[Fred Dello Russo]: The Medford City Council will come to order.
[SPEAKER_20]: Madam Clerk, please call the roll. 7 members present, none absent. Please rise to salute the flag.
[Adam Knight]: 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.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Chair recognizes Councilor Nice.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. President, motion to suspend the rules to take paper number 16546 and paper number 16547 out of order.
[Fred Dello Russo]: The motion of council tonight to take papers 16 546 and 16 547 and 16 544 out of order all those in favor all those opposed motion passes 16 546 to the honorable president members of the Medford City Council City Hall, Medford-Masso to 155. Re-amendments to Chapter 66, Personnel, Article 2, Classification and Compensation Plan, Section 6633, entitled Officers, Employees, Non-Union. Dear Mr. President and members of the City Council, I respectfully request and recommend that your honorable body approve the following amendments to chapter 66 personnel article two classification and compensation plan section 66-33 entitled officers and employees non-union of the revised ordinances of the city of Medford. The purpose of this amendment is to change the compensation plan for the position of city's assistant city solicitor amendments to the revised ordinance of the city of Medford chapter 66 personnel article two classification and compensation plan. Section 66-33, officers, employees, non-union. Be it ordained by the City Council of the City of Medford that Division 4 of the revised ordinances of the City of Medford as most recently amended is hereby further amended by changing the language of Chapter 66, Personnel, Article 2, Classification and Compensation Plan, Section 66-33, entitled Officers and Employees Non-Union, as followed. Classification CAF-10 presently states in pertinent part that it applies as follows. CAF-10 assistant assessor, assistant solicitor, assistant environmental agent, the language of CF-10 shall be amended to read and apply as follows. Assistant Assessor, Assistant Environmental Agent. Amendment B, Classification CAF 12, presently states, in pertinent part, that it applies as follows. CAF-12, Director of Veteran Services, Outreach agent, substance abuse, assistant treasurer slash collector, deputy collector, assistant auditor, environmental agent. The language of CAF 12 shall be amended to read and apply as follows. CAF 12, assistant city solicitor, director of ethnic services, outreach agent, substance abuse, Assistant Treasurer Collector, Deputy Collector, Assistant Auditor, Environmental Agent. Sincerely yours, Stephanie M. Burke, Mayor, Councilor.
[Adam Knight]: Yes, Mr. President. There's a motion, a paper that's before this council this evening to address a pay equity gap between the Assistant City Solicitor's position and the City Solicitor's position. This paper that's before the council would upgrade the position of the City Solicitor from a CAF 10 to a CAF 12.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Here to represent the department on this is the city solicitor, and we invite Mr. Rumley to the podium.
[Mark Rumley]: Good evening, Mr. President, members of the council. My name is Mark Rumley. I'm the city solicitor. I reside at 50 Woodrow Avenue in Medford. The purpose of this change in the compensation classification is to change the assistance position from CAF 10 to CAF 12, which will be a more justified result, uh, given the distance between it and the city solicitor's position and also put the assistant city solicitor on a, uh, more fair and equitable par with other, uh, employees of the city of Medford. And I respectfully request that you approve this.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Mr. Uh, Mr. Solicitor, Madam Vice President.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Um, President Dello Russo, just before the roll is called, I'd like to just announce that I'm going to abstain from the vote due to an appearance of a conflict of interest.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Madam Vice President. Councilor Marks.
[Michael Marks]: Thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank the city solicitor for offering this recommendation along with the mayor. This was originated at the budget meeting before the city council for an inquiry into this particular position. And I'm glad to hear that uh, yourself and the mayor, uh, thought that, uh, the, uh, moving of that position was warranted and it's long overdue. And I appreciate the fact that you came forward with this paper.
[Mark Rumley]: Well, we certainly appreciate those sentiments also. And it's ironic because Mayor Burke had described discussed during the budget preparation, the possibility of doing this during the budgetary season, but this accelerated it.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Thank you. So on motion for approval by Councilor Knight, Seconded by Councilor Caraviello. Roll call vote is requested. Mrs. Madam Clerk, if you would, call the roll. Yes. With the vote of six in the affirmative and one abstention. Please note that abstentions are only permitted in certain circumstances. And this circumstance is one where there may or may not be a conflict of interest, but to, uh, avoid any appearance as so, uh, the Councilor has abstained.
[Mark Rumley]: Um, president that, um, since this matter was going to have to take its three readings, it won't be in this budget until after it takes its third reading, which will be after the beginning of the budgetary, uh,
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Mr. Solicitor. So this passes the first reading. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. 16-547, to the Honorable President and members of the Medford City Council, City Hall, Medford-Maso, 2155. Dear Mr. President and councilors, I respectfully request and recommend that your honorable body confirm the reappointment of James Flynn of 31 Saunders Street to the License Commission for a term to expire June 1st, 2022. Mr. Flynn is present this evening. Your consideration of this appointment is greatly appreciated. Sincerely yours, Stephanie M. Burke, Mayor, signature on file. Chair recognizes Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Yes, Mr. President. This is a reappointment. Mr. Flynn has served as the chairperson of the Licensing Commission for a number of years. Recently, we've seen a new member appointed that hasn't served on the Licensing Commission before that this council approved, one Dean Bruno. I believe that Mr. Flynn's experience in his background and working in this position would be an absolute asset to the city. And I move for approval, Mr. President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion of approval by Councilor Marks, Councilor, Councilor Knight, Councilor Marks.
[Michael Marks]: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. Flynn is here tonight. So I would ask that he come to the podium so the whole audience could see who he is. And if you could, I know you've served with distinction for a number of years, And, uh, if you could just update the council on any new happenings within the commission itself, standing your name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_15]: Sure. Uh, good evening, James Flynn, 31 Saunders street in Medford. Um, I have served on the commission, um, about 18 years now. Um, and, um, we have, uh, had many, um, initiatives over the past few years. And I think overall we have attempted to discharge the city's business and be available to the business people for whatever their needs have been relative to the dispensing of alcohol. I'm not aware of any new initiatives that are being undertaken at this point in time that I'd like to brief the council on, although that can change from time to time.
[Michael Marks]: Mr. President, I, without any hesitation, support the renomination of Mr. Flynn. He does a tremendous job on the board itself, and I know board members look to Mr. Flynn for his many years of service and his advice. So I want to thank you for your service.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Thank you. So on the motion for approval by Councilor Knight, seconded by Councilor Morris. Mrs. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_18]: Yes.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Yes. With a vote of seven in the affirmative, none in the negative. Thank you, gentlemen and ladies.
[Michael Marks]: Congratulations.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Mr. President, motion 544 offered by Councilor Caraviello be it resolved that the sisters against ovarian cancer be allowed to turn the town teal. Carol Powers will address the city council. Councilor Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Mr. President. I'm proud to be doing this again for this group. They're a group that does wonderful things in this city for a deadly disease. Many people have had people in their family that have suffered from ovarian cancer and the chances of surviving it are very low. And this group, I think, what, Carol, 10 years now?
[SPEAKER_02]: This will be our 10th year.
[Richard Caraviello]: 10th year. They turned the town teal in support of ovarian cancer. And I support this wholeheartedly, and I ask my other councillors to do this also.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion of Councilor Caraviello, Councilor Marks.
[Michael Marks]: Mr. President, they have the opportunity to promote what the event is. And if you have a website that people can go on and make donations, Now's the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Turn the Town Tale is a promotion that we took on from Turn the Town Tale in New Jersey. We decorate the city with recyclable ribbons in September. We take them down the end of September to raise awareness. Our website is www.SistersAgainstOC.org. Judy has some information. We have an upcoming walk that we do that, if anybody would like to participate. And to date, we've raised $213,000 in memory of Marie Spinelli, who was a resident of Medgar.
[Michael Marks]: Great job.
[Judith Budny]: So I'd be happy to leave a brochure and registration forms. We would love to invite you all to come and join our walk. It will take place on Saturday, September 10th. It begins and ends at the Stone Zoo, and it's a five mile walk around Spot Pond. So I'd like to invite everyone to come and join us. It's a really great cause. And if you don't want to walk, you can donate.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. President, the last three years that I've been on the council, this group has come by and they've asked for the opportunity to turn the town teal. And one of the requests that I've continually made was that I'd like a little ribbon for my- We will have the ribbons. For my lamp here and for my colleagues on the council as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll have the ribbons here for September.
[Adam Knight]: Excellent, excellent. Mr. President, move for approval.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion for approval by Councilor Caraviello. Yes. Seconded by Councilor Knight. All those in favor? All those opposed?
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Mr. President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you very much. Congratulations. Thank you. Councilor Marks has two condolences he wishes to lead us in, if you would, Councilor.
[Michael Marks]: Thank you, Mr. President. First, I'd like to have this meeting dedicated to the Orlando victims, which took place the other day. As we all know, June is National Gay Pride Month, and the LGBT community in the city of Medford has been very active and involved for many, many years. Medford High School has a Gay-Straight Alliance, one of the few high schools that was represented in the Boston Pride Parade. And I want to dedicate tonight's meeting
[Fred Dello Russo]: to all the victims of the Orlando massacre, Mr. President.
[Michael Marks]: Also, Mr. President, we lost two residents near and dear to me, David Semenza, Jr. I'd like to have a moment of silence. He is a longtime Medford resident, just recently passed away, and he's going to be sorely missed. A father, a great husband, and a great friend. The other one is Robert Sarabian. He's a longtime Medford resident who recently passed away. Again, grandfather, father, husband, and also a great friend. And if we can have a moment of silence for those two Medford residents, Mr. President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: We could all stand for a moment of silence for these two Medford residents and keep in mind those who suffer in Orlando. on the motion of Vice President Lungo-Koehn to return to the regular order of business. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion granted. 16-543, offered by Vice President Lungo-Koehn and Councilor Marks, be resolved that the proposed Locust Street development project be discussed for neighborhood and resident input. Madam Vice President.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, President Dello Russo. I know there are a number of people in the audience that are here to have an open public hearing with regards to the locus street development. And I think it was the council's intent to have this meeting prior to the board of appeals issuing, drafting their decision. I'm not sure if everybody knows, but the board of appeals did file their decision today with city hall. So I think that makes it a little, changes the circumstances of tonight. They have ruled in favor of the developer and have approved all 11 variances, leaving us with the issue now of whether it's the abutters and the city council or probably from, I guess, what my understanding is that maybe the city council has 20 days to appeal and any direct abutter has 20 days to appeal. And we do have our solicitor here who I hope and I know will give us, answer any questions the residents or the council may have. We also have on our agenda a resolution 16-545, and we do have an opinion from our city solicitor with regards to my resolution to request how the city council appeals, how long do we have, if we do need to appeal, how do we request funding. So whether we open it up to the public to the public first. I think it may, I don't know, open it up to the public, but we do want our city solicitor to answer some questions so that we, as a council, can make an appropriate recommendation and ask the appropriate questions to our administration so that we can get some relief in this matter. We did vote last week, unanimously, seven to nothing, to have an open public hearing and to ask the Zoning Board of Appeals to withhold drafting that opinion until at least not only tonight for the public to speak, but also to have a public hearing held by the Zoning Board of Appeals before they made such a decision. From my understanding, I believe there is also a violation recorded with the city solicitor's office, a closed meeting violation, and I don't know if that is gonna be addressed tonight too, but that definitely concerns me, as I'm sure it does the entire council. So we have a number of different issues that are time sensitive, that may need a vote tonight, and we definitely want to hear from the people. But it's just pretty upsetting when you read the decision and how wonderful this project is when obviously there is so much wrong with what is going on.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Before I recognize Councilor Marks, I want to point out that this is a meeting of the Medford City Council, and this is an agenda item. It is not a public hearing. Councilor Marks.
[Michael Marks]: Thank you, Mr. President. I'd like to preference my comments at the very outset to state that I, first of all, respect each and every member of the Board of Appeals. Over the years that I've been on the council, they've made a number of great decisions which have benefited many neighborhoods in this community over the years. So I want to let that be known. I am equally as outraged as Councilor Longo with the fact that Last Tuesday, this council voted unanimously to ask the board of appeals. I mean, they're a separate body and they don't answer to this council, but we respectfully ask them to hold off on their decision until we could have a public forum where people could come up from all over the city, including director butters and voice their concern with this particular project. And I am equally as dismayed with the June 14th 9 51 AM, uh, posting to the city clerk this morning, uh, 14 page decision from the board of appeals that outlines, uh, the reason why, uh, they supported unanimously the project on Locust street. And so I liked, I have a few comments and I'm dying to hear from the residents, but I have a few comments I'd like to make, uh, Mr. President. Um, You know, it was quoted in the paper a couple of weeks ago on an article regarding this particular project that spoke about the 490 units, the 750-yard parking spots, and the size of the project on Locust Street. And as part of that article, Mayor Burke was quoted as saying, Mayor Burke envisioned the neighborhood developing into something similar to station landing. And I, as someone that lives in the Wellington area, can tell you firsthand that I don't consider Station Landing, first of all, a neighborhood. Residents in a neighborhood share social ties. They have a sense of identity as a neighborhood. When a problem occurs, residents mobilize. Look what's out in this audience. Neighborhoods have civic, religious, and educational organizations existing within the neighborhood. So I don't consider Station Landing a neighborhood. I don't consider station landing, when I go down there and grab a slice of pizza, as a place where I see a friendly face or people talking on the sidewalk or communicating. I don't see that. And I don't see Mayor Burke's vision of turning Locust Street which has direct abutters and is a neighborhood. And I stated that last week to Mayor Burke. This is a neighborhood. Whether you think it's commercially zoned or not, this is a residential neighborhood with many residential streets that abut this particular area. And I don't want to see, I for one on the council, don't want to see this project turn into a station landing. That's my first point. The Board of Appeals, their decision from what I read in this, and I read it twice today, their 14-page decision. They said throughout this decision that they were relying on the petitioner's studies. So they relied on the petitioner who came to them for this 490 units, and they relied on their traffic study, they relied on their soil study, they relied on the engineering study. Everything was relied on by the petitioner. They also said that we relied on the input from city departments. And many city departments made recommendations, the Board of Health, the Building Department, the Fire Department, made recommendations to try to improve this particular project. But the one thing missing, Mr. President, Mr. President, I'm over here. The one thing missing, the one thing missing is resident and neighborhood input. That's the one thing missing out of this 14-page document. And the reason why I say that is the Boston Globe on Thursday, June 9th, if you look under talking points, they have a section that says development. Zoning board refuses to reconsider Alston apartment project. says developers of a contested Austin apartment building are going back to the drawing board after a key city zoning panel shot down their project for the second time in a month. The Zoning Board of Appeals Tuesday refused to reconsider its vote to reject 130 unit building on 89 Bright Nav, which is made amid concerns from some neighbors about parking and traffic. The developer enormously disappointed by the decision and noted they've already spent two years modifying the plan to address community feedback. So here we have a project in Alston. The developer spent two years dealing with the neighborhood, altered plans, made every consideration possible to reach out to the neighborhood. And here we have a project in the city of Medford, which had a public hearing about a week and a half ago. The residents weren't able to speak to about 10, 1030 at night, and then they were shut off quickly. We asked the zoning board of appeals not to make a decision so we can hear from residents. And they hastily made a decision without having any feedback from the community. Something is awfully wrong in this community, Mr. President. And in my opinion, this council definitely needs to move forward with an appeal. before land court or before superior court. The report goes on to talk about a traffic impact assessment, and that is one of the other studies that the Board of Appeals relied on. This was done in March 2016, prepared by Van Nuys and Associates and Corp, and it says the board finds that the proposed project will not have a significant impact on motorist delays or vehicular queuing. So, so this is not going to have any impact on Mystic Valley Parkway on Riverside Ave on Harvard, not at all. And that was, uh, the, uh, information they got from the petition is, uh, traffic impact assessment. Um, I might add, it was also done when the metal Glen mall was not in operation. And we heard a petitioner last week, one of the residents, that stated that they actually went and got a copy of the traffic impact report and they refused to add the numbers that they already had on file for what the Meadow Glen Mall brings in traffic-wise. And rather than stating the Meadowglen Mall, they stated this project is going to bring in some additional traffic. So it's not a wash, because we all know that the Meadowglen Mall is going to be rebuilt with Wegmans, which is going to bring thousands of new cars traversing our streets from people not only in the community, but people outside the community. In the Board of Appeals findings, And I'd be happy to share this report with anyone tonight if they want to take a look at it. But the Board of Appeals stated more or less the reasonings why they had to give so many variances. And these are the findings that I found to be somewhat tough to deal with when it comes to a residential and a neighborhood standpoint. The first finding was the soil. It says the site has a unique soil and environmental conditions, drastically increasing the cost of rehabilitating, requiring the appellant make full use of the project site, available development to effectively balance the cost of the environmental remediation. So the Board of Appeals is saying, because this land is going to be so expensive to remediate, we have to let them build it to its biggest and best use. And that would be putting the most units we can on this particular site, so then they could balance the cost. The next finding was the lot shape. It says, the site is also affected by a unique lot shape constraint. frontage only on one street, alternative means of vehicle access not available. As a result, a network of internal driveways and pedestrian walkways must be constructed and will occupy a substantial portion of the available lot area. So they're saying because of the lot shape, I mean, it hasn't changed in the last 30 years, so I'm not sure why this particular petitioner would use that as a hardship, but that was one reason why the Board of appeals thought that they could provide the variance based on the soil, based on the lot shape, the topography. In addition to the soil and lot shape challenges, the project side is constrained by unique topographical conditions. Specifically, the depth of groundwater varies from one to six feet below ground surface. So they're saying based on the water table, they can't dig below So anything they have to do has to go on the surface. And that is a hardship to this particular developer. The board also stated that, and this is a quote, a literal enforcement of the provisions of the zoning ordinances would involve substantial hardship, financial or otherwise, to the appellant. a little enforcement of the industrial zoning district height and use limitations would significantly reduce the project site capacity to accommodate multifamily use, resulting in a substantial loss of dwelling units, including much needed affordable units. So, uh, what the board is telling me is that, uh, based on the conditions of this lot, if, if I bought a house lot, mr. President, And I found out that the lot was contaminated. The lot had whatever it did in the lot. I can't go for relief. I can't go and say, you know what, I bought this lot, but I didn't realize that it had contaminants. I didn't realize the dimensions weren't enough. I didn't realize it didn't have a proper setback. I just would move forward, Mr. President, and I definitely wouldn't be looking to build something that's far greater than the use for that particular project, which is happening here before us. It also says that desirable relief may be granted without substantial detriment to the public good and without nullifying or substantially deteriorating from the intent, I'm sorry, degregating from the intent or purpose of the zoning ordinance. And I totally disagree with that, that their zoning relief is allowing for the degradation of the neighborhood. It is allowing for a project that is oversized in a particular neighborhood. It is allowing a developer to come in without any deference to any residents, without any deference to anyone in the community, and build a project that we saw in Alston that their zoning board turned down saying it wasn't right for the neighborhood and the neighbors had a concern. And they went back to the developer and said, meet with the neighbors. Did not happen in this community. So, uh, based on that, Mr. President, I feel very comfortable in voting to ask for, uh, an appeal of this council. I agree with council Lungo-Koehn that, uh, we also may need an appeal from a butters and residents uh, according to the city solicitor and he can speak for himself. And, um, I would ask that, uh, also because we will probably need legal counsel, uh, to, uh, make a motion, uh, to appeal before land court or superior court that we also ask within our resolve tonight that the mayor appropriate ample funds to hire an attorney to give guidance and direction and represent this Medford City Council in the process of appealing this project, Mr. President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: I'm going to ask that the city solicitor come and give us some background on this matter.
