[Milva McDonald]: All right, welcome everyone to the May 16, 2024 meeting of the Medford Charter Study Committee. Our first order of business is to accept or review the minutes from our last meeting, May 2nd. Did everyone have a chance to look those over?
[Andreottola]: Yes. Motion to accept.
[Milva McDonald]: I second. All in favor? Aye. Great. OK. Now, our first item is to look at Article 8. Let's do that. Let's do it. I know there is something from Article 4, the combined awards that we want to discuss, but let's wait until Aubrey gets here for that. OK. Did people have a chance to go? Here's Aubrey. Did people have a chance to look over Article 8? Mm-hmm.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes. I found a lot of it confusing. OK. And trying to sort of figure out what was for which. And I wasn't quite sure where this had all come from, whether this was from other charters. So I was wondering if you could give us more of an overview of it.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. It basically is. I mean, most of the language, yes, was taken and adapted language that we've seen in other charters. So the main issues that the subcommittee wanted to look at with the whole committee were the timelines. Assuming, of course, that no 1 on the committee has an issue with, including any of these provisions that. The subcommittee thought would be a good idea to include such as free petition, et cetera.
[Eunice Browne]: You make all that.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, yeah, I'm going to yeah. Um, so. For instance, for this first, and Eunice, thank you very much, Eunice, did a lot of research on comparing kind of what the thresholds and the timelines are for these processes and other charters. So for this particular, and the subcommittee, when we met, we found that this sort of goes through different levels, right? So this is like the first level. So it has the lowest threshold. It basically allows people to submit a petition to have something put on the agenda for one of the elected bodies. And so what's in blue are the timelines and the thresholds.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So just so I understand, and this is a very simple question, but for the school committee right now, if you want to put something on the agenda, you make a presentation and you ask the school committee members to put it on. Now they're not required to, so I guess the difference here is there's a requirement. Yes. But it's a much more complicated
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, yeah, of course, ideally, this wouldn't be needed. But if it were, Ron.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I just follow up what you just said. This is more designed for when a Councilor, a committee member, a superintendent does not allow you to get in, you have an option, an optional way to get in. Okay, I'd be on the agenda. So that's pretty much the focus for this is, how do you do it on your own?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So the only thing I did wonder about in terms of the school committee was not later than 10 weeks. And I thought there might need to be a clarification because let's suppose someone submitted something on June 1st and the school committee doesn't traditionally meet in the middle of the summer. I just wondered about that. How do we count for summer?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, that's a good point.
[Eunice Browne]: Didn't we talk about that in the subcommittee? I remember bringing that up.
[Ron Giovino]: We did, and I think we assumed that people be aware of the calendar when going to approach these kind of petitions.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, so.
[Milva McDonald]: And even if you're going in June 1st, say, I mean, I think May would probably be a bigger problem. mid-August, no, mid-September, right?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, June, mid-August. it would put you in mid-August.
[Milva McDonald]: May 1st would put you in mid-July, but there would be time before that. I see what you're saying.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: You're putting it during the budget time and whatever, but it's not an unreasonable amount of time in my mind.
[Milva McDonald]: Do you want to make a proposal to change that?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, I don't because I could understand the timeliness issues.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, and then the number of signatures. Eunice, your note says other charters require as few as 25 and as many as 150. Right. I think we landed at 150. Yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: For this first petition, and given some of the discussions we've had about participation and so forth, you know, and some, you know, all of the discussions we had about, you know, not putting something in the preamble to encourage, you know, a culture of participation that, you know, didn't you know, wasn't what the will of the committee, it seems along with, um, you know, some other discussions we've had, I'm actually more interested in lowering some of the thresholds that we have, um, to, in, you know, easier for, um, people to, you know, make themselves heard.
[Milva McDonald]: So do you want to make a proposal to lower this 50 voter threshold? Yes, proposal to lower it to 25. Okay, but call it a motion.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'll make a motion. Can we discuss it for a second? Okay, sure. I think 25 is pretty low. I mean, does anybody else say feel like it's pretty low?
[Milva McDonald]: It is low. I think it's probably pretty easy to get 25 signatures. Yeah, I mean. But this is, you know, this particular, this has the lowest threshold of anything in this article because it really, all it is is to get something basically on the agenda, to get it to have, to have it be discussed. So, I mean, there are much higher thresholds for other things, but if you want to, I guess, So if Eunice's, hang on, sorry, I just want to make Phyllis a co-host so she can.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah. Is free petition what it's normally this I'm not, I'm not aware of the terminology. So is free petition what this sort of thing is usually called?
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, based on our review of other charters. Okay.
[Eunice Browne]: This basically ensures that you don't need to go to a member of the body to be sponsored to have your issue approved to be heard. As long as it's within the purview of that body, and you can't go to the school committee to discuss potholes, but as long as it's within the purview of that body and you can get X amount of signatures, you should be able to come before the body to discuss your issue.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Now, again, I'm paying devil's advocate a little bit. How much, there's no limitation on the number of times an individual can submit one of these.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, we have no hearings shall be required on the same content more than one time a year.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: What if I'm somebody who is a rabble rouser and I want to really tie up the hands of the school committee? So I just submit and I've got, you know, and I just do it over and over again with different topics. Is there anybody on this level, there's no gatekeeper, right? Gatekeeper? Well, there's no one who's saying this is a reasonable thing or, It's just automatic. Yeah. Where'd you guys go?
[Milva McDonald]: Ron, did you want to respond?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah. Again, this is when the regular process of trying to get on an agenda doesn't work. I would suggest, because I hear what Paulette's saying, but there are two different... I would suggest 50 for city council, 25 for school committee.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well... I mean, as a former school committee member, I'm saying why?
[Ron Giovino]: Why would you make it different? Because there are less, I go by the assumption that as far as voters go, there are less voters interested in school side than city side.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: But when it comes to this, it's not a question of, You could have one person who's very interested and can get 25 of their closest friends to sign on.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, I'm just doing the math. You have a bigger pool to go get your signatures if you're doing a city council issue is my assumption. Yeah. Again, this is a bypass of regular communication. So I'm assuming that an issue, this doesn't get used a lot.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right, but you're assuming.
[Ron Giovino]: I also think that this rule is in existence right now. If we don't have a rule for free petition in our charter, we go back to general laws and general laws has it in here somewhere at some number. It's really, it's about a number. I mean, it's, I don't really, I don't want to get bogged down because we have a lot to do here, but I'm 50 to 25. I'm fine with either way.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So we have, we had three sort of, uh, Eunice suggests, uh, made a motion for 25. Paulette countered and said, how about 40? And then, uh, Ron's suggestion was 50 city council, 25 school committee. So, um, can we just, shall we, I mean, none of those have been seconded or so, how do we want to handle this? Eunice, do you want to, I mean, does anybody want to second Eunice's motion? Then we vote or do we need more discussion on it?
[Ron Giovino]: I second Eunice's motion.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So the motion is to change the number of signatures required for this particular mechanism, free petition from 50 to 25. Eunice? Yes. Ron?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Phyllis?
[Phyllis Morrison]: I have to abstain right now. I'm sorry, I keep losing internet connection, and I feel like I'm a little bit lost on this. I have been trying to catch up, so I think I'm abstaining. Thank you. Okay. Aubrey?
[Maria D'Orsi]: I like a little bit of a barrier, but not a big barrier, so I'll say yes. Okay. Paula?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Anthony?
[Andreottola]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. And there's I'm sharing screen so I can't see everybody. What did I miss? You? Yeah, everybody but me. Yep. Okay. I'll vote yes. Okay, so. So that will be lowered to 25.
[Eunice Browne]: And I did have another question on there and I think it kind of, um, will follow with some of the other, um, uh, sections on this too. Um, where it talks about, um, uh, uh, every petition addressed to the city council that assigned by not less than 25 voters along with addresses. Um, Who is, where is this, you know, form of a petition coming from? Is it just, if I decide that I want to talk about X, I'm, you know, you know, pulling a piece of paper out of a notebook and, you know, going around to my, you know, neighbors to sign it or is this going to be a form from the city clerk or is it going to be a change.org petition which does not capture addresses?
