[Kevin Harrington]: Mic check, one, two, one, two. Mic check, one, two. Mic check, one, two. Check, one, two. Mic check. Test, test. Test, one, two.
[Zac Bears]: Medford City Council Committee of the whole May 27 2025 is called to order Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Council Callahan. President. Vice President Collins. Councils are. Councilor Leming, Councilor Scarpelli, Councilor Tseng, President Bears, present by present to us in the meeting is called to order.
[Zac Bears]: There'll be a meeting of the Medford City Council Committee of the whole at 5.30pm in the city council chamber second floor Medford City Hall, 85 George P has to drive meant for Massachusetts and via zoom action discussion items 25-039 annual budget process for fiscal year 2026 preliminary budget meeting number six. Tonight we have the Metro police. the Metro Public Schools and our Department of Public Works. And we're going to start with the police department. Sorry, Tim. There's really no winning. Thank you. I'll recognize the chief of staff. And if you could just introduce the team and then we'll get going.
[Nina Nazarian]: I was happy to. Nina Nazarian, chief of staff. I'm just here to present the members of the police department who are gonna present this evening. The chief has a family matter. So he's unable to attend, unfortunately. We have Captain Clemente here. We have Lieutenant Gagliardi, and I know that we have Captain Covino as well, and other members of the department, including Captain Brooks. And Sergeant Gilbreath here as well. Thank you very much.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. All right, I'm just going to read quickly from the budget and then I'm going to kind of give you three general framing questions and then we'll go to questions from councillors after your presentation. So tonight we have the Medford Police Department budget and for fiscal 25, this is a lot of line items, it's going to take me a minute to find it. Fiscal 25, we had a $14,632,263 and proposed for fiscal 26 $15,177,397 for an increase of $545,134. Most of these changes are in fixed cost growth, highlighting $119,000 for step increases in promotion. and promotions, about $90,000 in overtime, $47,000 for differential, $50,000 in fringe, $62,000 in holiday pay, and then various inflationary costs. And we have new expenses, $25,000 for legal costs, $5,000 for training. So with that, the three questions are just tell me more about that budget, what you want to talk about, talk a bit about your highlights for fiscal 25 for the past year, goals for next year, and then let us know something that might not be in the budget this year that you'd like to see included in the future.
[Barry Clemente]: Well, the first thing I wanted to talk about was the number of offices that we are looking for. We're looking for 107. Currently, we have 90. And it's just been through retirements. We've had a lot of retirements. We've had some people leave. The good news is we do have three in the academy that are going to be retiring next, not retiring, hopefully they're not retiring. They'll be, sure. They'll be graduating next week, in a week and a half. So it'll bring our total up to 93. So currently we, we're striving to get closer to that 107 number. We're trying very hard. We actually have a, actually police interviews tomorrow, as a matter of fact, and we're moving forward. Captain Brooks is heading that up. And there's also a hiring model that is in compliance with civil service rules. And we are aggressively looking to place eight in an academy in Plymouth in October, and that will bring our compliment up. And again, in February, we're probably looking to put another six on in February. And so we'll get close. Of course, we're gonna have some retirements next year. So it seems like every time we get ahead, we have some retirements and yours truly. We'll see. I'd say it ain't so. Well, it's so. They kicked me out. So, yeah. So that's what we're looking at as far as like our numbers right now. So we're feeling pretty good, pretty positive about that. I'd certainly like to publicly commend our officers, our detectives, and our dispatchers for the job they're doing. Doing a fantastic job, very professional. Every year our calls for service go up. And this year it's well over 30,000 calls that they get. And a lot of them are 911 emergency calls as well. There's a rising number of mental health interactions as well with those calls. And we're very fortunate to have a clinician program And Lieutenant Gagliardi wrote a grant for the Department of Mental Health. We have currently three clinicians. One's on leave right now, but hopefully will be coming back soon. And it's part of a co-response unit. And these clinicians are fantastic. If you had told me years ago that we're gonna have civilians helping in behavioral areas, I would have said, that's absolutely never gonna happen. But that's how we've changed and we've grown. throughout the years. These clinicians are trained to assess individuals on scene, provide immediate support, implement de-escalation strategies and crisis intervention. They're also equipped to determine whether an individual's condition warrants hospitalization or can be addressed through alternative services. Beyond emergency response, clinicians conduct follow-up outreach to individuals and families affected by mental health or substance use issues, offering continued support and connecting them to appropriate care. They're a vital, vital component with our efforts to enhance public safety and it reduces the risk of adverse outcomes. And people receive compassionate, professional and effective care. Continued investment in this unit supports our broader goals of community wellness, officer safety and resource efficiency. Lieutenant Gagliardi wrote the grant again and we're hoping the funding's there. We should find out relatively soon if that funding's there. We're hoping it, we're praying it's there because it's such a vital program. We maintain a commitment to provide for the safety and wellbeing of our own police officers as well. Chief Buckley has put into place some, a peer support unit. It requires us to provide training, equipment, support, mental and physical resources. We have to take care of our own officers so they can take care of the public. Our employees are our most important asset. Stress and physical health are epidemic problems in policing around the world, around the country, both for the officers and dispatchers. So we have training, peer support. We have a lot of training. The courses that we put on are stress-related. We put on the dangers of suicide. We put on mental health courses and first aid. We do de-escalation techniques. We also do crisis intervention training. So we have a lot of training. We're well-vested in keeping our officers well-trained. And just one more thing about those officers, those soon-to-be officers that are graduating the academy. As soon as they graduate, they'll be in an FTO program that's actually headed by Lieutenant McGilvery. And for a couple of months, they'll be out there riding with seasoned officers, Um, you know, learning how to use our report writing system, learning how to take calls, um, just being shown everything there is to know about Medford. So it's a, it's a really good program. So about two or three months, they'll be doing that and then we'll have them to, to be able to, uh, to put out on their own. Uh, we're still on track. for the state accreditation from the State Accreditation Commission. Again, this is Lieutenant Harry McGilvery. He's in charge of that. It's an extensive, extensive project. This basically is our department coming in line with the standards and best practices for police agencies. It's good for liability purpose and for professionalism. It's exhaustive and definitely establishes more directives and more policies and procedures for our personnel to follow. So he's moving along pretty well with that. I'm expecting that in this next year that it's going to happen. He's been moving pretty strong with that. We've got a lot of policies in place. He's put a lot of work into this. So we're looking forward to that. I mentioned training. you know, another short-term goal and actually long-term as well, a community engagement unit. As everyone knows, we've been, we have National Night Out. It's coming up in August. It's a personal invite for everybody to come down there. It's a good time to meet some of the officers, see how the officers interact with, you know, with the families and the kids. A lot of family-oriented things down there. We have other things such as Community Inclusion Day, which we just had. It provides individuals with autism and other disabilities a chance to meet the police officers. We have Touch-a-Truck there. We just had this a couple weeks ago and it worked out very, very well. We always do a Thanksgiving food drive. We do a holiday toy drive. We just did a charity hockey game with the fire department, raised $10,000 for Make-A-Wish. Police won that game, by the way. Movie night, we just had that as well. That was a big hit. And we always have coffee with a cop. We have several of them throughout the year. So we're continuing with that and moving with that. And again, that invite, we'd love to see you guys there down there at that. I believe it's August 5th. Of course, our body camera. program is still going on. There's no issues with that. Everything's been working very well with that. So those are kind of the long-term and short-term goals that we have, that we've been doing, and we look forward to continuing them. If there's any other questions in regards to the budget itself, I think with all of us here, we can certainly answer, you know, some of those questions that you might have. One more thing, we have dispatcher interviews as well tomorrow, because we are down at dispatcher as well. and may soon be down to two dispatches. So we're actually conducting interviews on that tomorrow, along with the police interviews. So we're looking forward to getting that up to speed as well. That's kind of a snapshot of the health of the department right now, as far as manpower and some of the short term and long term goals that we have.
[Zac Bears]: Great. Thanks, Captain.
[Barry Clemente]: Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Gonna go to Councilor Scarpelli and then Councilor Leme.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Council President. Thank you very much. Thank you. First of all, I want to thank the team And what method police has done the city of Medford I know it's been very contentious. And there's been a lot of not a lot of unsettled thoughts, and the chief has always been attentive, and his team has always been there to answer any questions at least. from what I hear everybody on this council. And so I want to really thank you guys for everybody. The team has done such an amazing job because it is difficult what's happening and your professionalism stands out. And I think that that's admirable. you've seen the different issues that have come about, right? Internal issues. I remember the contentiousness between the dispatchers and who's doing this and who's doing that. And it's been so settled now and you hear such a strength now. And you see the different concerns when you talk about race issues and you talk about other issues that are happening throughout the country. And what I love to see is that our department has stood above it all. and really with their arms open, welcomed everybody in and saying, hey, listen, let's have a cup of coffee with a cop, right? Let's hold special events and programs for kids with autism. Let's go into the community. Let's have an open dialogue with anybody that comes to the chief's office. That's why I think the chief is so special because he'll say it all the time, but he talks, he walks the walk. When he says, I'm always here to speak, just let me know. I'll come up. He doesn't hide from anybody. He stands right there. And I take it the same from his whole team. And I want to just commend you for that, because I think it's important that where there's good, there's some bad. And I'm proud to say that our Methodist Police Department has done nothing but made a great example on how we should act. You're content that the issues that we're seeing right now then, you know, working in Somerville, we just saw their four year contract, just catch up for three years, they got a three year contract. And I think it was 14% with some concessions and they got some hikes and some other side, some other little things but they they understood the whole they they talked about the you know flag men and making sure that our officers and our retirees come first and then open it up for the flag people and I I see that's happening and I I I'm just a little concerned that as we're moving forward what happened over there they're down now no more community policing officers are leaving to neighborhood neighboring communities because they don't feel like they're being supported, not by their team in-house, but the administration. And money talks, unfortunately, right? when you're working four years without a contract, three years without a contract, you still got to support your family and inflation and cost of living now. So I think that's my, how is the team handling so far? You know, not, not having a contract for a few years. Is it, do we hear any, um, is the morale still, still as expected or everyone's professional, right?
[Barry Clemente]: Um, they go out, they do their job and, um, And they do a good job. And it's a situation where everything's increasing. The number of calls are increasing. And it's just I'm proud of everybody, the way they've handled everything.
[George Scarpelli]: Yeah, listen, that's another one too. When you first heard you're going to have a civilian interact with our police officers and you hear how nervous that could be. And I heard it's been nothing but flawless and it's been such a positive.
[Barry Clemente]: Unbelievable. In the 80s, that would have never happened. Right. And I was there in the 80s and it shows how much things have changed and the clinicians have done a fabulous job in our offices and the clinicians work very, very well together. and it's good for the city of Medford.
[George Scarpelli]: I commend you all on that. And then again, I think the last piece is my most important piece is, you know, the staffing level. And I didn't realize we're down, we're gonna be down to 90 police officers. And then I know that you put forth a plan that looks like we're gonna be up there, but how are we with our, I'm okay with that. I'm gonna live with that and say, okay, The famous voice of Barry Clemente has said that we're gonna be, we're still working on that. How's our fleet? Our cruisers, we're turning those over?
[Barry Clemente]: We're doing all right. Some of them, we have some high mileage on them. We just released one into traffic east a couple of weeks ago, 337. And I'm told we're getting another vehicle next week, 338. That'll be released to traffic west. So it's like a little shot of B-12 into the fleet, into the aging fleet, but we're doing okay.
[George Scarpelli]: But we're doing okay. It's nothing to be alarmed. And again, the last piece I have is when we talked about the library when our librarian was here, but when you're talking about the fight at the police station, new police station, are we maintaining its integrity?
[Barry Clemente]: Lieutenant Gagliardi takes care of everything. He has everything down to a science. He knows every nook and cranny of the police station. I'm just thrilled that we're in there, and it's a beautiful building.
[George Scarpelli]: So we've gone a long way where it took a tour one year of the old station, and we had three detectives change the light bulbs.
[Barry Clemente]: I look outside my window, I can see the old station, and it helps me to remind us where we came from. I didn't think I'd get to see it, but fortunately everything worked out, and it's beautiful.
