[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So this is the subcommittee on school committee considerations of the Medford Charter Study Committee. I'm Paulette Van der Kloot, the facilitator. And we are going to begin by accepting the minutes of the meeting held on 2-13-2024. Do I have a motion to delete those minutes?
[Ron Giovino]: I'm hearing some noises. I don't know.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Somebody's got to yeah, something something. Okay. I think it went off now.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Okay, great. So, I'll make a motion to accept the minutes of the February meeting. 2nd.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: All in favor? Aye. All opposed? The minutes are accepted. I sent some feedback from two school committee members, and I just sent the third earlier just before the meeting. The feedback, one was from Erin DiBenedetto. And let me just quickly bring it up. Erin wrote just for the, I know that the committee members have seen it, but for everybody else, she says, I think four years is preferred, but that may be too long, so at least three. Running every two years is just too much. And again, Erin was on the school committee and experienced that running every two years. Four years is a long time, so it may be too daunting for some. On question number three, and this was about wards or at large, she says, I like wards for city council, and I think that having each part of the city represented at school committee would be beneficial. I also like that when you were elected, you represent all students of Medford, not just your ward. She favors the mayor being the chair of the school committee. And she does not favor term limits because she thinks that knowledge and the history, knowing the history is helpful. So that was errands. Then from Cheryl Rodriguez, who was a candidate for school committee. She said that she thinks two is fine. I think the committee should change. People should yield to others and not park forever, but it should match city council to not necessitate extra elections. A school committee only election would yield very low turnout. She says a four-year term would not have prevented her from running, but it is a danger of when supermajorities exist on the committee as it does now. And again, these are her words. There is the issue of preventing parents and students from being heard. One voice all voting the same on any agenda item. For question number three, which was about the wards versus at large, wards may lessen the, and she quotes, we have to all vote to appease the one school that has the largest amount of voters living in its boundaries, end quotes. Other schools deserve a voice too. Far too long, that has largely been impossible because those that vote get the most attention. She says that having the mayor be the chair works in that you are more likely to get a response from the mayor's office regardless of your political views. Today, we have a one-group voice school committee for the most part, and any who don't agree find their concerns in emails ignored. She does believe in term limits. says children come and go from the school system, being aware of the goings on in the schools is vital for a successful committee. She also mentions that it would also be nice if their public participation policy was deemed to be unacceptable. Going through the hurdles to be heard and then speaking to people who won't respond to you has led to the public feeling they are not welcome at the school committee. My 15-year-old daughter said, why bother? I doubt they are even listening if they won't talk back to you. Thanks to the group for undertaking this labor, Cheryl Rodriguez. And then the one that just came in for Kathy is, she says she's enjoying her retirement. She thinks two to three years would be preferable. She's not sure whether the four years would have been daunting for her starting out. She favors an at-large school committee. And she favors the mayor being the chair of the committee. She does not favor term limits. Let the people vote, she says. So that's the feedback which we received so far from other people we've reached out to. Okay. Any other questions? On that note, pretty straightforward. Okay, so I don't see that Aubrey has come. Ron, are you able to share the Collins Center Article 4? Yes. Now, I believe that some of you and maybe Ron, in particular, and Eunice, you went through this process with another part while I have not. So I'm not quite sure how you attacked it specifically because we haven't really come up with a final we haven't resolved the whole issue before us about which way should we check. I did wonder, as we start this process, one of the things which happened since our past meeting was that a school committee member, Melanie McLaughlin, has decided to withdraw from the school committee. So a major change. And what's really interesting about that is that leaves only one a person behind her, John Intapa, in line. And when I thought about this a lot this week, because I kept on saying to myself, okay, so what happens if we're trying to pull from eight wards and get everybody have their own, you know, school committee representation? And what happens You know, as I've mentioned before, it's not, I mean, there were times we had a lot of people running, but there were times when we did not. And there was one time when we had, None of the seats were contested. Nobody ran it against us. And many times when there were there were only two or three candidates. And in this particular case, there was only one one candidate. Now, thankfully, John won. I'm assuming and maybe somebody already knows that John will take the seat.
[Phyllis Morrison]: I don't know anything about that. I don't know. Please accept it or not accepted.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I haven't heard anything.
[Eunice Browne]: I have a little bit of information on that. My understanding is that. I guess they have spoken to him about taking the seat and he's interested. He was in chambers last night. What I thought was interesting, both in a meeting that they had last week and last night's meeting is that they call member McLaughlin's name and marker is absent, even though her resignation had taken place a week ago too. Yeah, we could go today. So I don't know why that's happening. But John was in the audience last night. And I'm not sure if they haven't been able to work out a swearing in time or some other things that Erica Reinfeld, who is one of the sitting school committee members, mentioned on a post on the Medford Reddit forum, which is kind of similar to Facebook, like the Medford Politics Forum, if you're familiar, is that because our charter does not have a provision for a vacancy on school committee, what to do with a vacancy on school committee, it does for city council. If you read our four-page charter, If there's a vacancy on city council, it tells us exactly what we need to do, but there is no provision for a vacancy on school committee.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I can tell you what the past practice was, because it has happened before. And as you and I discussed, Eunice, we think it happened prior to any of the research you did, which is why it didn't come up. And it would Tom Frieda, was the committee member, if I recall. I think he withdrew and Nolan came in. I'm a little sketchy of my memory. I'd have to go back and take a look. But without any question, whichever way it went, the person who was next in line then took the seat. So that is my expectation. But it certainly calls to mind as we're trying to work through this process, it certainly underlines to us how carefully we need to make sure that we're trying to anticipate potential vacancies. But also, as we're trying to make this very difficult suggestion about which way we should write our opinions about at-large ward and the other things that are affected by it. It's kind of interesting. I mean, you know.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Here we are. It was interesting to read through article four where we have the different towns and cities and how their school committee is set up, how it's elected, what happens when things go through. It was very interesting to read, and I am a bit surprised, though, that we do not have anything in process to replace a seat vacated on any committee in our city, especially school committees. I know. That's why we're doing this. I can still state that, yeah, well, this is the thing. This is why this absolutely needs to be done.
[Ron Giovino]: Remember, too, we also default to the Massachusetts state general laws, too. So I'm sure somewhere in there is that law. That's why the importance of what we do is written down so that it's noted. And just to your, I detect concern from Paulette about the ability to find candidates at-large versus ward. And all I can say is that we did a at-large election with the school committee, and we're down to nobody on the bench now. So the fact that we don't have candidates is a separate problem, in my mind.
[Phyllis Morrison]: I think also, though, I think that we don't have a lot of candidates, whether it be Ward or at-large, because a lot of people aren't interested in running. That's what I'm saying.
