AI-generated transcript of City Council 11-12-25

[Zac Bears]: 20th regular meeting medford city council november 12 2025 is called to order mr cody please call the roll look callahan vice president collins council

[Unidentified]: An auspicious start.

[Zac Bears]: That's right.

[Unidentified]: All right, let's keep going.

[Zac Bears]: Your bike's off by the way.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Leming.

[SPEAKER_22]: Present.

[Marie Izzo]: There we go. Councilor Scarpelli. Present. Councilor Tseng. Present. President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Present. Seven present, none absent. The meeting is called to order. Please rise to salute the flag. Announcements, accolades, remembrances, reports, and records. 25174 offered by President Bears. Resolution to congratulate Medford Elections Commission team and all candidates in 2025 municipal election. Be it resolved by the Medford City Council that we congratulate the Medford Elections Commission and their team in the elections office and all of our poll wardens and poll workers and polling location staff members on their exceptional administration of the 2025 municipal election. Be it further resolved that we congratulate all the candidates who ran for office in the 2025 municipal election. I just want to thank our elections team. I think they did a really smooth job this year. saw very few complaints. And this was after our last municipal election, where we had a lot of meetings and reports and process improvements. And I think we've talked about it in this body several times. So I think that went much better than our last election. I think that is a testament to really hard work by our Elections Commission and our election staff. They are in their own meeting right now in room 214. You can pop by and say hello. I went by and thanked them and they said they'd love to be here, but they're certifying the election. So just wanted to thank them. Is there anyone else who wants to comment on this? Councilor Tseng.

[Justin Tseng]: As the chair of the Governance Committee, I remember the meetings that we held in committee to follow up after the last election and after a few elections where residents report problems happening. And I have to say, our Elections Commission and our leadership in that department has been, in the last few years, extremely quick to respond to a lot of the challenges that they have been facing. They've been very proactive about solving those challenges. And I think that's why we've seen with this election, things have gone much more smoothly. So I'm very, very proud of the work that we've done as a city to the improvements that we've made to make voting easier and more fluid here in Medford.

[Zac Bears]: Great. Any further discussion? Is there a motion? On the motion approved by Councilor Tseng, seconded by Councilor Callaghan. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Callaghan. Yes. Vice President Collins. Yes. Councilor Lazzaro. Yes. Councilor Leming.

[SPEAKER_22]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Scapelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng. Yes.

[Zac Bears]: Yes of the affirmative and on the negative the motion passes. Records, the records of the meeting of October 28th, 2025 are passed to Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Scarpelli, how did you find those records?

[George Scarpelli]: Council President Fonda Moore to move approval.

[Zac Bears]: On the motion to approve by Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by Councilor Tseng. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Callahan? Yes. Vice President Collins? Yes. Councilor Lazzaro? Yes. Councilor Leming?

[SPEAKER_22]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Scott Peli. Yes. Councilor Tseng. Yes. President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Yes. So the affirmative, none of the negative, the motion passes. Per advice of council, I'm going to acknowledge the review and continue non-disclosure of city council executive session minutes dated August 19th, 2025 under the open meeting law. No vote is needed to be taken, but we're going to put this on every so often while those executive session minutes are not being disclosed. Vice President Collins.

[Kit Collins]: I would motion to suspend the rules to take 25-172 and 25-173 out of order.

[Zac Bears]: On the motion of Vice President Collins to take communications from the Mayor 25-172 and 25-173 out of order. Seconded by. Seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Callahan. Vice President Collins. Councilor Lazzaro. Yes. Councilor Leming.

[SPEAKER_22]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng. Yes. President Piers.

[Zac Bears]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, none in the negative. The motion passes. 25172 submitted by Mayor Brianne Lungo-Koehn, Medford Housing Authority Appointment, Lawrence Nargi. Dear President Bears and members of the City Council, I respect the request and recommend that your honorable body, in accordance with Mass General Law, Chapter 121B, Section 5, confirm the appointment of the following individual effective immediately for a term through June 30th, 2029, as a member, as cited in the reference statute. This is Medford Housing Authority appointment. Larry Nargi, 40 Andrew Street, Medford MA, 02155. A copy of the appointment letter is attached. Thank you for your kind attention to this matter. Sincerely, Breanna Lungo-Koehn, Mayor. Do we have a representative of the administration or the person being appointed present either in person or on Zoom? You can raise your hand on Zoom or I'm not seeing anyone in the chamber. Chancellor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Mr. Nargi is trying to hop on Zoom. Unfortunately, he's out of town, but he's having technical difficulties. So we want to just table it for now and see if we can work it out.

[Zac Bears]: A motion to table by Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by. Seconded by Councilor Tseng. Minister Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Callahan. Yes. Vice President Collins. Yes. Councilor Lazzaro. Yes. Councilor Leming.

[SPEAKER_22]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Scapelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng. Yes. President Peers.

[Zac Bears]: Yes. I have an affirmative, none of the negative. The paper is tabled 25173 submitted by Mayor Brian O'Connor, Medford Housing Authority appointment, Lhasa Julie Childs. Dear President Bears and members of the City Council, I respectfully request and recommend that your honorable body appoint Los Angeles Childs, 39 Greenleaf Avenue, Medford, Massachusetts, to the Medford Housing Authority for a term to expire September 30th, 2029. Thank you for your kind attention to this matter. Sincerely, Breanna Lungo-Koehn, Mayor. Do we have the appointee? We do, wonderful. Do you know if anyone's coming from the administration or? Okay, all right. Well, if you could come to the podium and just tell us a little bit about why you are planning to, or why you're being appointed and anything else you'd like to share.

[Losa Julie Genevieve]: Good evening. I have deep roots in Medford. My children went to school here. I've also lived in Medford housing before for over 20 years. And serving the community always been a great deal for me. I'm bilingual, I speak multiple languages. I was always able to serve my community and I enjoy it. I also became a notary public because I wanted to really help those who either can't leave their home, I usually go to them. So helping the community being in Medford and serve on a board in Medford Housing, It is a service that I really take pride in doing it.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you so much. If councilors have any comments or questions. Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: I personally know Ms. Childs and known her family for a long time and always been a strong member of our community. And I'm so excited when I saw her in the hallway and saw that she's taking a step to join one of our commissions and helping and continue to help as you've done so many years, and I look forward to moving this forward. So I would move approval, Mr. President.

[Zac Bears]: Great. On the motion to approve by Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by, I'm going to go to seconded by, seconded by Councilor Lazzaro, Councilor Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: I really appreciate you volunteering to do this work. It's very important, and especially your ability to speak multiple languages is really helpful, critical for this sort of role. So thank you for offering to do that. And really appreciate when people can step forward for positions like this. So thank you very much. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: On the motion of Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by Councilor Lazzaro to approve the appointment. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Callahan. Yes. Vice President Collins. Yes. Councilor Lazzaro. Yes. Councilor Leming.

[SPEAKER_22]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Tseng. Yes. President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, none in the negative. The motion passes. Thank you.

[Losa Julie Genevieve]: Thank you. Thank you all.

[Zac Bears]: Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: If I can, I know Mr. Nagy just responded.

[Zac Bears]: He's still having trouble, but... Can we just motion to take it off the table?

[George Scarpelli]: Yeah, I think we can motion to take it off the table.

[Zac Bears]: On the motion of Councilor Scarpelli to take 25172 off the table, seconded by Councilor Callahan. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Callahan? Yes. Vice President Collins? Yes. Councilor Lazzaro? Yes. Councilor Lemind?

[SPEAKER_22]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Scarpelli? Yes. Councilor Tseng? Yes. President Piers?

[Zac Bears]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, none in the negative. The paper is off the table. Councilor Scarpelli?

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, sir. Mr. Nagy, he is having some issues, but he's someone I know personally. I've known his family for a long time. He works in the industry and working in managing properties and focus on safety. And I think he'd be a huge benefit and to the housing authority appointment. So I would move approval, Mr. President.

[Zac Bears]: The motion to approve by Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by? Seconded by Councilor Tseng. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Kallihan? Yes. Vice President Collins? Yes. Councilor Lazzaro? Yes. Councilor Leming?

[SPEAKER_22]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Scarpelli? Yes. Councilor Tseng? Yes. President Peers?

[Zac Bears]: Yes. Severing the affirmative, none of the negative, the motion passes. Hearings 25160, submitted by Office of Planning, Development, and Sustainability, proposed amendments to the Medford Zoning Ordinance, Salem Street Corridor District map change. Hearing Notice 25-160, Legal Notice of Public Hearing, City of Medford. This Medford City Council will hold a public hearing in the Howard F. Alden Chambers at Medford City Hall, 85 George B. Hassett Drive, Medford, Massachusetts, and via Zoom on Tuesday, November 12th, 2025 at 7 p.m. A link to this hearing will be posted no later than Friday, November 7th, 2025. The purpose of this hearing is to hear the Medford Community Development Board on the following item. proposed amendment to the City of Medford zoning map, specifically to amend the Salem Street Corridor District to rezone the parcels currently zoned MX-2 within the Salem Street and Park Street node to MX-1 as shown on the map entitled Salem Street Corridor Zoning, dated March 3rd, 2025. Project materials can be viewed in the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability, Room 308, or on the City's website for the Community Development Board and clicking Current CD Board Filings. Call 781-393-2501 for any aids and accommodations. TDD 781-393-2516. The city of Medford is an EEOAA 504 employer. For additional information, contact the office of the city clerk at 781-393-2425 by order of the Medford city council, signed Richard Alicio, assistant city clerk. All right, so we do have a letter from the community development board. from September 15th. We referred this proposed amendment to the Community Development Board, and they met on it in a public hearing, and they have sent it back to us. I'm not sure, or at least I'm not seeing a letter since then, but we do have Danielle Evans from the Planning Office, and Danielle, if you could present on this amendment, let us know what it is about, and then we will go to questions and comments from councilors, and then I'll open the public hearing.

[Danielle Evans]: Good evening, Danielle Evans, senior planner. So this map change was initiated by the mayor to change the MX2, which is the node by the intersection of Park Street and Salem Street. to change that back to the original Community Development Board recommendation, which was the MX1. The differences between those two districts are primarily it's the height where the MX1 can go up to four stories with incentives. and the MX2 can go up to six stories with incentives. And then there were two changes in the use table that is different between the two districts, and that is the, in the MX2, the brewery taproom is allowed by right, but is not allowed in the MX1. And the other use is a new defined term, which is the neighborhood medical office, which is different from the original all-encompassing medical office use. And I can find that definition if you all need that. So the neighborhood medical office use, which is allowed in the MX2 and not the MX1, is defined as office of a physician, dentist, or other medical practitioner not located in a clinic or hospital as defined in section 94-12 definitions. The office area shall not exceed 1500 square feet of gross floor area, shall have no more than five employees, and shall operate only between the hours of 8 a.m. and 7 p.m.

[Zac Bears]: Great. And the Community Development Board referred this back. Did they make any amendments or as much as their recommendation?

[Danielle Evans]: Nope, it basically is the same what they had recommended. I guess it was March, I think.

[Zac Bears]: So their recommendation is to approve the amendment? Yes. Great. The mayor's communicated to us and communicated to the public that approval of this amendment is essentially she wants us to approve this before we can move forward on the zoning project. Do you have any updates on that relative to this or is anyone else from the office planning to attempt to talk about that?

[Danielle Evans]: I'm not a signatory on that contract, but my understanding is that once this change, if this change passes, then we could execute an extension with the consultants in this land strategies group. They changed their name. and then get back to the important work of first embarking on rezoning Medford Square and then focusing on some of the commercial quarters. I'm not sure which particular order. I think that's still being negotiated between, I think, yourself and the mayor. I haven't really been too involved with that stuff.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I was just wondering, I know the council received an email today kind of with some generalities. I didn't know if you had like a document or anything about that.

[Danielle Evans]: I only had, I received the email. I was copied on it. Okay, great.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Are there any questions or comments from the council for senior planner Evans? Or general comments on this amendment as proposed?

[Justin Tseng]: Councilor Tseng? I do have a question about this note in particular. I think one of the reasons why in earlier this year we voted not to accept that this specific recommendation was that we had been told that it would be harder for someone to come in and build on the property there if it had a lower height restriction, lower story restriction, because you know, I think for a number of Councilors, our priority is to make sure that that's not a dirt pit going forward. Could you explain to us how, if we can expect to see building at this node, even if we make it tougher to build with the kind of lower story requirements?

[Danielle Evans]: Thank you. So through the president, Sorry about that, but try not to yell too much. So the pit actually had a use variance and a site plan approval for a three story building but they have not moved forward with that. So, the four stories is more dense than what was approved there. I don't know if it was financing or what has stalled that project. I have kids that go to the Roberts School and I'd like to see that pit filled up too with something useful. But the four stories, I don't think, would be detrimental. We already have a applicant further up on Salem Street, the MX1, that is proposing a four-story building with the incentive, which they're eligible for because they're building a completely enclosed garage.

[Justin Tseng]: Thanks. Yeah, I mean I think for for me I'm just speaking for myself as a Councilor. I just want to make sure I'm open minded to a change here I just want to make sure that the policy reasons. which we undertake this change line up with the policy reasons why we didn't make this change earlier on in the year. And so it's important to me to know that, you know, when we think about financing, when we think about the feasibility of a project coming through there, that this change from MX2 to 1 won't hinder any progress that we might want there.

[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, I think the idea was that at six stories, they likely weren't those those sites were too small that they likely would not be able to be developed the six stories anyways. but there is some like assembling of parcels and there are some historic buildings there. The historical commission actually was also in favor of it being reduced. And that was part of the input that was received during the original public hearings where the CD board voted to decrease that to the four stories.

[Justin Tseng]: And just to be clear about that, is the worry that the assembling of the parcels would let a building be six stories, and that was a concern that that would be too high?

[Danielle Evans]: Well, the idea was, the fear was, what is the six stories? This can't be built anyways on these parcels because you couldn't fit everything there. But I'm not privy to who is buying the different parcels, but I've just heard kind of like through the grapevine that that's something that's happening. And one of the parts of the ordinance talks about parcels at front on Salem Street being able to be taller. And if they're going far further back, then it could be possible there could be detrimental impacts for some of the residential parcels behind because the lots would be much deeper than originally anticipated.

[Justin Tseng]: I think those are all the questions I have about this note in particular. But I do want it said on the record that I don't think it's, and this isn't about you, Danielle. I really appreciate all the hard work that you've been doing. But I do want to put it on a record going forward as a city that I don't think it's the healthiest to, you know, to dangle the fate of an important city project that has been an objective of the city across multiple administrations and city councils over years, and to make that contingent on fulfilling the mayor's priorities with one particular intersection. I think that we as a community can have more shared discourse about where we want to see these projects go forward, what we think has not been great, what can get better. And we can have those conversations maturely without, you know, risking jeopardizing the city's future going forward. But that being said, I hear from the community. I hear from both sides who, you know, there are people who feel strongly about MX1 and MX2. I hear from the CDB and their recommendations as well. And, you know, he explained, I think, a number of reasons for us to think about as a council too. So, thanks.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Do we have any further questions for Planner Evans? You guys? All right. Thank you.

[Matt Leming]: Excuse Council President.

[Zac Bears]: Council that means online, my bad, Matt, go ahead.

