AI-generated transcript of City Council Committee of the Whole 01-17-23

[Nicole Morell]: 22-519 committee of the whole meeting Tuesday, January 17 2023 at 615 p.m. is called to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. Present.

[Kit Collins]: Present six present one absent the meeting is called to order.

[Nicole Morell]: There will be a meeting of the Medford City Council Committee of the Whole on Tuesday, January 17th, 2023, at 6.15 p.m. in the Medford City Council Chamber on the second floor of Medford City Hall and via Zoom. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss paper 22-519, proposed amendments to the Community Preservation Act Ordinance. The committee has invited Roberta Cameron, Chair of the Community Preservation Committee, to this meeting. For further information, aids, and accommodations, contact the City Clerk at 781-393-2425. Sincerely yours, Nicole Morell, Council President. So as the meeting notice states, this is in response to a paper that was introduced through communications from other departments, from Roberta Cameron, Chair of the Community Preservation Committee, for two or three proposed changes to the Community Preservation Act Ordinance as it's enacted in the City of Medford. There are minor changes as far as filling in vacant positions and just some language as far as resubmitting proposals to the City Council. Unless any Councilors have questions at this time, Roberta if you'd want to just kind of jog our memory as to the proposed changes before us and we also did get a legal opinion from KP law on this as well that was shared with the council, so please do and I will apologize and ask you to jog my memory as well because it was some time ago that I drafted this memorandum and I haven't reviewed it to to remember exactly but I do recall that we were

[Roberta Cameron]: asking to streamline the application process for CPA committee members because the process that's outlined in the ordinance that we have to follow has resulted in unnecessary delays and confusion around the process of appointing new committee members. It is not repeated. The requirement for essentially legal advertisement of committee members is not required for any other committee across the city for board and committee members. It was just peculiar to the language that we drafted in our ordinance at the time. And we have the intention of, of advertising positions and looking as broadly as we can to bring applicants. But what has happened in the past is that we've actually had to ditch a whole slate of really good applicants in order to restart the process over again. in order to comply with the ordinances legal advertisement requirement because it hadn't been properly advertised according to the ordinance the first time. So by bringing our ordinance into the norms of how other boards and committees are advertised, it will make it much easier to have a streamlined process. And while we're at it, since we're coming to you asking for this minor change in the ordinance to make a couple of other corrections at the same time, the most notable one that is included in the memorandum that I prepared is to eliminate a process that was put into the ordinance for bringing projects back to the council that the council denied That process has never been used and really doesn't fit the procedures for how CPA projects are evaluated and brought to the council in the first place. So it's not necessary, and I think it creates an unnecessary step of confusion.

[Nicole Morell]: Great, thank you. And we do have, yeah, we have the document in front of us. I can read it for anyone watching. The proposed or recommended changes Current existing language and 2-561C2 is a committee may resubmit a project to the city council with an adjusted scope or budget. And the issue here is there's no reason to place a time limit or otherwise constrain the CPC's ability to revise and resubmit the projects the council has rejected. If a project requires more negotiation or vetting in order to be acceptable to all stakeholders, then it will be more beneficial to allow as much time or as many attempts as needed to seek approval. And again, these recommendations are coming from, this came from your report, Roberta, in September, and their recommendation is to strike this. The other one is 2-563D, which prohibits members of other boards and committees from serving on the CPC. The issue is, again, from Roberta, is should Medford establish an affordable housing trust, it may be beneficial to have a member of the CPC also serve on the AHT. Moreover, it may be helpful to allow for greater coordination between the CPC and some other boards and committees, if there are people who are interested in serving on both, the recommendation is to amend this provision to allow appointed officials to serve on multiple. And then 2-564, the existing language, it describes a process for filling vacancies on the committee. And the issue, again, as submitted by Roberta, is this process is overly prescriptive and has consistently prolonged the time requirement to fill vacancies. No other committee requires legal advertisement to fill vacancies. and there is no requirement under the state statute for the CPC to post legal advertisements for committee appointments. While the intention was to ensure promptness and broad outreach in recruiting new committee members, the result has been that vacancies must be held open for months until the unique appointment process has been followed exactly as specified in the ordinance. Moreover, the requirement to advertise in a newspaper of general circulation is no longer relevant because Medford's local newspaper is not widely read and is no longer exclusively local. Finally, the time limit of 45 days may not be realistic or sufficient to allow for adequate outreach to the community. And the recommendation here is to eliminate the requirement to post a newspaper of general circulation to advertise for two consecutive weeks and the time limit for filling the vacancy. So those are the changes that were proposed to us within the existing ordinance. I know this was referred to committee of the whole by Councilor Knight, partially just to understand whether these proposed changes were within the state statute outline of the CPC as it was adopted. And we have an opinion from Attorney Everett with KP Law that affirms that this would be in coordinates or coordinated with the state statute as it was adopted by the city of Medford. So that is what we have before us tonight. If we have any questions or discussion around this. Vice President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Personally, I think all of these make sense. I think it will allow, you know, I think all the points are well taken within the arguments that are made here, make it easier to fill vacancies on the CPC and if there is, you know, potentially a project that the Council rejects, then there's no shot clock on the CPC. You could submit it in 180 days and allow a lot more time for more stakeholders or even a whole other round of grant cycle. I'm given all of that. I think all of this makes sense. And also, you can correct me if I'm wrong. This is the first amendment we've made to the ordinance since it passed. And it's based on, I would say that the fact that the amendments are so minor is a testament to that the initial ordinance was pretty solid and that after four or five years of experience on the CPC, the CPC has said, here are some minor tweaks that'll make this work even better. So I would support this and motion to report it out to regular sessions.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Vice President Bears. Councilor Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Rowland. Thank you, Roberta, for being here this evening and for putting these amendments forward. Just to echo what Vice President Bears said, I think that all of these amendments seem very common sense, and we know that they've come from the experience of the CPC doing its business and being able to pinpoint where there are hiccups or unnecessary steps, steps that don't actually help their process. So all of this seems... like amendments that I'd be very happy to report out tonight and make sure that this ordinance is updated to make sure that the work of the CPC continues to go on just as smoothly as it can, which of course is I think all of our goal. While we have this open, I do have an additional amendment that I'd like to propose on this ordinance, but I'll wait until discussion on these proposed amendments is complete to put that forward.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you.

