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[Bears]: City Council Committee of the Whole, March 20 2024. Please call the roll.
[Scarpelli]: Councilor Tseng.
[Bears]: Present. 7 present, none absent. Meeting is called to order. There will be a meeting of the Medford City Council Committee of the Whole, March 20, 2024 at 6 p.m. in the City Council Chamber, second floor, Medford City Hall, 85 George P. Hassett Drive, Medford, MA via Zoom. To submit written comments, please email ahertobeast at medford-ma.gov. Action and discussion items 20-020 offered by former Councilor Knight on the food truck ordinance. The motion was being resolved that the Metro City Council move forward on the food truck ordinance, and we've had several meetings. Our most recent meeting was in November of 2023, where we requested a redraft of the food truck ordinance to this point, where the City Council is requesting that we establish the board of health as the board that would provide food truck licenses for one day events and special events so that they don't have to come before the city council and meet on the city council schedule and board of health or health department. So we do have a draft back and I will go to vice president Collins and then vice president Collins, you can guide us along the way.
[Collins]: Thank you, President Bears. So just to recap, the last time that we talked about this project was in November of last year in the previous term. And I don't remember the dates that we met on it previously in 2023, but I know that we've had numerous Committee of the Wholes on this topic before. Overall, I think that on the council, at least the last time this was discussed in the previous term. The consensus on the council was very clear. The intent here is to streamline the process by which one day food truck vendors may obtain that license so that they don't have to come before the city council. I think in the past, especially for city events, things of that type, it's just been a logistical scheduling problem for vendors to line up when to be the floor of the city council to get their permit in time before the event actually occurs. And I think unlike some other types of vendor licenses, it's, I think there's perhaps less of a clear need for a food vendor, a food truck vendor to stand and present and talk about their business and talk about the reason for wanting to have a food truck. at a one day event in the same way as it's important for people seeking, for example, first time common victualers license to come before the city council and present on the business that they're proposing to open up in the city. Given that, just to recap, kind of the goal of this ordinance is to take what is right now a fairly inconvenient and cumbersome process for a fairly limited scope, setting up shop as a food truck for one day, and make that simpler. So our goals coming out of the previous committee of the whole were to take the draft ordinance and really just simplify it to make sure that it aligned with newer existing Board of Health regulations in such a way that prospective food truck vendors could just go to the Board of Health, make sure that they met certain guidelines, obtain that license, and then go forth to be a food truck vendor for one day, perhaps at a pop-up, or for a one-day event, and have that be that, and not have to involve the city council. So we did request feedback from a number of department heads, some of which have followed up to give, I think, fairly limited comment. I don't think that Director O'Connor has given a lot of feedback at this point, though we've been in touch with her about this project. Our economic development department forwarded along comment to council leadership, kind of agreeing that streamlining and simplifying the process is good for businesses in general, and also kind of adding to the chorus that we've heard from the Chamber of Commerce and some other businesses in Medford saying, you know, the only real worry here is the potential for competition between mobile food truck vendors and existing brick and mortars. And I think that brings us back to the point that the intent of the council with this ordinance is to create a better process for those one-day food trucks. I don't think this is a project about getting more long-term food trucks into Medford. So I think what would be helpful for kicking us off would be, I know that Attorney Stein from KP Law is here. Attorney Stein, if you would be willing to walk us through the three documents that you've proposed here. I think that we have draft amendments to the City Council ordinances, we have draft Board of Health regulations, And then we also have one more, excuse me. City Council regulations of mobile food vendors. I think for myself, the City Council doesn't typically promulgate regulations, so I'm really interested in getting an overview of how these pertain to the goals coming out of our last meeting, and especially where the City Council regulations of mobile food vendors could potentially fit in, or if that's something that we should try to align inside of the Board of Health policies. Thank you.
