[Morell]: 29th regular meeting of the Medford City Council, September 13th, 2022 is called to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears, Councilor Caraviello, Councilor Collins, Councilor Knight, Councilor Scarpelli, Councilor Tseng, President Morell.
[Morell]: Present, seven present, zero absent. Please rise to salute the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, Announcements, accolades, remembrances, reports, and records. Records. The records of the meeting of August 9th, 2022 were passed to Councilor Tseng. Councilor Tseng, how did you find them?
[Tseng]: I find them in order and move to approve.
[Morell]: Madam President. On the motion of Councilor Tseng, seconded by Councilor Caraviello. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. Reports of committee, 22-295 and 22-417. August 10, 2022, committee of the whole report to follow. This was a committee of the whole talking about different senior tax exemptions, as well as the residential tax rate.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam President, just want to take this opportunity really quickly, since we are here for the fall reconvening for the fall season. Just to say that I'm really looking forward to all of the work that we are going to be able to do. If you followed along the first nine months of this council term, we have passed the first new zoning ordinance in 60 years, we've updated our council rules, we've passed and looked at multiple other ordinances, and we've done, I think, very difficult work under very challenging circumstances to try to bring accountability around the budget and other things that are going on in this city. And I think that we are going to continue along that path. So I just wanted to say that in the spirit of collaboration and working together, I think that this term is going to be, while difficult, it will be productive. And if we're successful, we can bring some good positive change to the community. So I just wanted to say that before we got going. Thank you for your deference, and I appreciate it.
[Morell]: Thank you, Vice President Bears. Do I have a motion on the report to committee?
[Bears]: Motion to approve.
[Morell]: On the motion of Vice President Bears to approve, seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes.
[Bears]: Madam President.
[Morell]: Vice President Bears.
[Bears]: Motion to take public participation.
[Morell]: On the motion of Vice President Bears to take public participation out of order, seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Moving to public participation. All right, we have one petition to the Honorable City Council of Councilors. The undersigned respectfully pray for a meeting before the Medford City Council to discuss the lack of progress of the Medford Clerical Employees Association bargaining unit. The Medford Clerical Employees Association has been without a contract for three years. Petitioner Amy C. Tanaglia, president of the Medford Clerical Employees Association, George P. Hassett Drive, 781-393-2509. Do we have someone who would like to speak on this paper?
[Unidentified]: Councilor Scarpelli. Yep, I have that next. Yeah, absolutely.
[Morell]: Okay. Okay. We'd like to proceed or we want to wait a beat.
[Amy Tenaglia]: Name and address for the record, please. Amy Tanaglia, 85 George P. Hassett Drive. Go ahead. I would like to start with thanking the council for giving us a chance to explain our situation. We have been without a contract for three and a half years. There's been no increase, there's been discussions, and everything has been shot down. While the cost of living has gone up over 8%, we're asking for these raises in order to survive. The cost of living in Massachusetts has skyrocketed, and every time we've gone in front of anybody to ask for a raise, we were told that we would bankrupt the city. With the rising costs of housing, utilities, gas, food, and medicine, it's making it impossible for us to survive on the wages that we're making. Currently we are the lowest paid clerks in the city. During coven we were the ones that kept the city running. The city and surrounding cities shut down, but yet there were departments that made it mandatory that the clerks come in while everybody else worked from home. The clerks within the city clerk's office showed up for work every day. They were made to wear masks and gloves. They had to go out to cars that were parked outside and collect their applications, whether it be for marriage death certificates birth certificates business licenses, and due to the closures of all the other cities, they were had to make. They had to take in marriage licenses from several surrounding cities. The tax collector's office, obviously had to stay open and make sure all the taxes were paid the water bills were collected the building department. started an online permitting system to make sure that all permits were applied for were issued, and the money deposited. Morale is absolutely non-existent with the secretaries clerks within City Hall. We have been disrespected, overlooked, neglected, and underappreciated for several years. We're starting to wonder now if it's that we're just considered secretaries, or is it because we're women? Everyone around us has received raises, stipends, increased sick time, but when it comes to us, we get nothing. We currently have five clerks that are the lowest classification within the city. We have senior clerks that need reclassification to the next step of principal Clark. The difference between pay would be $49 a week. The total would be $12,740, and they still won't do it. They have created though several new positions and a new department, which budget has increased from 300, it's increased over 350,000, which you gentlemen and ladies have approved. It's time that we have our departments reclassified. We never get any answers. We always get lots of excuses. They can't meet with the administration. They had no time to meet with the administration, constantly canceling negotiations that they have with us. They are very proud telling us that they have given us Juneteenth off and have put it in, that they're willing to sign that into our contract. But everybody gets that. That it's not that they're giving it into us. Everybody gets that. When we gave our first initial proposal, we were told that the next meeting we had, they would have answers to all our proposals and they would have a set of their own. They came back rejecting the majority of our proposals and they had nothing to offer us, nothing at all. We're tired of being treated less than team players where we have proven time and again that we are dedicated employees to this city. We demand respect. the respect that is shown to management and our male counterparts. And on the last note, I have been here and I have been an employee of the city of Medford for 22 years. I sat down, did the math and figured out for 22 years, I have gotten a raise of 74 cents an hour extra. How you expect people to survive on this? There's no way, there's no way. We need something done and we need it done now. Thank you. Thank you.
[Morell]: Thank you. Any councilors like to speak?
[Knight]: Madam President, if you may. Councilor Knight. I think this administration's been very clear about its approach to labor relations in this community. Quite frankly, we've seen personnel turnover, more frequently than the rooms at the Hyatt across the street. All right, there's a human resource nightmare going on here in this community. It's an absolute nightmare. A couple months ago, we had a representative from local 25 here before us that showed us a package of 40 somewhat various labor charges, grievances, lawsuits that are pending before the city. So it brought to my attention that yet another employee has been removed from city hall by escort. That's not the way you treat employees. If you respect your employees, You work with them, not against them. And I feel as though this administration has worked against a lot of the employees in this community as of recent. How much money did they spend investigating rumors on a DPW employee? How much money we've spent reinvestigating and rehashing the Brady List issue? On and on again, it's more about press releases than results. On and on again, it seems to me that the work that you people do is not respected. On and on again, it seems to me that three years without a raise, three and a half years without a raise, while other bargaining units are settling and getting raises, tells us something. It tells us something, all right? I appreciate the work that you guys do Amy, I worked with you, I was a bargaining rep for your union at one point in time, I think I did better than 74 cents an hour to I hope Jesus.
[Amy Tenaglia]: But that's an average.
[Knight]: Okay. So, in looking at this and the approach that's going forward I mean ultimately the city council doesn't have the ability to tell the mayor to give you more money, but we can stand with you in lockstep and say that this is a good fight.
[Amy Tenaglia]: I want everybody out there to know what is actually being done. I mean, we sit here day in and day out. Regardless of who the mayor is at any point in time, we are dedicated. We're dedicated to our jobs. We're dedicated to the city.
[Knight]: And I don't think you have the luxury of closing your door and telling people that you're too busy to meet with them either. Yeah. All right. When the general public walks in off the street, you guys don't have the ability to turn them away. But when you guys have concerns and issues that you want to address, The door's not open for you to address those issues and concerns. I, as one Councilor, appreciate the work you do. I know that the city's only as successful as the work that you do and the commitment that you have to being a part of this team. It's a two-way street, and the administration has to show some of that respect and responsibility as well. Moving forward, I certainly would never, ever, ever stand in the way of a contract race, a negotiated contract race that the union and the administration have been able to work out. But it seems to me that right now negotiation is not the approach administration wants to take we're seeing what's going on at the school department. My teachers have been the impasse has been declared and the teachers contracts negotiations. That's one of the larger bargaining units that we have here in this community. The work in this community that, you know, I send my two children to the public schools that sit there with these public employees for more hours of the day than they spend with me awake, right, when you think about it. So the investment that we're making in our employees here, the investment that we're making in retention of those employees that have that institutional knowledge is laughable. We're losing good people. More and more, we're seeing good people being walked out the door. More and more, we're seeing good people saying, I've had enough, I can't take it anymore. And they're moving on. And the only people that are suffering because of that are the residents of this community. I appreciate you guys in the fight that you're putting up. It's a good fight, it's a fight worth fighting. And I'll stand with you every step of the way to ensure that the administration takes the appropriate steps to show value for the work that you do.
[Scarpelli]: Uh, thank you, Madam President. And, uh, Council nights, uh, you know, comments, uh, I think, uh, hit it right on target. I think that, uh, what we see is over and over again, the most important people in our community, the people that make our community run are the ones that are being neglected. And, um, When you're talking to our brothers and sisters that are teachers or brother and sister firefighters or our secretarial staff or other departments that that are crying out and saying how do we, how do we survive. hasn't met with administration, hasn't tried to figure out strategic processes and try to figure out a way that we can get to a reasonable percentage raise. When we're told we talk to people and try to get more invested, it's a personnel matter, which we know, but when it's phone call after phone call and person after person and family after family that are being affected, It's alarming and it's alarming to the point where we're seeing good people walk out the door, whether on their own or with assistance or whether it's teachers that are qualified and our kids love and making impacts and moving to different communities or whether it's firefighters or police officers leaving to go to different communities or our secretarial staff leaving because it's just not worth working. It's better just to stay home. And it's just not fair for you. And it's not fair for the people that need you in your seats. So I was raised as a strong union member and understanding that that we're stronger in force and understanding that as long as we all work together, something positive has to come out of that. So from one union member to others, we're standing with you and hoping someone listens and tries to put something forward in a positive way because I talked to a lot of teachers last night and I feel the frustration and I could feel, when you walk through this door, you can feel the dreariness, you can feel the negative aura. And it's sad. I'm sad because I love this community, I love this building. And I apologize that you have to feel that way. So again, as a council, as one council, and I think most of us, if not all, we stand with you. So we need to find a way to create something to make sure that all of our employees are happy and they're not leaving. Because I think that you've already, like you said, we've already, we've already proven all of the unions behind you. We've already proven that no matter what, we're still going to come in, you're still going to work your tail off for this community, and you're still going to do what's best for the city. And, and I know it's getting frustrating, and it's going to be a time when people are just going to say enough is enough. And then when someone needs a permit there's nobody there, or when someone needs a return phone call there's going to be no one there, or the children to walk into a classroom, and they're going to nobody there, or there's going to be a fire somewhere, and we're not going to have enough firefighters. So these are the fears that I feel, and it's it's frightening so again, I appreciate what you did tonight for coming up, because I know it's not easy, but we're standing with you, so thank you.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. My other two Councilors have been very eloquent in what they said, and being a former union employer, I think employees need to be treated with due respect, even if you have differences. You sit down and you're talking, you're eyeing on your differences. That's what I see as I have been. I know I see many people in this building worked here forever. And you are the frontline workers. I know we have the police and the firemen, the frontline workers, but when a pipe breaks in the street, what do we call it? We call it the DPW. When you need your permit, you call, he comes around. So these are all frontline workers, everybody here. These are teachers that teach my grandchildren in school. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect. And you're not being treated with respect. And I say, and like my other Councilor said, I stand here with you and hopefully we can get this resolved at some point.
[Collins]: Thank you. Thank you so much for being here today and to all of you who are here today and for speaking to the public and for speaking to us about what you've been going through and what you're trying to work on. I really appreciate this update as painful as it is to hear. Like my fellow councilors, I will heartily stand with you and for your right to collectively bargain. To the idea that we can't find the money to pay some of our essential workers a living wage, that that would somehow cause a dire financial situation for the city. That's hard to hear because I think we all know that the work that you do is what keeps the essential functions of the city occurring. And to blame financial hardship on a reasonable cost of living adjustment, much less the raise that you so richly deserve is, a pretty bad faith argument to make. You know, there's a lot of situations where it feels somewhat unfortunate that all the city council can do is advocate and insist and stand with people who are campaigning for things. And this is one of those scenarios, as Councilor Knight mentioned, there are places that our jurisdiction doesn't go. Things that we can't make the administration do, but for myself as another councilor, please know that we stand with you and please keep us updated and know that we're standing in solidarity with you.
[Hurtubise]: I was embarrassed.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Maybe something you said really spoke to me. And it was team player. If this city is going to work, our school department is going to work from the top to the bottom, we need to be a team. And to be an effective team. Everyone has to have respect for each other, and everyone needs to be able to be honest with each other. If you don't have that, you're not gonna have the collaboration that you need to succeed. And what I hear every day is that people are scared to be honest in this building right now, that they're afraid to, that when they speak up, it's not gonna be, let's acknowledge that, let's take what you're saying and find the mistakes and fix the problem. It's that when you're honest, you're gonna be punished for it. And that's not right because that destroys any semblance of bringing a team together to get the work done that this community needs to get done now I know you're doing the work every day. But if we were working as a team, if you all felt like your voices were being heard. We can do things better. We can make things better we could make the city work better. I, you know, and I'm not going to compare what we've gone through to what you've been going through because you're dealing with it, day in day out all the time. But if you watch the budget process. Earlier this year, I think you'd know that that collaboration isn't happening with us either. For six months, this council said here are our priorities, here's what we think's going on here's our we're trying to be honest with what we would like to see action taken from this administration. And what did we hear back, either nothing, or what we're just going to do it our way. And in my way or the highway mentality is not going to get this city where it needs to be. So, you know, I share in Councilor Knight and Councilor Collins' frustration that all we can do, and not all we can do, but that our main role right now, at least at this point in time, is just being able to stand with you and try to be honest and sit here behind this rail and say what we think is happening. But I think we really have to ask some questions and it's about what is the plan? When someone says we can't support our workers because we have a financial problem, what is the plan to get us out of our financial problem? What is the plan when it comes to not being able to hire people to fill all these vacancies because people don't want to come here and work because they hear in the market, I know that there are people, you know, all the way in the South coast, you know, that when people are, when cities are hiring in the South coast, they say, don't worry, it's not going to be like it is in Medford. 60 miles away, 90 minute drive, they know it's bad here. They know what's going on. In this absence of leadership, I think it's on all of us to step up, and I'm happy that you're standing up, and I'm happy that all of the people in this room tonight are standing up for something better and stepping up, because if we don't do that, it's just gonna get worse. So thank you for being here. I'm thankful for your advocacy. I'm thankful for the advocacy and the trying to get the word out of everyone in this room on all the issues we may hear about tonight after you. I think there's a lot of people who wanna speak who share very similar views to what you're sharing. Because not enough people in the community really know what's going on and I think the more that they hear the more that they're going to be frustrated that the progress of our city is being put on hold, because, you know, the leadership of the city doesn't want to collaborate and work with its workers and its council and the residents to get things done. So thank you for being here. We all stand with you and we're going to do whatever we can.
