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[Bears]: Medford city council committee of the whole January 21 2025 is called the order Mr. please call the roll.
[Hurtubise]: That's a Calhoun. Vice President Collins present. That's a little Zorro. That's a lemon. That's a script Kelly present.
[Bears]: 7 present, none absent. The meeting is called to order. Action and discussion items, paper 25014, submitted by the Community Preservation Committee, January 2025, Community Preservation Act funding recommendations. Dear, to the Honorable President and members of the Medford City Council, Medford City Hall, regarding Community Preservation Act funding recommendations for the January 21st, 2025 Community of the Whole. On behalf of the Community Preservation Committee, I humbly submit to this body the following recommendations for Community Preservation Act funding appropriations accompanied by individual project descriptions and details. Affordable Housing Trust initial tranche funding, 250,000. Oak Grove Cemetery building restoration phase two, 85,000. Playstead Park tennis courts resurfacing, 526,000. Condon Shell Lighting Improvements, $98,285. Council Chamber Window Restoration, $322,500. Shiloh Baptist Church ADA Improvements, Phase 2, $400,000. Unitarian Universalist Church Exterior Restoration, $99,000. ABCD, Action for Boston Community Development. Medford Move-In Program, $100,000. Respectfully submitted, Teresa DuPont, Community Preservation Act Manager. And I figure I can turn it over to you and we can take it in that order if that works for you. Teresa, great. I'm not touching anything.
[DuPont]: There we go.
[Bears]: The manager.
[DuPont]: Good evening. Thank you very much for your time in gathering today to hear about our fiscal 25 Community Preservation Act applications. I'm joined a little bit on remote on Zoom as well as some lovely folks here in the room to discuss the merit of their applications. I have a very brief presentation just to kind of kick it off to share with everybody just to kind of acquaint folks with what CPA is all about and hopefully this will work well for me. All right. So again, we're here today to talk about our fiscal 25 CPA applications annually. We hold an application round where folks bring their projects to us. We weigh the applications. This is the next step. All of the applications that you're about to hear have been approved and recommended for funding by the CPC. The next step for all who are listening is for appropriation requests to be approved by this body. Just a really quick recap on what CPA is. It was voted in by ballot measure in November 2015. We started seeing revenues generated in fiscal year 18. It is a 1.5% surcharge on top of your taxes. So it's not a huge bucket of money, but every year we bring in somewhere between 1.8 and $2 million. some years more, some years less. So to date, for the first six years that we've been funding projects, around here on the bottom, we've given out about $13.2 million, reinvesting back into the community. So tonight, this is a very brief overview of the applications. There are slides that kind of go into a little bit more detail here. But overall, the applications that you'll be hearing tonight, Carr Park Phase 2 and Riverside Plaza, those were actually already approved by this honorable body earlier. So you'll be hearing from the Affordable Housing Trust for their initial startup funding. They have none, so this is just kind of an initial seed money, if you will. We'll be hearing from DPW Commissioner McGivern on the Oak Grove building restoration, as well as Playset Park Tennis Courts resurfacing project. We'll be joined by Director Bailey to speak on the condon shell lighting improvements. I will circle back on the council chamber window restoration. This is a project that this body has heard before. We'll explain that one when we get to that project. We're also joined by our community members here at the Shiloh Baptist Church for phase two of their ADA improvements. our friends at the Unitarian Universalist Church for exterior building restoration, some just siding work, if you will, as well as our partners at EBCD to continue the Medford Move-In program, which is a rental assistance program here in the city. I'm going to pause to see if there's any initial questions. Otherwise, I will go ahead and invite Aditi Mavor and Lisa Davidson from our housing trust to come up and speak about their project, if there were no questions.
[Bears]: Any questions by members of the council at this time? seeing Councilor Lazzaro.
[Lazzaro]: I am a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Medford. I think I should recuse myself from that portion of the discussion for tonight.
[Bears]: I think that's fine. You also don't stand to benefit personally from it. So it's probably a mixed case, but it's fine. We'll just mark you present when we vote on it. Maybe we can sever that vote.
[DuPont]: And just to clarify, we're not voting on recommendations tonight, correct? That will be at the next regular city council or can we vote from- We're referring them to the regular meeting.
[Bears]: Okay, I just wanted to clarify that. Yeah.
[DuPont]: Thank you. It's only my second time doing this.
[Bears]: No, no, you're doing great.