[Milva McDonald]: Well, it has to capture addresses because that's what it says. Generally, the city clerk would verify the addresses. and verify that they were actually registered voters.
[Eunice Browne]: So then is any individual that wants to create one of these petitions. And I think when we jump to sections 8-2 and some of the other following ones, we kind of get into the same language. So is it going to be like an official form, like when you're wanting to get on the ballot? Or is it going to be just pulling a piece of paper out of a notebook hoping for the best.
[Milva McDonald]: This is a question we can ask the Collins Center. I mean, it could be an official petition, but, you know, that wouldn't necessarily mean it would have, I mean, these particular issues, like let's say you were doing this one, you wouldn't have an official form unless there was a form that sort of left the part blank where you would write in what the petition was about.
[Ron Giovino]: The other thing, too, is I don't think the city clerk manages the school committee, so. That's true. Our verbiage here says city clerk or school committee.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, you're right.
[Ron Giovino]: So maybe that way. Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: But we can ask the call-in center about that.
[Andreottola]: I have a question, please. Just kind of how this would work. Would the process be that a person who wanted to put something on the agenda would first have to go to, say, the president of the city council and say, hey, you know, I wanna, I wanna. No.
[Milva McDonald]: I don't think they would.
[Andreottola]: Then, wouldn't it rather the process be something like that? Wouldn't, you know, have the regular protocol and if the, City Council person decided not to bring it forward, then maybe they will be supplied some type of form for, well, you can go and get a petition together and kind of force us to listen to it.
[Milva McDonald]: That's how we envision that this would be used. It doesn't specifically say that here, but that's what the intent is. Ron.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, to Anthony's question, every city councilor can put anything on the agenda that they need. So that's the first line to go to. This is just another option. You don't have to be rejected by the city council. You can use this if you don't want to talk to the city council. But as far as managing the paperwork, I don't think we need to get bogged down in that. We're saying that it's managed by the city clerk or by the If they wanted to design a form for signatures, fine. But this just states that if you get 25 signatures with addresses, and hand it in, they must address it and they must vet it. So if they come back to you and say six of the addresses are wrong, then you have to fix it. But this is just another device for citizens to get something on the agenda, this issue, to get on the agenda. You can call your city council, that's how most people do it, and they can put anything on the agenda. So anyways, just wanna clarify so we can move on.
[Milva McDonald]: Great, thank you, Graham. The next section is about citizen initiative measures. Here's Genia. We have certain thresholds and timelines in there and included in the comments is all the research that Eunice did on other communities so that people could get a sense of where the subcommittees landed in relationship to that, and also in case anybody thinks maybe there should be tweaking. So does anybody have any questions or comments or proposals for this part?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So in this one, we're looking for, this is in the case where someone wants a particular measure passed, not just discussed, right? I'm just trying to be clear about what the distinctions are. Yep. Yes, that is how I read it. And this one needs signatures from every ward. Now, does this one include, this is both school committee and city council,
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, and there is a process after the petition. There's a referral to the city solicitor to review it. The processes get more involved as you go. That's why I asked people to read this and see if you had any issues with that.
[Eunice Browne]: Again, this is another place where I would also be thinking of dropping the threshold a little bit.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Which one?
[Eunice Browne]: Let's see. Petition be signed by not less than 250 voters, not less than 25 from each ward. My proposal would be to drop it down to 200 voters and 20 per ward.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so go ahead. Was that you, Phyllis?
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah, and I'm sorry because I'm on this phone because for some reason my computer must be on the fritz. I keep losing you. Eunice, why do you want to drop it?
[Eunice Browne]: You know, we've had a number of conversations about community participation and public engagement and so forth. And, um, you know, this is one way for the public to be heard. And, um, you know, some of the other concerns and considerations that I had, as well as a couple of others, um, it wasn't the will of this committee. Um, so I think in order to, give the public as much ease as possible, still not making it a gimme so far. They need to work a bit for it. So it's not frivolous, but in order to make it reasonably easy for the public to engage with their elected officials, I'd like to drop the thresholds just a bit.
[Milva McDonald]: As you can see from Eunice's notes of quite a few communities, there's a wide range. A few, they really only have three, Peabody, Malden, and Waltham, that's interesting. And then some, Newton is 50, and then some say a percentage of registered voters, which would be quite a bit. And some of the other things later in the article, the threshold just keeps getting higher. So for this particular threshold, this is just the first step.
[Andreottola]: to what this isn't to to be heard this is to initiate a process right it's yeah go ahead ultimately this in section g would be voted on yeah and so by the city council or by the general public by voters also this actually costs money this is something that, you know, will, you know, actually cost, you know, you know, time and effort. And I don't think we should lower the number because, you know, this has an impact on the community involvement, you know, getting legal opinions and, you know, putting stuff on on a ballot. I mean, that That should be a decent amount of people should be wanting to do so, you know, to lower it is kind of, do you want to make it easy just to bring everything to a vote for, you know, for the general public? I mean, is that the way we want a method to run?
[Phyllis Morrison]: Well, you know, Anthony, I have to say this. I agree with you in part about, you know, we have very little civic engagement with the broader community. And I hear what you're saying, too. So where do we find the balance, you know? And I think that's something that we're trying to make this charter A gift in a way to to the citizens of method, you know, they have a say in how their city operates in this and that and everything. I don't know the sweet number. But I know everything costs money, but I don't think dropping it by that. That's that number would. You know, maybe any financial change, but we may have some more involvement and like you said, and I agree with this unit. It doesn't make it a frivolous. There still has to be work. They have to be really committed to this and really some determination about it.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, Ron.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, it's my understanding that what this is is it's in the wording. This puts it on as a motion to be passed by the city council or the school committee. It's not a citizen vote.
[Adam Hurtubise]: It's not a citizen.
[Ron Giovino]: That's the next level. This is simply to put it on, and it says in the wording, if you look at the big book, it says, City Council cannot change the wording of the measure, the motion. They must vote on it, yes or no, based on what it is.
[Andreottola]: Okay, that clarifies. That's my understanding.
[Ron Giovino]: That's my understanding. Yeah, it passes.
[Maria D'Orsi]: I don't think so.
[Ron Giovino]: I think I think so. I'm just reading through the what section are you on Ron?
[Milva McDonald]: Paulette, did you want to say something?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, so interestingly on this one, I could see going down to 200 signatures, 20 from each ward. You know, I think that there's This one is far more challenging than the first one, where the first one was very low. But this one really, by putting, by necessitating that it's throughout the wards, it definitely makes it more challenging.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. And I do think that Aubrey is right that this would eventually, if it went through all the channels, would go on the ballot. This is basically a way to pass an ordinance without the city council, essentially. That's how I read it.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: What if the ordinance has financial impact?
[Ron Giovino]: Well, you're not bypassing the council. It has to go to the council for a vote. Okay.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: It's just making sure they are going to accept it. The city solicitor reviews it.
[Ron Giovino]: I got to go look through this book, but I think the referendum is what we are talking about, and that does bypass, and then it goes to be vetted by the state, and then it comes back to us for citizen vote.
[Milva McDonald]: Paulette, did you have your hand raised?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, that's my question.
[Milva McDonald]: I don't see that this is going to the city council. This is an initiative measure. This is giving the citizens the ability to, the mechanism to pass an initiative. But, so the city, it will actually go to the city council. They can either pass it without change, pass a measure stated to be in lieu of the initiative measure or reject it. And Ron, go ahead.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I'm just reading from the good book here. It says that, If the city solicitor determines the petition is in proper form, the city clerk shall provide blank form for use, blah, blah, blah. Within 30 days following the date a petition has been returned to the city clerk or secretary of the school committee, and after publication under subsection F, the city council or the school committee shall act with respect to each initiative petition by passing it without change, by passing a measure which is stated to be in lieu of the initiative measure or by rejecting it.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, that's section D. But then there's recourse if it's rejected. And that's the next level.
[Ron Giovino]: That's the next level. Go ahead.
[Milva McDonald]: No.
