AI-generated transcript of City Council 11-18-25

[Unidentified]: Predict 2 a.m. and maybe it won't.

[Adam Hurtubise]: People are already in, so what do we have to make? Let's go here. Booth. A lot of people together. Hey, Rob, how you doing? One second. I just got to do something. I'll be done in one second. Yeah. Enjoy it if you can. Has the chambers vibrated? Yeah. It's here.

[Unidentified]: Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: 21st regular meeting, Medford City Council, November 18th, 2025 is called to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Callahan? Vice President Collins? Present. Councilor Lazzaro? Present. Councilor Leming? Present. Councilor Scapelli? Present. Councilor Tseng? Present. President Pierce.

[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. Records. The records of the meeting of November 12th, 2025 were passed to Councilor Tseng. Councilor Tseng, how did you find those records?

[Justin Tseng]: I find the records in order and I move to approve.

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

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

[Zac Bears]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Tseng.

[Zac Bears]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: President Pierce.

[Zac Bears]: Yes. I have an affirmative and a negative. The motion passes.

[Justin Tseng]: Councilor Tseng. I'd like to motion to suspend the rules and take. Yeah. Could we take the paper under suspension at 25-178 communications from the mayor and petitions presentations and similar papers.

[Zac Bears]: On the motion by Councilor Tseng to take the paper offered under suspension by Councilor Scarpelli, the communications from the Mayor and petitions, presentations and similar papers out of order, seconded by Councilor Leming. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

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

[Zac Bears]: Yes. I'm in the affirmative, none in the negative. The motion passes. Operator suspension by Councilor Scarpelli. Be it resolved that the city council sends our deepest condolences to the family of George Sacco. Mr. Sacco dedicated himself to public service as a member of the Medford School Committee from 1959 to 1962 and as our state representative from 1963 to 1974. Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President. I apologize for not putting this on sooner, but When I heard just recently that Mr. Sacco had passed, I wanted to make sure that this council recognized a gentleman that really gave his life to public service. And he's someone that when he fought against you, you knew it. But when he worked with you and supported you, you knew that too. So he's definitely going to be missed. We want to thank his family. for giving, letting him be part of the process for so many years here in Medford. And I know that he battled at the end of his life, but we just want to send our condolences and our respect for everything he did for our community. And may he rest in peace, Mr. President. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. George Sacco really was quite a gem. I know when I was knocking on doors two plus years ago, he answered the door. He was incredibly excited that a candidate was knocking, was talking to residents. He immediately made a tiny donation, which was so lovely, like right there, just handed it to me. He just was a very supportive person, understanding of electoral politics and supportive of people who were willing to put themselves out there. And I am very supportive of this.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Callahan. I also had the pleasure to help connect my cousin, Ian Koss is a Medford resident now who made the Big Dig podcast with, he's the host of that podcast. If folks have listened to it, I connected him with George a couple of years ago, and he was incredibly helpful to him on some of his research around the Big Dig, and I think also a little bit of maybe on the lottery podcast that came out a little later. So, you know, a great resource and a loss to our community.

[George Scarpelli]: Very prepared.

[Zac Bears]: On the motion of Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by Councilor Callahan, to approve. We'll take a vote and then we'll take a moment of silence. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Callahan? Vice President Collins?

[Jennifer Yanko]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Lazzaro? Yes. Councilor Leming? Councilor Scarpelli?

[Zac Bears]: Yes.

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

[Zac Bears]: Yes. I'm in the affirmative. None in the negative. Please rise for a moment of silence. really quickly.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: Thank you. I just wanted to say he was a consummate. He was one of the best gentlemen I've ever known in the city. I am shocked to hear it, but he was up there in numbers. I'll miss him. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Indy. Communications from the Mayor. 25177 submitted by Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn. Proposed wage adjustment for police, patrol, and superiors union. Dear President Bears and City Councilors, I respectfully request and recommend that City Council approve the following amendments to the revised ordinances, Chapter 66, Article 2. Be it ordained by the City Council of the City of Medford in Chapter 66, Entitled Personnel, Article 2, Entitled Reserve, the City's Classification and Compensation Plan, formally included as Article 2, Sections 6631 to 6640, to amend the figures as they presently appear next to the following title by adjusting to reflect the following percentage wage increases and effective dates. Police Patrol and Police Superiors, effective July 1, 2022, 2.5% increase to the base salary of all patrol and all superiors union titles for a cost of living adjustment. Effective July 1, 2023, 3% increase to the base salary of all patrol and superiors union titles for a COLA and 1.5% for implementation of body-worn cameras and the requirements placed on the members of the association due to police reform legislation and the implementation of the Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission. Effective July 1, 2024, 3% increase in base salary, 1.5% for implementation of BWC and post-commission. Effective July 1, 2025, 2.75% increase to base salary, 1% for associations agreement allowing city to petition the legislature to remove positions of chief and deputy chief from civil service. Effective July 1, 2026, 2.5 increase to the base salary. Effective July 1, 2027, 2.5% increase to the base salary. Human Resources Director Lisa Crowley will be available to answer any questions. Thank you for your kind attention to this matter. Respectfully submitted, Breanna Lingle Kern, Mayor. We have Director Crowley, I thought I saw earlier. Anything you want to present on this?

[Lisa Crowley]: This is on.

[Adam Hurtubise]: It's on.

[Lisa Crowley]: Okay. Thank you. Through you, President Baez, to the council. That cut out three quarters of my speech, so I can just kind of go over. Through the dedicated efforts of the mayor and the union presidents and the negotiation team, we successfully reached a fair and equitable compromise. As part of the agreement, we secured a six-year contract rather than a standard three-year term. The extended duration provides significant stability, as a three-year agreement would have placed us in evergreen status almost immediately. With the six-year agreement, we will remain current with these unions through June 30, 2028. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you. I first want to It's been a long time coming, and I think that both leaders and our patrol men and women deserve the right that we waive the three readings tonight, and I would approve this, Mr. President, moving forward in favor. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: We have a motion from Councilor Scarpelli to waive the three readings and approve, seconded by, seconded by Councilor Leming. Is there any further discussion by members of the Council? Seeing none, is there any discussion by members of the public? I do see some representatives from our patrol and superiors union. You guys want to say anything? All right.

[George Scarpelli]: Yeah, if I can. I know that we want to thank our police officers because I think that it's tough when it's funny when you have people fighting and protecting our community and sometimes you don't feel like you are given the respect that you deserve. And I'm hoping this is just a little bit to make sure that everybody's spirits are high and we're moving forward in a positive direction. I love the fact that it's six years and we don't have to worry about that. And you just have to worry about your families and taking care of yourselves and being safe. So thank you for everything you do. And we appreciate you. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Councilor Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Uh, thank you. I agree that this is, uh, an important move. We have to pay people in the city if we, would like to keep our strong employees here and we want to attract strong employees in the future. And that's true across the city. Good contracts that make our employees feel valued is very important. Of course, having a police department where we can enforce our laws, where we can have traffic enforcement, where we can have safety across the city and enforcement of the things that we value. We have to make sure that we're paying people what they deserve. So I support this and I appreciate the work that went into negotiating the contract. Thank you.

[Matt Leming]: Thank you. Councilor Leming. Just echoing what my colleagues have said, I appreciate everybody who's taken the time to come out here tonight. Sorry that it took so long, that really shouldn't have happened, but I'm glad that it reached a resolution and I'll be proudly voting yes on this. Thank you very much.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. On the motion of Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by Councilor Leming to waive the three readings and approve. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

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

[Zac Bears]: Yes. Having the affirmative, none of the negative, the motion passes. Petitions, presentations, and similar papers. 25175, petition for amendment to common victuals license extended hours, Raza's Grill. To the Honorable City Council, City Councilors, the undersigned respectfully request an amendment for operating hours for our common victors license, Monday through Saturday, Monday through Sunday, 7 a.m. to 1 a.m., brief explanation to extend food and beverage service to late night patrons, reestablish late night patrons, which we had for many prior years. Business name, KLME, Inc., DBA, Razo's Grill, business address, 209 Mystic Avenue, business telephone, 781-396-2001. Business owner, Richard Razo. I think we have Mr. Arrazzo here. I recognize Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President. It looks like everything is in order. And I know that before I move forward or ask any questions, I know Mr. Arrazzo might, if we can, I think what we talked about is I did talk to Mr. Arrazzo and looking at the process, to be fair, what we've done with neighboring establishments, like Mr. Razo's, I think that he would amend to, I believe it's Sunday to Wednesday until midnight, and then Friday, Thursday. Is that okay, Mr. Razo?

[Zac Bears]: Mr. Razo.

[Richard Raso]: Go ahead. I'm sorry. I missed it. What did you say?

[Zac Bears]: Councilor Scarpelli was saying that you had requested to amend this request. So it's Thursday, Friday, and Saturday till 1 a.m. And then Monday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday until midnight.

[Richard Raso]: Yeah, that's fine.

[George Scarpelli]: I see everything in order.

[Richard Raso]: I had it, excuse me, I'm sorry. I had it every night till 1 a.m. for 18 years. And then two years ago, They sent me a, I didn't even notice it. It said 11. So, uh, I was wondering if I could actually get it 1 0 AM every night. Okay.

[George Scarpelli]: Oh, I misunderstood. I would, I wouldn't impose that. Um, you know, it's been a long time establishment. I think that no different, the 30, 60, 90 day review, um, every day until 1 AM. Um, I don't, I wouldn't oppose that. Mr. President.

[Zac Bears]: So the motion is to approve, uh, every night, seven, every day, 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. with a 30, 60, 90 day review. Uh, do we have any further questions from the council? Councilor Lazzaro?

[Emily Lazzaro]: Um, what was it that we approved for the great American beer hall? Could we, it does, uh, do you remember where we landed with that?

[George Scarpelli]: It's four days. I think they're till midnight. And then the other day is till two in the morning. to double check.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Is there would anybody be able to speak to? Because I think they requested something similar like every night until the same time, but we had asked that they stay open quite that late. Would somebody be able to explain to me why this is different? It's on the same street, right? Yes. I mean, I can look it up, but... No, I know it's on the same... Yeah, it's on Mystic App, but... No, no, no.

[Zac Bears]: I mean, if you wanna check the minutes... Yeah, I can check the minutes.

[Emily Lazzaro]: All right. I'm just curious. If this establishment has been open until 1 AM, the whole... For a good number of years, I'm comfortable with approving it. I just think that if we have establishments that are open Prior to enforcement of a time limit, it feels arbitrary to me to start enforcing a time limit and then enforce it. differently for different establishments. I'm comfortable with this business being open until 1 a.m. for this request. I would just say that if we could keep a little bit closer track of who, which businesses on which streets are open until certain times, instead of saying that some businesses have to close at arbitrary times for reasons that I can't identify, I would appreciate it.

[Matt Leming]: It's funny. I think a lot of the conversation with Great American Beer Hall just had to do with noise complaints coming from the neighbors. It was a pretty extensive conversation. I mean, I used to live in this area. I used to walk past Razzles all the time. I don't think I ever heard any loud noises coming out of there. So it just wasn't as much of a concern. an issue on the radar for a lot of the neighbors. And I don't think it has been for as long as it's been open. So I mean, it is a little bit arbitrary. I would agree. But I imagine if there were a room full of neighbors here talking about noise complaints, it would be a very different conversation. But that's really not the case.

[Zac Bears]: Councilor Callahan, then Councilor Scarpelli.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. I do see this as not arbitrary, not an arbitrary difference. I think Great American Bear Hall has live bands and live music, giant speakers, and Razzos, I believe, does not have those things. I like the fact that we treat different businesses differently and that we enable businesses that don't have any noise complaints to stay open later. My one question is, if you were open till 1 a.m., if the business was open till 1 a.m. for 18 years and then two years ago it became limited, what was the reason why that changed two years ago? Were there any neighborhood complaints? Was it some administrative change? I'm just curious.

[Richard Raso]: Is that for me to answer? Is that, oh, okay. So when I opened in 2005, the Common Vic license stayed at 11, but the liquor license was till 1 a.m. So two years ago, someone in the city discovered that the liquor licenses don't match the Common Vic. So there was a process that you had to go before the, before the council to up your common vix and then they would amend it on the liquor license or honor it on the liquor license. The gentleman, the clerk was very helpful. He kind of explained to me and helped me out going through this process.

[Anna Callahan]: Yeah. Thanks. That was my question. It sounds like it was a purely administrative change and not because of any kind of neighborhood complaints. Thank you so much.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Mr. Arzo. Thank you, Councilor Callahan. Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President Baez. I know that Councilor Callahan has actually just answered a few of the questions. I did go to the code enforcement officer. I asked if there were any complaints and I was then directed to the police department because they take the noise complaints. There were no complaints on file, but I think that like my colleague has mentioned that it There is a distinction between the two. Razzle's is more of a restaurant, family restaurant that then will stay open for food when we're talking about the neighboring establishment. It wasn't that people were in the room. The fact that I think that even I think when in the discussion, it was 30, 60, 90 day review. And I believe asking the owners of that establishment to look for soundproofing material that they can come back and revisit. as long as we're seeing that they're doing what the neighbors have asked. So I don't I don't think that would be a problem if down the line they come back in front of us and we don't, there are no issues with the noise they put in the sound barriers that were discussed that evening and then moving them to a very similar process, at least that would be my, the way I would look at it as a chairperson's committee that's looking at this. So I would, like I said, I would move forward with the seven days with the review if we see that. the 30, 60, 90 days that it's really affecting the neighborhood, then we take action. Thank you, Mr. President.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. We have a motion from Councilor Scarpelli to approve the paper as proposed. So 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. 7 days a week with a 30, 60, 90 day review, seconded by Councilor Callahan. And I will go to the podium. Name and address for the record, please.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: Andrew Castagnetti, East Methodist. I feel compelled to say something. This past officer, Razo, he's a great person and he's been here since 2005. He is on Mystic Ave with his business. I've never heard a noise from there, unlike the Bear Garden. So I wish him the best and hope you go linear with him and go with him. Thank you very much.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. On the motion by Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by Councilor Callahan to approve a 30, 60, 90 day review. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

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

[Lisa Crowley]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Lazzaro. Yes. Councilor Leming. Yes. Councilor Scott Belli. Yes. Councilor Tseng. President Pierce.

[Zac Bears]: Yes. Having the affirmative, none the negative, the motion passes. 2-5-1-7-0, petition for a grant of location, National Grid, Bradbury Ave, and 4th Street. This is a proposed joint-owned pole at Bradbury Ave and 4th Street. You're hereby notified that by order of the Medford City Council, the Medford City Council will hold a public hearing on Tuesday, November 18th, 2025 at 7 p.m. on a petition by Massachusetts Electrical Company and DBA National Grid for permission to install Bradbury Avenue and 4th Street. This is to install a new regulator station and it will be granted. We're sorry. We're for a request that after due notice and hearing as provided by law, it will be granted a location for and permission to install a new regulator station, supervisory control and data acquisition cabinet in Bradbury Avenue, 4th Street, plan number W-0, W-0 number 9-0-0-0-2-2-0-0-5-1, originally dated June 18th, 2021, revised September 27th, 2024. and filed in the office of the city clerk, October 22nd, 2025. The engineering division has received this permission and recommends the grant of location to be approved with the following conditions, grant of location limited to the proposed cabinet, bollards and electrical conduits described in the plan before starting work. The contractor shall notify DigSafe of obtaining all applicable permits, obtain a trench permit pursuant to section 74.141 of the city ordinances, and that the trench permit application must include a street restoration plan. No other utility structures, conduits, duct banks, pipes, or any other appurtenances are adversely impacted. National Grid shall ensure that all sewer, water, and drain lines are marked. Sidewalk and street restoration shall be done in consultation. With the engineering division and per the requirements of an approved trench permit and engineering directive three, this must include site inspection, concrete sidewalk must be replaced in kind and cleanly cut at the joints. Petunias concrete pavement over the trench shall be two inch milled and overlaid within the public way to an offset approved by the engineering division. Pavement markings must be restored. Project site must be swapped daily and kept free of debris. A detailed traffic management plan must be submitted for review prior to receiving a trench permit. And the plan indicates crossings at sewer, water, and drain mains with laterals. Gas mains shall maintain a vertical distance of 12 inches from all Medford utilities approved to the engineer. and signed Richard Lucio, Assistant City Clerk. So I'm going to recognize Diana Cuddy from National Grid to further present the paper, and then I'll open the public hearing.

[Diana Cuddy]: Hi, good evening. Diana Cuddy, National Grid, 170 Data Drive, Wealth End, Massachusetts. I'm here before you tonight to request a rental location for two SCADA boxes for two different regulator stations that are existing. This is in response to the recent MassDPU CMR 101 ruling that we upgrade our existing regulator stations. We have overhauled the existing regulator stations and are now adding updated SCADA equipment for the gas control national grid to monitor the regulator stations. So it's just the SCADA box, an electrical conduit that's underground, some gas piping that's underground, and one of them has a new header pipe that's underground.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Do we have any questions for Ms. Cuddy from members of the council? Seeing none, I'm going to open the public hearing. Public hearing is open. If there's anyone who'd like to speak on this paper, either in favor against or otherwise. Ms. Cuddy.

