AI-generated transcript of City Council Committee of the Whole 05-23-23

[Nicole Morell]: 23-292 community the whole meeting Tuesday, May 23 2023 at 6pm Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. present five present to absent. There will be a meeting of the Medford City Council committee of the whole on Tuesday, May 23 2023 at 6pm and the Medford City Council chambers on the second floor of Medford City Hall and via zoom the purpose of the meeting is to discuss council recommendations for the FYI 24 budget paper 23-292 for further information aids and accommodations. contact the city clerk at 781-393-2425. Sincerely yours, Nicole Morell, council president. So just as the meeting notice states, this meeting is to discuss the council's priorities for the budget. So I'm happy to open it up to discussion from councilors, hopefully. I know at least councilor Sang, I believe other councilors should filter in, but if folks wanna start, they wanna share what, I know some stuff was submitted in advance, but if folks wanna share what they'd like to see in this budget, we can get those requests off to the mayor. Anyone can start. Vice President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Thank you for calling this meeting. As we know, there are a number of priorities that the City Council has been pushing for in the budget. We were successful in having them appropriated last year, although some of them have not come to fruition, such as the assistant city solicitor position. And we also have yet to send out the RFP for the zoning, although that is happening soon. I think one other thing that's really become completely clear to me and I think to my fellow Councilors over the past year. It's just the lack of clarity and a clear plan around what the city budget is and needs to be and should be and what the steps are to get there. Part of this budget process I'm really, really hoping to get answers on our. why are we spending so much money using one-time funds, which is a structural deficit, but also accruing such a significant surplus and free cash reserves. Those things seem to be really basically opposites of each other. We functionally have a deficit and a surplus at the same time. And that's obviously what I just said is a contradiction in terms. It has to be one or the other. I think personally for me, the reason we don't have these answers is that there is not a budget director in the finance department whose sole focus is to work on the budget and work not just on the specific appropriations and making sure that all the journal entries are made in the accounting, but actually budget planning. What are we expecting this year? What are we expecting for the next several years? What are the main trends behind that? I know that some of the staff in that office work on pieces of that goal, but from subcommittee meetings and other meetings that we've had with the finance director, it's clear that there's not a single person dedicated to that purpose. And I do know that budget director was a title that did exist in the past, even if it may have been a title that was shared with another title by a single person. So my personal recommendations, which I shared with the council last Friday, would be to hire a budget director at full time budget director so that we can actually come up with the plan that we need and have the data and understanding of our revenue and expenses so that we can fund the services that we need to fund, make sure that we have a plan to compensate staff fairly so we can actually hire them and address the major infrastructure challenges that we have. And then my second, third and fourth recommendations are to me should just be no brainers but the second one is just to maintain the $50,000 in funding for our zoning project for the phase two of our zoning project. And then for three and four to fully fund the public Medford public schools based on the budget request by the school committee. as well as to fully fund the Medford Public Library based on the recommendation of the Library Board of Trustees. So those are the four things that I think, given the information that I have now, which is not what I want it to be, that I feel comfortable pushing forward. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Vice President Bears. Going to Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilor Bears. I was talked that this is these meetings lately pre pre arranged by this council to really beat up the mayor because it's an election year. That's what the dialogue that's being spun. I'm a little dejected for the fact that what we asked for last year and agreed on, we didn't get anything. Um, I appreciate my fellow councils to bring this meeting forward and ask, uh, give us the opportunity to share what we need. But, um, I'm very, uh, very confused in what we're doing here. And the fact that, um, we're going to give our wish and hopes, but we still haven't seen financial paperwork that we need to work a city forward. I will agree with Council of his and most communities in most communities that we have colleagues that are in city council and we they call me because they don't they don't think what we're saying here can be true. They think that, they think, like, George, is that a joke? Is that, are you guys serious? You don't, you don't get these basic, the basic information? And I said, no. And I want people to understand that what Councilor Villescaz is saying is true, what other communities have. I mean, I, geez, I think they've had, handful of meetings already in neighboring communities with the mayor with the department heads, letting the council know what their wishes are, the mayor meeting with the council, giving them giving their council and understanding what the financial climate is of the community. We have a goals are for our community financially. I mean, we're looking at a day-to-day budget we don't see, and I see our major issues, major concerns, capital project issues. And has anyone seen a capital plan? Any direction that the city has? Because cities have open and transparent guides. They have journals that you can go onto their site and they can show you exactly what their goal of their community is, what their, what their elected officials are working for, how they're working together. My dejection is that we don't even know what's I don't even know what's in the bank account to pay the bill. It's and I know what people like that you make you're really stretching it George. I'm not. You know, I've been hooting and hollering. I've been showing way too much emotion. I've been very intense. I'm gonna tell you, Madam President, this is dejecting in the fact that we asked the mayor, we sat here at one o'clock in the morning, they had to bring her back from her house. She came to us, she found millions of dollars. She looked at us and says, what do you want? Remember that night? And we told her, these are at least three things that we want. I will guarantee you we will do that. Remember how she wanted to fund