AI-generated transcript of City Council 12-02-25

[Zac Bears]: The 22nd regular meeting, Medford City Council, December 2nd, 2025 is called to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

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

[Zac Bears]: President Pierce. Present. Seven present, none absent. Please rise to salute the flag. Announcements, accolades, remembrances, reports, and records. Records. The records of the meeting of November 18th, 2025 were passed to Councilor Callahan. Councilor Callahan, how did you find those records? Oh, your mics are switched. Are all the mics switched? Great. Wow, this is a mess. This is yours.

[Anna Callahan]: I found the records in order and I move to approve.

[Zac Bears]: Great. On the motion to approve by Councilor Callahan seconded by seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. All those in favor. Opposed. The motion passes. Reports of committees 2 5 1 7 8 and 2 4 4 6 1 offered by Council President Bears. Committee of the Whole. Is that right? Sorry. One second. Here we'll do this one first. 25179 and 24-461 offered by council is our Public Health and Community Safety Committee, November 19th, 2025. Give me a vamp a little bit, will you?

[Emily Lazzaro]: Sorry?

[Zac Bears]: Just take a little extra time, I got to.

[Emily Lazzaro]: I'll vamp, yeah, I can vamp. This was a meeting about the report on ICE activity in Medford from our Medford Chief of Police who has returned for medical leave. We were happy to welcome him back. And he presented the report. We discussed it. That was what that meeting was about. And is President Bears ready for the next section? Motion to approve.

[Zac Bears]: I can do, if you don't mind me doing mine. Please. 25178, it just, there was an extra paper number in there and I was like, this is not right. We had a presentation from Transom Real Estate and Committee of the Whole. Is there a motion to approve both papers?

[Emily Lazzaro]: Motion to approve both papers.

[Zac Bears]: On the motion to approve both reports by Councilor Lazzaro, seconded by? Seconded by Councilor Callahan. All those in favor?

[SPEAKER_04]: Aye.

[Zac Bears]: Opposed? Motion passes. Hearings 25160 submitted by the Office of Planning Development and Sustainability. Proposed amendments to the Medford zoning ordinance, Salem Street neighborhood quarter district map change. So we have continued this public hearing for a couple of meetings now. We've had robust discussion. There has been more communications, emails sent by the mayor. I believe Councilor Leming has had some conversations with the mayor. So I'm going to turn over to Councilor Leming. We also did receive a communication at some point today which I have printed in front of me. I have it here, yeah. So I'll just read that. December 2nd, 2025, regarding resolution 25160, proposed amendments to the Bedford zoning ordinance as was requested at the, dear President Bears and members of the city council, as was requested at the November 18th, 2025 city council meeting. I'm submitting this letter under resolution 25160 to share with you the enclosed draft joint press release finalized by Councilor Leming and me. that I am prepared to issue once the Salem Street neighborhood quarter district map change has been voted on by the council. Specifically, I'm again requesting the council amend the zoning map to change the designation from MX2 to MX1 for the parcels within the Salem Street and Park Street node as shown on the map entitled Salem Street Corridor Zoning dated March 3rd, 2025. Respectfully submitted Breanna Lungo-Koehn, Mayor. We have a draft here. Mayor and city council agree to restart zoning project at the December 2nd, 2025 Medford city council meeting. This would be if that vote was taken. The mayor and city council agreed on a plan to restart the city zoning updates project. The city will sign an extension and provide additional resources to advance key zoning priorities in Medford square, Tufts and Boston Ave between now and May, 2026. The city will solicit new proposals starting in February, March for work on zoning updates between May 2026 and June 2028 with a one-year extension, if not complete. The mayor in collaboration with the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability will appropriate funding to sign a contract extension with NS Land Group to perform work in the following areas from December 2025 to May 2026. full Bedford Square zoning update, Tufts Institutional Zone and Boston Ave, clean up areas of our zoning in accordance with the needs of the Building Commissioner and Office of Planning Development and Sustainability and Communications and Community Engagement Support. The Mayor will additionally request that the City Council and Community Development Board hold a joint public hearing in January to discuss the rezoning proposal for Medford Square and West Medford Square that is currently sitting in the Community Development Board. Following this, a request for proposals for a new contract will be released to bidders in February-March, and a proposal will be selected in April to begin work in May 2026 and continue through June 2028. This RFP will include Main Street and Broadway. Corridors, the initiation of a parking study through planning, development and sustainability. Wellington-Mystic Valley Parkway after the completion of the Wellington Transformation Study. West Medford Square after the completion of the West Medford Economic Assessment and SWOT Analysis. Mystic Avenue after the Tufts UEP Field Project Proposal for Mystic Avenue Corridor. Residential, including ADUs and historic conversion, starting with the less dense residential zoning map that the Council approved in March 2025 as a starting point, which could be adjusted based on neighborhood input. The map released by the Community Development Board from May 2025 will not be the starting point. Parking will take place at the same time as residential zoning. Transportation demand management review inclusionary zoning updates and affordable housing overlay. Other agreements include an RFP and additional funds for a public relations consultant to engage in more robust community engagement, including a professionally designed standalone zoning website, support for neighborhood meetings, and better outreach into the community ahead of zoning meetings via mailers, text messages, robocalls, and social media. The council and the mayor will work together on whether or not this should be a standalone RFP. No new zoning amendments will be presented during July and August. Department heads will be consulted from the beginning on all of the above. At the December 2nd meeting, the council voted to rezone parts of the Salem Park node from MX2 to MX1 following a September request from the mayor. So that's the full draft. Thank you Councilor Leming for working on it and I will turn it over to you and then we can go to discussion from the council and then we'll reopen the public hearing. Councilor Leming.

[Matt Leming]: Yes. Thank you, Council President Bears. This, following the last city council meeting where members of this body requested that the full agreement be written out in detail and sent out in a press release, I worked with the mayor and the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability on hammering out the exact wording of a press release so that we can then vote to endorse it. Subsequently, the mayor and the communications team will release it. I think this will make it clear what with what the rezoning process will entail moving forward. I think a consistent pattern in this process that pretty much everybody has agreed upon is that communication has been lacking both within City Hall and among the general public. And having a press release coming from the mayor and endorsed by the city council will go a long ways towards building trust in the process moving forward. And it will also give us something to point to regarding sort of what we agreed upon. I think that individual members of this council in the preceding meetings have made it very clear what their views on this are individually. So I'm not gonna speak for anybody else here, but I personally feel like this, what's written out here does provide us with a very solid framework moving forward. And I thank the mayor's office for working with me on it. In terms of moving forward, I would, I'm not sure if we would have to motion to close the public hearing first, but I would motion to, I think that the two motions would be to approve the amendment and then follow, and then contingent upon its approval, motion for a B paper to endorse the wording of this proposal as well.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, just procedurally we have to reopen the public hearing and then we'll close the public hearing and then we would have to vote on any B paper before voting on the main paper.

[Matt Leming]: Wait, so we'd have to vote to endorse this prior to the actual Salem Street? Yeah. Okay, okay.

[Zac Bears]: Well. But we can get there once we've done the, once we've closed the public hearing, I'll take the motions. Gotcha.

[Matt Leming]: All right.

[Zac Bears]: Great.

[Matt Leming]: That's all I have to say. All right.

[Zac Bears]: to Councilor Scarpelli, then Councilor Lazzaro, then Council Vice President Collins. Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Right. So, Council, I believe that we were talking about the press release going public first before we did. We went through any votes, correct? Is that we wanted it to go public so people can chime in and bring us back to where we were. I think that's one of the things we talked about is having people see what the mayor is saying and then people can look into this and then as part of the process that we've talked about being communicated and making sure that everybody sees the process. And then, so I wasn't expecting for a vote for that tonight. I was expecting to vote on the press release going out to the public and then at our next meeting, uh, receiving any of the feedback that we have from the residents in that, and especially in the Salem street area that have been reaching out to us. Um, so, Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that that's the way to go.

[Zac Bears]: To be honest, I was not part of the negotiations. Okay.

[George Scarpelli]: I wasn't either, so.

[Zac Bears]: From reading this, it seems like the mayor is saying that she's only willing to put out a press release after a vote, but I'll let Councilor Leming talk about that.

[Matt Leming]: Sure. I should say that this was hammered out between between the two of us, and I fully understand what you're saying. I think there is a bit of a chicken and egg issue where we would want the press release to go out and then vote on it, but the mayor would sort of want it the other way around, and it's just a matter of the body's not really. I think there is a matter of trust between the bodies. So what I propose, and this proposal did come from me, so, was to pass it and then if, well, we did end up voting in favor of the amendment, then vote to endorse this press release, assuming that members of this council wanted the press, like, endorse the wording of the press release. So, again, I think that, I fully hear what you're saying. I think it was, I think there was a bit of a chicken and egg issue going on there, and I, We'll say that the press release went out tonight. The press release only got to us in a draft form today, so we didn't have, individuals didn't have too much time to review it. What I will say is that for this, in this particular case, this was the result of me actually trying to work with the administration on this. So at least there is one member of the body trying to be, you know, we are trying to be a little bit collaborative in this case. But I would be interested in hearing from my colleagues on what their opinions on the process should be moving forward. Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President, and I appreciate Councilor Leming, you know, reaching out and being that olive branch, I think that we all want to see this move forward one way or the other so we can get to a resolution. But I think that, you know, it's the who's on first game where, again, this is where we vote on something tonight without getting the input of what has been publicly released. And then it comes back to the council saying, there you go again. We asked for a transparent and open form of government, but we're doing something privately because we've heard that a thousand times the last couple of weeks, right? Everything's being done in a bubble and even the council doesn't know what's going on at times. So I don't know. I don't know if I can support it, a vote until, I would vote to move the press release to go public, but I, you know, So, I'm gathering she wants us to vote on, I don't know, I'm talking into riddles right now. So, I need to, yeah, go ahead if you can, yeah.

[Zac Bears]: Maybe we can go around or, go ahead Matt, Councilman. I could, well, yeah, sorry.