[Stein]: Sure, so good evening everyone, Robin Stein from KP Law. I'm happy to walk you through the documents. You know, when we, and just for especially where there's new folks on the council and maybe people that weren't at or watching the last time we talked about this, but the ability to have a food truck in any city or town implicates multiple regulatory schemes, one of which is the sanitary code that the Board of Health regulates, but the other is simply the right or the ability to place that food truck in the public ways, which the City Council, it's my understanding under your ordinances, does control. So what we talked about the last time I was here and we discussed food trucks is that really to regulate these, you know, there needs to be a Board of Health regulation that is focused on regulating the public health and public safety and kind of operational components of food trucks. consistent with the State Sanitary Code and the regulations promulgated under the State Sanitary Code. So the first of the three, I don't know which way they're printed out, but in the way we sent them over, the first of the three documents was a proposed Board of Health regulation. That's something that the Board of Health would consider. There are some process components of it that still need to be completed and filled in. I understand the health director may have been, it may still be out at the moment, so I don't know how much she's had a chance to look at this, but the first of the documents in here was just a Board of Health regulation, and that is just regulating the food safety, sanitary code, operational components of food trucks. It has nothing to do with whether or not the city council, who controls the use of public streets and ways, wants to allow a food truck to even be on that property. So the second document that we proposed is an amendment to the city ordinances to clean up section 74 dash two which currently deals with people using streets or ways. make some changes to that so that it doesn't just talk about fruit trucks but actually talks about keeping stalls, food trucks, etc. in public ways without the council's permission. So it's the council in the city's ordinances that is the entity that controls or gives the permission to use the public ways. you know, the way that we've written this, the council could designate someone else or within the city to make that choice, but it wouldn't necessarily be. I mean, I guess you could designate the Board of Health, but it wouldn't naturally be the Board of Health that would be deciding in the first instance, if a food truck should be permitted to be on a public way or any kind of other property if there is any that the council controls. So the second are just very limited changes that we're suggesting to section 74-2 to clean up that existing language, and then a new section of the ordinance that would specifically address mobile food vendors, and it contains definitions, as well as some enforcement provisions. and then authorizes the council essentially to adopt regulations so that the council can have a regulatory scheme for how it or its designee is going to make the decision about whether or not a license to be in the public way should be granted at all. So in that sense, it's a little bit similar to maybe the concept of outdoor dining, which I know the city has looked at previously, that the food trucks need not only the board of health permission to sell food safely, but they need your permission or the appropriate city custodian's permission to put their food truck on public property. So the ordinance changes and the regulation for the city council are directed at that component. And that's why there is a separate regulation, which may be different than what the council normally does, because this is one of those rare instances in which the council actually is the decision maker of should that food truck be there. So we have a pretty simple section of proposed amendments to the ordinances that has both the amendment and new language for it. It's, you know, right now it's blank because we didn't know how to number it, but a new article, new division dealing with mobile food vendors that, you know, allows for a process for you to give a mobile food truck a license to be on public property. And then the last part are proposed regulations that the city council could promulgate that would guide how somebody would go about obtaining a license. And so there were a number of questions in here, you know, that needed to be answered and some blanks and policy considerations that need to be made. You know, you don't necessarily need to adopt the regulations at the same meeting that you vote even to amend the ordinance, it can be something that you that you look at and study and think about later that you do all at once. But really, it is kind of two separate concepts. One is within the Board of Health purview as a Board of Health, the others within the city council's purview as the custodian of public waste. And so that's why we've set it up the way we set it up. I don't know if folks have specific questions for me. A lot of the questions I had were just about process and policy decisions and how you, in reality and practice, want to go about accomplishing these regulations.
[Bears]: Vice President Collins.
[Collins]: Thank you, President Pierce. Thank you, Attorney Stein, for that overview. That's very helpful. And I think if I'm hearing you correctly, just to reiterate, it seems like the main two points coming out of your analysis are satisfying the stipulations that are sort of within the Board of Health's purview to weigh in on, like adherence to the sanitary code, making sure that everything you want to be happening in terms of sanitation and food safety within any vendor providing food is happening. you know, things really on the board of health side. And then on the other side, this piece that more intersects with the city council authority is use of public ways by vendors, in this case, food truck vendors. And I think this is where, you know, I wanna give my fellow Councilors a chance to weigh in on this, but I think this is where I'm really curious if there's a way for us to designate this, this is a question of, you know, in one scenario, the city council exercises this authority to sign off on use of the public way by vendors by assessing every food truck vendor application that is submitted and saying, yes or no, this is an appropriate or safe use of the public way, or no, we don't think that in this case, the public way should be used by this particular food truck vendor. And I think for me, my priority for this meeting is talking about if there's more, that. I think the intent here is to get issuing one day permits, something that doesn't have to occur on our regular agendas anymore. And secondly, because I would hate for this to turn into an issue of the City Council is consistent rubric for why some and not others. I know for the outdoor dining ordinance, we put a lot of work in and we had many conversations with city staff to say, okay, so who needs to check what box when it comes to traffic safety and visibility and having the bollards this far away from the travel lane to make sure that these licenses can be issued in a way that we're sure you know, we're doing our due diligence to make sure that motorists and pedestrians are safe. And then we handed that over to, you know, the relevant city department to, like, sign that form on the application. So I'm wondering if there's something like that that we can do here. We're in our ordinances, you know, if need be, we're updating to say, yes, food trucks are allowed on the public way, but in order to do that, you have to fill out this license application. And on the use of the public way side that goes to the DPW commissioner or the chief of police to sign off on traffic safety metrics or something like that.
[Bears]: Thank you. I don't know why I'm. I'd like to go next. I think, you know, and I appreciate the work that went into this, but I really think that what the council's intent is to make the granting of food truck licenses for one day licenses and special event licenses an administrative task that does not require The to be brought to a council meeting does not require a public hearing and likely doesn't even require necessarily a public meeting. That's what we did for outdoor dining. The building commissioner has the authority. I think we would like. a staff member of the city to administratively have the authority to grant food truck licenses without all of this procedural rigmarole that we are, the issue that, the reason this is coming up is the issue is people were getting applications for food trucks in too late to us and we couldn't approve them in time for events. And I think the intent here is to make this an administrative task of a staff member and not a request requiring the approval of a public body in a public meeting. Councilor Callahan.