it? The funding, we were confused how she was going to fund it. We don't know. Here we are today in a perfect community, in a perfect setting, in a perfect organization. The mayor will have people in place in every department You would have DPW would have their own because the biggest budget, their own finance director that's overseeing the biggest budget, the school department have their fine own finance director full time working with the city. They would have AIDS working with each department head right now, working with them to make sure they're hitting their goals. And it's so funny when I saw the meeting post, I saw Councilor Villes sent out his wishlist to everybody and I said to myself, I can't. I started writing it down and I had 50 things. I had 50 different things. And what keeps glaring back at me is forget about all the bells and whistles that the city needs that's expected, forget about that. Honestly, we just... We want streets that people aren't going to Home Depot to pick up car top to patch because there isn't enough DPW workers. We want to make sure that we have fire stations that are open and safe and clean. We want to make sure that our workers in this community are happy to be here that are working for a goal that all of us are pulling for. So I, you know, it's I sat back and I said, geez, you know what, it'll be great to look at after school care. I know Council Caraviello brought up a point. And we're talking about after school care, because I've been talking about two different parents. And I said, that's a school issue. Sure. It could be a school issue. But in other communities, it's a shared issue. and other communities, they use their recreation department. They use partnerships with Boys and Girls Clubs and the YMCA's. They invest in talking to and meeting and seeing the work in the best course of action for their community. The people keep asking me, what's going on in the school? They're saying that they're making huge cuts and they're laying people off. I said, that's a rumor, I don't know. because this council president worked very hard to try to sit with representatives at the school committee side to see if we can talk, because that, I think, is probably the most intense piece of our budget, because it deals with the most vulnerable people in our community, and that's our children. But again, if we don't have a true understanding of a school budget, I don't know what sounds good, but as a former school committee member, I'm seeing things I'm getting phone calls from teachers and administrators and telling me what's happening the waste of money. keeps coming back to me saying the school department used two consultants, one we know was 50,000, the second one was longer and a bigger one, but we didn't know the number, that we asked to have a meeting to talk about what these consultants have put forth so we could put into the budget a safe plan for security at Medford High School to see what the plans are. And no, nothing back, no conversation. So the people that I answer to ask me, George, how much does the school need if we had $150,000 per se ready available at a snap of a finger to do a consultant job that we have We have superintendents, assistant superintendents, educators with master's degrees, doctorate degrees that work with children every single day. But we used $150,000. So these are questions that when we go to approve a school budget, how can all of us legitimately look at a school budget and say, oh, this is what they need, why? The president, the chairperson of that organization didn't want to meet with us. You know, so this, I still remember when we first started. I remember when I was on the school committee that the understanding of people on the council, people on the school committee that agreed to disagree, but they did what's best for Medford. I don't see that today. We're gonna have issues later on this afternoon in our regular meeting that we have questions that we need legal representation. We don't even have an attorney here. We can't move the city forward in any way. You know, I would love to see office community development put together as what neighbor communities have so we can bring in new money to our community. But we don't see that. So again, my wish, we haven't seen the money paper. The mayor hasn't come through with anything that we've asked for for last one that she sat up there and promised. So this is what I want. I want new schools, new fire station, new roads, new sidewalks. I want new, new fire trucks. I want, I want the refurbishing of different city facilities. I want the parks maintained because I love this one. It's great and all that we're getting these federal funding for all these parks, because there was a press releases all over the place. Carr Park, right, Carr Park's being done, Harris Park is being done. And this is great with the federal funding. Have you looked at the other parks in our community? Have you talked to the people that play baseball and softball in our community? Have you talked to the people that play soccer in our community? Those fields that are there, that were bought years ago, that were supposed to be invested in, nothing's been done. Medford High School fields, I think it's year 15 now. It's a 10-year turf, 10 years. Yeah, we need a lot of things but this is all to me it's what how what I just I know it's disingenuine what I brought up. But again, I appreciate having this meeting just to talk again but it's it's it's falls on deaf ears and. someone who was born and raised here and watch great people, new people move into this community, make it a better place and watch Medford become one of the, what do we read today, this week? Medford is one of the fastest growing communities, right? Isn't this great? What does it have to show for right now? We're a mess. I get 10 phone calls a day now with not one issue, 10 different issues. And you know what I have to say to him? I'm sorry, I can't help you. So again, I apologize for my negative behavior, but in the sense that it just feels so dejected. I told you what I said is what I think we need. But the truth of the matter is, we don't even know if we have $10 or $100 million in our coffers to make things happen. We don't know. And that's not for those people that are writing on their little pages. This is not an election banter. This isn't a ploy. This is what's happening to us every single day. So thank you, Madam President.