[Matt Leming]: Yep. So I spoke with the mayor over the phone about this and I do appreciate that she took the time I speak, I think to speak to many members of this council individually. Prior to this meeting and. uh her from from what she from what she said to me her motivations for sending this back had less to do with the uh the density themselves the density itself strictly speaking and more due to the differences and the rules around neighborhood uh medical clinics between mx1 and mx2 So I did go through the three meetings that are on record, the January 22nd, CDB, the March 5th, CDB, and the March 11th city council meeting, and sort of counted up who was supportive of this, and who was not, and who mentioned their preferences about MX1 and MX2. basically in terms of public feedback that we have from those meetings uh the you know the january 22nd meeting you did see like more people opposed than were in favor at the march 5th meeting you saw far far more in favor of the rezoning than opposed and at the uh city council meeting there were far more in favor than opposed and like all in all unique individuals it was about I think about 27 that were opposed, 37 that were in favor, and four that had kind of mixed or just different sorts of concerns. And so I'm stating that because when people are talking about these meetings, there tends to be a good amount of revisionism that happens when we're talking about what was actually said at these meetings. But my question for you, having gotten that out of the way, is could you explain a little bit about the process by which a neighborhood medical clinic could be opened in mx2 and if that differs from what what we have now and if there could be any possibility of There could be any possibility of addressing concerns there besides reverting from mx2 to mx1 because I'm like I don't like this public quit pro quo process. I've been public about this in the past, but I do think that it is important for residents to be clear about what's going on there. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Danielle, go ahead.

[Danielle Evans]: I'm just gonna, I don't wanna speak off the cuff, so I'm just trying to get my,

[Matt Leming]: ordinance to load but was the question was if I'm understanding correctly what would be the process to establish a neighborhood medical office use yeah sorry I I said a lot there the two the two questions were what would it what is the process for establishing a neighborhood medical office in an mx2 and does that differ from the process that was there under the I guess not I guess the the, the, the previous zoning, the special permit. And is there, is there any possibility since this was what the mayor told me, um, her main concern was, is there any possibility, um, of updating the zoning such that the, um, such that there could be like a, you know, different forms of MX two that would disallow neighborhood medical offices and potentially address residents concerns there.

[Danielle Evans]: So the previous zoning didn't have this neighborhood medical office use. It was simply medical office. And so the neighborhood medical office use limits the use by number of employees, the size and hours of operation. The idea was that this could be dentist office, small kind of, not destination kind of, uses that would be, you know, open super early or open super late.

[Zac Bears]: Sorry, what was the process under the old zoning for medical offices in general in this area?

[Danielle Evans]: It was a special permit. I'd have to find the old zoning.

[Zac Bears]: I guess there was that proposed medical project that was, that was special permit community development board. So, okay. And that's what Salem Street was before, I think.

[Danielle Evans]: I think it was, I'm fairly certain that the city council was the permit granting authority. No. You weren't?

[Zac Bears]: No, no, no. Yeah, it never came to us.

[Danielle Evans]: It's because it never, they withdrew it.

[Zac Bears]: Councilor Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: The neighborhood medical office was an invented construction for the purpose of this project because A proposed medical clinic was interested in a parcel on Salem Street, and the neighborhood was very resistant to it. And this was invented to avoid having to allow a certain kind of medical office to open on Salem Street on this one intersection. And we are now discussing how we can get around ever allowing clinic for medication assisted treatment for people with substance use disorder to open at this one intersection. And we're talking around it in a very strange way. I think we can just say exactly what it is because we know what it is. Somebody wanted, a company wanted to come in and open a clinic for medication assisted treatment, including Suboxone and Methadone, which is allowed and legal. And the process by which it could open is that it would appear before the Community Development Board in Medford. And it would have had to get a special permit, like many stores and restaurants have to get special permits on Salem Street. So that was the process. We have now invented MX1, MX2. MX2 allows medical offices, but you have to get a special permit. MX1 does not allow medical offices even with a special permit. And that is why we are being asked to change this intersection from MX2 With two extra stories which nobody I think cares about. I think what everybody cares about is that we never have the possibility of there ever being any doctor's office at this intersection, lest there be a clinic for somebody with a drug addiction issue. and somebody with a child has to explain that addiction happens. That's what we're talking about. So we are now holding up our entire discussion of zoning in the city of Medford until this council agrees to never let there be clinic for medication assisted treatment at the intersection of Park and Salem Street. That's what we're doing. So if we agree to it, then we can talk about zoning again. And that's why we're all fumbling over our words. So that's the difference between MX1 and MX2.

[Danielle Evans]: Mr. President?

[Zac Bears]: Yes, Danielle.

[Danielle Evans]: I just wanted to clarify that in the previous zoning, the medical office use, it was Board of Appeals. It was the SPGA in the apartment one, in the apartment two, and in the industrial office, office two, and that's city council.

[Zac Bears]: OK.

[Danielle Evans]: So the city board wasn't actually a special permit granting authority. They were just advisory. And it never made it that far.

[Zac Bears]: OK. And so Councilor Leming's question was, so under the old zoning, and I believe this was an apartment district, then the special permit granting authority for any medical office was the Zoning Board of Appeals.

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Zac Bears]: And then under the current zoning, which is MX2, medical offices, large medical offices are not allowed at all already. And the neighborhood medical office, which is as councilors are noted, kind of this creation to have just very limited and small, basically, I think the argument was low impact. But I think Councilor was are also speaks to a real point that it's, it's about a specific, specific type of use of medication assisted treatment that's currently allowed in the MX two zone with a special permit from the community development board.

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Zac Bears]: And then the proposed amendment, reducing moving from MX2 to MX1 would mean no large medical offices, which is already how it is now. And then also no neighborhood medical with those limitations.

[Unidentified]: Yeah.

[Zac Bears]: Okay. And Councilor Leming, there was another part to your question.

[Matt Leming]: No, I think that pretty much answered it. Actually, that's satisfactory.

[Zac Bears]: All right, great. Do we have any other questions for Planner Evans? Seeing no questions from the council for Planner Evans, thank you. Thank you so much. And we will then hear from councillors on their thoughts on this amendment, and then I will open the public hearing to people who want to speak on this amendment. Any Councilors would like to speak? Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. I think like some other Councilors, I am quite bothered by the idea that any zoning we might be able to do is held up by this one thing that the mayor has decided that she wants for whatever reason. I think Councilor Leming made it clear that if we look only at people who spoke at public meetings, more people spoke in favor of the change that we suggested than spoke against it. Honestly, my entire experience of this zoning process, I have been quite shocked by the mayor's approach over the last few months. I entered the city council. I was presented with plans that the community had worked on for years with thousands of residents contributing to these plans, a climate plan, a housing plan, a comprehensive plan. And if you go to City Hall and you read the comprehensive plan, which sort of incorporates all of these plans, the first page is the mayor saying how proud she is of this, how much community input there was, that she is completely behind these plans. And then I was told we had 18 months. to make the zoning of our city match these plans. And if you look, and by the way, the mayor hired a consultant to work with us for 18 months, and the other person who was involved every two weeks in those meetings was the mayor's staff. So we have the mayor's staff, the mayor's plans, the mayor's consultant, and a city council tasked with doing this in 18 months. And then suddenly, 17 months in, the mayor is deeply unhappy and raises this as an issue for the four months of the election. I do not know, honestly, I am baffled by that behavior. I do not know what that was about. But I will say that I, and proud of the plans that this community spent many years making, sending 15,000 postcards to get people involved and engaged, getting thousands and thousands of comments, surveys, holding neighborhood meetings, having online maps with thousands of comments on the maps. And when I read the documents, I think they paint a beautiful vision of this city. And the number one thing in between us and having housing that matches what our seniors need, having walkable neighborhoods, having vibrant squares, the number one thing in between where we are now and that vision is our 37-year-old zoning. So the idea that if we don't vote in favor of one tiny change on one corner, because the mayor wants us to, that she will tank the entire zoning project That does not sit well with me. And I'm going to say what I want. is for the mayor to publicly commit, I understand that it takes time, you gotta send an RFP, if we're gonna have zoning continue for the amount of time that will properly engage the residents of this city, which I have wanted since the beginning. We have not had anywhere near enough neighborhood meetings, enough postcards going out, enough texts going out to residents of the city to ensure that their voices are heard and that we match the zoning to the micro needs of our neighborhoods, each neighborhood. So I get it, it takes time to set up the RFP and make that happen, but I need a before I want to move forward on anything zoning wise, I want to see a public statement from the mayor that we will have funding for the consultants to help us for the amount of time it will take for us to zone our city so that it matches the visions that were created by this community. We also need funding to do proper outreach and that funding should be run to be able to be, the outreach should be run by the city council. Zoning is a purview of the city council and not the mayor. The mayor gets to have input because it is her staff. She's the one hiring the consultants. And those people are in those meetings. Literally every single meeting, they are there advising us. And we are doing the things that they are advising us to do. It's not like we're running off the course. You can watch those zoning meetings, and you'll see, pardon me, that the consultants are like, this is our recommendation for making that your zoning, your 40-year-old zoning match Comprehensive Plan Part 2, Section E, Letter 2D. We need to know that there's an RFP, public statement from there. There's an RFP. It will be funded for the consultants to come back. There will be funding for the City Council to run comms, to have communications about the zoning. And we have to make sure that that includes neighborhood meetings, in-person and Zoom neighborhood meetings. And frankly, I can't understand why we have to rush through this before we have proper communications and outreach to the community about even this part. We clearly have not had proper communications with the community. And yet somehow we are supposed to rush this part through. So I am deeply, deeply frustrated. I'm mostly frustrated because the visions of this community are about to be tanked. Thank you.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate all my colleagues input. I think the The resounding cry we hear is the lack of public participation. And I think President Baez said it himself that something that I talked about from day one from these meetings is that the former city council really stressed for the RFP to be written to the consultant that we were bringing in to really have community meetings that go into the neighborhoods that really impact the neighborhoods that are being zoned so the people in those neighborhoods can shape their neighborhoods with the city's efforts. And as I listened to my colleagues, I know Councilor Leming gave numbers of people that were in favor, people that weren't, people that were in favor. Something that I did from those meetings is went back and looked at who was at that podium that was in favor. And unfortunately, they were Method residents and everybody has a voice, but they weren't from that quarter. They weren't the residents, most of the residents from that area, not to say all, but when we did have that opportunity to be heard in that area, in that zoned area, the Roberts, there were 200 people. And it was residents, I would say 99% lived in that neighborhood. So that was a true indication of what we just talked about, is really bringing more outreach into those neighborhoods so we can get a vision of what people want in their own neighborhoods as we grow our community. Because I don't disagree. We do need zoning changes. I think it's a loud cry that's needed. And I think that this council needs to go forward with zoning changes that support what we're looking for as a progressive community. And you could see that we haven't, and we have issues and what's happening in Medford Square, we have issues, what went out before the elections, what kind of get everybody motivated and really get involved in this process of the election. But the truth of the matter is the only one time we did have to go into that, into a neighborhood, that was being affected directly, we did that. And we had a great opportunity to listen to those neighbors. And then we brought that to the community development board, right? We brought that to the board and the board listened and then they came back with the request of those neighbors. And I think we did that. So, although I'm not happy with the mayor, I've never, that's been public knowledge. I haven't sat here and said, I sit here night after night to the point where I believe the meeting before the election, Councilor Bears celebrated me. I think we toasted and sang, we all hugged. It was kumbaya, if you remember. And it was because it was a night that we were like, okay, this isn't ideal we're talking about tonight. This isn't ideal, this isn't what we want. However you feel, the only reason why I fully support this is because this piece did go to the neighbors. This piece, you listened to the people that live in that neighborhood. And again, I don't belittle the fact that people came to that podium because it's their podium. But when you're giving your address and you're living on Grove Street or Woburn Street or Fulton Heights, you don't live in that neighborhood. You could shake your head as much as you want. The majority of the people that spoke lived, that spoke negatively about that, lived in that quarter, lived in that neighborhood. You could say all you want. But this is exactly what we're talking about. This is why we're here right now. It's because we had an opportunity to do that. We did. So moving forward, I agree with all of you. I know that Councilor Bears informed me that we did get an email from the mayor and she has committed, not publicly, but she has committed to moving forward with funding for more comprehensive plan of communication, bringing in an outside professional to work with our team to start getting the word out to our neighborhoods when it talks about zoning. I'm not belittling the fact how hard Councilor Collins worked in trying to get us to this point, But I'll say it again, the biggest issue that I had at the time was the fact that we weren't going into the neighborhoods. So I feel strongly that this is a move that will move us forward. I feel that this is an opportunity that we secure funding to get the communication that's needed to move the zoning forward and accomplish what we need. So I would move to, to move in favor in this resolution, Mr. President. So thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. And just before I recognize Councilor Collins, I just want to echo you, Councilor Scarpelli. I think the issue that I had was we didn't, Mayor didn't give us the money for the meetings, you know, and that was really a big problem, I think, in hindsight. we tried to move forward with the not enough resources to do it because we thought it was really important. And yeah, I mean, and Councilor Callahan went over the timeline, right? That could have been remedied on month two, not month 17. So yeah, I just wanted to note that piece of it. Like, as you noted, right, we were on that last council together and we put out the RFP that said we wanted the meetings. We got the proposals back that said, well, with $150,000, this is all we can do for you. And so I am grateful that it looks like we're going to have a more robust package that really focuses on that so that we can do that piece of the work that I you know, and I was talking about it back in July right if we had if we had gotten that funding and those resources from the mayor earlier on, then I think we would have been able to explain, A, explain better what the proposals were and hear from more people about how to change them. Because when we did hear from people, we made a lot of changes. Even this one change here was one of 12 changes that was suggested and we did 11 of them, right? So yeah, I really hope we can move forward better with those resources to do zoning right. Councilor Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Bears. So I'll be very clear. I could be a yes on this amendment. I have no problem changing Park and Salem from MX2 to MX1. It is not a hill to die on for me. I think it's sad that we can't have neighborhood medical uses on Salem Street. I'm grateful that we have medical uses allowed elsewhere nearby in the community. It's not a hill to die on. But our mayor has explicitly made this into a hill that Medford's entire investment in comprehensive planning could die on. Her late July public letter to President Bears made it clear, if we don't kiss the ring on Park and Salem. Good note to end on. Was it on purpose? The truth comes out. We've been enemies this whole time. I'll start that whole sentence again. Her late July public letter to President Bears made it clear, if we don't kiss the ring on Park at Salem, she will not sign a contract extension with Innes Associates, meaning that our comprehensive plan will go back on the shelf to do nothing, that the hundreds of hours that residents spent helping to create a shared vision for a better, greener, more affordable Medford will do nothing, and that the input that so many people have shared about how to improve the zoning process will be for nothing. What I find very sad and wasteful is that this actually doesn't have to feel bad. It doesn't have to be combative. I personally as one Councilor would be fine to take this vote and approve the amendment and move on. But what I am not happy to do and what I won't do is give away our only leverage for ensuring that the zoning project goes forward at all. And that with the next contract, we get it right. Doing it right means a lot of things that my colleagues have spoken to already, more community and in neighborhood meetings, more opportunities for public comment and input, more time to digest information between meetings and in between decisions, more and better information available online, more and better promotion of the meetings that we do have, the things that pretty much all of us have been asking about for years that residents have been asking for, that Councilors have been asking for since the first RFP in 2023. It looks like we have closed some distance in the past 48 hours between the mayor's initial draft of a contract extension and what the council, broadly speaking, is asking for. But this kind of last-minute, handshaky, low-commitment, non-public negotiation process is not how the process of planning our future should work. I wish that it were possible for me to participate in this negotiation with trust, but frankly, I have no trust left to lose. I actually did have a little bit of trust left to lose for a while there, and then our mayor decided to use this as an opportunity to hold hostage the resources for public engagement that the community has been asking for for a year and a half, apparently just to score a political point on us. Now she is asking us to trust her that she cares about this process and wants to collaborate and participate and that she wants to see it done right. What has she done to earn our trust about that? Was it when we had to fight her for three years just to get funding to start the zoning review in the first place? Was it when she ignored nearly all of our zoning stakeholder meetings for 18 months and my offers to meet with her one-on-one every week to keep her involved and then tried to claim that she was excluded from the process? Was it this part where she's insisting that we, after Salem Street, revisit and change the Mystic Avenue rezoning, which the CDB approved 11 months ago, because she didn't bother to learn about that process while we were going through it in public meetings? Or was it the part where for the last year and a half, she ignored the city council's repeated requests to help us with promoting and advertising our zoning meetings while still finding time to send letters and text blasts about zoning that were inflammatory and misleading. Stop treating us like we're stupid. We have been trying to collaborate on this for two years. We've been doing it on the mayor's shoestring for two years. We tried doing a comprehensive zoning overhaul for $100,000 with no communication resources and no community engagement resources on a very tight schedule, because that was what she agreed to fund. We all tried to make the best of that process in the ways that we could, and I'm including residents in that. Many, many residents took it upon themselves to participate, even though it was much, much harder than it should have been. And I am sorry for not recognizing that sooner. Behind the rail, I was essentially serving as a pro bono zoning communications officer for a lot of this term because we lack the capacity. And other Councilors, Councilor Scarpelli has been sounding the alarm about the lack of neighborhood meetings and outreach all term. He was right. It's just not sustainable. We had much less than we needed. And to do that again would be setting ourselves up for failure. So I will be damned if I throw away our only leverage for a better, slower, more accessible, more successful process just because she is attempting to do a goodwill tour with Councilors now that the election is over and making promises that she has no reason to keep. Let's give her a reason to keep them. Since this has been made a quid pro quo, I as one Councilor will need the quote spelled out very clearly. I will not vote yes on this amendment until I see a public written commitment from the mayor for a new zoning RFP that includes at least $100,000 just for communications and community engagement support, and will occur on a timeline that will allow us to actually discuss all of our squares, corridors, Tufts institutional zone, residential areas and parking, and transportation demand management, rushing nothing, not running out of time for anything. We will not be freed from difficult conversations or controversy, but we can be free from hostage taking and an erosion of checks and balances. We're only planning the future of the city here. The community deserves a lot more from this process. I will not consent to let us be set up for failure because we have too much to gain by doing this right. We're fighting for better and I won't settle for less. I'm not going to vote no on this, but I will not vote to advance it. I'll leave it there.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Vice President Collins. I'm going to go to Councilor Leming then Councilor Lazzaro.