[Callahan]: Thanks. I'm curious if we know how other cities are currently doing this. Nobody knows. Okay. That's something we might want to look into is see some of our surrounding cities, how they deal with food trucks, and if they all have to go to the city council, if they just have it done by, you know, the administration.
[Scarpelli]: We have a Councilor Scarpelli. Thank you, Council President. I appreciate Councilor Collins going through these different scenarios, but for the newer members, I think the biggest piece that was really frightening for the business, especially coming out of the pandemic when we first started this discussion, if we all remember, was the protection of the brick and mortar businesses and, you know, different out of city vendors coming in and not having the same requirements, but just coming in and taking business away from our brick and mortar who pay in and committed to our community for forever. Well, as long as they're there. So I do agree with Councilor Bears though. you know, you wish that there's a more, more, just an easier answer to this, because the whole idea that the premise that we've been working on is really, you know, when the mayor has a program that, that a school might have a function and they want to bring in a food truck, that it's, it's, it's easier just to go to the, go to a separate department and have that permit. So I, You know, I this can this can get very convoluted as we hear. But, you know, my hope is was that with this, we'd get to a point where it would be streamlined and not so cumbersome that if there was an emergency situation, if there was an issue with with, you know, different organizations within our city, whether it's school or a fundraising organization that wanted a food truck for a special day is just that it streamlines to the health department that the biggest issue was that all the health codes were really covered. the where the bollards are and where the placement and all that stuff I think that it you know it could we could we find a way to streamline it and say that permits that are on that are in safe areas and in on city grounds because if you if you look at most of them that come before us, they're at the schools, they're at the shell, they're at the different parks. So there's a way that we can just put some language in that ordinance that we don't have to bring in 16 different parties just to make sure that we can accommodate these vendors for special events without keep picking at this and making it more than it really is. So, thank you.
[Bears]: I think Councilor Callahan asked what is always a good question, which is what do our neighbours do? And just from a quick search, I think that it looks like Somerville
[Collins]: The process is to obtain a license from the Health Division of the Inspectional Services Department. So that's administrative, Malden, similar, Board of Health, Cambridge, inspections by city staff, and then submission to Cambridge license. that we're going to be able to move forward with this. Um, commission, so it makes me optimistic that there's a path forward here where this can be administrative task, and we don't have to. I also think you know, as always, Councilors Scarpelli's point is well taken, and that's why I'm glad that we're targeting the intent of this ordinance at one day. Food truck vendors and hopefully We can find a simplified path towards that.
[Bears]: We shut down Riverside Ave. There's a ton of food trucks. We've never ordered any of that. So that's another thing that I'm just, you know, DPW has control of the public way to organize that event. There's just been a lot of past practice where for things like that, I don't think we want to make and create an onerous and rigorous process for having, you know, fried dough at Clipper Ship Day. So any other questions? comments from members of the council, go to Attorney Stein.
[Stein]: I just wanted to clarify, you know, the scope of what we're looking at here. Again, the City Council ordinance relates to the use of public ways, and the regulation proposed for the City Council would only be when a food truck is proposing to go on a public way. If a food truck was proposing to go on other public property, for example, under the care, custody and control of the school department, they wouldn't need to come to the city council. They would only need to get the board of health license because they would just need the school department's permission to be on their property.
[Scarpelli]: And so again, that's not if I'm sorry, sorry to interrupt point of information, Mr. President. Councilor Scarpelli, do you have a point of information? Yeah, just, I think the biggest, our biggest, you know, the understanding is that the food truck, the food truck ordinance, even if it was on school grounds, it still comes to us because our protection of brick and mortar, the school department doesn't, you know, we've already gone over this with the solicitor years ago, that that they don't have the right we have as the city council this is why we we had it in the first place is to make sure we protected our brick and mortar buildings and school department that's like saying the school department can offer uh free um have every every saturday have um food truck alley at at uh at uh the brooks and um and that leaves our brick and mortar and West Medford Square left without any business for that week. So I respectfully disagree with our council just to make sure I don't wanna lose the most important piece here, which is protecting our brick and mortar businesses.
[Bears]: Could you walk me through where in the ordinance there's a differentiation? I may just be missing it. Attorney Stein.
[Stein]: Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that question was directed at me. So I will say that I'm happy to look at that issue if there's more information that the council wants to point me to. But generally speaking, the city council is only the custodian of the property that it's been vested with and property that's in the care custody control, say, of the school committee or the Conservation Commission or the Parks Department or the mayor or whomever, they would actually be the one that would make the decision. Now, if you look at, for example, at section 74-2 of the existing city ordinances. That's the section that talks about use on streets or other public ways for amusement devices, sale of fruit, and any other items. That's the section that essentially says that you can't use the city streets for a variety of purposes without permission from the city council. I'm not aware of any other language in the city's ordinances, although I, you know, we haven't, you know, necessarily looked throughout, but that would place, for example, permission to use school property in the city council.
