[Roberta Cameron]: calling to order meeting of Medford Community Preservation Committee on Wednesday, May 17th, 2023. I will read the, what do you call that, the preamble. On July, On July 16, 2022, Governor Baker signed into law a supplement of COVID-19 fiscal appropriations in extension through March 31, 2025, of certain authorizations related to public meetings. This new law extends the remote meeting provisions of Governor's March 2020 executive order suspending certain provisions of open meeting law in accordance with the 2020 executive order This meeting of the city of Medford Community Preservation Committee is being conducted by remote participation using zoom, including committee members and the public. The use of Zoom complies with the law's requirement to provide live, adequate, alternative means of public access to the deliberations of the public body instead of holding meetings in a public place that is open and physically accessible to the public. Persons who would like to listen to or view this meeting while in progress may do so by using the link that was included on the meeting agenda posted on the City of Medford website. And the meeting will be A recording of the meeting will be posted on the city's website as well. So. Our agenda, this is going to be a short and sweet meeting this evening, I think, because we are going to.
[Unidentified]: I guess we lost Roberta there.
[Theresa Dupont]: Looks like she's frozen. Yeah, I'm going to try shutting off her video to see if she comes back. But I'll pick up where she was going in case she comes back in here. The agenda is going to be a little shorter today. We were hoping to have the annual plan ready for everybody's review. Unfortunately, that's 100% on me. I was unable to complete it. So I apologize for that, but I will prioritize getting that done next week and then getting it out to everybody for review for the next meeting. For the new members, of which I include myself as a new member, the annual plan essentially looks a little bit backwards into the previous year as to what we accomplished, funding projects that we funded, kind of celebrating the wins and talking about all the good stuff that we were able to get done. as well as what our plan is for this next fiscal year. It does have some budgetary elements to it where we talk about, okay, this is what we had last year, this is what we have this coming year. It has a bit of a narrative element to it, which I wish I had been here for five years so they can talk about all the great, wonderful things we've been doing the entire time. I'm just not quite there yet, so I appreciate everybody's patience. with that. We're also going to review. Hey, Reg, thanks for joining us. Happy Wednesday. I think Stephen was also going to be joining us. I haven't met Stephen quite yet, so looking forward to meeting him. Do we go by Steve or Stephen? Anybody know? Okay, I will start calling them Steve then. One thing that we are going to be able to look at tonight is the monthly agendas kind of structuring out for the rest of the year what we intend to accomplish at each meeting. So which is kind of a new thing. And I'm actually I think that's really cool that we do that on this committee because usually it's kind of more ad hoc every month. So I like that we structure it out so we know what to expect. Was that your idea, Joan?
[Joan Cyr]: No, I just think it was a, you know, a group consensus that, you know, we've got a lot to do, a short time to do it. So let's get organized.
[Theresa Dupont]: Right, right. Roberta is actually walking in right now. So talk amongst yourselves for a moment. See if I can assist her in the tech role. Hold on one second.
[Doug Carr]: Well, that's so funny. The shadowy person behind her.
[Joan Cyr]: Because when she dropped off, I was going to wait till Teresa finished, but we no longer had a quorum. Did we get the April 11th meeting minutes? I didn't see them. I don't think I saw them either. Okay.
[Unidentified]: So Heidi, have you had any luck finding your replacement?
[Heidi Davis]: We haven't even had a hearing since I last saw you guys. So I haven't been able to pick a victim, I mean a volunteer.
[Joan Cyr]: You didn't get to volunteer with somebody?
[Heidi Davis]: Well, I'm sure you'll leave us in great hands. I'd like to leave you in hands period. Yeah, she's back.
[SPEAKER_14]: I am here guys, I'm gonna eventually be able to switch back my that my computer just went off the internet over there in the room that I was using. So, I don't know when I lost you because I couldn't actually see you all on my screen. So I was just explaining that we're going to have a light meeting because we're going to pass over the first couple of items on the agenda. Did you hear that? Yes. Okay.
[SPEAKER_15]: You're really low on your volume, so I don't know. Yeah, I know. Let me see if I can adjust the settings a little bit. I'm all the way up here.
[Doug Carr]: What did you do with Teresa?
[Unidentified]: Microphone. Okay, I set the microphone volume up.
[Joan Cyr]: Can you hear me? We can, but it's still kind of faint. I don't know how Teresa was communicating because we can hear her fine. She had earbuds.
[SPEAKER_14]: I'm using the system. enough said. One of the things that I've been dying to talk about with the committee, and I don't know whether like this, whether it fits on the agenda for tonight, maybe it fits under the next item on the agenda, which is structuring out the remaining 2023 monthly agendas, is if we could switch to meeting in person again, instead of online or hybrid meetings, because this is really old. How do you all feel about it?
[Joan Cyr]: I'm fine meeting in person.
[Doug Carr]: I'm fine meeting in person too, but I think the hybrid is important because I know we have more participation and there are times, like tonight, I couldn't have gotten to Medford Square by 6.30 just because of traffic and work schedules because it's pretty early compared to most meetings. I start at 7. So as long as you can make it so that we have a choice both for the community members and the public, I think that's fine. I think that's required by the preamble anyway, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_14]: The preamble merely allows us to meet remotely. But it doesn't require us to meet remotely or hybridly. I agree with the hybrid option though. Yeah, I mean, to be determined, maybe 3 2nd, let us know whether they have the. Option to do hybrid meeting.
[Theresa Dupont]: We technically do, and that's something that some of our other boards and commissions are exploring. I like it. I like being together. I mean, look, we're close to each other right now. Was that something the group initiated?
