AI-generated transcript of City Council 01-20-26

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[SPEAKER_14]: I want to thank you very much for having me.

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[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan. Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Present.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Leming. Present. Councilor Maloney. Present. Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Present.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Tseng. Present. President Bues.

[Zac Bears]: Present. Seven present, none absent, please rise to salute the flag. Announcements, accolades, remembrances, reports, and records. 26-015, offered by President Bears and Councilor Tseng. Condolences to the family of Clarence Ed Legon. Be it resolved by the Medford City Council that we send our deep and sincere condolences to the family of Clarence E. Ed Ligon, Jr. on his passing, especially his wife of over 55 years, Barbara. Ed was a beloved member of our Medford community and a shining light at the West Medford Community Center and NAACP Mystic Valley Branch, among many other organizations. Councilor Tseng.

[Justin Tseng]: Thank you, President Bears. Ed Ligon, or Big Ed, as many people called him, was a pillar in the West Medford community. He was someone who fought steadfastly for equal rights and equal opportunities for all people. And when I've spent a lot of the last week with members of the West Bedford community at the NAACP general meeting, regional meeting, as well as at the Martin Luther King Jr. Day event. And in talking to people, I just have the sense, you know, this, I got this really touching feeling of gratitude from folks and all these stories and anecdotes I heard that, you know, stories that I didn't even know about from his earlier days in the community before I even got involved. And it's something that's truly meaningful and touching. When I was talking to school committee member Olapade about Ed, he wanted me to mention that Ed was a mentor to him. for as long as he could remember since moving to Medford, that he served in all things with integrity, steadiness, and a deep commitment to the people around him. I think we all cherish the memories and the life of Ed. We all owe a debt of gratitude for his life rooted in service, family, community, and commitment to greater causes than himself. And I'll ask for a moment of silence after we vote on resolution.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Yeah, and I share in Sadness at Ed's passing is a fixture in our West Medford community. I think it was lovely that he was able to receive the drum major award posthumously yesterday that Barbara was there to receive that. And we send our deepest condolences and care and also celebratory spirit at the amazing life of service and community that he led. Any further comments on this paper? Is there anyone either in person or on Zoom who would like to speak to this paper? Seeing none, it's on the motion of Councilor Tseng to approve, seconded by? Seconded by Councilor Callahan. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan. Vice President Lazzaro?

[Emily Lazzaro]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Malauulu? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli?

[Simon Alcindor]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Tseng? Yes. President Bears?

[Zac Bears]: Yes. I have the affirmative, none the negative. The motion passes. Records. The records of the meeting of January 6th, 2026 were passed to Councilor Leming. Councilor Leming, how do you follow those records?

[Emily Lazzaro]: President Bears, can you pause for a moment of silence?

[Zac Bears]: Yes. Thank you, Councilor Lazzaro. Now that we've had the motion, we will all please rise for a moment of silence. Thank you, and thank you, Vice President Lazzaro. On the records, Councilor Leming, how did you find the records? On the motion of Councilor Leming to approve the records, seconded by Councilor Tseng, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan? Vice President Lazzaro?

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Milley? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli? Yes. Councilor Tseng? Yes. President Pierce?

[Zac Bears]: Yes, seven in the affirmative, none in the negative. The motion passes. Reports of committees 26-011 and 25-149 offered by Council President Bears's Committee. The whole January 13th, 2026 report to follow. We held a meeting last Tuesday on the change in our ambulance EMS service. We made a recommendation to the city that they put a pause on the change. until some basic simple questions could be answered. Answers were not provided and the mayor indicated to the press, although not in any communication I received as a council, that she would not be participating. making, heeding our request in any way. We also discussed the city clerk position hiring process. We did send a motion to our HR director to ask her to repost that position for three weeks. I don't believe we've received a response to that either. I think we received a response that was received, but we haven't received a substantive response that that job had been reposted. On the motion, is there a motion to approve the committee report? A motion to approve by Councilor Tseng, seconded by Councilor Leming. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan? Yes. Vice President Lazzaro? Yes. Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Malauulu? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli?

[George Scarpelli]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Tseng? And President Pierce.

[Zac Bears]: Yes, I have the affirmative, none the negative, the motion passes. Petitions, presentations and similar papers, 26016, petition for a common victor's license, KNC made LLC, DBA Annie's Pizzeria. We have a common victor's license to certify that Annie's Pizzeria, 207 Middlesex Ave, is hereby granted a common Vixler's license in city of Medford at a place only and expires sooner suspended or revoke the violations of the law, Commonwealth respecting the licensing of common Vixlers. So that's the draft. We need to take a vote on that after we hear from the presenter. So first I will recognize Councilor Scarpelli, who's our chair of the subcommittee on licensing, permitting and signs. And then we will recognize a representative from the company, Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, President Baez. I see everything in order, so I'd move to the representative at the podium to give us a synopsis. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Could you give your name and address for the record, please?

[SPEAKER_02]: Good evening, board members and license commission. My name is Niles Welch, 136 Prospect Avenue in Revere, Mass.

[Zac Bears]: Thanks. We are the City Council.

[SPEAKER_02]: City Council, I apologize. I stand before you today on behalf of KNC Made, LLC, in support of its application for a Type 2 common victor license for Annie's Pizzeria, 213 Middlesex Ave. in Medford. This application reflects a change in ownership only. My clients purchased the existing business in its entirety. There's no change in use from the prior operation. The footprint layout service model remains the same. The only meaningful updates are some enhancements to the menu, which now includes not only a pizza menu, but a dynamic mix of some traditional Mexican-infused dishes as well, as well as we did apply for the hours of operation previously were Monday through Saturday, but we had requested and wished to grant on Sunday as well. So the hours proposed are Sunday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. The restaurant itself is built in a small neighborhood scale establishment with very limited in restaurant dining. There's just two tables that are positioned to the left and the right of the entrance and the service counter. Maximum seating capacity inside would be about eight patrons. The principal owner, Christian Torres, I believe he's also on the Zoom today in support of the application. The manager on record's name is Kenny Morales, who has all of his food safe certifications to ensure compliance with all food handling and safety requirements. It's also my understanding that all required inspections that were associated with this license have been completed at this time. So for these reasons, we respectfully request the approval of the Type 2 Victual License and open it to any questions.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you very much for the presentation. Do we have any questions for the applicant? Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President. I see everything is in order. I don't see the hours of operations fall within our guidelines. We don't see any special notice to come forth later in a special meeting or anything. So I move forward with everything for approval, pending any of my colleagues' questions.

[Zac Bears]: Are there any questions or comments from members of the Council? Seeing none, on the motion of Councilor Scarpelli to approve, seconded by. Seconded by Councilor Leming. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Kelly? Yes. Vice President Lazzaro?

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Malauulu? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli?

[George Scarpelli]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Tseng? Yes. President Bears?

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

[Matt Leming]: I'd like to motion to take papers, to suspend the rules and take papers 26020 and 26021 out of order. On the motion to take papers 2620 and 2621 out of order by Councilor Leming, seconded by?

[Zac Bears]: Seconded by Councilor Tseng. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan. Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: No.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Leming. Councilor Malauulu. Yes. Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng. Yes. President Beard.

[Zac Bears]: Yes, 60 affirmative, 1 in the negative, the motion passes. We're going to take two procedural matters relatively quickly. We know there's a lot of interest on Zoom and some folks in the room as well for 26-017. So we're just going to try to get two things out of the way before we go into that discussion. 26-020, litigation settlement to Silva versus City of Medford, request to enter executive session per Mass General Law, Chapter 30A, Section 21A-3. So we have Here, dear members of the city council, I respect the request and recommend your honorable body enter executive session pursuant to general law chapter 30A section 21A3 to discuss strategy with respect to litigation concerning the matter of De Silva v. City of Medford. I also recommend that the council's agenda state in the executive session notice that the votes may be taken. Attorney Parada from KP Law will be present to provide the council with guidance on this matter. Thank you for your kind attention to this matter. Sincerely, Brianna Leocurne, Mayor. Is there a motion to enter Executive Session pursuant to Section 21, Chapter 38, Section 21A3? On the motion of Councilor Tseng, seconded by Councilor Callahan. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan. Vice President Lazzaro.

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Leming. Yes. Councilor Malayne. Yes. Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng. President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Yes, I have an affirmative and a negative. The motion passes. We will be in executive session for a short time and then we will be coming back to discuss the remaining matters on our agenda. All right. Thank you everyone. We are reconvening here an open session from our executive session. We have paper 26 0 2 1 submitted by Mayor Brianna Lugo Kern Capital Stabilization Fund appropriation request Roberts Elementary MSBA accelerated repair feasibility study. Dear President Bears and members of the City Council, I respectfully request and recommend that your Honorable Body approves the following appropriation from the Capital Stabilization Fund that the City of Medford, the City, hereby appropriates the amount of $300,000 for the purpose of paying feasibility study and schematic design costs related to a potential accelerated repair project involving a potential roof and heat pump conversion replacement project at Roberts Elementary School. Including the payment of all costs incidental or related thereto, the project, which proposed repair project would materially extend the useful life of the school and preserve an asset that is otherwise capable of supporting the required educational program and for which the city has applied for a grant from the Massachusetts School Building Authority, the MSBA, said amount to be expended on the direction of the Medford School Committee. To meet this appropriation, the mayor, with the approval of the city council, is authorized to use funds from the capital stabilization account in said amount. The city acknowledges that the MSBA's grant program is a non-entitlement discretionary program based on need as determined by the MSBA. And if the MSBA's Board of Directors wants to invite the city to collaborate with the MSBA on this proposed repair project, any project costs the city incurs in excess of any grant that may be approved by and received from the MSBA shall be the sole responsibility of the city. The Capital Stabilization Fund currently has a balance of $10,531,346. Thank you for your kind attention to this matter, respectfully submitted, Brianna Lingo Kern, Mayor. I did receive communications from the mayor regarding this paper, as well as from our school committee chair, Graham. The MSBA is looking for the city to have started the feasibility study by, I believe, early February in order to maintain our part in the accelerated repair program. I will recognize Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. This seems like a very reasonable thing for us to spend money, especially on stabilization funds, since we have quite a significant amount of money available there. My question is around how the MSBA's grant program works, how they determine, I'm sure that the school committee understands this and they've probably had these conversations, and I can go back and watch the school committee meetings if this has been discussed, but how the MSBA determines Maybe they use this feasibility study to determine which of the programs they want to move forward with. But I think it's interesting that they say it's based on need and based on whether they want to vote to invite the city to collaborate with the MSBA. And if we would do this project if the MSBA did not assist us, I'm curious about that as well.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Vice President Lazzaro. I will note that this is the same language that we used for the Andrews and McGlynn projects and for the Medford High School project. So it's like a standard template language for MSBA. I'm not seeing a representative from the administration here right now. So if we wanna table this until we get more answers.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Honestly, if I may.

