OK.
[Andreottola]: I know this year they put together an election committee. And that's a committee by ordinance.
[Milva McDonald]: You mean, can you be more specific? They? You mean the?
[Andreottola]: The city council. OK. Because the election used to be under the clerk. Is that right?
[Milva McDonald]: No, there's an elections department. Yeah.
[Andreottola]: But it's the elections department reports to the clerk. clerk no to the mayor no to the mayor years ago what you're saying anthony is correct that the elections department answered to the clerk but they took kind of took that off of his plate and now it's the mayor okay so now this elections commission which is which which is i know that they have one because i saw that they just recently reported to uh the uh to the City Council about the election, you know, kind of, I don't know what they had to do get warrants or approvals, you know, for the, you know, the primary election. And I know that they brought something up at City Council that was voted on maybe a meeting or two ago. So, I just don't know what their role is in this or are they, was that commission created? by ordinance that will it fit in the charter or should it be mentioned at all in the charter or?
[Milva McDonald]: I'm not sure because I don't know what gene I don't know. I haven't looked at in detail at what they did. So I don't know.
[Maury Carroll]: I think I think if they could refer to they had a recount. No, this has nothing to do with the recount. Oh, okay. They had to certify that.
[Andreottola]: Right. They had to certify that. But this was something just about election, the next upcoming election, like the procedures that were going to be followed, and then the city council, I believe, ratified it or whatever. They did, but there was definitely a presentation by this election commission and the city council took action on what they brought in front of the council. I believe it was two meetings ago. So I just don't know how they fit in the charter.
[Milva McDonald]: I don't know.
[Andreottola]: They were created.
[Milva McDonald]: I'm not sure because I'm not familiar with that. But what I do know is that what we have here is the, you know, pretty much standard material that goes into a charter or Article 7 and anything that the charter would trump any ordinance. So I don't know that we need to worry about it with what we're doing.
[Andreottola]: Okay. But it's something I think we should just get, you know, clarification for. I just don't know how their, you know, kind of what their mission is. You know, do they set dates or do they, you know, do they just kind of make sure procedures are being followed? I just don't, I just, I'm not quite sure what their role is and who they report to. You know, I know they, went in front of the city council, I don't know if they reported the mayor to the elections department, to the clerk.
[Milva McDonald]: When you say they, you're talking about some sort of commission?
[Andreottola]: Yeah, there's a commission, there's an election commission.
[Milva McDonald]: It wasn't members of the elections department?
[Andreottola]: No, there's an elections department and an elections commission. I never heard of them. I don't know. I'm not making it up. I know it's newly formed as well. And I know that the city council, you know, the members had to be the mayor nominated members and the city council kind of approved them because I believe like one or two were not approved. I know it's something new, it's something that just wanted to affect this year. So I just think we need to find out about it.
[Milva McDonald]: So there is an elections commission responsible for managing and supervising elections, the annual census, and registering voters in the city of Medford while ensuring compliance with federal, state, and local election laws, policies, and guidelines established by Mass General Law and the municipal code. It looks to me that this is pretty much the same, what we call the elections department, but I don't know. So that's, yeah, the elections manager position is currently vacant. So the election commission in Medford is just the elections, what we were referring to as the elections department.
[Andreottola]: I don't believe so.
[Milva McDonald]: I think, yeah, no. Well, this body that I see on the city website, I don't think is a new body, so that may not be what you're talking about. Yeah, I was just trying to see if I could find reference to it.
[Maury Carroll]: I'm looking myself. I don't see anything. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist. That's for sure.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, I mean, maybe looking on the city council agenda is, if you think that it's the city council's body, but I don't know. That's definitely not a new body. That's, you know, the elections commission. So, so I don't think it's probably, it's probably called something different if it is a new body. And I'm just wondering, the only thing I'm aware of is that there was, that there was some, there were some discussions on things that happened during the recent election, and that they were sort of trying to investigate that. But that's all I'm aware of. And so the responsibility for elections for the city council comes under their governance committee. And I don't know if they have anything on their agenda for the governance committee. That's, you know, I don't know if part of their agenda is looking at, I don't know what they're doing about elections. But again, You know, I think we can cover Article 7 here. I mean, the question I think, Anthony, you have is if they did create some sort of a body, should it be mentioned in the chart? Is that what you're asking?