[George Scarpelli]: Like I said, I commend you. I know that we have some contentious issues that are happening throughout the world but especially in our country right now and so many questions of ice and I know, give chief a lot of credit, how he stands up and explains what the duty of a law enforcement officer is and what the limitations are and what they can and what they can't do and I appreciate that. you, uh, you and the team and chief and the team stay professional and stay above it all. So I appreciate that he does. So, um, I, I, I think that, you know, I, I, there's been times when you guys have been here and I've kind of had to call things out and, but I will tell you, I'm, I'm, I'm proud of our method police department and, uh, all the men and women that serve and, and just keep making us proud. And like I said, I think that I'll still be advocating. I know that we'll be having resolutions coming up and looking at non-union raises. And I, again, will stand against it until every union officer and union position in the city gets their contract caught up to date before we give anybody else their due. So thank you. I appreciate you guys. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor. Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli.
[Matt Leming]: Thank you, thank you for coming out here. Very impressed by your presentation, very thorough. So just appreciate that whenever I see it. Mainly just, question was just due to the staff, was just around the staffing levels. So the 93 versus the 107 goal. Would you say that that's kind of more of a statewide or national issue? Like, is that just something Medford's running into or is other?
[Barry Clemente]: wasn't showing my age, but I got on and sworn in in 84 and started in 85. You're not a day above 30. Thank you. I don't feel that good. Thank you. Back then, they used to put big groups of officers on. They put on like maybe 10, 12, 15. And they did that throughout the 80s. And now all those officers are now hitting their 30 year mark, 32, 35, maybe even 40 years. We've seen a lot of retirements. And that's what's kind of happening right now. It's almost like the perfect storm. And there's been some retirements, offices that have reached their retirement age. We lost some offices there. And it's like we're getting three in a couple of weeks, but we're losing three next year in 26. We're trying to, making strides to stay with that number, 107. And I know Captain Brooks is working on that and he told me today unequivocally was the word that he used that we're absolutely going to be able to get these offices so.
[Matt Leming]: Yeah, no, I just, I just like to understand with these initiatives, how much like, cause you could come up with the best recruitment plan in the world, but you're still kind of fighting against, you know, a lot of outside influences, like what you just described. So just a lot of officers coming to retirement.
[Barry Clemente]: So I would like, I just, I just like the model that's in place now, the way it's explained to me, it's going to help as well. civil service approved and have people on a list of civil service and from this hybrid model as well. So there'll be more candidates. We just don't hire to just check a box. They go through a rigorous process.
[Matt Leming]: Yeah, background, we definitely look, we definitely like to hear that.
[Barry Clemente]: Yeah. extensive background tests, they go through psychological tests, they have to do medicals, they have to do a physical ability test interviews. It's a process. And so we just don't hire fortunately, just to check a box to say we hired, we make sure that they're actually good candidates, not great candidates. And then they get a conditional offer of employment. And we go from there, and then we set them up in an academy. But sometimes if you have 10 people on a list, and maybe like two of them are good, two of them are real good, you'll just take those two. And that's another issue as well. Sometimes there's not many people on that list in the past. And civil service now, as you know, gives the test every year, as opposed to two years as it did in prior years. And the reason maybe for that is they just can't get enough people to sit for the exam. When I took the exam back in, I took one in 83, and I remember I took it at Medford High School. The line was from the high school all the way down to Winthrop Street, that was the line just to get into the building to take the exam. That's how things have changed. It's not like that today for whatever reason, but we're making strides. We're gonna hit that 107. I feel pretty good about it.
[Matt Leming]: If you had to sort of estimate a timeline, so it sounds like it's not necessarily gonna be solved by the next year, but do you think that this could be addressed in five years, 10 years?
[Barry Clemente]: Yeah, that's a good question. I think October, Captain Brooks told me today that there's a Plymouth Academy, and we can get eight in there. If we can find eight great candidates, we'll have eight spots. And then again, in 2026, possible February, there'll be another six. So I feel pretty good about that. Actually, I feel real good about it. I'd like to add something to that.
[Joseph Gagliardi]: I think it's essential that we stay competitive, but based on this hybrid model that we're talking about, the candidates are gonna be looking around at a lot of other communities. And if we wanna pick up the best recruitment possible, we're gonna have to be competitive or we'll lose them. So it's probably the most vital part of this whole hiring process.
[Barry Clemente]: Several communities may be looking at someone on that hybrid model. So that's an issue.
[Matt Leming]: No, and these are selection processes, everything. I'd argue that I'd rather have a lower number of very quality officers than just trying to select everybody you can to fill the 107. So I'm glad to hear that y'all are doing that. But that was the only question I had. Thank you for coming out here.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Do we have any more questions from members of the council? Seeing that I have a few, and then we're going to quickly after I'm done go through traffic commission and traffic supervisors if that's okay it's, those will be easy. And then, if there's members of the public who want to comment we'll take after that. Just a couple of quick things. there's potentially 17 slots between now and February, 2026 in the Academy. And that's what would get us up close to that 107 number, even with a few retirements. Just wanna get that right.
[Barry Clemente]: Yeah, we were 93 right now. If we count the ones that are graduating in about a week and a half from Cambridge, that'll bring us to 93. We're gonna lose three definite hits next year. So that's three we got to kind of put out there and just think of that. If we put 14 on, Yeah, we're fortunate enough to get the fine 14 throughout this hiring process. And again, in February, that's yeah, that's 1493 and 14, that'd be 107. But we're going to be down again. So 104. It's like, it's kind of like a moving target, kind of. We'll be back on the under that again. Yeah, before you know it.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, okay. And it sounds like one of the problems was that lists were short, and then if people weren't passing everything, right, then they weren't eligible and then this hybrid model has created bigger lists, but it also means that other communities are we've seen people, unfortunately, they cannot do the run.
[Barry Clemente]: And we've seen, I've seen people that you look at them and they're like in great shape and they just, I don't know if they just don't practice, but I've seen them several times fail and that has stopped a lot of probably good candidates from moving further, but it's all part of the process. It's not an easy process. I'm not sure I'd want to go through it right now myself, but it's, you know, it's interesting. It's quite the process.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. Thank you for that. A couple other things on the mental health grant, is that every year it comes up or does it's every year? That's an annual. And it's a state grant, right? Yes. Department of Mental Health.
[Barry Clemente]: Yeah. Yeah. We're hoping the funding's there. Because like I say, this program, this co-response program has been fantastic.
[Zac Bears]: Right. And so in the long term, we might want to look at, given the situation, if the state is in a funding crunch, we might want to bring that in house so that we can keep it going if the grant dries up.
[Barry Clemente]: So I just think that's a huge, huge program.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, important for us to keep in mind. The legal costs item that new 25,000, it just says new 25,000 for legal costs. Could you go into a little bit more what that might go?
[Joseph Gagliardi]: Yeah, that's, that's actually just a reallocation, which is trying to, if you look at last year's accreditation was 40,000. Yeah. And the only thing we did, we just tried to break it up. The 16, the 16,000 is gonna be for assessment centers for sergeants.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah.
[Joseph Gagliardi]: So we kind of wanted to break assessment centers away from the professional services admin portion. So basically, we were level funded there.
[Zac Bears]: Okay, thanks. But I go one that's maybe a little harder and then I think one that tells a really good story. So, you know, take it even with what's going on right now, certainly ice but other federal agencies. Could you talk a little bit about how it seems to me, and this is an opinion, but I think it's shared by a lot of people in the city. that there's some element of intimidation coming in from some agencies that are coming into the city. They're not wearing, they're not identifying themselves. Sometimes they're wearing masks. Sometimes they're, you know, we've seen in other neighboring communities, smashing a car window to get into a car, things like that. How are you guys working through being able to know when they're coming here, you know, and you have to partner with them on some things. a big criminal racket and something going on in the city, we'd want local police and the FBI to be working together, right? But there's other times where it seems now that federal law enforcement is being used as an instrument of intimidation. And I'm wondering how you guys are working through that to understand when it makes sense to work together and when you might say, ask more questions and say, well, what's going on here and why are we doing this?
[Barry Clemente]: Right, I know what they they have shown up at the courts, we don't know that they're showing up there. The case will happen, you know, our officers will go in testifying in court, but they don't know that they're there. Apparently they're outside. I don't know. I don't know how they get there. How they, you know, just I don't know.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. Yeah, I guess I mean, like, You know, we had an incident over in Haines Square, two or three weeks ago. Residents said, there's these people in my community, they're wearing masks. I don't know who they are. I don't feel safe. What do we do? How are we trying to engage with that situation, understanding there are limits on what you guys can do, but also understanding that the community, we're here to keep people safe.
[Barry Clemente]: I don't know if we received any calls on that. I would think that, you know, I don't know if they're properly marked or... Yeah, that I don't know. I mean, I would think that there should be some proper identification. Yeah. Yeah.
[Zac Bears]: I received two or three calls myself about it. Captain Camino.
[Paul Covino]: Yeah. I always see the operations division, which is patrol detectives in traffic. We do have them. They usually come in and check in. It's early in the morning and say, okay, we're going to be in the city in a certain area. And they'll tell us what area. they always are identified by badges. Even if you see them on the news and you hear people saying they're not identifying themselves, they have a badge. By law, that's about all you have to display at that point in time. Everyone I've seen has a vest on that's marked and usually says some sort of agency on the back, whether it's ICE, FBI, ATF, some just say police on them, but they all carry a badge. So they're identified in that sense. Things were smashing the window. What's going down is an officer, they're making an arrest. An argument, we're not going to dispute, but it's a lawful arrest based on what information they have. And whether it's a warrant or a detainer, they have the lawful right to arrest that person. When the person refused to get out of the car, that's when the window got broken. And I understand, in that particular case you're talking about, it was several minutes, maybe even up to 30 minutes before they By law, we aren't allowed to use force to arrest someone. Once I say you're under arrest, you're under arrest, there's no changing that, right? I don't want to have to chase you, put my hands on you, do anything other than put the handcuffs on and take you. So this is what is being portrayed on the news. Arrest warrant does not have to be displayed and arrest warrant is just you're under arrest and you come with me. This is due process is bringing you through the system into courts where if I'm wrong and I make a mistake and I arrest you. and put you in court and detain you. And each step of the way that I keep you, each step, that violation of a civil matter gets bigger and bigger. So... Sorry, could you step a little closer to the microphone?
[Zac Bears]: I'm sorry.
[Paul Covino]: So each step away, each step into the process that I hold someone illegally, each time, basically the price that they're gonna get on a lawsuit gets higher and higher. So we're very careful about making arrest so are the federal agents. Sure. All right, so they are lawfully here, they are lawfully arresting people, they're not just kidnapping people. They do come in check with us. Now we do not enforce their laws. Yeah, they enforce them we enforce state laws. The we will get in the middle, if somebody tries to interfere with them and assault them or disrupt that in any way we will have to, just like any other citizen anybody else in the community, we have to protect everybody. And if they're doing their job in a lawful way. and people attack them or something we're gonna have to intervene and keep the peace, and hopefully not have to arrest somebody know our goals and not to arrest people, but we do have to get in the middle, and would be the same as if any other type of employee was trying to do their job if you're out there. campaigning and somebody doesn't like what you're campaigning about and they're going to, we're going to, we're going to protect you. So, in that sense, they're on their own as far as enforcing federal laws and federal practices. We're just on the periphery in case somebody attacks them or assaults them in some way, and let's hope that we don't get to that point let's hope that people in our city. smart enough to say, let them do their job and do process will play out do it do process is done through the whole system it's not just, you know what happens in the street. So, as far as our job goes, our job is to enforce the laws of the Commonwealth in the ordinance of the city. and uphold the Constitution, obviously, but the Constitution of the United States, as well as the state of Massachusetts. But we are stuck in the middle. And politically, if you notice, in years past, going before 2020, whenever protests came up and stuff, our job, and I've always been very clear with that, and the chief has too, is to intervene only to keep the peace. keep people safe. We're not taking a political stance, we do not take a political stance, we never have, we never will. We don't like getting put in the middle too, there are people that say we're here protesting for you. I appreciate that, but my job is very specific in what we're supposed to do. We are here to keep everybody safe, keep the peace. And we're not here to be politicized and get in the middle of different opinions and, and I understand where you are coming from your viewpoint is is contained to what you just saw on the news, and what somebody close by gave an opinion of. And so you're limited to some of the facts there. I see those facts too but I see them differently because I understand how police work is done, and how things get escalated, no matter how much you try to de escalate or keep it down to a point so just to answer your question, in a sense, exactly as our, our job is to keep everybody safe. We don't enforce federal laws. We don't arrest people on federal laws, right, the only time we might arrest someone is if there's a federal warrant. In that case, we would probably arrest them as a fugitive from justice. Bring them to our court where they'd be charged as a fugitive from justice, and then they would get into that system. Detainers, we don't arrest. We don't hold people on. We do notify people if we're told there's a detainer. We tell them there's a detainer for you. But they still go through our process.
