[Christopher Bader]: Well, we've got three. I'm not totally sure we need a quorum. I just wanted to consult everybody. So Joe, there are a couple of issues I wanted to resolve, and I just wanted to consult the whole commission before making any decisions. And basically I'd like our project for this fiscal year to be creating a South Street Historic District. And so that would involve having a public hearing, probably in our regular time slot, but maybe running over time-wise. that would involve hiring a consultant, probably Chris Skelly, and it would involve, it could involve creating a subcommittee to supervise, to sort of move the process along. So anyway, I just wanted to consult everybody.
[Zac Bears]: Who's on the phone?
[Unidentified]: PB, David Ensign — He's on mute. PB, David Ensign — He's on mute.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, well, anyway, so Joe, do you think that's a good use of our time and resources to do that? So I'll focus on South Street for the next few months or basically through this fiscal year? Sure, sounds great. Okay, great, great. I wanna form a subcommittee to, To do that, Chris Donovan has volunteered and I volunteer as well. Is that something you'd be interested in doing? It might be already, is that more of a time commitment than you want?
[Denis MacDougall]: What would the time commitment be?
[Christopher Bader]: Oh, I don't know, a couple hours a month.
[Denis MacDougall]: If it's okay, I'm willing to join on with that.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, great, great. So why don't we, Why don't we, oh, there's Chris.
[Zac Bears]: Hey, Chris.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Chris, you're muted there if you're trying to get on.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Hey, how are you? Hey, Chris, how are you?
[Zac Bears]: Pretty good. How about you? Good. Thank you.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, so we were just talking about, this is just, we're just talking, we don't have any applications, so this could be a very short meeting. And I just wanted to consult commission members on how to proceed on sort of a project for the year that I'd like to undertake, which is basically creation, if possible, of a South Street Historic District. Does that sound, and you volunteered, I think, to be on the subcommittee for that, is that correct?
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: I'd love to help make that happen.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, great, fabulous. Okay, so basically we actually do have a quorum, so we can vote and stuff. So basically the issues are, first of all, to proceed with a, uh south street historic district that include at the very least includes grandfather's house 21 touro and you guys uh do you guys chris and joe do you know how to look up stuff on so-called macris no uh yes yes i do oh okay joe do you know how to look up stuff on macris
[Denis MacDougall]: I haven't done it, but I'm sure I could learn.
[Christopher Bader]: Yes, it's pretty easy. You just Google Macris Massachusetts or something like that, and it will come up. And you have to click, yes, I accept and blah, blah, blah. And then you can search for 21 Turo. And the search engine is pretty darn primitive. So you have to enter, for example, the street number and the street name separately. I've never seen that anywhere else. But yeah, so look up 21 Turo, it's T-O-U-R-O, named for one of the first Jewish settlers of Medford. And that was a house that was a source of a lot of contention a few years ago. I had intended to create a historic district, but something happened on the way to the bylaws and it never got incorporated. The historic district was never created. Same with Grandfather's House. And then I would also like to include 10 Manning Street, which is Sharon Guzik's house. It's a late Victorian, you know, very typical sort of upper middle-class house of that period. But the thing is South Street has lots of, you know, pre-1900 buildings, you know, probably 50. or let's say 20. Anyway, I think it's a very worthwhile project. And so I just like to get the commission's blessing and going forward with that to authorize some funds for hiring a consultant because I'm a volunteer and so are all of us. So the consultant's job would be, first of all, to have a completely independent look at the what the possible boundaries of the commission should be, of the district should be. And secondly, and then work with us and possibly with the, and work with the residents to determine boundaries that are more, that are feasible. Um, and then secondly, to write a report that among other things, uh, that describes the district and its buildings and also justifies the boundaries as a coherent, uh, as a coherent, uh, entity. And finally, the subcommittee, um, So Chris and Joe, you guys have both volunteered. Do you think it's appropriate to have a residence as members of the subcommittee as well, or maybe non-voting members? What do you think? Well, it'd be nice to have Sharon involved if she's willing to- With a little arm twisting, I persuaded Sharon to I don't know if she's willing to, she's willing to be on this subcommittee, but, you know, maybe she could be, well, she's certainly willing to attend meetings and, you know, so I would like, you know, just you guys blessing on including some residents.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: I have a couple of thoughts if I can, Chris.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: via zoom would we yes yes i think we'll be doing it via zoom okay if i if i could interject i think to really get something sort of done i think we need to press the flesh i think we need to put some work in front of us yeah and then and then and almost this campaign to invite other people in for this, maybe not initially, but I think the idea is to really, you know, get this celebrated as something really spectacular and not just sort of a logistical, you know, paperwork thing, but something really for the city to be, you know, on top of. The city's got to get behind this wholeheartedly.