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Councilor Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Morell. Um, I think it's always great to be able to have this sort of big picture big perspective meeting before we get into the individual departmental budget hearings, which will be spending a lot of time on over the next six weeks, and I did kind of reading the spirit of the meeting. Literally, I do have, you know, my very short quote unquote wish list, though, of course, that's, you know, very far from, you know, being what these budget priorities actually are. But first, I just want to speak to you sort of the some of the broader themes that Councilor Scarpelli and Vice President Bears already brought up because I think from the from the tone of this conversation so far, I think compared to last year, what's very much on my mind and my colleagues mind is not our specific line item budget priorities so much as the overall atmosphere in which the budget is created, the atmosphere in which we discuss the budget, how much information we have about or maybe perhaps the disproportionate emphasis on year-by-year budgets as opposed to an actual plan for how we're going to achieve our goals over time. Councilor Scarpelli mentioned that we are, we often feel in the dark about how much we have to spend on what and how our priority and how our priorities are going to actually be made manifest in the community. I think that we have a mismatch between data and quality information, because some of this data is out there. We saw a draft of a capital improvement plan. We got a presentation on that. We do occasionally get these big picture numbers. We've asked for AP warrant articles. We're starting to get them. But not all data is equally useful. I think if we know where to look, we can find the information on how much is in certain accounts, how much is available, from what sources. But what we don't No, I think what we're really all looking to know, trying to be desperate to know is, how exactly are we going to get from right here, the FY 24 budget to any of our goals being accomplished? How are we going to go from point A to point B? How are we going to go from the departmental budget hearings that we're going to hear about the nitty gritty of this year and these staffing levels and this grant funding opportunity and all of the line item detail level work to how does that connect to the things that our residents ask us about and the things that our residents see affecting their quality of life. I think for me, my biggest budget priority really is getting to a place where we can start connecting those dots at least once a year during budget season to get out of this environment in which we have no idea how much potential we're leaving on the table. We have no idea why things are not being funded more adequately than they are. We don't know exactly why the numbers are coming to us the way that they are and what other potential there is and what kind of long-term strategy they're connected to. And to make that more concrete, I think that apart from a couple specific line item preferences, my biggest priority for this budget season is asking what exactly we're going to do with the free cash that is available to us this fiscal year. We haven't seen, I haven't seen any official numbers yet, so I don't know what we're going to be looking at. But we know last year it was a fight to get level funding, let alone level service for many of our very critical constituent services and departments. And given how we were told, we have many, many, many millions of free cash that was certified last summer. If it is a fight, again, to get level funding, let alone level service for many of our departmentals, for many of our departments this year. We have to know why. I wanna know why there's money being left on the table. And often I think we use that term to describe development opportunities that we're not pursuing as fast as we could be because we lack the staff to do so, but rather the resources that we actually have in a context when so many constituent needs are going unmet, how could we possibly defend not marshaling those resources to connect directly to the constituent services that people already know that they're missing, because we hear about it all the time. In terms of specific priorities that I hope to see from the administration in the coming weeks, we did manage to get that guarantee from the administration last year that we get $50,000 earmarked for a legal consultant for zoning recodification work, which I am really grateful to the administration for. We weren't able to act on that this past fiscal year, so I'd like to see that maintained because we're almost ready to start acting upon it. That's probably my number one priority. The only other specifics that felt relevant for me to bring up in this meeting, given where we are in this austerity environment and knowing how low the ceiling is in what we're likely to be able to fund, is being able to meet the requested budget number promulgated by the school committee, being able to maintain level service for the public library budget. Because of this austerity environment that we've been in for such a long time, you know, all of those things that I mentioned really should be non-negotiables. It's a little, it strikes me as a little surreal to have to mention those as budget priorities when those should be, when those should go without saying. But given the budget conversation that we had this time last year and how we really did have to fight for level funding for well, I mean, we had to advocate for level funding regardless of how it actually ended up for those extremely essential government services that, as Councilor Scarpelli mentioned, do target some of our most vulnerable members of our community. It's hard to call that a wish list when these are things that should never have to fear going underfunded. So just to end on, you know, again, the sort of the longitudinal note, I think what's what's most frustrating to me is that we have these disparate data points, we have these disparate plans, what we don't have is any sort of overarching narrative for how individual data points, individual plans, individual staff, people, individual annual budgets coalesce to any sort of forecasting for when we are going to achieve our goals to what extent. And I think that's where the budget director role could come in and other roles similar to that. You know, I wish we had you know, a cohort, I think we could use a cohort of project managers dispersed across, you know, this whole city government, we have people working individually doing incredible work with the resources that they have in various departments. I'm often, you know, just absolutely blown away by how effective our department has our city staff are able to be under really very understaffed and austere conditions. But we're already so behind on so many of our stated shared goals for the city. We need to start laying that foundation. with our financial planning, with our project managing, with our project planning that goes beyond one year at a time. If we just continue on this path of doing as much as we can with as much as we're given on a year-to-year basis, that's how we've been going for the past several decades. And I think we can all look around and see how behind that leaves us feeling on our infrastructure, on our staff development, and just on the quality of life that residents feel that they have. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins, Councilor Tseng and Councilor Caraviello.