[Zac Bears]: You tell them. If someone comes in, you say, hey, this is in our system. Right.
[Paul Covino]: So we arrest somebody. We have to fingerprint everybody we arrest now by state law. It's called a digital identification, a biomedical identification, what we call it. And so when that happens, that those electronic fingerprints go through the state system and then to the federal. Obviously the feds get notified somehow. So they'll send us a detainer and say, we have a detainer for that person. We'll hand it to that person. I'll put it with their property. We'll tell them there's a detainer for you. So they'll either get bailed out as per normal process, or they'll go to Somerville District Court the next morning. And it's usually there where the federal agents will go looking for them. One other thing, I know there was some controversy in another city where other agents were out there, and the police were assisting them. And it was because those particular agents were going after someone for human trafficking, who happened to also have some sort of ICE immigration violations, but there were FBI agents, and they were going after them for human trafficking. So there's a confusion there when people see that in the news. Yeah.
[Barry Clemente]: The ones I have seen, they are, like I think Avino said, they do have identification on them.
[Zac Bears]: And that's why I was kind of- And it might be the unmarked vehicle maybe is what I'm trying to- It's the whole perception of the unmarked vehicle.
[Paul Covino]: Maybe they should start having at least one marked vehicle with them and one or two officers in uniform.
[Zac Bears]: They do have some sort of, I know ICE has some sort of uniform division, so maybe that's what they should, but that's- And we've seen a few, I've seen a lot of photos with the vest and the police, ICE or police, FBI or whatever, but I've also seen some with maybe just the badge, nothing on the back. unmarked vehicle, the mask.
[Paul Covino]: And our detectors would be the same thing. If our detectors are out there in plain clothes, their badge would either be hanging or clipped to their belt. We do carry our identification with us. By state law, we have to carry our identification with us, our police identification.
[Zac Bears]: Right. And I really appreciate the answer and giving the details of how it works. And I understand it's difficult to be in the middle of stuff like this. So I appreciate it. And mostly I'm, it seems like all of this might make things even harder to discern.
[Paul Covino]: Well, what's in the middle is we've always had some immigrant population in the city and we have always worked with them. Yeah, and there's always a certain amount of distrust because many of them come from countries where they don't trust the police to right now we're, we're facing not only their, their distress from their past countries they live them. but now they're afraid of being deported. And some of them likely wouldn't even be deported or wouldn't be on that list, but they're still afraid. So they think we're part of that as soon as they see law enforcement, they're afraid of us. So we're doing the best we can to try and reach out and see that everybody gets the help they need out there. But it's just not an easy process.
[Zac Bears]: Definitely. No, and I appreciate you really going through the details on that. And I think the The thing for me is that safety element right whether it's immigrants who don't feel safe for people in general, in the community who see something and think is this safe is this not safe is this legitimate is this, you know, many of these immigrants are being misinformed and how the legal process works. Sure.
[Paul Covino]: We've had one gentleman that was arrested for OUI drunk driving. And he wouldn't go for the identification booking process, and he continued to claim the his fifth amendment right. Well, the Fifth Amendment doesn't apply to the identification process and bookings sure and trying to explain that to him was difficult, and he didn't want to hear it. So he's been when when people are misinformed on the outside. It makes it difficult. for everybody to do the job and to get, he would have been processed much sooner, sent to court. Instead, he had to wait because until he cooperated and then finished the booking process and then get him over to court. So that's another dilemma that we run into. We're here to help people, we're here to keep them safe and make them feel safe. And unfortunately, we can't always be in that right position when they feel that way, because we're all sometimes we have to be the bad, we look like the bad person anyway. And when you have to use force to apprehend someone, even though you're in a lawful position to use a certain amount of force to whatever is necessary to bring that person to in possession, so to speak, handcuff them. Force is ugly no matter how it's used. And that's why we don't like using it if we don't have to. But it is ugly when it's used, even if you're lawfully using the amount of force that's necessary to subdue someone. But we're always here willing to answer any questions for all of you and anyone in the city that has questions.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. I appreciate that. And I think that that's the ultimate question I'm trying to get at is how do we get people the best information we can get them?
[Paul Covino]: That would be, you know, we all need to be on the same page with that.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah.
[Paul Covino]: And, you know, there are organizations out there that want to spew out people's rights, which is great. But let's get the right information out to people, because I think some of the people that are repeating that information do not know what they're talking about. They know a little bit as a good friend of mine once said, a little bit of knowledge is dangerous. And I think any organization out there that is on the legal end of it. they would know exactly what the person's rights are and how to, in most cases, you know, we always tell people, just cooperate, cooperate with the police. And we're not looking to arrest you for nothing. We have a reason to arrest you. If our information is wrong, it'll be brought out in the process and you'll either be released or go through court and be released. But, you know, we've had people we've arrested on a warrant, let's say, and let's say the warrant says Paul Covino, and this person's using my name for some reason, and they get arrested, and next thing you know, that warrant exists because he never goes back to court, then there's arrest warrant for me, I get arrested, and my claim is I've never done that, I don't know. So it has to, those things happen. And as I said before, the big thing is we identify the problem and fix it. And between our own systems and the court systems, we're usually pretty good about that. But it is a process. So if you have someone that's using your identification, that could really screw your life up for a while, too.
[Zac Bears]: I know there's a couple of Paul Caminos in the city, too. Luckily, they seem to know each other. Fortunately, the other one is a good guy. I know him pretty well, too. As well as you. My last thing and I think you know it's just something I, I, I know and I think it's just important to talk about and I think Captain Clemente you kind of even we're getting at it a little bit. We live in a time when crime is way down, you know, over the past 30 years since the 80s over the last 30 years you know crime has really gone down. You know, I think somewhat because of the way that the news works these days and social media and all this. A lot of people think crime is going up when it's going down and I just wanted to wonder if you guys could talk a little bit about what we've seen in the city over the last 20 30 years around safety and how safe we are I can give you an answer partial answer that number one is
[Paul Covino]: back in the 80s when we came on through the 90s, you still had several younger groups, not all juveniles, but younger groups hanging around the city. And it was not unusual for us to have to go to a park, a corner where a corner store was, where a large group of youth, people, like young people in their 20s would be hanging around. and who's drinking on the corner, who's selling drugs from that corner. The drug dealing operation is very different nowadays. It used to be a certain house, a certain corner, a certain location, they would move. That type of drug dealing is different. So it's not located on the street as much other than it travels, they bring it to you, they'll meet you somewhere. Now these people would hang on the corners and eventually some of them would become a problem. problem mostly to the neighborhood there. That's where our complaints would be coming. We would have to arrest many more disorderly conduct arrests, more fighting, more drinking in public. Those types of arrests have gone down. And because of what was going on with the large groups of people still hanging around the city, the fights became violent. Sometimes there were more assaults and serious assaults and stabbings and things like that. On the other side of the coin, because there's less people out there, there's less street crime type arrests like that, but other types of crimes are going up. And the biggest, one of the bigger problems right now that we have is young kids, juveniles, 14, 15, 16, 17 years old, carrying guns. And they have guns better than us. They have more bullets than us. And over the years, we used to see all, if someone had a gun, it was like a little, they call a Saturday night special piece of junk falling apart. And then when they did finally start getting their hands on good guns did have a handful of bullets and they didn't match like they were mixing. Now they got everything and they're carrying 30 round clips that go in a gun. And, you know, most of these kids don't know what they're doing they don't want to do it but they're doing it because they're part of a group and, you know, we've had an incident up on the hillside, not long ago in January, I believe it was, where A couple of kids pulled guns out at one or two in the morning. A lot of kids out, college kids there from getting pizza after having a party. And next thing you know, multiple shots fired. Fortunately, they didn't hit anybody. But those are the types of crimes. And that's what puts officers more on edge. Because day in and day out, we're out trying to help people. But while we're trying to help people, dealing with their own problems so it's dealing with their problems, so to speak. And then, you know, crimes come up and you get juveniles with guns because there are people giving them guns and directing them what to do because when the juvenile gets caught, he's not going to go to jail. The adult that's telling them to do it will go to jail so now we're on a problem with You get juveniles who have guns, you have juveniles who don't know better, and you have juveniles that they don't understand death, they don't understand it's final, they don't really get it. So, it puts an officer on edge when they're out there, and they get a call in the middle of the night that there's five people out and you don't know if they're juveniles, when you get these calls, there's five people dressed in dark clothing wearing masks, looking into cars, and and trying to open doors. Now, I shouldn't have to explain that, but that's people that go out on a nightly basis and they try to open car doors, break in, steal things out of your cars. If your key's in there, they're going to take your car too. And that's what we're up against. So now we also know that many of these people in those groups are carrying guns. So it puts the officers on edge when they're out there and they're confronting people. When you say crime is down, yes, the numbers might be down, but a certain amount of violence is right there. And we've never saw that much like we see in the city now as far as juveniles with guns.
[Barry Clemente]: Oh, for sure.
[Zac Bears]: I mean, the proliferation of guns in this society is certainly worrying. And I know that you guys probably see that more directly than a lot of other people because you're interacting with them. But more I was trying to, to get to the point to remind people right and we're at the lowest homicides in this region and decades we're at the lowest. A lot of people feel unsafe. Yeah, and I'm not saying that there's no no violence and that there's no crime right now, but in general violent crime especially is significantly down compared to I'm going to say something.
[Paul Covino]: We live in a very safe city. Yeah. And I said that once to someone before. It didn't work out so well, but we do. And as you said, like you look at like the problem with violence is every time you turn the television on or you look at your phone. Exactly. It's there. And the numbers may be down, but it's being put out all the time by the news, and and they're out there they grab and every time there's a violent crime or somebody gets shot, it's it's it's at your fingertips, even if it's not even this part of the world. Yeah, that's another problem so it just reinforces that negative feeling the community policing One of the philosophy of community policing is to try and make people feel safer by letting them participate and work with the police and setting up programs and so forth. But the idea is to feel safer. You don't necessarily reduce crime, but you make people feel safer about their environment and being involved. And they become more open to the police to work with us as far as fighting violence. Sure. You know, back when we had 136 offices, we had people everywhere we're falling over each other but you could be involved more directly with the community. And we talked about hiring, and I don't mean to contradict anything but I believe the hiring process is here to stay the recruiting process things that we never had to do. We need professional recruitment is one of the things here. for, if not forever for a very long time. And it's as we lose people, we hire people we lose people, and it's becoming an open market now because we had one officer just a few officers leave but one went to Cambridge. He's great there, right, it's a big department. State police, a lot of difference.
[Zac Bears]: A lot of money.
[Paul Covino]: State police, but now you don't have to take, you don't have to take an exam to get there now. You can just, they have an opening. They're looking for lateral offices. It's not a lateral that a chief has to signed off on. So as much as we can hire these people, we have to retain them.
[Zac Bears]: Sure.
[Paul Covino]: And that's a whole different discussion.
[Zac Bears]: And I think you would find, you know, around our schools or our DPW or anyone else here tonight. You know, Cambridge has 35,000 more people. Yes. And the budgets for those departments are two, three, four times bigger than what we have here. And that's, you know, that's a bigger regional problem, but I appreciate the discussion and I appreciate you saying it right to say we live in a very safe city does not mean there's no risk. But, you know, the anxiety that's out there.
[Paul Covino]: I think it's important to remind people that everybody should pay attention to their surroundings, no matter where they are. And you should be aware of what's going on. You're walking around with your ears plugged up with ear headphones and you're listening to music and well, you know what? I hope nothing happens to you, but you're opening yourself up to victimization if it's there, if the crime is gonna happen. You make it easier for someone to target you. So at least have one ear open so you can hear what's going on around you. And oftentimes just the matter of looking at someone will defer them away if they know you're alert and willing to at least see them. So, you know, people have, an obligation of their own to try and do little things to keep themselves safe. But in general, this is a very safe city, and you don't have to worry about where you're walking around, but some of us do by nature, so.
[Zac Bears]: No, I get it. All right, I have a few, I'm gonna go to Councilor Tseng, then Councilor Lazzaro, then back to Councilor Leming, and then we gotta move this along, y'all. I'll be quicker.
[Justin Tseng]: I do appreciate all your answers, and for, It's a running joke now. I thank you for your service to the city as well. My quick question was, we all know that the federal landscape is a little insecure when it comes to funding. And we have a lot of departments here in the city that rely on federal grant funding. I was wondering if you knew of any federal grants that you guys rely on, and if that is... I do a grant right now.
