[Bears]: Sixth regular meeting, Medford City Council, March 19th, 2024. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[SPEAKER_19]: Councilor Callahan. Present. Vice President Collins. Vice President Collins is absent. Councilor Lazzaro. Present. Councilor Leming.
[Bears]: Present.
[SPEAKER_19]: Councilor Scarpelli. Present. Councilor Tseng. Present. Vice President Bears.
[Bears]: Present. Six present, one absent. Please rise to salute the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Announcements, accolades, remembrances, reports and records. Records, the records of the meeting of March 12th, 2024 are passed to Councilor Leming. Councilor Leming, how did you find the records?
[Leming]: I found them favorable.
[Bears]: Councilor Leming found the records in order and moves approval.
[Leming]: I found the records in order and move to approve them.
[Bears]: On the motion of Councilor Leming, seconded by Councilor Callahan. All those in favor? Opposed? Motion passes. Reports of committees, 23-449. Offered by Councilor Lazzaro, public health and community safety. Committee report, March 12th, 2024. Councilor Lazzaro, if you could give a quick update and let us know if we should move this forward.
[Lazzaro]: Yes, well, we discussed the wildlife feeding ordinance offered by Vice President Collins. It was something that was brought to her by constituents interested in to move it out of committee at this time. We are protecting public health and community safety. It's appropriate for the committee, and we did not vote to move it out of committee at this time. The two motions that came out of this meeting were to refer this version of the ordinance to keep the law for legal review prior to our next meeting on the re-circulate the document to relevant city staff, which it's been passed on now to the animal control officer, and we're going to keep this paper in committee for the time being.
[Bears]: Great, thank you, Councilor Lazzaro. On the motion of Councilor Lazzaro to approve the report, seconded by Councilor Tseng. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. 24-033, offered by Vice President Collins, Planning and Permitting Committee report. We met last week on Wednesday, March 13th to kick off our zoning reforms with the Innes Associates and Barbroski Silverstein team. So super exciting times ahead of us for probably like 20 to 24 public meetings in this council on zoning reform over the next 18 months, which should be very exciting. Any further discussion?
[Scarpelli]: Councilor Scarpelli. public should know too. I think that this council, I think way back a few years ago, when we started with Mr. Borbowski and changing our zoning codification and moving this forward, I think this is a big piece that we haven't seen in Medford in a long time. So what I like is that this process really allows the community to get involved and neighborhood to neighborhood to make sure that everybody is part of the solution of what you want your method to look like. So I know that council bears did a lot of hard work. I know that we made sure that was in the budget to make sure that that funding was there. It's not going to be cheap, but I think it's something that we haven't seen in how many years now?
[Bears]: We did the first half, that was the first time in 60 years.
[Scarpelli]: 60 years, right. So that's a good message to the community. So thank you.
[Bears]: Yes, thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. On the motion of Councilor Tseng, seconded by Councilor Callaghan to approve the committee report. All those in favour? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. 24-015, offered by Councilor Leming, Resident Services and Public Engagement Committee report, March 13th. Councilor Leming.
[Leming]: Yes, thank you. We discussed Councilor Tseng's paper to develop a more comprehensive communication strategy for City Council. In particular, we decided to adopt a monthly newsletter and that motion, we passed a motion to do so. So the way that that is going to work is councillors will be on an alternating schedule, taking turns drafting the newsletter, after which it will be approved at the monthly Resident Services and Public Engagement meeting, and we will then meet to approve it, amend it as necessary, and then send it out to the appropriate avenues as well. Steve Smearty was there, so we talked with him as well about developing this newsletter and general communication strategy. Councilor Lazzaro also agreed to develop some social media, to draft some social media to bring to the next to the public engagement meeting next month as well. So I sent out a request to my colleagues to develop the calendar that we will then be relying on to to rotate responsibilities for drafting the newsletter. I decided to draft the first one to provide an example of the formatting, which will then be discussed at next month's meeting. And I would like to thank my colleagues who have responded thus far that they are willing and able to draft newsletters in the coming term. And I would also encourage those who have not found time to do so to, if they're willing and able to, to do that as well.
[Bears]: So thank you, that's the report. Thank you, Councilor Leming. A motion of Councilor Leming. Mr. President. Yes, Councilor Scarpelli.
[Scarpelli]: Again, I think that I had some opposition. I think the idea is sound. I think that we still, I haven't heard at least that we have put together a plan on how we're going to get this letter out to everyone. I think drafting a newsletter that can only be reached by a few and not all, I think it's, I just think it's a slippery slope like I told you. I just think that if it's not reaching our most needy community members and without having a plan in place because I don't think we've invited anybody from communications to work with us. So I think we're moving things forward and we still haven't got any answers, at least for me, as we're going forward with this and how we're going to move this newsletter forward, where is it going to go to? It's going to go to people that are already in the know for the most part.
[Tseng]: Thank you. Thank you. I don't want this to be bogged down in discussions about the idea in particular, because this is just the approved meeting minutes. But I would respectfully disagree. I think that we can't be setting up too high of a standard that we can't meet. We can't let perfect be the enemy of good. and we need to be reaching out to residents with all channels necessarily. One of the motions that came out of that meeting was to have a continuous discussion in that committee about ways to improve outreach. We are actually working very closely with our communications director on this, and he's very, very supportive of this project. He wants us to do it and to see it succeed, and he wants to help us promote it as well. We've talked about at that meeting a number of different avenues to disseminate this information from the Medford Community Media, Senior Center Newsletter, social media, as Councilor Leming and Councilor Lazzaro talked about, and through building an email list and texting WhatsApp groups. So we've talked about a number of options that we're exploring, many of which are options that we already have as a council.
[Bears]: Councilor say on the motion of Council. Let me to approve the committee report seconded by Councilor Callahan. All those in favor? Opposed? Motion passes 24 to 0458 Cambridge Health Alliance 1 Cabot Road special permit for medical office use public hearing notice. Medford City Council 1 Cabot Road March 19th 2024. The Medford City Council shall conduct a public hearing on March 19th 2024 at 7 PM in the Medford City Council Chamber on the second floor of Medford City Hall. 85 George P. Hassett Drive, Medford MA, and via Zoom. The Zoom link to the public hearing will be posted no later than 48 hours prior to the meeting. The applicant, Cambridge Health Alliance, is seeking a special permit subject to site plan review to establish a medical office used within an existing building at 1 Cabot Road, located in the Office O Zoning District. Plans for this project may be viewed in the Office of Planning, Development, and Sustainability, City Hall Room 308, or on the city's website at https://www.medfordma.org community-development-board by clicking on current CD board filings. If you need a reasonable accommodation to attend or participate in this meeting, please contact Francis Nwaje, 781-393-2439 at Nwaje at medford-ma.gov. So what we will do is we will hear from a presentation by the proponent Cambridge Health Alliance, and then it will open the public hearing for us to hear from members of the public in favor or against, or who have questions about the project.
[SPEAKER_19]: Come to the podium.
[Bears]: You might need to press the button just once. There you go. It's not going to give you a really great read. Try again. Okay, I have the green light now.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm a child of the 20th century, so my apologies.
[Bears]: This is the system of the 19th.
[SPEAKER_07]: But this is a fantastically beautiful city hall. That's my editorial comment. So I think the city of Medford should be very proud to have such a city hall in all sincerity.
[Bears]: A New Deal WPA project. Fantastic.
[SPEAKER_07]: Perfect.
[Bears]: You don't get marble anymore.
[SPEAKER_07]: Again, to start anew, I'm Andrew Fuqua. That's F as in Frank, U as in... Unicorn, Q as in quick, U as in unicorn, A as in apple, for the record. I'm the general counsel at Cambridge Health Alliance. I am here also joined via Zoom by our zoning counsel, Paul Feldman of Davis Mom. I believe Paul will be pulling up the presentation, but if he is not, I will be doing so.
[Bears]: Looks like we're giving Paul access now. And I will say, feel free to give a presentation summary, and then we can go to the Councilors for questions, and they may refer to some of your slides.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, while Paul's pulling up the slide, the relief we're seeking is, again, for a special permit for medical office use. This is under E3 of the Table of Use and Parking Regulations. And we're also seeking approval of site plan review for a major project pursuant to section 94-11-7.2, because this is a medical office use of 10,000 square feet or more. As you read in the preamble, the Community Development Board has recommended approval of both the special permit and the site plan review with conditions following a hearing held before that board last Wednesday on March 13th, 2024. Next, Paul. So for those of you who aren't familiar about what Cambridge Health Alliance is, or who we are, Cambridge Health Alliance is a public health care system that was created by the Massachusetts legislature in 1996. We were created when The Cambridge City Hospital was spun off and joined with the Somerville Hospital into a new independent public instrumentality. Later in 2001, we added the then Witten Hospital before Hallmark Health was to close it. The mission of Cambridge Health Alliance as a safety net organization is to improve the health of the communities that we serve in our primary area. Those being Malden, sorry, Medford, Malden, Chelsea, Revere, Somerville, and Cambridge. And as a safety net, we specialize in the care of underserved populations. We have one of the highest Medicaid mixes in the state. if not the highest. What are we, what do we do? We operate two inpatient hospital campuses, full acute care hospitals in Cambridge and in Everett. And then we also operate an inpatient child psychiatry hospital at the former Somerville Hospital campus on Highland Avenue. But even though the hospital is what people think of us when they think of healthcare organizations, what we really are at our core is an ambulatory network. We operate 15 clinics in the communities I listed, including four school-based health centers. and we serve a primary care panel of approximately, give or take, hopefully it's going up, 128,000 primary care patients on our active panel. So our primary mission is to reach out and ensure that members of the community can receive the care they need, obviously before they need to go into the hospital. So by way of background for this application, CHA currently operates a primary care and orthopedics and rehab center at Assembly Square in Somerville in an office building just across the parking lot from the Home Depot, if any of you are familiar with that area. Unfortunately, the owner of that property has determined that a better use for that would be as a lab building. So we're going to be required to exit that building by September 2025 so that it can be torn down for lab space. This caused us to look around where is an alternative in the area that can meet the needs of the communities we served. And as we looked about, there were several criteria that we considered. The two major criteria were, one, is this a location that's accessible for patients that we serve? And then second, If it's accessible when they come, will they have parking or will they be able to use public transportation? And we allude upon one cabinet as meeting those criteria. Significantly for us also is that this location is in Medford. Cambridge Health Alliance up to this date, we serve members of the Medford community, but we serve members of the Medford community in sites that are very adjacent to the Medford community. But there's something important about actually being in that community and investing in a community and being invested in the community. So we've located one cabot, which as I mentioned, is accessible to public transportation. Paul's moving one step ahead of me, but that's good for him. And we signed up a 15 year lease with the Davis companies for space on the second floor. It's approximately a 56,000 square foot space and approximately 42,000 of which we'll be able to actually use for clinical space. And this project will entail only interior renovations. We're hoping to have renovations completed by sometime in the summer of 2025 so that we can move in at that time. kick off operations by September, by Labor Day. The one cabin roads building itself, again, in this building will not be, there won't be any exterior renovations. As mentioned in the preamble, it's located in an office zoning district, and the current property complies, fully complies with all zoning dimensional requirements. It's about 300, 308,000 square feet. And the building coverage is less than 24% of the lot. It has 941 parking spaces available. And as I mentioned before, all the improvements will be interior improvements, subject of course, to putting like new air handling systems on the roof. The service to be offered will be all outpatient. There will be no inpatient services provided. The largest service that we'll be providing is primary care. We will also be providing orthopedics and rehab services at the clinic. And for the patients who are presenting at the clinic, we will also offer onsite laboratory services for blood draws and the like so that they don't have to go to another location. And also an onsite pharmacy to serve our patients. Again, so that they're able to pick up their scripts when they leave their visit. Because we have an integrated pharmacy through our electronic medical record. In addition, as I mentioned, We will have a rehab space for doing physical therapy and rehab. We'll have some procedure suites for non-surgical ambulatory procedures. So nothing that requires hospitalization, but little things that can be done in an ambulatory site. And then we also, finally, we have our own employee health service for our own employees, but we also serve as an employee health service for other employers, and that's our occupational health service, which will be located there. Next, please.
[Scarpelli]: No, no, it's okay. When they're done, I think.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, here's a broad picture up on the screen of the overall layout of the second floor. Lots of little, it's impossible to read, so why don't we move to the next slide. And if Paul's able to swirl his cursor, he's, we'll have up at the top in that rounded area will be our central registration area. To the left of that with those pink rooms will be our procedure suite, various prep rooms, recovery rooms, and then the actual procedure rooms. To the right of the semicircular arrow is where we will have our outpatient lab drawing stations. And at the bottom of the picture is where we will have our pharmacy for patients and also the occupational health clinic rooms. On the next slide, thank you, Paul. This is where the meat of the clinic is at the top. is where we'll have our 24, it's currently anticipated to be 24 primary care exam rooms and related office space. And then we'll have approximately 21 rooms that we use for our orthopedics, our podiatry, and related services that we can actually flex a little bit with our primary care. And if we decide to bring in another medical specialty, we can flex in and out of those rooms. And then at the very bottom is the space for our rehab area. Next slide, Paul. So, as I believe you mentioned in the preamble, the Community Development Board did recommend approval of both the site plan review and the special permit with conditions, and CHA finds all of those conditions that have been suggested or recommended by the Community Development Board to be acceptable.
