AI-generated transcript of City Council Committee of the Whole 02-03-26

[Zac Bears]: Medford City Council, Committee of the Whole, February 3rd. Sorry, everyone. February 3rd, 2026 is called to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Callahan. Councilor Callahan is absent. Councilor Leming. Here. Councilor Mallain. Here. Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Scarpelli is absent. Councilor Lasing. Vice President Lazzaro. President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Present. And Councilor Callahan is present. All right. Action and discussion items 25189 offered by President Bears's Amendment to Chapter 2 Article 5 Division 2 Medford Standard Compensation Ordinance. We discussed this at the end of last year. This is a proposal to put a standard compensation provision in our city's procurement ordinances. We've had a procurement issue where we had a union contractor, a contractor went on to bid and a bunch of our union custodial staff, contractor custodial staff were let go. We later learned that this was essentially a procurement issue and we have been working with the labor union that represents these workers to update our ordinances to make sure that union contractors and their employees have a fair shot at any contract that we're seeing and that all of our contracted workers are receiving fair pay and benefits. We put this into committee last December. We were planning to talk about it a couple weeks ago at our committee of the whole, but we ended up having a very long meeting on the ambulance contract and a number of people who wanted to speak to the matter were not able to stay for the rest of the meeting. So we're here to talk about it tonight. I did just forward two amendments around via email. One of them, was in the agenda packet and it adjusts the section around how long the rebidding would be required for existing contracts that no longer comply. It adjusts that period of time to give a bit more time for the city to get those contracts rebid and get contracts that are in compliance. But, and then there's also an amendment to the definitions for the, where are we here? the amount under standard compensation, so it adjusts what standards we're using for compensation and benefits for the two qualified classes of employees. We do have some representatives from 32BJ SEIU with us, including the executive vice president, Kevin Brown, who's here with us, and members of their policy team are with us on Zoom as well. I'd like to give them a chance to explain the ordinance a bit more, explain some of the adjustments that are proposed tonight, And then we can hear from questions from Councilors, but I do want to open the floor to Councilors if they have any comments before we move to the presentation. Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. I appreciate you bringing this forward. I think this is a really great solution to the issue that we faced in the city, it seemed like it was a negotiation issue. It seemed like it might have been a problem with cutting costs. But it seems like what it really was is we needed to just solidify a floor for the way that we are making sure we're taking care of the people that work for the city. And it's a very standard thing that we should be ensuring that were not inadvertently bypassing union workers who have thought to be paid a living wage in the city. And I appreciate how carefully this was done, but I also, I'm very curious to hear more from the union representatives. And I haven't had a chance to review the, edits to the, that just came in. So I'm wondering if President Bears can speak to that, how those changes will impact the total ordinance.

[Zac Bears]: Sure, just I'll be brief and then I know there's some people who can explain it. a bit more in detail than I can, but essentially it just uses different standards. So previously we were looking at some state prevailing wage law, and now we're looking at the contracts in the city of Boston as a baseline, as well as Department of Labor, Federal Department of Labor, something called the Service Contract Act of 1965. So it's just using a different standard for the, for how the wages, wage floors will be determined and benefits floors will be determined. And then the only other piece that's changing is how long the city and would have, the procurement department would have to rebid contracts that aren't in compliance with that. That's a short answer. All right. Yeah, we do have representatives from 32BJ here with us, if they'd like to speak, and then I know there's some folks on Zoom as well. Welcome.

[SPEAKER_00]: Did I push?

[Zac Bears]: You're good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay. Thank you very much for the opportunity to share with you tonight. Thank you to Council President Bears and to all the council members. You know, we had 14 members who were basically fired last year when the contract at the schools went out for bid, and they awarded it to the lowest bidder, which is a company that paid minimum wage. Our members made more than the minimum wage with some benefits, and the new company underbid them, and you were forced to award it to that company because they were the low bidder. So the prevailing wage ordinance that's before you would help to remedy that situation. And what it does is create a level playing field where all the contractors are bidding on the same wage and benefit levels. And you take the wage and benefits out of the bid process and companies are competing on their ability to manage a contract, their ability to buy you know, supplies and other things and how much they pay the managers of the company, but not of the basic workers, and which we think is a very important premise that you shouldn't do the race to the bottom. And because public contracting almost always required, not always, but very frequently requires lowest bidder, then you'll get a minimum wage contractor. So this avoids that. As the Council President very articulately just stated, when the bid goes out, they either use the greater of the Service Contract Act wage or the prevailing wage, which is paid to about 13,000 janitors in the metropolitan, well, the state of Massachusetts and, you know, for the most part, metropolitan Boston area. And it just takes the greater of those two for wages and benefits and implements it, and it's a level playing field. However many contractors bid, they bid, but they're not bidding to underbid based on how low you can pay the workers. So we think that's great. So I have colleagues who are on the phone or on Zoom, I guess, who are much more articulate than me, who can explain a lot better the process.

