[Fred Dello Russo]: The 19th regular meeting of the Medford City Council will come to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Clerk]: Councilor Caraviello? Present. Councilor Falco? Present. Councilor Knight? Present. Councilor Long and Kern? Present. Vice-President Long and Kern? Present. Councilor Martins? Present. Councilor Scarpelli? Present. President Dello Russo?
[Fred Dello Russo]: Present. With seven members present, none absent, we are going to be joined and led by Troop 416 of the Boy Scouts of America in our salute to the flag. Please stand and join us. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Stay where you are. And we have commendations tonight. on item number 16410, which was offered by Councilor Falco to commend Troop 416 on their 100th anniversary, a great milestone for our community and the Boy Scouts. So. I want to turn things over to Councilor Falco, who will lead us in the presentations.
[John Falco]: Thank you, Mr. President. And I'd like to thank Troop 416 for being here tonight. We're honored that you're here, and we're happy to be celebrating with you your 100th anniversary. The Scouts have always been a vital part of our community. They've always been helping out with the various service projects throughout the years. And Troop 416 has been remarkable in producing Eagle Scouts. I was talking to a friend today, Chris Murphy, actually, that is a past Eagle Scout, and he was telling me at least I believe there's at least maybe close to 40 Eagle Scouts that the troop has produced in the 100 years, which is quite remarkable. So I'd like to thank you Scouts for your commitment to our community. Also thank your parents for always being there to help you Scouts out. It's not easy, and the parents need a round of applause as well. So I thank you for taking the time to be here tonight. We do have citations for everyone. And, uh, I also wanted to note that, uh, yes, yes, of course I was going to thank you. Uh, but, uh, just to note, um, we have a bunch of citations here. Uh, we had a number of scouts that attended the school committee meeting last week, uh, last night and a number of that are here. at this meeting tonight, and there are a number of scouts that are at sports and whatnot. So everyone's not here, but everyone will be recognized. And we'd also like to thank our Scoutmaster, Paul McClain, for all that he does. Thank you very much. And, uh, what we'll do now is we'll, uh, call the names. And if you could come up when your name is called, uh, you receive a citation. And then if you could just shake everyone's hand, um, it will pose for a picture. I'll read the citation first. The Medford city council takes pleasure in awarding this council accommodation, uh, to Medford Boy Scout troop 416 and recognition of the 100th anniversary of Boy Scouts of America and Method Boy Scout Troop 416's service to our community. Signed by Council President Fred DeLaRusso and myself, John Falco. So the first person is Robert Agnone. Nino Oluya. Sam Oluya. William Antwine. Ben Braverman. Richard Brenton. Dominic Bruno. Edward Butler. Jackson Calvert. Gino Carboni. Grandfather Shavs. J.C. Shavs. Charlie Dillman. Aiden Donovan. Sean Driscoll Gomez. Derek Giglio. Justin Giglio. Clay Gomez-Cultas. Andre Hamilton. Nicholas Happany. Justin Hayward. William Henriquez. Andrew Hill. Edward Triphill. Brian Hunt. Christopher Hunt. Declan Jones. Andrew Knight. Calvin Lambert. Desmond Lambert. Alex Lee Ronald Listrow Duncan McClain Jackson Myung Liam O'Keefe Riley O'Keefe David Pagliaro Connor Parry. Desidro Sessa. Sebastiano Sessa. Dylan Smith. Chris Walsh. Sushantan. Leo Walsh. Kevin Wright. Matthew Wright. And we have our Boy Scout leadership team, Paul McClain, the Scoutmaster. Do you want to say a few words while you're up here?
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure. Thank you. On behalf of Troop 416, we really appreciate the recognition from our city representatives. It's a true showing of the community. Even though there's a couple of boys here tonight, there's about 40 active boys in the troop. And we camp once a month. Like John said, we've got over 40 to 50 Eagle Scouts. We've been producing maybe one a year for the past seven years anyway that I've been involved with the troop. And it takes a community. And we really appreciate you recognizing our 100 years and recognizing all the hard work the boys do throughout the year. So we thank you. Thank you very much.
[John Falco]: A few more from the leadership team. Dennis Archdeacon. Rick Demers. Bill Giglio. Ellen Morey Patrick Morey Frank Seamster Kevin Seamster Julie Lambert So thank you, Troop 416, and congratulations and happy anniversary.
[Fred Dello Russo]: While we're in the spirit of commendations offered by Councilor Knight, 16-503, these are commendations for recent retirements from the Metro Fire Department. We can all be grateful for the that these committed men have given to our community over the years. So I'm going to read their names and their CVs. Firefighter Timothy M. Powers was appointed in February 28th of 1980 and retired on the 5th of October 2014. He served 34 years with the fire department on engines 1, 2, and 3, ladder 1, and ladder 2. Firefighter Michael E. Greer was appointed On the 28th of October, 1982, he retired February 1st, 2015. He served 32 years on engines one, six, ladder one, and ladder two. Firefighter Richard J. Sweeney was appointed on the 27th of October, 1983. He retired on January 8th of this year, having served 32 years on engine two, engine five, Ladder 1, Ladder 2, and on Rescue 1. Lieutenant Timothy A. Beckworth was appointed on the 2nd of June in 1983. He retired on the 2nd of June, 2014. He was promoted to lieutenant on the 27th of December in 1992. He served 31 years with the department on Engines 2, 3, Ladder 2, and the Emergency Response Unit. Lieutenant Robert P. Howe was appointed on August 27th, 1983. He retired on the 2nd of June, 2014, was made a lieutenant on the 27th of December, 1992. He served 31 years with engines two, three, ladder two, and the emergency response unit. I'm sorry, served 28 years. was a promoter to lieutenant in 2001, January 28th. He served on engines 2, 3, 6, ladder 2, the emergency response unit, and the training divisions. Division, I apologize. And Deputy Chief Stephen Emhoff, appointed on 28th February, 1980, retired 24th April, 2016. He was made lieutenant in November 27th, 1988, captain June 28, 1992, and deputy chief on May 3, 1998. 36 years of service to the department, serving on engines 1, 3, 5, ladder 2, the emergency response unit, training division, and he was the shift commander of division A. So thank you to those members of the Medford Fire Department for their great and dedicated service to our community. Thank you, Councilor Knight, for bringing that to us. Motions, orders, and resolutions offered by Councilor Caraviello be it resolved that the Medford City Council request the Medford police increase their presence and enforcement in Medford Square, particularly in the area of Riverside Avenue bus shelter, River Road, and the lower end of Salem Street. People and merchants are trying to do business in that part of the square, and they're being harassed by people under the influence of alcohol and drugs, and they are made to feel unsafe. Councilor Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, this is an issue that's come up to me several times over the past seven, eight months. And it's something that's getting worse all the time, is the merchants are complaining about people hanging in the square as early as 7, 8 o'clock in the morning, begging people for money at the bus stops, bothering their employees coming to work. And I've also received calls from many residents who When they're in that part of the square, feel threatened. And they say it's younger men and women, some of them under the influence of alcohol and drugs, congregating in the Rose Sloan Garden, under where the bus depot is, in front of the stores there. And again, it's just not a safe feeling, especially in the evening, too, when they seem to be there. And they seem to be coming from I think if I'm calling to the police, maybe some of those boarding houses down in the, a couple of boarding houses in the area. So I'd like if we could request the chief, maybe put someone either maybe on the walking thing for maybe a couple of hours here or there. Or have a presence when they see people just lingering around there to move them along. Or again, maybe we could have a little bit of foot traffic in there in the early evening. And during the morning, it seems to be prevalent in the morning, around that 7, 8 o'clock hour, when people are going to work, that they're getting by the Mr. President. So again, if the Chief could put some more presence there, it would be appreciated. Very good, Councilor. Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. President, thank you very much, and thank you, Councilor Caraviello, for bringing this matter forward. I'd like to move to amend the paper, Mr. President, to ask that we have the Substance Abuse Outreach Council, as part of this resolution, resolution to go down to the area in conjunction with our police department. I think that, you know, if there are individuals down there at 7 o'clock in the morning, under the influence of drugs and alcohol, then getting them out of that area is really going to push the problem down the street, but it's not going to actually take care of the initial underlying issue, which is these individuals in the community that need access to treatment. So, Mr. President, I'd ask that they be amended with the Substance Abuse Outreach Council. The motion is moved by Councilor Caraviello, as amended by Councilor Knight.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Madam Vice President.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, President Dello Russo. I, too, have received a couple of complaints. It seems just the last week or two with regards to this issue. I did forward the one or two emails to the chief of police and hopefully, I haven't got a response yet, but hopefully when we meet with the chief tomorrow, this can be on our agenda for discussion. I know we have a public safety meeting with the mayor's office and the chief of police at 6 p.m. tomorrow night, so this is definitely something that needs to be brought up and hopefully get some enforcement down there and obviously have our outreach coordinator. see what she can do to help as well. So I thank you for bringing us putting this forward and hopefully we do get a response from the chief.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. So as amended by Councilors night and longer current on the motion of approval, all those in favor, all those opposed on the motion of Councilor Marks, it takes paper number 14, 490. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion carries under suspension. Communication from Mayor 16-492, President Dello Russo, members of the Metro City Council, from Mayor Stephanie M. Burke. Request to accept grant from Charitable Foundation in accordance with the provisions of General Law, Chapter 44, Paragraph 53-8. I respectfully request and recommend that your honorable body approve the acceptance of a grant in the amount of $250,000 to the City of Medford from the Stanton Foundation. The money from this grant will be used to fund the design and engineering of phase one of a dog park at Riverbend Park in Medford and also for the construction of the park. The first payment under this grant, which will be used for the design and engineering is $24,065. The second payment will be an amount to cover 90% of the heart construction costs up to a maximum of $225,000. Maximum value of the grant is $250,000. Alicia Hunt, Director of Energy and Environment, and members of the community group PAWS for Medford will be in attendance at the meeting. To answer any questions, respectfully submitted, yours, Stephanie M. Burke, Mayor. So we invite Alicia Hunt up, our Director of Energy and Environment, to address the council, if you would, ma'am. please state your name and address for the record.
[Alicia Hunt]: Good evening, Alicia Hunt, 41 Lawson street, Medford. Um, so I want you to know that this has been the work of a community group working very hard to raise money for a dog park in Medford. There were some early money that this, the mayor did obtain through the fast 14 and also through a doggie fun run. back in the day, and that money actually helped them, allowed the mayor to hire a consultant to work with them to do a feasibility study around locations, to help provide the sketch that the Stanton Foundation requires for their grant, and to prepare a budget for the construction of this dog park. And the community group has been working on this for several years. And members of them are here. And I actually credit them with discovering the Stanton Foundation. The Stanton Foundation is the trust of Peter, the gentleman who used to be one of the founders of CBS, CBS everything, CBS TV, CBS, all of CBS. And he left this in trust to take care of his dog and dogs. And so the Stanton Foundation actually only gives grants with relationship to dogs, and in particular, dog parks in the state of Massachusetts. So it's a non-competitive grant, which is why we're before you this evening, because under municipal finance law, that is considered a gift, which means that if we meet the requirements of their grant, then they will just give it to us. It's not a competition between other municipalities. So there are members here who got to actually speak much more eloquently to the entire process than I can, and I've simply been providing municipal staff support for their project. Awesome.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you very much. Councilor Marks, I know has been very active in this.
[Michael Marks]: Yes.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Councilor?
[Michael Marks]: If I could, Mr. President. Please. Thank you. I want to thank Alicia Hunt. She's been the point person here at City Hall to help assist in moving this project forward. It was roughly a year and a half ago when a group of citizens, as Alicia mentioned, got together with one common goal. And that goal was to create a dog park in this community. At the time, the people that got together felt that the demand was there, felt that the need in the community was there, and felt that if we could organize and request nothing back from the city, we may be able to move this proposal forward. And indeed, that is exactly what happened. So on November 3rd, 2014, a group of concerned residents got together at the Danish pastry shop. Among coffee and pastry, we discussed our first steps in moving a dog park forward in this community. And there was much discussion and dialogue in the fact that Method registers currently about 350 dogs a year for licenses, where surrounding communities register 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 dogs a year. And the reason why is that in other communities that do have dog parks, you have to show a license to use the park. So there was an incentive to get a license and to become a concerned, active dog owner in the community. So with that mission, The one quote that the paper picked up on this a while back, November of 2014, and the very first sentence, I think this is a great sentence in the article, it says, a small group of Medford residents intends to present Mayor Michael McGlynn with such a rock solid plan for the first city's dog park that gives him no choice but to build it. And that's exactly what happened. Members of the group got together Patty was very instrumental, Patty Flynn, in coming up with, yeah, Patty, raise your hand. Patty did her homework of due diligence, and one night of the meeting, she said, you know what, this Stanton Foundation that I researched has funded dog parks in Arlington and Somerville, and they asked for very little but to have a commitment from the city, and we approached Mayor McGlynn early on, And the mayor was all ears and listened to everything we had to say and told us to keep on moving forward. We then brought on an organizer. Anyone that knows Jim Silva knows that Jim is a grassroots organizer. And I didn't even know he had a dog at the time, but I picked up the phone, I called him, I said, Jim, what do you think about a dog park in the city? And he was down at the first one at the meeting. So he was another member of the committee that got together. And then we had several meetings over Gary DeStefano's house, who owns two giant, three. What type of dogs, Gary? Three giant Labrador retrievers. And I'm still pulling the hair off my suit from the meeting we had, but don't take it personal. Don't take it personal. And then we had Brett Fitch, who was another dog owner in the community, John Sardone, and Diane Gitner, another member of the community who did a lot of research on potentially having fundraisers and eventual upkeep of this particular park, which is going to be of discussion down the line. The committee then got together and looked for someone to do site planning and landscape architect. And again, I believe it was Patty that found Andrew Leonard from Leonard Design Associates. And he created the dog park in Arlington and worked on the one in Somerville and a number of dog parks throughout the state. And he was a wealth of information when we sat down and discussed the potential of a dog park in this community. And just over time, it started to pick up legs, and I think it got out in the community, and people embraced it. You know, we have, I believe, 23 parks in the city. We all see this as the very first step. By no means is this an end all, where we say, okay, we have a dog park, we never wanna talk about another dog park in the city. This is the first step, and hopefully many dog parks, potentially pop-up dog parks, like other communities do, potentially, as Councilor Knight mentioned, about having maybe certain hours dedicated, whether it's early morning hours or late, late hours to have dogs exercise and run free. The estimate we got in this city, there's over 5,000 dogs that live in this community. And I think that's well below what we have in this community. And I think it speaks volumes for the need to have a place where dogs can socialize, dogs can exercise, And these particular parks aren't just a gate and a fence to keep a dog in. These parks are going to be able to have the dog use obstacle courses. They're going to be created with the latest technology for filtration systems, lighting, water that's going to be at the site. They're handicap accessible. There's going to be ample parking for residents. And it really is a win-win for this community. And I think after we move forward on this and take one step further, we could really call ourself as a community, a dog-friendly community. We could talk about it, but until we put something into action, I think this is the first line that says, hey, you know what? We're a dog-friendly community in this city. So I want to thank all the committee members. I want to thank Mayor McGlynn for lending us his ear from the very beginning. I want to thank Alicia Hunt for helping us move this forward. And there's still work that needs to be done. This by no means is the last stretch of this. We're going to have to discuss issues of upkeep and other issues regarding how do we bring this out to the rest of the community. I've received a number of phone calls from people that say, you know what, I love a dog park, but I'm not going to get in my car to drive to a dog park. And I'd like to have something more in my neighborhood. And these are the topics we're going to have to discuss over time, how we can bring this out to the entire community. So again, I know there's members of the committee that have done far more work than I have on this. And I think they would like to come up and give us a little on what took place over time and where we'd go from here. So again, I want to thank the dog park committee.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Good evening. Welcome. Just please say your name and address for the record.
[Jim Silva]: Chip Silva, 115 Yale Street. Do any of you have any questions? The history, Michael, I think you've covered all the history of the committee and what we were planning to do. How we've reached out to the community is through a website, through a Twitter account as well. And a lot of people have had a lot of positive feedback. Again, there are estimates of 5,000 to 9,000 dogs in this community. And I think people feel that they want to be able to use parks and recreation in the community. Everybody in the community is entitled to doing that. So this is really a centrally located park that allows everybody to come together. And it's a beginning, a template for other opportunities in the city. So thank you for your efforts. Okay.