[Christopher Bader]: Absolutely. Absolutely. And we need to not lobby not only the residents, but also the city council. We need five votes on city council to make this happen.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: I think we've got goodwill there. Chris, if I could ask about the residents, how can I do a house-by-house paper drive to do that? What's needed to be done to get the residents in and how many do we need?
[Christopher Bader]: Well, there are two issues. First of all, we should have in the law, if you look at Chapter 40C, which governs historic districts, We need to have a public hearing with appropriate notice. I think it's 60 days. Is that right, Fred? I'm not sure.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: I think it's at least 60 days, yeah.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, yeah. So we should schedule a public meeting.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Christopher Bader]: And we may or may not want to have that in person. I welcome you guys' input on that. And yeah, we should press the flesh.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'm also off of that. So my question, I guess, is if we meet in person, when we've done this before, we have to comply with the open meeting laws and have it in a public place and all that sort of stuff. Is that still the case here with this subcommittee?
[Christopher Bader]: Oh, the subcommittee, no. No, we did not need, we did not need to comply with open meeting laws for a subcommittee.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Okay. How's your solid on that? I don't know.
[Christopher Bader]: I'm just asking. I will consult, you know, there are going to be people who are going to threaten to sue and la la la. So, you know, we should consult the, what do you call it? City solicitor.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: But I know another one, we did a subcommittee for, I forget the CPA or something.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: We did have to meet in public places so that it was, it was open to members of the public and not that you get a lot of people coming by, but just there was the opportunity. So we had to have an accessible space and we, that was a bit of a challenge finding an accessible space that, you know, the wheelchair can get into.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: You know, maybe the new library might have. We could meet, but we should, we should sort of think that through as we move ahead here.
[Christopher Bader]: Right. Okay. So I think I. I think, I don't think I communicated. Clearly what I, what I thought, I don't think the meetings of the subcommittee need to be. In person. What should be in person, which might, we might want to have in person. is the public hearing.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Well, but my memory serves me and correct me if I don't mean to be a stickler on this, but if the three of us, we can all vote on something in private and it goes on. And that was the concern that it had to be a public venue so that if we discuss something and God forbid voted on something, it would be part of the public record, that's all. So it seems to me we've run into that as an issue on other sort of things that have come before us.
[Christopher Bader]: The governor's authorization of virtual public meetings extends through, I think, do you know what this is, Dennis? I think it extends through March or April, right?
[Denis MacDougall]: Yeah, it's the last day of March next year. Last day of March. Yeah. With subcommittees, as long as the subcommittee is less than a quorum, that's usually OK. For you guys, a three-person subcommittee, because Historical has that as well. They have a subcommittee just set up for architectural review.
[Unidentified]: And they just meet up and they discuss those sort of things. But then. Yes.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: We lost you there. Yeah, well, that's my recollection of it as well. And so the four of us here, we have a quorum and so that might not. I don't know. I don't want to fly.
[Christopher Bader]: So I'm happy to. Or no, but. This is an open public meeting. It was announced publicly and. You know, anybody.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Subcommittee meeting.
[Christopher Bader]: Right. We might want to make those, I will consult the city solicitor. But we might want to make those public as well. It's not a big deal.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and we've met with other things I've been involved, you know, you may need to meet at a church, meet at the library, meet at the community center or something just so that if someone walking by could just come in and join the conversation.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: The local history room is really a beautiful room too. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to get together to see the plans, see the maps, see the thing. It's a little hard digitally online, but when I see stuff sort of spread out on a desk and get some sort of grasp of the whole thing, it makes me feel a little bit more comfortable. That's my way of learning.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. At any rate, yeah, we can talk about that. And yeah, I mean, thinking just, you know, thinking about it right now, it seems to me that yeah, we should probably have the committee, the subcommittee meetings to be open meetings, because again, there are gonna be lawsuits and people saying, you know, why didn't I know about this and blah, blah, blah.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: So we gotta do it by the book, absolutely.
[Christopher Bader]: By the book is the absolute way, the best way to do this. So, yes. So let's just do those as open meetings. I think that's a great idea.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: I have a couple of ideas for that, but if I can wait to the subcommittee, if you want to break it down, they are about disseminating the ideas.
