total time: 8.48 minutes
total words: 231
[John Petrella]: Hello, everyone. Welcome to your show, Method Happenings. The purpose of this program is to give Method citizens facts and information to help you make informed choices. And today, we have a guest that's appeared on the show before. He is a candidate, and let me say he's a great candidate, for Method City Council. Welcome to the show, Nick Gileo.
[Nick Giurleo]: Hi, John, thanks for having me.
[John Petrella]: It's a pleasure having you, Nick. We're going to get right into this. We're just going to basically stick to a couple of what we think are important issues. A lot of this, the two issues we're going to discuss, it's really the talk of the city, let's put it that way, OK? And the number one thing we want to get your opinion on, Nick, is the zoning. There's a tremendous amount of talk. You know, I don't think anyone's completely against zoning. That's my impression. I'm just a host. I mean, you know, but in your opinion, what do you think about the zoning? Where's it going? How do you feel about it? You know, as a candidate for council, I know you, you know, you're pretty informed about the zoning. Where do you stand?
[Nick Giurleo]: I think you're right, John, that this certainly is the talk of the city at the moment. So this is, in my opinion, a very critical election issue. Who we decide to be in the council will influence our zoning going forward. So first I'll just talk about, for anyone who might not know, just a summary of what is happening. So currently on the table is a proposal to comprehensively rezone the residential neighborhoods in our city. Under this proposal, they'd be creating five new sub-districts. and essentially everyone would be getting up zoned. The idea behind this is to try to create a larger housing supply under the belief that more housing will result in affordable housing. So this proposal, we'll see upwards of six units as of right in neighborhoods, historically zoned to be single family. And the zoning, it's really been under the radar for a while, but it really came to public attention recently. People are very concerned, very concerned about the dramatic impact that density increases will have on our neighborhoods. Some opposition groups formed and there was major public backlash at a meeting of the Community Development Board. And this actually prompted the mayor to intervene and essentially say that she'd be refusing to extend the contract with the city's zoning consultant unless the proposal was scrapped. Council President Bears responded, essentially punted the issue and says, we'll take up residential rezoning in the spring. So to me, this is obviously his attempt to try to see what will happen with the election, which is why I said at the beginning, this is really an election issue. I think we're seeing with the council this kind of concept of, well, we know it's best for you, as opposed to, well, let's ask neighbors what they want and what they want their neighborhoods to look like. So my position has really been, we need to do what neighbors want. We need neighbors to have a say in what their communities look like. So I'm opposed to the plan on the table. I think it should be totally scrapped. And if I'm elected, I'll vote no on it, if it comes up before me. And ultimately, there's been a lot of process concerns, process issues. This process needs to reflect what the majority of our neighbors want. Not what consultants say we need, not what academics say we need, not what activists say we need, but we need to talk to ordinary people. They should have a say in what their neighborhoods look like because they're the ones living there. I think that makes perfect sense. I think it's very common sense. For me, you know, particularly, I also want to see studies too about, you know, if the zoning is approved, how will services be impacted? How will our fire be impacted? How will our police, our infrastructure, our schools, which are already overcrowded, And we've seen it, you know, with the council, just this unwillingness to listen. I can point to specifically the Salem Street corridor, for example. The CDB recommendation for one of the critical nodes of that, the Salem and Park Street node, it resulted in this sub-district designation that would have allowed up to six stories. And currently that's what's in effect. So there's efforts now to try to reverse that, but we're seeing, you know, this just unwillingness to listen. And it's very concerning to me. So, you know, I want to and I'll put out there, you know, I think it's okay to make reasonable revisions to our zoning ordinance. I would just like to make sure that those changes are what neighbors want and ultimately don't result in excessive density, overcrowding, overdevelopment. I think we'd be better spending our time more focusing on the commercial side of it. To me, we need to be preserving, not only preserving our commercial tax base, but expanding it to encouraging businesses to come to Medford. And I think reasonable zoning changes could achieve that. But I guess in summary, again, not in favor of the proposal currently on the table. And I definitely wanna make sure that when I'm elected, I'm listening to what residents have to say, giving them a voice, and ultimately making sure that they feel heard.
[John Petrella]: That's the kind of answer I like to hear because the people in this city that I talk to and I get around I know a lot of people and you know they bought single-family homes for a reason. They moved into certain neighborhoods for a reason. You know and I understand you know, zoning Mystic Ave or, you know, Method Square or certain things they want to do. But they do have to understand it is what the people want for their neighborhoods. And that's, to me, the perfect answer. That's the most important thing. And you're right, Nick, they're not being heard. They're just not being heard with this current zoning. So, you know, real quick now, I want to change the subject. We could talk about zoning for another hour and a half, but we don't have time. Yeah, they're right. No, easily. I know, I know. And I also want to add that you do do a great job because you do show up at City Hall and you're a great speaker. You know what you're talking about and you do a good job for all the people, for all the people. So, you know, the other thing that we're going to be voting on, it's on the ballot. That's been, geez, I don't know, going on for over two years, but in reality a lot longer than that. Tons of work has been done. I know two people that really did some work, and that's the charter, the new charter. And I know everyone has things they like, they don't like. And it's a big issue as far as how do you vote for it, what's going on with it. You know, again, what do you feel about the charter? I mean, that's another big issue. Where do you stand on it? How do you feel about it? And, you know, let's think about it the way it is now. How do you feel about it the way it's done? and it's going to be voted on. What do you think?
