AI-generated transcript of Governance Committee Meeting via Zoom

[Hurtubise]: Thank you very much.

[Bears]: Test one, two.

[Tseng]: technical issues first. 27 to 2025. Welcome to our first meeting of 2025. Mr. Clerk, can you please call the roll?

[Hurtubise]: President Bears

[Bears]: Present

[Hurtubise]: Vice President Collins

[Collins]: Present

[Hurtubise]: Councilor Lazzaro

[Lazzaro]: Present

[Hurtubise]: Councilor Scarpelli

[Scarpelli]: Present.

[Hurtubise]: Chair Tseng.

[Tseng]: Present. Five present, none absent. We also have Councilor Callahan in attendance with us as well. Resolution 24-468, Resolution to Discuss Updates to the City Charter. We received from the mayor's office the Charter Study Committee's recommendations along with a letter from the mayor. I believe that all councilors received this in their inboxes. We also have printed copies in front of our councilors tonight, if you prefer to look at everything through print. I wanted to use this meeting to set us up for success in the next few meetings. There's some tasks that we have ahead of us. First, I wanted to outline a the upcoming meeting timelines and proposed topics for discussion and get all of your feedbacks on this proposed timeline. I wanna note first that this is flexible. We can move topics around based on what Councilors want to discuss most. And I also want to note that the call-in center will graciously be present at our next three meetings. So our next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, January 22, 2025. Um, I think for that meeting, it would make sense to talk about the preamble article one, which talks about, uh, which is the incorporation of the short title definitions, um, article two about the legislative branch. So very much concerning the city council and what we do, um, and article, um, nine general provisions, section nine to six, which fall in line. Um, I think pair wall with. the other two topics that I mentioned. The meeting following that will be Tuesday, February 4, 2025. The topics I have listed for discussion then are articles three, which concerns the executive branch. So the mayor's office, article five, administrative organization, city departments, etc. Article six, financial procedures for the city, and article seven elections. So more focused, I was thinking that meeting could be more focused on the executive branch and, and those powers of the city. And then for the final meeting for which we have the Collins Center with us, that would be Wednesday, February 19th, 2025. And what I have listed down there are kind of the rest of the articles I haven't mentioned yet, but which are big topics that might need a good amount of focus and a good amount of conversation. Articles 4, which regards the school committee, Article 8, which is about citizen participation mechanisms, and Article 9, all the other sections of the general provisions that we won't have gotten to in the first deep dive meeting. Let me pause there first and ask my fellow councillors if they have any ideas about that proposed timeline, if there's anything that they'd want to shift around, any topics they would want to cover in a different order or cover first. Council President Bears, give me one sec.

[Bears]: here we go. Thank you Chair Tseng. I appreciate the work that you've put into outlining a timeline for the council to consider the proposed draft from the mayor based on the recommendations of the Charter Study Committee. I think that this timeline makes sense. My biggest concern is around inviting the participation of the school committee and the other boards and commissions. So I think having that as our final meeting gives them time to provide feedback. I have heard from some members of the school committee and some chairs of boards and commissions that they would like to provide some feedback on the proposed draft. So giving them as much time as possible to do that, I believe makes a lot of sense. Of course, the mayor has already reviewed this document and made, I believe, changes from the initial recommendations of the study committee to what we see here today. So having that be the second meeting also makes sense to me and discussing all of that, but I just wanted to note that she had a swing at this already. Um, and then I think, you know, our first meeting being discussing the council also makes a lot of sense, uh, because we haven't had a look at this yet. Um, this is our first look and we are likely, I think, to make some changes and amendments similar to what the mayor has done. So, um, I think this is a good timeline. I do have a few motions that I want to make towards the end of the meeting after we hear more discussion around just have some questions, some thoughts around procedures and how we'll get more information and of course solicit that input from the school committee and the boards and commissions. But I'm also really interested to hear what my fellow Councilors think about the draft that we see so far. what articles may need the most attention versus what articles may not need as much. And then I also think, and it's technical, I think we may, there's also a question about article 10, which I just don't think we listed. That's okay. It's just transitional provisions. So I think it's really not actually it basically just says everything continues as this moves forward. But we may want to talk about that towards the end as well. But I think I don't really that seems to be really technical and more just about. the form of how adopting this new charter impacts the existing charter. So I don't think that would be of significant discussion. At least I don't think so. Thank you.

[Tseng]: President Bears, just to clarify, are you saying that maybe we can take up Article 10 at the end of our last meeting? Yeah. Okay. Do any other councilors have any comments? I know there's some folks watching at home, by the way, just to clarify that general provision section 9-6 is about, I believe it's about review city ordinances. So that's why I was thinking that we could do that with the other city council related legislative branch provisions. Seeing, oh, Vice President Collins, give me one sec.

