AI-generated transcript of Medford Charter Study Committee 10-03-24

[Milva McDonald]: Welcome everyone to the October 3rd, 2024 meeting of the Medford Charter Study Committee. And a couple more people. And then we'll get to our first order of business.

[Eunice Browne]: I'll shoot Phyllis a message.

[Milva McDonald]: I think she just came in. I think she's just come in.

[Eunice Browne]: Oh, okay.

[Milva McDonald]: That's Phyllis, right? Phyllis Fong? I think that's Phyllis. All right, so the first order of business is the minutes from our last meeting. Did everyone have a chance to look at them? Are we good? Do we need any changes? Second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right, so I will get those minutes posted. Frances, thanks for the message. We'll keep an eye on the chat in case you have any comments. Okay. Thank you for the congratulations. So this is scheduled to be our final meeting. I want to thank everybody. It's been long, but it's been really positive and productive, and I really can't thank you all enough. I also want to thank the Collins Center, who is with us tonight, Anthony Wilson, and I believe Marilyn is also here. So the work we have to do tonight is we just have to vote on the final draft of the charter and the final report. So I guess the first thing I want to say, let's do the charter document first. And I just want to make an announcement. There was like a little clerical issue and section 919, because we had discussed putting the compensation committee in the charter, but then we voted to just recommend it as an ordinance. just based on some of the discussions, it ended up in the draft charter, so that's being removed. Just in case anybody noticed that, I'm just letting everybody know. Section 919 will be removed as we voted and it was mentioned in the final report as a recommendation. Now, I'll open the floor to see if anybody has any to bring up about the charter document. And then we'll do the final report after that.

[Eunice Browne]: question.

[Maury Carroll]: I'd like to know that we've gone through the charter document and the resolutions and where it stands and how we go that this body approves this and to move it forward to the city council.

[Milva McDonald]: Okay, that's great. I just want to hear what Eunice's comment was and then we'll do that motion.

[Maury Carroll]: I do also.

[Eunice Browne]: Okay, I have 1 comment on 1 section that I just had a question about and then just sort of a general. You know, I'm not sure if it belongs in the charter or if it's maybe governed by state law, but my question is under section 3 dash for the removal or suspension of certain officials. And it says at the end of the paragraph, and this is about removals obviously of department heads and city officers and so forth. The removal shall take effect on the 30th day following the date of filing in the office of the city clerk the notice of removal by the mayor. Does that mean then that if the mayor wants to, you know, remove an employee for X reason, and they make the notification, say today, then that person cannot be removed or doesn't have to be removed until, you know, November 3rd. So what happens then maybe in the case of, you know, Well, I suppose in any case, really, if you're leaving of your own accord, you're giving two weeks notice. But if you're being told to go for whatever reason, they generally want you out the door quickly. So does that mean then that if the mayor is seeking the dismissal of whomever, that they don't have to go for 30 days? Seems a bit strange.

[Milva McDonald]: So, Anthony or Marilyn, can you answer that?

[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: Sorry, just trying to unmute myself. So, reading the section, it does say that the mayor will submit the notice of removal to the city clerk and that the actual removal will happen within 30 days of the submission of that document. So that is how that reads. So I don't really have anything else to add to that. That's what that section says.

[Eunice Browne]: So they can be gone that day if she wants them gone that day. you know, or do they have 30 days where they can stay employed?

[Maury Carroll]: I don't know if I'm making myself clear. I think it's typical of any situation of employee with employee that, you know, if you feel as though you need to terminate that employee and it has to be done today, because that's generally the threshold that you do it on when you've made that decision, and then that's it. You know, that day is good enough for anybody else.

[Milva McDonald]: Well, I guess I think, Eunice, your question is, under this provision, if the mayor dismisses a city officer or department head, do they stay in the job for 30 days?

[Eunice Browne]: Right, or... That's the question. If she wants them gone today, are they... Can she do that? Yeah.

[Milva McDonald]: So, Anthony and Marilyn, does this mean that the person has to stay or gets to stay on the job for another month?

[Contreas]: Well, there is this opportunity for the individual to reply to the statement and whether the mayor chooses to have a hearing or not, which is often available, that has to be scheduled and that takes time. So, you've got this interim, you have this interim event if the person wants to reply to the mayor's statement of removal. You have to account for that time too.

[Eunice Browne]: Okay.

[Milva McDonald]: Ron, did you have a comment about this?

[Ron Giovino]: Yeah. I think I don't know how much detail we want to put into it, but I think there has to be case by case. There'll be a case where someone has to leave that second, and there'll be a case where there's a process involved. The question I was having is if we're talking about union employees, does that change the whole ballgame in terms of this article?

[Contreas]: No, because unions have a grievance and removal procedure in their contracts.

[Milva McDonald]: And this applies to a city officer or head of a city department appointed by the mayor, right? So I don't think it applies to anybody else.

[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: The union contract would trump, you know, to the extent that someone are examining the union contract would trump this. You'd have to follow the grievance procedures in the contract.

[Milva McDonald]: Maury?

[Maury Carroll]: Yeah, I'm thinking, okay, I just heard it. I think it just comes down to that the mayor is chief executive of the city. And just like in any business or anything else that if the mayor has deemed or the chief executive or the owner of any business that this person can no longer be here for whatever, whatever the situation is that, okay, we're going to terminate your employment right now. If you feel as though you have the grievance to come back on us and everything else, fine, so be it. But at this point, the mayor should be allowed to have that leniency to make that decision.

[Andreottola]: Excuse me, but I don't think that this is an issue. If the mayor decides, you know, to terminate someone for whatever reason or, you know, there's a mutual separation, I think this is more about the formal part of their job, you know, like their health benefits and, you know, like, you know, if somebody needed to be gone on the day, they can be suspended, you know what I mean? And at the end of the month, they, you know, they stop being you know, a city employee, it's basically just giving, you know, kind of a grace period, you know. But if somebody needs to be, you know, removed from the premises, the mayor has the power to do that, you know, just that their, you know, their employment would end at the end of the month, you know, their, you know, their health insurance and, you know, whatever goes along. with being a city employee.

[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Anthony Wilson, did you have something to add?

[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: Yes, I'm just I was just going back to my notes and I don't exactly remember the conversation that the committee had, but just from my notes reflected when the committee discussed this, we went through sort of the 3 different levels of oversight of the mayor in terms of these types of terminations or removals of officers. And some communities have it where the city council has to confirm a removal. Uh, some have it where the city council is basically what what this provision is was. That they have an opportunity to be notified of the removal and then some. Charters don't have this language at all. I believe when the committee discussed this, it shows this middle option is sort of a middle ground is keeping the council in the loop, but still giving the sort of not infringing on the mayor's authority. That was that sort of my memory from my notes.

[Milva McDonald]: That sounds like what we discussed. So, Eunice, do you feel like your question has been answered or is there anything? I think I get it now. So, thank you. Okay, great. Ron?

[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, not on this subject, but I just want to say before we get too deep into this, I want to, you know, recognize you, Milva, for the leadership that you've shown to produce this document. I'd be remiss if I didn't say that Jean's revision that she sent out today was not super helpful. But my question to the Collins Center and to whoever, I'd like to get an understanding of how this is being presented. to the City Council. Are we just sending the document? Are we highlighting the changes in a presentation? And my big question for the Collins Center, having done this before, is this going to be an all-or-nothing type of vote, or is there a way that we can break up these articles? So if I agree with ward representation but I don't agree with the mayor having four years do I have to say no to the whole charter or do we structure it so that we're voting on each article at a time to give us more you know there'll be pieces of a full charter that I'm not going to like and I have to just weigh that. So that's my question. Is there a way, what do most cities and towns do? Is it all at once, all in? Or is it, well, I like the mayor's four years, but I don't like Ward. Is that going to be part of this vote for the people?

