[Bears]: Might check one, two, check one, two. Check, check two. Check microphone one, two, microphone one, two, one, two. Medford City Council special meeting April 15 2025 is called order, please call the roll Council Callahan.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Collins. I see her on zoom, I'm going to mark her as present because I see her on zoom. Council Lazzaro. Council lemon. Councilor Scarpelli.
[Bears]: Councilor Tseng, President Bears present seven present and absent, please rise to salute the flag. Communications from the mayor to 4468 submitted by Mayor Brianna lingo current draft city charter as amended by city council on April 8 2025. We have before us tonight, the draft city charter proposal as amended by the council on April 8 2025 and referred to this special meeting as follow the submission of the mayor by the mayor of an amended draft on March 31 2025 that followed the approval by the council on March 11 by a six zero vote, one absent of a draft charter referred from committee of the whole after governance committee review. If approved by the council, this draft charter as amended by the council will be resubmitted to the mayor for consideration for submission to the legislature. Subsequently, if the mayor submits a draft city charter to the legislature and the legislature approved said draft prior to the printing ballots for the November 4th, 2025 municipal election, the voters of the city will approve or deny the draft city charter on the November 4th, 2025 municipal election ballot. Councilor Leming.
[Leming]: Thank you. I do realize that we have a few other things to discuss regarding this but I would like to bring up some very last minute edits that I don't believe were discussed previously to previously in the charter. I would like to make a motion to amend Article 3, Section 3.1 to delete the word consecutive, amend Section 4-1 to add subsection e to say no person shall be elected to the office of school committee member for more than eight terms and to elect section two and then section two dash one to add subsection D to say no person shall be elected the office of city councilor for more than eight terms. It was pointed out to me that the survey that was put out by the charter study committee, which we have discussed a lot here, but that I think they did have a skewed sample, but still a majority of respondents did say that they would like to see term limits for city councilors. We have term limits for the mayor in there, so I would like to motion to add in the eight term limits, so a total of 16. years in order to keep that consistent. And I would also like to delete the word consecutive just because I think that it is the case from, I did a bit of research on this. It is the case that in other municipalities, they do have a ban against multiple consecutive terms, but I, from what I've seen, it's mostly like other municipalities more commonly have 12 year limits on these sorts of positions. So there is, so you can have, serve for 12 years, be forced to take break and then continue serving. But in this case, we'll have 16 year limits. And so I think that I just, I just feel like having that having somebody serve for 16 years, take a break for two or four years and serve another 16. It doesn't really make sense to me. But anyway, that's my motion.
[Bears]: Sorry. It's a motion. The first one was 3-1-C. Yes.
[Leming]: Remove a consecutive from 3-1-C. It was, sorry, it was, I'll check just to make sure that I have my sections right, but it was essentially to, the intent of the motion is to make it so that currently the way it's written is, I believe it says, although I may, I believe I was looking at the latest version, but it says that the mayor can't serve
[Bears]: More than one C reads no person shall be elected to the office of mayor for more than four consecutive terms. Yes, and I wanted to yes and the motion was to remove consecutive from three one C. Yes. Okay.
[Leming]: Which is kind of a different discussion but the, the other part of the motion was essentially to add on term limits for school committee members and okay city councilors so is there a specific so you would amend to one. Yes, so section 2.1 add subsection D to say no person shall be elected to the office of city council for more than eight terms, which a total of 16 years in that case. And section 4.1 to add in subsection E to say no person shall be elected to the office of school committee member for more than eight terms.
[Bears]: Okay. And that's one motion, not three motions.
[Leming]: I can split into separate motions if we want to discuss it.
[Bears]: That's the question I'm asking you. Anyone else can make a motion to sever if they'd like.
[Leming]: Yeah.
[Bears]: One motion then. One motion. Okay. Is there a second? All right. We're going to do all the motions and all the discussion. I'm gonna take the motions in order. Is there anything I have, Councilor Lazzaro?
[Lazzaro]: I'm not sure if this is the moment. I don't have a comment on Councilor Leming's motion. I have a separate motion. Okay. This is about the mayor on the school committee. I have a few things I want to say about that. I very much understand why Vice President Collins suggested that we remove the mayor from the school committee, a plurality of people who responded to the CSC survey suggested that they would prefer the mayor not be on the school committee. It was something like 45% of the people surveyed. It wasn't a scientific survey, but it was something that we were going on. The CSC based a lot of the suggestions that they offered on that survey. And it was a good thing to start on, but they did not use that answer for their recommendation. Sometimes it seemed like things were, And the recommendations were cherry picked based on what was the preference of various members because of their expertise, because of their background, because of reasons complicating why we all choose to believe the things that we believe. Members of our current school committee have expressed to me reasons why they think that the mayor should not be a member of the school committee. And members of our school committee have expressed to me that they would like the school committee to reflect the city council's composition, which have been roundly ignored. A lot of the things that our school committee members have expressed as preferences have been roundly ignored. I find that really frustrating. And I think that our school committee deserves a lot more attention when we are having these conversations. However, we are, unfortunately, reaching a point where we have lost time and we've lost the opportunity to PB, Lisa Smith-Miyazaki, she, her, hers, we make drastic changes to this draft and I think that. Because of the way the timing is working out. I am going to make the motion to put the mayor back on the school committee in this draft that we are offering to the mayor, so that we can offer a draft that she will feel comfortable sending to the legislature. And we can have something that is closer to a document that we feel will move ahead, and then get passed to the voters, and is a compromise, a true compromise document where almost nobody is completely satisfied with it. That's how these things go, oftentimes. And I think that what we are frequently losing sight of is that we have agreed on 95% of what is in this document and that that is a real triumph for all of us. So, when we are down to the last few details. That's when it seems like we're not agreeing but we've actually gotten very very far. This is a really really hefty document. It's taken a really long time to get here. It's 40 pages and it's like it's almost entirely things that we're happy with. So I think on this one detail, it's not a detail. It's a big part of the way the city operates but it's something a lot of us don't agree on. I however think that since we've gotten this far, I would motion to put, to strike the change Vice President Collins made last week to remove the mayor from the school committee. I can't remember the exact line. Can somebody help me with that? So that's my motion.
[Bears]: Great. Um, I just realized, my apologies, that Councilor let me just made a motion to amend he not did not make a motion to approve as amended Is that correct. You just wanted to amend the paper under consideration. Yes. Okay, I shouldn't have had you start talking on your motion. My apologies.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's okay.
[Bears]: What we did last time was someone had moved to amend and approve, and we considered a number of amendments to that motion. And that's why we took them in order. These are separate motions to amend the main paper so we should take them consecutively. So we should talk about going to go back to Councilor Lemings. which has a second from Councilor Callahan to remove consecutive from 3.1c to add more than eight terms under 2.1 and 4.1. So essentially to set eight term limits for the council and the school committee. Is there a discussion on that motion? Councilor Tseng.
[Tseng]: Thank you. Um, I, I think I have comments that kind of break break into two general categories. The first one is about just process, because I think Councilors are spoke a little bit to process and I disagree with her understanding of things. And then the other one is more about the substance, and I'm a bit more. I'm still deciding on that. Oh, is this about. This is about the Leming motion. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.
[Bears]: I completely heard Leming as Lazzaro. Sorry. Okay. Is there a discussion on the Leming motion seconded by Councilor Callahan regarding term limits. Councilor Scarpelli. Nope. Councilor Callahan.
[Callahan]: Just I think I'm really happy that you brought this up, I think term limits for all. Like fairly extended like eight terms that's a lot of time, I feel very comfortable with that. I also think that, you know, nobody should be able to start 32 years with a tiny two year break in the middle. And so I'm, I'm in favor also of taking up the consecutive. Thanks.
[Bears]: Any further discussion on the motion of Councilor let me a second by Councilor Callahan. We do have Vice President Collins as co host. So, she should be able to vote. Seeing that, yep. All right, on the motion of Councilor Leming, seconded by Councilor Callahan, Callahan, Callahan, interesting. Callahan, regarding term limits. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Councilor Callahan. Vice President Collins. Councils are also Leming. Councilor scarpelli.
[Bears]: Councilor Tseng President Bears, no to the affirmative five in the negative the motion fails. All right, Councilor Lazzaro, now is the time. Thank you for making your speech already. You don't have to say it again, but just to reiterate, your motion was to revert to the mayor on the school committee, but not as the chair. All right. Is there a second on that motion? Sure, Councilor Scarpelli.
[Scarpelli]: I would second that. I think that as one member of this council that the only member of this council that served many years on the school committee, I think the focus has to be that this isn't about this mayor. This isn't all about this school committee. This is about what we think are important changes. Now, I felt it was very important that the mayor was the chair. of the school committee and that that person held that seat because it brought that committee a certain amount of knowledge and institutional knowledge that could really support the school department. Now I understand in the negotiations back and forth there was the acceptance of the mayor coming back and saying okay I can step down as the chair but keeping that position on as a school voting school member is vital. And I think that's true. I think that the people that made these decisions that brought it to our attention again, sometimes I think we don't look and give people like Melvin McDonald enough credit because one regret I have was last week. We had all these questions, we have all these problems and issues and we didn't ask Melvin to come up once to give her input because she was the person that shared all those meetings, put everything in place and made sure that every what everybody wanted wasn't exactly what she wanted, but was fair. And that it went to it got us to a point where we can vote together as a council, send this off to the mayor's office where she'll prove and then send this off to the state house. So it was exciting to see that. Now what we hear is the call and center the residents of our community, and I'm sure you've all received emails and phone calls and text messages supporting at least the fact having the mayor at least being voting member of the school committee is a vital piece of this of this charter change in this charter review. And what I'm hearing back from people in the public is the ego sometimes getting in the way and the back and forth that, you know, sometimes elected officials want to make themselves feel stronger or play the gotcha game to beat you. And it's funny as you, as I got sent a lot of information of different Councilors that wrote blogs and wrote disparagingly about people that work so hard for this process. It's disheartening because it's not just about us either. It's about the community and what the community wants. And this has been a challenge. Like I said, I've been against charter review. When I first ran for office, I was supporting it. And then as I leaned away from ward representation, I voted against it. And then I did my due diligence and really did some homework and met with a lot of different communities about ward representation. And we realized that One of the biggest factors we see the issues we have in Medford is the lack of participation by new candidates, people getting involved. And what's happening is you're seeing what we are today. We have, um, candidates that run on a slate and work together to get themselves elected, and it's working. You can't begrudge them. This is the way this is the way you win the seat. They win the seat. But we've also seen how that affects government and how people truly feel. They don't have a voice. And I've been saying this for a long time now. There's a lot of issues that come to this council and we talk about what's best for your voting block. But when we're sworn in in January, we swear that we're representing 60,000 members of this community. And there isn't a document or a scenario more visible and more involved than the charter review process. An independent group of people that were brought in that did their due diligence and had hundreds of meetings, talked to everybody in every corner of this community, then met with the Collins Center that were the ultimate professionals. I believe 80 years of experience between the two people that were working with us. And they came back and gave us a document that really looked really, really good that could work for our community. As government works, we go back and forth and you see tweaks here and there. And to be honest with you, if I was the mayor, I wouldn't give into half of what you're asking for. But she did, and I respect that. The eight and three, it's good to see that we made moves with that. But I agree that this can't move forward without the mayor's process, the mayor's ability staying on the school committee. Not this mayor per se. It could be three mayors from now that we've done this. And it's important that that person is there. So when I hear my colleagues talk about, school committee members talk about A, B and C and how they feel this, how they feel that, it's really not about them. It's about this community. It's about their document. And again, I implore my colleagues, because as we went through last week's meeting, in the 12th hour, we keep hearing it's 6-0 vote, the meeting hours in here. It would have been 6-1, but you're hearing in the 12th hour that now never heard it before, but now we want the mayor off of the school committee completely. We talked about that the process of the charter committee was put together fraudulently, it was wrong. It wasn't thought out. Then it was this process went too fast. What it sounds like to the community, and this is both many different sides of our community where they stand and reached out to me and said, wow, it sounds like I'm taking my ball and going home. And so all I'm asking my colleagues to do is, we might not see eye at eye in many things, but this is something that could really move our community forward, that in a seven nothing vote, we can move this to the mayor's office, we can get this sent off to the state. And it seems like there's really one piece left and that's the mayor staying on the school committee. And being a former member of the school committee, I know how important it was under Mayor McGlynn. Now maybe under the new mayor with the new school committee, you'll see that importance. But don't hold the weight just because this school committee says that they feel a B and C because it's just not about them. So I would second Councilor Lazzaro's motion to leave the mayor in as not the chair, but a voting member. And I would ask this council to move favorably on a seven zero vote to move this to the mayor's office in the state, because I will tell you if this, they're watching and our delegates are watching and they're listening to their residents because their residents are reaching out to the state delegates and We want something that's going to go to the state house and pass. So it's on the, on the ballot. So I appreciate, uh, the efforts from Milva and her team. Um, again, I, I publicly apologize that I've had questions last week. I should have asked you to come up to that podium. One regret. I realized when I went home, um, that some of the questions I did have, I didn't ask the person directly. Um, but, um, Again, thank you, Mr. President, for my winded dialogue.