[Justin Tseng]: Thank you, President Morell. I think my fellow councilors have have touched on the amount of information that we know as a council right now. I, I was stuck in traffic so I didn't catch cancer bears his statements but I, I assume he's also touched on that as well. Um, when I think about a budget, I think of it as a statement of governance values and signaling. that. Um when I was thinking about how to create this list, um, some of the items that I put on there are clear needs that we have as it as a city that, um, residents have been reaching out to us about, um and some of them are loftier goals that you know if we wanted to do 100% of that project, we most likely couldn't afford it. Um but it would be helpful to I believe that this is a good time to bring it up to administration to say, look, we would like something in the budget about this, even if we can't get something in the budget about this, we want to see a plan moving forward on these goals, so that in the future for fiscal 25 and 26, and future budgets, we know that something is going to be done on it. know that we have the full picture. Even though we don't have the full picture. We know some facts. Um we know that our needs exceed the funding. Um most likely exceed the funding that we have now in revenue as a city. Um and that's not to talk about a wish list. It's to talk about what department heads feel our needs for the city. What residents keep reaching us out to us about should be quite significant. I mean, it's not a matter of one or two money papers that come across us once a month throughout council meetings. It's a big picture. We need to sit down during budget season and talk about overall how are we going to meet these needs. It's not about rejecting one paper. We have a wish list on top of that, on top of those needs. And that wish list. You know, I think Councilor Collins is right we shouldn't call it a wish list, it's really just an extended version of our needs. us, it's the equivalent of us going up to a department head and saying, Look, if we had unlimited money, what do you need to thrive in your department? What do you need to succeed in City Hall? And so it's not really a wish list. It's, you know, it's just like an extension of that list of needs. And we know that we have this conflict in the city between one time and recurring needs of spending. And I think one example of that is what we might see in the future with Esther funding and with in teaching positions. We'll need to talk about how, how are we taking, how are we approaching this $25 million in free cash, how are we approaching the bigger, bigger question of revenue in the city, and how are what how are we sorting out what positions are going to go away what positions we're going to keep and if we want to keep positions that are slated are scheduled to go away. How do we fund those positions and I think that highlights. I think a strategy that we should take on as a, as a council on this budget season which is the number one pushing for a long term vision, and even if we're focusing on the fiscal 24 budget this year. I think we need to take this month and ask about larger plans for bringing in new growth and new revenue for future fiscal years as well, because I think Councilor carabino says this all the time. You know, it takes a while for the shovel shovel to get in the ground as well. And so I think it's important for us to talk about that. I think, um, I think Councilor Collins brought it up, and I would support this, um, maintaining funding for zoning consulting team I think is very much top of the priority list in that regard. Strategically, we need to look at ways that we can bring in more money and invest in smart development. and in city staff that would focus on expanding our commercial revenue base and revitalizing our businesses. I think in talking with OPDS, we have made a lot of strides as a city when it comes to these things. But the thing is, now we have staff that we need to, vacancies that we need to fill in those offices. They need more funding and support from the city budget in terms of reaching out to businesses to teach them smarter business strategies and to help them with blight and infrastructure. It is helpful for us to have outside feedback and consultant reports. And I'm not saying that we turn to consultants all the time, but oftentimes on sensitive issues, those reports do help us have a better sense of how to target our spending. And so I did want to put that out there. Getting on to my shortlist. I think all of us here are fully supportive of the Medford Public Schools. I think we've heard a lot from parents of the Medford Public Schools. I did put out a survey to residents in the last week, which got around 125 responses. And about half of respondents mentioned that the biggest problem facing Medford is lack of funding for our schools. And going hand in hand with education is fully funding our library system as well. A lot of residents unexpectedly, very unexpectedly, very unsurprisingly pointed to the state of our roads, sidewalks, and bike lanes as a major issue here in Medford as well, and so I think about a third of respondents mentioned those. are more than a third actually. I mean, so I would like to see something in this budget that commits to reducing that road and sidewalk repair backlog and look, I mean, wish list, but I think it's important to make that point in this council. This is a big issue that's been popping up a lot in our community that I think Councilor Caraviello has put forward some suggestions for that I've been working with school committee members and, and other parents in the away from the council chambers is the need for more after school programming. It's a more difficult problem than just throwing money at it, but we need some signaling from the administration that we're going to commit to either putting more money towards hiring more staff for existing programming and increasing capacity there, or some planning for future facilities or future programs as well. Um, and these last two things are more wish list items that I don't think, um. That that I think are important to bring up while we have city staff before us, but I understand are more reaches, um, putting, um. Putting money towards a grant writer. A great manager would I think would really help us, um, capture more revenue or more. It's not It's sad to say it, but much of our city departments depend on grants to survive. And it's not a sustainable long-term strategy, but in the short term, I think that's something that would net us more money than we spend. And I've been fielding a lot of calls about rodents in Medford. And so a lot of residents want us to put some more money towards a more robust rodent mitigation strategy. And they understand that we can't eliminate all rodents in our city, but a little bit of looking at what other cities around us are doing. I think people look at other cities and wonder why Medford's not even trying. And so we need to signal that we are trying. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Councilor Caraviello.