[Ron Giovino]: It's not necessarily because we're at-large versus Ward. I think it's the same. And I will, just to continue the thought, tell you that it would be easier to replace a school committee person if we were in ward representation. That would mean you just get that ward together to pick a representative. So cost-wise and process-wise would be quicker than if we had to go at a full city election to replace them.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right. Rod, counter to that, and I am going to challenge you on this.
[Ron Giovino]: Sure.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Because counter to that is, maybe it'll be easier. But what if there's really someone who's interested in education in Ward 2? And they can't run because there's somebody else sitting in the seat. But you have to convince somebody.
[Ron Giovino]: We would have an at-large spot. We would have to look, possibly, at at-large spots.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And then the question is the size of the committee.
[Ron Giovino]: Correct.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And the question there is how effective it's going to be. As you increase, here I'm speaking from experience. I mean, I'm not saying that our current seven is optimum. And you might convince me in trying to get more people from a greater spread in Medford to up it. But I just see it as, I don't know what the optimum size is.
[Ron Giovino]: And unfortunately, it's our task to make that decision to represent our recommendations to the committee of the whole, so.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right. So the question is maybe kind of wondering where, you know, where we are in agreement and where we are in disagreement. I think, you know, after I went through these past two this past two weeks and thinking about Melanie leaving and what that meant, it actually drove me closer back to, for me, the at-large representation for school committee. So I don't quite know just anybody, maybe I could just ask you your opinions of where you're sitting.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Can I nudge you a little bit on that, Paulette? Sure. What made you lean now more solidly toward at large? What about that? What was the, or what was a factor that led you back to being more solidly leaning toward at large.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Because I know that in this past election cycle, I know that school committee members went out and tried to talk up being on the school committee. They were encouraging people to run for school committee. In the past, we have encouraged people to run for school committee. Okay? We haven't sort of sat there and said, no, we don't want competition. It's the opposite. That's the funny thing. We wanted more people to run for school committee. And it wasn't like, you know, people who tend to run for school committee by and large are people who either have kids or have a particular interest in education. It may have people who have had kids, but they have particular interest in education one way or the other. And while when you run for city council, The difference is that you're more interested in the workings of the city. There's more things that touch you specifically. So there's always been more candidates for city council than there has been for school committee. And by the way, you know, I absolutely have argued with this with myself so many times. I absolutely see some virtue in having a ward. And if I were to, I mean, my perfect is say, okay, let's combine wards to make four ward representation and then have two at large plus the mayor.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay, can I can I ask you a question? Are you in favor of ward representation for the city council?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Um, I know that many others are. And because of that, I am comfortable enough with it to say, Okay, yeah, I see. I see a difference in their roles. Okay. Okay. And I totally get, I mean, I listened to the teacher from the Curtis Tufts and she said, well, actually I might've liked having someone. And part of me said, damn, sorry. I failed her because she didn't understand I was interested in the Curtis Tufts. But frankly, one of my colleagues, Erin, was very interested in the Curtis Tufts and took a major role in the Curtis Tufts. So frankly, I could spend some energy elsewhere. You don't need all of the school committee members interested in the same thing all the time. It's better if you find your Kathy Kreatz. She was great with the vocational school. Wonderful. You each had your niche. Right. You have your niche. You have a role you play. And the role changed. Clearly, the role changed for me. I once had the youngest kids and the only kids. I had the only kids. As a member of the school committee, but that changed over time and then all of a sudden I got old and known, lo and behold, everybody else had kids and I didn't, you know, so. Anyway, so this has obviously been, it's very, very difficult for me. The strongest thing I personally feel is having the mayor as head of the school committee. Absolutely having the mayor on it with a preference for having the mayor as the head.
[Phyllis Morrison]: I agree that the mayor should be on it, but I'm still not decided whether I think the mayor should be chair or not.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, I know.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So, Eunice and Ron, I kind of hear you saying, and some of the things that you've said, which are really important to me, is keep it simple.
[Ron Giovino]: Let me just say that, you know, the last while you guys were having the last meeting and I was sitting in the dark, I spent a lot of time thinking about what occurred at our last meeting when the citizens were speaking up. So my opinions are usually strong and. usually unwaving, and usually, you know, I think I've done enough research to understand it. So let me just, I'll just go and give you my opinion of where I think I would like to see it going. I strongly believe, after listening to the folks who contributed to our meeting two weeks ago, that the ward representation piece doesn't differ from city council to school committee. It gives representation to each of the wards. And I think that's a very essential piece to when we don't know who is in each ward, let's assume they're all blank and we're writing something for 50 years down the road. I think it definitely follows the policy where folks in a neighborhood realize that someone in that neighborhood is on the school committee and on the city council. Secondly, I know there's been a lot of talk about elections. This piece is a very easy piece because Elections, number one, under this ward representation piece, you only have to campaign to one-eighth of the city. So your costs are lower. Your time involvement is lower. And hopefully, if you're doing the good job of a school committee person, your ward knows you and knows whether they want you to continue. So I think that all the complications of two years, every two years, I've got to run a campaign. I just don't, I think under the ward representation piece, I think that if the school committee person is doing the job, they're communicating back and forth, there's no campaigning. I know Sally or Jimmy is the school committee person. I like them because of this, I like them because of that. So I think the two-year piece is kind of a moot point when you're narrowing down the size of the campaign. I also think that two years is the right amount of time, because as we see, it's a very challenging task to be in the school committee, even with the little raise they just got. It's very involved. And to that point, going from seven to nine school committee men and women, if we're talking about eight wards and one mayor, I also think that we should look at, and Paulette, you can speak to this too, is if I have six school committee men in the ward and the mayor, versus eight and the mayor. I have an opportunity to have more people working on those committees and lowering the workload or giving the ability to create new and better plans going in the future, as opposed to being bogged down in a committee that I may or may not love, but I know it has to be done. So I think when you add representation on a school committee, you're also adding bodies that can handle the roles of subcommittee leaders, which is a major part of what they do. So I think there's a lot of benefits to going to 8-1. I think the mayor must be on the school committee, but not in the role of chairperson. I think the chairperson has a high function functional job to get the school committee to stay on board. The mayor does not have to be the chairperson. He or she is still the mayor on the school committee. So policies, procedures, commitment to those ultimately are the responsibility of the mayor. So that doesn't get lost because the mayor is on the committee. What does get lost is the mayor using up running a meeting, it's just not simple, as we know from running these subcommittee meetings. To run these meetings, I think it would be refreshing to have somebody else doing it, but the mayor, obviously, I strongly believe should be on the committee.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Brian, just one thing. Sure. We talked to our current mayor specifically about this. There is a funny thing. As the vice chair, I was called upon to run the meetings of the school committee whenever the mayor couldn't be there. Okay. Right.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: When you're running the meeting, you get to listen to everybody. When you are a member, you are preparing what you're going to say and being ready to say. If you notice, Often, the mayor actually doesn't chime in until the end or summation piece and not necessarily as much as the other meeting so they're being in it is just a little bit different than what you might.