[Matt Leming]: Yeah, I'm in pretty much the same boat as Vice President Collins. If you forced a vote tonight on it, I'd be a no. I could potentially be moved to a yes if everything were spelled out. I mean, from my perspective, most of the zoning conversations with the mayor have been Council President Bears and Council Vice President Collins kind of trying to work with her Behind closed doors and they can't really tell us like tell the rest of council what's going on because of open meeting law I I think like what I don't like about this the most is this sort of like game of Communicating with council via press release which I told the mayor very explicitly, you know, please don't do that. I only learned about the intention to push this to push the Salem Street amendments back to council and the press release that came the day after the preliminaries I Appreciated you know The fact that she was willing to speak with people like individual Councilors this week I would like moving forward for her to do that You know once a month one-on-one with everybody just so that we didn't have these issues moving forward and we weren't just suddenly hit with more of these uh, surprise Game of Chicken press releases where you just suddenly put out a quid pro quo to the council in public without really telling us about it beforehand. I mean, It's really communication that gets me because I don't like, you know, Council President Bears and Vice President Collins have done their best to sort of let the rest of us know what's going on. But there's only so much you can really say due to open meeting law. And if the mayor is Talking about how she doesn't hasn't really been following along with the process, I'm more than happy to chat about it one on one behind the scenes just because we don't have the same OML constraints when it's individual Councilors in the mayor. I asked, I requested the mayor in our conversation to come tonight and discuss this. I don't believe that she is there. I would like there to be more of a, more openness with regards to what every party is thinking moving forward. And I, yeah, I really, talking about what my colleagues have chatted about as well. It's just, it's really this game of like communicating via press release and playing chicken with council, which we saw quite a bit of last year that I don't appreciate more than anything else. So thank you for listening.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Leming. Councilor Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: I just wanted to clarify something. I was, when I was speaking before about the medical offices, I just wanted to say what, say the quiet part out loud, what we were trying to talk around, and why a lot of these conversations about this particular intersection became so incendiary in the community. The new qualification with the neighborhood medical, and it can't open until 8 a.m., and it has to close at 6 p.m., and it can only have five employees, and it has to be 1,500 square feet. It's a tiny office. Five employees, I mean, that's a very small medical office. And even that, that was created because so many people in the community did not want there to be, medication assisted treatment centers are open early in the morning because people take daily medicine before they go to work or before they take their kids to school. That's how that sort of medicine works. And that kind of office would not open in that space anyway, even if it was MX2. So I would like to clarify that for people. One of the reasons why I thought it was important that it be zoned for MX2 there, it's because I spoke with somebody who lives in that neighborhood who is disabled and said, it would be really nice if there was a doctor's office that I could get to that was close by. And that was compelling enough to me to say, that would be nice if even via a special permit process, there could be a medical office, even a tiny one, even one that's not that effective, even one that couldn't really help a person that much. There are a lot of seniors who live in that neighborhood. It would be nice if they could have access to a medical office that they don't have to travel to. And that's something that I think, regardless of the heights of the buildings, four stories versus six stories, with a step back, with incentives, I do not think is that different. And I doubt that that many people are going to need to build a six-story building in that neighborhood, particular intersection. And again, very similar to what Vice President Collins said, this is absolutely not a hill I need to die on. I just want to be really clear how this conversation started in this city. It started with a company asking to open a clinic to help people who are a protected class of residents who have a disease. And people got so angry about that, that there was a generalized uproar saying, we will absolutely not allow those people to get the help they need in this neighborhood. So that's where we are now. And that is why We've gone back again to Salem Street to talk about this again. I am not saying that I am fighting for the possibility of a methadone clinic to open on Salem Street. It will not. There is no possibility that it will, because even if it was MX2, there could be no medication-assisted treatment clinic opening on Salem Street anymore. That's been made very explicitly clear. What I was hoping for is maybe somebody could see a doctor at that intersection. And it looks like they won't be able to. It looks like that possibility has been eliminated. If we change this intersection back to MX1, or we accept the CDB's recommendation to change it to MX1, nobody will go to the doctor at this intersection. And that seems really important to the mayor. So okay, I guess the seniors and the disabled people and everybody else who needs to go to a doctor who is everybody needs to go to a doctor. I guess they will have to travel away from Park and Salem to do that. and, uh, fine if that is what it takes for us to do the rest of our zoning project, because everybody that I talked to, uh, in the past year or so about this zoning project when I talked about commercial zoning and building up our squares and corridors and bringing in revenue for our city. With increased commercial. Everybody said Absolutely. Oh, my gosh. That's such a great idea. That's exactly what we need to do so we can have better services in the city so we can take care of our vulnerable residents so we can have a vibrant, bustling community that takes care of the people that live here. And that's what we want to do, because the next thing on the list is Medford Square. And you know what needs to happen in Medford Square in order to allow for the building project that the city put out the RFP for, the housing that's going to go up and the maybe replacing the condemned building where Ebisuya was and CVS and the daycare, maybe all of those projects can move forward if we can update the zoning in Medford Square. We can't do that until we make sure that nobody can go to the doctor at the intersection of Park and Salem Street. I guess so. It's confusing that we have to do that, but I guess if that's the only path forward, that can be what we do. Just as long as we're really explicit about what we're doing.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Lazzaro. Any further comments from members of the Council at this time on this proposal? Seeing none, I'm going to open the public hearing for comments in person and on Zoom. You can raise your hand on Zoom or come to the podium in person. You'll have three minutes. If you are on Zoom, please rename yourself to have a first name and a last name. Otherwise, I will not recognize you on Zoom. We're not gonna have Zoom bombers. So we'll start at the podium. I'm gonna ask for your name and address for the record. Give me one second, because I need to get the timer set up. I really hope it works. All right. So we have some hands on Zoom. I'm going to alternate between in-person and Zoom. We're going to start at the podium. Name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[Paulette Vartabedian]: Hi, good evening. Paulette Vartabedian, 27 Central Lab Medford. I just want to clarify some things for myself as well. If this did go through on Salem Street as MX2, my understanding was there would be able to be a medical clinic there. And with special permit, a methadone clinic could go in there. That's how I understood it.

[Zac Bears]: Paulette, I'm going to let you make your comment. I'll write down what your questions are.

[Paulette Vartabedian]: And if I have answers for them, I'll answer. OK. And the other thing is, I don't personally appreciate being skirting around the issue as medical clinic and not saying the word methadone, because everyone that is affected by this can see through certain Councilors avoiding that issue. The other thing is we don't appreciate being cast as not wanting to help people that are in a specific protected class, but that is also ignoring people that live in the Salem Street issue that are a protected class, which is the elderly, of which I am one. So I think it's ridiculous to bring up these things and to also try to make us look like the bad guys. And I'd like to know who certain people in this council spoke to about this medical office, because I'm sure it was nobody in the Salem Street area who was directly affected by this. And I also want to bring up, which is kind of out of the contact, Why not have this medical office in West Medford where there is a commuter rail and a bus line? It's much more easily accessed than the Salem Street. Why is this being pushed down our throat? And I understand that this is off, supposedly off topic now as far as the methadone clinic, but honestly, I don't trust this council and I don't trust certain members of the council that that will not go through. But thank you very much.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. And Paula, just really quickly, and I think Danielle already said it, and Emily, but under the MX2, it was only this neighborhood medical definition, which actually came out of the community meeting Councilor Scarpelli was talking about. So it was open later in the morning, limited hours, less than five employees, and a very small square foot. That's what the current is. If this amendment was accepted, then no medical at all.

[Paulette Vartabedian]: Okay, yeah, I understood that. I think that even leaving a little bit open to that happening, it's gonna happen and we don't want it. It's the wrong place. I don't care if it's 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. And I think that's gonna be the way that that area, my area, is going to continue to vote and we're not gonna go away under the carpet. But anyway, thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. All right, I'm gonna go to Zoom. I'm going to go to Rebecca Davidson on Zoom. Rebecca, name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[Rebecca Davidson]: Yes, thank you so much. So I just wanted to, can you hear me?

[Zac Bears]: Sorry, Rebecca, you should be able to start your video. And if I could just get your name and address for the record, please.

[Rebecca Davidson]: Yeah, can you hear me OK? Okay, Rebecca Davidson and I'm at 26 Farragut Ave. So I just wanted to state that I'm a resident of Salem Street in this area and have been raising my family here for the last few years. I also grew up in Medford and I'm directly affected by this zoning effort as are many of my family members. And I wanna see more growth in small business development in my area. And for the record, I'm a homeowner. And for that, I really think that even though that shouldn't matter, I've heard that that comes up a lot in these conversations. And as a homeowner and somebody who lives in this area, I think that we need updated zoning. I think that the process so far has been very thoughtful. I've attended multiple meetings and feel that there's been a lot of opportunities for input. And I also want to clarify that this proposal won't mean immediate change, but it will pave the way for some important development that our city desperately needs. And I also just wanted to say that, you know, some of the things that I've heard in the past are related to this being an environmental justice community. And what that means is that we really should have equitable access to resources and benefits. And we would need updated zoning in order, for example, to have a small grocery store in the area, to have healthy food access, which currently there really isn't much of in this area. The other part of environmental justice is meaningful engagement with the community. And that's why I very much support what our Councilors have discussed relative to community involvement. I think that we need to have more communications, more engagement. We need a budget for that. So I really appreciated that proposal being brought up. That seems like a no-brainer, given that's something that everyone will benefit from, as with this proposal. So far, I feel like there has been good involvement of the community and that's been reflected, but we could use more of it. And for that, we will need a budget in order to do that. So overall, I just want to say that I'm in support of continuing the zoning effort. I think it will improve our neighborhood now and in the future, bring great businesses, address some of our housing crisis issues, and really help our community thrive. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. We'll go back to the podium. Name and address for the record, please, and you'll have three minutes.

[Ralph Klein]: Ralph Klein, 172 Park Street, Medford Mass. I'm directly affected by this, and I'm appalled at some of these Councilors saying we're against medical offices. There's only one problem with that. The latest proposal I've seen for that pit on Salem Street is 14 units with 0.8 pocket spaces per unit. With five people in the medical office, that's one office. Where are they going to park, and where are the people going to park? It's totally crazy to put a medical office there with five employees. That's just one. There's mostly, with this proposal, there's three businesses going in there. So where are the other people going to park? Where are these people who could, elderly, who may not get public transportation, may have to drive, even walk? OK, there's businesses that are there now. I live on Park Street. with the cycle place. They park all down Park Street because there's no parking on that end because of the sink building. I've lived in Medford for 68 years, the same place. I've never been contacted, and neither have half of my neighbors between Park and Central. I asked everybody right there, which is directly affected by the zoning. Nobody's gotten notices. I walked out and saw the city engineer drawing lines down the street one morning. What's this about? Oh, we're putting a bicycle lane, a proposed bicycle lane. Oh, can I be informed about that? Yeah. Never informed anything. The meeting was 45 days later. Wouldn't have known if I hadn't seen the guy out there drawing lines. Never informed, found out it passed. How does this go through? Captain Barry Clemente, I wish he was back. He told us everything that was going on in the city of Medford. The robocalls you're making should be for every citizen. You shouldn't have to sign up. If you live in that area, you people need to find out what's going on. You don't listen to us. This SF1, it should be. It shouldn't be SF2. The building at 169 Park Street is four stories tall. It's the same height as the Potter building, which sits directly on Salem Street across from that pit. Four stories is plenty capable. There's 20 units in that building. It's a larger area. They have parking there. There's one and a half parking spaces per unit. That was something the neighborhood worked on with the person who built it in the city. There's six visitor's parking spaces and a snow removal area. Where's this going to go in that Pet on Sale Street with 0.8 parking spaces? Let's get real here. It's not that we're against. a medical office, or anything like that. We need real things. Reality sets in at some point. We're not against people going to the doctors right there. Why is it so imperative the doctor's office can be right on the corner there? What's so imperative about that?

[Zac Bears]: Direct your comments to the chair, please.

[Ralph Klein]: Well, no, I'm talking to people who spoke.

[Zac Bears]: I know, it's just the rules. Thank you, though.

[Ralph Klein]: I know. I spoke to you a few times. You were at the meeting at the Roberts, one of the few meetings that was held By the city, councilors came to, I spoke directly to you at that meeting. I had an issue with you. I spoke right at your face. I know. So I speak to the person who says these things. I let them know I know who said it. I know what they're doing.

[Zac Bears]: I hear you. It's just that we ask people to direct it to me. I take the heat.