[Mark Rumley]: Good evening, Mr. President. Mark Rumley, City Solicitor. It's really on the second resolution that I think I should begin, because the second resolution from Councilor Lungo was to ask the City Solicitor a series of questions that dealt with the ability of this Council, in general, to appeal a Zoning Board of Appeals decision. And so, rather than to have you wait the week, I submitted that decision, or that opinion, yesterday, because it wouldn't make any sense in this scenario to just wait that period of time. So, if you don't mind, I'll go over what that report says very quickly. I'm not gonna read it all, because it's six pages, and then a couple of other words, and I think the citizens would rather be, or the residents would rather be heard than me. The truth is that under Chapter 40A, Section 17, a municipal board may appeal the decision of a Board of Appeals, so long as it has something to do with the subject matter of zoning. In this case, the city council is the place where it's kind of the launching pad for zoning amendments and changes. Then it goes to the planning board and comes back later on with recommendations to this council for final adoption. So it's very clear that the city council has a certain purview over the subject matter of zoning and therefore would have the ability under 40A section 17 to file an appeal of a board of appeals decision. Now, what I also put in the decision is some language from a recent land court case that may be the basis for a challenge to that particular effort by a city council. But that's a land court case decision that I put in there just so that you understand that there are always two sides to every argument. And so that you wouldn't be surprised if indeed the city council appeals this matter, that there would be a challenge to the city council's jurisdiction. However, under the statute, 4817, the city council does have standing independent of anyone else to make an appeal of a zoning board of appeals decision. Now, abutters and parties in interest. Everyone who enters a matter in court has to have standing. That's fundamental law. If you don't have standing to go before a court, you're out. You'll be dismissed, and that'll be the end of it. The people that have standing in an appeal of a Zoning Board of Appeals case primarily are the abutters. They are the parties in interest. They are the ones whose property interests are the most affected by a particular decision, and they would have standing. And that standing, by the way, is independent of the standing of this council under 4817. So what I'm saying to you is that as a body, and you couldn't do this independently, you couldn't do this as Mr. Falco, as Mr. Marks, Mr. Caraviello, you would have to do this as a body. You are independent of abutters. Now, if the abutters or any of the parties in interest decide to appeal this matter, their standing is based upon their property interests. If there was not an abutter appeal on a matter and yet there would be a city council appeal without any abutters, that would look fairly weak before a judge because they would want to hear from the people in the court case who are most affected by a decision. So that's a general outline of standing and how the standing of the council is different from the standing of and a butter. They're two different things. And really, the butters could have their own appeal without the city council, but the city council has its own independent one if you choose to do so. So that's number one. The second question generally, which came up through Councilor Lungo's resolution, which oddly is next, is if the council did decide to appeal, when and how could it do so? The answer to that has already been talked about, and it is this. It's 20 days from the day that the appeal is filed in the office of the city clerk, which, according to the date stamp, and I don't think this is in controversy at all, was this morning at approximately 10 o'clock. So it's 20 days from today that an appeal would have to be filed, whether it's by the council or whether it would be by an abutter or party in interest. It's 20 days. You just can't write down on a piece of paper, and this is a big deal. You can't just write down, I appeal. I don't like the decision. You have to bring an appeal forward to the superior court or land court, having reviewed the decision, having reviewed the process and said, at least through an attorney, and it should be an attorney or somebody well-versed in land law, what the objection is to the decision. Is it procedural? Is it substantive by saying that the reasons are inappropriate? But you have to have competent legal counsel to do that, and if you don't, Any type of an appeal under 40A is perilous. It's even perilous for some fine legal practitioners. It can be dangerous. And if you do that, you have to know what you're doing. So anyone who says, I don't like this project, I'm gonna appeal it, you have to have more flesh on the bones than that in order to go forward. These aren't childish games. This is the law and this is court. So 20 days from today is when the appeal has to be filed. The third question, and I'm kind of going by way of subject matter rather than to read all this stuff to you, because I don't want to read to you. The third question is, if the council decided to appeal, and this is back to the council now, who represents the council? And here's the answer to that question. First, we'll start with the reverse, who it won't be. And this is not because of any reason dealing with government, but this deals with legal ethics. It can't be the city solicitor's office because, Both myself and Assistant City Solicitor Scanlon already represent the Board of Appeals in other matters which don't really get the attention of this one. So we couldn't do that out of legal conflict of interest, which would be a violation of the ethical considerations that deal with being an attorney at law. Therefore, this council would have to, if it was going to appeal, have its own council, that is, its own legal council, and on that, My only suggestion to you is that you would have to file or, excuse me, pass a resolution asking the mayor, who's the chief budgetary officer of the city because of her position, to make an appropriation of sufficient funds for you to do so. So it isn't that the city solicitor's office or the assistant city solicitor isn't capable of representing you, but legal requirements and rules of ethics would prohibit us. So those are the answers to those three questions. One other thing. I want to correct one thing with, uh, vice president, uh, Lungo, but she wouldn't have known this cause she wasn't there. There was a, a complaint raised by a resident, uh, miss Rodriguez of, uh, alleging an open meeting law violation of the board of appeals on this matter. And it was amended once she filed a revised complaint. Also that matter was heard this morning before the board of appeals. I was there. At the end of it, the Board of Appeals said in response to that, this is just so that you understand what occurred, they said that they did not prohibit anyone from coming in the room and they felt that there was not an open meeting law violation. I addressed the Board of Appeals this morning, as did Ms. Rodriguez, but that matter is not pending any longer. That matter was heard this morning by the Board of Appeals just before they filed their decision. So, procedurally, that's where we are. So, I know that people want to say some things, but I want to answer your questions, too, so I'll stay. I'm not going anywhere. But if you have any questions for me now.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Madam Vice President.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, President Dello Russo. So, with regards to the city solicitor's office not being able to represent the council, we then would have to find our own council. You can't even help us find sufficient outside counsel?
[Mark Rumley]: I think that you'd have to, I don't think, I know, you have to pass a resolution, first of all, saying that you want to appeal, by the way, that's a majority vote, not three quarters, or two thirds, rather. Majority vote, then, unless you have some other funding source, which I don't believe you would, you would have to ask the mayor for an appropriation of sufficient money to retain outside counsel. In that endeavor, Of course, we'd be able to assist you in that, as would the Treasurer's Office, excuse me, the Finance Office, to find the appropriate counsel. But then that counsel would be independent of us, which is the way it should be. And also, if you think that I would take exception to that or somehow have my nose out of joint because you had your own independent counsel, I don't. It's required. And we're going to follow the law.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And with regards to separate The council has separate standing than the abutters, so with regards to the abutter portion of this, there could be multiple abutters in one filing the appeal together. Is that correct?
[Mark Rumley]: Yes, but the abutters, this question came up, I had conversations with most of you this afternoon just briefly. Councilor Marks asked me that question this afternoon, and I told him that there can't be an appeal filed by the city council and then have the abutters let me use just a colloquialism, they can't piggyback onto that appeal. They would have to have their own independent appeal with their own independent counsel.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: But multiple abutters could join forces and.
[Mark Rumley]: Yeah, they could. And that happens very often in land court or in superior court on an appeal of this nature.
[Fred Dello Russo]: All set, Madam Vice President? Thank you. Thank you, Madam Vice President.
[George Scarpelli]: Chair recognizes Counsel Scott Pellett. I can't thank you, Mr. Romley. Um, one of the questions come about by a few residences. Can you define what a, a butter is for everyone?
[Mark Rumley]: Well, in a butterwood, there's a legal definition of it. I'll probably be vague on this cause I didn't look it up in preparation of this, but those who are immediately a butters, uh, being that contiguous with this parcel, they certainly are a butters, but then they also also notice went, if it went according to the law or I didn't look at the notice, it should have gone within 300 feet of the parcel notice to others. So there'd be a presumption that they'd be parties in interest, but that's a presumption only which could be attacked during the course of an appeal. And people who are going to engage in this, the council and the residents should know this, not trying to be ominous, but you go to court and it's a land court or superior court. It isn't a matter of saying, oh, we filed an appeal and now we're going to go to court next month. Anybody who's been in court once knows that when you go to court, It's an experience. It isn't a day. And it stretches out and goes from time to time to time. There are different time frames involved. An appeal in the land court or the superior court, if it's quick, might take a year or two. So there's any number of different things that happen once this comes into play. So I think that everybody has to do this. with eyes wide open. Because if you don't do something in life with eyes wide open, then you're deluding yourself. And the only way to make progress in life is to base your actions on firm bricks of truth and clarity.
[George Scarpelli]: So, and I appreciate that. Believe me, I appreciate your knowledge. And some of the things that we've learned going through this process in the last couple weeks, One of the concerns, as I did my homework, is filing this appeal as abutters, making sure that it's more than one, and actually recommending that to anybody who I talk to for the fact that the manipulation with developers and meeting with one abutter and working with them to set up certain side deals so things could be handled out of court. So I think that's welcomed. You know, what I heard over and over again was that having the abutters being the group that really pushes this.
[Mark Rumley]: The laboring oar?
[George Scarpelli]: I'm sorry? The laboring oar. Correct. So it's that we see over and over again that I've gotten the response from. Obviously, another question that maybe you can or can't answer, the cost to the taxpayers. if we had to then ask the mayor? That's something I think we need to know. Roughly, in this type of case, is it, could you answer that?
[Mark Rumley]: It's the kind of money I never made in my life because I represent the city. That much. But it certainly would exceed, it would exceed conservatively, and I'm being cheap, conservatively exceed $15,000 to get going. Thank you. 20, he says.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you.
[Mark Rumley]: 20 it is. Yes, it is expensive.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you.
[Richard Caraviello]: Councilor Caffiel. Thank you Mr. President. Mr. Solisio, if I'm understanding you right, and you're saying we should be going, going into this with our eyes wide open, um, would it, do you think it would be prudent for us to maybe, um, before we go in and hire an attorney or be decided on this appeal, maybe seek maybe a consultation with an outside attorney, whether it's something that an outside attorney feels that would be favorable for us.
[Mark Rumley]: That's always a prudent choice.
[Richard Caraviello]: However, it's a prudent choice, but you'd have to do it within the week. PDQ. That's what I say. If we had a consultation and you get some cost estimates, trying to figure out where we are with this.
[Mark Rumley]: Respectfully, Councilor, the cost estimates will astound you anyway. But I think the thing that the consultation would benefit you on is to having an objective set of eyes look at the decision and the process and tell you whether or not you have a viable appeal. Because, see, that's the hair that has to be split. It's one thing, and I say this respectfully, it's one thing to say, I don't like this project. And it's another thing to say, I don't like this project for these reasons which give me a tenable appeal. And it's that second part that's crucial.
[Richard Caraviello]: Is this something you feel that we can get done in the next 14 days?
[Mark Rumley]: It'll be tough.
[Richard Caraviello]: where would we get the guidance on what attorney to hire?
[Mark Rumley]: Well, we'd certainly set you up with speaking to, see, I don't, I'm not a shill for any lawyer, but we'd certainly make some type of calls to the Mass Power Association and that sort of thing. Maybe City Solicitor and Town Council Association for referrals, but we never really pick, if anyone calls the law office and says, could you recommend a lawyer? We never do because we're not going to set somebody, we're not farming stuff out to anybody. Mass Bar Association, City Solicitor and Town Council Association, we'd start to get some referrals.
[Richard Caraviello]: So would it be prudent to at least have a consultation before we venture into this?
[Mark Rumley]: We could start assembling some names.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: All set, Councilor? Thank you. Thank you, Councilor. Thank you. Chair recognizes Vice President Ludlow-Curran.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, President Dello Russo. If the council or the abutters filed an appeal, would that stall the process and create a time period where things couldn't move forward on the site?
[Mark Rumley]: The project would not move forward during the appeal. There'd be too much money at stake for the developer to take that type of risk. They wouldn't do it.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And then my second question, with regards to the open meeting law violation, whether or not that goes to the Attorney General's office next, would that be inclusive of something that the city council could appeal on? Could that be a basis?
[Mark Rumley]: The open meeting law violation was raised by a resident, Cheryl Rodriguez, And because of the timeframes involved in making that type of allegation, and the fact that it was filed by her last week during the budget period, the Board of Appeals held that meeting this morning. It is hers to appeal to the Attorney General. Anybody else who would allege an open meeting law violation at this juncture, I think the timeframes have gone by, or they're getting close. However, Ms. Rodriguez does have the ability to appeal this. the action of the Board of Appeals today to the Attorney General's Office in their open meeting law division. And that's all set forth by rule. And I know that she is becoming more and more familiar with those rules. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Chair recognizes Councilor Marks.
[Michael Marks]: Mr. Solicitor, just one quick question. Under the FY16 budget for your department, there's claims under $1,000 and then claims over $1,000. Yes, sir. And the claims under $1,000 started off with $30,000, and claims over $1,000 started off with $60,000. Yes, a very, very modest sum. Do you know how much is left in that account?
[Mark Rumley]: I don't, honestly. Not off the top of my head. My secretary would. It's not a great deal. It's not a great deal.
[Michael Marks]: But in the past, there has been money allocated for outside counsel. Yes.
[Mark Rumley]: And generally speaking, though, that has not come out of the claims account. There's been other sources. It's been a while before this has been done since this has been. But for example, the example I gave to the council last week, when I talked about, for example, civil rights violation and perhaps a public safety officer being sued, we have insurance for that, but a very high deductible, like 50,000. So when we hire outside counsel for that, generally speaking, the mayor, both the present mayor and the former mayor, they would find another source of funding to pay that contractual obligation. Generally speaking, it didn't come out of the claims account. However, they did find other sources. So we have done it in the past and we've done it in different cases. This would be a first in my career.
