total time: 22.23 minutes
total words: 1913
[John Petrella]: Hello, everyone, and welcome to your show, Method Happenings, a show for and about the city of Medford. I am John Petralla. The purpose of this program is to give Method citizens facts and information to help you make informed choices. And today, I'd like to give a really big welcome to Melanie Tringali, who is a candidate for our Method City Council. So thank you, Melanie, for being here. Thanks for having me. OK, we're going to get right into this, Melanie. We don't fool around on this show. Okay, so let's start, you know, just give us some background, Melanie, about yourself. Just who is Melanie Tringali? Gee, that's a loaded question. It's a loaded question.
[Melanie Tringali]: Well, on a personal level, I'm married to James Murdock, my husband. We have four children and one dog. We've been residing in Medford close to 30 years. Yeah, and I have deep roots in the city of Medford. Both my grandparents lived here, one in South Medford, one on the hillside. Both my parents graduated Medford High. And ironically, I live now in the house of my pediatrician, Dr. Murphy. So many people that live here know that old yellow house on Forest Street. And on a professional level, I work in business. I've been in marketing for 20-plus years. I've worked for professional services company, nonprofits, education, and community service-wise, I've been on the Methodist Family Network Board. I've worked – I was on the I was the co-chair of the PTO for the Columbus School, which is now the Mississippi, but when I was at the Columbus School. And I am now a member of Method Rotary.
[John Petrella]: OK. Well-rounded, and that's a lot of stuff. Good stuff. Yeah. So you're grounded in Method, really. Yeah. I mean, that's nice. That's good to hear. So we know you ran a great campaign the last election. You ran for a city council seat. It was your first attempt. You came really close to winning. I guess people want to know, what did you learn from your last experience running? What was it like?
[Melanie Tringali]: Well, one, the thing I learned is I really enjoyed it. It was a lot of hard work, I'm not going to lie. But I really enjoyed meeting people, being out in the community, hearing from different people. But then the other lesson I learned is that it's really hard. It's a lot of work. It takes a lot of time and effort from meeting people to fundraising, trying to get up to speed and everything that's happening with the city. But overall, it was a good experience.
[John Petrella]: Okay, good answer. And you did run a great campaign, and we all know how hard you worked. Thank you. You really did. It was a great campaign, actually. So, you know, you're running again. What issues do you see in this election? You know, different from the last election. What issues are different from the last time you ran?
[Melanie Tringali]: The biggest issue right now is the rezoning. And I am really rezoning in a way that disrupts our neighborhoods. And so we really need to take a step back and protect our neighborhoods. That's my first thought. I am not against rezoning. I think we need to rezone at a level that brings in a commercial base. And not so much this type of this rezoning that's happening is really trying to bring in a lot of density. And I don't know if housing density is the right thing for the city of Medford. I think that for this city to be successful and to grow is we need to think of rezoning in a way that brings in commercial and more businesses so that we're not relying on residential tax bases. Because if we continue to rely on residential tax bases, we'll continue to have more overrides. So that's one. I think other than that, the majority of the issues are still there.
[John Petrella]: So basically the same.
[Melanie Tringali]: Most of them, not all of them. You know, my campaign when I ran two years ago, my campaign was running on the local issues and not on the national issues. I think we need to take a step back and really look at how we function as a city and making sure that we still have problems with our infrastructure. We still have problems with our streets and our roads. There's still I would say budgetary issues. We still come up with $25 million of free cash every year. So why is that continuing to happen? That's not to say we shouldn't have a rainy day fund, but $25 million is a lot of money to have. Sure is. Revitalizing our squares, bringing in more of a commercial base. So a lot of that stuff is still kind of the same.
[John Petrella]: OK.
[Melanie Tringali]: All right. But the main thing right now, I think, is really protecting our neighborhoods. This rezoning fundamentally changes the city of Medford. And it fundamentally changes every single neighborhood we have. I've been living here for 30 years. And one thing I've always appreciated about the city is the difference between Lawrence Estates, West Medford, East Medford, Glenwood, the hillside. Every place is different. Yes, it is. And what we're seeing is people coming in and making them kind of look Vanilla and taking away Taking that away.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, I I agree with you I mean I talked to a lot of people as you know, and I I always say I don't know anyone that says they don't appreciate zoning but just what you said the squares the you know, what's with all the density and what are we doing and
[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah, I also don't think just by building more houses, we're going to reduce the cost of housing. It's very expensive to build homes today. And given the green initiatives that they want, that actually increases the cost of building houses. And no one's not going to build houses without a profit.