[Scarpelli]: Great. Thank you. Councilor Scarpellilli. Thank you. First, working in Somerville, I think that our community, especially when I was coaching, we saw the benefits that CHA provided for our students. And being there and having an on-site office at Somerville High School paid huge dividends for our kids, especially our kids with need. The biggest question that we'll hear whenever you hear of an ambulatory center or hospital setting that's coming into your community, what are people thinking? Loss, tax base, right? So what is, you said a lot of great things that you do in Somerville, Revere, Cambridge, right? Everett. What is CHA going to come for Medford? What are we going to see from Medford? You're coming over the line, right over the line. So I think that with public transportation, you're still going to get the sum of residents is still going to benefit. Your residents coming from that are still going to benefit from that area. My question is, what is CHA? What are we going to do to really become part of our community? Are they actively trying to pursue some sort of outreach, maybe to set up a site at Medford High School, like we have at Summerville High or Cambridge High School, where we can benefit? from having CHA in our community. I think being on the outskirts sounds great because Somerville still benefits from it, but they now have another area where they can now have a huge tax base where the facility is. So if you could share anything that can help constituents that have been reaching out to me and saying, Well, here we go. Another loss of tax base, and it's still in some of it.
[SPEAKER_07]: So, again, so well, I've got some very good news for the city of Medford. It's not so good for Cambridge Health Alliance. Shia, please. Unfortunately, Cambridge Health Alliance is not purchasing this property, so it will not be taxed. Okay. So there will be no diminution in tax revenue. To your other point, and I think this is the most important point. It's essential that we outreach to members of the community, and especially to members of the community that need services. And when we look, that ranges the full spectrum. That ranges from youth all the way to the senior members of our community. And I think we try to do so in a couple ways. You mentioned the school-based health center. That's something certainly we could look into and we could try to see what we can just engage in discussions with the Department of Public Health and with the Medford schools because it is important to outreach to the community. I mentioned the description of Cambridge Health Alliance being having hospitals and having outpatient clinics. I think one thing that makes us very, very different is we also have an extraordinarily extensive community health improvement department. I think from your time in Somerville, did you work with Doug Press?
[Scarpelli]: Yes, that was a great asset.
[SPEAKER_07]: Doug is now our, heads up our community health improvement department.
[RhUNhYl62Oo_SPEAKER_05]: Great asset, great.
[SPEAKER_07]: And we try to work with the public health departments and other private entities and organizations within our communities to identify need and partner with them to address those needs.
[Scarpelli]: That's great. Mr. President, I think that I know it's a public meeting, so we have to open it, but I think it's, especially if we have the access to tap into a CHA to help our neediest members of our community, I think this would be a win-win, especially if the naysayers that are afraid of taxes won't be affected. So I would support it once we move through the process.
[Bears]: So thank you. Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Lazzaro.
[Lazzaro]: Are you able to explain the conditions that were offered by the Community Development Board?
[Bears]: We don't have them. I can, we do have them, but I can recognize them. Danielle, if you could just share the conditions or if there are any highlights from the conditions that we're CD board recommended.
[Evans]: Yes. Good evening. Danielle Evans, senior planner and office of planning development sustainability. Um, yes, the, you should have, um, the, PDS memo, which goes through the process and the findings of the CD board. Let me open up the, just give me one second. How did it open?
[SPEAKER_05]: I could share my screen, Danielle, if you want.
[Evans]: That could be helpful.
[SPEAKER_05]: If you want me to share my screen, I could. and I have it up on my screen.
[SPEAKER_07]: I can read them.
[Bears]: Yeah, I don't think I don't think we need to read all of them. I think if there's just highlights of any senior planner, Evans thinks we should be aware. Yes.
[Evans]: So there were three conditions that were that they're recommending approval and essentially the traffic impact assessment does show that there'd be, you know, increased trips generated from this use versus existing Amazon offices. So to try to convert some of those trips to, you know, pedestrian and cyclists and cycling and to also encourage EV users, we have these three conditions. The first one is The applicant shall work with the property owner slash management to add an EV charging station in the designated CHA visitor parking area if reasonably feasible. In addition, the applicant shall work with the property owner slash management to provide wayfinding signage to direct visitors to the existing EV charging stations located on the site and clearly indicate that these existing stations are available for use by visitors to the CHA facility. The second one is the applicant shall work with the property owner to add bicycle racks for visitors near the building entrances. And finally, the applicant shall work with the property owner slash management to provide wayfinding signage on the property to direct pedestrians arriving by a public transit to the entrance of the building. And we felt, staff and the city board felt that with these conditions, it would meet the criteria for issuance of a special permit and approval of a site plan.
[Bears]: Thank you, Senior Planner Evans. Any further questions by members of the Council? All right. At this time, I'm going to open the public hearing to anyone who wants to speak in favor, against, or otherwise about this project. Are you in favor of the project? I'm guessing it's a yes.
[SPEAKER_07]: Absolutely.
[Bears]: Great, thank you. And if you could just give folks, if anyone wants to come to the podium to speak regarding this project, they're welcome to do so or raise your hand on Zoom. Let me give it a second. Seeing none, the public hearing is closed. Are there any motions on the floor? Councilor Tseng.
[Tseng]: Motion to approve with the conditions attached to the CD board.
[Bears]: Motion to approve. Second. With the conditions of the Community Development Board by Councilor Tseng, seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[SPEAKER_19]: Councilor Callahan.
[Callahan]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_19]: Vice President Collins is absent. Councilor Lazzaro. Yes. Councilor Leming.
[Callahan]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_19]: Councilor Scarpello?
[Bears]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_19]: Councilor Tseng?
[Bears]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_19]: President Paris?
[Bears]: Yes. 16 affirmatives, none of the negative one absent. The motion passes and the special permit is approved.
[SPEAKER_07]: So Cambridge Health Alliance thanks the city council and we look forward to increased business within the city of Medford and helping improve its health.
[Scarpelli]: Thank you so much. We'll be in for our physicals next week. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. If I can, can I suspend the rules to move paper 24053 to the head of the line there, Mr. President, if we can?
[Bears]: On the motion of Councilor Scarpelli, to suspend the rules to take paper 24-053, seconded by? Seconded by Councilor Tseng. All those in favour? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. 24-053, be it resolved, offered by Councilor Scarpelli, be it resolved that the Medford City Council invite the leadership team from the Medford Fire Department to discuss the well-being of our fire personnel during a difficult few weeks of major fires and other outside distractions. Councilor Scarpelli.
[Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President. This was something that was put forth weeks ago. I know that President Buckley was here patiently, and I appreciate you allowing us to move this to the front. I think that to go back a little bit We had, at the time, something that I have a resolution later that we could bring up, but I know that the mayor asked to make some drastic changes for our leadership team in the fire department, which caused a lot of uneasiness. Part of that stemmed from accusations of sick leave, sick time taken. And while this was going on, Medford had one huge fire, I believe a three alarm here in Medford, and then assisted and I believe a five alarm in Chelsea. Along with that, I know that I've talked to many firefighters and, and they to their words, feeling very unstable and very nervous, in a sense, in their working conditions. And I wanted Mr. Buckley, if you could, come up and just give us just a quick update on how our men and women are doing and how the process is so far with Chief Evans. So if we can.
[Bears]: Sure. Just want to, really quickly, do we know if the interim chief is expected? I don't think so, no. Okay. Any other questions or discussion by councillors before we go to members of the public? Seeing none, name and address for the record, please.
[Buckley]: I'm sorry. I thought you're gonna ask some questions. Well, I can't. The mayor appointed Deputy Chief Evans to the position of chief. He's opened up lines of communication with the union so far. So that's One of the good things that's happened so far, she's also promoted a deputy captain and lieutenant that were due to be promoted in January, early January. We are waiting on a few promotions that the mayor has decided to do interviews for. That'll be, it's an issue with the union because it's a change in working conditions and how promotions are being made, but we'll handle that through the grievance process and the Department of Labor Relations charges. I've spoken with Chief Evans once or twice so far, just talking about headquarters, progress with headquarters, promotions, But the one thing that our members are worried about right now, and I'm personally worried about, is we have members that are now coming to work sick, not feeling great. In our profession, we can't come to work if we're not 100%. If we have a stomachache, or my shoulder hurts, or my back hurts. or the sniffles, whatever, we need to be 100% in order to do this job, because if we're not given 100%, we put our lives in danger, the people we work for, with, and the citizens of Medford. We can't just get up and go to the bathroom whenever we want, you know, sometimes we're on a roof or on the highway. So I feel that members are being discouraged from using their sick time now in fear of retaliation from the administration. So that's the bad thing. Headquarters is moving forward, apparently, without the union. So that's it.
[Scarpelli]: That's one of the questions that came about. I talked to a few firefighters that that are afraid to come up and mention that they were, I believe. I believe one of them told me one of the stations had a terrible case of the stomach virus. And there were a lot of identified dehydrated firefighters at one time. And I said, I just don't understand. Just take your time off. And I think that this is what this is where the dialogues that's the plan when you bring politics and why you need to bring politics into the situation. Because of discussion from the beginning of these issues we've had here is that we want to keep politics out of the firefighters purview and, you know, stop being there. You know, one member told me that not being that being their voice, you know, having being part of that process. But I think that what I'm hearing from them and the reason why I asked you to come up is the fact that we have firefighters that are sick. And they're afraid to come to this podium, and they're afraid to who they can speak to for the fact of retaliation. And that's a huge problem for public safety. So I think that, I don't know, I don't know if there's an answer. I don't know if there's an avenue that I can propose that whether I know that the mayor was contemplating some sort of investigation, I think it was- As far as I know, we're still under investigation, so. Still under investigation, okay. So I think these are the questions that will go to my, I don't wanna bring this up now, but go to my resolution later that You know, we want to get to a resolve as quickly as possible and have our method firefighters move forward to do the job that they've been paid to do and what they've been doing honorably even through this this fiasco. So, um. I mean, other than that, I know that there are still issues with some facilities and what I'm going to ask is, we've done this a few years, we did this a few years ago. I'd like to, with the clerk, I know we did like a walking tour. We did a Saturday morning and we just visited, we picked maybe three houses and, you know, it could be random, you guys could tell us where to go, but we visit the actual fire houses. So we can all see what's been said. And until you see it, and that's why I think I have a little more fire because I walked that walk and I saw some of the conditions that our fire men and women have to live through. And they never bring this up, but I think that it would behoove us that we actually, you know, maybe set up a walking tour on a Saturday to some of our stations and visit.
[Buckley]: I can have our secretary reach out to all the council members and set up any kind of tour you guys want to do.
[Scarpelli]: Okay, if we can do that through the clerk as a motion that we can just maybe go visit. It doesn't have to be all of us. Maybe, you know, if we can't make it, maybe two or three of us just go and just report back.
[Buckley]: We've done it a few times with the whole council, not this council, prior councils. And we make up a list of stuff. They make up a list of stuff that needs to be fixed. And it's very rare that work actually does get fixed.
[Scarpelli]: Yeah. But I think especially as we go into the budget season, we look at the capital plan and follow the mayor's capital plan to see if we can go with that, I think is important. So again, I don't want to take your night, Mr. Buckley. I know maybe my fellow council have something to say, but I just, I really wanted you to come up and really just, these are the issues that I heard. I know the other thing was that was being spun as part of the dialogue of wasted money. You know, we talked about the chief now being in place and, Did we rectify that cost that was going around that she promoted two deputies, correct, or two lieutenants?
[Buckley]: She promoted one deputy, one captain, one lieutenant, and then just the other day she did promote two temporary lieutenants that were for members that got injured in December and January.
[Scarpelli]: Okay, so the big question we had was, We were losing money up to about close to $60,000 for overtime.
[Buckley]: More towards $80,000.
[Scarpelli]: Has that been rectified? Are we still backfilling any positions?
[Buckley]: Right now, we are on 100% because the deputy Evans got made chief, so his job opened, which opens a position for deputy chief that fills in for any vacation or sick days that the current deputies use, which then makes another captain and another lieutenant, but that also takes another firefighter out of the ranks. And right now, I believe we're at 106 members, including the chief, And that's the lowest in the history that I'm aware of.
[Scarpelli]: I remember it's 125, the number that's at least workable. I think we're budgeted for 124.
[Buckley]: I got on in 2007, we had 126. You know, 10 years before that, we're at like 150. 10 years before that, we're at 165. Now we're at 105 with twice as many calls, if not more. We're at 13, a little over 13,000 calls a year now. We're in, you know, 1998, we had 165 fighters and we were at 6,500 calls. So, so that okay, so we need we need more firefighters.
[Scarpelli]: This was really made just to get the how everybody's doing. But I think that all plays into it. So I think that, again, I really wanted to hear what happened. And at the time was really about what was going on with the chief's issue. And those two fires and that just lend our support to the to the men and women on the fire department that especially that week, that the city of method appreciates, you know, everything you guys have done, because mom, that the fire was streamed everywhere, the one on Riverside Ave. And I, what was great to see is everybody worked. It was just, even though there was no acting chief at the time, the team looked amazing. And I just, that's why I wanted to bring it up the next week, just to, sometimes people just need a pat on the back. And I know that, you know, if I'm gonna, as many times I've called and we went at it over some disagreements, but at the same time, when you deserve a pat on the back, you should get it. So, so thank you.
