total time: 4.73 minutes
total words: 392
total time: 21.58 minutes
total words: 700
total time: 1.5 minutes
total words: 119
[Emily Lazzaro]: This meeting is called to order. This is a meeting of the Public Health and Community Safety Committee December 9th 10th 2025. And today we are meeting about two ordinances. One is the. Overgrowth ordinance and the other is the rodent control ordinance and Vice President Kit Collins has spearheaded both of these beautiful exquisite ordinances from the beginning and we are so grateful to have her here to usher them through to completion. Sorry. Two of my favorite ordinances of all time. Honestly overgrowth and rodent control. They're really peak. local local lawmaking at its best. So I'm going to let Vice President Collins speak on. Do you want to talk about overgrowth or rodent control purse overgrowth. OK. There we go.
[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you, Chair Lazzaro, for that extremely warm welcome into these topics that are both incredibly dear to our hearts. This is, I actually should have counted, I think this may be the fourth time we've met on this in committee. Director O'Connor will tell me if that feels about right. So we've been workshopping these for, I think, over a year. And as I've said at past committee meetings on the topic, the goal of these two ordinances are to give the Board of Health and our city officials the latitude and the authority to intervene in cases where, on both ordinances, on the overgrowth ordinance and on the road and control ordinance, to give the Board of Health the jurisdiction to intervene. in cases where on private property things are happening that are broadly creating threats to public health. Because we know, we look around the city, constituents get in touch with us, there are already many scenarios and circumstances and things that can come up in Medford where conditions on one piece of private property, it's not just that person's problem or that household's problem, it can be creating potential public health hazards or nuisances or impediments on the public way for other people in the community. And in those cases, it doesn't mean that we want to be punitive or that we want to punish people. It just means that we need the opportunity. The Board of Health needs the jurisdiction to be able to do something about it to resolve that issue to everybody's satisfaction. So for today, I hope that we can entertain a motion to report these two ordinances out of committee tonight so that we can take them up for first reading this coming Tuesday because these have been workshopped pretty thoroughly in committee so far and I want to thank my fellow committee members. and Director O'Connor and also Commissioner Tim McGivern and other department heads for weighing in on that process. Former Solicitor Foley and Attorney Austin from KP Law. There's very few questions left to discuss and issues left to resolve on both of them. So I'll just quickly run through the overgrowth ordinance first. So we've done this many times before so I'll be really brief and then just highlight the last remaining thing to potentially fill in. which I think we can certainly do in the time between now and next week. I can share my screen if you think that's worthwhile.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Yes, please.
[Kit Collins]: Great. Okay, so this is the probably like third version of this draft. Director O'Connor, I think you've seen this. We talked about this after our last committee meeting. So the purpose and intent, like I just spoke to, the purpose is to establish guidelines, rules and prohibitions to control and prevent plant overgrowth and other conditions that threaten public health, safety and welfare, and that create conditions for attracting rodents or other potential public health And I should have said this up top, but both of these versions that I'm going to screen share today, they're both available on the city council's public portal. It also goes on to say the city may intervene and take action in instances where overgrowth creates conditions where rodents are attracted or create other public health hazards. Definitions, this is one area where after our last committee meeting, Attorney Austin had recommended that we consider, sorry, I'm just hearing a little bit of feedback. I'm not sure if that's me. I'll push through it. One thing that I'd be happy to do before the regular city council meeting next week is that Attorney Austin did recommend that we look to some other communities in Massachusetts that have overgrowth ordinances and just borrow their defined terms. There was a community that whose overgrowth ordinance she particularly liked, and I think she said she referenced often, so I can follow up with her and just make sure that all of those major terms, such as overgrowth, attractant, standing water, et cetera, just so that when this is being interpreted by the public, by code enforcement officers, everybody is on the same page. Overgrowth and prohibited conditions, this is pretty straightforward. All property shall be maintained free of vegetation that is or may reasonably become infested with rodents, vermin, or other animals, conceal pools of stagnant water, or create a fire hazard. I think that this is all pretty, it's pretty point A to point B. The intent of this is to make it so conditions