[Ron Giovino]: And I have no experience in the school committee world. I just didn't know that the chairman of a school committee is also the person behind the scenes who sets agenda, sets procedure, the path that they're going on. And we also have a superintendent who sits in the committee who is not a committee member. And I think that she does an excellent job of her role as being the superintendent. And I don't see why the mayor can't have that role, too. That's the mayor. The mayor is there. The mayor will answer those questions if they come up in a committee meeting. I'm just not sure. The mayor, I believe, is the ultimate responsibility for everything in the city. It's the CEO job. But I also think that we heard from a lot of school committee people who suggested that they would like to have the mayor not be the chairperson.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: But we also heard from the other half of the school committee, quite honestly, I think it's pretty well split.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, I'm listening and I'm weighing what I heard. And I also know that the amount of money that we're making does not give us, you know, this is way above our pay grade, but it is our job to make this.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Wait, what amount of money is that, Ron?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, what are you talking about? Money, there's no money.
[Ron Giovino]: Free Zoom. Free Zoom.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Who now thinks we're getting paid.
[Ron Giovino]: What I'm saying, if anybody lives in the city, they know that's not true. My point is that our job is to make a choice here. So I've made my choice based on the input of school committee. I've also, I know the mayor of Malden says he doesn't think he should be on the school committee. So there's, everybody has an opinion. We have to take those opinions, and come up with a recommendation and a vote. And if you ask for my opinion, these are my opinions. I think Ward matches and mirrors what we're trying to do at the city council. And I think the citizens who spoke at our meeting two meetings ago echoed that sentiment that they want that kind of representation. So that's what I heard.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I think the thing that we have in common that I've heard so far is we all agree the mayor should at least be on the school committee. So we have something in common. Yay.
[Ron Giovino]: All right, motion to adjourn.
[Phyllis Morrison]: I would like to say this. Ron, you just brought up a very important point that I hadn't really been intentional in thinking about. When you talked about the eight members of the school committee, you know, I think the distribution of committee work is something that's much more doable when you have that number of people. I think that's a point that I hadn't really kind of honed in on. So I appreciate your bringing that forth. That's really caused me to do a little bit more thinking.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And I just want to know the opposite of that.
[Phyllis Morrison]: No, not just yet. I want to finish. Yeah, I just want to know that that's OK. I have a real concern myself about the amount of the term for the school committee members. Well, To be, I think we're trying to come up with from what we hear from the public, what we read about other towns, what we hear from other mayors, school committee members. And Paulette is a great person for us to have because she's actually been there. But I think that two years is too short. I think you get in, you're getting out. You're getting in, you're running for re-election. I think for me, it would have to be, I think the most efficient and effective way would be minimum three years, minimum three. And I know that you talked, another point that Ron brought up was if we do it in wards, it's not as costly to run elections again. So in my case, that would be a plus for whether we, you know, it would be three years or two years and my vote would be three. So Paulette, the other side of what you wanted to say, I just wanted to get that out before I lost my train of thought.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Oh, the other side is what you wanted to say, is in the way that we worked, every committee member was responsible for a committee, and other committee members were members of it. So we typically had three. So if you add more committees, it means that there will be other more places where you'd also have to be too. But anyway, so it's a- We could get more done.
[Eunice Browne]: Paulette, talking about the committee structure that you were talking about, and I know that you've mentioned that there was a whole lot of committee work when you were on there and a lot of hours and things like that. I sense that they have changed their committee structure so that, I, you know, I, I think they have about a half a dozen or so committees and they only. begin to work when something from the entire body is a paper is referred to that committee. So they don't go off and start each committee doesn't, you know, like start a project of their own. They have to wait for something to be referred to them. And then they begin to meet on that. I've gotten the sense in the last, since they instituted that rule, um, which was maybe, I don't know, a year and a half ago, two years ago, um, I get the sense that they don't meet much. Some of the committees don't meet at all.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So Eunice, you're absolutely right. And it has changed over time to more complicated, less complicated, more complicated, less complicated, somewhat depending on who the members are and who the superintendent was. I mean, there was a point where it was absolutely It burned everybody out, quite honestly. I think that there is a shift now, which is the way it really ought to be, is that something's referred from the committee. Which is the way it works on city council, too. I'm really looking to try and see where our commonalities are, where we're in agreement. You know, I do feel if we suggest ward representation, we are gonna have to be so clear about what happens if there's not a candidate from that ward or if the candidate steps down and there's no one, you know, then does it go to a net large? So we really have to hypothetically, if that's what we're gonna recommend, we have to be so clear on the potential fallout from that.
[Ron Giovino]: I'll add just a point of information. We did look at when a ward cannot produce a candidate, and it kind of scrolls all the way down to where it says you must find a candidate. So it's interesting that there are no rules, and we should have. And while Milva has arrived, I want to ask another point of information. I remember vaguely last meeting we talked about three-year term being a nightmare or for some reason, and I just want to get that out before we start entertaining two versus three versus four. I know Milva had mentioned it, and I honestly don't remember what it was, but that's what I recall. So maybe Milva can just update us to get that portion of the three-year piece out.