[Moogoor]: Thank you, Teresa, for the brief introduction. Good evening, members of the City Council. I'm Aditi Mugur. I staff the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Joining with me this evening is Ms. Lisa Ann Davidson, who's the chair of the trust. And I believe vice chair, Ms. Penelope Taylor is virtually present, along with Roberta Cameron, who's one of the trustees and also the CPC chairperson. As you may be aware, Affordable Housing Trust Fund is a newly established board. The ordinance to establish the Affordable Housing Trust Fund was adopted last year by the city council. Thank you. We've had our first Affordable Housing Trust monthly meeting in August last year, and so far we've had six monthly meetings. We've made significant progress. The trust is developing a five-year action plan to identify the city's affordable housing needs and priorities. Since from October to December, the trust has collected housing data information and done some preliminary analysis. And last December and this January, the trust conducted two stakeholder engagement sessions to understand how affordable housing developers and housing stability and supportive service providers understand the needs and of affordable housing developments and services in the city. And then we plan to host a community engagement meeting in March. And probably in mid or late summer, we plan to have the action plan finalized. The trust also signed the Declaration of Trust, which allows the trust to transfer or own property. It also outlines the various rules and regulations of the trust. End of this month or early Feb, we will record the Declaration of Trust at the Registry of Deeds. Here are some project examples that the trust is thinking about. These are not concrete projects. These are just potential examples. As the trust finalizes the action plan, we'll have a more concrete understanding of what the projects are going to be in the next five years. One project example is to explore development of affordable housing on city-owned parcels. The trust could take two different approaches. One is to seek a state grant that does site feasibility and pre-development work on city-owned parcels and also helps develop a request for proposals to solicit bids. This is a technical assistance grant that values between $50,000 to $100,000. To avail this grant, the local municipality has to provide a 10% cash match, so we are hoping to use CPA funds for this. In case we are not successful in getting this grant, we hope to use CPA funds to do site feasibility pre-development work and solicit bids for affordable housing developments. Another project example is to support the construction of new affordable housing, Medford Housing Authorities, Authority Community Development Corporations, Community Housing Development Organization, which is the Medford Community Housing. They all have affordable housing projects, and we aim to support the construction of these projects. We don't have a community land trust yet, but currently we are doing a study on community land trust and we are hoping that moving forward we can support a potential land trust in its projects. The third example is to build a fund to purchase land. As I said, the declaration of trust allows the Board of Trustees to acquire and purchase land, so we're hoping that CPA funds can support this project. The idea is to acquire privately owned parcels, and that is adjoining city-owned parcels to sort of maximize the intensity and scale of the project. The trust could also purchase existing affordable housing units. A third example is to provide down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers. This is to support households whose income is at or below 100% AMI. And the last potential project would be to support rental assistance programs. Currently, we have move in Medford. But in the future, the trust will probably look at the existing rental assistance programs and identify what are the barriers and opportunities and may propose to redesign better rental assistance programs. And we hope that CPA funds can be used to support these programs. In addition to requesting CPA funds, the trust is looking at applying to Mass Housing Grant, as I mentioned earlier, to do some pre-development work on city-owned parcels. And then there's a developer payment coming through a project under Mystic Valley Development Commission. The project is 600 Rivers Edge. We don't have We don't have it in writing yet, but there are negotiations underway. And we're hoping that through the zoning overhaul, we'll introduce a fractional payment as part of the inclusionary housing fee, and this could support the affordable housing trust fund. And lastly, the affordable housing linkage. Once we do a next study, we hope to add affordable housing linkage as part of the existing linkage program. These are some of the potential funding sources that the trust is looking into. To sum up, this is a tentative budget breakdown of CPA funds. The CPA funds could be used for local cash match, and then for acquisition, construction, and support of affordable housing projects. If we don't receive the grant, then we'll probably use approximately $80,000 to do feasibility study and pre-development work of city-owned parcels, and then the remaining funds for acquisition, construction, and support of affordable housing. So in total, we are requesting $250,000 from CPC. We hope that this request is approved. Thank you for your time. And if you have any questions, we're happy to answer.
[Bears]: Thank you very much. Do we have any questions from members of the council?
[Leming]: Councilor... No questions, just like to say I'm very glad to see this get up and running. And I fully support the initial investment of the Affordable Housing Trust.
[Moogoor]: Thank you.
[Leming]: Thank you, Councilor Leming.
[Bears]: Any further questions from members of the Council or comments on this matter? Seeing none, are there any questions or comments from members of the public? Seeing none, thank you very much.
[Moogoor]: Thank you.
[Bears]: Next we'll move to the Oak Grove Cemetery building restoration phase two. And I'll note for applicants, you know, we appreciate the presentation, but you don't have to come with a PowerPoint. We may have had a highly prepared group go first. We just want to hear about your project and be able to ask questions if needed.
[McGivern]: So we'll go to the DPW commissioner, Tim McGivern. President Bears, Councilors, good evening. Tim McGivern, DPW commissioner. Do you have something you want to say?
[DuPont]: I'm just here to support you.