[fRTeqEogCEI_SPEAKER_30]: Just wanted to know if there are any questions. Go ahead, Patty. No, come on. So it's time to shine. So no, seriously, does anybody have any concerns, questions? At this point, we just want a yes vote.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Chair recognizes Vice President Longo-Curran.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, President Dello Russo. A couple of questions. I don't think it's going to have to do with houseware. And do we know what type of square footage we're looking for?
[fRTeqEogCEI_SPEAKER_30]: All the plans are developed. They're all designed. Everything is set. I don't have the square footage off hand. This is our math guy. He has everything in his head. So $12,000 to answer your question. Is it still $2,000? So there's $2,000. $12,000 for the large dog park and $4,000 for the smaller one.
[Alicia Hunt]: So perhaps it'll be helpful to clarify, um, because as Councilor Marks, um, talked about, there's a filtration that helps them rinse, you know, the, the area regularly, which is why we're not concerned about it being near the river. And with all these things is why a dog park is so expensive. And in fact, what we have is a schematic and a budget in the first $25,000 roughly. Is to do the design and engineering of what we have. We have a laid out. We have a sketch now and that needs to be engineered. We've had a survey done of the property. So this amount will cover the design and engineering and then we would go out to bid and we will automatically get the grant for the construction as long as we put it out to bid and That will cover the 12,000-square-foot dog park. There is a design to have next to it a 4,000-square-foot small dog park. That actually is more than we can afford at this time and would actually be an additional $175,000 total. Well, actually $100,000 total to bring 92,690 for phase two to do that piece. So the current design has a fence, fencing off part of the 12,000 square foot and a gate inside of it so that you can have a small dog park and a large dog within the 12,000 square feet. And then this group intends to continue to pursue funding and fundraising for the rest of, for the section, the second piece of it, which would be the 4,000 square foot area. And then we would remove the gate in the middle as that seemed to be appropriate to do. The dog owners agree. So.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And with regards to the grant, was it your department that filled out the grant?
[Alicia Hunt]: It was so remarkably simple that we had a lot of questions back from our finance office, but literally we sent them a letter of intent saying that the mayor supports this and the city agrees to this location. And I'm sorry, there's feedback on there, I think. We sent them the budget, and we sent them the schematic. That was literally it. There was no argument. There was no pages and pages of prose, as we typically do for a grant. It was a one-page letter. And it is a max of $250,000 per community? Yes. And in fact, we kind of argued with them a lot, trying to advocate for a larger amount, saying that they set that $250,000 several years ago, and that with inflation and costs I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. receptive at this time, but it is a private foundation and they fund dog parks and canine units. There's no reason why they couldn't in the future change their minds, but they're under no regulation to do it. They do provide funds.
[fRTeqEogCEI_SPEAKER_30]: I want just to interject just a little bit.
[Alicia Hunt]: They do provide yearly funds, I think up to three years for maintenance, restoration, additional capital money. You can get money every, they actually expect to give you additional money in the first three years for things that you additionally need. Like, it's about $10,000 a year, roughly. I didn't actually jot that number down. But yeah.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And then with regards to the fundraising from the FAST-14 and then the Doggy Fun Run, right? I feel like it was a fundraiser, too. How much does that amount?
[Alicia Hunt]: $46,000. And so their grant actually covers only hard capital costs of construction. And so any good construction plan includes general conditions and contingency. And they will not cover that in their grant. So we have that cushion. And it's also they provide 90% of whatever our bid price is. So whatever comes in the bid, $250,000 max. So if our bid came in at $260,000, they would look at the $250,000, give us 90% of that, which is $225,000. And we have to guarantee that 10% to the $25,000 there we need to provide. So we've been able to say that we have this 46,000. So we, that'll be our 10% of the hard construction costs. And then we look at some of that money. for any contingency general conditions, things that might not come up. Apparently, actually, they needed us to explain, they actually called and asked a few questions. Apparently, lighting isn't typical, which I don't comprehend, because when you want to take your dog after dark, particularly in the winter, so they needed me to like verbally justify why we included lighting in our bid, and I was like, in our costs, and I was like, because you want to take your dog after five o'clock in the winter time. So there were a few things like that we had to explain to them.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Great. That's my questions for now. I just want to thank you, Alicia, for all your hard work, and of course, pause for men for a minute. I remember clearly coming before us begging for a dog park. And I think after that meeting, the petition was started, and I know Councilmarks got on board. The council was supportive, but Councilmarks went above and beyond and really helped you out. So I just want to thank all that are involved. And I said Alicia, yeah. Which is great. I think everybody really came together, and I'm just really excited. Last question, do we have a time frame, or what is the plan?
[Alicia Hunt]: actually do a request for qualifications for a designer. So that is because of the cost of the designer being, we'll need to do that. So we'll need to put that out. And as you might know, municipal procurement takes some time. And I'm actually still clarifying what our situation is, as we're between procurement officers right now and it is budget season. So I don't actually anticipate being able to do that in the next couple of weeks, because the finance staff is pretty tracked to that. He will do a design. We would then put it out to bid. It is our goal that we would actually go to, it's my hope that we could actually go to construction next spring. If we could do it this fall, that would be fabulous, but I know that each time you go out to bid takes at least four to six weeks just in the bid process alone, let alone the actual work of designing it. So I'm a little not sure, and obviously we wouldn't be able to do construction of a park in the winter.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Madam Vice President.
[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you.
[Richard Caraviello]: Chair recognizes Councilor Caraviello. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I've been a dog owner for probably 35 years. I've known Gary for many years. I used to see Gary at 5 o'clock in the morning with his two dogs and get coffee and eat and go off and do all kinds of stuff. And Jimmy I know is a great, you know, architecture thing. And Patty, you know, a great man. But, you know, I think Councilman Marks has to be commended here. He took it all away from me. If you would, please state your name and address for the record. Hi. Rachel Tannenhaus, 26 Pearl Street.
[Sqp6S0Yyr0A_SPEAKER_04]: I would like to thank very much the folks who have put together and made the dog park almost happen. I don't want to say happen, but it's gone on. There are two reasons, both related to my guide dog, why I'm really excited about this. And you may notice I'm missing somebody tonight. He's fine. He's alive and well. And I'll explain in a second why I'm missing him, but it is related. First of all, as you know, I have a guide dog. And as you may be able to tell, guide work and any kind of service dog work, but guide work, particularly in a city environment, I work downtown, is extremely stressful. A working dog is generally a happy dog, but it takes a huge toll on the dog, and in fact, Guide dogs working in the city generally retire a couple years earlier than guide dogs who work in more rural locations. Because, you know, I literally put my life in his paws. And I don't know if you've noticed, but navigating around the city can be a little stressful sometimes. So, not this one specifically, but A-City. So, some people, there are people with service dogs who do not take their dogs to dog parks, and that's fine, and I understand why they might not. I do, because I have a really high energy dog, and he needs to blow off steam. And it is really, really helpful to the quality of his work to be able to have a place where he can run around and be a dog. We have a yard, it's not huge, you know, but having a place where he can romp and play and just run and run and run, because my dog loves to run, is really, it contributes to the quality of his work and therefore to my safety. So that's, it's very nice to know that that is coming here to Medford and that I don't have to, you know, schlep over to Somerville or Cambridge or wherever to get it done, because I'd really rather do it here. I like taking him to the dog park. The other reasoning is that it's my hope that if dogs are running loose in the dog park, they are less likely to be running loose elsewhere, because they will have a place to do this. I live near Royal Park, and I often use the bus stop that's in front of there. And up until recently, when they took the gates off, there were often dogs running in there. If I can see the sign that says, don't let your dogs run in here, I'm pretty sure everybody else can. And it was a little difficult because using the bus stop and trying to navigate that intersection, which is a little hairy on a good day, my dog would see dogs playing. And in areas where they weren't supposed to be and where I would not let him play because I didn't want him to associate bus stop with play. I wanted him to be able to navigate me there and work. And the reason why he's not here right now is because he is back at the guide dog school getting refresher training because he has developed a problem with dog distraction. And that's really hard. Obviously, that's the kind of thing that can land someone under a truck if it happens at the wrong time. And his dog distraction has been exacerbated by the fact that we have been attacked by off-leash dogs twice since I got him. I've had him just under three years. And it is my hope that, again, that if people are able to use the dog park, that maybe they'll be less likely to be walking around with their dogs off-leash, or maybe they'll be less likely to have their dogs playing off leash in places where it's really a safety risk to other people and their dogs, particularly those of us whose dogs are responsible in part for our safety and independence. My dog is going to be gone for a few weeks. I don't know when he's coming back. And when he comes back, I still don't know whether they will have been able to train this issue out of him. If they can't, I have to apply for another dog. This is really hard for me. I'm sorry. It's also, just if you want to get down to basic economics, which is not usually how I roll, a waste of a $50,000 dog. So I want to thank you very much for doing things that hopefully will make the streets safer for me, for my guide dog, and for other service dog teams, because right now, You know, the more — right now, without those, they are less safe. And hopefully, with the more of those there, the safer things will be. Thank you very much.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Rachel. Ma'am.
[Adam Knight]: Councilor Knight. Mr. President, thank you very much. I think that all of us behind this rail have been very supportive of the initiatives of Paws for Medford and the initiatives to bring a dog park into the city. We have a paper before us here that's giving us free money, and I don't think anybody behind this rail is going to be opposed to that.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Um, so with that being said, Mr. President, I'd move for approval, but, um, we'll give them as far as we get an opportunity to speak, but I think, um, on the motion for approval by council at night, ma'am, please state your name and address for the record. Welcome.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Hi, I'm Cheryl Rodriguez at 21 park street. And I had questions. I heard that we could ask questions about the park. Um, I'm concerned about the proximity to the school. I'm wondering if it's going to be closed during school hours, like the cable access, because these children are younger and more vulnerable than the high school students that that rule is protecting. I'm wondering if there's going to be dedicated parking for this, because anyone who's been to that school campus knows that those lots are overflowing during school hours, approximately between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. So are teachers going to be displaced? I know if you have a sick child at this school, it's nearly impossible to pick your child up because you can't park your car. I'm wondering what the water bill will be to the city for the filtration, the cost of electricity to have lights on at night that we don't have on in the other parks because the local parks don't have lights at night. I don't know if maybe those questions can be answered so we have more perspective.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Alicia, if you could.
[Alicia Hunt]: So we actually, I'm sorry that I don't have a large map of the area. It was actually my goal to have the map of the area, but I don't. Couldn't get it printed, the plotter, this evening. But we looked at two areas in Riverbend Park, and one is the open area by the wind turbine that's sort of right across two paths from the playground and the school. And we deemed that that was actually not a good location because you could see it from the school playground. And that would be a problem. So this location is actually further back under the trees past behind the garden. So it's right at more like at the tip of the parking lot between the two schools. And you pretty much can't see it from the schools. It's my understanding and experience that people walk through down the paths constantly as it is now with their dogs. It's a very popular dog walking area. But now they'll be coming back to this area under the trees and not letting their dogs run in the grassy open area by the wind turbine. So it's designed to be screened by the trees. You can see it from the school. The budget does include some amount of putting in a water line and putting in all of that. But then there will be water to rinse the area, just like we irrigate a lot of our center islands and various places just for beauty. This will actually be used water for cleaning the ground, rinsing stuff into the surface so that it doesn't flow off the surface into the river nearby. And we'll put in LED lighting. I mean, I'm in charge of it, like, of course, I mean, charge is a strong word, but we have an agreement in the city that we will not install non-LED lighting unless there is a very important reason to do so at this point, so.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Very good. And we also, with our municipal aggregation, with municipal aggregation, we have discounted electrical rates.
[fRTeqEogCEI_SPEAKER_30]: That is true.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you.
[fRTeqEogCEI_SPEAKER_30]: I also wanted to address the new concerns about being the proximity to children.
[Clerk]: If you could, Director Ross.
[fRTeqEogCEI_SPEAKER_30]: Sorry. Hello. So the proximity to the children, I definitely, we had addressed this with the school committee because we felt that there may be concerns that arise. Why wouldn't there be? Like Alicia said, it's going to be set. There are going to be trees placed. There are trees moved around. They're going to be placed so it's going to be separate. You're not going to be able to see the park. Secondly, there's a double gated system. The dog goes into the park. The gate shuts. The owner takes the leash off of the dog, enters the park. The dog's not going to be off leash at all, sorry. The dog's not going to be off leash and able to run around where there are children. Arlington's dog park is right next to a playground and two fields where they play soccer, lacrosse, And I believe there may be a baseball field down the way. They haven't had any incidents. They've been there for years.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you.
[fRTeqEogCEI_SPEAKER_30]: It will be open during school hours. Parking is definitely a problem there. I'm a mother of four, and my four children went there. I'm well aware of it. Hormel has an overflow lot. There is multiple parking spots there. That's not going to be an issue.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Very good.
[Fred Dello Russo]: You all set, Madam Vice President?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: You can ask one question. Madam Vice President. Thank you. Through the chair, with regards to being open during school hours, have the principals been updated and been able to give their concerns and ask questions?
[Alicia Hunt]: The group went to the school committee in the fall, but did not specifically, to the best of my knowledge, contact the principals at all. So that's correct. We understand that there's no parking abutting the park during school hours. It's my understanding that most dog owners take their dogs to a park like this before work and after work, and that the ones who are coming in the middle of the day tend to have the time to park at Hormel Stadium and walk down the pathway.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: If I could just make a suggestion with regards to- Point of information, Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: I don't think there are any restrictions or preclusions right now for people utilizing the public park that is Riverbend Park right now. The parks department set the hours as to when the park's going to be open. But there are no preclusions right now from anybody using the park. So I don't think there'd be any necessary preclusions later on for people to use the park and restrict their access to a dog park if there's no restrictions right now for them to do recreational activities at that location as well. Now they're just going to be doing those recreational activities with their animal. Thank you. Madam Vice President.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. If I could just suggest to maybe discuss it with the principals, just have a conversation. I did get a call. Actually, it was a couple months ago. This story might have been in the newspaper. from a teacher. So I think it is definitely valid that just to talk to the principals, make sure they don't have any concerns and ease their fears and maybe have them discuss it with the teacher, see what the teacher's questions are. That'd be great.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Councilor Marks on the motion for approval by Councilor Knight.
[Michael Marks]: You know, this wasn't the only site that was looked at. Actually, Mayor McGlynn did an extensive survey and looked at a number of parks throughout the community. And we kept on arriving at this particular park based on information we received from residents throughout the community. And I think one of the issues that was made mention is the safety of the children. And that's always our first priority. And I think what we have now are dog owners, responsible dog owners that go down there, take the leash off their dog, and allow their dogs to run around free now. What we're saying is we're going to create a confined area So dogs aren't going to be running around. If anything, dogs are running around there without leashes now. And we're going to create a confined area that will house these dogs so you won't have that. And you won't have it in other parks that now there's a place where dogs can run in a confined area. So I think regarding safety, I think we've really did our homework and our due diligence. And it's a great question. I think this adds safety to the area, not detracts from it, to be quite honest with you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Councilor. So on the motion approved by Councilor Knight, seconded by Councilor Marks, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Michael Marks]: Mr. President, before you call the roll.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Mr. Marks, Councilor Marks.
[Michael Marks]: Just the one last thing, Mr. President. And, you know, it's great when we have active volunteers in this community that step up and give hundreds of hours of their own personal time to put such a project together. And I would ask, respectfully, Mr. President, that we add just a B paper or an A paper onto this, asking that the mayor create a dog park committee, which will be needed in this community. This was an informal dog park committee. And I would ask, respectfully to the mayor, that the mayor appoint each one of the members that I mentioned, Patty Flynn, Jim Silva, Gary DiStefano, Diane Gittner, Britt Fitch, and John Sardone, to the dog park committee. And that'd be a formal committee created by the mayor. Now, if they opt not to serve on it because of all the hours they already spent, that's fine. But I think with the wealth of knowledge we have, Mr. President, with this group, and to address some of the issues that were mentioned tonight, and to have a group that oversees this. We have a park commission. They do great work. But this would be a dog park committee. that would pursue outside funding, a dog park community that would look at establishing other dog parks in neighborhoods throughout the community. And I would hate to see this group disperse after this, Mr. President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: So we're going to lure them back in. Let's rail them back in. On the motion as a B paper of Councilor Mark, seconded by Councilor Caraviello. All those in favor. Roll call vote, Mr. President. Motion is approved. Roll call vote. Roll call vote has been asked on the B paper. B paper for the establishment, requesting the mayor establish a dog park committee. We're gonna, you asked for a B paper. Then we are voting on the B paper, which we have just done. And on the main motion was gonna have a roll call vote, councillor. Thank you. Thank you for your kindness.