[Tseng]: Councilor Tseng. Thank you. Going back to what I was saying, again, I want to kind of split my comments into process and substance, because I think I can speak to both. When it comes to process, President Bears and I have been really working closely with the mayor's office for a very, very long time to get this on our agenda. for a very long time. And I know, you know, I've heard residents ask, you know, why is this all happening so last minute? Why do things feel quick at the end? Why are we having so many substantive conversations towards the end? And I really do think a lot of this could have been mitigated had we had the mayor's office helped us, gave us the green light to move on this forward earlier. If you go to our governing agenda, you'll find that us as the city council we place this pretty early on to address in the governance can be early last year, like, March, April, and February. That was the goal, the goal was to start conversation so we wouldn't have to end up in the place where we might have disagreements last minute, where we, you know, didn't have to, you know, have these conversations about balance of power last minute, where we weren't dealing with last minute, small edits that you know actually make a big difference from the mayor's office that get placed on our agenda, where, you know, Councilors feel very pressured to approve something even though we haven't, there were substantive edits that we had didn't have time to scrutinize. I want to also note that, you know, even besides the governing agenda I wrote the mayor on August 8, and I CC president bears I wrote the mayor and the chief of staff, reaching out as the chair of the governance committee set to set up those meetings early on so that we could jump right into things in September. And the mayor asked us to go offline to do a phone call, we called, and, you know, in that phone call she asked us to delay those meetings. And, you know, we talked through it about why we thought we might need more time. We ultimately decided to respect the mayor. and the Charter Review Committee's decision to send us the product later in the calendar. So we did that. We scheduled a meeting then. And at that meeting, we were then asked again to delay by a month or any substantive conversation that we might have because the Charter Review Committee hadn't yet delivered their products to the mayor's office. We respected that. And then once, but at that meeting, you know, we talked about some substantive edits that are substantive proposals from the Charter Review Committee. during their times meeting. And I know, you know, members of the committee have asked, you know, our meetings were public. Why, you know, why didn't you, why, why didn't you just follow then? And we did follow. And I compiled, at the time I compiled a list of the motions the committee had made to give us a sense of what this draft charter would look like. But then, you know, I was asked to not send that list of motions out because, you know, because apparently the motions would make more sense in context of the whole charter, and that it would make sense for us to look at things piece by piece, which is still eventually what we did. But I respected that as the chair of the Governance Committee, respecting the wish of the Charter Review Committee as well. And all of that is to say our timeline got pushed to be crammed towards the very end, And then we were notified late last year that we were expected to push out a product by mid-April. And that's why we find ourselves timeline-wise where we are today. And I also want to note that we made sure to get the draft charter committee out of the governance committee as soon as possible we scheduled a committee of the whole as soon as possible. So we sent this, you know, we got this out of the city council as soon as possible to get to the mayor's office while still trying to do our due diligence. And, you know, we gave the mayor time to and We could have gotten the product back enough back early enough for us to scrutinize the small edits that had been made since the council gave the mayor our version. But then we were given just a little bit less than a week to review that. And I think we were, you know, through press releases, pressured to, you know, rubber stamp what had been sent to us. And, you know, that's my perspective of what's happened from, you know, as the chair of the governance committee. Of course, I can see you know where folks might disagree but those are just based on the emails, based on what's been published, based on the phone calls that have been made, that's the timeline. So the City Council has been trying really hard to make sure that we aren't in a position where we're kind of rushing against the deadline. And I want to note that at that last meeting we could have chosen not to hold special city council meeting today as well, which would have gotten us past the April 15th deadline. And so that's why I disagree with councillors Lazzaro and Scarpelli on their kind of characterization of the timeline. I also believe very strongly that it is our job to scrutinize, to do our due diligence, and that can lead us different places. And You know, I'll put my hands up I did my due diligence I ended up in a different place than what the draft we have in front of us today. And then I compromised and I gave up on big things that I supported. And even honestly even a lot of this in the first place is me deciding not to bring up things that I had concerns with, because I thought they were good enough. I, you know, I think this is all a complicated conversation, which is fair, because the Charter is a foundational document. It's the Constitution for a city, and so going through small edits, going through the details actually does mean a lot. I find it not helpful when when a councillor might suggest that parts of this charter are to take power away from certain groups in the city or to reverse the decision of the electorate at the last two or three elections to get new people onto the council or to get different people onto different bodies. I don't think that's what any of this should be about. I think it's wrong to bring that into this conversation. I think we should just look at the policies as is. You know, we shouldn't suggest that any of these proposals are here to undermine anyone in this room or any voter and their preference in the city. And I think that's what it means to support a charter that represents all 60,000 people of our city. Moving on to the substance of it, I think, and in particular, Councilor Lazzaro's I think the mayor on and off the school committee is a really tough decision. It's one that I've been grappling with a lot. The reason why I voted yes to send it here tonight was because I had gotten a lot of feedback from residents, especially towards the end of our consideration period, that they didn't think that the balance of power shift was enough. And that if we are going to take this, you know, majoritarian stance when it comes to looking at the survey results, we should be consistent in that approach and consistent in, you know, recognizing that most people, or at least the plurality of people, voted to take the mayor off the school committee. I have to be honest, I can see the argument in both ways. I think there's a decent argument that The mayor as the CEO of our city should be obliged to attend all the school committee meetings and have a deeper understanding of what that school committee process is like and what challenges the schools face. I think the mayor has made to me a compelling point that certain really important reforms that we've had as a city like The override vote wouldn't have happened if she weren't on on the school committee and gotten that perspective and that budget seasons might look really different. And that the schools might have been fighting for even more money. Um, I think that's compelling. I think some other parts that I don't find as compelling, and what the mayor has kind of indicated through press releases and to us is, you know, the idea that the mayor plays a really important role in negotiating. As we know, our mayor has to step away from a lot of our negotiating, the school committee's negotiating because of conflict of interest. And I think that's actually a decent argument for taking the mayor off of school committee, because there are so many conflicts of interest. I've been talking, I've been reaching out to members of the school committee and people who have, you know, recently served in the school committee to get their perspective on the issue because I think it's worth having a deeper conversation about this policy wise. I think member Reinfeld said I, she made an interesting point to me which I, which I want to read out because she said I could read out her message. And she said, I was a firm maybe in my interview and also one of the 15.3 not sure respondents in the survey, because I saw both pros and cons. After 15 months in the role I still see arguments on both sides but lean no, no being mayor off of school committee, mostly because of the budget process. I also think it is challenging to have a city executive in a legislative role. The arguments in favor for me are mostly about the two-way flow of information rather than the practice of running slash governing a school district. Ultimately, while I appreciate the perspective that a mayor can bring to the table, I think it makes sense that anyone serving on the school committee be elected for the primary purpose of serving on the school committee. And then she said, I think the mayor's chair is challenging because it takes on a new meeting and takes on a weird power dynamic. Non-chair is also weird because of subcommittees, because that's also extra time commitments, and chosen based on particular school-related expertise, which is not the basis of the mayor's election to office. And I think that's a fair substantive argument against. I think you know what I what I wanted to say right now is that I can see strong arguments for and against. I haven't settled completely on where I fall in that debate. And I wanna hear a lively discussion and I wanna hear viewpoints and make a decision off of that. But I ultimately do wanna see this charter succeed, but also to make sure that we're making or passing a charter that truly does work for all of our residents in the city and to really take on the responsibility of what that means. And I think it's preferable that this makes the fall ballot I think we should also acknowledge that even if this goes on the ballot next year, it would still go into effect at the exact same time. And I think I'll close with the debate that I was having at the last meeting. I think it's important not to let perfect bait be the enemy of good. But I also worry about creating a situation where it's so hard to say yes to better. So essentially a situation where things feel good enough, but they're not actually working optimally. And that there's that kind of like inertia to get to that optimal place. And so I worry also about deferring better for the future. And someone made the point to me in the two emails that I got supporting the mayor on school committee, someone made the point that, you know, we could just, revisit this next time. And I think 10 years sometimes doesn't feel like a long time. But doing the math, if this charter were to go into effect in 2027, 10 years after that would be 2037. And the next time a new charter would take effect would be 2039. And by that time, I plan to have kids in the school system. I hope to own a home here in Medford. That's a wildly different time than now. And so that's also weighing on my mind. But I just wanted to be transparent with the public about where my mind is at right now. Thank you, Councilor Lemme.