[Christopher Bader]: Sure, sure, sure, sure. Okay. A few other things. I'm going to meet with the, I don't think Chris and Joe, you were here for this, but I'm going to meet with the mayor on Tuesday. And you guys, you know, when you meet with the mayor, you don't get to choose the time. She chooses the time. So the time is noon on Tuesday. If you guys want to attend, you know, you take, you know, during your lunch hour or whatever, you know, that would, I think more, you know, there's strength in numbers. It's coming Tuesday, Chris, you said? It's coming Tuesday at noon. I can send you guys the Zoom invite. Thank you. Yes, I will do that. Basically what I'm gonna, Chris Skelly is gonna run through the same presentation he gave to us. And we'll be have two, they seem to be called asks now. One is we want some funding for City Hall support. I mean, we have Dennis, you know, and I appreciate your, your hosting these meetings, Dennis, but we, you know, we would like support for, you know, taking minutes and issuing, certificates appropriateness and publishing agendas and all that sort of thing. A lot of commissions have that and we don't.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: And it's- Chris, I think to add onto that, I think there's a lot of social media and things that have to happen in the next couple of months. And I'd like to see this happen sooner than later. So I think a really big social media push and there's a lot of maybe pamphleting and things like that, some paper products. I definitely see some expenses that are gonna do it right.
[Christopher Bader]: Absolutely. I mean, we have to, but all that is with the caveat that we never want to hear anyone say, well, I didn't hear about this till now, right? That's the gotcha that sinks a lot of these projects. And we don't want residents saying that. So we want to, you know, get the, get the public hearing out of the way as quickly as possible. But yes, I agree. Absolutely. We want to do door to door. We want, we want volunteers. We want to do door to door, and we can talk about that as part of the subcommittee. The second ask is, Gosh, what was the second part of the? The strategies for creating local historic districts. And just to make sure, just to, we want Chris to present his, Chris Kelly, that is, to present his ideas about how to create a local historic district and how to communicate and what works, what doesn't work. If anybody has experience in this, it's him. And also to communicate to the mayor that we definitely intend to proceed with the South Street Historic District. And as Chris says in his presentation, as presumably he will say again on Tuesday, it's a political process. There's no secret formula to it.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: I agree completely, yeah.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, great.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: My problem is Chris, Chris, and Chris, there's three Chris's here, it's gonna be very confusing, so. Yes, yes, yes.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, we should all change our names. Yeah, yeah.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: We can have Chris B, Chris D, and Chris S, I guess. We're gonna have to start differentiating everybody.
[Christopher Bader]: So, Yeah, so that's, do you think, do we need to vote on any of this stuff? What do you think, Fred?
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: I think we should vote to proceed with establishing a subcommittee for a single house, or a historic district for South Street. I think we should vote on that. Okay. I make a motion that we create a subcommittee to explore possibilities for a South Street local historic district.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, second? Can I have a second, Joe or Chris? I second the motion. Okay, all in favor? I have to call the roll because it's a virtual meeting. It's just a technicality. Fred? Aye. Joe? Yes. Chris? Yes. Okay, and I vote yes. So carried unanimously, and we have a quorum. So that's great. Now funds, we should probably vote on that too. I would like to, we have a $5,000 budget and I think, I don't really see us spending it on anything else.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: So I would like- I've got a couple of ideas to spend the money, but it's these ideas to promote the, to people, to get them involved and to include them in. Happy to reference them now if you'd like, but happy to hold on to the subcommittee as well. Okay, well, are these... So I think the idea is for the district, it has to have a narrative. People have to know what it's all about. They don't really understand what it's all about. We've got grandfather's house in there, plus the whole ship maritime building, of course, Judea Trudeau, Truro is huge. Do you know how he died? I just found out how he died the other day. No, no. He was on a carriage standing up to see Lafayette. and the carriage took off underneath him, and he fell and had complications. But it's got to do with Lafayette being in town, and he wanted to see him from on high. But he's got a tremendous footprint, so Judeo-Turo, as well as shipbuilding, as well as the architectural elements. So my thought was to create some kind of storyline about what's going on and everyone's got to sign in on historical society, the mayor's office. It's got to be something where everyone goes, wow, I didn't know that's what happened down there. Fishwares for the Native American Indians, that kind of stuff. So the other idea was, I've had that historic Medford trolley that I did some tour buses over the summer. So what if we did one for maybe the neighbors on that and get 30 people on it, no charge, and show them a little bit of the history, but I'm going to do something for Jingle Bells, the Victorian stroll, planning that anyways. But if there's a way that you want to use that as to say, hey, we'll go right now.
[Christopher Bader]: So what would be the expense involved in there?
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: I can get it for the cost of the bus driver. That's like 300 bucks a shot. So the thing, I could probably get it subsidized too, but let's say $1,000, we can get three bus rides. Victorian Stroll sponsored by the Historic District Commission. I don't know what's legal, what we can and can't do, but the idea is an awareness campaign that we can promote. And it's talking about the history of that area to get people in conversation mode.