[Diana Cuddy]: Yes, I'm in favor of the petition or the grant allocation for both, yes.

[Zac Bears]: Is there anyone else who'd like to speak on this matter as part of the public hearing? Seeing none, I'm declaring the public hearing closed. Councilor Scarpelli has moved to approve, seconded by. Seconded by Councilor Lazzaro. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

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

[Zac Bears]: Yes, 70 affirmative and then the negative. The motion passes 25171 petition for greater location National Grid Ross St. This is functionally the same petition, but just for Ross St with the same conditions. Diana, is there anything you'd like to add or anything about this site that is different from the previous petition?

[Diana Cuddy]: Nope, this one's actually basically the exact same. It just doesn't have the header pipe, so it's the exact same. Reason we need to upgrade it based on the recent DPU CM 101 ruling that we have to upgrade our existing stations, which we have done in over and upgrade the skater box and the conduit to and from the skater box to the vault and to a utility pole.

[Zac Bears]: All right, thank you. Any questions from members of the council for Ms. Kennedy? Seeing none, I'm going to open the public hearing to anyone who's in favor in opposition or otherwise has a comment on the matter. Ms. Cuddy?

[Diana Cuddy]: Diana Cuddy. I am in favor of this grant allocation.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Is there anyone else who has a comment on this paper? Seeing none, I'm declaring the public hearing closed. Is there a motion? On the motion of Councilor Scarpelli to approve, seconded by Councilor Tseng. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

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

[Zac Bears]: Yes. I have an affirmative, none the negative. The motion passes.

[Diana Cuddy]: Thank you very much. Have a nice evening.

[Zac Bears]: Hearings 25160 submitted by Office of Planning, Development, and Sustainability. Proposed amendments to the Bedford Zoning Ordinance, Salem Street Neighborhood Corridor District Map Change. This is a continuation of our public hearing from our last meeting. I know a number of councilors had said that they generally supported the paper, but wanted to see communications from the mayor, and I see Vice President Collins, so I'll recognize Vice President Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Bears. Yes, we talked about this at length last week in our regular meeting when the hearing was opened. Since that time, I personally have had some good exchange with the mayor over this past week, and I feel that we are certainly closing the distance on what to expect from a contract extension from Innes Associates. and closing the distance on a framework for the next RFP to cover the rest of the zoning overhaul between an initial framework and what I think there is broad consensus that the Council and the community needs to see from that process in terms of more robust engagement in outreach to the public and community engagement and a slower pace. I'm feeling optimistic. I suspect that we can probably come to an agreement hopefully before Thanksgiving, but I'm going to continue to hold out for reaching that consensus and being able to share it publicly before I, as one councillor, am going to feel comfortable voting on the Salem Street amendments. Like I said, my bottom line is that we need to have a public commitment that the contract extension, the next RFP, will allow us to do this right with sufficient resources for community engagement and public outreach and neighborhood shredding, all the things that many councillors and community members have been asking for for over a year and a half. and we'd really need the budget and the resources to support this so that people can engage with this important process in the way that they really want to and have been trying to do. So I'm confident that we'll get there. I'm gonna keep working for that outcome so that this process gets better as it goes along. But given that we are not quite there yet, I would, after the hearing is opened, I'd like to motion to continue the hearing the December 2nd with the expectation that we can take a vote at that meeting. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Is there any further discussion by members of the council? Seeing none, I do see the Chief of Staff, if you want to speak on this paper, Chief of Staff Nazarian.

[Nina Nazarian]: Good evening, everyone. Thank you. You know, I'm a little surprised that there's not more movement on this this evening. As you know, the mayor had communicated with the council prior to the last meeting and had outlined a number of different commitments that was based on conversations with you all individually. Obviously, it's a little bit difficult. We're all navigating the open meeting law. The mayor has the ability, unlike you all, to discuss with each of you and try to compile all that information and data into one email to you in a hope to get this matter resolved because it's really, as you all probably heard from her directly, something that the mayor is has been, feels strongly about, not personally, but because there's been two community development boards who have voted to make this recommendation, and because the neighbors in that neighborhood specifically have been seeking this change. So, you know, I figured I would come up here and I would have this discussion and push a little bit respectfully to you all that, you know, this is not necessarily something that the mayor herself is saying that needs to change, but something that she's hearing from the community that she feels needs to change. And, you know, I'm sure you all know there was a 1,100 person petition on this matter. I think, you know, I have more and I'd like to go on, but I can pause and say, you know, in hearing some reflections from that last meeting from Councilors who reached out directly, and we appreciate those direct contacts, there was a suggestion that was made that the mayor put information in bulleted form. And, you know, while largely the information that the mayor had presented in her prior week's email contained a significant, if not, you know, complete list of those things, you know, the format or the succinctness was presented the way that the council had recommended it be presented. And now I'm hearing the council prepared to vote to table this again, which without any discussion, which is surprising. And I just like to engage the council in dialogue on that.

[Zac Bears]: Sure. Councilor Leming, then Councilor Lazzaro, then Councilor Collins. Councilor Leming, then Councilor Callahan. I mean, it's the mayor's... I'm sorry. Go ahead.

[Matt Leming]: It's the mayor's choice that we're doing this, you know, like having this entire conversation of you need to undo this one thing that you did in March, or else nothing continues that that that is a framing that she put forward herself. And we said at the last meeting, we would actually like to see the final draft of the contract that you are going to put in front of Ennis before we do this. And like Council Vice President Collins said, the bullet points are nice. We want to actually see what the contract looks like. A lot of the discussion last time was just how it is not healthy to be doing this. I mean, we talked extensively about the reasoning behind MX1 versus MX2. But at the end of the day, like I said before, it is November 2025, and we are still discussing Salem Street. We're still discussing it. And again, residents come here and a lot of them agreed with the decision. A lot of them did not agree with the decision that the council made in March. And I have complete sympathy with both sides there. But we can't come up with this framework where we're just revisiting every single decision that this council makes months after the fact, and kind of doing this public game of chicken. I mean, if the mayor wants to do a public game of chicken, like this, that's what we're doing. But I hope that we can actually see the contract just so that there is, you know, which is exactly what we wanted. And that we can continue with the rezoning process. So anyway, I'm repeating myself now, but that's what I have to say about that. Councilor Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. Through the chair, we spoke on the phone. I just want to see a public proposal so that I know that it will happen. I don't want to have to trust that things are going to play out the way that we expect them to play out. I was very explicit in what I was hoping to see happen by this week. It did not happen. We did get the bulleted very clear list of things that will take place. I said, sounds great. If it can be made public, I can move forward with this. I was very clear last week that I don't I don't think it's a reasonable thing that we have to do, but I'll do it because the bigger project is more important than one intersection. I would like it to be publicly stated what is going to happen as a result of us taking this vote, and I will not take the vote until it's publicly stated. just to us, but to everybody in the city who's interested in hearing about it, and that we can point to it so that it happens. That's all that I would like to see, a public statement of what will happen. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. I think we were pretty clear last time. I'm not sure why there is confusion. I think what was spoken at this meeting was very clear. In my opinion, the many years of plans that this city did that included thousands and thousands of residents, I believe should be a commitment. The mayor's The very first page of the comprehensive plan is the mayor saying how proud she is of that plan. It is the City Council's purview to take that and the vision of our residents and turn it into zoning. That is the purview of the City Council. And what is happening right now is the mayor has decided that If we do not do what she has decided she thinks should be done in zoning, which is not her purview, she will hold up the entire zoning process and throw those many years of residents' time into the trash can. I do not believe that that is what this city needs. That is not the leadership that I think that this city deserves. What I would like to see from the mayor is a public commitment to fully fund the zoning process so that this city council can do the appropriate public meetings, public outreach, and hire the consultant that we need to do in order to do zoning right. To take the plans of our residents and to using public outreach and public meetings to make sure that every single part of that zoning is fits the micro needs of every neighborhood. That is the job the city council can do only if the mayor funds it. But we cannot go through a process where every time we want to continue with the zoning process, the mayor says, well, you have to do the thing I want you to do in zoning, and we are held up month after month after month. She needs to commit publicly, not bullet points in private emails to us, publicly commit to the funding necessary to do zoning right, and then she needs to let go and allow the City Council to do the City Council's purview. We have a strong mayor system. The mayor is in control of a vast majority of things that happen in this city. Zoning is a purview of the City Council.

[Zac Bears]: Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President. I didn't want to speak tonight, but it's funny. My colleagues are saying this. I don't know if you're listening to what you're saying. You're saying that before the election, we talked about the backpedal and identifying that we didn't have the tools necessary to bring this to the neighborhood. That's what we all said. That's what we're all fighting about. This is why we won in writing, right? So we can get the tools proper so we don't have to come back. But then I hear my colleagues talking out of both sides of their mouths in the sense that we did this, we did this, but we want the community's input. This quarter did get the community input. It's the only area of zoning that did get the community input. It's the only zoning area that we went into the neighborhood. The neighbors came out of their homes into their neighborhood and they shared what they wanted, their vision. And then I went to the Community Development Board. They shared what we wanted. I don't want to revisit it and keep going negative again, because this is going to be turned negatively all over the place again. But again, this is what we talked about. And again, we've already identified the people that want the zoning to move forward. I agree with them. But the people that were in favor of moving to MX2, the majority of the people didn't live in the Salem Street area. Go through the notes, listen to the meetings. The addresses are not coming from Salem Street. This is the true evidence of what we all want. And that's more community input. This is what we're asking for a detailed message from the mayor for communication. So we can go into those neighborhoods and work together with those neighbors so they can share their vision of what they want their neighborhoods to be zoned. Listen, it's our purview. I understand that. but it's our purview to listen to the residents of those areas, we may make our decisions. So please, I understand that wanting to wait, I've talked to my colleagues and making something public, if that's what the wishes is, your wishes are that I'll move forward in support of that, but let it be clear. What we're fighting for and what we're all saying is the opportunity to get the funding that we need to do this correctly so we don't have to come back and visit. In this area, this zoned area, these changes that we're talking about, the only reason why we're here is because we did go into the neighborhood after we voted, after we made decisions, and we listened to those neighbors that said this is going to hurt their neighborhood and they don't want that. So if it's to be to table, continue to the next week. Hopefully the mayor comes public with it. But let's be clear at this. What I'm seeing from the mayor is a clear, and hopefully it goes public, a clear indication of what we're asking for. a detailed plan with funding that goes to a specialist that focuses on getting the message out so we can make the decisions that this council can be proud of for what the neighbors want in their neighborhoods. If I wasn't a city councilor and I didn't listen to the neighbors in South Medford and just made arbitrary decisions without listening to them, shame on me. So again, I'm gonna support my colleagues in moving this on until you get something public from what I've seen from the mayor. She did share that she's listening. We're gonna have a mechanism in place that's really gonna go out and educate our community, go into the neighborhood, work with our neighbors, so we don't have to come back here with this type of situation. So again, I don't want to be negative. It's just that the point is, this is where we were that evening when the residents spoke. The CD board gave their opinion. They talked about that changes and I did make a mistake publicly. I apologize for that because I said everything. It was one change that reverted back, which is the big changes, which is the MX1 to MX2. That was the biggest change that the neighborhood really worried about. And here we are to make the decision and to go back, we're saying the same thing. We're saying the same thing. We're saying we're doing this, we're making changes because the mayor is bullying us, but also we want these changes because we want to go into the neighborhoods and do exactly what we did in that area. So thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Council, Vice President Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Bears. Look, we spoke about this at length last week, and I think that we were very clear. And frankly, I'm not really sure why we're being accused of playing hide the ball on this matter. And we were extremely consistent and clear with our expectations last week. Myself and other councillors asked for a public commitment before we would take this vote. We're waiting for that public commitment. Like I said, I'm really gratified by the progress we've made in the past week, but we haven't gotten to a public commitment yet. That's okay. I think that we will, but I'm going to stand by my word and not take a vote until we reach a public commitment. And I, since it's been brought up, I want to state a reminder that we are only having this discussion because the mayor has turned this into a quid pro quo. The mayor, like we discussed last week in her late July public letter, explicitly turned the Salem Street amendment into a quid pro quo. If we make this amendment, if we approve this change, then we'll be allowed to perform our statutory responsibility of continuing with the rest of the zoning overhaul. So if it's quid pro quo, I wanna know what we are getting for the amendment. And I'll restate what I said last week. I am a yes on this amendment. I will vote yes on this. When we get a public commitment from the mayor, that all of the other zoning proposals will be able to enjoy the same level of robust and comprehensive public engagement that we know the community deserves, and we will have an RFP to support that, then I will vote yes on this amendment. I am making a public commitment to reverse my vote on this, and I'm just asking the mayor to make a public commitment to what she has been sharing and what we have been workshopping together as we work towards a framework for the contract extension and the next RFP. I will hold out optimism that the mayor will do what we are asking her to do and similarly make a public commitment with details that the contract extension and the next RFP will allow us to do this right and that the city will invest the resources to do this right. And then I will be a yes on this amendment. It's simple. It's what we said last week. Thank you.

[Matt Leming]: Thank you, Councilor Leming. I don't mean to rehash this again, but because it does always seem to come up. So going through the public meetings that are on record that have been recorded, which is the January CDB meeting, the March CDB meeting, the March 11th city council meeting, and last week's meeting where residents spoke for or against the Salem Street rezoning and rezoning in general. I mean, the total the total comes out to from what from what I counted from the transcripts to be 29 people who are opposed and 45 people in favor. Now, it is true that and I mapped out their addresses. that if you actually take residents who are sort of within the general Salem Street area and you map them out as being for or against, that the majority there are opposed. But it's not like this lopsided thing. It's more like 17 to 14. And I could see my colleague shaking his head and to be fair, there was a meeting at the, there was one meeting that was not recorded that was sort of a Q&A session that was that people who have told me that people who did attend that said that there was a good amount of negative feedback there. Somebody else that was in favor of the rezoning process also said that a lot of the people who were in favor there didn't really understand that particular meeting to be a public to be like a public feedback session. They just thought it was a Q&A, and they were satisfied with what they saw there. But either way, it was never recorded. So I just want to say, I'm putting that out there because these meetings are on record. We can go through and sort of map out what people have actually said. And it's Yeah, and also, this doesn't include personal emails that were received. It may not include letters that the CDB and council were given that were not read out at these public meetings. But again, when we're talking about the meetings that happened, there does tend to be this sense of people tend to misremember them or tend to mischaracterize what actually happened. No, the majority of residents, are in favor of the rezoning process. And yes, if you actually go directly around the Salem Street area, like the people who were sort of in the general area, it is slightly less favorable, but it's not like this huge lopsided. It's not like this huge lopsided number. It's like 60, 40, but anyway, thank you. Thank you, Councilor Tseng.

[Justin Tseng]: Thank you. I fear we're missing the forest for the trees a little bit here. The letter that the mayor sent and posted in July turned a small node into something bigger. And if it weren't for this, then I think that we find strong support on the council for voting this out. I mean, we had the conversation last week about the policy of the area, how the facts on the ground have changed. But Now that the mayor has turned this into a quid pro quo, I don't think it's unfair for us to have a complete picture about what the quo is, what that looks like. And I think the council was clear last week, and I think this was after a discussion, the council was very clear that its stance was that we needed a public commitment about what the quo looked like. I want to make sure that our relationship and how we govern in the city isn't coercive, but it's cooperative. And I do believe that we're so, so close on this. We're just waiting on the mayor to take the final step or two, and then I think we can cross the finish line.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you for bringing that full circle. I appreciate that because I think we were getting off. to make it clear that my fellow council loves numbers, 16, 14. The petition that was signed in that area, how many people reached out if we know Madam Chief of Staff?

[Zac Bears]: I believe you said it was like 1,100, is that right?

[George Scarpelli]: 1,100, okay, thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, all right. Any further comments by members of the council? Seeing none, would you like to speak? Madam Chief of Staff.