[Collins]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. I know there's been a lot of people who have put a lot of work into this document so far, and it's exciting to be at this stage in the process where we can review kind of an interim result from those many months, I mean, more than months, years of work. I think we have to take into account the years of advocacy for an updated charter that resulted in the process that we're now a part of. So that's really exciting to see how this is progressing, exciting to have it before us. And it is quite a lot to go through. Over the past couple of weeks, I've been going through section by section and just noting notes and questions. And I think the way to break this down, I think the framing to me makes a lot of sense of thinking about what is closest to our work as a body. what do we really require meeting with other bodies, the school committee, other department heads on to get that context from how it affects their work and structuring how we'll go through this document, structuring a timeline around that. At the same time, I know that we have a pretty strict timeline if we want the legislature to be able to take up the final result of our action this term, which I know we very much do. we have to make sure that we're doing all of this work on a pretty timely pace. So I think that this is ambitious, but I think that it's doable. This is going to be a very major project for the City Council this spring. I think it will become apparent to us as we go through these first three meetings, if we need any additional input, if we need any additional time on, you know, for example, the more technical procedural things at the end if we run out of time for those because we're talking about the more substantive governance related topics with the call and sender. But I think this is doable. And I think that this is a, this is an area where, you know, we can say as a city council, we know that we have to allocate a lot of resources to this project over the next three or four months, because it has a really, you know, because it has a really defined timeline on it, but I like the way you've laid it out. I think it makes sense to talk about the sections that impact the City Council most directly first, certainly the ones that I flipped to first. I think that, you know, not to say that it's the only section that's germane to our work, Most of the highlighting that I did was in the executive section around financial procedures and the annual budgeting process, and that affects our work very intimately as well. I think it makes sense to give ourselves and city staff a little bit more time to get together our notes and our questions for that meeting in February. That'll be a very substantive one. So I think this is a great plan to start out with. And thank you for your work in structuring it.

[Tseng]: Thank you. Thank you for those comments. I think it's helpful to hear what sections you found to be the most subject to highlighting. And I think that's helpful to know because I think that will guide how we distribute time. To note, We are working on a timely basis just to make sure we can get the legislature fast enough so that we can put it on the ballot this fall for Medford voters, at least that's the goal. One of the things that we've been working out in scheduling, we've been thinking about in scheduling is maybe, if needed, a fourth meeting to summarize and wrap stuff up, make technical procedures though. I think that's something to keep in mind. But the goal is to get this out of committee by the end of February slash early March, in my opinion. Do any other councillors want to talk about sections that they might want to discuss more slash delegate more time to, or any more general thoughts about the timeline that we've been discussing? President Bears, are you requesting? Okay, I see no questions about that. I guess, do we have any more general comments outside of that line of questioning, Vice President Collins?

[Collins]: Thank you. Yeah, and just another note on timeline I'm thinking as I'm looking over the list thinking about, you know, what are the topics that we're going to have the heaviest discussion about and what are the topics that the public is most likely to be have the most questions about. be most keenly interested in. Obviously, they're spread throughout this timeline, but I could see, especially with the proposed changes to board representation and at-large representation, I think it makes sense to have elections not be the very first thing that we take up to give people time to save the day, to know to turn out, because that is a change that I know a lot of people have been advocating for, that people will want to be able to have noticed before that discussion.

[Tseng]: I think similar to that note, I think this gives us time to focus and hone in on different sections of the charter and talk to different stakeholders and different experts. And that's something to consider when we move forward with this too. with regards to more specific ideas about amendments or suggested changes or more general sections that we just want to review. I did want to ask this committee to think about how we might want to submit feedback before ahead of meetings so that, because there's so much information to deal with, so that we can organize that information first before we go into these upcoming meetings about them, and to consider ways that we can address questions before the actual meeting themselves. I didn't know if any councilors had any ideas about that. I see President Bears has requested.

[Bears]: Thank you. Yeah, and I just wanted to note to Councilor Collins point the composition questions. I think some of the main concerns are going to be the composition and term length of the different bodies that we would discuss the council as our part of it's part of Article two, the mayor is part of Article three, and then the school committee is part of Article four. So those would be happening across the three separate meetings. It's probably, I think, actually good considering that those are certainly major suggested changes being proposed. Also, compensation is across those three. So that's just another thing we're going to have to take a look at, maybe put to bed forever, which I think everyone would appreciate. And I do have some thoughts on feedback. My first thought is that councilors, and it's obviously not necessarily, you know, folks are going to have ideas and questions in the moment, and it's not to preclude that, but to request if folks do have suggested changes or questions in advance, I would move that we request that councilors submit those in writing to the clerk. by the Thursday before the upcoming meeting so that those can be added into the packet for all of us to see and take a look at. and also to request that Councilors submit questions for the call-in center to Chair Tseng by the one week before the meeting, just so we can give them some time to prepare. That doesn't mean we won't have questions in the moment or that answers to our questions may spawn new questions, which I think we've seen, but I just think getting some of that in writing earlier will help the call-in center come prepared, help us come prepared. So that would be my motion to request councilors submit in writing points of discussion or specific amendments on the Thursday prior to each meeting on the topics for each meeting and to submit questions for the call-in center to Chair Tsang one week prior to each meeting so that Chair Tsang can submit those to the call-in center.