[Christopher Bader]: Sure, okay, so here's an idea, because I wanna get down to brass tacks as far as the numbers for the consultant are concerned. How does 3,500 for consulting strike people? Does that seem like a reasonable amount? There's a lot of work here. There's first of all, looking at the inventory and deciding what the boundary should be. And then there's writing. you know, probably a 30, 40 page report.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: And Chris, how is that broken down? Like, is it total? Like, do we have things for him to kind of do, or is it 3,500? And then we kind of have him at our disposal for questions and things like that. How does that work?
[Christopher Bader]: He's, you know, we've just wrapped up a contract with him. You know, the last part of it will be his presentation with the mayor. And he was very flexible about saying, oh, no, no, no, you know, you know, he was always available when I wanted to talk to him. We had a couple of run-throughs before the presentation for the commission. He's a very reasonable guy. And I asked him, is there going to be an additional charge for the presentation? And he said, no, no, that comes with the territory. Right, so I think he's a reasonable guy.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: I think if we have someone with experience who's been there, seen the problems, can navigate around, give some timeline, I think it's really important to have that. I'm not really pro consultants, but I know we're kind of new at this and there may be a couple of different districts coming on the pike. So early money could help us later on too. So I'm gonna have to get some money away for Chris, the consultant. Okay, so are you... I'm for setting aside some money to have it for a consultant that we can access via you for some questions, because I'd like to kind of get down there in South Street, start hitting the ground with some people and seeing some pamphlets and let them know what's going on. There's talk on the ground, but I don't know what steps to take first.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, so maybe we want him to submit a formal proposal about what he would do. and what he's in charge.
[Zac Bears]: Does that sound right?
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, so I will ask him for that.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: And... So one question I have related to that, Chris, in terms of the scope for Chris Skelly is, in his presentation, he mentioned the idea of having a booklet of what the guidelines are within the district, you know, of what you can and can't do. Just so it was written down and we had sort of a you know, a paper document to lay our hats on when people came in front of us. Would that be something he could think about?
[Christopher Bader]: He can probably, yes, work on that as well. That's another job for a consultant, absolutely. I think our FAQ as it stands, or on our website generally, you know, it's been redesigned from a graphics standpoint, but the content is basically the same as it's been with some updates to the FAQ. And it kind of puts people off. We noticed that with the house at Cotting Street, 78 Cotting, I think is the number. They were very put off by the FAQ and we don't want that.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there's a way to do it. But I think the concept is, you know, if your house is in a historic district, you have to have some expectation of what the historic district commission is gonna look at and how they might go. So, you know, just saying, and what'd you do with the windows? What'd you do with the siding? What'd you do with the roof? You know, whatever.
[Christopher Bader]: No, no, I'm not saying the FAQ doesn't have to be there, but there also has to be some, sort of more resident-friendly discussion of the advantage of being in the historic district.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Chris did a nice job. Chris did a nice job in some of his graphics. I saw a little bit of the presentation. I want to go through it all in more detail. But some of those questions that everybody wants to ask, is this going to hurt me? Am I going to have to paint my house a certain color? Those basic questions that should be almost in this sort of simplistic pamphlet. No, we're not going to. Chris, I think one of your favorite lines, you've never said no to anyone. Some kind of like, we're just looking to kind of support it and the value of your house. And I guess the value is gonna be maintained by everyone else around you supporting that cause, right? So we're not trying to limit you, but we're just trying to keep everyone on the same page to keep us from having something that's out of the box and changing the dynamic of that. Yeah. So, Chris, is there anything going on with the Method Square district too? I know we can do them in parallel.
[Christopher Bader]: I just don't want to bite off more than we can chew. Understood. I think that's a big deal. And since I'd like to get Charlotte involved, she's a mover and shaker in Medford. She's a former head of the Chamber of Commerce. I think that will really carry some weight with all those guys who will build commercial buildings in Bedford Square. And I really want to consult her on how to proceed there.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: And you feel like South Street's a nice bite-sized project we can kind of get done.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I agree. Both Chris's that, you know, if we could accomplish something, however small, with this South Street district, you know, that would, that would give us some credibility moving forward. If we, I think so, because we haven't created a district in the city in 20 years.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: So it's been Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris Bader, do we have any, um, uh, mutual relationship with the Historical Society or the Historical Commission to ask, or is it all us grabbing macros, you know, stuff to get our information? Can we have anyone kind of help us with maybe a deep dive of what goes on that area and maybe spend a little focus on that, some academia or scholarship on that? We've got Tufts accessible, and I always feel like I've got a thousand books around me and I got to start digging in there. I go, those people have to know all this information. I got that beautiful architectural book about Medford, but I just wonder if we can get a quick, faster snapshot of some of those houses with more depth.