[Michael Marks]: So you don't have any idea whether or not at the end of this fiscal year, which is coming up within the next couple of weeks, There may be a surplus in those two line items.
[Mark Rumley]: If there is a, if there's a surplus in our claims account, I'm sure it's going to be extremely modest, but it might be something that could be contributed. Okay.
[Michael Marks]: Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Councilor Scarpelli.
[George Scarpelli]: Again, Mr. Warren, one more question today. I know it was a question that was someone brought to my attention. Silly question maybe, but the McGlynn school, the parents of the McGlynn school, would that be considered a butters? No. So thank you. No, because they're no. Thank you. That's all.
[Mark Rumley]: No, they're not residents of the school.
[Fred Dello Russo]: All right. We're going to now open this portion of the meeting to the residents who wish to visit us. Please note a couple things. First, we ask that when you approach the podium that you state clearly your name and address for the record. We also ask that you write your name and address for the record, allegedly on that pad of paper that's left there. Up here on the podium, because of the primitive nature of the sound system in this room, it's very difficult for us to always understand what the speaker at the podium is saying. So it will be very helpful for the clerk to have an accurate record of those speaking. Everybody has a time limit. And also, We ask that you not insert yourself in the line again until everybody has had a chance to speak one time. So thank you. And so we'll start with you, Ms. Martin. And if you would, 10 minutes. And if you would, Ms. Martin, please state your name and address for the record.
[Jeanne Martin]: Gene Martin, 10 Cumming Street, Medford. First of all, thank you for letting me speak tonight without Ms. Cohen and Mr. Marks. We wouldn't be here. able to speak at an open meeting like this, so I thank you for that. Normally, I speak for myself, so the weight of what I say doesn't carry a lot. But today, I have been asked by many of the abutters to speak for them, because they are just regular people. And they don't get up here, and they're not public speakers. And so they've asked me to speak for them. So I'm very nervous, because it's an awesome responsibility that I have to speak for these folks. I hope that after I speak, they'll feel more comfortable coming forward. With that, let me introduce you to the people of Cumming Street, the small scale residential neighborhood that the developers called these people. This is them, and they're all along Riverside Avenue, but most of them are for Cumming Street, but they're all along Riverside Avenue. Meet my neighbors. They're all over here, okay? So these are people, and this is wonderful that they've come out. Just their presence here, they don't come out here every day. They got jobs and lives, not like me, but you know, they have jobs and lives. They can't be here every day advocating for themselves. They don't know what's going on all the time. And so it's important that they're here tonight. And so their presence should speak volumes. We also have literally direct abutters to the Shaw's project tonight. literally, without question, literally direct abutters here tonight. Okay? So I want that to be known. And I thank Mr. Marks and Ms. Cohen for bringing this to everybody's awareness. And I think that it's very interesting that today they approved this appeals thing, whatever it is. This is a complex situation. And most of these people, this is over their heads. You have to be a lawyer to figure this out, and land lawyers, and this and that, and the other thing. All they know is that this project's too big for their neighborhood. That's what they know. They know it's too big. They don't care. No offense, city solicitor. They don't know that stuff. This is intimidating. This process is intimidating for regular people. So I just wanted to put that out there. I think they passed it so that the suits didn't have to sit here and look at the people tonight. That's what I think. I think they passed it today so that the suits didn't have to show up from New York, Park Street, or whatever that is. And if they didn't do this in the dark of night, we wouldn't be here, and it wouldn't cost the city a dime. You're talking about $15,000. Well, if this was done right in the first place, We wouldn't have to pay a dime to a lawyer if they had asked for the city's, for the neighborhood's input ahead of time. This is what happens when you try to slip something under in the dark of night. This is what happens. Let's get this passed. 11 different violations of code violations or whatever. If they had asked for this, and yes, maybe if they had asked, maybe three people would have shown up, you know, but you don't know that. We don't know that. Maybe there would have been 20 people that showed up, maybe 25. But now look at us. Where we are, we shouldn't have to be here tonight. We should not have to be doing this tonight. This is because it wasn't done right in the first place. And we have 20 days. The other big thing is that we have only 20 days to do something about this. So when you talk about getting counsel, I don't care what you have to do, but we have to do it tomorrow. We have to do it 9 o'clock tomorrow morning. I want you to work with these folks here. I want you to get the director butters, get their names, get them on paper because they don't, they've asked me to speak for them and I don't know how to speak for them, to be honest with you. I want them to speak for themselves. They're intimidated. This is a very, very arduous process. You guys do this every day. This is what you do for a living. This is what you get paid to do. They don't do this every day. They're not up here. They don't know you. They don't know the routine every day. So this is important that you get this done. And just because something's hard does not mean it shouldn't be done. So when you say, we have to have this done and we have to have that done, Don't, no offense, Mr. Solicitor. He knows me. But just because it's hard doesn't mean we shouldn't go forward with it. So don't say that just because, you know, well, we might have to this, that, and the other. But I do like what he said about coming up with the reasons. The solicitor said we do need to have reasons. We shouldn't have had to come, we shouldn't be here where we are today. But we do need to come up with those reasons now because the horse is out of the barn. The horse is out of the barn now. It shouldn't have been that way. It should have been that the horse should have stayed in the barn, and we would have been fine. You wouldn't see these people here tonight. They don't want to be here. I want to be here. I love coming here. This is my thing. But these people, they don't want to be here. This is not their normal Tuesday night. They have people to take care of. They have things to do. And so I just want you to recognize that. I hope that they can speak for themselves now. I hope that I've given them that much encouragement. Thank you very much.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Good evening. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Jean Nuzzo]: Good evening. My name is Jean M. Nuzzo. I live at 35 Parris Street. I would like to just take a few moments and reiterate a few thoughts that I made with a much smaller audience last week. Just my research, I have some information to reference. So just as a point of information, a lot of what I have to say tonight I've researched, and they're facts. They're not Opinions I'll tell you if I think I'm making an opinion. Sorry, so I've done a lot of research and I have some information to share First let me say that I'm a lifelong Medford resident and I think that that still means something I live in this city because I love it and I'm passionate about Medford and our opportunities to develop the city, and I'm passionate about construction and development. It is the industry that I work in. I do construction planning and tenant improvement development work for several different industries, including biotech, government, academic. So I see what other cities are doing locally and all the way down to Rhode Island. So I am fully in support of responsible development within the city of Medford. I still believe, as I did last week, that there is a subset of Medford officials that feel like Medford is the ugly sister who can't get a date, and so we should just be happy that someone wants to dig in the ground and build something here. reiterate that that is not the case. We sit smack dab in the middle of something that has been dubbed the urban edge or the urban ring. I have documentation from NIOP, which is the building industry standards that they talk about this book. If you're welcome to look at it, I can refer you to it. It is all the projects that are going on in Somerville, Charlestown, Medford, West Cambridge, Watertown, Alston, North Station, and speculated projects around to support the outward migration from the city of Cambridge and Boston proper. Okay. If you want to look at it, I've notated a couple pages of interest, but I think that's available online. If you're interested, I'll let you borrow it or have a copy. I bring this up because in both instances, the developer has said the reason that they need to build 490 units is because there's nothing else they can do with that parcel in an industrial code. that it's zoned for industrial, and because Wegmans is coming across the street, they can't put another retail unit there, and there's nothing else they can do. So if you look at that book, there's at least 150 projects going on, some residential, mostly mixed use, some office, some lab space. I have additional information that talks about what the market will bear, and values for rental, for the city of Medford or Cambridge, the surrounding areas in New England, and what the rents are, and the fact that, as I stated last week, there is now 115,000 square feet of lab space available in Cambridge. So they have a demand for over a million four square feet. They have 114,000. As you look through that book, you'll notice that Watertown, Belmont, the surrounding areas are all doing things to bring business into their cities. Again, I'm not opposed to a residential development. Their position was it has to be residential, and that is my findings and my information that I know of at the moment that's out there. You're welcome to read it. I can refer you to links, whatever you'd like. So again, I'm fully in support of responsible development for the city of Medford. I think we have a great opportunity here. I'm confused as to why this application for variance was considered. As was stated, there are three arguments really don't hold merit. So the arguments that they make about the city needing to give them a variance because the land is brownfield and they can't dig. I mean, World Trade Center 1 that came out of the ground has what they call a bathtub. It's submerged in water. I think there are things that can be done. They don't have to go so high. But again, I think it's just another example of perspective that they bring to the argument. So I think that there are things that can be done. They don't have to build that way, as I mentioned last week. They can do what they call a Texas wrap, which doesn't involve going into the earth at all. And I didn't see anything in the documentation about presumptive load testing to assure that this property can even hold a 75-foot multi-story building on it. It hasn't held that in the past. And in all the documentation that I looked at, I didn't see anything. I may have overlooked it. It may be misplaced and just not in the copies that I was looking at. But I think that's something extremely important to consider for a building that they want to go 75 feet tall. I'm concerned the Butters weren't impacted. I know that in other cities that follow the Massachusetts general law, a Butters and their feedback are prominent. I know of instances in both residential and commercial that when direct to Butters have said no, the matter is closed. It's done. So I feel badly that our abutters haven't had the opportunity and maybe they'd be more interested and open to this building had they had the opportunity to provide feedback. So I think that moving forward with the project this large and not making it clear that this is not something that Medford residents want sets the stage and it sets the precedence that people can come in and develop. And I mentioned last week, and I'll mention again for the benefit of the people who weren't here, that I know that there is a desire or human nature to say, well, that's a little bit further away from me. It might not affect me so much. And that may be true of this 490-unit development. But just off the top of my head, I can think of four parcels, one on Riverside Ave, one on Salem Street, One on High Street and actually a good number on Mystic Ave that a greedy developer or a savvy developer can come in and you will see multiples of this type of building. go up, where they maximize what they're putting, they know the board, they know community development, and I know they work hard, and I believe that they have the best interests of the city at heart. It's a thankless job that they do. I take my hat off. I don't know that I would ever want to do that job, but if it's known that this will be accepted and approved very swiftly in the city of Medford, you will see them come. So I'd ask people to think about that. Is that what your vision is for the city? And if it is, you know, well then certainly stand up and be heard on that position. And if it's not, you know, we need to kind of step forward and make it known that this one we may or may not be able to do something about. It may or may not go our way. But the next one, we're gonna mobilize, we're gonna be ready, we're gonna be united, and we're gonna try to influence and make sure that our voices are heard before that schematic design is completed. I would also urge your consideration, and I don't know how the best way to go about this would be, but I feel like we need some subject matter expertise in Medford on this. There are some savvy developers out there. There are some really good developers out there that would be interested in Medford. And, you know, just by way of accepting this one, I think that we could use a little bit more strength in that expertise.
[SPEAKER_10]: You have one minute.
[Jean Nuzzo]: That's okay. I can finish. As I said, if anyone's interested in the market information, I'm happy to share. I think we need some subject matter experts. And then in closing, I'll leave you with this thought. It may cost us $15,000 to file an appeal. It may cost us $30,000. But how much will it cost the taxpayers for that 490-unit development going in? that we will drive by every day, deal with the traffic, pay for the children that need to go to school, and any other taxing that they put on our infrastructure. So I think in the grand scheme, $15,000, $30,000 is not a lot to invest to at least influence the outcome. Thank you so much.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Good evening. Please state your name and address for the record.
[AXh4iBqkQq0_SPEAKER_00]: My name is Jay Campbell and I live at 707 Fulton Street. And thank you for having this open hearing. It was nice to receive a robo call. Recommend that the residents come here to talk about this before any decisions made. So thank you for having this still. I want to just talk about a few different things that was brought up last week and this week as well. As far as the development goes, development necessarily isn't bad. But one of the biggest concerns I have with this 490-unit development is that, once again, we get rid of the retail. We're pushing businesses out, be it commercial, be it retail. I personally believe that, I believe it's something like 65,000 square feet of space is currently there, and we're going down to 10,000. There used to be a car dealership right by the skating rink, by Flynn Skating Rink. I'm sorry, over by the fields. That's now Luminaire, which is a huge apartment building. That's gone. We have two apartments, complexes on Locust Street that used to be, I believe, auto body shops. That's now gone, now apartments. And there's nothing filled in. I keep on hearing people talk about stations landing. I know Councilor Marks doesn't feel it's a neighborhood, but my mother lives there and loves it, but that's okay. But one of the things, she lives in the condos. and they have their meetings, and they have their things, and they love the retail. One of the other concerns I have is that we're not putting in condos. We're putting in these big, you know, you talk about affordable housing, but affordable housing to rent. There's no ownership. There's no owner of having it. And I think that's one of the concerns with this project is that, once again, it's an apartment. And I think that if you could have it where you start to put in more condos, like at St. Francis, The old school is now condos. At least there's a buy-in. There's people that have ownership and feel a piece of it. One of the things I'd recommend to this, if you're going to look at the zoning, not only for the local street, for the 490 units, but we also address across the street from me, there's a neighbor that has a 2,000 square foot lot that isn't being used because it's not big enough. But if you could take a look at the zoning and take a look to see, you know what, maybe you could put an 800 square foot house on there. two-bedroom, one-bathroom home that now would sell for a lot less than any home in Medford is selling for today. That'd be brand-new construction that would make it more affordable. I think that when you're talking about this subject matter, you need to start looking at other ways that we can bring residents in, businesses in, and really have a discussion. Because at this point, it sounds like it's already a done deal, that there are some things you can do. And you can appeal it for the $15,000. Call it a negotiation time. Negotiate. Maybe there's some things you don't want. You don't want as high. You don't want as many units. Maybe you want first floor in. Or as I like to say, maybe you want an electric car station in. You know, whatever you might want is the opportunity to do it. So I hope that this board, this city council takes the opportunity to reevaluate, even though it's been through, even if that means appealing it. But appeal it with a goal in mind. What's your end game? You can't say no to development. You can't say we shouldn't develop anything. But what you could say is, we want the retail. We want certain things. We want a better quality of life. And one of the things I'll just leave you with is, one of my questions to you is, can someone who lives in an apartment be considered an abutter? Because you have the Luminaire right next to it. You have the Metro Public Housing. I don't know if there's a certain piece of the land that's within 300 feet, but that's very close to it. So if you're a tenant, or if you're on, public housing, does that give you special, because there's some in the Mystic Apartments, does that give you the opportunity, the criteria to be in a butter? Or does it have to be physically your name on the deed of the property? That would be something you might want to ask as well. So thank you all for taking the time.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Good evening. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Anthony D'Antonio]: My name is Anthony D'Antonio. I live at 12 Yale Street. City of Medford. Just a couple of points that I'd like to make. I don't want to ramble, but with regards to an appeal from an abutter, an attorney, there are always large firms that have it in their realm to offer their services pro bono for different areas. And maybe the people that may want to consider an appeal may want to look into that. There's also a GoFundMe fund out there that could be utilized. And that if the development is not going to benefit all the residents of the city of Medford, maybe they'll throw in $2, $5 or whatever. But the thing that bothers me about this development, several years back on Yale Street, There was a couple of developers that came in and said, we can't build unless you let us build 200 units over there. Can you imagine? We're having trouble with 50 units over there now, about 50 units with parking and different things. Can you imagine if they built two high rises they wanted to build at 200 apartments over there or 490 units? Uh, it's quite a bit, but I, I don't consider that to be a smart development. I don't see anything that's, um, altruistic for the city of Medford are coming from the developer to the city. I don't see that. All I see is dollar signs with this developer. Um, I'm involved in a project right now for veterans that we're trying to get and build communities for them. We have one that we're looking at 32 units in an adjacent city and another one for 42 units down in Westboro. And we've been working on these things for close to a year now. It didn't just happen like that. I'm confused at the Board of Appeals. I questioned, do they live in the city of Medford and know what's going on in the city? I mean, right now we're jammed up with an awful lot of traffic. We've got Mystic Avenue that's going through another development. They're going to be putting retail stores. They're going to be putting apartments, what I understand, in businesses. But did you go to West Medford and they knocked down 30 units on Canal Street, but they want to put 490 on Commercial Street. It's not the right kind of a development for that area. Development and building is good, puts people to work. We need to have people going to work, but we have to have something that's not going to have a problem when it's all done. I mean, where are the people going to come when they have all these problems? They're going to come here. They're going to come to the city council. They're going to go to the traffic. They're going to go everywhere. Okay. And what kind of a life is that? I mean, you know, it was a commercial on TV years ago. The three boys eating breakfast. They didn't want to eat the breakfast. And they said, give it to Mikey. He'll eat it. It's like, throw it all down here in this section over here. I mean, what the heck? We've got enough. The streets are jammed. Golden Avenue. People can't get through Mystic Ave. They're coming up Golden Avenue. Today, this morning, there was a line from Willis Avenue all the way up to Main Street. It's just too congested. And if they go ahead and build it, that's fine. There's not much you can do it unless you want to really fight it. It's not smart development. I don't think anybody in the city was not nobody in the city. I think, I don't think was aware of it off of the community development. Didn't they throw back or the mayor throw back something and say, wait a minute, that's not the right fit for this particular thing. Can we, what about this? Or what about that? Just like, is it a wham bam? Thank you, Sam. You know, and it was done, but, uh, and then schools, if you have 490 units and you just take two and a half people, two and a half, people per unit. It's about 1300 people. If you take one and a half times those people, divide it, you're going to have anywhere from 450 to maybe 600 additional students because they're building one, two and three bedroom units over there. So it's going to be a crunch in the school system. But there's a lot of things that should have been thought of. You know, the cows are already out of the barn and um, hopefully, I don't know, hopefully we'll survive this. I'm sure we will. but it's just not the right fit for this city because this is like Cabrini Green in Chicago. It's just too much down there. So thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Good evening. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Robert Penta]: My name is Robert Penter. I live at zero summit road, former member of this August party. You know, we're not a city that's rising from the ashes. There hasn't been a catastrophe in this city, and we shouldn't be looked upon as a community that the Trojan horses come in, which is development. And development, just for the sake of development, doesn't mean it's always good for this community. When that decision was rendered this morning, I took all afternoon to review it, page by page, word by word. Fourteen pages of a hastily written decision because The board, I believe, did not want to hear what this Medford City Council wanted to do. And the city solicitor is absolutely right, because I've checked the cases and other cases that reflect upon the fact. You folks, you are the master of the zoning of this city of Medford, not the board of appeals, because that's what they are. People go to them on an appeal. But you folks, you write the zoning. The zoning begins and ends here, goes through whatever the process might be. So you have every right to not only appeal this decision, but to appeal it as loudly and as strongly as you can. On page five of the decision, the commentary says it completes the zoning, the industrial zoning, except for heightened use. Now, this is an industrial piece of property, which is allowed to have certain exemptions that you don't have. But the heightened use relegates itself to the multiple dwelling portion. We can go back to 1988. There was a company called Asano and White. They did a, I think it was a $70,000, $80,000 report here in the city of Medford as it reflects upon housing, development, traffic impact, and water and sewer. And the Wellington Glenwood area was one of the particular areas that they did it on. And Councilman Marks alluded to the fact on page eight, the topography of the land. The board says that a substantial part of the property, if it's not developed with multiple dwelling, In the ordinance, the industrial zone, in essence, will become inoperative because it'll just stay industrial and you can't do anything with it. I think there's one point that hasn't been said thus far, unless somebody else wants to say it later on. Don't forget, when these folks came on March 31st and before that, they didn't say no to the development. They were conciliatory. They said, reduce the size of the project, make it smaller if you can, and I think the people could live with it. But that didn't take place. If you read the decision regarding 7 Canal Street, the very last paragraph, as written by the board, basically says, and I read it, Mr. President. It's kind of interesting, that decision. It says the following, in conclusion, the board is hopeful that the developer will reconsider the size and scope of the proposed apartment building. There is much to commend the overall project in such close proximity to public transportation including the commuter rail. Now, in that decision, they talked about the abutters that showed up. In this 14-page decision, there's nothing about an abutter that showed up, nothing about the concerns that they had. All they talked about was the fact that this is going to be great for that particular area. April 27th of this year, Mayor Burke of this community said this is a great project to develop a new neighborhood in this part of town. We're excited about it. But where is the transparency, the open public meeting on zoning of this nature? Because you folks have never had a development this large smack you in the face. And since you've all been here, you've never had an audience like this who are so upset over the fact that they weren't a part of it. They're coming in after the fact. They should have been here before the fact, before this honorable body. You folks wrote the law, and you should be well aware of what's going on upstairs in that Board of Appeals. You know, in the decision, it's relegated to the terms. They state the following. We respect the fact that this zoning and site plan review fits the standards of this particular project. This is the wording of the zoning and the site plan review. The purpose of our zoning is to promote the health, safety, morals, convenience, and to lessen the danger from congestion and confusion. Site plan review states the following. The purpose of this article is to promote development, which is harmonious with surrounding areas and adequate consideration of abutting land owners. Well, we have abutting land owners here tonight. Where were their concerns is written in this document. It's nowhere to be found. And if it's nowhere to be found here, it's quite obvious that they didn't take it into consideration. And Councilman Marks, again, alluded to the fact that we relied on department head reports, and we relied on their reports. Kind of interesting, the folks that, Vanessa Hagan, who was the consultant they had for the traffic study, is the same one that they had for Canal Street. And that was only four stories high and for 30 units. This is 490 units high, 490 units and five stories high. Big difference. But let's get to the bottom line. What are you going to have here for the bottom line? Because it's the impact that's going to affect the neighborhood. This is what you're going to have. You're going to have coal. If everybody's online and all the developments are coming on board. You'll have Coles, you'll have Marshalls, you'll have Wegmans, you'll have Lumineer. They just sold their building after one year for $66.6 million. What makes you think these people may not do the same thing? Come in. Hi, Hawaii. See you later. Make a fast buck. Who pays for it? The neighborhood. Then you're going to have the skating rink over there. Then you're going to have the 490 units. Then you're going to have eight commercial businesses, three apartment buildings. And now let's take a ride down Locust Street and bang a left and go to Wellington Circle. You're going to have 200 more units of apartment housing going over there. And don't forget the casino when that opens up. You put this all together. And you take Little Locust Street, which is a two-way street, it's going to make no sense at all. If this administration had any brains, they would have called you into that office over there, sat down with you and said, what do you think, guys? This is what I think I'd like to see. Can we add or subtract to it and come up with a unified front? No, you have an administration that just goes on their own way and now you're here to pick up the slack. And what's the slack? You're going to have to take money and appeal it on behalf of the taxpayers. And I would expect you folks, do appeal it and do spend that money and send the message back to that office over there that you guys and gals are not patsies for someone else's administration when you're not even brought in and consulted. There is no transparency to what's going on in this city right now. And this is the perfect example when you look at a development such as this. This should never be happened without your consideration and consultation. You know, we get elected for one reason, or I got elected for one reason when I was on that side of the rail, to do the people's business. not to sit here and wonder what I'm supposed to do. If you're brand new, it's a learning process, then you better learn real quick. Because you know what you're dealing with? You're dealing with the taxpayers' money. You're dealing with their direction in how this city is supposed to go forward, whether it's on the school department side when you take that final vote, or whether it's on the city side when you're putting all your money together to find out in what direction are we going to be able to go. Now, you have a budget coming up right now. And in this particular budget, as the councilor, Mr. Rumley alluded to, you should make the request tonight to put a minimum of $50,000 in there. And I'm going to tell you the reason why. A few years ago, when I was on this city council, we had a decision to be made regarding Tufts University on a piece of land that they wanted to take and they wanted to use it. I think it was Foley, Holg, Elliott and Boston. I think it was a hundred thousand dollars would cost the city, but the city won its case. Okay. because the council was determined when they took that vote that we weren't going to get pushed around and we weren't going to have the Dover Amendment used against us because it was inappropriate at that particular time. I think it was 1991 or whatever it might be. But you've got to be realistic about this. You've got to move ASAP. Plus another thing, Mr. Rumley, you can correct me if I'm wrong. If you guys and girls are going to come on board and appeal this case, you can ask for an extension of time. Same thing that the visiting nurses did. I believe they got a six-month extension of time when the taxpayers decided or the abutters decided to appeal this particular case. In 1985, I made an offer of a resolution before this Method City Council. None of you were on it. That's why I'm still here, because I remember these things. I got a bag full of tricks. that tells me what to remember every single time, okay? I made a resolution to put a moratorium on building and construction in the city of Medford because at that point in time, you had high-rise condominiums going up with no rhyme and no reason. And if you didn't take a look and see where you wanted your city to go and the traffic impact it would have, the social impact, the educational impact.
[Fred Dello Russo]: You have one minute, Mr. Pinto.
[Robert Penta]: And the educational impact, you would have no idea where you're going. And then again in 2005, I filed the same resolution. Miffitt City Council in both times approved it, and both times the city administration did not want to embark upon it. You know, it sounds nice to say, if this development takes place, I think we're going to get, here it goes, we're going to get approximately $1.5 million in building permits. We're going to get approximately $2 million in linkage. We're going to get approximately $1.375,000 in tax money. You know, money just for the sake of money should not make this city drive itself. You know what should drive this community? The heart of every single person in here. How you can get along, how you can live together, how your streets can be compatible, how your schools, your churches, and your neighbors can be compatible. Not to have a group of people come in here tonight, frustrated over the fact this is after the fact, and now you're picking up the ball and going forward. This should not be. They should be coming here tonight congratulating you because you stopped it early on and it came before you at an appropriate time.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you.
[Robert Penta]: I hope this is a warning, Mr. President, and all members of the council, that you go forward, hire the attorney, and I'm quite sure that you will win. Absolutely. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Good evening. Please state your name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_10]: Mark Davis, 232 Riverside Ave in Medford. I'm just going to bark. I don't bite like Mr. Pendleton, but I'm going to go easy. Not too long ago, every one of you were on the streets asking for our vote, shaking our hands, saying, we're going to be here for you. What do you want to see? Now we're coming to you. This is what we want. You've all supported going forward and fighting this. I want you to know that you have our support. I live on Riverside Ave, and lately, with Luminaire and all the construction, all development, It's a game of chicken getting out of my own driveway. We have to back into our driveway just to get out in the morning because of the traffic, you know, impact. And the heavy trucking, which is a resolution since 1978 that's been on the books and trucks keep flying down and down. We pull out and it's a game of chicken. The only way to get from Luminaire to 93 North is either Riverside Ave or to deal with the traffic on Route 16. They didn't bring that into consideration to go down, you know, the amount of traffic that's going down to Riverside Ave to get to 93 North. We are heavily affected by just Luminaire alone. To see 490 units go in with an average of 1.5 cars per household, that's 735 more cars that's going to be in our neighborhood. That's definitely too much. Then what's a shortcut? Let's cut through the school zone. And when you ask, Mr. Marks, what's it going to cost? There's no money that's going to, you know, replace a child when the child gets hit because one person is late for work, and they bomb through the school zone, and they kill one of our kids. So I urge you all, make this proposal, let this go through, and let's save our city. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Mr. Henson. Please, if you would, sign your name.
[SPEAKER_25]: Thank you. Thank you. hope that we don't disturb the speakers. It takes most of us a lot to come up here to explain themselves. So if we could not interrupt the speakers. Welcome. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Kristy Avino]: Good evening. Christie Avino from 24 Carberry Street in Medford. Thank you for inviting us here this evening to give public comment on this project. Before I moved to Fulton Height two years ago, I lived and owned a home near the corner of Riverside Ave and Spring Street, so just about one block from Locust Street, where this proposed development is sited. I love that neighborhood. I love being part of that neighborhood, and I wanted to share with you some of my experiences living there and my perspective of how this project will impact that wonderful neighborhood, that wonderful community. Because the key part of the Zoning Board of Appeals decision is determining that this project is not a substantial detriment to the public good. So I think it's very important that we hear comment and share our opinion on how this project will impact our community. And I share this both as a homeowner, a city resident, a commuter to Boston, and a Medford public school parent as well. First of all, my primary concern is the impact that this project will have on the traffic in the area. It is an enormous project. It is one of the largest residential, private residential projects that I could find in our recent history, 490 units. The other buildings up and down Mystic Valley Parkway are 172 units, 240 units. This project is nearly twice the size, over 700 parking spaces, which well exceeds what was currently at the Shaw's site. The traffic impact of this project cannot be underestimated. Locust Street is a two-way street. So what I think is going to happen, because having lived there and commuted in the area, we're going to have traffic extending out to Route 16. We're going to have traffic extending onto Riverside Ave to get to Route 93. We're going to have traffic going over to Riverside, up Spring Street, down Salem Street to get onto 93 there. It's going to be a massive traffic impact. Because unlike Shaw's, where traffic comes and goes all day long, at that apartment complex, people are going to be leaving in the morning. and in the evening to go to school, to go to work, and to go to their activities. The traffic crush is going to be tremendous. And I think the traffic study that was proposed did not take into consideration the coming casino traffic and the coming Wegmans traffic. It is going to be an unbelievable increase. And it's unknown. It's unknown. So what we're buying here is something that's going to be an unknown impact combined with all of this other development. I'm absolutely in favor of smart development on that site. Nobody wants to see that site go unused. We all want something that's going to contribute to the community, a combination, a true combination of housing, of public services, of retail space, but it has to be smart development. This project was proposed, I believe, on April 18th. It was heard before the Zoning Board of Appeals on May 31st. It was not publicized. The plans were not available to my knowledge on the website. This community has come together. both posting pictures of the plans on Facebook, interacting through various websites and emails, just to circulate information. Not enough information was provided to this community so that we could understand what this project is, and I know this council voiced that very opinion last week. In addition to the traffic that I talked about, there's going to be an unbelievable impact on public transportation. I know this site has been sold, this project has been sold, as a transit-oriented site, okay? But somebody who lived near that corner, I can tell you that commuting to and from Wellington is not easy. Very, very few people are going to walk. It's not possible to easily walk down Route 16. through station landing, up basically what's been an unpaved path for many, many years now, through a garage over to Wellington. It's not an easy walk, not to mention the dangers in crossing Wellington Circle. So you might think people are going to hop on the bus. But that bus, the 134 bus that goes from Medford Square to Wellington, it's standing room only in the morning. It's standing room only. And we all know that the MBTA is not increasing services. they're decreasing services. The impact and the availability of services is only, hopefully it will stay the same, but always faces the possibility of going down. I don't think we can count on the MBTA to shuttle people from that development to Wellington Station every morning. In addition, we have the impact on the schools. I hope the council is aware, and if you're not, this fall, I think most of the Medford public elementary schools are anticipating having excess capacity in the kindergarten classroom. Just last month at the Roberts School, the principal has already predicted that they're going to reach capacity, and then we'll need to address where the extra classroom. Are we going to have to put modular classrooms at our elementary schools to accommodate the increase? Again, please don't be fooled when the developer says that this is a millennial-oriented project. Millennials have children. People want to live in Medford. We have great schools, but we need to ensure that our schools are going to be able to accommodate the increase in school children, and I've heard nothing about that. What's happening here is that we're going to allow development of a commercial parcel for residential use at half the tax rate. And what we're buying is going to be an increased commitment of services that the city is going to have to provide that far outweighs the benefit of the project as it's currently proposed. So I think we need another look at what the project is actually going to add in terms of value to the city and not overburdening our current services. Thank you very much.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Chris. Welcome. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Hi, I'm Cheryl Rodriguez. I live at 281 Park Street. I was the subject of the meeting this morning for the complaint. If anyone doesn't know yet, I think everyone knows, but I attended that meeting. There were more than a dozen residents. Every seat in that room was full. And the abutters were there. They're here tonight again. I recognize them. All stood up and said what address they lived on on Cumming Street and that they were opposed to this project. At approximately 10.30, Chairman Arena said, we have over 1,000 pages of documentation to review. and we will be taking this matter under advisement. At that point, all the citizens and the attorneys, the entire Equity One Army, they brought almost as many people as we had, about 15 people. Rose exited the room. No words were spoken by anyone on this board until the room was cleared. We were in the hallway, and Dennis McDool, I guess their secretary, came, closed the door, and said, we have much to discuss. We were not invited into the room. We did not know what was happening. I am not an attorney, as Chairman Arena told me this morning. I knew, but he reminded me. So I don't know all the rules of open meeting laws. When someone closes a door and says we have much to discuss, a reasonable person would assume that you're not invited into this room. At that point, and every member of the board gave a different amount of time, either 20, 45, or 90 minutes later, 90 minutes would make it June 1st, because the meeting adjourned after 1030, they made the decision to unanimously passed all the variances, 11 variances, unprecedented amount of variances. And in their haste to beat you all today, they sent out their certificate with an incorrect address on it. So they've actually granted a variance to build 490 units at 361 Locust Street. I don't know where that is. I think that may be in the middle of the Mystic, which I'm cool with if they want to build it there. But, you know, the race was on. They were very gleeful this morning that, you know, we're done with this complaint and we'll be filing it right away. And when I said, well, there is a hearing, a meeting going on at City Council tonight, they'll be discussing this, and Chairman Noreen giggled. Several times during the meeting, he said, you know, it was a very informal discussion to vote to approve these variances. And he very proudly said, I believe I said, let's rock and roll. People, did I say let's rock and roll before we voted on this? So he clearly does not take this seriously. He doesn't, he didn't take the consideration of any of the citizenry. And if you read this report, this decision, it reads 100% as if he works for the developer. I mean, let's start on page six. The land is contaminated since the 90s. It's not allowed to be used for residential housing with gardens or playgrounds. It continues on to page seven, but hey, it'd be really expensive if he had to clean the site, so we're just going to pave it. Didn't we just fix the land on the DPW? I believe I sat in meetings where the estimates that the consultants exceeded $500,000 for the cleaning, but they're not going to clean it. Now my kid can't play here, but somebody else's kid is going to live here. So in 10 years, will we be back that these children are developing cancer? I'm concerned. They're not concerned. If you turn over to page 8, the zoning ordinance says if we make them follow the law, it will be a substantial hardship, financial or otherwise, to the appellate. I'm sorry, this is a board that works for the City of Medford. I don't care how much money the developer makes. How much is this going to cost me in extra police? Are we going to have the extra police? Are we going to be short? Are we going to have enough firemen? If something's going on over there and then something happens on the other side of the city, are we going to be short? Are the schools going to be overrun? These are the things that I'm concerned about. I'm not concerned about the man living on Park Avenue in New York City and if he loses a zero off of his project. The literal enforcement of this would reduce the project's capacity. So there would be a substantial loss of dwelling units. Again, I really, I'm not concerned. Why is it that this project is approved and practically applauded when in West Medford 30 units was too much? Way too much. Come back with something smaller. This is 490 units and on page nine it says it's a vibrant mixed use project, 7,000 square feet total retail. 3,000 will be the existing Eastern Bank, which they'll move to the other side of the building. So we're talking 4,000 square feet of retail, convenience retail. When someone asked at that meeting, would this be a coffee shop possibly? Oh, no. We're not going to have a coffee shop. So I think we're looking at a convenience store and a dry cleaner. That's a fabulous addition to the neighborhood. This is the stations landing type development that Burke promised us in the article in the transcript before the May 18th meeting of the Community Coalition. A dry cleaner in a convenience store? I don't know why anyone would want this or say this is anything like stations landing. These are rental units. Millennials, I can tell you they own cars. They're going to park here. They want us to pay to build paths to Hormel so they can park their extra cars there. They want us to pay to build a path to Cumming Street so these residents can have them walking through as they go to park in the neighborhoods. They're charging for the extra parking space for anyone that wants an extra parking space and units. So they'll be paying approximately $3,000 a month for a two-bedroom and an untold amount for a parking space. Do you think that they'll stay on their property or do you think that they'll explore the neighborhood and start parking there? This board did not consider the needs of the neighborhood. They did not consider the needs of the city, and the developers will come. They'll say, this is great. May 18th, they had a meeting, and the community development people said, oh, you're going to expand the water line? We'll give you a $950,000 credit. Done deal. Can we vote on it now? I was at that meeting. That is literally what was said. May 31st, all the residents said no, and apparently, This board does not work for the city of Medford. They work for the developer, because if you read this report, it reads like their attorney wrote it. Oh, it's going to cost us money. Oh, we're going to make less money. That's not the concern of a Medford board. These boards need to work for Medford, or maybe it's time to step aside. Chairman Arena has been on this board for more than two decades. Maybe it's time to go.