[Bears]: But I think we're conflating two issues.
[Scarpelli]: So be careful, because this is going to bring us all the way back.
[Bears]: Because this second point, are we conflating two so so but If there were to be a food truck to be hosted on school property, what you're saying is that under this draft, it would need the Board of Health to say, yes, you can have a food truck license. And then you'd also need to have whoever's under the custodian of the property to say, we will host the food truck here.
[Stein]: Yes.
[Bears]: So that's why I think we're conflating two different things. It seems like the sticking point here is that essentially we are saying, as a council, that second piece of the process we have not had anything to do with, to your point, because it is not relevant to our ordinances, right? All we are doing is approving a food truck license. I guess, and I think we're just getting into the weeds here of who has custody and care and control of different city properties in a way that maybe we don't need to be getting into. I think all that we're saying is that we would like to no longer, the city council to not be responsible for the issuance of food truck licenses and for the health department to be responsible for the issuance of food truck licenses. And what I'm trying to get at is it seems like you're saying, Councilor, that there's a sticking point there because if we wanted to delegate all that control, technically, we still have control of the public way. So if it's a food truck on the public way, it would still need to come back to us.
[Stein]: Well, you could certainly designate. I mean, I don't see anything that says you couldn't just designate that authority. You know, the point that I'm making is, as far as I'm aware, the only land that the city council would need to give someone permission to use are the public weights. Because if it's other public land, the permission wouldn't come from the council at all. It would come from the custodian of that. property now, we can certainly a second level of permission granting in addition to the granting of the food, which could be as simple as, you know, the, for example, if it's in the parks department, it could be as simple as the director of the department. saying yes you have our permission to be here for this event or I mean we can again we haven't analyzed all the other custodians of potential city property because that was that was outside the scope of what we were doing here. So what what we did is based on our last conversations with you folks is present to you a process by which the permission for a food truck to use public ways can be granted. It lies with the council in the first instance I don't see a reason why the council couldn't designate you could even do it in the ordinance so for example if you look at the promos amendments to city ordinances under our changes to 74 dash two. I think that you could say the council's original designee for granting. this license is and and make that designation right in there and then you know the only thing that the council had said previously they didn't want it to come back to them was some kind of variance or you know special permission to the extent that somebody wanted to operate beyond the scope of the initial regulation that the council would adopt. So the regulatory scheme would be that the council has said either this person or this this group of persons within the city are the people that are going to grant the licenses on our behalf But here's a regulation for them to follow when they grant that license that gives them some direction as to what the council would like to see. That's the council regulation. And you had asked that we include some kind of provision which still needs to be spelled out by the council as to, you know, an opportunity if there's a rare case where somebody does want to operate in a way that goes beyond the basic rules and regulations that you've set up for the council to consider granting some type of variance. So that's what's built in there right now. You know, it's obviously there's a lot of policy decisions that need to be made. The council has to decide, you know, who would like to be that designee. I think that's probably something that would need to be run, you know, through the administration as well, just to make sure that that works from a staffing perspective or, you know, or, you know, other concerns related to the position. But, you know, yes, no, you can, you can designate someone else similar to outdoor dining to make this call. And that's what it's set up for, right? There's just questions about who you want that to be. And then there's a proposed regulatory scheme for that designee to apply so that they can be acting with uniformity when they consider and grant the licenses. So there's something behind the process of how they make the decision. And so that's what that regulation is. And then there's a process in there for the council to step in if they're requested to in a special case.
[Bears]: Okay, I'm going to go to Councilor Kiley in just a second. I think what the, from the previous meetings, what we're asking for is that the food truck license process, that the health department be able to issue one time and special event food truck licenses. Those are the only licenses for food trucks that we want to allow at this time. If they need permission from the custodian of public property, they would ask whoever the custodian of a specific property is to make sure that the food truck is allowed. And that when it comes to the public way, we do not want them to have to come to us for a food truck in the public way. They could go to the DPW, essentially.
[Stein]: So I think that's- Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. Just to clarify something, you can certainly, um, you know designate Someone within the dbw or the department head. I think that's a conversation that needs to go beyond tonight to make sure that that works from an organizational operational standpoint To be the person that makes the initial call whether or not to grant the food truck license for the public way on the board of health side um, frankly, I don't see anything in the law that Allows the board of health under the sanitary code to limit the ability of somebody who's having a lawful food truck on private property To like one day or weekends or anything like that? And that's it's not going to their regulation because there's no basis in the law for the board of health to do that from a sanitary code perspective You can do that for your city ways You can say we're not going to issue licenses For a food truck to be on our streets on our public streets for more than a day or more than a special event that you can do absolutely or on other public property well you but you're not because if the council is not the custodian of the other public property then the council doesn't set the rules for how that other public property is used and that's why i have a note in here about that you city may want to investigate and get a sense of who are the custodians of those other public properties but the council would only have control over the public ways and any other property that they are the custodian of and i don't have that inventory
[Bears]: I guess, and this is where it's breaking down for me. Are you saying that under the existing regime that whoever is the custodian of another public property could issue unlimited food truck licenses on their own without the approval of the council or without an ordinance establishing those licenses as part of the city code?