[Christopher Bader]: The Historical Society certainly has resources at our disposal. For example, they have a huge library of photographs. They have many more photographs than the Massachusetts Historical Commission. And I actually have, John Anderson sent me a bunch of photos, most of which I posted on the website. But yeah, so they are a good source for information about particular houses and who lived in them and history, you know, photographs through time from the beginning of photography to the present.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Um, and can I make a motion, Krista, to ask them or invite them to, you know, I don't know what. put together a little package of what we're doing, but we have to kind of give them the guidelines, of course. But is there any way to kind of reach out to them and say, can you give us a dump, a brain dump of anything institutional, you know, in the archives?
[Christopher Bader]: Well, I don't think it has to be that formal, Chris. I know John Anderson very well, and he is the head of the Historical Society. So I think whatever he has, whatever the society has, is at our disposal within reason. Sounds good.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: I see on some of their newsletters, sometimes it's a beautiful article on some small facet. It's just so in-depth and so detailed. I go, wow, that's a great insight. So I don't really have the insights on all those things other than just little stories of each of those homes and what that part of the river was. But when I find more scholarship on that, which I don't know how much there is on those houses.
[Christopher Bader]: Oh, there's plenty.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Believe me. I bet.
[Christopher Bader]: So if we could at least invite them, I'll let them know that that's, you know, just go down to, you know, they're volunteers. I think they're open every weekend. You know, you can just go down there.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: I was like, I mean, it's, it's, yeah, I found the library more open inviting for, for, for doing that deep dive.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, the library has stuff too. And in fact, the library has very, has essentially unique maps of Metro through time. So yeah, both of those are accessible. If you need an intro to John Anderson, I can provide that. And as far as the Historical Commission is concerned, they have said that we're pretty much on our own for creating local historic districts. They don't want to get involved in that process.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Not so much the districts, but just the narrative and the storyline of each of those houses in that area to create, because I'm happy to help when I'm a media producer, a little short story, a little something simple, but I think it gives people a quick snapshot.
[Christopher Bader]: I can introduce you to Doug Carr as well. He's a very nice guy. He's an architect, very nice guy, and he's very active on the historical commission.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Did anybody go to that? Here's the Brooks piece. He did a Brooks piece at the library last night, but it was spectacular.
[Christopher Bader]: Really? I didn't know. I didn't hear about it at the time.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Yeah, we need to hear that because it's about the Brooks art and Doug Carr is an expert at that.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, he, no, he's a good guy. and very public service oriented.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: So I'd like to just go to Macris and learn as much as I can about those particular places when they come to the subcommittee meeting.
[Christopher Bader]: So basically, you know, as I say, be prepared to deal with a few eccentricities like entering the street number and street name separately. which is just so bizarre. But yeah, once you've got past its little kinks, it's a very useful resource.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Do you have a date and timeline? So can we try and set the, what's the 60 days for what, a public hearing? Can we try and get on that? In the meantime, we'll build that case.
[Christopher Bader]: I want to first meet with the mayor on Tuesday. and get her blessing and hopefully get Fred and Charlotte reappointed and, you know, work out a time for everybody that would be good for a public hearing on, you know, we don't want to interfere with Christmas or Thanksgiving. So, you know, there's a number of factors that need to be considered. But yeah, you're right, let's definitely get going on scheduling that within the next week, I'd say.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: And then what do you think about the subcommittee?
[Christopher Bader]: As far as the subcommittee is concerned, we've already voted to establish it.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Let's see. I'm wondering when I can just start talking about it with the full knowledge of what's happening. And I gotta get to my own due diligence on it. But I'd love to start talking and walking.
[Christopher Bader]: Have you read 40C, chapter 40C of Mass General Laws?
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: I've gone a little bit, but I'll go to the details of it. The devil's in the deep. Be well-versed in it.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, okay. And we need to comply with the letter of the law because there are gonna be very, very vocal opponents to this. And we need to make sure and the city solicitor and they're going to be contacting the city solicitor if they're irritated, which they will be. And we have to make sure that we, you know, we have the city solicitor on board, and blah, blah, blah.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: So I would recommend Chris D and Joe, I think I sent you Chris, excuse me, sorry, the little pamphlet that says how to create a local historic district. And I think yes, yes, a little chart at the last page. That's a whole secret sauce for how to do it. Yep. We just have to re familiarize ourselves and start making sure we're hitting every one of those little bullet points of what to do and when to do it.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, yeah, absolutely. Does everybody have that? Can you send that to everybody? I think I have it somewhere, Fred. Can you send that up?
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Excuse me.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Chris Bader, what do you think the biggest pushback from, you said, vocal opponents? Because it seems like it's not really a big deal to have it and a big deal not to have it. But what do you think of people pushing back? Do you think it's really kind of a homeowner who wants to expand their house and thinks that they're going to be limited through construction issues?