[Zac Bears]: Councilor Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: It's fine. It's fine. I'm comfortable moving forward. I guess I'm just curious about. It would be nice to have a representative from the mayor's administration when there are papers for us to approve, but it's fine to move forward if this is just the same standard language. I didn't memorize it from the previous two or the previous projects that we've approved. And if this is just the next step towards doing a project that's necessary, I know that our schools, our buildings, since they were all built at the same time since improvements were. routinely delayed. We're going to see a lot of these going forward. And it seems like, yes, we always have another big project that we have to appropriate a bunch of money to first study, if it'll be fixed, and then fix it. And it runs really quickly. Or it feels like it's quick on our end, though I know the school committee is talking about these on an ongoing basis. It's not in our interest to delay them. So I think it's important that we move forward. I didn't mean to imply that we should delay it, but it is nice to have somebody to just bounce questions off of and get reminders about how this process works as we move forward. But I would be comfortable moving to approve this now. So I motion to approve.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Vice President Lazzaro. And I think, you know, I can't make a motion, It might be helpful to maybe put forward a B paper for a meeting later in February or in early March on all of the school projects. So we have McGlynn and Andrews currently. You know they had expended some funds. The Bedford High project obviously is the big. Big outstanding question, I know you could talk more about that as a member of our comprehensive high school school building committee. And then also, this is the first of three, I believe, Roberts, Brooks, and Missituk were all invited into this. And I think that's why the language is a little confusing. We are in the accelerator repair in the early stages for all three schools. But I think there's a point after the feasibility study stage or maybe even during that stage when the board of the MSBA formally moves the process forward. I was saying this to Jenny the other day. They really are big on flow charts over at the MSBA. There's about 10 steps for every project. So if someone wanted to put forward a B paper that we hold a committee of the whole, invite our representatives from the administration and the Medford Public Schools to talk about all of the really important building projects that are going on in our schools, I think that would be great as well. On the motion of Councilor Tseng.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Second, I would second that. If Councilor Tseng is gonna make that motion for the B paper, I would absolutely second it. I do think it would be really helpful for the city council to have our building projects laid out with estimates for the costs, just so that we, even if we can put it on a timeline. I know that the high school building committee that I meet with on a regular basis, the timeline is so, complicated and dense and involves so many different elements that the other schools also having, you know, a new layer to it can be, it can be, it's very involved, but it's nice for us to see it laid out. And I think it would be useful as long as it didn't feel like it was too many redundant meetings. And maybe it's just a matter of the school committee holding something similar to that, or, or they, maybe they have a like, maybe they have a building subcommittee that we could attend just to see what their plans are or what the needs are. Because I know a lot of us have talked about at different points funding the schools as one of our first priorities and making sure that that's something we don't lose track of in the course of governing, that funding the schools needs to be a high priority for Medford.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Vice President Lazzaro. On the motion of Councilor Tseng, seconded by Vice President Lazzaro to hold a committee of the whole meeting and invite representatives from the city administration and our Medford Public Schools to discuss the several school building projects that are either in progress or on track to begin. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. This is on the B paper.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan. Vice President Lazzaro? Yes. Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Mullane? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli? Yes. Councilor Tseng? Yes. President Villescaz?

[Zac Bears]: Yes. I have the affirmative and the negative. The motion passes. On the main paper, Vice President Lazzaro's motion to approve, seconded by? Seconded by Councilor Leming. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan? Vice President Lazzaro. Yes. Councilor Leming. Yes. Councilor Malayne. Yes. Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Tseng. Yes. President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Yes. Having the affirmative, none the negative, the motion passes. Motions, orders and resolutions 26-017 offered by Councilor Lazzaro, Councilor Callahan and Councilor Tseng. Resolution to condemn the killing of Renee Nicole, Nicole Renee, Renee Nicole Goode by ICE and reaffirm constitutional rights of residents. Whereas on January 7th, 2026, Renee Nicole Goode was a bystander to an action by Immigrations and Custom Enforcement, ICE in Minneapolis, tried to leave the scene and was shot in her car by ICE officer Jonathan Ross. And whereas mentored residents have observed and recorded ICE operations as they have a right to under the laws of this country, commonwealth, and city. And whereas it is the duty of Medford local government and law enforcement to protect the safety and well-being of Medford residents. And whereas there is no legal code or precedent known to the Medford City Council that prohibits local law enforcement from intervening against agents, be they local, state, or federal, engaged in unlawful behaviors, especially those which put residents in danger. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Medford City Council condemns the killing of Renee Nicole Goode by an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis on January 7th, 2026, and expresses its deep concern over the loss of life and the circumstances surrounding this incident. And be it further resolved that the Medford City Council reaffirms the fundamental rights of residents to peacefully protest and to observe and document law enforcement activity including the conduct of federal immigration officers consistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States and Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And be it further resolved that the Committee on Public Health and Community Safety is directed to work with city administration and local law enforcement to review and develop strategies, protocols, and responses that protect residents' rights to peaceful protest and lawful observation and preserve public safety and community trust. be it further resolved that the committee on public health and community safety is directed to work with the city administration and local law enforcement to develop and articulate to the public a clear policy governing responses to active ICE actions within the city of Medford that prioritizes resident safety, security, and rights over untested, unsupported, or otherwise ambiguous and uncertain interpretations of law. And be it further resolved that the Committee on Public Health and Community Safety is further directed to engage with community groups, residents, and relevant advocacy organizations to identify best practices and preventative measures to reduce the risk of similar incidents occurring in the city of Medford. Councilor Tseng.

[Justin Tseng]: Thank you for reading that, President Bears. I'm a city councilor here in Medford, and that is a profound honor for me. But another profound honor one that I've carried with me every day of my life, is that, like many of you, like many of the people watching this meeting, I'm the child of immigrants. I've always called Medford home, and what made it home was not just the place on the map, but the people who filled it, the people who call it home, the diversity that we are blessed with. It didn't matter what color someone's skin was when we were putting on the spring show at Spotlight Productions. It didn't matter what color someone's skin was on the basketball court during recess. It didn't matter where someone's parents came from when you walked into their corner shop after school. And that quiet, everyday belonging, that belonging that's lived out in classrooms and playgrounds and sidewalks is the fabric of America, and it's the fabric of our home. And Medford has been that kind of home for a long time. It's been a place where Irish and Italian families put down roots, where Jewish families built synagogues and small businesses, where Haitian, Brazilian, Latin American, Asian American families have arrived seeking the same things that generations before them sought, safety, dignity, opportunity, and a chance to belong. Different languages, different traditions, different journeys, but the same hope, the same belief that this city could be a place to build a life. And today we see that that diverse fabric is under strain. Across our country, masked federal agents are showing up not as guardians of safety, but as instruments of fear. Despite national politicians telling us to ignore the evidence of our eyes and ears, we've all seen the video of Jonathan Ross, an ICE agent, shooting Renee Nicole Goode, an innocent bystander, while she was simply trying to leave the scene and get home. We've seen images of ICE agents threatening and beating people who stand in their way, or who they think stand in their way. And this is not something happening somewhere else to someone else. Even here in Medford, residents have watched members of our own community taken off our streets in broad daylight. For too many of our neighbors, fear has become a constant companion. Kids are afraid to go to school. Parents are afraid to drop them off. Immigrants are afraid to reach out for help from police, from city staff, because they fear that asking for help could lead to deportation. And ordinary residents worry that a routine drive home could turn into something unthinkable. Speaking personally, I worry about my parents. I carry my passport card with me. Because in moments like these, we're reminded that when power is exercised without restraint, without accountability, simply looking different can be treated as grounds for suspicion. But Medford has never been a city that surrenders to fear. We don't have to accept a world where hate defines our future. We don't have to accept a world where violence is normalized and accountability is optional. We don't have to accept a world where our neighbors live with a constant fear of being disappeared from their own community. Instead, we can choose something better. I've been deeply moved as a son of immigrants by the way that this community has responded, by the way that you all have shown up for one another. The vigil held before tonight's meeting is a reminder that Medford, the birthplace of the American Revolution more than 250 years ago, still understands what it means to stand for liberty, not just in word, but in deed. Because liberty, justice, and hope are not self-executing. They're choices. They're choices that we make together. This city has taught me something powerful, that when we stand together, when we imagine and dream boldly, when we act bravely, we can build a place where no one has to live in fear. That when local communities like ours lead, when we refuse to look away, we reclaim a measure of power that can never be taken away from us. That's the work that this city council has been doing. We know that real safety grows from trust, and we know that trust grows from partnership between this council, City Hall, our delegation on Beacon Hill, and the people who live in our communities and walk our streets every single day. We aren't powerless, and we aren't bystanders. We can do better, and we must do better. Tonight's resolution is about turning grief into responsibility and fear into resolve. It's about making clear to our residents and our community that Medford will lead with humanity, will lead with courage, and will lead with care. That we will protect the right to protest, the right to bear witness, and the right of every resident to feel safe in their own community. It's about building upon our work, passing a welcoming city ordinance and reforming our Human Rights Commission, and making sure that work is followed. History tells us that progress has never come from silence or complacency, but from ordinary people deciding that this moment, this moment demands action. I'm proud to be part of a council that understands that, and I'm grateful to be part of a community that's ready to meet this moment together.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Vice President Lazzaro, then Councilor Callahan.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Tseng. You put that really, really well. I wanted to work on this resolution because it felt important to say something. Many of our residents have witnessed ICE arrests, and one of our residents witnessed an ICE arrest most recently while walking outside with his very young toddler in a stroller. And it makes me feel very nervous about what it must feel like for people who live in Medford to see things that are happening across the country and to reach out to us as their representatives in local government and ask us what what we can do to help make sure that they feel safe. And what we can do as their representatives in local government, as the people that they can talk to, that we can then talk to the mayor's administration and other arms of local government, what we can do is we can say, this is what we're able to do for you. This is how we can help you feel like you can be safe in the city. we can activate different levers of local government. There are things that are happening in Medford under the radar and that's not what we can do. What we can do as your representative in your government is we can say, To the mayor's administration, we're asking for a little bit more. We're asking for a little bit more safety, a little bit more security for the people who live here and work here and visit here. And we can say to the Medford Police Department, can you please help the people who observe ICE arrests to feel a little bit more safe? You're trained in de-escalation. Can you come help de-escalate if something happens? can you be helpful and make residents feel safe when something terrifying is happening before their eyes? Our job as representatives in Medford is to hear the voices of our residents and to, you know, answer their calls. And that's what we did here. That's why we wrote this resolution. I feel like we talk about these things when something horrible happens a lot. And I'm starting to get tired of repeating myself about why it's un-American, why it's against all of our values to have uh, rogue agents from the federal government picking up our neighbors and taking them away for no reason. And, um, now it's so much, it feels, it feels worse and worse every week. Um, but we are just going to keep showing up. We're going to keep trying to do the things that we can do, um, to the best of our ability and within reason. We're going to keep trying to do the most good we can do to protect our neighbors and protect our friends and protect our families. We're going to ask the Medford Police Department to keep us safe because they are the law enforcement department for Medford and Medford wants to feel safer. So I'm so delighted to chair, to continue to chair this term, the Public Health and Community Safety Committee. And I will happily hold as many of those committee meetings as anybody wants to attend, where we can talk about how best to go about this, how we can make everybody who passes through Medford, lives in Medford, works in Medford, visits Medford for any reason, how we can make everybody in Medford feel safe and secure, how we can make sure that all of the trainings that Medford police officers go through on de-escalation and public safety and how our incredibly well-trained police officers can use their powerful training to de-escalate situations where things have gotten out of hand I would love to see that put into practice. So let's use that budget. Let's use our police department. If they're the good guys with the guns, let's have them be the good guys. Let's come keep us safe. I would really, really love to see that in action. And I would love to hold meetings where we talk more about it. So I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this. I appreciate all the people that reached out and asked us to put this resolution on and who supported it. And I'm happy to continue the conversation anytime. Thank you.