[Tseng]: Thank you. First of all, thank you for coming. And I think shining some light on an issue that not, I mean, many of our residents might know about, but it's something that's so crucial to how our city runs and how our city functions. You are who we think about when we think of city services, the city of Medford, what our city is doing to you and the people in this audience tonight, who, you know, engage with the residents of our city, make the city work. And it's It's frankly frustrating that we are at this point and that you've had to, you've, you've come to this point. You know, it's, it's beginning to look like a pattern. what we've been hearing from you guys about the treatment of employees in the city and Councilor Collins and I are newer to this job but even us we've heard from city employees about the lack of morale, the lack of negotiations, the lack of good faith when it comes to just conversations and honesty about what's going on in the city. And I just, you know, my fellow councillors, I think have already stated it really well, but I do want to say, I very much support you guys. We as a council very much support you guys. And while we wish we could do more than our powers allow us to, we'll be here with you guys, fighting with you guys. And so I want you to know that you have a good ally in the city council.
[Amy Tenaglia]: Thank you.
[Morell]: Mr. South, are you speaking on this paper specifically? Yes. Okay, just we have a number of issues on public participation, so I want to make sure we get through what's on the agenda. So please name and address for the record, please.
[South]: Thank you. Stephen South, 106 Damon Road. President Morell, members of the city council, thank you for being here tonight. Thank you for all your work. I hope you all had a great summer. I am also not only live in Medford but I'm also the secretary treasurer of Teamsters local 25. We represent about eight different bargaining units within the city both on the school and the city side. We're here to show solidarity with the clerical employees here in City Hall. And we're experiencing many of the same issues that they are we're we're in collective bargaining with all of our groups, not just in my union but other unions, and the city's taking the same position and all the negotiations, and that is number one. Mr. nagley spoke about the inflation which today's numbers came out for August 8.3% which was even above the speculations of the economists which is incredible 8.3%. The city is now offering us 2% wage increases to all the unions. each year, but that's only if we accept a bunch of concessions, meaning, for those of you not in labor relations, we have to give back benefits that we already have in our contract benefits that everyone behind us already enjoy, we have to give those back to the city just to get 2% raises. So you often hear people talking about all of the vacancies within the city. And last night at the council, they talked about all of the tons of teachers and paras and security people that quit over the summer that now they're shorthanded. And they can't fill those positions because there's not enough money there. There's not enough benefits for people to support their families. And we're having the same issue. We just organized the new parking department. who are making deplorable wages, not very good benefits, and the city's offering us same thing, take stuff away and give you 2% wage increases. These are new employees. They're all looking for jobs elsewhere. The DPW and the inspectors, rec department, DPW superintendents, we represent all of them, same thing. They're trying to take away a bunch of our benefits and give us menial little raises. And they said no to almost 100% of our proposals. Don't even wanna talk about them. No to all your stuff, give us concessions and little baby raises. That's why you can't get anyone to take these jobs. Now, just recently, we organized right here in this building, all of the, not all, most of the department heads and assistant department heads. What does that tell you about this administration? We have organized them, and one of the main reasons they organized is very similar to the clerks. They have not had a raise in three years. That's disgraceful. So what is the result of that? When I organized them less than a year ago, there were 20 something of them. Half of the positions are vacant right now, half. And of the half that are still working, 80% of them are looking for jobs in other communities right now. Right now, 80%. So how is this city going to run without department heads? Just in the last four weeks, maybe you know, maybe you don't know. Last four weeks, right in this building, department heads. The city solicitor, you all know who she is, resigned to go work somewhere else. because there's not enough pay here. The assistant finance director, great guy, left, quit to go work somewhere else for better pay and benefits. The assistant HR director put in her notice, she's leaving to go somewhere else. Well, also because she's not treated with respect in that department. We have a big HR nightmare like Councilor Knight said, I'll agree with him absolutely on that. And just yesterday, the elections coordinator, Sandra Gale, 30 years with the city of Medford, was walked out, was told, give me your ID, give me your keys, give me your passwords, clean out your desk, you're out of here. And the new her replacement started today, 30 years, no reason. That's just the way this city's going. In the last 12 months, you name it, IT director fired, DPW director fired. We go on and on, vacancies, we don't have a city solicitor, assistant city solicitor, we don't have an assessor, we don't have an assistant assessor. No IT director, no assistant IT director. How is the city running right now? And I respect and appreciate every one of you here. I have the utmost respect and I know the parameters of your job duties and what you can and can't do. So believe me, I wanna make sure to the general public, I'm not blaming you. I think you all doing an amazing job and I appreciate you. But this administration, my message to them is stop wasting money on private investigators to follow the employees. Stop wasting money on arresting union officials during grievance hearings. Stop wasting money on KP law. Now we don't even have a lawyer for the city where they're spending hundreds of dollars an hour every single day. on stuff that a solicitor could do, or an assistant solicitor. We are blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars. How about paying out millions in lawsuits? I know that my union, we're filing three more federal lawsuits in the next few weeks.
[Morell]: I do wanna keep you to time, Mr. South, if you're able to.
[South]: Yep, I'll wrap it up, and I appreciate the reminder. Let's stop wasting money on ridiculous things like I just mentioned, and let's start paying the people let's spend money on the people that make this city run the clerks the police, the fire the DPW the teachers, everybody from the department head down to the guy that sweeps the floor. We need to pay people. What they deserve people, people need a proper wage and benefits to feed their families, and until that happens the city's going to continue to go in a downward spiral, and if it keeps going the way it's been going the last several weeks, you can you your bottom dollar, we may be looking at the state taking over this city. It's a disgrace. And I think the mayor and her administration need to take a hard look at all these things. This is not grandstanding or any political activism. These are all facts. And that's why every time we come here, we give you packets of information. They need to take a hard look at this and start doing the right thing. Start treating these people with respect. Until then, we'll continue to picket, we'll continue to fight, and we stand with all the workers in this city. Thank you.
[Morell]: Is there anyone else who would like to speak on the clerical employees association specifically? It is the clerical.
[Gale]: Okay, please go ahead. Thank you, Madam President. Councilors, good evening. I've been before you many times. Until yesterday, I supervised or had the privilege of supervising two of the most hardest working people in City Hall. That would be Ms. Lamoni and Ms. Brogan. They are dedicated to their jobs, and I am not saying that any other clerical worker in this building are not dedicated to their jobs, but these two ladies put forth their best effort 365 days a year in a city that is continually changing because election laws are continually changing. I would not only ask you to stand in solidarity with the clerical union, But what I would ask you to do is to use your voice, your voice, your vote, your voice. Make the people of our community understand that the people who make this building run are undervalued, underappreciated and disrespected. Thank you very much for your time.
[Morell]: And is anyone else wanna speak on the Clerval Employees Association specifically, just because we do have another agenda item on public participation and I wanna give deference to that. Thank you. I'm just gonna move to that person and then we'll go through the rest of the... I know there's a number of people wanna speak for public participation, but there is someone on the agenda I'd like to call up. I'm gonna call up the person on the agenda next.
[Jones]: PB, David Ensign — He-Him, he-him.
[SPEAKER_16]: Hi, good evening. Thanks for letting me speak. I've been reading about the new Medford parking office since they took over from pocket fit. Many, many bad situations and no one is listening to the citizens of Medford, something has to change with this department. as it is not going well. Here is my street sad story. On the early morning of Saturday, September 3rd, Labor Day weekend, we woke up to a flood of tickets on our street. Some tickets said the cars belonged to Central Air. Well, if that's the case and you write five, six, seven tickets with all cars saying this, you should know what street you're on. and you should find out what the problem is. You can see, I gave you all, you can see a ticket and a permit. This is one of the main reasons I said at a meeting that it wasn't a good idea to get rid of the permits tickets because these scanners aren't working properly and other reasons. But wouldn't you say what is going on? Wouldn't you stop and check it out? If badge number 111 took the time to look at the permits on all our cars, you could clearly see something was wrong with that. The scanner was reading as we all clearly had permits. We need to see some retraining done. Seems like he was told just to ticket. What a waste of taxpayer time and money. We had to take time off from work to come down and fight these foolish tickets. He has been up and down our street many times. No tickets for this. Why now? And the new park department is blaming Park Medford. After a year and a half, I have my visitor pass that says Stearns Ave. I applied for two senior passes with my license and registration that says Stearns Ave. So they do have my information. What is going to be done about this office? Enough is enough. They have had plenty of time to be up and running. The city keeps pouring money into this department and it is not working correctly. We are taxpayers in the city of Medford and don't deserve to be treated like this. I see a lot of out-of-state plates parked all over the city, especially in South Medford, but no tickets for them. And on the day in question, there were two on our street, no tickets for them. I feel like we have been targeted in South Medford, and I have never felt like that in the 65 years. The day our street was ticketed, four other abutting streets were also targeted with the same issue. Please explain to me and the citizens of Medford what can be done about this office. They also have a camera recording citizens, but do they have one recording inside the office, when they are rude to the citizens. And I would like to ask our fine citizens. If they have had a problem with this office to please email the mayor and let her know. Just one more item before I end. The PAC department now has everyone's permit passes ending on December 31st. How are they going to handle all of this at once when they couldn't handle it being staggered? That's a big question and thank you for listening to me.
[Morell]: Thank you.
[Scarpelli]: Thank you, Madam President. Thank you for coming out because I know it's not easy. And we appreciate that and believe us. I know for one concert, and I'm sure my fellow Councilors, we've all received emails and phone calls with very similar frustrations. So just to be clear, you gave us a picture that it shows for automobiles that has a ticket, a permit that's updated. or a permit that's updated with a handicap placket, and you were all still ticketed.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Scarpelli]: And you went to the, and what was the answer from that department?
[SPEAKER_16]: They blamed Medford.
[Scarpelli]: So did they, did they fix these?
[SPEAKER_16]: They did, they did.
[Scarpelli]: Okay, so that's good. Yes. Because what we've heard is there are some that they haven't, they've asked to file, go through the appeal, they lose the appeal, and then the repercussions with that is to go to the state, which is a $250 fee anyway. Right. So it's frustrating.
[SPEAKER_16]: So they're just going to pay the ticket, and is that how the city's getting money?
[Scarpelli]: Unfortunately, I know I'm just asking questions we can't put anything for amendments or recommendations but maybe we'll do this next week because I think that, again, working in a community that has a very viable and transparent and involve traffic and parking department in that community. We've had multiple meetings when it comes to any types of fee or fines or different changes to the rules. And when it happens in different neighborhoods, those neighborhoods are in meetings with their department head to discuss that as community meetings. So I'll make a recommendation next week when we can as a resolution that we recommend that our new parking department Traffic and parking department, and their director, take major steps with our communications department to start meeting with neighborhoods, even if we go from southwest hillside, the Fulton Heights North met and break it up that way. that they can come out and have community meetings that to discuss some of these rules because there's a lot of confusion going on. And I think that I know they said they've done something online to enlighten people, but it's just not enough. And, and like you said as we move on to July, January 1, when this really hits. I think before then we have a few months that we can still reach out to our constituents and really educate people. And I think that might help with that piece. I think transparency is very important. So I think that that'll be helpful. So again, I just want to make those comments. I appreciate you for coming up tonight. And thank you.
[SPEAKER_16]: And that last picture is of a car that hasn't moved for four months. It's for sale. No ticket ever.
[Morell]: I do want to know we are playing a committee of the whole on September 28th with the parking department to have a general update, but also a chance to ask questions about process and questions like how are they going to process all of these permits at the end of the year? So we'll publicize that as we normally do, but we are going to host that to have an opportunity. It'll be here. People can come in, folks can ask questions. Councilor Caraviello.
[Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. Thank you for coming down. Saturday morning, my phone lit up like a Christmas tree all day long, from multiple people. And again, when you saw the permit there, you should have just say, hey, geez, I made a mistake, pull the ticket back again. There's no need to ticket whole streets. You're not the only street where they've gone and tagged an entire street. I've heard that from multiple other streets, entire streets have got tagged. This is an apartment that needs more training, both in customer service and their job. I thank the president who's gonna have a meeting. I'm gonna have a different opinion on that the following week, but it isn't just Yacht Street, Southern Streets. I got calls from the businesses in Haines Square. And I watched people pull up into parking spots that weren't there three minutes and they were tagging them. And I went over to him, he says, why are you tagging this guy? She's been here less than three minutes. These are fake signs, he said to me. I said, they're not fake signs, they're signs put up by the city. And this has gone on for weeks over in Haines Square. You're right, when we had Park Method, they mostly concentrated in the business area. I haven't gotten a call from one business yet because Park Method never went into the neighborhoods. These are people going into the neighborhoods that what I say where we've never been before. Maybe some of the tickets are legitimate, but we're getting ticky tack tickets for not having that little sticker on your plate, or maybe you're more than 12 inches from the curb. I think the whole department needs to maybe shut down for a little while and be retrained in multiple different areas. And I'm gonna make that suggestion when the president calls for the committee. I'm sorry for what you had to go through. My street will probably get ticketed tomorrow like they did last time I complained. So I'll keep an eye out tomorrow.
[Morell]: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's the end of public participation. That's on the agenda. If anyone would like to speak for public participation, please, please come up to the mic. I'll defer to you.
[SPEAKER_21]: Hello, hi, this is- Just name and address for the record, please.
[Morell]: Can you just lean a little bit closer to the mic? I'm having trouble hearing you.
[SPEAKER_21]: Okay. He's from Wellington Woods Condo Complex.
[Morell]: for that.
[SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, for the come here for the noise.
[Morell]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, for the monogram. Yeah, we have reported this issue to City Council back in August, and the building department have issued the violation letter to the to the facility. But so far, I did not see any improvement. We still hear the over over then a lot of noise And they really affect us. So I want to know what city can can do to help us.
[Morell]: So I have been. I've been in touch with the mayor about this. I mean, I've been trying to speak with the mayor about this first of all because when the council did hear this I know we very much had concerns about noise specifically about trucks I believe it's the refrigerator trucks that are part of the issue as well as the cooling towers. The mayor told me they have reached out to the owners, and I believe the next steps are to go through the Board of Health and code enforcement. I was told from the administration that the issue is that this was has been a bakery space for decades, and the special permit for the hours Councilor you can correct me if I'm wrong you see you staring at me. went in 1995, they said it went with the business. So because it was not spoken up since the last since the origination of that special permit with the license, the special hours have carried with the business so long as it remains a bakery, but still they still have to comply with decibel levels. So, the mayor has told me that code enforcement and the Board of Health will be out there to ensure that they are complying. We don't have as a council we don't have direct control, but we absolutely can lean on the mayor I've spoken to the mayor I don't know about a fellow Councilor speaking to the mayor to to get the code enforcement and get the Board of Health out there to comply with the noise regulations in that area. Um, I don't have any other Councilors were able to get any other updates. Um, I will, I will absolutely say on this, I have your email. Um, please let me know any, I mean, you know, every time I know it's ongoing, please keep me in the loop. I'll keep pushing on this. Um, I'm going to follow up again with the mayor tomorrow. I don't, you know, when this company came before us, they were very responsive. So it's frustrating to me now that it seems like they're having a hard time getting in touch with the company. Um, so That is the process. I wish I had a better answer for you, but it's very much a known issue and ideally they are working on it. I'm told they're working on it. I will keep leaning on them to make sure that this is something they address because they can't have that loud of a decibel overnight at all hours of the night.
[SPEAKER_21]: Okay, can this be put on the next meeting agenda? I'm sorry, can you please put agenda put on the next agenda?
[Morell]: Yeah, would any Councilor like to do that? I mean, I'm happy to. Sure, we'll make sure it's on the next agenda. So that would be in two weeks. And yep, we can speak to it.
[SPEAKER_21]: Sure. Thank you so much.
[Morell]: Thank you. I have. Okay. Anyone else? Just name and address for the record, please.
[SPEAKER_12]: Rick Sacco, 21 Ridgeway Road Method. My story starts very simply. I have a tree in front of my house. It's a Norwood maple. It's a very nice tree. It's on city property. I went down to the DPW because I was concerned about some serious overhanging of some limbs that I felt that were a danger to the public, a safety issue. So I went to the DPW and I asked them if they could have a city go down and trim those limbs off the tree. I was told that I own the tree. I said, I own a city tree. She said, yeah, well, you own a private way. I said, yeah. Well, I guess the ordinance says that if you own a private way and you have a tree in front of your house, you own that tree. you are responsible for that tree, unless it's a public safety issue, then the city will come in and trim the tree. So I said, well, I'm gonna go out and get a quote from a tree service company, which they came out and I'll read the quote. This is a very reputable company. It says a safety pruning of a Norway maple, remove large dead wood, rotting and weak branches. Perform a weight reduction when necessary. Clean up wood and brush. Gave me a price. So I take this down to the DPW commissioner. They go into the office, they look at it. They come out, basically says to me, well, the quote doesn't say public safety issue. So what do you mean? Well, it has to say public safety, it's a public safety. I said, so the word public, if it's not on the quote, that means I don't get the tree tripped. So my question is this, anybody that has a tree that's on a private way in the city of Medford, they own that tree. I just want the people to know that's listening in, that this is a new ordinance that has to be changed. It's a simple thing to do. I'm not asking for sewers, I'm not asking for curbing, because a public way requires curbing and sewage. Private ways do not require that. But all I'm looking for is to have my tree trimmed. That's it, all right? The other issue, which doesn't have to do with trees, and I wanna make the public aware of this, that live on private ways, is that if, If your street is torn up from excessive traffic, and it's a private way, and that street has to be repaved, the cost of that repaving is done by the people that live on that street, not by the city. The public way is different. So I live on Ridgeway Road, I'm getting off in a little bit here, but I live on Ridgeway Road, and between six and nine o'clock, 10 o'clock in the morning, there's 80 to 100 cars that go down that street. That's a private way. Now that street is getting worn, you can see cracks in the street. If that street gets deteriorated to the point of rebating, we have to pay for that. So I just want the public to know this, but all I'm asking for is the council to go into committee or rules and just very simply say, if you live on a private way and you have a tree in front of your house, the city will trim it. I'll replace it if necessary.
[Morell]: We do have Commissioner McGibbon on the call because I've had instances, I live on a private way too, I've actually had neighbors that have been told the exact opposite. So I just want to, if Commissioner McGibbon, he's here for another reason, but I don't know, Commissioner McGibbon, if you're... If we can't do it, I know we're focusing on
[Scarpelli]: looking to change that policy now because of the lack of federal funding, because we have so many private ways in this community that we're looking to eliminate the private way, and that would eliminate any of those concerns, Mr. Sacco.
[SPEAKER_12]: That's going to take time.
[Scarpelli]: It does, but this is the reason the community should know as well. This is why we should, you know, there's so many different factors to this. this situation to help our community, whether it's more funding from the government to repave streets or having issues like this where, you know, DPW's hands are tied because these, this rules that need to be changed that say that we can't trim a tree that has public safety concerns. So, because we do have, we do have students still walking down that street to go to school when it's walk Metro day. And if it's under a tree that's that safe, I hope that Mr. McGiven can help us with that.
[Morell]: Commissioner McGiven, if you could clarify what the ownership is of trees on private ways that might be, you know, abutting the street.
[McGivern]: I'm happy to, Madam President. I'm happy to, Madam President. So this does come up quite often. We don't actually rule if a tree is in a private way, who owns it. We just determine if we are responsible for it or not. So in other words, we answer the question, is this tree under the care and control of the city or is this under the care and control of somebody else? So that's what we're doing. We're not saying it's your tree or it's her tree or whatever, we're just saying, oh, that doesn't meet chapter 87 definition of a public shade tree, or it's not a publicly owned tree on public property. So it's something other than that. So I just want to clarify that. And then as far as trimming trees on private ways, we do actually do that. If the branch is hanging over the private way, because the public actually has rights in the public way, and we would protect those rights. So we do that quite often. So there's a private way and there's a limb hanging off. And we usually don't know who the owner of the tree is. If we do, we notify the owner. But if we don't, then we remove the tree on behalf of the safety of the public. We do the same thing on private ways with potholes. And also, I believe we plow private ways so emergency vehicles can get in and out. So that's a really sort of very quick summary, but I do recall this instant, and I do recall that we determined that the work on the tree or the issue at hand wasn't an immediate threat to the public. Therefore, the city wouldn't have a right under the law to go do anything to that tree because it's not under our care and control. Hopefully that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_12]: It does. I understand what you're saying, but my question also is the liability. What happens if a limb falls off that tree and lands on someone's head that's walking underneath the tree and they're seriously injured? Who's liable? Me, the person that the tree's in front of or the city? Is the city liable for that? If that limb comes down and hits somebody and damages a person or a car or whatever, am I responsible or is the city responsible? You're saying, the city's saying that it's not danger. So what happens if we get a windstorm and that limb, and these are big limbs, and it comes down and it takes somebody out, who's responsible? I'm not gonna be responsible.
[Morell]: Are you able to address that, Commissioner McGivern?
[SPEAKER_12]: So that's another issue that maybe somebody should be looking at too. Who's liable on that kind of a situation?
[Morell]: Because I have- We can let him answer.
[McGivern]: Thank you, Madam President. No, we don't make determinations on liability. That would definitely be legal. What we do do is make a reasonable assessment of the risk to the public on a hanging limb on a private tree. So if we feel that that the immediate threat to the public that can't be resolved. in a matter of time by the owner, or you might not know the owners, we do react to that situation and remove the limb. Every other scenario about weighing liabilities, I'm not gonna weigh in on, and who owns a tree and who owns liability and all that, it's a lot of nuance in the law.
[Morell]: Thank you. Thank you. I hope that it addressed some of your questions.
[SPEAKER_12]: I know it's- I'm happy to revisit it again.
[McGivern]: Sir, if you believe that it is a truly a threat to the public that's immediate, that needs to be resolved, we will revisit that with you. I'm not gonna deny that for sure.
[SPEAKER_12]: If there needs to be- I understand. I had the tree warden come out and look at it. I understand that she determined it's not. Okay. But I have a professional tree company that's been in business 30 years that says, yes, it is a safety issue.
[McGivern]: And I'm- It could be a safety issue on the private side, it could be a safety, there's a tree on private land that is creating a threat, not in an area that's- City property, it's on the sidewalk. Like I said, we'll revisit that with you, for certain.
[SPEAKER_12]: If it's an immediate threat to the public- I'd appreciate it if you'd look at it again and make another determination on it.
[McGivern]: Well, we'll go through the tree warden. We will go through the tree warden.
[SPEAKER_12]: I appreciate it.
[Morell]: You're welcome. Thank you. And like Councilor Caraviello said, just for the edification of the public, we're looking at, the city is looking at both private and public ways, and Councilor Caraviello has asked for a meeting around that to see what can be done to, because there are so many private ways within the city, as well as we are working on a tree ordinance that's lots of things to consider.
[SPEAKER_12]: And the other thing is, it's a nice tree. It's a Norwood maple, and I really want to save the tree, because I figure if I could take these limbs down, it's only going to give growth to the tree. So it's not like I'm, you know, it's more than, it's a safety issue, but it's also an issue where I want to save that tree.
[Morell]: Of course. Of course.
[SPEAKER_12]: Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you.
[Morell]: Anyone else who'd like to, Councilor Caraviello.
[Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. Mr. Sacco, thank you for coming down. This is an issue that I brought up at the last meeting and it's, it's gone to our rules committee. I want a definition. on to what a private way is. I want to know what the city is responsible for and what the property owners are responsible for. And if they're not entitled to the same benefits that the regular taxpayer is, then the people who live on these private ways should be classified at a lower tax rate, seeing if they're not going to get the same benefits that someone who lives on the public way is. There will be a meeting very soon. I'm not on that particular committee. I think Councilor Bears is on that committee. And that'll be discussed that night. I'll be here that night to help on that. But again, something I brought up a few weeks ago. I don't think it's fair that young people like you, myself, Councilor Murray, we all live in private ways. I don't know what benefit I get out of it other than I paid to pave my own street when it had to be paved. If these residents are going to get the same benefits that the other people are paid the same tax rate, maybe they should be classified different in the lower rate.
[Morell]: Thank you. But anyone else like to speak for public participation.
[Unidentified]: Thank you for your patience.
[Jones]: All right, thank you. Thank you, Nicole Morell, President Morell and city councils. Just like to speak a little bit about union contracts and other contracts in the city of Medford. I'm aware of one bargaining unit that does not have an expired contract in the city right now. And the chief just made me aware that that's the crossing guards who just ratified their agreement today. Every other union in the city of Medford has an expired contract. The PAC has an expired contract. We have many grievances. Other unions have many grievances. The PEC has a grievance. None of these things are getting settled. PEC is a public employee coalition. It's the insurance for the entire city. Yes, we negotiated the health insurance agreement. Expired. We have a grievance also. That's unsettled. I know of one contract in the city of Medford that has been settled by this administration, other than the Crossing Guides, and that was left over from the previous administration. Sister Tanaglia from the Clerk Reunion described the exact bargaining sessions that we have. Same thing happens with us. I'm sure anybody else that sits at the bargaining table can reiterate that that's what happens at all of these sessions. I'm not sure who's responsible for settling these contracts, but whoever it is, it's not getting done. We talk about funding, I'll go on to funding. We talk about funding a lot, and funding is always an issue. The state has a $5 billion surplus of state tax revenue. They just released a supplemental budget of $840 million on the 31st of August. Does anybody know what the city of Medford share was? Did we put in for it, did we ask for anything? Might have been a good idea. I'm just not sure about it, I don't really know. The other thing is we have been asking for a grant writer for many years, City of Medford. What's that? Okay, yeah, back in the day. Another great idea, I don't think we have one again. A neighbor in the City of Medford, Tufts University, not sure what they're contributing, it'd be nice for them to help out in these times. As far as negotiating and selling agreements, we have KP Law coming in to do that. KP Law is, looks like they're a city solicitor. I'd love to get a copy of KP Law's contract with the city, what their billable hour rate is, and what they've been paid to date. I'd asked the city solicitor but apparently we don't have one. Just to just to let you guys know what's going on here. I would love to work with the city. I would love to settle our contract. I don't think anybody's going to settle the contract. The teachers are in mediation at the request of the school committee. They didn't want this, we don't want to go to arbitration, but that's where we're going to end up. This is how we do business here. Unfortunately, sad to say, like to see some changes here I'd like to see some grievances settled. I don't know by who, I guess KP law is going to have to do that. This business looks good for KP law. I'd like for some of the somebody administration somebody at City Hall who maybe was hired to do that, to do that work. but I don't know what's gonna happen. I would love to see some progress on these issues. I thank you for the forum and I thank you for your dedication and hard work.
[Morell]: Thank you.
[Caraviello]: want to answer this question.
[Unidentified]: Sure.
[Caraviello]: Thank you for coming up on wishing us about KP law. That's been asked several times for since KP laws come on board for a list of their billing and since they were 2020. 2020, we've asked for a list of all settlements that have been paid out in bills from KP Law since day one. The original agreement that we agreed to was $5,000 a month. Up until today, I haven't seen a bill. I think I've asked for it a couple of times. I know other Councilors have asked for it. How much money have we spent with KP Law? We haven't gotten it yet.
