AI-generated transcript of City Council Public Health and Community Safety Meeting 10-08-24

[Lazzaro]: This is the Medford City Council Public Health and Community Safety Committee. October 8th, 2024, 6 p.m. This meeting is called to order. And Mr. Clerk, can you please call the roll? Absolute. Councilor Kelly.

[Hurtubise]: Present. Vice President Collins. Present. Council Member. Present.

[Lazzaro]: Councilor Tseng.

[Hurtubise]: Present.

[Lazzaro]: Present, five present, none absent. This meeting is called to order. The meeting is today. We are discussing two items, which we've discussed at a previous meeting as well. 24-036 offered by Vice President Kit Collins, resolution to discuss an overgrowth ordinance, as well as 24-461, also offered by Vice President Collins, resolution to meet and discuss updates to the rodent control ordinance. These are two items that are joined together because they affect each other. And today we will be talking about the, well, I'll let Vice President Collins discuss. We're going to go over the language that's been shared with us. Vice President Collins.

[Collins]: Thank you so much Councilor Lazzaro, I apologize for holding up the start of this meeting I was running late and then my computer took 10 minutes to join the Wi-Fi, my apologies. I'm joining the Zoom now, so I'll be able to screen share. But just to recap, so the Overgrowth Ordinance was a proposal from, I believe, the previous term that was discussed with the Director of the Board of Health, as well as the Code Enforcement Officers from the Building Department, to deal with issues of accessibility on our public ways, such as sidewalk, and just to make sure that accessibility is maintained even when yards and vegetation originating on private property is perhaps a little less closely tended to. In a lot of cases that's totally fine, but in cases where it becomes a harborage for pests or insects or rodents or it grows so large that it affects people's ability to walk on the sidewalk, that's a problem and the city does need a mechanism to step in in that case. And similarly, in how it affects the pest issue specifically, we were also requested to take another look at the rodent control ordinance by the Director of the Board of Health and some of the collaborators in City Administration. As has been a topic of many many conversations in the city council over the past few years than a city staff are diligently working on every week of the year, you know the rodent population in Medford as a neighboring communities is a really big issue. And as we see more development both from private developers and from public projects such as the MBTA. displacing rodent populations. We're getting more and more complaints, and I know that the Board of Health and the Health Department has been actively seeking to, you know, not just continue what they're already doing, but to be able to do more by way of prevention and mitigation. And obviously, controlling the rodent pest population in Medford is something that, if we have something that's working over here and something that's not working over here, then the problem isn't really getting better, because Rats can change leases a lot more easily than people can. I've heard it said. So at our first meeting on this topic, we discussed these two issues broadly with the board of health director and reviewed some preliminary ideas from mainly the board of health director, as well as code enforcement officers. And we motioned out to see an initial draft of the overgrowth ordinance, which I had the clerk circulate yesterday and have shared with city staff. And we also motioned to have some first drafts updates made to the rodent control ordinance. So committee members have both of those documents before them this evening. I have some feedback from city staff on these documents, and I know that Director O'Connor is also on the line as well. So I thought that tonight we could, in not too much time, we could I know that councilors have reviewed these documents already, most likely. I thought that we could quickly go over these drafts, flag any initial comments or questions that councilors do have. Note any comments that Director O'Connor has for how to take these forward. I know that the building commissioner is also going to weigh in and then report out some planned updates or amendments to take these further into our third meeting onto this topic based on the feedback that we heard tonight. And then hopefully the next time we meet on this, we can have a pretty close to finalized document on both counts, having undergone a legal review as well that we can report out expeditiously, hopefully, if it is the will of this committee, and just put these new mechanisms on the books so that our city staff can implement them. So I would be happy to turn it over to Director O'Connor for preliminary comments, and then I can just quickly walk through both documents, unless I'd be happy to turn the floor over to any of my fellow councilors who had questions or comments that they wanted to start out with.

[Lazzaro]: Are there any comments from, oh, Councilor Callahan.