[SPEAKER_14]: I just brought this up because that would avoid problems like what we're having right now. Very, very true. And it's been something I've been wanting to talk about for a long time because you can see that I prefer actually coming into City Hall for meetings rather than meeting from home anyway. And I don't know, you know, I'd like to be able to make that option available to everyone, but I didn't want to try to ram that through while we were also doing handling a lot of... If we were to do a hybrid meeting, where would the in-person meeting be?
[Theresa Dupont]: We have a couple of large conference rooms here at City Hall, one that can comfortably seat all of us as well as up to 30 members of the public. So that's always an option. And would we use our own would somebody use a computer so that the yeah, yeah, so that technology aspect there just be one computer camera microphone. So we would just need to show up and and do our thing and we can be what room is that in City Hall. Well, there's 201, which is one of the large conference rooms on the second floor. I think it's called the Richard E. Lee room. And then city council is very kind enough to let us use an annex room that they have that can keep maybe like 15 people in there. So we have a couple of options.
[Doug Carr]: And they're set up with AV that is functional for Zoom meetings?
[Theresa Dupont]: Not as a permanent installation, but we have outfitted it with that temporary equipment bringing it in. But that can absolutely be done. Does the city have an owl? No, but I want one. It's a 360 camera that if I'm talking and you're on the other side, it's a nice little piece of technology that makes it foolproof.
[SPEAKER_14]: If you're going to arrive at a small enough table. I've had meetings that don't work because people are too far away from the unit. Right, right. They make it easier version too. So, all right. So, you'll have to help me with technology. The first thing that we were going to talk about, well, actually, we need to, under the annual plan review, Table that's open on that computer. I don't know if there's any way to transfer it. So. It's really inefficient, but.
[Theresa Dupont]: I really like that I made a terrible second impression on all of you lovely folks. I appreciate your patience.
[SPEAKER_14]: I don't think you can take responsibility for the wireless cutting out on us tonight. Thank you. I don't think you're in control of everything City Hall. I try though.
[Unidentified]: Thank you very much. The one at the spreadsheet. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay.
[Theresa Dupont]: Everybody should be seeing a lovely spreadsheet. Thumbs up so much. Okay. Thanks. Okay.
[SPEAKER_14]: Okay. So what we do need to talk about that is in the community preservation plan that is under development right now is our budget for this coming year. So we have estimated. and this column, what the revenue will be for the next fiscal year for FY 24. So the revenue includes the surcharge. The first number is the surcharge that we're estimating the city will, is this too small for you guys? You all look like you.
[Joan Cyr]: No, I'm just looking on an extremely small screen.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, if you could just zoom in a little bit, it would be helpful.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I'm moving to a bigger screen.
[Unidentified]: Is that better?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Much.
[Unidentified]: Excellent.
[SPEAKER_14]: Okay. So the surcharge we're estimating for 2024 is 1.8M. And then the 1.8 million is based on our surcharge from last year times 2.5%. So we're just assuming that the surcharge grows by 2.5% over the previous year. And so the state match, you can see over here this column E, that the state match, this is the range of state matches that we've had over the past several years. In the very beginning, the state match was, and it was only, we didn't have a state match that year. In the very beginning, the state match was at the lowest point ever in the CPA program at 17%. And then in the last couple of years, the state has kicked in extra revenue to increase our state match so that In which years were these? 2022 and 2023, we had a pretty robust state match. We are led to believe the state hasn't given us an estimate to use for the state or a projection of what's used for the state match that we received the state match usually in November. So we're not sure yet how much we're going to receive in November. but we're given to expect that it's gonna be lower than the last couple of years by how much we don't know. So I made a very conservative projection that the state match would be around 20% this year. That's very conservative. It would be nice if it was higher. In fact, you may have received a newsletter from the Community Preservation Coalition in the last couple of days saying, contact your legislators, ask them to increase or put state surplus revenue toward the Community Preservation Act. That is what will increase our state match this year, is if the legislators honor that request to put additional revenue into the Community Preservation Act Trust Fund. But without that additional revenue, we're projecting a much smaller state match this year. So the total CPA revenue that we are estimating for this year would be 2.2 million, which is a little bit less than what our total revenue was last year. So what we need to do is vote this evening on our annual budget allocation of how we want to divide those funds between the CPA program areas. In this column that I've highlighted is the minimum or the default budget that we need to vote on. At a minimum, the legislation requires us to put 10% into each of the three program areas, and we're allowed to put up to 5% in administration. I hope that you will support an administration budget this year because that's what pays for us to have our staff supporting us. But we can elect to put a higher amount in any of the categories that we choose to. And so last year, we doubled the housing allocation We put 20% in housing, 10% in the other two program areas. And then what's left over general reserve can be used for any of the program areas. So the 55% or 65% could be used for housing, historic preservation, or open space and recreation. So on the far right, we have highlighted columns what the budget would look like if we vote on the minimum. or what the budget would look like if we vote on some other distribution of funds. I just, as a model, put 20% again for affordable housing. But I'll raise this for discussion among all of you. Sorry, Doug.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah. Roberta, we got an email from Steve Puccini saying he can't get in somehow.
[SPEAKER_14]: Steve Puccini. Okay.
[Theresa Dupont]: But he can't get in?
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, he tried and he couldn't get in, so he dropped. So we might want to reach out to him if we can.
[SPEAKER_14]: Okay. Interesting. I'll be right back. I might have a... Okay.
[Doug Carr]: Theresa, these numbers do seem so conservative that it looks like we have less money next year than we did last year, at least on first watch.
[Theresa Dupont]: And I think that really is stemming from that state match. We're projecting that to be lower because, um, a couple of more communities came online to CPA, including Worcester. So that being a larger, um, municipality community, um, I think we're anticipating a big drop like that because of, uh, more communities.