[Zac Bears]: Great. I will give folks a chance to turn on their video if they're on Zoom. And then if you want to raise your hand and you want to present, I will unmute you. I see David Miller. So David, I will unmute you first.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, so as Kevin was just explaining, we've done this in a number of cities as well as states to basically take labor costs out of competition and it leads to a more fair situation and process for the workers. under those contracts. Currently, the way that this works, we can point to Cambridge and Boston as good examples. When a city department or agency wants to solicit a bid for janitorial services or security services, they will request a rate sheet from the Department of Labor Standards. The DLS will provide those on request, even though city work isn't covered under the state prevailing wage law. And then that schedule will be included as an attachment to the bids. It spells out very clearly what the rates are for each year. And then bidders can submit a costing plan that reflects that. Rob, do you want to jump in here?

[Zac Bears]: Go ahead, Rob.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I can just speak to the amendments that were recently made to the wage standard. And basically, we had originally looked at the language that Cambridge had, which ties the wage standard to Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 149, Section 27H. But because of Medford's location, it would have actually ended up with the contracted workers at the school making less than they had been making previously. So ultimately, 27H ties to the largest contract in Boston essentially anyways, so we thought it would be easier to just simplify the language and just tie it directly to that contract.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you both, and I appreciate your research on this. Do we have any questions from members of the council? Seeing none, we do have our Procurement Director, Maxwell, and our Facilities Director, Paul Riggi, here. And I do see Paul's hand. So, Paul, I will go to you.

[Paul Righi]: Good evening, President Bears. How are you?

[Zac Bears]: Good evening. Thanks for being here.

[Paul Righi]: Not a problem. I just have a few comments and a few concerns. Number one, I believe someone said that we awarded the contract to the lowest bidder. That is incorrect. We did not look at pricing when we bid the contract. We reviewed all companies equally. There were seven people that reviewed the bidders that were interviewed. It was the determination of the entire committee to go with a different company. We did not know the pricing. We also, one of the questions, did not ask the companies if they were union or non-unionized. To us, that was not point that we needed to make. What we wanted to know is that they could do the work that was required by the school department. Then after we came up with the top candidate, we looked at the pricing. That was the only time we knew what the pricing was. I can tell you that the contract was not awarded to the lowest bidder. So that's number one. Number two, all employees of that former company were offered the opportunity to work with the new contract holder. They were allowed to interview for positions and allowed, and if they wanted to and were deemed worthy to hire, they were hired for positions with the new contractor. It wasn't our intention to put anyone out of work. We were looking for the contractor to do the best job for the school department. Number three, the city of Medford has no way of getting the prevailing wage rate. I tested this theory two weeks ago where I requested the prevailing wage for janitorial services. It was denied by the state. Reason being, we are not covered by prevailing wage. So I have no way of knowing what a prevailing wage is for janitorial services. Boston sets a wage. They do not use the prevailing wage. Number four, if the wage the city of Medford sets is lower than what the contract holder pays, are we telling them to pay their employees less? That's certainly a question that the city council needs to take seriously. I do not ask the contract holder what they pay their employees. My expectation is that they follow the letter of the law. Employees are paid benefits that they're entitled to and get paid a fair wage. I understand that every person that does a job and has a job should be paid a fair wage. But I have concerns that we have entered into a legal contract with a company and now the city of Medford wants to renegotiate that contract based on some misinformation. And I will let Fiona speak if she has any other information she wants to pass on. Thank you for your time.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Director Maxwell, if you'd like to, feel free to raise your hand or come on video. We can recognize you. All right, do we have any questions or comments from the council? Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Okay, so this wouldn't be workable then if we can't access the standard rate of pay. I don't understand how, I'm confused. I'm confused.

[Zac Bears]: Sure, yeah, I don't know what that's all about. I'll go to Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. I was not originally going to dig into the past and the making of this decision. However, after those comments, I do have a quick question and really I'm hoping for a very short answer. It sounds like the committee that made the decision did not look at price and they did not look at whether the organizations were unionized. And I would love to have just in 30 seconds a short list of any categories of things they did look at because now I'm curious.

[Zac Bears]: I will recognize Procurement Manager Maxwell.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: And I've asked you to unmute. I noticed you did have your hand up. All right, Paul Riggis put his hand up and I'll recognize him.