[McGivern]: Okay, okay, cool. So I think you probably know a little bit about this project. So we got this funded last year through the same mechanism that was to bring the project into design development. So just a quick background. The two buildings on the cemetery site are historic and they also are pretty rundown and need a lot of work. So we had a study performed to figure out what that scope of work actually is. and prepared an estimate. And then we sought money for continuing the design past conceptual into design. We got that, and that's being done right now as we speak. And this request would complete the design process. So if we add another $84,000 and change to the design process, that will bring us to construction documents. So that's what is known as shovel-ready documents, which are very useful to then seek construction funding. We don't have it funded to be built yet. has some early estimates in the $7.5 million zone. So the set of plans that is constructible is very important, and this will take us there. That's about it. I'm happy to answer questions on that project.
[Bears]: Thank you, Mr. Commissioner. Any questions on this project by members of the council? Seeing none. I just wondered, Tim, and give me a minute to pull my records together. From the first part of the project, OK, never mind. It's answered right in here. You're estimating $5 to $8 million for the restoration of, yeah.
[McGivern]: Yep. And we'll know a lot more after this milestone, because we'll have a design that can be cost estimated.
[Bears]: OK. And is the idea, have you thought, have you had discussions about potential funding sources for the project?
[McGivern]: we have and getting some historic statuses cleaned up with the state. So we'll be working on that, you know, as we kind of plug along here. So.
[Bears]: Great. Thank you. Seeing no questions on this project for members of the council. Are there any questions by members of the public, either in the chamber or on zoom? Seeing none. Thank you. Commissioner McGovern, we can move to ours. Mr. Bailey's still in the parks commission meeting.
[DuPont]: resurfacing was up while we still have Mr. McGivern.
[Bears]: Oh, great. You're on that one. Okay, fantastic. Then we'll go to that. And it says DPW, so that makes sense, too. If you want to present the project for Playset Park tennis court resurfacing for $526,000.
[McGivern]: Absolutely. So this one is pretty simple. The difference between similar projects in the past is this one is much larger. The Playset courts are five tennis courts. 22,000 square feet of tennis court. So just using the cost to resurface something like that, you'll land in the 526,000 zone for an estimate. So that's what this would do, would resurface that entire court. If you've seen it recently, you know that there are large cracks developing in the court that are sort of detrimental to tennis play. It's one of our more popular areas for tennis. and it doesn't have too much time left. So the idea is to bring it back to life with new nets and fence, and we'll try to make a little, I'm gonna try to fix the parking lot a little bit while we're there. So that's gonna be that project. And that's the dirt parking area? Yeah, that kind of ruts out all the time, and I'm gonna try to, while we have all kinds of paving equipment there, I'm gonna see if we can add a little bit onto it and see if we can fix it up a bit.
[Bears]: Any questions by members of the council? Councilor Callahan and then Councilor Lazzaro. And then Councilor Scarpelli.
[Callahan]: Thank you. Hello. Great to see you. I am curious, just because of the information I know about our roads, that once they get past a certain deterioration rate, then they become a lot more expensive to repair. And I'm curious about tennis courts. Is there that kind of a lifecycle where they should be repaired within a certain number of years, and then it becomes more expensive, only noticing that this is the most expensive item on our list? So I'm curious if that's something that we could pay less for in the future by repairing them earlier?
[McGivern]: Possibly. Possibly. But my experience thus far has been the cracks begin to develop. And if you seal them, like we tried at what the heck was the park? Barry Park. at Barrie Park, you run into different problems that make it difficult to play. There's a difference between bouncing a ball on the surface and driving the car over it. So when we do preventative maintenance on asphalt, which we'll talk about later, we're doing things like crack sealing and patching, box out patching, which leaves seams and kind of protects the surface for longer as it degrades. But with playable surfaces, especially tennis, quality of the surface comes right through the cracks that usually begin in the base. So to summarize, we have tried to just recondition the surfaces and we just end up with bigger problems down the line. So once these large cracks develop, it indicates that there's a problem much deeper, a foot or two or more down in the pavement itself, in the base of the pavement. So really the only way to resolve that and have a nice playing surface worth the money that you're going to spend on it is to pulverize the asphalt, recompact, regrade, and put a new surface on the top.
[Callahan]: Thank you so much.
[McGivern]: You're welcome.
[Bears]: Thank you. Councilor Lazzaro and then Councilor Skripal and Councilor Lazzaro.
[Lazzaro]: Thank you for presenting this. They are in pretty rough shape. I've played there every once in a while. It's very fun. It's a great asset to our community, so I'm glad we're addressing it. I was wondering if you could speak to, you may not have these numbers, but since it does mention in the report that It's rented by outside organizations. So this being something I think we should keep in mind that this is an expensive item, but it is also an income generating item. So it does make sense for us to put more money into it. It's bringing money into the community. Do you know how much money it like these courts rent for or how much it brings in?
