[Morell]: Seventh regular meeting of the Medford City Council March 28 2023 is called to order Mr. Clerk please call the roll.
[Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears.
[Morell]: Announcements, accolades, remembrances, reports, and records. 23-076 offered by Vice President Bears and Councilor Tseng. A resolution to extend best wishes to Muslims in Medford, Massachusetts. Thank you, vice president bears on the motion of ice is embarrassed to suspend the rules to take public participation seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. All those in favor. I always oppose motion passes, I know we have some folks from Winthrop street that wanted to speak. If anyone wants to speak and come up and name and address for the record.
[Mark Chubbs]: Good evening, my name is Mark chubs 356 went up street 40 year resident lifetime resident West Method, my family's been in West Med for 150 years, retired as a union construction worker, I'm disabled. I have three grandchildren, I live on one step street. And it's a very debilitating situation for us to lose our parking spaces. I'm all about safety, but I'm concerned about safety issues. My grandchildren happen across the street, me crossing the street, parking on side streets. We all have shared driveways. I have a visiting visiting nurse my mother's 90 years old she comes to my house I don't even know how I can get her out of my house.
[Scarpelli]: I can, I can just interject just so I know that sure it's, you're a little fired up I just want to make sure that I know we get the opportunity to talk I think what Mr. Chubbs is talking about is the traffic commission meeting that was held last week, that there was some sort of approval or process that they're looking to take both sides of Winthrop Street, I believe, from the park, all the way to South Street to implement bike lane safe bike lanes but would put in bollards along both sides of the street, and we've got many phone calls from residents that were concerned that it's going going to directly affect their life, their quality of life, the safety and well being to the families and businesses like the American Legion that is located right on that street that that need those parking spaces for their survival. So again, I think I just want to clear just so you're all right. Thank you.
[Mark Chubbs]: So again, you have another neighbor. You'd like to speak. Thank you for your time.
[Morell]: Thank you. Yeah, and just to add to Councilor Scarpelli, that issue was tabled at the Traffic Commission, so it's something they'll take up at their next meeting. And I did talk to Director Blake, and because it hasn't been accepted yet, I think there is, you know, there is the ability to go back and forth and hear from more residents on it, so I just want to make that clear that it's not set in stone yet. They do have this plan, it's a plan they've worked on, but they tabled it for a reason, so.
[Knight]: Madam President, if we could just ask that the city clerk reach out to our friends at the American Legion to see what impact this will have on our election day operations as well, whether or not if those pocket spots are gone, the American Legion will still be able to continue to serve as a polling location during those days because they have operational needs to meet as well. So if they don't have those pocket spots, they might have to pull out of their agreement with the city to be used as a polling place. So that's something that I think we need to look into because we have an election coming up very shortly.
[Morell]: Great, thank you. Mr. Clerk, do you have that? Name and address for the record, please.
[George Lane]: My name is George Lane. I live at 352 Winthrop Street, and I'm here to talk about the elimination of parking Winthrop Street for this specific area from Lawrence Road to Winthrop Circle. I understand the council does not vote on this decision. The vote is taken by the Traffic Commission. I stand before you today to request that the council ensure safety is fairly applied to everyone using Winthrop Street. This includes cyclists and homeowners. Winthrop Street is dangerous. I know, I live on it. Bike lanes are being recommended to make it safe for cyclists, but Winthrop Street is also very dangerous for me and my neighbors. We currently enjoy the right to safely park in front of our homes. If parking is eliminated, we'll have to park across the street on the side streets of Badger and Burbank roads. This means unlike cyclists who move the flow of traffic, residents will need to cut directly across the street every time we need to access our vehicles. I currently don't park on those side streets. It's too dangerous. I'm healthy and I can easily run across the street. If Winthrop was a sleepy side street, I have no problem eliminating parking, but it's not. It's busy and dangerous to cross. At the last traffic commission meeting, the first order of business was approving a handicapped space for a woman with mobility limitations. She requested a dedicated handicapped space in front of her home because it was difficult for her to walk and she needed to park sometimes far away. The commission approved the request. The commission approved the request to ensure her safety due to mobility limitations. I asked the council to work with the Traffic Commission so they fully understand that the residents of Winthrop Street need to continue to have safe parking in front of their homes. Elimination of parking will force residents with mobility issues to park across the street, a heavily trafficked street. Our request to continue to have access to safe parking for older residents is the same philosophy they used in approving the handicap request. I've lived in my home for 35 years and I have enjoyed the right to safely park in front of my house. I plan to live in my home as long as I can. This goal can only be achieved if I continue to have access to safe, close parking. It worries me when I get older and develop mobility limitations, I might have to consider moving as there's no way I can easily cross the street multiple times a day. It's not safe now, let alone if I had a cane. I've heard that I've heard that the elimination of parking is a done deal the traffic commission has already decided. I was devastated when I heard this, where did democracy go in Medford. Proper notification was never given to me and my neighbors. I asked the Council to ensure that the democratic process is preserved. The residents of Winthrop Street received proper notification of parking changes that will affect their access to safe parking. With proper notification, residents will be able to take part in a debate and discussion at the next Traffic Commission meeting and have time to bring up their concerns to both the Traffic Commission and members of City Council as I am doing today. I'm drafting a letter to the Traffic Commission that recommends a compromise be discussed. This compromise will preserve resident parking on the even side of the street with the current share of the lane markings, and that parking be removed on the odd side of the street so a dedicated bike lane can be added. Residents on the odd side of the street are few in numbers, and they have access to Badger and Burbank Road without having to cross Winthrop Street. I plan to reach out to all the neighbors and ask them to sign this compromise letter. I will submit the letter to the Traffic Commission in advance of the April 11th meeting. Once again, this is only from the section from Lawrence Road to Winthrop Circle. I don't want to be up here today talking in front of you. Public speaking makes me uncomfortable, but I got no choice. I love my home, I love where I live, and I need to ensure continued access to safe parking. I'm here to represent all my neighbors of the neighborhood and keep them to keep access to safe parking we enjoy today. In closing, I ask the council to ensure that the concept of safety is applied to all citizens, both cyclists and homeowners, and that the democratic process of notification debate and reaching a compromise be considered. Thank you for your time, and I appreciate your consideration in this matter. It's very important to me and my neighborhood.
[Morell]: Thank you.
[Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President, President, I received several phone calls from residents of winter street, along with members of the Legion over the weekend. We got to this, you know, not too long ago, the traffic commission took away all the spots, most of the spots on high street for all those residents who now only can park on one side of the street and in certain sections of High Street. And to do that on Winter Street, like Councilor Scott probably said, and Councilor Knight said, you've got the legion, which depends on those parking spaces for their existence. And again, on voting day, are we gonna be able to vote there? Because most people park there. But these people who live in those streets, those are private ways that come up at Winter Street. So technically, they don't have the right to park there. because those are for the residents that live there. If those residents want to have those cars towed, they could. I don't think they would do that, but their options are thin. The holidays come up, where do their friends park if you don't have a big enough driveway? It's just not fair to just wipe our parking spots without having alternatives for these people to park.
[Morell]: Thank you.
[Scarpelli]: Again, I appreciate the residents that came up to speak but I think that it'd be something that possibly we asked the traffic, make a motion that we asked the traffic engineer to come to the city council next city council meeting because I think that compromise sounds great but. It's great if you live on the side of the road that still has parking. So I think that the phone calls we received, and I think the biggest one is the American Legion and the fact that they're a veteran service function hall that survives on rentals and having those spaces. Because if you talk about competition and they don't have those parking spots, they're just gonna leave to Arlington or other communities and they lose their business. And that's something that this community needs. And they've been very good to this community. So the other piece of this is unlike high street, when I've talked to some of the residents, Madam President, the discussion was most of those side, most of those driveways are shared driveways. So to access your parking area in your property, you have to go through a shared driveway. So it's beneficial or it's necessary to have the parking on the street so neighbors can easily park in their driveways and then put their cars away at night. So it's a different dimension that we never had to look at with High Street. So I appreciate you hearing, allowing us to present to our neighbors and I just move on that. Thank you, Madam President.
[Morell]: Thank you. Any other members of the public wish to speak on Winthrop Street specifically?
[Knight]: Madam President, on this issue, If we look at the agenda, I believe we do have some representatives from Eversource that are here. And the construction schedule is going to be something we're talking about. And as I'm looking at the handout that they gave us, it looks like they're going to be doing about 3,000 linear feet of milling and paving from Winthrop Street to Mystic Valley Parkway in the near future. So maybe we could hold the discussion on this topic until that comes up. Because it's brought under public participation, we can't make any motions. But if we bring it up underneath the Eversource paper, we'll be able to make some motions and have some action on it now.
[Morell]: Correct. Thank you. Anyone here or anyone on Zoom if you want to speak on Winthrop Street, if you want to raise your hand on Zoom, if it's something you want to speak on. I don't see any anyone. Not seeing anyone else. Yep, yeah, we'll revisit during the...
[Scarpelli]: want to speak during community participation, if we allow them to join us.
[Morell]: Thank you. Name and address for the record, please.
[South]: Stephen South 106 Damon Road Medford. Also the secretary treasurer of Teamsters local 25. Thank you for having us tonight. Madam President members of the council appreciate all you do just wanted to give you your monthly update from me regarding all of the contract negotiations and other issues going on within the city of Medford. As I've stated before, Teamsters Local 25 represents eight bargaining units in the city of Medford, both on the school and the city side, over 200 members. So I wanted to update you on the agreements. So since I last reported to you a little over a month ago, or a month and a half ago, we've continued negotiations with multiple units. Three of the units, the DPW, the inspectors, recreation department and DPW superintendents, which is the other agreement. And the third one is the Medford clerical. We had come to impasse with the city. They gave us a last and final, which was obviously unacceptable. We brought it back to our members and all three bargaining units voted down the contracts unanimously. all three units. So we filed to mediation. Those three units we are set to meet with the state mediator on April 13 right here in City Hall at 10 a.m. I'd like to invite all seven of you, Councilors, I'd love for any or all of you to attend negotiations I'd love to see the city. I shouldn't even say the city they don't have anyone speak it at any of our meetings it's KP law, I'd love for the KP law lawyer to put his positions out there on behalf of the city in front of all of you. I think you'd be very surprised by the positions that they're taking with regards to taking concessions from these hardworking workers, many of which that are behind me and giving only 2% raises. when all of the other communities that we're bargaining with are giving much more. On the city side also, the parking department and the department heads and assistant department heads, we'll have one more session, then we'll be at impasse. We'll file for mediation with those as well. On the city side, we met last Friday with the superintendent and the city's attorney. We came to impasse on two of the groups, that's the school security and the school custodians. That's being filed the mediation this week and I'll let you know when those dates are coming up. And the school administrators, which include the coordinators, department heads, directors, and assistant principals, we'll be at impasse with them as well. They're offering less, to them than they are to the teachers who they supervise. So obviously that's not going to happen. We've asked the city in all of these groups if they'd be willing to give our units what they gave the 500 teachers who we love, by the way. And believe me, they deserve even more than they got. But the city When they promised us previous whatever the teachers got would get, now they've reneged on that. We have an email to that effect that we'd be getting what the teachers got. Assistant Superintendent David Murphy, who we bargained with, was the city's chief negotiator all through negotiations. He's since quit and went to work for Cambridge. So now the city's not honoring, I should say the school committee's not honoring what we previously agreed to. So I believe we'll be at impasse with all eight groups that we represent. And a couple of things, since my last report, we've also filed a whole bunch of labor charges for all various issues, for all the various groups. I'll send you the updated labor charges tomorrow. I apologize, I wasn't able to prepare those for today. The termination update, obviously you know that the HR director has resigned effective Friday, but also we had another termination since I last left, last report to you. That's one of the senior sanitarians, been here over 20 years. She was terminated on Friday, which was two business days ago. I also want to just refresh your memory from my last report. All the groups behind me representatives from all the groups from the bargaining units. They haven't had a raise no one's had a raise in over a year, up to four and a half years for the clerical, the city hall clerical right in this building have not had a raise in just shy of four and a half years. So some of the reasons that's problematic is like I said, the surrounding communities were settling contracts. We have been for the last year plus for anywhere to three to 7% wage increases each year. The city's offering all of these groups 2% raises. And I was very, very disheartened. I wasn't able to make last Tuesday's meeting. I was out of town. And I believe that was an add on meeting so I wasn't able to change my schedule but it was brought to my attention that. The mayor put a paper on the table to give everybody, all the non-union in the city raises, including herself. And I can tell you that that's a slap in the face to the many people that are standing behind me and the hundreds of people that I represent. And then many of the groups that I don't represent, I know police and fire still don't have contracts. So I think for the mayor to ask to give herself a raise and retro pay, when a majority of the bargaining units in the city of Medford have been without a contract for and haven't had a raise for up to four and a half years. That's a disgrace and the mayor should be ashamed of herself. Also last week I'm sure many of you saw on Facebook, but if you don't, if you didn't I can send it to you after the meeting that the mayor was bragging on Facebook about how the city has doubled its free cash since she took office and that now you have $25 million in certified free cash. You know we're bragging online to every for everybody to see in the community about how much free money the city has sitting out there when we're being told the opposite of contract negotiations, and we're being told to get 2% wage increases that we have to give concessions give back benefits and different things that the employees behind me already enjoy so I think somebody from the administration should get their story straight, is the city broke, or is the city swimming and free certified cash. I'm curious to know I'm sure you are as well. You know that that's really all I have and I'll just leave you with this, you know, we, we have hundreds of members that work for the city. We have another three or 400 members that live in the city that don't work for the city, and we're going to be out here we're going to be out here this month, we're going to be out here next month we're going to be out here through the summer, straight into election season if we need to be, we are the the workers behind me and the hundreds that that aren't here tonight, they are not going to accept a contract that is substandard and subpar, 2% raises with a bunch of concessions. That will never happen. I'll be here next year, the year after, and the year after that. That will never, ever happen. Local 25 will never agree to that the workers in the city will never agree to that, and I hope none of you will stand for that. I know for many months that you've been talking and I believe you that you support the workers in the city that are behind me, and all the city's workers I appreciate that but I would call on all seven of you to please use the power that you have send letters take a stand. Let this administration know that this is unacceptable. This isn't happening in any of the other communities. Why are we getting strong contracts and fair contracts in all of the surrounding communities? All of the communities that border the city of Medford are able to give fair contracts and fair wages and benefits to their employees. I don't know, I can't figure out why Medford's the only city that cannot provide a living wage to its workers. I would appreciate it if any or all of you could attend the April 13 meeting right here at 10 a.m. Please do. We also have another meeting on the school side at the end of April. I'll send you the dates. I would respectfully ask and request that all of you utilize the power that you have, utilize the resources that you have, and support these workers. They need it. They need a raise. Some of them are starving. I don't know about all of you and your real jobs, your regular day jobs, but I know I couldn't go four or five years without a wage increase. That's ridiculous. And any support that you can provide to the workers that are here and the ones that aren't here. We really appreciate it. And as always, I thank you for your service to the city of Medford. Thank you.
[Caraviello]: I wish people wouldn't use the word free cash. It's not free, it's taxpayer money. So I don't want people to think that it's money that we just came about for free. It's money that belongs to the taxpayers of Medford. The word free should be taken out of that text there.
[Morell]: Thank you. Councilor Knight.
[Knight]: Madam President, thank you very much, and Mr. so thank you for a presentation once again this month. So you talked about some of the surrounding towns and I just want to get a good visual Can you explain, can you name some of the surrounding towns like Everett Malden.
[South]: Councilor Knight I'm glad that you asked because I actually came prepared. what an administrative administration official said last week we are prepared and I have some facts for you in the city of Everett, little over a year ago we signed a four year deal 3% 3% 3% 3% and many other improvements no concessions in the city of Malden. several months ago, I believe it was November, we signed a three-year contract, 3%, 3%, 3%, as well as market rate adjustments, meaning additional raises to bring them up to other communities surrounding, as well as many other improvements, no concessions. That's Malden. City of Chelsea, three-year deal, 4%, 3.5%, 3.5%, as well as market rate adjustment raises, other improvements, no concessions. City of Newton four year deal. This was last year, 3% 3% 3% 3% as well as market rate adjustment raises many other improvements no concessions in the city of Waltham this was I believe, December, January, couple months ago, three year deal 3.25 3.25 3.25, as well as market rate adjustment raises many other improvements no concessions. Town of North Reading. This was about three months ago, three-year deal, 3%, 3%, 3%, many other improvements. And another smaller community, but the town of Stowe, this was about six months ago, did a three-year deal, 15 to 21% over the three years, depending on what classification, many other improvements, no concessions. So there's seven communities we've done in the last year or so right here, besides Stowe, all the other ones border.
[Knight]: Medford. And I think Mr. Salt is important to point out the demographic differences of all these communities, right? So we have, we have more than ever, Chelsea, right? Then we have Newton, we have North Reading, right? Then we have Waltham, which is one of our number one comps. When we talk about what my community is doing, Waltham and Braintree are two that we always talk about. Waltham and Braintree do we always compare ourselves to. So when we look at what's going on, we're seeing that every other community can do it no matter what their demographic, right? Yes. No matter what their makeup or where failing. Correct. Can you tell me what the cost of a mediation would be?