[Paul Righi]: Hi, Councilor Callahan. Thank you for the questions. We looked at, we had some requirements that we asked all vendors to provide to us when they came to a meeting. One was to give us a PowerPoint presentation of what their company could provide for the city of Medford. Unfortunately, the incumbent company did not provide us with that PowerPoint presentation. We then interviewed the companies and ask them very pointed questions about how they go about cleaning a building, the processes they use. When the incumbent was asked about how many people they had working in a certain building, they couldn't answer my question. They didn't provide a lot of information during the interview process, where the other companies were very forthcoming with information when we asked them. We asked them about cleaning styles. How do they handle their supplies? How do they handle if there's a snow day and getting buildings cleaned? How would they handle summer work? Our interview questions were very fact-based and based on cleaning processes, and how they go about working with the staff in the buildings, and how they report problems if they find problems, and how they have supervision of their staff, and how they provide that, and if they have a supervisor that inspects the work of the people that are in the buildings. So we never asked them during that entire process if they were unionized and the pricing was not, was in a sealed envelope and was not unsealed until we made our decision. So they came in, the proposals and the pricing came in in two separate envelopes. The only thing we opened that the procurement office opened was the actual proposal with how many people they planned on each building, how many man hours per day, per week, per month, and those kinds of things. The pricing was left in another sealed envelope.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. Thanks so much. That was very helpful and informative. I would love to hear where in the process this is. Can you explain how much legal review it's had, even informally, not necessarily even the... City legal review, and it does seem like, and I should have said this up front, that I fully appreciate, President Bears, your long relationship with unions and your experience there. I appreciate that this is coming to the floor. really important, I think, to a lot of folks who live in Medford. I know a lot of people here in Medford are pro-union, myself included, and want to make sure that workers are supported and are able to work in a union-supportive workplace. So I am inclined to support generally this kind of legislation. But I would love to hear a little bit more background about sort of what stage this is at, who has been consulted in it, and just a little bit of background. That would be great. Thank you so much.

[Zac Bears]: What contractor's good, what contractor's bad, what company we're defending or not defending, and I think that's like missing the forest for the trees big time on this, right? I don't care what some contractor does. I want us to get the best services to the city. But I also want to do that while we uphold our basic values, right? Which is that we want workers to make a living wage, to have benefits, and we ideally would like those workers to be unionized, right?

[Anna Callahan]: And this ordinance

[Zac Bears]: very clearly says that those are values that we care about here in Medford, that we want to set a floor so that anyone who bids for a contract with the City of Medford has to meet the same labor standards, that labor peace and supporting union workers is a value that we have. And, you know, I don't know, I've never spoken to anyone from any contractor, right? I've never spoken to some company that says, oh, we're mad we didn't get this contract and that's why we're here. All I know is that there were 14 union workers who worked for our schools cleaning them. And if their management wasn't doing the right thing by the schools, that's one thing. But that doesn't mean that those workers have to either lose their union rights or lose their jobs to keep doing the work that they're doing. So that's what this is about, first and foremost. How do we set a floor? I'm confident that we can get the data that we need to get to understand what that wage floor is. I'd be happy if contractors wanted to go above that floor. I think that's a really good thing. But I think we also all know how cost minimization and capitalism works and the fact that we've decided that. these kind of jobs should be private, and we should contract them, you know, that means we have to put protections in place around that, and that's really what this is about. In terms of legal review, again, you know, I've worked with the team at 32BJ. There's very similar ordinances in place in neighboring communities to make sure that when contracts get bid, there's a wage floor, and that we try to make sure that the companies that we work with are union. Those are values that I have. I think those are values that Medford has. And that's where it is in the process. You know, if there are questions, we have some experts right here who can tell how do we get the wage rates, right? I don't think that's an unsolvable problem. And I'm not saying that anyone, that the process for this, I'm not saying it was good, but obviously the rules were not in place to make sure that union workers didn't lose their jobs. So that's really where it's coming from, from my end. I know I did see a hand from one of the policy team folks at 32BJ. I don't know if you want to talk about how it's possible for cities to access the wage rates that we're talking about. I think that would just be helpful information to make sure everybody knows how they can get the information they would need to set the floor for bidding. I'm not sure if it was David or Rob, but feel free to wave.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you. So with the new amendments, the wage rates will be easy to figure out because it's the greater of the contract covering the greatest number of janitorial workers in Boston, assuming that covers at least 500 workers. All of those contracts are publicly available. Or the SEA rate, which, again, is accessible through the federal government's website.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. I'll go to Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: It does seem to me that the wage rates are not that accessible. It's possible that what may seem accessible to somebody who's very intimately involved with these numbers and with the way that they're accessed online just that might not be common practice for people that work for cities. So could we be more explicit in the way that it's worded in the ordinance or the way that it's communicated with city employees for the future? Is there something that we could edit for that or a guideline or something? Or if it's going to change, is there something else we could put in? Because if that was going to be, if this is going to be something that is in an ordinance and then is too difficult for our city staff to execute and it just doesn't happen, like, I feel like we have a problem in the city where We write ordinances in city council, they become law, and then they don't go into practice because they're not being enforced or executed at all. So I don't think it's useful to have an ordinance that people can't make come to pass. If we can hear from city staff about, like, if this is not something that they can do, then there's no point to it.

[Zac Bears]: I mean, I think we're talking about emailing links. So I don't think that that's hard to do.