[Leming]: Thank you. I'll just briefly state my case about the Mayor on School Committee. I did write a pretty lengthy post to my website about the process of this charter review. I'm not going to summarize the whole thing here. It's nuanced. I've had a lot of thoughts about it that have that have changed over time, particularly since December. If you're interested in reading about that, just mattLeming.com. I don't think anybody's a bad guy here. I respect everybody on the charter study committee. I respect the mayor, school committee, my colleagues, but I did outline some of my issues with that process in that post. Again, not gonna try to summarize all of it right here, but this is just a case where people who want to do what they think is best for the city are disagreeing on what that is and the means of getting there. And I think that's where we're at right now. And that's how I see it. With the mayor and school committee issue, just the reasons I think are one, charter study committees on survey said it was the more popular decision with the respondents to keep the mayor off of school committee, it was pointed out to me that council term limits was also very popular. Just took a vote on that, didn't pass. So I do, but I do, after thinking about that argument, I do agree that we should have term limits. I also recognize that current and former school committee members, including my colleague here, as he's just expressed, do disagree on the mayor being on school committee issue. There are a lot of pros and cons against it. The ones who are against it have expressed to me the argument that Councilor Tseng just expressed in which they say that it can be very, it can lead to a lot of conflicts of interest behind the scenes, particularly in union negotiations. I also do have sympathy for the school committee members that I have spoken with who don't want to publicly or as publicly express their position that the mayor shouldn't be on school committee because I think it's very easy being on school committee to say that you want the mayor to be on school committee because then you are supporting the position of your colleague but saying that you don't want the mayor to be on school committee is a little bit more difficult because that that can end up burning bridges. So I I have taken current and former school committee members' views on this into account. I do think there needs to be a stronger balance between the mayor, the council, and the school committee. Currently, this charter, plan A strong mayor system, I think it does give the mayor a lot far too much power. And this kind of resets the balance there. Besides chairing the school committee, I don't think that the mayor, and this is just hearing from what other members have told me, I don't think the mayor has a whole lot of time to really dedicate to the day-to-day work of running the school system just because of time commitment issues. And so having the mayor off does give one extra person there. The other, and last, I know it's a trend to have the mayor on school committee in Massachusetts. It is the default setup under Massachusetts general law. To have that six school committee member with the mayor's chair setup. That's not the case in other states, and I think if other states have a setup like that, like can survive with different setups and I think, and I think Medford. can as well. Again, it's not it's not like no other state has the mayor on school committees just that this is not a uniform picture and so there are different systems in different localities. That's why I'll be voting to keep the mayor off school committee, and thank you everybody for listening.
[Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Callahan.
[Callahan]: Thank you. I am not happy with how this process has gone for the charter in general. I appreciate Councilor Lazzaro's description of a two compromise where no one is happy with the product. I think that is also accurate. I think that if we do not put the mayor back on the school committee, this charter will not make it to the state. Thank you.
[Bears]: Is there any further discussion by members of the council on Council Lazzaro's motion? Vice President Collins.
[Collins]: Thank you, President Bearson. I apologize to my colleagues for being late to the chambers. I was listening on Zoom while commuting through heavy traffic. Thank you for the discussion so far and I appreciate everybody's patience with giving this process the time that it needs to get to the voting stage. And though we disagree, I appreciate Councilor Lazzaro's thoughtful consideration of my motion in our last meeting and the conversation that's followed. I know we have a couple of ideas being floated in the past half hour or so, and one of the questions is, should we vote to reinstate the mayor on the school committee or not. I said a lot about my reasons for making the motion to remove the mayor from school committee. A week ago and I won't give that same spiel again, because all of my colleagues have heard it already and anybody else who's interested can find it online. So, just to with more brevity, explain my thinking. I think with our review of the city charter, something that has been kind of in the back of my mind as we have considered various possible changes and adjustments that we could make to our current city charter, something that I have been kind of coming back to as we go along is this question of when is it worthwhile to make changes for the sake of change? When is it worthwhile to make progress for the sake of doing things differently? When is it important to hold out for different changes? A reason that I have not been more along throughout this process is that I am wary of Medford, all of us invested in things such as a new charter that will make our community better. I am wary of us spending momentum on changes, on a new charter that I believe that a new charter should meaningfully engage with the question of power and balance because that is a fundamental thing that the city charter decides for the city and then we live with that for a long time. I was wary of the city charter process that allowed us to spend our momentum and our energy for positive progress and change in productive ways but in ways that also deferred progress that I think that we really need to see such as renegotiating that question of power and balance. I'm not saying I'm the only one with the right opinion about this I'm saying that that has been heavy on my mind throughout this process because we deserve a product that is not only good, but great. And as Councilors we sign up to have the conversations and take as long as it takes to try to get to the product that we think best does that. To that end, thinking about what is my role, I want to speak for other Councilors, what is my role as a Councilor in this process? This was not a process that was initiated by the council. This is a process that was initiated by the mayor, and it is our statutory responsibility to review the charter, make amendments, and then approve a version that will then go to the mayor and hopefully the voters. There's one way of looking at my role as a Councilor on this process, saying my role is to look at the draft city charter, make sure there's nothing glaringly problematic, and then vote it out so that the voters can decide either yes, this is worth doing or no, this is not meaningfully better than what we currently have. I think there's another way of characterizing my role as a Councilor in this process, which is to say my role is to insist on an outcome that I think is so good, so meaningful, so important, that I would personally endorse and campaign for the outcome. That is the attitude with which I have been approaching this project. to the inconvenience of many, including myself. I believe that this charter, unless it reimagines the balance of power in regard to the school committee and the city council, in regard to the other branches of government, I'm not saying it's not a good charter unless it does that. I'm saying it does not represent a meaningful change to the level of representation that residents will enjoy. And that's why That's why I made my motion last week, and that's why this has been important to me. Because as we've taken time to assimilate what we've been hearing in our inboxes and on phone calls and from the surveys and with our meetings, that has, at least to me, been what I interpret as the through line of this. People are asking for increased representativeness. We had a lot of fights about what that meant for the city council, and I think those were productive. And as everybody knows, I backed off on 5-4. 8-3, I think, is clearly what most people would like to get the chance to vote on. But what I hear is that people want better representation, full stop, and they don't just mean the city council. And I think that that has to include at least a beginning to ask the question of the balance of power between the mayor and the other two branches of government. And that is why I will not be supporting the motion to put the mayor back on the school committee.
[Bears]: Is there any further discussion by members of the council? Councilor Lazzaro.
[Lazzaro]: Thank you. I really appreciate this conversation. I think it's, I mean, I agree with what everybody has said. So I did just want to say that I also wanted to offer a B paper. I drafted a press release after we take a vote to send out that I emailed to the clerk. if Clerk Hurtubises can send it to councilors, would that be best President Bears to send the draft to councilors to review or should we read it out loud?
[Bears]: We'll do both, but we're gonna do that after we finish this motion to amend for the school committee.
[Lazzaro]: Okay, great. I would motion to, is there a motion to, my motion is already there.
[Bears]: Your motion is a motion to amend the main paper to amend the main paper to restore the merit of the school committee, but not in the role as chair so voting member but not chair that has a second from Councilor Scarpelli. Is there any more discussion on that specific motion? for members of the council and I did see the mayor's hand. And so once we go through members of the council, I will recognize the mayor since she is the presenter of the paper. Mayor, I saw your hand earlier. If you want to re-raise it to speak on specifically this question about restoring the mayor to the school committee. and you should also be able to start video if you want.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I actually ended up lowering my hand when I realized that the votes weren't there. I was gonna try to speak beforehand to encourage the committee to reconsider and support the motion put forward by member Lazzaro. I think it's important to know these negotiations have gone on for a long time. part of, I know Councilor Tseng gave a timeline and part of the reason why I asked for some delay in the council starting to meet on the charter was not for personal reasons, but more for, to allow the study committee to do their due diligence. And they worked extremely, extremely hard on the entire document. And then when it came to me, I did, you know, I took a few weeks of course, and made the amendments that I felt They were, I thought they were minor and most of them were guided by the Collins Center. So, and then I feel like the council did their due diligence, but I'd be remiss to just say that from the Collins Center's review of many, many charters throughout the Commonwealth, The balance of power in Medford is normal for our form of government. And I'm not showing any disrespect, but what we have is 10 members out of 14 that are from one organization. And that's fine. That's what the electorate wants. And you're all great people and hard workers. I would argue that, especially on the school committee, because it's not personal for me, I'd actually rather not be on the school committee. I tend to be viewing this from the future and what should be in the future. And I know that serving on the committee for almost six years has opened my eyes to the needs in the schools. I don't buy the argument of the conflict of interest because I've only had one. That was at the most recent teacher negotiations. member Bramley and I had a conflict. I don't see that I've had any other conflicts. I see that there's a balance of power struggle as is. And at least I'm a voice to say, you know, this is what we do on the city side. This is, I love to, you know, this is how I think what we can afford. I mean, there is, I said it online and I'll say it again, 99% of the time, I'm trying to caution the spending on the school side because there needs to be somebody that has factual information on where we are, not even just come budget time, but knowing like, Hey, we can't go give X, Y, and Z because it's so out of balance with what we're doing on the city side. And it's something we really can't afford. So I feel like having the mayor on is important. believe the mayor should be chair but I wanted to negotiate in good faith and and that's fine if the council doesn't want the mayor's chair moving forward but I think the mayor should be on the school committee and I said it in my press release I'd rather have the night night off to either be with my kids or to work on other city issues because yeah, there is a lot of my plate, but the amount that I've learned, the amount that I've seen get right size and I've helped get right size, the amount of conversation that is brought between, especially the vice chair and I over the years and what we've been able to accomplish, um, the two of us and as a committee of the whole, as a whole, along with our superintendents that would not have all been able to get done. without the mayor on the school committee. So I, this is something that will be reviewed. Like I know it's not two years from now, but it's 10 years. Why don't we change that to five and see how it goes with just the mayor on as a, as a, just about one voting member and not as the chair. Why don't we amend that tonight and compromise even more? Relook at it in five years after this passes. This is our last opportunity to get a charter passed. And believe me, the frustration comes more for the fact that there was a politically diverse committee put together, and nobody can say that I interfered whatsoever. It's quite the opposite. Anthony Andreatola from that committee interviewed me, and I felt his frustration because every question he asked, I believe except one, you know what I said? What do the people want? What does the survey say? What does the call-in center say? What does the charter study committee say? And that's what I moved forward, because it's not about me. I know it's not about the current politicians. It's about what we're going to see for potentially decades. So the compromise, change it to a five year and you wanted a study committee, which I think is normally made up of council and mayor appointments, but you want school committee appointments. Fine. We'll compromise on that too. but let's get something done tonight so we can move this forward for the people. They deserve it. We've been fighting for this for 10 years. The first vote I took, I believe it was in 2000, either 15 or 16, Councilor Marks put it forward. And then as mayor, I put it forward at least two more times, I believe. So three times we got that four, three vote. Our only other option was to put a study committee together, mostly left-leaning people, but it was politically diverse. So to say like, we should have been all left-leaning because 70% of the population population is Democrat. It's just, it's argument. So I would, I would respectfully ask that we take a little bit of time to get this done. We know that we're at the final hour. I mean, it was, it was calling center. We said we should have got this by the end of March, the latest by mid April. Well, here, here we are. We're in the 15th, you know, of April. and center. I know there's some votes that are going to be no, but I just asked you to take a hard look to reconsider. And if we can make further amendments to when we review the charter again, um, that's just something that came to, came to my head. Um, thank you for the time. And I know a couple of the committee members from the study committee want to speak, but I appreciate the time.