[SPEAKER_25]: Welcome. Please state your name and address for the record.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Loretta James Sherman Place. I was at the Board of Appeals meeting. None of you were there, so I'd like to recap some things and some facts that I said. And also, there are a lot of people here that were at that meeting. And it was very hot that night. I think there were about 25 residents there. And we were opposed. Not because we didn't want development, but the type of development it was, and that it was not any benefit to the residents that lived there. There were several points. I'll try to go through them pretty quickly. As a 490-unit apartment building with over 1,000 residents, I think 10% is set aside some maybe subsidized housing or low income. I mentioned, well, you know, what is the benefit to the residents who live there? And I did pass this out and I'm not sure if you have this or not, but this is what they were. One of the things about chapter 94 city of Medford code of ordinances for the variance purpose to promote the health, safety, morals, convenience, and general welfare of its inhabitants to lessen the danger from fire congestion and confusion and to improve and beautify the city under and pursuant to the provisions of MGLA, 40A, and all amendments. So I pass this out, and this is one of the ordinances that the Board of Appeals should have done, in my opinion. So I'd like to, if you don't have this, I'd like you, I couldn't make extra copies tonight, You know, when we're talking about residence, yes, we need housing. Maybe we could have a smaller development, I proposed, with 10 units set aside for veterans, 10 units that are handicap accessible, 40 units for below-market rents, and a mixed-use condominium and apartment development. And the reason is, we don't have enough housing in Massachusetts. Why not have 35 condos at below-market rate for first-time homebuyers and be a HUD-certified property? But I was told later after the meeting that condominiums don't sell. Well, they're not from Massachusetts in the Boston metro area. So that's one of the things. I also contested their traffic analysis. And the traffic analysis said that the existing, if I take a few numbers, I'm sure people could help me. would be 15 to 26% more traffic on Riverside Ave based on the existing traffic now. My issue is, and others, is Wegmans is coming. Wegmans will have 1,000 cars or more a day. The developer also said that they expected 3,600 in and outs of their property. So we're looking at 3,600, maybe 2,000 for Wegmans. And you can't turn on Locust Street now. It's not easily a turnable street. The buses have a hard time turning. And I think the number will be more like 80% on Riverside Ave, because they're not looking at the future traffic. A lot of these developers come into the city. Anyone can come in and present a proposal. And they go through the different departments. One of the things that seems to be happening is we don't have a community meeting about these projects going on or a way of knowing about them if we don't read them into transcript or Even if we go online, I don't think we only see it in case there's a Board of Appeals meeting or a special public meeting online or maybe in the newspaper. So hearing today, and this is a little off from what I was going to say about all the different bad things about this project, is if this body, the City Council, is in charge of zoning and ordinances, I'd like to suggest that you consider a motion as of today to have any and all projects and developments become a public meeting or a way that the community can be involved. So we're aware of that. If that's what it takes that you make these decisions on zoning and ordinances and projects going through, why can't we have an ordinance or a rule that these projects have to be posted? somewhere online. There are many projects in the works now that are developments, and we don't know about them. So I think we might have had 1,000 people here today, or maybe 2,000. And the developer did say many times, this small residential area, meaning us, Riverside Ave and Spring Street, no, this affects all of Medford. And the problem is that most of the traffic and in the city, most of the people who work here, I think, on these development boards, whatever the department is, they don't live in our area, the Wellington area. So what happens is, I've actually spoken to a few people, oh, they'll use Route 16, they'll use Route 28, they'll get off at 93, they'll get off at Meadow Glen Assembly Row. No, I worked in Boston for years. If that's backed up, I'm getting off in Medford Square and I'm coming down Riverside Ave. I'm getting off in Medford Square and taking the rotary and going through Main Street to Spring Street to get down here. We can't handle that traffic. So I did mention to the developer that since they don't have enough parking, and a lot of people don't know, 490 apartments, 790 spaces, one and a half spots per unit, that's five, six, 750 parking spots, four retail shops, and at least 50 to 80 more spots, where are the guests? If 100 people have 100 guests, what you notice, we need another 200 to 300 parking spots. These are all of the things that were brought up at the Board of Appeals meeting. And I also said, well, if that's the case, and this goes through, then they should really consider paying for all the permitted parking for all the streets up Spring Street for this development, because we will have to go to permitted parking, because they're all going to come up there for parking. Wegmans won't have enough parking for all their guests. I mean, imagine if 250 apartments at the holidays have four guests or three guests. That's four or 500, where are they going to go? There's no place to go. So I didn't see any benefit. in most of us. How does it benefit us? They're not putting in a swimming pool or tennis courts or a clubhouse that we could buy a pass for occasionally to use, you know, when they're residents aren't used. There is no benefit. If it's half the size, like I said before, I'm just repeating myself, excuse me, and it's condominiums and it's first-time homebuyers and it adds to the city and 50% of the employees will come from the city of Medford if they're qualified. You know, there's so many things. So I think I would love to see the city council propose something that all projects in the city become public on the city website or whoever does this so we can be involved. And here's the other thing someone had mentioned to me today. about this variance, excuse me, and Jean had mentioned for me to look up the Commonwealth of Mass zoning, chapter 48, section 10 on variances. And I'd like to submit this, and I wasn't here last week because I didn't know about the meetings. That's another thing.
[SPEAKER_25]: And it tells about... If you want to pass that to the messenger, and he will submit it for the record.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, and it says, desirable... The messenger will take it from you.
[SPEAKER_25]: Right, right. Where is the messenger?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: And I think... I think that was all. I hope you have a good picture of what happened. I don't think, I think they closed the doors at the end of the Board of Appeals meeting to discuss other things. We weren't privy to that, you know, so I'm just appalled that the answer was done so quickly and that they didn't mention the residents when I was also here for the Canal Street Board of Appeals meeting and that they did recognize what the residents. So I'm not sure what is going on with that, but it just seems wrong. Thank you for listening.
[SPEAKER_25]: Thank you very much, Loretta.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Robert Cappucci]: Thank you, Mr. President. Rob Capucci, 71 Evans Street in Medford. I want to thank all the people that came out and spoke tonight. I would hope that, you know, with this audience and focus on this issue, I would hope that more residents in the auditorium tonight and watching at home would pay a lot more attention to what goes on in the city of Medford on their website, because this is one in a sea of issues that escapes a lot of people in their everyday lives, that if more people came out and spoke like this so eloquently, as have tonight that came before me. A lot more good government and a lot more good stewardship of the people's money would take place in the city of Medford. I just want to address three quick points. Communication, affordable housing, and money. On communication, obviously, this Zoning Board of Appeals seriously dropped the ball. I mean, if they took into account the full city of Medford, in the streets and roads, the police department falling apart, the school facade, this building right here. There are a lot more serious issues to address first before we bring in a 490 unit. I mean, my street alone, I just found out tonight that, you know, I came up before this council a few weeks ago that Evans Street is one of the top five streets, and Evans Street is a stone's throw from this project. Now, with this traffic that's gonna develop, you're gonna see more people trying to avoid the long lines and going down some of these other side streets like mine. Now, the Honorable Adam Knight sent me a message that bidding on my street ended, and they were gonna choose, but I come to find out, the meeting on Saturday morning, that nothing's moving forward on that. There's no plans to do any construction or fixing of that street. The water pipes in Medford, the gas pipes, there's a lot more serious issues to look at first. before the Zoning Board of Appeals. And I think Sheryl Rodriguez was right. It wasn't written by Medford for Medford. It was written by this body that wants to come in and make some change. That's first. Communication is awful. It's just that simple. The second point is affordable housing. There's other ways of making things affordable for the citizens of Medford. Meals tax, sales tax, income tax, property tax, that goes up every year. Next month starts the Community Preservation Act, which is an end-run to around the property two and a half tax. That's a surcharge on the property taxes that have gone up for every year for nearly 30 years. Reduce some of these taxes, make it more affordable for the citizens of Medford, people to want to move here, businesses to want to move here through tax incentive. With more people moving in, you'll find that the city will actually have reduced tax rates, would probably take in more revenues. That's number two. Number three is money. You're talking about hiring a lawyer if this resolution is passed and the cost that's going to be on the city. What cost? You're having a free cash account, what? A surplus of almost $10 million? How many millions in surplus is this city sitting on? This is our money. We've already paid for the lawyer. Their money has already been given to this city. What are you talking about? And finally, one last question through the chair for the city solicitor. If this board does vote to pass a resolution to appeal, then the mayor has to approve it or is she automatically bound by the resolution? The president is shaking his head no. So what you're saying is this city council could pass a resolution and the mayor could possibly shoot it down and the appeal is gone. Is that what you're telling me, Mr. President? I wouldn't use those words, but yes. Thank you. I'm sure you would use much more congenial words, and I appreciate your candor and good judgment. I hope that if that does become the situation, and it does get dismissed, not approved, kindly disregarded by Her Honor the Mayor, then when you come to a city budget, You should actually use the power of the city council to have some bite, to speak up for these people that are in this audience tonight that want action for their money and their votes. Thank you, Mr. President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Good evening. Welcome. Please state your name and address for the record. Good evening.
[SPEAKER_35]: My name is Linda Brown. I live at 28 Cumming Street in Medford. I've lived in Medford most of my life. I was a river rat from the projects back in the 50s. My parents lived there as veterans project, one of the first families to move in. So I'm quite familiar with the area and the people that live there. I did attend, I'd seen the transcript with this huge article of this massive build and development they wanted to put in. I said, whoa, what is this thing? I went to the first meeting when I saw it, the community development meeting. And I sat there for two hours in room 201 on hard chairs with a bad back. But I sat there anyways. And I listened to the dog and pony show that was conducted by the developers that went on and on and on and on and on. Of course, most of the audience in that room that night were the developers. Very few residents, because nobody knew about the meeting. So I was going to attend the next meeting, which was the zoning meeting. And that meeting there, once I found out that it wasn't in here, that it was going to be held in room 201 on an 80 some odd degrees night, OK, and another dog and pony show was to be conducted. From what I hear now, it was three hours I didn't go. I could not sit there in a hot room for that many hours. That is totally ridiculous and the people did not know about this meeting. I went around to my neighborhood last week when I found out what was going on with this other stuff and the zoning boards and the variances that they wanted to overcome. to get this project going without us knowing anything, okay? My neighbors, some of them didn't even know about the project. I went up to one of my neighbors and he said, what are you talking about? I said, they want to put 490 units down here, the end of our street, a street that has no sidewalks, okay? The people that walk down the street, they have to walk in the middle of the street, because Cumming Street's a private way, no sidewalks. We have a small little open at the end that we used to go to Shores to do our shopping with. I'll cut through to go to the mall. That's it. It's a small street. We don't need a 490-unit development here. It's too big. We need something else. I know something else has to go in there. But the way this is being held and handled, it's totally ridiculous. I never come to meetings. I'm not an attorney. I'm just a person that lives in this city, and I love this city. But I'll be damned if they're going to let this thing go through without us having to say, thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Hi, welcome. Please state your name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_13]: My name is Roseanne Ronchetti, and I live at 54 Cummings Street in Method. I'm going to be very brief. I think that the speakers tonight have done a wonderful job. I don't think there's really anything more I can say that's going to add to what's already been said. However, I am a direct abutter to the property. It's practically in my side yard. I do not want 492 new neighbors. I'm quite happy with the wonderful neighbors I have in our neighborhood. One, which would be right beside my house. I could probably reach out and touch it. That's how close. I'm right on the line. My property abuts that development. I don't know what to say. I would like to ask each and every one of you, if you had one of these developments going up next to your house, how many of you would be for it? Just a question. Would you like that? Would you want that? I love living in Medford. I love living on Cummings Street. It's a quiet street. We all get along. I don't want to leave. I've been there for 30 years. I think maybe I already said that. And I do not. I'm not in favor of a 492-unit development. It's just not right. And it's just causing me extreme anxiety over even thinking about living in practically a construction site for the length of time that it would take to build that development. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: There's a gentleman who hasn't had a chance to speak yet. Why don't we allow him to come up? Good evening, please state your name and address for the record.