[Clerk]: On the B paper. Yes. Councilor Falco. Yes. Councilor Knight. Yes. Vice-President Long-Term. Yes. Councilor Marks.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Clerk]: Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. President Dello Russo.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, none in the negative. The B paper passes. Now a roll call on the main motion offered by Councilor, approval by Councilor Knight, seconded by Councilor Marks. Mr. Clerk, if you would please kindly call the roll.
[Clerk]: Councilor Caraviello? Yes. Councilor Falco? Yes. Councilor Knight? Yes. Vice President Langley-Kurtz?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Clerk]: Councilor Marks?
[Fred Dello Russo]: While we're under suspension, 16491, to the Honorable President and members of the Medford City Council, City Hall, Medford Mass, 02155, dear Mr. President and city councilors, I respectfully request and recommend that your honorable body approve the appropriation of certified free cash in the amount of $500,000 for the purpose of replacing sidewalks and related stumps throughout the city. The balance and certified cash free cash prior to this vote is $8,687,775. The interim commissioner of the Department of Public Works The Right Honorable Brian Kerins will be present to answer any questions you may have. Sincerely yours, Stephanie M. Burke, Common Mayor. Mr. Commissioner, if you would, please present to us on this.
[Brian Kerins]: Thank you very much, Mr. President, Madam Vice President, and members of the Council. The Department of Public Works, one of their primary responsibilities is the maintenance and upkeep of The arterial system within the city as well as the sidewalks and the street trees that lie within. The sidewalk condition over the years as well as the roadways due to weather and wear and tear, we have an ongoing replacement program. And currently, you know, we're requesting additional funding to keep that program going to replace the sidewalks that are deteriorating in front of either businesses or residential. Presently, as of today, we've received 554 requests to have sidewalks replaced in front of either a place of business or residential. Now, that breakdown could be concrete, it could be asphalt, possibly brick. But in addition to that, a lot of these places also have tree stumps from trees that were removed at some point in time either through disease or age or mother nature. That would also include removing the stumps that are there and also, you know, then replacing the sidewalk in kind. The city, just as a quick snapshot, has 84.38 miles of public street. That's public street. If you want to get into the private ways, that's 30.98 miles for a total of 115.36 miles of actual roadway. You know, breaking that out, okay, on the public streets, you might say, all right, that, you know, out of the 84.38, probably, all right, you know, 80 miles of that also have sidewalks of various types. Okay, the total number of streets, all right, is 450 actual streets, and those are public ways, and 269 private ways within the city for an area that's 8.6 miles. This would be an ongoing, it would be, you know, obviously for public safety, but also for the quality of life for the residents of Medford. Thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, President Dello Russo. Mr. Kearns, do you have a list of which stumps and street sidewalks will be done with the $500,000?
[Brian Kerins]: Yes, I do, Madam Vice President, right here. It's broken down by the location. who placed the call, their phone number, and then also what ward and precinct.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Those are the ones that will be done with the $500,000? Yes, that's correct. So how many out of the 554 sidewalks that have been added to the list will be done?
[Brian Kerins]: Okay, well, what we'll do is if this money is approved, the contract would be put right out onto the street, put on a fast track, And, you know, we would work up to once the inclement weather, you know, gets, you know, close, then we'd have to shut down and then pick up in the spring. I would have to say, I mean, if this number were to hold, okay, and again, depending on prices, on bids, all right, you know, which is a key factor here, we could, you know, probably I'd have to say, you know, a good 75% of the number I just gave you would be done. And that would all, but again, that would depend also on what the bid prices come in at the time.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: So can we take a look at that? Certainly. So if there's going to be 25% of the 554 sidewalks not replaced, how are we deciding which ones will be done last?
[Brian Kerins]: Well, that's a number, Madam Vice Chairman, through experience. Again, it would all go back to what the actual bid price is as they come in, you know, how much money I would be left, because again, you're talking, you know, prevailing wages, of course, but in addition to that, the price of asphalt and concrete at the time, what it would be per ton or per yard would depend on how far we could stretch it.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Superintendent, is that your, your personal copy of those.
[Brian Kerins]: Yeah, that's fine. But I'd be more than happy to run off and furnish everybody, uh, you know, copies, you know, obviously wish I'm sure someone will make that motion at some point during this deliberation.
[Fred Dello Russo]: And so we'll eagerly await those in our next week's council packet. Not a problem.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: So on this list, they were, they have all been looked at and there are prior ones that are listed as priority worse, worse condition versus,
[Brian Kerins]: Exactly, exactly.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Is there a number scale, like a one through 10 on how dangerous levels?
[Brian Kerins]: OK, there's usually a remark written beside them. Most generally, Madam Vice Chair, they're all in deteriorating condition. The only thing that we would have to make a decision of is, if we go on a particular street and there's one or two requests, the entire street is examined. And even though maybe the residents or the businesses may have not requested a sidewalk, but we find it's deteriorated, there was a tree trip there or whatever, we're obviously gonna have to address those as well. So even though we're gonna go and address all of those that are riding there, that list could also grow.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And this list is done by alphabetical order based on the street name?
[Brian Kerins]: Yes, that's correct.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And then how many stumps need to be removed in our city?
[Brian Kerins]: There is a column on the far right-hand side, Madam Vice-Chair, that indicates, you know, whether it's a tree removal stump, you know, on there. We are doing those internally with our own forestry. You know, it's a continuing program. But where a lot of sidewalks may have been potentially either destroyed over years with the age of the tree that may have been there. We cannot remove those in-house for fear of either disturbing the street or maybe the utilities that may be underground. It could be gas, water or sewer that may be intertwined with tree roots.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Maybe we get scanned a copy of this? It's huge, so yeah, if we could get a scanned copy.
[Brian Kerins]: Madam Vice Chair, if you wish, you can keep my copy and I can, you know, I'll be making additional copies anyway for the council.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Amendment to this paper that the council received a listing of the operative list of sidewalks, trees, and stumps that need attention.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And then with regards to pricing, I mean, does one square of a sidewalk, what are we pricing that at?
[Brian Kerins]: Okay, the concrete is in yards, the asphalt would be by the ton. What the actual price would be today, Madam Vice Chair, I couldn't tell you for sure, but I can make a few phone calls and get a general idea of what it would be.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: It seems great to be able to replace, it seems almost unrealistic for just the $500,000. Because I know we've had bonds with $750,000 bond one time, and I know we didn't even replace half that amount. So that's why I asked.
[Brian Kerins]: And I can understand that.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Because this is a lengthy, lengthy list. Thank you, Madam Vice President. Thank you.
[Richard Caraviello]: Councilor Caraviello. Thank you, Mr. President. I'm glad to see that we finally decided to reinvest some money back into our community for something. I mean, in my four years on the council, I've been here before when we've appropriated bonds to get this done. And again, I know it never covered enough, but Mr. Kearns, is this going to be done in-house or subcontracted out?
[Brian Kerins]: No, this will be done by a contractor. We have insufficient manpower in-house to do it. And the stumps going to be outside sourced also? The contract for the replacement sidewalks will also include an item for stump removal.
[Richard Caraviello]: Okay, and we expect to get this started?
[Brian Kerins]: Okay. If the funds are approved, we'll pull a contract and get it on a fast track. We'll probably get it out on the street within a couple of weeks.
[Richard Caraviello]: Okay. Now, does this have to go through the procurement process?
[Brian Kerins]: Okay, it would have to run through that.
[Richard Caraviello]: Now, who's doing the procurement for us? Mr. President, can we find out who's doing the procurement for us at the moment?
[Fred Dello Russo]: Can we amend this paper to request the mayor's office to inform us as to who is doing the procurement work at this point?
[Richard Caraviello]: And if it could get fast-tracked so this could go to the beginning of the list so we can get this started before the summer. And we can probably do it by the end of November.
[Brian Kerins]: Yes, Councilor.
[Richard Caraviello]: And my last question is, when is the interim going to be taken away from your job? That is up to the mayor, sir. And Mr. President, if we could also ask when Mr. Keran's interim status will be changed.
[Fred Dello Russo]: And further amended that a request be made of the mayor's office as to the terminal point of Mr. Keran's. I thought he was, I think his original was like 45 days or 90 days. The terminal point of Mr. Keran's tenure as interim commissioner of public works.
[Richard Caraviello]: Mr. Keran's 90 days is long but up and he's doing a fine job. Thank you, councillor. Thank you, councillor.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Councilor Falco.
[John Falco]: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. Carranza, just a couple of quick questions. Is the only option, if you have a stump, is the only option to replace the stump with a sidewalk? Can you get a tree if you want, or is that?
[Brian Kerins]: Yes, but what we would do, I mean, a lot of the stumps that are there now are actually, not only have pulled the asphalt or the concrete up, but they've also disturbed the curbing, and also even buckled the roadway, because a lot of these trees were very, very old. and deep rooted, so we really have to reinvent the wheel and replace the sidewalk. We box it out. But once we have it boxed out, then our arborists will consult with the homeowner, give them the choice of tree. and it would be a fall planting, you know, it wouldn't happen right away.
[John Falco]: So people do have an option, right? Absolutely. Okay. And as far as, so the operatives, is that that person who auditioned, so Zaki? Yes. So Zaki actually, she's the one who actually contacts the homeowners and says, you know, what do you prefer?
[Brian Kerins]: Yes. She gives them, I think, the choice of what is available, you know, for the fall planting. And they have an option at that point, whether to say, yes, I want it, No, I do. I no longer want a tree in front of my house. Okay.
[John Falco]: And as far as if someone is, how does someone go about determining, say if they're new to the neighbourhood, how do they know if they're on the list or not? Do they contact your office?
[Brian Kerins]: They can contact DPW in various ways. The C-Click Fix Program, email, in person, or the old-fashioned way, telephone. And, you know, I'd be more than happy to look their name up on the list. And that has occurred. Can people be added to that list, or is the list what it is right now? No, that'll continue to grow, you know, as of tomorrow. Okay. But that actual number that I gave you was what it was by four o'clock this afternoon.
[John Falco]: Okay, so if someone calls me, I can say, you know, call DW Supervix, and you can be added to the list, yes. Okay, great. Would it be possible to provide us with a report once this is complete to actually see how many trees and stumps were actually replaced? How many stumps were grinded and how many sidewalks were replaced? Just to find out, I guess, you know, just in case it gets to a point where, you know, we don't have everything done, at least to know how much got done, what's moving in the government. Sure. We'd be happy to provide you with a progress report.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you very much. I'm going to notify Councilor Falco that a progress report be given to the City Council before the holiday season. Chair recognizes Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. President, thank you very much. And through you to Mr. Kerins, thank you very much for your work. In the short time that you've been here, Mr. Kerins, I've really appreciated the work that you've done. And I, too, cannot wait for the day they take the interim tag away, because I truly do think you're an asset here to the city of Medford. I wish we could have kept you from your first day here all the way through. But with that being said, you know, there's a dire need in this community for this type of work to be done. An appropriation for half a million dollars that's going to take care of about 400 sidewalks I think is a great investment, Mr. President. This is something that I certainly support. The one question I do have is, though, once the contract is signed, we have an RFP out, to nuts how long do you think it would take in terms of construction season. Would it be one full construction season to make it through? Two full construction seasons to make it through? And I understand the list is going to grow and I think that your approach is the right one because if someone went to my neighbor's house and put a brand new sidewalk panel down, and then walk past my house and mine was cracked and went to the next number on the list, I'd be on the phone with you in five minutes calling on what's going on. They just did the work right next door to my house and my sidewalk's broken too because I wasn't on the list. I didn't get it done even though there was a need. So I think that's the great approach. I think that's really the work smarter, not harder. Um, but in terms of, you know, how long it would take to, to get through 400, to get through the $500,000. Um, okay.
[Brian Kerins]: Uh, well again, two parties here. One would depend on how, uh, how expensive, uh, uh, the, uh, concrete and asphalt is would determine just how fast we'd be going through the money. Weather, when it comes to inclement days, rainy days, obviously they wouldn't be making a pour. They could do excavating in those days, box the sidewalks out and prep them. But as far as actually finishing it after, come back once the weather clears. But, you know, particularly, of course, when it comes time for concrete, come November, you are going down a slippery slope as far as temperature. And at that point, you know, we'd have to actually begin to seriously consider ceasing operation, particularly on the concrete side. Asphalt, we could probably, you know, stretch it a little further than that.
[Adam Knight]: Excellent. And I know we spoke recently about some asphalt sidewalk panels that have been replaced. a lot of the asphalt panels are being replaced as a temporary hold?
[Brian Kerins]: That's correct. Public safety, obviously, is paramount. And in a lot of cases, we've found that you could not wait for a contract. An immediate measure had to be taken. And the quickest in-house remedy that we had on hand was to put asphalt, explaining to either the homeowner or the business owner that this is only a stopgap measure. are to prevent people from, you know, tripping and falling.
[Adam Knight]: Excellent. Excellent. I, for one, Mr. President, look forward to this work getting done and the administration putting another paper forward to us for us to appropriate some more funds. As Councilor Mark said, clearly, one of the largest concerns that he's heard after putting out a press release about what he feels, if you feel safe in your neighborhood, is everyone has very large concerns about pedestrian safety. And sidewalks are for people to walk on, for pedestrians. So, I certainly think that this is a worthwhile expenditure, Mr. President. I move for approval.
[Fred Dello Russo]: The motion for approval as amended by Councilor Knight, Councilor Marks.
[Michael Marks]: Thank you, Mr. President. And I want to thank the interim director for being here tonight. Um, you know, speaking from experience and I think Councilor Lungo-Koehn was the only one on the council at the time. Uh, then, uh, uh, DPW Commissioner Jack Buckley back some many years ago, uh, presented a very similar paper, uh, on behalf of mayor McGlynn, uh, asking for an appropriation, uh, from this council to repair a number of sidewalks and remove a number of stumps. And that night I recall vividly, actually the Boston Globe wrote a nice story about it, uh, asking Mr. Buckley, uh, what are we going to get for the, I believe at the time it might've been a half a million dollars or maybe 750,000. And, uh, Jack Buckley at the time said, I'll do my best. to accomplish as many as possible. And at the time, we said we'd like to see some more facts and figures. Based on what you provided me here tonight, I have a tough time believing that everyone that requested a sidewalk back in 2012 got their sidewalk replaced. There's not, I can't find one that dates prior to like May of 2012. 13. I have a tough time believing, knowing that for many years, uh, there existed maybe 50 of these reports. You probably know you, you were around some time back and there was never a master list in the city for whatever reason. And, uh, and I'm glad I voted against the proposal back some 10 years ago because sure enough, um, uh, We did not accomplish what we intended to accomplish, and far less were done in the community. And the administration was back before us once again asking for, I think it was another half a million dollars. And so I would just ask, this is a great idea. No one doesn't want to replace old dilapidated sidewalks and remove tree stumps that have been there for many, many years. I could tell you my road alone, there's been tree stumps there for over five years and they're not on this list and they're still there. So we don't have an accurate accounting of what's out in the community right now. And um, so I can't vote for this tonight based on, I don't know the number of, you're saying 75% of this will be accomplished. I don't know what this is. Is it 800 sidewalks? Is it a thousand?
[Brian Kerins]: The actual number there that is incomplete, that have not been fixed or repeated, is 554. That entire package that you have, out of it, there's actually 889 requests in that package, out of which, in previous contracts, 335 requests were addressed and completed, which leaves us with the five. Okay. Yes. 554 requests are outstanding on that package that you're holding counseling. Right.
[Michael Marks]: And how, how come they don't date back prior to just say May of 2013? Uh, I, I bump into people all the time. So I requested a sidewalk 10 years ago, uh, almost daily. Um, and this seems to be a real recent list. to the other park or by the wayside?
[Brian Kerins]: OK. That's something that I expected and I required when I first came aboard. I wanted a detailed record kept from the day of my appointment until now. But in addition to that, what was outstanding from the previous commission is it was still retained within the computer. And I wanted that taken out. Okay. And also incorporated. So that way it can be verified. All right. Whether or not it had been completed or, you know, or was still outstanding.
[Michael Marks]: And, uh, in previous years, the work took place, uh, because it was cost effective, uh, from neighborhood to neighborhood. So you wouldn't jump in a street and not method, uh, then down to South method. Um, and, uh, is that still the process? Will we be working in neighborhoods?
[Brian Kerins]: We will be working in the neighborhoods, and depending on who the contractor is and what staffing he can provide us, it would be nice to have two crews, one staying ahead of the other, one that would be opening and doing the excavation, and then a finished crew following right behind him. But until such time as we put the bid out, I cannot guarantee that that would occur. That would be the most expeditious way. It would still be the same cost, right? It's just that we would, you know, get into that list pretty fast and, you know, make decent headway rather than to have the same crew handle it twice.