[Buckley]: We appreciate it. Thanks.
[Leming]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Leming. This is just a question of accident, kind of wondering this, and I would like to know the answer. I've been wondering it for a while. So if a firefighter is sick, why could, is it an option to get like a doctor's note, some form of documentation? Could that be?
[Buckley]: That's all negotiated. If I was to go out sick during the day and you would tell me I need to get a doctor, is the city paying for the doctor? That's where the negotiation comes into play. I don't think the city wants to send us to a doctor every time we're all sick because they're going to have a doctor bill every time we go out sick.
[Bears]: Any further questions? Councilor Callahan.
[Callahan]: Thank you. I just want to ask you about civil service law and whether we are currently following civil service law. So the appointment of the active chief, was that done appropriately? Was was the are we gearing up for the required testing? Do you know if we're currently like on schedule to follow through with civil service law as we are supposed to right now?
[Buckley]: Well, in the union opinion and our legal team, no, we didn't follow civil service law by hiring the chief the way it was. He was hired. We did have a civil service hearing last Tuesday about this, and they recommended the city call for a test, which is the next chief's test is in October. But as far as I'm aware right now, no test has been called for, but that was just last Tuesday, so.
[Tseng]: I just wanted to say this was informative and helpful. Thank you for putting this on the agenda. I know you have a motion on the floor for us to work with you all and the clerk to reset our next paper on the matter.
[Scarpelli]: No, that's not for this paper. If we can just I think that we could set up a working group. It doesn't have to be all of us. Like I said, just work with the secretary.
[Buckley]: We'll reach out to everybody and whoever wants to go can go.
[Scarpelli]: this is an amendment, right? If we can't with the member just to see if we can put together just a walking meeting to the sites just to walk to the fire stations and so we can actually see what, you know, what we hear and, you know, put, once we put the sight on, eyes on it, I think it'll make a difference for everybody. I know it made a huge difference for me. And people ask me, George, did they save your life? Are you really, really going overboard sometimes at the fight? And they say, you must have saved me during my first heart attack. I said, not yet. So, you know, but I'm staying in good grace a sec. But what the question was that, Once you go through that tour and you see, you know, there was one station that you had the fitness apparatus right next to the exhaust and it was like- Still there. It's still, that hasn't been fixed. Okay, so I mean, these are the things when you look at, you're gonna be like, you know, with the carcinogens and you're hearing about all these serious issues, health issues. And I think these are the things that once, I think once people go and you actually walk a fire station, not to get one of those funny little helmets, but actually see what's going on and see where our female firefighters have to change and where their bathrooms are and understand the windows that can't open. And I hope those have been corrected, but these are the things once you see it, I think what you see it, I think that it'll, it'll put everybody's, it'll put things in a different light for everybody here. I think that, I think that's why I'm a little, a little more motivated when it comes to our firefighters. Um, you know, nothing against our police, but you guys live the life. You guys have a spot at the police. You have massage in the new, new stage. Yeah. But all right, if we can, that's, you know, I appreciate it. I know that the civil service, I know that there was also brought to my attention that even this process right now, that the mayor is going forward looking for either the deputies or lieutenants moving forward. There's a civil service process. That is it true that the mayor isn't following that either?
[Buckley]: She's decided to hold meetings or conversations and decide from there who she promotes, which is, again, against our past practice in civil service, so.
[Bears]: Okay, thank you. Thank you. Do you have a motion? Do you need any clarification on it? All right. And I just have a question and a, you know, Just when we do the tours, are you going to coordinate with or inform the interim chief? Yes, yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. I just want to make sure I was going to do that.
[Buckley]: The former chief went on the tours also.
[Bears]: Yeah, no, I know.
[Buckley]: He got lost.
[Bears]: And I just want to say again, we met on the budget earlier. We've had multiple DPW commissioners in here, police chiefs, heads of every department talking about just the systemic decline in staffing and resources for every department and school system since Proposition 2.5 went into effect in 1980. So we're well aware of the systemic underfunding of all parts of city government due to the a hard limit of 2.5% on the total city tax levy, and we know that it impacts every department. So, you know, we've seen that and you've seen that firsthand as well, and it really just hurts the ability of city government to provide effective basic services like fire prevention, or effective planning, or public health, or enforcing basic code enforcement, never mind public education, public safety. So appreciate you bringing that information as well. It's helpful for us to just see what the impact has been going from 160 down to 125 is huge. And DPWs in a similar place, and they've gone from 150 in the late 70s down to, only about 50 people a day. So it's when people, when you look around and you see a crumbling fire station or a crumbling sidewalk or just not having enough staff to keep up, it really is because of Proposition 2.5 and the fact that the city doesn't have enough revenue to meet basic needs.
[SPEAKER_19]: I'll question that.
[Bears]: It's just the data. Thank you so much. Any further discussion? There's a motion on the floor by Councilor Scarpelli, as amended by Councilor Scarpelli, as seconded by Councilor Tseng. I'll open it up to members of the public if you'd like to speak. Ms. Diesso, name and address for the record, please.
[Deyeso]: Thank you, President Bears. Sharon Diesso, I've been to the podium before. 130 Circuit in Mass Ave in Medford. I just wanted to thank the gentlemen for coming here this evening. I happened to see firefighters on the agenda that was promoted by, I think, Councilor Scarpelli because they Took my father out of, very late in life, he developed diabetes and we called the fire department and they actually saved his life twice. So, they're a little bit more vital. In fact, I almost made, I have semester break this week and I said, I know, I miss my kids, I'm gonna have to have a pop quiz at the council tonight. And I'm not saying this as a criticism, I'll make a bet, because I didn't know it at the time myself, all the duties that firefighters do. We always think that they come around with the truck and we have all kinds of exposure in a day, meeting a firefighter, and you get to see the helmets and all the apparatus, et cetera. It goes far beyond that. So I'll refresh you a little bit of what happens. Then I have just a brief note regarding civil service. that basically as a firefighter, they swear on their oath, this is abbreviated, that you will be a public servant and you will be reserved for and respected for not only fires, but other emergency situations that occur within your community. You also will be responsible for odd hours, working around the clock sometimes, that require physical, emotional, and medical durability from yourselves. You must respond not only to occurring everyday, lively situations, including auto accidents, for example, that respond to emergencies. Also, you are responsible for the learning, the operation, the engineering of special equipment, which regards to hose pressure, gauge pressure, water pressure, carrying victims. in treating the sick, also injured people during these emergencies. You also are responsible for clear, effective writing skills so that your reports are absolutely exact. They could be, like in the military, life-threatening. So my other question now, I hope that this was a little bit of a learning thing for the public, for anyone that was on Zoom tonight or anyone who's sitting here this evening. Thank you, firefighters, and thank you, Councilor Scarpelli, for paying attention to this vital issue in our community. Also, because some people aren't aware of the recent motion by I think it was the mayor regarding civil service requirements. I'm going to tell you a little bit about civil service in its importance in about two sentences. And then maybe you can tell the public, sir, just where that stands right now. Does that mean just promotions or anyone who wants to become a firefighter? What are the requirements? That test is designed not only for intelligence and IQ, It is designed, like some of the federal exams that I have taken, for specific skills, profiles, and personalities, and excellence and proficiency in different areas that would pertain to your job requirements. Thank you very much for this time. I thought it was important for all the community and young people, too, who are thinking about public service. Thank you.
[McKillop]: David McKillop, 94 Rockland Road. I was listening to what Mr. Buckley had to say, but more importantly, I was listening to the Chonam's voice and I feel that level of disparity to some degree coming from him. And I wanted to just step back for a second and just point out one thing that George had pointed out earlier, which is fear of retribution. I don't think anyone anywhere in any job should ever be in fear of retribution, regardless of what is going on. Now there's an investigation whether you believe it is valid or not valid. It is completely irrelevant to those folks getting up every single day to do their job and do the job the best they possibly can. Someone needs to let them know there should be a free fear of retribution in any way, shape or form. You cannot have these folks going into a burning building, and then coming out in the next day, not feeling well at all, and asking for the day off, and then having to worry about possibly having to go to the doctors to get a note to come back the next day. Fear of retribution is human resource 101. And that has to be clear from everyone here in the administration as well. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_19]: Thank you. The rest of the record, please.
[Branley]: Hello, Nicole Branley, 54 Norwich Circle. I was just wondering if I could request that the school committee be invited on that tour. I think for 14 elected officials in this city that we can all work together to support our first responders. That's possible.
[Bears]: Sure. Yeah, I mean, that's fine. I'm sure we can amend that, but you may need to ask your colleagues as well. Yeah, well, I mean, it's just an invitation.
[Branley]: I mean, they don't have to come, but if they could be invited, we could be invited, that would be great.
[Bears]: We can invite all elected officials in the city. That'd be good.
[Branley]: Good.
[Bears]: Thank you.
[RhUNhYl62Oo_SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
[Bears]: Move the question, Mr. President. Any further comment by members of the council, members of the public? Name and address for the record, please.
[PSTGVKtblL8_SPEAKER_07]: My name is Gerald Burns, 44 South Porter Road, Medford. I was on my phone trying to look up. There was a tour done. I think there's a report on the City of Medford website. They toured every firehouse. There was a whole list of things that were written up.
[Scarpelli]: We did that, I think, six years ago.
[PSTGVKtblL8_SPEAKER_07]: Was that a couple years ago or a few years ago? Six years ago, maybe. And nothing's been done since?
[Bears]: There was a 2018 effort by the council. There was also a fire task force led by Paul Holian in 2021 that had a report on this new website. I think so, yeah. Yeah, that might be it.
[PSTGVKtblL8_SPEAKER_07]: Just saying, I know you guys are doing the tour again, but it'd be good to review that before you go.
[Bears]: Okay. And there have been several projects funded by the CPA.
[PSTGVKtblL8_SPEAKER_07]: I've got a question for the gentleman over there. Is that a grievable offense? The mayor appointing someone?
[Bears]: We've been told that Mr. Buck was communicated that they're using DLR.
[PSTGVKtblL8_SPEAKER_07]: All right, that's all I got. Thank you very much. Thank you.
[Bears]: Yeah, and I will note that there have been a number of projects funded for fire stations by the CPA, and they're currently working on the Salem Street Fire Station as well. Name and address for the record, please.
[Murphy]: Angela Murphy 16 Carding Street. I want to address the fact about being sick. I work in a school movement. And one week, we had 15 teachers out because something went rampant through schools. We had more than 25 kids in and out all week. If everybody had to bring in a doctor's note to say they were out, that's ridiculous. How about you bring in a doctor's note when you're not able to attend a city council meeting? I mean, nobody wakes up in the morning expecting to be sick and throwing up or have fever when they went to bed healthy. People get sick. And if you live in close quarters in deplorable buildings, you are bound to get sick. So we have to give these firefighters the hand for not coming in when they're not able to do their job. So being retaliated against being sick is ridiculous. I feel that if I'm sick, I'm going to stay home. In fact, my colleagues would tell me to stay home, even though I wouldn't want to. So that's all I gotta say. I mean, these firefighters came to my mother's house in the middle of the night numerous times when she rolled out of bed and pressed the lifeline. They are lifesavers. We ought to applaud them, not reprimand them for being sick.
[Bears]: Thank you. On the motion of Councilor Scarpelli, as amended by Councilor Scarpelli, and seconded by Councilor Tseng, all those in favour? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes.
[Scarpelli]: Mr. President, I think, I don't know, while we're in here, do we want to just go through the 240541, just to, it's in the same breath.
[Bears]: Yeah, 24054. Schedule, on the motion of Councilor Scarpelli, to suspend the rule to take 24054, seconded by? Seconded by Councilor Callahan. All those in favour? Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, Mr. President. Give me one second. I've got to read it.
[Scarpelli]: Okay.
[Bears]: Be it resolved that the Medford City Council move to schedule a committee of the whole meeting dealing with the civil service process for the Medford Fire Chief position. We have requested that meeting and the Mayor has requested a time delay on that meeting. Councilor Scarpelli.
[Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President. I know that I think that a lot of people are here because of this situation. So just to move the night along, I think it's important that that this was a resolution that was brought forward with the concerns and the issues of the fact that the mayor had asked the city council to vote on eliminating the position of chief process through civil service. And that morning of our meeting, she already had somebody in the office. She was interviewing someone already in the office. without this council even approving that. So this council heard questions from the firefighters and the administration, and we asked to try to come to a vote. The council needed another meeting with the mayor, and you would think for the sense of morale, I think right now, and something I think we've all identified, that one thing has nothing to do with the other thing. civil service doesn't have anything to do with this so-called investigation. So to hold this off for two more months, to leave these firefighters in a certain feeling of being unsure of what's going on and leaving this, it really puts it back on us. So what I would recommend, Mr. President, if you allow me to make a motion that we do. few things is that this situation with the mayor is a mess. The mayor created a through this on the city council's lap, and it was irresponsible. It caused outrage among our community and has put us all at risk. The mayor was gung ho when she filed this paper, but now she needs more time. It's clear that this matter was not properly vetted, and it was retaliatory in nature. It's nothing more than a knee jerk reaction to an unrelated and substantial allegation. The record of this body reflects the agreement. This action was both irresponsible and not well thought out. There is no place for politics when it comes to public safety. So the mayor can refile this paper. I would make the motion that the mayor can refile this paper when she gets her ducks in a row. And this issue is a mess. that she's created, and the council should not be left holding the bag while concerned residents lay in wait. I move that this paper be received and placed on file, and the mayor can come back in future time and put this through. And I ask my council to vote in favor of this for one big reason. is to really calm the community down and say, listen, we understand after time, we've all had time to think about it. We've had a lot of questions. The questions that I've talked to some of my fellow councils about, maybe you could tell me if I'm wrong, really stems from understanding the policy of the sick time. It had nothing really to do with the civil service issue. Well, the civil service issue isn't that important to the mayor because she doesn't want to meet for two months. She's already responded to us. So my my hope is that we can see that let's put everybody at ease that's been directly affected and put this to rest if we can. And then she could bring this up when she's ready and take it off our plate, Mr. President. I make that a formal motion if we can. Thank you.