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

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. In 2000, 25 years ago, I was living in Los Angeles, and I attended the shadow convention of the DNC, the Democratic National Convention, because I felt that the Democratic Party at that time had moved too far toward corporate interests and away from working people. And while I was there, I also went on a joint bike ride, which, by the way, in the charter of the city of Los Angeles, it is expressly condoned and encouraged for people to go on joint bike rides. During that bicycle ride, we were escorted by the police. We were escorted underneath the 10 freeway. They blocked it off at the front. They shoved us all in at the back, and they arrested everyone that they could. They threw us in jail for three days. The women, and only the women, were illegally strip searched twice. They paraded us in front of the general population of men over and over. They refused to give people who needed medicine, like a woman who had epilepsy, they refused to give her her medication. They had put us up against chain link fences, And we were covered in oil from these fences. We were all in our biking gear in the summertime. It was freezing cold inside the jail. They would not allow us to wash. During the night time, during the two nights, they turned the lights on and off. They would wake us up. They would tell us they had to count us, that it was morning. And then they would turn the lights off again and tell us to go back to sleep. When we got up on the third day to go to the court, they put us on buses. They drove us around for two hours, and then they dropped us off at the courthouse, which was across the street from the jail. Oh, sorry. They chained us with chains that handcuffed our hands and our feet, and then had to chain from between the hands and the feet. And then they drove us around for two hours to drop us off across the street from the courthouse. One of the women, her handcuffs that had been on her when she was first arrested were so tight that she ended up completely losing the feeling in three of her fingers on one hand, permanently. And two of the people that were with us, had not even been on the bike ride. They had been, they were a professor couple, they were both professors at one of the local colleges, and they had been bicycling to work. Their experience was, oh gosh, there's a lot of bicyclists on our bike ride today. Isn't that strange? Oh gosh, there are a lot of police on our bike ride today. Isn't that strange? Oh gosh, we're being arrested. And then they were thrown in jail for three days. I don't know how many people remember the Rampart scandal, but around that time period, the Rampart District in Los Angeles, the police department there, was basically completely lawless. And they were eventually, a judge determined that they were going to allow them to be charged under the RICO, statute, which is for criminal mafia organizations. They ended up being convicted of many things, including planting evidence, illegal detentions, arresting people who were completely innocent, robbing banks. I mean, it was complete lawlessness. I mention this experience because I have been receiving emails from residents. And these emails are from people who are saying to me, I am not an immigrant, I have never broken the law, I have never been afraid of law enforcement in my life. And this was my experience in 2002. I believed in officer-friendly. It was a shock. Every hour that I was there, I couldn't believe what was happening. And what I am seeing happen now is people in our city are genuinely afraid that this is going to happen to them, that they might be shot in the face and killed. that what people are seeing is that ICE agents around the country are lawless, and that nothing can prevent them from killing completely innocent people. So I do hope that the administration will take this seriously. I think it is important that we can protect our residents. I unfortunately believe that there is some real possibility that the current administration will target the Boston area. And as people who know me may know, I do really like to engage people in the political process. And I invite anyone who is interested to reach out to me. I will be writing a motion or an ordinance. I'll be working with Councilor Tseng on this. I believe we should have something that at least puts in writing what law enforcement agencies are allowed and not allowed to do within the city limits of Medford. So I will be putting forward something that states both that they need to follow the constitution in the case of search and seizure laws, but also that law enforcement agencies need to, they cannot mask themselves. Our local Medford police, they take pride in their work. They have a badge. It has their name. They show their face. This is how law enforcement agents should operate. And I also invite people who are listening to this, people who care about this, people who have reached out to us and are concerned, Please, I've said this before, please let us know anything that we can do, anything that we can do to help. Because I will say, it is a very frightening time, and we are searching for ways that we can help. We are doing everything that we can. So I encourage people to reach out to us. We will do everything we can think of, but if you have ideas, please do let us know, and let me know if you'd like to help in writing the ordinance that I spoke about. I do think this is a pressing issue that we need to deal with. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Callahan. I'm going to go to Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Councilor Villescaz. No, I start with sharing my concerns that doesn't follow. I know people looking at this and saying, oh, is this the other side? But I think this is something that doesn't have a side. This is a situation that I've been dealing with for many, many years with the kids that I've coached and taught. and watched them when they lost their option through DACA and lost that legal right to become citizens and coming full circle now, I'm dealing with their younger brothers and sisters and I'm dealing with those individuals that are failing the fair. No different than when I presented how I felt and how the community wanted me to share their input and the importance with the way our Jewish community felt with how they felt in fear of walking the streets of Medford during some past conflicts we've had on this council and some motions we put forth. But when we look at the situation, this is real. I mean, we could say it's not happening, but unfortunately it is. I'm trying to work with the family right now here in Medford and their children were supposed to participate in an event that that they should be celebrating, but out of fear, they stayed home and they lost that opportunity. And that's not right. And I look at, I know it's easy to point at the police and maybe blame them and say they can do more, but they've come before us time after time explaining their situation, their limitations or their knowledge of what's happening on the federal side. Mr. President, I one person that we haven't heard yet, the leader of our community, um, I think needs to stand up and play her role. And I think, um, whatever, whatever she decides, I think our community is looking for a leader. Our community is looking for the mayor to stand up and say, this is what we need to do with more of a stance, more of a belief in what we should be doing and at least guide our neighbors that are in fear that they need support. And again, this doesn't matter what side you're on or how you feel. And I think my colleagues have said it best that Medford's a very diverse community, and we love Medford for its diversity. And I've been a beneficiary of it. There was an article back when I was coaching the high school soccer team that called my team the United Nations team. I believe we had 16 different nationalities with 16 different languages. And we had so much pride with that. And the kids were so, so proud to be Mephit Mustangs. And I want to bring this full circle because I know we talk about it's not in our neighborhood today. but our neighbors are telling us that's how they feel. And they need us to stand up and be accountable. And I asked my colleagues to implore the mayor to stand up and really help us guide us. And I think my colleagues have put it best when they said, share the guidelines that our residents know, that communication level that we've been lacking so much of lately in this community. find an avenue to help. I've been working very hard in my neighboring community where we have identified avenues that I can work with as a program developer in Parks and Recreation to guide families to SOIA, where they're working directly to find attorneys to make sure that families are protected. I mean, I think that's all people are looking for. They want to make sure that The people that empower and believe it or not, um. There are a lot of people that just come to this country or weren't born in this country. Look at our body. And look at us with much respect and honor, and they look at us for that guidance and that leadership. And the least we can do is. Give them the opportunity or give them the knowledge of what they can do and where they can go for support. And, um. So, I, I, again, this is this is like, we've talked about it's difficult because the police have told us what they can do and their limitations and what they are mandated to do. And they do have pride in what they do every day. But at the same time, I think the mayor has to come out as a leader of our community and be more on the forefront of this, this, this concern when you see the emails and the questions and the fear that are coming to us in emails and phone calls. So, again, stand up, um, be a leader and let's put something together that we can all be proud of so we can support our neighbors that aren't fair. Now, it's easy to say that we have neighbors that feel like this isn't happening. And the truth of the matter is a lot of people aren't seeing it and they don't see it in Medford, but it is happening. I can, I can attest to that. Um, and, um, We need the power of the mayor's office to stand up and put a plan in place that would give those residents that are in fear a specific location where they can go for support and know that their leaders are standing with them and they have support. So I can go on and on, Mr. President, but I appreciate the point that we need to really stand up and make sure all of our neighbors feel safe, whether it's, um, uh, issues in the past that we battled with, you know, across the aisle. But, uh, for this situation, I think we all stand together and saying that, um, uh, our neighbors need us to be leaders. So thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Mullane.

[Liz Mullane]: Thank you. I wanted to thank my fellow Councilors for putting this resolution forward. But most importantly, I wanted to thank the residents of Medford. So many of you have reached out and sent emails wanting to make sure that this was a pressing issue for us, for the administration, for everyone to take notice. And I'm proud to be here with all of you in this and in support of it. Even in the short turnaround time on January 11th when there was about 100 residents of Medford that very quickly got pulled together to make a statement. I was proud to be there and stand with everyone, and I was so impressed with those of you that put all of this together and to ensure that our voices were starting to be heard. And I want to continue to say, please keep doing that. Please keep pushing that forward. You have, obviously, the support of many of us here. This is an incredibly important issue. It's unbelievable that we're facing this, but I have to say, seeing how quickly and how supportive so many Medford residents have been to get something done and to protect our neighbors, I'm just so impressed, and I want to thank all of you for that as well. So thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Millan. Councilor Leming.

