[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: 大家晚安。 晚安。 在我们开始之前，我想让大家知道我们的小电视房里有监听设备。 因此，如果有人有听力问题并且需要听力设备，请不要犹豫。 我要感谢今天在场的所有当选官员。 我们有董事会成员 Kit Collins、学校委员会成员 Aaron Opade、学校委员会成员 Paul Rousseau、董事会主席 Zach Bares、学校委员会女性 Nicole Branley、学校委员会副主席 Jenny Graham、学校委员会成员 John Intoppa、代表 Sean Garbally、 副手巴勃罗·多纳托。 我们有来自国会女议员克拉克办公室的凯尔西。 议员马特·莱明。 参赞艾米丽·拉扎罗。 Ed Markey 刚刚给我打电话，所以我要感谢他的支持。 我们想从我们的桂冠诗人开始这个计划。 已经工作一年半多了，不管你信不信，时间过得真快。 因此，我想邀请 Vijaya Sundaram 来邀请最近写的一首原创诗。
[Sundaram]: 晚上好，谢谢你今天邀请我来这里。 我希望你能听到我回来的声音。 这是我第一首关于城市状况的诗，所以请耐心阅读我的诗，并原谅我可能犯的任何错误。 这是一种预防措施。 在一个充满不团结、争论、愤怒和不和谐的声音聚集的世界里，一座城市的状况如何？ 在为时已晚之前我们应该庆祝什么？ 我们的邻居、我们的兄弟姐妹、我们的父母、我们的朋友、祖父母和不同肤色的人。 我们的学校和公园，我们的森林和游乐场，我们的工业、艺术、商业、我们的保护者、我们的消防员、警察和雇员，都是使我们成为梅德福的挂毯的一部分，成为我们可以交叉道路并互相问候的中间地带。 在这座美丽的城市我们庆祝什么？ 来自世界各地的人们在这里生活、相爱、学习和工作，度过顺境和逆境，希望过上没有贪婪和愤怒的完整生活。 我们记住这些话。 他们用剑敲打犁头。 国家将不再有战争。 希望和慈善是我们的使命，而爱是最伟大的使命。 和平带来了一面多种颜色的旗帜：公平、正义、平等、希望、接受和爱。 让我们庆祝社区和团结。 为我们的差异感到高兴。 拒绝冷漠。 打开我们的心扉，迎接美丽和欢乐。 让希望进入那些被遗弃或被抛弃的人破碎的心中。 发展城市的力量和韧性。 在辉煌中成长。 让我们对美好和希望持开放态度，邀请每个人进入一个充满奇迹和财富的更广阔的世界。 我们翠绿的公园，波光粼粼的湖泊，宁静的山丘，是缓解日常交通风暴、坏消息以及充满压力和震耳欲聋的不和谐的生活冲突的灵丹妙药。 这是我们的城市，我们将共同使它变得美丽。 我们将欢呼雀跃，我们将举起团结之杯，深深地畅饮。 外面的世界充满混乱，等待着。 但我们，不断扩大的圈子，将发出我们的波浪。 我们将摧毁仇恨，我们将结束不信任，通过社区和团结，我们将增强对仇恨的免疫力并引发欢乐之歌。 这就是我们庆祝我们城市的状态的方式。 创造一种友谊、兄弟情谊、个性和人类善的共融，唱响我们的和平之歌。 谢谢。
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: 那真是太美了，维贾亚。 非常感谢。 现在我想请梅德福学校委员会副主席上讲台讲几句话，向我们介绍一下她和整个学校委员会和部门一直在做的所有工作的最新情况。 成员珍妮·格雷厄姆。
[Jenny Graham]: 谢谢隆戈-科恩市长邀请我今晚发言。 我很荣幸能够担任学校委员会副主席，更荣幸的是梅德福市民在担任这一职位的近六年时间里对我传递了他们的信任。 当我回想起我们从很多方面回顾这一年时，就像我加入学校委员会以来的每一年一样。 每年我都会听到有人说，教育领域从来没有像现在这样充满不确定性。 这一切都始于2020年，那是我的第一年。 每年，我们作为一个国家都会超越自我，使今年成为公共教育中最不确定的时期。 有点轻浮，但前进的道路比以往任何时候都更加不确定。 如果我们将教育视为我们民主的基础和伟大的均衡器，我们就必须为我们所有的孩子制定更好的路线和未来，这是非常重要的。 过去一年，我们在梅德福公立学校和学校董事会取得的许多成就帮助为梅德福的孩子们奠定了更稳定的基础。 稳定的基础从未像现在这样重要。 我们必须比以往任何时候都更加努力，以维持地方对学校的控制并保护每个孩子的受教育权。 首先，我们来谈谈一些值得注意的成就。 我们迎来了梅德福公立学校的新领导。 Suzanne Galusi 博士在梅德福担任教育工作者，她的职业生涯在这里度过，她将担任我们的临时主管。 Galusi 博士熟悉我们在 MPS 所做的工作，我们已经看到她在该地区留下了自己的印记。 每个人都热切地等待着您凌晨 5 点的电话。 明天大约下雪天。 我们还为梅德福公立学校增加了 700 万美元的资金。 感谢我们的居民对第七个问题和第八个问题投了赞成票。 我们正在努力与我们的工会合作伙伴谈判，按照承诺使用这笔资金来延长上课时间，并修复自近七年前我们的高中和职业学校合并以来一直不起作用的高中时间表。 学生、家长和老师都知道，这个时间表行不通，这就是导致这个社区进行这次历史性投票的原因，以此来表达对我们孩子想要更多的希望的一种方式。 学校85%的预算投资于人员。 因此，我将花一点时间提供有关我们工作的一些详细信息，以保持竞争力并确保我们的就业合同适用于学生。 我们致力于改变与合作伙伴的谈判基调，并努力摆脱过去对任何人都不起作用的做法。 与邻近地区的类似工作相比，我一直致力于为我们的员工提供公平的报酬，并且我们在许多地方都在这方面取得了相当大的进展。 在过去的一年半中，我们与托管人、儿童角工作人员、自助餐厅工作人员、管理人员、行政助理和专业人员达成了协议。 这些商定的合同中的几个亮点包括我们的幼儿园助理加薪 26%，以承认他们的工作与我们其他专业辅助人员的工作水平相同，以及所有助理的总体加薪 4%。 实现我们的专业职责现代化，并正式化我们用来对儿童角工作人员、管理员、行政助理、自助餐厅工作人员、管理人员和专业人员负责的评估工具。 我们设法增加了该领域的员工数量。 加薪20%，保证食堂设备的市场竞争力，有效解决了食堂设备人员短缺的问题。 额外的保管支持人员为我们全区的项目组合提供周末支持。 嗯，我们致力于专业发展的时间和日子 这笔额外的资金也通过新制定的政策来利用和管理，以管理学校委员会的资本规划和预算流程。 这些流程可以带来更及时的预算讨论、深思熟虑的资本规划和改进的维护。 我们的资本规划过程中的一些亮点包括麦格林小学令人难以置信的全新包容性游乐场，现已完工。 如果你没去过那里，你应该去。 一些正在进行中的事情，麦格林和安德鲁斯的暖通空调更换，布鲁克斯小学的热水更换，梅德福高中的货运电梯电机更换，我们网络机柜中的暖通空调装置的更换， 修复了布鲁克斯球场的排水系统，自从我的孩子们在布鲁克斯上学以来，这个问题就一直是一个问题；修复了麦格林幼儿园教室里下雨时出现故障的闪光灯；以及对罗伯茨、布鲁克斯和密西塔克的暖通空调状况进行了小型评估。 除了非常必要之外，这些例子还展示了一个地区的主动维护应该是什么样子以及我们未来计划做什么。 展望 2025 年及以后，我们发现仍有很多工作要做。 我们需要作为一个社区共同努力，保护我们的学生，包括那些特别容易受到联邦政府侵犯其权利的学生。 我们仍然不知道这项工作会是什么样，但我们正在为最多样化的场景做准备，培训我们的团队并让我们的领导者了解不断变化的场景。 我们的学区团队正在不懈地努力，为我们一直在谈论的上课影响和时间表变化制定计划，解决一些小学的过度拥挤问题，增加课外活动的机会，并在梅德福高中的历史上创造新的篇章。 我很高兴成为重新构想梅德福高中建筑委员会的主席。 感谢学校建设委员会的辛勤工作，我们及时、完整地提交了所有规划文件，超出了 MSBA 的期望。 此后，我们与 MSBA 签署了一项协议，为下一阶段做准备，这将使我们能够建造一所学校，以容纳比目前学校人口增加 15% 的入学人数。 这是非常重要的事情。 我们正在规划未来。 我们希望 MSBA 董事会在未来几周内邀请我们参与该流程的下一阶段。 施工委员会将于本月恢复工作，再次尽快完成我们的可交付成果，以便我们能够进入这个过程中真正令人兴奋的部分。 今年春天，我预计我们会聘请业主的项目经理和设计师来帮助我们进行可行性研究并回答大家的问题，例如：新高中应该在哪里？ 翻新建筑、建造新建筑或选择混合选项会更有利可图吗？ 最重要的是，我们如何做到这一切并保护当前学生的学习体验？ 到明年这个时候，我们将回答所有这些问题以及更多问题，我迫不及待地想看看这个项目的未来。 最后，我要感谢宪章委员会启动了我们政府结构的现代化，并感谢市议会在如此认真地审查这份文件中发挥了作用。 我将及时在 2 月 19 日的董事会会议上提出我对学校委员会作用的评论。 我将特别注意确保我们的政府形式允许我们以最富有成效的方式为学生和家庭工作。 这就是我们社区选举学校委员会的原因。 现在是确保学校委员会有权代表学生尽最大努力的重要时刻。 我希望下次我们有机会与您交谈时，我们可以讨论如何克服大量的不确定性，并为所有学生规划一条光明而有意义的前进道路。 在那一天之前我们将继续工作。 谢谢。 我很高兴向您介绍市议会主席扎克·巴雷斯（Zach Bares），他将发言。 谢谢。