[McGivern]: I don't know. I know that's handled through the rec department. Is Kevin here? I don't know if he could answer that question. OK. But if you see him later, he might be able to answer that.
[Lazzaro]: Maybe for our next time talking about it, it'll have to be at the regular meeting, too, right? So that could. Sure.
[Bears]: Yeah, I think there's a Parks Commission meeting happening in room 201 that he's in. I'm not 100% sure. So yeah. That's probably it, yeah.
[Lazzaro]: It's a curiosity for me more than anything. I just think that it's worth noting when we have facilities that are part of our city assets that if we can keep them up and then they bring other organizations into the city that pay rent. And our pool is one of the things, the high school, tennis courts, various recreational facilities.
[McGivern]: I would say this is one of those areas. It's a very popular court. It's always full. It's seems to be very dedicated to tennis program. So thank you. You're welcome. And I'm hoping the bids coming under that too. By the way. Thank you. Councilor Scarpelli.
[Scarpelli]: Thank you, President Villes. Um, I know that, um, when you look at the financial impacts to resurface, um, um, place that I know that our high school team uses that, uh, those courts and if those courts are not playable like in my profession where we've lost our courts for our high school team. We then have to bus our high school teams off site to support their practices. So I think that I know the high school uses it during the spring season. I know that Kevin does use it a lot with with outside groups or with recreation groups that bring in funding. So I think it's important that, especially as we're seeing pickleball grow, keeping tennis-only courts, especially when you're looking for a facility that is what placed it is, having, I believe, four courts, three or four courts. you know, the programming to be dedicated to tennis and it doesn't, it's not interrupted like what you see at over at Duggar Park, which is a huge benefit, but it also has to, has to be shared. So I think that's a huge piece to take in consideration, the money that's that's saved in the trickle down effect back to our budget when it comes down time to vote every little penny counts. So I know that that's a huge benefit for our high school athletic program. So thank you.
[Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Any further questions, members of the council? I don't want to bring up any third rails, but is this going to remain tennis only? or?
[McGivern]: The direction I have right now is that it's tennis only.
[Bears]: Thank you. Any questions by members of the public on the Placeland Park Tennis Court resurfacing? Seeing no hands on Zoom, no one in the chamber. Thank you, Commissioner. You're welcome. Move next to Condon Shell Lighting Improvement.
[DuPont]: And I'll speak on behalf of Director Bailey. This is a project that was discussed at length with the committee. So we're very excited to see this project because what this will do will bring field lighting to the stage performance area of Condon Shell. Currently, there are light fixtures there that are non-functioning. So if the sun goes down, go home, the concert's over. So this would extend the season as well as the daily usage of the Condon Shell for performances, which is great. This would also install pathway lighting, as you can see in this picture here, the P5, P4, and P3, that's pathway lighting that leads from the parking lot area to the backside of the Condon Shell. Currently, Actually, I even walked it this weekend. There's just string lights there. As anybody who goes to the farmer's market knows that that's the lighting that they rely on for the late season farmer's market is string lighting. So this would install permanent fixtures. It would allow for the recreation department to manage it by a remote app. So no more, oh, let me run down and unlock the door and flip the switch. It's now boop. So this would make it a heck of a lot more efficient for our recreation. as well as just our city staff. And I apologize, it does look like Director Bailey has a conflict, but if there are any questions, I can certainly try to answer them or take them back to Director Bailey and have them for our next regular meeting.
[Bears]: Thank you, Mayor Dupont. I'll go to Councilor Scarpelli.
[Scarpelli]: Thank you. I'm so happy to see this on the agenda that we're going to entertain this because I think that safety is the biggest concern, especially what we're seeing for activities at the Shell, not just for shows or entertainment, but for our farmers market and the ability to light that area, I think is so important. I think when you look at that, the other piece that you see is As a recreation employee, as soon as we went to to Moscow lighting, we realized the cost savings that directly came back to our city and our department because of the fact that with the old system of lighting. 1, it was archaic and to the. understanding of someone sending somebody down to flick a switch and then come back later to flick the switch again would cost you four hours in overtime and that adds up believe it or not so musco lighting has been a godsend to municipalities so i think that it really saves when you look at finances and a hidden cost that really pays off at the end. So I'm glad to see this and I would support it as well. So thank you.
[Bears]: Thank you Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Leming.
[Leming]: Just looking at this, it says 98,285 on page 9, but I'm seeing 526 right below that on the construction. The 526 is for a playstead, so I apologize if there was an error. Okay. Okay. So, yeah, I was thinking that that might have been a typo. So just want to make sure that that's caught before it's referred to.
[DuPont]: Thank you. Yes, this was a document I prepared. Our actual decision has the correct amount. Thank you for catching that, Councilor. Yes, confirming 98285. Thank you.