[Matt Leming]: Nothing to fear, but fear itself. Thinking about that quote a lot the past few days, FDR, which isn't entirely true in these circumstances, but there are important elements to it. You see your country slowly descending into authoritarianism. It's important to understand that fear is a major element of that. When people are scared, they're more complicit. It's easier to control them. Showing an example from our elected officials that we're not afraid, statements. do a lot to ease that fear, does a lot to make the populace a lot harder to control. It's a very important element to understand here. When folks are out front, events like that, vigils like that, help people to be less afraid. So the psychological aspect, everybody needs to remember. If you're afraid, you're losing the battle. So if you see your neighbors are afraid, you need to connect them, network them. The more people you know, the less afraid you're gonna be. I was standing outside with the vigil in the cold with everybody else as I saw people freezing their fingers off as they listened to their neighbors talk about what's happening, as they listened to folks say what needed to be said. But I also knew a lot of people outside. You know, the people that come to City Hall, the people that come to these vigils, often they already know each other. Often they're already networked with each other. Often we know about the loose hotlines. We know where to go, who to connect with if somebody is, if one of our friends gets abducted. The folks, the reason that they're going after non-citizens, the reason they're going after immigrants is because those are the people who are most vulnerable. Those are the folks who are most susceptible to fear. Those are the folks who try to keep their, try to lay low, keep their heads down, are afraid of being detained and deported. And just as important as it is to connect with each other, it's important to try to connect with them. to try to find the folks you may know, even if not very well, and see if they're aware of the resources available to them, if they're aware of lawyers, if they're aware of hotlines, if they're aware of alerts about where ICE is going to be, and connect them with folks in the community who know about ICE. these resources, you know about these opportunities. So yes, it is important for the city to act. We have done a lot of the legislative actions that we can, and it is important for elected officials, leaders in the community to step up. It's also important to make sure that folks who are the most vulnerable are connected, and that often requires breaking out of our own circles, talking to people who we're not used to talking to, and making sure that we really have a very widely connected community. That's what I wanted to say tonight, and I look forward to hearing other folks talk as well. So thank you very much for coming out here.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Leming. I think we are in an incredibly dangerous time, and as everyone here has said tonight, I mean, I think you hear the unity that it's not about sides, it's not about who supports what party or who supports what person. It's about right and it's about right and wrong. And it's about what leadership looks like. And I think we need to ask ourselves, what does leadership look like in this moment? What do leaders look like in this moment? And it's not about individual leaders or someone's gonna come down from upon high and save us, whether that's a mayor or a governor or a congressman or a senator. I think we see in Minneapolis and in Medford that it's about what each of us looks inside to find, the leadership within us. We saw hundreds of people standing in the cold tonight here in Medford, saying this is wrong. We saw city councilors and school committee members. We saw poet laureates. And then we saw just regular people, kids, parents, grandparents, moms, dads, sisters, brothers, people who've lived here for a few months, people who've lived here for 50 years. all coming together in the cold because they're scared, but they know that things can be better and they should be better. I was really inspired by what our poet laureate, Max Heinig said tonight, not just calling this what it is, a police state rising authoritarianism, what Councilor Callahan described her experience we're seeing in multiplicity in Minneapolis. I mean, just the stories that you hear, the fear on the streets, the thousands of people, ice at every corner, jackboot-masked men acting with quote-unquote absolute immunity in the name of their dear leader, not in the name of the Constitution, certainly targeting the most vulnerable, but more and more and more with impunity, targeting anyone who stands in their way, not only abducting them, and imprisoning them, and dehumanizing them, and stripping them of their basic human rights and decency, but shooting them. And there are words for that, words like brown shirts, and Gestapo, and martial law. And today, we saw, um, that the elected leaders in Minneapolis and in Minnesota are being investigated and subpoenas are being pulled upon them and they're being prosecuted. And that's because at this point, whether it's ICE or the prosecutors who are left in the Justice Department, because all the ones who knew this was illegal have resigned, don't care about the law. And when we talk about what leadership looks like Yeah, it's important that we pass a welcoming city ordinance to put our non-cooperation policy into the law. And yeah, it's important that we believe in the rule of law. But I think we also have to recognize in this moment that the people at the highest levels of power who are using public money to create militarized police force to suppress dissent and take away our rights to free speech and assembly, they don't really care about the law very much. And so if we say, and we stand by, whether that's this group on the city council or the leadership in city hall, and we say, well, the law says that we can't do anything, then they're gonna come here and they're gonna do what they wanna do because they don't care about the law. And when they don't care about the law, and we do care about the law, and they don't care about the law to do whatever they want, and we do care about the law to stop ourselves from fighting back, that is when what Matt said, wins, right? That's when authoritarianism wins. Whether it's complete ignorance of the law or manipulation of the law or passing a law that says we can do whatever we want, that's when authoritarianism wins. So I understand and I respect that it's a difficult moment and a difficult position. for people who have spent their lives devoted to the rule of law and believing that the law will eventually uphold justice to come to grips with the reality that that may not be true right now. And I don't think we're gonna solve that problem here tonight, but I think we need to start having the conversation about what it means when a lawless militarized police force starts coming into communities and throwing people into vans and beating them up and shooting them. And that maybe the law will not be... Our devotion to the law may not stop that from happening. So I think that's important. I think we've entered a new phase of that conversation as a country and here in Medford. And my hopes are, you know, I know our state delegation has filed some bills at the statehouse, and I think that's great, you know. How long will it take to pass them? And I know that our, you know, the mayors in the region, including our mayor and Mayor Wu are talking about what does a response look like? And I think that's an important conversation and I'm glad it's happening. But I think the other thing is what Councilor Scarpelli and Councilor Tseng were talking about, which is just what does leadership look like in this moment? When do we just decide that it's enough? and we're gonna say no, and that good people with good hearts, which I think are the vast majority of people in this city, the vast majority of people who work for this city, the vast majority of people in our police department, that when they see something that's wrong, they're just gonna say, we're not gonna let that happen. And more and more and more, I fear that is where we are headed. and we're seeing it in Minneapolis, and we're seeing it here, too, more and more. So that's, I think, the new phase of this conversation that this resolution starts to have, which is, yes, what can we do within the bounds of the law and work our hardest to make sure that the law holds, but also what do we do when the law doesn't hold? And the city can only do so much, and I think Minneapolis has shown this with incredible courage. Just regular people coming together in mutual aid, in non-cooperation, in non-violence. Something I read the other day was, you know, when they first sent the few thousand people here, you know, it was really easy for them to abduct people, but now we know how they do it, and we made it a lot harder for them to do it. They can't do it as fast. And that's just regular people. That's the leaders within each and every one of us standing up and saying that we're not gonna let this happen. And so, yes, we need to have this conversation about how can the city do more, but we also need to start having the conversations with our friends and our families and our neighbors, conversations that I know are happening here in Medford about what we're gonna do when the law doesn't hold. when the state or the city can't protect us, and when we know that what someone with some ICE label on their shirt says is legal just isn't legal and absolutely isn't right. So that's what I am hoping. I so deeply hope that these things do not come here to this place that we love, but we can't act like that isn't going to happen because I think that's what everyone in Minneapolis said, and that's what everyone in Los Angeles said, and Chicago, and Washington, and New York, and Boston last spring. We were one of the first. They started it here. We were an experiment, and they've been tweaking, and turning, and iterating, and figuring out just how to be how awful they can be, and now we see it's come to fruition. And we just can't, you know, one of the biggest and most dangerous things is the idea that it can't happen here, and we know that's not true. So I'm very thankful to my colleagues for putting this forward for the people who have been coming out in force to stand up for what's right. And I'm gonna just read it from our Poet Laureate earlier tonight. Renee Goode was our neighbor. Let our presence here tonight be a statement of peace, of resolve, of human dignity, and of neighborly love. Be the bravery you want to see and that we need so clearly. Thank you. Are there any other comments from the city council at this time? Seeing none, we can open this up to public participation. I know there were a number of people who wanted to speak on this matter, either in person or on Zoom. I also have two items that I will read at the end of the public participation. But if you'd like to speak on this resolution, you can. make a line at the podium, or you can raise your hand on Zoom. We will alternate between in-person and on Zoom, and each person will get three minutes. We have someone at the podium, and we'll take you first. And, Micah, that's you. Name and address for the record, please. You have three minutes.

[Micah Kesselman]: Micah Shalom-Kesselman, 499 Main Street. 130 years ago, when unaccountable, often-masked paramilitary secret policing forces were inflicting pogroms and programs of removal on Jewish communities across Eastern Europe, the Bund rallied around a simple cry. Dort, wo wir leben, dort ist unser Land. There, where we live, there is our country. Despite tumultuous history and changes in mission, politics, size, everything else, this continued as a through line and became the concept of doykite. The idea that where we are, no matter who we are or where it is, is our home and our neighbor's home and our community's home. We now live in a time where unaccountable, masked thugs are violently inflicting a program of removal of people from where they have made a home for themselves. a brutal and cruel expression of hate inflicted on our communities and our neighbors, our friends and our families, at the quivering behest of would-be autocrats, authoritarians, and yes, even fascists. We, each and every single one of us, have a duty to fight this craven and heinous violation with every single tool at our disposal. This resolution tonight is one such tool, and I applaud it. But there are more things that can be done. And here are some ways in which we can all practice stoikite at different levels of here-ness. The city can pass ordinances that may be challengeable, but in the meantime are going, and going forward if they survive challenge, lean towards resident safety and security first and facilitate enforcement against federal bad actors like ICE, a general LEO face mask ban. and an ordinance restricting ice to limited specific spaces and or creating ice-free zones as suggested recently by Representative Connolly. I also see no reason the city cannot consider other uncertain ordinances. like a presumption of unlawfulness for ICE and arrest activities based on their clearly unconstitutional and illegal pattern of behavior here and across the country that shifts the immediate burden to show lawful compliance to ICE with further definition of what constitutes an articulable and reasonable fear that the subject is both present without authorization and likely, not at mere risk, to flee if not apprehended immediately, which is the only way ICE can arrest people when they don't have a warrant or orders. very limited. At the state, we can push for rapid voting on many of the bills that are sitting idle and are notoriously and completely unnecessarily slow state legislature. We can demand passage of the numerous bills, many of which are very own state representative sponsored or authored in whole or in part, but seek to build resilience and resistance to federal overreach and lawlessness. These bills include H-1588, Dignity Not Deportations Act, H-250, slash S1681, the Safe Communities Act, H1954, Immigrant Legal Defense Act, SD3574, and that might be wrong, so double check it, an act ensuring law enforcement identification for public safety and more. You can also push the state house to leverage the tax code. Federal employees are still subject to state income tax after all. And maybe we could even recoup some portion of that federal funds stolen from our state by this lawless administration. Personally, in our neighborhoods and circles, on our streets and over our backyard fences, we can get to know each other, care about each other and learn each other's names, and be willing to stand between your neighbor and a federal thug trying to disappear them into a vicious and deadly system. Sign up with organizations and mutual aid groups and be willing to have perhaps hard and scary conversations. Ultimately, we can all patrol and protect our neighborhoods. Come and grab a whistle from me and alert your neighbors to danger in their community. I will be handing them out in the back. And we live in a country where violent aggression may be countered and reciprocated with equal force. I'll just say that if anyone wants to acquire their rightful license to a firearm and do not know where to go or how to go about it, you can reach out to me. I can be and have a private conversation. I can direct you to local resources here in Medford, or I can direct you to regional resources that prioritize BIPOC, LGBTQ, and other at-risk and marginalized groups for licensure ahead of others. We are communities. Each and every one of us are the final backstop to protecting our communities. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. We'll go to Steve on Zoom, and then we'll come back to the podium. Steve, and you should be able to start video now. Steve, name and address for the record, please, and you'll have three minutes.