[Bears]: Thank you, Mayor. I'm gonna go to Councilor Scarpelli and Councilor Collins in just a second, but, okay, well, then I'll go to Councilor Scarpelli and then Councilor Tseng, but I just wanna note that we did submit a draft March 11th, three weeks before the end of March, six weeks before now. And I also wanna note, I don't think anyone here has said that, has commented once about the political leanings of the members of the Charter Study Committee. And I think there's a difference between quote unquote politically diverse representation decided by a single person making that determination and representativeness on a committee. I think what the council has said and that really I think is troubling to me. You started with saying you didn't think you had the votes. I think you did. And I think I'm the swing vote. I don't think anyone here has said, oh, we wanted, we're mad because of the political opinions of people on the study committee. That is not been said here. I think the question was, what was the council's and school committee's involvements in the creation of the study committee? And does the study committee reflect the representation of the voters of the city? And the answer is the council and the school committee were not involved at all in forming the study committee. And the study committee was appointed by one person who apparently just said that their main consideration was political diversity based on their opinion of political diversity, not the representation of the city. So I'm not gonna comment further than that, but no one here has said, oh, the charter study committee is a problem because of people, the political opinions of the people on it. And I include the person who made a death threat against me. Councilor Scarpelli.
[Scarpelli]: I've been reminded for the council to maybe read some of the blogs from members of this council, because I believe the word right wing was thrown around as part of that committee. So just so you know, just an FYI, just an FYI. But I think that, let's say everything my fellow colleagues are saying, that it wasn't enough time. Let's say that all these issues we had were true. But the document that we've had has gone back and forth to the mayor and we're all very bright, smart, involved Councilors that have made some changes that the mayor has come back and said, fine, make those changes. And we've done that. We've done a lot of movement and we've had things that, to be honest with you, the mayor and I, that's public, I don't see eye to eye with many things the mayor has done. But for this situation, I think she has looked for the greater good, what's right for our community, and what was put forth by the residents of this community. We seem not to be mentioning this. The residents of the community have spoken. And it's a resounding support of this document even before the changes. We've seen some changes. We've seen some movements. We've seen the mayor step away. big piece of the eight and three. I appreciate everybody seeing that and sticking with it. But imagine from what I'm hearing tonight, the piece that's going to hold this up is the process. If the mayor is a voting member of the school committee, imagine that being the only piece that doesn't allow this document through to the state that will give put this on the ballot so our residents can vote on it. It just doesn't look good. It doesn't show you or the community, the average person in this community that wants to know why this isn't happening. It's very simple. It looks like there's alternative reasons behind it. You could say no, but it looks like you're gonna hang your hat on this one issue But it's so minimal and so minuscule to say that the importance of the mayor not being on the council for power. Come on, guys. Listen, I was on the council. I understand when the mayor had total control of that council and that committee. And this school committee is definitely not that anymore. The mayor takes the back seat, and we've seen it. We've seen it good in my eyes, and we've seen it bad in my eyes. But to say that this is the reason why we're not gonna vote for this favorably is a sad description of what this council truly feels about what the residents want, what the residents have been asking for. And it's not me against you. You've been getting emails and phone calls. So have I. I've gotten more than two. And I've got a lot of people that never supported George Scarpelli in the last eight years that are reaching out to me to try to be their voice because they feel they don't have a voice anymore. So I'm actually employed. And again, I believe the Collins Center didn't say that. I believe they said we don't have to wait 10 years. If that's the case, I know this council said the representation of the committee, the charter review committee, switching the power around, right? Giving more, more, put more councils, more school committee members. No one questioned it. They said, okay, that's what you want. Let's do it. So it's, it's put forth. It's in front of you. Everything you're at, we're asking for every change that you've asked for, they've made. But there are two very important pieces, the eight and three, that I believe my fellow councilors, correct me if I'm wrong. Okay, let's do the eight, they've listened, eight and three. So the last piece, the sticking piece, is going to be the mayor on the school committee. And again, it's not this mayor, it's not this school committee alone. It's the mayor and the school committee in two years, in four years, in eight years, in 10 years. So I please, open your minds and please, Let's put this forward. Let's take that off the table. Let's put forth Councilor Lazzaro's motion. Let's send this to the Mayor 7-0. Let's get this to the Statehouse. Let's vote on this in November. Because you know it as well as I do. I agree with the Mayor. if those changes, I feel strongly enough that I wouldn't want her to send this to the state house. If you're taking the mayor out of that, because the truth of the matter is you're drastically changing the power of this, that committee away from the community and to individual people. And that's not right. It's actually, I feel the opposite. So Thank you again, Mr. President, for hearing me out. But I really think that we're at a very vulnerable crossroads, and it's we have an opportunity to do the right thing. I don't think that we're far, far away, and I think it's it's it's time that we maybe put some personal or political beliefs aside and say what's best for this community and listen to our residents. Thank you.
[Bears]: Thank you. Was that a proposal to further amend the motion to move the first charter review to five years instead of 10 years? You mentioned that we could do the first charter review earlier. Right now it listed as 10 years. The mayor suggested doing it in five years. I don't know if it would help. I'm just asking.
[Scarpelli]: I would say let's move that to five years. If that would help this council to say, you know, I think there's been concessions. I would make that motion if that would help.
[Bears]: Great, it doesn't need a second it just needs the main proponent to agree to it. Great. All right, so the motion is now to restore the merit of the school committee but not as the chair and to have the first charter review in five years instead of 10 years.
[Scarpelli]: Thank you.
[Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng.
[Tseng]: Thank you. Um, I just want the public to note that they're kind of their two narratives out there. One is, I think one is more. realistic that everyone wants to do good, we disagree about the details, and that we're having a real deep conversation about how these policies would change our city and how they would apply, right? I think that's the camp I fall in. I just want people to know that There's that more sinister narrative out there about ulterior motives, about political considerations. I just think it's worth noting who's pushing what. And it's worth noting that that's exactly the type of rhetoric at the national scale that's gotten us to political violence, to the governor of Pennsylvania's house being burnt down, to January 6th. to things like that, right? And I just want us to calm everything a little bit. Just let's be able to acknowledge that we can disagree agreeably. And you know, I hear like gasps from the audience and stuff like that, but it's not crazy. We've had, I know one member of this council has had multiple death threats in the last few months. I know that, and from a member of the Charter Study Committee too, And another member of the Charter Study Committee was posting misinformation about what our governance committees were doing, was doing, and the things that we talked about, the procedural things, me supposedly not inviting members of the committee to meetings, which I did, which I have email proof for. And so I think it's really important for us to recognize that we shouldn't fall into the trap that we're seeing all around the country and that we dislike. I think we can all agree, every single one of us in this room, that those things are bad. And we shouldn't encourage that. We shouldn't feed that. And I think we should all work to lower the tenor a little bit. But I do think we need to call it out when it happens. And I think for far too long on the city council, over the last two years, we haven't been doing that. I respectfully disagree that the mayor and school committee or off the school committee is not a small question. I do think it's quite literally the biggest question you could ask for one of our three branches of government here in Medford. Which is why it merits an actual conversation. I know all of us approached it from different degrees from different angles. I, you know, the one of the reasons why I didn't push for this earlier on was because number one I was chairing those meetings I couldn't make motions. At those motions, I tried to present different viewpoints on different issues, make sure that all of that was articulated. And we had comments from the school committee members that did that. But I also didn't bring it up because I thought that we could get a better faith negotiation with the position that the city council took earlier on. And I think maybe I was a little silly to assume that. Maybe it was a little silly to assume that people would be listening, that the people I'd be negotiating with would listen to policy concerns I had about different things, about a whole litany of things. And I didn't completely feel listened to about that. But I think with that being said, I'm still not completely decided on this vote yet either. I recognize the reality on the ground. I recognize the policy principles that cut in both directions. I think the mayor is misunderstanding the points that members of the public, that school committee members, that I brought up with regards to conflict of interest. It's not necessarily purely financial, but I actually think in the mayor's remarks, she brought up the very conflict of interest that is at the core of the mayor being on school committee, which is that the mayor, you know, their job is to make sure that the running of the city, you know, like cities running in a certain way. And the job of the school committee is to advocate for the schools to the best extent that they can. And those two jobs, those two things often do clash. And so asking the school committee to hold back on important recommendations that would help our teachers, that would help our students, that is inherently a conflict of interest, and that goes against what the school committee is for. But, you know, I mean, I'll leave that there. I think that, I still think that there are policy arguments that are caught in favor of having the mayor on the school committee, but I think I wanted to explain that point in more depth. I think, to the point of the representativeness of the Charter Study Committee, I think there are a million ways to go about it, but I don't even think the average conservative in our city would send death threats to members of this body. I don't think the average conservative in this city would be posting targeted misinformation on social media about things that we've been doing. And so I can respect the push for political representativeness. But if that's the metric, we're still failing. I think it's really important. to note that there's been a real lack of BIPOC representation on the Charter Study Committee as well. The Asian community is the biggest minority community in our city, and there weren't any Asian people on the committee. A historically Black community wasn't represented on the committee. And you know what? I think that it's really important for us going forward to make sure that that representation is there. And that's a major qualm I have about the process. I don't know if it's enough to have me you know, vote to kill any effort. That's certainly not my intention. And I actually, that's another thing I want to clear up, is I actually do think, I haven't like asked, but I do actually think, judging from our comments on the floor, every single one of us wants to vote on something tonight. And we all want to vote out a version of the charter tonight. Whether we all vote yes or no is another question, because we might disagree on what's best in that charter, and what the the balance of considerations looks like, but I do think that we all are approaching this with good intent, that we're all trying to create a product that would work for our city. I'll just end with being grateful to Councilor Scarpelli for introducing the five-year review or asking for that amendment. I think that would make a lot of sense here. I think it would alleviate a lot of my worries.
[Bears]: Thank you. And to Councilor Tseng's point, you know, I know a lot of people have been saying, well, what does the council think about this? Because there's been press releases and statements and social media posts really encourage people to watch what is certainly now approaching the 20 hours of public meetings, where I believe everyone, at least when it comes to our comments about what we think about the charter, has said, this is what I think, and I take that in good faith. the comments to the otherwise from anyone saying actually, they're lying, and they're liars, I don't think are really helpful or accurate. Can you had your hand raised. No. All right, I'll go to Councilor Collins and then I did see the mayor, who I will go back to Councilor Collins.