[zSHhVpiqwJA_SPEAKER_09]: My name is J.M.B. 35 Greenhall Street, Medford. I wish the Board of Appeals would be as lenient and forgiving when mom and dad want to add a porch or a ramp to their house, and they don't have two feet to do it. So therefore, people want to put an in-law apartment in because, hey, we're getting older. We want to take care of our parents. Oh, no, you can't do that because, you know, we care about the people. Well, that's a lot of whatever. Mr. D'Antonio brought up a good point. New development going up on Mystic Ave. I don't know if you people know about that. They're talking hotels, apartments, businesses. I don't know if anybody's been around Riverside and Locust Street lately. Export towing is no longer there. Where are they going? What is going to happen to the property? Any guesses? More apartments. You've already had three variances given for three buildings by one owner on Locust Street already for apartments. Nice small size apartment, didn't upset the traffic flow all that much. For an industrial zone section there, you're going to have another 490 units. That's not going to impact the schools at all. McGlynn, I believe, is at capacity. Columbus, I believe, is at capacity. So when we have a new development, residential development on Mystic Gap, where are those kids going to go to school? Where are the kids from Locust Street going to go to school? And where are the kids from the new Riverside and Locust Street development? It's going to happen within maybe two years, maybe three, depending on how some of the property sales go. So you're going to have another whole new development there. Can you guess the magnitude that they're going to want to put up there? Again, you're still talking local street, still two lanes. I'm sorry. Uh, in my previous life, the one area I wouldn't work in Medford was the Wellington area because of the traffic congestion. You couldn't save lives on time. That was then. That was 20 years ago. Do you know initially there was another sector? I know Councilor Falco mentioned four sectors in Method. Method used to have six sectors. When I got on the job, there were over 100 patrolmen, I believe. We've got, what, 60, 70 now? People coming in, you think all those units, just like station landing, station landing, everybody thought was going to be a big boom. They're going to rent it out and sell it out and all that stuff there. Well, unfortunately, that didn't come to pass because there were a lot of vacant apartments and condos over there that had to be leased, some of them back to the state. The same thing's probably going to happen over there. Nothing wrong with that, but everybody has these big plans for millennials coming in. That's nice. You're going to say millennials only. You don't know what you're going to get. You're going to have kids down there. You're going to have a new development that's going to be before this council. And like I said, another couple of years for God knows how many more units right up at the corner of that street. Let's face reality people. You're going to have a casino, which everybody's complaining about. All this development, all this, you've heard it all before. But there's gonna be another development up there on Riverside and Salem, Riverside and Locust. There's gonna be another one over there at Mystic Gav, across from the, from Barnard Ave and all that stuff. So you people decide what you're gonna do. We don't need any more schools, do we? That's where our money's gonna go. If I pay for more schools, you don't have the property. Because the city, when they purged the last schools, didn't keep any of them. No forethought. Thank you, have a wonderful evening.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Good evening, please state your name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_07]: My name is Sam Collins, live at 172 Jerome Street. I'm a Medford resident for about 30 years. I've been in construction for about 18 years, and the report, I haven't read it in as much detail as the council, but from everything I'm hearing, it's really, it's a lot of hot air, and I'm not gonna digress, and I'm not gonna get into details, unless I misunderstand, it seems like most of the people in this room, if not all of the council, are not necessarily opposed to the project, but opposed to parameters of this project, so I don't wanna preach to the choir, okay? I think we're all on the same page something should be done to slow this down so we can skip the traffic talk and the resident, the schools, all valid points, all very grave concerns, but I think that we can skip that. I'm just very disturbed by the zoning board's actions. As the previous gentleman said very well, they're not so lenient for anyone else. I just finished two years ago, I built an addition under my parents' house to live in, and it was a nightmare. I've been in construction 18 years, it was a nightmare, I'll never do it again. I had to bring my little job back to the drawing board after I had already moved into my parents' house with my family to undergo construction because I was intruding two feet into my driveway. So they said it's either three to six months to possibly get a variance, which is still not guaranteed, or you can redraw to comply. I redrew to comply because who's got three to six months to wait? These guys have what? Correct me if I'm wrong, anybody, but April they have a meeting, May they have the hearing, and then a week and a half later, They have approval, and then this morning, they slip it in under the door. Someone's getting a kickback, or they're fools. And I don't think they're fools. They're getting a kickback. They've been in construction almost 20 years. That's a kickback deal. Smile on his face, giving taxes, not getting amenities. There's no courtyard. There's no parks. They're not getting upgraded utilities for the streets. They're not fixing the streets. It's a joke. And that's not directed towards you, obviously, and a lot of respect for the council. But the zoning board, something is up there. So as a follow-up to that, and I'm not trying to light a fire necessarily, but let me tell you, these guys are all laughing at us right now. They're laughing at us in this room. They're laughing at you on this side of the rail. They're laughing at us. This is going through, haha, they're going to make millions. These guys are going to get millions. These aren't condos. Somebody else said eloquently, more eloquently than I can, that nobody's getting ownership. If at least it's condos, at least Somebody's investing, and they're going to get that equity, and they're making something of themselves in Medford. I had to build out of my parents' house to get that. Why? Because I can't afford to buy in Medford. I got a good job. My wife works full time. Can't afford to buy in Medford. Don't tell me nobody will develop that lot when we have some of the most expensive real estate in the country. Nobody's going to move here and build here? Excuse me, I don't think so. I guess next I would say, sort of side note, somebody mentioned a redevelopment authority, which is what that's called. Other municipalities and cities and towns do this, Cambridge Redevelopment Authority, Boston Redevelopment Authority. You don't necessarily have to make every project public, but I would implore the council to form a Medford Redevelopment Authority that does any large scale project over a dollar value or square footage does come before. And they coordinate this stuff with the community and nothing will be issued until it goes through the Medford redevelopment authority. So I think that's a great idea. Um, I don't know if letters, did a butters receive this letter that they're supposed to receive? I'm noticing the notification of the development that everybody received that letter. Cause that, as far as I know, again, to intrude two feet into my driveway, my own driveway, I had to send a written letter to everybody within 300 feet of my property as the other gentlemen, I think Mr. Penta pointed out. So, I just don't know where the requirements and how do people get to skip these requirements. So with that being said, if there is any avenue that this council has to cease and desist the development or file an injunction until these matters are resolved, all these improprieties in the procedure that other citizens are held accountable to, but they're not held accountable to, and they're not residents of Medford. So I won't go on and on. I would take great offense if I were you to the zoning board's actions slipping in this morning. They were all laughing at you with the developers. And what's his name, Arietta, who's the head of the zoning board? Yeah, he's having a drink with the developer tonight. Guaranteed. So good luck, and you have my support in shutting this down.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Hi. Please state your name and address for the record.
[AXh4iBqkQq0_SPEAKER_00]: My name's Jay Campbell. I live at 707 Fulton Street. And mine is actually more just a quick thing. Evidently, there's people watching from home because I've received questions. One of the things I brought up was, if you live in Mystic Place Apartments, Luminaire Apartments, or if you're in the Section 8 type housing, does that qualify you as an abutter? So I don't know if the city council or the city solicitor or someone could answer that. But if you could at some point, because some of the people would like to know. The other thing I just want to bring up, if this does go through, whether it does or it doesn't, that maybe someone could take a look at replacing the lights with the traffic rotary, because I know sometimes it does speed things along faster. And the other point, too, I meant to bring up earlier, because my son goes to McGlynn, and thanks to Council Caraviello, He was very excited today because I gave him books. He went around to all the schools and gave out books, so thank you for that. So I know we're all standing here complaining, but I just want people to know that good things are happening too. So thank you.
[Jean Nuzzo]: I was just speaking with someone and they asked me to come up and point out that in all of the development, if we could start to consider a little bit more religiously our seniors and senior development. they seem to be being left out of the discussions. I know that when they met with the council, I'm sorry, the board, there was a question on low income, there was a question on veteran, but we seem to be forgetting about our aging population and they account for, I believe, according to the latest census, roughly 38 to 40%. And then, I don't know if this will be a popular suggestion, but If we could be made aware, if the funds aren't made available, perhaps we could set up a Medford Advocacy GoFundMe page to support the efforts if we had to. I think that that would be a donation well spent. So just something to consider.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Good evening. Please state your name and address for the record.
[tUX_rthPMVU_SPEAKER_07]: Thank you. Betty Lowe, 34 Gibson Street. I'm a long-term resident of Medford. I've been here since 1992. I've been around here long enough to remember the Barker Steel factory that was right next to, that was abutting my property. I'm also a millennial, one of those oft-discussed millennials. So I live in Medford here, and I work and play in Somerville in Cambridge. And it just seems a little bit ridiculous to me, given from my perspective, that this seems to be a giveaway of Medford land. to this developer who's in all likelihood probably going to flip this condo complex, just as what has happened with Lumiere and with so many of these condos that are coming up in the greater Boston area. My first home was in Chinatown. in Boston, and I have watched it get basically eaten alive by all these developers. All these small businesses are being forced out. All these low-income residents are being forced out. Boston is now one of the most unequal cities in terms of income in the United States, and it breaks my heart to see all that happen in my hometown. because of bad policy, because of, I don't know, possibly kickbacks, which it seems to me may be happening in this city as well. It's ridiculous that the zoning board is this unaccountable to the people, it operates in this much secrecy, in this much darkness, and it's... And our own mayor, the mayor that we elected, thinking that she was going to bring some fresh breath of air to the city or whatever, that she was going to bring mixed retail developments to the city, when in fact we're getting not even 7,000 square feet, because about half of it is going to go to Eastern Bank in this development. We're gonna get like 3,000 to 4,000 square feet of retail development and the rest of it is gonna be just luxury condos. Or, I'm sorry, 90% of it will be luxury condos, 10% will be, you know, accessible. Apartments. Apartments, sorry. In any case, it's... All that I've heard today, all the research that I've done, all the homework that I've done catching up about this case in the two and a half hours this afternoon, it's just been very disheartening to see. Again, the lack of accountability from the zoning board, the fact that I feel like the city council has not done enough to protect the residents and the city from encroaching developers who want to just take our land, build these huge developments on it that are easy to flip, and then flip it, and then leave, and then never again be accountable to us. Not that they ever really were. So, I mean, actually, I wanted to bring up something. I noticed that on one of the zoning board members is Yvette Velez, and that name really rang a bell to me. I graduated from Suffolk University, and she is actually the director of Off-Campus Housing, the OCHO office, the Off-Campus Housing Office, that's what it's called. And so it really makes me wonder, you know, what stake does she have, you know, as the director of this... It's appropriate not to impugn anyone at this rail. Okay, okay. I just thought that was very interesting that it just came up in my research. I... Yeah, and again, I was just... And going back to the development, I read about these real estate tax breaks that were going to be given to the developer, all this reduction in the linkage fees, the reduction in the access paths around the property. And I'm just, again, wondering, why does this feel like such a huge giveaway to these developers? My parents bought our property in Medford for about $140,000 in 1992. It is now 2016, and it is worth, yeah, wow, wow, and it is now worth half a million. I looked up on Zillow.com because I got curious. It is worth half a million dollars now, up from $140,000 in 1992, and, you know, we can't We can't get developers that are better for the city, better for the long-term residents here, that better serve all of us? We can't get those kind of developments in here? That sounds ridiculous. I have friends who are jealous of where I live, because, again, I work and play in Cambridge and Somerville, and I live in Medford, and they're like, oh my god, you get to live in Medford? This is a really, really desirable area, and I feel like this is just a huge giveaway to the developers. And I cannot believe that our zoning board, the zoning board that's supposed to work for us, is facilitating this. So that's all I have to say.
[SPEAKER_25]: Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Hi, please state your name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_05]: Good evening. My name is Pasquale Nuzzo. I live at 35 Paris Street, and I'm also a general contractor. I've built small to mid-sized scale projects, and this is the first time personally that I've ever heard of a business that wants to build something using the fact that they can't make enough money as a reason for an exception to build on anywhere. That's like going to your boss and saying that you're not paying me enough so you have to double my salary. They're going to look at you and laugh. It's not the city's job to make sure that every Tom, Dick, and Harry makes a profit on their buildings. It's a buyer beware market. You do your due diligence, you look at the property, and you assess. You don't just walk in and say, well, we could build the 200 units. We'll make maybe a couple of million, or we can declare a hardship and say, oh, we have to put up 490 units so that we make even more money. It's not our job to make people make money, especially on this scale. And with all the breaks and everything, I just want to talk one more thing about the legal fees for this. What we need to look at as a city and as taxpayers is not just the cost of a lawsuit to stop this project. We have to look at every day, the half an hour, hour, or whatever it adds on to a commute to get into our job, those times that we could be spending with our families, the times that we can be spending asleep or getting a good breakfast, all those times. That amount of time we're going to be missing out on because somebody's over stuffing our city their traffic survey only Discussed two lights the traffic light at the beginning of Locust Street and at the end of Locust Street And they were saying oh if we read time those two lights our problem over here is no there's no problem anymore But then you go down the street to Wellington Circle or even closer and you've just messed up that traffic down that line They don't care about anything beyond the property lines that they're building to the last square inch on. They're going to destroy so many aspects of our city, infrastructurally, just a lifestyle is going to be completely different in this city just from one structure. And I don't believe that that is in any way, shape, or form good for the people that live here. Thank you very much for your time.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Go ahead, Andrew. The chair recognizes the gentleman from East Medford.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Thank you, Honorable President. Andrew Castagnetti, Cushing Street, Medford, Massachusetts. By the way, I didn't write this down, but a friend of mine closer to City Hall here He received a reverse 911 call, I guess, about, it's a robocall, is that what happened tonight? Anyways, I live like three blocks further east, even closer to this proposed development, and I have not received any robocall. Usually, my friend Sergeant Barry Clemente calls for a lot of things, but I didn't get it. So, I mean, if it wasn't for Mr. Captain Barry Clemente and the IRS, nobody would call me, for God's sakes. But anyways, it's neither here nor there. I'm sorry, but East Medford matters too. I'm not against progressive development, but 490-unit apartment building is huge, way too huge for my side of town. Traffic is heavy now before Wetman's Assembly Road is fully developed, and the casino opens with 18,000 vehicles daily alone, just the casino alone, 18,000. The Board of Appeals approved this? Yeah? I don't believe that can happen. What were they thinking? Inhaling? This size project is overkill in a New York minute. So let's take a Medford moment and get the scale down to 150,000 square feet, which must include a smart commercial mixed use of 50,000 with a coffee shop too, please. I'm stunned and I'm at a loss for any nice words for this matter. Thank you for listening.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Hi, I'm Cheryl Rodriguez again from 281 Park Street. I just had one further point that I wanted to make regarding the meeting for the complaint that I had filed that was held this morning. I was not invited to this meeting. An attorney from Equity One was present, so clearly they were invited to this meeting. So this is just further evidence. that this board feels that they work for the developer and not the citizens of Medford. My address was clearly printed on the top of my complaint. My phone number was on the bottom. They actually saw me bring the complaint, Dennis, the secretary. I was not invited to the meeting. I had to find out about the meeting from someone else. So, They're not considering us. They're only considering the developer. If there's a way to unseat this board, it should be explored. More than 20 years, he should feel like Medford is his home and he needs to protect it. But to come down with a decision on the side for the developer this strong, we really need to look at that.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Hi. Please state your name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good evening. Hi, good evening. I'm Balram Chamaria. I live at 258 Main Street. I have come to know about this meeting only through messaging service that we have through 9-1-1 call. And I said, oh, what's going on? And I had heard about this thing because I'm in the trade. I design buildings. On curiosity, I had asked Equity One to share their plans with us, because on the website, Medford City website says, plans are available for viewing in the city. Which kind of are? We're entering 21st century, so we could have all that online, but we didn't have that. And the gentlemen saw my email, but didn't respond to it. So I said, OK, maybe that's where it stops. And then, out of sight, out of mind. but now I'm hearing all these things. I have not gone through the decisions or the plans or anything, but one thing I can see clearly is if this thing goes through, and with the words that I'm hearing from the decision-making, we are setting a very dangerous precedence here, because the amount of, the kind of variances being awarded, and the size of this project, and you know, all these things add together, it's a very dangerous precedence towards for future development, because now they can say, look back, saying, look at that reasoning, look at that what else you gave, and if you can give it to them, why not now? And now you can, now we are in a bind where we are not following a procedure, and now, I don't know, maybe there are a lot of lawsuits for us in future. So it's not only this particular project, It's, I think, we should look in the future, because there's a lot of empty land in Medford, which can be, you know, and we are very close to Boston, do not, to be lucrative for a lot of more development. So that's something I want to kind of shed some light, if I can, that we could be setting ourselves up for more exploitation in the future. Thank you so much. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: She had declared a 10-minute recess. The council meeting will reconvene. Madam Clerk, please note the time that the council meeting reconvened. With all members present. Do any of the councilors wish to be recognized? Chair recognizes Councilor Falco.