[Milva McDonald]: Sure, the three-year terms present, they could present difficulties for the elections department because you would inevitably have to have local elections on years when the state and the federal government had elections. they can't be on the same ballot. So you would have voters, you would have the elections department having to figure out how to navigate that, basically, how to navigate having two ballots, having some people coming to the polls who were going to vote in both elections, some people only voting in one election. They would have to figure out how to navigate that. And it's just not, there are not really many cities that try to do that because of that. And towns will have elections maybe on off years or on years, same year as the state or federal, but they have elections, they can have elections in the spring and cities don't do that, so. Doesn't mean it's impossible. It's just, it's not easy.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: If I may toss in my two cents and then some. So, well, let's see a few things. The term length, I think four is, I think four is too long, although I see what the superintendent's saying. I think three years is definitely the sweet spot if we can find a way to make it work. Regarding ward representation, I thought in Cheryl's response, To the questionnaire, Cheryl Rodriguez, I thought she had a really interesting point about words may lessen that we all have. We have to all vote to appease the one school that has the largest amount of voters living in its boundaries. Other schools deserve a voice too. Far too long that has largely been impossible because those that vote get the most attention quote unquote from candidate Cheryl Rodriguez. I thought that was interesting because if you actually look at the makeup, the current makeup of the school committee, I think. Is it four out of the six, not counting the mayor, come from the same ward, which is where the Brooks School is? And I think that that's been the case in other cases. So I think ward representation would ensure that all schools have somebody, even though the at-large, everybody is supposed to be everybody's voice, I think having somebody that lives in your area, in your ward, whose kids might go to that neighborhood school, I think that there would be a benefit to that. So I think that that's a positive for ward representation on the school committee. As far as the mayor, for me on the school committee, but not the chair. And my reasons or thoughts that is, I think the mayor brings to the school committee, the budget knowledge and the knowledge of the entire city and how all the moving pieces and parts interact together. So I think her presence there is important. But I think being the chair, means she's agenda setting, she's organizing. On top of all of the other responsibilities of her job, I think that needs to go to somebody else. So she's not burdened with all of the logistical housekeeping aspects of being the chair. Could we, I see that some other communities have the mayor on there and she's either a non-voting member or she's voting only in a tiebreaker situation. That could be something to consider as well. And I wonder, In two ways, does she have undue influence as the chair, as she's the mayor? And in some cases where we have controversial subjects, how she votes. is sort of an optics thing as well.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So Eunice, can I just make one point here? Sure. You're looking at it as, does she have undue influence? And I am looking at it as, when she's there, I and being the head for me means she or he puts more pressure on them to be there much more frequently than just being a member. OK, that it's not does she have undue influence? It's do the other school committee members get to make sure? I mean, that's the value of having her or him as the chair is or them as is that I'm able to influence her, not her influencing the committee. So just a different perspective, again, from having been a member. That's why I wanted the mayor there, because that was my opportunity to really make my case and for every other school committee members to make their case to the mayor. And it was powerful. Anyway, I'm again looking to say, how do we want to proceed? Oh, I see. Sorry. I'm going to take, I see Bill has his hand up. So Bill, I recognize you. Please unmute yourself, Bill.
[Bill Giglio]: OK, I'm sorry. I always get confused when I start scrambling around. So I'm just trying to think outside the box. And this could be completely dumb or completely not even capable. do other cities by any chance like you know you have your basic school committee and then within those school committees you know you have your uh subcommittee uh meetings and one chairs it and you might have another two that are on there correct yes that's normally how it goes but is there any city like that does let's just say one one person chairs it and then and then from the city, you get volunteers. Sort of how the city does now with, let's just say, the veterans or how they have people volunteer. And then that way, a few people maybe do a lot of the work and report back to whoever the committee, the head person is to that subcommittee. And then would that help lessen the load? Or is that something that would not even be able to be done? Do you know what I'm saying?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes, I do understand what you're saying, Bill. I honestly don't know. I don't.
[Bill Giglio]: And with that, maybe even bring in more potential candidates in the long run if they say, you know, I might sort of like this if they just sort of get getting their feet wet and that might get somebody to even run for the position.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: There certainly has been a time when we have sought other. citizen participation, and that was at budget time. And for a while, each school committee member invited, chose someone from the public to be their person, if you would, who attended all the budget committees with meetings with them. And often it was people who had demonstrated interest in being on the school committee, and it really gave them a chance to see what it was like. Some went on to run for school committee and some did not because they said, oh, my God. Yeah.
[Bill Giglio]: So but I was just wondering if it like, you know, lessens the load, because like some of them are on maybe two or three committees. You know what I mean? Whether they share one or if they're just on it. But maybe if if each one just shares one and you know, if you had if you had a couple of volunteers, you know, obviously they'd have to be volunteers. And then they just you know, they just sort of just report to whoever the chair is of that subcommittee. I'm just I'm just thinking if that can be done at all.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I understand exactly what you're saying. I will tell you that my experience is and you may remember this happening as well from your days is that. So let's say it was a committee on buildings and grounds. OK, so interesting topic, important topic. Well, the two voting members go. But so do two or three other members who are just so interested in the topic. And while they are not a voting member of the subcommittee, what really happens is that more than two, more than the members of the committee itself used to go. Now, again, Remember, we went through some years where, especially the COVID years, it was crazy times and everybody showed up for everything. It was a lot of meetings and whatever. Now, I think that after going through a very intense time of so many meetings where people were generating their own topics all the time, I think it has backed off a little bit so that it makes more sense and people have their committee that they're ahead of. You know, they're responsive to whatever comes up. And part of that, of course, is that they're talking to the superintendent and saying, you know, this is an important issue. So I don't think we need to get that caught up in that in the workload of the committee. I think we need to, I would not necessarily have the mayor be the head of a committee, additional head of a committee. So as we think about writing these things, I am hearing generally more preference for ward than at large. But Bill, why don't you just, I don't mean to cut you off if you've got anything else you want to add.
[Bill Giglio]: No, that's all I had to add. I was just very curious of it, not even really suggesting it, just throwing it out there. That's all. Okay. Thank you, Bill. Thank you. Yep.
[Ron Giovino]: Paulette, can I ask you a question? Sure. I defer to you for experience on the school committee. That's why, you know, your value to this committee is very important. Reading some of the school committee, active school committee or recently active school committee members who did not think that the mayor should be chairperson, We're talking about not having a great pool, a multiple pool of choices and campaigns to school committee person. Do you think that if the mayor was to not be the chairperson and perform more of a role as the superintendent does in those school committee meetings, Do you think that someone interested in the school committee would have more incentive realizing that they could potentially be the chairperson of that school committee and have the ability to be more involved in shaping and fashioning the way the school and education is in Medford?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I don't know, because, you know, we just never did it that way. I think when we get to the clauses about how we elect the chair, if we're going to go for in that mode, I think it's very important that the chair rotates every year, a different chair every year. And that should be true with the secretary. It is a little more challenging with the secretary because one of the secretary's duties is to sign the bills. That means that they either need, and I don't know exactly what they're doing now because it's changed, but there is an onus of a burden of work that needs to be done. But that should also change. I remember, you know, one time I was the secretary for far too many years, and I kept on saying I shouldn't be the secretary anymore because other eyes needed to be on the financial stuff. And nobody could do it, so that's why I ended up doing it. But I think we need to put in our charter that those positions will rotate amongst the members, and the members themselves will select who the chair is, which is what's being done now.
[Eunice Browne]: I completely agree, but I point out something. If the mayor is not the chair, then we have. On the school committee, 3 leadership roles, the chair. The vice chair and the secretary. And when we started out this term. you know, eight weeks ago or so, we had, and removing the mayor out of the equation for a moment, and just looking at the remaining six, back in January when they were inaugurated, we had, and going back to what I said, we have three leadership roles, we had three veteran school committee members, and three just starting out. Now, eight weeks in, because we have a resignation, now we're down to two veterans and four new folks. And that could well happen again, starting a term, if there's a considerable amount of turnover. So then you're giving one of these leadership roles, again, extracting the mayor out of the equation, and looking at the other six, you're giving one of these leadership roles perhaps or maybe more to somebody who is just starting out. So that's just something that I'll- Just another complication there, Eunice.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Hey, that's what I'm here for. Right. But it might just speak to some stability of having the mayor as the chairperson. That might provide some stability given the situations the committee might find itself in. it would be, I think, far too challenging for a newly elected school committee member to have to take on one of those roles.