[Barry Clemente]: It's a full approved best partnership grant where we output our offices with the best possible ballistic armor that we can actually give them. All right. And part of that's federal funding. And as of right now, we've not had a problem with that. Every time I do purchase vests, I do get all the money back. Once the federal side of things gives us 50% of the money for that vest, usually the vest costs almost $1,200. And then I applied to the state executive office of public safety and they'll pay 50%, but only when the federal side pays 50%. And I've never, I haven't experienced any problems yet. I've been doing it since 2001 up until just recently, I just did a reimbursement recently and we got everything. So with that, that's the only federal one that I deal with. I deal with a lot of state grants. 9-1-1 grants, training grants, support and incentive grants, all for 9-1-1. No problem with the state. But the only federal one that I have is that one, and I've not had a problem yet. Knock on wood. And we replace those vests. We have to replace them every five years. because of wear and tear and you know, the National Institute of Justice deemed after testing that we have to replace it after five years to keep everybody up with the latest and greatest. So everybody has, there's no cost to the city whatsoever, but we can provide the right equipment to all the officers.
[Zac Bears]: Great. Anything else? That's all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Lazzaro.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Hi, thank you guys for being here. I appreciate the presentation. I just wanted to say that there aren't that many opportunities for our residents who sometimes have, as you, Officer Covino mentioned, may hear rumors or see things on the news, social media. I just think, I really appreciate your candid response to what President Bears was asking about. Trust is really important. This is a really big budget and It doesn't make sense for our residents to mistrust the police department when its whole job is to take care of them. if they're nervous, we should openly explain, answer their questions, explain what's going on to the best of our ability. And this is a great, I mean, not that many people watch these meetings, but they could. And it's a great opportunity to talk really openly and honestly about the things that you all know that we may not and answer their concerns. So I really, really, really appreciate you doing that. And I think that's how we build trust. And it's really important to build trust because you're what we have. And we're very lucky to have that. We're very lucky to have that partnership. And it's really wonderful to be able to ask a question, get a straight answer from you, and know that that that honesty and that exchange is there. So I really appreciated that. I really think that what you said about like cooperation and trust being the thing that's gonna get us sort of through the uncertainty is very true. So I appreciate that very much and thank you. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Leming.
[Matt Leming]: I'd also like to repeat that as well. Thank you all very much for your service and I do appreciate that oftentimes y'all are between a rock and a hard place. There's been a couple of instances where I've seen something reported on the news, and then I'll have a conversation with the police chief and then he kind of will explain the logistics behind what actually happened and how it was misreported, just as you did during this meeting. So things like that happen cyclically and very often. My only question is, would it be any what do you think would be something you'd be able to do logistically to periodically report to the city or let the city know in an official form when those instances when you do have run-ins with ICE or when you are aware after the fact of their activity, you're explaining it to us publicly right now, so do you think it would be a possibility to put that into some kind of a periodic report just so that we don't have to keep asking y'all to come back here and let us know what happened and these sorts in these formats.
[Paul Covino]: To answer that I know, working with Chief Buckley he's been, we've been in the process of trying to come up with a way to keep count of that we don't normally keep count of it because they don't, they may check in with us in the morning but they don't call us and say hey, we grabbed three people in your city. See you later. They take their prisoners and they leave. So, sometimes we may see them and say okay they've got some people but they don't bring them back to our station for processing. So we really don't know what their outcome is when they leave. It is something we're trying to get a grip on at least to try and maybe give you some numbers of how many times that they've arrested someone in our city, but we have to work with the Immigration Department on that. And we're certainly looking into it. Yeah.
[Matt Leming]: No, no, I'm mainly asking because we, we have a resolution later on tonight's agenda about that explicitly and I just, while you're here I just want to know how, like I just want your thoughts on how well you're, you'd be able to carry that out or if you think that that would be um an issue logistically on your end like I don't think it would be too much trouble for you to say like hey we you know we saw ice break a window on this car this is you know this is what happened I understand there's some arrests that you can't speak as publicly about or which are I mean sometimes like we talked about the incident where you saw that the agent break the window um
[Paul Covino]: behind the scenes, what happened was, as I said, you're under arrest. Nope, I'm not coming out. Well, the law allows you to use a certain amount of force to obtain that person. Yeah, you already explained that situation. The public doesn't get that. What the portrayal out there is they just smash the window in and done it.
[Zac Bears]: I think we're, I think we're going back over some ground we've already covered. Yeah, and I want to get to our DPW in our schools, because I have about 50 middle school and high school orchestra students waiting out there to play us music.
[Paul Covino]: The answer to you, I believe what you're asking is if we could try and keep track of it. Right now we do not have the ability to keep an accurate count of how many times they come in the city and take someone. But I know Chief Buckley has worked in the past with somebody from the Immigration Department about trying to get that information. And if we can work, get a count from them, we could weekly say, okay, they were here this many times they arrested this many people a monthly whatever it is.
[Zac Bears]: Okay, so it is. Yeah, it sounds like the answer is yes. And we're working on it where exactly.
[Matt Leming]: Thank you. Thank you. That's all I wanted to know.
[Zac Bears]: And I think that's when I was talking about information, that was another piece I was saying, I think being able to, if residents have questions and concerns to be able to say, here's the information we have, here's the things we don't know and can't provide, here's what we do know. They checked in three times this week, you know, things like that. And I appreciate that. I think that's helpful too. I just really quickly, because we do have a public comment on this as well. You mind if I go over the traffic commission and the traffic supervisor budget really quickly? Great. So we have the traffic commission fiscal 25 budget $30,500 fiscal 26 proposed $30,500. So no change for the traffic commission and traffic supervisors. And these are our part time folks who are out there keeping kids safe after school crossing guards. This is another name people might know them by we have fiscal 25 budget 361,525 and fiscal 26 proposed 370,500 for a change of 7,775. Is there anything you'd like to talk about our traffic supervisors or the traffic commission, either of you guys?
[Joseph Gagliardi]: No, just the difference in the traffic supervisors was just a 2% raise effective July 1st.
[Zac Bears]: Great.
[Joseph Gagliardi]: So that's barely the only variance.
[Zac Bears]: And that's part of the non-union, because they're non-union, right? Union. Oh, they're union. So this is part of their contract. Yes. Great. Sorry about that. Thank you. All right, do we have any questions from members of the council about the Traffic Supervisors and Traffic Commission? All right, we'll go to public comment on the Police Budget, Traffic Commission and Traffic Supervisors. So anyone in the chambers who would like to speak? Seeing none, we'll go to Zoom. I'll recognize Micah Kesselman, name and address for the record, and you'll have three minutes. Give me one second to get the timer going.
[Micah Kesselman]: Hey, there we go. Cool. Yeah, my name is Micah Kesselman, and I live at 499 Main Street. So first, just thanks for showing up and giving us these answers from the police department. I appreciate it. I'm sure a lot of residents do. I will try and be fast, because I have three things I would like to at least make comment on or get an answer to, if possible. So the first one is, Do you have any mechanisms in your hiring process to guard against applicants who were dismissed from other positions in other cities from being hired into our police force. I think that's a really important thing to try and tackle because this is a, maybe it's not as much of an issue for those in the know, but at least the public perception is that this is a major concern and problem with police forces today. The other thing I wanted to mention was that, as the Councilor said, and as you all even sort of attested to, violent crime and crime overall is down across the board across the country. However, just like you said, nevertheless, we do live in an age and time where it is constantly thrown at us and put in our faces and forced down our throats, whether we want to see it or not, and we're saturated with over-reporting on it. And my concern when it comes to that is just like you said, this puts our police officers on edge. This creates an environment of fear from our law enforcement, which isn't good for anyone. You don't want the folks with the state-sanctioned authority to shoot people to be scared all the time. So in your mental health upkeep and assistance internally is dealing with this totally disproportionate overemphasis of how violent crime is nowadays. Is this addressed? Is this something that you actually try to help counsel police officers through and understand and get a grip on? And the final thing I'll say with like 30 seconds on the clock, is that there were some misstatements made about whether or not arrests can be made. We have a fundamental right in this country, everyone has a fundamental right in this country, to be free from unlawful arrest. What makes an arrest lawful is very strictly defined, very narrowly defined. You have to be able to provide proof of an lawful order of arrest, or in very narrow circumstances, if there's, for ICE in particular, if there is reason to believe that the person would flee should you get a warrant, then they can make an unwarranted arrest, right? However, that flies in the face of if you have time to plan and ambush a person to make an arrest, Obviously, you have time to make, to get an order for it and be able to produce that order upon request. And likewise, there's some very clearly incorrect stuff being said by both sides about what happened in New Bedford with the smashing grab through the windshield by ICE. They had a warrant for the wrong person there. This is all on video. So they had a warrant for the wrong person. And he was calling his attorney when they broke his window. So that is very problematic. It wasn't him just resisting arrest. That's it for me. Thanks, guys.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. I had two questions there. I had, are there mechanisms to guard against advocates dismissed from other police forces in the hiring process? And how are we dealing with this oversaturation of like crime in our media, social media, and how that impacts mental health for officers? And you can feel free to respond to them. I just wanted to restate them. You don't have to.
[Barry Clemente]: Yeah, I think as far as that first question there, we do an extensive background And if, you know, part of that background is looking at prior employment, if somebody is dismissed for whatever reason from another, I think the gentleman said another police agency, you know, we do an extensive background, that's a red flag, obviously, that person's not gonna get hired. So the people we put on, they pass that background investigation, they pass everything, and they're strong candidates going in. And so we wouldn't have to worry about that.
[SPEAKER_13]: And so just to clarify one point on this, we're a post, in Massachusetts we have post. And there's something called a National De-Certification Index. Okay, when I do a back, when I begin a background investigation on somebody, they're run through the national decertification index. So if they have been decertified by any state in the union, they will not get on the Medford Police Department. So that first question is easily answered. There is no revolving door. If you're dismissed from another police department, you're not getting on the police department here in Medford.
[Barry Clemente]: That's part of the investigation. It's not going to happen.
[SPEAKER_13]: So that's not going to happen. What was the second question?
[Zac Bears]: It was when we're talking about providing mental health support and treatment for our officers, how are we talking about, you know, kind of this culture of fear that we're all living in, for lack of a better term, where we see a lot of violence on our phones and on TV and on the media that isn't really as reflective of our day-to-day experience.
[SPEAKER_13]: Well, we do a lot as far as mental health for our officers. One of the statistics that a lot of people don't realize is although officers are injured and killed on duty a lot, the number one cause of death for police officers is suicide. Right. So that's something that we have to clarify. We do do extensive mental health training at the Metro Police Department. And we're hoping with this new budget to do a lot more and some robust training. So as far as that goes, we're doing quite a bit. I think we're doing a lot more than a lot of the communities around us. And the third question, I think that was more of a statement than anything else. Sure. Thank you.
[Paul Covino]: Great. Regards to the mental health is one of the thing. The biggest component is that is the officers that respond to seriously, mostly violent crimes, even if it's a crime or even a motor vehicle accident or a sure a suicide. They're all impacted somehow we now belong to the greater Boston. So the system unit which is made up of several cities and towns around Boston. It's, there are police officers involved, civilian clinicians clergy, and when you have an incident where you could, we've had some where our whole shift was involved with a suicide of a juvenile, and we had them come in. And they're great and what they do is, is it in the beginning it's called the diffusion, and they bring everybody in in a group they talk, they come up. And if the person running it thinks there's usually a group of them involved there's not just one officer there there might be an officer that might be usually a civilian clinician that could a clergy, and it might be a couple officers involved. They're all trained at certain levels of running these diffusions, debriefings, and peer support groups. So they would obviously leave contact information. It's all privileged information. It doesn't come back to us, the command staff, unless somebody needs more help. And then we would go up to a next level to get them more help. But that is one of the biggest problems that law enforcement has overlooked for many years, and now we're part of that. Hopefully, in many ways to we have offices that are certified to respond to other cities and towns to help out with programs and as because you don't use offices from your own city to do this. So, that's one of our biggest upgrades in the last couple years.
[Zac Bears]: Thanks for both of you for the helpful answers, all of you. And I know also, you know, when we talk about guns, death by suicide is the most common thing that happens. You know, we see someone die on the other end of a gun as well. So appreciate you bringing that up and that we're working on it in a really seemingly, it seems like it's an intense and intensive way. Seeing no more questions or public comments, unless there's anyone who wants to raise their hand on Zoom or stand up in the chamber. Thanks, you guys.
[Barry Clemente]: All right, thank you. Thank you for having us.