on people's private property that might create these dangers or nuisances or hazards that might affect other people are not allowed to persist if they become problematic. Exceptions, nothing in this section shall be interpreted to prohibit regular routine maintenance, gardening or landscaping. However, when overgrowth is determined to be the cause of a public safety threat or nuisance by the health director or designee and building commissioner or designee, the overgrowth or offending condition must be remedied in accordance with any order issued by the city enforcement officer. And I'm just going to fix a typo while I'm looking at it. I will note there was really only one major change to this ordinance, I believe, since we looked at it last time in committee, and that was just to remove the references to the Board of Health intervening when overgrowth or other conditions like that were impeding on the public right-of-way. And that is because the building commissioner made it very clear that that is an authority that lies within the DPW, and we just didn't want to get wires crossed or make it confusing who was responsible for what enforcement. So everything having to do with nuisances or hazards to public health remain in the ordinance. Things that have to do with, for example, if you have this big giant bramble that's blocking the sidewalk and people can't walk or they can't push a stroller through it, that will remain under the jurisdiction of the DPW. We get down to enforcement and penalties. The health director and their designees will be the enforcers of the ordinance. This follows the enforcement and penalty mechanisms that we almost always cite for ordinances like this. It's general law chapter 40, section 21D that governs how cities may enforce and issue penalties for things like this, for things on the municipal civil level. For a first offense of the ordinance, after an issue is raised to the health director, they look at it, they investigate, they decide, okay, yes, this actually is indeed in violation of the ordinance. The first thing that they would do is a written warning. It's not immediately to a ticket. The goal of this is not to raise revenue, it's not to be punitive, it's just to make sure that public health issues are resolved. So at that second offense, it would be a $50 citation, and at the third and each subsequent offense, a $100 citation. And then the penalty fines from the collection, penalty fines collected from this ordinance should be deposited into the roading control account. Director O'Connor, do you want to speak to that?
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: K.P. Law this morning from Janelle.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Sorry, could you say what you said one more time?
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: I'm sorry. Did you, are you looking at the copy from K.P. Law this morning?
[Kit Collins]: I absolutely did not see it.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Okay.
[Kit Collins]: I was waiting for it for three weeks and I didn't see it when it came through today.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: She just sent it this morning, so I don't blame you, but we had, she had called me and the discussion is that she does not think that fines are appropriate for a designated account, a revolving account. Fees are acceptable, but in her version this morning, she struck out that line, B, because she feels that that goes against DOR policies. Okay.
[Kit Collins]: All right, thank you. I appreciate you bringing that to my attention. Just to be candid, if Councilors are detecting a note of exasperation in my tone, not directed at you whatsoever, Director O'Connor, I've been, I was promised a legal review a month ago and followed up several times and it's frustrating that the city's only legal counsel is this hard to get in touch with and not responsive to requested deadlines so that, the sponsor of the ordinance could review it prior to the day of. So I just want to make it clear, nothing to do with you. I really appreciate you catching it and speaking with the attorney about it. So we can strike that line. Originally it was a goal of ours to have fines collected from this ordinance and the road and control ordinance to be able to go into this revolving account and the goal of that would be so that the city is has more funds to do rodent mitigation work with, which we know we really need. We need more funding to do more rodent mitigation because we're working really hard with what we have and it's not enough. But since that is not legally possible, the fines will instead go into the operating fund and we will continue to fund rodent mitigation work however we can through other means. So effective date, this ordinance shall become effective immediately upon passage. So after hearing from my fellow Councilors, if folks are comfortable, I would love to motion to refer it at a committee. I will simply add definitions from other communities overgrowth ordinances and we can consider this for first reading on Tuesday. I'll pause there.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. Very thorough. Do we have any other thoughts, questions from other Councilors? I see a hand on Zoom from Councilor Tseng. One moment. Councilor Tseng is already unmuted. Why don't you go ahead, Councilor Tseng.
