[Henry Miller]: All right, so let's reflect today's January 11th, if I'm not mistaken, that's Friendship International Day, in case you didn't know, okay? Look at everybody say, you didn't know that. I can tell. So this is the first meeting of the year for the Medford Welcoming committee will call this meeting to order. All of you receive a draft agenda from Lisa. I don't know if there's anybody look at it, if there's any suggested amendment, any suggested, any change, any addition to the agenda that was presented. None?
[Pam Kelly]: No.
[Henry Miller]: Seeing there's none, so I move for an acceptance of the agenda. I'll make a motion. Looking for a motion to accept the agenda.
[Pam Kelly]: I'll make a motion to accept the agenda as received.
[Henry Miller]: Motion as received. Do I have a second? I'll second it. Then a second. All in favor. So it's just you and I, Kevin. Aye. You say aye, right? Aye. The agenda is accepted. I know Lisa sent a third item. Before I proceed on that one, that may not be on it, but I think we should revisit it a little bit before we jump on this one, Pam. Pam, that's a good question, and I really love that question. It's the fact it says, You know, how long do you have the chair and the vice chair? Because currently, Pam and I are chair and vice chair, and we've been there since, I believe, on January 13, 2021, okay? When we were nominated to serve as, so We can take that as a motion and discuss it because I'll be more than happy to step down and let somebody else take it. You know, I have no problem. I will, I will do whatever it's in your, the best interest of this, I think. Go ahead, Pam.
[Pam Kelly]: Henry, my conversation wasn't so much to make a change because obviously we don't have many people on our board, our commission, but more as who is our official secretary? Is it Lisa? Because when Patty was secretary, she moved and I wasn't sure if it could be Lisa or if it should be somebody else.
[Henry Miller]: That's a good thing. I think that's a good item. for the agenda for us to discuss how we want to proceed. And I know Lisa is such a good person, you know, she'll do anything we ask her to do. So that, yeah, is very good. Besides, after we lost, you know, Paddy, we know we had that concern and Lisa offered to take it over. I don't know if it's fair, in fairness, okay, to Lisa to ask her to do all that, you know, because I sneak from time to time to Lisa's office. I know how busy she is. I know, okay. She gotta give me time to talk to me when I walk in that office. That's another... Always, always, Henry. That's the thing you have to deal with. So I think it's just that if we can acquire more or other additional, or can we use, first of all, decide what we want to do and how we, the HIPAA.
[Pam Kelly]: But again, I don't know if there's any official bylaws or anything we have to go by.
[Henry Miller]: I was going to get to that point because that's one of the things this committee doesn't, we are not a commission. We are a committee. Okay. The committee was created and I was referring to some of the past meeting notes. And we saw at one point as a committee, we reached out to the mayor to find out what was the real objective Okay, what was the real mission of this committee, at least we have the base. Okay. The only thing I know legally by law that we are binded by is the fact we are binded with the open meeting law. Because when I explored that, I reached out to the attorney general. I had Lisa check with the city solicitor. We had one at that time. And we even checked with HR department. So we know that that's the only one I know. So we do need a secretary. If Lisa is willing to, as we, because one of the agenda we may have this year is to recruit other bodies. We need people to function. I'm not saying we're not doing what we need to do. I'm sure we can do a whole lot more. We are doing a lot because I sat there Saturday, you know, when I came back home, I didn't have nothing to do. I said, I'm going through what we've done for the past few years. If you don't look at it, you should tap yourself on the shoulder. We've done a lot. We've done a lot. But remember, everything we were doing right through during the pandemic. So we had limited access to do things, but we achieved a lot, you know? So I don't know how everybody feel about it. I can go one by one and say it. So far, Pam said what she wanted to. Danny, Kevin, I know you know. That's Kevin's second official meeting, right, with us?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think so, yeah.
[Henry Miller]: Yeah, so don't be afraid. I said that from the beginning. I know you know. But if you have something in mind, say it. So right now, we're trying to validate. Do we need to have? How do we have a secretary? okay to and is lisa willing to continue doing what she's doing so these are the two things on the table right now right so lisa yeah can you give us your thoughts will you continue as
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: I, yes, I will continue as the secretary. Um, I would like to maybe find a replacement, like maybe as more people join and maybe we can see if someone else would like to take it. Um, I don't mind doing it. It is just, it gets a little tight with me sometimes. Everything else I have going on, but, um, yeah, I'll, I'll continue to do it. You know, um, I was just going through and making, doing all the, uh, the dates for the upcoming meetings, but, um, Yeah, I'll do it until we can find a replacement.
[Henry Miller]: Okay. Yeah. Well, thank you, Lisa. I know she was going to say that, especially when I'm digging. I said, Lisa, where are the minutes?
[Pam Kelly]: Well, then my next question then is Kevin or Danny, would you want to be a secretary in this committee or do you want to wait for more people to join in?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I guess my question as a new member is what specifically does that entail?
[Pam Kelly]: note-taking, sending out the Zoom invite, you know. I can still do the Zoom invite.