[Callahan]: I just wasn't sure if I quite understood you properly, but this, I assume, has not yet gone to legal review, like we're finalizing it to make sure that it's what staff needs first, and then we'll send it to legal. Is that correct?

[Lazzaro]: That's correct.

[Callahan]: Thank you.

[Lazzaro]: Great. Any other questions or comments from councilors before I turn it over? Okay. Director O'Connor, I would love to hear from you.

[O'Connor]: Hi, good evening, everyone. I want to thank Vice President Collins for acting and moving forward on this. I think the ordinance as presented really does a lot to help us in our efforts, and I really don't see any additions or changes. I just, I didn't know if DCR needed to be added in there under number three and purpose of intent. I'm not really sure they would, but that was my only thought. And then as far as definitions, I can't see anything else. I don't know why ragweed keeps popping in my head. I don't know where that fits in here, but that certainly, you know, it becomes a public health issue as far as overgrowth is concerned. So I don't know if that means to be pointed out. I really don't. It's just throwing it out there. But I really think it works to help us in our efforts and I appreciate it very much.

[Lazzaro]: Excellent, thank you. I do have a small question. I do appreciate the suggestion of DCR possibly or in some professional capacity. I don't know personally what constitutes standing water, for instance. Is that a birdbath? Is that a man-made pond? Do like man-made water feature kind of yard situations require some level of movement of water? I'm not sure. That articulates my kind of lay person.

[O'Connor]: Yeah, that's a great question. No, that's a great question. So stagnant water is, really a perfect nesting place for mosquitoes. So during the summer, that's something that we always talked to people about. Some people for some reason will have tires, you know, in their backyards or under their decks or whatever, and they accumulate stagnant water or empty, you know, plant pots or, you know, that they just, if it rains, they let them fill up and That stagnant water is a perfect nesting ground for mosquitoes. So, that's, that's not we're not talking about you know, pools or anything like that. But certainly bird feeders are stagnant as well. Well, some of them, some people do have little fountains in them, I suppose. But again, they are perfect nesting grounds for mosquitoes. And as well as bird feeders are obviously a water source for rodents as are any stagnant water on your property. So anything that would accumulate you know, after it rains, and you just let it sit there. That's what we're talking about.

[Lazzaro]: Okay, got it. Thank you. I guess it probably when we go when we do legal review of this document, though, there'll be like a professional understanding of kind of which maybe, I guess my only thought about this is that like there's a level of expertise that we don't necessarily have as a council on some of this stuff, but that somebody will and we'll be referring it to them. Am I correct? Yes, director.

[O'Connor]: Actually, that is a good point about maybe including that in the definitions, what standing or stagnant water is as in

[Lazzaro]: Yeah, I think that would be advisable.

[Collins]: Yeah. If I may, yeah, it sounds like there's, I think there's a good argument for defining standing water as a term, much like we included a definition for bird feeder in the wildlife feeding ordinance. It's one of those things where if you know what it means, you don't need it. But if you don't, it's good to have it articulated.

[Lazzaro]: Yeah, I would agree. So the timeline here is, These documents get reviewed, then it's reviewed by legal once we approve. I'm sorry, could you say that last part again? Once we would approve this, it would get reviewed by legal after the fact.

[Collins]: What I would recommend is that I'd like for in this meeting for us to end with a motion to send both the overgrowth ordinance and the updates to the rodent control ordinance, incorporating any amendments or planned amendments that we talk about in this meeting, for those amendments to be incorporated by myself and for them then to be sent to legal review before our next committee meeting on the topics. Then when we see it again, it includes any updates that this committee would like to see, Director O'Connor or Commissioner Vandewall would like to see, and has undergone legal review with those changes, and then we'll review it again and report it out. That would be my proposal.