[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. So here we are. It's May 23rd. We're five weeks away from our budget. uh, date that we have to have, we have to pass the budget. I haven't seen anything, haven't talked to anybody, no idea what the budget was. But you know, you want to think that, um, that frustrates me one of the most, I mean, so that we all have good ideas where we should have our money. But in the last two to three years, other cities have been flush with cash. We've gotten millions and millions of dollars of state and federal money. that you've seen other cities take advantage. Where did all our money go that we got from the federal government and from the state during these last three years? This money's gone now. This is the last year for the money. And I say, the schools, all these programs that we've been depending on these programs, these programs are all drying up now. They're coming to an end. We'll probably squeak through this year's budget with virtually no growth. The big problem is going to be this next year, because we're not going to have all this state and federal money that was thrown around the last couple of years. It's gone. The school's not going to have the money. It's gone. How long can the city live on grants? It's a causal segment. Their grants are great, and they're nice to have, but that's not how we operate. We operate with money. We're talking about our zoning consultants. Well, it's a year now it's gone. It's a year we haven't seen the zoning consultant. So the building boom is gonna be passing us by. So I mean, there's no rush with the zoning consultant now because everyone, all the buildings, everybody's built around this. And even though we're the last bastion of business to go, we have no plan. And this council worked diligently for two years to do the codification. We should have went right into the zoning almost immediately. So we would have been ahead of the game. By the time we go through the RFP process, it's gonna be another 90 days. And by the time, yeah, you say, where are we now? We're gonna be toward the end of this year. You know, that's just, it's utterly ridiculous. You know, and we talked about the capital plan. We all sat here and we listened to the capital plan, but Council of Mayors made the point. Why aren't we taking stock of our capital issues that we have before we go looking at other things? Let's fix our capital things that need fixing now. We don't, okay, and those are gone. We're still waiting for the legal. I want what I asked for last year, and we haven't seen anything. You have a library here that you own for about 60 cents on the dollar, 50 cents on the dollar, and we're struggling to fund that. I mean, you know, this is not a, you know, as Councilor Scott said, you know, people think that we're sitting here beating up the mayor. It's not beating up the mayor. I mean, we're asking legitimate questions that should be asked. And I say, we're going to squeak through this year's budget somehow with no growth and no anything happening. Next year is gonna be the real test of this council and this budget, where we're gonna find the money that's disappeared. And it's gone from the federal government and all these other plans. It's gone, never to come back again. And I don't think we use that money wisely. And let's say, I think we've all seen all the surrounding cities, all flush with cash, and here we are, we're operating at a deficit, but meanwhile, we're sitting on $25 million. Tell us what we should think here. Again, this is not a beat up session. It's just asking, you know, just questions that need to be asked.