[Henry Miller]: The Zoom invite will always be from Lisa. Yeah, because we have the account.
[Pam Kelly]: Creating the agenda and keeping notes so that it's mailed out before the next meeting.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then with Zoom, I mean, I know the hope is that we don't have to have it on Zoom forever, or I'm not sure, but as far as note-taking goes, are we allowed to use the Zoom transcript as the official minutes?
[Henry Miller]: Because the Zoom transcript is with Lisa. Right, but so- She probably would have, I don't know if she can always, you know, make arrangement to have that. I don't know if we can or cannot do it because it's a government thing, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, that's what I was asking.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know. That's a good question. I see that it's, the closed caption is enabled right now. I think- For the first time. Yeah, Medford Community Media must've switched that on, because I did not. So I'd be actually interested to see how accurate the transcript is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right. I mean, that's the thing. I think they're relatively accurate, but you know, it doesn't substitute for actual meaningful note-taking. I was just curious if like legally we would even be allowed to use that.
[Henry Miller]: Yeah, I don't know. I experienced well with Zoom, because I've been doing it for about three years now. I started to do Zoom before Medford implemented Zoom. I was one of the voice who reached out with city council and requested to have that. The thing is, believe it or not, the transcript is good. Oh, great. I've used them. I've used them. I do political things where I had to go on that transcript. But you know what's that with the transcript? It takes a lot of time to get what you want. OK, because you got to go through everything, you know, line by line. Oh, OK. Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Versus just like general concepts.
[Henry Miller]: Yeah. There's a time consuming on that. So that's the only thing I would say. The information is there. Okay, so that's another thing. Yeah.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Why don't we say like, you know, another month or so and whoever, if someone, you know, feels like they want to do it, that's fine. That's great. If not, then we, you know, if someone else joins and we can pitch that to them, you know, yeah.
[Henry Miller]: Yeah. It sounds good. Yeah. Danny, Kevin, it's good to me. Anytime Lisa speak, I listen. Okay. The next one. Okay. The next one was item three, we thought of meeting of the year. I think I sent a note to Lisa. I remember on March 30, March 10 last year, we took a vote. I don't know if it's something we're going to keep it in stone, okay? Or are we going to change it? Because somewhere down for, is there any specific reason that we thinking of are we accepting to keep our meeting on the second Wednesday? So far, you're looking at about four people, OK, committed to. I know one of the thing we choose second Wednesday was do Denny had issue on fourth Wednesday. I have issue on third Wednesday, OK? So the only I have issue on first Wednesday, the only Wednesday that I had, we had that helped almost all of us was second Wednesday, right? If it's change, it's change. I don't know if there's a specific reason to that, because we say second Wednesday. So I will think moving forward, if there's no issue with it, to keep it that way. Kevin, is that an issue for you right now? Because you're the most recent one, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, no issue for me. This works fine.
[Henry Miller]: Denny?
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: Yep, second Wednesday is good for me.
[Henry Miller]: Pam? It's good for me. It's good to me. It's good to you. It's good to me. So we're staying with the second Wednesday. Excellent. The next one, before I go to that one, I know we talked about printing the welcome to Medford postcard. I know we ran out because those things, they don't like hot cake around town. I seen them. Okay. When we did that open house in front of the mayor's office, that was last year or the year before that. I don't remember. What year we on 2023? Okay. Some of us. So I was looking at, you know, Lisa bringing them out. She put 25 before, you know, it's gone. She put another 25 before, you know, it was done. So that was the thing. You know, go ahead, Lisa, you're going to say something on that. You already shared your screen.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I just wanted to share the screen just to see like, you know, we do need to maybe update it a little bit.
[Henry Miller]: I was going to go into that part because that conversation came up last night on the city council meeting. OK. When we're talking about updating before we jump to that, We have to realize I had a conversation last night with a lot of council even following this morning, when they find out I'm a member of this welcoming committee. One of the things that came up on a conversation during the meeting last night was that. new people who came in didn't know about something like streets sweeping, when they sweep all this little thing. And one of the things I, in my conversation with someone, I said, you know, this is something, it's the fact there's a lack of communication. There's the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing and so on. I say we have that welcoming committee, and I, I thought I didn't name you in person Kevin. I said that is working so well we had a new. a newcomer in the city, a new resident, OK, through the website that this committee member, OK, Lisa and all of us work on that thing, OK, came in and saw that he was happy. There was something that gave him direction. I'm not saying it's entirely 100% accurate, because there's no way, no way, OK, you're going to have on a postcard every single information that a resident needs okay but we can give you the basic that's what we have so they told that and uh they sent me a bunch of crazy notes so i said well i'm sure we're going to talk about that i will bring that to you guys attention and see how do we proceed now i'm not going to stay on it too long i offered and we and i i will visit some of the meeting notes and i know this we talk about uh welcoming packet a welcoming booklet We'll get to it because it's listed on the agenda, but at least I'm sorry.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, that's fine. No, I just put this up on the on the screen just so we can kind of look at it and just you know maybe refresh ourselves to see if there's something missing which street. sweeping I think needed to go on there.