[Ron Giovino]: But yet we do that in the city council.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Right. I know. I understand that. And that's fine. We're talking about the school committee here. And that point, I think, is really, you know, I think that's a very interesting point that Eunice has brought forth.
[Milva McDonald]: It is interesting. I just want to throw out whenever there's a new mayor, then you have the same situation. That's all.
[Eunice Browne]: Just throwing that in. Thanks, Melva. No, but it's true. Yeah. To go back to the point of how to do this, from serving on a couple of the other subcommittees or just sitting in on them, I wasn't on the Article 2 and 3 subcommittee, but I sat in on a number of their meetings. And what they did was, and the reason I gave everybody this draft, was that they took each section, and I have too darn many papers in front of me. They color-coded and they went through each section. For example, Article 2, the legislative branch, Section 2.1 is very similar to Section 4.1, composition, terms of office, and eligibility. They took out all of the Medford Melrose Weymouth stuff and they took composition The 3 sections composition, the terms of office and the eligibility and they've color coded where anything in black ink is language that was reviewed by that subcommittee. Green ink was any language accepted by the full committee of the what are we 11 now? And then blue is language that warrants further investigation by the full committee. So what I would suggest, now that we've been talking about a bunch of this stuff for a while, if our little group here has come to any consensus on anything, is that we take section 4.1 and make a heading that says composition, and we put in as reading what the legislative group said, there'll be a city council that shall exercise the legislative powers of the city, shall consist of 11 members, each ward will have a single ward councilor, yada, yada, yada, yada. Terms of office, the term will be two years beginning the first Monday in January, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right, Eunice, I think that's exactly where we're going. The only thing was that before we start that work, which is we're going to do this in another couple of sentences, I've been trying to figure out where this group of people, where they were landing, where we were at consensus and where we were at odds. And there's one other factor which we haven't really talked about, and that's staggered terms. And I did reach out to school committee members in another town, which has both three-year terms and staggered terms. And it was very interesting to have the discussion, because what I learned was that, first of all, they were a town, so they moved in March. And so it's a spring election, much easier for them to do the three year terms than us. But in doing the staggered terms that they do with their two year terms, they end up with an election every single year. Staggered terms would work for us in Medford. And I just want to, because people have asked me about this. If we were doing the four year term, because then we could have an election every two years and only part of the school committee would be elected. Okay. But to think about making it more crazy by having an election every year just doesn't make sense for me. So if we were thinking about four years, but I haven't heard that overall, I think a lot of people have decided four years feels just a little too long. OK, we all like three years. We all like three years. I've heard more for two years than for four years. But if we wanted to do staggered and four years, if you do four years, staggered would come into play, in my opinion.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Right. For me, Paulette, it would be three or four. I'm not in favor of two-year terms at all.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. So we're still undecided about that.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah. I said that when I said my preference. Okay. Ron?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I agree with what Eunice said. I think that before we get to this, as you mentioned, we have to really, you know, we have to decide two years. Then we can build in this piece. And then we also have to present it to the committee of the whole. So we have to really, you know, drive to get the decision made amongst the five of us. to make a recommendation to the Committee of the Whole. And then you can go to work on this Article 4 piece, it's just going to be flawed in the fact that, well, which process are we looking at? And so I think the initial piece is to determine the length of term, the ward versus, and if we can accomplish that, I think that's a major accomplishment. Also, I think that in terms of my opinion of staggered terms and three-year terms is I think the most important thing that we watch is that we mirror elections of the mayor and the city council. so that we're all in unison, we're all going to the election box to vote at the same time. Whatever we do, we're all doing at the same time. And we also, as much as possible, coordinate that within the presidential federal elections. For me, in a three year, it doesn't happen. It wouldn't happen, but a four-year, you would have to establish that every four years on the presidential election timescale, that's when we would vote. I believe that that's very—and staggering, I think, puts that— thing out there that says, well, is this school committee person campaigning this year or are they working as a school committee person? I think everybody should be a full body going uniformly. That's just my opinion. I don't want to get too involved, but I do think I'd like to see us move towards a decision on ward term, limits, and whatever else we need to do, then we have in our pockets, this is how now we have to shape that into this document.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Go ahead, Paulette. I think that at the very outset, I said, I understand from your position as being keep it simple. And I think that's what you're trying to do. Enacting one major change, which is the at large to ward. Now, you know, I clearly can be a dissenting opinion if the majority of everybody else is, and my feeling at this point because, you know, I certainly get the value of ward representation. I don't know how it's going to work for the school committee, but we can write it up and we can make sure that we've got We can write our document, if we're in agreement, if the majority of people are in agreement, let us write it up as ward representation, one school committee member from each ward and the mayor being a member. And we're not yet going to say what role the mayor is in.
[Ron Giovino]: I agree with you 100%. I'm just saying that for us to move to our next piece, which is a lot of discussion, a lot of negotiating, a lot of details, we have to know that we don't want to keep going backwards to this. And we can't develop theories that say, well, on the three-year, let's write it this way. On the four-year, let's write it this way. On the two-year, let's write it. I just want to get to the point that we all believe that If we can come to an agreement, the five of us, and then we have to go to the 11 of us, and then we have to go to the whole city. So this is a major, this is not easy. My point is only that keeping it simple just simply means let's start tearing pieces away and throwing them away and paring it down so we have a path because we only have until October to have something down. I just think we need to stay focused before it gets caught up on us and see what happens.
[Eunice Browne]: My reasoning for landing at the three years is I fully see where the superintendent is coming from with the frequent campaigning and not being able to gain any momentum in getting things done because then you're bringing in a new crop. So I am trying to. Respect that but I also feel like having people in for four years who Some people may think are not Serving them in the proper way Whereas you can it's easier to get rid of somebody who is You know, if you're if voters are feeling are are not doing the job. Then it's easier to live with them for 2 years and get rid of them after 2 years, which, you know, on the 1 hand is something that I prefer. So, and which is why I went that direction on the city council side. So. landing at three seemed to be, you know, kind of, it's I think the sweet spot for a lot of people. And I think it's just sort of in swirling around in my head, you know, voting my conscience is where I land is the best compromise. I don't want four because I don't want people sitting in there that I don't think are serving us well. But the superintendent wants four and two isn't working for her. So let's plop down at three.
[Milva McDonald]: Can I just make a comment? Yeah. I think if you're seriously considering three years, I would suggest finding a city that has three-year terms and seeing how they work it with November elections. Okay.
[Eunice Browne]: Did the ballot center give us a recommendation?