[Doug Carr]: That's like a 45% drop. That's a massive drop.
[Unidentified]: I think we just wanted to play conservative here.
[Theresa Dupont]: I think when we were talking with Stuart at the coalition, he was saying other communities were doing 25%, somewhere between 20 and 25%. So we're kind of in line with what other communities are guesstimating at this point. Doug had a concern about it.
[Doug Carr]: It's just that's almost twice that in terms of the drop, but it doesn't really matter because we're not making those decisions about how much we're funding for six months, so you'll know by November.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. And let's say that the state match comes in instead of the $366,000 that we're projecting right now, if it comes in at $550,000. Good question. I'm still learning, so I apologize if this is redundant for some folks, but if that state match comes in higher, that just goes right into the general reserve?
[SPEAKER_14]: OK, that's a really good question, because what will happen is that if the state match I don't know if we have funds carried over from previous years. If we have funds carried over from previous years, we can send them this year. If we receive additional state match and we are able to appropriate those funds, You know, ask City Council to appropriate those funds before the tax rate is set in the fall. We can spend them this year. The tax rate is set in the fall, I think at the end of November, beginning of December. And the funds, the state match is usually given in November, December. So there's a very slim chance that we're actually able to allocate this year's extra state match. So that will sit in our general reserve, and then next year those funds will be available. Or maybe in two years, like the way that it gets It has to sit in the reserve for long enough for them to like record that revenue. So that's a really good question. We might not be able to use, if we are overly conservative, then we might not be able to use those funds this year. They'll sit and wait until next year.
[Theresa Dupont]: It's not like we won't get them.
[Unidentified]: It's just a matter of next year. Timing. Yeah. Any other concerns, questions? Doug still has his hand up.
[Joan Cyr]: What's that, Jill? I said Doug still had his hand up. Oh, and he took it down.
[Unidentified]: The reality.
[SPEAKER_14]: So just keeping in mind what we discussed in our previous meetings about the, um, the projects that we anticipate coming in early this year, the, um, housing authority for another tranche of funding for walking court. And the, um, McGlynn School Playground. So the walk-in court will already use more than 20% of the annual allocation.
[Theresa Dupont]: Will be similar to the 800? Yes. Okay.
[SPEAKER_14]: As would, so I mean, it really might not make any difference if we use the minimum or proposed, we're guaranteed to spend already more than 10% in housing and open space and recreation if we decide to fund those two projects.
[Unidentified]: Steve's coming in now.
[Joan Cyr]: Yeah, I mean, to that point, I don't see I don't feel like it really makes a difference if we change the default percentages, because really, it's going to be based on acceptable proposals. And we'll just go into the general reserve to fund whatever we need to based on the requests.
[SPEAKER_12]: So just to catch Steve up, I can't see.
[SPEAKER_14]: There you are, Steve. Just to catch you up, we're talking about the way We skipped over minutes and we're mostly skipping over the plan for this year because it's not quite ready for review. However, one of the elements of the plan is to decide on our budget for this coming year, which means that we need to decide how much of the revenue are we going to allocate to each of the program hearings. On the screen that we're sharing right now, the minimum represents what the legislation requires. And the proposed represents the same proportions that we elected last year. So what I would look for is for someone on the committee to make a motion to recommend a distribution of funds that either resembles one of, you know, maybe you want to go with the minimum distribution of funds, or maybe you want to propose something different.
[Joan Cyr]: To me, it doesn't matter. I feel like.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think what worked last year worked really well, so. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_14]: What we had last year?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I'm in agreement. Do we know if the funding levels are gonna change this year? Just based on any variables.
[SPEAKER_14]: That's part of the conversation that we had before you arrived. So this column in represents what we anticipate for funding this year. We're estimating 1.8 million surcharge revenue, which is an increase of two and a half percent over last year surcharge revenue. And then the date match We're projecting a lower state match this year than what has been given in previous years. We're led to understand from the state that it's going to be lower this year than it was in previous years. Previous years, the state kicked in extra surcharge revenue to beef up the Community Preservation Act Trust Fund. distributions to all of the participating communities. We don't know whether they're going to do the same this year. Contact your legislators and ask them to kick in additional state revenue to the CPA trust fund. But without knowing that, we have to make a conservative assumption about how much revenue the state is going to give us. So where we had in previous years closer around 40%, the last couple of years, this is based on an assumption of 20%. And so this would be what the funds per category would look like under this revenue assumption and these proportions.
[Unidentified]: Sorry.
[Doug Carr]: Roberta, if we vote to accept the estimated numbers that you put together, are our hands tied by those numbers if they end up being higher in November?
[SPEAKER_14]: Yeah. So, as I explained earlier, I mean, As I explained earlier, any additional revenue that we raise beyond this estimate, we would have to have the City Council appropriate the additional revenue before they set the tax rate in December. So what typically happens is that the state sends us their match. In fact, they might send the first round match in November. And if the timing is just right, we might be able to turn around and very quickly request city council to appropriate the fund. Or last year, they didn't make that. state last year, they distributed the funds after the tax rate was set. So we couldn't have appropriated additional funds last year.
[Doug Carr]: Wouldn't that suggest that we go with a higher estimate if we don't get it, that's fine. But if we do get it, we can avoid city council altogether.
[SPEAKER_14]: The problem with going with an estimate that's too high is that we cannot, um, underestimate our revenue. we get in trouble with DOR if we budget more than we receive. Last year, I actually ran into that in Somerville. But in Somerville, we knew in Somerville that we were carrying a million dollars of funds from previous years. And here, we've been spending closer to the margin And we don't know exactly how much we have because we haven't really been able to keep track of the finances closely enough in the last couple of years. So I don't have confidence to say that if we run into trouble, we can, we have the money to float it.