[Michael Marks]: Right. Which leads to my second concern. And I know everyone has their own opinion, but I rather see the oldest ones tackled first. If I've been on the list for three, four years waiting, and then you happen to get on the street and see five others that weren't on the list but need to be done also, I think it's a prudent way of doing it, but you possibly could not get to my sidewalk that's been on the list years before someone else. And I think in a sense of fairness, that's not fair. But I would just ask that we wait a week. I'd like to see the number of sidewalks, I know you just gave us a figure, but I'd like to see the number of sidewalks that will be accomplished with, you're saying 75% of these? and also 75% of the stumps that we're aware of are going to be accomplished?
[Brian Kerins]: Again, it would be the stump and then whatever is related to it. We could have, like I said, a couple of panels. that were damaged as a result of the stumps. We could even have roadway buckling from some of the deep-rooted trees. Really, each stump situation is going to be a case-by-case, depending on how deep-rooted the tree is and how old it was.
[Michael Marks]: I can't vote on this tonight until I see just a detailed list of how many sidewalks we have now, and what will be accomplished in regards to sidewalks and stumps. What's roughly one panel cost to have done for an outside contractor?
[Brian Kerins]: Today's, I couldn't even begin to tell you what today's current price is, Councilor. Ballpark estimate. Okay, ballpark, all right, for excavating, boxing in. One panel, one panel. You know, you're probably talking, you know, maybe, all right, with a contract like that, maybe, you know, say, you know, $20, $25 a panel, all right? Yeah, possibly. But again, you know, I don't know what today's prices are. I'm hearing conflicting stories that prices of material have gone down, but I've also heard it's gone up in previous years, all right? I mean, I can gladly supply an old expired contract, which would be from last year, that would have the breakdown, all right, you know, an itemized breakdown. But I couldn't, you know, give an honest statement as far as what it would be today or even close to it.
[Michael Marks]: So the ripping up, the foundation that you have to, the boxing in, and then the pouring of the cement is $25 a month. Could be somewhere close to it.
[Brian Kerins]: Because again, you're talking, all right, you know, at least three, you're talking at least three inches of concrete, you know, two and a half to three inches of, concrete per slab. Then if it involves a driveway apron, now you're talking four inches of concrete for a driveway apron because of the weight of an automobile or a pickup truck.
[Michael Marks]: You said $25, right? OK. No, no, no.
[Brian Kerins]: No, not $2,500 a panel. No. Yeah. Yeah.
[Michael Marks]: No, no, no. What does it cost labor? And what does it cost to install one panel? I mean, we're, we're, we're paying everything. We're not just paying for the material.
[Brian Kerins]: Okay. Again, I counsel, I give you a figure. Okay. Maybe, all right. You know, $40. All right. That's everything from the backhoe till the cement truck pulling away. But you know, till I get to today's current price, I just wanted a ballpark.
[Michael Marks]: I just want to, you know, Mr. President, Yeah. Mr. President, if I could, um, you know, the floor council, I, I, this is a worthy project without a doubt. I still would like to see, uh, and looking at this, there's a lot to take in. We just received this tonight. Um, but I can just tell you, uh, residents on Hamlin have and a Sherman court and Sherman place, uh, recently called me. I went down to the neighborhood, uh, as we probably all aware, they dug up gas lines. I believe it was last, November. And they just recently paved. And I would ask any one of my colleagues to take a ride out to those streets and look at a street that's half paved in literally an inch from where they paved four or five inch potholes. I mean, it's a disgrace, Mr. President. It really is a disgrace. I don't I'm not blaming you in particular, but I don't know how the city would actually see this happening and approve this, Mr. President, allowing a half a street to be paved and the other half to exist littered with potholes. It just doesn't make any sense. So maybe if you could take that back to the administration, I think you know the streets I'm talking about. Hamlin, Sherman Court, Sherman Place, Spring. Have you been out there?
[Brian Kerins]: OK, not recently. I think it was like three or four weeks ago was the last time I was in that general.
[Michael Marks]: Do me a favor. Just take a ride by. Certainly. And take a look at it. I think it's embarrassing to have to tell neighbors that the trucks aren't coming back to repave the other half. Because it just doesn't make any sense. And the lack of oversight is astounding. So those are my comments, Mr. President. I would ask that we postpone this for a week, and maybe we can get just a one-page document outlining what's going to be done. I think it's prudent and fiscally responsible, and to make sure that we get what we pay for.
[Fred Dello Russo]: We have a motion for approval on the floor. Chair recognizes Councilor Scarpelli.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. Carnes, for all your hard work. Part of the study that you looked into, one of the big issues I've been getting from phone calls from different constituents would be the work done by our utilities to go along with Council Marks. Have we looked at the repairs in correlation to what the utilities might have had a negative influence in these sidewalks? Have we done that?
[Brian Kerins]: They have been doing it in the past, as I've been told. But I have also tried to step up the effort with the engineering division, though they are understaffed. But in addition to that, public works as a whole, I have one thing in common, their eyes and ears. I, we, you know, people are, they can go out and check. So, you know, I've had, you know, that happen as well. You know, these utility companies, obviously, of course, you know, some of them are very good at what they do and try to return the road to, you know, the same shape, if not better. And then there are others out there that, you know, there are subcontractors that, you know, do their excavating and repaving, like Councilor Marks was alluding to. that again, there are issues and we're trying to tackle that with the staff that we have.
[George Scarpelli]: Okay, so the tracking hasn't been done yet. I know you're new to the position and everything, but we don't have an actual tracking system in place that out of these 800 somewhat sidewalks that need to be repaired, that how many were ripped up at a time that were part of maybe the utilities errors or utilities non-professionalism in the sense that the reason why this is happening. So if we can, as we move forward, I think that's something that's very important and making sure that something that we talked about, even with the Craddock bridge and making sure that when those jobs are done, we have a point person. You know, I know you're only one person and we don't have a very big DPW crew right now and making sure that the jobs that are complete are complete to our specifications and are left the way we wanted them to be left. So I think that's important. The other piece is I did get a phone call. We talked to a few neighbors and constituents that road work that was done within probably the last 10, 15 years. Um, we have an issue being, being, uh, you know, proactive with this as we move forward. The talking to the city's arborists and making sure that we're not using the trees that, the rooting trees that bring up the sidewalks. That's one of the issues that I've been, I've been getting phone calls that we have relatively new streets of sidewalks, but because the trees are now growing into adult trees and now taking up sidewalks that you can see now that an inch, but you know, within the next five or 10 years, these are going to be the next issues we have. So, um, I don't know if there's any correlation that we can find that out moving forward, but I think it's something that's important that we could maybe ask the city's arborist moving forward with the sidewalks, looking into making sure that we are planting trees that are not the rooting system, trees that that raise our sidewalks. I know that I think it was the maple tree that they said they weren't, we're not going to put in anymore.
[Brian Kerins]: So I'll meet with her and discuss that with her and see what options we have available.
[Fred Dello Russo]: All right. Thank you. Thank you. Counsel Scarpelli chair recognizes vice president local current.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. I'm president Delaware. So I just want to, um, I agree with my council colleague, Councilor Marks, with regards to waiting a week and getting a detailed list. I just pulled the bond indebtedness, and it looks like we went up to bond a million dollars in 2012 for just sidewalks alone, and then in 2010, a million, 45,000, so that puts it in perspective. Two million, 45,000 approximately went to sidewalks in the last six years, and it looks like From what we've been told, about 335 were done with that money. So it doesn't add up with regards to the amount we have. And I would like to see a detailed list, just so we can.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Point of information, Councilor.
[Adam Knight]: Councilor Schell, would you group what paper it is she's looking at there, just so that we can take a peek at that?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: The city's bonds. We all have it.
[Adam Knight]: And does she have a date on it or anything like that?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: We get one every year.
[Adam Knight]: And what year is that from?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: This has bonds up until 2013.
[Adam Knight]: And the document, Mr. President, though, wouldn't be just the bonds that were issued in 2013. It might be 15 or 20 years worth of bonds that are being paid off over the period of time.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: So it goes back to at least 2010. So that's a debt service schedule? Correct. Yes.
[Adam Knight]: Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Madam Vice President, you have the floor.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I would just ask, I would second the question with regards to asking for a detailed list. I know we have, you know, 889 requests, and I agree. I think Mr. Buckley and Mr. Geer, who have also appeared before us with regards to separate bonds, also said the same thing as you, Mr. Kearns, with regards to if you do one panel on one street, you're going to look at them all on that street. So, you know, potentially that 500,000 maybe won't stretch as far as we hope it would. So I would like to know what the beginning streets would be, give us the first hundred that we're going to do so that we know when people call us and they're on that list or people are posting on see, click, fix, certain sidewalks, certain stumps, you know, we have a reasonable explanation of why this 500 maybe didn't stretch as much as we thought it would tonight.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you. Councilor kind of yellow. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. Cairns, the yellows that are on here, are those the ones that have already been done? Are those the ones that need to be done?
[Brian Kerins]: Okay. I believe those are the important ones. Okay. And no, that's actually the way it came out of the, uh, the commuter, uh, computer and the office staff handed it to me.
[Richard Caraviello]: I, uh, we don't know what the, we don't know what the highlighted ones mean.
[Brian Kerins]: No, I, I, I, it could be any, any color to me, but I'm going to go by, you know, whoever's on there, how long they've been on there.
[Richard Caraviello]: No, my colleagues have asked for a detailed list. I mean, how much more detailed does it get than this?
[Brian Kerins]: Okay. Tomorrow it'll be different. I'm sure I'll get a few more calls for requests. So what you're saying is the $500,000 we'll take care of this package.
[Richard Caraviello]: No.
[Brian Kerins]: How much we'll do? Okay. No, because again, is, is madam vice chairman even alluded to, I could have one request on one street on that piece of paper. And when, then when we arrive, this could be five or six or seven other residents on there. All right. Um, and again, you know, what do you do? Walk away? No, you know, um, you know that it's, it's a, like I said, you, the slippery slope that you're on, because obviously, I mean, you want to do it and do it right. But at the same time, too, you don't want to just do that one and keep jumping. You want to do it and put it to bed at the time. So that's why I say the $500,000, would that complete the list? Absolutely not. That's a jumping off point. Because again, keeping in mind, we are working against the clock as far as time is concerned. We only have, like, three or four months left of good weather, particularly with concrete, when we're going to have to stop.
[Richard Caraviello]: Mr. President, I'd make a recommendation that while we're waiting for the list, if we could at least start the process going, because from what I understand, the procurement office right now is a little backed up to wait another week or two to get it into the pipeline. Could be that Jonesville, let's say. If we could at least get the process going, So we can get it out to bid while we're waiting for the combined list. And if we could find out what these yellows mean or what's done and not done.
[Brian Kerins]: Most certainly. What was that?
[Fred Dello Russo]: All right. Very good. So on the motion for approval by Councilor Knight, Madam Citizen wishes to speak. Please state your name and address for the record. Welcome.
[Jeanne Martin]: I have a different philosophy on this. This should be done in-house. There's no reason why we can't have the DPW yard do this kind of work, excavate a little square, and just put it in. We have control. Because what you're talking about, you have no accountability. You're going to give the contract to $500,000, and then they're going to say, well, we'll be able to do three streets. then they're going to say, well, we didn't have enough and we had to do two streets. I mean, it's making no sense. This is making no sense. But if it's done in-house, and that requires putting aside more money in the budget for DPW, workers and material, and when you put in the money for the material, keep it in the material account. play with it, don't borrow from it, don't do anything with it. Cause I know how the magic numbers seem to move around. So, but no, there's absolutely no reason why. And then you have more control over it. And also a couple more questions. Yes.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Point of information. Councilor Caraviellola.
[Jeanne Martin]: Yes.
[Richard Caraviello]: If we had the manpower to do this in house, this whole room would be a static.
[Jeanne Martin]: I agree with you.
[Richard Caraviello]: So obviously, you know, I mean, uh, we're, these guys are working almost on a skeleton group. They even, and the last time we tried this doing it in house, You saw what it got us.
[Jeanne Martin]: It requires more people.
[Richard Caraviello]: But we, we don't, unfortunately we don't have the people. I'm sure Mr. Cairns would love to have enough crew to do this in house. But it's a, that's a, that's a great big wish list. It isn't going to happen this year. Thank you counsel.
[Jeanne Martin]: With all due respect. And I agree with you 100%, but it has to become a priority for the city. This is absolutely a priority for the city to do the streets, right? And, and the piecemeal approach is ineffective. And I just want to make a couple more. points, which is the squeaky wheel gets the grease here. So I'm a quiet neighbor or I'm a tenant and I don't open my mouth because I'm a tenant. I have a two family, three family house and we're all tenants. We're going to keep our mouth shut because we're just paying rent. We don't care. We get it. We get a crack in our sidewalk. We're not going to say anything or I'm a quiet person. I don't want to make a noise, so I don't complain about my crack. So my crack doesn't get fixed, but somebody else does. It's just an unfair system. Now, it's not prudent. I agree. I see both sides of this, that if you're going to work on a street, that you do the whole street. But I'm saying that you need a systematic approach, somebody inspecting each street, going around saying, yep, that one needs fixing, A street, B street, C street. And it needs to be a priority. And I totally agree, Mr. Caraviello. It may be a pripe dream, but all dreams start someplace.
[Fred Dello Russo]: And I truly believe that the DPW- Point of information, Councilor Scott Peller.
[Jeanne Martin]: Yeah.
[George Scarpelli]: Is the list, maybe I'm wrong. Was that a priority? Is it, these are lists that I think Mr. Karen said that you were going to a priority in how long the years the list has been out there or the request has been out there.
[Brian Kerins]: If the particular list that's been going around here, our Councilor, is a list that's generated by either the C-Click fixed program, emails, telephone calls, or in-person people that are requesting that this sidewalk be repaired or replaced.
[George Scarpelli]: Okay, so have we, I'm sorry, Gene, I apologize, so it's not something that someone's been waiting for for a little bit longer than others, or something that might be more damaging more safety-wise needs to be repaired. That hasn't been classified, I thought that was.
[Brian Kerins]: As far as the date that we received the request, that's on the report. As far as the actual condition, some of them have been looked at, and again, a temporary asphalt measure may have been put in place. because of either, you know, serious undermining or serious street trip, but also a lot of them on that list have not been actually looked at, you know, at this point in time.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Okay. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you, Ms. Martin. Thank you. May continue.