[Andreottola]: Pretty much. Or, you know, is it something that should be? I see the things that I don't know how it was created, because like Maury had said that the elections at one time were under the city clerk and how that got moved around. Did it get moved around by ordinance or did the mayor do it? We don't really know.
[Milva McDonald]: I don't know and I don't know if we really need to know that to do the section of the charter. I, I guess, in terms of whether to enshrine something, whatever body we might be discussing in the charter, I, I think that. you know, that we probably couldn't put details in it anyway, just like when we talked about the compensation body. The only thing we can do is say that such a committee shall be formed and then the city council has to handle it with an ordinance. So I, you know, I don't think it's really the purview of the charter to put a body like that in, but I don't know. So, I mean, we didn't see it in any of the other charters we looked at, so.
[Andreottola]: I went through them as well. I didn't see any reference to, you know, commissions or, you know, the specific elections department or who it reports to. Because I always thought, you know, they keep the mayor separate from elections, you know, just to kind of, have, why it was under the, you know, under the clerk, you know, to kind of keep it, you know, just not to have any, you know, kind of, you know, the, the mere having like control of, you know, the election, you know, that it's so they're like, kind of more free and independent of any particular politician.
[Milva McDonald]: I don't know that the mayor has control over the election, but the mayor hires the department heads, and that's a department that's under the mayor. Does that make sense? I think that's the case.
[Andreottola]: It does, but I believe that whoever are on this commission were also kind of ratified by the city council.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I don't know. I'd have to find out about that. Like I said, the Elections Commission is not a new body. So you could be talking about something else that I'm not familiar with. But we can, you know, I think we can proceed with what we're doing. And then maybe, you know, we can put that on our list to look into that. And like I said, this isn't final. I mean, this has to go through the larger committee. And so we can sort of put it in the notes to research recent efforts to address election. So the timelines, this text in blue here, I put it in blue in case we have to change it depending on what gets decided about the school committee composition, but it also has some dates in there for the signatures, right? We have the forms, signatures of votes shall be made on a form. that's made available not earlier than April 2nd in each preliminary election year. So that's the, I guess, that's the earliest that people can start. That seems like a reasonable date to me for those forms to be available. What do you guys think?
[Andreottola]: Oh yeah, and that goes back to where they are now, right?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, because a lot of people don't declare. Some people, May is, I think, considered pretty early to declare, right? So that gives plenty of time for candidates. And then for certification on or before the 14th day preceding the date fixed for submission to the city clerk, the form shall be submitted. You know, this is what I'm wondering is whether the forms In Medford would be submitted to the city clerk or the elections department. But I think it's the clerk because I think- It is the clerks right now. Right. Because the clerk certifies the signatures, right?
[Unidentified]: Yep.
[Milva McDonald]: That's why they go to the clerk. Yeah. Okay. And the clerk didn't express any opinion on the date. You know, so I guess we just decide what we think is reasonable at this point. 45th day prior to the, so this would be that the, this is for the preliminary. We're going to get to the general later, but this is, this would be.
[Maury Carroll]: Right around the first week of August, if we're doing the second week of September as the primary, correct? We're doing the second Tuesday of September, whatever that is.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Maury Carroll]: It could be the 8th, up to the 10th, I think. So yeah, I think 45 days previous is reasonable.
[Milva McDonald]: OK, so we'll leave that. And that means I'm going to take this part out of blue. All right, where's the next blue? Oh, and this is ballot, this is another timing thing. This is when the names get drawn for the, and this would be new.
[Maury Carroll]: This would be for the primary election too, so if we're doing 45 and then five days later everyone's certified, then they can put the way they're gonna appear on the ballot.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. But that only gives the clerk five days to certify the signatures.
[Maury Carroll]: Right.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. I don't know. I mean, is that enough time?