[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you, President Paris. I don't want to belabor the point. It sounds like there's really not much movement that's going to happen here tonight, but truly, I honestly don't see why not. And I say that not to offend any of you, frankly, but to say we do have all of this information right here. And as you know, the mayor sent a two-page email. on November 12th in anticipation of the discussion. As I said before, the councilors stated that they were looking for a bulleted, I got that there was a bulleted request, and that's my takeaway. I understand that there was a lot that was stated at the last meeting. I understand that the council needed to vent for that matter. But, you know, The council wanted the information in bulleted form. The mayor took the time to incorporate all of that information, sit down and discuss it with the members of our planning, development and sustainability department staff. Sent that email out in the early hours of this morning to make sure that the council had it. I would like to go through reading at least a part of it. I would be happy to read all of it because I think it's all here and all can be stated publicly. So it begins with contract extension December 2025 to June 2026 Medford Square. These are bullets building commissioner and PDS cleanup after Medford Square. Well, bullet one, Medford Square. Bullet two, building commissioner and PDS cleanup. Bullet three, after Medford Square, Tufts Institutional slash Boston Avenue request of PDS in parentheses. Bullet four, robust community engagement. Then a new header, RFP process during extension. Bullet 1, RFP released by end of February. Bullet 2, proposal selected in April. New header, new contract based on new RFP, June 2026 to June 2028, 24-month time frame, one option to extend request of PDS. And then it goes on with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 bullets talking about the communications communications person that the council has, communications consultant that the council has requested. It talks about all remaining quarters, one at a time, Wellington, West Medford Square, after the SWOT analysis, after all quarters. It talks about residential and historic conversion and parking. It talks about transportation demand management. It talks about inclusionary zoning updates, and then it talks about notes at the bottom. It has five bullets or so on notes. One of the notes which is important to the mayor is no new amendments taken in July and August to allow for a break for our board, city staff, et cetera. Department heads looped in from the onset. Less dense residential map will be our starting point. We can look at doing a parking study, review of affordable overlay. I think that's all right here in writing. And I think this council can see that what we're looking to do, hopefully, is that we want to put more weight to be given to the community around the change itself. The mayor receives thousands of emails per week, and she reads and digests all of those emails. She feels like this group has negotiated in good faith over the course of these last couple of weeks. I think there's been a comment that this hasn't been a public process, and I would completely disagree with that. I think this council has the opportunity to have its public discussions and public process in these meetings. And with that comes its challenges. You all are constrained by the open meeting law, so that's a challenge for you all. But the mayor doesn't have a council, it's not the same dynamic. And the mayor has presented the issues that she sees with this process publicly to be transparent and to communicate with you all and with the residents of Medford. We are well aware, and this is specifically to Vice President Collins, we are well aware that this is not going to be cheap. And I just say that to say, you know, I realize that maybe the council is not going to make this change tonight, but I really don't know why we have to have this go on for longer. And I say that with all due respect, I'm not trying to take anything away from you all. Thank you for your patience.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. If you could read that out, why could the mayor not release that publicly, that whole list before right now? That's what we asked for. She did not do it. That's what we asked for. She didn't do it, Nina. You just read it out. This is a public meeting. Why couldn't she release that from her office? That's what we asked for. If you could read it in a public meeting, why could the mayor not release it from her office? We ask for something, we say, we'll do this thing for you. We've already agreed to a quid pro quo for the mayor. There are so many compromises already happening in a project that is our job, that she is making us do, and we are agreeing to it. And the one thing I asked for was make, yeah, I said, yeah, yes, thank you for the list. Make a public statement, and she didn't do it. You just read it out. Why couldn't she do it?

[Zac Bears]: Do you, Councilor Leming?

[Matt Leming]: Yeah, I think my colleague just phrased it, pretty much what the sentiments I would express. a lot more emphatically than my style allows. But yeah, and I do understand that you're in a bit of a tricky position being here. But this whole framing is of the mayor's design. She could have signed this contract of her own volition after having one-on-one meetings with individual Councilors months ago. This whole thing is odd because it kind of feels like this is a... This is a hole that she's kind of dug herself into, and she's frustrated that she can't get out of it. It's just very strange to me that we're having a conversation this absurd about undoing an intersection that we voted on in March. in return for this whole rezoning process that includes implementing the Medford Comprehensive Plan and implementing zoning for the trans and real estate deal. This is a very silly game of chicken that she started. And we're just saying, we just want you to publicly release the list of things that you will do in return for this, just to make sure that we're not going to get burned. And sorry. Why are you silencing me? How dare you silence? I love to hear the sound of my own voice.

[Zac Bears]: I was just trying to turn it down a little bit. It's a little echoey.

[Matt Leming]: But yeah. I don't really have much more to say that a public commitment and this whole thing that was the mayor's own doing could be resolved. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. I respectfully will request that my fellow city councilors do not speak for all of us. It would be lovely if people can speak for themselves. I personally am not agreeing to any quid pro quo. I think that in American politics, it has become absolutely normalized to say, if you do me this sort of thing, then I will give up some policy I care about. I will not do quid pro quos. I will not give up any policy that I care about for someone else to give me some policy that they care about. I am going to vote on the policies I care about based upon what I believe my constituents deserve. So this is not a quid pro quo for me, and you will have to wait until we actually vote on it to find out how I feel about this particular intersection. In my opinion, many, many of the bullet points are not commitments from the mayor. They are conditions she is putting on the city council. She is stating that in order for this all to happen, we have to agree to X, Y, and Z. We have to agree that we're gonna start from a certain place in the residential zoning. We're gonna do them in this order. We're gonna do X, Y, Z, blah, blah, blah. Those bullet points are not what I am looking for. The mayor needs to commit to fully fund the zoning process. Zoning is under the purview of the city council. We were just elected. And I have to say what I hope is clear, which is, There were people who were running against zoning. They made this election about zoning. And there were people who, including myself, were running on the idea that the comprehensive plan and the many plans that came before it were a vision of the city that residents came up with, that we believe in, and that needs to be supported by a comprehensive zoning of the city. So what I want from the mayor is not a bullet list of conditions she's putting on the city council in order for us to have the funding we need to do zoning. What I want from the mayor is what she will commit to doing. and to leave the zoning to the group, the elected body that is in charge of zoning and to trust us that we will do zoning as it should be done. It is our purview. She needs to fully fund it. She's to publicly commit to fully funding it, which includes not just the consultants and the, you know, whatever, but we're talking about what we didn't have last time which is communications and neighborhood meetings. She needs to commit to fully funding those things and stop asking us, putting all these bullet points in, that we have to agree to. That is what I personally am asking for, and what my other city councilors want to do is up to them, but for me personally, that is what I have requested.

[Zac Bears]: Vice President Collins. Vice President Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Oh, sorry about that. Can you hear me now?

[Zac Bears]: Yes.

[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you. I appreciate the discussion around this from my fellow Councilors. I think what I'm hearing is a sense of confusion of what we are waiting for in order to take the vote. I am feeling confusion because I feel that we have stated that a number of ways. But since we're now kind of drawing on the primary sources and pulling up the emails, I feel like there's a narrative being advanced that like, well, the mayor wrote a list Isn't that the same as a public commitment that clearly and publicly states details around what we mean when we say public engagement and what we mean when we say community engagement and what we mean when we say neighborhood shredding and what we mean in terms of numbers when we're talking about how and how much we are going to invest on this very important project of planning our city's future? I am very familiar with the bullet pointed list that was conveyed to councillors, because I drafted that. The day of our last meeting on the 12th, indeed, the mayor sent us a two page email if we're apparently we're judging quality by length now. Um, to be totally honest, I had trouble following it, which is fine. Me and the mayor had a productive exchange. I sent over some clarifying questions because I was not clear on what she was proposing and I wanted some clarity. She offered some details, very appreciated. I followed up on Friday to say, okay, you know, I think we're making some headway here, but I think that there's confusion about what it is that you are proposing and how that compares to what we were asking for. I think it'd be helpful for the council to be able to see, review, and respond to a clearly written proposal for the extension of the next RFP before moving forward on Salem. And I can see that looking like this. And I sent her a jumping off point, bullet pointed, indeed, for the contract extension and for the next RFP because, and I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but I think we need to be really clear about what we are asking for and what she is proposing so that we can come to an actual agreement that is not based on vibes, that is not vague, that is serious and formal and public because this is very important. Nobody here is trying to do political theater for its own sake. We are trying to secure a public commitment to resources that are necessary for a community-engaged zoning process because of how important that is and because The council's communication with the mayor so far this term around zoning has not been based on trust. Tonight we're talking about the Salem Street zoning amendment, which the mayor explicitly said was a condition of her agreeing to advance the further rezoning project. But we're leaving off a ton of other vaguenesses or other quid pro quos that the mayor advanced that were, you know, put forward as conditions for the zoning going forward. It's not only Salem. Something that I really wanted to nail down, and this is why I was communicating with the mayor this past week, was not only on the details of how much are we going to invest in community engagement so that we know it happens, that we know it happens better, and how much are we going to invest in this RFP so that we know that we're really getting what the community deserves, but also, let's get really clear. Is revisiting Mystic Ave a condition of continuing the rezoning as well? And when you say that any further discussions of the residential zoning will start from this place and not that place, are you stating that as a condition of moving forward? Is that a request? Am I to interpret that as a stipulation or a condition as well? I'm looking for clarity because that, I mean, I just feel like it should go without saying. we're talking about implementing the comprehensive plan, which is at least five years in the works. This is incredibly, this is the future of the city. This will guide what buildings surround us decades into the future and the roads that we walk on and how our neighborhoods feel. And I, you know, it just, sad to say, it underlines the lack of trust that undergirds, you know, why I, as one councillor, am asking for a public commitment, that we're receiving this kind of narrative saying, you know, oh, how could you, denigrating our requests for a public commitment that is clear, that is legible, that anybody can understand and not be confused by and not feel as vague, Having that effort to have this be clear and transparent in public, denigrated and dismissed in a City Council meeting, unfortunately, underlines why I felt it was so necessary to get a public commitment on this in the first place before moving forward on Salem Street. So I'm going to stick with that. And, you know, it is sad to me that this has been allowed to be turned into such an incredibly sour process when the process of implementing our visions for the city should be something that are allowed to be collaborative and positive. And I will not give up hope that we can get to this place. But like I said last week, I will give up absolutely zero of my leverage when it comes to making sure that we will have the investment and the resources that we need to do this right. Because we can't trust this administration to do it right for its own sake. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: Just one last thing, which is what I'm really worried might be happening is We're told that we have to change what we said on Salem Street in this one corner, or else we can't move forward. And then we'll be told, oh, we have to vote for whatever zoning is going to allow the rebuilding by transom of Medford Square, but nothing else. And then we're told we have to redo Mystic Ave the way that the mayor wants, or else nothing else can move forward. And then we're told we have to do Medford Square the way the mayor wants, or else we can't move forward. I don't see an end to this. I think we have to end it now. We have to just say, look, mayor controls vast majority of the city, but not zoning. Zoning is privy of city council. City council just got reelected. Mayor will fund the project. City council will do the project. Thank you.

[Justin Tseng]: Thank you. Councilor Callahan is completely correct that quid pro quo governance is a stain on society. It's a stain on democracy. It's not how things should work. We should be voting on things as she said, because they're the right things to do for the community. And what she just said, those are the fears that I fear as an individual Councilor as well that we're, you know, moving into this way of running the city that's really bouncing back and forth between deals and things that aren't comprehensive or public. and open and what this Whole debacle, what this whole situation is about, at least from the council's end, is finding a way to break past that. And how do we break past that? We need to build a trusting relationship. And a trusting relationship starts with open dialogue and discourse, starting from our shared values and our shared plans, shared goals, like the comprehensive plan that so many people worked on, like the climate action plan, which needs to be integrated into zoning reform as well. And, you know, starts by having that open conversation in public with public commitments. And it also requires that we are clear about what we are doing moving forward. And so, you know, I think the bulleted list is really helpful. But as Councilor, Vice President Collins referred to, there are some points in there that aren't completely clear. about what that picture looks like. Is the communications part of it? Is that gonna be part of this deal or in this package or another package? What is affordable housing overlay look like? What's the scope of the parking studies? Is that the same as residential? Is it different? These kinds of things are the specific details that we need clarity on and only through clarity here can we really turn the page and govern Medford in that cooperative manner where we're, you know, evaluating each idea one by one about whether it's the best for the city and whether everything works with each other. So, you know, I think, again, I think we are close, but we need to establish a more trusting relationship here.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Any further comments by councilors? Seeing none, Madam Chief of Staff, anything?

[Nina Nazarian]: Sure. There's been a lot that's been said, and I appreciate the feedback from the councilors. I want to correct the record to say this is not a quid pro quo. I think the councilors can choose to narrate this how they wish. They can choose to put words in the mayor's mouth. But the reality is this is negotiations. We've been negotiating. Vice President Collins, I appreciate you saying it because I was going to bring it up. The list that we provided was off of the list that Vice President Collins sent to the mayor in an email and said something like this would probably work. And I think just the paragraph, I think that if Councilors can see your proposal in writing and have some back and forth on it early next week to make sure all are in place of comfort, then we have a chance of tying a bow on the Salem Street Amendment at our next meeting. Maybe there could even be a joint press release about the agreed-upon structure for how to go forward. That was a maybe. Otherwise, I don't believe in our conversation, Councilor Lazzaro, that we talked about something publicly. We talked about a bulleted list. Clearly, we need to go and work this further, but I think the realities are here that we have a slightly different perspective of what's taken place here, and these are not a list of bulleted conditions. They're a list of things that we used as a guide point, gold posts, based on communication from Vice President Collins. They're things that Vice President Collins laid out There are things that the mayor wanted and there are things that the mayor heard from the group when she was discussing with each of you individually. I don't think there's anything left for me to say. I'm not gonna go point by point, but I respectfully disagree with many of the comments that were made. Thank you very much.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. There's a motion of Vice President Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Bears. And the last thing I'll say about it tonight. Yes, I stand by everything that I wrote that I've written in emails to Maryland go current and I have no problem with them being read aloud at city council meetings. I sent more communication to the mayor today after we got an email from her earlier this morning with some further detail, but not, I think, enough detail on her framework for the contract extension and the next zoning RFP. And I am not saying that as a pejorative. I said at the top of my remarks, we're closing the distance, we're getting there. I think by our next regular meeting, I'm optimistic that we will have gotten there. In the email that I sent this afternoon, I stated several more specific questions. I am confident that if we give this until our next regular meeting, we can continue a productive exchange and get there. All I'm asking for is to have the time to continue those negotiations and get to that place of consensus before we take this vote. That's it. It's like, I'm sorry that it's not spicier than that. We've been going back and forth, asking questions and answering them. And I'd like to continue that process before I take this vote. It's what I've been saying all along. So, sorry, that's not better TV material, but that's all it is. And that's what the chief of staff is speaking to. And I look forward to continuing that process and try to get this in the best place possible for the residents. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. And I think I just want to add, um, you know, one of the things that came up tonight was councilor Kelly and saying, don't speak for everyone. Right. Um, and I think something that I realized pretty soon after, um, the mayor said, that's why I will not move forward with signing the extension until unless the following items are met. And it included the council accepting the Community Development Board's last recommendation on Salem Street rezoning. I'm just saying, it's very clear. I will not move forward unless the following items are met. We can call that whatever we want, but it's pretty clearly an exchange. We can use the Latin term for exchange if we want to or not, but it's an exchange. It's I will not do this unless you do that. It's on the city website. I'm reading it right now. It was clear to me by mid-August that I was not going to be able to, as an individual, negotiate on behalf of this body on this issue because it's too big. I applaud Vice President Collins for going back and forth with the mayor's office. When you're negotiating in this way, what needs to happen is a proposal needs to be presented and then Councilors need to be able to respond to that proposal and say, here are my issues with it. And then the mayor makes amendments to that proposal. And then there's a vote, right? Like that's what a negotiation looks like. And I think what's been breaking down here pretty clearly. And I honestly, I've kind of tried to stay out of it. I had one conversation with the mayor. Some of my stuff was in some of the emails that the mayor sent, you know, It's been made very clear that at least two or three members of this council, and I think it's ranging from Councilor Leming mentioned wanting to see actually the contract language itself. Councilor Lazzaro said, those bullet points seem comprehensive. I'd like them to be read out. Councilor Callahan said, I want it to be very clear what is being funded, how much is being funded. Councilor Scarpelli talked about neighborhood meetings. Councilor Tseng talked about more clarity. there needs to be something to negotiate with. And that a public position, here is what the mayor's proposal is, and to move this forward, unless the following items are met, right? That's also part of the negotiation process. It seems to me, Councilor Collins said that she felt that what the mayor and she had exchanged emails over, they were pretty close to something that Councilor Collins could accept. I think I heard that in varying terms from many councilors tonight. Maybe it's a little farther for Councilor Callahan, but a proposal needs to be announced and then there needs to be a chance for councilors to respond to it. The mayor could continue the, you know, one-on-one tour that the mayor was doing the other week and say, okay, here's what I wrote. Is that enough to move forward? Because as she wrote in July, I will not move forward with signing the extension unless the following items are met. It's a direct quote. I think it needs to be clear what that is. And you know, there needs to be a written proposal that people feel like is enough for them to respond to. And it's pretty clear tonight that at least three or four, maybe five Councilors don't feel that there is. I'm happy to engage one-on-one with the mayor when a public proposal has been released. And I can say, here's the things I agree with, here's the things that I don't. when it became clear to me like four months ago that that wasn't gonna happen, I kind of just said, okay, I'll wait for that. So I'm still waiting. There was a motion to continue the public hearing. We're not gonna reopen it. It's just gonna continue as the motion by Vice President Collins. Is there a second on it? This is Councilor Callahan. It's a motion to continue the public hearing to December 2nd, seconded by Councilor Callahan. Is there any further discussion by members of the council? Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Kelly. Yes. Vice President Collins.