[Steve Schnapp]: My name is Steve Schnapp. I live at 36 Hillside Ave. in Medford Square. I'm in support of this resolution. I recently was given a doorknob hanger by someone who works in Somerville with immigrants. This is a sort of a know-your-rights card that is intended to be placed on the inside of someone's outer door. as basic know your rights information, but it also contains, under a section called important phone numbers, this sentence. This is from Somerville. Call 911 if ICE comes to your door. Somerville police will verify if they have a real warrant. I'm hoping that this council would support the city administration in doing something similar and the Medford Police Department acting in the interest of the safety and well-being of Medford residents. by verifying the legality of these ICE raids. If Somerville is doing it, there's no reason why Medford can't. Thank you very much.

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

[SPEAKER_10]: Hello. Hi. Hi. My name is Nihit Trivedi. I'm actually a resident of Cambridge. But I appreciate you having me here today. I just want to say, first, inspired by what you all are doing here. And I think this is an important resolution. And I appreciate the work that you're doing to put it forward. I was just inspired by, what you all are doing to just share one tidbit, I guess, which is I had an experience where a good friend of mine was recently taken by ICE and deported. He described it, when I finally was able to speak to him four months later, when he arrived back in Brazil, was that it was like being in a horror movie, his only words that he described. And he said he was with his mother, and he would not talk about it in front of her and ask that we talk about it later. And there's obviously a lot that you've all spoken about here about what folks can do, what the city can do, and what folks can do as these agents are descending on our communities in the state. But I just also have been asking myself, what are the things that I can do in the day-to-day? And I think all of you are speaking about some of your experiences and folks here, too. And I just want to mention one organization that I've recently started volunteering with called Bijan, which is the Boston Immigrant Justice Accompaniment Network. And I'm just mentioning it for two reasons. One is for folks who are detained for their families, the organization, and I'm a volunteer there, can provide accompaniment to hearings, support with finding a lawyer, bond, as well as resources to the families to pay for rent and other things in the immediate aftermath of a family member being detained. And two, the organization is, you know, the. is a network of volunteers. And so I understand there are people publicly who are listening. So if folks are interested, I just encourage them to Google Bijan, Massachusetts and check it out. There's also a phone number there that people can call if their family members or others have been detained. There are volunteers who speak different languages. I work with those who speak Portuguese, but there are others as well. So I just wanted to share that because I always ask myself, What can I do? And that's one thing that I just want to share with the community and is also, once again, it's a resource. And I just appreciate the important work you all are all doing in this difficult time. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Sorry about that noise. And thank you so much for bringing up Bijan. They're a really, really important organization that I've been lucky to help support myself. So thank you for bringing that up. And I think it's something that folks should focus on. We will go back to Zoom. We have Jason on Zoom. Jason, name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[SPEAKER_13]: Thank you. My name is Jason Rabin. I live at 592 Main Street. I appreciate the chance to talk. I want to thank you all for passing this resolution and for all the words you guys spoke today. I really appreciate it. As well as just being a concerned resident and neighbor, I work for a refugee resettlement agency. And I wanted to add to the conversation, the folks that I work with are here on humanitarian immigration statuses. I know we have at least a couple of hundred clients in Medford and there are many, many more Medford residences who are here under humanitarian protections. And that means that the federal government promised them safety and protection here for a number of reasons. In some cases, they helped the U.S. government and the U.S. military abroad. In some cases, they come from countries that were destabilized by foreign policy, including ours. And in many cases, there's been violence or natural disasters that have made their homes unsafe to live. And the United States has promised them safety and protection here. And we've seen something really, really unprecedented recently, which is a lot of these humanitarian statuses being restricted, revoked, or simply not honored or flouted when The federal government has chosen a population that they didn't want to be here anymore, you know, who they wanted to inflict collective punishment on. This is a really, really terrifying development. I can tell you from working with refugees and other folks with humanitarian statuses that, you know, they are truly amongst the most patriotic Americans you'll meet. They love this country. They'll do anything for it. proud to be able to work here, raise their families here, and start new beginnings here. And in Minneapolis, we're seeing ICE with mandates to identify people of certain nationalities regardless of their status, sometimes because of their humanitarian protectives that, you know, they were promised by their government. And they have quotas and are promised bonuses if they round them up, even if they're later released. And if these, a lot of these folks, if they end up being deported, they will face death. They will face horrible, unimaginable retaliation against them and their families. I think a lot of these folks also are being threatened with being, having their statuses up for re-adjudication unfairly, which re-traumatizes people who have undergone you know, recovered from incredible hardships to contribute to this country. Uh, I could go on and on about this. Um, but I think the point I really wanted to make was these are people that the federal government has broken faith with broken contracts with that thought that they had legal protection that no longer do. We've seen that that's now the case for American citizens, including people who were born here and are bearing witness and are protesting. Um, I had more to say, but I'll leave it there and just, I think we need to be, you can finish it out. I wanted to say that I've watched this government take an all of government, very, very creative, all of government approach to persecuting immigrants that they didn't want to be here. And I think on the other side, We need the same kind of very creative all of government approach to protecting people that we have promised safety to. And that includes looking at not just the things that we've already talked about, but things like people being surveilled, things like information sharing, making sure that people understand the protections that they have, making sure that we do not share information that we don't have to share with the federal government if they're targeting people unfairly. Things like Steve mentioned with asking the police to verify warrants. I just also wanted to mention really quickly that people, there are many, many Haitians living in Medford. their temporary protected status is going to be prematurely terminated at the beginning of February if the government does not act to protect them. In Boston, there was a field hearing about this. It would be wonderful if the city council could pass a resolution opposing the premature termination of TPS in support of the efforts that are happening in Boston. Thank you. Thank you, Jason.

[Zac Bears]: Is there anyone else who would like to speak in person at this time? Thank you. Name and address record, please.

[Clare Sheridan]: My name is Claire Sheridan. I live at 190 High Street in Medford. My Haitian neighbors across the hall from me disappeared. They were here legally. I don't know whether they self-deported or not, but they're gone. My nephew lives in Minneapolis where Ms. Goode was murdered. They're frightened. The schools are closed. He's a school teacher. They're teaching on Zoom now. I'm an old white lady, so I don't have anything technically to be frightened of, but I am frightened. Madam Mayor, I would like you to be a leader and show some leadership and lead us out of this nightmare. I know the police are in an awkward position, but I want you to help them to do the right thing. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. I'm going to go to Zoom. We have Prabita. Name and address for the record, please, and you'll have three minutes.

[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_29]: Hello. I am curious if I have to turn on the camera.

[Zac Bears]: You don't have to if you don't want to.

[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_29]: Sounds good. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thanks for the opportunity to talk. I live in West Medford. I am very grateful for this proposal from the city council. Definitely very supportive of this. I've been a resident in Medford from 2019. And we have a lot of friends and community support here. We love living here, love the neighborhood, love the community. Yeah, we've definitely enjoyed. We lived in Cambridge before. However, we have faced several racist encounters before. But sadly, those encounters seem like nothing compared to what we are feeling now. When all of the ICE raids began, my husband and I were, you know, we weren't that shaken up. We were definitely very empathetic and sad for the situation and the plight of our other, you know, fellow people all over America, but we thought personally we were okay because we are legal, but given how things are shaping around us. We are not feeling very safe or settled right now, especially given some increased activity in our neighboring town Burlington to be specific where we frequently visit. So, you know, just sharing some of our personal kind of considerations that we are going through should we both walk together. If my husband, who's famously been targeted by, been the target of several racist incidents, I was like, if he goes away by himself, is he going to come back? So those types of fears are something that we're dealing with right now. And we would really hope and appreciate that the mayor, like everyone else more qualified than I have said before to lead us in the right direction. Thank you.

[Barry Ingber]: Thank you.

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

[Patrick Clerkin]: Patrick Clerkin, 14 Bennett Place. As Councilor Callahan was mentioning before, sometimes within law enforcement, there is an anarchy that pervades, ironically, kind of a lawlessness within law and order, supposedly. Right now, what we're dealing with is, on the one hand, the sense that lawlessness pervades within law enforcement, and on the other hand, the sense that lawlessness pervades in our immigration system. And those two things feed off of each other. We're seeing examples of both. Lots of people have been impacted by both. And I understand and don't blame people for the degree of forcefulness that they think is necessary to confront the other side. However, I also think it's important that we maintain in Medford some forums, perhaps outside of this city council, this biweekly city council meeting, and outside of something that Medford residents might set up themselves, a forum that would allow those two sides of the issue to engage with each other in a way that they might not currently be doing. I think particularly at a time where our social media algorithms pump more and more of what we fear and what we find emotionally resonant at us. And I think if some of those forums were properly advertised, that would be an additional help to this situation. And I'll also add that To the degree to which we don't do that, I think it will only accelerate the worst outcomes and will only accelerate the mutual fear. And I think if we're not talking about the pros and cons of both sides, and there are pros and cons of both sides, I'm not talking about in the extreme cases. then we become propagandists and we become complicit in that fear economy. And as Councilor Leming mentioned before, in reference to fear itself, I want to remind people that even within that administration of the very man that said that, there was mass deportations of Japanese, or I should say, encampments of Japanese. There was the adoption of aspects of dictatorships into our democracy, and there was deals made with the Deep South senators who that administration needed the approval of for the programs that prolonged Jim Crow itself. All throughout history, there are difficult situations and complex situations, and I think we should fight the good fight, but keep in mind that there are other sides to the story, and we have to engage with those. Thank you.