[Emily Lazzaro]: If it's emailing links, that's one thing, but if it's in an ordinance and it's gonna be, if it will be changing, if there's some standard thing that will, if there's something that people can go back to over the course of years to see, if Boston sets their rates, Right, the hourly rate paid to workers and the relevant classification, right. I mean, it seems clear to me. I want to know that if we're going to put this into our code of ordinances, that it's going to be carried out.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I'm happy to recognize someone, but I just want to say, like, Cities are doing this, it's doable. If we need to contact another community that's doing this to understand how they access the information, I think that's eminently doable and I respect, I agree with your observation that we pass ordinances and then enforcement doesn't happen in many cases, but I don't think that's because the information isn't available. I saw Councilor Leming and then Councilor Callahan.

[Matt Leming]: I'd just like to push back on the idea that we shouldn't put things into law because we don't think they'll be... I would like to push back on the notion that we shouldn't put things into law just because we don't think that they'll be executed. If they're not being executed, then that's not our fault. It's the responsibility of the executive branch of city staff to enforce laws that are put on the books, and if they turn out to be unenforceable or illegal, then it's the judiciary who would strike that down. So that is, that's a thought I'd like to put out there.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. Just another question. I was reading through the standard hourly rate of pay, and it may be that this is just legalese, that it's a little more complicated than I understand, but it does appear that it is now the greatest of the following. Tell me, is this one of the ones that got updated, got changed? Great.

[Zac Bears]: There's an update in your email.

[Anna Callahan]: I looked and I apologize that I'm maybe not, it's just not right in front of my eyes. Can I ask my question? You can just tell me if this question is moot now because it changed. So it looks like it's the greatest of three things. The first is basically the Department of Labor Standards, rate of wages, The second one is the hourly rate paid to workers in the relevant classification under a preceding building services contract, I assume in Medford. And then the third one. And this is standard hourly rate of pay for covered janitorial services employees. I know this entire thing is both janitorial and security, but this is under janitorial. And the third one is very specifically rate paid to workers in the relevant classification under active collective bargaining agreement covering the largest number of security guards.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, the language is amended. That language isn't, thank you? Yeah, it's the hourly rate of wages, there's two options. The hourly rate of wages required for work performed within the city of Boston under the collective bargaining agreement covering the largest number of hourly non-supervisory janitorial building service employees, provided the collective bargaining agreement covers no less than 500 employees. And the second one is the hourly weight of wages for the relevant classification as established by the Secretary of Labor, United States Secretary of Labor pursuant to Chapter 67 of 41 U.S.C. Section 6701, which is set forth in the locality determined and issued by the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division for the area that includes the City of Medford. So there's a federal standard and then there's a collective bargaining standard from the City of Boston.

[Anna Callahan]: Great, and is it still framed as the greatest of two or three?

[Zac Bears]: The greater of the following two, yeah.

[Anna Callahan]: Greater of the following two, great. And I will look up right now, see if I can find that in my email. I apologize that I did not have that in front of me. Yeah, Rich sent it out about 40 minutes ago. Oh, it's the entire thing, right? Yes. That's why I saw that one. I thought it was the one that I had in my hands. I just assume that it has been looked into this whole greater of that. Yes. There's no issue with this is maybe standard and from other cities. This is the way that they do it in other cities as well.

[Zac Bears]: Yes.

[Anna Callahan]: Beautiful. I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

[Zac Bears]: Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. I'd like to be very clear that it was never my intention to say that because an ordinance may not be enforced that we should not pass ordinances. My suggestion is that we should write our ordinances in a way that it is as easy as possible for them to be enforced. If something is able to be honed and clarified, that we should do that now while we're writing the ordinance, not have to go back and help our city staff through enforcing and carrying out our ordinances. For example, we have a leaf blower ordinance. And one very dedicated resident who is basically single-handedly enforcing the leaf blower ordinance instead of city staff, who I would love to see doing that instead of him. But it is not ridiculous to have ordinances written by a city council and city staff carrying out the ordinances. Of course, that's how cities operate. all over the Commonwealth, and I know we can do it. I believe in us. Thank you, everybody, for your hard work. I would never mean to say that we shouldn't do ordinances. That was not my point. Thank you.

[Justin Tseng]: For a councilor who famously hates ordinances, she's gotten a lot of them passed, so. I'm kidding. I think Councilor Lazzaro's point is well taken. You know, I'm hearing different, you know, points of feedback and advocacy here tonight, and I think what is really important is what the Council President reminded us, and not to miss the forest for the trees. You know, we can relitigate what happened in the school case and, you know. The work that we do here a lot of it is perspective. It's looking into the future and saying what what can we do better? What can we fix now so that we do better in the future? and so that's why I Support this ordinance and I you know, I think we need to do better by our workers going forward I think all of us have said something to the fact over, you know last few years of Medford is a Union City we stand up for workers and For me, passing this ordinance is... living true to our values as a city and living true to what we've said. I hear the kind of concerns from the city administration about putting this into effect. And I think it is really important to underscore again that other municipalities have an ordinance like this. So it's not unique. We wouldn't be the trailblazer on this issue. We would be essentially, just joining the wave of municipalities that are standing up for their workers. And so when it comes to enforcement, We have many municipalities we can learn from, that we can draw from, that we can talk to in terms of implementation. When we talk about legality, you know, I'm sure those cities have had their city solicitors. I knew you'd look up.