[Zac Bears]: All right, Tim and Owen. I gotta do the schools too, so we're going over. I don't know, that's just half the budget, right?
[Unidentified]: Four minutes.
[Zac Bears]: Jerry's got a PowerPoint, so. All right, I will go through this. Let's just go through alphabetically. If there's anything you want to talk about introduction wise at the beginning for overall departmental operations to Commissioner McGivern. I'll see the floor to you and then we can go through on each, each section of your department.
[Tim McGivern]: Sure, I have just a quick presentation oral presentation, great. And I'll be quick about it, it's not too long, page and a half. So, quick overview of the DPW total budgets $44.3 million. That's about a 3% increase from FY 25. It's funded 38% by general funds 61% by water enterprise, and then about a combined 1% for perpetual care and sale of lots and graves. The Water Division, which is 61% of the budget, we maintain 135 miles of water distribution pipe, sewer piping, 14,700 services with their meters, provide water quality services, retail supplier of MWRA water. The Highway Division, which is 31% of our budget, maintain and operate 95 miles of public roadways, the city's public parking lots, and we have limited services on the 29 miles of private ways as well. Cemetery, 3% of our budget. We maintain and operate the Oak Grove Cemetery. It's about a hundred acres in size. 65,000 loved ones are buried there. There's a couple of buildings that need work and we're working on some burial expansion. Parks, that's 2% of our budget. We maintain and operate 23 parks, 14 playgrounds, athletic facilities, nine baseball fields, seven softball fields, four soccer fields, 13 basketball courts, nine tennis courts, and a pickleball court. Forestry, we have close to 10,000 public trees that was recently completed in an inventory that we just did. So now we know how many trees we have. We're working on completing an urban forest master plan to help guide the forestry division and our canopy. And we've planted over 200 trees this year. Fleet maintenance, we oversee 240 vehicles, the maintenance of them. That includes 27 fire apparatus, 51 police vehicles, and 20 pieces of heavy equipment. Engineering, which is approximately 2% of our budget. Oh, I'm sorry. Nope, that was right. About 2% of our budget. Many accomplishments, I'll let Owen talk about those, but maybe we'll just pause on that for a second.
[Unidentified]: We'll take that separately, yeah.
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, we'll just finish this. You'll see some changes in the budget this year. We've increased training budgets for highway and forestry for both skills and safety. We have increases in waste, and it's primarily because of new contracts that we negotiated, new 10-year contracts. So we went from a 10-year contract to a new set of 10-year contracts, and we are including composting services now. So that's a significant change. personnel from the override we're still working on that and we've done all the internal movements basically now we have three new positions from that override available outward facing so we're accepting applications and interviewing. We also transferred one position from cemetery to highway we're doing all kinds of lead work we have a whole all kinds of stormwater work that we're doing with ms4 a new permit coming We unfortunately had two members of the DPW pass away over this past year, relatively close together, William Ogonowski and Anthony Pompeo. And then we've had a number of retirements, Earl Philbrook, Joe Souza, Mary Menezes, who's retiring at the end of June, and Richard Eckhart also in June. We have a number of new employees that have joined us. We have a lot of open positions in highway, water, and engineering specifically. We are looking for folks to work in those three divisions. Next year, a couple of things you're going to see, we're significantly ramping up lead removals. That's a huge effort that Owen can talk more about and answer more questions on. We have significant stormwater rules coming down from the EPA having to do with the discharges to the river and our stormwater system. over the next year or so, we're gonna be hearing a lot more about that. Let's see, we have an increased focus on water quality, distribution, just basically water projects in general. We have had for the last few years, we did water meters, and now we're moving on to all kinds of things that Owen can talk about. We're gonna see Arlington Street next, right now we're doing Willis Avenue, Arlington Street's the next big project. for water. And then up at the cemetery we're continuing the capital improvements up there just working towards some some projects up there, preserving historic buildings, improving the roads and expanding burial space. So with that, you know, we also have some very specific goals that we that we've outlined. But you know, I've just given you guys a lot. And I know you also have our budget sheet. So I think any remaining time we can focus on questions after we give Owen a couple minutes.
[Zac Bears]: Great, okay we can start with engineering and I'm just going to read the engineering budget sheet. Fiscal 25 budget 547,752. Fiscal 26 budget proposed 719.82 for an increase of 171,330 and we have here casino funded position, permanent employees, there's a significant fixed cost growth there, a new project manager position, and those are the main drivers. Everything else is essentially inflationary. There's a little bit of new training for GIS and a new monitor and laptop system in the conference room. So Three things I know Tim kind of went over this a little bit more, but we do have you here as our city engineer. If you want to talk anything more about the speak to those changes anymore.
[Owen Wartella]: Yeah, so our big focus right now is getting the lead out. We've instituted. We're just beginning a project that's going to be multi year to get all the lead out by 2032. Along with that, we are going to be replacing the water mains. So we're kind of like working our way in, doing water lines, service lines, doing the water mains, and we have multiple-year projects building off of that to replace at least two or three miles a year. We've worked with the Water Commission to update the rates to allow us to fund these projects. We've updated the floodplain ordinances with you all, your help. We've updated the water sewer regulations to help us get in line with a lot of these upgrades to, with better water quality. On top of that, we have also worked with the Highway Department to expand our roadway restoration backlog to decrease it. and to expand the amount of repaving that we're doing and sidewalk work that we're doing. We're also working with utility companies to get them to come back in to do restoration work that was owed to us. National Grid should be wrapping that up this year. I think that's about it. I mean, also with stormwater, we're doing stormwater and sewer. I and I, we're basically ramping up and just, we're ramping up is the big thing. We're doing about four to five times the amount of work this year. So it's, we're really getting going.
[Zac Bears]: Compared to the current year or?
[Owen Wartella]: Just to years in the past. We're starting to, yeah. We're starting, you're going to start seeing it. So before it was like a lot of studies, design work. Now it's construction, construction, construction. So you're going to see a lot of the roadways
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, we have openings in engineering in their higher level system city engineer, for example, so we're, you know, really looking for folks to fill those positions because basically every construction project you see out there needs full time engineers on those projects. So, yeah, right.
[Zac Bears]: And is that part of what's driving this project manager position addition as well.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Zac Bears]: Okay. I'm just going to jump the line here really quickly. You brought up the two big things right, you guys, manage and do the design work on probably our two biggest capital assets which are all of the water and sewer pipes for everybody, and all of our streets and sidewalks. We've been doing these studies these assessments, certainly on the road we've talked a little bit about pavement condition, you've been doing something similar for water sewer. Where are we on a capital need basis? You know, it sounds like we're going to be doing a lot more now. And it sounds like on the water sewer side that there's money coming from the fee structure for the water and sewer enterprise fund to help do that.
[Joseph Gagliardi]: Correct.
[Zac Bears]: Roadside comes from the general fund and from state funds. So there's not as easy a way to do the revenue element of that. Could you talk a little bit more about expectations and how are we really going to start seeing an improvement in these conditions?
[Owen Wartella]: We should. With every water main project we're going to be coming in the following year to do the roadway restoration. We're currently using chapter 90 funding to do that and we're going to get creative to figure out how to keep up with the water main replacement work.
[Tim McGivern]: So and that's going to have chapter 90 increase their funding, not by a ton, but it's significant. So we'll have a little bit more to spend in coming years. And I believe there's even talk in state budget now to make it even more.
[Zac Bears]: So we're one time doubling stuff like that.
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, so and I think this different whether it's governor Haley's budget or the Senate houses I think there are some differences. I don't know, but I know the governor's budget did have an increased funding for roadway projects chapter nine specifically as part of the millionaires tax it. Yeah, a number of years ago. So we're looking forward to that. And I think that our plans, I wouldn't say hinge on that, but we're looking forward to it.
[Zac Bears]: You could do significantly more if the state provided that investment.
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like going to like, so that rate study that we did with water that is just wrapping up now. That tells us a lot that came with the capital project recommendation. So we kind of have years one through six or so kind of worked out as far as what we're going to be doing for water capital projects to increase operations of our system, things like pressure, things like reducing unaccountable water, leaking pipes, things like that, improving water quality, getting unlined pipes out of the ground, getting lined good pipes in the ground. So that's on a very long-term look. So we took some time to study, now we know, and we're kind of easing into it. So year two is bigger than year one, year three is bigger than year two. if you kind of get my drift here, and we can take this for 30 years, 20 years, or 50 years, depending on how fast we move.
[Zac Bears]: Well, it's been going downhill for, what, 100, so.
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, we have a pretty good road map now, and if folks are interested in learning more, they can contact the engineering officer in my office.
[Zac Bears]: Great, and there's materials posted on the website as well. Yes. I'm just going to go through and read the budget lines, since we've lumped it all together. So I'm just going to do that really quickly. Cemetery, we had $1,118,050 for fiscal 25. There's a reduction to $1,071,342. That's a reduction of $46,708. I already did engineering. Forestry, we had fiscal 25, $623,989. And there's a small reduction to $618,365. There are reduced costs for arborist support and as well as some step increases and just generally some staffing funding there. Parks, we had fiscal 25, 950,578 and fiscal 26 proposed 954,765 and there's a net decrease of 2,813 there. Highway we had fiscal 25 budgeted $12,839,686. Fiscal 26 budget $13,984,161 for an increase of $1,104,000. $475. A huge chunk of this is our waste contract. It looks like it's about $9.4 million this year. And that's an increase of $700,000 from last year. And then that's all the general fund departments and then we had water and sewer, which is the enterprise fund and that's, you know, funded by the, you know, rates the water and sewer rates fiscal 26 sorry fiscal 25 total was 26,937,511. Fiscal 26 is $26,966,670 for an increase of $29,159, which from a percentage basis actually rounds down to a 0% increase. So that's the all of the budgets for our dpw. And thank you at the beginning for going over and saying this is what percentage of your total dpw is enterprise fund and then the other department.
[Tim McGivern]: So I realized in previous years I may not have been clear on that and so what I've been trying to do, and I'll do this moving forward as well as this year I have a full summary sheet with a breakdown of all those percentages and everything like that so We know how big DPW is and how each, how big each division is.
[Zac Bears]: Great. If you could forward that to the clerk, he can distribute it to us. We can add it to the packet for this meeting online. And also I think it'd be great to put on the website.
[Tim McGivern]: Sure. Yeah. It's basically the same data you have in front of you, but just synthesizes in a graph, a pie chart. Some sort of pie chart. Exactly. Beautiful pie chart. So I was thinking about putting it in a presentation, but I want to make sure that it's, it's matches all, all the numbers match. Sure. Yeah.
[Zac Bears]: Great. Okay, I'm going to go to Councilor Tseng Councilors are and then Councilor Scarpelli Councilor Tseng.
[Justin Tseng]: Thank you. I'll be quick. That was very efficient. President Bears asked the first part of my question. I know a lot of residents are very excited about the construction projects, water and streets and sidewalks. So I just wanted to know where we are when it comes to capital needs and where we see ourselves on that timeline. So that was helpful. My second question is about, you mentioned that there are open positions. And that's going to be important to fill. How competitive do you think we are? Do you think there are problems with recruitment? Do you think that we need more money in the budget eventually for those positions?
[Tim McGivern]: Um, you know, it's a good set of questions for sure. Our list of open positions is large right now. It's large, mostly due to some employees that were here leaving for better opportunities, especially in engineering, and that happens. So, just the timing is bad. So good for them bad for us really, you know. We have had some of the positions open for a while and we are trying to get creative, especially water superintendent. That's a big one that's been open for quite some time. We've increased it. We've added some benefits, but we're still having some trouble, but we'll see how things go. Hopefully there's an internal people that are working on licenses. So we'll see, you need a very specific license for that. And then, you know, how do we compare it. I think you know we have some pros to working in the public sector that I think not, not a lot of folks realize so you know our salaries could be a little bit higher comparing to other municipalities but I think the competitive. And, you know, I think that some of it is just the market. Somerville is also having troubles, without naming other municipalities, I just named one, but other municipalities around us, not just Somerville, but other ones are also having trouble finding people to work in the water division, as well as mechanics. That's another big one. Right now, out in the private world, mechanics are hot. So they're paying $50 an hour. We can't pay $50 an hour. But that job is very different. Working at Verizon or Penske Fleet or whatever, U-Haul Fleet, that's very different than working in the public sector fleet and all the different types of vehicles that we work on, our state-of-the-art shop, how we track our work. It's all very different. So we do have some perks there that we're hoping to leverage. Hopefully that answers your question.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Lazzaro.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Hi, thanks for being here. Did you coordinate your outfits? First question.