[Unidentified]: Okay. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_14]: There are communities that are estimating 25%. So, you know, we could bump it up a little bit. I just, we don't know what the state's going to do. Unfortunately, they usually give us an, they usually give us a percentage to estimate, and this year they did not. They said you figure it out.
[Unidentified]: I would be. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
[Heidi Davis]: Oh, thanks. I'm sorry. I'd be in favor of maybe bumping it up a little bit over 20% just because I'm. Because it is being cut almost 50% from last year, so. But, you know, you would better know. Is that a possibility to cut. The state surcharge or the state.
[Unidentified]: of portion by 50%?
[SPEAKER_14]: I think that we can go as, I mean, I wouldn't go above 25% this year. I don't know of anybody who's estimating above 25%. Well, even 23%, 22.5%.
[Heidi Davis]: Seems more realistic.
[Unidentified]: Maybe.
[SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, I mean, just like looking at what the funding levels were in the few years before the state started kicking in additional funds. It was down around the 20% mark.
[Unidentified]: So. This is what it would look like if it was at. 25% get up to that. And I'm not. Oh, I can't hear you hiding.
[Joan Cyr]: I think your microphone went dead.
[Unidentified]: How about now?
[Heidi Davis]: I just, I think it was Reg that was going to say something at the same time as me. So I just wanted to make sure he was given a chance.
[Reggie Graham]: Yeah, I was just, I'm a little confused. Are we talking about the proposed Um, percentages, are we talking about the actual, uh, percentage of, uh, increase and so on and so forth? Because I think we're talking about two different, two different, um, two different subjects, obviously, if you, if you, I thought you said you wanted to change the proposed percentages for administration housing. historical preservation, et cetera, et cetera. And then of course that would obviously change the figures over there in the minimum versus the proposed amounts.
[SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, so yeah, to clarify, let me highlight. These are the variable numbers and also what is the percent of state match that we're estimating? So let me just put that
[Theresa Dupont]: I think if I understood you correctly, if we change those allocations, those percentages there under housing, historical preservation, it doesn't change the overall dollar amount, which is how we're assigning the money.
[Reggie Graham]: Right, just how much is allocated to each subject.
[Theresa Dupont]: So that's one portion. And then we're talking about how the state match differs every year. It's never the same amount.
[Reggie Graham]: So that's right. So, so I know that you said that, you know, you said you wanted to be conservative about that, but 20%, that's almost an 18% decrease from last year. And quite frankly, that seems like it, I mean, I think the state's still running a surplus. So I would imagine that they were probably gonna have a little bit extra dough to distribute. I think 22.5% would be a more accurate reflection of what we'd like to receive rather than the 20%. If we underestimate, do we get penalized?
[SPEAKER_14]: If we underestimate what?
[Reggie Graham]: If we underestimate.
[SPEAKER_14]: We may get penalized if we overestimate. Okay. So 22.5 seems like a relatively safe figure.
[Reggie Graham]: So, yeah, I think we can.
[SPEAKER_14]: I don't know that anybody else is going to give us what this assumption should be. So. Let's use 22 and a half percent if that's what you're comfortable with, unless you're told by city administration that. We have to use something different. So that was one of the variables was what is the percentage of state match that we assume? And the other variable is which of the models of the distribution of funds between the program areas do we want to use? What I've heard so far this evening is that it doesn't matter. So we might as well use the minimum because we are most likely going to approve funds that exceed, approve grants that exceed these categories anyway. And then I've also heard that we might as well continue with what we did last year for the same reason. It doesn't matter. And it worked this past year.
[Reggie Graham]: So, and that's because at the end of the day, when we do receive the funds, we can always allocate money from the general reserve into the open space, historical reserve housing or administration categories. If we so choose. That's correct. So it's really not that important.
[Joan Cyr]: Now, only to the extent that whatever you have as the percentage has to be spent on those items, right? So if we, say we took all of it and put it in housing, and then we got open space and recreation proposals, we'd have no funding to be able to fund them. So that's why to me, it's like, it doesn't really matter if we change the minimums, because we could always take from the general reserve to, you know, fund those things that we do get. Yeah, I think last year we were trying to sort of start to save some money in the housing space because we hadn't gotten a lot of proposals and we knew things were coming. So that's correct. Yeah, and once it's in housing, it has to be spent on housing. So say we got all of the ball fields submitted. We all wanted to be replaced, right? We might not be able to do them all because some of the money has to go to housing, right? So it's kind of a way for us to make sure that we divide the pot up at least 10, 10, 10, and then however we decide. That not one area can take it all.
[Doug Carr]: Sounds like there's a motion in our future.
[Joan Cyr]: Would you like me to move?
[Doug Carr]: Go for it, Joan.
[Joan Cyr]: I would make a motion to just keep the minimums as they are. Okay.
[Unidentified]: I'll second that. Go ahead.
[SPEAKER_14]: Thank you. Yes. All right.
[Unidentified]: Are we voting on the 22.5% as well?
[SPEAKER_14]: And so let's not vote on the 22.5% because that might be subject to, but we can, I'll take your input to leave it there for now. And then if we receive.
[Matt Leming]: Did we ever vote on Jones motion?
[SPEAKER_14]: Not yet. Not yet. So yeah, I'm sorry, guys. So I have a motion from Joan to use the minimum allocation toward each of the program areas. Is there a second? I second it. Okay, so let's have everyone vote. And I cannot see you all on the screen. So let me see if I can change that.
[Joan Cyr]: Do you want me to call the roll?
[SPEAKER_14]: I think I can see you now. Matthew?
[Adam Hurtubise]: No.
[SPEAKER_14]: No, you don't want to. You vote against that?