[George Scarpelli]: I want to make a motion to hire Justin today.

[Justin Tseng]: But you know, they've had legal, you know, their city's council review their ordinances as well. So when it comes to that question of legality, I'm just not as worried about it right now because, again, other cities have done it. They've reviewed it as well. And, you know, This falls purely within the police powers of the municipality, it seems, you know, completely fine by me. And with regards to the kind of, you know, the legal aspect of what we usually have to consider with ordinances.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. I'll go to our Procurement Director, Fiona Maxwell.

[Maxwell]: Hi, good evening, everybody. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to chime in. I'm here making all kinds of notes and I'm going to apologize for circling back around. But I do want to circle back around to the beginning of the meeting and some other participants comments as well as some other comments made about the procurement process. And I might reiterate some of Paul's points that he shared. So overall, the ordinance, the proposed ordinance, my initial discussion wanted to be more around the ordinance itself and what it entails and more of a, it warrants more time for consideration from a procurement perspective. There's a lot of sections that I could take the time to go through each, but I think it would be a very lengthy conversation and it would need to be an interactive conversation. as far as each of the sections that are outlined in the ordinance, and especially when it comes to the responsibility and the maintaining and the monitoring and the enforcing of the Procurement Department. With this original project, this janitorial cleaning services that we've been doing for almost 10 plus years that I've been here, The process under the statute of 30B was not an invitation for bid, which was what I believe Kevin, David, and Rob explained. The procurement department or the city and the school department took under a request for proposal procurement method. And under the statute, a procurement officer can determine that this is the best route for this kind of these kind of services. And what that means is we put together a request for proposal that takes a lot of time to put together a lot of input from city and school staff. And it outlines many, many things. It outlines the scope of work, what's included, it outlines an evaluation criteria, it might outline deliverables, and it provides vendors an opportunity to put together a proposal, a technical proposal that the city reviews, the committee reviews, and has evaluation criteria and metrics and scores that the technical proposal receives in and after a lengthy process, and whether that includes interviews, and in this case it did, with city school staff, with city and school staff, interviews with each of the vendors, then what we do are under the process, under procurement process and RFP, then the prices are opened. Prices are reviewed. So I do just want to reiterate that what Paul said the award was not based on the lowest bidder. The award is based on the most reasonable responsible vendor providing the service the city needs based and then based on a price. So I just want to make sure everybody understands and there's a difference, there's a big difference. So when we talk about the procurement process and the procurement issues, I just want to make sure that everybody understands that I'm not sure what the procurement issues were. So in my opinion, the procurement department took and went through a procurement process under the statute, the law, and awarded based on a number of things. We did not award to the lowest bidder. That's a completely different process. So I guess why we're all here is we're understanding that the reason, or as a result, proposed compensation ordinance is before us. I have not had a lot of time to review this ordinance. It's been a very high level review on my end, especially just after learning about this being on the agenda late Friday. So if anything, I think there's some great questions and I think Councilor Lanzaro brings up a really good point. And this is where I really would like to have more dialogue. I believe it warrants more of a conversation. And I'm not sure if this is the perfect forum for that or how that works, but Um, I do want to see, you know, I do want to see the city be able to adopt an ordinance or I'm in support of working with the city council to, to adopt an ordinance, you know, um, for all, all of the right reasons. But I do have several questions about specific sections of this ordinance. I want to get a better detailed. Understanding and especially when it comes to the termination sections of current contracts that we have. There are termination clauses. There are terminations for convenience. There are clauses there are there are. There's language that needs to be reviewed. That's language that's been executed. Contractors have been executed. They need to be reviewed. for each of the sections to limit any exposure to the city for future or potential claims. It's just executing a contract. So I wanna make sure that that's really recognized in this ordinance and also the enforce section. There are so many sections in the enforceable section that mentions procurement and some of the requirements of procurement, some of the duties and the requirements, and in some cases even some legal actions, some subpoenas. In my opinion, in my experience, the Attorney General's Fair Labor Division is the enforcer. They're the they're the holder, they're the branch of these fair labor standards. And when I think it was maybe Rob or David, maybe Rob, you mentioned, Paul mentioned not being able to, requesting prevailing wages is a simple task. It's part of the procurement function and I, have confidence in my staff, myself, that we're able to do that. And that's not something that we need to be trained on. But what needs to be understood is the prevailing wage, the Department of Labor Standards has these rates set. And And under procurement, we're required to request those rates for specific jobs that are projects or services that require those. The Department of Labor Standards does not recognize that janitorial services for municipalities, schools, cities, and towns applies. So I understand what the ordinance is ultimately trying to do, but That's part of my first question, like, where are these labor standards? How are these labor standards being computed? Where are these labor standards? I believe, Rob, you said something about SEA? SEA rates or Boston's? contract? Are we looking to look at Boston and look at their contract rates they're paying their janitorial? Is this a state building or is it like I guess these are all questions that I have that have come up and they're also questions that I've already that I have that this compensation ordinance proposal really requires a lot more legal which I'm not an expert in, but procurement policy, I consider myself familiar and maybe more of an expert. So I would like the opportunity to talk further about some of those procurement policies. I can go through the whole ordinance if that's what you want, and we can take a look at each of the sections and talk about some of the questions I have. But I'm not sure if this is the exact forum to do that. I would request that we have some more time as a group or maybe procurement has an opportunity to have some input with the proposed ordinance.