[Zac Bears]: 嘿伙计们。 首先，我要感谢曾议员、巴伯众议员。 我是否错过了其他迟到的人？ 感谢您来到这里。 感谢隆戈-科恩市长、格雷厄姆副总统、我的市议会同事、学校委员会成员、州立法者、市政府工作人员，最重要的是梅德福的居民今天来到这里聆听有关该市状况的最新消息。 作为议员以及去年作为市议会主席为梅德福人民服务是一种令人难以置信的荣幸。 我很自豪地说，这个任期是市议会记忆中最有成效的一个任期。 从我与居民的对话和对市议会记录的分析中，我们展示了令人难以置信的职业道德，并专注于我们城市的业务并为人们提供成果。 去年一月，在我作为安理会主席的第一次发言中，我谈到了指导我工作的三项基本原则。 协作、计划和信任。 在最初的几周内，该议会批准了第一个两年计划，即我们的市议会治理议程，以告诉居民我们将开展哪些工作，并让议会对明确的目标和最后期限负责。 我们建立了新的委员会结构，以开展更实际、实质性的工作，并实施新的公众参与方式，以接触比以往更多的居民。 我很高兴今天站在你们面前告诉你们我们已经实现了这一目标。 我们将在 2024 年举行 99 次会议，今年已经举行或计划在 2025 年 6 月之前举行的会议有 60 多次。 我们在政府议程上取得了重要进展，推进了长达 40 年被推迟或忽视的问题。 现在，我们在 YouTube 上直播所有会议，每月发布市政厅通讯，利用现代化的会议议程和会议纪要门户，并在正式会议之外举办多次社区聆听会议。 我要感谢我的同事和市秘书处的团队为实现这一目标付出了巨大的努力。 我很幸运能与这些敬业的公务员一起工作。 我可以继续讲述我们迄今为止已完成的工作以及未来的工作，但我会尽量简短。 市议会有三项主要职责。 首先，审查预算。 其次，更新城市分区法。 第三，通过法令的批准来立法。 本学期我们还致力于第四项重要职责：更新城市章程。 我要感谢柯林斯副总统与我们的城市规划团队一起领导我们的分区更新项目。 该小组举行了 20 多次公开会议，并进行了令人难以置信的外展工作，以完成城市分区现代化和实施城市 2023 年综合规划的工作。 这项工作已经取得了成果，我对今年晚些时候我们将看到的最终产品感到兴奋。 谢谢你，柯林斯副总统。 我要感谢曾议员领导的城市宪章修订项目，这是我们自 20 世纪 80 年代以来第一次考虑更新的宪章，并承担了我们宪章研究委员会的工作，以便我们能够以应有的重要性和细节来考虑这些建议。 我迫不及待地想在 11 月份对新章程投赞成票。 我还要感谢我的其他市议会同事，即议员卡拉汉、拉扎罗、莱明和斯卡佩利的工作，特别是他们在委员会中的领导以及批准法令的紧迫性。 仅自 2024 年 1 月以来，我们就通过了九项法令，包括去年春天的该市第一项预算法令和上个月的欢迎城市法令。 我们已经通过了十几项州法律、为重要项目提供融资的贷款令、与市长合作建立了循环基金和该市第一个稳定基金。 我知道 2025 年还会发生更多事情。 最后，我要感谢市长和学校委员会成员与市议会的合作，去年 11 月通过了该市的第一次否决投票。 我们正在努力解决巨大的财政短缺问题，这些短缺导致政府和梅德福公立学校系统缺乏为居民提供应有服务所需的人员和资源。 梅德福站了起来，没有再说什么。 我们的学校不会再因削减开支而伤害我们的学生和老师。 不再用更少的钱做更少的事。 没有执行基本道路和人行道维护所需工作人员的 DPW 已经不复存在。 我们将继续努力制定城市的下一个预算和我们城市的主要资金需求，我希望能够诚实地说明我们的财务状况，让选民了解几十年来投资不足和推迟维护的后果，以及今年由于选民批准对我们的学校、街道和人行道进行更多投资而带来的物质利益。 在接下来的11个月里，我将继续以开放和透明的方式领导市议会，以事实为先，纠正错误信息和虚假叙述，并遵循我们共同制定的明确计划，为梅德福市建设更美好的未来。 非常感谢大家今晚抽出时间。 我期待着与你们每一个人合作，继续为居民带来成果，为我们美丽的城市尽我们所能。 在此，我很高兴向大家介绍梅德福市市长 Breanna Lungo-Koehn。
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Great job, Vice Chair Graham and President Bears. Thank you for speaking tonight. Good evening. First, let me thank everyone here tonight and to those watching from home. And thank you to our Poet Laureate Vijaya Sundaram for opening the program with an original poem, as well as to President Bears and Member Graham for sharing updates on all their hard work of the school committee and the city council, of course. I know that listening to people talk for an hour isn't always the most riveting TV or live experience, so please know we really appreciate you listening in. Before we all settle in for my speech, I need to especially recognize the work of our department heads, our city staff, elected officials, interns, and volunteers who continue to put in the time and dedication to make our city a better and more welcoming place. Obviously, there's a lot of focus on the mayor, the school committee, the city council, but so much of the work moving the city forward is also done in crowded offices, in conference rooms, Zoom call after Zoom call, and out in our community. So I just wanna take the moment to thank everyone who is putting in the work day in and day out. As far as city employees, I'm so proud of the work DEI, HR, and my office has done to professionalize the hiring process in order to build the strongest city team this city has ever had. I will not mention individual employees' names tonight as I don't want to forget anybody, but please know that we are so lucky to have our employees and all the work I mentioned tonight could not be done without all of you. A few weeks ago, an old colleague of mine