[Nick Giurleo]: Sure. So yeah, like the zoning, it's another big issue. And it will be on the ballot in November. So voters will have to decide whether or not they approve or they reject this thing. So first, I'll just back up a bit. You know, what is a charter for anyone who might not know? Essentially, it's the Constitution for our city. It's the governing document that tells us how our city is organized in terms of a mayor, a school committee, and a city council, as well as all our departments, and boards, and commissions, and administrative agencies. So Medford's currently under what is called a plan A form of government. There's a provision in the Massachusetts General Law, this chapter 43, gives some general rules on charters, and then gives cities an option to choose between various plans. So in 1986, Medford voters moved us from a plan E to a plan A. And now in November, voters will decide whether we transition again away from a plan A to this kind of new charter that our charter committee has worked very hard to get together. And that leads me to the next thing here. So charter review committee was established. We had some notables in our city who were on that, people like Ron Govino, Melvin McDonald, Eunice Bratton. who really worked hard to make sure that residents' input would be taken into consideration to prepare this document. So I applaud them and all their hard work. And I appreciate all their patience too, you know, getting us to this point where we can finally have something to vote on. So it was, like I said, approved for the ballot. So the state legislator said, it's okay for our ballot. So we'll be deciding on it in November. And there's various changes to it, but I think in our short time together, the number one thing to highlight would be it's moving us from a seven member at-large council now to an 11 member council with eight ward Councilors and three at-large Councilors. And we see a similar setup with the school committee So for that, there'd be two at-large members and four from districts, districts being wards combined. So my position on the charter is I tend to vote yes on it. I think by no means it's perfect, but I certainly think it's an improvement from what we have. And I think it's important to remember that year that I said earlier, 1986 was the last time. Medford's charter has been changed. This is a considerable amount of time to not have changed your charter at all. So I do think, you know, one of the reasons I support this is because board representation, I think is gonna be a lot more representative than what we're currently doing under our at-large system. It's going to be giving a voice to those who've been very frustrated by the council's conduct as of late. We have people in our wards who haven't seen in a very long time anyone on the council from their ward. So I think it's important that we make sure everyone in our city is being represented. That's one reason why I support it. Another thing I think it's important to put out there is that some of our current council members, actually almost all of them, were pushing for a district model for the city. So like I said, kind of with the school committee, a district is essentially wards combined. So they held out really until the very end on this. So they were getting pushback from their own base. And to me, you know, this this reason why they were really pushing the district model, I think the only word we can use to describe it as gerrymandering, I think they were trying to gerrymander our city to try to make it more favorable for them and their base to win elections. So I think this word based system be a lot fairer. That's one of the reasons why. I support the charter. Another thing is though, even if you're upset about it and you think it could be better, it does have provisions in there that would have us being periodically reviewing the charter. It's part of the language. And I strongly encourage that. I think under the current language is a review every 10 years. I think we should be doing that even more frequently. I mean, I think we should always have an open mind on making changes. We should try to make our government work as best as possible. So that would be my take on the charter.
[John Petrella]: No, it's very interesting. I know that I've read as much as I can. I've learned as much as I can about it. And like you, there's some things I like, some things I don't like, but I'll definitely be giving it a yes vote. I think it's worthwhile. And you hit on one of the key points. You know, I'll call it a living document because like you said, if we do something and we do this and put it in place and something doesn't work, to me, that's a big part of it is that we can't change it. And that's correct, right? We will be able to change things if they're not working out the way we thought or the way it's written.
[Nick Giurleo]: Exactly. Yeah. So there'll be opportunities to change it if things aren't working. And we also just got to respect that hard work that the Charter Committee did in getting us to this point.
[John Petrella]: Right. Yeah. A lot of hard work went into it. All right, Nick, I'm going to thank you for coming on the show. I know you're a very busy man. I know you are out there campaigning. It's a lot of work. You're doing a great job. And I can't tell you, I really am hoping that you do get elected because Medford needs a city councilor like yourself. We really do. You know, your background, everything. I think Medford would be a lot better with your voice. And I know your voice would be all the people of Method's voice. So good luck. I just want to make sure I say that to you. And thank you so much for coming on the show tonight. Great job. Thank you, Nick.
[Nick Giurleo]: Thank you so much, Sean. Always a pleasure.
[John Petrella]: All right. Thank you. So that's it for the show. Thank Nick again. And I just want to say that you can see the show. They're still running on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I believe, on a cable, local cable access. And honestly, you gotta go to methodhappenings.com. It's that simple, methodhappenings.com. You need to know what's going on in the city of Medford. You wanna be informed, you know, just to look, gain some insight into things around the city. It's a tremendous website. The people that worked on it, you know, one of the big, bigger gentlemen that really did a lot of work on it was Bruce Patterson, Paul Geraghty, Marco Granali, I do a little work, but not as much as those guys, but you got to take a look at the website. You can also view us on YouTube as well. And I want to thank everybody because we got some great, I'm looking forward to it because we do, we have some great, great shows coming up. All different types of, you know, small business, local business, restaurants. We'll be having shows about everything you can think of dealing with methadone. They're going to be some really interesting shows, good people. And, you know, we enjoy bringing it to you. We really do. So with that, I'm going to say goodnight to everyone. Thanks for watching. And thanks for all you do. Have a great night. Thank you.
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total time: 8.48 minutes total words: 231 |
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