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: But the other thing they talked about with pot. It kind of coincides with tree sweeping just a different season was if someone new moves to Medford during the winter, making sure they are adverse even for snow emergency, like what year, what year is 2003 is it an honor and even yet type of thing and then So I don't know if maybe on the postcard, you just say like snow emergency parking, 2023, odd side of the street.
[Unidentified]: I like that.
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: Next year, 2024, blah, blah, blah. It'll be on the even. Yeah.
[Henry Miller]: No, isn't it this year on the even side, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I honestly, I don't know. I thought it's odd year is odd side, even year is even side, right?
[Henry Miller]: Yeah, I think that's what I'll find out.
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: Kevin, I grew up here my whole life, and I did not ever put that together.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, Danny, I'll only say, I think I know that now from the text that I got from the city of Medford. Oh, OK.
[Unidentified]: OK.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I was going to say, because, right, if that is, we'll confirm it. But if that is the case, I think it makes sense to just put that as the language so it's timeless. We don't have to marry it.
[Pam Kelly]: Yeah, I like that idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, obviously, you know. Right. I'm sure there'll be updates we'll need to make, but if that's one we don't need to make consistently.
[Henry Miller]: Yeah, good idea. There's one key thing that I'm missing here that I would love to echo is to find people to subscribe to alert from the city. That's one of the things a lot of people don't know that exists. so therefore you're missing a lot for instance when we have the the reverse 9-1-1 call telling people on the uh the emergency they don't know that's up there on the sign up for city alerts top right top right yeah okay okay so that's one thing and then we can add everything i think i like uh what you're doing there my concern was that What you gonna do with the front? So, so far you answered my question by reducing the front, we can put a lot of item there. Yeah, yeah.
[Pam Kelly]: Is it going to be too small that you really can't read it because it's only postcard size, right?
[Unidentified]: Right.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: This is just more so my notes than the format of it. So what I'll do is I'll print it out once I kind of like go back to the font. This font size worked. Like on the right side. So I'm kind of shrinking this side right here, just to kind of increase the list. And then I'll kind of like figure out how we're going to do it. But yeah.
[Henry Miller]: There it is right now. If the winter began with an even year, for example, November 2022, car may only park on the even side of the street unless there's an exemption. For instance, where I live, we have an exemption. Because we created something with the city. Where I live, it's a two-way street. We have carpark on only one side. Only one side only.
[Pam Kelly]: All year round?
[Henry Miller]: Yeah, all year round. That's where I live. You know, I own that street. It's only paid off.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Of course. What do you think about the wording? Odd year, odd number of the street. Even year, even number.
[Pam Kelly]: It should say odd side.
[Henry Miller]: Yeah, even year. I just read it here. What is it? OK, even year, even side of the street.
[Pam Kelly]: Yep.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Does that make sense? Yes. OK. Anything else we're missing? Do these need to be in a different order? I don't know.
[Henry Miller]: DPW, what? Didn't we have that somewhere? I read it somewhere.
[Pam Kelly]: Well, would that be under city departments?
[Henry Miller]: No.
[Pam Kelly]: Okay.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. Okay. Schools. schools and education.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Henry Miller]: I had a meeting today and it was virtual and the person said they were going to send me some notes and that came up on the same issue with another city that I'm helping. You know, welcome.
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: Lisa, the only thing about the wording is For like I'm just going just because of my knowledge, having that say parks and recreation is much different than what we actually do. So you might want to actually say DPW and recreation or just recreation, because Kevin and I don't oversee the parks, technically.
[Unidentified]: Right.
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: Right.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Did you say DPW parks?
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, like DPW overseas parks. Do we have actually the parking department? Oh, that would fall into city departments.
[Henry Miller]: We have parking department.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Parking info?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, parking info. Sorry, I was looking to see, I could have sworn I got the notification the other day about the snow emergency. I was just going to see what the, or the snow parking. I was looking to see what the language was, but I can't find it.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Oh, interesting. I can check that out. I'll ask Steve.
[Henry Miller]: What were you looking for, Kevin?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the only way I knew about the, so I have a driveway here, so I don't have to worry about the parking, which is a nice first time in my life. But I thought that I knew the even year, even side because of the alert that came through the other day. But I just, I can't find, I was just going to try to find the language.
[Henry Miller]: I'm reading it. That's the one I'm reading. If the winter began In an even year, for example, November 2022, that's when that thing came out not too long ago, cars may only park on the even side of the street unless there's an exemption. You may park in a city lot during snow emergency, but your car must be moved by 7 a.m. the morning after the storm.
[SPEAKER_01]: We just need to figure out a slightly quicker way to say it.