[Justin Tseng]: Thanks, Chair Lazzaro. Thank you, Councilor, Vice President Collins, for working so hard on this. I think it's undeniable that we need more funds to mitigate the rodent population here in Medford, especially as we see more growth as a community and as the administration is exploring changes to waste collection. So I think it makes sense to add in definitions to make this ordinance clear to those who are enforcing it, to those who, you know, who this ordinance would relate to. As long as those definitions don't conflict with anything else in our code of ordinances, I think that makes a lot of sense. With regards to the The fines, I appreciate that Attorney Austin has gotten back today with information about that. I think I share in your frustration that it's taken, it oftentimes takes the council so long to get feedback on really important ordinances that we're trying to pass. But I'm glad that we do have something and I would be happy to motion or second the motion to refer this out.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Are there any other comments from Councilors? On the motion of Councilor Collins, seconded by Councilor Tseng to report the overgrowth ordinance as amended out of committee. Mr. Clerk, can you please call the roll?
[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Callahan? Vice President Collins?
[Kit Collins]: Yes.
[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Leming? Councilor Tseng? Yes. Chair Lazzaro?
[Emily Lazzaro]: Yes. Five in the affirmative, none in the negative. The motion passes. The next item on our agenda is the Rent Control Ordinance. Councilor Collins?
[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you. I'll share my screen again. As with the first, there hasn't been very much amendment since the last time we looked at this in committee, but I am glad that we have an official legal opinion on the road and control revolving account, and I'll make sure to remove that line from this ordinance as well. Just to once more walk through it, we've reviewed this many times in committee. The purpose of this ordinance is, so actually I should just be clear for in case anybody's tuning in for the first time and didn't catch chapters one through four of this project. We're amending the existing rodent control ordinance. This is already on the books. We're giving it more teeth. We're giving the Board of Health more jurisdiction, more latitude to make sure that if there are specific households that are kind of not doing their fair share of making sure that rodent attractants are not in the neighborhood, are doing things like leaving trash out, leaving places that are like really conducive for rodent harborage that the Board of Health has the authority to intervene and say, hey, this is an issue and it's not just affecting your house, it's affecting the neighborhood, so let's work together to make sure that we're not luring rats into the neighborhood. So again, public health focus to these additions to the road and control ordinance. So with this one, it comes with definitions already attached. The substance of this is in the requirements for private property, and then we also added sections on private and public composting. So as for the general requirements for private property, All properties within the city, including private property, must be maintained to reduce and eliminate the threat of infestation by rodents. And property owners must take such reasonable preventative and remedial measures when ordered by the Board of Health. That's it in a nutshell. Don't do things that are sure to attract rodents. Don't do things that will keep rodents around. And if the Board of Health responds to a complaint and finds that you are doing things that are in violation of this, they will ask you to do things to deal with the issue, and you're required to collaborate and comply. For example, property owners shall, when ordered, implement rodent proofing and extermination measured as specified to prevent rodents from getting access to food and water, including human food, domestic animal food, bird food. It has stipulations around making sure that trash and waste and debris are stored in a reasonable way so that it's not super easy for rodents to get into them. Just to take reasonable, responsible measures that any responsible property manager, property owner, should reasonably be doing to make sure that the environment is not conducive to infestation. And here we added some expectations around If like a flagrant violation or a flagrant issue is observed, for example, a trash barrel with a really big hole in it that rodents are getting into, the health department has the permission to order property owners to replace that barrel within 15 days to remove that issue. We then get into a section on private curbside composting. It says private, or sorry, That was a misread on my part. This whole section is on composting, whether it's private, curbside, or private meaning backyard, or curbside meaning the public programs that we all put out the little bins and it's picked up and it goes someplace else to be composted. For private backyard composting, this is where you do your own composting process in your own backyard instead of setting it off somewhere. It has some requirements for how to make sure that the compost bins are constructed so that they're not a free-for-all for rodents and other