[Matt Leming]: Well, the vote is to keep the minimum at 10%, correct?
[SPEAKER_14]: Yes.
[Matt Leming]: OK, well, no.
[Unidentified]: OK. Heidi? Yes. Joan? Yes. Reg? No. Doug? Yes. Steve?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_14]: Thank you. And just in case we have questions from city. Yes, for myself. Sorry. In case we receive questions about it from city council, the two of you who voted no. What is your reasoning?
[Matt Leming]: I more just, I think it's more. It's important to me to signal that we care about afford that we care about funding affordable housing projects just personally.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I don't like.
[Matt Leming]: I'm not, I do agree that it may not necessarily change the way that funding is allocated day to day, but I think that especially with the affordable housing trust coming up and a lot of the money from the, and that being a way to fund affordable housing more in the long term. I would like to have mechanisms to make sure that a good steady cash flow is going into that, even if we don't necessarily receive affordable housing projects every single year.
[SPEAKER_14]: Okay, thank you. And Reg?
[Reggie Graham]: Being part of the park commission, I have an affinity for believe that there should be an allocation that's larger for that particular proposal. So that's my reasoning.
[SPEAKER_14]: Got it. All right. Thank you. Um, all right. So, um, I'm just, I think we'll, um, I think we need a motion to recommend this budget, the one that's highlighted in dark blue to city council.
[Unidentified]: Um.
[SPEAKER_14]: Which represents the minimum percentages, which represents the minimum percentages and the, um, the estimated revenue.
[Joan Cyr]: Estimated at which percent? At 22.5%. I can make a motion to rank that recommendation to the city council. All right.
[Unidentified]: And is there a second? Second. All right.
[SPEAKER_14]: Then I'm going to call the roll again. Matthew?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_14]: Heidi? Yes. Joan?
[Joan Cyr]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_14]: Reg?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_14]: Doug?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_14]: Steve?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_14]: And myself, yes. All right. I'm going to stop sharing.
[Joan Cyr]: I'll say that the good thing about this group is we're very thoughtful around all of the applications that we get and believe me, Matthew, we have been waiting for a really good affordable housing proposal to come before us. And in fact, Roberta has done a pretty good job of trying to seek them out. So it's not lost on us that that's a really big need in this city, for sure.
[Matt Leming]: No, I understand that. My thinking was more just the fact that with, again, with the Affordable Housing Trust, that is a way to offset the lack of year-to-year consistent projects. So if we don't have a project, we just throw the money into the AAH. And I think it's important to me it's important that we mandate that there be a certain chunk of money thrown into the AAH every year instead of just the absolute minimum.
[Joan Cyr]: So if the amount that the state comes up with the match is more than what we estimate, can't we vote on taking that overage and putting it right to housing? I'm asking Roberta. I say Roberta, but she has the name Teresa underneath her. So don't feel bad if I call you Teresa, Roberta. Is that true, Roberta? Sorry, repeat the last thing you just said. If the state matches more than the amount that we estimate, can we take that extra money and recommend that it go to housing?
[SPEAKER_14]: Yes, we can. So here's, well, yes, next year, when we're able to, we can see how much extra revenue there is, And we can vote to commit that to affordable housing. We just won't actually be able to spend it until the following year.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Right.
[Joan Cyr]: Well, as we know, these housing projects go on and on. Yeah.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Joan Cyr]: But I get, it's like, it's hurry up and wait with these projects, you know?
[SPEAKER_14]: Yeah. I probably would have voted differently myself if I didn't anticipate a large application from the Affordable Housing Trust coming this year. And I would feel strongly about maintaining a higher minimum for affordable housing. And with respect to the parks and recreation, the city has not been shy about applying for a lot of money for park and recreation projects. So we have not had any difficulty exceeding the minimum every year for parks and recreation.
[Reggie Graham]: I must say this. Yeah. You might not have been shy, they might not have been shy about requesting the fundings and so on and so forth, but I don't think it's been appropriated properly. Having sat on the park commission for 15 years, I know where the money has been spent. I don't think it's been judicious. So subsequently, sitting on this committee, allows me a bit of a voice to say some things that I feel are incorrect, where the allocations are going.
[SPEAKER_14]: Appreciate it. Can't wait to hear it. That's great. That's why you're here. And probably in the next week or two, we'll be able to send out a draft of the plan for this year, the plan update. And that will have data on what park projects we have funded up to now, and for what specific purposes, and what is the proportion of spending for each of the categories that we've done to date. Parks have, I'm just looking at a pie chart, I don't actually have the percentages, but it's pretty close to 50% of our funds. and last year went to parks. So we can look and see what it was in previous years. So yeah, well, I think that we'll at least make the minimum. We've done a pretty good job, I think, of a proportional distribution of funding. Um, like about a third, a third, a third over the whole five years, um, has gone to each of the categories.
[Matt Leming]: I guess my question is how binding are those minimums? In other words, can we vote again next year to raise them? Or is it kind of like year to year we vote on every year you vote on what the minimum will be as long as it's not below 10%.
[SPEAKER_14]: what you just said, every year we can make that choice every year.
[Matt Leming]: Well, just one thing that you, one thing I remember you said is that Cambridge puts 80% of their CPA money towards affordable housing. So is that just, so that's every year they decide to do that and they commit?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Matt Leming]: Okay.
[Unidentified]: Somerville gives 50% to affordable housing every year.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Matt Leming]: So, I mean, that's just, that's just kind of my thinking of like, you know, we're like, I think we should be committing, um, higher portion of our CPA to that, just given that, you know, the two there's Somerville and Cambridge are both giving very high percentages. Now this year, I mean, this year it may not even be feasible because the eight, the affordable housing trust hasn't even been set up yet. And we don't really know how it's going to be administered. So I think some initial caution is warranted, but just like, longer term, in my opinion, more money should definitely be going towards now that there's a mechanism to pay for things over a longer period of time.