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, like a play on words or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: I'll check with Steve. Kevin, Steve is our communications director.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah. I've met Steve. I was on the city commission. They just gave out all the funding. Oh, the community fund, yeah. The community fund. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I met Steve through that.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: So he'll be the one, yeah, he can finesse that. Yeah, we can have Steve kind of wordsmith that. But yeah, those are good points.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I mean, again, if we get people to sign up for the, obviously like we want to put relevant information here, but if they get to sign up for the alerts, then you're good. If we just put in giant font, sign up for the alerts. But yeah, I understand that not everyone's able to do that. Like we want to make sure that we're providing the direction.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Every third line, sign up for the alerts.
[Henry Miller]: The alert will be important. Another thing we need to really pay attention to because when we talk about internet, internet, internet, we have a large portion of this method. Okay. We have a large portion of our registered citizen that are not internet savvy. No access to it. So we got to find a way to access people. Okay. We cannot alienate anybody. So Anything else? Because that is going to become so big, we may need a larger size to create our own postcard size.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's six by nine, right? I think it's six by nine. Yeah, it says it up there, six by nine.
[Henry Miller]: Did we put, I cannot, as a senior citizen, am I missing something here I'm not reading? I'm looking for a senior center somewhere here.
[Pam Kelly]: Well, it's under the senior program and then also under city departments.
[Henry Miller]: OK. That's the one I was looking for, so. The family one will be more reflective of the network family, and then we will keep the network family one and then keep the senior program separate. Do you want to separate that. I would love to see that, because they're different.
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, because I guess what family would probably fall into me right recreation, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't firmly disagree but I think at the same time, this is what's going. we have the space, but most of the information people would be finding via going either to the website or looking at the pamphlet if we're able to do something like that.
[Henry Miller]: So that's because you're not a senior yet. I'm a senior.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you're a senior right at the top. Now you're you're Nixon family's out of here.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: So we're leaving family off of that?
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I think that's fine. I think with recreation department, I think it's
[Pam Kelly]: It covers everybody else.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Okay. Should we do senior programs and services?
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: And?
[Pam Kelly]: I would do and services. Cause it's not like they're going to click on any of those. They're going to have to.
[Henry Miller]: Let me ask you this wording here, schools and educations, right? When you say school, isn't education embedded into it? Isn't what school is all about? We say school and education.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, is there like adult ed or other education programs that
[Henry Miller]: It's all part of school. You will have to break school into adult or whatever, you know what I mean?
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we don't have we don't really have. Yeah, no. Yeah. You know, just that would have been my that would have been my guess to Kevin, like education, like adult education kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will say, I think just just school, just school seems like a school, school department. Yeah, right. It's just schools. I can't I can't figure out why school information school. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: He's something. Yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know. It just, it's a very like particular sound. But yeah, right.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was gonna say. Yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that sounds good.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think schools just sounded too general. It is all encompassing, right?
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: That's kind of how I'm looking at like DPW parks. I feel like cause DPW does more than parks.
[Henry Miller]: How did we not catch that before? How did we not catch any of this? We never pay attention talking about it. We were so happy when we did it. We didn't take the time to go and dissect it. I think I'm just sorry.
[Pam Kelly]: I was gonna say under the DPW parks. It kind of and part makes it Yeah, it makes it feel like they just do parks.
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah, I would say yeah and parks.
[Pam Kelly]: Yeah, yeah.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: public parks, parks.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think parks, I would say it might be worth writing out Department of Public Works, just in case people don't know what DPW stands for.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: We ran across that on the website. I was like, let's spell this out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like I feel like now it is, I'm like, oh yeah, DPW, but I think that's probably less well-known than- Yeah, you're right. Yeah, I think that that's perfect.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Parks is all by itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: See, but parks for some reason just sounds cleaner than schools. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think at the end of the day, focusing on like, we want this to be, this is going to be all encompassing. These are the biggest things that will draw people. I think like this, certainly I'm open if there are other suggestions, you know, I'm not saying this is done, but I think this really covers some of the biggest stuff that people who are new would really want to be looking into. Exactly.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Do we alphabetize this? Because there really is no rhyme or reason to how this is kind of set up.
[Henry Miller]: It will look really well if we put them in alphabetical order. Yeah, it might be easier for people to find too.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: They're looking for something. Okay. All right. Very good. And then this side here is looking okay, or do we add anything? I thought that was perfect.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that's, I can't think of anything else. Those are the big, the big things. Lisa, sorry, do you mind showing me what the front looks like again? Or the other side, I guess. Okay, great.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: I'll see if the mayor wants to maybe buff this up or add any language to it. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I think that.
[Henry Miller]: Would you keep changing it each time?
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I don't know. I just want to run it past her. She may want to put something. She may actually want to add to this list too. I don't know, you know, cop plan or something, you know, she may, this QR code is going to change because of the new website. Right. Is it going to change? I really think about that. Maybe it won't change.
[Henry Miller]: I believe you said that you may have to change it. I'm not sure. Hopefully not.
[SPEAKER_01]: How, how is that work going, Lisa?
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: It's going good. It's tedious, but it's going well. Our goal is to have it launched by the 25th of January.