[Matt Leming]: I do appreciate what you're saying with wanting to get feedback from residents on what the process ought to be. But I will repeat, I think it does become a bit of a chicken and egg issue because if the press release were phrased in such a way that, I don't know, I do think it would be, a bit odd to release, to give out a press release with like a details of what the rezoning process could be and say this is, this is just one draft, this is just one possibility the way things could go. Please residents come back and, you know, tell us, tell us what you, what you think it should be. I, I. Yeah.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah. And, and I think just, you know, we're approving this draft release. We then have to have a meeting. on the substance of it, both the. We have to have a meeting to restart the first phase of that process. We have to have a meeting on writing the RFP. I think there's room for engagement. And I would like to see, to be honest, like maybe in this first phase that some of the communication support would be talking about the meeting about the RFP for the second phase, you know. But I agree with you. I mean, my personal preference was also that a public statement was made before it came back to us. And it seems like that wasn't where we ended up. Yeah. Yeah. But I hear you. I hear you. Yeah. Yeah. And good counseling. Yeah.

[Matt Leming]: The other point, and I should just say the reason that I kind of do want to get this done tonight is in full transparency, the CDB, they have a meeting on the residential rezoning proposal on December 17th, which they only have because it was delayed from the last time it was discussed, I believe, June or July, and I would, if we get this published, which essentially is an agreement between the council and the mayor that we're then showing to the public on how this project will move forward, then I would I think that provides us like a little bit of, you know, solid ground on which we can proceed. And I would like to then submit a resolution at the next meeting to actually withdraw that resolution, to actually withdraw the residential rezoning proposal from the CDB. So, yeah.

[Zac Bears]: Okay. Okay. Yeah, I mean I think that sounds like a path forward. This is a start. As I read this, it's a starting point. Details to come in terms of some of the, we're not saying exactly when everything's going to happen. It's still a framework. Councilor Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you to the Mayor's Office, the Planning, Development, and Sustainability Office, and Councilor Leming for hammering out the details of this. There were a lot of different people with a lot of different requests being made over a period of time. on this topic and it's very easy for it to get muddy. So I just appreciate that everybody was coming together and trying to figure out how to move forward on this project in a way that was cohesive. I'm comfortable moving forward with this. I've said everything I had to say. on the topic and I feel good about where we landed based on what we have here. And as you said, being able to hammer out the details as we move forward, I think it's still, it's still, that's still available to us. So I think that's fine. Thank you very much again.

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

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Bears. I appreciate the discussion around this. I'm happy to see this reach this point. And I also want to thank Councilor Leming for bringing it home, so to speak. We've had a lot of conversations about this for the past... over our two meetings in November and I think I've made it pretty clear in our past two meetings and in my private conversations with the mayor my list of needs things that I needed to see to Not things that I needed to see to be able to support the Salem Street Amendment because I do support that and I was ready to vote yes on that but things that I need to see in order to take that vote at all. And I think we've closed a lot of distance between where she started and my list of needs and other Councilors lists of needs. And I'm really happy to see that and I'm glad we've gotten to the point where we can take the vote on the Salem Street Amendment and be done with that. And I'm even more glad that we've reached the point where we can say with certainty to the community that has been invested in visioning the future of planning in Medford for five years and that has been invested in conversations about rezoning in Medford. for two years that yes, we have a confirmed path forward. We have a, to me, this is a public commitment. It's not yet a press release. It will be, but it's public record now. And that was very important to me to be able to see, to be able to, that was a critical ingredient for me to be able to take a vote on the Salem Street Amendment. Because frankly, I've said this before, but I'll say it again. I think the city council's approach has been collaborative throughout this process. I think that city staff's approach has been collaborative throughout this process. I think that collaboration breakdown has been in the mayor's office. And that is why we had to say, We will, we have to retain this chip of leverage that we have until we get a guarantee from your office that you will collaborate with us going forward. And I'm sorry that we had to play it like that. But I think if you look at where we started six weeks ago or back in late July and where we are now. the proof is in the pudding. So I really appreciate my fellow Councilors for sticking their necks out for a process that is what the community deserves. I'm very happy that we'll be able to jointly publish this press release and be able to say the community, we will really, we'll hammer out the details later. We'll hammer out the details in January and February, but we will be crafting an RFP that unlike the last one, we'll ask for, adequate resources for community engagement and communications and public participation. And we'll cover all of these topics without rushing and with less confusion. That is what the community has been asking for. That is what the community deserves. And I am really excited to see what that looks like over the next two or three years. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Vice President Collins. Any more comments or questions from members of the council? Seeing none at this time, I'm gonna reopen the public hearing. If you're here in person and you'd like to speak on this topic, this is the proposed amendment for Salem Street zoning. You can come to the podium or if you're on Zoom, you can raise your hand. Public hearing is open. Seeing one hand, and I will go there in just a second. I do want to note this is our third meeting of this continued public hearing, and we have had several people speak on this in previous public hearings. Give me one second, Micah. All right. name and address for the record, please, and you'll have three minutes.

[Micah Kesselman]: Mike Kesselman 499 Main Street. I just want to say that I'm glad to see that this is finally coming to closure after a long and arduous back and forth. But I do want to gets some clarity on something. Am I understanding right that the mayor basically got this to the city council just today, this afternoon?

[Zac Bears]: Micah, I'll answer questions at the end of your comment. Okay, sure.

[Micah Kesselman]: Well, okay, so if that is my understanding, I just, I think it is really bears pointing out that this is like a pattern of behavior that is making all processes that go before the council and require collaboration with the mayor far more difficult and challenging than they need to be. This is the mayor's full time job. This is none of no single Councilor has this as their full time job. This like last minute it you know, sometimes dog ate my homework type type of handing in of deliverables that need to be vetted and reviewed by the council really needs to improve. It's very challenging. Also challenging for the public too, because we also want to see what's going on and look at what's submitted. So anyway, I'm happy to see that this is finally coming to a close. So thanks to you guys. And also thanks to the mayor for working with you guys on it.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, yeah, we received this by email at 4.30, 4 p.m. today. Do we have any, and actually at 5.30, well, actually I'm not sure we all received it, I'm not sure. I received it at 4.30, 4 p.m. today. Councilor Leming?

[Matt Leming]: Well, just to clarify sort of the, back and forth, I believe an initial draft was sent out, I think it was Monday or Monday or Tuesday, or no, sorry, no, sorry, an initial draft was sent out at some time last week, and then there was, I did have a back and forth with the mayor on just like wording that would be more acceptable, and there were just, There are just some points of sort of contention that I know that my colleagues expressed at the previous meeting as well. And so, yes, the final draft of this did come out quite late before this meeting, but there But from what I was seeing on the back end, there wasn't any particularly egregious delays from the mayor's end of things, at least within the past week. I think that it could have been improved if, you know, they, we started to work on a press release immediately after the last meeting, but that didn't happen. So, and obviously to address some of Micah's points, I don't, I didn't like this process. I don't think anybody did like this process. And a lot's been said about it at previous meetings, but I'm, I just want to move forward on it. And I think this is probably the best deal between both parties that we will end up getting.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Leming. Is there anyone else who would like to speak on this topic in the public hearing? Seeing no one in the chambers and no hands on Zoom, I'm declaring the public hearing closed. Is there a motion? Well, Councilor Leming, you had two motions. If you wanna, I can see if I can get them down myself. There was a motion for a B paper to approve the, here, you go ahead.

[Matt Leming]: Well, yeah, so I'm not sure about the order of it, but I would say the B paper would be approving the wording of the press release, and then the A paper would be the Salem Street amendment itself. And then, obviously, if the Salem Street vote fails, then the mayor doesn't actually have to release this.

[Zac Bears]: Got it, do we have any questions? So I have a motion on a B paper to approve the language of the draft press released, submitted by the mayor on Tuesday, December 2nd, by Councilor Leming. Is there a second on that motion? seconded by Councilor Tseng, and then we'll take a motion on the main paper. On the B paper, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

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

[Zac Bears]: Yes, seven the affirmative, none the negative, the motion passes. And then on the main paper, this is the motion to adopt the zoning amendment submitted to us by the Community Development Board, paper 25160. Let me just double check. And once again, this is from Danielle Evans, Senior Planner, Office of Planning Development Sustainability on behalf of the Community Development Board. The Community Development Board held a public meeting on September 17th, 2025 to consider a request from the Mayor to initiate a zoning amendment to the Salem Street Corridor District in accordance with the provisions of Mass General Law, Chapter 40A, Section 5. The proposed amendment as described in the attached memorandum from Mayor Lungo-Koehn to the Community Development Board dated September 15th, would amend the zoning map to change the designation from MX2 to MX1 for the parcels within the Salem Street and Park Street node as shown on the map entitled Salem Street Corridor Zoning dated March 3rd, 2025. Board members present at the meeting were Acting Chair Adam Behrens, Member John Anderson, Member Sean Began, Member Doug Carr, and Member Dina Collegero. Chief of Staff Nina Nazarian appeared before the board and presented the request. After consideration of the request, the Community Development Board voted unanimously 5-0 to submit the zoning amendment to the City Council as presented. So it's the motion to adopt the zoning amendment as presented by Councilor Leming, seconded by Councilor Tseng. Any further discussion? Seeing none, 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. I have an affirmative, none the negative. The motion passes. The zoning amendment is adopted. Communications from the mayor 25181. Offered by mayor, submitted by Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn. Affordable housing trust action plan and guidelines. Give me one second here again. Sorry, y'all. I'm just gonna take it online. One second, sorry. November 25th, 2025, regarding Affordable Housing Trust Action Plan and Guidelines 2025 to 2030. Dear President Bears and members of the City Council, the Medford Affordable Housing Trust Fund Board has prepared the enclosed Medford Affordable Housing Trust Fund Action Plan and Guidelines for the years 2025 to 2030. I respectfully request and recommend the council permit a presentation to be made to your honorable body on the planning guidelines. Medford Affordable Housing Trust Fund Board Chair Lisa Davidson and Trustee Roberta Cameron will be present to present the planning guidelines. Thank you for your kind attention to this matter. Sincerely, Breanna Lungo-Koehn, Mayor. So with that, I will recognize our Affordable Housing Trust Fund members, the Chair Lisa Davidson and Roberta Cameron.