animals, such as a tight-fitting and secure lid, adequate drainage located away from things that are super attractive to wild animals. And for curbside composting, again, it says the lid must be tight-fitting and secure, and if there's any standards or policies or best practices that are being promulgated with the City of Medford's official curbside composting program, people just have to make sure that they are aligning with that. Compost bins should be lined with bags. They should be cleaned as needed, just really kind of boilerplate stuff to make sure that we're not creating stinky rodent happy environments. So many words. I know this stuff is super glamorous. I know we're all going to really miss talking about it. But the idea is that we can talk about the rats less. Great, got the crowd back with me. Similar to the overgrowth ordinance, this will be enforced by the health department. It could be referred to other city departments for enforcement if need be. The building commissioner, DPW commissioner, director of health, and their designees can be the enforcing officers. And as for penalties, Again, the goal here is to be effective, not to be punitive. The first offense is a written warning. The second offense is $100. And the third and each subsequent offense will be $200 per day until corrected. This is for the property owners of residential buildings that have three or fewer units. For larger buildings, for multi-unit residential buildings and for commercial buildings, those penalties change. They increase because our goal here was to create penalties that would actually be incentivizing for property owners and a penalty that is incentivizing for a corporate landlord would probably be unbelievably expensive for the owner of like a condo in a three unit building. So we wanna make sure that it is effective but fair and I think that the best way to do that is to have a different set of fines for corporate versus kind of smaller scale residential buildings. We ran this by Attorney Austin. We discussed it. We think that there's a kind of a clear link between the fine level and the reason for that fine, the need for that fine. Of course, the expense of road mitigation for smaller buildings and smaller lots is going to be so much less than for large properties, large commercial lots. So that's the other reason for having this kind of two-step penalty structure is it's commensurate with what the expense to the city would be. if there was really a rodent issue on a small lot versus a large or commercial one. So for the commercial buildings or residential buildings with more than three units, the first offense would again yield a written warning. But then for the second offense, instead of a $100 fine, it's a $200 fine. And for the third and each subsequent offense, it's $300 per day instead of $200 per day. And that's because $300 per day per occurrence is the most that the state allows cities to fine violators of local ordinances. And then again, we'll strike this line around violation, fees from violations, fines from violations, sorry, going into the rodent control account because that's not something that the DOR allows cities to do. I'm going to just roll really quickly through the rest of these sections because these are unchanged from the existing rodent control ordinance. They've just been reordered in the ordinance but the content is the same. And this deals with things having to do with commercial properties, street openings, utility installations, permits for dumpsters, because of course these are all things that have an effect on rodent activity. Permits for food establishments, landfills, recycling facilities. keeping of animals, public property, integrated pest management plans. Again, these are all things that are on the books and that the health department is actively managing. So the only remaining change here is that we have just lightly tweaked the fee schedule associated with the rodent control ordinance, just to try to bring some of these fees into the 21st century. A lot of the fees in our fee schedule citywide have not been updated in a long time. And in discussion with Director O'Connor, We decided to raise some of these just slightly to better reflect the cost to the city for these instances. Food establishment. Actually, I'm missing the context on this one. Director O'Connor, you can speak to these if you want to, or I can pull up the fee schedule for the context. But what we did was we raised the fees on food establishments and food processing and storage facilities. We actually separated out the food processing and storage facility from just the food establishments because processing and storage facilities tend to be much larger than just your average restaurant or cafe. We also increased the public works department road control fees to $250 flat rate plus $1 per foot. And increased the road and control fees for building permits to $300 for commercial projects and $250 for residential projects. And if folks are interested, I can just go on Unicode really quickly and pull up our current fee schedule just so we can compare since I don't have it memorized. People interested?
[Emily Lazzaro]: I'm not sure it's strictly necessary for right now. Okay.
[Kit Collins]: It is online if anybody wants to look.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Yes, it's available online if people are curious. Would you like to continue?