[John Petrella]: Right. Why would you? It's not going to happen. That's right.
[Melanie Tringali]: Will it bring down some costs? Maybe, but not drastically.
[John Petrella]: I'm going to change direction now. I don't know if you're going to like this question. This is going to be a tough one. But the last election, 2023, most people are aware that we had some problems with the election. Some? Yeah. I mean, there was a lot of problems.
[Melanie Tringali]: There was a lot of problems.
[John Petrella]: You know, would you mind discussing some of them?
[Melanie Tringali]: Sure. Well, in 2023, during the local election, there were a lot of problems. And I think a lot of those problems came to fruition or were recognized when the tallies and the results of the election was completed. It almost looked like there was counts or ballots missing because the tallies weren't right. But some of the main issues, and I'm going to have to refer to my notes on this one because there's a lot. So one, there was misprinting of ballots. They sent out incorrect ballots, the mail-in ballots, and they were wrong.
[John Petrella]: And that was because of someone's name. Right. Someone's name was spelled wrong.
[Melanie Tringali]: I believe there was incorrect information on the website at one point with incorrect dates. Okay. There was inaccurate instructions provided to the voter polls and mail-in ballots, if memory serves me right.
[John Petrella]: Yes, I remember that.
[Melanie Tringali]: Trainings that were provided had incorrect information. People were told, the poll wardens were telling people they couldn't bring in notes or instructions about who they wanted to vote for, and they were turning people away. I know there was many people that went to vote, and they weren't on the voter rolls. They somehow, even though they filled out a census, they weren't there. There was an issue with the poll location. I believe there was an issue with the Roberts School, and one of the poll locations had changed. There was definitely an issue with the ballot counts. And when the results were provided, you could tell there was, it looked like there was 700 votes missing. So giving all, and actually, for on the record, the city council recognized all these issues and actually agreed, they all voted, Every single one of them agreed that the issues were bad and that they were to write a letter to the Secretary of State asking them to come in and review the process. That's how bad it was. So it was a mess, the election. Yeah, it was a mess. So I knew I didn't win. I was definitely behind by a couple of hundred votes. But I felt it was important to develop or I felt it important to do a recount. And the reason I wanted to do the recount, because I wanted to see if there was any other inconsistencies, given all the stuff leading up to the election and the ballot count. And there was.
[John Petrella]: There was a lot of concern.
[Melanie Tringali]: There was a lot of inconsistencies. The things that we found were that there was 130 mail-in ballots that were never counted. Now, people say, oh, 130, that's nothing. But it is something. That's someone's vote that was not counted. And that goes to show that there's still process. There's problems with the process. Then for precinct counting, 80% of the precincts had incorrect tallies. So what we did is we counted the ballots. And then we compare the ballots to the tallies. And what we found were, in some cases, there was more tallies than there were ballots. And actually in two of them, two precincts, there was 40 more I mean, all of them had some inconsistencies, but two of them, one was 40 more and one was 50 more. So we had 50 more tallies than actual ballots. So, yeah, there were a lot of issues. And, you know, I don't know if those got resolved. You know, the city council had requested that the elections committee come forward. With the report, I went to that meeting. I don't know if anything was actually resolved. In matter of fact, in 2024, during the federal election, and during the override, I was out one night with a friend, and I said, let's just go over to the, it's eight o'clock, let's go over to City Hall, and let's go watch them tally up the votes. And usually the votes are tallied in chambers. Chambers, they have to be, right? So we go up to chambers, there's no one there.
[John Petrella]: OK.
[Melanie Tringali]: So I go downstairs to the election office, the Italian in the election office.
[John Petrella]: Not good.
[Melanie Tringali]: No.
[John Petrella]: No.