[SPEAKER_03]: Hi, thank you for letting us present our action plan here. I'm Lisa Davidson, I am the chair of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund here in Medford. And we had slides to be able to show, I don't know.

[Unidentified]: I sent them to you.

[Roberta Cameron]: About 4.30 this afternoon.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. So anything you'd like to introduce while we wait for the slot.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, sure. While we're waiting for the slides, I'll just let you know. There's seven members of the trust. There is the mayor, myself as the chair, Penny Taylor as the vice chair, Kayla Lezen as the treasurer, Roberta Cameron here as a trustee as well as she sits on the Medford CPC, she chairs there. Kerry Weaver and the trustees, Kerry Weaver and Teta DeRosa are our trustee members. And we had a pretty active first year, which is, I'm gonna sort of wait for the, the slide here, because it shows, talks about our timeline. For the for, it's been a, it was a busy year. It was a, a whirlwind. We had our first meeting in August 2025. And we just did so much over the first year. Getting the action plan and the declaration of trust and putting everything together.

[Zac Bears]: Councilwoman, did you receive the slides? Which email are you sending?

[Roberta Cameron]: Okay, sorry.

[Matt Leming]: I'm sending it to mLeming at medford-ma.gov.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, you might want to throw the Gmail on. That might get through the spam filter faster. Sorry.

[Roberta Cameron]: Okay, I'll send it again.

[Matt Leming]: just send it to every email of mine that you have. I think I have like three.

[Roberta Cameron]: Okay. I've sent it a few times. Anyone have it?

[Zac Bears]: Feel free in the future to send it to Rich and he can get it out to everybody. Okay.

[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. I didn't know who to send it to.

[Zac Bears]: Yes.

[Roberta Cameron]: Confirm someone has it, or should I continue looking for email addresses?

[Matt Leming]: You got it, Matt? I still am looking through. Oh, no, no, no. I got something. I got something. Great.

[Zac Bears]: I found it in my Gmail. which is not where I was looking, but I forwarded it.

[Matt Leming]: Okay, now I'm pulling it up. It looks very pretty.

[Zac Bears]: I forwarded it to Matt, too, so eventually there will be slides on the screen for you to look at at some point.

[SPEAKER_03]: Roberto works so hard on the slides, and they make them so telecoordinated. Okay.

[Anna Callahan]: All right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks, Matt. All right. Thank you. Sorry about that. Yeah. And we can just skip right to slide three is our timeline. Yeah. Thank you. Of course the timeline is very small but because we were so busy this year we wanted to cram it all in on our on our slide show on what we've done. So just a refresher of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. It was in March of 2023, the ordinance was adopted that established the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. In July of 2024, the members were appointed to the trust. And then the fall of 2024 through the summer of 2025, there was a subcommittee that was formed to work on the draft plan. January 2025, we created the Declaration of Trust, which is now recorded at the Registry of Deeds. We received funding in the amount of $300,000 from the CPC to help create affordable housing, fill the financial gap of affordable housing. for the nonprofit partners that are building housing. In May of 2025, we issued our first NOFO, Notice of Funds Available. In August of 2025, we voted to approve our first loan. The Affordable Housing Trust Fund chose to make loans instead of grants. The funds that we award, it rolls back at us, and we can have a continued source of revenue to fund affordable housing. Let's see, fall of 2025, we applied for CPA, additional CPA funding, and we are now implementing the action, the, our action plan that we created.

[Roberta Cameron]: And I will take over introducing the action plan itself. The action plan, by the way, is available on the Housing Trust's webpage if anybody wants to refer to it. The action plan, we prepared it, as Lisa mentioned, over for, between the fall of 2024 and summer 2025. We went through first compiling data, looking at existing data to understand kind of what Medford's housing market looks like, who lives in Medford, and what our housing looks like and where the housing needs are in the community. Then we undertook some very extensive stakeholder outreach. We had a series of meetings with organizations, other government entities, non-profits, developers in the area. to understand what does it take to build housing in Medford? What do they see as Medford's housing needs and potential ways to address the housing needs? And what are some lessons learned that we could implement to be able to get up to speed very quickly? And then after gathering input from the stakeholders, we went and gathered public input. We had a public outreach meeting, a public workshop, where we presented the data and some of our findings and then asked for public input about housing needs and potential opportunities to address those housing needs. Then the housing trust board all together spent a few of our monthly meetings developing our goals and potential actions to undertake over the first five years for the housing trust. And then we presented this again to the public in July this past year and spent the subsequent months pulling together the final plan that you have in front of you. So the plan has, just to walk you through it, there is an executive summary starting on page five. And then there are three sections to the plan. The first section is analysis and context. the data analysis that we provided. The second section of the plan talks about the community engagement and stakeholder engagement efforts and what we learned from that. And then the third section of the plan is the action plan itself. which Lisa will talk more about in a moment, but I will go through the analysis and context with you. The first question that we asked is, who lives in Medford? And some really interesting things that we learned from the data. First of all, Medford gained over 4,000 young adults between 2010 and 2020. That's just really out and a figure that really stands out for us. All other age groups stayed about the same or lost population during this time, so we shifted toward a younger population. We're experiencing a significant increase in non-family households. especially in unrelated people living together or roommates. We're seeing a diminishing share of families, seniors, and people living alone. Medford is gaining in diversity in terms of its It's racial, ethnic mix. But interestingly, we have a smaller share of people with disabilities than the state average. And this might be because of the quality of housing that we have that doesn't accommodate people with disabilities, so they may be having to live elsewhere. So I accidentally skipped a slide, so we can just pause here for a moment. The next bit of data that we looked at is, what does Medford's housing look like? So, we learned that about 39% of our housing are single-family homes, 35% are small multi-families, that is, two to three family buildings, and 47% of our homes are renter-occupied, so just under half is renter-occupied. Most of our two to three family homes are around 100 years old. that the rate of all housing construction dropped sharply around 19 or before 1940. So in the last lifetime, most of the development has been single-family homes with some very large apartment buildings and condo buildings mixed in. Average assessed values of single family homes and condos have been increasing. They've, since between 2017 and 20, I forget which, what is the most recent year that's cited of assessor's data that's cited in the, for, in the, the market study. We've seen a 50 to 60% increase. over the past five years. Newer units are increasingly large and more expensive with average assessed values over a million dollars for single family homes built after 2000. We also saw from the assessor's data that housing has a lower value per unit as the number of units in a building increases. So that means that multifamily housing is inherently more affordable by per unit than single family or smaller multifamily housing. And we also learned, interestingly, that Medford lacks smaller sized units. Only 15% of our housing units have one bedroom, while almost 30% of our households have only one person. Plus, we learned about all of those roommate households earlier who might prefer to live in smaller housing units if they were available. Next slide, please. So who is struggling with housing costs in Medford? Around 5,500 households, that's about 25% of our households, are below 50% of area median income. That's a really large share. Two thirds of these households are housing cost burdened with a significant share spending more than half of their income on housing. Medford has a significant share of low-income homeowners. In particular, seniors over the age of 65 comprise one-third of all homeowners, and the median income for seniors' households is only $44,000. That's a really stark number that also stands out. The median household income for all households is $115,000. Young adults, renters, and non-family households have lower median incomes, but the disparity is less than the county or state level data. Median household income for renters, meanwhile, has increased rapidly, which reflects what it requires to move into Medford today, and it also reflects displacement because renters are being pushed out to market apartments to higher income households or to more roommate households. Note that a household by the definition that we measure income by is just anybody who lives in a housing unit. So those multiple roommates who live in a housing unit, each with their own income, contribute to higher household incomes. So it's not actually a growth in wages, it's a growth in the number of wage earners per housing unit that we have. So that's all of our local housing data. Next slide. We also looked at what are the existing resources that we have in the community. Right now, we have a total of just over 2,000 affordable housing units, which comprises 8.12% of our of our housing units citywide, which is the SHI number. That's a subsidized housing inventory number that we are looking to meet the minimum 10% threshold for. Most of our housing, affordable housing units are with the Medford Housing Authority. 851 of the units are public housing units, and then we also have 700 project-based Section 8 housing units, which are also subsidized through the Medford Housing Authority. We have also 49 units which are administered by the state to serve people with disabilities. And the remainder are privately owned affordable housing units, 289 of which are in 40B developments, which are not even constructed yet. So those units don't actually exist, but we already get to count them toward our subsidized housing inventory. So that's the picture. We also have about 2.3, we have about $2 million annually in the entire CPA program. Over six years, we've spent about $4 million on affordable housing. That's roughly 25% of the CPA money so far has been spent on affordable housing. We're also part of the North Suburban Home Consortium, which shares about 2.3 million among eight communities. So that's just the monetary resources that are available to non-profits today who are looking to build in Medford. That's not a lot of money, and so the Affordable Housing Trust is here to try to grow that resource that's available to support affordable housing development. One other thing I want to bring to your attention, I don't have a slide, but in the plan on page seven is a table that shows recent housing strategies and initiatives. This table summarizes the strategies and initiatives that are described in Medford's housing production plan and the comprehensive plan. A lot of these strategies as identified in the table have, some have been completed. Many of them are in progress right now. Some have not really gotten underway. And some of these are relevant to the Affordable Housing Trust. They may be things that the Affordable Housing Trust can help to address. Some of these are not in the, the prerogative of the Affordable Housing Trust. But we wanted to understand the context that we're working under. And with that, next slide, please. Just want to make sure. Oh, I did summarize what I just mentioned on this slide. So with that, I'd like to pass back over to Lisa to talk about the action plan for the Affordable Housing Trust. Thanks, Roberta.