[Bears]: Any other questions for members of the Council on the Condon Shell? Seeing none, any questions from members of the public, either in person or on Zoom regarding the Condon Shell? Seeing none, we'll move to the next item we have. Council Chamber Window Restoration. Do you want to take that to the end or do you want to do it now?
[DuPont]: Maybe we can actually come back to that one. Sorry, Paul, if you're listening. That's just a re... It's a proposal to essentially move around funding sources to move it towards the CPA application. So nothing has changed with that project. And I'm sorry if we did wanna move on from it, but nothing has changed with the project. It was just, it kind of aligned with CPA timeline to have it slide into our application round there. saving the stabilization funds for being true emergency funds. So it would be a consideration to rescind the initial request for stabilization funds. And then I hate to use the word swap. I've been trying to not say swap, but change the funding sources to be CPA.
[Bears]: Yeah, because this is a historic preservation project. Yeah.
[DuPont]: And it's in more alignment with the priorities of CPA, you know, it's true historic preservation. So it aligns very well and it does free up that stabilization emergency funds for other, it just kind of all lined up really nicely in this regard, but it would- Using restricted money instead of unrestricted.
[Bears]: Correct.
[DuPont]: Correct.
[Bears]: All right. Do we have any questions on this one? And I just have a procedural note, but I'll wait till, do councilors have questions about this? Councilor Lazzaro.
[Lazzaro]: Just one question. Does it delay the work at all?
[DuPont]: minimally, maybe by a week or two, just because of the procedures. I mean, if everything goes well today and next week, we hope to seek approval from this honorable body next Tuesday at the regular meeting. So just at that point, paperwork, so.
[Bears]: Okay. Is there anything, I'll go to Councilor Leming, and then I'll ask. Go ahead, Councilor Leming.
[Leming]: Would we need to add into that a motion to rescind the money given from the stabilization funds along with that?
[Bears]: We're going to need to figure that out. That was what I was going to bring up. So we're going to need a separate letter from the mayor requesting that we rescind the appropriation of the stabilization fund money. because you can't ask us to do that. No, I can't.
[DuPont]: But it is a project that the CPC has recommended, so we wanted to continue that with our process here, but I will certainly work with the mayor on getting that well in time for next week.
[Bears]: Great, yeah, so that should just be a separate paper on our agenda, because it's an appropriation. I do want to ask if the facilities manager, Paul Riggi, do you have anything you want to add to this?
[Righi]: No, I think Teresa has covered it. The vendor is patiently waiting to start. So as soon as we give them the green light, they're going to get ready to mobilize and get those windows. I think the picture that you're seeing kind of shows the condition of those windows, and I can't wait to bring them back to what they looked like when that chamber was built.
[Bears]: Thank you, Manager Reed. And Paul, I have one other question. Is this going to include, it's going to be restoration of the wood frame windows, does it also include the shades and that?
[Righi]: That is going to be a separate item, which I believe the mayor will be talking later about concerning obtaining some stabilization funding to do the shades and the curtains to bring them back to where they should also be. Great, thank you.
[Bears]: Any further questions by members of the council on the window restoration? Councilor Scarpelli, is your hand up for this?
[Scarpelli]: No, I apologize, Mr. President, it's left up, sorry.
[Bears]: Thank you, just wanted to make sure. All right, on that note, is there any discussion by members of the public on this item? And I can't remember the meeting date, but we did go into a little bit more detail on this project in December or November.
[DuPont]: Yeah, and we'll have those details in the memo.
[Bears]: Great, thank you. Seeing none, we'll move on to the next item, which is our Shiloh Baptist Church ADA improvements phase two, 400,000.
[DuPont]: We are joined today by Mr. Cliff Singleton, who's the project manager, as well as Mr. Bill McIntyre, who is a representative of the church. Awesome. I'm going to turn the pulpit over to you, gentlemen. Thank you very much, councilors.
[Bears]: Welcome to both of you.
[Singleton]: I haven't had the pleasure to go before you before, so any hiccups, let me know.
[Bears]: Absolutely.
[Singleton]: What we're doing here at Shiloh, we're following up on a project that we started last year, and that was to gain accessibility to the lower section of Shiloh Baptist Church with a elevator, and that will allow us to have a daycare put into that facility that will serve the community. And also the community occasionally has meetings with other churches and local people. So that will do a good number of things at one time with short money. We have gone through the design phase. We deleted the building. All the other monies that came last year, we've spent most of that for design, some legal work, some CPA work. So all the things are there for construction. So the design is pretty much finished. You'll just have to probably go to a little sharpening or pencil and come to your building department. And so we're really ready to go, which is a nice feeling. I hope that we will be in favor here to continue this project on and so forth. I know that the daycare is a needed facility in that area and that the experienced daycare person who wants to rent that facility is here, not in this facility, but ready to go. All right. And I would say that the term of starting the construction is your approvals and some minor building kinds of things that will probably have to be done with the building department. So those are the things that we have here today. The church body itself is ready to support whatever effort is needed. So that's where we are today. Do you have any questions?