[Christopher Bader]: The shorter answer is, I don't know, except for the fact that we got a lot of pushback on the Fourth Street Historic District. Partly it's gonna be developers. And we wanna make, we want to, as a political strategy, we probably wanna make, you know, clarify who's a developer and who's a resident. And to say, you know, of course, you know, we have input from everyone, but it's really residents and that are, that we're gonna listen to. So, but we are gonna get some pushback. So we'll get, we're certainly getting a pushback from developers. We may also get pushback from residents who want the option, you know, whether they're, you know, gonna retire to Florida or whatever, not that you would want to retire to Florida these days, but, you know, and they want to sell off their house for big bucks and a developer, they want to be, you know, a developer to say, oh, yeah, well, we can give you a million dollars for that. And people are afraid that that's gonna jeopardize their retirement nest egg. Or, you know, maybe they wanna pass the money to their kids or what have you. So people are, I think the main concern is financial, but also people just don't want people messing with them, right? And nobody likes to be regulated. That's what real conservative is about. It's like, just get off my back, right? I understand that. We have to say, no, no, there is some regulation that has to be dealt with, but we make it as easy as possible. We have never said no to anyone as long as I've been chairman. And, you know, Basically, we're kind of pussycats and we try to accelerate the process. We try to get expedite handling of applications. I've really worked at trying to get things approved within 30 days.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Chris, I wonder if documenting some of those experiences that people have had good experiences with, you know, the historical, historical society, historical commission, historical district commission, we can list any of those as, you know, wins or see how easy it was or we're working together, you know, kind of ideas.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, that's a great idea. Totally fabulous idea. And yeah, we just, we don't want, I think some people are scared. They're scared financially and they're scared about unnecessary and burdensome regulation. I think those are the two main concerns. And then there are developers who are guarding their wallets. And they have the right to say something, but their interest is not a compelling one in my mind. And the city council, we need city council. This doesn't happen without five votes. So, you know, we want to make sure that we have their ears as well. And we want to probably want to talk to each person, you know, maybe we want to talk to each person on city council and say, you know, this is what we want to do. And we want your support.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: I can't think of at least three or four of them that are really strong history supporters, but of course their constituents, you know, may think differently.
[Christopher Bader]: And, you know, this is totally a, not a, you know, an old Medford versus new Medford or liberal versus conservative issue. This is something that really, you know, cuts across, like Bob Penta is the most conservative person I've ever met, but, you know, he's very pro historical preservation.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Yeah, I think on both sides of the aisle, from what I've seen, they've been pretty, you know, wanting to see more.
[Christopher Bader]: This is really not, you know, red, blue, whatever you wanna call it kind of issue. And we're not even against development. We can talk about that, like how we worked on Seven Hillside. That was before you guys joined the commission, but we spent months working with the developer on Seven Hillside to come up with a plan that was historically appropriate and allowed him to make a lot of money.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Is Seven Hillside the sacred heart?
[Christopher Bader]: No, 7th Hillside is the, you know where the CVS parking lot is on High Street?
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Yeah, yeah.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, wait a minute.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: I'm sorry, I'm thinking Hillside, the top Hillside course, yes. Yeah, so what was up there?
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, there was and is a big, big Victorian house right above the parking lot. Correct. Okay. They expanded it substantially. Correct. They turned it into high-end condominiums. Oh. And we supervised, they welcomed our input. They came to us at least three or four times.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: They cleaned up the wall and the driveway is spectacular right now. They've made a major difference.
[Christopher Bader]: They did that hand in glove with us. We met, you know, we spent half the year on it. I mean, from a standpoint of volunteer, it was actually kind of exhausting because, oh yeah, 7 Hillside again, you know, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, each month, each meeting for months, we met with these guys and they wanted, we had detailed input and they wanted our, feedback, and they did it mainly what we wanted. And the result I think is great. You know, so to say that we're kind of anti-development or that you can't make money as a developer working with this strategic vision is nonsense. And I'm proud of the result, actually. Fred was the one who did most of the work on that.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: It looks beautiful. It really transformed that area. You don't really notice it at first glance, but I saw it changing and it just got better and better.
[Christopher Bader]: So we're not anti-development. That is the perfect example of development that we encourage. And, you know, the Victorians were not anti-development either.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Do you see any kind of signage for, say, the South Street Historic District, any kind of, you know, something to put up?