[Tseng]: Great. We can take votes at the end, but do we have a second for that motion? Seconded by Councilor Lazzaro. Great. Do we have any thoughts about requesting feedback from any stakeholders or other elected officials of the city? I know much of these charter changes will affect them as well. President Bears?

[Bears]: you chair saying yeah I have I can just go through my the rest of what I have I'd also make a motion to request that feedback from the school committee and any boards and commissions be received by Wednesday February 12th for consideration for the meeting on February 19th and of course this can be submitted earlier than that if there are topics that boards and commissions or the school committee want to discuss in those first two meetings, but I think a lot of that, I think there's a bunch of stuff about multi-member bodies in the section in Article 9, the school committee in Article 4. So that last meeting seems to be where most of that discussion would happen, so that's where I'm suggesting that motion. And then I'd also make a motion to, well, if you want to consider that, I can do my motion.

[Tseng]: Okay. Do we have a second for President Bears' motion about getting feedback from the school committee and members of other multi-member bodies? Seconded by Councilor Lazzaro. We can take a vote on, we can join and take a vote on all of them at the end.

[Bears]: Okay, great. My third motion would be requesting that the Collins Center provide a memorandum, if possible, outlining which provisions of this draft, one, make no change to the existing charter, two, change provisions of the existing charter, and three, create new provisions which aren't included in the existing charter. And that is just, you know, I have a decent idea of that, but I'm not 100% sure. I can email that to you, Mr. Clerk.

[Hurtubise]: I can email it to you right now.

[Tseng]: Do we have a second for that motion?

[Bears]: Sorry, yeah, it's just requesting a memorandum if they could possibly, and I get maybe it's not possible for them to do this, but to outline for this draft, what is not changing what is changing and what is brand new, essentially. Because I think that comparative, you know, one of the reasons we're doing this is because the charter is so opaque. So, yeah.

[Tseng]: Also seconded by Councilor Lazzaro. Thank you. Did you have any more motions or?

[Bears]: Yeah, I just had one last one and it's just to and I'm just getting this to the clerk.

[Hurtubise]: No worries.

[Bears]: Great. And I just emailed it as well, but my last request is just that the mayor included an announcement, the upcoming dates for these meetings in like the city of Medford events update online by text and by robocall, just so that folks are informed that these are the upcoming meetings for the city charter process for the council.

[Tseng]: I think that makes a lot of sense. I see Councilor Lazzaro seconded that motion as well. I think it can also, as Councilors ourselves, if we could post on social media pages to make sure that people know that these meetings are happening and how they're structured. so they know which meetings that they're interested in, they can come to. And we might have some resident services listening groups in the meantime, we'll make sure to get the word out on that front as well. Are there any other motions before we consider those motions? I don't see any. I'll move to public participation right now. There aren't any people in person, so if you're online, please raise your hand. Please use the raise hand function on Zoom, and I will make sure to call on you. I don't see any hands raised on Zoom either, Do I have a motion possibly to join and approve?

[Bears]: I move to join the motion and approve.

[Tseng]: So President Bears has moved to join the motions he's made and approve. That's been seconded by Councilor Lazzaro. So Mr. Clerk, when you're ready.

[Hurtubise]: President Bears.

[Bears]: Yes.

[Hurtubise]: Vice President Collins, Councilor Lazzaro, Councilor Scarpelli.

[Tseng]: Yes.

[Hurtubise]: Chair Tseng.

[Tseng]: Yes. Five in affirmative, none against. Motion passes. And before we adjourn, I just wanted to thank, I see a lot of members of the Charter Study Committee on Zoom today. I wanted to thank you for your work, thank the mayor's office for reviewing this and putting forward her recommendations to us. This is something that I'm personally very, very excited about. I know I've seen a lot of enthusiasm online in my email inboxes and my phone inboxes about this. This is a real project that's going to make Medford more modern, more updated, more responsive to a resident. So I'm very, very happy and optimistic about where this is going to go. I think much of this has been collaborative so far. I know, substantively, we have a lot to talk about in the next month, but I'm very, very excited for this. I thank my councillors for showing up today, too, and for contributing to the discourse about this in a positive way. Do I have a motion to adjourn? Councilor, Vice President Collins has made a motion to adjourn. Seconded by Councilor Lazzaro. Mr. Clerk, when you're ready.

[Hurtubise]: President Bears, Vice President Collins, Councilor Lazzaro, Councilor Scarpelli.

[Tseng]: Yes.

[Hurtubise]: Chair Tseng.

[Tseng]: Yes. Five in the affirmative, none absent. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you.

Bears total time: 8.0 minutes total words: 1182	Tseng total time: 12.38 minutes total words: 1441	Collins total time: 3.54 minutes total words: 687	Lazzaro total time: 0.1 minutes total words: 1
Scarpelli total time: 0.1 minutes total words: 1