[SPEAKER_14]: I agree, but there may be some time before we're able to elect to put more money into affordable housing if the housing authority continues to come with very large asks or very good project. We'll have to see what comes along in the future.
[Matt Leming]: I'm just expressing my thoughts. I'm not particularly swaying one way or the other about decisions being made right now, but this is just to express longer term.
[SPEAKER_14]: All right, well, the next item that I wanted to talk about on the agenda is a calendar of CPA agendas. So, I will share screen.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_14]: All right. So I had prepared, this is from last year, and we can update it for this year, but haven't had a chance to do that yet. So I have prepared a calendar where we can fill in agendas for upcoming, like we could create this calendar to fill in agendas for the whole year, reflecting when the due dates are for the application. And so the major events that happen throughout the year are our application cycle and the annual review period. This year has been a little bit mixed up because our application cycle went longer than usual, and the annual review period was kind of truncated because of our staff transition. and the long application cycle. But going forward, what we would try to hit is, so things kind of, we have some flexibility over the summer when we can talk about different things. But then come the fall, our application cycle kicks in and we receive the applications one month, we look at what the application, we have presentations from the applicants the following month, And then we deliberate and vote on the recommendation. So, the. The middle column of this table tries to put in place what those events are that we need to cover in our agendas each year. And then we can. map out in advance or think about what are some things that the committee might want to talk about during the month that we have a little bit more flexibility. Do we want to take a break or have a social meeting as we've been accustomed to doing in the summer? Yes. We already have our social planning crew. So I would love to be able to put dates and put agenda items in this calendar if we have things to add so that we can plan ahead.
[Joan Cyr]: Can we talk about removing the EDFs? Because we talked about that before. And I don't know if you want to do that now. When Danielle was there, she said, you know, the EDS are pretty not valuable because she's had so many conversations with their applicants before they even fill that out that she's already telling them whether or not it's eligible. So I don't know if that's still consistent. That will be a consistent process going forward.
[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, that's a good point.
[Doug Carr]: I would hope it would be, because that seems to be a way to streamline our process and we have less time to begin with.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Did we approve the application materials at a previous meeting? I don't remember whether we did that.
[SPEAKER_14]: Did we talk about the application materials at a previous meeting? Did we talk about the application materials? Did we approve an application packet? I'm sorry, I'm confused between my...
[Adam Hurtubise]: Why do I feel like we should?
[Doug Carr]: That be in the meeting minutes?
[Unidentified]: It would be.
[SPEAKER_14]: I'm going to add approved application instructions to our June meeting if we haven't done it already. Maybe we have. I'll just delete it. and then release application.
[Unidentified]: I don't want to spell that correctly.
[Joan Cyr]: So the April 11th meeting, we talked about input on the application process. So probably in those meeting minutes.
[Unidentified]: Input on the application process. Okay. So, we might have, and I don't recall whether we, whether we already approved it.
[SPEAKER_14]: So, yeah, we'll adjust it. If need be. But there we know the first thing that we need to talk about at our next meeting, if we haven't already is to release the application material. And so summer events and outreach is a best practice. We actually did a great job of it last year doing several outreach events. And I know that there are some things going on over the summer that we could participate in. So, you know, we could evaluate what are the events specifically and what is our willingness to volunteer to stand out at these events.
[Joan Cyr]: So last year, I think we were at Serval Square, were we not? Yeah. And what was the Do we know what the date of Circle of Square is this year?
[Doug Carr]: I believe it's the 17th. Yes. Hold on. It was mentioned at Cashier's meeting last night. I believe it's June 17th. 3 to 7. Okay. And are there
[SPEAKER_14]: Committee members, what day of the week is that?
[Adam Hurtubise]: That's a Saturday.
[SPEAKER_14]: Are there committee members who would be available and willing to, I'm not sure if I'm available that day.
[Doug Carr]: I was going to attend, so I'm willing to sit at a table for an hour, an hour and a half if someone else could team up.
[Joan Cyr]: What time is it?
[Doug Carr]: It goes from three to seven.
[Joan Cyr]: Yeah, I have a thing that day. I'm not gonna be able to go.
[Reggie Graham]: I'll volunteer but I don't know enough to speak with any degree of intelligence. That's all right. Roberta's got a box. Do you have to know what you're talking about?
[Joan Cyr]: No, Roberta has a box.
[SPEAKER_14]: Roberta has a box of stuff. This will be described in the plan. We have this activity where there's a board that people can put stickers on to say what is their priority between open space recreation and store preservation and affordable housing. And then they can write out sticky notes and put them on the board if they have specific ideas for those. And we just encourage people to talk and listen to what they have to say.
[Reggie Graham]: I can do that.
[SPEAKER_14]: Yeah.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So I think I will be at circle the square. That day, but.
[Unidentified]: Yeah. You might not be able to commit to sitting at a table.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, just.
[SPEAKER_14]: Okay, so we, I think that we can do circle the square. I'll have the packet ready, like the activity ready to go. And I can try to make myself available. I am not totally sure yet. But between Doug and Reg. I'll be there for the full time as well. And Theresa will be there. That's great. So we've got it handled. Are there other events? Because I love doing these events, too. September, I think, is when it's... Yeah, there was that Tufts thing last year.
[Joan Cyr]: Oh, yeah, Community Day. Yeah.
[Doug Carr]: It's also the Common Shell concerts that are going to be announced. There's four of them this year.
[SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, if we know any other specific days or events, we can try to. Have we ever just kind of table that, like, the library or. Farmers market yeah, farmers market would be great in July or August. We have done this thing. We have to reach out to the farmer's market to schedule a date to go there. I remember now that's hard for me because I'm on the clock. Easy for me. Yeah. But in the library, Joe and Deb did that last year. And that was a good day. And there was, oh, it was Harvest Your Energy. Yes, in October. That's in October, I think. Yeah, Christie and I did that last year. And that had absolutely the most participation that I've ever had at a single event.
[Joan Cyr]: Oh, by far, I'm not surprised.
[SPEAKER_14]: Yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: Community Day is also in October. It's October 1st this year. Tough Community Day.
[Matt Leming]: I'm just like going through the city calendar right now, just trying to find things as they're like, how far ahead do they usually post this stuff just on the official.
[Theresa Dupont]: I would say that that could be intermittent in terms of how often. Once we are told about something, we put it up there. But whether or not it comes across our desk, if it's a private organization or something, Harvest Your Energy Fest will be October 14.
[Matt Leming]: The only other upcoming thing I could find is the Pride Parade, but I'm not sure.
[Joan Cyr]: Yeah, that's actually not a parade. It's just going to be an event on City Hall mall on the 25th. But if we're already doing circle the square in June, I don't know that we need to do two tabling events.
[Theresa Dupont]: I was also wondering, I was at an event at Medford Brewing Company. I'm just looking around and seeing that this place was packed. Obviously, we'd have to, I'm curious if there's like entities like that where we could go in and kind of table for a bit.
[SPEAKER_14]: What we might do, so another kind of event that I've done in the past has been to go to the senior center during lunchtime. and give a little presentation and then just mull around, circulate among the crowd and talk to people and ask for their comments. And so we could do something similar like that at the Medford Brewing Company to just have a drop-in survey.
[Theresa Dupont]: And I'm not particularly taking on or shouting out Medford Brewing Company, but it was just being in that community sense. It just made me think of, you know, as new restaurants open up or something like that, maybe we could do a little quieter outreach. But I love the idea about the Council of Aging, too.
[SPEAKER_06]: There's another brewery opening here at the end of this month, too, Deep Cuts.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, they open on Saturday.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm excited for that, yeah. I'm excited for brewery food. That'd be a nice treat.
[Joan Cyr]: There'd be an Irish pub in there too, where I think Bedford on the corner.
[SPEAKER_06]: I've heard that. The square is suddenly getting very hip.
[Joan Cyr]: And to note to them, Tacuba's still not open.
[SPEAKER_06]: But they did open a, they are opening a coffee shop. They did open, or are opening a coffee shop, yes. Yeah, Mystic, they have taken over the Mystic space. I don't know what they're going to do with it, but something coffee related, I guess.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, that's my understanding. Pastries and coffee.
[SPEAKER_06]: Awesome. Something that's not Dunkin' Donuts. Bring it on.
[Theresa Dupont]: Although we do love our Dunkin', but we're New Englanders after all.
[SPEAKER_06]: Do you love it or do you have to love it? Were you forced to not have a choice to go anywhere?
[Matt Leming]: I loved it when I first got here. Like I was really into Duncan. And but the more that you're around, like the coffee's good. But if you drink it all the time, you kind of get used to it. My theory about Starbucks is that it's actually good coffee, but there's just overexposure, you know?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I'd much rather a mom and pop.
[Matt Leming]: Yeah. I like Oasis Cafe.
[Joan Cyr]: There's supposed to be something over in West Medford now, isn't there? The train depot? Coffee shop. Yeah, there's a little place that just opened up.
[Theresa Dupont]: I can't remember the name of it, but yeah, for now I feel like a coffee.
[Matt Leming]: I have problems drinking it after a certain time and not being able to sleep.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Me too, it's liable.
[SPEAKER_12]: I'm sorry, I'm going to continue this conversation about coffee and drink.
[Matt Leming]: I have a lot to discuss with Joan, Roberta, if you wouldn't mind just letting us continue this.
[Doug Carr]: We need a coffee subcommittee. We need to move on here.
[SPEAKER_14]: Since we're on the topic of coffee and drinks, our social meeting. Maybe we could have Teresa send out a doodle poll to pick a date for a social meeting. Are we aiming for July, August?
[Joan Cyr]: Yeah, I mean, those are heavily vacation months, right? So we have a big opening in September. I don't know if that's better or worse.
[SPEAKER_12]: I'd be in favor of that. Maybe the doodle poll is the way to go. Yeah, I'll do that.
[SPEAKER_14]: Yeah. Okay. So we'll, we'll just have to send out a doodle poll for a social meeting and hopefully by our next meeting, we'll know what what day that that will be.
[Joan Cyr]: And I are on it, we will find a suitable place where you can actually hear each other where you're having a conversation.
[SPEAKER_14]: Honestly, I really enjoyed the picnic at the Brooks Estate. That was really nice. Even though we did that by necessity in 2020, it was a nice, quiet, private place where we could.
[Doug Carr]: It's always available. And this will be a Heidi roast, by the way.
[Heidi Davis]: Oh! I think I might be on vacation that day. OK.
[SPEAKER_14]: So I just want to look ahead. So the next thing that's actually on the agenda, and I'll keep the calendar handy while we talk about that, is to celebrate our five years. This is our fifth year of making recommendations, of spending our money. And so I feel like it would be really great for us to be able to stand up and take credit for all of this hard work and throw a party for the whole community. So I think it would be great to have some ideas about where to do this, what are the parameters, who to invite, what kind of events do we want to try to have.
[Joan Cyr]: I feel like we need to look at our approved projects and see if there is a suitable location that we contributed to. Like the Brooks Estate?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Joan Cyr]: Brooks Estate is one, Harris Park is another. Harris Park is really fun because it's great for kids.