[Melanie Tringali]: I actually went and asked to go and view the Italian. And I was told that I could not stand in the election office, that I had to leave and stand outside in the hallway and watch through the window. Legally, I have the right to watch them. Absolutely. And I'm not, I wasn't going to harass, but as a citizen and knowing all the inconsistencies that happened in 2023, I did have the right to watch. So I, you know, with the upcoming election, I think one of my main things is to make sure There's a new manager of the elections office and make sure that the processes, I'm actually going to bring something forward to the city council to make sure that that happens.
[John Petrella]: That's important. I mean, it has to be followed, plain and simple. And that's, I mean, simple things to do that should be getting done that, yeah. We need to have fair, clean elections.
[Melanie Tringali]: That's right. People want to know that their vote was counted. Right.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, that matters. It matters a great deal. Thank you for answering that because I thought that was going to be one of those questions that like maybe you were going to sort of tiptoe, but I appreciate it. It's very, very important.
[Melanie Tringali]: And you know, Again, I didn't do it because I thought that it was gonna change the outcome of the election. I did it to make sure that moving forward, people would have confidence that their votes were being counted.
[John Petrella]: And that's imperative, it really is. All right, so now we're gonna, let's go in another direction here, okay? Are you gonna, will you have a different approach to running this campaign? you know, compared to the last one. In other words, kind of a basic question, but are you going to do anything different this time around? Is this something that you think you need to do different?
[Melanie Tringali]: The only thing I think I need to do different really is really look at where I was strong in the voting process and hitting the areas where I may have not been as strong. Reaching out to more people. I think being less shy about asking help because it's a lot of work and you need the volunteers. Even if it's just holding a sign for a day or having a meet and greet at your house so you can meet other people. Living here, you think you know a lot of people, and then you realize it's a pretty big, it's a small city, but it's a big city. So though I do know a lot of people, and sometimes I think, oh, I didn't realize I knew that many people. At the same time, I meet new people every time that I never met before.
[John Petrella]: Well, I mean, you did a great job. I mean, you really did. Your numbers were great last election. We'll see what happens. I hope you do get in.
[Melanie Tringali]: So yeah, I'm hoping to get another, I think I came in at 4,800 votes. My goal is to get another 1,200. So my goal is 6,000. I think if I can get 6,000, I can get in.
[John Petrella]: I hope so. I hope so. Great background. I mean, everything the city needs, you possess. All right, this question I ask everybody, all the candidates that come on. And to me, this is like an important question. What are your thoughts on city halls, the transparency and the communication?
[Melanie Tringali]: OK. I think the biggest issue was communication. You know, I'm a marketing professional, that's what I do. Communication, right? And one thing I realized in my role as a marketing professional is everyone digests information in different ways. Some people are on social media, some people go and look for the information, some people rely on, well they used to rely on the newspaper, we don't have a newspaper anymore. Not everyone's on social media. And even on social media people, consume information in different ways. Some people go to Instagram, some people go to Facebook, some people go to TikTok, some people go to Reddit, some people look at online newspapers, some, you know, there's just different ways. And I don't think we do a good job. Let's take the zoning, for example.
[John Petrella]: Okay, that was going to be my next question.
[Melanie Tringali]: Okay, let's take the zoning as an example. So one, we don't communicate enough. Two, it's hard to find information and the information when you find it is not easily digestible. And what I mean by that is the zoning is a really good example of bad communication. I've been involved in the zoning since they started on Salem Street. Right. There was little information about the Salem Street zoning in what was happening. There was no notices that I know of that was put in tax bills. And matter of fact, I know it's not because I do own a property that was part of the rezoning piece. And I'm going to be up front. I do want to to two-family on Park Street that is right on the corner of Salem and Park. And I never got notification. The only reason I found out about it is due to Sheryl Rodriguez and Gene Nuzzo. And I got involved in that process. And in the sense that I was going to the meetings, I was presenting my thoughts and my feedback. What happened over there is really too bad. That zoning was pushed through without any planning, with resident feedback, but that resident feedback really wasn't taken into account. No. And then what I mean by easily digestible is that unless you're an architect, or some zoning person, trying to read all this information is very challenging. If you have a full-time job, trying to do this is really challenging. And I mean, I'm still trying to get caught up on everything and what the zoning means. So it's not in layman terms. I know I've been to community development board meetings where even the board members have asked for easy easy keys and easy ways to understand. Simplify it. There's got to be a way to do that. The information was not always available timely before meetings to review. And there was a couple of meetings that I went to that the presentations were not up on time. And then I think the other thing is that the information is hard to find, regardless of the zoning. You go to the Medford website. I mean, I was trying to look at minutes from two years ago. They're all on Google Docs. senior, I don't even want to just say senior, but if you're just not, like my husband, my husband is technically inept. I'll be honest. He can fix your car, he can build anything, but when it comes to technology, simple things on his phone, he's inept. So it will be a challenge for people to find the information they need and then get it in layman terms. That being said, I do think improvements have been made over time. The website has been updated. They have been making improvements to try to get information out. For the zoning, it was too late. I mean, I know the mayor, there was finally stuff put in the tax things for the West Medford and Lawrence Estates, but it was too late. They should have started that from the very beginning, and they didn't.