text me a photo with a caption five years ago. The photo was from when I was first sworn in as mayor. Five years ago seems like a lifetime ago. I don't know if I exuded confidence on that first day. I like to think I did. But now with half a decade behind me, I can be a little more open, tell you that I was nervous and a little bit scared. scared of failing, scared of not living up to the expectations that the community placed on me, and scared that I would not make the right decisions. For about 10 weeks, that feeling persisted as I was briefed on issue after issue, each complete with about 15 agency or grant acronyms that I've never heard of. Flashcards were my friends that week, those weeks. scared or not, there was a frustrating feeling so many of you had that Medford wasn't living up to its potential. It was on the cusp of something, but it never got there. That was probably the biggest sentiment I heard and even felt myself before taking office, a frustration about not being where we should be. Obviously, 10 weeks in, things changed, and we had the COVID crisis to contend with. So where my flashcards used to be handy, memorizing wasn't really that important anymore. What was most important five years ago and what continues to drive our work each and every day is a commitment to bettering our city and building the community's trust in government, in our systems and in our schools. We want to see our city reach and exceed its potential. We want to see it be the best version of itself. What makes Medford so special is that we all care so deeply about it. Whether you have lived here your whole life or only a year, all of us care deeply about Medford's future. I never envisioned moving. We want our city and our government to invest in us, just like we've invested our time, our passion and our hearts in it. So how are we gonna make this government work for us instead of the other way around? It starts with making the city's governing document, our charter, more reflective of the needs and priorities of the people, and less reliant on outdated or ineffective procedures. This was a major priority of so many of ours, and mine when taking office. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but our current two-page charter assumes the mayor is and always will be a man. Before me, there were two female mayors. So clearly the original authors of this document were proven wrong multiple times. Of course, there are also more policy specific inequities that need to be addressed in this document. And it's not just the slight towards women that is worrisome. So after years of work, an updated city charter has been crafted and delivered to the city council for review before it's sent to the state legislature for final approval of vote and implementation. I'm so proud of the work that went into creating this document, and I thank the Charter Study Committee, led by Chair Milva McDonald. Can we clap for Milva and the team? as well as the Princess YJ and the staff at the Collins Center for their service and hours upon hours of research, community meetings, and outreach to ensure that our new governing document is truly aligned with the priorities and wishes of the people. And thank you to the city council for thoroughly reviewing the document. I look forward to working with you to finalize and place it on the November 2025 ballot, as President Bears mentioned. Like with Charter, we also have antiquated zoning regulations for many of our commercial areas, squares and neighborhoods. By utilizing the framework from our comprehensive plan and with the help of the zoning recodification ordinance passed