[Milva McDonald]: Okay, Phyllis has a question, but I'm... Ron, if I hear your question correctly... I have a question for Ron.

[Phyllis Morrison]: Okay, go ahead. Didn't we already vote on all of this?

[Ron Giovino]: No, I think he's using... I'm talking about the vote, Phyllis. When it goes on the ballot, I go on the ballot and I see... It's the whole vote.

[Milva McDonald]: I mean, it has to go through the Mayor, the City Council and the State House first, but providing when it gets to the ballot, that's your question.

[Phyllis Morrison]: Okay.

[Milva McDonald]: Will people be able to vote on... I was in and out, so thank you. Okay, so Anthony or Marilyn, when these questions get on the ballot, what's usually the structure?

[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: I'll start Marilyn feel free to sort of jump in here with your sort of vast knowledge here. If memory serves, I believe that this committee was created. pursuant to mayoral order. So my understanding, and the administration can give you more thorough direction, is that this report from this committee will actually go to the mayor, and the mayor can review it and make whatever changes she deems necessary, if she deems any necessary. And then it is, For the mayor to submit this to the city council as a special legislation, if the city, when the city council considers it. The city council can also make whatever changes to whatever portions of the proposal that it, it deems necessary. Again, assume that the mayor agrees with those changes and the council adopts them, then it will go to the legislature. I don't believe, or at least my last reading of it, there's no provision in here where it says that some communities have a provision that says that the legislature has to make an up or down vote. My reading of this doesn't, it currently doesn't have that. The city council or the mayor, I guess, in the internal process at the, City level could add that provision during their reviews, but assuming it goes to the legislature as is, the legislature could say, we have concerns about this, or we have concerns about that. They usually communicate that back to the city through the clerk's office or the law department, and then there can be modifications there. And then if the council, the legislature adopts, then it will come back to appear on the ballot for Medford. Marilyn, if I butchered any of that, please correct me.

[Contreas]: Well, the council actually votes on the document as a whole. They can't, it's not a menu kind of thing. And the council vote, and if the council has made changes that the mayor doesn't like, she doesn't have veto authority, but it can't go to the legislature without the mayor's approval. That's in the constitution. And when it appears on the municipal election ballot, the voter is seeing, is accepting everything that's in the document or nothing. All or nothing vote.

[Milva McDonald]: Thank you. Ron, does that answer your question?

[Ron Giovino]: I just want to follow up. I mean, I understand that the city council and the mayor will have opportunities to amend it. The voter doesn't have that opportunity. My question is that if, If we want this thing to pass and somebody didn't vote for it because it had, you know, the mere four and I wanted two, but I loved everything else on there. That's kind of counterproductive in my mind. The other thing too is I know that the city council was working on three amendments. So I know that as a city, we can file amendments at any point, not just a full chart. I mean, we can, so I guess what I'm thinking is the best thing is to break it up by article so that people get to vote up or down each one. And I, I'm just the mechanism that city council was using to get amendments through so they would be on the ballot with three separate amendments that were not a full charter so I know we can amend the. I just, I'm just trying to get my head around somebody who says, you know, they want. They want the mayor to have four years. There's no way I'm voting for this, but yet I really like this, and I like this, and I like that. So that's a no vote, even though they only didn't like 10% of what was in there. So that's what my concern is. It's such a good document. The city council has a chance to amend and adjust. The mayor has a chance to amend. The voter doesn't. The voter has to take it all the way unless we give them another option. That's the basis of my question.

[Milva McDonald]: Thanks, Ron. I think, I mean, I don't know if Anthony or Marilyn wants to speak to this, but I'm not sure that we have the, that's in our power. I mean, you know, our task was to review the charter and create a report and that's what we've done. But Anthony or Marilyn, is there any way we can look at some of what Ron is talking about?

[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: If I understand it correctly, you're talking about breaking up, I guess, the various articles into their own pieces of legislation to be voted on by the constituencies. Am I hearing that correctly?

[Ron Giovino]: Yeah. I guess I'm trying to find a distinction, Anthony, between the amendment process of an existing charter versus the charter that we've created, which is just a series of amendments, if you break it down. I'm just trying to give a voter the chance. Go ahead.

[Contreas]: This document is not a series of amendments. It's a brand new charter. One of the stuff that's addressed by some of, by the plan H.R. you have now.

[Ron Giovino]: We're all in, we're all in or not. Well, this is a yes or no on the whole thing. And if I don't like 10% of it, I have to vote no. that that's the usual process yes if you okay so Mary let me ask you this follow-up question if if we wanted to only make the mayor four years the process would be we create an amendment to the existing charter yes or no vote okay yes or no vote all right so that's six years out okay got it thank you um okay um maury

[Milva McDonald]: We have to get back to Maury's motion and officially adopt a vote on this.

[Maury Carroll]: I'd like to hop in a little bit because I'm going to call upon Eunice. Are you out there, Eunice? She's right here, yeah. The city council is going to review our charter commission Recommendations tomorrow night or next week?

[Eunice Browne]: Next Wednesday. What they've done is the governance committee, which is chaired by Councilor Justin Tseng, and there's four or five others on them. I think Zach is, and I can't remember who else. But as part of their agenda, the City Council's agenda for this two-year term has been creating a charter. And so, um, they've talked about it on and off for the past, you know, eight or nine months. And, um, now I guess they're finally getting started on it. So, um, they are, the governance committee, um, is meeting, um, Wednesday night, October 9th at seven o'clock, and they are going to begin discussing a timeline to craft their own charter. and they will consider the report that we are about to submit.

[Maury Carroll]: Okay. I was a little confused of what that meant. I'm sorry. Ron, I agree with what you're saying. There's a lot of issues that you may want this and you may want that, but this isn't a line item. referendum to make it easy to say that this is what we're recommending. This is what we're recommending as a committee and that we've all agreed upon for the last two and a half years and got to this conclusion. So You know, so be it. If the mayor or the city council wants to kind of shred it up a little bit, that's their prerogative. But we should also have the opportunity to stand behind our work for the last two and a half years against people that have just started, that have never been in the city in the last two years. So I'm going to leave it at that.

[Milva McDonald]: All right, thanks, Maury.

[Andreottola]: Okay, so now- I do have a question. Okay, Anthony. Just in kind of what we're submitting, you know, along the line, the call-in center has, you know, pretty much given their opinion on our work. And, you know, sometimes they've cautioned us about not putting something in giving us an explanation. Is that going to be, are their recommendations and their cautions going to be submitted along with our draft charter? I just don't want all that information to be lost for the city council. And I guess that's my question in a nutshell. What happens to the recommendations that the call-in center made about our work?

[Milva McDonald]: So what I sent out about a week ago was the final report, which so when we submit, we will submit the draft charter will be part of that final report. So whatever was in the final report currently is what we would submit. So if you had something that you thought we should add, I mean, did you have a chance to look at it?

[Andreottola]: Yes, I did. Okay, so there are a number of things that the calling center recommended that we not include in our charter. And that's, you know, valuable information that, you know, that I think should be passed along to the city council as well. So, you know, they can make kind of, you know, either, you know, they can have all the information they need to kind of, you know, do whatever, due diligence that they're going to do with the document we give them, you know? Or are they going to, again, you know, ask the Collins Center to review what they come up with? Do you know what I'm... Yeah, yeah, I hear you.

[Milva McDonald]: Jean, did you want to say something about this?

[Jean Zotter]: Anthony, we're going to include all the memos that we received from the Collins Center as appendices in the report. All the memos from the Collins Center will be in the report.