[South]: Um, I think for both sides, the cost is the legal fees. Um, and clearly the city of Medford is no stranger to legal fees because you don't have a city solicitor. You don't have an assistant city solicitor. The cost is astronomical. I mean, uh, KP law is negotiating all, um, all five of the city side agreements. And then there's, uh, attorney Greenspan is on the city side. That's separate. But, um, KP Law is doing all the labor charges. We have about 50 open labor charges. KP Law is handling our six wage and hour lawsuits that we have against the city. Actually five, one's settled, one's about to settle. KP Law is handling the complaints we have at the Secretary of State's office. It's hilarious. KP law is handling the complaint at the Secretary Secretary of State's office and the complaint is the city's refusing to provide local 25 with the legal bills for KP law and KP law is defending it. I love it. But the irony there. But yes, the legal fees are astronomical.
[Knight]: So we have five agreements in the city that are going to be going to mediation legal fees that are going to be paid privately because we don't have a city solicitor 50 labor charges five wage lawsuits and then
[South]: Complaints to the Secretary of State's office as well.
[Knight]: And then a number of freedom of information requests that have gone unanswered. So we're at the Secretary of State's fighting for that.
[South]: Well, we have labor charges on those as well.
[Knight]: And a lot of the stuff that you request, I believe is necessary for you to have the proper information and tools to represent your membership effectively. So the way I'm looking at this, Madam President, what I'm seeing here is that this has become a situation where it's a refusal to provide information because they don't want you to be a strong advocate for your membership.
[South]: Right, well not just that I believe that the city may have things to hide they don't want us to see the KP law legal bills for reasons that I won't get into here but I think that there's this, it's problematic for the city. If we do get those unredacted, they did provide me with the legal bills they were 100% redacted.
[Scarpelli]: say redacted, could you explain what it looked like?
[South]: Yeah. You ever hear of Area 51? Yeah. So if you request any info on Area 51, the government will give it to you, but everything's blacked out. Well, it must be very secretive, like the military base in Nevada here in Medford, because they gave me the documents, but everything's 100% blacked out. There's aliens in the vault. There might be aliens.
[Knight]: really in some way. Well, Madam President, I thank Mr. South once again for coming up here and the advocacy that he's doing for his membership. It's not often, you know, I've been on the council for a number of years now, and it's not often to see this many people in the chamber. week in and week out, week in and week out, right, the issue needs to be addressed. I as one Councilor proposed it in the past and I still believe that this council should not approve any new positions in any reclassifications of existing positions until such time as the existing employees that we have in City Hall taken care of. That means that these contracts should be settled. We shouldn't be given any new, creating new positions or reclassifying existing positions until these people right here are taken care of. The five groups that are going to be going to mediation reach some sort of satisfactory conclusion that we can all live with. Because ultimately it's bringing the morale down in the city to the point where I wonder how these people get up every day and go to work because they're not feeling respected. They're not feeling valued. And that's not the values that we share. So I agree with the speaker. I mean, if it weren't for him coming up here every week and keeping the full court press on, I think this would be an easy walk for the administration. Steve's doing his job and he's really making us aware of a lot of things that are going on behind closed doors, things that we don't get to see. I know that this is the transparency administration, but it's not very transparent sometimes. And I thank him for taking the time, energy and effort to come up here week in and week out. I mean, the gentleman represents many, many, many, many units, not just Medford. But every time there's a meeting, he's here, he gives this time to come here and do this. And he's not wrong on top of it. He's not wrong. So again, you know, I'm of the firm belief that no new positions, no reclassifications until these contracts get taken care of. We need to take care of our existing employees. We need to show them that they're valued and respected. If the administration isn't going to do it, then we need to do it.
[Caraviello]: Thank you. I'm in prison. Did we not get an email last week, saying that our legal fees last year were $450,000? We did.
[Morell]: Yes, we got that.
[Caraviello]: So the gentleman's talking about exorbitant legal fees. How are all these, how was the city providing, KP Laws providing legal for the whole city of Medford in fighting these lawsuits all for $450,000?
[Knight]: I think the administration and KP law have been very clear that they don't represent the whole entire city they represent the mayor's office. Well they seem to be working for every department but they're only representing the mayor's, the mayor's interests, because they're the mayor's private lawyer, that's who their client is what so no one's representing the taxpayer.
[Caraviello]: Every, every department in the city is using KP law. And they're also fighting all these lawsuits. So I don't understand how all these are getting done, how everyone's using them. We're fighting lawsuits for 450,000 and we only agreed to $6,000 a month on our budget. So when you say exorbitant law, what would you be saying for exorbitant law? Well, to fight all these cases that we're fighting.
[South]: I don't think I have the, the municipal experience that all of you do behind the rail but I can tell you that out of all the communities that I just named, including dozens of other ones that local 25 represents bargaining units and The city of Medford is the only community that does not have a city solicitor and assistant city solicitor. And the reason being, and as a taxpayer it's, it's worrisome for me is, you know, you can pay a city solicitor 130 150,000 a year. And that's a finite cost, but the legal bills for a law firm like KP Law, the possibilities are endless. So in Everett and Malden and Chelsea and Newton and Waltham, they have city solicitors. Some of these communities have three, four, five, six solicitors, but no one has zero, nobody. only Medford. And I believe if I remember correctly, you know better than me, but I believe we haven't had a city solicitor or assistant solicitor, I think, since October of 2022, if I remember correctly.
[Bears]: I'm an assistant since January 2020 I mean one or one of the end I know but nobody. Yeah, it's bad.
[South]: So now instead of paying 130, whatever you were paying the previous 130 a year or whatever. Now you know it's whatever hundreds of dollars per hour instead of a finite salary.
[Knight]: On that point though Madam President, the council passed an ordinance, probably 60 years ago, and the ordinance says there shall be a city solicitor. And the legislative intent is that for my research, behind that ordinance was to control legal costs so that we don't end up in a situation like this. So ultimately we have an administration that's working outside the scope of the existing ordinances. And she did take an oath to say that she would, to the best of her ability, uphold the ordinances of this community when she got elected to office.
[Morell]: Thank you. Councilor Scarpelli.
[Scarpelli]: Thank you, Madam President. And to that point, I have a resolution that will be up later that that will speak specifically to that and I'll make some recommendations with that. But what I wanted to do is really just thank you, Mr. South. I know that... The common cry from this council is a lack of communication. And last week was a great example. When we're sitting here and we're asked to provide votes for raises for non union employees and then when Councilor Knight asked, but it's funny because it's not the name it's not the position. It's the calf so what Council night recommended or asked, could you please give us the name of the position for those caps. And what the chief of staff did say first was the mayor and the city council to us as a you know forget about the mayor that's whatever decision but it's a council. We were never even talked about because we would have not even entertained just even bring that up. So, you know, I find it hard to believe that, again, is there a representative from the city.
[Morell]: Tonight, there is not the administration told me they would not be sending him on tonight.
[Scarpelli]: Okay, so that just tells you. So last week, I believe it was comments were made that, you know, the facts sometimes that you are presenting aren't true, but for one person, I appreciate the facts you are sharing, and it's easy to find out if your facts are true or not. with one phone call or one Google of what you're saying and they come to fruition. So not like I had to, but I wanted to make sure because it's easy to come to that podium as administration and defend themselves because it's all they seem to be doing and look at this council and call us bullies because we're asking questions that pertain to serious matters of all of our constituents, all of our city members. And we're in a spot right now that What you're hearing with our union situation, I think, is just a smaller piece of where we are in this community. We're in a sinking ship. We're in a tailspin. And as a resident and a homeowner. I'm petrified, but I do want to thank you and your members again, I, I have not will not vote for money paper until I've been very clear, I will not vote for any money paper until We see financial paperwork that's showing us our direction, and that our union members are taking care of, because this has gone long enough four and a half years. That's a disgrace.
[South]: It is.
[Scarpelli]: So we talked about cost of living just last year went up seven and a half percent.
[South]: and their healthcare goes up every year.
[Scarpelli]: And we're getting another, we're getting another kick now with healthcare, with the elimination of Tufts, I believe, GAC now is now moving to Harvard. So we're going to see a bigger kick now. So again, thank you, Madam President, allow me to speak, but thank you, Mr. South for sharing that information.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor, Scarpelli.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Mr. South for your presentation and for the information that you're giving us. You know, much respect to everyone who's here tonight but this clerical thing I mean I had people calling me or messaging me communicating with me last week and it's, you know, four and a half years a lot four and a half years for some of the lowest paid workers in the city is a lot more. And, you know, it's just, it's just, it's a shame we can use all the words that we want to use but you know, everyone deserves better than what they're getting in these long delays. put it in my calendar for the 13th and I'm gonna be there and I'm gonna appreciate that. the notice on that. The other pieces I wanna say is, and I respect my colleagues, their approach, right? We may not always agree on exactly the approach. Quite frankly, I don't think this administration cares what we do. I wish they cared more. I hear you on using our power in the best ways that we can. We've tried to use our power a lot and it doesn't seem to be making a lot of difference. I'm sure actually, probably you and your members sometimes feel a similar way that you've said your piece many, many, many times and it doesn't seem to be getting through their head, right? And, and so, you know, the piece of this discussion for me and I think the piece that all seven of us and you and I hope everyone in this room do do agree on is. know, this question around the finances, you know, if every other community can provide this, why can't we? And we're not getting a straight answer on that. And my response is, once we get a straight answer on that, if their answer, if we get a straight answer, we see the numbers, the math laid out before us, and the answer is no, then we have to say, okay, then how do we get the money to give a fair contract, right? And until we have that information, we can't even engage in that discussion. And that's the place that we want to be. I think all seven of us behind this council is to say, what is it going to take for us to be able to give a fair contract. And that's the answer we're not getting at all on any front and I'm sure you're not getting it and you're getting stonewalled as well.
[South]: Yeah, and we, you know, I can give you an easy fix is to hire a city solicitor, and you save three 400,000 a year or more right off the bat. I mean, and I just want to clarify one thing when I mentioned earlier about the money paper from last week, I do want to clarify that everyone we believe everybody deserves a raise non union, the city council management, even the mayor, but you know what, you can't have the whole city without contracts and then put in for yourselves to get, you know, a huge retro and several years of raises while half the city starving. I mean, I have people in the clerical unit, literally have called me crying, saying we can't pay our bills, crying, like hysterical and how are we gonna do this? And no one seems to care. They hear it right from their mouths at negotiations and no one seems to care. The other thing when we're talking about facts, again, I like dealing in facts. So tomorrow on top of all the updated labor charges and litigations, I'm also gonna provide you with And if it's too much for you, just hit delete. But I'm going to send you all of these recent contracts, just so that you can see it for yourselves. I'll send you the MOAs, which are the outlines of the new contracts. So you can see for yourself that all of the surrounding communities are able to afford fair contracts. I just don't know why I meant for Kent as well.
[Bears]: Yeah. No, and that's much appreciated. And I hear you too. I mean, the minute that we saw that we were on the list and the mayor was on the list, I think all of us said, absolutely not. And we moved up, removed that immediately from the paper.
[South]: So- Once everyone in this room gets a raise, God bless you guys. Take us whatever you need to do and the mayor and our whole staff and everybody.
[Unidentified]: I would say the camera guy.
[South]: He needs it more than anybody. Yeah. But yeah, we just want what's fair, nothing more, nothing less.
[Bears]: And that's the line that, you know, we're not gonna do that when there's all these contracts out, it's not fair. So thank you. Thank you very much.
[Morell]: Thank you, and I do see a few councilors wanna speak again. I just wanna note, we do have some extensive presentations on the agenda, so I just wanna note that. Councilor Caraviello.
[Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. I wanna thank all the workers who show up to work every day. I thank the teachers who showed up to work every day. No one has gone on strike in the city, And I applaud everybody for not doing that. I don't care whether you're in the union or a non-union person. Everyone deserves a raise. Cost of living has gone up through the roof this year. What's inflation at, like eight or 9% this year? It was up to 8.3, I believe, last year. And we're offering two. Even three is really slim. It's still not cutting what Inflation goes with it, sensei. And I stand with my other colleagues. I will not support any department head or any boss or anybody getting a raise for the working people of the city get a raise. I come from a family who operated a union factory for 40 years. And we always make sure the workers are taken care of first because they're the ones who are the lifeblood of either the company or the city. And that's how it always should be. And it should never be any other way.
[South]: Thank you. Thank you very much, Councilor Kiviela.
[South]: Thank you.
[Morell]: 23080 is HR communications from the mayor. I'm just going to read it. So we have it. It's the personal ordinance. It's a circular. It's from the mayor. I respectfully request and recommend that the city council approves the following amendment to the revised ordinances entitled personnel article two classification and compensation plan, section 6633 entitled officers and employees non union by adopting the following change amendment a the language of cap 19 shall be amended to include the following position human resources director we have a motion on the floor to table this even please a file number till such time as we get through this receiving motion for receiving please on file. Do I have a second. Seconded by Councilor Caraviello. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Paper is received and placed on file.
[Bears]: Madam President, while we're in suspension, we'll take paper 23-081 and 23-028. That would be the T in the address source presentation. Okay, so while we're in suspension, we request to take 23-081 and... 23-028. 23-028.
[Morell]: On the motion, I think we're in a suspension, so yeah, we can just do it. So we'll go for communications from MBTA officials 23-081. Medford City Council meeting March 20th, 2023. The MBTA plan for accessible transit infrastructure, PATI, P-A-T-I, project will be presenting to the Medford City Council on March 20th, 2023 at 7 p.m. The P-A-T-I project aims to improve rider accessibility and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA. In Medford specifically, this project will improve crosswalks, ADA compliant pedestrian ramps, add traffic calming measures, and other various improvements to MBTA bus stops. A few bus stop relocations are proposed to create safer traffic movements. In addition, several bus stop eliminations are proposed for stops that have very low ridership. The MBTA PATI project will represent will present the following locations for improvement. Medford G1 Winthrop Street at Robinson Road, Medford G3 Boston Avenue at High Street, Medford G4 Boston Avenue at Arlington Street, Medford G5 High Street at Canal Street, Medford G6 High Street at Woburn Street, Medford g seven Salem Street at Hadley place, Medford g eight Highland Avenue at Middlesex Avenue, Medford g nine Highland Avenue at Tucker Street, Medford g 10 Bellsway West at cost, and the following locations for elimination Main Street at South Gateway Main Street at town way. Main Street at Windsor Road, Boston Avenue at Holton Street, Placid Road opposite Chardon Road, Placid Road at Chardon Road, Felsway West at Cherry Street, 205 Felsway West, Felsway West at Fulton Springs Road, High Street at Monument Street, High Street at Pitcher Avenue, High Street at Hillside Avenue, 163 Riverside Avenue, Riverside Avenue at Pleasant Street, Felsway at Central Avenue, Felsway at Medford Street. For additional information, please see the project website, mbta.com slash project slash bus dash stop dash accessibility dash improvements. With any questions, please email betterbusprojectatmbta.com. We have a number of representatives from the MBTA. You wanna just give your name and address for the record, please.
[Bin Zhu]: Yeah, good evening, president and council members. My name is Bin Zhu, project manager from Capital Delivery. So today we are very happy to be here to introduce a patty project that we plan to do in Medford for bus stop improvement. So today, John, our team is from our design consultant HDR teams and our MBTA sponsor department, service planning and bus transformation. So if you have a slide, the second slide, will be show the MBTA bus project overview. So this as a part of around 10 billion multiple years capital investment plans, we are improving the bus service with a better bus program. So there are multiple projects under the bus transformation. So Petty project in the yellow highlight box is one of the bus transformation. So we are working in the partnership with the state of Medford and different other municipality and agency to improve the bus stop for safe and accessible. So next slide. So next slide, I want to talk about more details about the PETI project. PETI project is to create the ADA compliant bus stop in system wide for our customers and community members. So who have a different mobility needs and improve the customer safeties. Since the 1990s, all municipality and agency required to upgrade their pedestrian infrastructures to meet ADA requirements. Disability advocate brought a lawsuit against MBTA to provide the ADA compliant to mass transit for our systems. So improve the bus stop system-wide is a part of a settlement agreement. So the bus stop in St. Alfred, Medford had been prioritized for design this year due to the one or more excessive barriers. There are some also bus stops need to consolidate or improvement to make assessment and the safety enhancement. So the bus stop scope work increase improvement to the sidewalks, creation of the crosswalk, ADA compliant curb ramps and bus stop signs. So MBTA signs all the progress of plans to the City of Medford for review during the design process. So if we have got the proof, we will be have on-call contractor to build all the bus stop as soon as possible. So we estimate invested $2 million in design construction in City of Medford. So the MBTA was found by the federal revenues, state bond, and FTA fundings to perform this work. So next slide. I would like to turn it over to our design consultant project manager, J.K. Davis, from the HDR team to speak about mall stop improvement and consolidate. Thank you.
[Jackie Davis]: Yeah, sure. So I guess just to go back to the first slide, I'll introduce Justin, just to give an overview the better bus project because there are multiple MBTA projects. Sure thing.
[Justin Antos]: I thought I'd just level set with everyone before we launch into the details of the specific stops that Ben brings before you this evening. My name is Justin Antos. I'm the Senior Director of Bus Transformation at the T. And I oversee the portfolio of activities that the T is undertaking called the Better Bus Project. When you email betterbusproject at mbta.com, that's me. I see all those emails and I have someone managing that inbox. So there are a number of initiatives at the MBTA all trying, seeking to make the bus better. As you can see on this slide, one of them is the network redesign. And before I leave the network redesign, I want to acknowledge a miscommunication between this body and the MBTA that occurred last fall as the, I'm sorry, He said when we needed something as the project was transitioning from. I know this is. inside baseball for state administration, but as the project was transferring from the Mass. Department of Transportation's Office of Transportation Planning to the bus transformation team at the MBTA, we had a communications breakdown and we understood that you all sent a message to our general manager's office that did not make it to the project office requesting a briefing on the network redesign. So I apologize on behalf of the MBTA and my team for missing that communication.