[SPEAKER_03]: So the action plan, what are we going to do with all the data that we just did, right? The first thing we did was we created our mission. We do have a mission statement and our mission statement is to create and preserve community housing including affordable home ownership and rental opportunities and other forms of housing assistance to low and moderate income households, residents in Somerville, in Medford, excuse me, sorry. Next slide, please. And then our goals. I mean, we're here. We want to create affordable housing. We want to promote and welcome diverse, intergenerational, inclusive city with the mix of housing choices that offer diverse options to residents with varying needs and preferences. use our financial and property resources to help address the local housing needs and meet the production goals established in the housing production plan. We want to foster safe, well-designed, accessible, sustainable housing, integrated, affordable, and diverse housing options throughout the city. We want to expand local capacity to implement housing initiatives by building partnerships with mission-driven organizations and developers seeking to build affordable housing. Increase communication about housing resources across the community. We want to build affordable housing partnerships with the mission-driven organizations and developers seeking to build affordable housing as well as the Medford Housing Authority. We want to preserve and convert existing housing to long-term affordability, support existing homeowners and first-time home buyers. Next slide. Fund housing, housing stability programs and prioritizing funding for units affordable to households with lower, lower incomes. And then the next slide. We have a lot that we want to do, right? We want to build relationships with the Community Preservation Committee, advocate for affordable housing developments and policies that maximize the resources available to meet the city's housing needs, explore and act upon funding opportunities for the trust, Work with developers to build support and navigate approval process. Work with partner organizations to establish programs that meet local needs. Support initiatives to expand tenant protections and stabilize existing tenancies. Provide guidance on the affordable housing projects funded through the CPA programs. Next. And then the trust's commitments to working with the non-profit partners, Medford Housing Authority, Community Development Corporations, Community Land Trust, the Community Housing Development Organizations, otherwise known as our CHODOs, and comprehensive permit projects. And that is our plan. Does anybody have any questions?

[Zac Bears]: We have questions from members of the council and thank you Councilman Eken and the screen share.

[Matt Leming]: Councilman Lemmick.

[Roberta Cameron]: Yes.

[Matt Leming]: Thank you very much for the presentation. I'm glad to see this, glad to see this taking off. Glad, happy to, looking forward to voting to endorse the plan. What initiatives do you expect will take up, will you be doing day to day over about the next year? So what issues do you think will fill up your agendas in the next 12 months or so?

[SPEAKER_03]: right now is trying to build that bank account. It takes money to create affordable housing. And we have a balance of $300,000 at the moment. Right? We spent some of it. Yeah. So I think we're down to $200,000. We were able to fill in a gap over at the 708 Bellsways West. So yay. So that's going to be it. Big thing is looking at building a bank account, And right now, we're really gonna be focusing on development applications. So applications from our partners, our non-profit partners that are looking to build in Medford that are having financial gaps. And how can we assist with those funding sources?

[Matt Leming]: Thank you.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you. Councilor Scarpelli. Thank you so much. This is something I know that former Councilor Falco really envisioned in 2021, and this is where it started. So I would like to give him credit for seeing and envisioning this and getting to this point, and I appreciate all the hard work. But again, I want to bring to light what's scaring people. This is something we shall be celebrating. This is something that shouldn't divide, it should unify, right? And what we're saying is that the phone calls I received, the input that I received, things that are scaring people, right? One is that this has done an extensive survey. There were 71 people in a community of 60,000. So it's when you, when you, and you see some of these people that come, comments made from people that live in different communities. So these are the things that kind of, wait a second, what, I didn't care about the survey. I didn't see the survey. And again, this is something we're seeing that's being, it's a constant that we're seeing that are really, that are going to hinder projects and make this something that we can all rally around and support. So I think that that's one thing that I'm a little, I want to bring forth so you can understand what I'm hearing. It's no different than we're hearing. the debt exclusion for the new school, right? Everybody's nervous. There's going to be attacks. Everybody hears because we're not sending out the proper messaging. And so people can understand what it's done. So, you know, some of the things that people have pointed out in some of the survey questions that they think that people, when they read it, it's coming from the people that organize it. I'm like, no, you have to understand the context. And you see things like requiring annual tax for rental property owners. That's frightening. So people get scared when they read these things that are posted, when you see the real estate transfer fee, when you see tax overrides. So these are the things that people say, we want affordable housing, we want to support our trust, affordable housing trust. And there's so many avenues that we can use, but I think that making sure the messaging is done correctly so everybody can understand it, where it's not something that, here we go again, it's the senior citizen that owns a home that lives on a fixed income that we're now looking to have a tenant that helps subsidize their income and pay for their taxes. But now all of a sudden, someone's telling them, hey, this is a process that people are looking at to put another tax in if you own a rental property, or this is a transfer tax that if you sell a house, or, you know, even something to the, working with developers, you know, there's an outrageous story going around that, and this is where we want to get ahead of things is that there are developers that are petitioning the CPA saying, you know, We want to build ADUs. And to build the 400,000 ADU, we need our taxpayers' money to give us half of that. So a wealthy developer is asking for our taxpayers' money to build an ADU, an affordable housing ADU. is that these are the things that people are coming to me and saying, is this happening? Is this really where we're going with the process where there are so many other amazing options that we can focus on to create revenue to support this initiative? So I think that's where I think that I that I bring to light just to share with you the fact that as we get this started, that, you know, again, when we have surveys that we did in July, we had a meeting in July. Why is that not appealing to people? What are we hearing from the community? We're having meetings where no one's around. It's something that we're trying to hide. Not to say we're hiding it, but these are the questions we're hearing when you're talking about rezoning. We're talking about what we just dealt with earlier. These are the things that we have to find a better way to work with our administration to make sure our communications team is really getting the word out to everybody. Like, these are surveys that should go out in tax bills. These are surveys that should be going out to everybody. So a homeowner can see this and, you know what, maybe there are homeowners that are looking at this saying, you know what, I live in a three family, I own the home, I have two. This might be something that I want to, voluntarily give, donate a percentage to support the Affordable Housing Trust. See, these are the things, again, that I need to stress before I can support something like this, because I think, again, pushing something through, getting something out after all the hard work that you've done, and really not getting the, saying that we've gone through the full communication process that's needed when you're talking about so many people. because I don't want to be here in a year and say, wait a second, we knew nothing about this. This wasn't presented correctly, just like a, you know, a trash fee, you know, changing trash pickup once every two weeks. So these are the things that I, that's what we, I bring that up just to be cautious and understand to go forward. I don't want to be negative. I just want you to see the other side that I've been hearing what is scaring people that, And I've told many people that this is something that there's so many other things, when you look at this, that are positive, that we can look and say, how do we do support the younger families? Listen, I have a 22-year-old son that wants to stay in metric. And we know it's going to be difficult for him. Unless, you know, dad builds something off the side of the house, and that's possible. And that might be. That's another avenue that we read that looking at, you know, how do we reclassify our zoning to help with the affordable housing building. Can I move in? Yes, sir. Can I move in on time? You know what? The rent would be terribly high. We'd be watching a lot of football, though. So again, I don't. Like I said, I'm trying to be a different, I don't want to send a negative message. I don't want to be a negative rabble rouser. This position gets very tiring when that happens. But I think it's important that everybody understands the messaging that I'm getting that what's frustrating our community when you see these initiatives that people read and it's in print and they say, wait a second, that's scary.

[SPEAKER_03]: Can we tag team it? No, I appreciate the feedback. Thank you very much. And when we were talking about this, creating the action plan, it was very important to the committee that was doing the action plan to make sure that we did the best that we could to get the word out. Advertising of the, I'm sure Roberta will Fill in where I'm missing, but we did the surveys. We did as much as we can, and I would welcome the feedback on how to better make sure, or how to more effectively, I don't want to say better, more effectively make sure that when we are getting our, doing our workshops and trying to put the word out and tell people what we're doing, because I'm excited about what we're doing. I think it's phenomenal that Medford has an affordable housing trust fund and Medford is really going to look and find creative ways and try to develop. I'm extremely excited about it. I've been doing housing forever in my my real world job, full time job. I love the opportunity. I moved into Medford 20 some odd years ago and finally hearing about creating affordable housing in Medford is exciting. I have a daughter who had to leave Medford. She didn't want to live with me. But, you know, so I'm excited. I would welcome the feedback on any way that we can better promote what we're doing. Our first, when we did our first community meeting with the community, we spent a lot of time of actually defining what affordable housing is with the people that came in the room. And we broke down the different types of housing out there. I am a huge advocate of getting the word out and making sure people understand what we're trying to do because we're not trying to do anything radical. We're trying to create housing here in Medford for everybody to be able to stay and in a welcoming community. I love Medford. It's really exciting.

[Zac Bears]: If you don't mind, I just have a follow-up to that. It's okay. I'm just wondering because I think this is kind of the trap we fall into sometimes in the city. How much of this outreach was tasked, was it the volunteers of the Affordable Housing Trust who were doing that outreach? Versus how much support was available from the city staff?

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, we had an amazing city staffer that helped us with, with, with putting out the word. Yeah. It was on the community access plant channel.

[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, we had, it was on the community access channel. We had flyers that, that were posted around the community in different languages. They were translated shared through the city's communication channels and and on social media, and directly through organizations in the community. One observation, technical observation I would make is that a written survey was one part of the public engagement strategy for this planning effort, which also entailed two public meetings and the stakeholder workshops as well. So we made an effort to hear from people. Only so many people responded to that effort. And I would also respond to the comment about people from outside of Medford. I looked at the data. There were two respondents out of 70 who didn't live in Medford. Those two respondents might be people who work in Medford. Or they might be people who lived in Medford until recently and have been displaced from Medford. So I assume that their concern about Medford's housing needs is driven by their having a relationship with Medford that they have an experience in Medford that informs their understanding of Medford's housing needs. The other thing that I wanted to point out about the housing trust action plan is that while the housing trust would advocate for additional revenue sources, for the most part, any additional revenue sources that the trust might receive would have to come through the city council. So the City Council is ultimately going to be the arbiter of whether we fill the coffers of the Affordable Housing Trust.