[Barry Ingber]: Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: And we'll go to Muneer Jimenez. Name and address for the record, please, and you'll have three minutes.

[Munir Jirmanus]: Thank you, Munir Germanus. I live at 3 Summit Road in Medford. I'm here to add my wholehearted support for this resolution. We've heard that our own Medford Police Department are powerless to stop these attacks and that ICE does not let them know when they're coming to arrest or kidnap someone in Medford. But what I would like to add is I would like to ask the Medford Police Department to accept 911 calls when such incidents are happening and to rapidly respond by sending an officer to at least witness what is happening and show that the Medford Police Department is in support of our community. Thank you very much.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Seeing no one here at the podium right now, we'll stay on Zoom. We'll go to Megan. Megan, name and address for the record, please, and you'll have three minutes.

[Meghan Searl]: Yes, can you hear me?

[SPEAKER_14]: Yes.

[Meghan Searl]: Okay. My name is Megan Searle. I live at 100 Station Landing. First, I'm grateful to the city council for acknowledging the urgent need to devise a plan for addressing an ice surge in Medford. Many of us already know that we are at imminent risk. Mayor Michelle Wu has already been planning for a surge in Boston. DHS is directing the kind of state-sponsored violence in Minnesota to other areas of the country, including Lewiston, Maine. And witnesses saw a raft of new ice vehicles delivered to the Boston field office in Burlington a few weeks ago. What I wanna focus on though is the aspect of this resolution that is about our constitutional rights. The resolution demonstrates the council's insight into the current state of the country and what it means for our community going forward. In reaffirming our constitutional rights to protest peacefully and to observe and document the activity of federal agents, it is saying that in no uncertain terms that Medford residents have these rights. This might not feel critical now, just as we were protesting peacefully in front of City Hall earlier, and just recently, Medford residents were called to verify ICE activity, freely observing and documenting agents as they carried out their work. So why do we need this part of the resolution? We need it because we are now living under competitive authoritarianism, where there is a facade of democracy, but underneath, democratic institutions are collapsing. And we are moving at breakneck speed toward authoritarian consolidation, a process that would solidify the permanent power of the Trump administration, turning us into an autocracy or dictatorship. We will join the ranks of Russia, China, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia. The best case scenario would be that we might be more like Hungary. So what is life like in Hungary? The government's message is everywhere. It spends billions on propaganda instead of schools and hospitals. The Justice Department can investigate anyone who says the wrong thing. Women are pressured to stay home and raise large families, and there is no same-sex marriage, and I could go on. If what I'm describing feels like an unlikely possibility, know that experts in authoritarianism say that this is where we are in no uncertain terms. And with regard to believing or not believing this is the case, well, if you're in the path of a bullet train, it doesn't really matter whether you believe it's true or not. It will run you over either way. Our country has a short window to turn us around, something that experts in authoritarianism call a democratic U-turn. But if the upcoming midterms are hijacked such that we cannot prove and enforce our democratic wins, our chance of recovering our democracy plunges, and the length of time it will take us to get it back, if we can at all, multiplies. So when City Council affirms our constitutional right to protest and to document the actions of federal agents, they are empowering us to do what we need to do to slow down and hopefully stop authoritarian consolidation. It has become evident that we, the people, are the ones who have to turn this country around, and it's crucial that these rights are protected. While it's unusual for the activity of the Medford City Council to have implications for the future of this country, and I would even say the future of the world, this is the case now. The hope for the future of the American democratic experiment rests on communities like Medford and the actions of their leaders. Because the country is made up of hundreds and thousands of Medfords, it is up to us, community by community, to ensure the survival of our democracy. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_10]: Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: All right. Oh, we have someone in person. We will go back to the podium. Name and address for the record, please, and you'll have three minutes.

[XXXXXX00070_SPEAKER_00]: My name is Asya Ricarte and I live in South Medford, 111 Princeton Street. I just wanted to say I'm in full support of this resolution because I feel that as young people in our community, we need to feel safe. Most of all, our families are doing what they can. But we need the support of the local government, of the Medford police, and the people who are in power, the people who are supposed to be our leaders to look up to. This resolution may be the start of that change, the thing that makes Medford stand apart from the other communities who are staying silent. In support of this resolution, I think recognizing the murder of Mr. Nay Good is a good first step, but we also need to recognize the people in our own community that are being taken, the people in other communities, the regular, ordinary people in Minneapolis, and across the entire country. So, as a young person of the community, I am looking out to the leaders to speak up, to stand up, to say something, to vote, vote with all our voices and ensure that democracy in Medford stays the way that it is. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm going to go to Zoom. We're going to go to Mr. Castagnetti on Zoom. Name and address for the record, please. Andy, I've requested to unmute you.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: Right. Thank you, Mr. Beers, for your attention. Can you put my Zoom on camera?

[Zac Bears]: I can ask to start your video, but you have to press the button.

[Andrew Castagnetti]: There we go. Thank you, sir. Yes, I agree with you 99% for sure. I also condemn the killing of Ms. Good. It's terrible. Even if it was in self-defense, But in hindsight, if she got out of her truck on the cop order, she'd still be alive today. Very, very sad thing, especially for her three kids. Unnecessary death, totally unavoidable. By the way, nobody prayed tonight. I'd like to say my prayer for her three kids, her, and her father-in-law, who will probably have three children. Almighty God, creator of heaven and earth, all sentient beings and more, please get me and all of us to be, do the best that we can, now, always, forever and ever, in our quest for eternal, blissful peace. Amen. God bless us all. Good night.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. I'm going to stay on Zoom. Unless there's someone who hasn't spoken already who wants to speak in person, we'll go to Ellery Klein. Ellery, name and address for the record, please. You'll have three minutes.

[F9BRnpGt19U_SPEAKER_04]: Good evening. My name is Ellery Klein. I'm at 37 Fells Avenue in Medford. I'm in support of this resolution. And I'd also like to add just, I don't know if anything can be added to address this situation, but you know, the same day that Renee Good was murdered by ICE in Minnesota, they also went to Roosevelt High School. in Minnesota and at the dismissal time and ended up either pepper spraying or tear gassing students, it's unconfirmed which, pepper gunning students, causing mayhem, traumatizing students, with the result that, you know, school has been closed in Minnesota for days following that incident and the murderer So I just want to point out, especially to those out there that are trying to tell us that we're overreacting, that schools in Minnesota, in Minneapolis, were closed last week for days because the administration of the school was worried that the federal government was going to shoot, injure, or abduct their students. This is an unacceptable situation. And I think that we here in the city of Medford in the state of Massachusetts should be thinking proactively. I understand that our school administration is doing a lot to support our families, unfortunately, many of whom have already left or are hiding. So, you know, post COVID, our students are still suffering the effects of the pandemic. And now we're dealing with a situation where the federal government is really ruining children's lives, traumatizing children. I'm just here tonight to speak out for the children and the students of Medford as a music teacher and a parent and a citizen. who has watched our children bear the brunt of our government's bad decision making and cruelty for over a decade now. The police maybe do not have the authority to interfere with federal acts, but when these acts are illegal, I think we should make sure that the Medford police are not going to cooperate with ICE. They are not going to do crowd control for ICE. They are not going to hold people down for ICE. And I would like to make sure that this sort of thing is confirmed with them. I would like to see, I echo what other people say, that I would like to see the Medford police be a voice of reason. We've seen again and again on videos that ICE tend to respond to men who are out there calling them out. I think our police have a valuable role as witnesses, as voices of calm, and also as checks. If a police officer is doing something illegal in the course of duty, I'm not sure what the role of his fellow officer is and how he can react in that moment, but just letting ICE know that the police here in Medford will be watching. They will be recording. They will be testifying against them in a court of law. I think that's important to send that message. We can do way more than say we can't do anything. We can let them know that we are watching them. and that we care for our citizens, we care for our immigrant neighbors, we care for all our neighbors, and that we especially care for our children and our students who have been asked to endure learning loss and trauma again and again and again, and it is unacceptable. And I would just, I appreciate the statement and I would love something about the school system or our students to be added to this resolution. Thank you very much.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. We will stay on Zoom. Simon, I'll unmute you. Name and address for the record, please. And you have three minutes.