[Stein]: Yes, I mean if they're lawful under zoning. So, for example, if you know and we and to the extent that it became beyond kind of what's contemplated as like an accessory intermittent lawful type of use to some you know, private property, we can look at it further. But under your zoning ordinance, the only use that is explicitly allowed to have food trucks that I'm aware of are breweries. The only other time I could contemplate there being food trucks that would be allowed is if some kind of exempt use like a church or a school, you know, was having a special event and they were going to have a food truck, you know, for a short period of time. But they're not otherwise allowed. So zoning regulates private property and they're not permitted outside of those type of uses.
[Bears]: I'm sorry. The zoning code regulates what the Medford public schools could do on school property?
[Stein]: So the zoning bylaw exempts the Medford public schools from, well not the zoning bylaw, but the zoning act makes public schools an exempt use. So they are a public school is permitted to operate, you know, anywhere in town. And in my opinion, if a public school said, you know, we're, we're having a special event, and we want to bring in a food truck, like they could do that, and that would not violate zoning. But the only place in your zoning bylaw where food trucks are explicitly permitted are breweries.
[Bears]: Right, they wouldn't need to ask us.
[Stein]: They would just need the Board of Health.
[Scarpelli]: So, point of information with that, Mr. President?
[Bears]: Yeah, sure, and then I'm gonna go to Councilor Callahan and Councilor Collins, but yeah, Councilor Schripper.
[Scarpelli]: Sorry that I'm not there, but this is gonna bring us all the way back to the beginning because this was what we explained to our business community. And the reason why we went this way is because of that safeguard that they knew that this council would make sure we were protecting our brick and mortar. If we now leave this open to other entities to come in and do special permits every Saturday, and it's allowed in separate departments, whether it's the parks department saying that we'll use Placestead Park to do something, you know, and it just leaves it to a slippery slope, and it's going to open up that, you know, it's going to open up that can of worms again that we started years ago. And I just think that we should be very careful as we move forward with this now. Thank you.
[Bears]: Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Callahan?
[Callahan]: I just had a question because it sounds like what the attorney is saying is that according to our laws, we only have the ability to give permission for these food trucks on public ways and all the other entities like the parks and the schools do their own food truck licensing. What it sounds like Councilor Scarpelli is saying is that this is not the practice that we have done, and it is also perhaps not what our former city solicitor said. So to me, that makes things a little muddy. And I would love to have, I mean, maybe that's just the reality, but if there can be any clarification on that, I think it would help us understand.
[Scarpelli]: If I can, Mr. President, I think, thank you. I think having the authority to issue the special permit under the city council gave us that safety and that sense of understanding and acceptance with our brick and mortar businesses. But now as we're trying to find a more streamlined way to help our help our citizens that programs that want that one day permit. If we take the special permit out of the city council and leave it to the board of health, then we lose that. We lose that sense of control where our business and our business districts and have entrusted us when we first started this process. That makes sense.
[Bears]: Vice President Collins.
[Collins]: Thank you, President Bears. Give me a second. I'm organizing my thoughts.
[Bears]: I guess I'll try, maybe, unless you're ready.
[Collins]: You go first, then I'll go.
[Bears]: I guess, Attorney Stein, my question is, it seems like the intent of the council is to, whether it's public or private property, whoever is the custodian or has care and control of the property, our intent ideally would be to, through whatever ordinance or zoning amendment, to say that a designee, right now we're calling it the health department, would issue a food truck license, only limited to a one day license or a special event license, regardless of what property it's on, whether it's public property, private property or the public way, is what you're saying is that we legally can't do that.
[Stein]: Yes, I'm saying that you can absolutely do that under the council's authority over the control of public ways. And you can absolutely do that for any other property that the council is the custodian of. And I had posed a question in the comments I sent back, but that's an issue that the city may want to look into because I don't have an inventory of who controls what city property. So I wrote this broadly to say, any property that council controls and the public ways, you absolutely can decide who you want to designate, which I heard you earlier say was the DPW, for the public road permission part. But no matter what, no matter where a food truck goes in the city, it's going to need the Board of Health to issue the permit under the sanitary code, which is like a totally separate issue from the grant of location license that the city council would be issuing. So no matter where a food truck goes, the board of health should be involved. They should be evaluating it from a food safety perspective. They should be issuing a permit for that truck to be there. For the council to control otherwise the location of food trucks, the proposed food truck needs to be on land that the council controls, or to the extent that you have an ability to regulate it through a zoning ordinance amendment, you may want to consider doing that as well. But there are limits, frankly, how much control you can exercise over that. I would certainly be happy to take a look at any prior opinions of council on this issue. I'm not aware that any have been issued. I'd be happy to take a look at those, and we can, again, look at the scope and extent of the public property the council does control. I'm not aware of any existing process, so certainly our intent with this was not to change any existing process there is. The only thing that I'm aware of right now, again, is simply just section 74-2, which talks about getting the city council's permission to use the public ways essentially for commerce. And there may have been a process the council was using under that, but I haven't seen anything written. So if there's something out there, we should take a look at that as well, because we wanna make sure to the extent that we're putting something new in place that we're making appropriate changes.