[John Petrella]: Yep, yep. I hear you. I get confused. Not that I'm a brain or anything, but I get very confused trying to follow the zoning. I got to throw a plug in. Forgotten old method that is an online newspaper. They're new. Yeah, but they're doing a pretty good job and hopefully They'll be used to get more information out because I agree with you 100% It's just not coming out. And when it does come out, I Know a lot of people really it is it's confusing. Yeah, that's all great points Melanie.
[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah, I do think the Community Development Board I I do have a lot of respect for Emily. I think she's been very I fair and trying to get everyone's information and hear everyone. And I have, you know, again, it's just a little, I think a lot of this stuff happened a little bit too late. And we all know at the end, it's the city council that makes the decision. They can take the recommendation from the community development board, or they can not take it. And that's what happened on Salem Street.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, I hate to say it. I think we know where that goes once it gets to them. So my next question was going to be on zoning, but I think we covered. I was going to ask you, what was your position on it?
[Melanie Tringali]: Well, I want to be clear, because I think I do think we need to rezone. I'm not saying that we shouldn't rezone. I think we need to focus on specific areas. The squares, I think rezoning will help to revitalize the squares. Mr. Gav, the Fellsway, but it needs to be done in a thoughtful and planful manner. And it's not. So, for example, we put out three RFPs for three parcels in Medford Square before the rezoning was even done. Why wasn't that done, why wasn't planning done together? Like, okay, this is our vision for Medford Square. And to include that vision, this is what we want. And to do that, this is the type of rezoning we're thinking about. There just needs to be a plan. And I'll give another good example. In my eyes, anyways, if you look at the Felsbury where Stop and Shop is, that's a huge property. And if we had thought and planned out that appropriately, have you ever tried that parking lot?
[John Petrella]: It's not even... It's kind of, yeah, the angles.
[Melanie Tringali]: It's the angles and where Keynes is too. That came in, yeah.
[John Petrella]: It's all uneven over there now, yeah.
[Melanie Tringali]: It's just it needs to be planned appropriately. And there needs to be a master plan. And there needs to be studies done. We haven't had the studies done. I agree with the studies. So again, and I think that we should focus on those areas, not so much on building just housing density.
[John Petrella]: Good answer. I mean, I can appreciate that. Next, I'm thinking about, you know, it's no secret, economic growth stagnant. stagnant at best in method. It just is. So what would be our approach? you know, getting growth going and let's say, how do you fix the tax base or how do you grow it? That's a good question.
[Melanie Tringali]: I really do think that, again, that goes back to planning and working with different departments, the Chamber of Commerce, the planning department at City Hall. We need to look at ways to bring in new business. I don't know if there's a lot of regulation or barriers for people starting small businesses here. I do know that we have 64 liquor licenses for restaurants and only 28 are being used. Wow. So. Wow. Yeah. I think that's pretty accurate. Yeah. It's about 60 and we're only about 28 are being used.
[John Petrella]: So a lot of restaurants can come in. Yeah.
[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah.
[John Petrella]: That's interesting. So I didn't know that.