[Morell]: just if I could briefly just knowing you're the person who gets the emails at that email address, I'm sure you have very many unhappy Medford residents because through the bus network redesign, we've lost a number of routes that are really going to deeply impact our community in a negative way. And I just want to say that before we go, I know that's not what you're presenting on tonight. But that is that is a fact. So I want to make sure that's clear.
[Justin Antos]: We definitely heard a lot, a lot of comments from Medford residents that think the project received over 20,000 individual comments, a lot of them from Medford, absolutely. But I show you this slide just to show how the various activities that the MBTA underway for better bus. My colleagues here from the PADI project are aiming to make our bus stops more accessible, and that is aligned with, but not actually the exact same teams within the MBTA as the network redesign.
[Morell]: President Bears.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Thank you for being here. Thank you for acknowledging. We appreciate it. We definitely had several meetings over the course of the first First issuance comment period the re issuance of the of the network redesign, you know, some of our comments we felt were really heard around the 80 bus, but we didn't know that, that those comments would be then trading out the 94 I believe or is it the 96 I can't quite 94 to 94. So you know I think you know I spoke at the. the last public hearing as well. And I did hear that there may be room for some slight minor adjustments going forward, but that basically after the process was concluded, it felt like, you know, this is this is the network that you're going with. So I appreciate that. But I also, you know, definitely want to share that there's definitely still a lot of concerns. I live in a place where you know I used to take the 710 from my house when I was in high school down to the mall, and over to the hospital you know and then that was a bus we use and I understand where you're going with all of this but but that love that loss and moving from the express buses we have to now attach the Burlington Express bus route and you know there's there's just there's Some serious loss of service for folks, and the reason I just bring that all up is just my only question before we get into the Patty project details are any of these requests for elimination related to the bus network redesign of eliminating stops right now or is that all about the Patty project.
[Justin Antos]: This is all for the PADI project and we've aligned our projects except for one stop, which I believe these two are going to get into.
[Bears]: Okay, but I guess more than that, and then we can talk about the specific details on the improvements. I guess just my question is, if we move forward on these eliminations of stops, is that because of PADI or because of bus network redesign? Or are you saying it's a bit of both because you're merging your work?
[Bin Zhu]: mostly Patty, but I'll let these folks. We will be introduced for details. Okay. Yeah. Okay.
[Bears]: I just wanted to make sure while we, while we have you and, and again, appreciate you being here. Cause you know, I think there's one, one piece, you know, if it's the Patty project, which I know has been a long ongoing effort, that's one thing. If it's partially bus network redesign, you know, there may be more questions and engagement with the public that we need to make around the removal of stops. I don't think we'll have as much problem with the improvements on these specific locations. Obviously improvements are great. It's the removals where there may need to be a little bit more public engagement, especially given that kind of we were on our, you know, and again I appreciate the acknowledgement but we were kind of out on our own a little bit last fall and it was hard for us without having you here to give a presentation and then have members of the public be here for it and then maybe even ask us questions or. or provide some comment that we could then question, provide, ask questions on, you know, that was just a little bit of a breakdown where we have a lot of people who still have kind of outstanding concerns and questions. And I think moving forward with removal of stops at this time, if they're part of the network redesign, may just need a little bit more care in terms of the process. So I just wanted to ask that clarifying question before we got into the details, which I'm also very excited.
[Justin Antos]: Yes, all of the stops that we're going to talk about, that this team is going to talk about, will still be served in the future under the network redesign as well, with the exception of one. And you'll see a note on that in their first slide.
[Bears]: OK, great. Yeah, and it's just because I see these here that make sense. Then we have, A, I'll say there's two of these stops around Winchester that you're asking for removal, so we can't help you.
[Morell]: Yeah, I thought I was like, do I really want to know those? It's right on the line.
[Bears]: Is it crossing?
[Jackie Davis]: It's right on the line.
[Bears]: So that's for our notification because maybe we have residents walking across the line. Okay.
[Morell]: The town is what tipped me off.
[Bears]: City way. But I appreciate the answer to the question and I look forward to the discussion. Thank you.
[Morell]: Please continue.
[Bin Zhu]: Before we start the detail, I want to just quickly let all the councilmembers present know, PADI projects focus on the bus stop safety and ADA compliance. Bus network redesign focus improve the operation and the customer experience. So this is the difference of two projects. Thank you.
[Morell]: Thank you.
[Jackie Davis]: So good evening, my name's Jackie Davis. I'm here on behalf of the MBTA, but I work for HDR Engineering. So before coming here tonight, I just wanna acknowledge that we've spent probably the last two years working with Todd Blake, the Director of Traffic and Transportation. So we've reviewed all these plans and the elimination stops. We previously had additional, so right now I'll show you 10 stops for, or 10 locations where we have improvements. and then 17 stops that we have for eliminations. We did originally have more, but after hearing Todd's concerns, we have kept a few in the slide, so I can go over that later. But so the first four stops here, Withrop Street at Robinson Street, we are relocating where the bus stop is, adding new curb ramps and adding crosswalks. As what was mentioned, part of the bus network redesign placed at road at Cooley Road will be removed, but we are showing you the stop just for reference. Boston Ave at High Street, where we're proposing new curb ramps, a crosswalk, and improved pedestrian refuge to a traffic island that will safely allow, I think it's eight feet wide, that will safely allow pedestrians to wait to cross the street. And then Boston Ave at Arlington Street, where it's new crosswalks or new curb ramps. Canal at High, where it's new crosswalks and markings.
[Knight]: I'll just stop you for a second. Can we just talk about Boston Ave and High Street real quick?
[Jackie Davis]: Oh, yeah. I'm going to go into all of those. So I can go through it in more detail when we get there. sorry, Salem Street at Allen Court, crosswalks, pedestrian ramps, and then bus paint markings. And then the last three we're showing you are just for reference. One stop is on DOT jurisdiction, and the other two are DCR jurisdiction. So that's Highland Ave at Middlesex's MassDOT, Highland at Waddell Street is DCR and then Fells Way West at Foss is DCR. So the first up here, Winchester at Robinson, you can see the dashed blue line shows the existing stop on the north side and where that's being proposed, where it's proposed to be moved to. In the photos on the right, the middle photo shows the existing stop location and then the proposed stop shows where it would be. So right where that post with the bike shared the space sign is. So on these plans you'll see consistently throughout a box that says LA. That LA is a landing area. Landing areas vary between 10 feet wide by 10 feet wide or 8 feet wide by 8 feet wide. You'll also see a small, sometimes it's light gray, CZ, which is called the clear zone, that is eight feet wide by four feet wide. So the landing area is the area where the front entrance of the bus allows the front doors to open and the ramp to fully deploy to allow someone in a wheelchair to enter or exit the bus. The clear zone is the zone needed for those back doors on the bus to open.
[Morell]: On that one specifically, I live right over there and I walk that delay so I'm intimately familiar. The proposed stop, isn't there some significant trees there and some like, there's some like the sidewalks a little raised there, like not intentionally?
[Jackie Davis]: So there are trees, there's a few panels where we will have to raise the curb in these areas. I should also mention at the landing areas and the clear zone areas, the curve needs to be six inches to eight inches high to allow the bus to fully deploy. So there will be some work in those areas too. You'll basically see a leveling that will occur. So right now you have like a sloped area where this tree pit is, or a really warped or destroyed sidewalk panel. So we'll be fixing those sidewalk panels and then fixing that where it's kind of like a grass strip area.
[Morell]: Okay, and then just because this just made me think of it, are any of these proposals, will there be removal of trees to make these accommodations? Okay, thank you. Councilor Tseng, sorry.
[Jackie Davis]: I was just gonna say there are parking space removals, and we do understand that we will have to go in front of the parking council.
[Tseng]: Traffic commission.
[Jackie Davis]: Traffic commission for the approval of that.
[Tseng]: Something that I had heard was a concern with this stop is, so you're moving it from the south side to the north side of Robinson?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Tseng]: A lot of the residents who might use that stop live on Winford Way and in that neighborhood over there. And in order to access the new stop, they would have to pass by the old stop. And so that doesn't seem to me to be super accessible because then they'd have to walk an extra distance there.
[Jackie Davis]: Sorry, do you want to finish? But that gets into the elimination stop. So as part of this process, we did go through and do what's called the cluster analysis where we reviewed all the stops in Medford and the distance between each stop. So currently, the MBTA bus systems laid out that you have approximately seven to 10 stops every mile. So ideally, you would have four to seven stops per mile to improve the operations of the bus. So there are the first few stops that we show as an elimination is that other stop. And it's because we understand that it does access that community. But if you look at that area, there is a large stone retaining wall, there's a few driveways, and there's not really space for us to make a fully compliant bus landing area and clear zone on both sides of the street.
[Tseng]: I think it's just something that what we have to keep in consideration is that I, I assume maybe. In addition to that maybe part of the reason is the frequency of ridership at that stop as well, and I'm a little skeptical that moving it to the north side would necessarily meet the ridership figures that you'd want. because it becomes farther for a lot for most folks who would use that stop. And I totally get that aerially it makes sense. When you look at the map that way. But then we're placing the stop basically on a very long stretch where there aren't many houses and like, and there isn't a neighborhood. And that doesn't seem to me to be maybe the most effective. location for a bus stop, at least for me, I don't know if my other colleagues would agree, and I know there's the crosswalk idea to put it in with the improvement sounds great, but perhaps it might be more efficient to use that funding for maybe an RFB to cross Winthrop. given that it's a big road with a lot of traffic, perhaps moving, investing in an RFB at the southern entrance of Robinson might be a better investment of funds there.
[Morell]: Thank you. And I do want to jump in again again because I live right there. I understand a little bit better now because Robinson is a you. So now I realize we're talking about a different talking about a different part of the street than I thought so I have a better understanding of what we're looking at so there's not sure there's more warp sidewalk but the one I was talking about is not in that position, and to counter sense point, I think it's great adding the crosswalk there, there's probably a little bit more we could do again living right over there. It's a really treacherous spot to cross so I wanted whatever can be done to make that as safe as possible.
[Jackie Davis]: So RFPs can be added as a part of this project. The MBTA will pay and install them. The city of Medford will have to sign a MOU memorandum of understanding that all future maintenance would be on the city to repair and upkeep.
[Morell]: Thank you. Vice President Bears, did you have something to that point?
[Bin Zhu]: Yeah, so when we pick up the locations, we talk about the clerks. So we will be choosing location based on also nearby infrastructures. So some nearby infrastructure is not feasible, maybe we cannot choose this location. So it looks like different factors. So I understand the councilor's points, but we will be definitely to look through and then back to the councilors.
[Morell]: Thank you. Vice president bears.
[Bears]: Thank you. And I was just going to move that for the record that we request an RFP at Winthrop and Clewley or the Winthrop and Robinson intersection.
[Morell]: Okay. Yeah. Did you have Mr. Clark? Yeah. And just to affirm what you're seeking from the council. I mean, obviously we have our feedback and things we would want. Is this something you need a vote of like affirmation on or is this something that is meant to be a back and forth dialogue?
[Jackie Davis]: So it can be a back and forth dialogue. Ideally, we would like a vote on if there are stops that you unanimously unanimously approve that we can work with Todd and move forward to so that we can get these stops into construction as soon as possible. That would be our preference so that there is another step. So once this is our preliminary 30% design, once we're done with the 30% design, we move to 100% design. where in between 30 and 100%, there are areas here that we need to work with the butters because we are using small pieces of their property to tie in to fix the grading at the back of the sidewalk. So to start that process, that's the lengthier process. So we have notified all these butters twice and we have only heard feedback from one.
[Morell]: Okay, and to clarify on that, so suggestions like adding the RFBs that would be considered as part of the affirmative vote? Okay, thank you. Councilor Collins.
[Collins]: Thank you, President Morell. Thank you so much for the presentation so far. It's good to get into the details on some of these plan changes that we've been hearing about for a little while. I'll just say this at the top because it's gonna go for a lot of the other planned intersections. I think that the RFP here is really important on Winthrop Street. It's a busy street, it's a popular street. It's well-traveled even in this kind of tucked away corner. I think as one councilor, I'd very much like for that to be a part of our affirmative vote and for other, just so I don't say it, six more times. I think for any of these streets that are being considered, you know, Boston Avenue, Salem Street, you know, Highland Ave at Middlesex, like a lot of these are very busy, very commercial, you know, well traveled by vehicles as well as pedestrians. As long as we're doing the crosswalk improvements, I think that we really have to see those flashing signs for pedestrian safety. So just say that at the top. And then I think for this crosswalk in particular, I'd love to have the director of traffic. I know that you've been liaising very closely with our draft director of traffic and transportation, but just to make sure that, you know, his local expertise is considered on this intersection in particular, before we go forward. Thank you.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Caraviello.
[Caraviello]: Thank you, ma'am. It's always been common practice for the city to have to maintain the property after you do work on it.
[Morell]: Just one second.
[Unidentified]: Sorry.
[Morell]: Your mic's not on. It's not your fault.
[Collins]: It's a little face talking.
[Jackie Davis]: Oh, okay. Yes. So the MBTA, none of this infrastructure is the MBTA's infrastructure. So all of this infrastructure that we're showing you tonight and that we need your approval on is owned and maintained by the city of Medford. So any, once the sidewalk is the same, so if, in five years, something happens to the sidewalk, it would be on the city of Medford to maintain the sidewalk, not on the MBTA.
[Caraviello]: So what about the street? The street is ours too?
[Jackie Davis]: The street is ours as well.
[Morell]: Thank you. I think we can move on to the next one. I do, yeah. I do see him on the call. Director Blake, are you available just to speak on this specific stop?
[Unidentified]: Sure, I'm here. Hi, everyone.
[Morell]: Thank you. Councilor Collins, you had a specific question or just deferring what the expert... Deferring. Deferring your expertise stop, Director Blake.
[Todd Blake]: Yeah, as some of you have mentioned, we appreciate the team's time and effort in trying to improve accessibility for the residents of Medford that use transit. Some of these we want to make sure it's best for the community. And some of these make sense and some of this one was a little peculiar because it seems like the stop at Winford Way in Robinson was more likely to be used by the neighborhood versus this particular stop. So whichever stop remains and doesn't get eliminated, then it should be improved as others are asking for with an RFP and things of that nature. So, yeah, it was, again, looking from the 30,000 foot, like an airplane level looking down, it makes sense that he's approached to space everything out somewhat evenly along the Winthrop Street corridor. But when you look at actually where the users are coming from to the side streets, this particular stop didn't seem to make as much sense as the Winford Way and Robinson stop just down the street, which is being proposed to be eliminated. So, yeah, we just had some question about that. And I get the AT's approach, but again, sometimes the spacing is more of a guideline, a starting point. So maybe that stop at Winford is pretty close to place that road stop. So from an overall perspective, it looks too close, and then it may be a wider gap. But it doesn't have to be exactly evenly spaced at quarter mile intervals if it doesn't serve the population that it's trying to serve. So just to keep that in mind.
[Morell]: Thank you, Director Blake. And also, I guess a comment is, there does start to be an incline on that street. As you move further up, further towards Winchester, I think if we're talking about accessibility, that's something that I'm sure you've considered it. But I just want to put another plug for that.
[Jackie Davis]: Yeah, so the crosswalk there does meet the stopping site distance over that part.
[Morell]: Okay, but I think just also just getting to, you know, getting up that hill, I think is something that perhaps should be considered. Correct.
[Knight]: Madam President, if I may.
[Morell]: Councilor Neill.
[Knight]: Does it really make sense for us to even debate every single position? If we look at the report that the presenters have prepared for us, they tell us what the average weekday ridership is for each one of these stops. And I mean, if there's less than 25 people a day, I have no problem eliminating those stops. I think that, you know what I mean? If we really want to get this done, we're going to sit here and we're going to go over every single one of these things. And we're going to talk about the one elderly person that lives up on Winford Way that takes the bus obviously on an average 0.1 times a month, right? Why don't we just look at it from a ridership standpoint and say, if the stops aren't being used effectively or efficiently, right? Then just get rid of them. Right. And then when I think that, yeah, there's two conversations, there's the elimination and then there's the right, right, I think you get the eliminations for the easy, easy discussion.
[Morell]: Okay, first, right, you're saying you want to take the elimination.
[Knight]: I just think, I mean, that would be my suggestion right now be anything with less than 25 per day, just get rid of. Well, I certainly have no problem eliminating those. Okay, anything less than 25.
[Morell]: I mean, we can continue to go through the
[Knight]: I mean, we don't have to do anything. All they're doing is giving us a presentation. They'd like us to do something. We don't have to do anything. I mean, what I'd like to see.
[Morell]: I think you may have seen that. There are some, there are some strong feelings about this.
[Knight]: So, I mean, what I'd like to see is that we do like a robocall like the mayor does for everything in the city when she has an opponent and says anybody that's in a bottle within what's the distance that she wants, 800 feet or something like that, that she proposed when she was on the council, anybody that's in that distance, we'll get a robocall and we'll discuss it. I'll get invited to a meeting and discuss that location. let the people in the neighborhood decide how it's going to affect them and the actual riders that are down there.
[Morell]: And I hear that. I think what we're talking about now is the fact that there's an opportunity for improvements at the cost of the MBTA and making sure that we get all the improvements we can.