[Simon Alcindor]: OK, thank you, Simon Elsendor, 44 Tainter Street. I just sort of actually similar to what was just said, I wanted to uplift the work of students at Somerville High School and Cambridge Regional Latin School who today walked out in support of the general ICE protests. And I particularly wanted to note something that was mentioned, I was just at the rally down here in Boston, that that administrators at Cambridge Ridge Latin explicitly try to intimidate and harass students to not protest, including attempting to threaten students with various, with punishment if they proceed with their protest, which they of course did. And I would certainly hope to see in the near future something to prevent such a situation from happening at Medford public schools, whether it is through the most likely a collaboration with the school committee. And I think generally, like making sure that we are protecting people when they are protesting or they are monitoring ICE agents is highly important when we are talking about the subject. And I hope that is incorporated at least into future actions of the council. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Simon. Going to stay on Zoom. We'll go to Eileen Lerner. Eileen, name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[Ilene Lerner]: My name is Eileen Lerner and I live at 3920 Mystic Valley Parkway. And I'm strongly in support of this resolution. And I'm very grateful to the city council for taking it up. Everybody who has spoken has brought up very important issues. that I certainly agree with. But I want to talk about another aspect of living in this environment of fear, which is this. People are self-deported. I myself have acquired some foster family members from India. Both of the parents are here because they have work visa because of their skills in IT. However, the father has not had his visa renewed and the family is frightened by what's going on and prefers to move back to India. This is a horrible loss to me and other people who care about this family, but also They're deporting many people who have valuable skills and will no longer be available to work in those fields. Not only that, but even lower skilled people who work in nursing homes and assisted living and hospitals, these people are leaving or being deported and our workforce is being depleted. And many people will be left without care, without people to care for them. And it's just a very sad situation. And as far as there being two sides, Yeah, right. There's two sides. There's good and there's evil. And what's going on now is definitely evil. And I applaud you all for being willing to stand up for it. If more people had stood up for the right thing before the Holocaust, perhaps that would not have happened. But at least here in the United States, we are standing up. Thank you very much.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Eileen. We have Radhika. Radhika, name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[SPEAKER_22]: Hello, my name is Radhika. I live at 12 Walden Road in Medford. I moved here last year with my family. want to voice my support for this resolution. And I echo a lot of the sentiments that have been spoken today by the council members, as well as all the individuals who are standing up and speaking out. I just wanted to offer two additional things to consider. One, you know, the folks in Minneapolis are in Minnesota are going through this, as well as our community members. And I could talk about the fear that I have as a brown person living here, regardless of the fact that I'm a citizen. But I think something that we should all be doing are taking lessons learned from our fellow Americans in Minnesota. There are things that they're doing that we can echo here in our own communities. And I would like to see a consolidated effort to really understand what works and what doesn't and try to apply those things here. And then secondly, I see a lot of folks in my own echo chamber, I guess, talk about economic resistance, things that we can do like boycotting institutions and corporations that support ICE. And if we can, as a community, identify those institutions and corporations and come up with an economic resistance plan, I think that would also send a really loud message. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Radhika. All right, I do have a couple of comments that I want to read. Dear Council President Bears, I regret that I'm unable to attend Tuesday night's City Council meeting, either in person or by Zoom. I'm in full support of the resolution before the Council tonight that condemns the murderous actions of ICE agents in Minneapolis and elsewhere. I join the call for our Mayor and Police Chief to be boldly proactive in the face of this lawlessness. We need to be prepared. Proud of our council for speaking up loudly for justice and safety. Ellen Epstein, Grove Street, Medford, Massachusetts. Hello, Councilors. Because I'm unable to attend in person tonight, I'd like to submit the following. My name is Mike Denton. I'm a business owner in Medford, and I'm a Medford resident. Everyone, every human deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. Where matters of immigration policy and enforcement are concerned, everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. It is beyond dispute that ICE is not treating people with dignity or respect. Quite the opposite, in fact. ICE is a domestic terror squad, brutalizing and terrorizing people who are undeserving of such treatment. Moreover, given the frequency of, quote, detentions that occur without ICE agents presenting identification or a judicial warrant, ICE represents a federal agency that is acting outside of the law. ICE's behavior represents a gross abuse of power that demands exceptional actions in response from our elected officials. Innocent bystanders have been murdered. Innocent people have died in detention centers. American citizens have been assaulted and kidnapped solely because of how they look, and because ICE agents have either refused to accept the ID people have presented, or as would be totally reasonable, because people were not carrying their passports with them at the time. Or in the case of three Oglala Lakota tribal members who were kidnapped recently, they didn't have their tribal IDs on them. I mentioned that I am a Medford resident. I'm originally from Canada and I am a legal permanent resident. I also happen to be white. I mention this because we must be clear that white immigrants are not being hunted down in the streets and in our schools and in stores and businesses. It is exclusively people of color and we must acknowledge the reality that this is an ethnic cleansing mission. We have brute squads with carte blanche from the president and his administration to terrorize the public. This is authoritarianism and we are living in a time that calls for exceptional actions from those in positions of power and authority. In Medford, that means the mayor, the chief of police, the entire police department, and the city council. For the sake of being as clear as I can be, what I'm looking for from Medford is an insurance that the Medford police will arrest any ICE agents found breaking the law. I'm looking for the mayor to come out as a vocal supporter of arresting and charging ICE agents for criminal behavior. Ultimately, we, the residents of Medford, are looking for action from our elected officials now. Thank you. I also have two things I'd like to read from two people in Minneapolis, and there are many other stories that I think are more than worth reading. And mind you, some of these are now days or even a week old, and things have gotten worse. from a daycare and early childhood educator in Minneapolis. It's Tuesday, January 13th. I spent the morning rewriting my program's lockdown plans and training staff in our updated protocols. ICE's presence has expanded now to 3,500 officers. We have more ICE officers in the Twin Cities than actual police officers. On my way to work today, I turned on the radio. For a moment, I couldn't tell if the news being broadcast was about Iran or Minneapolis. The line was that, quote, masked officers, arms with guns, are removing people from the streets. What a strange time this is. My staff have begun driving kids to and from the center when parents don't feel safe leaving their homes. Our local school district has started, quote, patrol parades at pick-up and drop-off time to make sure children get home safely. There is no adherence to constitutional rights or local laws by the ICE officers. Peaceful protesters and observers are being beaten and arrested. Yesterday, a few blocks from the shooting, ICE officers ran into the back of a US citizen's car, totaling it, then demanded his paperwork. He was Latino and refused. They bailed quickly after tear-gassing his wife, who is also a US citizen. This weekend, they went onto the only Minneapolis reservation, Little Earth, located in South Minneapolis, and arrested Native Americans. They're going door-to-door in select neighborhoods using battering rams to break down doors. Yesterday, ICE approached several health clinics in Minneapolis that refused entry without a warrant. The situation appeared to diffuse until an hour later, when an anonymous bomb threat was called in, causing the building to evacuate. At that time, ICE agents arrested people of color. At a Chick-fil-A in the cities, two agents came in and told the manager that they had accidentally hit two cars in the parking lot and needed to meet the owners to pay for damage. When the two employees went outside to look at the damage, there was none. They were both abducted. SNAP, WIC, and CACFP funding has been temporarily frozen to the state by the federal government. These are all programs that provide funds for low-income individuals and families to afford food. While I was writing this, I got a text from a child care center that partners with Head Start in St. Paul that ICE had arrived in their parking lot. Agents are going door to door along their block. Their center is on lockdown. I'm gutted for the families who have to explain this to their children tonight. From a rabbi in Minneapolis. Hi all. What's happening in Minneapolis? Federal forces with many guns and very little training are hunting and kidnapping my neighbors. Not just immigrant neighbors, literally every black and brown person in the Twin Cities because racial profiling is real and rampant. They point guns and shoot guns and eagerly deploy pepper spray. They ram cars into people. They're openly racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic to everyone they come into contact with. Everyone, literally everyone, single person I know is showing up in countless ways. People doing ice watch patrols in cars, on bikes, on foot, and from home. Pre-dawn until late at night to provide warning, witness, documentation, and support. They're trying their hardest to intimidate us. They've shown us again and again that they can and will hurt us, and everyone continues to show up. School patrols every morning, and at recess if the students, the ones safe enough to go to school, are allowed to be outside. If tear gas hasn't been deployed within a few blocks from their school. and at dismissal in the afternoon. The students are organizing walkouts, rides to and from work and the laundromat, grocery deliveries, organizing food and diaper drives, protesting and organizing and offering free acupuncture and helping elders get on signal and nightly noise demos outside their hotel and in 1020 on ice rink sidewalks, 10 to 20 degree weather on ice rink sidewalks. What can you do for Minneapolis right now? Donate to neighborhood funds. Wherever you are, gather with your block or neighborhood. Talk about what is happening here and make a plan for when it happens there. Organize for an eviction moratorium and talk about non-cooperation. And please try to talk to everyone on your block in whistles and mutual aid. Because your mayor saying F.I.C.E. and your AG suing ICE and your governor putting the National Guard on alert, all of those things will be largely meaningless while you watch your neighbors get kidnapped in the blink of an eye. I love you. I'm praying for the day when our signal threads are repurposed to plan the biggest block party imaginable. All right. Thank you for letting me read that. Is there anyone else who hasn't had a chance to speak yet who would like to speak at this time? All right, Claire, we'll come back to you and then we'll go to Micah. If you'd just like to share one more thing. You gotta come to the microphone, sorry Claire.

[Clare Sheridan]: Whatever happened to those monthly meetings we used to have with the police department?

[Zac Bears]: I'm not sure. I don't think they've happened since about 2020.

[Clare Sheridan]: I couldn't hear you.

[Zac Bears]: I don't think they've happened in about five or six years.

[Clare Sheridan]: Yeah, that's what I'm asking. What happened to them?

[Zac Bears]: I asked the same question. Micah?

[Micah Kesselman]: Thanks. Mikey Kesselman, 499 Main Street. I just really quickly wanted to respond to something that I've heard repeated here multiple times tonight. And I understand there's an instinct to defer to law enforcement and to what our local cops state is the situation legally speaking. But there is no legal precedent that says local cops cannot enforce criminal code against federal agents. If they are breaking the law, they can be arrested. Moreover, it is actually illegal for DHS and any other federal law enforcement agent to knowingly be bystander to a fellow LEO's breach of constitutional rights that is actually under federal code, that is itself a crime. So there's many reasons that MPD could actually do something with their state-condoned use of force and violence. And the only reason that they're not has nothing to do with law or precedent. I don't even think it has to necessarily do with them being afraid to confront ICE officers. I think it's because the police union, is in support of this garbage. And they're more loyal to their union than they are to the city that they are meant to serve and protect. We saw in Minneapolis where the cops union came out in support of Jonathan Ross, who murdered, executed a woman in broad daylight. Now Jonathan Ross will get what's his at some point, I am sure. But it's crazy that the cops came out trying to protect a murderer. We all saw it. So to the local cops, to the MPD, protect the citizens. At the end of the day, you're not the only one who has a state mandate to use force in self-defense. So do your goddamn job.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Not seeing any further comment in person or on Zoom. Is there anything, any further comment from members of the council or motions from the council at this time? Council Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. I would motion to send this paper to the Public Health and Community Safety Committee

[Zac Bears]: Councilor Tseng.

[Justin Tseng]: Thank you. I wanted to thank my fellow councillors for their support and their words today. Even just sitting here, I've learned a lot. And I think that's what the council is about, right? Even if we agree on an issue, there's so much conversation to be had about what we can do better, what angles we can take, what perspectives we need to hear from and I think tonight I have learned a lot from all of you guys too. I also want to thank all the residents who spoke tonight for their comments. The last few months as a person of color, as an immigrant, have often felt pretty isolating. But today has been especially moving seeing our community really come together, affirm their support for people of color, for immigrant neighbors, and for the rule of law, justice, liberty in the city. And that's for everyone. We all win when we stand up for each other. I think tonight really represents the best of us. Not only are we reaffirming those values and standing up for each other and saying those things, but our residents have put together real steps forward that we can all take. Good suggestions for what more we can do, things we need to look at, things we should be looking at. And the truth is the council and the school committee have been working really, really hard to do everything we can. and I'm sure there's a lot more we can do. And tonight's ideas I think give us a lot of fodder for future conversation, a lot of thoughts for us to chew on. And I think my fellow Councilors and residents are right that we need to see more leadership at different levels as well. There's only so much that we can do as city councilors and as school committee members. We do need the mayor to do everything she can. We need the police to stand by our community too. We need to continue those conversations and really push them to answer the questions that residents have raised tonight and to let residents know. what is the most that we can do to protect our neighborhoods. There was a suggestion about amending this resolution, so I would like to offer an amendment to just add something about the schools. I'd like to add, be it further resolved that the Committee on Public Health and Community Safety work with school administration and school community members to protect our students' safety and their right to protest. just to add that at the end.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you all. Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Could you email that to me and the clerk? And also, would it be possible for us to sever the last three clauses plus your amended clause and refer those to committee and just approve the first two clauses?