by the city council in 2022, we're now moving forward with the process with an informed and experienced viewpoint. But there's still areas where we can improve, especially when it comes to our pace and communication process. This is a complex issue that affects many stakeholders. So I hope we do not rush and everyone must have a chance to provide input. We will be taking this additional time to better communicate. So I'll have additional opportunities to learn the facts and we can dispel all the misinformation that is currently circulating. I wanna thank the council and our staff and planning development and sustainability for all the work you're doing on this project. And if you've listened to me closely in these addresses over the years, and why wouldn't you, since they are famously brief and in no way long winded, you've undoubtedly heard me talk about the need to unlock our potential for mixed use and commercial development. The number one location for this is Medford Square and the development of our three underutilized parking lots. This project has been in the pipeline for 15 years and for one reason or another, just never officially got off the ground. That has changed. We have issued an RFP and have two proposals that are currently being reviewed by a committee, including city staff, President Bears and Chamber of Commerce President Andrew Mather. This area is the central hub of our downtown commercial district and has the potential to truly transform our city into a leading commercial destination in the region. We can do this while making sure we have parking for our seniors and Chevalier patrons. The entire square is going through somewhat something of a renaissance, in my opinion. Of course, the RFP for the lots is a major step, but we've also seen the area become more vibrant and we can't wait for our next establishment, Mrs. Murphy's to open in just about 15 days. Can we clap for that? With more and more people and families frequenting Medford Square, it only makes sense to open up pedestrian paths along the Mystic River waterfront. The Clippership Connector opening this summer will create a path that connects over 10 miles of continuous greenway along the waterfront. I thank our partners at DCR for undertaking this important project and enhancing our square. These projects require plans, and these plans are built off studies. It only makes sense, then, that we turn our attention to another area of the city with more potential, Wellington. There are so many possibilities for this neighborhood. There's a tea stop, a major commercial shopping center, restaurants, retail, and hotels. There's waterfront space, connections to more paths and highways, schools, and more. we can build on what's already in place and make Wellington a destination for the region. To help us achieve this, we released an RFP for a transformation study that will analyze traffic considerations, economic concerns, and transportation accessibility, and make recommendations on the best uses and future for the area. While building up our commercial experience in our squares and neighborhoods will hopefully have a significant impact on our financial growth, we need to make sure that we also supply enough housing for our community members. Last year, my office worked with PDS and the city council to establish an affordable housing trust, which will use various funding streams to help facilitate more affordable units coming to market. We're also making a concerted effort to support our veterans searching for housing. Thanks to the work of our veterans office and city council, they unanimously passed a landlord