[Fred Dello Russo]: The 29th regular meeting of the Medford City Council will come to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Clerk]: Councilor Camuso? Councilor Caraviello? Present. Councilor Knight? Present. Vice-President Lemon-Curran? Present. Councilor Marks? Present. Councilor Penta? Present. President Dello Russo?
[Fred Dello Russo]: Present, seven present, none absent, please rise to salute the flag. Aye. 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. Thank you, Chair. Recognize this council tonight.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. President, I move for suspension of the rules. We can take papers number 1 5 6 9 1. Paper. Yes.
[Fred Dello Russo]: And the paper table last week relative to the shape of Brooks estate. So very good. So on the motion for suspension of the rules to take, uh, One paper out of order and one off the table. All those in favor? All those opposed? Carries. 15-691, communication from the Mayor. October 1st, 2015, Council President, Medford City Council, from Mayor Michael J. McGlynn, home rule petition regarding rights upon Dear Mr. President and City Councilors, I respectfully request and recommend your Honorable Body approve the attached Home Rule petition to be sent to the General Court regarding the use of Wright's Pond. This Home Rule petition has been drafted by the City Solicitor after the completion of historical research on Wright's Pond that included a title search, reference to earlier operations by past Medford City Solicitors, the assistance of State Representative Paul J. Donato, in consultation with House Council of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. The approval of this home rule petition by the General Court would remove any ambiguity and establish with finality and clarity that the use of the beach at Wright's Pond and the area that services the beach can be restricted and limited to residents of Medford and their invitees to the exclusion of others. Respectfully submitted, Michael J. McGlynn, Mayor. Uh, the enclosure is an act of establishing the city of Medford to use certain land for any municipal purpose, be it enacted, et cetera, as far as follows, notwithstanding any law regulation or ordinance.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. President, move to waive the reading and have the solicitor give us a brief synopsis of the language.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Very good on that motion. All in favor. All those opposed. Mr. Solicitor. Welcome.
[Mark Rumley]: Good evening Mr. President and members of the council. My name is Mark Rumley. I'm the city solicitor. I reside at 50 Woodrow Avenue in Medford. I thank you for taking this paper tonight. This is a proposed home rule petition and I'll give you a quick background on the facts that gave rise to the need for this home loan petition. There was a person that called the mayor's office, which was referred to my office, late July or early August, who lives out of Medford, not a resident of Medford, and wanted to know why they could not utilize Wright's Pond, because the city has restricted it to residents only, historically. So I said that I would do research on the issue, and I did so. And I saw the various laws that had been passed in the past on this. And I focused in on an opinion written by Dan Riley in 1974, city solicitor Daniel Riley. And Mr. Riley said that because the property was deeded or transferred to the city from the state for park purposes, that it could not be restricted just to residents only, that the use of it had to be open to residents from other cities and towns because park land under the Massachusetts Constitution has a certain status, and it must be open. Now, after the city solicitor's opinion in 74, there was an effort to pass a special law, a session law, a home rule petition, which would allow Medford to restrict the use of Wright's Pond, at least the beach area and the bathhouse and the parking area to residents only. But the way that was versed, it said that the state gave the city the ability to use parkland in this fashion. So that's ambiguous. And it certainly would indicate from the declarative parkland that this would have to be open to all of the residents of other cities and towns. So this matter came up before the park commission at the very end of the summer. Um, and, uh, this was described to them. and also the matter was made known to the mayor. And I had an extensive discussion with James Kennedy, who was the House Counsel at the House of Representatives in Boston, State House of Representatives. And we went over all the laws, and he agreed that it was ambiguous, that law that was attempted to be passed in 1975 that said the city of Medford can use the parkland for municipal purposes. And the best way to address this in the most direct way is to have the area taken out of parkland status and put into municipal use status. And so I drafted this home rule petition, which would accomplish that. Now, a couple of final points. This doesn't mean that if you live outside the city of Medford you can't go up and go fishing at Wright's Pond or access all of the parkland around the pond. You can do that. And it doesn't mean that if you're invited to come up by a resident of Medford that you couldn't go with them to access the pond. It does mean that the area of parking the bathhouses and also the beach area and the area around the beach area, I think there's a tot lot there also, would be on the face of it restricted to use by residents of the city of Medford, which by the way, functionally it has been for three decades or longer. So if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. The chair recognizes Councilor Camuso.
[Paul Camuso]: Thank you, Mr. President. And I certainly think that this is a positive move, as far as I'm concerned. And my only concern when it comes to this, I do plan on voting for it this evening. But my one question is, you said outside people are still allowed to use their fishing and so on. Parkland, yes. Parkland, exactly. Is there a dollar amount that we're not going to be getting at this point? Has that been looked at as far as fees and stuff in the past?
[Mark Rumley]: The fees have been set historically by the Park Commission and that would still be true for the area that's parked. but that would come under the DPW for the beach area and the swimming area, the bathhouse, and that sort of thing. So what the fees are, I couldn't say.
[Paul Camuso]: Well, the reason I ask, I want to make sure that because of this move this evening, next year people aren't going to be looking at a substantial increase in the fees because we are limiting certain resources to Medford residents only. So I think that's a fair question and it's important. But I do plan on supporting this this evening.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Penta.
[Robert Penta]: Um, Mark, um, the act that was approved on December 8th, 1975, it's chapter seven 30 of, of the acts of the Commonwealth. Yes. And the first sentence reads that the city of method is hereby authorized to use for any municipal purpose, a certain parcel of land. No, it doesn't say a certain parcel of land says a certain parcel of parkland in said city bounded and described as follows. Yes, sir. Okay. And it goes to the not only in the southerly and southwesterly and blah, blah, blah.
[Mark Rumley]: Yup.
[Robert Penta]: Um, and the records from the state house as it relates to this, for which there was a full blown discussion, it reflected upon the fact that, um, We're looking at two particular parcels of land here. One is the park land where the beach is, and the other one is a playground area. And the playground area, which is separate and distinct, I believe at one point in time, the city received federal money for the purposes of upgrading it. But subsequent to that, the city has, and the city's park department, I believe, retains control, ownership, and maintenance, and care for that piece of property. Now, I, too, had a discussion with house council, and I believe that they said, It was their feeling and their understanding that at the time that this was passed in 1975, any municipal purpose would include for what we're talking about right now. I've got no problem and re-clarifying that, but it's been since 1975 till now and there's never been a problem.
[Mark Rumley]: But it has this summer though, councilor.
[Robert Penta]: It became a problem this summer because somebody posed the question, but when you say it's authorized to you for use for any municipal purpose, the city of Medford is hereby authorized to use it for any municipal purpose. I thought that was pretty clear back then.
[Mark Rumley]: It is, but you have to finish the sentence.
[Robert Penta]: Well, I know for any municipal purpose, a certain parcel of parkland and said city bounded and described as follows. And it gets you to that. Okay. And I know it says parkland, And with the legislation that you're filing, reverts it back to municipal land.
[Mark Rumley]: Yes.
[Robert Penta]: And by making that distinction from parkland to municipal land, I understand all of that. But again, reviewing the, this was an in-depth discussion back in 1975. Yes, I know that. Cause I was a representative at the time. And I co-sponsored that bill.
[Mark Rumley]: Yes. The newspaper reports, which say that you were in the house of representatives.
[Robert Penta]: Yes. And at that point in time, there was a huge discussion on that. As it related to, and I think one of the arguments and the issues we used back then was if in fact the city was receiving federal money, it had to be opened up to the public. And I believe one of the arguments and then was by filing and having this piece of legislation and not taking future federal monies. we could use it for any municipal purpose. So all we're doing is basically taking out our parkland and making it a municipal purpose for whatever the municipal purpose might be.
[Mark Rumley]: And the effort in 1975 was sufficient, sufficient for decades. But when it's raised this year, and it would only, it's one of these questions that once it comes up, it'll come up repeatedly. And so when I talked to Mr. Kennedy, and we went over this, The idea wasn't, oh, the legislation in 1975 was faulty. But it was that if it's going to be interpreted today, there's every likelihood that since the word parkland is in there, that the beach area, et cetera, would be then, by a judge, perhaps, in a court, made to be open to all other cities and towns. So this is a corrective action.
[Robert Penta]: I understand that. But I think also, so people can understand that while it's good corrective action, It's still going to be under the control of the city of Medford for Medford residents only. That's correct. Correct. Yes.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Okay. All right.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Council Penta chair recognizes vice president.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. President Teller. So, um, city solicitor, what was the, was there any permits given to any non-residents this summer?
[Mark Rumley]: No, because the issue came up so late in the summer that when it went before the park board, it was the last week that the pond was open. And so it didn't become an actual controversy.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I only bring that up because I agree, you know, Councilor Caluso mentioned the issue with regards to raising the rates. So I bring that up because there were two things that, especially those that use rights pond, there were two things that kind of made people in an uproar over the summer. One was the way the rates were raised, not notifying anybody of the hearing when the rates were raised. And then also this issue with regards to next summer possibly allowing non-residents to use the pond and how it is a small beach so people want to keep it just Medford residents. So those are the two main issues and I just really hope that rates are not again raised next year. So it doesn't sound like the case considering no permits were you know, paid for by non-residents. I just think that needs to be brought up again because the way it happened, I didn't like the way it happened. We've, we all spoke against the way it happened and the amounts of fees are raised, but hopefully the rates will stay the same and not go up any further next year.
[Mark Rumley]: Yes. I think those are sound sentiments and there's also ample time to address those concerns between now and the opening of the beach next year. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Madam Vice President. The Chair recognizes Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. President, thank you very much, and Solicitor Rumley, thank you very much. I think this is a great step in the right direction to solidify our position here and to allow us to continue our current practice. I appreciate the work that you've done, and I see no problem with this language or this ordinance change — this homeown petition, Mr. President. So, I'd move for approval at this point.
[Fred Dello Russo]: So, on the motion of approval by Councilor Knight, seconded by Vice President Lungo-Koehn. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. Councilor Camuso.
[Paul Camuso]: If we could also just send a little note of thanks to Representative Donato for offering the services of the House Council. I would say that this has a favorable shot of getting passed when it hits there where they were an integral part of drafting the language. Yes, they were quite helpful. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: So on the motion of approval, the second is here.
[Clerk]: Councilor Camuso? Yes. Councilor Caraviello? Yes. Councilor Knight? Yes. Vice President Lungo-Koehn. Yes. Councilor Marks. Yes. Councilor Penta. Yes. President De La Rosa. Yes.
[Fred Dello Russo]: With a vote of seven in the affirmative and non-negative, the motion passes. Thank you very much, Mrs. Solicitor. So now to take 15-681 off the table, law claim for $24,000, Adrian Appel and John Green. This was tabled last week for some finishing touches that the solicitor needed to make. So the matter is now before us again on the motion of Councilor Knight. Mr. Solicitor, if you want to present on this matter to bring us up to date on those issues.
[Mark Rumley]: Thank you, Mr. President. This is the matter that has been discussed a couple of times before. That's the first time it's been on the council floor. I'm going to give a brief recitation of the facts and why this matter is before you. The facts are these, that for some time, John Grebe and Adrian Appel were caretakers at the Brooks Estate. They are married. And it came to our attention last year, they were blessed to be having a child. And that became problematic because of the age of the Brooks Estate, the fact that there is lead, and other difficulties there. And certainly, we didn't want to have the child come back to a dangerous situation. We were advised by our experts that as long as the child was an infant and not ambulatory or walking around, that that shouldn't be a concern. and that was fine because we were in contact, that is myself and other people at City Hall, Karen Rose and Louise Miller, we were in contact with Mr. Grebe and Ms. Appel about what their intentions were. Because as the child would grow, they would have to leave the premises if we were going to begin to de-lead. So we received some cost estimates on de-leading the Brooks Estate, and that would be required to be done both on an interior and exterior basis. The cost would be, and I'm being, I'm just giving an example or estimating, the cost would be $350,000 or better to DLED, more on the better side. So we did have a conversation with Mr. Pell and Mr. Grebe about what their intentions were, and they weren't sure. So they took a little bit of time, and then they said that they would, move, but we had to work out some terms to assist them in moving. That's the $24,000 figure that's in the settlement agreement. In return, the agreement that they have right now with the Brooks Estates would be voided, and we would go on to the future. If the settlement is not approved, Then Mr. Grebe and Ms. Appel would have the right to return to the Brooks Estate at some point after deletting, and we would have to begin the process of getting that deletting done fairly soon. And in the meantime, put up with their, not put up in a negative sense, but be responsible for their living in another space while the deletting was going on. So, we have before you this agreement. I had it in your packet on Friday. I hope you had an opportunity to read it, and we'll answer your questions if you have any.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Chair recognizes Vice President Lungo-Koehn.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, President Dello Russo. I just have a question with regards to, we know that the board, Brooks Estate's board, signed the lease with this couple, or actually at the time it was just the gentlemen. The city, we discussed in our meetings over the summer that the city really didn't know they were going to have to do that, yet we consider the Brooks estate's part of Medford. So going forward then, I guess, because if we do pay them to, I guess that would be the 24,000 probably living expenses for six months to a year.
[Mark Rumley]: There's a number of things in there, yes.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: What are we going to do as a city to make sure that this doesn't happen again? Is there been any restrictions with regards to people, caretakers living on the property? Is there any restrictions to maybe just a daytime caretaker who comes a few hours a day, checks on the property? What is going to be done so that we don't run into this again in six months, a year, two years, five years down the road?