[Lazzaro]: Great. I thought that the, I had no feedback besides the standing order question. Is there, Councilor Callahan just stepped out. Do we have any other thoughts or comments by Councilors? Yes, Vice President

[Collins]: Thank you. And I'll just note, because I know we discussed a lot about the purpose and intentions of this ordinance at our first meeting, but just to quickly revisit because we're not going line by line on this, because frankly, it's pretty straightforward. I don't think that we need to. Just to summarize as briefly as I can, what this document says is essentially stating what we talked about as the goals being to give the city a mechanism to do enforcement when there is really problematic overgrowth that isn't being addressed on its own, defining the terms as needed, essentially saying overgrowth and harborage conditions that infringe on the public right of way or create nuisance conditions are prohibited. making a clear exception that nothing in this section shall be interpreted as to prohibit gardening, landscaping, etc. And that enforcement is only necessary if it is determined to be the cause of a public's safety threat or nuisance by city officials. It lays out who's enforcing it and penalties, and then it also does stipulate, as Director O'Connor suggested, that any penalty fines that are collected from enforcement of this ordinance will be deposited into the rodent control account to create revenue for doing rodent mitigation citywide. And I know that this draft was promulgated after the agenda for this meeting went out, so I'll make sure that the clerk can attach it to the committee report for this meeting so that the public can view it ahead of our next committee meeting. So with that, I would be happy to offer a motion to, I think the only thing left to do on this draft is to add in that we want a definition for standing water. And then I will forward this along to legal review and also ask for legal input on some of the questions and highlighted parts in the draft that I sent around to Councilors, which is mostly asking for their input on how to define certain terms the right way.

[Leming]: I'll second that motion.

[Lazzaro]: OK. Do we have any public participation comments? Seeing none in the audience, anybody on Zoom? OK. Seeing none, I on the motion of Vice President Collins, seconded by Councilor Leming. Yes.

[Hurtubise]: Do you have a motion to add a definition for standing water? and then this has been incorporated, docking out early orders.

[Leming]: Is that correct? Clerk, can you turn your microphone on, please?

[Hurtubise]: Got it, yeah. Did you hear me, Councilwoman?

[Leming]: You may repeat. It's very quiet. I still can't quite. Just for the audio recording. I can hear you. It's just very quiet. I think it's through someone else's mic.

[Lazzaro]: OK. The clerk just clarified that the motion of Vice President Collins, seconded by Councilor Leming, is to clarify definitions in the ordinances and then pass the ordinances on to legal for review.

[Hurtubise]: I can put that.

[Lazzaro]: We had to add a definition for standing water also. And to add a definition for standing water will be an amendment. So I'll say clarify definitions also. Clarify definitions, yes, okay. Okay, and once you have that written out, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Hurtubise]: Councilor Callahan.

[Callahan]: Yes.

[Hurtubise]: Vice President Collins.

[Collins]: Yes.

[Hurtubise]: Councilor Leming.

[Leming]: Yes.

[Hurtubise]: Councilor Tseng.

[Tseng]: Yes.

[Hurtubise]: Chair Lazzaro.

[Lazzaro]: Yes. Five in the affirmative, none in the negative. The motion passes. Thank you, Vice President Collins for bringing this forward and for your work on these. It's not very glamorous, but it is very necessary, and it's going to move forward in a way that is timely and useful for our city. So it's much appreciated. Thank you, Director O'Connor as well for your work on this and for bringing it to our attention. Are there any other motions, Vice President Collins?

[Collins]: Yeah, if I may, I'd love to run quickly through the road and control ordinance updates. Thank you. This one is a little more I think it's equally straightforward, but it's a little more complicated because we're updating an existing ordinance. So I would be happy to just quickly summarize what I've added, or I could also quickly share my screen and just go through it, walk through it for our Councilors and the public. And just, I just wanna, make sure that we run through it very quickly before we... I would also make a motion to incorporate any suggestions from councillors, continue to work with Director O'Connor to further tweak these updates and then submit this for legal review as well. So I defer to my councillors. And if we would like to see it on the screen and go through it section by section, again, very quickly, or if a summary would be sufficient.

[Leming]: Summary's good for me.

[Lazzaro]: Yes, I would favor a summary. Any other preferences? It seems like a summary is good.