incentive program that will offer landlords up to $750 per year to those who rent to qualified veterans. For our lower income residents in need of assistance, we've launched the housing rehabilitation pilot program, which helps expand the availability of decent, safe and sanitary housing within the city. We offer low interest deferred payments of up to $25,000 to low and moderate income homeowners. Our 40B developments are moving ahead as well with the 971 Fellsway and 4,000 Mystic Valley Parkway having cleared municipal hurdles and now working on securing state permits. These two projects will bring over 160 affordable units to Medford and over 600 units in total. This has been a long process, but a necessary one as it's critical that the city have a seat at the negotiating table that allowed us to bring more meaningful community benefits for our future residents and the city as a whole. This is just scratching the surface and all the development work happening in the city. Thank you to all who are playing a part to make it happen. These projects will bring foot traffic of course, but like with every residential commercial project, it will also bring increased vehicular traffic as well. We're making efforts to ease the flow of traffic and create safer streets throughout the community with our complete streets initiatives in Haines Square and in the last year of Riverside Avenue. Thank you to our traffic and transportation team for leading these efforts and for all the work bringing more blue bike locations to Medford. We're now at 18 blue bike stations. making major roadways and highway tracks to areas safer and more accessible to pedestrians and drivers is crucial, not only to our development goals, but also to our commitment to making neighborhoods safer and more desirable. To do that, we need to be making a concerted investment in repairing and restoring our streets and sidewalks. And with the help of our Department of Public Works and Engineering Department, we're doing just that. This past construction season, we've alone cracked sealed 21 streets and completed patchwork projects on many of our highly trafficked roads. We're also holding our utility companies accountable and making them come back and repair roads and sidewalks at job sites throughout the city. Something that has never been done in the past. I'm happy to say that in 2024 National Grid repaired over 400 roadways and sidewalk locations throughout the city with restoration work continuing this spring. Thank you again to our engineering team for coordinating all this work. we've removed over 200 tree stumps in 2024 alone and reached our yearly goal of planting over 200 trees yet again. This is wonderful work from our DPW and tree warden. And yes, more stumps will remove this year. In fact, you should be seeing increased activity on all our street maintenance operations now that question seven passed this November. We're adding three additional staff in DPW that were responsible for daily street maintenance. Those positions have been posted and we hope to make offers very soon. City side services aren't the only system in Medford undergoing or transformation. Our schools are also entering into a phase, the next phase of progress with incredible news on our mass school building authority application. School committee vice chair, Jenny Graham has been instrumental throughout this entire process, chairing the high school building committee and working through all the hurdles and challenges of making this vision a reality. I also wanna personally thank our outgoing superintendent, Dr. Marice Edouard-Vincent, who served on the