[Melanie Tringali]: I think there's a lot of opportunity there. I also think we need to make our squares more welcoming. If you look at Melrose Square, even Arlington, Winchester, a lot of the surroundings, there's conformity. Right? Very much. They make it very welcoming, and you want to be there. Yep. If you look at Medford Square, there's no conformity. Right. I know we have a sign ordinance. The sign ordinance is not followed. You need to make it welcoming. You need to clean them up. And there's small things that can be done. Clean them up. Plants, flowers, more lights, working on the signs, cleaning up the windows, just making it more inviting. I think we go a long way. And there's no reason why we shouldn't be attracting restaurants and small business with the Chevalier Theater.
[John Petrella]: It's funny you said Melrose, because I don't know what it is, but I go there sometimes. Actually, I go there quite a bit. And it's like, the word, it's pleasing to the eyes. Plenty of parking and behind everything and it's just like, you know, you walk around you go to a restaurant They got all the little it's just a nice environment. Yeah, and it's very very it's clean and it's just pleasing Mrs. Murphy's just look at the outside of the buildings, right? Yeah, they look good. No, I know and we need to Conformity, I love that word.
[Melanie Tringali]: For the buildings, for... And they get people in. You know, I talked to the owner of the Altacuba, he's doing well.
[John Petrella]: And that's the other thing. So you are good at And I don't know if this gets done or not. You talk to the business owners. You talk to them. So I would think that they have valuable opinions that you know, can be used. And I don't know if that's coming across. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I know a few of the guys that own businesses in Medford, but I mean, to me, that's important too, right?
[Melanie Tringali]: You know? I mean, in restaurants, I mean, there's other types of businesses that we can bring into. Right. It's just not restaurants. But I think we all agree that we want more restaurants.
[John Petrella]: Oh, no doubt about it. Yeah. I like what we have, but yeah, we can use some more. Yeah. Livens up things. All right, so if elected or when you get elected, what would your priorities, just for the city council, what priorities would you bring to the city council? I know you mentioned a lot of great things, but is there anything?
[Melanie Tringali]: Well, depending on where the zoning goes, I bring in the zoning. Right. I would really look into our infrastructure and where we stand with our roads and our squares. Uh, you know, there's been a street, you know, a comprehensive street plan. We hired two new people to in the DPW or there was an override to hire two new people to fix our streets and our sidewalks. Um, really figure out where that's going. Um, take a good look at the budget and see, well, Yeah, I could see you taking a good look at the budget. No, I could. You're good with that. I could see you. I would look at our pilot programs, too. Our pilot programs, I don't know if we're getting the most out of them and if we're
[John Petrella]: Right.
[Melanie Tringali]: Using them as much as possible.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, we just had one with a couple of businesses, small business, yeah.
[Melanie Tringali]: I mean, Tufts, you know, Tufts, I don't know if their pilot program has increased over the years. Right. There's other non-profits that we could be tapping into.
[John Petrella]: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I appreciate that, good answers. A lot of valuable information coming out tonight, Melanie, you know? Good stuff, good stuff. All right, so now a personal question, I call it a personal question, it isn't really, but I'm gonna ask you, I ask this to everybody, your least favorite, and then give me your most favorite things to do in Method.
[Melanie Tringali]: All right, I would say my least favorite is food shopping. I'm not a fan of the majority of the food stores. Okay in Medford. Yeah, I will frequent Wegmans I think they're very expensive stop-and-shop. I don't really go to it all and I will go to Whole Foods I'm usually at Trader Joe's or Market Basket I'd say that's my least favorite So I don't really yeah, I don't food shop in Medford at all And my It's kind of a combo, most favorite, least favorite. I walk all the time. I love that we are so close to the Mystic River, which, by the way, I think we should be taking more advantage of that, which we're not. And actually, the RFP for the three buildings that came in really didn't take into account how to take advantage of our waterfront, which was disappointing to me. But I love walking. I walk along the river and the Mystic all the time. I love it. I love watching the birds. But it's also the worst part because our sidewalks... I mean, I end up walking in the street all the time because the sidewalks are awful. I've tripped a couple of times. I've actually fell a couple of times on the sidewalks. my dog pulled me once and I fell because there was a lip in it and ended up getting black eye.
[John Petrella]: So, yeah, but so, but yeah, I'm familiar with that experience falling with the dog.
[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah. Yeah.
[John Petrella]: And not only, you know, it was a very embarrassing.
[Melanie Tringali]: It is embarrassing.