[George Scarpelli]: So if I can, Mr. President, and I appreciate that. And again, the last piece is monumental. It's going to come back on us. And if we haven't educated everybody, you talk about the stakeholders, realistically, 70 people in a community of 60,000, the stakeholders, The ones that are going to be most impacted are who? The homeowners. The people that are paying the taxes. The people that can really look at this process and either support it or stand against it. I would rather educate those people and guide them so they are allies instead of contentious and negative and dividing. That's all I'm trying to say. So when you talk about the 70 and even two being outside of Medford, the messaging is that there was only 70 and there were two people outside of Medford. So I understand your input, but the messaging that goes out isn't framed that way. Ms. Cameron, it really isn't. It's made to be confrontational. And that's all I want to share with you, because I think that Zach's question was one of the questions I was going to ask. How much work did the city do? How much work did our administration do to support you to make sure that messaging was sent out correctly? Now, many different languages, flyers, it's going to certain groups, right? Certain groups that are invested in this because they want to live in Medford, and they can't afford it. So I understand that. Of course they're gonna support that. But when it comes down to the process, it has to be make sure that all the stakeholders are informed. So if you said to me, George, yes, the city staff did do it and the assessor's office sent a survey out to homeowners that are going to be impacted on this because what this is asking for is what? It's from funding, right? The funding that's coming from where? The taxpayers. that the taxpayers that were just given an override, the taxpayers that are now looking at a debt exclusion, the taxpayers that have many multiple issues that have already come up that we're hearing, rent control, transfer tax, these are the things that I'm bringing forward just so you can understand that are important that if we're ahead of it, that we've been trying to battle as a team. I think all of us saying, can we communicate better with the people that have the ability to do that and making sure the messaging is sent out correctly that we can sit there and say, hey, listen, we're not looking at hurting our taxpayers, our homeowners that have rental properties. We have avenues instead, let's rally around looking at developers and looking at ways to look at linkage to say, hey, this percentage goes to our affordable housing or different avenues like that, that we can all hang our hats on, that we can all advocate for. So that's all I wanted to share. It's easy to be the one that shares the negative side of it. I know it's difficult, but again, When John talked about this years ago, this is an avenue that we looked at, both of us having children at the same age and saying, Hey, we were fortunate. The days of my father looking at me and saying, you know, Dad, it's not fair. I want to buy a home in Medford. And, you know, I work hard. I graduated college. And he said, you really want to stay in Medford with his Italian accent? I said, yeah. He says, you can't afford to want to want a job? I said, no. He said, go get a two job. If two jobs don't do it, go get a three job. And that's, it was easy back then. I got three jobs and I bought a home in Medford. to this day still have three jobs. So it's not easy, but I understand that we're trying to advocate for people that don't have that avenue, that opportunity. So again, I think that, I think we're all in agreement that we have to find a better way to communicate because this work is amazing. This is great work, but it seems like it just, when you look at it in the conversations I've had with people, it's like, oh, we really only reach 70 people. That's not true, but that's what it reads. So again, thank you.

[SPEAKER_03]: I appreciate, I appreciate the feedback. And I, like I said, I would love to sit down and figure out other ways of making sure that, because there was a lot of work that was put in. I don't want to belittle it. I don't want to hold it up.

[George Scarpelli]: I think that it's something that we need to move forward with because Roberta's correct. Whatever happens still has to come to this council. But again, who's it fall back on? This council is going to have to look at people and say what? Well, we did. Did we get the message the word the messaging out. So we don't. It's not us that are holding the bag on this. So thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. I'm going to go to Councilor Levin.

[Matt Leming]: Thank you. Just to clarify we currently we did pass an update to our linkage to our linkage fee programs. We This very council voted on a study to allocate a portion of the linkage fees to affordable housing. The affordable housing trust in Collaboration with the planning office is currently looking at fractional incentives as another mechanism for funding the Affordable Housing Trust. All of those come from developers. The CPC is the one current revenue source that does come directly from taxpayers, and taxpayers have been paying into the CPC for years now, benefits the community as a whole in a very public way. I previously served on the CBC. I think you can pretty much take any item on any council agenda and spin it up in a negative way. You can take any item from a multi-page report and come up with a way to come up with a way to rabble rouse or be negative about it. But at the end of the day, most people are excited that we're actually getting some infrastructure to fund affordable housing off the floor. just voted on a plan to fund some sort of a public relations professional to help us out with the rezoning process for a project within a set period of time. The people on, the people serving on the Affordable Housing Trust are volunteers. They did the best that they could when coming up with the survey. I understand that 71 people replied. You said that two people might have lived outside of Medford. You also quoted a, well, Members of this council also quoted a petition of a thousand people, about half of whom lived outside the city to support one of their arguments recently. So yeah, I would just like to say that the vast majority of people are excited to see this happen. The vast majority of people are excited to support the Affordable Housing Trust in the most positive light possible. We are coming up with ways to fund it, which are by and large, which by and large come from developers. And I personally feel that everything I saw in the presentation is very positive and I don't see any reason to throw any sort of shade on it. So thank you very much for your time and for the time that you put into this presentation. Once again, I'm grateful for all the work that you're putting into this.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. First, I genuinely want to thank you for all the work that you're doing. You know, I think there is a real difference and people may not realize that technically affordable housing that qualifies as affordable according to the state or the federal government, might not even be below the average price of a two-unit or a three-unit, sorry, two-bedroom or three-bedroom place that we already have in Medford. So technically, the difference between technically affordable housing and actually affordable housing is crucially important, and this, your organization is really doing that work of looking at how we can provide actually affordable housing here in Medford. And I really think especially about the many seniors who are not wealthy. We have a lot of seniors in Medford. We have a lot of seniors who are low income on fixed incomes. When I have knocked doors, I talk to, I can't believe how many people I talk to who are over 65 and are looking in some fear to the day where they can no longer upkeep their home. They do not want to move out of their community and their lifelong friends and family. And yet there is nowhere to downsize in our city. So I so much appreciate the work that you are doing because it is, I believe, crucially important for you know, even this large segment of homeowning fixed income seniors. And I think that solving that problem, which I am also trying to do with a couple of other projects, is genuinely crucially important. And it's a very large group of people. I also want to recognize that 47% of Medford, I believe is what you were saying, are renters, and that renters are people too, and renters are affected by affordable housing. And it is, you know, we cannot only rely upon the opinions of homeowners to understand the needs of the residents of Medford. And finally, I want to While I appreciate that people may find the idea of a real estate transfer fee or other possible funding mechanisms scary, I think it's vitally important that the Affordable Housing Trust look into all the possibilities of how we can fund affordable housing here in Medford. I appreciate that you don't leave anything out. I really think it's important that we not create a taboo against anyone mentioning these possible ways that we can support and fund affordable housing here in Medford. We should be talking about them. It is only through talking about them in realistic ways. To me, this is fantastic education for the public. It is 98% about what our needs are, what we currently have, lots of data, possibilities of action plans, things we can do, all of those things. I think that mentioning these possible ways that we could fund it, whether they are ones that will get passed or ones that won't get passed, things that the community will have input on, I think is the perfect way to educate the community. And I very much appreciate you bringing those up. And I want to make sure that we do not, in this chamber, make it so that it is a taboo for anyone to mention them. That is the only way that we, that our community will begin the process of being able to discuss any of these topics. So thank you so much for your work.

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

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. I actually, most of what I was, most of what I was going to say was stuff that Councilor Callaghan said beautifully. Just to reiterate 47 percent. I mean the the data that you put in the report is really illuminating about the city. I appreciated learning about the shift to younger professionals that are in roommate situations. I think that illuminates a lot about the direction the city is moving. I think it means that we should look toward those people, talk to them more, engage them more as a city. 47% renters is critical to consider. And the housing cost burden falling so heavily on our seniors is also super, super critical for us to keep in mind as we balance how to move forward with our affordable housing needs. I also just want to caution my colleagues that you know concerns about the way that we are communicating about things like this. We don't need to necessarily be too worried about the way that people discuss these reports on social media because often somebody may have an axe to grind. There may be an angle that somebody is trying to access. I don't think it's necessarily more to do with how many people you surveyed. I mean most of this report isn't even really about the survey. It's mostly about the facts of Medford and who lives here and what their needs are. And as we consider how best to approach the needs of the city looking at the data is an excellent way to do that. I did also want to know if the presentation will be accessible to the public after the slides if that will be accessible somewhere. I know the report is in our material so that's public record and people can find that on the Web site the City Council Web site which is if you go to medfordma.org you go to City Council you can see the materials for today's meeting under the agenda, but I just wanted to know if you have the slides available.

[Zac Bears]: That'd be great. If they could be placed on the Affordable Housing Trust site and then I'll upload them and attach them to this meeting as well.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Yeah, I think that would be great. There's just a lot of helpful information for people who are curious about like who, who lives in Medford, who, where the needs are and how the Affordable Housing Trust is pointing the help in that direction. So, thank you for your work.

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

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Bears. Thank you both so much for being here. And, um, you know, through you, I would like to thank the entire affordable, um, housing trust trustees for your hard work over these past, um, few years. Was it 2021 or 2022 that the trust fund was officially inaugurated?

[Zac Bears]: I can't remember. Early 2023 we passed it.

[Kit Collins]: Early 2023.

[Zac Bears]: Appointments weren't made until July, 2024.