[Nicole Morell]: Any further discussion from the Councilors? I mean, I would just know I agree with pretty much everything that's been said. I think those big, you know, I agree with Councilor Scarpelli where there is no shortage of what we need. We're not going to get a lot of those things, most of those things. but I will definitely beat the drum to make sure we continue to get that money for the zoning consultant so that we fund the library that we are committed to, that it can operate on the level that it needs to, that to also continue to be certified, correct? It needs to operate a certain way to continue to be certified by the state, as well as respond to the budget requests of our school committee that they believe to fully fund our schools. I'm hopeful, I will go into this hopeful that this year the mayor will hear our requests and entertain our requests. I think what was most disappointing last year was it wasn't a, I heard your requests, here's why I can't meet them. It was almost as if we never made the requests. So I look forward to at least a dialogue. I hope we can get much more than that. If there's no further discussion from the council, I can open up if there's any members of the public who wish to speak at this time, either on Zoom or in person. So either Will or anyone on Zoom. Going back to vices and mayors.

[Zac Bears]: I just want to say that, you know It's a fun day when Councilor Scarpelli is going down the list of all the things we need and I'm, I'm the one with the measured minor request. So, yeah, it's like we swapped records or something. But I completely I just since I spoke first and then everyone else spoke I completely agree with what everybody said I think we all hit on. different pieces of the issue, from small to large, from just keeping what we already have to finding a plan to fix all of those big, big needs that you listed, Councilor Scarabelli, and everyone else touched on. But yeah, it's, what did you say, Councilor Caraviello, we'll skate on by?