[Jeanne Martin]: Thank you very much. So what I'm saying is if we have to hire four more people just to do sidewalks and whether it's asphalt or cement, hire four people. and hold them accountable under their contract that this is what they do. And that way you have accountability, they give you the list, they tell you what they're doing, and if they don't do what they're doing, you let them go. I mean, you have more accountability. The story, I mean, not the story, what you're doing is nuts because it just has no rhyme or reason, no offense. I understand why you're doing it, I get that. I get that it's a fix, it's immediate, and it works for right now, hopefully. But in the long term, it's really, and you have no accountability. You really don't, because it's just, look at what happens. You know, some streets get done, there's no systematic approach to it, and it needs to have a systematic approach. So it has to become a priority, and if it includes hiring four guys, plus cement and material, and I mean keep it in the cement and material folder. Don't take that money and use it for a park or something else. That's dedicated money for street repair. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. So on the motion for approval by Councilor Knight, seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. Sir, welcome. Please state your name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_18]: 24 Hamlin Ave, Medford. I'm aware you know me after last week. Um, I was in bed watching TV and the only reason why I come down here, I didn't know they were going to be talking about the streets or whatever. I live on Hamlin Ave. Uh, there's four streets that's been done. I know keys being whoever does the street. You guys probably don't have nothing to do with it. They dug it up. They had to replace the pipes. We understand they put it down. Like Mr. Mark said, I need you guys to go down there and go look at it. The old street looked better. Listen, they tried. Nobody's saying they didn't try. They put two inches of tar down. Okay? Everybody knows three to four inches. Anybody knows that. We got a house across the street they're doing over. They got the permits being built. Trucks are turning around. It's already been tearing up. There's a seam going down the middle. If you looked like it, if you ever saw it, you got to go down and look at it. You come down. I wasn't there, I guess. You were around. It looks like the ghetto, the old street looked better. Half the street's done, half the street. It's just like, so people have come to me, they think I'm a movie star. Everywhere I go, people are shaking my hand after last week about the parking ticket. It was on the news, it was on the radio, the parking ticket, that's done deal, whatever. Everywhere I go, people are thanking me. My phone hasn't stopped, my doorbell hasn't stopped. Now that my neighbors are coming to me, I told them, stop, come bring in my bell, last night at 10 o'clock. They won't, I signed a petition. We got like 150 people, all every side street. So a couple people can't, they work for the city. A couple other people said, yeah, okay, I don't wanna get involved. That's fine, that's their option. But to see it, I just don't understand if you're doing a street, I know money's tough. I pay $7,000 in taxes. They sweep the street twice a year, not getting off the subject. But you might say, hey, they're doing half the street, maybe we can put the other half. If they spend 20 grand, maybe we can put the other 20 grand in. So we save the 20 grand. And I understand maybe they didn't communicate with you guys about it. You have to see it. So we're told through the grapevine that it's going to be done. We don't know. So, but you have to go down and look at it. I know they try to correct it. It's awful. It's like people don't, they're coming to me. I'm like, well, you want to sign a petition? I'll sign a petition. You know, I think we should give them the opportunity. for you guys or whoever has to do it to go down and take a look at it and see what it looks like, you know? And then go from there. I mean, once you start to plow with two inches, you're better off to leave the old. And the beginning of the street, it's all potholes to the side. I mean, it's worse. The little trench they had looked better than what it looks now. People come down, everybody's like, when are they finishing the street? I said, we live in Medford, what are you, crazy? That's done. That's it. It shouldn't be like that, you know? Seriously, you laugh, Freddy. Your street wouldn't be like that. You wouldn't, your street wouldn't be like that. Mayor's street wouldn't be like that, I guarantee you. You go up to any of the areas up there where they live, look around, see if there's any stumps. I know that takes time, like him. The cement, that's a big job. You can't do it for guys, you gotta hire it out. That's a lot of cement, a lot of work. I've done that work, and I understand that. I know there's so much money. There's so many sidewalks, and it happens. Nobody does it on purpose, you know? But to go see it, you know, you should look at it. I don't know if anything can be done now, You know, supposedly, when they did all the pipes and they did all the sidewalks, they did do all the cement, and they just finished one gas pipe up the street that had tar. They did remove it. They took care of it. But we were told last year the streets were going to be done. We were told. I mean, whatever happened last year happened. But I think they were aware of it. And here's another great example. You know, the money was there. I mean, Keyspan had to put some good money out, you know. They did Springsteen, but the side streets, you gotta see the four streets. Sherman Place, Sherman Court, the next one down, Hamlin Ave. Just take a ride by and look at it. Look at the daylight, but just look at already the stone all over. It's already coming up at the end of the driveway. It's just, it's gonna be worse when they plow. It's gonna be a mess. You're better off to leave it alone. This is only my second time here now. I don't wanna be here, but I don't wanna be the guy running around doing petitions and ringing my doorbell. It's just, so I just thank you for your time. I think, hopefully, something can happen.
[Michael Marks]: Mr. President, I have a couple of councilmarks. On behalf of Mr. Lustig, we offer that the city engineer report back to this council regarding what, if any, plans are for the other half of those streets. This is clearly a failure of the engineering department. Hamlin, Sherman Court, Sherman Place. And my second point, Mr. President, if I could, I know there's a couple of motions on. One's to table for a week until we get some more information. The other one is to move approval tonight Based on what we heard from Mr. Kerens, that $500,000 will pay for roughly 75% of the list, from what he's telling us, and based on that, there's a free cash balance of $8,687,775. If we were to do 100% of this list, based on the figures Mr. Cairns has given us, we could do the whole list. So you won't have a concern. I won't have a concern. There'll be no concern. For $668,000, so another $168,000, we could complete that entire list. No one's going to come back to us for more money. It's, you know, and I realize you might run into things here and there, but that should cover the entire list. I feel comfortable with that. Uh, there's enough money in free cash to do that, Mr. President. And, uh, you know, if we're all concerned about, uh, the replacement of sidewalks and so forth, I think that's a great suggestion.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Counsel. We have a motion for approval for what is before us. for the amount of $500,000. Who's that motion by?
[Michael Marks]: Mr. President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: By Councilor Knight, seconded by Councilor Stucco.
[Michael Marks]: I would ask that Councilor Knight would draw that motion for what I believe is a compromise to get all the whole list completed.
[Adam Knight]: And for the figures that I have, it doesn't seem like... Mr. President, I don't think anything's going to be precluding the administration from coming back to the council and requesting another $128,000 at another point in time. But if they're not willing to move and appropriate the money at this point in time and ask us to appropriate the money at this point in time, then we're leaving $500,000 on the table. $500,000 of work that needs to be done, that should be done, that has to be done. I don't feel comfortable withdrawing my motion to approve, Mr. President. I want to see sidewalk work start, and I want to see it start yesterday.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Mr. President, if I could. And we just heard that time is of the essence.
[Michael Marks]: So, you know, if the mayor came back in three months from now and said, you know what? I should have completed that whole list. I need $158,000 to do it. Guess what? That's next year we're going to end up doing it. We're not going to be able to do it this year. Why not complete the whole list this year? Why not do it this year? It's cost effective. I see it as a win-win. So, you know, I think, you know, in these times, we should send a message back to the administration saying, you know what? Let's do it all at once. We have the free cash. Why not do it? This seems to be, at least on my opinion, there seems to be some concern that we're not going to get the amount of sidewalks paid for with the 500,000 that we're being told. I've been there, done that. Now everyone else can experience it on their own. So this, this is something that, you know, in the past that we've asked for a detailed itemized list and sure enough, The administration came back with a much larger request for sidewalk replacement. So if the council wants to move that forward, I can't support it based on that reason, Mr. President. I'd like to see 100% done, not 75% done.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Councilor. Vice President Lungo-Curran, and we're going to wrap this up.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I'd like to see 100% done too, but I still don't think it's going to be $668,000. I think, Mr. Curran, if I'm understanding you correctly, That list, maybe we could have done 75%, but I think, since you said you're going to go in and do a whole, you know, stretch a sidewalk if need be, I'm assuming that brings that 75% number down significantly.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Although we don't know how much, so... We can't, you know, we have to read the information on costs, as you can see.
[Adam Knight]: As far as point of information comes, the $500,000 is going to fix $500 worth of sidewalks that need to be fixed. List, no list. Broken sidewalk is a broken sidewalk. A broken sidewalk needs to be fixed. It's our job to provide public safety in the community. It's a number one job. Pedestrian safety, as Councilor Knox has stated before, is a priority in this community. Residents are talking about it daily. Residents of Miss Rodriguez was up there last week talking about pedestrian safety. Sidewalks are pilot apps, Mr. President. I think that we just got to get the ball rolling. Let's get some shovels in the ground. Let's get to work.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you for that point of information, Councilor Knight. Uh, vice president Lugo current has the chair point of information count as the floor point of information Councilor Marks.
[Michael Marks]: We're the gatekeepers. So I think it's very reasonable to ask what we're going to get for a particular dollar amount. If I hired someone to cut my grass and said, cut my grass for a hundred dollars and get as far as you can. And I come back and only half the lawns mode, I'd have a problem with it. So I'd want to know that what's being done. So to say that we're going to take $500,000 and do $500,000 worth of sidewalks, what if that's three sidewalks? We don't know. I'm just saying, I think it's prudent to have a list. And if we don't have a complete list like we have tonight.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Point of information is a statement of a point of information, not a continuation of endless debate.
[Clerk]: I'm glad you know the rules, Mr. President.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: So I have the floor?
[Fred Dello Russo]: You have the floor, madam.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: And if you will, wrap it up.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, no, 100% this is about public safety. We all want sidewalks done. But we also have to answer to our constituents. We see what's going on on C-Click Fix. We heard this 889 requests for sidewalks. We're not sure of the number of stumps. I would like to know where the $500,000 is being spent, even if it's a list of the first 100 sidewalks, first 50 stumps that are going to be removed. I think we need to know that information.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Is that an amendment, Madam Vice President?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: that is a request to get before we vote on this paper.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the amendment by Vice President Lungo-Koehn that we get a report back on the expenditure of the first 100 sidewalks and what is the balance of this expenditure?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Just a list, yes. And I think we have to ask the administration to join forces with the Director of Public Works and figure out if we can do all these sidewalks for the a different amount of money that maybe we think of appropriating more than the $500,000 if need be, if it is somewhere around the $600,000, $700,000 range. I highly, highly doubt it. But let's get it all done if we can. And we obviously know we're not going to go out to bid anytime soon because we don't have a procurement officer. I think Ms. Hunt stated that today. It's going to be a few weeks before we even think of going out to bid on the dog park proposal. So we have time. This is something that needs to be done The last time we went out to bond that I'm aware of is in 2012. I didn't say it was a bond. I know. I'm not sure why you always have something to say, always interrupt. Bicker? He puts words in my mouth. He changes around my resolutions every week. I have people calling me asking me if he has something against women.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Enough is enough. Enough. Multiple calls. Multiple calls. Motion to table. There's a motion for approval on the floor. We're going to vote on that motion. Motion to table is undebatable.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Motion to table is undebatable.
[Fred Dello Russo]: There's already a motion on the floor. There was a motion to approve before such was offered. It does if there was no other motion on the floor.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I challenge the chair. I think we both challenge the chair.
[Fred Dello Russo]: We'll take a vote on the motion to table superseding.
[SPEAKER_11]: We're voting on the challenge of the chair. Whether we are to table this,
[Fred Dello Russo]: if the motion to table supersedes the previous motion that was on the floor. I understood that if a motion is on the floor, that is the actual motion that needs to be entertained. That a motion to table introduced antecedent to that would have precedence and would make the matter undebatable and have to be ended then.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: He's the chair. You have to rule on it.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Councilor Knight?
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Move approval of the paper, Mr. President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: I'm in doubt the chair asked the clerk to call the roll on the matter. And the matter is whether or not that motion to table supersedes the motion to approve. The previous motion that was on the floor.
[Clerk]: Councilor Caviolo. I'm not sure I think that's correct.
[Fred Dello Russo]: The clerk has advised me that the motion to table will stand and that none of the amendments will leave because the matter is tabled. So on the motion to table, all those in favor? All those opposed? Councilor Knight and myself are in opposition. The matter is tabled. 16-488 offered by Councilor Caraviello. Be it resolved that the Medford City Council request an update from the building department and city solicitor in regards to the property on Boynton Road that has been in probate for some time. Councilor Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, at the time when I, uh, when I put this on the agenda, um, I was notified a couple of days later that this matter is now out of probate, uh, and, uh, the developer, the, the owner is taking bids on the property. So, um, I guess my resolution is a moot point now, so it is out of probate and the property is being put up for sale and bids will be accepted. Mr. Crowley has been looking at that property for a few years now and hopefully it's at the end of the road to getting it done. And I forwarded you the letter. from the attorney, and the attorney claims that he is taking bids. So I would hope that it will be the end of this and get it done very soon. I understand there's multiple real estate people looking at it, and I would hope it would be sold on a very timely basis.
[SPEAKER_20]: Mark Crowley. Mark Crowley, 59 Boynton Road. Thank you, Councilor Calabriel, for bringing this matter before me. With all due respect, hope is not a strategy. We have had this issue before the city for three and a half years. And again, with all due respect, I've heard and the neighbors have heard in the neighborhood the same story.
[Richard Caraviello]: According to the letter that I sent you, it was out of probate somewhere around the end of April.
[SPEAKER_20]: I was also told about a year ago it was out of probate.
[Richard Caraviello]: I've been told by the building department that he is entertaining office on us.
[SPEAKER_20]: That may very well be the fact.
[Richard Caraviello]: I didn't know this at the time when I put this motion forward.
[SPEAKER_20]: I think that's an encouraging development. However, I've heard again, from this council and from members of the building department and the housing and the health department, um, for many, many years, similar encouraging statements. So, um, with all due respect, again, apologies if I don't get too excited about that prospect.
[Richard Caraviello]: And I understand that. I agree with you.
[SPEAKER_20]: But I would like to, now that I have a few moments here, bring this issue back up to the council. You may remember about a year ago, in fact almost a year ago to the date, I stood before this council with a request to address this matter. Again, a refresher, a little bit of history. We are dealing with a property at 59 Boynton, excuse me, 56 Boynton Road, just at the block in the library in St. Joseph's Church. It is a home that has been vacant and abandoned for the past three and a half years. It has been, has a big red X on the front of it. It's a quiet residential neighborhood and the challenge with this home, if any of you have driven by it, and I'm happy to provide photos of it, is that the building is completely overgrown. and is quite literally collapsing. If you go around back, the roof has completely caved in. The porches have completely caved in. It is infested with vermin. I mean, we frequently see rats, raccoons, snake, possum, mice, you name it. There's a rusting car in the backyard that has sunk deep into the ground. Our neighbors in the street have been very, very patient for three and a half years. We have brought this to the attention of the city, both the building department, the housing department, and as well as, you know, I did this back in 2014, was told it was in probate. It was a legal matter. There's nothing they could do. But again, in 2015, again, they said it's a legal matter. There's nothing they can do. This year, I thought I would avail myself of C-Click Fix, put it on there. Dozens and dozens of people voted in support of it. In fact, it's the second most popular entry on all of the hundreds of entries on SeeClickFix. Again, in a public forum, the city had reiterated the fact it's a legal matter. There's nothing we can do. With all due respect, I appreciate the intricacies of the legal system, but the fire department doesn't say, sorry, we can't put the fire out because the ownership and probate status of the building is in question. They put the fire out. They address the public and safety risks that are at hand. This council and the departments in the city are very, very aware of the matters that are here. City Solicitor Rumley has, in response to the city paper that was brought before this council last year, issued a ruling to the city, to this council, making it clear that while there are legal matters with respect to probate, it does not preclude the city from acting. In fact, in many ways, there are many ordinances that mandate that the city act regardless, specifically citing various chapters in the state law as well as city law mandating that the city has to act, both including the elements of fining the owner, This thing's been vacant for over 1,000 days. There's been no fines. Imagine, even if it's $10 a day, how much money the city's losing out. This property actually been developed, the property taxes in the city. So, I mean, just financially speaking, the city's been negligent in terms of doing any of this with the property. But needless to say, this is an absolute public safety risk. In fact, the state attorney general's office has said as much the same, specifically saying, and I quote, and this was a letter that was provided by the city solicitor to the city council and to the building department saying, quote, in its present condition, the property is unfit for human habitation and poses a severe, immediate, and continuing threat to the health and safety of trespassers, neighbors, and the public in general. These dangers, in addition to the apparent risk posed by the structural integrity and health concerns created by trash and vermin infestation create a risk to your neighbors and public. In general, the property poses a fire threat in itself and to its neighbors. I don't know about you, but I don't want to live right across the street from this building. I've got two little girls that are afraid of this property. It's right up the block from the school. I'm frankly tired of the city and its promises of saying, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Start finding these people. Start demolishing this building immediately. The state allows for the authority to do that, to put a lien on the property. I'm frankly tired of hearing from the attorneys saying, in fact, oh, yeah, we're doing something about it. I met this gentleman a year ago. And he said, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll get around to it. We'll do it. We'll do it. We'll do it. And now here we are. After three and a half years, I'm tired of this city looking the other way over something that it is absolutely obligated to do something about. So please, let's start acting. Let's stop hiding away from the legalities of the rules and actually start doing our jobs. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Hi, good evening. Please state your name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_23]: Hi, my name is Patricia Healy. I live at 38 Powder House Road. I moved into the neighborhood right around the corner, about 20 yards away from the property on 56 Boynton, 20 years ago. 20 years ago, the front steps were falling in to the point where the postman no longer would deliver mail there, left it on the sidewalk. So this has been an issue that the city has been aware of for a couple of decades. I would encourage all of you to take a ride by. If this house was in your neighborhood, you would have it taken care of right away. I can guarantee you. Thank you.
[Richard Caraviello]: Well, ma'am, I drive by on a regular basis and that is why I brought it up again because- I appreciate you doing that.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Councilor Marks.