[Kit Collins]: That's right, that's right. This is a lot of work for two years. This is really impressive, and this is mission-driven work, so I'm sure that everybody serving on this commission would have liked to have started 20 years ago, if not more. But this is a lot of ground to cover in just two years, and I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for diving into this with so much gusto and amassing all the resources that you could on such short time, you know, I think, I like how Councilor Lazzaro just kind of framed it in her remarks. We can talk about people's feelings about the problem, and we should, and most of the time we just spend talking about the problem, and that's how the conversation could go, and I appreciate that the report is largely about the facts of the crisis of displacement and uncertainty and unaffordability in Medford, which we know touches all facets of our demography. It touches seniors, people who have lived here their entire lives. It touches young adults who would like to stay here or like to move here and people who are, you know, have been putting down roots in Medford and finding it increasingly hard to do so. it's a really, it's a disproportionate slice of our population. You all know this better than anyone, because you spend your time in the data, and you spend your time trying to match the strategies with the data. And I think that that I think that your report does an excellent job of just framing the problem for what it is that we have a problem. It's not new. It's been escalating for a long time. And we are trying to play catch up in amassing the strategies and the resources to combat it. at the scale and with the urgency that it deserves. And what I have always really appreciated about the scope of an affordable housing trust ever since I first started hearing about it from Councilor Falco before I was on the council. And that was one of the things I was most excited to get to talk about when I was first elected because it was still on our body even when Councilor Falco was no longer in the chambers after having proposed it. was that this is a body that can encompass so many different strategies. And so many different strategies that target the things that people really complain about that are not happening. You know, I think there's been a lot of times we've been in these chambers and people have said, what's going on with this property? I wish we could do something there. Or why don't we have more housing for seniors to downsize into? Or why should it be so hard that young people can't move here when they want to start a family like me or my peers did decades ago? And the Affordable Housing Trust can be a container to have all of those conversations. And I think that it's, I don't think that it's wrong to have frank discussions about what strategies people find it easy to say yes to, and what strategies people really need to hear more about, and need to understand, and need context for, and need specificity about to understand how they fit into our life here at Medford. But if we're talking about those, I think that we also need to equally spend time on, or just at least acknowledge, and I think that we all do, all of us in this room, I'm not just talking about behind this rail, but even, you know, people come here, even when we're talking about very controversial topics. I remember about a year and a half ago, we were talking about rent control. It was probably my fault. And somebody came in who was there for some totally other paper, and they got up and they said, you know, I didn't come here to talk about rent control. And I don't know if I support rent control, but I know that I don't support my neighbors getting displaced out of this community. And I think when we're talking about the work of the Affordable Housing Trust, it's very clear to me that everybody in our community, regardless of how they tend to characterize what strategies they prefer politically, we know that we don't want our neighbors to get displaced. And we know that it needs to be easier for people to afford to stay here. And I think that really unifies us on this side of the rail, on that side of the rail. and it has to be data-driven. And so I'm really glad that our work is starting there with just, again, putting numbers in a report that, you know, not the MAPC and not another agency owns, but something that Medford owns, putting numbers in a report that Medford owns to what is the scale of the problem, a snapshot for this year compared to 10 years ago. And then as we continue to do the work that you've been doing for two years, we just try to enfranchise the trust with the resources. to be putting forward those loans, to be making those grants if you choose to do so, to be building the capacity to do real work in the community in the future so that we know that we're matching the scale of the problem, that two-thirds of the households that are below 50% area median income, the two-thirds of that number that are housing cost burdened, which is a huge number, huge number of our neighbors that are housing cost burdened, to make sure that we are doing the work that we know the community is enthusiastic about, which is doing the work of making it easier to live here and easier to stay here no matter who you are. And I think that's something that everybody wants to see. No matter how you order that list of strategies, I know that's something that everybody wants to see. I was going to say one more thing. But I forget what it is. I think this is a really great start, and I want to affirm the same point that I think all of my fellow Councilors have been making, which is perhaps to reframe it. I think occasionally when people hear about strategies, they get scared, because many strategies have been maligned, and of course there's pros and cons to everything. But on the other side, I think the other advantage to talking about things more and better is that when we share the strategies that the Affordable Housing Trust is looking to do more and better of, people get excited. And people say, finally, finally, we're going to be developing strategies that actually cut to the heart of this issue. This is exciting. How do I get involved? How can I contribute? How can I volunteer? How can I donate? So thank you so much for your work so far, and I hope that this council can be a partner to you in not only supporting your work, but also making sure that it's broadcast out to the community, both the folks who are paying attention and the folks who are marginalized by the economics of our region, and for that reason are so much harder to reach with outreach and surveys like the ones that inform this report. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Councilor Tseng.

[Justin Tseng]: Thank you all. I'm excited to be one of your partners on the council for this work. I mean, I think all of us tonight have underscored the importance of affordability and the importance of letting people be able to stay here and call, keep calling Medford home. I mean, I know a few of us have, are, you know, in that position where, We're looking to stay and it's looking increasingly difficult. And there's much to say about the regional housing market, about greater market forces too. But I think that we can all acknowledge that this is a huge problem. This is a problem that touches generations, right? I mean, I think you acknowledged earlier in the report or in the presentation the intergenerational layer of this, that dimension Seniors finding it hard and young people finding it hard and family types changing. And changing what that means for the city of Medford and the type of housing we need to invest in and create in this city. I see the Affordable Housing Trust as an important tool in the toolbox in this fight against rising costs. And I think you guys acknowledge how big of a task it is in this report. When you talk about, you know, these are the other tools we need to advocate for and invest in. And, you know, I hear You know, some members of the community who are concerned about, you know, small aspects of what was in the greater report. But I do commend people to take a look at the comprehensive product that you guys have produced and at the slides that you guys have produced tonight. Because I think what you guys are saying is that we have these priorities that are, you know, immediately in front of us that aren't as, you know, big policy objectives rather, but, you know, investing in community housing, investing in preserving affordable housing here. And those things, I assume, are going to be a very big part, if not a huge part, of what you guys do moving forward. And when it comes to all these other tools and mechanisms we need to be looking at, You know, that requires partnership, right, with the city council and building community support and getting input. And I think, you know, as Councilor Collins alluded to earlier, you know, we've seen that already in the past with some of the items that are in here. Where the community has come out in support or in opposition and, you know, everyone holds their views but they make their views known. And this action plan isn't the end of the conversation, rather it starts the conversation. And that's so important. It's important to put out bold ideas so that we can have a conversation about them. And actually putting out those ideas in the first place creates more feedback and more input and more conversation about them. So I think it's a really good thing that you guys have been so comprehensive in your work in this action plan. I was really impressed reading it. And I have to say, I am really, you know, we can make a lot of hay about one very tiny part of the work that you guys have been doing. But reading through the report, you, the focus groups of stakeholders, the market survey and, you know, all the community surveys and analyzing that data, there's so much other work that you have already done to create this action plan. And it's really, really important to acknowledge and commend you all for that work. So thank you so much and I look forward to helping you see through this action plan to see what we can do on the council to help you guys with your efforts as well and in welcoming the community to join in and be a part of that conversation.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Thank you guys for your presentation. Really appreciate the dialogue on this. You know, I understand how much work you guys put in here and I know how much work so many people put in to lots of things that make our city run. And I also know that a lot of that work is happening because we don't have the city resources and city funding, in my opinion, to set our city up And I think that's really, you know, maybe a bridge between some of the perspectives we've heard tonight is like, what does it look like for the city of Medford to set up our boards and our commissions and our committees and our task forces for success? I think this is a really strong report. There's a ton of detailed information, data analysis. I really appreciate that. And I think you guys are on the same page. You would have loved that survey to be 140 people instead of 70 or 280 instead of 140. And I think the question is, like, what is it going to take for us to get there? You know, what does making sure that the staff who worked with you have the tools to get more outreach? What does it look like for more people to be engaged in the different ways that our city communicates with people? Because I do think, you know, it makes things harder when we don't have that. And that's, I think, where I can agree with Councilor Scarpelli, while I can also agree with all my other colleagues on all of their comments. You know, it's a great start and you're working really hard and you did the best with what we have as a city right now. And I think the question is, just like the question is on affordable housing, we're doing good work, but we need to do more. And we need a lot more affordable housing. We need you guys to have more than $300,000. We need the CPC to have more support. We need everybody to really have, more resources to thrive because we need more affordable housing so that people who want to live here can thrive. So that's hopefully a bridge that we can have between all the different perspectives we've shared tonight. And we can do our work to lift up the amazing work that you've done so far and fight to make sure that you have the resources you need to do even more. And that's where I'm coming down on it. So I just really want to thank you. because I'd love more people to be hearing about what you're doing. And I know you guys would love that. And I, it wasn't something you guys were doing, but I walked in to Room 201 a few weeks ago, and some folks from our PDS office were holding a session on the rehab program. We have the rehab grant program, right? And they had all of these amazing resources, and they had had successful, other successful forms of outreach. But that day, I don't know if anybody walked in. And that's kind of the, how do we get that out there more? How do we make sure that people know more about what's going on in our city? Because it's good. And that's really, I hope, the thing that we can try to provide. And I really want to thank you for. bringing this before us and presenting it. And I want to see this action plan succeed. And I hope that in five years when we're doing the next action plan, we're talking about, you know, $3 million, not $300,000, maybe even more than that. And hopefully we can help with that with our linkage fee work and inclusionary fractional and some of the stuff that's in this report that I think is on our fingertips in the next few months to try to get implemented. So that's my piece. Thank you for that. Is there any, do you need us to vote on this? Or you just wanted to present it to share? Sure, yeah. Great. Well, thank you so much. Thanks. Is there a motion to, oh, we do have one comment online. It looks like we have some public comment. So if there's anyone who wants to comment on this paper, either in person or on Zoom, you can come to the podium or raise your hand on Zoom. And I will start on Zoom right now. Micah, name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[Micah Kesselman]: Here, Micah Kesselman, 499 Main Street. I do have a question for the housing trust that I want to get to, but I do first also want to make the comment that it is frustrating to see the council platform FUD driven by people who aren't providing any sort of reasoned analysis to for their criticisms of something like this 70 is not necessarily a bad sample size. I mean, a lot of that depends on methodology and a bunch of other things. aspects that anyone who's looked at survey science for a little bit can explain to you. But just criticizing this because it only has 70 respondents is nonsense. So with that said, thank you very much for presenting this. This was really great to hear. It was really interesting data. My question is related to whether or not you had any observations or inferences you could make about changes that you're seeing to the demographics of families with children? Because your data shows that there's a 2% drop in households with young children in Medford. And presumably, going hand-in-hand with the increased cost to move into Medford, That means that those children are from increasingly narrower, more homogeneous, possibly demographics. So and, you know, that is that is a concern, too, because for those of us with children, we want our children to grow up in a diverse city as well and have you know, all the benefits and things that are great that go along with that. So, yeah, I just wanted to know if there's any data you were able to sort of extract from on that ground.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. We're going to go through everything and then I'll write down the questions and we'll see what we got. I'm going to go to Lisa Serio on Zoom. Lisa, name and address for the record, please. You have three minutes.