[Ralph Klein]: OK, that's fine. I will direct it to you. But I like people to know that I know who said what. I understand. You have to listen to the people in the neighborhood. Plus, the setback thing, six-story setback. The people behind that building have to look at the setback. Going down Salem Street, oh, it's beautiful. We don't have to see it. It's only four stories. I sit there and look at the back of the building. Plus, with the new zoning thing, you came four houses down on Park Street for the new zoning that could go up six stories. Four homes, it's not Salem Street. It goes back into the neighborhood. You have to look at this better. SF1 should be what it's zoned as, not just for the medical clinics, for the building and the people who live in that area. It's crazy what you people are trying to throw down our throats.

[Zac Bears]: I hear you, Ralph. You're over time. If you want to speak again, we will come back around for another minute after.

[Ralph Klein]: I appreciate it.

[Zac Bears]: Thanks, Ralph. I'm going to go to Zoom. I'm going to go to Zachary Chertok on Zoom. Name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[Zachary Chertok]: Zachary Chertok, 5 Almond Street. First, I'd like to clarify that there is active primary care between B.I. Lahey and Atrius in Medford Square, now walkable in part due to the rotary that also happens to have increased the time gap between public transit on Salem Street, as I've taken the counts now for three weeks, visible from my condo. Next, despite council, let me stated in 10, it really doesn't appear as though the Councilors reviewed the recording and transcript from the board meeting in September and prep for this council meeting. It also doesn't appear that the council has in full reviewed again. The mayor's full requirements for extension of the zoning consultation contract. The reasons for reducing MX one to MX one stem from the allowable commercial space use cases as the uses and concern can't be regulated out specifically per commentary from the head of planning, development and sustainability. Alicia hunt that was brought up at the last board meeting when she was asked. Under the new designation that still doesn't have a formalized ratified key despite past zoning for the quarter, the process of incursion of a variable use clinic is not clear for any diversified uses or designations of a clinic. The policy for approval remains in question and hasn't kept up with the intent. Alicia noted this as well. I would remind the council that the council also defied public input on the recommendations of the CD board to slip in a last minute amendment to the proposed zoning separate from the zoning passage for Salem Street. The current condition was put in place from the council's defiance of the CD board and public appeal. Further to and to echo Councilor Scarpelli, in tabulating the people speaking up about these issues especially relative to the lack of existing conditions understanding relative to the feasible density in tandem with the considerations for viable lot size for development, the majority of people through address tracing who spoke up with concerns versus those without were those from the neighborhood where this will have an impact including myself. I'll reiterate that the comprehensive plan is not a master plan and actually calls for measured master planning toward this particular project in the neighborhood zoning and the corridors. Ultimately, the lack of engineering going into the proposal as passed allows for uses that are not viable on the designated lot size, which had the engineering been done properly up to standard prior to the design, this would have been discovered and the maximal allowance would have been set at MX1. In response to Councilor Callaghan, Innes confirmed as much back at the Roberts when we had the community meeting, the one and only, and after a lot of pressure on the council. And if you refer to the Wellington section as an example, you can see the difference between what a properly studied and planned city section looks like relative to what we're dealing with here. The crux comes down to the continued lack of engineering tantamount to an unengineered process for the zoning for it to have been done right. Despite repeated asks for the measures to be put forth to justify the proposals, in tandem with legal and engineering compliance, the City Council, Planning and Permitting Committee, the City Board, and the Department of Planning, Development and Sustainability have failed to proffer them, and that's largely where the Mayor's concerns lie. and to address the comms issue and to caution against revisionist history and selective history on the part of the council, I would have liked to have seen your current fervor prior to the election. It was nowhere to be seen until you were called out. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. And we'll go back to in-person. Name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening. Nick Joleo, Forty Robinson Road. I'm in favor of the amendment, but before I discuss why let me first just say that the agenda for this meeting tonight the whole agenda was not posted to the city website until 1115 this morning. I had to call the city clerk's office and ask where it was. And only then was it uploaded. This isn't acceptable. Residents need adequate notice of what the council is going to address at a meeting so they can do appropriate research, prepare their remarks, and make logistical arrangements to be here.

[Zac Bears]: Nick, I'm going to just pause you there. I can answer that and I'll give you the rest of your time. Sure. It was on me. not on Rich Alicia or anybody else. As you may know, we've been without a city clerk for some time here. Rich has been filling in. I've actually been doing all the agendas myself and it was early Friday morning. It did go up on the events calendar and was linked in the folder on the website. I didn't press the, and it was posted in the clerk's office. I didn't press the publish button on civic clerk, cause that's my job right now, but that's on me. I'm sorry. When I got heard from Rich, that's when I pressed the button. So my apologies for that.

[Nick Giurleo]: Thank you for the apology and explanation.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, you got it.

[Nick Giurleo]: I'll continue now with my thoughts on why I'm in favor of the amendment. So I'm in favor of the amendment because the six-story height maximum allowed by MX2 is excessive in this area, which is residential. But I'm also in favor because rezoning that node, MX1, is going to eliminate, as we've discussed, this very vaguely defined use neighborhood medical office. And I think as others have pointed out before me, this would likely encompass a methadone clinic. And I hope we can all agree, regardless of what a person might think about the utility of having one of these anywhere, that putting one a few blocks away from a school, an elementary school for that matter, is not a good idea. And I don't think that requiring a special permit from the Community Development Board would be an adequate safeguard, and that we are better just forbidding the use altogether in this node. But again, I'm not opposed to having one of these in Medford. It's just a question of where we put it. It really isn't wise to put one near where their children, in my opinion. And I hope that the council will not only approve the amendment tonight, but also revisit other decisions made for this quarter. I don't think there's anything wrong with making changes to our zoning ordinance. I've never thought that our zoning ordinance, given how old it is, has been perfect and that could not use any revisions at all. It certainly should be revisited. And I would hope that the Councilors tonight would not view a yes vote on this as some sort of admission of defeat. I think this legislative process is designed for this kind of thinking let's look, what's not working, how do we fix it. And we want to make sure of course that our zoning decisions reflect what people who live in our neighborhoods want, you have to think of the overwhelming opposition at that Roberts meeting. And again, the CDB had originally recommended to you based on all the public feedback they had received, approval, and it was rejected. So we're just kind of wasting time here. We have to retrace our steps, revisit it. It's just not efficient. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. We will go back to Zoom. Cheryl Rodriguez, name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Hi, Cheryl Rodriguez. I'm in favor of MX1. It's more appropriate for this block. The pit has a variance for one parking space per unit and could only achieve three stories with commercial and two levels of residential. The 360 Sound Street project is seeking high frequency transit 0.8 parking spaces and could only achieve four stories with commercial and three residential floors, even though it doesn't qualify for high frequency transit. So zoning isn't feasible here without removing parking minimums. Is that what this council is planning? Because without that, there's no reason for MX2 here. We don't wanna risk a methadone dispensary because it fits neighborhood medical with the exception of the hours of operation. And there's no reason to believe there couldn't be an exception or they couldn't just follow those hours. So we want no medical uses. It's too close to the neighborhood and the school to be allowed. Most of the people who spoke in favor of the zoning mistakenly thought it would allow affordable housing, which means they didn't understand what they were in favor of. So those counts should be redone to find out who was actually in favor of what is actually proposed here. The comprehensive plan calls for study, not zoning based on the opinion of the city council. I think many are misinterpreting or misunderstanding the comprehensive plan and its function. but the neighborhood negotiated with the consultant and planning and President Bears was there and we overwhelmingly wanted MX-1 with no medical uses. So this neighborhood was heard. We didn't get all that we wanted. This was a compromise that we made. You should vote for this change because it's the right thing to do and a more feasible option. Even MX-1 is highly unlikely to be possible. The Community Development Board recognized this in the first place. This council voted against this initially, but we should not be leveraged used by this council. Our zoning is live, unlike most of the city. And Alicia Hunt says this area was urgent to zone because of developer activity and developer pressure. So this is not something that won't happen. This is something that is happening. So we need action now and not to be part of some elaborate plan to gain funds and leverage later. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. We will go back to the podium. Name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[hLm7uOhMYTQ_SPEAKER_07]: Hello, Nick Ulig, 62 Tainer Street. As someone with a child at the Roberts, and as a Nick who actually lives in the area in question, I want to say unequivocally that I think that upzoning the Salem Corridor, as was enumerated by the CDB, by council, by the zoning consultants, all that excellent work, I think it was a good thing. I also think that upzoning the Salem Park node to either MX1 or MX2 is a good thing. Either one would be a step forward. Either one would be an improvement over what we have now. My personal preference is for MX2. Anything we can do to allow new businesses and new housing at this location is good and MX2 provides more flexibility in that regard. I was actually shocked to learn just earlier in this meeting that a brew pub would be allowed under MX2 and not under MX1. Is that like a tap room or something?

[Zac Bears]: Yes, yes, it was, yes.

[hLm7uOhMYTQ_SPEAKER_07]: Boy, that would be a huge loss. I believe, speaking on that flexibility, I believe that many have sensationalized it. MX2 does allow medical uses with the restrictions that many people have pointed out earlier. Square footage, number of employees, the need for a CDB-granted special permit, which includes the need for public consultation. Seizing on last year's justifiably intense discussions around the opening of a methadone clinic within this node, A proposal that was made under the old zoning and which was completely rescinded. Opponents of densification have tried to claim that MX2 will somehow pose a threat to the neighborhood. I very much disagree with this assertion and want to remind everyone that there is no proposal whatsoever at present for a similar development anywhere in that node. MX2 allows medical uses, as Councilor Lazzaro previously said, so that things like small medical practices or dental clinics, some of which already exist on that corridor, could continue to be built. I want to mention that while I'm happy to see either MX1 or MX2 zoning at this node, I find it very distressing to see this being negotiated via ultimatum on behalf of the mayor. The council, as enumerated extensively by earlier comments, was just trying to do what they were told to do and to deliver on the goals set out at the beginning of 2024. To force the entire city's rezoning effort to a halt with its future hinging on a single aspect of a single node in the city is not reasonable. As mentioned previously, council adopted 11 of the 12 CDB recommendations on the Salem Street rezoning and focusing on the one that was not adopted and using it as a wedge issue to hold up vital work being done on the rest of the city's behalf is not what I want to see from my government. Medford needs progress to be made on this file across the city. It cannot only be concentrated in Glenwood along Salem Street and on Mystic Avenue, the only corridors that have up to until now been approved in this initiative. The current situation is holding my neighborhood hostage over a small difference in policy, but also holding the whole city back and accomplishing things that the mayor herself signed off on and appropriated funds for nearly two years ago. Policy should not be done by fiat, and this is not the way to engender collaborative and constructive work by municipal government on this file. I expect better of the mayor, and I hope all of Medford's elected government can work together moving forward on this issue. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. I'm going to go back to Zoom. We have a few more people on Zoom, so it'll be back and forth. I'm going to go to Patricia Cherry on Zoom. You'll have three minutes. Name and address for the record, please.

[Patricia Chery]: Hello, my name is Patricia Cherry, 20 Wellesley Street, Medford. I just want to say about the zoning, I really, I hate the tone of the some of the Councilors shaming people for their opinions. It's not it doesn't come off, you know, very well to people that live in the city. And it's it's become kind of a tactic used. You know, if you don't want a certain something done, whether it be a methadone clinic or and it's against what the city council wants, they shame people and use terminology that is it's very hurtful. I just have to say that. But as far as the methadone clinic that was everybody was up in arms about, I think that a lot of people didn't understand what you guys were trying to do. There wasn't a lot of communication. And when you hear something like that, a lot of people don't have a lot of knowledge about treatments for people who, you know, who have addiction and their blueprint of seeing clinics like this is methadone mild. That's all they see. So of course, when something like this is being proposed or the thought of it being proposed, coming into a neighborhood where there are kids right down the street, it's scary to some people. And I think that instead of people going out and having conversations and trying to go back and forth with each other's opinions, they were being shamed. Oh, you just don't want people to get help. Oh, and I heard this new thing, you're a NIMBY. And I just think we need to start to get away from that stuff in this city. We've had enough of it for so long. I also, you know, I hear a lot of people, whenever they want to make a point, they use the most vulnerable, the most vulnerable. And I don't necessarily think that some of their points are going to help out the most vulnerable, but they use that terminology because they know it shames people. You know, I guess that's all, that's what I'm trying to say. I do have some other things to talk about the affordable housing because I think we're using wrong terminology there. Um, but I'm going to be meeting with Zach on that. I won't get into that now, but I just really wish you guys would take into consideration that people have opinions that may differ. Try not to shame them. Don't use words like, you know, you don't want to help people or you're against people who are addicted. you're racist, like these things, the tone is just, it's not good. It's not good for the city, that's all. But I appreciate y'all.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment, Patricia, looking forward to our meeting.

[Patricia Chery]: Absolutely.

[Zac Bears]: All right, back to the podium. Oh, sorry, there you go. You're on now, my bad.

[Trish Schiapelli]: Trisha Pelley, 53 Garfield Avenue. So since tonight's meeting idea is honesty, I'm very confused. We had so many meetings. We had a lot of community input. And then we need to have more community input. We haven't had any meetings. Did we have meetings or did we not was my number one question. since we are now, I am in favor of the MX1 qualification and zoning for our area because it goes against any of the medical clinics that we fought so hard against. And let's be very clear, this wasn't because we didn't know that it was a methadone dispensary. We were very clear with that. It was the company that was coming in. It was Habit Opco, which is actually the company that is responsible for mass and cast. It is the company that is responsible for Springfield, and it is the company that two or three months later, was written up in the New York Times under federal investigation for holding psychologically. ill patients against their will because they had the right insurance. So insurance fraud. Is that the kind of companies we want to bring into Medford? And not only that, we have five medical dispensaries in the area that meet the needs within a four-mile radius. We are more than covered from a per capita basis. So let's not try to taint it that we are NIMBY, that we just didn't want it. There wasn't a need. It was the wrong company. And now we do not trust this council as a result of that to allow blanket medical clinics, because none of us have the time to watch and monitor what's going on. So and finally, any methadone clinic or any medical clinic in that area, we can't even keep the trash properly picked up. Have you seen the rats in the neighborhood? And now you want to add medical waste? How do we know we're not going to have urine sample cups running down the street and needles? So, you know, let's be real here. So MX1 is fine. Thank you so much. We've clarified quite a few things this evening. I appreciate it.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. We will go to Zoom. We'll go to Donna Silva on Zoom. Donna, I'm going to ask you to unmute. And if you could provide your name and address for the record, and you'll have three minutes.