[John Falco]: Thank you, Mr. President. I want to start out by thanking everyone for coming down here tonight. This is a very important issue that really affects Locust Street, but in general, it really affects and impacts the whole city. So I really thank you for coming down. It's been a long night, and I thank you for your time. And it's valuable to hear your opinions, because many of you live in the neighborhood, You're going to experience this on a firsthand basis. So thank you for your time tonight and for coming down. I said it last week, and I'll say it again. I am completely against this project in this current state. It's too big. It's too big. 492 units, 781 parking spaces. You have Wegmans across the street, Lumiere down the road, the casino coming in in Everett. It's just too big. There's just too much traffic in that area. There's too much traffic in this city. No matter where you go, this city is congested with traffic. We need to find a solution to that, in addition to these issues that we talked about tonight. I made a motion earlier in the year that we have to hire a traffic engineer. It is needed in the worst way. I talked to the police chief about it. He agrees with it as well. It needs to happen. Traffic is out of control. And if you put in a development like this, it's going to be complete chaos. Locust Street is a two-lane road. Then you get out to the parkway that's bad already, this is going to be even worse. So this development, to me, in its current state, makes absolutely no sense. I'm not saying that I'm completely against development, but it should be smart development. It needs to be in common sense. It needs to take into account the quality of life and the people that live in the neighborhood. Because when you think about it, at the end of the day, this actually is going to alter the fabric of the neighborhood. So we want to make sure that we're doing the right thing. And like I said, this is too big, and it needs to be looked at. The scope of this project is absolutely massive. It is massive. They are trying to actually build on every square inch of this land. It's completely out of hand. And what I don't like about this is the developer comes in and they're trying to build the biggest thing they can, make the most money they can, and then what happens is they end up leaving and then you and me and everyone in this city is left to deal with the problems. The traffic, the parking, the overflow parking, the potential for school overcrowding. So this could actually potentially create a lot of problems if it was to go through in its current state. But most of all, what I really don't like, and I am concerned about, is that a project of this scope sets precedent. It sets precedent. If someone comes in and builds a 500-unit condominium complex, what prevents the people down on Mystic Ave, where there's an open lot, what prevents them from saying, hey, you did 500 units down on Locust Street, why can't we do 500 on Mystic Ave? Why can't we do 500 on Riverside Ave? It makes absolutely no sense. And we need to look at zoning. I made a resolution earlier in the year with regard to zoning. The zoning laws in our city, in my opinion, are terribly outdated. Zoning needs to be looked at, and it needs to be looked at soon. And, as far as I'm concerned, the city administration has to come up with a plan, a master plan for development. People have realized, and especially developers have realized, everything that we know, that Medford is a great place to live, a great place to work, a great place to play, and a great place to raise a family. And what's happening now is developers are coming in, and they're trying to take every opportunity they can to build on every square inch of land. And we must stand up. In my opinion, 11 variances, it violates the spirit of the zoning ordinance. It's too many. Absolutely too many. I mean, I understand most complexes, there probably are some variances. 11 is completely, to me, above and beyond. It doesn't make any sense. You look at 7 Canal Street, that went down, and that was only 30 units. This here, or close to 500 units. 500 units, 11 variances, completely It doesn't make any sense to me. This is not smart growth. This is not good planning. This is someone trying to come in, build a development, and make as much money as they can, and leave. And the residents, they're going to be the ones in the city. We're going to be the ones to actually have to take care of the problems when it's all over. So I just want to go on the record. I completely am against this development in its current state. I thank everyone for coming down tonight. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Chair recognizes Councilor Scott Peller.
[George Scarpelli]: If I can, thank you, Mr. President. If I can follow up with my fellow colleague, I, too, appreciate everyone coming out tonight because these are the issues that shape Medford and where we will go. This is something, as it's been evolving, we've been doing a lot of homework. A good read if anybody wants to see it is A Better City, a report of summer 2016 by the State of the Built Environment, Greater Boston Infrastructure. It tells you the growth of where we're going in the next 10 to 20 years. 10 to 20 years might sound like an eternity, but it isn't. It's something that we encourage our current administration to look at where we're going. And that is, I think, the first thing we need to look at. is the plan. I, too, am not for this project at 490 units. It's just way too big. I have my kids go to the McGlynn and the Andrews. I travel that route every day, probably twice a day. I know the impact it'll make. But more importantly, I think it's where we're going to go as a city and how we're going to grow. I know Councilor Falco made a huge push for revisiting our zoning laws. And they are outdated. And one of the biggest concerns is the amount of money that it would cost to revisit that. One thing that, traveling and digging to some homework, we're fortunate to be part of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, which there's taxpayer money. that if we ask, our administration asks, and I'll make that recommendation, that our city, our administration asks the Metropolitan Area Planning Council that they look into coming in using state tax dollars to visit our zoning laws and get their guidance for change. What is a variance? A variance should be very difficult to get. To apply for variance, There are a few reasons to really look at a variance. Either there's a problem with the development or there's a problem with the zoning law. Here, I think it's a problem of both. And I think we need to, as a council, stick together and work together to make sure that these projects stop. I'll also make a motion tonight that, followed with the the Metropolitan Area Planning Council and asking our administration to look into that. And maybe the city solicitor could help me. But I believe if we ask for that, we can now ask for a six-month moratorium in variances of the Zoning Appeal Board for projects over 150 units. We don't want to stop development. I think development's very important. I think we need it. As you can see, even the Metropolitan Area Planning Council presses for development, but smart growth and development. So I feel very strongly about these issues. I appreciate everybody coming out. The questions I do have, and I think, I hope that we can call the city solicitor out going forward with our vote later on tonight and asking him, With our issues with the abutters, I think that was what I saw, what I heard when I talked to different communities, is really getting the butters on board. We can't piggyback off each other, that was already said. So we need to find a way that we can assist the abutters to make sure that they fight for this. The other piece of this is the impact that will pose for our city. and looking into what will happen if we approve that money going forward for an appeal. So I think these are very important questions, important questions that were said loud and clear tonight. So I appreciate everybody's time tonight. I think it's, it's, it's a very intriguing and very interesting piece of our future hearing method. And I think that, um, the decisions we make, not just as city council, but as an administration, will tell us where we're going to go here in Medford. And I have total faith that Medford's going to come out on top. So thank you very much.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Councilor, you said you were going to make some motions.
[George Scarpelli]: If I can, yes.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Are there any motions that you're making?
[George Scarpelli]: Yes, I apologize. I'd like to make a motion that We asked the city administration to ask the Metropolitan Area Planning Council to assist us with the district local technical assistance using state tax dollars to do an overview of our city's zoning rules and regulations.
[Fred Dello Russo]: So you want to request our administration to request help from the MAPC to review our zoning laws.
[George Scarpelli]: Correct. And then with that, I make a motion that we put a six-month moratorium on any future zoning variances to the Zoning Appeals Board for units over 150 at this type of size and this type of impact to our community.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Further amended of the same resolution amended that the Zoning Board of Appeals have a moratorium placed upon it to not entertain any variances on projects that supersede 150 units. Thank you. So on the motion by Councilor Scarpelli, as amended by Councilor Scarpelli, Councilor Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Mr. President. Early this evening, one of the ladies had a book here, the NAIOP book. I think she had it. And it says in there, City of Medford has a dynamic, expanding commercial real estate market. Well, you know, as I drive around the city, I see very little commercial development other than apartments. You go up on the Fells Way, up by the Mulder River, there's an apartment building up there. You get 500 units coming down. Everywhere you look, we're seeing housing, housing, housing, more apartments. The apartment market has to crash at some point, and I don't want to be around when it does. Being one of the most desirable communities in the Boston area, we should be setting the tone of what comes into our city and the rules. And it seems like they're being dictated to us along with the parameters. I think that those are things that we should be demanding because of this. And I agree with Councilor Scarpelli that every project that comes into the city should at least be presented to us so we can have some opinion. So when people in this community ask us a question, we know what's happening. I asked a solicitor earlier, and I'm gonna rely on his guidance again this evening for this, where we only have 20 days left to consider an appeal, and Mr. Solicitor, if you could help me with this, that the solicitor help us find an attorney on a quick basis that the council can sit with in the next few days and find out what our options are and if we do have a case. And I'd like to make that in the form of a motion, Mr. President. That the city go out, with the help of the city solicitor, go out and get an outside council to give us some guidance on what avenues we have, and if we do have a winnable case. If we have a case. Mr. Solicitor, maybe you could give us some guidance tonight on this.
[Fred Dello Russo]: So on the motion of Councilor Scarpelli, as amended by Councilor Scarpelli and Councilor Caraviello, the chair recognizes the city solicitor.
[Mark Rumley]: Yes, thank you, Mr. President. In answer to the council's request, I think it's a wise idea, but I think it has to be specific. For example, I listened to Councilor Falco, I listened to Councilor Scarpelli talk about concerns about this project, concerns about development generally, and even what you've just said, Councilor Caraviello. And while I'm not going to tell you what my personal opinions are, because they're irrelevant, When you have general concerns about development, that's good. That's what you should have. You're elected officials. But when you're appealing a case, what you need to know is, what are the grounds of your appeal? Do you have a good appeal? And how are you going to base that appeal? And that should be looked at by outside counsel. So I have, in anticipation of this, I talked to the Assistant City Solicitor earlier tonight and told her that tomorrow morning, since I won't be available, that she can start gathering the names of prospective outside counsel. Now, the prudence of that is this. You're going to get a group of names. When there is some type of vetting done of them, you'll have some idea of what the dollars are. And then if they say to you that somebody wants to want to take this review, you can do that without saying right now, we're appealing, without having any grounds for appeal really looked at or examined. You see, the idea of saying that right now I want to appeal is putting the cart before the horse in the sense that you don't know what the grounds are. This has to be done carefully, or it won't be done well.
[Richard Caraviello]: I think that's the reason I asked this. I think that's the avenue to go. And if your office could give us questions to ask and some guidance.
[Mark Rumley]: But everything has to be done quickly.
[Richard Caraviello]: Right.
[Mark Rumley]: So when we have that, then they have to be disseminated through the clerk's office to the council president. And that really should be done this week. And then some type of a protocol where this council can meet with some or a couple, because we're outside of procurement when we choose lawyers. We're exempt from procurement. So you could choose the ones that you want to talk to, and then get an idea of the price, which would give you the ability to ask for the appropriation. All of it is one ball. And what you don't want to do is to say, we're appealing. And then my question to you is, oh, good, on what grounds? We don't know yet.
[Richard Caraviello]: And I think that's the basis of my, of my motion that let's, let's see where we're going with this before we get before, like you said, before we, and the watch word is, as was said earlier by all of you, there's no real time to do this.
[Mark Rumley]: This has to be done with, with, uh, lightning speed. So we will begin garnering names for you tomorrow. And hopefully we can have some names to you by Thursday morning.
[Richard Caraviello]: And Mr. So let's say if you could, uh, draft us some kind of, uh, questions or points that we should be asking, these attorneys will be helpful also.
[Fred Dello Russo]: I can do that.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Point of information, Councilor Scott Pally.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. Romley. The question I have, if we go this route and the information gets back to us within the next 20 days, we can appeal. The question is, will we have enough time to do that?
[Mark Rumley]: And will we have enough time to... If you voted right now, this minute, this absolute minute to vote to appeal, I don't think it would be any quicker. Because you're beginning the process of appeal the way any other human being would do it. They'd go to contact the lawyer and they'd say, this is the decision, these are the facts, do I have a case? And then you proceed. As opposed to saying, I'm going to court, want to be my lawyer? See, that's the cot before the horse.
[Richard Caraviello]: And I say, that's why I propose this. And I say, let's make sure we do this correctly.
[Mark Rumley]: Right. And then the rest is true. It has to be done like that. I mean, within a week, you have to make a choice. You're going. So we could ask for an extension. Pardon me?
[George Scarpelli]: I'm saying if we have counsel, that counsel can ask for extension for that deadline.
[Mark Rumley]: Yeah, I heard you say that earlier.
[George Scarpelli]: Well, that's what the question was.
[Mark Rumley]: Yeah, I wouldn't put a lot of money on that one. All right, thank you. You have 20 days. All right.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Point of information on that. Point of information, Vice President Lungo-Koehn.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Which conveniently, because it was filed today, leaves us till July 5th, which, I mean, most, it's a July 4th weekend.
[Mark Rumley]: Right, July 5th is a legal work day.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Right, but it's Before that is July 4th, which is the Monday, which is the holiday. A lot of people go away starting the 1st, which is the Friday. So it might be tough to even find an attorney that can do it within two weeks.
[Mark Rumley]: Extremely tough. But we have to operate on the basis of what is, not what we want.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Mr. Slavitt.
[Mark Rumley]: Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: And the neighbors have to organize themselves if they're going to file an appeal as well. Chair recognizes, are you all done, Madam Vice President? Were you seeking the floor at some point?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I've lost track. I'll yield to the podium.
[Fred Dello Russo]: We don't yield to the podium. Hi, please state your name and address for the record.
[zSHhVpiqwJA_SPEAKER_09]: Dave Champey, 35 Greenhall Street, Medford. Question. The city is going to, we're going to repeal this thing. basically, because you're going to look like fools if you don't. But how come the city solicitor can't represent the council on this?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: He said it earlier.
[Mark Rumley]: The city solicitor can't represent the council on this because he's a lawyer and he has to operate on the basis of the rules of ethics. And the city solicitor and his office already represent the board of appeals and other appeals. Therefore, there would be a conflict of interest, which would be prohibitive.
[zSHhVpiqwJA_SPEAKER_09]: So the city solicitor office can't represent the city of Medford against another city agency, even though the agency being appealed?
[Mark Rumley]: I've just explained this to you. You can't do it. You can't. No, listen. The city solicitor, as a lawyer, who is me, and my assistant who is a lawyer also, have to operate under the rules of ethics. The rules of ethics prohibit. a lawyer from representing one party and then the interest against that same party in another matter. That's elementary. Therefore, in this instance, this council would have to get independent counsel, period. There is nothing else to say. Maybe on your part. But, yes, Mr. Chairman.
[Fred Dello Russo]: We're not going to engage in a back and forth debate out here.
[zSHhVpiqwJA_SPEAKER_09]: We were just discussing it amongst ourselves, Mr. President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you.
[zSHhVpiqwJA_SPEAKER_09]: The way that sounds to me is that if the city solicitor is representing one part of the city, you can't represent another part of the city, especially if it's going to be a party to the conflict at hand, correct? So there should be an automatic mechanism. I believe there is because I think the council executed it in 1984, 85. But, uh, I will leave that to Mr. Romney there. If he says we got to beg for another lawyer to pay on our own dime and gives us negative feedback in that regard, it's to be appealed. It doesn't seem like he has the citizens of Medford's interest at hand, and that's the bottom line.
[Mark Rumley]: Excuse me, Paul. I'm not going to listen to that from any resident ever. that the city solicitor being me doesn't have the best interest of this city and every single resident in his heart and in his actions. That is simple blather.
[SPEAKER_25]: We're aware of that.
[Jean Nuzzo]: Hi, Gina Muzo, 35 Paris Street. Um, I just have one quick comment and then a question. I think I understand what our city solicitor is saying. The example I would give would be if you went to seek counsel for a car accident and it became known in your initial consultation that the lawyer you were seeking counsel from represented that particular client in another accident, they couldn't represent you in your accident because they're already engaged as representation, and so it creates an appearance of a conflict of interest. So I think that probably illustrates what you're trying to say. You're welcome. My question, if you could just provide clarity for me, is it 20 calendar days or 20 business days?
[Mark Rumley]: It is 20 calendar days, which brings us to the 4th of July, which brings us to the 5th of July.
[Jean Nuzzo]: And then the only other thought I had, which I'm not certain is, is there any avenue for us before we go to land court or superior court to appeal the Board of Appeals directly as an internal body, you know, rather than have the family fight in public forum, maybe have that discussion internally? And I don't know the answer to that, but I'd raise that question. In other words, can the city council appeal the Board of Appeals decision, or do they have to go to land court? Is there an appeal process within the Board of Appeals?
[Mark Rumley]: Oh, you're talking about the same thing. The distinction is this. They don't have to appeal, but they can appeal. And when they appeal, the appeal goes to court. That's where the appeal goes.
[Jean Nuzzo]: Right. So they never appeal directly to the Board of Appeals?
[Mark Rumley]: No. That sounds incongruous, doesn't it? Because you're the Board of Appeals, but you don't appeal to the Board of Appeals.
[Jean Nuzzo]: You appeal to court. OK. I just wanted to make sure we couldn't just keep it in the family.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Madam Vice President, if you wish to continue,
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I'll yield.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Chair recognizes Councilor Knight.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I wanted to speak, actually, but we always have yield to the speakers. We've always been allowed to do that.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Where's the floor, Mr. President? Councilor Knight has the floor.