[Richard Caraviello]: We'll skate by this year. Yeah. And we'll use up the last of the little bit of funds that we got left, but next year is going to be the real test of where we are.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah. Yep. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. And then we do have someone who would like to speak.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President moral just just quickly I think and to vice president, there's this point it is, I know at least for myself it's a stark contrast between the laundry list that I came in with a year ago, and today, but just, you know, for the for any residents out there who are listening to our discussion and kind of feeling the absence of some, if there's any specifics that we failed to mention. I think the Councilors probably covered a lot of the ones that I have in the back of my mind. you know, but for the residents thinking, well, why didn't you talk more about the need for afterschool? Why didn't you talk about traffic calming measures? Why didn't you talk about bike lanes? Why didn't you talk about XYZ? Because there's a lot of XYZs, you know, the kind of, I was searching for a metaphor when I was preparing for this meeting today. And the, you know, the thing that came to mind for me was, you know, we have to build the boat before we can use the oars, you know, I think, or, or whatever version of that, you know, fill in the mantle of yourself. But I think, especially given our that. Given the conversation that we had last year, which I think is, you know, hung very heavy over this year and forecasting into the next fiscal year when a lot of this grant funding just goes away. Um it is painful for me to be very aware of all the needs going on met in the community and be aware of all the residents who are very aware of all the needs But it needs to start with the big picture, it needs to start with the planning and needs to start with the capital planning and needs to start with the project planning and needs to start with getting more of our operating budget out of grants and into revenue that we can depend on and figuring out where that revenue comes from. figuring out how to fund the gears that make the whole machine run so that we can eventually have that trickle down into the many, many slices of constituent services, particularly for our underrepresented constituents that we're not currently able to fulfill, to our shame. Thank you.

[Justin Tseng]: I'll be brief because I know someone's waiting but um, I think we made this point last year, and I've really been drumming on about it, we have some great plans as a city we have good teachers good people working for us in the city. I've passed on the bunch of our studies and plans to experts in the climate field and different, different fields and they think that the plans are better than the states, and better than other cities. But the thing is, none of these plans will be implemented unless we have that conversation about how we're going to fund those plans. And so I think we've all talked about how much of a black box it can feel working on the budget and how difficult it is to put forward recommendations without knowing the full picture. I think there's tons of small ideas I would love our city to do, but without an idea of what our staff capacity is, it's hard to put that on a list today and hard to talk about it without directly asking administration about it. Even though we face all those challenges, I think it's important to highlight the need to push for those big picture ideas as well.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Yeah, I would agree that we have many, many wonderful city employees and school employees that know how to do more with less and wouldn't it be nice if it didn't have to be that way. So we'll get, hopefully we get that boat first before we get the, hopefully we'll get that boat. Going to Jennifer Sullivan on Zoom. I will unmute you. Oh, someone already did, great. Name and address for the record, please. Oh wait, just kidding. There you go.

[Jen Sullivan]: Hi, Jen Sullivan, Marston Street. I wanted to know, is there anything that we as sort of involved residents can do to, there's a lot of us that are invested in what happens here, and we don't want to watch another circus, and that's from everyone. And what can we do to sort of support better transparency and communication and not meet it with anger and try to really get some progress. Like someone just said, we're a city full of talented, bright, motivated people that have great ideas and it just seems like no one's talking. I'm open to any advice on how we as residents can support some progress.

[Nicole Morell]: I mean, at this point, the budget is with the mayor. The mayor and her administration write the budget. Unfortunately, it's like a 90% baked cake by the time it gets to us and we can only do so much. So I think at this point, it's reaching out to the administration. When it gets to the council, we will absolutely do our best, but it's the mayor, the bulk of the work is with her and her administration.