[Ron Giovino]: No, I just wanted to comment on bringing it down to 200. It's not only difficult to get the 200. Remember, you have to go to all eight wards to get that 200. So it's a process.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so Eunice, did you want to make a motion on that?
[Eunice Browne]: Yes, a motion to change the petition must be signed by not less than 200 voters and not less than 20 per ward. Yeah. Okay.
[Andreottola]: Before we vote, can I ask one other question?
[Phyllis Morrison]: Oh, go ahead, Anthony.
[Andreottola]: Just concerning about the wards, in the event that when this goes to the city council and we're not 100% sure that wards are gonna happen, if we put this into effect, this section, would it void it if they decide not to go to a ward Representation.
[Milva McDonald]: I don't think so, because it, um, it's represents that the signatures have to be from around the city. Go ahead, Danielle.
[Danielle Balocca]: I guess I would be curious, like, how this, like, some of those cities where the. like how, or yeah, or like Peabody here, and Waltham, like how, if there's like an example of when this has happened and like what it was like, but also, if like, I know you're saying this would be like for trying to pass ordinances, if it would ever be something that would disproportionately impact one ward over another, so like, I don't know, so like if you needed 20 signatures from each ward, but really some wards, yeah, I don't know, some wards would be differently impacted. I hope that would change anything.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, yeah. I mean, ultimately, It would get voted on by the city council and if the city council rejects it, then the bar to actually get it on the ballot and basically override the city council is pretty high. But Milva, it couldn't go to the city council if it didn't have those numbers. Well, it could go to the city council with this initial threshold that we're talking about right now.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah, I don't think, that's not what I heard Danielle saying though, but I may be mishearing. No, no, I think, go ahead.
[Danielle Balocca]: That seems to be the point that we're like kind of trying to clarify is that it would like, so these citizens could get this petition signed and that would bring like a motion in front of the city council or like a proposal in front of the city council or a school committee and they would have to approve it for it to go to a citizen vote, right?
[Milva McDonald]: No, I think if they approve it, then it passes as an ordinance. And if they reject it, then the people who started it can try to get it passed again by using the next level of signatures and then a ballot on the ballot. Ron?
[Danielle Balocca]: You just didn't know one more question, though, sorry. Oh, OK. How many how many signatures do you need for like to when you're trying to run for office for like city council or school committee? Like a hundred.
[Milva McDonald]: I thought it was. I thought it was 50, but it might be 100. It might be 100. OK. OK, thank you. I think I don't think it's more than 50 or 100, though.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. And maybe for mayor, it's a little bit more, but it's you know, it's pretty low bar. OK, great.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, and we did that in the elections, Article 7. Ron, did you want to say something?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, just to Danielle's question. I think it's more reasonable to believe that list on the side there that Malden's 3 means 3%.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Maybe, maybe.
[Ron Giovino]: I think those are just misprints. I think that means 3%. You can't imagine motion after motion if you need you, your wife, and your oldest son to have a motion. It's got to be 3%. That makes sense. To your other point, Danielle, about those petitions that affect a certain ward, unfortunately, the way we function as a city, We do the whole city when we're talking about ordinance. It's not like you can just say that Ward six gets this. And I understand what you're saying, but you really have to drive the whole city to me because you could be spending money too.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thank you. Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Um, so Eunice made a motion. Did we have a second?
[Eunice Browne]: Did Anthony get his question answered?
[Andreottola]: Oh, pretty much. Pretty much. I understand a little bit better now.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so the motion on the table is to lower the threshold for commencement of an initiative petition to 200 voters, at least 20 from each ward. So, Eunice. Yes.
[Eunice Browne]: Did somebody second this? Yes.
[Andreottola]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Anthony.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Paulette.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Aubrey. Yes. Danielle. Yes. Who am I missing? Phyllis. Yes. I will vote yes. I think that's everybody. Did I miss? No.
[Eunice Browne]: Okay, great.
[Milva McDonald]: You got everyone. The next level is, Let's see, there was something in the 10%. I think, Eunice, you don't have any notes on this one, right?
[Eunice Browne]: No, and I'm trying to just quickly read through it. I mean, I think everywhere we go, I'd like to lower things a little bit for the reasons that I've previously stated. Number of the noted is following the date of the blank forms are issued by the Senate, shall be returned if I was signed by not less than 10% of the total number of voters as of the date of, so what is, so if we were to do something today, what would we be looking at?
[Milva McDonald]: I don't know the exact number, but I think it's approximately 40,000. Does that sound right to anybody who? I think that's approximately the number of registered voters.
[Andreottola]: I think it's really about 30,000 in actuality. I think those are names that have not come off the list of prior residents and people who attended school here and stuff. When they talk about 13,000 voters being a 30 percent of, I guess, I don't know. I've been speaking out of school. I don't know 100%, but I thought I heard somebody say that it was 31 or 33,000 of actual registered active voters. But I do have a question. What is it now for the city? I thought it was just something where 10 people can petition the city council What are the requirements now to get something on the ballot? Or to be heard? Or?
[Milva McDonald]: We don't have anything in the charter. It would have to be based on mass general laws.
[Andreottola]: Right. But I know that when I recently I was told that, oh, get nine of your friends and you can get something.
[Eunice Browne]: Is it a motion or is it a both bodies have different procedures, different protocols to be heard in front of them. With I think city council being a little bit less stringent than school committee currently. So, yeah, you know, at city council meetings, I mean, you can get up at the end of the meeting. They have a public participation section and you can. get up and talk about whatever's on your mind, you know, as long as it's within their purview, school committee, there's a different set of protocols. So, you know, but I'm not quite sure if that answered your question.
[Andreottola]: You know, but I thought it was, you only needed 10 signatures to get something put in front of this city council to get on, You know, for a citywide vote, they and the mayor would have to approve it, but then it would go to the state, and then it could go on the ballot. I only thought it was required 10 signatures. Am I crazy, or is that?
[Milva McDonald]: I don't know.
[Ron Giovino]: I'm not aware of that. There is part of the process, Anthony, is if you are getting all your signatures together, they take the top 10 voters to give the petitions to. Maybe that's what you understood.
[Milva McDonald]: I remember. OK, Danielle, did you have something you wanted to ask or say?
[Danielle Balocca]: Danielle? No, sorry. Is my hand up? Sorry. Yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: It looks like I'm just looking at the official election results from the presidential primary a couple of months ago and the registered registered voters. And I think it goes by. I think the walls need to be purged. From what I've heard, but I think it goes by what they have on their roles now, and it's a little over 42,000. That's about right. Then we'd be looking at. About 4,200. Right. Which is a big lift, very big lift. Right. If we would drop it down to 5 percent, we'd be looking at about 2,400. Um,
[Phyllis Morrison]: Let's say something to Anthony for a minute while you're thinking there for a minute. Anthony, under section C, it talks about when something's submitted to the clerk and if the petition is in proper form, the city clerk should provide blank forms for the use of the subsequent signers and shall print at the time of each blank form a fair, concise summary of the proposed measure as determined by the facility, together with the names and addresses of the first 10 voters who signed the originating petition. That's where I remember that 10 vote. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, that's okay. That's okay.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So Eunice, are you wanting to lower the 10%?
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. How do people feel about dropping it all the way down to five? So that would be about 2400. If we were to, if you know, you wanted to do something like this tomorrow.
[Milva McDonald]: Does anybody want to second that?
[Andreottola]: I just want another clarification on the process. So the people, the clerk, first you would go to the city council, then... No, this is even before the city council.
[Milva McDonald]: The commencement will require 200 signatures, then the city solicitor says yes or no, this is legal or okay. Then once the city solicitor says it's in a proper form, the clerk gives new forms to get signed by 10 percent, but the proposal is to lower it to five percent.
[Eunice Browne]: So basically you need the 200 signatures, as I proposed, and 20 from each ward to get it to the clerk, to get it to the solicitor, to look at it, to bless it. And then once the solicitor is whatever it is that you want to do, then you go back to the city clerk and he provides you with forms to go back out and get X amount of. signatures from the most recent voters.