[Morell]: and then we'll go to you guys.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Just a couple things to add on KP law. Number one, we've been requesting documentation on it for two years. The only documentation I saw was a completely blacked out invoice that was attempted to be used for backup for federal grants and can't possibly be, you know, it's determined by regulations can't possibly be used as backup for federal grants because it doesn't include any identifying information as to what the money has been spent on. So that's one thing that the only thing that I've seen out of KP law. I'll say another thing about KP Law, the minute that we voted to cut that budget was the minute that all hell broke loose. So I'll just leave that at that. When it comes to the funding piece, Mr. Jones, I appreciate you bringing it up. I do have a couple of things on the agenda tonight. One is to request that the administration provide an update on all pilot agreements and the status of negotiations on those. So Tufts University, Harvard Vanguard, Rivers Edge. And something I've been talking about for a long time and I think it's about time to get going on is budget needs assessment ordinance so that we can actually have a budget process where we are determining what our needs are, what our existing revenues are the gap and then talk about the plan to meet that need, because I think We can't keep using lack of funding as an excuse. We need to have a plan to bring in the funding we need to meet the needs of the community. So I do have some stuff on the agenda tonight. I'm looking forward to working with my Councilor, fellow Councilors on that. But yeah, when it comes to KPL, all I know is the only documentation we've received has been all blacked out.
[Knight]: And I do find it curious, Madam President, when we take a look at this agenda this evening, papers from the administration, and we'll see that they're trying to upgrade a position in the Community Development Department, but we have created a new position, upgrading the existing position from the land use planner to a senior planner. Non-union role, we've seen more and more requests for non-union positions to get pay raises. More and more requests for non-union. positions to be reclassified. We still have the issue of our human resource director working out of grade now for the better part of two and a half years and not being required to pay back any money. Not being paid back any money to the taxpayers. So we have a human resource director who's being paid out of grade. This council voted down, voted down the reclassification of the position. Gentleman's still being paid between $69,000, I think more than what his initial salary was as diversity director. And here we are with teachers educators in this community, fighting for a pittance 2%. So what's that 35 bucks a week.
[Charlene Douglas]: So, it's a little more than last night at the school committee meeting that was.
[Morell]: Just name and address for the record.
[Charlene Douglas]: I'm sorry, Charlene Douglas phone for high street method mass president of the teacher association. So last night at the school committee meeting. It was clearly pointed out and as it should be it that the city, the school side administration, they have offered us a 7.25% increase over three years, 2.75 2.25 and two, I mean 2.5 2.25 and 2.5. I believe that's the exact numbers. They also are giving us a one time bonus of $1,000 that each year that does not apply to the base of our salaries, so it doesn't really benefit, you know, our teachers that You know, moving forward. And while we appreciate that and you know, obviously we understand that we have a difference of opinion on how so funds can be used and we've shared the commissioners educations statement on that we've talked about chapter 170. funding which Mr. Murphy spoke about to last night. So we've, we've done all of that. And so we have a difference of opinion, our proposal right now on the table is for 10% over three years. Okay. And in the open letter to the city to from the school department and the letter that was posted, it said that with the $1,000, it comes out to a 9.2. percentage increase over three years but not really, because you can't count those thousand dollar bonuses in your percentage it doesn't impact, moving forward, you know what you're going to do and it doesn't even count towards your retirement. So for example, I can't get a bonus. And because that doesn't count. If it isn't our contract, it does not count. So I could do work outside and it's not there, it doesn't count. And that happens to many of us, okay? But I wanted to, the reason I came up is I wanted to state two things. Number one is that last night we learned that there are three tentative agreements on the school side between the Carpenters and the, I believe it's four members, the Carpenters and Maintenance, sorry? Yeah, I know, the Carpenters and Maintenance, so there's four. the nurses and the administrative assistants which are the secretaries on the school side. So we've heard that there were three tentative agreements with a two to two for each one of those in regarding the, the mediation, and that we're at an impasse. Today, we filed an objection to the petition for mediation. The method teachers, we filed that. We do not believe we are in pass, and we were very, very surprised to learn, and we learned it on Thursday at our negotiations. We learned that they were going to go to impasse, and then they posted that letter on their school webpage, okay? And we did post today a response to that letter on our website and on our Facebook page. So that's all I want to say. And just to let you know, so we're willing to go back to that. We want to be at the table and we never said we never, we have never stated. Matter of fact, last night, one of the members of the negotiating team felt totally disrespected and stated very clearly that we do want to be at the table and we have made progress at that table on some issues. and they're up and it's in the petition impasse filed by the city. It was more than just compensation that they cited. Okay, so thank you.
[Morell]: Thank you.
[Caraviello]: Can we get a report on who's doing the negotiations with the city? I mean, I don't know who's, is the mayor at the table? Who's at the table doing these negotiations?
[Charlene Douglas]: So on the school side. The school side it's central administration that's at the table. The mayor did attend one meeting on August 25. So she did attend a meeting one negotiations meeting. There was also. So in our rebuttal, it says that not one elected school committee member is sat at our table. So we stand by that, that not one elected school committee member is at our table. So the mayor is not elected to the school committee.
[Caraviello]: Who is at the table?
[Charlene Douglas]: Mr. David Murphy.
[Caraviello]: Okay, and he's representing the city?
[Charlene Douglas]: He's part of the city so it's Mr. Murphy, the superintendent of schools, and they can choose. So I'm not saying they can't. Mr. Cushing, the assistant superintendent, Ms. Galussi is also there. Joan Bowen, the director of special needs, and Howard Greenspan is there for the attorney. He is always at the meetings. And what am I forgetting? Superintendent is one more person. I don't know. I'm sorry, I'm drawing a blank.
[Caraviello]: And who's negotiating for the city yet, on the city contracts?
[Charlene Douglas]: Okay, I can only speak to the school. I don't know.
[South]: On the city end, KP Law runs 100% of the negotiations. It's a gentleman named Attorney Brian Mazur is doing everything. They bring a guy in also to just sit there and say nothing for all the meetings. Who's this guy? His name's Neil. He's the human resources director for the city. He sits there with a mask on and does not say a word for any of the meetings. Thank you.
[Morell]: We can just keep to the facts, thank you. That's the facts, thank you.
[Jones]: For our negotiations, we've had various chiefs of staff. We've had multiple lawyers from KP Law, and one guy is at every meeting. The HR director, Mr. Osborne, what's his title? Not sure what that is. Thank you. Thanks.
[Morell]: Mr. Mercury, do you want to speak?
[Murphy]: Thank you, Madam President, members of the council. pleasure to be with you.
[Morell]: Name and address the record, please.
[Murphy]: Uh, David Murphy, assistant superintendent, finance and operations for the Metropolitan Public Schools. Uh, Miss Douglas is correct with respect to, uh, are the representatives of the school community negotiating team, as as is the case with the vast majority of school districts in the Commonwealth. The school committee delegates that negotiating authority to the senior leadership. So the superintendent myself, other members of the executive leadership team, along with our longtime school district council, Mr. Greenspan, who I know some of you have worked closely with over the years, have been in attendance over the course of the 10 months, the 17 bargaining sessions, as well as, frankly, several other meetings in which the parties have exchanged proposals and discussed the implications of those proposals. The vice chair, Graham, and the mayor have also attended meetings as part of an attempt to resolve this, which was discussed at length during last night's school committee meeting. The only comment I would add beyond responding to Mr. Carballo's question is that the committee made the decision to declare an impasse and file for a petition for mediation with the Department of Labor Relations reluctantly. But at the same time, we don't see it as something that should delay the resolution of this. In fact, it's our hope that it will, it will accelerate that conversation and get to a resolution as quickly as possible.
[Knight]: I don't understand the message that you're trying to send. So you have a group of 500 teachers that you're negotiating with and you're going to the labor board and you're saying, We reached an impasse which really means we don't want to negotiate anymore we're walking from the table but then at the same breath is saying we do want to negotiate.
[Murphy]: I just I totally disagree with that characterization. We're trying to seek support from a mediator to try to break the logjam, so that we can get a competitive and sustainable wage increase to our teachers, we think that's what they deserve and that's why we've done that.
[Knight]: Right, so now we're in a situation where we have other bargaining units that are receiving a cost of living adjustment right which is really just a cost of living adjustment to combat inflation at the battle inflation right so now we have units that have settled contracts at two percent and now we're giving cost of living adjustments at a different rate to other employees so it kind of sends a message of value the work of some more than others and that the impact on the economic factors that are happening around all of us um don't impact those traffic supervisors, for example, or those school nurses in the same fashion that they would impact the school teacher.
[Murphy]: Sure. Can I just respond quickly? One, I'd be hesitant to characterize the specific of tentative agreements that haven't been made public. The second thing I would say is that we do not value differently the hard work and dedication of our employees. That said, the economic impact of a unit with three employees versus a unit with 500 employees is different. And so I think that's why it's important that each negotiation be looked at on a case by case basis so that we can treat each unit and group of employees fairly and at the same time do right by the community and our representation of them. And that's what the school district has done. And we're proud that we've been able to reach resolution with three of these groups over the course of the last week. And as I said, we hope to reach resolution with all units, including the teachers, as quickly as possible.
[Morell]: Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Vice President Bears.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Just two questions. One's for clarity purposes. Even though an impasse has been declared, I just want to make sure I hear what you're saying, that doesn't preclude, would you negotiate while you're waiting for a mediator to be assigned?
[Murphy]: We don't anticipate waiting an extended period of time for the mediator. If there was some type of pronounced delay for some reason, that's certainly something that we would consider. But our point and the school committee's point in filing this is that there have been a number of exchanges within the discourse and reflecting upon the proposals that have been exchanged. We don't believe the parties are going to be able to make progress until some variable changes, and that's why we're looking for the mediators' support in that. But if a session was requested, would you have a session is all I'm really asking. where the petition was just filed on Thursday. So our position is we're going to wait to hear from the state. And it's our, as I said, we think the timeline is going to be very consistent. But as I said to the school committee last night, who asked a very reasonable question as to what is my expectation with regard to a timeline, given that I'm only representing one party, I can't frankly speak to that with any greater specificity than I could without the mediator. But it is our hope that this will accelerate that process because we want a resolution as quickly as possible.
[Bears]: Okay, thanks. And the second question, You know, I've been following, I've been listening, we've been talking about this, we had a budget hearing, this came up then, we've had a lot of meetings about this, and you've had a lot of meetings about this, and everyone's had a lot of meetings about this, I think that's the one thing we maybe can all agree on. When you are talking about sustainability of the contract, and that's your characterization of it, what financial information are you being given by the city of Medford that you're making your determinations on? Are you being told what to expect next year from the budget? Do they have figures that are coming to you? And I think the real issue here, we're talking a lot about the different positions, we're talking a lot about the different offers, talking about 2%, 3% offers. At the end of the day, this is gonna come down to dollars, and the dollars in the budget, and what the school committee requests, and what is allocated by the mayor, and then what we try to move forward on. But we're not talking about any of this in dollar terms. So it's like actually having the answer, you know, what's the real, what's the real gap? Are you being told, this is your allocation next year, this is what you can expect to get from the city. And that's the limit on your contract negotiation? Or do you do we not even have the information? Are we going off of estimates? Are we going off projections? You know, what information do you have? that you're using to make the decisions to outline your bargaining position?
[Murphy]: Sure, that's a that's a totally fair question, Councilor Bears. What I would say is number one, we don't have a secret data sheet that tells us exactly what the budget is going to be in the years ahead. So that's that's not the case. But what we do have is an understanding as to what the budgetary capacities for the city and what the trajectory of that is given the limitations on the tax levy that I know all of you are familiar with. So our projections are based on that anticipated growth over a period of time and what the existing capacity is and what it will likely be in the years ahead. There are, as I said last night, variables that could change, some of which that are beyond the scope of the municipality, certainly with respect to chapter 70 funding. And in some of the information that the union has shared, the sort of position, which again, I'm not, I'm not opining about this, I'm just saying that I'm relaying the information that Ms. Douglas and her team have shared publicly, is that if we were to commit to a financial, an agreement beyond our current financial capacity, and that variable were to change based on increased investment in Chapter 70, which is, I'm assuming I'm in front of the school committee, so excuse me, Chapter 70 being the state's education allocation. Which we send mostly to charter schools anyway, but continue. Very few of us agree with the formula. So I think that's probably true. And I think the union would agree with that as well. But if that number were to increase, then potentially that capacity could be greater and we could potentially commit more resources. However, there's two issues. One, the needs of our students are increasing as well. And so we have to consider all of our financial obligations in the context of increasingly expensive needs on the part of kids. The second thing that we have to take into account is that that that increases uncertain because it's based on state revenues on a year over year basis. And so it would be in our view irresponsible to commit to a financial agreement that is beyond the scope of our current capacity in the hope that some variable changes and there is there's more money available. And so, um, In the event that scope changes I think the school committee as the bargaining agent might be in a different position but right now we are not and we think our responsibility committee feels it's responsibility is to operate within the capacity that we do have and make a responsible deal. Last thing I'll say and probably I know this is a lengthy answer, my final point, the seven and a quarter percent over three years that we've offered in addition to the one-time $1,000 payments made possible through the grants, which, as Ms. Douglas correctly points out, would not be incorporated into that base pay, is a significantly more competitive offer than has been the outcome of the previous three collective bargaining agreements over the course of the past 10 years. Now, the context has changed. Inflation is a real thing. The burdens of Educating students coming out of a pandemic are real things. So we should be offering a more competitive deal. But as I said last night, we are. And so the suggestion that somehow we are intentionally offering a deal that is meant to be disrespectful, I think is just not an accurate characterization of where these negotiations are.