[Donna Sylva]: Donna Silva, 1536 Mystic Valley Parkway. And I obviously do not live anywhere near Salem Street. I spit and hit Arlington. But I want to thank the people that have been speaking tonight, and Zachary, Nick, Cheryl, the woman that just spoke, I'm sorry I didn't grab your name. These are Medford residents that this is affecting. It's not affecting me. I live way on the other side of Medford. But as someone said earlier, put it in West Medford. There you go, because the commuter rail is there. I worked in Boston at 125 High Street. I walked Canal Street every day, Monday through Friday, twice a day. Bay Cove. Are any of you familiar with Bay Cove? You can shake your head yes, if you are. I walked there. I would go in the morning, early in the morning when they opened, as one of the Councilors said, early in the morning, they were there. I would come home at four o'clock. They, some of them would still be there, not all of them. So let's not cookie cutter this and say, oh, they have to take their children to school and also they have to go to work because they are addicts. Okay? I have helped many of addicts. So don't even go there with even trying to look at me as not helping people. and caring about people. As one of our Councilors stood up last year in a meeting and walked out and stormed out and said, we don't care. Of course we care. Of course we do. But these people live in that neighborhood and they're raising families and there are restaurants there. And not every, and I'm not saying that every addict that is going to get treatment is going to walk out of there and hang around and stay, but there are some that are going to. And for the four, five, six of them that do is four, five, six too many. because I'll take any of you for lunch. I will buy you lunch at any restaurant in Boston, Capitol Grill, anywhere you wanna go. You sit on Canal Street with me and let's see what goes on during the course of the day. I'll take all of you. I don't care because you need to see what does happen. And it's unfair to put these people that are living in that neighborhood to put them in the position because you don't live there. Again, let's put it in West Medford because the commuter rail's there, right? Okay, and I know I'm past my time, but I wanna thank all of you and I do agree with the zoning, increasing it. I agree with just, I mean, West Medford is a dump. So we need to do something. I'm in agreement, but let's put our heads together and not be like Congress. Grow up, everyone. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. We will go back to the podium. Name and address for the record, please, and you'll have three minutes.

[Micah Kesselman]: I'm Micah Kesselman at 499 Main Street. I'm a city council speaker. So let's talk about the way that this has actually gone down and compared to what's happening at the national level. The mayor has basically held this process hostage to force through a discussion about two floors of height and then also demand that that there would be no medical allowed whatsoever in this area while the state and the country, but especially Massachusetts is in the middle of a healthcare access crisis. The healthcare system in Massachusetts is actively collapsing right now. Like it's mind boggling that anyone wants to actually put any additional obstructions and hurdles to providing healthcare to people. That's crazy. The other thing that I also want to bring up is we were talking a lot about like, oh, the people who live in the neighborhood should be allowed to shape the neighborhood. I agree, but you know what that means? That means letting them do things with their property that they own that they think is good for their property. That's what zoning is. Mixed use one is more restricted. You are actually making it harder for the people who live in the neighborhood and own that property to do what they want with their own property. So if you really want people to shape their own neighborhood, and this is gonna be something that most people won't agree with me on, which I understand, but you wanna have much more permissive zoning. That's really what you want. So really what this boils down to is incompetent governance, someone not governing, not actually running a city in the best interests of the people who live in the city, just engaging in cynical, petty little brinksmanship games that are terrible for the city at the end of the day, and spreading nonsense. How much input did you guys have on the methadone clinic? The city council didn't propose the methadone clinic? Right, yeah, that's out of your hands. So what the hell are people talking about? This is crazy. Anyway, that's my time. Other people want to use up their three minutes. Thank you. Thank you for your comment.

[Zac Bears]: Back to Zoom. We'll go to Jane Marcus. Jane, name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[kOuBy-MtMpc_SPEAKER_04]: Hi, my name is Jane Marcus. I live at 65 Tainter Street. I'm in the Salem Street Corridor, and I live around the corner from the Roberts Elementary School. I support changing the zoning back to MX1. And from a process standpoint, I find it very disturbing that we had many meetings with the Community Development Board, and I find that the City Council is overriding the Community Development Board as if they're stupid. I don't understand why the city council feels they know more and have a better process that they should override the board that is in charge of making that recommendation. So I urge you to follow the recommendation of the Community Development Board, as is our process here in Medford. I understand that you're angry with the mayor, but I'm one of the many, many people who have contacted the mayor asking for the mayor's help to stop the methadone clinics from coming to next to the Roberts Elementary School. I don't like the tone of the city council saying we're bad people. We don't want to help people. because we don't want our elementary school students to be walking past addicts. That is not unreasonable that we want a safe walk to school. Here in our neighborhood, almost all the kids walk to school. I see them walk past my house twice a day, every school day, and I want those kids to have a safe walk, and I don't want someone telling me that that is not a good thing for the kids to have a safe walk to school. We know from the benefit of other communities that a methadone clinic can be a danger. Not only will children encounter unstable addicts, but they may also encounter discarded needles. This is not what we want for our elementary school students. I live in the neighborhood. I see the kids walk to school with joy. I don't want to have a methadone clinic that's going to impact our community. And we've been told repeatedly at all the meetings that we've had thus far that the city's afraid of being sued if we turn down a permit for a methadone clinic. So if one is proposed, we're going to have it if the zoning allows it. The zoning should never allow the methadone clinic. And we had a meeting at the Roberts Elementary School where all the neighbors got up And the people who live in the neighborhood saying, no, we don't want a methadone clinic around the corner from our school. We don't want addicts watching our kids walking to school. We don't want this for our neighborhood. So for people to say that someone who doesn't live in the neighborhood should be able to be a cheerleader for the methadone clinic, That just doesn't seem right. So I want you to listen to the Community Development Board, take into consideration that process, and I respectfully ask you to approve the MX-1 zoning. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. I will go to Councilor Lazzaro, then we'll come back to the public hearing. Councilor Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: I just have a quick point of information. A clinic for medication-assisted treatment would be treatment for people who are in recovery from opioid use disorder. So if you are observing needles in your neighborhood, an effective way to address that would be different methods of helping people get into or stay in recovery. One of the ways to do that is with a clinic increasing access to medication-assisted treatment or sober homes or other avenues of treatment. But one of the ways that you can treat opioid use disorder, which is administered sometimes with a needle, but methadone and Suboxone are not administered with needles, is by increasing access to sources of recovery.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. back to the podium. Name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[David McKenna]: David McKenna to Vine Street, just one block away from this node. So I am a neighbor. I think something's been lost in the conversation tonight. MX1, MX2, there is no methadone clinic that is allowed by the zoning because even MX2 has restrictions on the hours. It requires a special permit, five employee limit, 1,500 square foot. And it would have to be approved by the community development board with input from the community. So what we're talking about is a dentist you know, maybe a sole practitioner with a secretary and a nurse, you know, maybe that scope, we're not talking about methadone clinic. Neighborhood medical office actually specifically says no clinics. It's in the definition of neighborhood medical office that there are no clinics allowed. So MX1, MX2, I feel like we've lost the thread. There is no methadone clinic on the table at this intersection. I support the council doing whatever you all need to do. to move the zoning forward in the city, to rezone Medford Square, to rezone West Medford Square, and to revitalize our tax base as everybody wants to do. If you need more assurances from the mayor to do that, I think you should get those more assurances of whatever contract needs to be in place for us to successfully grow our tax base, especially in Medford Square. But if MX one is what it takes, then I urge you to do MX one because we have a lot at stake for our city. Now I've heard some people claim that the city council did not listen to public input on the Salem Street zoning. Some people even wrote it on flyers and distribute them across the city during the election to try to do political damage. But I personally attended every meeting, including the one at the Roberts. and a majority of public commenters supported the Community Development Board Plan and a majority of that group also asked for greater density. A minority of opponents gave public comment at the March 11th meeting where they asked the City Council to reject the entire Community Development Board proposal. The people who are now saying please do MX1 on March 11th said scrap the entire plan and start from zero. they've latched onto this issue again in the election to try to do political damage to the city council and they've somehow convinced the mayor to shut down rezoning across the entire city to adopt the proposal that they gave public comment against just a few months ago. So the city council already passed 11 out of 12 recommendations from the community development board. I urge you, if it's gonna move the bigger zoning project forward, adopt the 12th recommendation through the MX1. And I also urge the mayor to go back and listen to all of those public meetings that are recorded. And the people who have just given comment in favor of MX1 did not give that comment. And on March 11th, they said, shut down the whole project. and they were not interested in this. So they're not reliable negotiators. Anyway, I urge you all to do whatever it takes. We need Medford Square to be revitalized. It's a huge effort. It's part of the comprehensive plan. You already have draft plans in place. And so please move that forward as quickly as possible.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. We will go to Zoom. We'll go to Megan on Zoom. Name and address for the record, please, Megan.

[SPEAKER_29]: Hi, thank you. Megan Searle, 100th Station Landing. Yep, floor is yours. Okay. There were 116 opioid-related deaths in Medford between the years 2015 and 2022, suggesting that Medford is not immune from the opioid crisis. There may be some benefit to residents to have an easily accessible clinic, though I hear and understand that there are clinics nearby as well. While HABIT-OPCO may not have been a good fit for Medford for a number of reasons, it doesn't make sense to me to exclude medication-assisted treatment clinics en masse. These clinics can be designed in very different ways. The ones that are best run and integrated into their environment tend to do things like cap their patient numbers, provide parking, and have room for indoor waiting. When this happens, these clinics are essentially like any other medical facility. Many people with histories of opioid use disorders have had their lives turned around by medication-assisted treatment, particularly suboxone, which is a very effective medicine that can allow people to live very normal lives. While a poorly run methadone-only clinic is probably not something we would want for Medford, I want to be clear that there is a wide range of different clinics, and I believe they should not be excluded, as if they are all the same. A well run medically assisted treatment facility that offers suboxone in particular would be very different from a poorly run methadone only clinic. And I believe this distinction is important to consider. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. We will go back to the podium.

[Goldstein]: Name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes. Good evening, Sam Goldstein, 29 Martin Street. I have a couple of points this evening, but firstly, I am concerned that this conversation is so explicitly centered on whether or not a substance use disorder treatment clinic, a place that helps people struggling with addiction, would be allowed to open up in this neighborhood or elsewhere in the city. I guess the thing that's really that I'm sort of struggling with tonight is that it sounds as far as I please correct me if I'm mistaken about this, but it seems like the city is trying to change the zoning to, you know, specifically single out, you know, people with with a particular medical condition. And that, you know, concerns me, particularly because I if I'm not mistaken that that violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. I don't know, you know, if the way that this is sort of mechanically happening at this stage if that doesn't. you know, if that doesn't come into play here, but it bothers me to watch the, you know, the city, you know, contemplating how to, you know, specifically target a group with a particular illness. I guess I'd like to just ask, like, do we know if like the mayor has gotten like the advice of the city solicitor on whether or not that is, Oh, that's interesting.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, what Councilor Scott probably said, he was on camera, is that actually the city solicitor is no longer with the city. Okay.

[Goldstein]: Do we know if there has been like some sort of like legal opinion on that, that saw it? It just, that concerns me. And I guess I would just say that like, you know, taken all together, I'm really concerned that the mayor seems to be, um going to the city's boards and and bodies and and to city staff and um you know trying to construct this this you know kind of class canon kind of situation maybe that's not the right metaphor or whatever but but basically like trying to blackmail the city over over zoning it it really Um, strikes me as is unfair and sort of tyrannical that this is how we're, we're, we're doing business here. So, um, I support what the city council is doing with, with rezoning. I trust you guys will make the right, uh, you know, decision with this. I do hope that we, you know, are, are being like a really intentional about, you know, how we treat people with different, um, you know, needs and disabilities in our community and how welcoming we are to them. And I support the next, I can't stay, but I support what's coming next as well. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. Just really quickly, before I go back to answer the question, legal counsel was part of the discussion on the development of the neighborhood medical definition. I think there's kind of a Councilor Tseng our Harvard Law School student can correct me if I'm wrong about this, but there's kind of two elements of this. As written, council said, this doesn't discriminate against anyone. But now we're in a situation where also the intent of the bodies creating this definition comes into play. And like, obviously, the discussion tonight is going to be part of any record on legislative intent. And I think that's really where a question may or may not come in. As Councilor Lazzaro noted, this has been created to solve a problem without just to address something that people want to address without actually saying what it is and how that will be discussed if this ever were to come into a court of law, I think is a really open question. I don't know. I'm no lawyer. Councilor Tseng?

[Justin Tseng]: I think that Reid is correct. Most of the case law is about a situation where a zoning permit is denied. But pretty much every case in that situation at the circuit court level rules against the municipality and lets the methadone clinic come in. But I think that's correct, that intent matters a lot here and the conversations that we have in public, especially from elected officials, really affects what municipalities can and cannot do. There's some, I have to read more into it, but there's some discussion in the opinions about the role of municipality versus discrimination against those who need medical treatment, medical help. overall case law is quite clear that when the intent exists to discriminate against those seeking care, the municipality will lose.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. We will go back to the public hearing. We have Michael Dewberry on Zoom. Name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[Michael Dewberry]: Hi, everyone. Michael Dewberry, 50 Park Street. Thank you to the council and the neighbors for having this discussion, one in a long series. I think I've probably been to like, feels like 20 of these at some point, at this point. Yeah, so I'm about two blocks from Salem Park. I am not the closest possible neighbor, but I'm pretty close. I go to the dentist on Salem Street. I buy my sub sandwiches on Salem Street. I go down to the hardware store, get my paint and tools. I am pro-density however we can get it. I'm excited about the possibility of both housing and commercial, whether it's a brewery or a coffee shop or a micro grocery store, whatever we can get. I think the more density we have, the better. Also, my wife is 40 weeks pregnant. and with a future robert school student um and she's a little bit mad that i'm on this call i'm not doing something more important but i just keep hearing that like oh the neighbor doesn't support this but i've been at like i said a dozen or maybe two dozen meetings including the last two cdb meetings where there's an even split Of people prone against the density and every time we keep hearing like no one support. No one supports density. The neighborhood feels this and I'm not going to make any claims with neighbor fields. I think the data speaks for itself. We've had plenty of people on both sides, but yeah, we want this in the neighborhood and like, I'm not afraid of medical uses. know, we have medical in Medford Square, we have a dentist already on Salem Street. I don't think it's reasonable to keep, to prevent those blanketly. The explanation that the CDB president gave I thought was quite good at the last meeting about like what the constraints and outcomes are not concerned about that at all. And I think it's a little bit weird that we're fixated on it. And one more process note I wanted to mention. I'll take whatever we can get. If it's MX1, great. If it's MX2, great. I would say that a mix of both would make more sense, because this is a pretty large area. And maybe tapering down from MX2 at the intersection to MX1 further down the blocks would make sense. And I have the support. uh, the consultant being rehired to make that kind of determination. However, it's a little weird to have this, uh, you know, sword hanging over the consultant. Like you better do what the mayor likes or you're not gonna get your contract renewed. I mean, some amount of that is always implicit, but I hope the council can find a resolution that, um, makes it clear that we're all in this together. We all want things. We're not gonna get everything we want. We're just trying to negotiate. We're not trying to strong arm anybody. We're just trying to respond to what the neighborhood wants, which I believe is more density, however we can get it. And I don't want this to block the entire process of rezoning the entire city because it's important that we find more housing and support more commercial development. Thank you very much.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. appreciate your comment. We'll go to the podium, name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[Jenny Graham]: Anna Meyer, 6 Douglas Road. I just want to say briefly, start just by echoing Amy Hannah's comments that what I'm in favor of is being able to move forward with zoning. And I trust the Council and the incoming City Council of what it's going to take to get there. I think that a Medford that is more dense where I can walk to get health care on Salem Street, which I currently do. I go to the dentist there where there is more affordable housing so I can live in a neighborhood where my friends in helping and professions and public professions can afford to live here and stay here is something I'm in favor of and I'm looking forward to moving forward with that. I'll just also say briefly that I know that there is no active proposal for a methadone clinic and it's nothing the city council is proposing. And at the same time, it's alarming to me how many of my neighbors are standing up to argue against more zoning again on the potential that there could be another proposal for a methadone clinic maybe sometime in the future. And I think that we all thrive when our zoning provides for businesses and medical offices and housing that's gonna keep us all safe and we will all thrive in a Medford that has updated zoning that will provide for the needs of all of our community members. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. got a couple more going to go back to zoom Sophie are on zoom name and address for the record and you'll have three minutes.