building committee and provided such valuable feedback and leadership throughout her time leading the Mustang community. We're so lucky that the transition to the new superintendent has been so smooth. And I think that's a testament to the deep understanding and love Dr. Galusi has for Medford as well. Having started as a teacher in the district and now working her way up to superintendent. This is an exciting time for the Medford Public Schools, not only with the MSBA projects, but also with the override questions passing. The investments we're making are going to be able to make, for our students and our faculty, will have impacts for years to come and set us on a course for continued success. But we're not waiting to make structural improvements in our schools, like member Graham mentioned. Happy to report that our major HVAC project at the McGlynn and Andrews School are moving ahead, and we've hired an owner's agent to oversee the project, and now in the process of hiring a construction manager. Thank you to our facilities director for his work at our schools and also here in the city, especially city hall, as we just completed a new lighting project, installing all new energy efficiency lighting. City hall and our other city buildings are also undergoing major IT infrastructure projects, thanks to our IT director. When completed, we'll have completely optimized our internet system to better serve the community and our staff. Our public safety investments are similarly as important to my administration as our school investments. We're continually working on hiring and swearing in new police officers as often as we can. Our officers have been doing great work throughout the community. We've heard such positive feedback from the public on how our police department is building strong, proactive relationships in the neighborhoods they serve due to their community-focused policing. We also have prioritized investments in our fire department. We just hired four new hires and are working on getting 13 additional new recruits into a training academy. We've also put a special emphasis on facilities and equipment based on the 2021 report from the task force. I'm proud to say that we have completed $4.1 million worth of renovation work and equipment upgrades, including new turnout gear, purchasing another new fire truck last month, window replacements at three stations, an apparatus bay floor, engine three, and so much more. Both departments are also working on upgrading all their policies and procedures and making sure trainings are up to date and enhanced. Protecting our people is the most important thing. not just from emergencies, but sometimes from policies. And that's incredibly important right now because there are so many people, not just adults, but kids, young people, young families who are worried about losing their homes or their jobs, their entire way of life because of these policies at the federal level. And this doesn't apply just to immigrants in our community, but all minority groups across all different socioeconomic demographics. The effort to erase progress on diversity, equity, and inclusion are literally contradictory to our values as a community. I know our Office of Prevention and Outreach team and DEI team is feeling the strain, along with me, of these initiatives, and their passion and determination to make government as open and equitable as possible is what drives us all. You may have noticed the ASL team here tonight. That's equity, that's inclusion. Why we are trying to take these things away, I don't have an answer. But I do know that in Medford at least, we're