[Jennifer Yanko]: Yes.

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

[Zac Bears]: Yes. Having the affirmative and the negative, the public hearing is continued to December 2nd. 25159, hearing notice. Notice of a public hearing, City of Medford. 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 18th, 2025 at 7 p.m. A link to this hearing will be posted no later than Friday, November 14th, 2025. Purpose of this hearing is to hear the Board of Assessors on the following items for the purpose of allocation of the FY 2026 property tax One, to determine the residential factor to be used for fiscal year 2026. Two, select an open space discount. 3. Select a residential exemption. Select a small commercial exemption. Call 781-393-2501 for any aids and accommodation. TDD 781-393-2516. The City of Medford is an EEO-AA-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. So what all that legalese means is that we have our property tax hearing tonight. We're going to be talking about the residential factor, which means setting the residential and commercial rates. We're going to be talking about, I think actually open space discount is in the hearing notice, but I didn't see it in the presentation, but maybe we'll be talking about that as well.

[Jared Yagjian]: Yes, we have it in there, but we don't have open space in Medford. So I would just recommend to privately owned open space.

[Zac Bears]: Got it. Um, the residential exemption and small commercial exemption. We have our chief assessor with us. Um, if you want to, uh, introduce tonight, give your presentation and then we'll hear from members of the council before we open the public hearing.

[Jared Yagjian]: Yep. Great. So tonight, like you just went over, we're voting, or you're voting for those. Do you have a presentation to share on screen? So I was going off last year's, the way we did it last year, and you had it.

[Zac Bears]: I shared it.

[Jared Yagjian]: And then you shared it.

[Zac Bears]: I'll share it. Give me one second. You can do the verbal introduction while I get it up.

[Jared Yagjian]: Yep. So the vote that we're going to do tonight is for the maximum shift to 175% residential to commercial, industrial, and personal property, a vote for the residential exemption, and then a vote for a small commercial exemption.

[Zac Bears]: Give me one second here.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Sorry about that. It's going to take a second.

[Zac Bears]: All right. What are we seeing on the screen here? Is that the right thing? Oh, this one? All right.

[Jared Yagjian]: Go ahead. Yep, that's the correct one. So we could just start at- Start at slide two, gotcha. Yep, there you go. All right, they're not numbered on my end, so I'm just gonna go in order. Perfect. Right, so that's what we just went over. That's the purpose of the hearing. And then three votes that will be taken tonight. Next slide. This is just a breakdown of the budget that was in the budget book and slightly amended. It basically shows that 72.5% of the budgeted revenue comes from property tax. Next slide. So this just summarizes how we do our assessments every year. So for fiscal year 26, we look at all of calendar year 2024 sales data, and that feeds our mass appraisal model. DOR standards require us to be with an assessment to sale ratio of 90 to 110. So in other words, the sales that we analyze feed the mass appraisal model, and then we send that to DOR, they give us final approval on our statistics to make sure that they meet those standards. We did get that approval on October 17th of this year. And next slide. So this is just a summary of the DOR final certification for the sales, and that just goes through the different types of property we have. They call them classes. So the 101s are single families, condos are 102s, two families, 104s, three families, 105s. 111s and 112s are apartment buildings, and then we get into commercial and industrial, which are the 300s and 400s. And next slide. So this is just a year over year average between those classes that I talked about and with the property type we just put it so that public could understand it versus the class codes. So as we can see with the single family, we have about a 7% change year on year. Going down condos, about 5.5%. Two families, 4.5. Three families, roughly 7%. Apartment buildings, almost 16%. Commercial, 4%. Industrial, 3%. And personal property was 20%. The two ones, the personal property came in significantly stronger. There was a large, a project from Eversource that drove that number, public utility, and then apartments as well. We had some new growth, new construction in that apartment sector, so these numbers do include the new growth. Next slide. This just compares us to our neighbors. Unfortunately, Everett and Somerville had not reported as of today, so we couldn't include them there, but that just shows where Medford falls in terms of their averages. This data is pulled from a DOR website, and we can just see how Medford fits, again, with our neighbors. And then again, going off that previous slide, these are the changes. So as we went through with Medford, these are our year-on-year changes, and then it can be compared to the other cities and towns. And there are year-on-year changes. And then new growth. So as I believe most know, new growth important to the city. Proposition 2.5 allows the levy to only go up by 2.5% every year. But new growth is added to that number, and that's how the final levy limit is derived. So this year, new growth was certified on the same day, October 17, $280 million in assessed value, which equates to $3,534,431 in tax levy growth. The residential portion of that was roughly 1.3 million, and CIP was roughly 2.2 million commercial, industrial, and personal property. This just breaks it down. So this is basically a similar chart for how it's reported to DOR. This just gives the residential rate that applies to the residential portion of it, and then the CIP rate that applies to the commercial, industrial, and personal property, and then in the far right column, it totals, and you get to that 3.534 number. And next slide, please. So this is just a 10-year look back for our new growth and how we've done going back to fiscal year 2015. So as you can see, there's been a increase in commercial and, oh, CIP and in residential, blue is in residential, CIP is in orange, blue is residential, CIP is orange. And then the following chart is a little bit easier to read in terms of the trends. This is the trend line, the yellow being, the green being the total, the blue being residential, and the orange being CIP. And next slide, please. So these are our value totals and how it breaks down in the pie chart. So residential makes up a significant portion of our total valuation in the city, roughly 89%, commercial, roughly 8%, industrial, roughly 1%, and personal property, 2%. And then how we calculate the tax rate. So if we did not shift and we just stayed with a singular tax rate, it's a simple mathematical equation where you take the property tax levy and you divide it by the total taxable valuation in the city. If we do that, we would come out to a $9.53 flat rate. We don't typically do that. We shift to the maximum that we can, which then gives us the lowest minimum residential factor for the residential class. So that would drop the residential rate to $8.63 and move the commercial rate to $16.68. In other words, we're shifting a portion of the levy away from residential and to commercial industrial and personal property to the maximum allowable by law. And this slide, so at the bottom, this is what we're doing this year. By doing that full shift, these numbers are going back to 2017. We had that shift in place to the maximum. So this shifts the levy over to where CIP now picks up roughly 20% and the residentials at roughly 80%. And then this is, again, what I touched on with the minimum residential factor. So the one would result in a singular tax rate, and then when we shift it to the 175, which is the maximum allowable, that gives us a residential factor of .905494, and that is what we would be adopting if we chose to go with the 175% shift. This here just gives us a breakdown of if we didn't go with the 1.75 shift, we could go with 1.5 or the singular, and it shows how the tax rates get adjusted and how also the residential and CIP levy move. So at the bottom line, which is what we typically adopt, the 1.75, you can see that the tax rate is $8.63, 16.68 for CIP, and how it moves the distribution of the levy. So the residential levy drops and the commercial levy moves up as we go up in the CIP factor. So this chart here, this slide here is just the year-on-year tax bill difference, assuming we're using the averages for a single family and then the average for commercial. So the tax bill average for the average single family this year would be roughly $8,202, and then $19,783 if we went to a single tax rate. If we stayed with the full shift at 175%, the tax bill for the average single family would be $7,427, and the commercial would be $34,626. And then this is just a recap of the average single family tax bill, again, going back to fiscal year 16, and year on year from fiscal year 25, we're up roughly 4.86% on the actual tax bill. The year on year change for the values is 6.92, and they don't equate because of the Prop 2 1⁄2, where it doesn't allow us to go higher than that. tax rate falls, which yields a lower percent for the year-on-year change for the bill. And then the residential exemption. So I know we talk about this yearly, so I tried to get some good numbers to talk about this discussion here. Based on the assumptions that we used this year, we came up with a break-even point of about $1 million to $1.5 million in value. Assuming that those assumptions are accurate, if it was adopted at the full 35% exemption, the residential tax rate would move to $12.29 per thousand. And the summary on the last bullet point is the cities and towns that do already have it. 10 of the 20 communities I thought of note, they are in the Cape and Islands. It's mainly beneficial where it's a high rental community and it benefits year round residents. So that's that bullet point there.

[Zac Bears]: One second, we may be having a technical issue. Jim, are we good?

[Jared Yagjian]: All right. Great. All right. Continue, Jared. Thank you. OK. So really, the last two slides are just a summary. of what tonight would be. So this granting the small commercial exemption, which is on the agenda, my understanding is we've never done this. It's an option where the intent would be the exemption is to give a tax reduction to small commercial owners, property owners, at the expense of the larger commercial and industrial parcels. The exemption would have to be, it's for, average annual employment of not more than 10 people during the previous calendar year, and with an assessed value of under a million dollars. And then the last slide is just a summary. So tonight would be a discussion of adoption for the minimum residential factor. So if we went with the full shift, we would be adopting a residential factor of .905494. which would yield those tax rates of 863 and 1668, and then the vote for the residential exemption. And then the last one would be that vote for the small commercial exemption.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. And Chair, the recommendations are to adopt the residential factor of .905493, to not adopt a residential exemption and to not adopt the small commercial exemption?

[Jared Yagjian]: That's correct.

[Zac Bears]: Okay. Is that the last slide? That is the last slide. All right. I'll stop sharing for now. We can bring that up when we come back to a vote. I'm going to go to questions from members of the Council, and then we can open the public hearing. Let's hear from members of the Council. Councilor Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Do you have an idea of what percentage of residents would need to be renting in order for a residential exemption to be logical for Medford?

[Jared Yagjian]: That's a tough one. So what we have to do is we have to make an assumption when we come up with those numbers. So there's two inputs. It's one is where would the exemption be? Would it be 5, 10, 15, 20 up to 35%? And then two, how many people would be eligible for it? So we're assuming, I don't know, somewhere in the neighborhood of 70, 75. We're not, to my knowledge, a very high rental community in terms of owner occupied properties. So I would assume that a lot of people would in the single family class get it. Now, can you repeat what was the data you were looking for?

[Emily Lazzaro]: I'm curious what percentage of our population would need to be renters for it to make sense for us to utilize residential exemption. We have something like, Medford has something like 40, 45% renters, isn't it? I can't remember. 47% maybe renters. It's not a small percentage. And I believe last year, and I think also the year before that, we asked about looking into this more carefully. We don't have to do it right now, but we should do it at some point. figure out what it would take to, when it's logical to do it, because some of those cities and towns that were mentioned are not in the CAPE. And Medford is a city that has a lot of income disparity. And I think it's worth looking at and doing a study that would explain who would benefit from an exemption and who wouldn't. But also I know that residential exemptions sometimes really just benefit people that have means and don't need a tax break. So people like me, I own my property. I don't need a tax break. I still wanna be able to contribute to my community to the full extent, but all of that stuff, I think it would be nice to have it laid out so we could present it to the community because we do get a lot of questions about that. And it feels like we keep asking during this meeting every year, and then we still don't have the data. So it's not your fault.

[Jared Yagjian]: No, it's fine. So I can't give you the number of renters, and we don't run a census, but we track parcels. So what I did do is I can give you the number of rental units we have in the city. So for all the apartment buildings and we call the class 111 and 112, there's 3,721 units in those buildings collectively in the entire city. And if you add in the twos and three families, we have 4,300 units there.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Oh, okay.

[Jared Yagjian]: So we track that data, we just don't track the actual renters, like physical people, we don't do a census.

[Emily Lazzaro]: No, I think that's fine, that's useful, because that would be what would be taxed, right?

[Zac Bears]: Just to clarify, there's 8,000 units either in large apartments or two and three family buildings?

[Jared Yagjian]: Collectively, yeah, roughly. So there's 3,721 in the four to eight and then nine plus collectively. And then in the twos and three families, 4,300.

[Zac Bears]: And then there's how many single families?

[Jared Yagjian]: So it's about 50-50. Yes.

[Emily Lazzaro]: It would be, I just think it would be nice to have it laid out at some point in the future when we're not in one of these meetings with a lot of things on the agenda. Maybe to talk about in committee, like what would be, what would make logical sense if it ever makes sense for us to go through and figure out how a residential exemption would benefit our residents, who it would benefit, how much it would benefit them. and be able to answer residents when they ask us about it is my primary concern. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Lazzaro. Yeah, I think it's kind of a deja vu all over again moment, right? Every time we do this, you know, there's a lot of reasons why and why not other communities have adopted residential exemptions in the past. I think the way to explain the policy in general is pretty simple. You calculated a break even of $1,038,000. So if you live, if you're the owner of a residential property, and you live at that property, and it's your primary residence, and your house is worth more than $1,038,727, you would pay more in taxes. And if you are the same person living in a property, a residential house, it's your primary residence, you're the owner-occupant, and it's valued less than $1,038,727, you would pay less.

[Jared Yagjian]: That's correct. And as you get farther away from that break point, either way, it becomes more significant.

[Zac Bears]: It's an asymptote.

[Jared Yagjian]: Yes, exactly. And then the other can't see that.

[Zac Bears]: Camera's too far from me. But basically, if your residential property is very lower than the values, $300,000 assessed value, $400,000 assessed value, you're paying a lot less. And if your residential property is 30 million, if it's a big apartment building, you're paying quite a bit more.

[Jared Yagjian]: Yeah, it would significantly hurt the apartment buildings. And I know we talk about how would it trickle down to rents or would it be a supply issue where they incentivize this more condo conversion? It's all theories who would have to see how it plays out to know.

[Zac Bears]: But it essentially turns our flat rate that you pay, whether you're a small condo owner or a large apartment building owner company, into a graduated rate, a progressive rate. So if your property's worth a lot more, you pay more, and if your property's worth less, you pay less, and that breaks even at about a million dollars of property value.

[Jared Yagjian]: Yes, and it's pretty accurate. So if we did, there would be roughly $300,000 in exempted value. That would come off across the board. And it can't be less than 10%. The bill can't be less than 10% of what it otherwise would be. So if a condo was $300,000 and they couldn't take the full $300,000, it would be capped. It would have to be at least 10% of the bill otherwise. Right, so nobody's getting a zero. Well, it can't go down to zero exactly, 10%. And then on the other side, if you're at $2 million and you only get the $300 off, you're going to still pay more because the tax rate is at $1,229 in this scenario versus the $863.

[Zac Bears]: Right. Essentially, everybody's getting $300. If you're an owner-occupant, you're getting $300,000 off of your assessed value for your tax bill. whether you're, except if your value's that low. If you're at $500,000, you're getting $300,000 off. If you're at $30 million, you're getting $300,000 off, essentially.

[Jared Yagjian]: Exactly.

[Zac Bears]: But because of that, the tax rate is higher for everybody. And that's basically how that works. That's how it pays for itself.

[Jared Yagjian]: Right, because it has to be. The levy does not change. We don't reduce the levy. It just shifts roughly $4 billion somewhere else in value.

[Zac Bears]: $4 billion in value?

[Jared Yagjian]: 3.5 to 4.5, depending on how many are eligible and how much we receive. It would be that much in value. All right.

[Zac Bears]: I'm going to go to Councilor Kelley.

[Anna Callahan]: Just a quick point of information. You have been explaining it, only talking about people who live on the property. But there are properties that are owned by people who don't live on the property. And those properties that are purely landlord properties they would not get the discount.

[Jared Yagjian]: Right, they need to own and occupy.

[Anna Callahan]: Yeah, I think it's important for the public to understand. We can't just explain it in terms of people who live on the property. We have to also include the part that if you're purely a landlord and you don't live in Medford and you live in some other city or some other country, then you don't get the discount. Absolutely. So it gives a discount.

[Zac Bears]: Andy, Andy, Andy. Right, yeah, that's what I was saying. If you own the property and you live in that property and it's your primary residence, you can get, essentially, your assessed value comes down $300,000. But in order to pay for that, the rate, right, the rate this year would be 8.6, if we adopt the split, and it would be 12.2 if we had the exemption. So if you're not owning, if you're not an owner-occupant, if you're a landlord or an owner, you know, someone owns a residential property and doesn't live in it, then they wouldn't get that discount.

[Jared Yagjian]: They would not get the discount and the tax rate would move up $3.66 in this scenario.

[Anna Callahan]: I just wanted that to be clear. And then a couple of questions. I also feel like a little bit of deja vu. I know last year I was surprised to find out that we were not able to vote in favor of a residential exemption at this meeting where it's literally on the agenda. I will continue to make the case that I have two questions, essentially. My first is related to this residential exemption, and I know I asked this last year. I'm going to ask it again. How could we be in a position when this comes on our agenda to be able to actually make a vote? What is the process by which we do that? And if I may, let me tell you my other question before we get, sorry, sidetracked, which is I'm curious about the small commercial exemption because my understanding, tell me if I'm wrong, is that the exemption is given to the owner of the property, but it is given only to it if it is occupied by a business, a certain type of business with less than 10 employees. And there's no guarantee that the owner of the property is gonna give any kind of discount to that person who is the business that's got the less than 10 employees.