[Collins]: Great, can do. So again, this is along many of the same goals that we have already discussed. And this is just a bit more for Councilors to read through because it is updates to the existing ordinance. What I am suggesting here in incorporating some of the new goals that we've heard from Director O'Connor for this ordinance to give the health department more tools to do the enforcement that they need to do. In adding those, I think that it would be helpful for us to do some light reorganization of the ordinance. So in the draft that I passed around to councilors prior to this meeting, which again, I will have the clerk attached to the committee report. I think that up until now, the ordinance has mostly been about definitions and then permitting requirements for commercial properties. Things that they have to do to get a permit as it pertains to rodent control, such as creating an integrated pest management plan, what has to be involved in that plan, what to do if they don't follow that plan, etc. A lot of what Director, or not a lot of, but some of the cornerstone of what Director O'Connor and I are trying to do in these updates is to put it all in the same ordinance, what we expect of commercial properties, what we expect of residential properties and what we expect of different types of residential properties. So I'm suggesting that we add in those goals that we discussed the first meeting and then reorganize the ordinance so that it kind of sets our purpose and goals up top, talks about residential properties, and then it talks about commercial properties, including all of those rules around integrated pest management plans and whatnot. So that draft does move around the sections a little bit and I propose that we just finalize the section numbers once everything is actually solidified. I have kind of slotted in everything that Director O'Connor and I have spoken about with goals for the updated ordinance. There are some specific questions that I have on wording, language sufficiency, making sure that things are phrased in such a way that it'll be seamlessly enforceable for city officials, to make sure that things are phrased in such a way that it will be really easy for residents and property owners to understand what is expected of them. So that's the type of thing that I would just like to get another round of feedback from city staff on and also get feedback during the legal review on to make sure that this language is where it ought to be. This ordinance also, One thing, another specific thing that I'd be looking for input from legal counsel on is one goal of the health department was to have different levels of fines for noncompliance with the rodent control ordinance from residential buildings with less than three units versus residential buildings with more than three units. I thought that there's kind of a fairness factor to having a heavier penalty for failure to do anything about rodent prevention and mitigation be levied upon condo buildings, apartment buildings, buildings that are run more similarly to commercial buildings, as opposed to your single families, your duplexes, your triplexes, owner-occupied buildings, which I think makes a lot of sense, but I want some guidance to make sure that we're just phrasing that the right way since ordinance fines are governed by state law and how we may allocate those fines. So I'm just calling that as a specific question that we put into legal counsel. Just running through to see if there's anything else major that I want to make sure that Councilors are aware of in this draft. And I don't believe that there are. I think I have several more nitty gritty language questions that I'd like to forward along to legal counsel, which were included in the markup version that was circulated to Councilors, and that will be attached to the committee report. But apart from that, the other major change in this ordinance is that it specifically, you know, It doubles down on the language for designating the rodent control account. And this newly states that integrated pest management permit fees will be deposited into the rodent control account, which is new as of these updates. I think those are the major points that I wanted to flag, the most substantial points that I wanted to flag from the update, but I defer to Director O'Connor if there's anything that we've missed or anything that she'd like to add or underline.

[Lazzaro]: Director O'Connor, is there anything you'd like to add?

[O'Connor]: I thank you. Um, no, I appreciate again, appreciate so much Vice President Collins work on this. I have minor tweaks that we can I can put in tomorrow. I think the issue of the more than three units, you know, needs to be addressed. And, you know, I know, again, going obviously through legal counsel, but the 21D, I think we could do the, you know, one, two, $300, and then daily, I mean, that's an issue too, daily fines after noncompliance. I'd like to have that maybe discussed with legal. But I know we did talk about potentially for the, the bowel replacement, maybe having that first time be waived. I'm not sure if we got any feedback back from DBW if that's even possible, but that might lessen the burden for some. And I believe that, again, Composting, you know, we're talking about that. The city has that new curbside composting, which is supposed to really assist with the rodent issue. But if folks are gonna do the private backyard composting, I appreciate the language here. That requires it to be done properly with a locking lid, et cetera. So I think that would be my major. The only thing, 614 C eradication measures as reasonably required by the Board of Health director. I would exclude the word director and just say the Board of Health. It's just a minor.