[Maury Carroll]: No, and maybe that's something he wouldn't mind answering. I know he's kind of evasive, and he doesn't like to really say anything. But I mean, it's been... Why don't we leave it like this? Les Anthony, you have some thoughts. Leave it like this. See what the rest of our committee thinks.
[Milva McDonald]: And we know that this is the timeline that's used in other cities. So it's not, you know, it works in other places.
[Andreottola]: So, I mean- And I'm sure some of the candidates will have, will have suggestions too, if it gets to that point, whether, you know, how this eventually ends up, you know, people, you know, who run for office will probably have some feedback as well of, you know, You need more time, this was difficult or you need more time for this or less time for that.
[Milva McDonald]: My only concern that I can think of with the five-day window for the clerk is that the clerk in Medford doesn't really have a staff, right?
[Maury Carroll]: I think he's got two people.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. So, you know, is that would that be burdensome to him? But I don't know how quickly they process the signatures now.
[Andreottola]: I think they do it pretty quickly, actually, because I mean, you want a lot of life to him out the signatures either. I mean, yeah, cross referencing the you know, the the, you know, the city census or the, you know, the property records, you know, it really can take.
[Maury Carroll]: I just signed a candidate's papers, signed yesterday for, would be what, the preliminary election, right?
[Milva McDonald]: Not a Medford candidate.
[Maury Carroll]: A state.
[Milva McDonald]: State, yeah.
[Maury Carroll]: For November, I think. Again, it would be September also.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Okay. So let's leave it at that. And then also, they know it's coming. They can plan for it. They know that they have to do it in that window if that makes sense. Okay. So let's see. What else did we have in blue? This was another date thing. Okay, this is when the drawing would be held for the, this is a regular city election, not later than seven days after the certification of the preliminary election results. I mean, this is not, this is not a time-consuming issue, right, drawing the... Oh, that's bang, bang, bang, you would think.
[Maury Carroll]: Right, the only... There's no nothing, they're just gonna certify the vote, who's in and who's not.
[Milva McDonald]: It has to be open to the public, but nothing in the charter says that it has to be advertised. So I don't know. Okay, so seven days sounds good. We'll take that. And then in the event that there is no preliminary election, the drawing shall be conducted on the fourth Tuesday in September prior to the regular city election. So what we were talking about last time where candidates might want to get their materials out with, you know, whatever number X on the ballot. If the drawing was, that's pretty close to the election, right?
[Maury Carroll]: Yeah, it is. I'd say if we could back it up. Yeah.
[Andreottola]: Well, if there's not a pool in there, right. I'm sorry, if there's not a preliminary election, they could just have the drawing on that same day.
[Milva McDonald]: On which date?
[Andreottola]: The date that they're going to draw for the preliminary election.
[Maury Carroll]: Which was? We could do the drawing, as Anthony's saying, on the day that there would be a preliminary election, but if there is one, they can do the drawing that day.
[Andreottola]: No, no, there's a date that they would draw for a preliminary election.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, which we just looked at.
[Andreottola]: They just leave that as the date.
[Milva McDonald]: If there's no preliminary election... At least 40... Well, what we have is at least 40 days before the preliminary election, so it's not a specific date. What if we said at least 40 days before the general election?
[Unidentified]: Does that make sense?
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, yeah, that's what you're saying. Okay. So where was it? Shelby conducted at, what did we say, at least 40 days? Is that what we said?
[Maury Carroll]: Yeah. Is that giving them enough time?
[Milva McDonald]: yeah i don't know because i mean they have to get stuff printed etc right right so you think we should be do you think it should be 60 days because because the stuff that they're going to have they're going to pass that out closer to the
[Andreottola]: to the election if they want to put, like, I'm number five, or they want to start doing it. They have plenty of time. They're not going to tell people that four months in advance, because they'll forget the number. That's true. They want it fresh in people's minds.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, 40 days is a lot more generous than some of the other charters we looked at. So why don't we keep it at 40 for now? OK, that sounds good. And then in the event, oh, wait a minute. Oh, a special, this is for a special election. In the event that there's no preliminary election in advance of a special city election, the drawing shall be conducted. So interesting, this is on the 6th Tuesday. Why the 6th Tuesday? Really interesting. Prior to the special city election. That's just... Yeah, I guess a special election doesn't have to be on a Tuesday. So that, I mean, assuming a special election might, it might involve a candidate, it might involve an issue, right? This is six weeks. That's actually about the same as 40 days.