[Bears]: The clerk has noted to me that that paper has already been disposed of into committee, so we can't take action on it tonight since it's already in committee. Any further discussion? We need to dispose of this paper. Is there anything else on this paper?
[Scarpelli]: Well, I think like, I think that it's a clarification. So everybody, everybody knows out there. So our, our city council rules state that if we move this, we cannot dispose of it until it's heard in the committee. Right. And so I think that we should revisit the mayor and ask her to really move up that timeline. And I recommend that the constituents that have reached out to me about this issue, that there's only one person that we can reach out to, send the mayor an email. send them email saying, dispose of this or meet right away to get this off the plate of our of our fighter fighters minds and let them be at ease. Okay, because this is something that whatever might be minuscule to most people, but if any, just an ounce of negativity, that our firefighters can take off their shoulders, why would we do that? So I would make that recommendation to all that's listening to send the mayor a message. I know I'll try, it'll fall on deaf ears, but I would recommend that as our leadership, if we can revisit that and send a message to the mayor to have an immediate meeting and not wait two months, because the optics doesn't look good either. People have asked me, he's like, why two months? Well, we have no control of that. The council president has no control of that. The mayor has said she wants to wait two months, so.
[Bears]: So we'll send this resolution to the mayor. Thank you. On the motion of Councilor Scarpelli to approve, seconded by Councilor Tseng, all those in favour? Opposed? Motion passes. 2-2, that was the only other paper under suspension.
[Scarpelli]: Sorry, revert back to regular business.
[Bears]: We're back. 22-494 Budget Ordinance. The latest draft of the Budget Ordinance was reported out of the Administration of the Finance Committee on February 27, 2024, for consideration by the full Council, and a copy is attached to this packet. This was tabled from last week's meeting, and this is the Budget Ordinance that we've been working on for over a year now. 22-494 came in at the end of 2022. We've had extensive negotiations with the administration to define by ordinance requirements for a transparent, collaborative, and accountable budgeting process for the city. And this budget ordinance would establish a new chapter in the city ordinances, finance. It would move a couple of items from Division 5 of Chapter 2 administration to the new chapter, but would not make any changes to them. And then the new Article 5 outlines the annual budget process. And the first piece of that is quarterly financial reports and meetings. The finance director will provide a written report regarding the city's finance to the city council on a quarterly basis, no later than 60 days after the end of each quarter of the fiscal year, containing the accounts payable warrant, year-to-date budget to actuals report unaudited. and where available updates on state certifications, revenue forecasts, spending forecasts, and other information deemed relevant. The city council will hold subcommittee meetings no later than 60 days after the end of the second and third quarters, so that would be the end of September or the end of December, to review these documents, to ask questions, and the finance director would be there to attend and present the report and answer questions. Now we're getting into the budget process, which we've already started this year. Traditionally, we've been very lucky to get a budget at the end of May, usually the beginning of June, sometimes the middle of June, once without a full binder in the past four years.
[Scarpelli]: That's no joke.
[Bears]: Now, through this negotiation, we are starting the process March 1, so we just had, over the past two weeks, two meetings for this Council to discuss budget recommendations, which we will be sending to the Mayor this week by a deadline of March 22 of each year, and then the Mayor will review those and respond in writing prior to presenting her budget. We're going to start holding preliminary budget meetings with city departments April 15th to May 15th. These will include the mayor or designee, finance director or designee, and the relevant department heads. They'll provide the estimated budget allocation for Medford Public Schools as well. No later than 72 hours prior to the first preliminary budget meeting. The Mayor, Finance Director, designees will provide the total preliminary expected general fund revenue for the upcoming fiscal year to the City Council. So that includes our property tax levy, local receipts, state aid, which we were discussing earlier. So we'll have that no later than 72 hours prior to the first budget meeting. No later than 72 hours prior to any budget meeting. for the specific departments, we will get the annual operating budget for the previous year, the annual operating budget request for the upcoming fiscal year, requested new staff programs and services for the upcoming fiscal year, and we will have that now by department in advance of the final presentation by the mayor of her comprehensive budget proposal, which she will send in to the city council no later than May 31st of each year. They'll make a comprehensive presentation of that proposal at the meeting, which is first considered. And the city council can request additional budget meetings after that. The mayor may also, finance director or department heads may also request budget meetings after that point. So if we want to come back to a budget where we had a discussion in April or May. And it has now looking very different in June. We have the authority to do that. They can also, if they want to bring someone back that we haven't asked for, they can do that. And the comprehensive budget proposal will include what we're generally used to with the general fund, the expected property tax revenue, state net state aid, local receipts, and the operating budget for each department. One new thing that we're going to be getting is that the total proposed expenses for each department are going to be split. They're not going to be split, but we're going to be able to see what is increasing due to fixed costs, such as union contracts, inflation, etc., and then what's actually something new in the budget. So if there's a new staff member, a new program, or a new expense. So that'll be helpful. as well. And then finally, the inclusion of all the enterprise funds, capital improvement plans, revolving funds, and grant funds. Currently, this ordinance requires an annual report by the mayor, finance director, or designee, and a meeting no later than November 30th on their progress to including these in the budget proposals. And then there's one other section which goes into a little bit more detail on the annual budget needs assessment, something that was really desired by this council and has been, is understanding what our long-term operating and capital expense needs are. And we don't have a list, for example, what would it cost to bring all of the city buildings into a state of good repair. We have some stuff on that on roads and sidewalks, but that's becoming out of date, hasn't been updated in three years. So the administration said that they just were not able at the current resource level to create those documents. So we have required that they provide an annual report on how they plan to get us to a resource level where we can have that information so that we can make informed decisions about the city's operating and capital budget needs. And that's pretty much, I didn't read word by word, I can go back, but the first article goes into effect upon passage, and then the annual budget needs assessments goes into effect January 1 of 2025.
[Tseng]: Councilor Sen. Thank you so much. First of all, I want to thank you, President Bears, for leading this project. I want to thank the administration for negotiating with us and good faith about it. I know a lot of these, a lot of the stuff in this ordinance is not easy for any administration to stomach. It represents a massive shift in power away from the administration and towards the grassroots. The budgeting in Massachusetts and budgeting in Medford in particular has traditionally been very top down. And it's been really, truly an honor to be able to work so closely with you, with Vice President Collins and subcommittee over many months, many long months to get us to a draft where everyone can agree that this moves our city forward and in a way that is feasible. I think what is most striking to me about this budget ordinance is that it's a true commitment to our values of transparency. It's a true testimony that our city council is working really hard to bring transparency into the things that matter the most. And I think the budget forming the backbone of the city's operations is really truly a significant place for that to be happening. the budget. Um when we think about what this includes quarterly financial reports, um, breakdowns of fixed costs versus new expenses, um, annual budget needs assessment, um, more logical and reasonable schedule for, um, working on this budget as a city council. I think all of these are steps that really, um, give us more time and give us And to engage department heads to see what they actually want in their departments rather than being handed a version of the budget that has already been pre negotiated for us. I think, in addition to that transparency. I think it's very logical. I mean, I think. we need to be setting higher standards for how government operates, and this ordinance does that. It is clearer to residents, it will make the budget process clearer to residents as to what that few hundred page document actually means, what the numbers mean, and what that number, what those numbers mean in relation to their lives, to their lived experiences as residents of the city. So I'm very, very happy to support this. I urge my colleagues to do the same. And I think this is something that is truly, truly nonpartisan and really, really revolutionary.
[Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Councilor Callahan.
[Callahan]: Thank you. I appreciate all the work that has been done on this. I just want to comment a little bit about what I saw when I was campaigning and what I have also seen here in these chambers and heard people speak about, which is that when people do not trust the way, when they don't understand how their money is being spent, and they don't trust the way that that money is being used, then they never want to give the city another penny. So when you combine lack of transparency with underfunding, which I believe is what has happened to Medford over many, many years, what happens is you have a breakdown of democracy. So to me, making sure that the public through this budget ordinance has access to seeing and understanding how are the money that comes into the city is spent, and to know that that money is being spent on things that they are in fact seeing. I think this is going to help not only the way that we move the budget forward, but it's also gonna help get people to understand that, yes, the city is or is not, you know, whatever we find, right, when we've got this transparency, using the funds wisely. And I think we will also see that there's genuine underfunding of most city departments.
[Bears]: Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Callahan. Any further discussion? Any motions on the floor? On the motion of Councilor Tseng to approve the ordinance for first reading, seconded by Councilor Lazzaro. Any further discussion? Any discussion by members of the public? You can raise your hand on Zoom or come to the podium here in the chamber. Seeing none, on the motion of Councilor Tseng, as seconded by Councilor Lazzaro to approve the ordinance for first reading, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[SPEAKER_19]: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Bears]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_19]: Councilor Tseng?
[Bears]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_19]: President Bears?
[Bears]: Yes. Six in the affirmative, one absent. The motion passes and the ordinance is approved for first reading. 24-047 offered by Councilor Leming. Resolution to request that Medford's linkage fees be updated. Whereas Medford Municipal Code 94-10.136, 94-10.236, 94-10.336, and 94-10.436 state the formula for linkage fees for parks and recreational facilities, police and fire facilities, Roads and traffic facilities and water and sewer facilities shall be subject to recalculation no more than three years after the effective date of this provision, and no more than every three years thereafter by the Community Development Board after public notice of the public hearing based on the methodology and analysis established as a result of reports, documentation, and information prepared by the Office of Community Development, whereas the Medford's linkage fee structure were uniquely established by a home rule petition in 1989, chapter 488, quote, an act establishing linkage exaction program in the city of Medford. The act, which states the following, the level of any exaction shall be reviewed at least every three years and reset as required based upon the recommendation of the Office of Community Development and Mayor of said city, whereas none of these fees have been updated by the Community Development Board since 1990, bringing Medford out of compliance with the act, whereas the current linkage fee schedule, having not been updated since 1990, has been devalued by the effects of inflation, whereas the studies required to calculate these exactions are often expensive, and infeasible to recalculate every three years, then automatically escalating linkage fee schedules subject to periodic review could be preferable to recalculating linkage fees every three years via a new study, whereas Medford's Office of Community Development has now merged with the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability, be it therefore resolved that the Medford City Council formally request that the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability and the Community Development Board update the formula for its linkage fees to an appropriate amount, and that the City Clerk send this request to members of the Community Development Board with a request for official confirmation of its receipt, We had further resolved that the Office of Planning, Development, and Sustainability and the Community Development Board provide a report to the Medford City Council on their willingness and ability to comply with this current request by May 2024, and if so, their expected timeline to its completion. We had further resolved that the Medford City Council request that the study include a progressive formula for linkage fee updates such that a new study every three years is not necessarily required for the review process. Is there a little more?
[Leming]: That is so that's that's everything for that's that's 24 hours.
[Bears]: Okay, good. Yeah. And I just wanted to note. Just in terms of what's listed here, the office of planning development, sustainability is still acting as the office of community development where defined by state law or ordinance.
[Leming]: Yes. Absolutely. Yep. Thank you. Council President Bears. So this is the first of a three part series of linkage fee resolutions that I'm bringing to the table. Basically, this is a fairly simple one. Linkage fees are fees that developers pay to the city, um, in order so that we can benefit the police and fire department, um, parts of facilities, um, or sorry, roads and traffic facilities, parks and recreation. So Medford has four linkage fee buckets at the moment. These were established via an act that was passed by the state in 1989 and implemented in Medford in 1990. By ordinance, we're required to update these fees every three years. I mean, in our ordinances, it requires the Community Development Board to do that every three years. It's just that the community development board has never done that so this is this act is really just kind of asking politely for the community development board and in conjunction with the office of planning development and sustainability which used to be the office of community development to please conduct a study to update those linkage fees so that they can be um you know, raised for the first time in about 34 years and potentially add a lot of new revenue to the city from developers. Strictly speaking, the Medford City Council under our own ordinances and the State Act does not have the authority to update the linkage fees ourselves. So this is really just a request to other boards and offices of the city to do so. The other aspect of this is that I believe a reason that they haven't done that is because it takes the studies to actually, in order to update the linkage fees, you need to hire someone to conduct a study to do that. Those studies are oftentimes pretty expensive to do. So, I can imagine, but that's a very small cost compared to what we would end up gaining in the long term by actually updating our linkage fees. So, this also requests that any new study conducted also have some kind of an escalating formula so that they can be updated every three years without having a new expensive study. Other cities like I believe Watertown have done the same thing by connecting their linkage fees to the consumer price index. I've had meetings with KP Law about sort of what other municipalities have done around this. I've attached a memo regarding that in this package itself, which addresses not just this resolution, but also the other two resolutions in this package as well. That's my presentation of the first of the three resolutions, and I would motion to pass this.