[Zac Bears]: No, they always look like that. I'm no time for jokes.
[Emily Lazzaro]: There's no time for jokes. Second question is, is the EPA grant still happening for the water main replacements? Okay, great. Then we assume yes. Okay. Great.
[Zac Bears]: We have neither been denied nor approved.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Sorry, just because the microphone wasn't picking you up. The reason I ask is because I heard some things just weren't happening, just weren't manifesting. Like people were expecting to get them and they just wouldn't come.
[Owen Wartella]: My understanding is that nobody in this community got that grant.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Oh, nobody got it.
[Owen Wartella]: Correct.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Oh, so it never happened.
[Owen Wartella]: No, nobody was approved for the EBA grant.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Oh, I thought that was why we were doing the... That is exactly why we were doing it. And now we're doing it anyway.
[Tim McGivern]: correct.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Oh, but you know what, but we're doing it.
[Tim McGivern]: We're doing it and our strategies just was tweaked a little bit really, because instead of a gigantic grant that we can do all at once, now we have a 75% loan, 25% grant from the MWRA, which we are executing currently. Great. So we're getting the ball rolling, we're hoping, and we're gonna need some additional funding, whether it's state revolving fund through DEP or an EPA grant, it's gonna have to be something.
[Emily Lazzaro]: It needed to happen. I'm glad it's happening. Unfortunately, you know, whatever's happening with that is unfortunate. But I am happy that it's moving forward. Whatever got us here. Okay, you know, it's in the past in the past. Yes, we can only move forward.
[Tim McGivern]: That's the goal all the way out.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Wow.
[Zac Bears]: Is it possible that in a future federal administration, future Congress that maybe we could the grant might come back to life? Is that something you're thinking about?
[Owen Wartella]: It might, but we're moving forward. We're not going to wait around. We're going to get the lead out. And that's the process we're doing. I think that's so we can always the first, as Tim mentioned before, the first year, it's going to be, you know, X amount of lead, then we're going to be like doing more and more the third year, then more and more. We can always ramp up, but it's just getting that ball rolling and getting going. That's what we're trying to do.
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, and we have a very good partner. The MWRA is a very good partner in this effort. They have a huge stake in it.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Can you tell us what that stands for?
[Tim McGivern]: Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. They provide the water for this side of Massachusetts, more or less. And we are a retailer of their water.
[Zac Bears]: And the tune of $22 million or so the tune of $22 million.
[Tim McGivern]: That's correct. Yep, that's our biggest buy for sure. So, you know, they're working with the state at the state level on funding as well. That may include federal funding at the state level when it before it eventually comes to us, but we're hoping that you know, it comes to us. So when I say they have a stake in it. Medford has a relatively large amount of lead and unknowns in the ground. So that impacts how they treat their water. So if we don't get all the lead out by 2032, and it's not just Medford, but if all the lead doesn't get out to a certain level, then the MWRA has to add a treatment process to their process, which will impact all of their water users. And that obviously goes on the backs of the rate payers at some point. So we're working with them in partnership to try to make that 2032 goal.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Great. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Great. Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli.
[George Scarpelli]: So I think I'll be a little more critical. I think that what we're seeing right now is my first question is staffing. I know we glossed over it, and I know that the mayor presents the budget and you have to live with it, correct? But how drastically understaffed are we?
[Tim McGivern]: Well, we have, we're understaffed in those three, so highway, fleet, and water and engineering. So, and fleet is part of highway really, but we have, you know, the superintendent, the foreman, and one mechanic operating right now. So we are significantly understaffed in fleet. Highway, we're trying to, I'm calling it understaffed, but we're trying to get three new hires on board. So we're interviewing some folks, we've got some candidates. Engineers are tough though, I will tell you, as well as water operators. Both of those markets are terrible for hiring right now.
[George Scarpelli]: I can directly feel what you're saying because I work in that community that you mentioned, but that community also has an infrastructure of 10 people. We have Mr. Baker who's by himself. I mean, the other day I saw him walk in the street checking a water leak. And I said, what is our number one person walking the streets? And that's what I find amazing. I said, this is like counterproductive. We have to look at really putting together a plan in place that's a little bit more robust. And I'm not saying you, I'm saying as a partnership, the council, the department, the mayor's office, to see what we can do. I mean, I look at the parks department and Somerville has one baseball field, they have four soccer fields, they have two softball fields. We have a crew of three that just lined fields in Molons, three.
[Tim McGivern]: not including six, six people, right? You have eight altogether. Yeah. Eight altogether.
[George Scarpelli]: Right. And neighboring communities, they have like 12 to 15 with, with quarter of what we have in Medford. Sure. So I think that it's, it's, it's something that has to be said and identified, not just glossed over. I think that we have to understand what we're seeing right now is a serious issue and concern of, you know, the override, you brought it up, you know, we had $500,000 and mocked back from the beginning of July one. So, Did we hire those three people? Are they new people? Are we just moving people in? Did we purchase the equipment? Because the mayor said that's gonna fix no more potholes, no more sidewalks. The sidewalk problems are all set.
[Tim McGivern]: So we're anticipating, because the 20% increase in workforce, we're anticipating a 20% increase in productivity. So that's my expectations. We haven't hired new people on yet because we actually just finished the internal promotions and movements. Those jobs are posted. So there's a strategy in place that the mayor is working with me on. It started with forestry in my first year, I identified that forestry needed to be bigger, so we doubled the size of forestry. Water happened next, and I sat with the mayor and we came up with a strategy for water. Water happened in 2024-23 I feel like. Maybe. So, that has what are what has a lot of open positions right now me oh threes supervisor superintendent. So the open positions are there we're just going to film, Ron. Sorry Mr. Baker is the meter technician, he does have an assistant. And we're trying to get another assistant in there as part of the strategy. You know if we can if we can work that I don't disagree. As far as right sizing other divisions go for example parks. We're not quite there yet highway we can do some more. Sure, so cemetery is right size. So I do have some good things to report. We actually moved a person from cemetery to highway because they're right size. So that's good. And how big should water be? How big should parks be? How big should forestry be? Those are very good questions. So I do spend time researching what other municipalities have, what they do, what the APWA recommends, what best practices are. And we do fall short for some of our divisions and we have for a very long time, and I'm pretty sure I've talked about that quite a bit, but both this Council and the executive.
[George Scarpelli]: So back to the override question with your crew that was presented. It was a hot top sidewalk crew of three people plus, plus the equipment that's needed the truck. Yep. Where are we with those three people in the truck that was presented as an override fix all for us for hot top potholes inside?
[Tim McGivern]: Sure. I've always presented as a 20 percent increase in highways productivity. So that means an increase and a focus on roadways and larger patches. So not just potholes. Potholes are definitely something that we have to keep up with. But removing large areas of potholes that need to be fixed, for example, and we keep returning to. So we have the equipment. The equipment includes a a specialized grinder with an asphalt spreader, a concrete planer, and then we have a dump truck that we're trying to make sure works with the paver that is working out pretty good. So I think we're on track. It did take a while to kind of do the internal movements of personnel to get to a place where we could turn the three new positions outside.
[Zac Bears]: Those are required by the union contract? internal movements. Correct. Yeah. So we had to follow the contracts to move. Yeah, people had the positions had to be available to people already working for your department. And now that all of that is complete, what remains open is now available for the public to apply for.
[Tim McGivern]: You got it. And that's what we're doing right now. So thank you just wanted to clarify.
[George Scarpelli]: So again, to that point, yes, the perception that We have the equipment, the grinder per se, is a staff finally is it are they trained the staff that you need staff like council business, they're trained and ready to go we have that equipment.
[Tim McGivern]: We have the equipment and we're doing trainings.
[George Scarpelli]: Yeah. Okay, so, but this is this, how long we have that equipment. When do we.
[Tim McGivern]: We got the equipment actually, I think, maybe a year ago, about a year ago, before the override so.
[George Scarpelli]: This is what the confusion is where perceptions, not the reality, because what was said and what was led, this is what I'm trying to, people want questions. They're saying potholes are still not being filled. Sidewalks is still a mess. There's still questions, right? But the override, this is a story, and I'm not blaming you, I'm just sharing what has been presented to me when it comes to this budget. This $500,000 is gonna fix this. That was quote unquote, she said, it's gonna fix it. Now what we're saying is, the structure of understanding that, oh, this is just gonna be internal taking 20% of what we have and moving people to right positions.
[Tim McGivern]: No, that's incorrect. No, no. So we have to, we added three new positions. Yeah. So we increased how many people are in highway by about 20%. Okay. So in order to fill those positions, we have to promote people that are internal into those positions. So that took, I don't know, half a dozen or so internal movements of positions, people to positions. So that process is now done. And now we're looking to hire three brand new people that have never worked with the DPW before and bring them in, because we haven't got those new people yet. So we haven't been able to put out two puddle crews yet. But we're getting there. And I don't think I don't think I've ever said that this is going to fix it.
[George Scarpelli]: I didn't say you
[Tim McGivern]: I didn't say, but I've never presented it that way either. I've always been presenting this as an increase in productivity. And it's also I've also been very clear. It's a piece of the puzzle. It's in-house work to do more cost effective spot repair work. But then the capital work needs to be production work. So longer stretches of asphalt, longer stretches of sidewalk. So those are the two components of improving our pavement condition index and our sidewalk condition index. So those are the two strategies that we are moving forward with. So both capital and in house capacity.
[George Scarpelli]: Okay, so just so you share with where we're getting at. Sure. The perception of residents that said when you go through Somerville, you go through Cambridge, There's a hot top truck, right, there's a there's a crew out there. Yes, we have to that they're they're doing that on a regular basis. They're not doing the hot top three to four days, they're replacing the sidewalks that so and these are the questions that people want to know where that's going. So that's that that's where it comes from.
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, we do that to just reassure everybody out there we do we have a fairly large city there's 100 or so miles of road more than that. So when When you don't see pothole crews out there, it doesn't mean they're not out there. They are out there. We're out there three to four days a week a lot of the times. And I personally can't wait until we see that increase in production. It's one of my major goals here at the city of Medford because I feel the same as everybody else. I live here too. There's too many potholes. The roads have been neglected for far too long. The water pipes have been neglected for far too long. And one of the reasons I am where I am is because I would like to use my skills to fix that.
[George Scarpelli]: I appreciate that. Because again, Your team, you guys are doing a great job yeoman's where you can set into consideration what we're seeing here right yeah so I mean what we have in comparison with other communities and what we have to fix is a lot so I appreciate that that's not the question I think that just understanding as we go through the budget so we can answer some questions the other piece that you brought up earlier. was now the confusion where it's coming in. I know we talked about it ourselves is the private public way. So now I know we talked about what we can and what we can't do. I think we need to really have a true outline. So our residents understand, because I think there's a lot, there's a lot of confusion when I'm getting phone calls saying, George, I have an, I have an issue on my street, but I was told I cannot, they cannot touch it because I'm a private way. So I'll give you an example. We're talking about one neighborhood who hot top this street on their own, this, the private way, The community on that street paid for the hot tub. There's been some issues where the streets have been dug up, plows have gone through, taken up potholes. But then the question is, why isn't that being fixed? So these are the confusion things. And listen, Tim, you've been very reactive. I appreciate how creative you tried to be, and I know it's difficult. But when we have residents calling and they're saying, the confusion comes in, and I'm a city councilor, and I'm confused. Because when you look at it, it does sound reasonable when it says, well, we did pay for that private way. the city did come in and somehow it was a main issue. So the water department came in and fix something there. So they dug up that road. Sure. Whatever happened after that, when the plow started coming in, started tearing up that road. So they've already fixed it. So now where do we stand as a city when it comes to private ways to correct issues that we're part of?
[Tim McGivern]: Well if we damage something in a private way we are responsible to fix it and we have a list of like berms that we've taken out with plows and things like that. You know, because we've talked about a limited amount of funds that we have. I'm really really aware of every dollar that I can get going to the public, the roads ones that by law we are responsible for and the city taxpayers responsible for. A document or a web page that describes what a private way is versus public way. There, you know, there are resources, resources out there we haven't put one together except for for parking we do have a resources for private ways and parking, so that's out there folks want to see it. As far as who's responsible for exactly what. in a private way. It's not always clear. It isn't. It has to do with title. It has to do with whether or not there's a homeowner's association, whether or not there's derelict fee involved. There's so many factors involved. It's a little bit of a legal gray area, almost all of it. So what now that we have a city solicitor on board, I haven't talked to him about it yet. But, you know, I had talked about with a previous city solicitor quite a while ago about putting together some resource. That'd be great. Yeah. And I think until that happens, I direct folks to Massachusetts, the Commonwealth's website that has tons of information about the difference between public and private ways. And if any questions arise out of that, Owen and I are happy to answer questions. A lot of people wonder how to make a private way into a public way. We know how we can we can talk about that. You know, I have a very good idea, just based off of working here and working as an engineer have to do with land rights and who can do what and who has what rights to do what it can be a legal tangle. So I just want to make sure that everybody understands that the public tax dollars are for public rights of way which is why the process of public way acceptance exists to begin with. So that's just very important for people to know.