[Milva McDonald]: And then after that, and then they can be, there would be action on the petitions with the city council and the school committee. So just so, so it's, it's pretty high threshold to do this. Uh, Paula. Yeah. Could you just go back to the one, the paragraph before this, the commencement or the referral? No, no. The sec, the B. Okay.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So you're having the city solicitor inform the school committee whether it's lawful. So it's clear in A, role of the school committee. We get to B, and all of a sudden you have the city solicitor informing the school committee while the school committee has its own lawyer. So- So I'm just trying to wonder about the distinction between having the city solicitor inform the school committee when it, would it be the city solicitor for the school committee or would it be the legal counsel of the school committee?
[Maria D'Orsi]: This would be the first time the school committee is hearing about it. If I was interested in, I'd go get my 2200 signatures, come to the city solicitor, and then they would tell me whether it's legal or not. And if it is, then the school committee would hear about it.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay.
[Maria D'Orsi]: After it's been deemed possible.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: All right, so then we get down to C. And again, I'm just looking for that, what the school committee portion is. I understand it all in terms of the city councilor.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, so if the city solicitor says that this is okay, this is in proper form, then the signers go, or the people who are trying to get this to pass, go out and get 10% or Unisys proposing 5%. Right, right.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, I understand that part. I'm just saying, it's the city clerk shall provide blank forms for the use of subsequent signers. So you're saying it doesn't matter that there's a separate legal counsel for the school committee in terms of collecting signatures, doing it all under the city clerk is okay?
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Someone else has their hand up.
[Ron Giovino]: Ron. I hear what you're saying, Paulette. I think the fact that there's a collection of signatures, it falls under the purview of the city clerk, who falls under the purview of the city solicitor. But certainly, we should ask an opinion on the role of the school committee legal counsel as well. I don't think anybody here can speak to what that role is in terms of who makes the final say for the school committee.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Andreottola]: Before we go, I'm going to need an example, just because I'm very confused on what happens, what part in the process. Just for example, just say I wanted to have backyard chickens, and I go get the, what did we come up for the number of signatures? 200. 200 people say we want backyard chickens. Okay and that goes on the ballot that that goes to the city council?
[Milva McDonald]: No, first the city solicitor looks at it and determines whether it's legal.
[Andreottola]: The chickens are okay, okay. So the solicitor says okay You can ask to have chickens.
[Milva McDonald]: Then you go to the next level of what we are talking about now, the 10 percent and the proposal on the table is to lower that to 5 percent. Then you have to get all those signatures before it goes to the city council.
[Andreottola]: You need 2,500 signatures to get?
[Milva McDonald]: As of now, it would be more like 4,200, but Eunice is proposing it be lowered to about 2,000.
[Andreottola]: And that 4,200 signatures, if I got 4,200 signatures, what happens?
[Milva McDonald]: It goes to the city council. They either vote it and then it becomes an ordinance or they vote it down. And then it's either it's over or the charter, as it's proposed, gives the option of collecting still more signatures to get it on the ballot. but that's the next level, so we haven't gotten there yet, and we have a lot to get through in this section, so.
[Andreottola]: Okay. All right, I just tried to wrap my head around it.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, yeah, gotcha. So, Eunice made a motion to lower the thresholds for Section C of the initiative petition from 10% to 5%. Did somebody second? Second.
[Eunice Browne]: Would it make sense in order to help with the school committee piece? Would it make sense to divide this. Out not changing the numbers per se, leaving the thresholds as we decide, but. To divide it out so that. The city council goes, if you're dealing with the city council, you go through the clerk and the solicitor. And if you're putting something forth. to the school committee, you're dealing with, you know, somebody in the superintendent's office, whoever it is, it's appropriate.
[Milva McDonald]: And then going to the- Well, we didn't see that in any of the other charters we looked at. And I, you know, I think if it were a problem, the call and tender will flag it, but we didn't see that. We didn't see that distinction. So.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. So we'll just leave it as it is and see.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, Okay, so now we're going to vote on lowering this from 10% to 5%. Eunice? Yes. Ron? No. Paulette?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Danielle? Yes. Aubrey? Yes. Anthony?
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Phyllis?
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Um, I will also vote yes. So this is down to five. Okay. The next threshold, this is basically saying that if the petition, if the people get the signatures, then the city council and school committee have to act on it. And this next threshold is if they vote it down and it's rejected, then not more than 60 days later, there's an opportunity to do a supplementary petition. Paulette, did you have your hand raised?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Sorry, no, no, I'm basically saying that people have the right to come back to resubmit it. And perhaps making some changes to see if they can make it fly.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, so these numbers we probably do these and they were also sort of based on the number before, so they would have to get. Additional voters that are not five, that is not a number of additional voters, not less than 5% of the total number of voters as of the date of the most recent city election. And when you add up the signatures from C, which was 10, but is now five, and this, you get not less than 15%. So the total threshold is 15%, but that includes the signatures that have already been elected. So does this need to change to? Well, either it has to change to at least as little as 10, we just have to automatically change that because we changed the other by five. So we've already lowered this effectively with our last vote. So this would mean that in order to override a no vote, you would have to, your total number that you end up having to get would be at about 4,200.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Which is significant.
[Milva McDonald]: It is significant, yes. I'm just trying to figure out if we need to lower the five too. I don't, I don't know. Because, you know, we want the numbers to. I think, I think the numbers will be okay. I think the reason that before we had 10% and then we have five and 15 maybe to give a little leeway. But, all right. And then what happens is if those signatures are collected, it would go on the ballot.
[Andreottola]: Do things don't automatically go on the ballot though?
[Milva McDonald]: No.
[Andreottola]: They have to go, doesn't the mayor have to, doesn't it go to the state? Things just don't go on the ballot, right?
[Milva McDonald]: This could, this is not, yes, in this case, Yes, but this is just for a municipal ordinance. And the city solicitor will have reviewed it to see if it's something that could do that. So I think, are we in agreement that we don't need to make any changes to this or does anybody wanna change these numbers?
[Andreottola]: I still have another question. So in the case of the school committee, what type of thing can you know, 10% of the population kind of change?
[Milva McDonald]: Well, that's a good question. And I don't really know. I mean, I think that probably it's very limited because schools are so, you know, they're very regulated, and there's a lot of laws about how they operate. So I think it's probably a limited power anyway.
[Eunice Browne]: But school committee makes policy, so it could be, you know, if it's the will of the people, a change in policy.
[Andreottola]: So if, say, 10% of the population wants to ban certain books in the schools, they could do it with 10% of the population?
[Maria D'Orsi]: I don't know.
[Andreottola]: 10% of the voters?
[Maria D'Orsi]: It would depend on the ballot, right? I'm sorry? 10% of the population could put it on the ballot.
[Milva McDonald]: Put it on the ballot, yes. It would still have to get voted on by all the people in the city.
[Andreottola]: Right, but to get something on the ballot, doesn't it have to go through the school committee, the mayor, and the state?
[Milva McDonald]: No, we're putting a mechanism in the charter so that people can do that. It's a process. It's not easy.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Anthony raises a really good question because if it's something very destructive, what you're saying is a small minority of the city could push it.
[Milva McDonald]: But the majority of people would still have to vote on it. And I don't know, the city solicitor would have to have said, yes, this would be a legal ordinance or policy. Ron?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, and all of this has to be washed against Massachusetts general laws. And it's the school committee side. Department of Education, as Paulette clearly knows, you don't have a lot of power to change what they're doing at the state level. So these things would all be washed against a very, very strict, much more strict than the city side, the school side. Would you agree, Paulette?
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, yeah, and I think that would be the job of the city solicitor to ensure there's no conflicts, right?
[Ron Giovino]: I think I envision the city clerk would I mean, the city solicitor would be the legal authority, but would have to work in conjunction with the school side legal council as well. It's a very, very difficult thing. And as we know, you cannot change education because that is a much broader laws that affect you. Going inside the detail of those is a lot harder.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes. Okay. So the next section is even more complex. And this is about citizen referendums. So this would basically allow you to protest an ordinance or a measure that was passed, right? Is that what you're recalling, Ron and Eunice? I think so.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, it's protesting against a measure.