[Mark Rumley]: Well, the issue you're bringing up, of course, is the primary issue. As I stated to the council earlier, I've had discussions with Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Carr about them working with my office to draft up any future agreement that might take place. Now, you might say it's pretty simple to do so. But in truth, any human being, any qualified human being, can adopt a child. If there was going to be an agreement which would prohibit that type of activity by even a single caretaker, well, we'd have to look at all that. Your idea about having just somebody there during the day or part-time, that might be viable. There's any number of language things that we may be able to build in. But the one assurance I can give the council is that the people at the Brooks Estate, Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Carr, and others, have given us their assurance that they will engage in the appropriate level of dialogue with my office to come up with an agreement in the future, or perhaps another method, in order to make sure that the estate is secure, but more importantly, that we can go on without this occurring again. Because the deletting of that property would be quite expensive. That's for sure. And so what we want to do is to make sure that the property is protected, but on the other hand, that the exposure of the city from a liability point of view doesn't raise its head again.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Just from my point of view, I agree with this and want to vote to just take care of the situation because I know of what we'd have to do as a city with regards to the $350,000 to de-lead it, plus putting the couple up for the time it takes to de-lead. We'd have to pay for that. So I think this makes sense. Now my only concern is even with what you just said, you've had discussions with the board. You may be able to, and also they gave you their assurance. Now I would feel much more comfortable as a Councilor to maybe have a written agreement with the board. I think as the city who owns the property, we should 100% know what's going on and know who this is being rented to, who's signing leases with the Brooks Estate. They didn't allow that at the beginning. We had no idea when they were signing the lease. I think you mentioned that you were unaware of, you never read the lease. I feel like I would really like something in writing saying before any lease is signed, before any agreement is determined, but before you know, whether it's with the council or not, I think set guidelines need to be put in place and 100% agreed to with the board.
[Mark Rumley]: All right. I understand your sentiments, but I'd say this. If this agreement, if this settlement is not approved, there's every likelihood that our ability to resolve this with Mr. Grebe and Ms. Appel will probably dissipate and go away. In that instance, they're still going to have a right to come back. So what I'm saying to you is that, and I've had this discussion with another board, there is not going to be another agreement with anyone at that property to be there as a caretaker unless that agreement is approved by my office. Now, I'm not trying to pontificate, but I'm saying it's not going to happen. The other thing is, it's not the only option in order to protect that property. There are electronic ways to do things. There are sensors and video that can be utilized in order to secure the property. Human presence is not necessarily the only way to go. But I also don't want to be cavalier with the discretion of the board, because in fact, the board is the managing entity of that property, and I want to respect their prerogatives. But conversely, I want to make sure that in exercising their discretion, we're not faced with this again. An example. It would be benign to say, well, we could always rent to a 70-year-old caretaker who's single, can't possibly have a child. Yes, he could if he adopts. There is not one human being that could not bring a child into that building. So the language, if there was ever going to be language to allow a human being to go in there for caretaking, prerogatives again would have to be so restricted as to ensure that there's an acknowledgement of the lead in the building and that no child will be brought in under guardianship or adoption or other ways to the caretaker. That might be addressed if we had a part-time caretaker who was up there during the day or at staggered hours. There are a number of different variables to do this. And I understand and I think that your concerns are prudent, reasonable, and professional. But I also think that at this juncture, at this crossroads, the question is whether to accept this $24,000 settlement or prepare for $350,000 plus.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: and I would feel more comfortable if we, in no fault of your own, you were working to negotiate this agreement, I would feel more comfortable knowing that we set guidelines. I understand the board should have some discretion, but obviously their discretion has led to probably a possible $350,000 problem on the backs of the taxpayers. And even with a $24,000 vote, that still does not come easy. That's on the backs of the taxpayers who have to pay off a couple that were, you know, gentleman who moved in there under a lease signed by a lease that was never read by the city solicitor's office. No fault of your own. The board never brought it to your office. And that doesn't sit well. I don't know if it's, you know, I'm sure it doesn't sit well with the rest of the council. It just doesn't sit well with me. And I just want to make sure that this doesn't happen again. And I hope that we can come up. Maybe as a B paper, we sit down and have a meeting with your office within the next you know, few weeks and we discuss in the board and discuss how this is not going to happen again.
[Mark Rumley]: I'd be, I'd be certainly agreeable to that scenario.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I would make that a B paper so that we can round table a discussion with regards to what is the best for the Brooks estates. Um, we do have, you know, we do represent the taxpayers and this is taxpayers money that's being used. So I think the board has to understand that we want to make sure this doesn't happen again. So, um, if that can be done, I,
[Fred Dello Russo]: This is a good measure.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Madam Vice President. The chair recognizes Councilor Marks.
[Michael Marks]: Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you, Mr. Solicitor, for your presentation. My question is along the lines of Councilor Lungo-Koehn, and I posed the question to you last week, actually, and I was hoping to get a response from EMBELT.
[Mark Rumley]: You do. Ms. Rose. talk to a member of Inbuilt along the lines of the question that you asked. I'm sorry, I forgot about that. Sorry.
[SPEAKER_17]: Good evening, Councilors. Karen Rose, Director of Public Health, City of Medford. I did have a conversation over the phone with Doug Carr, and basically he was asking if somebody could live there again. And basically under the state sanitary code for housing, I told him under the conditions that exist right now with some of the other issues, not necessarily the lead, I wouldn't advocate for it right now. I would stop it. Now, having said that, there are things that can be done to change that. But that is my feeling right now. So that's where we left it. And he was going to look at other options for TVing it. There is security systems there. It's not as if there's none. But to look at TV cameras, that kind of thing, the same type of thing that we use at the schools and other places. So that was where we left off with that conversation.
[Michael Marks]: Okay. So you're saying as the director of the Board of Health that you would not allow anyone to live in that place?
[SPEAKER_17]: What I would utilize is the minimum standards for housing, 105 CMR 410. And I would use that as my reason for not having somebody live there presently. And as things improve and some of the improvements are made, then my colleague would definitely be looking at other options with EMBL. But for right now, no, I wouldn't have anybody live there.
[Michael Marks]: Okay. And thank you very much. That was very helpful. And I guess that leads to my question that was pretty much asked already. And I'm not sure, Mr. Solicitor, if you can answer this, but I think it's imperative that be able to tell us what their long-term plan is to make sure that this building has a presence, is maintained, and so forth, where it is a city-owned building. I know they have kept this building up over the years. have done their due diligence in making sure this building is what it is currently today. But I think it's extremely important. When I read through the document itself, Lieutenant Will, it really describes what the caretakers were doing in great detail. And so it wasn't just a matter of fact that they were turning a key and laying their head down on a bed. They had a number of duties and tasks that they were responsible for. on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, and also to document this activity. So I would say at the time that they signed this, EMBEL thought it was very important to have someone that was actually living in the building to make sure that building was maintained. So I'd like to hear what their response is now, and I know you're not going to give that to us, but I'd really like to.
[Mark Rumley]: Because I don't have it, in the sense that anything definitive.
[Michael Marks]: It would have been great, Mr. President, to have members of EMBELT present at this meeting to answer some questions regarding this, because it's been on the agenda. I believe this is the third time this has been on the agenda. The President Second time at open meeting, yes. The Vice President Second time at open meeting. And we had another meeting that was canceled. But I believe that aspect. I agree with Councilor Lungo-Koehn. It is extremely important to find out what the long-range plan is. Lead paint is one issue. We have an issue of the road leading up to the manor. We have issues that we heard from the Board of Health. There's mold in the building. The water quality, I'm not sure if it's been tested recently. That's okay, we're hearing. How about the air quality throughout the building? Has that been tested? So everything's been tested? No.
[SPEAKER_17]: Just before Thanksgiving, because the water quality issue was brought to my attention and they were still living there, I had done the testing on the water in that past. That is fine. But as far as air quality and that kind of thing, we didn't go that far. If they were going to de-lead, they would have to do air quality testing after that remediation. So we didn't do air quality testing in the meanwhile.
[Michael Marks]: OK. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_17]: Thank you.
[Michael Marks]: Mr. President. My last point, Mr. President, and I just want to bring it up for discussion. And I do plan on supporting this tonight because I think this is the lesser of two evils, to be quite honest with you. I'm not happy how this unfolded. I'm not happy the fact that the city wasn't aware of this agreement when it was signed. But it goes on, Mr. President. Solicitor, under Section 5, Utilities, it says, the tenant shall pay. We all know they don't pay any rent at all. Well, this is the old agreement you're talking about. Right. Yeah. And that was the agreement that was signed that the caretakers will not pay rent. And that was the agreement between M-Belt and the caretakers. But it also goes on in Section 5 under Utilities, and it says, the tenant shall pay, as they come due, all bills for electricity furnished to the premise, all bills for heating, for oil furnished to the premise, and part C, upon notice from the city of Medford, bills for water and sewer services, so furnished by the city of Medford. I happen to have contacted the water department, I contacted Mr. Pompeo, the city treasurer's office, and there hasn't been a bill, water and sewer, issued in that premise, at least in the past eight or nine years. And I'm not sure, from what I can understand, it's not needed either, that particular. site. And I think this is really something that we should do as a city, because I would say any other resident in this community, uh, when they hear that, uh, people living there, not paying their water and sewer, I think rightfully should be upset about that. I understand that entirely. If it was part of the agreement, like they're not paying rent, then that's part of the agreement. We all have to live with it, but it's clearly stated in this document that they should pay water and sewer. Now, if the city's at fault, not putting them on notice of a water and sewer bill, then I think we have to find that out. So I would ask that, Mr. President, through the paper tonight. Like I said, I will support this. But I want to know if that particular piece of property is meted out, first of all. Why hasn't a bill been issued in the past eight or nine years to that particular piece of property? And it may be after the fact, and I appreciate you've already put together an agreement. But, you know, I would like to see, you know, I believe there was a security deposit put up some years ago. And I'm not sure if it would be appropriate or not, but I'd like to see the security deposit used towards the water and sewer. It falls far short of the mark of nine years worth of water and sewer.
[Mark Rumley]: It may be appropriate or reasonable to bring that up in the discussion that goes along as part of the B paper when we have our meeting.
[Fred Dello Russo]: So I would offer that as a B paper. That's an amendment to the B paper.
[Michael Marks]: Right. The fact that if the homes needed, why hasn't there been a bill issued in the last eight or nine years of water and sewer?
[Fred Dello Russo]: Correct. With that meeting, we're going to have with the M-Belt Board of Directors.
[Michael Marks]: Well, this would be internally. I think Water and Sewage Department should be able to tell us why a bill wasn't created for that site.
[Fred Dello Russo]: So ask for a response from the Water and Sewage Department.
[Michael Marks]: And I'd be curious to see if they were aware of this agreement that this particular parcel, because city-owned buildings right now don't pay water and sewer. That comes under unaccounted for water. And that gets paid by every taxpayer in this community. So it's not meted out separately. And that's a city-owned building. So I can see why possibly it's not meted out separately. But how do you enter into an agreement unless they plan on estimating the water and sewer up there, like they did for many years in this community before we got the new meters. But I think those are important questions, Mr. President. Thank you. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Councilor. And the Chair recognizes Councilor Knight. Now, I apologize for that mistake.
[Adam Knight]: Oh, that's okay, Mr. President. This is an important issue. I certainly support I think that the ends justify the means. It's going to bring us to a resolve in the situation that's before us, and it's going to be the most cost-effective way for us to deal with it. However, I too share the concerns of my colleagues relative to the board and what decision-making processes the board's making, and the council has a board appointee. And I was wondering if the Board of Point D could bring us up to speed on the recent talks that they've had relative to, you know, the ongoing situation at the Shepherd Brook Manor, what their future plans are. I know that there's been a strong push of support from the members of the Metro Brooks Estate Land Trust to, you know, build the carriage house up and turn it into a function facility of some sort. That matter came before the council, it failed, and now we are where we are. So I guess the question is, Mr. President, going forward, what steps are we going to take? And if the gentleman could fill us in a little bit on what's been going on down there, that would be very helpful to, I think, this board. Back several months ago, I thought that it might be a good idea for us to sit down and kind of develop parameters for the council appointees that we put on these boards and commissions. And the reason I thought that is because when situations like this arise, then at least we'd have some information beforehand, afterhand, and a real good understanding of what's going on in the process. So with that, Mr. President, through you, I ask the question as to if the gentleman could provide us with any information as to what's going on at the Mecklenburg estate land trust, what's going on at the Sheppard brook manor in terms of future plans, now that the carriage house proposal has been brought before the council, the carriage house proposal failed. We had an emergency request for appropriation up there, I think of about $275,000 over in the winter, Mr. President, to address some emergency issues that are up there. I think it might be nice for us to get a full picture of what's going on. I certainly support the endeavor and the underlying piece of potential litigation that we're going to be faced with or the potential cost of deletting. So I'm definitely going to support the paper this evening. And it might not be a conversation for right now, Mr. President. It might be a conversation for later on, where we really get to roll up our sleeves and dig into it. So I'd ask, actually, Mr. President, maybe that we use this as a B paper. We put it back on the agenda for a later date, and we give the gentleman some time to prepare something for us. He can come back and he can fill us in a little bit about what's going on there. Because I think that in terms of the matter that's before this council right now, it's too address the immediate issue that's at hand, which is, you know, the family that's living there and the birth of their child, and whether or not this $24,000 will resolve the issues that we're faced. I think it's a good measure. I think that, you know, the support of this appropriation will solve a lot of problems and will cost us less in the long run. So, as part of the B paper, Mr. President, I'd also like the gentleman to give us a brief synopsis as to what's going on. Mr. President. The President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Very good. So, we're asking as part of the B paper, the main part of the B paper, was to have a meeting with the board of directors of M-Belt. The councilor is a representative to the M-Belt. If the councilor doesn't feel prepared to address any of these issues tonight.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. President, it wasn't my intention to spring something on him like that at this point in time. Not at all. We're talking about a multimillion dollar project over there. I don't expect him to just pull it off the cuff and throw it out here at the council meeting. We all recognize that.