[Collins]: Thank you, President Bears quickly. Um, while I was looking at the amendment proposed by Councilors Scarpelli in section nine for to change the first periodic review of the charter to within five years of the charter's approval I noticed in section nine for subsection I believe a motion was passed one week ago to amend that section so that it would reflect three appointees of the mayor, three appointees of the city council, and three appointees of the school committee, but that is still reflected as four, three, and two. And I believe that motion passed.
[Bears]: So I want to make sure that- Sorry, that may have been a clerical error by me as we have not had assistance on any of this in terms of putting together red line drafts. So yes, that should read three, three, three.
[Collins]: Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to flag that and make sure that it made it into the final version that we take a vote on tonight. I think that there will be things that will have a variety of contentment with the draft that we vote on tonight, but I also want to make sure that our procedure for going forward is at least reflective of the motions that we made. not about emotion, but I just want to state because of a couple of comments from a couple of different people that I've heard in this. Actually, it's a couple of comments that I've heard from elected in the past 15 minutes or so, and something that has characterized this process, not to mention a lot of other discussion topics before this Council this entire term. I think that we do a really good job of talking to each other productively when we share Our feelings and our preferences and our rationales and we make a lot of ground we have a lot of meetings we have a lot of productive conversations. When we engage with a topic and we say why we feel a certain way on that topic. This chart review process in the city council chambers, in particular, has been characterized by. some people choosing not to explain why they feel the way that they do, but rather illustratively ascribing motivations to other people. It is really frustrating that not all electeds can just rest on the laurels of their own opinions and have to time and time again resort to the political manipulation of putting words in people's mouths, speculating about what the public will perceive in other people's actions. I just think it cheapens this process. I wish we could leave it in behind. I hope that can die with this process. It is really tiring. It doesn't make any of us look good. But I hope that all electeds
[Bears]: Thank you. And just an FYI for members of the public. We're going through Council discussion and Council motions on this paper. Once all Councilors have made discussion items or other motions that they want to make on this paper, and it has been amended, then we will open public participation on the paper before a final vote. And it also sounds like a lot of B paper, so we'd be doing that for both of those papers. Is there any further discussion by members of the council or the mayor who is the petitioner who put this before the council on the question, the motion before us, which is to restore the mayor to the school committee, but not as the chair and to further amend that motion to have in section nine for the first charter review in five years. And then every 10 years thereafter, vice president Collins.
[Collins]: I just, I wanted to make a request that we sever the different aspects of that motion. When we take a vote. Okay.
[Bears]: On the motion to sever seconded by Councilor Lazzaro Mr. Clear, all those in favor, actually first time in a little bit we've had everyone. All those in favor, I opposed. All right, we'll vote separately on those two questions. Madam Mayor, feel free if you want to raise your hand, I did see you earlier. If you wanted to say anything more on this since you were the one who submitted this to us. Not seeing the hand will vote. Oh, she just did. All right, we'll go to the mayor. Floor is yours Madam Mayor, I just, I didn't want to.
[Lungo-Koehn]: misspeak, that was never. I didn't mean to upset you either. That wasn't never said on the floor that I'm aware of. It was said to me personally, but I would never vouch who made what argument. And then I just wanted to point out that somebody else has their hand up. I don't know if you're letting the public speak. Thank you.
[Bears]: The public will speak on the papers once we finish council discussion and motions to amend, but we will have public participation once we've gone through all of the council discussions and motions.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Mr. President.
[Bears]: Thank you, Madam Mayor. All right, any further discussion by members of the council on the motion to amend as severed? Seeing none, the first vote would be on the motion to amend for the first charter review in five years and then every 10 years thereafter. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. And I might ask Councilor Collins to do a copy of it before I send this final, final thing back. So I make sure that we captured everything we voted on. That leaves the first half of this motion, which is to restore the mayor to the school committee, but not as chair. Both of these are councilors are seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Scarpelli has requested a roll call vote. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Adam Hurtubise]: roll call vote to on the on the question of putting the mayor on the school committee. Council Callahan. Vice President Collins. Councilor Lazzaro. Councilor Leming. Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Tseng President Bears.
[Bears]: Well, I thought it'd be this way and I was wrong. Yes, five in the affirmative, two in the negative. motion passes. So clearly groupthink and our ulterior motives are absolutely true. All right. Councilor Lazzaro, you had mentioned a B paper.
[Lazzaro]: Thank you. I would like to release a press release we don't often have the opportunity to share with the public a cohesive version of our actions here, short of the monthly newsletter that's released as part of our, there's like four members who are not listening to me. Five members maybe, while I'm talking right now.
[SPEAKER_05]: Sorry to members of the council, if we could. Should I wait? I can wait.
[Bears]: We can wait.
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll wait. We'll wait. Let's wait a second. We'll wait. Okay.
[Bears]: We'll wait for everyone to be paying attention before we keep moving forward.
[SPEAKER_05]: Are we ready? Okay.
[Bears]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's okay. Um, that's okay. No, it was multiple. It's okay. It's not just you guys.
[Bears]: Before I go to, sorry, before I go to the motion to be paper, actually, I do have the mayor.
[Bears]: Sure. Just want to recognize you mayor. I saw your hand up.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I didn't know if it was, Oh, no, I'm so sorry. It must've been left up.
[Bears]: All right. Thank you. Okay, continue Councilors are.
[Lazzaro]: Okay, so we don't often have opportunities to release a cohesive version of events for large votes that we take. So, I would like to offer an opportunity for us to. With the exception of our newsletter that we put out once a month from the Resident Services Committee. So I would like to offer a press release that we can vote on to have the city clerk send electronically and uh i think we should personally if this is a press release yes i think we should ask to be posted the way any other press released via the um communications director the mayor's office would that be possible is that are we do we have access to that well i think we're we're a city body asking for a press release so have it distributed the way they all are um so i emailed it to The clerk, if that is something that we can circulate it to the council, but I can read it out. If that's sure. So it says for immediate release, April 16, 2025, this would be for tomorrow with President Bair's contact, Medford City Council submit second amended charter to mayor for submission to the state legislature. The city council voted if once we were to take the vote, we would adjust this based on how the vote goes to approve the amended charter, which would go before voters in November, 2025, if approved by the mayor and the legislature. PB, Lisa Smith-Miyazaki, she, her, hers. quote, with Tuesday's vote, the Medford City Council has once again fulfilled its role in the charter review process by approving a new city charter for consideration by Medford voters, this vote followed three months of deliberation by the city council on a new version of the city's core governing document. During these meetings Councilors considered the research and evidence presented by each Councilor the final report of the Charter Study Committee, edits made by the mayor in January and April, information and comments made by staff from the Edward J. Collins, Jr. Center for Public Management at UMass Boston, and comments and ideas from Medford residents. This charter review process began in 2022, following an insufficient number of signatures being collected to initiate a home rule charter process and an insufficient 4-3 vote by the Medford City Council to request state legislative approval for an appointed Charter Review Committee. In 2022, the Mayor appointed a Charter Study Committee, CSC, charged with developing a draft charter for the Mayor to submit to the City Council for consideration. Over the next two years, the CSC collected public feedback and met with the Collins Center, resulting in a final report and a draft charter submitted to the Mayor in December 2024. The city council began considerations, when the mayor submitted her edited version of the CSC draft charter in January 2025 with a short timeline to approve a draft by early April, to ensure it was approved by the legislature in time for the November 2025 election. Council President Bears and Councilor Tseng, chair of the council's governance committee, had requested earlier meetings to begin council consideration of the CSC's proposals, but accepted a request by the mayor's office to wait until the CSC had submitted its final report. Over several meetings, the city council made amendments to the mayor's draft and approved an amended city charter to submit to the mayor on March 11, 2025 by a six to zero vote, one absent. The mayor returned this draft to the council on April 1 2025 with further amendments, which the city council considered on April 8 2025 and discussed further amended and approved imagining again that'll be subject to change at its April 15 2025 special meeting. Per the standard practices of the Medford House of Representatives and Massachusetts Senate, as well as advised from the Collins Center, the legislature is much more likely to approve Home Rule petitions like the Special Act Charter when the local legislative body approves them by a unanimous or near unanimous vote. Both of the council's votes on amended city charter drafts fulfilled this condition, assuming obviously, with a six to zero vote, one absent for the March 11, 2025 version and a X to X vote for the April 15, 2025 version. The council encourages the mayor to submit either approved version for the new city charter to the legislature for its approval. So voters can adopt or reject a new city charter at the ballot box in November 2025. The city council strongly believes that voters will adopt a new charter and that either of the documents the council has submitted to the mayor would serve as a strong governing document for the future of Medford.
[Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Lazzaro. Is there any discussion by members of the council on the B paper proposed by Councilors are seconded by Councilor Callahan to have this press release sent out through the city's press release, posting on the city website and however, any other press releases are sent out. Any discussion on specific language, or, or any other elements of it, Councilor Callahan.
[Callahan]: Are we going to vote on the charter approval before we vote on this one?
[Bears]: No, we'll vote on the B paper first. There are highlighted sections in here. Councilor Lazzaro, it looks like those are the ones that would describe what happens in the vote. Technically, it's an A. We have to vote on the main paper last.
[Lazzaro]: So, there are a number of sections that are highlighted that are subject to change. So the motion would be to approve and the highlighted sections will be changed after the final vote.
[Callahan]: Yeah, there's the one that says both of the- Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that one is a little- I can highlight that one.
[Bears]: If you want to increase that highlight to- I can highlight that one.
[Callahan]: Yeah. Or if you just want to say that- I just don't want to approve this if that language isn't there because we haven't taken it out yet.
[Bears]: Could we put an amendment forward that the clerk and I will adjust any sections that councilors deem necessary to reflect the final decision of the council on the main paper? Is that a fair amendment?
[Lazzaro]: Yes, I'm comfortable with that.
[Bears]: All right, so we'll work on that. Make sure that the final docket reflects what we vote on.
[Tseng]: Councilor Tseng. Thank you, Councilor Lazzaro for putting this together. I think all in all, this looks good. I don't know if it really is representative of our discussions completely as a council. And I think even one sentence in there, even if it's framed in the conciliatory tone, a nice tone, would be helpful to kind of just say like, councillors registered the satisfaction with the process or balance of power issues or something like that. I think that would help me feel like this is a bit more accurate. And then of course, in the same sentence, we can say that we talked through it and got to this place where, you know, and hope, you know, we hope this moves on and we hope this, you know, but I think that would be more realistic about what actually happened. So maybe at the end of the
[Bears]: Paragraph ending over several meetings so the fabric beginning over several meetings some sort of sentence that says, you know, if you want to characterize it or Councilors are if you have a suggestion, whichever one of you wants to make a proposal for a sentence that indicates that the council had significant disagreements about the process and the outcomes.