[Zac Bears]: Thanks, Fiona. I appreciate your comment and I just want to note You know, this was put on the agenda six weeks ago. Councilor Callahan made an amendment to get that to the administration for review to be provided. If you have written review and comments, I mean, that would be much appreciated. It sounds like given the level of comments that you have on this, that would be the best way to go about it. I'm sure I can also put you in touch with some folks from 32BJ, some folks from some of the other cities where they do this to your questions specifically on how this would be computed. One of them is the, there's a law called the, excuse me, my computer just froze, but I want to get it right, which is the, A Service Contract Act of 1965, the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division and Employment Standards Division puts out information on that every year, talking about the rates. Yes, another option was looking at collective bargaining agreements for the city of Boston to look at rates. So those were the two options presented here. But I really just want to note, and I hear your questions. It sounds like you have detailed comments. We did ask the mayor and the chief of staff and the administration to send this to you six weeks ago. And if that didn't happen, that is that is unfortunate. So that is really where we're coming from on this. I think if you have the questions and written comments that you've put down, you can feel free to forward those to us right away. And I personally would be happy to put you in touch with Rob or David or folks from communities like Somerville or Cambridge or other cities, their procurement departments, you know, they have very similar ordinances in place. So I think it is a way that we can get you the information and answers to the questions that you're asking. Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. It's I appreciate a lot of what you were saying, Director Maxwell, and I think that Ideally, these Committee of the Whole meetings are to delve into just one issue. We have a whole hour at least. On other nights, we could have even longer if it's the only meeting that's scheduled. This one is right before a regular meeting at 7, so we are sort of crunched for time. But the goal here is just for us to talk about this ordinance. So we can go super in-depth, and it seems like we'll have to push off the rest of the conversation to another time. But we can, the thinking is that we'll be able to go through and think through, I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. Nothing about the ordinances, even about, like, did it go to the lowest bidder? It's just, and we were never part of the negotiation process, so the assumption for us is probably that, oh, like, you know, maybe the employees in this new contract had received lower wages, and that's why we heard from so many staff that were let go or that did not want to work for the new company because their contracts would be for less money, and that's what they told us. So our assumption was that it was a lower bid. You know, we don't know this information, but the point of this ordinance is not to say that you can't take the lowest bid. The point is just to say there's a standard rate of pay. And it's something that's happening in other cities, so it can be done. We just have to figure out how to make sure it can happen. And that's why we're hoping to have these conversations now and make sure it's doable for everybody in the city. And that it makes sense for our employees, our city staff, and that the legislation makes sense. So I appreciate what you were saying. I would motion to maybe table this and have another committee of the whole in the future when the after the procurement office can send us comments and questions really just as. Many comments and questions as possible with as many specific requests as possible. That would be something that they would be asking for for us to incorporate into this if necessary. But I mean that's also complicated with open meeting law. Is that allowed to happen outside of the meeting or can they just send to the clerk?

[Zac Bears]: I'm happy to connect Fiona directly with the folks that we have who are experts who can provide information or, you know, we could talk to our school committee member, Master Boney, who knows all the finance and procurement people in Somerville.

[Emily Lazzaro]: He's an incredible resource for this sort of thing, yeah.

[Zac Bears]: You know, so I think there's a lot of options there, but I think, of course, that then, A written memo could be sent to us. But right. Yeah. So those are all options.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Love to get the feedback so that we know what proposals are being offered by city staff to address the concerns so that we can make sure this works for everybody. But we need to know what the concerns are. And it's not going to be like no we can't do this at all. Like this will never be something that will be considered. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. I was going to make a motion. I was going to, first of all, just describe that we have in the past with other ordinances, like our three road and control ordinances, the sponsor of those ordinances did work directly with our staff to, you know, see what their concerns were. And I think that is just a faster way to go that does not run us into OML. sponsor of this particular bill is amenable, and I think that was already just suggested, to putting together whatever meetings are necessary for the procurement department to get questions answered, be able to say any concerns, workshop this. I would move that we keep it in committee for one more session and also have some legal review.

[Zac Bears]: Okay, we have dueling motions. I do see Fiona's hand is still up and Paul's hand. So, Fiona, I'll go back to you and then we can go to Paul.