[Bears]: I appreciate the answer. I appreciate that there's variables in the situation, but if you're making, let's say this, you have your projections, you're making your decisions based on your assumption that those projections are the best possible projection you can make at this time. And then you talked about variables that could increase revenue. You left out one key variable that could increase revenue. And that is that the mayor submits a budget and the mayor could commit to submit a budget with the revenue necessary to fund something. Now I understand it's a difficult position that you're in here. But, you know, this is a large city budget, things get reallocated there's a free cash you know we're going to certify free cash in September. So I just want to put the point out there that at the end of the day this comes down to dollars and cents, and there's only one person empowered by the city charter to make a commitment to use city funds to fund something like this, and it hasn't happened. So, when we talk about what You know, I think Secretary Rousseau mentioned last night that we are living in a system that's designed to have us at each other's throats because we have this false notion of scarcity that's being imposed on us by the state laws and regulatory systems we're under. We also do have choices. And I understand you're not in, you know, you're in the position that you're in, but whether we're talking about the needs of the students or the needs to fund the contract, There is a someone who could make a commitment as part of this process to make sure that the money is there and it seems that that hasn't happened and I just want to make that point very clear that that's how the laws of the city work. And, you know, we talked about sustainability. We are setting the conditions of what sustainable means. And the person at the top of the leadership of the city is setting the conditions of what sustainable means, and clearly, there's a vast disagreement that, or at least a general consensus that those conditions are unsatisfactory. So I understand that you're in the position you're in you're not the person who makes that choice. But when we talk about the variables we can talk all we want about hoping the state's going to come in and save us they're not. The chapter 70 formula doesn't benefit this city because our property values are too high.
[Murphy]: So just respectfully, that's the point that the district has been making to the union for some time, that assuming the chapter 70 increase is going to somehow skyrocket so that we can afford the 18% over three year proposal that the union initially made is not accurate. We can't count on it, it would be irresponsible for us to do it. So I will say again, this is really my final point, I hope, We have no intention of disrespecting our teachers. We understand that they have carried this district and this community on their back through the pandemic. We know how dependent we are on them, but the only way we're going to be able to employ them in the numbers we need to, to provide all the services and support to students that they need, is to have a competitive but sustainable wage increase. And therefore we have to operate within our capacity. That is the point that we have been making, Mr. Bears. For 17 months.
[Morell]: I do want to, I would like I would entertain a motion at this point for me to go, which is fine.
[Murphy]: Thank you very much.
[Morell]: patiently for items on the agenda. If you can keep it brief.
[Bears]: Just one sentence, the person who sets the capacity that we're talking about that determines sustainability is the mayor of the city of Medford, period.
[Morell]: and then I would love a motion to reverse the regular business.
[Knight]: Listen, we sit here and talk about craziest stuff for all night long about stuff that doesn't even matter. This is something that's very important to the lives of at least 500 people that reside in this community.
[Morell]: And we have been speaking about it for 90 minutes.
[Knight]: That's okay, but it is what it is, right? I mean, we got to do with this, what we're here for, right? We voted to go bi-weekly. We're going to have to deal with some long meetings sometimes.
[Morell]: And I am happy to revisit it. You have something brief right now. I'm happy to revisit it.
[Knight]: I just want to get to the city staff. I'm happy to revisit it. That's great. That's great. We suspended the rules. We didn't have to. We voted for it. We're in the situation we're in. You know, when listening to what Mr. Murphy said about the most recent package being better than the last three collective bargaining agreements, I've been around a long time. And you know what? Maybe the employees took less back then, but we didn't hear him complain because they felt a lot more appreciated. And I think that that's really a reoccurring theme that I'm feeling and that I'm hearing across many departments here in the city, but the school department's not exempt. So when we sit here and we talk about the filing for an impasse as a way for us to move closer to a settlement, it's not. In my opinion, it's not. It sounds more to me like the administration just trying to control the narrative and the public perception as to what's going on than actual progress towards a settlement and really sounds just like a counter to the June budget job action that was taken and the job actions that are being taken now because the union's being publicly vocal about their position and the way that they feel to be treated. With that being said, Madam President, it sounds to me like you want to move on, so I'd be happy to rest my case.
[Morell]: I am more than happy to return to it. There is a number of city staff who have been waiting patiently. This is absolutely an important topic. I also want to get to the staff who are on the agenda.
[Knight]: It's important to point out that the city staff is being paid to be here, and these people are here on their own, free will and volition as well. I just want that to be clear.
[Morell]: And I chair the meeting, so do I have a motion? Do we want to stay in public participation? Motion.
[Collins]: Motion to suspend the rules and take 22500 and 22502.
[Morell]: Motion to take 22, the rules are suspended, so I'd like to take 2250.
[Bears]: Madam, can I request an amendment? Can we take paper 22-504?
[Collins]: Sure, I just know that my director, Director Hunt can't stay too long, so I wanted to make sure that we got to her.
[Bears]: That's fine, we can take it later, I just, the people here.
[Morell]: I'm more than happy to keep in public participation if people want to vote to keep them in public participation. I'm trying to give fair time to people who are also speaking on the agenda. And again, as chair, that's my purpose. Councilor Collins, sorry. Councilor Collins, do you wanna take 22-500? 500, 502, and 504.
[Collins]: All right, so on the motion of Councilor Collins to take 22-500, 22-502, and 22-503, correct?
[Morell]: 504 was the last one. 504, okay. Second by... Second. Vice President Paris, all those in favor? I was opposed passes to two dash five zero zero offered by Councilor Collins. Here's all the the Medford City Council receive an update on the solid waste task force the forthcoming request for proposals from waste haulers as well as an upcoming opportunities for residents to learn more about the waste disposal contract negotiation and give feedback Councilor Collins.
[Collins]: Thank you, President Morell. I've been enjoying serving on the Solid Waste Task Force so far this season. We have some exciting opportunities for resident and business feedback on the work that we're doing, and Director Hunt is here tonight to share more information that my fellow Councilors and residents should know about the work ahead on re-evaluating the solid waste hauling contract. Thank you.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Holmes. Is there any councilors would like to speak on this before we see a presentation from director? Do you need me to?
[Hunt]: I raised my hand on the zoom. It's the one that's raised. Yeah, that's and then I can I have just a very few just to serve slides.
[Morell]: Yeah, I think so. If Shane, if you could make the planning development with the hand raised a co host so that they can share.
[Hunt]: So I will be very brief, but we have information we'd like to update the council on, and that we would like for the public to be aware of. So I thank you, Councilor Collins, for bringing this up. And I appreciate taking me out of order. I'm here this evening, I have actually injured my back, so I can't actually sit while I'm waiting. So I appreciate not having to be here all evening.
[Unidentified]: Or change.
[Morell]: So you should be able to share now.
[Unidentified]: Share this. Okay.
[Hunt]: There we go. So I did want to share with the city council. We do have a solid waste task force. It was advertised to the public. We asked for volunteers. This task force is being co-chaired by myself and Tim McGivern, the Commissioner of Public Works, who is on the call as well. We are being very wonderfully supported by a graduate student, Madeline Levine. Actually, her summer work was supported by a fellowship from Harvard, and now we are paying her with city funds this fall. And I list before you the members of the task force. We just wanted people to be aware that our current hauler is waste management and that contract's ending soon. We really, this is the right time to understand our waste services, what needs to change. Basically, the world has changed. Trash has changed, recycling has changed, and the residents have changed. And so we need to know what people would like to see in trash services. We are doing public outreach this fall. We have to do this relatively quickly, because it takes haulers a very long time to get up to speed. Any waste company that would take over this contract if it wasn't waste management would need to purchase trucks, and those take a very long time to purchase to procure and bring online, and they would need to hire staff. And then at the same time I want the council to know now. that the contract will need to be for a good number of years. We're not committing to that number at this point, but more than three. So we're gonna need city council approval because those trucks have to be amortized over the life of the contract. And the shorter your contract is, the higher the rates you pay because they're amortizing the cost of those trucks, which are their biggest, biggest expense. I'm expecting that number to be somewhere between seven and 10 years that we're gonna ask for a contract. and I wanted the council to know that now. Part of our plan is to, we have a survey now, we're gonna do public input now and then have some meetings in October and November and draft an RFP in the fall. Before we release the RFP to the waste haulers, we'd like to bring it in front of city council so that you all are comfortable with the RFP that we're putting out such that when we get the bids back and negotiate with the contractor, The council is ready to approve that contract, because you would have seen what it is it's in the RFP. I'm not been aware of a process where the staff have brought an RFP to the council before we're bringing the actual contract the person who has bought it has wanted to negotiated contract. to the council, but we think this will really help smooth the process later when we're negotiating with the waste haulers, we wanna feel more comfortable that the council is gonna be comfortable with this contract. So what I really wanted to really be here tonight was to give you that information, as well as to make sure that everybody knows we wanna hear from everyone. Right now, we have a number of, we have a business survey that's out. We only have 16 business responses. We would really like to get more business responses. We also have a residential survey out. We have over 550 responses to our residential survey. The survey is also available in five languages, the five languages that you typically see things from the city of Medford in. So that survey is available. If people are watching on TV or on their computer right now, this is a QR code. You can take your phone. You can open the camera on your phone and point it at that at the screen and your camera will pop up a little URL and you can click on it and go straight to the survey. So we want to make that available. There's also the URL there is bit.ly slash Medford waste. We also are gonna have a number of in-person locations where you can do the survey. It's always available from our office in City Hall from now until October 1st. We've had and will continue to have people at the farmer's market the next three weeks from three to 5 p.m. We've had and will continue to have people at the public library on Saturday mornings. And I will be actually myself at the Mystic River Festival with the survey and other sustainability planning information on September 24th from 12 to four. And the other thing we want to convey to people is that our office has a newsletter. We have 1700 people subscribed already. We'd really like to add everybody. There are 58,000 people in the city of Medford, cut the children out. Yep.
[Scarpelli]: I know that we're doing farmers markets, public library, no disrespect, but that's really, That's one demographic, if you really look at it. Have we looked at doing the PTOs at the high school, where we have hundreds of parents going through? Are we doing like the Mephiti football games? We have hundreds of parents going through. Are we looking at different events? I mean, I understand whenever we do these surveys, I don't know if it's as visible to everybody else, but we keep doing it at the same places. We keep doing these at the libraries, the farmers market. There are other people in the community that are represented, but we're not going to them at all. And I think that we should really take a hard look because this impacts our community, the whole community, not just this demographic, because it seems like that's all we're doing right here. It's with tagging one part of the community we have to start looking at our when other communities do these outreach and I think it's very important this is this is a great step because we're seeing this is where I would like to see more public participation, more involvement but Why aren't we doing this more into the largest scheme scheme of it that the public schools when they're doing different meetings that, that, that, you know, the, the big athletic events in the city, you know, the, the, the big road race this weekend we're having hundreds of people this weekend. Why wouldn't we be doing things like that I mean the mystic rest of the river festival September. Yeah, that's the same people that go to library and say people that will see at the farmers market. So we have broadened, you know, our outreach here. Let's look at Sunday we're gonna have hundreds of people running a city wide road race. Well let's look. I'd like to see that if we can. Thank you.
[Hunt]: So I appreciate the input, it is really helpful to us. We have, our committee has been suggesting locations and volunteering themselves to go out. Our staff are paid salaries, so they don't get paid overtime to go to all of these events. Madeline is the only one who's hourly. So we have been asking the committee to volunteer to be at some of these and to go to some of these events. I'm happy to hear these ideas and we have been circulating them via email and on the web, that's how we have 550 responses already. It has been circulating to some of these groups.
[Scarpelli]: It's not a lot of residents in the city of Mexico, right? 500 is not a lot.
[Hunt]: It's a good number for some of us.
[Scarpelli]: I don't disagree, but I guarantee it's the 550 people that do all the surveys. We need to start reaching out to a greater scheme, a greater number, because this is a lot of money. And you can see it, this is a big, people don't realize how huge this negotiation is exactly what it entails. So I appreciate it. Thank you.
[Caraviello]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. When does this contract expire?
[Hunt]: The contract expires next summer, June 30.
[Caraviello]: 6 of 23? Yes. And my last question is, Why are we negotiating with companies that don't have equipment? Why are we negotiating with companies that don't have equipment that have to go out and buy it?
[Hunt]: So there are only three waste haulers in this area that are large enough to service the city of Medford. Any one of them typically only owns the vehicles that they need to service their current clients. And when they take on a new client, they then obtain the vehicles and hire the staff. So they don't have these extra vehicles sitting around.
[Caraviello]: How many trucks are needed to support and benefit. I don't know that number. Yeah. Okay, so we're in the worst time to hire people. We can't hire people to do anything. And we're looking at companies that don't have people and don't have trucks.
[Hunt]: It's sorry, it's a public bid. So the companies that could consider this are waste management, Casella, and Republic services, which recently bought JRM. They're the companies that are large enough. None of those companies have extra trucks sitting around.
[Caraviello]: Well, we're currently using Waste Management, correct?
[Hunt]: Yes.
[Caraviello]: And they have trucks.
[Hunt]: Their trucks are at end of life. They spoke to us. They said, we'll happily extend your contract, but we need to do it for many years because we need to buy new trucks.
[Caraviello]: I don't have a problem extending the contract, but I have a problem. Are they going to be able to get trucks in less than a year?
[Hunt]: So we're actually working with Waste Management to extend for a year. in order to allow more competition, so that this could be out to bid for, we believe it should be out to bid for 90 days, and then that we'd like to give whichever company wins a year to ramp up.
[Caraviello]: I appreciate that because I say, people can't get cars, getting enough trucks to shares me.
[Bears]: Thank you. Mr. Carter hello, Dr. Hunter have you finished your presentation. Okay, just wanted to make sure I just had one question for you myself. Do you know and I'm sure we're not going to have real figures until after an RFP and after the bid process comes back but the waste contract has been a major driver cost increase driver in the city budget over the last two decades. Are we looking at million more a year, 2 million more a year. Do you have any estimates from comparable communities around us?
[Hunt]: It's unclear. Because one of the things we think we need to do is shift around the services to meet what people are asking for. So it's we're working, we have a consulting firm that is working with us. They have expertise from around the country and from New England, from Massachusetts, negotiating with these companies. And they're working with us to advise us. What I basically I've said to people, nobody in Medford has negotiated one of these in 14 years, 13 years. So we brought in an outside consulting firm to advise us. So they are working with us on this project. Our goal is to keep it cost neutral. We are right now working on essentially a cost neutral increase extension for one year. We're looking at something that would be under $100,000 increase for the new fiscal year to stay in the extra. But we don't know when we go out to bed. And honestly, if we ask for weekly recycling and weekly trash, that's going to be a cost increase. If we fold in other services, how we do this, it's unclear, especially we think that our rates with waste management are actually high for pickups, but low for what they charge us for disposal of recycling. So we're, we're sort of figuring that out right now. We have been doing one of the things Madeline has done is we have a large chart comparing all the services that are provided waste services to other communities, and through the government, and what other pricing is. Madeline has gotten a hold of several of the neighboring communities contracts and she's been reviewing what's in their contracts, what's different from our contracts. So that's also some of the work that we're doing right now during these couple of months, as we get the RFP ready.