[Milva McDonald]: I think maybe, Anthony, are you talking about certain things that our committee voted to include that the Collins Center said, well, this isn't in like, for instance, the ethics commission and the financial reporting or the school committee clerk. If you're talking about things like that, I guess I would ask Anthony or Marilyn, when committees write their final reports, is that the kind of information that they generally include?

[Contreas]: Marilyn, do you want to do you want to go first? The short answer is no. We provided the information to the committee. It was it was what we thought needed to be brought to the committee's attention. And if the committee didn't follow it, it's. That belongs to the committee, it doesn't. it's not necessarily that it would be passed on.

[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Thank you. Okay. Um, okay. So Anthony, do you, do you have anything else you want to say?

[Andreottola]: Anthony Andrea, is that, uh, I'm just, I'm, I'm just trying to understand what the motion is on the floor now to accept the entirety of the charter and and kind of say, I agree to this whole document?

[Milva McDonald]: So that would be, so what I would like to do is yes, the answer to that is yes for the charter, the draft charter portion. And then once we get that done, we'll look at the final report part and see if anybody has anything that they feel should be changed or added to that. Okay. So Maury and Eunice, did you have anything to say before we go ahead with that vote?

[Maury Carroll]: No, I just want to move ahead with the motion that I put. Okay. Thank you.

[Eunice Browne]: Okay. Eunice? Yeah. I had one question, something that came up and sorry to bringing it up now, but something crossed my mind. We talk about posting meetings and so forth. And I know that there's a section on the mass.gov website. Let me see if I can, I had it up here a second ago. It shows official notice posting locations for public bodies. So it's, you can either be a physical posting community, which is what we are, which basically, and Anthony or Marilyn can correct me, But from what I understand, that basically means that a meeting is officially posted if it's tacked to the bulletin board outside of the city clerk's office, and then any other way that we choose to post it. Other communities, they have other ways of posting. Some of them put things in a binder or something. Most communities now in the 21st century post their meetings to the website, and when it's officially on the website, The meeting is officially posted, so I'm wondering. you know, and you have to designate with the state, with mass.gov, if you're a, you know, physical posting community, or if you are like a website posting community, is that something that would go in the charter? And if we were to be a website posting community, then does that mean that If there's a meeting posted for a certain date and time, and for whatever reason, the meeting needs to change, and I'm specifically talking about an instance that came up a couple of winters ago, a school committee meeting was due to be held on a Monday evening. It snowed like crazy that afternoon they closed city hall at 3 o'clock. I emailed the vice chair of the school committee and I said. Is the school committee meeting just going to be held on zoom tonight? Um, you know, because obviously city hall is closing early and so forth and I was told ideally that would be great, but that, you know, we couldn't. change that because of open meeting law regulations, because we're a physical posting city. And since City Hall is already closed, can't tax something on the bulletin board to make a change. So I'm wondering if how we designate what kind of a posting city we are, does that go in the charter? Long way of getting to it. Sorry.

[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: But so my, oh, so my understanding of that is that you couldn't, I think the state law that allows the posting, it provides 2 different ways. You can do the continue with the posting to some physical bulletin board, or you can designate your website to be your meeting posting location. The chief executive of the community has to submit. A form would be sort of 2 form, but it's basically a notice to the state saying we are opting into posting on our electronic website. And here is the basically the URL and that is how that process is laid out.

[Eunice Browne]: Okay, so it doesn't go in the charter. Okay.

[Milva McDonald]: Okay, thank you. All right. Thank you. Okay. Now we are going to go ahead with. Well, his motion, which anybody want to officially 2nd that. that we're gonna vote on the charter document. I second. Okay, so the question is, do we accept this draft charter as written to be put into our final report? Okay, Eunice.

[Eunice Browne]: Absolutely.

[Milva McDonald]: Ron. Yes. Phyllis.

[Phyllis Morrison]: Yes.

[Milva McDonald]: Jean. Yes. Danielle. Yes. Maury. Yes. Anthony Andreottola.

[Andreottola]: No.

[Milva McDonald]: And me, I'm yes. I think that's everybody who's here. Great. All right. Awesome. You're the confetti. Yeah. Right. OK. Now we're. Now we are going to go to the final report, which hopefully you all had a chance to read. Thanks, Francis, for the confidence.

[Maury Carroll]: I've had a chance to review it, and I hope everybody else has. I'll make a motion to approve.

[Milva McDonald]: Well, first, I just want to ask if anybody has any changes or additions they want to make. Who's that? Eunice.

[Eunice Browne]: Not surprisingly, I do.

[Maury Carroll]: Oh, Christ.

[Eunice Browne]: A few small things, and then I would suggest, and I can put the text that I've created in the draft, but I suggest writing, including a section, and this all goes into the community engagement summary about public meetings. What page is that on, Eunice? Do you want me to share my screen? That'd be great. And meanwhile, let me put the text that I have in. All right, you should be able to share, Jane.

[Jean Zotter]: OK, thanks, Jane. I'm just trying to pull it up.

[Eunice Browne]: Sorry, it's OK. Yeah, and I'm trying to find a. See.

[Jean Zotter]: Okay. So on the community engagement? Yeah.

[Eunice Browne]: We have this on public hearings here. No, this is a section I suggest on public meetings and I'm going to pop the text into. Oh, I hate working with my laptop.

[Jean Zotter]: Back to zoom how's what are public meeting separate from public hearings public meetings are like, basically what we're doing now. Okay, I see.

[Milva McDonald]: Let me see if I can. So basically our meetings and subcommittee meetings, right?

[Eunice Browne]: So I put in and the reason I suggest this is because. We've all heard on any particular topics that comes up. you know, at the city council or the school committee or whatever, and people find out about it and they feel like, you know, that was done under the dark of night. Nobody ever told me about that or how come we didn't know about this. And this is, you know, um, my suggestion of, um, putting something in there. And I went and I counted up how many meetings we actually held. And how many of them were our regular Thursday evening meetings versus subcommittee meetings? And the fact that. You know, all of them are on zoom all of them on the city calendar. Basically, we did this with full transparency. And, you know, I think it will say to people, you know, you had plenty of opportunity to participate in this process, 58 meetings. Plenty of opportunity and and that's something that I would like to see and I suggest that include the focus groups units. Uh, no, that's separate. No, that's that. Yeah. That's up the ice cream. So all that stuff went into different. These are. You know, Thursday meetings, we had some extra Thursday meetings, you know, where we doubled up a few months. And, yeah, all of the subcommittee meetings that we had. You know, would representation, the preamble group, we really have 30 subcommittee meetings.

[Milva McDonald]: We associate a total. So, I guess we did. So, when you. Yeah, you're suggesting including, even though those were just our meetings, they were all open to the public. So you're suggesting adding these to the public engagement section, making the point that this was part of the public outreach of the committee. Right. I mean, the fact that all our meetings were open to the public and we have the public attending.

[Eunice Browne]: Right. And if, you know, maybe somebody was interested in the elections process, but not interested in the school committee, you know, they could have logged on or watched on TV or watch the instant replay or whatever of whatever topic, you know, of interest, um, as well as our, you know, once a month, Thursday meetings where we, you know, Took votes and things like that, so it's part of to be the. Transparency and heading off that, you know, we did all of this open and above board. People had a chance to participate. They just didn't.

[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so you want to basically. suggest that we add this to the charter? Does anybody have any thoughts about this? Does anybody have any? I make a motion to do so. Okay. Does anybody want to have any?