[Knight]: I mean, I don't think anybody behind the rails opposed to the MBTA doing accessibility improvements. The gentleman explained it right. You know what I mean? I think he said that the PADI program is for the MBTA to provide accessible ridership. The bus network redesign project is a totally different thing. That's an operations thing, right? So the redesigns operations, this is to improve the network's safety infrastructure for accessibility. So, you know, I don't think we should get too crazy about it. They're willing to invest a lot of money in our community. They have engineers, they have the tools and the requirements to do it. So when it comes to that stuff, you know, I really don't have an issue with it. I think that, you know, the T has to comply, right? It's the subject of a lawsuit. So if we say no, what are you going to do?
[Bin Zhu]: We do it anyway right, if you say no we we work with the judge or federal judge King we every, every month we need to report the federal judge king to Patty progress, right, so we need to, you know, all the municipality and the agency need to require to cooperate with MBTA, if I may, I respect Councilor point which is to let's move a little faster so maybe, maybe what we should just do is go through.
[Bears]: let's go to, it seems like there's objections on G1, so we're gonna have to come back and revisit that.
[Morell]: Yes, and to be fair, I live right near G1, so I, you know.
[Bears]: Right, both stops near, is that a disclosure or is that a review?
[Morell]: Yeah, it's a disclosure on the website.
[Bears]: Both stops on either side of my block are on this list, so.
[Morell]: Yes, I'm just saying, we may, there's some spots some of us are intimately familiar with, and perhaps we might have a little bit more insight, so.
[Bears]: Just if we, but could we, if we could go through and just say, let's say G2, and if any council raised an objection, we could put our thing out there, And then that could go on a list for us to maybe come back and look at it.
[Collins]: Does anyone have. Thank you. And just for clarity, in terms of procedurally, it seems to me that this is also an opportunity to start making that shortlist of additional improvements that we'd like to see at specific sites so just be able to log those for the record even if we're revisiting them chance to get more out of this opportunity.
[Morell]: Councilor Tseng.
[Tseng]: Oh, yeah, that covers it. I think it's just about getting the best deal that we can as a city and then making sure that there's small, the details make logical sense from a on the ground lived perspective.
[Morell]: Great. Is everyone good on G1?
[Tseng]: I'm a macro guy, yes.
[Morell]: Going to G2, any comments on G2 and if there's anything you wanna?
[Jackie Davis]: G2 is one of the locations that will be removed by the bus network redesign, but we didn't wanna leave it out. We wanted to show you that we had worked with Todd on this location And this was the one about her that we had heard concerns about that was opposed to this stop. Okay, so the plan is so we're not getting that. Yeah, so we're not doing this. Okay, so we're not getting that crosswalk.
[Bears]: Bummer.
[Jackie Davis]: Thank you.
[Bears]: It's a super dangerous intersection that needs help.
[Jackie Davis]: So so next is G3 Boston at High Street.
[Bears]: I have one on this.
[Morell]: I think everyone probably does. Vice President Bears.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. In the 30% design thing here, are these bump outs, these gray areas?
[Jackie Davis]: So those gray areas, about two years ago when I was out on site, it was painted with flex posts. So to help delineate the lane and slow down drivers in this area. So we are just restoring that. We're fixing the paint, reinstalling the flex posts and extending that median island. So as I mentioned earlier, you'll have a refuge for pedestrians to walk halfway across the street, wait before they continue crossing the street.
[Knight]: Could we do bump outs? I'm gonna say, can we not do bump outs? That's my position on this. Like every person that lives in that neighborhood's complaining about those lollipop sticks they put up there and the amount of traffic that it creates down there during rush hours. It's like... It's impassable in the morning. impassable the way that it's designed right now with those lollipop sticks.
[Morell]: It's also incredibly dangerous for pedestrians, so.
[Collins]: Councilor Collins. Thank you, yeah, this is another one where I was going to, you know, again, request for an RRFP at this intersection as well. I'm in the pro bump out camp, you know, I cycle through this intersection as well as drive and walk through it, and I think that's a, there's a real visceral need for those permanent structures.
[Jackie Davis]: So this intersection, I do agree, does need a full redesign, but as part of this program, we're only allowed to improve the sidewalks that connect the bus stops. So we're improving, we'll improve the sidewalks on both sides of the road and the crosswalks connecting from one stop to another. But we can't redesign the whole intersection. So that would have to be another, I guess, conversation.
[Bears]: I would just move to Oh, sorry, go ahead. I was just gonna move to could we put in our RFP on the high street facing side. So is that possible even if we're not adjusting the crosswalk or the or the intersection design.
[Bin Zhu]: Yeah, I think this stop, we talked with Todd, our director of engineer. So this stop design based on Todd's comments, definitely we will be definitely consider the RFP if we come back, but I will give you a back specific later.
[Bears]: Thank you.
[Morell]: Thank you. Anything else on G3?
[Jackie Davis]: G4? G4 is Boston at Arlington. We are maintaining where the stops are today. We do just need to lower the stop to allow space for the buses to fully come into the sidewalk and deploy for folks that are in wheelchairs to get in and out of that front door. So today, being out there, it's jam-packed with cars. and the bus is left in the travel lane and not able to get to the sidewalk.
[Caraviello]: We're good with G4. On this side of Arlington Street, there is no sidewalk. Similar to the other side of Boston Ave. On the Arlington Street side, there is no sidewalk on that side there. That's just dirt. So are you going to put a sidewalk there?
[Jackie Davis]: So we're not, we will, there will be a portion of cement concrete sidewalk there just to tie in.
[Caraviello]: Will it come around the corner?
[Jackie Davis]: Yes, it will. As I say, there is no, there is a little bit off here because of the aerial, but it will come in probably about six or eight feet down on that street.
[Knight]: Okay. So how far is your obligation of accessibility? on city roadway when it comes to this project, right? So the bus pulls up, the bus stop, right? You're gonna go, it looks like everything's about eight feet in each direction, right? Is that about as far as you guys go? Because what I'd hate to see, right, is like you guys do the beautiful corner, right? And then it comes and it stops and it turns into a gravel pit all the way down the street, which is gonna be the city's problem or the city's responsibility, right? Because we've seen it in other places. If you look in front of Paul Revere's, they did the whole entire, over a couple of years ago, then they stopped. And when they stopped, it was like asphalt, potholes, tree branches all ripped up and everything else. And it really didn't meet the goal of what we're really trying to do. So when it comes to like the intersection improvements, like here, it looks like you go out a lot further here than you do over here. It looks like you're not going too far over here, over there, over here, over there. Which area, your scope of work, your work area scope, I guess, I don't know what you want to call it.
[Jackie Davis]: So the limits are defined by where, so on the southwest side, it's where the bus actually needs to deploy and open both doors. So the back door through, so it's about 40 feet there, the back door through the curb ramp.
[Knight]: Okay, so 40 feet is about that.
[Jackie Davis]: That's just where the bus right is. So on you can see on the northeast side, that is all sidewalk it's in.
[Knight]: I'm just talking in general, not just this particular site, but so it's 40 feet for where the bus stop is. And then if it was going, that seems like you're moving all the bus stops up to the corners.
[Jackie Davis]: So we are leaving these stops in the current location, but right, but in a lot of the other ones, it seems like you're moving up to the corners that you're doing.
[Knight]: sidewalk repairs on the corners as well. How far down on the corner are you gonna go?
[Jackie Davis]: So on the offside, it's however far we need to tie into the grading. So it could vary. So like the flare of the ramp can vary between.
[Knight]: And what's the gradient? The appropriate gradient.
[Jackie Davis]: So the ramp has to be compliant. So with the place where it ramps down, that's a max seven and a half percent.
[Morell]: Thank you. Anything else on G4? Moving forward.
[Jackie Davis]: So this is High Street at Canal. So we are keeping the stops at their existing locations. We're just improving the pavement markings in the area at the crosswalks and then to delineate the bus lanes. You'll see on the south side, that stop is a little bit longer because of the parking in the area to allow for the bus to come into the sidewalk.
[Morell]: Getting on G5.
[Jackie Davis]: So G6 was recently reconstructed this last year by MassDOT. They have old bus signage out there. So this project, we are just moving the bus signage and replacing that. So the stop on the south side would just be moved back a little further.
[Morell]: there in G6. Councilor Tseng.
[Tseng]: I don't know if this is a question for you guys. It might be a question for Todd, for Director Blake, but is there parking going in where it's existing right now? Oh, is it? Okay. This is because I know generally like if there's parking going in there that might block those lights, the line of sight, but I think, okay, got it.
[Knight]: Great. Councilor Knight. On this location and on the Hastings lane location. across the street. Hastings Lane is a very difficult road to get out of. I grew up across the street. I grew up on Whitman Road, so I could see Hastings Lane from my house. I live on Whitman Street now. I drive through this intersection every day. Cars cannot get out of Hastings Lane as it is. The closer you move that bus to the corner, the hotter it's going to be. So if you're looking at where you're putting these two buses, You're moving one back closer to Woodman Street, one closer to Hastings Lane, so you're actually closing that side. Other way around. Other way around. Am I looking at this thing upside down? No, they're moving them farther away.
[Unidentified]: Farther away.
[Knight]: Interesting. Oh, I'm sorry. To the dark blue circles. I'm sorry. I was looking at it the other way. I apologize.
[Morell]: It's hard.
[Knight]: Yeah. These are complicated directions. I mean, yeah. It's a lot.
[Bears]: There's a lot of lines in this thing.
[Jackie Davis]: I had to go back and add in the boxes. It was just a blank plan. Thank you. Anything else on G6? Okay, moving forward. So Salem Street at Allen Court. So this stop here. we're moving the, on the north side, the existing stop stops within the crosswalk. We are just moving that behind and improving the sidewalk in that area. And then on the south side, keeping the stop where it is, but just lengthening that bus stop. And per discussions with Todd, we're adding a bump out and extending the crosswalk on the Hadley Place side to reduce the crossing distance.
[Morell]: Vice President Bears and then Councilor Svend.
[Bears]: Thank you. You actually, sorry, I raised my hand before you finished what you were saying and you answered my question. That is a bump out on the, yeah. So this is another one of those super dangerous intersections in the city and here, especially because you have a high speed, you know, coming off of the highway and, you know, people are coming off, pulling off to the right. You know, you end up with two lanes of traffic trying to come out of Hadley Place, one go left, one go right. And, you know, pedestrians and vehicles both are in a pretty tough situation there. So I appreciate these improvements. Thank you.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng.
[Tseng]: Yeah, I'm glad to see that there's a bump out there. I think Councilor Behr is very well articulated why we see the need for one. I know the city has been, would want another bump out on the other side of Hadley. Has that been considered?
[Jackie Davis]: So we did look at that with Todd, but the guidelines that we use were to accommodate WD-67. to make that turn, we decided to leave. It wasn't, it was about a two foot bump out, so it wasn't worth. Sorry, the heating just turned on, so it's suddenly become harder to hear you. So because of the truck that we used to make this turn, the bump out was only about a foot or two, so it wasn't, the improvement was like, it wasn't really an improvement. Didn't do anything to the crossing distance.
[Tseng]: I see, okay. And this is another RFB suggestion, but I think- There's one already there. At Crossing Salem?
[Jackie Davis]: Crossing Salem, yes.
[Tseng]: Okay, got it.
[Jackie Davis]: Thanks.
[Tseng]: Oh, I guess it was noted to me that the sign already there is a 24-7 LED border sign and not an RFB.
[Jackie Davis]: Oh, okay, I thought it was, but okay.
[Tseng]: Yeah, I guess that was noted, yeah, for me. But I would suggest that we ask for an RFP there.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Councilor Caraviello.
[Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. On the Salem Street side, it looks like we're getting kind of close to that driveway where the Chippy Lou comes out. It looks like you moved it back from where it was. Correct.
[Jackie Davis]: So we removed the stop back so it was out of the crosswalk. So the back end of the bus won't block the Jiffy Lube driveway.
[Caraviello]: No, but it looks like it's like right on the edge of their property. So when you're gonna, you might interfere with cars coming out of the Jiffy Lube there. Because that's a tough turn because the cars are more wide there because there's a curb there. If you haven't gone to Jiffy Lube. That's a crib there, so the car's gonna kinda come out and go around.
[Jackie Davis]: Yeah. Yeah, so I mean, we can look at moving- You may wanna consider moving that back up a little speck. So we have the driveway in front to compete with? No, I don't know. So yeah, we can look at it again.
[Caraviello]: Yeah, like I said, it would just interfere with the business there, because like I said, their driveway kind of narrows out when it comes out, and if you ever have gone in, they kind of make you drive out and around when you come out of there, so you may want to take that into consideration. Thank you.
[Morell]: Anything else on G7? Okay, going forward.
[Jackie Davis]: Everyone's favorite. So this location is within DOT's jurisdiction, so we are just showing it today for reference. But we are moving the stop on the north side to the far side of the driveway and just moving the stop on the south side just back slightly.
[Bears]: But just really quickly, is there going to be an RFP there? We had a pedestrian fatality, I think about 500 feet from this location pretty recently.
[Jackie Davis]: So all of these stops will go through the MBTA permit process. So this will go to the MBTA permits engineer, they'll review it. And if they would like to add one there, then we can add one.
[Bears]: I think if you could just relay.
[Bin Zhu]: Yeah, we are working with the MassDOT permit engineer right now. So we will be having a meeting with them to review all the plans. If they agree with the RFP, definitely we will be needed.
[Bears]: Yeah, we've had a again we had a pedestrian fatality there recently there's a lot of accidents you have multiple pull outs from the, from the plazas and BJ's is now going to be doing some work on their property a little bit down the street as well and I know that there's a mass focus on this area. to improve the safety of it, so I just think whatever you can do there would be much appreciated.
[Jackie Davis]: And if that is your recommendation, if we could just ask to put it in your meeting notes and we can forward those along with our permit to DOT.
[Bears]: I'm happy to make a formal motion that requesting additional pedestrian safety, including a RRFB at this location.
[Morell]: Okay. Councilor Collins.
[Collins]: Thank you, President Berloz. I was just gonna make a similar comment about an RRFB. at this location, and actually just for my understanding, sorry if you just said this, but just to make sure getting the, I wanna make sure my web of jurisdictions is accurate. So in this case, with this being a DOT jurisdiction crosswalk, we can pass the recommendations along to you. You are liaising with them to get all the permits, but these improvements will be implemented by the DOT.
[Jackie Davis]: They'll be implemented by the MBTA. Once the MBTA grants us a permit to do so.
[Tseng]: Thank you. Um, I, again, this is, this is totally here for it. Um, it looks like from the map that the crosswalk crossing Highland and Middlesex is on the north side of that intersection, and I know that they're actually new apartment complexes that have been built and that are going in. on the south side. And so I was wondering if there was a reason why the crosswalk is on the north side of the Wendy's driveway and not the south side of the Wendy's driveway, where there might be more pedestrian traffic.
[Jackie Davis]: Sure, so on the north side, ideally you'd have someone exiting the bus and crossing behind the bus. So if we were to add the crosswalk on the south side, we wouldn't be able to have that far side bus stop location.
[Tseng]: I see. Where would it be possible to move the bus stop to the other side of the driveway and then to have the pedestrian crosswalk be behind that bus stop?
[Jackie Davis]: We can go back and look at it, but ideally we would like the crosswalk on the far side of the intersection.
[Tseng]: Yeah, I mean, I guess what I'm saying is it would, if you move the bus stop in front of the crosswalk, it would still be the far side, it would just be moved down a few yards.
[Jackie Davis]: So not for the stop on the south?
[Tseng]: For traffic going towards Wellington or?
[Jackie Davis]: So I guess for the stop on the bottom, if we move, that's what you're asking, you want the crosswalk on that side, where that stop is?
[Tseng]: I think it would just make sense for our residents since we have more residents there. and there are more apartments there. Yeah.
[Jackie Davis]: We can take it back and look at it.
[Tseng]: Thank you so much, yeah. And I really appreciate you presenting on these projects that we technically don't need to confirm, but you guys are still presenting to us anyways. Thank you.
[Morell]: Councilor Caraviello.
[Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. For this particular spot, this is, a very heavily traveled trafficked area. You've got, I don't know if you know, but we've just approved a BJ's gas station there, which does, you know, if you've been to other BJ's gas stations, they're pretty busy. You've got that car wash across the street, which is packed all the time. And I don't know if you know, but there's a major supermarket going into that plaza also, along with the housing that's there. That's a, there's a lot of stuff happening in a few hundred yards of everything there. So maybe you may want to take some time and re-look at this. I don't know if you, if you knew about the supermarket going in there or the BJ's gas station going in there. So maybe you may want to rethink some of the stuff there. As I say, there's just a lot of stuff happening in probably a 20 or 30 yard span of a thing there. So maybe you might want to maybe go closer to the supermarket, Before this one gets etched in stone, you should take another look at it. Take into consideration the things you learned tonight.
[Bin Zhu]: Yeah, definitely, Councilor. We will be taking notes to the MassDOT and then to take your advice. Thank you.
[Morell]: Thank you. Anything else on G8? Moving to G9.
[Jackie Davis]: This location is under DCR's jurisdiction. So on the north side, we're keeping the stop where it is today, just lengthening the area for the bus and on the south side, we're moving it back behind the intersection closer to Benmore Street. Councilor Tseng.
[Tseng]: This looks again, not our jurisdiction, right? But it looks good to me. I was just wondering if we could ask for an RRFB crossing Highland since it's such a busy street.
[Jackie Davis]: We can go back and work with DCR to have that. Yeah, so the the stops currently at Waddle, but as you can see in the top photo, you're coming down that hill. There's a giant retaining wall there. There's no space for us to put a compliant ramp or stop there. So that's why the bus was or bus stop.