[Adam Knight]: I certainly think that Councilor Caraviello is.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Councilor Knight has the floor, sir. Councilor Knight has the floor. Councilor Knight has the floor. Councilor Knight has the floor. There is no yielding mechanism in our rules.
[Adam Knight]: Freddie, give her the floor either one way or the other when we get to the end of it.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Jeez. My comments will be brief. I know it's been a long night and I think the comments made by the residents have been very detailed, and I think they've covered a number of things, traffic, parking, schools. We don't want to set a precedent. The way things were done were obviously too quick, lack of notice. There was also, I'm not sure if it was mentioned, but an air quality issue, that many residents, also the soil problem. There are so many issues, and I'm also in shock that 11 variances were given, and I too believe that we're being laughed at. I agree that we need to figure out what our options are for appeal and go forward with that if we do have an appealable issue, 100% for the residents. To have the opinion state blatantly, even on page nine, that the proposed project is in harmony with the general purpose and intent of the zoning ordinance, which is to promote the health, safety, morals, convenience, and general welfare of the inhabitants of the city of Medford, I'm not sure where this opinion, how it was written, or who actually wrote it would be my questions, because it does seem like the developers, attorneys, did have a helping hand in that. I'm shocked at the way that things have transpired in the last two weeks, absolutely shocked. And it is definitely something that is going to impact this entire city, not just the many streets that are in that area. I work in Wellington Circle. I commute every day to work in Wellington Circle. The traffic on the Fellsway and Riverside Ave is backed up for a good 20 minutes at rush hour. This is extremely serious, especially when you're talking 400 to 600 kids, new children in our school system. We're already the class size. I'll speak for myself at the Roberts next year in kindergarten is going to be 23, 24 children. And they won't allow full-time aides. So we definitely have a problem here, and I thank my colleagues for speaking positively. I think we're all on the same page, and I think we need to move forward tonight with a vote to hopefully we get a list of attorneys that we can reach out to by Thursday. And I think we need to also take a vote that the money is approved by the administration so that we can appeal. I think we need to take that vote so that that money is ready when we do need to hire an attorney. We have 20 days, and if we can't ask for an extension, that means we have two weeks to find an attorney that we all agree on, figure out our payable rights, and get an appeal into court. That is going to be a tough task, but I think we can do it, and I think we do need to take a couple votes tonight, being funding and, obviously, to ask for that list and for, you know, further opinions from the solicitor. I thank you for allowing me to speak, and I thank all the people and all the residents who care about our city, because what you're doing, obviously, is 100 people here tonight, but you're helping thousands and thousands of people that are going to have to deal with the traffic and parking. I could go on and on, but traffic is something that's going to impact this entire community.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Chair recognizes Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. President, thank you very much. And, um, I certainly feel as though, uh, Councilor Caraviello's recommendation and his motion, uh, to consult with an attorney to see whether or not we have a case is prudent course. And, um, I'll certainly be supporting that motion this evening, Mr. President. Um, personally, I have a very different vision for the local street area. Um, I'm certainly not crazy about this large scale residential development and I'm really not overly crazy about Wegmans coming in there either, Mr. President. I think we have an opportunity to really take a look at putting in some mixed-use development at that location that's real, that has office space, that has commercial space, that has residential opportunities that are more in scale with the neighborhood, but that also will allow us an opportunity to really make a commitment to bringing affordable housing to our city, Mr. President. So, with that being said, I don't think that this is a good project. I stated my reasons why last week. You know, traffic impact, impact on our public schools, impact on our infrastructure, and pretty much everything that everybody said here this evening. I mean, I think we're all on the same page. Councilor Longo-Curran's right about that. We are all on the same page. We feel as though this development is too large-scale. We feel as though this development's not going to have a great impact on the quality of life and the residents in the neighbourhood that are there and that are existing. moving forward and taking a look at whether or not we have a case, Mr. President, to determine whether or not we should appeal this is certainly the prudent course of action. So with that being said, I will be supporting Councilor Caraviello's motion. You know, I think that we can really make a commitment to putting mixed-use development down there. I've filed resolutions in the past to take a look at an overlay district or a mixed-use district down there with a commitment to affordable housing, and I'll continue to take a look at that stuff, Mr. President. But it can't get done without the help and the work and the cooperation from the developers that are involved. And quite frankly, I feel as though these developers are coming into our city and they're trying to really maximize their potential to earn and not taking into consideration the factors that affect us and our quality of life and our everyday livelihood, Mr. President. So, with that being said, I certainly oppose the project in its current state and I certainly support Councilor Caraviello's motion to consult with an attorney. And I move for approval on that motion, Mr. President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion for approval by Councilor Knight, Councilor Falco.
[John Falco]: Thank you, Mr. President. Question for Mr. City Solicitor, please. Mr. City Solicitor.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Mr. Solicitor, the Councilor has a question for you.
[John Falco]: I have a quick question regarding the process. So, if we meet with the different attorneys, we decide we're going to appeal. Can the Mayor veto our decision to appeal? Can she veto the decision to appeal?
[Mark Rumley]: I would think that that — I would think not, for this reason. She could, of course, decide to fund you $1, but I don't think she'd do that. I mean, if you're talking about some type of nefarious intent, I don't think you'll find that. But would she, say, veto the appeal? Well, that would just make you override it, if she could. So I don't think that that's something that would be in the cards.
[John Falco]: I just know we have limited time, so I'm just trying to question — different outcomes and whatnot, you know, what our options are. So that's... Right.
[Mark Rumley]: I understand that. And I think that the mayor will listen to any resolution, as she always does, and then she'll make a decision. Now, the reason I said that she should have some type of idea of who the attorney is and what the cost is, because that would drive what your appropriation is. That's all. It's just a practical matter.
[SPEAKER_21]: Okay.
[Mark Rumley]: So, but I don't think that a veto would be in the cards. I can't speak for any other human being, but... I think that would be unlikely. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Councilor Falco.
[John Falco]: That was my question.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Good evening, sir. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Robert Penta]: My name is Robert Penta, Zero Summit Road, Medford, Mass. On that question to Councilor Falco you just asked, I believe it would be discriminatory on the man's part because right now, as the city solicitor just alluded to, he's representing the Board of Appeals. Under normal circumstances, correct me if I'm wrong, you would be the legal counsel for the city council. With that being said, that leaves you without any legal representation. And you, by right and by law, are entitled to have legal representation. My suggestion would be that you would ask for $20,000, put it into the budget, and you could take it from there. Because I don't think you're going to get out of this thing any cheaper than that. You need a starting figure to start off with, and I would keep it at $20,000. And lastly, I just want to say, I want to thank you for continuously being so rude, Mr. Delarusso, because I really
[Robert Cappucci]: Thank you, Mr. President. Robert Capucci, 71 Evans Street. I'll try to be very quick. It seems to me like there's some confusion as to whether or not, I mean, you're talking about the process and I appreciate that, but I mean, everything that was discussed tonight, you've got the 11 variances, the zoning particular to this case impact on the city. It seems to me you've got, like right now, you could make a motion to appeal, enlist specific things, specific to this zoning law, as the city solicitor informed us that it has to be specific to this zoning, to take a vote on appeal and request the funds from the mayor for the legal representation for it. I don't see why that's not crystal clear to everybody in this room at this moment. And I would just like to ask, when you do take the vote to appeal and it gets approved, that whatever meetings that you do have with legal representation, that it's open to the public, specifically to the abutters. Because like Gene Martin said earlier, these are people that, you know, this is everyday, ordinary people that may not be lawyers, that may not be pretty about how to go about appealing this as a direct abutter to this, so that they could come, not to piggyback on your litigation process, but so that they can absorb information as well so that they know what to do going forward. Thank you, Mr. President.
[Michael Marks]: Thank you, Mr. President. You know, where time is of the essence, I think it's only appropriate, and I agree with what was mentioned by the city solicitor and members of this council. I think we should move forward with soliciting a good land attorney first. and getting feedback and advice from that attorney, and then moving forward on appeal. So I agree with that. The only thing I would say is that in order to get together and discuss what attorney may be right for us, I think we have to either set up a special meeting or an emergency meeting. I don't think we should wait till Tuesday, because I think that's putting us behind the eight ball. So I'd recommend as a part of whatever vote we take tonight that we have a special meeting requires 48 hour notice, an emergency meeting we can call without the 48 hour notice. But according to the city solicitor, he may need until Thursday to get some names and so forth and a list of names. So if we call for a special meeting, Mr. President, I think this is such an important issue. that I think we're all available to meet. It won't take long, maybe an hour on Friday evening, because it's got to be 48 hours out.
[Fred Dello Russo]: I'll be in contact with the solicitor. And once we have a feeling of when things are going to go, I'll call for the special meeting or convene an emergency meeting.
[Michael Marks]: Before the weekend?
[Fred Dello Russo]: Hopefully. Not hopefully.
[Michael Marks]: I think we need to get the ball rolling. Well, we do. Because we have budget. We have the superintendent coming before us. going on. So, I think we need to get this rolling. So, I would ask that in the formal motion.
[Fred Dello Russo]: That there be a special meeting of the City Council called for when, Councilor?
[Michael Marks]: 48 hours from today. That's due Friday. Friday evening or maybe Saturday morning.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: We'll have to stay on the phone at 8 a.m. Monday morning to start.
[Adam Knight]: Point of information. Our actions are going to be contingent upon whether or not we can actually get in touch with somebody and get a list of people that are willing to actually review the case and take a look at the case. Isn't that correct?
[SPEAKER_21]: I think so. And if we can't get anybody in the next three days, or we get a list on Thursday, that only leaves us Thursday to Friday to get it together for a special meeting either Friday night or Saturday morning from someone that we may not even have the opportunity to come to the meeting and explain to us who we are.
[Michael Marks]: I didn't anticipate meeting with a lawyer. I anticipated getting together and selecting a lawyer. and then reaching out to the lawyer. So I didn't anticipate sitting with someone. I agree. I don't think we're going to get someone that quick.
[Adam Knight]: OK. All right. I was a little confused by the direction that we were going.
[Michael Marks]: This will be a selection. And then once we maybe make a selection one, two, and three, we're going to have to pick up the phone and make the phone calls.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. President, I'd even be willing to entertain an ad hoc committee being established to go through that process and present it to the council at some point in time with the decision-making processes. But that's at a later date, you know what I mean? Obviously, we're going to get a list of lawyers. We've got to pick a lawyer.
[Michael Marks]: So I'm available Friday or Saturday, whatever the counsel. So do you want to do Thursday night? Is that 48 hours?
[Mark Rumley]: Is it? No. You want to meet with lawyers on Thursday night? No, no, no, no. I don't understand what you're asking. He's asking for a meeting to discuss a list of lawyers. To have the list? Oh, yes, we can certainly get you a list.
[Fred Dello Russo]: But remember, when you meet Thursday night.
[Michael Marks]: You can't, 48 hours.
[Fred Dello Russo]: City Hall is closed out of business on Friday. Point of information, Vice President Lungo-Koehn.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Just maybe a better route is we get a list on Thursday, each of us call somebody on Friday, then we meet Friday night or Saturday morning to say this is what, you know, this is what I found out, this is what you found out, and then we pick one. This one's not available, this one's available, this rate is $200 an hour, this one can do it before Fourth of July, this one can't.
[Mark Rumley]: My office would be happy to make the inquiry about availability and what the hourly rates are. Great. Right. I mean, we can begin on that tomorrow. Because I don't want serial calls made by the council which would be outside of the open meeting law. But we can get like a survey as quickly as possible. and present that within a... And then I'll distribute it to the council, through the clerk's office, to the president, and he can get it out to you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: So why don't we set up something for Saturday morning? Or I'll email it out to you. Saturday morning, special meeting. For an hour. Yeah, Saturday morning, one hour. 8 o'clock.
[SPEAKER_21]: 7, excuse me.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Oops. 7 o'clock. 7 o'clock, Saturday morning. 7, yeah, okay. Metcalfe City Hall. 7 o'clock. On the 7 o'clock Saturday morning. The motion on the floor offered by Councilor Scott Peli asked the administration to use the Metropolitan Area Planning Council to aid us in zoning ordinance amendment. Amended by Councilor Scott Peli that the Zoning Board of Appeals have a moratorium placed on it for projects exceeding 150 units offered by Councilor Caraviello as an amendment that the council hire outside council to see if we have a case in this matter. And further amended by Councilor Marks that there be a special meeting of Medford City Council to consider our candidates for attorney, uh, and to discuss the merits of a case on Saturday morning here in a city hall at 7 a.m. Thank you on that motion.
[Michael Marks]: And I think we want my kids might be here. I'm sorry. I think council longer wanted to offer, but I'll offer it that money. We ask a motion requesting may Burke make an appropriation of sufficient funds to hire a landlord law attorney.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Further amended by Councilor Marks that Mayor Burke appropriate money to file to hire. Sufficient funds. Sufficient funds to hire an attorney. Landlord. First in land law to handle the appeal of this case. To possibly handle the appeal of this case.
[hFAk--zIv7g_SPEAKER_20]: Right.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On that motion as amended, Madam Clerk, please call the roll.
[hFAk--zIv7g_SPEAKER_20]: Councilor Caraviello? Yes. Councilor Falco? Yes. Councilor Knight? Yes. Vice-President O'Connor? Yes. Councilor Montz? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli? Yes. Vice-President Jones?
[Fred Dello Russo]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, none in the negative. Motion passes. Chair recognizes Councilor Knight for suspension of the rules to take paper number 16-531 off the table. All those in favor? All those opposed? 16-531, Common Victuals License for Soura Barbecue in Boston. SORA Barbecue Boston Incorporated. It was tabled on June 7th because of absence of the petitioners. Are the petitioners present? Please state your name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_30]: Hi, I'm finally my turn. So my name is Hyesuk Kim, 27 Riverside Avenue, Medford. And the previous restaurant, you know, name is Chung Ki-hwa. Right now, I... Just one moment, please. I'm sorry.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Can we quiet down, please? Thank you. Go ahead. Continue, ma'am, please.
[SPEAKER_30]: Sorry. And so right now, my restaurant name is Sura Barbecue Restaurant. It's a Korean-style restaurant. I have experience about 10 years ago, open the restaurant in Rhode Island, nearby Brown University. And then name is Sura Restaurant. And then finally, we got to find its location in nearby Tufts University. We are making the Korean style restaurant, and the name is Sura Barbecue Restaurant. And I want to put transaction for the permit tonight and so.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilor Carfiello of the licensing subcommittee. Could you refresh our memories? What address is that restaurant to be at?
[Richard Caraviello]: Yes, Mr. President, the restaurant is at 27 Riverside Avenue in Medford. Thank you, which is right in Highland Square there. I find the papers to be in order, Mr. President, and I've read the reviews on the paper from the Rhode Island restaurant, and I think they'll be a very good addition to our community. And I welcome you to Metford. Motion for approval, Mr. President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion for approval by Councilor Caraviello, seconded by Councilor Falco. All those opposed, congratulations.
[SPEAKER_30]: Thank you so much.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Good luck. Thank you. While we're under suspension, we'll take papers that were here under suspension. 16-551 offered by Vice President Lungo-Koehn, be it resolved that the Metric City Council request that the Metric Court of Appeals reopen the hearing related to the Locust Street development. Madam Vice President.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, President DelaRose. I put that on before the decision was filed with City Hall, so I believe that is moot at this point after the last vote we just took, received in place on file.
[Fred Dello Russo]: That that paper be received and placed on file. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion carries.
[Adam Knight]: 16-Councilor Knight. Take a moment to withdraw paper 16548 and paper 16549 at this moment in time. I'll refile them when the time is proper.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion of Councilor Knight to withdraw papers 16-548 and 16-549. All those in favor? All those opposed? Papers are withdrawn. Revert back to the regular order business. All those in favor? All those opposed? 16-545 offered by Vice President Rungel-Kern be resolved that the city solicitor report back to the City Council, etc. Madam Vice President?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, this is just to report on the last issue regarding Locust Street and his opinions which he provided us this morning. So, this can receive- Move approval? Move approval.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On motion for approval, all those in favor- Aye. Opposed? The papers.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. President, a motion to table last week's records once again.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion of Councilor Knight to table the records of the May 31st meeting. All those in favor? All those opposed? Papers tabled. The records of the meeting of June 7th, 2016 were passed to Vice President Logan Kern, Madam Vice President.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I review the records and find them in order. I move approval.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion of Vice President Logan Kern to approve those Records all those in favor all those opposed records are approved motion of council max to adjourn all those in favor all those opposed meeting is adjourned
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