[Henry Miller]: Oh, wow. OK. I thought you were going to say Christmas when you said the 25th. Yeah.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: So just trying to tighten it all up, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. I know it's scary to sometimes say the actual date.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: I know, I know the mayor is going to do a state of the city address. So she wants the website ready for the state of the city.
[Henry Miller]: All right. Good to have a deadline. And she's not going to say I bugged her this year to do it because last year that's how she opened it. You know, I was happy I wasn't there. I was at home watching it. Anything else on this postcard? So Lisa, you say you'll take it back to her to see if she wants to add or do anything else. And after that, whatever comes out, would you share with the members before printing?
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Yes, of course. So I will talk to Steve about the snow emergency parking language. I'll alphabetize the list. obviously have the mayor look at it. I think those were the three things, right? Were those the three things?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I mean, I think, you know, if Steve is able to tighten it up, that's great. I think it's super helpful to have on there. But if not, if it's starting, because right, I think to Henry's point, like looking at the website, there are exemptions, there's, it isn't an easy bit, I think if it even just were to say snow emergency parking information, like obviously more information out great. But if we can't, we can't because it right looking at it, unless you're on this street, there's an exemption here.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: So you also want to be giving people misinformation just because really with snow, snow emergency parking. There is no on street parking. Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, I think it depends. I mean, there's all looking at the I found like some of the information on the on the website. And I mean, right, it's just like, there's all sorts of circumstances and situations.
[Henry Miller]: Depending on what it is, depending on what it is. Yeah. It changed. It changed. Yeah. There's something we're still working with the city. Some of the resident that I know trying to work it because yeah, I know the way Arlington does there. That's the thing we were trying to do. Because sometimes, let's say if you get everybody to get out of Main Street, OK, you guys give them a place to park. For instance, where I live away from Boston, our street is a resident parking only. OK, my street temple is a park. That's when you know. So it changed. It's complicated. I don't even want to go there. I have a driver anyway. So what I do on emergency.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what are you worried about?
[Henry Miller]: I rent my driveway to my neighbors. They can find me for $10 overnight. No way, do you really?
[SPEAKER_01]: Nah, are you crazy? Oh, I thought you said you had a driver, Henry. I thought you were on set.
[Henry Miller]: I used to have a driver. I used to have that when I was in the military. No, a driveway. No, I wouldn't do that, Lisa. Are you serious? My old neighbor, they all kicked me out of West Bedford.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Very entrepreneurial. Well, yeah, I think.
[Henry Miller]: Anything else about this we can jump on now?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think this looks great.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Great, thank you.
[Henry Miller]: Anything else? Good? We good, good? Yeah, looks good. All right. The next one we thought we had Lisa share with us was the firm of Welcome to Medford Online and Printed. There are a few booklets. The booklet, I'm still a little puzzled because that came up last night, OK? Originally, when this committee started, I put a few things together. Lisa and I were going crazy. We were sending love notes to each other, crazy things to each other, things we liked, things we didn't like. We brought it in front of the committee, and we talked about it. I don't see anywhere where we actually, we talked to him, came up with a bunch of good ideas. So is Denny. I don't think we ever have anything in concrete about the booklet. OK, there's one. We won't talk about it. It's a time now.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Lisa? Yeah. Yeah, we could. There was one started prior to my time. And I can totally, you know, just add to it and run with that, just change it up.
[Henry Miller]: You know, we talked about it at the time when we mentioned the booklet, we talked about printing was a niche, something we talked with, you know, we address. I forget the format, what we really wanted to tell them in a packet. And I don't think we ever did anything exceptional or anything crazy. Because I'll tell you this prior, I've worked with a group of people where the previous administration has a book, not a booklet, a book. That was a big, huge thing. And it had some information where it wasn't We did something on the disability community. I don't know if it still exists. That was a little pocket booklet. That was good. But I had not seen it. So talk to us.
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: Henry, there was like a little packet, and basically it was like a one-sheeter from each department. Like, yeah. So, Lisa, the only issue I always felt with that packet before your time was that things were always changing. Again, personal opinion, think that it probably should just be something, I mean, maybe have like a few in the office off hand, but then again, how often are you getting like a request for that? And we can't print mass quantities to be, I think it's gotta be a per request. Like maybe we even put on the postcard, per mailing requests on city department information, and then we just go to our page and print out, or we have, I would do it for my department, but assistant directors or directors make a one-sheeter on what their department does and have them email it to you. You know what I mean? Just so you have something off cuff, and it can be information that doesn't expire, so to speak.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Almost a broad overview. Right, a summary of the less detailed because the details do change.