[Andreottola]: Yeah, I'd like to say something. If you would add that, it makes the appearance that there was a lot of community participation, that they had all these meetings, when in reality, they were sparsely or not attended at all. I don't think it, it's not being transparent. It's actually misrepresenting, you know, that yeah, that they were open to the public, but you're going to put that they were open to the public, but the public didn't come. I mean, it, it, it kind of the message is that, you know, this was like a, a community, you know, a community driven, process, and it was, but it wasn't, you know, no one took advantage of it, or very few people did.

[Milva McDonald]: Okay, I didn't see who raised their hand first, so I'm just gonna go to the first person on my screen, Ron.

[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, with all due respect, I couldn't disagree with Anthony more. Of course you don't disagree. But it's the truth.

[Milva McDonald]: Okay, go ahead, Ron.

[Ron Giovino]: The fact is that this committee made available everything that we do. Whether people didn't take advantage of it is not on us. It's on the people who chose not to. And we have no measure for how many people went on Zoom and looked up recorded issues as well. So I think putting negative in here would just be the wrong thing to do. We gave opportunity to make this as public as possible, and I totally disagree with what was just said.

[Andreottola]: I'd like to respond, please. Yeah, go ahead, Ian. I do have a right to respond. That is not what I said, Ron. Please don't misinterpret my words. My words were not to include a negative. I'm saying that not to include a message that this was a large community participatory events because they weren't. And it would be misleading to communicate that in our report. We don't want to misrepresent what we did. We did it openly and people chose not to participate in large numbers. Does that need to be in our report? No, but we shouldn't go put in our report that we had this huge, you know, 50 some odd meetings that were open to the public to misrepresent what actually occurred. What occurred was that work did happen, it was available for people, and very few community members participated.

[Phyllis Morrison]: okay that's the truth that's the reality that's not being that's not being negative okay can phyllis can you speak phyllis and then i'm going to go to maury and then danielle go ahead phyllis uh anthony i think you're misunderstanding this this is very kindly i would like you to listen okay so i'm going to say i think this is a good statement i don't think it's negative in any way shape or form this is factual these are the meetings that we held We invited people. Whether they came or not is not a point. I think this tells, if anyone picks this up and read it, they could say, oh, they did a lot of work. Good. It wasn't just something that was done in, someone said, in the dark of the night or something like this. I think it's important for people to know how seriously we took this and that we spent the time and we put in the time to do this. I see it in no way as being in any way, shape, or form negative in any sense of the manner.

[Andreottola]: If people are going to put words in my mouth and say things that are inaccurate, I have the responsibility to respond. Just as we did, excuse me, I'd like to respond.

[Milva McDonald]: Just for a minute, Anthony, go ahead.

[Andreottola]: Okay. In the fact of the last thing that we voted on, the ethics, right? We didn't communicate with the community. In the beginning of this process, we engaged with community members, politicians, anybody that would talk to us. We did a lot of outreach and talked to a lot of people about things before we voted, before we formulated things. But as the time went on, we held meetings, they weren't attended by people, we didn't get feedback, we didn't seek feedback from community members or our government officials. So to present ourselves is that we did this and just, you know what, just we're going to, you're going to vote and you're going to put it in and go right ahead. I'm all done.

[Milva McDonald]: Okay, thanks for that, Anthony. Danielle, I think Maury was next, and then Danielle.

[Maury Carroll]: Anthony, this isn't an attack on you, but let's just talk about this for a second.

[Andreottola]: Let's not even talk about me.

[Maury Carroll]: Okay. Come on, come on. We've done this for how long? You and I sat there, we talked about how many committee individual meetings- Maury, this is not about me. I didn't.

[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, let's just focus on the proposal.

[Maury Carroll]: I'm not saying it is, but what we have to hear is we did everything that's out there. We did it. Whether people got involved in it or whether they didn't, That's their prerogative. It's not what we were charged to do. And what we were charged to do, we've done it over and above, as far as I'm concerned. And Anthony, you know me as well as anybody else does. We've done a good job. You've done a great job. And everybody in this committee have done a good job. How much can you take it that people don't want to get involved in it? That's not our problem.

[Milva McDonald]: OK, thanks, Maury.

[Ron Giovino]: I second the motion.

[Milva McDonald]: I just want to let Danielle make her comment.

[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I do appreciate these comments, because I mean, I hear what you're saying. It sounds like actually you guys are kind of saying the same thing, where we presented what we could control, which was that we made as much effort to engage the public as we could. And I think it's important to have it in here, because not only to show this is what we did, but also for the future, when people do this again, they know how much to engage the community or how many attempts to engage the community. So that when people say about this, about our work, we didn't know this was happening, we couldn't do this, both they can see that what we are, the attempts that we made, and they can see when this happens again, I'll have these other opportunities to participate. That's a good point. Just a presentation of facts, like these are the things we did, this is what we could control, and we did what we could control.

[Milva McDonald]: That's a, that's a good point. Okay. I do want to vote on it. But can I put my editor hat on for a minute, Eunice? Are you okay with that? Sure. I mean, this was a draft. I mean, you can, you know, tweak it as needed. I'm just in the streamlined mindset, and I would like to go from various components of a charter to we held 30 subcommittee meetings, just because that other information is in other parts of the Well, the Collins Center is in other parts of the final report, and I don't necessarily think we need to say that they were the first Thursday of the month. That's just, and then it just tightens it up.

[Eunice Browne]: I'm probably okay with what you're saying, but I just want to be clear. Yeah.

[Milva McDonald]: So, well, Jean just did it, so. Okay.

[Eunice Browne]: So during the span of 22 months, we have 58, 28, 30 subcommittee meeting to do deeper dives.

[Milva McDonald]: It just tightens it up a little bit. Okay. Yeah, I'm good. Okay. So we're going to vote on whether to add this to this community engagement section of the final report. Okay. Eunice? Yes. Well, this is where I can't see everybody, so I'm going to try to remember everybody's name. Phyllis?

[Phyllis Morrison]: Yes.

[Milva McDonald]: Danielle? Yes. Ron?

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Milva McDonald]: Maury? Yes. Anthony Andreadola? Yes. Jean? Yes. Did I get Phyllis? Yes. You did. You got it already. It's just me then. All right. I got Danielle, right? There's eight of us here. Yeah. Okay, great. Thank you, Eunice. We will add that. Any other suggestions for changes or additions or any proposals? I move the motion. Okay, let's make sure. Eunice, do you have your hand raised again?

[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I just have two small ones. Jean, can you scroll back up to the top of community engagement, please? Where it says in the second paragraph, while we had a limited budget for community engagement, we accomplished a lot. My suggestion would be, while we had a limited budget for community engagement and no community newspaper to turn to, we accomplished a lot.

[Milva McDonald]: We could add that. I mean, how do people feel about that?

[Jean Zotter]: It's fine with me. I don't have a strong objection.

[Milva McDonald]: Anybody? Maury.

[Maury Carroll]: I mean, what is this doing for? Why are we going through this? I don't think it means anything to what we're trying to do in the big picture of it. We've had meetings upon meetings and subcommittees It's more than the whole project. I don't want to go through this anymore.

[Milva McDonald]: I'm going to vote no. OK. This is just one. I vote no. OK. So do we want to vote? So I guess we're going to vote on whether to add this little line. But Jamie, yeah. Put the I in utilize. Thank you. OK. Maury, let me just say. Are there any other no votes besides Maury? Does anybody else object to adding this to the final report?

[Phyllis Morrison]: I'm apathetic. I'm going to abstain. I really.

[Milva McDonald]: Okay. I think that then we're just going to add it in. Good. Okay. Anybody else, any other changes? Eunice, did you have anything else? I mean, I'm clearly pissing people off, so I won't bother. No, you're not. It's okay, Eunice, if you have something else.