[Lazzaro]: So my thinking here is that since this is representative of the whole council, I am hesitant to put, I mean, I think that we could put something in that says, in the spirit of compromise, differing opinions, like something that indicates that we, this is why it's hard to, and I've received, as councilors have all mentioned, we've received messages from the public talking about how like, You know, you guys should communicate something to us. Tell us where you're at with the charter. Explain to us why, you know, and we can't, because we're seven individual people. We don't speak with one voice. We can't really, you know, this doesn't have, it doesn't have like a, you know, we all have different thoughts and opinions and feelings. on like so many different things in this charter that I feel like if we are to put out a press release that says anything about an opinion, it's gonna be not really representative of everybody on the council. So that's my hesitation. I think we could say over several meetings, compromises were reached with degrees of You know, I don't know. I think you have to kind of not say that like, you can say that councilors expressed a variety of different opinions, but like, it's kind of, it almost at that point feels unnecessary to me till then. Like, right, cause it's like.
[Tseng]: Mr. President. I'm not saying that we, you know, say as a council that we like disagreed with different things about the thing. I think we just say like, I think we can just say like, a number of city councilors shared opinions about something. I'm drafting something quick right now, and then end on the note of, but reach this version of the draft charter in the spirit of compromise. Yeah. But I do think it'd be worth it to note some of the things that did come up. Even if it's five years on, 10 years on, we're reviewing the charter and we're just reviewing the record to see what issues that come up. But I think there's a way to do it by not saying that the whole committee, the whole council thought that way, or that we disagreed with the final product. I think we still wanna emphasize that if this passes, that it is the product of compromise.
[Bears]: Something like while many Councilors raised serious questions and voice strong opinions about issues of policy and process, and we could get more specific if we wanted to say issues of representation, balance of power and other elements of the other policies and elements of the process in the experience of compromise the council voted to a drop this draft unanimously.
[Tseng]: Yeah, I think that sounds perfect. Okay.
[Bears]: I'll say representation. Balance of power.
[Tseng]: I do want this to be a strong statement. I also think it should reflect the conversations that we actually had. Again, 20 hours if people want to watch and hear what we actually think and not what people say we think.
[Bears]: Issues of representation, balance of power, other policies, and the process. And it's OK. So it reads, while many councilors raise serious questions and voice strong opinions about issues of representation, balance of power, other policies, and the process in the spirit of compromise, the council adopted this draft unanimously. And obviously, that assumes we adopted it unanimously. So if not, I would change that to adopted this draft by a vote of whatever. OK. Any further discussion on this B paper? All right, is there any discussion by members of the public on the B paper? Again, the B paper is the council's press release regarding the vote that we will take on the A paper after we dispose of the B paper. Please come to the podium or raise your hand on Zoom if you have a public comment on the press release draft B paper. I see Pete Morrison on Zoom. name and address for the record, you have three minutes. And this is on the B paper of the council press release.
[Phyllis Morrison]: I have had my hand up for almost an hour. I have no comment on the paper, but I don't want to take my hand on because I have comments to make about several, about a dozen of the points that were brought up in conversations. So I don't have one so much on the release, but I still want to be heard about why I've had my hand up for almost an hour.
[Bears]: Absolutely yes we will.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Thank you. Thank you.
[Bears]: Anyone else who wants to talk about the B paper the press release on the motion of Councilor Lazzaro seconded by Councilor Callahan as amended by Councilor Tseng that we have this press release to be posted on the city website and released through the city's press release outlets. All those in favor? Opposed? The motion passes. All right, we have the A paper, which has one amendment, which is to restore the mayor to the school committee, but not as the chair and to further amend section nine dash four so that the first charter review occurs within five years and every 10 years thereafter. And I can read through the other changes if we want to do that just to make sure. These will be changes from the draft submitted by the mayor so this would include the votes taken on April 8. All right, the first changes in section two dash one see, which just says a word Councilor shall be a voter in the word from which election is sought, removing the words for at least one year prior to the date of inauguration. The second change. is in section to dash nine, where the first sentence reads the mayor shall refer to the city council and simultaneously file with the city clerk, the name of each person the mayor desires to appoint as a city officer department head or member of the multiple member body for whom no other method of appointment or selection is provided by charter or ordinance. Under section three, it reads the same, the mayor shall appoint subject to the review of such appointments by the city council under section two dash nine all city officers and department heads and the members of multiple member bodies for whom no other method of appointment or selection is provided by charter or ordinance words or ordinance or what is added. In section three six be the words and the city website were added after tell me immediately posted on the city bulletin boards. That's for if the mayor calls a special meeting of the council. All right, section 4-1, we would restore the language that says the school committee shall consist of seven members, two members elected at large by the voters of the city and one each elected from the following districts combined of the combined wards within the city, wards one and seven. words two and three words four and five and word six and eight and then it would restore the language the mayor shall serve as the seventh member of the school committee. It's only 40 pages I promise I will flip quickly. There was some language removed because it was redundant. This is in section 8.2 subsection B. that just removed basically there's a sentence that says that the city solicitor shall advise the city council or school committee in writing as to whether the measure as proposed may lawfully be proposed by the initiative process and whether in its present form it may be lawfully adopted by the city council or school committee. This strikes and whether in its present form it may be lawfully adopted by the city council or school committee because that's redundant to the first sentence. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB – Harmon Zuckerman. PB – Harmon Zuckerman. And then in section 9-4, section A, the charter shall be subject to review by a charter review committee as defined below within five years of the charter's approval by the voters and every 10 years thereafter. So that changes it to five within five years instead of within 10 years. And then every 10 years after that. And then B, this review shall be made by a special committee composed of three appointees of the mayor, three appointees of the council and three appointees of the school committee. That reverts to the council's vote from March 11, and reverses the change the mayor made on April 1 which would have had four of the mayor three of the Council to the school committee. And I think that's it. Is there anything that folks think I miss. All right, any discussion by members of the council on the draft as amended? We have a motion. Is there a motion on that draft? We don't have actually a motion yet. There's a motion to approve by Councilor Lazzaro, seconded by Councilor Scarpelli on the draft as amended. All right, seeing no further discussion by members of the council, we'll go to discussion by members of the public. Please approach the podium or raise your hand on Zoom. Actually, sorry, I see the mayor. So we'll go to the mayor and then we will go to public participation. Madam Mayor.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I'm sorry, I had to log off. I was leaving my daughter's lacrosse game, but I, so I missed, I thought you were just talking about the press release. I just missed the discussion on what I emailed today like it was potential on it.
[Bears]: Mayor could you. We didn't hear what you said could you just repeat your comment.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Oh, can you hear me now.
[Bears]: Yes, you were cutting.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay sorry I'm heading home from my daughter's lacrosse game with. She wanted me to be at, while I was listening on the meeting. Um, and I just logged off cause I thought the discussion was over when you were talking about the press release, but it just wanted to check about the email I sent today. It seemed like the red line version for the first time I saw. Um, I don't know if it was just a comment or if you were voting to have, um, appointment power, rejection power of all department heads or the city council was should have appointment and rejection power of all department heads and if that was the case?
[Bears]: We had voted, this was in the March 11th draft, and it was in the vote we took last week that section three, three would read the mayor shall appoint subject to the review of such appointments by the city council under section 2.9, all city officers and department heads and members of multiple member bodies for whom whom no other method of appointment or selection is provided by charter or ordinance. So if at the charter or and we added the words or ordinance so if the charter or a city ordinance provided another method of selection. Then that would be who makes the selection. As I was reviewing, I did see a comment that did not get incorporated from the Collins Center in section 2.9, which was, we recommend replacing this text with the following text. So it would read, the mayor shall refer to the city council and simultaneously file with the city clerk the name of each person the mayor desires to appoint as a city officer, department head, or member of the multiple member body for whom no other method of appointment or selection is provided by the charter. Um, so I had added or ordinance because I felt it aligned with the three, three vote that we had taken to add the words or ordinance. Um, as I read it, at least the change to three, three would say that if an ordinance said that someone else appointed either a city officer department head or member of a multiple member body, then the ordinance would define who appointed them, not the mayor. I don't know if that maybe an error, I shouldn't have changed to nine.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I don't know, Councilor Tseng digestible for me that I just wanted to make sure it wasn't mayors in the future would have to run all department head appointments by the council. So that's why I sent a compromise today, because I just wasn't sure if that it was red lines that way. But I think I understand what you're saying. That's not part of it. But you did add the words or ordinance to both to both sections, which I have seen in the past.
[Bears]: Yes, I mean, I think that the section three three change would say that if an ordinance said that someone else makes that appointment, whether that's the council or that that would be how that would work. But now that I'm reading two nine, I think it makes sense what you're saying that if the, for whom no other method of appointment or selection is provided by a charter or ordinance, the mayor would have to refer to the city council. So that should probably just say by charter in two nine. I thought they were making self-referential references.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I just wanted to be sure, because I don't have an issue with if there's a department head interview that somebody wants to sit in on. I don't, you know, I think the mayor can allow that in the future. I just having every single department head, and because we know what the turnover's like throughout all municipalities, having every single department head come before you and you, the city council having to set up a whole subcommittee to do additional interviews, it could really stall the process. dissuade people from applying to be part of city government. So I just wanted to make sure that was not what I saw in the red line version last night.
[Bears]: Councilor Tseng.
[Tseng]: I think reading it, I think reading it, the text should still stay in, but we can clarify it. Honestly, I think it not having a comma means that it only applies to the member of the multi-member body. That's my reading of it. We can also just cover our bases by passing a motion that we support that reading of it. OK.
[Bears]: Yeah, I was reading it was under 3-3. that it says the mayor shall appoint subject to the review of such appointments by the city council under section two dash nine all city officers and department heads and the members of multiple member bodies for whom no other method of appointment or selection is provided by the charter or ordinance so if the charter or an ordinance were to say who should be appointing a city officer or department head or a multi-member body, then that would be what defines who makes the appointment. But I'm wondering if separately in section 2.9 where it says, the mayor shall refer to the city council and simultaneously file with the clerk the name of each person the mayor desires to appoint as a city officer, department head, or member of a multi-member body for whom no other method of appointment or selection is provided by charter or ordinance would mean if no ordinance existed, she would have to submit it to us. So what we don't want is that if there's nothing in the charter or the ordinance, then it doesn't start automatically everyone, but what we do want is that if it is in the charter ordinance it has to be followed. So I mean leaving or ordinance and three three, removing it from tonight. Is that any.
[Scarpelli]: Okay, move forward with this, we move forward with the vote but this issue was defined with you and the mayor and clarify I don't think it's a big issue I think just, you know, clerical, maybe some punctuation or whatnot could just be handled between you and the mayor.
[Bears]: I just want to confirm my understanding with all of us here. What we're voting on is that if the charter or the ordinance says that there's an appointment, that's what follows. But that if there's nothing in the charter or ordinance, then we do not have to appoint.