[Bears]: Thank you. It sounds like we're gonna have a few more bites of this apple, so I'll leave my questions for later. Anything else? Councilor Caraviello.
[Caraviello]: Alicia, I know many other communities don't do business pickup, commercial pickups. Is that something we're looking to continue or not continue with?
[Hunt]: I would say that is something that we've been having some conversations about it's one of the reasons why we really need to hear from from businesses. It's, there are very strong pros and cons to doing business pickup, including if all businesses get from the same service and you have fewer trucks on your streets and you have more consistency and you can standardize stuff. should we be paying for that? We currently have been paying for it for many, many, many, most small businesses get their waste services through the city and the large companies with dumpsters do not get them through us. So is that fair? That's hard to say that's fair. On the other hand, those small businesses have built their business model around an expectation that they get waste services from the city. And we can't just rip that rug out from under them. So it's one of the conversations that I think we honestly need to be having, but it's not clear to me that we can just make that change. We haven't figured out yet what's the right thing to do. We'd really like to hear more from businesses.
[Caraviello]: And one last question. Where do we go? Recycling. I know the recycling market isn't what it was when we made the contract. I know some communities have done away with recycling. It's not legal to do away with recycling Massachusetts, people recycle on their own.
[Hunt]: So, the state law is that anybody who provides trash services must provide recycling services. I'm going to tell you that that's not well enforced. So that's not always true but that is in fact the state law as a municipality. we have to provide both if we provide one. How we do that, there's been a talk about should we go back to separating our recycling? Should we put, because then your recycling is more valuable. That is absolutely a conversation that's worthy of having. Some of what we'd really like to do is educate people on recycling right. Some of the problem is when people put things in recycling that shouldn't be recycled. We also know that people are putting things in trash that shouldn't go in trash. City has just started up another curbside pickup for textiles. Textiles don't need to go in the trash. It saves the city money because we pay by the pound for trash. And if you don't put it in the trash, if you put it in the bins at the school or you call help see the new, the new curbside that we have saves us all money. There's a number of other things. There's a mattress ban about to go into effect in the state of Massachusetts. So right now DPW actually Madeline is working with our DPW staff to figure out the solution for how can Medford residents dispose of mattresses. You won't be able to call waste management and have them just pick it up. We need a contract with somebody to pick them up and recycle them, deconstruct them. So that's something, honestly, I don't know where it stands right now. Madeline is helping DPW with it. So these are the various things that are, We need people to better understand. I will take this moment to tell everybody that on the city's website and on the Go Green Medford website under recycling is a link to something that's called the Recyclopedia. And it is a, can I recycle this? What can be recycled? You can type anything into that and it will tell you what can be recycled or how you should dispose of things. And you should know that it's the same in whatever community you're in in Massachusetts. So several years ago, they figured out that part of the problem was people were confused, they didn't know it could be recycled, and they'd go between communities and work and stuff and their friends, and it was all different. So the state sat down with all the waste haulers, the big ones, and negotiated a list of what can be recycled through the curbside pickup versus other systems, and put it all into a database. And that is the final say as to what can be recycled in Massachusetts in any community. So it's linked from our website. We put it out on social media occasionally. Hopefully that all helps. And if anybody's wondering, it's exactly the same in our schools. School waste contracts are actually part of the city contract as well. So we are taking that into account and consulting this.
[Bears]: Great, thank you so much, Director Hunt. 22-502 to President Nicole Morell and honorable members, Medford City Council, from Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn. Oh, do we need to vote on that? We do need to vote on that, yep, sorry. On the motion of Councilor Collins, seconded by Councilor Caraviello to receive and place on file. All those in favor? Opposed? Motion passes. And I will leave the reading of 22-502 to the president.
[Morell]: The rules are already suspended to take these two papers. 22-502, to President Nicole Morell and honorable members of the Medford City Council, from Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn, proposed CAF amendment. September 8th, 2022, I respectfully request and recommend that the City Council approve the following amendment to the revised ordinances entitled Personnel, Article II, entitled Classification and Compensation Plan, section 66-33, entitled Officers and Employees-Nonunion, by adopting the following change. The language of CAF 14 shall be amended to include the following position, Senior Planner, Planning Development and Sustainability Director Alicia Hunt is available to speak to this request and answer any questions you may have. Respectfully submitted, Breanna Lungo-Koehn, Mayor. Director Hunt, if you'd like to.
[Knight]: Madam President, motion to table until such time as the overwhelmingly large and looming labor relations problems that we have in this community can be addressed. I don't think it's time to create another position. We didn't have another position that's gonna cost us more money. We didn't have another position that's gonna cost us more money that's being created 60 days after the passage of the budget.
[Morell]: On the motion of Councilor Knight to table as seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. I mean, we have two Councilors absent at the moment. I mean, I'm happy to... If you wanna give a moment to allow the other Councilors.
[Unidentified]: It's, you're gonna have to ask him.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. I just wanna make a point, two points really. One, that I think that there's a lot of value to this position, but that we haven't received the response still from the city solicitor regarding CAF changes and chapter 44, section 33A that we requested in January. And I just was pulling out the green book to reread chapter four section 33 a, and I think it's gonna require a two thirds vote we don't know because we haven't gotten that opinion back so this just falls into that. Again, I would like I would vote for it. But if it needs a two thirds vote, and we don't know the answer to that because we haven't gotten the legal opinion for nine months, that's just going to put us in a position of uncertainty.
[Hunt]: Could I ask one question? Is that about a CAF change? We're not asking to change a CAF. We're asking for a new position that doesn't exist in the CAF system.
[Knight]: Well, if legal, whatever, get back to us and answer our underlying and initial question, I'm sure that we'd be able to answer that question. But as of right now, it's been almost about a year and we still haven't received that information.
[Bears]: So this is not a change to the land use planner. This is a new position.
[Hunt]: We do not have a position in the system that is a senior planner. The intention would be to we have had posted a staff planner position, we would with we have other staff planners, so we can't we can't remove that from the cap system. We don't want to change the calf of the staff planner, okay, we have people hired at that position and we want to keep that. This is a new position senior planner that does not exist in the city.
[Bears]: No, I withdraw what I just said I was reading the memo that we got was like saying that we have this position it's not so we would.
[Hunt]: not fill the position that has been posted for 14 months, and we would post this position instead, but that staff planner, Amanda Centrella is a staff planner in our office. Her CAF is not up for discussion. It would not be changed. It would not change any current staff planners in the office.
[Bears]: Okay, then that changes this. For me, I don't think this section applies, but... You know, my point on the section does stand that it would be nice to get a response on that after nine months.
[Knight]: I stand with the workers that were before us here this evening and reintroduce my motion. I don't feel as though we should be creating positions two months after the budget passed, after we've talked about how we have no revenues, about how we had to sit here and fight tooth and nail for what we asked for for eight months. And now all of a sudden we have more money. We have more money to create a new position, but we don't have more money. on cost of living adjustments that are recordable across the board for our school department employees. And we have eight collective bargaining agreements that right now are at an impasse or not being negotiated. And quite frankly, these contracts that are expired, they expired quite some time ago. So once they get settled, they're just going to expire again and they're going to be right back at the table in the next six to eight months. So with that being said, I reintroduce my motion to have this matter tabled until the labor relations dispute and the contracts are settled.
[Morell]: On the motion of Councilor Knight to table a paper until the labor relations- Madam President. Councilor Scarpelli, just a reminder that the motions at this table are not debatable.
[Hurtubise]: I would second that.
[Morell]: Okay, thank you. So on the motion of Councilor Knight to table the paper, table paper 22-502 until the labor relations and disputes are settled, seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears. No. Councilor Caraviello. Yes. Councilor Collins. No. Yes. Yes. No.
[Morell]: No, three in the front of four in the negative. Dr. Hunt.
[Knight]: Madam President, I asked for a ruling from the chairs that how many votes it takes to pass this calf, and whether or not chapter 44 twice, and I don't really know Zach's reading it for you know what, almost as good as what we have which is no lawyer but
[Scarpelli]: Thank you. So again, before the table, I wish I had the opportunity to speak before but again, these are situations that has nothing personal to do with the position, but the clarification of what we haven't had yet. And then again, to my, to my fellow Councilors that remember the days that we were told one thing and then not not given the proper answers what we needed and here we are again. We just spoke to 500 people. and told them that we support them, no matter what, that this administration is not following through with our union employees and what do we just do? We just voted four to three not to table it. So I'm waiting to see what the next vote's going to be. Point of information.
[Bears]: Thank you.
[Morell]: Thank you very much.
[Bears]: All of that vote was to keep talking about it.
[Scarpelli]: So my, what I just said to end that was, I can't wait to see the next motion. That's all I want to say.
[Bears]: Thank you.
[Morell]: I'm just saying, let's hold the outrage until there's something to be outraged.
[Knight]: I do believe in June we discussed that with the mayor and we were talking about the budget, that document that you know sets up the spending for the next fiscal year which we're in now. That document, we talked about having an assistant city solicitor position to the city council, I believe. And the mayor came back to this council and made a compromise and said, yeah, if you vote for my budget, I'm gonna give you guys that. And it's gonna be posted in September. And it's September and we don't even have a regular city solicitor, nevermind an assistant city solicitor for this council. We have legal questions that have been looming for nine months that haven't been answered. We can talk about this stuff, so we're blue in the face. It's an irresponsible vote to take right now without the response from the city solicitor that we asked for nine months ago.
[Morell]: Thank you.
[Bears]: Madam President.
[Morell]: President Bears.
[Bears]: Chapter 44, section 33A, no new position shall be created or increase in rate made by ordinance vote or appointment during the financial year subsequent to the submission of the annual budget unless provision therefore has been made by means of a supplemental appropriation. Given that there hasn't been a supplemental appropriation made to fund this position, I think 33A still applies. I would make a motion to request that we get a response to our questions from January on 33A That would be my first motion. Let me just table the thing.
[Knight]: This is crazy.
[Morell]: And then my second motion would be to table it.
[Bears]: I think we should respect the chair and all just speak at once. Like let's let one person talk and then another person talk. My first motion would be that we again reiterate that we get the information that we need and the legal opinion on that chapter. And then since it's not debatable, I would make a motion to table.
[Morell]: So we have a motion to take the first motion.
[Bears]: The motion is to ask once again for that legal opinion. Yes.
[Morell]: On the motion of vice president bears to ask legal opinion rated in the calf sent to whoever is handling legal opinions at this a minute, send it to the mayor. I have a second for that motion. So, Councilor Collins. All those in favor. I suppose the motion passes. I understand it's amusing to some Councilors, but this is fact finding and this is debate.
[Scarpelli]: So I- It's amusing because it's frustrating. So don't make this a joke because it's not amusing because I'm happy.
[Bears]: Only one person- Thank you.
[Scarpelli]: Thank you. Well, there were 550 people that weren't happy.
[Morell]: I said- On the motion of Vice President Bears to table a second by- Comments. Councilor Tseng Mr. Clerk, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Unidentified]: Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Morell]: 22504 22504 is what we're moving on to. Sorry, Councilor Collins, which paper is 22-504?
[Hurtubise]: It's the one offered under suspension by Vice President Ferris. Okay.
[Morell]: Do I have a, I have that paper. Okay, 22-504 was offered under suspension by Vice President Ferris. Be it resolved by the Medford City Council that we are deeply concerned by the negative impact on essential operations due to the recent removals of staff members for non-performance related reasons of the Finance Department and Elections Department. Vice President Bears.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam President, I think this speaks exactly to what all of us were just talking about around the labor relations situation in the city I want to speak specifically to two recent changes, where we've decided that this city administration, I should say because we don't have any voice in it's the city administration has decided to change horses and midstream on two major important projects. One of them being in the finance department around ARPA. We had an ARPA federal funds manager who was working for the city for six months, who had done extensive work on the process for the determination of the spending of the remaining ARPA funds. That person, as far as we know, was removed from her position for non performance related reasons. I do know that that position has now been filled. But we've had a gap of months where we could have been working diligently as a city on the process for spending our money and determining public input, and that has paused so you know, again as far as I understand it was not a performance related reason or disciplinary reason for the removal of that person. However, it has negatively impacted city operations. Secondly, we found out yesterday that there was a removal of the coordinator overseeing the elections. We just held a primary election that by all accounts went off very well using a new system that was created to streamline and simplify and make our elections better. We now have a general election in November. We've decided again during the middle of an election between a primary and a general election to change the leadership of the elections department. I think it behooves this council to send a resolution to the mayor that we are concerned by these and these specific decisions. And obviously, as we've spoken to tonight, there's deep concern that we all share around decisions on a wide range of labor issues. But I felt that it was important to propose this under suspension as we found out about one of these things. One of these changes after the deadline for the agenda was to be posted. Thank you, Madam President.
[Morell]: Thank you, President Bears. Is there any further discussion? So on the motion by Vice President Bear is a second by Councilor Collins. Oh, you're seconding?
[Unidentified]: Yes, I just raised my hand.
[Morell]: Okay, so on the motion of vices and bears a second by cancer Collins cancer saying did you want to speak Sorry, I don't know. Go for it. Go for it.
[Tseng]: I, I just want to reiterate the point we can't be retaliating against people I mean, of course, you know, we, the mayor's office is yet to say anything about this, and honestly we need transparency but we There's something, something's gotta, something's gotta change. I mean, we can't, we're not, we can't get the best city government we can by operating like this. And we have an election coming up in a few weeks, and it's just, without communicating why or what happened, I mean, it's really unacceptable.