[Sophie Ricks]: Hi, this is Sophie Rex i'm at 78 calling street i'm here really to register my disappointment with the mayor and to briefly share my support for the rezoning efforts. as a single family historical homeowner in particular. I'm not afraid of apartments or renters or methadone clinics. I actually worked at a methadone clinic for two and a half years and then for another year and a half at Boston Healthcare for the Homeless program, which is right near, I don't like to call it methadone mile, but what people are referring to like that. I never saw a single needle outside of the clinic that I worked at in Cambridge. And while I can truly sincerely appreciate some of the legitimate questions that are being raised, including about Habit OpCo as a company, I just want to share that the level of fear about these services is really unwarranted. even whether or not a clinic can come to Medford like the last speaker, it does concern me how people speak about these services generally. I do just also want to share that I talk with tough students at my job every single week, and I'm often trying to connect them with resources in the community. And when I suggest a place in Davis Square, their eyes light up because they know it. They get ice cream. They buy Halloween costumes at Goodwill. They go bowling. They go to the movies. They check out the new bookshop or the boba shop. And then when I mentioned that there's a great counseling option in Medford Square right near the library, they look confused. They look nervous. They've literally never heard of Medford Square. I kind of make it a joke, but they have no idea. Even though it's about equidistant to campus for most of them, they've never visited our beautiful library or Colleen's or Ray Augusto or the Chevalier. They literally don't know it exists because Davis Square is a busy, fun place on a Saturday night and Medford Square is decidedly not. And so I'm very supportive of expanding our zoning any way we can. And like some of the previous speakers, MX1, MX2, it feels like whatever you gotta do to move it forward. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. going to go to the podium, name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: Thank you, Councilor Bears. Andrew Castagnetti, Cushman Street, East Medford. First of all, I want to apologize if my phone blew up with a phone call at the start of the meeting over an hour ago. It was one of our residents. She was very irate and yelling at me because Channel 22 Comcast was not coming through for this meeting. So hopefully it got rectified, because I did not want to interrupt your meeting an hour ago. I tried to knock on the door, it was locked, no response. So hopefully it's working for everyone. As far as Salem Street goes, I'll make it very, very brief. because I'm repeating myself from last five meetings on the same subject, Salem Street is congested enough as is. My uncle had three family with a store attached to it, still there. And it's congested in my opinion. If you can do anything is get that large gas station out of the three of them that takes up the whole block around Otter Street. If you can get that, from the owner who lives in Winchester to give it up or Eminent Domain there, that's a nice big parcel, it's a whole block. That would be tremendous. But otherwise, I wouldn't do too much more because it's already gonna be like Somerville with the Somerville congestion and the issues with or without heroin or methadone. Go easy on Salem Street, please.

[Zac Bears]: Thanks, Andy. We're checking on channel 22, but it did seem to be up, and Jim is going to confirm. We'll go back to Zoom. We'll go to Barry Ingber. Name and address for the record, please, and you'll have three minutes.

[Barry Ingber]: Barry Ingber, 9 Draper Street. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I think it's pretty clear to almost everybody that we need rezoning in Medford, both to effectively address the affordable housing crisis and to promote commercial development. And I want to express my strong support for the city council's efforts and disappointment in the mayor's efforts to put roadblocks in the way at the last minute. It's a very blatant bullying, and I think it needs to be called out as such. I also want to note the irony of the hysteria around a treatment clinic that isn't going to happen, while nobody seems disturbed about Anthony's Liquors, whose patrons are not in treatment. So I want people to kind of ponder that. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Seeing no one else in person, we'll stay on Zoom. We'll go to Miranda Briseño. Name and address for the record, please. You have three minutes.

[Miranda Briseno]: Hi, Miranda Briseño to Taylor Street. Don't live in the area, but do you want to register my support for moving the zoning project along. I think it's been well established throughout this meeting that a methadone clinic is not coming to Medford, especially at this particular location. Similar to other speakers, it's disappointing to hear a lot of the misinformation being spread about the people who would use this clinic and the presumed behaviors they would take part in. for those that are worried about needles being left around the city. I look forward to advocating with you for an increase in sharp containers around Medford so that we can reduce this potential hazardous waste. Something probably every speaker has mentioned tonight is that they've made multiple versions of their comments, whether they are for or against the current proposal or amendment on the table over the last year or so. I think that's a clear indication that this process has taken so long and it's really iterative. There's not a lot of clear communication about what's been happening. And lest we forget that the council doesn't have any power to appropriate themselves funds or communication to the public about what is happening about their meetings and whatnot, that all of that power sits with the mayor. And it's been really disappointing to see her take the stance that she has no idea what's going on when she's the one in charge. And for people not to be disappointed in that is quite shocking to me. I wouldn't want the leader of my city to say that they were unaware of a big project that's been happening over 18 months and that they're shocked by what they've been hearing. But yeah, that's just what I want to register. Like everyone else has said, I just want this to move forward. and it's unfortunate that the mayor has put us in this position.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. We'll go back to the podium. Name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[Ellen Epstein]: Ellen Epstein, 15 Grove Street, Medford. I first off just want to appreciate the long term efforts of the city council to move the zoning reform forward. I respect whatever decision you come to tonight about MX1 or MX2. And then I have a question on, it seems to me from having attended many city council meetings at this point, that any business that wants to open in Medford, has to be approved by the council, is that correct? Sorry, the... Any business that wants to open anywhere in Medford... That's a complicated question.

[Zac Bears]: Certain businesses require certain licenses, some don't. And then there's also the special permit condition for zoning, which is actually an even higher condition than that. An example, if you're serving hot food, you need to get a certain type of license. If you're a lawyer's office, I don't think you have to get any kind of license. Those are kind of, that's a very, very oversimplified answer.

[Ellen Epstein]: So I don't live in the Salem Street area, but it sounds like there are two parcels that potentially could be developed under the new zoning, whichever it gets zoned by. And they would be commercial properties, presumably.

[Zac Bears]: The MX zoning allows for a first floor commercial and then housing above it.

[Ellen Epstein]: So would those type of arrangements need to come before the city council to get approval?

[Zac Bears]: That's again a somewhat complicated question. At really any significant scale, a project has to go through what's called site plan review. And that's through the planning board, through the community development board. And then it again goes back to zone. Basically, there's three zoning can say three things I can say mixed use building. Yes, that means that it's by right and that doesn't mean there's nothing else after that point. It can be a special permit and then there's a special permit granting authority or it can say no. And that's, it's not allowed at all. In this case, in an MX zone, a mixed-use building is generally by right, but it still has to conform to all of the other conditions. And if it's over a certain size and scale, it goes through a site plan review process through the Community Development Board, and there's kind of public engagement through that.

[Ellen Epstein]: Okay, that's what I was wondering. So there will be points at which the public can weigh in on any development that might happen there.

[Zac Bears]: Yes. Any is the only word I have. Development over a certain size, yes.

[Ellen Epstein]: And MX means mixed.

[Zac Bears]: Mixed, yeah. MX is, yeah, it's shorthand for mixed.

[Ellen Epstein]: Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: You got it. All right, we'll go back to Zoom. I'll go to Genesis Perez. Genesis, name and address for the record, and you'll have three minutes.

[Jenny Graham]: Hi, my name is Genesis Perez, and I live at 229 Main Street. So I guess I just want to um, express my support for affordable housing, however that can be procured, and I'm honestly quite disappointed by the comments I have heard, um, discriminating against the potential for any sort of, um, medical, uh, facility being constructed in the city, as if there, they could never know someone who might need that facility, or as if those people could pose such a, um, a danger to anyone around them. I just find that very concerning. And frankly, I will definitely be attending more of these council meetings in the future, um, to, um, express my opinions in, um, in disagreement with those, I guess. But yeah, so just expressing support for affordable housing however we can procure it, because there are so many students here who need affordable housing. But also, it would be amazing to have a more robust community here in Medford. And like someone mentioned, something more akin to Davis Square here at Medford Square would be very nice to see.

[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you so much for your comment. We will stay on zoom. I will go to Caitlin Robinson, Caitlin name and address for the record and you'll have three minutes.

[Kaitlin Robinson]: Hi, thank you. I'm Caitlin Robinson, 31 Everett street. I am a resident of this neighborhood that we're talking about. I live two blocks from the intersection of Salem and park. Um, and I, I'm one of the many people in the neighborhood who spoke in favor of upzoning this area and whose comments seem to be dismissed by many of the public speakers. I appreciate the work that the city council is doing. I also want to register my disappointment in the mayor and the tactics that she's been using in this, which are tactics I've come to expect to see more at the federal level and not here in our city. I want us to go forward with the zoning process. I am very concerned about the whole idea of shifting this down to MX1 specifically to prohibit medical uses, because I'm wondering about the precedent that that will set as we look to zoning other squares and corridors. Is it going to be the same conversation over again with the idea that we are going to outlaw all medical uses out of fear about the possibility for something like a methadone clinic? Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. We will stay on zoom we'll go to run being name and address for the record please and you'll have three minutes.

[Ren Bean]: Hi, run being 37 Woodrow Avenue. I just wanted to call in and express deep and sincere thanks for the many, I think, unseen and uncounted hours that the folks sitting on the council have put into this over the past nearly two years now. I particularly want to call out at least what I've seen of Councilor Collins, as she mentioned in what I thought was a very compelling and persuasive speech about why we shouldn't let this die on the vine, having to serve as a Councilor and de facto communications officer because there's no budget for communications. I think Councilor Collins and all of your colleagues really did an excellent job communicating this to the community, building a comprehensive website with lots of links and good information and summaries, creating a newsletter, attending you know, community sessions, above and beyond and outside of council sessions. And, you know, I think that for the mayor to kind of come in and give this list of demands, because it wasn't because what City Council did in a very compressed timeline 18 month contract with Innis, and, you know, no budget really other than just paying Innis. was incredible. And then to say, well, I'm not going to give you the very modest ask that Councilor Bears made, which was, I think, an additional $50,000 for communications and to extend the contract through the end of 26, which is basically 12 more months to do this work that could, based on what the mayor is saying she wants, I think should take closer to two years, if we're being realistic. You know, I think that some of what the Councilors have said here, particularly Callahan and Collins have said. You know, I don't know that it makes that big of a difference on this is this particular corner. I think city council did a really great job listening to and incorporating feedback from the community and consideration towards some of the legitimate concerns, you know, particular nature of a medical use aside, there were some concerns about the volume of activity and traffic, such that, you know, okay they made some adjustments to define neighborhood clinic, you know, I think that the community is being clear here in this meeting wait wait wait, we do want to be able to see a dentist we do want to be able to see a primary care and neighborhood medical. was carefully crafted and perfectly defined to allow that type of use. A practitioner owned business that provides, you know, helpful, friendly neighborhood service to the folks that live there. And that could include medication assisted treatment, you know, a low volume clinic that's serving people with a disease, you know, wouldn't be very disruptive to a neighborhood. I think we should allow that in all the neighborhoods that would be, that would diffuse the impact of, you know, say like an urgent care clinic that's open you know, 4am to midnight and is loud and has a lot of traffic. I mean, it could be any type of clinic. Anyway, I don't I think that's neither here nor there. I think this meeting is ostensibly about MX one to MX two, but it's really about the mayor's list of demands and I would kind of hate to see the council, just as a Forget who said it, but kiss the ring on this one, especially after a resounding endorsement of, you know, the current council through the current election. I think you all should assert your voice and, you know, represent the people that voted for you and move this process forward and and, you know, have a have a inverse list of demands to the mayor to say, hey, you know, this is this is not the way business is done. This is not the way we want to have business done. You know, I'm very disappointed she's not here. I'm very disappointed at the way she's handled this. I think that whole ultimatum needs to be retracted and a level conversation needs to be started. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. All right. Last person on Zoom, seeing no one in the chamber, I will go to Eileen Lerner. Name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[Ilene Lerner]: My name is Eileen Lerner and I live at 3920 Mystic Valley Parkway. And I'm here to support the council and the zoning. And I think the work that's been done is incredible. I admire all of you a tremendous amount because not only did you have to do the work, but then all the criticism and negativity that has surrounded it. but I want, it takes a lot of strength to do what you guys have done, but I'm really excited about what you've done because I think in the end, all of this will be forgotten and we'll have a city that'll be more vibrant and we'll look back and say, wow, how'd that happen? But I mean, we're surrounded by cities that are thriving and we're limping. limping along. So the idea that we're going to be competitive with surrounding cities is really exciting to me. And it'll be more vibrant and more fun and more colorful. So thank you all for what you've done.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for the comment. Is there anyone who hasn't yet had a chance to speak who would like to speak? Seeing none, is there anyone who's already spoken who'd like to speak for one more minute? I'm seeing one at the podium. Ralph, we'll take you for one more minute.

[Ralph Klein]: Ralph Klein, 172 Park Street. I'm not against everything. Figure that out. But if you look down Salem Street, they're all three-story buildings. You don't have 25% with four stories. We've allowed that for the buildings that are there. On Hadley Place, it went from a one-family home to eight, 800% increase in that one property in density. Going down Salem Street, how many one-family homes do you see in that area? We're not just talking about Park Street corner. You're rezoning that whole section. Everybody's making about this one corner. It's not about the one corner. It's about the whole area. It's not about methadone clinics and all these clinics going in there. It's the parking involved with the buildings, and like you say, A doctor's office has people coming in, people going, three people staff. They have to have parking. The city isn't allowing for that kind of parking. If the 14 units from zero is a 1400% increase in that area with no parking. It's not about not moving forward. It's about moving forward in reality, not in fantasy land. You know, I'd like to see that corner developed. I've lived there with that pit there the whole time, since they tore it down. I've heard different stories. Somebody was electrocuted there, which held it up. I heard one. I don't know what the problem is there. It started out as nine units, almost acceptable, decently. But 14, and then, like I say, medical offices. Nobody's against the medical office, but this is the whole block, not just that one spot. This is the whole area. Go down there, drive through there, and see how many houses are being worked on. There's another house right across from Pure Italy. This was a two-family. It's now three. Another 25% increase right there. We have 1,500 units going up in Medford. Improving density, you're already doing it. You've got to look at it reality-wise. MX1 is the way to go. 25% increase for the properties is not exorbitant, six stories, 75% or 100% increase. Three stories to six. What's real? Where would you want to be? Put it where it belongs.