[Bears]: Do we have any questions by members of the Council? I'll go to Councilor Leming.
[Leming]: No questions again, but I just like to say, I'm glad to see this happening. Glad to see a space being made for a daycare and afterschool programs and welcome to city hall. Thank you.
[Bears]: Thank you. Yes. And seeing no other questions from the council. I also just want to say.
[Scarpelli]: Mr. President, I'm sorry, my hand was up. Councilor Scarpelli. no i apologize i put it up and down so many times i just wanted to make sure that miss dupont just uh just share with the public i know that we've had some questions in the past and i had an email today just that people were questioning whether um how does this fit as if it's not a city facility this is something that i support as a historical building in our community and trying to enhance that and make sure we we provide assistance any way we can to to make sure the Shallow Baptist and I believe the Unitarian Church as well that people understand that there are criteria that we follow that but legally we can use our CPA funds to assist in projects like this. I know that the question that I had today was they weren't against any of these uh the the churches personally but the question was if the tax money is uh is it going to a city owned facility that's what they were confused in so i know that i know if miss dupont can expand expand on that a little bit i know that there are some legalities that show that it absolutely fits into this um this criteria and we're not violating any legal issues, but I just wanted to make sure we had clarification on that because I want to make sure that there's no negativity behind any of these projects. I think they're all worthwhile and in my mind fit the scope of historical and I would support it a thousand percent. But just for that fact, if we can share any information that would help clear some questions some residents that have asked. Thank you.
[Bears]: Thank you.
[DuPont]: Yes, well, I would like to first say that what CPA stands for is Community Preservation Act, and I don't think we should define community by whether it's city owned or publicly owned. It's where we all gather, and churches were one of the original gathering places for communities, if not the only community gathering place. So to address the question here of the legality of tax funding going towards religious organizations. We recognize it as a community space and we're happy to reinvest that funding back in so that the taxpayers of Medford can benefit from it as a public benefit. I'll also share just to address any specific questions that we put into our conditions of funding that no funding can be used in the restoration of for instance, religious imagery. Shiloh Baptist had also, and in other communities, CPA funding has been used to restore many church elements. Perhaps if we look at stained glass, how many stained glass windows you guys have there? Quite a few, right? But the funding cannot be used for any stained glass that has religious imagery or anything like that.
[Singleton]: Because the architect, basically, when he was designing the project, talked a little bit with historical people, because we wanted the addition to be pretty much what the historical society would want if they wanted a facility. So we're not really addressing any of the windows or anything else. So the design will be compatible with what is there.
[DuPont]: And again, that's kind of boilerplate language with other communities as well. That's a very good question, and I'm glad that you raised it, Councilor Scarpelli, because it's important for everybody to understand.
[Scarpelli]: Okay, I appreciate it. I know that there really weren't. It wasn't about just the facility that it was. It was a church. It was that focus. The question was that if it's not a city facility, but I appreciate that answer being that defining that a community exactly what the title title is about. So thank you for clarifying that. And I hope that residents. feel that that's adequate because I think it sure fits the purpose that I believe. So thank you.
[Singleton]: Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
[Bears]: Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. And I just wanted to add as well, I think it's a great project and serving a lot of community benefit out of it. I know daycare and childcare is so essential. And so to have that space be available for that is really wonderful. And I also hope it brings a lot of improvements to the building as well for all the other uses that people use it for.
[Singleton]: Thank you very much.
[Bears]: Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next, we will go to the UU Church exterior restoration.
[DuPont]: I'll advance my slide, but I'm joined by Ms. Liz Ammons from the UU Church.
[Bears]: Great.
[Ammons]: Hi, thank you for carrying this this far with our CPA grant. And I think I'll pick up on what Councilor Scarpelli was talking about, what's the benefit to the city and to the community. And the funding that we're applying for is to make significant repairs that are restorative on the outside of the church. And I'll just touch on three things. One, the church is a really important historical landmark in Medford architecturally. It's an 1894 late Gothic revival structure. It has an immense, gorgeous stained glass window facing High Street. It's a block from the library, so it's in a prominent location in Medford Square. And so for the architectural historicity of the building, it's really important to keep it preserved in Medford. And the second thing is that it's also historically, culturally very important in Medford. It's the direct descendant of the first church in Medford, the Puritan Church, which was built in 1696. It, in the 19th century, was a prominent center of abolitionist activity. Lydia Maria Child grew up in the church, George Luther Stearns. who recruited the famous 54th and 55th regiments, was a member of the church. It was active in women's suffrage and the temperance movement. 20th century, the church was active in the civil rights movement. The Reverend Eugene Adams marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And that legacy has continued into the present of the church being a place that is embracing various community issues and causes and important agendas. So the third thing I want to say, in addition to the architectural importance and the cultural importance historically of the church, is its benefit to the community today. The church provides space rent-free to the community-covered food pantry and has done that for almost 30 years. It's open every Thursday to families in need, serves 70 to 90 clients every week. It rents at very low cost space to AA, to Al-Anon, There are contra dancers, there's a community orchestra that uses the space, Tai Chi class uses the space. So it's a space that is available to the community and is really used by the community. So for those reasons, we are delighted to have the opportunity to apply for CPA restoration funds so the church can continue to be important historically to the city and in a contemporary way to the community.