[Collins]: Thank you President Morell. I just I think it deserves to be repeated. I don't think that Medford can currently say that it's delivering the city services and the civil services that the residents deserve and it's not delivering the workplace atmosphere compensation and benefits that its staffers deserve, and that makes these inscrutable dismissals, just all the more challenging to. to see and to understand when we are already struggling to serve our residents the way that a 21st century city should, why we would dismiss city employees who are willing to forego greener pastures in the private sector for the mission of trying to do good work in a municipal setting in the city of Medford, it just boggles the mind. And I thank Vice President Bears for putting this forward tonight because it needs to be said.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. Any further discussion? On the motion of Vice President Bears, I second by Councilor Collins. All those in favor?
[Unidentified]: Aye.
[Morell]: All those opposed? Motion passes.
[Unidentified]: Communications from the mayor, 22-466.
[Morell]: To the members, to the Honorable President and members of Medford City Council, City Hall, Medford Mass, 02155, August 23rd, 2022, President Morell, and honorable members of the city council for mayor brown occur and loan orders and waste meter water meters I apologize dear Madam President and city Councilors I respectfully request and recommend that your honorable body approved the following loan order. City of Medford loan order, water meters, be it ordered that the sum of $7,800,000 be and hereby is appropriated for the purpose of purchasing, installing and replacing water meters, including all costs incidental and related thereto, that to meet this appropriation, the city treasurer with approval of the mayor is authorized to borrow said sum under the pursuant Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 44, Section 8.6 as amended and supplemented or pursuant to any other enabling authority and to issue bonds or notes of the city therefore. that the treasurer with the approval of the mayor is authorized to borrow all or a portion of such amount from Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, MWRA, pursuant to MWRA's local water systems assistance program, and in connection therewith to enter into a loan agreement and or financial assistance agreement with the MWRA, provided that... On the motion of Councilor Knight to waive the remainder of the reading, seconded by Councilor Tseng, all those in favor. Uh, motion passes. Thank you both for being here once again. Um, for those folks watching, we did get a presentation over the summer. I forget if it was july or august. So I appreciate the presentation then. And I, um, give the floor to you. Just name and address the record and then just, uh, what you'd like to share.
[Ron Baker]: I'm dan stone king. 21 james street.
[Hurtubise]: Uh, ron baker, 21 james street.
[Morell]: If you wanna give us a brief summary, I know we had a full presentation this summer, but just a brief summary of the paper before us.
[Dan Stoneking]: Sure. We're trying to get this water meter program going. Is a MWRA loan, 0% 10 years. There is a November 15 allocation in which we need city council to vote to support it. 0% loan is $7.8 million, and it's 10 years interest free. I did give out some paperwork, explain, because there were some questions from Councilor Bears, how much we've already used from MWRA funds. There's a couple of pages of what the funds could be used for, and there's some spreadsheets our community and other communities and what we've used. Phase one has passed. Phase two is sunsetting fiscal year 23. And I think it's about $3.2 million that if you don't use by the end of fiscal 23, that it will just go away. We didn't use about $2.5 million from phase one. If you look at some of the other communities, most communities do take advantage of this. It's a good loan. It's a good way to get the meters installed and get funds back up and running at 100% accuracy, so that we can maintain the $26 million one or two enterprise accounts.
[Scarpelli]: Thank you. John, thank you very much for your hard work in answering some of these questions. I think this is an easy question for me. Fundamentally, if this doesn't happen, how difficult would this make our system?
[Dan Stoneking]: Well, every meter has a meeting device on it right now that has a battery in it. Those batteries had a 10-year warranty. We're in year 16. So we've replaced some, a good majority. But when you're looking at a system, we put that into 2005. Technology's changed. We're looking to better the system so that we can not only bill 100% accurate, but have other aspects that we can account for unaccounted for water. The meter that we're looking at has built in leak detection, which would tell us if there's a water main break or a service leak in the area with acoustic sound.
[Scarpelli]: Right. So to me, I think this is a slam dunk in the fact that you're talking about 0% loan, you're talking about possibly eliminating concerns to our residents, whether their meters are read wrong or read incorrectly, then have to adjust later, that could be crippling. So I think that this is something that for myself, I think that it's not even thinking ahead, it's catching up and making sure that we are on the same page and working together as we move forward in the future. So I would look to support this paper.
[Morell]: Thank you.
[Caraviello]: I'm sorry, my emotions. I also want to stay 100% let's take its first ring. My only question is, um, is the use of the opera funds, who determined that this was a good use the right proper use of opera funds, the opera director that was let go or was just determined in between the ARPA director leaving and us not having one. So that's my only question. Is this allowed under the use of ARPA funds?
[Ron Baker]: Yes, it is allowed. This was kind of, I believe, an internal discussion because of what MWRA loan will do for sidewalks and road improvements. And we can't use that for ARPA funds. We'd rather use the ARPA funds for meters.
[Morell]: We do have Commissioner McGivern on the line too. He just raised his hand.
[Caraviello]: I can. I just want to make sure that the Apple money is allowed for this. I don't want them to come back and bite us at some point saying we shouldn't use their money. So I'm just asking, who made the decision to do it? Was it Molly Kibbe? Or her predecessor in between?
[Morell]: Commissioner McGivern, can you speak to that?
[McGivern]: Sure, yep. So it was an effort between myself, the gentleman in front of you today, Bob Dickinson, chief of staff, mayor. So we sat, discussed, went over the options for funding. This is an eligible use for ARPA funding. Other communities are using it for similar type of projects. So that's how we've made up the balance for that $700,000. Yeah, I mean, I'll make the motion
[Caraviello]: to support the paper and let it take its first reading.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Caraviello. Councilor Collins. Any further discussion from the council or members of the public? Councilor Beres.
[Bears]: Just confirming, and this is all going to be paid back out of the enterprise fund. The bonds are just going to be paid back out of the enterprise fund.
[Dan Stoneking]: Yes, it'll be budgeted in the budget going forward.
[Bears]: Right.
[Dan Stoneking]: Yes.
[Bears]: Yeah, it's the water and sewer bonds. It's not the general bonds. Right. Just for the public's edification. Thank you.
[Morell]: Okay. And we have confirmation from Christian. We're giving him a thumbs up as well. Any further discussion?
[Knight]: Motion to waive the remainder of the readings and have this matter be passed upon vote of this council this evening, Madam President. It will save us the trouble of having to go through advertising. It will save us the trouble of having to bring this paper back for a third reading. We've had two meetings on it already. It's a 0% interest loan. It's a good idea. It makes sense. It's necessary for this community. And I think we've been able to establish that through the two meetings that we've had previously. I would second that.
[Morell]: We do have Councilor Scarpelli's original motion and then we'll take that as a second motion.
[Hurtubise]: do separate questions. There's two motions, one could be withdrawn. We could withdraw my first one.
[Scarpelli]: Just to approve in general. So we'll just go with the others. No, no, you take it. No, I think that I should jump in. I'll give you a sack.
[Morell]: We'll take the first and we'll take the second and that should cover our basis. So this one's gonna be for first reading. Yep, so on the motion of Councilor Scarpelli, a second by Councilor Caraviello to approve the loan order for first reading. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears. Sorry, approve, waive all the ratings or?
[Morell]: This is just, we're just gonna take them.
[Hurtubise]: Okay, okay, yes, yep. Councilor Caraviello. Yes. Councilor Collins. Yes. Councilor Knight. Yes. Councilor Scarpelli, yes. Councilor Tseng, President Morell.
[Morell]: Yes, I'm in front of zero, then I get the motion passes on the motion of Councilor Knight to waive all future readings as seconded by Councilor Tseng. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Hurtubise]: Okay, the motion to waive future readings and to approve. Vice President Bears. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Morell]: 22-503 to President Nicole Morell and honorable members of the Metro City Council, from Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn, regarding proposed wage adjustment for traffic supervisors. September 8th, 2022, I respectfully request and recommend that the City Council approve the following amendments to the revised ordinances, chapter 66, article two. City of Medford amendment to revise ordinances, chapter 66, article two, be it ordained by the City Council of the City of Medford in chapter 66, entitled personnel, article two, entitled classification and compensation plan section 32, I'm sorry, 66-32, section one entitled miscellaneous personnel, and then the figures as they presently appear next to the following title by adjusting. On the motion of council tonight to waive the reading in favor of their brief presentation from the chief of police, seconded by Vice Mayor Bears. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. Chief Buckley, thank you for being the last person standing.
[Hurtubise]: I think the Adam speaks for itself. So there was the 25 number unit of traffic supervisors, they negotiated in good faith with the city. They came to a memorandum of agreement on this contractual issue. This is where we stand today. I just presented before you for the approval. I can't answer the questions you have as it relates to that, but I also want to take the opportunity because I don't think it's said much about these employees that how much they're appreciated in this community. And I want, I mean, I think it's, they're out there, you know, throughout the school year for our children in the morning and afternoon. So they do a fantastic job in some sometimes really difficult situations, but otherwise also. So I just add that in support of having this passed for the contract.
[Morell]: Thank you.
[Bears]: And thank you chief for being here for so long. Just confirming that this has been agreed to by the every all parties have agreed to this agreement and that's why we came to an agreement at the table.
[Hurtubise]: We put the language together agreed to the language it's been ratified by the great perfect.
[Bears]: Thank you.
[Morell]: Motion to approve the other discussion from the council or any members of the public.
[Knight]: being a young father and having the opportunity to take my kids down to the public schools, my kids are at the Brooks. And just seeing the work and effort that they put in down there, they do an excellent job. These traffic supervisors are really underappreciated. Nothing's worse than when one of them's out and they have a uniformed police officer doing the traffic detail down there. They have it down to a system that the traffic supervisors where it just flows amazing. And any disruption to that usually creates chaos down in the neighborhood. But I'd like to just thank the the traffic supervisors that we have here in the community for doing such a great job, because they are an underappreciated resource. They're the people that we trust in keeping our kids safe. We've seen a number of tragic incidents over the years with traffic supervisors being assaulted, being yelled at, spit on, and the like. So I'd like to just make sure that they recognize the value that they have in this community.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Knight. Any further discussion on the motion to approve from Vice President Bears? Motion to approve for first reading.
[Bears]: It's retro back to July 1st, so yeah, it's a little while. I'd be happy to amend my motion to approve and waive all future readings so that it doesn't move tonight.
[Morell]: Motion on Vice President Bears to approve and waive all future readings as seconded by Councilor Caraviello. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Hurtubise]: vice president bears. Yes. Yes.
[Morell]: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you all appreciate it.
[Ron Baker]: Thanks chief.
[Morell]: I would like to go back to regular business or regular order on the motion advice is embarrassed to revert to regular order of business seconded by Councilor Tseng all those in favor. Opposed motion passes. All right, 22-494. Be it resolved by the Medford City Council, the ordinances and rules subcommittee meet to discuss the creation of a budget needs assessment ordinance to provide accurate and actionable information on the city of Medford's operating and capital budget needs and the deficit between current revenues and needed expenditures. Vice President Bears.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. I think it's become very clear to all of us that the budget process and the information that's available to us and to the public during the budget process is insufficient. You know, it took this Council coming together to figure out about the structural deficit and the ARPA question and the free cash question and the FY20. Curry budget. And really the other kind of outstanding question that we kind of have partial answers to but not complete answers to is what is our, you know, what is our capital backlog. What are our operating needs. Part of me putting this forward as I was reading in detail the comprehensive plan draft and I submitted comments, and, you know, there's a lot of great stuff in there. We don't have the money for it. But what we should have is a plan to get there. And I think something that we can do as a council, while we can't change the budget process itself as that is outlined by state law, what we can do is add to it by making sure that the information that we need to make informed decisions and that residents need to make informed decisions is available to us so that I'll leave it there but the intent of this resolution is for our ordinances and rules subcommittee to meet. to draft a document that would allow us to, that would require that the city assesses operating and capital needs. And then we would have the information available to us about the difference between what we're currently spending, what we believe we need to spend, and then that obviously would give us the answer on what kind of revenue we need to raise through the many tools that are available to us. Thank you, Madam President.
[Morell]: Thank you, President Reyes, Councilor Collins, and Councilor Tseng.
[Collins]: Thank you, President Morell. And I thank Vice President Bears for putting this forward tonight. You know, the council is expected and empowered to provide financial oversight for the city, sign off on major contracts, transactions, appropriations, but there isn't any sort of binding or consistent structure for what kind of information we are to be basing these decisions on. Putting these needs and expectations on the books as an ordinance. that could help enforce that the council actually gets the relevant information and on a timely schedule that we need to make these major decisions. The only body in the city government that gets to sign off on these major decisions. And I think that could help enshrine more of the transparency and accountability that our constituents expect of us. And I appreciate you bringing up the comprehensive plan. I think that applies to all of the, you know, I've said it before, we're very, very rich in plans. We need, some sort of accountability structure so that we can navigate towards them and not just say, well, how do we end up here? And just navigate from that point year by year forever. Thank you.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins.
[Tseng]: Councilor Tsai. First of all, I thank Vice President Barrios for introducing this. Two terms come to mind when I think about this. The first is fiscal sense or fiscal responsibility, and the second is transparency. When it comes to fiscal sense, I think, You know, we we need ours as a city we need a long term plan, we need to know what investments were making, and it's the most fiscally responsible thing we can do isn't to pass on problems for say we can't afford it, but but is to create a plan to afford the needs that we have in this community, and that starts by identifying the needs that are our budget needs and the deficit and understanding the deficit. When it comes to transparency, this not only helps us Councilors, it helps residents in the city. And, you know, it leads us to a point where we are better informed going into the budget process, where residents are better informed going into the budget process, and where we don't feel like we're being hoodwinked or cornered at the last minute.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Any further discussion? On the motion of Vice President Bearsar, seconded by Councilor Caraviellola. All those in favor? All those opposed, motion passes. 22-495 offered by vices and bears, be it resolved by the Medford City Council that the city administration provide an update on all pilot agreements entered into by the city of Medford and the status of all pilot agreement negotiations. Vices and bears.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. We haven't heard about pilots in a while. I know that some of our pilot institutions were maybe friendly to us during the pandemic, and maybe we decided to back off a little bit. I probably wouldn't have done it but, you know, these are large institutions that are entered into agreements with the city to provide funding to the community in lieu of the property taxes that they would otherwise pay. It's a significant source of revenue to the community. And I'd like to get an update on where we are with all of those I do know that At last update Harvard Vanguard across the street had used to pay a pilot payment and they just voluntarily kind of stopped doing that. It's right across the street, takes up a lot of land right in our valuable Medford Square has a parking garage that they don't allow the public to access that could benefit our parking needs. So that's just one of the several agreements or past agreements that I'd like to know if the city is still pursuing or engaging the stakeholders with. Thank you.