[Justin Tseng]: Yes, 100%.

[Zac Bears]: Great.

[Emily Lazzaro]: President Perez, could you repeat what you just said about severing?

[Zac Bears]: Sorry, could you say that again?

[Emily Lazzaro]: Can you repeat what you just said about the severing?

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, just the basically taking the things that reference the Public Health and Community Safety Committee and referring them there, but just approving the first two resolutions.

[Unidentified]: Got it. OK.

[Zac Bears]: Councilor Leming.

[Matt Leming]: I agree with all the amendments and motions to sever. Just did want to make just some small follow-up points, which is that These conversations propaganda always plays a big part of it. I mean if you go to the DHS's official website or The web the news coverage that ice itself is putting out. It's just it's pure propaganda the news environment these days is is absolutely terrible, it's like I've had conversations with with my own parents where I'm I'm appalled at some of the stuff they're reading where they're not really understanding the extent of what's going on just because their news consumption is very different. But details about what happens when people are imprisoned and deported is out there. The New Yorker did a pretty good story back in November called Disappeared to a Foreign Prison, which is a very nice investigative journalism piece about what actually happens to people when they're detained and the months-long process of sort of what goes on behind closed doors. But I've also talked with, I've also had plenty of conversations with residents who go down their own social media rabbit holes and their beliefs are still that, you know, it's only criminals that are being detained or whatever. So that, so it's, When talking to neighbors, when talking to relatives, try to find out what they're looking at, because propaganda is in a... very, very bad spot in this country. Personally, I've been... the more that I see, the more that I've been having less patience on a personal level with centrist takes whenever I see them, because when times are... It's usually the more, the centrist take is usually not the right one. This is not a both sides argument. Times are really bad right now. When the ICE surge does happen, just remember that it's okay to make their jobs as difficult as possible. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Leming. We have a motion from Councilor Tseng to amend the paper to add the clause that he read out and to sever the paper with the first two resolutions being approved and the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth resolutions being referred to the Public Health and Community Safety Committee. Does that motion have a second? Seconded by Councilor Callahan. Any further discussion by members of the Council? Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. It's on the whole thing.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan? Yes. Vice President Lazzaro?

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Mulley? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli?

[George Scarpelli]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Tseng? Yes. President Bears?

[Zac Bears]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, none in the negative. The motion passes. Thank you everyone who joined us tonight to talk about this important issue. We're going to continue the work that we've been doing over the past year and really the past six years to protect our community. 26-018, resolution to increase the vacation time for the employees of the City of Medford, whereas employees of the City of Medford receive only two weeks of vacation per year for their first five years, which is lower than surrounding municipalities, and whereas this makes Medford less competitive when attempting to attract new employees, and surrounding municipalities such as Boston and Summerville have longer vacation policies. Now, therefore, be it resolved that Chapter 66, Article 3, Section 66-64 of Medford's Code of Ordinances be amended as followed, Subject to the provisions of subsection A of the section, vacation shall be computed in the following manner. Four weeks vacation for employees who have served up to and not more than five years. Five weeks vacation for employees who have served not less than five years nor more than 10 years. Six weeks vacation for employees who have served not less than 10 years. Be it for the resolve of this be effective immediately upon passage. This was offered by Councilor Leming and I will recognize Councilor Leming.

[Matt Leming]: Thank you, Council President Bears. This came up because I was talking to some early employees that I know within City Hall, and they said that a big part, a very difficult part of the new employees package was the fact that during your first five years here, you only get two weeks of vacation time per year. which is very low. By ordinance, it increases slightly after five years and then 10 years, but even so, for your first five years, you only get a total of two weeks of vacation. Furthermore, there's a six month long probationary period, which is unusually long, in which time they can't have any vacation. I talked with HR Director Lisa Crowley about this in a little more detail. And this likely should be referred to the Admin and Finance Committee just to talk about just to talk about how this intersects with union contracts, as well as the city's ability to pay for the extra PTO. But I do think that the reduction from six months to three months probationary period is fairly uncontroversial. one part of our current ordinance that all parties involved seem to think should be changed, but she did want some extra time for discussion on what would be a better vacation day policy than we have right now, as well as some other discussions about how this impacts union and non-union employees and how this affects city budget. So I would motion to refer this to the Admin and Finance Committee and to invite HR Director Crowley to talk about it in a meeting.

[Zac Bears]: on the motion of Councilor Leming to refer this to the Administration and Finance Committee, seconded by Councilor Callahan. Is there any further discussion by members of the Council? Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan? Yes. Vice President Lazzaro?

[Emily Lazzaro]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Malay? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli?

[George Scarpelli]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Tseng. President Pierce.

[Zac Bears]: Yes, I have an affirmative and a negative. The motion passes. Councilor Tseng, could you take the chair? Our vice president and our longest serving councillor are both not present right now.

[Justin Tseng]: Rare day. I realize you took it. I left it at the chair. Yeah. Okay. Resolution 26-019 offered by Council President Bears. Proposed ordinance banning face surveillance technology and amendment to Chapter 50, Article 4. President Bears?

[Zac Bears]: Oh, there we go. There we go. Thank you. You might want to turn me down maybe to see the volume on the, yeah. Always got to be adjusting those volume levels for everybody. It's not an easy job up there. So this is a draft ordinance banning face surveillance technology as residents are likely aware and certainly Councilors are aware we have an ordinance called the Community Control over Public Surveillance Ordinance. That ordinance requires the city council to review use policies and approve them for the use of any type of surveillance technology that falls into the criteria of the CCOPS ordinance right now. There's only, I think, one significant exemption, which is until January 2028, body-worn cameras do not have to have a use policy. This is kind of going a little bit beyond that for one specific type of technology, and that technology is face surveillance. I think this is really an apt conversation to be having on the night that we also just had a conversation about the lawlessness of ICE, one of the, main tools that they are using. One of the reasons, if there are any reasons, that there are all of these arrests of people is that they're basically using bunk face surveillance technology and constantly trying to use phones and apps and cameras to scan people's faces and dump them into a federal database and, you know, use that for whatever enforcement or You know other word you want to use for what they're doing purposes. It's been really clear that face surveillance technology is something that can be pretty easily abused and. that we don't want our government to be using. We've just seen the abuses so clearly. This ordinance, you know, I can, I won't read word for word, but it's actually pretty simple. Instead of, you know, under this currency cops where the, you know, the city could come forward and say, here's face surveillance and here's how we plan to use it. This would just say we're not going to use it to obtain, retain, possess, access, or use any face surveillance system, or enter into agreement with a third party for that same purpose, or issue a permit for any authority on behalf of Medford or a Medford official to use those systems. There is state law here, Section 220 of Chapter 6 of the Mass General Laws, which does authorize and would still authorize our police department to obtain or possess an electronic device for evidentiary purposes, use face recognition on an electronic device and social media and automated reduction software. That's because from time to time, essentially there's a facial recognition exemption in the state law. where if there is an active criminal investigation, if there's like, you're trying to find someone who's committed a violent crime, the state law says that Medford Police or other agencies could use the state system for that. I'm sure there are folks who could speak to that in more detail. And again, this does allow the other things like the use of your face ID on your phone for logging in to a device. So there are some very clear and plain use exemptions to this, but it's mainly that the city is not going to buy or license or authorize someone else on behalf of the city to collect facial recognition data and then use that for whatever purposes that may be used for. Thank you. And actually, before I finish, I do want to thank Medford People Power, ACLU of Massachusetts as well for working with me on this.

[Justin Tseng]: Thank you, President Bears. Do we have any comments from other Councilors? Seeing none, do we have any comments from any motions on the floor?

[Zac Bears]: Councilor Beres? I'd move to approve for first reading.

[Justin Tseng]: We have a motion to approve for the first reading. Do we have a second on that motion? We have a second from Councilor Mullane. Are there any comments from the public? Seeing none in person, seeing none on Zoom. Oh, Micah. Just request to speak on the thing. It's not on. There we go. Give me a sec. Sorry. There we go. You're on.

[Micah Kesselman]: Mikey Kussman, 499 Main Street. I just want to have white support for this ordinance. It's not a big thing. It's small, admittedly, but it's, you know, still important within the city. We know that facial recognition technology is being abused egregiously across the country and across different layers and levels of government. I would love to see an amendment or an extension that sort of also includes a blanket ban on any LEO use, which probably wouldn't be probably wouldn't be enforceable, but it also has a severability clause, so if it's not enforceable, then whatever. But yeah, this is good. Got my support. Thank you. Say that on behalf of a bunch of us who were looking forward to this ordinance, this amendment very much.

[Justin Tseng]: Thank you. I see one more comment in person. Do we have any more comments on Zoom? Seeing none.

[Barry Ingber]: Barry Ingbern, 9 Draper Street. And just on behalf of Medford People Power, I'd like to thank President Bears for putting this resolution forward, and hope you all will support it. Thank you very much.

[Justin Tseng]: Thank you. Do we have any more comments from the public, either on Zoom or in person? Seeing none, we have a motion on the floor from President Bears, seconded by Councilor Mullane. Mr. Clerk, when you're ready.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan? Yes. Vice President Lazzaro?

[Emily Lazzaro]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Mullane? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli?

[George Scarpelli]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Tseng? Yes. President Bears?

[Justin Tseng]: Seven in favor, none opposed. The proposed ordinance passes for first reading.

[Zac Bears]: Public participation, is there anyone who'd like to speak on a matter before this council? You'll have three minutes if you'd like to speak. Seeing none, either in person or on Zoom, is there a motion? On the motion adjourned by Councilor Leming, seconded by Councilor Tseng. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan? Yes. Vice President Lazzaro?

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Malauulu? Yes. Councilor Scapelli?

[George Scarpelli]: Yes.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Tseng? Yes. President Bears?

[Zac Bears]: Yes. I have the affirmative, none the negative. The motion passes and the meeting is adjourned. Thank you.