[Maury Carroll]: Yes, right in that window.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. Should we leave it as is, or should we just say 40 days before the special city election to make it?
[Andreottola]: At least 40 days. I would say it's better to be consistent with the 40 days. And if people want to change it or whatever, they'll just change the amount of days. It's not getting into weeks. You start getting six weeks or eight weeks. It makes it a little more confusing.
[Milva McDonald]: What's interesting is, though, we have at least 40 days, so it's not specific. It's just basically a deadline. And you'd have it before 40 days. This is so specific on the sixth Tuesday prior to the special city election. So we could just keep it and say at least 40 days. I just don't know if there's a reason for a special election that they would have wanted to make it that specific. I can't think of one. Can you?
[Andreottola]: No, I could just see because it, the days of the week if, you know, when the weekend falls or something like that, 40 days, at least 40 days kind of covers that. It just makes it simpler. You know what I mean? It's gonna be 41, 42, 43 days. It's just gonna be basically six weeks, you know?
[Milva McDonald]: So we're keeping it the same? Yeah.
[Maury Carroll]: Yeah. Okay. Consistent throughout.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. That's good. What else? Oh, this part. I don't know. We talked about it last week, and we said, oh, we'll just keep what's in the charter now. And then I thought about it afterwards, and I thought, you know, why not simplify, right? What was in the other charters we looked at said, all elections for city offices shall be nonpartisan and election ballots shall be printed without any party mark, emblem, or other political designation. Oh, no. That's different. OK, that's lower down, sorry. This is wards. We're eight wards, aren't we, Nova? We're not seven. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, that's what we needed to talk to the Collins Center about. This is for nonpartisan. I was talking about nonpartisan elections, which is not in blue. So I just felt like that language from the other charters was just simpler, right? This has a lot of extra words, like annual, biannual, or You know, instead, the simpler language just says all elections for city offices. So I just felt like the language was simpler. And if we could simplify it, why not?
[Maury Carroll]: Why not? Exactly.
[Milva McDonald]: What do you think?
[Maury Carroll]: I agree with that.
[Milva McDonald]: OK. So I'll just replace this more simplified language with there. And then the wards was one of the things that we had a question for the Collins Center about, right? This language might have just come from another charter and that's why it says seven. But the main question we had was why is this in this section? Because what we're trying to understand was the city council's role in this because most of what we've been told is that the state draws the wards. So, but clearly the city council has some role because it's in this charter and also our city council, I think it was about two years ago, what was it? That there was some discussion of adding another ward in Medford.
[Andreottola]: Right, but they can only be added once every 10 years.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. But what we don't understand, what I'm failing to understand is what is the city council's role if the state is the one who draws the wards and comes up with the wards? How does that interact with the city council?
[Maury Carroll]: I don't know.
[Milva McDonald]: So that's what we need to know. I mean, this looks like standard language. We could say, oh, we're just going to leave it in there and then we can ask the call-in center about it later and just change seven to eight. I'll just do that right now and leave it in blue and then just say this is in blue because we need to talk, we need to understand more what the city council's role is in wards. How about that, we'll just leave it in blue. And then we can ask the city council, I mean, we can ask the call-in center when we get them. Okay, so, and then I will later, I will, I could do it now, but let's see, here's the simpler language. And then we, put the A in the front. Okay, look, it came out gray instead of black. What do you know? Okay, so that's pretty good. I think we went through it. We did it. We only have that one question about Section 7-6, wards. And other than that, we've got a good, and if we have to change, depending on what happens with the school committee, we might have to change that, so.