[Fred Dello Russo]: And so if the councillor cares not to address the matter, the question was asked with that understanding, so there'd be no prejudice there. So if the councillor feels that he's not ready to discuss any of the particulars tonight, he may choose not to do so. Point of information, Councilor Marx.
[Michael Marks]: I mean, NBELT is a board. It consists of a number of members of the board. So, I personally would like to hear from the board itself. You know, if Councilor Penta would like to speak on it, that's up to him. But I'd rather hear from the board.
[Fred Dello Russo]: I think that was the request that we all will come to an agreement on. Right. And sit down with the board in discussion. Point of further clarification, Madam Vice President.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, President Dello Russo. I think we did hear from the board through Karen Rose, and that is what really concerns me because There's mold. There's lead. That is going to cost $350,000 to repair or remediate. Yet somebody from the board is now currently asking if they can put somebody in there to live. That's what concerns me, that we don't have control of the situation. That's why we need to bring them up. That's why, yeah. I think the board needs to, if they know of these issues and they still want to put somebody there to sleep there at night, there is a serious problem and we need to make sure we get a grip on this.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Perfect. And so, uh, we are made the two points of clarification. Councilor Knight, are you, uh, motion for approval by Councilor Knight?
[Richard Caraviello]: Uh, council Caraviello president, um, all of our, all of my fellow Councilors have brought up a valid points, um, at the meeting. I like to have that meeting, um, sooner rather than later with the board, and I would ask that Karen rose also be present at that meeting when we have it along with Mr. Rumley. My only question is, you know, when the board comes, I would like to see them bring forward all the issues that need attention right now, rather than waiting, you know, all the issues, especially these ones about the health and And safety will be brought forth. Now, Ian, if there are any finances for M-Belts, who is now responsible for these bills, the electric, the heat?
[Mark Rumley]: Does the city take responsibility for that now? Well, I can tell you right now that in the interim, when we have no one there to pay whatever the agreed rent was under the old agreement, that would be borne essentially by the city. Well, it's our, it's our building.
[Richard Caraviello]: Does the Brooks have funds to pay these in the intro or the city?
[Mark Rumley]: I couldn't answer that.
[Richard Caraviello]: When they come to that meeting, if they can bring some type of financial report. So we know if there is any funding.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Yeah, I agree with that. As an amendment to the, as an amendment to the beep paper, we're going to ask that Karen Rose be a present for the meeting and that M belt be able to provide to the Medford city council an update on the finances, both what they have as far as operational budget and what they have as part of also their endowment.
[Richard Caraviello]: And my last question was was Mr. Grebe or Mr. Appel issued a 1099?
[Mark Rumley]: That would be answered by Ian Baker. They certainly don't come out of my office.
[Richard Caraviello]: Should they have been issued a 1099 in lieu of, right in lieu of pay?
[Mark Rumley]: for the value of what they received. Offset by the value of what they paid. I suppose that there may be something there, but I'll leave that to the financial people. Because there's a balance.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Very good. All set, Councilor? Thank you, Councilor Caviallo. Chair recognizes Councilor Penta.
[Robert Penta]: How long have the tenants been sitting there as a tenant at will?
[Mark Rumley]: Well, the agreement, the old agreement calls itself a tenant at will agreement, so that would be since 2007. And from 2007. Actually, no, September 14th, 2007.
[Robert Penta]: And what are the options on there for the tenancy to end? Requirements by the tenant as compared to the city. What are the requirements for this tenancy at will to not become operative any further?
[Mark Rumley]: To not what?
[Robert Penta]: Not become operative any further.
[Mark Rumley]: Oh, well, the settlement agreement voids this contract.
[Robert Penta]: If the tenant wanted to leave, what did they have to do, being a tenant?
[Mark Rumley]: Well, I suppose they'd have to give appropriate notice under the agreement and leave.
[Robert Penta]: And what about the city?
[Mark Rumley]: The city would have to ask them to leave if they were in default of the agreement. I was told by a member, I'll say it directly, I was told by Mr. Lincoln that they're not in default of any term. Actually, that they are the best caretakers they've ever had.
[Robert Penta]: On September 1st of 2011, each councilor received a huge packet of a master plan for the Brooks Estate, which was a compilation of not only the outside, the inside, the area going up to it, and some of these issues that are being discussed here tonight are addressed in here. I don't remember any actual vote taken by this council not to approve it. I just think it, I don't think it's come up for a final vote one way or the other.
[Mark Rumley]: The agreement you mean?
[Robert Penta]: Right. No, to approve the three and a half million dollars for the Brooks estates.
[Mark Rumley]: Oh, for a capital improvement plan.
[Robert Penta]: I don't remember any final vote by this council taking place. Okay. But putting that aside, uh, my only other question would be, um, as it relates to, you know, each and every year for many, many years, the city of Medford entertained community block grant funds to give to the Brooks Estates. And inclusive of those compensations, which a lot of the money has gone for rehabilitation, restoration of that, there were considerations as it related to some of the things that the councilors were talking here tonight. So to some degree, I think the council management administratively is aware of some of these concerns. Have they been addressed? It's obvious that they're not. So, um, I think it would be a wise move to meet with the board, especially and maybe have the council just refresh themselves and go through this book. I know it's a lot of reading, but it does break down the entire reconstruction or new construction or the future, uh, uh, growth of, of the Brooks estates. Um, it's just a shame that we have to get to this particular point. And, um, I don't know if you want to call it the lesser of two evils, but this is what, if this is what it has to do to resolve it. But I agree with councilor Longo, something has to be done before you move forward as it relates to the maintenance of the property and how it's going to be cared for because it is a city owned piece of property.
[Mark Rumley]: Right. I agree with you in your colloquialism that it is the lesser of two evils. And I also agree with you that the watchword on this instance or this matter is to go forward. It's not overly productive to stay in the past. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Thank you. Councilor. So on the motion for approval by council and night, second advice, vice president Longo current ma'am. Welcome. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Jeanne Martin]: Thank you. Gene Martin, 10 coming street. And my blood pressure goes up when we talk about this, uh, this house. Sorry. My blood pressure goes through no offense to all those volunteers and all that wonderful stuff. They need to take that energy and put it in the library and the Chevalier and some other place because this house, is the least essential building in the city. It has the least amount of good for the bang for the buck. It is going to be the money pit. No offense to any of the volunteers. I thank God for them. That's all well and good, but it's not good enough. We have a police station that's totally, the city hall out here, the cracks in the cement, right up here, the library, $15,000 they can't come up with for a bathroom fix. Okay, I just, no offense, but this is a luxury this city cannot afford. And it just blows my mind that we keep on giving false hope false hope to these people that this thing is going to come to fruition. Under what administration? Not the next one. Not the next one, because I'm going to be up here talking about the police station, the city hall, the library, the Chevalier, the schools that need a 5% budgeting line item for maintenance. So when you add all of that up, there is no money for this $3.5 million for this luxury house over there. There just is none. So, you know, it's giving them false hope, or you're giving the police department false hope, or you're giving the city hall workers false hope, that you're going to fix this and you're going to fix this. You're giving somebody false hope. I don't know who it is. Whatever you decide. We need a priority list of what we're going to do with our money, and we need it now. Because the money is not going to come from the feds. The money is going to barely come from the state. And so if you could get that money from some benevolent cause, more power to you. But that's not happening. And now we have people living in a house that is unviable. It is not a viable occupational spot. And we're going to be putting $350,000 just in lead base, lead paint. And then we're going to be doing this and that and the other. And it's going to be the money pit. It's going to be a little bit here and a little bit there. Doesn't that sound familiar? Isn't that the mayor's old way of working? Isn't that the old way of working for the mayor? Just, you know, patch it here. The boiler's in the high school now. Not a capital improvement plan. Okay, my blood pressure's coming down. Thank you. I don't mean this in a bad way. I'd rather see it spent on education. And I want to see the police station before I see any school funding anymore. But let me tell you, I'd rather have the $3.5 million, because right now it's only $350,000. But after that, the plan is $3.5 million. But that's without cost overruns. So now you're going to talk about $8 million by the time you get done with this project. And it has the least amount of bang for its buck for the whole community. Down in Method Square, we need to rebuild Method Square. And that's why I like the library idea. That's why I like Chevalier. Put up that little sign up in the front of Chevalier, the marquee. That's worth $50,000 to me. Because it's going to bring in business. And it's going to build on itself. It's seed money. That thing down there is just a luxury that a very small portion of Medford even knows exists. Not to mention access, and not to mention we'll rent our space. And it's not that big of a space to have a mass event in anyway, except for the outdoors. But that's only three, four months a year outdoors. Because we have snow, we live in Massachusetts. All right, again, thank you to the volunteers. I want you to take that energy that you've given to the Brooks and give it to the library, give it to the Chevalier, give it to the arts, give it to the new TV3, okay? Give it to the new community access station. There is a place for those people that can volunteer and express themselves through the arts and through the building. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you very much, Jean.
[Jeanne Martin]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: migraines from your life, but I'll take it off. You just want to see my bald spot, that's all. Let me say, I support the 24,000. Yep, I do. I'm one of the most outspoken persons, as Mr. Penta, Councilor Penta, through the chair, knows. But I do support the 24,000. I don't support extortion. And that's what you've been talking about. Look it up. I also say I don't support a board in private industry that does similar things. I don't support that either. But in the city of Medford, we support a board that Charlie Morelli, who was the chairman of the cemetery, a great friend, argued that this was what was going to happen. They promised to raise money. Never happened. $100,000, which the mayor helped get for them, is not raising money. They promised that nothing would go wrong up there. Well, I have been researching the idea that there was a leak in the oil tank. I've been told it's been corrected. Thank you. I appreciate that. Now my property, which I'm about to leave, won't be affected by oil. But they haven't done a darn thing about the sewer. Where did those children go to the bathroom, that child? Where did those adults go to the bathroom? How did they live in a house without a sewer? I have asked Ms. Rose this. She's told me that that's not connected. So Michael, they might not need to spend money on a sewer system, meaning a bill for a sewer if they didn't have one. I'm saying to you that this has been a disastrous plan. But let's look at this from a Mayor McGlynn point of view. He gave Dugcar, the city gave Dugcar free building architectural drawing board. A man who sits on the board. The city has given Mr. Lincoln stretched it out over periods of time. He doesn't have to write up as president the reports to the city. Oh, by the way, one of your city councilors now has 10 years worth of faults on the Brooks Estate. Because I'm leaving, I felt that the city council should have a historian that does look at what the thing's about. I can't blame Councilor Penta for anything, because I doubt if they'd tell him. Because I happen to believe he'd be here screaming, excuse me, discussing it much more in a light of what it has. Maybe you have discussed it in private or in your private meetings or your group meetings, but we the public have been discussing it for 10 years. And we the public have said, you are doing it wrong. We the public who have been business people have been saying, that's not the way it works, guys. Doing extortion all the time doesn't do a good job. I do agree that this time you need to give them the $24,000 because it will cost the taxpayers. And maybe I'd become a fiscal conservative. I doubt it. I believe in Keynesian. I don't disagree with Keynesian's theory of borrowing money and doing it. But I do disagree when you borrow money and give it to people who throw $100,000 away and didn't fix the sewer system. Billy Cummings gave him that money, and he'll give it over a few years. They could do a little bit more every year. I do agree that a group who wants to raise money doesn't, well, I disagree, I'm sorry. I strike that. I disagree with a group who doesn't send out to the community for money from their community, asking them. I get a letter every once in a while from some Medford group asking me, if you'd like to give. Usually I do. So I do agree that somebody doesn't know how to raise money on that board. I do agree they don't put in yearly things and yearly reports unless somebody asks for them. So I ask for them. Every once in a while, I get three years worth of reports that are made up in 20 minutes by somebody at Brooks Estate. Don't know who. They're not signed. So I think mismanagement is a better word to say than any other word for the Brooks Estate board. By the way, it wasn't the Brooks Estate who made this a city plan. You're standing here looking at the gentleman who brought the federal government in here and said, this is a city property, and the city needs to take control. Why did I do that? Because I didn't want to have to call my senators all the time to get the Brooks Estates board to do what it was supposed to do. Now, to my understanding, it's almost 10 years that we've been fighting this thing. I haven't seen another president change. I haven't seen them invite me in those 10 years to be a member of their board or even a member of their organization. Of course, if I wanted to look for an obscure email list or an obscure Facebook list, I might find it. I'm not on Facebook. I don't usually email all that much. So you really have a real problem on your hands. And it's not easy to solve. But you have the authority, according to the management agreement, to dissolve this board. And I suggest you consider that and get back on the right track of negotiating. If they give you any problems, I'd use other words if I was someplace else, I would state, we're going to dissolve your board. And we're going to investigate why the city gave people certain rights while they didn't give others the same rights. And you play hardball for a change. Negotiations should come down. And by the way, I'm one of the best negotiators you've ever heard of. I've negotiated some beauts. And I do it in my own business when I was in business for myself. And I can do it in the city. The negotiation should end up with a win-win situation. This $24,000 is a win-win situation. It's appropriate. It's for the right of the people to not have to spend $350,000 in one whack, bring back the same group of people. Excuse me, I own real estate property. A tenant at will can leave at any time. And I can go to court and take them out. I can't see why you can't let the city, even though there's a child involved, The court would take the $24,000 as a reasonable amount of money to get that person to leave. You might have to throw in a couple months rent. Big deal. Over $350,000, and that's only the beginning. You're then going to have to put a sewer system in, because then they're going to come back and extort you for a sewer system. Now, Charlie Morelli did it nicely. I want to thank the two people here. They were extremely nice about what these people did to you people. If they were in business and I was their board or their leader, I'd fire every one of them right now. I wouldn't have done it five years ago, because I had no proof. Now you have the proof. You have the proof of what we've been saying about mismanagement for the last 10 years. And you can't blame Bob Penter for it. You can't blame anyone in this board for it, because they never came here and told you the problem either. All they did was come in and ask for money after they couldn't raise it. So don't blame any one of you or the council. What you need to do is be hardball in negotiations. And I want to thank you, but I want to say one more word. This is probably my last meeting. I'm going to Florida. It's not my problem anymore. It's the person I gave the Brooks Estate 10 years worth of work, done by Mr. Morelli, myself, and my wife, Carolyn Rosen. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Doctor. Good evening. Please state your name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_15]: Carolyn Rosen, 25 Bustle Road. I've been up here, actually, I have to correct my husband. He was born more than 10 years, because this started back in the early 90s, if I remember. And I can't tell you how many reports we've written on the problems that we've seen. It's ironic that we're up here talking about a historic project that nobody wants to look back on historically in terms of the problems and the train wreck that was going to happen. White people don't want to listen. We'd rather deal with the political process. We'd rather propagandize what we're small groups are doing in the city, instead of looking at the reality of what actually is happening. I'm here tonight, not just to represent myself as an abutter to the Brooks Estate, who's written numerous reports to you, but to represent my late friend, Charlie Morelli, one of my best friends in the city of Medford when I came here. And I met him through the Brooks Estate argument, back when they were called BIPA. And he predicted to you the problems and the intransigence of the board that was going to take place in running this property, that they would not listen to other people. They would not take feedback. They were not transparent. They would not involve the community in the process. I'm here to say tonight, you have no choice but to vote for this $24,000. And I thank Mark for getting you out of this. But it was a train wreck about to happen. And now we learned that there was no sewer system, and I live as an abutter in that area. So much for the environmentalism and the conservation and the preservation issue. The hypocrisy stinks. But the issue is that the city administration, outside of Mark and Karen Rose, would not hold this group accountable. I can't tell you how many times I ran around and got pushed around and the buck passed from here to here. The budget director, the city clerk, so forth. No one had reports to present that should be transparent to the public in terms of the amount of money they were raising. So you could know whether there was money to cover the $24,000. Is there director and officers insurance for errors and omissions that would reimburse the city? I doubt that, but I've asked the question many times. The management agreement requires a $1 million liability policy to cover the city. I've asked how many times over the last 20 years? Where is the certificate of insurance that shows that the city is covered for these liability issues? That did not happen. And you know why it doesn't happen? Because nobody in this country, nobody in this state, nobody on the local level likes to hear criticism. Nobody likes to hear skepticism. We all want to pretend that everything's nice and positive and rosy. But we sit in a nation of income inequality. We sit in a local city where we have special interest groups that have a little playground that they can play in to create their little political groups to say what wonderful things they're doing in the city and now you're sitting here with a $350,000 disclosed problem and paying $24,000 as extortion to get out of that problem. When are you going to ask the hard questions? You have the right under the management agreement, as I have pointed out to you over the years, to call a public hearing to ask for the dismantling of this group. You may be able to actually create a project that would be wonderful for the city if you could get out of a transient group, intransigent group. The last report I wrote to this city was to say, when you keep a board of directors, the same people for the same number of years, they get entrenched. They can't see beyond their own personal agenda of what they're trying to accomplish versus what the community tries to get accomplished. And so you need to bring in fresh faces. We cannot talk about the mayor retiring and all the wonderful change that can happen in Medford if we do not look at the grassroots issues where change needs to happen. And change needs to happen in the management of the Brooks estate. I spent numerous times analyzing what bare financial information I could find. I analyzed the capital project that was put forward that a budget director did not tell you had a cash flow problem of a half a million dollars for this city to up front a business that they were trying to sell to the city for a 3.5 million dollar bond. Now you voted it down and rightfully so. But there was no homework done on this. I did the homework. I took my financial background of 37 years of being a CFO who troubleshoots problem companies and I came in here to the board and I told you, you got a false business plan in front of you. It's a deep hole. So if we wanna see change in Medford, then we need to see change at the grassroots level. There's too much of a pattern here around not-for-profit boards, whether it's TV3 or whether it's MBELT. You get entrenched groups who are here for 20 years and who cannot open their minds to broader community constructive action or community participation. So let's not talk about that hopey-changey thing, because we have to define what hopey-changey is. And it's often not sitting in this room, it's sitting at the grassroots, where people are making politics out of government spending. And at the higher level of the federal government, or even internationally, it's called socialism for the rich. which means you're ripping off the common average citizen for special interest who gets special favors. That's where the change comes and where the change needs to be looked at. And when you find a candidate who will do that, then you certainly will have change in this city. But I've sat here for 20 years talking to you about it, and I'm tired of it. It's boring. because nobody listens. They're too afraid to look at constructive criticism, too afraid to look at skepticism. It's not just the green line in this state that's a train wreck. You gotta look at the local level, how we're spending our government money and not on the priorities and the infrastructure we need to spend it on. And you need to change that board, and you have the ability to do it. And I guarantee you, you won't talk about it again until after the election. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Chair recognizes Councilor Penta.
[Robert Penta]: Ms. Miller, can I ask you a question, please? and all this conversation that we had tonight, something very important was pointed out, and it's the ceiling over there. And we were told months ago that that was going to be fixed, and it's still being covered up. So this is a municipal public building where somebody almost got killed when it fell down. When is that ceiling going to be fixed?
[X_nYXZZ4ChY_SPEAKER_04]: We hired an architect over the summer. The architect just finished their report, which includes The ceiling in this room as well as the parapet and the roof and other issues. The report was just finished this week. I received it two days ago, and it includes proposals and a budget for the repair work.
[Robert Penta]: And how much will the cost be?
[X_nYXZZ4ChY_SPEAKER_04]: Yes, it includes a budget for the repair work.
[Robert Penta]: How much is it?
[X_nYXZZ4ChY_SPEAKER_04]: I actually honestly don't remember in the book specifically for this. I just remember the total amount for all of City Hall.
[Robert Penta]: Yes, it was. It was mentioned earlier. And because it was mentioned earlier about things that need to be corrected in this community, the city is gonna budget for this, I'm assuming. Where is that money gonna come from? That's the last question.
[X_nYXZZ4ChY_SPEAKER_04]: I do not know.
[Robert Penta]: Okay.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion for approval by Councilor Knight, seconded by Councilor Lungo-Koehn. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Clerk]: Councilor Camuso? Councilor Caraviello? Yes. Councilor Knight? Yes. vice president occur. Council marks. Yes. Council Penta prison. Tell her Rousseau.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Yes. With a vote of six and the affirmative one absent, the motion passes. Oh, uh, and the B paper.
[Clerk]: Can we have a roll on that? It's up to you. Meeting, future, financial plan, meters.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Meeting, the financial reports, meeting with the Board of Health Director, and... The meters and billing.
[Michael Marks]: Options.
[Fred Dello Russo]: So motioned on. The B paper, all those in favor? All calls have been requested, Mr. Clerk. Please call the roll.
[Clerk]: Councilor Camuso? Councilor Caraviello?
[Richard Caraviello]: Yes.
[Clerk]: Councilor Knight? Yes. Vice President Lungo-Koehn? Yes. Councilor Marks?
[Richard Caraviello]: Yes.
[Clerk]: Councilor Penta?
[Fred Dello Russo]: Yes.
[Clerk]: President De La Ruza?
[Fred Dello Russo]: Yes. With a vote of six in the affirmative, one absent, the beat paper passes. I'll ask Councilor Knight to take two more papers out of order. All those in favor? All those opposed? 16-693. The Honorable President and members of the Medford City Council, from Mayor Michael J. McGlynn, dear Mr. President and councilors, I respectfully request and recommend that your honorable body- Mr. President, I move to waive the reading, get a brief synopsis from the personnel director. If we could ask Ms. Louise Miller, Director of Personnel, Budget, Finance, and Procurement, et cetera, to give us a synopsis of the matter before us.
[Robert Penta]: Point of information, Councilor Penta. When did this vote take place? When did these folks vote on this?
[X_nYXZZ4ChY_SPEAKER_04]: They are going to be voting on it this Friday.
[Robert Penta]: So we're voting, we're taking a vote on a money matter that hasn't even been voted and accepted. Correct?
[X_nYXZZ4ChY_SPEAKER_04]: They were going to vote last Friday. That is correct. They were going to vote last Friday and there was a scheduling reason for which they're voting this Friday.
[Robert Penta]: So for the purposes, for the purposes of protocol, this has not been voted upon yet.
[X_nYXZZ4ChY_SPEAKER_04]: It has not been voted by the DPW Union. It is a ratification. It has been signed, however, by the Teamster Local Union Number 25, Sean O'Brien, President and Principal Officer, and Stephen South, Business Agent, so that the memorandum of agreement is binding.
[Robert Penta]: It might be binding, but the members themselves have not voted on this.
[X_nYXZZ4ChY_SPEAKER_04]: That's correct.
[Robert Penta]: Correct. So I think, in all fairness, I think this should just lay on the table until they take their vote, and we can just vote on it next week to keep the protocol in order.
[Fred Dello Russo]: You were in a point of information council, Penter. Is that a motion? Point of information council, Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Having some experience in this field, Mr. President, having done this type of work and actually having represented the Medford DPW at the negotiating table in the past, it's interesting the way that this works. But the bargaining team comes to an agreement with the Mays bargaining team. The Mays bargaining team comes to us to fund the contract. The union's bargaining team goes back to the union to ask to ratify it. The members of the bargaining team who sat down and negotiated the contract, negotiated the contract in good faith, Mr. President, they are bound to support it because they agreed at the table. So I don't anticipate any problems with the passage of this. I've talked to some of the members of the DPW personally about it. I've gotten calls to support this measure. holding it up or voting on it tonight, it's not going to have any difference on the end game. And I'm not too sure about what protocols and controls that counsel is referring to. So maybe if you could clarify, I'd appreciate it.
[Robert Penta]: I'll be making, make it perfectly clear. Um, number one, if we're asked to being voted upon something for which I'm assuming the folks that work down there, local 25, the union membership, and they haven't yet voted on it, it's just the management or, or, uh, It's just a preliminary. I don't know. I mean, if everything goes all right, great. But I mean, why would you vote on something before the membership even had an opportunity to vote it up or down? I mean, so if you're going to do it, why wouldn't you just do it right? That's what protocol does.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's the process. I guess we can make the argument conversely. Why would they vote on it until we agree that we're going to fund it?
[Robert Penta]: No, it wouldn't be because every single union contract that's signed here in the city has always been signed after the membership has taken a vote to accept it. Tonight, we're voting on something where they haven't even voted to accept it, but it's just in the works and they probably will. Well, probably will is not the same as having it in proper form.
[Adam Knight]: But there's no protocol, is what I'm saying. There's no protocol. It might be the past practice. That might be what's happened in the past, but there's no protocol, rule, regulation, law, or otherwise that would require someone to do that.
[Fred Dello Russo]: The council has a paper before it. Point of information, Councilor Camuso.
[Paul Camuso]: If the vote's going to take place this Friday, why don't we table it for one week and take it up next week?
[Fred Dello Russo]: Is that a motion? Motion. On the motion to table by Councilor Camuso, which is undebatable, all those in favor? Roll call. Roll call has been requested.
[Clerk]: Councilor Camuso? Yes. Councilor Caraviello? Yes. Councilor Nance? No. Vice President Malauulu-Kern? Yes. Councilor Marx? No. Councilor Penta?
[Robert Penta]: Yes.
[Clerk]: President Dello Russo? No.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Motion to table fails.
[Robert Penta]: No, it didn't. It passed 4-3. It passed 4-3. 4-3. 4-3. 4-3. 4-3. 4-3. 4-3. 4-3. 4-3. 4-3. I apologize.
[Fred Dello Russo]: 694 is to the Honorable President and members of the Medford City Council. Dear Mr. President and Councilors, in regards to the paper before you this evening regarding proposed increase in public works personnel and building services personnel, an amendment to Chapter 66 entitled Article 2, Section 66.34, please transfer 16,182 from water retained earnings, 11,503 from sewer retained earnings and 43,441 from negotiated salary account 9-102-5199 to the following. Is that pertinent to the matter that was tabled previously?
[X_nYXZZ4ChY_SPEAKER_04]: Yes, it is.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Motion to table for one week. Motion to table for one week. Roll call. Roll call has been requested on that motion.
[Clerk]: Councilor Camuso? Yes. Councilor Caraviello? Yes. Councilor Nancy? No. Vice President Lowenkern?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Clerk]: Councilor Markswell? No. Councilor Penta? Yes. President Dello Russo? No. Vote 4-3.