[Scarpelli]: I agree. So I think that talking with just to make sure that I don't want to go in that room later and say, oh, that's not what
[Bears]: Okay, so that's what we're. Okay, so that's what we're doing, Councilor.
[Collins]: I just want to check my understanding of what you just paraphrased. If a method for appointing a city officer department head or member of a multi member body. The process for that if it is prescribed in the city charter or an ordinance, we just do that. And if it's not spoken to in the city charter or in any ordinance, then the process described in section two dash nine applies.
[Bears]: Yes.
[Collins]: Okay. That is my understanding.
[Bears]: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. We'll work out this, make sure we get the thing right. I think we actually have exactly what it needs to say right now, but we'll confirm that. So the motion as further amended is that the council leadership will work on, we'll just confirm the language as discussed and the intent, confirm the intent of the council.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And if I just can take one more moment before I hop off, I just want to thank the council. It looks like it's moving in the right direction. And I, I just really appreciate the collaboration. This was probably the toughest thing we've, we've worked on. It took several months and years in the making, and I just think it's monumental and it's going to be just. So thank you very much, everybody, whether we disagreed on many issues or not at all, I, it was, So thank you so much. And thank you to the committee, the study committee and the residents who got involved in the public meetings. This was a team effort.
[Bears]: Thank you. And we will have a press release for you and Steve for tomorrow to go out from us. So look forward to it.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Or you just want that from the council?
[Bears]: We'd like it to go out as a press just to the same places where the last press release about this issue went out, if you don't mind. All right. We have a motion, as amended, just to confirm that in section 29 and 33. And we'll get that to the mayor motion by Councils are seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. Now we'll go to public comment and you can please No, Lazzaro Scarpelli. And so we will go to public comment. If you'd like to comment at the podium, please come to the podium or on Zoom. And Phyllis, you have had your hand raised, so we will go to you first. Name and address for the record, please. And Phyllis, you have the floor.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Hi, my name is Phyllis Morrison. My address is 32 Andrew Street, Medford, Massachusetts. Well, I raised my hand quite a while back. I'm happy to say that a lot of what I might have said has been brought up and to some great extent clarified and we've moved on. I do feel very strongly that I have to make the following comments. One of my first thoughts when the conflict about the struggle between the balance of power and the mayor and this committee, I made myself clear last meeting that I thought the power struggle was getting in the way of actually what was best for the residents of Medford. I'm very happy to have been part of this conversation tonight, although I was mostly listening, which is my role. To see that compromise was made, I disagree that the mayor should not chair the school committee. I'm an educator, and I think that one of our best investments as a city always is our young people. And I think that the mayor should have full knowledge, full participation in that, And as some of the council persons have brought up, she has other things to do, but I think that that role in the school committee is vital. And I'm happy with the compromise that she be a voting member. I do want to address a couple of comments that were brought forth. First of all, to say that this isn't political is really an untrue statement. You're a political body. We could get into the differences of parties in that, but this is a political arena. I want to address specifically the same thing that I addressed at the last meeting. You know, I became a member of the Charter Study because I was concerned about the city of Medford. I've only been a resident here since 1997, but I really am invested in this community. I've never had a child go to school in this community, but I value education. I want the best for our children. I want the best for our city. To hear comments about there was not enough representation on the Charter Study Committee is very upsetting to me. We encourage people to join us. I had to apply to be a member of the Charter Study Committee. This was not a hand-select group. And might I add that we spent hours, and many of the other Charter Study members more than myself, interviewing people, setting up opportunities for people to speak, offering opportunities to have people have input, all around. I can't tell you the work that this committee has done, but people are only going to do what they want. We couldn't beg people to come in to be on the charter study. So the idea that there was some sort of select or select kind of committee that was on this charter study is really a fallacy and the public needs to know that. I think that anyone who had applied to be on this study and that brought a certain anything with them and a great interest and an attitude to invest in this city's growth and greatness, they would have been a welcomed member of that committee. So I just wanna clear the record on that because this is now three meetings in a row that I have heard from several members of the council that they thought there was some kind of selection process there. I don't know any other group who decided to put in hundreds and hundreds of hours on their own time to help bring this charter to the table. So a lot of the other things I wanted to say have been worked through. And I do want to say this. It was my great pleasure to hear the great collaboration and compromise being made. for the good of the city of Medford, for all 60,000 residents. And the one thing I'd like to remind the council is this, whatever happens with this vote this evening, I heard a lot of people say, I, or I heard from people, or I, I this and that, we all have opinions. We all have a different understanding of what's best for. But your job is to vote on this and then let the residents of this city say, yes, we agree with this charter or we don't. We don't rely on two or three people. We don't rely on one group or another group. This is something that has to now, if it's passed, and I am hopeful that it will pass, this goes to our public and they get to decide, is this the best way for our city to move forward by this charter? or if it isn't. I do want to end by saying I have sincere gratitude and thanks for everyone involved in all of this. And I hope for the best for our city. Thank you.
[Bears]: Thank you, Phyllis. And thanks for waiting. And, um, members of the study committee who want to say anything, I just want to say, and I, you know, I appreciate you directing your comments generally to the chair. Um, but I did say some things about, um, about politics and my point being that the mayor tonight said that, and the process for appointing the study committee was that people applied and then the mayor and her office made a decision on who would serve on the committee, that the mayor said that her goal was to have a politically diverse representation. So essentially to appoint people based on their political beliefs. and that the council didn't like the Charter Study Committee because we didn't like the political beliefs of the Charter Study Committee or some of the members. And my point that I was trying to make was that no one on this floor in a public meeting certainly that I ever heard said the Charter Study Committee's members and their politics is why we disagree with the Charter Study Committee. So I appreciate your comment. And I appreciate that, you know, it can be frustrating to hear that. I was frustrated to hear it when the mayor said it. And that's why I said, we, no one here in this forum has said, I don't like the study committee because I don't like the politics of some members of the study committee. Or I don't like the study committee because I don't like this person on the study committee. And I took that even to the point of saying, someone who said some very horrible things about me, I have never once said, I'm disagreeing or I'm voting this way because that person served on that committee. I'm going to go to Jean Zotter, another member of the study committee. Name and address for the record, Jean. And you'll have three minutes.
[Jean Zotter]: Good evening.
[Bears]: Two more since you're on the study committee.
[Jean Zotter]: Thank you. I was a member of the Charter Study Committee. My opinions are reflecting just my own opinions, not that of the Charter Study Committee. And I guess I just want to recognize how excited I am that it seems like we're close to having a charter. I just wanna thank the city council and the mayor for coming together on some compromise. I think it was a thoughtful deliberation process and I really appreciate the time that you put into this. And I wanna thank my charter study committee members also. On the charter study committee, I didn't get everything I wanted. I don't think anyone did and compromise is not easy. I feel like we've set up a process so we can have regular review and improve the charter going forward. And I just wanna clap my hands and thank everybody for this. And I hope it passes and thanks for all your work on this. I really appreciate it.
[Bears]: Thank you, Jean. Any further comments by members of the public either in person or on Zoom? PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. Just a minute. All right, you should be able to start your video. Go ahead.
[Ellen Epstein]: Okay, Ellen Epstein, 15 Grove Street. I have a comment and then a question. I just want to support what Councilor Collins expressed a little ways before because I think this city council is extraordinarily responsive and thoughtful, and I'm always glad to hear what each individual councillor feels and thinks about any issue that comes before the council. But my hackles do go up when I hear a councillor saying that this council is not listening to the public. because I feel very listened to, extremely listened to by this particular city council. So I just want to confirm what Councilor Collins said. I think there's many of us who feel misrepresented when a councillor states that the public feels that they are not being listened to because I don't feel part of that particular public. A question I have, If this version, this compromise version of the charter does not pass unanimously tonight, what happens next? Because my understanding is that if we make the deadline of the state house, which I know is also in question, no matter what the vote is tonight, If the vote is not unanimous, or at least six to one, they may deny our home rule petition anyway. And if that happens, do we get another chance at this next year, or where are we left if that happens? Thank you.
[Bears]: Thank you, Ellen. Do you have anything else you want to add before I answer your question? All right. So the answer is that, and I hope My colleagues will in the legislature will take this with all due respect the legislature is a great black box. And there actually is no deadline. And there actually is no threshold for how the vote needs to be. All we know is what the legislature tends to do, and what they're kind of. informal practice is the legislature is starting their budget season, essentially next week so the idea is if you get it in before budget season you'll have a better chance of getting it passed before budget season ends. The budget should be passed by June 30 but usually goes into July, and then they take a summer break. So it's all based on kind of the informal workings of the legislature. Additionally, technically by the law, a four to three vote of the legislative body and the approval of the mayor is legally sufficient for the legislature to advance a home rule petition. Technically the legislature could pass a law applying to the city, I believe even without the council's assent, they are under the state constitution, essentially all powerful. But the best practice is that you want a super majority between a super majority and near unanimity. So that would be here a five to two, a six to one or a seven to zero vote. So, you know, and the higher that is the better chance you get. But again, that's not a rule or anything that is established by law. That is kind of an informal practice of the legislature. So the goal is always to get it in as early as you can and with as many votes as you can, but Beyond that, there's nothing in the law or the rules of the legislature that defines either of those. They could, if we voted at four, three, they could take it up in their next session and pass it the next day and we could be done with it. But it really just is about the leadership setting the calendar in both chambers and what they're comfortable with. I'd refer you to a lot of the public discussion about transparency in the legislature to talk more about that. I'm going to go to Eileen Lerner on Zoom since we don't have anyone in the chamber. Eileen, name and address for the record, and you'll have three minutes.
[Eileen Lerner]: My name is Eileen Lerner, and I live at 3920 Mystic Valley Parkway. And I just want to say that I agree with a previous respondent on Zoom that this meeting has been great to be a witness to. I really support the work of the council. I'm very impressed. I, too, like Ellen, feel this council has done due diligence, has listened to everybody, and I'm just very happy to be represented by them. Thank you.
[Bears]: Thank you. I'll go to Munir Jimenez. name and address for the record, and you'll have three minutes.
[Munir Jirmanus]: Dear Dermanis, Summit Road in Medford, and I'll be very brief. I also listened to most of the discussions of the city council of this process, and I'm very appreciative of the thoughtfulness and thoroughness in discussing this. And I am fully supportive of their efforts, and I'm happy to go with whatever recommendation they actually vote on tonight. Thanks.
[Bears]: Thank you. Any further comment by members of the public? Mr. Andrea Tola. Come on down, we're gonna get you in front of the microphone. You have the floor.