[Milva McDonald]: They were not able to provide one. I couldn't find one. There may be one, but the only one that may, you know, Taunton may, maybe look like they might do it, but I'm not sure if their elections are in November or not. I don't know.
[Phyllis Morrison]: You know, one of the things I've been thinking about as everyone's talking is I think that overall, I think what we're trying to get to is how can we have the best participation? How can we engage more people in this? Ron brings up some good points that if we keep it simple, which I think is a very good thing, there's certain aspects to that. My opinion is only my opinion. I believe that in this city of Medford, we would do far better with at-large representation on the school committee. I don't see the wards participating much. I can tell you that from my experience of being a member of the Democratic Committee here in Medford, we have some wards where we don't even have one member in the ward, never mind a chair. So that's my reason for thinking that at-large would be the best way to go, whether it's city council or school committee, right? I think the problem with the two, three, or four years, they're all coming out. Four years might be too long for someone to be on it. What is going to be the best thing for the citizens of Medford? I mean, and that might be a lot to ask, but that's what I'm thinking of. As a citizen, how would I be more engaged in this process? What would make me want to be more engaged in this process? I think we're suffering from a lot of apathy right now. but I think people are coming around again and starting to get involved. And I think our school committee is so important. My only concern really with the school committee is I would prefer to have an educator be the chair. I know that's not gonna happen. So my, Paulette, here's where I stand. I would like the mayor as a member of the school committee. I would like at large, and if possible, if possible. And listening to the two to four year thing, I would say if it wasn't three, it would be four years for me. And that's where I stand on those matters. I have no more to add to that conversation. That makes us more split. Well, it doesn't matter. I mean, you asked my opinion. I've shared it with you.
[Eunice Browne]: And I think to now that giving me something more to think about then, what Phyllis talks about with having trouble getting people to step up, I'd have to look at the ward map. But if we have eight wards and the schools themselves, and I know that we did this, I think I did it in a graph or chart a while ago, is what wards, We know that we have the Brooks over in six maybe, I can't remember. What ward is each school planted in? Then are there any wards, and I'm thinking more around like the Mystic Ave, Wellington area down there that are more largely, Uh, industrial or commercial or something like that, where there may not be.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Even a lot of residents, never mind a lot of families with a point of information, the wards, the population of each ward is supposed to be roughly the same. And I think we looked up earlier. And so now it may be that in a particular ward, let's say in the wards around Tufts University, there's a lot more students and student housing. So you may not have as many people interested because of a factor like that.
[Phyllis Morrison]: And not all the wards have schools in that, we know that.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Not all the wards have some schools and we have three schools.
[Ron Giovino]: They all have students in them.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Right, they do, but they don't have schools. Yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: Can I just make a 1 example? I just was jotting down. I was listening the way we're keeping the keeping it simple theme. If we did it with currently what we've been talking about in 3 years. for school committee. We would have an election in 2024 for the mayor, school committee and the city council. Nothing in 25. In 26, we'd have just the city council. In 27, we'd have just the school committee. What's that?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I think that you've just made an assumption as we are talking. Okay. I think that when we're talking about three years, I'd also be looking to go back to that it would be for the city council and for the mayor.
[Ron Giovino]: Oh, I see. Okay.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, we wouldn't be doing different. You know, and I don't know how that would fly. Remember, the bigger question is what makes sense. But everything, everybody's got to be the same. We can't do.
[Ron Giovino]: That's my point. That's my point. The committee and the committee of the whole for this charter has already voted on this one for the school, for the city council. But at that point, they hadn't heard our
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: discussion around three years. Now, I think Milva really brings the point. Is there somebody who's doing it for a city that we can emulate? And if not, then frankly, it's going to be a pretty rough road. It would. I certainly think that submitting a side paper about our preference for that all of us agree and I or many of the members of the committee agree that a three year term would really be the sweet spot. But I think that that might that that writing up what we have and submitting that as a side paper for further consideration. Because we're not the last go round on this. We are the beginning step. So I think that we want to present that as a, hey guys, we talked about this a lot. We'd like it to be considered, but we don't know how it would be done. And leave it for future consideration. And include in that paper that our recommendation then would be that everybody would be the same, the city council and the whatever. So I see that as a side paper. And I think submitting something like that is fine. I mean, we're not- I think pros and cons are great.
[Ron Giovino]: I do. I think pros and cons are fine. I have no problem with that. I'm just saying, I think that we're kind of like stuck here, not- Yeah. To present to the committee of the whole that we're confused is not really the mission of, we should, you know, we should state that we understood and took into account all the pros and cons that they would be thinking about, but also making some kind of recommendation. I just think we're far away from that point.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah, I don't see us as being confused. I think we're really working through some talking points.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, when I say confused, I only mean we're just not making a recommendation.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Right. OK, yes. Got it. That I agree with.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So for me, I was willing to go over to Ron's camp of ward representation.
[Ron Giovino]: I think it's nice over here. Do you see the background? I noticed that, Ron.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I noticed that. I was trying to say, OK, We don't have power, though. If the majority of you believe that we should go to award representation for school committee, let's go ahead and write it up. And then Phyllis has weighed in and says, no, she doesn't believe that. Eunice, I have to go back to my notes for what you said, darling.
[Eunice Browne]: I think I was leaning towards what representation, but I have a question. Going over to taking a walk over to the wild side with Ron there. Yeah. So eight wards plus the mayor is nine. So we've got our odd number. Would you be considering two at larges to make it 11 or just eight plus one?
[Ron Giovino]: Personally, I wouldn't.
[Eunice Browne]: Okay. Yeah. I mean, I would go with the ward representation. Again, tossing it out there, we can decide what we want to decide amongst the five of us. By the way, Aubrey got back to us. Her child's not feeling well. Perfectly understandable then. She's emailed all of us, so I won't broadcast, but you can read the email. But anyway, You know, we can decide what we want to decide amongst us and then we're going to bring it to the larger group for them to chime in. You know, whatever we think the, you know, and then it has to go to city council to be blessed by and school committee. Well, city council. But they'll have a say on all of the chatter, including the school committee piece. So whatever they're going to think too.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Right. But we can only deal with what we're going to deal with here.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah. Already 813. Yeah. It's difficult because we are, I mean- We have some weighty issues.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah. Yeah. This is big stuff. It is. It is, Eunice. It is.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Because we don't have a consensus. I mean, I was willing to walk on Ron's side and say, okay, you know, if we write it up that way, if we write up by ward, mayor, And then we watch what fallout there is and specifications for if a person withdraws. I mean, the other way at large and the other option, I should say, at large and mayor is really the same. So we can, you know, in our document, we could present something. So this is the alternative to what we have. This is the potential alternative. And then we could vote on it all together. Now, I think what that means is, Phyllis, are you comfortable with us at least trying to write it that way?