[George Scarpelli]: So, so I know that and I appreciate that I think that I know people don't understand that the funding we get. that we don't get because a lot of our roads are private hurt us. So that's something maybe we should, as a council, as an administration, work together, try to find a way, how can we make more of our private ways, public ways to help us fund these concerns? I think it's a big issue. Because I know we're spending a lot of time on these private ways because of situations like we've talked about. And I appreciate you picking up that phone because I know sometimes you see my phone ring.
[Tim McGivern]: And nine out of 10 times about a private way so that's okay let me everyone you're not the only Councilor does that and I think that the more questions that are answered when it comes to private ways the better in Medford because I think we had a lot of time here in the city. where private ways were treated like public ways. We do provide limited services on private ways. And we can talk about that more in the future because we probably have to clear something up legally. But we do plow the private ways and we do fill potholes in private ways. And I've actually recently been involved with trying to discuss private way conditions with the private way owners. There are savvy folks out there, they understand what the rules are. And, you know, talking with those people, there's an interest in a knowledge base growing out in Medford. And I think a resource like you suggest would only help that. So like I said, now that Mr. Foley is on board, maybe we can put something together.
[George Scarpelli]: Okay, last is something that I think that We've all talked about, we've had the President of the Union here, I mean the representatives from Teamstiz, it seems like it's DPW is seeing a lot of grievances and then appeals and arbitrations and How's that working with the morale of the team? I know it's not, it must be difficult. My biggest thing is morale, first of all, second of all, is most important that we're seeing for the community is the money that we're spending with, let's say there's a situation where someone bids for a job. They don't think, the city doesn't think they get the job, so now you go through the whole process, right? It goes to arbitration, the arbitrator says, okay, we support this employee. Now, normally that would stop and we move forward. Now we're seeing situations where, what, we're going to appeal it now. How does that, how does the morale there hurt? And then how is it affecting the whole budget process when we're A, leaving positions open, and then B, keep fighting these issues when it comes to arbitration cases, which cost money. So is that coming out of your budget when it's when it's coming a legal issue when it comes arbitrations and stuff.
[Tim McGivern]: Well, we do have, we do pay some legal bills out of the DBW budget. It is in there that have to do with DBW employees. So you know those those legal matters that I'm not know, prepared to talk about today as far as personnel and the legal matters. I know but no I do want to get to your question about morale. It could be better. I mean it always could be better. I think it's better in some divisions than others. You know, it's different multitude of reasons it's not just grievances. Sometimes it's, you know, things like I I don't have enough colleagues in the mechanic shop, and it's really bumming me out because I'm doing too much overtime. Or, you know, maybe it's coming out of the engineering office when, you know, so and so, I saw that so and so is getting paid more than me over, you know, at this other place. And, you know, it's reminding them, you have benefits here too. And so, you know, there's different reasons, I think, besides just grievances from the union that are impacting morale, you know and I think a good chunk of it is the fact that we're. We're working out there with a whole bunch of open positions waters comes to mind because we have basically me and deputy deputy bring, and then we have multiple positions before we get to labor that are open supervisor and superintendent. So, that's not good for morale either. So you know this, like I said, the answer your question there are many many different things that impact morale. And just one more thing, I do try to do things that will increase morale, making sure that I'm recognizing folks who do great things. And even recognizing folks just coming to work every day and recognizing those good employees. We have a lot of them. So I do my best to try to acknowledge them and make sure that we know that we value what they give to the city. Does it always work? I don't know.
[George Scarpelli]: I hope it does. So again, I had some tough questions and I appreciate it. And here's the thing, Tim, you've always, you've always picked up the phone. You've always guided us. I think the team that you do have are doing a great job for the numbers that we do have. So I know there are issues with potholes and sidewalks on and so forth, but I think for what we have right now, and I think that, you know, that it's important that I appreciate you recognize that with your staff and you support them and, And I appreciate you sitting there and answering these questions. I know they're not, they weren't easy, but I know that, you know, for one Councilor, if there's anything that DPW needs and be a champion for, we're here. So I'm here for you. So thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Seeing no further questions from members of the council, just have one for you. Could you talk a little bit more about the trash contract? It's nearly 25% of the DPW budget. It's the vast majority of certainly the general fund side of the DPW budget. It's going up very fast. Could you talk about that? And then could you talk about why some of the renegotiated the new contract, for example, why we have a fee for bulk pickup now and some of the other changes?
[Tim McGivern]: Sure, I can talk about that specific change first if you want. So don't lose track of it. So before there was no fee everybody got a certain number I think was two free. So, folks didn't have skin in the game, so there was a lot of abuse of that. So one of that cost falls back on the city again so it's free for the residents but it costs the city more money, because things are, it's not done correctly people are, you know, putting putting things out there that maybe they shouldn't be or whatever those. So when folks don't have some sort of responsibility to pay for it. hold them accountable for the trash that they're putting out basically, we're not charging the full cost just half the cost might even be less than half so it's $15, so we felt that was a reasonable cost. As far as why it's a lot more as we had 10 year contracts, there was only. the escalation in the 10-year contract doesn't match inflation. So probably by the end of our 10-year contract with waste management, they probably were losing money. They weren't making as much as they were in the first years of the contract. So now we have a new contract, and the inflation and other escalations are represented in that new contract. So that's one big reason why it's more money. The other reason is because we're adding a service. We're adding composting service right now. So that's an additional cost as well. And that has to do with the cost of trash disposal. Trash disposal costs are going way up and they're going to continue to go way, way up.
[Zac Bears]: You mean trash as opposed to recycling?
[Tim McGivern]: Correct. Yes, yes, yes. Trash, recycling and compost. So those are our three buckets. Trash is very, very expensive and will continue to get more expensive to dispose of. Recycling, there's a market for that. It goes up and down, the different products that are in the recycling. And then compost. Compost is the heavy, wet, smelly portion of your trash, basically. So removing that and composting it, turning it back into soil is the inexpensive, sustainable, way to go. So then we're only disposing of the lighter, easier to dispose of trash that doesn't stink up your garage or whatever. But it also reduces the weight. Oh yes, yes. We pay by the ton, so it reduces the weight. Yes, exactly. So we're disposing of and paying for less trash disposal and paying for more compost disposal. So we're tipping the scales. In the long run, the hope is that
[Zac Bears]: that might end up being more cost effective to go in that direction?
[Tim McGivern]: We pretty much think it will be. It's kind of one of those things, if you look at landfills and how much space is left to put trash and bury it, we're running out. So we burn a lot of it now, and the ratio of burn is going up. So we're incinerating more and more trash. It's simple why, we're running out of room to put it in the landfill.
[Zac Bears]: Okay, Councilor Collins.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for the presentation. I thought I wasn't going to ask any questions about the waste contract but who am I kidding. Just quickly, and I know we discussed this when I was on the Solid Waste Task Force a couple years ago when the new waste contract was being negotiated. I remember at that time, this was a couple years ago now, there was some discussion of Um, for municipalities like ours, there is potentially ways for to be reimbursed for the recycling of certain recyclables. Is that something that's come to fruition in this contract? And is that a negligible or non negligible number?
[Tim McGivern]: It's not negligible. That's so It's the same as the previous contract, really, if there's a formula involved for the streams. So once the single stream is split up to cardboard, plastic and metal, we get market rates for those. So if cardboard is doing really well, which I think it is right now, We might get paid for cardboard. So weird. You see what I mean? Yeah. Are you saying it? Maybe it's not. I don't know. Maybe.
[Kit Collins]: No, I believe you.
[Tim McGivern]: It's just weird that it is. Cardboard might be up. Aluminum was down for a long time. So aluminum was down for a long time. So no one was buying aluminum cans and recycling. So last couple of years have been tough for recycling, I will say. Last few years. In terms of the market? In terms of the market, yep. We're ending up paying for disposal. It's going to the same places, but the market is such that we have to pay them to take it away.
[Kit Collins]: Interesting. It is so interesting to me that the solid waste contract and transacting for the city is maybe one of our clearest examples of how the city is impacted by the free market when there are other ways in which we are not able to participate in the free market ie capping of property taxes and a proposition two and a half but we are I mean, now I think it's good that the waste contract is tied to cost of inflation. That seems fair for both parties, you know, in an equal system and our potential reimbursement subject to what different recyclables are being traded for. It's just, I think for residents, it's an interesting case study within a local economy where there's usually more of these artificial constraints. My other question also pertaining to the waste contract. I know part of the, One of the many great things about redoing the contract, renegotiating that, is that being able to factor in better recycling, opening ourselves up to better compost service was to make us eligible for more grants through the state because of our waste and recycling practices becoming more aligned with best practices. Are there any major grants that we have applied to or received in the past couple of years since the new contract started?
[Tim McGivern]: Yes, so DEP has a couple of grants and right now we're working on securing one of them. It's called pay as you throw. So you are correct. We are not eligible for that because we have incorporated compost and we have a multi-year strategy when it comes to solid waste. We're eligible for grants like that. So, you know, when it comes to buying new compost carts, for example, we need to buy those and there's lots of them. So we have to, we're looking for grants for that, for example.
[Kit Collins]: okay great thank you and then last thing really quickly i know there was kind of a tiered approach to rolling out uh free composting citywide through this contract when is the next expansion. I know we're kind of expanding in concentric circles for different types of residences. Is that a couple years down the pike?
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, we're in between phases right now. So we're working with some folks at Tufts University to help us plan this out. And there's going to be a little bit of a ramp up coming soon here. We're reaching that difficult phase in the transition where most of the people who are you know, pretty easy to get onto the program happened already now. So now we're kind of climbing that steeper hill to get more people on board. They're coming on, but we have to have a certain rate to get every, you know, everybody in the city on board by a certain time. So.
[Kit Collins]: Okay, great. Thank you very much.
[Tim McGivern]: You're welcome.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Do we have any comments from councillors, questions from councillors or any comments from members of the public on the DPW budget? Seeing no one in the chamber and no hands raised on zoom. I thank you guys very much All right. Thank you going to our public schools. Next. We have the superintendent and finance team with us And as folks know, Metro Public Schools is a little bit different than all of our other city departments because they are governed by the school committee. We, both the mayor and the city council do not have any line item authority over the school budget. We simply can, we provide the full general fund allocation. The mayor makes a proposal and the city council could approve or reduce or reject that proposal. And given that we do have a budget book The fiscal year 25 budget so the year ending next month June 30 was 83 million, and the proposed fiscal 26 budget is 87,583,290. And is that also the allocation proposed by the mayor. I'll double check that but. Okay, so that's the request from the school committee, have they voted on that yet. So that's the voted request from the school committee for the general fund. With that, I'll turn it over to you, Madam Superintendent.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Thank you very much. I've seriously edited my opening remarks, because I know we're pressed for time. So I just am here to kind of like start the, I'm going to kick it over to Mr. Noel Velez and Mr. Jeremy Q, who have worked tirelessly on the budget, and I thank them very much. for their partnership and their dedication to this work. But I also just wanted to say thank you to all of you. Thank you to the mayor and the school committee and the Medford community for the support, the ongoing and the continuous support for Medford Public Schools. It is greatly appreciated. And sometimes in this work, the needs of the district, the needs of the students, because we do work on behalf of students, can sometimes exceed what the available funding is. And so we have adapted a little bit of our presentation due to the time constraints. You have the entire presentation, but I'm going to start sharing if You've allowed me as a co host. Great. I'm going to start sharing. If you're following along, halfway through on slide 13 so that Mr. McHugh and Mr. Velez can just get right down to the nitty gritty of your questions and why we're here. Does that seem reasonable.
[Zac Bears]: Sounds great.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Okay, great. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: I know there's been a very extensive many public meetings at the school committee that people can go.