[Christopher Bader]: We will put up a sign, you know, once it's established, saying, you know, entering the South Street Historic District. and we might put up a little uh we could probably do some kind of plaque like the Lafayette plaque uh that just explains uh you know what the South Street Historic District is and talks about Grandfather's House, talks about Abraham Touro um and maybe other people that I'm not aware of um the uh You know, so yeah, there's definitely an educational component to this and that could and probably should involve signage. Okay, so I will schedule a meeting of the subcommittee right after meeting with the mayor. I hope you guys can make it to the meeting with the mayor and I'll send you all the invites. Fred, you're gonna send out the starting historical strategic process, right? Yeah. Okay. One of the things I don't want, by the way, one of the things I don't want to do, but what, of course I would leave it to the subcommittee really to decide is I don't want to start out with a survey saying, do you, you know, do you want, do you want your house in historic district where we'll lock you down and, you know, keep you from making money on your, on your house and keep you from making changes? No, no. Chris has definitely said, And this is where he's a bit invariance with the pamphlet that Fred is going to send us is that the pamphlet suggests doing a survey first. I don't think that's a good idea at all. I think we want to have a public meetings first and we want to hear what people have to say. But to start out with a survey where, you know, you know, we would have to release the results. And when they say, well, you know, 40%, 40 or 50 or 60 or whatever percent oppose this. So you should just kill the idea right now. We don't want that.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: How wide in that, Chris, do you think we should spread for the residents in that area?
[Christopher Bader]: We should do it. We should do it quite wide. In fact, we should invite, to the extent that we can, we should invite everybody in Medford. Because this is not just about South Street, this is about Medford. And that's why the city council votes on it. We don't take a referendum in the district. That's not how these things work. And we want to avoid even the suggestion that it is. Yeah, we want as many people, hopefully people who agree that a historic district for South Street is a good idea. but probably a lot of them don't. And a lot of those people who don't like it are developers and we welcome their input, but we want them to clarify that they are developers. And what they were interested in is exactly that they're speaking as developers who may or may not be residents of Medford.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: And if they are going to develop in those areas, we want to have them engaged in helping out the community.
[Christopher Bader]: Absolutely. In fact, we should really I should look back at the minutes for the seven hillside thing and maybe we can contact the developer there. What do you think, Fred?
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: In terms of feedback from the districts we do have, we could probably reach out to many of the people who have been in front of us and get a little I don't know, endorsement or at least a little statement.
[Christopher Bader]: You know. What we want people to say is this was way easier than I thought.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: If you can kind of focus on those things, I'm happy to pull them all together and try and grab them. If you give me those examples, I'll secretary them out and try and fill that out, flush that out.
[Christopher Bader]: That'd be great.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: So subcommittee meeting next.
[Christopher Bader]: Yes, so I will, right after the meeting with the mayor, I will schedule a meeting of the subcommittee and the first order of business for the subcommittee, well, the first order of business of the subcommittee will be to meet and decide what the first order of business is, but I would suggest that it be setting the date for the public hearing as required by 40C. Sounds good. Okay, anybody have anything else? Okay, well, I think we're done. I'm very glad we had this meeting. Thank you for your input. Thank you, Joe and Chris, for volunteering. And I'll be in touch in the next week. And please try to make a meeting with the mayor.
[Maryanne Adduci]: Hi there.
[Christopher Bader]: Yes, hi.
[Maryanne Adduci]: I'm on the phone.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, who's calling?
[Maryanne Adduci]: This is Mary Anna Ducey at 2 Nod Street. I've just listened to your meeting, and I'd like to add something to it if you have a minute.
[Christopher Bader]: We do.
[Maryanne Adduci]: Okay. You're going to make, considering making South Street a historic district, you probably already know this, but diagonally across from South Street is West Street, and that was the root of the Middlesex Canal. Do you know that? Love it, love it. The reason I know this is I used to work with a guy that was on the Middlesex Canal Commission, asked me where I lived, and he says, oh, you're on the Middlesex Canal. So he gave me a copy of the surveyed map that was done maybe 20 years ago when they set up the Middlesex Canal Commission. And anyway, so I called the Middlesex Canal Association, and I actually went up to Billerica to look at their museum. And they took a video, and they showed it there. I don't know if you're familiar with West Street, but there's a spot there that's got no houses. There's a bend in the road because it's very narrow there. The river is right there. And they showed that in the video. So anyway, make a long story short, I said to the Middlesex Canal, would you people like to put a marker up here? I said, because there's a marker on Boston Ave near where the river intersects with Boston Ave there. But that's actually some of all so I said would you people like to put a marker up here because I'd like to have a marker because the canal flowed right in front of my house and they said sure but they had no money so I So make a long story short. I would volunteer to pay for a marker here for the middle six canal but the middle six canal is actually a continuation of where South Street was because it's diagonally across and The Middlesex Canal actually didn't flow up South Street, it flowed between South Street and Summer Street, but then they built over that area. So anyway, make a long story short, would you people consider extending that into the West Street area to also mark the historic past of South Street, but also mark that the West Street area all the way from with the street up to where it intersects with North Street is the exact route of the Middlesex Canal. It's not a particular house we're talking about, it's actually the street itself is the route of the canal.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, that could be part of the signage for creating for the historic district, absolutely.