[Zac Bears]: Appreciate the comment, Ralph. And I think, you know, something for me, you know, people can feel the mayor has a reason for this, at least that she communicated to someone for wanting this amendment. you know, and there's been so much conversation around why the council didn't adopt this one, but did adopt that one. I think something that got missed for me all the way back in March, I think it was said more clearly in the Community Development Board meeting, which I hadn't actually looked at until after we had looked at this, after we had voted. was, I think, the point that I think Danielle made and maybe someone else behind the rail made, which is that, by and large, the six-story piece of this isn't even possible in that area anyway. And I think if that point had—if we had gotten more information and kind of a clearer communication on that and that signal had come through the noise in the meeting, that may have changed this specific decision, you know, many, many months ago. And I think it's both a testament to and a warning on what Councilor Leming made the point of, right? There were a lot of people who came to our meeting on March 11th and said, we'll have every recommendation except this one. We'll have every recommendation except going from MX1 to MX2. And we heard that and we said, okay, we heard from the community development board, there's a lot of great recommendations, but we also just heard from a bunch of people in this meeting that they want this one not to be adopted. And then I didn't even remember hearing that piece of information that's like, well, the MX to six story piece is really hard here anyway it actually may be feasibility and logic wise isn't the answer, you know, going from three to six versus three to four. And I think it speaks to. how we need to handle this, having the resources, having the communication, the mayor appropriating actually significant and sufficient resources to accomplish the goals that we need to accomplish and not trying to do things on a shoestring and not trying to do things, do really important things without the resources. And you know, I appreciate what you said, right? Going from three to four, that's one thing, going from three to six feels really different. So I appreciate that. I think we're done with public comments, so I'll just say I'm pretty much where a lot of folks who've spoken tonight are. We need to move forward on this really important project for our city. I don't really have a huge issue from the density question perspective about the MX2 to MX1. I could vote for this amendment. I would really like to see what is exactly the plan going forward. If this is a quid pro quo, if this is, you know, unless you do this, we don't do the zoning project, any part of it, then what is that zoning project? What's the commitment? I think a couple of people asked for public commitment. I had a good conversation with the mayor today. I feel like it's getting somewhere, but I wasn't sure from the email that we got, you know, what are we starting when? What's in each phase of the process? If we're doing a new RFP to bring in all those resources and have the funding for them, you know, when does that happen? And that's just really what I think needs to get ironed out personally. That's just my perspective individually, which I've tried to hold off on saying until we move through the discussion. I'll go to Councilor, actually Councilor Leming had to stand up first and then you, Councilor Callahan. Councilor Leming.

[Matt Leming]: I'd just like to point out, I'd just like to talk about one thing that was brought up by, it was only brought up by one public commenter, but I've heard it said like a few times in the preceding months, which is that the expectation that the city council and elected body follow every single recommendation made by the community development board and appointed body is a little bit absurd and I just like to that needs to be made clear for anybody in this process moving forward because throughout the entire rezoning process we have Rejected exactly one recommendation by the community development board, which was what we're talking about now The city council is an elected body. It's a it's a decision-making body The community development board is an appointed body and it is meant to make recommendations and on top of that it's on top of that it's even Sorry. On top of that, it's even a little bit more absurd because in most other municipalities, the Community Development Board or the Planning Board is confirmed by the City Council. And in Medford, it's not. For weird, for weird historic reasons, the Community Development Board is only appointed by the mayor. So we've been hearing about Different people who were appointed to the community development board that we were never like the city council was never informed to them We don't know anything about them. I had to request the resumes of recent appointees to the community development board they have the newer appointees have less planning experience than the ones that uh previously were uh, the ones that were previously appointed back when their uh, back when their responsibilities were primarily site plan review and not zoning. And yeah, it's the fact that we rejected, we only ever rejected one recommendation in this entire rezoning process means that the clear expectation is that an elected body rubber stamp every decision made by an appointed body. And it's not a healthy way to move forward in this process because it's November, 2025. And we are still talking about Salem Street. And the mayor also wants to go back and talk about Mystic Avenue, which was also, which also should be done. We can't go back. We can't go back and sort of redo everything every single time there is a disagreement in this process. That is not how you get things done. Uh, we should have, like, we should be on to, like, I would like it if this, uh, if we're talking about Medford square or Boston Avenue or some of the other, some of the other corridors in the city, but this is, this is not a good way to do business. And again, I hope that we can have more communication and sort of set, uh, expectations, uh, between the mayor and the city council a little bit more clearly moving forward.

[Zac Bears]: And Councilor Lueb and Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: Thanks. I would really like to make a motion that we continue the public hearing until the mayor can publicly commit to fully funding the zoning that our city committed to in the many public plans that thousands of residents participated in.

[Zac Bears]: We have a motion from Councilor Callahan to continue the public hearing to our next regular meeting. Is there a second on that motion? Seconded by Councilor Lazzaro. Is there any discussion on the motion? Do you want to, sorry, I didn't know if that was a motion or not. You said you had like an intent to move, but okay. You would like to, I mean, we could do a motion to approve. We could do a straw poll. If we do a motion to approve and then it goes down.

[Unidentified]: Yeah.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah. All right. Um, there's a motion from councilor Callahan to continue for one week. So we'll, we will have this on next week. The mayor could say what the plan is going forward before next week.

[Anna Callahan]: Sure. I just wanted to be clear in my state. I mean, I think I was clear before, but in case this is the only thing that, um, is heard, I just wanted to be clear. So, okay.

[Zac Bears]: All right. We have a motion from Councilor Callahan to continue the public hearing for one week, seconded by Councilor Lazzaro. Any further discussion? Council Vice President Collins.

[Kit Collins]: I just wanted to state that I really appreciate the discussion that we've had about this tonight behind the rail and with residents. And I just wanted to underline what I interpret as the intent of Councilor Callahan's statement. I'm happy to reopen the public hearing next week. I will, I intend to hold my approval on this until we get a clear written out proposal from the mayor that includes a project timeline. I don't know if that's ambitious to do in one week, but I hope that she will meet our enthusiasm and resolve. So I just wanted to put that on the record. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Seeing no further discussion on the motion, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Callahan. Yes. Vice President Collins. Councilor Lazzaro. Councilor Leming.

[SPEAKER_22]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Tseng. Yes. President Pierce.

[Zac Bears]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Seven in the.

[Zac Bears]: I thought I heard it. Six days from now, we're going to talk about it again. I think we've made some progress. All right. So seven in the affirmative, none in the negative. The motion passes and the public hearing is continued for one week. Great.

[SPEAKER_22]: All right.

[Zac Bears]: Vice President Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Motion to take from the table. Sorry. Paper 25-105.

[Zac Bears]: On the motion of Vice President Collins to take from the paper, paper number 25-105. This was the Mayor's veto of the amended Values Line Local Investments Ordinance. Seconded by. Seconded by Councilor Lazzaro. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Callahan? Yes. Vice President Collins? Yes. Councilor Lazzaro? Yes. Councilor Leming?

[SPEAKER_22]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Scarpelli? Yes. Councilor Tseng? Yes. President Bears?

[Zac Bears]: Yes. Semi-affirmative, none negative, the motion passes. Vice President Collins?

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Bears. This paper before us is the amended values aligned local investment ordinance. The City Council will discuss this. on several city council meetings throughout the late summer and fall of this year. It's being returned to us. It was returned to us last meeting, and I motion to table it because the mayor vetoed the ordinance on October 9th. Accompanying her veto was a letter outlining her objections. It is listed on the city website, so I won't attempt to paraphrase it. It's her words. She put it up publicly. She mentioned several concerns with the ordinance. One of them was the potential for litigation. As one Councilor, I failed to imagine a scenario where a person who deemed themselves aggrieved or injured by this ordinance would want to remedy that through a lawsuit. That does not seem rational to me. Her letter outlined quote financial implications that have quote yet to be evaluated by the city's financial teams. I find that vague enough to be insubstantial. What does that mean? What are the implications? Why have they not been evaluated? Her letter mentioned a concern that the ordinance would expose city employees to personal and professional liability. That doesn't make sense to me on its face. Our city financial employees are not private contractors. Why would they be exposed to personal liability by doing the work of analyzing and adhering to the city's investment regulations? Reads like a scare tactic, frankly. Her letter further mentioned an objection that the council did not thoroughly vet this ordinance and seek input from the relevant stakeholders within the city. That is false. This has been a... thorough multi-month process born of community advocacy vetted by legal counsel, revised and amended before passage based on feedback, both from the community and from employees within city hall. I would motion to override the mayor's veto and approve this ordinance.

[Zac Bears]: Motion of vice president Collins to override seconded by council Lazzaro. Is there further discussion by members of the council? Councilor Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: I just want to thank the legal team that reviewed this material. And I know that it is the responsibility of our legal representation to try to preserve the city from liability in all forms. But the people that worked on this did their due diligence. My understanding is that it's not a risk and also that the responsibility, our responsibility and as the people spending our taxpayers funds is to spend them ethically Um. I think this is. This was a decision that was not made lightly, and I appreciate. Where the thinking for this video came from, but, um. I think it's

[Justin Tseng]: I just want to start with how we got here today, which is that a lot of residents have felt frustrated for a very long time that their national government and their state governments haven't been standing up and representing their values and have actually, in fact, been contradicting those values. we've gotten to a place where that dispiritedness, that despair that people feel, has led people to ask their local governments to act. And that is a part of democracy, right? When it feels like other institutional players are fundamentally unaccountable, when it feels like they feel unaccountable to us, the people, people seek help at the next available layer. And municipal governments, local governments are that last line of defense. I understand that this is a serious and complicated ordinance, but as I've said in the past, making sure that our investments align with who we are as a city is a very basic notion that we should support. And this is bigger than any one conflict. This is about a whole system of how we invest. When it comes to where we are today with overriding the veto, You know, I want to respond to some points that the mayor laid out in her letter. You know, one of which is this criticism that we didn't do our due diligence as a council. But the truth is, we can count at least nine rounds of review with other councilors, stakeholders, city staff, financial staff, legal staff. where Councilors, especially Council President Bears has been working on the text of this ordinance. And you know what, like when this ordinance was first proposed, I had my own problems with it, but I know Council President Bears well enough to know that he addressed those concerns and that he worked hard to bring together stakeholders from all across the city to reach a draft that we could most agree on as a city. When it comes to the legal dimensions that the mayor has cited, I don't, you know, even in my own early interpretation of what that memo said, I don't think it was anywhere near comprehensive. in terms of its rejection of this ordinance as a problem for the city. It cited this Section 55B of Chapter 44 of Mass General Laws, and then didn't really explain why that meant that we couldn't pass this ordinance. And when you actually take a deeper look at what that law says, It requires the accruement of the highest amount of interest. But stocks aren't interest. Stocks are appreciations in value. That's not interest. So when you read the plain language of the statute, this ordinance does not conflict with it. There's been, I've worked hard with residents over the last few weeks to look at case law, both in Massachusetts and outside of Massachusetts about situations where this type of ordinance is not allowed. And none of that has come up in Westlaw or Alexis. These are the main search engines for case law. And so I feel pretty comfortable moving forward with this. And again, the types of investments we make as a city matter. making sure that we are being more creative and more true to our values when it comes to investments, you know, even with the limits that state law sets, I think is a valuable thing for our city to make the correct investments and to force ourselves to be more innovative, I think is a valuable thing for all of us. So I will vote yes to override the veto tonight. Chancellor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. Yeah, the last time she tried to convince us not to do this, it was two arguments. And you should really just go back and listen to what I said then. Two arguments, one of which was obviously unrelated to this ordinance. And the other one was basically saying that, oh, state law says we, as a city council, have to value profit over the values of our residents. And I tore that up last time because I don't take kindly to being told that I have to do that. I'm not going to do that. Now we have three or four totally different reasons. And you know what? I have difficulty taking any of this seriously. I'm sorry. I read through these reasons, and, you know, Councilor Collins, Councilor Tseng have gone through them specifically, but none of them really appear to have any validity. And in my opinion, We are responding to our residents who have been caused enormous amounts of pain and harm. We have been asked to become neutral. That's all. All we've been asked to do is to stop doing harm. And I understand that there are two sides to this question, and I understand that people feel harmed no matter what we do and that there is probably some harm being done. But honestly, we are being asked to be neutral when clearly some of our residents are being caused grievous harm. And I believe this is what our residents want. I believe this is the values that people in Medford share. And I don't appreciate just being thrown a bunch of you know, pretty random reasons. So I will be voting to override the veto.

[Zac Bears]: Any further discussion by members of the council? Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Mr. President, as much as I respect my colleagues and especially the legal background so far, I'm going to stick with the ruling whether I believe in a legal counsel or not, but the liability legally and any negative ramifications to the community as a whole until we get more information I couldn't support to not move past the mayor's veto. I think it's important right now that again, like we just continued because we want something more in depth and we have two conflicting situations, whether we believe in it or not, that's not the issue again, because I know that politics is funny and The word will go back out that George is MAGA and I'm a Trumpster and racist. So but again, my my reasoning again is we were given legal response. that said that we would be in violation and it would cost us some legal grief in the future. So I could not support this until we get more information. So if that's the way of voting yes or no, I'll be voting no tonight. So thank you, Mr. President.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. And I just want to say for the record that I think Councilor Scarpelli's position is fair given the context of what this administration has said and done, right? Like they've raised questions providing no answers. And that has been their process throughout this ordinance. I think it also was something that we saw in the discussion that we just had, right? Feels like we've gotten to a better place on the zoning. We feel like maybe we're close to a deal, but the answers, it's like, we can't just operate on feelings and vibes and questions. We need to operate on plans and answers. And, you know, I get it. Like, I think one of the reasons that I feel just like this whole process around this specific ordinance, the values aligned investments ordinance, like I've talked about my principles. I've, I've said them very clearly. I've, I've, cried in very public meeting for a couple different times about it. I'm sure, you know, my mom's basement's full of my tears or whatever they're saying. But, you know, like there's emotions and values and this is a meaningful thing. And I started working on this almost a year ago. And for the first five or six months, it was, trying to meet with this administration to get their input, to get input from legal counsel. There was a whole process around that. Then we got a letter back from counsel. I incorporated like 95% of what they sent over and KP Law said, well, here's our issues with the first draft. Can you make these changes? And I said, cool, great. Yes, we can. Then the administration, I sent the new draft. The administration says, okay, we still have these more questions. Can you meet with retirement board? Can you meet with the commissions of trust funds? Can you meet with the treasurer? I met with all of them, and I incorporated more changes. Then we came back with another draft. And then we moved forward on that. The administration came to that meeting, and they said, well, we still have yet these issues with it. I know we've reviewed it twice, and you've incorporated most of what we've said. We still have more issues. We still have more questions. But at that time, I think this was August, we said, can you please send us two memos? One is a legal analysis and your legal objections, so we can look at those. And one was a set of policy objections. Like, if you just disagree with this as a policy, like you don't support this policy for political or whatever reasons, tell us that in one document, and then tell us the parts of this that you think are a problem with the law in another document. And we never got either of those documents. So we got an email a little bit before our meeting in September that some of us never even got. And that was frustrating. And then we voted for it to try to get back, you know, maybe some, I think that was the first reading we said, please send us some comments because it has to be advertised and then we'll have a third reading vote. We never got those, those, those things. So we took a third reading vote. Then the mayor just sends us back a veto and You know, okay, I disagree with this for these open questions, but it wasn't here are the things you need to change to make this work. It was never here are the answers. We have questions, we've looked into it. Here are our answers. Here's what's workable on our end. Councilor Collins tabled it a few weeks ago, giving the administration yet more time to come back to us and say, here's why we vetoed. We've looked into the questions. Here are the answers. Here's how we think we can get to yes on this. no response, no communication, no answers to our questions. And so if someone, my fellow colleague here says I feel really worried about the unanswered questions that the mayor's asked, I get that. But I just ask what will make them answer the questions. And at this point, we have something before us We put it into the law. If they're really worried about it, now they'll just have to finally send us the memo we asked for three months ago that says, these are the things that we think are wrong and we think should be changed. Because now it's an amendment to an ordinance. And the only way that you can do that is by writing an ordinance and writing language. So I wish that wasn't the process. I wish the last 10 months could have been four months and they could have been collaborative. And like, it wasn't the moving of the goalposts where, you know, every time we incorporate all the changes, it's still not enough. It wasn't that. That's not how the administration operates. It's not how they chose to operate on this. And, you know, it's just a lot of last minute stuff. I get it, you know, I think one of the main reasons that I hear this administration is like well we're doing a lot of work and you know it feels like triage mode all the time because there's not enough people who work in this building. I that's why I ran for office right. But at a certain point work has to get done. And if we're not going to fix the zoning to raise the money to hire more people to make this building work better. And we're not going to actually spend less time on this by doing it right the first time instead of having time after time after time after time of moving the goalposts and doing the legal analysis, right? It's just like, you can call it pennywise pound foolish, you can call it poor time management, you could call it being overwhelmed. Like there's a million different explanations, and I'm sure that the folks in the mayor's office have a really different feeling and interpretation about why it's hard to run this city than maybe we do. But at some point, something's gotta give. And if these are serious questions that the administration wants to put the time into to tell us what they think the answers are, we will have an ordinance, and every ordinance can be amended. And we are here for that process. I think too often we end up in this position where we feel like we have to do something we don't have to do, or we're asked to do something we don't have to do because we never got the answers that we asked for, or we didn't get the resources that we needed, or the funding wasn't appropriated, or the staff aren't there. I don't want to give a preview, but next week we're doing the tax classification hearing. Something we asked for in the budget was the staffing in the assessor's office so that we could really do a homeowner residential tax exemption. the funding was never appropriated, the staff were never hired, and we're gonna get told next week that that's not possible to do. And I'm a lot more interested in building the city we know is possible than continuing to be the city of no. So I'm gonna vote yes. Any further discussion by members of the council? Seeing none, is there discussion by members of the public on this matter? There are two hands on Zoom. If there's anyone at the podium, we'll go to the podium first. Name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes. Oh. Yes, yes, podium first.