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: Right. So, I think that that would, you know, phone numbers, emails, names like for me like if someone was requesting rec department I'd say the rec department does xyz. director, assistant director, facilities manager, program manager, names, emails, you know what I mean? Like that. So, but I don't think that we need to have anything, a booklet printed per se, but have something very general off that upon request we can get out.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[Henry Miller]: Like, I'm just trying to think. Because one of the things, just like you said, It was brought, again, in conversation with the elected official. Some are good, some are crazy, some drive you nuts. But that's the idea. The welcoming committee will create whatever package, packet, that we will have. Whatever. We don't have it there. Whatever it's in there. You remember, we talk about bags. We talk about this. And have it, for instance, One community that really, one of the problem we're facing and I'm facing it with the election department is the schools, for example, okay? It will have a place where if it's a one sheet, one sheet, we give that one sheet to that one, you know, to the school. For example, we give it to, a family has that in the senior center, okay? So, things like that way, when the person get there, whether it's a real estate, the real estate, because, and this is what was a little confusing, it says, if I'm a homeowner, and I rent my house, okay, I, as the homeowner, should be find a way where I can tell the renter, okay, certain things that he or she needs to do. That person may not be a homeowner, but that person is a resident, is a citizen of Bedford, okay, they are things he or she is entitled to, you know, so that's, I don't know, Open, open. I'm open for anything. I want to hear something. Danny, you already gave me a lot. Go ahead. Give me some more. Pam, Pam, you know me. I go one by one.
[Pam Kelly]: All right. I'm going to just say, yeah, maybe we should mix the booklet. And the only other thing I was thinking of is, and I don't know if the city has something, but like street maps, you know, a map that shows the city and maybe has the streets on it. Um, and maybe gives the wards for the voting, or the schools like some highlights, because I don't. What do you guys think is that just, I feel like I've seen a colored map, and like,
[Henry Miller]: Lisa and I look at that because one of the things before they created Lisa's department, that was one of the things we talked about during the transition, okay? Because at the time, I think I've learned through Lisa when she took over this group, the different neighborhood, okay? We end up with about five or six neighborhoods. I have that book somewhere here. I don't even know where it's at. Don't look at my desk, it's a mess, okay? I can find my best certificate now. So I like that idea, Pam. It helps, okay?
[Pam Kelly]: Or even if it's not in a paper form, but on the website, you know? Yeah. You have that, Lisa. We do. Yeah.
[Unidentified]: The thing is, it's...
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: There's several maps, right? So there's a war map, there's a precinct map, and they don't always align with each other. So there's several, several maps. So depending on what the objective is, we can line it up. with, you know, um, I do believe there is one for voting for like precinct.
[Henry Miller]: We have, we have because let's see, it's not up to date. Uh, there was, there, uh, really didn't want to go into that 10 or forms, uh, because there was a remapping and we're not really well understand what's active. Remember I chaired that election commission. I'm working with them right now. So, We changed from a voter registration to an election commission. So the idea changed, the mission changed, and the conversation is not there. So we really don't know what actually took place. But the best would be the voting map will be the ideal, because people vote according to your neighborhood. You see what I mean? So I just read.
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: I just dropped a link in the thing that's from 2010, like from the, with all the wards, printing colors and stuff like that. I wonder, so that's from 2010. I was just like off the cuff of Googling it, but I'm wondering if we can just get an updated one from the most updated census, which was 2020.
[Henry Miller]: Was that the last census? It wasn't last year. Yeah, that's a lot. The federal census every 10. That's a federal census.
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: Okay, so 2020. So we could probably get the one from 2020. I mean, the population numbers might not be the same, but you'll have more precinct. Yes. But Lisa, could we do something that mimics this? Like see how there's like the same ward is yellow, but based on the precinct, it's a different shade of yellow. I don't know. I mean, we could do something that mimics that maybe. For what? Well, the map, like in general, like, I don't know, like if we do a combination map of ward, precinct, whatever we were talking about, you know, with different like street cleaning, you know, I don't know.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like we have one for street cleaning, which is different than this. Yeah, the thing that I've noticed that happens is nothing lines up. Do you know what I mean? Like it's not in alignment.
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: Oh, so like, so like ward precinct, like this works like using dual colors, but it now, if I add like street cleaning in, it's going to be a weird, awkward yellow.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, something like this could work in like a Google map where you can switch the layers on and off, but it just wouldn't work in like a.
[Henry Miller]: I gotcha, yeah.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Colored map like this.
[Henry Miller]: This one with the preset has an issue. I'll give you an example right now. We have on preset 1, 7 for example. We have 7-1, that's one preset. There may be 7-2, that's another preset. But we added something called preset 7-2A. OK, we will have to find out where is that 2A. Same thing exists on Ward 6. We have 6162. Now we have a 628. That's the discussion. That's illegal. We go on over, we can find a boundary, we can find a measurement. We don't know who created that. So that will create an issue. Because as we speak, we have citizens that we, that was a legal challenge, OK? to the city, because people that used to vote at the Warburg School end up being voted at the fire station or the Yelder Center, I don't even call it clearly off my head. Yeah, the fire station at the, you know, the one on Medford Street, right? So that created an issue there. Okay, so that's the thing we want to do. If we will do a map, I will do a map with neighborhood, we'll see a Wellington, you know, West Medford, Medford Square, you see what I mean? That's where, that's the map I was referring at, instead of the precinct, to avoid that issue.