[Morell]: Anything else on G9? I'm going to G10, which I believe Councilor Knight is our final one.
[Jackie Davis]: So Fellsway West at Fox, we're keeping the bus stop where it is today. We'll just be in the photo. You can see there's kind of a dirt and gravel area there. We'll be filling that in and formalizing the bus stop and adding two compliant ramps at the intersection.
[Morell]: Thank you. Anything on G10? Okay. And then we just have the stop eliminations. I already read through them. Is there any councilors wanting to speak additionally on these proposed eliminations? I have specific questions.
[Bears]: I'm just going through them because I hadn't seen what councilor put out about the weekday ridership. The only one I have really any concern about is the two that I have any concern about are Bellsway at Central and Main Street at Windsor Road. So I don't know if you could talk.
[Morell]: What numbers are those?
[Bears]: They don't have numbers.
[Morell]: Okay.
[Bears]: Or sorry, there's a number. It would be number three and number 16.
[Morell]: Okay, thank you. So do you want me to go through each stop? No, if you just, if you want to speak to Main Street at Windsor and then Fells Way at Central, I know Vice President Bears has some concerns.
[Jackie Davis]: So Main Street at Windsor was removed because the closest stop was 420 feet away.
[Bears]: Which is where, if you have that?
[Jackie Davis]: Do you have it further down the PowerPoint? I don't have my hand up in front of me.
[Unidentified]: Sorry.
[Jackie Davis]: I will come back to you with where exactly that is.
[Bears]: Okay, thank you.
[Jackie Davis]: And then the other was the last slide. That's right at Central. Here in this, the closest stop was 690 feet with the ridership on the bus route 100 being 52. Yeah.
[Bears]: Can you just let me know which, like, are they going to have to cross central, you know, are they going to have to cross the Felsworth? Are they going to have to cross central? That's also kind of a dangerous intersection. And I get it, you know, some of these, the 0.1 rider per day, and I'm not quite to the 0.1 rider a day. I don't even, you know, who is it, you know, one person every 10 days or something, but like, you know, 50 people a day, it's not, that's pretty, you know, it's not nothing. It's probably marginal when your guys are looking at numbers that are much higher than that. But, you know, especially at a dangerous intersection on a, road where people speed where they shouldn't. I just want to make sure there's not any weird crossings that we're adding to people to walk another quarter mile or so, or a little less than that, but.
[Jackie Davis]: Sure, yeah, I can let you know where those are and get you the cluster map.
[Bears]: Okay, thank you. I'm just saying, I'm sorry.
[Morell]: Sorry.
[Bears]: The only other one is Hyatt Hillside. It's like right near the Medford Public Library, our new library. And I just remembered, sorry, I just remembered that, sorry to jump in, but
[Jackie Davis]: So this is one that we did talk about with Todd, because the city had just done the pedestrian ramps at this location. And the two stops, it says it's 670, or the closest stop is 670 feet away, but it was just up the hill is that next stop. So I know this is one that we did discuss.
[Bears]: And so the next stop is up the hill at like Powder House or something?
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Bears]: Yeah. I just, you know, a lot of people take the bus to the library. You know, maybe it's only 50 people a day. I think that's what it is in here, something like that. But that's just one I'll, I'd like to hold over if possible.
[Morell]: Sorry, Councilor Tseng.
[Bears]: and that's just the opposite of the central one, right? It's just the other side of the street, yeah.
[Morell]: Councilor Collins. Thank you.
[Collins]: I guess just I wanted to add my, I think this has been expressed, but I think obviously talking about different scopes, guys think in terms of the entire transit system, for us, we're representing people, you know, get around the city of Medford, get it to adjoining communities. In terms of the average weekly riders, I'm sure that 50 per day is kind of a drop in the bucket in terms of your scope, but in terms of this community and our size, especially thinking about how for a lot of people, if they're taking the bus, it's because they don't have any other option. So just another voice in the chorus for these bus stops that are in the ballpark of 40 to 50 or more weekday riders, I think that I just wanna take another moment or two week period to make sure that you know, effective butters people who for whom this is an important part of their commute. It's a small number but it's also a fairly significant number. Thank you.
[Morell]: Thank you, Dr. Collins. Any further discussion at this time we have a number of motions regarding cancer night, as the
[Knight]: Director of Transportation, done any community outreach to any of the neighborhoods about this? Or has this all been done through the MBTA's public participation process?
[Morell]: Director Blake, is this something that's also coming out of City Hall? Let me just make sure you're still on the call. Oh, there, sorry. Sorry if your hand has been up for a while. Is this something that's also coming out from City Hall, or is this just coming from MBTA as far as reaching out to folks about these changes?
[Todd Blake]: So usually if it's a project generated by a third party, such as the T or private entity, as with Eversource later in the evening, it's on that project to do outreach and then whatever we recommend to them to do outreach. So in this case, we recommended a robocall for them to go through Steve Smarty, send out the call. We recommend language, things like that, but it's usually driven by whoever's proposing the project. My hand was also up because for the SOP elimination, discussion, I, you know, it seems to me that there may be a error on Main Street because it looks like Stearns, Windsor, and Wellesley, it looks like three stops in a row may be supposed to be eliminated, so that may be too much for that section of Selzmanford, so maybe they should reconsider that one.
[Knight]: My suggestion, Madam President, before we even take a position on this, that as a city, we do outreach to the residents that are going to be most affected by it. We've made preliminary recommendations that you can come back to us with their responses to those preliminary recommendations in the interim. We can do some outreach. It seems to me like the city's done no outreach to any of the residents in the neighborhood, so this is going to factor impact. Regardless of whether or not it's a third-party project or not, I think if we're using Eversource as the baseline or the example, we better do it different than we did it with Eversource. You know, we've gotten a lot of pushback and a lot of calls. I'm sorry. The Safer School Project from a lot of us that were in there, So I think if we're going to do this, Madam President, we should do our own due diligence as well. We will buy in a house, we wouldn't just take what the real estate agent was telling us, we'd do our own due diligence. I think that that's something that we need to do before we as a council take a position on it. I certainly don't have any opposition to many of the proposals that are before us. I think it's something that needs to be done. Don't get me wrong, but I also don't want to be the one that says, I can't believe you put that bus in front of my house. Oh, I didn't. You had an opportunity to come to 100 meetings. You knew about it. We reached out. We did our due diligence. I think that's important, especially with the lack of communication that we've been receiving from the coroner office for the past three years.
[Morell]: Thank you. Councilor Tseng.
[Tseng]: I actually wholeheartedly agree with Councilor Knight. These are the great project. I think you've heard a lot of agreements on a lot of a lot of this stops some suggestions. We saw, there's some information that you guys have said that you'll get back to us, we should I think I would like to motion to table, just until we get that information until we are able to reach out to the public. and especially about the bus stop eliminations that have more ridership as well. I think it's important to put that out into the community and get feedback and to make sure that everyone has a chance to give some feedback. And there might be people who don't wanna see changes whether they're at places too or they wanna see changes in front of their places. And I think this is a good chance to.
[Morell]: Yeah, and we do have a number of just motions as far as the recommendations or changes we wanna see. So I just wanna make sure we address those before a voted table. Less than 25. Okay, thank you. Yes. Vice and bears.
[Bears]: Yeah, I was just gonna see if you know if you guys so we have some of the requests for information, and it sounds like the council's an agreement that we want to kind of table this to a date certain so that we can do a little bit more outreach and residents can come to the meeting and if they like it they can say they like it if they don't they can say they don't we can kind of have that consideration. I just want to make sure for your guys purposes, it probably makes more sense to leave everything together rather than get on two different tracks here. Cause there's some, we don't have questions about some that we do. Is it okay if we just take the whole bulk and say table until that's Councilor Tseng his motion, but maybe to April 25th. And if that's a date when you could have the information back to us by on the requests that we've made, and then that gives us enough time to have communication with the public. Does that work?
[Bin Zhu]: Yeah, Councilor, two things I want to point out. One thing is the public outreach. So when we do the 30% design concept plan, we will be send all the letters to the voters. So we already do the public outreach. Second things, today we show your guys at 10 locations and the elimination plans. So we only need your guys approve the seven locations in the bus stop improvement. So elimination plans, the other three jurisdictions belong to MassDOT and DCR. We don't need it we just say information only courtesy for your guys to review. So this is a, I want to point out.
[Bears]: Okay.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins and then counter saying. Councilor say.
[Tseng]: Thank you. Um, I think for the public outreach part. We know that you guys have done your part. It's about us doing argued diligence as well.
[Bin Zhu]: Just want to point out that, you know, no, no, I appreciate that.
[Tseng]: I appreciate you putting that, um, stating that record. Um, we've I think, as Councilor Mike reference, we're just other projects that we've done as the city before that we should have solicited solicited more people before we move forward before we agree to anything, even though as a council we might agree tonight to it. We just want to give people the chance to give some feedback. And I know that there are projects like this with buses in the past the Medford that haven't been approved before. I don't think this is a situation like that I think we're already making progress, but I think it's important to see, you know, to make sure that that BT is making commitments to that I think we all seem to agree on tonight, just to package it all together. I think I feel more comfortable with that.
[Morell]: Thank you. So we have a number of motions. Do you want to combine them to focus on every single one right back to make sure we have them? Could you read them back, Mr. Clerk, just to make sure we have them all?
[Hurtubise]: Yes, I'd like them to have them all as well. On G1, Vice President Bears requested an RFP for Winthrop and Robinson Road. On G3, Councilor Collins requested an RFP for Boston Avenue and High Street. Vice President Bears requested an RFP for the High Street facing side. For G7, Councilor Tseng requested an RFP for Salem Street and Allen Court. For G8, I believe that was also Councilor Tseng, requesting an additional pedestrian safety and RFP at Highland at Middlesex. G9, Councilor Tseng requested an RFP crossing Highland at Waddell. And then I'm a little unclear because vice-president says vice-president said something about holding high at Highland and Councilor Tseng said Felsway and Medford.
[Bears]: Sounds like we're holding all of it. So you can ignore that.
[Hurtubise]: I thought that was part of it.
[Bears]: You can, yeah.
[Hurtubise]: But those are the, those are the RFP motions I have.
[Bears]: I think it's RFB.
[Hurtubise]: I'm sorry?
[Bears]: I think it's B, RFB.
[Jackie Davis]: Rectangular RFP. RFP. Yeah. So do I have, do I have, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, just to, so it's rectangular rapid flashing beacon, but at G9, it's RR. So it's just going to, at Waddle, so the beacon would be closer to the Benmore side, not closer to Waddle.
[Knight]: Yeah.
[Morell]: Great drive a motion to combine and approve. Yes. On the motion by Susan bears to combine all the motions and approve. Second, my Councilor Tseng all those in favor. All those opposed motion passes. And we have a motion from Councilor Tseng to table until a date certain and we'll get you all the meeting minutes. So you have all this as well. Motion Councilor Tseng to table to a date certain that date certain being April 25th could be amenable to that.
[Bears]: Yeah.
[Morell]: Okay. Second by second by Susan bears. All those in favor. All those opposed motion passes. Thank you all so much.
[Bin Zhu]: Thank you all council members.
[Morell]: Next, we have 23. Oh, 28.
[Bears]: There we go.
[Morell]: Offered by Councilor Caraviello. Be it resolved that Eversource provide an update to the Medford City Council, DPW, and Engineering Departments. Councilor Caraviello?
[Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President, something I put on before, and I'm glad to hear tonight to give us an update on this ever going project.
[Morell]: Thank you. Please name and address, Dr. Please.
[Bob Coats]: Yeah, good evening, Bob Coats, Eversource Energy, Vice President of Capital Construction, out of the South Borough of Mass office or Dorchester office or any of the offices. I believe you have the package, and I know we have a slide deck to present, and one of my colleagues who's presenting is a co-presenter. So I'll go to slide one. Do you want to wait until it comes up on the screen? You all have a paper copy, but we did prepare it for the public viewing.
[Morell]: I don't know if... Sujata should be a co-presenter.
[Bob Coats]: Can you...
[Morell]: I don't think I have it. I have to run downstairs and do it, but I can do it. Okay, we can we can start without it. I mean, we have that's fine.
[Bob Coats]: Okay. Good evening. I just want to give you a brief update on the project, the status of the project and our plans. When you look at page two, cable pulling conduit system vacuum testing, we've completed the entire conduit system at year end of 2022. So that's from the Winchester line to the Somerville line and beyond into those towns. Vacuum testing for that conduit system was completed successfully on January 15th, 2023. and cable pulling is almost complete. The last section from manual 14 to 15 is being pulled tomorrow, Thursday, and then we'll clean and test that on Friday. So that'll, the cable will be all in the ground through the city of Medford by the end of the week. Currently on slide three, 41 sidewalk ramps are completed in 2022. We have 59 ramps to complete by the end of May in 2023. There's 15 in Medford, you know, the jurisdictional lines are different for ownership, but three in Medford DCR and six in Medford DOT jurisdiction. Those will be done during daytime hours between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. There'll be done multiple locations, work with the city departments. We've collaborated with the city engineer, traffic, police, TPW, and the mayor's office, and have a plan to work that off, and I'll show you the schedule down by section a little further on in the deck. On slide four, milling and paving, the remaining 8,800 linear feet are scheduled to be done this spring in the early summer. We've completed 4,300 feet in 2022, but you'll see the three sections that we're talking about from Winthrop Street, Victory Park on the Mystic Valley, South Street to Main Street, South Street to Union Street, and then down Mystic Ave to the MassDOT jurisdiction. We did do an outreach on Winthrop around the milling activity, held a Zoom call with the city and the butters to ask inquiring about that they want us to mill during the daytime or the nighttime. Right now, the milling operations and the other two sections are nighttime operations, but we understand milling's a very noisy activity and we're worried about impact to the city residents. So we had a Zoom call. Only a few people were on that Zoom call and they highlighted the fact that, you know, In a nighttime operations, we can get more done, more hours, more passes, and don't have the traffic implications. We get that done in about five days on a daytime operations about 11 days. But we're deferring to the city, city engineer for further discussion about whether that'll be permitted daytime or nighttime. We recognize that there's.
[Morell]: Thank you.
[Caraviello]: that we repaid that from, from, from what the street down the victory Park, it's a pretty substandard job. And I know it's not. I know you guys blame the police department because you couldn't do it during the day. I mean during during the night. So you did it in piecemeal. Please don't do that and the rest of the project.
[Bob Coats]: So the rest of the paving is nighttime operation.
[Caraviello]: Yeah, because I say, and all due respect I wish you'd remill and do from Winthrop Street. part you already paved is the seams are coming apart. And like I said, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have accepted that job in my driveway at my house. So if you can look into repaving that again, just drive by there. We'll see what it looks like.
[Bob Coats]: Yeah, we'll defer to the city engineer the direction city and they don't
[Caraviello]: I'm telling you from what I see what I hear from people, and the President lives there we drive by it every day. We see the road coming apart already point of information.
[Scarpelli]: I know that concert. I think that what was clear with us wasn't ever source. Yeah. It was the police. It was the city administration that didn't inform the neighbors that would have had the option that would have wanted what we see in Winchester and I believe Winchester, they gave you the approval to do one pass and that's the difference between the Winchester side and that side from the line to the high school to the satellites at Lawrence, as far as you're going, I'm sorry. the Victory Park side.
[Bob Coats]: That's correct. The best practice is to pave without traffic and get it done in one shot.
[Caraviello]: That was a very easy fix to get the traffic around that at night time.
[Scarpelli]: I'm glad to see that we're doing that, but I just want to be clear because I was going to apologize for that because I was one of the people that was really critical of coming to find out there was a lack of communication again.
[Caraviello]: Possibly you paved in Mr. Gabb. It's starting to sink. They're puddling.
[Bob Coats]: So again, we're
[Caraviello]: City engineer city traffic they're giving us feedback we fixed a few locations already but it's still puddling and you're seeing some of the some of the whole sinking and South Street is really starting to come apart too.
[Bob Coats]: And we'll be doing those as we pay them repay them so yeah you know the South Street will be repaid again, we have to mill and repay those sections.
[Morell]: Thank you.
[Bears]: Just to go from what you said is now it's been worked out to do the nighttime so you can do the one pass on the rest of this.
[Bob Coats]: We've worked with the city talked about the proposal and the city department city engineer, who's our chief facilitators doing a great job. Mr. would tell us has worked through with the effort of the DPW the police and everybody and we're going to be able to do these paving sections at night.
[Scarpelli]: Great. Thank you. A few neighbors did reach out to me, and what's alarming is that there was an option for National Grid customers to add gas lines to their homes down Winthrop Street. What's bothersome to me, and I know that, I don't know if there's communications between two entities, but They were, they were just I was just informed that they were told that they plan to do the connections may 1, and we are looking to plan to hot top that area. April 15. So do you know if it's maybe it's not even with the ever so I speak but with Todd of Todd's on. Can you shed some light on that because if that's the case. Does he know about this project that, it was a petition by neighbors on Winthrop Street to add gas lines, so.
[Morell]: Director Blake, are you able to speak to that, or would that be something that Owen can only speak to?
[Hurtubise]: Maybe he doesn't, so I know the engineer, he's not on, right?
[Morell]: I do not see him, no.
[Todd Blake]: If the question was about gas lines, that's not in my purview. I don't know anything about that.
[Scarpelli]: Sorry.
[George Lane]: Thank you.