[Fred Dello Russo]: While we're under suspension. Thank you, Mr. Miller. 15-692, offered by President De La Russa. Be it resolved that Roberta Cameron update the council on the Community Preservation Act ballot initiative. Welcome, Ms. Cameron.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you very much. Thank you to all of you for inviting me to come and provide an update. As you know, over the summer, a collection of signatures was taken up to put on the ballot for this November the Community Preservation Act for the city to adopt the Community Preservation Act. This is a state program that enables cities and towns to collect revenue, especially for open space, recreation facilities, historic preservation, and affordable housing. And these funds are going to be collected through a very small surcharge on local property taxes. which I will explain further and will be partially matched with state funding that right now we are paying into the state's Community Preservation Act Trust Fund, but we're not receiving any funds from that. So this question on the ballot is intended to give MEDD for the opportunity to take part in this program. So the surcharge on the local property tax amounts to 1.5% of the property tax bills for all residential and commercial properties after exempting the first $100,000 value in properties. We estimate that for the average residential property in the city that's valued at $400,000, this amounts to $53 a year. in surcharge. And this funding, the $53 a year adds up to approximately $1 million in revenue that the city will generate of local funding that will pay for open space, recreation facilities, historic preservation, and affordable housing. Facilities such as City Hall, the repairs that are needed, the library, Chevalier Theater, our historic fire stations, the Brooks Estate, many of our public buildings that are in need of repairs could qualify to be funded with this funding as well as with the state funds that would come in addition. There are exemptions that are written into the petition that include low and moderate income seniors and low income homeowners could apply for an exemption from the surcharge. Low and moderate income is according to HUD definitions, which right now for a household of two, a low income household earns close to $70,000 a year. I think a significant number of people who would find this surcharge to be a hardship could apply for an exemption from the CPA surcharge. I would just like to let you know that there is further information available about the Community Preservation Act, both from the website that we've set up, which is www.preservemedford.org. And there is also information available. The Community Preservation Coalition maintains technical assistance for communities that are using the Community Preservation Act and communities that are considering it. And they maintain a database of all of the projects that have ever been funded with the Community Preservation Act. So there's a lot of transparency to this program. The funds would be spent each year through the oversight of a committee that would be appointed with representatives from the Housing Commission, the Conservation Commission, the Redevelopment Board, the Parks Commission, and additional members that can be defined by an ordinance of our own so that we can establish our own criteria of what kinds of projects we would consider for funding each year. Further, I want to ensure that voters all have the opportunity to learn about the Community Preservation Act, to learn about question one on the ballot. And I would entertain any suggestions about how we can best reach out to voters in the short time that is available before the election. Any questions?
[Fred Dello Russo]: Chair recognizes Vice President Lugolkart.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, President Dello Russo. I just want to thank Roberta Cameron for being here. You have people in Medford from, you know, people talking about it, because we see you, we saw you everywhere this summer trying to collect signatures, and I, you know, I think that was a great endeavor. And just me as a Councilor kind of stayed out of the pro cons, but I would talk to people about it. And one of the main concerns was whether they were pro or for it, mostly the cons. They didn't have enough information on it, so I think it's good that you brought to light, you know, came in front of the council and discussed it.
[Roberta Cameron]: If I may just point out, the questions that we've received from people who we've talked to about this over time, we research the answers and on our website there's an FAQ page which we update regularly with answers to actually frequently asked questions or questions that we've ever been asked about the Community Preservation Act.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: So if you could just outline each individual way that somebody could learn more. So you have the www.preservemedford.org and then what other types of media outlets have you reached out to or where else can somebody go to get the questions answered if they need them answered?
[Roberta Cameron]: Like I said, the Community Preservation Coalition is our greatest resource for information about the Community Preservation Act. They've been helping communities administer it since it was passed in 2000. about half of the communities in the state up to this time, and that's every kind of community from large cities to very small towns, suburbs, urban, all kinds of communities are participating in this because they find that there are projects that they can only fund through these types of funds. And so Community Preservation Coalition has been providing assistance to help them understand how to apply it properly and legally and keep track of what communities are doing to give other communities ideas of what are fundable projects and how to use it.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And then with regards to the flyer, I think you gave us this flyer when you met with us in the Committee of the Whole meeting a few months ago. And this was a great tool for me to really, I mean, it's what you just spoke about and then some. So, I mean, if somebody wanted to get a flyer, are you handing them out anywhere?
[Roberta Cameron]: We're trying to hand them out in every place that we can get to. There are also flyers available at the library. At the library.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Yes. And the chair wishes to point out that this is an informational moment to explain that this ballot initiative is on the ballot, but we always want to be conscious of this, uh, opportunity that we not make it into one that one could feel that electioneering is going on.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And I have no questions. I think a lot of the questions I had were answered in the committee, the whole meeting. Um, but I just want to make sure the public has enough information out there that they can read about it, understand what's, what's going to happen, whether or not it passes. And, um, if it does pass, that's the questions I've been hearing from people. So it's good that you're here and it's great that you have, we have some avenues to, get the information out. Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you.
[Adam Knight]: Chair recognizes Councilor Knight. Mr. President, thank you very much. And Roberta, thank you for being here this evening. I'd like to thank you for taking the time to come up here and help educate the electorate about this question that's going to be on the ballot, because there have been a number of questions and concerns about it. It's a rather lengthy question. It sometimes can be interpreted as confusing. So thank you very much for coming out here this evening. I just wanted to echo your sentiments, Councilor Caraviello, You know, this is a presentation that's informative in nature to educate the electorate of what the question will be on the ballot and not really to debate the merits of the question and have a vote on it here this evening. That's going to be left for November 3rd. So with that being said, I just really want to thank you for your work. I want to congratulate you and your team for their efforts on being able to acquire the number of signatures to get the question on the ballot, because that was a heavy lift. That was really quite an endeavor, and you guys pulled it off. So congratulations, and I wish you guys the best of luck on November 3rd.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Mr. President.
[Richard Caraviello]: I want to commend you on your monumental task of getting all those signatures. One of the questions I'm being asked by people is, what happens if the state funding starts to dry up for this? What is our obligation?
[Roberta Cameron]: There are two answers to that question. First of all, if we, after the initial passing of the Community Preservation Act by a community, the community does not make any further changes, cannot make any further changes for five years. After five years, they can change the amount of the surcharge, change other details, the exemptions and other details about their CPA law, and secondly, or they could vote to eliminate CPA if they were unhappy with it. So far, communities have not been- Would that take another ballot question? It would require another vote in the general election to make any changes. So we cannot raise or lower the percentage of the tax bill without going to the voters, and we can't eliminate it without going to the voters. and any changes would have to take place after five years. But to answer the other point of your question about what if there is no state funding, so far the state funding has been continued and there is not any sign that they're going to discontinue the current sources of funding. There's some question as to whether they are going to add additional funding.
[Richard Caraviello]: The reason I ask that is I was at a breakfast with Lieutenant Governor Polito last week and that question was asked. She didn't say that the governor was not going to fund it, but as more and more communities join in on it, the pool is going to start drying up.
[Roberta Cameron]: In recent years, it has ranged from 30 to 50 percent, typically, of state funding to local funding. We estimate that the city of Medford, at the level that is on the ballot, could generate $1 million a year in local revenues, and if that's matched, $300,000 a year in state revenue, that's wonderful. If that isn't matched, $300,000 a year in state revenue, we still have gained a million dollars a year in local revenue raised through the city of Medford that will benefit our historic public buildings, our parks, and our recreation facilities.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Caraviello. The Chair recognizes Councilor Camuso.
[Paul Camuso]: Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you for your monumental efforts to get this on the ballot, because definitely there is pros and cons of this as we speak to different people throughout the community. So there's no better way than to get an actual gauge than to have people actually participate and take that vote. Coincidentally, Governor Baker this morning was in the Great Hall up at the Statehouse, and he was having a little gathering to celebrate the 15th year anniversary of the signing of the original bill. I believe it was on the Governor Salucci back in 02? Swift. All right, Governor Swift. That's correct. Yeah, 2001. Governor Swift. So that took place earlier today up at the Statehouse. But with that being said, I actually look forward to the results of this portion of the ballot question that's going to take place in November, because it's certainly going to tell the elected officials moving forward, where the interests are, I think, throughout the community as a whole, if people are behind the Brooks Estate, say, that we just discussed, or behind other areas like the Royal House that would be eligible for funding. So it may give a better picture moving forward on moving certain projects forward and maybe not so much as well. So I think that the The results will be indicative on where people want this community to go. So I'm looking forward to that as a bigger piece of the whole picture. But like I said, I just want to thank you for your commitment to get the signatures. I know often over the last 16 years as an elected official here in our community, we often heard people say, we're going to get the signatures and we're going to put this on the ballot and this and this and that. And it really never comes to fruition. But you and other members of the public out here.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. I'd like to acknowledge that it's a lot of teamwork. Absolutely.
[Paul Camuso]: I must have seen Mimi more over the past two months than I've seen her in a few years. I think since Tom Birmingham's election, way back when, when she was a big shot at the SEIU. But with that being said, I just want to thank you all for your effort. And I look forward to working with you, whatever way this goes, at least for a month or so, because I'll be retiring at the end of December. So thank you. Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you.
[Robert Penta]: Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilor Penta. I think what's interesting about this when it first came up in 2001, I was the only council that supported not only support it, but support putting it on the ballot. Unfortunately, the council at that time voted six to one not to do that. But here we are to new day. It's a new day. Done. I think the part that's been most concerning by people who have a question is, once this is voted upon, how is the committee formed? Who makes up the committee and who makes the determination of what and how the percentage is going to be? Because that's the big cloud in the sky.
[Roberta Cameron]: That's a great question. The state statute establishes that there would be five members that they assign from existing boards around the city that include the Housing Commission, the Conservation Commission, the Community Development Board, the parks board and the historical commission. And up to four additional members could be appointed and it would be up to the city of Medford through an ordinance that would be drafted by the city council, perhaps with the input of members of the public and other city officials to determine who those other four people could be. They could be at large members, they could be appointees from other boards and et cetera. And that, that committee, could have the potential to undertake a yearly planning process to set out what are the community priorities for funding that year so that they get input from all of the various interests throughout the city to establish what weight is given to either of those program areas or within those program areas, what are the most important types of projects that we are looking at in a given year. And then projects would be selected from proposals that are received each year from the city departments, from community partners that have responsibility for our assets.
[Robert Penta]: Okay, this was the question that came off of that. Is it the mayor of the community who sets up the appointments and makes these appointments? Because it doesn't say.
[Roberta Cameron]: It doesn't say. It doesn't say who the appoint. The city council is going to write an ordinance that establishes what that process will be for Medford. So the state has not prescribed how it works. The city will have the opportunity to decide how we want it to work.
[Robert Penta]: So if you say that, and let's just say the community votes to accept the community preservation act.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes.
[Robert Penta]: Are you saying from your understanding, it would be up to the city council to make this determination on who gets appointed?
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes.
[Robert Penta]: So it'd be up to the city council to write the ordinance.
[Roberta Cameron]: The city council would write the ordinance hopefully with the input of
[Robert Penta]: public and what's the time sequence after let's just say it's on the ballot this November 3rd and it gets approved what's the time sequence that this has to take place I would have to go to our technical assistance and I think you know if you could come back and give us that answer because that's a question that's out there number one and number two If somebody is going to vote for the Community Preservation Act, and I believe it's touting around 1.5%, is that the one? Okay. But they don't know where it's going, and they're not going to know until after they vote for it. How is the community getting the input of saying, this is where, that's why I'm voting for this on November 3rd, because this is where the money's going. It's almost like, show me first, and then give me the money, and then I'll show you first after the fact. And that's the two questions that I can't answer, so maybe you can answer it.
[Roberta Cameron]: There will be an open public process that will determine what our community preservation plan would be. The community preservation plan is that guide for what our priorities are for funding in a given year. And there's numerous wish lists out there. We have our open space and recreation plan that establishes an already very widely available wish list. And the historical commission can tell us what some of their top priority concerns are. Your municipal buildings obviously have numerous needs. I'm not sure that you have a capital improvement plan that tells you what those needs are now. But those are examples of where the what types of projects might be included in the plan for community preservation funding.
[Robert Penta]: Now, this is over a five year period of time because you own it for five years, the first five years, correct?
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes.
[Robert Penta]: Now, can you change each and every year, change a different subject to have that money go to? Let's just say you want to do the library. Are you stuck with the library for five consecutive years?
[Roberta Cameron]: A community preservation plan, I think, is something that we could undertake annually. It's not a specific five-year period that we plan ahead for what our priorities are. I think that the city will have the ability to decide, perhaps in an ordinance established by the city council, the city will have the opportunity to decide what is our process for evaluating our priorities.
[Robert Penta]: So on an annual basis, you can change the money during the course of that five years.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes. So we collect a certain amount of money. That's what the voters have on the ballot this year is the amount of money that that can be collected. But how the money is allocated between our local priorities, that is something that's to be determined by the committee that will be appointed afterward.
[Robert Penta]: And the last question, Mr. President, is if I understand reading the synopsis of it. If a board or a commission doesn't exist, you can create a new board or commission to put this money. And secondly, it uses the term housing authority. And since this council has no authority over the Medford Housing Authority, that was a question that's been presented. So where do we go with that one?
[Roberta Cameron]: We request that a member of the housing authority or somebody who is appointed by the housing authority sit on the commission that will oversee this funding. To date, I asked the Community Preservation Coalition whether they've had issues with the decision of the committee not being respected after they determine funding allocations. They have not seen that occur in other cities and towns. Because of the open public process, there's a strong preference for the funding to be allocated in the way that's recommended through the public process and through the vetting process of what are legally allowable expenditures of the funds. And there haven't, to their knowledge, been difficulties with the committees, including the representation that's specified by the state law.