[George Scarpelli]: I can't thank you. Thank you for the residents speaking. I think that I think first, I think that I appreciate that we have residents like our present company that's reaching out and saying, how can we help? And that's what's impressive about method. That's what makes method great. I think that's what is keeping method above ground right now. I mean, and not going underwater completely, but I know it's not anger. it's frustrating. Because it isn't. It's really frustration. And the frustration is if you if you look at Next week, our neighbor community on Wednesday is the mayor is already meeting with their city council, and they've already the city council and neighbor community has already been given total autonomy what the budget looks like and where, where money is going on a day to day basis so at least they have an understanding where it's going. You have the school committee on that same. The same side has already been talking with the mayor and the council about what Council saying was talking about is sustainability for what was spent with so money and coven money and seeing what are what are programs that could be sustained in their budget, and then looking at a long term plan to make sure those very important pieces that have shown through data that it's needed in the community and how they can fund it. I think what you're seeing here is the frustration that we don't even see, we don't see that tunnel, let alone the light in the tunnel. So we're gonna be, and there was a circus, the last budget season was a circus, but I think it became a circus because this council would not accept to walk away without the basic needs that we need to be successful. And, again, I appreciate the member of the community, I think that Council President mentioned answered that perfectly I think it's asking the administration. you know, where is the process? Why? Why hasn't there been transparency that and I think that's what the mayor has run on. You know, she ran on that a few years back as transparency. And I, you know, I was so excited because I sat next to her. And we talked about the issues and, you know, how appalled she was that we would get the budget weeks two weeks before, and we didn't even see a budget last year. And right now we don't even snip. We don't even see a financial to show us what our financial climate is. So It's frustrating and it makes me very nervous that the fact that, you know, we have kids in the public schools and we don't know what what what to tell them we have parents that are asking me, you know, the rumors out there about cuts and and layoffs and if that's the case, should they be looking to maybe go to a private school or move to a parochial school. And to me that that's the problem with this community, this administration that you're you're leaving things so open ended that you're driving people to make decisions that they truly can't afford. And again, I appreciate you looking out and appreciate the involvement and but let's reach out to the mayor. I mean, again, this is furthest from a political ploy. This is something that we've been talking about for years. This is something new. So thank you so much.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Any further discussion from the vice president bears?

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. I would just add to that point. Definitely agree with President Morell, Councilor Scarpelli. You know, when we receive a budget, I'm hoping to be able to take a look at the bottom lines and try to present the information in a more, maybe, you know, I hope it's presented in maybe a more comprehensive way in the budget. I don't know yet. Certainly last year when we were putting together sheets and sheets of paper and didn't have anything that was that, you know, we talk about a circus, that was the circus. We never got a complete budget in the first place. And that's why we were asking questions that in a normal year we would have had the information in advance and wouldn't have had to ask. likely, I think would have had more time to not have things go to the last minute on the last day. Now, who knows, you know, that's Monday morning quarterbacking, but, um, I would really say yes, definitely at this point, it's in the hands of the mayor. When it's released publicly, that's when, you know, it'll be released publicly, that's when we get it, the mayor's proposal. And I'm gonna take a look at it and I'm hoping the information will be there that I'll be able to say, okay, now I understand why we had a free cash surplus last year and here's what's being proposed and here's how much one-time funding is being used. And then, If that is not made clear from the presentation in that proposal, I'll try to bring something to a future council meeting myself, you know, basically just share with the public what I the work that I tried to understand the document. So, at that point I think we'll have a much clearer understanding of. How much one time funding are we using some shape of what the fiscal cliff we're looking at is in the next budget if it's not already in this budget. Things that aren't funded, and potentially even again like we had last year what's the amount of money. That's not here that we need now to fund essential services. And is there a real revenue proposal to get that money? So that's something that I'm hoping to do. I don't have enough data to do that yet, which is one reason it's very difficult to answer your question at this time about what can we do? I don't know how bad it is yet or how good it is.

[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: And I will go ahead.

[Richard Caraviello]: I'll present one last question and I won't be late with this one. Who's going to present the budget this year? Who's going to answer the budget questions? We don't have a budget director.

[Nicole Morell]: I do not know. I can ask the administration. I was going to say, do you have anything else you want to add? I did speak with the chief of staff, I believe it was Thursday. They're still hopeful that they will get us the budget this Friday. If we do get the budget this Friday, I will gleefully schedule budget meetings starting next Tuesday. So, but I will absolutely make sure we I will ask who is going to be presenting, and I will make sure you know a we're not meeting until we get a budget book, and be that we have the time to actually sit with it and digest it and you know come prepared and make the best use of everyone's time, the public bars department heads everyone. Any further discussion, vice-president Bears?

[Zac Bears]: I would just move to submit any written documents on recommendations provided by councillors as well as the committee report to the mayor for consideration.

[Nicole Morell]: Do you have it, Mr. Clerk? Would you like to add adjourning to that?

[Zac Bears]: And adjourn.

[Nicole Morell]: Great.

[Zac Bears]: Adjourn is good.

[Unidentified]: Are we expecting to drop something different?

[Nicole Morell]: of Vice President Bears, seconded by Councilor Caraviello. All those in favor? Opposed? Motion passes and meeting adjourned.