[Phyllis Morrison]: Eunice, you are not pissing me off, dear, at all.

[Eunice Browne]: Okay, thank you. Under the listening sessions, I would just suggest adding that we also had one with ASL interpreters. That's a good point. That's where we talked about the Spanish and Haitian Creole part. Yeah. Thank you. That's a good addition. Jean, you'll add that in, right? Yeah. Happened to be the one that I was the note taker for.

[Milva McDonald]: Great, thank you for pointing that out.

[Eunice Browne]: And then under the interviews of elected and city leaders, I would just add that we also interviewed the current and immediate past superintendent of schools.

[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, did that not get in there? I don't think so.

[Phyllis Morrison]: The assistant superintendent too also, was he interviewed or did he just come to our meeting, Eunice? I think maybe he just came to our meeting. Okay.

[Jean Zotter]: Yeah, I don't remember that. Yeah, we just said, we said city officials, but we could.

[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, but I just like, you know, highlighting that, you know, it's such a, I think that's a good point.

[Milva McDonald]: I agree with that, but just because the superintendent is yeah. Current and former superintendents? I think Belson was interviewed too. Okay. The school committee subcommittee did that. Yeah. Yes. If they were included in the sixth, we should change that number, right?

[Phyllis Morrison]: I don't think they were, were they counted in that? They're really not city officials, so I'm glad we're pointing them out.

[Milva McDonald]: Jean, when you wrote this section, did you include them in the six? I don't remember, so I'll double check. Okay, thank you.

[Eunice Browne]: I know under the interview section, if you were trying to, when you listed Alicia Hunt and an assortment of others, didn't you, I think Adam Hurtubise was also interviewed?

[Milva McDonald]: Yes, Adam Hurtubise, Alicia Hunt, also Nina Nazarian.

[Eunice Browne]: And Melissa Ripley, who was the intelligence person at the time.

[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, we sort of interviewed her. We had an email exchange.

[Eunice Browne]: And would it be worth it to include? Yeah, put Melissa Ripley there. Yeah, and Adam Hernandez.

[Milva McDonald]: Oh, yeah, that's right. Is that the right spelling? Yes, that's right. Thank you, Eunice, for paying attention to this. I don't know how you spell that. You'll check that later, right? I'll check it, yeah. I think it's H-U-R-T-I-B-U. You're his neighbor, don't you? I know, he is my neighbor. Yeah, but that's okay. We can double check that later. We'll make sure that's right.

[Eunice Browne]: In the appendix, are you listing the subcommittees that we had?

[Milva McDonald]: We didn't know that, but that's a good, I think that would be a worthwhile addition.

[Eunice Browne]: And the last suggestion that I had, and then I'll keep quiet is, um, you know, we go, we go through under here with the recommendations and, you know, we have each article, um, you know, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, you know, uh, I just have this suggestion that we add in, because people are going to look through that and wonder, where's articles 1, 5, and 10? Yeah, that's true. I would just add each of those three and state that just a line or two of what they are and based upon, Best practices in a charter, these will be components of our.

[Milva McDonald]: Proposed charter or something, so you're talking about under the sort of major recommendation sections. Yeah, I mean, we have articles.

[Eunice Browne]: You know, 2, 3, 4, 6, you know, all the rest of them and we're reading that would be like, well, where's 1, 5 and 10.

[Milva McDonald]: Well, I mean, the reason they're not there is because we didn't, there weren't, you know, that section just sort of pulls out the major recommendations that we're making in the charter, but in those sections are, didn't have any really sort of recommendations of note. That's why we didn't do that. But the major recommendation is to add that section. To have a new modernized charter. Yeah, that's in that. Yeah, I'm just trying to think of how we would do that. So Eunice, can you just explain where are you suggesting we?

[Eunice Browne]: Note this not in the summary, but when you're going right down, you know, when you have so and so you go article to legislative branch recommendations and then you have.

[Milva McDonald]: You know, so we would say you skipped over article 1, so we would say article 1 incorporation short title definitions. And just leave it blank. after that?

[Eunice Browne]: Is that how you envision it? It's been recommended. This article, this section is best practice. Adding this section is best practice for a modern charter or something to that effect. Am I making sense? And then the same for 5 and 10. a description of what that particular article does, and that it's a best practice to- To have the Senate charter.

[Milva McDonald]: What do people think about that idea?

[Phyllis Morrison]: Excuse me.

[Jean Zotter]: I agree. When I was writing it, I felt like it wasn't clear why we were leaving those sections out. So to me, I did think of what you're saying, Eunice.

[Eunice Browne]: Okay. I don't want to use the word lopsided, left-sided.

[Jean Zotter]: It could just be a short summary of this. We added this section, like you said, and it includes definitions or.

[Milva McDonald]: Okay, Maury, do you have?

[Maury Carroll]: I'm just confused by which subcommittee meeting that all of this was held in.

[Milva McDonald]: Well, You mean, well, we did, we were the final report subcommittee put this together.

[Maury Carroll]: I know, and I didn't hear any of this then, so.

[Milva McDonald]: Well, I know, but Eunice wasn't on that committee, so.

[Maury Carroll]: Okay, but you've done plenty of committees with a lot of input previous to this, and I'm just. That's true. I'm confused by all this. So. I'm not a very smart guy, so you have to kind of walk me through this.

[Milva McDonald]: Well, I think what we have here is we just pulled out, highlighted some of our main major recommendations in the final report. And there's this thought that since we didn't pull out articles, we didn't mention articles 1, 5, or 10, right? Do we do 9? We might not have 9 in there either.

[Maury Carroll]: I think we kind of went. all through these different articles.

[Milva McDonald]: No, we have nine. Okay, good. So 1, 5, and 10, do we add them here just to sort of illustrate that they exist in this body, in this part of the final report to illustrate that they exist and indicate what they are? And they're all new to the, they would all be new to Medford because Medford hasn't had any of them in the past, right? So, So to my mind, there's two ways of doing it. We could, at the very beginning, say articles 1, 5, and 10, and then sort of list what they are and say, you know, to include just a sentence about these or these are included in the chart, or we could put them in order.

[Maury Carroll]: I would say put them in order, myself.

[Milva McDonald]: Put them in order.

[Maury Carroll]: OK. Why would you be ambiguous to let someone punch holes in it?

[Milva McDonald]: The proposal is in the recommendation section to at least make reference in order to Articles 1, 5, and 10, name what they are, and come up with a sentence. That explains their existence in the charter. Does that. Does that sound right units?

[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, just like you said, in order, you know, what the. What the section is. and then a sentence or two of what that section does. Then based on the best practices of a modern charter, we are recommending that this be included in our charter.

[Milva McDonald]: That could go to every article, not just those.

[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, that's true.

[Milva McDonald]: I mean, good point.

[Maury Carroll]: Exactly. So, I mean, come on.

[Milva McDonald]: So, yeah. So, I guess we'll vote on whether to do that, but I guess what I want to say is if we vote on it and say that language will be crafted as discussed, is that okay?

[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I mean, I'm comfortable with either you or Gene or Yeah. You know, as part of that committee, I think Phyllis was also part of that committee. Yeah. Any one of you drafting, you know, something appropriate.

[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Okay. So does everyone understand what the addition we're talking about is? That we would put Article 1 before this legislative branch recommendations and then we would do the same for 5 and 10.

[Maury Carroll]: I'm confused.

[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so right now, we have a summary of the major recommendations, and then we go into more detail, and we start with Article 2, because we didn't highlight anything from Article 1. But the concern is that when you look at that, you say to yourself, well, where's Article 1, and where's Article 5, and where's Article 10? Where's the concern from? Some of the people that have read it have read the report.