[Anthony Andreottola]: Okay, good evening. Anthony Andrea Tola, 75 Lawrence Road, Method Mass, class of Method High 1978. I don't usually come to city council meetings and I haven't been at this podium since 1977. So probably before you guys were all born. Welcome back. George was around, George was around. But I like to thank all of you, all seven of you for considering you know, the recommendations of the Charter Committee and giving it such careful consideration. I know it's been a difficult process. It was very difficult for me. And I also wanted to thank Mayor Brianna for appointing me to the committee. And just so you know, in five years, I'm not available. You all have a chance to make history tonight. It's been over 30 years since we've had a charter change in the city. And it's been a tough 30 years. I think, you know, You hear a lot about the city council, that it's dysfunctional, it's controlled by one group or another. And just for the record, I'm politically homeless. I'm not a member of the revolution or Medford, the, you know, Mona Lisa's, Manhattan's, whatever we have here in Medford now. But, you know, I think everybody wants the best for the city. I don't think people run for office and, you know, you're not making the big bucks. And I commend you all for being here. And it's been 30 years. And I think had this process happened 20 years ago, our city would be in a better place right now. So I know it's been hard. I know I myself have not gotten many of the things I wanted to see in the charter. you know, in five years, you know, a new group, maybe some new city councils will have an opportunity to make changes, to improve our city. Tonight is like our opportunity to move forward and to, you know, let the new charter kind of shape where we go. You know, it's all about the kids. You know, it's all about the future. It's for the young people. you know, charter change isn't gonna really make a difference much in my life, I hope not anyway, but it may for, you know, the kids in the schools in the future. And you are all a part of that. You know, I think, you know, we want a great charter, but, you know, we have to take what is available to us tonight and work with it and make it work. And I just wanna thank you all for, considering the charter that was presented to you and it needed a few tweaks and thank you for making them, good night.
[Bears]: Good night, thank you very much. All right, we have one more comment on Zoom and if there's no one else in the chamber, I'm not seeing anybody. Go to Mr. Castagnetti on Zoom, name and address for the record, you have three minutes. Andy, are you there? Andy, I'm asking you to unmute.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Okay.
[Bears]: There you go. We can hear you. You got three minutes.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Thank you, Councilor Bears. I want to thank all the parties involved because this was quite a task and it was a lot of work, I'm sure. And I'm glad to come to an agreement. I wish you luck in the election in November. When was the last time we had a charter change?
[Bears]: Do you know? 1986 election was I think the, and then I went into effect for the 1987 municipal.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: So it's been more than 30 years, right?
[Bears]: We're coming on 30, 38. Yeah.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: I think that's when Michael McGlynn decided to run for mayor with a strong mayor and It's been quite a long time. I wish us all luck. Thank you very much.
[Bears]: Thank you. All right, I'll go to Councilor Leming.
[Leming]: I just wanted to point out for those interested in the learning about the history of the last charter review the Charter Study Committee provided some wonderful newspaper clippings in their in their website which has just some descriptions of the last effort to have a Charter Review Commission, I believe in the 70s, and other newspaper articles from 86 that talk about the chart that passed. So if you want to read about a little bit of history, it's on the website. I did appreciate that in their notes.
[Bears]: I don't want to take credit for anything, so Milva, correct me right away. But you may have, I went to the library, got three, four years ago now, and I pulled the mercury on microfilm. And I think I printed those out and emailed them to Milva. Probably there were many others that were used, but don't let it be said that I didn't realize I was in the report or may have been. But yeah, no, it's, oh, Milva might be correcting me right now.
[Milva McDonald]: No, I'm not correcting you. You get credit for digging up those newspaper articles. Thank you. I just was able to disseminate them. But I believe also on the website is the legislative package from 1986, which I collected from the Mass Archives. So that's another piece of information that people can look at. and also the report from the 1978 Charter Study Commission in Medford, which created a whole charter that actually didn't make it. So there's a lot of charter history available on the Charter Study Committee website under resources, if anybody's interested. That's all, thanks. And thank you all. And sorry, Milva McDonald, 61 Monument Street.
[Bears]: Thank you very much.
[Tseng]: Councilor Tseng. Thank you. I don't think the historic nature of this vote should be lost upon anyone. We just, you know, talked a lot about history. I think this is a really prime example of what we can do as a city when we come together. You know, I think the roads, I think the road was a little bit rockier than I would have liked it. But I think in the grand scheme of things, this inches us towards the right place for Medford to be. And, you know, I haven't been shy to say that I think there's a lot more to do. I always think there's a lot more to do. I want to thank the rich conversation that we've had on the City Council. I think that in scrutinizing anything, this was the outcome I wanted. Even if the vote is the vote, the product is the product. What I think is really important is that we have a deep conversation into the policies that we're talking about, particularly when it comes to our foundational document. I wanna thank the people who did elect us and gave us this opportunity to be a part of this process as well. It's a privilege to be a city councillor. It's even more a privilege to be a city councillor during such a big change for a city. And, you know, I hope, I know that, you know, most people have something they're not happy about in this charter, but that is part of compromise. Now, I think that I have a qualm with completely accepting that this is, by definition, a compromise. I think there are worlds in which we could have reached better deals, but I think this is one that, as the gentleman in the audience said, we can make work. I think the nature of the rich, deep conversations that we've had about the policies about academic studies, about feedback from community members, from elected officials in other cities, looking at how the system works in practice. I think it speaks to the fact that we have been listening. The fact that we disagreed on key votes. repeatedly throughout the process, I think also underscores the fact that we've been listening, we've been differing, and we've been coming back together. I do want to thank the Charter Study Committee for their work. I want them to know that my criticism of the process is more about the, is about the process writ large. I think that folks really did dedicate a lot of time to put to put together a product for us to consider. And I believe strongly that the city council has a role to play, not just ethically, but also statutorily. So when it comes to the law, we have a legal part of this. We are a legal part of this process. And that's where all that scrutiny comes in. That's us doing our job. It's us doing the job that we were paid to do. It's us not just rubber stamping anything, but really considering every single piece of the charter, which we did line by line, section by section. I think it's important to note that the bulk of this charter was agreed on by all parties at play, agreed on by the Charter Study Committee, by the mayor and the city council. And I think that's noteworthy. I think I'll just finish my thoughts with a note for the future. I'm hopeful for a future in which we feel less boxed in to options when we revisit this charter. I'm hopeful for a future where the state house gives us more ability for us to respond to our residents, to hear their innovative ideas about how government can work in Medford to tailor the design of our political process to what Medford actually needs and wants. And I hope that that desire doesn't stop with our residents. I hope that this version of the charter isn't the endpoint of political reform in our city. I hope that we keep pushing all of our electeds at every single level to do better when it comes to when it comes to things like autonomy when it comes to things like empowering cities to do what's right for their residents, for empowering cities to actually respond to resident feedback, to consider the more innovative things that cities should be able to do that in other states cities do all the time. I think a lot of what I wanted to be considered in this process maybe could have come about with a home rule process. what it could have come about with an elected charter commission. But I think we are at the point where that's beyond the scope of our conversation. I hope my Councilors will join me in pushing for those reforms in the future and pushing for more flexibility for Medford to do what's right by a residence. Thank you so much.
[Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Any further discussion by members of the council or the public? All right, well, I will just say that I really echo, Councilor Tsengs sentiment, and most of what he actually said to not just a sentiment. I think the great failing of this process and in many ways municipal governance in Massachusetts is. that the state laws and the state constitution do not give cities and towns in Massachusetts the powers that cities and towns and most other parts of the country have. Even our home rule constitutional amendment from the 60s, which enables the home rule charter process, makes it hard for that process to be initiated. And the real question here is we had to jump through You know, we, this process went the way it went because we had to go outside of the process that the law and the Constitution offers us. we had to appoint a study committee that actually was just authorized by the mayor as a matter of policy, rather than the general laws or the state constitution, because we didn't collect enough signatures and the legislature denied our home rule petition, which we did approve. We approved a 4-3 home rule petition to have an elected charter committee here in Medford, but the legislature has the ability to say no. Well, even though the mayor and the council by majority vote agreed to that, The legislature didn't even have to consider it they never had to take a vote on it they never had to even say no to us they just never had to say yes. our options were limited. We're going through a special act charter process so still the legislature has to approve everything we want to do, even if the residents wanted rank choice voting or multi member districts or, you know, a model of mayoral involvement with the school committee that hasn't been seen before. We couldn't actually deliver to voters, what they may have wanted and what this city would like to have seen its form of government look like, because the state processes basically don't let us do that. Certainly, the ones that might let us do that are very hard for communities to move through. We see this when it comes to laws that the council may want to pass around housing, around traffic and transportation, around the safety of people on our streets. up and down on anything this council and the people of the city may want. How many times have you emailed a Councilor, a school committee member, or a mayor, and they've had to say, sorry, call your state rep, or sorry, call your state senator. And then you call them and they say, sorry, I need to get 160 other people to agree with me. And it truly does become an act of Congress to put a crosswalk in. It's an act of the legislature, an act of the general court, right? The other thing it does is it pits us against each other, right? We could have had an elected body that made a recommendation that went right to the voters, and none of us would have had to be involved, and the mayor wouldn't have had to be involved, and the legislator wouldn't have had to be involved, and the people themselves could have directly said, this is the kind of government we wanna see, and then the people themselves could have voted for it. But instead, our egos, and our personalities, and our opinions, and our thoughts, and our research, and our evidence, and all of our data was forced to get in the middle of that. Maybe we're overcoming it. We've done that a lot this term. But the last two terms we didn't. In Somerville, they haven't. They've been having this fight for six years now, whether the council wouldn't approve it or the mayor wouldn't approve it. So something we've talked about here throughout this process is that this is for the future. This is for the people. This isn't about the people who are in these offices right now. And it's self serving to say this but we're lucky that the people who are in these offices right now agreed to disagree to move something forward, because most of the time, it doesn't happen. And the system and the structure that governs this process is designed for the exact opposite. So I know there's probably some people who are never going to vote for me again because of the things I proposed here and, you know, some people are going to say that this was the power grab and the other thing wasn't the power grab. For better or worse, the seven of us and the mayor, it looks like, we'll see, I don't know how many of you are going to vote, got together and said, all right, we'll put our opinions and our egos and our differences aside because the system is designed for us to fail and we don't want to fail. And I think that that is a good story. And I'm happy that I was a part of writing it, even for all the parts that I don't like and all the chapters and all the challenges and conflicts in that story that were not particularly fun. So with that, maybe we'll get done before nine o'clock. Any further discussion? All right, on the motion of Councilor Lazzaro to approve as amended to have Council leadership work with the mayor on the technical language surrounding sections 29 and 33 to meet the discussed intent of the Council, seconded by Councilor Scarpelli.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. Councilor Callahan.
[Callahan]: Yes.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Collins.
[Collins]: No.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Councils are.
[Collins]: Yes.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Council lemon. Councilor scrub Kelly. Councilor Tseng, President Bears.
[Bears]: Yes, six the affirmative one in the negative, the motion passes. And we have advanced the draft charter as amended. There's a motion by count and we're also the B papers so that'll go as well on the motion of Councilor Scarpelli to adjourn seconded by seconded by Council is our all those in favor. All right, I suppose motion passes and the meeting is adjourned. Thank you.
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