supporting each other. And we will continue with our mission of trying to make our city open and welcoming to everyone who calls Medford home. One way we will continue this into the future is by expanding and strengthening our sustainability practices, especially for our underserved population. This year, we were so excited, again, to receive a municipal vulnerability preparedness grant for $750,000 to fund our Medford Connects program. This program was designed to help connect our most vulnerable residents to essential city services, resources, and funds, for programs and events throughout the city, including our amazing multilingual and multicultural community engagement team who I see here tonight. In fact, our MVP project has been so successful that the state has been using it as a model for other communities to emulate when creating similar projects. So really just amazing work by the team in OPO and in the health department. While our MVP efforts are focused on when a disaster strikes, we're also working to prevent climate emergencies through a wide range of projects. Earlier this year, we secured a different $300,000 grant from the Mass and Clean Energy Center to create our Electrify Medford program, which also aims to strengthen outreach and support for underserved communities. Through this program, we're working to help residents explore clean, energy efficient options for their own homes. Our nearly $1 million grant from the federal government to transform the Hegner Center into a municipal vulnerability preparedness site as well as a facility for afterschool programming is moving as fast as we can, full steam ahead. Our team is compiling the needed materials to submit to HUD and working with Congresswoman Clark's office Senator Markey and Senator Warren's office to ensure this project is completed. Our new curbside composting program has also been a huge success with over 5,300 active participants now. If you haven't signed up, please do so. We are so proud to offer this free service to eligible residents in partnership with Garbage to Garden. And thanks to the hard work of so many at City Hall, we even won a National Recycling Award for outstanding elected leaders by the National Recycling Coalition. Moving from green ideas to green spaces and recreation projects, one of our major projects in the area right now in that area is the car park renovation. We opened phase one of the renovations back in July, and I know the new pickleball courts are definitely well used. Phase two of the project begins in a few days, Monday to be exact, and we're hoping to have a dedicated dog park open there by the summer. We're so lucky to have a wide variety of parks in our community. In addition to the car park project, we've recently opened the pop-up park along Clippership Drive that will ultimately connect via the Clippership Connector, a $1.4 million project at Gillis Park, which includes a great adult fitness area and our universally accessible playground at the McGlynn School that opened earlier this year. And just to briefly touch on some of the work happening at our recreation facilities, the Medford recreation team helped resurface our street hockey rink this past year, thanks to CPA funding, leveraged opera money to purchase a new Zamboni for La Conte rink, upgraded the home team locker room at Hormel Stadium, and so much more. Thanks to the collaborative work with our state leaders, Representative Donato, Representative Garbally, Representative Barber, and Senator Jalen, along with our partnership with the West Medford Community Center, we're on track to break ground this construction