[Robert Penta]: And if, in fact, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts cannot meet its obligation financially, and I think as we had this discussion before, I think what's been appropriated so far for this year is an 18% money back to the cities and towns. If the city of Medford for the next five years, let's just say, once the committee's all formed and you set up some parameters and some programs, can one year, let's just say, be for the library? Can one year could be for maintenance for the schools? For the next five years while we own this CPA, can each and every year have a different designation for those monies to go to?
[Roberta Cameron]: The statute requires that 10% of funds each year be set aside for each of three program areas, that is affordable housing, historic preservation, and open space and recreation combined. And so beyond that 10%, 70% is at our discretion. So we can put up to 80% in any one of those program areas each year.
[Robert Penta]: Thank you.
[Michael Marks]: Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Roberta, for appearing tonight and explaining this. I'm not sure if you can answer it or not, but in any fiscal year, does the money, the revenue have to be expended in that fiscal year or could it be carried over?
[Roberta Cameron]: It can be carried over. Some communities choose to carry it over because they don't have an eligible project that year in that program area. or because they are saving up for a bigger project than what one year's worth of revenue will cover.
[Michael Marks]: OK. And you also mentioned about exemptions. And the million dollar estimate that you gave at the beginning, based on the average household income and so forth, Is that taking into consideration the exemptions that are out there, or is this million dollars over and above?
[Roberta Cameron]: I don't have any way of estimating the number of people who will apply to take an exemption from the Community Preservation Act surcharge. However, based on the total number of properties in the city, And the total valuation, taking $100,000 out for each number of parcels that receive a tax bill, we came to $1.1 million. And so rounding down to $1 million, there's a margin of error, but that seems to be a reasonable number to land on.
[Michael Marks]: And just my last question is, you explained the process of getting approval for the different projects. Ultimately, it comes for a final vote before the council. Is that how it works?
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes.
[Michael Marks]: And do you know if it requires a two-thirds vote or majority?
[Roberta Cameron]: That's beyond my level of expertise. I'd have to consult with the Community Preservation Coalition.
[Adam Knight]: Thank you very much.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Ask a question or two.
[Adam Knight]: Again, we remind you that, uh, uh, Councilor Knight, um, Roberta, could you tell us, What a yes vote means and what a no vote means on the question, sometimes these ballot questions are worded in a way where a no vote means yes and a yes vote means no. So would a vote on question one mean a vote to adopt the Community Preservation Act and a no vote would mean to not adopt the Community Preservation Act?
[Roberta Cameron]: That's correct.
[Adam Knight]: OK. Thank you very much.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you, Councilman. Good evening. Please state your name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_15]: Carolyn Rosen, 25 Bustle Road. As I spoke about earlier, this is where criticism and skepticism comes into play. I'm going to give Mr. Lepore a report called the Massachusetts Community Preservation Act, Who Benefits, Who Pays. As a person who's very strongly into affordable housing, I thought this might be a nice way to get affordable housing in the city. to stabilize some of the rising prices that we're seeing. But in doing a lot of research on this many years ago, as well as most recently, I don't think it's as transparent as public or socially equitable as presented by the proponents. You need to understand as a public, you're paying a tax on a tax. So basically you paid registry of deed fees, now you're paying a surcharge to access registry of deed fees that you paid to put on your property tax. And even though they talk about it as you pay about $40 or $50 a year on your property tax at 1.5%, your property tax raises every year. usually you know that in December, so that $50 fee can raise up. And for some people, that could be deciding whether you wanna pay your increase, 21% increase of projecting in your electric bill versus having to pay a surcharge on your property tax. But what the Rappaport report talks about is a lack of transparency and a lack of equity in how the CPA is actually handled. And what they mean is, and I think Councilor Penta hit the issue correctly, is the devil's in the details. So you won't know if you vote for it what the ordinance is gonna require. And when they say 10% will go to affordable housing, 10% to open space, 10% to historical preservation, well there's that big 70% gap of discretionary spending that a small group of people are gonna decide what projects get done in the city, and you'll be trapped in that for the next five years if you vote for it. What the Rappaport has found, and Tufts in a subsequent report to this has also found, very little affordable housing comes out of this act. And when the proponent was talking about the Community Preservation Act, you'll notice in her wording she was talking about open space and preservation. Very little was said about affordable housing. So what happens is you won't know whether you're gonna have a full support appointed board which becomes more of a political process than if it just becomes more of a full process that comes to the city through the current process of a more democratic open process. Now, you're talking to this group about how do they educate the public about the CPA and better ways to do that, to educate people. Well, imagine you have a nine-person board who's going to decide what projects get done in the city of Medford, and we're already just talking about how you can get broader communication and participation by the city. Imagine what it will be when you have a nine-person board making a decision on what projects get done. And as the Rappaport's saying, 70% of those projects are usually more heavily weighted towards open space, of which Medford is one of the more fortunate communities to have about 28% open space already. And when we talk about historical preservation, do you wanna surcharge on your tax to pay for the Brooks Estate after the discussion we had earlier tonight? So as a housing advocate, who deals with at-risk populations daily, I'm not too sold on the Community Preservation Act. The other thing Rappaport found out is most of the projects that are done under the Community Preservation Act actually end up costing more than if it had gone through a regular budget process at the city level. The other thing you don't know when you read the law is that The city in that ordinance can also decide that 2% of your property tax, not the surcharge, but your property tax can go to matching. So not only will you might get money from the state, because that money's been diminishing, to match what you pay on a surcharge, but the ordinance could also require that 2% of your property tax would go towards these projects in the form of a match, which means that, let's say the city has a million dollars in property tax, 200,000, city could come up with matching funds up to 200,000. And those matching funds have to be private funds, so the law highlights that you could use parking fees, you could use hotel excise taxes, other private funding that the city raises out of state and federal funds to put towards the project that this group decides. Now, I don't think parking fees and linkage fees and hotel access taxes were to be used towards these projects. I think we were trying to use them to cover gaps in our budget around police staffing and fire staffing and filling potholes and so forth. So the issue is it becomes less of a democratic process and more of a controlling process of a commission. And so the transparency level, as much as we say we're gonna have public participation, doesn't always happen in this city. So as a public, you open yourself up to voting for something that you really don't know what it's going to take a form at. And there's been cities like Newton where there's been issues where there's been fight between open space groups and historical preservations groups fighting over the dollars and finding that the roads don't get fixed and other infrastructure problems really don't get fixed. So even though we sell that it might help get a fire station or a police station, that doesn't always happen. becomes more of a political process, again, because you've isolated it down to an appointed commission with maybe some elected members. And who's going to be elected? Not the ordinary person that's over in East Medford, or the low-income person who may want to see something else done, or may want to see more vouchers for their affordable housing. So there's not much transparency on it. it becomes less of what I call a democratic process of where the whole community really is focused on what really needs to get done in this city. So I would caution the public that you need to be aware of the details, the devil's in the details around what that ordinance will be and the political process and the political pressure that will be put on this city council, whoever they may be in the future, to determine what those projects will be as opposed to Joe Schmoe or Jane Schmoe coming up and talking about the police department and what they'd like to see as a priorities and maybe their pothole fills and maybe their water pipes changed and so forth for the pressure. But I'd hate to vote for the CPA and find out that 70% of the surcharge money that gets collected gets put to a Brooks estate where we're sitting here trying to figure out how we pay $24,000 for mismanagement. Thank you.
[Robert Cappucci]: Good evening. Please state your name and address for the record, sir. Thank you, Mr. President. I'm Robert Capucci of 71 Evans Street. Through the chair, I want to thank from the bottom of my heart the last speaker who spoke so eloquently, spot on, and precise. Her information is invaluable. I would just like to remind this body of a presentation I gave you back in November of 2011 on the International Council for Local Environmental Issues. Please check your research avenues. I just looked it up. It's still on the MedFed patch. I passed out a pamphlet To each and every one of you, I hope you've retained them. If not, I have copies at home. Please look that up. I cannot elaborate more on what Carolyn just said here, because it was excellent and spot on. But there are other ways of bringing affordable housing to the residents of Medford and the state, which is through tax incentive. If we bring in more businesses through tax incentive, and we get some of these more than 20 vacant storefronts filled with thriving businesses, and we get people gainfully employed, then they'll be able to afford their own housing. Putting taxes on top of taxes to hope that these monies are used. I mean, I'm reminded of Ronald Reagan's scariest nine words, I'm from the government and I'm here to help. We have been paying taxes in this city, in this state, and in this nation through the nose. And quite frankly, what have we got for it? A police department that's understaffed, a police station that's falling apart. Another guy's going to come up and speak on a house on my street, Evans Street. I welcome you all to drive down Evans Street, right now after this meeting, tomorrow in the daylight. It is a war zone. The street is falling apart. Huge boulders coming up from the gravel and the sediment. That's one street of many streets in this community. And we're supposed to expect now, through this Community Preservation Act, that paying more taxes, throwing more money at the problem is going to somehow be a solution? I urge you, please look up that presentation I gave. Open spaces sounds wonderful. Until you find out that you're restricted to go on there, a citizen who's paying taxes in this community should be able to go on any open space. Please, I urge you, look up that presentation I gave you, and I'm gonna write a nice letter to the editor urging the citizens of Medford to vote this matter down. Thank you.
[Sorrell]: uh, John's Toronto 20 Metcalfe Street, Medford messages. So I understand, Mr. President, uh, this is merely an informational, uh, uh, discussion, uh, concerning this, uh, community preservation act. So I want to proceed on that basis. And I understand that this, uh, act was passed in the year of 2000 and that was 15 years ago. And those 15 years, Not even half of the 351 communities in Massachusetts have adopted it. So that tells you something. Also, it's my understanding that once we adopt it, if we do, it cannot be changed for five years or canceled out. But during that time, actually, it will be increased each year because it's based on a 1.5% surcharge. Actually, this is, as people here have noted repeatedly, this is a new tax. Don't deceive yourself on that. It's a new tax completely. And as a matter of fact, it bypasses Proposition 2.5. We have Proposition 2.5, which says that the tax levy cannot be increased except by an override. So this is not an override, and yet the tax does increase. Now, the 1.5% does not seem like much, but it will be also placed on senior citizens who are living on a fixed income and In many of these cases, these people have only one asset, their houses. So what happens in this case is that they are compelled to pay a higher tax and just don't have the wherewithal. So insofar as the matching funds are concerned, they're not being matched. I understand that in year 2011, The state had paid only 27%. That's not 100%. And in 2014, they paid 31%. So that's my point. This is a tax, and it is a very expensive tax. It somehow bypasses Prop 2.5. I don't know how that was accomplished. Because here you are having a tax on a tax.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm taking my hat off, Freddie, in honor of you. It's an awful interesting. awful interesting, the people I see out here who are with this. Hi, how are you doing? I haven't seen you for ages. I haven't seen him for ages, working on this issue. It's interesting because I don't see anyone I know from the disability community. It's interesting because I don't see anybody as a doctor who's worked with over a thousand different people, sometimes count their whole family. in this area. It's interesting that they didn't bring up any people of disabilities who will be on this board. It's interesting that we talked a little bit earlier about the idea of skepticism and what that represents. It would have been very interesting had they gone out and gone differently about approaching this issue. And the approach on a more democratic fashion would have been to allow the people who disagree with it to stand next to them and tell the people who were signing it why they disagreed with it. That's what you call a debate. There is no debate. There is no talk. But there is, under their own plan, $1 million that they're going to hone in on and be able to tell people, nine people, you're only seven, nine people are going to tell the city, who, what, where, and when. Excuse me, there are 25% of the city that's disabled. I get tired of coming up here and reminding people. We don't get hired. A lot of us are low income. A lot of us probably don't want you to know we want hardships. A lot of us are different. But we're here. The body of politics is supposed to represent the most under-representative groups of people in the country. The idea of both philosophy of religion and philosophy of philosophy is to represent the most indigent, and helpless people to make them equal. The Democratic Party is, though some of you are Republicans, I know, but most of the people behind me, I also work for Birmingham, if you remember correctly. I also talk to people for Mr. Birmingham. It's a shame. Most of these projects that I've read about are boards of people who are developers' dreams. It goes along with new starts, developing beyond what actually needs to be developed and won't let it to be done naturally. It goes beyond all the things that anybody with a reasonable thought, except for the nine or 10 people who may be qualified to be on that board. Already, they never asked me to come to their meetings to talk about it, against it, or for it. The word community, sorry, I'm not part of the community. I wasn't part of the community. I've heard that many times. The bicycle commission, when I applied to do tricycles, same type of people, same people. Didn't want me on it. Michael McGlynn didn't want me on the Disability Commission. When they told you nobody was asking to be on, that man right there asked to be on certain commissions. I've been asked to be on certain commissions.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Can we stay on topic?
[SPEAKER_03]: Pardon me?
[Fred Dello Russo]: Can we stay on topic?
[SPEAKER_03]: If you listen, you'll understand the topic. You're a well-educated man, and you know I'm on topic. I'm talking about the nine people being on that. That's the topic. It's not the commission itself or the presence of the people who will elect or not elect it. It's the position of Brooks' estate type people who failed at everything and are going to use it for political gains. and not for the best interest of the public in this city. I wish they would. I'd be all for them if they would. But by not inviting people to their meetings, by not inviting skeptics or critics to their meetings, they're only giving you one version. One version. This state has to stop doing that. This isn't Dr. Wood saying that. Robert Reich says that. He says it under the concept of what politics is about. Has anybody bothered to read the Boston Globe lately and see what he wrote a couple weeks ago? Well, that's what's happening here. People are getting shut off by politics. They're getting tired of it. And my wife presented, does the grassroots going to get anybody on the board there? I'm not even asking for the grassroots. I'm asking for lower than the grassroots. But I am asking you as a body, and you the public, to think about, do you want your daughter, your son to be in when you get a chance to buy housing? Or do you want it to change the city? It should be changed naturally. Now, I see you stood up. So obviously, you've given up me the boot. Thank you. And I want to say, I don't appreciate it. I've heard people, I sat and timed people out here, son. And your father would be very, very proud. Yes?