[Bears]: On the motion of Councilor Leming, seconded by to approve, seconded by Councilor Callaghan to approve. Any further discussion by members of the Council? Councilor Tseng and then Councilor Scarpelli.
[Tseng]: I'm very grateful for my fellow Councilor for introducing this. I think when it comes to something that hasn't been updated since 1990, that should be updated regularly, it makes a lot of sense. I think we need to show our residents that we're trying to find revenue wherever we can, and especially in ways that don't overburden folks. And this is definitely one of those paths. And so I'm very grateful that you've introduced this and started a really important conversation about linkage fees, about updating ordinances, about tying different things to it. I think it's very helpful. And I think your ideas are very strong here.
[Bears]: Thank you and I appreciate that.
[Scarpelli]: I think whenever we look at something that hasn't been touched since 1990, right, there's two things that can happen. Either it's either fraudulently overlooked or It's working. So I think it'll be interesting if we can get a report. I'd like to see where what we've done with that linkage, even doesn't have to go back 30 years, but even just the last four years, while the mayor has been in office, what have we done with our with the linkage? that has been coming in. That'd be interesting to see, because that'll also help us with the data as we're moving forward, because I know that Councilor Bears mentioned a few times of the city not being funded properly, right? We all know that. But these are the avenues that we could possibly look at to say, well, there's a way that we can fund this, or there's a way we can fund that, other than a proposition to an F override. So if I can, as part of this resolution, just to maybe getting a report back from the mayor's office, to see what we've done. It doesn't have to be extensive, but what we've used the linkage money for over the last four years, that'd be interesting.
[Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Any further comment?
[Leming]: So, I have been discussing this pretty extensively with the office of planning, development and sustainability and what folks there believe is that the reason I mean, the reason it hasn't been updated is because. Medford what they believe in the office and I've also passed this by KP law is that Medford has a kind of a unique linkage fee structure. And so finding a consultant who's actually who's qualified to undergo the study that's necessary in order to raise the linkage fees an appropriate amount because the issue with just raising it on our own is that a developer could say they don't like that, just challenge it. Exactly. So that's another reason that I've also requested that the City Council make sure that we include that in That in our upcoming budget money for such a study to to take place. I think I think it's more to do with just capacity in the office to pursue only so many different projects at once. than it is anything else. And this is going to be the subject of an upcoming resolution. But there's also a bit of confusion, I think, about whose authority it actually is. So the state act says that it's the Office of Community Development, which is now the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability, and the mayor to update the linkage fees. But our ordinances include the Community Development Board, Um, so they don't. So the state act that's a lot that gives us the right to have linkage in the first place never mentions any community development board in there, but it's kind of split in our ordinances. But that that's that that is something that will come up in the next. All right.
[Scarpelli]: No, I appreciate that. I think that now being the new president, Mr, uh, Mr. Beard, uh, Council President Beards, I think ultimately the council president, I think every year don't. Isn't that part of your duty? Uh, to approve the linkage?
[Bears]: Yes, it is. So we haven't met yet, but we are having an interesting so I know that my my thousands of emails, I'm having a meeting at some point.
[Scarpelli]: No, I'm sure. But I but I'm saying maybe that that'll help to to understand, because here's the thing, even though we say one office does it, the truth of the matter is, at least when I've been directly involved with linkage, in discussions with prior mayors, the mayor really does it. I think we all know that, but I think that just getting an understanding of where we are and where we can go with this as another revenue source, I think is very important. So I appreciate you bringing this forward. I think it's a good study to see and just to investigate and then move things forward. So thank you.
[Bears]: Thank you. And the latest act for, I don't know what this is. Stopping that.
[Leming]: And I would like to second Councilor Scarpelli's motion.
[Bears]: Thanks. Thank you. So we have a motion approved by Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by Councilor Leming as amended by Councilor Scarpelli.
[Leming]: I think that the, I think I originally motioned to pass it. Okay. And I can't, I don't, it was seconded.
[Bears]: Councilor Callahan seconded as amended by Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. And just to put out there, the fiscal 2022 act for city linkage funds, 163,305 went to Crystal Campbell Peace Garden. Cool. Say that again, Mr. President? For last year? This is for fiscal 22. Okay, right, okay.
[Scarpelli]: Yeah. Because it's still broken.
[Bears]: Right, no, yeah. The $95,000 went for park design, forest, the Medford Square, the Salem Street Cemetery, and the adjacent recreational space. $20,000 to update the open space and recreation plan. It does seem to be relatively. There was a balance of $760,000 in the linkage account. It's less than, sorry, go ahead, Council Member.
[Leming]: Yeah, and from my conversations with the folks in the Office of Planning Development and Sustainability, they said that it does fund a substantial number of projects with the roads and whatnot. What Alicia Hunt told me is that, and this is what makes her think that the linkage fees right now are too low, whenever she does talk with the developer and she presents the linkage fee to them, like how much they'll have to pay, they never give her any pushback. You know it's a good sign. Good sign. So she thinks that they're compared to like a lot of other cities are probably far too low and we're missing, missing a lot of potential revenue.
[Bears]: On the motion of Councilor Leming seconded by Councilor Kelly and as amended by Councilor Scarpelli. Any further discussion members of the council. Discussion by members of the public. Name and address for the record, please.
[Castagnetti]: Andrew Castagnetti, Cushion Street, Method Mass. After the last election, I noticed Councilor Lemke was appointed as councilor, and I was hoping that you would be a good addition to the council. Through the chair, how much of an increase by you going with the state formula would this be, percentage speaking, approximate?
[Bears]: Sorry, is that through the chair? I mean, do you have an answer to that question at this time?
[Leming]: Not a precise one. But I've heard speculation from people who have kind of done work with linkage fees in the past, and people have said it could increase three to four times just informally, like when I was talking to KP Law. The guy that I was talking with, he worked with linkage fees and other communities. He was like, yeah, you haven't updated this since 1990. You go up like 10, 15 times. I'm not sure. So it'll be some kind of an order of magnitude just considering how long it's been since we've actually updated it. But that's what the study is for.
[Castagnetti]: What am I will be an increase, correct? Oh, yes. Thank you. Years ago, I used to call this developer extortion. But in reality, I understand the mentality by calling it linkage. Because when you start digging a hole or destroying a building and putting up a new building, there's definitely going to be costs, especially if it's a 40-unit or 100-unit apartment building, for example. Because you've got the infrastructure of the storage, the drainage, et cetera. And who knows what else? Right now, I think it's like $5,000 per apartment.
[Bears]: Less than that.
[Castagnetti]: 3,903. 4,000, okay. And that's in East Medford price or the rest of Medford?
[Bears]: That is within Southeastern Medford and then outside Southeastern Medford, it's 3,851 per unit. Okay, Southeastern is the most expensive. By 50 bucks, yeah.
[Castagnetti]: Thanks. I'm just curious. once the building is completed and they do the infrastructure, what happens to all that extra monies?
[Bears]: It's generally, it's spent on the purposes outlined, which did we already read those? It's parks and recreational facilities, police and fire facilities, road and traffic facilities, and water and sewer facilities. And then the act also allows for affordable housing, but the city did not enable that in 1990. But you're adding it now? That's a further resolution, yes.
[Castagnetti]: That's coming up, possibly? Yes. Later on the agenda. How much is in the fund, presently, you said?
[Bears]: Fiscal 22 audited, $760,000. Total?
[Castagnetti]: Total, yeah. And how much is allocated for the Christine Campbell, the Marathon Bauman Fountain, which has been out of commission for more than three or four years?
[Bears]: There was $160,000. And that's not enough to get that done?
[Castagnetti]: How long has that money been appropriated?
[Bears]: not aware of the current construction timeline for the Crystal Campbell Garden. You could call the facilities manager or DBW.
[Scarpelli]: I'll make a resolution just because I get an update because I know they said the piece was in just to see when that is. So to help Mr. Mr. Cassinetti, that's something I'll do for the next meeting.
[Castagnetti]: I really appreciate that. Thank you, Councilor Scott Peller. Thank you. Thanks for your time. Thank you.
[Deyeso]: Good evening again.
[Bears]: Name and address for the record, please.
[Deyeso]: Thank you, President Pierce. I'm Sharon Diesso, coroner of Mass Avenue and Circuit Road in Medford. I had the time today to browse through some of this linkage paperwork. I knew that it was up for review and was a little bit unsure about the definition of linkage, and now I do know more about it because I've looked up some information on my own. There is a page in here, President Bears, in Councilors and listeners, that talks about the suggested increase. I really think it's very steep, and I'm wondering at this point, and I have another question, if this whole linkage fee will be up for public meeting or general discussion for us before the new fees are set? Thank you.
[Bears]: Thank you. There would be a public hearing and a public meeting by the Community Development Board on any proposed change to the linkage fee.
[Deyeso]: Do you have any idea what the date might be, sir?
[Bears]: No, we are asking them to give us a timeline.
[Deyeso]: Okay, so that would be, how would we find out about that? Just going to the clerk's office in weeks to come or something?
[Bears]: You can call the city clerk, go to the city clerk's office, go on the city website, events calendar, or call the Office of Planning and Development and Sustainability or look at their website.
[Deyeso]: Because they, I think they decreased, I'm just going to make an estimation of something like 40,000 square feet to 10, and then they doubled the fee. I think this would be a real dissuasion for some builders and for some construction workers. And I'll tell you why. Since 1990, the products and materials have quadrupled in price also. So if we're welcoming people to come in, it would be highly advisable to have people in the public come to this discussion because I think it might be a little bit steep. Also, there's a mention in here that the Office of Community Development will be retitled and under the supervision of a mayor, that she will take over that responsibility.
[Bears]: Is that in? No, that's not in here. The office was renamed in 2021, and as it is a city department, it is technically under the direction of the mayor, through the director of the department.
[Deyeso]: Okay, I thought I saw a line in here that said the title would be changed.
[Bears]: No.
[Deyeso]: Okay, thanks for your time.
[Bears]: The title has already been changed. The ordinance does not reflect the updated title.
[Deyeso]: Okay, all right, thanks. Bye-bye. Thank you.
[Leming]: Councilor Leming. Sorry, just just to clarify some of the issues that were brought up between the between the title. So it's a bit of a weird thing because the state act specifies the office of community development, which Medford used to have until they were merged. So. Uh, in order to so there's a in the letter from KP law, which is also the agenda packet. There is a recommendation that we change the, like, in order to, like, truly be in compliance with the state act, we need to request that the state act be changed to specify the office of planning development and sustainability instead of the office of community development changing. Changing requesting a home repetition to change a state act is. It may be necessary that we have to do that to change the wording of the state act, but I'm going to try to see if we could do that at the council level and get things done a little bit more quickly.
[Bears]: As a legal entity, the Office of Community Development still exists as part of the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability. It's just a name change for the purposes of public view. There's a number of enabling acts at the state level that reference Office of Community Development, including the act creating the Office of Community Development. So wherever in the state code that is referenced, Alicia Hunt is the Director of Community Development. and that office is the Office of Community Development pursuant to state law and local ordinance.
[Leming]: There's also the question of the escalating fee aspect as well, though. So if we have to amend the State Act in order to allow for that, which we may or may not have to do, but might as well submit other changes to the titles in the State Act as well.
[Bears]: Thank you, Council Member Leming. Any further discussion by members of the Council or the public? Seeing none, on the motion of Councilor Leming, as seconded by Councilor Callahan, as amended by Councilor Scarpelli, are we still there? All right. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. 24-056, offered by Councilor Leming, a resolution to bring Medford's linkage fee ordinances in compliance with the state's act establishing the ordinance. Is there a motion that I can summarize this rather than read the same details again? That motion is summarized. Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by. Seconded by Councilors, are all those in favor? Opposed? Motion passes. The linkage fee structure was established by a home rule petition. And our codes say this needs to keep happening. So the request is that we update the city code to change Community Development Board. Am I reading the right one here?
[Leming]: Give me one second. It's on page 13. There's a bit of a mix up in the agenda. Page 13 of 27 on our current document. The text of this resolution is under the 24-0471, so it's kind of like it's... Got it.
[Bears]: Got it, okay. This is in compliance with the State Act. Bring Medford's linkage to compliance with the State Act. Be it therefore resolved that the Medford City Council update the Medford Municipal Code 94-10 to change the Community Development Board to the Mayor and the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability. Be it further resolved that the Medford City Council update the Medford Municipal Code 94-10 to change the language from no more than every three years to at least every three years. Councilor Lemmie.