[Michael Marks]: Thank you, Mr. President. And I feel the frustration of the neighbors. I know Mr. Crowley's been before this body a number of times. I know he's spoken to everyone on the Board of Health. I know he's spoken to the city solicitor on many occasions. And I am equally as dumbfounded why the city hasn't moved forward with the wrecking ball in this particular house and then ask questions later. We have a clean it or lean it ordinance in this community. What better to use the clean it or lean it ordinance against? And this property is far beyond clean it or lean it, but it's something that would show the city in good faith moving on, Mr. President. You know, and I found it equally as disturbing and, and I have to bring it up that, um, I too went on the C click fix and I noticed the posting. And the city of Medford is responsible for the C-Click fix and for determining what the correct department head is to forward this message to. And after a very lengthy and thorough description by Mr. Crowley on the property and the clear health and safety hazards and the rodents and you name it, Mr. Crowley, mentioned it within his description in C-Click Fix, the city of Medford assigned it to Captain Clemente. So I guess Captain Clemente is going to go out, and he's going to arrest the raccoon and the possum that are living in the house. He's going to throw some four-legged handcuffs on them and bring them in, Mr. President. And I'm not trying to make light of this. That is not the appropriate — and anyone reading the description, Mr. President, would know that this is not a police matter. There's the scarlet X on the front of the house, which is there so when a awful bit of fire happens, the fire department knows not to enter this building. They know that this building is a clear danger, and they know not to enter it. So to forward this to the police department, in my opinion, is another neglect of the neighborhood and the residents who took the time to respond to C-Click Fix to try to get an answer. After all, that's what C-Click Fix is there for. Then there were a few residents that went back and forth with their concerns, and it ended up with John Bavuso in the building department, which I have a lot of respect for. And he stated that the attorney for the property was, property was cleared by land court to be sold. As Mr. Crowley mentioned, that's just another promise that's been going on for the past few years. And John Bevuso went and he closed it out. So when you close out an item on C-Click Fix, in my opinion, it means it's resolved. It means it's resolved, otherwise you wouldn't close it out. So some of the people going back and forth asked that it be reopened. Said, this is really not a resolved issue. You may feel it's resolved, but we still have this house here. We're still afraid to walk by it. We're still afraid that, God forbid, there's gonna be a fire. We know there's rodents and possum and red fox and everything else living in the house. We know there's a concern this should not be closed. Now, whether you're the right person to handle this, maybe not, but please don't close the issue. Um, so the issue was then, uh, I don't know if it was closed again or reopened and then closed. Needless to say, Mr. President, uh, the C click fix on this particular issue field miserably and you know, the pitches speak a thousand words. And, you know, when you see a roof that is an open sunroof on the top, I think it shows you, Mr. President, that the house is on the verge of collapse. This house is on the verge of collapse. What is it going to take for the city to step in? And you're right. If this was around someone else's home, I hate to say it, it would never happen. The same with the street. It would never be half a street repaved. if this was on someone else's street. I remember the case, Mr. President, a few years back. There were neighbors disputing on Memorial Way, across from the mayor's house. And one neighbor said, you know what, I'll get back at my neighbor. And he put a toilet bowl on his front lawn, his own front lawn, and he put a scarecrow out there, and he made it look like Sanford and Son. He made it look like a garbage house. And no sooner, but the next morning, The Board of Health, police, fire, DPW, were all lined up in front of his house. And all that garbage was removed immediately. Immediately, Mr. President. And they probably had, he probably had no right to act on any of this. It was on private property. And it wasn't disturbing anyone. But it shows you what can be done, Mr. President, when something needs to be done. And this is an outright disgrace. It really is. It's an outright disgrace. And I don't blame your kids, Mark, for not wanting to play around or be near that home. So, Mr. President, I think we need to get, other than just a response saying that this attorney's gonna act, as Mr. Crowley mentioned, there's general laws, I don't know the chapter, I'm sure he does, there's a chapter that cites the city would have the responsibility if they deem it a threat or a clear health concern, the ability to tear it down. And it won't take much, let me tell you. It won't take much to tear that home down. So I would ask, Mr. President, that the city solicitor report back to this council on the ability of the city, under the general laws, to tear down that house immediately, Mr. President, in the interest of public safety, public health, and the interest of the neighborhood. And I ask that be a roll call.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion of Councilor Marks, Vice President Lungo-Koehn. Amendment of Councilmarks. Madam Vice President.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. President Dello Russo, Mark, Mr. Crowley, from what I understand, it's out of probate, but has the attorney said anything to the neighborhood with regards to what the next steps are? I mean, of course, they're not going to be able to necessarily sell the house, but is the land going to be sold so that we can see some movement? I mean, obviously, the city of Medford needs to get involved if it isn't any time within the next month or two. What have you heard?
[SPEAKER_20]: Yeah, I was going to say, uh, from my respect, I have heard nothing from the attorney since, uh, a year ago when, uh, when he came and visited. So, uh, the only update in terms of communication has been, frankly, what was just shared with us this evening by, uh, my Councilor, Carol Biala. I think that's the last we've heard, or at least I've heard of, uh, anything from, uh, from the attorney.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I know we had an issue back 10, 12 years ago on, on the Fellsway that the city did get involved in. So I'm not sure what, what the, hesitation is now. Um, I really, I agree with my colleagues and I really hope that the city solicitor can give us some answers and get some things done and that we get an update from the building department to see what we can do to, to move this forward. Um, it's an eyesore and obviously a safety issue. So I, I agree with the resolution and I thank council Caraviello for bringing it forward.
[Adam Knight]: Councilor Knight. Um, yes, Mr. President, thank you very much. And I'm looking at the file notes that I have from this matter when it came up a year ago. If we look at Chapter 139 of the General Laws, Section 1, it would read that the alderman or selectman in any city or town may, after written notice to the owner of a burnt or dilapidated or dangerous building or other structure, or as authorized agent to the owner of a vacant parcel of land, and after a hearing, make and record an order in judging it to be a nuisance to the neighborhood. So I think what we need to do, Mr. President, is take the steps to designate this as a nuisance property. And I'd like to ask the city solicitor if he can give us the process in writing. and that will give us an opportunity to examine it and see if this is something we can help out with. Also, it's my understanding that the Clean It or Lean It ordinance here in the city is administered by the Board of Health, and we have a new Board of Health director, so maybe our new Board of Health director is a little bit more motivated to take on this project at this point in time where he's just been appointed.
[Fred Dello Russo]: As amended by Councilor Knight, I'll make a motion. All those in favour?
[Michael Marks]: We've also had a situation up the heights, Mr. President, where a private retaining wall on private property fell down on a city sidewalk. The city approached the owner, and the owner said, I don't have the whereabouts to fix this wall. I don't have the whereabouts to even remove, and it was a giant retaining wall, to even remove part of the wall. The city stepped in. and is removing the debris, they put cones there, and they're gonna end up putting a lien on the person's property in order to make it a safe area so people could pass. This is no different than this particular house, Mr. President. The city, at the very least, should step in, board up that roof, Mr. President, board the stairs up, remove that car that could have gas. I know we asked if there's gas in that tank, and we were told not because it's probably already leaked over those dry leaves underneath the tank, and it absorbed the gas by now. But, you know, the city should step in and shore up that particular piece of property and put a lien on the property.
[Richard Caraviello]: information, Councilor Caraviello. There's nothing to show up there other than tearing it down. Well, we've asked to tear it down. That's not working.
[Michael Marks]: Well, Councilor Marks. Mr. President, my analogy was based on a particular piece of property that was a private wall. The city stepped in and act quickly and swiftly to address that issue. And this is my opinion. a far greater concern for the neighbors, and they've been living with it far longer, Mr. President. So, whether it's shoring up the house or ripping it down, I already asked that the wrecking ball be brought out. So, if that's not the case, Mr. President, then we should try to do our best to patch up the roof and do whatever we can, and not at the city's expense, and put a lien on the property, Mr. President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion as amended. All those in favor? All those opposed? The motion passes. 16-492 offered by 16 four 89 offered by council Caraviello be resolved that the Medford city council have the T clean up the brush and debris on fossil road council Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I've gotten a couple of calls from the bustle road residents and I had the opportunity to go by. And if you go by there, you'll see, um, there's many, many down trees, uh, brush, rubbish and leaves or anything very dense in there. It's right over by place of the park and it is on the T property. And I know Councilor Knight had something on a few weeks ago for the T to clean up, I think, on Circuit Road, Circuit Street. And again, this is far worse than Circuit Street. There's rubbish, people are just throwing rubbish in there. And they say downed trees, rotted trees. It needs to be cleaned, Mr. President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion approved by Councilor Caraviello. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion carries, 16-492, offered by Councilor Falco. Be it resolved that the Medford City Council request the Board of Health to check the lead levels in all buildings owned by the city of Medford. Councilor Falco. Thank you, Mr. President.
[John Falco]: First, I'd like to thank Councilor Locke for actually agreeing to light the issue of blood levels, bloodline, and lead it to force. He's talked about it in the last few meetings. It's a very important issue. And actually, in fact, the last meeting that we had where he talked about it, I received a number of calls the next day regarding an article in the Boston Globe on May 7th about accruing students from Harvard Business School. They did a number of samples taking water from public buildings, civic organizations, universities, in and around the Boston area. You know, a number of buildings came back with basically 15 parts per building, per billion, which is equivalent of the UK tax. But one of the examples that they took was right here in this apartment. And when that came back, it came back with a reading of 30 parts per billion, which definitely needs to get an action. And the article went on to mention that the city engineer is looking into the situation and working on an issue to find out why it's that hot and why it's in different parts per million. And I think what we need to do is basically take a look at all of our city pools and make sure that we test them for lead and we test them for water flow. And it's important, I mean, lead has a number of dramatic negative effects, especially on our children, our youngest population. It causes developmental delays, behavioral problems, and a lot of other health issues. But this is something that we need to look at. We need to make sure that we check all of our city buildings. I did make a call to the superintendent of the schools to ask specifically about the schools, and he did tell me that he actually has reports on the school buildings, and the schools are tested on a regular basis. which I guess is a requirement of the MWRA. So, he said he does have reports of those. So if we could get those, if we could ask for those reports from the Superintendent of Schools, just so we could take a look at those. But if we can have a... City Engineer Erin Polley, she's looking into the issues here at Bedford City Hall. We could also have our other city buildings looked at, tested for lead levels, and if we could get those reports back to see where things turn out, and if we could find out how we're going to actually, how the city's going to remedy the situation here at City Hall.
[Fred Dello Russo]: by Councilor Falco, seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. All those in favor? All those opposed? Carried. 16-500, offered by Vice President Lungo-Koehn, whereas in light of recent high lead level results from City Hall's water, be it resolved that the City of Medford test the lead level in the water of all Medford public buildings, as well as the playground and school water fountains, be it further resolved that the Medford City Council be giving a copy of such results. Madam Vice President.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, President Dello Russo. I think this is a bit repetitive. Councilor Falco and I have pretty much the same resolution on. I agree that we need to get the results from the school department, because that's, you know, is part of my resolution. But I think it's very important just to reiterate that these test kits are minimal to purchase and test the city public buildings. So, I mean, just to be specific, City Hall has been tested in one spot. I think we should maybe retest eventually. The library needs to be tested, Chevalier, all our public buildings, just so that we can get a better idea. I'm glad that the engineer's office is on it, but it is concerning. It's concerning to many parents and residents in our community. Another issue that was brought up as a concern is with regards to residential homes and lead levels in the homes, if it does have to do with the water you know, are we dealing with, like Councilor Marks had, you know, explained to us with the lead piping, how, if we could get an update from the engineer's office on how we're dealing with or how we plan to deal with potential testing of homes within our community. I think that's really important. If we could also just test some of our water fountains so that we make sure anybody in our play, any children or adults in our playgrounds that are maybe drinking fountain water, that the lead levels are at an appropriate level. I think that Clean Water Company is the company that went and tested a number of cities and towns, public buildings, and that is who found the results of the 30 parts per billion. Again, very concerning, and hopefully we can get all our public buildings tested. And I guess amended further, just what specifically is the engineers department doing? to try to reduce those levels. How are they working with the MWRA or whoever it may be that needs to be worked with and advise the city on how we can reduce those levels. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion for approval by Vice President Lungo-Koehn as amended, citizen wishes to speak. Good evening, please state your name and address for the record. Welcome.
[Sqp6S0Yyr0A_SPEAKER_04]: Hi, Rachel Tannenhaus, 26 Pearl Street still. So can I just recommend that as part of it that you As part of the research for it that you get in touch with the Bureau of Environmental Health at the State Department of Public Health, the folks there, there's a lead program. I'm pretty sure there's a website for it on the DPH website. And it would not surprise me terribly if the Mass Municipal Association and the Mass Public Health Association also had some templates for cities and towns in how to handle lead abatement and testing for lead and how it gets done systematically, maybe where people get, where they get funds for it, that kind of thing. No sense reinventing the wheel. Lots of places have done it. So, you know, I know Medford is different. It's not just like everywhere else. But if they've got a way that people have gone about it and been successful, no sense not taking a look at that. And the state may have things that can help with it. But speaking as a public health professional, there isn't a safe level of lead, but kids are a lot more likely to be exposed to lead in their homes than they are through drinking water. Not that drinking water isn't an issue, but definitely when you look at the abatement programs, Such funding as there is, which isn't enough, tends to go to abatement in homes because that is a far larger exposure, despite the fact that kids spend a lot of time in school, there's a lot more exposure in homes.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. On that motion, all those in favor? All those opposed? Motion carries. 16-496 offered by Councilor Marks. Be it resolved that the one hour parking signs located on Cottage Street be amended to read, accept resident permit parking. Councilor Marks.
[Michael Marks]: Thank you, Mr. President. Cottage Street has very limited parking. Probably 90 percent of the street is permit parking. And there are a few one-hour signs at the tip of the street on the high street side. And many of these spots are go vacant most of the day. And residents that live on the street would like the availability of to be able to park. They have requested that the one hour sign stay in effect and put with the exception of resident permit parking. So if someone has a resident permit parking sticker, they're also allowed to park in that spot without the one hour limit, Mr. President. So I ask that that be forwarded to the traffic commission.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On that motion that it be forwarded to the traffic commission. All those in favor? All those opposed? Offered by Councilor Marks, number 16497, be it resolved that the recent unfavorable report from the Legislative Executive Laws Committee regarding Medford's home rule petition for charter review be discussed. Councilor Marks.