[Fred Dello Russo]: We're going to go back to the regular order of business we have Good evening
[uOl8IpBqQPs_SPEAKER_20]: Mr. President. Hi, please state your name and address for the record. Mr. Paone, Winthrop Street, Medford. And this is not going to be a two-minute thing. I have two topics I'd like to discuss. One, first of all, I'm very grateful for the city of Medford for two years ago when you guys asked the mayor to extend the leaf pickup. We lost a month, but we picked up an extra week in December. Now, obviously, as you all know, the foliage has not fallen off the trees. So we're gonna have an issue this year. I don't know about anybody else in the city, but I don't have enough room on my property to store leaves through the wintertime. So I would like to ask for another extension, maybe a couple more weeks in December, maybe into January. I don't know when the leaves are gonna fall, right? Second, if that's not an issue, or if that's not a solution, could we try maybe the city yard to store our leaves once they fall? So that's just a topic just to ask.
[Fred Dello Russo]: I was just, I was having trouble hearing you. So you'd like an extension. No, sometimes cause the mic doesn't point back here. So I can always hear. All right.
[uOl8IpBqQPs_SPEAKER_20]: So a little extension on the leaf pickup, Mr. Clark, if it's possible, if it's possible, because obviously the foliage hasn't fallen off the trees and we're still going to be, we'll only have three more pickups after this week. My second topic I'd like to discuss, and I was observing and listening to all the great conversations about a lot of the money that is being allocated to these certain charitable organizations and stuff like that. But I got to ask this profound question, and sometimes I need to just live by three things. Does it need to be said? Does it need to be said now? And do I need to say it? Well, I think it's about time the city acknowledges the major, major problem. We have a life-threatening problem in this city, and it's drugs and alcohol, and it starts with the fact that we have an unmanned, low police department, not a lot of policemen, and the response time to emergency situations is really bad. I truly believe that the future of Medford is There might not be a city. I've been here five and a half decades. I've lived here four decades, and I've watched how it's gotten worse. We have, and it's just so obvious, and I see it all the time, we have drug dealers, we have all kinds of people that are doing unspeakable things in this city, and I observe it every day. And because we don't have the manpower and the police force to handle the capacity of all the little underlining causes. And the future is the kids. And I truly believe that. I have two adult children. Both of them are successful. But let me tell you something. When I see how bad the drug and alcohol problem in the city is, it's out of control. And I recently had a situation where I had to call the police department to respond to an incident. pertaining to this situation. And by the time they arrived, the people who were causing the situation, the drug dealing, the drug participation, they had already gone. So there wasn't a good response time. And I understand that they're on demand. And they don't have a lot of performance. But I think the priority should be for our kids to have a future here. We've got to start focusing on the underlying causes. This is all a trickle effect. All this great passages of the environment, and let's clean up the Brooks Estates, and all that stuff. There won't be that if we keep allowing the criminal element, I'm going to put it in that category, to enter our city and be allowed to do things. Real brief, I took a license plate off a drug dealer, took his picture, It's Mr. Wood.
[Fred Dello Russo]: And here we go. Messenger's gone out there to examine it.
[uOl8IpBqQPs_SPEAKER_20]: All right, so I'm going to wrap this up real quick, OK? So when I did this, the plate was stolen on the car. It was a $40,000, $50,000 BMW that this drug dealer was driving. And the bottom line is that, like, I apologize for this topic of conversation, but I feel it's important. It is. Because I'm viewing this and I'm seeing this. Very important. And I'm real adamant about it. And like 27 and a half years ago, I was part of the problem of the city. 27 and a half years ago, I stopped becoming the problem of the city and I started becoming the solution. And that's just me personally. But when I see the rampant drug problem, drug trafficking going through the city, It gets me a little upset. And I explain this to the police department many times, and I understand they're on demand, and I have to take that into consideration. But it's like it's getting to the point where it's really getting overwhelming. And when I take license plate numbers down, and I take pictures of the drug dealers who are coming into this city from other cities to deal drugs to some people, and I'm not mentioning any names, And it doesn't get resolved, because either the plates are stolen off of somebody else's car, and they're driving in $40,000 BMW cars. I mean, I'm laughing at myself here. I just don't know who else to turn to. So I come in front of the city council to say, like, maybe, just maybe, maybe somebody can put a message out there. Like, we need more police. and our department to enforce these issues because this is all the underlying causes. The futuristic kids in this city, as far as I'm concerned, they're going to be subject to all this pressure. I know my personal history, I was subject to that pressure when I went in the wrong direction. Today, I'm in a different direction. It took me a long time to get here, but I'm real adamant about this. It's like I'm watching kids die. And I'm seeing them all around, not just Medford, just everywhere. And this is an epidemic that I think is more important than let's not talk about the conservation and all this stuff. That's great. We're trying to make improvements to the city. Great. But if there's no future, with the people coming behind me, like the kids, I don't see how this city is going to expand and get better or whatever. People can't even afford to buy houses in this city. That's how bad it is. And it's got to the point, I'm just a regular normal blue collar worker. I'm not educated, none of that stuff. I got a GED from a place, OK? And all I got to tell you is that this is starting to get overwhelming. It really is. And when I see it blankedly on main streets, and I'm talking about the street I live on, and I see cars parked everywhere, and they're just doing transactions out in the open like it's regular business, you know what I'm saying? And it really starts to take its toll on me. So that's the only thing I wanted to say, and again, thank you, President De La Buceau and the City Council.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. So on the motion of Councilor Lungo-Koehn, that we request that an extension be given on the leaf retrieval and that a more suitable solution be found as far as the disposal. And furthermore, did you want to put into your own words the request regarding substance use?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: No, I agree. If we could extend the leaf pick up we do remember we requested that last time and he may you know the gentleman makes a good point if the leaves don't fall in time and we have no more leaf pickups it's gonna be a mess of a winter so if we could either maybe extend one or two of those dates that would be helpful and the second point is we we did discuss the crime in the Salem Street area last week and we moved that we have a subcommittee meeting with the chief of police to discuss that so maybe we should add have been bringing on maybe a detective or two to meet with us at that subcommittee of the whole and discuss these other issues that, you know, need to be discussed within that meeting. I think that would be helpful.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion of Vice President Lungo-Koehn, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. On the motion of Vice President Lungo-Koehn to return to the regular order of business, all those in favor? All those opposed? grants and locations to the Metro City Clerk's Office. You are hereby notified that an order of the City Council, a public hearing will be given at the Howard F. Alden Memorial Auditorium, 85 George B. Hassett Drive, City Hall, Metro Massachusetts at 7 p.m. Is he here? Tuesday, October 6th, on a petition of National Grid for permission to the locations of mains in hereinafter described for the transmission and distribution of gas in and under the following public streets, lanes, highways, and places of the city of Medford, and of the pipes, valves, governors, manholes, and other structures, fixtures designed or intended to protect or operate said mains, and accomplish the objects of said company, and the digging up and opening of the ground in the places saying extend gas main. 55 feet, serve number 26, Westville Road, Medford. It's an underground located substantially in accordance with the plan filed herewith, marked GP Med 10108111532, dated April 6, 2015, approved by the city engineer, et cetera, Edward P. Finn. Do we have the gentleman from National Grid? Are you in favor of this matter? Anybody from the council have questions on it? No. What's that? Please state your name and address. Stephen Lorenzo, 170 Medford Street, Malden. Stephen Lorenzo, 170 Medford Street, Malden. On the motion, the Councilor Marks for approval. All those in favor? All those opposed? Congratulations. Sorry for the wait. No problem. Thank you. 15-689, offered by Councilor Knight, be it resolved that the building inspector, solicitor, OCD, and council establish a working group for the purpose of drafting an ordinance and establishing regulations to govern condominium conversions. Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. President, thank you very much. I appreciate you entertaining this resolution this evening. I wouldn't say trend in the city of Medford, where multifamily homes are being converted into condominiums. And the actual process thereof is very limited. The homeowner gets some condo docks together, they submit them to City Hall, and then that's pretty much the process. But what's happening is we're seeing a number of our multifamily homes, Mr. President, be converted into condominiums, and as a result, our rental market has become much smaller. So the demand for rental units is sky high. Therefore, the cost of the rental units is sky high. So I think it's in the city's best interest that we take a look at The way that we're doing business in terms of converting condominiums and the way that we govern that process, to be sure that we keep in mind that there is also a dramatic effect that it has on our access to the number of units that we have in our community that are affordable for moderate income households. Mr. President, if we see, you know, every multifamily home on Yale Street get converted into condominiums, then every multifamily home that once had a rental unit in it no longer has a rental unit in there. So we're seeing our actual stock of affordable rental units coming off the market and being replaced with much more expensive condominiums that people in the low to moderate income range can't afford, Mr. President. So I think that it's in our best interest to take a look at this and to come up with an ordinance or rules and regulations that would best fit what works here in Medford and come up with a nice solution for this problem. I think one of the other things that I've always said is that affordable housing is going to be a key to revitalizing our squares so that the people that work in our city have the means and opportunity to live in our city. So they can continue to, you know, contribute their discretionary income into the circular flow of our economy, Mr. President. So I think affordable housing is something that's going to be a very vital component to revitalizing our squares as well. That's why I bring this resolution forward.
[Richard Caraviello]: Precisely. Chair recognizes Councilor Caraviello. Thank you, Mr. President. If the council wouldn't mind, if along with talking with condos, if we could talk about the conversions from twos to threes, threes to fours, and put that in there also. Because that's just as big as a problem.
[Adam Knight]: I mean, I certainly wouldn't have a problem looking at that as a B paper. My concern is that when multi-families are being converted into condominiums, more units are coming off the rental market. I think that the problem that's caused with the conversion of two families into three families or four families is the inverse. More units come on the rental market, but they also bring more cars to a neighborhood. They also bring more problems to a neighborhood, Mr. President. We had to solve problems, so I have no problem with that.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On that motion, sir, you wish to address us, please state your name and address for the record.
[Anthony D'Antonio]: Anthony Antonio, 12 Yale Street. I appreciate that motion, Councilor Knight. Would that also include the absentee landlord situation that we're experiencing in Redford right now? You mentioned Yale Street. We have quite a few absentee landlords on there. They're not condominiumizing the units, but they are being overcrowded. I would imagine there are some, I can't see it, I haven't seen it, but I've seen workmen go into places. I'm sure there are some situations where we have stalls on the floors where people, six, seven, eight, nine unrelated people are in there.
[Adam Knight]: I think that our local ordinance would speak to the difference between a lodging house and a rooming house and what's inappropriate. facility for the rental to individuals that aren't related, and our code enforcement office has been very responsive to the inquiries that I've made, and I'd ask that if you become aware of any of those situations to let me know, and I'll be happy to have him look into it if you've been unsuccessful in that regard. But the purpose of this resolution doesn't speak to that at all, Mr. D'Antonio. I mentioned Yale Street just because when I think of South Medford, I think of you when I think of Yale Street. So that's what made me think of it.
[Anthony D'Antonio]: All right, thank you very much.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion of council on night for approval, if you wish to speak on this matter, hi, please state your name and address for the record.
[Michael Ruggiero]: My name is Michael Ruggiero. I live on 18 Pembroke Street. While we're bringing up the issue of building inspectors, I want to bring up an issue that came to my attention today. While walking on Evans Street, there's a unit now. It's 3638 Evans Street. It is being rehabilitated. I guess there was a fire there. But there are no markings for permits on the space. And a number of neighbors are worried about whether the space is being illegally rehabilitated, or it's not being brought up to code properly, or if just trying to understand the status of the space. So if that could be looked into in addition, I would really appreciate it.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Very good.
[Michael Ruggiero]: Thank you.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Hi, please state your name and address for the record. 3638 Evans Street. Yes, please state your name and address for the record.
[Robert Cappucci]: Thank you, Mr. President. I'm Robert Cappucci of 71 Evans Street. Back to the Honorable Councilor Knight's topic for the condo.
[Unidentified]: The topic that we're on.
[Robert Cappucci]: I would just respectfully request that that you look into it because, I mean, if people are renting in perpetuity without any hope of ownership, and converting these places into condos makes it more feasible or practical, puts them on a road to ownership, that might actually be a benefit for the city. So I would just request that you look into it from all matters the pros. and the cons, thank you. Thank you very much.
[Fred Dello Russo]: So on the main motion of Councilor Knight, all those in favor? Oh, sorry, Councilor Penta, I apologize.
[Robert Penta]: The question I want to ask Councilor Knight is, are you suggesting by doing this, you might want to retire, future? condo conversions, to keep them as residentials?
[Adam Knight]: I don't think that would be the word that I would use. Stop. That's what your card means. I know it means multiple things, I believe. But in looking at the resolution in the language that's on the table, what I said was the purpose of crafting an ordinance and establishing regulations to govern condominium conversions, to govern it. I asked all the stakeholders to be involved, the building inspector, the solicitor, the office of community development, and the council, and there might even be room to bring the housing authority into this. I don't proclaim to have all the answers, Mr. President, but I think that it's an issue that's there that needs to be addressed, that needs to be looked at, and we need to bring the people that are experts in to actually help us out and navigate the course so that we can craft A model that works here for us in Medford.
[Robert Penta]: But what is the question? You have a concern that there are too many conversions taking place?