[Milva McDonald]: So this section, if not more than 21 days following the date on which the city council and school committee votes to approve of a measure, a position signed by a number of voters amounting to not less than, as of now, 12% protest the measure.
[Eunice Browne]: So what did my research say?
[Milva McDonald]: These are high thresholds. We're already on the low end, very low end. Yeah. But 12% is... Probably getting up there to 5,000.
[Eunice Browne]: 5,000, yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: So what this is saying is that 5,000 signatures can temporarily suspend an ordinance, right?
[Eunice Browne]: So what did my... I think my research is probably a little bit further down, because... Is this it right here?
[Milva McDonald]: Each section? No, that's number of days. Oh, sorry. Oh, sorry, wait, I don't see it here. Did you, maybe you didn't. Section, number of days for a petition to reconsider to be put forth. Okay, so we have not more than 21. So we're pretty much- You're on the money there. You're on the money there, but we don't know about the 12%, but 12% would come out to about, 6,000 is my math. I mean, my head is, 10% is 4,000.
[Eunice Browne]: I think I have the data in the other room.
[Milva McDonald]: It's about 4,500. Ron.
[Eunice Browne]: Are we carrying down the ward requirement in these boats? I don't think so. I mean, I think these numbers are so high that
[Ron Giovino]: Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: Even like, even making the clerk, that might be hard. I don't know.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay. I agree.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Okay. Paulette?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. So let's suppose, I mean, I'm not sure this is what we're talking about potentially, but, you know, a couple of years ago, there was that big issue about naming a school, which will strike some closer. Are we saying that then if people get, Let's see, where was it? 12% of the total number of voters. that because it said shall immediately reconsider its vote on the measure or part of it. If the measure is not rescinded, the city council should provide for the submission of the question for determination by the voters at a special election. So are we saying that the power of the school committee to name a school would be taken away from the school committee and given to the voters? Is that what we're saying in this?
[Milva McDonald]: We are saying that the people could, I don't know if, like I said, all of this would have to be eligible for that, right? So it could be that, but I think, I think the answer is yes, more or less. Yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: It says suspend. So like, would that mean it would just like stop that from happening? It wouldn't be.
[Milva McDonald]: It would be temporarily suspended and then the body would reconsider its vote and choose to rescind it or not. And if they don't rescind it, then it goes to the voters at a special election. or at the next regular city election.
[Eunice Browne]: So it looks like for section A, where we have the 12%, I guess somehow my research vaporized from the right-hand side there. But fortunately, I wrote it down. Excellent. In the pile of papers I have here. So section A, total signatures of registered voters. with the dozen communities that I looked at, you've got one at five percent, which is Newton, a couple at 10 percent, which was Methuen and Framingham, several at 12 percent, and a couple at 15 percent. okay and newton as we've uh newton's thresholds have been uh on the low end it seems uh for other things as well i mean we could drop it to 10 and still be in the ballpark with methuen framingham i guess those are the two um there were There was the one outlier at Newton, Taunton and Weymouth were at 15 percent, and Methuen and Framingham at 10, and then probably a good six or seven at 12 percent. We could drop it to 10 and still be.
[Milva McDonald]: Is that what you want to make a motion on?
[Eunice Browne]: Uh, where are we now? We're 12%. Um, yeah, I'd make a motion for 10% because that gives us about 4200. I mean, we've talked about that being a high threshold, but we're at, you know, the 3rd tier now. So, you know, it. It needs to be possible, but not, you know. Hopefully, the other two tiers would have taken care of some things. But if we're here, then it needs to require a bit more work. So I'm voting for 10 percent.
[Milva McDonald]: Does anybody second? I'll second it. Eunice? Yes. Ron?
[Adam Hurtubise]: No.
[Milva McDonald]: Paulette? No. Aubrey?
[Adam Hurtubise]: I think yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Anthony? No. Phyllis? No. And I'm missing one person. That's me.
[Danielle Balocca]: Danielle.
[Milva McDonald]: Danielle, thank you. Danielle.
[Danielle Balocca]: I'm a no, yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, I'm also going to be no on this one. Okay, so this one is going to stay at 12%. Okay, there's also a bunch of this whole section about ineligible measures. And which outlines things that this provision cannot be used for. Okay, now we come to the biggie recall. So, you know, the subcommittee had a pretty long discussions about recall, but there was agreements that we wanted to include recall provisions. So, does anybody have any proposals on this section or thoughts or questions? Eunice, is your hand up?
[Eunice Browne]: Sorry.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, that's okay.
[Eunice Browne]: So we're all good with the recall section? Yeah, I think I'm mostly okay with this. You know, we had a long discussion, as you said, about this, and I think we made it so that it was difficult but doable as it should be.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes. I think there was one comment that Jean made.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, down the bottom there.
[Milva McDonald]: That was a while ago. Do you remember if we discussed that in our subcommittee? I feel like we did.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I remember us talking about it. Yeah. I don't remember.
[Milva McDonald]: I think we were, I think we, I think we resolved it anyway. Okay. So are we. Oh, that's this is another thing that's related to some of the things we've been talking about, but. For those initiative procedures that we talked about. they have to be at least 20% of the registered voters, which means that a small number of people, if they get something on a ballot, can't just all show up with only 1,000 people or whatever and pass something. So there's a required level of voter participation. So it's pretty, it's definitely a big lift. I mean, what we wanted was to give people these rights and these options, but it's not simple to overturn an ordinance or anything like that. So no questions and no changes on the recall section? None from me. Great. And... These were basically just boilerplate. All right. I think we've gone through this section. Motion to approve. Okay. Second?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Second.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Eunice? Yes. Ron?
[Ron Giovino]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Paulette? Yes. Phyllis?
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Dania?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes, Aubrey.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes. And Anthony. And I'm yes. Yay. All right. So there's eight.
[Eunice Browne]: So this group joins sections two, three, and seven in the, we are done with those drafts filed.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes. And four, except we do have the outstanding, which I think before we, we do have to go to six, but I want to just touch on that leftover issue from article four of the combined awards. Can we talk about four since it wasn't on the agenda? Um, Well, are we holding up from the next meeting?
[Eunice Browne]: Yep. I mean, I think, you know, yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: And there also is another potential school committee subcommittee.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, I wasn't aware that that was going to happen.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, we're going to try, so we should have better answers, would you say, Paula?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, I sent it out today, Melba, seeing when people were available to discuss it. You know, I do have some qualms about it.
[Milva McDonald]: I'll try to get more information from the Collins Center.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: example language from other charters, but I just don't understand why our committee here would do it versus the elections commission. So I just have a, I don't understand why it would be in our purview to do it.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, it's because we're writing a draft charter and it would be part of the charter, but
[Phyllis Morrison]: But I'm writing. We're just making that recommendation. We don't draw the lines there. Paulette, I don't know if you got my email because I sent it late. Yeah, I did. I don't think that's part. I don't think we should be entertaining.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, we're going to take that up at the next meeting and I'll try to get more information from the call center. Okay, so on so article 6, before we get into the text, I just wanted to say gene. As we had voted on, she did look into. moving the ability for the city council to move money in the budget, and the subcommittee briefly met on it, and Gene wanted to put this forth for inclusion in the final report, to include this as a recommendation in the final report, not in the charter, just in our final report. Basically, what she found was there are other states, notably Alabama and California, that allow most municipalities to have their city council, their municipal bodies move money in the budget, and then there were also a few cities like Seattle and Honolulu are the ones I remember so city. I think it's all like city. Yeah. So it's not unheard of. It is unheard of in Massachusetts and a large reason for that. could be because it's outlined, prohibited in Massachusetts general laws. So the recommendation is not to change, to try to put it into our draft charter, but to include this in the final report and recommend that.
[Andreottola]: What's the recommendation?
[Milva McDonald]: that the next charter review include a more in-depth analysis of budgeting options for Medford, including a review of the status of budgeting under the new budget ordinance, ability to include participatory budgeting, and options for city council to increase or amend budget lines. So basically, we would be recommending, we would be saying that based on our research and our investigation and our discussion, we are not including that in this charter, but we are recommending that the next charter review look at it more deeply.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I think that's okay.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So I'm going to make the motion on Jean's behalf because she wanted to propose that we include this in the final report.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I second. I'll second it.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Paulette. Yes. Anthony?