[Bears]: Wonderful, thank you so much. Any questions or comments by members of the council? Councilor Leming.
[Leming]: Thank you, Liz. Wonderful presentation. I'm glad to see this. Glad to see this coming for the council. Actually, just if you could clarify, Council President Bears, since your comment earlier indicated you might know something about this. So I'm actually also a member of the EAU Church, just like Councilor Lazzaro. Could you clarify sort of the ethics issues behind behind this, if any, or like you mentioned that we could still vote on this, because we're not personally benefiting by this even if we are members of the church.
[Bears]: Yeah, I mean I think it's pretty. The standard test is, do you or any immediate family members or associates stand to benefit financially from your vote? And I don't, I mean, that's your call. I don't know. But unless you are going to be hired by the UU Church to do door restoration or someone in your family, which I don't think either of you are. I've attended a couple of services myself. I plan to vote on this. So that's generally the test. If you don't feel comfortable with it, I think we have the quorum and the votes to move forward without you. But yeah, you're not receiving a personal benefit from this project. Okay. Councilor Lazzaro, and you could check with the Ethics Commission. If you wanted to ask them, you could ask them. You have to ask prior to a vote. So if you abstain tonight, you could ask them in advance of the vote at the regular meeting. You could review their regulations online or review the conflict of interest and ethics trainings that we all have to take every year. But generally, I think you're in the clear on this one. Councilor Lazzaro.
[Lazzaro]: Yeah, I think my impulse was sort of an abundance of caution. And I think you're right. And I will probably abstain tonight, but this isn't the vote to finally, finally approve. So that's probably not a big deal. And just as an example, the mayor abstained from a vote in which her sister was maybe standing to benefit directly financially from something that she would have voted on. So that seems like a clear situation. In this case, it would just be, this is actually a very community-like repair work. It's not a financial benefit to us.
[Bears]: Right, yeah. I mean, unless you were being hired to do the work itself. That's really the only way I could see this being an issue. An example I can give you, in 2020, I and my family, my parents and I had invested in Medford Brewing Company. Prior to that, we had to, I called the ethics commission, we had to divest and sell our investments in order to, for me to vote on the brewpub ordinance because it would have benefited the, because we were investors. But this, I know it's a church, it's a nonprofit organization. You're not shareholders. you're not paid by the organization, nor will you be paid for the work. So that's my general interpretation. All right. Any other questions on the Unitarian University Church's exterior restoration? By members of the council, seeing none, any thoughts, comments, questions by members of the public? Also seeing none, we can move to the last item, which is ABCD move-in assistance.
[DuPont]: Yes, we are joined today by Ntando Dubey and Joshua White from Action for Boston Community Development, ABCD. They're our regional nonprofit organization partner that helps with housing assistance, as well as fuel assistance. Gosh, what else do you do? A little bit of everything.
[Joshua White]: So, good evening members of the council. Again, my name is Joshua white I am the director of housing and homelessness prevention for ABC Boston to my left is Patando Dube, who is my deputy director, it is my pleasure to speak with you tonight about the Medford move in program. whose goal is to provide rental assistance to households that either live in the city of Medford or looking to move into the city of Medford that are at or below 100% AMI. Specifically, it would be to provide first and last month's rent. Our goal would be to serve at least 19 households in the city with a cap of $4,000 per household. In addition to the rental assistance, they would also be receiving counseling services through our support services department, which is part of housing and homeless prevention. And then also they may be eligible for other services at ABCD Boston, like fuel assistance, healthcare, childcare, workforce development, and so on and so on. So that is why we are here today.
[Bears]: Thank you. And I'll go to Councilor Lazzaro. Councilor Lazzaro and then Councilor Caput.
[Lazzaro]: Thank you for being here. I have This is a great program. I know that can be a very prohibitive thing for families, the startup costs of moving, relocating. If you are exiting homelessness, just the beginning, the first month of payments can be really difficult to overcome. So this sounds like a great program. I wanted to ask if there are programs in other communities that you're aware of where the community, the municipality, will cover these costs through different avenues, or if you offer this kind of programming in other cities? Out of curiosity.