[Adam Knight]: I have a concern that as more and more conversions take place, the number of rental units are coming off the market. When there are no rental units in the market, the demand is exceeding the supply. So the rental market that's out there right now, there's no more $1,500 two-bedroom units. Now there are $3,000 two-bedroom units. Or, you know, the poor woman that lived on Tyler Rafferty for 25 years, whose landlord sold the house to a developer, came and threw her out, now she's living across the street paying double what she was paying for 25 years living on Tyler Road, in Tyler Ave. You know, that's what I'm trying to stem. There are long-term families, long-term renters in this community that haven't been able to purchase homes, but have really maintained a position here as being a part of our fabric and have really helped make Medford great. And I think that we need to do a better job being sure that they can stay here.
[Robert Penta]: I hear what you're saying as far as that part goes, but I don't read this is what your audience is trying to get to, because I'm getting the opinion here that you'll either want to slow down or stop, and you would be stopping a free enterprise system from doing what it wants. I mean, how can you tell somebody, if you're allowed to have your house converted into condominiums, that you can't? Because if this new ordinance comes into place, because quote, unquote, as you say, you're limiting or you're delimiting the amount of available rental space.
[Adam Knight]: I think it needs to be part of the overall affordable housing conversation that we've heard a lot about this evening. And that's one aspect of it. You know, the rapid conversion of multifamily homes into condominiums with lack of regulation and lack of a governing ordinance is leading us to a position where our rental stock is low.
[Robert Penta]: Well, I think the question I like to put an amendment to the paper, Mr. Clark, that the city, Mr. Clark, Mr. Clark. that the city solicitor report back as to whether the city of Medford can legally, legally enforce, legally enforce reducing the amount of condo conversions. I don't think that that's what this resolution has to do. You just talked about condominium conversions. Read the paper that's in front of you, sir. I am reading it.
[Adam Knight]: Establish a working group for the purpose of crafting an ordinance and establishing regulations to govern condominium conversions.
[Robert Penta]: And I'm asking you, you think there are too many conversions taking place?
[Adam Knight]: No, I'm saying that the rapid expansion of conversions is having a dramatic effect on our affordable housing here in the community. It's taking rental units off the market. I'm not saying that condo conversions are a bad thing because they help our tax base. They help our tax base tremendously. We're having a committee to look at this, and that's all I want to know.
[Robert Penta]: Well, I want a legal question asked in there. Can the city of Medford enact any kind of an ordinance that limits condo conversions? Because that's part of the regulations. Can you limit them or not? Yes or no?
[Adam Knight]: Do we want to limit them? Well, I'm getting the opinion that that's what you want to do. I mean, I guess that's another question.
[Robert Penta]: It's a lot of work to ask. It's part of a city solicitor's request.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Very good. As amended. Anything else? Thank you, Councilor Penta. The Chair recognizes the Vice President, Breanna Lungo-Koehn.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, President Dello Russo. I think I hear what both Councilors are saying. I see Councilor Knight's concern, but I also feel like we'd be sending the question to the this working group without actually saying what we wanted them to look into. Is it to regulate them? Is it to limit them? Or is it not? Maybe the best answer is for us to get together and discuss first what we want this group of people to actually look into and what result we want to come from such a meeting. I feel like we're just kind of leaving this kind of open-ended with regards to what we want them to do. Because I see both points. limit it, can you slow it down? Maybe. Can you regulate it? I don't feel like we're giving a good enough or clear enough picture of what we want the building inspector and solicitor and OCD department to do. So that's just my concern with passing this. I feel like it would be left kind of up in the air of exactly the problems we want solved and how we want to get to that. Because we would be the... Right. I think we need to send it to a subcommittee first and then once we get guidelines or figure out what the actual problems are, then we can say, what can we do?
[Adam Knight]: solve this problem. I mean, I think the problem is that the rental units are coming off the market faster than they're being put back in it. So if we're going to, you know, look at what to do in terms of slowing or speeding up or making it easier or streamlining the permitting process, I mean, there are a number of things that can come up. I guess the question is this, what problems do they see in the building inspector's office? What problems do they see in the solicitor's office? What problems do they see in OCD? You know, we need to bring everybody together, put all our heads together. Like I said, I don't have all the answers, Mr. President, but I know there's a problem out there and it's a big problem. And I know it's a big problem, because I know that the people that I'm friends with can't afford to live in the community anymore. They can't afford to buy, and they can't afford to rent. So they're going west, and they're going north, and they're going south. But they're not staying here. And the money that's in their pocket isn't getting spent in our convenience stores anymore. And the money that's in their pocket isn't getting spent at sales and at Jim's Market. It's not going somewhere else.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I agree with you. So maybe what we need to do is just amend this, take out craft an ordinance, and put in create a guideline of what problems they're seeing. So then we can then craft an ordinance with the city solicitor. We wouldn't want them to craft an ordinance and not really know what the problem, besides these couple that we're mentioning. I think we need to be a lot more clear. I don't want them to draft an ordinance when I'm really not even sure of exactly what we're asking them to do. They come back with an ordinance that says we're not going to allow condo conversions for a year. Well, that's going to make some people who want to create condo conversions a little upset. Let's figure out what the problems are, rather than asking them to actually draft an ordinance. Let's figure out what we want them to put in the ordinance. And that, for us, would come from finding out what the problems are.
[Adam Knight]: That's what the working group is for. Mr. President.
[Robert Penta]: That's all well and good. But before you get to that, the question needs to be answered. Can the city legally regulate multiple family homes to be converted into condos? And if the, I'd like to have that question asked to the city solicitor, please. I think it would make sense because if the answer is no, Yes, it is. Because if the answer is no, where are you going with this? You're going nowhere. Because if the city cannot regulate this legally, then what discussions are you going to have?
[Adam Knight]: I think the city always has the opportunity to regulate any type of permitting issuance that goes on in our community. I mean, we can streamline the permitting process. There are other ways we can make it easier. We can make it harder. You know what I mean? I just want to look at making sure that if, in fact, we're converting condominiums, that we're replacing those rental units with other ones.
[Robert Penta]: And maybe he can say yes and let him explain to us yes, or if he says no, no. I mean, to me, legally, I would like to know where I'm going with this before I spend a tremendous amount of time having all these people come in. Or there may be guidelines to say, if you want to limit it, this is the way you can go legally. We don't know, legally, yes or no. So we can incorporate this as part of this ordinance. I mean, what's the problem?
[Paul Camuso]: Chair recognizes Councilor Camuso. Thank you. I think that this is similar to the question that was before this honorable body several years ago, and it was in-law apartments. And at the time it presented itself, there were residents in the community that wanted to be able to have in-law apartments. There was a lot of pushback from the building department at the time and different boards. I think we have to find a direction where the body wants to go before we do anything. So I would suggest, like Councilor Marks, I think Councilor Knight may have said it, send this to the appropriate subcommittee and hash out, because I'd hate to say any work get done on it if there really isn't some direction as a result of the City Council. And Councilor Knight is looking to start the conversation. I think there's merits both to and for and against on the conversions itself. Currently, right now, I don't know what the restrictions are. I don't know if you have to have separate boilers, separate meters, common areas. These are all good questions. Quite simply, this could be done just through the zoning, some of the zoning issues, I'm sorry, zoning restrictions as well, through the permitting process. So we may not even have to do a total ordinance on it, but we could say, okay, you have to have a separate and distinct boiler. Another restriction is that the Minimum amount of square footage per unit is X. Minimum amount of bedrooms is X. There's a lot of different variables. So I would suggest, like Councilor Markshead and Councilor Knight, I believe, sending this to the housing subcommittee and discuss where at least we want to go. Because quite honestly, I don't know enough about it. I know that there's sometimes parking problems and stuff that may arise. But if you have a two-family house now and you're renting it to a couple with a baby, It's no different than if that couple is paying a mortgage payment each month. for that same unit. They're going to have the same number of vehicles. So I'm looking at this. I really don't see the advantages and the disadvantages. Quite honestly, someone would maybe rather buy it so they can write off their interest on their mortgage payment per month rather than paying rent, which you can't write off. And there's just so many different things. I just think the appropriate place to vet this out and see where we're going is the is the subcommittee. In Councilor Penta's question, that's a valid question. That could be answered that evening. City solicitor might say, as you indicated, no, this can't be done. And then we can look at maybe restrictions, the separate boiler, the this, the that. So I know there is some state laws I'm not 100% sure on, but water meters, I believe you have to have separate electric meter maybe, but I'd be only fooling all of us if I pretended to know what I'm talking about on this particular matter. So I just think we should vet this out at the appropriate subcommittee.
[Adam Knight]: Do we have a motion on the floor? Mr. President, I certainly have no problem with the matter going to the subcommittee, provided the subcommittee meets within the next 14 days. Very good.
[Fred Dello Russo]: So we send it to the motion of council night to be sent to the subcommittee on, well it could be zoning or housing.
[Paul Camuso]: Housing.
[Fred Dello Russo]: on housing and elder affairs, chaired by Councilor Penta. On that motion, all those in favor? All those opposed? Motion carries. Thank you all very much tonight. We now move to petitions, presentations, and similar matters, and we invite Ms. Jean Martin to the podium. to state her name and address for the record.
[Jeanne Martin]: Thank you. Jean Martin, 10 Cumming Street. And because this is a political year and we're so close to the election, I would ask that I make my statement, but nobody comments because it'll give you guys a disadvantage. I mean, the people at home, a disadvantage, all the people that aren't here, a disadvantage that you guys get to comment and and rally with me on a new topic. The new topic is the leadership model for the city. All right. No, no, I don't want you to comment. No, I wouldn't, because you'll have an advantage over somebody who might be at fault.
[Paul Camuso]: Well, point of information, Mr. President. Point of information, Councilor Camuso. With all due respect, if the young lady wants to discuss a topic, and that's her discretion, it's on the agenda. To say that councillors should not discuss the topic that's brought up, I can't support that at all. And this is a city council meeting.
[Jeanne Martin]: It's a city council meeting. Such a request would be under order.
[Paul Camuso]: It's a valid point.
[Jeanne Martin]: That's a fair point. So with that in mind.
[Paul Camuso]: And with all due respect, this is an open meeting. So anyone that wants to run for office can come right through that door, just as you did last election.
[Jeanne Martin]: OK.
[Paul Camuso]: No, you can come down and discuss these issues.
[Jeanne Martin]: OK, oh, yeah, yeah. Well, anyway, with that point, no, no, no, that's a good point. So with that point, I'll have to hold my discussion until next year.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming up. Motion to receive and place on file till next year. Motion of cause of commissure. All those in favor? All those opposed? The motion carries. We're going to go into suspension of the rules now to take papers under suspension and in the adherence of the clerk. Clerk, I think we have all condolences. Be offered by Councilor Knight, be resolved that the Medford City Council congratulate Derek Vasquez and Christine Cullinane on the birth of their son, Jack. Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. President, thank you very much. Derek and Christine, welcome to our baby boy into the world just a couple of days ago. She joins her sister, Elise. They're very happy, very proud. They have two sets of very proud grandparents, one up in the South Medford area in Sylvia Road and the other set up off of Governor's Ave, Mr. President. So I'd like to take a moment to offer them my deepest congratulations and many years of happiness and good health.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Congratulations to Happy Parents on the motion of Councilor Knight for approval. All those in favor? All those opposed? Carries. Mr. President. Councilor Camuso.
[Paul Camuso]: While we're under suspension, if we can just acknowledge that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and many families within our community have dealt with that particular situation, and I think we should acknowledge that as a body.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion of council night that the Medford City Council go on record as support of the month of October as Breast Cancer Month and wish our support and well wishes to those who suffer. On that motion, all those in favor? All those opposed? Motion carries. Flu clinics, dates and times, Wednesday, October 7th, 9 to noon at 121 Riverside Avenue, Wednesday, October 28th, 4 to 7 p.m., Medford City Hall. Please bring your insurance cards with you to the clinic and wear short sleeves. Condolences offered by Councilor Marks and Councilor Caraviello. Be it resolved that the... Yes? Be resolved that the Medford City Council offer condolences to the family of Andrew Dellapelli, who passed away recently. Mr. Dellapelli was a longtime owner of Dellapelli Accounting in Haines Square. Andrew also served our country in World War II in the United States Navy. His presence in our community will be missed. You wish to speak? We'll offer a couple more condolences then. Be resolved. offered by Councilors Knight and Dello Russo, be it resolved that the Manifest City Council extend its deep and sincere condolences to the family of Isaiah I. Polioni on his recent passing. And also finally, offered by the entire City Council, be it resolved that the Manifest City Council extend its deep and sincere condolences to the family of Aldo Scarpelli, father of School Committee member George Scarpelli, who passed away this morning. For all those deceased members of our community, please rise and share in a moment of silence.
[Michael Marks]: Mr. President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Councilor Marks.
[Michael Marks]: Also, Mr. President, as Councilor Camuso just mentioned about October's Breast Cancer Awareness Month, it's also National Disability Employment Month too, Mr. President.
[Fred Dello Russo]: Very good. So that is duly noted. And on the motion of Councilor Marks that the City Council go on record as such supporting. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion carries. The records. Of the September 29th meeting were passed to Councilor Knight. I never thought we'd get here, Councilor.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. President, I actually took an opportunity to review these minutes and I find them in order and move for approval.
[Fred Dello Russo]: On the motion for approval by Councilor Knight of the records. All those in favor? All those opposed? Records are approved. And on the motion of Councilor Marks for adjournment. All those in favor? All those opposed? Meeting adjourned. You sure?
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