[Jared Yagjian]: Right, the tenants typically don't get the benefit of it, right? So it's typically not, I believe, since I've been here, that's why we've never adopted it. That makes me sad.

[Anna Callahan]: Okay, but if you could answer my first question, that would be great.

[Jared Yagjian]: Yep, so it's about implementation, right, is how we get there. So assume we get 10,000 applications. That's probably in the ballpark of what we would get. If we could process six per hour, that's 10 per minute, that would be 210 on a 35-hour week. It would take 47 weeks to get through the 10,000 applications. Now, we need to know that before October, because we need to factor it into the tax rate. If we don't do that correctly, it will be a significant impact to the overlay, and it can cause problems for the finance department. And I don't want Bob to be yelling at me. So what we'd have to do is have it done, I think, even before the fiscal year started. I'd say we'd need somehow to do it 10 months ahead of when we need it done based on the math.

[Anna Callahan]: And can I follow up? So that would mean, essentially, assume there would have to be some sort of extra funding in order to hire more people. You wouldn't be able to do it with your current staff? I mean, that's a lot. It's like 47 weeks of work. I assume that your current staff would not be able to do that?

[Jared Yagjian]: I don't see a way we could do it with the staff we have now.

[Anna Callahan]: So it require funding. The city council cannot vote to fund anything.

[Zac Bears]: We requested this funding the last two budget cycles to request that the mayor put in the annual budget the funding to hire two people in the assessor's office to make this possible. We requested that for, I believe, the last two. We're in fiscal 26, right? It was in our budget recommendations for fiscal 26. I think they were in our budget recommendations for fiscal 25 as well to request that staff support to make it possible for us to take this vote.

[Anna Callahan]: So just want to be crystal clear. The city council cannot actually vote on this thing that is supposedly the city council's purview. And that's not really, it's not so much a question. Yeah, exactly. And I did last year too. I was that person who voted for it last year. And I may vote for it again because, you know, it is a thing that I think we should be doing, is at a minimum, getting the funding. Like, I love the idea of putting it in committee so that we can have a more thorough discussion and research. And I believe, I would like to make a motion that we put this in one of the committees with the goal of having those meetings before March so that we can do it in the time necessary.

[Zac Bears]: That would be a B paper to request a meeting of the administration finance committee.

[Anna Callahan]: Perfect.

[Zac Bears]: Okay. Is that okay?

[Anna Callahan]: Yes, 100%. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Many of the whole to discuss funding for the assessor's office to be able to implement a residential exemption? Before March?

[Anna Callahan]: Yeah, I would say really in January, February. Right?

[Adam Hurtubise]: That's great.

[Anna Callahan]: Before March. Perfect. Yes.

[Zac Bears]: I want to be clear that shouting out in the chambers generally is not a way to edit a motion.

[Unidentified]: Alright.

[Zac Bears]: Anything further? Councilor Callahan.

[Nick Giurleo]: Alright.

[Zac Bears]: Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President. Thanks for my colleagues. Great questions and God, I want to thank you because I know we spent a lot of time and understanding and council point, sitting in that meeting, I think it's important that even sitting down, and I know when we talked and we look at real numbers and real people, you really get to understand that it's just not in totality. Because I would look at myself and say, sure, I'd like to be, like, my fellow Councilor and support if I can, because I might have means other than others. But when you look at approving something like that, we could see how it could hurt the senior citizen that lives in a home of 1.5 because the increase is, you know, the house is valued at that but live in a fixed income and understand the implications and the gaps that then occur and who has to pick up that gap. And that's what's pretty scary to me. It's no different than understanding the rental process as well. Increasing taxes to a landlord isn't really gonna affect that person. What that person's gonna do is what? They're going to trickle down and look at their 10, um, 10 renters and say, fine with me, do whatever you want. It's an extra a hundred dollars. So, um, again, I think that that's why it's important. I think to have this meeting and, and, and look at truly how it affects real people. And, um, you know, because it does, it, it, it, When you look at it in totality, you realize that it's something that we need, something that we've always said that we wanted to visit and understand it. Because my other question or my other response was what we've talked about for many years is the lack of support you have. in your office to even look at this right now and then making sure that we fund it correctly. So there's many, many different variables that I know it sounds great because when I get phone calls every year, same people, Hey, George, you're going to vote for the residential exemption because I, I need it to tax the override went off everything. I'm getting killed. I need, you know, I want to, I want, I want, I want to go down from 7,000 back down to 4,000 sounds great, but somebody else has to fit that bill. So I think that that's why I support my colleagues and the decisions and the requests that they've asked tonight. But I will, I know we need to move forward with this and I'm going to support the classification, the vote and summary if I can, that I would move to select the minimum residential like we've asked the factor of 9.905493. And Unfortunately, we need to move forward to vote no on the residential exemption and vote no on the small commercial exemption because there are no guarantees that that would fall back on the business owner. It would just fall back on the, make a difference. So in my eyes, those are my three motions that I would move forward and to a vote. Thank you, Mr. President.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. We'll take a vote on those three, but I actually, I have to open the public hearing first after questions from councilors. Are there any further questions from councilors for the chief assessor? Seeing none, I will open the public hearing on the assessment for the fiscal 26 tax levy classification. So is there, You've issued your recommendation. Is there anyone who'd like to speak on the tax levy classification this evening? Either in person or on Zoom, if you're in the chamber, please approach the podium. If you are on Zoom, please raise your hand on Zoom.

[Jennifer Yanko]: Jennifer Yanko, 16 Monument Street. I just have a question. What are some of the municipalities that aren't in the Cape and Islands that have residential exemptions? Do you have that information? We don't have it. Somerville and Malden.

[Zac Bears]: I just had it here. There's a list. Yeah, Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: So it is Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Concord, Everett, Malden, Somerville, Waltham, Watertown.

[Jennifer Yanko]: That's quite a few. Thank you very much.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. Is there any further public comment either in person or on Zoom in this public hearing? We'll go to the podium, name and address for the record. You have three minutes.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: Thank you, Councilor Beres, Andrew Castagnetti, Cushman Street, East Medford Mass. First of all, I want to say, I want to start off by saying it's been a pleasure to deal with our new Chief Real Estate Tax Assessor, Mr. Jarvis Jagdjan. He's one of the better ones we've had in the last, 20 years. I got to say something about the breakeven point because it was mentioned, and I did the mathematics and I found an error. The breakeven point is not 1,038,000. It's more like 1,080,000, give or take 1% or 2%. And I realized in the packet, it does say to 1,000,038 is a ballpark. But I did the actual number, it's closer to 1,000,080, almost 1,100,000. Therefore, the correct break-even is over 1,080,000. And by the way, this break-even goes higher and higher every year as it should with the appreciation or inflation, whatever you wanna call it. I heard deja vu. Thank you for your time, but please listen. It's like deja vu all over again. I'm here to adopt Mass General Law Chapter 59, Section 5C, the owner-occupied real estate tax exemption at the full, full 35% shift. allowed by our commonwealth of Massachusetts. This is my 22nd year here in person trying to help our own occupied homeowners get a tax breaks on our real estate tax bills. After all, we carried the load financially for over 100 years. These cities are doing this for many years, and they're still helping their own occupied real estate taxpayers in Boston, Somerville, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, but still not here in Medford. Why not? For God's sakes, even Senator Kerry gets it at 28 Lewisburg Square in Beacon Hill, if that's his real address, according to the IRS. And yes, I am totally baffled why I am the only one out of 60,000 Method people who come here to fight and cares for 22 years to give thousands of owner-occupied real estate taxpayers real tax relief. By the way, Dr. Stirella said to me, but Andrew, if we get it, then how is the city gonna pay their bills? And my reply was, and still is, as far as I know, the law has not changed. The city still gets all their money because our owner-occupied savings is simply shifted and added to all the absentee homeowners, the business investors. Finally, I do believe you city councilors and many others, if you're using common sense, Now realize that most of our homes are being snatched up by national and international investors, which hurts our affordability big time. So let's have the absentee business new owners, maybe some are slumlords, I don't know. have them pick up the tab and give us, the owner-occupied homeowners, some real estate tax relief for the first time ever. Period. Period. But it can only be done if we adopt Mass General Law, Chapter 59, Section 5C, in my opinion. Do you have a better solution? What say you?

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Andy.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: What say you? Do you have a better idea to help the people who carried this law for a hundred years.

[Zac Bears]: Andy, thank you. I think we talked about it tonight. We are very interested in implementing this, but the appropriation has not been made to provide the staffing and the assessing office to make it possible.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: Yeah, yeah. I heard you. I heard you cry about the mayor didn't give you the money. As you said, you last November, you said you could get some money and study this six months in advance. Well, anyways, why can't you vote to do this? And then get it done by next November, and that gives you a whole year instead of 10 months to get the job done.

[Zac Bears]: From what I heard from what the assessor says is essentially this, I mean, we're voting on this for the January bills, right, Jared? So that we would have, you would have four weeks to do 47 weeks of work.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: No, I'm not talking about starting at a medium, I'm talking about a year from today, Mr. Assessor.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, no, I mean, I hear you. I think what we've heard from the assessor is very clear. If the mayor provides the money to the office, they can do the preparation work for us to vote on it. But if the mayor doesn't provide the money to make this possible, then the assessing office doesn't have the staff to implement this program.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: And of course, these cities, like Somerville, probably have eight people working in the assessors department, and Everett and all the other ones, especially Boston. But if they're doing it and they haven't dropped out of this, that says volumes to me. It must be dynamite. It helps.

[Zac Bears]: I've definitely heard from other communities that this is good in their communities.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: I really kind of understand the mentality of this council and the mayor.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Andy.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: Because if you vote majority to do it and the mayor says, okay, it automatically goes to the state house and right away we get it.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Andy. I'm going to go to Robert Carney on Zoom. Name and address for the record, please. You have three minutes. Oh, here you go.

[Robert Carney]: OK, I think I got it now. Thanks. Thanks for the time. Robert Kearney, 50 Hicks Ave, Unit 6. So I actually used to live in Everett, so I can speak to my experience. Bought my first home at the age of 31, small one-bedroom condo there. And what I liked, so I don't have an opinion either way on this resolution or this topic at this time. But what I will say is I felt like, as a first-time home buyer, that resolution made home ownership more affordable to me. And what I, bring down the property tax, and then reducing my effective monthly payment, which goes into, you know, how much of a mortgage you can qualify for. And I think encouraging home ownership in the city of Medford is a great thing. You know, it brings more stability, you know, to people in their lives, you know, as opposed to having to worry about You know, is my rent going to go up next year? Is my landlord going to sell? I'm going to have a new landlord, et cetera. So that's just one thing I like about it. So I just want to share that perspective because I am now a landlord of that same property. So I'm not paying the residential exemption anymore. So my property taxes are higher. I feel like it's fair, just a personal opinion. And I'm just glad you all are talking about it. So thanks for bringing this up. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. Is there anyone else who'd like to speak on this paper in the public hearing on the tax classification either in-person or on Zoom? Seeing none, I'm gonna declare the public hearing closed. All right, we have a few items here. We have a B paper from Councilor Callahan to hold a committee of the whole meeting with the city administration for funding for the assessing department to implement a residential exemption in January or February. Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: I just wanna make sure that we have to do enough research and discussion as well, right? Just if you can include those words, that would be great.

[Zac Bears]: Right, committee of the whole to, I guess, what are you asking from the city administration to have prepared for that meeting?

[Anna Callahan]: Well, my motion is to make sure we have that meeting, but also if the assessor can be there, and we probably should provide whatever requests we have. I know Councilor Lazzaro was suggesting that there was information that she wanted, and any councilors who want information before that meeting should send that to the assessor, and the assessor hopefully can provide us with whatever information we need.

[Zac Bears]: Got it. Do you have that Mr. Clerk?

[Marie Izzo]: Sure. I mean, I got the gist of what you're saying. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: All right.

[Marie Izzo]: It's like, all right.

[Zac Bears]: Committee of the whole research discussion about funding for the assessing department to implement a residential exemption. Great. By Councilor Callahan, this is a B paper seconded by. Seconded by Councilor Tseng. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Kelly. Vice President Collins.

[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Lazzaro. Councilor Leming. Councilor Scarpelli.

[Unidentified]: Yes.

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

[Zac Bears]: Yes. I'm in the affirmative. None of the negative. The motion passes. We had three motions from Councilor Scarpelli. The first was to adopt a residential factor of 0.905493 for the fiscal year 2026 property tax levy. Is that a good vote? 0.905494. And do you need us to say anything else in the motion? All right, great. Motion by Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by Councilor Tseng. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Kelly? Yes. Vice President Collins?

[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Lazzaro? Yes. Councilor Leming? Councilor Scarpelli? Councilor Tseng? Yes.

[Zac Bears]: Yes, 70 affirmative, none negative. The motion passes. There's a motion from Councilor Scarpelli to not adopt a residential exemption for the fiscal year 2026 tax classification. Seconded by. Seconded by Councilor Lazzaro. So this is a motion to not adopt a residential exemption for fiscal year 2026 by Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by Councilor Lazzaro. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Callahan. Vice President Collins.

[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Yes.

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

[Zac Bears]: No. Six in the affirmative, one in the negative. Motion passes. And then there was a motion by Councilor Scarpelli to not adopt a small commercial exemption, seconded by? Yes. Seconded by Councilor Tseng. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Callahan. Vice President Collins.

[Jennifer Yanko]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Lazzaro. Councilor Leming. Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Tseng. President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Yes. So I have an affirmative, none of the negative. The motion passes. Thanks, Jared. motions orders and resolutions to 5, 1, 7, 6, offered by president bears and Councilor Callahan. Whereas the mayor and city administration recently announced the receipt of a $200,000 grant for Medford zero waste initiative. And whereas as part of this initiative, the mayor announced that her administration would reduce tax collection, trash collection to once every two weeks, starting in July, 2027. And whereas the city council supports efforts to reduce waste increases to free weekly composting and limit cost growth of waste collection. that has hurt our city budget and whereas residents have very significant concerns about the impact of reducing trash collection to once every two weeks for residents and the need for greater efforts by the mayor to inform and engage residents regarding our solid waste collection program changes now therefore be it resolved by the medford city council that the mayor and city administration provide a report to the council and residents explaining the changes they are making to the city's waste collection program. Be it for the resolve that the mayor, city administration share all resources that they are making available to residents to reduce any negative impacts of these changes. Be it for the resolve that the mayor and city administration hold a public forum to hear from residents about their concerns and explore potential alternative options to move the city towards zero waste goals. Be it for the resolve that the city council appreciates the work of our DPW commissioner and planning development and sustainability director. The council requests that the mayor provide additional resources for our dedicated city staff so they have the capacity to effectively communicate with residents regarding the proposed timeline and reasoning for these changes, explore the benefits and costs of alternative timelines and plans, and outline a mitigation strategy to address any negative impacts. Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. I think we, certainly I, I'll speak for myself, I do understand the purpose of this change. I know that the waste collection costs have been going up. a lot. And also just in terms of climate change, wanting to be a sustainable city, moving toward more composting and offering our composting for free, and that hopefully that will naturally reduce the amount of trash. These are laudable goals. The problem is that This was brought up in like the 11th paragraph of a statement about composting and people are getting this and realizing suddenly that a service that they depend upon is about to be cut in half. It's really important to me that when we have climate goals that those climate goals are something that the residents of our city understand the residents of our city can get behind that we not have climate goals be something negative that people. dislike and see as a bad thing. So really all we're asking for is for this, the rollout to be done right, to make sure that we meet our residents' needs, that we offer any alternatives if necessary for the things that people come up with. So we really just want to make sure that this rollout is done the right way and that our residents are fully informed. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Callahan. You know, I maybe see it a little bit differently, although we are co-sponsors of this resolution, I just, the city is not ready for a change of this magnitude and the way that it was announced was at the best burying the lead and at worst, deeply confusing and worrying. I also understand, right, maybe some of the motivations here outside of health insurance and pension costs. One of the things that is cost going up the fastest is our waste removal contract. The flip side of that is that the one thing that every resident in the way they interact with the city every week is trash and recycling and compost. It's the one thing that the city does for any resident in a one, two, three family home every week. And I think the idea of essentially announcing to the city that that's going to change in paragraph 10 of a press release that says we just got a big grant, not even a big grant. We just got a $200,000 grant and it's a $220 million city budget is not the way to do this. Even if I 100% understand the intent and agree with the goals, you know, we had a conversation with the administration two years ago, that said we're moving to a new waste contract, we're bringing in free composting, there's going to be a bunch of benchmarks and checks along the way, and at some point we're going to come back to you and say, we think we've done enough education of the public, we think that we have enough uptake on the composting program, we're seeing changes in the way that people are putting their trash out. And that that was going to then inform a process where you go out to residents and say, hey, we've done a lot together over the past few years around changing our waste stream. And we think that we now have met some conditions and there's enough time for us to have a conversation about making a change to trash. But this is not that. that groundwork laying, I have not seen it. We have not had a bunch of meetings in this body or we have not seen a bunch of public meetings and public forums hosted by the city saying, here's the update on the composting program. We're actually seeing that the trash, you know, our trash weight is going down, the bins are less full. We're not seeing any of the benchmarks that would lead us to believe that this is a good change. And I think to have not laid that groundwork and then for us to, you know, The fact that this was not the lead of the press release, that the press release wasn't titled City Planning to Move to Every Other Week Trash Removal in 2027, and then saying at least some of the stuff that we were told we were going to hear, I think has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. I think it set up quite frankly, this program for failure, because I think there's not trust in it. And I think it's a yet another example where the resources for communication have not been provided to the people who are tasked with communicating about major changes. I heard that message loud and clear six months ago about zoning. And here we are again. about trash removal, where it's paragraph 10 of a wall of text posted on the website and not something where we've been laying the groundwork, not something where in July, right? There's been discussions for months. Why in July of this year did the city not say we want to start laying the groundwork for this? And I think the hardest part of that is that we do not have other than the voice that we're putting forward and the requests that we're making for information, the city council doesn't have a vote on this. City council can't say, no, this isn't happening or no, it has to be delayed. It doesn't sit with us. So I have a lot of concerns about the way this was rolled out. And I don't think, I think, you know, it's been, interesting to have conversations with residents of all political stripes. We just had an election where a lot of people voted for one side and a bunch of other people voted for another group of folks. And I've heard from folks on both sides of that. who are very frustrated with this. And some of those folks are saying, I would never support this, period, no matter what the rollout was. And some folks are saying, this actually, I support it 100%, but I'm worried about, and it would work for my house, but I'm worried about the people who it won't work for, and I don't know what the plan is, and I'm worried about what the negative impacts are going to be. So that's why I co-sponsored this resolution with Councilor Callahan. I think really, put the cart before the horse on this one. And I'm very concerned about this change. What are councilors saying?