[Andreottola]: Yes, okay.
[Milva McDonald]: Eunice? Yes. Ron?
[Andreottola]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Paulette? Yes. Aubrey? Oh, I'm sorry, Aubrey.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Yes, when we do the final report, can we, we don't have to do it tonight, but talk about what that new budget ordinance means?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, we're actually going to be talking about in a couple of minutes in relation to something else in this chapter. In this article, I mean. Who did I miss? Me, Phyllis. Phyllis. Me too. And Danielle?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: And Phyllis is also a yes?
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, and I'll be a yes too. Sorry, it's just... When I'm sharing screen. I can't see everybody. So that's why Don't worry about that. Okay. Okay, so now article six. The one thing that I wanted to bring up is that this first annual budget meeting. We saw this in Not all of the other chart. The three main charters we're looking at, not all of them have this, but two of them, I believe, did. Rose and Pittsfield did. Yeah. We wanted to include it. The other thing the subcommittee did was go talk to the administration just to make sure that the proposals here would be feasible. They expressed skepticism that they could accomplish this particular section here. especially given that there is a budget ordinance that is, I believe it's already passed, Eunice? Yes. It is. It's very detailed and it lays out a lot of requirements. I think that's where the concern comes from. Now, this charter would supersede anything in an ordinance. However, I think there's concern about Well, having to comply with the ordinance and this if there's a conflict. So when the subcommittee met, there was resistance to removing this from the charter. So one of the proposals was to maybe just take out that language in purple. Here, let me make this bigger. And maybe that would sort of help. So Eunice, you said you've done some more research.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I spent a good deal of this afternoon. I went through 30 charters that had mayoral form of government, ranging in population from about 40,000 people to about 95,000 people. And I only found Um, 5 charters that had this annual budget meeting section in it. And that would be. 2 of the ones that we're looking closely at Melrose and Pittsfield. As well as effort fall river and Somerville. Um, and, um, they. I didn't look too closely at the number of days piece, but they varied a bit. But they all had the language in it about the revenue and expenditure forecasts in it in some form or another. My feeling on this is that I would like to keep in there the concept of a meeting amongst the three bodies. I think it's Uh, imperative that the 3, I, I personally would like to see the 3 bodies collaborating more than once a year, but I'll take the once a year meeting so that they're coming together and in the interests of the city talking about. The finances and the needs and priorities of the entire community. Yeah, I think there was a lot of talk about that last night as well as the collaboration and the transparency amongst the bodies. And since there's not a lot of collaboration, this requires them to get together at least once a year. So, I think, as Melvin said, there's strong feelings last night that we keep this in there for that reason. I would be willing to put in some sort of. language, either take, taking out that revenue and expenditures forecast and, you know, either removing it entirely or replacing it with something that allows the mayor to request of her CFO and the CFO of the school committee to bring to the meeting any, you know, relevant information that she may require. I would think if this meeting is being held in March or April, that the finance people from the two branches of government should be able to at least provide the first and second quarter financial data. Uh, to give the group some sense of where they stand in the budget and find out how things are going from a lot of different perspectives. So, maybe leaving it up to the mayor to decide. What data she feels is relevant to have a productive discussion.
[Milva McDonald]: OK, I guess I'm surprised that only five out of the 30 have this.
[Eunice Browne]: And they all seem to be sort of charters that were done fairly recently. I think Somerville's, Fall River, and Everett are newer charters. I was a little surprised that Framingham didn't have it, because I know that they went from a town to a city over the past few years. So I was a little, and we did their charter, so I'm a little surprised that they didn't have it. And then, you know, our friends in Melrose and Pittsfield that we've been looking at anyway. So yeah, I was surprised that I didn't come up with more. You know, maybe there are others. I didn't have time to go through them, but 30 is certainly a pretty decent sampling.
[Milva McDonald]: I would say so. Thank you, Eunice. Any other thoughts about this? Go ahead. So the keys here are that the administration is concerned about being able to meet this requirement and five out of 30 charters we looked at have it, but 25 don't. And there's a sort of a strong desire or a strong feeling that getting the three bodies of government together and to in this participatory way would be a good thing. Paula?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, I like this. Is it would be difficult because of the time? The time?
[Milva McDonald]: I think it's the time and it's also the other requirements because there's very specific requirements that the administration will have to comply with at laid out in the budget ordinance. And so it might, so there's also that.
[Andreottola]: I'd like to ask a couple questions and make a comment. First, I guess my first question is, this is the first I've heard of the that there's a strong kind of support for this. I don't know, was that at a meeting or something?
[Milva McDonald]: There was a subcommittee meeting.
[Andreottola]: Right. And that, you know, there is a pilot, you know, this year they're piloting this this ordinance. It's something that Medford has never done before. You know, the budgets were always last minute. We have a very, very small kind of financial department, and they've always been kind of on a crash course to get the budget in order, you know, just because of all the moving parts. And From I heard at the City Council not long ago, I believe from Kit Collins was saying that, you know, this new ordinance and this collaboration with the administration is going quite well and it's very new and it involves a lot of work on the, you know, on the financial side. You know, I think it's a great start and I don't think we should be kind of putting more into it while they're trying to come up with something that's a product that's more transparent and earlier in the season and involving the city council much earlier in the process. I think. would the best that there should be something in the charter that kind of that requires you know an ordinance to be kind of established and updated as needed you know to handle the finances that it's not kind of you know put into the charter and stuck there for 10 years if it's if it doesn't work out if you know I don't know, having the city council and the school committee and the mayor holding public meetings and fighting over money at a certain time of year will kind of help the process at all. I think that's really something that I'd like to get more input from the city council, the mayor, and other folks, the school committee people. Would that really help? I guess that's my question.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, thank you. Aubrey, did you have a comment?
[Maria D'Orsi]: Yeah, I think without the purple, it largely becomes symbolic, which might be why other towns don't include it. Yeah, I'm okay with the symbolism and I also think that. If what Anthony is describing does happen. This could be incorporated into that process pretty easily.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes, so, um, thank you. Let's see. Somebody else has their hand up. And Ron, did you guys want to say something?
[Eunice Browne]: I'll let Ron go ahead and then I'll go.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, just quickly to some of Anthony's points, this charter won't really take effect for a few years down the road. So I don't want to, you know, they'll have plenty of time to work on this current process. But, you know, the city is not where it should be in terms of financial transparency and responsibility. So I think that these kind of symbolic or realistic restrictions should be part of the charter just to protect, to make sure that three years or four years from now when the charter goes into effect, this is in place. That's my opinion.
[Eunice Browne]: Okay, is there any other comments? Yeah, just. You know, as far as the budget ordinance, I've been watching the budget meetings, you know. Pretty closely and watching them go through the process and they did a tremendous amount of work. On the budget ordinance, I think it's improving the budget process. Tremendously, it does appear to be working. They've already had 5 or 6 budget meetings. The full budget's due to be. presented by the end of this month. And I'm sure that they'll tweak things as they go in the ordinance when they find things that were not working as they should or whatever. So it's made a big difference. But I think what this does here is bring the three bodies together. And I think having all of our elected officials sitting down in one room, and I don't believe And I hope that wouldn't be fighting over money or fighting over the budget. I would hope and pray that they'd be sitting in a room together. Talking about the best interests across the city and finding a way to. with the pot of money that we have, dispersing that works best for the city. I don't think it can ever hurt to put all of our elected officials face-to-face in one room and having to work and collaborate together. I think I would leave it to the mayor to decide prior to the meeting, I'm sure that he or she will have some ideas of what financial data the two CFOs can bring to the meeting to make it productive, as I said earlier. And the mayor can determine that. But I think it's always a good thing to get people sitting in a room together face-to-face.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, Paulette, did you have something you want to say?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, I agree. I think that having both bodies and the mayor together, hearing the same thing at the same time is a valuable thing. And I'm hoping that that complements what the improvements in the budget. So I think whether you leave revenue and expenditure forecasts is, I don't think you need to specify that if that's problematical, but because any other relevant information, it's really covered.