[Maxwell]: Thank you. Excuse me, I just had a major cough. Thank you. I appreciate the conversation and the motions. So I just want to be clear that I understand President Bears. I'm just thinking about a timeline and so I just want to make sure I'm clear on the direction moving forward. Is this a discussion that, or would you like me to send you comments that I have under each of the sections, or is it a dialogue or conversation that I would have with you?

[Zac Bears]: We will connect. I'm going to put you in touch with some people who can answer the questions better than I could, but I will connect with you after the meeting to do that.

[Maxwell]: OK, because, again, I would like to suggest that we look more closely at, if it's Boston, Cambridge, or Somerville, what their ordinances, what their language is, and especially how their procurement department sort of monitors and forces and works through them.

[Zac Bears]: Sure. Happy to do that.

[Maxwell]: Yep. Okay, great. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. I'm going to go to our facilities manager.

[Paul Righi]: Thank you, President Bayers. Two comments. I think the act you mentioned is what prevailing wage has turned into. I think that was the original prevailing wage act. Number two, the city of Boston, if I remember correctly, they create their wage themselves. They have an entire office that monitors it, updates it every year. They also require all their vendors to submit weekly certified payroll. That's how they track it. They do not use any outside organization to develop this wage. They do it all in-house.

[Zac Bears]: Great. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Council President. I'll be extremely brief. Just three points. One, it's not correct that the workers were offered jobs. None of the workers were offered jobs. They came before you earlier last year, previously in last year, to say that they were not offered jobs. charges filed before the National Labor Relations Board, where an investigation has taken place, and we're waiting for a decision from the NLRB. They've been moving very slowly these days. The fact that these workers were not offered jobs by Partners Facility Services, that's one. Two, in terms of the information, the Consul President laid it out very well. We are also happy to provide that information directly to the city, our research and policy department. Many jurisdictions all over the East Coast ask for the information directly from us. We can provide the SCA rates, the Service Contract Act rates. And I want to speak just for a second about why the SCA was created. The service contract 60 years ago was created as an effort so that the public sector does not undermine the private sector. So we negotiate with 60 contractors every three or four years a master agreement that sets the rates for the industry for janitors and for security officers. Once that rate is set, we don't, all the private owners are agreeing to pay that for their services. But SCA did, Service Contract Act, S-C-A, not S-E-A, S-C-A, will say, okay, we want to base it upon whatever the private sector has agreed to pay so that the public sector doesn't undermine the private sector. And so that's why the law was created. And essentially, that's exactly what this law would do. is make sure that the public sector is not undermining what the private sector has already agreed to pay to the janitors, to the security officers. It's level playing field based upon the private sector, not the public sector. And thirdly, whatever questions that the Procurement Department and the Facilities Department have, our Policy Department would be more than happy to respond in writing to answer any of those issues that they've raised as well as what they've raised tonight.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you very much. And I appreciate that. I mean, I think the thing that frustrates me is, once again, we put this on the agenda in December. You know, it's been six weeks. It sounds like the message didn't get to the people it needed to get to, that this was something that they needed to look at. It sounds like there's frustration from our city staff about the amount of time they've had to review it. And now we have questions at this point. And, you know, we've pushed this back. We had a meeting on the calendar two weeks ago. This was on that, or I guess three weeks ago now. This was on that agenda. So the information has been available. I just have to wonder, and I'm just getting really frustrated with the idea, and it goes to your point, Councilor Lazzaro, from earlier, which is we put things forward to be considered. This is a very clear thing, right? We believe that if you're a janitor or security contractor with the city, You should have a wage floor. We shouldn't be undermining private sector wages. We shouldn't have a race to the bottom. And we support and want people to be in unions because unions protect workers and help provide living wages. And I want to harken back to something I said, which is that I want to be a city of yes. A city that says, how do we get to yes? Those are values that we have. What is the law that we need to write? This ordinance as proposed is an ordinance that is enforceable and in force in communities two miles down the road based on essentially a principle from the law from 60 years ago. And I don't think that means that it's hard to get to yes. But I do think it's a lot harder to get to yes when six weeks after an ordinance has been presented, the person who needs to implement it is hearing about it three days before the meeting. And I just really have deep frustrations with the administration of our city You know, to be honest, to Councilor Callahan's point, I don't work for the mayor, right? Like, I shouldn't have to do, we don't have a city solicitor. Like, it is not the responsibility of this policymaking body to enforce the loss, to make it work. And if our staff need more time and more resources or need to find out about things earlier so that they can have all the preparation they need and ask the questions, the resources are right here, the resources are in the room. You know, we have people who are doing this across the country who can provide answers. And, you know, I'm happy to make those connections at this point. And I don't question our city staff's reasonable questions and wanting answers to those questions. But this body took a vote six weeks ago to have our administration work on those answers. And it sounds like the people who needed to provide those answers were not made aware that they needed to do that work. And that lack of coordination I think has led to a lot of problems over the last year where this council is just trying to get its job done. We're trying to pass the policies that we agree on based on the values that we have. And there's procedural stonewalling that happens. And if that's just because the right people aren't getting the information that they need in a timely manner, you know, Whether that's intentional or unintentional, either way, the result is the same. So I'm happy to work with you, Fiona, get the information across. But also, it's just very frustrating. You know, I put this on in December because this was something we wanted to look at. We sent it to Committee of the Whole. We scheduled that meeting in January. We did have to delay it another two weeks. So there's been a lot of time here. It's just very frustrating that we keep ending up at this point because the people who need to get the information, for somehow there's something in the way of this council, this council's work. And it's very frustrating. Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Council President, I know we joked earlier, but you said it again, and this is before you said it, it was something that was really poignant, was the fact that something that, why we laughed is because I really pushed this for many, many years, and it is the lack of a city solicitor. We were very fortunate to work with great city solicitors like Mark Rumley and Kim Scanlon, and just recently Kevin Foley, and I like, I asked my colleagues, as we put, an agenda item like this, how many times, Mr. President, would you have already talked to the city solicitor? And that would then trigger what? That city solicitor working with the departments in the building to say, hey, the council has brought up an issue that we need to focus on and work out and get the process rolling. Instead, this is where we are. So I know that down the line, I'll be filing a resolution to, again, visit and not just visit but push forward the hiring of a city solicitor. And forget about the assistant city solicitor that we requested for the council. That we know will never happen. But again, there's a lot of variables because of this situation. Again, because of the way it's being presented. The problem that we have from our city partners with our procurement officer who has nothing to blame here, truly not understanding, again, it's a slap in the face of the lack of communication that we're having throughout this community. And then it leaves questions because it's so open-ended, just like our ambulance contract, just like other contracts. just like our issues with the Teamsters and all the lawsuits that have been filed against the city administration. Could this be more, could it be deep-rooted more in the lack of support of unions? And that's it. So there's many questions that, because that this is the way that we have to handle situations and work as a city council, that leaves things open-ended for residents to then question, then drives what? Something we all hate and we've all talked about is divide, right? And we've been trying so hard, especially since we've turned over for the new year, that working together, that we have no divisions here, that we're working for a common goal and making sure that we do the best we can for our residents. But if we don't have the commitment from our administration, I think it's pretty sad. So thank you for the effort, Mr. President, and I hope that this does go forward. And I know that the bottom line here is that seems to be forgotten sometimes because we're seeing it with all contract issues, right? We're seeing it with everything that's been an issue is what? We're affecting real people. I mean, there are real people still out of work right now that are struggling. And there isn't support there because we have nothing in place. So if we could find a mechanism in place that other communities are using to support our workers here in the city of Medford, I think it's something we should all be focusing on. So thank you, Mr. President.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Either of you, where do you want to, do you just want to refer this to the next committee of the whole? Motion to