[Justin Tseng]: Thank you, President Bears and Councilor Callahan for introducing this resolution. Reducing waste, saving taxpayer money and preparing residents for potential statewide food waste ban are all important noble goals, but burying what feels like an austerity cut to waste services inside an opaque press release about grant funding has caused real frustration and undermined trust with residents, and frankly, with Councilors as well. Many of us, including those of us on this council, learned about the administration's final decision through social media. This is exactly the kind of governance by press release I've spoke strongly against years ago, and I'm going to speak strongly against it tonight as well. This approach has also jeopardized support for the Zero Waste Project, which is central to our climate action and adaptation plan. As the youngest member of this council, I know in my bones that climate change is an existential threat, but something I really worry about are things like this, where the failure of the outreach process means that for too many neighbors, saving the planet now feels synonymous with inconvenience, making people just want to give up on the environment writ large. We end up moving farther away from where we need to be, fundamentally undermining the green movement. We need to rebuild trust and communicate clearly so residents understand that this doesn't have to be the case. I went back to old meeting minutes in my own notes from years ago, and we were told back then that while this could be a future path, the city would for sure conduct comprehensive outreach before moving forward down this path. And speaking only for myself, I need a clearer plan from the mayor and her administration before I can consider supporting this change. We need answers to basic and practical questions. Questions like, what alternative routes are there to reducing waste? Will recycling move to a weekly schedule as well? How successful has the composting program been so far? We know that compost bins are more rat-proof, but imperfect composting practices will still mean that food waste might sit out longer. What's the rodent mitigation plan there? That's a question I asked years ago. What's the plan for the summer months when heat accelerates rot and odor? What outreach has been done to residents, especially to those who don't speak English? Have we analyzed equity impacts on low-income and working-class families? And what have we learned from other municipalities that have moved from trash, weekly trash pickups to this pay-as-you-throw system? What outreach did they do? These are some, you know, some of these questions are questions that residents, the community have been talking about. Some of them are questions that I've been talking about for a while. And, you know, to the president's point, one major lesson that this council has learned, especially from our zoning process, is that when we do big things, we have to do them right. Residents have told us that loud and clear. The question now is, is the mayor listening? I do want to acknowledge the hard work that Commissioner McGibbon and Director Hunt have put in to this, to their work every day. This has been a tough week, I'm sure for them, and they've worked tirelessly for our city, not just now, but every day. Most importantly, I think this should and can be a moment for us to come together as a community, not to assign blame, but to work through the substance. Let's have an open and honest discussion so that none of our hard waste in City Hall and out with our community goes to waste.

[Zac Bears]: Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President. And I think that I just have a few to add on to my colleague. I think my colleagues said some interesting points and we've definitely heard the residents. And I think if we can have a B, C and D paper, because I think it's important because I know that The team has done some extensive research, but have we looked at other avenues to help support the trash contract? One thing we've been hearing a lot of lately is illegal dumping and to see if there's any thought process of using funding from penalties from illegal dumping to maybe defray the cost of the contract. It might not sound like a lot, but I think if what we're seeing, that could be something that is an avenue we can look at. If we can, Mr. President, there's a C paper. I think it's important. I think Councilor Tseng brought it up, but I think it's important that we get the information back in a paper that it's important to see what the Board of Health looks at the rat infestation, the issue with the rat problem, and a report of anticipating impact if we go down to, when we go down to once every two weeks. And then last is a D paper. I think it's having a detailed report to understand the life after that $200,000 and see the impact that it might on the city and what gains we might have had to that $200,000, and then how we pick up and continue with that, any positive reinforcement from that $200,000. So if you can, oblige the papers, just because I think that this is a resolution that we can get some answers back and maybe help our residents understand, because I think that that's important. So thank you. Yeah, yeah, if you can yeah if you can add actually to those trying to write I'm trying to write.

[Zac Bears]: All right, George I had. And maybe we could take these all in as amendments on the main paper is that fine to do that. Yeah, I'd be resolved the city administration explore using fines for for illegal dumping to fund the waste removal contract. be resolved that the Board of Health provide a report on expected impact of moving to biweekly trash collection on the city's rodent problem.

[George Scarpelli]: And the last one, sorry, I was- The impact after the $200,000 grant and- Like when it runs out? When it runs out, what the outlook and anything that's positive, how are we going to fund anything positive off of that, so. Thank you, Mr. President.

[Zac Bears]: And Councilor Tseng, do you want to read yours again?

[Adam Hurtubise]: To you guys.

[Justin Tseng]: Give me one sec. While alternative routes are there to reducing waste, will recycling move to a weekly schedule as well? How successful has the composting program been so far? Compost bins are more rat-proof, but imperfect composting still means food waste might sit out longer. What's the road mitigation plan along the lines of what Councilor Scarpelli said? What's the plan for summer months when heat accelerates rotten odor? What outreach has been done to residents, especially to non-English speaking communities? Have we analyzed equity impacts on low income and working class families? And what have we learned from other municipalities that moved from weekly trash pickup to pay-as-you-throw systems, and what outreach did they do?

[Zac Bears]: Great. All right, we'll incorporate all of that, unless Councilor Kallion, you have an objection to incorporating those amendments into our resolution? All right. Are there further comments from members of the Council on this paper? Councilor Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Bears, and I'll keep it short because my fellow councillors have already spoken to a lot of what was on my mind about this resolution. I want to thank you and Councilor Callahan for bringing it forward. And, you know, I served as a member of the Solid Waste Task Force back in 2022, which I know is referenced on the Mayor's kind of brand new FAQ sheet about the Pay As You Throw program now that it's been announced. And, you know, I just wanted to speak to the fact that the Pay As You Throw program and various options and methods for over time, finding ways to make it feasible to decrease our waste production and ramp up recycling and ramp up composting and have those things occurring at concert, were thoroughly discussed on the task force. Another thing that was spoken about, you know, time and time again, was the need for really intentional, really thorough, really comprehensive communication and outreach to the community about significant changes such as this about, you know, what it would mean for recycling to increase in frequency or trash pickup to decrease in frequency or composting and how that works. And a lot of the questions that Councilor Tseng just raised, knowing that people would, you know, that any significant change to our waste pickup would be a significant change for people because this is just a part of life that we can't get away from, and how important it would be for any new trash contract to include resources for really doing the public outreach part right. And I think, you know, I wouldn't speak for any other member of the task force, but my impressions From our meetings, which were three years ago, was that there was broad consensus that we needed any significant changes would need to be preceded by and coupled with just a really sincere and dedicated outreach and communication program to make sure that people knew it was happening, knew why it was happening, had their questions answered, felt on board, because these changes are significant. It's not intuitive. And we need to, and you know, all these questions that Councilor Tseng raised and others are ones that are on the minds of residents. So as a member of the former Solid Waste Task Force, you know, I had no idea that this was how the administration was planning to roll out this change. because so many of our conversations were really guided by the fact that, you know, any major change involving or recycling our compost or our trash pickup would need to be preceded by such thorough outreach into the community to really get people on board and, you know, to take the time to win people over to why these approaches are both good and feasible. And really, you know, taking the time to convince people of both and to wait for the evidence of the feasibility. So I really hope that the, I hope that we see some follow up from this resolution. I really hope that the administration takes this to heart. And like you said, Mr. President, I think this is one that it's really important to get this right. We can't be putting the cart before the horse. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Are there any further comments from members of the council on this resolution? Seeing none, we'll take a public input on this resolution, both in-person and on Zoom. In-person, you can make a line behind the podium, and on Zoom, you can raise your hand on Zoom. We'll alternate between in-person and on Zoom, and each person will have three minutes. Start at the podium. Name and address for the record, please.

[Micah Kesselman]: Sure, Micah Kesselman, 499 Main Street. So it's hilarious that the chief of staff had the thankless job of coming up here at the beginning of this meeting saying that you should just take the mayor at her word on a whole process that needs to engage more community outreach and more residents. And then this Takaka nonsense happens the same day. And I think it really goes to show exactly why you were requesting, not requesting, like demanding that she publicly put forward the key things that she is expecting and demanding to continue funding zoning. Because you can't take her at her word, clearly. Look at this, this is wild. And for the record, I'm in support of this project. I think I agree with what my Councilors have said. It's a great goal. It's important. It's a really important goal. And I don't think personally I'll have that big of a practical impact on myself, but you're right. I mean, trash pickup is one of those like fundamental things that a city does and engages its residents on. And it's beyond crazy that the mayor would do this at the same time she's trying to put forward the idea that You should just take her at her word and sort of individual email Daisy Chained across the council on other citywide impacting endeavors. So yeah, I just want to say, this resolution should be followed up on. by the administration. It's critical. I mean, yeah. So hopefully this works.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. I'm going to go to Zoom, then I'll come back to the podium. Robert Carney, name and address for the record, and you'll have three minutes.

[Robert Carney]: Hey, Robert Carney, 50 Hicks Ave, Unit 6. I also just want to, first of all, thank you for getting this conversation started. I also want to speak as a townhouse owner here. Many of you likely remember the September 30th city council meeting where we talked about another communication and process change from the city. And that was the proposed cessation of trash and recycling services you know, for townhomes with five plus units. And just kind of a little bit of what I'd like to say here is I'm glad we're talking about this, but we feel like, you know, me and my wife would love to also just be presented with either from the council or the mayor, the full details of all these waste management contracts, you know, more detail about the proposal, In the townhouse example, I want to connect this with some of the other complaints you all have, because for us, getting clear information was frustratingly difficult, despite multiple efforts on me and my wife's part since the summer. So, you know, when we received this letter in July about the proposed cessation of services from, you know, about townhouses, my wife and I were receiving seemingly contradictory information. So, like, you know, Councilor Collins, was mentioning the task force has a minimum influence on the final contract. Tim McGivern said the opposite. Tim McGivern said the council approved the program after extensive briefing, yet some Councilors seemed unfamiliar with key details of this earlier contract before We're talking about this change here. So, you know, I think this is an opportunity as you all are saying for the city leadership, the mayor and the council to rely heavily on citizen input about this. I think we can work together without sacrificing, you know, community cohesion or excluding townhouses from essential services and reduce our waste and make this equitable. Um, and I also want to bring the townhouse thing up because I think this is relevant here, you know, the proposed cessation of trash and recycling services. And a non committal to compost services. It seems like the city might do it for townhouses. How does that. you know, address city services goals to save waste, you know, especially when it seems like we're going to be saving money by reducing the amount of trash, you know, being collected if this goes through, our townhouse is still going to be left off, especially ones that are like for us, we're like paying 5000 a year in property taxes. So, you know, just want to bring that up to hopefully we can keep that top of mind for the mayor. Thank you.

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

[Julia Foster]: Hi, I'm Julia Foster and my address is 239 Woburn Street. I wanted to address a couple of things on this topic. First, I compost. I'm a fan of the composting program. I want it to continue, and I want it to grow. So I sort of am the demographic that this is aimed for. But I'm not in favor of the way it's currently proposed for a variety of reasons. The pay-it program, based on discussions at the open house I had yesterday, it doesn't mandate every other week in the slightest. It just mandates reduction to 32 gallons per week pickup. But we can't afford to reissue trash from 64 to 32, and we can't afford the expense of the weekly pickup if we want to afford universal free composting. So it's sort of a, how do you achieve this goal without then switching to every other week? I have a suggestion for that, which is to let people keep their 64 and keep the weekly, but if you want to keep the 64 instead of being reduced to 32 weekly, you have to pay for that. So it would offset the cost significantly. You'd keep weekly, but if you didn't need it, you could go down to 32. If you wanted to keep the 64 weekly, you'd have to pay to keep it. The flip side of that is that that's not possible. And we end up having to switch to every other week, which again, based on discussions I had yesterday, you won't get much guidance on how other cities are doing it because they're not. No city in the Pay It program in Massachusetts has adopted an every other week trash pickup. They've gone down to 32 gallon buckets every week. And part of the reason for that, that I think everybody here has recognized, is the concerns about sanitation. So if it is switched from one week to every other week, there has to be some sort of addressing, what are we doing with feminine hygiene products, dog poop bags, diapers, and other things that can't be composted and that will absolutely be repulsive Well, after two weeks any time of the year, the dog poop bags start to disintegrate before the end of the week and have to be dealt with already. So, and then the one-off situations where you throw a party at your house and you have a ton of trash. It's one thing to store boxes from a Christmas and big Amazon and driving it to recycling drop-off. It's another thing to do that with trash. I don't have any interest in keeping that in my garage for an extended period of time or in my driveway for two weeks at a time. So, those are my two concerns and thank you.

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

[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Hi, Cheryl Rodriguez, 281 Park Street. So meat packaging, takeout containers, pizza boxes, pet waste and diapers are just a few items that attract rats and are neither compostable nor recyclable. Bi-monthly trash pickup is negligent and ignores the social contract. No other city is doing this. It is unsanitary and our rat population will explode. I have to keep my compost bin in the house because it was outside for one week and was all caught up. Our trash cans don't even close as well as the compost bins. This will hit the dense environmental justice neighborhoods the hardest, and increasing our density will worsen it more still. With our current rat problems, was the Board of Health consulted about this change? What Malden looked like during the trash strike will become our new normal. Bi-monthly trash pickup is disgusting and irresponsible. We should not encourage our rat population to grow. This is a basic service. And if it is about money, then we need to find something else to cut. If it is just about chasing a $200,000 grant, then we need to let that one go in the interest of our quality of life, because this is neither good nor feasible. And I wonder what else is hidden inside this contract that we'll only find out in paragraph 11 of a press release about a grant that is supposed to be good with the bad hidden beneath. 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.

[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening, Nick Giroleo, 40 Robinson Road. I'm speaking tonight in favor of this resolution, both originally or as amended. What's most stunning to me is how little it seems we're getting in return for this grant. In exchange for this huge sacrifice of cutting our trash collection pickup in half, we're getting, drumroll please, compost bins. Now, it's $200,000 worth of compost bins, but again, it's still just compost bins. I'm asking myself, do we actually need more? Is there a shortage? Are there answers to these questions? I can look up. And I think if we had discretion to spend this money any way we'd like for waste management funding, there'd be a case perhaps for this trade-off. But since it appears we're just stuck using it for these bins, I don't see anyone could make the case this is a good deal. Now, the city says if we generate too much trash, we can just buy overflow bags or lease for $12 a month another 64-gallon bin. No big deal, huh? For many people, the weekly pickup with the 64-gallon bin is hard enough as it is. And even with, I think, intentional efforts to produce less rubbish, it is still highly unrealistic people are going to be able to meet this quota. And all this is going to do is force them to pay these fees. Residents are already struggling under high taxes and fees and a climate of a cost-of-living crisis. This is only going to make that struggling worse. And it also makes you question when we're told that tax hikes are necessary to fund essential city services, and we say yes, why we are getting less city services in return. And we're also getting a vague promise here that this will save the environment. How do we know collecting trash less regularly is going to incentivize people to produce less trash? What will stop people from dumping their extra trash or just sucking it up and paying for overfill bags or renting a bin? As has been discussed, our neighborhoods are already infested with rats in many areas. Unsustainable density increases due to comprehensive residential rezoning changes, which do seem like an inevitability to me at this point, are only going to result in less sanitary conditions. To me, all this is just a recipe for disaster. It's my hope that the mayor will reconsider the wisdom of this grant and work with all of us to provide some answers to questions I think we all have. I don't care how many cities and towns across the state have accepted this program. We need to do what's best for Medford. Thank you. Thank you.