[Justin Tseng]: Thank you. Thank you for presenting today. Thank you for putting all these edits in such an easy to understand way. I think, I think that's really beneficial to all of us Councilors and anyone watching our meetings and following along with the development. Residents always ask for government to operate more efficiently and more flexibly. And I believe that these amendments will do that and will modernize the work that you do, the great work that you guys are already doing. And I'm excited to see the work that the CPC will continue to do in the next few years. I, you know I to to Councilor bears this point about, you know, the, how this, how this is almost an attestment to how well the original ordinances worked, you know, just just with anything you you. any law, any policy, any item you buy, you buy it, you use it for a while, and you say, what can I fix up to make it better? And to me, these seem like really common sense fixes to make the CPC work even better. So thank you for your time. And I would second Zach's, Councilor Veras' motion.

[Nicole Morell]: I know Councilor Knight just arrived. We're reviewing the proposed changes to, I know you had a, great. I believe you're the one who sent it to me the whole, great. Councilor Collins, you said you had some proposed amendment.

[Kit Collins]: Yes, thank you so much. So since this was opened up for discussion this week, I did hear from some residents who've had additional suggestions for ways to improve the ordinance since this was circulated as being a topic of discussion. It was noted, to me in, so this is section 2563, which is the section that describes preference for selection and qualifications for appointed members. It was highlighted that the existing text in this section And that first section says, to the greatest extent possible, appointed members of the committee shall be selected in a geographically balanced fashion so as to achieve a fair representation of the entire city. I think, to me, that speaks to an attempt to make sure that the makeup of the committee reflects the plurality and diversity of the community. You know, the suggestion was made to me by a couple of constituents, why not make it even more explicit if we're trying to make sure that this committee represents the breadth of Medford. Um, let's let's let's say what the goals are that we're trying to achieve through that geographic diversity. So I would, um, you know, following council discussion, I would, if my fellow Councilors be willing to entertain an amendment to make that more explicit, I would suggest something along the lines of, and this is I'll just reread it in its entirety. So it makes more sense. This is section 2563 a Um, an amendment or an addition at the end of that paragraph so that it now reads and to the greatest extent possible, appointed members of the committee shall be selected in a balanced fashion regarding neighborhood of residents, race, ethnicity, gender and economic background. So as to achieve a fair representation of the entire city. If that was hard to follow, I'm happy to repeat it.

[Nicole Morell]: I miss, I think I missed the first word or two on that either repeat.

[Kit Collins]: So this would be starting after the words, fiscal accounting practices. Yep. To then make the, actually, not starting after that, starting half a sentence after that. To the greatest extent possible, appointed members of the committee shall be selected New words here. Balanced fashion regarding neighborhood of residence, race, ethnicity, gender, and economic background. So it's just citing more characteristics in addition to just the original text, which is a geographically balanced fashion.