[Leming]: Yes, so this was, so, This was in response to the fact that the Community Development Board has not actually never did update the linkage fees every three years since it was established in 1990. I noticed that the State Act specified that these recalculations need to happen at least every three years. The Medford's municipal codes states that they need to happen no more than every three years, which is kind of like a confusing wording thing. As I was looking through the linkage fee, or sorry, the other part that is a little bit strange is that the state act only specifies the mayor and the office of community development. As having the authority to update linkage fees, not the community development board. So, I think that the community development board probably should have some. Role to play in terms of public hearings, especially, but it seems to give authority to the community development board to actually do that. Instead of the office of community development, I couldn't really figure out specifically. why that was, but also just in looking over the linkage fee ordinances, there were just like a lot of other things that did need to be updated. So there's a, there's a typo in there because we have four different trusts. They all specify, like you have like a lot of texts that sort of copied and pasted four different times in chapter 9410. It turns out that they all specify technically that we have to put linkage fees into the parks and recreation trust. All like, so that's, it's just parks and recreation is copied and pasted four times under the, you know, police and fire, water and sewer, et cetera, et cetera. So, which I think is just, and I noticed that when I was going over the linkage fee ordinances with the fine tooth comb. So there's kind of a lot that has to be updated there to really get the specifics. Which section is that in? that I believe, it's not the one that's quoted here, but it's, I had like a Google Drive, like I had a Google Drive folder at another time that I could go to to find it.
[Bears]: Let's see. MuniCode is showing that it says different things.
[Leming]: One moment. It's, hold on, I'm looking for,
[Bears]: No worries if it's not quickly accessible. It just was for my edification.
[Leming]: Yeah, it was... I'm just looking. I believe it was repeated in... Okay. Sorry, I didn't expect to have to do this in real time. You don't have to. You can come back later. Point is I was just going through it with a fine tooth comb. I think that it does need to be looked over in order to just kind of like get some of the different authorities right and get the wording right. So I would motion that this paper be sent to the admin administration and finance committee.
[Bears]: On the motion of Councilor loving to send paper to 4056 to the Administration and Finance Committee, seconded by Council is our Oh, any further discussion by members of the Council.
[Callahan]: I just wanted to ask if you have run this by the Community Development Board as well as the Office of Planning.
[Leming]: So I ran it by the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability. Alicia told me that she, Alicia Hunt, Planning Director, told me that she would hand it to the head of the Community Development Board. I never heard any response from them specifically.
[Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Kiley. Any further discussion by members of the Council? On the motion of Councilor Leming to refer to the Administration and Finance Committee, seconded by Councilor Lazzaro. All those in favour? Opposed? Motion passes 24-057. Resolution to add affordable housing to the linkage fee structure of Medford, offered by Councilor Leming, whereas Medford's linkage fee structure was uniquely established by a home-run petition in 1989, chapter 0488, an act establishing linkage exaction program in the city of Medford, whereas an act establishing linkage exaction program in the city of Medford allows for the funding of affordable housing, quote, the linkage ordinance shall only be used, shall be used solely for the purposes of defraying the cost of capital improvements provided to the city, caused by, if you don't mind, cost by the necessary support future development such as but not limited to the following capital improvements to school facilities, public facilities, roads, sewers, water supply lines, affordable housing, child care facilities, job training facilities, public safety service and facilities and parks, playgrounds and other recreational facilities, whereas the implementation of This in meant for municipal code 94 dash 10 only allocated linkage fees for parks and recreational facilities, police and fire facilities, roads and traffic facilities and water and sewer facilities, and not for affordable housing, whereas in 2023 pursuant to general law chapter 44 section 55 C. The city of Medford established an affordable housing trust as a tool to combat the ongoing housing shortage, and there is the need for long-term sustainable revenue streams to fund this trust, whereas on the topic of home prices, the housing production plan published in September 2022 and prepared by the Office of Planning and Urban Sustainability makes the need for affordable housing very clear. Quote, Medford has seen some of the highest price increases of any community in Massachusetts. There's currently a $280,000 gap between what a household earning the median income could afford and the median sales price for a single family home. of single family homes are considered affordable to households earning Medford median income. Be it therefore resolved that Medford City Council update Municipal Code 94-10 to establish a fifth linkage bus bucket for the Affordable Housing Trust. Be it resolved that this resolution be referred to committee for further discussion. Councilor Leming. Thank you.
[Leming]: The third in the three-part series of linkage resolutions. This one is a very straightforward one. This was another part of my discussion with KP Law. They said that based on their reading of the State Act, we are able to have a fifth linkage bucket for affordable housing, which is commonly done in many other communities in order to fund affordable housing. We just established an affordable housing trust last year, which is currently being set up. So this is a very straightforward resolution to add a fifth linkage bucket as well to Medford's ordinances in order to add another revenue stream for the affordable housing trust. I would motion that this be sent as well to the and finance committee. I would also motion to request that the, uh, study we requested the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability earlier that that study also include. Um uh, additional, uh, an additional study about the addition of of affordable housing to the linkage
[Bears]: the Administration Finance Committee and to request that the Planning and Development Sustainability Office include a linkage fee for affordable housing in their proposed study of linkage fee updates, seconded by Councilor Tseng. Any discussion by members of the Council? I saw Councilor Scarpelly.
[Scarpelli]: Thank you. Again, I support going to committee so we can vet this a little bit better, but we're already listening for the parts that we've already identified. we're already lacking support. And I think spreading that a little bit thinner, when we've already looked at other avenues that we can try to find a pool to help with the affordable housing, I think it's important. So but I think until we, I think the reason why I want to see this go to the committee, so we can understand how that pot has been distributed and what an impact would be if we subtracted it or what kind of impact that would be if we subtracted, you know, certain percentages and how much that percentage would cost and how that would affect, you know, those other pools that already are drastically in need. I would support it going to committee, but that would be my reservation in that meeting, making sure we have that data. I think it's important, so thank you.
[Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. I think the good thing is, because it was never established, it would actually be an additional item. It wouldn't be splitting the existing funds and be adding another item with a specific fee for the use. So it wouldn't be dividing. Any further discussion? Councilor Lemmie.
[Leming]: The other concern there, I do respect the idea that this could potentially be taking revenue streams away from other sources. But if linkage fees are going to be updated for the first time in 34 years, and they could potentially be raised by an order of magnitude, I think that overall, this would be adding enough revenue not only to the affordable housing trust, but to the other four currently existing linkage buckets as well. pulling revenue away from these other sources in any case. But thank you.
[Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Leming. Any further discussion by members of the Council? Seeing none, on the motion of Councilor Leming to refer to the Administration and Finance Committee, seconded by Councilor Tseng, any discussion by members of the public?
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
[Castagnetti]: Castagnetti, Cushing Street. I'm hearing there's an affordable, there's a housing problem, or shortage of housing, and especially affordable housing. And believe me, I can feel that pain. But it seems to me, what the so called illegal aliens that are coming in, it seems like that would make housing more of a problem than help. But I gave a solution to Councilor Kit Carson, is she here?
[Bears]: It's Kit Collins, she's not here tonight. Okay, thanks.
[Castagnetti]: Okay, I gave her a copy of the New York Post. Johnny Carson. I thought she was on Zoom. I gave her a copy of the New York Post about a month and a half ago, and it was a solution that they use in New York City. And I suppose, I hope she read the article, and I hope she shared it with you people, because it's called apartment cooperative ownership.
[SPEAKER_05]: I've heard that before.
[Castagnetti]: Yeah, thank you. This is not chapter 59, 5C. This is to make housing much more affordable. They've done it in New York City for many decades, I'm sure. For example, my guesstimation, the price of a million dollar condo here would cost you, if you put zero down, it would cost you a lot of money. But if you buy this co-op, it would be probably a third of the million dollar price. It'd be probably in the ballpark of $300,000. That means if you're paying $2,000 rent now and owning nothing but stacks of rent receipts, with the $2,000 rent, that'll allow you to pay 500, 1,000, $2,000, it would allow you to get out of the rental situation. You could borrow $400,000. with a $2,000 rent payment by giving it to the mortgager. And you have total rights to your apartment, just like a condominium, you own shares in the building. It makes sense to me, I'm not sure if they have the apartment co-op ownership around Boston, but it would be like three times less expensive. you can get out of paying the rent and making the landlords happy. I just wanted to bring that up again. I hope you investigate that.
[Bears]: Thank you, Mr. Castagnetti. And yes, you know, co-ops will be one of the forms of housing ownership that could be funded by the City's Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Councilor Callahan.
[Callahan]: Thank you, Mr. Castagnetti. I just wanted to mention that I do have a friend who lives in one of these cooperatively owned buildings in Boston, and he raves about it. So I'd be excited to talk about that as an affordable housing possibility as well.
[Bears]: Yeah. The key thing to getting up and going is, of course, capital need. So there needs to be some funding on the front end. Any further discussion on the paper by members of the Council or members of the public?
[SPEAKER_05]: Someone on Zoom.
[Bears]: Yeah, that person put their video up and was doing strange things with their video, and we just had a Zoom bombing incident, so I'm not going to let them on video. Name and address for the record, please.
[Murphy]: Angela Murphy, 16 Calding Street. I know everybody says affordable housing. Well, a few years back, they built all those condos across the street from the Wellington Station, all those new big complexes. They're million-dollar condos. Number one, they were built cheaply, because I know people who built and were part of the construction crew. Number two, they were told they could build them if they put, I think, 10% low-income people, and they did. So that's what, okay, they built things, they went ahead. The people who were low-income were given a year's lease. At the end of the year, it's my understanding from what I was told from people who worked there and people who were managing that those leases were canceled after a year. So you say all this for affordable housing. Before you talk about affordable housing, make sure it's really affordable. for the people who are gonna go into there and in a long lasting place to live. That was just wrong. What I heard that was done to those people, because those condos are a million dollars and those people were there for a purpose so that those condos could be built. And when their purpose was no longer needed after the year's lease was up, they were gone. So affordable housing is, to me, it needs a definition. What does affordable housing mean? Everybody says there's a lack of affordable housing. Well, I don't know. Define it more to me because I don't see the difference between I don't know, you have to make, you can make a maximum of $82,000 a year to apply for affordable housing. That doesn't seem right. And I don't know, it's just to me, it's a confusing term, affordable housing. There was always housing affordable here. My father had tenants, and all the years I lived at my house, his house was affordable. Nowadays, affordable housing is not affordable housing for the people you claim is supposed to help.
[Bears]: Thank you. Um, just a if you have any information on people who are violating the deep restrictions on affordable housing, the city would certainly want to hear that. We do keep a registry along with the state when housing units are created in developments like the Monera development or the Lumiere development. They are legally required to have deed-restricted affordable housing. That is, there's a definition. The city ordinance defines it as housing units set aside exclusively for low or moderate income renters or buyers that remain affordable through long-term restrictions. So the deeds that are on file at the registry of deeds, those properties, whether it's the land or the units, are deed-restricted to a certain level of affordability. One of those levels, generally the highest level, is what's called 80% of AMI. That's 80% of the area median income, which nowadays for a household of four is about $80,000. There's also lower restrictions at 50% of AMI and 30% of AMI, so lower amounts than that. For laws, for example, like the 40B law, which the state has enabled and allows developers when a city doesn't have enough affordable housing relative to what the state requires, that requires the developers to build 25% of the units at 80% of the area median income, so that's where that 80,000 number comes from these days.
[Murphy]: Okay, well, what I'm trying to say is that if you would support two-family or multi-dwelling homeowners in Method, they may and not raise their taxes as being proposed for this new thing that you're talking about, the sellers fee and whatever. If you would support them, like in the past, my father was supportive. He could keep his rent low. people would be more willing to keep people in the houses in their apartments and rent it. I mean, and as far as getting information about what happened to those condos and those people that were there in those buildings, well, the people who worked there who found out this knowledge, are shunned. I mean, they're like now pariahs, you know, don't say anything, even though you know something or you never work again. You know, it's it's an unequal circle. You know things, but you can't say anything because then you're they're always against you. So it's hard, but this is what you hear. People hear things, people know it to be true, to a fact, to a point, it's sad. So keep the homeowners with multi-dwelling houses in method, keep them supported, keep them willing to rent their apartments because nobody wanted to rent a Section 8 because they treated, when I was on Section 8, they treated my landlord like he, didn't deserve the money they gave him. They come in and they look at my apartment, because my apartment was clean. My apartment was pristine. My kids had good clothes, but they didn't know the clothes my kids had were hand-me-downs and everything. They would come in and they would see a tiny little hole on the wall, in the drywall, going down to the basement. Oh, that has to be fixed and everything. And they didn't believe I could not afford the small rent that I was paying to that landlord. It's sad, but yet they would go to another house. It was discriminatory. It's just a broken system. So look into it, support it more, support the people who are willing to have low rents, and don't support the people who rent to boarders and tough students, like 15 students in a house. and they can afford to pay $1,000 each. And the guy gets 4,000 or $5,000 a month. I mean, it's sad. Look into how these houses and these apartments are being utilized by the people who own them. Support the people who are willing. I had to move out of the apartment because the landlord couldn't take it. and everything being discovered. There was a little dirt on my tub because the woman who inspected it could not find anything else wrong. She would deny me payment until that was cleaned up. But I know for a fact she'd go to a neighbor who was renting and on section eight next to my aunt, who had broken blinds and windows with no screens on them and the washer and dryer were outside in the yard. and everything, and it's just not fair. Affordable housing is a joke. It tends to the people who can pay the maximum towards their rent, and then the city or the state pays the extra, or it goes to nobody. And everybody, or it goes to a certain group because they don't wanna be considered inappropriate not to have that group in that place. It's not right. Affordable housing should be affordable, all regards, across the board, and the people who are willing to rent apartments and multi-family houses should be supported for being, oh yeah, like my neighbor next door just bought the two-family house. She has a little rent for her tenants. And I was very fortunate that it was a family who lives there, the landlord lives there and rents, because otherwise they're all going to condos. or they're going to apartments, like you said, which are not affordable for anybody but two or three roommates. I don't know how I've said it or if I said it correctly, but I think the way of affordable housing is gone wayward. It's gone in the wrong direction. It's not right sometimes. That's all I have to say. Maybe I said it wrong, maybe I didn't make my point across, but sometimes when I get up here, I feel that you're listening, but you're not hearing what I say, so maybe it doesn't matter. Thank you.