[Micah Kesselman]: Three minutes starting now. And then we'll go to Zoom and back. I'm Micah Kesselman, 499 Main Street. And I am first. going to say that I'm sort of here on behalf of the Medford for Palestine group that has been working and advocating for this ordinance, among other groups that have been advocating for it as well. And I am submitting, I don't know what the procedure is for this, but we've put together a rebuttal in response to the mayor's litany of incorrect and vacuous assertions and mischaracterizations of the ordinance and the process of drafting it and explaining why it is in fact imminently practicable and why we don't see any, now this is not being presented as like a legal opinion, but we don't see any legal risk with the ordinance at all based on what KP law provided that they, such that they gave any sort of Kogan legal analysis of why the ordinance would be in violation of state fiduciary investment law. They, it appears that they are misreading the plain language of the mass general laws in that circumstance. And we just have to sort of assume and infer what they're trying to say because they didn't actually say anything. That wasn't just conclusory. So we took our best guess at what they were trying to say and put a response to it. So I'm submitting this, City Council, as I don't know, evidence, record, whatever you want to call it. I will also say that, you know, from my own personal perspective, again, this is another example of, and Councilors, you have gone over this many times so far, this last few months, of the Mayor's Office acting in patently bad faith, not even attempting to provide the veneer of of collaborative work in governance that is needed from someone, needed from an office in that position. And it is beyond frustrating that we are at this point where we have to constantly argue against this deluge of gish gallop nonsense to just get minimal basic things done that other cities have no problem getting done. It's crazy. And you know what? The last election showed that the city's sick of it. This is garbage. So I'll just say that the mayor's on a pip and it isn't looking good for her for next year. So think about that.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. We'll go to Zachary Turcotte on Zoom. Name and address for the record and you'll have three minutes.

[Zachary Chertok]: Zachary Chertok, 5 Almond Street. The issue with this ordinance remains is from the first reading that the structure and language of the ordinance are where the problems lie regardless of the intent of the ordinance. It is poorly engineered policy in its current form as reviewed by financial policy, State Department and legal experts even from within my own network. The policy needs to be better structured for accountability, evaluation, liability and risk management and enforcement towards its intent. This is not about asking the council to be neutral, but to put the work into engineer actionable policy that can be managed now and into the future for the city. The council has been asked to address very specific concerns and what has been returned has been fly by revisions without in depth action toward addressing very real concerns and liabilities. Expert review and draft revision was submitted to the council and made public and is on public record as such prior to the first reading. And the mayor's concerns along with those from KP Law further reinforced those concerns by the third reading, not to mention those presented from the city's finance team read aloud by Councilor Scarpelli at the time of the first reading. The problem lies with the poor engineering of the policy. It is the council's job to engineer the policy adequately in response to the critique and not to look for someone else to whom to pass the buck. I should also note that should the veto be overridden without addressing the real implications of the noted issues, the citizenry has further options to ensure that the policy is held to account. As for collaboration, this ordinance has not so reflected the stated effort by the council. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. We'll go back to the podium. Name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes. Can you hear me? This is my first time doing this.

[SPEAKER_06]: Will Duffy for First Street. I'll keep it brief. I'm super proud of this ordinance that the council wrote. As a resident, I felt like really, really represented when I heard about it being passed initially in June. I was extremely disappointed to hear that the mayor vetoed it. I called the mayor. I emailed the mayor. My wife emailed the mayor. Never really got a response from her. And so I would really, really look favorably upon the council overriding this veto. And I'm just really, really proud of our city council for writing it, passing it, and hopefully potentially overriding it tonight, overriding the veto part of it.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. We have two folks who haven't spoken yet on Zoom. Is there anyone else in the chamber who hasn't spoken yet who'd like to speak? That one's just stretching. All right, we'll go to Munir Germanus. Name and address for the record, please. You have three minutes.

[Munir Jirmanus]: Munir Germanus, I live at 3 Summit Road. I'm here to express my sincere appreciation of the work of the city council, or the transparent work of the city council, as opposed to the really opaque work of the administration. The tactics that the administration has used are very clear. That's the only thing that's transparent about it. So, and the last election showed that the majority of folks in Medford support this council because they support our values and they stand behind these values. So I fully, fully appreciate your work, and I recommend that you override this veto. And I, at the same time, tried to get the mayor to communicate why she vetoed this, and I showed my sincere displeasure at her veto. Of course, I got silence. So I do urge each and every member of this council, each and every member of this council to override this veto. Thank you. Thank you for your comment.

[Zac Bears]: We'll go to Genesis Perez on Zoom. Genesis, name and address for the record. You have three minutes.

[Jenny Graham]: Hello, my name is Genesis Perez, and I'm at 229 Main Street. And I just want to express my disappointment with the mayor. Um, and her veto of this ordinance. I'm very much in support of this ordinance, and I'm thankful for all the work that you're doing there on the council. And, um, yeah, I just wanted to show my support and gratitude to you all and urge you to all vote to override the veto. Thank you very much.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. Is there anyone either in person or on Zoom who would like to speak on this who hasn't spoken yet? All right, seeing none, we'll go back to the podium. We have Micah for a minute.

[Micah Kesselman]: Micah Castleman, 499 Main Street. I just want to point out that even tonight we heard detractors talk or a detractor talk about the ordinance. But if you listen to what they're saying beyond their fancy, beyond a lot of like fancy jargon and words, and you know, I don't, I'm just a simple city council speaker. I don't have a network of financial experts at my beck and call to do analysis for me. It was empty. It was hollow. It was completely vapid. There was no specificity, no granularity. nothing actionable, nothing with focus, nothing that we can actually take and say, oh, that's what you think is actually wrong. And that's because every time the specifics get brought up, such as, oh, it wasn't amended between the first and third reading, What are you talking, like it was amended between the first time it was introduced to the chambers and when it was brought for a vote. Significantly, substantially amended after consulting with residents and experts and putting in practicability, addressing practicability concerns. Look, if you want to say that there's something wrong with this ordinance or really with any sort of ordinance or policy put forward by the council, all that I'm asking is you specificity actually give something actionable. Just saying no conclusively for the sake of saying no is worthless. It's garbage.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Is there any further comment by members of the public on this item? Seeing none, on the motion of Vice President Collins, seconded by Councilor Lazzaro to override the Mayor's veto of the values aligned local investments ordinance. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Callahan. Vice President Collins. Councilor Lazzaro. Yes. Councilor Leming.

[SPEAKER_22]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Scarpelli. No. Councilor Tseng. Yes.

[Zac Bears]: President Piers. Yes, 16 affirmative, one of the negative, the motion passes. All the rights require two thirds majority, six one is higher than two thirds. All right, last agenda item, public participation. To participate outside of Zoom, please email arlicio at medford-ma.gov. Is there anyone who'd like to speak for three minutes on an issue of import to them? Ellen, name and address for the record, please. You have three minutes.

[Ellen Epstein]: Ellen Epstein, 15 Grove Street. I just want to say how how impressed and how proud I am of the city council. I feel, I don't have the right words to say it, but the amount of work and due diligence and patience and listening that you guys do in support of the things we all care about is, I'm so grateful for it and I'm so impressed by it and I'm honored to have worked on most of your reelection campaigns, and the community has really spoken. And I hope you feel the love and support and appreciation that we feel for all of you. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Name and address for the record, three minutes. Hey, it's me again.

[Micah Kesselman]: Micah Kesselman, 499 Main Street. You're doing good tonight. I've been sworn once, been relatively kind, I am here yet again because another city council meeting has gone by and the mayor has continued to completely fail to protect citizens or acknowledge the threat to residents of the city that ICE and federal overreach poses in their flagrantly unlawful, illegal, unchecked behavior. Just a week ago, we saw in Fitchburg, a man in having a seizure and ripped out of his car while he was holding his child. And the cop there was yelling at bystanders rather than doing anything to protect the people he was charged with protecting, buck wild. What's even crazier to me though, is that not even that the mayor's office hasn't done anything, but again, they continue to not even acknowledge that this is one of the biggest things harming our community right now. It's unacceptable. It's absolutely unacceptable. People are still being abducted from off the street. Children, citizens even, not that that actually matters, like their due process is being denied. Again and again, what they are doing has been found to be illegal. And the worst thing is, is that we could do something, the mayor could do something, law enforcement here could try and do something, but they might have to step into ambiguous gray areas of law. But at the same time, what the hell is happening on the other side? If you cannot even risk a little bit of ambiguity, to protect the residents of the city that you are charged to protect, then what's your point? What's the point of you? So I'm here again to rant about this. I will continue ranting about this. Like I said, the mayor is on a performance improvement plan. So this would be something that could show improvement. She wants a KPI to target, protecting the residents of this city is one of them. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. And I do just want to note that, okay, I don't know. It, you know, we saw a video in Fitchburg when I was, something that I woke up to last week was a video here, someone on one of our streets. So, and just neighbors trying to talk to their other neighbors to see if they can figure out who this person was so they could try to tell this person's family. So it's here. I was really happy Wednesday morning, and another another morning last week I was feeling devastated and powerless and really wishing that, you know, some of the calls that this Council has made for more action at this local level would would be heeded and heard by our city government. So, yeah, Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. President Bearss, you did steal my thunder. Last week, a resident that I have known for many, many years reached out to me early in the morning with a video that he had made himself of someone being abducted by ICE right outside his door. Upon seeing that they were being videoed, the ICE agents covered their faces with masks. The entire video was very disturbing to see. I don't have a solution. I do think that more communications, I think we could, we clearly need a little bit more follow-up because we passed an ordinance that we should be informed every two weeks from our police chief about any ICE activity here in Medford. And I do not recollect being informed here in these public meetings, which I believe is what was supposed to happen. I just want to say for anyone listening, I'll only speak for myself. I am open to ideas. I'm open to ideas of what the city council could do, of what the mayor or the administration or the police could do. So, you know, we have come up with a number of things and done those things, but we are always really open to listening. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: And Councilor Kelly and Councilor Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. Point of information. Next Wednesday week from today, we will have a public health and Community Safety Committee meeting at six o'clock, where the police chief who had been on a leap of absence for personal reasons for good. Few months quite a while. He is now returned. Um, he will be the Medford Police Department is aware of regarding ICE. And I look forward to getting more frequent updates, even if the report is we are not aware of ICE activity because we are not participating in ICE activity. The more dialogue we can have with our police department and accountability that we can maintain, the better. So that's coming up next week. And I do think that continuing dialogue with our permanent police chief is good. We had interim Chief Covino was great as well, but we weren't able to keep up that consistent communication. So I'm looking forward to Chief Buckley being back and being able to talk about that. I saw the video too, it's really horrible. It was a Medford resident. It's not, it's very unsettling. So thank you, Micah, again for speaking up.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Any further public comment? Andy? Yes. All right. There's no one on Zoom, so we'll go to you. Name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: Thank you very much. Castagnetti, Cushion Street, East Mayfair, Mass. There's a lot of stuff going on here. I wouldn't want to age off all the tea in China. Crazy. I guess the old adage is true, you cannot satisfy all the people, especially at one particular time. But anyways, first, I should probably congratulations to you councillors on the re-election. I hope it was a good and fair election. Number two, also special thanks to all the politician wannabes who ran. Keep the faith because our country needs you. Number three, charter review also passed with term limits, but it would be better still if we term limited the Congress and the Senate and more in Washington, D.C., in our opinion. Was this meeting scheduled for Tuesday night, last night on the 11th originally?

[Zac Bears]: months ago.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: It was originally originally way back. Yeah, it was changed because of Veterans Day six months ago.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: Okay. So anyways, I wanted to say happy Veterans Night after. Because it wasn't for our veterans from World War Two, we'd be speaking German here if we'd be alive at all. Maybe Japanese on the West Coast, or maybe Spanish, up to the man based in Dixon line. The veterans They're not respected enough. They tried to throw me in Vietnam back in 68. I've seen my friends come back in body bags from Haines Square. Another one coming back missing an arm and a leg. We saw around Mr. Marcelino, Barry Park. And it's just horrible. Imagine if you walked a half mile in their shoes, what they did. They're not respected enough. So a thank you is not good enough, in my opinion. A heartfelt prayer is what I like to say to these soldiers. Please hear my prayer. Almighty God, creator of heaven, earth, all sentient beings, and more, please get me and all of us to be and do the best that we can, now, always, forever and ever, in our quest for eternal, blissful peace. Amen. God help them, wherever they are. And hooray, I think I've seen some holiday lights coming back from the VFW of Veterans Party on Sunday night along the footbridge in the Mystic River. Hooray.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. All right. Is there anyone else who'd like to speak during public comment? Is there a motion on the floor? On the motion adjourned by councillor everyone, councillors, councillor Lazzaro seconded by councillor Scarpelli. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. No, it got to me at the same time. Councilor Callahan. I got Georgian.

[Marie Izzo]: Vice President Collins. Councilor Lazzaro. Councilor Leming.

[SPEAKER_22]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng. Yes. President Bears. Yes, I have the affirmative, none the negative. The motion passes and the meeting is adjourned.

Zac Bears total time: 37.45 minutes total words: 3077	Justin Tseng total time: 8.66 minutes total words: 456	George Scarpelli total time: 7.99 minutes total words: 336	Kit Collins total time: 9.63 minutes total words: 211
Emily Lazzaro total time: 12.85 minutes total words: 594	Matt Leming total time: 10.34 minutes total words: 353	Anna Callahan total time: 10.49 minutes total words: 436	Nick Giurleo total time: 2.36 minutes total words: 104
Trish Schiapelli total time: 2.24 minutes total words: 220	Jenny Graham total time: 3.22 minutes total words: 306	Miranda Briseno total time: 1.98 minutes total words: 201