[Pam Kelly]: That might be a better idea.
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: I wonder if we, I wonder if how deep interactive we could get. So like in the sense of there's a dropdown, I click my street or I type in my street, the map zooms in on my street, then tells me my ward, my precinct, street cleaning.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that would be the best case scenario is to have it all in one spot.
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, right. I know. I don't know how much that is too complicated that is to create.
[Henry Miller]: I just, it was like, how much money you have Benny? If the price is right, I'm sure you'll get... See, I was looking at that book. See, this is the book I was looking at, okay? I can only put that in there. You see? Yeah, yeah. There's everything I want to see, all the maps. But you're right, Danny. I wish we could have done that. And I have seen it. I don't recall whether it's in Boston or Brockton, okay? But I have seen that. If we can put just neighborhoods, neighborhood section, somewhere there was a folder, Lisa. If you still have it, I'm sure I have it somewhere. I will have to find it and send it to you. We had it as neighborhood, just eight different neighborhood. You say, well, this is Medford Square, West Medford, North Medford. OK, that makes it more sense for the people. The fails, you know, and then we get to go. That's true. That's an idea, you know. I know Lisa have all this thing. Anything else? Lisa, I'm not creating more work than for you, but you know we like you, you know, so. Keep me busy. Anything else? We're almost there. We're almost there. Anything else about that booklet? So that booklet, we don't have it for sure. It's being processed, right? It's a processing in motion, I will say, right?
[Pam Kelly]: Or are we just sidelining it for now? OK. Yeah, I think it's a process in motion. I think it's a sideline. And let's continue the conversation and maybe look at other options. Because why put time into doing a booklet when it may not
[Henry Miller]: really become a reality one because of cost two because as soon as you get what you think is correct and done something's going to change so you put that as a form of emotion right sure i will make a motion unfinished business okay i just i wonder what other communities do you know they do a lot i just remember you're talking about buddies. You have to have people to do a lot of that. We have a lot of work.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: And I don't want to like, you know, I agree with not, you know, printing and all that stuff. But I just feel like there has to be something we could do to help those who just don't have access to the internet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I think kind of what Danny was talking about, I think the idea makes a ton of sense around if we do include something on the postcard, you know, obviously we don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves and promise things that we don't have yet. But the idea of the one-sheeter, phone numbers, contact information, so that stuff is relatively static. We know that those things will be. And then if it's something, you know, just as we were talking about that, all I could think of is like, we were able to put up information, you know, brief, equal to like, what's on the postcard, like in the libraries in schools, I know that this is but so in some places where people go, where they can see clearly, like, if you need additional information, you can request a mailer via this route, like call this number or whatever. And I know that's setting up a big infrastructure of stuff, like even just saying call this number to get something requires a lot of work on the back end. But Because, right, like a booklet in an ideal world, sure, we could have a million ready to go, but even then we'd have to have a million ready to go the next month with the changes that were.
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: So two parts of what you're saying to Kevin, like one with the booklet, like we're doing, we're kind of going away. The rec department, we're doing away with our booklet. We keep cutting it, cutting it, cutting it. And more recently, we just bought all these booklets and no one picked up. I mean, we have them on our counter. I put some at City Hall. They're not going. So we're moving more towards that digital phase. But also what I was gonna say is when people call, they're gonna call and say, like they need information on a certain department. We're not gonna have to send this huge packet, we're gonna send a blank. And I think the biggest hits are, you know, you have the DPW, the clerks, Pam, you and me as the rec department, like services and where do I pay my bills? Like, where do I get a marriage license? Where do I, like, so those are the four, you know, especially DPW and the clerks, they're like the two of the biggest departments people are gonna wanna contact. And then for services, I mean, Pam, you and I, which is very generalized, we can, but I think when people call, like, they're gonna be like, you know, hey, like, just move to Medford. I need to know about trash blank and blank. It's like, all right, well, here's the information on DPW, you know, here's who to contact.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, and like on the postcard, and I think if with any type of mailer, we do include the multilingual resource line, which I think is really important to make sure that we're, not just assuming people are going to be called speaking English. So I think as long as we highlight that consistently. But yeah, I think something along those lines seems to make more sense. It gives more ability to kind of adapt.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: So I have two questions here. So do we do like, see some of these are not gonna, we can't, but like,
[Pam Kelly]: Do we add phone numbers for some of these departments that we can, you know, why would you have to do that if you have the main method City Hall number on there.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Pam Kelly]: You know, I mean, I know for myself we have a totally different phone and you can't get us through City Hall. but anytime somebody calls and is looking for the senior center, they give them our number. So it's not like I would want to list every number on there.
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: I mean, could we write something on this postcard that says for like paper information on a department or upon view, you know, available upon request, a paperback copy of information on departments or something like that. But maybe not like that sounds something of a shorter.
[Henry Miller]: You're talking about printing copies available or?
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, like we won't pre have a booklet, but like we could write like, if you need information on a department in paper form, please contact.