[Maury Carroll]: I haven't seen too many people being concerned about it.

[Milva McDonald]: Well, we're going to, you know, the proposal on the table is that we add.

[Maury Carroll]: So, you're saying there's one person just. No, there are two people that are on my committee. Okay, go ahead.

[Milva McDonald]: We're going to vote on it. We'll find out if there's more.

[Eunice Browne]: Looking at it from the point of view of somebody who's going to be reading it.

[Danielle Balocca]: It's not going to change or add any information. It's just making it easier to kind of go through.

[Milva McDonald]: It's not going to change or add any information. It's just adding in those articles in this sort of outline of the charter and our recommendations to sort of show that they will exist in the charter. Okay.

[Phyllis Morrison]: It is clarity. And I'd like to say something. I don't know about the rest of you. I am a little tired. This has been a long journey. And I've been at the shortest amount of all of you.

[Maury Carroll]: I'm sorry for that.

[Phyllis Morrison]: But I do appreciate these suggestions. I do. And I like hearing everyone talk and say what they want to say and do that. So and a lot of times I thank them for giving me clarity on things, you know. I think that if someone wants to read this, they might say, hey, wait a minute, where are 1 through 1? Where is 1? Where is 5? Where is 10? You know, it's a point I missed, so thanks.

[Milva McDonald]: OK, thanks. OK, so let's vote on whether we wanted to. Does everyone understand what the proposal is? Yes. OK. All right, let's vote on whether to add it. Danielle? Yes. Jean? Yes, Eunice? Yes. Phyllis?

[Maury Carroll]: Yes.

[Milva McDonald]: Maury?

[Maury Carroll]: No.

[Milva McDonald]: Anthony Andreadola?

[Andreottola]: Yes.

[Milva McDonald]: Ron?

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Milva McDonald]: I think it's just me, right? Yeah. I'm okay with it. I'll say yes, even though I don't really think we have to, but I'm okay with doing it, so I'll say yes. Okay. Any other proposals for changes or additions?

[Andreottola]: I just, I don't know if anyone from the community is on. Something that we at the beginning of this process was there supposed to be an important part of our meetings was to have a public participation we we we've stopped even asking. If if there was any public that wanted to comment on things before we voted that we spent a lot of time coming up with a process to ensure that that happened and we're not even checking right now.

[Milva McDonald]: So thanks, Anthony. And I appreciate you bringing that up. I mean, you know, these votes are about a report that that was read by the committee. And I so I mean, that's why I didn't ask for public input on it, because, you know, they didn't really read the report. And so it's not really decision making around the charter. But I definitely wanted to make. Yeah, thank you.

[Andreottola]: I appreciate last few meetings.

[Milva McDonald]: Okay. I mean, we always ask for it at the end for sure. So and Bill, Bill Giglio would like to speak. So go ahead, Bill. You're muted, I think.

[Bill Giglio]: Oh, I'm sorry. To that point, and I appreciate Anthony saying that, but I've listened to a lot of these meetings, and I honestly, I don't think I've ever felt like the public hasn't had that chance to speak. I've always spoke when one wanted to, and you guys have always let me, so I just wanted to let you know that. Thank you.

[Milva McDonald]: Thank you. Okay. And I do want to open the floor for any comments from anybody. But is there anybody on the committee that has any changes or additions to the final report?

[Phyllis Morrison]: There's something in the chat. Hold on.

[Milva McDonald]: Oh, Frances gave us the spelling of, that was from before, Danielle, right? Yeah. And Jean, can you see that Frances put the spelling of Adam's name? Yeah. Thank you, Frances. Okay. Okay, so in that case, we're going to vote to accept this final report. And everybody looked at the appendix, you saw, you know, okay with everything that we included, anything else you think we should include? Great. All right. Final report. So this is, you're going to vote either yes or no to accept this final report with the additions that we made tonight and the changes we made tonight to be submitted to the mayor. Ron.

[Ron Giovino]: Do you want to make it a motion?

[Milva McDonald]: Okay, sure. I made the motion.

[Ron Giovino]: I second it and I vote yes.

[Milva McDonald]: Alright, awesome. Eunice? Yes. Phyllis?

[Phyllis Morrison]: Yes.

[Milva McDonald]: Jean? Yes. Danielle?

[Andreottola]: Yes.

[Milva McDonald]: Anthony Andriagala?

[Maury Carroll]: Yes. Yes, I thought I made the motion originally.

[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, you did about the charter. We got a final report and thank you to everybody now. Jean and I will put it all, make these changes, put it all together. I think we'll be able to get it to the mayor before the end of the, I mean, I'm saying by Monday, but I don't know. I can't promise, Jean. I'm going camping, I can't.

[Jean Zotter]: Okay, well. How about by Friday? Melba. Next Friday.

[Milva McDonald]: Friday's tomorrow.

[Phyllis Morrison]: Oh, next Friday. Next Friday. Phyllis. Bill Giglio has his hand raised. I don't know if it's still up from the last time he spoke, but his hand is up.

[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. OK. We'll check on that for a minute. But I do want to talk to you, Jean, because we'll talk about timeline. OK. Bill, Bill, is your hand still up? I have my hand up. OK. OK. I'll get to everybody whose hands are up. I promise. Bill, did you want to say something?

[Bill Giglio]: No, I just want to thank each and every one of you guys for taking the time to do this. You guys really did a great job. Thank you. Everyone's been asking for the chatter review. I'm just disappointed on the community. you know, not getting involved as much as we've been hearing people wanting change. And I know Eunice alone has been doing everything to promote as much as she could with this and everybody else. But it's just disappointing that the community didn't get a little more involved. But in any event, I probably listened to about 80% of the meetings and I really appreciate what you guys did. Thank you very much.

[Milva McDonald]: Thank you so much. Okay, Maury and then Danielle. Maury.

[Maury Carroll]: I just want to thank everybody from day one for everything that we've done, whether on the left side or the right side, we've come together here and it's been a great experience and I appreciate everybody and hope we all know each other better.

[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Thanks, Maureen.

[Danielle Balocca]: Danielle. I was going to say something similar just how grateful I am to have met all of you and to work together on this and also specifically to Milva. I think it can maybe feel like a thankless job like wrangling all of us all the time. I know the first time I met you this felt like a really far away goal and so I just hope that you feel really proud of everything that Yeah. Thanks.

[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. This has been in the works for years, you guys. And I do want to just speak briefly. Francis is putting a note, appreciation note as well. Nice job. I appreciate all the diverse thought perspectives that have led to the completion of this group. Thank you, Francis. I want to just talk, before we wrap up, I want to talk briefly about what happens next. But I also just, like I said, it's been a long time. People have been talking about charter review in the city for so many years. And regardless of what happens next, we, a citizen-led committee, did this work. We did a review. And that final report will exist. And no matter what happens, it's there and the work has been done. And I really thank all of you. And I also thank the Collins Center, whose help has been invaluable. And all the members of the public who came to our meetings and participated. Because we did have a good amount of public participation when you add up the listening sessions, surveys, and all our meetings. So thank you. So Jean and I will just coordinate. We will get this to the mayor. And after that, it's basically in the mayor's hands. And eventually, the city council will be involved. And we'll see what, I know Eunice did tell everyone about a city council meeting next week. Next Wednesday night, 7 p.m. And if people want to go to that, you know, it's not any, there's no official capacity for us to go to that meeting, but. Phyllis is laughing. Go to another meeting? No, no, no. You can read what's in the chat, Melva. Oh, I'm placing a barbecue for all of you. I'm sorry. Maury, I don't know Maury, there's a rumor going around. Do kind of you Maury, we appreciate it. Oh, really? What's the rumor? That you're going to host a barbecue for all of us. Oh, I'll do that any day of the week. You know that.