[Michael Marks]: Thank you, Mr. President. You know, it was a couple of months ago when this chamber broke into a loud applause when we voted for the creation of a home rule petition to create charter review in the community. A review hasn't been done in almost 30 years of our city charter, which is the frameworks on how a city operates. And that was a joyous occasion. And I hate to inform residents of this community, although the newspaper beat me to the punch, just recently our legislation that was before the House Committee on Election Laws, House Bill 4227, met its demise. It received an unfavorable report, Mr. President, and after countless hours of public hearings, countless hours of public debate, countless hours of volunteers getting thousands of signatures in support of charter review, this lonely piece of paper, half filled out, doesn't even give the title of the bill, It says committee election laws, reporting member Mahoney, who's the chairman, Bill 4227, and it's circled unfavorable report. So this is what we got as a community. The legislative body voted, the mayor voted to send this, and then the state legislature, in their wisdom, said, you know what? We know better than the legislative body in the city of Medford. We know better than the mayor of Medford. That's not good for the city. We're gonna step in and we're gonna kill the bill. And not only we're gonna kill it, Mr. President, we're gonna add a little insult to injury. We're not gonna even afford the residents of Medford a public hearing. We're not gonna allow them to come up and voice their opinion on House Bill 4227. We're just going to deny it. We don't need feedback from the city. I, as the chairman, Mr. Mahoney of Worcester, knows better what's What's for Medford? Knows better what the residents of Medford want, Mr. President. Not the thousands of signatures, the groundswell that was out throughout the community, the numerous articles in the paper, the public hearings, and everything else that presented for a number of months before this legislation was crafted. Now, I was told by Representative Donato, who was nice enough to sponsor this, along with Senator Pat Jalen, The chairman of the committee, Mr. Mahoney, had some reservations on this particular legislation. And he wanted to do his due diligence, which I commend him. And he was going to reach out to the community and find out why it was a 4-3 vote and not a unanimous vote. So that was one of his concerns. And good luck to him. He was concerned why it was a 4-3 vote. And I guess the next time the state legislature votes on something, we can turn to our state delegation and say, you know what? That wasn't a unanimous vote, representative. I don't think I'm gonna pay that tax. I don't hear the groundswell from the people that wanna pay more taxes. So Rep Mahoney wanted to see what this groundswell was. He didn't reach out to me. I don't know, maybe he reached out to some of the other Councilors. Did he reach out to you, Mr. Clerk, to find out what took place in the public hearings? Who was in favor, who was against? He didn't reach out to the clerk. So that was his concern, Mr. President. And hastily, there wasn't any committee gathering, from what I can understand. This was unilaterally decided to report this bill out unfavorable. And I am very disappointed in the legislative process. I am very disappointed in the fact that this particular bill, and I've been on the Council for a number of years and seen a number of Home Rule petitions come through this body. And I have yet to see one denied by the state legislature. Typically a Home Rule petition that's supported by the legislative body, signed off by the mayor, is an automatic, is an automatic in the state legislature. And to have this killed, Mr. President, without a public hearing, in my opinion, is a disgrace. It's a disgrace to that committee, and it's a disgrace to the legislative process, the people we elect to do the people's business, Mr. President. So I am very disappointed. I am glad that the committee that's out there collecting signatures, as they stated from the start, they are going to continue their efforts in gathering the number of signatures that's required to put it on the ballot. But I have to say, I am very disappointed regarding this unfavorable report, and I could just tell the residents of this community that we have to band together on this. This is the right thing to do. I don't think anyone disagrees. Even the three that voted against it because they didn't like the process agreed that charter review is necessary. So I don't think anyone in this community doesn't think we should review a 30-year-old document that hasn't been looked at, Mr. President, on the way we govern our community. But, you know, I don't know, Mr. President. You know, this is an open process. People are allowed to come up here. When we have the discussion, people come up, pros and cons, and we heard some cons out there. But to have it die the way it did after all that time and effort that went into it is a true disgrace. Thank you, Mr. President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Councilor. Thank you. Welcome. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Jeanne Martin]: Thank you, Gene Martin, 10 Cumming Street. You're telling me that after this council voted, after the mayor approved, after the solicitor went back and made sure the writing was correct for according to the mass general laws, that it was approved by Pat Jalen. It was approved by Mr. Donato, Paul Donato. And even still, it went up the chain of command with that kind of influence, with that kind of influence after 28, 30 years. And then it came back. Now the mayor, has connections because we know she does because at her inauguration, and this is no disrespect to the mayor, at her inauguration she had Pat Jalen, she had Catherine Clark, she had uh... attorney general of the state all of these people with that this is a lot of influence you're telling me with all that influence and with mister denato's high office in the senate or that uh... this house of representatives that this thing isn't political that this thing isn't shenanigans i'd beg to differ and i'd just have to say that this there's something smelly in denmark over here because it's just doesn't doesn't doesn't but it just doesn't sound right with the council, the mayor, and all these people, and Jalen, who's a senator, backing it, and Donato backing it, and they went forward, and they, this is for a review, this isn't even for a change, this is just to review after 28, 30 years of absolute nothing, something is rotten in Denmark here, folks. So don't let that, but don't let it, you know, dissuade you, don't let it, you know, that means we gotta do more work, that's all it means, but you know what? Shame on them, because this is political. This is politics. Somebody is doing a favor for somebody. There's something in the wind. I don't know what it is. It's happening behind closed doors, because that doesn't sound right. Just on the face of it, it does not sound right. So I just want to say that. But don't let it discourage you. That's the word. Because if there's one thing we know about me, I'm persistent. And so we'll be persistent on this. And we'll keep marching forward. And you know what? In the end, just remember. People got up and have died for this, this ability to speak here. Today, this is Memorial Day month. Just remember, people have died for us to have our freedom, to have our say. And if we have to work harder for it, then we're going to be, we're going to come out looking better than the folks upstairs. So thank you very much.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Good evening. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Hi, I'm Cheryl Rodriguez at 281 Park Street and I'm not sure if I can ask through the chair, but is it possible for us to resubmit the home rule and ask that they put the question on? I know that was a stumbling block for a lot of people of if we want charter review on top of electing the commission, because I know a lot of people thought that we took out the choice, and maybe if we put the choice back in, that would help us. I know that it's difficult to collect signatures because a lot of people don't know what the charter is. I'll personally be at the superintendent meeting next week with my clipboard, and if anyone wants to sign, please do. I urge the people that are for charter review to gather your clipboard and start going to these community events. It's spring, and there should be more events coming up. I'd love to see people at the farmer's market collecting signatures and any other events that are happening in the city, because there are people that want charter review, and there are a lot of people who are, what is charter review? And at some point, people need to know what it is so that it can happen.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Welcome. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Robert Cappucci]: Thank you, Mr. President. I'm Rob Capucci of 71 Evans Street. I want to thank Councilor Marks for bringing this to our attention tonight. And I couldn't agree with him more about what he said. But it speaks to a larger measure. You know, for this thing not to be appealed, that ruling to not be appealed, if it can be, by our state delegation is a question that I have. People are disheartened in this state. And, you know, it speaks to one party being in domination of this state for decades. They can pretty much do whatever they want. A few years ago, We had a petition, and it passed, and it was on the ballot to lower the sales tax or keep it at the same rate. The state legislature said the people didn't know what they were talking about, and they went ahead and raised it anyway, even after a petition and a vote of the people. It's disheartening to a lot of folks in this state. That's why the census release in December of last year showed Massachusetts lost 21,805 people from July 2014 to July 2015. People are disheartened, and quite frankly, they're giving up, and they're voting with their feet, and they're moving out of our state. At a time when we have the best education, some of the best technology, other programs that we're either leading the country in, or we're only second or third, we're still seeing a net loss of people, of almost 22,000 people in one year. It's unprecedented. It's unheard of. I would respectfully ask this body if there's some way to reach out to Senator Jalen or State Rep. Paul Donato to, like Cheryl said before me, to either resubmit this home rule petition or appeal the ruling of this committee. To just be shut down in silence like that after 30 years of the same charter, without even so much, I mean, this wouldn't have even have changed the charter. It would have either to keep Plan A or make a few amendments to it, to tweak it a little bit. And after 30 years, that was unreasonable to ask? We get that one little piece of paper? It's embarrassing. Mr. President, it really is. I would like this body, I request this body to please write up a letter and send it to their committee and express not just your feelings, but as the voice of Medford. I tried to get the signatures with Dr. Stirella about four or five years ago. Another team came in after that under former mayor candidate Antony D'Antonio. There's another team out there In all of that time, we got a lot of positive feedback, but it's hard to get these signatures. I was on the team that got the signatures for the tank, the gas tax. We had a team of about 500 people across the state. It took a lot of time and a lot of effort, and we squeaked it in there. And what's the state legislature doing now in the face of that? They're trying to pass a new law saying the cities can raise the gas tax if they want to. step forward, you go three steps back. Please, send a letter to this committee and let them know that we're in charge of the government. They're not in charge of us. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Good evening. Welcome. Please state your name and address for the record. Good evening.
[Joe Viglione]: Joseph Villione, 59 Garfield Ave, Medford, Mass. Notice how when the speakers come up, every one of them is four this Home Rule petition. So the residents of Medford, 100% of us want this Home Rule petition. We have no public access TV to talk about this issue, to discuss it, and there you go. So it starts at the head, where there's no communication, there's censorship, and we can't get the word out. One councilor wants us to go out and pound the pavement and get the addresses. Give us access, we can go on TV, and then people will know about the issue because we can discuss the issue. We can tell them that it's like the U.S. Constitution for the country. It's a little constitution for the city. This is so important. I thank you, Councilor Marks. I thank you, Breanna Lungo-Koehn. The two of you have been doing that old saying, yeoman's work. Thank you for being so honest and so hardworking.
[Fred Dello Russo]: You wish to speak, sir? Please present yourself to the podium and state your name and address for the record. Welcome.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Thank you. Andrew Castagnetti, Cushing Street, Medford, Massachusetts. Good evening, councillors. I'll make this very brief. Speaking about the proposed possible city of Medford charter review is to be or not to be, I guess that is the question. Please allow me to start by saying as of today, May 17, 2016, I'm neither for or against changing the city's charter from plan A to plan E nor to B or C. I'm just not that smart. However, after 28 years of having the same old charter of plan A government, maybe it's time to simply review our charter options. It's sort of like a business corporation reviewing its business plan to better compete and be more successful. Even at our next election on November 8, 2016, the voters could, would, hopefully, simply elect a nine-person commission who can only make recommendations and nothing else. And then those recommendations, if any, would go on the following year's 2017 voting ballot, allowing all voters to decide yes or no to any proposed changes. With that, that I said. I understand that some citizens want this process to go forward in the traditional way versus going the way of a home rule petition through the Massachusetts State House. But it is a monumental task and highly improbable to collect the required 5,300 signatures to put this question on the ballot. We don't have that Miss Frazzuli type of gun hoe, go get them, back in the 80s. However, please note this charter review petition presently has about 1,500 signatures or more. By the way, I almost forgot to say the CPA ballot, which passed, only needed and had approximately 1750 signatures. How did that happen? Need I say more? If I wanted to repeat my song that I have done for five years every December and get a petition to get the owner occupied for real estate tax exemption on the ballot, I'm not sure the state would let me do that with 1,750 signatures. I think I need 20% of the registered voters. I think that would be 5,300 or more. And they have to be certified, verified, and all that jazz. I didn't write the second page. I'm just basically confused. I'm dismayed. about Methods Home Rule petition by Massachusetts legislation, bill number 4227. What they did or what they did not do. I'm told this was a reverse Houdini. I don't know what that means, but someone very intelligent told me that, and I have no idea, so maybe it's, I should change the title and call it Houdini Effect and use Andrew's words. Now you see it and now you don't. I'm very confused. I don't know nothing.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Is there a motion on the floor?
[Michael Marks]: Just if I could, so people viewing also know that I did reach out to the legislative research director for the committee on election laws. Her name is Yael Langer. And I asked why the bill did not get a fair public hearing. And she said every committee has their own rules. And apparently their rule states that not every bill will get a public hearing. I guess it's up to the chairman of the committee and the membership. That's what I was told by the research director of the Election Laws Committee. I feel like sending a letter out, too, and so forth. But it seems to me, at this point, the way this went down, I don't think any letter, I don't think any alteration of anything is going to make this go through, to be quite honest with you. I think there are a number of elected officials walking around crying crocodile tears right now. that this bill was killed. And, you know, I think that's the case. So I think we're going to have to follow this through with the signatures and move forward that direction, Mr. President. Thank you. Is there a motion? Motion to lay on the table, Mr. President. or receive in place on file? Motion to receive in place on file.
[Fred Dello Russo]: All those in favor of the proposed matters received in place on file 16-498 offered by Councilor Marks. Be it resolved that C-Click Fix program be discussed. Councilor?
[Michael Marks]: Thank you, Mr. President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: You've discussed it some already with us.
[Michael Marks]: The C-Click Fix? Oh, that was just one portion of it. Mr. President, it was great news when C-Click Fix was implemented by this administration. And, uh, the intent is to allow residents like they do in Somerville to reach out to local government and get resolution to concerns that, uh, they're addressing, uh, via the electronic system. And, um, as was mentioned a while back, see, click, fix. So someone sees a problem, they click in the system and the city fixes it. However, I think the reverse is happening now. If you go on to C-Click Fix, you can click on the different cases that are being submitted by residents. And it's amazing what I'm seeing, Mr. President. C-Click fix has turned it to C-Click ignore. And what I'm seeing is a resident driving by, seeing a streetlight out, reporting at the corner of Riverside Ave, across from Pleasant Street, there's a streetlight out. I don't know how much more specific you can get, because streetlights aren't three feet apart. So at the corner of Riverside and Pleasant, there's a streetlight out. The city comes back and says, please provide the poll number for us. So the city gets the report, someone's telling them there's a light out, they go back to the resident, say please provide the poll number. That was one particular case. Then we had an incident South and Main Street, the intersection. We all know it's a very dangerous intersection and difficult to navigate. A resident wrote, please, could you have someone take a look at this intersection? I'm in fear of crossing it. It's very difficult for me to navigate. Response back to the resident. State police controls that intersection. Call 396-0100. So here is a resident reporting a public safety issue. They're in fear. They click on the C-Flix click. Now, the administration or someone from a city department should be reaching out to the state, whether it's state police, state highway, whoever it is, to resolve the issue, not go back to the resident and give a phone number, Mr. President. That's not what I think this system was intended to do. And another incident, Elm Street, people are requesting a crosswalk and blinking light at the entrance to Wrights Pond, another dangerous intersection and something that needs to be looked at. The response back, you need to call DCI. That may be well and good, and that may be an issue DCI should handle, but that's not what the response from the city should be. It shouldn't be pawning this off. When residents take the time to go and see Click Fix and report something, put a narrative down, give a thorough explanation on what's happening, they should not be responded in this fashion. Then we had crosswalking at, I think this was something Councilor Knight offered, crosswalk on Forest Street near Webster and Water Street. When McNally Park was done, I think Councilor Knight followed up and said, we need a crosswalk. A lot of people crossing there now because of the new park. So residents followed up on C-Click Fix. You can see the comments. They said we were supposed to get a crosswalk. What's going on? This was reported March 22, 2016. No response from the city. No response at all from the city. And Councilor Knight, I think, put it on well before that. too, for a response. Route 16, someone reported a dangerous sidewalk. Again, April 9th, no response from the city yet. So I think, you know, it's great to roll out a program, and in theory it's a great program, but without the proper attention to this, this turns in nothing but, it seems to me, that residents are going to report and nothing's going to happen. And the city, from what I notice, is quick to close out items, because a closed item must report well for the city. If it's open, it still needs to be, something needs to be done. But if it's closed, that means the city did something with this. So all these issues that I just reported, that haven't been resolved, are all closed. According to the city, they're closed right now. So, you know, you would get, if we asked for reports and there was 130 requests filed and 90 were closed. That sounds like a great turnaround from the city. They don't tell you that out of the 90, 99% of them have no action at all on them or the resident was just told to back up another tree because the city didn't want to get involved. When I report a public safety concern in this city, the city should not tell me to call another agency. This city should be calling the agency. Then they should be falling up on C click fix saying we reported it to DCR, DCR is going to look back, and as soon as I get a response, I will note it again in C-Click Fix so you're aware of what's going on. So, you know, the mayor can do all the ribbon cuttings and C-Click Fix and everything else, but it's not operating the way it's intended to. Just take a look. Anyone can go on and check out C-Click Fix and look at the list of comments. It's not operating the way it should, Mr. President. We've sold the bill of goods that this is going to help communication. between City Hall and the residents, and we're going to get quicker action, and all we're getting is quicker responses to ignoring the residents of this community and inaction in this community, Mr. President. So I just want to let my thoughts be known on this program. You know, it works very successful in Somerville, and I'm hoping that we can have equal success in Medford, but there has to be someone in control. As early as I mentioned, we had a condemned house. They sent it to Barry Clemente for a response. What is Barry, great guy, great officer, what is he going to do with a condemned house? That should have went to the building department immediately. So who's ever responsible for the oversight, and I haven't heard yet, I don't know, we were all supposed to be trained in this C-Click fix. Did anyone receive training? I don't know, maybe someone received training. I didn't, and we asked for it on several occasions. You know, we really have to take a look at this. I hope this is not just window dressing to say, Oh, we have another program because this is no different than our street sweeping program. That's a shell of a program. And the, any other program in this community, Mr. President, as far as I'm concerned.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Councilor Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Mr. President. Um, I was here the night, uh, that they rolled up the C-Click fix and there was only six people here. I was one of the six people and they explained it and how it works. And one of my biggest concerns was the comments that were on there. I mean, C-CLINTS has turned into Facebook of repairs. I don't understand why the mayor's office is answering these complaints when the bulk of them are, the DPW should be handling this. I think they should have a person in their office assigned to this. Because as I say, the bulk of the calls that are being there are all DPW related. And there's no one in that office handling that. That should be assigned to one person in that office. Number two, I think maybe we rushed it a little too quick, like we do all things in this town. We're quick to get it out there so we can say we got it. And I think maybe it needs to be reeled back in now and re-evaluated and rethought how it should be done and see the mistakes that are made on it. After, what are we, 60 days on to this thing? About 60 days, maybe it should be re-evaluated and maybe restructured so we don't get comment after comment after comment on the same thing. Make the comment one time, if you call it in, leave it there. I don't need to see 17 other people commenting on the same problem. So again, like I said, it needs to be re-evaluated and I think it needs to get out of the mayor's office and be brought up to the DPW office. Because that's where the problems are all, on the C-Click fixer.