[Joshua White]: We do, we do. We currently offer these types of programs within the Mystic Valley itself. We are trying to offer these services in the city of Boston. That has been a challenge, but we are making some inroads.
[Lazzaro]: I heard recently about broker fees being less of an issue soon, maybe, hopefully, or now, I'm not sure. But that seems promising, because that can also be problematic for people. But this seems like a really, really good program and a really good use of our funds. So thank you for your work. Thank you.
[Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Callahan.
[Callahan]: Thanks so much for the work that you do. It's really important. I just wanted a quick, for the record, for folks listening, can you let us know what 100% of AMI is in Bedford? Anyone? I know it's area median. I was just going to look it up, and then I was like, maybe the public should know, too. But off the top of your head, nobody knows.
[DuPont]: I think it's a, don't quote me, I can probably get the numbers exactly for you, but I want to say it's 150-ish per family.
[Bears]: Is it is it is it regional?
[Callahan]: I was looking up. I didn't find it instantly. So, We don't have to stop the meeting for that. I was just, I just thought it'd be interesting information. That's all. Thanks.
[Bears]: Um well, any other questions or comments by members of the Seeing none, I just have one, this is our third year? Third year in a row we're doing the move-in program? Great, thank you. All right. That's for a family of four.
[DuPont]: For a family of four, which is kind of the standard, or a single occupant, is 114. Can I go ahead and stop sharing now?
[Bears]: All right. Well, that is the conclusion. We'd either make a motion to refer, someone could make a motion to refer this to the regular meeting, and you guys could abstain if you want, or we could sever it. I just want to make sure Councilor Lazzaro and Leming feel comfortable. Okay. We'll move to refer everything but the UU paper severed. That's a motion by Councilor Callahan, seconded by Councilor Lazzaro, and I'll go to Councilor Leming for discussion.
[Leming]: Oh, I... You were just gonna do the same thing. Yeah, no, I was, well, I was just gonna say, like, I'm personally comfortable voting yes on it, but just to align with Councilor Lazzaro and keep consistency, I'm just gonna abstain.
[Bears]: Okay if you're both abstaining then I need a second from Councilor Tseng Collins or Scarpelli.
[Scarpelli]: Second.
[Bears]: On the motion by Councilor Callahan, seconded by Councilor Scarpelli to sever off the UU. Mr. Clerk please call the roll and refer to the regular meeting. This is a vote to just take the UU project out and advance it to the regular meeting. Just the UU and then everything else.
[Hurtubise]: Sever UU and then refer everything else to the council.
[Bears]: This is to sever UU and refer UU to the regular meeting. And then we'll vote on everything else in the motion. Yeah. Yes. On the motion, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Hurtubise]: Council Kellyanne. Vice President Collins.
[Bears]: Yes.
[Hurtubise]: Councilor Lazzaro. Councilor Leming. Councilor Scarpelli.
[SPEAKER_14]: Yes.
[Hurtubise]: Councilor Tseng.
[SPEAKER_14]: Yes.
[Hurtubise]: President Paris.
[Bears]: Yes. By the affirmative, two present, the motion passes. Is there a motion to refer the remaining papers to the regular meeting? On the motion of council, I'm going to refer the remaining by council Lazzaro. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. It was, uh, Councilor Leming and Councilor Lazzaro was the second.
[Hurtubise]: Yeah. Councilor Calderon? Vice President Collins?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Hurtubise]: Councilor Lazzaro? Yes. Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli?
[Bears]: Yes. I mean, from the negative, the motion passes. Anything else anyone would like to add?
[DuPont]: Just a big thank you, if I may. I appreciate it. This is the culmination of a year's work of the committee, so we appreciate very much your support of these projects. Everybody's left, but thanks, Mr. McGovern, and thank you to the church for coming to help support us. So thank you very much.
[Bears]: Thank you, yes. And you can let folks know, you know, next week is relatively pro forma. If folks want to come on Zoom, that's fine. We won't be asking questions. People don't have to take the time out. you know the uncertainty of the council agenda never know how long it'll take appreciate that we're hoping to work on that a little bit but okay i can't make motions on the motion of anyone else to adjourn on the motion of council i mean to adjourn seconded by Councilor Callahan, and I'll just remind everyone we do have coming up in probably about five minutes, Public Works and Facilities Committee discussing some roads updates and volunteer tree planting program that we'd like to get off the ground. So on the motion, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll to adjourn.
[Hurtubise]: Councilor Callahan. Vice President Collins.
[SPEAKER_14]: Yes.
[Hurtubise]: Zorro. Councilor Leming. Councilor Scarpelli.
[Bears]: Yes, I mean from another motion passes and the meeting is adjourned. Thank you.
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