[Noel Velez]: Thank you all very much. My name is Norval S, Director of Finance of Medford Public Schools. And we'll just, once she puts the slide up. So what you're reading here is, as we were talking about a little bit earlier, the school committee approved the budget of $87,582,290. We had two committee meetings of the whole. in which this budget was approved and passed on March 24th. As you were referring to earlier, the mayor's proposed target budget is $85,490,000. That is an increase of 3% from the fiscal year 25 budget for the school department. Right now we're just sitting with an early variance of $2,093,290. And over the next few slides, Gerald McHugh and myself will be talking about how we'll be shrinking those gaps, as one would say, and also being creative with the finances of the city and our revenue to make sure that we meet the needs of the community.
[Gerry McCue]: Okay. Thank you, Noel. And thank you, councillors. We did have a lot of information on the basis of the $87 million budget. And that's all pretty much detailed in our public hearing presentation, which is on the website. And we're certainly available to answer any questions you might have on that. We do have this variance between the budget that was approved by the school committee and the allocation that we got from the city, which we are not here to have an issue with, but we're committed to working with the city to see how we can kind of reconcile the two budgets and get what we need for FY26. In this exercise, we begin to look at available balances in our evolving funds that could be used to offset general fund appropriations, other special revenue funds as well. We do have some new spending that is now part of our proposal. So for the original budget, We took the position that we would keep any new positions requested to a minimum. We did add two in the $87 million budget. But since that time, we have a better understanding of where we are with federal grants, to the extent one can have a better understanding. And we have reached agreement with the Medford Teachers Union on the new schedule. So we were concerned would there be new positions that would be required from the new schedule. So we kind of postponed any new positions and we'll go over what those are in a moment. But we also identified some savings in the budget that was passed to offset some of those new costs that we're now proposing. And the big thing that we need to work together with the city on this will be a bigger conversation I think that will involve the mayor and the finance director is around the $4 million from question eight. So there were specific costs associated with that. The implementation of the new schedule. So we're going to have longer school days as a result of the new schedule. There's extra teacher days involved in the new contract. But Because we had contracts in place in FY25, and we had new contracts being negotiated at the end of this year, some of the question eight funds are spent in FY25, but some will be spent in FY26. So we're trying to come up with a way to, first of all, calculate how much is left in that $4 million. that could be made available to support the school budget in FY26. One idea we have that we'll talk about tonight is to create a stabilization fund to take that balance and reserve it for what the voters intended to use the money for. And then, Separately, we've proposed to kind of draw that money down over the three years of the contracts in order to avoid creating a fiscal cliff when it comes time to replace those stabilization funds, since they will be supporting the base budget. So we have a detailed slide on that as well. So for our revolving funds and special revenue funds, the state does provide reimbursement to communities for homeless transportation. There's a balance right now in that account of $391,000. We propose to use that to lower our homeless transportation appropriation. that will help close this variance that we have. We have some flexibility with our circuit breaker funds that are used for special education to offset appropriation increase in special education. And then we have balances in our Culinary Arts Fund revolving account and our MEAP revolving account that takes tuition in from parents in Medford. And we would be able to shift four positions that are currently in the general fund onto those revolving accounts. So that We'll allow savings of $955,000. We'll use that to try to close that variance that we have. The next item was some of the things that came up during budget hearings that we deferred until now. The high school principal has proposed creating an alternative learning program at the high school. So this is a small group instruction for students that have need to, have not earned, sufficient credits to graduate on time so this will be more lower student teacher ratios that will help them get back on track. This proposal has a English language arts a math science teacher and a social worker attached to this program. And if it's successful, we might expand it. But the vision right now would be for about 10 to 12 students that would be identified by staff. We proposing a part-time band teacher for the elementary schools. We kind of lost this position in FY 25 because we created a full-time band teacher at the high school. That position had some responsibilities for the elementary band, so this re-establishes that position in the budget. having to add back a guidance Councilor at the middle school as a result of an arbitration award. We're projecting that we may need two teachers at the high school due to the new schedule. One is fairly firm in science. A second one is still to be determined. So that could possibly reduce the variance, but right now I think it's prudent to plan for two. And similarly, we think we might need an additional teacher for coverage, a specialist teacher at the Roberts for coverage. at that school that the specialists are fully scheduled, and they are necessary to cover prep time that the teachers are eligible to have. And we're proposing a BCBA position for the Andrews. And this is because one of our para behavior specialists earned her a college degree and credentials to become a full-fledged behavior analyst. And so you'll see on the next slide, we have some savings to offset that and a new lead stipend for college in Korea responsibilities within the guidance department. So we have identified some savings to offset those spending increases. We found that we provided for two extra Nexus specialist positions in the elementary. We had for two schools, we had two each. It should be one each, so we were kind of over, budgeted in that area. This year we added a teacher in grade one for EL strand with at McGlynn. We finding because of enrollment that we do not need that second teacher in FY 26. So we took a savings there. We talked about the behavior specialists that we'll just continue. We had, there was a, there was an effort to create positions called Serranquia paras in FY24. And the idea here would be that these, some of these paras would start later in the day around 1030 or 11, and then we'd work till about five and provide some time for the before and after school program. And that was not well received by the paras. There was only one person that opted to take that schedule. So we're gonna discontinue this ground care para in FY26. And we do have one more kindergarten para at the McGlynn than we need for the four kindergarten classrooms next year. And then this is a little more detail of what we were talking about for stabilization fund. The $4 million was added to the budget in FY25. As part of the new contracts that got negotiated, there's stipends available to certain departments to redesign the scope and sequence of how instruction is delivered during the day because there'll be a different number of periods and a different number of minutes per period and the day will be extended by 15 minutes. And the same thing happens with students that are on IEPs. All the IEPs have to be kind of rewritten around the new schedule. There'll be no loss of services, of course, to the students, but they might get allocated out on a slightly different schedule. And then there was a portion of the new teacher contract will be paid on the on June 30 of this year. And so that's going to leave. that we would want to preserve to make available in future fiscal years to offset the costs of the teachers and the paraprofessional contracts. And so we proposed this schedule. There's a number of different ways to do it, but if we utilized fully the 2.185, in FY26, in FY27, we would have to replace those funds. So it would operate similar to a grant in that respect. So one way to do it would be to just draw down that $2.1 million over three years, and that would minimize the annual replacement of funds in the subsequent year. So all those, this is just a summary sheet. We saved the 955,000, we added 367,000. due to new spending. We have this proposal for using stabilization fund to help support the FY 26 budget. We still are a little bit short in closing that variance. So we're continuing to work on that. And we have, you know, we'll have to wait until the mayor and the city council approve our and then we'll, uh, we still want to talk, you know, work with the city. To see how we can preserve those question eight funds for use in FY 26. And then we'll work on, uh, a recommendation to close up that remaining 400,000. And it could be we'll we'll have to go back and rethink our original budget proposal, is this spending that maybe we could defer to the following year or start in January, February. If we have any wiggle room in FY25, is this spending that we're planning for in FY26 that we could take care of in FY25 and and allow us to kind of be able to reduce the budget in FY26. And it might be a little bit more we could do with circuit breaker funds and revolving funds, but we are of course committed to producing a balanced budget for FY26.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Jerry. Thank you, Noel. Thank you, Madam Superintendent. Appreciate the work you've done to get this down to 419,000. Obviously, that's still a number that is meaningful for staff and services for our students in our schools. So I'm hoping we can do something. I do have a question from Councilor Collins, but I did want to ask you before that. Um, are there any one time or capital items built into the proposed operating budget approved by the school committee? Um, that we could look at potentially use of one time funds for funding those.
[Gerry McCue]: Yeah, so we we've, um so building the grounds has been big focus of attention. And in the $87 million budget, we we're able to fully fund a variety of ongoing maintenance needs. that present themselves over the course of the year. We did establish a extraordinary maintenance budget as well to fund some of those one-time expenses within the school budget. Of course, the city's very generous with providing the school department with some of their capital money to do larger projects, but we wanna build some capacity within the school department budget to tackle some of those projects too. And we've just, it's in draft form now, but we did a complete assessment of all our elementary schools. We did not do one for the high school because the plans around the high school, we will have a document that will list kind of immediate needs for our buildings, immediate future and then future needs. So that's gonna give us a good roadmap for capital planning going forward. There's always gonna be one-time expenses in every fiscal year. But we did have a plan to replace the air conditioning systems that are inside our network rooms at all the schools. They were all pretty much non-functioning, and those rooms get very warm, could damage the equipment. So there was that, there was... servers, all our servers and power supplies for our network at or beyond their useful life so there was plan to replace those so there are areas that that we could use some additional funding and target those one time expenses.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you. Thank you so much for the presentation. Thank you for being here. Thank you also to the superintendent. I know a lot of work has gone into this recommendation already in your extensive process with the school committee, so thank you so much. Just to follow up quickly on a couple major line items from your presentation, it sounded to me like The educator and support staff positions that are being eliminated or deferred are ones that were calculated to be removable because of decreases in student enrollment. I didn't hear a lot about positions being cut purely out of regard for the bottom line. Can you confirm that?
[Gerry McCue]: So part of the original presentation was to let people know that this budget does not rely on kind of district-wide position cuts to fund the budget. So that's a bit of good news and kind of a relief for our staff to hear that. you know, our enrollment is fairly stable, and then there's, you know, pockets of, there is a concern around the EL program, you know, for obvious reasons. And so we're monitoring that. We certainly want those students to come to school where they can get the support services they need. But we may not see the flow of students into that program that we've seen in the past. So that's something that we're watching.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you, that's helpful and certainly it is. It's great to have a budget cycle where we don't have to balance the school budget on potentially removing position so thank you for your hard work and very grateful. For the passage of questions, seven to me which helped us get to this happy position as well. staying on the topic of the recommended reallocations to get those savings that are helping us bring that gap down to the roughly 500k number down from 2 million, moving some of those programs and they mentioned the circuit breaker And a couple other bullet points that are off the top of my head. These were previously in the school's operating budget now they're going to these other funding sources do these feel stable to you and we're talking about obviously this budget is avoidant of major quote unquote fiscal cliffs and that's important just curious about these specific programs that are being moved on to other funding sources.
[Gerry McCue]: So for the revolving funds, you know, the Part of what we're doing is we want to work with the city to kind of make our budget line up with their ability to fund the budget. And the culinary arts program, for instance, is doing great. I mean, there's new staff there. There's students that are excited. A lot of people are using that program. So there's money coming into the program. So those positions that you know I'm confident that they'll be, you know, those moves will be sustainable in the future on the meat program. you know, we'd have to keep an eye on that. They do have a fund balance that can absorb the two positions we proposed. And of course that fund balance will be supported by tuition payments this year. We're looking at the tuition rates that we're charging. So, but you know, there could come a time when we might have to bring one of those positions back into the general fund. And so those are the, that's the type of budget administration that you have to continuously do.
[Kit Collins]: Okay, thank you very much.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Do we have any further questions from members of the Council? Seeing none, do we have any comments on the Medford Public Schools budget from any members of the public, either in person or on Zoom? Also seeing none, I will will continue to work with you guys sounds like we have some work on a stabilization fund creation and appropriation to make sure that we can have that available for the fiscal plan that you've drawn up. And I know that for one Councilor and I'm think I speak, you know was in our budget recommendation to the mayor, two months ago. We certainly want to see as much as possible funded the school committee recommended budget versus the allocation from the city so that's something we're going to continue to advocate for and try to see what we can do to help provide fundings to limit the reductions that you guys have to make. And I think I speak for everyone city side, we really appreciate the hard work you put into getting that gap down. So we'll continue to work on that. Is there anything else that you guys like to add, or the superintendent?
[Gerry McCue]: Good.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you very much. All right, thank you. And thanks. All right, great. Just a reminder to everyone, this is the start of, well, not the start of, but we have a budget, initial proposal of the budget tonight on our agenda. We'll probably be looking at budget and finance items tonight and for both of our regular meetings on June 10th and June 24th. This is the end of our committee of the whole. Is there a motion on the, well, I'm gonna say this first. We're going to take about a five minute break, then we're going to be starting our regular meeting. I know that we have the orchestra here I want to thank everyone for waiting through our budget meetings. You are getting a live study and the pace of government but we are being diligent and we are doing our work. And so we're gonna take about a five minute break. We'll start our regular meeting. We'll hear from our award winning middle school and high school orchestra, and then we'll get to the rest of our agenda. So thank you very much. Is there a motion on the floor? On the motion to adjourn by council, let me seconded by councilor Sang. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. That's Kelly and, yes, Vice President Collins Council is our council lemon, Councilor scrub Kelly, Councilor Tseng, President Bears yes 70 affirmative no negative the motion passes, we will be moving to our regular meeting which folks should expect to start in about five minutes. Thank you and this meeting is adjourned.
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