[Adam Knight]: Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Knight. Mr. President, thank you very much. Back when the C-Click fix program was rolled out, I questioned the city's ability to meet the objectives with the current staff, the demands of a deteriorating infrastructure and, quite frankly, a city hall that's embracing technology about 15 years too late. So with that being said, Mr. President, we've made a number of requests for copies of the statistical reports. We've asked for training, so on and so forth. And I think we all hold steadfast in wanting to get that information. So I might once again, Mr. President, request that the administration provide us with a quarterly report relative to the C-Click Fix Program, items that were issued, items that were resolved, and the resolution that was recommended.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Council night that the city council receiver quarterly report on the efforts of the C click fix program on that motion. Ms. Citizen, if you'd like to speak, welcome. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Jeanne Martin]: Thank you. Gene Martin, 10 coming street. And, uh, I, I agree this program with Mr. Caraviello needs to be pulled back and stopped right now until we get our hands on handle on the city as a whole. And I remember Mr. Falco saying this, and I agree, We need a city engineer for a traffic pattern. We need regular schedules for everything, because the C-Click fix is for tweaks when those things didn't happen. It's a tweaking system. It is not supposed to be for every pothole in the city. If the potholes were being filled on a regular basis, then if you see First Street has a pothole, then you put it in there. But this is going to demoralize the people. What's going to happen is it's going to backfire if she doesn't stop the program now. And I want her to succeed because if she fails, the city fails. I want you to understand that. If the mayor fails at her job, that means the city fails as a city. And I do not want to see that happen. So I want her to get it right. So she needs to pull back on that. And then she needs to get a handle on the city as a whole and start doing some systematic changes. That's going to demoralize. When she had the meetings of all the residents, and I went to one in West Medford, the number one complaint was everything had to do with the DPW. It was all DPW, DPW. Well, if you don't give back the resources, if you don't provide the resources to fix these problems, it doesn't matter. Then it becomes a joke. It's not a joke. Joke isn't the word. It becomes a farce. It becomes a farce. It makes you feel good. but as nothing's being substantially done. So she needs to take back, I know she had ambition about it, stop it. and get it right, have a traffic engineer come in, do a whole sweep of the city, start doing a whole sweep, and if you have to, you have to prioritize DPW, just like you have to prioritize police. If you do not prioritize DPW, it doesn't matter how many computer programs we update. It really doesn't, because the potholes don't get filled, and everybody's gonna complain, and it's gonna be pothole city, and people are just gonna complain about the same problem over and over and over again. You have to have a systematic approach, And thank you very much for listening. And thank you again for your patience, because I've talked a lot tonight. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Jean. Good evening. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Sqp6S0Yyr0A_SPEAKER_04]: Rachel Tannenhaus, 26 Pearl Street. There are unfortunately a lot of disincentives to using C-Click Fix, and some of them have been mentioned. One of them is that things don't happen. And so then you stop using it, and it erodes the faith that people have in that system. It's like how every six months somebody starts up a new social media thing that looks a lot like Twitter, and three people get invites to it, and they go on it, and then there's crickets, because nobody's on it. It's the same sort of thing. If nothing ever happens with C-Click Fix, people will stop using it. Another thing is that it is turning into Facebook. I don't know what sort of relationship we have with the folks who actually do the software and run CClickFix, but it might be worth looking at the commenting utility because what friends might have been telling me is that they go on there, they report something. and the reporting part is anonymous, but then people are on their checking and they see that their neighbor put in something they did, and then it turns to, you suck, no, your mom sucks, no, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, as you know, there is no recess monitor on the internet. Well, there's not one there either. But what we need is for comments to be available for city officials to come in and say, this is what we're doing, or we hear you, or something like that, which you don't need is your neighbor starting up some kind of feud with you because they noticed that you handed them in on something. So if there is, you can upvote or downvote things, that makes sense to have people able to do, but if you can restrict the commenting to the city officials who are telling you how this is being fixed right now, yes please, that I think will make a little bit less chaos. We have people in this city who know how to handle this kind of situation. You have people in this city who work in tech support, who work in human services doing information and referral. They have these skills. They understand how these systems work because they use them for a living. Why not talk to some of these people about what happens when you have to refer a problem elsewhere? How do you make sure that that gets taken care of? hey, people do keep stats on how many help desk tickets you close out. How do you make sure those are taken care of? What kind of quality control happens here? Talk to people who use these kinds of systems for a living, many of whom live here in Medford, and some of whom may work for the city, and see what their experience and skills can translate into. Maybe they can help come up with a system that can be implemented here in the city, where questions actually get answered. Tickets get closed out for a reason other than we have to make our numbers look good, and I don't feel like dealing with this one today. Folks do this work already in the city. The people who live here not only are the people to whom you are responsible, we're also pretty good resources. So that may be one way to look at things. We have human service agencies here in the city. Surely they do information and referral. Many of them have to document that if they receive outside grants. Many of them have to document that for the people who fund them. Here, this is what we did and how much of it, and this is how successful we were at it. Find out from them how that works. Anyway, I would really like to see C-Click fix work. I think it would be really great if it did. I was at that meeting in West Medford, and I know that the other thing that folks complained about besides DPW was communication. Those are the two big things. Everything else was sort of way behind that. So there are ways to address both. This could be one if it were successful. If it doesn't get reeled in now, it's just never going to work because people will stop using it.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Hi, please state your name and address for the record. Welcome.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Hi, I'm Cheryl Rodriguez at 281 Park Street and my experience with C-Click Fix in the past week has been at C-Click Harass. I've been here to talk about the car on the sidewalk and someone got very upset that I had posted it on C-Click Fix and the next thing I knew it was, I saw you at the city council meeting speaking. I saw you walking your dog. I saw you with your phone in your hand. And that's not what C-Clicks is supposed to be. And someone else said, it sounds like you're stalking this person. And no one from the city responded. This person harassed me for about three days. And I was like, what is wrong with you? Just park on the street. And it got to the point that the police actually came down and ticketed the car, which is probably the opposite of the reaction that he was hoping for. because this person was unhinged. I'm not the first person that this has happened to. I saw someone else had posted about their toddler getting bitten by a dog and getting knocked to the ground by dogs in the park that were loose. And they got, oh, I know who you are. I've seen you. You're the woman in the hat. You're the woman who does this. Maybe you just shouldn't come to the park. And no one's monitoring these posts. And people shouldn't feel unsafe to use CClickFix. I personally don't feel unsafe, but that's pretty intimidating and crazy. I had to report the individual posts and say, can you take these posts down? Just take the whole thing down if this is the way that this is going to happen, because this is insanity. So it's not right. Somebody has to be looking at this, or you just need to shut it down.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilor Caraviello. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I'd like to amend the motion to ask that the company that installed C-Click Fix come back and meet with our city to re-evaluate, not remove the program, but re-evaluate the program to fix the flaws in it and make it a little more workable so we don't have these multiple comments and these problems that happen. It seems to work in other cities. It's with the same program. There's no reason why it can't work in ours. So again, we paid for a service. Let's get the company back here, reevaluate it, how the program works. I mean, all these programs are all very adjustable. And I know we have plenty of smart people in our town that can do this, but again, this is a service that we paid for. Let's get it fixed correctly and get it up and running. Even if we have to shut it down for a little spec to get it fixed correctly, it is a viable program, and I want to see it working correctly. Thank you. Vice President Lugar.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, President Dello Russo. I, too, want to see it work, and I think it can work. And I'm sure Councilor Schiappelli will follow up with how it does work in Somerville. I don't think it needs to be shut down. I think it needs to be monitored. We need to have regulations so the monitor knows when to pull something, when to maybe take it off and send it directly to a department head. And a monitor, somebody who will take the effort to maybe call DCR or the state to get a simple resolution to the problem. It just is going to take some time, energy, a monitor, somebody working on it on a daily basis, whether that be somebody in the mayor's office, somebody in the DPW. It seems like something we, I think, asked for when we originally were pushing for this and we found out it was going to be a reality. We did ask who was going to monitor this. And it seems like we have no oversight, and that's all we need. We need oversight and regulations. And I believe that that can be done in minimal time to not disrupt the program for more than, you know, a few weeks to get it done and get it done right. So I would make the recommendation that we get a monitor and get rules and regulations put, you know, with regards to the types of posts that should be on there and obviously somebody to stop the harassment. That's ridiculous.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President. And, again, this is, I think, one time or another, every councilor has talked about this issue, whether it be, is there enough staffing to field all these issues? Obviously, there's not. But one thing we're seeing is we have enough negative blogs in this community, and this is what it's turned out to be. something we talked about looking, maybe it shouldn't be see, click, fix, but just see, click. So we can grab that data to show where we need the assistance, what departments really need that help. In Somerville, it's a different process. The process is a 3-1-1 process. See, click, fix is a process before 3-1-1. So using the assistance of Harvard University, that will come into the community like they have in my office and working for free to put a process in place that will help your community function the way it needs to function. This is too big to what we're seeing is happening here. We need the assistance from people that have gone through it already. When we see that, when we collect that data, then you have a 311 system that's in place that I have 22 lights out at Dillboy Stadium. I go to my office, I go right to my email, 311, I put to the department, it goes to an office, within 15 minutes I get a response email with a ticket number. That ticket number goes directly to the department head. The department head then follows up with my department head, knowing that this is coming from in the city. This isn't a blog that goes around and saying, Well, you picked me out, so I'm going to start egging your house, or I'm going to come after your dog or whatnot. This is a system that's supposed to be set up to help this community grow. So I think going forward, I don't see click fix. It's not working right now. And I know it was at least in good spirit to get something going in a positive direction, but all it's turned into right now is negative banter. because I don't think we have the tools in place to fix. So, I support my colleagues in going forward with this, but I think that, I know council president has already set a date to meet with the mayor, and I think this is one of the tools that we can actually talk and sit with her and say, this is what we're hearing, this is what we're seeing, this is what other communities have done. let's not reinvent the wheel, but let's start a process, not just to complain and block negatively, but find a way down the line that there's a solution. So again, I appreciate Council Marks for bringing this up. I appreciate, I think every single one of us that have in one time or another put a resolution through that talked about this. So, um, and I think, I think we need it. I think we're all starving something positive. So, Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Falco.
[John Falco]: Thank you, Mr. President. Um, let me just start off, um, this has come up at least three times in the past five months. Uh, and I support. You can do a lot of goal setting and trying to figure out how many puddles we fix here. So you look at the metrics and see what kind of data is coming in. You can really measure things. It can be a very effective tool. if it's managed properly. And I really feel that this is a system that we have, it's a tool that we have, but it's not managed properly if it's managed at all. I had a resolution back a couple of months ago with regards to the same thing about how it's being used as a walker. Someone was walking their dog, and someone actually took a picture of the person walking their dog, and it ended up on scene quick fix. a picture of another person should never end up in that same event. It came down, but it shouldn't end up there. So back then, I had questions about policies, procedures, and I wanted the administration to send us something back. We have not received anything back yet on that. We should be, I honestly feel, Consul Caraviello was part of the point. You know, they did offer training. They did, but it was at five o'clock in the afternoon. You know, with all due respect, Having a meeting at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, you're really not going to get that many people here. Most of the world is still working on their way home or attending to their kids and getting dinner ready. I mean, if you want to have a successful program and you want to train and you really want to roll it out properly, you have to make sure you communicate it right and then you train people. I think that this committee could probably benefit from a training session to see how the program works, when a ticket comes in or an issue is filed, where it goes. You know, if it goes to City Hall, what happens then? I mean, you outlined it in the process this summer. It's great. That process has never been outlined for us here. But we really need to see that. And I think a training would be beneficial for this council. I'd love to see a committee in the whole meeting to grab just a secret fix. I think one hour. I think it would be beneficial to everyone in this room. I think it would be beneficial to the program, and I think it would really help make this a success. I think we need to bring in the vendor and see if we can make some tweaks to it. I think it's a good program, but I think it really has to be managed properly. And I have some reservations right now about how it's being managed. I mean, is someone actually looking at this on a regular basis? I mean, you know, the purpose is to get things fixed. And, you know, there have been great points that have been made tonight about staffing. I'll be honest with you, I think we're terribly understaffed. I think they're doing everything they possibly can to keep up with the tickets, the Sequel Fix tickets. But, you know, I mean, at some point, I think right now we have between 9 and 12 people that work for the DW. 9 to 12 people in a city this big. And if that's not more people, we need to increase staff to keep up with this. But, getting back to see quick fix, we need to make sure that we take a look at this, we get some sort of training, and we need to figure out how this runs, and who manages it, and make sure it's managed properly. So, I think we should definitely have, maybe the whole meeting, it's come up before, we'll need to have this, we need to jump on top of this, I mean, we can talk about it all night, but we really need to sit down and take a look at this, figure out who's managing it, if anyone's managing it, make sure it's managed properly, managed properly, going into the future.
[Fred Dello Russo]: I just wanted to make a quick suggestion that as we go lurching into the world of social media here we
[Sqp6S0Yyr0A_SPEAKER_04]: I'd like to respectfully request that if we could also make, as part of this movement, some training for the police in Medford who may not be as familiar with the way crime and harassment can take place on the internet and on social media and bullying and such. I have a number of friends who have been doxed by various people. This is a phenomenon where Somebody goes out, finds their personal information, posts it online in a public place, sometimes it's just their name, address, phone number, sometimes it's their social security number or whatever, and encourages people to do threatening things to them. One of my friends who experienced this lives in Medford, called the Medford police. because they felt that they were in danger. And the police really had no idea of what to do with this sort of threat. And they were like, well, that's what kids are like on the internet these days. Why'd you back down from the fight? Yes, that's what some people are like on the internet, but that's also what crime and threat look like these days in a lot of situations. That is one of the tools and the weapons that people who harass and bully people use. And I think that continuing education for the police force as to how to handle that sort of thing would be really, really helpful just for the safety of people here in Medford.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Thank you very much. On the motion, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries. 16-499, offered by Vice President Langel, currently resolved that the Director of our Energy and Environment Office work on ways to reduce water consumption within all our municipal and school buildings. Madam Vice President.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, President Dello Russo. Since I put this on last week, Ms. Hunt, our Energy and Environment Director, did email me a number of ways that the city is working on water consumption. So I don't know how much she would want me to share of what she sent to me personally. If we could get it in writing to the whole council with regards to any and everything that has been done to preserve water within our city buildings, that would be my first amendment. And also, if we can get an idea with regards to the possibility or if she's looked into any potential grants with regards to whether it be replacing faucets or toilets within our public buildings. The city currently uses, I believe from what a commissioner told me, is $400,000 worth of water, or approximately close to that. in our city buildings. So that obviously is not being recorded accurately and it's being passed on to the rate payer. That's where my resolve comes from and that's where I would like to see the city do more to conserve water in our public buildings and focus less of a burden on our taxpayers. So I will follow up on this at a later date after we get some answers from our just put it in writing as far as everything that's been done, as far as to possibly make any grants because I do know that placing a toilet is expensive, is it even worth it? You know, we'd have to do a cost estimate. cost estimate evaluation, so are there grants available to do something like that, whether it be in our schools or in our public buildings to try to conserve water usage, just like any, if you go to any environmental festival or fair, there's always people there telling you what to do with your homes, how to update your home, replace the toilet, replace the faucets, to make it, you know, obviously, a lot of people do take steps in their homes to do it, so I'm asking the question, and then Medford are working to make sure any grants are available to take some of that burden of replacing things and further updating what we've already, you know, what we've approved for Mr. Mayor.
[Adam Knight]: On that motion as amended, Councilor Knight. Mr. President, thank you very much. It's been brought up a number of times, I think, by Councilor Mack, actually, concerning whether or not the city actually monitors the use of water in its buildings as well as its school buildings. And I think that in order for us to accurately If we're going to reduce water consumption, we first need to gauge what we're taking in. So I'd like to ask for an update from the administration as to whether or not they are metering our city and school buildings at this point in time, because it was my understanding that they were not the last time we asked the question. We're not going to be able to gauge conservation if we're not able to gauge consumption, Mr. President. So unless we're able to do that, I think, you know, it's off and on.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On that motion as amended by Councilors Lungo-Koehn, and Councilor.
[Michael Marks]: Councilor Knight is correct that the municipal buildings are not needed. The water that's consumed in any of the municipal buildings fall under unaccounted for water, which the ratepayers pay. Anyway, the ratepayer pays anyway. So it's half a dozen, one dozen or the other. And as far as I know, the high school has done a tremendous job on conservation. They have locked about three quarters of their bathrooms up so you can't use them. And about 90% of the bubblers don't work. So I know they've been working on conservation for a number of years. And maybe that's the intent here at City Hall.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Councilor, that's a public safety effort because of the lead pipes.
[Michael Marks]: That could be part of it, Mr. President. So I know the school department's been working on conservation.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On that motion as amended. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion carries. 16-502 offered by Council Caraviello. Be resolved that the Metro City Council send its condolences to the family of Robert Scalise. Bob was a member of the Medford Fire Department, a Korean War veteran, a member of the Medford High School Hall of Fame. Bob's presence in our community will be missed by all. Please join me in standing for a moment of silence. Records of the May 10th meeting were passed at Councilor Scarpelli. Before the meeting, he consulted with me to share with me that he found them in the order, but he's going to officially declare that now.
[George Scarpelli]: Mr. President, I find the minutes in order and move to place receiving place on platform. The motion's a motion of Councilor Scarpelli that the minutes be approved.
[Fred Dello Russo]: All those in favor? All those opposed? The meeting is adjourned by Councilor Caraviello.
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