[Lisa Serio]: My name is Lisa Serio. I live at 19 Paul Road. Can you hear me?

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Lisa Serio]: Okay, cool. Yeah, I just wanted to, I just had a question. Maybe I understand the statement, but Councilor Lemme mentioned shade on the market survey, like he doesn't want shade put on the market survey. Is shade a negative? Is shade like I don't want somebody to say something negative about like the number of people that participated in the survey, because I think it's important to understand that 70 people that was the data analyzed with 70 people. That's kind of important for me to know as a voter and as a constituent in Medford that I understand that that's how many people were taking part in the market survey. I don't know if that's a negative. He said something about shade and it took me a minute to understand. Is he saying that negatively? Because to me it's important. Um, to know that, like, I don't understand why he said it that way. Also Councilor Callahan and Collins and Lazzaro. I'm of the same mindset as George Scarpelli. When I told my dad I wanted to live in Medford, he said, OK, good. You're going to have to get like two jobs, you know. And so I worked at British Airways and Tufts University. I worked two jobs, seven days a week. So I could afford a house in Medford. So for me, in order for housing to be affordable, I had to kick butt to get money to get a house in Medford. And that's the way I could afford a house in Medford, just working a ton of jobs. That's the only way I could afford a house in Medford. I didn't have parents. My parents were immigrants. They couldn't give me money to buy a house in Medford. So that's the way I got my house in Medford. So I want to say, though, that even though you may think that I, at 71, want to downsize, I do not want to downsize at all. I am aging in place. I have set my house up. I live around the neighbors I want to live around. I live around the young neighbors I want to live around. So I am not going to downsize in any way. I am staying in my house that I'm living in. And I am going to figure out a way to make ends meet like a lot of other constituents in Medford. Get a job, work, even if you're 71, come on, man, you gotta go back to work. That's how you gotta do it. If y'all gonna bring the taxes up for me, that's fine, I'm just going back to work. I'll take a person to rent a room, but I'm not gonna downsize. That's not my idea. And it's a lot of people in my neighborhood, there are older people that are living all alone in the house, and that's what we're all saying. We are aging in place. So I just wanted to say that and get clarity on what shade is, because I didn't understand that. All right. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Lisa. We'll go next to Marie. Marie, name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[SPEAKER_04]: Hi, this is Marie Angel from, I live on Frozen Road in Medford. And I really want to thank Roberta and the other ladies, I can't remember her name.

[Zac Bears]: Marie, it's pretty muffled. Could you, could you, sorry. It's pretty muffled. We're having a hard time hearing you.

[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I don't know why. Okay. Well, I'll try back. Yeah, I can try back later. I can probably say that. Are you still trying to hear me?

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, it's still very muffled. I'm gonna go to the next commenter, then I'll come back to you. Maybe put it on speakerphone or I don't know if you're, you know, I'm not exactly sure what your microphone situation is, but I'm gonna go to Robert and then I'll come back to you, Marie.

[Robert Carney]: Robert Carney, 50 Hicks Ave, Unit 6. First of all, thanks for the presentation. My wife and I are recent homeowners in Medford, comfortable middle class salary, and we could barely afford to buy a place here, so totally get what you're saying. One suggestion I would have when thinking about this plan here to solve your initiatives is when thinking about like middle class, working class people too, in your presentation you talked about expanding tenant protections, I believe, or it might have been some of your backup documents, but I'd also like to also add for consideration too is also thinking about really helping especially like working class landlords to also know, have the resource to know a like, not only how to be good landlords, but also how to like protect themselves from, you know, unnecessary risk. There was a recent news article from NBC 10 that was talking about know, these professional tenants who have learned how to scam the system by going place to place and kind of trashing properties and, you know, things like that can also really leave small town, small time landlords, you know, in the lurch. So I think you're thinking about that as well, because I would say that, you know, there's a lot of, you know, working class people in Medford who might be relying on, you know, rental income from a two or three family property, who I think would just, you know, benefit from really having support in the community to be able to maintain their property, but also protect their property rights too. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. We will follow up on that question about changes, demographics, families of children. We'll just, we can follow up with Micah directly. And yeah, and I think just in general, you know, the public comment is not really so much a question and answer. But if you have specific questions or comments directed to specific Councilors, you can always ask them questions or communicate with them directly. And I know that we can also get in touch with our affordable housing trust fund chair and members anytime. So feel free to email me and I can follow up with them and get information. Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: If I can, Mr. President, I appreciate your words, but I'm trying to be as diplomatic as possible, and I allow my colleagues to throw negatives my way without using my name, but I'm not going to take it from residents who have the answers that will solve the world's problems every time they approach that podium. Mr. President, what you do have is a city council that was elected by the people of Medford that have an opinion that needs to be shared. So the comments from some of my colleagues that led to the fact that this is shade and shame on me or setting a negative agenda or whatever it may be, the truth of the matter is that's totally opposite of what I stated. What I stated was I appreciate the hard work and all the positive information that could be shared and then presented so people could understand the full value of that so we could all celebrate it and work together, not divide. And what I have my council colleagues sitting behind the rail and talk about with one part of their mouth. One side of their mouth, they're going to talk about communication and why that's so important and why we need it and why we need to fund it and why we need to go forward with that process. But the other side of the mouth say, well, if it's a different focus, if it's a different view from what they feel, shame on you. And that's just not right. That's not right. I was elected to be a voice and that's all I shared this evening with a few issues that community members had shared with me. and I will not stop doing that. If you want to continue to be contentious and we want to go back and forth with this, we can continue these meetings to 11 o'clock at night being negative and going back and forth because listen, if that's what you want, that's what we'll do. But again, Council President, I appreciate you bringing that full circle and I appreciate you seeing the process of what I was saying to go back and look at my vote or my process in other areas or where I've been, where I focus on other issues, and bring up numbers of people and surveys. We can do that on both sides if we want to keep doing that in the next two years. I'm willing to do that. Because we all know where the votes are going to go. It's going to be six to one. We all know that. I don't, one Councilor doesn't have the support. We understand that. That's going to be, I'm going to put a little, little score chart right here with everything that I put forward. I'm going to say it's going to be contentious. It's going to be contentious. What I said earlier to the, the, the, the leaders of our trust was that that was a very good, very good, very informative presentation that should be presented to so many people. I appreciate Councilor Lazzaro sharing where people can say that this is where you can find it, because the truth of the matter is a lot of times when I'm presenting something, It's something that I feel the need that I have to share, but something simple to say, well, we have now the PowerPoint that you can go to to read and look at that where it's supporting our senior citizens, we're so afraid of keeping them in their homes. So again, just a comment to my colleagues and to the residents, I'm not gonna be silenced because you feel offended because I didn't feel the same way you felt. I'm going to speak for what the people that have reached out to me and offer their opinion because I'm their voice. So thank you, Mr. President.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. And Marie will give you one more shot. We'll see if we can hear you, Marie. Name and address the record. You have three minutes.

[Marie Izzo]: Hi, it's Marie Izzo from Pilgrim Road. Can you hear me now?

[Zac Bears]: We can hear you loud and clear.

[Marie Izzo]: Thank you. Anyway, I want to thank everyone for all the work that went into this, but I just want to mention a couple of things that really stand out for me. One is after all of the years, at least I've been in this conversation for like, oh, I don't know, at least 10 years here. about affordable housing in Medford and increasing the rate of affordable housing. And, you know, when we come to 8% at this point, it's very, I'm just very sad that this is it. This is all we've had. And this includes a bill, you know, sort of things that haven't even been built yet. including like 250 units that haven't even been built yet. Also, I mean, the other thing I wanna mention is also that this area mean income is not an accurate indicator. And I wanna thank Roberta for clarifying that it's based on household income. And that in fact, it's extreme, it's meaningless. If we look at household income, if you know, four people living together, you know, each making 80 or $90,000 a year minimum, and whatever the number is, and now you have a household income of like $400,000 there and, you know, going into the average, but You know, when we look at really who Medford is versus, you know, sort of matching that data with the needs in the city, I can't imagine how we'll ever be able to do this, particularly when we're having these kinds of conversations, one way or the other. I mean, I think that it's just a stark a reality that we have young people moving in with high incomes that can afford either to buy or to rent at higher rates. And then we're building potentially things that even what's, and I'm going to mention this, what's happening in down by city hall we're releasing to contractors at very very high levels just to build more housing to attract people to come in when we're not addressing the need within the city. That's really all I want to do and I just want the council to bear in mind that we really need to match the needs of the city the way that they've shown up. And I, again, I'm grateful for looking at this and addressing it accurately, not with these numbers that don't mean anything like this area mean income. And, you know, we were only giving it to people at 80% of that area mean income. And that's not, those are not the people in need. those people coming in, you know, single people that are making whatever amounts of money. So I just want to keep everyone really, if we can focus on matching the needs to the people and the economic situation where 50% are making less than 50%, but there is never any housing that's going to address 50%. of that population, period. But thank you all for spending the time and doing the work, including the council. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Marie. On the motion to receive and place on file by Council Vice President Collins, seconded by Councilor Callahan. All those in favor? Opposed? Motion passes. Thanks, you guys. 25182, submitted by Mayor Brannon O'Connor and proposed wage adjustment for library union. I respectfully request and recommend that the city council approve the following amendments to revised ordinances, chapter 66, article two, city of Medford amendment to revised ordinance, chapter 66, article two, being 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, formerly included as Article 2, Section 6631. Amend the figures as they presently appear next to the following title by adjusting each to reflect the following percentage wage increases and effective dates. Library, effective July 1, 2024. Increased base salary of all library unions by 3%. July 1, 2025, 2.5% increase. July 1, 2026, 2.25% increase. July 1, 2027, 2.25% increase. Community Resources Director Lisa Crowley will be available to answer any questions. Thank you for your kind attention to this matter. Respectfully submitted, Brianna O'Kern, Mayor. Do we still have, do we want to hear from the director? All right. We have a motion from Councilor Scarpelli to waive the three readings and approve, ordain, approve to be ordained. All right. Motion to waive the three readings, approve to be ordained by Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by Councilor Lazzaro. When you're ready, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

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

[Unidentified]: Yes.