[Emily Lazzaro]: I can withdraw my motion and go with Councilor Callahan's motion. I'll second Councilor Callahan's motion.

[Zac Bears]: I would respectfully request that the motion be that we keep the paper in committee. I'm happy to work with Director Maxwell, Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: That is the motion, right? Keep it in committee. I said keep it in committee.

[Zac Bears]: Great.

[Anna Callahan]: While you have the opportunity to discuss with people, but also send to legal with the other half of my.

[Zac Bears]: Right. That's the motion from six weeks ago, right?

[Anna Callahan]: Did we request that it go to legal six weeks ago?

[Zac Bears]: It was requested to go to legal on December 16th.

[Anna Callahan]: And did it go to legal?

[Zac Bears]: It was sent to the administration. We haven't received a reply.

[Anna Callahan]: Okay. I mean, I could re-request to go to legal or I could not.

[Zac Bears]: It's already requested.

[Anna Callahan]: Okie dokie.

[Zac Bears]: We don't have a representative from the mayor's office here.

[Anna Callahan]: Sure.

[Zac Bears]: So it'll be in the committee report as it was in the records from the 16th.

[Anna Callahan]: Okay. Then keep it in committee.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah.

[Anna Callahan]: Again, like... Keep it in committee and adjourn because I know we're late already for our next meeting. Sure.

[Zac Bears]: I just really want to say that, like, We don't stop doing our jobs because the mayor doesn't hire a city solicitor. We have to pass laws to execute the policies we were elected to execute. And my personal feeling on that is, especially when we have a law or a policy that another city right down the road is executing well, That's something that we can approve. I wish we weren't coasting and drafting on the work of other communities because we don't have our act together. But, you know, we need to have this policy in place. So that's just my two cents. A motion of Councilor Callahan to keep the paper in committee and adjourn, seconded by Vice President Lazzaro. All those in favor? Opposed? The motion passes. This meeting is adjourned. We will reconvene in our regular session in about five minutes. Thank you.