[Bears]: Got it. I mean, I guess I have two questions here. Our existing process is that basically anytime anyone on any type of property wants to use a food truck, the council approves a food truck license. Okay. Is that not the process?
[Stein]: Well, I guess my question is on what basis or under what authority is the council issuing food truck licenses? Because I'm not, again, I'm not aware that there is any existing process, you know, the charge to me was to help create a process.
[Bears]: Right. Let me see if I can pull up the most recent example of this in the records. Mr. President, just a second, Councilor Scarpelli. I just want to see if we can find this here. So we got a dear, dear President Morello and members of the city council. This is September 21st, 2023. The council records for our meeting of October 3rd, 2023. On behalf of the below entity, I respectfully submit to the city council the following request for a food truck permit of the city of Medford. In addition to city council approval, vendors are.
[Stein]: sense, you know, he sent that. It makes sense.
[Bears]: It was coming to you. Just a second Councilor. I'd like to answer my question first.
[Stein]: So again, we can, we can take a look, um, further into this issue. You know, it wasn't my understanding that that was a particular question. for this process, we can certainly take a further look. You know, we can, if there's a prior opinion of council that has to do with the authority that the council has over school property or anything like that, I'll be happy to take a look at it. And then, you know, we can always revisit the scope of this. But for example, the current city ordinance just references public ways as far as I know. It references streets in the city.
[Bears]: I'm going to go to Councilor Stroud, probably then Councilor Collins and Councilor Lazzaro.
[Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President. With all due respect to the representative council from KP Law, I think we're talking right now two separate issues. And for the sake of public finance, I say that we stop and reevaluate as a council and put this in order so it can be presented with all of the information. I'm a little shocked that that how we presented it maybe this was our fault by not presenting all the documentations from the beginning of this process but this isn't something that started in 2022 or 23 with with the brooks school this started years before that and making sure that that the understanding that the council is the authority that distributes the or votes on the special permit. And again, I'm going to say this again to make sure all our new councils understand. This was a gigantic issue with our business community, a brick and mortar community that was very, very controversial, very intense. And I just don't want to continue this dialogue because we're, I think we're talking two totally different, different things. I believe the council is focused on one piece of this, this, um, this request that we asked for, but we're missing the whole beginning of the race. What we're doing right now is finishing the race. We just missed the first 23 miles of the Boston Marathon. So I don't want to continue this for the sake of funding reasons. It's not you know, attorneys are a lot of money and we can sit there for another two hours talking about this. So, uh, I'll do requests that would motion that we, we, um, table this and until we regroup as a council and get all of the information that the attorney on record is, is, um, is given so we can make a, a decision without, without stirring up the, uh, the business community again. So thank you.
[Bears]: There's a motion of Councilor Scarpelli to table. It was undebatable. Is there a second?
[Collins]: I have a comment I'd like to make, which could be an alternate.
[SPEAKER_05]: We can't make it undebatable. Is there a second on the motion to table?
[Bears]: Hearing no second, I'll go to Council Vice President Collins.
[Collins]: Thank you, President Barras. Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. I agree. I think we've gotten out of scope here. Among other things, I'd like for us to be getting close to a point of resolution on this project, and I think that perhaps there is um, value in a conversation about this issue of does City Council adjudicate, um, licenses being issued over on school custodian property? Um, but we're getting out of our scope here and I and I think that there's to move forward on this ordinance without having to wade through all of the weeds on that. I do think that's a separate conversation, maybe one that informs this, but I think that the intent for the council here for many months has been to streamline the process for one day food truck vendors, and I don't want us to have to go through that process in order to finish up here. In my perspective, I think what we What I would like to see is an amendment to the city council ordinances that says, yes, we allow one day food truck vendors. There's some language in there that says, here's how we make sure it's a one day permit and not a one day that happens six days out of the week. Maybe it's the permitting authority, or sorry, the licensing authority may submit like one day licenses but only you know one per vendor for a three or six month period or something like that so we make sure that these are indeed one day licenses and not de facto you know all week round permits to Councilor Scarpelli's point. It seems to me that the overall formula here for conditions that must be satisfied to get a license is permission from the custodian or the private property owner plus adherence to Board of Health regulations and other public safety regulations equals the one day license. I Maybe I'm wrong about that. But I think that there's a path forward here where we could try to make some progress on the text of what's before us, perhaps modeling, simplifying what's before us along those lines, modeling some of the language around who creates the regulations for the licenses based off of our outdoor dining ordinance, which has already been passed. maybe that can be drafted perhaps by a member of this council, we could come back and then have legal review of that document as opposed to, I think we've gone through several rounds here and I think the context is very helpful and of course we appreciate Attorney Stein's time spent on this. But I think we're all very eager to get this to a simpler place and proceed from there. And I wonder if there's a way we can kind of scale this back to the basics and convene again as a council to make sure that we're locked in on the basics, and then have another meeting after legal review, where we finalize this.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's my answer calls. I'm sorry, did I cut you off.