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

[Zac Bears]: Yes. I mean, the affirmative, the negative, the motion passes 2 5 1 8 3 donation acceptance trees, Medford for tree planting, dear president bears and members of the city council. I respect the request and recommend that your honorable body approves under master law chapter 44 section 53 a a donation in the amount of 25,000 by trees, Medford to the department of public works, forestry division to fund public tree plantings, trees, DuPont, CPA manager and a representative of Trees Medford will be in attendance to address the council. Recognized manager DuPont. And you should be able to start your video if you want.

[Theresa Dupont]: Hello everybody. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Who's with us from Trees Medford, Teresa?

[Theresa Dupont]: I'm actually, I thought it was going to be Amanda Bowen and I thought she was going to be joining online. I don't see her.

[Zac Bears]: That's all right.

[Theresa Dupont]: But I'm here.

[Zac Bears]: We're happy to take a donation, but we do want to hear about the great work Trees Medford does to raise the money.

[Theresa Dupont]: Yes, so just as a little bit of background, the CPA hat that I wear is very wide brimmed, so I end up touching quite a few departments, including having some overlap with my colleagues in the forestry department, as well as Trees Medford. So I'm here tonight to ask for your approval and accepting a cash donation from Trees Medford in the amount of $25,000. This source was from the community fund a couple of previous fiscal cycles ago. It was forward-funded to Trees MedVernage. It's kind of been sitting in an escrow account awaiting appropriation. So that's why we're here today, to actually get that funding into the Tree Planting Donation Fund, which does exist and is out there, if anybody have some extra chump change at the end of the year and want to donate it. But so this is a request to have that funding be accepted and then immediately put back into tree plantings around the city. I'm happy to answer any other questions that this body may have.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Do we have, I'll go to Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. I just have a little question about this tree planting donation fund and from other conversations I have had with other people, it is not always assured that donations go toward the thing that they were originally donated for. And I know that our You know, we will be upgrading the city's budgeting software and financial software to address that problem specifically, that there just simply aren't enough codes. And so I'm basically just asking like, can we be assured that this funding is in fact going to go toward planting public trees?

[Theresa Dupont]: Thank you. I need to forget to not mute myself again afterwards. The exact account number and description is specifically for tree planting. So that would be a red flag for anybody else that's setting up a purchase order if it's not for tree planting. So rest assured that that funding would go directly into a dedicated account specifically for public donations for tree plantings. And that's all that would be expended from it. I mean, I can assure that there's actually tree plantings happening right now. So I highly doubt that funding will be sitting around for too long, but I would assure the body that that funding would be used for tree plantings.

[Anna Callahan]: And I imagine you may not know the answer to this question, but is the budget for tree plantings ever reduced because there is money in this fund?

[Theresa Dupont]: No, no. It's just nice money to have that's around, but there is an annual budgeted amount for tree plantings that Aggie does a great job of spending down. So this is just some nice boon money to kind of do a quick increase in this year's tree plantings before the end of the season.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Do we have any more questions for Manager DuPont? Seeing none, is there a motion? On the motion to approve by Councilor Tseng, seconded by Vice President Collins. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

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

[Zac Bears]: Yes. I have the affirmative, none the negative. The motion passes. Thank you, Teresa. Although I think you're here for the next one too. 25184 submitted by Mayor Brianna Leo Kern. Appropriation request, Community Preservation Committee. Dear President Bears and city councilors, on behalf of the CPC, I respect the request and recommend your honorable body approve the following recommendation of the CPC requesting the appropriation of 55,000 from the CPA Historic Preservation Reserve to the Shiloh Baptist Church of Medford to fund their ongoing ADA improvement project The project will be tracked in the Community Preservation Fund, CPC recommendation letter attached incorporated, CPA manager DuPont will be in attendance to address the council. Respectfully submitted, Breanna Lungo-Koehn, Mayor. Go ahead, Teresa.

[Theresa Dupont]: Hello again. Yes, so I'm here before you tonight to support the request of the CPC to fund the amount of $55,000, the Shiloh Baptist ADA Improvements Project. This is a project that this council has seen before, but just as an update to where this project stands now. It's at a good 75 completion right now, which is excellent. They're slated for a early spring time opening for the childcare facility that will be in their basement, which is a lot of what this ADA improvements are slated for. However, as I think everybody's finding, budgets are a little tight right now, and they're just coming up against some change orders and need a little bit of additional contingency funding to finish this project. And that is why we're here before you tonight and asking for your support. If I could, I know it's been a long meeting, but I just want to highlight a couple of great things that the Shiloh Baptist Church has done in partnership with the Sanctuary Church. They've actually been running a weekly produce food pantry. Sadly, you know, it ended for the season a couple of weeks ago, but I really do want to champion their continued efforts to really be a meaningful partner to the West Medford community. We're also pursuing national registry designation for the church. A little bit of backstory, it's a very prominent church in West Medford, and one of the two brown shingle buildings that are church Baptist churches that are about two blocks away from each other. So just as a quick update, we are pursuing again, national registry designation for this building, which would allow and open up further grant opportunities. The building still needs another million, million plus in restoration work. So I just wanted to give that little update because this is a project that the council has seen multiple times. And I'm happy to address any other further questions and ask for your support.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Manager DuPont. I'll go to Councilor Scarpelli, then Councilor Lazzaro.

[George Scarpelli]: Councilor Scarpelli. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. DuPont, thank you so much. I know that I've asked this question a few times, and to bring it up again, because for some reason it's the same question, but again, the community preservation funds made for supporting our historical sites, and we know how historical and how important our shallow baptist churches, and our community. Again, the approval of this process is to support its historical integrity, correct? And this is why we are allowed to share our taxpayers' funds for a project like this, because I would support it a thousand percent.

[Theresa Dupont]: Yes, and I will say Councilor Scarpelli, I always appreciate that you want to clarify for the public just to make sure that this is a transparent process. So I appreciate your comments here. Yes, ADA improvement to a historical community asset is an eligible expense under CPA. And just to explain that a little bit, it's just so that it continues to be a modernly used historical asset. And with that, you need to have ADA accessibility.

[George Scarpelli]: Well, again, like I said, I think that that's important to make sure that we eliminate any of those negative questions that are out there and I appreciate everything you do and this is something that I would move approval when it is time, Mr. President. So, thank you. Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli.

[Zac Bears]: Councilor Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. I just have a couple of questions about the proposed childcare facility maybe opening as part of this project. It's very exciting. There's a real lack of accessible child care in Medford. So I know there are a lot of people trying to address that issue. Can you tell me what ages of kids would be served by this project.

[Theresa Dupont]: I don't want to say for certain, but I believe it is like a five to 12 age bracket, perhaps even younger. It might be five to eight. It has been a while since I've revisited that aspect of this project, been really more focusing on the building itself, but I can certainly find that out and would be happy to share that with this council. It is a Bonsai childcare, which does already have a facility in Medford. So this will be an expansion. So if anybody is familiar with Bonsai childcare, I personally am not, I don't have children, but I can certainly find that out and follow up with this group. But I believe it is in the five to eight or maybe even younger to eight years old.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Okay, I appreciate all of the work that Shiloh Baptist Church is doing to contribute to the holistic service of the needs of our residents in Medford. After school care for our elementary age students is something that we've been facing a lot of challenges in Medford lately. I know that there's a lot of work being done and we're addressing a lot of the problems but I'm sure this is one of the ways I'm not on school committee so I can't speak directly. but I do have kids who are in elementary school and had to get, had to start a new program this year. And there, there was just for a long time a gap for third graders. One program would end in second grade and another program, these are private programs, so not even the school programs, but the next program didn't do third grade, started in fourth grade. And there just wasn't, you know, there wasn't enough for third graders. So anyway, it sounds awesome. I'm glad that it's happening. I would be happy to support this. I would be happy to support it anyway just for the historic preservation of the building and for the service that it provides to the neighborhood. But I love it when something can both serve the church community and also be serving the wider community as well. It's just a really great example of cohesion and everybody helping each other out in a real community. So, thank you for bringing this forward and for your work.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Lazzaro. On the motion of Councilor Scarpelli to approve, seconded by? Second. Seconded by Vice President Collins. Any further discussion? Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

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

[Zac Bears]: Yes. I have the affirmative, none negative. The motion passes. For participation, if there's anyone who'd like to speak on a topic of their choosing for three minutes, please raise your hand on Zoom or come to the podium in person. All right, seeing none, is there a motion on the floor? Motion to adjourn by Councilor Lazzaro, seconded by? Seconded by, wait, that is a Collins motion? Oh, and Collins seconded. All right, great. Motion by Councilor Lazzaro, seconded by Vice President Collins. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Meeting is adjourned.

Zac Bears total time: 24.54 minutes total words: 1893	Anna Callahan total time: 4.97 minutes total words: 129	Emily Lazzaro total time: 6.38 minutes total words: 585	Matt Leming total time: 13.02 minutes total words: 738
George Scarpelli total time: 17.98 minutes total words: 576	Kit Collins total time: 10.0 minutes total words: 141	Justin Tseng total time: 3.94 minutes total words: 36