[John Petrella]: I had a young couple pull over in a car. I mean, as you know, I live on, on, on, um, local street and I always, you know, I tend to walk towards the rink, the hockey rinks there. And, um, I don't know what's going on with the rink, the area, but that needs some work to clean up around there. I mean the sidewalks over there are just, it's unbelievable.
[Melanie Tringali]: And Medford Square, I don't even like walking in the square during uh... on mondays yeah because the trash so our businesses put the trash out in the front of the uh... which i don't like because i'm always afraid that i'll come across some critters that i don't want to see you know you would think there would be a better way to do that because there's gotta be a better way
[John Petrella]: Yeah, it's a good point. I noticed that, too. They do, when they put the trash out, boxes and all that.
[Melanie Tringali]: Tons of trash barrels. It just doesn't look too good. It doesn't look good at all. So I try to avoid the square on Monday nights.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, that's a good point. How could you avoid that? But yeah, this is all good stuff. I mean, I can go on for another hour with you. But unfortunately, we can't. But yeah, that's all good stuff. And a lot of the small stuff. is easy stuff to do. It doesn't take much.
[Melanie Tringali]: No, there's a lot of small stuff that can be done. I think following through on our ordinances would be a huge help. There's a lot of ordinances that are not enforced, which could bring in additional revenue. It's not going to be huge, but it could bring in additional revenue.
[John Petrella]: And it could also straighten out some of the situations. I hear you. All right. Well, you know, I could go on, like I said, for hours, but we got to get to the last question, you know, and it's probably the most important question of the night. OK. All right. Someone wants to reach out to Melanie Tringali, whatever, help with the campaign, you know, anything. How would they reach you?
[Melanie Tringali]: So I do have a Facebook page that they can reach out to Melanie Tringali from City Council, I believe it is. And then I do have an email. It's Tringali, F-O-R, and that's Tringali with an I, T-R-I-N-G-A-L-I-4-F-O-R Medford at gmail.com. And I will have a website up fairly shortly.
[John Petrella]: Okay. Now, I know, don't dislike me for this, but just do me a favor. Repeat that just the just repeat that one more time. We're gonna probably put it up on the screen.
[Melanie Tringali]: I'm sure but just one more time Tringali t r i n g a li for for Medford at gmail.com awesome.
[John Petrella]: Awesome. Okay Can't thank you enough. Well, thanks for having me.
[Melanie Tringali]: I really enjoyed this.
[John Petrella]: It's it's about that's about it you know, we got a You know, we have time limits, unfortunately, but I could talk to you for another two hours.
[Melanie Tringali]: Yeah, this is good.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, no, I could. I mean, it was great talking to you. A lot of good stuff, Melanie, really. Thank you.
[Melanie Tringali]: Thanks for having me.
[John Petrella]: Yep, thank you. So, let's thank Melanie, you know, for joining us on Method Happenings. And I want to thank her for being a candidate for our Medford City Council, as she explained earlier. It does. It takes a lot to run. So I also want to take a minute before we close out to thank everyone who has been watching the show. We're growing. It's nice to know that, that the show's actually growing. And I want to thank you for your feedback. And that includes the negative stuff. We get positive, we get negative too. Um, and if you would like to share a comment, if you're a candidate for any city office, if you're opening a new business, you have an existing business, uh, you represent an organization with an upcoming event, uh, and, and would like to appear on a future show, you can contact us at, you ready? John Petrella. 55, the number 55 at gmail.com. You can also see replays of this show. I guess they're showing them Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 6 to 7 p.m. So if you want to watch Melanie, you know, seven or eight, nine times, you can do that. Plus all the other great candidates we've had on. And you can also see Method Happenings on medfordtv.org. You can see it on YouTube, and you can see it on Facebook. And most important of all, really, we have a new website up, MethodHappenings.com. It's brand new. I don't have too much to do with the website, but I'm going to tell you, the guy, his name's Bruce, and he's doing a phenomenal job with that website. It really is. I went on it the other day for the first time. Impressive website. So that's about it. Thank you for joining us. We appreciate it. And from all of us at Method Happenings, I'm John Petrella, Melanie Tringali, and stay informed. Thank you, everyone.
[Unidentified]: Ta-da!
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