[Collins]: What section was that, Director O'Connor?

[O'Connor]: Section 614, I think. Yeah. We have two C's, we might have two C's. Under duty to respond to infestation of rodent burrows on the second page. Paragraph one.

[Collins]: Okay, got it.

[O'Connor]: Yes.

[Collins]: Thank you.

[O'Connor]: And then my only other Minor. Input would be under 6-112A. Complaints about rodent activity, I would say, would be directed to the health department as opposed to handled to in case it may be under the purview of code enforcement or the building department. So it would be that complaints about rodent activity would be directed to the health department, and then we would be able to refer to the appropriate department if necessary. But again, thank you very much for your work on this. Truly appreciate it.

[Collins]: Thank you so much, Director O'Connor. And I would just note one thing I neglected to mention that was also sent around to councillors is the fee schedule that describes that the fees attached to integrated pest management, fees for rodent control issues that are attached to street openings are referenced in this ordinance, but those are governed by Appendix A, which is our fee schedule. So there are also proposed updates to that, which I will finalize, run by legal counsel, and attach to the updated version of this ordinance that comes before this committee at our next meeting date on this topic. So thank you so much for those comments, and I'd be, if there aren't any other comments or questions from councilors, I would make a motion to continue to incorporate feedback from Director O'Connor, run relevant sections of this update by the Commissioner of Public Works, Building Commissioner, run the section on composting by Director Hunt, and then get a legal review of the document, and also get some input from city staff on the updated fee schedule. And then when all of those documents are complete, keep this in committee and meet again after the legal review.

[Lazzaro]: The current fee schedule is not, it's kind of a proposed new amount section as you're waiting on legal to help fill that in.

[Collins]: Yeah, legal or just professional insight. Yeah. As with the rest of our updating of the fee schedule across various departments, just want to make sure that we're in line with what other communities are doing.

[Lazzaro]: Understood. Okay, great. Can you repeat the motion for me? Oh, you got it. Yes, please.

[Hurtubise]: This is what I have so that we can edit from there if we need to. Vice President Collins moved to continue to incorporate feedback from Director O'Connor, the Commissioner of Public Works, the Building Commissioner, and Director Hunt, and to seek legal input while keeping this paper in committee until legal review is complete or until all department review is complete, or how do you wanna word that?

[Collins]: How about until legal review and all department review is complete?

[Hurtubise]: Until legal review and all department review is complete, okay.

[Lazzaro]: Okay, do we have a second? Seconded by Councilor Callahan. On the motion of Vice President Collins, seconded by Councilor Callahan. Mr. Clerk, can you please call the roll?

[Hurtubise]: Give me a quick second, please.

[Lazzaro]: Take your time.

[Hurtubise]: Councilor Callahan? Yes. Vice President Collins? Yes. Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Tseng? Yes. Chair Lazzaro?

[Lazzaro]: Yes. Five in the affirmative, none in the negative. The motion passes. Thank you again for this important work. I especially appreciate updating this with the new rules about composting and seeing all the compost bins around town. with their beautiful locking lids that everybody should use and love because they're great. Do we have another item to discuss or another motion perhaps?

[Leming]: Motion to adjourn.

[Collins]: Motion to keep the papers in committee and adjourn.

[Lazzaro]: Okay, on Vice President Collins' motion seconded by Councilor Leming, let's say that. Mr. Clerk, can you please call the roll?

[Hurtubise]: Councilor Callahan? Yes. Vice President Collins? Yes. Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Tseng? Yes. Chair Lazzaro?

[Lazzaro]: Yes. Five in the affirmative, none of the negative. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you all. Thank you, Director O'Connor so much.

Lazzaro total time: 6.56 minutes total words: 801	Collins total time: 14.6 minutes total words: 2429	Callahan total time: 0.19 minutes total words: 47	Leming total time: 0.27 minutes total words: 53
Tseng total time: 0.0 minutes total words: 1