[Ralph Klein]: Ralph Klein, 172 Park Street in Medford. I know most of this council won't remember the swill buckets used to have in your backyard. You dump your compost, your kitchen scraps, and once a week they'd come around and pick it up. It was basically compost. All your food waste went in this bin. I don't think any of you, especially Councilor Tseng, being the youngest, has ever seen one. I believe the cover of the bucket my neighbor's got is still there. I'll take a picture and give it to you. You just step on it, pick it up, dump your garbage in. And I can tell you from my childhood, Thursday was the worst day of the week. The guy would come in, pull the metal bucket out, went out to the swill truck and dump it. And every Thursday, five or six hours, the stump stayed in the neighborhood. So this composting in plastic bins, this was underground. You only smelled it the one day. This composting being outside is not a great idea. In plastic bins, like they say, the rat population and all that. Also reducing the trash pickup to twice a month as opposed to once a week. I don't know if you people live with, Amazon shoppers, but the cardboard increases 100%. Even Sharp and Sharp, Peapod, drops off stuff in some of the cardboard boxes, not all in bags. That creates more trash. So, I mean, closing the stores is one thing, but you're increasing the trash when you do this Amazon shopping, Peapod, and like I say, the composting. I still remember that. I don't want the kids nowadays having to smell the swill truck. I don't even think George remembers that. I knew that. That's why I said, you're young and the Councilor sang. Sorry about that.

[Zac Bears]: George was on the school committee at age four or five, I think. Judy Hauser.

[Ralph Klein]: And on one note, I'd like to propose to this council

[Zac Bears]: Let's let Ralph have a speech.

[Ralph Klein]: I'm glad I could make you laugh. I mean, usually I have you staring at me going, I'll get this guy out of here. The other thing I'd like to propose to you guys is, you know, I know you have city council is usually once city council meetings once a month, maybe instead of this pointing back and forth through meetings, maybe sit down with the mayor, the whole council. And if the hot point topic is the zoning and the planning commission, have them sit down once a month, the hot topic of the month. If this is it, zoning's been going on for, months. And all we get is, this one's doing it wrong, that one's doing it wrong. You guys can sit there, look across, and say, howdy, first thing. Break the ice, do it face to face. Instead of this, we get to the meetings and you're wasting your time. It's been a week, a month, since this has started, the zoning thing. You guys could sit there and talk. I talked to you, I've spoken to all of you at some point. If you guys can talk, I mean, I may just laugh today. Maybe we can make each other laugh and get some common ground. Because the city's being held hostage, not you, not you, not the mayor. The city's being held hostage by all this. It's her, it's them, it's her, it's them. Sit down, face to face, make a meeting so you're not just meeting with us. You guys are button heads. Do it in your private meetings and get it done. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Ralph. And I definitely appreciate the comment. We aren't allowed, the seven of us, to meet with her in private because of the open meeting law, but the mayor is always welcome at our meetings. We've had some really great, I mean, they've been difficult, but during budget hearings, the mayor has come down, we've worked things out directly, and I think that's been a productive approach. So the mayor is invited to every council meeting to have those conversations with us. We would welcome the mayor at any of our meetings. Thank you. Thanks. Any further public comment by anyone who hasn't spoken yet on this matter? All right. Thanks. Do you want three minutes or?

[Nina Nazarian]: I shouldn't need more than three minutes.

[Zac Bears]: I just didn't know if you wanted to.

[Nina Nazarian]: That's the discretion of the president.

[Zac Bears]: Go ahead. You can answer.

[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: I wasn't sure if you were coming from the public process or if you wanted me to finish that before you spoke.

[Nina Nazarian]: However you, however you think.

[Zac Bears]: Is there anyone else who hasn't spoken on this who'd like to speak? Seeing none, is there anyone who's spoken on this who'd like to speak on it again for one more minute? Great. Sorry, Nina.

[Micah Kesselman]: It's okay, I'll be fast. Micah on Main Street. I will give props to the mayor on one thing with this is that everyone in here agrees how ridiculous this is. She's brought together all of us, and half of this room does not usually agree with the other half of the room. So good job. That's a really good job that she did there. Thank you for your comment. It is very important that some things that were said here are just incorrect, which is understandable, because no information has been provided. For example, composting isn't that stinky. It's not that big of a deal. It's actually fine. you wouldn't know that if that wasn't something you were already engaged with because none of the preceding engagement that should have happened, happened with this. So it really goes to show that like, yes, please engage with the residents. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. Anyone else who's already spoken who'd like to go again? All right, public comment on this paper is closed. I'll recognize the chief of staff.

[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you, Mr. President. I think this is more for the public, is just some historical information, because I think the council has this information. So I'm presenting to the council, so I'm going to present to the council. As the council knows, the Solid Waste Task Force was launched in May of 2022. Vice President Collins alluded to the task force and discussed it to a degree to help coordinate and plan Medford's priorities for the future of its waste management operations. It was estimated at the time that continuing weekly trash collection would cost the city approximately $1 million per year. And that would only increase over time, considering the increase in costs and inflation. So, you know, frankly it just it presented affordability issues for the city and we know that one of our major drivers for our budget process that is one of our challenge points is between somewhere between pension because we're almost fully funded so we've got like I don't know I think it's I don't know, seven years is coming to my mind, but I'm not doing the math right now in my head, to fully fund it and the escalation in costs as it pertains to waste and recycling. The task force was in support of moving to collecting trash every other week, which allows the savings to be redirected to other services in the program. Due to the escalating cost of trash disposal, this long-term strategy specifically minimizes trash disposal itself, which is the tonnage that we pay for, We're paying for two things when we collect trash. We're paying for the hauler to haul the trash. Again, you all know this, but we're also paying for the tonnage. And that tonnage, when you have food waste inside of the trash stream, gets really placed in a location where it doesn't need to get placed because some studies show that food waste tonnage equals approximately 48% of the trash. And so going back, The disposal cost for compost is really effectively little to none at all, and it allows the city to manage escalating trash disposal costs over a long-term contract and help keep our solid waste program within budget. As the council knows, as is evidenced by the date of implementation that's being described, Presently, July 1st, 2027 is the implementation date. We're approximately 19 months out from the implementation date. This is a slow rolling process presently to communicate what's to come, but this will all be done with a more comprehensive process. This is the initial stages. We haven't begun the significant communication that's gonna be needed with this type of thing. presented, as you know, and the council referenced this, with this plan, which was based on the Solid Waste Task Force's input at its Committee of the Whole meeting on February 15th, 2023 and July 25th, 2023. The council ultimately voted to approve the 10-year waste contract at its regular meeting, which was all under the umbrella of this contract effectively going to a biweekly trash collection. The city held public workshops with the Solid Waste Task Force outlining the recommendations for every other week. Trash in late 2022. Again, I'm providing some of this information, so I don't think this historical public outreach is going to supplant the needed outreach in the future. I'm just providing this as informational context for the public. I could go into some depth about rodents and rats and the issues that Medford faces and how, in particular, the unsecured collection bins are the real challenge that we face that contain the food waste because those are the ones that are attracting rodents, which is different from the compost collection service because the composting bins are latched and they keep food waste secure so rodents can't access the food source. The city's also done outreach on mitigating rodent activity and provided residents tips on how to help reduce activity. The biggest driver of rodent activity is easily available food scraps. You all know that, the members of the public who have been impacted by this, I'm sure know that and are working hard to mitigate those issues as well. Again, the compost bins themselves are a part of that process to create reduction in rodents in the area as they can't access the food items to the containers. There are regular meetings, internal meetings with regard to this contract as a whole. And the reason I wanna bring this up is it's a very large contract that requires a significant amount of management. And so our, DPW Commissioner, our Director of Planning Development and Sustainability, and our Communications Director, as well as our consultant that worked with the City through the process of developing, drafting the RFP, negotiating the RFP. zero strategy waste solutions meets regularly to manage the contract. And I think that's just relevant in the grand scheme of things, but not necessarily specific to the points we've been discussing or that have been discussed here tonight. Also, as you know, loose trash bags are no longer lining the sidewalks of our squares ahead of trash pickup, which is certainly a good thing. You know, in all reality, and this is to the Council, if the Council would like to revert plans to go to weekly trash collection, the Mayor is willing to discuss to figure out how we would handle the added cost increase. Realistically, this is the beginning of a process to roll out communications on this topic. PDS did have a—the Planning, Development, and Sustainability did have an information session at its open house event yesterday evening about composting and the new program. I believe a resident spoke about that. We're developing the comprehensive communications plan that will be rolled out over the course of the next several months, aligning the program, the reasoning for the implementation, and the impact on our trash collection strategy. We will be holding public information sessions to hear directly from residents on what challenges they foresee will arise by this change in collection. Again, if the council wants to take a vote at some point to change course, just let us know. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: I just want to be clear. We can't take a vote to change course. The mayor administers the contracts for the city. So if the mayor wants to change course, we're happy to have that proposal discussed before us. But we'd never voted to adopt a contract. We never negotiated a contract. We never signed a contract. We authorized the administration to enter into a contract greater than three years. We had meetings three years ago and two years ago where we heard what the general outlines of the contract would be and that at some point in the contract, there would be an option to go to every other week trash service. And then we were told that the city would tell us when we were meeting goals and felt that they had the plan to move forward with that. I'm just as the leader of this council, you're not gonna say, oh, if the council wants to vote, we can't vote to do this. Only the mayor can decide to do this. So if the mayor, I appreciate a lot of what you just said, basically most of what you just said until the sentence where you said, if you guys wanna do it, feel free, we can't. So we could take a vote tonight and say, no more, trash every week forever. It would have no force and effect. zero force and effect because we don't sign, negotiate, administer contracts on behalf of the city. The city's chief executive does that. I think you heard from a lot of us tonight that we wanted to hear about the communications plan. We wanted to hear about the rollout. We wanted to hear about the goals that we were meeting to get there. You know, I have had conversations with planning development, sustainability staff, with DPW staff, talking about, you know, composting is getting better. We're at 30, I think we're at 35% now, or maybe it's higher than that. I'm not sure because the report hasn't been presented. I think the issue we have here tonight is we were told a couple years ago that the administration was going to come back and talk about what their plan was to roll this out. And instead what happened is a press release went out And in paragraph 11, it said, we're doing this in July 2027. And it didn't say, here's the upcoming public forum. Here's the place that you can have a conversation about it. If I can remember, I don't even know that the press release mentioned that there was a PDS open house the next business day after the press release went out. And I think there are very clear and simple things that could have been done differently. even just changing the timing of the press release, changing the rollout, making it clear to residents, we know you're going to be concerned about this. This is a major change to the main way that you interact with your city on a weekly basis, and here are the ways that you can engage with that. And we haven't decided, oh, July 2027, it's happening. We said, we're gonna have six months of meetings. Our intent right now is to do this in July, 2027. We think that's what we need from a cost basis perspective, and we'll go and do that another time. But none of that happened. It was paragraph 10, or Cheryl said 11, of a press release. And the headline of the press release was, City Gets Grant. It just seems backwards. And I think it really undermines our goals. So that's my deepest concern here. It's, you know, you're at the line in the race. You're like, we have a very ambitious goal that we wanna achieve. It's gonna take talking to thousands of people and essentially trying to get thousands of households to change how they behave. And like first step out of the gate, we fall. And that's what worries me. And I think like it means that maybe the city budget gets impacted because maybe people don't want to adopt this goal now because a bunch of people who maybe could have been open to the idea of it are now reflexively opposed to it. I myself kind of fall into that bucket, right? Like I'm not saying out of like on principle, I'm against this no matter what. There are people who feel that way. It must be every week. And I want to listen to them too, but it just feels like, the rollout was botched. And that the first time we really were talking about it, at least the first time in the past two years, since we had some meetings several years ago where it was like, this might be an option, people felt like they were getting two-stepped on it. So that's just where I'm coming from. Vice President Collins. Sure.

[Jennifer Yanko]: Thank you, President.

[Zac Bears]: Sorry, Vice President Collins, one second. What's up?

[Nina Nazarian]: I just wanted to comment that the council does all the time take votes that it would like to see. This resolution itself is an example. That is an opening from the mayor to this council to say, if this council would like to revisit the idea to go away from biweekly collection, that she is open to it. That is what I was trying to communicate.

[Zac Bears]: OK. I appreciate that. I think what I'm saying is, you know, if folks are, you know, I want you guys to put out your plan for how you're gonna communicate this. I want residents to talk to you about it. And if the mayor feels like she needs to revisit her decision, we're happy to have her put a paper on our agenda to talk about that. It's my perspective. I don't know if other councilors have other perspectives on that. Vice President Collins, then Councilor Leming, then Councilor Callahan.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Bears. I want to be brief, but I do just want to be clear as a member of the former task force the solid waste task force that this isn't how any of us said to roll this out and this isn't how we understood that it would be rolled out when the task force was convening. In 2022, we were talking about goals. We were talking about the goals that we all share for reducing waste, becoming more sustainable, reducing our carbon emissions through waste. We worked with the resources that the mayor allocated to us, reviewing best practices from other cities, and we came to form some recommendations about what of those options seemed most interesting and valuable to us for Medford. We were talking about options for manifesting these values in our waste pickup, in our community. But the task force was a volunteer advisory non-binding group of community members eager to serve, many of them passionate about the environment. And it just really rubs me the wrong way to see the city administration laying the blame for a poorly rolled out process. at the feet of a volunteer body that was producing non-binding recommendations. It's up to the duly elected and appointed leaders of the city, not volunteer members of a community task force to look into feasibility, make those real world decisions about what is feasible and when, and to design a communication strategy and to fund it to be successful. And it just felt really important to me to put that out there because I saw members of the former task force on this meeting tonight. I know they've been engaging in this process And it just really upsets me to see people's volunteerism for their community be politicized. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Councilor Leming.

[Matt Leming]: Yeah, I mean, it was a poorly written press release. It was ill-advised to put that out. Clearly it ticked everybody in the community off. Trying to say that it's somehow the council's responsibility that fits into a pattern of behavior of whenever the administration messes up. There's this effort to pass the buck around, which it's a game that I'm getting kind of tired of. If the mayor had followed that press release up and just saying that, look, We're sorry, this is a poor way to roll this out. This is our actual communications plan. That would have been fine. I just wanna see the act of taking responsibility for something here. And this was very clearly, if anything, just a communications mess up. And the trash contracts are the mayor's responsibility. These negotiating and fixing these contracts is up to the mayor. End of story. It's not up to this council. It is not up to a volunteer task force that's giving recommendations. It is up to the mayor. and they released a press release that conveyed information very poorly. And yeah, I would just like to see a stop this pattern of trying to pass the buck off and blame somebody else for your problems. Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: So I think the people of Medford elected a mayor, and the people of Medford elected a city council. And I think they elected the mayor to do the mayor's job, and the city council to do the city council's job. And I would really appreciate it if the mayor would do the mayor's job, which is taking care of the trash, taking care of the roads. There's so many things that the mayor is supposed to do. This is one of them. And for the mayor to come here, and in the same day, request that she gets to control zoning, and tell us exactly how we're going to do it, and tell us that we have to change this one corner, and it has to be this other, instead of MX2, it has to be MX1. And then we have to redo Mystic Ave. And we have to, you know, like the number of things she wants to control in the zoning, which is not her job. She should be a little busier. figuring out how to do the trash and the compost and not come here and tell us that we have to make a motion to fix the botched job that she just did. So please, if the mayor can do the mayor's job, we will do our job.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Councilor Tseng.

[Justin Tseng]: I'm just going to be really quick because I, you already covered it President Bears, but I find it extremely frustrating when the record about what this council heard and voted on years ago, back in 2023 is misleading. I, it's not, we voted to, as you said, let the mayor enter into the contract negotiations for contracts more than three years. That was the vote. It wasn't on the substance that we're seeing and talking about here tonight. This, as Councilor Leming mentioned, this effort to pass the buck to a non-binding volunteer task force isn't accepting responsibility. And I just find this practice of trying to point fingers instead of coming to the table and just having a vivid conversation about how we want to continue our trash program and restructure it and pay for it. It's just frustrating to me.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. We do have a motion by Councilor Callahan, seconded by. One second, thank you. Motion by Councilor Callahan, seconded by. It's the paper that we're It's the resolution and as amended by Councilor Tseng and Councilor Scarpelli. So we have the original paper as amended with Councilor Scarpelli's points and Councilor Tseng's points. All right. Is there any further discussion by members of the Council on the motion? Seeing none, Madam Chief of Staff.