[Bears]: Thank you. Any other comments by members of the public before we come back to Mr. Castagnetti? All right, Mr. Castagnetti, two more minutes.
[Castagnetti]: someone left their trash. Listen, I kind of understand in this country, how we could have a housing shortage. When I was educated in the seventh grade back in the 60s, back at the Lincoln Junior High School, I believe an economics teacher that said to me, this is a democratic republic. And it's a capitalistic society. which runs better than Russia or China, as a matter of fact, from what I understand. My point is, I was told it's supply and demand. Well, if we're in such a crisis, what the hell happened? How come the developers were not on top of this? Or is the government somewhat responsible for discouraging and not encouraging development? Maybe lower the linkage while you're at it. I don't have the answer because I didn't go to too many colleges, but it doesn't make sense to me. And furthermore, you mentioned Chapter 40B. Now that's a state law. The developers can come in if you don't have over 10% affordable or something to that effect, they can come in and circumvent your actually your building codes, et cetera, to a certain degree. Is it true that we have one, two or three large developments of apartments that are 40 Bs that are tied up in court by the city? Is that true?
[Bears]: That is not true. One of them on Mystic Avenue was withdrawn by the proponent. They then proposed a life science project. They were going to go through the planned development district process, but now they want an overlay district. I would guess because of the life sciences market that they're probably not going to come and build that. The Mystic Valley Parkway 40B has approvals from the Zoning Board of Appeals, and I believe the 760 Felsway is also almost done going through the Zoning Board of Appeals process. Now, did that process take too long? I would probably be on the side of saying yes, but that's the status of those three projects.
[Castagnetti]: And these are how many units approximate? Hundreds of apartments?
[Bears]: The total of all three as originally proposed was 600 or 700. It's less than that now because one withdrew and the other two, the number of units were negotiated down.
[Castagnetti]: Well, something doesn't make sense. Something is rotten at Denmark. This shouldn't be a shortage. There might be a shortage of cash with all this hyped up inflation. That I'll agree with. I don't understand. The life sciences went down the tubes, right? That's where they were going to put the illegals, as a matter of fact, in the building that was sold from a Boston retail, where my son worked. And he's probably stuck with not just that building. He made two offers they couldn't refuse behind him, including Santini Iron Works. And I guess musical chairs is over. And that's That song is done for now.
[Bears]: But it's sad. The shelters would have been open to anyone who is facing homelessness in the state. About half of the people of the 7,500 in the shelter system are from out of state. About half of them are from in-state.
[Castagnetti]: I think we're in a sad situation. I hope leaders can fix this.
[Bears]: Thanks. Any further discussion? On the motion of Councilor—where did we start here? Is Councilor LEMMING seconded by Councilor SANG? Councilor LEMMING.
[Leming]: I just want to say that I do sympathize with a lot of the comments that were made by Ms. Murphy. We are working on a good landlord tax credit proposal, which would incentivize landlords who willingly keep lower rents. And I also sympathize with a lot of the issues that this country tends to see with Section 8 housing. The state of affordable housing is not, it's not simple. And there's no one silver bullet that can be done to fix it. I think a lot of the conversation that we do have here is, you're doing one thing, why don't you do something else? We do need to do multiple things in parallel to even make a dent in this problem. Trying to do that with a few resources that we have at this level. Another point that was made by Mr. Castagnetti about the supply and demand problem. Another issue with that is that real estate is one issue where the supply can be uniquely constrained just because you can't make you can't manufacture more land. If there are demand for iPhones, for instance, you just be able to make more iPhones and just create as much of them as you want. There's only a very limited supply of land and given a lot of things like zoning, different regulations, there's only so much you can build on that land, whereas Yeah, so the supply is constrained, whereas demand can just keep going up and up and up. And that's a lot of what we're seeing these days, especially with different changes in the economy and an increasing population. I would also recommend looking at the Boston Globe's spotlight series on the rising costs of development of housing. Again, they said it costs between $500,000 and $600,000 to build one unit of housing in Greater Boston these days. The reasons are, again, not simple. Some of it's local, some of it has to do with the state of the global economy, but this is just one small part of the many issues that people have brought up tonight.
[Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Leming, and I do appreciate you bringing up the proposed option for the landlord tax exemption that was enabled by the state just last fall. We're one of the first cities considering implementing that. As we've noted many times when we're looking at this issue of housing, it's complicated, and we're trying to use every tool available to us under local authority from the state to address it. And one of them is looking at linkage, We've talked about the transfer fee. We've talked about the good, low, and lower tax credit. And I think just to the point made of supply and demand, how did we get here? There's really two things. It's what you were just talking about, which is the demand is higher than the supply that's allowed to be built. And therefore, the price of an individual unit's going up. And it's something that I've learned from you and others about that commodification and financialization of housing as a financial asset and not as a public good. So you have not only is the demand of people who want to live in a place affecting the price of housing, the demand of the investors who want to make money off of a housing unit is affecting the demand on housing. And when you have both of those pushing on a string and you have a massive supply restrictions due to exclusionary zoning, you end up with a housing crisis, which is what we're living in in this region and in most major urban regions in this country. Thank you. Name and address for the record, please.
[Navarre]: William Navarre, 208 Medford Street, apartment 1B. You two both said a lot of the things I wanted to say, so I'm going to make this a little shorter. More to the point, and maybe that'll make the point a little stronger. Just one thing about buying up housing as an investment. There's only one thing that's a better investment than housing in this country, and that's land where you could build housing. Don't even have any depreciation costs. And so sometimes people associate developers and development with the speculation. It's not necessarily what it looks like, because while that does happen, it's actually cheaper to just have the lot with the pile of dirt, the overturned wheelbarrow. And that's usually what I usually think of with speculation. It's a little less visible, because it's sort of just in between our neighborhoods. You can call those the dogs in the manger are holding on to that land and not letting anyone else use it. I think it's an Aesop tale. And now one of my main points I just wanted to emphasize is, Mr. President, you said that the city negotiated down the number of units. I mean, we talk about constraints on supply and everything. That shouldn't be a phrase that just rolls off the tongue. We should say negotiate.
[Bears]: I thought my tone was negative. No, I agree.
[Navarre]: I'm not. This isn't a criticism against against. This is a this is a phrase that we just take for granted. Oh, the city negotiated it down.
[Scarpelli]: One information on that. Yes. Those those projects were in land court. were stalled for two years. Now remember 99% of those projects go to go to court, the city loses, right. So what in essence, what happened was, they might have gone, but they left because they were losing a lot of money. And think about it 600 units, having 60 affordable housing units, that would have done a huge
[Bears]: It would have been a benefit. 150, not 60. What was it? I'm sorry. What about 150? Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, because we because it was 40. Right. You're right. So, yeah, it's a huge, huge loss. I think Fells Way is still happening, but the Mystic Valley Parkway one is not in good shape. This is our leader.
[Scarpelli]: Instead, the big planters now.
[Navarre]: No, I agree with Councilor Scarpelli that that's not good. And I want to underscore that point. You know, when we can have a housing development proposal come in here, especially when it's going to have certain percentage affordable. And we're noticing the supply isn't meeting demand. Well, when people come in here to the chambers for a community development board meeting, I guess those aren't in chambers, but for a city council meeting, they want less housing, lower density, less housing. Well, that's where the supply isn't meeting demand. I mean, that's one place. And that's obviously what happened with these 40 Bs, despite the state program that's supposed to get this mixed income housing bill. It didn't happen because of these appeals and because we have this ridiculous concept of negotiating down. Why would we negotiate down? That's like, would we negotiate down with the fire department how much water they're going to have when there's a fire? Are we going to negotiate down with how much food when people are hungry? You know, maybe you could sell fewer tomatoes grocery store, please. Could you please sell, you know, negotiate it down with the CHA earlier? Oh, we'd love a thing, but we're not against clinics, but can we negotiate down? This is ridiculous. That's not a good demand when somebody comes and wants to build housing. When we're in a housing crisis, negotiate it down. Build less of this thing we desperately need. So I'm in agreement with the council that I thank you for taking up zoning and the various reforms that could allow us to build more because we gotta go in the other direction. We can't keep negotiating down. That's a problem. Thank you, Mr. President.
[Bears]: Thank you, Mr. Barr. You can have 60 seconds.
[Castagnetti]: Gee, you're cheap.
[Bears]: I can be cheaper.
[Castagnetti]: Yeah, I noticed. Am I off then?
[Bears]: Go.
[Castagnetti]: Thank you, sir.
[Bears]: I'm getting, I'm being criticized.
[Castagnetti]: The Councilor made a good point. Land is scarce in 02155. There's plenty of land. A third of Medford is woods. That's called Middlesex Falls Reservation by Saltwater Road towards Stoneham and Winchester. That's over a third of this land mass that's protected. However, I remember on Mystic Avenue, I lived there. listen to those big trucks going to Boston, because that was the highway to Boston, Route 38. It's still called Route 38, it's still called Mystic Ave. But when they built Route 93 in 1960, I remember the eminent domain, these houses over here, And I remember making a raft out of telephone poles, about eight of them with two by fours. And we sailed like Tom Sawyers down the Mystic River. When the ocean came up to Medford Square, the Chronic Bridge, my blowtide was not pleasant. However, when they built 93, they never developed Mystic Ave to its full potential, especially on The 93 side, they have huge parcels of land that have buildings mostly, and it goes back, the lots of land go back like 300 feet. And at 300 feet frontage, it's huge. And if I remember my real estate business, there are air rights.
[Bears]: at Wellington, yes. This has been a very generous 60 seconds. I think we get your point.
[Castagnetti]: Air rights.
[Bears]: Air rights at Wellington, air rights at the development of Mystic Ave needs to be improved.
[Castagnetti]: 20, 30, 40, 50 stories. 50 stories. You can call this Boston. You have air rights and if you need a variance, so be it.
[Bears]: You should find 14 other people and put that on the agenda, please. 50 stories. I know, I'm just saying. We need public support. Thank you, Mr. Cassinetti. Any further discussion on the motion? All in favour? Opposed? Motion passes. 24-052. Let me get it out. It's the last one. I hope so. be resolved that the city council invite the superintendent of schools and the acting finance director from the school district to inform the council on budget shortfalls for fiscal 2024. There was an update posted by member Reinfeld that last week's school committee budget meeting, the $2.5 million potential projected shortfall has been reduced to $216K. The contributing factors include an allocation for contracted payments across fiscal years, state funding reimbursements, the projected ESSER balance, correcting an error in the projection formula, and redistribution of expenses from general to revolving accounts. Councilor Scarpelli.
[Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate the input, but again, this is where This is the piece that scares me when we're talking about all these different funds that we're looking into and understanding when somebody has a shortfall on a Monday of $2.5 million, and then Friday they find it. In the real world, somebody gets fired. So I know that that's what our colleague mentioned, but I've talked to other school members that said, when she asked for more clarity, they couldn't give clarity to exactly where the mistakes came from. They said there were mistakes and they were corrected. Now, Are they, that was the question, are they corrected? How can you show the public, and I love this word, because I hate it if he is, but it keeps ringing true, is transparency. How do we honestly look at our constituents, and when, especially during budget time, when the biggest department that we fund in the city lose $2.5 million and then find it in a week? So that to me is bothersome. I was hoping someone from the school committee would come, the superintendent would be here, but obviously that doesn't happen. And again, You know, even bringing up last evening, bringing up the dialogue that on the agenda last night in the school committee meeting was the rainy day account. And this is why I was fighting it so hard the other night. The rainy day account that the school committee has brought to the attention for the support to the city council. The rainy day account that we mentioned here, if a roof falls in, right? Or if there's some kind of natural disaster, we have that funding for us. No, no, no, no. By putting this resolution out there through the school committee, and from what I gathered in the meeting last night was, a million dollar shortfall, would that constitute an emergency that the mayor could then tap into that fund to bail her out? That's not where that funds in there. What we're seeing is a gross mismanagement of our finances in this community. And that's why I've talked to council bears about this. I'll say it till I'm blue in the face. all of these taxes, all of these overrides, everything we're talking about, until we truly get a control of our fiscal responsibilities and management until we understand that we can trust that person, or the organization, all we keep doing is keep pumping more money to a black hole. Now, this isn't the other side of rhetoric. This is it's black and white. It's right in front of you. Monday, 2.5. Today, 216,000. Why? There were some errors. Define those errors. Because a report just spoken by this council president, it's not good enough for me. For the sake of transparency, for the sake of moving forward with some initiatives that we might need. Hey, I've told people a thousand times, Maybe we do have to look at process of taxing. If you could show the data and you could show the people that are overseeing our finances are responsible and shown that to us, then we could visit it. But until we see that, how can we even entertain it? This is what I keep saying to my colleagues. A lot of it is very simple common sense. Think about it, in all of your businesses, where you work today, you go in tomorrow and you sit with your team and they say, okay, everybody, we have a $2.5 million deficit. We have to start looking into cuts, we have to figure things out. And then we come in Friday morning, everybody come sit down, we get donuts and coffee, guess what? We're all set, we found the mistake. Okay, everybody go back to work. That's great. That doesn't give me the warm and fuzzies. That doesn't give me the confidence that says, hey, let's put in multimillion dollar override and say, hey, go ahead, run with that now. until we see that until until we actually have control, or we have an office that gives us the confidence that we say, okay, the numbers now show after everything is calculated, after it's done responsibly, and then transparently put out there and say, well, okay, then this gives us an action that would say this is what we need. But why we're not more offended as a council that has to approve a budget. Our number one priority was what tonight? For the budget, we had a meeting. Making sure our schools are level funded. What is level funded? We don't know. The school system and the mayor, the president of the school committee has already shown us. There are issues, serious funding issues of checks and balances. So I just asked my council colleagues, in the good faith of common sense, sit back tonight and think about what I said realistically. It's very simple. I didn't make it up. This isn't one side over the other. This is right in front of you. This is a deficit of 2.5 million. And all of a sudden some words came out and saying, this is where it happened. That's not true. That's not true because here's the best thing about Medford, people like to talk. They don't know where it came from yet. It's not defined yet. It's just that it's found. That's irresponsible. So I don't appreciate the representatives of the school department not being here when a councilor asks, especially when this council is one vote for that budget, that's either gonna support or deny what's going on there, because here's what I want everybody to understand. When it comes to the budget time, If we're gonna come together and say, hey, we're gonna find a way, we're gonna cut all this, but we're gonna raise the school budget by 10%, and I don't vote for it, I don't want it to be the dialogue to go around that George Scarpelli, the teacher of 15 years, whose family teaches, who dedicated his life for children in education, doesn't want to balance the budget because he doesn't like schools. No, what I don't like is irresponsibility. I don't like the lack of transparency, and I don't like the lack of respect for this council, for the person across the hall that chairs their committee, and the people that run that department. So I know it's a rant, but it makes me feel good because it's out there. Okay, thank you, thank you, I love my claps. That's why I'm here. Truly, that's, I'm being facetious, but this is how I feel, and I think that, really, sit back and think about it as we move forward to the, probably the most, I do feel for the sympathy for my fellow council that are new to this, it's not gonna be easy. Y'all gonna be torn 15 different ways. Because no matter where you stand on it, Telling you right now, the common sense of this right now is we're not being respected or educated in their shortfalls, and we're gonna be blindsided, and guess who they're gonna turn to? Because the school committee has done in the past. Ask Mr. Rousseau. They publicly blame this council, publicly. So be careful, because this council's gonna be the one that's gonna have to make these decisions. So let's not celebrate what we're hearing. Let's get to the bottom, bottom of it. So we have, we can make responsible decisions come budget time. Thank you.
[Bears]: Thank you. I for one, don't recall member Rousseau blaming the council for lack of funding. And I believe that the school has extensively put forward resolutions requests that the mayor appropriate funding in a different way. Um, I will say, I do agree with you. that if you don't know an answer, you probably shouldn't say it out loud. And they clearly didn't know what their deficit was. And when they had said $2.5 million, and then they actually do the research and the work, and they find that the number is not that, that is a mistake that someone should be held accountable for, because you have released inaccurate and incomplete information. $2.5 million, big number. It's 3.5% of the school department budget. At least the general fund allocation is $70 million. I work on smaller budgets, but to say that there couldn't be double counting or a misallocation of two, three, 4% that you then do the research into and discover and find and eliminate, that's pretty standard. What I wouldn't have done is go and tell my boss that it was a 4% deficit before I knew it was a 4% deficit and freak everyone out about it before I actually knew the facts. up in the below. That doesn't make it right. Any further discussion by members of the council on the resolution? That's terrible. Seeing none, members of the public, name and address for the record, please.
[Waltrip]: My name is Juanita Waldrop and I live on Samson Road. I was here last week and I just want to first say thanks to Matt because you did answer my email and answered some questions that I never got to present. Um, I had one more minute and after staying here until 11 o'clock, I would have hoped there would have been some graciousness. I did all send you a copy of that question and considerations, but only Matt answered, but maybe you're the chair of that committee. Is that correct?
[Bears]: Um, he was the proponent of the resolution.
[Waltrip]: He was the proponent. Thank you, Matt. Um, I just have to tell you what you said, uh, Councilor Callahan was spot on. about the transparency that you have to have in order to have the community feel confident in the decisions that you make. For us, you represent us, but we don't feel that. We feel disenfranchised from you. And the reason is not because you haven't added in more funds, what was the word you used? You used a word that was mis... Underfunding, it's not underfunding, it's blaring us in the face. It's right out there, 2.5 shortfall, million. People have homes, families, businesses. We operate on budgets. We know where our money comes in and where it goes out. I just, I'm astonished. And I think I speak for the community too. And this is a big problem. This is a serious problem if you're going to be asking us to fund more tax money into these trusts or whatever it is. Why do we, do we feel confident? No, we don't. And it's huge. And I wanted to ask you, President Bears, when it says the acting finance director, what does this mean?
[Bears]: for the school department?
[Waltrip]: Yes, acting.
[Bears]: There's currently an interim or acting finance director, the assistant superintendent for finance and operations left.
[Waltrip]: They left?
[Bears]: Yeah.
[Waltrip]: Was there a reason?
[Bears]: I believe they got a promotion to a job in Cambridge.
[Waltrip]: Did they have an exit interview, I'm wondering, to find out what happened?
[Bears]: We do not do any governance over the school system. The school committee does that.
[Waltrip]: They do, but you know what? And here's another thing, looking for transparency. Did anyone from the school department come? I came here and I waited all night for this particular issue to hear someone speak to this. And there's nobody here. From the school department, there's nobody. Not even the acting finance director who's accountable. Do you not agree? You're an accountant. Are you not?
[Bears]: I'm not an accountant. I do finance and operations work, but I'm not a CPA.
[Waltrip]: But I mean, you have the knowledge, and I have to give you credit, and I must say thank you for your budget ordinance. And as I heard you explaining it so quickly, I could hardly wrap my ears around it. But there were so many things. Am I to believe that none of those things you're proposing to put in a budget ordinance are in place presently?
[Bears]: Some of them have happened on an ad hoc basis, but there's never been a formal schedule in the city ordinance to mandate that they happen at a specific time.
[Waltrip]: Well, there you go. That explains why there are no quarterly reports. Is this public knowledge that we should have?
[Bears]: Yes. And if you were to file a request, it is accessible information. They would have to give it to you. But it should be a more established schedule than that. I think in terms of the trust, I agree.
[Waltrip]: Because I know last time, I think you mentioned last meeting, that there was no timely documentation available to find out. It took so much time. Didn't it take like six months or something? Is that what you mean?
[Bears]: We're a few months behind now on the Warren articles. Yeah, I think we're September or October. um does that seem does that seem an important amount of time to you um i mean we requested that they come in every month the explanation that we've received is that there were other obligations that the staff member who was going to do that had to take on and i'm not going to question that that may well be true but to me that's in a statement that there's not enough staff to do the job and i would hope that that would be addressed and the council has been really insistent about needing more staff and logistical infrastructure support for the finance department because we need them to do more for us to be able to plan effectively.
[Waltrip]: Well, bravo to that. And might I make a suggestion? that this might be your top priority before anything else, that you have to get this in place, the house has to be cleaned up, and you have to let the community know before you move forward on underfunding, what was the word you used again? The underfunding of trusts and where you can ask people to be on board with anything you ask. You understand that you have to have this as a priority. You have to clean this up and present it that you got on board with it, it has to take top a top, a position, and anything else. And I have to give you credit for actually working on that ordinance. All those things you mentioned so swiftly, I couldn't even hear them. I would love to get something written and hear what your ordinance says. Could you email me or give me a copy of that?
[Bears]: Larry, do you have a copy of the packet over there? I can give you mine. I have one right here. Yeah, it's in the agenda that went around on Friday. I have a copy here. If you have one available, thank you.
[SPEAKER_19]: Yeah, it's the full text of the ordinance.
[Bears]: Yeah, and I will just say in terms of priorities. That is the ordinance we've met on most in committee the past year to get the administration to agree with whether not everyone on this council last June agreed with it, but the former president and I did work with the administration to get them to commit to passing that ordinance. And to, we did, George, and it took nine months, but here we are.
[Waltrip]: That's what I remembered from last week. Nine months, and it took nine months.
[Bears]: Well, they're in the budget. Well, we got them in the budget. Now, I can't hire anybody. I'd love to hire someone, but it's not in my current authority. I can't make or hire someone, but it's in the budget. But it is a major priority. Right before this meeting, we had a meeting at six o'clock on what our top three priorities are for this upcoming budget. And one of those three was that the administration tell us how they're going to get more finance staff or update the finance software so that we have more information than we have before. I'm hopeful that this budget ordinance and it's really a budget ordinance with also a regular financial reporting component to it, will create a regular schedule where we can say, hey, you said you'd pre-promise us it's in the law, the law of the city is you have to get us this by the state, and that that will break any sort of log jam, or at least maybe adjust and reshuffle the priorities where they may be prioritizing some other work for them to prioritize this because it is in the city ordinance. And I did get your email, I just haven't had a chance to respond.
[Waltrip]: Well, you said you had a thousand, so I'm a little sympathetic there.
[Bears]: I'm cutting it down.
[Waltrip]: But anyway, it is important you keep the community involved and also informed. It's so important. I can't emphasize that enough. And that's the reason I stayed so late was for this last issue. And I thank you all for your time and your consideration.
[Tseng]: Oh yes, Councilor Tseng, sorry. And on your note of informing the public, something that I've been working really hard on over the last month that we passed in the Resident Services Committee is a litany of different proposals that reach out to the public and provide input surveys and forms and let people know about important meetings that are upcoming and big debates.
[Waltrip]: And how did they get that?
[Tseng]: So we're going to develop an email list on the city side for the city council. We're going to develop our city website as well. A lot of this is in early days, but if you reach out to us, we can make sure that you're put on that list when it's developed.
[Bears]: There's also on the Medford public schools you YouTube channel. There's a recording of the, their budget committee of the whole meeting from last week, where they did the law probably got into the details a little bit more than on the school budget side, generally how the process works is for the city. budget city departments that are not meant for public schools. The mayor makes a proposal, the department heads meet, and we're changing this a little bit, but essentially we as the council meet with the department heads, the mayor makes an allocation, we discuss that and make recommendations, and all that we can do is say yes, say no, or cut. And if we say no without making a specific cut, it actually goes into effect after 45 days anyway. So the mayor has a lot of authority there. The school committee side of things is a little more involved, and that's because of how it works under state law. But under that, the school committee actually makes a proposal as a body. So they discuss all the details. They approve the specific line items of the specific departments. Then that recommendation goes to the mayor. She then proposes a number that may be different from what the school committee has recommended. And then our role is only to approve, cut, or reject the total amount. We cannot go into the school budget in any way. And like, we couldn't say we want 100,000 less for Spanish class. You know, all of that authority is with the school committee. So we have a little bit less of a role in terms of the specifics of the school budget. Our main role is just whether to approve or cut the mayor's recommendation.
[Waltrip]: Approve or cut her recommendation.
[Bears]: Essentially, yes.
[Waltrip]: Approve or cut.
[Bears]: And we can say no, but again, after 45 days, the State Division of Local Services.
[Waltrip]: And after 45 days, it would be, it's kind of like it goes into effect.
[Bears]: It goes into effect anyway, yeah.
[Waltrip]: It's very complicated, but in the end, it's very simple, isn't it?
[Bears]: Yes, it's, it's, she's in charge of the budget. Yeah, I can say, yeah. The mayor, the office of the mayor, yeah.
[Waltrip]: Well, talk to teachers like myself, okay? I'm retired, but I still teach.
[RhUNhYl62Oo_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[Waltrip]: You know, we pay for a lot of things on our own, because I don't know where the money is. I went to look yesterday in the cabinet for paperclips, and they weren't even there. So something just as silly as that. We don't even have paperclips in the school. Anyway, I said enough, and I'll say thank you, and I'm ready to go home. Thank you all.
[Bears]: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming back. Any further discussion on the motion? On the motion of Councilor Leming.
[Leming]: I just wanted to offer my general sympathies on people trying to stay informed on city council and city government just in general. As Councilor Tseng said, we are working on several initiatives at the moment to keep people informed a bit more of a comprehensive manner, but I think a lot of people also discover that to really. Unfortunately, the state of things is that without any local news to really understand what's going on, it kind of has to become like a hobby or part of your. Social life so you have to like know, you know Which subreddits which Facebook groups to go to which YouTube channels to look on to find which pieces of information and a lot and I I don't like it. That's kind of like the state of affairs. But realistically, a lot of people that are super involved in the city do have a number of these different sources and people they talk to to sort of figure out how these things work. So yeah. OK. Great.
[Bears]: On the motion to receive and place on file by Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by Councilor Leming. All those in favour? Opposed? Motion passes. Public participation. Anyone may participate on any issue at this time. Seeing none. on the motion of Councilor Tseng to adjourn seconded by Councilor Kelly and all those in favour. I oppose motion passes meeting is adjourned. Thank you.
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