[Milva McDonald]: I'm going to make a proposal that we adopt this and say to review the financial condition of the city and share relevant information. It's in the comment there.
[Eunice Browne]: that it'll be up to the mayor to decide.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, it just says to review that the three bodies, yeah, to review the financial condition of the city and share relevant information. So that's my motion.
[Eunice Browne]: I'll second that. I'll second it.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Eunice? Yes. Ron?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Paulette?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Aubrey? Yes. Danielle? Yes. Phyllis? Yes. And I'll vote yes. Great.
[Andreottola]: Do I get a vote?
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, yes, I'm really sorry.
[Andreottola]: I'll actually vote no.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Andreottola]: Thank you.
[Milva McDonald]: So I thought I had counted eight, but I must have only counted seven. Okay, great. Sorry about that. Thank you for keeping me honest, everyone. Okay, so the next sections are, they're pretty boilerplate. It just has to do with the timeline of the submission of the budget. And, you know, did everyone have a chance to look at that?
[Andreottola]: Now, when this is done by ordinance right now, and I believe what you passed out about the the group that has suggestions for charter, you know, if something can be done by ordinance, it's best not to put in the charter.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, yes, that's true. This is a pretty, this is just a very basic timeline.
[Andreottola]: But if it's in the charter, they can't change it. If there's something going on, you know, if they need to adopt it, if there's a crisis or there's, you know, some kind of fiscal kind of cliff we fall off and they want to use different timelines, they can't because they have to comply with the charter.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, I mean, they have to comply no matter what with the end of the fiscal, what was it, June 30th? Yes.
[Unidentified]: That's right.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes. So it's not like they can, you know, I mean, there are, so everything that we looked at was, you know, we considered that, we considered that. Basically, this is a very basic, Outline, but if you think it shouldn't be included. I mean, the other piece was the capital improvement. Which we recommended every 3 years.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I have a question about that. So, in the capital improvement, it's every 3 years the mayor gets voted every. We suggested every 4. Is it the cycle of the mayors? You're not necessarily looking to have, let's say you have a new mayor, but it's time for that report to be due and all of a sudden it's due in the first year of the new mayor's term.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, that could be hard. But, you know, What's the alternative that we do it? I mean, we decided doing it more frequently would be sort of a hardship because it's a pretty big deal to put together, and it's not really necessary to do it every year, and maybe four years might be too long. I don't know. Unless you think differently, it would be good to hear.
[Ron Giovino]: Can we suggest that it be done the third year of a Mario Earl term?
[Milva McDonald]: every, so the third year of every mayoral term? Is that what you're saying?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: How about the second year?
[Ron Giovino]: Yes. I mean, I think what Paulette's trying to say is you're always at three years, this is why we're not voting every three-year terms, is you're going to have that situation every third term. You're going to have a mayor rushing to get it done in year one. But if you say after two years of a mayoral term, That means when you start, this is a project you got to finish within two or three years, whatever number we decide. But at least it's balanced over. We voted for a four-year term for the mayor.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. I mean, I guess no matter what, a new mayor still has to submit a budget even though they're a new mayor. The only thing that can happen is that their first budget happens to fall on the capital improvement year as well. That's the concern?
[Ron Giovino]: You get inaugurated in January, and by June, you have to have a capital improvement plan.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'm saying it would make more sense, like Ron says, to do it in the second year. What you'd want is you want to give the mayor some time to put together the capital improvement plan, and then you also want some years on the other side.
[Milva McDonald]: The proposal is that this language be changed to,
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: at the end of the second year of the mayor's term, no later than.
[Eunice Browne]: What about by the end of the third quarter of the mayor's second year?
[Milva McDonald]: My feeling is that that complicates things unnecessarily, but if that's a proposal that you wanna make and we'll vote on it.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So Milda, you've got a new mayor. Yeah. And it's that year. He comes in on January. And there we probably would be a capital improvement program by the end of the first year. That's a big lift.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Mm-hmm. And I think that even earlier than that I just highlighted 3 months before the start of the fiscal year, which is what July 1. so it would be due April.
[Andreottola]: Can I ask what it is now? Is there any type of requirement or how often does this occur?
[Milva McDonald]: I don't think there's a requirement. And there were some charters we looked at that did it every year, but definitely not all. And it doesn't seem necessary every year. So that's why we didn't put every year.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, you could do an update with a yearly update.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, right in below there is the update requirement. So in that next paragraph is exactly what Paula just referred to. So.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, sorry.
[Ron Giovino]: So this is a program that sets goals, I assume, for capital improvement. The mayor is obliged with every year to update where that is. So it's not like it's only addressed every three years. It's something that's addressed annually. But this formal meeting, I think, again, This is more, I'm more inclined to vote for two years into their term, have had this meeting. I just think they'd be better prepared for it.
[Maria D'Orsi]: I like that too, because in the next line, the plan is, it's a five-year plan.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so are you making that motion, Ron?
[Ron Giovino]: Sure. Um, so it would be, shall submit a capital improvement program to the city within the first two years of the mayoral term. That means they could do it in a year if they want to.
[Eunice Browne]: I suppose it would depend on who's mayor. If it's somebody that, you know, rises up in the ranks, you know, like Brianna did, maybe you as a better grasp of city finances.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, it could be the existing mayor too.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. Or the existing mayor or, you know, somebody that maybe,
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, but my motion is to change that to within the first two years of the mayoral term.
[Milva McDonald]: Of the mayor's term or the mayoral term?
[Ron Giovino]: The mayor's current term.
[Milva McDonald]: The mayor's current term, okay. Okay.
[Phyllis Morrison]: That's good, yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so that's the motion on the table. We got it seconded? I'll second it. Okay, great. Okay, Ron.
[Ron Giovino]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Eunice. Yes. Phyllis.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Aubrey. Yes. Anthony.
[Andreottola]: I think I'll abstain. I'm not quite informed enough about it.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Danielle. No. I got Phyllis, right? Thank you, Paula. Yes. Okay, I'm voting no, but it passes. So we will change that. Within the first two years of the mayor's term.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Of the current mayor's term.
[Milva McDonald]: Years of the mayor's term. Okay. Okay. Any other things that we want to revisit in this section, in this article, or that's pretty much the end of it?
[Eunice Browne]: We can go down to the audit part for just one second. Yeah. Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: I'm good. Okay. Are we ready to vote on this?
[Ron Giovino]: Move approval.
[Milva McDonald]: Second? Second. Okay. Ron?
[Ron Giovino]: Just one piece of clarity. This recommendation at the top here. Yeah. If we're voting on this, are we making it part of the charter or we're just making it as a subnote?
[Milva McDonald]: No, we voted just to put this in the final report. So it's not in the draft charter.
[Ron Giovino]: To vote yes.
[Milva McDonald]: OK. Eunice. Yes. Phyllis.
[Ron Giovino]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Paulette. Yes. Anthony.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Danielle? Yes. Aubrey? Yes. And I'll be yes.
[Eunice Browne]: Awesome. Okay. So we have now hit the halfway point. There's 10 articles in the charter. We've approved five. Wow. Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: I think we did one, no, two, three, four, six, seven, eight. I don't think we've done four yet. Didn't we do four? Or did we not? I don't know. No, I think- Or it's pending.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay, so next- We're close, 90% done.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. 2, 3, 6, 7, and 8. Okay, so we have not much time left, but I just want to clarify. So I sent that document out. I didn't do Article 1. Article 1 is definitions, and I think that the Collins Center is going to draft that for us. And the Collins Center is also going to draft 5, 9, and 10, but I just wanted to give examples of kind of what's in those to see what people want to, because what we're going to need to do is, we're going to need to tell the call-in center, please drop these sections for us, and this is, these are the key, you know, this is the key information that you need to include.
[Eunice Browne]: So I wanted to just do that one first and then talk about whether there's anything else that we need to dive into. So.