[Scarpelli]: So I know that if this will reach out to the engineer, but is that that's a date already certain that something's already been to the to our schedule that we've already issued to the city and they agreed to.
[Bob Coats]: So we're still trying to work our way through and I know city engineers talking about whether there's a potential to mill Winthrop at night. You know, we're concerned that we only got two butters on the call that's not a consensus. So we're trying to work that through and determine what the best approaches. Right now it's listed for the day we'll see where see where it goes. There's an opportunity there, potentially.
[Scarpelli]: So we make a decision as a community that this is what I know we're asking the but butters but if they're not getting back to us this is exactly why we are, we're getting the phone calls and what we are in the negative feedback on ever saw us because of the choppy work that was done because of the timeline that was presented by the city administration so this is where you have to take a stand as a city administration and say, hey, you know, this is what's best for the whole community. I know that it's five days rather than 11. It's no seams. It's one task.
[Bob Coats]: Excuse me, interrupt. Let me just this is just a milling. It's not the paving the paving is right. But what I'm right.
[Scarpelli]: So that's what I'm saying. Well, the milling and the paving I think that so I think that's important that I think that all plays into one as what we're asking. So thank you.
[Bob Coats]: Slide five shows you kind of the 2023 mitigation sections, and it's broken down by sections in the city, ramps, milling, casting, paving, and striping left to right on the schedule. But you can see that our plan right now is to have frankly everything, the ramps, the milling, castings, paving, all, and the striping done by the middle of July. That's our plan at this point in time. And these have to go sequentially, obviously, because you've got to mill, then you raise the castings, then you do the paving. Just to be clear, striping, there will be phased approach striping. I'll talk about that in a few minutes. That would lead us then into July where we start cable slicing. In accordance with the MOU, we cannot slice cable until all the mitigations are done in the community. So starting in July, we'll work our way starting from the Winchester Street side down and start splicing the cable. Understand the splicing the cables, it's a truck, a crew around a manhole in the city street. maybe a small generator running, but that's it. And that'll be done sequentially down there. And that will get us away from the school before the start of the school year. And we'll be done with this cable slicing by mid-September, according to the schedule. If there's adjustments to the schedule, we post the schedule, we announce the schedule changes to the city through the city engineer's office, and then we post them on our website. And we still make the butter notifications in advance of these activities.
[Bears]: I'm sorry, just and I apologize if I am doubling back, but just to confirm. So let's say we mill Winthrop Street on the 418 to 420 timeline. We're not going to castings or paving, you know, castings next thing going to paving. If NatGrid starts installing gas lines on May 1, do you have to remill the road at that point before you pave it, or is it going to be not a huge disruption?
[Bob Coats]: If the road is still milled, it's probably not a typical obstruction, unless it delays our paving.
[Bears]: OK. All right. And so, yeah, I mean, I know, I know you're in close communication with Owen. So maybe just, you know, maybe he didn't know about the National Grid thing either. Maybe they were, you know, it's not, it's, it's home gas lines, right? It's not a gas line. Yes. Right. So, um, Yeah, just just I just wanted to I hear you. That makes sense. What you said makes perfect sense to me that obviously, you don't want to pave the road while they're cutting it up the same day or you know, you're gonna have to coordinate around that. But I just think that's the one the one outstanding piece here that I've heard so far that just hopefully the coordination can go back and make sure that everyone that national grid has informed the city so that the city can coordinate with you.
[Bob Coats]: Yeah, and as part of our weekly project meetings with Mr. Bartella, we'll bring that up as well.
[Knight]: Great, thank you. Because I mean, ultimately the moratorium would come into effect right for the street opening moratorium. So these people wouldn't be able to get the street gets closed. They're not gonna be able to open the street for five years to get gas into the house. We gotta address this before this happens.
[Bob Coats]: And then on the slide seven just kind of assumptions that are built into the schedule, you know we continue to work with the police department traffic DPW traffic city engineer on the plan to achieve the, the 2023 cable splicing completion by the end of September, middle of September at Medford will have a dedicated engineer to oversee the operations, we fund that engineer but they'll, they'll have an engineer. And then we share the weekly schedules with the police dpw city engineer and the like, and we make any updates and adjustments that to assure the public safety wheelchair ramp In safety activities, we submit traffic management plans and pedestrian management plans with Mr. Wattel and Director Blake. We go over those and make sure that everything's clear and concise with the police department and public safety's paramount and our concern as well to make sure it's done, number one. We will be in multiple locations on some of the sidewalk ramps, but we try to commit to be on one side of the street, not two sides of the street, to have approachments on both sides of the street. The bike lanes will be available and the casting adjustments will be sequenced so that there's two way traffic we can maintain two way traffic. I mentioned that we've been going out to the butters we continue to notify two weeks out one week out 24 hours before around front of folks door hangers emails website activities construction schedules updated weekly on the project website and the city with the city's communication team. You know, the biggest impact is Winthrop. It's noisy. I get it. We get it. And we're just looking to see if there's opportunity to accelerate that. But right now, as the decision is from the current from the traffic engineer and the city engineer and the police department is to mill during the daytime, it does reduce work time. But I understand it's at the discretion of the city officials to determine public safety and the best operations. Roadway engineering. We're going to pay both sides as I said during the, during the shift nighttime shift to avoid the cold joints that we've experienced the cold joint up and Winthrop Street will be repaired. We have some infrared technologies coming in the striping is going to be temporary striping. And then after the milling is done, we put temporary marking tapes down the double yellow line that we have to let the pavement cure before we do the permanent epoxy coated inlay marking. So that'll occur sometime after that and of course with the schedule.
[Morell]: What's the time between that temporary striping and the more permanent?
[Bob Coats]: I'm sorry?
[Morell]: What's the time between that temporary striping and the more permanent? Because we really had some issues with that earlier in the year.
[Bob Coats]: It was a couple of weeks. It's a couple of weeks for the curing to take place. Okay, thank you. So it's about a couple of weeks for each section of curing to take place.
[Morell]: Okay, thank you.
[Bob Coats]: And we're trying to do is, you know, get the striping vendor in and work their way down as we're doing the paving activities as well. Again, as I said, we really appreciate the collaboration with the city engineer, the city departments, the city council. I know that this has been a long journey. It's been a long journey for us too. I also wanna highlight for you that when we say the cable work is done in September, we still doesn't mean the cable's energized. We still need to do testing in the cable, energization of the cable before the project's completely in service to meet its core objective of providing more transmission support a lot of load is rising as communities embark on green energy technologies, electrification, transportation and the like, and we need this to help the regional regional load capacities across the Boston area as well as Massachusetts and beyond. So we appreciate the continued cooperation of the City Council and the city departments.
[Morell]: Thank you.
[Knight]: Councilor Knight. If I could just reintroduce my motion that was made earlier in the evening during the public participation portion, that we reach out to the lead traffic engineer and to our representatives at EPSOS to see if the bike lanes that are taken with parking spots in front of those homes between Lawrence Road and High Street would be as a result of the mitigation package that was negotiated between the administration and the provider.
[Morell]: Thank you. So on the motion of Councilor Knight, seconded by... Councilor Scarpelli, all those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. Any further discussion on this update?
[Bob Coats]: Thank you.
[Morell]: Seeing none, thank you so much.
[Bob Coats]: Oh, I'm sorry, there was one.
[Morell]: Oh, sorry. I don't know. Oh, sorry. Councilor Collins. I was just gonna motion to revert to normal. Oh, thank you. Thank you.
[Bob Coats]: Thank you.
[Morell]: On the motion of Councilor Collins to revert to the regular order of business, seconded by Councilor Tseng. All those in favor? I'm sorry. All those opposed? Motion passes. Announcements, accolades, remembrances, reports, and records. 23-076 offered by Vice President Bears and Councilor Tseng, a resolution to extend best wishes to Muslims in Medford, Massachusetts, the United States, and worldwide for a joyous, meaningful observance of Ramadan, a holy month of prayer, fasting, charity, and reflection. Whereas Islam is one of the world's major religions and part of our shared faith tradition, and whereas Muslims have been a part of the fabric of America for over 400 years, since the first Muslims in America arrived as enslaved people. And whereas the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is home to 131,000 Muslims and their Muslim faith is welcome here. And whereas the Muslim community is one of the most racially diverse faith groups in the United States and has enriched the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And whereas Ramadan is a holy month of fasting and spiritual renewal for Muslims worldwide and the ninth month of the Muslim calendar year. And whereas Ramadan is a time to reflect spiritually, build community, give to charity, and a reason to celebrate and express gratitude. And whereas Ramadan began at dusk on March 23rd, 2023, and lasts for one lunar month, with the first and last dates determined by the lunar Islamic calendar. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Medford City Council goes on record to recognize the commencement of Ramadan, a holy month of prayer, fasting, charity, reflection, and be it further resolved that the council extends best wishes to Muslims in Medford, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the United States, and worldwide, a joyous and meaningful observance of Ramadan Be it further resolved, the city clerk is hereby requested to ensure that the Islamic Cultural Center of Medford and Jetpack Resource Center receive a copy of this resolution. Vice and bears.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Much appreciated for your reading of this paper, for my colleagues' consideration, for the co-sponsorship of Councilor Tseng, and for our ICCM and JETPAC for working on this. I also know a similar resolution and commemoration. I think the first potentially in state history, although I'm not 100% sure on that, was requested of the governor and the governor did issue one as well, a proclamation recognizing Ramadan. It's an incredibly important month for Muslims in Medford across the world. And I think, you know, we have been recognizing the multi-faith, multicultural, you know, fabric of our community. And this is a role in that, plays a role in that. I think as we all know and have seen, Islamic Cultural Center of Medford has fast is fast becoming and has fast become, you know, you know, a key member of our key part of our community since it's moved into the square restoring the Isaac Hall house working with the city to gain CPA grants, you know, and I just think it's putting this resolution forward it's a it's a moment as it says in here, you know, joyous and meaningful observance and a month of prayer, fasting, charity, and reflection, I think, regardless of your faith tradition, or if you don't have a faith tradition, those are values that you can respect and hold. So, you know, thank you again for hearing me out, considering this, and we all support it tonight. Thank you.
[Tseng]: I think I'm Councilor Paris put it so eloquently, but the Muslim community in Medford is a very budding part of the fabric of our city, and the ICCM as Councilor bears is referred has reference have been really critical in terms of our communities efforts to preserve our history to restore buildings, and to contribute to our municipal events, and to. really do charity in the community, which I think we should definitely recognize. Ramadan is... It is one of the most important months in the Islamic calendar, if not the most important month. And it's a month of joy. I think a lot of people know it for the fasting aspect of it, but Ramadan is about connecting to your community and connecting to yourself spiritually. All things, as Councilor Beres mentioned, all things I think we can get behind, even if we are not part of a faith tradition. And these are all values that I think build a healthy community. And so to all the Muslims in Medford celebrating the holy month of Ramadan, I just want to say Ramadan Kareem.
[Morell]: Thank you. Any further discussion? On the motion of Councilor Tseng, seconded by Vice-President Bears. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. 23-077 offered by Councilor Collins, be it so resolved that the Medford City Council send its deepest and most sincere condolences to the family of Marguerite Aguido, hold a moment of silence in her honor, Councilor Collins.
[Collins]: Thank you very much, President Morell. Margaret Akito was a longtime Medford resident. She lived on Manning Street. She lived on Luther Road for decades, and her family was and remains deeply connected to this community. I also understand that Margaret was a very faithful and dedicated watcher of our Tuesday night City Council meetings, and so I hope that my fellow colleagues will join me in letting her family know that we are thinking of them during this difficult time and holding a moment of silence in her honor.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. On the motion of Councilor Collins, seconded by Councilor Tseng, all those in favor, all those opposed, please rise for a moment of silence. 23 to 078 offered by Councilor Collins and vice president bears. It's a result of the Metro City Council recognize walk, bike and roll to school day on April 4 supported by the safe routes to school program and walk Medford students and community members will be celebrating the day with bike trains to and from school Councilor Collins.
[Collins]: Thank you, President Morell. So it's that time of year again almost for the biannual Walk, Bike and Roll to School Day. I think this is a great way to get young riders out on the streets with the safe chaperoning of adult riders that accompany them along their routes to school. I know that many in the bicycling community in Medford are organizing these bike trains on April 4th. So I would, you know, issue a heads up to everybody who's commuting or out on the roads that day to make sure to take extra care for additional cyclists out on the road that day. And as you know, as always much appreciation for much appreciation for the Safe Routes to School program and all of the cycling activists and volunteers that make this celebration possible. Thank you.
[Morell]: Thank you, Vice President Bears.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. And first, just apologies, I didn't catch this, I think it's actually May 4th.
[Morell]: I thought that seemed, yes.
[Bears]: Oh, so yeah, that may just- I had that in my head. That's my mistake, sorry about that. Yeah, I didn't catch it either. May 4th.
[Morell]: Yeah, that date didn't seem, yep, it's May 4th.
[Bears]: And I only know that because I was looking through my email and I saw an email that said May 4th today.
[Collins]: So we're super prepared. Advance warning.
[Bears]: Yeah, but yeah, but everything that Councilor Collins said I think stands strongly and this gives people even more time to plan and consider taking this on if you're watching this and you can make that day work for you and your family to participate in this. I think it's really, An important event and really shows, you know, we have in this community, especially you know I know it's at all levels but the high school level. we don't offer a universal busing at the high school. You know, we have folks on the MBTA, we have folks walking, we have folks driving, we have folks getting rides, you know, you have folks biking, you have a lot of different modes of travel going to the high school. One of the reasons this resource project is so important is because it's fixing the, you know, the gateway to the high school where you have, you know, our most precious resource and group of folks in the city, our young people. And we want them to be safe. And I think we all want that in all of the different contexts. We've talked about that many times in many different contexts, and this is one of them. This issue, we had a memorial outside of City Hall. This is just very personal to me. I lost a friend 10 years ago to a car accident. I thought I could do this without breaking down, but I still can't. We need to keep young people safe, so thank you.
[Morell]: Thank you, Vice President Bears. Any further discussion? So on the motion of Councilor Collins, seconded by Vice President Bears. All those in favor? All those opposed? The motion passes. 23-079, offered by President Morell, Councilor Tseng, and Councilor Collins, be it so resolved that the Medford City Council honor and celebrate Women's History Month. I will go to Councilor Collins. I'm gonna cherry pick.
[Collins]: Thank you, President Morell. I think that, well, it's always a good time to celebrate women's history. It's always a good time to reflect on the contributions of women to society, our community in particular. We have so many pillars of our local Medford community who happen to be women. And I think it's always the right time to reflect on members of marginalized communities that have made outsized contributions to the community that we enjoy today. Thank you.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. Councilor Tseng.
[Tseng]: Thank you. President Morell, I don't think it needs to be said that celebrating Women's History Month is valuable. I wanted to bring up a few examples of Medford women who have made history. Many that I think people in the city know, some that people might not. I think Amelia Earhart is a name that a lot of people know about for her achievements in aviation. And she is a part of Medford history, if you know it. There is Belinda Sutton, who I think we had a huge acknowledgement of her work in terms of reparations last year or two years ago. She was a black woman who fought hard to make sure that she received reparations after she was freed from slavery from her slave owners, the royal family, and she won her case and made legal history with that effort. There are everyday heroes, another name that we learned about a few years ago, that many of us learned about, many of us knew personally, Jean Barrett Sutherland as well, who, her work for her students should go acknowledged and remembered as well. And so these are just a few examples in a very, very long list of Medford figures who we should be celebrating every day, but especially during the month of March, we should pay our respects to. And I would go remiss if I didn't mention our city's suffragette movement, which was fed intellectually, a lot of the ideas that became successful nationally in politics.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng, and thank you for doing the labor of doing the research and sharing that. Much appreciated by Councilor Collins and I. And I just want to add, I mean, there's much to be reflected upon this month. I just want to add the quote from Abigail Adams to remember the ladies. I still don't think we've made true on that request. We've got a long way to go, but remember the ladies. Any further discussion?
[Knight]: Vice President Bears. You're here to the Council President as well.
[Morell]: Thank you. On the motion of Councilor Collins, seconded by Councilor Caraviello, all those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. Records, the records of March 21st, 2023 were passed to Councilor Caraviello. Councilor Caraviello, how did you find them?
[Caraviello]: Madam President, I had the opportunity to review the records and I found them in order.
[Morell]: On the motion of Councilor Caraviello, seconded by Councilor Knight, all those in favor? all those opposed motion passes courts of committees 22-494 march 21st 2023 subcommand ordinances and rules vice president bears thank you madam president we met to discuss a proposed budget ordinance
[Bears]: to outline in ordinance the budget process. We will have probably another discussion in subcommittee bring it to committee the whole move it forward it's, we're not going to be able to, I would assume implemented this year because it would have started three months ago already if we if we had. But, you know, we've had some great work we had director Dickinson with us. at the last meeting, and actually he was very, very supportive of the ideas and concepts behind it, you know, kind of saying, hey, you know, this is what we should be doing anyway, and I really think that was a great response, and really we were getting a lot of collaboration from him on it. The other piece of this ordinance, and I know this is a little bit long for some committee reports, so thanks everyone for bearing with me, but it's just so important, this budget process. The other piece of it is this needs assessment. That may take a little bit more time. Maybe we split it off, because it's just kind of a harder question, can we get something like what we now have for roads and sidewalks for buildings for departments for everything how can we start to quantify this question of code enforcement what would in-house dpw crews look like how can we build a process where we you know that's a big project to do once but once you've done it once and you figured out how to do it updating it annually is not as big a process and then we have a document that we can go on not just to say hey you know, Todd throws up his hand and says, we need this engineer this year, but what is our plan over the next two, three, five, 10 years to get to where we need to be? So thank you for indulging me and I move approval on the subcommittee report.