[Maryanne Adduci]: And I'm actually the one that brought up 78 Carding Street, because at the time that the Middlesex Canal was built here, Abigail Adams father on the farm that was 78 calling Street actually owned all this land including land on South Street and they're the ones that signed over the portion of their land to build the Middlesex Canal This was done in the 1790s. It was probably even preceded the building that was done on South Street So it's even older than South Street. I'm sure sure, so so I don't know, what do you think? Do you think you could consider expanding this South Street district to include West Street? And maybe even we could, after a while, talk to the people at 78 Carding Street and get them on board here to, you know, once you start talking about the historic district and what its, you know, limitations are or no limitations or whatever it is, they might come on board.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Chris, if I may. Yes, please. Yeah. How are you, darling? That's so wonderful. You're really insightful. You understand a lot about that history. Abigail Adams, Middlesex Canal, that's really big narratives and it's definitely needs to be brought out in Medford. So I thank you for doing that. The historic district stuff seems to be so house-by-house specific that really needs to be, and I may be wrong, Chris, almost every house has to be vetted for something. It's not just a big net, but we can talk about that. But I get a guy named Jay Green over at the Middlesex Canal who would love to speak with you.
[Maryanne Adduci]: Yeah. He's actually the president. I've talked to him. He's actually come down to my house here.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Correct. We just had a bike ride last week, went all through Medford, all the way up to Lowell. So they're invested. If you want to stay focused with that, I'm sure Jay can help you.
[Maryanne Adduci]: But the historic district- He's actually pushed back. He said he's on board with it, but he said this has to come through the city of Medford.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: He says, I can't- We'll start a fight. But for the historic district, Chris, could you tell her a little bit about how each house, it can't be like a neighborhood. It's house by house.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, so, so the historic district commission focuses on protecting designated historic houses. I, we don't have a portfolio for the whole city of Medford. The historical commission on the other hand, just a second, the historical commission as their portfolio, the entire city of Medford. And you should probably be talking to them as well as to us.
[Maryanne Adduci]: Well, actually at one point I asked them and they said, no, it wasn't theirs. It wasn't their responsibility. I mean, it didn't fall under their umbrella. If you wanna pin it to a house, the Middlesex Canal here. It's actually 78 Cotting Street because they're the only house that was here when they built the Middlesex Canal.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. We've gotten a lot of opposition from the 78 Cotting, from the owners, and they may come around at some point, but I think we wanna focus on South Street for the time being.
[Maryanne Adduci]: Yeah, all right. Well, just keep in mind that I would be willing to pay for a marker here for the Middlesex Canal. And I have, back when Jay Breen came down here, he said, well, where would you put it? Well, I don't know if you're familiar with my intersection where West Street, Carding Street, North Street, and Auburn Street come together. There's a little triangular square there that's got a monument there. It's called Leahy Square. It's a memorial to a World War I soldier who actually lived at the last house on West Street, who died in the war, so they put up this memorial there. But the tombstone, if you will, is only at the pointy part of the square there. There's probably room on that little grassy patch to put a marker there that says the Middlesex Canal came through this. But anyway, you people know the mechanics of how to get this done. I'm willing to pay for it. I'm willing to have it done here. But you people gotta tell me what to do or how to do it.
[Christopher Bader]: I mean, the short answer is I don't know.
[Maryanne Adduci]: but uh, listen, why don't why you don't have to give me an answer tonight you you've I've told you what I want to do you can Research it figure it out and get back to me.
[Zac Bears]: Sure.
[Maryanne Adduci]: Sounds great Okay, all right And and chris you you i've sent you letters about the 78 cardi street. So, you know how to read me, right?
[Christopher Bader]: Yes, I do. Yeah.
[Maryanne Adduci]: All right.
[Christopher Bader]: All right.
[Maryanne Adduci]: Thanks Okay, right. Well, it was interesting. It was interesting. It was interesting. Listen to your conversation tonight. Um, um Yeah, I'm excited about you setting up a district here and maybe, as you said, you haven't decided the boundaries of this district. So maybe it will end up as far as up to my house, who knows?
[Christopher Bader]: Yep, absolutely.
[Maryanne Adduci]: All right, okay, thanks for the info. Okay, bye-bye.
[Christopher Bader]: All right, bye-bye now. Okay, so let's see, I think we're done. I'm gonna send out, as I mentioned before, I'm gonna send out invites. I'll see what people's schedules are and we'll set up the first meeting of the subcommittee as soon as possible. And of course we have the meeting with the mayor on Tuesday. And that's pretty much it. Can I have a motion to adjourn?
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Motion to adjourn.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, second. okay okay all in favor press okay okay we're set okay talk to you guys soon right bye
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