[Milva McDonald]: Did anybody have a chance to look at it? It's very common for the regular charter review to be outlined as every 10 years. I would like to make a proposal that we say that the charter is reviewed five years from the adoption of this charter and every 10 years thereafter. just because it's been so long? That was exactly what I was thinking too. Okay. Good. That means you're going to second it?
[Eunice Browne]: Yes, I will second that.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Do we want to have any discussion on that? I have a question.
[Danielle Balocca]: What we're doing now, that wouldn't have to happen all over again in five years, right? Or what would the review look like in five years?
[Milva McDonald]: It would probably look a lot like what we're doing now.
[Andreottola]: Um, but, um, but actually not necessarily, they might just look at, you know, the, the financial, you know, uh, piece and want to make, make, make, I mean, they may not go through the whole. charter in the sense that, you know, they might just pinpoint, you know, a problem and kind of correct it without kind of redoing a whole charter, kind of like what we had the choice of doing initially, you know.
[Milva McDonald]: That's a good point. I mean, chances are, yeah, they won't have to, yeah, they will maybe be, it will be quicker because they won't be writing a whole new charter, hopefully.
[Eunice Browne]: I would think they would be making tweaks and or, you know, taking things that, you know, maybe after five years, this didn't work so well. We need to revisit it.
[Milva McDonald]: So just to look at kind of the typical language for this section that we've seen in other charters. at 10 year intervals and each year ending in a five, the mayor city council and school committee shall provide for a review to be made of the city charter. So that's the one thing that we have to decide is the timing, but then there's also this language here about who does the review. And this particular language suggests that it's a, well, should we vote on the timing first and then vote on the other piece or discuss the other piece?
[Andreottola]: I make a motion to accept the five-year first review in 10 years.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Anthony?
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, I'm sorry.
[Andreottola]: I thought I made a mistake.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Second.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Sorry. Go ahead. Okay. Anthony, yes. Ron?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Eunice?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Aubrey? Yes. Okay. Paulette? Yes. Danielle? Yes. Phyllis? Yes. I'll vote yes. Now, this example language has a nine-member committee, all of whom shall be voters, four from the mayor, four from the city council, Is that what it says? Yeah. And one from the school committee by the school committee chair and the city council president. What do people think about that?
[Ron Giovino]: Well, I have a comment on the side there. It appears that what we're saying is either the mayor gets five choices because she's the, because the mayor is the chair of the school committee, or the school committee will vote a majority vote to pick a candidate. That's my only, whatever, those are the two choices. To say, the way it's written now, the mayor has five appointees to that committee.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, no, that's a good point. So, what do people think in general? Go ahead, Anthony. I have a question.
[Andreottola]: Now, I know in other communities and other times that, you know, the charter committees are actually elected by the voters.
[Milva McDonald]: That's only under Chapter 43B if signatures are collected.
[Andreottola]: So, okay, that answers my questions.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, theoretically, maybe you could put it into the charter that this committee would be elected. I guess theoretically, that could be possible.
[Danielle Balocca]: Why does the city council get to choose so many more than school committee?
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, I don't, this, like I said, this, I just, I think this is Melrose and I just, You know, this is not anything that we discussed or decided on. It's just an example of how it could work.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: It does seem, well, if you said the school committee rather than school committee chair. Yes. But it does seem like, oh, this, you know, I think we've been trying to equalize the government more and all of a sudden it seems like, oh, the school committee is the stepchild.
[Danielle Balocca]: What's going on here. Um, so, I would want, I would propose like mayor chooses three. Or sorry, we can make an odd number. And then the rest of the rest are split between city council and school committee.
[Andreottola]: Wait, I would actually like to say that we do 11 because, you know, people fall off committees and, you know, so there's there's an adequate number of. People, and maybe that'll make kind of make it a little bit, you know, more. Even, you know, we can give a few to the city council, a few to the mayor, a few to the school committee and.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, you know, we can yeah, so 11. What about me? I just want to say one more thing that there's nothing restricting in this restricting the any of these bodies from appointing someone from the council or school committee to be on the committee, right?
[Adam Hurtubise]: It's a good point.
[Eunice Browne]: I have a couple of couple of thoughts. 1st of all, I like Anthony's suggestion of growing the committee. I mean, we were supposed to be at what? 11 and. You know, we've lost along the way. You know, several and we've replaced them with, you know, other folks who've come and joined us, you know, those of us who've been at it since the beginning. I mean, I would assume that the next group is not going to have the. enormity of work that we've done, but I think there were times, at least I've felt, and I think maybe others of us have too, we could have sure used more bodies to do stuff, whether it be holding public sessions and activities and showing up at different events and things. or doing research and stuff, you know, and inevitably, you know, people drop off. So I think having, you know, 11 or even 13, you know, wouldn't be such a bad idea. And I also think having somebody, one individual from City Council. We've been, you know, we tried to do interviews with many of them. You know, some we had more success with than others to get their feedback. You know, I think it's been, you know, invaluable to have POET with us now for a good long while to get that School committee perspective where we've all learned an awful lot about that. So, I think maybe having a sitting member of each wouldn't be a bad idea for them to be able to tell us firsthand, especially since they're going to be working with a brand new charter. How did it actually work? You guys had to live it. How did it work for you? And the other thing is, I think that it would be important to have a good diversity of opinion on the committee as well. I thought it was kind of interesting. It's a little bit of a different ball of wax, certainly. But the mayor put out a call for somebody for the Elections Commission, and I think they're required by law to have two people from both of the major political parties on it. I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to ensure that there was some diversity of political opinion on this committee as well, and some people who have some real good working knowledge of how the city government works.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Thank you. Two plus cents. We have very little time, so I think what I'm going to say is, for the next meeting, please think about the composition of this particular body and what we want to decide about that, and we'll decide that at the next meeting. Were there any other parts of these sections that people want us to discuss and vote on?
[Eunice Browne]: I had made some notes in a couple of places. I see you didn't include article 1, but I had a couple of notes from there. I don't know if it's worth going through any of that now. We don't have time. Then I think over in nine, I definitely threw in some notes there as well. Okay.
[Milva McDonald]: What I want people to do is for the next meeting, think about the composition of this Charter Review Committee, any of the other sections of these outstanding articles that you want to discuss. bring proposals and we will discuss them. Whatever notes you made, turn them into actual proposals that we can discuss at the next meeting. Next meeting, we're going to wrap up Article 4, and hopefully we're going to wrap up these other articles by going through those points. If we do that, We will have enough material to hand over to the call and center and then we can talk about how we're going to structure creating the final report, et cetera.
[Eunice Browne]: And I also noticed in number 5, if you look at some of the. Other charters that, you know, I think it might have been Pittsfield and Weymouth. And I think if you look at some others, if you're interested in checking out some others, they go. I think the title of that article is something about administrative organization or something. A lot of the other charters go in-depth into a lot of the different departments within City Hall, talks about the Department of Public Works, etc. I think paying attention to that as well.
[Milva McDonald]: If you want to do that, then bring the proposal about how you want to do it for next meeting. Sound good? Okay. Before we wrap up, are there any members of the public that would like to speak? Please raise your hand. Okay. I think we have four minutes. We can always use four minutes, but I think we have our work cut out for us for next meeting. And the other thing we'll do at the next meeting is determine whether we need extra meetings this summer. And if we are effective, I think we won't, so. That would be great.
[Eunice Browne]: I think we're in really good shape. Give a 90-second, you know, overview of the final reports.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. People got the example final reports I sent out, right? Yep. That just gives you an idea of the document we're going to have to come up with as a companion to the draft charter, which we're coming up with. Then we'll have to do a presentation to the city council. Once we wrap up next meeting, we will spend a few months getting that final report together and then we will hand our work off and hope that it flies.
[Eunice Browne]: And we'll still be meeting in July and August.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, we'll discuss that next. I mean, I think a lot of it is going to depend on, because I know people are busy in the summer and things, and I think a lot of it's going to depend on how we structure the work of creating the final report and how many people want to be involved in that and what roles people want to take. Does that make sense? Yep. Okay. Awesome. Thank you.
[Andreottola]: Motion to close.
[Milva McDonald]: Yes. All in favor. Yes. Bye bye. Thanks everyone.
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