[Henry Miller]: We can state that in a general format saying for additional information, okay, or requests you can to the following, whatever, if it's a phone call or email. But one of the key thing I will suggest we have, if you knew in Medford for the first time, I think one of the first thing I would love to see, which I, you know, I've seen it in other cities, what number can I call, okay, who's going to provide me with direction, okay, so I can call a main number and say, I'm looking for the following. You get my drift, no?
[SPEAKER_01]: So different than calling City Hall and then going through kind of the board that directs people there, more of like a... Oh, it's the same as that.
[Henry Miller]: Yeah, we tried that with that public thing we have for Sophia. I'm sorry, I didn't want to keep you there any longer than that. I think we're already running over our time. That's an interesting conversation. uh we tried that with sofa that was a sofa sofie sofa it didn't work okay it didn't work because how people didn't even read that thing right so we tried that so we had to find out on the way what will be the first thing someone wants when you move into a place okay kevin is a new generation he moves here he went on the internet he saw something appealing to him okay now let's put a thousand, a hundred people, how many, Kevin, you're going to find a hundred people depending on the age, depending on the generation, depending on the group, depending on the, you know, so all these things. So if there's one number, one particular number that that person can call and ask for direction, that would be ideal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. I mean, I think this sort of captures that already though. I mean, we have the main, and again, not to say that this is the end of the discussion, but I think in the interest of time and like feasibility as far as some of the bigger picture stuff we're talking about. I think with this postcard, having the main city hall phone number, having multilingual phone number, I think realistically the idea that we've been talking about of printed copies are available upon request, it might be a little early to put that on this postcard if all of a sudden it goes out and people are like, wait a minute, I don't know what they're talking about. And so I think kind of the depth of how that process might work is maybe something better for us to talk about at the next meeting. And as far as the phone number too, I think like, it may be, you know, again, these are big, big suggestions that we're talking about that we may not have the power as the committee to make, but maybe it's down to just a slight retooling.
[Henry Miller]: Those phone numbers we have there on the right side, I think they're good. Okay. On the left side, I won't add any phone numbers because you may be creating frustration because believe it or not, I'm better off walk to City Hall to find somebody and calling on the phone to find somebody, okay? And I've been getting phone calls from friends around here saying, well, that place, you never can get, you can't get anybody on call on the phone. So why giving them a phone number there? You see what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: I do, but at the same time, like saying that nobody picks up the phone, so don't list the phone number seems kind of counterproductive.
[Henry Miller]: Yeah, well, I understand what you mean.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've called City Hall, too. It's the time that you catch somebody.
[Henry Miller]: I speak for a group of people in Metro. Yeah, I don't disagree. I say what comes to me. I don't have an issue with, if I can find you, I'll walk into City Hall and thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not everybody can do that either.
[Henry Miller]: Exactly. So that's the reason when they say, Henry, I've been calling, I can get somebody. Why giving them somebody else? So if we have a, it's like the multi-language resource we're looking at there. OK, me, as we're looking at it, we can come back and talk about it. I would definitely tell them what are the languages, OK?
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was just going to say, yeah, I wanted to talk about that.
[Henry Miller]: Because we run into an issue. I'm part of the people who put that on a list. During COVID, we started to talk. I was representing a group of people. You can tell with my accent, I speak other language, right?
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: So I have a question about the multilingual research line. So how, this is going to sound silly, but if you speak another language, how can you read that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Should it be written in the four languages, five languages that we help?
[Henry Miller]: yeah i think that's a and that's a conversation i had before with uh when on a housing issue we were dealing in that city the people that can read okay i speak more than one language okay i speak a few okay now the one i'm mostly comfortable with is english now let me explain you so i can't read creole haitian creole but i did for one year and a half, all the interpretation of text for Haitian Creole. But I can't read it. I can't change it from English to that. So the person that can read Creole guarantee you can read English. So there's a controversy in there. So I will say that the language that are available. Well, we run out of gas, we run out of everything.
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: Lisa, I feel like you probably only have to have the phone number once. You just list.
[Pam Kelly]: The multilingual resource line in the other languages. Yeah.
[MCM00001224_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I wouldn't have the phone number all the times. I would just.
[Pam Kelly]: Yeah, there you go.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Pam Kelly]: Right, you would just put multilingual resource in Spanish, Haitian Creole, whatever the form is.
[MCM00001597_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think we have it on the magnets. I could just switch it off to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's on the main Welcome to Medford site too, if you scroll down. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.
[Henry Miller]: Ladies and gentlemen, I have a group of other people waiting for me somewhere else to go. I have another meeting to go for the city of Bedford. I'll be honest with you. So with that said, I think we've done pretty well today. We've done better than I expected. I thought people will be wary from the holidays. We never had a vacation. For the holidays. So I was looking for a motion to, if we don't have anything else to. Our next meeting is February 8th, 2023, right? Any motion to adjourn?
[Unidentified]: Second.
[Henry Miller]: I'd like to see you all. Thanks, everyone. Take care.