[Lazzaro]: I was going to say a lot of what Vice President Collins did eventually say. I think that the crux of the issue is that we would hope that the Board of Health would be able to to approve the majority of one day licenses, similar to what our surrounding cities have in their ordinances. I also, I just think there's, just browsing the ordinances, there just isn't enough specificity in there yet for us to make enough, draw enough conclusions about what is and isn't allowed, because there just isn't anything about it. The other thing is some of our local businesses have food trucks, and they may want to operate in the city as well. So I think that's an exciting opportunity for them, and we wouldn't want to limit our organizations and our events from having something fun and exciting. So I think this is important for us to continue working through, and even though it can be slow and frustrating that we carry on. And I would support Vice President Collins' suggestions.
[Bears]: Thank you. I just want to, I think we can actually get to the crux of, I'm starting to wrap my head around it a little bit, I think. And I think where my sticking point was, was that our past practice does not seem to be grounded in any sort of legal authority that anyone can find. So essentially, we've been granting pointless permits with no authority for some period of time, at the request of the, you know, under multiple mayoral administrations to multiple councils, mayors have been requesting that the council approve things. that need need to be requested nor needed to be approved, which actually means that we have no regulation on this other than on the public ways, which is the council has to control things in the public ways, which I don't think is a status quo that any of us wants to maintain as a status quo. Um, so attorney sign if if I may. And please, when I'm, it seems to me there's three things here, that the council could create a use of the food truck under the Zoning Act to regulate where and which districts food trucks can be used on private property, and we could make them by right or by special permit by some authority of a board.
[Stein]: You definitely could adopt zoning amendments to further regulate food trucks.
[Bears]: Right.
[Stein]: On private property.
[Bears]: Right, and that would be creating a use and then what district the uses would be in and what authority, you know, we could say that a special permit of the council is required in every district for the use of a food truck and that would regulate all private property in the city that falls under the zoning ordinance.
[Stein]: Yes, I mean, you would still probably have some exempt use issues to talk about, but you could. um you know make it an accessory use or you know we can talk about different ways to do it but certainly there is a greater ability to regulate food trucks on private property through your zoning ordinance.
[Bears]: Okay and then on the public way the council controls the public way so we we could right now under the existing ordinance potentially with some modification to address the very specific concern about the sale of fruit um we could pass an ordinance to say you have to get a license or permit of some kind from the council or its designee on the public way.
[Stein]: Yes, and that's that is how the amendment To the existing ordinance that we propose to set up just as I know you're going to look at this further Just want to point out a couple things. So in what we propose by way of the amendments to the city ordinances We have definitions including what a license is And the license is defined as a one-day mobile food vendor license or special event mobile food vendor license So this one-day special event concept is built into the amendments that we proposed based on the direction that we got last time, the only license that could be granted by the city council or designee would be one of those two. So that's in the definition section that we proposed for the amendments to the city ordinances. And then the regulation that we proposed again would be like the rules for how you would get one of those licenses. If it helps as a starting point, you know, when the council is looking at this further, you know, that is how it's set up.
[Bears]: Right. And then there seems to be this third, I think I get it on both ends of that. There's a third kind of middle area, and I'll throw in what you just said about exempt uses. So basically, like the Dover uses might also fall into this weird middle ground where public property that is not under the care and control of the council, the council does not have the authority to say that basically, right, like, I get where it would work on a public way, I get where it would work on a private property that is not exempt from zoning. I think what we were trying to thread the needle on was that on those other properties, we still only want to allow one day and special event licenses for food trucks. And it seems like what you're saying is that by your analysis of the law, that the sanitary code can't do that. All that the health department can say is, oh, this is a safe, this is a healthy food truck. They can serve food. And then it would be up to the exempt property owner, for example, Tufts University, or the public property owner, custodian that is not the city council, for example, the school committee for Medford Public Schools property that they could determine that they could have food trucks at times other than one day or special events.
[Stein]: Yes. And again, if it became something where it was overtaking the use, then we might look at whether or not, is this really an exempt use or has it turned into something else? But the occasional presence of a food truck on Tufts campus or a church picnic or something like that, I would most likely opine was just part of their exempt use.
[Bears]: And okay, so that's exempt use private property that may be exempt from the zoning route. For the properties that are not under the control of the city council, but are city owned, or state owned, for example, and then we can go down another avenue to state owned but city controlled because we have some of those. Is there a legal authority that we can find to say that we only want one day and special event food trucks to be licensed?