[Andreottola]: Yeah, because that'll make a big difference too, you know, just with, you know, will there be preliminary, you know, preliminary elections? Because if you're going to, by ward, you know, how many candidates would you have to have in a ward to warrant a preliminary, election in what happens where there is maybe only one person running in a ward?
[Milva McDonald]: Well, if one person is running, you wouldn't have to have a preliminary, right?
[Maury Carroll]: You wouldn't have to have a preliminary election unless there was more than two running in one ward.
[Milva McDonald]: Right.
[Andreottola]: I mean, just like- But then do you have a- Do you know what I'm saying? If you say, well, it's preliminary election day, And is there only an election in three wards? And not in five?
[Maury Carroll]: It all depends, too, if at large it's up there and so forth like that, and that would be citywide.
[Milva McDonald]: Right, exactly. So if there's three at large and there's seven people running for those at large seats, there's going to be a preliminary, right? But if there's six, there won't be. Because it's usually, right? And if there's three people running for a ward seat, there would be a primary. But if there's one or two, there won't. Isn't that how it works?
[Maury Carroll]: I think anything more than two on a single ward would be a preliminary. Anything more than What, three? At large, if that's what you had, would it be? Because no. You'd have to establish a number because, right, like six, let's say, would be.
[Milva McDonald]: No, I think it's, I think it would be because, like, for now, there's seven seats and there's only a primary if there's more than 14.
[Unidentified]: Right, exactly.
[Milva McDonald]: Right? So that's like, they're looking at it as two, as there's at least one person compete, you know, competing against somebody for every seat. So it's sort of double the number, which, you know, and that's one of the things that can get, can be difficult. I think for people voting in Medford is because you got a list of 14 candidates.
[Maury Carroll]: What's going on right now. You know, there's a tug of war going on with the school committee. On the open seat?
[Milva McDonald]: I wasn't aware that there was a tug of war going on.
[Maury Carroll]: The city council wants to say there's nothing in the charter, they should be the one to- I didn't know that was happening.
[Milva McDonald]: Because the charter only specifies what happens for an open city council seat.
[Maury Carroll]: Tony mentioned in the plan E charter that was in effect. There's nothing in the plan H. I'm sure that our current charter says it. I always thought so too, because I had a discussion with someone just the other day about it. And I said, it's next man up.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, I think our current charter says it, but only for city council. Because our current charter says nothing about city council. So they have to look at mass. Yeah, about school committee. That's what I meant. They have to look at whatever the mass general laws are for such an occasion. So I didn't know that they were.
[Maury Carroll]: This discussion going on about it.
[Milva McDonald]: Wow, that's crazy. Well, that's just another reason why we need the charter.
[Maury Carroll]: Exactly.
[Milva McDonald]: So, but that leads me to a question, well, that comes in, it'll come in Article 4, I think, because about the school committee, and that's the article of the charter that's for the school committee that will say what happens if there's a vacancy. Yeah, okay, well, yeah, that's not in this part of the charter anyway, the vacancy issue. Okay, so I'm going to send you guys minutes, but I don't think we need to have another meeting. I think that I can, I feel like, let's see if you guys agree that the document that we just created, we can share with the whole committee at this point?
[Andreottola]: Yeah, and if there's modifications or adjustments, we can do it in the larger committee.
[Maury Carroll]: Yeah, exactly. I mean, we've done what I think what we started off to have our goals, put the document together that fits the language that's relevant to the city of Medford, or we think it is, and let the committee dissect it from there.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, awesome. So I will send you guys minutes and which we technically aren't going to have another meeting, so we won't technically have to accept them, but I don't know. I'll send them out anyway and we'll post them. And I will share that document with the whole committee. And probably in April, we'll probably get around to voting it, making it official. And that'll be a whole nother article of the charter that we've got a draft done. So awesome. Good work.
[Maury Carroll]: I know. Good work by everybody. It's a joy of working with you guys.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I agree. All right. Should we officially adjourn?
[Andreottola]: Sure. I'd make a motion to adjourn. I'll second it.
[Milva McDonald]: All right, all in favor? Aye. All right, thanks. See you Thursday.
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