[Phyllis Morrison]: Can you talk to Danielle? Does Murray have ice cream? I don't know. Frances will ask him.

[Milva McDonald]: No, so I can bring that in, whatever you like. All right. Wait, somebody else had their hand up. Oh, I did. OK.

[Maury Carroll]: Always with you, Jean.

[Jean Zotter]: Yeah, me. I'm just going to make this go to 830. Should we have a representative attend City Council, I guess, was my question. And should we nominate someone or a group of us taking turns to answer any questions City Council has? I feel like just handing it to them without any presence of the committee might Yeah, well, I don't know that they'll like their meeting.

[Maury Carroll]: She's exactly right.

[Milva McDonald]: Yeah.

[Maury Carroll]: I'm with you, Jean, right by your shoulders. You know that.

[Milva McDonald]: Well, their meeting is scheduled. Their first meeting on this is scheduled for Wednesday. And I don't know that they'll have I don't know what material they'll have seen of ours before that. But Ron and then you know, show up.

[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I think my point is that our presentation has not been presented to them yet. So I don't think it's necessarily, you know, I'd be happy to answer questions about once they read our presentation, but to reinvent the wheel with them again, just doesn't seem to make sense to us. If they were calling us in to ask questions of what we voted on, happy to do that. But this is kind of like, what do you guys think again? And I just don't think we represent, you know, That's my opinion. I think we should wait until they have it in hand and have read it.

[Maury Carroll]: Let me ask you this. You've been around probably longer than I have, aren't you? No. No, I haven't. I know I haven't. Anyway, make a long story short. Just the presence of alone gets these people upset. and they start questioning where they come from, especially the ones that only been there a year or two or three years. And it may not be a bad idea to just sit in the audience, and I'd be happy to do that.

[Ron Giovino]: Okay, I think we're citizens, we can listen to any meeting we want to say in an official capacity, you know, we know what I'm saying. Yeah, this document is what they should be asking questions.

[Andreottola]: Well, the question of the group. Is this group officially dissolved as at the end of this meeting?

[Milva McDonald]: That's a good question. I mean, I don't think that there's anything official about it. I can tell you that this will be our last meeting. We don't have any other meetings scheduled and we will be submitting our final report. The mayor might ask us to participate in some meetings in the future. That's going to be up to her. I don't know, like, if there's an official dissolution, but we are, you know, we just voted to submit our final report, and that'll be, you know, our work is done.

[Ron Giovino]: The only thing I'm concerned about is protocol. I'm just concerned about protocol, that it goes to the mayor who appointed us. We shouldn't be talking about that presentation until the mayor has handed it over to city council, is my opinion. Then we can talk about details. I think having a discussion about what we voted on is not fair to the process. And that's all. I'm happy.

[Unidentified]: No, I hear you, Ron. I hear you. I understand.

[Ron Giovino]: I want to talk about it. But whether we're commissioned or decommissioned, we are always part of history that we created it. So we're always going to be somewhat experts on the subject matter of why we voted for what we voted for. But to me, it's good. The process is the mayor who appointed us should get to look at it. She'll decide when it goes to city council and then they can bring us in and we have a great discussion. But to do it beforehand, it doesn't make sense.

[Milva McDonald]: I hear you, but we are still living with the reality that the council's governance committee is having a meeting on charter review on Wednesday. It's been publicized. So I hear you.

[Phyllis Morrison]: Milva, how are they going to review this if we're not giving it to the mayor till Monday?

[Milva McDonald]: I know, or maybe not until the end of the week. Well, it depends on the timeline.

[Andreottola]: May I ask another question? I'm sorry. Can a city council do a charter? I was under the impression that elected officials, it's a separate process that they can do amendments, but they can't actually write a charter themselves. Am I incorrect?

[Milva McDonald]: I don't know if you're correct or incorrect, Anthony. Let's ask Anthony or Marilyn, I mean, yeah, about that.

[Contreas]: Some communities have a charter review process in their charter and we have seen councils make significant revisions to charters and in some cases, A committee is appointed that includes members that are chosen by the mayor and members that are chosen by the council. And then this committee presents their report to the council. And councils have taken this on themselves, too.

[Milva McDonald]: You mean charter review? Taken charter review on themselves? Yes.

[Eunice Browne]: I need to say something here. Go ahead, Leonis. The city council has made it perfectly clear in several meetings this year that they will be writing a charter. They will consider the work that we have done, and their feeling is, and you can go back and look at the tapes, I think I've actually provided them to you before, that because The mayor appointed us and we are not elected. The work is illegitimate. That is the word that has been used and that because we are not an elected commission or committee that. Basically, the elected officials will be writing a charter and that is their feeling on this. The governance committee, this iteration of the city council has decided that in this two-year term, they would be writing a charter. Um, and as I said earlier, um, they've been bantering around the idea for a while. Um, then, uh, they're now getting started on it and, um, uh, I communicated with Justin saying the committee to make sure of, um, the date of the meeting. And he said we would be invited to all future meetings and in the, um, resident engagement committee that they had last week, where they touched on the charter as part of writing up their monthly newsletter. Councilor Zhang specifically said that he noticed that there was a member of the charter committee on the resident engagement committee Zoom last week, that being me, and that he would hoped that I would share with the group that they're not trying to step on anybody's toes. quote unquote, but they are beginning to write their own charter. So my question to you guys is this. I also think that it's a good idea for us to be present at these meetings, whether in person or on Zoom, just to let them know that we're there and that we've done all this and that we're there. We're not going away. But would it be proper and appropriate for us to be asking questions of them as they do their work or answering questions that might be posed if they see one of us on a Zoom or sitting in chambers? If they were to ask us questions, would it be appropriate for us to be answering? I know at the low profile for the 22 months where we've spoken as one voice and I know we've all watched some of these meetings and I know nobody has spoken up because we made that agreement early on that we would just sit back quietly and do our work and be diligent and get to this point and here we are.

[Milva McDonald]: Okay, thanks, Eunice. Maury, did you wanna say something?

[Maury Carroll]: Yeah, I hear exactly what Eunice is saying, but I think our approach should be at this point, let them show their hand and let us sit up, let us sit outside to be able to punch holes in them, because they're gonna sit up, they're gonna sit there and just punch holes in everything that we have done. That's how this goes. So why don't we just sit outside, listen to what they have to say, and go back to the mayor and say, this is our thing, and how do we find a happy balance here? That's all I'm saying. Let's not go out there and punch. We are going to produce our document, which explains all of our work over this I'm period. And they're gonna, they have none. They're pulling straws just to kick us in the ass. They've done nothing. And you follow this very clearly that they keep talking about their charter study committee, their governance committee. They've done nothing, so let's call them out. Let them show their hand. We already have our hand, and let's just sit back and wait and see.

[Milva McDonald]: Okay, thank you. Phyllis?

[Phyllis Morrison]: I may be hearing things incorrectly, but is what you're saying, Eunice, and is that All the work that the committee has done here can be just tossed aside.

[Eunice Browne]: Yes, yes. Yeah, that's that's how exactly how I interpret it. The word was used and I'll go back and find the. The tape, we're not elected.

[Milva McDonald]: There was one meeting where those comments were made. Exactly, yes. I do think that they will look at our report and take it seriously. Well, we hope they will. I think they will. We'll see. So do I. Anthony Wilson, can I ask you a question?

[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: Through the chair, yeah.