[Morell]: On the motion of Vice Mayor seconded by Councilor Collins, all those in favor. All those opposed, motion passes. 22-321, March 22nd, 2023 Subcommittee on Zoning Planning and Development. and bears.
[Bears]: This was on looking at a proposed condo conversion ordinance. Um, you know, we had a lot of initial discussions, uh, and, you know, we're planning to have further subcommittee meetings to really flush that out.
[Morell]: Move approval on the motion of vice and bears, seconded by Councilor Collins. All those in favor. All right, I suppose passes. That is the end of Councilor Collins. Thank you. Um, we'll take suspension first and our Sure, yeah, one paper. One paper under suspension, 23-082 from. I'm sorry. I'd like to suspend the rules.
[Bears]: Motion to suspend the rules to take paper 23-082.
[Morell]: The motion of vices and affairs to suspend the rules to take 23-082 seconded by Councilor Tseng. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. 23-082 offered by Councilor Scarpelli. be it so resolved that the city administration update the city council with where in the process are all of the ordinances that this council has worked on since the vacancies in this solicitor's office Councilor Scarpelli.
[Scarpelli]: Thank you, Madam President, I appreciate all the hard work that a city clerk has has done for us, and I know that this council has worked very, very hard on putting through some initiatives that this community needs. But what I was referring to is the understanding of what the role in KP law has with our ordinances, whether they're legal, whether they are being able to move forward these ordinances. And I've, like I said, I've had the, The opportunity that work with many, many different city solicitors, and one. One ordinance rule 30 ordinance and bonds orders referred to the city solicitor. This is in our charter. Every ordinance and every order for bond issue shall before its passage be referred to the city solicitor, who shall for with examine the same as to its legalities and notify the council in writing of their findings. It shall be standing rule of the city council that no final or definitive action shall be passed by this council in the matter of abatement of betterment assessments until such time as the legalities of a proposed abatement shall be approved by the city solicitor. So what's that saying is that it's simple. We could do the exercise moving forward with the ordinances and what we're trying to do as a council, but in essence, having KP law review them is often not. From what I gather, and I'll ask with a motion that we ask the city administration to forward to us any signed ordinances by KP law, I'm gonna guarantee you that it probably isn't because they know it's against the law because they're not acting city solicitors, because they know this rule in our charter, so in our ordinances. And this is what I was afraid of. I'm hoping I'm wrong, because it is a lot of money we've spent with KP Law. But moving forward, I want to just, again, just stress to my fellow Councilors that the understanding, the idea of what we're doing is I completely understand. We need to do our job the best we can. But when we don't have the tools in place to succeed, and we, keep asking for KP Law's opinions on things. It comes back to this. This ordinance is very, this resolution is very simple. I think it's an eye-opening resolution. I think it'll be interesting on my motion to see what we get back in two weeks with the city administration, where the signed ordinances are that will put so much hard work into passing. And I think that's, you know, I think that's going to be a telling sign of where we are. And I know that I'm going to make a second motion that's Council fears thinking about it since he brought it up and asking that the council asked for city administration for funding. to reach out to former city solicitors, preferably Romley or Scanlon, that everybody else's work in per diem, that we asked them to come in and work on a stipend program where, or a retainer that they can assist us with the city solicitors or get sworn as acting city solicitors so we could pass these passages forward. So these are two motions I'm gonna ask because of this news that was shared with me that we need the update from the city administration with the signed ordinances to see if they are signed or they're not left to be signed. I know that there were questions that As long as the mayor signs off that they are acceptable, no, it's not. the legal opinions that I received and what our ordinance says in rule 30, it clearly states that we can't do anything until the city solicitor signs off on this. So if we can do that and ask for the administration to allow us to bring in and swear in a city solicitor per diem or on a retainer to help us finalize some of these ordinances and other motions that we have that right now are being left off to KP Law and their infinite wisdom for the mayor, not for this council. So thank you.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. And I just realized, so I got a response. There was a response that came through to myself and Vice President Bears today. I actually didn't realize I didn't get sent to the whole council from the mayor with copied and pasted from Janelle, Attorney Austin, saying that just for background. In my opinion, KP Law can sign off on the ordinances as set forth by council rules Since in my opinion, the mayor is authorized to appoint council as necessary to advise the city, including pursuant to rule 24 or rule 30. And then she says, if the city clerk wants to afford any ordinances of supporting city council minutes, we can certainly review as to the sufficiency of those for passage. So I'll make sure the clerk sends that to the whole council. I didn't realize it didn't go to everyone. So I apologize for that.
[Scarpelli]: Again, I think this is where, again, this council is being bypassed without any legal support. So why do we need a council? Why do we have our ordinances and laws that the mayor put her hand on the Bible and or about to follow the bylaws and the ordinances of this community? That's what we all did when we had the inauguration. When we were sworn in, that's what we're sworn in to do. This is rule 30 of our ordinances, the city councils for our city solicitor. And again, I would like to see those signed documents.
[Morell]: Thank you, President Bears and then Councilor Knight.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Yeah, just two more things on that one. I replied to that email and said, you know, that's that's I'm glad we have a response on this question. But I added the question of is, you know, it's not just City Council rules, it's Massachusetts General Law. And I would just like a little bit more detail on on what we got back from, from them. The other piece of this and it goes back to your point is, you know, And, you know, I guess maybe I'm just gonna bring this up at every meeting till the end of time at this point, or at least to the end of the year. You know, at this at this point, I think that I'm hoping that we I appreciated our conversation last week about the idea of moving forward and making sure that we have the power on our own to bring people on board where we don't have to ask. Because making that small change along with a couple other small changes to allow us to appropriate the money and improve boards and commissions would go a long way to making this council significantly more forceful in our ability to hold the administration accountable. So I'm really looking forward to those discussions. Thank you.
[Knight]: Madam President, thank you very much. I'm very thankful that Attorney Austin has finally given us a legal opinion, because every time we ask her for something, she scratches her head and says, that's council prerogative. I don't know. I'll look into it. I'll check it out later. But finally, she gave us a legal opinion. It didn't answer the question that we asked, because we didn't ask her to look at the council rules. We asked her to look at the city ordinances, and we asked her to look at the general laws. And this opinion is very, very narrow. And there's a reason it's very narrow, because it's not worth the paper it's written on. All right, these ordinances that this council puts in place to ensure that there's a city solicitor put in place with the legislative intent to provide a check and balance on the administration. It's a transparency issue. First and foremost, a transparency issue. So the mayor has the power to appoint somebody. She hasn't appointed a city solicitor. She's hired a private law firm. She said that her private law firm, the city ordinance say there shall be a solicitor. It doesn't say the mayor shall privately contract a firm. It says there shall be a solicitor and the solicitor will be compensated within the compensation schedule. The same schedule that she brought to us this evening to create another pet job for one of her friends. So when I sit here and I look at this, Madam President, it makes my brains boil because she sat up here and she promised. She made a promise to us. She promised us something. She cut a deal and the deal was that we'd have an assistant city solicitor. So whether her word isn't worth anything or just as much as the paper that Ms. Austin wrote her opinion on. But it certainly doesn't carry any weight in this room. When the mayor gives their word, in June. And here we are nine months later, and it still hasn't been carried out. Seven elected fish, seven of seven of the what 14 elected officials in this community at the local level. She gives seven of us her word. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. All right. It wasn't it's hot hiring people. I've never met a lawyer that went to law school, that had their own firm and they practiced law, that doesn't know another lawyer, that wants a part-time job making $125,000 a year with health insurance. I don't know a lawyer in the world that wouldn't accept that job that's out in private practice, that's out working on their own, that's out and hung their own shingle. I don't know a lawyer in the world that wouldn't do it. Maybe she doesn't know any lawyers. I thought she went to law school. I thought she practiced law. I don't understand how all of a sudden there's a shortage of lawyers in Medford, but not anywhere else. If you do the math, there's one lawyer for every 1,200 people in the state of Massachusetts. We have 6 million people. You do the math. You do the math, all right? It's nonsensical for us to sit here week in and week out and go through this. She's treating us the same way she's treating the workers in this community, the same way she's treating the representative from local 25, the same way she's treating the representatives from Massachusetts Teachers Association. All right, she's going to keep us in the dark and she's going to try to control the narrative. And that doesn't mean telling the truth. All right. It doesn't mean being transparent. It doesn't mean any of that. So we can keep sitting here week in and week out and wasting our time, really wasting our time, because we don't have the tools to build the house. We don't have the tools. She promised us the tools. She agreed with us. She sat here for 20 years and cried. Everything was awful. The city was falling apart. Mike McGlynn's the demon. Mike McGlynn's the devil. Roy Belson's hell incarnated himself. I never met two hard-working public servants that weren't afraid to be held accountable. They would come up here to this podium and answer the questions and give us the answers that we may not want to hear, but at least they showed up and they were present and they kept their word and they kept their promises. And enough's enough with this city solicitor nonsense. We don't have one, we need one, the ordinance say it's required. That's it. Madam Mayor, do it. Who can we even go to and say, what's our alternative? I'd like to speak to a lawyer to tell me what my alternative is. Can I have Ms. Austin's number? Hey, Ms. Austin, how do I get rid of you so that we can have a real city solicitor in this community? I mean, come on, give me a break here. Enough's enough with this nonsense. It's nonsense. It's nonsense. That door has not been opened. They said it's an open door, you can always walk in. Well, you can't walk in, it's not really open. You gotta call me and we gotta make an appointment. But, you know, we have an open door policy, but the door's not open. I don't even know what that means when she said it. I got a scratch on my head going, what's going on here? It's become so personal, so personal and so not about the city of Medford. When it comes to the workers in this community and Steve South, when it comes to people getting taken out of here by the police, people getting followed around with GPS trackers on their vehicles, people being required to undergo psychiatric evaluations. It's personal, Madam President. That's not government. That's not governing. That's politics and it's bad politics. And it translates into bad government. And that's what we have here in this community now. And you know why we have it? Because we accept the chief administrative officer of this community. We accept the fact that she came up here and lied, right? Threw her teeth to us. We're accepting that fact. We're saying, OK, it is what it is. Let's move on. What are we going to do? Well, let's ask her. Oh, she'll just lie again, right? I mean, enough's enough. Enough's enough. What are we going to do? What's the recourse? What's the game? What's the end game here? What's the end game? She ain't going to do it. We know she's not going to do it. Because her track record has proven that she will not. She refuses to communicate openly and transparently with this council about legal issues and financial issues. I don't know what else is important to us, but we control the zoning, which is a legal issue, and we control the budget, which is a financial issue. Other than that, all we are is a bunch of cheerleaders. All we are is the rah-rah squad. So I'm at a loss at this point in time. The lack of leadership that's come out of the corner office, the chief of staff doesn't come in to give us answers. When's the chief of staff have decided to give us an answer? She comes down to fight with us and yell and scream at us. She doesn't come down to give us answers. She comes down here to control narrative, control spin and not tell the truth. And we've caught them so many times lying. How do they expect us to have a relationship of trust with them? How? How is it possible? That's what I ask. Again, I think back to four years ago and how much better off this city was every single day. Every single, when I drive over that same pothole that's been on my street that I put through see click fix 27 times, right? I think about how much better the city was four years ago. And it makes me sad. It makes me sad to see how terrible the city looks, lack of curb appeal, lack of commitment or investment to deliver in public service, to deliver in simple basic public services. Like fixing a sidewalk, taking down a tree, fixing a pothole, striping a crosswalk. Enough's enough. I mean, when are we gonna wake up and realize that we're failing the people in this community? Because we are. Because when we go outside and we look around, it looks horrible. It looks horrible. We sat there and we listened to Mr. South tell us how Everett, Chelsea, Malden have passed us, how North Wedding, how Newton, how Waltham have passed us. And he's not wrong. And Stowe, Stowe, I know where it is. There's a golf course there. So at the end of the day, Madam President, we need to shed some light on some of the issues that are going on in this community. And the biggest failure that we have in Medford right now is the fact that we don't have a local newspaper to report on these issues. We have a communications director that gets paid $125,000 a year. to create new stories and to create spin and put spin on them however they want, and to go on every single social media platform in the world and run a campaign. and run a campaign, right? Because that's what it's all about. You know, the big hunt going on, right? Looking for Easter eggs up. It's spawned in a couple of weeks now, right? The bunny's going to be there. The bunny's going to be, how are people going to get there?
[Morell]: I've let you go pretty freewheeling, but I'm here on the line at Easter bunny. If you could bring it back.
[Knight]: I'm sorry. Is it a recreation bunny? Yeah, the recreation bunny. I'm sorry. The recreated bunny. So anyway, Madam President, as I've said, right, what's the end game here, we're going to keep talking about this and talking about this and talking about this, they're going to keep asking for money we're going to keep giving them. They're going to keep asking for reclassifications we're going to keep giving them. We got to stop, we're going to shut the water off at some point, it's at some point we got to turn the faucet off, and we got to say, come to the table and be serious with us. And quite frankly, unless we do that, they're not gonna be serious with us. Because every single group in this community that's organized, right? I look at us as like a bargaining unit, right? We're the Medford City Council bargaining unit. We're getting treated worse than every other unit in the city, just about. Every other one, because all those units are coming to us and asking us for leadership. And asking us to say, what do we do? What can we do? Help. And we look at them and we say, we don't have the tools to help you because the mayor led us to. And that's where we are. So we come down and we have two and three hour meetings and they give us a talk about what great crosswalks they're gonna paint on the NBA TA's dime. None's getting done. None's getting done. 30% design, remember that. That was 30% design. All that is is an idea right now. That's years from coming to fruition. So Madam President, I rest with this. The city ordinances say we need a city solicitor. We don't have a city solicitor. Why is the mayor found it okay to be a non-compliance with the ordinances of this community that are designed to be a check and balance against abuses of power? That's what I want people to think about. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilor Caraviello.
[Morell]: You want to turn your light off?
[Caraviello]: Councilor is right, 100%. People in the community are coming to us asking us for leadership. And we're doing our best to provide it. And it's hard, because again, our powers of leadership are limited here. And the worst thing to tell somebody is, I can't help you or I don't know. And that's what we seem to be seeing all the time. I don't know, I can't help you, and I'm doing the best to help you. And those aren't the answers people want to hear. And I'll say, like I said last week, I sat across from the mayor, and when she sat in that seat for all those years, she fought for the people and worked for the people, and that is not the person that I served with for 10 years. And the leadership is out the door on everything. I just don't know what to say anymore. When people just keep coming up to me, I get phone calls. I have developers calling me because they feel they're not getting answers from the administration or anything. It's just not the way to do business. And let's say, we're not even doing basic city service as well. And which is really the core of what a city is. And I say, Councilor Knight just really took the wind out of everything. He said everything that I wanted to say, but it's truth. It is the truth and there's not much more to say.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Caraviello. So you have two motions from Councilor Scarpelli. Mr. Clerk, do you have them to read back or do you need them?
[Hurtubise]: Are they separate motions or are they amendments to your main paper? Yeah, just make it easy. First one I have is to ask the administration to forward to the council any ordinance that's signed by KB Law.
[Morell]: Thank you. So on the motion of Councilor Scarpelli is seconded by Councilor Caraviello all those in favor. All those opposed motion passes going back to Councilor Collins.
[Collins]: Thank you, President real. Tough to segway away from such a powerful topic, but I wanted to take several items off of the table that are due for third reading. I can read those numbers out. There's five of them. 22519, 21053, 22058, 20024, and 23057.
[Morell]: So on the motion to take those papers off the table is seconded by... Did you do 23-043 as well?
[Collins]: Oh yeah, let's do that one too.
[Bears]: Second.
[Morell]: Second by Vice President Bears. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. 22-519, this is the amendment to the Preservation Act Ordinance eligible for third reading on March 14th.
[Bears]: Motion to approve for third reading.
[Morell]: On the motion by Vice President Bears to approve for third reading, seconded by... Second. Councilor Tseng, all those in favor. Actually, I'm sorry, just kidding, just kidding, just kidding. This is the amendment to the CPA ordinance. Councilor Tseng.
[Hurtubise]: call.
[Morell]: You're not on. Here you go.
[Hurtubise]: Council Vice President Bears. Yes. Council currently. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Morell]: 21-053 is the housing stability ordinance eligible for third reading on March 28, 2023. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll when you're ready. I know it's gonna take a minute. President Bears.
[Bears]: So, and I'm happy to do this for, I think I could do it for most of them. This is the housing stability notification ordinance. We worked on the notice to landlords and tenants about their rights when it comes to housing stability that goes out at the beginning of tenancy and the completion of tenancy. And the one thing I just wanna say while the clerk's working on the several roll call subsidies we have to work on for these several ordinances, is this, by and large, this is a body of work that this Council has done, that we have worked very hard to pull the pieces together to get things done in a very difficult environment that Councilor Knight just highlighted extensively. You know, I certainly agree with Councilor Scarpelli and Councilor Knight that, you know, I think our end of the process was done incredibly well and incredibly in a highly detailed fashion. And I'm incredibly proud of this work product that we're putting out. I mean, we're about to pass four ordinances that we worked on into third reading right now. I mean, I hope so. We haven't voted on them yet. I truly do hope so. But that's incredible work product. And I think it speaks to how invested this council is in doing the work that we should be doing and moving things forward and working collectively together. you know, Councilor Tseng just spoke to me for one second about the MBTA, and he was able to say that, you know, they thought this was like the best meeting that they've been to that we were on top of our stuff and you know maybe it went a little long, but they were very happy and I think quite frankly 95% of the time, all seven of us are invested in doing good work for this community. And in many cases we are doing that in spite of or trying to work around challenges that are presented to us by the city administration that we don't have control over. So that's a little bit longer probably than the clerk needed to write up all of these, these vote slips but. by and large, and I understand some of us may disagree on some of this, it may not be unanimous on every single one. That's okay, that's democracy, right? But we had the discussions, we had the public meetings, we worked through the public engagement. We're not always gonna get to 100% agreement on everything, but by and large, a lot of us agree on almost everything included in a lot of these things. And I think that speaks to our collective work together. And I appreciate each one of my colleagues as we move, again, this incredible work product forward. Thank you.