[Stein]: So we would just need to look at that in the context of zoning. I would need to go through the current kind of treatment of municipal uses for kind of that last category of just public-owned property. We'd have to kind of go through and look at it. I mean, the thing with zoning is that you're regulating the use of the land, not the operation. So we always need to treat kind of like all the land in the district the same and we wouldn't necessarily treat the land differently because it was a municipal use first like a private use, but we could take a look at how we could get as close as possible to accomplishing your goals through zoning. But we know we do need to maintain that uniformity that the zoning act requires. And again, I, you know, I would want to look at that in the context of whatever additional documentation, um, the council has regarding the prior practices and how this has been operating in the prior council opinions that have been referenced. Um, because we obviously don't have that back history. We haven't been involved, um, you know, for the extent that this is clearly been going on as an issue.
[Bears]: And then where we would run into some issues on the zoning side of things, we can't designate the board of health as a special permit granting authority, right?
[Stein]: No, so under chapter 48, section nine, it would either be the city council, the planning board, the zoning board, not the board of health. But again, when you're talking about just using the public ways, as much as that's a policy decision, I don't know that it's the board of health place to make kind of like, that decision as much as like you said maybe the dpw similar to what you do with outdoor dining right okay i'm starting to get the shape of this thing yeah i mean there's a lot of different kind of like factors that that fall into this it's land use but it's also general government sanitation board of health regulation it's just a complicated area because there's there's different um parts of the of the pop right
[Bears]: I think where we were potentially not entirely accurate was that we had assumed that we had the authority blanket, similar to how we do for other licenses to grant a food truck license, and that that would apply on all property in the city, regardless of its status of ownership or control.
[Stein]: So- Makes total sense.
[Bears]: Yeah. For me to give to you probably the easiest way to find this information, and we could maybe go deeper, but if you go to our MuniCode site and you just type in food truck and you go to the documents, you should be able to see records going back 10 plus years. Some of them will have records of the meetings where we've been having a conversation about this, but a lot of them are requesting that the city council approve food trucks you know, there's one for 2018 here, 2017.
[Stein]: Maybe you can send me the link for where to search. Cause when I go into, um, like Muni code and I type in food truck, the only thing that comes up is the reference to food trucks and breweries. Cause I did search that as part of the process of putting these materials together.
[Bears]: So if you go through the documents tab, so there's codes, ordinances and documents, there should be documents that should have like 68. uh, results next to it. I can happily send you the link too, but.
[Stein]: So where it says browse additional online documents.
[Bears]: Yeah.
[Stein]: Oh, okay. All right. So that's a different search than when you just search the code itself.
[Bears]: Yes. And then that searches all of the records council records.
[Stein]: Okay. I'll take a look through that. We'll definitely take a look through that as well.
[Bears]: Yeah. So we have, um, yeah. There's a bunch of things in here that may be of value. Yeah.
[Stein]: We can definitely take a look through that, and then we'll have it in mind when the council comes back with its revised draft to take a look at.
[Bears]: Right. And I'm not aware of prior legal opinions, but I'm sure you probably know better than I that if there were any, that Janice Spencer in the law department would probably be able to find them. But I'm not aware, and Councilor Schaer probably has dropped off, so I don't know if he has specific... Yeah. Okay, was that a motion, Councilor Collins? And I appreciate everyone's indulgence. I just wanted to kind of put the legal authority into boxes so that we don't have to have this discussion again as best as possible.
[Collins]: I appreciate that. I would be happy to put that into a form of a motion unless we feel that the discussion has proceeded along enough that the suggestion is now irrelevant. But barring that, I would make the motion to authorize myself or President Bears to take a pass at a redrafting of this along the lines of this conversation.
[Bears]: I think we could just collaborate with Attorney Stein.
[Stein]: Sorry, it's a little hard for me to hear you. Were you asking my opinion on the motion or suggesting I'd be part of the motion?
[Bears]: No, we were just saying that maybe we could sit down outside of a public meeting. Sure. Council Vice President and I and you and just kind of see in structure here that meets the now relatively, I think shared as best as possible understanding of the fact that we're coming at this, addressing this food truck problem requires different legal authority for different settings.
[Stein]: I'd be happy to. Yeah, I think that's a great idea.
[Scarpelli]: Great, so motion of Vice President Collins to- Great, on the motion of Vice President Collins, seconded by?
[Bears]: Seconded by Councilor Tseng. All those in favor?
[Collins]: Aye.
[Bears]: Opposed? Motion passes. Any further discussion or motions? Councilor Collins, Vice President Collins? He's not.
[Collins]: I thank my, especially newer Councilors for wading into this perhaps unexpectedly complicated topic. Appreciate Attorney Stein's time on this call and in preparing for this meeting. And I would motion to keep the paper in committee and adjourn.
[Bears]: Thank you. And I just want to also say that I was kind of thick headed on this last meeting and I appreciate Attorney Stein's diligence and getting through my thick head about what this actually means. I was just like, why can't we just do what we've been doing? And it's because what we've been doing has no basis in reality. So on the motion of Councilor Collins, seconded by Councilor Leming. All those in favour? Opposed? Motion passes. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you.
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