season on the Mystic River Road project that provides safer access from the West Medford Community Center to Duggar Park. Thank you to the team at DCR and Commissioner Arrigo, as well as our delegation for working with us on this important community project. Upcoming projects include resurfacing the basketball courts and updating the splash pad at Cape and Park, putting a national play area at Logan Park, creating a COVID Grove Memorial, shade improvements at Riverside Plaza, and so much more. Thank you to our team at Medford Recreation, Procurement, DPW, and PDS for working with multiple departments to coordinate all these efforts. Again, none of this work would be possible without the support of so many hardworking individuals in our city. Success can only be achieved when you have the right people in place that believe in integrity first and are unified toward a common goal. That's why accountability has been such an important part of my administration since day one. Less than five years ago, there was no HR and it has not been easy trying to make that change and change the culture in this city. But we are doing it, one day at a time, one department at a time. I believe in leading without fear and always doing what I think is best for the community, no matter what. I will not stop. The people of Medford deserve this. Each and every one of us must be accountable to the public and to each other. I'm committed to a transparent, ethical administration for the city, and I expect every staff member to share in that vision. And virtually everyone does, which is why we're able to do so much incredible work. That incredible work has led to so much to celebrate. And celebrate, we know how to do. Our fiscal year 25 budget was awarded the Distinguished Budget Award from the Government Finance Officers Association. This is the second time we've been awarded this in the last five years, and I'm so thankful to our team in finance and our communications department for the work that was done to get there. We just hosted our second annual Lunar New Year celebration this past Saturday, which was fantastic. Our inaugural city-wide yard sale and lemonade stand had over 400 signups. Haitian Flag Day and Hispanic Heritage Month are now going strong as fabulous yearly events. PorchFest is back for its third year, June 7th. Run Medford continues to be a great community event in the fall. The annual spring cleanup is right around the corner. and that's just a few things we celebrate. Our art scene is flourishing with over 2,500 cultural events in 2024 alone, more than double the output from 2019. Medford Recreation, Council on Aging, our staff at the library are constantly offering new programming, resources, and community events for all ages. Thank you to all who are making this happen, inside City Hall and beyond. I could go on and on, but I know you're hoping, please be done. Which I'm almost done. To close, over the course of five years, you have seen a lot, you have heard a lot, and thankfully we've done a lot. But I think what keeps us going, and I know what keeps me going, is that we're never finished. There is no perfect Medford. We can't perfect something that is constantly changing, but we're definitely going to try. This city means too much to all of us and our children, and it deserves the best from us all. And our best is what we will continue to give, I promise. Thank you. Thank you again to our ASL interpreters, to everybody watching from home and who is here tonight. Thank you to everybody who joined us as well. We have light refreshments in the foyer. Please, please stay and join us. Thank you.