[Nicole Morell]: My only concern would be just economic background. I don't know how you would know such information without someone volunteering, and I think it might put us in a precarious place start asking things like that. That is a fair point.

[Adam Knight]: I think it also brings us down a slippery slope when we start defining things like that for the purpose of diversity and inclusion, and then we actually begin to exclude people with language, right? So if we're going to do something like that, it's a good reason to be careful.

[Nicole Morell]: And both those comments were specific to economic. Yeah. OK. First point I hear, yeah.

[Kit Collins]: Could you read what it would be without economic? Sorry. Yes, so it would be now again, I'm going to start reading after the words fiscal accounting practices and to the greatest extent possible appointed members of the committee shall be selected in a balanced fashion regarding neighborhood of residence, race, ethnicity, and gender so as to achieve a fair representation of the entire city.

[Nicole Morell]: Any discussion on that from the council?

[Adam Knight]: Madam President, would these be the mayor's appointees?

[Roberta Cameron]: that's currently it's the mayor's appointees, correct?

[Kit Collins]: These are just the regular members of the CPC. This is just amending the description of selection preferences.

[Roberta Cameron]: And they are up there in the mayor's appointees approved by city council is the way that it currently reads and would still continue to be with these changes.

[Kit Collins]: All it's aiming to do is add some clarifying language to sort of marry the goals of seeking geographic clarity.

[Roberta Cameron]: If I may add the geographic balance is already in the ordinance. So this is just adding to the description of what kind of balance we're trying to maintain and maintaining a balance doesn't mean that we exclude people on the basis of not like meeting a quota, but it just means that we take those factors into consideration as we consider, you know, assembling a committee. Um, when we look at new candidates.

[Nicole Morell]: Any further discussion on that amendment or this paper in general?

[Zac Bears]: I'm not opposed to it, but I just think we need to have... It needs to align either with something in another ordinance or... I'm just trying to like find something in here where we have a more descriptive phrase within our existing ordinances to clarify that purpose. But barring that I agree, I think the specifics of the language here get really important because it could be seen as establishing quotas that are, and we're not allowed to do that. So, I would just I'd want to move a little more time to move forward on it just so that we can clarify. And I want to hold the rest of it up. So I mean, again, a small change at a later date as a separate paper, I think, might make sense. And I'm not trying to quash this at all. I agree with what you're saying. I just think we need to be really specific about the language to get the intent right so that it meets state and local and federal requirements around issues like that.

[Justin Tseng]: And I can't find something on short notice. I was doing something similar. I know other communities have spent some time to quantify in their ordinances a more, I think, just a very professionally written, legally written phrase about equal treatment or more explicitly listing the categories and not excluding any other groups besides that, but using clear language to describe it. And I totally agree with the intent of the edit, but I also don't want to hamstring the rest of this ordinance, given the importance of passing it as soon as possible. but I am open to those discussions and to possibly discussing whether we would want to more explicitly list out our equal treatment policy or something like that.

[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you. No, I appreciate the discussion around this. That's why we have these forums. And especially since this PACER is before us at all, because we're trying to streamline the work of the CPA, I'm happy to submit this as a separate paper. I thought if it happened to be a no brainer, we could do it at the same time. But if that's not the case, I'm happy for us to discuss this separately.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. And yeah, I would just, I agree with the intent. And I think to Council Vice-President Bears, as Councilor is saying, I think perhaps it is a statement that belongs on all of our committees or commissions that we don't want to seem like we're establishing quotas number one, and then quotas specifically for one established committee. So yeah, I thank you for entertaining the conversation, and I appreciate you for introducing it. Vice President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: And I think to that point, there's items within our ordinances. Committees have been created at different times, and there's probably, at least just in a quick glance, there's a lot of different language that's been used to define representation of, what the qualifications are for boards and commissions. So it may be worth to say, if we get good language, a comprehensive look so that every board and commission has the same language on this, and then we're doing something comprehensive.

[Adam Knight]: I think it's also important to point out that the Community Preservation Act is a state law. So some of the stuff may be addressed in that already. It may be redundant. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Any further discussion on This paper in general, anything specific? We do have a motion on the floor from Vice President Bears to report out the recommended changes to the regular meeting. Seeing no further discussion, Councilor Tseng. Second. Great. So on the motion of Vice President Bears to report the language out to the regular meeting, the next regular meeting, and seconded by Councilor Tseng. without Councilor Collins amendment. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. On the motion of Councilor Knight to adjourn, seconded by Councilor Tseng. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes, meeting adjourned.