[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you, President Bears. Look, I would like to get to a place where all of us do what you just described, Councilor, saying, because I don't think, it's very difficult for me to hear some of the comments that are made at city council meetings and not come back and rebut them. because I think some things are just absolutely wild sometimes. I mean, your recent comments, not your comments specifically, but your comments, Councilor Tseng, I think you're unaware of some of the things that were stated back in 2023. Please direct your comments to the Chair, thank you. Yes, thank you, President Bears, for the reminder. I think Councilor Tseng is unaware of some of the comments that were presented back in 2023 when the Council received these recommendations from the task force, and I appreciate I've worked alongside a lot of volunteers in my career, and I greatly appreciate them. So, you know, again, people can put words in my mouth, people can put words in the mayor's mouth, but look, this is a two-way street. If we want to work together, President Bears and council members, let's work together. If we want to continue to lop things at each other, then, you know, I'm, you know, And I don't think the mayor, and I wanna speak for the mayor, I don't think we're gonna sit quietly and just allow that to occur at city council meetings. I've got a list of things Councilor Collins stated back in 2023 about how effectively excited, that's my characterization, not hers necessarily, she was about this contract. And while certainly the council did not vote on a motion on the specifics of this contract, the fact of the matter is there was a July 25th, 2023 meeting where an hour was spent on discussing the contents of that contract, which included bi-weekly. I have seven copies of the slides that were mentioned that were received by the council at the time that specifically state that we're talking about every other week trash collection. I can happily distribute that, but to suggest that These things weren't necessarily things that were discussed back then, or the Council had no purview. The Council almost always has requested Committee of the Whole meetings in anticipation of large votes, such as extending a 10-year contract. The Council could have theoretically voted no on a 10-year extension on the heels of the one-hour long discussion when it was specifically discussed that trash pickup would be every other week. So thank you.

[Zac Bears]: I'm gonna recognize Councilor Tseng, but I don't think, right, this is what people don't want. We raise our concerns and it's, you know, guess we're not going to sit idly by. Once more under the breach, the cannons fire. Um, we're going to start quoting people from meetings years ago. If we want to talk about that meeting, right. It was, uh, there's an option in the contract to go to every other week. And here's all the things we're going to do to make that a reality. And here we are today. Those things weren't done. And it feels like it's not going to be able to be made reality. Um, I think the really hard thing I have here is, right, like, no one talked to the city council about putting out a press release, and now it's our fault? You wrote it. Own it. You wrote it. Own it. If you want to include us, as we've been asked to be included, we can't even get our stuff posted on the city website. The mayor won't send out city council newsletters using the city newsletter list because it's her list. So no, I'm not gonna be accountable for your press releases. And this council is not gonna be accountable for your press releases. It's not gonna happen. We're not covering for other people's mistakes. Don't put it in paragraph 10. That's it. Say what you're doing. We're going to every other week trash. Say it six months ago. Say it and say there's a public forum. There's three public forums over the next few months where we're gonna talk about how to make it work. Don't spin it. in a press release that says big grant. We got a grant 200,000. Also, you're losing a week of trash. I didn't write that press release. So I'm happy to collaborate. If you want to collaborate on every press release that goes out, we'll vote on every one before it goes out. I'm here for it. Sadly, that's not what the city charter says. Strong mayor, weak council. Own it. Councilor Tseng.

[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, I just don't want this to get into a back and forth, but I, I just wanted to put on the record that I find a lot of what was said personally offensive and patronizing. I think that in the characterizations of those meetings, and we did talk about this, I even acknowledge that we talked about this. In my first remarks on this, you expounded on those conversations just now. What's conveniently left out is that we were also told at the same time that we would evaluate if the city was ready for this after an outreach process. And we would make plans for alternative paths, including weekly cash pickup. And that was part of the conversation before we took a vote on authorizing the mayor to negotiate the contract. I just want to set the record straight on that.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Vice President Collins?

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Bears, and I'll make this quick. because I think we've said all we need to say here. And I think the bottom line is it's important that the community know what the levers are and where the jurisdiction lies with this policy. And I think at least in this meeting, we've done what we can to advance correct information. But to the point that was recently made, yeah, I think that characterization is just fine. I was excited in the meeting two years ago. I'm glad that such scrupulous notes were being taken about my mood. I was excited about the specter of this policy being done right. I wasn't lying when I said I was excited about waste reduction. I ran on that. It's important to me. It's important to a lot of people in Medford. This is something that we share. This is a shared value. Environmentalism, waste reduction, carbon emission reduction. I'm not opposed to the policy. I'm opposed to the avoidant, backhanded, unaccountable, untransparent way that it's being rolled out that is spoiling our chances for this going forward productively, which I think is really important. I care about the process because I want this outcome to be successful. I already said that. I said that 20 minutes ago. I said it two years ago. We need the administration to step up and do this right. And that's what we're asking for.

[Zac Bears]: On the motion of Councilor Callahan, seconded by Councilor Lazzaro, as amended by Councilor Scarpelliian-Seng. Do we want to amend it to just, we can apparently vote to just end it right now if we want. Sorry, I had no idea that we were the mayor. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Callahan. Vice President Collins.

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Lazzaro. Councilor Leming. Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Tseng. President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Yes, I have an affirmative, none of the negative. The motion passes. Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: I would like to pull item 25-124 from the table.

[Zac Bears]: On the motion by Councilor Callahan to take paper 25-124 off the table, seconded by, seconded by Councilor Leming. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Kelly?

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Vice President Collins?

[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Lazzaro? Yes. Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli? Yes. Councilor Tseng?

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.

[Zac Bears]: Yes, 70 affirmative and a negative. The motion passes. Paper 25124, tree committee ordinance. And there's an amended copy of the tree committee ordinance at the back of our packets. Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. So this is our third meeting. It has been here before. It has since gone through just a little bit of legal review as well as some tiny revisions from the DPW commissioner. I think this is in really good shape. Again, this basically sets up a tree committee for the city of Medford, where volunteers will be able to serve on that committee, and it will essentially assist the tree warden and the DPW with things like educating the public, helping with tree hearings, you know, reviewing and reporting on annual report of tree planting and promoting materials. and assisting the tree warden with the duties. And so I'm very excited for this to get passed.

[Justin Tseng]: I just want to thank Councilor Callaghan on her really hard work on this ordinance. This is something that I had before me years ago during my first term, and it's been really challenging to get it out of the council. And it's a real testament to Councilor Callaghan that she's been able to get this component done. I know trees is something that's important to our community and to equity and to us and to climate, but I also know it's a really deeply important issue to Councilor Callahan as well. So I just really want to celebrate this. I'm very happy to second the motion. This is a huge step forward, and especially when we think about development, zoning in the city, this is the type of stuff we need to go along with that at work.

[Zac Bears]: On the motion by Councilor Callahan to approve for first reading, seconded by Councilor Tseng, Councilor Lazzaro. This is This is first reading. It is. It hasn't been advertised yet. It's first reading. It was tabled in council, but it was never approved for first reading. So this is an approval for first reading. Sorry. Well, you could move to waive the three weeks if it requires unanimous consent. Seriously or not? Do you want to waive the three readings and approve and ordain? All right. On the motion by Councilor Callahan to waive the three readings and approve, seconded by Councilor Scarpelli, Councilor Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: I was just going to, I was going to second. I didn't realize Councilor Tsengam was seconding. I appreciate all of Councilor Callahan's work as well. She's the Lorax, she speaks for the trees. I would support waiving the three readings too. I think there's been extensive work done on this, really collaborative. I don't think we need to do the full process and I would support that.

[Zac Bears]: This has gone through a lot of revisions.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Quite a lot of revision and time, yes.

[Zac Bears]: Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: I do want to make sure to thank Therese Medford, which worked incredibly hard on this and the other two tree ordinances that we will see later. I also want to thank Councilor Collins, who worked on this. Am I correct in saying that Councilor Morell also worked on this previously? So I really appreciate all the work of many, many years. Councilor Bears, I want to thank everyone who worked on this, and especially Trees Medford. They have been absolutely vital, not only in this and the other tree ordinances, but in protecting our tree canopy here in Medford.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, and I think it goes without saying that this went through councilors over like three councils, so definitely former Council President Morell, Councilors who served with us in the 2020 to 2022 term as well. All right. On the motion by Councilor Callahan to approve, to ordain, waive the three readings and ordain, seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. Is there any public comment on this? No one has raised their hand on Zoom. Anyone in the chamber? Julia, you're a champ for coming to this for one thing and sticking it out to the end. Oh, Micah.

[Micah Kesselman]: Micah Castleman, 499 Main Street. This is a great ordinance. Congratulations. Super excited to see it. Trees are important. And actually, trees are super important. It's great that we care about them in our city. Thank you, Councilor Fallahan for bringing this into the finish line.

[Zac Bears]: All right, and we have a comment on Zoom. Meg. Meg Mars, name and address for the record, please. You have three minutes.

[Megan Marrs]: Hi, Megan. 71 Clark Street. I've been sticking out this whole time because I really just want to say how excited I am about this committee. You know, I walk my dog every day in my neighborhood in the summer. It's like really, really grueling. We don't have a lot of trees in the hillside area. And I think people kind of overlook trees as just something kind of extra. But when you make it a better experience to be outside and in your community, It just does so much for building neighborhood connections, community connections. Like really having good trees does so much. It reduces speed. Studies have shown that tree canopies can naturally be a great traffic calming measure. And I'm just super excited about it because it's so important in so many ways. So thank you so much for getting this passed.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Meg. Any further public comment on this proposed ordinance? Seeing none, on the motion to ordain for third reading by Councilor Callahan, seconded by Councilor Scarpelli, waiving the three readings. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

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

[Jennifer Yanko]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Lazzaro. Yes. Councilor Leming. Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Tseng.

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Marie Izzo]: President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Yes. I have an affirmative, none the negative. The motion passes. Public participation. Is there anyone who'd like to speak on anything? Come on up. Yes. We've got one person. You have a question? All right, we'll take it. Name and address for the record, you have three minutes.

[Lisa Serio]: Yeah, Lisa Sario on 19 Paul Road, Medford Mass. I just wanted to say that last week at the last minute, just like this, Andrew came up and made a really important kind of like comment about the veterans. And he actually, she had a really nice prayer too. And I think that we just didn't do that justice last week when we talked about the veterans because kind of like important really important that we honor them and appreciate them. So I was thinking maybe next year, instead of it being like a, you know, not important issue. I mean, George said thank you to Andrew, but I mean, I think that somebody, we should do something like maybe for the Wounded Warrior Project or something where we kind of like help out. Cause it's like important. I get mad when people, I have a, I live with a gold star widow. So I know that it's like, can be forgotten, you know, but I just think it shouldn't be forgotten. So, and Andrew brought it up and then it was just like, you know, whatever. You know, no one said anything like, Oh, thank you for remembering, you know, wasn't remembered I mean ice was remembered but like the veterans weren't remembered, you know, so I think it's important and I'm not I don't want to mean, I don't mean that in a, in a negative way I'm just saying. It's just like something important that I think that we should try to do something next year. If Veterans Day is on the – well, you'll always hit it, right?

[Zac Bears]: Well, it's always the 11th, and that moves around.

[Lisa Serio]: Oh, okay. So sometimes you won't hit it on the – Right. Okay, cool. So then maybe we can do something like that. collect something for the Wounded Warrior Project, or do something like that. Or just even have a veteran come in and talk about his history. Anyway, just kind of bothered me that nobody said anything about it last week. It was just kind of like, oh, yeah, well, OK. It's important. That's what I think. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Lisa, for your comment. And I just want to let you know, and maybe Councilor Leming could speak a little more to this. You know, it doesn't always get mentioned at the city council meetings, but the city did have a couple of events for veterans day. I think there were some service oriented events. I think there's some stuff going on over the next month. So it doesn't always come up here, but the city was doing some, some veterans day related work. I don't know Councilor Leming, if you want to mention, I think you attended an event. Yeah. Understood. Thank you. I appreciate it. I appreciate your comment. Thanks for sharing it. And I'll go to the podium, name, and address for the record. Please, you have three minutes.

[Micah Kesselman]: Mike S1499 Main Street. I am here again in my ongoing campaign just to continue to bring attention to the administration's failure to take ICE seriously or acknowledge it at all in any real or effective way, even though we are seeing abductions, people gone from our city and our community on a weekly basis nearly. I'm very tired. It's hard for me to get too riled up for this one. And it's also been a very pleasant meeting otherwise. But it is still an issue. The administration still has failed to protect a number of its residents. For those who are watching, such that there are many watching at this point, there is a committee of public health and safety. committee meeting tomorrow, where the MPD, the Metro Police Department, will pretend to comply with some of the very meager asks that have been given to them. But Some of us will be presenting actual data about what's been happening in our city at that committee as well. So I hope that as many residents as possible will Zoom in or show up in person to that. Cause it's really important. People are being kidnapped and disappeared and it's not good.

[Zac Bears]: There's a meeting in the chambers. It's the city council's public health and community safety committee chaired by councilor Lazzaro. 6 p.m. Wednesday, November 19, 6 p.m. I recognize Councilor Lazzaro. You want to share anything more about that, Councilor Lazzaro?

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. Yes, Chief Buckley will be here 6 p.m. tomorrow here in the chambers and we will talk about the report that was submitted by the police department. Chief Buckley has been out for a number of months on health with health issues, but he is much better now. So I'm eager to speak with him about that and have the community be able to hear where we're at as a city. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Go back to the podium. Julia, I know you said you had a question. Name and address for the record.

[Julia Foster]: I had stated earlier that it was my understanding reading the 2023 slides and listening to that meeting. that sort of there was a trash compost trade-off that if we did the compost, we'd have to switch to every two weeks. But it sounds like based on the chief of staff, that it's actually the other way around. We can't afford to do the weekly. We have to switch to two weeks. And compost doesn't cost much was the way that it was presented, I think. And it actually is helping to mitigate some of the harm of the every two weeks. And I just wanted to make sure I understood one way or the other, because it is a difference in what Like if it's decoupled, if compost is just helping and it's not the fault of every two weeks, I think that should be made very clear so that people don't blame compost for every two weeks.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah. I honestly, A, I'm also trying to remember things that happened 30 months ago at this point. My understanding is that you're largely correct, that the second truth is correct, that composting is not doing composting is not costing us so much that we can't do trash every week. The issue is that the contract for waste removal has been going up at a very high rate, and we pay a lot for basically the weight of trash and also recycling.

[Julia Foster]: So compost reduces the trash weight, and because it happens weekly, it also cuts down the disgusting level every two weeks.

[Zac Bears]: But I don't know, there were a bunch of other factors and considerations that were supposed to be discussed about the possibility of moving to every other week trash. Like basically, if I remember correctly, they were like, well, we want 4,000 people on composting the first year, 8,000 the second year, 12,000 the third year, and then we'll feel like maybe we could make a decision about going to every other week trash after that point. We're in year... We're at 18 months of the new contract, so we're in the middle of year two. I don't know that we're at 8,000 households, you know, even using the composting system, and then I don't know what the plan is around that. And it sounded like, from what the Chief of Staff said tonight, that A, there is some, there is a plan. It just hasn't been put out and, you know, they talked about doing this before they said what their plan to do it was. We don't know what that plan is. I don't know if it's gonna meet the conditions of our resolution, quite frankly. I think that's my big concern. I don't know the answer. That's what I remember from 30 months ago. And I think the real answer here is the city will have to pay to keep every week trash, right? We were gonna have to do that with or without this plan. We've been having to do that for 15 years, figure out how to pay for the trash contract. and the mayor could present a plan that says here's the trade-off, or here's how we're going to pay for it, or like Councilor Scarpelli said, is there a way to direct fines and fees from certain trash-related things into the program? But I think the real issue is we don't know what the mayor's plan is other than that. She's now announced that we're doing this, kind of.

[Julia Foster]: Thank you, I appreciate that. I just wanted to make sure compost didn't get blamed for the biweekly, as really the help that it is.

[Zac Bears]: And I think that's the really the most important thing is we need to get accurate information, understand the actual cost of everything, and then people will have a better understanding of what the choices are before the city.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. All right. Any further public comment on the motion adjourned by Councilor Lazzaro, seconded by Councilor Callahan. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Callahan.

[Zac Bears]: Vice President Collins.

[SPEAKER_11]: Okay. Yes. Sorry. Go ahead. No. You call the roll Mr. Clerk.

[Marie Izzo]: Vice President Collins. Yes. Councilor Lazzaro. Councilor Leming. Councilor Scapelli. Councilor Tseng. President Boos.

[Zac Bears]: Yes. I have a motion passes meeting adjourned. Okay.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay.

[Zac Bears]: So one second.

Zac Bears total time: 53.69 minutes total words: 3814	Justin Tseng total time: 10.79 minutes total words: 729	George Scarpelli total time: 15.55 minutes total words: 817	Anna Callahan total time: 17.08 minutes total words: 1146
Emily Lazzaro total time: 8.44 minutes total words: 778	Matt Leming total time: 10.73 minutes total words: 772	Kit Collins total time: 18.01 minutes total words: 806	Nick Giurleo total time: 2.41 minutes total words: 53