[Phyllis Morrison]: Thank you, Anthony. Go ahead. I'm sorry, Melba. That's OK. Anthony. Have you, or is it Marie, have you had instances where a committee, a charity study group has been appointed by a mayor, and then all of that work has been tossed aside by city council?

[Anthony Ivan Wilson]: Marilyn, I don't know if you want to chime in. I don't have anything.

[Phyllis Morrison]: I'm sorry. I was saying, Marie, I'm sorry.

[Contreas]: Yes. There was a committee that in one city and the council refused to take it up.

[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Jean.

[Contreas]: Sorry, but these things happen.

[Jean Zotter]: Yeah. I made the comment in the spirit of hoping it would be a collaborative process with the city council. I do think there is intention there for them to consider the work that we have done, at least what I've heard from Councilors. But I think Ron raised a good point that we are appointed by the mayor and I wonder if we could get clarity from the mayor on what our role is once we hand this report to her and are we. Officially still committee members like if. If Eunice wants to go to a meeting, is she going as Eunice a citizen or units as a committee member? Does the mayor want us to have any engagement with city? I guess. Given how we were appointed, we should. Get our marching orders from the mayor as to the next.

[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, so what I've heard from the mayor is that if committee members want to go to these meetings. It's. Since we are invested, we're so invested in it. So I guess what I would say is it's up to you. I mean, I hear Ron's point and I do think that it's legitimate. Because we do have this body of work and there is a process that's going to take place where it's going to go to the mayor and then the mayor presents it to the city council. And it's a little unclear to me what the council is doing at the next two meetings that they've scheduled. So I think it's okay if people want to attend. But, you know, The process that we were appointed for was to create this report for the mayor, which we have done. And then there will be a process that will be up to the mayor, what she does with what we've submitted. So if we do go to the council meetings, I don't think it would be in, I don't know if I would use the word official, but I think it's fine for people to go. And it's unclear, you know, what we would, I mean, even just to listen, it's fine for people to go. So I think it's up to people whether they want to. Ron?

[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I'd also like to find out if, because we voted on it today, does it become part of public record as of today? Or when the final, when you clean it up and present it to the mayor on next Friday or whatever, is that when it becomes public? Because I think that's very important. There's a document that's not public should not be presented at any public meetings other than where it's intended. So I think we need to have a decision on that too. I don't want to start getting in the weeds and I appreciate Danielle's, you know, we're citizens first, you know, we can have an opinion on this stuff for sure. But when we're wearing the hat of charter, I think we have to really be careful what is a public document what's not a public document until the in my opinion The mayor deserves first look But if we're not presenting it to the mayor, they'll say say we haven't cleaned it up until friday Which is reasonable if we go wednesday and pull out the document that we see as of right now I just don't I just don't think it's a it's a professional way.

[Milva McDonald]: No, I don't think anybody's pulling out a document but but uh, danielle your question, I mean All our meetings have been public. All our votes have been public. So I think it's fine if somebody says, well, what's going to happen with ward representation? I think it's fine to say, well, the committee voted. We can say what we voted on. That's all public.

[Danielle Balocca]: We want to get together in the future to be like, let's show up at this thing. Communicate as a group. It's OK to do that. It doesn't violate.

[Milva McDonald]: And you mean if we, if, if some of us, but we wouldn't be meeting as the metric charter study committee.

[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I guess that's my question is like when somebody asks, are we dissolved? Like we are no longer defined in that way.

[Milva McDonald]: So we're not calling any of it. Yeah. We're not calling any official meetings. Um, I mean, I mean, when we go to more barbecue, for instance, I don't think we'll violate open meeting. Yeah.

[Eunice Browne]: Because I follow all this so closely, I'm happy to keep everybody updated as to when the meetings are using our email chain that we've had. Then that way, people can show up or log on as they wish and see you there.

[Milva McDonald]: I think it's fine to let people know when the meetings are. Yeah. I think that a lot of this is going to become clearer as the process unfolds, it will become clearer.

[Eunice Browne]: Frankly, I don't think that the city council is going to get terribly far with this in this term. Thank you, Jean. You take care. Thanks for all your contributions.

[Milva McDonald]: I'll be in touch about the timeline.

[Eunice Browne]: See you at the barbecue. Bring the ice cream. You know, I don't think they're going to get too far. I mean, they seem to be, you know, intent on getting this done before the end of this term, which, you know, they have, what, 14, 15 months left. I mean, keep in mind, you know, I know we all have other lives and other jobs and families and things, but working on this charter has been our only job for 22 months. And we've clearly put in the time to do it. They, in addition to having their own lives and jobs and things like that, have. You know, a governing the city, they're writing tree ordinances. They're writing rodent ordinances. They're passing a budget, you know, dealing with potholes all sorts of other things. You know, it takes them a year to write a leaf blower ordinance. You know, are they really going to get a charter written 14 months?

[Milva McDonald]: I don't know. Yeah, like I said, it's unclear exactly and it will become clear as it unfolds. I think this is all I can really say. Exactly.

[Phyllis Morrison]: Phyllis, did you want to? No, I was just shaking my head, trying to think of all the things that we're talking about.

[Milva McDonald]: Did you have something else you wanted to say, Ron?

[Unidentified]: No, sorry.

[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So, um, does anybody, does anybody else on the committee have anything that they want to address or.

[Phyllis Morrison]: No, I just want to say that I have learned so much from being part of this group. I had, I had some idea about what went on in the city, but I didn't know all the ins and outs. So I want to thank everybody. Um, I want to thank, I'll thank the mayor for the opportunity. Thank you for all your hard work. Thank you to everybody that showed up every week. It was a lot of hard work, and the conversations were really enlightening. I could only see something one way sometimes, and then I'd listen to Ron or Anthony or Mari or Eunice or everybody, and I would go, oh, wait a minute, let me think about it that way. For me, that was a very, very rewarding experience. So my sincere thanks to all of you. Thank you. Thank you, Phyllis.

[Milva McDonald]: Okay, does anybody, any members of the public want to speak?

[Eunice Browne]: Okay. I'll just add as well, you know, my thanks to everybody and it's been a pleasure getting to know those who I didn't know before and working with everybody, you know, and hashing things out and deliberating and debating and we came up with a pretty darn good product for the city. I ran into Brianna in Wegmans on Saturday at the deli counter and talked a little bit about this and I ended with the following, somebody ought to canonize Melva for sainthood. Not even close.

[Milva McDonald]: Thank you.

[Eunice Browne]: Thank you for keeping us together, keeping our spirits up, keeping us organized. Everything that you've done. When Larwell left, I think a few of us suggested that maybe somebody else take the co-chair seat with you. And you took it on by yourself. You know, and we were not an easy group to corral sometimes.

[Milva McDonald]: You guys are all great.

[Eunice Browne]: So I've heard in cats.

[Ron Giovino]: Just for the record, Eunice, she only had one miracle. There's two more to go.

[Eunice Browne]: OK. You know, thank you, Milva, for keeping us all together. And thank you to everybody else. It's been quite a journey. And I can't believe it's finally over. I know.

[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Well, again, I want to just thank you all. It's been a great experience. Once we get the final report, just make those few changes, clean it up. I will let you-all know when it's submitted so you know that it's been submitted to the mayor. Okay? Okay.

[Eunice Browne]: Anthony and Marilyn too for all of you guys.

[Milva McDonald]: Yes. Exactly. Yes.

[Eunice Browne]: We really appreciate it. Yeah.

[Milva McDonald]: We could not have done it without the call and center. Absolutely. So okay.

[Unidentified]: Motion to adjourn.

[Phyllis Morrison]: I make a motion to adjourn our final meeting. We can keep talking for another 22 minutes. All right. All in favor.

[Milva McDonald]: I thank you again everyone around the city.