[Morell]: So going back to the housing civility notification ordinance is what we're voting on now. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears. Yes. Councilor Caraviello. Yes. Councilor Collins. Yes. Councilor Knight. Yes. Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng. Yes. Councilor Morell.
[Morell]: Yes. I mean, the furniture and the negative motion passes. 22-058. transparency and protect civil rights and civil liberties. This is actually the community control over policing ordinance, correct? Public surveillance. Public surveillance. Sorry, not policing, just public surveillance. That is not community control over public surveillance ordinance that is before us. Is there any further discussion on this paper before us before we vote?
[Knight]: Motion to approve.
[Bears]: I will motion to approve for third reading if you want to take his motion first.
[Morell]: Do you want me to take your motion to not approve for third reading.
[Bears]: This is the community controller.
[Morell]: Well, we do you want to keep your motion, Councilor Knight, I can go No, I'll just withdraw my motion.
[Knight]: Okay, thank you.
[Morell]: He wanted to he his motion was to not approve but he has withdrawn it to, I hope just reduce confusion.
[Collins]: just keep it consistent?
[Morell]: Yes. So we have a motion for Vice President Bears to approve for third reading. Uh, Mr. Clerk, please call the role. I'm sorry. A second by Councilor Tseng Vice President Bears.
[Hurtubise]: Yes. That's gonna be all. I'm sorry. Yes. Thank you. Council Collins. Yes. Council night. Oh, Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Tseng? Yes. President Morell?
[Morell]: Yes. Five in the affirmative, two in the negative. The motion passes for third reading. So 23-043 is for establishing a revolving fund for stormwater, eligible for third reading March 28th, 2023. Any discussion on this paper before we take the vote? Mr. Clerk, please.
[Tseng]: I move to approve for third reading.
[Morell]: Sorry, yes, I need, yeah, thank you, Councilor Tseng. We have a motion from Councilor Tseng to approve. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll when you're ready. Seconded by... Seconded by... Second.
[Knight]: Sorry.
[Morell]: Vice President Bears.
[Knight]: Stormwater, right? Yes.
[Bears]: Imagine how much more we could be doing.
[Hurtubise]: Against all odds.
[Bears]: Vice President Bears.
[Hurtubise]: Yes. Councilor Karygiannis. Councilor Collins. Yes. Councilor Knight. Yes. Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng. Yes. President Morell.
[Morell]: Yes, I'm in the affirmative zero negative emotion passes approved for third reading to zero to zero to for the affordable housing trust, any further discussion on this motion to approve for third reading motion. I know, I know, waiting on the rolling order on the paper.
[Knight]: I just once again like to recognize Councilor Falco for his work on this paper, Madam President, he was the one that started this and, you know, it's one of those things where you start some good work and you're not necessarily around to see it finished and I just want to be sure that he knows that we're thinking of him, and this is a great success and a great piece of legislation.
[Hurtubise]: Falco Housing Trust.
[Knight]: Falco Housing Trust.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor, and I actually did run into Councilor Falco after we voted on this in between at the library and I shared how excited we all were and thankful for his work, so. I said Councilor Favreau, former Councilor Favreau. Yes, seconded by Councilor Collins. Voter wrong I was getting.
[Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Hurtubise]: Councilor Caraviello. Yes. Councilor Collins. Yes. Councilor Scarpelli? Yes. Councilor Tseng? Yes. President Morell?
[Morell]: Yes. Seven the affirmative, zero the negative, the motion passes approved for third reading. 23-057, establish the traffic and transportation director position in the city's classification and compensation plan eligible for third reading March 28th, 2023.
[Knight]: Madam President, I do believe about three hours ago, we started a meeting. And when this meeting started, this room was filled filled with workers that wrote the contract. Talked about five bargaining units in the city side at least, plus police and fire, that's seven. Seven bargaining units without contracts. We talked about transparency, we talked about finance, we talked about morale, we talked about the way workers are treated in the city. I made a pretty strong statement, Madam President, saying that I don't think there should be any more reclassifications of positions or creations of new positions until these contracts get settled, until these working people get taken care of. The existing employees that are doing the work now, that are going without a contract, a collective group of people, not just an individual, five bargaining units, all represented by one person, fighting every day. for groups and groups of people, just like we are, to get the same information that we're looking for, they can't attain. I don't think it's right and I don't think it's fair at this point in time that we bring this paper up, Madam President. I think the gentleman's doing a good job. I said that when this paper came up for first reading. I don't have a particular issue with the paper other than the fact of when it's presented, how it's been presented, and the ongoing situation with the labor and workforce here in the community of Medford. So with that being said, Madam President, I can't support this paper this evening. I'd like to, I'd like to support it in the near future, but I can't support it this evening. So I'd ask that it remain on the table. I know it's a contrary to the motion that's been made, but I might ask that it remain on the table until these contracts get adjusted. It's not fair to these working people. It's not fair for the mayor to pick and choose and pick and choose who's gonna get upgrades and who's not. It's just not fair. It's not right. It's not collective bargaining. That's not organizing. That's nepotism. I don't have a problem. Again, I don't have a problem with the individual that holds the position. I think he's doing a great job. But at this point in time, I think that there are other people that are a priority. And the mayor said that they don't have any money for raises. And the mayor said that she has double the amount of free cash that they've ever had in the past. That's probably because we spent all our alpha money, but that's a whole different story. So Madam President, with that being said, I think this paper should be on the table.
[Morell]: Thank you. And we already took a motion to take the paper off the table. Do I have a second from Councilor Knight's motion to put the paper back on the table? I second that. Seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. All those in favor? No.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Morell]: I heard some nos and some yeses. Someone's call for roll call.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Morell]: Oh, sir. Roll call, please. It's the motion to put the paper back on the table. Yes.
[Hurtubise]: Vice President Pierce?
[Bears]: No.
[Hurtubise]: Councilor Caraviello? Yes. Councilor Collins?
[Collins]: No.
[Hurtubise]: Councilor Knight? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli? Yes. Councilor Tseng? No. President Morell?
[Morell]: No. Three in the affirmative, four in the negative. The motion fails.
[Bears]: Madam President, if I may.
[Morell]: Vice President Bears.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Again, you know, as I said a couple of minutes ago, we were starting this exercise and I'm kind of bummed this is the last one of the six and not one of the earlier ones, but it's okay. And I think as I've said before to to Mr. South when the room is full and I kind of, you know, said tonight, you know, I don't think a blanket policy is the best policy. I don't disagree with the motivation whatsoever. It's just really tough for me to say, we're not going to do anything because I don't think the mayor cares. And that's the part of it. It's like, I'm willing to try to use the power and leverage that we have to achieve a goal. But I'm not willing and I'm not implying that this is what this paper is about. But I think taking, you know, going to the fullest extreme and saying we won't do anything on any financial paper, any classification, anything ever, you know, Something could write we had the fire department here last week about fire trucks and we weren't going to get fire trucks for 800 days and then it would have been 1600 days if we didn't approve it right and we all voted for it. And I we all I think shared the same record you know concerns about it right like we don't like how it's going but when the fire chief says we need to do pieces of gear so that buildings don't burn down. Well, and we should have more, and again, I can agree on the motivations, I can agree on the merits, and I can agree that it's not the perfect proposals that are coming before us, far from it. But for me, again, on this one, can I do a little bit of good for the city voting? Yes, yes. Do I think I do any good voting? No, no, because I don't think it's gonna change the mayor's approach. Now are there other things that I hope will and that I hope that we can hold lines on that we you know we held lines on those positions that came before us last December and last January for a year, we, we removed them from the table last week some of them sat for 15 months, shouldn't care, she just never hired these people. You know we got a list of 12 positions that were urgent and important for the city and then 15 months later when we took them off the table there was even a whisper. So if we hold this up, does she change her mind on all this other stuff either? I don't think so. Again, I've said this to other folks. I'm willing to admit I may be wrong. I'm 100% sure that everything I do is always right. I think that would be the... epitome of arrogance to feel that way. And I don't think anyone makes good decisions when they're acting that way. But I just personally think that there's some good that I can do supporting this paper tonight. And I don't see the good that comes by not supporting it. But I respect my colleagues for feeling differently because it's a catch 22 situation. I think at the end of the day, it's like, do this or don't do this. Who do you help or hurt? And if the answer is, you know, people are very hurting right now, and I hear that, and I've heard it very personally, not in public setting about how much people are hurting. Yes, and I completely respect and agree with that. But I've also heard from some other people who are hurting because things aren't moving forward that are getting proposed to us. And, you know, we may think we're putting the mayor in the bind, but she's putting these people in a bind. And that's the piece of the fairness that I have a hard time with. So again, I respect the difficulty of this, but that's why I want to move forward. Thank you.
[Collins]: Councilor Collins. Thank you, President Morell. And I also want to, you know, I don't want to just bring this up and vote for it uncommented on. And I want to be clear that to my fellow councilors, I know that don't agree with voting on this tonight at all, you know, that I, I hear you and I really genuinely do respect your opinion and sympathize with where you're coming from. I feel the cognitive dissonance of having those workers in the room before, and, you know, for weeks and months before this and having those discussions and hearing from them. and then taking this up, I feel it, it's palpable, and I think I really hear and understand where you're coming from and that difference in strategy. But for me, the reason I feel that this is important, and I think that Councilor Behr has put this really well, for me, the cognitive dissonance isn't between this type of positions and the collective bargaining units positions that they represent. It's between all workers in the city of Medford and this financial strategy that leaves money on the table while not giving every worker the raise that they deserve. That is the cognitive dissonance to me. And I think, you know, Councilor Bears put it well, what do we have the power to do? I think if we had the power to say, you have to give at least a 3% raise to all of these unionized workers in the city, we would have executed that already because that's where all of our hearts lie. If we had that power, we would have done it already. We don't have that power. And I think that all of us are going to continue to try to advocate for those workers how we can, but given that, Our jurisdiction here is limited. Our power here is limited. It's important to me to move this needle forward because we can. So I just, I don't expect that to persuade anybody who sees the strategy differently. I just wanted to explain my view to let you know that I do sympathize with other approaches to this and I, well, thanks.
[Tseng]: Thank you. I think Vice President Bears and Councilor Collins put over pretty eloquent in describing what, what, what's been going through my mind when it comes to this specific vote. I just think I can't look some resident in the eye and promise them that a no vote on this would really benefit our city. I just can't. I, there's been evidence that, you know, the mayor doesn't care enough about it, and, and I can't look a voter in the eye and say that we're not gonna have a vacancy if we don't approve this. I'm afraid we're already having a very difficult time filling all the vacancies in this building. And if a private firm were to come in and offer a position to our traffic and transportation director, I could not promise the residents of the city that we wouldn't have a vacancy. And to me that rings large and I am afraid that a Nova would hurt our city overall, even though I do agree with the principles that my other my other colleagues are laying out. I mean, I agree. And my first reaction when we heard about 25 million free cash was, well, Where was that money when we needed to negotiate with unions where was that money when we needed to, to treat our workers well, but look, this it's a difficult decision.
[Knight]: It was used on these one offs to give the personal people raises.
[Tseng]: Well, this isn't $25 million. And so, and so that's why I'm planning on voting yes.
[Knight]: Thank you. And I'm just saying, you know, when the mayor was running her staunch campaign two years ago, she was very proud of this grant that they got from the Collins Center that was gonna be a compensation and classification study that we still have never seen. But the mayor has proposed how many one-off positions to get raises? Well, at the same time, stonewalling labor, all right? So when we're putting the individual in front of labor, I think that's wrong. When we're putting the individual department head in front of the lowest paid workers, in this community, I think it's wrong, you know? So when we talk about, you know, the difficulty to fill jobs, I think it has less to do with compensation and more to do with the fact that when you Google Medford, you see that people gotta undergo psych evaluations, people having GPS trackers put on their car, people are getting banned from city hall, people are getting taken out in handcuffs. I think that's the stuff that deters people from coming. The people filing racial discrimination suits, against the administration. I think those are more deterrent than anything else. I don't think the compensation is necessarily the biggest issue. So when I look at this, I just say, I think it's backwards. I'm not going to vote for it. And it is what it is. I mean, ultimately, we've been hearing about this grant since Dave Rodriguez was up there about the compensation study, but none of us have ever seen a copy of it. But the mayor has proposed I get at least seven, at least seven position upgrades and new jobs. Plus whatever she created through the Apple money that we don't even know about. Just one last point. So when we talk about the fact that you can't say that not approving this raise isn't good for the community. How do we know that when there's only a finite pool of money that we have to elevate the workers? And we're using this finite pool to elevate individuals versus collective bargaining organizations, groups that have ownership in their work. It seems to me like if you talk back, you don't get a race. If you're a loyal soldier, then you might get an upgrade, right? That's what it looks like, right? If you fight for your rights, you're gonna be going to mediation. If you keep your mouth shut and you're a loyal soldier, we're gonna give you an upgrade. If you are the federal funds manager and you come before the council and you say, whoa, whoa, whoa, something's wrong here during the budget debates, you get fired. So those are the things that I look at when I talk about fairness and the way that it's going. But again, you guys know where I stand on this. I've talked about it too much. I rest my case. Thank you, Madam President.
[Morell]: Thank you. Vice President Bears.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. And again, I get where you're coming from on it. I think it's just two things for me. that work environment that you just described, I quite frankly think anyone who's willing to stay here and stick that work environment out to do good work for Medford, we shouldn't be the reason that they leave. And I understand, you know, and I understand that where you're coming from on it. The other thing is, I think in my memory, I think that, or maybe we shouldn't be the reason that we leave is not the right way to phrase it, but I don't want us to be the barrier because there's so many other barriers that these people are facing that you eloquently outlined that are really tough and they want to stay here anyway.
[Knight]: Point of information just on that, my buddy Biggie, I think it was Biggie Small, more money, more problems, right? I don't think, more money's not gonna make any happier, all right? It's just gonna make you better compensated. But if the environment's hostile, right, how do you address it? Oh, yeah, take more money and let me be evil to you? You know what I mean? I don't think that makes sense either.
[Morell]: That's not correct. I disagree, that's what more money, more problems means.
[Bears]: And I said, yeah, we can have a diatribe on biggie but I'm familiar with familiar. No, and that's not what I'm saying at all I don't think that you should be able to get paid off to live in a hostel apartment I certainly don't agree with that I'm just saying people are sticking this out, and some of them are saying hey, this is what I need but the other piece I want to say to to your point, I think the mayor since January 22 is proposed 16 calf changes. We've rejected 14. So we're batting pretty high. And I agree, you know, you may want to be 100 I'm okay with 90 I think I'm fulfilling the principle you're fulfilling we disagree on it, that's okay with me but we're doing all right, in my opinion, but I see where you're coming from. Thank you.
[Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. I'm sticking by my statement I made earlier this evening, that I will not support any race for any department head until the workers get their race. My father taught me this when I first started working for him many years ago. We ran a union factory, and the workers are the people that are most important to your business, not the bosses. It's the workers. They're the ones that do the grunt work. They're there day in and day out. When they get their race, I'll start supporting department head races. Madam President. Oh, I'm sorry.
[Collins]: Councilor Collins. Thank you, President Morell. And I appreciate this discussion. I was going to move the question. Thank you, Councilor Collins.
[Knight]: Just one point of privilege. I think it's also a point to point out that this isn't the race. This position is going to get upgraded. Then it's going to get the raises. And then the question is, are these raises retroactive? Or do the raises only begin when we create the position?
[Morell]: Yeah, I believe it was explained to us as a second.
[Scarpelli]: Thank you, Madam President, I won't belabor this I know you know where I stand on this I think that this discussion is a healthy discussion the banter is healthy. I think this is what people elected us for to think of outside the box and think of, you know, every avenue so I think it's, it's a. It's a positive step, whether you're on the side that wins this argument or loses this argument. But I do think that my point is this, and I'll say this again. My fear is, no matter who is in that position, as we figure out this financial path that we're in, because we still don't know, and I know it's one person's race, but There's a lot of little pieces that have been put into place and given the money that we need without knowing what's going on. So again, that's just another reason why I wouldn't vote against anything with the money paper, like I said, for the fact that we don't know our financial future. We appreciate the finance director presenting what he did, but that's not, You're right, it's not the complete piece, and that's what I'm nervous about. And again, thank you for the time.
[Morell]: Thank you. So on the motion of Vice President Bears is seconded by Councilor Tseng to approve for a third reading. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears. Yes. Councilor Caraviello. Council calls. Yes. Councilor Knight. Councilor scarpelli. Councilor Tseng present room.
[Morell]: Yes, for the affirmative three and the negative, the motion passes approved for third. That's it. On the motion Councilor scarpelli to adjourn second by Councilor Tseng all those in favor. All those opposed motion passes meeting adjourned.
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