[SPEAKER_14]: And it was our first project that we funded.
[Joan Cyr]: It was our first project, that's right.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I feel like that labyrinth was a nice location.
[Theresa Dupont]: That was nice, too. And there's a good amount of parking there. That's true. I love Duggar Park, but there's not too much parking there.
[SPEAKER_14]: Harris Park doesn't have a lot of parking either. Yeah, that's true. The Condon Shell. No parking there, either.
[Theresa Dupont]: show.
[Reggie Graham]: The lot is closed.
[Theresa Dupont]: It's about to reopen. There's a lot to finish up that project. They took down one half of the fence. So at least the ground level, there's not a giant hole there anymore. I'm there every Saturday, if you want to come walk with my dog and me. But that could be a good location. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_14]: And I wonder when we should aim to have this. Maybe September would be a good time, not too hot and not too many vacations. Yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_14]: Oh, and Rice Pond is another place that we funded, so that could be another good place.
[Unidentified]: Plenty of parking.
[Joan Cyr]: I'm thinking that we have to pay attention to making sure that we have adequate facilities to have this event. So if we had it at the labyrinth, which also has the community garden fence that we did and the McGlynn playground there. There's a couple of different things over there and there's bathrooms inside. Or we could get porta potties or something. Same thing at the, the hat, the hat shell was for me, the condom shell, there's porta potties there, so. I wonder if Chevalier.
[Theresa Dupont]: They've done events for the city in the past, so. That would take care of bathrooms, you know, food and drink facilities.
[Joan Cyr]: True, but then we'd have to have I wonder what we could do in there. Like if we had it in an outdoor location, there's more opportunity to do things. I don't know. I don't even know what we would be doing.
[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, that's another question is like what kind of activities, food, music, like what was inspiring?
[SPEAKER_14]: I think we need to think on this. What would be a good way if we aim for a September event? What would be a good way to get ourselves thinking over the next month or two so that we have time to prepare?
[Theresa Dupont]: I can create like a Google form just to, you know, and start some ideas in there and just kind of see what everybody thinks about it. Like, if we want to do a picnic rated on one to five, I could build something out like that just to kind of get the thoughts going. What do you think, Joan? I think I'm cutting you off.
[Joan Cyr]: Yeah, the picnic would be a Berkshire State thing, I think. or what do you call it, the condom shell? I don't know. If you think about it, would we want to have any kind of, you know, I think about like the kids, what's her name, Medford Family Network always brings in that knuckle bones, you know, where they throw all this stuff on the lawn for the kids to play with and, you know. you know, are we looking to do things like that or simply like a barbecue kind of thing where we just, you know, maybe have some posters of the different things that we've done or, and, you know, use it as one of those sessions that we collect, you know, feedback or whatever. I don't know, let's, let's, yeah, put it, put out some kind of a Google form and start to think about it.
[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, I can do that.
[SPEAKER_14]: And I want to, But focus also on inviting all of our grantees to come and. So, we could instead of us doing all of the work to come up with activities. Ask the grantees to. Bring something that represents what it is that we funded. Yep.
[Joan Cyr]: And maybe they'll somehow incorporate whatever it is that they had done, you know, as a presentation or something. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_14]: So we might reach out to the grantees with plenty of time to plan and think about what they could bring that would like not be making too much work for them, but like give them a chance to show off. what they've done with our money. Okay, so that's the five-year celebration event. Remind me what's next on the agenda. I don't have the agenda.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Confirmation of new members or something like that on the agenda.
[SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, confirm it. Members who are, and I don't happen to remember offhand, who needs a reappointment? Who are the members who are not currently up to date on their appointment?
[Theresa Dupont]: I'm smiling pretty big over there.
[Doug Carr]: I think I got voted in or sent you something on that recently, that I was reappointed because not a soul on the historic commission was interested in going anywhere near this commission.
[SPEAKER_14]: I know Heidi has expressed a desire to be rotated off the committee after six years, so. So we need to recruit more people to serve on your boards, both of you who are willing to serve on the CPC. But in the meantime, I wish that I had remembered who are the committee members that we needed to confirm with. We can confirm via email later. Not me, I just got reconfirmed. You just got reconfirmed and Deb just got reconfirmed. And I think that I got reconfirmed last year, or if not, I should.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Okay, I think that's it.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, the CD board is still, we lost, was it Christie? Christie was on CD board. CD board has appointed a new person. Their name is Ari, and they're willing to step in, but it would be a temporary role for them because their bandwidth is only available for a short period of time. So to back Christie's position, So, up in the air, but that's kind of like a creative solution. So at least get some input for the next 3 or 4 months. Okay, they're, they're still seeking some CD boards. For the community development board, sorry for those who don't know my nomenclature.
[SPEAKER_14]: Okay, well, is that it for the agenda? I think we've covered everything that is on our agenda for this evening.
[Theresa Dupont]: So thank you all.
[SPEAKER_14]: Is there any other business that we want to cover? Reg, yes.
[Reggie Graham]: I'd like to make a motion to adjourn.
[SPEAKER_12]: You got to know when to hold them and know when to fold them. Heidi. Yes, please. Yes.
[Doug Carr]: Yes, I'm going to enjoy the table with Reg on that day. It's going to be entertaining. Yes.
[SPEAKER_14]: And myself, yes.
[Heidi Davis]: What about Matthew? Matthew?
[SPEAKER_07]: I'll have to think about it. Just give me a couple minutes. I got to really, really, really consider it. You need to go get a coffee is what it is.
[Matt Leming]: I guess I can vote yes, you know, if everybody else.
[Reggie Graham]: You're losing votes.
|
total time: 3.67 minutes total words: 341 |
|||