[Phyllis Morrison]: Absolutely.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Absolutely. And I mean, I mean, just that's just my that's just my thoughts and my opinions on it. Look, that's fine with me. Okay, absolutely fine with me. So as it stands now, then Paulette, if you're going to walk over the dark side with Ron, We have two points of consensus. We all want the mayor on the school committee. This is great. I mean this positively. We all want the mayor on the school committee, and it's going to be ward representation. I think that's great progress. Great progress.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And do we have a, we're going to submit a side, are we in agreement that we will submit a side paper at the end of this? Our recommendation to the full committee is that we set a side paper to the full committee explaining our interest and in three-year terms.
[Ron Giovino]: I think there should be a pros and cons presentation for sure.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Right. Can I ask a question? Yeah, sure. Did Aubrey have any thoughts on Ward or At-Large?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Unfortunately, she didn't share those with me, but I will follow up with her and ask her where she was. Yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: She might want to watch the meeting if she's got the time. And then chime in with her thoughts. Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: All right. So here's and I don't know enough about how this follows. I think I'm going to have to follow up with you. One of the things that I thought about was to now that we've made that basic decision to go through. some of the language. I'm not sure that doing that as a committee on Zoom is the easiest way to do it right now. I agree. The time constraints. So maybe I'd like to throw together a couple of paragraphs. And I'm just wondering, Ron, so there's section 4.1, composition.
[Unidentified]: Right.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: There's term of office and eligibility. Eligibility should be pretty straightforward. Right. I mean, when I read through it, it said that those, which one we pick, but they were, it was all pretty straightforward. You're voting, you know. You're a resident or a registered voter. Right.
[Ron Giovino]: Right.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: That was pretty much.
[Ron Giovino]: That disclaimer needs to be in there. Right.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. My only thought would be, and I think. My thought would be, should it be a requirement to have children in the system? No.
[Ron Giovino]: No.
[Ron Giovino]: I don't think so. I mean, what if you were a teacher, an educator, or you're a grandparent, or you're a close friend or neighbor? Yeah, I think it would be two.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. A couple of meetings ago, I think, Paulette, you sent out Jenny's responses and Erica's responses, and they both had some differing views on that, I thought.
[Ron Giovino]: That there should only be people who have children in the school?
[Eunice Browne]: I don't know if it was Jenny or Erica. One of them said that sometimes it presents a conflict.
[Ron Giovino]: Let me see. Oh, sure, it does. Let me see. I was just reading hers. Let me look. I was reading the part where she does Nick the Mayor should be chairperson.
[Milva McDonald]: While you guys are looking at that, can I just make a suggestion?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: So the articles two and three subcommittee did go through the draft, but before we even started meeting, there was the subcommittee that researched the ward representation for city council. So we had that material. So these issues about composition of the school committee and term lengths, well, particularly composition or, you know, it's hard to create a draft until we know where we're going to land as a whole committee on those issues. So you could consider bringing sort of the main issues to the whole committee, getting consensus on those, and then you would have an easier time maybe plugging in the language. Would that make sense?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, so what you're saying is bring the divide or the issues to the committee. I just, you know, the funny thing is in some ways it feels like we haven't, that we're back where we started.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, you could bring the recommendations to the committee and say, you know, we've decided we recommend award representation and then sort of present the rationale and all that. I'm just saying, get the decisions and then plug in the line and then you can, you know, have an easier time creating the draft language. Okay. Does that make sense? Bring the recommendations, but not necessarily, you don't have to bring the recommendations in the form of Article 4. Because a lot of Article 4, you can draft it, but, you know, that issue of the composition of school committee is such a big issue. you'll have to rewrite it if it gets changed.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So what you're saying is at a meeting happening fairly soon, but not obviously this week, we should bring to the committee, okay, so these are our discussions, and where should we go from here from the whole committee?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, and then because the language is pretty, you know, we have the language from other charters, you can sort of Right, you really just. Exactly right.
[Ron Giovino]: So, are you suggesting over that we work on.
[Milva McDonald]: I'm saying you don't have to bring a draft of Article 4. You just have to bring a presentation and recommendations. And then you can create the draft once the... Does that make sense?
[Ron Giovino]: The pros and cons on these. I'm just wondering, is there anything, Paulette, that is in addition to these issues that we're talking about that you want to address in our process?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, one of the questions was definitely the staggered. And then one of the questions in terms of is the, whether it's the selection of the chair or the selection of the vice chair, spelling that out.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, no, I mean, we would we talk about at large versus ward, two years versus four, three or four years. Mayor as a chair, no limit or limits to the length of term, the how many terms they can have that issue that you just spoke of. I'm just wondering, is there anything outside of the election and the composition?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I think our last meeting when we made the pros cons list, That's exactly what I had in mind was sort of spelling out.
[Ron Giovino]: Perhaps I'm just asking if you have, as a goal, some other facet of the school committee that you want us to discuss as well, such as public participation at school committee meetings or things like that. Those are subjects that I'm not trying to create a bigger.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: That is still on our agenda.
[Ron Giovino]: Right. I'm just trying to understand when we say, okay, we've accomplished what you think we should do, now we're ready to present.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes. But I think that there still is that issue about public participation, but Melva had suggested we take it up. I forget exactly, Melva, what you said. But yes, I remember much of the work of the school committee is all outlined in the general laws. So we don't need to recreate that. It's there. It's already there. We're just really talking about the nuts and bolts as they did in these documents of composition eligibility.
[Ron Giovino]: I'm 100% comfortable with what we've already done. I'm just wondering if there's something that I'm missing that you thought of as you're in charge of this committee. Is there some other direction we need to look at? Or are we ready to start preparing the pros and cons, having a discussion about them, and then getting ready to present?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I don't think so.
[Eunice Browne]: Does anybody else think so? Can I just, maybe I'm missing something here. I was looking for something online, so maybe I, Missed a piece of the conversation, so then what we've. You know, spent the last hour and a bit discussing. And we seem to have some consensus on is the. Composition terms of office and eligibility. And then the next section was the chair, vice chair and clerk. They're, you know, how they're elected or appointed and. the length of those roles and so forth. Prohibitions is boilerplate. Compensation we covered as a big group, and then the school committee powers and duties along with the filling of the vacancies which we talked about to start out with. Are any of, and then there were some other things that I'm just looking quickly at the responses to Jenny's survey with collaboration with other branches of government and so forth that she brought up that I'm wondering if the charter would, this section of the charter would address. So would any of those other pieces, would we be meeting again to discuss any of those other pieces?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, I think one thing which kind of does bring up just is I wonder in the charter whether we write anything about the branches of government coming together as a joint meeting in order to have some sort of budget presentation in particular. It would probably be around budget. So one sort of collaborative type of meeting.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. Having the bodies collaborate was definitely on my list of things that I would like to see within the chatter as well.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Collaborating on budget or other things, Eunice?