[Kit Collins]: Yeah, so that sums up the updates to the road control ordinance. We're going to strike the line about the revolving account. We've really honed this in discussion, especially with Director O'Connor and Commissioner McGivern. I feel it's in a really good place, and I just want to thank Director O'Connor for really being the driving force behind both of these ordinances, and I'm really glad. I think that this is something that The community really needs and this is really timely and I think it's the right time to be giving our city departments more of the tools that they need to do the work that we really want them to keep doing and to help them do it better. So thank you so much Director O'Connor.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you very much Councilor Collins. Thank you for your work on this and your diligence. And I would also like to thank our health department for your consistent work to make sure we update these ordinances, add to these ordinances, and make sure that we're doing everything that we can as a city to try to mitigate these problems. And as any changes may come about, we can deal with them as they come. Do we have any public comment on any of these? Come on up to the... Yep, you can come up to the podium. Please state your name and address for the record, one second.
[Paulette Vartabedian]: Okay. Go ahead. Paulette Vartabedianng, Central Lab Medford. I apologize if I missed both on the messy yards and this. What is the fee or penalty for a private residence, if any, and how is that going to be enforced If there's a private residence that is either overgrown or is seen to have overflowing trash, et cetera, is that something that would be reported by a neighbor or is there going to, how is that going to be notified to the authorities? That's all. That's all. Thank you.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. My understanding of this is that Any violations of local ordinances are reported to the code enforcement officer in City Hall and the code enforcement officer reports to the scene to check out the situation and then will write a citation if they decide that something is in violation. The first offense is a warning and then it follows the fee schedule. from there, depending on what the violation is. But, Councilor Collins, if you have some clarification. Go ahead.
[Kit Collins]: Yeah, exactly. Thank you. So, and Director O'Connor, if I'm misrepresenting this, like, please feel free to correct me. But I think this is one of those instances where, you know, again, things don't get reported if they're not a problem. So it's like, I don't think, I don't want people to, the point of this is for not, is not for people to be walking around thinking, oh, my gosh, I got to measure my grass, make sure it's a specific height. That's not the point. It's just if somebody's, In their neighborhood or if this or if somebody from the Board of Health is doing routine inspections and notices not that grass is too long but rather there's clearly rodent harborage here or There's clearly standing water and mosquitoes breeding here. Then in that case, it will get flagged I'm assuming that this is one of the issues where if a resident notices they might put it on a c-click fix and it gets reported to the correct department and if they're savvy they might know to call the health department or call elsewhere in City Hall and you know their call would get routed to the appropriate department and at that case the health department would deploy somebody to do an investigation. And at that point if a violation is observed to have occurred if they go out and look at the property and say yeah, like there's overgrowth conditions that are clearly causing rodent harborage here, or this is really in violation of the rodent control account, it's a rat free-for-all here. Then for private property, like for your average house, if it's an overgrowth ordinance violation, first offense, written warning, just a letter. Second offense, $50, third offense, $100 per day until it's resolved. And if it's a violation of the Road and Control Ordinance, first violation, again, a written letter. Second offense, $100. Third offense, $200 per day until it's made right.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. Seeing no further public comment, is there a motion on this paper? Councilor Collins?
[Kit Collins]: I would motion to report it out of committee as amended.
[Emily Lazzaro]: On the motion of Vice President Collins to move the paper out of committee as amended, seconded by Councilor Callahan. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Callahan? Yes. Vice President Collins? Yes. Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Tseng? Yes.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Yes, five in the affirmative, none in the negative. The motion passes. So we have two papers that will move to the regular meeting. Are there any other motions on the floor? On the motion of Councilor Leming to adjourn, do we have a second? Sorry, we're all set with public comment. Do we have a second on the motion to adjourn? Seconded by Councilor Collins. Mr. Clerk, sorry, you have to call the roll. Please call the roll.
[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Callahan. Vice President Collins.
[Kit Collins]: Yes.
[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Leming. Yes. Councilor Tseng. Yes. And Chair Lazar.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Yes. Five in the affirmative, none in the negative. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. I was, my intention was to do all the public comment all at once in the, well, that was the room.
[Paulette Vartabedian]: Well, I can do it at the City Council meeting.
[Emily Lazzaro]: It'll come up in the meeting next week, yes.
[Paulette Vartabedian]: I can just talk, if you don't mind, tell you what I'm going to say.
|
total time: 4.73 minutes total words: 392 |
total time: 21.58 minutes total words: 700 |
total time: 1.5 minutes total words: 119 |
|