[Collins]: Thank you, President Morell. Yes, I think reviewing our pilot agreements, the status of our pilot negotiations should be a routine procedure, especially after the budget season that we just went through, knowing that the belt is already pulled so tight or our budget is so austere already. It's as crucial as it has ever been to make sure that our pilot agreements with our large institutional members are fair, holding these institutions accountable to paying their fair share, just like all other Medford residents do.
[Morell]: Councilor Tseng?
[Tseng]: Yeah, I think the two councilors said it well, this is about institutions playing their fair share. You might hear a lot about institutions doing this project or that project, and it is great for a community, but we are also at a point where a better pilot agreement, better, a fairer agreement would actually benefit our city much more.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Any further discussion? On the motion of President Bearsar, is it seconded by Councilor Collins, all those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. 22-496 offered by vices and bears be resolved by the Metro City Council that we meet in committee of the whole to review the draft Medford comprehensive plan, vices and bears.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam President, speaks for itself. I know that the public comment period on the initial draft just ended, so I'd be open to doing something sooner or later, depending on what we decide and what our schedule allows, but I do think we should take a look at this at some point. Thank you.
[Morell]: All those in favor.
[Ron Baker]: Aye.
[Morell]: Opposed. Motion passes. 22-497 offered by Vice President Bears, be it resolved by the Medford City Council that the Zoning Board of Appeals provide all materials relative to decisions A-2017-30 through A-2017-40. 2017-42 and A-2018-20 to the Community Development Board relative to the two to four Capen Street and 50 Winthrop Street site plan reviews to ensure that all conditions applied to previous projects are maintained or expanded for these two proposals. Vice President Bears.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. The Community Development Board is considering under our new zoning ordinance that this council passed after 18 months of diligent exceptional work. under the Dover amendment site plan review process. These projects two to four Capen street and 50 Winston street would be taking down existing more common single multifamily residential structures and building a larger multi-unit buildings. I'm not opposed to that. I think Tufts should and must do more to house students on campus to prevent the displacement of residents in the surrounding neighborhoods. However, there were a number of conditions. This is on Capen Street, we've heard of Coho Community Housing, we've heard of the Capen area. There were multiple decisions by the ZBA under previous processes in 2017 and 2018 that put multiple conditions on those projects and I want to make sure that the Community Development Board, who is now kind of taking over from the ZBA on reviewing these projects, at least to start, has that information before them as they review these projects in October. Thank you.
[Morell]: Thank you. Any further discussion? On the motion of Vice President Bear is a second by Councilor Scarpelli. All those in favour? All those opposed? Motion passes. 22-498 offered by Councilor Collins and Councilor Tseng. Whereas the American Cancer Fund for Children and Kids Cancer Connection report, cancer is the leading cause of death by disease among U.S. children between infancy and age 15. This tragic disease is detected in more than 16,000 of our country's young people every year. An estimated 400,000 children and adolescents are diagnosed with cancer globally each year. Whereas one in five of our nation's children loses his or her battle with cancer, and many children will suffer from long term effects of comprehensive treatment including secondary cancers, whereas the American Cancer Fund for Children and Kids Cancer Connection provides a variety of vital patient psychosocial services to children undergoing cancer treatment at Boston Children's Hospital, Tufts Children's Hospital, Shriners Children's Boston, Dana-Farber Children's Cancer Center, Mass General Hospital for Children as well as participating hospitals throughout the country, thereby enhancing the quality of life for these children and their families, whereas the American Cancer Fund for Children and Kids Cancer Connection also sponsored toy distributions, Laughter Noon, Laughter is Healing, positive appearance programs, pet assisted therapy, KCC Supercar Experience, educational programs, and hospital celebrations in honor of a child's determination and bravery to fight the battle against childhood cancer, be it resolved that the Medford City Council recognize September as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in Medford, and thank the American Cancer Fund for Children and Kids Cancer Connection for their service. Councilor Collins.
[Collins]: Thank you President Morell for reading out the entire resolution. The city council was contacted by the directors of the Kids Cancer Connection and the American Cancer Fund for Children. And so I was happy to put forth this resolution on the request and elevate the issue of cancer, affecting children I think this resolution. spells out the sad facts of the prevalence of this disease on this young population all across our nation and here in Medford as well. So I asked for my fellow Councilors support in the statement and saying that our hearts go out to all the children and families affected by this difficult illness and that we applaud all the children and families going through this hardship and all the healthcare workers and caregivers who help heal these children and also help provide moments of joy and relief. in this moment.
[Morell]: Thank you.
[Tseng]: Councilor Collins put it really well. Um, this is a motion of, um, recognition of thanks of gratitude. Um, I think this is particularly, um, I think meaningful to Medford because I know a lot of my friends and people young young folks in Medford know of a friend or a family member who has passed or is, um, is dealing with childhood cancer. And it's also particularly meaningful with the president's trip into Boston yesterday, where he made a speech about investing in cancer solutions. And this is the right time to put a spotlight on this. So thank you.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Any further, Councilor Caraviello?
[Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. And I thank my fellow council for this moment. I mean, I'm fortunate. I work in an organization that we work with the Tufts Children's Hospital. And one of the issues we're having over there now is they're going over to Children's Hospital, taking them over. And there's certain departments that Tufts is going to lose in that. But, you know, children suffering with cancer are always a serious problem. People who have healthy children don't realize how fortunate they are when you actually go into these facilities and see these kids and your heart really breaks for them. So I support this 100%. Thank you, Councilor Caraviello.
[Morell]: Vice-President Bears.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. I appreciate the words of all my fellow councilors. And I had a cousin who got leukemia age five years old. and survived, luckily, thankfully, to the great treatment at Children's Hospital. It's a little bit of a turn, but another piece of this that I think I'm really, you know, I was at a public meeting last night talking about Life Science Park down on Mystic Avenue. And I'd like to think that maybe through our work, We can bring more of that those jobs and that research here to Medford and make an impact and then, you know, an additional Councilor Tseng said about the President's visit. There's a coalition. you know, not all the partners that you'd think of me bringing up traditionally, like big hospitals and big companies, but you know, it's called the Charm Coalition and its goal is to bring the advanced research projects agencies for health here to Boston, bring a lot of federal money here and really boost up even more the life science work and health work that's happening in the community. So maybe on a future agenda, we can support that effort as well. And I just want to say, you know, if this, you know, It's going to come through our plan community development district or commercial development district project process but I'm excited to see like cutting edge life sciences that could help address this problem here in Medford, I think that's. Thank you.
[Caraviello]: Thank you. People forget, you know, how fortunate we are to be in an area that has all these facilities. but for children. So we have to consider ourselves lucky that we live in this area, and these are available to us.
[Scarpelli]: I appreciate Councilor Collins, Councilor Tseng bringing this forward. I think that, you know, until it happens, until you know someone, it really doesn't hit you. And just recently we had a young man that grew up on Almond Street, a prestigious athlete, going off to play football in college, everything going right in his life, and felt something on his face at an all-star football game, and told his brother, that's a teacher at Medford High School, and said, let's feel some pain. And we quickly, the family had quick resources that they took him over to the doctors. Right away, they sent him to Dana-Farber. Unfortunately, he found that it was lymphoma. with the grace of God and the process that his family went through and having Dana Faber in the backyard, they got to it right away and the diagnosis and the surgery went well and everything looks positive in this young man's life. So until you see it, but you have to realize it, it's happening to the person right next door. And to see the movement that, we can make here in Medford. It's exciting and it's a way that we can have just a little piece that we can support and move this horrible disease out of here. So thank you.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli, and I wanna thank my fellow councilors for bringing this forward and their words on it. And it's been mentioned that we absolutely do have the best care centers in the country, some of the best in the world for this disease, but pediatric cancer is actually chronically underfunded, unfunded. It just looked up about 4%, only 4% of federal research dollars on cancer go towards pediatric cancer studies. So I really appreciate you both for bringing this forward and raising this issue, because as Councilor Scarpelli said, it's something that, We're fortunate if we have healthy children and we don't think about it too deeply until it comes into your world. So advocating for this care and also advocating for the research. So thank you both for bringing that forward and for everyone's comments. And I do see the hand raise from Mr. Castagnetti. Name and address for the record, please. Hand raise from Mr. Castagnetti.
[Unidentified]: Name and address for the record, please.
[Morell]: Can you hear me? You're going to mute me for a second if you can turn off. I don't know if you're watching on the TV. We're getting like a feedback loop. So if you could just mute whatever you're watching it on that might be delayed.
[Castagnetti]: Hello.
[Morell]: Yep, we can hear you now. Sounds clear.
[Castagnetti]: Thank you, Angel Castagnetti, Cushman Street. Just wanted to say I wish your president lots of good luck and Godspeed and his quest to cure cancer. We could all use some help in that area. Thank you very much.
[Morell]: Thank you, Mr. Castagnetti. So on the motion of Councilor Tseng and Councilor Collins as seconded by Councilor Caraviello all those in favor. All those opposed motion passes to 2-499 offered by Councilor Collins, be it resolved that the Metro City Council requested the administration review and update the COVID-19 information currently published on the city website, including information on new booster shots the suspension of the USPS free test kit program. sites where sites where tests, masks, and PPE may be obtained for free in Medford, updating COVID-19 mask mandate information and FAQs and current case counts. We have further resolved that the Medford City Council requests an update from the Board of Health on the state administration's offer of a free at-home COVID-19 test, mask, and other PPE to interested municipalities if the Board of Health has applied or plans to apply, and when and where these items will be available for residents. Councilor Collins.
[Collins]: Thank you President real and actually just earlier this afternoon I heard back from director O'Connor with an update about reviewing and updating the coven 19 information on the city website so it appears that as of today a lot of that information about the coven 19 resources that are available to Medford residents. the status of health orders, the new boosters, the ending of the USPS free test kit supply, the revocation of the mask mandates, that's all been updated to no longer display updated information, which is great. Very grateful to Director O'Connor and her staff for their quick work on that. And she also let me know that she is indeed already in contact with the State Department of Public Health on how to secure more of those test kits from the state's most recent offer. of free ones to municipalities that could augment the tests that the Board of Health is already distributing at City Hall, the West Medford Community Center, Medford Housing Authority, the library, and the Council on Aging. The second point that I wanted to make with this resolution which has nothing at all to do with the Board of Health. I just think that it has to be said again that the city website remains in very dire need of an overhaul. and it's not just so that updates and new information may be added in a timely way, but also so that the city website can be simply readable and legible and navigable and looks like the professional website that one would expect to exist for a city of 60,000 people. And I don't mention that as, I feel uncomfortable mentioning that because it's not a dig at any city staff worker or any department. This is just one of the many things that falls by the wayside when the city lacks the capacity to fully implement its projects, any project. And I think that's one of the many reasons that we need to keep up the drumbeat about municipal resources, because the lack of resources, the lack of bandwidth that translates into residents not having the services they deserve. And that includes a website that remains untranslated. And frankly, even for me, is frankly hard to read and hard to navigate and hard to find information on. Thank you.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. Vice Chair Bares.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam President, I won't belabor it too much but Councilor Collins is right on point. I mean, these are key issues and should be updated. But, you know, we have a real issue. It goes back to what we're talking about around the solid waste task force as well. We, not only do we have one director of communications and I know there's a posting for a temporary COVID communication director but that's not an excuse to not have things updated, and a director of constituent services, but it seems to me that when the planning and development department is doing a solid waste task force, they're out on their to do the outreach and the communication and the constituent services. So we have a director of communications and director of constituent services who work for the mayor, but do they work for the departments? We don't have a department of communications. We don't have a department of constituent services. We don't have an established group of people with the actual resources and time. I can respect director Hunt when she says all of us are salaried, none of us are hourly and we're volunteering to go out to what we can go out to. It's because we haven't dedicated the resources necessary to have a centralized department that assists all of the other departments in doing outreach and translation and website updates and email communications. I mean, to me, when I hear Director Hunt say we have 1,700 people on our newsletter, that's a success, but it's also like, but what about the mayor's newsletter? Why are we asking each department to come up with their own list and reduplicate all of the effort of collecting people and getting them on the outreach? Okay, I said I wasn't going to belabor it and I belabored it but it's it's just like planning and coordination, and a little bit of resources will go a long way. Thank you.
[Tseng]: I think I'm Councilor bears and vice president mirrors. So get columns and vice president bears have have really have covered the most important points I mean it really shouldn't take this council badgering away at updates for on the web on the city website for him constituents emailing us all the time for updates I mean, these are things that we really should have department for some investment and resources for on. you know, we passed a similar, less comprehensive, I will say, but similar resolution a few months ago, and we're back here again. And, you know, it's honestly, we don't, this doesn't need to happen.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Any further discussion? On the motion of Councilor Collins, seconded by Councilor Tseng, all those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. 22-501 offered by Councilor Tseng, be it resolved this subcommittee on racial justice, disabilities, and elder affairs, consider an ordinance on data use and data equity along the lines of resolution 22-065. Councilor Tseng.
[Tseng]: Thank you, sorry. Because we've already had a conversation about this, I won't go on too long of a tangent about this. We've talked about the need for the data that our city uses and reports to be more specific. That'll help us when it comes to, in the fiscal sense, when it comes to targeting resources, which we already know as a city, we're cash strapped. It'll also help us understand our own community better.
[Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Any further discussion? On the motion of Councilor Saing, it's seconded by Councilor Collins. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. That is the agenda of the agenda. I did say we would revisit public participation. Is there anyone else who would like to speak for public participation who did not get to speak earlier? Yes, at the request of Councilor Knight. Seeing none, all right. The motion of Councilor Carnivale to adjourn seconded by Councilor Tseng all those in favour.
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