[Eunice Browne]: Both, actually. I think that they should definitely be collaborating on budget. And I would also like to see them meet the city council and the school committee meet at least a couple of times in the year. And part of it is actually kind of related not only to the nuts and bolts of the budget, but I recall, you know, it wasn't last year, it was the year before when the two assaults occurred at the high school, the assault and the stabbing, and When a number of the citizens came forward and they weren't getting so much satisfaction out of the school committee, they went to the city council to to speak and. You know, there were a couple of Councilors at the time who made mention that if they had known and a lot of the things that some of the city, the school committee seemed to be saying they couldn't do because of budget constraints. Some of the city councilors were saying, if we knew that these problems were as serious as they are now being portrayed to be, since the city council holds some of the purse strings, that they could have worked together to ensure that the schools had what they needed to hopefully alleviate some of the problems and that they just simply should have been aware. And then there was talk about the two bodies coming together because the issues were so incredibly large and they weren't able to make it work to get the two bodies together because there were ground rules that had to be established and so forth. I would like the charter to simply state that bodies need to come together at least a couple of times a year. I think both bodies would like the collaboration between- I guess I would need to make that happen.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. I guess I would need to know what they were coming together to do because the city council is not the school committee and the city council doesn't. The only relationship, as I understand it, to the schools is they vote on the budget. Is that right?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So Melva, we could recommend a overview of budget, some sort of meeting like that collaborative.
[Milva McDonald]: And that would be in Article 8, under the budget process. It is 8.29, and we said we'd end at 8.30. And I know Phyllis has to sign off.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'm just kind of trying to figure out a presentation when I'd almost like to give it a go and might try and write up some of the wording here on this. I'm trying to think of when we're, I think we need to meet again before we give a presentation to the body as a whole.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I agree. Melva, you may know this. I know that during the Columbus renaming, there's the process of putting a pros and cons document on Google Docs and allowing each of the members to take a look and write comments. Is still within the open meeting law rules that the collaboration. There's not supposed to be a discussion, but you can add comments that says, I don't like this. I like that just to let us before the meeting. We'll have seen the write up. and know a little bit, but you're not allowed to have, you know, I can't call Paulette and Eunice and say, hey, you know, I, but I know that Google Docs is a good place to go to read it, put comments on it, so people can understand where everybody feels about whatever. And then the writer of the document, Paulette, can make changes based on that.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I imagine that's a matter of interpretation, and I'm not going to pretend that I can interpret it.
[Ron Giovino]: It's a non-quorum. As long as you have a non-quorum, you can call anybody on the city council on how to avoid open meeting.
[Milva McDonald]: Right, but your subcommittee is a quorum in and of itself, so.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, right, but our subcommittee is a committee that a quorum is three.
[Unidentified]: Right.
[Ron Giovino]: So if I saw Paulette at Dunkin' Donuts, we could talk about this issue. We can't go to an email and say, here it is, everybody, and then everybody respond to that email while five of us respond. So it gives us an opportunity to start creating a document is what I'm saying within the rules. That's all.
[Unidentified]: OK.
[Ron Giovino]: All right. But I do think it's a good idea that we have that for our next meeting. All right.
[Eunice Browne]: The question is, when are we going to meet again? Right.
[Ron Giovino]: Tomorrow morning, 6 a.m.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, not a chance.
[Phyllis Morrison]: I'll be on my way to school.
[Ron Giovino]: All right. Tomorrow morning, 5 a.m. Okay. You know, I think, Milva, that's software you use to tell people when you're available. Doodle. Yeah, I think that's a good tool. We have a participant looking to speak.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Oh, I'm sorry, everyone. I do have to sign off, so I'll look for when we're going to meet. Good night, everybody. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye. Bill?
[Bill Giglio]: No, if you guys are signing off, I just want to say thank you. This was actually a very great meeting. Very informative. Thank you. Thank you.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thanks, Bill. Okay. And Aaron, I see you're on. Thank you for being here.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Absolutely.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Um, okay. So, uh, I'm looking at the calendar. Um, two weeks from now is the 19th. Um, three weeks is the 26th and I will not be available. Um,
[Ron Giovino]: Do you want to send out that doodle document that allows us to tell you when we're available?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, I have to ask Milva how to do that, because I don't know how to do that, but Milva and I can work on that, right?
[Ron Giovino]: What's it called, doodle?
[Milva McDonald]: It's just doodle poll, and it's easy to make one, but I can make, if you, you just, yeah. I mean, do you want to try to figure out how to do it, Rob? Otherwise, somebody can just tell me the open dates. Like, Paulette, if you send me, if you say these are the dates and times that I think are possibilities, I can make the poll and send it to everybody.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. Melva, can I ask you a question? I know we have a meeting this Thursday. Is there another one in March?
[Milva McDonald]: No, we have two in April and two in May scheduled, but we only have one in March.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. And what are the two in April scheduled? The fourth?
[Milva McDonald]: It would be the first Thursday and probably the third Thursday.
[Eunice Browne]: I put together a calendar for us, but I invited everybody to it, but I don't know. I was told nobody could access it. I was hoping that maybe Aubrey would be on and she could work with me on it. Maybe I'll try and touch base with her because I had a whole lot of stuff in there that would have avoided that very question.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, so I'm just looking for a target date for presentation to the committee and.
[Eunice Browne]: One of those April dates. Okay. Probably the mid-April. I think I have it on my calendar. Would be the 18th, probably, if it's Thursday. I think it was, actually, because it's, God rest his soul, my dad's birthday. OK.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, it was. All right. So let's see. I will just mention that I have gotten in contact with both former Mayor Michael McGlynn and former Mayor Stephanie Michini-Burke. And I will be having some discussion and will report back to you on some of these very questions that we've been talking about just to make sure that they were included, particularly because I want to hear what they say about Mayor as chair. I'm curious. OK. Anyway, is there any more community participation? I think everybody signed off. And so I will send, Melva, I'll ask you to send out, I'll send you dates and we'll see what dates work for our next meeting. Okay, Ron, thank you for running everything tonight again. I appreciate it. I appreciate your input as well. And so I think we're, it's time to call it a night kiddos.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Sounds good.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: See you Wednesday. Motion to adjourn? Thursday. Thursday.
[Ron Giovino]: Thursday.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, I have another meeting Wednesday. If you want to come, I've got another one. Of course you do. The Educational Foundation.
[Eunice Browne]: And if anybody wants to join in on the city council budget meeting tomorrow night.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, at the Educational Foundation. Anyway, all in favor? Aye. All right. Thanks very much. Good night, guys.
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